Sorry, I think thats a terrible idea. One of the major benefits of the Internet is its inherent globalization. You don't have to worry about talking to someone in Russia and paying $5 a minute to the phone company, its the same cost as connecting to a site next door.
Just think how people's lives would be different if international or long distance phone charges didn't exist. How many times have you heard of someone waiting until a certain time of day to make a really long distance call? Or using Skype or some other Internet-based replacement for phone calls to get around the fees?
What you're proposing is basically to bring that sort of thing to the Internet itself, and I can't say that I want to wait until 2AM to save on my bandwidth bill.
Perhaps if airlines weren't renowned for losing / mis-routing luggage, more people would check in bags than lug around carry-ons. Not to mention the hassle that can often be involved with claiming bags in general.
A lack of confidence in the company or industry generally makes people take steps to avoid being personally effected, which in turn can make things worse in general.
Lets say that you are a discerning customer who is willing to pay more for better service (or better equipment, or whatever). It's not even possible!
Sure there are absurdly expensive cell phone plans (and phones) targeted to the wealthy, but they don't offer any improved performance or reliability on a technical level. There are fancier and more expensive computers, but fundamentally you're still at the mercy of the quality control of a given Chinese manufacturer who churns out the competing brand the next assembly line over.
There seem to be a lot of areas, especially as relates to technology or mechanical products, where there just simply is no way to get a better, more reliable product regardless of the money you spend. And what is the consumer supposed to do about that?
This is what the Irfant system turned into, and I presume this article exists due to the 1996-style "oh look a major vendor is using Linux!" thinking that pops up at Slashdot fairly regularly.
As you've said, its not really news-worthy inasmuch as lots of companies embed Linux variants in their devices (including other NAS vendors). But hey, this major company is using Linux!
This is included in some of the versions, but as you mention hasn't been on DVD before this. A far cry from someone who refuse to release the markedly superior initial versions of three films in a decent DVD format. Of course those movies in question have been forever tainted for me by the next two.
The story is that Blade Runner was repossessed by its creditors prior to release and changed, against the wills of various people who were involved in its making, in substantial ways for its theatrical release. Hence the Theatrical Version, which didn't do very well from a commercial standpoint -- possibly because its artistic vision was compromised.
Then there's the Director's Cut, which Scott has claimed does not really amount to such as he didn't have sufficient time to work on it.
Hence the interest in the Final Cut, which is claimed to be a real director's cut finally.
I'll withhold judgment until I see the Final Cut, but at this point it could be pretty good. If not, then the Director's Cut still exists and I'll try to forget that I ever saw the Final Cut. But there is the risk of the Final Cut ruining the movie in such a concrete way that I'll never watch the film again (see the director's cut of Donnie Darko).
Being against revisionism in cinematic works is one thing, but being against the restoration of a previously mangled work is another. Having said that, it's common for people to have an attachment with whatever version of a work they are originally introduced to. People tend to prefer the film version of a novel if they saw it first; they may prefer a remake over the original; etc. This is the peril of being introduced to derivative or inferior works before their superior counterparts, you have to actively discard what you saw first and it can be difficult.
For instance, if you saw Psycho (1998) before Psycho (1960) you may very well have ruined one of the best films ever made for yourself.
Nothing Records was a vanity label attached to Interscope. The whole vanity label thing is basically just a way for the very few major labels to at least project the impression of a more personal experience, but of course the money goes to the same place.
Its defunct now by the way, NIN's last two albums were directly on Interscope (which in turn is part of Universal Music Group, paired up with Geffen and A&M). There are a million vanity labels, boutique labels, divisions and other things going on yet theres really only four main companies behind all of this.
On the other hand, if you have a hostname like www.slashdot.org you don't need to specify the scheme in order for people to know what to do with it.
My biggest problem with 'www' is that its a pain in the ass to say in person. But http:/// is a bigger pain. Going beyond that, whats the point of having different TLDs if you basically have to get the.com version?
So, does this mean Yahoo! devs and other employees are under some sort of NDA? One that says' "It's your DUTY as an employee to help up keep this under wraps!"? Yes, in that inevitably some of this software will have secrets that aren't supposed to be shared outside the company. As you develop more and more of an internal software zoo, it becomes increasing less possible (and likely) that you will release any of it into the wild, since pieces will start to depend on wholly internally developed software.
Besides this, it takes work at any company to release changes or new software as open source. Manager approval, legal signoff, your own time, time and effort to get patches accepted by the community, etc. If you're dying from overwork or couldn't really care either way, it basically doesn't get done.
Actually Yahoo is very open-source centric internally, its just that they aren't very good about giving things back. Which isn't to say that they never do (they've supported FreeBSD), but there is a sea of internal tools and modifications that no one ever bothers to release.
This is similar to what I was getting at. I prefer sincere appreciation to mandated or one-day-a-year appreciation. I find it a little insulting to my intelligence that I'm not supposed to be able to tell the difference. However, since no one has ever heard of this day, it luckily only comes up as a joke with my co-workers.
I have worked as a systems administrator my entire professional career (12 years or so), and I couldn't care less about this day.
What is the point of these artificial job-appreciation-days? If someone appreciates me or my work, I would prefer to hear it when they feel like it rather than get a mug or something lame (not that I ever have, no one is aware of this momentous day anywhere I've ever worked, thank god!). Whatever happened to honest sentiment?
The post office charges the following amounts for postal money orders:
$0.01 to $500.00 - $1.05 $500.01 to $1,000.00 - 1.50
which I'm sure can fit into anyone's budget. Although I guess if a person doesn't trust banks then why entrust your money to the government or quasi-government agencies.
Some of the perks these companies provide might be useful; but I don't want to live my life as some have suggested: living in a corporate apartment, getting to work with corporate transportation, eating at the corporate cafeteria three times a day. From there its a short step in my mind to the return of the company store and the sort of employee dependencies upon that particular company that can easily change into a very bad thing.
Pay me enough to make my own way in the world when I'm not at work. Thats all I want.
Yes, that would be great for working. However, a large part of the allure of working somewhere like Silicon Valley is the non-work components of the area. Actual culture somewhere nearby, other businesses that you like to shop at (or go work at if your job sucks), and so on. Plus Google has a steady stream of employees they can steal from other nearby businesses, and they're near businesses that they want to work with.
This is one reason why Gateway is not located in North Dakota anymore. This is why technology companies in particular all seem to clump together in a few locations. The companies themselves find value in it, and their employees (being generally well-educated and to a degree able to be more selective than some other industries) want to live in places that they actually like rather than, lets say, North Dakota.
I imagine you're not alone in having this sort of hardware sitting around (I happen to have a plethora of 300-500MHz UltraSPARC systems on a shelf). Obviously I would prefer that they provided someone a service rather than take up space in a landfill, and this is one project that they might actually be of use for. Donating all of this equipment to be hosted somewhere would be nice, but you'd need a lot of hosting space; most crappy, old, exotic equipment people donate is probably not rack mountable and it probably has absurd power and space requirements.
It seems like something that would work in a university environment, where you can often get network/power/space without actually paying for it. Something like PlanetLab (but not like PlanetLab, in that you need a diverse array of OS and hardware).
Yes, that is pretty much my only complaint with Vonage: why can't I have more control over the calls I receive? Being able to block anonymous calls, or certain numbers, or whatever else you can think of should be possible in this high tech VoIP future we live in. But I still get a call from Discover every day, 9:30AM sharp.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, I think thats a terrible idea. One of the major benefits of the Internet is its inherent globalization. You don't have to worry about talking to someone in Russia and paying $5 a minute to the phone company, its the same cost as connecting to a site next door.
Just think how people's lives would be different if international or long distance phone charges didn't exist. How many times have you heard of someone waiting until a certain time of day to make a really long distance call? Or using Skype or some other Internet-based replacement for phone calls to get around the fees?
What you're proposing is basically to bring that sort of thing to the Internet itself, and I can't say that I want to wait until 2AM to save on my bandwidth bill.
Perhaps if airlines weren't renowned for losing / mis-routing luggage, more people would check in bags than lug around carry-ons. Not to mention the hassle that can often be involved with claiming bags in general.
A lack of confidence in the company or industry generally makes people take steps to avoid being personally effected, which in turn can make things worse in general.
Lets say that you are a discerning customer who is willing to pay more for better service (or better equipment, or whatever). It's not even possible!
Sure there are absurdly expensive cell phone plans (and phones) targeted to the wealthy, but they don't offer any improved performance or reliability on a technical level. There are fancier and more expensive computers, but fundamentally you're still at the mercy of the quality control of a given Chinese manufacturer who churns out the competing brand the next assembly line over.
There seem to be a lot of areas, especially as relates to technology or mechanical products, where there just simply is no way to get a better, more reliable product regardless of the money you spend. And what is the consumer supposed to do about that?
Terrorism?
It says 'most any organic matter'. Maybe they'll use people instead of corn.
This is what the Irfant system turned into, and I presume this article exists due to the 1996-style "oh look a major vendor is using Linux!" thinking that pops up at Slashdot fairly regularly.
As you've said, its not really news-worthy inasmuch as lots of companies embed Linux variants in their devices (including other NAS vendors). But hey, this major company is using Linux!
Well then you made a terrible mistake that will haunt you until the Internet death of Slashdot.
This is included in some of the versions, but as you mention hasn't been on DVD before this. A far cry from someone who refuse to release the markedly superior initial versions of three films in a decent DVD format. Of course those movies in question have been forever tainted for me by the next two.
The story is that Blade Runner was repossessed by its creditors prior to release and changed, against the wills of various people who were involved in its making, in substantial ways for its theatrical release. Hence the Theatrical Version, which didn't do very well from a commercial standpoint -- possibly because its artistic vision was compromised.
Then there's the Director's Cut, which Scott has claimed does not really amount to such as he didn't have sufficient time to work on it.
Hence the interest in the Final Cut, which is claimed to be a real director's cut finally.
I'll withhold judgment until I see the Final Cut, but at this point it could be pretty good. If not, then the Director's Cut still exists and I'll try to forget that I ever saw the Final Cut. But there is the risk of the Final Cut ruining the movie in such a concrete way that I'll never watch the film again (see the director's cut of Donnie Darko).
Being against revisionism in cinematic works is one thing, but being against the restoration of a previously mangled work is another. Having said that, it's common for people to have an attachment with whatever version of a work they are originally introduced to. People tend to prefer the film version of a novel if they saw it first; they may prefer a remake over the original; etc. This is the peril of being introduced to derivative or inferior works before their superior counterparts, you have to actively discard what you saw first and it can be difficult.
For instance, if you saw Psycho (1998) before Psycho (1960) you may very well have ruined one of the best films ever made for yourself.
Nothing Records was a vanity label attached to Interscope. The whole vanity label thing is basically just a way for the very few major labels to at least project the impression of a more personal experience, but of course the money goes to the same place.
Its defunct now by the way, NIN's last two albums were directly on Interscope (which in turn is part of Universal Music Group, paired up with Geffen and A&M). There are a million vanity labels, boutique labels, divisions and other things going on yet theres really only four main companies behind all of this.
The key is to reload early and often. I hope you've learned a valuable lesson.
On the other hand, if you have a hostname like www.slashdot.org you don't need to specify the scheme in order for people to know what to do with it.
.com version?
My biggest problem with 'www' is that its a pain in the ass to say in person. But http:/// is a bigger pain. Going beyond that, whats the point of having different TLDs if you basically have to get the
Oh the Internet, what will we do with you.
I do think the visible user ids is an odd design choice of Slashdot, but aside from the occasional post from someone like me who really cares.
Plus its a great way for me to acquire "friends" and "freaks" and whatever that stuff is.
Yep, me too. I seem to recall I contributed a RPM to Red Hat 3.0.3 of ePlus back when computers were actually interesting.
You've stolen my bit!
Besides this, it takes work at any company to release changes or new software as open source. Manager approval, legal signoff, your own time, time and effort to get patches accepted by the community, etc. If you're dying from overwork or couldn't really care either way, it basically doesn't get done.
Actually Yahoo is very open-source centric internally, its just that they aren't very good about giving things back. Which isn't to say that they never do (they've supported FreeBSD), but there is a sea of internal tools and modifications that no one ever bothers to release.
This is similar to what I was getting at. I prefer sincere appreciation to mandated or one-day-a-year appreciation. I find it a little insulting to my intelligence that I'm not supposed to be able to tell the difference. However, since no one has ever heard of this day, it luckily only comes up as a joke with my co-workers.
I have worked as a systems administrator my entire professional career (12 years or so), and I couldn't care less about this day.
What is the point of these artificial job-appreciation-days? If someone appreciates me or my work, I would prefer to hear it when they feel like it rather than get a mug or something lame (not that I ever have, no one is aware of this momentous day anywhere I've ever worked, thank god!). Whatever happened to honest sentiment?
The post office charges the following amounts for postal money orders:
$0.01 to $500.00 - $1.05
$500.01 to $1,000.00 - 1.50
which I'm sure can fit into anyone's budget. Although I guess if a person doesn't trust banks then why entrust your money to the government or quasi-government agencies.
Yeah, you sure showed me your midwestern know-how (I live in Cleveland).
Exactly.
Some of the perks these companies provide might be useful; but I don't want to live my life as some have suggested: living in a corporate apartment, getting to work with corporate transportation, eating at the corporate cafeteria three times a day. From there its a short step in my mind to the return of the company store and the sort of employee dependencies upon that particular company that can easily change into a very bad thing.
Pay me enough to make my own way in the world when I'm not at work. Thats all I want.
Yes, that would be great for working. However, a large part of the allure of working somewhere like Silicon Valley is the non-work components of the area. Actual culture somewhere nearby, other businesses that you like to shop at (or go work at if your job sucks), and so on. Plus Google has a steady stream of employees they can steal from other nearby businesses, and they're near businesses that they want to work with.
This is one reason why Gateway is not located in North Dakota anymore. This is why technology companies in particular all seem to clump together in a few locations. The companies themselves find value in it, and their employees (being generally well-educated and to a degree able to be more selective than some other industries) want to live in places that they actually like rather than, lets say, North Dakota.
If it was any other company maybe I would care.
I imagine you're not alone in having this sort of hardware sitting around (I happen to have a plethora of 300-500MHz UltraSPARC systems on a shelf). Obviously I would prefer that they provided someone a service rather than take up space in a landfill, and this is one project that they might actually be of use for. Donating all of this equipment to be hosted somewhere would be nice, but you'd need a lot of hosting space; most crappy, old, exotic equipment people donate is probably not rack mountable and it probably has absurd power and space requirements.
It seems like something that would work in a university environment, where you can often get network/power/space without actually paying for it. Something like PlanetLab (but not like PlanetLab, in that you need a diverse array of OS and hardware).
Yes, that is pretty much my only complaint with Vonage: why can't I have more control over the calls I receive? Being able to block anonymous calls, or certain numbers, or whatever else you can think of should be possible in this high tech VoIP future we live in. But I still get a call from Discover every day, 9:30AM sharp.