Posts by Bob 18

Are you an open-sorcerer or free software warrior? Let us do battle

Why OSS in the Lab?

In 20 years, the amount of OSS/FS available has exploded, to the point that it has become a norm of sorts. FS and its philosophy was founded in a time when source code was scarce and software was something written by one organization to be used by another. Copyleft licenses would entice others to share their work, rather than taking it proprietary. Such concerns are lessened today because there's always another project out there people can use instead, making it hard to profitably make anything proprietary. "Trade secret" software is more valuable today than proprietary software: software developed in one organization that is never released to anyone. In such cases, OSS vs. FS is a meaningless distinction.

> so what's the motivation for the open-source user to go with open source over the same proprietary software?

I'm speaking here from experience in science labs and finance companies. It is rare that one can buy a single piece of software, install it and use it. In 99% of cases, a significant amount of programming is needed to USE any software, and to INTEGRATE it with other software also being used in the firm. The cost of licensing proprietary software is often insignificant, at least within finance companies. But we prefer OSS because it usually has a lower cost of integration. It's easier to get exactly what you want / need, rather than trying to bend a pre-built piece of proprietary software to your needs, or integrating 5 pieces of proprietary software with baling wire. All these points apply to the science world; but also, we need to share our results, and any licensing issues get in the way of it. Not to mention tight science budgets where licensing fees ARE significant.

Why OSS in R&D?

In 20 years, the amount of OSS/FS available has exploded, to the point that it has become a norm of sorts. FS and its philosophy was founded in a time when source code was scarce and software was something written by one organization to be used by another. Copyleft licenses would entice others to share their work, rather than taking it proprietary. Such concerns are lessened today because there's always another project out there people can use instead, making it hard to profitably make anything proprietary. "Trade secret" software is more valuable today than proprietary software: software developed in one organization that is never released to anyone. In such cases, OSS vs. FS is a meaningless distinction.

> so what's the motivation for the open-source user to go with open source over the same proprietary software?

I'm speaking here from experience in science labs and finance companies. It is rare that one can buy a single piece of software, install it and use it. In 99% of cases, a significant amount of programming is needed to USE any software, and to INTEGRATE it with other software also being used in the firm. The cost of licensing proprietary software is often insignificant, at least within finance companies. But we prefer OSS because it usually has a lower cost of integration. It's easier to get exactly what you want / need, rather than trying to bend a pre-built piece of proprietary software to your needs, or integrating 5 pieces of proprietary software with baling wire. All these points apply to the science world; but also, we need to share our results, and any licensing issues get in the way of it. Not to mention tight science budgets where licensing fees ARE significant.

Is Apple's software getting worse or what?

I'm a scientist; I need to build stuff and run it in a sane environment. The best OS X for my needs was about 3-5 years ago; since then it's been going down. Starting with El Capitain they broke GCC so badly it's on longer usable. Unfortunately, no one else offers a Fortran compiler, a necessary part of scientific computing (yesterday, today and forever). I converted my Mac desktop to Linux and have been happier ever since.

OS X is still a decent laptop/terminal OS with an edge over Ubuntu. The retina display is beautiful and user things for the most part still "just work." But even there, they keep fiddling with no discernible movement forward. The "natural scrolling," for example. And all those iFeatures they fiddle with on every release? What a waste of time. I don't use iTunes, Pages, Mail or any of that other crap for my work.

Having offended everyone else in the world, Linus Torvalds calls own lawyers a 'nasty festering disease'

Why GPL?

If Linus doesn't care about enforcing the GPL, maybe he should have chosen a different license. Unfortunately, too late for that now --- not after 25 year of contributions by thousands of people under the expectation that this is a GPL project. Grow up...

Tim Cook's answer to crashing iPhone sales: More iPhones

> Cook reckons smartphones are equivalent to TVs, in that people will own more than one

Oh Tim, there's a difference between iPhones and TVs. TVs. are big and non-portable, so you install one in every room where you want to watch TV. iPhones are a personal item you carry in your pocket. Why would anyone need more than one? Especially since each iPhone sucks up your time on maintenance, update,s etc?

Visiting America? US border agents want your Twitter, Facebook URLs

Is this so wrong-headed?

Sorry, I'm with the Feds on this one. LA isn't so desperate for cash that we need obnoxious morons like that Irish kid in our country. Let him come back when he's a little more mature and ready to take things more seriously --- and less likely to "destroy" something, such as a car, a random pedestrian, a plate glass window, someone's head with a beer bottle, etc.

Many claims are made here that people don't publish nefarious activity on their Facebook pages. But experience with people who have committed violent, heinous crimes shows that's not true. After most big shooting, a look at the perp's FB page reveals shocking stuff. Rarely does violence just come "out of nowhere." Moreover, friends don't lie: the Feds can tell a lot about you from the company you keep. If half of your best friends are on a Terrorism Watch List, then that will raise a big red flag --- regardless of what you do or do not say on FB.

If you don't want government official trolling your social media accounts... then don't post on social media. Privacy is still a right, albeit one that people seem more than willing to give up for next to nothing.

Facebook Messenger: All your numbers are belong to us

Re: Errrrrrmmmmmm...

> anyone with half a brain will take one look at the requirements of that nasty

> little app ( both on Android and iOS) and realise their life will no longer be

> their own after installing it!

I think you man to say that almost everyone will install it.

Updated Android malware steals voice two factor authentication

Re: Isn't it sweet...

We always knew Android was just about as secure as Windows 95, so no surprise someone is stealing your two-factor authentication. Hopefully you don't have your passwords on your phone too, requiring someone to find your computer AND phone to get into your stuff. You don't bank on your phone, do you? Do you?

If you're serious about 2-factor authentication, you use an RSA tag that can't be hacked remotely.

How to build the next $1bn tech unicorn: Get into ransomware

This is why I think we'd be better off banning Bitcoin. If there's no Bitcoin ATM at the end of the block, it will be a lot harder to collect the ransom from Granny.

Windows 10 pilot rollouts will surge in early 2016, says Gartner

Don't waste your time

I got a Sony Vaio laptop for my 8-year-old kid, with Windows 8. It got upgraded to 8.1 But then... it was also badly infected. So I did the system restore. This brought me back to 8, and required about a zillion hours of upgrades to 8.1. Now Windows 10 is coming out, and my child's Firefox was hopelessly compromised with multiple bogus root certificates. I can see where this one is going... I'll have to do system restore back to 8, then about two zillion hours of upgrades to 10. Not my idea of fun.

Instead, I installed Ubuntu for my child. It is 100% better in every way. Faster, easier to use, better mouse tracking, more responsive, fewer bloatware pop-ups. She's actually able to go to her school website and concentrate on the math problems at hand. This was a clear win. We will never look back.

The singles biggest thing MS could do to keep customers on Windows is to enable an easy System Restore back to the latest version of Windows that came installed on the computer, rather than the original version it was purchased with. Stop wasting our time!

Google's Nest weaves new Weave protocol that isn't Google's Weave

I won't believe it's secure until it's been open sourced and widely scrutinized.

Scientists love MacBooks (true) – but what about you?

Re: Speaking as a Scientist...

> The justification seems to me pretty straightforward: to prevent users borking their system

Yes, but no. The problem today isn't just users who unwittingly type 'sudo rm -rf /'. Also is the prevalence of malware that is just waiting for you to run it with "sudo." There is less that can go wrong if you are able to install the software you need without root privileges.

Speaking as a Scientist...

We spend our days writing and running Fortran/C/C++ codes, and analyzing the results. Our "can't do without" software packages include gcc, python, perl, bash, netCDF, R --- plus the scientific codes we write and run. All of this stuff is written for Unix, and it's questionable how well it will run with Cygwin. Our lab doesn't even support our main software product on Windows. Not to mention that the command line windows on Mac/Linux are so much better than on Windows. That is why nobody uses a PC in this lab, the choices is Mac vs. Linux. The supercomputer runs Linux. Mac is a good choice for your personal computer (laptop) because:

1. Macs are better built than most laptops (maybe not Lenovo).

2. Government regulations prohibit buying computers from Chinese companies (such as Lenovo) because our gov is afraid of built-in spyware, such as the recent phony root certificate found on Lenovos.

3. A lot of ancillary things don't "just work" on Linux, and they do on Mac. Since it's not "job related," helping you get YouTube working on your Linux laptop won't be a big priority with IT.

4. The Linxues allowed by IT are hopelessly out of date --- meaning, you have to build your own GCC plus every library your software requires. Big PITA.

5. We generally don't have root privileges on our machines. With a Mac, you can build a Macports for all your needs in user-space, and upgrade it whenever you feel like it, no root privileges required. The same COULD exist for Linux, but it doesn't. Instead, you have to say "sudo yum ..." and you have to run down to IT every time you need to type "sudo."

Segway bought by former patent spat adversary Ninebot

Ah yes, the Copenhagen Wheel --- another highly innovative product that will go "blip" on the tranportation landscape. The Copenhagen Wheel does nothing more than take energy from you when you're going downhill, and give it back uphill. A REAL e-bike gives you extra energy without taking away from you. And decent e-bikes can be had for $1500. It's hard to see why people invent this stuff, when more useful devices are already mass-produced in China.

FCC says cities should be free to run decent ISPs. And Republicans can't stand it

In the name of improving the "free market," let's also ban the government from building or maintaining roads, or running buses on those roads. NYC Transit especially should be banned, since they provide so much unfair competition to hardworking jitney operators. Places like Lagos, Nigeria should be our model for the proper role of government.

Buses? PAH. Begone with your filthy peasant-wagons

Re: toll lanes

> Every advance in transport since the invention of the horse-drawn omnibus has

> facilitated the clustering of workplaces into ever larger lumps, ever increasingly

> separated from where people live. It's an unsustainable mess. We ought to be

> looking at how to fix it, not doing more and more of the same.

See the paper on Scaling in Cities:

http://www.santafe.edu/media/workingpapers/12-09-014.pdf

It says (basically) that larger cities are more expensive and harder to get around. But the economic value created by bringing people together in large clumps is worth more than the economic drag of having to live and navigate through that clump.

Re: From the user's POV, cars are awesome

I agree. Since buses and trains use about as much energy as cars, the most effective way to reduce transportation energy use is to reduce demand. You can do that through compact urban design. At that point, you will need buses and trains because the city is too big to walk and too dense to fit all the cars people would need. From an energy perspective, public transit should be seen as an ENABLER of compact design, rather than an end in itself. Public transit users use less energy than automobile drivers primarily because they don't go as far.

Mom and daughter SUE Comcast for 'smuggling' public Wi-Fi hotspot into their home

I agree with jimbo60, it shouldn't be a big deal. But if she doesn't like it, she can buy her own router rather than using the one Comcast provided. That's what I did, and it's a whole lot easier than launching a lawsuit. Saves $5/mo too. Since that option is available to all Comcast customers, I don't see how she has much of a case.

Windows desktop VDI

KISS

As someone who's been there too with charities, I repeat the warning about keeping things simple. Don't make the mistake of the aid workers who installed fancy electric pumps in the developing world, only to see them end up useless for lack of electricity, spare parts, etc. You have to install technology commensurate with the organization you're putting it in.

Does your charity have professional IT services available to fix things? Do they have a reliable network, both internal and external? If they don't have these basics, then don't give them a solution that needs them. How will new user accounts be added? How will they be shut down? Can people gain access to their stuff from outside the office? Will YOU be required to do all these mundane chores, and what kind of response time can you realistically provide?

Through hard lessons, I have come to some principles:

1. The less hardware in the office, the better. Ideally, you want to go serverless. If you MUST have a server, try for one that just serves files. You will still have to set up backups for it, of course.

2. Cloud services are great: professional-level IT services for pennies (or even free). Google Apps solved many problems at once (email servers, access from outside the office, large file sharing). Email was a BIG problem --- lost password, email client configuration, email password management, and of course SPAM. And it ALL went away in one fell swoop when we went to GMail.

3. Use consumer products as much as possible. They are VERY cheap: new computers can be had for under $300. More important than the dollar price, end users have a ghost of a chance of being able to do self-service if something goes wrong. We used to use Mac OS X Server with network logins. Now we use just basic consumer desktop machines with local logins. Whether we use Mac or PC on the desktop no longer matters. If they buy something from MicroCenter and put it on their desk, they can get it working. They just have to connect to our fileserver, to Google Drive, and then point their browser to GMail. They can get this stuff working without me, at least temporarily. Or an easy call over the phone.

4. Move to web-based databases. See above about eliminating servers from your office... CiviCRM is one free possibility, and there are many paid companies as well.

5. Desktop support is the achilles heel of charity IT. You pay top dollars for bottom skills. Anything that can be administered remotely, you can pay a lot less for better skills. And it's often so easy to do, you can just do what they need done during a coffee break. One more reason to go serverless in the office.

6. Remember that your time IS valuable. A new computer is $300. Setting up a new computer can cost a lot more than that, if you don't keep things simple. Free hardware isn't as much of an asset as you'd think at first, unless you have a VERY quick way to turn it into USEFUL hardware with proper stuff installed. Old hardware is deadly because installs are slower, and thus more costly for you in the end than just buying something new that works.

7. Do anything to avoid viruses. Each virus infection requires full rebuilds, see the costs in (6). We've had good luck with Macs, at least, which somewhat justifies their high price. Linux is better on this front, of course, if you can make it work.

8. Tech Soup is a good place for licensed software. But even better is software that doesn't need licensing. It's not just that it's free --- but also you avoid the hassle of managing license keys.

Are driverless cars the death knell of the motor biz?

Re: A hacker's paradise

Maybe YOU would drive the car when you're inside. For this scheme to work, the car only has to be driveless when vacant.

Even if this reduces demand in the developed world, increases in the developing world are likely to keep global automobile demand on the upswing for at least a few more decades.

Hitch climate tax to the actual climate, says top economist

Highly Flawed Proposal

The problem with this proposal is there is a time lag (40 years) between the CO2 we put into the atmosphere and the warming we measure. Even if we stopped all CO2 emissions today, we are still committed to warming caused by the past 40 years of emissions. Markets tend to overshoot when there is this kind of time delay --- meaning, we would end up with 40 more years of warming than the market said it wanted. That could be quite costly.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climate-Change-The-40-Year-Delay-Between-Cause-and-Effect.html

Google accused of hypocrisy over Glass ban at shareholder shindig

The difference between Google Glass and a camera phone is... you have to hold the phone up to take a picture, and everyone knows it. Google Glass lets you take photos incognito.

Your Flying Car? Delayed again, but you WILL get it, says Terrafugia

Better batteries

In making claims of the vertical take-off vehicle, they're probably assuming better batteries in the next 8-10 years, with a significantly higher capacity per kg.

Don't worry, the great unwashed will never buy these puppies and invade "your" airspace en masse. Beyond the issue of plunking down $200K to buy one, most of us probably won't be able to afford the gas to run it either.

Adobe price hike: Your money or your files, frappuccino sippers

Opening Old Files

They should provide Creative Cloud access for free to everyone, to open files. Saving or otherwise making changes to files would be restricted to subscribers. That would solve the "can't open my files" problem, and I think would bolster their potential revenues (because otherwise, people will shy away from them if nothing else for this reason).

T-mobile US in invisible handset handcuff contract smackdown

Silly Ruling

Aww, come on. T-Mobile has been great in offering this unbundled system for buying phones and paying them off over time (at zero interest, I believe). You can cancel the plan at any time, but you still have to pay for the phone that's in your possession. It should be obvious that if you buy something on credit (say, a phone), then you will have to pay off the loan.

Why do we waste our court's time on this? We should be going after the companies that really are cheating consumers out of millions each year through dodgy means: high-interest credit cards, banks full of hidden fees... and of course "free" handset offers that are coupled with high-priced two-year phone contracts.

Microsoft leads charge against Google's Android in EU antitrust complaint

Poor Complaint

I hope this doesn't get very far.

1. I chose GMail because my old ISP was falling apart and Google did a good job with the bear known as Email. I also use the K-9 IMAP client on my Android phone, for my non-GMail account. If MS (or anybody else) makes an email service as good as GMail, I will consider it.

2. I use Google Maps because it's better than the other services out there. There are many --- and I've tried them on my Android phone.

3. I use Google Search because no one else on Android has bothered to make an App that sends search their way. I don't think anyone has tried. I can't even change search engines on my Firefox. If there IS an anti-trust issue, this is where it would be.

4. I use Google's browser because (at the time I made the choice), nobody else had made one that works.

Young model ruthlessly fingers upskirt iPad petshop pervert

Two thoughts:

1. I never let anyone pet my dog, for any reason.

2. I would've knocked his iPad out of his hands, hopefully breaking the glass. Then I would've told him to get lost (without his iPad, of course).

First sale doctrine survives US Supreme Court

Long Live Dead Trees!

This is why I buy dead tree books and DVDs.

En Garde! Villagers FIGHT OFF FRENCH INVASION MENACE

A Solvable Problem

Cellphones don't (usually) just appear out of nowhere in a cell: they travel from one cell to the next. If you look at the cell history of a particular phone, I'm sure it's not hard to write a computer program that distinguishes between users hanging out in Dover, vs. users who actually got on a boat or train to head to France.

This technology could be used to bill UK users domestic rates, even if they happen to have connected to a French network from Dover.

An even better solution: implement EU-wide standards to remove roaming charges. Here in the USA, my T-Mobile offers free roaming anywhere in the country. Last summer, I called home to the East Coast from remote areas of Alaska, for no extra fee.

Firm moves to trademark 'Python' name out from under the language

What a bunch of jerks.

Yes, what a bunch of jerks.

Doped nanotubes boost lithium battery power three-fold

Results of this

If this is real, it will be pretty great. It will go a long way to making electric cars range and price-competitive with gasoline cars. And when I replace my electric bicycle's battery, it will give me a 90-mile range --- enough for a full day of touring.

Climate watch: 2012 figures confirm global warming still stalled

Re: What a moron

What is climate? If you look at Jim Hansen's articles, climate is the AVERAGE weather you get. It's a bell curve dstribution. And he has shown that the bell curve we're getting this decade is shifted significantly warmer from the bell curve we had for the 1950-1980 period. Make of it what you will. (Look up "climate dice" to see this topic in greater detail)

Even if global warming has "stalled," it's still stalled at a level that is significantly warmer than when I was a child. And it doesn't take a genius to see that glaciers and ice sheets are melting at an alarming rate --- rates that in most cases are increasing, certainly nothing like a "stall" there.

And think about it... we've spent decades pumping CO2 into the atmosphere as fast as we can, and we've been able to measure increases in global temperature since 1980. And now the year 2012 is within the top 10 hottest years ever. We would most reasonably conclude that things are getting warmer, although there is some noise in the year-to-year signal. But instead, we use the fact that 2012 is not THE HOTTEST YEAR EVER to conclude that global warming has "stalled" and we have nothing to worry about, and we should keep burning as much coal as we can? Crazy... Only someone with a pre-determined agenda would make that conclusion.

Re: Interesting

Nice hypothesis. But actually... cutting pollution, perversely, INCREASE warming in the short term. Because all that SO2 we pump into the atmosphere actually reflects sunlight. All the pollution over China actually keeps China a little cooler than it would otherwise be.

But I agree, China is doing its best to add CO2 to the atmosphere as fast as it can. Although it's still way behind the USA, in per capita CO2 output.

Re: Riding Up the Down Escalator

Yes, we're nearing a maximum of sunspots. But that maximum is much lower than the maximum we had in the year 2000, really only moderate.

So... if sun spots have anything to do with T on earth (which they do), then it's quite reasonable to expect that we might not be getting yearly RECORD BREAKING temperatures this year, even as global warming continues. But if you could have today's CO2 with sunspots of year 2000, you'd see a different story. Just wait a few more years... as CO2 continues to build and we happen to get another solar peak, we will expect to see a lot of records broken.

Conclusion: if you want to be honest about measuring the direction of the T of our planet, you need to average over more than a couple of years. And if you ACTUALLY want to know the truth... why don't you look at all the available data, including ALL thermometer readings, as Mike Mann did? Oh yes, I know why.. because you don't like the conclusions that pop out so obviously. Nor do you like the fact that this procedure has been repeated many times, even by former climate deniers funded by Koch money, and the result has been the same each and every time.

Riding Up the Down Escalator

The logic of this article makes about as much sense as measuring the temperature at night, and using the results to claim that global warming has been stalled for the last 12 hours.

Look at this graph:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation

Solar output has been declining for much of the past decade. That decline has counteracted increased forcing due to increased CO2, leading deniers to claim that "global warming is stalled" for the past decade. Unfortunately for all of us, global warming is almost certainly going to un-stall as solar output increases over the next decade --- since it's pretty clear that this solar output thing is cyclical. Expect a series of scorcher years.

Now Microsoft 'actively investigates' Surface slab jailbreak tool

More Irrelevance

With its late-to-market products commanding miniscule market share, it is doubtful whether MS will ever become relevant in the tablet space. This is just one more reason they will fail. Anyone who wants freedom to install any software they like will be Android. Anyone who doesn't care will buy Apple.

Windows RT jailbreak smash: Run ANY app on Surface slabs

Yawn...

Why would anyone bother to jailbreak a Windows RT tablet? If you want a tablet that you can run anything on, just get an Android. Nobody's forcing you to install dodgy software, but you can if you like.

Another Apple maps desert death trap down under

The Outback

I dunno... if you're driving out there with no more preparation than a glance at your iPhone, you deserve what you get.

Stallman: Ubuntu spyware makes it JUST AS BAD as Windows

Ubuntu in the Workplace?

Whatever your views on this behavior from an OS and Richard Stallman... I can't think of any workplace environments that would be happy with this stuff on their employees' desktops. We use a lot of Mac and Linux on our desktops at work, and Ubuntu is now NOT one of the options.

Belgian finds missus was born a MAN after 19 YEARS of marriage

Good to Hear..

The article was small-minded, bigoted, and practically condoned domestic abuse. But reading the sheer number of enlightened comments and reasoned discussion was really a breath of fresh air. It looks like things really are getting better (slowly) for the trans community.

Nowhere to hide for Google users as Play is given Plus treatment

Google+ NOT!

This is Google-

Super-thin iMacs WILL be here for Xmas, cram warehouses even NOW

Re: Uh....

Your iMac desktop computer doesn't run on batteries. Nor is portability a primary issue.

Uh....

Thin matters in smartphones and tablets (to a point), and even in laptops. But desktop computers? The previous-generation iMac with built-in DVD drive was more functional.

Microsoft's OWN tests on Kin 'social phone' foretold its doom

The Marketing Strategy

So.... you have this phone you're going to sell with a $70/mo data plan. And you're trying to sell it to children and young adults.

What's wrong with this picture?

Why is the iPhone so successful? 'Cause people love 'em

Proud Android Owner

Apple makes great stuff. I don't own an iPhone for one reason: their restrictive policies in which THEY reserve the right to decide what I can and cannot run on MY phone. Watching numerous iTunes app rejection dramas play out over the years has confirmed my decision to go with Android. That is far more important in the end than whether or not my Samsung phone retains its bounce-back scrolling feature.

Eco-nomics: Was Stern 'wrong for the right reasons' ... or just wrong?

It's Not Just Extinction

"But far more dramatic changes in the climate have been experienced within the past 20,000 years, Lilley contends, with humans able to draw on far more primitive technological resources, and yet survive."

There's a difference between avoiding extinction and avoiding decimation of human society as we know it today. The challenge isn't just to keep SOME human beings alive in a changing climate, it is to keep ALL 7+ BILLION of them alive. A much harder problem.

Disney sitcom says open source is insecure

Follow the Money

Someone paid them to slip this line into the show. Looks like a kind of stealth "product placement" to me.

Facebook shares hit all-time low

Still a big honkin' company

Even at today's share price, FB is still worth $50b. That's about what Goldman Sachs valued it at in January 2011. Anyone who got in before then could still be making a ton of money, even at $19/share.

What will be interesting is to see if these early investors sell or not. If they're selling, it's because they don't think FB has much more potential, and they want to take their profits and run.

Hypersonic Waverider scramjet in epic wipeout

Useless

This has absolutely no civilian use, especially not with $100/barrel oil. The Concorde was never more than a niche product because it was a total gas guzzler. High-bypass turbofans, turboprops, blended wingtips and similar technology are the wave of the future, not hypersonic transport.