So he was right, we should be calculating accidents per mile traveled, not accidents per flight or accidents per year.
That was my point. The shuttle travels about 210 miles per mission. It just happens to go a half million miles out of its way to get there.
We certainly should not be counting the half million extra miles it has to travel, since those have absolutely nothing to do with its purpose for existing. They're just a design decision made to make the 210 miles it travels easier to do.
Try comparing them based on mileage per capita and/or mileage per ton.
Well, the Shuttle takes off at the Kennedy Space Center, and lands at the Edwards Space Center. It really doesn't go very far.
But seriously, the shuttle travels about 200 useful miles -- 100 miles up, and 100 miles down. The fact that it happens to travel a half million miles in the wrong direction while it's doing that is more of a design flaw than a feature.
Could someone explain this article to me, using some type of readable english?
What the hell is Dead or Alive, how does someone wield a Lei Fang, and what does it mean for "graphics to stay as if it were being played on the Saturn?" Actually, if someone could just tell me what "the Saturn" is, I'd probably be a happy camper.
On second thought, could someone just tell me what CmdrTaco does for a living? What company does he work for now? In today's difficult economy, I think it's great that he found a new job working for a succesful company that can afford to send him on frequent business trips without the stockholders threatening to sue the board of directors for gross mismanagement.
Wait a second... $450 per user for software, for a year? Are you smoking crack? Have you ever purchased software?
You are aware that a computer needs more than just an operating system to be useful to most people, right? And you are aware that Linux is just an operating system, right? And you are aware that software license for an operating system is almost never where the expenses are in running a computer, right?
So how the hell is your bright "only spend $450 by using linux" idea going to help companies get more work down for less money?
Or don't you have a clue what TCO and ROI stand for? STFU, troll.
You have a Linux machine at your house, tucked away from sight, running all of the mission critical applications needed to make sure your living room doesn't start hemoraging cash.
You're running complex applications like "filing system", "Email", and "DNS/DHCP". Holy Shit. You're a computer god, and I bow before you. None of those services are available from any platform other than Linux. None of those services can be administered remotely on any platform other than Linux. None of those services will run on a $20 flea-market pentium-class computer on any platform other than Linux.
Why would anyone write a.bat script on Windows to emulate a Bash or Perl script on Unix, when both Bash and Perl are available on Windows?
I would be interested in any example of a Perl script you've written on Unix that will demonstrate the "basic undeniable fact" that Windows is far less flexible than Unix.
I'm seeing flash ads on Slashdot now. Since CmdrTaco promised that would never, ever happen, while he ran this site, then CmdrTaco doesn't run the site anymore.
Slashdot can only improve.
Re:This is actually major news to some people
on
First HDTV Camcorder
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Well, they're going to shoot using high-def cameras. They're not going to distribute high-def films.
Why won't they distribute high-def films? Not because there might not be a market for it, but because it's currently impossible. DVDs are only 720 x 480, and no-one is going to broadcast porn from your local PBS station.
Actually, this begs a serious question. Is there currently anything I could possibly use a HDTV for other than watching my local PBS station? The local cable system certainly isn't broadcasting any channels in high definition, and no commercial network affiliate within 300 miles of my house has a digital transmission yet.
Can you get HDTV through any satellite companies? How many HDTV channels do they have, and what resolutions do they actually broadcast HDTV, or just enhanced definition?
No. I have literally thousands of passwords. I remember 50 of them at any given time. The rest are writtten down.
The point I was making is that the expectations that system developers make for passwords is fundementally broken. In most systems, every combination of person and permission usually has its own, unique password.
I'm very, very fond of the Windows system, where I have one password for a person, and it is possible to centrally manage the permissions associated with that person. Of course, that's really not designed for the user. For security domains that have a hundred thousand machines and and hundred thousand users, it's absolutely nescessary for the security administrator. It just happens that the improved security also is a hell of a lot more convenient for the user, too.
Of course, I'm aware that such things are not limited to Microsoft. Just about any security systems could be configured to use such such a thing is. It's just not normally done in practice, because most systems don't work very well together. Which, of course, is why I have thousands of passwords.
Hopefully someday websites like slashdot will go to something secure, like the Microsoft Passport system. There is NO reason that CmdrTaco should have my password unencrypted in his shit-ware database. There is also no reason that www.poopinggirls.com should have any idea what password I use to log into poopinggirls.com.
At work, once I've identified myself, I shouldn't have to log into a different security domain (with username and password that may or may not be the same) for the timesheet system, the project tracking system, the email system, the development servers, the database servers, the database systems, the code repository, and the dozen or so other machines that we all log into before 8:15 in the morning every day, just to our work done.
Anyhow, once I can get into my apartment AND my car AND my development server database using the same security mechanism, I'm going to be a very, very happy camper.
As it is now, I'm the cyber equivilant to a Janitor, with a huuuuge keyring and no idea what most of those keys even go to much of the time.
For techies, keeping track of a dozen or more passwords may be doable, but for end users this becomes an unmanageable mess
A dozen passwords? That's all you have?
Anyone at any real tech job probably has 50 or more passwords floating around their brain, and use at least half of those in any given week. I mean, think about it -- how many different computers did you log into today? Twenty? How many did you log into in the last month? A hundred?
And, no -- that doesn't count the throw-away passwords I use for websites. I mean, if someone else started trolling slashdot with my account, I would not be crushed. Why the hell should I use a different password on Slashdot and on www.poopinggirls.com, you know?
*shrug* I've recieved most of my info from the half dozen or so people I've known who have been locked out of a few different boiler-room fly-by-night rebate processing shops.
And, if you don't think "work at home stuffing envelopes" is a shitty unempowered work atmosphere akin to a boiler room, then I'd like to offer you a job...
The people who process the rebates are often powerless to actually send you the rebates.
The companies processing the rebates are sweatshops with financial incentives to not send you a rebate, and little or no incentive to send you a rebate. It's usually a small boiler room operation that no-one trusts -- not the postal inspectors, not the companys actually sponsering the rebates, and certainly not the people sending in the rebates. The processing company is often screwed over on the rebates just as badly as the people expecting the rebates. They're given money to distribute and pay for the processing months after they've processed all the paperwork, if at all. The companies sponsering the rebates count on this, too, and know that even the processing company may simply evaporate before they're required to pay a dime for processing or distribution.
The people working there have it even worse. They're low-skill laborers working for $7 an hour at a place that may simply locks the doors some morning without distributing paychecks. They have NO power to give you any cash at all, even if the company they worked for had any cash to give you in the first place.
The whole damned thing is a scam, and threatening a powerless highschool dropout with vaguely legalese letters implying you may sue if you don't get your rebate is useless. The person doing the processing could not possibly care less -- it's unlikely they'll still be working at the company in 8 weeks anyhow. The company doing the processing could not possibly care less -- it's unlikely they'll still be working out of the same boilerroom with the same name in a year anyhow. And the company sponsoring the rebates could not possibly care less -- by the time their byzantine rebate pyramid is unravelled in a court five years from now, all the current executives will be long gone, even in the unlikely chance that any high-tech company will still be around at that time anyhow.
Rebates are just a way of fucking you. Even if you send them in, they're a scam.
The people who actually know how to find the answers to most Linux questions have spent literally thousands of hours looking at man pages, reading source code, searching the net for documentation, pouring through mailing lists, reading big thick books cover to cover, and lots of other tedious and boring shit that noone with a life would ever bother to do.
But the real problem is that Linux gurus are not gurus because they know how to answer questions. Linux gurus are gurus because they know how to ask questions. Answering a question is often trivial. Discovering the real question is often very hard. After spending literally thousands of hours learning how to ask "what is the proper question" most people are very short tempered when they come across someone who says "I can't bother to spend an hour reading -- just tell me the answer."
The other problem you have is that the people who can answer most Linux questions don't generally hang out on IRC. Which means, of course, that the people who do hang out on IRC are always rude little shitheads whenever anyone asks them a question because...
Actually, that's a perfect example of the sort of question that answers itself, once you've found the proper question.
I must be missing something. Has a lawyer sent them a cease and desist letter? Or has a restraining order been granted against them by a court?
Because, all the links point to a cease and desist letter, which are as cheap as lawsuits in the United States. Any schmoe can send a cease and desist letter. Hell, I could send CmdrTaco a letter claming that the space aliens he keeps in his laundry hamper are interfering with the workings of my tin-foil reflector beanie. You certainly don't have to do what the cease and desist letter tells you to do, any more than I have to follow instructions from the little voices in my head. Sometimes the little voices in my head give me good practical advice, like "change your socks." But you would be a fool to follow the advice of either the voices in my head or a random lawyer's cease and desist letter without question.
But, I understand a restraining order as an entirely different thing. A restraining is handed out by a court, and unless you're fond of the inside of jail cells you would be well advised to follow it to the letter.
So, did these people actually get a restraining order against them? Or is this just another badly misleading slashdot article?
Depends a lot on what you mean by "beating" a Honda.
The $2,000 beat-to-shit 20 year old car with $1,000 worth of el-cheap-o engine mods would certainly have better 1/4 mile times than a brand new stock Honda.
Of course, for $800 I could buy an old and tired 1100 cc suzuki motorcycle that would beat your $3,000 old and tired mustang in the 1/4.
What's the point of this? To discover who can buy the fastest shit-heap for the least money?
You know, I really have no sympathy for victims of the slashdot effect. After Slashdot has repeated this story three or four (or 606) times the site admins should get the idea.
Actually, I'm not sure what "long hours" means, now that I think of it. Is it 50 hours? 70? 110? I guess it depends on where you live. Here in Fargo ND, 60 hours a week are considered "long hours", but the expectations aren't that high here.
Re:Thoughts from the dad of a 9month old
on
Advice for a Dad-To-Be?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
My only bit of advice to add to this -- the dad can be the stay-at-home too.
I'm assuming that it's become more and more common to be in a relationship where the woman makes more money, has better insurance, and has a stronger work identity than the man does. In those cases, daddy might put the carreer on hold, cutting back to a few hours a week, while mommy continues to work 60 hour weeks.
We're neither dentists nor lawyers here. You might have much better luck posting on a site where most of the readers have a strong understanding of standard dentistry, medical malpractice law, and how this type of thing is handled in your state.
For example, you might want to try fark or msdn, since those sites seem to have better medical malpractice information than Slashdot does.
Slashdot Mirror
So he was right, we should be calculating accidents per mile traveled, not accidents per flight or accidents per year.
That was my point. The shuttle travels about 210 miles per mission. It just happens to go a half million miles out of its way to get there.
We certainly should not be counting the half million extra miles it has to travel, since those have absolutely nothing to do with its purpose for existing. They're just a design decision made to make the 210 miles it travels easier to do.
Try comparing them based on mileage per capita and/or mileage per ton.
Well, the Shuttle takes off at the Kennedy Space Center, and lands at the Edwards Space Center. It really doesn't go very far.
But seriously, the shuttle travels about 200 useful miles -- 100 miles up, and 100 miles down. The fact that it happens to travel a half million miles in the wrong direction while it's doing that is more of a design flaw than a feature.
I would easily say that 1/62.5 is acceptable.
I would easilty say that 100% losses are acceptable, as long as it's you on the missions and not me.
Could someone explain this article to me, using some type of readable english?
What the hell is Dead or Alive, how does someone wield a Lei Fang, and what does it mean for "graphics to stay as if it were being played on the Saturn?" Actually, if someone could just tell me what "the Saturn" is, I'd probably be a happy camper.
On second thought, could someone just tell me what CmdrTaco does for a living? What company does he work for now? In today's difficult economy, I think it's great that he found a new job working for a succesful company that can afford to send him on frequent business trips without the stockholders threatening to sue the board of directors for gross mismanagement.
Please give an example of "web server management" that can be scripted on Unix that can not be scripted on Windows.
Please give an example of "user account management" that can be scripted on Unix that can not be scripted on Windows.
Please give an example of "firewall management" that can be scripted on Unix that can not be scripted on Windows.
Please give and example of "hardware configuration" that can be scripted on Unix that can not be scripted on Windows.
Please give an example of the "75% of it's (sic) [Windows] operation [hidden] from all users."
Otherwise, quit your Trolling.
Wait a second... $450 per user for software, for a year? Are you smoking crack? Have you ever purchased software?
You are aware that a computer needs more than just an operating system to be useful to most people, right? And you are aware that Linux is just an operating system, right? And you are aware that software license for an operating system is almost never where the expenses are in running a computer, right?
So how the hell is your bright "only spend $450 by using linux" idea going to help companies get more work down for less money?
Or don't you have a clue what TCO and ROI stand for? STFU, troll.
You have a Linux machine at your house, tucked away from sight, running all of the mission critical applications needed to make sure your living room doesn't start hemoraging cash.
You're running complex applications like "filing system", "Email", and "DNS/DHCP". Holy Shit. You're a computer god, and I bow before you. None of those services are available from any platform other than Linux. None of those services can be administered remotely on any platform other than Linux. None of those services will run on a $20 flea-market pentium-class computer on any platform other than Linux.
STFU, troll.
Why would anyone write a .bat script on Windows to emulate a Bash or Perl script on Unix, when both Bash and Perl are available on Windows?
I would be interested in any example of a Perl script you've written on Unix that will demonstrate the "basic undeniable fact" that Windows is far less flexible than Unix.
Otherwise, STFU.
Yeah, I'm guessing a Tornado looks exactly like a balistic missle to the PATRIOT tracking system.
... looks exactly like your ... to me.
And your
I'm seeing flash ads on Slashdot now. Since CmdrTaco promised that would never, ever happen, while he ran this site, then CmdrTaco doesn't run the site anymore.
Slashdot can only improve.
Well, they're going to shoot using high-def cameras. They're not going to distribute high-def films.
Why won't they distribute high-def films? Not because there might not be a market for it, but because it's currently impossible. DVDs are only 720 x 480, and no-one is going to broadcast porn from your local PBS station.
Actually, this begs a serious question. Is there currently anything I could possibly use a HDTV for other than watching my local PBS station? The local cable system certainly isn't broadcasting any channels in high definition, and no commercial network affiliate within 300 miles of my house has a digital transmission yet.
Can you get HDTV through any satellite companies? How many HDTV channels do they have, and what resolutions do they actually broadcast HDTV, or just enhanced definition?
Holy Shit! They have a webpage and a logo? This project is going to fawking rawk, dude!
No. I have literally thousands of passwords. I remember 50 of them at any given time. The rest are writtten down.
The point I was making is that the expectations that system developers make for passwords is fundementally broken. In most systems, every combination of person and permission usually has its own, unique password.
I'm very, very fond of the Windows system, where I have one password for a person, and it is possible to centrally manage the permissions associated with that person. Of course, that's really not designed for the user. For security domains that have a hundred thousand machines and and hundred thousand users, it's absolutely nescessary for the security administrator. It just happens that the improved security also is a hell of a lot more convenient for the user, too.
Of course, I'm aware that such things are not limited to Microsoft. Just about any security systems could be configured to use such such a thing is. It's just not normally done in practice, because most systems don't work very well together. Which, of course, is why I have thousands of passwords.
Hopefully someday websites like slashdot will go to something secure, like the Microsoft Passport system. There is NO reason that CmdrTaco should have my password unencrypted in his shit-ware database. There is also no reason that www.poopinggirls.com should have any idea what password I use to log into poopinggirls.com.
At work, once I've identified myself, I shouldn't have to log into a different security domain (with username and password that may or may not be the same) for the timesheet system, the project tracking system, the email system, the development servers, the database servers, the database systems, the code repository, and the dozen or so other machines that we all log into before 8:15 in the morning every day, just to our work done.
Anyhow, once I can get into my apartment AND my car AND my development server database using the same security mechanism, I'm going to be a very, very happy camper.
As it is now, I'm the cyber equivilant to a Janitor, with a huuuuge keyring and no idea what most of those keys even go to much of the time.
For techies, keeping track of a dozen or more passwords may be doable, but for end users this becomes an unmanageable mess
A dozen passwords? That's all you have?
Anyone at any real tech job probably has 50 or more passwords floating around their brain, and use at least half of those in any given week. I mean, think about it -- how many different computers did you log into today? Twenty? How many did you log into in the last month? A hundred?
And, no -- that doesn't count the throw-away passwords I use for websites. I mean, if someone else started trolling slashdot with my account, I would not be crushed. Why the hell should I use a different password on Slashdot and on www.poopinggirls.com, you know?
*shrug* I've recieved most of my info from the half dozen or so people I've known who have been locked out of a few different boiler-room fly-by-night rebate processing shops.
And, if you don't think "work at home stuffing envelopes" is a shitty unempowered work atmosphere akin to a boiler room, then I'd like to offer you a job...
The people who process the rebates are often powerless to actually send you the rebates.
The companies processing the rebates are sweatshops with financial incentives to not send you a rebate, and little or no incentive to send you a rebate. It's usually a small boiler room operation that no-one trusts -- not the postal inspectors, not the companys actually sponsering the rebates, and certainly not the people sending in the rebates. The processing company is often screwed over on the rebates just as badly as the people expecting the rebates. They're given money to distribute and pay for the processing months after they've processed all the paperwork, if at all. The companies sponsering the rebates count on this, too, and know that even the processing company may simply evaporate before they're required to pay a dime for processing or distribution.
The people working there have it even worse. They're low-skill laborers working for $7 an hour at a place that may simply locks the doors some morning without distributing paychecks. They have NO power to give you any cash at all, even if the company they worked for had any cash to give you in the first place.
The whole damned thing is a scam, and threatening a powerless highschool dropout with vaguely legalese letters implying you may sue if you don't get your rebate is useless. The person doing the processing could not possibly care less -- it's unlikely they'll still be working at the company in 8 weeks anyhow. The company doing the processing could not possibly care less -- it's unlikely they'll still be working out of the same boilerroom with the same name in a year anyhow. And the company sponsoring the rebates could not possibly care less -- by the time their byzantine rebate pyramid is unravelled in a court five years from now, all the current executives will be long gone, even in the unlikely chance that any high-tech company will still be around at that time anyhow.
Rebates are just a way of fucking you. Even if you send them in, they're a scam.
The people who actually know how to find the answers to most Linux questions have spent literally thousands of hours looking at man pages, reading source code, searching the net for documentation, pouring through mailing lists, reading big thick books cover to cover, and lots of other tedious and boring shit that noone with a life would ever bother to do.
But the real problem is that Linux gurus are not gurus because they know how to answer questions. Linux gurus are gurus because they know how to ask questions. Answering a question is often trivial. Discovering the real question is often very hard. After spending literally thousands of hours learning how to ask "what is the proper question" most people are very short tempered when they come across someone who says "I can't bother to spend an hour reading -- just tell me the answer."
The other problem you have is that the people who can answer most Linux questions don't generally hang out on IRC. Which means, of course, that the people who do hang out on IRC are always rude little shitheads whenever anyone asks them a question because...
Actually, that's a perfect example of the sort of question that answers itself, once you've found the proper question.
I must be missing something. Has a lawyer sent them a cease and desist letter? Or has a restraining order been granted against them by a court?
Because, all the links point to a cease and desist letter, which are as cheap as lawsuits in the United States. Any schmoe can send a cease and desist letter. Hell, I could send CmdrTaco a letter claming that the space aliens he keeps in his laundry hamper are interfering with the workings of my tin-foil reflector beanie. You certainly don't have to do what the cease and desist letter tells you to do, any more than I have to follow instructions from the little voices in my head. Sometimes the little voices in my head give me good practical advice, like "change your socks." But you would be a fool to follow the advice of either the voices in my head or a random lawyer's cease and desist letter without question.
But, I understand a restraining order as an entirely different thing. A restraining is handed out by a court, and unless you're fond of the inside of jail cells you would be well advised to follow it to the letter.
So, did these people actually get a restraining order against them? Or is this just another badly misleading slashdot article?
Depends a lot on what you mean by "beating" a Honda.
The $2,000 beat-to-shit 20 year old car with $1,000 worth of el-cheap-o engine mods would certainly have better 1/4 mile times than a brand new stock Honda.
Of course, for $800 I could buy an old and tired 1100 cc suzuki motorcycle that would beat your $3,000 old and tired mustang in the 1/4.
What's the point of this? To discover who can buy the fastest shit-heap for the least money?
You know, I really have no sympathy for victims of the slashdot effect. After Slashdot has repeated this story three or four (or 606) times the site admins should get the idea.
Wow! Gnome has been ported from RedHat Linux to FreeBSD! That's totally amazing.
Get your wife to quit her job.
Or, quit your job. After the first few years, breasts cease to play any meaningful role for child rearing.
Actually, I'm not sure what "long hours" means, now that I think of it. Is it 50 hours? 70? 110? I guess it depends on where you live. Here in Fargo ND, 60 hours a week are considered "long hours", but the expectations aren't that high here.
My only bit of advice to add to this -- the dad can be the stay-at-home too.
I'm assuming that it's become more and more common to be in a relationship where the woman makes more money, has better insurance, and has a stronger work identity than the man does. In those cases, daddy might put the carreer on hold, cutting back to a few hours a week, while mommy continues to work 60 hour weeks.
Good luck.
We're neither dentists nor lawyers here. You might have much better luck posting on a site where most of the readers have a strong understanding of standard dentistry, medical malpractice law, and how this type of thing is handled in your state.
For example, you might want to try fark or msdn, since those sites seem to have better medical malpractice information than Slashdot does.