You want durable iPods? Get an old iPod mini. No flashy graphics, but it is build like a tank!
Mine is in daily use (workdays) since mid-2005, and I'm not particularly fussy with it. It has a few scratches when it fell while bike-racing, that's it. Still keeps a good charge and all.
I've been thinking about a Touch, but can't imagine it lasting more than a few months with my use.
Also, newer flash drives use transparent write leveling and other similar technologies to greatly extend the life of SSD
Just curious: what happens if your SSD is 90% full? Are all writes going to be levelled around on the remaining 90%, or are full blocks actually being shifted all the time?
Reason I'm asking is that I normally don't have that many space left on my hard disk, and if that proves to be a killer for SSD, then I rather stick to my old tech.
Another thing, if SSD's have the same failure rate as USB thumbdrives then it paints a bleak pictures. Those things die on me like there's no tomorrow...
Your argument is illogical. We're struggling with how to send a human to Mars, so it is outrageous to estimate the age of the universe? The first is a technological problem, not a scientific one.
Personally, I'd rather see our scientific dollars spent closer to home.
Personally, I'd rather see your country stop bombing the rest of the world.
Would you care to show your alleged hard scientific evidence? And be forewarned that waving that book of fairytales you seem to be so fond of gets no points at all.
Years of brainwashing during your formative years doesn't constitute proof. But, as you made the statement, are you able to back it up with facts or can you at least make it plausible?
I'm genuinely interested in your point of view, btw.
I had not seen the update yet. Very interesting, I'm sure we'll hear more from both sides about this.
A bit of friendly competition will ultimately benefit both systems. This is a game were both sides win!;-)
I really would like to run my own benchmarks, but it wouldn't be objective nor fair as I don't know enough about tuning the Linux kernel for performance.
as I understand it postgresql performance is better on linux now, for recent values of linux
Not according to this benchmark: http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/06/1313218>
If you're a unix dude, I don't see why you'd care which one you're working on, myself
Documentation - BSD has excellent and consistent documentation. Linux doesn't.
Design - BSD is a complete system and feels like it. Linux, to me, feels like the kludged-together patchwork it is.
Support - BSD has competent users that are very willing to help, once you have done your homework. Linux has way too much fanboys and posers for me. At least they tend to be more vocal and drown out the 'good guys'.
Don't get me wrong, I think Linux is a very important software product, and a massive testament to the power of decentralized development. If Linux is a solution for your problem, fine. With distributions like Ubuntu the learning curve has been all but removed.
You don't give a lot of detail about your current setup.
But here are a few tips anyway, perhaps they can make your decision easier:
Use a proven language, not HotNewLanguage v0.09beta. It will do wonders for your stability and you can actually get developers for it, next year when there a new hotness.
Use open formats, do not get vendor-locked. Maybe there are a lot of developers for your propietary system, but they are going to use the newest tools that the vendor provides, not your bound-to-be old version.
Keep your system simple and modular.
So, in a nutshell, I recommend Perl, Postgresql and FreeBSD. Plenty of experienced developers, and the tools Just Work.
Kids are the single most annoying thing in airtravel. They should not be allowed on the plane, perhaps they can travel while duct-taped to the outside of the hull?
I'm not sure why you travel the globe, but I would recommend taking a small am/fm radio for your music needs. It has extremely good battery life. I have a small radio (am/fm/shortwave) that I use regularly and so far I haven't needed to change the batteries in three years.
If you leave home, you might best enjoy the change in environment. Take in the local music, it is an experience in itself.
Or you might live in your own little 'bubble' and keep everything just like at home, but then why travel anyway?
What the BBC is trying to do has been available in the Netherlands for years: every program that's been broadcast is available here: http://www.uitzendinggemist.nl/
The site is responsive and works great, without any technical rarities.
So far the advances in the field of AI have been non-spectacular. Yes, there have been somewhat succesful reasoning systems (rule based or probability based) and neural networks have made classification easier.
However, at the moment there are no serious applications that will only become feasible by having more computer power.
More speed in calculation has plenty of benefits, but AI as a research field will not be making major announcements soon because of this new machine.
Parent is right. The developers write software for different reasons, be it to scratch a personal itch, to try and make the world a better place, whatever. Most share their work freely and gladly with whomever wants it.
If you don't like the software you can try to get the developer to fix it, by sending detailed bug reports or requests for adding some functionality. The developer may, or may not, work on your requests.
But you are NOT entitled to bitch about any of the work done. You are free to not use it, to fix it yourself, to have someone fix it for you however.
If you don't contribute yourself then you may take what is offered or you can leave it alone. But, as parent put so eloquently, SHUT THE FUCK UP if you're only going to whine.
For me, the reader isn't the deal breaker. I could live with a sub-optimal reader and just upgrade when something better comes along.
However, I have a collection of around 1500 books (fiction, non-fiction, science, references, etc.) which are not available in e-book format and more than likely never will be.
So what will I do with an ebook reader? Have ten books on that and put it in the bookcase along the paper versions?
The first company that offers me ALL books, including the old ones in my collection, in ebook format (at more or less any price) will get my business in a second. Until then, no thanks, it's not a solution for my problems.
Are you really comparing OpenBSD to Windows 95? The mind boggles...
The flaw in the PRNG is not exploitable. Not unless you are root on the local machine and have the ability to stop all other processes. If you are root then there is nothing to exploit as you are already, well, root.
So perhaps you should have RTA first? Or where you in a hurry to make a post on front of the list?
Thanks, it's appreciated. My job is really simple: I'm a buffer between the senior management and the developers. I'm responsible for making shit happen without interfering with the magic that the developers do all by them selves.
I'm very good in office politics: I completely ignore it (up to a point, I'm actually quite skilled at it). There is a job to be done, and I make sure it gets done. By letting the specialists do what they do best, which is solve problems. The developers are happy because the shit from above never reaches them, and upper mgt is happy that things get done.
Wouldn't have it any other way. I need to be aware about whats going on on a global level, I'm not one to micro-manage the specialists. Each to his/her own job. My job is to filter the crap from above and only bother the developers with the really necessary disturbance. And to make sure there are no issues for the developers to do their job.
Yes, I get yelled at by senior management, that's part of the job, I can handle it. The developers like me for not interfering though. And that's the only way to get work done. Which, in turn, makes senior mgt happy and validates my pay. Joy all around, I guess.
MySQL is excellent for read-only database applications, i.e. database backed websites. The non-ACID compliant table types are very, very fast and when you take care not to over use joins your web site will be very fast.
Using it with the more full-featured table types it is not all that scalable, and you will be better off with Postgresql.
Oracle, on the other hand, has been rather...unpredictable.
We got our share of weird stuff. Databases that would come up, telling it was already up (no, it wasn't). Our nightly batch would hang at least once every two weeks. CPU at 0%, no disk activity, but totally unresponsive. Neither we nor Oracle could find out why.
I don't have exact details (I'm a Pointy Haired Boss) but we have some sort of replication going on. A few developers are looking in to the code for that, as it is one of the areas that we might be able to improve upon. It's only just started so there are no results yet.
We did the migration in house, without any major issues. The data warehouse was a bit of a challenge as it contains around 3 terabyte of data, and Oracle took forever to dump. Loading it in Postgresql was a breeze though!;-)
All our applications are developed in-house (financial transactions and analysis) in C++ for OLTP and Perl for the data warehouse.
Anecdote: the DWH as originally developed with Oracle Data WarehouseBuilder. After too many weird crashes (ORA-00600), my team did a quick & dirty prototype in Perl of the staging area. This was around 10 times faster than what we had. The whole system was then rebuild in Perl in around four months. Two months of testing later we went live. And, as I said, a couple of months ago we migrated to Postgresql.
After a lot of testing and benchmarking we moved our Oracle databases (OLTP and DWH) to Postgresql. We also looked at MySQL, by the way.
Our production servers were migrated in August 2007 and so far everything has been very stable. It's too soon to really tell, but there is a feeling it is more stable than our previous Oracle setup.
Slashdot Mirror
Mine is in daily use (workdays) since mid-2005, and I'm not particularly fussy with it. It has a few scratches when it fell while bike-racing, that's it. Still keeps a good charge and all.
I've been thinking about a Touch, but can't imagine it lasting more than a few months with my use.
Or is it just an "ooh, shiny!" purchase?
Video: Lave to Zaonce
Just curious: what happens if your SSD is 90% full? Are all writes going to be levelled around on the remaining 90%, or are full blocks actually being shifted all the time?
Reason I'm asking is that I normally don't have that many space left on my hard disk, and if that proves to be a killer for SSD, then I rather stick to my old tech.
Another thing, if SSD's have the same failure rate as USB thumbdrives then it paints a bleak pictures. Those things die on me like there's no tomorrow...
Personally, I'd rather see our scientific dollars spent closer to home.
Personally, I'd rather see your country stop bombing the rest of the world.
Would you care to show your alleged hard scientific evidence? And be forewarned that waving that book of fairytales you seem to be so fond of gets no points at all.
Years of brainwashing during your formative years doesn't constitute proof. But, as you made the statement, are you able to back it up with facts or can you at least make it plausible?
I'm genuinely interested in your point of view, btw.
A bit of friendly competition will ultimately benefit both systems. This is a game were both sides win! ;-)
I really would like to run my own benchmarks, but it wouldn't be objective nor fair as I don't know enough about tuning the Linux kernel for performance.
Not according to this benchmark: http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/06/1313218>
If you're a unix dude, I don't see why you'd care which one you're working on, myself
Don't get me wrong, I think Linux is a very important software product, and a massive testament to the power of decentralized development. If Linux is a solution for your problem, fine. With distributions like Ubuntu the learning curve has been all but removed.
For me, though, I'll stick to BSD.
But here are a few tips anyway, perhaps they can make your decision easier:
So, in a nutshell, I recommend Perl, Postgresql and FreeBSD. Plenty of experienced developers, and the tools Just Work.
Kids are the single most annoying thing in airtravel. They should not be allowed on the plane, perhaps they can travel while duct-taped to the outside of the hull?
If you leave home, you might best enjoy the change in environment. Take in the local music, it is an experience in itself.
Or you might live in your own little 'bubble' and keep everything just like at home, but then why travel anyway?
What the BBC is trying to do has been available in the Netherlands for years: every program that's been broadcast is available here: http://www.uitzendinggemist.nl/
The site is responsive and works great, without any technical rarities.
However, at the moment there are no serious applications that will only become feasible by having more computer power.
More speed in calculation has plenty of benefits, but AI as a research field will not be making major announcements soon because of this new machine.
If you don't like the software you can try to get the developer to fix it, by sending detailed bug reports or requests for adding some functionality. The developer may, or may not, work on your requests.
But you are NOT entitled to bitch about any of the work done. You are free to not use it, to fix it yourself, to have someone fix it for you however.
If you don't contribute yourself then you may take what is offered or you can leave it alone. But, as parent put so eloquently, SHUT THE FUCK UP if you're only going to whine.
However, I have a collection of around 1500 books (fiction, non-fiction, science, references, etc.) which are not available in e-book format and more than likely never will be.
So what will I do with an ebook reader? Have ten books on that and put it in the bookcase along the paper versions?
The first company that offers me ALL books, including the old ones in my collection, in ebook format (at more or less any price) will get my business in a second. Until then, no thanks, it's not a solution for my problems.
The flaw in the PRNG is not exploitable. Not unless you are root on the local machine and have the ability to stop all other processes. If you are root then there is nothing to exploit as you are already, well, root.
So perhaps you should have RTA first? Or where you in a hurry to make a post on front of the list?
It would be a much better world if software engineering would grow up and would be kept to the same standards as "proper" engineering though.
Well, that should teach me not to post while under the influence... ;-)
I'm very good in office politics: I completely ignore it (up to a point, I'm actually quite skilled at it). There is a job to be done, and I make sure it gets done. By letting the specialists do what they do best, which is solve problems. The developers are happy because the shit from above never reaches them, and upper mgt is happy that things get done.
Piece of cake. The cake is a lie
Yes, I get yelled at by senior management, that's part of the job, I can handle it. The developers like me for not interfering though. And that's the only way to get work done. Which, in turn, makes senior mgt happy and validates my pay. Joy all around, I guess.
Using it with the more full-featured table types it is not all that scalable, and you will be better off with Postgresql.
We got our share of weird stuff. Databases that would come up, telling it was already up (no, it wasn't). Our nightly batch would hang at least once every two weeks. CPU at 0%, no disk activity, but totally unresponsive. Neither we nor Oracle could find out why.
We did the migration in house, without any major issues. The data warehouse was a bit of a challenge as it contains around 3 terabyte of data, and Oracle took forever to dump. Loading it in Postgresql was a breeze though! ;-)
All our applications are developed in-house (financial transactions and analysis) in C++ for OLTP and Perl for the data warehouse.
Anecdote: the DWH as originally developed with Oracle Data WarehouseBuilder. After too many weird crashes (ORA-00600), my team did a quick & dirty prototype in Perl of the staging area. This was around 10 times faster than what we had. The whole system was then rebuild in Perl in around four months. Two months of testing later we went live. And, as I said, a couple of months ago we migrated to Postgresql.
After a lot of testing and benchmarking we moved our Oracle databases (OLTP and DWH) to Postgresql. We also looked at MySQL, by the way. Our production servers were migrated in August 2007 and so far everything has been very stable. It's too soon to really tell, but there is a feeling it is more stable than our previous Oracle setup.