Yunliang Yu, Senior Systems Programmer
 Open source is an investment in the future.
FDS Motto: we serve and empower the faculty.
- Contact Info:
- Office Hours:
- 12:01AM - 12:02AM every other day excluding today.
Not by appt:)
- Specialties:
-
Mathematics
- Famous Sayings:
- Your dream will come true,
if you eat your soup.
--- Angela Yu - Don't be a turkey; read a book.
--- Christina Yu
- To learn and practice what is learned from time to time is pleasure, is it not? To have friends from afar is happiness, is it not? To be unperturbed when not appreciated by others is a gentleman, is it not?
--- Kungfu Zi - Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
--- Chinese Proverb 
facultydatabase.org, academicjobsonline.org,
mathjobs.org.
/. headline news :-)
- Chronicling the Failures of DRM
2008-08-29T23:57:00+00:00
Barence takes us to PCPro for a look at the failures of DRM and a discussion of its impending death. Quoting: "Luckily, DRM is dying, at least in the download sphere. Napster's Dan Nash believes that DRM-free is 'the general way things are going.' In his opinion, record companies 'have no choice but to adapt;' those that 'stick to DRM on a pay-per-download basis will not remain competitive.' In the US, Napster has joined Amazon in selling DRM-free content in MP3 format from all the major labels. ... Going DRM-free makes sense not just for consumers, but for the industry. Deutche Telekom says three out of four technical support calls its Musicload service had to deal with were the result of DRM. And when it offered a DRM-free option to artists they saw a 40% increase in sales."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Preparing Computer and Cellular Networks For a Hurricane
2008-08-29T22:58:00+00:00
CWmike writes "As Hurricane Gustav approaches the US Gulf Coast, IT lessons learned from the devastating Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that smashed New Orleans and other areas in 2005 are on the minds of many worried IT managers. David Avgikos, president of Digimation Inc., a 3-D digital animation software company in St. Rose, Louisiana, said, 'We don't have to be told twice.' Meanwhile, the nation's major cellular network providers say that they too are prepared, having learned from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Still, they offer some helpful tips for dealing with what is expected to be a category-three hurricane when it hits: use text vs. calling on your cell phone, and if you use a cordless for your landline, ditch it for a corded model so that it will still work if there are power outages."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- MIT Working On Network Vulnerability Analysis
2008-08-29T22:05:00+00:00
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at MIT have created a method for analyzing networks to detect exploitable vulnerabilities using attack graph analysis which can be done in near real time. The new Lincoln Labs tool will allow admins of large networks to detect their most vulnerable areas and also model zero day attacks. 'NetSPA (for Network Security Planning Architecture) uses information about networks and the individual machines and programs running on them to create a graph that shows how hackers could infiltrate them. System administrators can examine visualizations of the graph themselves to decide what action to take, but NetSPA also analyzes the graph and offers recommendations about how to quickly fix the most important weaknesses. NetSPA relies on vulnerability scanners to identify known weaknesses in network-accessible programs that might allow an unauthorized person access to a machine. But simply being aware of vulnerabilities is not sufficient; NetSPA also has to analyze complex firewall and router rules to determine which vulnerabilities can actually be reached and exploited by attackers and how attackers can spread through a network by jumping from one vulnerable host to another.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- The State of Scripting Languages
2008-08-29T21:14:00+00:00
Esther Schindler writes to tell us that Lynn Greiner has another look at the state of the scripting universe as a follow on to the same topic three years ago. Greiner talks to major players from each of the main scripting languages (PHP, Perl, Tcl, Python, Ruby, and Javascript) to find out the current status and where they are headed in the future. "The biggest change since 2005 has been the growth of richer Web applications that perform more of their computations in the browser using JavaScript. The demand for these applications has forced developers to learn and use JavaScript much more than before. There's also been a lot of interest in Ruby, another dynamic language, spurred by the release and growth of Ruby on Rails. As a result of these changes, many developers are becoming more comfortable with dynamic languages."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Rocket Racing League Flights With Armadillo Engine
2008-08-29T20:32:00+00:00
Toren Altair mentions that the Rocket Racing League has video and pictures available from their recent flight tests of new Armadillo Aerospace liquid oxygen-alcohol engines. "Founded in 2005 by two-time Indianapolis 500 winning team partner Granger Whitelaw and X PRIZE Chairman and CEO Peter H. Diamandis, MD, the Rocket Racing League (RRL) is a new entertainment sports league that combines the exhilaration of racing with the power of rocket engines. To be held at venues across the country, the Rocket Racing League will feature multiple races pitting up to 10 Rocket Racers going head to head in a 4-lap, multiple elimination heat format on a 5-mile 'Formula One'-like closed circuit raceway in the sky."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- McCain Picks Gov Palin as Running Mate
2008-08-29T19:49:00+00:00
Many readers have written to tell us about McCain's choice of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his VP choice. "Palin, 44, a self-described "hockey mom," is a conservative first-term governor of Alaska with strong anti-abortion views, a record of reform and fiscal conservatism and an outsider's perspective on Washington. [...] If elected, Palin would be the first woman U.S. vice president, adding another historic element to a presidential race that has been filled with firsts. Obama, 47, is the first black nominee of a major U.S. political party. The choice of a vice president rarely has a major impact on the presidential race. Palin will meet Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a debate in October."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- 88% of IT Admins Would Steal Passwords If Laid Off
2008-08-29T19:40:00+00:00
narramissic writes "According to identity management firm Cyber-Ark's annual 'Trust, Security & Passwords' survey, a whopping 88% of IT administrators would steal CEO passwords, customer database, research and development plans, financial reports, M&A plans and the company's list of privileged passwords if they were suddenly laid off. The survey also found that one third of IT staff admitted to snooping around the network, looking at highly confidential information, such as salary details and people's personal emails."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Dead Sea Scrolls To Go Digital On Internet
2008-08-29T18:52:00+00:00
mernil writes to mention that the Dead Sea Scrolls are headed for the internet. The Israel Antiquities Authority, custodians of the scrolls, plan on digitizing the 900 fragments to make them available to the public via the internet. Unfortunately they are claiming the project will take somewhere in the neighborhood of two years to complete.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- IBM Flash Memory Breaks 1 Million IOPS Barrier
2008-08-29T18:04:00+00:00
alphadogg writes to tell us that IBM is claiming a victory on the flash storage front. Their new research project "Quicksilver" is claiming data transfer speeds of more than 1 million input/output operations per second (IOPS). "IBM said Quicksilver is two and a half times faster than its own SAN Volume Controller coupled with IBM's DS4700 storage. It would also be two and a half times faster than technology from Texas Memory Systems, which says it has the world's fastest storage with an IOPS rate of 400,000. "
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Behind the Doors of the Free Software Foundation
2008-08-29T17:15:00+00:00
Linux.com has an interesting look at the inner workings of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). "The purpose of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is probably obvious from its name -- but what does promoting free software mean in terms of everyday activity? Examining the roles of the organization shows how complex the FSF's advocacy role has become. It also reveals the range of services available to the free software community, and helps to explain how such a small group has had such a major influence on computer technology. As a 501(c)3 charity in the United States, the FSF is run by a board of directors. The current board includes FSF founder and president Richard M. Stallman and long-term member Henry Poole, but, in the last few years, new faces have appeared on the board."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Nvidia 55nm Parts Are Bad Too
2008-08-29T16:27:00+00:00
JagsLive sends in a story (in somewhat inflammatory prose) from The Inquirer, which links to many others; they have been following developments in the alleged NVidia quality "fiasco" for some time. "Hot on the heels of its denials that anything is wrong with the G92 and G94s comes another PCN [Product Change Notification] that shows the G92s and G92b are being changed for no reason. Yup, the problems that are plaguing G84 and G86 are the same that affect seemingly all 65nm and now 55nm NVidia parts... It is hard to overstate how bad this is. Basically every 65nm and 55nm NVidia part appears to be defective... We are hearing of early failure rates in the teens percent for 8800GTs and far higher for 9600GTs... To make matters worse, NVidia has a mound of unsold defective parts that they are going to bleed out into the channel along side of the (hopefully) fixed parts. As a buyer, you have no way of knowing which one you are getting... Until NVidia comes fully clean on this fiasco, lists all the defective parts, and orders boxes clearly marked, you can't say anything other than just avoid them. Then again, since doing the right thing would likely bankrupt them, we wouldn't hold your breath for it to happen."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Bloatware Removal Threatens PC Industry Profits
2008-08-29T16:08:00+00:00
Anti-Globalism sends along a piece on how a consumer-friendly service is not so good for PC manufacturers. "Before they ship PCs to retailers like Best Buy, computer makers load them up with lots of free software. For $30, Best Buy will get rid of it for you. That simple cleanup service is threatening the precarious economics of the personal computer industry. Software companies pay hundreds of millions of dollars to PC makers like Hewlett-Packard to install their photo tools, financial programs, and other products, usually with some tie-in to a paid service or upgrade. With margins growing thinner than most laptops, this critical revenue can make the difference between profit and loss for the computer makers, industry analysts say."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Bitten By the Red Hat Perl Bug
2008-08-29T15:36:00+00:00
snydeq writes "Smart coders always optimize the slowest thing. But what if 'the slowest thing' is the code supplied by your vendor? That was exactly the situation Vipul Ved Prakash discovered when he tinkered with a company Linux box on which Perl code was running at least 100 times slower than expected. The code, he found, was running on CentOS Linux, using Perl packages built by Red Hat. So Prakash got rid of the Perl executable that came with CentOS, compiled a new one from stock, and the bug disappeared. 'What's more disturbing,' McAllister writes, 'is that this Red Hat Perl performance issue is a known bug,' first documented in 2006 on Red Hat's own Bugzilla database. Folks affected by the current bug have two options: sit tight, or compile the Perl interpreter from source — effectively waiving your support contract. If a Linux vendor can't provide comprehensive maintenance and support for the open source software projects you depend on, McAllister asks, who ever will?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Google Reverses "Absurd" Mozilla Code Ban
2008-08-29T14:46:00+00:00
Barence writes "Google has reversed its decision to ban projects created under the Mozilla Public License from being hosted on its Google Code site. Google banned the license in August, claiming it wanted to 'make a statement against open-source license proliferation' which it blamed for hindering the cross-pollination of code from one project to another. Chris DiBona, of Google's open source team, described its decision to ban the MPL as 'absurd,' citing the community's huge popularity." Jamie mentions that the issue was raised from the floor at OSCON at the Google Open Source Update panel, with DiBona on stage.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- How Can Nerds Make a Difference In November?
2008-08-29T13:55:00+00:00
Scott Aaronson offers an intriguing call for ideas on how nerds can supercharge the political process this year. He's clearly an Obama admirer and phrases his challenge this way: "What non-obvious things can nerds who are so inclined do to help the Democrats win in November?" But the question itself is not inherently partisan. The analogy Aaronson gives is to the Nadertrading idea in 2000 (which we discussed at the time). What's the Nadertrading for 2008? "The sorts of ideas I'm looking for are ones that (1) exploit nerds' nerdiness, (2) go outside the normal channels of influence, (3) increase nerds' effective voting power by several orders of magnitude, (4) are legal, (5) target critical swing states, and (6) can be done as a hobby."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Mathematics Department