Forum Talk:Content

Pat Palmer's User Talk Archives

Archive 1, 4-27-07: User_talk:Pat_Palmer/Archive1

Archive 2, 6-7-10: User_talk:Pat_Palmer/Archive2

Tables of contents

Pat,

We disagree about the use and placement of the TOC. Might we move this issue to the Forum or another venue? I don't want to get into revert wars about it. You presumably have your reasons and I have mine; I'll merely note that I often read a TOC to see if I want to read the intro. If the TOC is not on the first screen, I'm apt to skip the article. Howard C. Berkowitz 16:53, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Languages using the .NET Framework

Pat, I have no idea if this is still relevant to you, so forgive the interruption if it's not; I'm still a little new around here. I just finished checking all the links to compilers on Talk:List of languages using the .NET Framework, and wondered what your original plan was for folding those into the main article, so I figured I'd ask to make sure, then boldly go ahead. :) — Nathan Tuggy 23:59, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

computers approval

Hi, Pat. Do you have a few minutes to put on your Computers Editor hat and review the article on brute force attacks? Howard has nominated it for approval but I think it would be best if we had a second editor involved because Howard did make some minor contributions to that article. If you feel up to it, you might even do a single editor approval and we could let Howard step down so as to avoid any possible complaints about his involvement. Thanks much. --Joe Quick 03:28, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Pat, see this. Thanks, D. Matt Innis 23:59, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I would like to nominate The Canterbury Tales for Article of the Week but ....

Pat, I see that you are a Literature Author. I would like to nominate The Canterbury Tales for Article of the Week but it doesn't have a Related Articles subpage and I believe that a Developed Article (Status 1) should have a populated "Related Links" subpage.

Would you have the time to develop such a Related Articles subpage for the The Canterbury Tales? Thanks, Milton Beychok 01:40, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Email systems article needing approval

Howard Berkowitz suggested I contact you to get some additional editorial input on an article I'm submitting for approval in the Computers workgroup. He says you would be the most knowledgeable in this area. Email system is intended as a top-level introduction to how the email system works, with subtopics on each of various technologies and protocols. I got interested in writing this article in connection with some lectures I give each year at the University of Arizona. The textbook explanations of email systems are very poor. We can do much better, even without getting into to much technical detail. Email system is intended to be useful for non-technical readers as well.

Your help will be appreciated. --David MacQuigg 19:07, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Hello. Are you related to Robert Roswell Palmer, who authored the textbook A History of the Modern World? I used the textbook when I was in high school. I'm just curious. Thank you. (Chunbum Park 00:34, 7 December 2009 (UTC))

 sorry, no relationPat Palmer 23:39, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Cloud computing, etc.

(copy from my user talk page so you'd see this -- I'd rather keep the conversation there) With a number of Computers articles, I see a win-win approach as spinning off subarticles. DNS needs just a couple of fixes for Peter to nominate it. While I have a number of things to add to cloud computing, I will be doing at least some of that in subarticles; the main article is too long in its present form. I would like to get it to approval as the top of the tree. Clearly, I don't own it, but I am using some of the cloud computing material in discussions with people outside CZ -- I managed to get one old colleague to sign up at least to make a few edits. I'm also using it as a reference in several discussions, so I'd like to keep it at an expert-written level.

That said, I would be delighted to see some subarticles, with the Eduzendium tag, created, and I'd be happy to work with students. As a general EZ comment, Gareth and Celine seemed to get some very good results by having teams of students, rather than individuals, work on the articles. I, and I'm sure others, would be happy to work with students during the writing, guiding them but certainly not writing anything for them. Howard C. Berkowitz 18:59, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Since you've already read through cloud computing, how do you feel about moving it toward Approval? Perhaps that would make it more credible if you assign it for reading. There are a few updates I want to make, and also want to move some material to subarticles. Perhaps some subarticles might make sense as student assignments.

I can continue my thinking on the article talk page. Howard C. Berkowitz 17:17, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I did respond to your email request -- if you didn't get it, my CZ email is enabled.

As far as emerging topics, I want to give it some additional thought, but let me mention a few topics where I know I need to learn more, and was going to do articles as part of my own study. Hopefully, these aren't too advanced. If you like, I would be more than willing to mentor students on them, definitely without doing their work.

• Virtual machine deployment
  • More comparisons of hypervisors and equivalents (e.g., VMware, Xen, MS Virtual PC)
  • VM provisioning and management
  • Security of paused VM images in a multi-user environment
  • Side channel attacks on coresident VM instances
  • Evolution of managed hosting versus PaaS clouds
• Data storage and management
  • Federated data bases
    • Physical separation of parts of files/databases as a physical security measure in cloud services
  • Solid state disks
  • Storage area networks vs. network attached storage
    • Why is cut-through switching, once considered obsolete, a viable technique especially in SAN/NAS and with multigigabit links? This is something I've seen discussed mostly on mailing lists. The basis of all understanding is to do some simple but perhaps nonintuitive computations on why cut-through sometimes is very attractive for L2 switching between input and output links of the same speed, something that tended to go away with aggregating LANs at 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps
  • Deduplication
  • Portable computers and storage media (e.g., thumb drives) -- managing security including physical theft
  • Why is it a really, really bad idea to recharge your iPod battery from the USB port of a computer handling classified data?
• ISP security (actuallly an area where I've done a lot)
  • Alternative BGP security architectures (some are complementary)
• Privacy vs. health care delivery efficiency with interconnected electronic medical records
• Micropayments
• Marine electronics and computing (ok, this is very niche-ish, but good researchers should find things)
  • What's the vulnerability in using Automatic Identification System (AIS) as the basis for homeland security on ships and boats?
  • Is NMEA 2000 deja vu all over again repeating IEEE 802.4 Token Bus (GM MAP) vs IEEE 802.3?
• Self-organizing networks in the real world -- the aforementioned AIS is one real application; lots of military apps
  • Also see software-defined radio and discuss the more advanced technologies such as cognitive radio (and, for that matter, radar)
• Femtocells (see article locality of networks)
• Remotely operated vs. autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles, especially that shoot. Social aspects of remotely operated: Air Force officer #1 goes to one building at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, gets a beer, and plays a video game, getting a high score. Air Force officer #2 goes to a different building, goes through essentially the same actions but without the beer, and kills hopefully bad guys in Pakistan with a MQ-9 Reaper. Both drive home for dinner. Required preparatory reading: Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game.

Howard C. Berkowitz 17:14, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Shannon

In the Claude Shannon article, I did not remove the text about MIT and Alzheimer's. I only moved it; it is now the last sentence of the introduction. Sandy Harris 02:01, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Hash topics?

We have an article on Hash (cryptography) but it is woefully incomplete. In particular, it has inadequate coverage of the Advanced Hash Standard or SHA-3 contest currently being run by NIST. That is perhaps an "emerging technology", since the actual standard is not due until 2012 and the competition is underway now. Is it something some of your students might tackle?

In the parallel case of Block ciphers, I originally wrote one huge article, then split it up producing separate articles on the AES competition and a couple of dozen stubs on individual ciphers. The hash stuff is not nearly as far along, but probably needs a similar split as it develops. Sandy Harris 06:49, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Sandy makes some good points, perhaps taking us in even new directions. It is entirely reasonable, I think, for students to take on the policy and "black box" aspects of crypto competitions. How relevant this is for your course depends on whether problem analysis at this level is in scope, as opposed to analysis of the technology itself. To go into the hash algorithms beyond the level of a stub will take mathematical background the students may or may not have.

Another issue is whether your ground rules might let students take a piece in an existing CZ article and substantially expand it into an article.

I am involved in some other hash competitions, but they tend to turn on theological issues: oven vs. stovetop vs. broiler and timing sequences. There's even black iron vs. coated iron pan. Not appropriate for CS topics. :-) Howard C. Berkowitz 14:23, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

My co-instructor and I seem to have converged on "concurrency" as the theme for this year's course. This is why I had asked about cloud computing...so the cryptography topics probably won't fly this year. Still, good ideas! Thanks so much for the input.Pat Palmer

Eduzendium

...good luck with the course! John Stephenson 09:56, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

John, thank you; it's gearing up quickly thanks to help from the CZ registrars

Amazingly high involvement

It's absolutely great -- unprecedented I believe -- that so many of your students are making quality contributions outside the course. Does this have anything to do with having thought-controlled devices within scope? :-) Howard C. Berkowitz 01:53, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Howard, you make me laugh. It has directly to do with the fact that I'm requiring them to do 2 edits per week (minimum) outside the article they are working on. I do hope some of them come to love this project as we do!Pat Palmer 18:15, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

"Conscience is the still, small voice that says someone is watching." (Mark Twain)

Isn't Dartmouth, though, "the small place, but we love it"?

Nevertheless, of the edits outside the article, everything I've seen has been of high quality. You've got a good bunch. Howard C. Berkowitz

Tis true, they are exceptional and we're loving it.Pat Palmer 18:57, 20 July 2010 (UTC)