A: Marketing

News has broken out that NASA has successfully tested a deep space version of the internet:

The US space agency NASA said it successfuly conducted a first test of a deep space communications network modeled on the Internet.

"This is the first step in creating a totally new space communications capability, an interplanetary Internet," Adrian Hooke, NASA's manager of space-networking architecture, technology and standards, said in a statement.

The US space agency said Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers used software called Disruption-Tolerant Networking, or DTN, to transmit dozens of space images to and from a NASA spacecraft some 20 million miles (32.4 million kilometers) from Earth.

NASA said the software protocol, which must be able to withstand delays, disruptions and disconnections in space, was designed in partnership with Vint Cerf, a vice president at Internet search giant Google.

DTN sends information using a method that differs from the normal Internet's Transmission-Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP, communication suite, which Cerf co-designed, NASA said.

Like many things in computing, there tends to be stupid "religious arguments" among geeks about certain things.  Windows vs. Linux.  MS SQL vs. Oracle vs. MySQL.  You get the idea.  People will even argue about whether GUID is supposed to be pronounced "Goo-id" or "Gwid".  Now you can answer... neither!  It truly is supposed to be a UUID... a Universally Unique Identifer.

From Jeff Atwood:

"How will this software get my users laid' should be on the minds of anyone writing social software (and these days, all software is)."

Isn't that the reason why men do anything?  To impress women?

Yes... someone actually asked me to do that at work today.

... when a tester asks you, "Hey, do you want to see you something cool?"

Cool for a tester usually means broken for you.

Some people may not understand how I organize my desk.  For those of you who don't, here is a brief run down.  I have one area that is the "heap", and another that is the "stack" (which has the most recently used items on top).  Approximately twice a year I clear my desk in a ritual known as a "core dump".  I'm still trying to find someone who will be my garbage collector.

Microsoft has announced that their next operating system is being planned for around 2010, and they're changing the codename from Vienna to "7".  I hope George Costanza doesn't hear about this... that's what he wants his son to be named!

Unless you want to learn how to build a watch.

This quote is too perfect... too funny... and applies equally well to both my personal blogs.  I just don't know where to put it, but I have to share it.  From Nathaniel Borenstein:

It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter.

Via Coding Horror who has many other fantastic quotes to share.  My personal favorite quote is from Michael Sinz:

Programming is like sex, one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life.

An amazingly accurate technical deconstruction of a "</hate>" t-shirt by a lawyer.  It's nice to know that non-technical people can have such a good grasp on XML compliant syntax.  Of course, he has totally declared himself a geek in the process, but there's nothing wrong with that.

Just now I took a big drink of my non-fat vanilla latte, looked at this morning's Dilbert cartoon, and almost spit all over my computer.  You've been warned.