I doubt we're going to see any +5 funny mods in this one
Oh yeah?
So, a UDP connection walks into a bar and it goes up to the bartender.
"Hi bartender, " it says to the bartender.
"Howdy, UDP connection. What'll it be?" the bartender asks.
"I'll have a beer please. Here's a dollar," says the UDP connection.
The bartender takes the dollar, looks at the UDP connection, and continues wiping glasses.
"So, what'll it be?" the bartender asks the UDP connection.
The UDP connection forks over another dollar and orders a beer again. The bartender takes the dollar and stares expectantly at the UDP connection as he continues to wipe glasses.
"So, what are you gonna drink, little UDP connection?" the bartender asks.
"I would like a beer please," and the UDP connection gives the bartender yet another dollar. The bartender takes the dollar and promptly starts wiping the counter. He looks thatthe UDP connection and asks,
"Oh, hello there. Can I get you anything?"
"Yes please," responds the UDP connection, "I'd like a beer. Here is a dollar." And the UDP connection gives the bartender yet another dollar.
At least we won't get any "RTFA, moron!" comments in this article.
But seriously, I like slashdot because, unlike digg, we get ARTICLES, not videos. I'm not watching this. In protest, here's a completely misinformed and irrelevant comment which extrapolates a lot of very outlandish conclusions from the article summary:
Stoustrup just wants to make sure VC++ doesn't eat into the market share of his new linux-powered RC car, CTTOX. He has been embracing and extending C ofr many years now; if congress weren't so impeachment-obsessed, they would have slapped him with anticompetitive sanctions. What is a doctor doing talking about languages anyhow, he should leave that to linguists like Alan Cox and stick to paediatric medicine.
Or, to rephrase, give me text links or give me fatal and catastrophic loss of message and meaning
I personally would have sneaked in and invented a new UN agency with its own inscrutable and almost-pronounceable acronym, and then sat back and watched.
Just imagine if, halfway down this page, you get an entry like this:
UNCRP: Works in field missions to improve standards in accordance with self-determined metrics. Composed of members elected to permanent positions based on a variety of factors subservient to aforementioned goals, assuming goals have been determined prior to agency initiation. Primary work areas include inter-agency provision of UNCRP-related efforts, with the ultimate objective of improving standards, mainly in the field.
One quick email to follow up:
To: secgen@un.org
From: Agency Coordination and Initiation Subcommittee to the Secretariat
Subject: Need traction on UNCRP agency kickstart
Dear sir:
With respect to the newly established UNCRP agency, we respectfully request formal approval
of resources. We expect to be operational within 5 years and will submit the initial statement
of work within 3 years from approval.
Thank you for providing the momentum to this newly founded agency; we have dedicated much effort
to the realization of the UNCRP, as it is conducive to the eradication of, several things in the
UN charter.
Regards,
Rolf Wittigersen
And that should be it. Make yourself some popcorn, and watch the headless wonder of a new UN agency being created. At least with the UNCRP, it would be purposeless by design rather than through the diligent work of its employees.
We don't get much opportunity to try things like 1000% interest rates or, closer home to me personal experience set, things like permissive microfinance regulation.
It just strikes me that 2L, beyond the incidentals of people potentially losing money, constitutes a relatively contained environment in which to model market effects of regulatory policies.
I'm not sure why the Nokia e61i was left out. I've never been a big cell phone freak; I moved up to an e61i after some twelve years of el cheapo nokias.
QWERTY, excellent battery life, briliant screen (even in direct sunlight), wifi, superb call quality, superb speakerphone, the web browsing is a dream (has this handy zoom out feature, and when you scroll for a long time it zooms out also; totally usable). Dammit, it even has a 2 mp camera, blackberry software (though I don't use bb) and... here's the cracker, PYTHON!
Doesn't get much more smart phone than that.
I am not seeing too much really insightful discussion in here, so given that I've been advocating FOSS for some years now I'll weigh in.
You might want to find out what the reasoning is first. There can be context which you're missing because you're not that high up (as you said); there might not be, but I think a lot of FOSS advocacy is counterproductive because it is knee-jerk and fails to consider business need rather than personal technology preference. I've got a lot of examples, so it might not hurt to trot some out; some of the markets I've worked in these last few years have technology environments which constrain technology selection. You don't find Linux people in Palestine or Morocco, for example. At least not enough to make Linux a viable and sustainable choice. Sure, you can dig up a handful of brilliant geeks but what happens when they leave? Precious resources.
Or take the example of Palestine (yes, I've worked there); there's MS geeks and Oracle people. Not much else. So when you're advising what amounts to an NGO and the director tells you proudly he's probably going to build something in.NET, the best you can do is: a) advise him to consider it a prototype/intermediate solution, b) educate them on the inherent risks c) advise on how they might transition in the longer term to something better. When your FOSS advocacy is that pragmatic, it is as effective as it needs to be.
FOSS pickup is hurt by the need for instant gratification, and the sour grapes resulting from getting shot down because of circumstances extraneous to the limited vision of someone lower down. I don't mean to come across like a PHB, but it's always worth remembering that the technology is there purely to serve a set of business processes. It isn't there to give you or the company a fuzzy warm feeling.
I wholeheartedly support the notion that in the longer run FOSS is the only really sustainable technology solution one can make, whether as an individual or an enterprise or government. But calling people names because they are taking a road which doesn't lead to python powered intranet shiny portals with web services running on linux and serving up ODF and what have you not is damaging.
I've been disparaged countless times for staunch FOSS support, but it's when I have advocated reasonable technology decisions (which in the short term doesn't have to mean FOSS) that the FOSS advocacy has been the most effective.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes.
Oh yeah?
So, a UDP connection walks into a bar and it goes up to the bartender.
"Hi bartender, " it says to the bartender.
"Howdy, UDP connection. What'll it be?" the bartender asks.
"I'll have a beer please. Here's a dollar," says the UDP connection.
The bartender takes the dollar, looks at the UDP connection, and continues wiping glasses.
"So, what'll it be?" the bartender asks the UDP connection.
The UDP connection forks over another dollar and orders a beer again. The bartender takes the dollar and stares expectantly at the UDP connection as he continues to wipe glasses.
"So, what are you gonna drink, little UDP connection?" the bartender asks.
"I would like a beer please," and the UDP connection gives the bartender yet another dollar. The bartender takes the dollar and promptly starts wiping the counter. He looks thatthe UDP connection and asks,
"Oh, hello there. Can I get you anything?"
"Yes please," responds the UDP connection, "I'd like a beer. Here is a dollar." And the UDP connection gives the bartender yet another dollar.
And so on...
But seriously, I like slashdot because, unlike digg, we get ARTICLES, not videos. I'm not watching this. In protest, here's a completely misinformed and irrelevant comment which extrapolates a lot of very outlandish conclusions from the article summary:
Stoustrup just wants to make sure VC++ doesn't eat into the market share of his new linux-powered RC car, CTTOX. He has been embracing and extending C ofr many years now; if congress weren't so impeachment-obsessed, they would have slapped him with anticompetitive sanctions. What is a doctor doing talking about languages anyhow, he should leave that to linguists like Alan Cox and stick to paediatric medicine.
Or, to rephrase, give me text links or give me fatal and catastrophic loss of message and meaning
I personally would have sneaked in and invented a new UN agency with its own inscrutable and almost-pronounceable acronym, and then sat back and watched.
Just imagine if, halfway down this page, you get an entry like this:
UNCRP: Works in field missions to improve standards in accordance with self-determined metrics. Composed of members elected to permanent positions based on a variety of factors subservient to aforementioned goals, assuming goals have been determined prior to agency initiation. Primary work areas include inter-agency provision of UNCRP-related efforts, with the ultimate objective of improving standards, mainly in the field.
One quick email to follow up:
To: secgen@un.org
From: Agency Coordination and Initiation Subcommittee to the Secretariat
Subject: Need traction on UNCRP agency kickstart
Dear sir:
With respect to the newly established UNCRP agency, we respectfully request formal approval of resources. We expect to be operational within 5 years and will submit the initial statement of work within 3 years from approval.
Thank you for providing the momentum to this newly founded agency; we have dedicated much effort to the realization of the UNCRP, as it is conducive to the eradication of, several things in the UN charter.
Regards,
Rolf Wittigersen
And that should be it. Make yourself some popcorn, and watch the headless wonder of a new UN agency being created. At least with the UNCRP, it would be purposeless by design rather than through the diligent work of its employees.
4xAA is a compulsory That would seem to me to be the biggest change, that it requires batteries now.
It just strikes me that 2L, beyond the incidentals of people potentially losing money, constitutes a relatively contained environment in which to model market effects of regulatory policies.
I'm not sure why the Nokia e61i was left out. I've never been a big cell phone freak; I moved up to an e61i after some twelve years of el cheapo nokias. QWERTY, excellent battery life, briliant screen (even in direct sunlight), wifi, superb call quality, superb speakerphone, the web browsing is a dream (has this handy zoom out feature, and when you scroll for a long time it zooms out also; totally usable). Dammit, it even has a 2 mp camera, blackberry software (though I don't use bb) and... here's the cracker, PYTHON! Doesn't get much more smart phone than that.
You might want to find out what the reasoning is first. There can be context which you're missing because you're not that high up (as you said); there might not be, but I think a lot of FOSS advocacy is counterproductive because it is knee-jerk and fails to consider business need rather than personal technology preference. I've got a lot of examples, so it might not hurt to trot some out; some of the markets I've worked in these last few years have technology environments which constrain technology selection. You don't find Linux people in Palestine or Morocco, for example. At least not enough to make Linux a viable and sustainable choice. Sure, you can dig up a handful of brilliant geeks but what happens when they leave? Precious resources.
Or take the example of Palestine (yes, I've worked there); there's MS geeks and Oracle people. Not much else. So when you're advising what amounts to an NGO and the director tells you proudly he's probably going to build something in .NET, the best you can do is: a) advise him to consider it a prototype/intermediate solution, b) educate them on the inherent risks c) advise on how they might transition in the longer term to something better. When your FOSS advocacy is that pragmatic, it is as effective as it needs to be.
FOSS pickup is hurt by the need for instant gratification, and the sour grapes resulting from getting shot down because of circumstances extraneous to the limited vision of someone lower down. I don't mean to come across like a PHB, but it's always worth remembering that the technology is there purely to serve a set of business processes. It isn't there to give you or the company a fuzzy warm feeling.
I wholeheartedly support the notion that in the longer run FOSS is the only really sustainable technology solution one can make, whether as an individual or an enterprise or government. But calling people names because they are taking a road which doesn't lead to python powered intranet shiny portals with web services running on linux and serving up ODF and what have you not is damaging.
I've been disparaged countless times for staunch FOSS support, but it's when I have advocated reasonable technology decisions (which in the short term doesn't have to mean FOSS) that the FOSS advocacy has been the most effective.