Debian -- News -- Robotic Submarine Running Debian Wins International Competition

This August, a team of 35 undergraduate students from Cornell University sank the competition at the 12th annual Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition, sponsored by the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International and the Office of Naval Research. The competition takes place in a large acoustic testing pool operated by the US Navy SPAWAR Systems Center. It calls for entries to pass through a gate, follow a path, ram a submerged buoy, fire through a square target with small torpedoes, drop markers into bins containing simulated targets, recover a PVC target and surface through an octagon shape, all without human intervention. The Cornell Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Team (CUAUV) took first place by completing the entire course at the competition, a feat not seen since MIT won in 2002. This was Cornell's first victory since 2003.

Cornell's vehicle, named "Nova", runs a custom software stack on top of a single board computer running Linux and relies heavily on Debian. "Debian works amazingly well for us," said Benjamin Seidenberg, CUAUV's new software team leader. "Not only do we use it on the vehicle, we also run it on the computers in our lab and our servers, and use it to develop our custom electronics." Seidenberg, who also handles IT issues for the team, said that they consolidated on Debian three years ago. "When I joined the team, we had computers running Windows XP, Windows Server, Debian, Ubuntu, FreeBSD and Gentoo. Now we've settled on Debian for the sub and the servers; our lab workstations dual boot Debian and Windows. It's a lot easier to manage, and it's great to be able to develop in the same environment that the submarine runs."

The team also uses other open source software on their vehicle such as OpenCV for image processing and libdc1394 for video capture. According to Arseney Romanenko, another member of the software team, these libraries are essential for doing vision processing in an embedded environment; they are fast and lightweight which translates into significant power savings.

YouTube - Ben Stein - America's Education Crisis

White House's botched 'op'

OOPS! A crowd of 150 doctors gathers in the Rose Garden to support the health-care overhaul -- as White House staffers scramble to hand out camera-ready white coats to those who forgot their own.

The Associated Press: Democrats defeat GOP attempt to remove Rangel

"House GOP leadership spokesman Michael Steel said the attempt to remove Rangel 'highlights the Democrats' broken promises' for an open and ethical Congress.

'Obviously, given that House Democratic leaders haven't chosen to do the right thing, an important part of our strategy is to make sure the American people know they're trying to sweep these matters under the rug,' Steel said. 'The American people will certainly remember the Democrats' broken promises on these issues.'"

Botnet Statistics from the Security Labs team at M86 Security

Unless you are running Windows, there is no need to look at this.

Google Public Policy Blog: Open government and the Federal Register

"The Washington Post describes the Federal Register as the 'de facto daily newspaper of the executive branch.' Making the Federal Register available on Data.gov is an important step towards making that newspaper more accessible to citizens across the country."

I, Cringely: The Cybersecurity Myth

So this is the wrong approach entirely. It won’t work, the DHS probably knows it won’t work (if they don’t know that, well God help us all) but they see it as better than nothing.

Then God help us all. I seriously doubt they know how ridiculous that 1000 number sounds or what a security expert is.

We are at the mercy of ignoramuses, and that is true (regardless of party affiliation) with each new Federal pronouncement on the subject (Network Neutrality fits into the mold as well).

These people are “true believers” regardless of whether they support limited government or an ever expanding one.

Of course if you want to posit that those at the top are fully aware of the situations and are simply putting on a show to retain their safe, well paying jobs** at our and our children’s expense while accomplishing nothing of true value, then I’d say the situation is far far worse.

** not to mention creating up to 1000 new ones for family and friends.

And from the link CNN article:

Department officials could not say precisely how many cyberexperts now work at DHS and its various component agencies such as the Secret Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Napolitano said she doubts it will be necessary to fill all 1,000 of the authorized positions, but she is focused on making DHS a "world-class cyberorganization."

I'm watching the gravitas bleed out of this administration at an alarming rate. Que episodes of the keystone Cops.

At least this Janet hasn't ordered the fire-storming of any fringe religious groups. Yet.

Sounds like 2% unemployment in the DC area is safe though. I'm sure the nation appreciates this.

Oh, then there's this:

The Department of Homeland Security today appointed a senior Microsoft Corp. executive to head a section charged with protecting the federal government's computer networks from cyber attacks.

...

Still, critics say DHS cyber efforts have been characterized by inefficiency and leadership failures. Amit Yoran, a former cybersecurity czar at DHS before he left the department in 2004 after little more than a year on the job, said Reitinger has some tough work ahead of him.

Yoran cited as an example the current status of the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT). Widely considered one of the most effective cyber components of DHS, Yoran said US-CERT has been ripped apart by years of political infighting and political stovepipes.

Oh, no business as usual there eh?

Don't miss the irony of hiring a former Microsoft employee (with vested options perhaps?) to look over security issues for a federal bureaucracy plagued with improperly installed and maintained Windows systems.

In congressional testimony his predecessor mentioned Windows issues multiple times. Maybe that's why he was compelled to leave. In any even all our federally installed malware will have nice generic designations now I'm sure. We don't want to hurt any company's feelings after all.

Finally, apropos of nothing other than federal incompetence in general:

Now will Congress investigate ACORN? | Washington Examiner

Evidence continues to accumulate from far and wide that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is lousy with corruption. The latest revelations come from Louisiana and Oklahoma. In the former, the local ACORN Housing Corp. office received contracts worth a combined $625,000 from the City of New Orleans for repairing existing low-income housing and developing new units in poor neighborhoods. The contracts were paid for with funds from federal Community Development Block Grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. An investigation by the Pelican Institute think tank of New Orleans, however, found that no work was actually performed to fulfill the contracts. Worse, Pelican couldn't talk to the ACORN official managing the contracts because he had left the organization months ago. One more thing: The office address listed on the contracts for ACORN turned out to be a vacant lot, although new plumbing connections indicated a trailer had recently been located on the site.

YouTube - ABC's John Stossel Destroys/Pulverizes/Crushes Obama's anti-American 'Health Care' Plan

Net Neutrality Will Increase Government Regulation - WSJ.com

So it turns out that Google's enthusiasm for government-imposed "net neutrality" is qualified. The Internet giant wants cumbersome network management rules applied to everyone—except Google.

Net Neutrality, like "health-care reform" and Global Warming initiatives have become religions. People are for them, without actually knowing what they consist of or what might fall out of them.

Google founders, like all libtards in modern academia have learned to question all that is traditional, while at the same time setting up new traditions that can't be questioned.

To put a positive spin on it, for the companies involved, I'd say that it's all about big companies encouraging new regulation to hold back the upstarts, and that is certainly true, in its effect.

But as religions, which these things have become they represent not competitive advantages, but a modern form of Luddism that simply desires a return to the "god old days" of five, ten, or fifty years ago (depending on your age).

Don't be surprised if Google (and other new companies) regularly act against their own best interest in the name of these modern replacements for religion.

Google Sidewiki entry by Mac

Bungholes perhaps?

in reference to:

"Why do Democrats in Congress want to change key laws that have helped to discover terrorist plots?"
- Michael B. Mukasey: Don't Weaken Our Terrorist Intelligence-Gathering Capabilities - WSJ.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Biden:

"The Pres is out of town, yipee, I can say stupid stuff and it will show up in newspapers. Yeeeeehaaaaa!

Hey, get a picture of me standing on my head...."

RIO DE JANEIRO WINS THE 2016 OLYMPIC GAMES

"RIO DE JANEIRO WINS THE 2016 OLYMPIC GAMES

1749: Time for the announcement...

1748:... but first, the Olympic anthem!

1747: There is the envelope - still sealed from the earlier vote - and the announcement is moments away. Are you ready? Welcome to the stage IOC president Jacques Rogge..."

My Way News - CBS worker arrested in Letterman blackmail plot

A CBS News employee is accused of trying to extort $2 million from David Letterman, forcing the late-night host to admit in an extraordinary monologue before millions of viewers that he had sexual relationships with female employees.

I bolded the only thing I find interesting about this story. Letterman ceased to amuse me a long time ago and his dabbling interest in politics only makes it worse. But CBS News? I think it represents more of an embarrassment for them that they still have this sort of people working for them (now that Dan Rather is gone).

L. Gordon Crovitz: You Commit Three Felonies a Day - WSJ.com

Boston civil-liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate calls his new book "Three Felonies a Day," referring to the number of crimes he estimates the average American now unwittingly commits because of vague laws. New technology adds its own complexity, making innocent activity potentially criminal.

Mr. Silverglate describes several cases in which prosecutors didn't understand or didn't want to understand technology. This problem is compounded by a trend that has accelerated since the 1980s for prosecutors to abandon the principle that there can't be a crime without criminal intent.