List of Archived Posts

2014 Newsgroup Postings (11/09 - 01/01)

weird apple trivia
weird apple trivia
weird apple trivia
weird apple trivia
weird apple trivia
weird apple trivia
weird apple trivia
Information Dominance Corps Self Synchronization
weird apple trivia
weird apple trivia
weird apple trivia
weird apple trivia
weird apple trivia
weird apple trivia
weird apple trivia
weird apple trivia
weird apple trivia
How Much Does It Cost To Keep JPMorgan FX-Riggers Out Of Jail?
weird apple trivia
Microsoft Open Sources .NET, Saying It Will Run on Linux and Mac
How To Make Transparency Part Of Organizational Culture
Senate Democrats vs. the Middle Class; Senators elected in 2008 made Obama's agenda possible, and its results have harmed most Americans
Whole Earth
weird apple trivia
weird apple trivia
Microsoft Open Sources .NET, Saying It Will Run on Linux and Mac
Whole Earth
LEO
LEO
LEO
Whole Earth
LEO
LEO
LEO
Forget the 1%
BBC News - Microsoft fixes '19-year-old' bug with emergency patch
Whole Earth
Income Inequality
LEO
LEO
LEO
Whole Earth
LEO
LEO
Business culture in banking industry favors dishonest behavior
LEO
Business culture in banking industry favors dishonest behavior
LEO
LEO
LEO
LEO
LEO
LEO
Banking - licensed to cheat! And whether you'll get away with it
Why you need batch cloud computing
Piketty Shreds Marginal Productivity as Neoclassical Justification for Supersized Pay
The Road Not Taken: Knowing When to Keep Your Mouth Shut
Why you need batch cloud computing
Wall Street is Taking Over America's Pension Plans
Why you need batch cloud computing
The Road Not Taken: Knowing When to Keep Your Mouth Shut
Decimation of the valuation of IBM
Is IBM Suddenly Vulnerable To A Takeover?
The Fed Just Acknowledged Its Too Big To Jail Policy
LEO
Decimation of the valuation of IBM
Why you need batch cloud computing
LEO
Decimation of the valuation of IBM
RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
LEO
Decimation of the valuation of IBM
Why you need batch cloud computing
The Watchdog that Didn't Bark ... Again
SD?
LEO
LEO
LEO
LEO
LEO
Companies on trial: are they 'too big to jail'?
OT: article on foreign outsourcing
LEO
OT: article on foreign outsourcing
LEO
Economic Failures of HTTPS Encryption
Economic Failures of HTTPS Encryption
Death of spinning disk?
Death of spinning disk?
LEO
Is IBM Suddenly Vulnerable To A Takeover?
LEO
The 10 Biggest Bank Card Hacks
5 Easy Steps to a High Performance Cluster
5 Easy Steps to a High Performance Cluster
5 Easy Steps to a High Performance Cluster
Banking on Crime
Australia: Haven for Bank Control Frauds?
Why has human progress ground to a halt?
US Debt In Public Hands Doubles Under Barack Obama
OT: article on foreign outsourcing
Page Data Set Sizes and Volume Types
Page Data Set Sizes and Volume Types
z/OS MD5 file hashing
OT: article on foreign outsourcing
IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165
[CM] How ENIAC was rescued from the scrap heap
IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165
How Much Bandwidth do we have?
high end, was IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165
LEO
IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165
How Much Bandwidth do we have?
How Much Bandwidth do we have?
Mill Computing talk in Estonia on 12/10/2104
Mill Computing talk in Estonia on 12/10/2104
LEO
Are we programmed to stop at the 'first' right answer
By the time we get to 'O' in OODA
Holy Grail for parallel programming language
Memo To Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat: Does Your Crony Capitalist Plunder Know No Shame?
Presenting The $303 Trillion In Derivatives That US Taxpayers Are Now On The Hook For
Congress could soon allow pension plans to cut benefits for current retirees
Holy Grail for parallel programming language
Commissioner Adrian Leppard calls for legislation to compel the banking system to report fraud
How Much Bandwidth do we have?
Wall Street's Revenge
How Much Bandwidth do we have?
How Much Bandwidth do we have?
Is there an Inventory of the Installed Mainframe Systems Worldwide and or for Europe alone?
Reinventing the Wheel (or at least the multiport memory) (?)
Memo To WSJ: The CRomnibus Abomination Was Not "A Rare Bipartisan Success"
LEO
LEO
A System 360 question
Sony Corp hacking
How hyper threading works? (Intel)
weird apple trivia
How hyper threading works? (Intel)
Is true that a real programmer would not stoop to wasting machine capacity to do the assembly?
IBM Continues To Crumble
Lind's version of Success of Failure
IBM Continues To Crumble
LEO
LEO
IBM Continues To Crumble
LEO
LEO
LEO
LEO
LEO
LEO
Is true that a real programmer would not stoop to wasting machine capacity to do the assembly?
LEO
BDW length vs. Physical Length
IBM Continues To Crumble
Is true that a real programmer would not stoop to wasting machine capacity to do the assembly?
LEO
LEO
LEO
LEO
Slushware
LEO
Slushware
Slushware
LEO
Slushware
Is true that a real programmer would not stoop to wasting machine capacity to do the assembly?
LEO
LEO
IBM Continues To Crumble
European data law: UK.gov TRASHES 'unambiguous consent' plans
Slushware
IBM Continues To Crumble
SUBJECT: New scientific breakthrough in software creates virtual "black hole" for data transmission
Holy Grail for parallel programming language
IBM Continues To Crumble
LEO
LEO

weird apple trivia

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 20:12:19 -0800
Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:
Most aggressive?

I think you mean they have a huge amount of profit to offshore.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#94 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#95 weird apple trivia

can look at it as total amount offshore or as the percent offshored ... and the resulting effective tax rate.

from 2012

NerdWallet Study: Top Companies Paid 9% U.S. Tax Rate
http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/investing/2012/corporate-taxes-only-9-percent/

Apple is #3 on the list in pre-tax earnings ... but also paid (only) 11% effective tax rate.

from 2013

Companies paying the most in income taxes
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/03/17/companies-paying-highest-income-taxes/1991313/

from above:
Apple (AAPL) has made a furious race up the ladder of top corporate tax payers. As appeal for its iPad, iPhone and Mac products has exploded, its tax payments have gone from $2 billion four years ago to $4.5 billion two years ago. And it has increased threefold since then. But these days Apple is facing several growth challenges, which could threaten its spot near the top of the tax tables and already have cut its stock price by one-quarter from record levels. Due to the iPhone's success, Apple was the dominant producer of smartphones since 2007. But Samsung passed Apple in smartphone sales in 2011.

... snip ...

posts mentioning tax evasion, tax havens, tax loopholes, tax avoidance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#tax.evasion

however it is not only aggressive in using US tax loopholes but also aggressive in dodging taxes in other countries

Tax deal: How Apple shifts its billions out of Australia
http://www.smh.com.au/business/tax-deal-how-apple-shifts-its-billions-out-of-australia-20140306-347x9.html
Apple pays $193m tax in Australia on $27b revenue as Federal Government vows to capture lost taxes
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-06/tax-expert-explains-how-apple-pays-193m-tax-on-27b-revenue/5303426

from above:
"So that means basically around 40 per cent of the payments we make to buy Apple products in Australia has escaped Australian tax and at the same time escaped tax anywhere in the world."

... snip ...

UK effective tax rate 1%

Apple's UK tax avoidance in two numbers
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/apples-uk-tax-avoidance-two-4344344

Is Apple's tax avoidance rational?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22607349

from above:
"Apple Inc established an offshore subsidiary, Apple Operations International, which from 2009 to 2012 reported net income of $30bn, but declined to declare any tax residence, filed no corporate income tax return and paid no corporate income taxes to any national government for five years."

... snip ...

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 10:01:32 -0800
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
I understand the US has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world. Come January, hopefully, Congress can cut the rate to a competitive level and declare a tax holiday or some incentive for companies to repatriate their profits. They won't have the rabit anti-business types to worry about.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#94 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#95 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#0 weird apple trivia

for the big special interests (with the majority of corporate income) the effective taxrate is much lower than the published tax rates ... some of the largest in the single digits ... the special interests are paying members of congress for the tax loopholes ... so it is hardly in their interests to reform corporate tax rates (the theoritical corporate tax rate motivation for the payments to congress for the effective tax rates). all parties are involved. at the start of 2011/2012 congress, the new majority leader was on local DC news talking about how the new darlings of the party were given plum positions on the house committee responsible for the tax code (most desirable in congress because they get the most money from the special interests). posts mentioning tax evasion, tax havens, tax avoidance, tax loopholes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#tax.evasion

i've mentioned before televised economists roundtable talking about congress being most corrupt institution on earth ... in large part because of how they are able to induce special interests to pay for tax loopholes. they proposed moving to flat tax reform ... not so much for any benefits of "flat tax" itself ... but because of eliminating the enormous corruption associated with the current tax regulation (secondary was the complexity of the current regulations costs 3-6% in lost GDP dealing with it).

things had started to straighten somewhat with the fiscal responsibility act (required that spending couldn't exceed revenue) ... which would have had all federal debt retired by 2010
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fiscal.responsibility.act

but congress allowed the fiscal responsibility act to expire in 2002 and things then really went crazy ... 2010 CBO report had tax revenue cut by $6T and spending increase by $6T (compared to baseline) for a $12T budget gap (since grown to $17T debt, the enormous tax cuts going to the special interests). in the middle of the last decade, the comptroller general started including in speeches that nobody in congress was capable of middle school arithmetic for how badly they were savaging the budget.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#comptroller.general

TV news periodically refers to the apparent conflict between the two parties as Kabuki theater to distract the public from what is really going on
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#kabuki.theater

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 10:42:31 -0800
Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:
My understanding is that we have a high corporate tax rate that no one pays.

We can lower the rate, but we need to close the loop holes to preserve the revenue. So say the real fiscal conservatives.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#94 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#95 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#0 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#1 weird apple trivia

the party claiming to be the most aligned with fiscal conservatives was the party that allowed the fiscal responsibility act to expire in 2002
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fiscal.responsibility.act

which would have had all federal debt gone by 2010 ... and created the unbalanced budget with both enormous tax cuts at the same time as enormous spending increases

all of congress would be more inclinded to increase the corporate tax rate as further incentive for tax loophole payoffs. congress has little interest in fixing the tax code because of the enormous corruption and payoffs from the special interests for the tax loopholes.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#tax.evasion

note from the same era as the fiscal responsibility act, there was also regulation that required all federal agencies pass annual financial audits. also from 2010 report, $2+T of the $6T spending increase went to DOD, $1+T for the two wars and $1+T that couldn't be accounted for. There is some speculation that by 2017, DOD might be able to pass a financial audit ... 20yrs after it was first required ... military industrial (congressional) complex:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

for some topic drift ... there have been discussions that fiscal conservatives started having doubts about the elimination of federal debt. part of the discussion after the economic mess was that wallstreet started buying up prominant economists as part of program to direct attention away from the responsibility that wallstreet played in. Some of this was explored in "Inside Job" ... recent refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#21 The first personal computer (PC)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011j.html#51 Advice from Richard P. Feynman
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012p.html#62 Search Google, 1960:s-style
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#20 The Big Fail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#57 How to Cut Megabanks Down to Size
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#44 Adair Turner: A New Debt-Free Money Advocate
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#50 How to Cut Megabanks Down to Size
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#29 The agency problem and how to create a criminogenic environment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#1 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#8 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#48 Ex-Wall Street chieftains living large in post-meltdown world
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#52 Lehman Brothers collapse: was capitalism to blame?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#76 The Scholars Who Shill for Wall Street
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#81 Academics Who Defend Wall St. Reap Reward
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#3 Royal Pardon For Turing

behind the scenes, the federal reserve is providing trillions of ZIRP funds to the too big to fail ...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

which turn around and use it to buy trillions of treasuries ... making hundreds of billions profit each year on the spread between ZIRP and treasury rate ... which wouldn't exist w/o federal debt ... recent mention of ZIRP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#89 Forbes perspective on IBM's troubles
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#94 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#95 weird apple trivia

New Report: 70% of Fortune 500 Companies Used Tax Havens in 2013
http://montanaorganizingproject.org/2014/06/2013-tax-haven-report/

some of the too big to fail have the largest number of offshore subsidiaries in tax havens used to hide revenue ... example
http://www.middlewisconsin.org/corporate-tax-dodgers-bank-of-america/

Of Bank of America's 594 foreign subsidiaries, 313 are registered in offshore tax havens, including 175 in the Cayman Islands. Tax havens often impose little or no income taxes, and as long as the profits are held offshore Bank of America avoids U.S. taxes. There are 161 corporations registered in the Cayman Islands per hundred citizens, one of the highest ratios of any country on earth. Only the United Kingdom has more investment by U.S. corporations than the Cayman Islands.

... snip ...

Treasure Islands
https://www.amazon.com/Treasure-Islands-Havens-Stole-ebook/dp/B004OA6420/

explores how one of the biggest tax havens is the "city of london" ... which also helps direct activities at various offshore locations.

As Luxembourg Takes the Heat, the World's Worst Tax Haven - the City of London - Remains Hidden in Plain Sight
http://wolfstreet.com/2014/11/08/as-luxembourg-takes-the-heat-the-worlds-worst-tax-haven-the-city-of-london-remains-hidden-in-plain-sight/

past posts mentiong "Treasure Islands":
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#54 How do you feel about the fact that India has more employees than US?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#65 The Real Snowden Question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#81 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#3 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#26 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#2 IBM Relevancy in the IT World
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#57 The agency problem and how to create a criminogenic environment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#60 spacewar
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#1 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#60 Retirement Heist
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#66 NSA Revelations Kill IBM Hardware Sales In China

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 12:22:12 -0800
Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:
Of course we can always institute negative taxes for corporations. Then prepare for infinite revenues. Oh, wait, you say this doesn't work?

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#94 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#95 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#0 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#1 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#2 weird apple trivia

go offshore to tax havens for zero tax ... and then take various kinds of gov. subsidies and payments ...

too big to fail are getting trillions in ZIRP from federal reserve ... which they turn around and buy treasuries ... having federal debt is convoluted process of providing payments to the too big to fail (blind to the issue that it is helping destroy the country).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

something analogous for the military-industrial-congressional-complex ... industry gets offshore tax loopholes *AND* payments for Success Of failure projects. ref:
http://www.govexec.com/excellence/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/
past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#success.of.failuree
micc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

there is law that if companies that are delinquent on taxes (not paying anything, even after the enormous tax loopholes) ... they are excluded from government contracts. recently there was list of companies put on the list ... but then members of congress steps in on their behalf ... allowing them to continue getting gov. contracts even though they were on IRS tax cheat list.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#tax.evasion

something analogous went on late last decade for "wealthy individuals" ... even with the creation of enormous tax loopholes and offshoring for tax avoidance ... there were still 53,000 who had used foreign bank acounts to hide income (tax evasion) and avoid $400B in taxes (2001-2008). Late last decade, IRS is in the news going after the $400B in unpaid taxes. Then there is news in 2011 that the new congress was going to eliminate funding the IRS dept. responsible for going after that $400B. Then almost a farce, there is high profile news about prosecuting a couple of those tax cheats and getting hundreds of millions (what happened to the 53,000 and $400B?). past refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011k.html#15 Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#42 The Godfather of Kathmandu
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#29 Mitt Romney avoids U.S tax by using Offshore bank accounts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#27 Secrecy for Sale: Inside the Global Offshore Money Maze
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#49 What Makes bank regulation and insurance Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#70 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#72 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#6 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#13 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#69 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#26 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#27 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#32 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#38 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#64 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#73 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#64 OT: NYT article--the rich get richer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#68 OT: NYT article--the rich get richer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#98 Credit Suisse 'cloak-and-dagger' tactics cost US taxpayers billions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#58 Credit Suisse, BNP Paribas at Risk of Criminal Charges Over Taxes, Business With Banned Nations
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#100 After the Sun (Microsystems) Sets, the Real Stories Come Out

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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 12:54:44 -0800
scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
We already do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_welfare

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#94 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#95 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#0 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#1 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#2 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#3 weird apple trivia

more mentioning ZIRP and corporate welfare

Moore On Corporate Welfare Queens
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/moore-on-corporate-welfare-queens-2/
Bulletin of Bernanke ZIRP unwinding
http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Financial_skeptic/Bulletin/index.shtml
Excess Reserves + ZIRP = Free Money For The Banks
http://clinvestments.com/wordpress/2011/04/29/excess-reserves-zirp-free-money-for-the-banks/
ZIRP << The Burning Platform
http://www.theburningplatform.com/tag/zirp/

... note, not all the ZIRP free money for too big to fail (welfare) goes to buying treasuries ... some of it is provided to corporate entities for private equity LBOs and stock buybacks ... helping their top executives to make their EPS numbers ... and enormous bonuses (some of this starting with the Greenspan "put" in the late 80s)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#greenspan too big to fail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
private equity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity
stock buyback
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#stock.buyback

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 13:47:26 -0800
Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:
Most of the RW is all for lowering rates but closing loop holes, nope, that's a tax increase. Now is the perfect time for changes but I'm not expecting any.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#94 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#95 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#0 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#1 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#2 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#3 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#4 weird apple trivia

a problem was they dug a $12T hole between 2002-2010 ... allowing fiscal responsibility act to expire in 2002 ... which has been allowed to continue to get deeper. so they have to cut spending back to 2002 level, raise taxes back to the 2002 level *AND* raise taxes additional to get out of the $17T hole that they dug.

the talk about revenue "neutral" ... elininate tax loopholes with corresponding reduction in ("official") tax rate so tax revenue stays the same ... is somewhat obfuscation and misdirection. unfortunately that doesn't take care of resetting back to 2002 (which was to have eliminated all federal debt) ... and/or the additional needed to dig out of the $17T hole.

also doesn't take into account congressional obstruction when there is actual tax evasion (as in the 53,000 wealthy americans & corporate allowing to continue with gov. contracts when they aren't paying their taxes). somewhat harkens back to the "Keating Five"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five
in the S&L Crisis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis
which also had executive branch family members involved
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis#Silverado_Savings_and_Loan

note that the VP claimed no involvement in the Contra afair
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_affair

because he was spending fulltime as the executive branch point person responsible for financial deregulation (primary enabler for the S&L mess).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 15:24:10 -0800
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#94 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#95 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#0 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#1 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#2 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#3 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#4 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#5 weird apple trivia

resetting to level playing field back to 2002 ... before they allowed fiscal responsibility act to expire
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fiscal.responsibility.act

and went crazy savaging the budget, cutting taxes *AND* increasing spending ... would mean something like $1T increase in current taxes and $1T cut in current spending.

However, since they also managed to dig a $17T hole
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States

... which is costing $415B/yr in interest
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States#Interest_Paid

... lots of that going to too big to fail that have been using ZIRP funds ...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

to clear will require something around another $20T in tax revenue ... $17T and something like $2-3T for interest ... if done over 10yr period would require raising tax revenue by another $2T/yr ... or a total increase in tax revenue of $3T/yr total (for the next ten years).

percent of total tax revenues ... shows corporate tax nearly constantly declining since (at least) the 40s
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3822

other past posts on declining corporate tax (including US has the 2nd lowest "effective" corporate tax in the developed world):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011i.html#20 Happy 100th Birthday, IBM!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011i.html#40 Happy 100th Birthday, IBM!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#20 Million Corporation march on Washington
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#72 Monopoly/ Cartons of Punch Cards
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012p.html#35 Search Google, 1960:s-style
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#80 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#82 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#86 What Makes a thread about the European debt crisis Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#91 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#13 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#25 'Big four' accountants 'use knowledge of Treasury to help rich avoid tax'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#82 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#84 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#19 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#73 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#97 ACA (Obamacare) website problems--article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#21 Quixotically on-topic post, still on topic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#32 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#57 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#94 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#100 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#95 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#3 HP splits, again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#28 HP splits, again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#86 Brand-name companies' secret Luxembourg tax deals revealed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#93 Brand-name companies' secret Luxembourg tax deals revealed

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Information Dominance Corps Self Synchronization

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Information Dominance Corps Self Synchronization
Date: 10 Nov 2014
Blog: Boyd
re:
https://www.facebook.com/IDCsync/photos/a.382442189405.157574.333729154405/10152881749394406/

I recently posted in "IBM Retirees" (a view from beneath the dancing elephant)
http://grandpaguysstories.com/2014/10/21/a-view-from-beneath-the-dancing-elephant/

then most recently in the resulting discussion, I posted in the thread:

I got a couple corporate OCAs and then started being told I would get no more promotions and/or corporate awards ... apparently having offended too many people, including ridiculing the FS effort and being blamed for online computer conferencing on the internal network in the late 70s and early 80s ... folklore is that when the executive committee was told of online computer conferencing (and the internal network), 5of6 wanted to fire me (possibly why they didn't was one of my hobbies was doing enhanced operating systems used by internal datacenters, including world-wide branch office, sales&marketing HONE system). From "truth is stranger than fiction", they paid me to leave July1992 (and never come back), my first day no longer at IBM, I get a letter saying I was promoted to STSM.

on change in IBM's corporate culture ... from "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World", Ferguson & Morris (about failure of FS):
and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr of free and vigorous debate was replaced with sycophancy and make no waves under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM lived in the shadow of defeat

... and:
But because of the heavy investment of face by the top management, FS took years to kill, although its wrongheadedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first time, during FS, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous," recalls a former top executive.

... snip ...

I use to sponsor col. boyd's briefings at IBM ... he put it slightly different way
"There are two career paths in front of you, and you have to choose which path you will follow. One path leads to promotions, titles, and positions of distinction.... The other path leads to doing things that are truly significant for the Air Force, but the rewards will quite often be a kick in the stomach because you may have to cross swords with the party line on occasion. You can't go down both paths, you have to choose. Do you want to be a man of distinction or do you want to do things that really influence the shape of the Air Force? To be or to do, that is the question." Colonel John R. Boyd, USAF 1927-1997

From the dedication of Boyd Hall, United States Air Force Weapons School, Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. 17 Sept 1999


posts mentioning Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 11:00:24 -0800
Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> writes:
The bail out of GM saved jobs (a lot of jobs) and actually made the government money. In the end GM emerged as a very strong company. In the process got rid of GM's corporate retirement liabilities.

past posts mentioning 100% unearned profit tax and auto C4 taskforce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#auto.c4.taskforce

foreign auto makers are taking increasing part of US auto market, congress slaps import quotas ... significantly reducing competition, allows rise in prices and enormous increase in profits (supposedly to be used to completely remake themselves). not long later an article calls for 100% unearned profit tax on the US auto makers because they are pocketing the money and continued business as usual.

roll forward to early 90s, the industry has C4 taskforce to look at completely remaking themselves ... and since they are planning on heavily leveraging computer technology they invite several vendors to participate (offline I kid the guys from POK large mainframe why do they expect to help since they have many of the same problems). However, entrenched interests preserve the status quo and little changes.

roll forward to current time and GM gets large bailout (from TARP funds) and unload its retirement obligations ... supposedly again promising to significantly remake themselves ... but lots of comments that little has changed.

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.
http://www.pbgc.gov/

past posts mentioning PBGC (US companies declaring bankruptcy primarily so they can unload retirement obligations on PBGC)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#65 As Expected, Ford Falls From 2nd Place in U.S. Sales
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#24 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#46 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day

TARP originally was supposedly $700B to buy toxic assets from too big to fail
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program

there was over $27T done during the bubble
Evil Wall Street Exports Boomed With 'Fools' Born to Buy Debt
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-10-27/evil-wall-street-exports-boomed-with-fools-born-to-buy-debt
and end of 2008, just the four largest too big to fail were still carrying $5.2T in toxic assets "off-book" (the $700B would hardly make a dent)
Bank's Hidden Junk Menaces $1 Trillion Purge
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=akv_p6LBNIdw&refer=home

Summer/fall of 2008, those toxic assets had been selling for 22cents on the dollar. The $700B could almost clear that $5.2T at 22cents on the dollar, but then the institutions would have to be declared bankrupt and be liquidated.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

other posts about corporate american and "retirement heist":
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#60 Retirement Heist
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#63 OT: NYT article--the rich get richer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#67 OT: NYT article--the rich get richer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#4 OT: NYT article--the rich get richer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#6 Voyager 1 just left the solar system using less computing powerthan your iP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#12 OT: NYT article--the rich get richer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#15 OT: NYT article--the rich get richer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#24 Voyager 1 just left the solar system using less computing powerthan your iP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#61 IBM now employs more workers in India than US
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#79 Nobody Should Shed a Tear for JP Morgan Chase
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#1 IBM board OK repurchase of another $15B of stock
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#11 50th anniversary S/360 coming up
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#20 Despite Eight Ongoing Criminal/Civil Investigations of JPMorgan, the Bank's a Law Enforcement Partner With the NYPD
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#96 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#16 IBM Shrinks - Analysts Hate It
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#64 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#45 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#48 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#91 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#25 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#28 HP splits, again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#36 IBM 'major announcement' points to deal on chip manufacturing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#51 A View From Beneath the Dancing Elephant
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#64 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 11:37:07 -0800
latest

'Lux Leaks' causes 'tax storm' of government, media response
http://www.icij.org/blog/2014/11/lux-leaks-causes-tax-storm-government-media-response

from above:
Reporting by ICIJ and its partners was based on a leak of 548 private tax rulings -- also known as "comfort letters" -- negotiated by accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers on behalf of more than 340 multinational corporations. The documents provided a road map into how corporations shave billions of dollars in taxes by routing profits through Luxembourg.

... snip ...

"tax evasion", "tax avoidance", "tax havens", "tax loopholes", etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#tax.evasion

past posts referencing icij.org
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#27 Secrecy for Sale: Inside the Global Offshore Money Maze
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#28 What Makes bank regulation and insurance Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#46 Secrecy for Sale: Inside the Global Offshore Money Maze
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#95 Secrecy for Sale: Inside the Global Offshore Money Maze
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#6 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#11 Secrecy for Sale: Inside the Global Offshore Money Maze
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#13 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#69 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#3 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#19 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#68 OT: NYT article--the rich get richer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#92 HSBC exposed in massive data leak in Belgium
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#97 ACA (Obamacare) website problems--article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#79 Kleptocrats hiding funds in US warned 'we will find you'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#91 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#95 How The Island Of Seychelles Became A Haven For Dirty Money
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#85 HP splits, again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#86 Brand-name companies' secret Luxembourg tax deals revealed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#93 Brand-name companies' secret Luxembourg tax deals revealed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#95 weird apple trivia

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 09:32:49 -0800
Morten Reistad <first@last.name> writes:
Another of these Americanisms I don't understand. Why aren't the pensions of the workers in the large corporate empires independent of the mother company, as almost every other nation on earth have them?

This way the companies get sucked under when they hit bad times. We see this again and again.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#8 weird apple triva

or even fully funded ... one of the reasons for the bankruptcy to unload the plans on the pbgc is they play with paying benefits out of current revenue ... which works great with rapidly growing company ... only relatively trivial number of retirees and quickly growing young workforce. the real financial obligations for the current workforce is decades away ... so in the mean time all those obligations can be skimmed off and pocketed (which would be much harder to hide if the retirement fund was independent agency). Decades later when it dawns on people that the money wasn't there (by not fully funding) ... the money is long gone (legal theft, and even if it wasn't the statute of limitations would have expired).

when some companies did start building up retirement programs that were really fully funded ... the amount became an exceedingly attractive target. In the 90s, the companies started lobbying congress that the funds could be treated as an asset on the corporate balance sheet ... to boost the companies financials and the top executives bonuses ... part of the "retirement heist" (as assets the funds also become subject to any bankruptcy, at least one of the IBM retiree organizatons sued on the matter).

the large retirement funds also became prime target for the toxic CDO scam last decade ... those retirement funds are restricted to "safe investments" ... for the toxic CDO scam to work, they needed triple-A ratings to loot the retirement funds (the toxic CDO operators eventually discovered that they could pay the rating agencies for triple-A ratings ... even when the rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A ... from testimony in the Oct2008 congressional hearings).

one of the justifications given for the federal reserve keeping the wallstreet financial infrastructure afloat behind the scenes ... is it doesn't expose how badly the toxic CDO scams had victimized retirement funds.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

The large state employee pension funds have more recently been targets of the private-equity industry ... some refs

Private Equity Consultants Flounder Over Question About Abusive Evergreen Fees at CalPERS Board Meeting
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/10/private-equity-consultants-flounder-question-abusive-evergreen-fees-calpers-board-meeting.html
Gretchen Morgenson on the Damage of Private Equity Secrecy (and a Mention of Our CalPERS Suit)
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/10/gretchen-morgenson-damage-private-equity-secrecy-mention-calpers-suit.html
CalPERS Rescinds $700 Million Investment With Private Equity Fund Headed By Doctor With No Private Equity Experience
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/08/calpers-rescinds-700-million-investment-private-equity-fund-headed-doctor-private-equity-experience.html
More on CalPERS' Sloppy Private Equity Records and Its Aggressive Stonewalling
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/06/calpers-demonstrates-commitment-operating-bad-faith-public-records-act-requests-keen-hide-bad-records.html
CalPERS' Private Equity Scandals and the Steptoe & Johnson Report Whitewash
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/03/calpers-private-equity-scandals-steptoe-johnson-report-whitewash.html

and having major shortfall

CalPERS Admits 52% Underfunding on State Employee Pensions
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-California/2014/04/18/CalPers-Admits-52-Underfunding-on-986-billion-Shortfall
Study: State pension shortfalls reach $4.1 trillion
http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/03/study-state-pension-shortfalls-reach-4-1-trillion/
U.S. Public Pension Shortfalls Exceed $1 Trillion
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-10/u-s-public-pension-shortfalls-exceed-1-trillion.html

these are the guys that got such a bad repuations with the S&L mess, that they changed the industry name to private equity and started calling their "junk bonds" "high-yeild bonds".
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 10:05:22 -0800
"Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> writes:
For some value of "still". As I read it you are saying they didn't go bankrupt, they got a loan for $50B and forged ahead. Why are the stocks and bonds people bought years ago without value? Is there a bond fairy? What?

I am sure there are people with physical bonds in which a company known as General Motors agreed to pay the holder a certain amount on a certain date. What happens when a person submits a bond and asks for the money? After they quit laughing, what do they do next? Call security?


the "new" GM has tried to claim that the bankruptcy absolved them of liabilities from "recalls" from the "old" GM. however in the case of the ignition switch recalls, there are statements that since they didn't disclose all such liabilities during the bankruptcy, the "new" GM is still responsible

GM tells court it not liable for claims over pre-bankruptcy cars
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/06/us-gm-recall-bankruptcy-idUSKBN0IQ01620141106
GM Could Face $2 Billion Tab If Bankruptcy Shield Falls
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-05/gm-could-face-2-billion-tab-if-bankruptcy-shield-falls.html
GM urges bankruptcy judge to toss out older-car suits
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/general-motors/2014/11/06/gm-lawsuit/18582353/

whether the gov. actually came out ahead on the deal is whether use very narrow blinders on the TARP money in ... and direct payments back ... with lots of fiddling of the books and not taking into account that the gov. will have to step in on all this other stuff.

also use of TARP funds originally was suppose to be for purchase of toxic assets from too big to fail ... when they found that $700B couldn't come close to handle the problem ... they turned it into some "token" investments into too big to fail (with lots left over that they could use elsewhere).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

they then try and cook the books so it appears the "investments" are mostly paid off. In GM case, profit based on assuming that it had shed an enormous amount of liabilities. In the too big to fail case, Federal Reserve providing ZIRP trillions which are then used to purchase big part of the $17T in gov. debt ... the interest not only pays off the TARP loans but also pays enormous executive bonuses (and federal reserve also buying trillions in too big to fail toxic assets at 98cents on the dollar that had been going for 22cents).

Note I've periodically suggested that instead of providing ZIRP trillions to the too big to fail (so they can turn around at buy treasuries), that the federal reserve uses the ZIRP trillions to direclty underwrite the federal debt (and eliminate the enormous amount that wallstreet skims on the transactions).

I've mentioned before in Jan2009 being asked to HTML'ize the Pecora hearings with lots of enhancements (assuming the new congress would have appetite to do something) and then being told that it wouldn't be needed after all (capital hill being totally buried under piles of wallstreet money). However, it is also in wallstreet's interest to have enormous federal debt and keeping the ZIRP game running.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 11:30:58 -0800
"290jkl" <290jkl@nospam.com> writes:
It's much more complicated than that in reality.

Accountants and lawyers do create wealth when they come up with schemes that avoid the corp paying the tax that the legislature has decided they should be paying.

And people like Keynes created wealth when he worked out what modern economies should to in great depressions too. And was MUCH more effective at wealth creation when he did that than any other engineer or scientist ever was.


it depends on whos wealth ... one of the recent repeated themes is equality creating wealth and inequality just huge trickle up. past posts mentioning inequality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#inequality

BusinessWeek Wants YOU To Become A Keynesian Debt Slave
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-30/businessweek-wants-you-become-keynesian-debt-slave
We Are Living In A State Of Keynesian "Bliss"
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-21/we-are-living-state-keynesian-bliss
Guest Post: Why Keynesian Political Economy Is Theft
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-02/guest-post-why-keynesian-political-economy-theft
All The Presidents' Bankers: The World Bank And The IMF
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-12/all-presidents-bankers-world-bank-and-imf
Hayek On Keynes: "Economics Was A Sideline For Him"
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-17/hayek-keynes-economics-was-sideline-him
Guest Post: Why Keynesian Political Economy Is Theft
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-02/guest-post-why-keynesian-political-economy-theft

one of the scenarios is large corporate contributions to lobbying organizations for not/never rasing minimum wage and conditions favorable to large increase in illegal workers.

in the 90s there was request to GAO to report on what illegal workers being paid below subsistance wages costs the gov. (various social services) ... and it avgs. out to approx. $10K/annum (basically a $10K/annum/worker gov. subsidy to those corporations). what i found even more interesting ... I could find no evidence that the report has ever been updated. old reference:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011l.html#70 Zakaria: Only China can save Europe

the other indication i found was First Financial acquired western union (at time when it had very poor earnings), then in 90s, First Financial merges with First Data (first data has to divest moneygram as part of the merger). The explosion the first half of last decade in all the illegal workers sending paychecks home results in western union accounting for half of First Data bottom line and in the middle of last decade, western union is spun off in IPO. some refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002p.html#33 Western Union data communications?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#21 Inventor of e-mail honored by Smithsonian
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#34 History--punched card transmission over telegraph lines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#24 Does the IBM System z Mainframe rely on Security by Obscurity or is it Secure by Design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#77 IBM going ahead with more U.S. job cuts today
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#2 IBM Relevancy in the IT World
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#28 Flag bloat
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#29 The agency problem and how to create a criminogenic environment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#31 China mulls probe into IBM, Oracle, EMC after NSA hack claims - report
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#60 Retirement Heist
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#74 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#55 LA Times commentary: roll out "smart" credit cards to deter fraud

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 14:57:35 -0800
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
Banks used to (and do again) require a 20% down payment, which is a lot of money to walk away from. The problems started with the low- or no-down payment loans, so people had little to lose walking away from an underwater loan.

problems started with being able to pay for triple-A ratings on toxic CDOs.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

bank underwriters & examiners wouldn't have allowed no-down loans to be carried on the books. In order to have no-down (/liar) loans ... there had to be a way of unloading them ... and the market was nearly non-existent w/o the triple-A rating. Being able to pay for triple-A ratings ... allowed anybody to have access to the funds necessary to do loan origination ... and the loan origination morphed from profit on the loan payments (loans made with regulated depository funds) to profit they made unloading the triple-A rated toxic CDOs on unsuspecting buyers.

It wasn't just no-down/liar loans ... as I've periodically repeated it also enables no-documentation loans ... since triple-A rating trumps supporting documentation. Profit for loan originators then was purely how many loans could be turned over how quickly ... down payments, credit checks, documentation, etc ... would just slow the process (& profit) down

The loan originators no longer had any skin in whether the loan eventually fails. In fact some of the too big to fail wallstreet entities were encouraging loans that would fail ... they could put together toxic CDOs designed to fail, pay for triple-A ratings, sell them to their unsuspecting customers, and then take out CDS gambling bets that they would fail (making profit on both the sale of the toxic CDO and on the CDS gambling bet).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

A big part of the AIG thing with gov. "TARP" loan was all about the CDS gambling bets. Story at the time was AIG was negotiating to pay off the CDS gambling bets at 50-60 cents on the dollar ... when the SECTREAS (and former head of one of the biggest toxic CDO sellers & CDS gamblers) steps in and says that is illegal, forces AIG to take TARP loan to pay off at 100cents on the dollar (biggest beneficiary is company that he formally headed), and also requires AIG to sign a document prohibiting them from suing the CDS gamblers.

Then from the law of unintended consequences ... the lack of documents results in the too big to fail having to set up document fabrication mills turning out the fraudulent (missing) documents required for foreclosures. recent refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#44 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#28 Royal Pardon for credit unions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#70 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#46 Wells Fargo made up on-demand foreclosure papers plan: court filing charges
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#47 Stolen F-35 Secrets Now Showing Up in China's Stealth Fighter
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#70 Obama Administration Launches Plan To Make An "Internet ID" A Reality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#54 Has the last fighter pilot been born?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#111 Maine Supreme Court Hands Major Defeat to MERS Mortgage Registry
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#14 Instead of focusing on big fines, law enforcement should seek long prison terms for the responsible executives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#0 only sometimes From looms to computers to looms
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#3 only sometimes From looms to computers to looms
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#89 Forbes perspective on IBM's troubles

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 15:30:26 -0800
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
A big part of the AIG thing with gov. "TARP" loan was all about the CDS gambling bets. Story at the time was AIG was negotiating to pay off the CDS gambling bets at 50-60 cents on the dollar ... when the SECTREAS (and former head of one of the biggest toxic CDO sellers & CDS gamblers) steps in and says that is illegal, forces AIG to take TARP loan to pay off at 100cents on the dollar (biggest beneficiary is company that he formally headed), and also requires AIG to sign a document prohibiting them from suing the CDS gamblers.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#13 weird apple trivia

however, they are having a day in court anyway ... latest leaking out:

AIG Bailout Trial Revelation: Morgan Stanley Told Geithner it Would File for Bankruptcy the Weekend it Became a Bank
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/aig-bailout-trial-revelation-morgan-stanley-told-geithner-file-bankruptcy-weekend-became-bank.html

from above:
One of the hopes was that this trial would unearth new information about how the crisis was handled by the officialdom. Just as in wars, the history has been written by the victors. Here conventional wisdom was set in place by what amounted to an authorized narrative, Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big to Fail.

... and
But it was a given that the Fed was going to provide liquidity, so the "guarantee they'd refused to give to Lehman was already in place. There was nothing to lose in entertaining these offers ... unless the real objective was not simply to salvage AIG at minimal cost to the public but to use it to launder rescue money to banks. More on that in future posts.

... snip ...

posts mentioning too big to fail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 16:07:26 -0800
past posts mentioning inequality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#inequality

there were articles starting in the 80s about MBA destroying american business ... they were being taught how to protect monopolist positions ... as opposed to innovation (aided by accountants and lawyers) ... some recent refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#16 Command Culture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#86 Can America Win Wars?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#47 Stolen F-35 Secrets Now Showing Up in China's Stealth Fighter
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#89 Difference between MVS and z / OS systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#61 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#100 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#51 Is coding the new literacy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#4 only sometimes From looms to computers to looms
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#30 HP splits, again

and then there is another MBA (Mortgage bankers association) ... recent reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#64 Wells Fargo made up on-demand foreclosure papers plan: court filing charges

this also was corporations with large people-intensive operations starting to shift profit from the people-intensive to independent business operations. in the 90s, airline holding companies were making profits even when the airline carrier was loosing money (because the profit had been shifted to the computerized reservation & ticketing unit). Auto industry was also shifting profit from the making of cars to the (computerized) loan operations (the building of cars could break even or even loose money, but the parent company could turn an overall profit from the auto loans). basically a strategy of walling off expenses and liabilities from the profit (frequently computer intensive requiring small staffs). The strategy also makes it easier for the more resource intensive part to declare bankruptcy and futher shed expenses and liabilities. The miracle of GE during the 90s has the financial unit growing to half the bottom line ... even though it only had one percent of the people. recent posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#84 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#37 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#70 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#41 Neon vs. incandescent indicator lights; The Lonely Computer; electron excitement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#69 LA Times commentary: roll out "smart" credit cards to deter fraud

note during the start of this century some of the auto financial units also started playing heavily in the securitized mortgages and the triple-A toxic CDO mess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ally_Financial toxic CDOs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 18:03:54 -0800
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
note during the start of this century some of the auto financial units also started playing heavily in the securitized mortgages and the triple-A toxic CDO mess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ally_Financial


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#13 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#14 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#15 weird apple trivia

because of involvement in the mortgage mess, the financial unit doesn't walk away completely free ... from the wiki entry
Legal action over robo-signing

On October 6, 2010 Attorney General of Ohio Richard Cordray filed suit against Ally Financial Inc seeking $25,000 in penalties for each instance of fraud, in addition to undisclosed amount of consumer restitution. The action could potentially mean hundreds or thousands of individual penalties for each instance of robo-signing that occurred in the state of Ohio.[21]


... snip ...

"robo-signing" document mills

2010 United States foreclosure crisis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_foreclosure_crisis

note that there have been complaints about the large part of settlement fund has gone to cronies of too big to fail as overhead and administration and other scams (with sometimes as little as couple hundred trickling down to the victims that were out hundreds of thousands).

Banks find way to benefit from robo-signing scandal
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/realestate/banks-find-way-to-benefit-from-robo-signing-scandal/1276068

re:

https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#41 More Whistleblower Leaks on Foreclosure Settlement Show Both Suppression of Evidence and Gross Incompetence

More Whistleblower Leaks on Foreclosure Settlement Show Both Suppression of Evidence and Gross Incompetence
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/01/more-whistleblower-leaks-on-foreclosure-settlement-show-both-suppression-of-evidence-and-gross-incompetence.html

from above:
No wonder the Fed and the OCC snubbed a request by Darryl Issa and Elijah Cummings to review the foreclosure fraud settlement before it was finalized early last week. What had leaked out while the Potemkin borrower reviews were underway showed them to be a sham, as we detailed at length in an earlier post. But even so, what actually took place was even worse than hardened cynics had imagined.

... snip ...

refs:

Cummings criticizes mortgage servicer settlement
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/real-estate/wonk/bs-re-cummings-criticizes-mortgage-servicer-settlement-20130109,0,7969992.story
Pending Foreclosure Fraud Settlement Achieves New Level of Abject Regulatory Failure
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/01/pending-foreclosure-fraud-settlement-achieves-new-level-of-abject-regulatory-failure.html
Foreclosure Review Insiders Portray Massive Failure, Doomed From The Start
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/14/foreclosure-review-failure-start_n_2468988.html

more recent:

New Ruling on Mortgage Putbacks a Potential Huge Win for Banks
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/01/new-ruling-on-mortgage-putbacks-a-potential-huge-win-for-banks.html

from above:
Investors in mortgage-backed securities were not quite as dumb as the crisis aftermath had made them look. The sponsors of the securitizations made promises in the offering documents (called representations and warranties) about the quality of the loans. It turns out they lied.

... snip ...

and other items

Pending Foreclosure Fraud Settlement Achieves New Level of Abject Regulatory Failure
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/01/pending-foreclosure-fraud-settlement-achieves-new-level-of-abject-regulatory-failure.html Too Big To Jail; Why did the Obama administration agree to a "robo-signing" settlement that barely punishes the huge banks behind the foreclosure crisis?
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/project_syndicate/2012/02/the_robo_signing_settlement_won_t_help_homeowners_and_it_doesn_t_hurt_the_banks_.html
The Administration Likes Foxes in Charge of Henhouses -- Proof that OCC Foreclosure Reviews Are a Sham
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/12/michael-olenick-the-administration-likes-foxes-in-charge-of-henhouses-%E2%80%93-proof-that-occ-foreclosure-reviews-are-a-sham.html

toxic CDOs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo
posts mentioning too big to fail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
whistleblower posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#whistleblower

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

How Much Does It Cost To Keep JPMorgan FX-Riggers Out Of Jail?

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 12 Nov 2014
Subject: How Much Does It Cost To Keep JPMorgan FX-Riggers Out Of Jail?
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#92 How Much Does It Cost To Keep JPMorgan FX-Riggers Out Of Jail?

JP Morgan Chase cost US taxpayers millions, had them pay for settlement - Matt Taibbi
http://rt.com/usa/204603-matt-taibbi-us-taxpayers/

from above:
Speaking with Thom Hartmann on RT's 'The Big Picture', Taibbi said that Fleischmann, a deal manager at the company, criticized JP Morgan's banking practices when she realized that the normal procedures on due diligence and compliance on loans were not being handled in the usual way. These loans were to be packed into securities and re-sold to investors (pension funds, hedge funds, insurance companies), but the due diligence department wasn't forthcoming with information, and deal managers were told not to send emails with their inquiries.

As a result of JP Morgan's decision to sell these loans despite knowing they were defective, Taibbi said Americans suffered dramatically.


.... snip ...

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 23:36:54 -0800
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
the large retirement funds also became prime target for the toxic CDO scam last decade ... those retirement funds are restricted to "safe investments" ... for the toxic CDO scam to work, they needed triple-A ratings to loot the retirement funds (the toxic CDO operators eventually discovered that they could pay the rating agencies for triple-A ratings ... even when the rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A ... from testimony in the Oct2008 congressional hearings).

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#2 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#8 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#10 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#12 weird apple trivia

recent thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#92 How Much Does It Cost To Keep JPMorgan FX-Riggers Out Of Jail?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#17 How Much Does It Cost To Keep JPMorgan FX-Riggers Out Of Jail?

millions would be a gross understatement ...

JP Morgan Chase cost US taxpayers millions, had them pay for settlement - Matt Taibbi
http://rt.com/usa/204603-matt-taibbi-us-taxpayers/

from above:
"Everyone who bought them experienced massive losses," he said. "What a lot of people don't understand in the financial crisis is that if you have a pension, or you were involved in a mutual fund or your state's retirement fund was invested in mortgage backed securities, you probably woke up at some point in late 2008 and noticed that 30 to 40 percent of that fund had disappeared. In large part, this was because banks like Chase and other companies were selling these defective products to investors, and they were experiencing massive defaults and massive losses."

... snip ...

toxic CDOs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo too big to fail, too big to prosecute, too big to jail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
whistleblower
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#whistleblower

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Microsoft Open Sources .NET, Saying It Will Run on Linux and Mac

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 12 Nov 2014
Subject: Microsoft Open Sources .NET, Saying It Will Run on Linux and Mac
Blog: Facebook
Microsoft Open Sources .NET, Saying It Will Run on Linux and Mac
http://www.wired.com/2014/11/microsoft-open-sources-net-says-will-run-linux-mac/

If anything, "EAGLE" from FS, and continued to survive afterwards ... it was to be the follow-on DBMS. SYSTEM/R was done by san jose research on vm370 370/145. The "folklore" was that was able to do the technology transfer to endicott and release as SQL/DS "under the radar" because the corporation was pre-occupied with "EAGLE". When EAGLE imploded, there was a request about how fast could SYSTEM/R be ported to MVS ... eventually released as DB2 ... originally for decision support only. REF and past posts mentioning SYSTEM/R
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

FS was horribly complex and horribly slow ... whole sections being little more than blather. Performance simulation done near the end had 370/195 applications run on the fastest possible FS machine would have throughput of 370/145 (factor of 10-30 times slowdown). I use to ridicule whole sections of FS ... which possibly wasn't the most career enhancing activity. FS internal politics was killing off 370 projects ... which is credited with giving clone processors a market foothold. When FS imploded there then was a mad rush to get 370 products back into the pipeline. Folklore is some of the FS people then retreated to Rochester and did a vastly simplified implementation for the non-performance critical, low-end market as the S/38. AS/400 was later done as merged S/36 & S/38 product ... dropping/simplifying S/38 features. REFs and past posts mentioning Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

I've periodically commented that John at least partially did RISC as counter to the horrible complex FS ... although part of it was counter to the performance penalty paid for 370 multiprocessor cache consistency (because of the rigid/strong 370 memory consistency model). REFs and past posts mentioning 801/risc, Iliad, ROMP, RIOS, Power, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

Charlie invented compare-and-swap (name chosen because CAS are charlie's initials) when he was working on cp67 (precursor to vm370) multiprocessor fine grain locking at the cambridge science center.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

Initially it was rejected for inclusion in 370 (becuase POK favorite son operating system people said it wasn't needed). Finally was able to justify for including in 370 with application serialization examples (which still are included in POP). Theoretically TS, CS, CDS were the only instructions that needed strict cache consistency ... however high-end 370 appeared to be enforced for other operations (possibly because of software issues with the POK favorite son operating system). REFS and pasts posts mentioning compare&swap and/or multiprocessor operation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

How To Make Transparency Part Of Organizational Culture

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 13 Nov 2014
Subject: How To Make Transparency Part Of Organizational Culture
Blog: Facebook
How To Make Transparency Part Of Organizational Culture
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffboss/2014/11/13/how-to-make-transparency-part-of-organizational-culture/

We were brought in as consultants for a small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server, they had also invented this technology they called "SSL", the result is now frequently called "electronic commerce". In the mid-90s we were asked to participate in the x9a10 financial working group (in part for having done e-commerce), which had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for *ALL* retail payments. We were then asked into NSCC (before they merged with DTC to form DTCC) to work on improving integrity of trading transactions. We worked on it for awhile and then got a call saying that it was being suspended, a side-effect of the integrity work would have greatly improved transparency and visibility (anti-thetical to wallstreet culture). In the congressional Madoff hearings they had the person testify that tried unsuccessfully for a decade to get the SEC to do something about Madoff. They asked him if new regulations were needed. He replied that while new regulations might be needed, but much more important was transparency and visibility (SEC wasn't enforcing the regulations they had).

posts mentioning madoff
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#madoff
regulatory capture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#regulatory.capture

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Senate Democrats vs. the Middle Class; Senators elected in 2008 made Obama's agenda possible, and its results have harmed most Americans

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 14 Nov 2014
Subject: Senate Democrats vs. the Middle Class; Senators elected in 2008 made Obama's agenda possible, and its results have harmed most Americans
Blog: Facebook
Senate Democrats vs. the Middle Class; Senators elected in 2008 made Obama's agenda possible, and its results have harmed most Americans
http://online.wsj.com/articles/phil-gramm-and-michael-solon-senate-democrats-vs-the-middle-class-1408317044

from above:
Mr. Gramm, a former Republican senator from Texas, is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Solon is a former adviser to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.

... snip ...

for little truth in advertising, Gramm (with help from his wife) is #2 on times list responsible for financial mess
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877330,00.html

GLBA act that repeals Glass-Steagall (enabling too big to fail, too big to prosecute, and too big to jail) ... but also a number of other things ... including provision in commodities futures modernization act preventing CDSs from being regulated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/business/17grammside.html

from above:
Enron was a major contributor to Mr. Gramm's political campaigns, and Mr. Gramm's wife, Wendy, served on the Enron board, which she joined after stepping down as chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

... snip ...

https://web.archive.org/web/20080711114839/http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-01-15/news/phil-gramm-s-enron-favor/

from above:
A few days after she got the ball rolling on the exemption, Wendy Gramm resigned from the commission. Enron soon appointed her to its board of directors, where she served on the audit committee, which oversees the inner financial workings of the corporation. For this, the company paid her between $915,000 and $1.85 million in stocks and dividends, as much as $50,000 in annual salary, and $176,000 in attendance fees,

... snip ...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&refer=home&sid=aYJZOB_gZi0I

from above:
That same year Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt opposed an attempt by Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to study regulating over-the-counter derivatives. In 2000, Congress passed a law keeping them unregulated.

... snip ...

Brooksley was fairly quickly replaced by Wendy Gramm as head of Commodity Futures Trading Commission (pending provision by her husband preventing regulating CDS) before Wendy then resigned to join Enron's board. Preventing regulation of CDS was originally favor for ENRON, but then later plays major role in the financial mess (and AIG).

5 things to know about income inequality
http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/14/news/economy/income-inequality/
Corporate Profit Margins vs. Wages in One Disturbing Chart
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/corporate-profit-margins-vs-wages-in-one-disturbing-chart.html
graph
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/09/04/opinion/04reich-graphic.html
from this article
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/opinion/sunday/jobs-will-follow-a-strengthening-of-the-middle-class.html

Jan2009 I was asked to HTML'ize the Pecora Hearings (30s senate hearings into '29 crash that resulted in lots of criminal convictions, Glass-Steagall act, etc; scanned fall2008 at Boston Public Library) with extensive internal x-refs and lots of URLs linking what happened this time and what happened then (comments about expectation that the new congress would have appetite to do something). I worked on it for awhile and then got call saying it wouldn't be needed after all (comments that enormous piles of wallstreet money was totally burying capital hill)

note that the financial mess was 70 times larger than the S&L crisis which had 30,000 criminal referrals and 1,000 criminal convictions ... the financial mess has had *ZERO* criminal referrals and *ZERO* criminal convictions.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/03/30000-criminal-referrals-led-1000-felony-convictions-major-fraud-cases-sl-crisis-even-single-prosecution-today-even-though-2008-crisis-70-times-bigger.html

securitized mortgages had been used during the S&L crisis to obfuscate fraudulent mortgages. In the late 90s, we were asked to look at improving the integrity of supporting documents as a countermeasure. however, the industry learned that they could pay the rating agencies for triple-A ratings (when both the sellers and the rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A; from the Oct2008 congressional hearing testimony). the triple-A ratings opens market to those that are restricted to only dealing in "safe" investments (like large retirement & pension funds) *and* triple-A rating trumps documentation ... opening the way for no-down, no-documentation, "liar" loans (w/o no documentation, there is no longer documentation integrity issues). From the law of unintended consequences ... the lack of documentation then leads to the "robo-signing" scandal where too big to fail setup operations to fabricate the documents required for foreclosures. Recent ref large pension funds took 30-40% hit from the scam
http://rt.com/usa/204603-matt-taibbi-us-taxpayers/

In the wake of ENRON, congress passes Sarbanes-Oxley claiming that it would prevent future ENRONs and guarantee executives and auditors responsible for fraudulent public company financial filings would do jail time (maybe even board members on audit committee as in above ENRON reference) ... however the jokes at the time was SOX was just full employment for the audit industry ... because it required SEC to do something. Possibly because GAO didn't believe SEC was doing anything it started doing reports of public company fraudulent financial filings even showing increases in fraudulent filings after SOX passes. Trivia: SOX even called for SEC to do something about the rating agency industry

Pecora &/or Glass-Steagall posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall
ENRON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#enron
SOX posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#sarbanes-oxley
inequality posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#inequality too big to fail posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail toxic CDO posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo
fraudulent financial filing posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#financial.reporting.fraud.fraud

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Whole Earth

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Whole Earth
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 13:32:44 -0800
Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> writes:
Yes, that came in 1985. Stewart Brand was also connected with the Merry Pranksters, but it seemed more peripheral than some. So that connected him with the communes, including The Hog Farm. Larry Brilliant was connected with them, he was a doctor, and got involved in networking as a result of the campaign to eradicate smallpox (I think it was). So I think The Well was kind of like a test run for the networking sofware, though I'm not sure if anyone else ever used it. Since it wsa the counterculture grown up that was reading the Whole Earth Review at the time, that gave The Well a very counterculture slant.

also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hackers_Conference

originally i was the only IBMer ... and have managed to make most of them over the years ... although recently was the 30th which i missed, still in process of a x-country move.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 13:55:17 -0800
jgk@panix.com (Joe keane) writes:
They lost money, and it wasn't TARP anyway.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#8 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#11 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#13 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#14 weird apple trivia

originally

TARP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program

from above:
TARP allowed the United States Department of the Treasury to purchase or insure up to $700 billion of "troubled assets," defined as "(A) residential or commercial mortgages and any securities, obligations, or other instruments that are based on or related to such mortgages, that in each case was originated or issued on or before March 14, 2008 ..."

... snip ...

but as I've periodically commented that may have always been pure fabrication since $700B was way too little to have dealt with that problem ... over $27T having been done during the financial mess and just the four largest too big to fail still carrying $5.2T "offbook" at the end of 2008.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

Timeline of changes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program#Timeline_of_changes_to_the_initial_program

Participants (GM twice, once for its auto, once for its financial)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program#Participants

from 30Apr2014

U.S. Lost $11.2 Billion in GM Bailout, TARP Report Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-30/u-s-lost-11-2-billion-on-gm-bailout-latest-tarp-report-says.html

this has profit on Citigroup and BofA TARP deal offsetting the losses. However, even this could be considered contrived since the too big to fail were getting ZIRP funds from Federal Reserve and using them to make money off US Treasuries which they used to show profit and pay huge bonuses. If Federal Reserve used the ZIRP funds instead to directly fund the federal debt, the too big to fail would have failed ... and the federal debt wouldn't be "costing" the country a dime.

Government Turns Bailout Profit Despite GM Loss
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/11/21/government-turns-bailout-profit-despite-gm-loss/

other recent posts mentioning TARP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#42 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#54 Pensions, was Re: Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#55 Pensions, was Re: Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#61 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#98 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#2 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#7 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#8 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#29 Royal Pardon for credit unions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#34 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#0 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#2 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#9 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#60 GAO and Wall Street Journal Whitewash Huge Criminal Bank Frauds
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#21 Thomas Piketty Is Right About the Past and Wrong About the Future
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#78 Did these tech and telecom companies assess the risk and return with respect to Anti-Money Laundering challenges?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#94 Why Financialization Has Run Amok
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#37 Married Couples and the Financial Mess
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#111 Maine Supreme Court Hands Major Defeat to MERS Mortgage Registry
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#14 Instead of focusing on big fines, law enforcement should seek long prison terms for the responsible executives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#15 Instead of focusing on big fines, law enforcement should seek long prison terms for the responsible executives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#3 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#0 only sometimes From looms to computers to looms
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#33 Power grid groans, blackouts roll through L.A. area as heat wave nears peak
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#46 LA Times commentary: roll out "smart" credit cards to deter fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#66 LA Times commentary: roll out "smart" credit cards to deter fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#26 LA Times commentary: roll out "smart" credit cards to deter fraud

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 19:05:21 -0800
Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:
With the losses GM was racking up, it's difficult to understand why any fund would be holding GM.

I remember watching the old Lou Rukeyser Wall St. Journal Report where one of the guests was touting Enron. I took one look at their financials and knew I wasn't buying and neither was the guest that recommended the stock.


note auto industry had been effectively living off gov. since the import quotas and the call for 100% unearned profit tax ... when they were suppose to use the unearned profits to completely remake themselves into competitive operations ... and they just pocketed the money instead (too bad they can't call for 35yrs of claw-backs).

they still weren't able to remake themselves with the c4 taskforce ... even tho they could clearly articulate all the issues and the steps needed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#auto.c4.taskforce

recent post detailing TARP lost on GM (auto and financial) bacilout
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#23 weird apple trivia

misc. old news items ... including delphi (earlier spun off from gm) declared bankruptcy and dumped its retirees on PBGC.

for other topic drift, recent post mentioning ENRON and #2 person on time's list of those responsible for the financial mess
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#21 Senate Democrats vs. the Middle Class; Senators elected in 2008 made Obama's agenda possible, and its results have harmed most Americans
other posts mentioning ENRON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#enron

2012 GM bankruptcy lawsuit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors#2012_lawsuit

from above:
In 2012, a trust representing unsecured creditors of "old" GM filed a lawsuit against GM over payments made to hedge funds in 2009 in exchange for waiving of claims against GM's Canadian subsidiary. The deal, of which presiding judge Robert Gerber says he was unaware -- despite its disclosure in an SEC filing on the day GM sought Chapter 11 protection -- could prompt a reopening of the 2009 case.

... snip ...

a similar argument is now being made that the ignition liability wasn't disclosed in the bankruptcy ... even tho it may have been known as far back as 2002.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_General_Motors_recall

other misc. GM bailout items

Watchdog questions pension grants in GM bailout
http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/15/news/economy/gm-bailout-pension/
GM Unloads $26 Billion in White-Collar Pensions; Could Union Workers Be Next?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2012/06/01/gm-unloads-26-billion-in-white-collar-pensions-could-union-workers-be-next/
General Motors Chapter 11 reorganization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Chapter_11_reorganization
Auto Bailout or UAW Bailout? Taxpayer Losses Came from Subsidizing Union Compensation
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/06/auto-bailout-or-uaw-bailout-taxpayer-losses-came-from-subsidizing-union-compensation
GM rightly favored Delphi UAW pensions over salaried, Rattner says
http://www.autonews.com/article/20130911/OEM02/130919963/gm-rightly-favored-delphi-uaw-pensions-over-salaried-rattner-says
The Administration's Auto Bailouts and the Delphi Pension Decisions: Who Picked the Winners and Losers?
http://mercatus.org/publication/administrations-auto-bailouts-and-delphi-pension-decisions-who-picked-winners-and-losers
U.S. Urged Bailout Funds to Delphi Pensions: Watchdog
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-15/treasury-urged-bailout-funds-to-delphi-pensions-watchdog-says.html
General Motors bailout details
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/06/general_motors_bailout_over_vi.html

past posts mentioning PGBC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#61 Health Care
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#91 IBM Unionization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#65 As Expected, Ford Falls From 2nd Place in U.S. Sales
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#24 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#46 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#77 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#94 Bankruptcy a reprieve for some companies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#4 copyright protection/Doug Englebart
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#8 weird apple trivia

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Microsoft Open Sources .NET, Saying It Will Run on Linux and Mac

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 15 Nov 2014
Subject: Microsoft Open Sources .NET, Saying It Will Run on Linux and Mac
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#19 Microsoft Open Sources .NET, Saying It Will Run on Linux and Mac

This has mention that major motivation for FS was countermeasure to clone controllers (however because of few new 370 products during the FS period, it allowed the rise of clone processors)
https://www.ecole.org/en/session/49-the-rise-and-fall-of-ibm

from above:
IBM tried to react by launching a major project called the 'Future System' (FS) in the early 1970's. The idea was to get so far ahead that the competition would never be able to keep up, and to have such a high level of integration that it would be impossible for competitors to follow a compatible niche strategy. However, the project failed because the objectives were too ambitious for the available technology. Many of the ideas that were developed were nevertheless adapted for later generations. Once IBM had acknowledged this failure, it launched its 'box strategy', which called for competitiveness with all the different types of compatible sub-systems. But this proved to be difficult because of IBM's cost structure and its R&D spending, and the strategy only resulted in a partial narrowing of the price gap between IBM and its rivals.

... snip ...

as an aside, as undergraduate in the 60s, I extended the cp67 2741/1052 terminal support to include ascii/tty ... but in doing so tried to make the 2702 do something it couldn't quite do. Somewhat as a result the univ started a clone controller project using interdata/3, reverse engineering 360 channel interface and building channel board for the interdate/3 programmed to emulate 2702 ... and do the things that 2702 wouldn't do. This gets written up blaming four of us for (some part of) the clone controller business. This later morphs into a interdata/4 for the channel interface and clusters of interdata/3s dedicated to line-scanner. Interdata markets the implementation to customers. Later Perkin-Elmer acquires Interdata and it is marketed under the Perkin-Elmer logo.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#360pcm

Some claims that baroque VTAM/NCP SNA interface was inspired/motivated by FS strategy.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

During early SNA period, my wife was co-author of AWP39, peer-to-peer networking architecture (they had to use "peer-to-peer" qualifier because SNA had co-opted "networking" to apply to their communication architecture).

late 80s, a senior disk engineer gets a talk scheduled at the internal, world-wide, annual communication group conference, supposedly on 3174 performance ... however he opens the talk with the statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division. The issue was that the communication group had stranglehold on datacenters with corporate strategic responsibility for everything that crossed the datacenter walls ... and was fighting off client/server and distributed computing trying to preserve its dumb terminal (emulation) install base. The disk division was starting to see data fleeing the datacenter to more distributed computing friendly platforms with drop in disk sales. The disk division had come up with a number of solutions to correct the problem, but they were constantly being vetoed by the communication group.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal

This is major factor in the corporation going into the red a few short years later (and on the brink of being broken up into the 13 "baby blues").

When FS imploded, there was mad rush to get products back into the 370 pipeline. Part of that head of POK managed to convince corporate to kill the VM370 product, shutdown the burlington mall development group and move all the people to POK (or otherwise MVS/XA wouldn't ship on time some 6-8yrs later). They weren't going to tell the group of the move until the very last minute to minimize the numbers that might escape ... however the information leaked and some number escaped to DEC (this was about the time VMS was starting and there is a joke that head of POK was one of the largest contributors to VAX/VMS). There was then witch hunt for the person that leaked the information ... fortunately nobody gave me up.

Endicott managed to save the vm370 product mission ... but had to reconstitute a development group from scratch ... there are some comments in the vmshare archives about code quality during this period:
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare
sometimes(?) "404" ... but also at wayback machine
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/

System/R had done enhancements to VM370 to make it run better/faster. In the tech transfer to Endicott for SQL/DS it was eventually decided to drop anything that required VM370 changes because of dependency on the embryonic VM370 development group.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

Part of killing off VM370 product and group move to POK was to do an XA virtual machine for MVS/XA development that was never intended to be released as product (VMTOOL). Later when customers were slow in migrating from MVS to MVS/XA as migration aid *ONLY* (Its performance and function was much worse than VM370 of the period). Then somebody in Rochester datacenter did the modifications to VM370 to support full 370/XA, however by that time the VMTOOL group was working on funding to try and bring VMTOOL at least part-way to the level for VM370 (as replacement for VM370) and internal politics managed to eradicate all references to the 370.XA upgrade to VM370. Old email references (along with several others) in this archived a.f.c. post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#87 A History of VM Performance

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Whole Earth

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Whole Earth
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 14:52:56 -0800
"Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> writes:
There were projects in the late 1970's to study military use of core memories. Semiconductors were thought vulnerable to nuclear blasts due to x-ray radiation. The information flow dried up and I never heard the results of the studies.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#22 Whole Earth

I had designed a security chip in the late 90s ... I made semi-facetious statements in presentations about taking a $500 milspec part, making it more secure and aggressively cost reducing by 2-3 orders of magnitude.
https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/conference-paper/1998/10/08/proceedings-of-the-21st-nissc-1998

the top technical director in the information assurance directorate was doing panel on assurance at IDF in the trusted computing track and asked me to participate. I've mentioned before that the guy doing TPM was in the front row and I needled him that it was nice to see the TPM starting to look more & more like my chip ... he quipped back that I didn't have a committee of 200 people helping me with chip design. ref. gone 404, but lives on at the wayback machine.
https://web.archive.org/web/20011109072807/http://www.intel94.com/idf/spr2001/sessiondescription.asp?id=stp%2bs13

I then made the statement to the guy running the session that it was at least as secure as anything his agency was producing ... he quipped back possibly except for the issue of radiation hardening.

recent references
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#41 Special characters for Passwords
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#24 UEFI?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#42 LA Times commentary: roll out "smart" credit cards to deter fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#55 LA Times commentary: roll out "smart" credit cards to deter fraud

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 09:12:22 -0800
"Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> writes:
The government does *not* work because the rich--like the Koch brothers, the big banks, big pharma, big oil, etc.-- *own* the government. The Republican party is especially the party of the rich... they want to make the rich even richer and destroy the middle class.

Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizen
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPPS%2FPPS12_03%2FS1537592714001595a.pdf

recent study looking at congress legislative process ... correlations beteween probability of a bill passing based on how strongly special interests care about the bill and how strongly public cares about the bill (public opinion has almost no measurable effect on the legislative process).

posts referencing inequality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#inequality

posts reference press periodically referring to politics as "Kabuki Theater" ... what goes on in public can be considered to have little to do with what goes on behind the scenes ... even the apparent conflict between the two parties can be considered obfuscation and misdirection
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#kabuki.theater

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 09:21:58 -0800
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizen
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPPS%2FPPS12_03%2FS1537592714001595a.pdf

recent study looking at congress legislative process ... correlations beteween probability of a bill passing based on how strongly special interests care about the bill and how strongly public cares about the bill (public opinion has almost no measurable effect on the legislative process).

posts referencing inequality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#inequality

posts reference press periodically referring to politics as "Kabuki Theater" ... what goes on in public can be considered to have little to do with what goes on behind the scenes ... even the apparent conflict between the two parties can be considered obfuscation and misdirection
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#kabuki.theater


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#27 LEO

oh and some of this played out in the latest Bill Moyers segment

The Bare Knuckle Fight Against Money in Politics
http://billmoyers.com/episode/bare-knuckle-fight-money-politics/

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 10:25:26 -0800
"Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> writes:
If you had been paying even the *tiniest* bit of attention, you would know that $700,000,000,000 of TARP money was given to people who were already stupendously rich by Obama and the Democratically controlled congress. Do you pay any attention at all to the background of the people he selects to run your life?

The Republicans are bad too, but why single them out?


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#27 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#28 LEO

$700B TARP was engineered by sec. of treasury in 2008 ... but possibly the justification was fabricated ... since it wasn't used for purchase of toxic assets. the largest amount of TARP went to AIG. The scenario at the time was that AIG was negotiating to pay off the CDS gambling debts at 50-60cents on the dollar. The sec. of treasury then steps in and says that is illegal, forces AIG to accept "TARP" funds so that CDS gambling debts can be paid off at 100cents on the dollar (the largest beneficiary had been formally headed by the sec. of treasury) and forced to sign a legal agreement not to sue any of the entities placing CDS gambling bets (still 2008 before any change in administration).

As it turns out, there were toxic CDOs being created to fail, rating agencies paid to give them triple-A ratings, sold to unsuspecting victims and then taking out CDS gambling bets that they would fail (when the full extent of the scam came out it would have given AIG grounds for not paying off on the CDS gambling bets and suing those placing the bets).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

The scenario is that sec. of treasury was pumping money into his former company in 3 ways: 1) direct TARP funds, 2) indirect TARP funds via AIG, 3) granting his former company a banking charter so that it can get ZIRP funds from Federal reserve.

then it gets a little more complex. not regulating CDS gambling bets is supposedly traced back to being a favor for ENRON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#enron

by the person that is #2 on those responisble for the economic mess
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877330,00.html

including responsible for GLBA, which is now better known for repeal of Glass-Steagall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall

enabling too big to fail, too big to prosecute, and too big to jail:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

however at the time the rhetoric on the floor of congress was that the primary purpose of GLBA was to block new banking charters as way of eliminating new competition in the banking industry ... which would have theoretically prevented giving a banking charter to sec. of treasury's former company (enabling its access to ZIRP funds). There was joke past couple decades about the dept. of treasury being that company's branch office in washington (regardless of administration) because it was so thuroughly permeated by former executives (and those closely aligned with the company).

recent discussions of the Enron favor (by #2 on times list along with help from his wife):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#98 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#37 Married Couples and the Financial Mess
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#15 Instead of focusing on big fines, law enforcement should seek long prison terms for the responsible executives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#95 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#21 Senate Democrats vs. the Middle Class; Senators elected in 2008 made Obama's agenda possible, and its results have harmed most Americans

recent mention of ZIRP funds:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#89 Forbes perspective on IBM's troubles
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#94 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#95 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#2 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#3 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#4 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#6 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#11 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#23 weird apple trivia

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Whole Earth

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Whole Earth
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 10:44:49 -0800
"290jkl" <290jkl@nospam.com> writes:
And the high end smartphones have already moved to 64 bit cpus.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#22 Whole Earth
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#26 Whole Earth

two decades ago ... re-implemented the reservation flt lookup when run on ten high-end rack mount rs/6000 would handle all transactions in the world for all airlines in the world. more recent, a cellphone processor has higher MIP rate than aggregate of those ten RS/6000
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#79 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#53 z9 / z10 instruction speed(s)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#52 Article says mainframe most cost-efficient platform
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#34 Access z/OS 3270 TSO from "smartphone"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#43 Sabre; The First Online Reservation System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#56 IBM researchers make 12-atom magnetic memory bit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#59 IBM's z196 Article at RWT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#57 Has anyone successfully migrated off mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#59 history of Programming language and CPU in relation to each

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 11:24:11 -0800
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
As it turns out, there were toxic CDOs being created to fail, rating agencies paid to give them triple-A ratings, sold to unsuspecting victims and then taking out CDS gambling bets that they would fail (when the full extent of the scam came out it would have given AIG grounds for not paying off on the CDS gambling bets and suing those placing the bets).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#27 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#28 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#29 LEO

last decade, wallstreet develops enormous appetite for no-documentation, liar loans to populate the toxic CDOs designed to fail ... which then they use for the (fixed) CDS gambling bets.

too big to fail, too big to prosecute, and too big to jail:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 15:07:25 -0800
"Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> writes:
If you had been paying even the *tiniest* bit of attention, you would know that $700,000,000,000 of TARP money was given to people who were already stupendously rich by Obama and the Democratically controlled congress. Do you pay any attention at all to the background of the people he selects to run your life?

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#27 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#28 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#29 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#31 LEO

$700B TARP dwarfed by over $27T in CDOs done during the bubble (nearly 40times)
Evil Wall Street Exports Boomed With 'Fools' Born to Buy Debt
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-10-27/evil-wall-street-exports-boomed-with-fools-born-to-buy-debt

and becomes insignificant compared to the $1.2-$1.5 quadrillion (million billion) CDS transactions (20 times the size of world economy, and around 2000 times the TARP funds).
http://moneymorning.com/2013/09/18/heres-what-1-2-quadrillion-looks-like/
http://business.time.com/2013/03/27/why-derivatives-may-be-the-biggest-risk-for-the-global-economy/
http://beforeitsnews.com/banksters/2013/07/1-5-quadrllion-dollar-storm-eu-accuses-13-banks-of-derivatives-collusioncitigoldman-sachsbarclayshsbcjp-morgan-rbsall-of-them-2433218.html

misc. recent posts referring to CDS being quadrillion
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#73 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#14 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#80 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#95 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#3 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major

there have been various claims that (unregulated) CDS are a form of insurance ... but because it is possible to "buy" CDS for anything in the world, it is possible to stack the deck on something and then make a CDS bet (been compared to taking out fire insurance on your neighbor's house and then burning it down; or designing toxic CDOs to fail, selling them to your clients/victims, and then taking out CDS gambling bets that they would fail).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 15:25:22 -0800
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
$700B TARP was engineered by sec. of treasury in 2008 ... but possibly the justification was fabricated ... since it wasn't used for purchase of toxic assets. the largest amount of TARP went to AIG. The scenario at the time was that AIG was negotiating to pay off the CDS gambling debts at 50-60cents on the dollar. The sec. of treasury then steps in and says that is illegal, forces AIG to accept "TARP" funds so that CDS gambling debts can be paid off at 100cents on the dollar (the largest beneficiary had been formally headed by the sec. of treasury) and forced to sign a legal agreement not to sue any of the entities placing CDS gambling bets (still 2008 before any change in administration).

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#27 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#28 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#29 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#31 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#32 LEO

... and from recent AIG trial ... concerning what sec. of treasury told congress:

AIG Bailout Trial Bombshell III: Paulson Lied to Congress About TARP
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/10/aig-bailout-trial-bombshell-iii-paulson-lied-to-congress-about-tarp.html

more on the AIG bailout trial

AIG trial puts Geithner, Bernanke and Paulson on hot seat
http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/06/news/companies/aig-geithner-bernanke-paulson/
AIG Bailout Trial Bombshells: The Repellent Hank Greenberg May Have a Case
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/26795-aig-bailout-trial-bombshell-paulson-rejected-chinese-offer-to-invest-more-than-the-total-amount-of-money-required
The government overstepped its authority with AIG bailout
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-government-overstepped-its-authority-with-aig-bailout/2014/10/22/a5ba93fa-5959-11e4-9d6c-756a229d8b18_story.html
AIG Bailout Trial Bombshell II: Fed and Treasury Cornered AIG's Board into Taking a Legally-Dubious Bailout
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/10/aig-bailout-trial-bombshell-ii-fed-treasury-cornered-board-taking-legally-dubious-bailout.html
AIG Bailout Trial Bombshell I: Paulson Rejected Chinese Offer to Invest "More Than the Total Amount of Money Required"
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/10/aig-bailout-trial-bombshell-paulson-rejected-chinese-offer.html
AIG Bailout Trial and the Deadbeat Borrower Defense
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/10/aig-bailout-trial-deadbeat-borrower-defense.html
Richard Alford: AIG Redux - How the Fed Usurped Congress
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/10/richard-alford-aig-redux-fed-usurped-congress.html
Why Is Alan Greenspan's Lawyer, Scott Alvarez, Still Controlling the Federal Reserve? (AIG Bailout Trial)
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/10/matt-stoller-why-is-alan-greenspans-lawyer-scott-alvarez-still-controlling-the-federal-reserve-aig-bailout-trial.html
Why Greenberg May Win the AIG Bailout Trial
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/greenberg-may-win-aig-bailout-trial.html
AIG Bailout Trial Revelation: Morgan Stanley Told Geithner it Would File for Bankruptcy the Weekend it Became a Bank
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/aig-bailout-trial-revelation-morgan-stanley-told-geithner-file-bankruptcy-weekend-became-bank.html

too big to fail, too big to prosecute, too big to jail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Forget the 1%

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 16 Nov 2014
Subject: Forget the 1%
Blog: Facebook
Forget the 1%; It is the 0.01% who are really getting ahead in America
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21631129-it-001-who-are-really-getting-ahead-america-forget-1

and
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/09/04/opinion/04reich-graphic.html
from this article
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/opinion/sunday/jobs-will-follow-a-strengthening-of-the-middle-class.html

posts mentioning inequality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#inequality

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

BBC News - Microsoft fixes '19-year-old' bug with emergency patch

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: BBC News - Microsoft fixes '19-year-old' bug with emergency patch
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 17 Nov 2014 09:58:55 -0800
ibm-main@TPG.COM.AU (Shane Ginnane) writes:
A company that has to be dragged kicking and screaming into acknowledging potential security exposures in its OCO code release(s). Hmmm - wonder where I've heard that before.

as undergraduate in 60s I did lots of cp67 enhancements and sometimes IBM would suggest some things for me to do ... in retrospect some of the things possibly originated from this community (ref gone 404 but lives on at the wayback machine)
https://web.archive.org/web/20090117083033/http://www.nsa.gov/research/selinux/list-archive/0409/8362.shtml

cp67 versions and maintenance shipped in both binary and source form and lots of installations would (re-)build production system from source. This tradition carried forward in transition from cp67 to vm370.

it was quite a culture shock the transition to OCO in the 80s ... as can be seen in some of the OCO-war comments in the VMSHARE archives (online computer conferencing that TYMSHARE provided to SHARE starting in Aug1976 ... coming up on 40yrs)
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare
sometimes(?) "404" ... but also at wayback machine
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/

folklore from this period was certain gov. agencies requested all the "exact source" that corresponded for a full production running system (for the POK favorite son operating system). After spending $5M investigating the issue, the response was it wouldn't be practical.

The transition somewhat started with the 23Jun1969 unbundling announcement that started to separately charge for software, maint., etc ... motivating by various legal actions ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundling

however, they were able to make the case that operating system software should still be free. however during the future system period in the first half of the 70s, internal politics was killing off 370 product efforts (and the lack of 370 offerings during this period is credited with giving clone processors a market foothold) ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

with the demise of FS there was mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines. I had continued to do 360/370 stuff all during the FS period (including periodically ridiculing FS efforts which wasn't exactly a career enhancing activity). However the mad rush to get stuff in 370 product pipelines contributed to decision to release a lot of software stuff I had been doing. Some of it was merged into standard releases ... but it was decided to package up some of the other stuff and offer it as separate, priced operating system add-on. This got to be the guinea pig for the change in decision to start charging for operating system software (presumably motivated by the rise of the clone processors), and I got to spend a lot of time with lawyers and business people regarding operating system software charging. Eventually the transition completed and all operating system software was being charged for (the 370 emulators now include packages of last freely available operating system software).

Then the referenced OCO-wars begin after the transition was complete.

other trivia: i was blamed for online computer conferencing on the internal network in the late 70s & early 80s ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc

folklore is that when executive committee was told about online computer conferencing (and the internal network), 5of6 wanted to fire me. There was then some corporate studies of the issue and development of tools to automate many of the things I had been doing (and given official sanctions). The internal tools could be configured similar to the later "listserv" mailing list mode ... or more like usenet server mode (with servers exchanging and distributing items).

some past posts mentioning internal network (larger than arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime late '85 or early '86)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

the corporation also sponsored the univ. "bitnet" (in the us) ... (using technology similar to that used for the internal network) some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet

and "EARN" in europe ... old email for person responsible for getting EARN started.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#email840320

computer conferencing software similar to the internal tools were developed for bitnet/earn ... used for original ibm-main
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LISTSERV
and
http://www.lsoft.com/products/listserv-history.asp

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Whole Earth

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Whole Earth
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 12:02:10 -0800
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
Who remembers the 1.2-megabyte 80-track 5 1/4-inch floppies used on the original IBM PC AT? You could write 360K 40-track format on them, but since the 1.2MB drives wrote narrower tracks, the only way you could read such disks on a 360K drive was if you started with a virgin disk and never wrote on it with a 360K drive. Otherwise the wider tracks written by the 360K drive would only be rewritten down the middle. A 1.2MB drive would be OK with this (the read head was narrower too), but a 360K drive would get confused. It added a challenge to moving data from an AT to an XT.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk#5.C2.BC-inch_floppy_disk


PC/AT was also higher density. before the AT, there were also 80-track 5 1/4-inch floppies ... and with special format program could also squeeze another record/track that resulted in 800kbytes. old picture of home IBM/PC (from the employee purchase plan ... the lead time was so long ... that by the time it was delivered, the street price had drop to less than the employee discount).

old picture has shelf with printer, color & b&w displays and ibm tieline phone. the shelf support is to the left of the PC (the wood insert over the disk drive openings is backed with foam for noise suppression). Next to the shelf support are two external teac 80-track (normal density) drives.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/homepc.jpg

home pc

some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008m.html#38 Baudot code direct to computers?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008m.html#51 Baudot code direct to computers?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#51 Baudot code direct to computers?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#45 Netbooks: A terminal by any other name
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#21 Teletypewriter Model 33

other old pictures
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#oldpicts

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Income Inequality

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 18 Nov 2014
Subject: Income Inequality
Blog: Facebook
The claim is that the original purpose of the patents were to protect individual investors from established operations that were trying to preserve the status quo ... but has been perverted to do exactly the opposite of what it was originally intended. This goes along with descriptions of business school programs teaching how to protect status quo (and not teaching how to innovate and expand the economy). Articles started appearing in the early 80s about how MBAs were destroying US corporations and economy ... which goes along with this
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/09/04/opinion/04reich-graphic.html

The NYT article shows the shift starting late 70s/early 80s ... well before the collapse of the Soviet Bloc ... also if it was global competition ... wouldn't it have affected both corporate profitability as well as worker standard of living (the graphs showing flatlining worker wages instead going to executive compensation and corporate profit)

Americans Still Have NO CLUE About How Much Inequality We Have
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-17/americans-still-have-no-clue-about-how-much-inequality-we-have
Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizen
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPPS%2FPPS12_03%2FS1537592714001595a.pdf
Stockman And Stiglitz On Crony Capitalism: Agreements And Disagreements.
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/stockman-and-stiglitz-on-crony-capitalism-agreements-and-disagreements/

http://phys.org/news/2012-01-railroad-hyperbole-echoes-dot-com-frenzy.html
https://www.amazon.com/Railroaded-Transcontinentals-Making-America-ebook/dp/B0051GST1U
people get rich even if the company doesn't make money and/or goes bankrupt, part of the railroad secret was to get as much money out of gov as possible. Some scenarios were get gov. to issue bonds for the construction, transfer the value out of the corporate entity and then declare bankruptcy.

we had been criticizing some internet technology ... and were at a financial standards meeting in DC (hosted by prominent lobbying organization) when we got asked to step out there was somebody to see us. We were taken to a room and introduced to somebody that said he was from a ethnic family organization in NJ and some investment bankers had asked him to see us. It was nothing personal just business (investment bankers are amoral/sociopaths), these investment bankers were expecting to clear a couple billion from upcoming IPO and our comments were predicted to have a 10-20% downside ... it would be in our interests to stop talking. We went to FBI ... they said investment bankers are like that, many had been in S&L mess and walked away clean, were now doing internet IPO mills (small investment, big hype, couple billion IPO, companies then fail leaving the field open for the next round), and were predicted next to get into mortgages.

Lobbying Used to Be a Crime: A Review of Zephyr Teachout's New Book
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/matt-stoller-lobbying-used-crime-review-zephyr-teachouts-new-book-secret-history-corruption-america.html

posts mentioning inequality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#inequality

Note Private Equity has been driving a similar scam. The industry had gotten such a bad reputation during the S&L mess that in the early 90s, they changed their name to private equity and "junk bonds" became "high-yield bonds". There has been analogy to "house flipping" ... they borrow the money to buy a company (LBO, reverse-IPO), skim as much as possible and turn around and resell it (IPO). The difference is the original loan stays on the (sold) company's books ... they can even sell a company for less than they paid and walk away with boat loads of money. Over half the corporate defaults are companies that have been (or now) in the private equity mill (a company can enter the mill with a billion or two in debt, and come out the other end with 30billion dollar debt).

private equity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 10:01:59 -0800
Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:
Relocate people to South Dakota (or wherever there are jobs now). Encourage birth control.

there is such in influx of males into dakota for those jobs ... that the region is now having problem with human trafficking

Booming Oil Fields May Be Giving Sex Trafficking A Boost
http://www.npr.org/2014/02/01/265698046/booming-oil-fields-may-be-giving-sex-trafficking-a-boost
North Dakota Asks Nation For Help In Human Trafficking Epidemic
http://www.mintpressnews.com/north-dakota-asks-nation-for-help-in-human-trafficking-epidemic-2/190269/

one of the scenarios of the economic mess was that wallstreet enormously inflated the real estate bubble with over $27T in transactions and the enormous demand for no-documentation liar loans
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

the resulting bubble collapse resulted in many families being underwater with their homes. supposedly in the past, the ease of selling a house made it easier for people to pickup and move to where the job demands were ... the mobility helping keep the unemployment rate low. ease of migration is now much more limited to people with little or no ties.

there are similar accounts of the 30s and the depression.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 10:15:42 -0800
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizen
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPPS%2FPPS12_03%2FS1537592714001595a.pdf


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#27 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#28 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#29 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#31 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#32 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#33 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#38 LEO

some x-over from this facebook inequality discussion (original strayed some over into the comparisons with robber barons from 100 years ago)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#37 Income Inequality

Americans Still Have NO CLUE About How Much Inequality We Have
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-17/americans-still-have-no-clue-about-how-much-inequality-we-have
Stockman And Stiglitz On Crony Capitalism: Agreements And Disagreements.
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/stockman-and-stiglitz-on-crony-capitalism-agreements-and-disagreements/

Railroad hyperbole echoes all the way down to the dot-com frenzy
http://phys.org/news/2012-01-railroad-hyperbole-echoes-dot-com-frenzy.html
Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America
https://www.amazon.com/Railroaded-Transcontinentals-Making-America-ebook/dp/B0051GST1U

Lobbying Used to Be a Crime: A Review of Zephyr Teachout's New Book
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/matt-stoller-lobbying-used-crime-review-zephyr-teachouts-new-book-secret-history-corruption-america.html
Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin's Snuff Box to Citizens United
https://www.amazon.com/Corruption-America-Benjamin-Franklins-Citizens-ebook/dp/B00N79RDQU/

posts mentioning inequality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#inequality

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 10:42:11 -0800
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
If we're getting our electronics from China - or even from Japan or Korea, where the supply line is vulnerable, we're in trouble. Also the Army has been cutting back domestic production, for example phasing out the Watervliet Arsenal, which has been making cannons since the Civil War, most lately for the Abrams tanks. Perhaps they plan to buy them from China. The Arsenal also has, or had, a well-known research lab.

army has been trying to shutdown new abrams production ... but there is interaction between congress and the industry
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

one issue is that they already have more abrams in storage than they could ever use ... and with budget constraints the money could be spend much better. all along there have been enormous abrams issues ... some recent posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#61 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#64 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#62 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#74 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major

smart bombs/shells are becoming increasing important ... along with the related electronics. recent demos of howlitzers/mortars with "smart" shells that greatly increase the accuracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision-guided_munition
http://gizmodo.com/5929158/the-armys-smart-new-mortars-could-actually-hit-a-target

ww2 strategic heavy bombing took 1/3rd of ww2 budget and reviews showed that 8 of 9 campaigns were failures, contributed little to winning the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_survey

then there were claims that in desert storm, smart bombs/missiles was able to obtain equivalent level of effectiveness with 1/10th the explosives. claims that further increase in smart accuracy resulted in another 1/10th reduction between desert storm and the last decade.

the bunker busters might be considered variation on trend to more effective smaller explosives ... they still require high precision but also large explosives in very specific order (not just massive big explosion).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-28

from above:
The initial batch of GBU-28s was built from modified 8 inch/203 mm artillery barrels (principally from deactivated M110 howitzers),

... snip ...

http://science.howstuffworks.com/bunker-buster.htm

from above:
Its casing consists of an approximately 16-foot (5-meter) section of artillery barrel that is 14.5 inches (37 cm) in diameter. Artillery barrels are made of extremely strong hardened steel so that they can withstand the repeated blasts of artillery shells when they are fired.

... snip ...

past references to ww2 strategic bombing study
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#10 America's Defense Meltdown
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#62 Early use of the word "computer"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#18 Air Superiority: Advantage over enemy skies for 60 years
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#67 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#54 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#73 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#90 Friden Flexowriter equipment series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#91 Friden Flexowriter equipment series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#92 Off topic screeds (was Re: Friden Flexowriter equipment series)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#12 1950: Northrop's Digital Differential Analyzer

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Whole Earth

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Whole Earth
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 12:04:23 -0800
Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> writes:
Things were explosive enough in chemistry in 1976 when the teacher showed how flour could explode if it was tossed into the air. "Sorry about that" he said to those of us in the front row.

grain elevator explosions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_elevator#Elevator_explosions

from above:
Almost any finely-divided organic substance becomes an explosive material when dispersed as an air suspension; hence, a very fine flour is dangerously explosive in air suspension. This poses a significant risk when milling grain to produce flour, so mills go to great lengths to remove sources of sparks. These measures include carefully sifting the grain before it is milled or ground to remove stones which could strike sparks from the millstones, and the use of magnets to remove metallic debris able to strike sparks.

The earliest recorded flour explosion took place in an Italian mill in 1785, but there have been many since. The following two references give numbers of recorded flour and dust explosions in the USA in 1994[31] and 1997.[32] In the ten-year period up to and including 1997, there were 129 explosions.


... snip ...

there tend to be lots of provisions to counter static electricity and sparks

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 15:04:11 -0800
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
Keystone XL almost got passed with significant bipartisan support after Harry Reid kept if from coming to a vote all these years. Next year it will pass, hopefully with a veto-prof majority.

I'm expecting that things will finally get passed next year, or at least that Senators will actually get a chance to vote on things, which would be a big improvement.


lots of lobbying ... including hiring industry front to do environmental study

API Spent $22 Million Lobbying for Keystone XL; State Dept Contractor ERM an API Member
http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/06/27/api-22-million-keystone-xl-lobbying-erm
Top Oil Industry Lobbyist: State Department Will Issue Keystone XL Environmental Approval This Week
http://www.hillheat.com/articles/2014/01/28/top-oil-industry-lobbyist-state-department-will-issue-keystone-xl-environmental-approval-this-week

and

Where Keystone's oil will go
http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/16/news/economy/keystone-oil/

disclaimer: if built, it will go through corner of the family farm ... for which one of the family members will get paid.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 15:50:34 -0800
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
The scenario is that sec. of treasury was pumping money into his former company in 3 ways: 1) direct TARP funds, 2) indirect TARP funds via AIG, 3) granting his former company a banking charter so that it can get ZIRP funds from Federal reserve.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#29 LEO

Deformations On The Dealer Lots: How The Fed's ZIRP Is Fueling The Next Subprime Bust
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/deformations-on-the-auto-dealer-lots-how-the-feds-zirp-is-fueling-the-next-subprime-bust/

from above:
This $120 billion subprime auto paper machine is now driving millions of transactions which are recorded as auto "sales", but, in fact, are more in the nature of short-term "loaners" destined for the repo man. So here's the thing: In an honest free market none of these born again pawnshops would even exist; nor would there be a market for out-of-this-world junk paper backed by 115% LTV/75-month/20% rate loans to consumers who cannot afford them.

... snip ...

liar loans and liar mortgages, toxic CDOs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

other recent posts mentioning ZIRP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#4 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#10 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#37 8080 BASIC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#43 8080 BASIC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#89 Forbes perspective on IBM's troubles
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#94 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#95 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#2 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#3 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#4 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#6 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#11 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#23 weird apple trivia

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Business culture in banking industry favors dishonest behavior

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 19 Nov 2014
Subject: Business culture in banking industry favors dishonest behavior
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
also Google+
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/YYjN3DGD6sn

Business culture in banking industry favors dishonest behavior
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141119132524.htm
Study Suggests Banking Industry Breeds Dishonesty; Bank industry culture "seems to make [employees] more dishonest," a study author says
http://time.com/3595882/bank-industry-dishonesty-study/

older references:

'The most dishonest bankers walk away with the most money'
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/01/most-dishonest-bankers-most-money-banking-blog
Trader Describes How Dishonesty Pays in Finance, Big Time
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/trader-describes-how-dishonesty-pays-in-finance-big-time.html
Corporate Fraud and Misconduct Risks Driven by Pressure to do 'Whatever It Takes'; Fewer episodes reported by companies with ethics and compliance programs
http://www.informationweek.com/financialservices/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=215801487

from above:
Of more than 5,000 U.S. workers polled this summer, 74 percent said they had personally observed misconduct within their organizations during the prior 12 months, unchanged from the level reported by KPMG survey respondents in 2005. Roughly half (46 percent) of respondents reported that what they observed "could cause a significant loss of public trust if discovered," a figure that rises to 60 percent among employees working in the banking and finance industry.

... snip ...

If the overall avg. is 46percent and the financial industry is 60 percent, then the non-financial avg may be as low as 30percent ... making the financial industry twice as bad as other industries

past refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#27 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#29 Let IT run the company!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#30 How reliable are the credit rating companies? Who is over seeing them?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#35 Is American capitalism and greed to blame for our financial troubles in the US?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#36 What is the top security threat prediction of 2009?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#47 Executive pay: time for a trim?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#11 Amid Economic Turbulence, Mainframes Counter IT Cost-Cutting Trend
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#17 Fraud -- how can you stay one step ahead?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#25 The recently revealed excesses of John Thain, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch, while the firm was receiving $25 Billion in TARP funds makes me sick
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#36 A great article was posted in another BI group: "To H*** with Business Intelligence: 40 Percent of Execs Trust Gut"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#53 Credit & Risk Management ... go Simple ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#73 What can we learn from the meltdown?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#75 Whistleblowing and reporting fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#36 Architectural Diversity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#37 How do you see ethics playing a role in your organizations current or past?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#41 Profiling of fraudsters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#24 Ernst & Young sued for fraud over Lehman
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#99 New theory of moral behavior may explain recent ethical lapses in banking industry
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#20 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#73 Why DOJ Deemed Bank Execs Too Big To Jail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#75 The Most dishonest bankers walk away with the most monety
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#9 Why DOJ Deemed Bank Execs Too Big To Jail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#10 What Makes Infrastructure investment not bizarre

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 16:34:42 -0800
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#42 LEO

Follow the Oiltanking Trail; Gulf-Bound Tar Sands for Export?
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/19/gulf-bound-tar-sands-for-export/

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Business culture in banking industry favors dishonest behavior

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 19 Nov 2014
Subject: Business culture in banking industry favors dishonest behavior
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#44 Business culture in banking industry favors dishonest behavior

Deception counts
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GECON-01-191114.html
The Bear's Lair: Modern accounts are instruments of deception
http://www.prudentbear.com/2014/11/the-bears-lair-modern-accounts-are.html

In the wake of ENRON, congress passed Sarbanes-Oxley claiming that it would prevent future ENRONs and guarantee that executives & auditors associated with public company fraudulent financial filings would do jail time ... however it required SEC to do something. Possibly because even GAO didn't believe SEC was doing anything, it started doing reports of public company fraudulent financial filings ... even showing uptic/increase after SOX (and nobody doing jail time).

posts mentioning ENRON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#enron
posts mentioning sarbanes-oxley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#sarbanes-oxley
posts mentioning fraudulent financial filings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#financial.reporting.fraud.fraud

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 09:01:24 -0800
Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> writes:
No-one seems to have told the US Navy they don't need big guns :-) Actually I think they're thinking more of shore bombardments of countries who can't shoot back.

cruisers, destroyers, & frigates ... guided missile vessels
http://www.navy.com/about/equipment/vessels/cruisers.html

U.S. Navy deploys its first laser cannon -- capable of setting drones on fire in the sky
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/11/17/u-s-navy-deploys-its-first-laser-cannon-capable-of-setting-drones-on-fire-in-the-sky/

big battleships are mothballed &/or retired

leaves the big flat-tops ... major force is the carrier battle group
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_battle_group

and submarines.

mentioned before that anti-submarine warfare has been neglected ... several large scale war games with non-nuclear submarine borrowed from friendly nations for the redteam, managed to take out the carrier ... recent refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#66 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#1 Lessons Not Learned: The U.S. Navy's Status Quo Culture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#18 After the Sun (Microsystems) Sets, the Real Stories Come Out
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#43 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#46 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 09:27:13 -0800
Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> writes:
I understand the US Army are so impressed with the early results from BAE they want a smaller version for tanks.

massive abrams was designed for tank slugfest with the soviets on the plains of europe. as part of that there was major transportation infrastructure upgrade in germany to accommodate the abrams. recent refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#61 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#64 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#62 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#74 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#40 LEO

problem is that it is unsuited for most else ... it is too heavy for load limits in most parts of the world where the "small wars" are happening, it is unsuited for much of urban warfare, it wasn't designed to handle IEDs, and also too heavy for rapid deployment.

I've mentioned before son-in-law did two tours in Iraq, 2004-2005 in fallujah during the worst of the conflict and 2007-2008 in Baqubah ... described as worse than Fallujah ... although didn't see that in the US press, since the administration claims was that the surge was succeeding.

History's Judgment: The Iraq Surge Failed; Iraq's unraveling confirms that, based on its own definition of success, the 2007 surge failed.
http://thediplomat.com/2014/06/historys-judgment-the-iraq-surge-failed/
Why the 2007 surge in Iraq actually failed, and what it means today
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/11/17/why-surge-iraq-actually-failed-and-what-that-means-today/0NaI9JrbtSs1pAZvgzGtaL/story.html

Part of it was that initial invasion was told to bypass ammo dumps and look for (fabricated) WMDs ... when they got around to going back to the ammo dumps, a million metric tons had disappeared. Baqubah had IEDs with large artillery shells taking out Abrams from below, its weakest point (never having been designed to handle IEDs).

Recently suppressed information leaked that they had actually found decommissioned WMDs from the 80s,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq_War
much of it provided with help from the US
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran-Iraq_war
lot of it involves "team b" ... who are still around last decade and instrumental in the two wars
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#team.b
MICC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

posts mentioning Baqubah
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#21 The Age of Unsatisfying Wars
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#2 Interesting News Article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#8 Interesting News Article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#64 Early use of the word "computer"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#54 Singer Cartons of Punch Cards
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#49 Cultural attitudes towards failure
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#86 A Matter of Mindset: Iraq, Sequestration and the U.S. Army
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#30 A Matter of Mindset: Iraq
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#38 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#5 Lessons Learned from the Iraq War
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#79 As an IBM'er just like the Marines only a few good men and women make the cut,
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#52 What Makes collecting sales taxes Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#60 What Makes collecting sales taxes Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#10 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#48 John Boyd's Art of War
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#10 Why the Death of the Tank Is Greatly Exaggerated
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#13 Al-Qaeda-linked force captures Fallujah amid rise in violence in Iraq
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#42 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#47 McCain: Send Petraeus back to Iraq
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#61 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#79 Army Modernization Is Melting Down
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#38 Can America Win Wars
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#36 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#68 Revamped PDP-11 in Brooklyn
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#69 Revamped PDP-11 in Brooklyn
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#36 The Designer Of The F-15 Explains Just How Stupid The F-35 Is

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 09:49:48 -0800
"290jkl" <290jkl@nospam.com> writes:
And yet they did win against two of the largest around at the time of WW2.

Simultaneously too.


claims are that 1) Germany had 3/4ths of its military effort against russia ... leaving the rest of the allies to deal with only 1/4 and 2) Japan had 2/3rds of its milirary effort against china, leaving US to only deal with 1/3rd. recent refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#10 The Knowledge Economy Two Classes of Workers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#60 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#77 What Makes collecting sales taxes Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#70 OT: "Highway Patrol" back on TV
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#38 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#70 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#34 upcoming TV show, "Halt & Catch Fire"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#12 1950: Northrop's Digital Differential Analyzer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#62 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#63 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major

this has sparked off recent discussion on facebook

A Crisis in Command and the Roots of the Problem
https://medium.com/the-bridge/a-crisis-in-command-and-the-roots-of-the-problem-80dfcfd7fd49

from above:
This post was generously provided by Jörg Muth, PhD, the author of Command Culture: Officer Education in the U.S. Army and the German Armed Forces, 1901-1940, and the Consequences for World War II. Command Culture is on the professional reading lists of the US Army Chief of Staff and of the US Army Maneuver Center of Excellence. The Commandant of the Marine Corps made it required reading for all intermediate officers and all senior enlisted marines.

... snip ...

recent posts mentioning Muth:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#38 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#55 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#66 Salesmen--IBM and Coca Cola
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#76 In the palm of your hand?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#86 Can America Win Wars?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#98 How to groom a leader?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#91 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#34 upcoming TV show, "Halt & Catch Fire"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#52 EBFAS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#61 Are you tired of the negative comments about IBM in this community?

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 10:02:25 -0800
"290jkl" <290jkl@nospam.com> writes:
Anyone with a deliverable nuke can do that.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#47 LEO

it greatly expands the number of potential adversaries (w/o nukes) that can still do it.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 10:31:27 -0800
"290jkl" <290jkl@nospam.com> writes:
That last isnt true after Pearl Harbor with Japan.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#49 Leo

"The Wars for Asia, 1911-1949" highlights that in WW2, Japan had over 2/3rds of its resources deployed on mainland China (not against the US; and also that Germany had 3/4ths of its resources deployed against the Soviets) ... which would have made it easier for the US to deploy overwhelming resources against the enemy.

This talks about the Japan/US comparison primarily with respect to navy
http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm

military industrial (congressional) complex:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

previous posts mentioning "The Wars for Asia"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#10 The Knowledge Economy Two Classes of Workers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#60 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#69 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#77 What Makes collecting sales taxes Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#70 OT: "Highway Patrol" back on TV
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#93 Royal Pardon For Turing

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 11:34:01 -0800
hancock4 writes:
Some years ago, the Social Security Adm cracked down on disability benefits. It is now very hard to get them, and claimants often need a lawyer. The lawyers get a substantial cut of the benefits, which is a disgrace.

SSA has long used its own doctors to verify claims, not just medical records of the claimant.


there are periodic calls to privatize SS as gift to wallstreet. latest along that line:

Wall Street is Taking Over America's Pension Plans
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/20/huge-wall-street-story-one-talking/

recent related:

Illinois Pension Debt Soars To $111 Billion
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-17/illinois-pension-debt-soars-111-billion
Private Equity Now Looking to Even Bigger Chumps, Namely 401 (k)s and Retail
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/private-equity-now-looking-even-bigger-chumps-namely-401-ks-retail.html
Exposing More Super Secret Private Equity Limited Partnership Agreements
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/launching-super-secret-private-equity-limited-partnership-agreements.htm

private equity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity

big target/victim of the triple-A rated toxic CDOs were the large pension funds (restricted to only dealing in "safe" investments)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Banking - licensed to cheat! And whether you'll get away with it

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Banking - licensed to cheat! And whether you'll get away with it.
Date: 20 Nov 2014
Blog: Financial Cryptography
Banking - licensed to cheat! And whether you'll get away with it.
https://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001531.html

Research: Bankers and the Religious Will Lie for Money
http://econintersect.com/b2evolution/blog1.php/2014/11/20/research-bankers-and-the-religious-will-lie-for-money
Study: Religious more likely to lie for financial gain
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/22/study_religious_more_likely_to_lie_for_financial_gain_partner/
Business culture in banking industry favors dishonest behavior
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141119132524.htm
Study Finds Banking Industry May Spark Dishonest Behavior
http://time.com/3595882/bank-industry-dishonesty-study/
Deception counts
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GECON-01-191114.html
Modern accounts are instruments of deception
http://www.prudentbear.com/2014/11/the-bears-lair-modern-accounts-are.html#more
Cochrane Demands that the Public Unilaterally Disarm while the Banksters Loot
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/11/cochrane-demands-public-unilaterally-disarm-banksters-loot.html
The NY Fed's Attempt To Explain That It Is Not A Subsidiary Of Goldman Sachs
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-20/ny-feds-attempt-explain-it-not-subsidiary-goldman-sachs
A Quick Look At Goldman's Takeover Of The US Judicial System: NY Fed Edition
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-20/while-ny-fed-just-admitted-whistleblower-segarra-was-right-conflicted-judge-threw-ou
Abdication of Regulatory Oversight of Large Banks
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141120034037-20494629-abdication-of-regulatory-oversight-of-large-banks
'The most dishonest bankers walk away with the most money'
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/01/most-dishonest-bankers-most-money-banking-blog
Trader Describes How Dishonesty Pays in Finance, Big Time
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/trader-describes-how-dishonesty-pays-in-finance-big-time.html
Corporate Fraud and Misconduct Risks Driven by Pressure to do 'Whatever It Takes'; Fewer episodes reported by companies with ethics and compliance programs
http://www.informationweek.com/financialservices/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=215801487

from above:
Of more than 5,000 U.S. workers polled this summer, 74 percent said they had personally observed misconduct within their organizations during the prior 12 months, unchanged from the level reported by KPMG survey respondents in 2005. Roughly half (46 percent) of respondents reported that what they observed "could cause a significant loss of public trust if discovered," a figure that rises to 60 percent among employees working in the banking and finance industry.

... snip ...

If the overall avg. is 46percent and the financial industry is 60 percent, then the non-financial avg may be as low as 30percent ... making the financial industry twice as bad as other industries

posts mentioning too big to fail, too big to prosecute, too big to jail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

posts mentioning financial industry dishonesty
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#27 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#29 Let IT run the company!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#30 How reliable are the credit rating companies? Who is over seeing them?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#35 Is American capitalism and greed to blame for our financial troubles in the US?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#36 What is the top security threat prediction of 2009?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#47 Executive pay: time for a trim?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#11 Amid Economic Turbulence, Mainframes Counter IT Cost-Cutting Trend
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#17 Fraud -- how can you stay one step ahead?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#25 The recently revealed excesses of John Thain, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch, while the firm was receiving $25 Billion in TARP funds makes me sick
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#36 A great article was posted in another BI group: "To H*** with Business Intelligence: 40 Percent of Execs Trust Gut"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#53 Credit & Risk Management ... go Simple ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#73 What can we learn from the meltdown?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#75 Whistleblowing and reporting fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#36 Architectural Diversity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#37 How do you see ethics playing a role in your organizations current or past?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#77 Madoff Whistleblower Book
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#41 Profiling of fraudsters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#24 Ernst & Young sued for fraud over Lehman
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#59 Productivity And Bubbles
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#24 AMERICA IS BROKEN, WHAT NOW?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#30 Have you ever wondered why some people seem to get rich easily
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011o.html#80 How Pursuit of Profits Kills Innovation and the U.S. Economy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#4 The Myth of Work-Life Balance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#30 Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#16 Interview of Mr. John Reed regarding banking fixing the game
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#99 New theory of moral behavior may explain recent ethical lapses in banking industry
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012c.html#1 Spontaneous conduction: The music man with no written plan
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012f.html#91 Psychology Of Fraud: Why Good People Do Bad Things
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012g.html#16 Psychology Of Fraud: Why Good People Do Bad Things
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012g.html#84 Monopoly/ Cartons of Punch Cards
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#53 Monopoly/ Cartons of Punch Cards
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#20 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#73 Why DOJ Deemed Bank Execs Too Big To Jail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#75 The Most dishonest bankers walk away with the most monety
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#9 Why DOJ Deemed Bank Execs Too Big To Jail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#10 What Makes Infrastructure investment not bizarre
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#14 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#53 Retirement Savings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#76 Crowdsourcing Diplomacy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#1 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#1 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#39 Sale receipt--obligatory?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#37 Income Inequality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#44 Business culture in banking industry favors dishonest behavior

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Why you need batch cloud computing

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why you need batch cloud computing
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 08:47:42 -0800
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
DEC's "batch" was canned interactive scripts, not any different than if you typed it while logged in. IBM's term batch involved data processing of huge files ensuring that all resources are available before starting the processing so that the run cannot be interrupted. There were some tweaks put into GALAXY which would keep a control file from being scheduled until the resources specified were available for the run. These were added because customers, who used IBM's batch model, wanted them.

We've had conversions before about how DEC did not understand how to do data processing as well as IBM did. OTOH, DEC knew how to deliver interactive computing services better than IBM did. The two companies had a very different computing folklore.


Mainframe batch had lots of evolution over time ... basically all the applications ran w/o the responsible person around (to perform any operations). It wasn't just making sure resources were available before starting application ... but increasing amounts of complexity to handle possible contingencies that might occur while running.

in the late 90s, we would periodically visit the person responsible for the largest financial transaction network. He attributed 100% availability over multiple years to

1) triple-redundant, geographically separated (IBM) IMS 2) automated operator

... aka mainframe batch still required human (operator) to perform some number of operations ... however as other failure modes were addressed, human mistakes became increasing percentage of outages.

old summary from study by Jim Gray that hardware was becoming so reliable that major source of outages was shifting to software, environmental (floods, earthquakes, power outages), and human mistakes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/grayft84.pdf
also
https://jimgray.azurewebsites.net/papers/TandemTR86.2_FaultToleranceInTandemComputerSystems.pdf

posts mentioning continuous availability, disaster survivability, geographic survivability
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available

I've mentioned before that IBM online interactive originally done at cambridge science center (cp/cms)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

had comparable number of installations as other vendors ... but the number of IBM "batch" customer installations so dwarfed those numbers that IBM has come to only be associated with "batch".

past posts mentioning automated operator
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#2 Schedulers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#71 High Availabilty on S/390
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#107 Computer History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#128 Examples of non-relational databases
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#136a checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#22 Computer of the century
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#12 Amdahl Exits Mainframe Market
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#43 Life as a programmer--1960, 1965?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#13 LINUS for S/390
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#70 Pentium 4 Prefetch engine?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#71 Pentium 4 Prefetch engine?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#44 Where are IBM z390 SPECint2000 results?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#47 Where are IBM z390 SPECint2000 results?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#8 VM: checking some myths.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#13 HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#14 HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#18 HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001l.html#47 five-nines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#47 Sysplex Info
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#85 The demise of compaq
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#24 Buffer overflow
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002e.html#68 Blade architectures
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#73 Where did text file line ending characters begin?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002l.html#62 Itanium2 performance data from SGI
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#27 why does wait state exist?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#14 Home mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002p.html#54 Newbie: Two quesions about mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003.html#37 Calculating expected reliability for designed system
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003g.html#3 Disk capacity and backup solutions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003h.html#56 The figures of merit that make mainframes worth the price
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003h.html#60 The figures of merit that make mainframes worth the price
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003i.html#27 instant messaging
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003n.html#22 foundations of relational theory? - some references for the
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003n.html#45 hung/zombie users ... long boring, wandering story
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004.html#40 AMD/Linux vs Intel/Microsoft
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004b.html#48 Automating secure transactions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#46 Shipwrecks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#75 [Lit.] Buffer overruns
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005.html#53 8086 memory space
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005.html#59 8086 memory space
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005c.html#7 [Lit.] Buffer overruns
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005d.html#9 intel's Vanderpool and virtualization in general (was Re: Cell press release, redacted.)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005j.html#60 Ancient history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005m.html#52 Cluster computing drawbacks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005o.html#30 auto reIPL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005u.html#37 Mainframe Applications and Records Keeping?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006i.html#2 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#30 Why so little parallelism?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#16 intersection between autolog command and cmsback (more history)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007e.html#16 Attractive Alternatives to Mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007f.html#56 Is computer history taught now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007h.html#76 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#44 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#10 The top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#40 windows time service
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#11 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#88 Annoying Processor Pricing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#7 Annoying Processor Pricing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#17 Does anyone have any IT data center disaster stories?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008k.html#64 Crippleware: hardware examples
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#76 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#5 Privacy, Identity theft, account fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#75 Is SUN going to become x86'ed ??
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#4 Why do IBMers think disks are 'Direct Access'?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#1 Architectural Diversity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#15 Confessions of a Cobol programmer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#0 big iron mainframe vs. x86 servers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#28 Check out Computer glitch to cause flight delays across U.S. - MarketWatch
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#20 70 Years of ATM Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#25 Was VM ever used as an exokernel?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#4 Did a mainframe glitch trigger DBS Bank outage?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#55 Mainframe Hacking -- Fact or Fiction
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#69 No command, and control
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#0 Mainframe technology in 2011 and beyond; who is going to run these Mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#93 Itanium at ISSCC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#4 Cool Things You Can Do in z/OS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#6 New job for mainframes: Cloud platform
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#3 Banks Face Ongoing Cyber Threats
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#16 How about the old mainframe error messages that actually give you a clue about what's broken
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#27 RBS Mainframe Meltdown: A year on, the fallout is still coming
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#23 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#48 Before the Internet: The golden age of online service
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#93 Costs of core
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#19 weird trivia

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Piketty Shreds Marginal Productivity as Neoclassical Justification for Supersized Pay

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Piketty Shreds Marginal Productivity as Neoclassical Justification for Supersized Pay
Date: 20 Nov 2014
Blog: Google+
re:
https://plus.google.com/+LynnWheeler/posts/TExKuEnwa5m

Piketty Shreds Marginal Productivity as Neoclassical Justification for Supersized Pay
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/shaky-foundations-neoliberal-economics-marginal-productivity.html

start of the century I reviewed a periodic financial industry publication that gave the avgs. of largest regional banks compared to the avgs of largest national banks for thousands of items/measures. For various reasons, the regional banks were slightly more efficient than the national banks. The justification for repeal of Glass-Steagall enabling too big to fail (even larger national banks) seemed to be CEO compensation proportional to institutional size.

Glass-Steagall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall too big to fail ...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

past posts mentioning the financial industry publication:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#52 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#16 Fake debate: The Senate will not vote on big banks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#21 Fake debate: The Senate will not vote on big banks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#43 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#67 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#7 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#28 The first personal computer (PC)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011l.html#39 Kabuki Theater 1603-1629
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#14 computer bootlaces
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011o.html#83 The banking sector grew seven times faster than gross domestic product since the beginning of the financial crisis and Too-Big-to-Fail: Banks Get Bigger After Dodd-Frank
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#25 You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#1 The Dallas Fed Is Calling For The Immediate Breakup Of Large Banks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012g.html#9 JPM LOSES $2 BILLION USD!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012g.html#84 Monopoly/ Cartons of Punch Cards
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#44 How to Cut Megabanks Down to Size
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#51 How to Cut Megabanks Down to Size
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#3 How to Cut Megabanks Down to Size
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#2 IBM Relevancy in the IT World
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#63 LA Times commentary: roll out "smart" credit cards to deter fraud

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The Road Not Taken: Knowing When to Keep Your Mouth Shut

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The Road Not Taken: Knowing When to Keep Your Mouth Shut
Date: 21 Nov 2014
Blog: LinkedIn
The Road Not Taken: Knowing When to Keep Your Mouth Shut
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141121120031-5062-the-road-not-taken-knowing-when-to-keep-your-mouth-shut

Folklore is that some number of OS/360 MFT moved from Kingston to Boca and attempted to redo MFT on S/1 (RPS). Later some summer students at Research did EDX. Even later Palo Alto was working with UCLA on LOCUS (unix work-alike) and ported it to S/1 and some 68k machines (later they released as AIX/370 & AIX/386). Trivia, much earlier cambridge tried to get "peachtree" (S/1 processor) used as basis for 3705.

As undergraduate in the 60s, I was involved in using Interdata/3 to implement 360 clone controller processor (four of us get written up for some part of the clone controller business). Much later one of the baby bells had implemented vtam/ncp emulator with significantly more function on S1 and branch office sucks me into doing project to release it as IBM product (what the communication group then did to subvert the effort can only be described as truth is stranger than fiction) ... archived post with summary
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#67

Note also, some people from stanford approached Palo Alto about taking a workstation they were doing and turning it out as IBM product. Palo Alto calls a review and invites people from Boca, and both San Jose and Yorktown research. After the review, Boca, SJR, and YKT all say that they are working on efforts that are much better and IBM decides not to do it . The group then starts their own company (SUN).

Note that the IBM internal network was larger than the arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime late '85 or early '86. In the early-to-mid 80s, we were working with NSF and various NSF supercomputer centers to connect them. We were suppose to get $20M for the effort, but then congress cuts the budget, some other things happen and finally NSF releases an RFP. Internal politics prevent us from bidding, the director of NSF tries to help and writes the company a letter 3Apr1986, NSF Director to IBM Chief Scientist and IBM Senior VP and director of Research, copying IBM CEO) but that just makes the internal politics worse (as does comments that what we already have running is at least 5yrs ahead of all bid responses). some old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#nsfnet

We were brought in as consultants to small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server; they had also invented this technology called "SSL" they wanted to use; the result is now sometimes called "electronic commerce". In the mid-90s, somewhat for having done "electronic commerce", we were invited to participate in the X9A10 financial standard working group that had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for *ALL* retail payments (not just internet). The resulting transaction standard has made little headway ... in part (on the internet) there is already an incumbent ... and because it eliminates many of the current forms of fraud ... drastically leveling the playing field for payments and eliminating a lot of the justification for the enormous profits currently made in the payment industry.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

Trivia: as an aside, we established security requirements for the deployment and use of SSL, many that were almost immediately violated ... still accounting for many of the current internet exploits
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#sslcerts

In any case, along the way we were asked to file for patents and assigned a small patent firm to work with us ... we had gotten to 50 or so draft patents and the patent firm said it would be well over 100 before we were done. Executives then looked at the cost of filing so many patents (both in the US and internationally) and directed that the claims be repackaged in 9 patents. Later the patent office comes back and says they are tired of humongous patents where the filing fee doesn't even cover the cost to read all the claims and directed that the claims be repackaged into larger number (30+). Again little progress since they seriously impact the status quo and vested interests.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadssummary.htm

I use to sponsor Boyd's briefings at IBM, he put it somewhat different way:

"There are two career paths in front of you, and you have to choose which path you will follow. One path leads to promotions, titles, and positions of distinction.... The other path leads to doing things that are truly significant for the Air Force, but the rewards will quite often be a kick in the stomach because you may have to cross swords with the party line on occasion. You can't go down both paths, you have to choose. Do you want to be a man of distinction or do you want to do things that really influence the shape of the Air Force? To be or to do, that is the question." Colonel John R. Boyd, USAF 1927-1997 From the dedication of Boyd Hall, United States Air

Force Weapons School, Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. 17 September 1999

posts mentioning Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Why you need batch cloud computing

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why you need batch cloud computing
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 14:40:57 -0800
hancock4 writes:
As to comparing DEC vs. IBM for "interactive computing", I think that's an apples vs. oranges comparison, as they served two different worlds. I would compare IBM to a tractor trailer--very strong and robust, but also big, heavy, and cumbersome. I'd copare DEC to a light truck, able to get into small parking spaces and more nimble, but not able to handle the heavy or long distance loads.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#54 Why you need batch cloud computing

vm/4341s (online, interactive) sold into the same mid-range market as vax/vms ... 4341s selling similar numbers in the "small" unit orders, big difference was the large corporate orders for multiple hundreds that went out into the dept. areas and were sort of the leading edge of the distributed computing tsunami.

4361s/4381s were the follow-on to the 4331/4341 and they initially expected that they would continue the sales explosion in the mid-range market ... but by then the mid-range market was already starting to move to workstations and large PCs ... which can be seen in this decade of vax/vms numbers ... sliced and diced by model, year, US/non-US
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#0

clusters of 4341s also competed against high-end ibm mainframes ... a datacenter 4341 cluster had higher throughput than 3033, less expensive, smaller physical footprint and less environmental resources at one point (POK) head of high-end mainframes managed to get a critical 4341 manufacturing component cut in half (such internal politics could be considered having millstone around your neck, and tended to control the corporate public hype).

old reference about getting dragged into doing benchmarks for national lab looking at doing compute farm of 70 4341s
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#0 Is a VAX a mainframe?

... on engineering 4341 (before customer ship in late 70s) over in bldg 15 ... old posts about getting to play disk engineer in bldgs. 14&15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

old email referencing 4300
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#4341

getting dragged into doing benchmarks for national lab sort of start down the path to modern supercomputing. in mid-80s ... was working with the NSF supercompting centers on interconnecting them ... some old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#nsfnet

at the same time had proposal for packing huge number of 370 and 801/risc chips in racks ... old email about having to choose between meeting on rack clusters and presentation to director of NSF.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#email850314
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#email850315

interconnecting NSF supercomputer centers morphs into the NSFNET backbone as regional networks connect into the centers ... precursor to the modern internet.

later doing HA/CMP ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

got involved in cluster scale-up ... this time just packing large number of 801/risc (RIOS) into racks ... working both with national labs (scientific & technical) ... and commercial RDBMS ... some old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

this is old reference to meeting in Ellison's conference room Jan1992 on cluster scale-up
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

however, by end of Jan1992, cluster scale-up had been transferred, we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors, and it was announced as supercomputer for *scientific* and *technical* ONLY ... press reference 17Feb1992
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#6000clusters1
later press reference 11May1992
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#6000clusters2

other trivia ... past posts mentioning being involved with original sql/relational implementation at SJR (done on vm370 370/145)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Wall Street is Taking Over America's Pension Plans

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Wall Street is Taking Over America's Pension Plans
Date: 21 Nov 2014
Blog: IBM Retirees
Wall Street is Taking Over America's Pension Plans
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/20/huge-wall-street-story-one-talking/

from above:
Coverage of the midterm elections has, understandably, focused on the shift in political power from Democrats toward Republicans. But behind the scenes, another major story has been playing out. Wall Street spent upwards of $300M to influence the election results. And a key part of its agenda has been a plan to move more and more of the $3 trillion dollars in unguarded government pension funds into privately managed, high-fee investments -- a shift that may well constitute the biggest financial story of our generation that you've never heard of.

... snip ...

claim is two things have been responsible for propping up the market: ZIRP funds (including forcing investors into the market because of zero interest) from the feds and stock buybacks (lack of reinvestment in the business will eventually come home to roost).

S&P 500 Companies Spend 95% of Profits on Buybacks, Payouts
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-06/s-p-500-companies-spend-almost-all-profits-on-buybacks-payouts.html
Buybacks Drive Valuations
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/10/goldman-makes-it-official-that-the-stock-market-is-manipulated-buybacks-drive-valuations.html

and of course the motivation for buybacks:

Buybacks Can Juice Per-Share Profit, Pad Executive Pay
http://blogs.wsj.com/cfo/2014/10/28/buybacks-can-juice-per-share-profit-pad-executive-pay/

What Record Stock Buybacks Say About Economic Growth
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-21/what-record-stock-buybacks-say-about-economic-growth

posts mentioning private equity (been involved in targeting victim pension plans)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity
stock buyback
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#stock.buyback

recent posts mentioning ZIRP:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#89 Forbes perspective on IBM's troubles
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#94 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#95 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#2 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#3 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#4 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#6 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#11 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#23 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#29 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#43 LEO

recent posts mentioning pension/retirement plans
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#45 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#48 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#54 Pensions, was Re: Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#61 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#81 Pensions, was Re: Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#28 Royal Pardon for credit unions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#48 IBM Dumps Its Server Business On Lenovo For $2.3B
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#79 Shocking news: Execs do what they're paid to do
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#93 Maximizing shareholder value: The Goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#97 Where does the term Wild Duck come from?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#101 Defense Department Needs to Act Like IBM to Save Itself
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#104 Defense Department Needs to Act Like IBM to Save Itself
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#24 IBM sells Intel server business, company is doomed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#54 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#55 Maximizing shareholder value: The goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#91 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#75 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#18 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#32 upcoming TV show, "Halt & Catch Fire"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#47 Barbarians at the Gate
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#48 IBM hopes new chip can turn the tables on Intel
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#54 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#69 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#91 Open Books Stop Self-Dealing and Corruption
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#111 The Decline and Fall of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#89 IBM, Lenovo server deal potentially scuppered over security
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#14 Instead of focusing on big fines, law enforcement should seek long prison terms for the responsible executives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#69 LA Times commentary: roll out "smart" credit cards to deter fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#4 HP splits, again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#28 HP splits, again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#50 IBM's Ginni Rometty Just Confessed To A Huge Failure -- It Might Be The Best Thing For The Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#51 A View From Beneath the Dancing Elephant
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#64 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#89 Forbes perspective on IBM's troubles
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#8 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#10 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#18 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#21 Senate Democrats vs. the Middle Class; Senators elected in 2008 made Obama's agenda possible, and its results have harmed most Americans
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#52 LEO

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Why you need batch cloud computing

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why you need batch cloud computing
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 17:16:43 -0800
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
That's a good analogy. The IBM model was good for batch processing because it handled the large volumes of data that would best be hauled by your figurative 18-wheeler. But applying the mainframe model to terminal I/O was hampered by the fact that you were using protocols designed to send files across the continent to send messages across the room.

Each model has its strengths and weaknesses; which one works best depends on the application.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#54 Why you need batch cloud computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#57 Why you need batch cloud computing

I've mentioned before we were brought in to small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server; they had also invented this technology called "SSL" that they wanted to use, the results are now frequently called "electronic commerce". During this period ... I frequently had examples where mainframe heritage would have done better job running dark room, unattended server operations. However a major problem was its poor support for tcp/ip, distributed computing, and client/server. some recent posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#20 How To Make Transparency Part Of Organizational Culture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#56 The Road Not Taken: Knowing When to Keep Your Mouth Shut

I mention in above establishing security recommendations for SSL deployment and operation ... and almost immediately some were dropped (resulting in various exploits that continue to this day). One of the issues is that SSL assumes that the end user knows the relationship between the webserver they think they are talking to and the corresponding entered URL. Then SSL provides the relationship between the entered URL and the actual webserver. It requires both to establish that the webserver being talked to is the webserver the user thinks it is. Almost immediately webservers found that using SSL cut their throughput 90% and they dropped back to just using SSL for checkout/paying. Now the entered URL is not validated and the SSL url is typically provided by clicking a button; which just results in the webserver is whatever it claims to be (not necessarily what you think it is).

I've also periodically referred to senior disk engineer got a talk scheduled at the annual, internal, world-wide communication group conference ... supposedly on 3174 performance ... but opened his talk with the statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division. The issue was that the communication group had strategic responsibility for everything that crossed the datacenter walls and was fighting off client/server and distributed computing, trying to preserve its (emulated) dumb terminal paradigm and install base. The disk division was seeing data fleeing the datacenter to more distributed computing friendly platforms with drop in disk sales. The disk division had come up with a number of solutions to correct the problem ... but they were constantly being vetoed by the disk division. some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal

In this time-frame we had come up with 3-tier architecture and out pitching it to customer executives ... and taking all sort of arrows in the back from the SNA & T/R forces ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#3tier

The original mainframe tcp/ip product was done in vs/pascal for vm370. The throughput/performance was limited and communication group managed to enormously increase the price for the supported hardware. On 3090 it needed nearly full 3090 processor to get 44kbyte/sec throughput. I did the changes to support rfc1044 and in some tests at cray research got sustained channel media throughput between 4341 and cray using only modest amount of 4341 processor (around 500 times improvement in bytes moved per instruction executed).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#1044

The communication group was also resorting to various misinformation internally ... including claims that NSFNET backbone could run over VTAM/NCP. old reference:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email870109

past posts mentioning NSFNET backbone
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The Road Not Taken: Knowing When to Keep Your Mouth Shut

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The Road Not Taken: Knowing When to Keep Your Mouth Shut
Date: 21 Nov 2014
Blog: LinkedIn
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#56 The Road Not Taken: Knowing When to Keep Your Mouth Shut

some trivia ... before windows there was ms/dos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS
before ms/dos there was seattle computer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Computer_Products
before seattle computer there was cp/m,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M
before cp/m, kildall worked on cp67/cms at npg (gone 404, but lives on at the wayback machine)
https://web.archive.org/web/20071011100440/http://www.khet.net/gmc/docs/museum/en_cpmName.html
npg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Postgraduate_School
cp67/cms (aka precursor to vm/370)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/CMS
before cp67/cms ... there was virtual machine, interactive computing cp/40
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/cp40seas1982.txt
at the IBM science center ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
other cp/67 starting in the 60s (gone 404, but lives on at the wayback machine)
https://web.archive.org/web/20090117083033/http://www.nsa.gov/research/selinux/list-archive/0409/8362.shtml
note that after CTSS,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatible_Time-Sharing_System
some of the folks went to the IBM science center on the 4th flr and did cp/40 and then cp/67. Other of the folks went to the 5th flr and did multics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics
some number of the people that started work on multics returned to bell labs and did unix (play on simplified multics, unix & vm370 have common heritage back to CTSS on IBM 7094)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX
first portable UNIX to was to interdata
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Version_6_Unix

as previously mentioned I worked with interdata/3 a decade earlier
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#360pcm

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Decimation of the valuation of IBM

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Decimation of the valuation of IBM
Date: 22 Nov 2014
Blog: LinkedIn
Microsoft, Oracle More Valuable Than IBM
http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-oracle-more-valuable-than-ibm-2014-11

During FS period in the early 70s, internal politics was killing off 370 products, the lack of 370 products during the FS period is credited with giving clone processors market foothold. From "Computer Wars" (after FS failure):
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr of free and vigorous debate was replaced with sycophancy and make no waves under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM lived in the shadow of defeat

... and:
But because of the heavy investment of face by the top management, F/S took years to kill, although its wrongheadedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first time, during F/S, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous," recalls a former top executive.

... snip ...

when FS imploded there was a mad rush to get products back into the 370 pipeline ... part of this was that "ad-tech" was pretty much thrown under the bus (groups thrown into help with the product mad rush).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

I did an "ad-tech" conference the spring of 1982 ... the first in many years
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#4a

... then reference to Mandelbrot resigning in 1987 over IBM ending pure research.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benoit_Mandelbrot

from "Great Deformation":
IBM was not the born-again growth machine trumpeted by the mob of Wall Street momo traders. It was actually a stock buyback contraption on steroids. During the five years ending in fiscal 2011, the company spent a staggering $67 billion repurchasing its own shares, a figure that was equal to 100 percent of its net income.

and
Total shareholder distributions, including dividends, amounted to $82 billion, or 122 percent, of net income over this five-year period. Likewise, during the last five years IBM spent less on capital investment than its depreciation and amortization charges, and also shrank its constant dollar spending for research and development by nearly 2 percent annually.

... snip ...

S&P 500 Companies Spend 95% of Profits on Buybacks, Payouts
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-06/s-p-500-companies-spend-almost-all-profits-on-buybacks-payouts.html
Buybacks Drive Valuations
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/10/goldman-makes-it-official-that-the-stock-market-is-manipulated-buybacks-drive-valuations.html
Buybacks Can Juice Per-Share Profit, Pad Executive Pay
http://blogs.wsj.com/cfo/2014/10/28/buybacks-can-juice-per-share-profit-pad-executive-pay/
What Record Stock Buybacks Say About Economic Growth
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-21/what-record-stock-buybacks-say-about-economic-growth

Note: Stockman in "Great Deformation" describes stock buybacks as mini-form of private equity LBOs.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity

I used to sponsor Boyd's briefings at IBM. Part of the briefing was that at entry to WW2, the military had to deploy large numbers with little or not experience. In order to leverage the little available experience, they went to heavy duty, rigid, top-down command&control structure requiring 11% officers (growing to 20%, compared to <3% for German military). He would observe that US corporate culture was starting to be contaminated with former officers that learned their organization skills in the military. Note this is also in the period that articles were starting to appear about US companies being destroyed by the rise of MBAs and their myopic focus on quarterly results. The military culture, that only those at the very top know what they are doing, has also been used to justify the explosion in avg executive to worker compensation ratio to 400:1 after being 20:1 for a long time. Also from Boyd:
"There are two career paths in front of you, and you have to choose which path you will follow. One path leads to promotions, titles, and positions of distinction.... The other path leads to doing things that are truly significant for the Air Force, but the rewards will quite often be a kick in the stomach because you may have to cross swords with the party line on occasion. You can't go down both paths, you have to choose. Do you want to be a man of distinction or do you want to do things that really influence the shape of the Air Force? To Be or To Do, that is the question." Colonel John R. Boyd, USAF 1927-1997

From the dedication of Boyd Hall, United States Air Force Weapons School, Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. 17 Sept 1999


past Boyd posts and WEB URLs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

In the mid-80s, top executives were predicting IBM revenue would double primarily based on mainframe business (even though at the time that business was starting to go in the other direction, it is not exactly career enhancing to point it out) and do a massive internal building program to double mainframe manufacturing capacity (there is also a massive uptic in "fast track" MBAs). A few years later IBM has gone into the red.

The president of AMEX is in competition to be the next CEO and wins, the looser takes his protege with him and leaves going to Baltimore. AMEX is in competition to do private-equity, reverse IPO, leveraged buyout of RJR and looses to KKR. KKR runs into problems with RJR and hires away the AMEX president to turn it around. Then IBM has gone into the red and is on the verge of being broken into the 13 "baby blues". IBM board brings in this former AMEX president to resurrect the company and reverse the breakup.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
private equity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity
stock buyback
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#stock.buyback

Part of the measures are stock buybacks and other measures are described here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml

Note recent articles are that Amazon has been doing massive build-out of its cloud infrastructure for more than decade ... even though the enormous investment has it barely breaking even (or even loosing money) ... in that period, IBM has been putting its money into stock buybacks and dividends.

n the late 80s, a senior disk engineer got a talk scheduled at the internal, annual, world-wide communication group conference supposedly on 3174 performance ... but he opened his talk with the statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division. The issue was that the communication group had strategic ownership of everything that crosses the datacenter walls and were fighting off client/server and distributed computing trying to preserve its (emulated) dumb terminal paradigm and install base. The disk division was seeing the effects with data fleeing the datacenter to more distributed computing friendly platforms with drop in disk sales. The disk division had come up with several solutions to correct the problem, but they were constantly being vetoed by the communication.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Is IBM Suddenly Vulnerable To A Takeover?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Is IBM Suddenly Vulnerable To A Takeover?
Date: 22 Nov 2014
Blog: Facebook
Is IBM Suddenly Vulnerable To A Takeover?
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2695415-is-ibm-suddenly-vulnerable-to-a-takeover

from above:
But IBM is becoming an exception. It has a ton of people on high salary, near the end of their careers, who can be replaced by Indian or Chinese programmers. It has a ton of retirees whose retirement assets could be seized through bankruptcy or mere pressure. Whoever did such a deal would be facing a massive public backlash, but at this point, the parts are definitely worth more than the whole.

... snip ...

in the past, this had account of organization suing over changing the pension fund to an "asset" (subject to seizure)
http://www.endicottalliance.org/
and other detail:
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml

recent posts mentioning retirement heist:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#45 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#48 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#48 IBM Dumps Its Server Business On Lenovo For $2.3B
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#79 Shocking news: Execs do what they're paid to do
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#93 Maximizing shareholder value: The Goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#101 Defense Department Needs to Act Like IBM to Save Itself
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#24 IBM sells Intel server business, company is doomed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#54 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#55 Maximizing shareholder value: The goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#91 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#75 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#32 upcoming TV show, "Halt & Catch Fire"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#47 Barbarians at the Gate
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#48 IBM hopes new chip can turn the tables on Intel
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#54 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#69 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#111 The Decline and Fall of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#25 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#89 IBM, Lenovo server deal potentially scuppered over security
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#69 LA Times commentary: roll out "smart" credit cards to deter fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#28 HP splits, again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#36 IBM 'major announcement' points to deal on chip manufacturing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#50 IBM's Ginni Rometty Just Confessed To A Huge Failure -- It Might Be The Best Thing For The Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#51 A View From Beneath the Dancing Elephant
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#64 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#2 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#8 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#10 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#12 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#61 Decimation of the valuation of IBM

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The Fed Just Acknowledged Its Too Big To Jail Policy

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The Fed Just Acknowledged Its Too Big To Jail Policy
Date: 22 Nov 2014
Blog: Facebook
The Fed Just Acknowledged Its Too Big To Jail Policy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/21/fed-too-big-to-jail_n_6201476.html

Dudley Do Wrong Rejects Being a "Cop" and Embraces "Foaming the Runway"
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/11/dudley-wrong-rejects-cop-embraces-foaming-runways.html
Power to the People! US Senator Elizabeth Warren Says to President Obama We've Had Enough Wall Street Cronies in the US Government
http://johnhively.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/powere-to-the-people-us-senator-elizabeth-warren-says-to-president-obama-weve-had-enough-wall-street-cronies-in-the-us-government/
Elizabeth Warren Blasts New York Fed President William Dudley
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/elizabeth-warren-blasts-new-york-fed-president-william-dudley.html

posts mentioning too big to fail (too big to prosecute, too big to jail)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

start of the century I reviewed a periodic financial industry publication that gave the avgs. of largest regional banks compared to the avgs of largest national banks for thousands of items/measures. For various reasons, the regional banks were slightly more efficient than the national banks. The justification for repeal of Glass-Steagall enabling too big to fail (too big to prosecute, too big to jail) seemed to be CEO compensation proportional to institutional size.

The president of AMEX is in competition to be the next CEO and wins, the looser takes his protege with him and goes to Baltimore taking over what has been described as a loan sharking business. They then make other acquisitions, eventually acquiring citibank in violation of Glass-Steagall. Greenspan gives them an exemption while they lobby congress for repeal (they also enlist the help of sec. of treasury, who had previously been head of Goldman ... who after it is done, resigns and becomes, what at the time, is called (citi) co-CEO; repeal of Glass-Steagall is enabler for too big to fail). The protege leaves and becomes CEO of one of the other too big to fail. At the time I remember comments that the new citibank CEO was replacing the traditional banking executives with people from other areas of the financial industry that weren't use to depository institution regulations.

Why did regulators ignore rising risks at Citigroup despite warnings of the oncoming crisis?
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141122045537-20494629-why-did-regulators-ignore-rising-risks-at-citigroup-despite-warnings-of-the-oncoming-crisis

Corporate Fraud and Misconduct Risks Driven by Pressure to do 'Whatever It Takes'; Fewer episodes reported by companies with ethics and compliance programs
http://www.informationweek.com/financialservices/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=215801487

from above:
Of more than 5,000 U.S. workers polled this summer, 74 percent said they had personally observed misconduct within their organizations during the prior 12 months, unchanged from the level reported by KPMG survey respondents in 2005. Roughly half (46 percent) of respondents reported that what they observed "could cause a significant loss of public trust if discovered," a figure that rises to 60 percent among employees working in the banking and finance industry.

... snip ...

If the overall avg. is 46percent and the financial industry is 60 percent, then the non-financial avg may be as low as 30percent ... making the financial industry twice as bad as other industries

Banking - licensed to cheat! And whether you'll get away with it.
https://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001531.html
Research: Bankers and the Religious Will Lie for Money
http://econintersect.com/b2evolution/blog1.php/2014/11/20/research-bankers-and-the-religious-will-lie-for-money
Study: Religious more likely to lie for financial gain
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/22/study_religious_more_likely_to_lie_for_financial_gain_partner/
Business culture in banking industry favors dishonest behavior
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141119132524.htm
Study Finds Banking Industry May Spark Dishonest Behavior
http://time.com/3595882/bank-industry-dishonesty-study/
Deception counts
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GECON-01-191114.html
Modern accounts are instruments of deception
http://www.prudentbear.com/2014/11/the-bears-lair-modern-accounts-are.html
Cochrane Demands that the Public Unilaterally Disarm while the Banksters Loot
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/11/cochrane-demands-public-unilaterally-disarm-banksters-loot.html
The NY Fed's Attempt To Explain That It Is Not A Subsidiary Of Goldman Sachs
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-20/ny-feds-attempt-explain-it-not-subsidiary-goldman-sachs
A Quick Look At Goldman's Takeover Of The US Judicial System: NY Fed Edition
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-20/while-ny-fed-just-admitted-whistleblower-segarra-was-right-conflicted-judge-threw-ou
Abdication of Regulatory Oversight of Large Banks
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141120034037-20494629-abdication-of-regulatory-oversight-of-large-banks
'The most dishonest bankers walk away with the most money'
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/01/most-dishonest-bankers-most-money-banking-blog
Trader Describes How Dishonesty Pays in Finance, Big Time
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/trader-describes-how-dishonesty-pays-in-finance-big-time.html

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 18:41:06 -0800
"Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> writes:
I think that most people have desired to avoid war. Unfortunately, just like stupid people, war will probably always be with us "to the end of time". Too many people still lead their lives by using their "reptile brains". The reptile brain is "involved in aggression, dominance, territoriality, and ritual displays".

then there is pure avarice (preying on everybody else), most recent variation

The Post-9/11 Homeland Security Industrial Complex Profiteers and Endless War
http://www.truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/27425-james-risen-the-post-9-11-homeland-security-industrial-complex-profiteers-and-endless-war

lots of "perpetual war" and "continuous conflict" ... even predating Spinney (one of Boyd's acolytes)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_war
and Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

war is a racket (also references perpetual war)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket

and

Triumphant Plutocracy
http://archive.org/details/triumphantpluto00pettrich
loc6265-74:
XXX. THE LEAGUE TO PERPETUATE WAR The war has just begun. I said that when the Armistice terms were published and when I read the Treaty and the League Covenant I felt more than evercon vinced of the justice of my conclusion. The Treaty of Versailles is merely an armistice -- a suspension of hostilities, while the combatants get their wind. There is a war in every chapter of the Treaty and in every section of the League Covenant; war all over the world; war without end so long as the conditions endure which produce these documents.

... snip ...

also
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#perpetual.war

posts & URLs referencing Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Decimation of the valuation of IBM

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Decimation of the valuation of IBM
Date: 23 Nov 2014
Blog: LinkedIn
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#61 Decimation of the valuation of IBM

IBM has organization that does a lot of business based on corporations outsourcing to IBM. One scenario has outsourcing of activities that aren't critical to the core activities of the organization (eliminating executives have to worry about things that aren't directly related to the business). However, US corporations have increasingly shifted to the core activity of the organization is maximizing shareholder value (but that frequently is code for maximizing executive compensation).

Why the "Maximizing Shareholder Value" Theory of Corporate Governance is Bogus; One mantra you see regularly in the business and popular press goes something along the lines of "the CEO and board have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value."
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/10/why-the-maximizing-shareholder-value-theory-of-corporate-governance-is-bogus.html

from above:
If you review any of the numerous guides prepared for directors of corporations prepared by law firms and other experts, you won't find a stipulation for them to maximize shareholder value on the list of things they are supposed to do. It's not a legal requirement. And there is a good reason for that.

Directors and officers, broadly speaking, have a duty of care and duty of loyalty to the corporation. From that flow more specific obligations under Federal and state law. But notice: those responsibilities are to the corporation, not to shareholders in particular.


... snip ...

Note that adtech (products 5-8yrs out) was thrown under the bus after the failure of FS ... being used to help with the mad rush to get products back into the pipeline ... separate adtech groups and the advanced technology division disappears. Then research division was increasingly used to fill in the adtech void ... until pure research is also gone (but they don't bother to rename it the advance technology division).

Note when I did the adtech conference in 1982, I was in the research division. While I did a lot of research on computer algorithms, one of my hobbies was building enhanced mainframe operating systems for internal datacenters ... lots of place ran them ... I had been providing systems to the world-wide online sales&marketing support HONE operation from their days starting with CP67. past posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone

The dasd engineering & product test labs. had been running stand-alone dedicated operation (7x24 around the clock pre-scheduled). They had once tried operating system ... but found that MVS (of the period) had a 15min MTBF in that environment (requiring manual restart). I offered to rewrite the I/O supervisor to be bullet proof and never fail so that they could do on-demand, concurrent anytime testing ... greatly increasing productivity. Downside was that they increasingly try and drag me in to play disk engineer. past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

The other scenario is it started downhill with FS effort (a little over 40yrs) and continued downhill until company went into the red ... and then there was big shift ... but from the law of unintended consequences ... things change in unexpected ways.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

Another tale from long ago and far away, some people from stanford approached Palo Alto about taking a workstation they were doing and turning it out as IBM product. Palo Alto calls a review and invites people from Boca, and both San Jose and Yorktown research. After the review, Boca, SJR, and YKT all say that they are working on efforts that are much better and IBM decides not to do it . The group then starts their own company (SUN).

A tale from the gov. trial ... executive from one of the 7 dwarfs testified that by the late 50s ... all the companies in the computer business realized that a compatibility was required across the computer line .... businesses were starting to rapidly grow and software development was so expensive ... that having to totally rewrite every time they changed computers was major inhibitor. For various reasons all the other vendors weren't able able to force plant managers to maintain compatibility, but IBM management did. Being the only vendor with compatible line gave it enormous competitive advantage ... it could be deficient in nearly every other area and still prevail. IBM could "coast" on that competitive advantage for a number of decades.

In the early 70s, Amdahl had a seminar at MIT in large, packed auditorium. One of the students asked how Amdahl convinced the money people to invest in his (clone processor) company. His reply was that even if IBM were to totally walk away from 360 (/370, which I took as veiled reference to FS), the customer 360 software base was so massive that it would keep him in business through the end of the century.

This has an account of the end of IBM's ACS
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html

it was terminated in the late 60s after IBM management decided that it would advance the computer state-of-the-art too fast and IBM might loose control of the market (Amdahl leaves shortly afterwards and starts his own company). At the end of the article it has list of items from ACS that show up with es/9000 two decades later..

recent posts mentioning end of IBM's ACS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#62 Imprecise Interrupts and the 360/195
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#64 Optimization, CPU time, and related issues
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#94 Optimization, CPU time, and related issues
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#21 Write Inhibit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#28 Write Inhibit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#15 Last Gasp for Hard Disk Drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#26 23Jun1969 Unbundling Announcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#29 The mainframe turns 50, or, why the IBM System/360 launch was the dawn of enterprise IT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#51 The mainframe turns 50, or, why the IBM System/360 launch was the dawn of enterprise IT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#21 Complete 360 and 370 systems found
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#54 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#67 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#73 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#78 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#11 DEC Technical Journal on Bitsavers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#14 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#4 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#6 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#65 Are you tired of the negative comments about IBM in this community?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#68 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#69 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#87 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#97 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#19 DG Nova 1200 as console
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#32 Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#51 Is coding the new literacy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#100 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Why you need batch cloud computing

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why you need batch cloud computing
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 14:05:30 -0800
hancock4 writes:
No.

System programmers routinely set the task priority of various applications. Generally, on-line functions have a higher priority than batch.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#54 Why you need batch cloud computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#57 Why you need batch cloud computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#59 Why you need batch cloud computing

as undergraduate in the 60s, I redid cp67 for dynamic adaptive resource management ... it was referred to as "fair share scheduling" ... was that default policy was everything got equal share. The earlier cp67 implementation bore some resemblance to UNIX code that I ran into two decades later ... possibly because of common heritage to CTSS; cp67->CTSS, unix->multics->ctss; multics was on 5th flr 545 tech sq, cp67 was done at the science center on the 4th flr
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

online interactive response is greatly improved for many operations since they also tend to have trivial resource user and are given preference.

in the morph from cp67->vm370 there was great deal of simplification and a lot of the cp67 work I had done gets dropped. At share sessions, many installations lobby for allowing me to put it back in vm370.

I finally get around to porting it and lots of other stuff from cp67 to vm370 ... some old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#email731212
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email750102
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email750430

and during the FS period when lots of 370 stuff is being killed i continue to work on 370 stuff even ridiculing FS efforts (not exactly career enhancing).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

after FS implodes, there is mad rush to get 370 stuff back into product pipelines ... which is likely motivation to release lots of stuff I had continued to do ... a bunch of it in standard release

now result of legal action in the 60s, there is the 23Jun1969 unbundling announcement ... that includes starting to charge for software, however they make the case that kernel software should still be free
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle

now the lack of 370 products during the FS period is credited with giving clone processors a market foothold ... which apparently motivates the decision to start charging for kernel software. My resource management (from cp67 days) is selected to be the first guinea pig and I get to spend lots of time with lawyers and business people on kernel software charging policy.

Now the pok favorite son (batch) operating system had an enormous number of things that required constant tweaking by system programmers (which I had eliminated in the 60s with dynanmic adaptive resource management). Somebody in corporate says he won't sign off on releasing my resource management product unless it had similar, state-of-the-art, "modern" features.

so I added several parameters that could be tweaked by system programmers. However, it was all a joke ... that apparently nobody ever figured out ... the range of values that could be manually tweaked would be compensated for by the adatpive adaptive code. I wrote detailed description of the algorithms and implementation as well as providing all the source code ... and yet nobody realized that the dynamic adaptive code was compensating for manual changes.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#fairshare

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 18:17:14 -0800
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
From what I read, under-prescription is much more of a problem than over. I do 't k ow of doctors are too afraid of the Feds or what.

over-prescribing is also implicated in the rise of super-bugs ... enormous over use of anti-biotics ... even placebo for the patient when its virus (and not bacteria).

also over-prescribing shows up in the enormous profit motivation by the pharmaceutical-regulatory-congressional complex ... similar to the "captured" regulators and financial-regulatory-congressional complex and the military-industry-congressional complex
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

recent item

Pharmaceutical industry gets high on fat profits
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28212223

big pharma shows up in medicare part-d
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#medicare.part-d

1st major bill after congress allows fiscal responsibility act to expire in 2002.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fiscal.responsibility.act

comptroller general describes it as long term $40T unfunded mandate that comes to swamp all other federal budget items.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#comptroller.general

cbs 60mins did segment that 18 republican staffers&members of congress were responsible for getting it through the legislative process ... at the last minute inserts clause that prevents competitive bidding and prevents CBO from distributing report analysing the change. after the bill passes, all 18 have resigned and are on big pharma payroll.

60mins also shows comparison of drugs from part-d that are three times the price of the identical same drug from the VA (which allows competitive bidding).

more recent expose by 60mins

'60 Minutes' Just Attacked High Drug Prices. Here's What You Should Know.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2014/10/05/60-minutes-just-attacked-high-drug-prices-heres-what-you-should-know/

other refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011j.html#40 Advice from Richard P. Feynman
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011j.html#59 Why did the OODA-loop tactic grow into a strategy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011k.html#49 50th anniversary of BASIC, COBOL?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011o.html#73 How Pursuit of Profits Kills Innovation and the U.S. Economy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#34 21st Century Management approach?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#36 McCain calls for U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012f.html#88 Defense acquisitions are broken and no one cares
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#68 Interesting News Article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#0 General Mills computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#28 Senator Sherrod Brown Drops a Bombshell in Mary Jo White's Hearing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#20 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#51 What Makes collecting sales taxes Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#55 OT: "Highway Patrol" back on TV
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#81 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#27 LEO

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Decimation of the valuation of IBM

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Decimation of the valuation of IBM
Date: 24 Nov 2014
Blog: LinkedIn
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#61 Decimation of the valuation of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#65 Decimation of the valuation of IBM

Note, some of this is rehash of similar stuff in "tandem memos" ... I was blamed for online computer conferencing on the internal network (larger than arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime late '85 or early '86) in late 70s and early 80s. Folklore is that when executive committee was informed of online computer conferencing (and the internal network), 5of6 wanted to fire me (possibly why they didn't was large number of internal datacenters running my systems, however i was told that i could forget any possibility of promotions or corporate awards). from IBMJARGON:
Tandem Memos - n. Something constructive but hard to control; a fresh of breath air (sic). That's another Tandem Memos. A phrase to worry middle management. It refers to the computer-based conference (widely distributed in 1981) in which many technical personnel expressed dissatisfaction with the tools available to them at that time, and also constructively criticized the way products were [are] developed. The memos are required reading for anyone with a serious interest in quality products. If you have not seen the memos, try reading the November 1981 Datamation summary.

... snip ...

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 22:11:13 -0800
Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> writes:
Aer Lingus name their jets, but you have to look at them to know it because the name is never mentioned.

I have some vaque memory of flying pan am 747 that had some name ... and then later flying same plane after it was united. I had been commuting from San Fran to New York a couple times a month ... taking red-eye out of SFO on monday night to Kennedy and turning around and coming back Friday afternoon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_American_World_Airways#Sale_of_Pacific_division
Sale of Pacific division

Given the airline's dire state, in April 1985, Acker sold Pan Am's entire Pacific Division, which consisted of 25% of its entire route system, to United Airlines for $750 million. This sale also enabled Pan Am to address fleet incompatibility issues related to the earlier acquisition of National Airlines as it included Pan Am's Pratt & Whitney JT9D-powered 747SPs, its Rolls-Royce RB211-powered L-1011s and the General Electric CF6-powered DC-10s inherited from National, which were transferred to United along with the Pacific routes.[54][91]


... snip ...

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 08:13:08 -0800
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
True for antibiotics. I thought we were talking about pain meds. Doctors prescribe an antibiotic whenever the patient has the sniffles, even when it's most likely a virus.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#67 LEO

Prescription painkillers: 5 surprising facts; Why you should be concerned about opioids -- the most prescribed drugs in America
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2014/01/5-surprising-things-you-need-to-know-about-prescription-painkillers/index.htm
Are You Taking Pain Pills You Don't Need?
http://www.prevention.com/health/health-concerns/dangers-over-prescribing-pain-killers
Who Is Responsible for the Pain-Pill Epidemic?
http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/who-is-responsible-for-the-pain-pill-epidemic

from above:
The use of prescription narcotics, and the problems associated with them, are so pervasive that, last month, the Food and Drug Administration recommended tightening regulations for how doctors prescribe some of the most commonly used narcotic painkillers.

...
At around the same time, the companies that manufactured these narcotics -- including Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, and Endo Pharmaceuticals -- began to aggressively market their products for long-term, non-cancer pain, including neck and back pain. They promoted their prescription narcotics to doctors through ads in highly regarded publications, and through continuing-education courses for medical professionals.

... snip ...

I recently noticed segments on TV warning about other members of your household (adolescents) taking you pills (doesn't say, but most likely various related to pain, anxiety, etc) ... also advertisements for clinics specializing in pain pill addiction.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Decimation of the valuation of IBM

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Decimation of the valuation of IBM
Date: 25 Nov 2014
Blog: LinkedIn
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#61 Decimation of the valuation of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#65 Decimation of the valuation of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#68 Decimation of the valuation of IBM

There was article from 2012 that mainframe processors were 4% of IBM revenue, but the total mainframe group (software, services, etc) was 25% and 40% of the profit.

1qtr2014 financials had IBM selling the equivalent of 14 max configured mainframe EC12 (56 on analyzed basis) ... things look like the company has been doing its best to milk every ounce out of the declining mainframe business ... however, it does have a core customer base in financial industry.

Financial transaction processing started out as mainframe overnight batch. In the 70s & 80s, online front-end transaction initiation was introduced, but processing the transaction was still left to the overnight backend batch. In the 90s, with business growing and globalization, the size of the overnight batch window was shrinking at the same time the work needed to be done was increasing. In any case, there were major portions of the financial industry that still required mainframes (and had vested interests in keeping some part of IBM operating). However, the industry did spend billions of dollars in the 90s to re-engineer their financial systems, leveraging lots of "killer micros" and parallelization to change over to straight through processing (eliminating overnight batch bottleneck). They did some toy pilots and started on major conversions w/o doing speeds&feeds ... and ignoring advice that the parallelization technology they were using introduced 100 times overhead compared to the mainframe cobol batch. This overhead came to totally swamp the anticipated increase in "killer micro" throughput when it came to deployment.

The later half of the last decade, I was involved in taking some straight through processing technology to financial industry groups, which leveraged the enormous throughput work in (non-mainframe) RDBMS parallelization and cluster scale-up (instead of roll-your-own approach used during the 90s). We were able to demonstrate throughput several times that of any mainframe configuration. It initially had great acceptance but then all things came to screeching halt. We were finally told that there are large number of financial executives that still bore the scars from the failed re-engineering attempts in the 90s (and things would have to wait until they were replaced by new generation)

recent posts mentioning straight through processing and/or "overnight batch"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#3 We need to talk about TED
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#29 Royal Pardon for credit unions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#81 CPU time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#83 CPU time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#22 US Federal Reserve pushes ahead with Faster Payments planning
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#90 Why do bank IT systems keep failing ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#10 Can the mainframe remain relevant in the cloud and mobile era?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#69 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#74 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#78 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#14 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#38 Meet Cobol's hard core fans
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#76 This Was the Very First Website In the US

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Why you need batch cloud computing

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why you need batch cloud computing
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 10:49:37 -0800
scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
Although neither burroughs nor IBM mainframes ever needed to respond to tty character interrupts :-) for batch or timesharing jobs, the burroughs systems would need to take MICR interrupts from sorters with real-time responses (to avoid "too late to pocket select").

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#54 Why you need batch cloud computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#57 Why you need batch cloud computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#59 Why you need batch cloud computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#66 Why you need batch cloud computing

there was special software feature for VS1 operating system to handle timing constraint for check shorters
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3890

the POK favorite son operating system (MVS) had interrupt handling pathlength that was way too long. part of the justification for SSCH instruction in 370/xa was because of the enormously long MVS interrupt handling pathlength. As disks got faster ... a growing problem limiting disk throughput was redrive latency (idle time from i/o interrupt signalling the end of the previous i/o through the interrupt handler until status was ready to restart the device with queued request).

I've commented before that when I rewrote the i/o supervisor for the disk engineering and product tests labs ... part of the effort was to also show exceedingly short redrive latency ... come as close as possible as the theoritical SSCH with dedicated hardware just using standard 370 software.

Note that the disk labs had been running their mainframes "stand-alone" for disk testing, scheduled 7x24 around the clock. They had tried doing testing under MVS but the system had 15min MTBF (requiring manual restart). I offered to rewrite i/o supervisor to make it bullet proof and never fail ... downside was that they then increasingly tried to drag me into playing disk engineer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The Watchdog that Didn't Bark ... Again

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 25 Nov 2014
Subject: The Watchdog that Didn't Bark ... Again
Blog: Google+
re:
https://plus.google.com/108852057661352927222/posts/d5GbYpHxRgG

The Watchdog that Didn't Bark ... Again
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141125181723-20494629-the-watchdog-that-didn-t-bark-again

there are several threads here.

#2 on times list of those responsible for the economic mess; behind GLBA, repeal of Glass-Steagall (enabling too big to fail, too big to prosecute, and too big to jail), and preventing CDS from being regulated
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877330,00.html

characterized as favor to ENRON. When head of CFTC proposes regulating CDS, the other regulators gang up and have her replaced with "#2's" wife

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/business/17grammside.html

from above:
Enron was a major contributor to Mr. Gramm's political campaigns, and Mr. Gramm's wife, Wendy, served on the Enron board, which she joined after stepping down as chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

... snip ...

https://web.archive.org/web/20080711114839/http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-01-15/news/phil-gramm-s-enron-favor/

from above:
A few days after she got the ball rolling on the exemption, Wendy Gramm resigned from the commission. Enron soon appointed her to its board of directors, where she served on the audit committee, which oversees the inner financial workings of the corporation. For this, the company paid her between $915,000 and $1.85 million in stocks and dividends, as much as $50,000 in annual salary, and $176,000 in attendance fees,

... snip ...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&refer=home&sid=aYJZOB_gZi0I

from above:
That same year Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt opposed an attempt by Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to study regulating over-the-counter derivatives. In 2000, Congress passed a law keeping them unregulated.

... snip ...

above also refers to lots of stuff was allowed to be carried off-book. Note just the four largest too big to fail were still carrying $5.2T in toxic assets off-book the end of 2008 (the TARP $700B appropriated for purchase of toxic assets was pure fabrication).
Bank's Hidden Junk Menaces $1 Trillion Purge
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=akv_p6LBNIdw&refer=home

In the wake of ENRON, congress passes Sarbanes-Oxley; the rhetoric on the floor of congress was that it would prevent another ENRON and guarantee executives and auditors do jail time for fraudulent financial reports; however it requires SEC to do something (jokes at the time was that SOX was actually full-employment gift to the audit industry). Possibly because even GAO didn't think SEC was doing anything, it starts doing reports of fraudulent financial reports, even showing it increases after SOX (and nobody doing jail time).

Securitized mortgages had been used during the S&L crisis to obfuscate fraudulent mortgages. In the late 90s, we were asked to look at improving the integrity of the supporting documents (in securitized mortgages) as countermeasure. However, wallstreet hits on paying the rating agencies to give triple-A ratings to toxic CDOs (even when both the sellers and the rating agencies know they aren't worth triple-A, from testimony in the Oct2008 congressional hearings into the role the rating agencies played in the economic mess).

Triple-A rating trumps supporting documents, enabling no-documentation liar loans (and with no documentation, there is no longer any issue of supporting documentation integrity). Over $27T is done during the economic mess
Evil Wall Street Exports Boomed With 'Fools' Born to Buy Debt
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&refer=home&sid=a0jln3.CSS6

Note SOX also called for SEC to do something about the rating agencies ... but little or nothing appears to have been done there either.

Wallstreet also finds that they can leverage unregulated CDS; they create toxic CDOs designed to fail, pay for triple-A rating, sell them to their clients, and make CDS gambling bets that the toxic CDOs will fail. This also enormously increases the demand specifically for no-documentation liar loans that will fail (and to generate them as fast as possible with little or no oversight)

From the law of unintended consequences, the no-documentation liar loans also results too big to fail setting up document fabrication mills turning out fraudulent/missing documents required for foreclosures.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mortgage-paperwork-mess-next-housing-shock/

Note also, the congressional Madoff hearings had the person that tried unsuccessfully for a decade to get SEC to do something about Madoff.

posts mentioning Glass-Steagall:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall
posts mentioning toxic CDOs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo
posts mentioning fed chairman(s)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#greenspan
posts mentioning too big to fail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
posts mentioning ENRON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#enron
posts mentioning sarbanes-oxley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#sarbanes-oxley
posts mentioning fraudulent financial reporting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#financial.reporting.fraud.fraud
posts mentioning Madoff
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#madoff
regulatory capture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#regulatory.capture

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

SD?

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: SD?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, alt.sys.pdp8
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 08:59:52 -0800
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
Was it here or the Hercules list that was talking about, e.g. the response of control units to system reset?

as control units got more sophisticated ... things got a lot more complex. control units from the communication group were especially eggregious ... folklore is that they did to perpetuate the original FS objectives:
https://www.ecole.org/en/session/49-the-rise-and-fall-of-ibm

from above ("react" reference is to clone controllers):
IBM tried to react by launching a major project called the 'Future System' (FS) in the early 1970's. The idea was to get so far ahead that the competition would never be able to keep up, and to have such a high level of integration that it would be impossible for competitors to follow a compatible niche strategy. However, the project failed because the objectives were too ambitious for the available technology. Many of the ideas that were developed were nevertheless adapted for later generations. Once IBM had acknowledged this failure, it launched its 'box strategy', which called for competitiveness with all the different types of compatible sub-systems. But this proved to be difficult because of IBM's cost structure and its R&D spending, and the strategy only resulted in a partial narrowing of the price gap between IBM and its rivals.

... snip ...

past FS posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

there were jokes about other (IBM) organizations producing hardware to the SNA specifications and they didn't work ... the only standard for SNA was what the communication group shipped ... which might have little to do with what was said in the official SNA documents (even inside IBM, interoperability required lots of reverse engineering and trial&error).

I've periodically referred to 3274/3278 having much worse interactive characteristics than 3272/3277 ... in part because they moved a lot of hardware from the (3278) terminal (reducing cost of manufacturing) back into the shared controller (greatly increased response time and latencies along with increase in amount of protocol chatter on the coax cable). early 3274 controllers also were subject to hanging requiring somebody to go over and do manual reset.

Work in the disk engineering lab and redoing I/O supervisor to be bullet proof and never fail, uncovered that if you executed CLRIO/HDV instruction sequence for every 3274 subchannel address in tight loop (with no other intervening operations), the 3274 would do a re-IMPL (reboot).

posts mentioning doing I/O supervisor rewrite and getting to play disk engineer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

I've mentioned before that in the aftermath of the FS failure, there was mad rush to get products back into the 370 pipeline ... part of this was kicking off 303x and 370/xa(3081) in parallel. some other reference here.
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm

part of the 303x effort was taking the integrated channels from 370/158 and packaging it as the 303x channel director (w/o the 370 microcode). The 3031 was then two 370/158 engines, one with only the 370 microcode and one with only the integrated channel microcode. A 3032 was 168-3 reconfigured to work with one or more 303x channel directors.

When product test lab first got an early 3033 engineering model (typically disk test got the 3rd or 4th working engineering machine to start disk testing) ... had problems with the 303x channel director hanging, requiring manual reset (re-impl/reboot). This was aggrevated by some of the test devices might deviate from channel specification. Discovered that if you did a CLRCH instruction to every channel address on 303x channel director in tight loop w/o any other intervening operation, it would do a re-IMPL (reboot).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 10:43:06 -0800
Roger Blake <rogblake@iname.invalid> writes:
Trickle-down works for me. I have yet to meet a gutter bum who would pay big $$$ for, say, the maintenance of a computer network. My customers have been primarily rich business owners who pay me quite well for my services. But then again you probably support the party whose members spout idiotic proclamations such as "businesses don't create jobs." Must be the welfare recipients who create them.

Bernanke a couple years ago saying that he figured that trickle-down would work with giving trillions of ZIRP funds to the too big to fail and they would turn around and loan it to mainstreet (resurrecting the economy, after the too big to fail blew it up last decade) ... and he was surprised when it wasn't happening, the too big to fail were just buying treasuries and keeping the spread for themselves (and he had no way of forcing the too big to fail to lend to mainstreet).

Now it turns out that something similar happened after the crash of '29 ... and supposedly one of Bernankes qualifications for fed chairman was expert on what happened in the 30s.

posts mentioning Fed chairman
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#bernanke
posts mentioning too big to fail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

there have been recent articles about what trivial amounts that have been trickling down have more than offset by the trillions that have trickling up.

other instance ... is congress enormously increased tax loopholes last decade for the special interests ... including lots of way of tax avoidance with offshoring money. however, 2009 IRS had press that it was going after 52,000 wealthy americans that owed $400B in taxes (illegally, over and above all the legal ways of) hiding money offshore. Then in 2011, there was news items that the new house in congress was voting to eliminate IRS funding to go after those taxes ... a couple recent references:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#98 Credit Suisse 'cloak-and-dagger' tactics cost US taxpayers billions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#58 Credit Suisse, BNP Paribas at Risk of Criminal Charges Over Taxes, Business With Banned Nations
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#100 After the Sun (Microsystems) Sets, the Real Stories Come Out

past posts mentioning tax avoidance, tax evasion, tax havens (including references to estimate that there are somewhere between $21T and $30T stashed offshore)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#tax.evasion

one of the unintended side-effects of the missing tax revenue is drastic cut in funds for maintaining basic infrastructure services ... estimates that basic infrastructure deficit is now several trillion ... just to have basic services needed by both public and business.
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/war-on-jobs

from above:
The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that it would cost $3.6 trillion to bring our nation's infrastructure to a state of good repair. Spending $1 trillion would create about 13 million jobs. "The choice is clear," Sanders said. "Let's rebuild America and create jobs here."

... snip ...

Volcker was talking to civil engineering professor about the disappearing civil engineering programs at universities. the long term lack of infrastructure spending has resulted in no jobs, and no jobs has resulted in no students (and with no students, they were dropping the civil engineering programs). many of the stimulus funding projects had to hire chinese civil engineering firms; from Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President pg290:
Well, I said, 'The trouble with the United States recently is we spent several decades not producing many civil engineers and producing a huge number of financial engineers. And the result is s*tty bridges and a s*tty financial system!'

... snip ..

recent posts mentioning volcker:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#21 AIG may join bailout lawsuit against U.S. government
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#19 More Whistleblower Leaks on Foreclosure Settlement Show Both Suppression of Evidence and Gross Incompetence
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#42 How to Cut Megabanks Down to Size
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#55 How to Cut Megabanks Down to Size
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#8 How to Cut Megabanks Down to Size
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#30 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#48 Citigroup is the Real Reason We Need the Volcker Rule
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#43 Royal Pardon for credit unions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#33 War or Jobs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#105 only sometimes From looms to computers to looms
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#80 HP splits, again

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 12:06:05 -0800
"Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> writes:
There are a lot of bad things going on, I agree. But infrastructure usually means roads, bridges, sewer, water, electricity, telephone and telegraph. I have heard of places that have sidewalks, too.

Setting aside the interstates for a moment (BTW, the ones I see are in good condition) these are responsibilities of states, counties, cities, towns and corporations. Things may be different is, say, Liechtenstein. But why is a bad water main an unintended consequence of some guy setting up a phony business in the Cayman Islands or Ireland?


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#75 LEO

it isn't one guy setting up phony business offshore ... but $21T-$30T that is estimated to have disappeared offshore impacting both federal and state revenue (all but few states tax revenue). Even purely local operations have become increasingly dependent on both state and federal revenue (not just local property and sales taxes).

the volcker comment was not only that infrastructure failures were unintended consequences of lack of funding ... but also lack of infrastructure projects resulted in lack of civil engineering jobs ... resulting in dropping civil engineering programs at universities. the previous post referenced estimate of long term $3.6T deficit/debt in infrastructure spending.

One of the comments that water mains and sewers have been particularly subject to "deferred" maintenance ... since they aren't visible ... when it comes to prioritize funding when there isn't enough money to go around, ... choose things that have highest visibility ... and things that were built for 50yr lifetown can hang on for another 10-20 years when it is somebody else's problem.

quicky search for failing infrastructure, bridge, water, etc

America's Failing Infrastructure: A Scary Picture
http://www.kiplinger.com/article/business/T019-C000-S005-america-s-failing-infrastructure-a-scary-picture.html

summary from above for bridges, highways, dams, schools, ports, drinking water, electric grid

others

Caution Ahead: Overdue Investments for New York's Aging Infrastructure
https://nycfuture.org/research/publications/caution-ahead
Thousands of U.S. bridges vulnerable to collapse
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/thousands-of-us-bridges-vulnerable-to-collapse/
Report Card for America's Infrastructure
http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/
21 Facts About America's Decaying Infrastructure That Will Blow Your Mind
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/21-facts-about-americas-failing-infrastructure-that-will-blow-your-mind
U.S. Infrastructure gets D+ in annual report
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/us-infrastructure-gets-d-in-annual-report/2013/03/19/c48cb010-900b-11e2-9cfd-36d6c9b5d7ad_story.html
Crisis in America: a crumbling infrastructure
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101214258

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 12:50:21 -0800
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#75 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#76 LEO

state income tax returns typically take some percent of the federal adjusted earnings. many states will also have some additional percent for local county and city govs. quicky web search
https://www.nfc.usda.gov/publications/Tax_Formulas/State_City_County/State_City_County.html

offshoring trillions can hide huge amount from city, county, state, and federal taxes

at the federal level, the baseline budget under the fiscal responsibility act (required spending not exceed revenue) had all federal debt gone by 2010. In 2002, congress let the fiscal responsibility act expire and appeared to go crazy.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fiscal.responsibility.act

in the middle of the last decade, the comptroller general was including in speeches that nobody in congress was capable of middle school arithmetic (based on how they were savaging the budget)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#comptroller.general

In 2010, CBO had report that tax revenue had been reduced by $6T and spending had been increased by $6T ... for a $12T budget gap (compared to baseline), which has sinced increased to $17+T debt.

Also, $2+T of the increase for DOD, $1+T for the two wars and $1+T that couldn't be accounted for ... somehow managed to disappear into the military-industrial-congressional complex
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

Note that late 90s, congress passed legislation that required all federal agencies pass annual financial audits ... something that the DOD has never been able to do. There is some speculation, that possibly in 2017, DOD might be able to pass a financial audit (20yrs after requirement, don't hold your breath). Even audits of the $1+T appropriated for the two wars show lots of dubious&questionable spending. In addition there was also significant non-DOD spending associated with the two countries that appears to also have been pocketed.

GAO has identified at least $60B wasted/fraud in Iraq and possibly another $60B in Afghanistan ... nearly enough to build 4 aircraft carriers.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 14:25:34 -0800
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
GAO has identified at least $60B wasted/fraud in Iraq and possibly another $60B in Afghanistan ... nearly enough to build 4 aircraft carriers.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#75 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#76 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#77 LEO

and on the MICC aircraft carrier side

GAO report savages Navy's new aircraft carrier
http://www.stripes.com/news/navy/gao-report-savages-navy-s-new-aircraft-carrier-1.239569
$13B Navy carrier to be delivered late, incomplete and at higher cost
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/13b-navy-carrier-to-be-delivered-late-incomplete-and-at-higher-cost/2014/11/21/290a1b46-71af-11e4-893f-86bd390a3340_story.html

the other issue is that the military has spent huge amounts for industry big ticket items with enormous cost overruns and had to neglect other things like ASW.

The recent carrier group wargames had undetected sub taking out the carrier every time. The prediction is that the carriers are so costly and so vulnerable that the military will be increasingly adverse to exposing them to conflict situations where they might be endangered.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#66 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#46 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#47 LEO

the next generation carrier aircraft have reduced range ... with the increasing need to keep the carrier at further distances, out of harms way and the declining aircraft range ... any sort of mission will require extensive shifts to in-flight refueling (there was recent article that the new carrier drones need to be adapted to refueling capability).

there is increasing speculation that the age of big flattops are now where the big battleships were at entry to WW2 ... about to find themselves obsolete.

MICC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 17:30:14 -0800
"290jkl" <290jkl@nospam.com> writes:
That is only true of full scale war between first world countries.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#75 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#76 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#77 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#78 LEO

quicky search carrier group asymmetric threat ... includes swarms of inexpensive boats and missiles

low-tech small boat swarms
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/planes-uavs/new-airborne-defense-against-small-swarming-boats-12175104

from above:
In a then-classified 2002 war game called Millennium Challenge, the Red Team, commanded by Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, sent waves of small boats, some loaded with explosives, to overwhelm the defenses of the Blue Team, representing the U.S. Navy. The results were grim. Blue Team lost 16 major warships -- including a carrier. But the game was immediately restarted and Blue Team was eventually declared the winner.

... snip ...

also
http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2010-01/fortress-sea-carrier-invulnerability-myth
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/irans-doctrine-of-asymmetric-naval-warfare
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2013/08/forget-second-carrier-time-rethink-fifth-fleet-persian-gulf/68633/
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/04/19/the_smaller_faster_cheaper_future_of_sea_power/
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa134.html
https://geopolicraticus.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/the-political-context-of-striking-a-carrier/

as an aside, van riper has been known to show up at boyd gatherings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Companies on trial: are they 'too big to jail'?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 26 Nov 2014
Subject: Companies on trial: are they 'too big to jail'?
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
Companies on trial: are they 'too big to jail'?; Brandon Garrett asks whether America's legal system has swung too far towards rehabilitation at the expense of deterrence and punishment
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e3bf9954-7009-11e4-90af-00144feabdc0.html

"Rehabilitation" would include at least doing something about repeat offenders, paying a (relatively) small fine every time just becomes license to steal.

The New York Times Thinks Jailing Banksters Would Cause a "Bind"
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/bill-black-new-york-times-thinks-jailing-banksters-cause-bind.html

from above:
Even Professor Cochrane, the U. Chicago economist that detests regulation, now admits that runs cause financial crisis and that runs are typically driven by fraud. "Not for nothing have most runs been sparked by an accounting scandal or fraud." There is nothing more destabilizing to a financial system than fraud by elite bankers that is immunized by their political allies.

How long will it take Dealbook to report Dudley's confession about the Obama administration's refusal to prosecute crimes by large banks and senior bankers and its purported recent decision to end that refusal?


... snip ...

too big to fail, too big to prosecute, too big to jail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

William K. Black
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_K._Black
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/category/william-k-black

How NPR Was Conned by Geithner into Censoring My Criticisms
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/11/npr-conned-geithner-censoring-criticisms.html
Dudley Do Wrong Rejects Being a "Cop" and Embraces "Foaming the Runways"
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/11/dudley-wrong-rejects-cop-embraces-foaming-runways.html
Note to Dudley: Everyone Questions the NY Fed's Motives - For Good Reasons
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/11/note-dudley-everyone-questions-ny-feds-motives-good-reasons.html
Cochrane Demands that the Public Unilaterally Disarm while the Banksters Loot
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/11/cochrane-demands-public-unilaterally-disarm-banksters-loot.html

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

OT: article on foreign outsourcing

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: OT:  article on foreign outsourcing
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 20:06:32 -0800
Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> writes:
For quite a while we have been hearing that there was no or very little off shore innovation. The innovation had all been copied and then duplicated. That was true up to a few years ago and then I started to see a shift to home grown innovation first in manufacturing and now I have been seeing significant application innovation. We have seen real university level research into consumer products and applications. Most of our work tools for automotive control software, the first sign of this was development projects that did NOT start with North American or European reference designs.

As the U.S. Cuts R&D Spending, China Is Raising Its Stake
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-26/as-the-u-dot-s-dot-cuts-r-and-d-spending-china-is-raising-its-stake

'Cloak' could make heat, static invisible in electronics
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2850991/cloak-could-make-heat-static-invisible-in-electronics.html
Tianhe-2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianhe-2

... and recent mention of infrastructure projects in the us needing chinese companies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#75 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#76 LEO

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 10:22:43 -0800
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
Do they have miniguns on the destroyers? The amount of lead those puppies throw should be able to shred any number of small boats in minutes. Naval guns used to concentrate on weight rather than quantity.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#79 LEO

extreme asymmetric ... defending relatively few multi-billion dollar vessels against attacks that can run a few million.

swarms can still overwelm ... when it has upgrade in 2019
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS

from above:
Another system upgrade is the Phalanx 1B Baseline 2 radar to improve detection performance, increase reliability, and reduce maintenance. It also has a surface mode to track, detect, and destroy threats closer to the water's surface, increasing the ability to defend against fast-attack boats and low-flying missiles; the Baseline 2 radar upgrade is to be installed on all U.S. Navy Phalanx systems by FY 2019.[10] The Block 1B is also used by other navies, such as Canada, Portugal, Japan, Egypt, Bahrain, and the UK.[11]

... snip ...

then there are cheap missiles & drones from swarms of small boats and submersibles that have gone undetected.

One countermeasure is develop swarms of small automonous vessels as defensive screen ... but then there are issues of keeping those swarms constantly maintained and provisioned (the attacker getting to choose place and time).

note this is 13 autonomous boats used to defend against a single attacking vessel.
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/watch-the-navys-robotic-gunboats-swarm-the-james-river-86abe382600f

some discussion of asymmetric swarms
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/iran-adds-flying-boats-and-small-copters-to-its-aerial-swarms-6c424c2747b4

military-industrial-congressional complex.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

OT: article on foreign outsourcing

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: OT: article on foreign outsourcing
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 14:02:12 -0800
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#81 article on foreign outsourcing

How Bloomberg's Algo-Writers Serve The Cult Of Keynesian Central Banking
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/how-bloombergs-algo-writers-serve-the-cult-of-keynesian-central-banking/

from above:
Needless to say, this immense explosion of credit did not disappear quietly in the night. Instead, it funded the greatest construction and investment boom ever recorded. That's why China produced 2.2 billion tons of cement in 2013, for example, or 29X more than the 77 million tons produced in the US last year. Or, even more dramatically, why it produced more cement on an average day that year than did the UK during the entire year!

... snip ...

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 11:59:02 -0800
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#39 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#37 Income Inequality

from thanksgiving season:

Why is the USA is Number One in Income and Wealth Inequality?
http://johnhively.wordpress.com/2014/11/28/the-usa-is-number-one-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/

Thomas Piketty is right: Income inequality is holding us back
http://www.salon.com/2014/11/27/thomas_piketty_is_right_income_inequality_is_holding_us_back_partner/

Full Show: The Long, Dark Shadows of Plutocracy
http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-long-dark-shadows-plutocracy/

Is US Senator Bernie Sanders the Man to Lead a Political Revolution for the 99 Percent?
http://johnhively.wordpress.com/2014/11/28/is-us-senator-bernie-sanders-the-man-to-lead-a-political-revolution-for-the-99-percent/

somebody just posted this on facebook:

Not Just Cannibalism: Seven Ways Colonial Jamestown Was a Living Hell
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/02/jamestown-settlers-were-cannibals-and-more-reasons-the-colony-was-hell.html

i responded with

"Why Nations Fail" discusses Spanish conquest of the new world which was plunder and enslave the local population (and keeping them at subsistence level). It compares it with the English in early 1600s for Jamestown in Virginia. Jamestown almost starved the first two years because they originally sent over skills oriented to plundering and enslaving the local population (hoping to emulate the Spanish model, but local conditions didn't cooperate). Virginia, Maryland and Carolina then changed the strategy to sending over large numbers of enslaved Englishman; somewhat feudal, the "leet-men" had no rights, pg27:
The clauses of the Fundamental Constitutions laid out a rigid social structure. At the bottom were the "leet-men," with clause 23 noting, "All the children of leet-men shall be leet-men, and so to all generations."

... snip ...

posts mentioning inequality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#inequality

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Economic Failures of HTTPS Encryption

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Economic Failures of HTTPS Encryption
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 10:41:05 -0800
also Google+
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/eAUVrZgvMnb

Economic Failures of HTTPS Encryption
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/11/economic_failur.html

Long ago and far away we were brought into small client/server startup that wanted to payment transactions on their server; they had also invented this technology called SSL they wanted to use; the result is now frequently called "electronic commerce".

As part of the effort we did walk thru of many of these new operations called "certification authorties" that were selling things called SSL digital certificates. We established several requirements for operation and deployment ... but almost immediately several were discarded/ignored which account for numerous vulnerabilities and exploits that continue to this day.

The "SSL" would be used for two different operations ... between the client and server and also between server and the internet gateway that interfaced to the payment networks. I had absolute authority over the server/gateway (but could only make recommendations about the client/server part). For the server/gateway, I required mutual authentication ... which didn't exist at the start, and several other features. By the time it was over, SSL digital certificates were redundant and superfluous, they only continued to be used because of the crypto software library that was being used.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#gateway

past posts mentioning SSL digital certificates ... including several references about they were comfort certificates (primarily just providing sense of comfort for the public)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#sslcerts

reference to work on public key technology that doesn't require digital certificates (AADS share some number of the features with "public key pinning" referenced in comments to above article)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#aads

reference to work on end-to-end payment standard that used public key crypto for integrity (but doesn't require digital certificates)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

posts about digital certificates in the payment environment, besides being redundant and superfluous, a major deterrent to being used end-to-end, was that they represented a 100 times payload bloat
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#bloat

comments also reference DNSSEC ... past posts referencing DNSSEC being catch-22 to the SSL digital certificate industry
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#catch22

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Economic Failures of HTTPS Encryption

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Economic Failures of HTTPS Encryption
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 16:23:22 -0800
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
The "SSL" would be used for two different operations ... between the client and server and also between server and the internet gateway that interfaced to the payment networks. I had absolute authority over the server/gateway (but could only make recommendations about the client/server part). For the server/gateway, I required mutual authentication ... which didn't exist at the start, and several other features. By the time it was over, SSL digital certificates were redundant and superfluous, they only continued to be used because of the crypto software library that was being used.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#85 Economic Failures of HTTPS Encryption

public key pinning draft
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-websec-key-pinning-21

by the time I was done with extending SSL for the ecommerce webserver to payment gateway ... I had mutual authentication and all authorized webserver public keys preregistered at the gateway ... and the authorized gateway public key preregistered at the webservers (effectively "pinning")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#gateway

... and the digital certificates were redundant and superfluous ... purely artifact of the SSL software library being used.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#sslcerts

there was some initial straight-line application code written ... but in early pilot deployment there was trouble call about not being able to connect ... after 3hrs was closed as "no trouble found" (trouble desk not being able to see or do anything).

I then spec'ed everything that had to be done to make it industrial strength (up until that time, for non-internet, the trouble desk had requirement of 5min elapsed time to do 1st level problem determination). I've periodically commented in the past that it typically takes 4-10 times the effort to take straight-line application and turn it into industrial strength "service".

past posts referencing the 4-10 times effort observation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003g.html#62 IBM says AMD dead in 5yrs ... -- Microsoft Monopoly vs. IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004b.html#48 Automating secure transactions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004l.html#49 "Perfect" or "Provable" security both crypto and non-crypto?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#20 The System/360 Model 20 Wasn't As Bad As All That
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007f.html#37 Is computer history taught now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007h.html#78 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#77 PSI MIPS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#23 Outsourcing loosing steam?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007p.html#54 Industry Standard Time To Analyze A Line Of Code
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#41 IBM announced z10 ..why so fast...any problem on z 9
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#50 fraying infrastructure
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#35 Builders V. Breakers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#0 Is SUN going to become x86'ed ??
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011i.html#27 PDCA vs. OODA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011k.html#67 Somewhat off-topic: comp-arch.net cloned, possibly hacked
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#44 Faster, Better, Cheaper: Why Not Pick All Three?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#13 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#25 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Death of spinning disk?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Death of spinning disk?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 30 Nov 2014 10:07:14 -0800
sipples@SG.IBM.COM (Timothy Sipples) writes:
Percentage/ratio cost differences are not *exactly* what drive cost-based decisions. To illustrate why, consider these two hypothetical scenarios:

1. A 1 TB hard disk costs $100 and a 1 TB SSD costs $1000. 2. A 1 TB hard disk costs $1 and a 1 TB SSD costs $10.

In both cases the SSD is 10 times more expensive -- 1000%. But in Case #2 *both* are more affordable -- both experience 99% price drops -- and both more easily fit within more budgets. SSD only has to get "affordable enough" to take over more use cases from hard disks. Said another way, absolute prices matter. Said yet another way, the zero lower bound matters.

A lot of people overlook this reality, but it's a frequent phenomenon in many markets.


the PC market with $400-$500 computers would be more price sensitve in that range ... however there is the issue is how much do the slower or faster disks affect total system throughput bottleneck.

Said another way, it is the relative system costs that matter (and how it contributes to total system throughput).

I've periodically mentioned starting to observe in the 70s that disks were increasingly becoming the bottleneck in overall system throughput. In the early 80s, I wrote a paper claiming that disk's relative system throughput had declined by an order of magnitude over the previous 15yrs ... systems got 40-50 times faster while disks got only 4-5 times faster. Disk division executives took exception and assigned the division performance group to refute the statement ... after a couple weeks they came back and effectively said that I had slightly understated the problem. The analysis is then respun and turns into a SHARE presentation on how to optimize disk for system throughput.

About the same time there were issues about how datacenter executives view disk costs based on pure price/megabyte ... they would insist on filling the (new) 3380 disk drives completely full of data ... or otherwise they were "wasting" money having half empty 3380s. The issue was having extra data filling 3380s interferred with disk arm optimization and accesses for high used data ... degrading overall system throughput (to save a couple dollars per megabyte on disk they were willing to sacrifice degraded system throughput of system that overall ran to tens of millions). There was a semi-facetious proposal floating at SHARE that IBM announce a special high-performance 3380 that was much "smaller", "faster" and "more expensive" than standard 3380 disk (with much higher cost/megabyte) that would boost overall system throughput. In reality it was just a 3880 microcode load that restricted arm access to only 1/3rd the cylinders. This was something that a datacenter executive could do all on their own with standard 3380 at less cost ... but many appeared to be unable to make that leap.

There is recent thread in comp.arch newsgroup about memory being the new disk and disk being the new tape. If memory & disk access latencies are measured in number of processor cycles ... the current latency for memory access measured in number of modern day processor cycles then is on the same order of 60s disk access latency when measured in 60s processor cycles.

SSD then might be considered closer to fast tape. But for systems that are fully utilized and disk throughput is bottleneck factor for overall system throughput ... then spending thousands of dollars on more expensive disks might gain several percent increased total system throughput (for overall datacenter that runs several tens of millions, especially factoring in total datacenter costs, hardware, cooling, building, people, etc). Having large controller caches and using memory for keeping large amount of high use information ... complicates the analysis.

some recent posts mention SHARE B874 (disk performance group respun analysis)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#35 CKD DASD
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#61 Speed of Old Hard Disks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#1 Multiple Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#59 Is the magic and romance killed by Windows (and Linux)?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#5 Why are organizations sticking with mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#32 Has anyone successfully migrated off mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#73 Tape vs DASD - Speed/time/CPU utilization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#39 A bit of IBM System 360 nostalgia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#62 ISO documentation of IBM 3375, 3380 and 3390 track format
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#72 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made 30 years agotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#49 Mac at 30: A love/hate relationship from the support front
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#90 What's the difference between doing performance in a mainframe environment versus doing in others

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Death of spinning disk?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Death of spinning disk?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 30 Nov 2014 10:48:26 -0800
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#87 Death of spinning disk?

Want a 100TB disk drive? You'll have to wait 'til 2025; Heated Dot Magnetic Recording combines future technologies for a 10X capacity improvement
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2852233/want-a-100tb-disk-drive-youll-have-to-wait-til-2025.html
100 TB HDDs and A New Spin on Storage
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomcoughlin/2014/11/22/100-tb-hdds-and-a-new-spin-on-storage/

note that at the SSD high-end ... they have much greater throughput compared to those targeted at the PC market (several thousand per tbyte to a couple hundred pere tbyte)

What is the Largest SSD Available in 2014? (Hint: solid state drives are getting BIG!)
http://www.zagg.com/community/blog/what-is-the-largest-ssd-solid-state-drive-available/
Samsung 3D V-NAND Technology Supercharges Brand New SSD 850 PRO Series
http://www.forbes.com/sites/marcochiappetta/2014/06/30/samsung-3d-v-nand-technology-supercharges-brand-new-ssd-850-pro-series/
Samsung wants to kill hard drives with new high-efficiency SSDs
http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/09/samsung-tlc-v-nand-ssd/
Best SSDs For The Money: November 2014
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269.html

see the read&write IOPS ratings for disk & SSDs (top is Fusion-io SSD with over 9M IOPS)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOPS

I've periodically referenced the published mainframe max/peak I/O throughput benchmark that was able to get 2M IOPS on z196 (I've yet to see something equivalent for EC12 ... although indirect reference says EC12 should have 30% higher I/O throughput than z196 ... maybe 2.6M IOPS). That peak I/O benchmark used 104 FICONS (to achieve 2M IOPS). ... I've mentioned before about the same time there was a FCS announced for e5-2600 claiming over million IOPS (for single FCS) ... aka my theme that FICON is a heavy duty protocol layer on top of FCS that drastically cuts the native FCS throughput ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 10:24:33 -0800
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
One countermeasure is develop swarms of small automonous vessels as defensive screen ... but then there are issues of keeping those swarms constantly maintained and provisioned (the attacker getting to choose place and time).

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#79 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#82 LEO

while retrofitting phalanx with radar to handle fast-attack boats and low-flying missiles is being scheduled 2019 .... they are also starting to deploy lasers (presumably with similar radar to handle swarms of surface level attacks).

Navy deploys first anti-drone laser weapon in Persian Gulf
http://defensesystems.com/articles/2014/12/01/navy-deploys-laws-laser-weapon.aspx

from above:
Navy officials have touted the system as an "extremely affordable, multi-mission weapon" since it can be fired as long as electrical power is available. It would also eliminate the need to carry propellants and explosives aboard warships.

The laser system also gives crews the "ability to control a laser weapon's output and perform actions ranging from non-lethal disabling and deterrence all the way up to destruction," program official stressed.


... snip ...

the article goes on to describe how it is much more economical in handling asymmetric attacks

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Is IBM Suddenly Vulnerable To A Takeover?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Is IBM Suddenly Vulnerable To A Takeover?
Date: 01 Dec 2014
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#62 Is IBM Suddenly Vulnerable To A Takeover?

Can't find the original endicottalliance reference ... quick search of web turns up this:
http://www.todaysengineer.org/2011/Nov/Pensions.asp

from above:
In 1987, the Financial Accounting Standards Board issued standard FAS 87 which provided for the treatment of excess funds in pension funds to be treated as income, paper gains that appear to increase earnings. In 1999 IBM reduced its pension obligation by $450 million -- an amount it could (and did) add to income over years or all at once. It took $200 million of these gains in 1999.

Pensions were often adversely affected by bankruptcy. Even though a government agency -- the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) -- backstops pension payouts in the event of corporate bankruptcy, it has low limits and covers only IRS-qualified pension plans, not including early retirement subsidies. When Delta Air Lines filed for bankruptcy in 2005 it terminated the pension plan for 5,500 pilots. One retired pilot found his monthly pension of $1,939 reduced to $95 per month. Supplemental pension plans are not covered at all. Another pilot lost $7,000 per month in a supplemental pension and $1,197 from the regular pension plan.


... snip ...

When the company was going into the red and preparing for breakup into the 13 "baby blues", somebody in the bowels of Armonk ask us to analyse all the DOUs/MOUs for contractual interdependence (exp: one division is relying on supplier contract held by another division) ... then the board brought into new CEO and reversed the breakup decision before we got started. They later related how the 470+ or so top executives spent nearly whole year shifting expenses from the following year into current year (at the time there was lots complaints about execs not paying attention to business), with the result the following year was barely in the black. The way the executive bonus plan was written, they got more than twice the largest previous bonus ... effectively made more money taking the company into the red.

... aka lots of entities have been increasingly using gaming theory to investigate how to maximize their personal gain

recent post mentioning being asked to work on interdivision agreements in the case of breaking up the company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#54 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal

other recent posts mentioning early 90s plan that would break IBM into 13 "baby blues":
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#47 McCain: Send Petraeus back to Iraq
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#48 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#97 Santa has a Mainframe!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#15 Quixotically on-topic post, still on topic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#81 CPU time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#83 CPU time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#93 Maximizing shareholder value: The Goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#101 Defense Department Needs to Act Like IBM to Save Itself
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#24 IBM sells Intel server business, company is doomed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#55 Maximizing shareholder value: The goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#69 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#93 Curious observation: lack of a simple optimization in a C program
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#8 Microsoft culture must change, chairman says
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#16 [OT ] Mainframe memories
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#55 Difference between MVS and z / OS systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#70 Last Gasp For Hard Disk Drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#81 Eisenhower's military-industrial warning rings truer than ever
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#7 Last Gasp for Hard Disk Drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#74 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#4 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#68 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#37 Sale receipt--obligatory?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#58 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#93 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#50 IBM's Ginni Rometty Just Confessed To A Huge Failure -- It Might Be The Best Thing For The Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#61 Decimation of the valuation of IBM

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 10:44:57 -0800
hancock4 writes:
The many people laid off after Y2k was done would see things very differently than "recession proof".

there was big uptick in hiring (although lots of it was temp. workers or outsourcing) for one-shot Y2K fixes ... but it was also happening at the same time as the internet bubble ... and there was heavy competition for the dwindling available resources. as per past posts ... the scarce resource bubble during the combined Y2K remediation at the same time as the internet bubble ... drove lots of institutions to going offshore for temporary resources ... but then the offshore relationships that were forged in the period ... continued afterwards and contributed significantly to subsequent upswing in offshoring.

I've also mentioned before that one of the original too big to fail outsourced their Y2K remediation to the lowest bidder ... they didn't find out until afterwards that it was front for criminal organization ... and eventually found some interesting hacks that allowed unrecorded wire-transfers of large sums to offshore financial institutions.

posts mentioning too big to fail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

past posts mentioning Y2K:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#21 Roads as Runways Was: Re: BA Solves Y2K (Was: Re: Chinese Solve Y2K)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#22 Roads as Runways Was: Re: BA Solves Y2K (Was: Re: Chinese Solve Y2K)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#23 Roads as Runways Was: Re: BA Solves Y2K (Was: Re: Chinese Solve Y2K)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#24 BA Solves Y2K (Was: Re: Chinese Solve Y2K)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#27 Roads as Runways Was: Re: BA Solves Y2K (Was: Re: Chinese
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#44 Internet and/or ARPANET?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#78 Mainframes Relevant?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#214 Ask about Certification-less Public Key
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#0 2000 = millennium?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#68 California DMV
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#74 The demise of compaq
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#30 Younger recruits versus experienced veterans ( was Re: The demise of compa
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#45 VM and/or Linux under OS/390?????
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#20 MVS on Power (was Re: McKinley Cometh...)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#14 NASA MOC (mainframe mission operations computer) being powere d
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002l.html#49 Do any architectures use instruction count instead of timer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003p.html#21 Sun researchers: Computers do bad math ;)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003p.html#33 [IBM-MAIN] NY Times editorial on white collar jobs going
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004b.html#2 The SOB that helped IT jobs move to India is dead!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004e.html#22 Pre-relational, post-relational, 1968 CODASYL "Survey of Data Base Systems"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004e.html#48 Data Display & Modeling
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004f.html#39 Who said "The Mainframe is dead"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#51 stop worrying about it offshoring - it's doing fine
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004n.html#11 XML: The good, the bad, and the ugly
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004o.html#66 Integer types for 128-bit addressing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#8 [Lit.] Buffer overruns
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#13 [Lit.] Buffer overruns
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005.html#20 I told you ... everybody is going to Dalian,China
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005c.html#6 [Lit.] Buffer overruns
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005s.html#16 Is a Hurricane about to hit IBM ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006b.html#29 IBM 610 workstation computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006c.html#33 Military Time?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#21 Taxes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#49 Mainframe vs. xSeries
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#50 TSO and more was: PDP-1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#9 Pa Tpk spends $30 million for "Duet" system; but benefits are unknown
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006q.html#54 Was FORTRAN buggy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006r.html#16 Was FORTRAN buggy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#40 Ranking of non-IBM mainframe builders?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#14 Year-end computer bug could ground Shuttle
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#35 Friday fun - Discovery on the pad and the software's not done
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#26 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007g.html#7 U.S. Cedes Top Spot in Global IT Competitiveness
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007g.html#39 Wylbur and Paging
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007h.html#10 The Perfect Computer - 36 bits?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007l.html#18 Non-Standard Mainframe Language?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#38 Is Parallel Programming Just Too Hard?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007p.html#31 Newsweek article--baby boomers and computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007p.html#39 India is outsourcing jobs as well
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007r.html#26 The new urgency to fix online privacy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007r.html#36 Students mostly not ready for math, science college courses
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#19 Translation of IBM Basic Assembler to C?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007v.html#5 IPv6 vs Y2K and GOSIP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#57 Computer Science Education: Where Are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#73 Computer Science Education: Where Are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#81 Is IT becoming extinct?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#65 How do you manage your value statement?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#38 dollar coins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#27 VMware Chief Says the OS Is History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#55 Can outsourcing be stopped?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#16 Date arithmetic and Zune bug
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#2 IBM 'pulls out of US'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#60 Cobol hits 50 and keeps counting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#64 Cobol hits 50 and keeps counting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#51 Cobol hits fifty
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#9 Why are z/OS people reluctant to use z/OS UNIX?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#27 My Vintage Dream PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#18 A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#37 Disksize history question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009m.html#79 Existence of early 360 software ( was Re: Continous Systems Modelling Package)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#53 Long parms...again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#37 Young Developers Get Old Mainframers' Jobs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#63 U.S. students behind in math, science, analysis says
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#67 I would like to understand the professional job market in US. Is it shrinking?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#76 y2k10 problem with credit cards in Germany
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#78 y2k10 problem with credit cards in Germany
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#64 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#83 Senior Java Developer vs. MVS Systems Programmer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#7 computers on tv
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#53 Of interest to the Independent Contractors on the list
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#65 Of interest to the Independent Contractors on the list
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#19 Personal use z/OS machines was Re: Multiprise 3k for personal Use?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#76 Mainframe hacking?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#78 Mainframe hacking?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#41 60 Minutes News Report:Unemployed for over 99 weeks!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#39 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#44 Programmer Charged with thieft (maybe off topic)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#69 No command, and control
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#29 Looking for a real Fortran-66 compatible PC compiler (CP/M or DOSor Windows
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#32 CMS Sort Descending?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#87 Date representations: Y2k revisited
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#75 If IBM Hadn't Bet the Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#86 Bank email archives thrown open in financial crash report
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#67 Happy 100th Birthday, IBM!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011i.html#9 At least two decades back, some gurus predicted that mainframes would disappear in future and it still has not happened
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011l.html#49 Does outsourcing cause data loss?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#18 Great Brian Arthur article on the Second Economy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#44 Has anyone successfully migrated off mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#94 Has anyone successfully migrated off mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#107 SPF in 1978
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#63 PC industry is heading for more change
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#2 NASA unplugs their last mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012f.html#95 How do you feel about the fact that India has more employees than US?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#18 How do you feel about the fact that India has more employees than US?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#52 How will mainframers retiring be different from Y2K?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#54 How will mainframers retiring be different from Y2K?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#57 How will mainframers retiring be different from Y2K?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#66 How will mainframers retiring be different from Y2K?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#55 Operating System, what is it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#90 Operating System, what is it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#90 Query for Destination z article -- mainframes back to the future
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#20 Y2K hacks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#20 How about the old mainframe error messages that actually give you a clue about what's broken
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#95 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#6 Epic failures: 11 infamous software bugs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#25 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#14 Super Cane's Computers run Windows
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#28 R.I.P. PDP-10?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#29 Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#63 LA Times commentary: roll out "smart" credit cards to deter fraud

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The 10 Biggest Bank Card Hacks

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 02 Dec 2014
Subject: The 10 Biggest Bank Card Hacks
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
The 10 Biggest Bank Card Hacks
http://www.wired.com/2014/12/top-ten-card-breaches/

related thread in "Old Geek"
http://lnkd.in/edxtkjT

we were tangentially involved in the cal. state data breach legislation ... having been brought in to help wordsmith the cal. state electronic signature act.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#signature

references to data breach notification
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#data.breach.notification.notification

A lot of the participants were heavily involved in privacy issues and had done detailed, in-depth public surveys. The #1 issue was identity theft, primarily of the form of fraudulent financial transactions as the result of breaches and there was little or nothing being done about the breaches. An issue is normally an entity/institution takes security measures to protect themselves, In the case of the breaches, the institution wasn't at risk ... it was their customers. It was hoped that the publicity from the breach notifications would prompt breach countermeasures.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#fraud

Note in the years since the cal. state breach notification act there have been numerous federal (state preemption) acts introduced ... about evenly divided between those similar to the cal. act and those that would effectively eliminate any requirement for notification

we've used a couple metaphors about the current situation

dual-use ... since information from previous transactions can be used for fraudulent transactions, that information has to be kept totally confidential and never divulged. at the same time the same information is required in dozens of business processes at millions of locations around the world. we've periodically commented that even if the planet was buried under miles of information hiding encryption, it still wouldn't stop leakage

security proportional to risk ... the value of the transaction information to the merchants is the profit on the transactions, which can be a couple dollars (and a couple cents for the transaction processor) ... the value of the information to the crooks is the account balance and/or credit limit ... as a result the crooks can afford to outspend the defenders by a factor of 100 times.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#security.proportional.to.risk

long ago and far away, we were brought in as consultants to small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server; the startup had also invented this technology called "SSL" they wanted to use; the result is now frequently called electronic commerce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#gateway

Somewhat as a result of having done "electronic commerce", we were asked to participate in the x9a10 financial transaction working group which had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for *ALL* retail transactions ... and we were co-authors of the resulting financial transaction standard for *ALL* retail payments (ACH, credit, debit, POS, attended, unattended, internet, online, etc). Note the X9A10 financial transaction standard did nothing directly about skimming, evesdropping, or data breaches; however it tweaked the current paradigm and eliminated the ability of crooks to use information from previous transactions for fraudulent transactions ... and therefor eliminated the risk and motivation for skimming, evesdropping and data breaches. Now the major use of SSL in the world is this earlier work we did for electronic commerce, "hiding" transaction details, but the new standard eliminated the necessity for hiding transaction details and therefor also eliminated the major use of SSL in the world today.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

5 Easy Steps to a High Performance Cluster

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 03 Dec 2014
Subject:  5 Easy Steps to a High Performance Cluster
Blog: Old Geek
re:
http://lnkd.in/bUf7Fyv

Long ago and far way, I were asked to help with benchmark for national lab that were looking at getting 70 4341s for compute farm ... this was on an engineering 4341 before they had even shipped. The issue was that 4341 had drastically dropped compute price/performance. Note besides operations using clusters of 4341s in datacenters, large corporations were buying hundreds of 4341s at a time and placing them out in departmental areas ... the leading edge of the distributed computing tsunami. some old email from late 70s and early 80s
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#4341

In the mid-80s I was working on internal project to place large number of processor chips in racks (for compute clusters). Was also working with the director of NSF about interconnecting the NSF supercomputing centers. Old email about schedule conflict with meetings on compute clusters and presenting to director of NSF on supercomputer interconnect
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#email850314
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#email850315

Initially we were suppose to get $20M to interconnect the centers, then congress cuts the budget, a few other things happen and finally NSF releases an RFP (based on the work we had been doing). Internal politics prevents us from bidding, the director of NSF (along with some other agencies) tries to help by writing the company a letter 3Apr1986, NSF Director to IBM Chief Scientist and IBM Senior VP and director of Research, copying IBM CEO), but that just makes the internal polictics worse ... as does comments about what we already had running was at least five years ahead of all bid responses. As regional networks hook into the centers the interconnect morphs into the NSFNET backbone ... precursor to the modern internet.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401444/grid-computing/
other old NSFNET related email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#nsfnet

we then start a project we call High Availability Cluster Multi-Processing (HA/CMP).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

We are also working on cluster scale-up for both commercial dataprocessing (with DBMS vendors) and scientific/numerical intensive processing (with national labs). old reference to meeting in ellison's conference room jan1992 on cluster scale-up
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13
other old email about cramming large number of processors in racks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

however within a few weeks of the Ellison meeting, the cluster scale-up is transferred, announced as supercomputer and we are told we can't work on anything with more than four processors. announcement was for "scientific and technical" *only* (NO commercial) old press item from 17Feb1992
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#6000clusters1
followup 11May1992
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#6000clusters2

Note the mainframe DB2 (RDBMS) group had been complaining that if we had been allowed to go ahead, we would be at least five years ahead of them (which may have been factor in transferring scale-up work, restricted to non-commercial and telling us that we couldn't work with anything that had more than four processors)

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

5 Easy Steps to a High Performance Cluster

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 03 Dec 2014
Subject:  5 Easy Steps to a High Performance Cluster
Blog: Old Geek
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#93 5 Easy Steps to a High Performance Cluster

trivia x-over with two recent threads:

The Holistic Approach to Preventing Targeted Attacks
http://lnkd.in/edxtkjT

and

Five Easy Steps to a High Performance Cluster
http://lnkd.in/bUf7Fyv

two of the people in the referenced meeting in Ellison's conference room,
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

leave and join small client/server startup where they are responsible for something called "commerce server" when we are brought in as consultants because they want to do payment transactions on their server (we had also left not long after cluster scale-up was transferred)

other trivia ... some of the same people behind not allowing us to bid on the NSF RFP for interconnecting the NSF supercomputer centers, are also later involved in transfer of cluster scale-up (and not allowing us to work on anything with more than four processors)

posts mentioning ha/cmp
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

posts mentioning NSFNET
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

5 Easy Steps to a High Performance Cluster

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 03 Dec 2014
Subject:  5 Easy Steps to a High Performance Cluster
Blog: Old Geek
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#93 5 Easy Steps to a High Performance Cluster
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#94 5 Easy Steps to a High Performance Cluster

Other old trivia .... long ago and far away, STL lab (since renamed SVL) was starting to burst at the seams (within a couple yrs of opening) and were moving 300 people from the IMS (DBMS) group to offsite bldg. They had played with "remote" 3270s and found the human factors totally unacceptable ... especially compared to the vm370/cms local channel attached 3270s in STL they were used to. I get con'ed into doing support for channel extenders so they can put channel attached 3270 controllers at the remote site (with service back to STL bldg). The vendor then tries to get my support released to customers ... but is opposed by a group in POK that has been playing with some serial fiber-optics and they are afraid that if it is in the market, it will make it harder to get their stuff released. some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender

Much later, in 1988 I'm asked if I can help LLNL (same institution that I had earlier did the 4341 benchmarks for) standardize some serial technology they had ... which quickly morphs into fibre-channel standard. Then POK finally gets their stuff released in 1990 (when it is already obsolete) as ESCON with ES/9000. Later some POK engineers become involved with fibre-channel standard and define an heavy-weight protocol layer ontop that drastically cuts the native throughput ... eventually released as FICON ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon

In the HA/CMP period, we are using FCS as both high-speed cluster interconnect as well as device I/O connect for cluster scale-up.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

Fiber Channel wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibre_Channel

about the same time we were asked to help LLNL with FCS, we also get asked to help the SLAC people with proposal that becomes SCI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Coherent_Interface

both of these then influence work on Future I/O and Next Generation I/O which leads to InfiniBand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfiniBand#History

past posts mentioning Infiniband
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#61 Serial vs. Parallel
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009s.html#59 Problem with XP scheduler?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#41 Larrabee delayed: anyone know what's happening?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#61 IBM to announce new MF's this year
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#40 Has anyone successfully migrated off mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#86 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made 30 yearsagotoday

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Banking on Crime

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 03 Dec 2014
Subject: Banking on Crime
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
Banking on Crime
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/157612

The S&L crisis had 30,000 criminal referrals and 1,000 criminal convictions ... the economic mess last decade was 70 times larger and no convictions and/or even criminal referrals.

slightly related, wife of #2 on times list of those responsible for the financial mess, steps down from head of CFTC (after "favour" to ENRON with respect to regulating CDSes) and joins ENRON board and the audit committee
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#enron
also financial reporting fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#financial.reporting.fraud.fraud

UK Regulator Shocked That Slapping Banker Wrists Achieves Nothing
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-02/uk-regulator-shocked-slapping-banker-wrists-achieves-nothing
FCA Slams Banks, Asking "Is Our Action Effective At All?"
http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/12/02/fca-slams-banks-asking-is-our-action-effective-at-all/

$178 Billion In Government Kickbacks: Meet The World's Biggest Organized Crime Syndicate
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-03/178-billion-government-kickbacks-meet-worlds-biggest-organized-crime-syndicate

from above:
Sure enough: when one is a criminal syndicate, the largest in world history, paying litigation kickbacks in the hundreds of billions to the government is just the cost of "doing business."

... snip ...

too big to fail, too big to prosecute and too big to jail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Australia: Haven for Bank Control Frauds?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 03 Dec 2014
Subject: Australia: Haven for Bank Control Frauds?
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
Australia: Haven for Bank Control Frauds?
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/australia-haven-bank-control-frauds.html

Note that there has been several articles written about mortgage industry working with the FBI to define "mortgage fraud" ... and limiting it to only applying to actions of borrowers ... and failed to have any mention of "mortgage fraud" related to actions by lenders.

The Wall Street Journal Still Refuses to Grasp Accounting Control Fraud via Appraisal Fraud
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/12/wall-street-journal-still-refuses-grasp-accounting-control-fraud-via-appraisal-fraud.html
The return of the inflated appraisal
http://seekingalpha.com/news/2156085-the-return-of-the-inflated-appraisal
Housing Fraud is Back -- Real Estate Industry Intentionally Inflating Home Appraisals
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-03/housing-fraud-back-%E2%80%93-real-estate-industry-intentionally-inflating-home-appraisals
Bill Black: Mortgage Appraisal Fraud is Baaack ... Because Bank Execs Profit From It
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/12/bill-black-mortgage-appraisal-fraud-baack-bank-execs-profit.html

too big to fail, too big to prosecute and too big to jail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Why has human progress ground to a halt?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 03 Dec 2014
Subject: Why has human progress ground to a halt?
Blog: Facebook
Why has human progress ground to a halt?
http://aeon.co/magazine/science/why-has-human-progress-ground-to-a-halt/

trivia ... mail/telephone order (MOTO) business processes, interchange fees, rules, etc ... were what was initially adapted for ecommerce ... aka long ago and far away we were brought into a small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server; they had also invented this technology called "SSL" they wanted to use ... the result is now frequently called ecommerce.

posts mentioning payment gateway for ecommerce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#gateway

Early 80s, there started appearing articles about how MBAs were destroying US corporate culture ... with myopic focus on quarterly results and protecting status quo (preventing change). It had started earlier, but MBAs helped to significantly accelerate it. For example this talks about ACS360 in the late 60s was shutdown because executives were afraid it would advance the state-of-the-art too fast and they would loose control of the market. Some of the features show up more than 20yrs later in ES/9000
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html

We were working on cluster scale-up for both commercial/DBMS and with national labs for scientific and technical. This reference a meeting in Ellison's office in Jan1992 on cluster scale-up (trivia, two of the people referenced in the meeting, later depart and join a small client/server startup responsible for something called the "commerce server" where we are brought in as consultants because they wanted to do payment transactions on the server).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13
posts mentioning ha/cmp
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

Within a few weeks of the meeting, cluster scale-up is transferred, announced as supercomputer for scientific and technical *ONLY* and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors. Note before that the (mainframe) DB2 group had been complaining that if we were allowed to proceed, it would be at least 5yrs ahead of them. some old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

US Debt In Public Hands Doubles Under Barack Obama

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 04 Dec 2014
Subject: US Debt In Public Hands Doubles Under Barack Obama
Blog: Facebook
US Debt In Public Hands Doubles Under Barack Obama
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-01/us-debt-public-hands-doubles-under-barack-obama

CBO had 2010 report that the baseline budget had all federal debt retired by 2010 ... but congress allowed the fiscal responsibility act (required spending not exceed revenue) to expire in 2002 ... and tax revenue was cut by $6T and spending was increased by $6T for a $12T budget gap (compared to baseline budget). Report in 2010 included that little over $2T (of the $6T spending increase) went to DOD, $1+T for the two wars and $1+T that couldn't be accounted for (in 90s, congress passed law that all agencies pass annual financial audit, DOD has yet to pass one, there is some conjecture that DOD might pass a financial audit in 2017, 20yrs after the law passes). To return to baseline budget would require cutting spending by around $1T and increasing taxes by $1T ... however that still leaves the $18T debt ... which to clear over 20yr period would require increasing taxes by another $1+T/annum (debt plus interest). Note that lot of debt last decade was being sold to foreign govs (japan & china) ... but they became saturated.

fiscal responsibility act
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fiscal.responsibility.act

"Public" presumes any non-gov, US entities (not just individuals). Note that there was over $27T in CDOs (loan backed securities) done during the bubble and end of 2008, just the four largest too big to fail were still holding $5.2T in triple-A rated toxic CDOs "off-book". The TARP $700B appropriated for buying toxic assets wouldn't come close to clearing the problem (and so was mostly fabricated facade). What kept the too big to fail from going under was large trillions in ZIRP funds provided by the Fed Reserve to the too big to fail (there was long protracted legal battle to get the FED to provide details of what it was doing). Then at one point Bernanke gets up and claims he assumed that the too big to fail would use ZIRP funds to lend to "mainstreet" ... but they didn't (they were buying US treasuries instead and making huge proft on spread between ZIRP and treasury rate) and he had no way to force them to lend to mainstreet (but he didn't stop the flow of ZIRP funds). However something similar had happened after the crash of '29 ... and supposedly one of Bernanke qualifications was being student of the '29 crash.

triple-A rated toxic CDOs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo
too big to fail, too big to prosecute, too big to jail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
fed chairmans
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#bernanke

I've semi-facetiously suggested that FED instead of providing ZIRP funds for too big to fail to buy treasuries ... that it buys all the treasuries directly at zero interest (debt then costs nothing) ... but then those too big to fail would have gone under.

Also note that despite the enormous tax loop-holes created after fiscal responsibility act was allowed to expire in 2002, there was still a lot of illegal tax evasion. In 2009, IRS claimed it was going after 52,000 wealthy americans that owed $400B in taxes for trillions illegally hidden in off-shore accounts. Then in 2011, the new congress said that it was eliminating IRS funding for going after that $400B. Since then the news has only been about several hundred millions in fines paid by foreign banks for facilitating the illegal tax evasion (none of the 52,000 doing jail time and nothing about the $400B).

tax evasion, tax avoidance, tax havens
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#tax.evasion

Disclaimer: Jan2009 I was asked to HTML'ize the Pecora Hearings (30s senate hearings into the crash of '29, had been scanned fall of 2008 at the Boston Public Library) with enormous number of internal HREFs and lots of URLs between what happened then and what happened this time (comments that the new congress might have an appetite to do something). I worked on it for awhile and then got a call that it wouldn't be needed after all (some reference that capital hill was being totally buried under mounds of wallstreet money). Note that the economic mess last decade was 70 times larger than the S&L mess that had 30,000 criminal referrals and 1,000 criminal convictions .... this time there has been no criminal referrals and no convictions.

Glass-Steagall, Pecora Hearings, crash '29
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall

$178 Billion In Government Kickbacks: Meet The World's Biggest Organized Crime Syndicate
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-03/178-billion-government-kickbacks-meet-worlds-biggest-organized-crime-syndicate

i.e. big uptic in US debt owned by the US was 1) saturation of the foreign market last decade and 2) rigged game to get the too big to fail out of the enormous ditch they had dug with illegal activity last decade (enormous new interest paying debt was needed or there was nothing to use the trillions in ZIRP funds for).

disclaimer2: mortgage backed securities had been used during the S&L crisis to obfuscate fraudulent mortgages. In the late 90s, we were asked to look at improving the integrity of supporting documents in mortgage CDOs (as countermeasure). Then the lenders found that they could pay rating agencies for triple-A rating (when both the sellers and the rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A, from Oct2008 congressional hearings into the role that the rating agencies played). Triple-A trumps supporting documents 1) enabling no-documentation "liar" loans, 2) no documentation eliminates any issue of supporting documentation integrity, 3) opens the market to funds restricted to "safe" investments like large pension funds ... significant factor in doing over $27T during economic mess, 4) too big to fail were purposefully creating triple-A rated toxic CDOs designed to fail, sold to their clients, and then they took out CDS gambling bets that the toxic CDOs would fail. 5) creates enormous/insatiable wallstreet appetite for no-documentation liar loans as fast as they could be generated,

from the law of unintended consequences ... no-documentation liar loans then results in the too big to fail creating the big document mills fabricating the fraudulent documents needed for foreclosures.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

OT: article on foreign outsourcing

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: OT: article on foreign outsourcing
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 17:16:19 -0800
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> writes:
Well, H2F2 will etch glass, but that's the *good* news. The bad news is the medical damage it will cause if inhaled. Read up on the early workers with Fluorine; they all came to bad ends.

and from today:

Internal documents reveal industry 'pattern of behavior' on toxic chemicals
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/12/04/16330/internal-documents-reveal-industry-pattern-behavior-toxic-chemicals

Benzene and worker cancers: 'An American tragedy' Documents lay bare petrochemical industry's $36 million 'research strategy' on carcinogen
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/12/04/16320/benzene-and-worker-cancers-american-tragedy

from above:
For decades, the petrochemical industry spent millions on science seeking to minimize the dangers of benzene, a carcinogen tied to leukemia and other cancers.

... snip ...

sounds a lot like the tobacco industry and "merchants of doubt" ... previous posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#16 A Matter of Mindset: Iraq, Sequestration and the U.S. Army
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#62 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#5 Lessons Learned from the Iraq War
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#54 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#7 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#41 Is newer technology always better? It almost is. Exceptions?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#89 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#59 John Boyd's Art of War
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#52 Steve B sees what investors think
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#80 The REAL Reason U.S. Targets Whistleblowers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#31 An insider's story of the global attack on climate science
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#47 Stolen F-35 Secrets Now Showing Up in China's Stealth Fighter
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#22 $40 billion missile defense system proves unreliable
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#73 10 Big Fat Lies and the Liars Who Told Them

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Page Data Set Sizes and Volume Types

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Page Data Set Sizes and Volume Types
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 4 Dec 2014 18:18:58 -0800
tom@TOMBRENNANSOFTWARE.COM (Tom Brennan) writes:
Me too - until just a few days ago when I happened upon a number of 3380's defined at a client site. All I can guess is these were still real 3380's at the time they needed to be moved to a DS8000. TASID shows them as 3380-TC3 (whatever that is) at 3,339 cyls. I think I remember a type 3380-K (triple density?), but much of those years is just a blur to me.

original 3380 (1981) had twenty track width spacing between (885) tracks ... they then doubled (1770, 3380E, 1985) and then tripled (2655, 3380K, 1987) the number of tracks ... by cutting the inter-track spacing.
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_3380.html

3390 announce nov1989
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_3390.html

however, as periodically mentioned, there haven't been real CKD DASD manufactured for decades, all just emulation on industry standard fixed-block disks.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dasd

as an aside ... even 3380s CKD were really (32byte) fixed-block
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/dasd/reference_summary/GX26-1678-0_3380_Reference_Summary_Feb83.pdf

all disk technology was moving to fixed-block by the late 70s ... but MVS inability to come up with fixed-block support required CKD emulation long after CKD was obsolete.

there was special 3380j end of 1988 ... which had avg. seek of 12ms and max. seek ms 21 ... compared to 16ms & 29ms for 3380k ... but the 3380j had only 885 tracks (same capacity as original 3380) ... one is tempted to believe that the 3380j might have really been a 3380k limited to only accessing 1/3rd of the platter (note seek time isn't strictly linear since there is acceleration latency).

recent post mentioning early 80s semi-facetious discussion at SHARE about doing a "fast" 3380 (with fewer tracks by microcode change).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#87 Death of spnning disk?

from IBM 3380 history reference:
In September 1987, IBM announced a significant extension to the 3380 series: the Model K DASD that stored 7.5 billion characters of information, and the densest disk device IBM ever manufactured; and the high-speed Model J, which could locate data faster than any previous 3380 DASD. The Model J found the correct information track in an average time of just 12 thousandths of a second. Customers who installed Model Js, which could store 2.5 billion characters of data, could upgrade it to the denser Model K.

... snip ...

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Page Data Set Sizes and Volume Types

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Page Data Set Sizes and Volume Types
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 5 Dec 2014 09:27:45 -0800
mitchdana@GMAIL.COM (Dana Mitchell) writes:
Just like buying a z CPU and only paying for the number (and capacity) of CPU's actually turned on via microcode. Things never change!

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#87 Death of spnning disk?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#88 Death of spnning disk?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#101 Page Data Set Sizes and Volume Types

the semi-facetious scenario at SHARE was charging more for smaller 3380 capacity ... the issue was fully loading 3380s could degrade overall system throughput, enormously more than offseting the savings in number of 3380s. the issue was datacenter managers weren't making the connection between better overall system throughput and partially loaded 3380s. the objective was to come out with a "different" 3380 model that solely focused on the improved overall system throughput (and charged more for it) as a way of resetting datacenter managers' point-of-view.

since then, various kinds of staging and caching at many levels in the system has gone a long ways to obfuscating physical arm access latency (goes along with little dustup I caused in the early 80s with observation that the relative system throughput of disks had declined by a factor of ten times over the previous 15yr period, aka processor throughput went up 40-50 times, disk throughput went up 3-5 times).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

z/OS MD5 file hashing

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: z/OS MD5 file hashing
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 5 Dec 2014 14:51:46 -0800
0000002782105f5c-dmarc-request@LISTSERV.UA.EDU (Frank Swarbrick) writes:
Does anyone know of a program/subroutine that can read "any kind" of MVS sequential dataset and calculate an MD5 hash on it?  By "any kind" I am specifically meaning a file that is either FB or VB and can have any LRECL.

note, MD5 has been depreciated for some time (decade ago, I was getting real-time messages from somebody in the crypto rump session where the compromise was being described) ... and asked to do list of internet RFCs mentioning/referencing MD5.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision_attack

my rfc index
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietff.htm

see special list of RFCs referring to MD5

more recent reference
6151 I
Updated Security Considerations for the MD5 Message-Digest and the HMAC-MD5 Algorithms, Chen L., Turner S., 2011/03/06 (7pp) (.txt=14662) (Updates 1321, 2104) (Refs 1321, 1939, 2104, 2202, 4231, 4270, 4493) (Ref'ed By 6150, 6176, 6331, 6421, 6528, 6542, 6668, 6920, 6929, 6931, 6952, 7217, 7292, 7298, 7317, 7321, 7376)


from above:
2. Security Considerations

MD5 was published in 1992 as an Informational RFC. Since that time, MD5 has been extensively studied and new cryptographic attacks have been discovered. Message digest algorithms are designed to provide collision, pre-image, and second pre-image resistance. In addition, message digest algorithms are used with a shared-secret value for message authentication in HMAC, and in this context, some people may find the guidance for key lengths and algorithm strengths in [SP800-57] and [SP800-131] useful.

MD5 is no longer acceptable where collision resistance is required such as digital signatures. It is not urgent to stop using MD5 in other ways, such as HMAC-MD5; however, since MD5 must not be used for digital signatures, new protocol designs should not employ HMAC-MD5. Alternatives to HMAC-MD5 include HMAC-SHA256 [HMAC] [HMAC-SHA256] and [AES-CMAC] when AES is more readily available than a hash function.


... snip ...

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

OT: article on foreign outsourcing

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: OT: article on foreign outsourcing
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 15:42:33 -0800
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#100 OT: article on foreign outsourcing

A dozen dirty documents; Twelve documents that stand out from the Center's new oil and chemical industry archive
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/12/05/16361/dozen-dirty-documents

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 21:32:14 -0800
John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> writes:
"IBM's 360 and early 370 systems" by Emerson W. Pugh, Lyle R. Johnson, and John H. Palmer is the classic reference. WU's library has a copy.

The 360/85 was a souped up 360/65, using much faster core memory and the fast ASLT logic from the /91. It was microcoded like the successful /65, not hardwired like the /75 and /91. IBM's high end computers, STRETCH, the /91 and the /195 had been phenomenally complicated, and the /85 seemed to be a relatively low risk addition to plug a hole in the product line. The original plan was to use 250ns core memory, three times as fast as the /65 or /91 core, which was a big technical challenge. Then someone came up with the idea of a cache, which initially met with great scepticism. But extensive simulations showed it would work, and it worked really well, so well that the main memory was slowed to 1000ns, allowing larger memories with longer cables, but it didn't matter since nearly all references were satisified from the 80ns cache. For jobs that didn't do much floating point, the cache made the /85 nearly as fast as the much more complex /91.

The 370/165 was largely a reimplemented /85. All of the larger 370s had caches, and it was a long time if ever before IBM reused the complex out of order design of the /91.


claim is that half per processor throughput improvement from z10 to z196 was introduction of these old features of out of order execution and additional work responsible for z196 to ec12 per processor improvement.
z900, 16 processors, 2.5BIPS (156MIPS/proc), Dec2000
z990, 32 processors, 9BIPS, (281MIPS/proc), 2003
z9, 54 processors, 18BIPS (333MIPS/proc), July2005
z10, 64 processors, 30BIPS (469MIPS/proc), Feb2008
z196, 80 processors, 50BIPS (625MIPS/proc), Jul2010
EC12, 101 processors, 75BIPS (743MIPS/proc), Aug2012


in the early 70s, i had gotten dragged into project doing hyperthreading on 370/195 (which never shipped, part of the issue was that they were never going to be able to retrofit virtual memory to 195) ... they told me that biggest change from 360/195 to 370/195 were the couple additional new 370 instructions and hardware instruction retry. 195 pipeline had out-of-order instruction execution but not branch prediction and speculative execution ... so conditional branches drained the pipepline. Carefully constructed codes would hit 10mips ... but most codes typically ran 5mips. hyperthreading was to emulate two i-streams (two processor operation) using red/blue bit implementation described here in this article about end of acs/360 (two emulated processors running conditional branch code at 5mips keeping 10mip execution hardware utilized)
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html

Above also mentions acs/360 was shutdown because executives were afraid that it would advance the state-of-the-art too fast and they would loose control of the market and some of the features then show up in es/9000 20yrs later.

In the wake of failure of future system project
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

there was mad rush to get products back into 370 pipeline ... including kicking off 303x & 3081 somewhat in parallel; 3033 started out being q&d effort remapping 168 logic to warmed over 20% faster chips from FS (and 3081 using other warmed over FS technology)
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm

at that time I was involved in 16-way smp effort ... and we had gotten some of the 3033 processor engineers to work on it in their spare time (lot more interesting than what they were doing with 3033). Initially POK high-end people that it was really great ... and then somebody told the head of POK that it might be decades before POK's favorite son operating system had 16-way SMP support.

3033
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/3033/3033_room.html
3081
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_PP3081.html

when 3033 was out the door, they start on 3090 (overlapped with the 3081 work) ... finally as new effort
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_PP3090.html

followed by es/9000
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_FS9000.html

followed by ESA/390
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ESA/390

and then finally get to 16-way with z900 in Dec2000

old post discussing decision to make virtual memory standard on all 370s:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#73 Multiple Virtual Memory

posts mentioning SMP (&/or compare-and-swap instruction)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

[CM] How ENIAC was rescued from the scrap heap

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: [CM] How ENIAC was rescued from the scrap heap
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 08:14:04 -0800
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
Oh, it is true that today's microelectronics is amazing.

Ever since the Pentium II added out-of-order, microchips basically follow along the lines of the System/360 Model 195 - cache and pipelines. But people focus on the things they don't have - whether it's eternal youth, or enough resources to feed and house everyone properly. New things provoke awe and gratitude only for so long.

And on the technical side, the fact that heavily pipelined machines with slow external RAM require complexities like out-of-order, and are otherwise difficult to program so as to get out of them all the work they're capable of are the problems being focused on.

Life would be so much simpler with chips with fewer transistors... but which ran at a 10 GHz frequency.


lots of implementations have gone to hardware layer that translate the machine "instruction set" into risc micro-ops for scheduling and execution. that makes much of the implementation across risc and cisc very similar ... out-of-order, branch prediction, speculative execution, etc.

part of the problem is increasing mismatch between processor speed and memory access latency ... claims being that the memory access latency, when measured in number of processor cycles is about the same as 60s disk access latency when measured in count of 60s processor cycles. 60s saw multitasking/multithreading ... allowing processor to switch to some other work when something stalls waiting on disk access. hyperthreading, out-of-order execution, etc ... could be considered analogous allowing switching to other work when something stalls on memory access (60s software techniques for thruput, migrating into something analogous for hardware)

recent mention of out-of-order:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#50 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#103 CPU time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#62 Optimization, CPU time, and related issues
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#64 Optimization, CPU time, and related issues
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#96 11 Years to Catch Up with Seymour
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#12 The IBM Strategy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#15 Last Gasp for Hard Disk Drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#67 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#78 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#11 DEC Technical Journal on Bitsavers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#14 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#2 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#51 The Tragedy of Rapid Evolution?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#5 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#99 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#74 Bell Picturephone--early business application experiments
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#56 This Chart From IBM Explains Why Cloud Computing Is Such A Game-Changer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#81 Could this be the wrongest prediction of all time?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#90 What's the difference between doing performance in a mainframe environment versus doing in others
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#105 IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 14:36:17 -0800
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
Well, some of the other 370 models also resembled 360 models; for example, the 370/115 resembled the 360/25. I don't think there was one bridge.

The model 195, although it was converted to a 370 version, was basically abandoned by IBM - they didn't feel that such a high end machine fitted into their commercial plans.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#11 360/85
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#105 IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#106 [CM] How ENIAC was rescued from the scrap heap

Boeblingen got into lots of trouble from corporate for doing 370 115/125; they had 9 position memory bus for microprocessors ... rather than having integrated channels and controllers ... microcode running on same engine as running 370 microcode ... it had separate microcode engines running the different functions. 370/115 had all the processors identical (processor running the 370 microcode was same as all the other processors running various controller microcode). 370/125 was identical to the 370/115 except the processor running 370 microcode was about 50% faster than the other processors.

At one point I got sucked into designing software & architecture for 370/125 that had five of the memory bus positions filled with processor engines running 370 microcode ... although it never shipped. I dropped some amount of dispatching into microcode ... somewhat hiding low-level multiprocessor complexity from the operating system softare (and increasing performance) ... slightly akin to what was later done for the i432 ... as well as other operating system functions ... more architected than what I was asked to help with for VM/370 ECPS microcode assist which was nearly one-for-one 370 instruction microcode instruction (that I was being asked to work on at the same time). past reference to ECPS microcode assist
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#21 370 ECPS VM microcode assist

past posts mentioning the 370/125 5-way SMP work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#bounce

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

How Much Bandwidth do we have?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 06 Dec 2014
Subject: How Much Bandwidth do we have?
Blog: Old Geek
re:
http://lnkd.in/dwCMGEh

I was blamed for online computer conferencing on the internal network in the late 70s and early 80s (larger than arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime late '85 or early '86). Folklore is that when the executive committee was told about online computer conferencing (and the internal network), 5of6 wanted to fire me.

somewhat as a result, a researcher spent 9months in the back of my office taking notes on how I communicated, face-to-face, telephone, etc ... including going with me to meetings. They also got copies of all my incoming and outgoing email and logs of all instant messages. Besides being a research report, it was also used for books and papers and stanford PHD (joint between language and computer AI).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc

We were then working with some of the NSF supercomputer centers and the director of NSF. Originally we were suppose to get $20M to interconnect the NSF supercomputer centers, then congress cuts the budget and some other things happen. Finally NSF releases an RFP (calling for T1 links, in part based on the fact that we had T1 and faster links already running). Internal politics prevent us from bidding ... and the director of NSF (with backing from some other agencies) writes the corporation a letter trying to help but that just makes the internal politics worse (as did statements that what we already had running was at least 5yrs ahead of all RFP responses). Note the winning bid puts in 440kbit links ... and then somewhat to create facade that they were meeting the RFP, puts in telco multiplexors with T1 trunks, running multiple 440kbit links per trunk. Reference to bygone days:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401444/grid-computing/

as regional networks connect to the centers, it morphs into NSFNET backbone, precursor to the modern internet. some posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet

Note at the time, the IBM communication group had prepared report for the executive committee that customers wouldn't be wanting T1 links until sometime in the 90s. This was largely motivated by their mainframe communication programs only supported up to 56kbits links. They did have support for "fat pipes" ... being able to treat multiple 56kbit links as a single logical link. Part of their report to executive committee showed customer "fat pipe" installations, number of 2link fat pipes, 3link fat pipes .... dropping to zero after five pipes as part of their justification. What they didn't possibly realize was that telco tariffs at the time had full T1 at about the same price as five 56kbits. We did trivial survey and found 200 mainframe customers with T1 links ... but using non-IBM attachments.

The IBM communication group also was spreading internal misinformation ... including claims that the NSFNET backbone could be run over VTAM/SNA (obfuscating the fact that it called for T1 links and VTAM/SNA didn't have any kind of T1 support). Somebody made a collection of their misinformation email and forwarded it to us ... small sample, heavily redacted to protect the guilty
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email870109

The original mainframe TCP/IP product was done in VS/PASCAL (totally unrelated to VTAM, SNA, 37x5 boxes, etc) ... and when it came time to release a product to customers ... the communication group claimed control over the product (they had corporate strategic responsibility for everything that crossed datacenter walls). The actual release enormously increased the price and used relatively slow controller box (when communication group was unable to block its release altogether). It used approx. full 3090 processor getting 44kbyte/sec throughput. I did the changes for RFC1044 support and in some tuning tests at cray research between cray and 4341, got sustained channel speed throughput using only modest amount of 4341 processor (possibly 500 times improvement in bytes moved per instruction executed). some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#1044

Late 80s, a senior disk engineer got a talk scheduled at annual, world-wide, internal communication group conference ... supposedly on 3174 performance ... but opened the talk with statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division. The issue was that the communication group had stranglehold on datacenters with its corporate strategic ownership for everything that crosses the datacenter wall. The communication group was fighting off client/server and distributed computing, trying to preserve its dumb (emulated) terminal paradigm and install base. The disk division was seeing data fleeing the datacenter to more distributed computing friendly platforms with drop in disk sales. The disk division had come up with a number of solutions to correct the problem, but they were constantly being vetoed by the communication group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

high end, was IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: high end, was IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 10:27:36 -0800
hancock4 writes:
But coupled to that was the private settlement--at a big loss--of the CDC lawsuit against IBM. TJ Jr touches on that in his memoir as one of the recognition points of the challenges of high-end machines that are different than workaday machines, even powerful ones. In essence, IBM was good at making big Oldsmobile Vista Cruisers with 400 cu in engines and all the options, with a very smooth ride and large capacity. IBM wasn't so good at specialty sports cars, like a Ferrari.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#11 360/85
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#105 IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#106 [CM] How ENIAC was rescued from the scrap heap
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#107 IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165

except this account of ACS/360 ... where Amdahl was going to do high-end machine, a 1/3rd machine and a 1/9th machine ... for IBM's different market segments and meeting ibm profit and volume objectives
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html

executives cancel ACS/360 because they were afraid that it would advance the state-of-the-art too fast and they would loose control of the market. recent refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#62 Imprecise Interrupts and the 360/195
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#64 Optimization, CPU time, and related issues
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#94 Optimization, CPU time, and related issues
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#21 Write Inhibit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#28 Write Inhibit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#15 Last Gasp for Hard Disk Drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#26 23Jun1969 Unbundling Announcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#29 The mainframe turns 50, or, why the IBM System/360 launch was the dawn of enterprise IT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#51 The mainframe turns 50, or, why the IBM System/360 launch was the dawn of enterprise IT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#21 Complete 360 and 370 systems found
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#54 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#67 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#73 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#78 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#11 DEC Technical Journal on Bitsavers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#14 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#4 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#6 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#65 Are you tired of the negative comments about IBM in this community?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#68 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#69 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#87 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#97 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#19 DG Nova 1200 as console
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#32 Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#51 Is coding the new literacy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#100 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#65 Decimation of the valuation of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#98 Why has human progress ground to a halt?

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 14:24:23 -0800
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> writes:
Yes; Congress should stop authorizing H1B visas unless and until they are willing to fund enforcement of prevailing wages and working conditions. They won't, of course, because we have the best congress money can buy.

slightly related

Report: Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance
http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance/

I've mentioned before that in the 90s, when congress was saying that they would fix the illegal immigrant problem once & for all ... they had GAO do study of of the problem ... one of the things they looked at was how much net more in public assistance was required for the workers ... came out to about $10K/worker/annum ... which is basically a form of public assistance to the employeers (not having to pay a living wage). The interesting thing is that since then I've been unable to find any evidence that congress has ever requested GAO to update the study. However, there has been numerous stories about how business have funneled enormous amount of funds through chamber of commerce and other organizations for lobbying (and other mechanisms) for congress not to do anything.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#18 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#70 illegal aliens
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#79 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#81 illegal aliens
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#22 U.S. Cedes Top Spot in Global IT Competitiveness
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007q.html#61 Horrid thought about Politics, President Bush, and Democrats
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#39 competitiveness
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008k.html#25 IBM's 2Q2008 Earnings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#62 Dodd-Frank Act Makes CEO-Worker Pay Gap Subject to Disclosure
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#2 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?

also as I've periodically referenced ... much of what appears about congress for public consumption is purely Kabuki Theater ... even apparent conflict between political parties is mostly so much obfuscation and misdirection (distraction for the public from what is really going on)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#kabuki.theater

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 14:43:56 -0800
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
at that time I was involved in 16-way smp effort ... and we had gotten some of the 3033 processor engineers to work on it in their spare time (lot more interesting than what they were doing with 3033). Initially POK high-end people that it was really great ... and then somebody told the head of POK that it might be decades before POK's favorite son operating system had 16-way SMP support.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#11 360/85
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#69 Could this be the wrongest prediction of all time?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#81 Could this be the wrongest prediction of all time?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#105 IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#106 [CM] How ENIAC was rescued from the scrap heap
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#107 IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#109 high end, was IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165

I usually also mentioned that then the head of POK invited several of us to never visit the location again ... the processor engineers were then told to totally focus solely on the 3033 and don't get side-tracked again.

I've mentioned before that the processor engineers had said in the transition from 165 to 168 ... the memory got about four times faster and the (horizontal) microcode had been improved so that it reduced the avg. machine cycle per 370 instruction from 2.1 to 1.6.

when the 3033 got out the door, they then started on the 3090 (trout 1.5). One of the things they complained about was marketing adding vector processor feature to the 3090. They claimed that big justification for vector processing was that normally floating point is so slow that memory bus can keep a large number of floating point execution units fed concurrently. They claimed that they spent an enormous amount of effort on making scalar floating point run as fast as the memory bus could feed it ... largely negating the need for vector (we kept in touch after the 16-way fiasco and I would even sometimes sneak into POK).

misc. past posts mentioning trout:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#21 S/360 development burnout?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#35 S/360 development burnout?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003j.html#42 Flash 10208
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006j.html#27 virtual memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006j.html#31 virtual memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#68 IBM Mainframe (1980's) on You tube
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#33 390 vector instruction set reuse, was 8-bit bytes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#63 Imprecise Interrupts and the 360/195
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#17 Write Inhibit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#21 Complete 360 and 370 systems found

it wasn't my only dustup with POK. I've mentioned before in 1980 getting con'ed into doing channel extender support for STL lab (moving 300 people from the IMS DBMS group to offsite building) so they could have local channel attached controllers back to the STL datacenter
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender

then the vendor tried getting the support released, which was blocked by a group in POK that had been playing with some serial fiber stuff. Later in 1988, I get asked to help LLNL standardize some serial stuff they have which quickly morphs into the fiber channel stuff. Finally the POK group gets their stuff announced as ESCON with ES/9000 in 1990 (ten years later by this time it is obsolete).

Eventually some of them become involved with fibre channel stuff and define a heavy-weight protocol on top of FCS that drastically cuts the native throughput ... which is eventually released as FICON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

How Much Bandwidth do we have?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 07 Dec 2014
Subject: How Much Bandwidth do we have?
Blog: Old Geek
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#108 How Much Bandwidth do we have?

Much of the current infrastructure uses slow-start for congestion control/avoidance ... which tends to drastically cut effective end-to-end throughput (and major contributor to missing packets). In the early 80s we had done rate-based pacing (one of the things that was bases for saying what we had already running was at least 5yrs ahead of all NSF RFP responses). In the late 80s, at the IETF meeting when slow-start was first brought up for standard, i made observation that possibly justification was that the very low-end platforms lacked the timer facilities necessary for doing rate-based pacing. However the same month, the annual SIGCOMM ACM meeting had a paper showing how slow-start was non-stable in large multi-hop heterogeneous network.

reference here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp

In 2003, there were articles out of caltech about how a rate-based pacing protocol ("FAST") running over dial-up could have higher throughput than slow-start based protocol on broadband connection. It is now also one of things included in what is being called INTERNET2. old reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003j.html#1 FAST - Shame On You Caltech!!!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003j.html#46 Fast TCP

and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004k.html#8 FAST TCP makes dialup faster than broadband?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004k.html#9 FAST TCP makes dialup faster than broadband?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004k.html#12 FAST TCP makes dialup faster than broadband?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004k.html#13 FAST TCP makes dialup faster than broadband?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004k.html#16 FAST TCP makes dialup faster than broadband?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004k.html#17 FAST TCP makes dialup faster than broadband?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004k.html#18 FAST TCP makes dialup faster than broadband?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004k.html#19 FAST TCP makes dialup faster than broadband?

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

How Much Bandwidth do we have?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 08 Dec 2014
Subject: How Much Bandwidth do we have?
Blog: Old Geek
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#108 How Much Bandwidth do we have?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#112 How Much Bandwidth do we have?

Our last product at IBM was HA/CMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

... when I was out marketing it, I coined the terms disaster survivability and geographic survivability to differentiate from disaster/recovery. Along the way I was asked to write a section for the corporate continuous availability strategy document ... it was pulled, because both Rochester (as/400) and POK (mainframe) complained that they couldn't meet the requirements
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available

part of the HA/CMP included cluster scale-up for both commercial (RDBMS) and scientific/technical (with national labs and other institutions). This has reference to meeting in Ellison's conference room in Jan1992
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

within a few weeks of that meeting, the scale-up effort was transferred, announced as supercomputer for technical and scientific ONLY and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors ... not long afterwards we decided to leave.

This is summary of old study by Jim Gray ... I had worked with Jim at San Jose research during the days of original SQL/relational DBMS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

that hardware reliability had increased to a level that most service outages were now because of environmental (floods, power outages, earthquakes, etc) and human mistakes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/grayft84.pdf

we use to periodically drop in on the guy responsible for one of the largest financial transaction networks ... he commented that he attributed their 100% availability to

automated operator (minimizing human mistakes) • geographic distributed, triple redundant, IMS hot-standby.

trivia: Jim Gray is also credited for being largely responsible for formalizing transaction definition, "ACID" properties, and the original TPC benchmarks.
http://www.tpc.org/information/who/gray.asp
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACID

Earlier incarnation of cloud was online computing. The IBM cambridge science center had developed (virtual machine) CP67 (precursor to vm370 and current z/vm). At the time, IBM mainframes were rented/leased and monthly charges were based on the system meter than ran anytime the processor and/or any channels were busy (processors and all channels had to be idle for at least 400ms before the system meter stopped). The move to leaving the system up 7/24 for remote online service faced a number of challenges. To promote offshift use ... it had to be left up 7/24 ... but initial use was too low to cover the costs. A lot of work was done to enable operation dark room w/o operator or any kind of human oversight and also to allow the system meter to come to stop ... even though there were active channel programs waiting for incoming data. Trivia: the POK favorite son, mainframe batch operating system still had a system task that woke up every 400ms long after mainframes had moved from rental to sales.

Current cloud megadatacenters have so reduced their base run rate for on-demand operation that cooling and power have become dominate expense (they claim they build their own servers for small faction of what brand name servers sell for). The cloud megadatacenter move to "green" have also placed lots of pressure on server chip makers that power/cooling requirements drop to near zero while idle ... but can instantaneously come up to full operation "on-demand".

There are now press items about research institutions being able to contract on-demand for computer power (equivalent to rank in top-100 world supercomputers) from large cloud megadatacenters using just credit card (no human intervention).

a large cloud megadatacenter will have hundreds of thousands of servers and millions of processor-cores (a typical cloud megadatacenter will have more processing than the aggregate of all mainframes in the world today), from three years ago

Amazon Web Services Announces Cloud Supercomputer Ranked 42 On Top500 List
http://cloud-computing-today.com/2011/11/15/amazon-web-services-announces-cloud-supercomputer-ranked-42-on-top-500-list/

from year ago:

18 hours, $33K, and 156,314 cores: Amazon cloud HPC hits a "petaflop" 1.21 petaflops? Great scott!
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/18-hours-33k-and-156314-cores-amazon-cloud-hpc-hits-a-petaflop/

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Mill Computing talk in Estonia on 12/10/2104

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Mill Computing talk in Estonia on 12/10/2104
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 11:36:51 -0800
Casper H.S. Dik <Casper.Dik@OrSPaMcle.COM> writes:
In cloud computing moving live images between systems is common; however, generally you can only move between similarly flavored systems (in the case of Solaris/SPARC, it is possible to make the image "generic" and then moving between systems with different CPU features, but this, I think, not a common feature as the command virtual tax is high enough when you can use all available instructions for the specific system)

there was lot of work on (virtual machine) cp67 (precursor to vm370, zVM) for 7x24 operation ... then some of the organizations using the platform for online commercial service made some additional enhancements (that never were released in the standard product).

late 60s, it started out needing to deal with regularly scheduled mainframe maintenance ... enhancements were made for supporting cluster (mainframe loosely-coupled) operation for load-balancing ... and then expanded to moving live images ... providing non-disruptive 7x24 when components had to be taken offline for schedule maintenance.

more than decade later, UCLA's LOCUS (unix work-alike) were implementing something similar ... in some scenarios even being able to do live move between dissimilar architectures (executable image cleanly separated from working storage).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Mill Computing talk in Estonia on 12/10/2104

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Mill Computing talk in Estonia on 12/10/2104
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 17:59:46 -0800
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
James Martin was right; IBM's Future Systems would revolutionize the world of computing! He was just a bit off on the timescale... (as that is "what became the AS/400").

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#114 Mill Computing talk in Estonia on 12/10/2104

Future System had complex, obtuse instruction parameters which could take five serial/sequential storage accesses to get at the actual contents. One of the final nails in the FS coffin was analysis by the IBM Houston Science Center that if a 370/195 application were run on the faster possible FS hardware implementation, it would have the throughput of 370/145 (10-30 times slowdown).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

folklore is that some of the FS people retreated to Rochester and did vastly simplified S/38 for the non-throughput sensitive market.

AS/400 was a merge of S/36 and S/38 ... that dropped several S/38 features.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System_i

from above:
The IBM System i, then known as the AS/400, was the continuation of the System/38 database machine architecture (announced by IBM in October 1978 and delivered in August 1979). The AS/400 removed capability-based addressing.[3] The AS/400 added source compatibility with the System/36 combining the two primary computers manufactured by the IBM Rochester plant. The System/36 was IBM's most successful mini-computer but the architecture had reached its limit.

... snip ...

original as/400 was during the "fort knox" period when IBM was going to move vast variety of different internal microprocessors to 801/risc Iliad chips (low & mid-range 370, as/400, controllers, etc). However for various reasons that effort floundered and they all reverted to CISC chips (saw some number of the 801/risc engineers leaving and going to other vendors to work on risc efforts). Later in the 90s, it finally did move to 801/risc (power) base.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

some old 801 related email, included some discussion of Iliad chips
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#801

One of the issues was that FS did single-level store ... somewhat brought forward from TSS/360. At the univ. as undergraduate ... I had to share the univ. 360/67 on weekends with IBM SE working with tss/360 (and I was working with cp67). At one point, the SE & I did a benchmark script for emulated fortran program edit, compile and execute. CP67/CMS with 35 emulated users had better throughput, response, and performance than TSS/360 (on the same hardware) did with four emulated users.

In the 70s at the science center I did a paged mapped filesystem for CMS that I periodically claimed was based on what I learned not to do from TSS/360. Then during the FS period, they were pretty much making the same mistakes ... and was one of the reasons I would periodically ridicule what they were doing (considered several things that I was doing was much better).

During the FS period, internal politics was killing off lots of 370-based efforts (I ignored them, and continued to work on 370 all during the period) ... then when FS imploded, there was mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines. This contributed to decision to pick up lots of stuff I had been doing during the FS period and releasing them in standard product. However, they wouldn't pickup&release the CMS paged-mapped filesystem (even though I could show 3times the throughput of CMS standard filesystem), presumably because of the bad performance reputation that single-level store got from FS project.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#mmap

S/38 further simplified the FS single-level store ... w/o doing anything about the performance issues ... which wasn't critical in that market. One of the simplification was that they went to all disk space being treated as common pool. The results were all disks in the system had to be backed up and restored as a single unit. At the time, single disk failures were more common ... and it could take 24hrs or more to restore a complete S/38 system. This was major motivation for S/38 becoming early RAID adopter ... trying to alleviate the enormous problem that single disk failure caused.

In the late 70s and early 80s I was at San Jose Research at the main disk plant site and got sucked into playing disk engineer part of the time ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

and one of the people I worked with was person that got the original "raid" patent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID#History

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 11:36:46 -0800
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
U.S. Navy deploys its first laser cannon -- capable of setting drones on fire in the sky
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/11/17/u-s-navy-deploys-its-first-laser-cannon-capable-of-setting-drones-on-fire-in-the-sky/


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#47 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#79 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#82 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#89 LEO

Zap Wars: U.S. Navy Successfully Tests Laser Weapon in the Persian Gulf
http://time.com/3628047/navy-laser-weapon-test-persian-gulf/
"Service says ray gun can handle multiple threats at 59 cents a shot"

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Are we programmed to stop at the 'first' right answer

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 10 Dec 2014
Subject: Are we programmed to stop at the 'first' right answer
Blog: Facebook
Are we programmed to stop at the 'first' right answer
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141205112609-21741536-are-we-programmed-to-stop-at-the-first-right-answer

the last product we did at IBM was HA/CMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

... this is old reference to jan1992 meeting in ellison's conference room on cluster scale-up ...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

within a few weeks the scale-up had been transferred, announced as IBM supercomputer and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors ... which motivates us to leave. Now two of the other people in the meeting have also left and joined a small client/server startup responsible for something called the "commerce server". We are brought in as consultants because they want to do payment transactions on the server; the startup had also invented something called "SSL" they wanted to use, the result is now frequently called "electronic commerce". Straight-line application code was written for the browser/webserver interface as well for webserver/gateway interface (gateway sits on the internet and interfaces to the backend payment networks). I have absolute authority over the webserver/gateway and require a lot more work than straight-line solution ... I'm only able to make recommendations for the browser/webserver ... some of which were almost immediately violated which continues to contribute to various exploits that continue to this day.

I've periodically commented that it takes 4-10 times the original effort to take a well-designed, written, debugged, and working straight-line application and turn it into a business-critical service. A lot of it involves detailed studies how things fail (not just environmental but also human mistakes and purposeful attacks) and devise appropriate countermeasures. Analogous to first right answer is stop as soon as it works ... and very seldom continues on to how things don't work.

recent post mentioning 4-10 times rule:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#86 Economic Failures of HTTPS Encryption

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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

By the time we get to 'O' in OODA

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: By the time we get to 'O' in OODA...
Date: 11 Dec 2014
Blog: Google+
re:
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/XwtBSUANfn8

By the time we get to 'O' in OODA...
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/time-we-get-o-OODA-cliff-kimber

There is an analogy in the computer world with the increasing proliferation of multi-core chips and holy grail being programming language that allows great multitude to generate parallel/mutli-threaded programs. Boyd would talk about all parts of OODA going on concurrently and asynchronously ... also constantly observing from all possible facets. There was item about Intel SVP Pat Gelsinger in a speech related a conversation with Gates:
"A couple of years ago, I had a discussion with Bill Gates (about the multi-core products). He was just in disbelief. He said, 'We can't write software to keep up with that.'"

Gates ordered the Intel executive to keep pumping out faster product. "No, Bill, it's not going to work that way," Gelsinger informed him.


... snip ...

... aka most people think programming in terms of sequential, serial, step-by-step operations ...

past refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#78 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#42 Panic in Multicore Land
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#15 Why do people say "the soda loop is often depicted as a simple loop"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#44 Monopoly/ Cartons of Punch Cards
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#48 New HD
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#85 Parallel programming may not be so daunting

posts & URLs referencing Boyd (&/or OODA-loop)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

posts mentioning multiprocessor (/multi-core, parallel, multithreaded)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Holy Grail for parallel programming language

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Holy Grail for parallel programming language
Date: 11 Dec 2014
Blog: LinkedIn
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#118 By the time we get to 'O' in OODA...

Parallel programming language holy grail is dataprocessing specification metaphor that breaks the serial, sequential, step-by-step processing ... allowing operations to be specified in such a way that the computer has a great deal of latitude in deciding how to execute the operations (analogy with Boyd's description of rigid, top-down, command&control as well as some characterizations of the difference between strategic and tactical). posts & web URLs mentioining Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

90s there was lots of moving off single centralized mainframe to killer micros. Financial industry for a couple decades had financncial transactions queued up for processing in the overnight batch window. In the 90s there was heavy strain being put on the overnight batch window with increases in workload and globalization shortening the window. Billions were spent in the financial industry to re-eninneer their operation to support straight-through processing. They were doing lots of RYO (roll-your-own) implementation using some industry standard programming libraries ... hoping to have increased throughput using lots of parallel "killer micros". They did some toy demos, but never did any speeds&feeds calculation ... and ignored warnings that their implementation introduced a factor of hundreds times increase in processing (which would totally swamp any throughput increases with large number of killer micros). It wasn't until they went to live deployments that the magnitude of the problem, forcing them to abandon all the efforts.

In the middle of last decade I was involved in taking some technology to financial industry groups that leveraged the enormous amount of work that had gone into RDBMS cluster throughput increases ... demonstrating workload throughput that greatly exceeded any existing requirements. At first it saw high acceptance and then hit a brick wall. Finally we were told that there were still quite a few executives that bore the scars from the fiascos in the 90s and new reegineering efforts would have to wait until a new generation took over.

The seeds for the RDBMS work wasn't directly parallelization technology ... it was the work that Jim Gray did in the 70s&80s formalizing transaction semantics that allowed work to be broken up until small pieces and performed independently ... and "reliably" ... which also contributed to financial auditors to "trust" computer records from "ACID" properties:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACID
and throughput benchmark
http://www.tpc.org/information/who/gray.asp

Then in the 90s, there was lots of effort that went into RDBMS high-throughput, running work consistently and concurrently across large number of (parallel) processors. The straight-through processing reengineering work last decade involved breaking financial transactions into smallest work units possible and then rely on the extensive RDBMS work to manage things concurrently in consistent manner with large number of parallel processors.

disclaimer: I worked with Jim in the 70s and early 80s at San Jose Research involving the original SQL/relational implementation ...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

then when he left for Tandem, he palmed a bunch of stuff off on to me. Then in late 80s when we were doing HA/CMP product
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

... also did extensive work on cluster scale-up for RDBMS ... as well scientific/technical with (gov) national labs. Reference to Jan1992 meeting in Ellison's conference room (on RDBMS cluster scale-up)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

as I've periodically mentioned with a couple weeks of the above meeting, the cluster scale-up work was transferred, announced as supercomputer (for technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors (which was significant part of the motivation in deciding to leave). One of the things that I had done was extremely high-performance RDBMS parallel paradigm ... which involved some complex logic ... that took another decade for RDBMS vendors to fully adopt.

Part of the issue was I significantly increased the number and kinds of things that could be concurrently "in-flight" ... making failure recovery more complex (having to work through every possible failure scenario ... for all possible cases that might be concurrently going) ... lots of people felt apprehensive about being able to get it all correct.

oh and a little earlier. co-worker at IBM Cambridge Science Center invented compare&swap (name chosen because CAS are co-worker's initials) when he was working on fine-grain multiprocessor locking for (virtual machine) CP67 in the 60s. Then an attempt was made to get it into 370 ... but the 370 architecture owners said it was rejected because the POK favorite son operating system said that test&set was sufficient for multiprocessor operation. The 370 architecture owners said to justify compare&swap instruction, there would have to be additional justification ... thus was born the use cases for application multi-threaded serialized operation (regardless of whether it was running on single or multiple processors) ... which were included in the 370 principles of operation ... and continue to show up in present day principles of operation. Over the next 20 years, most processor vendors would include instruction with same/similar semantics to compare&swap ... and would be heavily used by high performance DBMS & RDBMS implementations.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

This has reference to compare&swap at the system/r reunion, somebody conjecturing (incorrectly) that it was somebody in POK that invented compare&swap ... when it was POK that opposed the instruction.
http://www.mcjones.org/System_R/SQL_Reunion_95/sqlr95-Shoot-ou.html#Index311

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Memo To Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat: Does Your Crony Capitalist Plunder Know No Shame?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 12 Dec 2014
Subject: Memo To Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat: Does Your Crony Capitalist Plunder Know No Shame?
Blog: Google+
re:
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/T8RFNV7YwmX

Memo To Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat: Does Your Crony Capitalist Plunder Know No Shame?
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/memo-to-citigroup-ceo-micheal-corbat-does-your-crony-capitalist-plunder-have-no-shame/

The president of AMEX is in competition to be the next CEO and wins,
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner

the looser takes his protege with him and goes to Baltimore taking over what has been described as a loan sharking business. They then make other acquisitions, eventually acquiring citibank in violation of Glass-Steagall. Greenspan gives them an exemption while they lobby congress for repeal (they also enlist the help of sec. of treasury, who had previously been head of Goldman ... who after it is done, resigns and becomes, what at the time, is called (citibank) co-CEO; repeal of Glass-Steagall is enabler for too big to fail).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall

The protege leaves and becomes CEO of one of the other too big to fail. At the time I remember comments that the new citibank CEO was replacing the traditional banking executives with people from other areas of the financial industry that weren't use to depository institution regulations.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Presenting The $303 Trillion In Derivatives That US Taxpayers Are Now On The Hook For

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 12 Dec 2014
Subject: Presenting The $303 Trillion In Derivatives That US Taxpayers Are Now On The Hook For
Blog: Google+
re:
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/2mEDX8ow5Hq

Presenting The $303 Trillion In Derivatives That US Taxpayers Are Now On The Hook For
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-12/presenting-303-trillion-derivatives-us-taxpayers-are-now-hook

some older ... Gramm (with help from his wife) is #2 on times list responsible for financial mess
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877330,00.html

GLBA act that repeals Glass-Steagall (enabling too big to fail, too big to prosecute, and too big to jail) ... but also a number of other things ... including provision in commodities futures modernization act preventing CDSs from being regulated.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/business/17grammside.html
Enron was a major contributor to Mr. Gramm's political campaigns, and Mr. Gramm's wife, Wendy, served on the Enron board, which she joined after stepping down as chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

... snip ...

https://web.archive.org/web/20080711114839/http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-01-15/news/phil-gramm-s-enron-favor/
A few days after she got the ball rolling on the exemption, Wendy Gramm resigned from the commission. Enron soon appointed her to its board of directors, where she served on the audit committee, which oversees the inner financial workings of the corporation. For this, the company paid her between $915,000 and $1.85 million in stocks and dividends, as much as $50,000 in annual salary, and $176,000 in attendance fees,

... snip ...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&refer=home&sid=aYJZOB_gZi0I
That same year Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt opposed an attempt by Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to study regulating over-the-counter derivatives. In 2000, Congress passed a law keeping them unregulated.

... snip ...

Brooksley was fairly quickly replaced by Wendy Gramm as head of Commodity Futures Trading Commission (pending provision by her husband preventing regulating CDS) before Wendy then resigned to join Enron's board. Preventing regulation of CDS was originally favor for ENRON, but then later plays major role in the financial mess (and AIG).

Why Citi May Soon Regret Its Big Victory on Capitol Hill Banker Article
http://www.americanbanker.com/news/law-regulation/why-citi-may-soon-regret-its-big-victory-on-capitol-hill-1071636-1.html
Liberals: Obama abandoned us
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/liberals-obama-abandoned-us-113516.html
Citigroup Wrote the Wall Street Giveaway The House Just Approved
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/spending-bill-992-derivatives-citigroup-lobbyists
How Wall St. got its way
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/wall-street-spending-bill-congress-113525.html
Furor Over Move to Aid Big Banks in Funding Bill
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/business/furor-over-move-to-aid-big-banks-in-funding-bill.html
Full Show: Democrats Bow Down to Wall Street
http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-democrats-bow-wall-street/
"The Most Egregious Sections Of Law I've Encountered During My Time As A Representative"
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-12/most-egregious-sections-law-ive-encountered-during-my-time-representative

Glass-Steagall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall too big to fail, too big to prosecute, too big to jail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Congress could soon allow pension plans to cut benefits for current retirees

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 12 Dec 2014
Subject: Congress could soon allow pension plans to cut benefits for current retirees
Blog: Google+
re:
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/5q3C1pYjU88

Congress could soon allow pension plans to cut benefits for current retirees
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/congress-could-soon-allow-pension-plans-to-cut-benefits-for-current-retirees/2014/12/03/62e5112a-7b0c-11e4-9a27-6fdbc612bff8_story.html

some older:
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml

Gerstner
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
posts referencing pensions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#pensions

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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Holy Grail for parallel programming language

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Holy Grail for parallel programming language
Date: 11 Dec 2014
Blog: LinkedIn
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#118 By the time we get to 'O' in OODA...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#119 Holy Grail for parallel programming language

something just shows up (from 2008): Multicore Programming; We need languages that take full advantage of multicore processing.
http://www.technologyreview.com/notebook/411436/multicore-programming/

In some ways, test&set was used for locks for strictly serializing the sequential part of program (in multiprocessor enviornment). The invention of compare&swap by charlie at the ibm science center ... eliminated strict locking around the sequential part of the program Compare&swap allowed all parts to proceed in parallel and only provided atomic update. Lots of DBMS&RDBMS implementations have used compare&swap (or instructions with similar semantics) for decades to significantly increase their throughput in parallel environment ... however it required reorganizing how the operations were performed ... from a serialized critical section locking paradigm ... to atomic update paradigm.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

A simple example is bank transaction paradigm ... lots of operations could be going on concurrently that add/subtract individual account balances as well as total branch balance and/or total bank balance. Old fashioned locking required that critical code sections dealing with balance update be locked and performed in strictly sequential manner. compare&swap can allow all code sections proceed in parallel and only guarantees that all balance additions & subtractions are correctly reflected ... but not necessarily the ordering of those operations (this might lead to unexpected results if previously it happened to work out that all adds had been done before all subtracts, the new mechanism might have arbitrary ordering of adds & subtracts ... potentially introducing situation where balance temporarily goes negative).

Things get a little more complex when move is from shared-memory parallelism to cluster non-shared-memory parallelism. I had done a lot of work on shared-memory parallelism in the 70s ... but in the 80s started also doing a lot of work on cluster non-shared-memory parallelism.

I think there is song from the 50s that has refrain something about "keep your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel" ... you aren't doing one and then the other ... but doing all concurrently.

There are several different aspects of RDBMS related to parallelism, concurrency, as well as rigid structure.

The original sql/relational implementation (system/r) made a number of compromises for the financial industry, all possible data for account transaction was grouped in single record (making financial transactions much faster) and was structured into homogeneous tables that reflect standard financial accounting practices. The side-effect of this is that it can take enormous effort and elapsed time to convert non-financial, non-homogenous information into table format acceptable for use by RDBMS. It isn't unusual for such efforts to take 18months or more elapsed time. It even gets worse when the information and information structure is not static, cases where it takes 18months elapsed time to "normalize" 12months of information changes. I've periodically voiced the refrain that being forced to use RDBMS is equivalent to trying to force the domain into financial transaction metaphor.

The other aspect to appeal to financial industry (as early adopters with money) was supporting ACID properties ... i.e. guaranteeing a very high level of information integrity across all kinds of glitches and failures. Initially this was critical section code that serialized for journaling/logging ... as method to improve change integrity. Since then there are all sorts of mechanisms been invented to make journaling/logging (in support of ACID properties) a lot more parallel and asynchronously. A typical journal would record "after-image" of the changed record ... then in case of failure ... the journal would be "replayed", "rolling forward" the RDBMS to conform to journaled records. Cluster non-shared memory may use independent journal for each system running transactions. Replaying the records after outage or failure then requires merging the records of all the separate journals into the original temporal order (time-sequence) ... this gets increasingly tricky if all systems are doing millions of transactions per second.

SQL has another problem that it doesn't deal well with NULL or unknown information ... sometimes referred to 3-value logic problem. SQL does fine if all records are homogeneous and fields have defined values ... but it gets really tricky when not all information is known (SQL is infamous for non-intuitive obvious results when NULLS or unknowns are involved). About the same time I was involved in the original SQL/relational effort, I got sucked into also helping implement a different kind of relational DBMS that didn't require table structuring data ... and the interface language was much better at dealing with NULL and unknowns. However, the RDBMS tailoring done for the financial community came to dominate the industry.

However, the massive search engines have come up with repositories for massively parallel operation that have done away with structuring data and supporting ACID properties. Some of these have been retrofitted with SQL capability.

trivia: I had worked on (virtual machine) CP67 as undergraduate in the 60s and then on its follow-on VM370. The original sql/relational implementation (with support for financial industry) was done on VM370 platform. Another "financial industry" effort was spreadsheets ... being able to emulate paper accounting records ... one of the persons responsible for the "invention" and did much of the implementation had been working at a online service bureau that used the VM370 platform to provide online services & financial data to the financial industry.

FoundationDB And The New NoSQL
http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/13/foundationdb-and-the-new-nosql/
FoundationDB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FoundationDB

system/r
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

Not OODA ... but x-over that I periodically draw with Boyd's "Organic Design For Command & Control" ... and the characterization that military has been rigid, top-down command&control. RDBMS table format convention tends to be relatively rigid ... because creating it for other than financial accounts tends to be extremely human/time intensive ... that along with SQL difficulty dealing with 3-value logic and NULLs/unknowns (not known true/false).

past posts mentioning parallel programming holy grail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007l.html#15 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007l.html#34 Is Parallel Programming Just Too Hard?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#19 Distributed Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#44 Are multicore processors driving application developers to explore multithreaded programming options?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008k.html#63 Intel: an expensive many-core future is ahead of us
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008k.html#72 Transactional Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#26 What is the biggest IT myth of all time?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#9 Age
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#8 No command, and control
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#21 Eurofighter v F16
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011i.html#35 Having left IBM, seem to be reminded that IBM is not the same IBM I had joined
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#122 Deja Cloud?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#57 Has anyone successfully migrated off mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#15 Why do people say "the soda loop is often depicted as a simple loop"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012f.html#36 Time to competency for new software language?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#48 Difference between fingerspitzengefuhl and Coup d'oeil?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#44 Monopoly/ Cartons of Punch Cards
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#77 Monopoly/ Cartons of Punch Cards

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Commissioner Adrian Leppard calls for legislation to compel the banking system to report fraud

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 14 Dec 2014
Subject: Commissioner Adrian Leppard calls for legislation to compel the banking system to report fraud
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
Commissioner Adrian Leppard calls for legislation to compel the banking system to report fraud
https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/news-and-appeals/Pages/commissioner-calls-for-legislation-to-compel-banking-system-to-report-fraud.aspx

We were tangentially involved in the Cal. state data breach notification legislation; we had been brought in to help wordsmith the electronic signature legislation and several of the parties were heavily involved in privacy issues and had done extensive detailed public surveys. The no. one issue was identity theft, namely fraudulent financial transaction as a result of data breaches. There was little or nothing that was being done about and it was hoped that the publicity from the notification would prompt some corrective action. A major problem was that normally security measures are taken in self-interest ... however data breaches didn't put the institutions at risk, it was the individuals that were at risk.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#data.breach.notification.notification

there is something of chicken&egg with not reporting fraud ... normally resources&skills are allocated to deal with reported problems ... if you never report the problem ... there is unlikely to ever be any resources to deal with the problem.

We've also used a couple metaphors for the current card fraud paradigm:

dual-use metaphor ... since information from previous transactions can be used for fraudulent transactions, that information has to be kept totally confidential and never divulged. at the same time the same information is required in dozens of business processes at millions of locations around the world. we've periodically commented that even if the planet was buried under miles of information hiding encryption, it still wouldn't stop leakage

security proportional to risk metaphor ... the value of the transaction information to the merchants is the profit on the transactions, which can be a couple dollars (and a couple cents for the transaction processor) ... the value of the information to the crooks is the account balance and/or credit limit ... as a result the crooks can afford to outspend the defenders by a factor of 100 times
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#security.proportional.to.risk

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

How Much Bandwidth do we have?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 15 Dec 2014
Subject: How Much Bandwidth do we have?
Blog: Old Geek
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#108 How Much Bandwidth do we have?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#112 How Much Bandwidth do we have?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#113 How Much Bandwidth do we have?

There is both bandwidth & latency issue ... the old criteria is whether to ship the operation to processor co-located with the data ... or to run locally and access the data remotely. Part of it is elapsed latency for each access (not just raw bandwidth).

1980, STL (now silicon valley lab) was bursting at the seams and they were moving 300 people from the IMS group to offsite bldg with access back to the STL datacenter. They had tried "remote 3270s" but found the human factors totally unacceptable (compared to what they were used to with vm370/cms channel attached 3270s). I got con'ed into doing channel-extender support so they could have channel attached controllers at the offsite bldg. Part of the support was a remote channel emulator at the offsite bldg. with the channel programs downloaded ... channel program protocol has a significant amount of chatter ... and downloading the channel programs and executing remotely avoid an enormous amount of latency (the group couldn't tell difference between real local channel 3270 human factors and channel-extender 3270 human factors).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender

The vendor then tried to get my support released to customers ... but there was group in POK that had been playing with some serial fiber that blocked it ... they were afraid that having it in the market, it would make it more difficult to get their stuff released.

In 1988, I was asked to help standardize some serial stuff from LLNL ... which quickly morphs into fibre-channel standard ... and included all sorts of latency masking and compensation including downloading I/O programs to the remote end (to minimize chatter latency & elapsed time) and asynchronous parallel operation.

The POK guys finally get their stuff released in 1990 with ES/9000 as ESCON ... when it is already obsolute. Then some of the POK people get involved in fibre-channel standard and define an heavy-weight protocol on top of fibre-channel standard that drastically cuts the native throughput (having huge amount of latency and back&forth chatter) ... which is eventually released as FICON. There was a z196 max/peak i/o throughput benchmark that managed to achieve 2M IOPS using 104 FICONs (running on top of 104 fibre channel). About the same time there was a (native) fibre channel announced for E5-2600 blade claiming over a million IOPS (aka two such fibre channel having more throughput than 104 FICONs).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Wall Street's Revenge

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 15 Dec 2014
Subject: Wall Street's Revenge
Blog: Facebook
Wall Street's Revenge; Dodd-Frank Damaged in the Budget Bill
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/15/opinion/paul-krugman-dodd-frank-damaged-by-the-budget-bill.html

Gramm (with help from his wife) is #2 on times list responsible for financial mess
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877330,00.html

does GLBA act that repeals Glass-Steagall (enabling too big to fail, too big to prosecute, and too big to jail) ... but also a number of other things ... including provision in commodities futures modernization act preventing (derivatives) CDSs from being regulated.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/business/17grammside.html
Enron was a major contributor to Mr. Gramm's political campaigns, and Mr. Gramm's wife, Wendy, served on the Enron board, which she joined after stepping down as chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

... snip ...

https://web.archive.org/web/20080711114839/http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-01-15/news/phil-gramm-s-enron-favor/
A few days after she got the ball rolling on the exemption, Wendy Gramm resigned from the commission. Enron soon appointed her to its board of directors, where she served on the audit committee, which oversees the inner financial workings of the corporation. For this, the company paid her between $915,000 and $1.85 million in stocks and dividends, as much as $50,000 in annual salary, and $176,000 in attendance fees,

... snip ...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&refer=home&sid=aYJZOB_gZi0I
That same year Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt opposed an attempt by Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to study regulating over-the-counter derivatives. In 2000, Congress passed a law keeping them unregulated.

... snip ...

Brooksley was fairly quickly replaced by Wendy Gramm as head of Commodity Futures Trading Commission (pending provision by her husband preventing regulating CDS) before Wendy then resigned to join Enron's board. Preventing regulation of CDS was originally favor for ENRON, but then later plays major role in the financial mess (and AIG).

posts mentioning ENRON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#enron
posts mentioning Glass-Steagall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall
posts mentioning too big to fail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
posts mentioning Greenspan (or other fed chairmens)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#greenspan

securitized mortgages had been used during the S&L crisis to obfuscate fraudulent mortgages. In the late 90s we were asked to look at improving integrity of mortgage supporting documents as countermeasure ... old long-winded post from Jan1999
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay3.htm#riskm

However, wallstreet found that they could pay rating agencies for triple-A ratings (when both sellers and rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A, from Oct2008 congressional hearings into role rating agencies played). Triple-A ratings trump support documents and they could start doing no-documentation liar loans (and with no documentation, there was no longer issue with supporting documentation integrity). Wallstreet then starting creating securitized mortgages (CDOs) designed to fail, selling them to their customers and taking out CDS gambling bets (derivatives) that they would fail (creating enormous demand for dodgy mortgages).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

AIG was negotiating to pay off CDS gambling bets at 50-60cents on the dollar. Fall of 2008, the sec. of treasury (formally head of Goldman) steps in and tells AIG it was illegal for them to pay less than 100cents on the dollar and required them to take gov. bailout to pay off CDS gambling bets at face value (largest recepient was sec. of treasury's old firm, Goldman) and also sign away any rights to sue those making the CDS bets. more recent about sec. of treasury and the AIG bailout:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/10/aig-bailout-trial-bombshell-iii-paulson-lied-to-congress-about-tarp.html

From law of unintended consequences, the no-documentation, liar loans has the too big to fail setting up large robo-signing mills to fabricate (fraudulent) supporting documents required for foreclosures

with regard to sec. of treasury lying to congress ... off-book toxic assets summer/fall 2008 had gone for 22cents on the dollar. End of 2008, just the four largest too big to fail were carrying $5.2T "off-book"
Bank's Hidden Junk Menaces $1 Trillion Purge
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=akv_p6LBNIdw&refer=home

The $700B appropriated for TARP wouldn't even had cleared just that $5.2T (@22cents on dollar) ... although that would have also required that those institutions would have been declared insolvent and forced to be liquidated.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

How Much Bandwidth do we have?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 15 Dec 2014
Subject: How Much Bandwidth do we have?
Blog: Old Geek
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#108 How Much Bandwidth do we have?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#112 How Much Bandwidth do we have?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#113 How Much Bandwidth do we have?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#125 How Much Bandwidth do we have?

This was 1980 ... this was before LANs, WANs, IBM/PC, 3270 terminal qemulation, token-ring, 3174s, etc

At the time, STL datacenter was 168&3033 mainframes and direct channel attached 327x controllers ... first 3277 terminals with 3272 direct channel attached controllers .... later 3278 terminals with 3274 direct channel attached controllers

original 3277 terminal (& 3272 controller) from 1972
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3270

A 3272 controller could have up to 32 3277 coax connected terminals. The fastest 3272/3277 were direct channel attached 3272 controllers (that operated around 500kbytes/sec). A "remote" 3272 controller had 19.2kbits/sec link to telecommunication control unit in the datacenter (connecting to mainframe). 3274 was follow-on to the 3272 and 3278 was follow-on for 3277. Change from direct channel attached 500kbytes/sec to remote 19.2kbits/sec was factor of several hundred times.

For the 3278 terminal they moved a lot of the electronics that had been in the 3277 terminal head back into the (shared) 3274 controller, reducing terminal manufacturing costs ... but significantly increased the protocol chatter (and latency) over the connected coax cable. Hardware response for direct channel attached 3272/3277 was .086 seconds. This increased to approx. .5 seconds for direct channel attached 3274/3278 (because of increase in coax cable protocol chatter). Remote operation over 19.2kbit/sec link (shared by up to 32 327x terminals) significantly increased this further.

Note later with IBM/PCs and 3270 terminal emulation .... 3277 terminal emulation hardware card got three times the upload/download throughput of a 3278 terminal emulation hardware card (degraded throughput because of the enormous increase in latency for the additional coax protocol chatter).

This was in the time frame that Thadhani in stl/sanjose area was starting on the benefit of the quarter second response time studies
http://www.vm.ibm.com/devpages/jelliott/evrrt.html

One of my hobbies was providing highly enhanced vm370 system to internal datacenters (including most of those in the san jose area) that was providing .11seconds 90percential system response for trivial operations ... which coupled with the 3272/3277 .086 hardware response provided .2seconds seen by human ... by comparison MVS systems rarely achieved even 1second system response (most of my vm370 customers noticed the response degradation moving to 3274/3278 with its .5seconds hardware response ... but as far as I know, none of the MVS users ever noticed any difference)

posts mentioning Thadhani studies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#53 3270 Terminal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#84 Is there an SPF setting to turn CAPS ON like keyboard key?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#12 Who originated the phrase "user-friendly"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#13 From Who originated the phrase "user-friendly"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#15 Who originated the phrase "user-friendly"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#2 The PC industry is heading for collapse
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#19 Writing article on telework/telecommuting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#15 cp67, vm370, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#37 Why File transfer through TSO IND$FILE is slower than TCP/IP FTP ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#37 PDP-10 and Vax, was System/360--50 years--the future?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012p.html#1 3270 response & channel throughput
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#55 Dualcase vs monocase. Was: Article for the boss
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#44 System Response

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

How Much Bandwidth do we have?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 16 Dec 2014
Subject: How Much Bandwidth do we have?
Blog: Old Geek
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#108 How Much Bandwidth do we have?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#112 How Much Bandwidth do we have?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#113 How Much Bandwidth do we have?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#125 How Much Bandwidth do we have?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#127 How Much Bandwidth do we have?

note that token-ring wasn't positioned as a LAN solution ... but as solution to weight of 3270 coax cable. Large office buildings would have long runs of coax cable from datacenter to every 3270 terminal ... and the aggregate weight of all these coax cables were starting to exceed building weight limit codes. Token-ring would run (shielded) twisted pair to department wiring closets ... and then twisted-pairs from "bridge" in the wiring closet out to the individual (PC emulated) terminals ... enormously reducing the weight.

note that there was work on 801/risc ROMP chip originally for follow-on to displaywriter. When that got canceled they looked around and decided to retarget to the unix workstation market ... and got the company that had done the Unix port for ibm/pc to do one for them ... this comes out as PC/RT and AIX. PC/RT had pc/at bus and they had to do many of their own cards ... including a PC/AT bus 4mbit token-ring card. The follow-on to the PC/RT was the RS/6000 with a microchannel bus ... and corporate mandated that they could no longer do their own cards ... they had to use "official" cards from other business units. However the official 16mbit T/R microchannel card was designed for the low-end terminal emulation market and had lower per card throughput than the PC/RT 4mbit T/R card (i.e. a PC/RT server with 4mbit T/R card had higher throughput than a RS/6000 with a 16mbit T/R card).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

The communication group had really bad at fighting off distributed computing and client/server trying to preserve their dumb (emulated) terminal paradigm and install base. Late 80s, a senior disk engineer got a talk scheduled at the annual, world-wide internal disk engineer supposedly on 3174 performance but opened with the statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division. The problem was that the communication group had stranglehold on datacenters with their corporate strategic ownership of everything crossing the datacenter walls. The disk division was starting to see data fleeing datacenters to more distributed computing friendly platforms with drop in disk sales. The disk division had come up with a number of solutions to correct the problem, but they were all being vetoed by the communication group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal

The communication group had launched SAA as part of their efforts and along with the T/R people were generating lots of misinformation both internally and in the market. Note that T/R groups were releasing studies showing 16mbit T/R performance significantly better than ethernet ... but my impression was that they used early 3mbit ethernet before the listen-before-transmit standard. In the mid-80s, the new Almaden research bldg had been extensively wired for T/R ... but they found that not only did 10mbit ethernet have higher aggregate LAN throughput (than T/R over the same wiring), but ethernet also had lower latency.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#3tier

1988 ACM SIGCOMM had paper on ethernet study showing typical 30station twisted pair implementation getting 8.5mbit effective lan throughput when all stations were programmed with low-level device driver to constantly transmit minimum sized packets. Note also any of the <$100 ethernet cards were capable of substaining that full rate. By comparison 16mbit T/R actually had lower effective LAN throughput (than 10mbit ethernet) ... but also the available 16mbit T/R cards were only able of sustaining less than 1mbit/sec throughput. As a result, nearly the whole Almaden research center quickly moved to ethernet (over shielded twisted pair).

There was a separate SNA problem ... since SNA doesn't support networking ... all the LAN addressing is back in the host ... and large number of T/R LAN segments had to be interconnected with bridges (so all traffic appeared on all LAN segments, frequently 300 or more stations sharing same bandwidth). The workstation tcp/ip had full networking ... so individual Ethernet lan segments could be configured using routers (instead of bridges) ... and as a result stations only had to share bandwidth with other stations on the same segment (rather than sharing across all stations across all segments) ... two-dozen ethernet routed lan segments with 10stations each lan segment getting 8.5mbit/sec effective throughput; 24*8.5=204mbit/sec aggregate shared with 240 stations or avg 850kbit/station ... compared to two dozen T/R bridged lan segments with 10stations each ... effective aggregate around 4-5mbits/sec shared with 240 stations say avg 20kbit/station (lots of installations had 300 "terminals" sharing bridged lan segments).

folklore ... in the early 80s the IBM San Jose disk group had a LAN server project called DataHUB (implementation was using PCLan) and some amount of the coding was being done under a work-for-hire contract by a group in Provo (one of the people I did some work with was commuting every week from San Jose to Provo in this period). At some point the IBM effort was canceled and the group in Provo was allowed to have all rights. A short time later, a network server company appeared in Provo (starts with the letter "N"). past posts mentioning datahub:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#4a John Hartmann's Birthday Party
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#40 No more innovation? Get serious
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#19 When will IBM buy Sun?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002g.html#79 Coulda, Woulda, Shoudda moments?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#33 Over-the-shoulder effect
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003e.html#26 MP cost effectiveness
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003f.html#13 Alpha performance, why?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004f.html#16 Infiniband - practicalities for small clusters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005p.html#23 What ever happened to Tandem and NonStop OS ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#9 What ever happened to Tandem and NonStop OS ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#36 Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006l.html#39 Token-ring vs Ethernet - 10 years later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#31 "The Elements of Programming Style"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007f.html#17 Is computer history taught now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#49 How difficult would it be for a SYSPROG ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#21 The Development of the Vital IBM PC in Spite of the Corporate Culture of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#86 The Unexpected Fact about the First Computer Programmer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007p.html#35 Newsweek article--baby boomers and computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007v.html#53 folklore indeed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#8 MAINFRAME Training with IBM Certification and JOB GUARANTEE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#36 Making tea
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#68 New machine code
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#58 When did "client server" become part of the language?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#15 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#3 Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#59 The first personal computer (PC)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011o.html#18 John R. Opel, RIP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#14 Can anybody give me a clear idea about Cloud Computing in MAINFRAME ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#4 Gordon Crovitz: Who Really Invented the Internet?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#27 Ethernet at 40: Its daddy reveals its turbulent youth
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#21 The PDP-8/e and thread drifT?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#39 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Is there an Inventory of the Installed Mainframe Systems Worldwide and or for Europe alone?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 16 Dec 2014
Subject: Is there an Inventory of the Installed Mainframe Systems Worldwide and or for Europe alone?
Blog: Mainframe Experts
re:
https://lnkd.in/e4Urpcr

Questimates I've seen in the past are less than 10,000 systems world-wide.

Note for last decade, IBM financials have something like the equivalent of 200 max. configured systems sold per year ... but that has been dropping. 1qtr2014 financials had equivalent of 14 max configured EC12 sold ... or 54 on an annualized basis.

A typical cloud megadatacenter has hundreds of thousand of systems (millions to tens of millions of processors). Megadatacenters have claimed for a decade or more that they assemble their own servers for 1/3rd the price of brand name servers (dell, hp, ibm, etc) ... and there have also been rumors that some of the brand name operations have been doing special white-box pricing (close to megacenter cost) for especially large orders ... putting big downward profit pressure on servers (and likely contributed to IBM unloading its server business). Server chip manufactures have claimed that they ship more processor chips to large cloud operators than to band name server vendors (and these server numbers don't show up in industry server numbers).

One of the side-effects is that cost of systems has so dramatically dropped for the cloud operators ... that power&cooling has become major cost ... putting them on the "green" forefront ... including pressuring server chip makers to optimize power usage & heat generation. Also claims are that large cloud megadatacenters (with hundreds of thousands of systems) operate with staffs of 80-120 people.

For another comparison ... current EC12 processor chips are done with (older) 32nm process. Intel is spending $5B on fab for newer 14nm chip process and rumored to produce 450mm chip wafers (with other operators spending similar amounts on new fabs ... possible motivation for IBM to unload its chip fabs ... but they had to pay somebody to take them). If there was a straight-forward mapping of EC12 processor chips to 14nm ... then a single 450mm wafer has enough chips to handle year of EC12 sales (chip fabs typically produce hundreds of thousands to millions of wafers per year). My experience in the past is that a minimum chip fab run is six wafers ... a single fab. run would produce enough EC12 processor chips for several years of sales.

As an aside ... the last product we did at IBM was HA/CMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

... including cluster scale-up ... some old email about doing cluster scale-up for both commercial and scientific/technical
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

this is reference to meeting on cluster scale-up in Ellison's conference room Jan1992 https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

within a few weeks, the scale-up work was transferred, announced as supercomputer for technical&scientific *ONLY* ... and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors. Part of the issue was that the mainframe DB2 people were complaining that if I was allowed to go ahead, then I would be at least 5yrs ahead of them.

There was big migration off mainframes in the late 80s and early 90s ... late 80s a senior disk engineer got a talk scheduled at annual, world-wide, internal communication group conference supposedly on 3174 performance ... but open the talk that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk diviision. The issue was that communication group had stragegic ownership of everything that crossed the datacenter walls and was fighting off client/server & distributed computing trying to preserve its dumb (emulated) terminal paradigm & install base. Disk division was seeing data fleeing the datacenter to more distributed computing friendly platforms with drop in disk sales. The disk division had come up with several solutions to correct the problem, but they were constantly being vetoed by the communication group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal

max configured ec12 with 101 processors is rated at 75BIPS and goes for $33M or $440,000/BIPS. By comparison IBM had base list price for e5-2600v1 blade of $1815 ... which have rating between 400-500+BIPS or around $3+/BIPS (megadatacenter at 1/3rd is nearly $1/BIPS). A typical megadatacenter with have hundreds of thousands with more processing power than the aggregate of all mainframes in the world today.

In 1980, STL (renamed silicon valley lab) was bursty at the seams and moving 300 people from the IMS group into offsite bldg ... and I got con'ed into doing channel extender support for them (they were use to 3270 terminal with channel attached controllers and they found human factors of "remote 3270" totally intolerable. Channel extender allowed putting 3270 channel attached controllers at the offsite bldg, with connectivity back to the STL datacenter (with no noticeable change in human factors) ... part of the support involved downloading channel programs to channel emulator at the offsite bldg ... eliminating the enormous controller/channel protocol latency.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender

The vendor tried to get approval to release support to customers but there was a group in POK playing with some serial fiber that blocked the request ... they were afraid if it was in the market, it would make it more difficult to get their technology released.

In 1988, I was asked if I could help LLNL standardize some serial technology they had ... which quickly morphs into fiber-channel standard ... including support for downloading channel programs to remote end (helping mask/eliminate protocol latency). Then the POK people get their stuff released in 1990 with ES/9000 as ESCON, by which time it was obsolete. Later some POK engineers get involved in fibre-channel standard and define a heavy-weight protocol on fibre-channel that drastically reduces the native throughput which eventually is released as FICON.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon

IBM published a peak/max I/O z196 benchmark that used 104 FICONs to get 2M IOPS. About the same time there was a fibre-channel announced for E5-2600 blade claiming over million IOPS (two such fibre-channel having higher native throughput than 104 FICONs ... which runs over 104 fibre-channel). z196 also has peak SSCH/sec of 2.2M running all SAPs at 100% busy ... but recommendation is to keep SAPs at no more than 70% or 1.5M SSCH/sec peak.

recent posts mentioning EC12 processor:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#97 Santa has a Mainframe!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#96 11 Years to Catch Up with Seymour
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#12 The IBM Strategy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#67 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#78 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#92 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#4 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#14 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#2 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#4 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#8 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#9 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#57 [CM] Mainframe tech is here to stay: just add innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#61 Are you tired of the negative comments about IBM in this community?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#68 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#35 curly brace languages source code style quides
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#85 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#90 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#24 Unisys CEO ousted, shares slip
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#43 IBM 'major announcement' points to deal on chip manufacturing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#56 This Chart From IBM Explains Why Cloud Computing Is Such A Game-Changer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#90 What's the difference between doing performance in a mainframe environment versus doing in others
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#105 IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Reinventing the Wheel (or at least the multiport memory) (?)

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Reinventing the Wheel (or at least the multiport memory) (?)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 19:02:13 -0800
MitchAlsup <MitchAlsup@aol.com> writes:
And add to this the concept (now or later) of virtualizing the machine and::

a) you will see why the PDP-10 and Ti9900 fell from favor b) why VAX did not survive the onslaught of RISC c) why multithreading has stayed at a max of 2 per core d) why ILP remains at 2.0 (Mill notwithstanding)


VAX sold into the same mid-range market as IBM 4300s ... in about same numbers for small number orders ... the big difference was several hundred machine orders from large corporations ... putting 4300s out into departmental areas ... the leading edge of the distributed computing tsunami. IBM follow-ons were 4361&4381 which they originally expected to have continued explosion in sales ... however by that time the mid-range market was already starting to move to workstations and large PCs. This has a decade of VAX sales sliced&diced by model, year, US/non-US (and the drop off in sales):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#0

some old 43xx email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#43xx

early-on, I got con'ed into benchmarking on engineering 4341 (before machine actually shipped) for Lawarence ... which was looking at a compute farm of 70 machines ... sort of leading edge of large clustered supercomputers.

decade later I was doing cluster scalup in the HA/CMP product ... working with both national labs (for scientific/technical) and RDBMS vendors (for commercial). some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
some old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

disclaimer, i started work on virtual machine technology as undergraduate last week of Jan1968.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Memo To WSJ: The CRomnibus Abomination Was Not "A Rare Bipartisan Success"

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 16 Dec 2014
Subject: Memo To WSJ: The CRomnibus Abomination Was Not "A Rare Bipartisan Success"
Blog: Facebook
Memo To WSJ: The CRomnibus Abomination Was Not "A Rare Bipartisan Success"
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/memo-to-wsj-the-cromnibus-abomination-was-not-a-rare-bipartisan-success/
also
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#120 Memo To Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat: Does Your Crony Capitalist Plunder Know No Shame?
and How Change Is Stymied
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/16/how-change-is-stymied/
The gangsters who run the US financial system have determined opponents. Among them are Elizabeth Warren, Nomi Prins, Pam and Russ Martens, Michael Hudson, and David Stockman.

Gramm (with help from his wife) is #2 on times list responsible for financial mess
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877330,00.html

does GLBA act that repeals Glass-Steagall (enabling too big to fail, too big to prosecute, and too big to jail) ... but also a number of other things ... including provision in commodities futures modernization act preventing (derivatives) CDSs from being regulated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/business/17grammside.html
Enron was a major contributor to Mr. Gramm's political campaigns, and Mr. Gramm's wife, Wendy, served on the Enron board, which she joined after stepping down as chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

... snip ...

https://web.archive.org/web/20080711114839/http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-01-15/news/phil-gramm-s-enron-favor/
A few days after she got the ball rolling on the exemption, Wendy Gramm resigned from the commission. Enron soon appointed her to its board of directors, where she served on the audit committee, which oversees the inner financial workings of the corporation. For this, the company paid her between $915,000 and $1.85 million in stocks and dividends, as much as $50,000 in annual salary, and $176,000 in attendance fees,

... snip ...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&refer=home&sid=aYJZOB_gZi0I
That same year Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt opposed an attempt by Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to study regulating over-the-counter derivatives. In 2000, Congress passed a law keeping them unregulated.

... snip ...

Brooksley was fairly quickly replaced by Wendy Gramm as head of Commodity Futures Trading Commission (pending provision by her husband preventing regulating CDS) before Wendy then resigned to join Enron's board. Preventing regulation of CDS was originally favor for ENRON, but then later plays major role in the financial mess (and AIG).

posts mentioning ENRON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#enron
posts mentioning Glass-Steagall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall
posts mentioning too big to fail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
posts mentioning Greenspan (or other fed chairmens)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#greenspan

securitized mortgages had been used during the S&L crisis to obfuscate fraudulent mortgages. In the late 90s we were asked to look at improving integrity of mortgage supporting documents as countermeasure ... old long-winded post from Jan1999
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay3.htm#riskm

However, wallstreet found that they could pay rating agencies for triple-A ratings (when both sellers and rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A, from Oct2008 congressional hearings into role rating agencies played). Triple-A ratings trump support documents and they could start doing no-documentation liar loans (and with no documentation, there was no longer issue with supporting documentation integrity). Wallstreet then starting creating securitized mortgages (CDOs) designed to fail, selling them to their customers and taking out CDS gambling bets (derivatives) that they would fail (creating enormous demand for dodgy mortgages).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

AIG was negotiating to pay off CDS gambling bets at 50-60cents on the dollar. Fall of 2008, the sec. of treasury (formally head of Goldman) steps in and tells AIG it was illegal for them to pay less than 100cents on the dollar and required them to take gov. bailout to pay off CDS gambling bets at face value (largest recepient was sec. of treasury's old firm, Goldman) and also sign away any rights to sue those making the CDS bets. more recent about sec. of treasury and the AIG bailout:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/10/aig-bailout-trial-bombshell-iii-paulson-lied-to-congress-about-tarp.html

From law of unintended consequences, the no-documentation, liar loans has the too big to fail setting up large robo-signing mills to fabricate (fraudulent) supporting documents required for foreclosureswith regard to sec. of treasury lying to congress ... off-book toxic assets summer/fall 2008 had gone for 22cents on the dollar. End of 2008, just the four largest too big to fail were carrying $5.2T "off-book"
Bank's Hidden Junk Menaces $1 Trillion Purge
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=akv_p6LBNIdw&refer=home

The $700B appropriated for TARP wouldn't even had cleared just that $5.2T (@22cents on dollar) ... although that would have also required that those institutions would have been declared insolvent and forced to be liquidated.

THe CRoMNiBuS OF LiBeRTY...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-16/cromnibus-liberty
Citigroup Will Be Broken Up
http://baselinescenario.com/2014/12/12/citigroup-will-be-broken-up/

The president of AMEX is in competition to be the next CEO and wins, the looser takes his protege with him and leaves going to Baltimore, acquiring what has been described as loan-sharking business. AMEX is in competition to do private-equity, reverse IPO, leveraged buyout of RJR and looses to KKR. KKR runs into problems with RJR and hires away the AMEX president to turn it around. Then IBM has gone into the red and is on the verge of being broken into the 13 "baby blues". IBM board brings in this former AMEX president to resurrect the company and reverse the breakup.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
private equity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity

The looser and protege make some other acquisitions, eventually acquiring citibank in violation of Glass-Steagall. Greenspan gives them an exemption while they lobby congress for repeal; they also enlist the help of sec. of treasury, who had previously been head of Goldman ... who after it is done, resigns and becomes, what at the time, is called (citi) co-CEO; repeal of Glass-Steagall is enabler for too big to fail. The protege leaves and becomes CEO of one of the other too big to fail.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 09:43:18 -0800
hancock4 writes:
Years ago, smart execs realized they had to make investors, customers, and employees happy for their business to thrive. Today, only the investors count; the customers can go to heck (wait on hold forever for customer service), and employers are nothing but an annoyance to eliminated as quickly as possible.

latest in IBM's long period of "financial engineering"

IBM Continues To Crumble
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2757655-ibm-continues-to-crumble

investors is now something of misnomer ... stockmarket and mortgage industry have both gone thru major transformation from investment to skim on the transaction ... frequently carefully manipulated. HFT somewhat carried to extreme ... in&out of a stock in milliseconds.


stock buyback
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#stock.buyback

recent posts referencing IBM stock buyback contraption on steroids:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#48 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#14 IBM to invest 1.2B into Cloud Data Centers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#25 IBM Asian Revenues Crash, Adjusted Earnings Beat On Tax Rate Fudge; Debt Rises 20% To Fund Stock Buybacks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#48 IBM Dumps Its Server Business On Lenovo For $2.3B
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#79 Shocking news: Execs do what they're paid to do
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#93 Maximizing shareholder value: The Goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#101 Defense Department Needs to Act Like IBM to Save Itself
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#24 IBM sells Intel server business, company is doomed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#54 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#55 Maximizing shareholder value: The goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#91 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#54 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#69 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#80 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#111 The Decline and Fall of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#60 IBM's Ginni Rometty Just Confessed To A Huge Failure -- It Might Be The Best Thing For The Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#61 Decimation of the valuation of IBM

recent posts mentioning manipulating mortgage industry by paying rating agencies for triple-A ratings (creating securitized mortgages designed to fail, paying for triple-A ratings, selling to their customers and then taking out CDS/derivative gambling bets that they would fail, creating enormous demand for dodgy mortgages)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#47 McCain: Send Petraeus back to Iraq
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#48 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#98 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#0 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#8 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#19 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#28 Royal Pardon for credit unions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#74 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#75 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#93 Maximizing shareholder value: The Goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#22 US Federal Reserve pushes ahead with Faster Payments planning
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#28 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#30 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#55 Maximizing shareholder value: The goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#73 The Federal Reserve: Masters Of The Universe Or Trapped Incompetents?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#81 Eisenhower's military-industrial warning rings truer than ever
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#62 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#80 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#9 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#40 Named Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#95 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#3 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#1 only sometimes From looms to computers to looms
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#47 LA Times commentary: roll out "smart" credit cards to deter fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#50 IBM's Ginni Rometty Just Confessed To A Huge Failure -- It Might Be The Best Thing For The Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#32 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#73 The Watchdog that Didn't Bark ... Again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#121 Presenting The $303 Trillion In Derivatives That US Taxpayers Are Now On The Hook For
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#126 Wall Street's Revenge
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#131 Memo To WSJ: The CRomnibus Abomination Was Not "A Rare Bipartisan Success"

recent posts mentioning HFT:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#54 Pensions, was Re: Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#82 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#89 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#28 Royal Pardon for credit unions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#29 Royal Pardon for credit unions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#43 Royal Pardon for credit unions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#56 Royal Pardon for credit unions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#65 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#7 N.Y. Barclays Libor Traders Said to Face U.K. Charges
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#93 New York seeks curbs on high-frequency trading
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#18 FBI Investigates High-Speed Trading
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#60 FBI Investigates High-Speed Trading
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#72 Three Expensive Milliseconds
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#3 Three Expensive Milliseconds
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#20 HFT, computer trading
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#25 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#41 System Response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#70 Obama Administration Launches Plan To Make An "Internet ID" A Reality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#1 HFT is harmful, say US market participants
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#54 Has the last fighter pilot been born?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#64 HFT is harmful, say US market participants
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#107 The SEC's Mary Jo White Punts on High Frequency Trading and Abandons Securities Act of 1934
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#109 SEC Caught Dark Pool and High Speed Traders Doing Bad Stuff
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#64 Dark Pool Greed Drove Barclays to Lie to Clients, N.Y. Says
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#106 only sometimes From looms to computers to looms

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 17:09:39 -0800
hancock4 writes:
I am not an accountant, but I've known many people who are employed as such. It seems they have a lousy job--onerous performance quotas, low pay, and no job security. Apparently there are a lot of accountants out there seeking work, so workers are easily replaceable and employers exploit that fact.

lot of accounting have been involved in tax related activities ... some of which have been usurped by computer applications.

slightly related is enormous (accouting/CPA) effort involving tax code with enormous number of tax loopholes ... past claims that it costs 3-6% of GDP ... and that benefit move to "flat tax" gaining back to that 3-6% of GDP more than offsets the aggregate downside loosing all the tax loopholes (I can imagine CPA organizations lobbying against move to "flat tax" and eliminating "tax loopholes").

recent posts mentioning "flat tax" &/or "tax loopholes"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#33 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#40 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#57 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#60 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#73 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#94 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#99 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#100 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#101 Defense Department Needs to Act Like IBM to Save Itself
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#17 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#14 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#3 HP splits, again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#4 HP splits, again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#95 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#0 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#1 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#2 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#3 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#5 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#9 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#75 LEO

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

A System 360 question

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 16 Dec 2014
Subject: A System 360 question
Blog: Old Geek
re:
https://lnkd.in/bmf3VkH

standard reader/initiator serialized reading/printing with execution. HASP ran reading/printing to/from disk using trivial cpu cycles overlapped with program execution. A trivial program could run 3-4 minutes elapsed time w/o hasp ... but 30 secs w/hasp. Univ had student Fortran jobs tape - tape ibsys 709 around sec. per. Initial move to os/360 360/65 (many, many times faster cpu) ran closer to two minutes w/o hasp ... reduced to 30 secs w/hasp. It wasn't until war for monitor that it got back to a second

that "war for monitor" ... from cellphone auto correct. should be WATFOR monitor

Part of the slowdown of (dasd) os/360 compared to 709 ibsys tape-to-tape was that os/360 initiator and file open/close would have hundreds of disk accesses ... for every job step and every file open/close. Initial move to 360/65 in mid-60s suffered both serialized execution with unit record i/o ... as well as enormous number of disk access for job step processing. HASP fixed the serialized execution with unit record i/o ... but 3step fortran compile, link-edit and executed still took 30+ seconds elapsed time.

I did a lot of work on both os/360 and cp67 as undergraduate in the 60s. I did highly customized system generation carefully positioning files and PDS members on disk to optimize arm seek motion ... which got nearly factor three times improvement in fortran student job throughput. I also rewrote lots of cp67 code to significantly reduce virtual machine emulation overhead. Part of old SHARE presentation I made fall of 1968 on both the OS/360 work and the CP67 work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#18

It wasn't until univ. installed WATFOR that student job elapsed time processing got down to comparable to 709. WATFOR was its own one-step job monitor ... it would start running and read all queued student jobs ... compiling & executing each one ... w/o going thru job step initiation.

This is post where somebody was reminiscing about early HASP, OS/VS2 (and future system) history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#73

HASP was done at Houston Space Center based on earlier experience with Moonlight. (ibm 7094/7044 direct coupled system, DCS). Other people from Moonlight create ASP ... HASP eventually morphs into JES2 and ASP morphs into JES3.

trivia: my wife as in the JES gburg group for awhile ... and one of the "catchers" for ASP turning it into JES3. She was co-author of JESUS (JES Unified System) specification ... all the features in JES2 and JES3 that neither customer set could live w/o .... but never came to fruition.

some past hasp, jes, nje posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#hasp

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Sony Corp hacking

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Sony Corp hacking
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 09:26:23 -0800
Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> writes:
"War Games" from 1983 came from United Artists, and is a bit too old to be useful here. 1995 is now kind of foreign, but it's closer to now than 1983.

trivia ... the ferry in "war games" was the old ferry out of steilacoom ... it sat for long time as backup ferry in steilacoom and then up until relatively recently was converted tourist tour boat on lake washington (which included gates compound).

Neal Stepheson also had Steilacoom in one of his novels (I would see him periodically at some computer conference)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson

past posts mentioning ferry in "war games"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#38 "war-dialing" etymology?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004p.html#40 Computers in movies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006f.html#7 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007v.html#12 What do YOU call the # sign?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#52 Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

How hyper threading works? (Intel)

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How hyper threading works? (Intel)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 16:51:51 -0800
Stephen Fuld <SFuld@alumni.cmu.edu.invalid> writes:
I took that to mean that disk transfer rates have improved so much relative to access time, that swapping, which involves longer transfers than demand paging, uses the disk resources more efficiently.

early 80s, there was an in-between mechanism. 3380 had significantly increased transfer rate w/o corresponding inprovement in arm access and rotational delay ... to compensate they went to what I called "big pages". 3380 formated ten 4kbyte pages per track ... page-out gathered pages for same address space in groups of ten and wrote them out to closest available track to current arm position (using traveling cursor mechanism). when there was a page fault for any 4kbyte page ... all ten pages in the track group ("big page") would be fetched (inefficient use of the less constrained real memory for pages that wouldn't be otherwise fetched, would be offset by increased efficiency of constrained 3380 throughput for pages that might likely be also needed).

recommendations were for 3380s dedicated for paging use and aggregate capacity ten times more than expected number of pages ... to increase likelyhood of empty tracks close to the current arm position (to minimize avg. arm travel distance)

note this was original 3380s that had 20 track-width spacing between data tracks, later 3380 models increased total number of tracks by decreasing spacing between data tracks (in part by heads flying closer to surface, so there was less signal interface from adjacent tracks). In the later timeframe, there was a special, high-performance 3380 that had original capacity (number of tracks) that could be field upgraded to triple-density 3380 (the high-performance 3380 with 1/3 the number of tracks was just limiting arm travel to 1/3rd the disk surface).

recent "big page" posting:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#96 z/OS physical memory usage with multiple copies of same load module at different virtual addresses

recent 3380 track-spacing posting:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#84 real vs. emulated CKD
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#30 Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#78 Could this be the wrongest prediction of all time?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#101 Page Data Set Sizes and Volume Types

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

weird apple trivia

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: weird apple trivia
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 19:49:56 -0800
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
also doesn't take into account congressional obstruction when there is actual tax evasion (as in the 53,000 wealthy americans & corporate allowing to continue with gov. contracts when they aren't paying their taxes). somewhat harkens back to the "Keating Five"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five
in the S&L Crisis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis
which also had executive branch family members involved
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis#Silverado_Savings_and_Loan

note that the VP claimed no involvement in the Contra afair
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_affair

because he was spending fulltime as the executive branch point person responsible for financial deregulation (primary enabler for the S&L mess).


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#5 weird apple trivia

there are some number of articles floating around the web regarding multiple members of the family involved in the S&L mess ... the latest

Jeb Bush: The Forrest Gump of Financial Improprieties?
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/12/jeb-bush-forest-gump-financial-improprieties.html

which cites this 14Oct1990 article

A Savings and Loan Bailout, and Bush's Son Jeb
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE0D81E3BF937A25753C1A966958260

and

The Bush Family: A Continuing Criminal Enterprise?
http://critcrim.org/critpapers/potter.htm

but also includes more recent references:

Old Family Scandals May Haunt Jeb Presidential Run
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Jeb-Bush-president-Columba-scandals/2014/04/16/id/566002/
Jeb Bush Has a Mitt Romney Problem
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/features/2014-12-11/jeb-bush-has-a-mitt-romney-problem
Jeb Bush's web of interests face scrutiny as he "explores" presidential bid
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/78af1fe8-85e6-11e4-a105-00144feabdc0,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F78af1fe8-85e6-11e4-a105-00144feabdc0.html%3Fsiteedition%3Duk&siteedition=uk&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2014%2F12%2Fjeb-bush-forest-gump-financial-improprieties.html

other recent silverado references:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#32 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#36 Semi-OT: Government snooping was Re: Is there any MF shop using AWS service?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#76 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#21 Thomas Piketty Is Right About the Past and Wrong About the Future
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#68 Revamped PDP-11 in Brooklyn
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#22 $40 billion missile defense system proves unreliable
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#25 HP splits, again

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

How hyper threading works? (Intel)

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How hyper threading works? (Intel)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 10:50:13 -0800
Stephen Fuld <SFuld@alumni.cmu.edu.invalid> writes:
Reduce it some more, and I think the situation may reverse. At some point, your memory is so limited that you are paging a lot, even encountering page thrash. At that point, swapping may be better, as when you swap out a whole program, you may have enough memory to fit all the other programs. The occasional swap may be less overhead than the page thrash. In fact, I think some paging systems recognize this and essentially swap a program by paging out all of its pages.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#136 How hyper threading works (Intel)

there are a couple other related issues.

the original cp67 delivered to univ when I was undergraduate in the 60s used a page replacement selection algorithm that was approx. global FIFO. one of the early things I did was enhance it to use the "reference" bits to do a (clock-like) global LRU. This was about the time the were academic papers being published about workset and local LRU page replacement.

At '81 ACM SIGOPS, Jim Gray talked to me about helping a co-worker of his at Tandem that was trying to get stanford PHD on page management that included global LRU ("clock") page replacement ... which was being strongly opposed by "local LRU" proponents

Part of the issue was in the early 70s, the Genoble scientific center modified their CP67 for working set dispatcher and local LRU (from the late 60s academic literature) ... and published ACM paper on the results ... they also had sent me a lot of the raw data. At that time the Cambridge scenter center with 768kbyte 360/67 (104 pageable pages after fixed storage requirements) with global LRU and 80-85 users had better response and throughput than the Grenoble science center with 1mbyte 360/67 (154 pageable pages) with local LRU and 30-35 users (running same kind of workload).

In this period, I was being blamed for online computer conferencing on the internal network (larger than arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime late '85 or early '86). Folklore was that when the executive committee was told about online computer communication (and the internal network), 5of6 wanted to fire me. In any case, it took me almost a year to get approval to respond to the request (I would like to think they thot they were trying to punish me for online computer communication than they were taking sides in academic dispute).

copy of old communication
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email821019

there is a separate problem ... LRU assumes that the least recently used pages in the past are likely to be the least recently used pages in the future. However, under various pathelogical conditions, LRU can degenerate to FIFO and the replacement algorithm is constantly replacing the page that is about to be used in the future. In the 70s, I did a slight of hand coding where the global LRU (clock-like) algorithm would degenerate to random (rather than FIFO) ... so the page replacement wasn't constantly replacing the page that was about to be used in the future.

past posts on the subjects
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#wsclock

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Is true that a real programmer would not stoop to wasting machine capacity to do the assembly?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is true that a real programmer would not stoop to wasting machine capacity to do the assembly?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 13:53:23 -0800
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
Although I never programmed a 1401 I understand that COBOL on the beast could take a long time to compile. That, plus the simplicity of Autocoder was why most programmers used that. Same problem with PL/I on 360s.

Many programmers used binary patches because compilers took a long time as opposed to a quick patch that took a minute or so to code and apply.

It's hard to imagine these days when compiles take seconds or a minute or so.


periodic reference my first student programming job ... port 1401 MPIO (tape<->unit record front-end for 709 ibsys tape-to-tape) to 360/30 ... the univ was going to replace the 709/1401 combination with 360/67 ... but on the way they got a 360/30 to replace the 1401. The 360/30 had 1401 hardware emulation directly ... so having me do the port was somewhat of training exercise gaining familiarity with 360.

I got to design my own monitor, storage management, device drivers, interrupt handlers, error recover, etc and it eventually grew to be about a box of (2000) cards. I had assembler option that controlled with it did stand-alone monitor ... or ran under os/360 with DCB macros. The stand-alone version took about 30mins to assemble, the os/360 version took 60mins to assemble (6mins elapsed time to expand each of the five DCB macros).

they let me have the datacenter from 8am saturday until 8am monday ... 48hrs straight when everything was my personal computer (tho monday classes were a problem). I got quite proficient at binary "patches" ...

recent posts mentioning MPIO:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#23 Scary Sysprogs and educating those 'kids'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#17 System/360 celebration set for ten cities; 1964 pricing for oneweek
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#69 The Tragedy of Rapid Evolution?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#92 curly brace languages source code style quides

one of the battles during the period ... was highly optimized single mainframe used for business critical applications ... and wasting any of that resource for online interactive computing and people productivity.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

IBM Continues To Crumble

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM Continues To Crumble
Date: 21 Dec 2014
Blog: IBM Alumni
IBM Continues To Crumble
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2757655-ibm-continues-to-crumble

I was blamed for online computer conferencing on the internal network (larger than arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime late '85 or early '86) in the late 70s and early 80s. Folklore is that when the executive committee was told about online computer conferencing (and the internal network) 5of6 wanted to fire me. From IBMJARGON:
Tandem Memos - n. Something constructive but hard to control; a fresh of breath air (sic). That's another Tandem Memos. A phrase to worry middle management. It refers to the computer-based conference (widely distributed in 1981) in which many technical personnel expressed dissatisfaction with the tools available to them at that time, and also constructively criticized the way products were [are] developed. The memos are required reading for anyone with a serious interest in quality products. If you have not seen the memos, try reading the November 1981 Datamation summary.

... snip ...

mentioning computer conferencing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc
mentioning internal network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

several other recent articles on the IBM "financial engineering" theme ... only one of them also seekingalpha

The Truth Hidden by IBM's Buybacks
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/the-truth-hidden-by-ibms-buybacks/?_r=0
IBM and the financial engineering economy: James Saft
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/21/us-markets-saft-idUSKCN0IA1II20141021
IBM no longer a tech company: Mark Cuban
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102109502
Mark Cuban Slams IBM: It's 'No Longer A Tech Company. They Have No Vision.'
http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-cuban-ibm-is-not-a-tech-company-2014-10
IBM: Financial Engineering 101 Says This Is Bad
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2608915-ibm-financial-engineering-101-says-this-is-bad

in the 70s had gotten involved with a 16-way SMP effort and co-opted the spare time of 3033 processor engineers (lot more interesting than remapping 168-3 logic to 20% faster chips). A first, lots of POK thought it was really great idea ... and then somebody told the head of POK that it might be decades before the POK favorite son operating system would have 16-way support; then several of us were invited to never visit POK again (and the 3033 processor engineers were told to nose to the grindstone and never be distracted again).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

Over 10yrs later I was asked to help with the SCI activity out of SLAC ... which is picked up by a number of vendors for scalable multiprocessor ... Convex, DG, SGI, Sequent, etc. This is about the time that the Kingston supercomputer effort is providing funds for Chen supercomputer. I'm also working on cluster-scale-up for our HA/CMP product ... old email about cluster scale-up ... working with national labs & others on technical/scientific as well as RDBMS vendors on commercial
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa
old reference to Jan1992 meeting on (commercial) cluster scale-up
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13
posts mentioning ha/cmp
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

within a few weeks of above, cluster scalup is transferred, announced as supercomputer for scientific/technical *ONLY* and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors (the mainframe DB2 group had been complaining that if we was allowed to go ahead, I would be at least 5yrs ahead of them) ... which was major motivation to decide to leave. Later Chen is CTO at Sequent and we are brought in as consultants ... this is before being acquired by IBM. There was then speculation that the IBM purchase was to divert the Sequent SCI machine away from commercial threat to mainframe market.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequent_Computer_Systems

finally Dec2000, mainframe z900 with 16processors, 156MIPS/proc, 2.5BIPS aggregate.

The president of AMEX is in competition to be the next CEO and wins, the looser takes his protege with him and goes to Baltimore (acquiring what has been described as loan sharking business). AMEX is in competition to do private-equity, reverse IPO, leveraged buyout of RJR and looses to KKR. KKR runs into problems with RJR and hires away the AMEX president to turn it around. Then IBM has gone into the red and is on the verge of being broken into the 13 "baby blues". IBM board brings in this former AMEX president to resurrect the company and reverse the breakup. Some of the measures used had been previously applied to RJR:
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml
posts mentioning former pres. of amex
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
posts referencing pensions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#pensions
private equity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Lind's version of Success of Failure

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Lind's version of Success of Failure
Date: 21 Dec 2014
Blog: Facebook
also Google+
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/RAj9KqcaPQ9

Lind's version of Success of Failure "On War: The Collected Columns of William S. Lind 2003-2009", loc1730-32 (July 29, 2004):
Remember, government bureaucracies don't get more money and more power when they succeed, but when they fail. With an incentive system like that, it is fairly obvious what the rest of us are going to get more of: the consequences of intelligence failures.

... snip ...
https://www.amazon.com/War-Collected-Columns-William-2003-2009-ebook/dp/B00OY2QFAY/

and repeat Success of Failure ... 2007
http://www.govexec.com/excellence/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/

aside trivia, Lind repeatedly sings the praises of John Boyd as America's greatest military theorist ... I used to sponsor John's briefings at IBM.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

posts mentioning Success of Failure
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#success.of.failuree

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

IBM Continues To Crumble

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM Continues To Crumble
Date: 22 Dec 2014
Blog: IBM Alumni
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#140 IBM Continues To Crumble

Note that SCI for NUMA/SMP started decade earlier ... and came from guy out of SLAC (SCI was used by Sequent for NUMA/SMP, but also by at least DG, SGI, Convex) At the time, POWER (RIOS) was no-cache coherency at all and forced us into doing scale-up using cluster (HA/CMP). Then there was somerset/AIM that sort of could be considered adding 88K cache coherency for power/pc ... and the executive we reported to (when we were doing HA/CMP) went over to head up somerset. In the same time frame IBM bought Sequent ... IBM also bought Informix (which could be also viewed as redirecting mainframe commercial competition).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

I had earlier been at SJR and worked with Jim Gray ... original sql/relational implementation (System/R) ... when Jim left for Tandem he palmed a bunch of stuff on me. Later when we were doing HA/CMP ... we were working with Sybase, Ingress, Oracle, and Informix.

The "official" new database was EAGLE and with the company focused on EAGLE, managed to do the tech transfer to Endicott and sneak system/r out under the radar as SQL/DS while the company was focused on EAGLE. When EAGLE imploded, there was then a request about how fast System/R could be ported to MVS ... originally announced as DB2 for analytics and business support *ONLY* (not transactions).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

When we were doing HA/CMP ... IBM didn't have a "portable" relational implementation which forced us into working with the other RDBMS vendors for cluster scale-up; those vendors had portable source base that included DEC vax/cluster support. I did a distributed lock manager for ha/cmp that included emulation of the vax/cluster API semantics (to minimize effort to port to non-vax/cluster)... but fixed significant scale-up short comings of the vax implementation. During this period, Jim had moved from Tandem to DEC and we get into a little dustup over whether I can do business critical dataprocessing with off-the-shelf technology. Later he moves to m'soft research and has to be on the stage with the CEO when they announce cluster support for business critical dataprocessing using off-the-shelf technology.

In 1988 I had been asked to help LLNL standardize some serial stuff they had ... which quickly becomes fiber-channel standard. A little later, I was also asked to work with the guy out of SLAC responsible for SCI (basis for SMP/numa at convex, dg, sgi, sequent).

When cluster scale-up was transferred (announced as ibm supercomputer) and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors ... we decide to leave. As independent consultants ... we were brought into both Convex and Sequent.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 14:54:44 -0800
hancock4 writes:
I remember TV network news reports on big Boeing layoffs and the severe adverse impact they had on the economy of the communities. (The reports dealt more with engineers than programmers). Anyway, one of the problems was that engineers were so specialized that it was hard to transfer their skills elsewhere, even _if_ there were other jobs available. At the time, engineering all around had severe cutbakcs so there weren't jobs anywhere for the hordes laid off.

in the 60s, one summer I was brought in as full-time boeing employee to help with the formation of boeing computer services (got a basement apartment from an engineer that was commuting to the new 747 plant up in everett) ... basically consolidate dataprocessing into independent business unit to better monetize the investment (including being able to offer dataprocessing services to non-Boeing organizations). After the summer ended, I was carried as full-time employee on educational leave of absence ... and when I graudated, I had to decide whether to go back to Boeing or take offer from science center in Cambridge. ... posts psts mentioning science center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

boeing was major employer in seattle and when they had downturn ... it was big hit to seattle economy ... I remember one down turn where somebody got billboard that said something about when the last person leaves would they turn out the lights in seattle.

it came to mind in the early 90s ... when IBM went into the red and there was massive blood letting in hudson valley ... and somebody sent out an email requesting the last person to leave POK, please turn out the lights.

we had already left ... over the issue of cluster scale-up being transferred and being told couldn't work on anything with more than four processors ... part of ha/cmp
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

somebody in the bowels of Armonk contacted us about doing an inventory of all the interdivision MOUs/DOUs where one division had contract with outside supplier ... that another division would be dependent on ... and it was about to get much more complicated with the plans to break up the company into the 13 baby blues. however, before we got started, the board brings in a new CEO to resurrect the company and reverse the breakup ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner

note along the way (besides the email about turning out the lights in POK), we also hear complaints that the (470+) top executives weren't paying any attention to business ... but were totally focused on moving expenses from the following into the current year. The explanation from the bowels of Armonk was that the current year was already in the red (and the executives wouldn't get any bonus) ... but the way the executive bonus was written ... if they could move enough expenses from the following year (into the current) to make it even the slightest in the black ... they would get a bonus twice as large as the largest ever paid (nets out to being rewarded for taking the company into the black).

recent posts mentioning boeing computer services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#31 How many EBCDIC machines are still around?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#32 [OT ] Mainframe memories
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#37 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#9 Boyd for Business & Innovation Conference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#19 The IBM Strategy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#23 Is there any MF shop using AWS service?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#69 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#36 IBM Historic computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#73 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#80 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#90 A Drone Could Be the Ultimate Dogfighter
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#92 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#28 Does IBM CEO Rometty Understand Cloud?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#57 Interesting and somewhat disturbing article about IBM in BusinessWeek. What is your opinion?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#13 IBM & Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#31 Speed of computers--wave equation for the copper atom? (curiosity)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#40 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#14 Super Cane's Computers run Windows
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#84 HP splits, again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#15 Do we really need 64-bit addresses or is 48-bit enough?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#88 IBM sees boosting profit margins as more important than sales growth

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 14:56:47 -0800
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> writes:
I wish. There's a fellow on IBM-MAIN who had to close his training business because so few companies had a training business.

<note resent from several hrs ago, seems my usenet server is having some poblems today>

there is recent ongoing discussion in linkedin "Mainframe Experts" group about inventory of world-wide mainframes
https://lnkd.in/e4Urpcr

recent post about report that there is 18-20 million MIPS in mainframe capacity installed worldwide ... or 18-20TIPS. max. configured EC12 is rated at 75BIPS ... or 20TIPS is approx. equivalent of 270 such systems.

also e5-2600v1 blade are rated at 400-500+BIPS ... so a single rack of e5-2600v1 blades has as much as all mainframes in the world today (a typical cloud megadatacenter will have hundreds of thousands of such blades).

I've previously mentioned that 1qtr2014 ibm financials had the equivalent 16 max-configured ec12 being sold ... 56 on an annualized baises (or about 4.2TIPS).

a few recent posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#85 the suckage of MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#97 Santa has a Mainframe!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#62 Optimization, CPU time, and related issues
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#96 11 Years to Catch Up with Seymour
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#12 The IBM Strategy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#49 Beyond the EC12
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#50 Beyond the EC12
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#51 Beyond the EC12
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#67 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#78 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#86 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#92 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#2 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#4 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#12 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#14 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#20 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#49 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#105 Fifty Years of nitpicking definitions, was BASIC,theProgrammingLanguageT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#2 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#4 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#5 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#7 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#8 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#9 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#11 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#41 The Tragedy of Rapid Evolution?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#57 [CM] Mainframe tech is here to stay: just add innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#61 Are you tired of the negative comments about IBM in this community?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#68 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#9 With hindsight, what would you have done?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#78 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#97 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#35 curly brace languages source code style quides
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#85 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#87 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#90 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#91 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#93 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#99 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#5 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#11 1950: Northrop's Digital Differential Analyzer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#19 High CPU Utilized
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#24 1950: Northrop's Digital Differential Analyzer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#74 Bell Picturephone--early business application experiments
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#24 Unisys CEO ousted, shares slip
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#37 Could this be the wrongest prediction of all time?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#43 IBM 'major announcement' points to deal on chip manufacturing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#56 This Chart From IBM Explains Why Cloud Computing Is Such A Game-Changer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#76 This Was the Very First Website In the US
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#90 What's the difference between doing performance in a mainframe environment versus doing in others
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#71 Decimation of the valuation of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#88 Death of spinning disk?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#105 IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#129 Is there an Inventory of the Installed Mainframe Systems Worldwide and or for Europe alone?

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

IBM Continues To Crumble

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM Continues To Crumble
Date: 22 Dec 2014
Blog: IBM Alumni
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#140 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#142 IBM Continues To Crumble

from Stockman's "Great Deformation" on IBM's financial engineering:
IBM was not the born-again growth machine trumpeted by the mob of Wall Street momo traders. It was actually a stock buyback contraption on steroids. During the five years ending in fiscal 2011, the company spent a staggering $67 billion repurchasing its own shares, a figure that was equal to 100 percent of its net income.

and
Total shareholder distributions, including dividends, amounted to $82 billion, or 122 percent, of net income over this five-year period. Likewise, during the last five years IBM spent less on capital investment than its depreciation and amortization charges, and also shrank its constant dollar spending for research and development by nearly 2 percent annually.

... snip ...

Also observes stock buybacks are mini-form of LBO ... aka the industry had gotten such a bad name during the S&L crisis that the industry changed its name to private equity and "junk bonds" became "high-yield bonds". there have been past references to IBM's core business is maximizing executive compensation ... which translates into whatever the executive compensation plan calls for. reference to corporate governance doesn't ever mention maximizing shareholder value (... but tends to be a rallying cry behind which maximizing executive compensation occurs)
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/10/why-the-maximizing-shareholder-value-theory-of-corporate-governance-is-bogus.html

from above:
If you review any of the numerous guides prepared for directors of corporations prepared by law firms and other experts, you won't find a stipulation for them to maximize shareholder value on the list of things they are supposed to do. It's not a legal requirement. And there is a good reason for that.

Directors and officers, broadly speaking, have a duty of care and duty of loyalty to the corporation. From that flow more specific obligations under Federal and state law. But notice: those responsibilities are to the corporation, not to shareholders in particular.


... snip ...

private equity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity
stock buyback
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#stock.buyback

in 2012, mainframe processor accounted for 4% of revenue, but mainframe division accounted for 25% of total revenue and 40% of profit.

mainframe processor sales after having been relatively steady for some time, has recently been declining. there was recent claim that there is somewhere around aggregate mainframe 18-20 million MIPS processing worldwide or 18-20TIPS .... current max configured EC12 is rated at 75BIPS ... 18-20TIPS then is around 270 max configured EC12. 1stQTR2014 financials has equivalent of 16 max configured EC12 sold ... or 56 on annualized basis ... around 4.2TIPS. By comparison a E5-2600 blade has around .5TIP rating (which IBM had base list price of $1815) ... then a single rack would have higher processor rating than the aggregate of all mainframes in the world today (a typical cloud megadatacenters has hundreds of thousands of such blades).

ec12 processor chips are in 32nm technology. recent news intel is spending $5B to build 14nm fab ... potentially with 450mm wafers. Straight map of ec12 32nm chips to 14nm then would have full year's sales from a single wafer.

recent posts mentioning "Great Deformation":
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#48 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#14 IBM to invest 1.2B into Cloud Data Centers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#25 IBM Asian Revenues Crash, Adjusted Earnings Beat On Tax Rate Fudge; Debt Rises 20% To Fund Stock Buybacks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#48 IBM Dumps Its Server Business On Lenovo For $2.3B
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#79 Shocking news: Execs do what they're paid to do
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#93 Maximizing shareholder value: The Goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#101 Defense Department Needs to Act Like IBM to Save Itself
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#24 IBM sells Intel server business, company is doomed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#48 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#54 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#55 Maximizing shareholder value: The goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#107 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#91 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#75 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#33 upcoming TV show, "Halt & Catch Fire"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#48 IBM hopes new chip can turn the tables on Intel
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#54 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#69 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#80 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#111 The Decline and Fall of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#0 The Decline and Fall of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#36 IBM 'major announcement' points to deal on chip manufacturing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#60 IBM's Ginni Rometty Just Confessed To A Huge Failure -- It Might Be The Best Thing For The Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#94 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#61 Decimation of the valuation of IBM

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 08:03:16 -0800
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
That job taught me about the world of difference between writing one-shot programs for class vs. writing something for production.

in this recent (afc) post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#86 Economic Failures of HTTPS Encryption

I mentioned periodically commenting that it takes 4-10 times the effort to take straight-line application and turn it into industrial/business strength "service".

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 10:11:56 -0800
scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
While I had understood Lynn to be suggesting that they'd moved capital expenses into the current year from the future year, which is perfectly legal. (In that they actually spent the money in the year to which the expenses were assigned).

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#143 LEO

there were doing things like prepaying for large block of airline tickets, prepaying for telephone, anything else they could get away. IBM wasn't the only company into financial engineering.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#50 IBM Furloughs U.S. Hardware Employees to Reduce Costs

Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present; pg200/loc3925-30:
The CNNMoney writers got it slightly wrong. GE was not exactly like the American economy. It was even more dependent on financial services. In the early 2000s, GE was again riding a financial wave, the subprime mortgage lending boom; it had even bought a subprime mortgage broker. GE borrowed still more against equity to exploit the remarkable opportunities, its triple-A rating giving it a major competitive advantage. By 2008, the central weakness of the Welch business strategy, its dependence on financial over speculation, became ominously clear. GE's profits plunged during the credit crisis and its stock price fell by 60 percent. GE Capital, the main source of its success for twenty-five years, now reported enormous losses.

pg324/loc6382-85:
General Electric's persistent earnings increases were a leading example of how earnings were manipulated to produce consistent gains. Fortune analyzed how Jack Welch used both pension fund reserves and reserves at GE Capital to supplement quarterly earnings in order to make them rise consistently. As noted, they rose every quarter for almost thirteen years. GE stock roughly tripled between 1990 and 1995 and then quintupled between 1995 and early 2000

... snip ...

note there were references to using GE Capital numbers to manage quarterly financial reports ... which supposedly are also against the rules.

other refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005s.html#48 Gartner: Stop Outsourcing Now
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#12 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#9 The Dumbest Idea In The World: Maximizing Shareholder Value
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#77 Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012c.html#62 Why Is Finance So Big?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#77 Interesting News Article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#10 The Knowledge Economy Two Classes of Workers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#33 Management Secrets From Inside GE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#51 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#84 Royal Pardon For Turing

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 13:45:22 -0800
hancock4 writes:
One frustrating situation happens in condo associations where clueless and incompetent boards cook the books to make it seem like the association is in good shape when in fact it is not. Suddenly the homeowners wake up to find a massive special assessment because major repairs are needed and the bank account is zero. Usually, this is due to incompetence and stupidity*, not theft or fraud, but the end result is the same.

*Condo boards have trouble getting _good_ people to serve, and often those who end up serving are grossly unqualified. Unless they're _blatant_ crooks, such board members can _not_ be sued for incompetency nor will insurance kick in.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#143 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#147 LEO

what I've seen are people that don't figure that they will be around in 15-20 years ... and therefor want to minimize the current condo fees for reserves associated with things that call for replacement in 15-30 years (fudging projected interest rates on reserve balance and other manipulation)

analogous to top executives wanting to take bonuses instead of fully funding pension plans
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml

or deferring other kinds of maintenance and taking it as executive bonuses, utility got dinged for that in cal., PUC had rate structure that included brush and limb clearing ... where executives were skimming it for bonuses instead ... until there were some power lines sparking brush fires
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#65 Soups
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#31 How do you feel about the fact that today India has more IBM employees than US?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#61 What Makes a bridge Bizarre?

virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 13:50:57 -0800
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#143 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#147 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#148 LEO

... also call for 100% unearned profit tax on the US auto industry ... where they were suppose to take the profit that resulted after the import quotas and use it to totally remake themselves ... instead they just pocketed it and continued business as usual ... a few recent refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#1 IBM Is Changing The Terms Of Its Retirement Plan, Which Is Frustrating Some Employees
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#79 As an IBM'er just like the Marines only a few good men and women make the cut,
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#94 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#40 Internet Mainframe Forums Considered Harmful
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#0 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#46 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#12 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#83 HP splits, again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#8 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#24 weird apple trivia

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 17:29:33 -0800
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
If the corporation is big enough, it's easier to modify the _government_ until the desired result is allowed.

note that in the wake of ENRON, congress passed Sarbanes-Oxley claiming that it guaranteed that auditors and executives responsible for public company fraudulent financial filings would do jail time ... however it required that SEC do something.

Possibly because even GAO didn't believe that SEC was doing anything, it started doing reports of public company fraudulent financial filings ... even showing that they increased after Sarbanes-Oxley passed (and nobody doing jail time).

past posts mentioning ENRON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#enron
past posts mentioning sarbanes-oxley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#sarbanes-oxley
past posts mentioning public company fraudulent financial filings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#financial.reporting.fraud.fraud

I facetiously created multi-choice about SOX: 1) SOX had no effect on financial reporting fraud, 2) SOX encouraged financial reporting fraud, 3) if it hand't been for SOX, financial report fraud would have been much worse.

note that part of the ENRON was also preventing derivatives from being regulated ... and then shows up in major factor in the economic mess last decade ... and more recently shows up ... where Dodd-Frank required regulated, FDIC insured depository institutions had to do their derivative gambling outside the insured institution ... and that was recently reversed with rider in the most recent budget bill.

Taxpayers Could Be on the Hook for Trillions in Oil Derivatives
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/23/taxpayers-could-be-on-the-hook-for-trillions-in-oil-derivatives/
Memo To WSJ: The CRomnibus Abomination Was Not 'A Rare Bipartisan Success'
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/memo-to-wsj-the-cromnibus-abomination-was-not-a-rare-bipartisan-success/
Memo To WSJ: The CRomnibus Abomination Was Not "A Rare Bipartisan Success"
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-16/memo-wsj-cromnibus-abomination-was-not-rare-bipartisan-success
Wall Street's Revenge; Dodd-Frank Damaged in the Budget Bill
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/15/opinion/paul-krugman-dodd-frank-damaged-by-the-budget-bill.html
Who Really Runs the United States? Jamie Dimon
http://wolfstreet.com/2014/12/16/who-really-runs-the-united-states-jamie-dimon/
Matti Taibbi: Dodd-Frank Budget Fight Proves Democratic Party are Controlled and Corrupted by Wall Street
http://johnhively.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/matti-taibbi-dodd-frank-budget-fight-proves-democratic-party-are-controlled-and-corrupted-by-wall-street/
David Stockman Interview: The Case For Super Glass-Steagall
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/david-stockman-interview-the-case-for-super-glass-stegall/

Gramm (with help from his wife) is #2 on times list responsible for financial mess
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877330,00.html

including GLBA act that repeals Glass-Steagall (enabling too big to fail, too big to prosecute, and too big to jail) ... but also a number of other things ... including provision in commodities futures modernization act preventing derivatives/CDSs from being regulated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/business/17grammside.html
Enron was a major contributor to Mr. Gramm's political campaigns, and Mr. Gramm's wife, Wendy, served on the Enron board, which she joined after stepping down as chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

... snip ...

https://web.archive.org/web/20080711114839/http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-01-15/news/phil-gramm-s-enron-favor/
A few days after she got the ball rolling on the exemption, Wendy Gramm resigned from the commission. Enron soon appointed her to its board of directors, where she served on the audit committee, which oversees the inner financial workings of the corporation. For this, the company paid her between $915,000 and $1.85 million in stocks and dividends, as much as $50,000 in annual salary, and $176,000 in attendance fees,

... snip ...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&refer=home&sid=aYJZOB_gZi0I
That same year Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt opposed an attempt by Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to study regulating over-the-counter derivatives. In 2000, Congress passed a law keeping them unregulated.

... snip ...

Brooksley was fairly quickly replaced by Wendy Gramm as head of Commodity Futures Trading Commission (pending provision by her husband preventing regulating CDS) before Wendy then resigned to join Enron's board (and audit committee overseeing Enron financial reporting). Preventing regulation of CDS was originally favor for ENRON, but then later plays major role in the financial mess (and AIG).

SOX also had requirement that SEC do something about the rating agencies. Note that wallstreet found that they could securitize mortgages and pay rating agencies for triple-A ratings (when the sellers and the rating agencies knew that they weren't worth triple-A). With the triple-A rating they could now do no-documentation, liar loans. They were even packaging securitized mortgages (CDOs) designed to fail, selling them to their customers and then taking out gambling derivative (CDS) bets that they fail ... which was creating huge demand for dodgy mortgages.

Pecora &/or Glass-Steagall posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall
too big to fail posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
toxic CDO posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 09:50:42 -0800
hancock4 writes:
I think in the case of Enron, it was outright fraud on the books. IIRC, one trick was to book a sale twice, once when it was ordered, once when it was shipped. Stuff like that. Their auditor, Arthur Andersen & Co, then a very major accounting firm, failed to flag that kind of stuff.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#150 LEO

part of the joke with Sarbanes-Oxley and the increased stringent audits (and it wouldn't actually make any difference) ... was that it was full employment gift to the audit industry ... after having "destroyed" andersen (congress was working up to too big to fail, large US institutions weren't going to be treated so badly again, regardless of the severity of their fraudulent behavior).

past posts mentioning ENRON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#enron
past posts mentioning sarbanes-oxley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#sarbanes-oxley
past posts mentioning public company fraudulent financial filings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#financial.reporting.fraud.fraud
too big to fail ...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

in 2004 I got invited to EU financial conference with corporate CEOs and exchange presidents at the castle in Liechtenstien (the conference seemed to be part of trying to improve Liechtenstien image and get it off the money laundering black list) ... theme was on how SOX audit requirements were starting to pollute outside the US (anybody doing business with US corporations). I talked about how the audits were going to have little effect public company fraudulent financial filings (then GAO started publishing reports showing financial filing fraud actually increased after SOX).

old post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#42 The Godfather of Kathmandu

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Is true that a real programmer would not stoop to wasting machine capacity to do the assembly?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is true that a real programmer would not stoop to wasting machine capacity to do the assembly?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 10:08:54 -0800
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> writes:
Depending on the machine:

Binary (which I've never seen[1]) Decimal Octal Ternary

[1] Well, not on cards or tape, although I have used machines where data input on the console was binary.


when I was doing port of 1401 MPIO to 360/30 ... I had to deal with column binary ... card could be BCD ... which could be read as subset of EBCDIC ... 12 holes per column, but only used subset of possible combinations. Column binary packed two 6bit "bytes" per column. recent MPIO ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#139 Is true that a real programmer would not stoop to wasting machine capacity to do the assembly?

for other drift ... over in facebook discussion about how the tools you use can shape your worldview ... i referenced one of my periodic themes that the compromizes made in the original sql/relational implementation tailored for the financial industry ... system/r
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

contorts other domains when forced to convert into RDBMS table form and eliminate all NULLS/unknowns ... referenced this old post discussing problem that SQL has with NULS/unknowns and 3-value logic:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003g.html#40 How to cope with missing values - NULLS?

which then brought up
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ThreeValuedLogic
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-valued_logic

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 13:39:36 -0800
"Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> writes:
I haven't heard about the neo-cons attempt to get rid of the criminal penalties. But there is another way to gain the same end; have an attorney general who refuses to prosecute such activity. Such as Eric Holder, the guy chosen by Obama. Meanwhile, the clock is running out. What is it - seven years with no action so far?

note that congressional rhetoric about sarbanes-oxley was that it guaranteed that auditors & executives related to public company fraudulent financial filings, would do jail time ... however, it required SEC to do something.

besides previously mentioned #2 on times list of those responsible for financial crisis
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877330,00.html
#4 is former head of SEC
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877323,00.html
#3 is former head of Federal Reserve
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877331,00.html

Sarbanes-Oxley also supposedly had SEC doing something about the rating agencies ... who played major pivotal role in the financial mess ... selling the triple-A ratings on toxic CDOs fueling the whole thing of over $27T:
Evil Wall Street Exports Boomed With 'Fools' Born to Buy Debt
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&refer=home&sid=a0jln3.CSS6

The S&L Crisis had 30,000 criminal referrals and 1,000 criminal convictions, the financial mess was 70 times larger than the S&L crisis and there have been no criminal referrals and no criminal convictions.

regulatory agencies failing to provide adult supervision during the last decade resulted in the crisis ... the lack of prosecution currently creates moral hazard and sets things up for it to be repeated (whether or not it is currently being prosecuted doesn't go back in time and change what happened then).

Note I'm linked with somebody on linkedin that was the FDIC senior large bank examiner the middle of last decade. He reported what was going on at Washington Mutual and was replaced ... he then became a "whistleblower" (he has published paper trail, including several that went to the head of the FDIC) ... and has since been treated very, very badly by the gov.

it is much worse than
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_K._Black
account of what went on with
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five
during the
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_Loan_Crisis

posts mentioning whistleblower:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#whistleblower
posts mentioning Glass-Steagall:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall
posts mentioning toxic CDOs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo
posts mentioning fed chairman(s)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#greenspan
posts mentioning too big to fail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
posts mentioning ENRON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#enron
posts mentioning sarbanes-oxley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#sarbanes-oxley
posts mentioning fraudulent financial reporting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#financial.reporting.fraud.fraud

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

BDW length vs. Physical Length

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: BDW length vs. Physical Length
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 25 Dec 2014 17:58:36 -0800
cblaicher@SYNCSORT.COM (Blaicher, Christopher Y.) writes:
ECKD, which is what all modern DASD is, stands for Extended Count Key Data. The 'Extended' refers to the channel commands you can issue, not the devices capabilities. All blocks written to a ECKD device consist of a Count field, an optional Key field and a Data field. The Count field is 8 bytes long and has a format of CCHHRKDD. (Extended format volume count fields are formatted slightly differently, but for basics, this will do.)

all modern disk is fixed-block, there hasn't been any real CKD DASD manufactured for decades ... it is all emulated on industry fixed-block disks.

ECKD started out when MVS couldn't support FBA ... and they wanted to retrofit 3380 3mbyte/sec disks to 168&3033 1.5mbyte/sec channels ... getting CALYPSO to work was something of horror story

past posts mentioning FBA, CKD, multi-track seek, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dasd

past posts specifically mentioning CALYPSO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004o.html#7 Integer types for 128-bit addressing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007e.html#40 FBA rant
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007f.html#0 FBA rant
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#40 TOPS-10
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#44 Z/VM support for FBA devices was Re: z/OS support of HMC's 3270 emulation?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#11 Secret Service plans IT reboot
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#36 What was old is new again (water chilled)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#30 45 years of Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#14 Mainframe Slang terms
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#35 junking CKD; was "Social Security Confronts IT Obsolescence"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#12 Can anybody give me a clear idea about Cloud Computing in MAINFRAME ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#64 Random thoughts: Low power, High performance

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

IBM Continues To Crumble

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM Continues To Crumble
Date: 25 Dec 2014
Blog: Current and Ex-IBM Employee
IBM Continues To Crumble
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2757655-ibm-continues-to-crumble

similar threads in other groups
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#140 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#142 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#145 IBM Continues To Crumble

several other recent articles on the IBM "financial engineering" theme ... only one of them also seekingalpha

The Truth Hidden by IBM's Buybacks
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/the-truth-hidden-by-ibms-buybacks/?_r=0
IBM and the financial engineering economy: James Saft
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/21/us-markets-saft-idUSKCN0IA1II20141021
IBM no longer a tech company: Mark Cuban
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102109502
Mark Cuban Slams IBM: It's 'No Longer A Tech Company. They Have No Vision.'
http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-cuban-ibm-is-not-a-tech-company-2014-10
IBM: Financial Engineering 101 Says This Is Bad
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2608915-ibm-financial-engineering-101-says-this-is-bad

from Stockman's "Great Deformation" on IBM's financial engineering:
IBM was not the born-again growth machine trumpeted by the mob of Wall Street momo traders. It was actually a stock buyback contraption on steroids. During the five years ending in fiscal 2011, the company spent a staggering $67 billion repurchasing its own shares, a figure that was equal to 100 percent of its net income.

and
Total shareholder distributions, including dividends, amounted to $82 billion, or 122 percent, of net income over this five-year period. Likewise, during the last five years IBM spent less on capital investment than its depreciation and amortization charges, and also shrank its constant dollar spending for research and development by nearly 2 percent annually.

... snip ...

2012, mainframe processor accounted for 4% of revenue, but mainframe division accounted for 25% of total revenue and 40% of profit.

mainframe processor sales after having been relatively steady for some time, has recently been declining. there was recent claim that there is somewhere around aggregate mainframe 18-20 million MIPS processing worldwide or .... current max configured EC12 is rated at 75BIPS ... 18-20TIPS then is around 270 max configured EC12. 1stQTR2014 financials has equivalent of 16 max configured EC12 sold ... or 56 on annulized basis ... around 4.2TIPS. By comparison a E5-2600 blade has around .5TIP rating (which IBM had base list price of $1815) ... then a single rack would have higher processor rating than the aggregate of all mainframes in the world today (a typical cloud megadatacenters has hundreds of thousands of such blades).

ec12 processor chips are in 32nm technology. recent news intel is spending $5B to build 14nm fab ... potentially with 450mm wafers. Straight map of ec12 32nm chips to 14nm then would have full year's sales from a single wafer.

for the fun of it ... This has an account of the end of IBM's ACS
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html

it was terminated in the late 60s after IBM management decided that it would advance the computer state-of-the-art too fast and IBM might loose control of the market. Amdahl leaves shortly afterwards and starts his own company. At the end of the article it has list of items from ACS that show up with es/9000 two decades later..

Then about the same time, IBM starts the FS effort that was going to completely replace 370 ... and internal politics was then killing off 370 efforts ... which is credited with giving clone computers a market foothold. And on change in IBM's corporate culture ... from "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World", Ferguson & Morris (about failure of FS):
and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr of free and vigorous debate was replaced with sycophancy and make no waves under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM lived in the shadow of defeat

... and:
But because of the heavy investment of face by the top management, FS took years to kill, although its wrongheadedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first time, during FS, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous," recalls a former top executive.

... snip ...

note during the FS period, I continued to work on 370 stuff and would even periodically ridicule the FS activity (which wasn't exactly a career enhancing activity).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

The original SQL/relational was System/R and we were able to sneak the technology transfer to Endicott for SQL/DS under the radar because the corporation was preoccupied with the next generation DBMS EAGLE. When EAGLE imploded there was then a request about how fast it would take to port System/R to MVS ... which is eventually released as DB2 (for decision support *only* ... not transactions)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

long ago and far away my wife was con'ed into going to POK to be in charge of loosely-coupled architecture (mainframe for "cluster") ... while there she created "peer-coupled architecture". She didn't remain very long because 1) constant battles with communication group to force her to use SNA for loosely-coupled operation and 2) little uptake of her architecture, except for IMS hot-standby (until sysplex and parallel sysplex).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#shareddata

when we were doing "cluster scale-up" for the last product we did at IBM ... HA/CMP, I created the terms disaster survivability and geographic survivability when I was out marketing. I also got asked to write a section for the corporate continuous availability strategy document ... but it was pulled when both rochester (as/400) and POK (mainframe) complained that they couldn't meet the objectives.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available

for cluster scale-up, we were working with national labs and others on scientific/technical as well as with the RDBMS vendors for commercial. This is reference to meeting in Ellison's conference room Jan1992 on cluster scale-up
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

however the (mainframe) DB2 group were complaining if I was allowed to go ahead, I would be at least five years ahead of them. Within a few weeks of the above, the scale-up was transferred, announced as IBM supercomputer (for technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors ... motivating decision to leave.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

during FS, I continued to work on 370 ... even periodically ridiculing Future System (including drawing parallels between FS and a long running cult film playing down in central sq) ... which wasn't exactly a career enhancing activity.

Later, during the late 70s and early 80s, I was blamed for online computer conferencing on the internal network (larger than the arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime late '85 or early '86 ... *AND* *NOT* *SNA*). Folklore is that when the executive committee was told about online computer conferencing (and the internal network), 5of6 wanted to fire me.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc


stock buyback
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#stock.buyback

(other) recent posts/threads mentioning buybacks:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#48 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#14 IBM to invest 1.2B into Cloud Data Centers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#16 IBM to invest 1.2B into Cloud Data Centers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#25 IBM Asian Revenues Crash, Adjusted Earnings Beat On Tax Rate Fudge; Debt Rises 20% To Fund Stock Buybacks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#34 IBM sells x86 server business to Lenovo (was Levono)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#48 IBM Dumps Its Server Business On Lenovo For $2.3B
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#79 Shocking news: Execs do what they're paid to do
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#93 Maximizing shareholder value: The Goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#101 Defense Department Needs to Act Like IBM to Save Itself
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#104 Defense Department Needs to Act Like IBM to Save Itself
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#24 IBM sells Intel server business, company is doomed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#48 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#54 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#55 Maximizing shareholder value: The goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#31 Apple's long IRS-Irish history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#91 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#75 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#77 Why IBM Is Tumbling: BRIC Sales Plunge, Total Revenue Lowest Since 2009
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#1 Why IBM Is Tumbling: BRIC Sales Plunge, Total Revenue Lowest Since 2009
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#33 upcoming TV show, "Halt & Catch Fire"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#43 upcoming TV show, "Halt & Catch Fire"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#48 IBM hopes new chip can turn the tables on Intel
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#54 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#57 Fed's stress tests were a confidence-rattling comedy of errors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#69 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#80 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#84 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#111 The Decline and Fall of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#0 The Decline and Fall of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#3 The Decline and Fall of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#100 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#4 only sometimes From looms to computers to looms
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#3 HP splits, again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#35 IBM 'major announcement' points to deal on chip manufacturing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#36 IBM 'major announcement' points to deal on chip manufacturing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#49 IBM's Ginni Rometty Just Confessed To A Huge Failure -- It Might Be The Best Thing For The Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#50 IBM's Ginni Rometty Just Confessed To A Huge Failure -- It Might Be The Best Thing For The Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#60 IBM's Ginni Rometty Just Confessed To A Huge Failure -- It Might Be The Best Thing For The Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#89 Forbes perspective on IBM's troubles
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#94 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#95 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#4 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#58 Wall Street is Taking Over America's Pension Plans
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#61 Decimation of the valuation of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#132 LEO

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Is true that a real programmer would not stoop to wasting machine capacity to do the assembly?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is true that a real programmer would not stoop to wasting machine capacity to do the assembly?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 10:49:09 -0800
Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> writes:
When I started as a trainee programmer at ITT in 1975, our code was punched onto paper tape. The girls in the punch room could read it off the tape by eye at considerable speed. By the time I left a couple of years later, I was getting reasonably proficient at reading it. All forgotten now, of course.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#139 Is true that a real
programmer would not stoop to wasting machine capacity to do the assembly?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#152 Is true that a real
programmer would not stoop to wasting machine capacity to do the assembly?

with re-assembly taking 30-60 minutes ... it was frequently much faster to patch the txt/binary deck than to re-assembly. Before "REP" cards ... I would fan the deck looking for the card with that location (12-2-9 TXT cards had very specific format including the address of the data field part of the card) and then "multi-punch" the patch direclty into a duplicated card (i.e. duplicate the card out to the data to be patched, multi-punch the change and then duplicate the rest of the card). I got quite proficient at hexadecimal reading (& multi-punch) the holes in the cards.

it wasn't a turn-around problem ... since they let me have the whole datacenter from 8am sat. to 8am monday as my personal computer ... it was just that patching the cards was so much faster than waiting for the re-assembly.

past posts detailing formation of 12-2-9 TXT cards
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#4 1401 overlap instructions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#14 IBM Model Numbers (was: First video terminal?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#60 Text (was: Review of Steve McConnell's AFTER THE GOLD RUSH)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#45 Commenting style (was: Call for folklore)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#58 REP cards
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007q.html#69 IBM System/3 & 3277-1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007q.html#70 IBM System/3 & 3277-1

other recent posts mentioning MPIO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#23 Scary Sysprogs and educating those 'kids'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#17 System/360 celebration set for ten cities; 1964 pricing for oneweek
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#69 The Tragedy of Rapid Evolution?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#92 curly brace languages source code style quides

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 11:04:31 -0800
hancock4 writes:
The Depression of 1929 and the Crash of 2007 had nothing to do with deadwood, efficiencies, or weeding out. Both were caused by irresponsible use of credit, mixed in with irresponsible practices of large financial organizations. A company could simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time and crashed, despite being efficient and well-run. Likewise, a crappy company might duck through the mess.

I've mentioned before Jan2009, I was asked to HTML'ize the pecora hearings (senate hearings into the '29 crash, had been scanned fall2008 at boston public library) with lots of internal xrefs and URLs between what happened then and what happened this time ... comments about new congress might have an appetite to do something. I worked on it for awhile and then got a call that it wouldn't be needed after all ... references to enormous piles of wallstreet money totally burying capital hill.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall
BROKERS' LOANS AND INDUSTRIAL DEPRESSION

For the purpose of making it perfectly clear that the present industrial depression was due to the inflation of credit on brokers' loans, as obtained from the Bureau of Research of the Federal Reserve Board, the figures show that the inflation of credit for speculative purposes on stock exchanges were responsible directly for a rise in the average of quotations of the stocks from sixty in 1922 to 225 in 1929 to 35 in 1932 and that the change in the value of such Stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange went through the same identical changes in almost identical percentages.


... and
Reserve requirements of members banks should be changed so as to be based not solely upon volume of deposits but also upon rapidity of their turn-over, thus checking excessive speculation, say Eugene R. Black and Federal Reserve Board 7434-7435, 7436-7441, 7492-7493, 7495-7516

"Uncontrolled" because even where made indirectly through banks, reserves against such loans were not required and because completely unregulated, said Charles H. E. Scheer 6313

Brokers' loans made by corporations aided to create speculative mania in years prior to 1929, testifies Otto H. Kahn 1010


... snip ...

the economic mess of last decade equivalent was being able to pay rating agencies for triple-A ratings on securitized loans (when both sellers and the rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A ... from Oct2008 congressional hearings). That enabled the no-documentation, liar loans and the business purely became how many & how fast they could be generated (w/o any regard to loan quality) ... resulting in the over $27T done during the mess:
Evil Wall Street Exports Boomed With 'Fools' Born to Buy Debt
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-10-27/evil-wall-street-exports-boomed-with-fools-born-to-buy-debt

this was further aggrevated by wallstreet packaging securitized loans designed fail, selling them to their customers and then taking out CDS gambling bets that they would fail ... creating an enormous demand specifically for dodgy loans (triple-A rating eliminating sellers & wallstreet having to care about loan quality, the CDS gambling bets for securitized loans designed to fail ... created enormous demand specifically for bad loans/mortgages).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 11:35:26 -0800
"Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> writes:
As I understand it, the crash of 1929 was largely caused by the ability to buy sticks with a 10% investment

As I understand it, Fannie May has just changed the rules so you can buy a house with a 3% investment.

Fannie Mae is in a conservatorship run by the US government. The US government is run by Barrack Obama. Do you see a problem here? Like maybe no one is paying attention?


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#157 LEO

note that last decade ... the problem wasn't the lack of down payment ... being able to pay for triple-A rating enabled no-documentation, no-down, liar loans ... w/o regard to loan quality ... which enabled over $27T to be sold off to large funds that were restricted to only dealing in "safe" investments (like the large institutional retirement funds). Then wallstreet enormous appetite specifically for bad loans to package in securitized instruments designed to fail, enormously aggrevated the situation.

The GSEs (freddy & fannie) had been directly buying individual mortgages where they looked at the supporting documents for loan quality ... and was in range of hundreds of billions ... not the tens of trillions being sold by wallstreet to their investors (that tanked the US&world economy). Focus on GSEs has mostly been obfuscation and misdirection.

The lack of any down payment or equity helps increase the size of the bubble. In '29 crash, wallstreet was basically doing stock market pump&dump and making nearly 100% loans to the public to inflate the bubble.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall

Last decade, the real estate bubble was side effect of enormous demand that wallstreet had for dodgy loans packaged in triple-A rated securitized instruments designed to fail ... which wallstreet could sell off to large institution funds ... and then make derivative CDS gambling bets that they would fail. Not requiring down payment was side-effect of increasing the velocity of loan generation (and being able to pay for triple-A rating which eliminated any consideration about loan quality)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 12:08:06 -0800
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#157 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#158 LEO

the enormous demand for dodgy (no-documentation, no-down, liar) loans to be used in (triple-A rated) securitized toxic CDOs designed to fail drove volume to over $27T (sold to typical wallstreet investors, especially those large retirement funds restricted to "safe" investments) and drove real-estate bubble inflation to 20-30%/annum in many markets. When the bubble burst, lots of home prices were reset to the start of the bubble ... some prices dropped in half.

Even if the GSEs do a couple hundred billion at no-down ... it is still pretty much at the bottom of the market ... so there is little likelyhood they would be stuck with property that was sold at height of the bubble that could loose half their value ... and can't possibly have the effect of the over $27T done by wallstreet in liar loans ... aka GSEs might do 1% of $27+T done by wallstreet with liar loans
Evil Wall Street Exports Boomed With 'Fools' Born to Buy Debt
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-10-27/evil-wall-street-exports-boomed-with-fools-born-to-buy-debt

past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 16:17:50 -0800
greymausg <maus@mail.com> writes:
AFAIK, 1929 was the end of the porcess (indeed as you say, excessive credit was part of the problem). Control of the markets was another part of the problem. Recent problems haave shown that we still dont understand economics

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#157 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#158 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#159 LEO

crash of '29 ... wallstreet was scamming the stock market ... selling & reselling at constantly inflating market (skimming money out of the market itself).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall

last decade ... wallstreet was scamming the bond/securities market ... getting triple-A rating on securitized loans/CDOs designed to fail ... selling them to their customers and taking bets that they would fail ... the triple-A rating major factor in being able to do over $27T. A side-effect of wallstreet's enormous demand for dodgy loans ... was inflation in the real-estate market ... wallstreet wasn't directly playing the real-estate market (like they were playing the stock market in the '29 crash) ... however that doesn't mean that other players weren't also able to get a piece of the action from wallstreet's enormous demand for dodgy loans (and the rapidly inflating real-estate market).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

The GSEs (fannie & freddie) were buying individual mortgages from financial institutions, requiring loan quality and supporting documentation ... to the tune of several hundred billion ... possibly 1-2% of what wallstreet was doing through its triple-A rated securitized loan scams.

Somewhere late in the game, the GSEs then have large amount of these wallstreet designed-to-fail securitized loans on their books ... and I don't exactly know what were the steps leading up to that happening ... however recent court cases they've been able to reverse the transactions and/or collect large restitution fees from the responsible wallstreet institutions.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

note that part of the moral hazard scenario ... is that individuals get the benefits and institutions cover the losses. In some cases they get the taxpayer to make the institutions at least break even ... but the individuals still get to walk away with trillions ... even if the institutions don't come out that far ahead.

Some of these legal actions are on going ... and while the tens of billions that too big to fail are setting aside to cover the liabilities, seem like large amounts (and complain about it affecting their quarterly profits) ... it still is small potatoes compared to the trillions they skimmed off ... example ..

Bank of America to Pay $16.65 Billion in Historic Justice Department Settlement for Financial Fraud Leading up to and During the Financial Crisis
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/bank-america-pay-1665-billion-historic-justice-department-settlement-financial-fraud-leading
The bank has also conceded that it originated risky mortgage loans and made misrepresentations about the quality of those loans to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).

... snip ...

JPMorgan Chase Agrees to $13 Billion Settlement with the U.S. Justice Department for Knowingly Selling Toxic Mortgage-Backed Securities
http://www.mortgagecrisiswatch.com/2013/11/20/jpmorgan-chase-agrees-to-13-billion-settlement-with-the-u-s-justice-department-for-knowingly-selling-toxic-mortgage-backed-securities/

Note that not criminally prosecuting the executives at the too big to fail (too big to prosecute, too big to jail) for the economic mess ... somewhat goes along with moral hazard and being able to get away with other criminal behavior, money laundering for drug cartels and terrorists
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#money.laundering

manipulating LIBOR
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#libor

as well as manipulation they've been doing in various commodity markets (gold, foreign exchange, etc).

Gold Fix Study Shows Signs of Decade of Bank Manipulation
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-28/gold-fix-study-shows-signs-of-decade-of-bank-manipulation.html
Forex manipulation: How it worked
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101482959
Citigroup, JPMorgan to Pay Most in $4.3 Billion FX Rigging Cases
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-12/banks-to-pay-3-3-billion-in-fx-manipulation-probe.html

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Slushware

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Slushware
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 27 Dec 2014 09:38:54 -0800
0000000433f07816-dmarc-request@LISTSERV.UA.EDU (Paul Gilmartin) writes:
It began nearly a half century ago with microcode implementation of S360 models, and only slightly later, W. M. Waite's Mobile Programming System. Nowadays:

microcode->millicode->PR/SM->VM->JVM->byte code

How many layers have I neglected? Hercules is a confluent branch.


note that the original hypervisor was done by Amdahl in something called macrocode ... which was a layer above microcode and very close to standard 370.

In the mid-70s, I had been sucked in by Endicott to help with microcode assists for 138/148 ... vertical microcode machine that avg. 10 microcode instructions per 370 instruction (not that different from the various intel based simulators). Was told that there were 6kbytes available for microcode and kernel instruction sequences dropped into microcode on nearly byte for byte ... so was to identify the top 6kbytes worth of kernel instruction sequences ... that would be moved to microcode for a 10:1 performance improvement. Old post with results of analysis ... turns out top 6kbytes of instruction sequences accounted for 79.55percent of kernel time.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#21

In any case, I was giving presentations on the effort at the monthly bay area user group meetings (BAYBUNCH) held at SLAC ... and the Amdahl people were pumping me for additional details at the get togethers held at local watering holes after the meetings (this was before hypervisor was announced).

After hypervisor was announced ... the 3090 was eventually forced to respond with PR/SM. Part of the issue was that 3090 was horizontal microcode machine ... which was enormously more difficult to program for than 370 instructions ... and was much more difficult.

I had been told that Amdahl had original evolved macrocode to respond to the enormous number of architecture tweaks that IBM had been doing on their "high-end" (vertical microcode machines) starting with the 3033 and continued through 3081 (macrocode used to drastically reduce the effort needed to respond).

I've mentioned before ... during FS period ... internal politics were killing off 370 efforts (the lack of 370 products during this period is credited with giving clone processor makers a market foothold) ... then when FS imploded there was mad rush to get 370 products back into pipeline. POK kicked off 3033 (initially 168 logic remapped to 20% faster chips) and 3081 in parallel ... more detailed account here:
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm

since that neither 3033 or 3081 were really that competitive, the architecture tweaks would supposedly give the machines competitive advantage ... many were claimed to be performance improvements ... but folklore is that many actually ran slower (than native 370). Part of the issue is the high-end, horizontal microcode machines were profiled in terms of avg. machine cycles per 370 instruction ... by 3033, this was done to cloe to one machine cycle per 370 instruction (370 instruction move to microcode couldn't see the 10:1 improvement seen on the vertical microcode machines). In anycase, it sort of drove Amdahl into creating macrocode as a way of drastically simplifying being able to respond to the increased architecture tweaking.

The other factor was that part of the mad rush after FS failure, the head of POK managed to convince corporate to kill off vm370, shutdown the development group and move all the people to POK ... or otherwise POK would be able to make mvs/xa ship schedule several years (Endicott managed to save the vm370 product mission, but had to reconstitute a development group from scratch). Part of the POK activity was creating a XA vritual machine VMTOOL (to support MVS/XA development) that was never intended to be made available to customers.

After initial introduction of 370/xa and MVS/XA ... there was very slow uptake ... customers continued to run 3081s in 370 mode with MVS (or vm370). The decision then was to release the VMTOOL as the "migration aid" ... allowing customers to run both MVS and MVS/XA concurrently on the same machine as aid to migration. Amdahl solution was the hypervisor which provided the same capability ... but much more efficiently.

IBM eventually responded with PR/SM on the 3090 ... but it was much greater effort because it required being all done in native horizontal microcode.

The POK(/Kingston) group then pushed very hard to have migration aid morph into standard VM/XA product. The problem was that VMTOOL had only been developed for MVS/XA development and lacked lots of function and performance features (especially compared to vm370 of the period) and was going to require lots of resources, effort and time to bring up to comparable level of vm370. Somebody at an internal datacenter had made the changes to vm370 to provide full function 370/XA support ... which would have been trivial to release. In the internal politics between POK and Endicott, POK managed to prevail and the vm370 370/xa was shelved (never to be heard of again) and the significant effort to bring VMTOOL (migration aid) up to vm370 product level, was launched.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 10:07:56 -0800
Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> writes:
Must be. If they were already here, they're not _new_ immigrants.

I've mentioned before that president of AMEX was in competition to be the next CEO and won ... the looser leaves and takes his protege and goes to Baltimore where they acquire what has been described as loan sharking business. AMEX is in competition with KKR for private-equity, reverse-IPO, LBO of RJR and KKR wins. KKR then runs into difficulty with RJR and hires president of AMEX away to turn it around. IBM then has gone into the red and was in the process of being broken up into the 13 "baby blues" when the board hires the former AMEX president to resurrect the company and reverse the breakup. some of the techniques used (at both RJR and IBM):
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml

About the same time, AMEX spins off a huge amount of its dataprocessing (and financial services outsourcing) as FDC in what was the largest IPO up until that time. A little later, FDC merges with First Financial ... acquiring Western Union (which wasn't doing all that well at the time, but FDC does have to spin-off Moneygram as part of the merger).

However, by the middle of last decade, with the enormous explosion in illegal workers sending their paychecks home, Western Union has grown to account for half FDC's bottom line. Western Union is then spun-off in an IPO ... and KKR does a private-equity LBO of the remaining FDC ... in what was the largest reverse-IPO up until that time (15yrs after having been the largest IPO). Somewhere along the line, the president of Mexico mentions that if the FDC executives would like to visit mexico, he would be happy to throw them in jail.

past posts mentioning former president of AMEX and CEO of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
posts referencing pensions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#pensions
private equity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity

FDC had a few large mainframe datacenters ... one operation had 40+ that were constantly being upgraded to the max. configured mainframes available with none older than 18months ... at @$30+M ... and there were other financial services datacenters that were larger ... such operations account for large fraction of all the mainframe business.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Slushware

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Slushware
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 11:09:41 -0800
ibm-main@TPG.COM.AU (Shane Ginnane) writes:
The corollary of course is how do vendors like vmware and IBM convince customers for continue to pay for hipervisors ?. z/OS is not the only golden goose apparently.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#161 Slushware

single monolithic operating systems can become enormously complex and bloated, both in terms of pathlength and human resources required to manage.

in the later part of the last century, lots of large institutions found it was less expensive to have dedicated server for each function than the staff to manage multiple functions on single server.

by the middle of last decade, large institutions found that they had thousands of servers that avg. 10% processor utilization. the virtual machine vendors had story that these institutions could achieve 10:1 server consolidation ... the slight increase in staff needed to manage virtual machine operation ... was more than offset by the savings (hardware and people) with the 10:1 server consolidation.

along the way, the virtual machine vendors also evolved virtual appliances & containers ... basically a stripped down operating system tailored for virtual machine operation as well as tailored to the dedicated application being run. the virtual appliance approach had enormous deployment benefits (staff, administration, management) ... as well as lower cpu utilization (stripped down operating system plus virtual machine) than the monolithic operating system approach.

the virtual appliance approach had its genesis with the service virtual machine at the science center under cp67 (precursor to vm370) for the VNET/RSCS networking function used for the internal network (larger than arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime late '85 or early '86) and also later used for the corporate sponsored unversity network, BITNET (and EARN in europe).

some past science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
some past internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
some past bitnet/earn posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet

it is possible to also get into conceptual and philosophical about the benefits of partitioning problems compared to trying to deal with single monolithic infrastructure. A trivial example is adding networking to HASP/JES2 versis the vnet/rscs approach. The HASP/JES2 code was picked up from univ. (source code for a time still carried "TUCC" in columns 68-71). It scavenged unused entries in the HASP 255-entry psuedo device table (typically limiting network node definitions to around 150-160) ... and it intermixed HASP/JES2 & networking fields in the header. The implementation would discard traffic if the origin &/or destination wasn't in the local table ... and had habit of crashing JES2 and taking down MVS ... when there was traffic between different versions of JES2 (that had slightly different header field format).

By comparison, VNET/RSCS had none of these limitations ... and was major reason that the internal network was larger than arpanet/internet (until mid-80s), why MVS/JES2 systems had to be restricted to boundary nodes on the internal network ... and why there grew up a library of VNET/RSCS drivers that talked to JES2 ... which was sensitive to all the possible JES2 header field formats and would automagically convert to the format required by the JES2 being directly talked to (to try and avoid JES2 at one release level from crashing JES2/MVS systems at different release levels).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Slushware

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Slushware
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 27 Dec 2014 18:40:27 -0800
0000000433f07816-dmarc-request@LISTSERV.UA.EDU (Paul Gilmartin) writes:
How many layers have I neglected? Hercules is a confluent branch.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#161 Slushware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#163 Slushware

for other hercules drift ... risc processors had performance advantage over intel ... risc having made extensive use of technolology to compensate for the increasing mismatch between memory latency and processor speed ... out-of-order execution, speculative execution, branch-prediction, etc ... sort of the hardware equivalent of '60s multiprogramming to keep processor busy while waiting for disk access (current memory latency, measured in count of cpu cycles is comparable to 60s disk latency when measured in number of 60s cpu cycles).

however, for nearly 20yrs, intel has gone to hardware layer that translates intel instructions into risc micro-ops for execution ... largely negating any risc performance advantage.

note that somewhat similar (out-of-order, etc) technology started to be introduced for z196 ... claiming it provided over half the performance improvement from z10 to z196 ... and further additions responsible for some of the z196 to ec12 performance improvement.

another technology (compensating for stalled instructions) is hyperthreading. I first ran into it when I was asked to help 370/195 for a hyperthreading implementation they wanted to do. 370/195 had pipeline supporting out-of-order execution that could run at 10mips ... but didn't have branch prediction ... so conditional branches would stall the pipeline ... many codes only ran at 5mips. The idea was to simulate multiprocessor operation with two instruction streams, registers ... but still the same pipeline and execution units (two 5mip instruction steams keeping the 10mip execution units busy). note that it dates back to acs/360 in the late 60s ... see multithreading reference near the end of this article
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html
also referenced here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_multithreading

SPARC T5 can have 8chips/system, 16cores/chip and 128threads/chip (aka 8threads/core)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC_T5

by comparison, about same time as ec12, e5-2600v1 had two 8core chips for 16cores total and 400-600+ BIPS rating (depending on model) ... compared to max configured (101 processors) EC12 @75BIPS. both e5-2600v1 and ec12 processor chips are done in 32nm technology.

intel has a tick-tock chip generation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick-Tock

alternates shrinking previous chip design with new technology (tick, e5-2600v2 22nm tech) and then designing new chip for the new technology (tock, e5-2600v3 redesign 22nm). some e5-2600v3 (& v4) discussion
http://techgadgetnews.com/2014/09/21/intel-xeon-e5-2600-v3-haswell-ep-workstation-and-server-processors-unleashed-for-high-performance-computing/

E5-2690v1 at 632BIPS, E5-2690v2 at 790BIPS, E5-2690v3 at 996BIPS, E5-2699v3 at 1.321TIPS.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-xeon-e5-2600-v3-haswell-ep,3932-7.html

note MIPS/BIPS/TIPS are benchmark iterations compared to 370/158 assumed to be 1MIP processor.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 09:20:41 -0800
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
That's great, but there is no allowance for problems. One car on the railroad track can halt traffic for hours. An earthquake (or tsunami) can hold things up for days, even if neither the shipper or the receiver aren't directly affected by the problem.

Would you want to depend on someone delivering each meal to you "just in time" with no backup? Given a blizzard, traffic jam, etc. you might get quite hungry at times. No system devised by human beings is perfect.


one of the analysis of asymmetric warfare was east coast had around week or two of food supply with most of it arriving from the west by routes that have a small number of "choke" points (bridges over major rivers).

past posts mentioning the food transportation theme
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002c.html#6 medium term future of the human race
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003i.html#21 Spam Bomb
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#55 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#59 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#65 China overtakes U.S. as top Web market
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#40 dollar coins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#38 dollar coins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#55 TCM's Moguls documentary series

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Slushware

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Slushware
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 28 Dec 2014 11:56:48 -0800
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#161 Slushware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#163 Slushware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#164 Slushware

as an aside ... the hardware layer from i86 instructions to risc micro-ops for execution ... isn't serialized ... it is pipelined operation ... simple version starts with overlapping instruction fetch & decode with instruction execution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instruction_pipeline

the above mentions that pentium4/pentuimD had 31-stage pipeline ... longest in mainstream consumer computing

longer pipeline affects the latency for any specific instruction getting executed ... but isn't (necessarily) limiting in the aggregate instruction execution rate (since the operations are overlapped in parallel).

there was recent claim (in ibm linkedin discussion) that there is approx. mainframe aggregate 18-20 milllion MIPS in the world today ... or the equivalent of around 270 max. configured EC12s (@75BIPS) ... or about 15 e5-2699v3 blades (@1.3TIPS). A typically cloud megadatacenter can have several hundred thousand blades ... and a standardized virtualization/container facility goes a long way to simplifying the operation.
http://www.networkcomputing.com/cloud-infrastructure/virtual-machines-vs-containers-a-matter-of-scope/a/d-id/1269190

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Is true that a real programmer would not stoop to wasting machine capacity to do the assembly?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is true that a real programmer would not stoop to wasting machine capacity to do the assembly?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 10:30:15 -0800
Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> writes:
We have a *lot* of manufacturing capability down here. In the longer run an elevator may be more useful bringing stuff down though. We could also do with something nicer and more efficient than rockets for moving people to and from the planet, especially if we're ever going to colonise the solar system.

the counter is 3d printer manufacturing in space ... using raw materials there ... there was recently lots of coverage of rachet wrench needed on the space station ... and they sent up rachet wrench plans for the recently shipped 3d printer. there are articles about 3d printer vendors trying to figure out how to prevent people from using 3d printers to make 3d printers.

building a lunar base with 3d printing
http://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/building-a-lunar-base-with-3d-printing/

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 10:37:33 -0800
hancock4 writes:
After WW II, the flexibility of trucks compared to trains, as you described, was evident and time-sensitive high-value shipments went over to truck. The postwar development of improved highways and later the Interstates facilitated this (as did heavy lobbying by the trucking industry at the time.)

past posts that highway costs are almost totally associated with handling 18wheeler heavy trucks ... but the costs are spread across all vehicles .... effectively an enormous subsidy to the trucking industry.

past posts that highways cost/design based on expected lifetime heavy truck axle-load
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#41 Transportation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004e.html#7 OT Global warming
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#5 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#6 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#10 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#12 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#15 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#19 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#24 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#26 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#32 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#35 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#46 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#48 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#49 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#50 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#51 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#52 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#53 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#54 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#56 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#57 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#59 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#60 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#61 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#62 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#0 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#5 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#6 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#11 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#23 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#97 Loads Weighing Heavily on Roads
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#55 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#48 fraying infrastructure
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#25 dollar coins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#36 dollar coins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#37 dollar coins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#54 dollar coins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#41 VMware Chief Says the OS Is History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#61 Idiotic cars driving themselves
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#39 Central vs. expanded storage
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#52 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#80 A Close Look at the Perry Tax Plan
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#83 A Close Look at the Perry Tax Plan
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#28 "Highway Patrol" back on TV
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#29 "Highway Patrol" back on TV

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 11:15:20 -0800
greymausg <maus@mail.com> writes:
A field hand was treated worse than a slave, if a slave died, it was a capital loss, field hand died, hire another. In "Gone with the Wind", one of the `house slaves' protests that he is not expected to do field work. Times had changed.

increasing move to large corporate agribusiness ... with lots of illegal workers from across the border. recent posts referring to explosion in illegal workers around the turn of the century greatly enhanced western union business (workers sending their paychecks home)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#48 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#74 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#55 LA Times commentary: roll out "smart" credit cards to deter fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#12 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#162 LEO

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

IBM Continues To Crumble

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM Continues To Crumble
Date: 29 Dec 2014
Blog: IBM - Past and Present Employees
IBM Continues To Crumble
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2757655-ibm-continues-to-crumble

similar threads in other groups
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#140 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#142 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#145 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#155 IBM Continues To Crumble

I was blamed for online computer conferencing on the internal network (larger than arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime late '85 or early '86) in late 70s and early 80s. Folklore is that when executive committee was informed of online computer conferencing (and the internal network), 5of6 wanted to fire me (possibly why they didn't was large number of internal datacenters running my systems, however i was told that i could forget any possibility of promotions or corporate awards). from IBMJARGON:
Tandem Memos - n. Something constructive but hard to control; a fresh of breath air (sic). That's another Tandem Memos. A phrase to worry middle management. It refers to the computer-based conference (widely distributed in 1981) in which many technical personnel expressed dissatisfaction with the tools available to them at that time, and also constructively criticized the way products were [are] developed. The memos are required reading for anyone with a serious interest in quality products. If you have not seen the memos, try reading the November 1981 Datamation summary.

... snip ...

past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc

One of the techniques used to try and shutdown open discussion was FUD. IBM sales & marketing had become quite skilled at FUD during the (then) recent FS period. FS was going to completely replace 370 and completely different ... and internal politics was killing off 370 efforts (I continued to work on 370 stuff during the period and would even periodically ridicule FS activities, which wasn't exactly career enhancing activity). The lack of 370 products during the FS period is credited with giving the 370 clone processor makers and market foothold ... but also left sales&marketing with the only thing to fall back on was FUD.

And on change in IBM's corporate culture ... from "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World", Ferguson & Morris (about failure of FS):
and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr of free and vigorous debate was replaced with sycophancy and make no waves under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM lived in the shadow of defeat

... and:
But because of the heavy investment of face by the top management, FS took years to kill, although its wrongheadedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first time, during FS, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous," recalls a former top executive.

... snip ...

past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

There is ongoing discussion in ibm-main ... a discussion mailing list originally started on (univ) BITNET in the 80s ... now gatewayed to usernet news and google groups
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/bit.listserv.ibm-main/A8t_PPmBO7g
my most recent post also archived here:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#166

as an aside ... the hardware layer from i86 instructions to risc micro-ops for execution ... isn't serialized ... it is pipelined operation ... simple version starts with overlapping instruction fetch & decode with instruction execution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instruction_pipeline

the above mentions that pentium4/pentuimD had 31-stage pipeline ... longest in mainstream consumer computing

longer pipeline affects the latency for any specific instruction getting executed ... but isn't (necessarily) limiting in the aggregate instruction execution rate (since the operations are overlapped in parallel).

there was recent claim (in ibm linkedin discussion) that there is approx. mainframe aggregate 18-20 milllion MIPS in the world today ... or the equivalent of around 270 max. configured EC12s (@75BIPS) ... or about 15 e5-2699v3 blades (@1.3TIPS). A typically cloud megadatacenter can have several hundred thousand blades ... and a standardized virtualization/container facility goes a long way to simplifying the operation.
http://www.networkcomputing.com/cloud-infrastructure/virtual-machines-vs-containers-a-matter-of-scope/a/d-id/1269190

middle 80s top management was predicting that IBM world-wide sales was about to double from $60B to $120B mostly based on mainframe hardware ... and kicked off a massive internal building program to double manufacturing capacity (it wasn't exactly career enhancing to point out that the mainframe hardware sales were starting to go in the other direction). There was also big influx in "fast track" (MBAs) ... quickly rotating through various business units ... apparently preparing for doubling of the business.

A senior disk engineer got a talk scheduled at communication group world-wide internal annual conference supposedly on 3174 performance ... however he opened the talk with the statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division. The issue was that the communication group had strangle hold on datacenter with its strategic ownership of everything that crossed the datacenter wall and was fighting off distributed computing and client/server trying to preserve its (emulated) dumb terminal paradigm and install base. The disk division was seeing data fleeing to more distributed computing friendly platforms with drop in disk sales. The disk division had come up with a number of solutions to reverse the trend, but they were constantly vetoed by the communication group. some past refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal gerstner posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner

A couple years later the company has gone into the red and was on the verge of being broken up into the 13 "baby blues".

2012 there was analysis that mainframe processor sales accounted for 4% of revenue, but the overall mainframe division accounted for 25% of revenue and 40% of profit (software & services, $6.25 total dollars for every dollar in processor sales). A big part of this is large financial datacenters with scores of max. configured mainframes that were constantly updated to the most recent model ... running extremely high value applications that had mostly originated in the 60s&70s.

In the 90s flurry to move off mainframes, the financial industry spent billions of dollars on (failed) re-engineering efforts to redo those legacy overnight batch settlement applications to straight-through processing on large number of "killer micros" (the increasing workload and globalization shrinking the overnight window was putting extreme pressure in being able to get the batch settlement work done in the overnight batch window). In the wake of those failed efforts, there were industry comments that it would be quite some time before it was tried again (waiting on all the people involved in the 90s to have retired).

The upthread reference to estimate of 18-20 million aggregate world-wide mainframe MIPS processing is the equivalent of 270 max configured EC12 (@75BIPS) and @$33M ... was about the annual sales for extended period. However, recent financial numbers is that it has dropped to about 1/5th that ... indicating that financial industry may be on the move again.

The max. configured EC12 @75BIPS and $33M is $440K/BIPS. IBM had base list price of $1815 for e5-2600v1 blade ... approx. $3.50/BIPS. For decade or so the large cloud megadatacenters claim they assemble their own servers blades for 1/3rd the price of brand name (IBM, DELL, HP, etc) or a little over $1/BIPS (increasing shift to cloud computing putting downward pressure on server profit margins and possible motivation for IBM to unload its server business). The e5-2699v3 at 1.3TIPS is over twice the processing power of e5-2600v1 blades of 2-3 years ago (A single rack of e5-2699v3 blades would represents more processing power than the aggregate of all mainframes in the world today ... and a typical cloud megadatacenter will have hundreds of thousands of such blades at nearly one millionth the cost of equivalent mainframe processing).

recent posts mentioning overnight batch window
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#29 Royal Pardon for credit unions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#81 CPU time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#83 CPU time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#22 US Federal Reserve pushes ahead with Faster Payments planning
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#90 Why do bank IT systems keep failing ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#10 Can the mainframe remain relevant in the cloud and mobile era?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#69 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#78 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#14 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#38 Meet Cobol's hard core fans
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#93 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#76 This Was the Very First Website In the US
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#71 Decimation of the valuation of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#119 Holy Grail for parallel programming language

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

European data law: UK.gov TRASHES 'unambiguous consent' plans

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: 29 Dec 2014
Subject: European data law: UK.gov TRASHES 'unambiguous consent' plans
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
also Google+
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/6GbAdvhwT8d

European data law: UK.gov TRASHES 'unambiguous consent' plans
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/29/uk_trashes_consent_plans_in_eu_data_protection_reforms

Cal. state (after passing data breach notification law) was working on opt-in personal information sharing legislation ... when the financial industry got an opt-out provision added to GLBA (now better known for repeal of Glass-Steagall), preempting the cal. state legislation. Opt-in required that the institution have explicit record of individual agreeing to personal information sharing, Opt-out instead requires that the institution have explicit record of individual objecting to personal information sharing.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#data.breach.notification.notification

At 2004 annual privacy conferencing in Wash. DC there was panel discussion with all the FTC commissioners and somebody in the audience got up as asked the FTC if they were going to do anything about opt-out. He said he was associated with technology used in all the financial industry call centers and knew that none of the 1-800 opt-out operations had any facilities for making a record of "out-out" requests (and with no opt-out record, there was no restrictions on sharing personal information)

recent posts mentioning opt-in/opt-out
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#70 Obama Administration Launches Plan To Make An "Internet ID" A Reality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#94 Privacy vs. freedom of the press--Google court ruling
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#15 Is it time for a revolution to replace TLS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#19 350 DBAs stare blankly when reminded super-users can pinch data
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#21 Thomas Piketty Is Right About the Past and Wrong About the Future
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#76 Did these tech and telecom companies assess the risk and return with respect to Anti-Money Laundering challenges?

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Slushware

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Slushware
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 29 Dec 2014 22:00:50 -0800
alan_altmark@US.IBM.COM (Alan Altmark) writes:
Yet you never hear "millicode" being applied to storage controllers or other parts outside of the processor. And you know as well as I do that they aren't replacing microcode on the processor chips. They're replacing the OS and the applications that use them. But we continue to call it "microcode." The joke's on us....

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#161 Slushware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#163 Slushware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#164 Slushware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#166 Slushware

79/80 there was effort to replace the myriad of internal microprocessors with 801/risc ... 801 Iliad chips for the low & mid-range 370s, 801 ROMP chip for the follow-on to the displaywriter, new 801 chip for the AS/400 (follow-on to s/36 & s/38), 801 chips for wide variety of (disk, tape, communication, etc) controlers, etc.

For various reasons all of these failed and things returned to business as usual with various CISC chips ... and started to see 801 chip engineers leaving to other vendors to work on risc programs there.

the follow-on to 4331/4341, 4361&4381 were originally to be 801 microprocessors with 370 simulation done in 801 software ... rather than whatever preceeding CISC processors were used ("vertical microcode" that avg. ten native instructions per 370 instruction). There was even work on JIT (just in time dynamic compiling of 370 into native 801/risc) ... somewhat analogous to what is seen with some modern day JAVA.

I helped with white paper that shot down the use of 801/Iliad for 4381 ... the story was that CISC chips were getting sophisticated enough that much of 370 instructions could be directly implemented in silicon ... rather than having to be all simulation in microcode (software) ... resulting in significant better price/performance.

as/400 eventually abandoned 801/risc implementation, changing to traditional CISC microprocessor. However, a decade later AS/400 did move over to 801/risc with power/pc. past 801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, power, etc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

A little later, IBM Germany did the (native) 370 "ROMAN" chipset. Somehow somebody in Nixdorf (did 370 clones) came into possession of detailed specs. for ROMAN. He sent it to somebody at Amdahl that he had been working with ... who presented it to me to return to the rightful owners (trying to avoid any litigation that might come from having come into the possession of the document).

Turns out that I was trying to get a project going to package a few dozen "ROMAN" chipsets in a rack. It was sort of follow-on to something I had gotten dragged into a few years earlier. I had access to engineering 4341 (before first customer ship) and got asked to do some benchmarking for national lab that was looking at getting 70 4341s for compute farm (sort of precursor to modern grid & supercomputing). A cluster of 4341s had more computer power than high-end mainframes, were much cheaper, and required much less floor space and environmentals. old 4341 email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#4341

later I got involved in doing something similar ... but packing as many 801/RIOS chips in a rack as possible (instead of 370/ROMAN). some old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

IBM Continues To Crumble

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM Continues To Crumble
Date: 30 Dec 2014
Blog: IBM - Past and Present Employees
IBM Continues To Crumble
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2757655-ibm-continues-to-crumble

similar threads in other groups
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#140 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#142 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#145 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#155 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#170 IBM Continues To Crumble

Note that there was big jump in price/performance of mid-range computing ... which resulted in explosion in the mid-range market. 4300s sold against DEC VAX and in similar numbers for small unit numbers. Big difference was large corporate orders for hundreds of 4300s at a time that went out in departmental areas (sort of the leading edge of the distributed computing tsunami). Clusters of 4341s also had more processing power, cost less, better price/performance and had lower physical and environmental footprint than high-end mainframes. At one point head of POK got corporate to cut allocation of a critical 4341 manufacturing component in half (trying to limit threat). I had access to engineering 4341 (before they starting shipping) and was con'ed into do benchmarks for national lab that was looking at getting 70 4341s for compute farm (leading edge of modern GRID, cloud, and supercomputing). some old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#4341

4361/4381s were follow-on to 4331/4341 and originally were expected to continue the explosion in sales ... but by that time the mid-range market was already starting to move to workstations and large PCs. This old post has a decade of DEC VAX sales, sliced&diced by year, model, US/non-US ... showing the collapse of the mid-range market:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#0

In early 90s I was asked to help guy from SLAC on technology that was being standardized for high-performance processor interconnect ... including processor cache coherency ... which eventually morphs into SCI. Then several vendors use SCI to tie together 128-256 processor chips trying to move into the high-end enterprise market (Convex using HP chips, later bought by HP, SGI using MIPS chips, Sequent & DG using Intel chips). Most straight-forward to moving into commercial, high-end enterprise market was trying to get the RDBMS vendors to scale-up to such processor configurations. The one that survived the longest was Sequent (lots of barriers to moving into the high-end enterprise market) ... but then IBM bought Sequent and shut it down. some old smp posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

Part of what overran scale-up with the SCI approach ... was the emerging cloud computing paradigm ... they were starting to heavily focus on doing their own assembles at optimal price/performance (initial upfront part costs, lifetime power, cooling, MTBF, etc) ... which emerges as enormous numbers of identical blades. They also radically change the computing market because they are doing their own machines which they view as a cost item ... not a profit item.

slightly related, some old ha/cmp posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
and some old ha/cmp scale-up email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

SUBJECT: New scientific breakthrough in software creates virtual "black hole" for data transmission

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: SUBJECT: New scientific breakthrough in software creates virtual "black hole" for data transmission
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 10:18:16 -0800
Andy Burns <usenet.feb2014@adslpipe.co.uk> writes:
"The science and computing department, headed-up by the famous Tim-Berners Lee who invented the Internet"

it was al gore that invented the internet ... old posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#43 Al Gore: Inventing the Internet...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#56 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#58 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#59 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#63 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#67 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?^
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#77 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?^
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#5 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?^
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#10 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?^
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#11 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?^
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#13 internet preceeds Gore in office.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#14 internet preceeds Gore in office.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#15 internet preceeds Gore in office.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#18 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?^
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#19 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?^
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#20 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?^
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#26 Al Gore, The Father of the Internet (hah!)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#28 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?^
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#38 I'll Be! Al Gore DID Invent the Internet After All ! NOT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#39 I'll Be! Al Gore DID Invent the Internet After All ! NOT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#44 Al Gore and the Internet (Part 2 of 2)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#45 Al Gore and the Internet (Part 2 of 2)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#46 Al Gore and the Internet (Part 2 of 2)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#47 Al Gore and the Internet (Part 2 of 2)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#49 Al Gore and the Internet (Part 2 of 2)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#50 Al Gore and the Internet (Part 2 of 2)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#51 Al Gore and the Internet (Part 2 of 2)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#79 Al Gore and the Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#80 Al Gore and the Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#81 Al Gore and the Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#82 Al Gore and the Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#85 Al Gore and the Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#86 Al Gore and the Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#15 Al Gore and the Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#28 trains was: Al Gore and the Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#35 pop density was: trains was: Al Gore and the Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#36 pop density was: trains was: Al Gore and the Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005d.html#10 Cerf and Kahn receive Turing award
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005d.html#63 Cranky old computers still being used
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#38 Did this 1985 film coin the phrase 'information superhighway' and predict Siri?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#89 Gordon Crovitz: Who Really Invented the Internet?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#5 Gordon Crovitz: Who Really Invented the Internet?

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Holy Grail for parallel programming language

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Holy Grail for parallel programming language
Date: 30 Dec 2014
Blog: LinkedIn
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#118 By the time we get to 'O' in OODA...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#119 Holy Grail for parallel programming language
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#123 Holy Grail for parallel programming language

Not OODA ... but x-over that I periodically draw with Boyd's "Organic Design For Command & Control" ... and the characterization that military has been rigid, top-down command&control. RDBMS table format convention tends to be relatively rigid ... because creating it for other than financial accounts tends to be extremely human/time intensive ... that along with SQL difficulty dealing with 3-value logic and NULLs/unknowns (not known true/false).

reading: On War: The Collected Columns of William S. Lind 2003-2009, loc899-901:
Here are two concrete examples: if Transformation truly means moving the U.S. Army from the 2nd Generation to the 3rd, headquarters above the brigade level would become both fewer and smaller. Will that happen? Another example: a 3rd Generation military understands John Boyd's point that implicit communications are faster and more reliable than explicit communications.

... snip ...

my computer example ... as youngster (undergraduate) in the 60s, I was obsessed with code optimization, processing power being scarce/bottleneck resource. I worked hard to radically cut number of instructions to perform functions ... sometimes by a factor of one hundred times. I then got enamored with doing things in zero instructions ... reorganizing whole other sections of the infrastructure so what I wanted to happen was a side-effect of the re-org. The problem was that all this was very carefully crafted ... nearly 20yrs later people would complain that if they made slight modifications to that computer code ... things stopped working as they were suppose to. The issue was transition to people that came in and were only looking at very small slices of what was going on, without bothering to understand the whole infrastructure ... I've had the opportunity to reference "Flatlanders" as one metaphor for the problem.

On War, loc4019-23:
The Sling and the Stone offers some excellent descriptions of 4th Generation war, and it also contributes a very important insight to 4th Generation theory, namely that speed in the OODA-Loop may be less important than accuracy of observation and orientation. Exactly how the OODA-Loop works in 4th Generation conflicts remains an open question; it is possible that 4th Generation forces can out-cycle state armed forces not by being faster, but by moving so slowly that they are unobservable.

was part of discussion about 4GW not about body count & killing but about creating safety loc3225-28:
What has enabled Lt. Waters and his unit of California National Guardsmen to get it right? Lt. Waters is a cop. Specifically, he is a sheriff from Sacramento. He is dealing with the people of Baghdad the same way he deals with the people back home, politely and with a genuine desire to help. His unit has not killed anyone because Lt. Waters knows cops succeed by de-escalating, not by escalating violence. Cops try very hard not to kill people. In fact, cops don't want to fight at all.

... snip ...

my code was dynamic adaptive from 60s when i was undergraduate ... when computers were measured in fractions of a MIPS processing power and memory was several hundred kilobytes. I made lots of tradeoffs to monitor all resources and do it in minimum instructions counts (space & time). It lasted for 20years being able to adapt to factor of 100 times larger systems. By then some of the trade-offs had changed ... being able to take more time & space to evaluate increasingly complex environment. Systems now have terabytes of memory and TIPS in processing power (more than million times greater).

It lingered on for little more than 20yrs ... early 1992, we were making marketing call on large financial institution in Hong Kong .. riding up the elevator and newly minted computer science graduate in the back asks if I'm "the" lynn wheeler ... we studied your work in school.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#fairshare

Had moved on, rather than managing single large monolithic processor doing enormous number of different things was working with scale-up involving having huge numbers of optimal priced components all working together. this is old post about Jan1992 meeting on (commercial) cluster scale-up in ellison's conference room
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13
other past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

and old email from the period about cluster scale-up both commercial and working with the labs and other institutions on scientific/technical.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

within a couple weeks after the ellison meeting, cluster scale-up is transferred, announced as the IBM supercomputer (for scientific/technical *ONLY*) and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors (most of mainstream IBM revenue was from the single large mainframes in the commercial market and this was a major threat). Now you have all supercomputers, GRID computing, cloud computing, etc ... composed of enormous numbers of optimal price/performance components.

A little x-over from recent post (NOTE: large number of less expensive doesn't have to mean lower quality): On War, loc5598-5600:
Another lesson is that diesel-electric subs can be as effective or more effective than nuclear boats in same situations. The U.S. Navy hates the very idea of non-nuclear submarines and therefore pretends they don't count for much. You can buy four to eight modern diesel-electric submarines for the cost of a single American U-cruiser nuke boat.

loc5612-15:
That is the real lesson of the Chinese sub incident: The U.S. Navy, like the U.S. Air Force, without a torpedo fired or a single dogfight, is on its way to Davy Jones's Locker through sheer intellectual inanition. Preparing endlessly for another carrier war in the Pacific against the Imperial Japanese Navy, it has become a historical artifact.

November 20, 2006


more recent: Future War: Why Quantity Will Trump Quality; T. X. Hammes on why the U.S. military needs to rethink its procurement strategy in light of the shift from few and exquisite to small, many and smart.
http://thediplomat.com/2014/11/future-war-why-quantity-will-trump-quality/

related to less expensive isn't necessarily lower quality, Lind's version of Success Of Failure: (On War, July 29, 2004 column) loc1730-32:
Remember, government bureaucracies don't get more money and more power when they succeed, but when they fail. With an incentive system like that, it is fairly obvious what the rest of us are going to get more of: the consequences of intelligence failures.

... snip ...

repeat Success Of Failure ... 2007
http://www.govexec.com/excellence/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/

and other posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#success.of.failuree

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

IBM Continues To Crumble

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM Continues To Crumble
Date: 30 Dec 2014
Blog: IBM Alumni
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#140 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#142 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#145 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#155 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#170 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#173 IBM Continues To Crumble

SCI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Coherent_Interface
Sequent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequent_Computer_Systems

and from long ago and far away ....

Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1992 14:00 -0800 (PST)
From: SLACVM.SLAC.Stanford.EDU
Subject: SCI Meeting Agenda
To: wheeler@losgatos.ibm.com, wheeler@almaden.ibm.com, others

Date: Monday, June 29, Time: 2:30 p.m.
Place: Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, Room 322

(An optional tutorial on SCI, the Scalable Coherent Interface, IEEE Std 1596-1992, will start at 1:30 if there is interest. Please send mail to slacvm.slac.stanford.edu if you'd like to attend the tutorial.)

Directions: Take Freeway 280 to the Sand Hill Road exit (Menlo Park), turn eastward toward the Bay, go over one hill. Enter SLAC via main entrance at 2575 Sand Hill Road. Drive past the guard house (not necessary to stop) and turn left at the T intersection. Follow that ring road a few hundred meters as it bends a quarter turn; park in the second parking lot you come to on your left, or as near as you can. The SSRL building is the one nearest this lot.

Agenda:

2:30 Introductions 2:35 Background:

Future computing challenges at SLAC
Resulting Research Issues
Proposed Research Program and Funding 2:50 Phases
for the SCI research program (Gustavson)
Getting started
Collaboration
Goals and Milestones
Discussion

Opportunity for brief industry presentations 3:35 Break (some have to leave at this time) 3:45 Resume discussions and presentations.


... snip ... top of post, old email index

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 10:45:27 -0800
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#160 LEO

the lack of adult supervision marches on

Banking Culture Encourages Dishonesty
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/banking-culture-encourages-dishonesty/

Audit: when the Economist finally opens up the debate on the silent fraud of the century
http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001537.html

Accounting scandals: The dozy watchdogs
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21635978-some-13-years-after-enron-auditors-still-cant-stop-managers-cooking-books-time-some?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/the_dozy_watchdogs

Is The CDS Market Manipulated?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-31/cds-market-manipulated

The Cartel: How BP Got Insider Tips Through a Secret Chat Room
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-30/-cartel-chat-room-tied-to-bp-gave-fx-tips-from-banks-to-client.html

libor manipulation ... just one of many
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#libor toxic CDOs were just part of CDS scam
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

supposedly in the wake of enron
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#enron
sarbanes-oxley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#sarbanes-oxley
guaranteed that executives and auditors would do jail time for public company fraudulent financial filings ... but GAO started doing reports showing fraudulent financial filings actually increased after sarbanes-oxley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#financial.reporting.fraud.fraud

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

LEO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: LEO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 11:43:48 -0800
hancock4 writes:
Arms makers are a very big business.

A few years ago, DOD cutbacks hit the NE US pretty hard. It was ironic that former peaceniks, who used to picket DOD installations and arms makers, were now running around trying to protect such places from closure to protect the jobs and contribution to the local economy.

I think in California, home of the aerospace manufacturers and other major defense contractors, defense spending, and its ripple effect to subcontractors, is a big part of the economy.


Eisenhower warning about military-industrial complex had something about for every dollar spent on the MICC is dollar not spent on something more beneficial.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex
https://www.amazon.com/Prophets-War-Lockheed-Military-Industrial-ebook/dp/B0047T86BA/

one of the accounts is that they approached former eastern block and told them that if they voted in the UN for US invasion of Iraq ... that their applciation for NATO membership would be viewed much more favorably ... and NATO membership would get them US AID to buy NATO "compatible" weapons (from US ARM merchants) ... aka US ARM merchants aren't just supported by US taxpayers through the DOD budget ... but also through (congressional directed appropriation that can only be used for stated purpose) US AID.

semi-related (from one of Boyd acolytes) Lind's version of Success of Failure, "On War: The Collected Columns of William S. Lind 2003-2009", (July 29, 2004) loc1730-32:
Remember, government bureaucracies don't get more money and more power when they succeed, but when they fail. With an incentive system like that, it is fairly obvious what the rest of us are going to get more of: the consequences of intelligence failures.

... snip ...
https://www.amazon.com/War-Collected-Columns-William-2003-2009-ebook/dp/B00OY2QFAY/

and little later, repeat Success of Failure ... 2007
http://www.govexec.com/excellence/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/

past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#success.of.failuree

Boyd related posts/URLs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

recent posts mentioning "Prophets of War":
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#54 NBC's website hacked with malware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#20 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#21 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#32 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#43 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#50 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#51 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#53 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#54 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#62 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#67 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#5 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#14 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#30 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#74 What Makes collecting sales taxes Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#92 A Matter of Mindset: Iraq
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#41 Is newer technology always better? It almost is. Exceptions?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#78 Has the US Lost Its Grand Strategic Mind?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#80 The REAL Reason U.S. Targets Whistleblowers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#31 An insider's story of the global attack on climate science
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#38 Can America Win Wars
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#20 US No Longer Tech Leader in Military War Gear
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#104 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970







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