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Comment When they screw up? (Score 1) 220

So what happens when a company screws up and clobbers the wrong company (or individual)? Think about it: when your servers are being attacked, how certain are you as to who the culprit is? Are the cops (or the feds) really going to put their best manpower on vetting the work you've done to track down the baddies? Or will that be where they stick their less capable people?
Bottom line, if someone clobbers your company by mistake, whom do you sue?

Comment Great topic (Score 2) 285

Seriously, great topic.

Two bugs come to mind, one that I wrote and fixed, one that I fixed but did not create. The one that I created was an assembler bug, code written in UKY-502 assembler (military computer). I screwed up one op code, specifying LK (load constant) instead of L (load from memory address). The difference in the code was one bit, but I had to single-step through the code to find the bug - took me hours for one stinking bit.

The other bug, also on the UYK-502 computer, was a bug in the micro-code. The guy who wrote the micro-code for one particular instruction had ignored the user guide for the bit-slice processor and had implemented a read-modify-write operation in a single micro-code instruction. It worked for him because the timing hardware was slow enough. Unfortunately, a couple of years later, the manufacturer of one of the chips in the timing hardware improved the internal workings of the chip so that one of the line dropped sooner than it did on older versions of the chip (NB: the chip still met the same specs - it was just faster). Debugging was a pain. The computer used a back-plane, and the timing hardward and the bit-slice processor were on difference cards. When we put either card on a extender so we could connect a logic analyser, the delay added by the traces on the extender caused the problem to go away. It took two of a week to find the problem. The fix was to update the microcode ROMs for every computer that received the new timer card.

Comment Touch typists (Score 1) 698

I'm a (very poor) touch typist. If you start radically altering the keyboard, you will seriously P.O. every touch typist out there because our muscle memory won't work with your keyboard. That means that they will be much less likely to buy your keyboard. By extension, if your keyboard happens to be attached to a laptop, they will be much less likely to buy your laptop. Maybe non-touch typists will be more likely to buy your wares and offset the loss of the touch typists. But maybe not - what if they dislike your changes? Bottom line: there's probably no great business advantage to changing the keyboard but there is a significant business risk, so ain't gonna happen.
If you have a good idea for a better keyboard, start a kickstarter campaign and build/market it yourself. You'll make a huge pile of money. Or not.

Comment Re:Robotic Surgeons? (Score 1) 76

Not really. If you look at the likelihood of being in surgery when the network goes down, or the surgeon gets hacked, it's pretty much negligible. What does disturb me is the fact that major hacks are frequently reported as are gross vulnerabilities yet nothing seems to get done. -- linquendum tondere

Comment Thank goodness (Score 1) 480

My first thought, when I read the summary, was of my co-workers, all male, wearing short skirts or low-cut dresses. I may have to gouge out my eyes.

My personal experience is that absent clear enforced rules, deportment degrades over time to unacceptable levels, at which point management institutes unpalatable rules. If you have freedom in deportment, enjoy it but be sensible.

Comment Re:Talk to Vendors (Score 1) 219

Talking to the pros is only the worst thing to do if you know as much, if not more, than they do. The fact that the OP is asking slashdot indicates he does not know a lot about setting up storage in the PB range. Are the major vendors overpriced? In terms of the hardware you get, probably. In terms of the knowledge they bring to the table, probably NOT in the case of the OP. If you have someone who can select COTS components and effectively couple them with some good OS/SW, great. Otherwise, get someone who knows what they are doing and buy their solution. Doing it on your own when you don't know what you are doing will only end in tears.

Comment Re:Which is why you don't let this stuff connect.. (Score 1) 98

From my perspective, the biggest problem with BYOD is that management is not likely to give IT the resources needed to ensure that BYOD is done in a secure manner. Personally, I will not bring my own device to work for a couple of reasons. First, why on earth would I subsidize my employer? Second, why on earth would I consider giving my employer any measure of control over my device?

Comment Re:Investigating if laws were broken (Score 1) 312

This is not necessarily a problem. First off, the legality of some actions may depend on where the actions occurred. In the case of the drone, discharging a gun is illegal in some locales and legal in others. So, the authorities could well investigate where the drone was shooting. Second, law has gotten ridiculous; no cop - heck, no lawyer - is aware of all laws. See something new, like a privately owned drone firing a gun, maybe you want to check whether there are applicable laws. Now, fishing trips to find something with which to harass your ex, definitely a problem.

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