The SOC project might be worthwile from the point of view of the students gaining experience, but from what I have heard there has been a mixed reaction to the results from the projects they have been working on. Are there any metrics showing the net benefit (or otherwise) to the projects and the relative cost in supervision & reworking code (ie, we got equivalent productivity of say 0.7 of the mentors normal productivity for the time spent mentoring) and how many of the students went on to continue contributing to that or another open source project?
This is great news. I'm currently involved in a rollout of Red Hat Enterprise for a large Govt Department in Western Australia and we have had to make extensive use of VMWare's ESX. Having Xen in RH would streamline our development process and make a Red Hat ES development environment more attractive for large enterprise use.
What is most interesting about this is the flow on effect this technology will have in civilian applications. The military get to do the hard yards, reap the first fruits and eventually the tech will become more price realistic and available for civilian use- safer airliners, trains, cars and so on. Maglev tech has been promised for years, now it looks like it will get some time in the sun.
I can't help thinking the authorities are still way too star-struck by tech and don't value human intel enough. We have seen the shortcomings of a lack of human intel in Afganistan, Iraq, 9/11 and so on. When will improving the human intel get the focus it needs so gov'ts can make informed decisions about our security. Maybe then we can forget about Dept of Homeland Security type fiascos.
Free internet access has already been shown to be a dud model. Think back a few years and you may recall a whole host of free internet providers who were going to make up the dollars with advertising. Do you remember any names? Probably not, they all went broke or changed direction.
So what's new with wireless? Not much. I for one would rather pay for add free wireless access (but not much- I'm never/that/ far from a wired point) than have to put up with adds. And if I'm going to pay, it has to have good geographical coverage, which is not that easy or cheap to do once you start looking at all the blind spots from irregular terrain or tall building in city centres. I'm sceptical about the advertisement value being greater than the cost of provision, though google must think so. I'll be interested to see if this has any legs in the long term.
Looking into the US from a long way off, articles like this consistently give the impression that the US is out of control; at least out of the control or ordinary hard working citizens. What has happened to accountability? How does the average citizen take a stand and agitate for real change if it takes umpteen million dollars or ownership of a great chunk of popular media to get elected to office?
How far from the ideal can you go and still call it a democracy? Maybe you still get to vote (If you are willing to stand in line for hours on end on polling day, and you haven't been taken off the electoral roll by your political opponents for some unknown reason) but if the political establishment has pre-filtered or sanitised or heavily biased (with little regard for impartial analysis of the facts) all the information available to help you make your choice can you still claim to be making an informed choice?
If the practical realities of electioneering mean you only get to choose from those with very large bank balances, can you really claim ultimate political authority still comes from the people? If only the very rich can stand for office with any expectation of being elected, don't they have considerably more political authority than the average citizen?
While the US does still sometimes present a shining beacon for the world, it increasingly looks dimmer and less frequent. The darker episodes also seem to be more frequent. With luck, this will come to be seen as an aberration, but from where I stand I don't like the downward direction the US looks to be heading in.
The traffic jams won't get so bad, they will just build new hyperspace bypasses every time it gets too conjested. And don't forget the cheap and nasty fast food at the top of all good exit ramps...
Your contact information was referred to me by one of my trusted contacts, whose name I am not at liberty to compromize. I would like to approach you with reguards to a profitable Business Proposal, reguarding the transfer of 10 Space flight tickets (Value $10,000,000 U.S. Dollars) into your custodianship. For reasons I am sure you will appreciate, I ask that you keep this commucation confidential, and avoid it falling into the hands of any agents of the Nigerian Secret Police that may be operating in Your area.
My name is Antonio C., and I am the Son of Dr. Chuichui Bello, the recently Assassinated President of SpaceX. If you have been following the events of my father's company over the last few years, you will remember the big scandal that took place when Dr. Bello was brutally gunned down in front of his office.
You see, my Father had a lot of enemies in the Government, who envied his great space flight tickets. It was they who removed him in the hope to gain access to the tickets which he accumulated over the years from bribe money offered by other space flight companies to stay out of government contracts. Fortunately, there was too much scandal and media coverage in the aftermath of Dr. Bello's murder for them to move openly to claim his tickets. This gave me and a few trusted people who were still loyal to my Father, an opportunity to move the tickets into a secret vault at the Second Central Bank of Nigeria.
While we managed to do this without the Nigerian Secret Police becoming aware of our activities, the tickets cannot remain in this vault, because at the end of the tax year, all contents will be reported to the Taxation Bureau of Nigeria, where our enemies have informants in their pay. The only option available to us, is transfering the tickets to a trusted partner who is a foreign national and cannot be linked to Dr. Chuichui Bello in any way.
As your name was brought to my attention by a very trusted contact in Nigeria's Foreign Office, I have been authorized by my partners to contact you with this Proposal. All that would be required of you is the use of your bank vault to perform a transfer of 10 (ten) Space flight tickets (value $10,000,000 U.S. Dollars). Once the tickets have been deposited, one of Dr. Bello's other Sons will contact you, at which point you will release 6 (six) tickets into his custody.
I am authorized by my Father's estate in Nigeria to offer you the remaining 4 (four) tickets ($4,000,000 U.S. Dollars value) as a compensation for your services. Because the tickets would only need to be in your bank vault for a few days, and your danger of being discovered by The Nigerian Secret Police is minimal, we believe the commission of FORTY PERCENT (40 %) by value to be more than generous.
Once I have received Your consent and Bank vault number, I will be able to make a claim under Your name with The Pan-African Insurance Company for the above tickets. We have a friend on the Board Of Oversight in that organization who has assured me that the claim will be processed without raising any red flags, and the tickets will be released into Your Bank Vault no later than within SEVEN (7) days from the time I receive your response.
I am at your disposal to answer any questions you may have about this Transaction, so don't hesitate to contact me via telephone, at +1-555-555-6366 (Just ask for Antonio). I eagerly await your reply, though I must ask you to treat this matter with great secrecy, lest you betray me and my partners to the agents of Nigerian Secret Police.
I can't help thinking about all the explorers who set out from a tired conservative European world to find the 'new world'; multi-year trips, many lost ships, false starts, disasters and discoveries. In some ways we now live in a very conservative risk averse world that likes to try and keep the status quo rather than push the boundaries and explore new hosizons.
How long will it be and how many 'lost ships' will we see before we get another Christopher Columus, Marco Polo or James Cook?
Slashdot Mirror
The SOC project might be worthwile from the point of view of the students gaining experience, but from what I have heard there has been a mixed reaction to the results from the projects they have been working on. Are there any metrics showing the net benefit (or otherwise) to the projects and the relative cost in supervision & reworking code (ie, we got equivalent productivity of say 0.7 of the mentors normal productivity for the time spent mentoring) and how many of the students went on to continue contributing to that or another open source project?
This is great news. I'm currently involved in a rollout of Red Hat Enterprise for a large Govt Department in Western Australia and we have had to make extensive use of VMWare's ESX. Having Xen in RH would streamline our development process and make a Red Hat ES development environment more attractive for large enterprise use.
What is most interesting about this is the flow on effect this technology will have in civilian applications. The military get to do the hard yards, reap the first fruits and eventually the tech will become more price realistic and available for civilian use- safer airliners, trains, cars and so on. Maglev tech has been promised for years, now it looks like it will get some time in the sun.
I can't help thinking the authorities are still way too star-struck by tech and don't value human intel enough. We have seen the shortcomings of a lack of human intel in Afganistan, Iraq, 9/11 and so on. When will improving the human intel get the focus it needs so gov'ts can make informed decisions about our security. Maybe then we can forget about Dept of Homeland Security type fiascos.
Free internet access has already been shown to be a dud model. Think back a few years and you may recall a whole host of free internet providers who were going to make up the dollars with advertising. Do you remember any names? Probably not, they all went broke or changed direction.
/that/ far from a wired point) than have to put up with adds. And if I'm going to pay, it has to have good geographical coverage, which is not that easy or cheap to do once you start looking at all the blind spots from irregular terrain or tall building in city centres. I'm sceptical about the advertisement value being greater than the cost of provision, though google must think so. I'll be interested to see if this has any legs in the long term.
So what's new with wireless? Not much. I for one would rather pay for add free wireless access (but not much- I'm never
Looking into the US from a long way off, articles like this consistently give the impression that the US is out of control; at least out of the control or ordinary hard working citizens. What has happened to accountability? How does the average citizen take a stand and agitate for real change if it takes umpteen million dollars or ownership of a great chunk of popular media to get elected to office?
How far from the ideal can you go and still call it a democracy? Maybe you still get to vote (If you are willing to stand in line for hours on end on polling day, and you haven't been taken off the electoral roll by your political opponents for some unknown reason) but if the political establishment has pre-filtered or sanitised or heavily biased (with little regard for impartial analysis of the facts) all the information available to help you make your choice can you still claim to be making an informed choice?
If the practical realities of electioneering mean you only get to choose from those with very large bank balances, can you really claim ultimate political authority still comes from the people? If only the very rich can stand for office with any expectation of being elected, don't they have considerably more political authority than the average citizen?
While the US does still sometimes present a shining beacon for the world, it increasingly looks dimmer and less frequent. The darker episodes also seem to be more frequent. With luck, this will come to be seen as an aberration, but from where I stand I don't like the downward direction the US looks to be heading in.
The traffic jams won't get so bad, they will just build new hyperspace bypasses every time it gets too conjested. And don't forget the cheap and nasty fast food at the top of all good exit ramps...
Dear Mr DrMrLordX,
Your contact information was referred to me by one of my trusted contacts, whose name I am not at liberty to compromize. I would like to approach you with reguards to a profitable Business Proposal, reguarding the transfer of 10 Space flight tickets (Value $10,000,000 U.S. Dollars) into your custodianship. For reasons I am sure you will appreciate, I ask that you keep this commucation confidential, and avoid it falling into the hands of any agents of the Nigerian Secret Police that may be operating in Your area.
My name is Antonio C., and I am the Son of Dr. Chuichui Bello, the recently Assassinated President of SpaceX. If you have been following the events of my father's company over the last few years, you will remember the big scandal that took place when Dr. Bello was brutally gunned down in front of his office.
You see, my Father had a lot of enemies in the Government, who envied his great space flight tickets. It was they who removed him in the hope to gain access to the tickets which he accumulated over the years from bribe money offered by other space flight companies to stay out of government contracts. Fortunately, there was too much scandal and media coverage in the aftermath of Dr. Bello's murder for them to move openly to claim his tickets. This gave me and a few trusted people who were still loyal to my Father, an opportunity to move the tickets into a secret vault at the Second Central Bank of Nigeria.
While we managed to do this without the Nigerian Secret Police becoming aware of our activities, the tickets cannot remain in this vault, because at the end of the tax year, all contents will be reported to the Taxation Bureau of Nigeria, where our enemies have informants in their pay. The only option available to us, is transfering the tickets to a trusted partner who is a foreign national and cannot be linked to Dr. Chuichui Bello in any way.
As your name was brought to my attention by a very trusted contact in Nigeria's Foreign Office, I have been authorized by my partners to contact you with this Proposal. All that would be required of you is the use of your bank vault to perform a transfer of 10 (ten) Space flight tickets (value $10,000,000 U.S. Dollars). Once the tickets have been deposited, one of Dr. Bello's other Sons will contact you, at which point you will release 6 (six) tickets into his custody.
I am authorized by my Father's estate in Nigeria to offer you the remaining 4 (four) tickets ($4,000,000 U.S. Dollars value) as a compensation for your services. Because the tickets would only need to be in your bank vault for a few days, and your danger of being discovered by The Nigerian Secret Police is minimal, we believe the commission of FORTY PERCENT (40 %) by value to be more than generous.
Once I have received Your consent and Bank vault number, I will be able to make a claim under Your name with The Pan-African Insurance Company for the above tickets. We have a friend on the Board Of Oversight in that organization who has assured me that the claim will be processed without raising any red flags, and the tickets will be released into Your Bank Vault no later than within SEVEN (7) days from the time I receive your response.
I am at your disposal to answer any questions you may have about this Transaction, so don't hesitate to contact me via telephone, at +1-555-555-6366 (Just ask for Antonio). I eagerly await your reply, though I must ask you to treat this matter with great secrecy, lest you betray me and my partners to the agents of Nigerian Secret Police.
Respectfully Yours,
Antonio C.
I can't help thinking about all the explorers who set out from a tired conservative European world to find the 'new world'; multi-year trips, many lost ships, false starts, disasters and discoveries. In some ways we now live in a very conservative risk averse world that likes to try and keep the status quo rather than push the boundaries and explore new hosizons.
How long will it be and how many 'lost ships' will we see before we get another Christopher Columus, Marco Polo or James Cook?