I've been blocking ads for years.

Every so often, I have to use my wife's computer and it's slow and grindy and the web pages take forever to load and forever just to switch tabs. Even though her computer is newer, bigger, and faster than mine, hers might be more convenient.

And the web pages are so full of ... crap. It's hard to see what the good stuff is. Just so busy.

Then I realize the problems... she's not running Adblock. She's not running Noscript. She's letting Flash run. She's not running Ghostery or Privacy Badger. Her computer is getting POUNDED by a few hundred sites all doing PUSH notifications and similar crap.

All of which counts as bytes trying to get down that DSL pipe. No wonder I can't watch Netflix on the Wii if she's got fifty tabs open, forty-nine of which she's not looking at but which are still running ther Javascript "just in case she looks".

Advertisers, you killed the Web by a steady diet of saturated-fat video ads and flash animations and strung it out on the taut wires of a thousand tracking sites. Your deserve to eat the rotting corpses of your clients, your competitors, and finally yourselves, for you have made the web UNUSABLE without adblocking and scriptblocking.

No, I won't comment that the web content is a continuous flow of "will someone PLEASE think of the !!!" angst-stream articles written in coffeeshops upon macbooks, nor buzz-generating puffpieces meant to assuage the doubts of nvestors, nor the unending ur-narcissism of Facebook.

No, that's a whole 'nother rant.

We weren't celebrating the killing of 350,000 Japanese.

We were celebrating the not-having-to-kill 70,000,000 Japanese.
Remember what had happened just five months earlier, in March of 1945?

A little test invasion on an island called Iwo Jima. Iwo Jima was defended by 20,000+ Japanese.

Of that 20,000+, only 216 survived.

On that scale, killing _only_ 350,000 people starts looking like the best deal in town.

I am the prime author of CRM114 (the spam filter) and IT DEFINITELY GOT CHECKED BY SMART PEOPLE. There were at least a dozen people who would dependably read the code, and they'd find the pickiest things (luckily, not anything serious; thank you Valgrind!)

So, it's absolutely, demonstrably, provably (read the mail archive!) the case that at least SOME mail-oriented open source gets the all-orifices examination, and that examination is effective.

Whether or not security software gets the same thing, I can't say for sure, but I'd be surprised that it didn't. The recent set of security vulnerabilities only shows that old code didn't get the same care as newer code.

As quoted above, science is a shoulders-of-giants scheme, and I'm glad to see that the most-cited papers are not about the results of science, but rather good techniques for _doing_ science - well-considered, well-tested shoulders to stand on.

I've been in EXACTLY that situation.

The solution is to make the license explicit and separate from the employment agreement.

This avoids situations where the IP license does (or does not!) expire when you leave the company.

Is it a paid-up-once license, valid forever, or renewable on a yearly (or even monthly) basis?

Does the license include the right to relicense (i.e. can the company sell a license to produce stuff based on your IP to third parties to manufacture and sell)

Does the license follow the company, if the company is bought out by $MEGACORP?

Yes, we had lawyers on it. Yes, everyone agreed that this was the way to go.

Most people don't have a private, lockable office.

Most people don't even have an office that has a door.

They have a cubicle, and one without a lockable file drawer... (as though typical office furniture locks weren't jokes to anybody with two paper clips and the MIT Lock Picking Guide)

Some people don't even have a cubicle. Look at an "Open Architecture Office"... they have one two floors down. I'm not sure if I would pick that or pick McDonalds as better or worse.

That's the problem. You need to keep the security token (be it a yellow stickie-note or an RSA key) on your person, all the time.

And it still doesn't stop a good phish, or the next Heartbleed.

      - Dr. Crash

Strong passwords are useless - well, they're useful only against a brute-force attack and that's not the big threat anymore. A 64-character password is worth nothing against a phishing attack, and is worse than nothing if you have to write it down.

Maybe the cure is to have the incoming mail server destroy all clickable links (or point them at an internal "you will need to navigate to that URL manually" warning page, and simply delete anything executable.

I bought a Velleman K8200 ($750) essentially on "impulse", as
I have access to a StrataSys 3D printer at work and so it might
seem "redundant".

Guess what? I LOVE IT! Sure, there is no reason why I couldn't
make this or that by hand-carving it out of a solid block of acrylic,
or wait till Monday morning to run the parts on the StrataSys at work,
but now I can drop into OpenSCAD (or my wife can drop into Blender),
design the thing, hit "print", and then cook dinner while the machine
does the drudge work. A few minutes of hand clean-up later (mostly
reaming holes if we want snug fits) and the part is done- or more
likely, we decide we want to change it. Some parts go through
three or four iterations before we decide it's perfect. That's the
seductive part of 3D printing - the cost of a prototype approaches
zero.

I'm probably $1200 into this by now (filament goes typically for
$40 a kilogram, and some of the stuff like the extrudable rubber
and the water-clear, FDA-approved PET is almost twice that), but
darn it, this is fun!

Sure, you can spend a lot of bucks on the toolchain but you
absolutely don't have to spend anything at all. (Solidworks $8000?
Got it at work. Don't need it; OpenSCAD and Blender and FreeCAD
are adequate for me, and free for the download).

Yeah, my wife has dreams of making gee-gaws and knick-nacks to
sell at her conventions, but I'm happy to spin out replacement ladders
for my son's toy fire engine and custom rail crossings for his railroad, and
"companion cubes" and little unicorns for my daughters.... as well
as the occasional screen door handle, refrigerator shelf holder,
cellphone mount, consumer electronics case / case replacement,
etc.

Note- there's no "driver issue" - with rare exception, all cheap
3D printers all talk G-code via RS-232 or USB-TTY at 250,000
baud (yeah, nonstandard baud rate because most 3D printers are
based on Arduino cores, and that's one baud rate that has essentially
zero error due to CPU clock speed). The printer control "front panel"
is a big Python script (several options are there; Repetier-host and
Pronterface both are nice); the slicer that turns STL models into
G-code is open-source (I use Slic3r at home and Cura at work).

It's a big, big win. Really. I can sit down with one of my kids and
make something they want and have the printer spit it out while
we read a book or watch a show. Maybe every home doesn't
need one, but I'd rate it right next to "belt sander" in the home arsenal.

IIRC, the issue was that the US Navy fleet ballistic subs _always_ had the authority to launch on their own. The Air Force didn't like the idea that the navy was "trusted" but they weren't, so the PAL code was set to 00000000 and never changed (just like how the "war plan 1" and "war plan 2" control on a Minuteman control desk was never used).

And it's not just two guys turning keys. It's much more secure, really. Each silo has two guys who have to turn keys. But that doesn't launch the missile. It sends a message to all missile silos in the wing - and also ALL OTHER command silos in the wing that someone wants to launch a missile. If nobody else _also_ does a keyturn, the missile does not launch. After that message goes out, there is a time window where another silo MUST also do a keyturn to allow the missile to launch, and a _longer_ time window where _any_ silo in the wing can issue a "stand down" order (and other silos include silos that are off-duty, have no missiles under direct control (e.g. the usually-unused control silo three floors underground under the base commander's office), or are "air silos", like a control silo located in an aloft KC-135, with HF radio links rather than copper wiring).

Now, there is a thing called "sole survivor" where there's a rather long timer (90 minutes, IIRC) where a silo can launch on only one keyturn, but that requires that all other silos be silent for that entire timer period (but that also allows one silo to take over and control the entire missile wing).

Forgive me if I got any of this wrong, it's been 30 years since I read the manual.

But PAL wasn't to stop Broken Arrow scenarios. It's to satisfy Congress. The real protection against Broken Arrows was twenty thousand airmen all keeping their wits about them. I salute them.

If it means I get jolted awake by my phone SHRIEKING at the top of it's volume setting every third day sometime between midnight and 3 AM when I have to go to work the next morning, then YES, my sleep is more important.

Waking up five million people from a sound sleep once a week or so just isn't feasible; it's crying wolf and people will simply turn their phones off (which defeats the whole purpose of it). And it's not something you can set to low volume; at least on a Verizon Droid 3, even if it's set on vibrate, an alert blares at maximum alarm volume and with a particularly annoying shriek and you CANNOT set it to a lower volume; there is only "SHRIEK" and "ignore".

The same thing happened in the Boston area within a week of the alert system going live; we got two alerts in 48 hours, one at about 11 PM and the other at 2 AM; the whole Boston area got jolted awake by their phones shreiking at full volume.

Next day, everyone and their brother was scrambling to figure out how to TURN OFF THE $($(#( alerts.

Net result is that we've lost a possibly-useful resource. What should have happened is that there should be an "I'm mobile" test in the chain; Amber alerts should shriek at you only if you're actively moving right then.

A used Wii ($99 at your local GameStop) loaded up with NetFlix and Hulu will do everything you need.

My three-year-olds can use it, and they can't even read.

It's also a heck of a lot cheaper than any of the other solutions, too, and it's totally zero-maintenance. And if/when they break it, it's a tiny cost
to just get a new one.

I hear a lot of words coming out of Card's mouth (or his keyboard;
little the difference).... and strange among this is that none of them
contain a simple _apology_.

An apology says:
  1) I was wrong
  2) I am sorry for what I did
  3) I will try not to do it again.

And ALL THREE of these parts are missing. He wants forgiveness,
but he's not willing to admit that maybe he was wrong, sorry for what
he did, or that he won't do it again!

Therefore, I will boycott Ender's Game, and encourage others to
do so as well. When it becomes available in a format that does
not put money into Card's (or his compatriots) pockets, such
as Netflix, then perhaps I'll see it.

Or perhaps not. I don't know yet, and I don't care.

(disclosure: I've been a student and I've been faculty. I write from the position of both)

Most of the STEM topics, even at the freshman level, are taught by people who *are* willing to consider that they've "got it wrong" - that their understanding of the subject is in fact incorrect or insufficient, and if someone - anyone - comes to them with a good reason to think otherwise, it's a learning opportunity for everyone. Sure, you need to show a good test case, but there's nothing like getting a full professor into the lab with you and an oscilloscope to really *learn*.

Most of the "humanities" topics are taught by people who fall to the "proof by authority" model; that because someone Respected says it's so, then it's so and any other viewpoint is simply incorrect. This point of view is especially rife in the Classics; given the finite set of source material (what remained after Alexandria burned), one can only mull so much, then it's all just rote learning. (I'll give a shout-out to sociologists here, because a lot of them at least try to do good science.)

What I still don't understand: how someone can get a four-year degree yet be unable to solve a simple system of linear equations (say, three unknowns)... and then consider themselves to be "well-rounded". Even two unknowns... and occasionally to my chagrin - ONE unknown. As in "didn't pass algebra". W. T. F. ??? Or not know the difference between mean, median, and mode? Or why light beams are a quarter as bright from only twice as far away... or how salt dissolves differently from sugar.

No wonder there's a glut of worthless college degrees on the market; rote learning without ability to reason is sufficient only to earn the title of "well educated slave", not "contributor to society".

We don't need more well-educated slaves. We need contributors.

Kennedy had it right: "We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon, not because it is easy, BUT BECAUSE IT IS HARD."

Sometimes you have to push the envelope. And sometimes, that means good people have put their life on the line. Humans in general don't get really serious about things unless they have skin in the game. You have to get them interested. Call it STEM motivation. But one Apollo launch is worth a million laptops in some third-grade classroom.

Forget STEM. Let's think about JUST ONE question on Mars... one we cannot possibly answer inside Earth's atmosphere; only long-term exploration of the Martian surface will suffice: Is there life on Mars? The possible answers are "No", "Yes, a long time ago.", and "OH MY GOD IT'S EIGHT FEET TALL WITH SIX EYES AND IT WANTS TO SPEAK TO YOU SIR!"

Say it's "no" - there's no life on Mars, and never was. That tells us something important - Life is precious, life is delicate. Very important
message.

Or there _was_ life on Mars: what kind of DNA did it have, if any?
Again, very important message: either DNA can fly thru space ("panspermia"- and we are _NOT_ alone) or it evolved separately-
and we are still NOT alone - but there's another way for life to happen!). ... or... if the physics are such that it couldn't have happened naturally, then (1) we are not alone, and (2) Mom is out there somewhere...

Or there _is_ life on Mars: Same messages above, plus a whole new and mostly untarnished ecosystem to understand. We have only 1.1 ecosystems here (I count the undersea "black smokers" as 0.1 ecosystem). Add another, and maybe we can make some understanding headway.

What will we need to invent? I don't know! Neither do you. Neither did Kennedy. And it wasn't velcro, Tang, and funny ballpoint pens that were important. It was things like radar, and heat-resistant materials (look up Carnot efficiency to understand why that's important), and lightweight sensors, and lightweight, fast electronics, and computational fluid dynamics, and finite element methods, and precision navigation, and ...

We went into 1960 as a species that, if you couldn't solve it with fifty guys with pencils, papers, and slide rules, we couldn't solve it. (that shot of a roomful of guys in white shirts with slide rules calculating like crazy in "Apollo 13" was real, dudes.)

We came out of Apollo as a species that, if the problem was important enough, we had the means, the methods, and (most importantly, the confidence) to throw as much computation as had ever been done in the whole history of the world, every second, at the problem.

Oh- and that computer you're reading this on? Doesn't matter what brand, what OS... Wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for deciding that we needed to solve those FEMs and CFDs needed for space flight.

Those solar panels? Every gram you put into space costs you about $500. You're damn right we're gonna go full-bore on making good solar panels, simply because it's cheaper to spend a hundred million bucks on the research than to loft one more overweight comsat.

That pretty weather report with satellite images? Never would have happened if the First Seven hadn't all been shutterbugs, taking photos of weather systems like they were all out for the Pulitzer Prize. Same with the GPS in your phone, or your satellite TV.

It's not what we know we will find. It's what we don't know that is the value.