All Circuits Aren’t Busy

Network neutrality came from the telephone business. With electronic phone switching (analog, not digital) it was possible to give phone company customers who were willing to pay more priority access to trunk lines, avoiding the dreaded “all circuits are busy, please try your call again later.” Alas, some folks almost never got a circuit, so the FCC put a halt to that practice by mandating what it called “network neutrality” – first-come, first-served access to the voice network. When the commercial Internet came along, network neutrality was extended to digital data services, lately over the objection of telcos and big ISPs like Comcast, and the FCC is now about to expand those rules a bit more, which was in this week’s news. But to give network neutrality the proper context, we really should go back to that original analog voice example, because there are more details there worth telling.

via I, Cringely All Circuits Aren’t Busy – I, Cringely.

Why Is It Taking So Long to Secure Internet Routing?

Why is it taking so long to secure BGP?

The answer to this question lies in the fact that BGP is a global protocol, running across organizational and national borders. As such, it lacks a single centralized authority that can mandate the deployment of a security solution; instead, every organization can autonomously decide which routing security solutions it will deploy in its own network. Thus, the deployment becomes a coordination game among thousands of independently operated networks. This is further complicated by the fact that many security solutions do not work well unless a large number of networks deploy them.

via Why Is It Taking So Long to Secure Internet Routing? – ACM Queue.

5 new guides for mastering OpenStack

Sometimes things go wrong, and instances can go down in unexpected ways. Even if the instance has disappeared, OpenStack might still think it’s there. If this happens, one way to deal with it is to delete these phantom instances directly from OpenStack’s database. This guide will show you how to do that with a simple script.

via 5 new guides for mastering OpenStack | Opensource.com.

Console Internet Applications

Console based applications are light on system resources very useful on low specified machines, can be faster and more efficient than their graphical counterparts, they do not stop working when X Windows is restarted, and are great for scripting purposes. When designed well, console applications offer a surprisingly powerful way of using a computer effectively. The applications are leaner, faster, easier to maintain, and remove the need to have installed a whole gamut of libraries.

via Pick of the Bunch: Console Internet Applications – Linux Links – The Linux Portal Site.

How To Create a Pure CSS Dropdown Menu

With the help of some advanced selectors a dropdown menu can be easily created with CSS. Throw in some fancy CSS3 properties and you can create a design that was once only achievable with background images and Javascript. Follow this tutorial to see the step by step process of building your own pure CSS dropdown menu.

via How To Create a Pure CSS Dropdown Menu.

Also here:  Another Simple CSS3 Dropdown Menu

Instrumental Variables Methods

Estimating causal impacts is fraught with difficulty. Even randomized trials are imperfect, in part because we can seldom, if ever, conduct true experiments (though experimental design is still the gold standard of statistical research). IV is one of the more compelling quasi-experimental methods of estimating impacts, largely because the assumptions needed to justify the IV method are often more plausible than those needed to justify other methods, such as regression.

via The Urban Institute | Toolkit | Data Methods | Instrumental Variables Methods.

7 open source control-panel

We have collection of more than 1 Million open source products ranging from Enterprise product to small libraries in all platforms. We aggregate information from all open source repositories. Search and find the best for your needs.

via 7 open source control-panel.

This site looks like an interesting resource to find useful open source packages.  Webmin is listed as second in this list of 7 control panels.  I have been using Webmin forever but might try out ISPConfig.  Although something is listed on this site I always download packages from sourceforge.net.

Open source physics engines

Graphics give games a visual appeal, but it’s the internal physics engine that gives the game’s world life. A physics engine is a software component that provides a simulation of a physical system. This simulation can include soft- and rigid-body dynamics, fluid dynamics, and collision detection. The open source community has a number of useful physics engines operating in the 2D and 3D domains targeted to games and simulations. This article introduces the use and basics of a physics engine and explores two options that exist: Box2D and Bullet.

via Open source physics engines.

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