Is it just a coincidence that when I opened this thread on "Birth of the Empire" that the ad that comes up is a Microsoft; "Attend a Free Microsoft Security Summit in a city near you!" ad?
How well could maxent be applied to robotic independance? ie: training it to do a specific, but randomly encountered, task, like cleaning a room or picking up all the loose basketballs in the gym....
Excellent reference. I would like to research this further as some of the treaties that we have signed seem to be a bit askew of the Constitution. This is a good base from which to work. I appreciate the input. Constitutional law is an intriguing subject to me, though I am far from expert. (very far, from the sound of it...:)
I think the best camera I ever had was a Miranda. Mine was fully manual with a removadle viewew (for large frame topview for portrature). Incredible camera, if you can find one.
No, it most certainly doesn't. No law passed in 1997 can ovverride the Constitution. Either the GPL is Constitutional, or it isn't. The NET Act is irrelevant.
You are forgetting that, embeded in the constitution, itself, is a phrase that allows a treaty to override all laws and the constitutaion as well. How's that for puting our sovereignty on the line. That is precicely why copyright or other "peacetime" treaties are so dangerous. If we allow the right things to slip into them, our liberties are at the mercy of a very anti-American bunch of people... and our own constitution backs them up!
We need to think twice about ANY treaty. Amending the constitution is a safer, though more difficult, task.
A MAC is that dream PC that I've never had enough money to buy.
One of the main reasons that they are so solid is that they control the hardware that they build on. It's relatively easy to do some incredible optimization if a large group of engineers and programmers can focus on a limited set of variables.
Just think how well Linux would run on a single spec PC with everyone working on the same hardware. You could strip the kernel down to only what matters for that hardware and....zooom....
...Not that I wouldn't love for apple to port a standard x86 version. You just couldn't hope for the same performance. That's Apple's "secret sauce".
You've got to remember the oldest trick in the salesman's book: "For Sale" or "On Sale" only refers to the fact that they are selling it, not that it is discounted.
You've also got to remember that Apple is plenty proud of their products and doesn't tend to discount much.
Re:Kylix/CLX has too many problems
on
Kylix in Limbo
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Ditto...
I hacked it for about 5 months working on a cross-platform idea I had (2 months on K2, 3 on K3). The interface to QT was to shallow and they installed an older patched QT version to link statically. The C++ learning curve is smaller than the K3 bug stomping exercise. There were too many features that you just couldn't use because of minor bugs or incomplete interfaces. Just try manipulating fonts on a TPrinter canvas and you'll see what I mean.
The concept was great. I drooled for the chance to get my hands on it. I would have gladly paid the $1K if the test/GPL version had proven a little more robust. I eventually had to abandon it too. If the finished shipping product had that many problems, I wasn't going to wait for the fixes. Now, I'm glad I didn't.
It's really a shame. Borland used to be the best there was on compiler/IDE usability. Their vision wasn't lacking on Kylix, just their engineering. Oh well. Back to the fish tank.
At any rate, the buzz in the NT 4.0 timeframe was all about "application services". This was shorthand for "you can write and run your own server software", which was very difficult to do on Netware. Netware was an EXTREMELY closed architecture. If they have retained that mindset, that's going to be the biggest likely sticking point. Windows was more open and cheaper, so it prospered, just as Linux is completely open and cheaper still. Novell may have a hard time with this issue.
I got deep into NetWare before the market got taken over by microsofties. The development of NLM (NetWare Loadable Modules) aka: server deamons, was no more difficult than developing with C/C++ on Linux. The Watcom compiler was not the prettiest thing but it made FAST CODE! Load up an NLM that run BTrieve data reports right off the server and see a 2 hour report go down to 2 minutes!
I also got deep into NDS management and security. I was the NDS expert in Risk Management Services at a (very) large bank. I could make NDS do things that we just shouldn't talk about. There just wasn't anything (nor is there yet) as secure as a well oiled, well designed NDS tree.
Whenever we switched something from NDS to Windows NT/2000/whatever, It took 3 times the hardware to handle 1/2 (at best) the load. It also took 3 times the personnel to handle the same number of servers (up to a 9 times increase in personnel). Most people don't understand the implications of trying to use a PDC/BDC for anything other than PDC/BDC management! Even the new stuff stinks. NetWare would run a huge NDS partition, load up a huge (if pooly written) BTrieve application and still handle 1,000 users' worth of file and print sharing without a hicup.
Does anyone remember the corporate enterprise licenses where you could just keep installing the same 1,000 user license on the same server to bump it up 1,000 MORE at a time. Well, try running a stable, fast, and working 1,000 user environment on 1 M$ server. It just won't work. I managed 1,500 user NetWare environments on old hardware.
Sure, the learning curve was steep. It's not as steep as Linux. It's no where near as steep as that of a stable Windows server. No newbys, I'm not talking about the simple gui install stuff that makes everyone think that Microsoft is easy. I'm talking about actually making a Windows environment stable in a large and complex corporate environment. Everything is hidden in the registry. One false tweek and the whole damned server has to be rebuilt. With NetWare (much like Linux/Unix) one false tweek means you have to boot up without loading NLMs and undo the tweek, then reboot... "viola Ethel a working server."
I sent Novell an email about 2 1/2 years ago suggesting a solid leap into Linux+NDS+NSS+ZenWorks+MARKETING!!! It looks like they took my advice (or someone else's) and ran with it. I just hope that they actually learn to market this thing. If so, M$ is toast. The technical advantage of NetWare 4.11 (or was that InterNetWare) was for more advanced than anything that M$ currently has. No, again newbys, I'm not talking about bells and whistles. I'm talking about the ability to successfully deploy an enterprisewide managed solution that can control, not only the servers, but the entire enterprise, down to workstation software management and printer management FROM ONE CONSOLE! SUCCESSFULLY!!!
A lot of people look at the Atkins (God rest his soul) diet and get freaked out. The first two weeks start a process that he called "lipolysis" (however you spell it...). This two week "induction" process would kick in the fat burning process and set you up for the rest of the diet. This period is a red meat and no carb vegitable diet that would scare the hell out of any sane nutritionist. The point is that it ONLY LASTS FOR TWO WEEKS! After this point, you add some low carb fruits and more vegitables to balance out your diet. Any idiot that stays on the induction phase for longer than needed gets what they deserve. Especially because Dr. Atkins WARNS you not to! As you get closer to your target weight, the diet is further modified to gently slow down the weight loss and retrain you for a permanent healthy maintenance diet.
I'm not saying that the Atkins diet works for everyone. It doesn't. It has worked for most men that have studied and really stuck to it.
As for the gall stones, I've seen it more often in people who eat high carb mixed with high fat. i.e. you can't cheat the carbs on Atkins or you're asking for it.
As far as the kidney stones, I've got this great home remedy that I found in some home remedy health book. I don't know if it works but it sounds great. Every six months or so, get a six pack of beer and chug one every 30 minutes. It's supposed to flush out any forming stones before they get out of hand. Unfortunately, it also flushes out the formed stones (eeek...) but it gets rid of them. I'm not a doctor so don't blame me if it causes problems;^>
>>- Why bother to transmit the "secret" totals? If they're so secret, nobody needs to know them until the election's done.
The totals, with a crc check, get floated up at vote so that when verified (at each location) fraud would be caught immediately.
>>- Who needs servers? Your system would in fact be more secure if the in-booth units never spoke to the ballot box units in their election day configuration. There's no need for them to be networked, physical access controls (the cop standing next to the ballot box unit...) should be more than enough to insure anything inserted was an actual ballot.
I've worked as a ballot deputy (the guys watching the ballot judge.) There definately needs to be something more than "the cop" watching the box. Cops can be bought too. Also, an "immediate" registration of the vote would verify that boxes aren't "accidentally lost" from districts that are too favorable to a particular candidate.
>> Oh, and having the wrong questions candidates for the day's election would be a dead giveaway for the system.
yup.
>>- 48 hours is a little tight of a timeframe to lockdown the code if you want to make sure every site is running the right version. Try locking in a few months ahead, with the only thing left in play is the ballot-definition file that defines exact questions and candidates which should be rather easy to create once the officials certify which questions and candidates deserve to appear.
I'll go for that! It will probably be a little cleaner, in case of code dispute.
>>- Why bother to encrypt the metadata on the ballot? Just leave it in human-readable form, what better of an audit trail is that. Besides, I'm sure somebody will notice and complain if a mis-set machine is printing a wildly wrong time or wrong location...
The ballot will be printed with both. The reason is to verify that what the voter sees on the card is the same as what is recorded in the hashed serial number. Any discrepancy is immediately flagged. Any changes from the poll booth to the drop box sets off an alarm.
Concept: Touch-screen/braile voting booth with card-stock printer, and scanner.
Steps:
Voter votes, prints, reviews vote card, scans to verify, and closes vote.
Voter takes card to drop box which scans card again to verify.
Features:
Voting booths (with touch/braile screen, scanner, and printer) connected to a polling network.
The vote card is printed with a non-voter IDable serial number that incorporates (encrypted, of corse) poll location, voting booth, unique, but non-linked voter ID (vote session, not person), complete vote choices.
Once the vote card is scanned and verified by the voter (vote "closed"), the serial number is sent to the redundant poll control server to verify.
When a voter places the vote card into the securely and digitally locked poll box (one of however many are needed at the site), the "digitally aware" and networked poll box scans the card, verifies the serial number with the human-readable votes printed on the front, and registers the vote as being in that box at that time to the poll-control server to check off of the "pending drop" list.
The poll servers utilize a large static RAM cache, a hard disk, and full redundancy (including emergency power for the whole polling place).
As each vote is counted, a running total is added to and sent to the county courthouse, or wherever votes are centralized. It travels, likewise, all the way up to national. CRCs or some other checksum is also sent up for each polling box.
Totals are kept secret until all polls are officially closed.
When polls close, all polling boxes are transported safely to the central "official" counting place and recounted.
All poll boxes are digitally sealed, GPS-equiped, and tracked until after the votes are counted and certified.
ALL SOFTWARE IS OSS AND VERIFIED BY PUBLIC, FROZEN IN PLACE FOR THE LAST 48 HOURS BEFORE POLLS OPEN.
let's start this project and get it off the ground! Volunteers contact me.
I've beed concerned about this for a while now. Electronic voting without a "voter verified" paper trail is asking for major "take over the world" type voter fraud. Cheating happens on both sides of the fence (as well as in the middle, for those independants out there...)
I propose a system that 1) has all the touch-screen/braile bells and whistles but also 2) immediately prints out a cardstock paper ballot that is easy for the voter to read. The voter then 3) runs the paper ballot back through the same voting booth to verify before "closing" their vote, and then 4) takes the ballot to the official lock-box at the polling booth that SCANS IT AGAIN, verifying the results with the booth. (the results are verified by a serial number put on the card but not linked to the actual voter.) No numbers (including who was voted for or totals) are available to the election judges or poll officials until the official tally at the county court house. The totals, however, must match up with what was reported encrypted, from each polling place, as the votes were taken.
This solution would use the best in technology advances without sacrificing vote security and voter confidentiality.
The system MUST be open sourced, with crypto signed binaries that MUST match patch levels as it centrally reports votes. Any tampering or patching would be traced as it happened.
This type of system would not be that difficult to develop on the OSS model and presented to the P.T.B. I'm a Republican, I'll sell the administration on it. We just need some Democrats to sell the news media on it (except for Fox news, of course).
A system like this, coupled with a simple law that forbids the publishing of totals (or even exit poll results) until ALL VOTES ARE IN, would go a long way to reducing voter fraud and prevent last minute media pushes from effecting the results.
The hardware would be a touch screen notebook type computer hard-linked to a scanner and solid-ink printer with ink-level sensors built in (an all-in-one design.) Utilizing OSS only on the hardware would keep a single company from the possibility of controlling the election as well as keeping the code public... just to keep it honest...
The benefits of such a system are huge. First, last minute changes would not cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. They would be added to the system on the fly, reducing printing costs to nothing. Second, the voter could SEE that his vote counts. A Paper ballot, even computer generated, has to be guarded. A switch, or even an unauthorized "box open" by a rouge poll judge would be detected. A missing polling box would be known immediately. Smart boxes with a "black box" and GPS tag would be in order here.
So, who's up for a software/hardware OSS design project before the next presidential elections???
I'm serious here, let's do this one! Contact me, let's get a project started and get some grant money to ram this one through.
I currently have a septic system that uses bacteria to treat my sewage. The result is water that is clean enough to drink. (No, you can't come over and drink it. It just waters the lawn!)
The bacteria doesn't get rid of the radiation, just makes the radioactive slush insoluble so that they can collect it and deal with it with less cost. It's a great idea.
I'm just hoping that some genious comes up with a safe way to speed up the nuclear decomposition so that the material stabilizes into non-radioactive elements. That will be a breakthrough!
There are times that I have been truly disappointed with the/. crowd. This is not one of those times. You go geeks!:-)
I have had the same problem as you. sometimes worse than others. Typically, the worst times comes when I get some serious burnout. During those times, I can't even read a paragraph and comprehend what I'm reading, but that was an extremely serious burnout.
Often, it's simply a case of 1) really believing in what you are working on, and 2) embracing the task before you to the exclusion of all others.
Many ADD/ADHD and related sufferers have a related "skill" that, unless recognized, is often unutilized. I call it hyper-focus. It is the ability to get so drawn into a situation as to be totally absorbed. Easy examples are TV, games, and the internet. These are passive hyper-focus subjects. Reading is another, less passive one. I have found, through careful practice that this same "skill" can actually be trained as an active skill. Instead of absorbing material, absorb a concept or task with and equal zeal, to the absolute exclusion of all other conscious thought.
It takes practice, but is somewhat like learning how to break over into your second wind as a jogger. If you're not familiar with that, it's the point where you are sooooo wiped that your body tells you you can't go another step but you push until your body just say, "ok, whatever" and it feels like you could run all day. It's a very cool thing. What was pain only moments ago now feels exhilerating and refreshing.
Breaking over into active hyper-focus has a similar mental exhileration. Once you find your zone it will be hard to break out of it. You will find yourself accomplishing incredible things.
When you do this, though, make sure you do it in a disciplined way or you will face some serious burnout. Don't do serious mental work more than five or six day a week. Force yourself to rest an entire day from any mental excercise. Also don't regularly work your brain that hard for more than 10 hours a day. It becomes addictive and like any other addiction, it will eat you for lunch.
I know. I burned myself out so bad once that I couldn't do any serious mental work for over a year. I had to maintain only, and that, not effectively. I nearly lost my job, etc., etc...
Diligence
Discipline
Priorities
Rest
Intentional, but limited recreation. (don't let the modern work/play ethic pull you into the "recreation is life" mentality.)
Intentionally play, just do it with moderation so that you can focus on the joys of accomplishment and fullfilment in your work as well. Work is a part of life. It can be quite fulfilling if it is balanced with rest, contemplation, play, and relationship. Balance your life. If one part starts to take over, make youself adjust it.
Hope this helps....
Feel free to contact me if you need some practical day-to-day help on this. It's a process, not a quick fix. Life always is...
I noticed this post a little late in the game, so I went on and read the higher modded posts. There are a lot of good suggestions out there. The truth is that there is no easy answer.
Since you are a consultant that, appearantly, handles multiple clients of this scale (~$25 - $50K) I would suggest that you did some background project work (after solving this issue, of course) to broaden your company's skillset.
Yes,.Net/MSSQL/Java can scale. A single box, however, is a bad idea. MS technology has a lot of trouble stepping on other MS technology from a resource perspective. Let's just call it a legacy issue that started around Windows 2.0 and hasn't been fixed yet.
To get the scale, you're going to have to split the tasks. n-tier was suggested. It's a good idea. A single box to run SQL Server is a must. Another box to run the proxy/web interface is another must. (splitting the proxy out can also be a big plus, if you can afford it.)
I seriously recommend against an IIS-based front end on the web, though. The security is just too darned loose. (Apache security and PHP scripting can be tied into.net/MSSQL, if you were wondering.)
Another thing on MSSQL, it is slow. A lot of memory tweeking will be needed to get the responsiveness you need. Also, consider spliting the load with some well placed replication. Replication can slow down a single box, but, if designed properly, different tasks can be split between specialized boxes to bring up the overall site speed.
Lastly (at least on the Microsoft as a solution answer), you can use relatively cheap boxes as long as MS supports them and there are plenty of custom hardware speedups for the specific Motherboard/chipset/Raid array, etc... A generic, off-the-shelf box, without this will be slow as a two legged dog.
Now, on to the future. As you can see, a properly configured MS solution takes just as much tweeking (sometimes much more) than a well placed *nix solution. The biggest trouble that I have encountered is that with all the pretty windows, most of the really necessary tweeks are hidden in registry values or other places and hidden from view. There is not a standard (or even safe) way to reach the most necessary tweeks for a heavily used system.
The *nix/OSS side of things are a little better. Sure, you probably don't know the environment, maybe not even at all. The transition from NT to 2000 or 2000 to.Net is just as difficult.
In a *nix world, most everything is found in a text-based config file. You make a change and restart an individual or group of services instead of the whole box. Occasionally, during heavy config, you'll want to restart the box to make sure that your changes will start up correctly the next time the box boots. Sometimes you need to compile an app to tweek it. Once you get the hang of it, it's not really a big deal.
Managing the box is a matter of learning about the system, setting up and checking the various health and security monitoring pieces, and everything else that you already know how to do, just a little bit different.
A cheaply set up OSS group of boxes (penguin has preconfigured dual operon rack systems for about $2,500 right now) can fly into some extreamly high numbers of trx per second.
Slashdot has a cool setup, if you can use the technique, where most dynamic pages are dumped to static files and cached for 60 seconds (I think). The next hit, after the set time, rebuilds the static file from the database and, viola, recaches. It works, since static cached is hugely faster than dynamic. If you can come up with dynamic content that you can afford to static every 60, 30, or maybe 120 seconds, do it. This will even help out in a MSSQL environment.
Basically, you need to sharpen up on the OSS side of things so that you can have a few "drop in place" solutions for your clients. OSS does cost less and, if you set it up right, usually takes around a third less
There are a lot of really hairy problems to cloning. And these are only the ones that we know about.
The cell differentiation process swaps around bits of DNA code as the cells decide what they are to become (bone, liver, heart, eyeball, etc...) Sure, each cell, theoretically, has all the same DNA, it's just the sequences are scrambled. We'd have to identify each individual gene and it's reliable sequence from these multiple sources to get things off the ground.
From the "Dolly" and other cloning experiments, it's been discovered that the actual genetic material degrades over time. The clone may be a newborn, but the genes are as old as the genetic source. This leads to early aging and their related problems. Dolly had to be put down because of a severe case of arthritis, among other things, that crept up at an unusually early age.
During the fertilization process, no, actually starting when the sperm and egg are forming, certain genes are automatically turned "on" or "off" so that all things work for fertilization, zygote, embryo, and future growth and maturity. We have NO CLUE as to why or how these decisions are made: what gets turned on, what gets turned off, and why... It's only during this process that the genetic DNA is rejuvenized and stable.
And these are only the things that I know about as an armchair observer of cloning. As I understand it, there are a lot more barriers out there. Sure, we may be able to clone the mammoth, but it will probably not make it to full (procreation) maturity, thus being an effort in futility. A sheep can make it to maturity before things give out. An elephant (mammoth), or even a human is doomed with the current knowledge.
That is the ONLY reason that I have to support a ban on cloning humans, because of the cruelty that an early aging process would put them through. If we do perfect the process on a "10,000 year old mammoth" and quite a few, more genetically close primates, I'll be more open to the idea. That, however, will take a few generations to prove.
When you get a quick time-to-market deadline, make sure you spend at least a certain amount of time up front on the proper structure and upgrade methodology. The goal is to have a product to ship that is relatively painless to upgrade, or even, if you can swing it, built into the product life cycle (i.e.: software as a service). Then, lay out the guts and the gui, keeping in mind the features and tweaks that will come with the first upgrade.
This is really the SOP (standard operating procedure) for most of the big dogs out there in softwareland. It works pretty good and is generally acceptable to the user community. Think pluggable, modular (sort of like OO for the youngsters in the house, but takes more thought and works better), and non-statically linked.
On the OO comment, there are some good OO tools and languages out there, don't get me wrong. It's just that you have to understand good modular programming to keep from OOing yourself into spegetti code, which is way too common. OO != modular if it's not done right. OO != OO if you don't understand it. The same thing goes for RDMS work. If you don't understand relational theory and the underlying structure of the RDMS in question, you might as well be using text files and awk. (boy was that a rant or what?;^)
is that the switch to Linux is really a war of attrition. I've used it almost exclusively for for over three years now. But then, I'm a geek.
Every so often, another 10 or 12 M$ users get fed up an try Linux. Two or three stick with it. Every now and again a few hundred people buy a Lindows-based cheap PC from Walmart.com.. Most of those keep using it because it's simple and runs pretty good. Every now and then one of us geeks gets fed up, decides to try Linux, needs the skills for our jos, etc... and we're hooked. The rest is history.
The whole Open Source community is a different way of thinking. It's a whole new world that takes some getting used to. Once on board, however, a small percentage of the "users" become the "contributors". With more contributors, more problems get fixed, more features get added, more things are moved to the new environment.
As more people move to the new environment, more commercial vendors of those really cool apps decide it's worth the cost to port their apps. From Games to server-side to productivity, more new commercial apps are deciding to join the fray.
As this "war of attrition" continues, we slowly reach the point refered to as "critical mass". That is where the percentage of users is high enough, the ease of use is good enough, and the level of "public expertise" is great enough that the Joe Sixpacks out their don't see a difference and start choosing Linux on purpose (or maybe just gets it because it's already loaded on the PC he wants and "oh, this one IS cheaper isn't it...")
At that point, M$ quickly loses it's $ and becomes the fringe radical OS, much like what happened to OS/2 and nearly happened to Mac/OS.
Something that is free (as in freedom), almost free (as in I didn't have to pay --much-- for it), and has a huge following that is constantly improving it will continue to increase in market share until it is the dominant player.
In the long term (that may be a few or many years) the only people not adopting OSS will be the dinosaurs that refuse to change and have a rabid, unexplainable attachment to the M$ OS.
As far as being a "threat to the software market", markets change over time. If a large group of people are willing to build, for free, the commodity pieces, then there is no market to sustain those software makers.
In a "for instance": Netscape went out of business (yea, I know, AOL bought them... they still went out of business!!!) because M$ decided to offer their new, buggy browser for free. Now, M$ is going to go out of business because the public has decided to offer their new, not quite as shiney, OS for free.
In the same vain, Oracle has, arguably, the best RDMS on the market, AND IT RUNS ON LINUX. None of the OSS dbms packages can really compete on their scale... yet. It is realy only a matter of time before the scalability, stability, and breadth of services of one or more of these OSS dbmss catch up or even pass Oracle. It will still take a while after that point for widespread adoption to kick in. I don't see that happening for another 7 to 15 years.
M$, however, only has about 2 to 4 years left in their profit cycle... and they know it. That's why they are getting soooo nasty. Linux has already passed them up on general stability and scalability. It's really only the flashy stuff that remains to be polished.
Yea, OSS will take over the market, with only a few niches left for commercial apps. The app vendors that don't port will go quicker because non-ported specialty apps give a valid target for the OSS crowd. (Take not Sdobe, Autodesk, Intuit, Macromedia etc...) A popular movement, like OSS, is like a train: get on board and enjoy the ride or stand in the way and get squished...
I'm a bit disappointed by the response on/. today. Sure, It's not stable yet, it has bugs, it looks ugly, it doesn't compare to protools, etc...
This is Open source software! Participate! Download the stinking tarball, roll it out onto a spare Linux PC, and lend a hand!
Don't you guys get it?! WE write the software. If you can't code, test it and report back bugs.
Having a hand in its development will give you a better sense of where it needs to go and what it can really do. Keep your protools, it's a good program. With your help, however, you can make this many times better, and a few dollars cheaper.;>
Satalite (good speed but the lag time causes problems with session-based protocols such as VPNs)
Line of site microwave (I'm not going to pay for building a tower on my place!)
Paying for a fiber/cable/T1 line (way too expensive)
Forming a "bandwidth coop" where the locals string together cable modem lines and equipment and share a single connection somewhere (there was an article on/. sometime back about this)
Two cans and a string (Bandwidth is just way too slow...)
Another option is an idea for a grass-roots company to bring high-speed to the last mile...
Slashdot Mirror
It's a bit disconcerting, don't you think?
Excellent reference. I would like to research this further as some of the treaties that we have signed seem to be a bit askew of the Constitution. This is a good base from which to work. I appreciate the input. Constitutional law is an intriguing subject to me, though I am far from expert. (very far, from the sound of it... :)
Thanks.
I think the best camera I ever had was a Miranda. Mine was fully manual with a removadle viewew (for large frame topview for portrature). Incredible camera, if you can find one.
You are forgetting that, embeded in the constitution, itself, is a phrase that allows a treaty to override all laws and the constitutaion as well. How's that for puting our sovereignty on the line. That is precicely why copyright or other "peacetime" treaties are so dangerous. If we allow the right things to slip into them, our liberties are at the mercy of a very anti-American bunch of people... and our own constitution backs them up!
We need to think twice about ANY treaty. Amending the constitution is a safer, though more difficult, task.
One of the main reasons that they are so solid is that they control the hardware that they build on. It's relatively easy to do some incredible optimization if a large group of engineers and programmers can focus on a limited set of variables.
Just think how well Linux would run on a single spec PC with everyone working on the same hardware. You could strip the kernel down to only what matters for that hardware and ....zooom....
You've also got to remember that Apple is plenty proud of their products and doesn't tend to discount much.
I hacked it for about 5 months working on a cross-platform idea I had (2 months on K2, 3 on K3). The interface to QT was to shallow and they installed an older patched QT version to link statically. The C++ learning curve is smaller than the K3 bug stomping exercise. There were too many features that you just couldn't use because of minor bugs or incomplete interfaces. Just try manipulating fonts on a TPrinter canvas and you'll see what I mean.
The concept was great. I drooled for the chance to get my hands on it. I would have gladly paid the $1K if the test/GPL version had proven a little more robust. I eventually had to abandon it too. If the finished shipping product had that many problems, I wasn't going to wait for the fixes. Now, I'm glad I didn't.
It's really a shame. Borland used to be the best there was on compiler/IDE usability. Their vision wasn't lacking on Kylix, just their engineering. Oh well. Back to the fish tank.
I got deep into NetWare before the market got taken over by microsofties. The development of NLM (NetWare Loadable Modules) aka: server deamons, was no more difficult than developing with C/C++ on Linux. The Watcom compiler was not the prettiest thing but it made FAST CODE! Load up an NLM that run BTrieve data reports right off the server and see a 2 hour report go down to 2 minutes!
I also got deep into NDS management and security. I was the NDS expert in Risk Management Services at a (very) large bank. I could make NDS do things that we just shouldn't talk about. There just wasn't anything (nor is there yet) as secure as a well oiled, well designed NDS tree.
Whenever we switched something from NDS to Windows NT/2000/whatever, It took 3 times the hardware to handle 1/2 (at best) the load. It also took 3 times the personnel to handle the same number of servers (up to a 9 times increase in personnel). Most people don't understand the implications of trying to use a PDC/BDC for anything other than PDC/BDC management! Even the new stuff stinks. NetWare would run a huge NDS partition, load up a huge (if pooly written) BTrieve application and still handle 1,000 users' worth of file and print sharing without a hicup.
Does anyone remember the corporate enterprise licenses where you could just keep installing the same 1,000 user license on the same server to bump it up 1,000 MORE at a time. Well, try running a stable, fast, and working 1,000 user environment on 1 M$ server. It just won't work. I managed 1,500 user NetWare environments on old hardware.
Sure, the learning curve was steep. It's not as steep as Linux. It's no where near as steep as that of a stable Windows server. No newbys, I'm not talking about the simple gui install stuff that makes everyone think that Microsoft is easy. I'm talking about actually making a Windows environment stable in a large and complex corporate environment. Everything is hidden in the registry. One false tweek and the whole damned server has to be rebuilt. With NetWare (much like Linux/Unix) one false tweek means you have to boot up without loading NLMs and undo the tweek, then reboot... "viola Ethel a working server."
I sent Novell an email about 2 1/2 years ago suggesting a solid leap into Linux+NDS+NSS+ZenWorks+MARKETING!!! It looks like they took my advice (or someone else's) and ran with it. I just hope that they actually learn to market this thing. If so, M$ is toast. The technical advantage of NetWare 4.11 (or was that InterNetWare) was for more advanced than anything that M$ currently has. No, again newbys, I'm not talking about bells and whistles. I'm talking about the ability to successfully deploy an enterprisewide managed solution that can control, not only the servers, but the entire enterprise, down to workstation software management and printer management FROM ONE CONSOLE! SUCCESSFULLY!!!
Boy, was that a rant or what?!
A lot of people look at the Atkins (God rest his soul) diet and get freaked out. The first two weeks start a process that he called "lipolysis" (however you spell it...). This two week "induction" process would kick in the fat burning process and set you up for the rest of the diet. This period is a red meat and no carb vegitable diet that would scare the hell out of any sane nutritionist. The point is that it ONLY LASTS FOR TWO WEEKS! After this point, you add some low carb fruits and more vegitables to balance out your diet. Any idiot that stays on the induction phase for longer than needed gets what they deserve. Especially because Dr. Atkins WARNS you not to! As you get closer to your target weight, the diet is further modified to gently slow down the weight loss and retrain you for a permanent healthy maintenance diet.
I'm not saying that the Atkins diet works for everyone. It doesn't. It has worked for most men that have studied and really stuck to it.
As for the gall stones, I've seen it more often in people who eat high carb mixed with high fat. i.e. you can't cheat the carbs on Atkins or you're asking for it.
As far as the kidney stones, I've got this great home remedy that I found in some home remedy health book. I don't know if it works but it sounds great. Every six months or so, get a six pack of beer and chug one every 30 minutes. It's supposed to flush out any forming stones before they get out of hand. Unfortunately, it also flushes out the formed stones (eeek...) but it gets rid of them. I'm not a doctor so don't blame me if it causes problems ;^>
The totals, with a crc check, get floated up at vote so that when verified (at each location) fraud would be caught immediately.
>>- Who needs servers? Your system would in fact be more secure if the in-booth units never spoke to the ballot box units in their election day configuration. There's no need for them to be networked, physical access controls (the cop standing next to the ballot box unit...) should be more than enough to insure anything inserted was an actual ballot.
I've worked as a ballot deputy (the guys watching the ballot judge.) There definately needs to be something more than "the cop" watching the box. Cops can be bought too. Also, an "immediate" registration of the vote would verify that boxes aren't "accidentally lost" from districts that are too favorable to a particular candidate.
>> Oh, and having the wrong questions candidates for the day's election would be a dead giveaway for the system.
yup.
>>- 48 hours is a little tight of a timeframe to lockdown the code if you want to make sure every site is running the right version. Try locking in a few months ahead, with the only thing left in play is the ballot-definition file that defines exact questions and candidates which should be rather easy to create once the officials certify which questions and candidates deserve to appear.
I'll go for that! It will probably be a little cleaner, in case of code dispute.
>>- Why bother to encrypt the metadata on the ballot? Just leave it in human-readable form, what better of an audit trail is that. Besides, I'm sure somebody will notice and complain if a mis-set machine is printing a wildly wrong time or wrong location...
The ballot will be printed with both. The reason is to verify that what the voter sees on the card is the same as what is recorded in the hashed serial number. Any discrepancy is immediately flagged. Any changes from the poll booth to the drop box sets off an alarm.
Concept: Touch-screen/braile voting booth with card-stock printer, and scanner.
Steps:
Features:
let's start this project and get it off the ground! Volunteers contact me.
Randy
I propose a system that 1) has all the touch-screen/braile bells and whistles but also 2) immediately prints out a cardstock paper ballot that is easy for the voter to read. The voter then 3) runs the paper ballot back through the same voting booth to verify before "closing" their vote, and then 4) takes the ballot to the official lock-box at the polling booth that SCANS IT AGAIN, verifying the results with the booth. (the results are verified by a serial number put on the card but not linked to the actual voter.) No numbers (including who was voted for or totals) are available to the election judges or poll officials until the official tally at the county court house. The totals, however, must match up with what was reported encrypted, from each polling place, as the votes were taken.
This solution would use the best in technology advances without sacrificing vote security and voter confidentiality.
The system MUST be open sourced, with crypto signed binaries that MUST match patch levels as it centrally reports votes. Any tampering or patching would be traced as it happened.
This type of system would not be that difficult to develop on the OSS model and presented to the P.T.B. I'm a Republican, I'll sell the administration on it. We just need some Democrats to sell the news media on it (except for Fox news, of course).
A system like this, coupled with a simple law that forbids the publishing of totals (or even exit poll results) until ALL VOTES ARE IN, would go a long way to reducing voter fraud and prevent last minute media pushes from effecting the results.
The hardware would be a touch screen notebook type computer hard-linked to a scanner and solid-ink printer with ink-level sensors built in (an all-in-one design.) Utilizing OSS only on the hardware would keep a single company from the possibility of controlling the election as well as keeping the code public... just to keep it honest...
The benefits of such a system are huge. First, last minute changes would not cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. They would be added to the system on the fly, reducing printing costs to nothing. Second, the voter could SEE that his vote counts. A Paper ballot, even computer generated, has to be guarded. A switch, or even an unauthorized "box open" by a rouge poll judge would be detected. A missing polling box would be known immediately. Smart boxes with a "black box" and GPS tag would be in order here.
So, who's up for a software/hardware OSS design project before the next presidential elections???
I'm serious here, let's do this one! Contact me, let's get a project started and get some grant money to ram this one through.
The bacteria doesn't get rid of the radiation, just makes the radioactive slush insoluble so that they can collect it and deal with it with less cost. It's a great idea.
I'm just hoping that some genious comes up with a safe way to speed up the nuclear decomposition so that the material stabilizes into non-radioactive elements. That will be a breakthrough!
I have had the same problem as you. sometimes worse than others. Typically, the worst times comes when I get some serious burnout. During those times, I can't even read a paragraph and comprehend what I'm reading, but that was an extremely serious burnout.
Often, it's simply a case of 1) really believing in what you are working on, and 2) embracing the task before you to the exclusion of all others.
Many ADD/ADHD and related sufferers have a related "skill" that, unless recognized, is often unutilized. I call it hyper-focus. It is the ability to get so drawn into a situation as to be totally absorbed. Easy examples are TV, games, and the internet. These are passive hyper-focus subjects. Reading is another, less passive one. I have found, through careful practice that this same "skill" can actually be trained as an active skill. Instead of absorbing material, absorb a concept or task with and equal zeal, to the absolute exclusion of all other conscious thought.
It takes practice, but is somewhat like learning how to break over into your second wind as a jogger. If you're not familiar with that, it's the point where you are sooooo wiped that your body tells you you can't go another step but you push until your body just say, "ok, whatever" and it feels like you could run all day. It's a very cool thing. What was pain only moments ago now feels exhilerating and refreshing.
Breaking over into active hyper-focus has a similar mental exhileration. Once you find your zone it will be hard to break out of it. You will find yourself accomplishing incredible things.
When you do this, though, make sure you do it in a disciplined way or you will face some serious burnout. Don't do serious mental work more than five or six day a week. Force yourself to rest an entire day from any mental excercise. Also don't regularly work your brain that hard for more than 10 hours a day. It becomes addictive and like any other addiction, it will eat you for lunch.
I know. I burned myself out so bad once that I couldn't do any serious mental work for over a year. I had to maintain only, and that, not effectively. I nearly lost my job, etc., etc...
Intentionally play, just do it with moderation so that you can focus on the joys of accomplishment and fullfilment in your work as well. Work is a part of life. It can be quite fulfilling if it is balanced with rest, contemplation, play, and relationship. Balance your life. If one part starts to take over, make youself adjust it.
Hope this helps....
Feel free to contact me if you need some practical day-to-day help on this. It's a process, not a quick fix. Life always is...
-RIAA
I got a chuckle out of this. My first work PC was backed up daily with 25 floppy disks. Not the 3 1/2 inch ones either.
chuckle, chuckle... Boy am I feeling old today.
I like it! Now, if I could only come up with that 3 grand to put up my transmitter tower...
Since you are a consultant that, appearantly, handles multiple clients of this scale (~$25 - $50K) I would suggest that you did some background project work (after solving this issue, of course) to broaden your company's skillset.
Yes, .Net/MSSQL/Java can scale. A single box, however, is a bad idea. MS technology has a lot of trouble stepping on other MS technology from a resource perspective. Let's just call it a legacy issue that started around Windows 2.0 and hasn't been fixed yet.
To get the scale, you're going to have to split the tasks. n-tier was suggested. It's a good idea. A single box to run SQL Server is a must. Another box to run the proxy/web interface is another must. (splitting the proxy out can also be a big plus, if you can afford it.)
I seriously recommend against an IIS-based front end on the web, though. The security is just too darned loose. (Apache security and PHP scripting can be tied into .net/MSSQL, if you were wondering.)
Another thing on MSSQL, it is slow. A lot of memory tweeking will be needed to get the responsiveness you need. Also, consider spliting the load with some well placed replication. Replication can slow down a single box, but, if designed properly, different tasks can be split between specialized boxes to bring up the overall site speed.
Lastly (at least on the Microsoft as a solution answer), you can use relatively cheap boxes as long as MS supports them and there are plenty of custom hardware speedups for the specific Motherboard/chipset/Raid array, etc... A generic, off-the-shelf box, without this will be slow as a two legged dog.
Now, on to the future. As you can see, a properly configured MS solution takes just as much tweeking (sometimes much more) than a well placed *nix solution. The biggest trouble that I have encountered is that with all the pretty windows, most of the really necessary tweeks are hidden in registry values or other places and hidden from view. There is not a standard (or even safe) way to reach the most necessary tweeks for a heavily used system.
The *nix/OSS side of things are a little better. Sure, you probably don't know the environment, maybe not even at all. The transition from NT to 2000 or 2000 to .Net is just as difficult.
In a *nix world, most everything is found in a text-based config file. You make a change and restart an individual or group of services instead of the whole box. Occasionally, during heavy config, you'll want to restart the box to make sure that your changes will start up correctly the next time the box boots. Sometimes you need to compile an app to tweek it. Once you get the hang of it, it's not really a big deal.
Managing the box is a matter of learning about the system, setting up and checking the various health and security monitoring pieces, and everything else that you already know how to do, just a little bit different.
A cheaply set up OSS group of boxes (penguin has preconfigured dual operon rack systems for about $2,500 right now) can fly into some extreamly high numbers of trx per second.
Slashdot has a cool setup, if you can use the technique, where most dynamic pages are dumped to static files and cached for 60 seconds (I think). The next hit, after the set time, rebuilds the static file from the database and, viola, recaches. It works, since static cached is hugely faster than dynamic. If you can come up with dynamic content that you can afford to static every 60, 30, or maybe 120 seconds, do it. This will even help out in a MSSQL environment.
Basically, you need to sharpen up on the OSS side of things so that you can have a few "drop in place" solutions for your clients. OSS does cost less and, if you set it up right, usually takes around a third less
And these are only the things that I know about as an armchair observer of cloning. As I understand it, there are a lot more barriers out there. Sure, we may be able to clone the mammoth, but it will probably not make it to full (procreation) maturity, thus being an effort in futility. A sheep can make it to maturity before things give out. An elephant (mammoth), or even a human is doomed with the current knowledge.
That is the ONLY reason that I have to support a ban on cloning humans, because of the cruelty that an early aging process would put them through. If we do perfect the process on a "10,000 year old mammoth" and quite a few, more genetically close primates, I'll be more open to the idea. That, however, will take a few generations to prove.
This is really the SOP (standard operating procedure) for most of the big dogs out there in softwareland. It works pretty good and is generally acceptable to the user community. Think pluggable, modular (sort of like OO for the youngsters in the house, but takes more thought and works better), and non-statically linked.
On the OO comment, there are some good OO tools and languages out there, don't get me wrong. It's just that you have to understand good modular programming to keep from OOing yourself into spegetti code, which is way too common. OO != modular if it's not done right. OO != OO if you don't understand it. The same thing goes for RDMS work. If you don't understand relational theory and the underlying structure of the RDMS in question, you might as well be using text files and awk. (boy was that a rant or what? ;^)
good luck and good programming!
Every so often, another 10 or 12 M$ users get fed up an try Linux. Two or three stick with it. Every now and again a few hundred people buy a Lindows-based cheap PC from Walmart.com.. Most of those keep using it because it's simple and runs pretty good. Every now and then one of us geeks gets fed up, decides to try Linux, needs the skills for our jos, etc... and we're hooked. The rest is history.
The whole Open Source community is a different way of thinking. It's a whole new world that takes some getting used to. Once on board, however, a small percentage of the "users" become the "contributors". With more contributors, more problems get fixed, more features get added, more things are moved to the new environment.
As more people move to the new environment, more commercial vendors of those really cool apps decide it's worth the cost to port their apps. From Games to server-side to productivity, more new commercial apps are deciding to join the fray.
As this "war of attrition" continues, we slowly reach the point refered to as "critical mass". That is where the percentage of users is high enough, the ease of use is good enough, and the level of "public expertise" is great enough that the Joe Sixpacks out their don't see a difference and start choosing Linux on purpose (or maybe just gets it because it's already loaded on the PC he wants and "oh, this one IS cheaper isn't it...")
At that point, M$ quickly loses it's $ and becomes the fringe radical OS, much like what happened to OS/2 and nearly happened to Mac/OS.
Something that is free (as in freedom), almost free (as in I didn't have to pay --much-- for it), and has a huge following that is constantly improving it will continue to increase in market share until it is the dominant player.
In the long term (that may be a few or many years) the only people not adopting OSS will be the dinosaurs that refuse to change and have a rabid, unexplainable attachment to the M$ OS.
As far as being a "threat to the software market", markets change over time. If a large group of people are willing to build, for free, the commodity pieces, then there is no market to sustain those software makers.
In a "for instance": Netscape went out of business (yea, I know, AOL bought them... they still went out of business!!!) because M$ decided to offer their new, buggy browser for free. Now, M$ is going to go out of business because the public has decided to offer their new, not quite as shiney, OS for free.
In the same vain, Oracle has, arguably, the best RDMS on the market, AND IT RUNS ON LINUX. None of the OSS dbms packages can really compete on their scale... yet. It is realy only a matter of time before the scalability, stability, and breadth of services of one or more of these OSS dbmss catch up or even pass Oracle. It will still take a while after that point for widespread adoption to kick in. I don't see that happening for another 7 to 15 years.
M$, however, only has about 2 to 4 years left in their profit cycle... and they know it. That's why they are getting soooo nasty. Linux has already passed them up on general stability and scalability. It's really only the flashy stuff that remains to be polished.
Yea, OSS will take over the market, with only a few niches left for commercial apps. The app vendors that don't port will go quicker because non-ported specialty apps give a valid target for the OSS crowd. (Take not Sdobe, Autodesk, Intuit, Macromedia etc...) A popular movement, like OSS, is like a train: get on board and enjoy the ride or stand in the way and get squished...
'nuff said...
This is Open source software! Participate! Download the stinking tarball, roll it out onto a spare Linux PC, and lend a hand!
Don't you guys get it?! WE write the software. If you can't code, test it and report back bugs.
Having a hand in its development will give you a better sense of where it needs to go and what it can really do. Keep your protools, it's a good program. With your help, however, you can make this many times better, and a few dollars cheaper. ;>
'nuff said...
Another option is an idea for a grass-roots company to bring high-speed to the last mile...
good luck.