So how on earth is Oracle still in business? How is it that every time that Oracle is brought up in a technical discussion that the experts don't say. "Why don't we just hire people to punch us in the face while we develop the system? For using Oracle is about an equal act of self loathing."
My impression is that one of the reasons is that Oracle has a full stack of applications, and once you have locked yourself in by using two or more applications from the stack, you can only see an "unnecessary" cost for moving to some other product, without gaining any functional benefits. And even if you manage to change one of the products, you will probably see little to no reducation in maintenance costs, because that's the way Oracle's SULS price model is constructed (for example the "SULS on all or nothing" clause).
The decision to move to another vendor is not done by technical experts alone. It is done by the company - which consists of the technical experts AND procurement AND legal AND business controllers. Each of these parties has to have a business case to move to another vendor - otherwise nothing will happen, unless something very disruptive happens.
We can only speculate what the triggers are for a software audit.
Some common causes are: when the customer stops paying maintenance, when there has been disagreements between the customer and the sales person about interpretation of license agreements, when the customer performs a larger hardware consolidation, or when the customer performs a larger migration. Oracle, as other software vendors, of course do not tell you the triggers, because the customers would try to avoid those.
It boils down to whether or not the software vendor believes they can get out more money out of it.
I worked at the IRS back in time, and one of the triggers was whether you had stains from a coffee cup on your papers, because that indicated that you had worked a long time on submitting the figures, and that indicated a high risk of errors/mistakes.
A family member of mine has suffered from insomnia and sleep depravation for several years now, and has had to be really strict with normal routines. Her way of getting the best sleep possible is:
DON'T - don't drink coffee / caffeine at all - ever - don't drink alcohol, or drink very little - don't watch tv or a computer screen at least one hour before going to bed; the light from the screen makes you more awake than you can imagine - don't worry about going to bed later than usual; the important thing is to get the same number of hours every night (which means that you'll have to go up later than usual) - don't argue with your spouse, or think about anything that makes you angry / excited when going to bed. If you have a problem with this, try some cognitive behavioral therapy / CBT
DO - get 30 minutes of daylight every day; take a walk after lunch, walk to and from work - get some exercise - eat banana with warm milk before going to bad (both contains tryptophan which helps) - keep your bedroom cool and really really dark - use earplugs if you are disturbed by sounds
If you have moderate or big problems with sleep, consider going to a doctor!
Actually, the reason that the number of effective pixels are lower is that the CCD is slightly larger than the area of light that gets through the lens. This means that there is a (thin) frame around the edges of the CCD that is not used for taking the picture; this area is used as a baseline to calibrate light levels.
From reading what you've written - it seems that you are working in my department, but I don't recognize your name - strange;-)
But seriously, this consolidation loop you are referring to is a bit like outsourcing trends: the higher managers can only see the cost of IT, and not the benefits, and consequently have a hard time justifying why they should keep their jobs to the top level management. By consolidating, they create a smoke cloud that hides all the costs - they are instead spread out over other departments - and get a pat on the back from top level management. After a while, the projects demand their own hardware, and the pendulum swings back for yet another go...
The root cause is that it is easier to describe the costs of IT in terms of money, than it is to describe the benefits; the benefits are much more fuzzy and long term, so when it comes to making a quick and easy decision - they choose the short term easy win.
Hmmm... I've already tried pausing and then resuming, but that didn't work. Oh well, I hope Valve will respond, or I'll go to my bank and invalidate the payment:-(
Does anyone else have download problems? I purchased it, and it started 58%, but when it gets to 81 or 82%, it stops downloading. After I restart Steam, the download is back at 58% again...:-( I haven't got a response from Valve yet, but it is really annoying to spend money on a game that you can't use directly. It's like Civ IV all over again.
We're evaluating Confluence and Jira for our company right now:
Some positive aspects
Confluence has the ability to plug in your own company's authentication and authorization system, which many bigger companies have a need to do.
Confluence has a RTF format editor, which is quite nice compared to editing your text with markup directly, previewing, do some more editing, preview again,...
Copying and pasting to/from Word works quite well (but it does not work 100 %).
You can quite easily connect Confluence to a database, instead of storing your pages in plain files on your local disk.
Some negative aspects
The RTF format editor is quite buggy - the editor is quite new, so perhaps this is not too surprising, but I think it's bad form to release software that has so many defects.
Copying and pasting to/from Word almost always requires that you do extensive re-editing of the raw Wiki markup by hand. For example, it inserts color-coding everywhere, and symbols (e.g. right-arrow) do not translate well.
By default, new "spaces" (a collection of Wiki pages covering a certain aspect that you define) are not viewable by anyone except you. Of course, you can change this default, but it is quite disappointing to discover this after you have tried to publish pages for your colleagues, but they can't see that pages.
To summarize, the editor bugginess is what irritates me the most. If they (Atlassian) can fix the editor, then Confluence will be very interesting indeed.
I'm a former Ericsson employee - my telecom knowledge is a bit out-of-date, but the basics never go away:-)
Plain SMS'es are be sent on control channels (SDCCH or SACCH), and for every one control channel, there are many more voice channels. In some configurations, SDCCH and SACCH reside in the same time slot as the control channel for setting up calls - but not in others. It's a configuration issue really. Yes, in a badly configured network, you can jam voice calls with SMS'es. But with a good configuration (and monitoring and blah blah), it's not a problem.
Some SMS'es have a higher priority than others - for example emergency broadcasts, and can therefore reach the recipient while "normal" attempts to send an SMS get an error message ("network busy - please try later"). Read the article about SMS over SS7 - quite interesting! Read about the 9/11 tragedy's effect on cell phones.
There was (is) an Amiga game which I think is called Life & Death, and you as the doctor had to perform a surgery on the patient. However, the only thing I remember about the game is the rapidly swelling pools of blood, the quickly rising heartbeat of the patient... and in the end the patient opened his eyes and let out a scream. Of course, the scream rattled the speaker on my little tv* and I almost got a heart attack.
* Back in the old days, we used tv's - not monitors. And we had to made do with a floppy drive. You were lucky if you had a hard drive.
Probably because it was the worst sarcasm... EVER! Oh, what is the Klingon word for misunderstood genius? (flips through the dictionary) Rakk-al-gorkk!
Ahh... But did you not try the green pen for painting the upper & outer part of a CD? They sold them 5-10 years ago, and it was supposed to absorb the random laser rays that bounced around inside the CD player, so they could not distort the sound. I wonder why they disappeared from the stores... ?
The problem is that people with small ear canals (like me) can't fit that %#& plug in my ear - I can only manage to get it in a tiny bit, and then it instantly falls out. I've heard that you can buy smaller plugs, but gah! why can't Koss simply ship a couple of different sizes in from the start?
A couple of years ago, in Sweden, broadband was defined as >= 512 kbit/s, but now we have switched to the definition "always online", which at least I think is a better definition.
it will probably have to start with the cooperation of several coastal states and spread out from there... and that is the problem. The coordination between neighbouring states is probably at best unsynchronized. There are plenty of examples where people take advantage of different tax laws in neighbouring areas, so I would say that it is highly probable that there will be "animated discussions".
Hmmm... And that would be fair? What about those who live near the borders to other states - don't you think would just take their car and buy most of their food, haircuts and so on out of state? Great - so you want to force those that lives near the borders into another state?
I'm all for a better electronic income tax declaration, but let us take it one step further: default declaration. The IRS already has all the information it needs, so why not send out a mail that says "Here is our suggestion for your declaration this year. If you don't agree, then change it, but if everything is correct then you don't need to do anything".
This is just an optimization for the vast majority of us, but then there are people, mostly homeless, that don't have an address - they don't care about declaring their income. Why should they, when their major problem is getting food for today? It only costs the IRS (and therefore, society) more money to DEMAND that EVERYBODY should declare their income, and if they don't, then they will get a fine. It costs the IRS money because someone has to process the extra work, and that homeless guy doesn't have any money, so the IRS will not get anything anyway.
Yes, we have a law proposal here in Sweden to this effect that will probably be in effect in the next couple of years.
Just curious: how many of you use the internet based form in Finland? More than 56 % declare their taxes electronically (internet, SMS and phone) in Norway, while we in Sweden have about 30 % electronically - of which 18 % did it by the internet. The amount of people doing it electronically is growing - this year we more than doubled the amount of eletronic declarations.
The biggest reason for not doing it electronically seems to be that people are scared of it - the older you are, the less likely you are to do it the new way, so you stick with the old inefficient, but well known way.
The IRS is pretty firm when you goof? We'll see how easy it is to get money back when they goof.
Since they are bound by law, one of their directives is to make sure that you pay a correct amount of tax - not too much, nor too little - so they must pay your money back. If they don't, and you find out... Well, heads are going to roll:-)
I work at the Swedish Tax Agency (as we prefer to be called:-) in the same corridor (50 meters away) from the guys working on the income tax return, so I have some insight in this. Some positive things about the electronic income tax return is that it is easier for the citizens (lots of validation and online help), and it saves the government money (about 10-15 kronors per e-declaration - we don't have to scan and OCR process the forms).
One of the negative things is that you can't perform you e-declaration on all Mac's, because the JVM is not updated. It would be much better if we had a nationally used one time key generator, that everybody could get for free (paid by the government). The same security as BankID, but independent of your operating system, and it could also be used away from computers.
All in all, Sweden is now the most cost effective tax agency in the world, after passing the former world leader, USA: for every 100 kronors that we pay, less than 0,49 goes to paying for our tax agency. Neat, huh?
Anyway - what would you like to see as the next electronic service at the swedish tax agency?
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So how on earth is Oracle still in business? How is it that every time that Oracle is brought up in a technical discussion that the experts don't say. "Why don't we just hire people to punch us in the face while we develop the system? For using Oracle is about an equal act of self loathing."
My impression is that one of the reasons is that Oracle has a full stack of applications, and once you have locked yourself in by using two or more applications from the stack, you can only see an "unnecessary" cost for moving to some other product, without gaining any functional benefits. And even if you manage to change one of the products, you will probably see little to no reducation in maintenance costs, because that's the way Oracle's SULS price model is constructed (for example the "SULS on all or nothing" clause).
The decision to move to another vendor is not done by technical experts alone. It is done by the company - which consists of the technical experts AND procurement AND legal AND business controllers. Each of these parties has to have a business case to move to another vendor - otherwise nothing will happen, unless something very disruptive happens.
We can only speculate what the triggers are for a software audit.
Some common causes are: when the customer stops paying maintenance, when there has been disagreements between the customer and the sales person about interpretation of license agreements, when the customer performs a larger hardware consolidation, or when the customer performs a larger migration. Oracle, as other software vendors, of course do not tell you the triggers, because the customers would try to avoid those.
It boils down to whether or not the software vendor believes they can get out more money out of it.
I worked at the IRS back in time, and one of the triggers was whether you had stains from a coffee cup on your papers, because that indicated that you had worked a long time on submitting the figures, and that indicated a high risk of errors/mistakes.
Oh yes - tell me about it :-)
A family member of mine has suffered from insomnia and sleep depravation for several years now, and has had to be really strict with normal routines. Her way of getting the best sleep possible is:
DON'T
- don't drink coffee / caffeine at all - ever
- don't drink alcohol, or drink very little
- don't watch tv or a computer screen at least one hour before going to bed; the light from the screen makes you more awake than you can imagine
- don't worry about going to bed later than usual; the important thing is to get the same number of hours every night (which means that you'll have to go up later than usual)
- don't argue with your spouse, or think about anything that makes you angry / excited when going to bed. If you have a problem with this, try some cognitive behavioral therapy / CBT
DO
- get 30 minutes of daylight every day; take a walk after lunch, walk to and from work
- get some exercise
- eat banana with warm milk before going to bad (both contains tryptophan which helps)
- keep your bedroom cool and really really dark
- use earplugs if you are disturbed by sounds
If you have moderate or big problems with sleep, consider going to a doctor!
Actually, the reason that the number of effective pixels are lower is that the CCD is slightly larger than the area of light that gets through the lens. This means that there is a (thin) frame around the edges of the CCD that is not used for taking the picture; this area is used as a baseline to calibrate light levels.
From reading what you've written - it seems that you are working in my department, but I don't recognize your name - strange ;-)
But seriously, this consolidation loop you are referring to is a bit like outsourcing trends: the higher managers can only see the cost of IT, and not the benefits, and consequently have a hard time justifying why they should keep their jobs to the top level management. By consolidating, they create a smoke cloud that hides all the costs - they are instead spread out over other departments - and get a pat on the back from top level management. After a while, the projects demand their own hardware, and the pendulum swings back for yet another go...
The root cause is that it is easier to describe the costs of IT in terms of money, than it is to describe the benefits; the benefits are much more fuzzy and long term, so when it comes to making a quick and easy decision - they choose the short term easy win.
No GCF file for episode one - aha! Something seems a bit corrupt...
Hmmm... I've already tried pausing and then resuming, but that didn't work. Oh well, I hope Valve will respond, or I'll go to my bank and invalidate the payment :-(
Thanks for the suggestion, but I've got 143 GB left...
Does anyone else have download problems? I purchased it, and it started 58%, but when it gets to 81 or 82%, it stops downloading. After I restart Steam, the download is back at 58% again... :-( I haven't got a response from Valve yet, but it is really annoying to spend money on a game that you can't use directly. It's like Civ IV all over again.
Some positive aspects
Some negative aspects
To summarize, the editor bugginess is what irritates me the most. If they (Atlassian) can fix the editor, then Confluence will be very interesting indeed.
Wow, that really is 456. Oh my God, I really feel like a nerd for verifying that...
I'm a former Ericsson employee - my telecom knowledge is a bit out-of-date, but the basics never go away :-)
Plain SMS'es are be sent on control channels (SDCCH or SACCH), and for every one control channel, there are many more voice channels. In some configurations, SDCCH and SACCH reside in the same time slot as the control channel for setting up calls - but not in others. It's a configuration issue really. Yes, in a badly configured network, you can jam voice calls with SMS'es. But with a good configuration (and monitoring and blah blah), it's not a problem.
Some SMS'es have a higher priority than others - for example emergency broadcasts, and can therefore reach the recipient while "normal" attempts to send an SMS get an error message ("network busy - please try later"). Read the article about SMS over SS7 - quite interesting! Read about the 9/11 tragedy's effect on cell phones.
There was (is) an Amiga game which I think is called Life & Death, and you as the doctor had to perform a surgery on the patient. However, the only thing I remember about the game is the rapidly swelling pools of blood, the quickly rising heartbeat of the patient ... and in the end the patient opened his eyes and let out a scream. Of course, the scream rattled the speaker on my little tv* and I almost got a heart attack.
* Back in the old days, we used tv's - not monitors. And we had to made do with a floppy drive. You were lucky if you had a hard drive.
Probably because it was the worst sarcasm ... EVER! Oh, what is the Klingon word for misunderstood genius? (flips through the dictionary) Rakk-al-gorkk!
[...] that nasty AC that runs throw all the walls in your house
Uh-oh - I've got an anonymous coward running around in my walls? I knew they were on to me!
Ahh... But did you not try the green pen for painting the upper & outer part of a CD? They sold them 5-10 years ago, and it was supposed to absorb the random laser rays that bounced around inside the CD player, so they could not distort the sound. I wonder why they disappeared from the stores... ?
The problem is that people with small ear canals (like me) can't fit that %#& plug in my ear - I can only manage to get it in a tiny bit, and then it instantly falls out. I've heard that you can buy smaller plugs, but gah! why can't Koss simply ship a couple of different sizes in from the start?
A couple of years ago, in Sweden, broadband was defined as >= 512 kbit/s, but now we have switched to the definition "always online", which at least I think is a better definition.
it will probably have to start with the cooperation of several coastal states and spread out from there ... and that is the problem. The coordination between neighbouring states is probably at best unsynchronized. There are plenty of examples where people take advantage of different tax laws in neighbouring areas, so I would say that it is highly probable that there will be "animated discussions".
Hmmm... And that would be fair? What about those who live near the borders to other states - don't you think would just take their car and buy most of their food, haircuts and so on out of state? Great - so you want to force those that lives near the borders into another state?
I'm all for a better electronic income tax declaration, but let us take it one step further: default declaration. The IRS already has all the information it needs, so why not send out a mail that says "Here is our suggestion for your declaration this year. If you don't agree, then change it, but if everything is correct then you don't need to do anything".
This is just an optimization for the vast majority of us, but then there are people, mostly homeless, that don't have an address - they don't care about declaring their income. Why should they, when their major problem is getting food for today? It only costs the IRS (and therefore, society) more money to DEMAND that EVERYBODY should declare their income, and if they don't, then they will get a fine. It costs the IRS money because someone has to process the extra work, and that homeless guy doesn't have any money, so the IRS will not get anything anyway.
Yes, we have a law proposal here in Sweden to this effect that will probably be in effect in the next couple of years.
Just curious: how many of you use the internet based form in Finland? More than 56 % declare their taxes electronically (internet, SMS and phone) in Norway, while we in Sweden have about 30 % electronically - of which 18 % did it by the internet. The amount of people doing it electronically is growing - this year we more than doubled the amount of eletronic declarations.
The biggest reason for not doing it electronically seems to be that people are scared of it - the older you are, the less likely you are to do it the new way, so you stick with the old inefficient, but well known way.
The IRS is pretty firm when you goof? We'll see how easy it is to get money back when they goof.
:-)
Since they are bound by law, one of their directives is to make sure that you pay a correct amount of tax - not too much, nor too little - so they must pay your money back. If they don't, and you find out... Well, heads are going to roll
Move to Sweden and use our e-declaration :-) Or tell the IRS to hire me so I can implement it for you (yep, working at the swedish tax agency).
I work at the Swedish Tax Agency (as we prefer to be called :-) in the same corridor (50 meters away) from the guys working on the income tax return, so I have some insight in this. Some positive things about the electronic income tax return is that it is easier for the citizens (lots of validation and online help), and it saves the government money (about 10-15 kronors per e-declaration - we don't have to scan and OCR process the forms).
One of the negative things is that you can't perform you e-declaration on all Mac's, because the JVM is not updated. It would be much better if we had a nationally used one time key generator, that everybody could get for free (paid by the government). The same security as BankID, but independent of your operating system, and it could also be used away from computers.
All in all, Sweden is now the most cost effective tax agency in the world, after passing the former world leader, USA: for every 100 kronors that we pay, less than 0,49 goes to paying for our tax agency. Neat, huh?
Anyway - what would you like to see as the next electronic service at the swedish tax agency?