Go is a very opinionated language - IE: the language designers decided a lot of things for you, so you just code in the style that they have outlined. This leads to most code following similar styles and patterns. This improves readability of code from other people greatly.

The bar for adding specific features to the language itself is extremely high, so the overall language is simple at its core.

Rob Pike has a good writeup about it from 2 years ago: http://commandcenter.blogspot....

Exactly. "Firewall" is somewhat of an overused word at this point that can mean so many different things. And the capabilities of said firewall will vary highly from product to product.

A stateful firewall will keep track of all connections going through it. A good one can help detect malformed packets and drop those. It can also detect some fun attacks people use to fake initiating a TCP connection.

Beyond the basics of looking at port/ip/protocol data, you can start getting into more packet analysis to filter out sites. But a lot of the application detection that can be done isn't as useful now adays due to SSL becoming the standard for so many sites. So to do real good packet analysis you need a SSL model to decode traffic (MITM your own house).

Going the next level is to use an IPS to detect bad traffic. The popular solution here is Snort or Suricata. If you want a linux distro with IPS tech built in, security-onion seems ok.

Your packets are just taking a different route to get to Netflix, so you are bypassing the bottleneck that is normally hit when accessing Netflix. As an end user you have no way to pick the route your packets take unless you proxy through another server (such as a VPN does). So Verizon isn't throttling, they just have overloaded interconnects to certain networks. This probably means that sites beyond Netflix/Youtube are effected by the problem, it's just not as apparent to end users.

And you don't think the NSA wouldn't install backdoors into any other companies products either? Cisco just is the biggest fish out there and the easiest to attack. There is no proof that Cisco was complicit in any of this.

The linked patent expired in 2006, so that specific one isn't an issue in this case. Also, round connectors in general are a pain to line up properly and connect.

There is a reason a lot of companies are located on the outskirts of Austin proper. More companies are moving to the domain area, and there are a lot of companies along 360.

Sure, some companies are downtown, but there isn't really a need for it within Austin.

Other large companies do just as many acquisitions, you just don't see them on the front page because they aren't Google. Apple bought nearly as many companies in 2013. Then you look at other large companies (like Cisco) and see how they buy up competitors fairly regularly.

Austin rarely gets freezing rain weather (that can bring down trees and utility poles). The worst Austin could get would be high winds that could bring down trees (which may topple utility wires). It's cheaper and easier to put up poles than to have to dig. Plus when you need to run new cables (like what Google is doing), it is a lot cheaper to add these. If google had to go and burry new cables throughout the entire city, the costs would be a lot higher.

I spent a short stint working for a SAN company in their drive group. You are definitely correct about the firmware within drives that SAN companies ship with their drives. The primary reasons for custom firmware on SAN harddrives that I remember: disable write-cache, change timeouts/retries, and most important: lock-in.

There was no way to go from the off-the-shelf version of the firmware to the SAN companies version of the firmware (well, nothing that was public, and that process was very tightly controlled). The SAN could then verify that the drives were running their specific firmware, if they were not, the drive would be rejected.

For me, Amazon + prime isn't a better deal than newegg sometimes when buying computer parts. I have to pay sales tax on purchases from Amazon, while Newegg isn't collecting sales taxes in my state.

I think it's important to remember how complicated the full mechanical/electrical system of a car is. Over the life of a model of a car (normally 3 years), there will be hundreds of changes to the manufacturing process. This could mean sourcing different parts, changes to how different components are made, and lots of other junk. Rolling out a firmware update that works across all the different models of that car can be very difficult for them.

Wacom tablets have a javascript interface available to them. Not exactly the same as a signature tablet, but pretty close.
http://www.wacomeng.com/web/

When I did my printer hunting a little over a year ago I ended up with a Xerox 6505. I was looking for a color printer, and they have overall good reviews. When you are looking at toner, there are fairly cheap aftermarket toners you can get for Xerox printers that keep costs down.

One thing I looked for in a printer that would let it work on any OS was that it could accept PCL and PostScript (that way you don't need a print driver). Though, still having a printer driver is nice for configuring little things (like duplex printing if your printer supports it).

This data is out-of-date at this point, but I put together a spreadsheet of all the different printers I was considering.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0As4u6h7EmJ5sdHhRalNzMl9OV2x6Q2xRSU0zdjJHcEE&usp=sharing

I don't remember my exact issues with HP and Brothers printers at this point, but the one thing I did like about Xerox versus some of the others was their toner cartridges were stand-alone from other components. So it made it cheap to get after-market toner.

My thoughts exactly. To take it further. "Dispatch" for these self-driving cabs would just be sitting there watching feeds from all the cabs they have out and about. They could look illegal behavior and either send someone to look into the problem or to call authorities.

As for someone "hiding in the cab", I'm pretty sure they could easily tell the weight changes to the vehicle (preventing someone from sticking around).

Just wondering, when did you have that car experience and what model was it? Lemon laws in many states protect consumers against faulty cars (it's a massive pain-in-the-ass to go through the process), and I think it dissuades auto manufacturers from completely cheeping out on cars anymore. Though, there may be issues that creep up beyond the lemon-law time window, then you're basically at the whim of the manufacturer to fix it.

As for electronics, if you buy from a company like Apple that has a good warranty or return program, buying a new device on day-1 isn't that much of an issue. I've owned 3 models of iphones (original, 3Gs, 5), and every one of them I got a full replacement from Apple on (original I had replaced twice). All 4 times I've had my iPhone replaced, it didn't cost me anything to do it. (Note that I've had great service from other companies like Amazon with the Kindle and Philips with their electric toothbrush).