I still can't get Sun. They killed the product they would eventually try to use to save the company. They killed their current flagship product and then ran scared back to it when they found out their servers were being replaced by Linux on X86. How did they think they were going to justify a proprietary system (SPARC, Solaris) when there was a perfectly reasonable replacement at a great price point (Linux, X86)? Java is nice, but it won't get them far, and what else do they have? Really? Cloud computing and redundant NAS using COTS parts have eaten any lunch they had. Maybe they are just the most current buggy whip maker... I would hate to see them go, but at least any good parts of Sun are GPL'ed. Sorry to see you go, but maybe it's just time.
You know, there are many ways to discuss the death of arcades; the speed of home consoles, the lack of socialization skill among the current generations, etc... I prefer to tell of the death of arcades in a more personal way.
It was the summer of '69... or maybe it was more recent. Anyway, I wanted to play a game of Silent Scope. Now, unless you have been under an arcade rock, you know what this contraption is.
It is the most wonderful piece of gaming which can never be replicated properly in a home console. You play as a sniper, taking out baddies at fairly long distances. The kick is the implementation of it. That is where the game really shines.
The game gives you a replica of a generic sniper rifle. It has a scope on it, hence the name Silent Scope, inside this wonderful input device's scope is a second screen. On this second screen, you see a zoomed view of wherever you are pointing the rifle. This is about the closest I have come to seeing shooting replicated in an arcade.
Needless to say, you keep one eye open to watch the large screen in front of you, while you use your other eye to peer through the scope to sight in on your target. The way you play is exactly like shooting a real rifle, except, instead of targets, you are shooting at 3d baddies.
This machine ate gobs of quarters out of my pockets. I was grateful they were gone, it was a mutually beneficial arrangement. I got to play a game which I was addicted like a meth addict to, and the arcade got my money. I thought nothing could spoil my utopia.
Then, one day, after a rousing game, coming off with the high of almost beating the game on hard, I was walking down the boardwalk. The sun was bright and the wind was blowing off the ocean. Something got caught in my nose.
I went to wipe it off and got whiff of a horrid smell from somewhere. Now, this being the boardwalk, there are a ton of awful smells to go around. So, I went to scratch again, and realized it was coming from my hand. I took another whiff.
Sure enough, someone stinkpalmed the darned Silent Scope rifle.
I was shocked, horrified, felt a little violated. I ran to the nearest bathroom and washed off.
To this day, I still can't bring myself to play that game of roulette. I just don't trust those dirty kids anymore.
Too bad, I really loved Silent Scope. Maybe I will have to buy my own, so I don't have to worry about that. Maybe when I have enough money.
That is my story of the last time I played an arcade game...
I just can't imagine what the dirt balls would do with a guitar if they could do that to a Silent Scope rifle.
I understand this sentiment, but disagree. Their current customers will stay with whatever is necessary to keep those legacy applications running. The customers they need are not their current customers, they have those already, what they need is a product that will increase their customer base, not just pander to those who don't want to change. By doing that, they are cutting off the only viable revenue stream that exists, new customers. Old customers merely maintain an organization, they do not grow it. New customers allow an organization to grow. Sun is shrinking right now, so I don't think their existing customers are really who they should be marketing to. They are jumping ship as it is. Remember, if you are not moving forward, you are moving backwards. This applies all too well to this situation.
There's a lot of solaris-specific software out there. Linux users tend to forget there was a Unix community long before they showed up.
I understand, but at this point, there is a vast amount of software that assumes a GNU userland more than assumes a Unix userland. Linux is now the standard, all vendors have standardized on it. It is what SYSV was supposed to be.
"Unix" admins are now learning Linux, in any flavor in the Universities rather than Sun Solaris these days. They assume Linux IS Unix. Remember, it doesn't matter how much you think you are right if other people tell you otherwise. Linux is now the gold standard, IBM, Dell, and all of the others have made that decision for Sun. Sun decided to kill Solaris 8 on Intel for how long before they dropped a load in their collective pants and realized that the Intel Arch was kicking their Sparc Arch in development speed. They couldn't keep up with the speed of development. Then, in a rush, they pulled Solaris 8 on Intel back, and that is now their savior operating system. A product they KILLED is now their only Business model. Explain that to me.
See http://www.save-solaris.org/ for more information on the time frame. Starts back in 2002. Yes, their only VIABLE product now, was a product that the company decided was not viable to maintain. Talk about poor judgement. They are trying to compete with a commodity market by being a non-commodity product.
As for IPS, you know you can just roll back through ZFS, right? As for why they're using IPS, why not ask Ian Murdock? He's the founder of Debian and works for Sun and worked (he's been promoted) on OpenSol.
It is his job, as well as almost all of Sun, to help keep OpenSolaris relevant. By again pulling off and creating a proprietary Unix, that is not being done. Remember, proprietary means other's stuff doesn't work on your system, not open vs. closed code. See above and the old question "Where is apt-get on this system?" from new admins.
This decision was deliberate. Knowing what Ian was thinking is actually none of my concern, I don't rely on Sun as my only source of revenue. If/When they fail because they have further removed themselves from the market, which has standardized on Linux at this point, is not my concern.
Sun's workstations have stagnated in 2008, I don't know why. Their Amd64 line was the best deal from a real vendor when they came out.
As for the rest... yeah, support matters to some people. It's nice being able to talk the one who wrote the code that's giving you problems, and then getting a patch from them that'll be in the next release.
Umm... I hear rumors that the Linux community will get on top of this soon, COUGH, BUZILLA, COUGH, LKML, COUGH, etc...
Seriously, have you ever tried to get code into OpenSolaris, look at the sponsor/coder relationship. It is archaic It does not foster an OPEN environment. There are bug tracking fields which are only avilable to Sun employees, which some bugs rely on information contained in. I know it is getting better, but man, things get fixed in Linux and Linux applications much faster than in OpenSolaris. This is a process problem on OpenSolaris' part. But that is an organizational discussion for another day.
Also, have you considered the Enter key on your keyboard? It's to the right of the apostrophe on many layouts, and it makes your text easier to read.
By the way, if I cannot put a TAB in to indent a paragraphy, why bother with paragraph separations. I find these block paragraphs useless. How do you know what is a new paragraph and what is borked HTML that is wrapping improperly. Not everyone uses capital letters properly.
I have been working with Solaris for many years. When OpenSolaris was announced, I jumped for joy at what could be accomplished. When it was just a re-release of Solaris major, I said, ok, well, it is a certified Unix(tm) and now open source. But when they started working on Indiana, their replacement for the old Solaris system, I again jumped for joy, a chance to remove the cruft, while keeping ZFS and other Solaris goodies. When Ian jumped on the project, I thought, HOLY cow, we can get Debian GNU/Solaris. Well...... Guess what, they had to re-implement dpkg, why, well, I don't rightly know. Sure, you can install the old packages on the system and you now get a network repository, but darn it, why not just go with the darned proven system. Their current ipkg will break a system if the upgrade doesn't go well. I know dpkg can theoretically do this, but why re-code something that has had YEARS of testing and is used by almost half of the Linux community? I don't get it. Why the heck did they decide to re-implement something that could work so well? Just because it is GPL doesn't taint the core OS, it sits in userland. This must be so that they can sell proprietary Indiana builds to those who don't want to play out in the open. That is the only reason I can see. I really hoped for a good package system, but instead, we get a "me-too" system. It just doesn't make sense. And yes, I have been following OpenSolaris since it was barely usable, about nv 40 or something like that. I really wanted an old school Unix to survive, but at this point, I can't see it happening. They are now, not "Unix" they are "Not Linux" and I don't think they can handle the new market. Their Open Source strategy doesn't make sense. Their new storage line, I cannot see where this has a market. Sure, you get support, but once it is up and running well, there isn't much need for that support. There are much cheaper solutions for the SMB to MB segment, with much better support plans. I hope they survive for MySQL, VirtualBox, Java and NetBeans' sake, but I am not quite sure about it. I cannot find a revenue stream that they are first in class for anymore. Their workstations are a joke. I put together a home made Ultra 24 with the same specs for half of what they are asking. This was when they used the slower Q6600 quad cores. I see they upgraded. For outfitting a small to medium development group, I can't see going with the support premium. I know, support, etc... but hey, I can buy a service plan separately for OpenSolaris and when the H/W fails, just buy a new quad core workstation, which will be faster than the one it is replacing. I can't see the price premium. Apple is another story. Their system is integrated and will only work on their hardware. Sun is trying to compete in the commodity OS market. I just don't see it happening. Comments are welcome.
This is one thing I never got. When prices go up, they only hurt the poor. When food goes up, the middle class and upper class don't starve, the poor do. You have the luxury of being able to cut back on your Starbucks habit. There are those out there that do not have the ability to afford a habit to cut back on. I volunteer at my church's homeless shelter. Guess who isn't getting food anymore? Guess who can't afford the 7 dollar gas prices that trickle into the price of everything? The next time you wish for higher gas prices, thank God that you can afford them and so can your family. There are those out there that don't have the leisure of being able to even afford the trickled down increase in food prices. The same goes for all the greenies asking for ethanol. You don't hurt the rich, you only hurt the poor. The guy trying to make ends meet without a high school diploma. The single mother with two kids whose husband just walked out on her and she needs to find a job QUICK. You never think about them with this glee at the rising prices. My food bank here is getting killed. Food banks all over are woefully understocked, with no end in sight. We can't keep up with the current demand on the service, let alone meet the increased demand with prices of everything going up. This price war is just creating haves and have-nots. Remember, working minimum wage won't buy you a Prius. These people are making do with 20 to 30 year old vehicles, because they CANNOT afford to change. And living hand to mouth does not afford you the luxury to save up for a down payment on a 30K plus hybrid. When there is an electric car or hybrid for 12K, maybe, but until we hit a point with Kia putting out a hybrid with their prices, letting oil stay this expensive is just hurting our poor people. Try talking with the working poor or the unemployed. Their situation is getting worse and worse and everyone is talking about making their lives harder each day. On those kinds of salaries, you cannot afford to move over everything in your house, from your car to your appliances to energy efficient models. Please, just remember, you may have been blessed with the ability to have a cushion in your salary that can absorb this bump in the road, not everyone is as fortunate as you. I don't expect this to change your mind on anything, just think about someone else who may not be as fortunate as you before you revel in their personal Hell. Trying to feed a family while your gas bill goes up just makes health insurance and food all the more expendable. Work has to come above all else. Without work, you cannot afford to live. Everything, including health is traded everyday for work. You may be fortunate enough to not have to make that trade, but there are thousands out here who make that trade every day. There are thousands more who are the children of those who have to make that trade and guess who gets to suffer? The children whose parents cannot afford the health insurance premium or the "healty" food. Remember, it is much cheaper to eat poorly than it is to eat healthily. When everything is getting squeezed, every cent must go to calories. Guess what food gives the most calories per cent? Guess who cannot go to Whole Foods for the most organic food? I do not mean to degrade your sense of glee, however, there are those out there who suffer from something that you take such pleasure in. Only education and jobs can solve this problem in the long run. However, to cut down on the pain suffered day to day by the working poor, we need a solution that will start working sooner rather than later so that some day, your hand me down hybrid can be bought second or third hand by someone. When that happens, we can be energy independent, until then, rising oil prices will continue to hurt the poor.
I agree. Just because they found a program that perfectly fits their needs for a youth program doesn't mean that they "bought us out" It just means they see the immense value in not reinventing the wheel, when they have a wheel that fits all their needs. They recognized the value and quality of the program and just decided to let that be their official youth program. Makes sense to me. They need program, we have it, works well both ways.
"Nintendo's Wii. Sony's PlayStation 3 Elite. Microsoft's Xbox 360."
Hmm, I didn't know Sony made a PlayStation 3 Elite. Damn, one more console I need to have. Plus, what are they talking about when the consoles go into the garbage, I have my original C64 still setup and working, who actually throws these out?
I thought the new version of Pigin I installed had a bug in it because the text input box was so small and I couldn't resize it. I never noticed I don't write more than a line of text in any IM message. Wow, I thought the software was broken, guess it's my IM conversations. It took a fork of the program for me to realize it was a feature.
I would have to differ with you that the keyboards on wide-screens are "better." I actually hate them because only Toshiba has figured out that you want the keyboard CENTERED on your viewing screen. Most reading and writing are done in the center of the screen, however, most wide-screen laptops just shift the keyboard over to the left and don't realize that the typist is now crooked when working. This is the main reason why I like square laptops. Plus, the length stinks on anything but a large table. Forget putting a trackball next to a laptop anywhere but at home or the office at a desk. The centered thing really gets me though, you figured someone would have noticed that you are not working square anymore. Very uncomfortable for any period of time. Usability studies I guess only come out of Japan now.
But you understand where this is heading. Google more than could see that this was an unimproved road. That is a legal classification of roadway. In your case, the police have no legal right to use that road you talked about. Once you reminded the police that it was your road, they must, by law, respect it. Which, it sounds like they did. I also would like to thank you for allowing the police to use the road for keeping the community safe.
They didn't put their building in a public place, it was on a private road, that means they have every expectation of privacy. That is why you pay more for a private road house.
Sorry, I am a surveyor. Private is just that, Google was trespassing. They have no rights to go on that road. This is tantamount to walking inside someone's house and taking pictures of their bedroom. If the road is private, they have every expectation of privacy. Sorry Google, better read those posted signs better next time. Open and shut case. Any good judge will find for the plaintiff on this one. If this were a public road, fine, all is fair, but it is private for a reason. I personally would have the association go after them. And for all those who don't know, yes, private does mean greater value. You can control who comes in and out of your development. That is why the signs are posted for residents and guest only. Private roads are not maintained by the local government, so no plowing, no garbage pickup, etc... With that also comes the expectation of privacy. Whoops, Google better get a good lawyer for this one. As long as the street had a sign on it, that is enough of a warning for those entering. There does NOT need to be a gate or a speed bump or anything else. Just a sign to designate as private. There really is no excuse for this. If they want to do mapping, they should have a F'ing surveyor on staff. Guess they don't. I wonder if the licensed surveyor's salary is less than what these people will get out of Google. There is tons of precedent on this. I am really surprised Google was the one to make this mistake. So much for "Don't be evil."
That is one organized crack dealer who is scheduling his shipments via his iPhone. Last time I bought crack, I didn't even get a customer service number, let alone online tracking. My how things have changed.
Umm, Microsoft owns the rights to the 360 brand. Therefore, every console that gets made, they have to give a license to. Every license they pass out is guaranteed to be associated with hardware sold. Granted, not EVERY system will be hooked up to the net, but come on, that is the point of it. So, let me get this straight, MS makes each one, therefore knows how many are going to be out in the wild, their servers get hit with less than the number of consoles that they knew could be out there and they still had problems? Something doesn't add up. How could they NOT know how many people were going to at least attempt to make an account? Xbox sales == attempts for signup. How could they NOT have an idea of how they needed to scale. Not only that. Did Christmas change it's date this year? What the heck do you think would happen on Christmas day? Did they think everyone was going to wait until support hours the day after?
They wanted sales, they got sales, then couldn't handle the sales they had hoped for. Come on.
I personally have more of a problem with the boat load of cash put into funding AIDS research. It doesn't find a cure for 30 years, ehh, keep plowing money into it. When will we as a society just accept the fact that it is a virus, and you can't cure a virus. We have spent less on curing the common cold than AIDS and AIDS is far harder to contract. A little precaution and some good judgement and you are fine. I personally think we should work on the stuff you can't help getting infected with. And, if we don't find a cure, ahh well, let's go Green and not take anything for it. No carbon footprint for the medication and the gene pool improves from a species perspective. I think it is the greenest option yet.
He is fighting for something he believes in. Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with him and I think he is causing more harm than good. Why go after him, when there are lawyers out there who will get an obviously guilty man off for double murder even with DNA evidence pointing to him doing it. Ohh, and by the way, my gloves don't fit when I have a rubber glove on either, especially after they have shrunk due to being soaked in a liquid and dried. I want that lawyer disbarred. So, get a murderer off on a technicality, he is a hero, try to remove an evil (perceived by him) and improve society, disbar him. Gotta love it.
Why don't they go out to Staples, close their eyes, pick up a box in the wireless networking shelf, with preference to the 802.11n boxes and pick one and start writing. What about USB wifi cards? Those still are pretty well hit and miss. What about Broadcom wifi chips, you know the ones shipped with half of HP systems. Start working on a free driver or firmware or whatever is needed. Then, when all the wifi chips are supported and I don't have to worry about my new laptop not being able to get on the internet because HP locked the mini-pci slot to only one card, then we can take a walk down to the Video Card isle. Until you are done with Wifi, we will hold off on the hard stuff.
Don't get me wrong, This is a great service. Just pick something that doesn't have X, be it firmware, a driver stack, whatever it may be and just start coding. I am serious, pick a random box at some store and start working. Look at the Sunday flyer, what is being put on sale. Find one of those devices and if it does not have linux support, buy it, start working on it.
Why do you need to wait around for manufacturers to give you devices? Find what people can and will be buying and start supporting that first, the stuff that won't come out for a year doesn't matter if I can't go in a buy a 802.11n card now and get it to work. And if it doesn't support WPA2, I don't want to hear it, go back to your desk and do it over. I want to see the work this time. No doing it in your head.:)
NDIS is not an option, it is not debuggable or portable across architectures. I have a few PPC machines I would like to use a 802.11n USB network card with.
How about any Broadcom wifi card, with firmware so the driver can be stabilized better than their engineers can.
Just because you don't like how hard it will be shouldn't keep you from starting on it.
The position of Trophy wife is available if you are interested. I am accepting applictions. Please send a glossy 8.5x11 with flexibility measurements, Degree rotation, etc... and then I will process your application as soon as it is received.
Who cares about box art? I look at it for ten seconds and then forget about it. Yes, I do get a manual, just not a printed one -- which I don't really care about, since I'm likely to look over it once and then never look at it again, and if I really wanted to, I could print it out. And yes, you can play your games on non-networked machines; Steam has an offline mode.
I also get the Disc, you missed that point.
How is using Steam "giving away" bandwidth, disk space, or processing power to a company? Seriously, that doesn't even make any sense. It's not like they're using your computer for a distributed rendering farm when you're not looking.
Does steam have a process that runs? Does it take up any bandwidth to authenticate with their servers? Will it pass patches on to people close to me in a P2P manner? Just because you treat your computer like a public urinal doesn't mean that mine isn't private to me. I like to keep it clean, only allowing what I want done with it, done with it.
Let's hope that you don't ever connect to the internet with that console so they can't modify your firmware to stop you. For that matter, you better hope that you don't play any games that automatically upgrade the firmware when you first insert them!
I do connect them. If the game needs a firmware update, the company is completely liable to give it to me and to support it. I don't play homebrew games on my "production" game systems. Why would an upgrade be harmful? If they take away my ability to play a legally purchased game, they have a lawsuit on their hands. Simple as that. Theft of service. I was able to do something with it, they took it away, simple as that.
I can't remember the last time a retail game nagged me to do anything. Are you thinking of shareware games?
Quake 3 was one, it required you enter your product code for certain things, sometimes to get onto a server. For "security".
No, not shareware, activation and such, to play a game. Who says I HAVE to have access to the internet? Who says I will put an piece of software I don't trust on a networked computer that has access to the internet? I can use my computer as a glorified word processor if I want. Last I checked, I don't need the internet to use my typewriter. Don't assume from a vendor point of view what the client environment will be like. The application I work on has both a networked and non-networked mode. Get into software development and you will quickly learn that the client environment is not what your nice pretty lab is like.
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I still can't get Sun. They killed the product they would eventually try to use to save the company. They killed their current flagship product and then ran scared back to it when they found out their servers were being replaced by Linux on X86. How did they think they were going to justify a proprietary system (SPARC, Solaris) when there was a perfectly reasonable replacement at a great price point (Linux, X86)? Java is nice, but it won't get them far, and what else do they have? Really? Cloud computing and redundant NAS using COTS parts have eaten any lunch they had. Maybe they are just the most current buggy whip maker... I would hate to see them go, but at least any good parts of Sun are GPL'ed. Sorry to see you go, but maybe it's just time.
http://www.save-solaris.org/schwartz-2006-08-18.html
You know, there are many ways to discuss the death of arcades; the speed of home consoles, the lack of socialization skill among the current generations, etc... I prefer to tell of the death of arcades in a more personal way.
It was the summer of '69... or maybe it was more recent. Anyway, I wanted to play a game of Silent Scope. Now, unless you have been under an arcade rock, you know what this contraption is.
It is the most wonderful piece of gaming which can never be replicated properly in a home console. You play as a sniper, taking out baddies at fairly long distances. The kick is the implementation of it. That is where the game really shines.
The game gives you a replica of a generic sniper rifle. It has a scope on it, hence the name Silent Scope, inside this wonderful input device's scope is a second screen. On this second screen, you see a zoomed view of wherever you are pointing the rifle. This is about the closest I have come to seeing shooting replicated in an arcade.
Needless to say, you keep one eye open to watch the large screen in front of you, while you use your other eye to peer through the scope to sight in on your target. The way you play is exactly like shooting a real rifle, except, instead of targets, you are shooting at 3d baddies.
This machine ate gobs of quarters out of my pockets. I was grateful they were gone, it was a mutually beneficial arrangement. I got to play a game which I was addicted like a meth addict to, and the arcade got my money. I thought nothing could spoil my utopia.
Then, one day, after a rousing game, coming off with the high of almost beating the game on hard, I was walking down the boardwalk. The sun was bright and the wind was blowing off the ocean. Something got caught in my nose.
I went to wipe it off and got whiff of a horrid smell from somewhere. Now, this being the boardwalk, there are a ton of awful smells to go around. So, I went to scratch again, and realized it was coming from my hand. I took another whiff.
Sure enough, someone stinkpalmed the darned Silent Scope rifle.
I was shocked, horrified, felt a little violated. I ran to the nearest bathroom and washed off.
To this day, I still can't bring myself to play that game of roulette. I just don't trust those dirty kids anymore.
Too bad, I really loved Silent Scope. Maybe I will have to buy my own, so I don't have to worry about that. Maybe when I have enough money.
That is my story of the last time I played an arcade game...
I just can't imagine what the dirt balls would do with a guitar if they could do that to a Silent Scope rifle.
I understand this sentiment, but disagree. Their current customers will stay with whatever is necessary to keep those legacy applications running. The customers they need are not their current customers, they have those already, what they need is a product that will increase their customer base, not just pander to those who don't want to change. By doing that, they are cutting off the only viable revenue stream that exists, new customers. Old customers merely maintain an organization, they do not grow it. New customers allow an organization to grow. Sun is shrinking right now, so I don't think their existing customers are really who they should be marketing to. They are jumping ship as it is. Remember, if you are not moving forward, you are moving backwards. This applies all too well to this situation.
There's a lot of solaris-specific software out there. Linux users tend to forget there was a Unix community long before they showed up.
I understand, but at this point, there is a vast amount of software that assumes a GNU userland more than assumes a Unix userland. Linux is now the standard, all vendors have standardized on it. It is what SYSV was supposed to be.
"Unix" admins are now learning Linux, in any flavor in the Universities rather than Sun Solaris these days. They assume Linux IS Unix. Remember, it doesn't matter how much you think you are right if other people tell you otherwise. Linux is now the gold standard, IBM, Dell, and all of the others have made that decision for Sun. Sun decided to kill Solaris 8 on Intel for how long before they dropped a load in their collective pants and realized that the Intel Arch was kicking their Sparc Arch in development speed. They couldn't keep up with the speed of development. Then, in a rush, they pulled Solaris 8 on Intel back, and that is now their savior operating system. A product they KILLED is now their only Business model. Explain that to me.
See http://www.save-solaris.org/ for more information on the time frame. Starts back in 2002. Yes, their only VIABLE product now, was a product that the company decided was not viable to maintain. Talk about poor judgement. They are trying to compete with a commodity market by being a non-commodity product.
As for IPS, you know you can just roll back through ZFS, right? As for why they're using IPS, why not ask Ian Murdock? He's the founder of Debian and works for Sun and worked (he's been promoted) on OpenSol.
It is his job, as well as almost all of Sun, to help keep OpenSolaris relevant. By again pulling off and creating a proprietary Unix, that is not being done. Remember, proprietary means other's stuff doesn't work on your system, not open vs. closed code. See above and the old question "Where is apt-get on this system?" from new admins.
This decision was deliberate. Knowing what Ian was thinking is actually none of my concern, I don't rely on Sun as my only source of revenue. If/When they fail because they have further removed themselves from the market, which has standardized on Linux at this point, is not my concern.
Sun's workstations have stagnated in 2008, I don't know why. Their Amd64 line was the best deal from a real vendor when they came out.
As for the rest... yeah, support matters to some people. It's nice being able to talk the one who wrote the code that's giving you problems, and then getting a patch from them that'll be in the next release.
Umm... I hear rumors that the Linux community will get on top of this soon, COUGH, BUZILLA, COUGH, LKML, COUGH, etc...
Seriously, have you ever tried to get code into OpenSolaris, look at the sponsor/coder relationship. It is archaic It does not foster an OPEN environment. There are bug tracking fields which are only avilable to Sun employees, which some bugs rely on information contained in. I know it is getting better, but man, things get fixed in Linux and Linux applications much faster than in OpenSolaris. This is a process problem on OpenSolaris' part. But that is an organizational discussion for another day.
Also, have you considered the Enter key on your keyboard? It's to the right of the apostrophe on many layouts, and it makes your text easier to read.
By the way, if I cannot put a TAB in to indent a paragraphy, why bother with paragraph separations. I find these block paragraphs useless. How do you know what is a new paragraph and what is borked HTML that is wrapping improperly. Not everyone uses capital letters properly.
I have been working with Solaris for many years. When OpenSolaris was announced, I jumped for joy at what could be accomplished. When it was just a re-release of Solaris major, I said, ok, well, it is a certified Unix(tm) and now open source. But when they started working on Indiana, their replacement for the old Solaris system, I again jumped for joy, a chance to remove the cruft, while keeping ZFS and other Solaris goodies. When Ian jumped on the project, I thought, HOLY cow, we can get Debian GNU/Solaris. Well...... Guess what, they had to re-implement dpkg, why, well, I don't rightly know. Sure, you can install the old packages on the system and you now get a network repository, but darn it, why not just go with the darned proven system. Their current ipkg will break a system if the upgrade doesn't go well. I know dpkg can theoretically do this, but why re-code something that has had YEARS of testing and is used by almost half of the Linux community? I don't get it. Why the heck did they decide to re-implement something that could work so well? Just because it is GPL doesn't taint the core OS, it sits in userland. This must be so that they can sell proprietary Indiana builds to those who don't want to play out in the open. That is the only reason I can see. I really hoped for a good package system, but instead, we get a "me-too" system. It just doesn't make sense. And yes, I have been following OpenSolaris since it was barely usable, about nv 40 or something like that. I really wanted an old school Unix to survive, but at this point, I can't see it happening. They are now, not "Unix" they are "Not Linux" and I don't think they can handle the new market. Their Open Source strategy doesn't make sense. Their new storage line, I cannot see where this has a market. Sure, you get support, but once it is up and running well, there isn't much need for that support. There are much cheaper solutions for the SMB to MB segment, with much better support plans. I hope they survive for MySQL, VirtualBox, Java and NetBeans' sake, but I am not quite sure about it. I cannot find a revenue stream that they are first in class for anymore. Their workstations are a joke. I put together a home made Ultra 24 with the same specs for half of what they are asking. This was when they used the slower Q6600 quad cores. I see they upgraded. For outfitting a small to medium development group, I can't see going with the support premium. I know, support, etc... but hey, I can buy a service plan separately for OpenSolaris and when the H/W fails, just buy a new quad core workstation, which will be faster than the one it is replacing. I can't see the price premium. Apple is another story. Their system is integrated and will only work on their hardware. Sun is trying to compete in the commodity OS market. I just don't see it happening. Comments are welcome.
This is one thing I never got. When prices go up, they only hurt the poor. When food goes up, the middle class and upper class don't starve, the poor do. You have the luxury of being able to cut back on your Starbucks habit. There are those out there that do not have the ability to afford a habit to cut back on. I volunteer at my church's homeless shelter. Guess who isn't getting food anymore? Guess who can't afford the 7 dollar gas prices that trickle into the price of everything? The next time you wish for higher gas prices, thank God that you can afford them and so can your family. There are those out there that don't have the leisure of being able to even afford the trickled down increase in food prices. The same goes for all the greenies asking for ethanol. You don't hurt the rich, you only hurt the poor. The guy trying to make ends meet without a high school diploma. The single mother with two kids whose husband just walked out on her and she needs to find a job QUICK. You never think about them with this glee at the rising prices. My food bank here is getting killed. Food banks all over are woefully understocked, with no end in sight. We can't keep up with the current demand on the service, let alone meet the increased demand with prices of everything going up. This price war is just creating haves and have-nots. Remember, working minimum wage won't buy you a Prius. These people are making do with 20 to 30 year old vehicles, because they CANNOT afford to change. And living hand to mouth does not afford you the luxury to save up for a down payment on a 30K plus hybrid. When there is an electric car or hybrid for 12K, maybe, but until we hit a point with Kia putting out a hybrid with their prices, letting oil stay this expensive is just hurting our poor people. Try talking with the working poor or the unemployed. Their situation is getting worse and worse and everyone is talking about making their lives harder each day. On those kinds of salaries, you cannot afford to move over everything in your house, from your car to your appliances to energy efficient models. Please, just remember, you may have been blessed with the ability to have a cushion in your salary that can absorb this bump in the road, not everyone is as fortunate as you. I don't expect this to change your mind on anything, just think about someone else who may not be as fortunate as you before you revel in their personal Hell. Trying to feed a family while your gas bill goes up just makes health insurance and food all the more expendable. Work has to come above all else. Without work, you cannot afford to live. Everything, including health is traded everyday for work. You may be fortunate enough to not have to make that trade, but there are thousands out here who make that trade every day. There are thousands more who are the children of those who have to make that trade and guess who gets to suffer? The children whose parents cannot afford the health insurance premium or the "healty" food. Remember, it is much cheaper to eat poorly than it is to eat healthily. When everything is getting squeezed, every cent must go to calories. Guess what food gives the most calories per cent? Guess who cannot go to Whole Foods for the most organic food? I do not mean to degrade your sense of glee, however, there are those out there who suffer from something that you take such pleasure in. Only education and jobs can solve this problem in the long run. However, to cut down on the pain suffered day to day by the working poor, we need a solution that will start working sooner rather than later so that some day, your hand me down hybrid can be bought second or third hand by someone. When that happens, we can be energy independent, until then, rising oil prices will continue to hurt the poor.
My PowWow account just stopped connecting...
And so can the United Negro College fund. I'm white, so they can fuck right off. There I said it.
I agree. Just because they found a program that perfectly fits their needs for a youth program doesn't mean that they "bought us out" It just means they see the immense value in not reinventing the wheel, when they have a wheel that fits all their needs. They recognized the value and quality of the program and just decided to let that be their official youth program. Makes sense to me. They need program, we have it, works well both ways.
From TFA,
"Nintendo's Wii. Sony's PlayStation 3 Elite. Microsoft's Xbox 360."
Hmm, I didn't know Sony made a PlayStation 3 Elite. Damn, one more console I need to have. Plus, what are they talking about when the consoles go into the garbage, I have my original C64 still setup and working, who actually throws these out?
I thought the new version of Pigin I installed had a bug in it because the text input box was so small and I couldn't resize it. I never noticed I don't write more than a line of text in any IM message. Wow, I thought the software was broken, guess it's my IM conversations. It took a fork of the program for me to realize it was a feature.
I would have to differ with you that the keyboards on wide-screens are "better." I actually hate them because only Toshiba has figured out that you want the keyboard CENTERED on your viewing screen. Most reading and writing are done in the center of the screen, however, most wide-screen laptops just shift the keyboard over to the left and don't realize that the typist is now crooked when working. This is the main reason why I like square laptops. Plus, the length stinks on anything but a large table. Forget putting a trackball next to a laptop anywhere but at home or the office at a desk. The centered thing really gets me though, you figured someone would have noticed that you are not working square anymore. Very uncomfortable for any period of time. Usability studies I guess only come out of Japan now.
But you understand where this is heading. Google more than could see that this was an unimproved road. That is a legal classification of roadway. In your case, the police have no legal right to use that road you talked about. Once you reminded the police that it was your road, they must, by law, respect it. Which, it sounds like they did. I also would like to thank you for allowing the police to use the road for keeping the community safe.
They didn't put their building in a public place, it was on a private road, that means they have every expectation of privacy. That is why you pay more for a private road house.
You completely misunderstand the difference between government and private corporations.
Sorry, I am a surveyor. Private is just that, Google was trespassing. They have no rights to go on that road. This is tantamount to walking inside someone's house and taking pictures of their bedroom. If the road is private, they have every expectation of privacy. Sorry Google, better read those posted signs better next time. Open and shut case. Any good judge will find for the plaintiff on this one. If this were a public road, fine, all is fair, but it is private for a reason. I personally would have the association go after them. And for all those who don't know, yes, private does mean greater value. You can control who comes in and out of your development. That is why the signs are posted for residents and guest only. Private roads are not maintained by the local government, so no plowing, no garbage pickup, etc... With that also comes the expectation of privacy. Whoops, Google better get a good lawyer for this one. As long as the street had a sign on it, that is enough of a warning for those entering. There does NOT need to be a gate or a speed bump or anything else. Just a sign to designate as private. There really is no excuse for this. If they want to do mapping, they should have a F'ing surveyor on staff. Guess they don't. I wonder if the licensed surveyor's salary is less than what these people will get out of Google. There is tons of precedent on this. I am really surprised Google was the one to make this mistake. So much for "Don't be evil."
That is one organized crack dealer who is scheduling his shipments via his iPhone. Last time I bought crack, I didn't even get a customer service number, let alone online tracking. My how things have changed.
Umm, Microsoft owns the rights to the 360 brand. Therefore, every console that gets made, they have to give a license to. Every license they pass out is guaranteed to be associated with hardware sold. Granted, not EVERY system will be hooked up to the net, but come on, that is the point of it. So, let me get this straight, MS makes each one, therefore knows how many are going to be out in the wild, their servers get hit with less than the number of consoles that they knew could be out there and they still had problems? Something doesn't add up. How could they NOT know how many people were going to at least attempt to make an account? Xbox sales == attempts for signup. How could they NOT have an idea of how they needed to scale. Not only that. Did Christmas change it's date this year? What the heck do you think would happen on Christmas day? Did they think everyone was going to wait until support hours the day after?
They wanted sales, they got sales, then couldn't handle the sales they had hoped for. Come on.
I personally have more of a problem with the boat load of cash put into funding AIDS research. It doesn't find a cure for 30 years, ehh, keep plowing money into it. When will we as a society just accept the fact that it is a virus, and you can't cure a virus. We have spent less on curing the common cold than AIDS and AIDS is far harder to contract. A little precaution and some good judgement and you are fine. I personally think we should work on the stuff you can't help getting infected with. And, if we don't find a cure, ahh well, let's go Green and not take anything for it. No carbon footprint for the medication and the gene pool improves from a species perspective. I think it is the greenest option yet.
From this post I thought I was reading Digg. Ehh, when they all move up to Canada, at least I get to read http://fouillee.com/
Heh, let's see how many babelfish that...
Sorry, I found it funny.
He is fighting for something he believes in. Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with him and I think he is causing more harm than good. Why go after him, when there are lawyers out there who will get an obviously guilty man off for double murder even with DNA evidence pointing to him doing it. Ohh, and by the way, my gloves don't fit when I have a rubber glove on either, especially after they have shrunk due to being soaked in a liquid and dried. I want that lawyer disbarred. So, get a murderer off on a technicality, he is a hero, try to remove an evil (perceived by him) and improve society, disbar him. Gotta love it.
Why don't they go out to Staples, close their eyes, pick up a box in the wireless networking shelf, with preference to the 802.11n boxes and pick one and start writing. What about USB wifi cards? Those still are pretty well hit and miss. What about Broadcom wifi chips, you know the ones shipped with half of HP systems. Start working on a free driver or firmware or whatever is needed. Then, when all the wifi chips are supported and I don't have to worry about my new laptop not being able to get on the internet because HP locked the mini-pci slot to only one card, then we can take a walk down to the Video Card isle. Until you are done with Wifi, we will hold off on the hard stuff.
:)
Don't get me wrong, This is a great service. Just pick something that doesn't have X, be it firmware, a driver stack, whatever it may be and just start coding. I am serious, pick a random box at some store and start working. Look at the Sunday flyer, what is being put on sale. Find one of those devices and if it does not have linux support, buy it, start working on it.
Why do you need to wait around for manufacturers to give you devices? Find what people can and will be buying and start supporting that first, the stuff that won't come out for a year doesn't matter if I can't go in a buy a 802.11n card now and get it to work. And if it doesn't support WPA2, I don't want to hear it, go back to your desk and do it over. I want to see the work this time. No doing it in your head.
NDIS is not an option, it is not debuggable or portable across architectures. I have a few PPC machines I would like to use a 802.11n USB network card with.
How about any Broadcom wifi card, with firmware so the driver can be stabilized better than their engineers can.
Just because you don't like how hard it will be shouldn't keep you from starting on it.
The position of Trophy wife is available if you are interested. I am accepting applictions. Please send a glossy 8.5x11 with flexibility measurements, Degree rotation, etc... and then I will process your application as soon as it is received.
Who cares about box art? I look at it for ten seconds and then forget about it. Yes, I do get a manual, just not a printed one -- which I don't really care about, since I'm likely to look over it once and then never look at it again, and if I really wanted to, I could print it out. And yes, you can play your games on non-networked machines; Steam has an offline mode.
I also get the Disc, you missed that point.
How is using Steam "giving away" bandwidth, disk space, or processing power to a company? Seriously, that doesn't even make any sense. It's not like they're using your computer for a distributed rendering farm when you're not looking.
Does steam have a process that runs? Does it take up any bandwidth to authenticate with their servers? Will it pass patches on to people close to me in a P2P manner? Just because you treat your computer like a public urinal doesn't mean that mine isn't private to me. I like to keep it clean, only allowing what I want done with it, done with it.
Let's hope that you don't ever connect to the internet with that console so they can't modify your firmware to stop you. For that matter, you better hope that you don't play any games that automatically upgrade the firmware when you first insert them!
I do connect them. If the game needs a firmware update, the company is completely liable to give it to me and to support it. I don't play homebrew games on my "production" game systems. Why would an upgrade be harmful? If they take away my ability to play a legally purchased game, they have a lawsuit on their hands. Simple as that. Theft of service. I was able to do something with it, they took it away, simple as that.
I can't remember the last time a retail game nagged me to do anything. Are you thinking of shareware games?
Quake 3 was one, it required you enter your product code for certain things, sometimes to get onto a server. For "security".
No, not shareware, activation and such, to play a game. Who says I HAVE to have access to the internet? Who says I will put an piece of software I don't trust on a networked computer that has access to the internet? I can use my computer as a glorified word processor if I want. Last I checked, I don't need the internet to use my typewriter. Don't assume from a vendor point of view what the client environment will be like. The application I work on has both a networked and non-networked mode. Get into software development and you will quickly learn that the client environment is not what your nice pretty lab is like.
I meant to say "...Valve is happy to buy all of their..."