Virtualization is a key enabler for Cloud Computing. It is not the same, but it becomes really difficult if not impossible to achieve the elasticity that Cloud requires without an underlying virtual infrastructure that can dynamically adapt to changes and fulfill SLAs.

You probably need to read the NIST definition of Cloud. Cloud has evolved from a pure buzz word to a very well defined set of layers that touches virtually every area of our interaction with computers, and it's more complex than just the simplistic explanation (or lack of thereof) that you try to convey in your comment.

Whenever these kind of topics come up, I get a sense of a lot of people just frustrated with the 2 parties, and promising to vote for a third party next time, but in the end, we all get sucked into the 2-party dynamics when it's time to vote. It's happened to me also. I for one, will join the Libertarian Party, not with the hopes that it will win an election in 2012, but with the hopes to influence its direction through participation to make it viable and a real alternative for reasonable people that want change but also some form of government that makes sense, not the current mess we have. I just don't feel currently represented by anybody. I'm socially liberal (a.k.a. no government authority should tell me what to do with my life) and fiscally conservative in the 43% tax bracket seeing how my hard-earned money is being wasted. It's pretty depressing.

For the record, I'm a Chilean immigrant with 10 years in Silicon Valley, having visited about 28 countries and lived in 4, and I'm also a foodie.

Just based on the demographics they chose for the study, it seems to me that this particular group is still very susceptible to peer pressure. In my personal experience having a lot of Asian-American and purely Asian colleagues as well as friends in every place in the world, I have to say that when an individual no longer has the pressure to "fit" in a specific environment, and their cultural differences are just accepted by their peers, they tend to choose whatever they like, some things Asian and some things American.

Thinking people, in the right [accepting] environment, and at the right age (past the age where they are more susceptible to peer pressure) tend to develop a stronger sense of self, in many cases, becoming a trans-national, where the place where you were born no longer defines you, but you choose how to define yourself. Don't underestimate the fact that people, individuals, do grow up, change and adapt.

Food in itself is one of those amazing things that tends to mark how we see the world, and yet, once you are exposed to many different cultures, it is just natural to learn to appreciate everything and everyone. Food is one of those rare things that can unite us more than divide us.

This could be done as a public/private partnership. If NASA provides the reference designs, server space and software, it could be an interesting project for volunteers all over the world, not only the US. The prices, resolution and quality of optics of regular, off-the-shelf weather resistant digital cameras can make this doable at a reasonable cost. I'm thinking something similar to what you can get today using networked weather stations to provide very accurate conditions and forecasting.

There are a lot of people out there that would be willing to contribute in projects like this, and NASA as well as NSF and other public Science organizations should really look more closely at this model in general.

Thank you.

I've been in VMware for 7 years, and yes, this technology is taken for granted these days and there are a bunch of alternatives, but c'mon folks, remember the old days when Workstation just came out. Wasn't it cool? man, the world of opportunities it opened to everybody back then.

I touched my first VM back in 1987 in the IBM mainframe (a 37XX series) and I was just blown away by the concept. Years later I had the chance to work at VMware and I didn't even blinked twice. Yeah, yeah, we've grown pants, and are big boys now, but you would be amazed how many of us old timers are still around and we all recognize each other and share a smile from those days.

Once thing I love about working here is that in spite of all the new stuff that we are doing in higher layers of the stack, and in spite of the "mission critical" impact of the hypervisor these days, we still try to hold on to that sense of awe we first saw, or being a rebel and think outside the box. And yes, some day that may go away, but I must say for me and a bunch of other old timers like me, we'll try as much as we can to keep the spirit that made us cool alive as long as we can.

It seems to me the poster does not understand the difference between IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) where you go and rent a VM and you do whatever you need to do with it, vs. PaaS (Platform as a Service) where you rent the framework services to deploy you application.

Both have their own use cases, and the poll would have been much more interesting if it would focus on one of these at the time. This is a very active space with a lot of development and innovation going in each layer, which (at least for now) are complementary but separate.

Or they could implement IPv6 using anonymous address interface identifiers as described in RFC 3041 to provide an increased level of anonymity.

In addition to that, IPSec encryption is a standard part of the protocol, so just by implementing it you get instant security. Older OSs could use a 4to6 interface that wouldn't break older apps that have not yet been updated to support the protocol.

IPv6 is much closer to be a reality now than ever before. It's about time that some ISPs start taking the lead on this instead of going the VPN or NAT route. It will happen any way and they could get some good PR out of it while addressing the issue they are trying to solve.

That's exactly why I believe that the need for that inner comfort you describe, a sense of peace, a sense of certainty and continuity, all naturally evolved as a survival trade that made our ancestors more capable of facing adversity, fear, uncertainty and even the awareness of their own mortality.

For that reason, I doubt that the need for god will go away any time soon. The need to feel we are back in the womb and everything is perfect is just too big to just disappear.

Society and culture may evolve in a direction where we can provide means of fulfilling those needs with our own technology or they may be evolved out as they no longer represent an advantage but at some point may be the opposite. But as it stands now, believers will fight tooth and nail to defend their answers in spite of any form of logical proof of the opposite. In that context, I do believe the discussion and debate between the two camps is irrelevant.

There is no longer a need for CDs. Check this absolutely remarkable device that Sony has created for this purpose!

That's narrow-minded. This is the just the beginning of this technology.

Just to name one, imagine in a few years the implications for the field of photography. Potentially, you won't need to bring a bag of expensive lenses designed for very specific focal lengths and apertures. One single morphing lense would replace a complete bag of fixed ones.