From The New York Observer.
2011-04-21 11:36
My favorite headline of all time
2011-04-18 13:38
QNX is crazy
You know what's awesome?
The QNX operating system scales all the way from the Research in Motion's new Blackberry Playbook at the low end all the way to Cisco's largest carrier-grade routers running IOS XR at the high end. Amazing engineering.
[the really crazy part might be that Cisco licenses the OS for it's biggest iron from a cell phone manufacturer]
The QNX operating system scales all the way from the Research in Motion's new Blackberry Playbook at the low end all the way to Cisco's largest carrier-grade routers running IOS XR at the high end. Amazing engineering.
[the really crazy part might be that Cisco licenses the OS for it's biggest iron from a cell phone manufacturer]
2011-04-16 14:17
Photo ID Fun
Photo ID's are a funny thing. If you observe how casually the typical security gatekeeper regards them you might conclude that they were pointless. The purpose of checking an ID is to verify that a person has access to a physical location and the photo makes the connection between the official printed credentials and the person carrying them. But due to the repetitive nature of the job, checking photo ID's often devolves into verifying that the face on the plastic matches the face standing in front of you.
The real value of photo ID's is in forensics, checking pictures against camera footage, spot checking ID's as part of an audit, etc. Anytime there is a reason for greater scrutiny of the security process, having photographs of faces is a huge advantage.
Because of this, I tend not to take the usual photo ID's all that seriously. If the shit hits the fan and someone needs to match up my face to an official photo record of me as an authorized person, the official photo doesn't need to be perfect. So I like to make silly faces for photo ID's.
The real value of photo ID's is in forensics, checking pictures against camera footage, spot checking ID's as part of an audit, etc. Anytime there is a reason for greater scrutiny of the security process, having photographs of faces is a huge advantage.
Because of this, I tend not to take the usual photo ID's all that seriously. If the shit hits the fan and someone needs to match up my face to an official photo record of me as an authorized person, the official photo doesn't need to be perfect. So I like to make silly faces for photo ID's.
2011-03-29 16:19
How big does a register ever need to be? (Time)
This article is the next in the series that started with Distance & Volume. As mentioned in that first article, these are back-of-the-napkin calculations that are based on our current understanding of physics. I make no claims to accuracy or even authority in this thought experiment, and I'd be happy to incorporate the advice and corrections of more expert minds.
If we take time as a quantity to be measured, how large does a CPU register ever need to be in order to accomodate any possible measurement?
If we take time as a quantity to be measured, how large does a CPU register ever need to be in order to accomodate any possible measurement?
2011-03-22 14:44
Firefox 4 Tabs Bugs?
UPDATE! Fixed. It was caused by an add-on, "Tab Information" or somesuch that I had disabled. So I guess this is a separate FF4 bug where it re-enables add-ons randomly (had it do it with tab tree view, too). Actually, now that I think of it, that's a much worse bug. :-/
Firefox 4 is out! Big congratulations and much gratitude for their hard work in what is looking like a pretty great update. But the change to the UI regarding tabs is freaking me out.
The (live!) thumbnail is really neat, but I'm not sure if it enhances usability. Worse, the contrast for the currently selected tab isn't great enough to tell at a glance which tab is currently active. I think this is a bug as it should probably be seamlessly drawing into the navigation toolbar below it. Also, I think they have a drawing bug with the single-pixel horizontal line between the tabs and the navigation toolbar below it:
Ok. Point-zero releases inevitably have minor issues so I can ignore it. If these aren't drawing bugs and are instead what they want the UI to look like, that's a pretty bad mar on an otherwise great piece of software. I guess we'll see how they handle the flood of bug reports.