Straying from the topic slightly... this post applies remotely to the topic, in that MS has helped drive software licensing and compliance enforcement to the point where a software must be managed by the companies lawyers.
Legal reviews of licenses actually occur at my company. Software purchasing, licensing, and distribution to desktops is mostly centralized. Yes, it's a good idea to have someone who understands legalese manage licenses, and a desktop engineer manage installations. However, it has some nasty consequences.
1. My departmental software gets held hostage by the enterprise software group for extended periods of time. Legal reviews the licenses.
2. When I lived in a condo, I was in the habit of having personal packages delivered to work, so I didn't have to go to the post office. These also got hijacked - the mail room automatically rerouted software to the desktop engineering group.
3. Trying to get back on topic... Microsoft pioneered COM, which I now believe to be the root of all installation evils. It's really entertaining when some app requires an out of date version of MDAC or COM.
4. We are a 10,000 desktop company. Thanks to legal and install issues the DE group MUST manage all software, but only has the resources to adequately test installation of software with 250+ users. Smaller departmental applications are regularly obliterated. At times, we've resorted to users having 2 computers (overpowered to run Windows) so that the departmental apps.
Here's my Orwellian vision of the future of software:
MS decides to make software licensing easier. All Software is licenses are managed via an extension of MS's passport and that hardware based DRM thingy. Licensing rules are managed by BizTalk. Your software communicates with the central MS server every time you log in (requiring all users to have 10GB internet connections). MS provides components for software developers to use that enable licensing. It starts denying usage of this component to products that directly compete with its favored produces, until court cases force it to come up with a more clever scheme.
Distributing and updating applications accross a 10,000 machine corporate environment is painful at best. My company has good tools, and smart people working with this. Still, apps with less than 50-100 users don't get a lot of attention - and the tools that manage app policy manage to periodically break them when they push other apps' updates. The basic problems mostly stem from 1) Dependency hell in windose. 2) Needing to push apps out - this pulls apps and dependencies, which is much easier to make work.
If I wasn't stuck in a Windoze shop, I'd think about hacking this to support the type of application policies my company needs: Mary has access to applications A,B,C, etc, Allow zero-install to install only from servers a.mycompany, b etc. A major problem here is that the current security model appears to allow an end user to install anything. Sure, it can't run as root, but they can waste time playing freeciv! This could easily make redundant a team or two of poor schmucks who currently work with the tools that push out software.
Note that MS already has a variety of products in the works similiar to this. ClickOnce is the solve-all-your-distribution-problems widget in VS Widbey. Run-from-web and other tools already exist that are similar to this. Unfortunately, these only work with.NET apps. Most MS shops have a large number of legacy COM based apps giving them headaches.
Wow that sounds impressive 98 of 100 senators thought the rejected the Kyoto Protocol?
Unfortunately, this is misleading at best. The vote you are probably referring to is the Byrd-Hagel ammendment of 1999. This stated that we wouldn't ratify the protocol unless China and a few others were included. I don't think that they the treaty, as signed by Clinton, was ever submitted to the Senate. 15 minutes of searching a variety of sources indicates that it was never submitted. A 2003 bill with mandatory emissions caps did fail by 55-43.
I'd always thought it'd be fun to write a Linux help command (or new shell) based on a code base from one of the Interactive Fiction tools. A lot of the user input and language processing problems are already solved. This would certainly meet the authors idea that computer should interact with dialogue. Eg
User: I want to find a file.
PC: How fould you like to find the file? By Name? Size?
(Maps to grep or find somewhere in here)
Anyway, this can go into the list of good ideas that I'll never get around to, but hope someone else will do.
Many of the health affects of coffee are not associated with caffeine. Some of the studies haven't separated caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee drinkers. Others that have done so, but noted no difference in benefits between the caffeinated and decaff coffee. The benefits come from other chemicals (sorry, tea drinkers).
Sciam has had very interesting articles about coffee, which get more into the science then this blurb. Sadly, the best one isn't free - so I'll link to the list of coffee articles.
This is a great point. We've needed a new line of gossip in the SCO fiasco for some time. Here it is:
SCO is funded by a Chinese|European|Russian|Anti-Mormon conspiracy to cripple the US economy, aiming to make open source illegal in the US. This has the dual effect of moving FOSS development to other contries, and shutting down open source implementations.
Ideally, a new arm of the ATF or DEA will be formed in the next version of the DMCA. They'll start out with raids on X-Box modders. They'll provide mandatory rehabilitation boot-camps for internet providers addicted to Apache/MySQL/Perl/Python. Finnally, laptop checks at airports will involve mandatory scans for FOSS software. Certain software providers will include functionality to ensure that this scanning goes smoothly -- trusted computing could nicely ensure that every executable is signed by a good, all-American proprietary and profit making company.
Election 2012: Major scandals erupt, when Jeb Bush, after winning the primaries, is discovered to have not only downloaded FreeCiv, but also contributed a small patch.
This story's poster probably should have read the articles before concluding that the government was on the path to regulating VoIP out of existence.
Most of the FCC's regulatory leanings on this seem harmless to me.
Chairman Powell: No regulator, either federal or state, should tread into this area without an absolutely compelling
justification for doing so."
Good - looks like they are trying to avoid stopping the technology with excessive regulation.
Commissioner Michael J. Copps: Wants to ensure 911 access.
Quite an acceptable use of government regulatory authority.
Hard to see how this could be a burden on VoIP systems.
Not mostly harmless
Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein: His first point was to bring up the concerns of the DOJ and FBI that they might have trouble wiretapping VoIP.
Aside from the civil rights concerns, one can image many technical problems with this:
1. FCC mandates that US based VoIP firms provide a means for the DOJ / FBI to listen in.
2. VoIP firms outside US jurisdiction don't bother carrying out this mandate.
3. Those with something to hide use foreign VoIP firms.
On the whole, it looks like the current direction is not towards stifling over regulation.
I don't see any signs of prostration to big monopolies in the chairman's or commissioners' remarks.
Nonetheless, it's certainly advisable to
let the FCC know your opinions and concerns to ensure that the eventual FCC conclusions are well-informed.
Reading the article will show you that if not evil, they are at least unscrupulously and avaricious: 1. W3C roundly trounces their patent claim. Mozaic had most of the claims of their patent. Proposed internet specifications described the rest. 2. Eola thus claimed a patent for technology already widely in use, and nearly standardized. It appears unlikely that web developers of the day would be unaware of the technology and standards - which leads to the conclusion that they did so knowingly. If so, unscrupulous and greedy. I found the prior art filing most entertaining: http://www.w3.org/2003/10/301-filing.html If you are in a hurry, scan down to "Table I", which compares patent claims to to acknowledged and newly cited prior art.
If you're going to have the cars sort themselves out, why bother with signals at all? If everything is guided by GPS, why have headlights?
The answer to this is rather simple:
Computers are good at doing stuff that you can program and define in explicit rules. They are notoriously bad at handling the mess of the real world. (Notice how horrible all the MS products that try to help you are? "Are you writing a letter?") You might be able to code safety checks to help a human operator: On lane change, Check for cars transmitting in proxity -> negotiate with car. Then, check my radar for objects close by -> Warn driver.
In the foreseeable future, these could only function as safety features to warn a human operator. The real world has two many cases to write explicit rules for. Power outage? Electrical storm interference? Does that dog on the side of the road look like its about to try to cross?
Suppose one of these AI projects yields a "learning machine" capable of handling all these scenarios - these machines will still have to be taught. The type of knowledge required to drive a car requires years of interaction with all the elements that might appear on the road: wind, storms, dogs, little kids, bandits putting up roadblocks... not to mention the as of yet poorly solved problem of getting a computer to correctly identify objects based on visual images. To get this interaction requires a machine that can engage in these interactions - now your in sci-land building androids. Real world interactions managed by computers are way more that 100 years out.
Having spent a few minutes reviewing the comments to this article, it's obvious to me that there is quite a lot of truth to what this guy is saying.
There is dangerous tendency to believe that real coders, like fighter pilots, work as close as possible to the bare metal.
Many comments rebutting the arguments he makes about this are classic straw man arguments - they rebut an argument that is related to, but weaker than, the argument actually made by the author. The author provided an an example that working with higher level languages could reduce code errors. A number of comments attack this example, rather than the argument itself, which is that programmers who think that they must do everything themselves risk more errors. To provide an example: My company has a variety of well secured thin client applications. The other day, a new web application popped up. When I forgot my password, I managed found a way to circumvent its security in a matter of minutes. The developers of this app were simply too macho to draw on the code and solutions already existing within the same company. They rolled their own, and made mistakes.
My developer cohorts and I have a running joke about Wheel v2 (actually, we're probably on Wheel v 98.2). Developers love to reinvent the wheel. Good programming practice always needs to start with taking the specification and asking "Is there a product out there that solves this" Often, you find a set of libraries that solve 90% of your problem - costing much less than the development time it'd take to roll your own. Often you'll find that the developer next door has already built that. But it is just so much more fun to write your own than learn to use someone elses code! The authors point - not well rebutted by argueing about C versus V.M. based languages - speaks to the conceit of programmers who think that they can do it better than the third party library or their co-worker. A number of slashdot comments support his contention that programmers are conceited - "He's not a real programmer..." etc.
Also worth noting: A large percentage of code written is not for embedded systems and palms. It's used within corporate intranets. At my company, is easy enough to make standards for libraries and languages and languages used - making an app dependant on a few other components is really not so evil. Arguing that your palm apps must be written in C does not address the authors point!
A lot of flash developed sites don't make it through the firewall at my workplace - not quite sure why (company security policy: when in doubt - block it). So, for example - I can't view one of our primary vendors websites at all from work. On top of this - flash can be extremely tedious when you have slow connections.
I don't know that I'd blame macromedia for this so much: It seems that Flash is used by web masters who want a pretty site and don't have a lot of time (or experience). Consequently, there are a lot of pretty flash sites that simply fail to take into account the technical considerations necessary for a good web page. E.G. Load time, accessibility, etc.
A variety have posters have complained about missing features. Some are already available - and the poster just stopped following MySQL at v 3.0. v 5.1 will have most of the features you'd expect in a relational database. Another post has already clarified that transaction support is available via Berkeley DB tables.
last I heard, views weren't on the list...
Views will be a 5.1 feature. Check out MySQL Database Server features list for the the current development plan. (Search "upcoming features" to find their release plan.)
At any rate here's my favorite feature. I can open mysql and run a query summarizing all charges (from a 23 Million record table) by financial class for my boss in a certain time frame all in under a minute (query time: '13 rows in set (42.40 sec)'. Time to open mysql command prompt, and launch a query from a file:
"... the collection of FPGA:s emulating a standard CPU would be way slower..."
Their point is that you aren't emulating a standard CPU. Their approach is for application that involve "Solving systems of simultaneous linear equations...". The traditional approach is many generic CPU's in parallel.From the article:
"However, this type of parallelism is inefficient, using only a small fraction of CPU resources at any given time, while the rest of the silicon lies idle and wastes power. CPUs are designed to be general and capable of performing any function they will ever need to perform. Therefore, they contain many resources that are rarely used. In addition, the inter processor communication time required by traditional matrix equation solvers seriously limits the number of
processors that may operate efficiently in parallel optimize chips is normally a long and tedious process not available or feasible to most programmers."
You argue cost:
... for any given budget for CPU:s... and way more expensive.
The article argues that probably replace a single FPGA with a whole lot of CPU's (because it can process as much in parallel as you can cram on the chip). One could also point out that if this type of technology becomes more prevalent, higher production volumes would lower FPGA costs. I guess we'd have to see some ROI analysis - how many CPU's can they replace with an FPGA? Could you get one workstation class device to replace a cluster or mainframe? Most of their articles discuss a technology in the Proof of Concept stage - so it will be a while before we can talk about which situations it pays off to use this in.
Your third point, its hard to code FPGA's:
"...translating from low-level code to actual chip surface... is largely a manual even for very simple circuits, largely because the available chip-compiler technologies simply aren't up to the job."
A major thrust of StarBridge systems seems to be creating easy to use and effective tools to do exactly this. Read the sections about their Viva technology. Even if it doesn't do it perfectly, it may do it good enough.
Wow, you don't understand customer service
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Sysadmin Day. Yay.
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· Score: 5, Insightful
... don't ask them a stupid question, don't blame the network for your incompetence at clicking on links,...
The parent post has some good points but its tone reminds me of some unfortunate tendancy in the IT world: the beliefs that technical prowess does exempts you from offering good customer service, and that anyone who doesn't understand computers must be stupid. While I'd like to indulge the day and let venting occur - I have to deal with self righteous IT folks every day.
Regarding "Stupid questions": A huge ammount of time is wasted at my company because not enough people are asking stupid questions. They just keep doing stupid things. If you don't like to answer stupid questions, make sure that your company has a help desk (or person, depending on the scale) who's job it is answer stupid questions. Stupid questions are the oil in the corporate machine. I consider it my job to turn stupid questions into smart ones.
Arrogance: - keywords incompetence, etc: yes, a lot of people with valuable skills grew up without computers. I know a lot of IT people who think that because they understand discreet mathematics, they understand business rules better than the managers who work with them. We've lost a lot of money that way. More frequently than a lay person not understanding the network, is the problem that the guy coding business logic into the mainframes, didn't understand the point made by the non-technical manager.
If you have problems with misuse of resources on your network - you have to deal with the human element and work with trainers / managers. Where training fails, quotas. It's a simple management issue. Every job has them. Don't whine, solve it.
Sorry, geeks. You can't isolate yourself from the humans you work with. I actually consider it one of the pleasures of the job to work both with humans and their problems, and machines and theirs.
Note: I've worked on various sides of the system administration fence. I've been soley responsible for a small (50 device) network, and user in a large one. Currently an informal part of my job is to act as buffer/liason/interpreter between IT and business process. I appreciate my current sys-admin specifically because he makes his knowledge available, has a system to handle stupid questions, and recognizes that there are skills of value not learnt in the CS department. I think I'll give a basket of fresh fruit and a hug.
I would like to challenge y'all step beyond the specific OS choice and consider the technological implications of this article. For example:
This points towards the impending implementation of ubiquitous computing that's been talked about for years. It seems that embedded computers have reached adequate power that we can start using similar platforms in them that we use in PC's/servers. That OQO can deliver a PC that fits in a pocket gives a picture of how the size a gadget you can put computers in. This will explode the availablity of programming knowhow available to producers of all manner of gadgets. Your PC program and interface development C / VB/ Java / KDE etc skills for PC's and servers may soon be directly applicable to VCR's, refridgerators, traffic lights, and is already applicable to some mobile phones. There are a number of avenues to explore in this direction which would be more interesting then squabling over the platform choice for this vehicle.
It might not happen in this decade- but you are starting to see the change in the face of the computer. Already, I know hospitals where the complex tasks of registering patients and services rendered are accomplished by staff walking around with card scanners and portable computers. The office worker is leaving the office. Think about your JOBS and possibilities. There is enormous potential for innovation in applications here and interfaces here.
Sigh, I guess we should get back to the BSOD / M$ squabble.
A previous post suggested this article (no bookmark anchors, scroll down 2/3 of page) from motortrends, which states that Windows CE is the OS in production systems - but doesn't speak to the issue of their concept cars. The MSNBC author could easily be right in this case - but should have known that it was could have known that this was not the production choice.
Other info from miscellaneous articles: the fancy communicator uses Bluetooth networking.
We just have to design our satelittes with armor. That way, when the inevitable alien invasion comes, our spacecract will already be well protected!
Read this book, but skim it
on
The Chronoliths
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The Author's strength is ability structure his books around unique social themes, and populate his books with a number of interesting ideas. The reviewer pointed out that the main character is a programmer - but his job is actually to 'evolve code', producing algorithms that he doesn't always understand. Unlike many sci-fi stories, where the earth unites around a common enemy - we have a hundred sub sects worshipping these cronoliths or trying to destroy them. That the book is full of such speculations on where our society is headed and how it responds keeps it interesting.
That said, the editor could have taken a chain saw, shredded half the book at random, and it would have been a better read. The authors mediocre style and character development don't warrant the long development sections. This yields a how-to-read it suggestion: If a section starts to bore you: just skip a few paragraphs or pages at a time. You won't miss anything.
As an aside, has anyone noticed the new assumption behind many current works of fiction? In the 90's, we had consipiracy theories. Before that, there were all the Apocolyptic novels. In the past 2 years, many of the near future sci-fi books that I've read take the fall or decline of the United States as a foregone conclusion. Cronoliths is no exception to this new pessimism.
My recommendations reflect my reading biases. I like sci-fi that: Expands our concept of what is possible. Uses non-contempory settings, or alien worlds to allow the author to explore societies and individuals without the encumbrance of researching a real culture or history. (Speculative fiction)
That said, gadget heavy sci-fi, and sci-fi that relies on mystery and thriller techniques for it's tension, annoys me.
I'll recommend:
Anything by Arthur C Clark(Unathorised fan site). Childhood's End, while several decades old, still reads like a shocking new novel.
Almost anything by Ursula LeGuin(Link skips entry page). The Dispossessed Is a classic. She is far towards the speculative fiction end of the genre.
Philip K Dick is responsible for the short stories behind some of the more interesting sci-fi movies. Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, to name a few. The short stories behind them, of course, have much more substance. I've just read Ubik which left me dizzy for a week
I would think that a technology oriented group would understand that there is more value than pure scientific discovery in a project like a space station: We are learn the technology and problems of work in space.
Case in point: The value of/. content does not come from cutting edge research, but accumulated know-how and an appreciation for the subtleties of the technology we work with. Pure research, technological development, and the application of technologies are distinct studies each with its own value.
Even if 90% of space station crew time is devoted to keeping it running, we aquire essential know-how in how to function and work in space. No, it's not glamorous, but it certainly has value. In the near term, where the most profit is to be gained from satellite launches and maintenance, it could potentially have more return than pure science.
While NASA's original intent migth have been to one-up the Soviets, and now tries to be a research organization, in attempting to achieve these goals, they not only test the technology, but train a ledgion of engineers and support staff capable of working with it.
I'm not prepared to say that that money couldn't be more effectively spent on Earth ($30 billion could probably produce a Malaria vaccine) or that it wouldn't be way cooler to go to Mars.
I'll have to agree with the multitudes that recommend leaving the digital equipment behind. Here's another reason: You might stop by a mountain that you just have to climb, but can't for fear that someone plunders your prized gadgets while your car is at the trailhead.
I recommend that you bring:
-Adequate equipment for stopping / camping anywhere along the road. -A lot of time. Because you are driving, I assume you want to experience the country. -Addresses of long lost relatives in the middle of the country. Nothing like a little hospitality to break up a road trip. Who knows, maybe there's an interesting second cousin you haven't met? - Maps of adequate detail to find interesting local sites. Raid your local AAA.
Resources:
Almost every small town has a chamber of commerce that puts up a web site.. Even Lone Pine, CA: http://www.lone-pine.com Pick 10 towns off the map along the route, and see what they have to offer. Anything in a guide book, while interesting, will be heavily touristed, driving up prices.
I've made the cross-country trip at least 10 times by various routes, mostly before 1990, here are the items that have lodged themselves in my mind:
- Greasy spoons. - Breaking down in Lone Pine, CA. 60 miles between towns, only every other one had a movie theater. Seriously, Eastern California is worth a detour. Death Valley, Mono Lake, Joshua Trees. Driving 80 miles an hour and thinking you aren't moving. - I slept through most of the Mid west each time - and played a lot of canasta in the back seat. We invented a 4 canasta, 6-deck version to make it through Kansas. - Dude ranches. A little cheesy, but fun. - Glacier Park. Leave time for hiking, if you enjoy it. - Yellow stone (already recommended). Doesn't require as much time as you'd think, as you can drive to a large number of sights. - The Pasayten Wilderness (North Cascades) in the Okanogan Forest. http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/oka/ The North Cascades make you wonder why the Appellations are called mountains. The scale of the terrain in the Pasaytan reminds you that you are in fact, just another ant crawling on a monstrous planet. During my last 4-day trip in the Pasayten, I saw only a 10 other hikers - on Labor Day weekend. Winthrop, WA has numerous horse outfitters, if you prefer a sore butt to sore feet. - Take the North Cascades highway (Route 20) across the Cascades instead of I-90 or other monster roads.
Slashdot Mirror
Straying from the topic slightly ... this post applies remotely to the topic, in that MS has helped drive software licensing and compliance enforcement to the point where a software must be managed by the companies lawyers.
... Microsoft pioneered COM, which I now believe to be the root of all installation evils. It's really entertaining when some app requires an out of date version of MDAC or COM.
Legal reviews of licenses actually occur at my company. Software purchasing, licensing, and distribution to desktops is mostly centralized. Yes, it's a good idea to have someone who understands legalese manage licenses, and a desktop engineer manage installations. However, it has some nasty consequences.
1. My departmental software gets held hostage by the enterprise software group for extended periods of time. Legal reviews the licenses.
2. When I lived in a condo, I was in the habit of having personal packages delivered to work, so I didn't have to go to the post office. These also got hijacked - the mail room automatically rerouted software to the desktop engineering group.
3. Trying to get back on topic
4. We are a 10,000 desktop company. Thanks to legal and install issues the DE group MUST manage all software, but only has the resources to adequately test installation of software with 250+ users. Smaller departmental applications are regularly obliterated. At times, we've resorted to users having 2 computers (overpowered to run Windows) so that the departmental apps.
Here's my Orwellian vision of the future of software:
MS decides to make software licensing easier. All Software is licenses are managed via an extension of MS's passport and that hardware based DRM thingy. Licensing rules are managed by BizTalk. Your software communicates with the central MS server every time you log in (requiring all users to have 10GB internet connections). MS provides components for software developers to use that enable licensing. It starts denying usage of this component to products that directly compete with its favored produces, until court cases force it to come up with a more clever scheme.
Distributing and updating applications accross a 10,000 machine corporate environment is painful at best. My company has good tools, and smart people working with this. Still, apps with less than 50-100 users don't get a lot of attention - and the tools that manage app policy manage to periodically break them when they push other apps' updates. The basic problems mostly stem from 1) Dependency hell in windose. 2) Needing to push apps out - this pulls apps and dependencies, which is much easier to make work.
.NET apps. Most MS shops have a large number of legacy COM based apps giving them headaches.
If I wasn't stuck in a Windoze shop, I'd think about hacking this to support the type of application policies my company needs: Mary has access to applications A,B,C, etc, Allow zero-install to install only from servers a.mycompany, b etc. A major problem here is that the current security model appears to allow an end user to install anything. Sure, it can't run as root, but they can waste time playing freeciv! This could easily make redundant a team or two of poor schmucks who currently work with the tools that push out software.
Note that MS already has a variety of products in the works similiar to this. ClickOnce is the solve-all-your-distribution-problems widget in VS Widbey. Run-from-web and other tools already exist that are similar to this. Unfortunately, these only work with
Wow that sounds impressive 98 of 100 senators thought the rejected the Kyoto Protocol?
Unfortunately, this is misleading at best. The vote you are probably referring to is the Byrd-Hagel ammendment of 1999. This stated that we wouldn't ratify the protocol unless China and a few others were included. I don't think that they the treaty, as signed by Clinton, was ever submitted to the Senate. 15 minutes of searching a variety of sources indicates that it was never submitted. A 2003 bill with mandatory emissions caps did fail by 55-43.
I'd always thought it'd be fun to write a Linux help command (or new shell) based on a code base from one of the Interactive Fiction tools. A lot of the user input and language processing problems are already solved. This would certainly meet the authors idea that computer should interact with dialogue. Eg
User: I want to find a file.
PC: How fould you like to find the file? By Name? Size?
(Maps to grep or find somewhere in here)
Anyway, this can go into the list of good ideas that I'll never get around to, but hope someone else will do.
Many of the health affects of coffee are not associated with caffeine. Some of the studies haven't separated caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee drinkers. Others that have done so, but noted no difference in benefits between the caffeinated and decaff coffee. The benefits come from other chemicals (sorry, tea drinkers).
Sciam has had very interesting articles about coffee, which get more into the science then this blurb. Sadly, the best one isn't free - so I'll link to the list of coffee articles.
Miscellaneous coffe articlesLower Diabetes Risk
This is a great point. We've needed a new line of gossip in the SCO fiasco for some time. Here it is:
SCO is funded by a Chinese|European|Russian|Anti-Mormon conspiracy to cripple the US economy, aiming to make open source illegal in the US. This has the dual effect of moving FOSS development to other contries, and shutting down open source implementations.
Ideally, a new arm of the ATF or DEA will be formed in the next version of the DMCA. They'll start out with raids on X-Box modders. They'll provide mandatory rehabilitation boot-camps for internet providers addicted to Apache/MySQL/Perl/Python. Finnally, laptop checks at airports will involve mandatory scans for FOSS software. Certain software providers will include functionality to ensure that this scanning goes smoothly -- trusted computing could nicely ensure that every executable is signed by a good, all-American proprietary and profit making company.
Election 2012: Major scandals erupt, when Jeb Bush, after winning the primaries, is discovered to have not only downloaded FreeCiv, but also contributed a small patch.
This story's poster probably should have read the articles before concluding that the government was on the path to regulating VoIP out of existence. Most of the FCC's regulatory leanings on this seem harmless to me.
See the opening remarks.Mostly harmless leanings:
Chairman Powell: No regulator, either federal or state, should tread into this area without an absolutely compelling justification for doing so."
Good - looks like they are trying to avoid stopping the technology with excessive regulation.
Commissioner Michael J. Copps: Wants to ensure 911 access. Quite an acceptable use of government regulatory authority. Hard to see how this could be a burden on VoIP systems.
Not mostly harmless
Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein: His first point was to bring up the concerns of the DOJ and FBI that they might have trouble wiretapping VoIP. Aside from the civil rights concerns, one can image many technical problems with this:
1. FCC mandates that US based VoIP firms provide a means for the DOJ / FBI to listen in.
2. VoIP firms outside US jurisdiction don't bother carrying out this mandate.
3. Those with something to hide use foreign VoIP firms.
On the whole, it looks like the current direction is not towards stifling over regulation. I don't see any signs of prostration to big monopolies in the chairman's or commissioners' remarks. Nonetheless, it's certainly advisable to let the FCC know your opinions and concerns to ensure that the eventual FCC conclusions are well-informed.
Reading the article will show you that if not evil, they are at least unscrupulously and avaricious:
1. W3C roundly trounces their patent claim. Mozaic had most of the claims of their patent. Proposed internet specifications described the rest.
2. Eola thus claimed a patent for technology already widely in use, and nearly standardized.
It appears unlikely that web developers of the day would be unaware of the technology and standards - which leads to the conclusion that they did so knowingly. If so, unscrupulous and greedy.
I found the prior art filing most entertaining: http://www.w3.org/2003/10/301-filing.html
If you are in a hurry, scan down to "Table I", which compares patent claims to to acknowledged and newly cited prior art.
If you're going to have the cars sort themselves out, why bother with signals at all? If everything is guided by GPS, why have headlights?
The answer to this is rather simple:
Computers are good at doing stuff that you can program and define in explicit rules. They are notoriously bad at handling the mess of the real world. (Notice how horrible all the MS products that try to help you are? "Are you writing a letter?") You might be able to code safety checks to help a human operator: On lane change, Check for cars transmitting in proxity -> negotiate with car. Then, check my radar for objects close by -> Warn driver.
In the foreseeable future, these could only function as safety features to warn a human operator. The real world has two many cases to write explicit rules for. Power outage? Electrical storm interference? Does that dog on the side of the road look like its about to try to cross?
Suppose one of these AI projects yields a "learning machine" capable of handling all these scenarios - these machines will still have to be taught. The type of knowledge required to drive a car requires years of interaction with all the elements that might appear on the road: wind, storms, dogs, little kids, bandits putting up roadblocks ... not to mention the as of yet poorly solved problem of getting a computer to correctly identify objects based on visual images. To get this interaction requires a machine that can engage in these interactions - now your in sci-land building androids. Real world interactions managed by computers are way more that 100 years out.
Having spent a few minutes reviewing the comments to this article, it's obvious to me that there is quite a lot of truth to what this guy is saying.
There is dangerous tendency to believe that real coders, like fighter pilots, work as close as possible to the bare metal.
Many comments rebutting the arguments he makes about this are classic straw man arguments - they rebut an argument that is related to, but weaker than, the argument actually made by the author. The author provided an an example that working with higher level languages could reduce code errors. A number of comments attack this example, rather than the argument itself, which is that programmers who think that they must do everything themselves risk more errors. To provide an example: My company has a variety of well secured thin client applications. The other day, a new web application popped up. When I forgot my password, I managed found a way to circumvent its security in a matter of minutes. The developers of this app were simply too macho to draw on the code and solutions already existing within the same company. They rolled their own, and made mistakes.
My developer cohorts and I have a running joke about Wheel v2 (actually, we're probably on Wheel v 98.2). Developers love to reinvent the wheel. Good programming practice always needs to start with taking the specification and asking "Is there a product out there that solves this" Often, you find a set of libraries that solve 90% of your problem - costing much less than the development time it'd take to roll your own. Often you'll find that the developer next door has already built that. But it is just so much more fun to write your own than learn to use someone elses code! The authors point - not well rebutted by argueing about C versus V.M. based languages - speaks to the conceit of programmers who think that they can do it better than the third party library or their co-worker. A number of slashdot comments support his contention that programmers are conceited - "He's not a real programmer ..." etc.
Also worth noting: A large percentage of code written is not for embedded systems and palms. It's used within corporate intranets. At my company, is easy enough to make standards for libraries and languages and languages used - making an app dependant on a few other components is really not so evil. Arguing that your palm apps must be written in C does not address the authors point!
Reagan came into office in 1980
1980 + 25 = 2005
Reagan left office in 1988
1988 + 25 = 2013
Nice consipiracy theory, but, probably not. The release in question will contain documents from the Carter administration.
Nope, it's not just you.
I've got a long list of annoyances with Flash:
A lot of flash developed sites don't make it through the firewall at my workplace - not quite sure why (company security policy: when in doubt - block it). So, for example - I can't view one of our primary vendors websites at all from work. On top of this - flash can be extremely tedious when you have slow connections.
I don't know that I'd blame macromedia for this so much: It seems that Flash is used by web masters who want a pretty site and don't have a lot of time (or experience). Consequently, there are a lot of pretty flash sites that simply fail to take into account the technical considerations necessary for a good web page. E.G. Load time, accessibility, etc.
A variety have posters have complained about missing features. Some are already available - and the poster just stopped following MySQL at v 3.0. v 5.1 will have most of the features you'd expect in a relational database. Another post has already clarified that transaction support is available via Berkeley DB tables.
last I heard, views weren't on the listViews will be a 5.1 feature. Check out MySQL Database Server features list for the the current development plan. (Search "upcoming features" to find their release plan.)
At any rate here's my favorite feature. I can open mysql and run a query summarizing all charges (from a 23 Million record table) by financial class for my boss in a certain time frame all in under a minute (query time: '13 rows in set (42.40 sec)'. Time to open mysql command prompt, and launch a query from a file:
The introduction to this article addresses most of your points: "Iterative Matrix Equation Solver for a Reconfigurable FPGA-Based Hypercomputer". I'm certainly no expert in chip design, but what they are saying makes some sense:
Your point about speed:
"... the collection of FPGA:s emulating a standard CPU would be way slower ..."
Their point is that you aren't emulating a standard CPU. Their approach is for application that involve "Solving systems of simultaneous linear equations ...". The traditional approach is many generic CPU's in parallel.From the article:
"However, this type of parallelism is inefficient, using only a small fraction of CPU resources at any given time, while the rest of the silicon lies idle and wastes power. CPUs are designed to be general and capable of performing any function they will ever need to perform. Therefore, they contain many resources that are rarely used. In addition, the inter processor communication time required by traditional matrix equation solvers seriously limits the number of processors that may operate efficiently in parallel optimize chips is normally a long and tedious process not available or feasible to most programmers."
You argue cost:
The article argues that probably replace a single FPGA with a whole lot of CPU's (because it can process as much in parallel as you can cram on the chip). One could also point out that if this type of technology becomes more prevalent, higher production volumes would lower FPGA costs. I guess we'd have to see some ROI analysis - how many CPU's can they replace with an FPGA? Could you get one workstation class device to replace a cluster or mainframe? Most of their articles discuss a technology in the Proof of Concept stage - so it will be a while before we can talk about which situations it pays off to use this in.
Your third point, its hard to code FPGA's:
"...translating from low-level code to actual chip surface ... is largely a manual even for very simple circuits, largely because the available chip-compiler technologies simply aren't up to the job."
A major thrust of StarBridge systems seems to be creating easy to use and effective tools to do exactly this. Read the sections about their Viva technology. Even if it doesn't do it perfectly, it may do it good enough.
The parent post has some good points but its tone reminds me of some unfortunate tendancy in the IT world: the beliefs that technical prowess does exempts you from offering good customer service, and that anyone who doesn't understand computers must be stupid. While I'd like to indulge the day and let venting occur - I have to deal with self righteous IT folks every day.
Regarding "Stupid questions": A huge ammount of time is wasted at my company because not enough people are asking stupid questions. They just keep doing stupid things. If you don't like to answer stupid questions, make sure that your company has a help desk (or person, depending on the scale) who's job it is answer stupid questions. Stupid questions are the oil in the corporate machine. I consider it my job to turn stupid questions into smart ones.
Arrogance: - keywords incompetence, etc: yes, a lot of people with valuable skills grew up without computers. I know a lot of IT people who think that because they understand discreet mathematics, they understand business rules better than the managers who work with them. We've lost a lot of money that way. More frequently than a lay person not understanding the network, is the problem that the guy coding business logic into the mainframes, didn't understand the point made by the non-technical manager.
If you have problems with misuse of resources on your network - you have to deal with the human element and work with trainers / managers. Where training fails, quotas. It's a simple management issue. Every job has them. Don't whine, solve it.
Sorry, geeks. You can't isolate yourself from the humans you work with. I actually consider it one of the pleasures of the job to work both with humans and their problems, and machines and theirs.
Note: I've worked on various sides of the system administration fence. I've been soley responsible for a small (50 device) network, and user in a large one. Currently an informal part of my job is to act as buffer/liason/interpreter between IT and business process. I appreciate my current sys-admin specifically because he makes his knowledge available, has a system to handle stupid questions, and recognizes that there are skills of value not learnt in the CS department. I think I'll give a basket of fresh fruit and a hug.
I would like to challenge y'all step beyond the specific OS choice and consider the technological implications of this article. For example:
This points towards the impending implementation of ubiquitous computing that's been talked about for years. It seems that embedded computers have reached adequate power that we can start using similar platforms in them that we use in PC's/servers. That OQO can deliver a PC that fits in a pocket gives a picture of how the size a gadget you can put computers in. This will explode the availablity of programming knowhow available to producers of all manner of gadgets. Your PC program and interface development C / VB/ Java / KDE etc skills for PC's and servers may soon be directly applicable to VCR's, refridgerators, traffic lights, and is already applicable to some mobile phones. There are a number of avenues to explore in this direction which would be more interesting then squabling over the platform choice for this vehicle.
It might not happen in this decade- but you are starting to see the change in the face of the computer. Already, I know hospitals where the complex tasks of registering patients and services rendered are accomplished by staff walking around with card scanners and portable computers. The office worker is leaving the office. Think about your JOBS and possibilities. There is enormous potential for innovation in applications here and interfaces here.
Sigh, I guess we should get back to the BSOD / M$ squabble.
I was looking for a convincing answer to whether or not the car actually runs Win 98, and instead found these pretty pictures of the car in a more informative article.
A previous post suggested this article (no bookmark anchors, scroll down 2/3 of page) from motortrends, which states that Windows CE is the OS in production systems - but doesn't speak to the issue of their concept cars. The MSNBC author could easily be right in this case - but should have known that it was could have known that this was not the production choice.
Other info from miscellaneous articles: the fancy communicator uses Bluetooth networking.
We just have to design our satelittes with armor. That way, when the inevitable alien invasion comes, our spacecract will already be well protected!
The Author's strength is ability structure his books around unique social themes, and populate his books with a number of interesting ideas. The reviewer pointed out that the main character is a programmer - but his job is actually to 'evolve code', producing algorithms that he doesn't always understand. Unlike many sci-fi stories, where the earth unites around a common enemy - we have a hundred sub sects worshipping these cronoliths or trying to destroy them. That the book is full of such speculations on where our society is headed and how it responds keeps it interesting.
That said, the editor could have taken a chain saw, shredded half the book at random, and it would have been a better read. The authors mediocre style and character development don't warrant the long development sections. This yields a how-to-read it suggestion: If a section starts to bore you: just skip a few paragraphs or pages at a time. You won't miss anything.
As an aside, has anyone noticed the new assumption behind many current works of fiction? In the 90's, we had consipiracy theories. Before that, there were all the Apocolyptic novels. In the past 2 years, many of the near future sci-fi books that I've read take the fall or decline of the United States as a foregone conclusion. Cronoliths is no exception to this new pessimism.
My recommendations reflect my reading biases. I like sci-fi that:
Expands our concept of what is possible.
Uses non-contempory settings, or alien worlds to allow the author to explore societies and individuals without the encumbrance of researching a real culture or history. (Speculative fiction)
That said, gadget heavy sci-fi, and sci-fi that relies on mystery and thriller techniques for it's tension, annoys me.
I'll recommend:
Anything by Arthur C Clark(Unathorised fan site). Childhood's End, while several decades old, still reads like a shocking new novel.
Almost anything by Ursula LeGuin(Link skips entry page). The Dispossessed Is a classic. She is far towards the speculative fiction end of the genre.
Philip K Dick is responsible for the short stories behind some of the more interesting sci-fi movies. Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, to name a few. The short stories behind them, of course, have much more substance. I've just read Ubik which left me dizzy for a week
I would think that a technology oriented group would understand that there is more value than pure scientific discovery in a project like a space station: We are learn the technology and problems of work in space.
/. content does not come from cutting edge research, but accumulated know-how and an appreciation for the subtleties of the technology we work with. Pure research, technological development, and the application of technologies are distinct studies each with its own value.
Case in point: The value of
Even if 90% of space station crew time is devoted to keeping it running, we aquire essential know-how in how to function and work in space. No, it's not glamorous, but it certainly has value. In the near term, where the most profit is to be gained from satellite launches and maintenance, it could potentially have more return than pure science.
While NASA's original intent migth have been to one-up the Soviets, and now tries to be a research organization, in attempting to achieve these goals, they not only test the technology, but train a ledgion of engineers and support staff capable of working with it.
I'm not prepared to say that that money couldn't be more effectively spent on Earth ($30 billion could probably produce a Malaria vaccine) or that it wouldn't be way cooler to go to Mars.
I'll have to agree with the multitudes that recommend leaving the digital equipment behind. Here's another reason: You might stop by a mountain that you just have to climb, but can't for fear that someone plunders your prized gadgets while your car is at the trailhead.
I recommend that you bring:
-Adequate equipment for stopping / camping anywhere along the road.
-A lot of time. Because you are driving, I assume you want to experience the country.
-Addresses of long lost relatives in the middle of the country. Nothing like a little hospitality to break up a road trip. Who knows, maybe there's an interesting second cousin you haven't met?
- Maps of adequate detail to find interesting local sites. Raid your local AAA.
Resources:
Almost every small town has a chamber of commerce that puts up a web site.. Even Lone Pine, CA: http://www.lone-pine.com Pick 10 towns off the map along the route, and see what they have to offer. Anything in a guide book, while interesting, will be heavily touristed, driving up prices.
I've made the cross-country trip at least 10 times by various routes, mostly before 1990, here are the items that have lodged themselves in my mind:
- Greasy spoons.
- Breaking down in Lone Pine, CA. 60 miles between towns, only every other one had a movie theater. Seriously, Eastern California is worth a detour. Death Valley, Mono Lake, Joshua Trees. Driving 80 miles an hour and thinking you aren't moving.
- I slept through most of the Mid west each time - and played a lot of canasta in the back seat. We invented a 4 canasta, 6-deck version to make it through Kansas.
- Dude ranches. A little cheesy, but fun.
- Glacier Park. Leave time for hiking, if you enjoy it.
- Yellow stone (already recommended). Doesn't require as much time as you'd think, as you can drive to a large number of sights.
- The Pasayten Wilderness (North Cascades) in the Okanogan Forest. http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/oka/ The North Cascades make you wonder why the Appellations are called mountains. The scale of the terrain in the Pasaytan reminds you that you are in fact, just another ant crawling on a monstrous planet. During my last 4-day trip in the Pasayten, I saw only a 10 other hikers - on Labor Day weekend. Winthrop, WA has numerous horse outfitters, if you prefer a sore butt to sore feet.
- Take the North Cascades highway (Route 20) across the Cascades instead of I-90 or other monster roads.