That reminds me. I think the MFM controller in my old ALR 386/2 used a Z80 chip. Those chips did get around but then an entire generation of engineers learned the 8080 or Z80 instruction set in college (another big one would have been the 6800/6502). It's not surprising to find the chips in lots of equipment designed in those days.
``Can you do anything with an 8-bit microcontroller anymore?:)''
The smiley indicates that you were probably joking. But... there's probably enough brainwashed budding engineers out there who will take it for granted that they need a Pentium class microprocessor to power the next programmable Mr. Coffee. They probably want to use Windows CE, too. Just you wait. Laziness will result in your ``smart'' kitchen appliances requiring muffin fans to keep the processors cooled.
``Not quite. Spread Spectrum is like pseudo-random radio "noise", constrained within a defined spectrum. Such transmitters have the effect of raising the "noise floor" in the spectrum they're using (and thus the error rate of the channel).''
Bingo!
It's been a number of years since I was involved in this sort of work (so my memory may be a bit fuzzy) but this is an old problem. I was part of a group of engineers that were developing software to predict the problems that proposed FM transmitters might have on instrument landing system receivers. If you look at the frequency spectrum allocations you'd say that there shouldn't be any problem. Different frequency ranges so no problem. Right? Wrong. The landing system receiver receives all the freuqncies that the antenna picks up. Some of those FM transmission frequencies combine in the receiver's front end to generate harmonics that are in the landing system frequency band. Some ILS receivers are better than others at rejecting these but the point is that they're there and they affect the S/N (adversely) and degrade the landing system's performance. Not something you want happening. I recall some of the flight tests where other people were collecting real data to confirm out models. In one case, where the technicians had tapped into the guts of the ILS receiver, they could actually hear the audio from a nearby radio station. Similar concerns about interference of the ILS signals had to do with cable systems. You think your local cable TV provider is ensuring that all the connections on the poles aren't leaking RF energy?
And, if memory serves, lowering the S/N in a spread spectrum has an adverse effect on signal acquisition and tracking. Won't it be fun when everyone in the neighborhood has a spread-spectrum connection to the internet and you find that it performs like a dialup connection.
And I just love law professors who spout views on technology policies without having the necessary technical background. Just about as much as I enjoy professional politicians doing the same thing. There are technical reasons why the spectrum is/was carved up into protected bands. The trouble with politicians (and law professors who probably want to be politicians) is that they're mainly concerned with the economic aspects of spectrum allocation. And, IMHO, that's dangerous.
``When I was in college (about 3 years ago), EVERYONE would stop what they were doing to sit around the TV to watch the Simpsons.''
I'm sure that if I were in college now, Futurama would be the sort of show that we'd take breaks for. When I was in college the show was Monty Python. If the TV in the normal viewing location wasn't working, there would actually be roving bands of us knocking on the doors of dorm rooms that we knew had TVs and commandeering their room to watch the show. We made a lot of converts, too.
And it's not just for college-age folks. I suspect that mainly us old farts would get the humor in something like `Bachelor Chow' and dog food (``Makes it's own gravy!'' [cringe]). I have to explain some of the humor to my daughters because they're way too young to remember those ancient commercials, shows, etc., that Matt G. is poking fun at. I like taping the show so you can slow it down to see the jokes in the signs and billboards that you otherwise miss.
Glad to see that it's still in production. The Fox affiliate in Chicago has the annoying habit of pre-empting the show for just about anything.
Could we see the list of website sins?
on
Homepage Usability
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
It'd sure be nice to see a summary of the list of flaws from the beginning of the book? I wanted to see if my pet peeves were in there:
Load Time
I hope Nielsen made prominent comments about load time. If I were the guy approving the design of the company's external web site, I'd do the final review offsite where one would have to use a dial-up connection to view the site. That would go a lo-o-o-ng way to reduce the amount of gratuitous graphics that most corporate web sites shove onto their homepages.
Not Testing with Popular Browsers
Not testing with all the popular browsers should be a misdemeanor, at least. (IE dominance aside, would it kill 'em to at least try out the top three or four?) True story: Compaq's home page used to have a link to text-only version of the same page. Unfortunately, all the links on the ``text-only'' page pointed to pages that were lousy with graphics and tons of Java/Javascript that crashed the browser that they shipped with their UNIX workstations. So much for text-only. The day after I called their office to point out that I was unable to view their web site using the software they shipped with their OS, the text-only link disappeared from their home page. I can only imagine the conversation between the manager and web page maintainer:
Boss: ``Hey! People that follow the text-only link from the home page have their browsers crash. Fix it.''
Maintainer: ``Sure, boss. Just take a few seconds.... Done!''
And Compaq people who I have to deal with wonder why I laugh when they suggest ``you know, this information is available on the web site''. The thing that pissed me off the most about this incident was that the pages wouldn't load using a browser that they were shipping on the OS CDs. Web pages on the CDs had links to pages on the corporate site that would crash your browser. Pathetic.
Teeny, Tiny Fonts
Then there are the web sites whose designers have 20/5 vision (or better) and force you to view the site with the smallest possible font that your browser is capable of displaying. Guess visitors will actually be able decide for themselves what font size is best for the viewer sometime before the heat death of the universe. If we want the ability to choose in our lifetimes, though, I'm betting that it'll only happen after someone shoots all these arrogant designers (``Listen! I'm an artiste! What school of design did you attend?'') and pry their pet style sheets from their cold, dead fingers. (BTW, the line forms behind me.)
Why do I mention these? Because it appears that 99% of the companies with these broken web pages couldn't care less whether users have an easy time accessing their sites. If they actually gave a damn, they'd stop creating web sites that didn't appear to purposely antagonize their visitors.
Gotta wonder: Who was it that posted the web page ``Why Web Sucks''? Hopefully it's still around. IMHO, it's still relevant.
``Guess what happens when people design sites that are too wide for a vaguely normal browser size? You can't navigate without side scrolling!''
Yah. Don't you get sick and tired of the bozo web designer that assumes you use your browser in full-screen mode? The idiot webpage designer that divides up the screen using the resolution of his monitor and forces everyone else that's not running at 1800x1200 resolution to side scroll?
There's a fairly easy fix for this if they'd only read the rest of the HTML language manual or stop using crappy design software: percentages. OK, this might limit them in some small way in that they might have a bit more trouble getting those navigation menues on both sides of the browser window (along with the one they stuck on the top of the window:-)) but, you know, that's just tough. The designers of the web pages are the least important viewers of those pages.
``...embedded in a block of concrete and dumped in the ocean.''
I like that one. I was going to suggest a place where one could embed WinXP but it'd get someone an assault conviction. Or worse.
``...touted for use in "ATMs and slot machines". That is because it cannot be used for hard realtime, low latency applications...''
Hmm... I'm having difficulty seeing what the need for any sort of realtime OS would be for an ATM or slot machine. (Probably because I'm more used to real realtime systems like navigation and landing systems.) Heck, MVS or VMS could be considered realtime enough for ATMs and slot machines. Personally, I suspect MS is recommending WinXP for those applications because they see that equipment being used in industries they think have lots of money laying around that can be spent on MS products or royalties. Maybe I'm just jaded... Nah!
``A 1.4 Ghz processor + mobo + 1 gb of ram is less than $300. Given that an ATM machine itself is a great many times that, such a cost would be below most radars.''
My experience with people who work in a manufacturing business (like building ATMs) is that management is a bit more sensitive to costs than, say, your typical pointy-haired IT manager. Waltzing into a meeting and stating that you think it's a good idea to increase costs by $300 and all you're going to get is a modest (and debatable) improvement in the user interface might require a lot of justification. ``Because it's from Microsoft'' might not be enough to convince the boss when he askes why you want to replace perfectly good, working code in the product line. Like someone mentioned in another post: A Z80 could do the things required in an ATM. And how much do those cost?
Personally, it sickens me to see people's thinking limited to single turning of the gears and coming up with a solution without considering alternatives. Must be something they're putting in the cafeteria food in schools nowadays that is dulling their thought processes.
``Do you ever see a BSOD on a cashpoint - I haven't?''
Heck neither have I (We usually call 'em ATMs on the Western side of the Big Swamp). But I have seen plenty of BSODed flight info displays at airports and other places.
Hmm... I wonder. I've seen a few photos of prominent BSOD displays pop up from time to time (here and on other web sites). Anyone know of a web site that specializes in those? Could be good for a laugh.
``Your [sic] assuming you would know your system had been tampered with.
The "tech people... entering your house and installing the software" may do so without your knowledge (black bag job, as per Scarfo case).''
Good point. And I suppose having a home alarm system wouldn't do any good either as the FBI probably find a way to make illegal for ADT to notify the local police that the home alarm had been tripped. (Besides, the FBI probably has a means around any alarm system that I'd be able to afford.)
``Everyone should expect all OSes commonly used by individuals, Windows, Linux, OSX, various BSDs, etc., to be targeted sooner or later.''
Which makes my first post all the more relevant. How are they going to stop me from running tripwire and other break-in detection tools to detect their handywork? Is it going to become illegal to have an emergency boot disk/CD and a backup tape? I doubt that the US public would accept that. (But then when's the last time you saw a consumer-level computer with a device for making backups other than a floppy drive? And how many floppies would it take to backup that PC with the 80GB hard drive that they're selling on the Home Shopping Channel? Sorry, I'm beginning to digress...)
``Here's why it IS your problem. If you think the FBI is going to limit their spying to Windows, you are pretty naive. Count on one of the following:
- They will find a way to make it work in every consumer OS.
- They will find some other way to acheive the same thing with other OSs.
- They will outlaw the use of an OS that can be used to evade law enforcement.''
Guess I'll have to move out of the US if they make it illegal for me to run tripwire, netstat, ps, (etc.) to detect the FBI's software having been planted on my computers. I use those (and more) on the systems I run at work and I'll take them off only when the company's legal department tells me to.
Personally, I wouldn't have thought that the FBI would be thinking far enough ahead to consider infesting any systems that were running anything other than Windows. Maybe it's just me but I see IBM's ``server heist'' commercial and see the ``authorities'' brought in to investigate as FBI agents. And I wouldn't be all that surprised to hear a real one actually say ``What's a server?'' (My wife once said ``Oh, heck, they probably don't even know what an email is.'' when that commercial was on.) Just listen to some of the FBI's Carnivore apologists. Their computer literacy is, um, not what you'd like to see in someone who's making the sort of decisions that are being made regarding computers, networking, etc. It'd be funny if it weren't rather frightening.
We do the same thing on our Tru64 boxen. All 3rd party software goes in/opt or/usr/opt. 3rd party executables go in/usr/local/bin. Some executables live in an app-specific subdirectory under/opt and the symlink in/usr/local/bin points to the physical location. It makes OS upgrade time tons simpler. And the first step of our DR plan is to backup OS-related stuff and backup software on special tapes. Those get restored first so that we get a bootable system in a hurry. Then the rest of the software and data can be restored using the 3rd party backup software. None of this would be as easy to do if we had 2000 programs all living under/usr/bin. If Mosfet has a point it's that some distribution vendors make a mess out of the directory structure by dumping way, way too much stuff under, say,/usr/bin.
\begin{rant} RedHat, are you listening? I like your distribution but the layout of the files you install sucks big time. Anyone who updates their applications (Apache, PostgreSQL, PHP, etc.) from the developer's sites has to undo the mess you guys create. Either that or don't install the versions on your CDs at all and just go with the source tars. \end{rant}
Nah. The last job where coworkers used to regularly hang out after work was a long time ago (over ten years). And, actually, we weren't IT workers but rather electrical engineers that just happened to do a lot of interesting things with computers during the course of our work (avionics systems). Another difference was that it was a university engineering/research lab that was involved in outside contract work. I haven't experienced anything like that sort of comradery (sp?) since moving to the so-called ``real world''. Part of the problem, I suspect, is that most of my current coworkers live so far away from work that they're not exactly thrilled with the idea of going out to socialize with coworkers and then have an hour's worth of driving to get home. I floated the idea of a project completion barbeque not too long ago at work and it wasn't received well. That sort of activity was common back in my days working in academia. In fact, I'd say I have closer relationships with some of my coworkers from those days than I have with current coworkers. Part of it might have related to the close working conditions, the stress of meeting the deadlines for deliverables, 18-hour workdays, etc. Not the same as getting shot at or running into burning buildings, mind you (though sometimes it might have been more comfortable having the director take shots at us than sitting in some of his meetings:-) ).
Oh, really? It was slow (but then so was it's bigger brother in those days). If memory serves, it didn't include a floppy drive as standard equipment and the software available on those cartridges was... no, I take that back; there was virtually no software available in those cartridges. And the keyboard was the biggest problem of all. It probably set a record for causing unanimous negative opinion in the shortest amount of time of any PC product.
Surely ``popular'' wasn't the word you really meant to use...
We recently moved and let the gorillas move everything but the things I listed above. Sure I had to rent a small truck but nothing was damaged. It was well worth the small cost.
Many years ago, a ``professional'' moving company found a way to severely dent a peuter plate wedding present given to me by the EE faculty where I was teaching. It was packed in the middle of a bunch of china which miraculously managed to survive the move. Of course the moving company found some reason that they weren't liable.
If memory serves, there was a column in DEC Professional years ago (obviously) that jokingly likened the RSX-11 SYSGEN process as an adventure game. Now something like that's finally available!
I'm sort of wondering how long it'll be before I see ``Munging the SCSI adapter has no effect or what ``Hello, sailor'' does to the kernel. And, yes, I know, those are more from the Zork games. Just can't remember any of the good funny responses from adventure any more. Other than the one about the maze of twisty passages, of course.
``the point is that this is a _far_ cry from calling linux a toy, like balmer did not too long back.
The point is that M$ is taking linux seriously as a competitor.''
Someone at Microsoft may have just now gotten around to loading a recent 2.4.x kernel distribution on a test machine and finally worked up the courage to leave Gates and Ballmer an email about the test results.:-)
What bothers me about the internal memo, is the tone. Will they tout the advantages of Microsoft's products or will the thrust of their sales pitch be what a mistake it would be go non-Microsoft? I sure as hell don't buy things because someone took me out to lunch or sent me a T-shirt. And I'm lucky enough to work for a group of managers who are fairly enlightened and wouldn't be fooled into buying something at a discount that was going to cause a lot of grief. So, it'll be interesting to hear about what this newly motivated sales force tries to pull in order to win accounts.
``So M$ is using agressive sales tactics and doing their damned best to sell their product.''
Just so long as they refrain from lying or using the tactic that an HP sales critter tried on us once several years ago: Leading off the sales pitch by tearing down their competitors rather than selling us the benefits of their products. It totally turned us off within the first few minutes and they were never seriously considered. Sorry, but tell us why you're good and we'll make up our minds once we have the facts, thank you.
Oddly enough, Dark Side of the Moon is one of their LPs that I like the least. (Go figure, eh?) As far as Floyd chords, I'll take the first one from Fearless over Time. Takes all kinds I guess.
``...except the song "Money". Maybe it's just been overplayed...''
Yah, you got that right. Maybe that's why I don't like the rest of the LP as much. Damned radio stations...
Copyright infringement? For skipping the commercials?
Have I become some hardened copyright infringing criminal for fast forwarding past the commercials when I view my taping of Politically Incorrect at a saner time than the 12:05 AM that my local network chooses to air it?
Here's hoping that the courts will kick this case out and say (LOUDLY) that they are NOT in the business of telling manufacturers what features may be included in their products.
``You can have my fast forward button when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!''
... I might find that that adaptive image compression scheme I was using years ago might turn out to be useful after all. (Some parts of it would have been tons more practical if you used a ternary coding.) Now if I can find the source code amongst all those 360KB floppies that I've been meaning to burn onto CDs and convert it from FORTRAN...
Someone's finally found a way to purge that last remnant of creativity and flexibility from the job of developing software. What a wonderful place that's going to be to work in.
Is there going to be a ``Directorate of New Product Ideas'' to tell you what new software you'll be allowed to dream up during the development process?
Don't suppose the originator of this story would want to leak the company name. I can think of a lot of people who would rather not waste their time even applying for a job with such a company.
Slashdot Mirror
That reminds me. I think the MFM controller in my old ALR 386/2 used a Z80 chip. Those chips did get around but then an entire generation of engineers learned the 8080 or Z80 instruction set in college (another big one would have been the 6800/6502). It's not surprising to find the chips in lots of equipment designed in those days.
The smiley indicates that you were probably joking. But... there's probably enough brainwashed budding engineers out there who will take it for granted that they need a Pentium class microprocessor to power the next programmable Mr. Coffee. They probably want to use Windows CE, too. Just you wait. Laziness will result in your ``smart'' kitchen appliances requiring muffin fans to keep the processors cooled.
(Damn but I'm cynical today...)
Bingo!
It's been a number of years since I was involved in this sort of work (so my memory may be a bit fuzzy) but this is an old problem. I was part of a group of engineers that were developing software to predict the problems that proposed FM transmitters might have on instrument landing system receivers. If you look at the frequency spectrum allocations you'd say that there shouldn't be any problem. Different frequency ranges so no problem. Right? Wrong. The landing system receiver receives all the freuqncies that the antenna picks up. Some of those FM transmission frequencies combine in the receiver's front end to generate harmonics that are in the landing system frequency band. Some ILS receivers are better than others at rejecting these but the point is that they're there and they affect the S/N (adversely) and degrade the landing system's performance. Not something you want happening. I recall some of the flight tests where other people were collecting real data to confirm out models. In one case, where the technicians had tapped into the guts of the ILS receiver, they could actually hear the audio from a nearby radio station. Similar concerns about interference of the ILS signals had to do with cable systems. You think your local cable TV provider is ensuring that all the connections on the poles aren't leaking RF energy?
And, if memory serves, lowering the S/N in a spread spectrum has an adverse effect on signal acquisition and tracking. Won't it be fun when everyone in the neighborhood has a spread-spectrum connection to the internet and you find that it performs like a dialup connection.
And I just love law professors who spout views on technology policies without having the necessary technical background. Just about as much as I enjoy professional politicians doing the same thing. There are technical reasons why the spectrum is/was carved up into protected bands. The trouble with politicians (and law professors who probably want to be politicians) is that they're mainly concerned with the economic aspects of spectrum allocation. And, IMHO, that's dangerous.
I'm sure that if I were in college now, Futurama would be the sort of show that we'd take breaks for. When I was in college the show was Monty Python. If the TV in the normal viewing location wasn't working, there would actually be roving bands of us knocking on the doors of dorm rooms that we knew had TVs and commandeering their room to watch the show. We made a lot of converts, too.
And it's not just for college-age folks. I suspect that mainly us old farts would get the humor in something like `Bachelor Chow' and dog food (``Makes it's own gravy!'' [cringe]). I have to explain some of the humor to my daughters because they're way too young to remember those ancient commercials, shows, etc., that Matt G. is poking fun at. I like taping the show so you can slow it down to see the jokes in the signs and billboards that you otherwise miss.
Glad to see that it's still in production. The Fox affiliate in Chicago has the annoying habit of pre-empting the show for just about anything.
It'd sure be nice to see a summary of the list of flaws from the beginning of the book? I wanted to see if my pet peeves were in there:
Load Time
I hope Nielsen made prominent comments about load time. If I were the guy approving the design of the company's external web site, I'd do the final review offsite where one would have to use a dial-up connection to view the site. That would go a lo-o-o-ng way to reduce the amount of gratuitous graphics that most corporate web sites shove onto their homepages.
Not Testing with Popular Browsers
Not testing with all the popular browsers should be a misdemeanor, at least. (IE dominance aside, would it kill 'em to at least try out the top three or four?) True story: Compaq's home page used to have a link to text-only version of the same page. Unfortunately, all the links on the ``text-only'' page pointed to pages that were lousy with graphics and tons of Java/Javascript that crashed the browser that they shipped with their UNIX workstations. So much for text-only. The day after I called their office to point out that I was unable to view their web site using the software they shipped with their OS, the text-only link disappeared from their home page. I can only imagine the conversation between the manager and web page maintainer:
Boss: ``Hey! People that follow the text-only link from the home page have their browsers crash. Fix it.''
Maintainer: ``Sure, boss. Just take a few seconds.... Done!''
And Compaq people who I have to deal with wonder why I laugh when they suggest ``you know, this information is available on the web site''. The thing that pissed me off the most about this incident was that the pages wouldn't load using a browser that they were shipping on the OS CDs. Web pages on the CDs had links to pages on the corporate site that would crash your browser. Pathetic.
Teeny, Tiny Fonts
Then there are the web sites whose designers have 20/5 vision (or better) and force you to view the site with the smallest possible font that your browser is capable of displaying. Guess visitors will actually be able decide for themselves what font size is best for the viewer sometime before the heat death of the universe. If we want the ability to choose in our lifetimes, though, I'm betting that it'll only happen after someone shoots all these arrogant designers (``Listen! I'm an artiste! What school of design did you attend?'') and pry their pet style sheets from their cold, dead fingers. (BTW, the line forms behind me.)
Why do I mention these? Because it appears that 99% of the companies with these broken web pages couldn't care less whether users have an easy time accessing their sites. If they actually gave a damn, they'd stop creating web sites that didn't appear to purposely antagonize their visitors.
Gotta wonder: Who was it that posted the web page ``Why Web Sucks''? Hopefully it's still around. IMHO, it's still relevant.
Yah. Don't you get sick and tired of the bozo web designer that assumes you use your browser in full-screen mode? The idiot webpage designer that divides up the screen using the resolution of his monitor and forces everyone else that's not running at 1800x1200 resolution to side scroll?
There's a fairly easy fix for this if they'd only read the rest of the HTML language manual or stop using crappy design software: percentages. OK, this might limit them in some small way in that they might have a bit more trouble getting those navigation menues on both sides of the browser window (along with the one they stuck on the top of the window :-)) but, you know, that's just tough. The designers of the web pages are the least important viewers of those pages.
I like that one. I was going to suggest a place where one could embed WinXP but it'd get someone an assault conviction. Or worse.
Hmm... I'm having difficulty seeing what the need for any sort of realtime OS would be for an ATM or slot machine. (Probably because I'm more used to real realtime systems like navigation and landing systems.) Heck, MVS or VMS could be considered realtime enough for ATMs and slot machines. Personally, I suspect MS is recommending WinXP for those applications because they see that equipment being used in industries they think have lots of money laying around that can be spent on MS products or royalties. Maybe I'm just jaded... Nah!
My experience with people who work in a manufacturing business (like building ATMs) is that management is a bit more sensitive to costs than, say, your typical pointy-haired IT manager. Waltzing into a meeting and stating that you think it's a good idea to increase costs by $300 and all you're going to get is a modest (and debatable) improvement in the user interface might require a lot of justification. ``Because it's from Microsoft'' might not be enough to convince the boss when he askes why you want to replace perfectly good, working code in the product line. Like someone mentioned in another post: A Z80 could do the things required in an ATM. And how much do those cost?
Personally, it sickens me to see people's thinking limited to single turning of the gears and coming up with a solution without considering alternatives. Must be something they're putting in the cafeteria food in schools nowadays that is dulling their thought processes.
Heck neither have I (We usually call 'em ATMs on the Western side of the Big Swamp). But I have seen plenty of BSODed flight info displays at airports and other places.
Hmm... I wonder. I've seen a few photos of prominent BSOD displays pop up from time to time (here and on other web sites). Anyone know of a web site that specializes in those? Could be good for a laugh.
When I lived in S. Ohio, the answer to this was: ``To show the possum that it could be done''
...if anyone sent them a bill for the CPU usage?
I'd sure love to hear of a defense lawyer bringing that up the FBI's theft of electricity in court.
Good point. And I suppose having a home alarm system wouldn't do any good either as the FBI probably find a way to make illegal for ADT to notify the local police that the home alarm had been tripped. (Besides, the FBI probably has a means around any alarm system that I'd be able to afford.)
Which makes my first post all the more relevant. How are they going to stop me from running tripwire and other break-in detection tools to detect their handywork? Is it going to become illegal to have an emergency boot disk/CD and a backup tape? I doubt that the US public would accept that. (But then when's the last time you saw a consumer-level computer with a device for making backups other than a floppy drive? And how many floppies would it take to backup that PC with the 80GB hard drive that they're selling on the Home Shopping Channel? Sorry, I'm beginning to digress...)
Um, would you continue using a system that had been tampered with in this way?
Guess I'll have to move out of the US if they make it illegal for me to run tripwire, netstat, ps, (etc.) to detect the FBI's software having been planted on my computers. I use those (and more) on the systems I run at work and I'll take them off only when the company's legal department tells me to.
Personally, I wouldn't have thought that the FBI would be thinking far enough ahead to consider infesting any systems that were running anything other than Windows. Maybe it's just me but I see IBM's ``server heist'' commercial and see the ``authorities'' brought in to investigate as FBI agents. And I wouldn't be all that surprised to hear a real one actually say ``What's a server?'' (My wife once said ``Oh, heck, they probably don't even know what an email is.'' when that commercial was on.) Just listen to some of the FBI's Carnivore apologists. Their computer literacy is, um, not what you'd like to see in someone who's making the sort of decisions that are being made regarding computers, networking, etc. It'd be funny if it weren't rather frightening.
We do the same thing on our Tru64 boxen. All 3rd party software goes in /opt or /usr/opt. 3rd party executables go in /usr/local/bin. Some executables live in an app-specific subdirectory under /opt and the symlink in /usr/local/bin points to the physical location. It makes OS upgrade time tons simpler. And the first step of our DR plan is to backup OS-related stuff and backup software on special tapes. Those get restored first so that we get a bootable system in a hurry. Then the rest of the software and data can be restored using the 3rd party backup software. None of this would be as easy to do if we had 2000 programs all living under /usr/bin. If Mosfet has a point it's that some distribution vendors make a mess out of the directory structure by dumping way, way too much stuff under, say, /usr/bin.
\begin{rant}
RedHat, are you listening? I like your distribution but the layout of the files you install sucks big time. Anyone who updates their applications (Apache, PostgreSQL, PHP, etc.) from the developer's sites has to undo the mess you guys create. Either that or don't install the versions on your CDs at all and just go with the source tars.
\end{rant}
(OK, I feel better now...)
Nah. The last job where coworkers used to regularly hang out after work was a long time ago (over ten years). And, actually, we weren't IT workers but rather electrical engineers that just happened to do a lot of interesting things with computers during the course of our work (avionics systems). Another difference was that it was a university engineering/research lab that was involved in outside contract work. I haven't experienced anything like that sort of comradery (sp?) since moving to the so-called ``real world''. Part of the problem, I suspect, is that most of my current coworkers live so far away from work that they're not exactly thrilled with the idea of going out to socialize with coworkers and then have an hour's worth of driving to get home. I floated the idea of a project completion barbeque not too long ago at work and it wasn't received well. That sort of activity was common back in my days working in academia. In fact, I'd say I have closer relationships with some of my coworkers from those days than I have with current coworkers. Part of it might have related to the close working conditions, the stress of meeting the deadlines for deliverables, 18-hour workdays, etc. Not the same as getting shot at or running into burning buildings, mind you (though sometimes it might have been more comfortable having the director take shots at us than sitting in some of his meetings :-) ).
Oh, really? It was slow (but then so was it's bigger brother in those days). If memory serves, it didn't include a floppy drive as standard equipment and the software available on those cartridges was... no, I take that back; there was virtually no software available in those cartridges. And the keyboard was the biggest problem of all. It probably set a record for causing unanimous negative opinion in the shortest amount of time of any PC product.
Surely ``popular'' wasn't the word you really meant to use...
...to move the following of my personal stuff:
We recently moved and let the gorillas move everything but the things I listed above. Sure I had to rent a small truck but nothing was damaged. It was well worth the small cost.
Many years ago, a ``professional'' moving company found a way to severely dent a peuter plate wedding present given to me by the EE faculty where I was teaching. It was packed in the middle of a bunch of china which miraculously managed to survive the move. Of course the moving company found some reason that they weren't liable.
If memory serves, there was a column in DEC Professional years ago (obviously) that jokingly likened the RSX-11 SYSGEN process as an adventure game. Now something like that's finally available!
I'm sort of wondering how long it'll be before I see ``Munging the SCSI adapter has no effect or what ``Hello, sailor'' does to the kernel. And, yes, I know, those are more from the Zork games. Just can't remember any of the good funny responses from adventure any more. Other than the one about the maze of twisty passages, of course.
Someone at Microsoft may have just now gotten around to loading a recent 2.4.x kernel distribution on a test machine and finally worked up the courage to leave Gates and Ballmer an email about the test results. :-)
What bothers me about the internal memo, is the tone. Will they tout the advantages of Microsoft's products or will the thrust of their sales pitch be what a mistake it would be go non-Microsoft? I sure as hell don't buy things because someone took me out to lunch or sent me a T-shirt. And I'm lucky enough to work for a group of managers who are fairly enlightened and wouldn't be fooled into buying something at a discount that was going to cause a lot of grief. So, it'll be interesting to hear about what this newly motivated sales force tries to pull in order to win accounts.
Just so long as they refrain from lying or using the tactic that an HP sales critter tried on us once several years ago: Leading off the sales pitch by tearing down their competitors rather than selling us the benefits of their products. It totally turned us off within the first few minutes and they were never seriously considered. Sorry, but tell us why you're good and we'll make up our minds once we have the facts, thank you.
Oddly enough, Dark Side of the Moon is one of their LPs that I like the least. (Go figure, eh?) As far as Floyd chords, I'll take the first one from Fearless over Time. Takes all kinds I guess.
``...except the song "Money". Maybe it's just been overplayed...''
Yah, you got that right. Maybe that's why I don't like the rest of the LP as much. Damned radio stations...
Not a bad choice, but I think the title is really held by the first chord of ``Hard Day's Night''.
Now let's see just how far off-topic we can get here. :-)
Copyright infringement? For skipping the commercials?
Have I become some hardened copyright infringing criminal for fast forwarding past the commercials when I view my taping of Politically Incorrect at a saner time than the 12:05 AM that my local network chooses to air it?
Here's hoping that the courts will kick this case out and say (LOUDLY) that they are NOT in the business of telling manufacturers what features may be included in their products.
``You can have my fast forward button when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!''
... I might find that that adaptive image compression scheme I was using years ago might turn out to be useful after all. (Some parts of it would have been tons more practical if you used a ternary coding.) Now if I can find the source code amongst all those 360KB floppies that I've been meaning to burn onto CDs and convert it from FORTRAN...
Crimeny! Talk about yer heavy-handed edicts...
Someone's finally found a way to purge that last remnant of creativity and flexibility from the job of developing software. What a wonderful place that's going to be to work in.
Is there going to be a ``Directorate of New Product Ideas'' to tell you what new software you'll be allowed to dream up during the development process?
Don't suppose the originator of this story would want to leak the company name. I can think of a lot of people who would rather not waste their time even applying for a job with such a company.