I know this is going to hurt...
on
Search Engine Payola
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· Score: 3, Insightful
But I, for one, am neither shocked nor appalled by this realization!
Search engines are essentially a very useful service provided to the public by for-profit companies at no direct cost to the individual - they are FREE! They are one of the few remaining offerings in the world that meet the 'something-for-nothing' criteria...
Of course, the companies that provide these services are not exactly doing this out of the goodness of their heart. They compete amongst the other search engines to win to win favor with the users and then turn their daily page hits into advertising dollars via banners, pop-up's and other such advertising... Now that web advertising has slowed with the rest of the world economy, how long did you truly think it would take before the parent companies and investors demanded further, less principled tactics to increase profits? Obviously, not long...
And here comes the stinger...I don't thing there is anything wrong with this. Ultimately, the companies that back search engines have a business to run - this requires revenue. No revenue, no search engines....and exactly where do you think that would leave us all in the jungle of information that is now the internet!
And as for Google, I applaud there adherence to morals and integrity. But don't think that if it comes down to it, they will not do whatever is necessary (including accepting money for search placement) to stay afloat in tough economic times. And I would want them too - a slightly corrupt Google is better than no Google at all!!!
The first line of the article states in reference to the Netwinder appliance:
"The technology product that drove Rebel.com's business plan and also led to its demise is being resurrected to create a new Ottawa company."
Perhaps I am missing something, but what would make these investors believe that the final outcome of this new venture will prove to be any more profitable? If anything, I would point to the current state of the world's economy as even more reason not to resurrect a once-dead product of the infamous Dot-Com era...
It would appear that revisions of the W3C's patent policies is becoming a frequent task... As you can see here, W3C's patent practices were changed barely more that a month ago of January 24, 2002.
Additionally, you can see what the Slashdot community had to say about it then in this article posting!!!
Have fun...and I guess I'll see you all back here in about a month or so for the next revision...;-)
"Fox probably thought, 'Since widescreen at 480 is good enough for the millions who watch DVDs, why spend a lot more to please the few purists?'"
As much as I hate to admit it, from a purely business standpoint the network executives are probably being most prudent in not commencing with the conversion at this point.
Like any industry, television networks are in business to make money and their executives have an obligation to move forward with the best strategies possible to realize this goal. Unfortunately, what may make good business doesn't always equate to what promotes progress.
To use a simple metaphor, one need look only as far as the automobile industry. We have known for years that automobile emissions are bad for the environment. Additionally, we have much (if not all) of the technology available this very minute to switch to an alternative fuel source resulting in vehicles which would be much more 'environmentally freindly' - ethanol or electic power. Why don't we convert - because the automobile industry is just like the television industry, they are in it for the money. The obvious positive progress aside, such advances increase overhead and decrease corporate profit margins - aka 'bad business'...
I think it suck as much as anyone - I own a wide-screen, HDTV compatible set!!! However, putting myself in their position, I can't argue with their decisions at this point in time...
To my understanding, that is completely correct...
A level-1 RAID array provides a mirror, or exact copy, of the live disk being written to and accessed by the users of the device. Thus, this is what provides the fault tolerance...
If either disk fails, the users' data remains viable and their is no break in service!!!
One aspect that I didn't cover in my original post was the number of disks required to affect the various levels of RAID:
RAID 0 - Minimum of two drives RAID 1 - Minimum of two drives RAID 3 - Minimum of three drives RAID 5 - Minimum of three drives
Additionally, there is an obvious consequence to having implemented a RAID array, which is the sacrifice of viable disk space. Because the drives store redundant data (either through mirroring or striping w/ parity), the below formulas must be used to determine the amount of available disk space:
RAID 0 - No loss of disk space due to lack of redundancy (striping only) RAID 1 - Total disk space / 2 RAID 3 - Size of smallest drive in array = N, total space = (# of drive - 1) * N RAID 5 - Size of smallest drive in array = N, total space = (# of drive - 1) * N
I hope this helps...for further information I would suggest a simple search on Google!!!
Wondering what the hell all of this RAID stuff is about, don't worry...your plants are safe!!! To calm you further, I thought I would be generous and give you a brief description of the various levels.
But first, in case you road the "short bus" to school, we are not discussing the bug spray or what the Feds do to your dope stash... RAID is a commonly used acronym for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks!!!
Now, on to the various levels of RAID... The most common are as follows:
o RAID 0 : Striping without redundancy (a.k.a. no fault tolerance) o RAID 1 : Transparent Mirroring o RAID 3 : Striping with Parity for High Data Transfers o RAID 4 : Striping with Parity for High Data Transfers o RAID 5 : Striping with parity for High I/O transaction rates
An off-the-shelf, self-contained water-cooled computer from Calm PC...
This system is reasonably priced (for what you get), it relatively small, and is completely 'fan-less'. A review of the system can be seen here and it was discussed on Slashdot here.
Of course, this is not exactly a 'mini-PC'; however, I would assume that someone who is fairly instrious and has a bit of time on their hands could mod the cooling system to a different case or simply mod the case appropriately to fit their needs!!!
Doug Hampshire, Peregrine's systems administrator, made the following statement in what I believe to be a futile attempt to give justification for the use of such an email system...
"Today's business market is so competitive, we want to make sure that communications that were meant to stay confidential and secure remain that way,"
Is it perhaps just me, or is this comparable to claiming that the chief reason for the development and use of the DeCSS decryption is to make local 'backup copies' of DVD's that you have already purchased!!!;-)
In my opinion, little can be done to portray this software system as anything more than a means through which to destroy potentially incriminating documents/information. Not that this practice is illegal (I don't believe that paper shredders are considered contraband yet...), but it still amazes me how people incessantly try to provide wholesome and moral excuses for the world's necessary evils!!!
In reading the story at yahoo, I found the following quote:
However, companies like mobile telephone service provider Sprint PCS and the powerful lobbying arm of the airline industry, among others, had urged the FCC to prohibit the use of UWB technologies below 6 gigahertz.
Now, I can certainly understand how a mobile phone service provider such as Sprint could have less-than-credible reasons for not wanting to move forward with this initiative... However, I do not understand what the airline industries motivation would be to get involved here except for a genuine concern for unsafe interference.
Personally, I could careless if my cell phone has a little bit of static as a result of leveraging UWB, but if my plane crashes due to interence then I may not be quite so understanding...
Then again, perhaps I am missing something obvious. Anyone have any thoughts on what ulterior motives the airline industry may have here?
I greatly appreciate your completely selfless act of sacrificing precious Karma all in the (worthwhile?) pursuit of disproving my theory/thesis. It was, after all, nothing more that a random observation that I made after seeing numerous undeserving posts get over-rated for simply quoting the topical article in the post. I can now sleep well at night knowing that I was wrong and slashdot moderators aren't quite that gullible...
Additionally, I thank you for your somewhat off-handed compliment!!! I must agree that any moderator that would wasting his time by modding down a nested comment (twice!) on a two day old post about a wearable internet appliance is most certainly a significantly lower form of life...:-)
Nice comment!!! Well thought out and very articulate...I especially enjoyed the manner in which you used the often-neglected "dipshit" terminology!!
I also greatly appreciate you unwittingly illustrating my point...you received a score:2 for a completely idiotic three-line post, one line of which was a quote from me.
So, who is the dipshit now? Yeah, that's what I thought...
This is, of course, off-topic and all, but has anyone else ever noticed that all that is required to receive Karma (+1 Informative) is to simply announce that you are, in fact, a "karma whore" at the beginning of your post...
While I agree that it wasn't funny, at last I checked it is not the Slashdot Editors' responsibility or duty to protect us from lame attempts at humor!!!
While this is a quite interesting and intelligent question from the site's Q&A section, I believe that the answer was translated to English by the same people that did the translations for 'Zero Wing' (AYBABTU)...
Q: Do I need to close the other eye?
A: It is not necessary, and keep the other eye open is easy for this particuler display.Because a semi-transparent mirror is used so that the eye looking the displayed image will also see the"real-world" in some extent.Therefore, the display image can be seen just an additional object in the real world.
While mocking a poor translation on the site's Q&A page may seem a bit trivial, I think that this is a valid portrayal of why this will not work well in the US. Not only will they not supply the necessary marketing hype to get this thing off of the shelves and on to peoples heads, but as evidenced by their site's translations they are hardly catering to an English speaking market. Furthermore, in a country whose citizens are as vain about their appearance as Americans are (I know, I'm one of them...), I doubt that walking/driving around with one of these carbuncles attatched to your face is going to catch on quickly...
I actually have a few issues to address regarding the Register's report...
First, I would like to raise the question of exactly where it is that I can view de Icaza's comments.
"Miguel de Icaza has issued his own clarification, here, which also amounts to 'move along folks, there's nothing to see'."
Unfortunately, however, the good people at the Register neglected to actually link the here in that statement! Anyone have any ideas???
Next, I move to a quote the Register supplies from de Icaza regarding the.NET framework -
".NET is a fantastic technology upgrade for GNOME from Microsoft,"
Perhaps it's just me, perhaps it is the fault of the translation, but in this quote it sounds to me as if de Icaza is portraying Microsoft as having graciously created the.NET technology specifically for GNOME. As we all know, that is far from the case... While this involves a quite obvious conflict of interest for M$ as a corporation (industry acceptance of.NET -vs- inadvertently providing Linux w/ new technology), I wouldn't say that M$ has been overly cooperative!!!
And finally, I point to the final line of the article referencing comments by de Icaza -
"In the interview, he praised many aspects of.NET including SmartClients and the new Microsoft security model. ®"
Please...someone say it ain't so!!! Is this individual actually praising the evil empire's security model? Has he been smoking dope!!! I think I'll just forget that I saw that and move on as if nothing ever happened...
As many have already pointed out, once the OS successfully boots the responsibility of maintaining the current time transfers to the operating system. As a result of this transition, 'time drift' is completely possible - even common - on systems that maintain long up-times (e.g. *nix).
As the original question states, this offset in time is automatically corrected upon reboot. This is due to the OS once again keying off from the far more reliable internal hardware clock.
To me, the cause/solution to this individual's issue is quite apparent. The issue is caused by running far too stable of an operating system - LINUX. As such, the somewhat obvious solution to change the installed OS to something a bit, shall we say, less reliable.
Like many, when I think of unreliability I immediately think of Windows!!! May I suggest the ME version - in my very limited experience with this product, I have found it to be most unstable...your consequently, workstation will never go without a reboot for a long enough period to ever experience time drift again!!!
What you are proposing is a very fascinating concept...essentially, a detailed comparison/benching of various metrics of a kernel's performance performed by an objective third party on a semi-frequent basis (at least, I believe that is where you were headed...).
Immediately, I see a great deal of benefit that could be derived from such a venture for the common Linux user. This information could not only render which kernel is the "fastest", but could also provide information on which kernel design is best optimized for a given task. Effectively, we would have "Open Information on Open Source" (TM).
Alternatively, however, I would never want to see this go to the extreme of a kernel tree being abandoned nor neglected as a result of these "Kernel Olympics" - variety is the spice of life, and IMHO the strength and diversity that drives Open Source!!!
The author came to the quite informed conclusion of:
I prefer the 2.4.17 or 2.4.18pre2aa for my heavy-duty servers. The reverse-mapping patch by Rik, however, has great promise once it has stabilized. Finally, the Red Hat 2.4.9 is a very good kernel, fast and reliable.
While I personally may not have agreed with this synopsis prior to reading the article (and am still not completely sold...), there are certainly some interesting facts and figures to ponder the next time you reload your system or update your kernel...
"When on vacation, if I had a laptop, I may surf in the morning looking up local stuff, and maybe check my e-mail, but after that I unplug and remain that way until the next day."
You obviously have a rather low 'GQ' - Geek Quotient. I mean seriously, what is up with this blasphemy...first you admit to not having a laptop (hello, it's for you - the 1990's are calling) and then you go so far as to not spend the entire day online while vacationing. How do you live?
Wow, how did you ever find this site!!! Away with you, geek imposter!!!;-)
Data Recovery Is Only Half the Battle...
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Disaster Recovery?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Contrary to much popular belief, a good data recovery contingency (off-site back-ups, etc...) is only half of a sound DRP. When it comes to recovering from a cataclysmic disaster of this nature - the second, and equally critical component of a well thought out DRP is an all-inclusive BCP (Business Continuation Plan)...
Without this vital aspect, companies such as Deutsche Bank (who were ravaged by the WTC disaster on 9/11), would have been down for days/weeks while attempting to relocate, rebuild and restore their data center operations...
I, for instance, work at a rather large, international fortune 500 company and we have BCP strategies that include a complete off-site location. This facility houses fail-over systems for all business critical processes including a 1.2 terabyte, mirrored SAP database that can go online within minutes notice, and a phone bank/workstations for our 50+ CSR's (customer service reps) and our global helpdesk. Even more, we frequently (twice yearly) perform non-production drills to validate the systems health and improve upon our strategies...
This is obviously a bit late for you, but I would suggest reading up on the matter a bit more thoroughly prior to redesigning your future systems and developing your next DRP...
Straight from the article...
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Intel's Big Chip
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· Score: 0, Redundant
Straight from the articled in reference to the size of the new chip:
"Another analyst said, 'Jesus, that's big.'"
What a great quote...simple and to the point. What would we ever do with out descriptive investigative journalism and technical expertise of this nature!!!;-)
As unfortunate a statement as it may be about today's society, I believe that one the chief hindrances in this extremely worthy cause finding adequate funding is its poor public image.
Take for example the WWF (World Wildlife Fund). With their people-friendly, Panda Logo, they manage to secure millions of dollars of funding on an annual basis. Thanks in no small part to having this cute & cuddly, little monster as their mascot, the organization has been able to save numerous lesser-known and less adorable species from total extinction.
Alternatively, the Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development's Gene Bank, lists the far less lovable Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat as a "key project"...
Should the fact that the northern hairy-nosed wombat does not closely resemble the fury little teddy bears we all grew up loving make it any less worthwhile in saving - of course not. Does it make it a more difficult sell to the public and subsequently corporations when attempting to secure research funding - what do you think...
"Dr Sallis is advising children to exercise caution and moderation when using these vibrating games."
If properly disected and put into the appropriate context, I believe the good doctor has two excellent pieces of advise here for two drastically different segments of the population...
First, we have the excellent suggestion of "[A]dvising children to exercise..." I believe this recommendation to be spot-on in the case of all children - but especially applicable in this specific scenario. Any individual (child or otherwise) whom invests seven hours a day playing video games DEFINITELY needs some exercise. Hey kid, drop the joystick and the twinky. Ya know that bright light outside, it is called the sun...go outdoors and see what it looks like!!!
The second golden nugget of advise contained within the noted quote is for women. "[E]xercise caution and moderation when using these vibrating games"...this, of course, is in reference to what my wife likes to call "BOB" - her battery operated boyfriend. I have never personally seen the device (nor do I want to...), but this may be good advise for her during my extended business trips. For god sakes, I would hate to have her chip a tooth!!!:-)
"these boot screens will not be so useful for those who keep their Linux server running for several months without rebooting (some of my servers have been running for more than a year). But these animations were not designed for these servers: they are more interesting for desktop computers that are rebooted from time to time. "
Perhaps reading the article/links prior to posting will help explain things!!!;-)
Perhaps, the answer for your situation would be Sole Proprietorship. The chief appeal of sole proprietorships is that they are simple, simple, simple. Boy, are they simple. More can be gleamed on this subject here and here.
Just a few examples of their simplicity:
Simplicity in taxation: Sole proprietorships have the simplest form of tax filing. You don't have to file a separate return.
Simplicity in formation: You don't have to pay any fees to the IRS or the federal government for starting your business.
Simplicity in employment: As a sole proprietor, you don't have to worry about paying employment or unemployment taxes for yourself.
Simplicity in home-office deductions: If you have a dedicated space that you use regularly and exclusively as your place of business, you may qualify for a home-office deduction.
Simplicity in retirement plans: As a sole proprietor, you can put money into a Simplified Employee Pension (SEP), a SIMPLE plan, a Keogh or an Individual Retirement Account.
Of course, this simplicity does come at a price - a complete lack of personal liability protection. However, in a scenario such as the one described above, that may not be a primary concern.
Alternatively, there are several other options that are present for individuals wishing to start their own legal entity. For example, an entrepreneur with a profitable business who wants to set up a fully deductible health benefits plan will want to know more about a C Corporation. A sole proprietor looking for some liability protection with a minimum of additional paperwork will probably consider a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC). Anyone who wants to bring in partners or outside investors is going to have to look at a partnership or corporate structure. The self-employment tax (15.3% on the first $76,200 of net income, compared to the 7.65% you pay as an employee) drives sole proprietors nuts, even with the partial offset of being able to take an income deduction for half of the tax paid.
Slashdot Mirror
But I, for one, am neither shocked nor appalled by this realization!
Search engines are essentially a very useful service provided to the public by for-profit companies at no direct cost to the individual - they are FREE! They are one of the few remaining offerings in the world that meet the 'something-for-nothing' criteria...
Of course, the companies that provide these services are not exactly doing this out of the goodness of their heart. They compete amongst the other search engines to win to win favor with the users and then turn their daily page hits into advertising dollars via banners, pop-up's and other such advertising... Now that web advertising has slowed with the rest of the world economy, how long did you truly think it would take before the parent companies and investors demanded further, less principled tactics to increase profits? Obviously, not long...
And here comes the stinger...I don't thing there is anything wrong with this. Ultimately, the companies that back search engines have a business to run - this requires revenue. No revenue, no search engines....and exactly where do you think that would leave us all in the jungle of information that is now the internet!
And as for Google, I applaud there adherence to morals and integrity. But don't think that if it comes down to it, they will not do whatever is necessary (including accepting money for search placement) to stay afloat in tough economic times. And I would want them too - a slightly corrupt Google is better than no Google at all!!!
The first line of the article states in reference to the Netwinder appliance:
"The technology product that drove Rebel.com's business plan and also led to its demise is being resurrected to create a new Ottawa company."
Perhaps I am missing something, but what would make these investors believe that the final outcome of this new venture will prove to be any more profitable? If anything, I would point to the current state of the world's economy as even more reason not to resurrect a once-dead product of the infamous Dot-Com era...
It would appear that revisions of the W3C's patent policies is becoming a frequent task... As you can see here, W3C's patent practices were changed barely more that a month ago of January 24, 2002.
;-)
Additionally, you can see what the Slashdot community had to say about it then in this article posting!!!
Have fun...and I guess I'll see you all back here in about a month or so for the next revision...
From the article:
"Fox probably thought, 'Since widescreen at 480 is good enough for the millions who watch DVDs, why spend a lot more to please the few purists?'"
As much as I hate to admit it, from a purely business standpoint the network executives are probably being most prudent in not commencing with the conversion at this point.
Like any industry, television networks are in business to make money and their executives have an obligation to move forward with the best strategies possible to realize this goal. Unfortunately, what may make good business doesn't always equate to what promotes progress.
To use a simple metaphor, one need look only as far as the automobile industry. We have known for years that automobile emissions are bad for the environment. Additionally, we have much (if not all) of the technology available this very minute to switch to an alternative fuel source resulting in vehicles which would be much more 'environmentally freindly' - ethanol or electic power. Why don't we convert - because the automobile industry is just like the television industry, they are in it for the money. The obvious positive progress aside, such advances increase overhead and decrease corporate profit margins - aka 'bad business'...
I think it suck as much as anyone - I own a wide-screen, HDTV compatible set!!! However, putting myself in their position, I can't argue with their decisions at this point in time...
To my understanding, that is completely correct...
A level-1 RAID array provides a mirror, or exact copy, of the live disk being written to and accessed by the users of the device. Thus, this is what provides the fault tolerance...
If either disk fails, the users' data remains viable and their is no break in service!!!
One aspect that I didn't cover in my original post was the number of disks required to affect the various levels of RAID:
RAID 0 - Minimum of two drives
RAID 1 - Minimum of two drives
RAID 3 - Minimum of three drives
RAID 5 - Minimum of three drives
Additionally, there is an obvious consequence to having implemented a RAID array, which is the sacrifice of viable disk space. Because the drives store redundant data (either through mirroring or striping w/ parity), the below formulas must be used to determine the amount of available disk space:
RAID 0 - No loss of disk space due to lack of redundancy (striping only)
RAID 1 - Total disk space / 2
RAID 3 - Size of smallest drive in array = N, total space = (# of drive - 1) * N
RAID 5 - Size of smallest drive in array = N, total space = (# of drive - 1) * N
I hope this helps...for further information I would suggest a simple search on Google!!!
Wondering what the hell all of this RAID stuff is about, don't worry...your plants are safe!!! To calm you further, I thought I would be generous and give you a brief description of the various levels.
But first, in case you road the "short bus" to school, we are not discussing the bug spray or what the Feds do to your dope stash... RAID is a commonly used acronym for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks!!!
Now, on to the various levels of RAID... The most common are as follows:
o RAID 0 : Striping without redundancy (a.k.a. no fault tolerance)
o RAID 1 : Transparent Mirroring
o RAID 3 : Striping with Parity for High Data Transfers
o RAID 4 : Striping with Parity for High Data Transfers
o RAID 5 : Striping with parity for High I/O transaction rates
An off-the-shelf, self-contained water-cooled computer from Calm PC...
This system is reasonably priced (for what you get), it relatively small, and is completely 'fan-less'. A review of the system can be seen here and it was discussed on Slashdot here.
Of course, this is not exactly a 'mini-PC'; however, I would assume that someone who is fairly instrious and has a bit of time on their hands could mod the cooling system to a different case or simply mod the case appropriately to fit their needs!!!
Just a thought...enjoy!
Doug Hampshire, Peregrine's systems administrator, made the following statement in what I believe to be a futile attempt to give justification for the use of such an email system...
;-)
"Today's business market is so competitive, we want to make sure that communications that were meant to stay confidential and secure remain that way,"
Is it perhaps just me, or is this comparable to claiming that the chief reason for the development and use of the DeCSS decryption is to make local 'backup copies' of DVD's that you have already purchased!!!
In my opinion, little can be done to portray this software system as anything more than a means through which to destroy potentially incriminating documents/information. Not that this practice is illegal (I don't believe that paper shredders are considered contraband yet...), but it still amazes me how people incessantly try to provide wholesome and moral excuses for the world's necessary evils!!!
In reading the story at yahoo, I found the following quote:
However, companies like mobile telephone service provider Sprint PCS and the powerful lobbying arm of the airline industry, among others, had urged the FCC to prohibit the use of UWB technologies below 6 gigahertz.
Now, I can certainly understand how a mobile phone service provider such as Sprint could have less-than-credible reasons for not wanting to move forward with this initiative... However, I do not understand what the airline industries motivation would be to get involved here except for a genuine concern for unsafe interference.
Personally, I could careless if my cell phone has a little bit of static as a result of leveraging UWB, but if my plane crashes due to interence then I may not be quite so understanding...
Then again, perhaps I am missing something obvious. Anyone have any thoughts on what ulterior motives the airline industry may have here?
Well...thank you very much, Mr. aka-ed!
:-)
I greatly appreciate your completely selfless act of sacrificing precious Karma all in the (worthwhile?) pursuit of disproving my theory/thesis. It was, after all, nothing more that a random observation that I made after seeing numerous undeserving posts get over-rated for simply quoting the topical article in the post. I can now sleep well at night knowing that I was wrong and slashdot moderators aren't quite that gullible...
Additionally, I thank you for your somewhat off-handed compliment!!! I must agree that any moderator that would wasting his time by modding down a nested comment (twice!) on a two day old post about a wearable internet appliance is most certainly a significantly lower form of life...
Nice comment!!! Well thought out and very articulate...I especially enjoyed the manner in which you used the often-neglected "dipshit" terminology!!
I also greatly appreciate you unwittingly illustrating my point...you received a score:2 for a completely idiotic three-line post, one line of which was a quote from me.
So, who is the dipshit now? Yeah, that's what I thought...
This is, of course, off-topic and all, but has anyone else ever noticed that all that is required to receive Karma (+1 Informative) is to simply announce that you are, in fact, a "karma whore" at the beginning of your post...
Meanwhile, while people are regurgitating facts and figures from the article that everyone **SHOULD** have already read anyway, the rest of us are all left out in the "Karma Cold"© posting our educated and thought provoking opinions (this post being an obvious exception...)
Just makes you wonder...
Perhaps you missed it, but the individual whom submitted the story and was being quoted intended the "smurf the weib" comment to be funny...this is quite obvious as it was followed by a half-assed © symbol - (c)...
While I agree that it wasn't funny, at last I checked it is not the Slashdot Editors' responsibility or duty to protect us from lame attempts at humor!!!
While mocking a poor translation on the site's Q&A page may seem a bit trivial, I think that this is a valid portrayal of why this will not work well in the US. Not only will they not supply the necessary marketing hype to get this thing off of the shelves and on to peoples heads, but as evidenced by their site's translations they are hardly catering to an English speaking market. Furthermore, in a country whose citizens are as vain about their appearance as Americans are (I know, I'm one of them...), I doubt that walking/driving around with one of these carbuncles attatched to your face is going to catch on quickly...
I actually have a few issues to address regarding the Register's report...
.NET framework -
.NET technology specifically for GNOME. As we all know, that is far from the case... While this involves a quite obvious conflict of interest for M$ as a corporation (industry acceptance of .NET -vs- inadvertently providing Linux w/ new technology), I wouldn't say that M$ has been overly cooperative!!!
.NET including SmartClients and the new Microsoft security model. ®"
First, I would like to raise the question of exactly where it is that I can view de Icaza's comments.
"Miguel de Icaza has issued his own clarification, here, which also amounts to 'move along folks, there's nothing to see'."
Unfortunately, however, the good people at the Register neglected to actually link the here in that statement! Anyone have any ideas???
Next, I move to a quote the Register supplies from de Icaza regarding the
".NET is a fantastic technology upgrade for GNOME from Microsoft,"
Perhaps it's just me, perhaps it is the fault of the translation, but in this quote it sounds to me as if de Icaza is portraying Microsoft as having graciously created the
And finally, I point to the final line of the article referencing comments by de Icaza -
"In the interview, he praised many aspects of
Please...someone say it ain't so!!! Is this individual actually praising the evil empire's security model? Has he been smoking dope!!! I think I'll just forget that I saw that and move on as if nothing ever happened...
As many have already pointed out, once the OS successfully boots the responsibility of maintaining the current time transfers to the operating system. As a result of this transition, 'time drift' is completely possible - even common - on systems that maintain long up-times (e.g. *nix).
As the original question states, this offset in time is automatically corrected upon reboot. This is due to the OS once again keying off from the far more reliable internal hardware clock.
To me, the cause/solution to this individual's issue is quite apparent. The issue is caused by running far too stable of an operating system - LINUX. As such, the somewhat obvious solution to change the installed OS to something a bit, shall we say, less reliable.
Like many, when I think of unreliability I immediately think of Windows!!! May I suggest the ME version - in my very limited experience with this product, I have found it to be most unstable...your consequently, workstation will never go without a reboot for a long enough period to ever experience time drift again!!!
What you are proposing is a very fascinating concept...essentially, a detailed comparison/benching of various metrics of a kernel's performance performed by an objective third party on a semi-frequent basis (at least, I believe that is where you were headed...).
Immediately, I see a great deal of benefit that could be derived from such a venture for the common Linux user. This information could not only render which kernel is the "fastest", but could also provide information on which kernel design is best optimized for a given task. Effectively, we would have "Open Information on Open Source" (TM).
Alternatively, however, I would never want to see this go to the extreme of a kernel tree being abandoned nor neglected as a result of these "Kernel Olympics" - variety is the spice of life, and IMHO the strength and diversity that drives Open Source!!!
While I personally may not have agreed with this synopsis prior to reading the article (and am still not completely sold...), there are certainly some interesting facts and figures to ponder the next time you reload your system or update your kernel...
Per your comments:
;-)
"When on vacation, if I had a laptop, I may surf in the morning looking up local stuff, and maybe check my e-mail, but after that I unplug and remain that way until the next day."
You obviously have a rather low 'GQ' - Geek Quotient. I mean seriously, what is up with this blasphemy...first you admit to not having a laptop (hello, it's for you - the 1990's are calling) and then you go so far as to not spend the entire day online while vacationing. How do you live?
Wow, how did you ever find this site!!! Away with you, geek imposter!!!
Contrary to much popular belief, a good data recovery contingency (off-site back-ups, etc...) is only half of a sound DRP. When it comes to recovering from a cataclysmic disaster of this nature - the second, and equally critical component of a well thought out DRP is an all-inclusive BCP (Business Continuation Plan)...
Without this vital aspect, companies such as Deutsche Bank (who were ravaged by the WTC disaster on 9/11), would have been down for days/weeks while attempting to relocate, rebuild and restore their data center operations...
I, for instance, work at a rather large, international fortune 500 company and we have BCP strategies that include a complete off-site location. This facility houses fail-over systems for all business critical processes including a 1.2 terabyte, mirrored SAP database that can go online within minutes notice, and a phone bank/workstations for our 50+ CSR's (customer service reps) and our global helpdesk. Even more, we frequently (twice yearly) perform non-production drills to validate the systems health and improve upon our strategies...
This is obviously a bit late for you, but I would suggest reading up on the matter a bit more thoroughly prior to redesigning your future systems and developing your next DRP...
Straight from the articled in reference to the size of the new chip:
;-)
"Another analyst said, 'Jesus, that's big.'"
What a great quote...simple and to the point. What would we ever do with out descriptive investigative journalism and technical expertise of this nature!!!
As unfortunate a statement as it may be about today's society, I believe that one the chief hindrances in this extremely worthy cause finding adequate funding is its poor public image.
Take for example the WWF (World Wildlife Fund). With their people-friendly, Panda Logo, they manage to secure millions of dollars of funding on an annual basis. Thanks in no small part to having this cute & cuddly, little monster as their mascot, the organization has been able to save numerous lesser-known and less adorable species from total extinction.
Alternatively, the Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development's Gene Bank, lists the far less lovable Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat as a "key project"...
Should the fact that the northern hairy-nosed wombat does not closely resemble the fury little teddy bears we all grew up loving make it any less worthwhile in saving - of course not. Does it make it a more difficult sell to the public and subsequently corporations when attempting to secure research funding - what do you think...
"Dr Sallis is advising children to exercise caution and moderation when using these vibrating games."
:-)
If properly disected and put into the appropriate context, I believe the good doctor has two excellent pieces of advise here for two drastically different segments of the population...
First, we have the excellent suggestion of "[A]dvising children to exercise..." I believe this recommendation to be spot-on in the case of all children - but especially applicable in this specific scenario. Any individual (child or otherwise) whom invests seven hours a day playing video games DEFINITELY needs some exercise. Hey kid, drop the joystick and the twinky. Ya know that bright light outside, it is called the sun...go outdoors and see what it looks like!!!
The second golden nugget of advise contained within the noted quote is for women. "[E]xercise caution and moderation when using these vibrating games"...this, of course, is in reference to what my wife likes to call "BOB" - her battery operated boyfriend. I have never personally seen the device (nor do I want to...), but this may be good advise for her during my extended business trips. For god sakes, I would hate to have her chip a tooth!!!
As per the linked page in the article...
;-)
"these boot screens will not be so useful for those who keep their Linux server running for several months without rebooting (some of my servers have been running for more than a year). But these animations were not designed for these servers: they are more interesting for desktop computers that are rebooted from time to time. "
Perhaps reading the article/links prior to posting will help explain things!!!
Perhaps, the answer for your situation would be Sole Proprietorship. The chief appeal of sole proprietorships is that they are simple, simple, simple. Boy, are they simple. More can be gleamed on this subject here and here.
Just a few examples of their simplicity:
Simplicity in taxation: Sole proprietorships have the simplest form of tax filing. You don't have to file a separate return.
Simplicity in formation: You don't have to pay any fees to the IRS or the federal government for starting your business.
Simplicity in employment: As a sole proprietor, you don't have to worry about paying employment or unemployment taxes for yourself.
Simplicity in home-office deductions: If you have a dedicated space that you use regularly and exclusively as your place of business, you may qualify for a home-office deduction.
Simplicity in retirement plans: As a sole proprietor, you can put money into a Simplified Employee Pension (SEP), a SIMPLE plan, a Keogh or an Individual Retirement Account.
Of course, this simplicity does come at a price - a complete lack of personal liability protection. However, in a scenario such as the one described above, that may not be a primary concern.
Alternatively, there are several other options that are present for individuals wishing to start their own legal entity. For example, an entrepreneur with a profitable business who wants to set up a fully deductible health benefits plan will want to know more about a C Corporation. A sole proprietor looking for some liability protection with a minimum of additional paperwork will probably consider a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC). Anyone who wants to bring in partners or outside investors is going to have to look at a partnership or corporate structure. The self-employment tax (15.3% on the first $76,200 of net income, compared to the 7.65% you pay as an employee) drives sole proprietors nuts, even with the partial offset of being able to take an income deduction for half of the tax paid.