History: 20 years ago, Heather BJ Clifford and I wrote a book, Linux IP Stacks Commentary, which walked through the Linux TCP/IP stack code and commented it in detail. (Old-timers will remember the Lion's Unix Commentary, the book published by University xerographic copies on the sly. Same sort of thing.) CoriolisOpen published it. And a bit later sank into the west. Nothing has been done since, at least not by us.

Now: when I was released from my last job, I tried retirement. Wasn't for me. I started going crazy with nothing significant to do. So, going through old hard drives (that's another story), I found the original manuscript files, plus the page proof files, for that two-decade-old book. Aha! Maybe it's time for an update. But how to keep it fresh, as Torvalds continues to release new updates of the Linux kernel? Publish it on the Web. Carefully.

After four months (and three job interviews) I have the beginnings of the second edition up and available for reading. At the moment it's an updated, corrected, and expanded version of the "gray matter", the exposition portions of the first edition. In addition, I have put forth ideas for making the commentary portions easier to keep up to date, after they are initially written.

The URL for the alpha-beta version of this Web book is https://www.satchell.net/ipsta... for your reading pleasure. The companion e-mail address is up and running for you to provide feedback. There is no paywall.

Thanks to the work of Professor Donald Knuth (thank you!) on his WEB and CWEB programming languages, I have made modifications, to devise a method for integrating code from the GIT repository of the Linux kernel without making any modifications (let alone submissions) to said kernel code. The proposed method is described in the About section of the Web book. I have scaffolded the process and it works. But that's not the hard part.

The hard part is to write the commentary itself, and crib some kind of Markup language to make the commentary publishing quality. The programs I write will integrate the kernel code with the commentary verbiage into a set of Web pages. Or two slightly different sets of web pages, if I want to support a mobile-friendly version of the commentary.

Another reason for making it a web book is that I can write it and publish it as it comes out of my virtual typewriter. No hard deadlines. No waiting for the printers. And while this can save trees, that's not my intent.

The back-of-the-napkin schedule calls for me to to finish the expository text in September, start the Python coding for generating commentary pages at the same time, and start the writing the commentary on ICMP in October. By then, Linus should have version 6.0.0 of the Linux kernel released.

A CTO can help form visionary approaches and also serve as a voice of reason. A government official can have a great idea that isn't feasible, for instance. "It's become even more of an imperative that the President have a perspective on technology that is commensurate with its true impact on its role in our society," said Andrew Rasiej, CEO and cofounder of Civic Hall.

In 1997, well-known developer Patrick Lenz founded the first listing and announcement site for free and open-source software, freshmeat.net. It was meant to be the guide to open-source programs. But freshmeat never lived up to its promise.

Dava Newman, Apollo Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, warned that radiation is one of the biggest challenges to surviving and thriving in space. Once spacefarers pierce the atmosphere, they're subject to radiation from solar particles and cosmic rays, which increases the risk of cancer in the long term—and acute radiation sickness mid-mission.

A major challenge in keeping elections safe from cyberattacks, said Homeland Security's Christopher Krebs, has less to do with technology than with the way in which elections are held in the United States. Elections, even those held for the office of the president and Congress, are run by state and local governments, not by the federal government. That means each state and, frequently, individual localities have their own way to hold elections, implementing different technologies—from paper ballots to multiple kinds of voting machines, including direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting machines, some of which do not produce a paper trail and therefore are vulnerable to being hacked.

Krebs put the conundrum this way: “It is the responsibility of the states to administer elections. It is the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security and the federal government to provide for the national security and national defense of this country. There is a discussion that needs to happen between those two things.”

As once-loyal listeners tune away, most AM stations are barely holding onto life, slashing staff and budgets as deeply as they can while struggling to find a return to profitability. Once upon a time, having a broadcast license of any kind was like having a permit to print money. In today’s world, that's no longer true.

Ron, an IT admin, summarizes the situation succinctly: “More like applied, applied another, removed, I think re-applied, I give up, and have no clue where I am anymore.”