Posts by rictay

Back doors everywhere

I've worked on networking technologies since the 1970s and know that security services are provided with back doors everywhere so they could "keep an eye on the subscribers". There is no safe communication, we are all under surveillance as we are all deemed to be potential enemies of the State. Nobody is innocent any more.

Seem to remember some lines from the film "Unforgiven" where the sheriff (Gene Hackman) beats up Clint Eastwood's character in the saloon. One of the women says:

"You just beat up an innocent man."

"Innocent of what?" asks the sheriff.

It was pricing wot dun it in

As I remember, IBM priced OS/2 somewhere in the stratosphere where only business users could justify the purchase. I'd used OS/2 at work and liked it, but for a private purchase it was an expensive joke. The attitude of an IBMer who queried my use of a Microsoft OS on my PC instead of their very expensive offering was "that's what you have to pay for a quality product". Obviously the market had a different position on this and OS/2 faded away into some digital Sargasso Sea where only whispered rumours hint at its prior existence.

Because they can

Anybody who thinks that security and intelligence authorities AREN'T snooping on us is living on another planet. There are back doors for their use in practically everything you use online. It would be naïve to deny there weren't.

Whether it is morally right or wrong to spy on innocent people is another argument. They do it because they can.

re- Stupid question

No it's not a stupid question, but a perfectly valid thought experiment. So don't be Anonymous, stand up proud and thoughtful!

Even if the rod was perfectly rigid, you would need a device at the far end of the rod to tell you that the rod had moved. That information coming back to you could only propagate at the speed of light. I'm guessing that your initial push would propagate at the speed of light because you are passing information to the sensing device at the far end.

Jumped off the upgrade path! How sad is that!

No more XP support? I only care that I can migrate the publications and graphic software I bought between 1997 and 2000. Never saw any need to update as they still provide all the functionality I want - everything since then has been bells and whistles only a few actually want. Let me see, my 1997 software has been on my Win95, Win98, Win98SE, Win98ME, and WinXP systems, including desktops and laptops.

Oh, and I still have mid90s games like Tomb Raider and Wing Commander working fine except for the video clips. It's a shame that my "Terminal Velocity" won't install any more, that's real retro fun.

Can't possibly go wrong, go wron, go wro, go wr...

"It's also "walk-away safe," the designers claim, making it immune to the kind of meltdown that destroyed the Fukushima reactors." The designers, graduate students, should get their designs checked out by experienced grey-haired engineers who know that ANYTHING can go wrong, and EVERYTHING will go wrong sometime.

Just because you can't imagine something going wrong doesn't mean the design is infallible. The name "Titanic" springs to mind.

Standing on the shoulders of giants

These "revolutionary" developments in fact sat upon existing networking technologies. We already had global networks of computers, global networks of message switching systems, and global airline booking networks, for example. I was already giving network programming courses in the mid-70s for front office terminal systems connected by PSTN and leased lines to corporate mainframes. It wasn't so clever to write a comms protocol, others have done the same before and after without all the fuss.

What about a prize for the real revolutionaries, those engineers who made primitive 60s telephone lines carry our networks in the first place and laid the groundwork for the Internet and the Web? Now that was the real achievement.

Being legal is best long term strategy

Given the boom and bust nature of small technology markets, a good accountant can quite legally move cash into reserves for the lean times. Tax authorities talk to each other these days, the chances of any company or contractor of escaping investigation is almost zero. Banks also have to look out for dodgy transactions. As for sticking your hard earned money into distant jurisdictions with no protection, well, serves you right if you lose the lot or can't get it home again.

Being legal saves more in the end, and is the best long term strategy. Clients will avoid you like the plague if they suspect dodgy dealings. In some countries, THEY could become liable for your dodged taxes. Even if you escape prison, NOBODY will work with you again, not clients, nor other contractors - guilt by association is a strong incentive to dump your dodgy friends.

Besides, there's so much money to be made, why would you want to dodge anyway?

Freelances have been doing this for decades

I worked for decades as a contractor through agencies, or as an independent freelancer, and I can't remember a time when I didn't do my own training. As new tools came along I'd buy my own, or book my own training courses, or risk falling behind others in my market. Those who relied on clients to train them soon fell away.

My 80% success rate in interviews these last 30 years is testament to training yourself in technologies the clients, or employers, are going to demand.

The current fuss must be because 'permies' are now in the same situation and have started moaning about having to do it themselves instead of having their employers do it for them.

re- ... the real start of the Internet? - a fest for pedants

Ah, a VERY debatable question as some old paper tape jocks might tell you that the email message format envelops the old "torn tape" message formats of the 1950s and 60s! Message starts or ends with "ZCZC" I seem to remember.

I certainly worked with global message switching in the 70s. In the 1960s we used 5-hole paper tape data transfer between data generator and computer with processed results by return.

So, some pedants could say we had the functionality, admittedly at 150 baud, of responsive network computing back in the 50s and 60s. On the other hand, if physical transport layer doesn't matter, we could say that Inca messengers centuries ago, carrying information encoded on lengths of string, were also a form of responsive networking.

Oh gosh, look at the time, I must go shopping!

Ice Age melt down

This is old news as it has long been speculated that the origin of Sumaria and other ancient places lay out there under the Gulf waters.

It must have an incredibly fertile place with a mild and stable climate for all the millenia of the last Ice Age. No wonder we have legends of a perfect place in our folk memory. It certainly fits the bill for the Garden of Eden.

I surmise that the ending of the last Ice Age was not a gentle drip by drip affair, but rather a number of catastrophic ice sheet collapses. Low lying land caught by a one or two metre sea level rise would soon disappear under the waves. An ice sheet collapse would probably trigger major climatic events to go along with sudden sea level rise.

These events would have been extremely stressful to cultures used to millenia of peace and plenty. Hardly surprising that we should have ancient memories, as legend and myth, of drastic events like expulsion from perfect places and Flood Myths.

When remains of ancient cultures are found beneath these waves, perhaps people will have more respect for our ancient legends and myths. These were probably eye-witness accounts of events far more disastrous than our present global warming scares.