Some Technical Musings (with Job Offer Potential!)

I took a break from my regular busy grad-student life to attend a seminar today hosted by National Instruments regarding their new LabView software revisions. As Pegasus uses LabView for nearly every aspect of data acquisition and control (at one level or another), it seems well worth my while to learn about the subject from the people who make it!

While the experience was what I expected -- marketing hype mixed with real engineering tidbits thrown in -- a conversation with the presenter at the end was not. I had asked a question regarding some of the finer points of his talk, when he abruptly changed topic, asking me about my background and job prospects! He seemed disappointed when I told him I was in for the long haul with the Ph.D, but wanted to emphasize how my "significant" (I would have chosen "meager") understanding of LabView makes me much more marketable in today's job market.

I suppose that makes sense, given that lots of Big Companies are now using LabView to automate very large production systems, etc. Still, it's fun to know that I have a fall-back skill to sell to industry -- even to the point where I get an easy crack at a job just by attending their seminar!

On another note, I've been reading with disgust about the new Sony Rootkit technology that has been secretly corrupting the Windows OS for the express purpose of enforcing its DRM -- to the point where one is prevented from ripping the tracks from the raw audio data for use on an iPod! (Before I go off the deep end in techno-babble, you can find out more about rootkits and how to find them, as well as more on the Sony rootkit here.) On top of the flagrant breaches in computer security and trampling of consumer fair use rights, the uninstall program that was initially published by Sony after an uproar of public anger -- which requires use of an ActiveX controller using Internet Explorer -- turns out to allow arbitrary code to be run by any subsequent website that a victim of this rootkit may visit!

Let's hope that Sony gets slapped with some huge civil and criminal suits as a result of this massive attack on computers worldwide. (It is a Federal crime, after all, to knowingly and maliciously alter computer systems without owner consent!) Heck, there's even been reports that it may contain LGPL software components without redistribution of source and object code modules -- meaning we may see yet another trial of the GPL in court!