Allow me to grovel a bit and take my lashings for doubting your experience. You get so many folks who bitch about the one time they installed it on their mom's old 486 and try to extrapolate out.
I too have some issues with RedHat. I personally don't use the graphical tools. I hack the config files with my own home rolled Tcl/Tk scripts. I just like having a stable and supported set of binaries to build on. That and what project these days doesn't put out a RedHat compadible RPM.
Where I run into trouble is downloading the source and compiling it. I must have 4 different copies of Tcl installed on my system between the Tcl that comes with Linux, the development version I compile myself to write extensions, the version ActiveState puts out, and the somewhat self-contained one that is bundled with Tcl/Tk. (Not to mention a few other applications.)
I have also managed to shoot myself in the foot with trying to do it myself on package management. I have an automation that downloads the patches, and distributes them to my linux cluster for installation. The problem is that a few of the patches have royally crufted my network.
I also have to apologize for confusing Solaris with SGI. I have a bunch of O2's that are gathering dust because they are obsolete and a bitch to keep running. We have a pair of Solaris boxes for our Weather system and I have rather liked working on them.
That said, how do we know that what we view of the Universe isn't going to abruptly change?
What if our universe is actually the memory map of a giant computer. If they upgrade the kernel in the computer, the rules of our universe would change dramatically. That is assuming, of course, that they don't have to reboot. Rebooting WOULD alter our universe.
So tell me, if NSSA uses NAA's equipment, does NSSA pay the NAA? In that case, you are simply robbing Peter to pay Paul, and creating 2 Beaurocracies from one.
Have you actually used RedHat? Having been a sysadmin for both platforms I can tell you that RedHat's stuff is a bit nicer because they tend to sift the best of the best from the OpenSource community.
The military doesn't take anything seriously if it doesn't cost money. These are the same folks who brought you the $800 toilet seat and the $200 claw hammer.
Unless it costs money, they frankly don't think it will work.
Ack. Short of passing around source tarballs and having them compiled on demand, I don't think an ideal package system exists for all platforms.
That said, why DON'T we just package the source tarballs instead of the binaries? I mean, back in the day it took forever to compile something on a beat up old 486. But today I can build Tcl/Tk in a little under 7 minutes, and the Linux Kernel in 20 or so. As the machines get faster and the compilers get more efficient tracking the binaries is going to seem downright silly after a while.
Okay, Integrate a step function. What do you get at the point when the the system goes instantly from zero to one. Hmmm. Looks like a spike that shoots straight up to infinity, doesn't it?
And that still doesn't take into account the fact the we would never really be able to measure if some force outside this whole system isn't tweaking it as he/she/it goes.
Face it, we can't answer a simple question like "Is it going to rain 7 days from now." Why? Chaos. Now you are going to tell me that somehow these physicists can model the universe to any kind of precision, over billions of years. I think not.
All things being equal, I like the simple answers. Namely: there is a whole lot more than you will ever understand, and that something more powerful than you is keeping it all running.
I call it the SimUniverse. Now if the Player is reading this, the code for unlimited energy is --M-O-M-O-N-E-Y in all caps. And if the game crashes giving you the option to Abort, Retry, or Ignore NEVER CHOOSE ABORT.
I seem to recall that prior to WWI a panel conviened to discuss the problems of warfare. The concluded that we should outlaw warfare entirely.
I don't understand this obsession with panels. We really need action. We need someone to invent the mass driver in their back yard.
Think of flight.
Before the Wright Brothers, flight (when attempted) was perilous and uncontrolled. You could control your Yaw motion well enough, you place a rudder on the tail of the aircraft like the rudder on a boat. Pitch was easy, you take a rudder, turn in sideways, and you can control up and down movement. The tricky part was Roll. The Wright brothers developed a technique called "Wing Warping", where they altered the geometry of the wing to control roll motion.
Think of radio. Deforest clodged together a bunch of parts and created the precursor to the modern Diode. He never really understood how it worked, but the invention (and the name escapes me) is the one missing piece that allows radio transmissions.
The nautical clock, a stepping stone that allowed ships to calculate their longitudinal position, was invented be a sole crazed inventor.
Einstein did not have a panel to work out relativity. Hell how many theorums do Newton, Fermat, Fourier, Laplace, and Liebnitz have to their names. And don't forget loonies like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
Face it, geeks rule. They always have. All of human history was more or less worked out by one crackpot at a time. We need crackpots working on this problem.
Turning a switch on in systems equations requires an infinite amount of energy. Think about that the next time someone tells you to switch the lights off if you aren't in the room for 5 minutes.
Seriously though, I think every cosmologist should be required to be an Electrical Engineer first. I should write a book, All the I needed to know in life I learned in Systems
All of the mathmatical rules we have to describe the universe are approximations.
There is more than one model to describe most phenominon.
Any time you convert data, you alter it. Quantifying data is a conversion process.
Quick, Cheap, Right. Pick any two.
If the problem can't be solved, transform it into another domain or eliminate variables through constraints.
And by the way, just because someone says it's a constraint doesn't make it so.
Engineers are the center of the Universe. They get to pick the coordinate system.
Also remember that no one has been looking to see if energy is added or removed from the universe. All of these theories are based on the notion of a closed system. What if that assumption was not true?
If I had a nickel for one of these crack pot stories...
I have heard so many versions of different cosmological outcomes for the universe, that the signal to noise ratio is approaching zero. The press doesn't help, covering every crackpot with a soapbox.
I am not discrediting the research. I am just so skeptical about scientific news stories that the Meaning of Life could be posted online and I wouldn't believe it.
Pick it up at home depot. Shrink-wrap cellophane is sold as a weatherizer for windows. (Rimshot). Wrap your package like a [holiday] present, and hit it with a hair dryier. Viola. May also work with standard kitchen plastic wrap as well.
Jeeze. Next they will be suing because you can't return underpants or swimwear.
Did you ever think, for one single moment, the a return policy is an optional program put together by retailers as a service to their customers? You cannot returned opened music, or candy. If you have a bad experience, GOOD retailers will give you a gift certificate of something, but not a refund.
Our legal system is governed under the principle of Caveat Emptor, let the buyer beware. You went to the store. You handed them your money. You walked home with the product. The product operated in the manner in which it was described.
(Yes, people will argue that they didn't understand they needed to buy a subscription to make the software work. To me that sounds like WHAT? 40,000 for a car and I have to pay $20 to fill it up every 200 miles? And what is this insurance that I have to pay, and this registration?)
It is shady, yes. Illegal, certainly not. I'm waiting for the class action suit against Casinos.
Actually there are all sorts of games you can play with accounting when you acquire another company. You can tell investors that, well, you WOULD have made a profit if it wasn't for the restructuring charges incurred because we bought another company.
Of course, those restructuring charges include golf club memberships, new company jets, and the bleeding red ink from you other divisions not withstanding.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, we are talking about inviting M$ so shouldn't we use mingw instead?
echo 100 > /proc/fudge_factors/signal_to_noise_ratio
Talk about a hell of your own making...
I'm downloading a copy as we speak. I feel like I've found the holy grail or something.
Allow me to grovel a bit and take my lashings for doubting your experience. You get so many folks who bitch about the one time they installed it on their mom's old 486 and try to extrapolate out.
I too have some issues with RedHat. I personally don't use the graphical tools. I hack the config files with my own home rolled Tcl/Tk scripts. I just like having a stable and supported set of binaries to build on. That and what project these days doesn't put out a RedHat compadible RPM.
Where I run into trouble is downloading the source and compiling it. I must have 4 different copies of Tcl installed on my system between the Tcl that comes with Linux, the development version I compile myself to write extensions, the version ActiveState puts out, and the somewhat self-contained one that is bundled with Tcl/Tk. (Not to mention a few other applications.)
I have also managed to shoot myself in the foot with trying to do it myself on package management. I have an automation that downloads the patches, and distributes them to my linux cluster for installation. The problem is that a few of the patches have royally crufted my network.
I also have to apologize for confusing Solaris with SGI. I have a bunch of O2's that are gathering dust because they are obsolete and a bitch to keep running. We have a pair of Solaris boxes for our Weather system and I have rather liked working on them.
What if our universe is actually the memory map of a giant computer. If they upgrade the kernel in the computer, the rules of our universe would change dramatically. That is assuming, of course, that they don't have to reboot. Rebooting WOULD alter our universe.
Sorry, just had to share.
That's progress.
Frankly the .NET adds on Slashdot turn my stomache.
Besides, last I checked Sun was hawking Linux.
Unless it costs money, they frankly don't think it will work.
That said, why DON'T we just package the source tarballs instead of the binaries? I mean, back in the day it took forever to compile something on a beat up old 486. But today I can build Tcl/Tk in a little under 7 minutes, and the Linux Kernel in 20 or so. As the machines get faster and the compilers get more efficient tracking the binaries is going to seem downright silly after a while.
My US0.02
Okay, Integrate a step function. What do you get at the point when the the system goes instantly from zero to one. Hmmm. Looks like a spike that shoots straight up to infinity, doesn't it?
Face it, we can't answer a simple question like "Is it going to rain 7 days from now." Why? Chaos. Now you are going to tell me that somehow these physicists can model the universe to any kind of precision, over billions of years. I think not.
All things being equal, I like the simple answers. Namely: there is a whole lot more than you will ever understand, and that something more powerful than you is keeping it all running.
I call it the SimUniverse. Now if the Player is reading this, the code for unlimited energy is --M-O-M-O-N-E-Y in all caps. And if the game crashes giving you the option to Abort, Retry, or Ignore NEVER CHOOSE ABORT.
Says who.
I don't understand this obsession with panels. We really need action. We need someone to invent the mass driver in their back yard. Think of flight.
Before the Wright Brothers, flight (when attempted) was perilous and uncontrolled. You could control your Yaw motion well enough, you place a rudder on the tail of the aircraft like the rudder on a boat. Pitch was easy, you take a rudder, turn in sideways, and you can control up and down movement. The tricky part was Roll. The Wright brothers developed a technique called "Wing Warping", where they altered the geometry of the wing to control roll motion.
Think of radio. Deforest clodged together a bunch of parts and created the precursor to the modern Diode. He never really understood how it worked, but the invention (and the name escapes me) is the one missing piece that allows radio transmissions.
The nautical clock, a stepping stone that allowed ships to calculate their longitudinal position, was invented be a sole crazed inventor.
Einstein did not have a panel to work out relativity. Hell how many theorums do Newton, Fermat, Fourier, Laplace, and Liebnitz have to their names. And don't forget loonies like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
Face it, geeks rule. They always have. All of human history was more or less worked out by one crackpot at a time. We need crackpots working on this problem.
Seriously though, I think every cosmologist should be required to be an Electrical Engineer first. I should write a book, All the I needed to know in life I learned in Systems
Also remember that no one has been looking to see if energy is added or removed from the universe. All of these theories are based on the notion of a closed system. What if that assumption was not true?
I have heard so many versions of different cosmological outcomes for the universe, that the signal to noise ratio is approaching zero. The press doesn't help, covering every crackpot with a soapbox.
I am not discrediting the research. I am just so skeptical about scientific news stories that the Meaning of Life could be posted online and I wouldn't believe it.
When do I get my deposit back?
Pick it up at home depot. Shrink-wrap cellophane is sold as a weatherizer for windows. (Rimshot). Wrap your package like a [holiday] present, and hit it with a hair dryier. Viola. May also work with standard kitchen plastic wrap as well.
So how much fly shit was in that last batch of pepper anyway?
Did you ever think, for one single moment, the a return policy is an optional program put together by retailers as a service to their customers? You cannot returned opened music, or candy. If you have a bad experience, GOOD retailers will give you a gift certificate of something, but not a refund.
Our legal system is governed under the principle of Caveat Emptor, let the buyer beware. You went to the store. You handed them your money. You walked home with the product. The product operated in the manner in which it was described.
(Yes, people will argue that they didn't understand they needed to buy a subscription to make the software work. To me that sounds like WHAT? 40,000 for a car and I have to pay $20 to fill it up every 200 miles? And what is this insurance that I have to pay, and this registration?)
It is shady, yes. Illegal, certainly not. I'm waiting for the class action suit against Casinos.
Of course, those restructuring charges include golf club memberships, new company jets, and the bleeding red ink from you other divisions not withstanding.