It does not bloody well make administration easier! If you have say X servers scattered over Y locations, it makes sense to call them:
(site)(os)(function)(number)
i.e.
sydwindb002
meaning sydney windows database 002
It may be consistent, if you stick to it, but it's not self-explanatory. You just had to explain it, and just try getting non-sysadmins to understand it. Much less remember it.
as opposed to tauron or frickin picon, or smurf (I'm not kidding you). Best of all though I've seen was server. Just server.
Serving what?? This was in a rack of 27 severs in total.
As a sysad, it shits me when people come up with 'cute' nonsensical names that have no consistency and aren't self explanatory. I mean, good software engineering principles dictate that you use meaningful variable names. Why not server names as well?
Good server naming schemes do have a pattern. Geographic names (Continent, nation, province, city) species names (Kingdom, phylum,..., species, breed...)
If you did name them after TV shows, you might give your Silicon Valley datacenter names from Buffy The Vampire Slayer [the show was set in Sunnyvale, CA] and your New York datacenter names from NYPD Blue or Sex and the City.
As you said, the best systems are consistent and self-explanatory. They're also memorable, and it helps if they have a built-in mnemonic.
I had a Virgin Mobile phone for a while, and I was constantly getting collections calls on it.
I'm pretty sure that Virgin gets its phone number pool from people whose phone service got cut off for nonpayment (and probably also have dozens of other unpaid bills.)
The only way I got out of that was to port in a number from another carrier.
(Provide instructions on how to open and read a paper newspaper.)
Seriously - you're fucking kidding, right?
Mostly, but at the rate newspapers are bleeding money these days, there may be only a few (NYT, WSJ, and maybe one or two others) left in fifty years. And probably only old farts will have much experience with actually unfolding them.
1. The students won't care. They'll be concerned with whatever popular culture dominates in 2059, not with old tech. Except for the nerds.
2. If you do this, preserve other things as well. Preserve a copy of the newspaper from the Obama inauguration. (Provide instructions on how to open and read a paper newspaper.) Preserve whatever popular culture dominates in 2009. Preserve pictures of the school and letters from the students.
3. Think carefully about whether you'd really like to inflict Windows XP and Compaq hardware on a new generation of students.
4. Store it someplace dry. Moisture is your biggest enemy. Basements will flood, roofs will leak. Think mold, think corrosion.
5. Motherboard batteries will die, and may leak. Remove them and all other batteries. Forget laptops.
Why should it matter to you whether he hacks his coupon-funded box, takes it apart for spare resistors and copper, or uses it to shim up a wobbly table? I mean, it's not like the coupons could be used to cure cancer. The stated intent of the program is watching television, for chrissake.
But is 10.3 and 10.4 being faster than 10.0 and 10.1 really an achievement?
When version (n+1) is faster than version n, and not because of Moore's law, yes, it's a huge achievement. Because it almost NEVER happens. Seriously, name two other software packages where that's happened.
In a sense, Apple had nowhere to go but up, and Microsoft had nowhere to go but down.
It's easy to say that, with the benefit of hindsight, but Apple certainly could have flubbed its new OS, and Microsoft certainly could have improved upon XP.
All the Linux distributions are "bloated" compared with what we had several years ago.
Some more than others, but at least Linux is easy enough to pare down.
The latest Mac OS X is bloated compared with the prior ones.
Perhaps technically, but there has also been extraordinary progress in optimization with succcessive OS X releases. If you have an older Mac, you'd almost always be better off running 10.3 or 10.4 than you would running 10.1 (which managed to be both feature-poor and hardware-intensive.)
Which, if I'm not mistaken, lacks a passenger airbag.
All cars sold in the US in 1995 were required to have driver and passenger front airbags. (Most models complied earlier than that.) So your car, when it was new, would have not have met the US safety standards you were just denigrating.
(That's not to say your car is unsafe, or even that there aren't millions of technically road-legal cars in the US that are less safe than yours.)
I just find it really funny that others would piss away free TVs over minor ads. Maybe if you were rich enough to already be doing that, then you could stand on your high moral horse and do that. It reminds me of those book covers that had local ads on them. Did it piss off some people? Yep. They could go buy their own book covers that had their own or no ads at a higher rate. Most everyone used the "free" ad based book covers and just drew on them.
I think the main objection was that the teachers could not decide whether or not they wanted the program to be shown. There was no room for teacher discretion, no matter what other educational priorities might be scheduled for the day. State achievement test? Final exams? Too bad, gotta wait until after the mandatory television program..
Imagine what would happen if the students were suspended for drawing on their book covers. Or if the teachers were disciplined for letting the students do that in class.
1. The company that produced the program placed TV monitors in every schoolroom and a satellite dish to the school district.
2. The school district agreed to require every student to watch the program and its ads. No exceptions, no teacher discretion. Students must watch, or they lose the free TVs.
In some districts, parents objected to the second half of this deal. Often, strongly enough that the districts were forced to throw out (or replace) all of the monitors.
If I had to give a simple definition of "charisma," I would say, "The ability to be an asshole and get away with it."
Think of the jerk in high school who was always getting laid. Or your older brother, who could whale on you and still be Mom's favorite. Or Benito Mussolini.
In the early 70s the motion picture industry (including television) began to move away from film and towards video tape as the recording/storage medium.
Motion pictures are STILL shot on film, for the exact reasons you state. Nobody has ever shot anything except experimental or artistic films on VHS. Maybe a few scenes were shot on high-end video formats, but the tradeoffs were well understood even then. The filmmakers just decided the convenience or versatility was worth it.
These days, a few feature films are now shot directly and entirely in 1080p "HD", but they are still in the miniority.
True, broadcast TV has been recorded on videotape (originally, on huge AMPEX machines) forever, but this is material that was intended to be shown at NTSC quality anyway. If they'd shot it on cinema-quality film, you'd just see the rough edges on the sets, the crappy costumes, and the overdone makeup that were used because they looked okay on NTSC.
Incorrect. The VH-71 Kestrel is based on the US101 airframe, which is a derivative of the European EH101, but it's a joint venture between Lockheed-Martin and AgustaWestland and it's being built here in the US by Bell Helicopter.
That's the marketing story, yes. Politics demand that any European defense contractor find a US "partner" for a major contract with the US military.
The patriotically-named "US 101" is an Augusta-Westland AW101 with some outsourced manufacturing (Bell & lockheed) and marketing (Lockheed.) The fuselage, rotors, and transmission (pretty much everything ordinary people think of when they hear "helicopter") is built by AW, in Europe. I think, by the ordinary man on the street's definition, that does indeed make it a european helicopter.
AW wins, because they get to sell their product; Bell wins, because their plants are utilized and their workers get paid; Lockheed wins, because they get to skim off the top.
Personally, I'd rather they just cut to the chase and buy the things from AW, but politics won't allow that.
Everyone knows that trees are a renewable resource.
The "green" part of eliminating paper comes from 1. Eliminating the energy costs of papermaking 2. Eliminating the energy costs of mail delivery 3. Eliminating the landfill waste
So you would rather your tax money be used to pay the salary of a government employee (with full benefits and pension!) to process claims in person, by hand. And for a larger government office building to accommodate all of these claims processors, and for heating and cooling, and for paper forms and carbon copies and pens and....
As someone who might be an H1B visa holder in the not-too-distant future, what's your problem with them? Is it that we didn't -start out- in the U.S., or that we might leave in the future, or that we're sending envelopes stuffed with cash back home in the mean time? While here, we're paying taxes and consuming locally bought (not locally produced, usually) products just like everyone else
Pure self-interest. US technology workers have nothing against the H1B visa holders, but rather the H1B program. Without the H1B program, technology workers who are US citizens would have less competition and higher wages. US-born tech workers aren't thrilled about the competition.
I have personally been turned down for a job interviews because I was a natural born citizen. This is a US-based company telling a US-based worker, "I'm sorry, we are not interested in hiring citizens for this position." (This is blatantly illegal, but not at all unusual. The only thing unusual about it is that they admitted this up front. Normally, they'll at least pretend to be interested in hiring citizens.)
Is this selfish of me? Sure.
But consider: There is hardly a job in the US, (construction laborer, factory worker fast food cook, programmer, doctor, lawyer, or corporate executive) that could not be done much more cheaply by people from elsewhere in the world. It's a big world, and there are plenty of capable people in it. Yet for some reason, our government has chosen to legally open the tech sector to competition from overseas workers to drive down costs. This causes some bitterness on our part.
I hope you understand that this bitterness is not directed to you, but to the companies and elected officials who have made things this way.
One thing that has always puzzled me is that despite all the advances in technology, getting a crown is still VERY expensive. There has been no appreciable reduction in cost due to better manufacturing techniques, or better/cheaper materials.
My dad is a dental lab technician (the guys who make crowns) and to hear him tell it, there have essentially been no advances in technology or manufacturing techniques. Yes, the materials are better and the process is apparently more streamlined, with better models to work from, but they are still mostly custom made, by hand. (When was the last time you had something custom tailored?) And the labor force that does this is apparently aging and not growing as fast as demand.
(This is my understanding based on what he's relayed to me. Any errors or misrepresentations are most likely mine, not his.)
What evidence do you have that ATT's current customer base is primarily 3G? ATT especially has been a laggard in 3G deployment; I would guess that most of its current paying customers are on the losing end of this decision.
There is still a business argument that it is better to prepare for the future than to support the past, but it's a questionable one.
It's not manufactured in Japan, either, I'd guess. Nor are most of its components.
International commodity prices are usually quoted in US dollars, for lack of a more universal currency. This goes for Japanese companies building products in China, or for European traders buying oil from the Middle East.
Slashdot Mirror
Or you volunteer, and be the one to get the placebo.
In which case, you are no worse off, and at least get careful observation and conventional treatments for your symptoms.
It does not bloody well make administration easier! If you have say X servers scattered over Y locations, it makes sense to call them:
(site)(os)(function)(number)
i.e.
sydwindb002
meaning sydney windows database 002
It may be consistent, if you stick to it, but it's not self-explanatory. You just had to explain it, and just try getting non-sysadmins to understand it. Much less remember it.
as opposed to tauron or frickin picon, or smurf (I'm not kidding you). Best of all though I've seen was server. Just server.
Serving what?? This was in a rack of 27 severs in total.
As a sysad, it shits me when people come up with 'cute' nonsensical names that have no consistency and aren't self explanatory. I mean, good software engineering principles dictate that you use meaningful variable names. Why not server names as well?
Good server naming schemes do have a pattern. Geographic names (Continent, nation, province, city) species names (Kingdom, phylum,..., species, breed...)
If you did name them after TV shows, you might give your Silicon Valley datacenter names from Buffy The Vampire Slayer [the show was set in Sunnyvale, CA] and your New York datacenter names from NYPD Blue or Sex and the City.
As you said, the best systems are consistent and self-explanatory. They're also memorable, and it helps if they have a built-in mnemonic.
The Slashdot FAQ.
http://slashdot.org/faq/editorial.shtml#ed850
I had a Virgin Mobile phone for a while, and I was constantly getting collections calls on it.
I'm pretty sure that Virgin gets its phone number pool from people whose phone service got cut off for nonpayment (and probably also have dozens of other unpaid bills.)
The only way I got out of that was to port in a number from another carrier.
(Provide instructions on how to open and read a paper newspaper.)
Seriously - you're fucking kidding, right?
Mostly, but at the rate newspapers are bleeding money these days, there may be only a few (NYT, WSJ, and maybe one or two others) left in fifty years. And probably only old farts will have much experience with actually unfolding them.
1. The students won't care. They'll be concerned with whatever popular culture dominates in 2059, not with old tech. Except for the nerds.
2. If you do this, preserve other things as well. Preserve a copy of the newspaper from the Obama inauguration. (Provide instructions on how to open and read a paper newspaper.) Preserve whatever popular culture dominates in 2009. Preserve pictures of the school and letters from the students.
3. Think carefully about whether you'd really like to inflict Windows XP and Compaq hardware on a new generation of students.
4. Store it someplace dry. Moisture is your biggest enemy. Basements will flood, roofs will leak. Think mold, think corrosion.
5. Motherboard batteries will die, and may leak. Remove them and all other batteries. Forget laptops.
Why should it matter to you whether he hacks his coupon-funded box, takes it apart for spare resistors and copper, or uses it to shim up a wobbly table? I mean, it's not like the coupons could be used to cure cancer. The stated intent of the program is watching television, for chrissake.
But is 10.3 and 10.4 being faster than 10.0 and 10.1 really an achievement?
When version (n+1) is faster than version n, and not because of Moore's law, yes, it's a huge achievement. Because it almost NEVER happens. Seriously, name two other software packages where that's happened.
In a sense, Apple had nowhere to go but up, and Microsoft had nowhere to go but down.
It's easy to say that, with the benefit of hindsight, but Apple certainly could have flubbed its new OS, and Microsoft certainly could have improved upon XP.
Some more than others, but at least Linux is easy enough to pare down.
Perhaps technically, but there has also been extraordinary progress in optimization with succcessive OS X releases. If you have an older Mac, you'd almost always be better off running 10.3 or 10.4 than you would running 10.1 (which managed to be both feature-poor and hardware-intensive.)
Neither is Silverlight. (Moonlight is not Silverlight.)
Gnash is the Free implementation of the Flash spec, such as it is.
Which, if I'm not mistaken, lacks a passenger airbag.
All cars sold in the US in 1995 were required to have driver and passenger front airbags. (Most models complied earlier than that.) So your car, when it was new, would have not have met the US safety standards you were just denigrating.
(That's not to say your car is unsafe, or even that there aren't millions of technically road-legal cars in the US that are less safe than yours.)
I think the main objection was that the teachers could not decide whether or not they wanted the program to be shown. There was no room for teacher discretion, no matter what other educational priorities might be scheduled for the day. State achievement test? Final exams? Too bad, gotta wait until after the mandatory television program..
Imagine what would happen if the students were suspended for drawing on their book covers. Or if the teachers were disciplined for letting the students do that in class.
Yes, it does. All of Apple's current software, including the stuff they released this month, runs natively on PPC.
Depending on the state or region, many areas of the US do have a mandatory annual emissions and/or safety test for vehicles.
Such as? In answering, please try to keep your budget below US $1000 or so. Preferably below $500.
Yes, there really are people that poor. Yes, they really do depend on their 20-year-old cars for their livelihood.
The deal with Channel One is basically:
1. The company that produced the program placed TV monitors in every schoolroom and a satellite dish to the school district.
2. The school district agreed to require every student to watch the program and its ads. No exceptions, no teacher discretion. Students must watch, or they lose the free TVs.
In some districts, parents objected to the second half of this deal. Often, strongly enough that the districts were forced to throw out (or replace) all of the monitors.
If I had to give a simple definition of "charisma," I would say, "The ability to be an asshole and get away with it."
Think of the jerk in high school who was always getting laid. Or your older brother, who could whale on you and still be Mom's favorite. Or Benito Mussolini.
Motion pictures are STILL shot on film, for the exact reasons you state. Nobody has ever shot anything except experimental or artistic films on VHS. Maybe a few scenes were shot on high-end video formats, but the tradeoffs were well understood even then. The filmmakers just decided the convenience or versatility was worth it.
These days, a few feature films are now shot directly and entirely in 1080p "HD", but they are still in the miniority.
True, broadcast TV has been recorded on videotape (originally, on huge AMPEX machines) forever, but this is material that was intended to be shown at NTSC quality anyway. If they'd shot it on cinema-quality film, you'd just see the rough edges on the sets, the crappy costumes, and the overdone makeup that were used because they looked okay on NTSC.
That's the marketing story, yes. Politics demand that any European defense contractor find a US "partner" for a major contract with the US military.
The patriotically-named "US 101" is an Augusta-Westland AW101 with some outsourced manufacturing (Bell & lockheed) and marketing (Lockheed.) The fuselage, rotors, and transmission (pretty much everything ordinary people think of when they hear "helicopter") is built by AW, in Europe. I think, by the ordinary man on the street's definition, that does indeed make it a european helicopter.
AW wins, because they get to sell their product; Bell wins, because their plants are utilized and their workers get paid; Lockheed wins, because they get to skim off the top.
Personally, I'd rather they just cut to the chase and buy the things from AW, but politics won't allow that.
Everyone knows that trees are a renewable resource.
The "green" part of eliminating paper comes from
1. Eliminating the energy costs of papermaking
2. Eliminating the energy costs of mail delivery
3. Eliminating the landfill waste
Capische?
So you would rather your tax money be used to pay the salary of a government employee (with full benefits and pension!) to process claims in person, by hand. And for a larger government office building to accommodate all of these claims processors, and for heating and cooling, and for paper forms and carbon copies and pens and....
Or they could just do it online.
Pure self-interest. US technology workers have nothing against the H1B visa holders, but rather the H1B program. Without the H1B program, technology workers who are US citizens would have less competition and higher wages. US-born tech workers aren't thrilled about the competition.
I have personally been turned down for a job interviews because I was a natural born citizen. This is a US-based company telling a US-based worker, "I'm sorry, we are not interested in hiring citizens for this position." (This is blatantly illegal, but not at all unusual. The only thing unusual about it is that they admitted this up front. Normally, they'll at least pretend to be interested in hiring citizens.)
Is this selfish of me? Sure.
But consider: There is hardly a job in the US, (construction laborer, factory worker fast food cook, programmer, doctor, lawyer, or corporate executive) that could not be done much more cheaply by people from elsewhere in the world. It's a big world, and there are plenty of capable people in it. Yet for some reason, our government has chosen to legally open the tech sector to competition from overseas workers to drive down costs. This causes some bitterness on our part.
I hope you understand that this bitterness is not directed to you, but to the companies and elected officials who have made things this way.
My dad is a dental lab technician (the guys who make crowns) and to hear him tell it, there have essentially been no advances in technology or manufacturing techniques. Yes, the materials are better and the process is apparently more streamlined, with better models to work from, but they are still mostly custom made, by hand. (When was the last time you had something custom tailored?) And the labor force that does this is apparently aging and not growing as fast as demand.
(This is my understanding based on what he's relayed to me. Any errors or misrepresentations are most likely mine, not his.)
What evidence do you have that ATT's current customer base is primarily 3G? ATT especially has been a laggard in 3G deployment; I would guess that most of its current paying customers are on the losing end of this decision.
There is still a business argument that it is better to prepare for the future than to support the past, but it's a questionable one.
Burt Rutan is mine.
Branson is just the Bill Gates of a different industry.
It's not manufactured in Japan, either, I'd guess. Nor are most of its components.
International commodity prices are usually quoted in US dollars, for lack of a more universal currency. This goes for Japanese companies building products in China, or for European traders buying oil from the Middle East.