If you keep around 70% of your drive free, the machine will be able to make large enough chunks that given a combinations of other factors it was meaningless.
It was said with multiple independent read write heads, you can actually fill the buffer faster by spreading the load out in noncontiguous sections...and even if it did need to read sequential sections from the same head in different areas, both that the drive can read files nonsequentially and load these chunks into the cache while the other read head is catching up -- and that it takes less than a ms to jump from one sector to another these days.
The clue that was beaten into me was to think of this as sorta a spanned raid within a single drive and that's entirely how these work these days (and then told its entirely not like a raid so I shouldn't use that metaphor lest some nerd that thinks with his head instead of his gut tells me that I'm wrong -- ok I made up the last part, but its essentially what I was told).
But all in all, as other have mentioned, HSF+ likes to defrag on the fly non-contiguous chunks of less than 20 megs (and it will also do this in the background after the CPU is more free after seeing these) -- and given that the average cache on a drive is around 16 Megs, even when this inevitably doubles in the next year or two, the logic remains that this is still good enough.
But you are entirely right -- if drives didn't employ caching and multiple independent read write heads (i.e., early multiple platter systems required that the read/write heads all be driven by the same motor and thus killing any attainable speeds).
Blah blah blah...its all pseudoscience and phrenology to me. I'm just mouthing everything that was sent to me without understanding a word of it. I'm a musician (and technically a pseudoscientist by trade) so making up words and using them incorrectly by mirroring others comes naturally and might even make sense to those that don't know any better:-)
"HFS+ is subject to fragmentation (but Apple, like MS, provides no tools to help you deal with it)"
Talking in depth to one of the original OS X engineers (there were 4 or 5 depending if you count Jobs as one of them -- they all claimed Jobs gave as much input to the original porting of Next to the new OSX as anyone else did), his claim was that fragmentation isn't a problem.
Apple specifically doesn't offer tools because it defrags files as it makes sense to the operating system -- and generally doesn't defrag at all except for tiny files because modern drive and multiple independent read / write heads on drives today make a bit of entropy a good thing. If I remember later conversations correctly, he also mentioned that Apple had several graphic based disc tools that could do the same things that the OS does on an individual file basis, but didn't see the point in releasing them because this was something that should be left up to the OS and not up to the user. I argued that the user should have control and he countered with the fact that unless you had intimate knowledge about the drives physical features as well as the OSs specific needs, you are more likely going to slow things down in your quest to align the pretty colors together on your defrag program.
What was interesting was that he also recommended that you never fill a drive past 60 or 70 %. The claim was that having a huge chunk of empty space allowed the OS to do its thing without having to resort to smoke and mirrors.
Note -- defragging is an IMPORTANT part to my audience. I deal with musicians and engineers working on digital audio workstations. I remember using specific defraggers that were used solely for our industry (i.e., would write audio files to areas of the disc that were claimed to be the fastest read / write). I followed this skeptically -- until my contact forwarded me to a counterpart of his at Microsoft that essentially said the same thing -- in a MODERN OS using modern hardware, this does more harm than good.
Do I believe that a user couldn't get more optimized use out of defragging their own drives? I don't really know...but I'm going to trust these guys. Do your own research though. For all I know, I was told a line of BS that is intended to keep people like me from poking around under 'modern os`s':-)
The case is and was only the first of many in this instance.
As a lawyer commenting on this, you probably know all the relevant case laws surrounding this area because I take it you specialize in Employment Law?
If not, the field is muddied by generalities. This is why specific bar exams are so tough. I've muddled through helping a friend with his patent exam which was MUCH tougher and had far more specifics than anyone taking the standard bar. What he claimed to know for the first meant nothing on the second.
If you are in fact an employment lawyer, I appologize and you may actually know more than I do on this subject. Having 10 years of experience in this realm and having consulted by half a dozen attorneys in this area from university council to having to hire my own with a personal company, they all pretty much state the same thing.
As for being an attorney in this field, you'd also know the relevance to 'fashionable terms like "moron" and "imbecile"' in that they are not only fashionable but at one point legal definitions. But any idiot would know that -- if only to differentiate himself from the other classes of diminished intelligence.
But it holds no surprise to me that you are a lawyer -- you seem to think you understand other areas outside of your purview better than those that are actively involved in it. I believe this is a key personality trait looked for upon interview. Folks that can make asses out of themselves while seeming knowledgable to those outside of the field. It is solely due to folks like you that certain social sciences are considered pseduosciences because you've learned to twist repeatable experiments with great relyability to your own advantage while dealing with idiots that know no better.
I, however, make no such claims. What I don't know, I don't know. I make no claim to know about many other legal matters outside of the ones that directly affect me. Engage me in a conversation about property law and I'll agree with anything you say the same as I nod my head when my oncologist friend explains new research.
"it can take a 4' fall onto concrete not even dent (ok, maybe that was just luck)"
It was just luck.
If it had hit on a corner, you would have been screwed. Well, screwed from an aesthetic point of view...my 12" took such a tumble and now has 'character'. Kinda bugs me occasionally because its such a beautiful machine. Same sorta thing happened with my Wallstreet G3...great neoprene cover that no other laptop has matched for the grip, and while at a friends place, I threw it under a couch...unfortunately, the springs poked through and as I pulled it out, it had 3 HUGE gouges in the soft plastic.
The thing I've learned about Macs is that you really shouldn't get too attached to the beauty...thats one of the things that makes them so great looking -- you have to take great care of them to keep the image, but if all you are interested in is a workhorse, it does the trick regardless of what it looks like.
"OK, but that's not the same as IQ tests being banned"
I'm going to go slow, because I'm talking to some slow people:
No -- it is the same thing. It says ***IQ*** tests are not relevant to jobs and as such should not be used.
Trust me on this. I do this for a living and have so for almost a decade.
***APTITUDE*** tests are not IQ tests. Aptitude tests have never been banned. They have been ***RESTRICTED*** though. If you have no job related reason to take an aptitude test, or that it is obvious and the test creators intention that the test be used for more than what it being porported for measurement -- then it cannot be used.
Aptitude tests can be given for employment purposes.
IQ Tests cannot be given for employment purposes.
Aptitude Tests in many situations correlate HIGHLY with IQ test.
Aptitude tests are not, however, IQ tests.
--
So more or less, you are arguing with me, making things up with no background, but essentially saying the same thing I am for the wrong reasons. Sorry. What I said is essentially correct. If you want more correct responses, please take a few assessment courses.
The Equal Employment laws cover this -- but the SCOTUS decided this as well in the court room under the case Griggs v. Duke Power.
It pretty much stated that general tests of intelligence cannot be used as basis of employment where the test is not an indicator of predicted job performance. [1] If it does not directly pertain to the job at hand, it is illegal. This is why quite a few firms have specific lines of questioning when interviewing -- while skipping written forms of the test. They can have probitive questioning that has been statistically normed in some way that they can guestimate via the oral response. At the same time, when dealing with children, a lot of measures of IQ are also oral and pseudo-informal -- so it could be argued rather successfully that this is a proven test of IQ if done in a specific manner.
But more or less, a janitor cannot be told he needs to be able to discern where the name google comes from. Or how to write the alphabet backwards. Or add 78 + 43 subtracting 90% and then cubing the remainder. It doesn't apply to his job. I know a lot of janitors that are smarter that the people in the offices they work for. I had a friend that was the head of his division at one point and decided to come back to be around his friends after his wife died...he cleaned offices in a building that use to be one of a dozen that were under his direct control. I make certain not to judge folks for their professions (i.e., most actors and musicians I dealt with when I was in the industry were all waiters and waitresses in their 'off seasons' -- I worked with a guy with a dozen platniums that got left behind in the early 90s and now works in a pawn shop. You never can tell.
But the point is, their job doesn't depend on their knowledge of these facts or the ability to synthesize new ideas demonstrating the creative process. Just doesn't matter.
Add to this the racial components that were key in giving IQ tests in the first place. All tests have bias...all societies have individuals that are marginalized somewhat artificially because of the color of their skin, the god they believe in or their parents socioeconomic levels. By introducing a test that weeds out certain peoples that don't fit the normal distribution, you eliminate means to remove these artificial barriers that keep these people down -- and again, keeping them down when the test is serving no purpose other than to keep them down instead of setting a minimum bar needed to do the job.
Anyhoo...thats about all I got to say about this tonight...
Footnote(s)
1. Of couse, intelligence IS a predictor of job performance as it is also a predictor of a good many things. For instance, in a landmark study that measured almost all the children in Ireland in the 1930s (or something like that -- PreWWII), this data was later used to predict mortality rates in instances such as automotive accidents. By how much? Who knows? Maybe smarter people aren't really that much more smart but are more observant:) The point is, intelligence tests do say a lot about people and correlate highly to specific actions, events and goals in peoples lives. How well does it correlate to a specific non-related item? Hell if I know...
"knowing full well that colleges administer an IQ test (SAT)"
No, the SAT is an APTITUDE TEST....again, one that highly correlates to intelligence -- but that was not its purpose when designed.
Its always wise to see how highly your tests correlate to other exams. For instance, I have a math exam that actually correlates higher to a reading test than its paired writting test (and thats because of a bunch of technical gobbeldygook that would take far too long to explain...got a semmester?)
But would it be fair to state that just because I can relyability guess at what you are going to make on your reading test from my math that I shouldn't use it because it unfairly measures something it said it didn't? It would be fair to claim it is infact unfair if I put you in a remedial reading course because you only placed into elementary math though.
And that is the claim with Apt vs. IQ. If used correctly, then there is no problem. There are folks with low IQ that do well on aptitude tests. And the other way around. But on average, they both are good indicators of the other.
As for a college degree -- I'd agree with you. The field I work in is not one I studied. I never gotten a degree, but I have been quoted in my field by predominant researchers...how many people out there are like me? Probably not too many. Its not that I'm smarter than others, I just had a rare set of circumstances that allowed me to learn highly theoretical knowledge and application without setting foot inside a classroom. The opportunity just isn't there usually. As such, college gets you where you need to be. And shows that you are willing to be a sheeple and follow stupid orders -- of which when you start out in a field they will ALL seem like stupid orders until you understand. College prepares you to learn to think like others -- at the same time giving you basic facts about the field you may eventually get into. As such, the degree is valuable...just hasn't been a hinderance for me...yet...
Aptitude tests and other exams that highly correlate towards IQ but is not the main output of the exam are, however, mostly legal.
There are exceptions...for instance the afore mentioned aptitude test could be found illegal if it were proven that the employeer was in fact using it because of its high correlations to IQ and not because of what it claimed to measure.
I design these sorts of tests for a living and we have to be careful about how they are used lest someone decided to sue us along with the folks that administered the test. Luckily, almost everything we do is aimed at the educational market (and even then it isn't there to get a 'rating' of sorts -- its there to help make an assessment to better serve students in areas they may need help in -- and will revoke liceses from anyone that is using our software in a way that is not condusive to our stated policies and goals).
"and are on record as thinking that living without transactions is a fine idea"
There are a lot of applications where transactions just aren't needed.
If you are doing web applications that don't involve financial trails or need any integrity past having a quick way to access the record (and can live with having to rebuild every so often) -- speed may be FAR more important to your application than anything else.
Sometimes raw speed is the difference between serious and not serious in some areas.
For instance, I know several applications that rely on pure memory based database type queries...the data is only written back to / read from the database sporadically. If the server goes down between writes -- these are lost. But the nature of the application is such that this is a tradeoff that is willing to be done.
Not everything needs to be everything for everyone -- heck, even in my life as a university wonk, I rarely need transactions for the intense data manipulations I have to do. If something doesn't go through, the integrity is such that it knows the data is out of date and will get re-munged the next time I run the query (or when someone tries to access that data, it will take 10x as long and do it then...which I try to minimize).
"Especially with employers that have to be HIPAA compliant."
Wierd --
I am the HIPAA compliance officer with my office, and I have not seen any rules to this extent.
At the same time, we train our employees and don't expect them to be idiots...but thats just my office. The rest of my organization might have other rules and employees they hire that for some reason they allow access to this data but don't really trust (i.e., there is no way for any of my people to download bulk data -- nor should there ever be for someone that can't be trusted -- and our software is designed so that certain activities like looking up the records of family members or even your own personal records is frowned upon...I actually got a call from the 'boys upstairs' because I was looking up a record of my own -- and that was just to correct erronious data from some tests I had accidently automated with my ID# back when the system was still in the test phase and none of the data was supposed to go forward).
But yeah, we take HIPAA seriously here -- but we do it in a way that makes sense and not just restricts anyone that might actually have to use technology.
"When will people get over the Killer App mentaility? The iPod wouldn't sell nearly as well without network effects"
Beyond your easy to use networking examples -- even if the phone companies dead simple to download the music, they have this inbred notion that ANYTHING you do on the phone should be at your expense and they should get a huge cut of it.
For example, I found out my new phone could play MP3s...unfortunately, no way to get them on without buying them from my provider. Its a Bluetooth phone and comes with USB cables for computer connectivity. But getting files on to it? Nope. Actually, thats wrong -- I can get files onto it, but only as portable storage -- I can load up photos or delete the files that are already there (as I did the crappy MP3s), but not placing in the phones memory where I can retrieve them. I had to call the company to find this out after having difficulties -- and I was told that as this was a 'locked' phone, I would not be able to do what I needed.
Along with this, I can for a small fee, rebuy the same song for my desktop. Oh yeah, you can DELETE the MP3 files you buy from their crappy store -- but not download them. Its not as much, the operator tells me, but I think I would have already spent twice as much as I would for the same iTunes based purchase (and maybe exactly the same to get it for my desktop). For some reason, the phone companies have convinced the content providers that one can get extended use out of these files and thus its got to be more expensive. Either that, or they take their 50% network fees cut even before they take their shared revenues on the content. And the file you can get for your desktop is I believe WMA -- which probably won't work on my Mac.
Screw the phone manufacturers. So long as they are willing to provide the cell providers with locked phones, we are never going to see any innovation. They make far more money off of selling these directly to those retailers that have a vested interest in locking down our features then then ever will selling directly to the public -- why do you think the original iTunes phone took so long to get here -- because none of the cell providers wanted it (though apple's bullshit 100 song limit is just that, bullshit -- though rumor has it this may be lifted soon as they realize their mistake, but I'll believe that when I see it).
"ome carriers (sprint was one when I checked) won't give you any incentive to continue with them"
I have been a customer of sprints since around 2000 -- and no, they don't give a damn.
They USE to...at one point I had around 5000 any time minutes / unlimited nights for $39.95 (and still only using around 1000 in total). Last month, I looked at my bill as it was a little higher than average -- they'd been tacking on fee after fee anyways -- and realized that I had been dropped to a plan that was only 700 minutes anytime and something like 1000 nights.
I called to complain at this mistake and they claimed it was because I did not respond to their offer for a new cell phone plan. WTF??? I already had a better plan than they were offering and I didn't want locked into a new 30 year agreement to pick up a $200 phone.
So fuck Sprint. I don't need them and they didn't need me. They offer no incentive to stick with them and decided that I wasn't a good enough customer for them. They say it takes 2 years to even break even with a customer (hence the standard contract time), I had a total of 2 phones on my line and one was used (got it from a friend that was upgrading). As such, I was the perfect customer for this company...and they still didn't care. Folks like me don't look good on their books as being locked in.
So I canceled and went with Cingular last week. I can't say the service is very good with Cingular -- I might have to switch to another company soon. The phone didn't come with any technical contact information and I guess I have to call 1-800-Cingular to get service (though by the time I'm out of work, and finished with evening classes, their support lines are closed). I'm seriously thinking of saying Fuck Cingular as well. At least Sprint answered the phone 24/7 and had all the numbers needed to get to anyone easily found in the introductory package.
So all in all, I don't think any cell phone company wants customers -- I think they want numbers for their stockholders and if they can do so without having to deal with customers, I think they would be so much happier.
Fuck Sprint and Fuck Cingular. Maybe I'll write back in a month to say Fuck Someone Else.
"I think that Amazon competing with Apple iTunes or Google Video is a bad idea."
Competing against Google Video is reason enough to get out of the business...if you have to even compare the service to Google's you've lost the game already. I've *NEVER* used a shittier interface and there was nothing that made me want to even think about putting a quarter in the snack machine because it looked like it'd just get stuck with the rest of the sugary items stuck behind the glass where no amount of shaking was going to get it out.
iTMS is another story though -- I buy quite a bit of video through this site because I got rid of cable (well, I have 'sub-basic' -- the local channels + comedy central -- though if they knew that, they'd probably take that away too -- its around $10 a month and means I can get clear reception). The iTunes is great to buy from -- its actually far too easy. I've ended up buying a few things that I had been planning on getting physically because they've thrown a few goodies in that made the physical purchase less desirable -- and STILL went out and bought the physical purchase just to have it. What kinda crap is that!!!:-)
To be honest, I could see Amazon having a better interface than Apple's solution -- the Video Store under iTMS is horrible -- its nothing like that of the music side. Ok, not horrible, but definitely needs to be rethought out. It seems like it was thrown together with the least amount of shoehorning they could do to get the items into the database and our interface. This MIGHT have to do with the fact Apple is rewarding their loyal content providers that served up the content first because its very studiocentric (then again, I wish the music store had a way to search via labels as there are a few independent labels that don't put out that much in the way of content, but what they do put out is consistent across the board -- for example, back in the 80s when I was a gothy industrial kid, I knew that almost anything I picked up from WaxTrax was going to be something that I'd at least listen to for a week or two before picking up the next purchase).
Amazon's interface for their store is consistent -- its not the greatest, but I can find things without having to switch paradigms every time I want a different type of content. Between Apple and Amazon, this takes up 99% of my online purchases, so I'm pretty satisfied with both regardless.
As for the suggestion of streamed video w/physical purchase -- I'd love to be able to do that. Amazon HAD been toying with the idea of selling elocker'd items where if you buy a physical book, you could get access to the digital one. I've gotten emails about this from them several times, but I've never found an item that this was possible with...probably the whole MP3.COM Streaming Jukebox thing where everyone sued the company even though they went out of their way to ensure that the listeners had physical access to the content they were streaming (even if you only had access for a few minutes to borrow your friends CDs to add them to your database, that same amount of time could have been spent ripping them and you are right back to where you started). But if they sold a 'rented' streaming video (rented in the terms on the subscription ideas based around online music stores vs. ownership ala iTunes) where the video could be viewed online X amount of times elapsing at time UPS / DHL / USPS tracking claim to have dropped the package off at your residence (or just an arbitrary time of maybe 2 weeks) -- I'd probably stop buying from iTunes and not even be pissed off about the lack of ownership / transferability of the file.
But all in all, back to your main point -- I think regardless, Amazon could offer the best competition to Apple to date -- so long as they support OS X (and even Linux for the pasty faced kids -- though which variant and will they have to supply the source code along with the de-encryption keys because someone accidentally used GPL3 source!!!). I don't see Google doing anything d
"So we reverted to Linux, where updates are free forever."
Hmmm...$60 a year is too much?
I guess thats why the mainstream media still considers Linux a Hobbiest Platform.
I know in the past, I have paid more than that for access to RedHat's up2date servers (I think thats what it was) -- and I had no problem with paying to make certain that my OS was supported and the fixes were automated to the point I didn't have to worry about having to geek out every single day of my life. Some of our lives revolve around non-technical activities.
For those that love technology and love getting their hands dirty (I use to do the same), I guess its not a bad thing to be a hobbiest and play around with this sort of stuff. But when your livelyhood depends on it -- $60 a year isn't a bad thing. Thats less than one hour of billable work for a client.
But yeah, I have a few unpatched, unsupported boxes running around that I couldn't care less about. Heck, I've got a G4 sitting around still on 10.1 because I didn't want to update. Guess what -- it STILL gets patches sent to it (and I keep forgetting I need to turn that auto-updater off as I don't want it messed with because I definately don't want QT7 or whatever its up to now -- on that box as I've already paid for the Pro version of the last and I don't want to have to deal with any incompatibilities with Final Cut and Logic on that box -- both older versions because they work).
So I understand...mainstream media is right about you...
Back in the mid90s, the RIAA decided to employ their highest grossing artist to go around and try to explain why Used CDs were killing the industry. Garth Brooks made a GREAT pitch to the Walmart crowd -- all of whom realized that a man with more mansions than Saddam had palaces wasn't doing half as bad as they were knowing their doublewide could get repossessed and hauled away at any point.
I stood behind Metalica when they stood up against Napster -- there is *NEVER* an excuse to take something someone else created and duplicate it to the point that you are essentially a competitor that left unchecked can put you out of business -- and done so by your fans.
But when Brooks was doing this years earlier, he decided to change a paradigm that had been legal for over a thousand years...'he' didn't even want his stuff in libraries. If you want rid of cd, you needed to just throw it in the trash. No doctrine of first sale that has always been in copyright.
But no one took this seriously and there were laws enacted to actually strenghten the idea of selling used physical media like this. And that is why I still buy a majority of my music via CD and its subset of used CD. I don't see any prevaling need to be allowed to sell my iTunes purchases -- I knew going into it that the paradigm was such that I tied to the music -- but CDs -- no one is going to make this argument again for a long time.
Again, the music industry blew their wad on this years ago...
Its original source was licensed under BSD and then later released under an Apple license that was close to the BSD license -- but asked that you submit your changes back to Apple (or something similar).
As such, they are not legally obligated to release the sources in any way. They have only done so because they felt it was a good move on their part and would increase their valuation at the time (of which, the leaders may not think this is longer the case)...
I just went to both and did a search on both. Nope...no beta mentioned in either the posters article or the page he linked to (from which I linked the photo).
Are you really that fucking stupid? Generally trolls log in anonymously to tell me they are wrong when they are this fucking wrong.
And no, I'm not too stupid...neither the parent that I was responding to, nor the page he had linked to had said Last Week or Beta Software.
He and every other idiot that has been linking to this page act as though this were code that was ready to be used -- which is why this and most geek tools guarentee they will only ever be used by geeks -- because you guys have no internal quality control where you expect things to be right, just good enough.
The fuck are you talking about? I'm always hostile.
If I said child molesters are the worst people in the world and need to be shot on sight, I'm really saying that I secretly saying that they have a point about 8 year olds wanting to be ass raped?
No, sometimes, when someone says something harshly its because they realize something really and truely SUCKS.
As for dsigned for simplicity -- I don't agree at all. Simplicity can sometimes mean highly efficiency. Geeks love efficiency. This doesn't seem all too efficient. Simplicity can mean a lot of things...this application sucks and looks even worse. Its a waste of a few hundred dollars unless you are actively developing this application...and if you are, it would probably be a fun learning activity (even if not useful at all for anyone else).
Why in the fuck would you want to destroy an iPod that was designed around simplicity to use this...there are other CHEAPER just as hackable portable music players out there that might actually be improved with this interface, but I have a feeling if the playing screen is going to look this much like shit, the rest of the interface is as well.
I'm sorry, but it sounds like a great experiment and if I didn't have only a 1st Gen iPod I'd probably load it up to serve my geek curiosity, but I can guarentee you it wouldn't last very long. Seriously, that looks like shit and I can't say that enough.
"Recently, in England, they cut down a 340 yr old oak tree to make wine barrels."
Actually -- they cut down the 340 year old tree because it was infested and needed to be destroyed before it infested other 300 year old trees around it.
The fact that the tree was well known and thus to be used for wine making is secondary. I read this the other day and treehuggers were getting all bent out of shape about it until someone picked up the full story.
But yeah, wine in a barrel tastes 'more complex'. Better? I don't know...I don't care. But the wine snobs I know can actually tell you the type of barrel it was stored in by the characteristics of the wine (apparently its not hard to figure out if you studied the subject).
"Cleaning people are usually outsourced these days, and usually get issued keys."
You ain't kidding.
I've done work for a company that had my office retrofitted with a new cardkey access and as official policy -- we needed a key'd entry as well to ensure that in power failures and otherwise police or maintence can get in. We had a key made for maintence that was supposed to under no circumstances be let out of the locked keybox and signed for when it was.
Within a week -- every man, woman and child on the cleaning staff in my building was issued a key to my office so that they could get in. I've asked that the lock be changed and the security be reinstituted and was told that if we change the lock without giving it to the building supervisor -- they'd take a torch to it and cut it down.
I offered to make available magnetic keys to a specific number of staff (with specific times they can get in) but their union won't allow that because I can then track the goings and coming of the employees and this is unacceptable.
So yeah, you are exactly right -- give a 6 pack to the cleaning crew and you will get in.
Haven't you been paying attention...this is already what happened.
He had some streetcred and two little companies that folks liked -- but no real control over the market from either (i.e., Apple 2.5% market share and Pixar's endentured servitude to Disney) and thought they'd give him a shot just so they can claim they tried and it failed.
And Jobs outperforms everyones expectations on both sides and scaring the living shit out of content providers -- they've already got the momentum and to deny content to them would be suicide at this point. The video store was practically nothing at first and other than the Pixar shorts I had no interest in it -- but again, the momentum was gained where as to not get on board was to look like you were 'old media' -- even if you knew doing so would be your eventual demise.
Jobs has been a real threat to this industry for a few years now and the industry knows it. This isn't reality distortion logic, ask Sony why they wouldn't get on board with Japan or Oz's iTMS for so long (and finally relented to the exact same terms he had offered even the little guys with a dozen albums on their lable).
Personally, if I were working for an opposing company (and I gotta check to see if I am these days...I never pay attention to the parent companies:-) I'd actually be less worried if he were endentured to a giant media company needing stability in a real sort of way (i.e., he could easily sell Pixar for $$$ to someone and it wouldn't hurt the brand, but selling $6B in stock is a sign of weakness and would KILL its value -- if he sells for a stock trade, he's stuck for some years).
No -- I use Access to organize my thoughts and nothing else -- sometimes its paper and pen drawing lines. Sometimes its notepad or otherwise after I've dumped the data defs.
I pull in small extracts of the tables so that I can see what the fuckups are and where the problems are and use it to see how I'm going to write it out for the real applications (which I 'handcode' from the quick and dirty). Its simply a visualization tool as much as VisualBasic or RealBasic are RAD tools (that should never be used to ship actual product).
As for collate -- I wasn't meaning it in a technical term -- but in the term of collecting and compiling for distribution. Again, I'm not a DBA nor do I want to be...I solely want information so I can validate the effectiveness of various institutions:) Though at the same time, my original note to the kid that was pissing all over his instructor was that some of us that realize that they know little compared to a real DBA still understand far more than he seems to know with his smarmy attitude (and yeah, it irks me a little because I see that same attitude here -- I've had student workers piss on my limited technical skill and try to prove they are smarter...until I let them take over a project on their own and watch them fail miserably...I don't do so to be a jerk but so that they understand technical know how is actually only maybe 25% of the entire project -- seeing the entire picture is far more important than knowing the code).
And honestly, the technology I have my hands on here rivals that which I've used in the corporate world. I still do a bit of consulting, though almost all of it is of a research / assessment end for these guys -- but occasionally I have to get my hands dirty in the technology when their staff isn't up to my demands. This campus is one of the most highly technical ones in the nation and is used as a testbed for a lot of future corporate technologies -- so I'm generally ahead of the curve than my corporate brothers (it really is a dangerous place to be when you are trying NOT to be a geek and put that life behind you).
But yeah, most university IT is a joke -- just not at this institution.
The problem I have, is that I'm dealing with several hundred tables -- a lot of which are almost redundant but that they have ONE piece of information different than the other.
I have to collate data from 8 college campuses, including legacy and current systems -- and it'd be really nice if there were diagrams for this, but it would require administrators from these varying departments and campuses to all be in agreeance about what they need and don't need and how its presented.
It would be much easier if I were afforded the ability to download a snapshot of the data and go from there but I can't...
But yes, these tables get written down before collated and formatted...and if I used the bulk of tables more than once a year to create a new report and throw it out for the administrators -- I'd probably be comfortable with doing it all in paper.
So its nice that you believe this, but alas, I work in the real world and just because I work for academics, it doesn't mean what is taught in class actually makes it out to the DBAs I have to work with -- and this is a small part of my job -- I don't claim to be an expert at databases and don't want to be...I do, however, know that anyone that claims that they can remember all the tables and deal with everything through the commandline probably isn't working with anything all that complicated...and at the same time, knowing that just because everything isn't printed out, it isn't because any DBA was slacking -- it could be that the information wasn't intended to be connected (you can't imagine every scenario).
Slashdot Mirror
This was actually addressed.
:-)
If you keep around 70% of your drive free, the machine will be able to make large enough chunks that given a combinations of other factors it was meaningless.
It was said with multiple independent read write heads, you can actually fill the buffer faster by spreading the load out in noncontiguous sections...and even if it did need to read sequential sections from the same head in different areas, both that the drive can read files nonsequentially and load these chunks into the cache while the other read head is catching up -- and that it takes less than a ms to jump from one sector to another these days.
The clue that was beaten into me was to think of this as sorta a spanned raid within a single drive and that's entirely how these work these days (and then told its entirely not like a raid so I shouldn't use that metaphor lest some nerd that thinks with his head instead of his gut tells me that I'm wrong -- ok I made up the last part, but its essentially what I was told).
But all in all, as other have mentioned, HSF+ likes to defrag on the fly non-contiguous chunks of less than 20 megs (and it will also do this in the background after the CPU is more free after seeing these) -- and given that the average cache on a drive is around 16 Megs, even when this inevitably doubles in the next year or two, the logic remains that this is still good enough.
But you are entirely right -- if drives didn't employ caching and multiple independent read write heads (i.e., early multiple platter systems required that the read/write heads all be driven by the same motor and thus killing any attainable speeds).
Blah blah blah...its all pseudoscience and phrenology to me. I'm just mouthing everything that was sent to me without understanding a word of it. I'm a musician (and technically a pseudoscientist by trade) so making up words and using them incorrectly by mirroring others comes naturally and might even make sense to those that don't know any better
"HFS+ is subject to fragmentation (but Apple, like MS, provides no tools to help you deal with it)"
:-)
Talking in depth to one of the original OS X engineers (there were 4 or 5 depending if you count Jobs as one of them -- they all claimed Jobs gave as much input to the original porting of Next to the new OSX as anyone else did), his claim was that fragmentation isn't a problem.
Apple specifically doesn't offer tools because it defrags files as it makes sense to the operating system -- and generally doesn't defrag at all except for tiny files because modern drive and multiple independent read / write heads on drives today make a bit of entropy a good thing. If I remember later conversations correctly, he also mentioned that Apple had several graphic based disc tools that could do the same things that the OS does on an individual file basis, but didn't see the point in releasing them because this was something that should be left up to the OS and not up to the user. I argued that the user should have control and he countered with the fact that unless you had intimate knowledge about the drives physical features as well as the OSs specific needs, you are more likely going to slow things down in your quest to align the pretty colors together on your defrag program.
What was interesting was that he also recommended that you never fill a drive past 60 or 70 %. The claim was that having a huge chunk of empty space allowed the OS to do its thing without having to resort to smoke and mirrors.
Note -- defragging is an IMPORTANT part to my audience. I deal with musicians and engineers working on digital audio workstations. I remember using specific defraggers that were used solely for our industry (i.e., would write audio files to areas of the disc that were claimed to be the fastest read / write). I followed this skeptically -- until my contact forwarded me to a counterpart of his at Microsoft that essentially said the same thing -- in a MODERN OS using modern hardware, this does more harm than good.
Do I believe that a user couldn't get more optimized use out of defragging their own drives? I don't really know...but I'm going to trust these guys. Do your own research though. For all I know, I was told a line of BS that is intended to keep people like me from poking around under 'modern os`s'
The case is and was only the first of many in this instance.
As a lawyer commenting on this, you probably know all the relevant case laws surrounding this area because I take it you specialize in Employment Law?
If not, the field is muddied by generalities. This is why specific bar exams are so tough. I've muddled through helping a friend with his patent exam which was MUCH tougher and had far more specifics than anyone taking the standard bar. What he claimed to know for the first meant nothing on the second.
If you are in fact an employment lawyer, I appologize and you may actually know more than I do on this subject. Having 10 years of experience in this realm and having consulted by half a dozen attorneys in this area from university council to having to hire my own with a personal company, they all pretty much state the same thing.
As for being an attorney in this field, you'd also know the relevance to 'fashionable terms like "moron" and "imbecile"' in that they are not only fashionable but at one point legal definitions. But any idiot would know that -- if only to differentiate himself from the other classes of diminished intelligence.
But it holds no surprise to me that you are a lawyer -- you seem to think you understand other areas outside of your purview better than those that are actively involved in it. I believe this is a key personality trait looked for upon interview. Folks that can make asses out of themselves while seeming knowledgable to those outside of the field. It is solely due to folks like you that certain social sciences are considered pseduosciences because you've learned to twist repeatable experiments with great relyability to your own advantage while dealing with idiots that know no better.
I, however, make no such claims. What I don't know, I don't know. I make no claim to know about many other legal matters outside of the ones that directly affect me. Engage me in a conversation about property law and I'll agree with anything you say the same as I nod my head when my oncologist friend explains new research.
"it can take a 4' fall onto concrete not even dent (ok, maybe that was just luck)"
It was just luck.
If it had hit on a corner, you would have been screwed. Well, screwed from an aesthetic point of view...my 12" took such a tumble and now has 'character'. Kinda bugs me occasionally because its such a beautiful machine. Same sorta thing happened with my Wallstreet G3...great neoprene cover that no other laptop has matched for the grip, and while at a friends place, I threw it under a couch...unfortunately, the springs poked through and as I pulled it out, it had 3 HUGE gouges in the soft plastic.
The thing I've learned about Macs is that you really shouldn't get too attached to the beauty...thats one of the things that makes them so great looking -- you have to take great care of them to keep the image, but if all you are interested in is a workhorse, it does the trick regardless of what it looks like.
"OK, but that's not the same as IQ tests being banned"
I'm going to go slow, because I'm talking to some slow people:
No -- it is the same thing. It says ***IQ*** tests are not relevant to jobs and as such should not be used.
Trust me on this. I do this for a living and have so for almost a decade.
***APTITUDE*** tests are not IQ tests. Aptitude tests have never been banned. They have been ***RESTRICTED*** though. If you have no job related reason to take an aptitude test, or that it is obvious and the test creators intention that the test be used for more than what it being porported for measurement -- then it cannot be used.
Aptitude tests can be given for employment purposes.
IQ Tests cannot be given for employment purposes.
Aptitude Tests in many situations correlate HIGHLY with IQ test.
Aptitude tests are not, however, IQ tests.
--
So more or less, you are arguing with me, making things up with no background, but essentially saying the same thing I am for the wrong reasons. Sorry. What I said is essentially correct. If you want more correct responses, please take a few assessment courses.
The Equal Employment laws cover this -- but the SCOTUS decided this as well in the court room under the case Griggs v. Duke Power.
:) The point is, intelligence tests do say a lot about people and correlate highly to specific actions, events and goals in peoples lives. How well does it correlate to a specific non-related item? Hell if I know...
It pretty much stated that general tests of intelligence cannot be used as basis of employment where the test is not an indicator of predicted job performance. [1] If it does not directly pertain to the job at hand, it is illegal. This is why quite a few firms have specific lines of questioning when interviewing -- while skipping written forms of the test. They can have probitive questioning that has been statistically normed in some way that they can guestimate via the oral response. At the same time, when dealing with children, a lot of measures of IQ are also oral and pseudo-informal -- so it could be argued rather successfully that this is a proven test of IQ if done in a specific manner.
But more or less, a janitor cannot be told he needs to be able to discern where the name google comes from. Or how to write the alphabet backwards. Or add 78 + 43 subtracting 90% and then cubing the remainder. It doesn't apply to his job. I know a lot of janitors that are smarter that the people in the offices they work for. I had a friend that was the head of his division at one point and decided to come back to be around his friends after his wife died...he cleaned offices in a building that use to be one of a dozen that were under his direct control. I make certain not to judge folks for their professions (i.e., most actors and musicians I dealt with when I was in the industry were all waiters and waitresses in their 'off seasons' -- I worked with a guy with a dozen platniums that got left behind in the early 90s and now works in a pawn shop. You never can tell.
But the point is, their job doesn't depend on their knowledge of these facts or the ability to synthesize new ideas demonstrating the creative process. Just doesn't matter.
Add to this the racial components that were key in giving IQ tests in the first place. All tests have bias...all societies have individuals that are marginalized somewhat artificially because of the color of their skin, the god they believe in or their parents socioeconomic levels. By introducing a test that weeds out certain peoples that don't fit the normal distribution, you eliminate means to remove these artificial barriers that keep these people down -- and again, keeping them down when the test is serving no purpose other than to keep them down instead of setting a minimum bar needed to do the job.
Anyhoo...thats about all I got to say about this tonight...
Footnote(s)
1. Of couse, intelligence IS a predictor of job performance as it is also a predictor of a good many things. For instance, in a landmark study that measured almost all the children in Ireland in the 1930s (or something like that -- PreWWII), this data was later used to predict mortality rates in instances such as automotive accidents. By how much? Who knows? Maybe smarter people aren't really that much more smart but are more observant
"knowing full well that colleges administer an IQ test (SAT)"
No, the SAT is an APTITUDE TEST....again, one that highly correlates to intelligence -- but that was not its purpose when designed.
Its always wise to see how highly your tests correlate to other exams. For instance, I have a math exam that actually correlates higher to a reading test than its paired writting test (and thats because of a bunch of technical gobbeldygook that would take far too long to explain...got a semmester?)
But would it be fair to state that just because I can relyability guess at what you are going to make on your reading test from my math that I shouldn't use it because it unfairly measures something it said it didn't? It would be fair to claim it is infact unfair if I put you in a remedial reading course because you only placed into elementary math though.
And that is the claim with Apt vs. IQ. If used correctly, then there is no problem. There are folks with low IQ that do well on aptitude tests. And the other way around. But on average, they both are good indicators of the other.
As for a college degree -- I'd agree with you. The field I work in is not one I studied. I never gotten a degree, but I have been quoted in my field by predominant researchers...how many people out there are like me? Probably not too many. Its not that I'm smarter than others, I just had a rare set of circumstances that allowed me to learn highly theoretical knowledge and application without setting foot inside a classroom. The opportunity just isn't there usually. As such, college gets you where you need to be. And shows that you are willing to be a sheeple and follow stupid orders -- of which when you start out in a field they will ALL seem like stupid orders until you understand. College prepares you to learn to think like others -- at the same time giving you basic facts about the field you may eventually get into. As such, the degree is valuable...just hasn't been a hinderance for me...yet...
"would not take applicants with above a 105 IQ"
Actually *IQ* tests for employment are illegal.
Aptitude tests and other exams that highly correlate towards IQ but is not the main output of the exam are, however, mostly legal.
There are exceptions...for instance the afore mentioned aptitude test could be found illegal if it were proven that the employeer was in fact using it because of its high correlations to IQ and not because of what it claimed to measure.
I design these sorts of tests for a living and we have to be careful about how they are used lest someone decided to sue us along with the folks that administered the test. Luckily, almost everything we do is aimed at the educational market (and even then it isn't there to get a 'rating' of sorts -- its there to help make an assessment to better serve students in areas they may need help in -- and will revoke liceses from anyone that is using our software in a way that is not condusive to our stated policies and goals).
"and are on record as thinking that living without transactions is a fine idea"
There are a lot of applications where transactions just aren't needed.
If you are doing web applications that don't involve financial trails or need any integrity past having a quick way to access the record (and can live with having to rebuild every so often) -- speed may be FAR more important to your application than anything else.
Sometimes raw speed is the difference between serious and not serious in some areas.
For instance, I know several applications that rely on pure memory based database type queries...the data is only written back to / read from the database sporadically. If the server goes down between writes -- these are lost. But the nature of the application is such that this is a tradeoff that is willing to be done.
Not everything needs to be everything for everyone -- heck, even in my life as a university wonk, I rarely need transactions for the intense data manipulations I have to do. If something doesn't go through, the integrity is such that it knows the data is out of date and will get re-munged the next time I run the query (or when someone tries to access that data, it will take 10x as long and do it then...which I try to minimize).
"Especially with employers that have to be HIPAA compliant."
Wierd --
I am the HIPAA compliance officer with my office, and I have not seen any rules to this extent.
At the same time, we train our employees and don't expect them to be idiots...but thats just my office. The rest of my organization might have other rules and employees they hire that for some reason they allow access to this data but don't really trust (i.e., there is no way for any of my people to download bulk data -- nor should there ever be for someone that can't be trusted -- and our software is designed so that certain activities like looking up the records of family members or even your own personal records is frowned upon...I actually got a call from the 'boys upstairs' because I was looking up a record of my own -- and that was just to correct erronious data from some tests I had accidently automated with my ID# back when the system was still in the test phase and none of the data was supposed to go forward).
But yeah, we take HIPAA seriously here -- but we do it in a way that makes sense and not just restricts anyone that might actually have to use technology.
"When will people get over the Killer App mentaility? The iPod wouldn't sell nearly as well without network effects"
Beyond your easy to use networking examples -- even if the phone companies dead simple to download the music, they have this inbred notion that ANYTHING you do on the phone should be at your expense and they should get a huge cut of it.
For example, I found out my new phone could play MP3s...unfortunately, no way to get them on without buying them from my provider. Its a Bluetooth phone and comes with USB cables for computer connectivity. But getting files on to it? Nope. Actually, thats wrong -- I can get files onto it, but only as portable storage -- I can load up photos or delete the files that are already there (as I did the crappy MP3s), but not placing in the phones memory where I can retrieve them. I had to call the company to find this out after having difficulties -- and I was told that as this was a 'locked' phone, I would not be able to do what I needed.
Along with this, I can for a small fee, rebuy the same song for my desktop. Oh yeah, you can DELETE the MP3 files you buy from their crappy store -- but not download them. Its not as much, the operator tells me, but I think I would have already spent twice as much as I would for the same iTunes based purchase (and maybe exactly the same to get it for my desktop). For some reason, the phone companies have convinced the content providers that one can get extended use out of these files and thus its got to be more expensive. Either that, or they take their 50% network fees cut even before they take their shared revenues on the content. And the file you can get for your desktop is I believe WMA -- which probably won't work on my Mac.
Screw the phone manufacturers. So long as they are willing to provide the cell providers with locked phones, we are never going to see any innovation. They make far more money off of selling these directly to those retailers that have a vested interest in locking down our features then then ever will selling directly to the public -- why do you think the original iTunes phone took so long to get here -- because none of the cell providers wanted it (though apple's bullshit 100 song limit is just that, bullshit -- though rumor has it this may be lifted soon as they realize their mistake, but I'll believe that when I see it).
Anyhoo...
"ome carriers (sprint was one when I checked) won't give you any incentive to continue with them"
I have been a customer of sprints since around 2000 -- and no, they don't give a damn.
They USE to...at one point I had around 5000 any time minutes / unlimited nights for $39.95 (and still only using around 1000 in total). Last month, I looked at my bill as it was a little higher than average -- they'd been tacking on fee after fee anyways -- and realized that I had been dropped to a plan that was only 700 minutes anytime and something like 1000 nights.
I called to complain at this mistake and they claimed it was because I did not respond to their offer for a new cell phone plan. WTF??? I already had a better plan than they were offering and I didn't want locked into a new 30 year agreement to pick up a $200 phone.
So fuck Sprint. I don't need them and they didn't need me. They offer no incentive to stick with them and decided that I wasn't a good enough customer for them. They say it takes 2 years to even break even with a customer (hence the standard contract time), I had a total of 2 phones on my line and one was used (got it from a friend that was upgrading). As such, I was the perfect customer for this company...and they still didn't care. Folks like me don't look good on their books as being locked in.
So I canceled and went with Cingular last week. I can't say the service is very good with Cingular -- I might have to switch to another company soon. The phone didn't come with any technical contact information and I guess I have to call 1-800-Cingular to get service (though by the time I'm out of work, and finished with evening classes, their support lines are closed). I'm seriously thinking of saying Fuck Cingular as well. At least Sprint answered the phone 24/7 and had all the numbers needed to get to anyone easily found in the introductory package.
So all in all, I don't think any cell phone company wants customers -- I think they want numbers for their stockholders and if they can do so without having to deal with customers, I think they would be so much happier.
Fuck Sprint and Fuck Cingular. Maybe I'll write back in a month to say Fuck Someone Else.
"I think that Amazon competing with Apple iTunes or Google Video is a bad idea."
:-)
Competing against Google Video is reason enough to get out of the business...if you have to even compare the service to Google's you've lost the game already. I've *NEVER* used a shittier interface and there was nothing that made me want to even think about putting a quarter in the snack machine because it looked like it'd just get stuck with the rest of the sugary items stuck behind the glass where no amount of shaking was going to get it out.
iTMS is another story though -- I buy quite a bit of video through this site because I got rid of cable (well, I have 'sub-basic' -- the local channels + comedy central -- though if they knew that, they'd probably take that away too -- its around $10 a month and means I can get clear reception). The iTunes is great to buy from -- its actually far too easy. I've ended up buying a few things that I had been planning on getting physically because they've thrown a few goodies in that made the physical purchase less desirable -- and STILL went out and bought the physical purchase just to have it. What kinda crap is that!!!
To be honest, I could see Amazon having a better interface than Apple's solution -- the Video Store under iTMS is horrible -- its nothing like that of the music side. Ok, not horrible, but definitely needs to be rethought out. It seems like it was thrown together with the least amount of shoehorning they could do to get the items into the database and our interface. This MIGHT have to do with the fact Apple is rewarding their loyal content providers that served up the content first because its very studiocentric (then again, I wish the music store had a way to search via labels as there are a few independent labels that don't put out that much in the way of content, but what they do put out is consistent across the board -- for example, back in the 80s when I was a gothy industrial kid, I knew that almost anything I picked up from WaxTrax was going to be something that I'd at least listen to for a week or two before picking up the next purchase).
Amazon's interface for their store is consistent -- its not the greatest, but I can find things without having to switch paradigms every time I want a different type of content. Between Apple and Amazon, this takes up 99% of my online purchases, so I'm pretty satisfied with both regardless.
As for the suggestion of streamed video w/physical purchase -- I'd love to be able to do that. Amazon HAD been toying with the idea of selling elocker'd items where if you buy a physical book, you could get access to the digital one. I've gotten emails about this from them several times, but I've never found an item that this was possible with...probably the whole MP3.COM Streaming Jukebox thing where everyone sued the company even though they went out of their way to ensure that the listeners had physical access to the content they were streaming (even if you only had access for a few minutes to borrow your friends CDs to add them to your database, that same amount of time could have been spent ripping them and you are right back to where you started). But if they sold a 'rented' streaming video (rented in the terms on the subscription ideas based around online music stores vs. ownership ala iTunes) where the video could be viewed online X amount of times elapsing at time UPS / DHL / USPS tracking claim to have dropped the package off at your residence (or just an arbitrary time of maybe 2 weeks) -- I'd probably stop buying from iTunes and not even be pissed off about the lack of ownership / transferability of the file.
But all in all, back to your main point -- I think regardless, Amazon could offer the best competition to Apple to date -- so long as they support OS X (and even Linux for the pasty faced kids -- though which variant and will they have to supply the source code along with the de-encryption keys because someone accidentally used GPL3 source!!!). I don't see Google doing anything d
"So we reverted to Linux, where updates are free forever."
Hmmm...$60 a year is too much?
I guess thats why the mainstream media still considers Linux a Hobbiest Platform.
I know in the past, I have paid more than that for access to RedHat's up2date servers (I think thats what it was) -- and I had no problem with paying to make certain that my OS was supported and the fixes were automated to the point I didn't have to worry about having to geek out every single day of my life. Some of our lives revolve around non-technical activities.
For those that love technology and love getting their hands dirty (I use to do the same), I guess its not a bad thing to be a hobbiest and play around with this sort of stuff. But when your livelyhood depends on it -- $60 a year isn't a bad thing. Thats less than one hour of billable work for a client.
But yeah, I have a few unpatched, unsupported boxes running around that I couldn't care less about. Heck, I've got a G4 sitting around still on 10.1 because I didn't want to update. Guess what -- it STILL gets patches sent to it (and I keep forgetting I need to turn that auto-updater off as I don't want it messed with because I definately don't want QT7 or whatever its up to now -- on that box as I've already paid for the Pro version of the last and I don't want to have to deal with any incompatibilities with Final Cut and Logic on that box -- both older versions because they work).
So I understand...mainstream media is right about you...
"...let's blame used CDs."
They blew their wad on that way too soon.
Back in the mid90s, the RIAA decided to employ their highest grossing artist to go around and try to explain why Used CDs were killing the industry. Garth Brooks made a GREAT pitch to the Walmart crowd -- all of whom realized that a man with more mansions than Saddam had palaces wasn't doing half as bad as they were knowing their doublewide could get repossessed and hauled away at any point.
I stood behind Metalica when they stood up against Napster -- there is *NEVER* an excuse to take something someone else created and duplicate it to the point that you are essentially a competitor that left unchecked can put you out of business -- and done so by your fans.
But when Brooks was doing this years earlier, he decided to change a paradigm that had been legal for over a thousand years...'he' didn't even want his stuff in libraries. If you want rid of cd, you needed to just throw it in the trash. No doctrine of first sale that has always been in copyright.
But no one took this seriously and there were laws enacted to actually strenghten the idea of selling used physical media like this. And that is why I still buy a majority of my music via CD and its subset of used CD. I don't see any prevaling need to be allowed to sell my iTunes purchases -- I knew going into it that the paradigm was such that I tied to the music -- but CDs -- no one is going to make this argument again for a long time.
Again, the music industry blew their wad on this years ago...
Darwin isn't GPL'd or anything like that.
Its original source was licensed under BSD and then later released under an Apple license that was close to the BSD license -- but asked that you submit your changes back to Apple (or something similar).
As such, they are not legally obligated to release the sources in any way. They have only done so because they felt it was a good move on their part and would increase their valuation at the time (of which, the leaders may not think this is longer the case)...
Seriously? Are you that much of a fucking moron?
:-)
Seriously?
I just went to both and did a search on both. Nope...no beta mentioned in either the posters article or the page he linked to (from which I linked the photo).
Are you really that fucking stupid? Generally trolls log in anonymously to tell me they are wrong when they are this fucking wrong.
Fuck off and have a great day
It fucking looks HORRIBLE.
And no, I'm not too stupid...neither the parent that I was responding to, nor the page he had linked to had said Last Week or Beta Software.
He and every other idiot that has been linking to this page act as though this were code that was ready to be used -- which is why this and most geek tools guarentee they will only ever be used by geeks -- because you guys have no internal quality control where you expect things to be right, just good enough.
The fuck are you talking about? I'm always hostile.
If I said child molesters are the worst people in the world and need to be shot on sight, I'm really saying that I secretly saying that they have a point about 8 year olds wanting to be ass raped?
No, sometimes, when someone says something harshly its because they realize something really and truely SUCKS.
As for dsigned for simplicity -- I don't agree at all. Simplicity can sometimes mean highly efficiency. Geeks love efficiency. This doesn't seem all too efficient. Simplicity can mean a lot of things...this application sucks and looks even worse. Its a waste of a few hundred dollars unless you are actively developing this application...and if you are, it would probably be a fun learning activity (even if not useful at all for anyone else).
"Ogg, Wavpack, FLAC and MPC can all be played on Ipod "
/ RBIpod.jpg
My gawd that looks like shit:
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7140/1647/1600
Why in the fuck would you want to destroy an iPod that was designed around simplicity to use this...there are other CHEAPER just as hackable portable music players out there that might actually be improved with this interface, but I have a feeling if the playing screen is going to look this much like shit, the rest of the interface is as well.
I'm sorry, but it sounds like a great experiment and if I didn't have only a 1st Gen iPod I'd probably load it up to serve my geek curiosity, but I can guarentee you it wouldn't last very long. Seriously, that looks like shit and I can't say that enough.
"Recently, in England, they cut down a 340 yr old oak tree to make wine barrels."
Actually -- they cut down the 340 year old tree because it was infested and needed to be destroyed before it infested other 300 year old trees around it.
The fact that the tree was well known and thus to be used for wine making is secondary. I read this the other day and treehuggers were getting all bent out of shape about it until someone picked up the full story.
But yeah, wine in a barrel tastes 'more complex'. Better? I don't know...I don't care. But the wine snobs I know can actually tell you the type of barrel it was stored in by the characteristics of the wine (apparently its not hard to figure out if you studied the subject).
"Cleaning people are usually outsourced these days, and usually get issued keys."
You ain't kidding.
I've done work for a company that had my office retrofitted with a new cardkey access and as official policy -- we needed a key'd entry as well to ensure that in power failures and otherwise police or maintence can get in. We had a key made for maintence that was supposed to under no circumstances be let out of the locked keybox and signed for when it was.
Within a week -- every man, woman and child on the cleaning staff in my building was issued a key to my office so that they could get in. I've asked that the lock be changed and the security be reinstituted and was told that if we change the lock without giving it to the building supervisor -- they'd take a torch to it and cut it down.
I offered to make available magnetic keys to a specific number of staff (with specific times they can get in) but their union won't allow that because I can then track the goings and coming of the employees and this is unacceptable.
So yeah, you are exactly right -- give a 6 pack to the cleaning crew and you will get in.
"suddenly he looks like a threat."
:-) I'd actually be less worried if he were endentured to a giant media company needing stability in a real sort of way (i.e., he could easily sell Pixar for $$$ to someone and it wouldn't hurt the brand, but selling $6B in stock is a sign of weakness and would KILL its value -- if he sells for a stock trade, he's stuck for some years).
???
Haven't you been paying attention...this is already what happened.
He had some streetcred and two little companies that folks liked -- but no real control over the market from either (i.e., Apple 2.5% market share and Pixar's endentured servitude to Disney) and thought they'd give him a shot just so they can claim they tried and it failed.
And Jobs outperforms everyones expectations on both sides and scaring the living shit out of content providers -- they've already got the momentum and to deny content to them would be suicide at this point. The video store was practically nothing at first and other than the Pixar shorts I had no interest in it -- but again, the momentum was gained where as to not get on board was to look like you were 'old media' -- even if you knew doing so would be your eventual demise.
Jobs has been a real threat to this industry for a few years now and the industry knows it. This isn't reality distortion logic, ask Sony why they wouldn't get on board with Japan or Oz's iTMS for so long (and finally relented to the exact same terms he had offered even the little guys with a dozen albums on their lable).
Personally, if I were working for an opposing company (and I gotta check to see if I am these days...I never pay attention to the parent companies
No -- I use Access to organize my thoughts and nothing else -- sometimes its paper and pen drawing lines. Sometimes its notepad or otherwise after I've dumped the data defs.
:) Though at the same time, my original note to the kid that was pissing all over his instructor was that some of us that realize that they know little compared to a real DBA still understand far more than he seems to know with his smarmy attitude (and yeah, it irks me a little because I see that same attitude here -- I've had student workers piss on my limited technical skill and try to prove they are smarter...until I let them take over a project on their own and watch them fail miserably...I don't do so to be a jerk but so that they understand technical know how is actually only maybe 25% of the entire project -- seeing the entire picture is far more important than knowing the code).
I pull in small extracts of the tables so that I can see what the fuckups are and where the problems are and use it to see how I'm going to write it out for the real applications (which I 'handcode' from the quick and dirty). Its simply a visualization tool as much as VisualBasic or RealBasic are RAD tools (that should never be used to ship actual product).
As for collate -- I wasn't meaning it in a technical term -- but in the term of collecting and compiling for distribution. Again, I'm not a DBA nor do I want to be...I solely want information so I can validate the effectiveness of various institutions
And honestly, the technology I have my hands on here rivals that which I've used in the corporate world. I still do a bit of consulting, though almost all of it is of a research / assessment end for these guys -- but occasionally I have to get my hands dirty in the technology when their staff isn't up to my demands. This campus is one of the most highly technical ones in the nation and is used as a testbed for a lot of future corporate technologies -- so I'm generally ahead of the curve than my corporate brothers (it really is a dangerous place to be when you are trying NOT to be a geek and put that life behind you).
But yeah, most university IT is a joke -- just not at this institution.
The problem I have, is that I'm dealing with several hundred tables -- a lot of which are almost redundant but that they have ONE piece of information different than the other.
I have to collate data from 8 college campuses, including legacy and current systems -- and it'd be really nice if there were diagrams for this, but it would require administrators from these varying departments and campuses to all be in agreeance about what they need and don't need and how its presented.
It would be much easier if I were afforded the ability to download a snapshot of the data and go from there but I can't...
But yes, these tables get written down before collated and formatted...and if I used the bulk of tables more than once a year to create a new report and throw it out for the administrators -- I'd probably be comfortable with doing it all in paper.
So its nice that you believe this, but alas, I work in the real world and just because I work for academics, it doesn't mean what is taught in class actually makes it out to the DBAs I have to work with -- and this is a small part of my job -- I don't claim to be an expert at databases and don't want to be...I do, however, know that anyone that claims that they can remember all the tables and deal with everything through the commandline probably isn't working with anything all that complicated...and at the same time, knowing that just because everything isn't printed out, it isn't because any DBA was slacking -- it could be that the information wasn't intended to be connected (you can't imagine every scenario).