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X11 over the network is a bandwidth hog, that's all there is to it.

I'll beg to differ, but I admit I'm not sure what the slowness from X comes from. We spent a month or so trying to figure it out once, just becuase we didn't like exceed and didn't want to have to use it. In the long and short of it, bandwidth was ruled out pretty quickly.

Let me explain the background here. So our employees can VPN, we run many apps over X. Its snappier then VNC for the layout people, but has some lag time loading programs, and responding to clicks.

I think a lot of it is client based. Exceed worked great, even on 56k connections. The XFree client (both on windows and Linux) didn't, and hooking up larger and larger pipes didn't seem to effect it. Truth is we never measured that great a bandwidth usage from any of our tests.

I'd be interested in seeing any data you have on what made X so slow, especially if you think it is bandwidth. We even ran the X compression server, and that sped things up a bit, but not reliably.

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OnRoad: Posting automotive articles is automatic, democratic and fantastic.

It was no secret that they lost tiles on the early missions. I remember seeing it on TV when they practically broadcast the whole missions.

I had a chance to ask a shuttle materials engineer what the deal was, and why we don't hear of tiles just falling off anymore. Apperently they found out that the glue they were using to fasten the ceramic tiles would absorb water, then in space that water would boil off (no atmospheric pressure) and pop off the tiles.

The fix? Silicone adhesive (I think it was just used as a sealant, I can't remember the details). Its the same stuff you buy in the store, but NASA grade. Tile's popping off were no longer a problem, however they get chipped and dammaged quite a bit.

They talk about the insulation that could have dammaged it, but its silicon carbide (hardness next to diamonds) thats on the front of the wings. They are worried about debris in space all the time, some of it traveling at a relative speed of mach 20, puncturing holes even in the silicon carbide.

Another speculated that the tire pressure problems were the tires failing due to excessive heat.

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OnRoad: Posting automotive articles is automatic, democratic and fantastic.

Communications and flight and aircraft and the like

If you get to know a Ranger well enough, you'll learn that its more then smart bombs that are using to knock over targets worldwide these days. Get to know a Marine Recon well enough, and you'll realize we've got human fingers in lots of pies around the world.

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OnRoad: Too High PSI, the story of a turbo and an unassuming Mustang.

Or the ones that heal you above normal health, so that when you do get hit by a rocket you're still healthy.

Me, I'd just like a universal pack that makes anyone's armor glow with god-like energy, and a gun that says "Excellent" when I hit a bunch of people at once.

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OnRoad: Too high PSI, the story of a turbo and an unassuming Mustang.

Isn't there a marvel comic villain that likes to pin peoples eyes open, and make them watch things? I always thought it was corny, not believable like some mafioso King Pin or a crazy homosidal artist like Joker, or even a rich person like Lex Luther. But now, I wonder...

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OnRoad: Too high PSI; the story of a turbo and an unassuming Mustang.

Is it me or do companies split off and merge at stock market whims? A companies stock goes up for merging, the all merge. When one company makes money from spinning off, they all start spinning off companies.

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OnRoad: It gets you there and back again.

That brings up a very good question. I remember trolls imbedding wronchy stuff in otherwise informative posts just to laugh when moderators modded them up. Its not difficult, when we have 100+ comments a story, its rare that one will be completely read.

What does having to choose from 100+ submissions a day do? I've had submissions get canned, half an hour before someone else's link to the same story goes up. I'm not complaining, but how do they decide and what does that do to a brain?

Doing some moderation on K5, I can tell you that its gruelling after a while. I don't know how they keep up like they do. And now they are in the buisness of multi thousand word stories. A boon to sci-fi for sure, but a drain on editors.

That might be one of the reasons I started my own site, I like the small-town atmosphere of a personal website. I like going out and finding my own content. Doing what these guys do has to be hazardous to the brain.

I hope that by continuing this thread I will not be tempting the fate of these god-like but fallible figures.

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OnRoad: It gets you there and back again.

I agree. As I saw it...

Gabucino: No thats not true becuase of X, Y and Z.

Debian Zealot: Noo! I can't trust your information now becuase your just wrong! ...repeated over and over again.

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OnRoad: It gets you there and back again.

I agree, and I come from an almost exact same background. I've noticed that management tends towards expecting a lot with little investment. "I want this network to work is all! No we don't need any more infrastructure, I don't care if our switches came from K-mart, they worked plenty well at my last job. Don't tell me how it works, tell me what is wrong."

The most succesful IT people know how to reverse that tendancy, or feed off it. Better and more trickier to reverse it. I don't see myself in IT too much longer if I can help it. I'm pretty good at it, but like Methos in the Highlander series, the fights all but gone out of me.

I'd rather get into instruction, or more specialized CAD. If I don't find my way into actually being able to engineer this or another network, its just not worth it. I don't have the nerves to keep putting out fires, or wait for them to happen.

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OnRoad: Boldly reporting the SUV war from the middle of the road.

We've been discussing this somewhat at work. AFS and CODA do distributed (redundant, not p2p) file serving, and have their own backup system. Thats my favorite option for ensuring live-good data, lots of copies everywhere kept live.

On the other side of the fence is are proponents of very centralized, backed up storage using DVDr's for product snapshots and tapes as a sort of revision control system.

Perhaps some mixture of both is what we'll do, but its the principle I'm talking about!

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Onroad: Boldly reporting the SUV war from the middle of the road.

I'd bet that most if not all coders get themself copies of their code and keep it in their own portfolio to reuse and recycle it.

I worked for a dot-bomb, and a company that is still around. I erased all of it. Not for security or copyright issues, but becuase there wasn't anything of use.

Most of the broad purpose code was like re-writing CVS (yes I'm not kidding), or gnu-E. One of my qualms in working for those companies was their hush-hush secretive attitude. And when you get past to find out what the secret is, its like "your doing that? Why not just use this GPL code right here?"

I realize my experience might be out of the ordinary, but I got rid of it just becuase I had no use for it.

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OnRoad: Boldly reporting the SUV war from the middle of the road.

it really does show that their policy of blaming the users for not patching their systems perhaps isn't the best approach to take.

Recently we had a server crash, and unfortunately it was handling some of our legacy compatibility services. When it went down it, it was amazing how many little things we had always meant to kill off, but couldn't or didn't. Why not? Becuase it was simply safer to keep it running then clean house at that time.

Now we're forced to move on, and shake off the old shackles. It feels good, but I don't like doing it. Every upgrade is a potential break, and its worse that they come at such random intervals.

Its ironic that the "safety" reflex that simultaneously attracts one to Microsoft will make them vulnerable to these kinds of exploits. I admit I feel that safety reflex everytime I have to patch a legacy app, I don't blame the MCSE's for resisting these small patches.

So in essence, I agree. They are victims of their own sense of security. I am a victim of my own sense of security. You know when Thomas Jefferson said a revolution in government every some-odd number of years is a good thing, I wish I could do the same for my network rather then deal with the incremental cruft. But then with a million other sys-admins on this board, I'd cringe doing that too.

I guess theres just no easy answer. It won't work perfectly out of the box, and any change will bring potential problems. Its the duplicity that keeps me employed, yet wrings my guts sometimes.

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OnRoad: Reporting the SUV war from the middle of the road.

I think the point is that if you are not making money, let it go to the public domain. The size of the corporation is going to change the bottom line.

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OnRoad: Tempering Detroit iron with our own hot-air since, well, last week.

If I remember right, its

True
False
Undefined
Null

And one more.

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OnRoad: Tempering Detroit iron with our own hot air since, well, last week.

The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers.

Good one. (heh, thats a joke, good one).

Is there any concept in OpenSource like a boolean that can hold 5 values? If I remember my VB, their boolean holds something like that.

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OnRoad: Tempering Detroit iron with our own hot air since, well, last week.

For me its much more usefull to find old shows online then live broadcasts. My TV bandwidth is much greater then my internet bandwidth, and I get better clearer pictures.

Instead, I'm more interested in legality of sharing old broadcasts. Some of the best shows (like "Probe") will never be shown again or offered in DVD. We recently threw away boxes of tapes of old "Fall Guy" episodes, and it would be great to watch "Barney Miller" again.

In the case of copyright, Eldred makes my favorite point. That copyrights sould be renewable but for an exponentially higher fee every year. That way the pomposness of the Disney's of the world that still make millions off of 70 year old charectars would not block out the rare but good old shows that have been abandoned.

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OnRoad: Tempering Detroit iron with our own hot air since, well, last week.

Then, as a footnote, at the end of a news broadcast, the program lists some statistic about the environmental impact of SUV's.

Actually this kind of hypocrisy is giving fodder for right-wing pundits more then anything else. For instance, last year after the superbowl, Adrianne online posted a link on how, rather then drugs, SUV's were contributing to foreign terrorism. Lately she's been lambasted from the NY Times Gossip Column and the Washinton Post for her own overt use of energy resources.

I found this out while I was researching a piece for my online car website. I'd rather think that sitting in trees, or walking cross country would be a better way to get the message out.

Combatitive messages like this only puts your enemies farther from you, and only convinces people who already agree with you.

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OnRoad: Tempering detroit iron with our own hot air.

Then, as a footnote, at the end of a news broadcast, the program lists some statistic about the environmental impact of SUV's.

Actually this kind of hypocrisy is giving fodder for right-wing pundits more then anything else. For instance, last year after the superbowl, Adrianne online posted a link on how, rather then drugs, SUV's were contributing to foreign terrorism. Lately she's been lambasted from the NY Times Gossip Column and the Washinton Post for her own overt use of energy resources.

I found this out while I was researching a piece for my online car website. I'd rather think that sitting in trees, or walking cross country would be a better way to get the message out.

Combatitive messages like this only puts your enemies farther from you, and only convinces people who already agree with you.

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OnRoad: Tempering detroit iron with our own hot air.

Its not a doll its an action figure! There's a difference.... Your just picking on me becuase you're insecure.

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OnRoad Tempering detroit iron with our own hot air since, well, last week.

I have to agree with you there, magic realism can be rather clever sometimes. "Like Water for Chocolate" was another film adaptation of something from that genre. Its best when it is the most subtle.

I think that its probably more prevelant in the latino (spanish, mexican and italian) cultures though. I think it has to do with how they've seen reality historically.

Its not uncommon to hear of miracles in these cultures, happening as every-day events. One wonders if its perception of reality or reality. That mystery and its inclination for allegorical accentuation makes it one of my favorite genres.

In fact I remember on NPR about a Mexican who wrote three best selling books about his ancestry, but had to fight to have them put into non-fiction. The debate ensued becuase they include events like his a police man not seeing the beer his father was smuggling in the back of a pick-up, when his mother exclaime "God, you owe me!"

Whether or not they are reality, I find real litterary virtue in those events.

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OnRoad: Tempering detroit iron with our own hot air since, well, last week.

That reminds me of how easy it is to get an "enthusiastic reaction". When I worked for Spin Records, we always heard how "potential customers reacted enthusiastically to" this and "got very enthusiastic feedback" from that. One of the investors was a group of Hassidic Jews, I wonder how much "enthusiasm" they got there.

But it just reminds me of the old TV gag, where they put up a taste test of lemonade and put the cameras in plain view. Only its not lemonade, its lemon juice. You watch the people fight sour expressions to extoling their enthusiasm about the product, just for their 15 minutes.

I'm not overly pessimistic here or anything, but when you mentioned "looking over his shoulder" thats what came to mind.

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OnRoad: Tempering detroit iron with our own hot air since, well, last week.

Those focus groups managed to turn a very sweet concept into my Dad's Oldsmobile.

Theres something you and I agree on. Focus groups often ruin a good thing. Whether or not a "talking car" is one of those good things is open to personal interpretation.

Flamewar? This is the tamest flamewar I've ever seen.

And potentially the most trivial. Wait, no. I seem to remember plenty of flame wars on Slashdot over much more trivial things.

You are sure bent on making a flame war on something pretty dumb.

Seems like you made the same mistake that GM made.

My mistake is not the same. I simply don't like a talking car. GM's mistake was making one, since people in general said they don't like a talking car.

This isn't measured in blind suppositions like "Sales are down, better remove the talking option", Its measured in direct focus groups in which people are given different talking options. I don't know what the results of these were, but I know that cars don't talk any more, and I know what I would have said.

I would have told them that I listen to the radio, other passengers, and CD's. Theres no reason that I need the car to interupt that (or be missed because of it) to talk to me when a simple light does the same thing.

I should be CEO of General Motors or something.

Reminds me of when Homer designed an automobile...

By the way, I'm writing my opinion on this up as a part of an article I'm submitting on my site; Onroad, feel free to meet me there on Monday.

There are MANY hardware products out there that have been killed because of software issues like this.

True, and a ten year old car is not *that* old. But I put faith in two things, the rough-rummagers that are the after-after-after market for cars that balance the universe filled with car manufacturers bent on making disposable cars. And in this case, the adaptability of the Open Source movement.

I know people were afraid of computers in cars back when the EEC-IV was almost mandated by Ford in its cars. In a way it was a heavy handed bid to make cars less accessible, and more disposable. If we can't fix our cars, then we have to junk them.

"How are we going to be able to access our cars?". But it wasnt a few years until the wrench-heads were on top of the ECU in general and putting out mod chips and whatever. And while people junked their cars more, the junk yard riders started multiplying like Orks in the mountains.

In this case it might take an unlikely marraige of wrench heads and geeks. I know that Linux is installed on many WindowsCE devices, and perhaps this could mean the dream come true for the software/automobile hacker. Yes you too can sell PerlMod scripts that increase your performance by 20+hp!

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OnRoad:How to make money off u-pull-it parts.

Thats an echo I hear from 1983 when the Cadillacs and Lincons had a voice system. "Your door is ajar... Your door is ajar" was repeated more frequently, but not by much, as the existential despair of people saying "I expect to see this kind of system in many cars of the future".

Digital watches, talking cars are all replaced back with good old dials and switches. I think the only reason the remote control won out over the dials is becuase its barely easier to use then getting up out of your seat.

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OnRoad: How to make money off u-pull-it parts.

Why not just use texting and alerts? My Nextel phone accepts text messages the people can send through and email to me. I'm having it hooked up to my bug tracking system so network bugs labeled "URGENT" gets forwarded to me.

Also, my wife and I use the two-way radio alot. In some ways its less "impersonal" since people can hear the other side of the conversation. And people accept screaming into a walkie-talkie better then into a Cell Phone anyway.

But on the two-way radio is simply an "Alert" which simply means call me back when you get a chance.

In reality though, even though its fun to think of punishing people for thier rudeness, or shocking people into being more social the solutions are already out there. Vibrate modes, and cell phones that you don't need to yell into these days.

I don't think that we need to return to the days captured in Bugs Bunny cartoons of stopping a movie and having someone scream "Is there A Doctor (So and So) In the house?"

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OnRoad:Hacking that which costs more money and is more deadly. (Its a just car enthusiast site really)

When I do a search on gnutella, I used to get nothing but good information. Then about three months ago I started seeing files like (say I was searching for Avalanches)

Avalanches.jpg
Avalanches.mpg
Avalanches.mov ...and so forth. Its pretty easy to avoid them, I don't think they are fooling anyone. I've never even clicked on them to see what they actually contained.

Wait, I did get snookered once. I was searching for "Camaflouge" the old Depech-mode sounding 80's band, which I haven't found a way to purchase the CD anyway. One of the files I pulled down turned out to be a really sweet rendition of "I Know that My Redeemer Lives". I suspect it was a fellow mormon reminding me of my values. But I liked the rendition so much that I kept it and play it.

(By the way, I own the Avalanches CD)

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OnRoad: Hacking that which costs more money and is more deadly. (Its just a car-enthusiast site really)

Its not unusual to see such themes as open information in his books. David Brin is active on the NPR front promoting one of the few alternate plans that attempts to stop INS detentions *and* terrorist activity in one fell swoop.

His essay "The Transparent Society" calls for open information that can be used in social policing and accountability. Much of what he models this on came from observing news groups and other (i think he calls them) militant internet movements. Linux itself is one of those movements he mentioned.

If he did use the word militant, it was more a commantary on the way these groups police themselves, and how they band together to wage information war against those they don't like. In Slashdot's case that would be the RIAA, MPAA. For Linux, it would be whatever would try to keep us from hacking our own kernel.

Whats interesting about this is its Orwellian overtones, but lack of a centralized big brother. Anyway, as far as idelogues go I probably like Brin more then say Chomsky or Kato, although they have their simularities.

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OnRoad:Hacking that which costs more and is more deadly.

I know we like to see things in a context of mortal combat: good v evil, Buccaneers v Eagles, Brazil v Portugal and so on. In fact that natural human inclination is why the 6 o'clock news can't get past politics as anything but "right v left". Just choose two sides, and let one conquer the other one.

While KDE v Gnome was fashionable, say in 1997, I don't think it holds context any more. Gnome has won contracts and support with Sun, IBM and others while KDE has won support with IBM, the EU and others. The programming resources brought to the table here are far from over-extended.

You see, I to like the GTK2 libraries a lot more then GTK. I like how they took the time to build it up with all C code. I like LGPL better then GPL (but I like Artistic better then both).

But for all that I'd switch to KDE in a second if I thought that the wierd foot was out for blood, or that KDE was circling the drain. I just don't think its a competition like that.

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OnRoad: Hacking that which costs more and is more deadly.

I used to be an unofficial Catia administrator for a document conversion company. It did give me headaches but that was more becuase I didn't know what I was doing, and management wouldn't get me the help I needed to get things done. Well not until it was too late.

But an illegal immigrant from India came over one day (the only other person willing to work for as little as they wanted to pay) and showed us how easy it could be. For that day we were sitting pretty.

Part of the reason is becuase I want to be more tied to a machine shop is to have access to the equipment. I've taken a fancy to Automobile Engineering again lately, (I've even set up a scoop site I call OnRoad.)

I may be looking at it as greener and over the fence with rose colored glasses. For building kit cars, doing mods and building gladiator robots, theres just no substitute for knowing or working for a machine shop. So you can see why doing sys-and-CAD-admining for a machine shop would be a real cool niche.