357 days

I haven’t gone through my Tumblr dashboard for weeks and weeks, and haven’t posted here for over 2 weeks. I can’t imagine how much I’ve missed recently in all this busyness, given that I usually read and (re)post a crapload of things here.

The world just keeps spinning right round.. some days recently I wake up and wonder if I’m going to fall off it today, because I’m not hanging on to anything, just standing.

I’ve entirely not had time to catch up on my magazines for the past 2 weeks and I’m already beginning to feel the detachment from the outside world that I experienced in PTP/BMT. It’s really unsettling because I actually am rather worried that I’ll lose touch entirely and drop into the abyss.

Oh well. Maybe I just need a break and a chat with some friends to ground myself properly :)

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Thought I’d make a throw away and tip in as there are lots of people here who’ve never had a clearance and don’t really understand what it’s all about (I’ve had one for more than a decade). I’ll try and answer some questions in the threads as I can. In the U.S. here’s how it works (I’m writing this from the perspective of a contractor)…
Thought I’d make a throw away and tip in as there are lots of people here who’ve… | Hacker News

Schrödinger’s Cat (by minutephysics)

iphoting:

Adele - Someone Like You Cover (via CharliesVlogs).

Fantastic singing, especially by Emily Luther.

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A while back now, but many of the same systems are in place in the same way, I was contracted to test the systems on a Boeing 747. They had added a new video system that ran over IP. They segregated this from the control systems using layer 2 - VLANs. We managed to break the VLANs and access other systems and with source routing could access the Engine management systems.
For those who do not know, 747’s are big flying Unix hosts. At the time, the engine management system on this particular airline was Solaris based. The patching was well behind and they used telnet as SSH broke the menus and the budget did not extend to fixing this. The engineers could actually access the engine management system of a 747 in route. If issues are noted, they can re-tune the engine in air.
Cracked, inSecure and Generally Broken: FACT CHECK - SCADA is online now

Programmers: You're already a pretty good designer

I’m a seasoned hacker that is able to tackle immensely complex problems with aplomb. I’m able to untangle spaghetti code and weave it into beautiful patterns. I envision systems and code them with the same grace a jazz pianist improvises music. But I can’t design for my life. Please help.

Scholars and grades

Someone was telling me this week that grades aren’t everything in school/college.

Well, not quite what you think it is. He was actually trying to make the point that taking lots of challenging classes and scraping a 3.5 GPA is worth much more intellectually, and significantly better for your development, than taking all the easy classes and easily clearing a 4.0.

It occurs to me now that scholarships might make this difficult. After all, when you have a contractual obligation to maintain a term GPA of, say, 3.4, there’s no real incentive for you to overload your schedule or to take especially difficult classes, is there, even if you’ll benefit more from doing that? After all, losing a scholarship and x% on top to boot is rather painful.

What a conundrum.

A new level of dogfooding

jbdeaton:

A friend of mine, a new assistant prof at a school in Louisiana, tells the story of a senior colleague (actually pretty famous in our area of structural engineering) who remodels his house constantly. This latest round, he decided to implement a series of parabolic stone arches over his driveway and various gates. He insisted on standing directly beneath each arch when removing the shoring. Sure enough, the arches held, and the professor survived his own creations.

Maybe we should implement ideas of natural selection in evaluation of engineering projects. Grades would matter a lot less and the connection to the real world would be quite tangible!

Someone once joked to me that we should get people to clear weapons while pointing it at their feet, instead of the sky.

I’m joking of course. Can you imagine the liability paperwork?

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The abbreviation UTC is an odd compromise. The French wanted to use the abbreviation TUC (temps universel coordonné) and the English wanted to use CUT (coordinated universal time). The compromise was UTC, which doesn’t actually abbreviate anything.
The Endeavour tells us in an aside about a compromise between the English and the French. Perhaps it is a good solution – it satisfies neither side fully.