A "scan on write" would definitely not be a solution. It really comes done to some kind of detection mechanism if a file that is being read has been checked before and is unchanged or not. If you plug in a new HD, it should detect that those file are unchecked. Obviously I don't pretend that a system like this is trivial, but I would expect it is possible.
Here is a question regarding the on-demand scanner: why isn't anti-virus software tracking which files are new to the system, i.e. need to be scanned, and which ones it has already scanned? Surely, it must be possible to do this to a high level of reliability and therefore reduce the performance bottleneck by scanning only new software. Or is this already being done? If yes, why is there still a major slow down?
For the Economist, I (as a subscriber) can tell you why it worked for their subscribers: they offer fantastic value. I sing the praise for the Economist whenever I can, because I think that they are one of the few companies that get it. With my paper subscription I get: 1. Full access to the website including ALL past issues! 2. The current issue as an audio podcast (800MB!). 3. I can cancel my subscription whenever I want AND GET THE REMAINING MONEY BACK! (This is a big YES THEY GOT HOW TO TREAT THEIR CUSTOMERS.) 4. If there are problems with deliveries (e.g. a UK postal strike), they switched to hand deliveries to make sure the subscribers got their issues.
These are all added-value services that ensure I will subscribe to their magazine even though I manage to read it only occasional due to the volume of articles. Obviously, I also believe their articles are top-notch (they even get technology reasonably well).
I am not affiliated with the Economist in any way. Just a very happy customer.
How about you leave a voice message just reading that text? What's the result? Maybe it's some kind of "encryption" like ROT-13 but for voice messages.;-)
That's so true! I LOVE my N900 (even more open than Android), mainly because of the endless possibilities of what I can do with it. Freedom to do anything with your phone/computer rocks.
But in the current state of its software I would NEVER recommend it to my wife or family. They are so much better served by an iphone at the moment because it just works. Maybe once all the developers have fixed the missing features of the N900 it starts to get interesting for non-developers (probably in the 3rd generation N900 like with the iphone). To me the current software of N900 feels like KDE 4.0 felt. Ready for developers but really lacking for users.
The N900 is like a DIY set of a Ferrari. Not much use if you don't spend a lot of time putting it all together and fixing what needs fixed.
Development of countries is fucking hard! NOBODY knows a solution so far!
So, it is useless to go on and on about how he should spend his money on X, Y or Z "because that will solve all problems". No, it WON'T! It might improve something or it might not.
There are hundreds of thousands of people working in the development sector trying to find a solution to help the poorer world develop. And many things have been tried and will be tried, but it is like democracy: there is no clear way how to develop it in a country, so that it works long term. Lots of ideas around, but no proven solution anywhere.
Therefore people like Gates giving his money (however wrong you think he got it) to help in a certain way (small or big) is GOOD. Or would you prefer him to keep it in his bank account and accumulate stupidly high interest each year? He should spend it as much as he can to spread it around.
As an outsider it was always clear to me that the (world-wide) hype that was generated around Obama could only backfire badly. He's not a dictator who can change all things immediately.
This is such a fantastic case of overhyped expectations and the bad, bad hangover people have realising now that he is only human after all. Obviously this also affected people outside the US as we saw with the really unhelpful awarding of the nobel peace prize. Way to shoot him in the back by putting more pressure on him to be the Messiah bringing heaven to earth. How can anybody not fail against that?
It was never possible for Obama to win the first year due to the hype, but he also wouldn't be president if he had stopped the hype. I'll be bold and predict now that Obama will have a much better standing after another one or two years. He will quite likely be reelected. The expectations of people are so low now that he has a chance to actually do better than widely expected. And he is probably very well aware of this.
Yes, be a tourist and help make the world better through it (I'm serious!), but...
1. don't go to the overrun places like Goa or Phuket. Go to countries/areas that haven't taken off yet such as the beautiful country of Laos. It's better for you and better for them. Be nice to people and open to their culture.
2. And DO NOT TIP IF IT IS NOT CUSTOM IN THE COUNTRY!!! I've experienced so many people thinking that they are doing something good by tipping a lot even if it is not customary. It is not good and in many cases creates many problems in society. E.g. in China tipping is not custom and often confuses people (exception are areas that have loads and loads of wealthy tourists who don't care about it and create lots of arrogant staff with tipping). The idea to pay good money for good service/product in the environment it happens in creates a much better way of improving societies than handing out essentially free money through tipping.
First of all, I can't believe that so many people missed the humour of the article. It was meant to be FUNNY! But maybe it's too much of a British humour.
Living in London (weekends) and in Germany (working week), it's very clear to me that the UK plug is terrible. Many reasons: 1. The plug is HUGE. Why are all other plugs in the world smaller and still safe? 2. It has stupid fuses that need replacement. Why do none of the other plugs in the world need them? 3. It is terrible when travelling. Best to keep the Euro or US cables for travelling. 4. It can only plug in one way. 5. Why the hell do you need a switch on a socket? Is this a reason why the sockets are so big?
The plug just fits perfectly with some other British idiosyncracries such as the separate cold and hot water taps. You either burn your hands or freeze them. Ridiculous that this old system is still so much in use in the UK.
You can't beat British humour though (like this article showed).
Can anybody explain to me why it seems to be the general opinion of/. that "the cloud" is a waste of time and a fad? Apart from the silly name, I see many useful functions that can be used for people, who start from a small base, but want to have the ability to easily scale a service (e.g. with Amazons EC2).
If I had a service that is potentially computationally expensive, I could start with a small instance and scale it if I see I need more power or servers. Obviously I could do the same with dedicated servers but I would have more to pay without knowing if I need them and have more difficulties setting them up (I presume). I see it especially useful for small start-ups not so much for large organisations that have the resources to solve these things differently.
I used to do this. I had a nice company laptop, but also wanted to use it for occasional gaming. I installed Windows XP on a (fast!) 8GB USB Stick, which I used for all my private stuff. Worked really nicely (after finding out how to actually install XP on USB, which wasn't that easy at the time).
The laptop is the company's. If they want to give it to a different co-worker, fine. If they want to check that I just used it for work, fine. Separation of work and personal stuff is your friend. Don't mix it.
Additional advantage: when the harddrive packs in (like it did for me during a project in the middle of the Amazon jungle), you still have a bootable system on the USB stick.
When are people going to start realizing that the "cloud" is an old idea with new hardware, and that reinventing a concept by putting it on the 'new' cloud platform isn't a business model that stands on its own?
You're probably right, but still miss the point. I have never had access to a mainframe, but on the "cloud" I am able - as a private person or company! - to use something similar for very little costs. This is the major difference and changes everything about it. It's like saying the internet was no new thing because there were global networks (e.g. of companies like IBM) before. That would be correct in one aspect (global network), but so wrong on so many other levels.
I've been with/. since the early days and this really is unbelievable. How did something like this get posted? Who is kdawson really?
I've always shrugged off the calls of some to block kdawson stories, but if this hasn't shown that he (she?) is incapable, then I don't know. So, I deactivated kdawson stories now. Kind of a sad day that I have to do that.
Arghhh! Thank you very much for stealing 45 minutes from me. Me reading your comment and thinking "what are tower defense games? Let's click on the link." Good idea! Then wasting 44 minutes on playing Onslaught instead of working...
It is fun though. I can recommend it. Just not when you're meant to be working.
If you declare yourself to be of a certain religion, the government will happily levy a religious tax [on] you...
Yes, but you got it the wrong way round, because that tax doesn't go to the government. It goes to the religious organisation. Which is one of the reasons why Scientology really wanted to be accepted as an official religion. They wanted "to play ball", but the goverment (and independent courts) refused them the status as an official religion. I guess you can read about it in the link I supplied.
Slashdot Mirror
Couldn't resist: http://xkcd.com/927/
Doesn't fit 100% but 93%. At least.
Ah, but it comes with Swype! There's no need for a physical keyboard.
I know, we're on /., but as I'm interested in this phone I broke /. rules and actually read the article and there it says:
Notable for the HTC G2 is that it has a modified hinge that opens up to a slide-out QWERTY keyboard.
That sounds to me like it has a physical keyboard.
A "scan on write" would definitely not be a solution. It really comes done to some kind of detection mechanism if a file that is being read has been checked before and is unchanged or not. If you plug in a new HD, it should detect that those file are unchecked. Obviously I don't pretend that a system like this is trivial, but I would expect it is possible.
Here is a question regarding the on-demand scanner: why isn't anti-virus software tracking which files are new to the system, i.e. need to be scanned, and which ones it has already scanned? Surely, it must be possible to do this to a high level of reliability and therefore reduce the performance bottleneck by scanning only new software. Or is this already being done? If yes, why is there still a major slow down?
It's not one podcast, it's all articles as individual mp3 files.
For the Economist, I (as a subscriber) can tell you why it worked for their subscribers: they offer fantastic value. I sing the praise for the Economist whenever I can, because I think that they are one of the few companies that get it. With my paper subscription I get:
1. Full access to the website including ALL past issues!
2. The current issue as an audio podcast (800MB!).
3. I can cancel my subscription whenever I want AND GET THE REMAINING MONEY BACK! (This is a big YES THEY GOT HOW TO TREAT THEIR CUSTOMERS.)
4. If there are problems with deliveries (e.g. a UK postal strike), they switched to hand deliveries to make sure the subscribers got their issues.
These are all added-value services that ensure I will subscribe to their magazine even though I manage to read it only occasional due to the volume of articles. Obviously, I also believe their articles are top-notch (they even get technology reasonably well).
I am not affiliated with the Economist in any way. Just a very happy customer.
Goes to show exactly why all nut-jobs are DANGEROUS PEOPLE.
There, I fixed it for you. The climate change nut jobs are just as dangerous as the there-is-no-climate-change nut jobs.
I normally don't write these comments, but this time I make an exception: that was hilarious! Thanks for that!
You made one mistake though. This is wrong:
This is Slashdot!
It needs to be:
THIS! IS! /.!
How about you leave a voice message just reading that text? What's the result? Maybe it's some kind of "encryption" like ROT-13 but for voice messages. ;-)
That's so true! I LOVE my N900 (even more open than Android), mainly because of the endless possibilities of what I can do with it. Freedom to do anything with your phone/computer rocks.
But in the current state of its software I would NEVER recommend it to my wife or family. They are so much better served by an iphone at the moment because it just works. Maybe once all the developers have fixed the missing features of the N900 it starts to get interesting for non-developers (probably in the 3rd generation N900 like with the iphone). To me the current software of N900 feels like KDE 4.0 felt. Ready for developers but really lacking for users.
The N900 is like a DIY set of a Ferrari. Not much use if you don't spend a lot of time putting it all together and fixing what needs fixed.
Oblig: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhwbxEfy7fg
Now, I understand that Windows 7 is quite good. But I would not go as far as calling it the best calculator for linux. It's also not free....
(In best /. tradition I'm not even reading the summary and misreading the headline... what? There is an article, too???)
Guys/ Gals, GET THIS:
Development of countries is fucking hard! NOBODY knows a solution so far!
So, it is useless to go on and on about how he should spend his money on X, Y or Z "because that will solve all problems". No, it WON'T! It might improve something or it might not.
There are hundreds of thousands of people working in the development sector trying to find a solution to help the poorer world develop. And many things have been tried and will be tried, but it is like democracy: there is no clear way how to develop it in a country, so that it works long term. Lots of ideas around, but no proven solution anywhere.
Therefore people like Gates giving his money (however wrong you think he got it) to help in a certain way (small or big) is GOOD. Or would you prefer him to keep it in his bank account and accumulate stupidly high interest each year? He should spend it as much as he can to spread it around.
</rant>
Heh... Yes, she will rue it. Rue it hard.
As an outsider it was always clear to me that the (world-wide) hype that was generated around Obama could only backfire badly. He's not a dictator who can change all things immediately.
This is such a fantastic case of overhyped expectations and the bad, bad hangover people have realising now that he is only human after all. Obviously this also affected people outside the US as we saw with the really unhelpful awarding of the nobel peace prize. Way to shoot him in the back by putting more pressure on him to be the Messiah bringing heaven to earth. How can anybody not fail against that?
It was never possible for Obama to win the first year due to the hype, but he also wouldn't be president if he had stopped the hype. I'll be bold and predict now that Obama will have a much better standing after another one or two years. He will quite likely be reelected. The expectations of people are so low now that he has a chance to actually do better than widely expected. And he is probably very well aware of this.
Yes, be a tourist and help make the world better through it (I'm serious!), but...
1. don't go to the overrun places like Goa or Phuket. Go to countries/areas that haven't taken off yet such as the beautiful country of Laos. It's better for you and better for them. Be nice to people and open to their culture.
2. And DO NOT TIP IF IT IS NOT CUSTOM IN THE COUNTRY!!! I've experienced so many people thinking that they are doing something good by tipping a lot even if it is not customary. It is not good and in many cases creates many problems in society. E.g. in China tipping is not custom and often confuses people (exception are areas that have loads and loads of wealthy tourists who don't care about it and create lots of arrogant staff with tipping). The idea to pay good money for good service/product in the environment it happens in creates a much better way of improving societies than handing out essentially free money through tipping.
Have fun and do good!
First of all, I can't believe that so many people missed the humour of the article. It was meant to be FUNNY! But maybe it's too much of a British humour.
Living in London (weekends) and in Germany (working week), it's very clear to me that the UK plug is terrible. Many reasons:
1. The plug is HUGE. Why are all other plugs in the world smaller and still safe?
2. It has stupid fuses that need replacement. Why do none of the other plugs in the world need them?
3. It is terrible when travelling. Best to keep the Euro or US cables for travelling.
4. It can only plug in one way.
5. Why the hell do you need a switch on a socket? Is this a reason why the sockets are so big?
The plug just fits perfectly with some other British idiosyncracries such as the separate cold and hot water taps. You either burn your hands or freeze them. Ridiculous that this old system is still so much in use in the UK.
You can't beat British humour though (like this article showed).
Can anybody explain to me why it seems to be the general opinion of /. that "the cloud" is a waste of time and a fad? Apart from the silly name, I see many useful functions that can be used for people, who start from a small base, but want to have the ability to easily scale a service (e.g. with Amazons EC2).
If I had a service that is potentially computationally expensive, I could start with a small instance and scale it if I see I need more power or servers. Obviously I could do the same with dedicated servers but I would have more to pay without knowing if I need them and have more difficulties setting them up (I presume). I see it especially useful for small start-ups not so much for large organisations that have the resources to solve these things differently.
What am I missing?
I used to do this. I had a nice company laptop, but also wanted to use it for occasional gaming. I installed Windows XP on a (fast!) 8GB USB Stick, which I used for all my private stuff. Worked really nicely (after finding out how to actually install XP on USB, which wasn't that easy at the time).
The laptop is the company's. If they want to give it to a different co-worker, fine. If they want to check that I just used it for work, fine. Separation of work and personal stuff is your friend. Don't mix it.
Additional advantage: when the harddrive packs in (like it did for me during a project in the middle of the Amazon jungle), you still have a bootable system on the USB stick.
It's not that hard!
Not necessarily true: http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk.html#1
When are people going to start realizing that the "cloud" is an old idea with new hardware, and that reinventing a concept by putting it on the 'new' cloud platform isn't a business model that stands on its own?
You're probably right, but still miss the point. I have never had access to a mainframe, but on the "cloud" I am able - as a private person or company! - to use something similar for very little costs. This is the major difference and changes everything about it. It's like saying the internet was no new thing because there were global networks (e.g. of companies like IBM) before. That would be correct in one aspect (global network), but so wrong on so many other levels.
I've been with /. since the early days and this really is unbelievable. How did something like this get posted? Who is kdawson really?
I've always shrugged off the calls of some to block kdawson stories, but if this hasn't shown that he (she?) is incapable, then I don't know. So, I deactivated kdawson stories now. Kind of a sad day that I have to do that.
To deactivate seeing kdawson stories on the main page (you need to be logged in): http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=edithome
Arghhh! Thank you very much for stealing 45 minutes from me. Me reading your comment and thinking "what are tower defense games? Let's click on the link." Good idea! Then wasting 44 minutes on playing Onslaught instead of working...
It is fun though. I can recommend it. Just not when you're meant to be working.
If you declare yourself to be of a certain religion, the government will happily levy a religious tax [on] you...
Yes, but you got it the wrong way round, because that tax doesn't go to the government. It goes to the religious organisation. Which is one of the reasons why Scientology really wanted to be accepted as an official religion. They wanted "to play ball", but the goverment (and independent courts) refused them the status as an official religion. I guess you can read about it in the link I supplied.
Which is the reason why Germany doesn't accept them as a religion:
http://home.snafu.de/tilman/krasel/germany/
More or less it is classed as a commercial organisation.