I can see what you mean, this really had a (sic) significant impact on Booz-Allen. Wow, they had to schedule an emergency call and let investors know that projected targets would be impacted and issue new guidance on earnings. I don't know what reality you live in, but this isn't a slap on the hand, this is barely a "wag of the finger" without so much as a "tisk-tisk". The military industrial complex is out of FREAKING control and has been since Eisenhower. It is corrupt to the core and now it has the ability to track all of our digital footprints 1984 style. I encourage you to show me how this incident of which you referenced had an significant impact on Booz-Allen or its practices.
Last year, the Air Force temporarily suspended the San Antonio division of [Booz Allen] from future contracts because it had obtained and distributed confidential Pentagon bidding data for its own competitive advantage. In 2006, the Justice Department said the company overbilled travel expenses, and the agency initially recommended that Booz Allen be barred from federal contracting.
Those incidents had little or no impact on Booz Allen’s success in recent years or on its ability to compete for federal contracts, which last year provided 99 percent of the company’s $5.8 billion in revenue.
So let me get this straight, if you use government resources to break the law or fail to deliver on large government projects then you will be barred from further federal work? I think all you need to do is rename the company, e.g. "Blackwater" to "Xe" (or whatever they are called) and re-apply, No big deal.
This is a classic case of "who watches the watchmen" or Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Apparently, no one. It seems that anyone with top secret at the NSA can do whatever they please with no oversight or discipline. It must be a fun place to work where you can spend you days creeping on your ex-girlfriends, elected officials, and corporate CEOs. Unchecked power is a very bad thing as we move farther and father from the principle of "habeas corpus" and into the land of "it's top secret and no you can't see the evidence, trust us, were a bunch of good, trustworthy folks."
And if you haven't seen "Flying Robots", go watch it now. The NSA will want these toys overhead next, if they aren't already there.
From Urban Dictionary: Rock Star Programmer - A computer programmer with such strong skills and so much specific experience that they are the equivalent of a rock star in the domain of software. Many people play guitar pretty well, but only a few become rock stars. These programmers can develop more software than 5 - 10 newly hired regular programmers because they know what needs to be done and how to do it. They also might set the architecture of the product that dozens will build upon. Usually associated with dot com websites.
Usage: Jeff was the guy behind ebay.com He's a rockstar programmer.
Yes they exist, typically large IT organizations have a few of them just in case. Many are like the fictional TV personality, House. If you can tolerate them, they are nice to have around for large, unsolvable problems that need to be fixed now. Many can deduce, diagnose, analyze, and fix things before your standard programmers can even formulate the problem. I have witnessed this on several occasions. If time is money, they are great insurance but be prepared for arrogance. The one I formerly worked with brought his dog to work and forced a fortune 500 company to give the dog a swipe badge. It was pretty hilarious.
It's an arms race that Google might lose if end users start using Chrome extension to encrypt the contents of their mail and using NOSCRIPT to hide their identity. Google lives and dies by being to be our creepy friend from tracking us, serving us ads, and generating analytics. If Google does not provide the "illusion" of security soon, it could kill the golden goose. It is in both the interest of Google and NSA to take this step. I predict we won't hear a single protest from our spooky friends.
Oracle, love'em or hate'em makes some rock solid databases. The reason for the delay in the patch release was most likely testing and validation of the patch. I am assuming Oracle does this for MySQL but, what do I know?
John Adams wrote, "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."
There is a long generational tradition in the USA of sacrificing for the next generation starting with the revolutionary war.
I agree. You know what upsets me the most from these documents is how the USA views the world. The NSA view is USA vs. world. It doesn't matter if they are an ally or declared enemy. Hack, spy, surveil, torture, bomb, do whatever you want because they aren't one of us. Oh, and if they are one of us, catch'em at an airport take their stuff and send them off USA soil so you can do as you please. As for the people that live on USA soil, we are watching you too and we have a secret letter and secret court that will do our bidding and you can't discuss it, or else.
It is not that simple. Were all of Einstein's three children geniuses?
There is a question of fully developing capacity and potential. Some call it nature vs. nurture. We don't fully understand gene expression. Our environment impacts gene expression.
While I can discuss many topics intelligently, I can not address whether or not 1.3 billion people believe in human equality. China still has a lot of growing to do as a country and is internally dysfunctional. When China grows up, how will it behave? Will it believe in human equality? I do not know.
Statistically, there are two pieces of data that determine success in public education: * Socioeconomic Status of the Parents * Highest Education Level Achieved by Parents
His conclusion was is that if you aren't safe, fed, loved, and have self esteem that aren't going to be a problem solver. Everything old is new again. I guess the new buzz words are "cognitive load" vs. "problem solver."
What is the story went like this, "NSA Surveillance matches a person who has traveled out the country, possibly foreign national living in Long Island that did a Google search for pressure cookers and backpacks. It is learned that these searches were done on a corporate asset. NSA contacts corporation and explains that under FISA law they are (gagged) not allowed to talk about the incident and would be shielded from legal harm resulting in any future lawsuits, oh and thanks for the tip."
No. Even if the employer submitted half of the search info, the info on the backpacks had to be provided by another source and then had to to matched. Where did that info come from? Google? NSA backdoors on home computers? The interesting part of the story (if indeed true) is the other half of the info.
So dad searched pressure cookers at work and the employer allegedly turned this over to the cops, but who turned in mom's Google search history? How was the match made? Was there a request made too Google? Did the Feds hack the computers using a MS-NSA or Apple-NSA backdoor? According to the article, the task force didn't even look at the computers or confiscate them.
This is only half a story, (if it is indeed true about the employer turning over the suspicious weblogs). How did the Feds/Police/Joint Task Force get the other half of the info.
And according to the article this occurs 100 times per week and we are just hearing about it.
There is more to this story and this simple explanation is only half of it.
Unfortunately, this seems to be the theme these days. Send out half-baked stuff that barely works. A friend just visited and her laptop would maintain wireless connection for about 5 minutes then drop off. Long story short, HP shipped this nice shiny gorgeous laptop with Windows 8 and defective wireless drivers. It couldn't maintain a wireless connection long enough to run windows update (after finding WU in Windows 8, geez), and and plugging in the RJ45 the WU ran. However, the tolerance of the RJ45 port was so far off RJ45 the connector remained stuck, I had to get a pair of needle nose to wiggle it out. On the plus side the did have a cool ultrabright white LED that illuminated the RJ45 connector plastic.
I scratched my head and wondered, why would HP send out a laptop that would just frustrate their customers with constant wireless dropping leading to increased returns, and increases support phone calls?
From my perspective, I see a rush to market with half baked, sorta working Windows 8 hardware these days. My old reliable T-Series Thinkpad finally died and I am at a loss for what to replace it with. Under new ownership, Lenovo seems to have dropped in quality. Ironically, the Mac Book Pro was recently voted the best Windows laptop. In any case, my desire is for a machine something backward compatible with Windows 7. Thank you for sharing.
Yes, that is about the size of it. I am still a command line, C, HTML/CSS, JSON, Javascript, PERL, PHP, SQL, backend database, Linux type of developer. I see apps taking over the web on tablets both native and in HTML5. I realize there is still a huge base for this stuff, but I wanted to fast forward 10 years. It was a sincere question not an advertisement for Dice.com or Lynda.com as others have suggested.
I agree, workflow on the iPad is tough because of the security model where apps can't get into each others files. While this keeps down malware, it makes uploading files, creating digital portfolios, and sharing between apps nearly impossible without the use of computer or cloud service. Hopefully Apple has a plan for it's new shiny giant green data centers other than serving iTunes apps and running flaky near useless iCloud service.
Improving workflow on the iPad would be on the top of my list, I can live with the UI as-is.
Some other interesting features might be allowing wireless devices communicate with each other to share and collaborate. The 8 iPad - Jam session for Garageband is a good start but we need more than just "more cowbell".
I know the marketing Apple marketing droids don't want the iPad to be a laptop since it would cannibalize MacBook Air sales, but I say forget it and let the iPad morph into a better platform.
sarcasm Microsoft must have some really smart developers to have figured out how to rewrite the YouTube URL using computer programming. I am going to run out and get a Surface with Windows 8 before Best Buy closes tonight. Microsoft might be adding more useful features soon and I don't want to miss out. It would be a shame to watch a 5 second YouTube Ad and support that rich Google company. Microsoft is sticking it to man! Wait, I thought they were the man. Hmmm... something has changed. I'm so confused. sarcasm
A company and a society are judged and remembered by what they build and not what they destroy.
Bill, if people want a laptop, let them by a laptop. If they want a keyboard for their Surface or iPad you pay more and there are plenty available. The PC World is not the Tablet world and the Tablet World is NOT THE PC World. It is a new category of device and people really seem to like them. Oh, and if you get a keyboard for your iPad I recommend the Zaggfolio. I am not sure what to do about the mouse. I am sure that the lack of a extra thing on the desk is really frustrating people as well instead of just touching what you want on the screen.
In case you miss it you can get a mouse of for the Surface and turn your tablet into a laptop, with the same battery life as a laptop vs. the 10 hours on a real tablet.
Oh and if you get a mouse, I recommend the Logitech Performance MX.
It's happening, it is a reality, and it is more than possible. Even with an inside whistle blower, the courts will not limit the power of the government to spy on us.
The only thing we really have going for us is the Catch-22 on the use of the data. If it is every used in a trial, chain of custody and 4th amendment issues likethe exclusionary rule will suppress the evidence since it was obtained without a warrant. The only thing that stands in the way of the NSA and fully implementing 1984 is the 4th amendment.
While the FBI might not be the sharpest tool in the shed they have infinite resources thanks to the national security black budget. Granted if you have a private network that doesn't peer with any of the big backbones like AT&T then your a probably safe. Once your voice/data hops onto a major backbone like AT&T your data has been sold to the US Government. There are even allegation that this system is contributing names to the no-fly list through heuristic language analysis of voice traffic. To see if you networks are safe, use the word "bomb" as often as you can and if you aren't added to the no-fly list, your networks are probably safe:)
I think the real solution to the problem is to start generating massive amounts of meaningless data until the spooks run out of storage.
Security and Privacy are an illusion. Welcome to 1984 about three decades late.
I just pulled out my official Genuine Microsoft Office 2003 CD from 13-years ago from Microsoft Licensing and it has Office 2003,Publisher, Visio etc... I have always worked at places with Volume Licensing, so I guess I never realized they were all sold separately because they were all on the MS Office Professional Enterprise Edition 2003 install CD. Wikipedia shows Visio as sold separately in the Enterprise Edition, but it clearly on the install CD. Very strange.
It is neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things, but my point is that if you ship everything on one CD and the VLK (volume license key) allows the use of all the software, I am not going to repurchase something equivalent, even if it is slightly better.
Slashdot Mirror
I can see what you mean, this really had a (sic) significant impact on Booz-Allen. Wow, they had to schedule an emergency call and let investors know that projected targets would be impacted and issue new guidance on earnings. I don't know what reality you live in, but this isn't a slap on the hand, this is barely a "wag of the finger" without so much as a "tisk-tisk". The military industrial complex is out of FREAKING control and has been since Eisenhower. It is corrupt to the core and now it has the ability to track all of our digital footprints 1984 style. I encourage you to show me how this incident of which you referenced had an significant impact on Booz-Allen or its practices.
Source: Penalties Are Weak for Misbehaving Contractors
Excerpt
Last year, the Air Force temporarily suspended the San Antonio division of [Booz Allen] from future contracts because it had obtained and distributed confidential Pentagon bidding data for its own competitive advantage. In 2006, the Justice Department said the company overbilled travel expenses, and the agency initially recommended that Booz Allen be barred from federal contracting.
Those incidents had little or no impact on Booz Allen’s success in recent years or on its ability to compete for federal contracts, which last year provided 99 percent of the company’s $5.8 billion in revenue.
So let me get this straight, if you use government resources to break the law or fail to deliver on large government projects then you will be barred from further federal work? I think all you need to do is rename the company, e.g. "Blackwater" to "Xe" (or whatever they are called) and re-apply, No big deal.
This is a classic case of "who watches the watchmen" or Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Apparently, no one. It seems that anyone with top secret at the NSA can do whatever they please with no oversight or discipline. It must be a fun place to work where you can spend you days creeping on your ex-girlfriends, elected officials, and corporate CEOs. Unchecked power is a very bad thing as we move farther and father from the principle of "habeas corpus" and into the land of "it's top secret and no you can't see the evidence, trust us, were a bunch of good, trustworthy folks."
And if you haven't seen "Flying Robots", go watch it now. The NSA will want these toys overhead next, if they aren't already there.
From Urban Dictionary: Rock Star Programmer - A computer programmer with such strong skills and so much specific experience that they are the equivalent of a rock star in the domain of software. Many people play guitar pretty well, but only a few become rock stars. These programmers can develop more software than 5 - 10 newly hired regular programmers because they know what needs to be done and how to do it. They also might set the architecture of the product that dozens will build upon. Usually associated with dot com websites.
Usage: Jeff was the guy behind ebay.com He's a rockstar programmer.
Yes they exist, typically large IT organizations have a few of them just in case. Many are like the fictional TV personality, House. If you can tolerate them, they are nice to have around for large, unsolvable problems that need to be fixed now. Many can deduce, diagnose, analyze, and fix things before your standard programmers can even formulate the problem. I have witnessed this on several occasions. If time is money, they are great insurance but be prepared for arrogance. The one I formerly worked with brought his dog to work and forced a fortune 500 company to give the dog a swipe badge. It was pretty hilarious.
It's an arms race that Google might lose if end users start using Chrome extension to encrypt the contents of their mail and using NOSCRIPT to hide their identity. Google lives and dies by being to be our creepy friend from tracking us, serving us ads, and generating analytics. If Google does not provide the "illusion" of security soon, it could kill the golden goose. It is in both the interest of Google and NSA to take this step. I predict we won't hear a single protest from our spooky friends.
Oracle, love'em or hate'em makes some rock solid databases. The reason for the delay in the patch release was most likely testing and validation of the patch. I am assuming Oracle does this for MySQL but, what do I know?
John Adams wrote, "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."
There is a long generational tradition in the USA of sacrificing for the next generation starting with the revolutionary war.
I agree. You know what upsets me the most from these documents is how the USA views the world. The NSA view is USA vs. world. It doesn't matter if they are an ally or declared enemy. Hack, spy, surveil, torture, bomb, do whatever you want because they aren't one of us. Oh, and if they are one of us, catch'em at an airport take their stuff and send them off USA soil so you can do as you please. As for the people that live on USA soil, we are watching you too and we have a secret letter and secret court that will do our bidding and you can't discuss it, or else.
What the hell have we become?
It is not that simple. Were all of Einstein's three children geniuses?
There is a question of fully developing capacity and potential. Some call it nature vs. nurture. We don't fully understand gene expression. Our environment impacts gene expression.
While I can discuss many topics intelligently, I can not address whether or not 1.3 billion people believe in human equality. China still has a lot of growing to do as a country and is internally dysfunctional. When China grows up, how will it behave? Will it believe in human equality? I do not know.
Statistically, there are two pieces of data that determine success in public education:
* Socioeconomic Status of the Parents
* Highest Education Level Achieved by Parents
The researcher Andrew Maslow in 1943 basically drew the same conclusion in his research:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
His conclusion was is that if you aren't safe, fed, loved, and have self esteem that aren't going to be a problem solver.
Everything old is new again. I guess the new buzz words are "cognitive load" vs. "problem solver."
What is the story went like this, "NSA Surveillance matches a person who has traveled out the country, possibly foreign national living in Long Island that did a Google search for pressure cookers and backpacks. It is learned that these searches were done on a corporate asset. NSA contacts corporation and explains that under FISA law they are (gagged) not allowed to talk about the incident and would be shielded from legal harm resulting in any future lawsuits, oh and thanks for the tip."
No. Even if the employer submitted half of the search info, the info on the backpacks had to be provided by another source and then had to to matched. Where did that info come from? Google? NSA backdoors on home computers? The interesting part of the story (if indeed true) is the other half of the info.
So dad searched pressure cookers at work and the employer allegedly turned this over to the cops, but who turned in mom's Google search history? How was the match made? Was there a request made too Google? Did the Feds hack the computers using a MS-NSA or Apple-NSA backdoor? According to the article, the task force didn't even look at the computers or confiscate them.
This is only half a story, (if it is indeed true about the employer turning over the suspicious weblogs). How did the Feds/Police/Joint Task Force get the other half of the info.
And according to the article this occurs 100 times per week and we are just hearing about it.
There is more to this story and this simple explanation is only half of it.
Unfortunately, this seems to be the theme these days. Send out half-baked stuff that barely works. A friend just visited and her laptop would maintain wireless connection for about 5 minutes then drop off. Long story short, HP shipped this nice shiny gorgeous laptop with Windows 8 and defective wireless drivers. It couldn't maintain a wireless connection long enough to run windows update (after finding WU in Windows 8, geez), and and plugging in the RJ45 the WU ran. However, the tolerance of the RJ45 port was so far off RJ45 the connector remained stuck, I had to get a pair of needle nose to wiggle it out. On the plus side the did have a cool ultrabright white LED that illuminated the RJ45 connector plastic.
I scratched my head and wondered, why would HP send out a laptop that would just frustrate their customers with constant wireless dropping leading to increased returns, and increases support phone calls?
From my perspective, I see a rush to market with half baked, sorta working Windows 8 hardware these days. My old reliable T-Series Thinkpad finally died and I am at a loss for what to replace it with. Under new ownership, Lenovo seems to have dropped in quality. Ironically, the Mac Book Pro was recently voted the best Windows laptop. In any case, my desire is for a machine something backward compatible with Windows 7. Thank you for sharing.
I did Arduino last summer. Controlling my lawn sprinklers :) Fun little platform.
Yes, that is about the size of it. I am still a command line, C, HTML/CSS, JSON, Javascript, PERL, PHP, SQL, backend database, Linux type of developer. I see apps taking over the web on tablets both native and in HTML5. I realize there is still a huge base for this stuff, but I wanted to fast forward 10 years. It was a sincere question not an advertisement for Dice.com or Lynda.com as others have suggested.
If there were only some way to store the information encoded in DNA in a molecular level storage device... oh wait, face palm.
I agree, workflow on the iPad is tough because of the security model where apps can't get into each others files. While this keeps down malware, it makes uploading files, creating digital portfolios, and sharing between apps nearly impossible without the use of computer or cloud service. Hopefully Apple has a plan for it's new shiny giant green data centers other than serving iTunes apps and running flaky near useless iCloud service.
Improving workflow on the iPad would be on the top of my list, I can live with the UI as-is.
Some other interesting features might be allowing wireless devices communicate with each other to share and collaborate. The 8 iPad - Jam session for Garageband is a good start but we need more than just "more cowbell".
I know the marketing Apple marketing droids don't want the iPad to be a laptop since it would cannibalize MacBook Air sales, but I say forget it and let the iPad morph into a better platform.
This removes the video ads that play prior to the main video. The onscreen popups may still appear. Someone else please verify.
Supposed you want to wish your mother a Happy Dub Step Mothers Day with this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J0o65u73Nc
But you want to strip the adds and go fullscreen:
Easy, simply change the URL: delete "watch?v=" and replace with "v/"
http://www.youtube.com/v/9J0o65u73Nc
sarcasm
Microsoft must have some really smart developers to have figured out how to rewrite the YouTube URL using computer programming. I am going to run out and get a Surface with Windows 8 before Best Buy closes tonight. Microsoft might be adding more useful features soon and I don't want to miss out. It would be a shame to watch a 5 second YouTube Ad and support that rich Google company. Microsoft is sticking it to man! Wait, I thought they were the man. Hmmm... something has changed. I'm so confused.
sarcasm
A company and a society are judged and remembered by what they build and not what they destroy.
Then Apple could put the new Final Cut Pro X out of it's misery and switch us all over to Premiere. This is a good plan.
Bill, if people want a laptop, let them by a laptop. If they want a keyboard for their Surface or iPad you pay more and there are plenty available. The PC World is not the Tablet world and the Tablet World is NOT THE PC World. It is a new category of device and people really seem to like them. Oh, and if you get a keyboard for your iPad I recommend the Zaggfolio. I am not sure what to do about the mouse. I am sure that the lack of a extra thing on the desk is really frustrating people as well instead of just touching what you want on the screen.
In case you miss it you can get a mouse of for the Surface and turn your tablet into a laptop, with the same battery life as a laptop vs. the 10 hours on a real tablet.
Oh and if you get a mouse, I recommend the Logitech Performance MX.
Seriously, you mean a data center like this can't handle the traffic?
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/
and the 5 million people (as of 2011) with security clearances aren't enough?
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/07/security-clearances-increasing/
and the NSA recruiting at Defcon and math colleges all around the country isn't happening?
http://www.federalnewsradio.com/411/2890348/NSA-hiring-reforms-serve-as-model-for-government
These guys have cash and are all of their activities are shielded under FISA and the National Security Act and State Secrets Privilege.
http://www.aclu.org/national-security/fix-fisa-end-warrantless-wiretapping
It's happening, it is a reality, and it is more than possible. Even with an inside whistle blower, the courts will not limit the power of the government to spy on us.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
The only thing we really have going for us is the Catch-22 on the use of the data. If it is every used in a trial, chain of custody and 4th amendment issues likethe exclusionary rule will suppress the evidence since it was obtained without a warrant. The only thing that stands in the way of the NSA and fully implementing 1984 is the 4th amendment.
While the FBI might not be the sharpest tool in the shed they have infinite resources thanks to the national security black budget. Granted if you have a private network that doesn't peer with any of the big backbones like AT&T then your a probably safe. Once your voice/data hops onto a major backbone like AT&T your data has been sold to the US Government. There are even allegation that this system is contributing names to the no-fly list through heuristic language analysis of voice traffic. To see if you networks are safe, use the word "bomb" as often as you can and if you aren't added to the no-fly list, your networks are probably safe :)
I think the real solution to the problem is to start generating massive amounts of meaningless data until the spooks run out of storage.
Security and Privacy are an illusion. Welcome to 1984 about three decades late.
I just pulled out my official Genuine Microsoft Office 2003 CD from 13-years ago from Microsoft Licensing and it has Office 2003,Publisher, Visio etc... I have always worked at places with Volume Licensing, so I guess I never realized they were all sold separately because they were all on the MS Office Professional Enterprise Edition 2003 install CD. Wikipedia shows Visio as sold separately in the Enterprise Edition, but it clearly on the install CD. Very strange.
It is neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things, but my point is that if you ship everything on one CD and the VLK (volume license key) allows the use of all the software, I am not going to repurchase something equivalent, even if it is slightly better.
--
Senior Red Hat Certified Engineer