std::containers don't need to store their size as a separate variable

C strings don't either. It's the protocol that said "hey, rather than null terminating strings, let's put a length byte like Turbo Pascal never went out of style!"

The fun thing is that that design decision has lead to an entire CLASS of SSL bugs (in all stacks, not just openSSL) eg invalid certs validating because of a null byte in the Common Name. And heartbleed was just one more in that heap.

That argument is bogus, insofar as an employee at Verizon could just as easily leak my call logs, yet few people take exception to Verizon storing such data.

... and since you said teleportation, your future prediction would be completely ruined by the sudden realization that you can safely establish stable wormholes with stuff that's already in most homes.

I don't trust any forward looking statement. Business people throw those around all the time, which always equates to "I hope we stay in business". They never make the forward looking statement of "In the next 6 to 9 months, I hope we go bankrupt, and the shareholders murder us."

When you reduce a complex issue to just one number, like "mean number of vulnerabilities", it is often an over simplification. It is tempting to think it is better than nothing. But are we really better off making decisions based on an overly simplified view of things?

One bug that allows silent remote code execution on the WAN side and another bug that is a privilege escalation possibility on the LAN can not be treated as one bug each, right? This is not limited to just security vulnerabilities alone. Many software company top managers insist on looking at bug counts, sometimes sorted into 5 priority/severity levels or so.

It gets worse in the planning and progress monitoring. They use fancy tools like rallydev.com or something, but they allow each team to define its own story points. The Bangalore team uses 1 story point = 1 engineer week. The Boston team uses 1 story point = 1 engineer day. The Bangkok team uses engineer hour. And the top management gets the report, "This SAGA feature story was estimated to take 3264 story points, and it is 2376 points complete". Complete b.s. that is.

We pay ridiculously high salaries for the top management, and instead of expecting them to put in the time, energy and effort commensurate with that kind of pay, to make valuable judgement, hard decisions, step on people's toes, tell it like it is, and paint an accurate picture of the state of the company, we let them shirk their responsibilities.

The "givers" were the beneficiaries of investment done by the government. By the earlier generation of tax payers. A venture capitalist might fund 10 or 15 projects, hoping to strike it rich on one or two and be willing to write off as a loss the remaining projects. Same way, all the investment government did in establishing the rule of law, investments in irrigation projects, road projects, public education, very long term R&D, etc are all partly responsible for the success of the makers and the givers. Of course many of the makers worked hard and were very resourceful. But not all, some were lucky, some inherited their wealth.

So all in all, it is a fair system where the successful people of one generation, pay the dividends to the original investor, Uncle Sam, so that the gig can keep going for another generation.

You car argue about what is the fair split, what part goes to Uncle Sam and what part the "makers" get to keep etc. And you need to keep the Uncle Sam's part low enough to encourage innovation and hard work and enterprise. But at the same time, you need to watch out for people who would game the system and try to dodge paying their fair share. Making blanket statement that all taxation is theft is dumb.

Anyway that is what I believe in and vote accordingly. You may think differently and vote according to your belief. I think the system is fair and I am staying here. If you think the deal offered by the USA is not good enough for you, pack your bags and leave. Good riddance.

You don't even have to do that. There's Free Fillable Forms, which are exactly what the title suggests. Electronic copies of all the relevant paper forms that you fill out online and E-File. It doesn't have the logic of Turbotax but it performs basic math checks and saves you the hassle of printing and mailing the forms.

I can't understand why anyone would pay a third party to do their taxes. The logic flow isn't that complicated, even when you throw capital gains and itemized deductions into the mix. I've filed the long form 1040 by hand in years when I had to deal with capital gains and losses and was able to complete it in under two hours. Who are the people who pay Intuit or H&R Block to do their 1040ez filings?

You're missing the point. You will routinely hear from the right side of the political spectrum (and private industry) people claiming the government doesn't create jobs, it only takes from the masses.

In their next breath they whine and complain whenever the government cuts back, such as with the Printing Office or elimination of military projects (the Abrams tank comes to mind) because it will cost jobs, completely ignoring the only reason theses folks in private industry have a job is because of the government.

I only bring this up because I like to throw things back in people's faces when they make blanket statements such as this, just like all government workers are lazy or how private industry always does things better than the government.

I listened to the NPR piece on the netflix band width consumption. Looks like most in the media do not get the basic issue of "truth in labeling". If Comcast sells 6 Mbps connection and does not deliver it, it is no different from Subway foot long sandwich being 11 inches long or the net weight of a bag of potato chips being less than the weight marked on the package. Either they don't get it, or they are paid not to "get" it.

But when it looks hopeless, just remember the dark days of Microsoft monopoly. By 1998-2000 time frame, Microsoft could kill projects and make venture capital vanish for its upstart competition just by issuing press release about vaporware. It really did look hopeless back then, how any one could fight that behemoth. Now Microsoft is still pulling in huge revenues, but it does not look like the unbeatable titan it was seen to be.

Right now, the last mile wiring cost is so high, Comcast has this monopolistic advantage. But wireless-in-the-loop (WITL fiber optics to neighborhood pillar boxes, and wireles from there) technology or micro cell or femto cell networks or something we don't know yet might come in and upset the apple cart for Comcast. WITL is quite effective for sparsely populated rural areas and is quietly building up strength and robustness there. If/when it transitions to compete with wired connections to homes, it could prove to be effective.

Only thing that will save us is competition.

a story I heard on NPR not too long ago. The head of the Government Printing Office was talking about how their headcount was less than half what it was 20 years ago due to heavier use of digital forms. She mentioned how few copies of the federal budget they print every year and so on.

All of this sounds great because she's helping to keep costs down while increasing the availability of government documents to he masses. Who would think that's a bad thing?

The paper industry. They had the head of an umbrella group for the paper and forestry groups who cautioned about moving too fast to go digital, how some people still liked paper forms and so on.

So the next time you hear someone say the government doesn't create jobs, ask them why private industry is up in arms every time the government tries to cut costs by not purchasing things. In this case, the literal tons of paper that used to be used to print government documents or, as in the case of Intuit, all the work they would no longer have to do if the tax filings were simplified.

Not necessarily. It looks like they're removing what they can't support, such as VMS, Netware and OS/2. The few people that care can still use the original OpenSSL code.

I'd expect them to ensure it support the hardware platforms OpenBSD supports at the very least. Then, if they go the "portable" route like they did for OpenSSH, support for the other Unix and Unix-like systems.

http://www.openssh.com/portable.html

More power to them.

If stupidity hurt, Stevens would require a morphine drip.

As far as why the AR-15 is so popular... everyone who ones one has their reasons that they like it, so I'll give you mine:

+ Accuracy. The hole in the paper is typically *exactly* where I wanted to put it, and if it isn't, it was my fault.
+ Recoil. The .223 Rem / 5.56x45mm NATO cartridge in an AR-15 has very little recoil. Women and some children can fire this weapon standing up. (Though our idiot VP says "Get a shotgun", I've seen too many women who were unable to handle a 12 gauge... but the AR-15? No problem.)
+ Rail system. The AR platform is very customizable with scopes, lights... some day, I'll trick mine out, but in the mean time I can still shoot a tick off a dog's ass at 100 yards with it with the iron sights. ;)

+ The .223 Rem / 5.56x45mm NATO round. Simply put, against a human target, this round is devastating. For self/home defense, the 30 round magazine allows for you to miss a few times and still put a hurting on the bad guy, and the round itself tumbles and fragments causing intense damage to internal organs despite being a comparably small projectile to even the often maligned 9mm round. This round will also take down smaller animals -- deer, wild hogs -- while some states will not let you hunt with the .223 cartridge, the .223 round WILL drop a deer.

(Not as reliably as that .30-06 rifle I'm hoping to get for my birthday, but it's still effective.)

Consider this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

And compare to my choice of handgun caliber, the mighty .45 ACP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

See the difference? It's breathtaking.


Of course, for pure devastation you need a .50 caliber rifle round: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

So why do the gun grabbers hate it?

1. It's black, and most liberals are secretly racist
2. It's "scary" looking

In summation: accurate, low recoil, customizable, effective cartridge against both human and deer. AR-15's are AWESOME.