All too often, real maintenance and security can get replaced by "checking off boxes on the form," and the higher up the company it goes, the more likely that is to occur, IMHO. Moving maintenance and security higher up the company also tends to pressure things into "one size fits all."
This isn't universally true, and in some circumstances, it's probably the right model. But at a research facility or University, other than administration, it's probably not.
I was about to put out a "Pick up the torch" post when I found yours, first.
Is there some sort of licensing issue with swsusp2?
Otherwise, I would have asked if there's any problem with someone else trying to push swsusp2 into the vanilla kernel. After all, the source is out there, isn't it? I haven't followed this in full detail, but I glanced occasionally at the threads.
They had backups - that was even in my comment. But it can be a pain to restore from tape, and the data is offline while you do so. The idea of the RAID was to not have downtime, and some non-trivial amount of the time, it just doesn't succeed in that. They weren't stupid, just inconvenienced, and their SLA took a hit.
I don't actually run RAID, but I've gotten some interesting stories from some (more than 1) people who do.
In a RAID cabinet, you have a bunch of identical drives, most likely purchased together, too. Then you submit them to an essentially identical environment and operating history. Barring a defect, and assuming wearout-type phenomena, something bad may well happen.
The weakest drive fails first. Power down the RAID box to replace the bad drive, so you can bring it back up and restore the data. The stress of the power-down and restart is enough to kill the second-weakest drive. Now you have to go back to tape, and RAID didn't do squat. This doesn't happen all the time, but it's surprisingly more likely than you'd think - enough so that they've quit using RAID as "backup".
Another alternative would be using different drive models, or finding some other way to change the vintage/history issue. Hotplugging drives while leaving the cabinet up would be another good idea.
What's "moving cheese"? If it's a management fad, no doubt I'm going to hear about it and live it sometime in the next few years. A heads-up would be truly helpful.
Hey, real value from Slashdot. Or at least anti-anti-value.
I already pursue your "substitute goods" for music. IMHO, that's not the greatest ill.
There are 2:
1: RIAA (and MPAA, for that matter) are busy buying legislation effectively giving them veto power over the electronics industry. The most likely consequence will be to further push the electonics industry off of US soil. Maybe I don't have to buy their stuff, but if they get this veto power, it endangers my job.
2: The Constitution identified patents and copyrights with an eye to the common good, with the intent that both were to enter the public domain after a "limited time," and become fodder for future arts and invention. My favorite quote, though perhaps not directly applicable, is Isaac Newton. (probably a botched paraphrase) "If I see further, it's because I stand on the shoulders of giants." Copyrights and patents granted "limited monopolies" to keep inventors inventing and artists artisting, and THEN to contribute basis for future works. NOT to guarantee contuing income for any person or corporation.
You just have to twist your brain a bit to understand the current administration's logic with respect to anti-trust, etc.
In my best Stephen Colbert imitation...
These so-called "monopolies" got to their current positions by being successful. Shouldn't our society reward success? Anti-trust litigation is essentially punishing success. So are progressive tax rates, for that matter. These are IMPORTANT matters, and NEED to be fixed. In that light, this administration has done a good job.
I have mixed feelings about something like CNR, and perhaps it's because I don't fully understand it.
My impression is that it's like one-click shopping for sofware. Find software on a web browser, push a button, it gets installed, and you get billed. I guess that's ok, for someone who feels a little scared to type "emerge doom3". But that's not what I'd really like to get out of something like CNR.
First off, I like the idea of a subscription service. In these days of security issues, it's downright stupid to adopt a sales-without-service model for computers. Any computer which will be connected to a network needs some form of regular service plan. My mom's system runs "emerge sync" weekly, "glsa-check" nightly, and emails the results to me. Even if glsa-check is only tied into the portage database, and thus only does something new weekly, at least the nightly emails will nag me into taking care of it. When there's a security issue, I ssh in and fix it. When I visit, I bring her system fully up to date. That's a "policy."
I'd like to see some sort of update/security policy out of a service like CNR. In particular, something like emerge is very good about upgrading packages and identifying config files that may require updating. But it doesn't update them, it just tells you that it needs to be done. IMHO, THIS is where the real effort needs to be in a subscription service, in tweaking configuration files after update, yet not breaking the system.
But the romance of the manned missions is what keeps taxpayers interested enough to fund ANY space program. Cut the manned missions entirely, and about the only space stuff you'll see will be weather and communications satellites, so Joe 6pak can see the hurricane bearing down on him, on TV. Space science will follow manned space down the toilet, because while it's cheaper, that's only in relative terms.
Someone needs to tell this to the RIAA. Of course they're trying to go down the second side of your OR clause, but we always have the free choice I've taken - reduce or eliminate music purchases, altogether. Though I am partial to Indie stuff from CDBaby, and AFAIK they're independent, and not Evil.
Time for a rehash of my same, tired old rant. But because it and I am tired, I'll make it short.
The government has no monopoly on stupidity. Repeat, the government has no monopoly on stupidity.
I've spent decades in a large corporation, and see RAMPANT stupidity, and this corporation is known for being pretty well run. I've heard stories of places run worse, though sometimes it seems hard to believe.
At some level, governments are meant to be corrected by the ballot box. At some level, corporations are meant to be corrected by the marketplace.
Both correction mechanisms sometimes work, and sometimes fail. In particular, marketplace correction doesn't work well on monopolies - like telephone, cable TV, or for that matter, copyright and patent protected monopolies. (At least patents expire, though the well-heeled corporation is always buying more.)
We always bring up the speech vs beer argument with respect to software. In that light, it's common to find free beer that isn't free speech, and it's difficult to concoct free speech that isn't free beer.
An ISP is a service, running on real hardware, so the beer ain't free. But the speech can be, and it's best for the nation and world if it is.
Mitigating factors would include the thin blue lines, and any telltale cues that they are sponsored links.
But the real question is whether the sponsored links fit appropriately into the "usefulness order" of the search results. I have no problem with a sponsored link if it's giving me what I want, and if it's lower-ranked than a link that's more useful to me.
From my perspective: Google serves me, and makes money in the process. Microsoft serves itself, makes money, and might serve me in the process.
But I have the perspective of many others found here. I don't know how much of that perspective, wrt Google vs Microsoft is shared by the general population.
It all boils down to this: Are the search results near the top useful? The common impression today is that Google returns the most useful links near the top. The only way Microsoft can move up in this arena is to take a clue from "It's a Wonderful Life" and remove their typical corporate practices from their search engine. Their search engine MUST deliver decent results to queries like "windows sucks" and "linux rules" and less inflammatory equivalents. In other words, they have to be helpful at finding Linux device drivers, and not point you to a page about Windows hardware coverage. If their search engine doesn't serve the customer first, it won't move up in ranking. Think about google's "sponsored results" for a moment... they don't get in the way of the best links, they haven't pushed the best links off of the front page. They don't get in the way of serving me.
There is EVERY reason to be in space, now. It just happens that we aren't pursuing the correct reasons at the moment, leaving them neglected in favor of pursuing silly reasons.
So far, I can absolutely do without clothes or mobile phones from internet.cn. Never had to, may never.
That's not an anti-Chinese statement either, it's just practical. Practically nobody buys clothes from the mill, and practically no mills sell clothes. You buy them from a retail, catalog, or online presence, for instance Eddie Bauer or LL Bean both sell all 3 ways. As for mobile phones, most people don't buy them from Motorola or Nokia or whoever, they buy them from Verizon or Radio Shack or someone like that.
For that matter, I don't buy movies or Coca Cola online, either. But I do go to movie sites sometimes, check out the trailers, etc.
I would guess that if China really tries to separate itself and establish a separate Internet.cn, those who need access will get it. Those who don't will ignore it. As obnoxious as the US may be these days, our approach to the Internet has not been based on censorship and information control. (Not that it isn't happening or trying to happen, it's just not the basis.) I can't see the rest of the world, in a fit of anti-US pique, signing up for the degree of censorship the Chinese are putting at the ground level of their Internet.cn.
Strikes me that we're seeing something of an answer to the old, "When will Linux make it to the desktop?"
For many, the answer appears to be NEVER! Don't even bother applying!
When you say, "Don't do it for kids, give them what's commonly out there, and perhaps introduce them to Unix in high school," that's effectively saying, "NEVER!" As someone else mentioned, kids are the most adaptable human beings out there. In fact, so far their entire lives have pretty much consisted of adapting to the world around them, and will be until somewhere into adulthood. Look at all the jokes about adults getting kids to help them with their VCRs or whatever other newfangled gadget.
Then there's the applications argument. "I want a word processor." No, it's "I want a word processor that does what Microsoft Word does." Then it's "I want a word processor that does what Microsoft Word does and exchanges documents with it." Finally it turns into "I just don't want to fuss trying out all of these other stupid crippleware programs, or other barely-functional ports or emulations, just give me Microsoft Word." Then make this the same for N applications.
That's it! If you subscribe these arguments and precepts, its utterly, completely hopeless. You may as well make plans now for Total Windows Migration, and arrange the intravenous drip from your bank account to Microsoft.
The assumptions need to be changed, and perhaps it really does begin with the adaptability of kids.
With a machine that old, it needs all the help it can get. Plus the focus has moved and you can't get a Stage3 for i586 any more, it's generic x86 or i686 and beyond. My other machines are Stage3.
Re:World simulation vs. active participation
on
Patrick Curry's Snow Day
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
>...exercise it or risk letting it go to waste. >...pasty kids who don't want... >...sweaty and gross... >...interact with actual people who you can't block with the click of a button.
Part of growing in life is leaving your comfort zone, and that comfort zone can be defined physically, emotionally, intellectually, and even culinarily.
IMHO: If we stay too far inside our comfort zone, too much of the time, we're missing too much of the value of life. For that matter, everyone (that dread "everyone") moans about the lack of civility in modern discourse, public and politic. I see part of the reason being in cable TV. Once upon a time, we all got our news feeds from the same 3 networks, 4 if you include PBS. Maybe some of us weren't in our comfort zones when watching the news, but we all shared a core zone. Now with cable diversity, we can stay in our comfort zone when watching the news - Fox, CNN, PBS, conventional network, etc. The same is now true on radio, as well. But our shared core is gone, and our world-views based on the news have diverged, as well.
In addition, getting more of our interaction online can be damaging, too. We could seek out a more diverse group of people to interact with - people who would normally be kept far beyond our reach by simple geography and today's tendancy not to write letters. But instead we have an understandable tendancy to seek out like-minded people for discourse - regardless of geography. This bypasses important lessons in how to cope with disagreements and the downright ornery.
Besides, part of the fun of going outside to play in the snow was coming in after, sitting in front of the vent (forced hot-air heat) and drinking a cup of hot chocolate and eating Graham crackers while watching a little TV.
Clearly the ??AA is sewing up the media stream path between their studios and our corneas and eardrums. But this is only going to work in the US, and to the extent that the US can push its laws onto other nations. Given the popularity of the US abroad these days, I don't expect complete success in forcing our IP regimens overseas.
If Bollywood and other foreign media areas don't smell opportunity here, it's because their scent receptors are burned out. Agreed that American media appears to be our one export left, that's no more guaranteed that steel, cars, technology, or weapons were. (Weapons aren't gone yet, but we're working hard in that direction.)
In the long run, I fully expect the rest of the world to thumb their noses at US concepts of DRM, go their own way, and let us stew in our own juices.
Which brings back the subject line... US citizen goes overseas, likes the media experience over there, tries to bring "foreign version" media and equipment back. Gets prosecuted. Obviously this depends on the scale and wealth of the citizen. If he's really rich, doing it for himself, no problem. If he's mildly rich, and tries to open a botique shop with the stuff, he'll get nailed, and hard.
Slashdot Mirror
All too often, real maintenance and security can get replaced by "checking off boxes on the form," and the higher up the company it goes, the more likely that is to occur, IMHO. Moving maintenance and security higher up the company also tends to pressure things into "one size fits all."
This isn't universally true, and in some circumstances, it's probably the right model. But at a research facility or University, other than administration, it's probably not.
I was about to put out a "Pick up the torch" post when I found yours, first.
Is there some sort of licensing issue with swsusp2?
Otherwise, I would have asked if there's any problem with someone else trying to push swsusp2 into the vanilla kernel. After all, the source is out there, isn't it? I haven't followed this in full detail, but I glanced occasionally at the threads.
So the answer is obvious, use the Ultimate - RAID 11! (Others' RAID only goes to 10)
They had backups - that was even in my comment.
But it can be a pain to restore from tape, and the data is offline while you do so.
The idea of the RAID was to not have downtime, and some non-trivial amount of the time, it just doesn't succeed in that.
They weren't stupid, just inconvenienced, and their SLA took a hit.
I don't actually run RAID, but I've gotten some interesting stories from some (more than 1) people who do.
In a RAID cabinet, you have a bunch of identical drives, most likely purchased together, too. Then you submit them to an essentially identical environment and operating history. Barring a defect, and assuming wearout-type phenomena, something bad may well happen.
The weakest drive fails first. Power down the RAID box to replace the bad drive, so you can bring it back up and restore the data. The stress of the power-down and restart is enough to kill the second-weakest drive. Now you have to go back to tape, and RAID didn't do squat. This doesn't happen all the time, but it's surprisingly more likely than you'd think - enough so that they've quit using RAID as "backup".
Another alternative would be using different drive models, or finding some other way to change the vintage/history issue. Hotplugging drives while leaving the cabinet up would be another good idea.
When did William Shatner do a stint in the ISP business?
What's "moving cheese"? If it's a management fad, no doubt I'm going to hear about it and live it sometime in the next few years. A heads-up would be truly helpful.
Hey, real value from Slashdot. Or at least anti-anti-value.
I already pursue your "substitute goods" for music. IMHO, that's not the greatest ill.
There are 2:
1: RIAA (and MPAA, for that matter) are busy buying legislation effectively giving them veto power over the electronics industry. The most likely consequence will be to further push the electonics industry off of US soil. Maybe I don't have to buy their stuff, but if they get this veto power, it endangers my job.
2: The Constitution identified patents and copyrights with an eye to the common good, with the intent that both were to enter the public domain after a "limited time," and become fodder for future arts and invention. My favorite quote, though perhaps not directly applicable, is Isaac Newton. (probably a botched paraphrase) "If I see further, it's because I stand on the shoulders of giants." Copyrights and patents granted "limited monopolies" to keep inventors inventing and artists artisting, and THEN to contribute basis for future works. NOT to guarantee contuing income for any person or corporation.
I dunno... If it gets cheaper than skeet, and fits in the launcher.
PULL!!
You just have to twist your brain a bit to understand the current administration's logic with respect to anti-trust, etc.
In my best Stephen Colbert imitation...
These so-called "monopolies" got to their current positions by being successful. Shouldn't our society reward success? Anti-trust litigation is essentially punishing success. So are progressive tax rates, for that matter. These are IMPORTANT matters, and NEED to be fixed. In that light, this administration has done a good job.
I have mixed feelings about something like CNR, and perhaps it's because I don't fully understand it.
My impression is that it's like one-click shopping for sofware. Find software on a web browser, push a button, it gets installed, and you get billed. I guess that's ok, for someone who feels a little scared to type "emerge doom3". But that's not what I'd really like to get out of something like CNR.
First off, I like the idea of a subscription service. In these days of security issues, it's downright stupid to adopt a sales-without-service model for computers. Any computer which will be connected to a network needs some form of regular service plan. My mom's system runs "emerge sync" weekly, "glsa-check" nightly, and emails the results to me. Even if glsa-check is only tied into the portage database, and thus only does something new weekly, at least the nightly emails will nag me into taking care of it. When there's a security issue, I ssh in and fix it. When I visit, I bring her system fully up to date. That's a "policy."
I'd like to see some sort of update/security policy out of a service like CNR. In particular, something like emerge is very good about upgrading packages and identifying config files that may require updating. But it doesn't update them, it just tells you that it needs to be done. IMHO, THIS is where the real effort needs to be in a subscription service, in tweaking configuration files after update, yet not breaking the system.
But the romance of the manned missions is what keeps taxpayers interested enough to fund ANY space program. Cut the manned missions entirely, and about the only space stuff you'll see will be weather and communications satellites, so Joe 6pak can see the hurricane bearing down on him, on TV. Space science will follow manned space down the toilet, because while it's cheaper, that's only in relative terms.
Someone needs to tell this to the RIAA. Of course they're trying to go down the second side of your OR clause, but we always have the free choice I've taken - reduce or eliminate music purchases, altogether. Though I am partial to Indie stuff from CDBaby, and AFAIK they're independent, and not Evil.
Time for a rehash of my same, tired old rant. But because it and I am tired, I'll make it short.
The government has no monopoly on stupidity.
Repeat, the government has no monopoly on stupidity.
I've spent decades in a large corporation, and see RAMPANT stupidity, and this corporation is known for being pretty well run. I've heard stories of places run worse, though sometimes it seems hard to believe.
At some level, governments are meant to be corrected by the ballot box.
At some level, corporations are meant to be corrected by the marketplace.
Both correction mechanisms sometimes work, and sometimes fail. In particular, marketplace correction doesn't work well on monopolies - like telephone, cable TV, or for that matter, copyright and patent protected monopolies. (At least patents expire, though the well-heeled corporation is always buying more.)
Speech vs Beer
We always bring up the speech vs beer argument with respect to software. In that light, it's common to find free beer that isn't free speech, and it's difficult to concoct free speech that isn't free beer.
An ISP is a service, running on real hardware, so the beer ain't free. But the speech can be, and it's best for the nation and world if it is.
Possibly Evil.
Mitigating factors would include the thin blue lines, and any telltale cues that they are sponsored links.
But the real question is whether the sponsored links fit appropriately into the "usefulness order" of the search results. I have no problem with a sponsored link if it's giving me what I want, and if it's lower-ranked than a link that's more useful to me.
This is the key.
From my perspective:
Google serves me, and makes money in the process.
Microsoft serves itself, makes money, and might serve me in the process.
But I have the perspective of many others found here. I don't know how much of that perspective, wrt Google vs Microsoft is shared by the general population.
It all boils down to this: Are the search results near the top useful?
The common impression today is that Google returns the most useful links near the top. The only way Microsoft can move up in this arena is to take a clue from "It's a Wonderful Life" and remove their typical corporate practices from their search engine. Their search engine MUST deliver decent results to queries like "windows sucks" and "linux rules" and less inflammatory equivalents. In other words, they have to be helpful at finding Linux device drivers, and not point you to a page about Windows hardware coverage. If their search engine doesn't serve the customer first, it won't move up in ranking. Think about google's "sponsored results" for a moment... they don't get in the way of the best links, they haven't pushed the best links off of the front page. They don't get in the way of serving me.
There is EVERY reason to be in space, now. It just happens that we aren't pursuing the correct reasons at the moment, leaving them neglected in favor of pursuing silly reasons.
If my President and his administration aren't concerned, why should I be?
(Interpret this post as a bash, as humor, as sarcasm, as anger, as sadness, as anything but serious.)
So far, I can absolutely do without clothes or mobile phones from internet.cn. Never had to, may never.
That's not an anti-Chinese statement either, it's just practical. Practically nobody buys clothes from the mill, and practically no mills sell clothes. You buy them from a retail, catalog, or online presence, for instance Eddie Bauer or LL Bean both sell all 3 ways. As for mobile phones, most people don't buy them from Motorola or Nokia or whoever, they buy them from Verizon or Radio Shack or someone like that.
For that matter, I don't buy movies or Coca Cola online, either. But I do go to movie sites sometimes, check out the trailers, etc.
I would guess that if China really tries to separate itself and establish a separate Internet.cn, those who need access will get it. Those who don't will ignore it. As obnoxious as the US may be these days, our approach to the Internet has not been based on censorship and information control. (Not that it isn't happening or trying to happen, it's just not the basis.) I can't see the rest of the world, in a fit of anti-US pique, signing up for the degree of censorship the Chinese are putting at the ground level of their Internet.cn.
Strikes me that we're seeing something of an answer to the old, "When will Linux make it to the desktop?"
For many, the answer appears to be NEVER! Don't even bother applying!
When you say, "Don't do it for kids, give them what's commonly out there, and perhaps introduce them to Unix in high school," that's effectively saying, "NEVER!" As someone else mentioned, kids are the most adaptable human beings out there. In fact, so far their entire lives have pretty much consisted of adapting to the world around them, and will be until somewhere into adulthood. Look at all the jokes about adults getting kids to help them with their VCRs or whatever other newfangled gadget.
Then there's the applications argument. "I want a word processor." No, it's "I want a word processor that does what Microsoft Word does." Then it's "I want a word processor that does what Microsoft Word does and exchanges documents with it." Finally it turns into "I just don't want to fuss trying out all of these other stupid crippleware programs, or other barely-functional ports or emulations, just give me Microsoft Word." Then make this the same for N applications.
That's it! If you subscribe these arguments and precepts, its utterly, completely hopeless. You may as well make plans now for Total Windows Migration, and arrange the intravenous drip from your bank account to Microsoft.
The assumptions need to be changed, and perhaps it really does begin with the adaptability of kids.
One of my servers at home has a Stage 1 install.
It's a K6-3.
CFLAGS="-O2 -march=k6-3 -pipe"
CHOST="i586-pc-linux-gnu"
With a machine that old, it needs all the help it can get. Plus the focus has moved and you can't get a Stage3 for i586 any more, it's generic x86 or i686 and beyond. My other machines are Stage3.
>...exercise it or risk letting it go to waste.
>...pasty kids who don't want...
>...sweaty and gross...
>...interact with actual people who you can't block with the click of a button.
Part of growing in life is leaving your comfort zone, and that comfort zone can be defined physically, emotionally, intellectually, and even culinarily.
IMHO:
If we stay too far inside our comfort zone, too much of the time, we're missing too much of the value of life. For that matter, everyone (that dread "everyone") moans about the lack of civility in modern discourse, public and politic. I see part of the reason being in cable TV. Once upon a time, we all got our news feeds from the same 3 networks, 4 if you include PBS. Maybe some of us weren't in our comfort zones when watching the news, but we all shared a core zone. Now with cable diversity, we can stay in our comfort zone when watching the news - Fox, CNN, PBS, conventional network, etc. The same is now true on radio, as well. But our shared core is gone, and our world-views based on the news have diverged, as well.
In addition, getting more of our interaction online can be damaging, too. We could seek out a more diverse group of people to interact with - people who would normally be kept far beyond our reach by simple geography and today's tendancy not to write letters. But instead we have an understandable tendancy to seek out like-minded people for discourse - regardless of geography. This bypasses important lessons in how to cope with disagreements and the downright ornery.
Besides, part of the fun of going outside to play in the snow was coming in after, sitting in front of the vent (forced hot-air heat) and drinking a cup of hot chocolate and eating Graham crackers while watching a little TV.
The video you requested no matter what it was or how old, has been reclassified in the interest of National Security.
Clearly the ??AA is sewing up the media stream path between their studios and our corneas and eardrums. But this is only going to work in the US, and to the extent that the US can push its laws onto other nations. Given the popularity of the US abroad these days, I don't expect complete success in forcing our IP regimens overseas.
If Bollywood and other foreign media areas don't smell opportunity here, it's because their scent receptors are burned out. Agreed that American media appears to be our one export left, that's no more guaranteed that steel, cars, technology, or weapons were. (Weapons aren't gone yet, but we're working hard in that direction.)
In the long run, I fully expect the rest of the world to thumb their noses at US concepts of DRM, go their own way, and let us stew in our own juices.
Which brings back the subject line...
US citizen goes overseas, likes the media experience over there, tries to bring "foreign version" media and equipment back. Gets prosecuted. Obviously this depends on the scale and wealth of the citizen. If he's really rich, doing it for himself, no problem. If he's mildly rich, and tries to open a botique shop with the stuff, he'll get nailed, and hard.