Misdelivered mail has led to two at least somewhat humorous, and oddly related, incidents in my life.

Back in college I subscribed to several IEEE journals. The journals were shipped wrapped in a plain brown wrapper. On one occasion a journal was misdelivered to another college student a few apartments down. The next day he hand delivered it to my apartment, with the wrapper missing, and the comment "That was so not what I thought it would be, dude." You see, adult magazines were usually wrapped in the same manner as IEEE journals.

Skip forward several years, and one day I get some sort of unexpected periodical in the mail, and rip open the dark blue plastic wrapping not having any idea what it was. Nor, for that matter, checking the address label. Mere moments later I found out something about my neighbors life I most certainly didn't want to know. Feigned ignorance being the better part of valor, I threw the magazine in the trash, not wanting to confront the awkwardness of delivering the magazine in person.

That might be painting supercomputer owners with a bit too broad of a brush.

The NASA Advanced Super Computing Division (www.nas.nasa.gov) is crammed full of supercomputers of various designs (clusters, single-system image behemoths, co-processing, etc) and from everything I've ever heard they run at insanely good utilization levels. If I remember a presentation from one of their chiefs correctly, they achieved this level of utilization not only with great technical management and know-how, but by consolidating a number of disparate less efficient smaller supercomputer centers across NASA. They also have staff whose job it is to work directly with researchers to help them code their supercomputing applications in a manner to get as much performance as possible out of the computer -- greatly improving the poor/inefficient code that a scientist may produce. As a result the division's existence ends up saving NASA money overall, the result of which is that various science organizations are able to spend a greater portion of their funds on core research rather than inefficiently utilized supercomputing resources, a net win for them and for taxpayers.

The other impression I walked away with is that the only obstacle to doing even more science with their supercomputer resources was the dollars to obtain more systems (i.e. the demand for cycles outstrips the center's currently available supercomputer resources). I seem to recall the chief mentioning that today's systems are running calculations that were science-fiction level of impossible 15-20 years ago, and that several researchers have ideas for supercomputing applications that would require capabilities still hundreds or thousands of times better than could be built today. The need for more supercomputing capability, at least at NASA, is effectively boundless.

So I think the parent's portrayal is overly broad. An inefficiently used supercomputer is primarily a management failure, and the quality of management varies from organization to organization, as it does in any field. What I've hard about NAS sounds like they did it right. I have no doubt there are organizations who've done it wrong.

Disclaimer: I work for a major supercomputing company, in particular the one that supplies a huge portion of NAS's hardware.

The U.S. government has recently been saber-rattling about the NSA/DOD/whoever taking on the role of protecting vital national computer interests, particularly against the hacking efforts of China. And now, very atypically and with very little rationale for publicly admitting as much, a number of major technology/web companies have started admitting they've been hacked, allegedly from China.

So, was the U.S. government recognizing a real trend ahead of time, or maybe they had non-public information regarding these activities? Or are the companies being pressured to help create a story that will justify a government takeover of the network security infrastructure?

I distrust coincidences and the timing of these initiatives and disclosures smells a bit odd to me. Expect congressional inquiries into the "growing cybersecurity threat" to be covered on C-SPAN within the next few weeks.

This is definitely not the case, for one safe-to-assume reason and one from Mayer's memo itself.

The safe-to-assume reason is that Yahoo will certainly continue providing remote access to employees for working from home during off-hours, while travelling on company business, and for employees who are on-call. If you have to provide remote access for even one employee some of the time you have the same set of security considerations as if you provide remote access for all employees all of the time.

And Mayer's memo makes reference to employees exercising good judgement about waiting at home for the cable guy situations. This implies that it is recognized there will always be one-off situations where an employee needs to work from home for a particular day, even if they are not allowed to do so as their standard day-to-day situation. So once again, if you provide remote access for even one, you have all the same security considerations as if you allowed every employee to work from home all the time.

I personally think this is just as some other posters have said -- it's a stealth layoff to avoid paying severance by getting people to quit on their own, and the decision will gradually be reversed (or the policy just not enforced) once the desired reductions have been accomplished.

ObSnark: When did Carly change her name to Marissa?

However in the U.S. it would be impossible to gain a conviction on the obstruction charge, because you still don't know which of the twins is committing the crime of obstruction. Due to the Fifth Amendment you can't very well convict someone of obstruction if he was refusing to testify against himself, and it's not possible to determine whether or not he is doing so. There's plenty of reasonable doubt.

The current situation does inure some benefits to the U.S., but in not easily measurable ways which is why they're not talked about all that much.

My observations when I was a college student was that international students would gain a perspective on the U.S., Americans, our life, and our culture which was different from what they expected when they first arrived. I assume when they went back home that this new perspective would cause them to evaluate their own local press and government statements about the U.S. in light of their first-hand experiences and knowledge. I had lab partners from Saudi Arabia, Ghana, and mainland China, all of whom I was able to talk with about perspectives and impressions of the U.S., and I have no doubt that each of them had a more nuanced and healthier view of the U.S. after having lived here.

If you want to stabilize relations with China and various Muslim areas of the world I think we'd be well served to invite far more of their students to study here so that when they go back home they can correct the thinking of their friends and family. Likewise the Americans who have a chance to study with them will realize that by and large "people are people", dispelling the simplistic "us versus them" mindset we seem to be afflicted with.

Although the following may not all be household names they were either pioneering or at least some of the first widely used software in their categories:

OS/360, TOPS, MULTICS, UNIX, and CP/M for operating systems.
NFS, NIS, LDAP, FTP, telnet, ssh, UUCP, talk, and IRC clients and servers for various aspects of networked computing.
SCCS, RCS, CVS, Bitkeeper, and git for revision control.
Gopher servers and clients as a prelude to web servers and browsers.
Napster and Bittorrent for file sharing.
Band In A Box, Finale, and Protools for various aspects of music production.
Archie as a precursor to web search engines.
The switching and accounting software behind the 5ESS switch and other major components of the global telephone system.
Compaq's clean-room reengineered BIOS.
Lots of Mercury/Gemini/Apollo/Space Shuttle control software.

I'm thankful to have lived in the age when most of the above were first developed and introduced.

I am a middle-aged fan of Def Leppard, a mild tinnitus sufferer (starting as early in childhood as I can remember -- so probably neurological), and a weekend warrior front-of-house sound engineer. I think you are completely correct, and not just because of the dynamic range issues you mention.

Despite being a fan since the Hysteria years, it was only about a year and a half ago that I first went to a Def Leppard concert. Knowing that there could be problems and that I value my hearing, I made sure to bring decent ear protection. The sound for the opening act (Heart) was brutal -- piercing, obnoxious, and you couldn't make out lyrics except where you already knew them. I put in my ear plugs and sat down, waiting for the spectacle to be over.

That all changed when Def Leppard took the stage. The music was loud, but everything was also very clear and pleasantly equalized and mixed. It was easily the best mixed live show I've ever had the privilege of hearing, bested perhaps only by Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables touring companies (which aren't dealing with nearly as high of sound pressure levels). Willing to risk it for the experience of hearing my favorite rock band live for the first time in my life I didn't use hearing protection at all, and while my hearing was certainly desensitized until the next morning, there was never a single moment of pain.

I love my weekend hobby as a live sound guy, and the highest complement I've ever received (from a pro) for a rock-style show was that they were impressed that everything felt nice and loud, and they were so happy that their ears didn't hurt afterward. That's a difficult thing to achieve, so I have nothing but admiration for whoever (most likely Ronan McHugh) mixed Def Leppard's show that night.

It makes some sense to me. What I wager they are hoping to see is substantially improved economic activity in those areas, as well as rising property values, directly attributable to the availability of cheap bandwidth.

If that happens then Google will be able to begin making a case to the public, the FCC, and politicians that the state of U.S. broadband is terrible, and that the country needs to get its act together to improve the situation. If they can point toward the economic uplift of a downtrodden area they are then pushing the right buttons to get all sorts of politicians to agree that increasing bandwidth is a good and necessary thing. The FCC may begin mandating/encouraging higher speeds, and the politicians may even pry open the taxpayer's wallet to help make it happen.

Increasing the amount of data coursing through the Internet is a plus for Google, as the contents/attributes of that data can then be used for advertising, research, product development, and the like. They can only stand to gain from there being more data circulating.

Have you tried it? It certainly doesn't work universally if at all in North America.

Two years ago I attempted to call from my GSM cellular phone to report a drunk driver. Wondering if "112" actually worked like I knew it should for GSM, I tried that number first, however the call didn't go through. I then reverted to 911 and as expected that call went through just fine.

What rueger said.

I've been there before as a new board member of a non-profit, and rueger is completely correct that it takes at least a year to understand how an organization works and why things are the way they are. More importantly in your case, it takes that long to suss out the nature of the personalities involved, and know what is important or not to each director so that you know how best to advance your goals and make it a positive thing for everyone involved, but most importantly the organization itself.

More than any of that though, you really need to study what the appropriate and necessary roles of a director are. Start Googling and reading on the subject -- there's lots of good stuff out there. As a director you are entrusted with serious legal responsibility for governance and oversight of the organization and accomplishing its stated mission. Everything you do must serve those ends and must be evaluated in light of them. This is your primary role and duty -- everything else is secondary.

Your legal duty and responsibility is to the organization. Not to the board. Certainly not to Bob. So first you need to identify how the current situation is holding back the board from any or all of its responsibilities for governance, oversight, or accomplishing the organization's mission. Once you understand that you can use it as a basis of a discussion with the board so that the board can decide whether they want to solve the problem. If they decide as an entire board through an adopted motion that they want to solve the problem, then you can work with the stakeholders such as Bob to figure out the "how" part of solving the problem (unless Bob already agrees that it needs fixing, in which case the two of you may be able to work together to approach the board together with a presentation of the problem and a proposed solution). See how that works? Identify the core duty/responsibility, address the problem in achieving that duty/responsibility, determine a course of action through the board's official decisions, then implement that decision while maneuvering in the zone of the personalities involved.

How does this then apply to your situation? In order for the board to perform its oversight and governance functions, as well as preserve business continuity in achieving it's mission, it is important that they have reliable access to all documents which they need. The degree to which it is easy to locate those documents impacts how effective the board members can be at carrying out those duties. And for the important documents reuger mentioned (minutes, budgets, etc), it is extremely critical to have a solid paper trail, particularly if for some reason your secretary of state, the IRS, or J. Random Attorney With Aggrieved Client comes knocking. Maintaining these records is part of your legal "duty of care", and you need to make sure it is done, and done wetech.slashdot.orgt SuperBanana mentioned further above: Once you've identified the weakness that your board is responsible for fixing, operate within the correct procedures of the board to address the issue. Get the item on the agenda. Let Bob present on how he would like to fix it, or have the board discuss how they would like it fixed. As part of this the board should create and vote on motions that direct the next steps that should be taken (e.g. further research, funding for implementing a solution, etc). At this point it doesn't matter any longer if Bob is on board with the approved motions or not -- though hopefully he is and a plan that he's happy with has been adopted. In any case at this point the board's decision is as good as law for the organization: if any director cannot faithfully support and help execute the adopted motion, whether or not they were in favor of the motion in the first place, that director needs to resign. If the director works to undermine the board's decision and doesn't resign, the board needs to remove them post-haste.

This doesn't have to be as heartless in practice as it sounds in words, but always remember that your first responsibility is to the governance and oversight of the organization, and toward achieving its mission. Use that principle as your guidepost and the rest will come into focus for any and all issues you deal with as a director.

This is why: http://what-if.xkcd.com/17/

There simply isn't enough solar power delivered to the surface of the aircraft, even at 100% conversion efficiency, to move people and luggage using only available sunlight.

Google tells me direct illumination to a surface perpendicular to incoming full intensity sunlight is about 1.4 kW per square meter. Google also tells me that the wing surface area of a 747 is around 5500 square feet. Only half of the 747 wing is directly illuminated by sunlight at any given moment, but the surface of the fuselage could be covered with photocells as well, so 5500 square feet overall is probably a decent estimate for the directly illuminated surface area of the aircraft as a whole. And for hand-wavy purposes lets assume that the entire surface of the 747 is perpendicular to the incoming sunlight (i.e. a planar plane... pun totally intended). And that we have perfectly efficient photocells giving us 100% conversion efficiency. Running the math, this gives us around 715kW under bright direct sunlight, or about 959 horsepower -- the equivalent of 1.5 2012 Ford Shelby GT500's.

Each engine of a 747 generates around 15,000 horsepower at cruise, and around 30,000 at takeoff, and a 747 has four engines. So you need around 125 times the power generated by a perfectly efficient perfectly illuminated solar-powered 747 to get said plane off the ground, and around 65 times the power for cruising. And then you could only fly it in the middle of the day near the equator.