Go ahead and flame down the Republican, but the first word in your post is "Agreed". You are agreeing to the concept of all of the "Superstar illegal alien programmers". Could you explain to me where all of these tax dollars are in regards to "Illegal Aliens". By definition, they're not paying taxes. If they are, great.. But I'm afraid those few that may be ponying-up via forged credentials are sucking more out of the economy then they give back.
Patriots Unite!! Our fearless, selfless, demigod, true American HERO, has granted those hedonistic job-stealer's an interview.. This was no ordinary news piece, but a call to arms... The GPLv3 is not a license, it's the 21st century version of Paul Revere's Lantern... RMS gave us this coded message.. er, ah.. interview, to let us know that the time draws near..
NOW! Fellow FSF Patriots, dawn your hand-crafted, aluminum battle helmets.. For the stealth RFID mind control satellites are powering up as we speak (Which are rumored to be controlled with.. Gasp!! OSS Software that has had the GPL...REMOVED!!!) General Kofi Annan has been briefed and has notified the Illuminati and Skulls & Bones.
Harden those Apache installs, remove those Flash plugins that you swore you'd never use, and get ready... Our leader needs us..
Mod me down if you must... It only shows us where your loyalties lie.
Just a heads up. The article contains nothing new, interesting, or provocative (which many of RMS's interviews tend to be). It's very much a fluff piece.
Although, I was interested to see how an interview that takes place outside of the mainstream tech media unfolded. There was no discussion of a FSF/RMS vs. Linus Torvalds/Linux headbutting. Nothing at all about why there is much contention of v3. That being said, I found it admirable that he did not take the opportunity to express his opposing views in this one-sided piece. Many would take such a chance to bash the oppositions arguments.
It's irrelevant how the average person will perceive the information that's made available. The average Joe will most likely never look for it, and if he finds it, probably won't care (most likely due to a lack of understanding).
What is important is the minority; those of us who believe in the research spending, and want to see the product of our research $$ at work. Personally, I get really tired of digging through the research sites of known gov't funded research projects, and never finding anything more useful than abstracts or project overviews (without ponying up the big money.
There's also the inverse of the above, those who want to see the checks & balances; they may not care about, or understand the research, but they want to make sure the $$ are being allocated: A) Fairly (No side agendas & back room deals) B) Going where the gov't says it's going C) Validate that the funding is being properly used (for the research that the grant proposal was written for) once it's been allocated
I'd also be interested in seeing the rebuttal to this. How much the funded research entities believe they will lose in research $$'s by not charging for the research data.
First off, kudos for a very interesting entry & your 3rd place win.. I'm sure it was very well deserved. I was wondering about the challenges of designing a hybrid OS packet filtering system due to the differences in the IP stack implementation between these 2 OS's. I'm not overly familiar with the ins & outs of the XP IP stack, but with older win32 systems, the differences between the MS stack & the Linux/BSD stacks were significant.
I understand that you basically created a win32 front-end for a *NIX based FW (ideally getting the best of both worlds). Did you run into anything major with this cross stack implementation? Or, is everything based on what the stack of the packet filtering OS (*NIX) & the standards that it adheres to. How does traffic that would be considered "benign" with a *NIX stack, be interpreted by the MS stack?
Or, am I just completely out in left field. If so... Flame on.
After reading the article, as well as the "Where do these #s come from" page, I still don't get the correlation. Why would the traffic patterns look in any way shape or form similar when comparing the Soc. Networking sites against, large search engine/portal sites. I don't have any experience in the monitoring of traffic, hits, visitors, etc. for either type of site; but even so, it still seems like apples & oranges to me.
I would think that search engines would have many visitors daily (both unique & repeat), but the actual end-to-end traffic would be minimal & bursty in nature (individual searches). (In addition, one could say that things are really skewed, because if a search site does it's job well, the visitor will find what they need & be sent off site). With the SN sites, I would think people are logging in, digging through their various personal pages, as well as those who they're networking with. I would imagine that this would create a lot more traffic, but probably not from unique visitors. It's the same people who are logged in for long periods creating all the traffic.
In addition, they showed no real comparisons between actual traffic flows, bandwidth usage, unique visitors, repeat visitors, etc.
I agree that Social Networking is gonna continue to gain ground & will be (if it's not already) huge. But why is that being compared against the large scale search, data aggregation, and directed advertising companies.
Being a dedicated Slack user for the better part of a decade, I've rarely questioned any of Patrick's decisions in the maintenance of HIS distro. (Most people who piss & moan about Slackware being dated don't realize that it's one of the few distros that is still maintained, for the most part, by a single individual). However, with great trepidation, I must say that perhaps some changes are in order. Slackware has had a dedicated following for a long time because the distribution filled an industry need. The need for a truly rock solid stable distro that was a fairly easy transition for those coming from a pure Unix world. It seems now that those days are, for the most part, gone. The majority of the engineers out there now days have been brought up on other Linux distros, and many have never touched an actual Unix system. (No need to start any "What is Unix really?" flame wars). While I do still prefer the structure and stability of Slackware, I do think it's time to make certain changes. I'm not saying it's time to jump on the "Latest and Greatest Everything" bandwagon. I think it's time for the distro to be re-focused. Possibly into a pure Server OS, with a strong focus on commercial grade clustering & virtualization. All of the other distros that have done this (i.e. RedHat, SUSE, etc.), did not have the right base for it. They were based on bleeding edge, sometimes alpha code, and everything had to be stabilized (which hasn't seemed to work out very well). Slackware does have the right, truly stable base for a dedicated server OS. If Patrick were to shift things to this direction, build in the right set of truly enterprise-class server features, I think he may very well see a new found following. The other area that I believe a re-focused version of slack could be very successful is the embedded systems market. Slack is known for is lean, fast, optimized code. I think it would fit well into this segment.
I think either of these markets are perfect for Slack. Neither is looking for the latest, most newfangled, gui-based, anything. They want lean, fast, stable code, & steady release cycles. Just my $.02.
On the other hand... For each example of a groundbreaking originator staying on top throughout the tumult of the spawn of their new industry, there are equal examples of similar innovators being robbed, stabbed in the back, and stomped by the competition. Often times the first one off the line is the one who ends up with an arrow in his back by the time they reach the finish. Look at everything invented by Xerox PARC.
1) Company creates horribly insecure OS. 2) New multi-billion $$ industry sprouts for the sole purpose of securing said OS. 3) Insecure OS company institutes blatantly obvious absolutely worthless security "features". 4) No longer new multi-billion $$ industry complains because new BS security measures are worthless & the new features steal their pennies. 4.5) Linux zealot chimes in on how these issues are not issues under their chosen OS. 5) Horribly insecure OS company forms new multi-billion $$ industry to secure their horribly insecure OS in a proprietary fashion. 6) Balmer covers the $1 he owes Gates for the bet they made on whether or not they can steal the billions from the industry that wouldn't exist had it not been for them & their lax attitude toward secure coding practices while blaming the whole fiasco on Google & Linux all the while creating a brand spanking new completely worthless multi-billion $$ proprietary industry. (Thank you Mortimer, er I mean Balmer)
Mr. MacManus... Glad to make your acquaintance. I know this reply is a couple of days late, so I hope you get it before you've completed part 2 of this piece. First off, I must apologize for the "simpering imp" comment. I have a great deal of respect for most writers, as I do quite a bit of it and know exactly how difficult a profession it is. All that aside, while I maintain my original stance, I'm not one to poke holes in others work without providing anything constructive in return. First, I must admit that my views are a bit one-sided; I work primarily in the network & network security side of the industry where Radia Perlman is held in extremely high regard. Second, these are only my opinions, so take them however you like:
1) Both of the interviewees are exceptionally intelligent people, and while I've only heard Ms. Perlman speak in person, my guess is they are both quite articulate speakers. That being said, don't paraphrase what they have to say. The original article came off like the author just wanted to see his own words in print. (Being a good interviewer is as difficult a skill as being a good writer. With people of this caliber, show off your interviewing skills).
2) Consider your audience. The majority would much prefer a strait question & answer, interview style article (with most of the content coming in the form of "" of the interviewees).
3) Ask each of them different questions. These two people may both work in "IT" & both write code, but that's pretty much where the similarities end. You have the rare opportunity to get a front-end/back-end perspective on the main topic. Get Tim's views on the past, present, and future of the web from the front-end perspective, and Radia's perspective on the back-end. For example:
- Ask Tim: How XML came into being, how it changed the web as it grew in popularity, and where it is going, as well as how it will grow to meet the needs of "Web 2.0". Ask about XML offshoots (i.e SAML, etc.), ask about Atom, ask about AJAX, etc. I believe he's from Lebanon, ask for some political commentary. Point being, keep the questions concise and relevant to his background, & let Tim's comments fill the article.
- Ask Radia: If she had the opportunity to do it over, what (if anything) would she do differently in regards to her work with Spanning-Tree, with ISIS, and in regards to the ISO vs. IETF, etc. Ask her about the pending transition to IPv6, how she believes it will impact the web, and the global Internet as a whole. Ask her where she believes network security is going, what threats does she expect to see, and what needs to be done to make the next generation of Internet services secure. Find out what major projects she has on the table. Hell, just ask her what she'd like to discuss & have written. She's a phenomenal writer, with the rare ability to take very dry content & make it interesting and lucid, ask her opinion as an author. (I could continue, but it would be a very long list & I'm guessing you get my point).
Again, I know how difficult a job you have, but you've been given a great opportunity to get your name in print next to these two. Don't try to show off how well you can spin their words, show off how well you can interview people of this caliber. Being a good interviewer is an equally difficult skill, but that's the skill that you want to accentuate in this instance.
I wish you the best in part 2 and am looking forward to reading it.
You're completely wrong, she must have the supporting research data... She founded a whole clinic to fight this horrible, agreageos, affliction... Whatever would she have to gain by making up such a story?
This was a disappointment. I was really hoping for a lot more out of this interview. Two brilliant interviewees, (one of which is arguably the most influential and groundbreaking female engineer to ever work in this industry, the other is the creator of one of the most prevalent markup languages used); an interesting topic, (I'd like to know what these two think of the past 15 years, and more importantly, what they see to come); finally a simpering imp of an interviewer. Let the two with the IQ's & overly impressive resumes do the talking. MacManus, I'm really hoping you're leaving all the good stuff for part 2. I didn't see much in the way of a single worthwhile question or topic. The writing was dry and elementary. Mr. MacManus.. When you get people of this caliber to speak to you, don't treat it like a freshman project for the campus paper. Please do something before you release part 2... Or just toss that page into the fire before you embarrass yourself any more.
(P.S. It never hurts to plug your interviewees work either... "Interconnections" kicks ass...)
No, it's not perfect, but all must agree that it's a relatively decent start at truly usable web-based apps. The one thing that I immediately noticed, and believe will be an issue when it comes to user adoption, is the fact that you can't use hotkeys/shortcuts. Every word processor power user I know, relies heavily on hotkeys (it's part of the reason they're power users). I know I found myself hitting ^"whatever" fairly often.
Not bad, but still some major hurdles to get around before apps like these become commonplace.
I know "there's no such thing as a stupid ??", doesn't apply at/., but I'll ask anyway. I was under the impression that one of the main sticking points in creating a sustained, controlled fusion reaction was that we are incapable of generating the temps necessary to start the reaction.
Regardless of whether or not they understand how it came to be, is this truly a breakthrough in the fusion world, or have I misunderstood?
You should look at consolidating what distributions are used in your production environment. Outside of your immediate problem of software installation & package management, there has, (or will be) a myriad of other issues that you'll run into.
Upgrades, patches, security issues, and configuration management to name a few.
I'd look at trimming your enterprise down to, at the very least, one or two distro's.
Way off base? Yes very much so. Quantum cryptography is currently considered unbreakable. With even the strongest standard ciphers, AES, serpent, twofish, etc, there are a variety of methods of attack; whether it is against the algorithm, the keys, or the implementation.
With quantum cryptography, an attack it basically impossible, as any attempt to intercept the communications (tapping the fiber) causes an interruption to the photons, and the entire exchange stops.
For the most part, using a VPN with strong ciphers for a transform (IPSec+AES+HMAC) is more than enough for almost any application. This would really be a limited "niche" solution.
Seems the use of VTC with integrated quantum crypto is really very limited in usefulness, due to distance, cost, and required infrastructure. Where I would think it to be most effective, military installations that are in relative close proximity, yet separated by public land, isn't feasible because of lack of NSA approval on the devices (US military only of course).
It is however; very good to see that the industry is recognizing the need for commercially available devices with powerful embedded crypto systems. I can only hope that others follow this lead and begin to incorporate QC into other platforms.
Personally, I would like to see things like quantum crypto enabled network devices (routers & switches), secure network attached storage systems, and providers that sell these truly secure network services.
In addition, does anyone know if the currently available quantum crypto systems will operate over wave division multiplexed systems? If they did, or possible that they will in the future, the applications for QC enabled systems would be almost endless.
We provide our sometimes less than humble opinions and recommendations because we know that 95% (being generous) of the computer users on this planet are brain dead monkeys. They do what they're told (by MS), and follow without question.
Those of us that live in the world of IT, and have dealt with horribly-coded, proprietary, and over-priced apps for so many years are tired of it, we want quality. Since I've never had Adolf Gates come to my door asking for product recommendations, my only recourse is to push those around me into the correct mindset.
I admit to being one of the fanatics, but outside of occasionally being called a dick, I don't see a downside to being one.
If you want to expose them to a broad variety of tech, and keep them interested, how about general hardware/gadget hacks. Have them do some of the projects on http://www.hackaday.com/, or Christopher Murphy's "Hardware Hacking Projects". You can break into smaller groups of interest on multiple projects, and the students would get exposed to electronics, programming, schematics, etc. Teach them to destroy dad's TiVo.
I know that in most projects, an incremental dev release is usually no big deal, but with E, any release is big. Being a devoted user for many years, I can only hope the release of this beautiful new codebase will get E back into the ISOs of some of the bigger distro's (hint, hint Patrick).
There are a few major things holding up a conversion anytime soon. 1. Lack of stable standard routing protocols (internal or external). 2. No 100% seamless method of v4-v6 conversion, this makes seperate infrastructure a costly neccessity (for large deployments). 3. Limited affordable commercial support from the providers. There are some semi-public backbones (WCOMs vBNS+, I2) but nothing that will be picked up by regional providers any time soon. 4. No application support, and little demand for it.
There are some places where it is being looked at, or even deployed on a large scale. Obviously the asian electronics manufacturers. And several current government/military contracts require full v6 services. Anyway, plenty of time for us to play with it.
Slashdot Mirror
Go ahead and flame down the Republican, but the first word in your post is "Agreed". You are agreeing to the concept of all of the "Superstar illegal alien programmers". Could you explain to me where all of these tax dollars are in regards to "Illegal Aliens". By definition, they're not paying taxes. If they are, great.. But I'm afraid those few that may be ponying-up via forged credentials are sucking more out of the economy then they give back.
Patriots Unite!! Our fearless, selfless, demigod, true American HERO, has granted those hedonistic job-stealer's an interview.. This was no ordinary news piece, but a call to arms... The GPLv3 is not a license, it's the 21st century version of Paul Revere's Lantern... RMS gave us this coded message.. er, ah.. interview, to let us know that the time draws near..
NOW! Fellow FSF Patriots, dawn your hand-crafted, aluminum battle helmets.. For the stealth RFID mind control satellites are powering up as we speak (Which are rumored to be controlled with.. Gasp!! OSS Software that has had the GPL...REMOVED!!!) General Kofi Annan has been briefed and has notified the Illuminati and Skulls & Bones.
Harden those Apache installs, remove those Flash plugins that you swore you'd never use, and get ready... Our leader needs us..
Mod me down if you must... It only shows us where your loyalties lie.
Just a heads up. The article contains nothing new, interesting, or provocative (which many of RMS's interviews tend to be). It's very much a fluff piece.
Although, I was interested to see how an interview that takes place outside of the mainstream tech media unfolded. There was no discussion of a FSF/RMS vs. Linus Torvalds/Linux headbutting. Nothing at all about why there is much contention of v3. That being said, I found it admirable that he did not take the opportunity to express his opposing views in this one-sided piece. Many would take such a chance to bash the oppositions arguments.
It's irrelevant how the average person will perceive the information that's made available. The average Joe will most likely never look for it, and if he finds it, probably won't care (most likely due to a lack of understanding).
What is important is the minority; those of us who believe in the research spending, and want to see the product of our research $$ at work. Personally, I get really tired of digging through the research sites of known gov't funded research projects, and never finding anything more useful than abstracts or project overviews (without ponying up the big money.
There's also the inverse of the above, those who want to see the checks & balances; they may not care about, or understand the research, but they want to make sure the $$ are being allocated:
A) Fairly (No side agendas & back room deals)
B) Going where the gov't says it's going
C) Validate that the funding is being properly used (for the research that the grant proposal was written for) once it's been allocated
I'd also be interested in seeing the rebuttal to this. How much the funded research entities believe they will lose in research $$'s by not charging for the research data.
Kennieth et al,
First off, kudos for a very interesting entry & your 3rd place win.. I'm sure it was very well deserved.
I was wondering about the challenges of designing a hybrid OS packet filtering system due to the differences in the IP stack implementation between these 2 OS's. I'm not overly familiar with the ins & outs of the XP IP stack, but with older win32 systems, the differences between the MS stack & the Linux/BSD stacks were significant.
I understand that you basically created a win32 front-end for a *NIX based FW (ideally getting the best of both worlds). Did you run into anything major with this cross stack implementation? Or, is everything based on what the stack of the packet filtering OS (*NIX) & the standards that it adheres to. How does traffic that would be considered "benign" with a *NIX stack, be interpreted by the MS stack?
Or, am I just completely out in left field. If so... Flame on.
After reading the article, as well as the "Where do these #s come from" page, I still don't get the correlation. Why would the traffic patterns look in any way shape or form similar when comparing the Soc. Networking sites against, large search engine/portal sites. I don't have any experience in the monitoring of traffic, hits, visitors, etc. for either type of site; but even so, it still seems like apples & oranges to me.
I would think that search engines would have many visitors daily (both unique & repeat), but the actual end-to-end traffic would be minimal & bursty in nature (individual searches). (In addition, one could say that things are really skewed, because if a search site does it's job well, the visitor will find what they need & be sent off site). With the SN sites, I would think people are logging in, digging through their various personal pages, as well as those who they're networking with. I would imagine that this would create a lot more traffic, but probably not from unique visitors. It's the same people who are logged in for long periods creating all the traffic.
In addition, they showed no real comparisons between actual traffic flows, bandwidth usage, unique visitors, repeat visitors, etc.
I agree that Social Networking is gonna continue to gain ground & will be (if it's not already) huge. But why is that being compared against the large scale search, data aggregation, and directed advertising companies.
Being a dedicated Slack user for the better part of a decade, I've rarely questioned any of Patrick's decisions in the maintenance of HIS distro. (Most people who piss & moan about Slackware being dated don't realize that it's one of the few distros that is still maintained, for the most part, by a single individual).
However, with great trepidation, I must say that perhaps some changes are in order.
Slackware has had a dedicated following for a long time because the distribution filled an industry need. The need for a truly rock solid stable distro that was a fairly easy transition for those coming from a pure Unix world. It seems now that those days are, for the most part, gone. The majority of the engineers out there now days have been brought up on other Linux distros, and many have never touched an actual Unix system. (No need to start any "What is Unix really?" flame wars).
While I do still prefer the structure and stability of Slackware, I do think it's time to make certain changes. I'm not saying it's time to jump on the "Latest and Greatest Everything" bandwagon. I think it's time for the distro to be re-focused. Possibly into a pure Server OS, with a strong focus on commercial grade clustering & virtualization. All of the other distros that have done this (i.e. RedHat, SUSE, etc.), did not have the right base for it. They were based on bleeding edge, sometimes alpha code, and everything had to be stabilized (which hasn't seemed to work out very well). Slackware does have the right, truly stable base for a dedicated server OS. If Patrick were to shift things to this direction, build in the right set of truly enterprise-class server features, I think he may very well see a new found following.
The other area that I believe a re-focused version of slack could be very successful is the embedded systems market. Slack is known for is lean, fast, optimized code. I think it would fit well into this segment.
I think either of these markets are perfect for Slack. Neither is looking for the latest, most newfangled, gui-based, anything. They want lean, fast, stable code, & steady release cycles. Just my $.02.
On the other hand... For each example of a groundbreaking originator staying on top throughout the tumult of the spawn of their new industry, there are equal examples of similar innovators being robbed, stabbed in the back, and stomped by the competition.
Often times the first one off the line is the one who ends up with an arrow in his back by the time they reach the finish. Look at everything invented by Xerox PARC.
1) Company creates horribly insecure OS.
2) New multi-billion $$ industry sprouts for the sole purpose of securing said OS.
3) Insecure OS company institutes blatantly obvious absolutely worthless security "features".
4) No longer new multi-billion $$ industry complains because new BS security measures are worthless & the new features steal their pennies.
4.5) Linux zealot chimes in on how these issues are not issues under their chosen OS.
5) Horribly insecure OS company forms new multi-billion $$ industry to secure their horribly insecure OS in a proprietary fashion.
6) Balmer covers the $1 he owes Gates for the bet they made on whether or not they can steal the billions from the industry that wouldn't exist had it not been for them & their lax attitude toward secure coding practices while blaming the whole fiasco on Google & Linux all the while creating a brand spanking new completely worthless multi-billion $$ proprietary industry. (Thank you Mortimer, er I mean Balmer)
Mr. MacManus... Glad to make your acquaintance. I know this reply is a couple of days late, so I hope you get it before you've completed part 2 of this piece.
First off, I must apologize for the "simpering imp" comment. I have a great deal of respect for most writers, as I do quite a bit of it and know exactly how difficult a profession it is. All that aside, while I maintain my original stance, I'm not one to poke holes in others work without providing anything constructive in return. First, I must admit that my views are a bit one-sided; I work primarily in the network & network security side of the industry where Radia Perlman is held in extremely high regard. Second, these are only my opinions, so take them however you like:
1) Both of the interviewees are exceptionally intelligent people, and while I've only heard Ms. Perlman speak in person, my guess is they are both quite articulate speakers. That being said, don't paraphrase what they have to say. The original article came off like the author just wanted to see his own words in print. (Being a good interviewer is as difficult a skill as being a good writer. With people of this caliber, show off your interviewing skills).
2) Consider your audience. The majority would much prefer a strait question & answer, interview style article (with most of the content coming in the form of "" of the interviewees).
3) Ask each of them different questions. These two people may both work in "IT" & both write code, but that's pretty much where the similarities end. You have the rare opportunity to get a front-end/back-end perspective on the main topic. Get Tim's views on the past, present, and future of the web from the front-end perspective, and Radia's perspective on the back-end. For example:
- Ask Tim: How XML came into being, how it changed the web as it grew in popularity, and where it is going, as well as how it will grow to meet the needs of "Web 2.0". Ask about XML offshoots (i.e SAML, etc.), ask about Atom, ask about AJAX, etc. I believe he's from Lebanon, ask for some political commentary. Point being, keep the questions concise and relevant to his background, & let Tim's comments fill the article.
- Ask Radia: If she had the opportunity to do it over, what (if anything) would she do differently in regards to her work with Spanning-Tree, with ISIS, and in regards to the ISO vs. IETF, etc. Ask her about the pending transition to IPv6, how she believes it will impact the web, and the global Internet as a whole. Ask her where she believes network security is going, what threats does she expect to see, and what needs to be done to make the next generation of Internet services secure. Find out what major projects she has on the table. Hell, just ask her what she'd like to discuss & have written. She's a phenomenal writer, with the rare ability to take very dry content & make it interesting and lucid, ask her opinion as an author. (I could continue, but it would be a very long list & I'm guessing you get my point).
Again, I know how difficult a job you have, but you've been given a great opportunity to get your name in print next to these two. Don't try to show off how well you can spin their words, show off how well you can interview people of this caliber. Being a good interviewer is an equally difficult skill, but that's the skill that you want to accentuate in this instance.
I wish you the best in part 2 and am looking forward to reading it.
You're completely wrong, she must have the supporting research data... She founded a whole clinic to fight this horrible, agreageos, affliction... Whatever would she have to gain by making up such a story?
This was a disappointment. I was really hoping for a lot more out of this interview. Two brilliant interviewees, (one of which is arguably the most influential and groundbreaking female engineer to ever work in this industry, the other is the creator of one of the most prevalent markup languages used); an interesting topic, (I'd like to know what these two think of the past 15 years, and more importantly, what they see to come); finally a simpering imp of an interviewer.
Let the two with the IQ's & overly impressive resumes do the talking. MacManus, I'm really hoping you're leaving all the good stuff for part 2. I didn't see much in the way of a single worthwhile question or topic. The writing was dry and elementary.
Mr. MacManus.. When you get people of this caliber to speak to you, don't treat it like a freshman project for the campus paper. Please do something before you release part 2... Or just toss that page into the fire before you embarrass yourself any more.
(P.S. It never hurts to plug your interviewees work either... "Interconnections" kicks ass...)
No, it's not perfect, but all must agree that it's a relatively decent start at truly usable web-based apps. The one thing that I immediately noticed, and believe will be an issue when it comes to user adoption, is the fact that you can't use hotkeys/shortcuts. Every word processor power user I know, relies heavily on hotkeys (it's part of the reason they're power users). I know I found myself hitting ^"whatever" fairly often.
Not bad, but still some major hurdles to get around before apps like these become commonplace.
I know "there's no such thing as a stupid ??", doesn't apply at /., but I'll ask anyway. I was under the impression that one of the main sticking points in creating a sustained, controlled fusion reaction was that we are incapable of generating the temps necessary to start the reaction.
Regardless of whether or not they understand how it came to be, is this truly a breakthrough in the fusion world, or have I misunderstood?
You should look at consolidating what distributions are used in your production environment. Outside of your immediate problem of software installation & package management, there has, (or will be) a myriad of other issues that you'll run into. Upgrades, patches, security issues, and configuration management to name a few. I'd look at trimming your enterprise down to, at the very least, one or two distro's.
Way off base? Yes very much so. Quantum cryptography is currently considered unbreakable. With even the strongest standard ciphers, AES, serpent, twofish, etc, there are a variety of methods of attack; whether it is against the algorithm, the keys, or the implementation.
With quantum cryptography, an attack it basically impossible, as any attempt to intercept the communications (tapping the fiber) causes an interruption to the photons, and the entire exchange stops.
For the most part, using a VPN with strong ciphers for a transform (IPSec+AES+HMAC) is more than enough for almost any application. This would really be a limited "niche" solution.
Seems the use of VTC with integrated quantum crypto is really very limited in usefulness, due to distance, cost, and required infrastructure. Where I would think it to be most effective, military installations that are in relative close proximity, yet separated by public land, isn't feasible because of lack of NSA approval on the devices (US military only of course).
It is however; very good to see that the industry is recognizing the need for commercially available devices with powerful embedded crypto systems. I can only hope that others follow this lead and begin to incorporate QC into other platforms.
Personally, I would like to see things like quantum crypto enabled network devices (routers & switches), secure network attached storage systems, and providers that sell these truly secure network services.
In addition, does anyone know if the currently available quantum crypto systems will operate over wave division multiplexed systems? If they did, or possible that they will in the future, the applications for QC enabled systems would be almost endless.
We provide our sometimes less than humble opinions and recommendations because we know that 95% (being generous) of the computer users on this planet are brain dead monkeys. They do what they're told (by MS), and follow without question.
Those of us that live in the world of IT, and have dealt with horribly-coded, proprietary, and over-priced apps for so many years are tired of it, we want quality. Since I've never had Adolf Gates come to my door asking for product recommendations, my only recourse is to push those around me into the correct mindset.
I admit to being one of the fanatics, but outside of occasionally being called a dick, I don't see a downside to being one.
If you want to expose them to a broad variety of tech, and keep them interested, how about general hardware/gadget hacks. Have them do some of the projects on http://www.hackaday.com/, or Christopher Murphy's "Hardware Hacking Projects". You can break into smaller groups of interest on multiple projects, and the students would get exposed to electronics, programming, schematics, etc. Teach them to destroy dad's TiVo.
I know that in most projects, an incremental dev release is usually no big deal, but with E, any release is big. Being a devoted user for many years, I can only hope the release of this beautiful new codebase will get E back into the ISOs of some of the bigger distro's (hint, hint Patrick).
God intended man to compile from source. It's the 11th commandment.
Anyone looked at the CA faultline maps? I want to make sure that RIAA HQ goes for a ride when California falls into the ocean.
Thanks Patrick, keep em coming please.
There are a few major things holding up a conversion anytime soon. 1. Lack of stable standard routing protocols (internal or external). 2. No 100% seamless method of v4-v6 conversion, this makes seperate infrastructure a costly neccessity (for large deployments). 3. Limited affordable commercial support from the providers. There are some semi-public backbones (WCOMs vBNS+, I2) but nothing that will be picked up by regional providers any time soon. 4. No application support, and little demand for it. There are some places where it is being looked at, or even deployed on a large scale. Obviously the asian electronics manufacturers. And several current government/military contracts require full v6 services. Anyway, plenty of time for us to play with it.