Your memory is flawed. Things were starting to stabilize when the 9/11 attacks hit. Everything went back into a death spiral at that point. Lots of companies had made plans to start spending (cautiosly) on new IT-related projects again, but within a day or two after 9/11, it all came to a screeching halt.
So, yeah, a lot of the blame rests on the shoulders of greedy people and fools who went boldly where there was no point in going. But some of it goes to a small collection of suicidal fanatics (IMO). And remember, this didn't just affect the USA - it affected everyone who expected to get a piece of that money. Plus, since nobody knew what would happen next, spending plans all over the world suddenly went into the shredder, or at least a time-locked vault.
Your basic premise - ``time was the only thing many people would look at is cubic inches or horsepower'' - is flawed. This refers only to a subset of epople who were interested in muscle cars, hot rods, or the term du jour. It's as true today of such people as it was then.
Muscle cars are the better metaphor for supercomputers; the term "car" just compares to "computer", or at best "individual's computer".
A hot rod or muscle car is rated in terms of horsepower and torque, or acceleration and speed. In other words, sheer performance. If it's more of a racing vehicle, throw in handling. Evetrything else falls by the wayside - comfort, fuel efficiency, etc. Well, style matters to lots of folks.
So if your metaphor has much validity, then the only things that matter with supercomputers are performance, and in some cases style. And that about covers where things are today, doesn't it?
I'm not saying that energy efficiency shouldn't matter in supercomputers. Just that you didn't qiote make your case. 8^)
The interbnet is often compared to the wild west of mid-19th century USA. If they would simply let us apply Wild West Justice in such cases, after a couple were tracked down, 99.9% of this garbage would stop.
No. They are limited by the speed of IP, which is not only slower, but its speed is random within a fairly large range. So to be safe, we have to asume the total cabling on the internet is (think, think, think) less than 3 meters.
OK, so you map the ever-changing net in a day. A week later, you map it again. Eventually, you're mapping it every day. After a yeear or two of that, you have a cool little animation of how the internet changed. You project it on the wall of a dark room, and watch it koop, and go "wow".
I manage the IT department of a roughly 100 person startup transitioning out of startup mode. The vast majority of our nearly 250 (many of these are old and slow, but paid for) compute servers and desktops run RedHat. We run a little behind (we have been on RH8 for about 9 months now). We do this because uptime, reliability and stability are key. So it would seem we might be one of your target markets.
But the pricing model is unacceptable. It's right up there with Microsoft. Now while I agree that RedHat Linux 8 is a better OS than anything MS has ever produced, that's still an awful lot of money. It gets even worse, because your salespeople can't seem to quantify for me what differentiates a server from a desktop. If I can get away with using WS on everything except the ones I consider enterprise servers, it will only cost me about $40,000 - $60,000, depending on what discount rate we end up getting. If I have to consider the compute servers as servers, then pricing moves into the area of the utterly absurd.
So, we need a stable platform. We don't need much hand-holding. We don't need (or want) a continuous stream of updates that have to be applied to every system. My group has the only people who would ever call for support, and between us, we know an awful lot. Any calls we make would almost certainly represent at the very least a real hole in your documentation, and quite likely a real problem with the software. I can see us calling with 2 or 3 oddball configuration questions a year if we had something like AS support. That's about it. That's not worth what we've been told the licensing would be.
We could buy one copy of WS and one copy of AS, read through the EULAs, and (I'm 99.99% sure) legally copy everything we need to the other systems. We could just buy a copy of WS and build everything else we need from source around the web. Both of those are less than ideal options. But they still sound better to me than $40K - $60K (nevermind the upper limit). How do they sound to RedHat?
We're not alone. There are lots of companies in this boat.
So, someone stole the lunar polar ice cap? Maybe the FBI is on it. Maybe that's why they don't have time to look into a paltry $15,000 worth of fraud for us...
Just remember that the RedHat software is mostly still GPL'd. The vast majority of it is still freely copyable. As an "IT manager" (I don't like that title that because of all the legacy baggage, but it explains things well enough) of a firm running a heterogeneous environment dominated by Linux we are looking at going to AS/ES/WS. We'll likely buy a copy of WS to eval the desktops and compute farm systems. Then if all is well, we'll buy a copy of AS to handle the "server" functions. So far, I don't see that we need any of the RD propietary solutions badly enough to pay their insane (for us) per seat prices. So we'll pull those RPMs and roll the rest out.
Either that or use another distribution. 8^/
Uptime is key for us. And I'm happy to pay for uptime. But not at prices right out of MS's book.
You kind of have those backwards. They went with Linux a while back (story was 2000), but were licensed to see the Windows source only this year. So all we can really tell from this is that MS is getting desperate over Linux.
The consumer did not install ad blocking software. The consumer simply purchased a computer with anti-virus software, which comes enabled by default, and which happens to include - whether the consumer knows it or not, wants it or not - anti-ad software, which also comes enabled by default. At least, that's what the OP claims. So the consumer probably has, at *most*, made a choice to buy a computer with AV software. Many haven't even thought that far.
Trinity dies for no reason, as they don't use her death in any meaningful way.
I forget the exact quote, but ``the point of life is to die". Had you noticed that most deaths aren't "meaningful"? That, in fact, they SUCK?
The scene with the machines entering the outer hull of Zion was drawn out needlessly, as it contained no switching between the fight at Zion and Neo's plight (think: middle/end of ROTJ)
Two words. So what? The fact that it didn't switch made it needlessly drawn out? How about the sheer, overwhelming endlessness and hopelessness of fighting a never-ending horde? Worked for me.
The fight scene with Smith/Baines and Neo in the Logos was completely extraneous. Nonsense. It left Neo blind, which (to run with these stupid Star Wars metaphors) left him open to see through the Force. It taught Neo things, as well.
Neo's death in the end leaves the humans without a powerful weapon against the machines if they were to decide to attack the humans again. Contrast this with Star Wars and LotR, where the playing field is leveled at the end, or slightly in favor of the protagonists. Unless he comes back, Gandalf-like. Plus, we don't know that he's dead (although I "believe" he is).
Keanu Reeves performance was subpar, even for him. In the climactic battle with Smith at the end, he looked drugged and was not convincing as the leader of the free world. He had no fire, and it was the machines and the Oracle that actually spurred him on to defeat Smith (esp. the machines, as they revived him after being consumed by Smith). Shrug. I think he was supposed to appear weak. It was inevitable, and helped him realize the way to victory was... to give in.
I can think of at least three answers to your final complaint, but anyone who was paying attention rather than being all pissed off because it wasn't the movie they wanted to make should be able to come up with at least one of their own.
Did I think it was a great movie? No. But neither was it the pile of fetid garbage you seem to think it was. Still better than average for Hollywood.
While I'm a bit appalled at the RH CEO's statements, I can at least understand them - he can't really point to a Linux competitor at this time for the desktop, since anyone with a good chance (like Novell/Ximian/SuSe) is likely a server competitor as well.
And he did *not* say Linux was not ready for the desktop. He suggested Windows for *home users*, not the business desktop. There's quite a difference!
OTOH, regardless of what he says, Linux is growing and will continue to grow for some time. Where will it stop? Nobody knows. I know where I *hope* it stops (the end of the universe). But in the meantime, RedHat hasn't been the favorite of a lot of users, anyway. Yet Linux questions are constantly asked wverywhere I go.
And in the meantime, yes, for at least a year or so, Windows probably is the best choice for the vast majority of home users. But I think it starts having to really compete around that time frame.
Meanwhile, we will continue to run Linux (RedHat for now) on every system possible in my domain. That's currently around 250 desktops and servers. I won't be paying RH per seat license costs, but that's another story!
... would check the unit and note the contrast. At that point, s/he would contact the vendor and request the consumer version, or review the model, but noting that it's not the same versiont that sells for $xxx.yy at Foo Computer Store.
The person who did this is, at best, naive (and/or foolish). Of course he was terminated. Most any large company with any security concerns would have done the same thing. Some companies would have called the cops on him just for having taken the pictures. (I once contracted for a very large computer firm where even having a camera in our building without a signed slip from management and security would get you fired.) Publishing them with any sort of description is absolutely against policy at almost any technology firm of any size. I would be astounded if he'd never signed anything that obviously covered such behavior (whether in so many words or not).
He needs to do three things.
1) Recognize that he screwed up. 2) Admit it publicly, since he made the rest public. 3) Learn from this and move on.
In this case, Microsoft is (IMO) completely justified in its reaction.
Instead of working the extra time to spend $80 - $100 for this, just buy the 5 volumes at $5 - $15 (depends on new or used, paper or hardback) that are already out. You might not get the extra 14 cartoons or the letters, but for the price difference, you get the extra time off (see other story). I love Far Side. One of the five best strips, ever. But no way am I gonna pay that much to get a few extras.
Sure it's free. You can download the source from RedHat. They have no option under the GPL (I suppose they may add some apps that aren't GPL'd, but the vast majority of it is free.
And no, they don't offer free support. I expect that if you want to invest milions of dollars in them so they can provide free support, they'd consider it.
OTOH, you have the source and an internet connection, so why are you whining?
This is only, what, the 308th study to reach this conclusion in the past half century? I don't doubt that the compensational difference shifts a percent or two now and then, but it's hardly news.
I think it portrayed Forbes in a bad light, presenting op-ed pieces as reporting. Comrades? Internationale? Oh, I see. If you don't charge for it, you're a Stalinist. McCarthyism lives!
Forbes and BATF burn FSF compound to ground. Film at 11!
It's only this past year that we pulled our last 8 port, 10MB hub from service and pulled the last Sun IPC from service. In each case, it was because we had outgrown their capability to keep up. The IPC and several of the hubs are now happily working at employees' homes.
My 1994 vintage Dell 486/100 (25x4) server is down at the moment, but with a new (for it) HD and PS, should be back up soon.
Sooner or later, I'll find a use for that ZX-80 as well.
Now, who wants to talk about vacuum-tube amps and test gear? I have plenty of that!
Slashdot Mirror
Your memory is flawed. Things were starting to stabilize when the 9/11 attacks hit. Everything went back into a death spiral at that point. Lots of companies had made plans to start spending (cautiosly) on new IT-related projects again, but within a day or two after 9/11, it all came to a screeching halt.
So, yeah, a lot of the blame rests on the shoulders of greedy people and fools who went boldly where there was no point in going. But some of it goes to a small collection of suicidal fanatics (IMO). And remember, this didn't just affect the USA - it affected everyone who expected to get a piece of that money. Plus, since nobody knew what would happen next, spending plans all over the world suddenly went into the shredder, or at least a time-locked vault.
Your basic premise - ``time was the only thing many people would look at is cubic inches or horsepower'' - is flawed. This refers only to a subset of epople who were interested in muscle cars, hot rods, or the term du jour. It's as true today of such people as it was then.
Muscle cars are the better metaphor for supercomputers; the term "car" just compares to "computer", or at best "individual's computer".
A hot rod or muscle car is rated in terms of horsepower and torque, or acceleration and speed. In other words, sheer performance. If it's more of a racing vehicle, throw in handling. Evetrything else falls by the wayside - comfort, fuel efficiency, etc. Well, style matters to lots of folks.
So if your metaphor has much validity, then the only things that matter with supercomputers are performance, and in some cases style. And that about covers where things are today, doesn't it?
I'm not saying that energy efficiency shouldn't matter in supercomputers. Just that you didn't qiote make your case. 8^)
The interbnet is often compared to the wild west of mid-19th century USA. If they would simply let us apply Wild West Justice in such cases, after a couple were tracked down, 99.9% of this garbage would stop.
You mean you *don't* understand R2D2?
No. They are limited by the speed of IP, which is not only slower, but its speed is random within a fairly large range. So to be safe, we have to asume the total cabling on the internet is (think, think, think) less than 3 meters.
We know the real reason you didn't do it. The RIAA scared you, didn't they, when they showed you their copyright on the IP address scheme...
OK, so you map the ever-changing net in a day.
A week later, you map it again. Eventually, you're mapping it every day. After a yeear or two of that, you have a cool little animation of how the internet changed. You project it on the wall of a dark room, and watch it koop, and go "wow".
I manage the IT department of a roughly 100 person startup transitioning out of startup mode. The vast majority of our nearly 250 (many of these are old and slow, but paid for) compute servers and desktops run RedHat. We run a little behind (we have been on RH8 for about 9 months now). We do this because uptime, reliability and stability are key. So it would seem we might be one of your target markets.
But the pricing model is unacceptable. It's right up there with Microsoft. Now while I agree that RedHat Linux 8 is a better OS than anything MS has ever produced, that's still an awful lot of money. It gets even worse, because your salespeople can't seem to quantify for me what differentiates a server from a desktop. If I can get away with using WS on everything except the ones I consider enterprise servers, it will only cost me about $40,000 - $60,000, depending on what discount rate we end up getting. If I have to consider the compute servers as servers, then pricing moves into the area of the utterly absurd.
So, we need a stable platform. We don't need much hand-holding. We don't need (or want) a continuous stream of updates that have to be applied to every system. My group has the only people who would ever call for support, and between us, we know an awful lot. Any calls we make would almost certainly represent at the very least a real hole in your documentation, and quite likely a real problem with the software. I can see us calling with 2 or 3 oddball configuration questions a year if we had something like AS support. That's about it. That's not worth what we've been told the licensing would be.
We could buy one copy of WS and one copy of AS, read through the EULAs, and (I'm 99.99% sure) legally copy everything we need to the other systems. We could just buy a copy of WS and build everything else we need from source around the web. Both of those are less than ideal options. But they still sound better to me than $40K - $60K (nevermind the upper limit). How do they sound to RedHat?
We're not alone. There are lots of companies in this boat.
We're poised for growth.
Are you even interested in our business?
So, someone stole the lunar polar ice cap? Maybe the FBI is on it. Maybe that's why they don't have time to look into a paltry $15,000 worth of fraud for us...
Just remember that the RedHat software is mostly still GPL'd. The vast majority of it is still freely copyable. As an "IT manager" (I don't like that title that because of all the legacy baggage, but it explains things well enough) of a firm running a heterogeneous environment dominated by Linux we are looking at going to AS/ES/WS. We'll likely buy a copy of WS to eval the desktops and compute farm systems. Then if all is well, we'll buy a copy of AS to handle the "server" functions. So far, I don't see that we need any of the RD propietary solutions badly enough to pay their insane (for us) per seat prices. So we'll pull those RPMs and roll the rest out.
Either that or use another distribution. 8^/
Uptime is key for us. And I'm happy to pay for uptime. But not at prices right out of MS's book.
No three GPS systems? (One obvious, one hidden backup, one *very* hidden backup)
No self-destruct?
Sounds like either a toy, or something they *wanteed* to fall into the *wrong* hands...
You kind of have those backwards. They went with Linux a while back (story was 2000), but were licensed to see the Windows source only this year. So all we can really tell from this is that MS is getting desperate over Linux.
They bought the info from Micro$oft, of course.
When you buy a modern MS OS, you voluntarily agree to let them do anything at all on your system.
``How convenient!''
The consumer did not install ad blocking software. The consumer simply purchased a computer with anti-virus software, which comes enabled by default, and which happens to include - whether the consumer knows it or not, wants it or not - anti-ad software, which also comes enabled by default. At least, that's what the OP claims. So the consumer probably has, at *most*, made a choice to buy a computer with AV software. Many haven't even thought that far.
I forget the exact quote, but ``the point of life is to die". Had you noticed that most deaths aren't "meaningful"? That, in fact, they SUCK?
The scene with the machines entering the outer hull of Zion was drawn out needlessly, as it contained no switching between the fight at Zion and Neo's plight (think: middle/end of ROTJ)
Two words. So what? The fact that it didn't switch made it needlessly drawn out? How about the sheer, overwhelming endlessness and hopelessness of fighting a never-ending horde? Worked for me.
The fight scene with Smith/Baines and Neo in the Logos was completely extraneous.
Nonsense. It left Neo blind, which (to run with these stupid Star Wars metaphors) left him open to see through the Force. It taught Neo things, as well.
Neo's death in the end leaves the humans without a powerful weapon against the machines if they were to decide to attack the humans again. Contrast this with Star Wars and LotR, where the playing field is leveled at the end, or slightly in favor of the protagonists.
Unless he comes back, Gandalf-like. Plus, we don't know that he's dead (although I "believe" he is).
Keanu Reeves performance was subpar, even for him. In the climactic battle with Smith at the end, he looked drugged and was not convincing as the leader of the free world. He had no fire, and it was the machines and the Oracle that actually spurred him on to defeat Smith (esp. the machines, as they revived him after being consumed by Smith).
Shrug. I think he was supposed to appear weak. It was inevitable, and helped him realize the way to victory was... to give in.
I can think of at least three answers to your final complaint, but anyone who was paying attention rather than being all pissed off because it wasn't the movie they wanted to make should be able to come up with at least one of their own.
Did I think it was a great movie? No. But neither was it the pile of fetid garbage you seem to think it was. Still better than average for Hollywood.
While I'm a bit appalled at the RH CEO's statements, I can at least understand them - he can't really point to a Linux competitor at this time for the desktop, since anyone with a good chance (like Novell/Ximian/SuSe) is likely a server competitor as well.
And he did *not* say Linux was not ready for the desktop. He suggested Windows for *home users*, not the business desktop. There's quite a difference!
OTOH, regardless of what he says, Linux is growing and will continue to grow for some time. Where will it stop? Nobody knows. I know where I *hope* it stops (the end of the universe). But in the meantime, RedHat hasn't been the favorite of a lot of users, anyway. Yet Linux questions are constantly asked wverywhere I go.
And in the meantime, yes, for at least a year or so, Windows probably is the best choice for the vast majority of home users. But I think it starts having to really compete around that time frame.
Meanwhile, we will continue to run Linux (RedHat for now) on every system possible in my domain. That's currently around 250 desktops and servers. I won't be paying RH per seat license costs, but that's another story!
... would check the unit and note the contrast. At that point, s/he would contact the vendor and request the consumer version, or review the model, but noting that it's not the same versiont that sells for $xxx.yy at Foo Computer Store.
The person who did this is, at best, naive (and/or foolish). Of course he was terminated. Most any large company with any security concerns would have done the same thing. Some companies would have called the cops on him just for having taken the pictures. (I once contracted for a very large computer firm where even having a camera in our building without a signed slip from management and security would get you fired.) Publishing them with any sort of description is absolutely against policy at almost any technology firm of any size. I would be astounded if he'd never signed anything that obviously covered such behavior (whether in so many words or not).
He needs to do three things.
1) Recognize that he screwed up.
2) Admit it publicly, since he made the rest public.
3) Learn from this and move on.
In this case, Microsoft is (IMO) completely justified in its reaction.
What does it mean to a website when everyone read /. ?
Instead of working the extra time to spend $80 - $100 for this, just buy the 5 volumes at $5 - $15 (depends on new or used, paper or hardback) that are already out. You might not get the extra 14 cartoons or the letters, but for the price difference, you get the extra time off (see other story). I love Far Side. One of the five best strips, ever. But no way am I gonna pay that much to get a few extras.
But y'all feel free to go for it...
Sure it's free. You can download the source from RedHat. They have no option under the GPL (I suppose they may add some apps that aren't GPL'd, but the vast majority of it is free.
And no, they don't offer free support. I expect that if you want to invest milions of dollars in them so they can provide free support, they'd consider it.
OTOH, you have the source and an internet connection, so why are you whining?
This is only, what, the 308th study to reach this conclusion in the past half century? I don't doubt that the compensational difference shifts a percent or two now and then, but it's hardly news.
I think it portrayed Forbes in a bad light, presenting op-ed pieces as reporting. Comrades? Internationale? Oh, I see. If you don't charge for it, you're a Stalinist. McCarthyism lives!
Forbes and BATF burn FSF compound to ground. Film at 11!
It's only this past year that we pulled our last 8 port, 10MB hub from service and pulled the last Sun IPC from service. In each case, it was because we had outgrown their capability to keep up. The IPC and several of the hubs are now happily working at employees' homes.
My 1994 vintage Dell 486/100 (25x4) server is down at the moment, but with a new (for it) HD and PS, should be back up soon.
Sooner or later, I'll find a use for that ZX-80 as well.
Now, who wants to talk about vacuum-tube amps and test gear? I have plenty of that!
Only the fools who buy MS products.
IOW, not me!