Occasionally I'll find a pile of server faceplates (or bezels or whatever you want to call them) on the floor, in front of a stack of label-free servers that have had their faceplates removed. Talk about a waste of time trying to sort that out. Yes, I fix that situation with a labelmaker as soon as possible, but it really astounds me that anyone would think labeling a removable part (and nothing else) is the way to go.
Boy, I could sure save some money replacing equipment which needed to be moved by changing the hostname and printing a new sticker.
I think you're missing the point there. Yes, it's pretty easy to change a computer name, but then you also have to update all people and/or software that connect to the server as well, and that's far from trivial. Sending out a mass email to the entire company saying "we've moved the following five servers from room A to room B, so please remember to change the corresponding digits in their names whenever you use them" doesn't go over very well.
I've worked at a place where the server names were completely meaningless (star wars character names), and at a place where the computer names were very regimented (location-purpose-numeral), and the truth is both systems have plenty of problems. In the first case, most of the trouble had to do with people who couldn't remember how many O's or U's were in "dooku" -- plus they didn't have any reason to associate the name with the product. Even with systemized names, there's plenty of trouble tracking down what you want. Was that application you're looking for on citrix server 3 or 4? Are the files on the application server in site A or site B? The differences between dcbappsrv02 and dbcappsrv03 and dccappsrv02 can be difficult to recall at times. Also, while it's easy to say "go to dooku" it's a gigantic pain in the ass to try to tell someone over the phone the server they want is "B2R22Cad4" -- people are pretty good with names that are simple names; names that are built up from a formula that jams together apparently random letters and numbers does NOT work nearly as well.
All the same, I'd lean toward picking something fairly formulaic over something just random; but anyone who insists the formula method doesn't have its own problems is in denial.
I can't find the original post that you're quoting, but the selected text seems to imply anyone on slashdot must by definition have a career that is owed directly to Knuth, and I don't think that's true. I've got a physics degree, got into HTML and built web sites for a while, and then transitioned to tech support and server stuff. I taught myself enough PHP to do some more advanced online coding, but I'm not trained as a programmer. All of those are reasons I'm on/., none of them give me a need to know who Knuth is. I've used LaTex (once), and while that experience was pretty bad, it wasn't (quite) painful enough for me to look up the man who'd invented it so I could get revenge.
I dropped a penny from a height of about two feet and had it land on edge once. I should note this wasn't a proper flip, just a penny that fell out of my hand as I was scooping up change. It landed atop a wooden table, though, not on muddy ground or anything where sticking on edge might make sense.
I have to say it was VERY unsettling, and I looked around to see if something unusual was going on, like maybe I'd fallen into the Twilight Zone and time had stopped, or people with cameras were going to jump out and laugh about the joke.
Optimus Prime? Hells yeah, that'd still be pretty cool. Actually, that was at one third my current age. At half my current age, my favorite thing was... um, books? Computers? Fancy fountain pens? I dunno. But I'd still be okay with it, assuming it was artistically done.
I got three tattoos in a very short span, back in 2001. One was deeply symbolic, highly personal, thought out for most of a decade, and when someone asked me the other day why I got it, I couldn't really remember. The other two were decorative designs, picked at whim, with little meaning in themselves--one I got with my best friend of the time, the other was a treat for finishing the rough draft of a novel. The designs are still nice, though for the most part I don't even really notice any of the three if I don't take a moment to think about it first. They're just kind of part of your body after a while.
What, you've never seen the Slashdot effect in action? If this post doesn't increase it from 70k to over 100k views per day, I'll eat my metaphorical hat. The advertising markup is just part of the standard Slashdot services.
If you can convert to it, it's not really an ethnicity. Sometimes it gets treated as such, but it's a spectacularly bad correlation to attempt to draw.
Yes, absolutely true. Though if you're lucky, especially in a game scenario, that "experienced attacker" might also be a friendly, curious player who will provide great services by finding the bugs and alerting you about them.
I run a game with a nearly identical setup. I do not reveal my code--not for security purposes, but to maintain the game's secrets. My players have been one of my greatest assets in terms of testing and bug reporting.
Yes, you also occasionally get someone who wants to just game the system and take any advantage they can. Hopefully there are enough friendlies catching the worst bugs early on that they edge out the malicious attackers.
On the other hand, coming up with a sufficiently functional, easily packaged, compellingly priced introductory version of somebody else's innovative product, which they can then license for billions over the next decade... that's right up their alley.
Thank you for that very informative post. I understand the plate boundary earthquakes pretty well, but never knew why mid-continent ones would occur. Also, pretty neat to think that we're still experiencing aftereffects of the last ice age even now.
Uh, I think you failed to follow the provided pattern. Based on the precedent set by SPiced hAM, clearly CAnned unicorn meAT would be called CAAT. That's a sure seller!
I've lent hundreds of books to one person, but I can't count more than a few I've ever lent to more than more than one person. (Yeah, part of it is I don't always get the book back.) But for me it's really not a restriction.
Interesting theory, but you're better off not doing that and just putting up with an inaccurate battery meter. The deeper you cycle, the faster you consume the battery, and it's not linear. I'd expect advice like this from someone who makes a living selling batteries....
I've heard the opposite from what you're saying. I used to leave my Apple laptop plugged in most of the time, and the battery died within a year. Apple replaced it for free but begged me to change my charging habits to let it charge, unplug it, and let it drain most of the way (they didn't say all the way to zero) before plugging it back in again. The replacement battery has lasted two years and still keeps a good charge, so I'm pretty convinced their recommendation was the correct way to treat the battery.
But if you are smart, ebook readers can be a good deal. There are a ton of free (and legal) ebooks out there.
I'm definitely counting on this, particularly the SF sites you cited. I've heard at least some of the ebook readers support checkouts from the library (downloaded at home; no need to actually go there), which goes a long way to boost the value of the reader--free books and a saved trip, what's not to like
The free books give me a lot of incentive to try new things. If I don't like it, hey, just dump it and move on to the next. I don't have to worry that I'll get my money's worth. But of course if I find a new author I like I'll be buying many of their books, so they win, too.
I'd been trying to hold out for the $99 price point, but $149 may be close enough that I'm sold.
I've always thought it made a lot more sense as a business tool than as a means of personal expression.
I use Twitter as a news feed for the online game I run. It's an excellent way to let casual players know something has changed. Basically free advertising, delivered to where (some of) my players are already looking. This is good, because updates are irregular, and they don't have to go out of their way to check every day.
Of course I also use other means to appeal to players who of the "Twitter is only good for sharing breakfast stories" crowd.
A little off topic, but an interesting point. I knew a guy whose signature was a stick-figure tiger. Don't think people argued with him too much, though.
I've never liked the tradition, either. Weirdly, my father is Charles, the fourth of his line. They'd gone through nicknames of Charles, Chas, Chuck, and Charlie for the four generations and ran out of names so when they got to me they named me Ross. I'm rather glad of that. Though with the significant variation in nickname, other than when I'm really thinking about it, it's hard to remember that Charlie is named after Chuck.
We're also not talking any rich family dynasty here, either. We're talking four generations of solidly middle class midwestern farmers.
Of course my family has plenty of problems with our names. Our last name is a very common woman's first name, and exceptionally uncommon as a last name. And all four Charleses have the same middle name, which I've never heard of as a middle name anywhere else, but which is a common noun. It's all very strange.
Sometimes, only in weird moments, it does seem like it might have been fun if I could have had a V at the end of my name. But not at the cost of being called Chucky, Chaz, or Chip.
Or we're talking about users in countries where the App Store does not operate.
This is very true. In college, I heard some techno compilations from Japan that I badly wanted to get my hands on. I found the web site for the company that put out those compilations and wrote them multiple times. They never even responded. After about a year of trying I gave up and downloaded the songs from Napster. Not quite the same thing, but close. Sometimes willing buyers can't buy, and while the eventual download might be a lost sale, it's lost through the company's fault, and not mine.
I know you're kind of joking, but I suspect that the voracious downloaders who go through 10 or 20 times as many games as the rest of us probably don't have time to mess around for long with a bad game. If it's not fun, they ditch it and move on, and focus on the good games and probably don't bother to talk about the 19 bad ones they played.
Now a regular guy who shells out actual cash for most or all of his games is going to feel more obligated to at least try to play the bad game, hoping to get some redeeming value out of it. This probably means more exposure to the game, and a far greater sense of disappointment when that expensive purchase fails them. Those are the people who will really complain about a bad game. Allow me to demonstrate:
For instance, take Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen for the PS2, which is possibly the single worst game I have ever played, and complete waste of money. The other versions (PS3, Xbox, etc.) are about what you'd expect from a movie knockoff -- not that great, but entertaining enough for someone who grew up thinking space robots were the coolest thing he'd ever seen. The PS2 version, though, is an absolute travesty of a game in every respect, from the horrendous graphics (even for a PS2) to the absolutely linear progress of every single level, the scripted boss fights that require a Simon-Says button pushing sequence, to the fact that half of the levels are simply duplicates of each other, and the basically zero connection to the movie or its plot (weak as the movie was, you still expect the game knockoff that shares the title to pretend to be about the same thing). I don't just want my money back, I want them to pay me double for my lost time, and they have to pay triple if they'd like me to stop telling everyone who will listen just how horrendous that game actually was. Zero stars, seriously. Zero.
"Who would begin a greenfield web application in PHP when you have Python/Ruby/(kinda) Perl?" These are all strong languages. Ruby is fascinating, though it's only now coming into its own.
Well, I'm one of those people. In college I was trained in Fortran and then C++, and PHP has always seemed pretty friendly and intuitive in comparison with those. At least on the surface other than minor differences in syntax I could transition from one to the other to the next without too much difficulty.
Every time I've looked at Perl, it's been downright indecipherable. I've edited a few existing scripts, tried reading not one but two books on it, and mostly I walked away feeling just as confused as when I started.
As for Ruby and Python, when I started needing to code web applications, I'd never heard of them. They may be coming into their own now, but why should I start over with a new language when I can already do what I want with PHP? I don't know much about either, but at least peripherally I've been confused by some impression that with Ruby there are varying implementations (on Rails versions, versus who knows what else), and Python being the frequent butt of jokes here on slashdot hasn't ever made me want to research it to find out more.
It may be a poor excuse, but that's why I'd start my next project in PHP. You may call it prejudice and ignorance against other languages; I call it being happy with what's been working just fine for me over the past decade.
Straight reporting? It must exist on Fox News, but I've never seen it. Every time I flip past, if I pause on Fox News for a moment to see what they're saying, it's ALWAYS commentary. Might have something to do with the timing (generally evenings or late nights), but I've never landed on that channel when they weren't in the middle of a rant about how liberals or Democrats are destroying the nation in one way or another.
I really like a good political discussion, and enjoy listening to rational opposing viewpoints. But I've got no time for obviously biased (and often either factually incorrect or clearly stretching) ranting.
What's new is that the doomsday tomorrow nuts have something else to latch on to, since 2012 has been thoroughly debunked.
You think any of the doomsday nuts care about any "debunking"? Until 2012 is over, there's no reason to give up hope that the world might still end, for whatever reason.
Doomsdayers (or pranksters) have no reason to limit themselves to a single method of doom. Heck, if a famous poem can reference both fire AND ice as a source of doom, the average crackpot ought to be able to speculate on half a dozen methods at once. And even if individuals have pet theories, the community as a whole can certainly have more than one opinion--logic and consistency are not the hallmarks of the average crackpot, after all.
Slashdot Mirror
Occasionally I'll find a pile of server faceplates (or bezels or whatever you want to call them) on the floor, in front of a stack of label-free servers that have had their faceplates removed. Talk about a waste of time trying to sort that out. Yes, I fix that situation with a labelmaker as soon as possible, but it really astounds me that anyone would think labeling a removable part (and nothing else) is the way to go.
Boy, I could sure save some money replacing equipment which needed to be moved by changing the hostname and printing a new sticker.
I think you're missing the point there. Yes, it's pretty easy to change a computer name, but then you also have to update all people and/or software that connect to the server as well, and that's far from trivial. Sending out a mass email to the entire company saying "we've moved the following five servers from room A to room B, so please remember to change the corresponding digits in their names whenever you use them" doesn't go over very well.
I've worked at a place where the server names were completely meaningless (star wars character names), and at a place where the computer names were very regimented (location-purpose-numeral), and the truth is both systems have plenty of problems. In the first case, most of the trouble had to do with people who couldn't remember how many O's or U's were in "dooku" -- plus they didn't have any reason to associate the name with the product. Even with systemized names, there's plenty of trouble tracking down what you want. Was that application you're looking for on citrix server 3 or 4? Are the files on the application server in site A or site B? The differences between dcbappsrv02 and dbcappsrv03 and dccappsrv02 can be difficult to recall at times. Also, while it's easy to say "go to dooku" it's a gigantic pain in the ass to try to tell someone over the phone the server they want is "B2R22Cad4" -- people are pretty good with names that are simple names; names that are built up from a formula that jams together apparently random letters and numbers does NOT work nearly as well.
All the same, I'd lean toward picking something fairly formulaic over something just random; but anyone who insists the formula method doesn't have its own problems is in denial.
I can't find the original post that you're quoting, but the selected text seems to imply anyone on slashdot must by definition have a career that is owed directly to Knuth, and I don't think that's true. I've got a physics degree, got into HTML and built web sites for a while, and then transitioned to tech support and server stuff. I taught myself enough PHP to do some more advanced online coding, but I'm not trained as a programmer. All of those are reasons I'm on /., none of them give me a need to know who Knuth is. I've used LaTex (once), and while that experience was pretty bad, it wasn't (quite) painful enough for me to look up the man who'd invented it so I could get revenge.
I have to say it was VERY unsettling, and I looked around to see if something unusual was going on, like maybe I'd fallen into the Twilight Zone and time had stopped, or people with cameras were going to jump out and laugh about the joke.
Pretty pictures that you get to carry with you forever isn't reason enough?
Optimus Prime? Hells yeah, that'd still be pretty cool. Actually, that was at one third my current age. At half my current age, my favorite thing was ... um, books? Computers? Fancy fountain pens? I dunno. But I'd still be okay with it, assuming it was artistically done.
I got three tattoos in a very short span, back in 2001. One was deeply symbolic, highly personal, thought out for most of a decade, and when someone asked me the other day why I got it, I couldn't really remember. The other two were decorative designs, picked at whim, with little meaning in themselves--one I got with my best friend of the time, the other was a treat for finishing the rough draft of a novel. The designs are still nice, though for the most part I don't even really notice any of the three if I don't take a moment to think about it first. They're just kind of part of your body after a while.
What, you've never seen the Slashdot effect in action? If this post doesn't increase it from 70k to over 100k views per day, I'll eat my metaphorical hat. The advertising markup is just part of the standard Slashdot services.
If you can convert to it, it's not really an ethnicity. Sometimes it gets treated as such, but it's a spectacularly bad correlation to attempt to draw.
Yes, absolutely true. Though if you're lucky, especially in a game scenario, that "experienced attacker" might also be a friendly, curious player who will provide great services by finding the bugs and alerting you about them.
I run a game with a nearly identical setup. I do not reveal my code--not for security purposes, but to maintain the game's secrets. My players have been one of my greatest assets in terms of testing and bug reporting.
Yes, you also occasionally get someone who wants to just game the system and take any advantage they can. Hopefully there are enough friendlies catching the worst bugs early on that they edge out the malicious attackers.
On the other hand, coming up with a sufficiently functional, easily packaged, compellingly priced introductory version of somebody else's innovative product, which they can then license for billions over the next decade ... that's right up their alley.
Thank you for that very informative post. I understand the plate boundary earthquakes pretty well, but never knew why mid-continent ones would occur. Also, pretty neat to think that we're still experiencing aftereffects of the last ice age even now.
Uh, I think you failed to follow the provided pattern. Based on the precedent set by SPiced hAM, clearly CAnned unicorn meAT would be called CAAT. That's a sure seller!
I've lent hundreds of books to one person, but I can't count more than a few I've ever lent to more than more than one person. (Yeah, part of it is I don't always get the book back.) But for me it's really not a restriction.
Interesting theory, but you're better off not doing that and just putting up with an inaccurate battery meter. The deeper you cycle, the faster you consume the battery, and it's not linear. I'd expect advice like this from someone who makes a living selling batteries....
I've heard the opposite from what you're saying. I used to leave my Apple laptop plugged in most of the time, and the battery died within a year. Apple replaced it for free but begged me to change my charging habits to let it charge, unplug it, and let it drain most of the way (they didn't say all the way to zero) before plugging it back in again. The replacement battery has lasted two years and still keeps a good charge, so I'm pretty convinced their recommendation was the correct way to treat the battery.
But if you are smart, ebook readers can be a good deal. There are a ton of free (and legal) ebooks out there.
I'm definitely counting on this, particularly the SF sites you cited. I've heard at least some of the ebook readers support checkouts from the library (downloaded at home; no need to actually go there), which goes a long way to boost the value of the reader--free books and a saved trip, what's not to like
The free books give me a lot of incentive to try new things. If I don't like it, hey, just dump it and move on to the next. I don't have to worry that I'll get my money's worth. But of course if I find a new author I like I'll be buying many of their books, so they win, too.
I'd been trying to hold out for the $99 price point, but $149 may be close enough that I'm sold.
I use Twitter as a news feed for the online game I run. It's an excellent way to let casual players know something has changed. Basically free advertising, delivered to where (some of) my players are already looking. This is good, because updates are irregular, and they don't have to go out of their way to check every day.
Of course I also use other means to appeal to players who of the "Twitter is only good for sharing breakfast stories" crowd.
Seconded. I thought Twitter was put to very good use during an important time of political unrest, and was glad people had it as an option.
A little off topic, but an interesting point. I knew a guy whose signature was a stick-figure tiger. Don't think people argued with him too much, though.
We're also not talking any rich family dynasty here, either. We're talking four generations of solidly middle class midwestern farmers.
Of course my family has plenty of problems with our names. Our last name is a very common woman's first name, and exceptionally uncommon as a last name. And all four Charleses have the same middle name, which I've never heard of as a middle name anywhere else, but which is a common noun. It's all very strange.
Sometimes, only in weird moments, it does seem like it might have been fun if I could have had a V at the end of my name. But not at the cost of being called Chucky, Chaz, or Chip.
Just kidding, really ...
Or we're talking about users in countries where the App Store does not operate.
This is very true. In college, I heard some techno compilations from Japan that I badly wanted to get my hands on. I found the web site for the company that put out those compilations and wrote them multiple times. They never even responded. After about a year of trying I gave up and downloaded the songs from Napster. Not quite the same thing, but close. Sometimes willing buyers can't buy, and while the eventual download might be a lost sale, it's lost through the company's fault, and not mine.
Now a regular guy who shells out actual cash for most or all of his games is going to feel more obligated to at least try to play the bad game, hoping to get some redeeming value out of it. This probably means more exposure to the game, and a far greater sense of disappointment when that expensive purchase fails them. Those are the people who will really complain about a bad game. Allow me to demonstrate:
For instance, take Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen for the PS2, which is possibly the single worst game I have ever played, and complete waste of money. The other versions (PS3, Xbox, etc.) are about what you'd expect from a movie knockoff -- not that great, but entertaining enough for someone who grew up thinking space robots were the coolest thing he'd ever seen. The PS2 version, though, is an absolute travesty of a game in every respect, from the horrendous graphics (even for a PS2) to the absolutely linear progress of every single level, the scripted boss fights that require a Simon-Says button pushing sequence, to the fact that half of the levels are simply duplicates of each other, and the basically zero connection to the movie or its plot (weak as the movie was, you still expect the game knockoff that shares the title to pretend to be about the same thing). I don't just want my money back, I want them to pay me double for my lost time, and they have to pay triple if they'd like me to stop telling everyone who will listen just how horrendous that game actually was. Zero stars, seriously. Zero.
"Who would begin a greenfield web application in PHP when you have Python/Ruby/(kinda) Perl?" These are all strong languages. Ruby is fascinating, though it's only now coming into its own.
Well, I'm one of those people. In college I was trained in Fortran and then C++, and PHP has always seemed pretty friendly and intuitive in comparison with those. At least on the surface other than minor differences in syntax I could transition from one to the other to the next without too much difficulty.
Every time I've looked at Perl, it's been downright indecipherable. I've edited a few existing scripts, tried reading not one but two books on it, and mostly I walked away feeling just as confused as when I started.
As for Ruby and Python, when I started needing to code web applications, I'd never heard of them. They may be coming into their own now, but why should I start over with a new language when I can already do what I want with PHP? I don't know much about either, but at least peripherally I've been confused by some impression that with Ruby there are varying implementations (on Rails versions, versus who knows what else), and Python being the frequent butt of jokes here on slashdot hasn't ever made me want to research it to find out more.
It may be a poor excuse, but that's why I'd start my next project in PHP. You may call it prejudice and ignorance against other languages; I call it being happy with what's been working just fine for me over the past decade.
I really like a good political discussion, and enjoy listening to rational opposing viewpoints. But I've got no time for obviously biased (and often either factually incorrect or clearly stretching) ranting.
What's new is that the doomsday tomorrow nuts have something else to latch on to, since 2012 has been thoroughly debunked.
You think any of the doomsday nuts care about any "debunking"? Until 2012 is over, there's no reason to give up hope that the world might still end, for whatever reason.
Doomsdayers (or pranksters) have no reason to limit themselves to a single method of doom. Heck, if a famous poem can reference both fire AND ice as a source of doom, the average crackpot ought to be able to speculate on half a dozen methods at once. And even if individuals have pet theories, the community as a whole can certainly have more than one opinion--logic and consistency are not the hallmarks of the average crackpot, after all.