* Posts by Philip Sargent

3 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jan 2008

Google Cr-48: Inside the Chrome OS 'unstable isotope'

Philip Sargent

Trusted path at logon

That security at point of entry, and in depth, should give MS federal systems division a lot of sleepless nights.

Don't the usage patterns described here sound an awful lot like standard daytime work usage for most employees of large organisations ? And with security at logon that other PCs can't match.

ChromeOS does a cryptographic check at bootup, why not an article about the implications of that? They are huge.

Philip Sargent

Missing piece completes Stuxnet jigsaw

Philip Sargent

Centrifuges

As GettinSadda says: it looks to me as if Stuxnet is targeting the centrifuges. Data from a very old design (Wikipedia) says 1,500 Hz. Introducing it into the civil nuclear plant would be a good way of getting it to spread through the whole Iran industry.

Intermittent changes of speed over months will wreck the bearings and motors too, as well as driving the engineers crazy.

Academics slam Java

Philip Sargent
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ML

The Cambridge computer science course uses lots of languages for different purposes, but the one that it is used to introduce new students to the idea of computer *science* is ML. This certainly inculcates some useful habits of thought.

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/myths/

"We start by teaching a language that few if any will have even heard of let alone used – so all our students start off at roughly the same level, and we build from there. "

"Teaching yourself to program can lead to your picking up bad habits that will hinder your progress later. In particular, you should avoid languages like C and C++. "