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Comment Get ready (Score 1) 701

by JThaddeus (#47523937) Attached to: Favorite "Go!" Phrase?
Get ready.
Outboard personnel, stand up.
Inboard personal, stand up.
Hook up.
Check static lines.
Check equipment.
Sound off for equipment check.
Stand in the door.
Go!

Since my day, the Army has changed "Stand in the door" to "Stand by." The former had meaning for C-130s, but not C-141s and helicopters.

Submission + - The JavaScript juggernaut rolls on (techworld.com.au)

Submitted by JThaddeus
JThaddeus writes: An article in TechWorld Australia summarizes the latest opinions on JavaScript from ThoughtWorks: "There is no end in sight to the rise of JavaScript... 'I think JavaScript has been seen as a serious language for the last two or three years; I think now increasingly we’re seeing JavaScript as a platform,' said Sam Newman, ThoughtWorks’ Global Innovation Lead." The article touches on new additions to JavaScript tools, techniques, and languages built on Javascript. As the fuller report (PDF) says, "The ecosystem around JavaScript as a serious application platform continues to evolve. Many interesting new tools for testing, building, and managing dependencies in both server- and client-side JavaScript applications have emerged recently."

Submission + - Starbucks Phone App Stores Password Unencrypted (dailycaller.com)

Submitted by JThaddeus
JThaddeus writes: The Daily Caller reports a serious security flaw in the Starbucks phone app: "Starbucks confirmed late Tuesday that anyone could access the unencrypted data stored on the official Starbucks app simply by connecting the phone to a computer – bypassing lock screen or PIN security features with no hacking or jailbreaking necessary." The linked report is for iOS. No mention of Android, but do you think it is any different?

Submission + - Frog Sacrificed to LADEE Launch (pentagonpost.com)

Submitted by JThaddeus
JThaddeus writes: One of the close-up cameras watching the LADEE launch caught the image of another frog sacrificed to science, and in a far more spectacular way than in your high school biology class: "... a new picture which has been released by NASA of the LADEE launch also featured an intruder a small frog which unfortunately was at a wrong place. The picture of the amphibian seen clearly silhouetted against the Minotaur 5 rocket smoke is not a fake and this has been confirmed by NASA." Follow this link to see the photo.

Comment Selectively administered (Score 4, Interesting) 374

by JThaddeus (#44724239) Attached to: Feds Seek Prison For Man Who Taught How To Beat a Polygraph

Polygraphs are one reason I left classified work for greener pastures. I believe they are nearly worthless, used just as much to harass as anything else.

In my last classified job, my employer hired a new security officer. After several months on the job she was sent for her polygraph. She returned the same day, the test unadministered because she had a heart problem. The problem was manageable, but it made it impossible for an "accurate" test. Despite this she remained in her job. With access to far more material than myself and others--sensitive material covering many programs--she was excused. Obviously the intelligence community doesn't believe in polygraphs either. I'm glad to be out of that world.

Comment server comparison (BSD vs Micro$loth) (Score 4, Funny) 172

by JThaddeus (#44323467) Attached to: Microsoft Has 1 Million Servers. So What?

I attended the first ApacheCon in 1998. One of the top brass at Yahoo (founder? CEO?) spoke on open source software. I don't recall all the details, but I remember him saying that they had about 450 servers running BSD.

During the Q&A, someone asked what version of BSD they were running. As I recall he said that over half were running the latest, another 30% or so were on one version earlier, and the rest--15-20%--were on an older version. This caused a mummer from the audience, and an ASF panelist asked for elaboration.

Oh, replied they Yahooligan, why the old OS? Well it doesn't seem to make much sense to reboot a server that's run for over 18 months without a problem just to upgrade the OS.

At this point the president of the ASF, Brian Behlendorf, stepped to the mic and said, "Let's hear Microsoft say that ."

The crowd went wild (except for the two MS reps in front of me).

Submission + - The Balkanization of Chatting (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by JThaddeus
JThaddeus writes: Slashdot's own (or former) CmdrTaco has a posting on the Washington Post's website where he discusses how chat apps have overtaken SMS. Yeah, they are cheap. There's no telecom fee per message or for some number of messages per month. However "The problem of course is that these systems are annoyingly incompatible with each other. My phone can buzz with chat notifications from 3 different apps at any moment. My desktop has even more scattered across browser tabs and standalone apps." Ditto, nor do I want to hassle learning some app or trying to understand its who's-listening settings. I'll stick to email and to occasional SMS.

Comment Fix Akonadi, Nepomuk, etc. (Score 1) 122

by JThaddeus (#43211865) Attached to: What's Going On In KDE Plasma Workspaces 2?
Lord, how I miss KDE3. It worked, simply worked. It didn't lock up. When my Linux box was running KDE3, I don't recall ever having to telnet in to restart a frozen machine. It happens all too often with KDE4. And KDE4 ruined, utterly ruined, KMail, once the best email program I ever used. KDE4's efforts at a "semantic desktop" and a "personal information manager" rendered over a dozen years of email archives unsearchable by anything but find and grep. Restarting, clean-up and reinstalling, etc. never worked. Hello, Thunderbird. You ain't all that great, but at least you let me search old emails. Farewell, KDE. Farewell SUSE. Farewell, Linux. My personal workstation has been Linux since 2000, but it looks like you've driven me back to my first love, the Macintosh.

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