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User: twiddlingbits

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Comments · 1,637

  1. Re:Understanding risk on Senator Calls on NASA to Service Hubble · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I have never heard of this, I think it's bogus as all get out. Probably a troll.

  2. Re:*sigh* Figures. on Interstellar Pioneers Facing Termination · · Score: 1

    "My program is going to the Asteroid Belt for somewhere on the order of $100 - 300 million" Last I heard a LOT of these programs were NOT going to get funded this coming year. Since you are Deep Space you must be out at JPL. I know at GSFC a lot of Earth Observing programs and some other Science projects got cancelled and others delayed. You must be pretty far along and near the end if you didn't get some cutbacks.

  3. Re:*sigh* Figures. on Interstellar Pioneers Facing Termination · · Score: 1

    Hubble costs very little to keep the systems "in working order". But everything has a useful life, so replacing things as they reach the end of life is what drives the costs since it takes a $1B shuttle mission to take the new parts out and put them in. And there is also the cost of the Ground staff that schedules missions, watches for problems, takes in data, etc. That costs a few million a year. And NASA does NOT charge for time, if they did not many researchers could afford it. Last I recall there was a several year wait for Hubble observation time.

  4. Re:*sigh* Figures Bush is against science on Interstellar Pioneers Facing Termination · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Having worked for NASA TWICE in my career, once in the late 80's and again in the late 90's NASA is ALWAYS underfunded. However, NASA wastes a LOT of that money they do get. They can't even determine if they get overcharged for a pencil. NASA is in dire need the kind of contract and expense reform the DOD had to do after the $2000 hammers were revealed. Also, scientists at NASA want missions to do EVERYTHING and they have zero concept of what it costs, then they continually polish things, underestimate timelines and then the projects take 3X as long as planned and eat the budget for the next 2 missions. It's not that NASA has bad ideas or bad scientist or bad engineers, it's bad managers mostly on the financial side. Along with a great case of not saying "NO" to new projects so that things like building maintenance can occur!! If everyone wants to continue to listen for Voyager (which is a very weak signal and hard to pick up out of background noise of the Universe) then they can start a private foundation to listen. After all, Bill Gates and others give many millions for things like AIDS research so I think they could give a few thousand for Space!

  5. Re:uh huh.. on SCO On the Rocks · · Score: 1

    I'm not going to concede that and neither has IBM. All SCO owns is what they have in SCO Unix that they did NOT make public. Since some of SCO Unix made it into SCO Linux and Moneterrey there is some question as to what DO they own, not what DON'T they own. CHeck out the archives on Groklaw, its all there from folks who are much more expert than I am.

  6. Re:Selling some sort of hardened Linux, perhaps? on Linux Server Break-in Challenge · · Score: 1

    CodeSurfer is the name of this product, it is a very small company in Syracuse NY. And Ada was the first language they did, next they did C and were working on Java. First order or second I have no idea, as my exposure didn't go that deep. If you want I can give you contact info, might be some R&D work there for you :)

  7. Re:Modded insightful? Gun control stupid? on Ohio Wants eBayers to Post $50k Bond · · Score: 1

    One can't find them because they don't fit the Agenda of the Press to report someone pulled out a 9MM and the perp back offed to keep from getting his ass shot off. Parent failures should not occur in life/death situations. Keep things out of reach of kids just like you do with drugs, toxic chemicals, etc. "Protect and Serve"..oh yea by giving out traffic tickets rather than patrolling high crime areas. It doesn't pay enough to get smart, trained, dedicated people who WANT to take the risks to fight crimes and serve the community. After all cops got bills too.

  8. Re:Typical government stupidity on Ohio Wants eBayers to Post $50k Bond · · Score: 1

    Troll..WTF does how they vote in a NATIONAL election have anything to do with a STATE election. Taft was elected before the 2004 Presidential elections. Many states have voted 1 way on a State level and completely the oppisite on a National level. Also, to the parent poster, unless Ohio is unique, the Gov. does NOT make laws, the legislature does. The Gov. can sign or veto that's all.

  9. Re:Selling some sort of hardened Linux, perhaps? on Linux Server Break-in Challenge · · Score: 1

    According to the folks who are doing the R&D if the program can be represented as predicate logic (which any well-formed program can) it can be proved correct. When I first talked to these guys when I was at NASA I asked the same questions as you did and I got the answer that it's NOT impossible it's just a O(n**2) problem. They seem to have found a way around that issue, however they told me the algorithmic approach is patented and classified by the DOD (who paid for the work). It is a breakthru I was told and beats the crap out of Lint, SPIN and other programs. Just go Google Automated Software Code Checking and you'll see there are a LOT of tools out there, most do a good job of making sure coding standards are met and they stop there. If anyone is deeply interested I can get the name of the company, I think they are in Syracuse, NY and somehow associated with RPI as well. They'll just LOVE being /.ed :)

  10. Re:Little known fact on Windows 2003 and XP SP2 Vulnerable To LAND Attack · · Score: 1

    A Divide by Zero error on some processors raises an Interrupt. You catch that interrupt and handle it with your OS Interrupt Handler. You may or may not resume the application based on the risk you think there is to the system. Real-time embedded systems have to be MUCH more fault tolerant than your desktop OS. There are some good commercial embedded OSes out there, VxWorks comes to mind, but the one I was referring to was custom built on a special processor. The fact is the scenario CAN be handled if things are designed right. The incident in the article I posted showed a DBZ crashed the application AND the OS. That's bad.

  11. Re:Selling some sort of hardened Linux, perhaps? on Linux Server Break-in Challenge · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "..And a "full audit of the source code"? Do you have any idea how expensive (and fruitless) that would be?...Furthermore, the simple fact that it all comes down to humans staring bleary eyed at thousands of lines of source code means that many bugs and exploits *will be missed*."

    It's not that expensive with some of the newer AUTOMATED technologies out there. The DOD and NASA are actually DOING this right now. I have a friend involved with funding advanced research in this area and products are coming. The products will likely cost in the 100-200K range and they are pretty fast. They will reveal things like buffer overflows, memory leaks, pointer problems, malformed expression problems, etc. In the not too distant future they will be able to formally prove the correctness of a system. Thats a pretty small cost to pay to KNOW your system is hack-proof. It's pretty darned expensive to have to comply with California regulations about personal data being hacked that requires notification to be sent to EVERYONE who MAY have had info stolen. Not to metion the bad press your company gets when the hacking is made public. I suspect it also lowers your business insurance premiums, and it might also be a competitive edge.

    Don't accuse someone on /.of speaking too soon lest you be caught doing the same on another subject or maybe even the same subject.

  12. Re:Three Letters: on Best Degree to Pair w/ a B.Sc. in Computer Science? · · Score: 1

    "basic understanding of statistics, law accounting and pschycology (aka marketing) to work in business" That's called a BBA. I have one of those AND a BSCS. They covered the BBA stuff the first week in my MBA classes they they moved on. We had teachers who used real world examples and made you think. I agree with others that an MBA w/o experience isnt a lot of value.

  13. Re:Indeed on Best Degree to Pair w/ a B.Sc. in Computer Science? · · Score: 1

    You mean those who hired you didn't check references to make sure you were not BSing? Shame on them. I would ask you a LOT of technical questions and some others as well. Team skills are important after all I don't want to be playing referee when you piss off your team mates and they want to strangle you! I've been around long enough to have a pretty good BS meter, looks to me like you would peg it!

  14. Re:Little known fact on Windows 2003 and XP SP2 Vulnerable To LAND Attack · · Score: 1

    Yes, it can. You trap the interrupt that occurs when you get a Divide by Zero and you can handle it fine. The PROBLEM is that you SHOULD ALWAYS test what you are dividing with to be sure it is NOT zero. An embedded systems OS should handle things like this, and many do. I used to build them. It might be OK to have a ship out of commission for 2.5 hours but not a plane. If you want to track the issue deeper, find out who was the dummy who specified Windows in a Mission Critical system and why no one objected.

  15. Re:Little known fact on Windows 2003 and XP SP2 Vulnerable To LAND Attack · · Score: 1

    Here is a story about Windows and the Navy, Its a bit dated perhaps but it illustrates the issue of using Windows on ships quite well: The Navy's Smart Ship technology is being considered a success, because it has resulted in reductions in manpower, workloads, maintenance and costs for sailors aboard the Aegis missile cruiser USS Yorktown. However, in September 1997, the Yorktown suffered a systems failure during maneuvers off the coast of Cape Charles, VA., apparently as a result of the failure to prevent a divide by zero in a Windows NT application. The zero seems to have been an erroneous data item that was entered manually. Atlantic Fleet officials said the ship was dead in the water for about 2 hours and 45 minutes. A previous loss of propulsion occurred on 2 May 1997, also due to software. Other system collapses were also indicated. (One quote suggested the ship had to be towed, but another refuted that.) [Source: Gregory Slabodkin, Software glitches leave Navy Smart Ship dead in the water, Government Computer News, 13 Jul 1998, PGN Stark Abstracting] Discussion in RISKS included further comments about Windows memory management, the use of NT, smart-ship technology, and COTS in battle-critical applications (R 19 88-92); doubts about official reports (R 19 91) and confusions therein (R 19 94), as well as speculations on the hardware behavior (R 19 92-93), and still more discussion (R 19 94). This case holds many lessons for the future, in the true spirit of RISKS, including a reminder from the 19th Century British Navy (R 19 89). You can find this at http://www.csl.sri.com/users/neumann/risks-new.htm l

  16. Re:uh huh.. on SCO On the Rocks · · Score: 1

    Ancestral UNIX code such as BSD and a LOT of Sys V R4 is public domain as the copyrights were not enforced. Like I said this has been all documented over at GrokLaw.

  17. Re:I hope they sort things and don't get delisted. on SCO On the Rocks · · Score: 1

    NASDAQ added the "E". It means they will be delisted in 30 days for failure to comply with the NASDAQ listing requirements. In SCO's case they did not file an 8-K document as required by the SEC so NASDAQ opts to delist them. They can and have scheduled an appeal hearing. See www.groklaw.net for more !

  18. Re:uh huh.. on SCO On the Rocks · · Score: 2, Informative

    SCOX does not own the UNIX source code base as they want you to think. Novell owns most of it, IBM and others who have contributed to the various versions own the code they wrote. All SCOX may own is anything special that did for SCOs UNIX offering.

  19. Re:Mod Parrent UP +1 informative on Judge Finds For Apple in ThinkSecret Case · · Score: 1

    Nope, happens all the time. When a State does not have a Statute adressing an issue in a case you can look to other states in an attempt to show what ought to be done. Now if CA has a law then obviously how that law should work based on a NY law is an argument for the Legislature not the Court.

  20. Re:Journalists' Sources, are, of course, Protected on Judge Finds For Apple in ThinkSecret Case · · Score: 1

    Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, the incident you quote concerning a CIA Agent was just a rumor started by someone with an axe to grind with GWB's administration. A Congressional Investigation found no one to pin the "leak" on, and if there was a leak who told Novak no one held him in contempt for failing to turn over the source! Hmmm..sounds just like the Apple case. Rumor, an internal "leak", publication, all hell breaks lose, someone gets taken to court..

  21. Re:Google OS on Microsoft Loses Key Engineer to Google · · Score: 1

    I wonder if they made him take the silly tests and go through 14 interviews and 3 or 4 call back rounds like they have done to many "normal" smart-guy candidates. Maybe he just walked in and asked for a job, after all he is an "top notch MS Architect" which means he walks on water.

  22. Re:Essentials on Non-Technical Managers in a Technical Company? · · Score: 1

    You forgot to add the company that employed all three of these guys originally is now in Bankruptcy!

  23. Re:Atleast these two.. on Non-Technical Managers in a Technical Company? · · Score: 1

    Even if returning millions of records was correct, it doesn't take more than a couple of days to write code to open a file, dump the data to it, close it, move back to the top and write code to scroll thru the data. Someone must have wanted some time to goof off and read /. ;)

  24. Re:In case you haven't noticed on Non-Technical Managers in a Technical Company? · · Score: 1

    Anyone can manage in good times, the true test is what happens when times get tough. If Jobs can lead them past the iPod revolution, thru the next downturn and back up the other side he'll have the respect of everyone in the business.

  25. Re:What a moronic question. on Non-Technical Managers in a Technical Company? · · Score: 1

    I would add a couple more things; respect and understanding for having a process, and the ability to understand and handle complexity. Most of the time the downfall of engineers as managers is in People skills and Financial Management skills. The later can be learned but the former is really essential when you get to the CEO level.