My experience is drives fail between 5 - 10 years of age but I abuse drives by having huge amounts of disk activity and I also move a lot which causes vibration damage. Most the drives I've lost have been soon after a move.
I've found backing up to CD/DVD/tape/floppy/whatever to expensive and troublesome. If you only have a few important files that works fine but when you get into 100's of gigs removable hdd's are the way to go. You're right that a mirror and a backup are different - also I'd suggest it can be useful to keep checksums of files you've backed up so you can tell that they have changed and make sure the right file gets restored.
Not at all. It was MY large project done for my own geek needs. The main problem with PHP was it's very limited namespaces and object oriented features. It gets extremely complex maintaining things as your code base grows.
The proper way to write a big app in PHP I think is to write backend stuff in a cleaner language such as Python and use PHP just for connecting the backend to the web. Python makes it a lot easier to keep your code clean and keeping the frontend sepperate from the backend keeps you from tangling the UI in important stuff. Of course db stuff is good to write in SQL and low level speed intensive stuff in C/Asm.
Simple life lesson I've found holds true... somethings it helps to do things the wrong way so that you know why the right way is better. Just don't do it for mission critical stuff.;)
Damn dude removable hdd drawers are like $7. A 120Gb hdd is about $100. With shipping and tax that is all of $120. Back shit up. Most people have like a shitty 40Gb drive and maybe a fraction of it is actually important. You can make a shit load of backups on a 120Gb drive. It doesn't hurt to back stuff up to third party servers over the Net either. A cron job will keep all your files save that way.:)
If you're like me it's a little more work as you have lots of fairly unique data. This is where mirroring your systems works wonders. Keep an identical system in a secure (and different) location and just mirror all your data to it. A combination of the above mentioned method that won't kill you in ISP fees if you have 100's of gigs of data.:)
Lisp, Prolog, etc are fun and interesting and not to hard to learn.
Cobol is just Satanic. Cobol so far has my nomination for most evil language actively used for real work. I could use it but is it worth the effort? If an employer asked me to fix a Cobol program I could but I wouldn't take a Cobol programmer job no matter how much I needed the money. I'd rather flip burgers than code Cobol.:)
The problem is programmers that are insecure because they aren't confident in their ability to move between languages as needed. Programmers usually have their favorite tools for any given job but the ones that get really nasty are the programmers that are only comfortable with the few tools they use.
For me I'm pretty confident in my ability so I can move between any language that exists or is just invented as the job goes along (happens sometimes) so I don't especially get snotty. Python is one of my favorites but it certainly isn't perfect. I have done a lot in PHP but have grown unhappy with it for large projects. It is good for small to medium sized projects. Java is okay for programs that are going to run on servers with lots of memory and that won't be restarting the program often but is to heavy for most of the things I do. C/C++/Asm are good for low level stuff that needs to be fast but IMO should not be used for the bulk of things they get used for.
That's a pretty good system. I could probably still penetrate it if I really wanted to but why bother when easier targets exist?
One place I worked someone in mgmt had printed out a master list of passwords (why? no idea) and had managed to drop the list outside the building where it laid for at least one night. Probably the worst security booboo I've seen but most companies have had problems of that nature. The techs build up security and some schmoo blows it all away.
Hell, if you can buy healthy food, a decent place to live, and keep your utilities on your doing better than majority of people in this world. You should certainly be paid for your work and good use of your talents but really do we need to make hundreds of thousands (or millions) per year to be successful and happy? Worse how do you take millions of dollars and throw it all away?
Domain name and dns hosting: $20/year. A decent web and email server: $15/month. Artwork for your website: $500. Home PC w/ monitor and printer: $600. Internet connection: $20/month. Electric bill: $100/month. Office desk: $100. Pay to self: $40,000/year. Advertising: $40,000/year. Write'n skillz: priceless.
How do you spend $80mil? Seriously even with a few guys on staff and the increasing cost of server space as bandwidth usage went up it'd take a lot of work to blow that kind of money. They didn't notice the approaching redline in time to change their ways?
The social engineering portion of this I can easily believe. I've worked at a lot of different places as an employee or contractor and none of them were very good about security. They might have balls to the wall security devices in place but you could bypass them just by holding up a toolcase or some cables and saying your from support and someone would let you in. You can get into practically any place that way.
As for dongles and keys they are pretty easy to lay hands on. A little skill as a social engineer and a pick pocket and you can have one. You do have to be physically there though. You can't pick a pocket remotely.
As long as they didn't host any of the files on University computers and took a hands off approach to the whole thing I doubt there is a lot they can be blamed for. Of course you wouldn't hand the student a cd and a brochure suggesting how best to share copyrighted files. Instead you'd hand them a brochure suggesting how to use the software towards sharing school-related files with other students and staff. Obviously they'd figure out how to share such wonders as Girls Gone Wild videos and MC Hammer songs but that isn't your fault.
If the *AA attacked you it'd be pretty easy to claim you were doing nothing that Windows file sharing didn't allow but only making a client that was more cross-platform. Also if you didn't make a big deal of it in the media the *AA would simply see that you were reducing the traffic to popular P2P networks from your network. You don't have to tell them how or let them scan your own network. I'd think that letting them scan students computers would be illegal so you have a good reason not to.
I'd like that but think there should be some influence from them. One of the benefits to how they are doing it now is you get a feedback cycle from them. For new game developers that is very helpful. Also I think they should require any source produced will be opened say 3 years after the game begins distribution. (Similar to id's games.)
I like this idea in general though. I hope they are just testing the waters. I'd like to see more original Linux games funded. If they had a contest I hope they'd think of publishing any worth while games and not just the top entry. Something along the lines of having them each judged on playability, stability, sound, and graphics and publish any game that ranks high enough.
I can certainly understand being irked with having your bandwidth drained but really there is a simple solution that works very well - setup a local mechanism to trade files that doesn't suck.
The article mentions files being repeatedly downloaded and I'd assume that downloads do follow trends. Everyone tries to download a new song they like or the big episode of whatever/cool/ show they missed cus they had to work. Other files downloaded are probably files that are popular in general.
The basic point being that the majority of the time there are probably numerous copies of the desired file already on the local network - make it easy to find and share those files and students won't use up your bandwidth with more and more copies. You don't need to cache the files yourself or anything with similar legal problems. Just pass out cd's to students with a P2P program that will only work over the LAN and not with the outside Internet. Such a program can be written in Python (or similar cross-platform high-level lang) in one day and run on Windows, Linux, and Mac systems from the same source.
I'll agree that the reboots are optional sometimes with Windows but not as often as they should be. If you ignore the requests while adding or removing several major programs the system can get flakey. It's a bit odd but I'll agree that it's likely caused by poorly designed applications and install/uninstall programs and not entirely the OS's fault.
I'm sure drivers play a part in Windows instability too and for this I blame both Microsoft and the hardware developers. They should be ashamed for not writing better drivers. Opensourced drivers may be a generation or more behind in some cases but at least they typically have worked well for me across many different bits of hardware. I haven't tried the Nvidia drivers. How new are they, how well supported, commercial or opensource? Just curious.
Despite driver and application problems in all platforms raw uptime of active systems says a lot. I have Linux servers that have been up for years at a time. I've never managed more than a couple weeks for a Windows machine even on exactly the same hardware and fewer applications running. Probably the most amusing to me has been Windows systems with no running applications, no screensavers, and no special background programs that BSOD at random points when nobody is even using them. Win9x did that pretty frequently. I haven't seen Win2k or XP do it which is a good thing.
The funny thing is all the Windows users who claim it has good up time. Except you can't add or remove programs or make any major system changes without a reboot. You're lucky if running your favorite programs don't crash and download a non-standard program and you might as well be praying the system stays up. Win2k and XP have, I admit, improved stability but they still aren't in the same world as my Linux and *BSD systems. I do serious shit to my Linux box including adding and removing software and moving around hundreds of gigs of files and it just keeps going. The only time I reboot is to add new hardware and in some cases that is optional (depending on your computer).
Up to now Ma & Pa haven't needed to mess with sales taxes at all for selling online. How does that get easier by making them do so? I'm not saying the system isn't already crazy. I'm saying that there is no reason to require people hassle with taxes even more.
As for simplifying existing sales tax laws that is fine. My first move would be to abolish them altogether. We pay plenty of taxes without sales taxes.
Yes it is likely dependent on the state but it's also dependent on the size of the company. Big companies can get considerably more than 3/4th of 1% in many cases.
I didn't actually say these companies were getting a kick back. I said we should question what they were getting to push this so hard and gave that as an example.:)
What if some random guy in China decides they have jurisdiction? By Chinese law you'd be required to pay taxes. Of course most people probably wouldn't. But then what if China only allowed e-comm companies that submitted to this tax for all sales do business with their countries people? China has a lot of people so in theory that could be quite the influence at some point. So a random Joe in the US buying from a US company could end up paying a Chinese tax. Does that clarify my point?
It is common practice for companies to keep a portion of the taxes they collect - especially with big companies. It is sort of a payoff to keep the big companies from complaining against new taxes. The bigger the company generally the higher percentage of the taxes they get to keep. That is besides the earned interest and such that you mentioned.
I don't have any links handy but I've been dealing with various business functions for years and that was one of the annoying tidbits I discovered.
Besides the death of Netscape led to the very good and opensource Mozilla. I doubt we're lucky enough to have VMWare opensourced and improved in the same manner. It'd really be a joke on Microsoft though.:)
And if China implements a tax on everything sold online, regardless to the fact that neither the buyer or seller live in China, we're legally required to pay that tax.. if you feel like obeying the laws. Just because something is legally required doesn't mean it's logical or that you actually have to do it.
Don't forget to ask why certain companies are wanting to push Internet taxes. A lot of companies get to keep a portion of the taxes they collect from their customers. If they help push these laws through they'll get to keep some of the money collected. Meanwhile Ma & Pa Shop get to deal with more redtape that ends up costing them more and making them less likely to successfully launch a new business and thus hurting the economy.
Nerd's don't have to be unpopular. I am a total nerd and went through the whole time of being picked on and shunned but by highschool I was fairly popular. I still didn't fit in but everyone knew me and got along well with me.
The first reason is that throughout elementary and middle school I showed that I could take being beaten up by people bigger than me and laugh about it. If someone kicks your butt and you laugh in their face they'll respect you and fear you a little.
Second is that I had a sense of humor. I could play practical jokes that nobody else knew how. I also knew how to do naughty things that impressed my fellow teenage males. Explosives, robots, etc are cool if done right.
Third I suddenly grew a foot and a half taller. Having a guy smarter than you and able to laugh off your violence suddenly become much bigger than you is quite the shakeup. That part was just luck.;)
Shit, most the time by the time I take a new floppy out of the box they aren't even any good any more. I have so little need for such small amounts of storage that the damn things go bad before I use them. I don't remember floppies going bad so quickly in years past but I buy different brands of floppies, try different computers, different OS's, etc and sure enough the floppies go bad. I have my old floppies stored pretty well and almost none of them work fully. If there are multiple files on the disk usually some will work and some won't.
I have 10yo hdd's still in active use. Most I've found last 5-7 years but a few have made it to 10 years. I think I have only one with a hdd that is older than that and still functional. I think it's an 8086 but I'd have to check. I don't really care how long an hdd lasts as long as it is at least 3-4 years. By the time it's getting old drive space has gotten so much cheaper that it's not a problem to toss the old drive. It's easy enough to copy over a hdd to a new hdd - a lot easier than copying 150,000 floppies.
Be a stud - use punch cards. Punch cards don't go to hell if properly stored.
Silly me.. and here I was packing my computers with 120Gb drives.
Now here is a nice problem for us. How many HD 5.25" floppies would it take to store a terabyte of data? How many cubic feet of space would they take up? How heavy would they be? How long would it take to hand swap through all those floppies?:)
Slashdot Mirror
My experience is drives fail between 5 - 10 years of age but I abuse drives by having huge amounts of disk activity and I also move a lot which causes vibration damage. Most the drives I've lost have been soon after a move.
I've found backing up to CD/DVD/tape/floppy/whatever to expensive and troublesome. If you only have a few important files that works fine but when you get into 100's of gigs removable hdd's are the way to go. You're right that a mirror and a backup are different - also I'd suggest it can be useful to keep checksums of files you've backed up so you can tell that they have changed and make sure the right file gets restored.
Not at all. It was MY large project done for my own geek needs. The main problem with PHP was it's very limited namespaces and object oriented features. It gets extremely complex maintaining things as your code base grows.
;)
The proper way to write a big app in PHP I think is to write backend stuff in a cleaner language such as Python and use PHP just for connecting the backend to the web. Python makes it a lot easier to keep your code clean and keeping the frontend sepperate from the backend keeps you from tangling the UI in important stuff. Of course db stuff is good to write in SQL and low level speed intensive stuff in C/Asm.
Simple life lesson I've found holds true... somethings it helps to do things the wrong way so that you know why the right way is better. Just don't do it for mission critical stuff.
Absolutely right. Backups are easy. Just do it. :)
:)
:)
Damn dude removable hdd drawers are like $7. A 120Gb hdd is about $100. With shipping and tax that is all of $120. Back shit up. Most people have like a shitty 40Gb drive and maybe a fraction of it is actually important. You can make a shit load of backups on a 120Gb drive. It doesn't hurt to back stuff up to third party servers over the Net either. A cron job will keep all your files save that way.
If you're like me it's a little more work as you have lots of fairly unique data. This is where mirroring your systems works wonders. Keep an identical system in a secure (and different) location and just mirror all your data to it. A combination of the above mentioned method that won't kill you in ISP fees if you have 100's of gigs of data.
Lisp, Prolog, etc are fun and interesting and not to hard to learn.
:)
Cobol is just Satanic. Cobol so far has my nomination for most evil language actively used for real work. I could use it but is it worth the effort? If an employer asked me to fix a Cobol program I could but I wouldn't take a Cobol programmer job no matter how much I needed the money. I'd rather flip burgers than code Cobol.
The problem is programmers that are insecure because they aren't confident in their ability to move between languages as needed. Programmers usually have their favorite tools for any given job but the ones that get really nasty are the programmers that are only comfortable with the few tools they use.
For me I'm pretty confident in my ability so I can move between any language that exists or is just invented as the job goes along (happens sometimes) so I don't especially get snotty. Python is one of my favorites but it certainly isn't perfect. I have done a lot in PHP but have grown unhappy with it for large projects. It is good for small to medium sized projects. Java is okay for programs that are going to run on servers with lots of memory and that won't be restarting the program often but is to heavy for most of the things I do. C/C++/Asm are good for low level stuff that needs to be fast but IMO should not be used for the bulk of things they get used for.
That's a pretty good system. I could probably still penetrate it if I really wanted to but why bother when easier targets exist?
One place I worked someone in mgmt had printed out a master list of passwords (why? no idea) and had managed to drop the list outside the building where it laid for at least one night. Probably the worst security booboo I've seen but most companies have had problems of that nature. The techs build up security and some schmoo blows it all away.
Hell, if you can buy healthy food, a decent place to live, and keep your utilities on your doing better than majority of people in this world. You should certainly be paid for your work and good use of your talents but really do we need to make hundreds of thousands (or millions) per year to be successful and happy? Worse how do you take millions of dollars and throw it all away?
Domain name and dns hosting: $20/year.
A decent web and email server: $15/month.
Artwork for your website: $500.
Home PC w/ monitor and printer: $600.
Internet connection: $20/month.
Electric bill: $100/month.
Office desk: $100.
Pay to self: $40,000/year.
Advertising: $40,000/year.
Write'n skillz: priceless.
How do you spend $80mil? Seriously even with a few guys on staff and the increasing cost of server space as bandwidth usage went up it'd take a lot of work to blow that kind of money. They didn't notice the approaching redline in time to change their ways?
The social engineering portion of this I can easily believe. I've worked at a lot of different places as an employee or contractor and none of them were very good about security. They might have balls to the wall security devices in place but you could bypass them just by holding up a toolcase or some cables and saying your from support and someone would let you in. You can get into practically any place that way.
As for dongles and keys they are pretty easy to lay hands on. A little skill as a social engineer and a pick pocket and you can have one. You do have to be physically there though. You can't pick a pocket remotely.
Learn kung fu early..
Have more sex.. girls are not as easy after highschool..
Drop out of highschool..
ignore college..
start a dot com..
sell all your stock in 1999..
never listen to your parents.. what the fsck do they know..
As long as they didn't host any of the files on University computers and took a hands off approach to the whole thing I doubt there is a lot they can be blamed for. Of course you wouldn't hand the student a cd and a brochure suggesting how best to share copyrighted files. Instead you'd hand them a brochure suggesting how to use the software towards sharing school-related files with other students and staff. Obviously they'd figure out how to share such wonders as Girls Gone Wild videos and MC Hammer songs but that isn't your fault.
If the *AA attacked you it'd be pretty easy to claim you were doing nothing that Windows file sharing didn't allow but only making a client that was more cross-platform. Also if you didn't make a big deal of it in the media the *AA would simply see that you were reducing the traffic to popular P2P networks from your network. You don't have to tell them how or let them scan your own network. I'd think that letting them scan students computers would be illegal so you have a good reason not to.
I'd like that but think there should be some influence from them. One of the benefits to how they are doing it now is you get a feedback cycle from them. For new game developers that is very helpful. Also I think they should require any source produced will be opened say 3 years after the game begins distribution. (Similar to id's games.)
I like this idea in general though. I hope they are just testing the waters. I'd like to see more original Linux games funded. If they had a contest I hope they'd think of publishing any worth while games and not just the top entry. Something along the lines of having them each judged on playability, stability, sound, and graphics and publish any game that ranks high enough.
I can certainly understand being irked with having your bandwidth drained but really there is a simple solution that works very well - setup a local mechanism to trade files that doesn't suck.
/cool/ show they missed cus they had to work. Other files downloaded are probably files that are popular in general.
The article mentions files being repeatedly downloaded and I'd assume that downloads do follow trends. Everyone tries to download a new song they like or the big episode of whatever
The basic point being that the majority of the time there are probably numerous copies of the desired file already on the local network - make it easy to find and share those files and students won't use up your bandwidth with more and more copies. You don't need to cache the files yourself or anything with similar legal problems. Just pass out cd's to students with a P2P program that will only work over the LAN and not with the outside Internet. Such a program can be written in Python (or similar cross-platform high-level lang) in one day and run on Windows, Linux, and Mac systems from the same source.
I'll agree that the reboots are optional sometimes with Windows but not as often as they should be. If you ignore the requests while adding or removing several major programs the system can get flakey. It's a bit odd but I'll agree that it's likely caused by poorly designed applications and install/uninstall programs and not entirely the OS's fault.
I'm sure drivers play a part in Windows instability too and for this I blame both Microsoft and the hardware developers. They should be ashamed for not writing better drivers. Opensourced drivers may be a generation or more behind in some cases but at least they typically have worked well for me across many different bits of hardware. I haven't tried the Nvidia drivers. How new are they, how well supported, commercial or opensource? Just curious.
Despite driver and application problems in all platforms raw uptime of active systems says a lot. I have Linux servers that have been up for years at a time. I've never managed more than a couple weeks for a Windows machine even on exactly the same hardware and fewer applications running. Probably the most amusing to me has been Windows systems with no running applications, no screensavers, and no special background programs that BSOD at random points when nobody is even using them. Win9x did that pretty frequently. I haven't seen Win2k or XP do it which is a good thing.
The funny thing is all the Windows users who claim it has good up time. Except you can't add or remove programs or make any major system changes without a reboot. You're lucky if running your favorite programs don't crash and download a non-standard program and you might as well be praying the system stays up. Win2k and XP have, I admit, improved stability but they still aren't in the same world as my Linux and *BSD systems. I do serious shit to my Linux box including adding and removing software and moving around hundreds of gigs of files and it just keeps going. The only time I reboot is to add new hardware and in some cases that is optional (depending on your computer).
Actually, I've found BSOD's happen most when booting the computer - especially when I just need to do something quick so I can go home for the night.
Market share is irrelevant. Good software is what matters. I no longer have to stick with the sucky Netscape or IE browsers so I'm happy. :)
Up to now Ma & Pa haven't needed to mess with sales taxes at all for selling online. How does that get easier by making them do so? I'm not saying the system isn't already crazy. I'm saying that there is no reason to require people hassle with taxes even more.
As for simplifying existing sales tax laws that is fine. My first move would be to abolish them altogether. We pay plenty of taxes without sales taxes.
Yes it is likely dependent on the state but it's also dependent on the size of the company. Big companies can get considerably more than 3/4th of 1% in many cases.
:)
I didn't actually say these companies were getting a kick back. I said we should question what they were getting to push this so hard and gave that as an example.
What if some random guy in China decides they have jurisdiction? By Chinese law you'd be required to pay taxes. Of course most people probably wouldn't. But then what if China only allowed e-comm companies that submitted to this tax for all sales do business with their countries people? China has a lot of people so in theory that could be quite the influence at some point. So a random Joe in the US buying from a US company could end up paying a Chinese tax. Does that clarify my point?
It is common practice for companies to keep a portion of the taxes they collect - especially with big companies. It is sort of a payoff to keep the big companies from complaining against new taxes. The bigger the company generally the higher percentage of the taxes they get to keep. That is besides the earned interest and such that you mentioned.
I don't have any links handy but I've been dealing with various business functions for years and that was one of the annoying tidbits I discovered.
Besides the death of Netscape led to the very good and opensource Mozilla. I doubt we're lucky enough to have VMWare opensourced and improved in the same manner. It'd really be a joke on Microsoft though. :)
And if China implements a tax on everything sold online, regardless to the fact that neither the buyer or seller live in China, we're legally required to pay that tax.. if you feel like obeying the laws. Just because something is legally required doesn't mean it's logical or that you actually have to do it.
Don't forget to ask why certain companies are wanting to push Internet taxes. A lot of companies get to keep a portion of the taxes they collect from their customers. If they help push these laws through they'll get to keep some of the money collected. Meanwhile Ma & Pa Shop get to deal with more redtape that ends up costing them more and making them less likely to successfully launch a new business and thus hurting the economy.
Nerd's don't have to be unpopular. I am a total nerd and went through the whole time of being picked on and shunned but by highschool I was fairly popular. I still didn't fit in but everyone knew me and got along well with me.
;)
The first reason is that throughout elementary and middle school I showed that I could take being beaten up by people bigger than me and laugh about it. If someone kicks your butt and you laugh in their face they'll respect you and fear you a little.
Second is that I had a sense of humor. I could play practical jokes that nobody else knew how. I also knew how to do naughty things that impressed my fellow teenage males. Explosives, robots, etc are cool if done right.
Third I suddenly grew a foot and a half taller. Having a guy smarter than you and able to laugh off your violence suddenly become much bigger than you is quite the shakeup. That part was just luck.
Shit, most the time by the time I take a new floppy out of the box they aren't even any good any more. I have so little need for such small amounts of storage that the damn things go bad before I use them. I don't remember floppies going bad so quickly in years past but I buy different brands of floppies, try different computers, different OS's, etc and sure enough the floppies go bad. I have my old floppies stored pretty well and almost none of them work fully. If there are multiple files on the disk usually some will work and some won't.
I have 10yo hdd's still in active use. Most I've found last 5-7 years but a few have made it to 10 years. I think I have only one with a hdd that is older than that and still functional. I think it's an 8086 but I'd have to check. I don't really care how long an hdd lasts as long as it is at least 3-4 years. By the time it's getting old drive space has gotten so much cheaper that it's not a problem to toss the old drive. It's easy enough to copy over a hdd to a new hdd - a lot easier than copying 150,000 floppies.
Be a stud - use punch cards. Punch cards don't go to hell if properly stored.
Silly me.. and here I was packing my computers with 120Gb drives.
:)
Now here is a nice problem for us. How many HD 5.25" floppies would it take to store a terabyte of data? How many cubic feet of space would they take up? How heavy would they be? How long would it take to hand swap through all those floppies?