Business Advice From Van Halen | Fast Company

Business Advice From Van Halen | Fast Company

Your source of data doesn't need to be high tech. In fact, it doesn't even need to be numerical. Consider Van Halen. (We have been waiting years for a chance to write that sentence.) In its 1980s heyday, the band became notorious for a clause in its touring contract that demanded a bowl of M&Ms backstage, but with all the brown ones removed. The story is true -- confirmed by former lead singer David Lee Roth himself -- and it became the perfect, appalling symbol of rock-star-diva behavior.

Get ready to reverse your perception. Van Halen did dozens of shows every year, and at each venue, the band would show up with nine 18-wheelers full of gear. Because of the technical complexity, the band's standard contract with venues was thick and convoluted -- Roth, in his inimitable way, said in his autobiography that it read "like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages." A typical "article" in the contract might say, "There will be 15 amperage voltage sockets at 20-foot spaces, evenly, providing 19 amperes."

Van Halen buried a special clause in the middle of the contract. It was called Article 126. It read, "There will be no brown M&Ms in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation." So when Roth would arrive at a new venue, he'd walk backstage and glance at the M&M bowl. If he saw a brown M&M, he'd demand a line check of the entire production. "Guaranteed you're going to arrive at a technical error," he wrote. "They didn't read the contract.... Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show."

Can we avoid moralizing about the earthquake in Chile, please? - Michael Roston - Newsbroke - True/Slant

Can we avoid moralizing about the earthquake in Chile, please? - Michael Roston - Newsbroke - True/Slant: "The elderly sometimes don’t sleep very much, so it’s entirely possible that as a powerful earthquake struck Chile this morning, 8.8 magnitude on the richter scale, Pat Robertson was already awake in Virginia preparing to take to the airwaves of the Christian Broadcasting Network to explain to us how the Chileans had brought disaster and destruction on themselves."

PiCloud | FAQ

PiCloud | FAQ

What is PiCloud?

PiCloud is a fresh take on cloud computing. Our platform allows you to easily run any Python code on an auto-scaling, high-performance cluster. No server management required.

A snapshot of income disparity - latimes.com

A snapshot of income disparity - latimes.com: "'The incomes of the top 400 American households soared to a new record high in dollars and as a share of all income in 2007, while the income tax rates they paid fell to a record low.'

Between 2006 and 2007, according to the IRS, the average income of the country's 400 top taxpayers rose 31%, from $263.3 million to $344.8 million. At the same time, their effective income tax rate declined more than half a percentage point, from 17.17% in 2006 to 16.62% in 2007."

Asia Times Online :: Global Economy

Asia Times Online :: Global Economy: "And that's about when you reconcile to the inevitable future - Asia with its apparently permanent advantage on infrastructure and operating efficiency leaving Europe and North America ever further behind. Nothing appears to have the ability to reverse this trend."

White Whine - A New White Person Complaint Daily - Complaint #586

White Whine - A New White Person Complaint Daily - Complaint #586: "Ugh. The only vegetarian options at this ski resort are all so carby.

-Whine by Kelly"

Closos

Closos: "Lisp machines were promiscuous."

Joseph Stiglitz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joseph Stiglitz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stiglitz has shown (together with Bruce Greenwald) that "whenever markets are incomplete and /or information is imperfect (which are true in virtually all economies), even competitive market allocation is not constrained Pareto efficient". In other words, there almost always exists schemes of government intervention which can induce Pareto superior outcomes, thus making everyone better off.[8] Although these conclusions and the pervasiveness of market failures do not necessarily warrant the state intervening broadly in the economy, it makes clear that the "optimal" range of government recommendable interventions is definitely much larger than the traditional "market failure" school recognizes[9]

Correct use of "obnubilates"

The term "Cloud Computing" obnubilates computer science.

Reason Foundation - Where Ayn Rand Went Wrong

Reason Foundation - Where Ayn Rand Went Wrong
Adam Smith.. also recognized in the very first sentence of the Theory of Moral Sentiments—his brilliantly nuanced, richly observed study of human morality—that: "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it."

Ayn Rand: engineer of souls by Anthony Daniels - The New Criterion

Ayn Rand: engineer of souls by Anthony Daniels - The New Criterion
From the correct psychological insight that the allegedly compassionate sometimes use the existence of the weak and needy as a tool for their own social ascent and attainment of power—whole political parties, in almost every country, are founded upon this principle—it does not in the least follow that there are no people in need of assistance or that compassion for them is ipso facto bogus and a cover for the will to power. From the insight that government assistance to the unfortunate increases the number of the unfortunate, often imprisoning them in their misfortune, it does not follow in the least that it is right for human beings to be utterly callous and indifferent to the fate of the unfortunate.

A Tie-Up Between Intel and TSMC Fizzles - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

A Tie-Up Between Intel and TSMC Fizzles - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com
Intel confirmed this week that a lack of customer demand had put the partnership on hiatus for the short term. Which is to say, there will be no jointly developed Atoms arriving anytime soon, although Intel continues to hope for the best down the road.
“I think we had a lot of key learnings from the partnership so far,” Robert Crooke, Intel’s Atom chief, said in an interview. “We haven’t given up. These things never happen superfast.”

The Calpella Platform Update - Review Tom's Hardware : Mobile Core i7-920XM: Power Is The Price For Better Performance

The Calpella Platform Update - Review Tom's Hardware : Mobile Core i7-920XM: Power Is The Price For Better Performance
The base model, PM55, is derived from the desktop P55 you already know from our Core i5/Core i5 Lynnfield introduction. Designed to be paired with discrete graphics, it really is the foundation on which upcoming Calpella platforms will build. As a recap, it features eight of its own PCI Express 2.0 lanes, six SATA 3 Gb/s ports, Intel HD Audio, access to as many as 14 USB 2.0 ports, and Intel’s 2MB Ignition firmware (more on firmware in just a bit).
From there, we’ll see the HM55, HM57, QS57, and QM57 chipsets emerge in 2010, all with significantly more functionality than PM55.

Nautilus: Editors' advice on writing scientific papers

Nautilus: Editors' advice on writing scientific papers
Tell a story. We all love listening to a good story. And we all tell stories, but some are better at it than others, and those who tell the best stories are most able to get their points across. How you got your data is not that important—we don't need a chronology (first we did this, then we did that, etc.). Instead, now that you have the data and have interpreted them a certain way, think about how best to tell a story in light of all the previous work in the field, the question(s) you are addressing and why that question is important. How do your results advance our understanding of the question(s)? Have you discovered something new or unexpected? Consider how your findings fit into the broader context of the field, whether they are likely to change the way people in the field will think about the topic and how they will drive further experiments in the future.

Key Cloud Metric: Revenue per Server « Data Center Knowledge

Key Cloud Metric: Revenue per Server « Data Center Knowledge
Rackspace’s 56,671 servers shows an upward trend over the past four quarters from $2,899 to $2,991 (see chart above), even as net revenue per cloud customer has declined.

Coyote Blog » Blog Archive » I Have Ripped All My DVD’s to a Video Server

Coyote Blog » Blog Archive » I Have Ripped All My DVD’s to a Video Server: "The first thing I do when I buy a DVD is rip it to my video server. I have a 10TB RAID and I don’t even try to compress the disks, just copy them over in video_ts format using DVDfab6. I run SageTV on the server with the absolutely essential SageMC mod. I then can watch the video at every TV that has a Sage HD200 box. The whole system works for Bluray as well."

Swiss prostitutes armed with defibrillators • The Register

Swiss prostitutes armed with defibrillators • The Register: Safety First!

Ask the Performance Team : Windows Vista - SuperFetch & ReadyBoost

Ask the Performance Team : Windows Vista - SuperFetch & ReadyBoost: "You may have noticed that Vista tends to use a much greater percentage of system RAM than on Windows XP. It is not uncommon to view Task Manager on a Vista machine with several GB of RAM installed and less than 100MB of the RAM shows up as free"

NEW TAX LAW THREATENS HIGH-TECH CONSULTANTS - NYTimes.com

NEW TAX LAW THREATENS HIGH-TECH CONSULTANTS - NYTimes.com: "Companies whose consultants were considered independents had a competitive edge because they did not have to pay employee taxes on them. The consultant himself had tax breaks: he did not have payroll taxes taken out of his paychecks; he could invest part of his income in private pension funds that would be not be taxed for several years, and he could deduct a home office and other expenses that an employee could not."

WDP -1706 Tax Update-

WDP -1706 Tax Update-: "For many years, the IRS has been on a crusade to recharacterize workers as employees, rather than ICs. Initially, this attitude could be attributed to the circumstance that employment relationships were subject to a higher level of employment (FICA) taxes than independent contractor relationships. Although employment taxes are now effectively the same on both types of relationships (unless a worker has multiple employers), the IRS has continued to view IC relationships with hostility and suspicion. This attitude is now largely attributable to administrative convenience; it is much easier to collect taxes through payroll withholding than by relying on the workers to make estimated tax payments. The IRS also feels that ICs may be claiming inappropriate business deductions.

The IRS's crusade against IC arrangements caused many taxpayers to complain to Congress. In many cases the IRS collected taxes twice because employers were forced to pay the IRS the amount of income and FICA taxes they should have paid or withheld from the 'wages' paid to 'employees,' even though the workers paid their own income and self-employment taxes."

How the World Works - Salon.com

How the World Works - Salon.com: "the law 'made it extremely difficult for information technology professionals to work as self-employed individuals, forcing most to become company employees.'"

How a Tax Law Helps Insure a Scarcity of Programmers - NYTimes.com

How a Tax Law Helps Insure a Scarcity of Programmers - NYTimes.com: "The law generally excludes programmers from statutes giving employers some flexibility to use independent contractors. Critics say that the I.R.S. has recently stepped up its enforcement of the law in a way that effectively kills start-up programming businesses if their only employee is the founder.

The law, which was introduced by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York, was estimated to raise $60 million over five years, a figure based on a belief by a staff member of the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation that employees cheat less on their taxes than independent contractors do. That was enough money to pay for a tax break, approved with Mr. Moynihan's support, that was sought by I.B.M. for its overseas operations. Under the Gramm-Rudman deficit control act of the previous year, Congress was required to pay for any tax cuts with comparable revenue increases or spending cuts."

Fabulous Adventures In Coding : A twist of lemon

Fabulous Adventures In Coding : A twist of lemon: "We considered a proposal to rename short, int, and long to short, tall, and grande. More thought on this issue is required; we will revisit this issue on Friday."

How Intel Manages 100,000 Servers « Data Center Knowledge

How Intel Manages 100,000 Servers « Data Center Knowledge
Chipmaker Intel has one of the largest data center management challenges on earth, with more than 100,000 servers housed in 97 data centers around the globe. About 70 percent of those servers support Intel staffers designing microprocessors, with the remainder dedicated to Intel’s office, IT and web operations. The company manages more than 18 petabytes of primary and secondary storage.

Context of '1947: Victim of Japanese Waterboarding Relates Story to US War Crimes Tribunal'

Context of '1947: Victim of Japanese Waterboarding Relates Story to US War Crimes Tribunal': "1947: Victim of Japanese Waterboarding Relates Story to US War Crimes Tribunal
Edit event

Japanese soldier Chinsaku Yuki is tried by the US for war crimes involving, among other offenses, waterboarding Filipino civilians. One of his victims is lawyer Ramon Navarro. During the trial, Navarro recalls being waterboarded by Yuki. “When Yuki could not get anything out of me, he wanted the interpreter to place me down below,” he tells the court. “And I was told by Yuki to take off all my clothes, so what I did was to take off my clothes as ordered. I was ordered to lay on a bench and Yuki tied my feet, hands, and neck to that bench, lying with my face upward. After I was tied to the bench, Yuki placed some cloth on my face. And then with water from the faucet, they poured on me until I became unconscious. He repeated that four or five times.” Asked if he could breathe, Navarro says: “No, I could not, and so I, for a time, lost consciousness. I found my consciousness came back again and found Yuki was sitting on my stomach. And then I vomited the water from my stomach, and the consciousness came back again for me. [The water came f]rom my mouth and all openings of my face… and then Yuki would repeat the same treatment and the same procedure to me until I became unconscious again.” Navarro recalls he was tortured like this “four or five times.” He says he lied to Yuki to end the torment: “When I was not able to endure his punishment which I received, I told a lie to Yuki.… I could not really show anything to Yuki, because I was really lying just to stop the torture.”"

Contrary Brin: Distinguishing Climate "Deniers" From "Skeptics"

Contrary Brin: Distinguishing Climate "Deniers" From "Skeptics": "Several claimed to be rational, educated fellows who regret the shrill anti-intellectualism of Fox News. Yet, they still defend the core notion underlying the anti-HGCC (human generated Climate change) movement -- the premise that virtually 100% of the thousands of scientists in a given field can be suborned, corrupted, or intimidated simultaneously into supporting a nonsensical, baseless theory.

A baseless theory that thousands of 'skeptics' happen to be able to see through, all at the same time.

'We skeptics just want to get our questions answered,' one person wrote. 'Until then, of course, society should do nothing rash.'

That sounds so reasonable, who could refuse?

Well, in fact, after two decades of seeing 'let's not do anything rash' used as a talking point excuse for doing nothing at all? No, it doesn't sound reasonable."

I'm a Global Warming skeptic, and I invite you to change my mind. : science

I'm a Global Warming skeptic, and I invite you to change my mind. : science: "Here are some sources that might help,

1.

NASA http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/global_warming_worldbook.html http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarmingQandA/ http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif (The graph)
2.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Climatic Data Center http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
3.

World Meteorological Organization (WMO) http://www.wmo.ch/pages/about/wmo50/e/world/climate_pages/global_warming_e.html
4.

American Meteorological Society http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/2007climatechange.html
5.

National Center for Atmospheric Research “How do we know Earth is warming now?” http://www.ncar.ucar.edu/research/climate/now.php
6.

Earth System Research Laboratory - Global Monitoring Division “Climate Forcing” http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/about/climate.html
7.

University Corporation for Atmospheric Research http://www.ucar.edu/research/climate/warming.jsp
8.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory - California Institute of Technology “Global Climate Change” “How do we know?” http://climate.jpl.nasa.gov/evidence/
9.

American Geophysical Union (world's largest scientific society of Earth and space scientists) “Human Impacts on Climate” http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/climate_change_position.html
10.

American Association for the Advancement of Science “The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now” http://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/climate_change/mtg_200702/aaas_climate_statement.pdf http://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/climate_change/
11.

The United States Energy Information Administration “Greenhouse Gases, Climate Change, and Energy” http://www.eia.doe.gov/bookshelf/brochures/greenhouse/Chapter1.htm
12.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology “Report: Human activity fuels global warming” http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/climate.html
13.

California Institute of Technology “How We Know Global Warming is Real” “The science behind human-induced climate change” http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~tapio/papers/skeptic_2008.pdf
14.

Atmospheric Sciences - University of Illinois - Champaign “Evidence continues to mount that human activities are altering the Earth’s climate on a global scale.” http://www.atmos.uiuc.edu/research/01climate.html
15.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution “Global Warming” http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12457
16.

The UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre “Climate change - the big picture” http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/myths/index.html http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/guide/
17.

The UK’s Royal Society “Climate change controversies: a simple guide” http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?id=6229
18.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Based in Switzerland) “Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report” http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf
19.

Japan Meteorological Agency “Global Warming Projection Vol.7” http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/gwp7/index-e.html
20.

The Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society “Our climate has changed substantially.” “Global climate change and global warming are real and observable.” http://www.amos.org.au/publications/cid/3/t/publications
21.

Royal Society of New Zealand “The globe is warming because of increasing greenhouse gas emissions.” http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/Site/news/media_releases/2008/clim0708.aspx
22.

National Geographic Magazine http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/
23.

Scientific American Magazine http://www.sciam.com/topic.cfm?id=global-warming-and-climate-change"

Dick Cheney Admits to Torture Conspiracy | | AlterNet

Dick Cheney Admits to Torture Conspiracy | | AlterNet:


On Sunday, Cheney pronounced himself 'a big supporter of waterboarding,' a near-drowning technique that has been regarded as torture back to the Spanish Inquisition and that has long been treated by U.S. authorities as a serious war crime, such as when Japanese commanders were prosecuted for using it on American prisoners during World War II."

Mark's Blog : The Machine SID Duplication Myth

Mark's Blog : The Machine SID Duplication Myth: "The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that machine SID duplication – having multiple computers with the same machine SID – doesn’t pose any problem, security or otherwise."

Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in r... [J Pers Soc Psychol. 1999] - PubMed result

Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in r... [J Pers Soc Psychol. 1999] - PubMed result: "Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities"

Why Your Friends Have More Friends Than You Do | Psychology Today

Why Your Friends Have More Friends Than You Do Psychology Today
One of my all-time favorites among all the scientific papers that I have ever read in my life is “Why your friends have more friends than you do,” published in the American Journal of Sociology in 1991 by my old sociology friend Scott L. Feld, who is now Professor of Sociology at Purdue University

ProtectKeyWithTPM Method of the Win32_EncryptableVolume Class (Windows)

ProtectKeyWithTPM Method of the Win32_EncryptableVolume Class (Windows)
A platform validation profile consists of a set of Platform Configuration Register (PCR) indices ranging from 0 to 23, inclusive. Repeat values in the parameter are ignored. Each PCR index is associated with components that run when the operating system starts. Each time the computer starts, the TPM will check that the components you specified in the platform validation profile have not changed. If any of these components change while BitLocker Drive Encryption (BDE) protection remains on, the TPM will not release the encryption key to unlock the disk volume and the computer will enter into recovery mode.
If this parameter is specified while the corresponding Group Policy setting has been enabled, it must match the Group Policy setting.
If this parameter is not specified, the default of 0, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, and 11 is used. The default platform validation profile secures the encryption key against changes to the Core Root of Trust of Measurement (CRTM), BIOS, and Platform Extensions (PCR 0), Option ROM Code (PCR 2), the Master Boot Record (MBR) Code (PCR 4), the Master Boot Record (MBR) Partition Table (PCR 5), the NTFS Boot Sector (PCR 8), the NTFS Boot Code (PCR 9), the Boot Manager (PCR 10), and the BitLocker Drive Encryption Access Control (PCR 11). For the security of your computer, we recommend the default profile. For additional protection against early startup configuration changes, use a profile of PCRs 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11.

Clean smells promote generosity and fair play; dark rooms and sunglasses promote deceit and selfishness : Not Exactly Rocket Science

Clean smells promote generosity and fair play; dark rooms and sunglasses promote deceit and selfishness : Not Exactly Rocket Science: "Now, Zhong, together with Katie Liljenquist and Adam Galinsky, have expanded on these studies by showing that clean smells can make people behave more virtuously. They ushered 28 volunteers into a room that was either unscented or that had been lightly sprayed with a citrus air freshener. In either case, they had to play a trust game, where a 'sender' has a pot of money and chooses how much they want to invest with a 'receiver'. The investment is tripled and the receiver decides how much to give back.

The volunteers were all told that they had been randomly chosen as receivers. Their anonymous partner had invested their entire $4 pot with them, which had been tripled to $12. Their job was to decide how much to give back. On average, they returned a measly $2.81in the unscented rooms but a more equitable $5.33 in the scented ones. The single spray of citrus nearly doubled their tendency to reciprocate.

In a second experiment, the trio again ushered 99 students into either a scented or unscented room. They were given a pack of miscellaneous tasks, including a flyer requesting volunteers for a charity called Habitat for Humanity. Those in the citrus-scented rooms were more likely to be interested in volunteering, and almost four times more willing to donate money to the cause."

The Religion Virus: The Tea Party: The Sarah Palin Sycophant Party

The Religion Virus: The Tea Party: The Sarah Palin Sycophant Party: "My favorite line from Palin's speech at the Tea Party convention: When asked what she'd do to improve national security, a key point in her strategic plan was to 'pray for divine intervention.' Seriously! She actually believes that asking for magical intervention from God should be part of our military and diplomatic strategy. If she is ever elected, we'll need some magic, that's for sure."

Security chip that does encryption in PCs hacked - Yahoo! News

Security chip that does encryption in PCs hacked - Yahoo! News
Using off-the-shelf chemicals, Tarnovsky soaked chips in acid to dissolve their hard outer shells. Then he applied rust remover to help take off layers of mesh wiring, to expose the chips' cores. From there, he had to find the right communication channels to tap into using a very small needle.
The needle allowed him to set up a wiretap and eavesdrop on all the programming instructions as they are sent back and forth between the chip and the computer's memory. Those instructions hold the secrets to the computer's encryption, and he didn't find them encrypted because he was physically inside the chip.
Even once he had done all that, he said he still had to crack the "huge problem" of figuring out how to avoid traps programmed into the chip's software as an extra layer of defense.
"This chip is mean, man — it's like a ticking time bomb if you don't do something right," Tarnovsky said

Dell BIOS Flash codes

Documentation
System Flash Codes
When errors that occur during the boot routine cannot be reported on the display or on an external monitor (if attached), the Num Lock, Caps Lock, and Scroll Lock indicators (see Figure 1) may flash together in a pattern of lights (or flash code) that identifies the problem. For example, one flash, followed by a second flash, and then a burst of three flashes (code 1-1-3) means that the computer was unable to read the data in nonvolatile random-access memory (NVRAM). This information is important to the Dell support staff if you need to call for technical assistance.
The Num Lock, Caps Lock, and Scroll Lock indicators flash briefly when the computer is turned on. The flash codes, if needed, occur after the boot routine.

Denim and Tweed: Dethroning the Red Queen?

Denim and Tweed: Dethroning the Red Queen?: "This competing model should also lead to a roughly constant rate of species formation and extinction, but it predicts a different pattern of variation around that constant rate than the coevolutionary Red Queen does. If most speciation and extinction events are caused by coevolution, then the time periods between speciation events should follow a normal distribution – forming a 'bell curve' with most periods close to the average length, and symmetrical tails of longer and shorter periods of time. On the other hand, if many different, individually rare geological events are the most common cause of speciation and extinction, the periods between speciation events should follow an exponential distribution, with most periods being shorter than the average, but a long tail of longer periods as well."

Apple’s A4 chip: Engineers correct stupid journalist | VentureBeat

Apple’s A4 chip: Engineers correct stupid journalist | VentureBeat: "“With the A4 Apple has taken an ARM CPU core and married it with exactly the IP they need. They needed a memory controller, a display controller, a 3D graphics engine, a WiFi core, etc. etc. etc. There are no (well, not exaclty, but for all practical purposes) unnecessary blocks in the A4 chi"

Op-Ed Contributor - Microsoft’s Creative Destruction - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Contributor - Microsoft’s Creative Destruction - NYTimes.com: "why Microsoft, America’s most famous and prosperous technology company, no longer brings us the future, whether it’s tablet computers like the iPad, e-books like Amazon’s Kindle, smartphones like the BlackBerry and iPhone, search engines like Google, digital music systems like iPod and iTunes or popular Web services like Facebook and Twitter."

Always Sign Your PGP Public Key

Always Sign Your PGP Public Key
Here's how the attack works. I take your unsigned public key, and (using a suitably powerful editor, such as Emacs) I edit the userid string so that it still has your name but my email address on it. Then I distribute this modified key widely. Note that the modified key continues to have the same key fingerprint as the unmodified key, so it appears to be your key to all who do not know your email address

Server Processors: Chapter 2009 (Part 2)

Server Processors: Chapter 2009 (Part 2)
One possible answer is that the trend is unstoppable. Interest in non-x86 high-end processors will continue to decline until it vanishes entirely. POWER, Itanium, and SPARC will simply take their places as the final three victims in a long line of failed high-end processor architectures: Alpha, MIPS, PA-RISC, Clipper, the 88000, the 29000, the i960, and a host of other largely forgotten architectures that once vied for performance leadership.

On Faith Panelists Blog: The Great Tim Tebow Fallacy - Richard Dawkins

On Faith Panelists Blog: The Great Tim Tebow Fallacy - Richard Dawkins: "I gather that Tim Tebow is extremely good at football. That's just as well, for he certainly isn't very good at thinking. Perhaps the fact that he was home schooled by missionary parents is to blame.

The following is what passes for logic in the Tebow mind. His mother was advised by doctors to abort him, but she refused, which is why Tim is here. So abortion is a bad thing. Masterful conclusion."

PC Client Implementation for BIOS.pdf (application/pdf Object)

PC Client Implementation for BIOS.pdf (application/pdf Object)

The PARTIES Partition is a hidden partition on the hard drive that BIOS can use for
additional storage space and as a virtual drive. In the PARTIES Partition, there is a small
1455 section called the BEER.
-- TCG PC Client Specific
Implementation Specification
For Conventional BIOS
Version 1.20

mccunej_phd.pdf (application/pdf Object)

mccunej_phd.pdf (application/pdf Object)
reducing the TCB

Organizing for America | BarackObama.com

Organizing for America | BarackObama.com: "we need to stand up to the special interests, bring Republicans and Democrats together, and pass the Farm Bill immediately."

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - South Carolina Lt. Gov. compares poor to ’stray animals’ « - Blogs from CNN.com

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - South Carolina Lt. Gov. compares poor to ’stray animals’ « - Blogs from CNN.com: "'My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals,' Bauer told an audience in the town of Fountain Inn, according to the Greenville News. 'You know why? Because they breed.'

'You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply,' Bauer continued. 'They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better.'

Bauer said recipients of government assistance should undergo drug testing or be forced to attend parent-teacher conferences, or else lose their benefits."

PUT or POST: The REST of the Story « Open Sourcery

PUT or POST: The REST of the Story « Open Sourcery
After that discussion, a more realistic mapping would seem to be:
Create = PUT iff you are sending the full content of the specified resource (URL).
Create = POST if you are sending a command to the server to create a subordinate of the specified resource, using some server-side algorithm.
Retrieve = GET.
Update = PUT iff you are updating the full content of the specified resource.
Update = POST if you are requesting the server to update one or more subordinates of the specified resource.
Delete = DELETE.

Redis Virtual Memory: the story and the code

Redis Virtual Memory: the story and the code: "Using memcached in order to cache SQL queries is a well established pattern. My SQL DB is slow, so I write an application layer to take the frequently accessed data in memcached (handling invalidation by hand), so I can query this faster cache instead of the DB. The idea is to take data on disk, but to cache the hotspot in memory for fast access.

Redis + VM is exactly the reverse. You take your data in memory, but what is not the hot spot is disk-backed in order to free mem for more interesting data. In both models the frequently accessed data will stay in memory, but the process is reversed, with the following benefits:"