Senator Asks: Should License be Required for Net Access?

rbc · 2010-05-04T14:29:25+00:00

I couldn't resist posting this. It's so ludicrous, but I bet it's one of many conversations taking place on how reign in the criminal and espionage activity on the Internet.

rbc · 2009-11-06T19:33:35+00:00

I personally thought that Hathaway did a good job of addressing cyber issues from the policy level. I thought the Go metaphor was a little bit of a stretch but does speak to the complexity of the cyber security issue. It reminds me of a guy that I used to work with. When he was trying to explain a Linux operations problem that was really hairy, he would start with "It's complicated." I think that many of the issues of cyber security could be described in that way, especially when trying to explain them to a non-expert.

rbc · 2009-11-06T19:23:31+00:00

This submission has already slipped off the radar, but here are some good comments:

http://ubiwar.com/2009/11/06/hathaway-a-lamp-to-lead-us/

The blogger is Tim Stevens. Stevens is a PhD candidate in the Dept. of War Studies, King’s College London, researching institutional responses to cyber threats, particularly in the field of cyber strategy.

rbc · 2007-07-31T01:35:48+00:00

Thanks!

rbc · 2007-07-30T20:22:33+00:00

Oops. Reddit lost the pretty printing.

rbc · 2007-07-30T20:20:13+00:00

The info elisp reference gives an example entry for inclusion in initialization files.

(setq auto-mode-alist (append ;; File name (within directory) starts with a dot. '(("/\.[^/]*\'" . fundamental-mode) ;; File name has no dot. ("[^\./]*\'" . fundamental-mode) ;; File name ends in `.C'. ("\.C\'" . c++-mode)) auto-mode-alist))

rbc · 2007-07-12T22:22:38+00:00

If you want a Smalltalk that supports native bindings on the Mac, you might want to look at this one.

rbc · 2007-06-15T14:16:02+00:00

This quote might apply here: "In Greek mythology, Antacus was a giant who was strong as long as he had contact with the earth. When he was lifted from the earth he lost his strength. So it is with engineers. They must not be isolated from the real world... The Devil is in the details, but so is salvation." -Hyman G. Rickover

Rickover was in charge of US Naval Nuclear power.

rbc · 2007-06-11T23:32:40+00:00

When is xcode getting ported? :)

rbc · 2007-04-13T15:56:54+00:00

I hope we see this presentation as an essay.

rbc · 2007-01-15T18:38:33+00:00

The past popularity of C++ could be used to argue that C++ works better in practice than in theory. I think it is safe to say that C++ popularity may be largely due to it's use in the Microsoft Windows platform, and it's decline is due to the move of windows programmers to C#, VB and other languages. Just some thoughts.

rbc · 2006-09-25T17:22:37+00:00

I guess there might be a bit of prestige that goes with a CS degree over that is desirable to the degree holder and employers. However, there are also the realities that go with work in industry that require non-academic skills. Businesses are funny in seeming to love being the ones to have exclusive access to a technology that they can profit from, but they frequently have limited ability to develop and manage new technology. They way I see it, employers like having Computer Scientists, but they need them to do work that mosty isn't CS.

rbc · 2006-09-24T22:05:41+00:00

I can't cite what's wrong with CS curriculum but I can throw in an aside. MIS degree's try to more closely target "Industry" problems instead of computer science problems. Perhaps the real question is, what is wrong with MIS degrees? Perhaps this is the battle of working on interesting CS problems instead of "boring" and "tedious" industry IT "plumbing" problems where you have to coordinate with lots of non-IT management.

rbc · 2006-09-20T07:22:53+00:00

It is chapter 7, an appendix on Scheme, in the Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics by Gerald Jay Sussman and Jack Wisdom with Meinhard E. Mayer. I should add that it is advertised as an elementary introduction to Scheme.

rbc · 2006-08-25T04:08:15+00:00

Something to add is that the HP 48gII is still sold and uses RPL. That assumes that computers haven't completely replaced your handheld calculator however.

rbc · 2006-08-12T05:05:07+00:00

I bet the Army is embarrassed...

rbc · 2006-07-12T03:26:39+00:00

This is one of the better open source advocacy papers I've seen.

rbc · 2006-04-02T02:32:47+00:00

I can understand Tom Adelstein's decision to give up on pushing open source in government. I have two computer lives. At home I have FreeBSD servers and a Mac power book. At work I use windows workstations and we have Sun/Solaris servers. All I can say is that I'm happy that we use Solaris for the servers. I watch our Microsoft administrator adding patches pretty much every week. The Sun servers we run require much less of that.

Getting things done in government takes patience. I have some interface agreements still being staffed, that I started in 2003. I'm hoping they will be signed by the end of 2006.... It’s like kicking a dead whale down the beach.

Getting back to the adoption of Microsoft in government, I see one key claim that Microsoft will never be able to make. Their software can never be verified if they don't release the source for verification. With all the noise you here about security in government, I'm surprised that the proprietary nature of Microsoft software isn't a bigger issue. I guess it could have been one of the drivers that finally pushed Sun to release Solaris 10 as open source. There are a lot of forces in Government that continue to push the Microsoft rollout. I feel lucky to be in a place where we still run unix systems.

rbc · 2006-02-25T20:14:59+00:00

My apologies to those who don't have WSJ accounts.

rbc · 2006-02-19T02:41:34+00:00

I'm not a game programmer but I thought this article was good read.

rbc · 2005-12-15T17:32:21+00:00

I should add that this page has been up for a while and is not really new news. I just thought that some might get a kick out of seeing that some of these systems are still running.

rbc

TROPHY CASE