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Submission + - 10 Years Gone: The VA Linux Systems IPO (cnet.com) 3

Submitted by porkrind
porkrind writes: This is a restrospective to mark the 10th anniversary of what has remained the biggest IPO of all time — in terms of largest first day gain. It looks at the legacy of VA and puts the IPO day in context. I tried to capture just how surreal the whole thing felt. I felt then, and feel now, that VA was on the cusp of something really great, but just... couldn't... get... there. Read the post here.
Software

Submission + - Whither Initiative? (hyperic.com)

Submitted by
porkrind
porkrind writes: "In light of recent events, it's time to re-examine the role of the Open Source Initiative. The current Open Source leadership is simply too inflexible, rigid and incapable of taking in new information. The result is what I describe as an echo chamber-induced myopia. [insert Bush comparisons here] In this article, I advocate moving away from the OSI and creating a new system of governance based on the Creative Commons model."
Moon

NASA Plans to Smash Spacecraft into the Moon 176

Posted by samzenpus from the hit-it-hard dept.
djasbestos writes "NASA is planning to smash a spacecraft into the Moon in order to look for hydrogen deposits in the poles. More notably, it will impact with significantly greater force (100x, per the article) than previous Moon collisions, such as by the Lunar Prospector and Smart-1 probes. Admiral Ackbar was unreachable for comment as to the exact location and size of the Moon's thermal exhaust port."
Security

Physicist Calculates Trajectory of Tiger At SF Zoo 713

Posted by kdawson from the parabolic-stripes dept.
KentuckyFC writes "Is it really possible for a 350-pound tiger to leap a 12.5-foot barrier from 33 feet away? (Said another way: a 159-kg tiger, a 3.8 m barrier, and 10 m away.) A physicist at Northeastern University has done the math, a straightforward problem in ballistics, and the answer turns out to be yes (abstract on the physics arXiv). But I guess we already knew that following the death of Carlos Souza at the paws of Tatiana, a Siberian Tiger he had allegedly been taunting at San Francisco zoo at the end of last year."

Comment Top Questions from Bytesfree.org (Score 1) 916

by porkrind (#22053318) Attached to: Ask the Presidential Candidates
These are the questions I've submitted myself, previously, and received no response:

1. Do people have a right to access their (legitimately procured) information, including all multimedia content and documents?

2. How will you reform the DMCA?

3. Is there a link between the digital divide and the lack of information rights? If so, what do you intend to do about it?

4. Do you intend to pass an online customer bill of rights? For an idea of what this would entail, see http://www.bytesfree.org/wiki/index.php/Bill_of_Rights

5. And finally, will you tell all of the RIAA and MPAA lobbyists to get bent?
Security

The 5 Coolest Hacks of '07 145

Posted by samzenpus from the still-no-pencil-hack dept.
ancientribe writes "Nothing was sacred to hackers in '07 — not cars, not truckers, and not even the stock exchange. Dark Reading reviews five hacks that went after everyday things we take for granted even more than our PC's — our car navigation system, a trucker's freight, WiFi connections, iPhone, and (gulp) the electronic financial trading systems that record our stock purchases and other online transactions."
Google

Submission + - Is Google's Success an "Enigma"? (strategy-business.com)

Submitted by
porkrind
porkrind writes: "Nick Carr, of 'Does IT Matter?' fame, has penned an article asking the question whether Google is a model for other companies to emulate or whether it's too much of an anomaly to be useful in a cross-industry sense. He also asks the question of whether Google's approach to management and innovation (much ballyhooed in many circles) is a cause or result of its success. The answer to whether your company should emulate Google is, perhaps unsurprisingly, "it depends." His analysis and logic leading to that conclusion are definitely a thought-provoking read. His ultimate conclusion is that Google's success is much more attributable to its leading-edge IT operations than any of the hype you may read about in glossy journals."
Google

Submission + - The Google Enigma (strategy-business.com)

Submitted by
porkrind
porkrind writes: "Nick Carr, of 'Does IT Matter?' fame, has penned an article asking the question of whether Google is a model for other companies to emulate or whether it's too much of an anomaly to be useful in a cross-industry sense. He also asks the question of whether Google's approach to management and innovation (much ballyhooed in many circles) is a cause or result of its success. The answer to whether your company should emulate Google is, perhaps unsurprisingly, "it depends." His analysis and logic leading to that conclusion are definitely a thought-provoking read. His ultimate conclusion is that Google's success is much more attributable to its leading-edge IT operations than any of the hype you may read about in glossy journals."
Operating Systems

NetBSD 4.0 Has Been Released 121

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-stacks dept.
ci4 writes to tell us that NetBSD 4.0 has been released and has been dedicated to the memory of Jun-Ichiro "itojun" Hagino. "Itojun was a member of the KAME project, which provided IPv6 and IPsec support; he was also a member of the NetBSD core team (the technical management for the project), and one of the Security Officers. Due to Itojun's efforts, NetBSD was the first open source operating system with a production ready IPv6 networking stack, which was included in the base system before many people knew what IPv6 was. We are grateful to have known and worked with Itojun, and we know that he will be missed. This release is therefore dedicated, with thanks, to his memory."
Red Hat Software

Submission + - Red Hat to Create Open Source Sys Mgmt Platform (businesswire.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Red Hat Network (RHN) and the JBoss Operations Network (JON) have been significant players for the Red Hat service model for a long time, but the software that has been behind them has been private and sourced from a different code base. Today, Red Hat announced with open source systems management vendor, Hyperic, that they will be working together "on the development of a common systems management platform. Development will continue under an open source model."

The involvement with Hyperic is rooted in the JON history as it was OEMed to create this service in 2005. This new open source project is meant to create a repository of common services to be used in future versions of all Red Hat products and adopted into Hyperic products as well, clearing up the mystery on the fate of these two networks. "Both companies will work to maintain, govern and extend management capabilities within the new open source systems management platform project. Additionally, Hyperic and Red Hat will work jointly to include this base in both future Hyperic and Red Hat systems management products." The project will be made available under the GPL.
Businesses

Submission + - The Hows vs. the Whys? (hyperic.com)

Submitted by
porkrind
porkrind writes: "What sorts of personality traits do you look for when you hire employees in IT? Or do you feel that judging a potential new hire on personality is ethically wrong? This blog post suggests a system that looks for 2 archetypes to fill IT roles: the "hows" who only focus on 'making it go' with whatever they've been given and the "whys" who question every methodology and are responsible for building new stuff, which the "hows" will then deploy. TFBP implies that these traits can be detected in an interview process, even though all of them may possess very similar resumes. Is this even possible? Or is "hows" vs "whys" a false dichotomy?"
The Internet

How the U.S. Became Switchboard to the World 256

Posted by CowboyNeal from the big-brother-is-listening dept.
slugo sent in this Wired story which opens, "A lucky coincidence of economics is responsible for routing much of the world's internet and telephone traffic through switching points in the United States, where, under legislation introduced this week, the U.S. National Security Agency will be free to continue tapping it. ...International phone and internet traffic flows through the United States largely because of pricing models established more than 100 years ago... The United States, where the internet was invented, was also home to the first internet backbone. Combine that architectural advantage with the pricing disparity inherited from the phone networks, and the United States quickly became the center of cyberspace as the internet gained international penetration in the 1990s."
Hardware Hacking

Stalling Cars Via OnStar 737

Posted by kdawson from the let-the-hacking-begin dept.
Lauren Weinstein writes to tell us that GM will be installing OnStar systems on almost 1.7 million 2009-model cars that will allow law enforcement (or anyone who cracks the system) to remotely shut down vehicles. Here is the AP's writeup, which like most MSM coverage doesn't mention any privacy implications.
United States

Submission + - Open Letter to California Media: You Suck (bytesfree.org)

Submitted by
cyrusmack
cyrusmack writes: "During the rise and fall of AB 1668, California's open formats bill, the media misrepresented the struggle in the simplistic form of industry goliaths engaging in market warfare — without giving proper due to the — some would say obvious — moral issues at play. In this open letter, I have taken them to task for their piss-poor efforts and lack of basic critical thinking skills. Some would say we cannot expect better, but I say we have to expect better and yell about it when they don't meet expectations; otherwise nothing will change. Read the full text here"
Java

Submission + - CNET 1997: Java is Dead! (java.net)

Submitted by
porkrind
porkrind writes: "David Herron has a great post on his blog at java.net. David uncovered an old CNET article listing 10 technologies that "don't stand a chance" with Java, of course, being one. It would seem that the death of Java has been foretold multiple times for at least 10 years now. One wonders how long it needs to survive before someone admits, "well, perhaps this Java thing will make it after all.""

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