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Comment Re:Nevermind that bitbucket competes with sourcefo (Score 1) 150

A couple of years ago we (Atlassian) showed up at a trade show with a "Friends don't let friends use Sourceforge" banner. Maybe there's some latent corporate hostility. :)

Regardless, I don't understand what this article is truing to say and I sit two desks across from the Bitbucket team!

Comment Re:Seriously? (Score 1) 540

"This is a University, not a business."

I hate to break this to you, but universities are businesses, and reasonably large ones.

"There's no cost, no down time."

Every successful intrusion costs, and requires down-time. Sure, the guy SAYS he didn't do anything bad or leave behind any surprises, but how far can you trust a guy who broke into your system to begin with?

"I'm sick an tired of seeing these cookie cutter CIS & IST majors graduating having ZERO or less then one year of real world experience. I would much rather hire this guy."

I strongly recommend you read this email from Marcus Ranum to the firewall-wizards mailing-list for an alternative point of view.

Charles

Comment Re:Iron Man's Suit Defies Physics -- Mostly (Score 2, Interesting) 279

Hydrogen peroxide powered rocket packs fly for around 30 seconds, because they have a specific impulse of around 125, meaning that one pound of propellant can make 125 pound-seconds of thrust, meaning that it takes about two pounds of propellant for every second you are in the air. Mass ratios are low for anything strapped to a human, so the exponential nature of the rocket equation can be safely ignored.

A pretty hot (both literally and figuratively) bipropellant rocket could manage about twice the specific impulse, and you could carry somewhat heavier tanks, but two minutes of flight on a rocket pack is probably about the upper limit with conventional propellants.

However, an actual jet pack that used atmospheric oxygen could have an Isp ten times higher, allowing theoretical flights of fifteen minutes or so. Here, it really is a matter of technical development, since jet engines have thrust to weight ratios too low to make it practical. There is movement on this technical front, but it will still take a while.

John Carmack

iPhone Trojan Sign of Things to Come? 151

climber writes "Just days after the first scareware for OSX, researchers are pondering the problems of an iPhone exploit that could lead to larger issues. The Trojan pulls legitimate apps off the phone if you try to remove it, but it only infects iPhones that have 'been modified or opened through a security hole in the system.' Though this worm is more of an annoyance than anything else, it could be a proof of concept for a more serious attack. 'The fear is hackers may be experimenting and gathering research that will increase the dangers of a more malicious attack in the near future. It is clear at least one writer -- the author of this piece at Web Worker Daily -- thinks that the iPhone should be left on the dresser in the morning. She offers several reasons that the device isn't a good corporate tool.'"
Debian

Debian Refuses To Push Timezone Update For NZ DST 435

Jasper Bryant-Greene writes "Although a tzdata release that includes New Zealand's recent DST changes (2007f) has been out for some time, Debian are refusing to push the update from testing into the current stable distribution, codenamed Etch, on the basis that 'it's not a security bug.' This means that unless New Zealand sysadmins install the package manually, pull the package from testing, or alter the timezone to 'GMT-13' manually, all systems running Debian Etch in New Zealand currently have the incorrect time, as DST went into effect this morning. As one of the last comments in the bug report says, 'even Microsoft are not this silly.' The final comment (at this writing), from madcoder, says 'The package sits in volatile for months. Please take your troll elsewhere.'"
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