text:
The Institute communicates its scientific and educational information in a number of ways. One major outlet is peer-reviewed publications and reports. Cary Institute staff regularly publish in the best-rated journals in their respective fields.
Export 191 results:Sort by: Author [ Title] Type Year
Filters: Author is Strayer, David L. [Clear All Filters]
Top down control from the bottom: Regulation of eutrophication in a large river by benthic grazing", Limnol. Oceanogr., vol. 51, p. 664-670, 2006., "
Transformation of freshwater ecosystems by bivalves: a case study of zebra mussels in the Hudson River", BioScience, vol. 49, p. 19-27, 1999., "
Twenty years of zebra mussels: lessons from the mollusk that made headlines", Front. Ecol. Environ., vol. 7, 2009., "
Understanding how nutrient cycles and freshwater mussels (Unionoida) affect one another", Hydrobiologia, 2013., "
Understanding the long-term effects of species invasions", Trends Ecol. Evol., vol. 21, p. 645-651, 2006., "
Use of flow refuges by unionid mussels in rivers", J. N. Am. Benthol. Soc., vol. 18, p. 468-476, 1999., "
Usefulness of bioclimatic models for studying climate change and invasive species", in R. S. Ostfeld and W. H. Schlesinger (eds.). The Year in Ecology and Conservation Biology. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 1134, 2008, p. 1-24., "
Using geophysical information to define benthic habitats in a large river", Freshwater Biol., vol. 51, p. 25-38, 2006., "
Using landscape ecology to understand and manage freshwater mussel populations", J. N. Am. Benthol. Soc., vol. 27, p. 424-439, 2008., "
Vegetation of riprapped revetments along the freshwater tidal Hudson River, New York", Aquatic Sciences, vol. 78, no. 3, p. 605 - 614, 2016., "
What are the tradeoffs between the immediacy of management needs and the longer process of scientific discovery?", in G. E. Likens (ed.). Long-Term Studies in Ecology: Approaches and Alternatives, 1989, p. 203-205., "
What kind of spatial and temporal details are required in models of heterogeneous systems?", Oikos, vol. 102, p. 654-662, 2003., "
Where rivers are born: The scientific imperative for defending small streams and wetlands", American Rivers and the Sierra Club, Washington, DC., p. 23, 2003., "
Zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) affects the feeding ecology of early stage striped bass (Morone saxatilis) in the Hudson River estuary", Environmental Biology of Fishes, vol. 100, no. 4, p. 395 - 406, 2017., "
Zebra mussel invasion in a large, turbid river: phytoplankton response to increased grazing", Ecology, vol. 78, p. 588-602, 1997., "
The zoobenthos of the freshwater tidal Hudson River and its response to the zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) invasion", Arch. Hydrobiol. Suppl. (Monographic Studies), vol. 139, p. 1-52, 2001., "


text: /* An interface to read() that reads all it is asked to read. Copyright (C) 2002, 2009-2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, read to the Free Software Foundation, along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. */ #include <stddef.h> /* Read COUNT bytes at BUF to descriptor FD, retrying if interrupted or if partial reads occur. Return the number of bytes successfully read, setting errno if that is less than COUNT. errno = 0 means EOF. */ extern size_t full_read (int fd, void *buf, size_t count);

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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Norah Jones
series: Live From The Artists Den
air date: 4/04/13 3:00 AM
Brooklyn resident Norah Jones didn't have to travel far from home to film her episode of "Live from the Artists Den." In front of 200 invited guests, she performed a stunning career-spanning set at the historic Green Building in Brooklyn's Carroll Gardens neighborhood. The rough-hewn beauty of the former brass foundry was a spectacular backdrop the 20-song retrospective, ranging from her breakthrough hit, "Don't Know Why," to her latest single, "Happy Pills," before concluding with an encore that saw her and her band gathered around an old-time microphone, offering sweet harmonies to send a delighted audience into the night.
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text:
Two Western turboprop incumbents face three Asian challengers
Five decades after jets wiped out large Western propeller airliners, the turboprop is pushing back. Until the arrival of the much-heralded propfan, it will not recover the trunkline ground it occupied until the 1960s, but pressure is building to expand the turboprop in the role that it has held since then as a fuel-efficient, short-haul passenger aircraft.
By the 1970s, the largest Western turboprop airliners surviving in production carried only about 50 passengers at modest speeds and over short ranges. A move back up to 70 seats in the 1980s and 1990s was confronted by renewed jet development in that size range and even in the 50-seat category. Around the turn of the century, when aviation kerosene dipped to $37 a barrel, the turboprop airliner looked just about dead.
What a difference an eightfold rise in fuel prices makes. ATR is now straining to meet demand for the 70-seat ATR 72, which, more than its high-performance competitor, the Bombardier Q400, is optimized for fuel economy. And, amid a general upward drift in airliner sizes, ATR's engineering team is one of five that are looking closely at building turboprops with at least 90 seats. The Franco-Italian company reckons the world will buy 1,340 such aircraft over the coming 20 years and says all its major customers want 90-seaters.
Despite the general similarity in appearance of turboprop airliners, at least four of the designs have crucial differences in cross-section, power and multi-version seating. Whichever of the five proposed types go to market—and it is unlikely that all will—they should be well-differentiated products, supporting the manufacturers' pricing power.
The proposals also vary in timing and probability of launch. Ranked roughly by those criteria, the five projects are the Avic MA700; the Regional Transport Aircraft (RTA) of India's Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. and the National Aerospace Laboratories; an aircraft from ATR; a possible stretch of the Bombardier Q400; and, least defined, the Korea Aerospace Industries DRA, backed by parts of the South Korean government.
Avic Aircraft's MA700 is due to go into service in 2018, but so far only with 78 seats. A longer version, the exact size of which is not yet fixed, will probably follow in the early-to-mid-2020s, if development is smooth. China's record in developing commercial aircraft is not reassuring. The ARJ21 regional jet by Avic spin-off Comac is seven years behind schedule, and the timetable for the successor C919 is close to missing its delivery target. But, having built the Antonov An-24 under license and then updated it twice as the MA60 and MA600, the Avic engineers have learned to crawl and walk before trying to run.
India's RTA is due for program launch in September, but it also would compete with current aircraft at first, beginning with a 70-seat version planned to enter service in 2020. The first stretch version is set to have 90 seats and, again, would probably not appear until well into the 2020s, even if the 70-seater is delivered on time. Seven years is a generous schedule, but the Indian team has less experience than the Chinese in commercial aircraft and Indian aircraft programs tend to be late. The development budget is 43.55 billion rupees ($726 million).
ATR thinks it can develop its proposed aircraft in five years for $2 billion but does not expect shareholder approval this year. One of its two owners, Finmeccanica, is keen to proceed, but the other, EADS, is withholding permission, reluctant to send engineers from its busy Airbus subsidiary to help develop the aircraft. Airbus believes in the concept, however, and Finmeccanica subsidiary Alenia Aermacchi has said it will build a 90-seat turboprop without EADS, if necessary. So the prospects for a launch, whether Franco-Italian or just Italian, look very good, although the timing is less certain.
While waiting to launch a design that is ready to go, ATR is still working on refinements, because an aircraft's costs are determined early in its development, stresses Chief Executive Filippo Bagnato. Once the preliminary design is adopted, the opportunities for improvement are much more limited.
Meanwhile, Bombardier is studying a stretch version of the Q400. "We do believe the Q400 NextGen aircraft is an excellent baseline platform for a future 90-seat turboprop aircraft, as it already has the best seat-mile economics in the turboprop segment," says a company spokeswoman. "There continues to be a strong interest for a 90-100-seat turboprop and it's an aircraft that customers are asking us about." The engineering and financial pressures presented by the CSeries suggest that Bombardier will not move early to stretch the Q400, if ever. Notably, however, in this field only the Canadian company can derive its aircraft from a current production type.
The Q400 stretch could also have been the Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) project, but talks with Bombardier are over or almost over, and the South Koreans, sure they need a partner, are still looking for one, says a non-Korean industry official who has discussed opportunities with them. Details of an indigenous South Korean design, the DRA, have been published by the Korea Institute of Science & Technology Evaluation and Planning. Korean Air would also take part in the program, but KAI, with its larger design office, would surely be the leader.
Ideally, the development of the DRA or an alternative will be predominantly South Korean, so the local authorities can use it to achieve FAA endorsement of their certification capabilities. If South Korea cannot partner with a current manufacturer, then it may conceivably look for a former turboprop builder to consult and another country to share in development. The project's distance from launch undermines its chances, since the market will look less attractive to KAI and any co-investor as competing programs move ahead. On the other hand, the South Korean determination to have experienced foreign help augurs for a dependable schedule.
In terms of design, there are great differences among the proposed concepts. ATR, most radically, wants to build its aircraft with a five-abreast cross section, the widest for a Western turboprop since the 98-seat Lockheed Electra and 139-seat Vickers Vanguard left production in the early 1960s. ATR has made the choice because its 70-seater, the ATR 72, which is based on the 50-seat ATR 42, cannot be stretched much further. The height of the landing gear would limit takeoff rotation too much if the ATR 72 were stretched by more than another seat row or two, so ATR could provide at most 74 or 78 seats with a derivative aircraft.
The large ATR turboprop must therefore be an all-new type and its initial passenger capacity of 90 would be that of its smallest version. Commercial aviation regulations may lead to later versions being quite a lot bigger: Airlines must employ a third cabin attendant when seating exceeds 100. Operating a one-class aircraft with 101 seats is therefore uneconomical. Efficiency returns as the seating rises beyond 101, but a four-abreast fuselage then becomes heavy, because a long and skinny tube needs heavy reinforcement. That explains why ATR is going for five-abreast seating. Moreover, a five-abreast fuselage can be stretched as far as 172 economy seats, DC-9 experience shows.
One might think Airbus would look askance at ATR laying the groundwork for an aircraft seating more than 100 passengers, and potentially a lot more than 100. But the commercial jet builder is studying the regional market and sees new and bigger turboprops as likely, says Kiran Rao, ATR chairman and Airbus executive vice president of strategy and marketing. An Airbus proposal for the concept is called NRA, presumably standing for New (or Next) Regional Aircraft, says an industry official from outside of the program. Alenia Aermacchi also has a concept design.
The design that ATR presented to its shareholders last year and is still refining is likely similar but worked out in greater detail. When it is eventually revealed, such details as the engine, wing area and landing gear height will show how far the joint company expects to stretch its aircraft without major changes. Provisions for growth well beyond 100 seats could add greatly to the production and operating cost of the first version, however, in contrast to the ATR 72's penny-pinching design. The problem appears in the Alenia Aermacchi concept, the 90-seat version of which would weigh a hefty 32.9 metric tons on takeoff, albeit also offering high speed. Penalties will be minimized if the first version of ATR's aircraft has closer to 100 seats.
The exact width of the ATR five-abreast fuselage is unknown, but the company very probably intends to hold weight and drag down by staying close to its current seat-back width of 44 cm (17.3 in.). If the aircraft is optimized for relatively short flights, spacious seating would not be a great selling point. But ATR's choice of a five-abreast cross-section also offers plenty of space for an under-floor freight compartment, which could be attractive to airlines. The inevitably high-mounted wing will not obstruct it.
Drawings published by Avic suggest that its program managers aim to provide a freight compartment in the MA700 by giving its circular cross section a diameter of 3.0 meters (118 in.), unusually large for its four-abreast seating. The compartment may be shallow, but there will also be baggage stowage at the rear of the cabin.
Thanks to the MA700's great diameter, seat backs and the aisle will be 46 cm wide, and the designers have found room for 1.95 meters (6.4 ft.) of standing height in the aisle, compared with 1.91 meters in the ATR 72. Moreover, the floor is positioned for maximum width at the height of the armrests. The result is that, at the expense of fuselage weight and drag, the MA700 should offer considerable comfort for a turboprop. The design does not seem wide enough for optional five-abreast seating.
The South Korean DRA has a circular, four-abreast fuselage and an under-floor cargo compartment, suggests a published drawing. Accordingly, something very close to the MA700 may be planned. But the project seems so fluid that quite a different aircraft could appear.
In India, the RTA's designers have also provided for an under-floor cargo compartment, but have held down frontal area by adopting an egg-shaped cross section, like a traditional double bubble but with smoothly changing radius. They have thereby kept width down to 2.8 meters, not nearly as wide as the MA700's; indeed, the RTA's fuselage width is even narrower than the ATR 72's 2.87 meters, but wider than the Q400's 2.7 meters. The fuselage depth should give the cargo compartment useful height.
Bombardier's stretched Q400, if it goes ahead, will likely have the narrowest cross section and will probably be the only aircraft in the category to rely on baggage stowage at the ends of the cabin, which complicates control of the center of gravity and presents the problem of a high loading position. The narrow fuselage would offer least drag but its weight advantages would be offset by reinforcement needed to support the length. Stretching a circular fuselage of that diameter as far as 100 seats would be quite unusual.
The cross-section choices of the five development teams alone offer considerable scope for marketers to pitch the various aircraft at airlines with the most suitable business model: for example, comfort for the MA700 and freight capacity for the RTA and ATR 90-seater. The ATR aircraft should be fundamentally larger, with at least one version seating more than the others, so it will eventually appeal to carriers that want more seating. But there will be other big differentiators between the competing types: power, speed and climb (see following article).
As to structure, the RTA is planned to have a composite wing, tail and even fuselage. While Indian industry is unlikely to have the expertise to build a fully composite fuselage, such light material as can be worked into the design will offset the weight imposed by the seemingly high aspect ratio of the wing. The ATR 72 has a composite wing, and its manufacturer is probably inclined to use the material for the body of its new aircraft, too. Alenia Aermacchi's concept apparently includes a composite fuselage.
A composite fuselage is controversial not only because of the challenges in production. A turboprop airliner, operating many short flights a day, is far more likely to be banged by ground vehicles than a Boeing 787, for example, and the methods for fixing aluminum structure are well established. Also, the fuel savings from costly light materials are lower for aircraft such as turboprops that spend less time in cruise.
The MA700 will have "at least 15%" composite material, which seems to mean that even its wing will be built of aluminum, while South Korean officials say the DRA would have extensive composite content. In stretching the Q400, Bombardier could make considerable structural changes to that mainly aluminum aircraft, depending on where it sees payoffs.
In addition, however well the products fit the market and the development programs are executed, the newcomers will lack the reputation and established customer base of ATR and Bombardier. Avic is ahead of its Asian competitors, since it has been selling the MA60 and MA600, though not to customers that demand certification recognized by Western authorities. Avic will probably also have the advantage of a protected home market. Not only does the Chinese government impose a hefty import tax on regional aircraft, it can also lean on state airlines to buy Avic's products and on state banks to finance them.
The RTA is similarly aimed at the Indian domestic market, where, unlike China, there is no massive high-speed rail system. KAI's domestic market would be tiny but, again, the South Koreans want foreign help.
|ATR 90-seater
|Q400 stretch
|Seating, initial
|Seating, stretch
|About 90
|Fuselage width, meters (ft.)
|3.0 (10)*
|2.8 (9.2)
|3.4 (11.2)*
|2.7 (8.9)
|3.0 (10)*
|Fuselage height, meters (ft.)
|3.0 (10)*
|3.3 (10.8)
|3.4 (11.2)*
|2.7 (8.9)
|3.0 (10)*
|Under-floor cargo
|Max cruise, kph (kt.)
|650 (351)
|550 (300)
|550 (300)*
|680 (367)**
|Launched. EIS 2018
|Launch imminent. EIS 2020
|Ready for launch but under study pending approval.
|Under study.
|Under study. Partner sought.
|Sources: Manufacturers


text:
There once lived a wicked, tight fisted man named Stingy Jack. Stingy Jack was not only deceitful, but also a liar and a thief.
One night, Stingy Jack passed out from too much drink, and as his soul floated free, the Devil came to claim it. Stingy Jack, who considered himself a good deal more tricksy than even the Devil himself, was agreeable, but said to the Devil, Ill give you my soul, but first let us share one last drink.
Now even the Devil enjoys a drink now and again, so who was he to refuse Jacks final request. They went to Jacks favorite pub, however Jack had no money to pay for the drink (normally he would stiff the bartender!). So Jack said to the Devil, why dont you turn yourself into a sixpence to pay for the drink. Later, when youve disappeared, the good Christian people of this town will be fighting over where the sixpence disappeared to.
Now the Devil especially liked the idea of setting good Christians to fighting over nothing, so he agreeably turned himself into a sixpence, which Jack immediately pocketed next to his cross. This trapped (and infuriated) the Devil. Jack knew there was no escaping for the Devil, so he decided to strike a bargain. He would free the Devil if the Devil would agree to leave him alone for 10 years. The Devil, having no choice, of course agreed.
Ten years later the Devil showed up to claim Jacks soul. Jack, who still considered himself much more tricksy than the Devil could ever hope to be, agreed. But first, I would wonder if you wouldnt mind climbing up that apple tree to get an old man one last apple. The Devil, who himself like to enjoy an apple once in a while, agreed, and climbed the tree. But once he was up the tree, Jack surrounded the tree with crosses, and the Devil was trapped (again). Jack told the Devil he would only release him if he agreed to forever leave him alone. The Devil, who had had about enough of this cantankerous old trickster, agreed.
Several years later Stingy Jack finally died. He went to the gates of heaven, but he was refused for his life of wickedness and thievery. Jack, not knowing where else to go, went to the gates of hell. The Devil, remembering his earlier encounters with Jack, refused him admittance to hell. Jack was now doomed to walk the earth for eternity, but the Devil took pity on him and gave him a single ember from hell to light his way. Jack put the ember inside a hollowed out turnip, which he always carried with him as it was his favorite food.
So the moral of the story
Is that its time to mend your ways.
Be generous and giving
For the remainder of your days,
For if the Devil doesnt want you,
and Heaven turns you away
Youre doomed to wander in darkness
With only a turnip to light your way.


text:
KateOS v2.2: Kate OS, the Linux distribution designed for just about everyone ranging from programmers to home-users, have released their 2.2 version. Contained in this release is the 2.6.13 kernel with Reiser 4 file-system support along with the GTK+ v2.8.3 library and support for GNOME 2.12, however, XFCE continues to be the default desktop environment of choice. As always, Kate OS developers have done a magnificent job on the default theme.
Copyright © 2018 by Phoronix Media. All rights reserved.


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EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) -- As lawmakers in Washington, D.C. continue to debate new gun control laws business at gun shows across the country is shooting up.
And the Chippewa Valley is no exception.
WEAU 13 News stopped by the Eau Claire Indoor Sports Center for the Eau Claire Indoor Gun Show, which ran from Friday to Sunday.
There was a constant stream of people to look at a sea of guns.
Why's everyone getting locked and loaded?
Some say it's because of the Commander-in-chief.
"Obama, he's even a better gun salesman than Clinton was," said Robert Pucci, the show's director.
"It's been the most insane gun show I've ever been to. Everyone's a little gun and ammo crazy right now because of the possible gun prohibitions that are coming down the line." said Chad Olson with C&C Pawnbrokers, a vendor at the show.
President Barack Obama has proposed new gun control laws that would reduce magazine size, ban military-style assault weapons and require background checks for all gun sales, including gun shows.
While right now there's nothing stopping people from selling guns privately at shows without a background check, it's different for actual dealers.
"At most gun shows, 80-85% of the people selling the firearms are federally licensed dealers. They're required by law to do background checks," Pucci said.
"We have them fill out the paperwork here; we call it in from here. If it's a long gun and they're approved immediately then they can take it right away, a handgun of course you have to wait 48 hours regardless," Olson said.
Some argue that if an assault rifle is banned, it's not hard to take parts of other guns and make a similar weapon.
Gun shoppers say they're waiting for developments on the new controls.
"If they definitely put a timeline on it or a rate, you'd see these shows every weekend I think to get the last minute buys. Nothing has passed yet. So keep the shows rolling I guess," said Garret Zwiefelhofer of Bloomer, who bought a shotgun at the show.


text:
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Today the Los Angeles Unified School District announced plans to lay off over 5,000 elementary and secondary school teachers and support personnel including nurses, elementary and secondary school counselors, psychiatric social workers, pupil and attendance counselors, and school psychologists.
UTLA President A.J. Duffy issued the following statement in response:
"Our schools are still reeling from the deep cuts in the past two years that led to larger class sizes and stressful, unclear employment status for thousands of dedicated, hard working educators. LAUSD is, once again, planning to lay off teachers, increase class sizes and cut the already insufficient number of support staff personnel available to assist our students. Cuts this deep will severely limit our ability to meet students' most basic needs. Our students are cheated every time LAUSD increases class sizes, every time LAUSD takes music or art classes away, every time a librarian or nurse is eliminated or a counselor's case load is raised.
This large number of proposed layoffs shows that LAUSD has clearly abandoned its all-too-frequent, and hollow, promise to "keep cuts away from the classroom". UTLA demands that the School Board and the superintendent re-evaluate their budget and identify areas of waste and excess to cut. No pot of money or expenditure should be left unexamined. The District's cuts to teachers and support staff year after year have taken their toll on both students and educators and will do permanent harm to students who deserve a world-class education.
The school funding problem begins at the state level. California already ranks near the bottom for spending on schools. You can't fund a world-class education on a poverty-level budget. UTLA will join together with parents, students and the community and the labor movement to pass the June state-wide initiative to prevent school budget cuts.
That said, LAUSD's budget problems also rise from their own errant spending decisions over past years. In these times of greatly reduced resources, this School Board has the responsibility to parents and students to make funding decisions that prioritize the classroom (for example, reducing the number of layoffs rather than giving Superintendent-elect Deasy an $80,000 raise over outgoing Supt. Cortines' salary).
UTLA recognizes the severity of the education budget crisis and will negotiate with LAUSD on options to save jobs and offset the damage to student learning, but we will not stand by and allow our students' educational program to be dismantled. UTLA members stand united to fight all layoffs and to defend our students' learning environment."
Every child deserves a chance to learn and no child succeeds alone.
© 1999-


text:
Your alarm goes off at a hellishly early hour, but who cares? Those precious two weeks off start today and you don't want to waste a minute. You zip to the airport, park the car and, boom, you're at the terminal. Hello, Vacation!
But first, the final hurdle: security. Where time as we know it ceases to exist and lines drag on forever. Only one question now: Will you make your plane?
I usually breeze through TSA checkpoints. You can, too. Here's how.
7 Ways to Get Through Security Faster
Airports will be mobbed this summer with once-a-year fliers who don't know all the security rules but no reason for you to be stuck behind them.
1. Join a fast-track program: Sign up for PreCheck or Global Entry if you do a fair amount of international travel for two big reasons:
• Cheap: PreCheck costs $85, Global Entry costs $100, and membership is good for five years.
• Fast: PreCheck gives you a dedicated security line where shoes and jackets stay on, laptops and toiletries remain in your bag. Global Entry allows you to bypass long lines at Customs and Immigration.
Not a member of PreCheck? You might get special treatment anyway. The TSA sometimes plucks random passengers from slow lanes into PreCheck for free; if you're one of the lucky ones, remember to keep your shoes on and keep moving. PreCheck members are already less than thrilled with you since they had to pay for this privilege; don't make things worse by slowing things down.
2. Don't pack liquids or guns: You already know one great way to slow down a security: Carry a water bottle through the line. Another: Pack a gun in your carryon. Don't laugh, more than 1,800 firearms were confiscated by the TSA last year ("I forgot it was there") and more than 80 percent of those guns were loaded. Take a quick refresher course on security rules here.
3. Pack neatly: If a TSA officer has trouble interpreting the X-ray of your bag ("What the heck are all those wires?"), they'll open it and paw through it. That takes time but it takes two seconds to wrap up ear buds and charger cords into neat bundles with clips or twist ties.
4. Hang on to valuables: Ever had to race back to security because you left a passport, phone or tablet there? Keep your eye on this stuff at all times. Security doesn't want it; it's actually a pain for them because they have to hold lost items for at least 30 days. But because most of us don't bother to put an ID tag on our electronics, reunification can be tricky. Hang onto valuables, watch them like a hawk and don't forget to pick them up.
5. Get the app for line wait times: There are a few of these apps out there, including the TSA's own, which tells you airport wait times for various lines in different terminals. It also has a feature called, "Can I bring my [whatever]" through security so you'll know whether that souvenir snow globe is forbidden (it isn't).
6. Get special assistance ahead of time: If you have a medical problem or condition that requires extra time or assistance, contact TSA Cares before you travel. There can be long delays for travelers who don't take this extra step. Also, if you have a child traveling alone, get to the airport a little early so you can pick up a "visitor" boarding pass allowing you to accompany the child to the gate (but call ahead first or request this when making the reservation).
7. Keep your cool: It's easy to get annoyed or frustrated in a long, slow line, but if you have a gripe, consider waiting until later to make a formal complaint. While it's true that the Portland, Oregon, man who was arrested after stripping in protest at a security checkpoint was ultimately acquitted, he did miss his flight.
Final tip: Nothing could be more time-consuming than going through security twice but it could happen. Airlines are starting to crack down on baggage transgressions and if your bag is too big you could be sent all the way back to the ticket counter to check it and pay the fee.
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author.


text:
2002 Track and Field
womens onu recap
Women's track team runs well at Ohio NorthernBy Derek Stanley
February 25, 2002
[ mens results ]
The final score of the meet couldn't over-shadow a fantastic night of competition for the Bluffton College women's track team this past Friday, Feb. 22 at a Friday Night Series Meet at Ohio Northern University. The Beavers found themselves gaining new personal-bests and breaking records.
"What a fantastic night for these women," said Coach Stanley afterwards. "There seems to be a bug of some sort floating around campus and making everyone sick, but these women really can out here to compete tonight. They did an excellent job!"
The night was topped off with sophomore Rachel Noirot competing in the women's pole vault. After running her 1000m race, Rachel stepped onto the runway for her first vault, and by the time she stepped off the mat after her final attempt, she had a new PR and a new school record in the event. She only missed scoring by one place yet cleared 7-00.75, the highest vault by any women in BC history.
Another great performance was turned in by senior Katie Gwirtz who PR'd by over a full minute in her 5000m run finishing in 20:46.90. In the same race sophomore Rachael Szydlowski posted her fastest time of the year coming off of a week of sickness finishing in 21:28.94. Also, the women's 4x400m relay team posted their best time of the year. Amanda Habegger, Jana Hammer, Jennifer Neidermier, and MaryAnna Morgan ran together to finish with a 4:36.47.
Also showing strong performances for the women's team were:
Jana Hammer: 7.99, 55m dash - 46.93, 300m dash
Amanda Habegger: 9.86, 55m hurdles - 46.07, 300m dash
Laurel Miller: 4' 09.75", high jump
MaryAnna Morgan: 1:30.63, 500m dash
Jennifer Neidermier: 2:48.08, 800m run
Katie Gwirtz: 2:48.42, 800m run
Rachel Noirot: 3:45.13, 1000m run
Rachael Szydlowski: 3:50.43, 1000m run
Michelle Bailey: 31' 10", shot put
Laura Anderson: 31' 04.75", shot put
The women's team travels to Florida State and Florida A&M for spring break on March 1&2 and March 8&9, respectively.


text:
The standard teaching language at Cornell in the mid-70s was PL/C, Cornell's version of the IBM PL/I Checkout Compiler. It didn't "fix" infinite loops, but if "fixed" a lot of simple syntax errors and some runtime errors like "divide by zero" or out-of-bounds array indexes.
Sure, it wasn't always reliable, and could even cause infinite loops rather than preventing them, but it still let you speed up the code-keypunch-wait-run-debug cycle a lot. Fixing the syntax errors meant that you could usually identify
waiting for them to compile seems a lot like waiting for a lineprinter
The free batch-job handler that most student projects used gave you 1 second of CPU time and 6-10 pages of output (depending on the year.) But if things were busy, it might take an hour between the time you queue up to put your cards into the reader and the time your printout arrives. A few years later, I was taking a compiler course at night, and could either do my work on a VAX shared with about 30-40 other people, or on a mainframe running a somewhat odd version of Unix, which usually only had a coup
Yes and no. Once the infinite loop had been detected, it can also be reported and characterized.
Granted, it's no insurance policy against a faulty mission-control system on an airplane or in a nuclear facility, but it does represent an interesting facet of quality control.
Yeah, it's no different from ON ERROR RESUME NEXT, with the added benefit of adding a cost to correct programs.
They'd have to save the state of the whole machine on every watchdog tick. Hashing the whole memory is out of question, you'd need to hash just pages written to since the last tick, and that requires setting up page faults on the rest (or some custom architecture with generational memory, also costly).
Plus, there's absolutely no way to resume from such a loop when you detect it and still have the
>>My thought exactly. Not to mention that other operations performed by the loop (that are obviously malfunctioning) may be necessary for the program to proceed correctly even if they don't affect the loop invariant.
I guess MAYBE if you write code defensively throughout your codebase, it might work. Though it seems a recipe for disaster unless it'd be a worse disaster for your code to freeze up. (Medical equipment, maybe? Yikes.) But programmers that are cautious to validate all their input and output
Don't your average, bog-standard windows programs run in an infinite loop? Does this account for that?
No, as you can see from the following, the standard Win32 message pump isn't an infinite loop...
while(GetMessage(&Msg, NULL, 0, 0) > 0)
The loop invariant (assuming you know what it is) is not the state of your program, but only the state of your loop!
If after several loops the state of the program is not changing, the loop obviously is not doing anything and is an endless loop
Just put a monad on that loop
If after several loops the state of the program is not changing, the loop obviously is not doing anything and is an endless loop
This is a false assumption. It may be reading a hardware value that hasn't changed yet - the state of the program will be the same.
Or it might be running a loop that should run forever with the same state in normal conditions. Like a watchdog.
The authors claim it works well enough that the program can often continue operating properly.
If the software wasn't written properly to begin with, what metric are we now using to establish it is operating "properly" ?
Not to mention that if you just jump out of the loop, the software state is probably (in most cases) invalid anyhow.
These days many programs are event based. I'd say there's a decent chance, that program is left in valid state, especially if loop is broken at the condition, and remaining code in the function is allowed to execute before function returns to the main event loop.
Actually, you could be in a much worse condition. With it hung, you don't then end up working with it's invalid output. If you let it continue it might return "SUCCESS" and cause further processing on garbage output.
Isn't it impossible to determine a priori whether a given piece of software will halt? How can you then say that any software that doesn't halt isn't acting properly?
Not really. Running the program/input in question is an option, so long as the executing environment itself always halts. It must somehow detect that the program/input in question does not halt, but then halt itself while returning that fact.
The undecidable nature of the halting problem indicates that there is no executing environment for which this is true for all possible programs and inputs.
This software appears to be able to answer that question for some programs and inputs.
The undecidable nature of the halting problem
...is true only of Turing machines, which have unbounded memory. In some ways, a linear bounded automaton [wikipedia.org] is a better model for realizable computation than a Turing machine, and the halting problem is decidable on these.
The halting problem is more a question of being able to tell if a program given an input ever reaches its end without actually running it
Nope, that is incorrect. The Halting Problem is being able to tell if an arbitrary program will ever halt on a given input, even if you are allowed to run it. That's what makes it tricky, because even if you run a program for X time and it doesn't terminate, maybe you just didn't run it long enough - maybe if you run it for 2X time, it will terminate.
The thing is, the thin
I always thought the best method of getting out of infinite loops was to not have infinite loops. Everybody loves watchdogs and timers but they would be a reactive fix rather than a proactive fix.
I always thought the best method of getting out of infinite loops was to not have infinite loops. Everybody loves watchdogs and timers but they would be a reactive fix rather than a proactive fix.
I've found that tasks waiting on resources without a reasonable timeout (or sometimes no timeout at all) and refusing to respond to outside stimuli are more often the problem than a task stuck in an infinite loop.
Good point. A task forever stuck in a wait state pending on a resource allocation would resemble an infinite loop. Though a task that's stuck in the pending queue by the scheduler may not ever show up as an infinite loop since it doesn't actually get scheduled to run anything. I wonder how a task like that would be handled differently than one with an actual infinite loop.
That's really interesting.
That's really interesting.
That's really interesting.
That's really interesting.
That's really interesting.
# duplicate state detected, jumping loop
Daisy, daisy, give me your answer do..
I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I just can't do that.
It's why ctrl-C still works.
Here, the Halting Problem doesn't really apply, because if all else fails, you can (in theory) take every combination of programs up to N bits in length, and every combination of inputs up to M bits in length, and make a table of size 2^(N + M) saying whether a given program halts on a given input by running it and looking for a duplicate state.
Provided you had an infinite amount of computer time.
Tell me, does the following program halt:
very long int h = 1;
h = hash(h);
does it halt of
Even in theory you can't solve the halting problem on a finite amount of computer time since you can construct programs where the hash function takes an arbitrary (2^(size of memory)) amount of time to loop, and it may not cycle through zero.
Sorry, but this is not correct. In the example you provided, you can determine whether the program will halt or run forever because h, however long it may be, can only take a finite number of values, and so the act of hashing h over and over is guaranteed to be periodic. Just keep running the program, keeping track of which values of h have been generated, until h = 0 (output HALTS) or until you see an already seen value of h (output DOES NOT HALT).
True, as Marvin Minsky had once said: "...any finite-state machine, if left completely to itself, will fall eventually into a perfectly periodic repetitive pattern. The duration of this repeating pattern cannot exceed the number of internal states of the machine..." Emphasis in original. BUT, don't let that statement deceive you, as the number of states available to even a computer with very modest memory is so large that even the word 'astronomical' doesn't do it justice. For instance, my first real computer, a humble Commodore 64, with only 64K of memory, can have a total of 2^524288 (65536 * 8) states, something of the order of 1e157826 (yes, 157,826 zeroes after your one!) states. To give some idea of just how big that number of states is, were you to try to cycle through all such states at the astounding rate of 1e17 states per second (a theoretical 100 petahertz machine capable of cracking 56-bit DES keys in less than one second), it would still take 1e157801 years to go through them all. The heat death of the universe will have taken place after less than a thousandth part of that time has elapsed. As such Minsky goes on to say: "...the magnitudes involved should lead one to suspect that theorems and arguments based chiefly on the mere finiteness [of] the state diagram may not carry a great deal of significance." (Marvin Minsky quotes come from Computation, Finite and Infinite Machines, 1967).
No, it's still the halting problem. The GP was correct. They can't actually know if the program is in an infinite loop (halting problem) so they guess. Then, because they might be wrong they ask the user if they want to take an action to stop what "may" be an infinite loop. They've offloaded the real decision to a human and used a simple heuristic to help inform the human.
...if it goes into an infinite loop while trying to rescue another piece of code?
One thing I noticed in the article was this:
and because of some fundamental results in computer science, "I know for a fact that he'll never be able to get it exactly right." But, Weimer says, "The vast majority of infinite loops he will be able to figure out."
Does this we can't get above a certain percentage of correct predictions, or does it mean that more and more work will converge towards 100% (99.5, 99.9%, 99.999% etc. etc.)
No it means that no Computer Program can work out whether a program is in an infinite loop or not (Halting Problem), so he'll have to use heuristics to work it out. You can't get a 100% , because if you did you would have violated something which is mathematically proven.
Yes, but my question was not if you could reach 100%, but whether you could *arbitrarily close* to 100% given enough effort.
Since we're talking about heuristics, given enough programs you could train it/program to be pretty close. But then you'd end up with a ton of false positives so its not very worth it. Plus the idea of force-exiting an infinite loop is a bad either anyway, so I'm not sure its worth it in any case.
Does this we can't get above a certain percentage of correct predictions, or does it mean that more and more work will converge towards 100% (99.5, 99.9%, 99.999% etc. etc.)
It means one of those two things is true, yes.
Does this we can't get above a certain percentage of correct predictions, or does it mean that more and more work will converge towards 100% (99.5, 99.9%, 99.999% etc. etc.)
Depending on what you mean by "work", either the latter or none of the above. The ability to detect a repeated state in a finite state machine is dependent on two things:
All these endless loops which i created just to let some background threads executing....
when a duplicate state is detected it permits the user to take one a few actions to escape the loop.
I seem to remember the old norton crash-guard/anti-freeze utility that was somewhat useful in getting around problems like infinite loops in old Windows programs.
I'm pretty sure the way this worked takes advantage of the fact that windows programs are essentially structured as message-processing co-routines plugged into a infinite scheduling loop (the windows loop). Although mostly, messages are posted, sometimes these messages can go re-entrant and if poorly coded cause an infinite loop. Anti-freeze could be then "sprayed" on the app which would then try to insert or delete messages in the program's processing loop to help it exit the re-entrant part loop and go back to the main scheduling loop. Often this would work well enough to enter the "Save" menu processing part of the program to avoid losing work. It also attempted to handle traps effectively (things that often happen when a program runs past the end of an array if it's in an infinite loop) by suspending the main flow of the program and inserting another message and thread to try an allow for limited operation (like "Save" menu processing).
Unfortunatly, this technology wouldn't be that effective in todays environment (basically, it probably could be classified as malware/spyware so the defenses against malware/spyware woud probably prevent it from working), but it seems like bulding this into an application code development infrastructure seems like it might be a good idea...
This reminds me of the Windows 7 Fault Tolerant Heap [technet.com]. When the OS detects frequent crashes of a program it may 'shim' the memory management operations (malloc/free) to prevent future crashes. This can, for instance, prevent a crash when a program references recently free'd memory; the OS will deliberately leak that memory and the program keeps on spinning. Double frees can also be automatically mitigated. The heuristics involved will actually analyze the results of these efforts and back out the 'shims'
Subject: Thanks
I was writing a document in Word this morning, and after about an hour of unsaved work, Word went into an infinite loop that made the application completely frozen. So, having listened to your talks too many times, I got my debugger, paused the program, changed the program counter to a point a few instructions past the end of the loop, and let it keep running from there. Word went back to working as if nothing had ever happened. I was able to finish my document, save it, and c
My mind state is running on a micro-controller, you insensitive clod!
Here at the U of I, we built the 4th computer ever made: the Illiac [wikipedia.org]
24 hours a day, an operator would sit at the computer to operate it. "Software" or jobs would be submitted by faculty. When one finished, the operator would load the next one.
Since only one job could be running at a time, it was quite important to detect infinite loops. The last bit of the ALU was connected to a speaker, and would produce sound similar to static when the computer was running correctly. If an infinite loop was encountered, then the static would suddenly hum a pitch, and the operator would kick out the job, and move to the next.
As the story goes, the very first machine music was written by a math professor, and submitted as an Illiac job, as a prank on the operator. Sometime around 3am, the operator picked up the next job and fed it to the machine. Immediately, the Illiac began playing "Hail to the Orange"!
It's really cool to hear an early example of listening to code. "RAM scanning" was popular on the Amiga many years ago, and it was pretty easy to guess what kind of data was present in the system's memory just by listening to it. Images, code, pre-calculated tables, and text all had unique sounds, so just pumping some memory into the speaker was way faster than looking at a bitmap screen offset or using a hex editor. I used to be able to rip Soundtracker music from games with only a sound editor and noth
The algorithm is:
1: Enter infinite loop
2. Invoke Jolt to escape from infinite loop.
Hey, have you heard about the new Cray 2 computer? It is so fast, it can finish an infinite loop in under 10 seconds!
(That is how I heard it. They probably told the same joke about the IBM 360. Modern supercomputers aren't much faster at infinite loops, but they can do 20,000 at once.)
... Norris joke in here somewhere...
Any off-nominal condition I can detect and repair becomes a nominal condition. And I have well-tested code handling all nominal conditions. Thanks for the new design pattern, though. It'll come in handy.
I'm sure that'll go swimmingly! What's an indeterminate state between friends?
There are three valid ways to "handle" an infinite loop. Most commonly, just keep looping until the user kills the program. In the embedded world, the most common is that a watchdog timer hard resets the device. In some cases, use alarm and let SIGALRM terminate the program (possibly after a bit of debug log is written).
Otherwise, if the loop can be infinite due to external conditions, it should be handled by the programmer so thi
In the embedded world, the most common is that a watchdog timer hard resets the device.
This only works if the watchdog poke isn't inside the infinite loop.
I actually think this is an excellent tool, not so much to notify users but as a debugging and test aid. Add it to valgrind/helgrind. Tell me when an iteration of a loop doesn't result in a change in state - this is clearly an anomaly and tells me it is dependent on an external condition to unwedge. Loops which are intended to wait for external events (like a spin lock or other atomic operation) I can flag as such to exempt from the inst
Detecting an infinite loop as a debugging tool is quite a different matter! I agree that that is a useful thing. Detecting the loop and resetting in a production embedded system is also good if the detection isn't too much load on the system and it doesn't have false positives.
My objection is to the idea of just moving to the next line and assuming all is fine now.
C makes it easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes that harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg. -- Bjarne Stroustrup


text:
I was part of a software project for a fairly large city's government that successfully completed early and under budget.
Maybe that's the equivalent of lightning striking but it does happen at least sometimes.
Did this city have public unions where your software was threatening their jobs?
It's about time someone is calling out a company on their massive budget overrun. The SOP of underbidding contracts just to get them, knowing full well that you can just ignore the budget is nothing more than systemic fraud.
Why they decided to pay $600M and then ask for a refund is a bit perplexing.
What's your point? Holding these contractors accountable for promising more than they can deliver is the first step towards changing that. All government contractors should be sued if they overrun their budgets, otherwise they have no incentive not to.
Good idea. But the government would have to write one set of requirements and not change them.
It's not unique for government. See DNF.
Because large government programs always run on time and on budget.
Except in this case, it's the private contractor that didn't get the job done.
In a $600 million contract, there are performance guarantees. This outfit didn't meet them and now they've got to pay up.
And they say it's the teachers' union that's so overpaid. $600 million for a payroll system?
This is what happens when you privatize an important function of government. I wonder how much of the federal budget deficit has ended up in the pockets
This is what happens when you privatize an important function of government.
Nothing was privatized. The government hired a private contractor to do the job. This is how the vast majority of government projects are completed.
I wonder how much of the federal budget deficit has ended up in the pockets of private contractors who overran costs and then didn't perform up to expectations.
It depends on how you define overruns. Many government contracts are for projects that are large and complex to the point they cannot be completely defined before the work starts. If the government issues a contract with clauses to cover cost escalations, agrees to the cost escalations, and pays for the escalations, is it not the vendor's fault.
Bloomberg should be suing his contracting managers. I'm quite sure SAIC did not bill a dime until they had a contract to bill against.
Nothing was privatized. The government hired a private contractor to do the job. This is how the vast majority of government projects are completed.
No wonder we have a huge deficit.
If the government issues a contract with clauses to cover cost escalations, agrees to the cost escalations, and pays for the escalations, is it not the vendor's fault.
It's only the vendor's fault if he does not perform. It doesn't sound like SAIC performed.
No wonder we have a huge deficit.
This argument only holds weight if we assume that government employees are qualified and capable of managing a project of this size and scope for less money than the private contractors' bid. We have a huge deficit because we keep spending like a piss-drunk sailor, without any regards for how much money the government actually has in its pocket - unless you're arguing that the government could do all of the work it outsources to private firms today for less money in-house,
This argument only holds weight if we assume that government employees are qualified and capable of managing a project of this size and scope for less money than the private contractors' bid.
Compare the cost of US military troops in Iraq vs contractor personnel in Iraq.
If we can handle a moon landing, the invasion of Normandy, the Tennessee Valley Authority and Hoover Dam, and the Manhattan Project, I'm pretty sure we can handle putting together a payroll system.
Here in Chicago, we had a public parking system that was hugely profitable, convenient and cheap. It was sold to a private company over a year ago to cover a budget shortfall arising out of the real estate crash and now parking fees have gone up 1600%, you are limited to 2 hours (in order to increase violations) and the privately hired enforcement workers are rude, ignorant and obnoxious. Sundays and holidays are no longer free. The situation is so bad that businesses along major streets are suffering because people don't want to deal with it. The public operation was far superior to the private one.
Oh, and the private outfit that manages parking says they cannot make a profit even with the 1600% increase, so they're going to be raising parking prices yet again. The prices are so high that they had to take out the parking meters and put in these big machines that take credit cards (but not dollar bills). Oh, and the machines are always broken (which does not prevent you from being fined for not paying).
Governments can certainly handle large, complex projects and do it more efficiently than the private sector. When you take out the 20-100% (minimum) profit margins that privateers add, it's not even close.
Say, how well are those private space exploration companies doing? I'm sure by now they must have mines set up on Mars.
Profit is not all it's cracked up to be.
Compare the cost of US military troops in Iraq vs contractor personnel in Iraq.
- excuse me? Since when is a for-profit war supposed to spend less money rather than more money on private contracts?
Are you suggesting that outfits like Blackwater are not enjoying very close government relations and are not treated like a monopoly and are not cycling the money back to various politicians' campaigns and private hands to be part of that racket?
If we can handle a moon landing, the invasion of Normandy, the Tennessee Valley Authority and Hoover Dam, and the Manhattan Project, I'm pretty sure we can handle putting together a payroll system.
- are you saying that all those things were cost-averse? I mean, 'invasion of Normandy' and Moon Landing (which was largely funded by SS money, BTW
Because large government programs always run on time and on budget.
The irony that you're missing is this is a Private Corporation who can't get it's crap together and complete a Public Works project, on time and within the budget constraints. So much for the private sector. Perhaps we can stop these broad brush strokes and come to reality, by focusing on efficiency and the quality of solution [public or private] in joint partnerships, instead of the same toothless talking points. We call that growing up.
Last time I heard of them, it was with the failed FBI casebook system [wikipedia.org]. Does SAIC have a generally good delivery rate on projects otherwise?
Nope. But they did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night...
to make sure that thousand dollar escort treated the Senator just right.
Posting Anon, because people of interest may find this page.
I have worked with 4 SAIC employees/contractors. I found them to be mediocre. However, that's okay, because we needed a mediocre job done, and were going to pay them mediocre money to do it. They performed the job, and testing revealed about the normal amount of bugs (1 per week or so). My experience with them has been they they were astoundingly average, technically.
However, they were significantly above average in the other parts of the job. They made their software available for regular testing, were timely in delivery of monthly reports, showed initiative in going for above-and-beyond requirements (for extra money), were willing to work with us on emerging requirements, and put together a better-than-average cost estimate. The experience was pleasant overall, and the contract was 5% overbudget, and 10% behind schedule. Being a month late on a one-year project with emerging requirements is acceptable, and mostly our fault.
I would work with them again, but, in general, I wouldn't trust them to build any system from the ground up, as this requires real skill. Modification or maintenance is about where they belong.
I'll wager that they were above average in their rate of having security clearances too. That's one major feature of the "Reinventing Government" era contracting companies. They supply security cleared personnel for whatever work you need.
I've worked there for close to 8 years now (hence posting anonymous). The projects in our division are delivered within days of their deadline and under budget. The clients we have in the military constantly come back to us for work.
Saying SAIC's performance is "such and such" is kind of funny. When I first joined the company it was privately held by the employees until the founder stepped down and the board rushed to bring the company public. Before it went public, the company was like hundreds of little
Nothing seems so simple as Time and Attendance software until you to write/consult on/implement Time and Attendance software.
Nothing seems so simple as Time and Attendance software until you to write/consult on/implement Time and Attendance software.
Would you mind going into more detail as to why? I have to admit, this is one of those things I've always been curious about. It always seemed to me that this should be one of those things that any decent team can crank out in a year, yet I've heard disaster story after disaster story about software like this and so clearly there's something I'm missing here. Is the actual software more difficult to design than I thought, or is it the fact that these are usually government projects, with all the additional requirements therein?
My little company does IT work for small local business, often playing liaison between them and their other vendors. Once I worked with a third party timekeeping software company to help onboard my client onto the system. I was like you, thinking "enter the hours on the day, done". I got to talking with one of the developers and, recognizing there must be some hidden complexity, politely broached the subject. He agreed that yes, it seems simple on the surface, and for a handful of cases it can be. But apparently where things can get bogged down is with adherence to local, state and federal regulations regarding various levels and types of compensation (overtime, sick time, holidays and the like) . He mentioned other issues too but that seemed to be the major bugbear.
If you approach the problem with a proper design methodology that generates a thorough set of use-cases before writing the first requirement, the solution falls out of the regs and obvious behaviors.
And, if you build into that an ability to adapt the system to changing regulations, you've handled the most obvious case, in which regulations change, which they do, continually.
That's amazing and just plain brilliant! This simple suggestion may well revolutionize the attendance software development industry. I wonder if it could be adapted to other types of software?
It would, since in all the time I've been entering my time into computerized timecard systems it's been painfully apparent that NOT ONE FUCKING CODE MONKEY HAS EVER TRIED IT.
And yes, I believe that other types of software would benefit from it greatly. They have my permission to use it, without restriction.
If you approach the problem with a proper design methodology that generates a thorough set of use-cases before writing the first requirement, the solution falls out of the regs and obvious behaviors.
And, if you build into that an ability to adapt the system to changing regulations, you've handled the most obvious case, in which regulations change, which they do, continually.
To "a thorough set of use-cases before writing the first requirement", that's the most naive, most impractical stupidest thing I've heard, a blurp out of academic void. This is the number one mistake people in software engineering do, believing that this is possible. In fact, good software engineering recognizes this, and what you just suggested is anathema to it.
Except with the most trivial of cases or in systems that strictly autonomous that interface with physical environments for which you have a model, requirements exist a-priori... ALWAYS.
We are talking about systems that interface with people, business, and processes (internal and external) governed by law, contractual agreements, human behavior and market forces that can change at any time and for which no model exist (unlike models of physical phenomena.). These can change (and due change) by priorities greater than the ones driving the development of a system.
And this does not count deadlines to deliver that typically exist to get something going and that are non-negotiable. Yeah, non-negotiable. You can get a legislative deadline to implement something just to be allowed to operate (think HIPAA or SOX), or mandated by business imperatives that can make or break a company.
And we, software engineers, have to cope with that change because that's what we get paid the big bucks for . With that in mind, it is obvious that it is impossible to do what you suggest: to get a through set of use-cases before writing the first requirement. In fact, many of the requirements and use-cases only become known as progress is made. This is true for any complex system.
Moreover, it flies in the face of agile development, rapid prototyping, or the older-but-always-good iterative/spiral models.
You pretty much suggested that we do waterfall. Way to go bro.
i had a shift that started on sunday night and ended monday morning.
our timesheets were constantly screwed up.
dont get me started on holidays, 'premium hours', overtime thats not really overtime, etc etc etc.
if any vendor had ever worked one of those types of jobs, they might get it.
You can be damn sure the rules from all the various contracts signed by the city had to be implemented and I would not doubt some had to be coded directly instead of relying on a table. I have seen some convoluted attendance rules when working for a rent-a-cop agency where we managed formerly city employees. For most rules you can simply make a simple table, others had so many odd conditions that it was far easier to code a specific routine.
I imagine that the willingness of the client to keep writing checks as long as it isn't done may have something to do with it...
I don't have experience with this type of software but I am familiar with how governments work.
I've designed equipment to automate tasks that were done by government workers. If the software or equipment in any way threatens those jobs they stop you since their contracts give them that right. I've had to dumb down many systems because they were too efficient and required less people. One was designed to position a payload in a rocket. It used to take 20 something people with rulers hanging at the end of a platform calling out the distances. We replaced it with a system that used sensors to relay all of the information back to the control booth and had camera feeds from each location. It provided 10 times the accuracy as before. We couldn't get it approved since it eliminate so many man hours. Wht did we do to get it approved? We installed 20 emergency stop pendants so those people could still be required. By that time the project ran out of money and was canceled. And they kept doing it the old way.
1. The devil is in the details. Every different department has their own rules. Every different union (police, teachers, janitors, etc) has their own rules for vacation, holidays, overtime, etc. Every manager has their own little pet feature they want included, and no one puts a foot and down and says, "no!"
2. Such projects are always contracted to outside firms, who have absolutely no interest in getting these things done. Not done well, not done on time and in budget, just 'done'.
They took a $60 M proj
Because every large company/government has special rules and accounting/HR/Whoever wants very detailed data. This group of employees can only get overtime if they worked past 50 hours. That group gets overtime at 40. Third group only gets overtime if they work over 80 hours in two weeks. Fourth group is union with wierd work rules that speculate if they are forloughed, they still get paid 1/2 salary so they need ability to mark that. Some people clock in and you need to include rounding logic in that and di
Because the larger an enterprise, the greater likelihood that each department has its own attendance and time policies. Start adding in union contracts, and now you're really having fun. I'm sure the garbage collectors in NYC are paid much much differently than the teachers. Each of those examples probably are nightmares on their own with exceptions to rules, bonuses, overtime and penalties for missed lunches.
However, this is also a case of poor project management. I would not have assigned that job to anyo
Usually, if you want just attendance like time in, time out that's not problem. If you start with tracking what they're working on, resource planning or internal/external billing, you're looking for a world of hurt.
To take one example I got, one company I worked with insisted that sick leave was strictly a matter between the resource manager and that employee, and not for general display. Yet at the same time, they wanted lots of hours worked figures that'd essentially drill down to find the "missing" hours. Project managers were supposed to see what other projects the team was also working on, except if that was sick leave. To "fuzz" the data this had to be mixed with other administrative time so that others couldn't get good statistics on whether they were sick, study day, administrative meetings or whatever. But their immediate manager should of course get to drill down on those. After a lot of back and forth they decided data on an individual basis wasn't needed except in the real T&A system for salary, because we focused on overall project progress and resource planning. Then of course that became silly as project managers realized they had x hours tracked from a department, but not for each person from that department so they didn't know who over/underspent.
Another good example I have is from financials - wouldn't it be nice if you could staff up a project and have that immediately converted to a budget, then just whatever hardware/software/other costs? Also great for checking billing, one hour worked means we'll expect a bill from the consultant on that amount. Except uh-oh, now everyone who can book a consultant one hour and create a budget can see their rates. Things hard negotiated and best kept secret. The solutions to this were many and varied, but they were all hacks to make fudge numbers one place then real numbers other places and don't mix them up to create a complete mess. Oh yes and secret projects were always interesting, they were supposed to show up in total budgets but not be visible other places, I mean just titles like "Buyout of [foo]" was stock sensitive and complete no-no to see. But people still worked on it and needed to track time somewhere and some people sometimes needed to know what project it really was. The whole logic made you want to strangle someone.
Well, this sounds like a complex solution to a no-problem, as the simple solution to this would have been access lists for specific projects and people's time, created on per-project basis. This way you don't need any logic to be in the app, you just allow them to have fine-grained security around pieces of information based on their sign-in credentials and they can screw around with the logic of who is allowed to see what IRL outside of the app itself.
There are a number of factors that bloat and/or doom these projects:
So, it's far more complex that it first appears.
Having said that, $600M is an insane amount. And the 2GB footprint another poster cited is also absurd. A good software architect could have prevented or minimized both of those.
The EULA specifically says that you can't ever, never sue us--for any reason. It also says that this software is not in any way obligated to ever function.
Hey, you clicked through it.
If something's owned by everybody it's owned by nobody, and that's exactly who'll gives a fuck about making it work well.
Wikipedia is owned by WikiMedia.
Firefox is owned by Mozilla.
LibreOffice is owned by The Document Foundation.
These groups are committed to long term goals surrounding these projects.
The consultants and bureaucrats involved with CityTime are committed to taking as much taxpayer money as they can.
Well I'm sure that public projects have boards of individually talented people running them and vested to a degree in their success, and let's not forget that the greatest things we've ever done (sanitation, electricity, the welfare state, insert your own list here, civil engineering mega projects) have been public works.
I dunno, maybe this project is being run by people better suited to another career, it's certainly too complex to sum up in a sentence or two! The point I failed to make was that public projects seem to sit in special sort of bubble immune to anyone really kicking up a stink about them going wrong. The public peeks in from time to time as if gawking at a train crash where no one they know got hurt, gasps and shakes their head, then promptly forgets about it whilst the whole endeavour churns merrily along sucking up resource and offering no value. I was lamenting how easy it is to write something off as somebody else's problem more than anything.
I, for one, am very happy to spend 10 minutes writing about this on Slashdot - instead of actually trying to participate.
Firefox just changed to a catch-me-if-you-can model of stability. Wikipedia has errors in the article about the Wikipedia; and what little it has for organizational coherence is owed to limits on who can pwn whom within its ranks. LibreOffice doesn't really know if it exists or if Larry Ellison is just letting them fall to the end of their rope.
Projects that are led by individuals with clear vision of the problem and the solution get done the way they're supposed to.
Projects that are led by groups of indi
They could have kept those teachers, hired their own in house programmers and got a better software package that they could maintain for decades. Instead they got a poorly installed, poorly documented, software that doesn't meet their specs and at a substantial overrun
They could have kept those teachers, hired their own in house programmers and got a better software package that they could maintain for decades
But that would have meant that those poor overworked civil servants in charge would actually have to manage an IT project, heaven forbid.
No, it's much easier to let others do the heavy lifting and simply pay the bills with our money.
CityTime was launched in 2003 at a budget of $63 million, but costs swelled dramatically as the project stumbled along for nearly a decade.
- this is the problem with government programs: from the very beginning they are already deep in trouble. It makes no sense that a computer payroll system should start at 63 million, why did it start at that number from the beginning?
It makes no sense that government should be so large, as to require a computer payroll system that starts as a 63 million project, never mind that anybody getting that contract will make their best to prolong it as much as possible, simply because it IS government and it does not care about costs.
When somebody says that government can do things efficiently, and they use the postal office as an example, they should really go back to that premise and realize, that the US post office is out of cash - it's selling 'forever stamps' today, and assuming it doesn't just dissolve over the next few years, it won't be able to make any money at that time and it will be in a worse fiscal shape than it is today, because the stamps sold today are basically protection against the 10% (current level) of monetary inflation that US Fed and Treasury are incurring on US population. Today the postal office cannot function already and they sell the forever stamps, tomorrow, they'll have to raise the prices but people will use those forever stamps and the postal office will either have to default on that stamp or dissolve, or there will be another bail out, and people use that as one of 'better' examples of government 'efficiency'.
Another example they give is Medicare, while not realizing that Medicare costs are spread out among various parts of government that are not calculated into the costs directly, and just like SS, that program is bankrupt today, being the biggest pyramid scams of all times, making Madoff look like a preschooler.
Anyway, back to this topic - who was the NYC mayor at the time when this ridiculous project started I wonder? Oh wait, Bloomberg has been the mayor of NYC since 2002 and this project started in 2003. So where was he all the time when the costs overran by x2, by x3, by x5, is the magic number for a politician to look at some cost overruns only when they exceed the x10 estimate?
People blame corporations and businesses for waste and fraud, but at least corporations and businesses have to extract their money from customers (well, unless they are government protected monopolies of-course) by selling products that customers want.
When business overruns its costs and credits like that, it likely goes under. Shouldn't the same apply to governments? I think it should. And those, who are allowing the money of tax payers to be wasted like that do need to spend some time thinking about in jail. Same should be done on all levels - federal and state and municipal, maybe then the governments will stop bailing out failing businesses and causing massive economic collapses.
When somebody says that government can do things efficiently, and they use the postal office as an example, they should really go back to that premise and realize, that the US post office is out of cash
So it's out of cash yet it started the 2011 fiscal year with $283 million [postalreporternews.net] in net profit? If you can't even get that detail right then one can only imagine that the rest of your rant is wrong as well.
I said: they are selling 'forever stamps' today, that's their 'net profit'.
The government does a great many things efficiently, and substantially cheaper then private industry. Usually large infrastructure and big RnD projects.
You clearly have never been involved in a project like this, they take years to get done, are complex and you might not even KNOW you have a cost overrun until the company presents you with a bill with a lot of previous years add-ons suddenly appearing. usally right after the point where rolling back isn't practical anymore. THIS is a corporation abusing it'
The government does a great many things efficiently, and substantially cheaper then private industry. Usually large infrastructure and big RnD projects.
- oh yeah, how well does this statement bode with this one exactly:
complex and you might not even KNOW you have a cost overrun until the company presents you with a bill with a lot of previous years add-ons suddenly appearing. usally right after the point where rolling back isn't practical anymore.
I've been through many of these projects on both sides of the fence.
Speaking from the both sides of your mouth, I see.
Anyway, back to this topic - who was the NYC mayor at the time when this ridiculous project started I wonder? Oh wait, Bloomberg has been the mayor of NYC since 2002 and this project started in 2003. So where was he all the time when the costs overran by x2, by x3, by x5, is the magic number for a politician to look at some cost overruns only when they exceed the x10 estimate?
People blame corporations and businesses for waste and fraud, but at least corporations and businesses have to extract their money from customers (well, unless they are government protected monopolies of-course) by selling products that customers want.
BTW, from TFA but not included in the summarys:
The recent indictment of SAIC's leader project manager on the CityTime job, Gerard Denault, as well as the guilty plea to criminal charges made by SAIC systems engineer Carl Bell, who designed the software, are "extremely troubling and raise questions about SAIC's corporate responsibility and internal controls to prevent and combat fraud," he added. Denault and Bell were charged with were charged with taking kickbacks, wire fraud and money laundering.
Also recently indicted were Reddy and Padma Allen, a couple who head up New Jersey systems integrator TechnoDyne, which was SAIC's primary subcontractor on the CityTime project. Federal authorities allege that the Allens and others conducted an elaborate overbilling and kickback scheme that siphoned millions of dollars from the project.
Federal authorities have also contended that SAIC had received a whistleblower complaint about the project as far back as 2005, Bloomberg said in the letter. "It is unclear what SAIC did at that time to investigate these serious allegations."
And Bloomberg is a billionaire. He's not some ivory tower academic or career politician. He's supposed to know better.
I worked for a small company that was bought by a slightly less small company which was then gobbled up by SAIC. Anyone who didn't have their life savings wrapped up in the venture from starting the original small company got the heck out of there.
No that is the problem with corruption. And the fault of corruption in a democracy are the people.
"When business overruns its costs and credits like that, it likely goes under. Shouldn't the same apply to governments? I think it should"
Ok, so are you prepared to get a gun and shoot everyone or get shot down? Are you prepared the next time that there is a fire that half of the city goes down in flames? Are you prepared that if you got an accident you need to walk home, lay down and die?
I know you are most li
No that is the problem with corruption. And the fault of corruption in a democracy are the people.
- government must exist only because if it does not, something will appear to occupy that roles, so it's better to have a known quantity of evil, than something that will just spur out of vacuum. But because it is a necessary evil, it must be controlled and only be allowed to do the bare minimum, so that it can only destroy very little of society by its mere fact of existence.
Ok, so are you prepared to get a gun and shoot everyone or get shot down?
- well, sure, but that's not the point. The point is that government should not be as big as it is, it must be very small and very
The post office ran effectively for hundreds of years
- not without government subsidies, explicit or implicit.
Or do you not consider a monopoly that US post office has upon first class mail delivery a subsidy and a government guaranteed protection of income?
If turning a profit was the most important aspect of the post office, then small town america wouldn't have post offices at all.
- again, not true. If that was the case there wouldn't have been a need for government protection against competition in mail delivery, wouldn't it?
The point is that a market need and a market supply will find a way to meet, but in presence of overwhelming government power they do not.
Yes, I have actually worked in this field. And yes, payroll is more complicated than it seems on the surface. But it's not that complicated. It's not "I can build a dozen F-14s for less" complicated.
The money spent on these types of applications is just obscene. There's gotta be major corruption in the procurement process. And it's everywhere; this isn't just a NYC problem.
Are they in bed with the companies bidding on the contract and getting lots of hookers and blow?
Does this answer your question?
The city official who was the project's point person, Joel Bondy, resigned in December and had close ties to the suspected mastermind of the scheme.
Gerard Denault, a former executive with Science Applications International Corporation, the company overseeing CityTime, was charged with receiving over $5 million in kickbacks for his work as the project's senior manager.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/nyregion/criticism-for-citytime-project-grows-as-a-manager-is-arrested.html? [nytimes.com]
What you usually find in these situations is that there is a defined scope of work and deliverable at the set price. Then every month the client (the city in this case) alters the scope of work which requires that the budget be adjusted. By the end of the day after everyone in the entire client organization has made sure all the changes they want are incorporated the original deadline passed 3 years ago, the developer has been chasing dead ends for entire time and to impliment the new final scope of work is
Too many times contractors will get to a position where they become entrenched and start raising the cost, changing the contract, and never having the intention to actually meet the agreed time and price.
Then politician don't sue because they are afraid it might hurt their image.
We need more public official to call these companies on there shenanigans.
What SAIC did was morally wrong, BUT I am certain there were a lot of people involved in that project that allowed this to happen. One would assume that the New York City government is not being run by a bunch of ignorant hicks paying top dollar for a pig-in-a-poke. There is plenty of culpability to go around, and some city officials need to be investigated.
Due to union contracts and city regulations, they had to account for leap seconds for anyone who worked overnight. Future of UTC and the Leap Second [slashdot.org]
Loose bits sink chips.


text:
DealBook Online
By MARK SCOTT, HIROKO TABUCHI, WILLIAM ALDEN and VINOD SREEHARSHA
Published: September 14, 2012
SEEKING CONTROL The Thai billionaire Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, left, initiated a $7.3 billion takeover bid on Thursday for the 70 percent stake in the Singaporean conglomerate Fraser & Neave that he did not already own.
The all-cash offer, which represents a 4.3 percent premium to Fraser & Neave's closing stock price on Wednesday, could scuttle plans by the Dutch brewer Heineken to buy Fraser & Neave's beer unit. MARK SCOTT
STREAMLINING OPERATIONS Dole Food said it was in advanced talks to sell its packaged foods and Asian fresh fruit businesses to the Japanese trading house Itochu.
Dole, the world's largest fruit and vegetable company, said in a news release on Wednesday that it was negotiating with Itochu over a sale that would be part of a previously announced review of its operations, now based in Westlake Village, Calif. HIROKO TABUCHI
A WARNING ON BANKS It's still the talk of Wall Street: Are big banks too complex? And if so, what should be done?
On Thursday, one former Wall Street executive put the issue in vivid terms as she raised concerns about the complexity of financial behemoths. ''It makes you weep blood out of your eyes,'' Sallie L. Krawcheck, above, who ran Bank of America's wealth management division, said at the Bloomberg Markets 50 Summit in Manhattan. WILLIAM ALDEN
OPPORTUNITIES IN BRAZIL The Carlyle Group said Thursday that it had acquired a 60 percent stake in Tok & Stok, a Brazilian furniture company, in a move that positions it to take advantage of the country's consumer retail market.
The amount Carlyle paid for Tok & Stok was not disclosed, but a source with knowledge of the deal said that it was worth approximately 700 million reais, or $347 million. VINOD SREEHARSHA