Tim Daneliuk wrote:

Well, in fairness, Berzerkely did give us BSD Unix ... sort of ...
with the help of the best and brightest from the then Bell Labs crowd.
This ultimately gave us TCP/IP and the internet. The irony is that
this was funded by ARPA - the research arm of the Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil
government military technocrats. I wonder how many of the smelly
hippies stumbling against the cause of the day realized that their CS
department was building a technology infrastructure designed to be
survivable (by the military) in the face of nuclear exchange.

I used to giggle as I drove past the Berkeley city limits signs that said "A
nuclear free zone." to eat lunch on top of a nuclear reactor. The reactor is
gone now, replaced by the new CS department building.

The giggle on the government is that ARPA funded a network that could survive a
nuclear exchange as well as attempts by any government to control it.

A minor nit pick is that TCP/IP predated BSD Unix by a few years. BSD Unix
certainly helped with TCP/IP domination of computer communication.

-- Doug

Douglas Johnson wrote:
Tim Daneliuk wrote:

Well, in fairness, Berzerkely did give us BSD Unix ... sort of ...
with the help of the best and brightest from the then Bell Labs crowd.
This ultimately gave us TCP/IP and the internet. The irony is that
this was funded by ARPA - the research arm of the Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil
government military technocrats. I wonder how many of the smelly
hippies stumbling against the cause of the day realized that their CS
department was building a technology infrastructure designed to be
survivable (by the military) in the face of nuclear exchange.

I used to giggle as I drove past the Berkeley city limits signs that said "A
nuclear free zone." to eat lunch on top of a nuclear reactor. The reactor is
gone now, replaced by the new CS department building.

Gasp! And you survived? You're not deformed for life? How is this
possible? Everyone know that only smelly hippie power is safe ...


The giggle on the government is that ARPA funded a network that could survive a
nuclear exchange as well as attempts by any government to control it.

I dunno about that. I rather think the gummint still has a lot to say
about the top level routers, at least in the U.S., or at least they
*could* in theory. Certainly, both under Dems and Repubs, they've
managed to get data "wiretap" laws installed that allows the gummint
to stick its beak in our digital lives.


A minor nit pick is that TCP/IP predated BSD Unix by a few years. BSD Unix
certainly helped with TCP/IP domination of computer communication.

-- Doug

Hmmm. I took a course in BSD TCP/IP internals from Mike Karels and
Kirk McKusick, both of Berzerkely CSRG fame. Perhaps what Karels did
was a first implementation of TCP/IP on Unix, but I'm pretty sure he
did of TCP/IP "first" of some kind. Nevertheless, your point is
taken...



--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:28:32 -0500, Douglas Johnson
wrote:

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

Well, in fairness, Berzerkely did give us BSD Unix ... sort of ...
with the help of the best and brightest from the then Bell Labs crowd.
This ultimately gave us TCP/IP and the internet. The irony is that
this was funded by ARPA - the research arm of the Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil
government military technocrats. I wonder how many of the smelly
hippies stumbling against the cause of the day realized that their CS
department was building a technology infrastructure designed to be
survivable (by the military) in the face of nuclear exchange.

I used to giggle as I drove past the Berkeley city limits signs that said "A
nuclear free zone." to eat lunch on top of a nuclear reactor. The reactor is
gone now, replaced by the new CS department building.

The giggle on the government is that ARPA funded a network that could survive a
nuclear exchange as well as attempts by any government to control it.

A minor nit pick is that TCP/IP predated BSD Unix by a few years. BSD Unix
certainly helped with TCP/IP domination of computer communication.

-- Doug

I worked for Watts Bar nuclear plant back in the 80s. A common saying
on the job was........The government pays TVA to build the plant, and
pays the NRC to make sure they can't do it.

On 2009-08-25, Metspitzer wrote:

I worked for Watts Bar nuclear plant back in the 80s. A common saying
on the job was........The government pays TVA to build the plant, and
pays the NRC to make sure they can't do it.

The thing that scared the crap outta me was an episode on 60 Minutes
investigating NRC inspections of powerplant construction, specifically
the containment vessels for the nuclear material, the heart of the
plant. They interviewed more than one inspector who, years after the
fact, admitted to passing sub-standard construction under not so
genteel persuasion by shady unions. The ol' "we know where your
family lives" kinda thing. No telling how many currently operating
plants (do we still have any?) are iffy. A good example of the shaky
nuclear power plant industry in this country is Rancho Seco in N CA.
The China Syndrome was not bogus science fiction.

Funny we should make fun of France, for they have an excellent nuclear
energy record and actually export energy to other countries. "Freedom
Fries", my ass.

nb