MeeGo: Meaningful or Mediocre?

MeeGo: Meaningful or Mediocre?: "Former Maemo project and application developers are timid to fully embrace MeeGo, mainly because the newer system has chosen to use Moblin's Red Hat-derived RPM package manager over the Maemo Debian apt-get software manager.

ARM, Freescale, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments Form New Company to Speed the Rollout of Linux-Based Devices

ARM, Freescale, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments Form New Company to Speed the Rollout of Linux-Based Devices: "# ARM, Freescale, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments have created the not-for-profit company, Linaro, committed to providing new resources and industry alignment for open source software developers using Linux on the world’s most sophisticated semiconductor System-on-Chips (SoCs).
# Linaro will invest resources in open source projects that can then be used by Linux-based distributions such as Android, LiMo, MeeGo, Ubuntu and webOS.

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Dan Weinreb’s blog » Blog Archive » What Does the Proof of the “CAP theorem” Mean?

Dan Weinreb’s blog » Blog Archive » What Does the Proof of the “CAP theorem” Mean?: "the fact that DNS has been able to scale up so much is an huge engineering success that I feel is under-appreciated. We take DNS for granted, but it’s quite amazing how well it works! Since it went into service, the Internet has grown (in number of hosts) by a factor of roughly 50,000, and it still works. Not many other systems can say that.

5 Ads Gone Hilariously Wrong « Dream Factory Productions Blog

5 Ads Gone Hilariously Wrong « Dream Factory Productions Blog: "“We took a young woman with severe memory loss
and helped her forget she ever had it.”

Juniper buys into enterprise tablet security - Rethink Wireless

Juniper buys into enterprise tablet security - Rethink Wireless: "trend for individuals to carry high end mobile devices for combined business and personal use, replacing many of the functions of a PC - and so requiring heavier duty security.
The software runs on Android, Apple IoS, Symbian, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile, protecting devices from viruses, spyware, identity theft and other threats, and allowing the central enterprise IT department to manage the policies and settings."

Standardization comes to the Cloud? - DDJ

Standardization comes to the Cloud? - DDJ: "OpenStack is a new open source cloud computing platform, initially supported by RackSpace (the second largest cloud provider, next to Amazon) and NASA. It aims to make cloud interoperability easier than ever. To kick off the new initiative, RackSpace is open-sourcing the code behind their cloud files service and their compute provisioning technology, and donating it to the project. NASA is also contributing some of the technology behind their powerful Nebula computing platform."

The top 20 countries on the Internet, and what the future might bring | Royal Pingdom

The top 20 countries on the Internet, and what the future might bring Royal Pingdom: "Out of the top 20 countries, the five with the highest Internet penetration (not users) are: United Kingdom (82.5%), South Korea (81.1%), Germany (79.1%), Japan (78.2%), United States (76.3%)."

Northrop Grumman opens Advanced Technology Research and Development Center

Northrop Grumman opens Advanced Technology Research and Development Center: "Northrop Grumman officially opened its new Northrop Grumman Innovation Institute in Linthicum last week. The center will serve as the focal point for the sector's advanced technology development activities.

The five-story, 156,000 square foot leased office building is located on West Nursery Road in the West*Quest Technology Park where Northrop Grumman already maintains the headquarters for its Electronic Systems sector. The new facility is home to more than 450 current engineers, scientists and support personnel who had previously been housed in several nearby leased and company-owned buildings"

Donald A. Hicks - SourceWatch

Donald A. Hicks - SourceWatch: "'Prior to his appointment as USDRE, Dr. Hicks was Senior Vice President, Marketing & Technology, for Northrop Grumman. He joined Northrop in 1961 as Vice President-Technical for the company's Ventura Division. Four years later, he formed the Applied Research Department of the Nortronics Division of Northrop. In 1967, this department became a major part of the newly formed Northrop Research & Technology Center, with Dr. Hicks serving as Vice President & Manager. In 1970, Dr. Hicks was promoted to Corporate Vice President of Research & Technology, a position he held until his appointment as Senior Vice President-Technology in November 1974. This position was expanded in 1979 to include corporate marketing"

There will be blood: why Apple and Intel are destined to clash

There will be blood: why Apple and Intel are destined to clash: "There's no way that Apple is going to sit idly by while Intel builds a hardware/software platform to compete with iOS, and then gives that platform away to Apple's competitors. And there's no way that Intel is going sit idly by and watch Apple's ARM-based products rake in billions in revenue without trying to take them down."

Christopher Nolan’s “Inception,” review : The New Yorker

Christopher Nolan’s “Inception,” review : The New Yorker: "I would like to plant in Christopher Nolan’s head the thought that he might consider working more simply next time. His way of dodging powerful emotion is beginning to look like a grand-scale version of a puzzle-maker’s obsession with mazes and tropes.

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Apple Tells Congressmen It Batches, Encrypts Location Data - Web Services Web 20 and SOA from eWeek

Apple Tells Congressmen It Batches, Encrypts Location Data - Web Services Web 20 and SOA from eWeek: "However, this only happens when users have toggled their device to turn the services on and only when the user runs an application requiring location information.
At that point the device 'intermittently and anonymously collects cell tower and WiFi access point information from the access points it can see, along with the device's GPS coordinates if available.'
Web services that leverage location such as Google Latitude, Google Buzz, Twitter Foursquare and Gowalla are becoming increasingly popular among users. Google, Yahoo and Bing are negotiating with Foursquare to use its location-based check-in data in their core search results."

Thoughts » 2010 » May

Thoughts » 2010 » May: "I reset TPM ownership data (which on my machine takes two reboot cycles, one to clear owner data and another to activate the TPM again). After this, sudo ./jtt.sh take_owner -o tpm -e ASCII succeeded.
Successfully defined an NV_RAM space using:
sudo ./jtt.sh nv_definespace --index 0x00011128 --size 20 -o tpm -e ASCIIWrote to the space using:
sudo ./jtt.sh nv_write --file rand.key --index 0x00011128 -o tpm -e ASCIIwhere rand.key is the result of:
dd bs=1 count=20 if=/dev/urandom of=rand.keyReading it back out succeeds as well, when we use:
sudo ./jtt.sh nv_decode --index 00011128 --rawit matches the output of hexdump rand.key (if you account for transposed bytes). Finally, I successfully deleted the space using:
sudo ./jtt.sh nv_releasespace --index 00011128 -o tpm -e ASCII"

RIM co-CEOs pull no punches responding to Apple's antenna statements -- Engadget

RIM co-CEOs pull no punches responding to Apple's antenna statements -- Engadget: "'Apple's attempt to draw RIM into Apple's self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple's claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public's understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple's difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage. One thing is for certain, RIM's customers don't need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple.'

A Trusted Ticket System for Kerberos « Kerberos Blog

A Trusted Ticket System for Kerberos « Kerberos Blog: "There are a number of ways that a Kerberos deployment could make use of the TPM on a Client machine or on a KDC machine. The most obvious is to seal the client-side keying material (when not in use) using the TPM, such as the keytab and the credentials cache. Note that currently these are located on the client machine hard-drive, and thus subject to various attacks. In this sealing scenario the TPM is used in its most basic usage-mode, namely a key storage device. The Kerberos client could simply command the TPM to seal its keying material using a TPM-generated internal key. The resulting (encrypted) blob is returned by the TPM/TSS, and simply placed on the hard-drive or other storage location (e.g. flash)."

You're 65: Welcome to Medicare - Personal Finance - Health Care - SmartMoney.com

You're 65: Welcome to Medicare - Personal Finance - Health Care - SmartMoney.com: "Medicare Part B is basic medical insurance that covers services ranging from doctors' visits and outpatient hospital care to some physical and occupational therapy and even some home health care. For 2008, people who file an individual tax return with $80,000 or less ($160,000 or less for joint filers) will pay $96.50 a month, or nearly $1,160 a year, for this coverage. (You'll pay a higher premium if your income is higher.) That's a remarkably good deal: Consider that a 64-year-old woman living in New York City would pay an average of $4,425 annually for an individual policy, according to a recent quote provided by eHealthInsurance. Medicare is the best buy in the country, says Irene Card, a Medicare expert and owner of MIC Insurance Services. For $96.50 you have phenomenal coverage, she says."

Direct Anonymous Attestation (DAA) « Identity Mixer

Direct Anonymous Attestation (DAA) « Identity Mixer: "The solution first developed by TCG uses a trusted third party, the so-called privacy certification authority (Privacy CA), and works as follows. Each TPM generates an RSA key pair called Endorsement Key (EK). The Privacy CA is assumed to know the public parts of the Endorsement Keys of all (valid) TPMs. Now, whenever a TPM needs to authenticate itself to a verifier, it generates a second RSA key pair, called an Attestation Identity Key (AIK), sends the AIK public key to the Privacy CA, and authenticates this public key w.r.t. its EK. If the

In Politics, Sometimes The Facts Don't Matter : NPR

In Politics, Sometimes The Facts Don't Matter : NPR: "Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's claim that law enforcement agencies found bodies in the desert, either buried or just lying out there, that had been beheaded.
Mr. MILBANK: Yes, I think Governor Brewer lost her head on that one in particular. Now, there's a huge problem with violence on the border, but virtually all of it happens to be on the Mexican side. And what happened in the case of this claim is a news organization out there called the Arizona Guardian called all the coroner's office, the medical examiners in those border counties, and they could not think of a single instance of an immigration-related beheading."

Real World Technologies - Home Page

Real World Technologies - Home Page: "PhysX is a key application that Nvidia uses to showcase the advantages of GPU computing (GPGPU) for consumers. PhysX executing on an Nvidia GPU an improve performance by 2-4X compared to running on a CPU from Intel or AMD. We investigated and discovered that CPU PhysX exclusively uses x87 rather than the faster SSE instructions. This hobbles the performance of CPUs, calling into question the real benefits of PhysX on a GPU"

Dana Milbank - Headless bodies and other immigration tall tales in Arizona

Dana Milbank - Headless bodies and other immigration tall tales in Arizona

Two months ago, the Arizona Republic published an exhaustive report that found that, according to statistics from the FBI and Arizona police agencies, crime in Arizona border towns has been "essentially flat for the past decade." For example, "In 2000, there were 23 rapes, robberies and murders in Nogales, Ariz. Last year, despite nearly a decade of population growth, there were 19 such crimes." The Pima County sheriff reported that "the border has never been more secure."

FBI statistics show violent crime rates in all of the border states are lower than they were a decade ago

Hard Cider

Hard Cider
until the mid 1800s, hard cider, known simply as cider, was the most popular beverage in North America. In early America, cider gained popularity because -- unlike milk at that time -- it was plentiful, inexpensive to make, and stable.

CIDER: An interview with a Magners Irish Cider scientist | Bottoms Up

CIDER: An interview with a Magners Irish Cider scientist | Bottoms Up
The difference, she said, is Magners in Ireland has a carbonation level 50 percent higher. Higher carbonation in bottles sent here would put Magners in a much higher tax bracker, she said.