...which specifically meant you could NOT use the schematic (...) to make modifications."
Um...no. You could legally modify your TV at will, but the warranty would no longer apply. Possibly your insurance wouldn't cover you in case a faulty (modified) device burnt down the house, but there weren't legal restraints on what you could do with the device.
Interesting question, to which there is a definitive and correct answer: A single syllable word.
From the docs:
"Vim is pronounced as one word, like Jim, not vi-ai-em. It's written with a capital, since it's a name, again like Jim."
vi, on the other hand, is pronounced as two separate letters:
It's pronounced as if it were initials: ``vee eye''.
Not ``six''.
Not ``vye''.
But ``vee eye''.
Oh really? And here I thought it was designed by touch typists who needed powerful editing features, and were willing to put some effort into achieving it.
No, I'm not being facetious, or at least not very much.
Every company I've worked for has an HR orientation of some sort for new hires. This not only includes an overview of benefits, etc., but also a lecture of some length on diversity, understanding, tolerance, and respect in the workplace. My current employer has a three-day seminar that is mandatory for every full-time employee.
Basically, we are treated like social retards who will start smacking women (or men) on the asses and demanding coffee delivered, if we aren't trained in basic manners over and over again; but it is assumed that every janitor and desk clerk is sufficiently skilled in computer operations (besides those needed directly for their job), and this will never need to be examined or refreshed.
Honestly, cut the HR training and how much grief or money have you incurred? Not a lot. Now replace it with basic computer/internet security and use training, and how much grief or money have you saved? A hell of a lot, I would guess!
I re-installed Windows XP for someone recently, and it required a hard drive controller drive to be loaded before partitioning. That driver could *only* be installed from a floppy disk. Way to look ahead Microsoft!
For a team of four, I'd recommend a large office with a door, whiteboards, and four desks. Also, space for a fifth desk or a small table.
This gives them the collaboration of an open environment without tossing them into a cube farm. You can have privacy if there are only a few other people around.
For the sake of argument, this could be 'stuff that matters' for nerds. It is, after all, a very good example of how some people fear and don't understand technology. As tech-types, this is something we need to be aware of. Anti-science opinions and rhetoric can be damaging and harmful, if not dealt with.
Or it just could be considered 'crazy girl complains about nonsense.' I'm OK with that too.
I never claimed (or at least, didn't mean to claim) that there was anything wrong with IBM's POWER gear. I've always like the chip design, and lament the loss of the PowerPC series. As you say, IBM's virtualisation is miles ahead of anyone else--and has been for 30 years. AIX is the strangest Unix mutant in existence, but is also very robust and scalable.
Also, I was admittedly lazy in my terminology - it's been so long since I've actually worked on IBM gear that I'm not sure of the specifics, and didn't bother to look it up. Pretty much as you say, "slashdot." And that's the crux of my opinion. I've spent the last decade working in Oil/Gas, Telecom, and government sectors, and have come across maybe a dozen IBM systems - most of them ancient. In contrast, I've worked on or with several thousand Sun systems, a few hundred HP-UX boxes, and increasingly, Linux. These are large companies (although not the very largest) - in the $8-40Bn market cap range.
Obviously people buy IBM stuff, but now like HP-UX, it seems to be replacing old IBM gear for the last time. "We'll buy one more generation, and spend the next three years migrating it off" is certainly common in HPUX-land, thanks to Carly, and I get the feeling that much of current IBM purchases are the same.
The real key, in my mind, is what new or expanding companies are buying - and I don't see that being IBM or HP, and rapidly Sun is joining their ranks. Linux (and Microsoft - ugh) seem to be the winners here, and FreeBSD is getting much more attention than it has in ages, because of ZFS on not-Sun.
As an aside, no matter what happens with Solaris, SPARC, and the future of Unix, ZFS is the biggest game-changer the OS industry has seen, and will affect everything going forward.
I have my vision corrected to 20/20 or better, and 3D holds little interest for me.
Going to the movies and seeing something in 3D is one thing. Gimmick or not, it's kinda fun and 'gee whiz' is why we still go to movies anyways. I had fun watching Avatar in 3D, and was quite impressed with how it was done. A bit hyper-real, but pretty good--certainly not as cheesy as seeing Buckaroo Bonzai in 3D back in 1984.
3D in the home will be another thing. The Masters in 3D/HD was demoed in the lobby of my local cable company last week. Because the image is unwatchable without glasses, you MUST wear them--but if I'm watching TV, I'm also likely doing something else. When a commercial comes on, I'll get up and get a drink or something. Ultimately, I'll be taking my glasses off and on constantly, and that's just damned annoying. Even if I'm watching a movie with no commercials, my TV (sorry, "home theatre") isn't sufficiently set up to make it a big improvement. Bottom line: It's a personal annoyance to watch something in 3D, and most people's viewing habits aren't amenable to that sort of sacrifice.
3D in the home will be a fad, and may survive as a niche, but it won't take over - and you don't need an eye condition for that to be true.
The minute Jonathan Schwartz took over Sun, they started losing good people. He did the logical thing, and encouraged them to go, transforming Sun into an empty shell of a company, hostile to technology and technologists.
Oh, wait--that's doesn't sound so logical does it?
Basically, Schwartz deliberately destroyed Sun so he could sell it and make a (personal) profit. Oracle is notorious for hacking and slashing good people from companies they buy, so they're going to be just as damaging to the remnants.
Yep. That's about what I've been seeing - except that in my chunk of telecom, Linux is gaining ground rapidly. Probably one server out of three that we deploy is Linux now, and considering that only 5-10% of our data centre runs it, that's a big increase.
In the Oil/Gas (and mines and resources) sector, I see more and more Windows showing up - mostly due to reduced time to deploy, regardless of how good the deployed product is. No matter how many times they get bitten, some people would still rather have a flakey server tomorrow that they complain about forever, than a reliable one next week.
So I've been working with Unix vendors for wow--decades now--and have worked very closely with some of them, as a big customer and also as a 'strategic partner.' I've never been close enough to see the email in the company, but maybe that gives me a bit of neutrality to my knowledge. Anyways, here's what I see:
1) IBM? Nobody buys P-series. Oil/Gas doesn't buy them, telecom doesn't buy them, entertainment doesn't buy them, and that leaves financials. Maybe the banks are buying P-series, but to replace Sun gear? I doubt it. More likely, they're replacing VAX and S/390 gear. (Yeah, still.)
2) Sun's hardware (i.e. SPARC gear) has some very nice features, but is not in the same category for _general_ computing power. Massively multithreaded jobs belong on SPARC, small-thread number crunching belongs on the GHz-of-the-day winner, and that's x86-derived. Sun has also thrown away most of their competitive advantage in the x86 market by embracing Windows. If it weren't for Windows compatability, they could have had Open Boot Prom on every single box they sell, but instead we're stuck with a third-rate BIOS and ILOM (LOM designed by committee of middle managers).
3) Software ls really the most valuable asset that Sun had at the end, but the problem has always been monetizing software. Sun's model actually worked well (it was the follow-through they eventually fell apart on)! Sell hardware, give away software, include training credits with hardware purchases, and soak you for enterprise support. There aren't a lot of big companies unwilling to pay Sun's prices for great support on rock-solid products, but there are a lot who don't want to pay for CRAP support on flakey products, which is what Sun has been offering for two years now.
Oracle could make out like a bandit if they rationalised the SPARC lineup, maintained the model, and fixed the support issues. Instead, they're destroying the business model, breaking support EVEN MORE, and ignoring all Sun products. I'm afraid that Larry Ellison thinks he just bought a hardware monopoly to support his software monopoly, and is going to be in for a rude surprise when customers leave him in droves for Linux or Microsoft.
I don't like it, but I don't see much of an alternative. The egos are too big to keep good products alive and relevant, so they're all going to fall apart.
1) Sun could NOT use the GPL3 (or 2 for that matter) for OpenSolaris, because it violated existing license agreements. CDDL worked with them. Just because Oracle bought them doesn't make all of those previous issues irrelevant.
2) Why the hell would they? What could it possibly benefit Oracle to go to significant effort in relicensing a product they don't care much about, especially using the most anti-corporate license commonly available?
The GPL3 isn't necessary for a product to be useful. Hell, open source isn't necessary either - but you DO have the source with OpenSolaris, so I highly recommend getting over your tiny little license wars, and joining the real world.
I never said it was practical, feasible, or even possible. Nor did I suggest (or at least I didn't _intend_ to) that I'm in favour of murdering, even spammers.
But my point is that in a magical fairy-world, where I had a button on my desk that would publicly kill all spammers legally and without moral repercussions for me (hah!), then after a few regular applications, people would seriously start to avoid spamming. It's not that you've increased the risk of being found, it's that by spamming, you have just GUARANTEED your own death in the very near future. There's no profit in dying (although there's lots of profit in death.)
However, that magical world doesn't exist. I very much doubt I could deliberately kill a person under any circumstances, and there will always be spammers.
I'm curious how you think spam can be stopped, though. I would say that ten years ago spam could have been stopped, but not since then. It has become too ingrained in the system. The only achilles tendon that spam has is its lack of willing consumers. People will willingly buy drugs and pay for prostitutes, but there aren't a lot of end-consumers to keep spam going. It mostly continues out of gullibility and treachery.
A few spammers with Russian Mafia connections have been found dead, apparently as a result of crossing the mafia. This isn't the same as collecting spammers and carrying out a consistent, focused, public slaughter.
The risk has to outweigh the reward. If every commercial spammer on planet earth showed up dead one day, it would scare a lot of people. If it happened every six months or so, eventually nobody would get into spamming.
I agree. I've spent decades slowly building my music collection, planning carefully, reading reviews (or not!), and mostly buying albums one-at-a-time. My wife and I have got about 200 records and 700 CDs now, and I know almost every track on 80+% of them. However, I know of a kid who, at the age of 13, had roughly three YEARS of downloaded music! (And for the record, my collection comes in at a month-and-a-half of music.)
It makes me wonder how music can be anything more than background noise. I'm finding the same thing myself, as I download things or listen to streaming music. I have to actually force myself to critically listen to new music, or it just slips into the subconscious stream.
Live music may be the key, though. Nothing replaces a live show with sweaty musicians onstage.
Slashdot Mirror
...which specifically meant you could NOT use the schematic (...) to make modifications."
Um...no. You could legally modify your TV at will, but the warranty would no longer apply. Possibly your insurance wouldn't cover you in case a faulty (modified) device burnt down the house, but there weren't legal restraints on what you could do with the device.
Interesting question, to which there is a definitive and correct answer: A single syllable word.
From the docs:
"Vim is pronounced as one word, like Jim, not vi-ai-em. It's written with a capital, since it's a name, again like Jim."
vi, on the other hand, is pronounced as two separate letters:
It's pronounced as if it were initials: ``vee eye''.
Not ``six''.
Not ``vye''.
But ``vee eye''.
Oh really? And here I thought it was designed by touch typists who needed powerful editing features, and were willing to put some effort into achieving it.
Ah well, guess I'm autistic then.
No, I'm not being facetious, or at least not very much.
Every company I've worked for has an HR orientation of some sort for new hires. This not only includes an overview of benefits, etc., but also a lecture of some length on diversity, understanding, tolerance, and respect in the workplace. My current employer has a three-day seminar that is mandatory for every full-time employee.
Basically, we are treated like social retards who will start smacking women (or men) on the asses and demanding coffee delivered, if we aren't trained in basic manners over and over again; but it is assumed that every janitor and desk clerk is sufficiently skilled in computer operations (besides those needed directly for their job), and this will never need to be examined or refreshed.
Honestly, cut the HR training and how much grief or money have you incurred? Not a lot.
Now replace it with basic computer/internet security and use training, and how much grief or money have you saved? A hell of a lot, I would guess!
Ironic that this question should be asked again now, when only two days ago Sony announced they would stop manufacturing them next year.
I re-installed Windows XP for someone recently, and it required a hard drive controller drive to be loaded before partitioning. That driver could *only* be installed from a floppy disk. Way to look ahead Microsoft!
For a team of four, I'd recommend a large office with a door, whiteboards, and four desks. Also, space for a fifth desk or a small table.
This gives them the collaboration of an open environment without tossing them into a cube farm. You can have privacy if there are only a few other people around.
For the sake of argument, this could be 'stuff that matters' for nerds. It is, after all, a very good example of how some people fear and don't understand technology. As tech-types, this is something we need to be aware of. Anti-science opinions and rhetoric can be damaging and harmful, if not dealt with.
Or it just could be considered 'crazy girl complains about nonsense.' I'm OK with that too.
Well no, they're not. They're games and they're competitions, but they're not sports. Pretty much my point.
When did playing computer games become a 'sport?'
"What's next, KDawson submitting good stories?"
OK, NOW you're just being silly!
Some excellent points.
I never claimed (or at least, didn't mean to claim) that there was anything wrong with IBM's POWER gear. I've always like the chip design, and lament the loss of the PowerPC series. As you say, IBM's virtualisation is miles ahead of anyone else--and has been for 30 years. AIX is the strangest Unix mutant in existence, but is also very robust and scalable.
Also, I was admittedly lazy in my terminology - it's been so long since I've actually worked on IBM gear that I'm not sure of the specifics, and didn't bother to look it up. Pretty much as you say, "slashdot." And that's the crux of my opinion. I've spent the last decade working in Oil/Gas, Telecom, and government sectors, and have come across maybe a dozen IBM systems - most of them ancient. In contrast, I've worked on or with several thousand Sun systems, a few hundred HP-UX boxes, and increasingly, Linux. These are large companies (although not the very largest) - in the $8-40Bn market cap range.
Obviously people buy IBM stuff, but now like HP-UX, it seems to be replacing old IBM gear for the last time. "We'll buy one more generation, and spend the next three years migrating it off" is certainly common in HPUX-land, thanks to Carly, and I get the feeling that much of current IBM purchases are the same.
The real key, in my mind, is what new or expanding companies are buying - and I don't see that being IBM or HP, and rapidly Sun is joining their ranks. Linux (and Microsoft - ugh) seem to be the winners here, and FreeBSD is getting much more attention than it has in ages, because of ZFS on not-Sun.
As an aside, no matter what happens with Solaris, SPARC, and the future of Unix, ZFS is the biggest game-changer the OS industry has seen, and will affect everything going forward.
I have my vision corrected to 20/20 or better, and 3D holds little interest for me.
Going to the movies and seeing something in 3D is one thing. Gimmick or not, it's kinda fun and 'gee whiz' is why we still go to movies anyways. I had fun watching Avatar in 3D, and was quite impressed with how it was done. A bit hyper-real, but pretty good--certainly not as cheesy as seeing Buckaroo Bonzai in 3D back in 1984.
3D in the home will be another thing. The Masters in 3D/HD was demoed in the lobby of my local cable company last week. Because the image is unwatchable without glasses, you MUST wear them--but if I'm watching TV, I'm also likely doing something else. When a commercial comes on, I'll get up and get a drink or something. Ultimately, I'll be taking my glasses off and on constantly, and that's just damned annoying. Even if I'm watching a movie with no commercials, my TV (sorry, "home theatre") isn't sufficiently set up to make it a big improvement. Bottom line: It's a personal annoyance to watch something in 3D, and most people's viewing habits aren't amenable to that sort of sacrifice.
3D in the home will be a fad, and may survive as a niche, but it won't take over - and you don't need an eye condition for that to be true.
Both.
The minute Jonathan Schwartz took over Sun, they started losing good people. He did the logical thing, and encouraged them to go, transforming Sun into an empty shell of a company, hostile to technology and technologists.
Oh, wait--that's doesn't sound so logical does it?
Basically, Schwartz deliberately destroyed Sun so he could sell it and make a (personal) profit. Oracle is notorious for hacking and slashing good people from companies they buy, so they're going to be just as damaging to the remnants.
Yep. That's about what I've been seeing - except that in my chunk of telecom, Linux is gaining ground rapidly. Probably one server out of three that we deploy is Linux now, and considering that only 5-10% of our data centre runs it, that's a big increase.
In the Oil/Gas (and mines and resources) sector, I see more and more Windows showing up - mostly due to reduced time to deploy, regardless of how good the deployed product is. No matter how many times they get bitten, some people would still rather have a flakey server tomorrow that they complain about forever, than a reliable one next week.
So I've been working with Unix vendors for wow--decades now--and have worked very closely with some of them, as a big customer and also as a 'strategic partner.' I've never been close enough to see the email in the company, but maybe that gives me a bit of neutrality to my knowledge. Anyways, here's what I see:
1) IBM? Nobody buys P-series. Oil/Gas doesn't buy them, telecom doesn't buy them, entertainment doesn't buy them, and that leaves financials. Maybe the banks are buying P-series, but to replace Sun gear? I doubt it. More likely, they're replacing VAX and S/390 gear. (Yeah, still.)
2) Sun's hardware (i.e. SPARC gear) has some very nice features, but is not in the same category for _general_ computing power. Massively multithreaded jobs belong on SPARC, small-thread number crunching belongs on the GHz-of-the-day winner, and that's x86-derived. Sun has also thrown away most of their competitive advantage in the x86 market by embracing Windows. If it weren't for Windows compatability, they could have had Open Boot Prom on every single box they sell, but instead we're stuck with a third-rate BIOS and ILOM (LOM designed by committee of middle managers).
3) Software ls really the most valuable asset that Sun had at the end, but the problem has always been monetizing software. Sun's model actually worked well (it was the follow-through they eventually fell apart on)! Sell hardware, give away software, include training credits with hardware purchases, and soak you for enterprise support. There aren't a lot of big companies unwilling to pay Sun's prices for great support on rock-solid products, but there are a lot who don't want to pay for CRAP support on flakey products, which is what Sun has been offering for two years now.
Oracle could make out like a bandit if they rationalised the SPARC lineup, maintained the model, and fixed the support issues. Instead, they're destroying the business model, breaking support EVEN MORE, and ignoring all Sun products. I'm afraid that Larry Ellison thinks he just bought a hardware monopoly to support his software monopoly, and is going to be in for a rude surprise when customers leave him in droves for Linux or Microsoft.
I don't like it, but I don't see much of an alternative. The egos are too big to keep good products alive and relevant, so they're all going to fall apart.
I'm fully in favour of this. The more that paranoia and idiocy win, the sooner we'll see a revolution.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not a fan of revolution. However, it seems inevitable that the US is going to run into one before long.
Well, I've got this grinder, so I can grind it fine enough and use the doser to deliver it onto the mirror in neat little lines.
Good "coffee" equipment is priceless.
Good luck there, fanboy.
1) Sun could NOT use the GPL3 (or 2 for that matter) for OpenSolaris, because it violated existing license agreements. CDDL worked with them. Just because Oracle bought them doesn't make all of those previous issues irrelevant.
2) Why the hell would they? What could it possibly benefit Oracle to go to significant effort in relicensing a product they don't care much about, especially using the most anti-corporate license commonly available?
The GPL3 isn't necessary for a product to be useful. Hell, open source isn't necessary either - but you DO have the source with OpenSolaris, so I highly recommend getting over your tiny little license wars, and joining the real world.
Most major oil companies and several major ISPs live and breathe Solaris (mostly on SPARC, but that's changing).
Probably the most prevalent OS in large data centres out there.
"No doubt this is the last we will ever hear of any of this."
This is the SECOND time in the past week you've made me snort coffee!
I've been waiting for 15 years for this. No luck so far - not even in Windows.
"Windows soon hopes to catch up to where Unix was in 1993."
I never said it was practical, feasible, or even possible. Nor did I suggest (or at least I didn't _intend_ to) that I'm in favour of murdering, even spammers.
But my point is that in a magical fairy-world, where I had a button on my desk that would publicly kill all spammers legally and without moral repercussions for me (hah!), then after a few regular applications, people would seriously start to avoid spamming. It's not that you've increased the risk of being found, it's that by spamming, you have just GUARANTEED your own death in the very near future. There's no profit in dying (although there's lots of profit in death.)
However, that magical world doesn't exist. I very much doubt I could deliberately kill a person under any circumstances, and there will always be spammers.
I'm curious how you think spam can be stopped, though. I would say that ten years ago spam could have been stopped, but not since then. It has become too ingrained in the system. The only achilles tendon that spam has is its lack of willing consumers. People will willingly buy drugs and pay for prostitutes, but there aren't a lot of end-consumers to keep spam going. It mostly continues out of gullibility and treachery.
Meh!
A few spammers with Russian Mafia connections have been found dead, apparently as a result of crossing the mafia. This isn't the same as collecting spammers and carrying out a consistent, focused, public slaughter.
The risk has to outweigh the reward. If every commercial spammer on planet earth showed up dead one day, it would scare a lot of people. If it happened every six months or so, eventually nobody would get into spamming.
I agree. I've spent decades slowly building my music collection, planning carefully, reading reviews (or not!), and mostly buying albums one-at-a-time. My wife and I have got about 200 records and 700 CDs now, and I know almost every track on 80+% of them. However, I know of a kid who, at the age of 13, had roughly three YEARS of downloaded music! (And for the record, my collection comes in at a month-and-a-half of music.)
It makes me wonder how music can be anything more than background noise. I'm finding the same thing myself, as I download things or listen to streaming music. I have to actually force myself to critically listen to new music, or it just slips into the subconscious stream.
Live music may be the key, though. Nothing replaces a live show with sweaty musicians onstage.