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Comment Re:Why the vapourware tag? (Score 2, Insightful) 130

by Ropati (#30612392) Attached to: Phase Change Memory vs. Storage As We Know It

Kevin has this right, what an obtuse article.

Henry Newman is talking about PC storage not enterprise storage. He discusses all disk IO performance in MBs/sec, meaning sequential. When in reality, very little (disk level) IO for the enterprise is sequential. The numbers here are flawed as is the characterization of storage.

Storage is where we keep our data. Keeping data is a central requirement of information technology. It will never be a peripheral feature.

Presently the real IO bottleneck is the spinning platter and the requirements of getting a read/write head to the right place quickly. Newer solid state storage devices will alleviate this bottleneck in the very near future. Perhaps PCM is the solution, but I for one will wait for a GB/$ threshold at which time the winning solid state storage will be available to everyone.

Mr. Newman talks about inter-computer bus speeds as not keeping up with CPUs and memory, when in fact they keeping up. The place where data transport still can't keep up, is serially on a single transport, (wire or optical). Networked (switchable) data needs to be serial single transport for a number of obvious reasons. Like the platter, this is a physical limitation and not easily surmounted.

If and when we get +10GB/sec consumer networks, storage networks (transporting SCSI blocks) will become a thing of the past as we pass and store all our data in an application aware protocol.
Space

Herschel Spectroscopy of Future Supernova 21

Posted by Soulskill from the that's-a-big-star dept.
davecl writes "ESA's Herschel Space Telescope has released its first spectroscopic results. These include observations of VYCMa, a star 50 times as massive as the sun and soon to become a supernova, as well as a nearby galaxy, more distant colliding starburst galaxies and a comet in our own solar system. The spectra show more lines than have ever been seen in these objects in the far-infrared and will allow astronomers to work out the detailed chemistry and physics behind star and planet formation as well as the last stages of stellar evolution before VYCMa's eventual collapse into a supernova. More coverage is available at the Herschel Mission Blog, which I run."
Security

Submission + - Online Certificates

Submitted by Ropati
Ropati writes: I need to ask the slashdot crowd if my on-line banking experience is secure?

The scoop:
I bank with capitalone.com. Recently I went to log in to my credit card account at https://servicing.capitalone.com/c1/login.aspx. My browser reported that the site certificate didn't match the web site I was on. [Expletive.] I'm wondering if I am getting a poisoned DNS URL. I have to log in and do my banking, so I accept the mismatched certificate. The banking site is complete, my transactions are listed but that doesn't mean there isn't a man in the middle attack here. I am still curious how much I have exposed my banking assets.

On the Capital One login page, there is a Verisign link on the page to check that the website is suppose to match. So I click on the verification icon and I am rewarded with a link to Verisign. They report that this web site certificate is for onlinebanking.capitalone.com not the servicing.capitalone.com where I log in. Is this the mismatch my browser reported. I know nothing about certificates.

I call Capital One and ask them to fix the problem. If this was a browser issue on my part, then the Verisign link should match. The tech support supervisor, Joe — XRT413, said he couldn't do anything about it and he couldn't escalate the problem to someone who could.

So my questions are:
Are the certificates a mismatch or is my browser bellyaching for nothing? Is the certificate mismatch a security hazard? If someone poisoned my local DNS routers would it be obvious in the URL? How would I prevent such a thing? If everyting was working correctly, would the certificate alert me to DNS poisoning, or is this just cosmetic security?

Clueless about certificates
 
Education

Submission + - Searching Searching Education

Submitted by Ropati
Ropati writes: For thirty plus years I've worked in numerous technical positions. I've mastered electronics, RF properties, IT administration, and machinery of all types. Today I had an epiphany. Presently, my most valuable skill is not a subset of the things I have mastered, but rather my ability to "search" for information. Most of what I need to do, I don't already know how and I must acquire the information to accomplish my work.

In fact, it seems clear that for the foreseeable future, being a successful individual requires an ability to extract the right information from the resources available as quickly as possible. To that end, I don't see anything in my children's education formally addressing this issue.

So I ask the Slashdot mobility, what educational processes are available to improve our children's ability to search? Are there classes in applying search algorythms? Are we developing formal searching heuristics in an academic setting? Do any primary or secondary schools make searching a requirement similar to Typing or Home Economics.

Please don't flame this submission with "Search for it". I don't believe that most academic institutions even recognize this as a required job skill and I can't find any "searching classes" on the web.

If you agree with me, don't just reply to this submission, but rather discuss the matter with your local educators. Perhaps as a mob, we can influence our children's education.
Windows

Submission + - Windows and DST

Submitted by Ropati
Ropati writes: I don't write code and I have no significant understanding of how libraries interact in Windows, but I did see the Windows KB article — 932590 "FIX: Windows-based applications that use the TZ environment variable may not work as expected because of changes to DST". From what I can read, any code that calls the TZ variable from MSVCRT.dll, will not realize it is Daylight Savings Time.

What I don't know is how much code might make a call to this variable. If there are applications that do a comparison between a local TZ call and a UTC call or to an API that does a UTC call, couldn't this have cause issues?

My question to the coders of Slashdot is how impactful is this issue? Or, is TZ in the MSVCRT.dll so deprecated that this is a teapot tempest similar to Y2K?
Toys

The 10 Most Dangerous Toys of All Time 404

Posted by Zonk from the watch-your-hands dept.
Ant writes "An article at the Radar lists the ten most dangerous toys of all time, those treasured playthings that drew blood, chewed digits, took out eyes, and, in one case, actually irradiated. To keep things interesting, the editors excluded BB guns, slingshots, throwing stars, and anything else actually intended to inflict harm." My favorite: 'Feed Me!' begged the packaging for 1996's Cabbage Patch Snacktime Kid. And much like the carnivorous Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors, the adorable lineup of Cabbage Patch snack-dolls appeared at first to be harmless. They merely wanted a nibble--a carrot perhaps, or maybe some yummy pudding. They would stop chewing when snack time was done -- they promised. Then they chomped your child's finger off."
Communications

Submission + - FCC To Drop Amateur Radio Morse Code Requirements

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The FCC announced it will drop all morse code requirements for amateur radio communications. Currently only the lowest class of licenses are exempt from morse code testing. This move allows many ham radio operators access to wider ranges of spectrum, and marks the end of a technology more than a century old. More details at the ARRL site.

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