I wouldn't bitch about performance too much - if that's all you want, just ditch SQL entirely and use an embedded DB like Berkeley. Truth is, features/performance is a sliding scale, not a binary option. For some applications, being able to use stored procedures in a few different languages might be very helpful. For other applications, an SQL parser itself is unacceptable overhead.
They did it right, at version 7.0? Do you ever even listen to what you're saying? Taking until version 7.0 to get it right does not equal "rock solid".
Oh well, as long as they're not misplacing nuclear material any more.
Re:Slashdot can just hire Cringely
on
Make Your Own DSL
·
· Score: 1
Actually, there is a Cringely slashbox. Some of his articles are a little lame, but (especially since I'm shopping for DSL right now) this one made sense to me.
While I'm at it: has anyone had any luck starting the DSL installation process with the phone company ahead of a move, so that you have access right on the day you move in?
I like it - it's emergent just like the original 'net was (in a Cold War military-industrial complex sort of way). You don't subscribe to a service, you just toss a line to whomever you want to talk to.
I think population density might be the killer here - you have to have enough people close together that the interconnects aren't too expensive. Also, eventually somebody has to pay for a gateway to the "real" 'net, and that's still going to cost you. It would take a while for a locally-organized coop to have enough home-grown content that most of the traffic would be retained within the coop rather than going out through the expensive gateway.
But for a densely populated neighborhood of mostly wealthy and/or geeky folks, this would be a great setup!
This seems a little suspicious to me - from what I've heard, most of the wireless providers are well on their way to providing the federally-mandated wiretapping access. They can't be very far off from completing the technical setup that is involved. It seems like the Feds are useing the missed deadline (which really was an artificial deadline anyway) as a convenient excuse to expand their wiretapping powers. It's not like there were crimes that just had to be wiretapped on September 30; as long as the wireless carriers get things rolled out reasonably soon I don't see how the government could legitimately complain.
And yes, anyone can tap wireless, but the issue is what can be used in court. If the government is sucking in more information, then there's more of a chance that a bad judge somewhere can be found who will let unrelated intercepted information into evidence.
It's called SourceForge OnSite, IIRC. If we didn't already have a huge investment in ClearCASE and the world's most sucky defect-tracking tool, DDTS, SourceForge would probably be a great system for the company to use.
Well, I'd rather ask him about his creation, AtheOS, since I would think that would be more "news for nerds"-ish, but I'll give the creature angle a try:
So, Kurt: what's up with your creature? Did you find him while vacationing at the Black Lagoon, or was he wandering lost and far from home and you took him in? And - I have a followup question: does he really look better with the 3D glasses on?
I understand the home page changing tactic; my reading of the original comment was that some actual software was downloaded and installed on the browser's PC without their knowledge. That would be a pretty big security problem, wouldn't it?
Um, how do they install software on your machine just from you viewing the web page? I understand the IEjavascript homepage changing trick, but actually downloading and installing new software isn't really that imperceptible, you know, unless you've already got BO running:)
I dunno, there's a difference between "untrustworthy" and "actively maliciously perverting reality". Scientology isn't even on the same scale as AOL/Microsoft:)
It's true that the longer I'm out of school, the more I wonder about how much of the learning that occurred there was really due to the classes, and how much was just due to being exposed to a whole bunch of smart people and interesting hardware. If it's done right, school helps you figure out what you're interested in and gives you the tools to explore in that direction.
I wouldn't call the military "throwing your life away", since it actually helps you pay for college. I knew a lot of people in school who really would have benefited from a short enlistment to really sort out their priorities - heck, maybe I would have as well.
Of course, this is the same/. where a year or two ago everyone couldn't skip college for the job market fast enough, claiming that you could learn everything you'd ever need on the job faster than in some musty classroom. Not that you were necessarily one of those folks; I just think it's interesting that what goes around, comes around.
If I were a bunch of horny 15-year-old gangster wannabes, I would totally try to get my pants to be gang-related. It's amazing what lengths people will go to to avoid facing the real issues...
In 10 years you won't have to use the special Palm letters; heck, in 10 years your PDA will automatically record the lecture and transcribe written notes for your review later.
Of course, for many teachers it'd be faster to just read the notes in the first place and skip the class - maybe not in grade school, but in HS and college this is often the case. Thus the real reason for schools to fear easy access to computers.
Wow, it would have been great to have been taught teamwork and good exercise habits in school. Instead, I learned:
that "grading on how hard you tried" means "nobody gets an A unless they're on the football team" (I dunno about your school, but the "official" athletes are always the worst slackers in the one class you'd think they'd do great in, gym)
Bigger kids can pound you with impunity
a lot of ridiculous technical rules that I've never seen used in pickup games as an adult - who really keeps track of "offsides" in soccer (football) anyway?
Square dancing - yeah, there's a team activity that I'll be doing for the rest of my life. They might as well have taught break dancing or the polka.
the President's Physical Fitness Challenge - where we learn that gym classes spent playing dodge ball and kickball haven't prepared ethereal to do any appreciable number of push-ups or sit-ups
I could go on, but you get the idea.
I've learned a lot more teamwork and physical fitness from marching band in high school and college than I ever learned from a gym class. A class that teaches kids teamwork and good exercise habits would be great; but a class that teaches football team appreciation, wastes half the time teaching the rules of the game rather than teaching you to throw/catch/whatever, and then still doesn't grade you on how hard you tried is pretty much a waste of time for a kid.
Y'know, my initial reaction on reading this was to wonder which music community Hilary's talking about. Considering that Napster was easily the largest single media outlet ever for the few months that it existed, with a simultaneous active user base that even dwarfed the height of broadcast TV, it's pretty clear that the music community[1] and in fact the nation as a whole is in favor of mp3 trading. You can make mp3 trading illegal now, but it's obvious to anyone who isn't blind [2] that when the current crop of college kids are finally running things, mp3s are going to be free for the taking. Whether you like it or not (and I'm not sure that I do), it's only a matter of time.
[1] Yes, I know she meant the "music creation" community, or even more precisely the "music distribution, marketing, and bureaucracy community", but you get my point.
[2] Thanks to retiring Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) for this wonderful saying. Try to imagine me saying it in a soft North Carolina drawl. AFAIK this is his only positive contribution to human civilization, but I guess you have to start somewhere:)
I'm not sure how much luck you'll have suing your ISP over lost work, though - they'll probably say that you should have paid for @work rather than @home, or whatever their business-centric product is.
If there was real competition in the broadband market, then I would agree with you - anyone who doesn't mind Qwest's contract would be SOL when Code Red hits, and customers of other, more responsible broadband purveyors would be happy.
Unfortunately, since Qwest and the other Baby Bells have been fighting tooth and nail to nip competition in the bud, there are no real alternatives to Qwest. There's no way that the user could have prevented getting reamed in this situation - if you contract for broadband, you're stuck with Qwest's terms that leave you little recourse if their network gets hosed.
Vigorous competition is the solution to these problems, IMHO.
Or even better, people could just wave their frickin' mice over the links before clicking and read where the link goes. Come on, people - goatse.cx got me exactly once, and I wised up. Surely this isn't such a hard lesson to learn...
Slashdot Mirror
I wouldn't bitch about performance too much - if that's all you want, just ditch SQL entirely and use an embedded DB like Berkeley. Truth is, features/performance is a sliding scale, not a binary option. For some applications, being able to use stored procedures in a few different languages might be very helpful. For other applications, an SQL parser itself is unacceptable overhead.
They did it right, at version 7.0? Do you ever even listen to what you're saying? Taking until version 7.0 to get it right does not equal "rock solid".
Oh well, as long as they're not misplacing nuclear material any more.
Actually, there is a Cringely slashbox. Some of his articles are a little lame, but (especially since I'm shopping for DSL right now) this one made sense to me.
While I'm at it: has anyone had any luck starting the DSL installation process with the phone company ahead of a move, so that you have access right on the day you move in?
I like it - it's emergent just like the original 'net was (in a Cold War military-industrial complex sort of way). You don't subscribe to a service, you just toss a line to whomever you want to talk to.
I think population density might be the killer here - you have to have enough people close together that the interconnects aren't too expensive. Also, eventually somebody has to pay for a gateway to the "real" 'net, and that's still going to cost you. It would take a while for a locally-organized coop to have enough home-grown content that most of the traffic would be retained within the coop rather than going out through the expensive gateway.
But for a densely populated neighborhood of mostly wealthy and/or geeky folks, this would be a great setup!
This seems a little suspicious to me - from what I've heard, most of the wireless providers are well on their way to providing the federally-mandated wiretapping access. They can't be very far off from completing the technical setup that is involved. It seems like the Feds are useing the missed deadline (which really was an artificial deadline anyway) as a convenient excuse to expand their wiretapping powers. It's not like there were crimes that just had to be wiretapped on September 30; as long as the wireless carriers get things rolled out reasonably soon I don't see how the government could legitimately complain.
And yes, anyone can tap wireless, but the issue is what can be used in court. If the government is sucking in more information, then there's more of a chance that a bad judge somewhere can be found who will let unrelated intercepted information into evidence.
Of course, since you have no privacy right on a land-line phone either, maybe Carnivore isn't such a big deal either :)
It's called SourceForge OnSite, IIRC. If we didn't already have a huge investment in ClearCASE and the world's most sucky defect-tracking tool, DDTS, SourceForge would probably be a great system for the company to use.
Well, I'd rather ask him about his creation, AtheOS, since I would think that would be more "news for nerds"-ish, but I'll give the creature angle a try:
So, Kurt: what's up with your creature? Did you find him while vacationing at the Black Lagoon, or was he wandering lost and far from home and you took him in? And - I have a followup question: does he really look better with the 3D glasses on?
I understand the home page changing tactic; my reading of the original comment was that some actual software was downloaded and installed on the browser's PC without their knowledge. That would be a pretty big security problem, wouldn't it?
That would be the "Condit News Network", right? Bleah.
Um, how do they install software on your machine just from you viewing the web page? I understand the IEjavascript homepage changing trick, but actually downloading and installing new software isn't really that imperceptible, you know, unless you've already got BO running :)
I dunno, there's a difference between "untrustworthy" and "actively maliciously perverting reality". Scientology isn't even on the same scale as AOL/Microsoft :)
And then there's a booting, right? :)
It's true that the longer I'm out of school, the more I wonder about how much of the learning that occurred there was really due to the classes, and how much was just due to being exposed to a whole bunch of smart people and interesting hardware. If it's done right, school helps you figure out what you're interested in and gives you the tools to explore in that direction.
I wouldn't call the military "throwing your life away", since it actually helps you pay for college. I knew a lot of people in school who really would have benefited from a short enlistment to really sort out their priorities - heck, maybe I would have as well.
Of course, this is the same /. where a year or two ago everyone couldn't skip college for the job market fast enough, claiming that you could learn everything you'd ever need on the job faster than in some musty classroom. Not that you were necessarily one of those folks; I just think it's interesting that what goes around, comes around.
If I were a bunch of horny 15-year-old gangster wannabes, I would totally try to get my pants to be gang-related. It's amazing what lengths people will go to to avoid facing the real issues...
In 10 years you won't have to use the special Palm letters; heck, in 10 years your PDA will automatically record the lecture and transcribe written notes for your review later.
Of course, for many teachers it'd be faster to just read the notes in the first place and skip the class - maybe not in grade school, but in HS and college this is often the case. Thus the real reason for schools to fear easy access to computers.
Wow, it would have been great to have been taught teamwork and good exercise habits in school. Instead, I learned:
I've learned a lot more teamwork and physical fitness from marching band in high school and college than I ever learned from a gym class. A class that teaches kids teamwork and good exercise habits would be great; but a class that teaches football team appreciation, wastes half the time teaching the rules of the game rather than teaching you to throw/catch/whatever, and then still doesn't grade you on how hard you tried is pretty much a waste of time for a kid.
Can you tell that I'm a little bitter?
Y'know, my initial reaction on reading this was to wonder which music community Hilary's talking about. Considering that Napster was easily the largest single media outlet ever for the few months that it existed, with a simultaneous active user base that even dwarfed the height of broadcast TV, it's pretty clear that the music community[1] and in fact the nation as a whole is in favor of mp3 trading. You can make mp3 trading illegal now, but it's obvious to anyone who isn't blind [2] that when the current crop of college kids are finally running things, mp3s are going to be free for the taking. Whether you like it or not (and I'm not sure that I do), it's only a matter of time.
[1] Yes, I know she meant the "music creation" community, or even more precisely the "music distribution, marketing, and bureaucracy community", but you get my point.
[2] Thanks to retiring Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) for this wonderful saying. Try to imagine me saying it in a soft North Carolina drawl. AFAIK this is his only positive contribution to human civilization, but I guess you have to start somewhere :)
Thank you, I've found my new .sig. Scary reading, indeed.
Well, it's a start :)
I'm not sure how much luck you'll have suing your ISP over lost work, though - they'll probably say that you should have paid for @work rather than @home, or whatever their business-centric product is.
If there was real competition in the broadband market, then I would agree with you - anyone who doesn't mind Qwest's contract would be SOL when Code Red hits, and customers of other, more responsible broadband purveyors would be happy.
Unfortunately, since Qwest and the other Baby Bells have been fighting tooth and nail to nip competition in the bud, there are no real alternatives to Qwest. There's no way that the user could have prevented getting reamed in this situation - if you contract for broadband, you're stuck with Qwest's terms that leave you little recourse if their network gets hosed.
Vigorous competition is the solution to these problems, IMHO.
I hereby refund you all of the money you've ever paid for /. The check is in the mail!
Or even better, people could just wave their frickin' mice over the links before clicking and read where the link goes. Come on, people - goatse.cx got me exactly once, and I wised up. Surely this isn't such a hard lesson to learn...
Not flamebait. Who the hell is moderating today, anyway, Grandma's knitting club?