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Comment What projects need funding? (Score 1) 287

As much as we can shit on corporations for not paying the piper, I am sure many are oblivious who they need to be supporting and funding. How many of us on /. actually are aware of the time and effort spend by certain individuals to ensure backbone implementations are kept in a healthy state. I am sure many corporations on in the same spot, after all they paid RedHat or some other vendor for a solution and that's probably as far as it went. Many of us take these projects for granted.

The other issue is the people who need funding are usually unknown until they are in dire straits. I am not sure the best way to address this issue? How does funding *BSD help? Does the FSF provide any method for easily providing funding, for them to distribute to these core solutions?

Comment Re:This one (Score 1) 150

It may be gone, in its current form, but I am sure it will spawn new markets in new incarnations. I can see this as nice solution for surgeons, to be able to record things from their perspective either for auditing or educational purposes. Maybe even get pilots to wear them to study user interactions with the cockpit.

Comment Re:Is that really a lot? (Score 1) 280

We need to consider a few things:

  - What sort of drones are we talking about? For example those huge military drones that probably use as much fuel as a helicopter?
  - What is the relative cost compared to the previous method?
  - What are the cost break downs?

It is a huge amount of money and seems like they need to change there costing model.

Comment Unit tests (Score 4, Interesting) 233

While I dislike writing unit tests, I have to admit they are useful in protecting your butt when something breaks, since the test should catch it first. Of course you need to decide whether in a particular scenario they add value or just make you manager happy.

In a case like yours, you can make code modifications and hope nothing breaks or build unit tests and ensure that you don't break any of them when refactoring. Initially rather than just ripping out the seemingly duplicate methods, rip out/tweak their implementation and have them point to what they seems like a the right method to provide the common functionality. If your unit tests show breakage, then you know that you missed something.

If you do things wholesale, then you are likely to break something in an unmanageable way. Oh and make sure things are version controlled ;)

Comment Re: Japan: and the $0.02 market analysis. (Score 1) 458

There is a reason when I go Android, I go Nexus.

I got a Nexus 4, even though it was made by LG. Regret it now, since the digitizer and radio failed. Don't believe the hype. Nexus means fuck-all.

Thanks for the info. I went with the premise that they were the only Android phones guaranteed to get software updates. Now I am just confused as how to know a good Android phone that will be in the front running for getting system updates, without having to jailbreak.

Comment Re: Create a $140 billion business out of nothing? (Score 1) 458

Just don't mention the master piece of conservativeness that was Windows CE (aka Windows Mobile). Microsoft had ample opportunity to make an operating system designed for hand helds. Instead they decided that they would cram a desktop experience into a PDA and do little to improve the experience. After all businesses just want functionality? - At least that was the attitude back then, in certain ways still the case.

Another company that had ample opportunity was Palm, but also failed. Between business people and techies, then we no notion of design and making things attractive or easy.

Comment Re: Create a $140 billion business out of nothing? (Score 1) 458

He didn't invent the smartphone and many of Apple's product aren't first of the kind. On the other hand Apple has innovated and transformed languishing ideas, only appealing to techies, into something that evetyone want and desires.

Success is based not just on a feature set, but also on making that technology feel easy, attractive and not feeling like something some that requires the mindset of some mad genius.

Read back through Slashdot and see how many times Apple was accused by the /. crowd that Apple didn't understand the market they were diving into, before being proved that us geeks don't always understand the larger market.

Comment Accept IPv6 and build for it. (Score 1) 161

If the protocol sucks, it'll go mostly unadopted.

See also: xhtml and arguably ipv6

I'll bite. While xhtml can be ignored rather safely, IPv6 not so much. IPv6 adoption is like the Y2K problem, but with no clear cut off date. We know we will run out of IPv4 addresses, but when depends on who you speak to or what your analysis is based on. As someone who takes care of infrastructure, I would rather start addressing IPv4 exhaustion problem with something other than double or tripple NATting, and provide a solution that is already working when others are screaming for lack of foresight.

To the people suggesting we could have taken an alternative approach to IPv6: any changes to IPv4 would break everything anyhow, so you might as well come up with a solution designed for the long term. NATs are tolerable up to a point, but once you double or n-Nat, then you are in a territory where doing things properly would have been better.

Certainly IPv6 probably creates new problems, but not ones that can't be solved with the proper tools. For example, you lose the apparent security of a NAT, but at that point Firewalls are already providing an alternative and capable solution.

Comment Security rings? (Score 1) 59

With all these issues, I am wondering whether beyond the firewall to the external network, internal portions of a corporate network should be firewalled too. For example HR related data should be on a sub-section of the network protected by its own firewall. I would imagine the chances of breaching multiple firewalls being low, unless the penetration into the network is either done by an insider or someone who has been able to lay low on the network for a while?

This may already be the case in many organisations, but I don't know enough about security specifics?

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