I regularly need to convert from ancient Egyptian cubits which I was lucky enough to learn about in grade school. We should always learn the different unit measures in primary school. They're simple enough. It's not like it takes even a tiny bit of intelligence to understand how to convert.

Of course... in engineering and sciences, we already use metric across the board. It's in daily life which the simpler imperial measure system makes sense. I live in Europe and grew up in the States. I've never been confused by measurements in either, but when I cook, instead of measuring 450grams (my scale isn't that good) I simply grab a chunk of meat which is a pound. It's a proper size for cooking. I also use a cup of water or milk.

Honestly, I know a A LOT of people who moved to America and had no problem with American standard measure and I know many who moved from America or England who had no problem with metric. I just don't see how knowing both is a problem.

Bullshit!

Vasa was built asymmetrically because it was a Swedish engineering project. All Swedish engineering projects by definition must start big, go way over-budget, become completely unusable and reach market so late that they're no longer interesting. The project then burns to ashes, rises from the ashes reborn as something amazing and get sold to someone else. As an example look at "ericsson pipe rider cable modem" on Google and you'll see a proper Swedish engineering project that went so completely shitty that it would have killed the company and ended up rising from the ashes as a patent pool on the 10,000 things they created while failing at this.

This is why I refer to all products resulting from failed Swedish projects as Vasa Projects.

But even here, again, when you look at a typical OS X desktop system, now many people:

1. Have apache enabled AND exposed to the public internet (i.e., not behind a NAT router, firewall, etc)?

2. Even have apache or any other services enabled at all?

...both of which would be required for this exploit. The answer? Vanishingly small to be almost zero.

So, in the context of OS X, it's yet another theoretical exploit; "theoretical" in the sense that it effects essentially zero conventional OS X desktop users. Could there have been a worm or other attack vector which then exploited the bash vulnerability on OS X? Sure, I suppose. But there wasn't, and it's a moot point since a patch is now available within days of the disclosure.

And people running OS X as web servers exposed to the public internet, with the demise of the standalone Mac OS X Server products as of 10.6, is almost a thing of yesteryear itself.

Nothing has changed since that era: all OSes have always been vulnerable to attacks, both via local and remote by various means, and there have been any number of vulnerabilities that have only impacted UN*X systems, Linux and OS X included, and not Windows, over very many years. So yeah, nothing has changed, and OS X (and iOS) is still a very secure OS, by any definition or viewpoint of the definition of "secure", when viewed alongside Windows (and Android).

We still don't have a station orbiting the moon. We don't have a station on the moon. We don't have a sustainable system within our own lunar orbit.

The only reason a Mars mission is one way is because we insist on building the vehicles and launching from Earth.

The cost of launching from earth is much higher than from space because we have to break Earth's gravity and pass through the atmosphere.

We picked on India for making it to Mars by basically cutting corners and just slingshotting a chunk of cheap crap at Mars and then said "ours costs more because we're more conservative". What's our response? Throw a huge expensive chunk of metal at Mars to prove we do it better.

Build the next space station already. Build it big and ship it people and supplies and do it there. If we cat accomplish that, we don belong in space.

Holy shit!!! This is an example of what was all frigging wrong with Occupy Wall Street!

You got a Ph.D. In computer science which means your wrote a thesis on a (hopefully) advanced topic in (hopefully) minute details with (hopefully) verified references and research.

During the 1-2 years you spent writing that thesis, did you even once consider what you'll do next?

When you write a Ph.D. thesis, you do it :
  A) because you already has a research position or professorship lined up and plan on staying permanently planted at the school.
  B) you received funding for your research from an organization who intends to employ you afterwards
  C) you have evaluated the job market and lined up a research project that would start a bidding war of your elite skills.

If you didn't do any if these, why didn't you just go to an art school, run up $200,000 in loans and learn to play chopsticks on a banjo?

You have a Ph.D. that claims you're now among the intellectual elite... And the first thing you do is make a total jackass out of yourself.

A computer science degree is supposed to say something about your ability to solve complex problems. Here's one... Figure out how to get a damn job. Do research and if you have to work at McDonalds in the mean time.

Why not?

Modern 3d printers are dot matrix style. Slow moving heads with poor resolution dependent on head alignment. Using photosensitive polymer resins it should be possible to make a head similar to a laser printer which can remove an entire axis of motion and substantially increase performance. Add ejection of color dye as well and it's even better. Printing 3d doesn't have to be expensive as the materials become more readily available and printers become more evolved.

Politics sabotaged it. Representatives on both sides added as many ear marks as possible and otherwise too many cooks spoiled the soup.

If you look at the original proposal, it wasn't nearly this bad. In fact, most of the current issues with the system weren't likely to have been issues with the original system. Instead of ditching and and saying "fuck it", the administration got a system in place that hopefully can be patched and fixed in the future. I have little faith in that.

Obama's mistake wasn't that he wanted people to be healthy and he wanted everyone to have to pay instead if just giving free healthcare to anyone who couldn't afford it (how it was before). His mistake was not bullying back.

I hope whoever is next... Republican or democrat can show more strength and say "this isn't working... We're going to fix it. Anyone who argues with me, I'll destroy in the press".

I kinda agree with both of you thanks to your example.

The Russian market took a nose dive because of borderless trading. If it were a closed system, outside investors couldn't have affected it so much.

Basically, the value of the shares have absolutely nothing to do with the companies or their performance. It's all about trends in squiggly lines. If a panic starts in either direction, more and more people trade and increase volumes. Everyone tries to buy low and sell high, but gambling related panic causes traders to lose nerve and sell low sometimes to cut losses hoping to buy back in before it rises again.

The panic is generally triggered by news stories which are written by people who don't understand the business they're writing about (for example, Amazon who is treated like a sales website only) for people who understand even less and don't care. It just makes them rush to see if the share will rise or fall.

In short, you're both kinda right. But if anyone suggests there is any more logic to the stock market than to a roulette wheel, they're full of crap.

To be fair... I have worked on many software projects in my life and have also worked with government software projects. A simple fact of life is that government funded software projects are only given to blood sucking leeches that intentionally underbid and lie their asses off about delivery schedules. Legitimate software houses who actually can plan projects and meet schedules are never evaluated.

From what I can tell, the site is up and running "mostly" only a year late and not nearly as over budget as I expected. What do you expect from a project initiated by uneducated people like politicians and sales people. They of course ask "computer experts" for help, but let's be honest... Politicians wouldn't know a qualified computer programmer from a Barbie doll.

I support ObamaCare aka ACA on a federal level simply because it requires one big ass database system to be made by one company with a whole nation of people to kick the crap out of the company making it. And let's be honest... Whether the system is for all of America or just a state, the system is almost the same.

Imagine if a state like Mississippi or Oklahoma had to get a system made? They'd hire a guy named Jom Bob from church to do it. They'd piss away the entire budget before they even found Jim Bob. They'd run it on index cards and toilet paper in type writers with no correction ink.

Is there anyone dumb enough on Slashdot to think :
  A) a government sponsored software project can be done without corruption, delays and major budget problems?
  B) all 50 states in America could actually manage to get a system up and running at a state level... Why not ask Florida about their prepaid college project and how bad that for screwed up. I worked at the company writing that one and that project was doomed to fail before it even started. They built the damn thing on Tandem computers with Thomas Conrad ArcNet and had a total of one guy who even knew how to boot the machine.

That is soooo RUDE!!! Are you suggesting Alibaba is not a serious corporate entity who closely monitors their sellers and ensures consumer safety and follows regulations in the countries they operate?

To be fair, I don't see how Alibaba has anything to do with Amazon. One is a legitimate vendor who has built a highly lucrative business model with sustained growth. The other is basically a swap shop site which most sane consumers would never consider typing a credit card number into. I have tried purchasing there 4 times and all 4 times, in response to what appeared to be legitimate postings, the vendors refused to ship unless I paid more or bought more. I honestly can't figure out how to use the site without being scammed.

The problem is, Amazon's share. People think the two companies are the same. Alibaba is more like an eBay than an Amazon.

An oversimplification. The US, UK, and allies variously broke many cipher systems throughout WWII. Still the US benefitted from this.

What if the Germans were using, say, Windows, Android phones, SSL, Gmail, Yahoo, and Skype, instead of Enigma machines?

I presume you wouldn't say it was "wrong" of the United States to crack the German and Japanese codes in WWII...

...so when US adversaries (and lets just caveat this by saying people YOU, personally, agree are legitimate US adversaries) don't use their own "codes", but instead share the same systems, networks, services, devices, cloud providers, operating systems, encryption schemes, and so on, that Americans and much of the rest of the world uses, would you suggest that they should be off limits?

This isn't so much a law enforcement question as a question of how to do SIGINT in the modern digital world, but given the above, and given that intelligence requires secrecy in order to be effective, how would you suggest the United States go after legitimate targets? Or should we not be able to, because that power "might" be able to be abused -- as can any/all government powers, by definition?

This simplistic view that the only purpose of the government in a free and democratic society must be to somehow subjugate, spy on, and violate the rights of its citizens is insane, while actual totalitarian and non-free states, to say nothing of myriad terrorist and other groups, press their advantage. And why wouldn't they? The US and its ever-imperfect system of law is not the great villain in the world.

Take a step back and get some perspective. And this is not a rhetorical question: if someone can tell me their solution for how we should be able to target technologies that are fundamentally shared with innocent Americans and foreigners everywhere while still keeping such sources, methods, capabilities, and techniques secret, I'm all ears. And if you believe the second a technology is shared it should become magically off-limits because power might be abused, you are insane -- or, more to the point, you believe you have some moral high ground which, ironically, would actually result in severe disadvantages for the system of free society you would claim to support.

I train massive numbers of people in BGP every year. The best would go for it. The average are just happy to peer and move on.

IT completely lacks process. ITIL is a joke. People insist on wasting time doing the same thing over and over. The best networking companies I know with the absolute best people are rarely more professional than a bunch of script kiddies. The best of the best hack away on networking and routing like and orangoutang playing with a toy piano. Modern IT is rarely better off than a bunch of idiots in comfort zones who make changes indiscriminately and send the invoice.

There is no profit in fixing BGP. It works and most IT engineers operating peers don't care. There is nothing which says "the internet won't work if we don't do this.". There's not even a clear line of how you would gain money by making such a change.

The internet will never implement a feature simply because it's useful or right. We do it because of the money, because it's fun or because our peering won't function without it.

Starting will always be low. After 3-5 years, you can expect much more. COBOL is for conservative organizations where computers enable business not define them. You'll work a few years and maybe end up in management or be stuck writing RPG for 50 years.

All banks will hire people with no experience just because the alternative is hiring no one. Want experience? Intern a summer or three.

The COBOL market is hard to get into. It also sucks to be in. But the pay is steady and the employers are stable. You'll be under-appreciated and you'll be bored to tears. But if you like personal stability, want the ability to get stocks in highly lucrative companies and have a bunch of free time to be a musician or climb mountains, it's an awesome job.

It's truly the job for people who work to live instead of living to work.

I left development when I saw what you call FDD be used in SCRUM.

I have recently after 3 years sabbatical started my first commercial development project. It will be a web based database and system manager. I have spent many hours researching the right tools and designing the right database scheme for the entire system. I have begun designing the goals of each sprint while setting realistic expectations for each developer.

Once the project is started, we will employ SCRUM in a modified form. Test driven development is a minimum requirement. Three people will write tests and two people will implement code.

I will use mediocre developers which are inexpensive and instead of writing code myself will constantly adjust the project to adapt to the resources on the project. I will use no "Star Developers". I'll trim out dead weight too. Everyone will pull their own weight. If I end up with a Star Developer", I'll trim him/her as well. I believe "Steady wins the race". I always want people who are happy just to code and get paid. I'm not interested in artists or creative people. Implement the code.

I didn't get creative with the design. I used methodologies that date back to 1969 and work. No fancy thinking... It was boring as hell. The point is simply to create a project with top quality and high maintain ability and a low cost in a reasonable period of time.

This is 2014... We have done it already. We don't need to write a new language, design a new method, invent a new management system... We need to build programs or tools which work. Creative people can make games. Weaker people can go back to school or change printer ink. Average is best.