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Comment Re:My problem with offsite/cloud storage. (Score 2) 180

by andy1307 (#43311365) Attached to: The Twighlight of Small In-House Data Centers

3) The ability of government agencies to scan my data for whatever they feel like arbitrarily and possibly without due process.

How does an in-house data center protect you from that? If they're not following due process for a hosting provider, what makes you think they'll do the same for your in-house data center. People need to calm the fuck down and stop acting like they live in north korea/china.
Google

Google Pledges Not To Sue Any Open Source Projects Using Their Patents 153

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the now-and-forever dept.
sfcrazy writes "Google has announced the Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge. In the pledge Google says that they will not sue any user, distributor, or developer of Open Source software on specified patents, unless first attacked. Under this pledge, Google is starting off with 10 patents relating to MapReduce, a computing model for processing large data sets first developed at Google. Google says that over time they intend to expand the set of Google's patents covered by the pledge to other technologies." This is in addition to the Open Invention Network, and their general work toward reforming the patent system. The patents covered in the OPN will be free to use in Free/Open Source software for the life of the patent, even if Google should transfer ownership to another party. Read the text of the pledge. It appears that interaction with non-copyleft licenses (MIT/BSD/Apache) is a bit weird: if you create a non-free fork it appears you are no longer covered under the pledge.

Comment Re:Why go to work for Facebook post-IPO? (Score 1) 241

by andy1307 (#42376399) Attached to: The Trials and Tribulations of a Would-Be Facebook Employee
If you had joined google a few months after the IPO, you'd be a rich man. If FB can monetize their user base, they can make a lot of money. Make more money, stock price goes up. It all depends on your perspective. If you think FB has jumped the shark,you probably don't expect the stock price to go up.
The Military

Israel's Iron Dome Missile Defense Shield Actually Works 861

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the reagan-strikes-back dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Sarah Tory reports that the debut of Israel's Iron Dome missile defense shield has added a new element to the conflict between Israel and Palestinians in the Gaza strip, one that military officials are calling a 'game-changer.' Israeli officials are claiming that the shield is destroying 90 percent of missiles and rockets it aims at that have been fired into southern Israel by Hamas. This level of success is unprecedented compared with older missile defense systems such as the American-made Patriot model used during the 1991 Gulf War. The missile-defense system can detect rocket launches and then determine the projectiles' flight paths and only intercepts rocket or artillery shells if they are headed for populated areas or sensitive targets; the others it allows to land. It takes a lot of raw computing power to rapidly build a ballistic profile of a fast-incoming projectile, make a series of quick decisions concerning potential lethality, and launch a countermeasure capable of intercepting said projectile in-flight. One reason Iron Dome is showing a much more robust capability than the Patriot system did is simply that its battle control hardware and software are several generations more advanced than those early interceptor systems. 'Israeli officials point out that Iron Dome saves money despite the fact that the interceptors cost up to $100,000 each,' writes Tory. 'The cost of rebuilding a neighborhood destroyed by a rocket attack — not to mention people wounded and lives lost — would be far greater than the cost of the interceptor.' Most important, the system buys Israel time, allowing it to plan out an appropriate response without the political pressure that would be generated by hundreds of potential deaths."

Comment Re:Ouch. (Score 2) 362

by andy1307 (#41989899) Attached to: US Air Force Scraps ERP Project After $1 Billion Spent

Let's say you pay a developer $100K/year, and the project lasted 10 years.

Your numbers are way off. Each cleared contractor probably costs the government 200+$/hr. Then there's hardware. If the project has been going on for 10 years, they probably went through at least one refresh cycle. Then there are other costs like admin overhead, facilities, travel etc.

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