User talk:Eric M Gearhart

Eric M Gearhart

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Still laughing...

You should have seen my face when I saw the edit summary, "pronounced jitters". Before I read it in context, I was picturing a roomful of generals being told that the Army, as well as the Marines, was being made a component of the Navy. :-)

Howard C. Berkowitz 16:52, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

Random numbers

Hi, could you have a look at what I found in my man pages: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Unix_directory_structure ? I think at least one of random or urandom yields real random numbers as it uses environmental noise. However, the text in my manpage differs to the text of the article in which generator gives real and wich gives pseudo random numbers. Alexander Wiebel 06:25, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

Astronomers, Amateurs, etc...

Hi, glad you liked it. Believe it or not (as I mention in the header), a lot of the dialogue really happened, in History of the Internet. It was that set-to, and the lack of support I got from fellow editors, which was the end for me on Wikipedia. We'll see how CZ turns out - it's small yet, and Wikipedia at this stage was equally nice. It's when it takes off that we'll see if our procedures are, or can be made to be, better. J. Noel Chiappa 12:05, 7 June 2008 (CDT)

Thanks on Iran-Iraq

You've encouraged me to bring over some material specific to third-country involvement with Iran-Iraq, which got so politicized at The Other Place as to be one of my reasons for leaving. Actually, I'm both proud of the Soviet support to both sides, and sad that both the US and USSR played both sides for their own geopolitical reasons.

Anyway, I put comments on the Iran-Iraq related articles page and the Iran-Iraq talk page; we can continue discussion wherever it makes sense. You've presumably see the Gulf War article; I'm not sure I feel brave enough to tackle Iraq War of 2003. Howard C. Berkowitz 23:30, 9 July 2008 (CDT)

I'm no professional military historian, but I'll help out where I can. Those articles cover a "lot of ground" so to speak. I was in Baghdad when Hussein was hanged, so I at least have an "on the ground" perspective I can add if nothing else Eric M Gearhart 00:11, 10 July 2008 (CDT)

Sort of a small world -- a friend of mine, an Engineer sergeant, who has just gone back for another tour, was part of a security perimeter 500 meters from where they pulled Saddam out of his hole. Of course, my friend didn't know why his unit had been put there for a few days, and it started out as a good opportunity for grumbling about learning to use engineers as engineers, not infantry.

It's just been a couple of weeks, so I don't know how much Internet connectivity he'll have. He is the most knowledgeable person I know on the Byzantine Empire, so he certainly could contribute here without jeopardizing OPSEC. Mind you, that sort of came up on a previous tour, when he wanted to name his AVLB bridge launcher "Constantine", and none of his chain of command knew why. Howard C. Berkowitz 00:28, 10 July 2008 (CDT)

Small world indeed. Well tell him to keep his weapon clean and his head down, and I hope he gets back safe. "The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war." -MacArthur Eric M Gearhart 00:34, 10 July 2008 (CDT)

Models in search of a homeland

Take a look at Internet Protocol Suite/Signed articles, or however you link to a subpage. Perhaps these belong in Computer networking reference models , Open Systems Interconnection Reference Model, or in their own article (rather than subpage) so all three articles can link to them.

If sufficiently provoked, I could bring up that IBM's System Network Architecture also had seven layers. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:53, 13 July 2008 (CDT)

I'll take a look... I definitely stand on the shoulders of giants in the realm of "Internet History" - some of these folks have been making a living in networking since before I was born -Eric M Gearhart 21:14, 13 July 2008 (CDT)

It's a good feeling. I've been on a number of committees with Vint Cerf, and he, Scott Bradner, and Lyman Chapin were the advisors for my last to books with Wiley. Aside from their creativity, they are all remarkably nice people. You find interesting sides -- Bob Metcalfe, the co-inventor of Ethernet, is also a pretty good stage magician. He's been skeptical as a trade press columnist, but I'll give him this -- he's the only person I know that, after saying he'd eat his words, spread mustard and mayo on a column and ate it in public. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:10, 13 July 2008 (CDT)

By the way, I just had to mention this - I work at a local Tucson ISP and I convinced my boss to buy your "Building Service Provider Networks" book. I think me telling him "I've talk with the author at length on Citizendium" helped :-) -Eric M Gearhart 11:31, 14 July 2008 (CDT)

Aha! Tucson! Do either of you know Justin Newton? Tucson had the first local exchange point. Howard C. Berkowitz 12:26, 14 July 2008 (CDT)

I work in the same building as Login (we're in the next suite), and I've heard some "famous Internet people" work there/have worked there (things like really low AS numbers, etc.) - does that sound familiar? -Eric M Gearhart 13:03, 14 July 2008 (CDT)

Would you believe...

Chief, my using decryption instead of encryption was itself a cryptosystem?

I wonder if Max Smart's shoe phone is secure? Howard C. Berkowitz 19:23, 28 July 2008 (CDT)

Having been a fan of Nick at Nite when I was younger I just literally laughed out loud :) Eric M Gearhart