I think the real problem we face right now is that while our military is VERY good at winning the war, they're really not up to the task of occupying the territory. Unless we come up with some fantastical new technology for this, it probably means that we need a heck of a lot more troops on the ground.
The problem isn't that taxes are too low for the rich. The problem is that there are enough loopholes, that the super rich get out of paying any real taxes in the first place. Clost those loopholes, and while it may hurt the banking industry of the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands, the IRS would rake in a heck of a lot more dough.
That's true. The #1 problem with spaceflight, IMHO, is propulsion. We don't have anything meaningfully operational beyond chemical rockets, and they're frankly not good enough.
Personally, I like the idea of controller-integrated external RAID boxes. That way, the host only needs a non-RAID host bus adapter. Unfortunately, while these are plentiful and affordable on the used SCSI/FC markets, they are a relatively new product in the IDE/SATA market. Thus to get one of these for IDE/SATA drives, you'll have no choice but to shell out a pretty penny for something brand new.
I'll vouch for the MegaRAID cards as well. I currently have an Elite 1500 (2-channel, Ultra2 SCSI), and I'm quite pleased with it. It even supports battery-backed cache, which is VERY important for RAID 5.
Without write cache, the write performance of RAID 5 is absolutely abysmal. With cache, it is perfectly fine. However, not having battery backup for your write cache is a very dangerous thing.
What I really hate is the cable providers who always brag, in their advertisements, that their service is "50x faster than dial-up, *and* 11x faster than DSL!". (Of course in the footnote, they say "most DSL == 256Kbps", which is total hogwash, but I guess they hope no one will read that footnote)
Actually, yes 8Mbps. Remember, there are 3 speeds to consider. The technically possible max speed, the speed at your distance from the CO, and the speed the provider caps your link at. (decreasing in that order)
In the documentation for my ADSL modem, it says that it is capable on something like 8Mbps down, 1Mbps up. Of course my actual provider-capped bandwidth is nowhere near either, respectively.
Yeah, but again, what about the CapsLock key? I'm using a Sun keyboard, and it still has a CapsLock key. Just in a different place. However, it also has several additional keys I really like. For example, it just wouldn't be EMACS without the "Meta" key.:-) "Compose" also kicks ass for sticking those little áccent märks on things, or a simple Que pasa? (no character map programs needed)
Yeah, this is a group I find rather interesting. Not that all of them are like this, but rather that most of them are.
I tend to see most IT majors, and even ones I am friendly with, as those who want to work in the areas of systems administration and networking. However, they also come across as the types who will be in the perpetual "wanting to learn" mindset, and rarely leaping above that to the "now I know the fundamentals, so let me expand my knowledge" phase.
At my old college, RPI (Troy, NY), I found myself in a situation where I knew a lot of Computer Science majors who were quite knowledgable in the fields of networking and systems administration, whether or not they planned to persue a career along those paths. I rarely saw any IT majors, save the rare exception, involved in the ACM or any of the tech groups I was in. (our IT program had a variety of "concentrations," with some closer to CompSci or CompEng than typical of IT, though very few students chose those concentrations)
Now I'm living around a different school, UCF (Orlando, FL), and see a radically different situation. The CompSci students have absolutely no interest or knowledge whatsoever in networking or sysadmin stuff (beyond the odd high-level vague course), and the IT students do, on paper. I am friends with more IT students than CS students, however. But what I do notice, is that while I was a CompSci major myself, I know a lot more about SysAdmin and Networking topics than any of the IT or CS majors around here. (Thankfully enough are interested that I have given presentations on subjects, though it makes it harder to find people to involve in technical projects.)
And the biggest problem with an artificially neat room is that you make a much bigger mess when you actually need to find something there. Then, if lazy, you take forever to clean this mess up. Thus, the room is perpetually messy and only clean for brief periods of time where demanded.
That's why I prefer FreeBSD... The OS is just the OS and the base userland stuff. I specifically install what software I want to have. Of course the same could be considered true on Solaris, which I actually use more often these days. (Sun Rays rock!)
Actually, it was the perfect feature for me. Before tabbed browsing, I regularly would have a whole ton of browser windows open. This is especailly important on dial-up (didn't free myself from that until mid '99), when things take a long time to load, and you never want to hit the "back" button.
In face, the #1 reason I preferred the 'nix version of Netscape to the windows version? Middle-click opens link in new browser window.
(Though I still remember once when some family friend, with minimal computer literacy, was over at the house and browsing the web on my computer. I swear his hand couldn't tell the left and middle buttons apart. When he was done, the taskbar showed a ton of open browser windows.)
It sucks, believe it or not. Asthetically pleasing, but annoyingly sluggish UI. (And yes, I do use Opera as the main browser on my desktop, which is not a Mac) On my powerbook, I use Firefox most of the time, which runs pretty well. And while it occasionally gets crash-happy or quirky (like not redrawing itself when unhidden), the unconfigurability of Safari was annoying the heck out of me.
Oh, of course. I tend to focus on the actual problem and situation, not the "what box I'm looking at" and "what keys to push" portion.
Now while I am the type who would have a 2600 or an E450 at home, I wouldn't really be discussing them with ISP tech support, as they have little to do with my DSL line (well, unless I had an ADSL WIC in the 2600, which I'd like to do someday).
True, the officially mentioned hardware support may not be as good. However, there are exceptions. I remember when all those Promise ATA cards (for ATA 66 and up) first came out. They were supported on FreeBSD before Linux actually.
Also, I find that if you like being able to manually configure your system (text files and all), FreeBSD is actually a lot easier to fully understand and use than most Linux distros.
Personally, I see the different BSDs as all good OSes, but for different purposes...
FreeBSD - Good general purpose server OS, and my 'nix of choice on x86
OpenBSD - Good firewall/network-device OS, runs wonderfully on good hardware (like old SPARCs) Though it can often be behind the ball in places you'd least expect it until you run into them head-on, out of nowhere. (Like when I tried the sparc64 port on my Netra, and it ran slowly, and didn't like more than 2 hme network interfaces)
NetBSD - Tinkerer's OS of choice. Runs on anything, and is easy to manually install. Perfect for figuring out how to net-boot a VAXstation, SPARC, or simply to put that Sun3 through its paces. (and anyone who thinks you can't have gcc and X in a 200MB full system, has never used NetBSD)
Actually, the differences are quite small between NetBSD and OpenBSD because Open is a fork of Net. Free, however, actually has a very different feel to it. Of course they all have a lot of similarities at the source level, and you'll see NetBSD banners all over FreeBSD kernel source files.
As much as one could say what you just said, Cisco does have an advantage. They have routers for the high-end, the low-end, and the middle-ground, all with consistency of the interface.
I've seen competitors with good high-end gear, and sometimes good really-low-end gear (SOHO). But the middle ground, where you'd use something like a 2500 series, 4000 series, or the 2600/3600 is where I wonder if there are any competing products.
Of course there are those all-in-one four-million-feature boxes (firewall, router, spam filtering, load balancing, IDS, etc.), but sometimes people just want a router to throw in a closet somewhere and grok OSPF between buildings on a campus site.
Hehe... I've always wanted to find myself in that situation with tech support for my DSL provider, just for the fun of it. (of course my router is a far more meager Cisco 4500, though that makes it small enough and practical to use) Though the service is reliable enough, and they seem to already know about problems when I do have brief outages, so I've never actually spoken with a human at their tech support. Probably a good thing, though.
Yeah, that's because your tiny cars are half the size of your average car sold in the US. Heck, we can't even buy cars as small as what you have over there. Of course, diesel engines also help mileage, though those are also hard to find around here in cars.
Then again, our government doesn't tax cars and fuel to death, so we can actually afford to buy and use our vehicles.
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I think the real problem we face right now is that while our military is VERY good at winning the war, they're really not up to the task of occupying the territory. Unless we come up with some fantastical new technology for this, it probably means that we need a heck of a lot more troops on the ground.
Yeah, probably because a low and slow flying UAV is a heck of a lot more vulnerable to an AK-47 than an F-16 :-)
The problem isn't that taxes are too low for the rich. The problem is that there are enough loopholes, that the super rich get out of paying any real taxes in the first place. Clost those loopholes, and while it may hurt the banking industry of the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands, the IRS would rake in a heck of a lot more dough.
That's true. The #1 problem with spaceflight, IMHO, is propulsion. We don't have anything meaningfully operational beyond chemical rockets, and they're frankly not good enough.
Personally, I like the idea of controller-integrated external RAID boxes. That way, the host only needs a non-RAID host bus adapter. Unfortunately, while these are plentiful and affordable on the used SCSI/FC markets, they are a relatively new product in the IDE/SATA market. Thus to get one of these for IDE/SATA drives, you'll have no choice but to shell out a pretty penny for something brand new.
I'll vouch for the MegaRAID cards as well. I currently have an Elite 1500 (2-channel, Ultra2 SCSI), and I'm quite pleased with it. It even supports battery-backed cache, which is VERY important for RAID 5.
Without write cache, the write performance of RAID 5 is absolutely abysmal. With cache, it is perfectly fine. However, not having battery backup for your write cache is a very dangerous thing.
What I really hate is the cable providers who always brag, in their advertisements, that their service is "50x faster than dial-up, *and* 11x faster than DSL!". (Of course in the footnote, they say "most DSL == 256Kbps", which is total hogwash, but I guess they hope no one will read that footnote)
Actually, yes 8Mbps. Remember, there are 3 speeds to consider. The technically possible max speed, the speed at your distance from the CO, and the speed the provider caps your link at. (decreasing in that order)
In the documentation for my ADSL modem, it says that it is capable on something like 8Mbps down, 1Mbps up. Of course my actual provider-capped bandwidth is nowhere near either, respectively.
Also, I belive that NetBSD already has SMP support (not sure when it went in there, though). So does Darwin, of course.
It's NetBSD. Just fire up "vipw" and edit the passwd file manually ;)
(they might have recently added a "useradd" command, but traditionally have not had one, in their minimalist style)
Yeah, but again, what about the CapsLock key? I'm using a Sun keyboard, and it still has a CapsLock key. Just in a different place. However, it also has several additional keys I really like. For example, it just wouldn't be EMACS without the "Meta" key. :-) "Compose" also kicks ass for sticking those little áccent märks on things, or a simple Que pasa? (no character map programs needed)
Yes, though the world did have a demand for far more than 5 of even those machines.
Yeah, this is a group I find rather interesting. Not that all of them are like this, but rather that most of them are.
I tend to see most IT majors, and even ones I am friendly with, as those who want to work in the areas of systems administration and networking. However, they also come across as the types who will be in the perpetual "wanting to learn" mindset, and rarely leaping above that to the "now I know the fundamentals, so let me expand my knowledge" phase.
At my old college, RPI (Troy, NY), I found myself in a situation where I knew a lot of Computer Science majors who were quite knowledgable in the fields of networking and systems administration, whether or not they planned to persue a career along those paths. I rarely saw any IT majors, save the rare exception, involved in the ACM or any of the tech groups I was in. (our IT program had a variety of "concentrations," with some closer to CompSci or CompEng than typical of IT, though very few students chose those concentrations)
Now I'm living around a different school, UCF (Orlando, FL), and see a radically different situation. The CompSci students have absolutely no interest or knowledge whatsoever in networking or sysadmin stuff (beyond the odd high-level vague course), and the IT students do, on paper. I am friends with more IT students than CS students, however. But what I do notice, is that while I was a CompSci major myself, I know a lot more about SysAdmin and Networking topics than any of the IT or CS majors around here. (Thankfully enough are interested that I have given presentations on subjects, though it makes it harder to find people to involve in technical projects.)
And the biggest problem with an artificially neat room is that you make a much bigger mess when you actually need to find something there. Then, if lazy, you take forever to clean this mess up. Thus, the room is perpetually messy and only clean for brief periods of time where demanded.
That's why I prefer FreeBSD... The OS is just the OS and the base userland stuff. I specifically install what software I want to have. Of course the same could be considered true on Solaris, which I actually use more often these days. (Sun Rays rock!)
Actually, it was the perfect feature for me. Before tabbed browsing, I regularly would have a whole ton of browser windows open. This is especailly important on dial-up (didn't free myself from that until mid '99), when things take a long time to load, and you never want to hit the "back" button.
In face, the #1 reason I preferred the 'nix version of Netscape to the windows version? Middle-click opens link in new browser window.
(Though I still remember once when some family friend, with minimal computer literacy, was over at the house and browsing the web on my computer. I swear his hand couldn't tell the left and middle buttons apart. When he was done, the taskbar showed a ton of open browser windows.)
It sucks, believe it or not. Asthetically pleasing, but annoyingly sluggish UI. (And yes, I do use Opera as the main browser on my desktop, which is not a Mac) On my powerbook, I use Firefox most of the time, which runs pretty well. And while it occasionally gets crash-happy or quirky (like not redrawing itself when unhidden), the unconfigurability of Safari was annoying the heck out of me.
Oh, of course. I tend to focus on the actual problem and situation, not the "what box I'm looking at" and "what keys to push" portion.
Now while I am the type who would have a 2600 or an E450 at home, I wouldn't really be discussing them with ISP tech support, as they have little to do with my DSL line (well, unless I had an ADSL WIC in the 2600, which I'd like to do someday).
True, the officially mentioned hardware support may not be as good. However, there are exceptions. I remember when all those Promise ATA cards (for ATA 66 and up) first came out. They were supported on FreeBSD before Linux actually.
Also, I find that if you like being able to manually configure your system (text files and all), FreeBSD is actually a lot easier to fully understand and use than most Linux distros.
Personally, I see the different BSDs as all good OSes, but for different purposes...
FreeBSD - Good general purpose server OS, and my 'nix of choice on x86
OpenBSD - Good firewall/network-device OS, runs wonderfully on good hardware (like old SPARCs) Though it can often be behind the ball in places you'd least expect it until you run into them head-on, out of nowhere. (Like when I tried the sparc64 port on my Netra, and it ran slowly, and didn't like more than 2 hme network interfaces)
NetBSD - Tinkerer's OS of choice. Runs on anything, and is easy to manually install. Perfect for figuring out how to net-boot a VAXstation, SPARC, or simply to put that Sun3 through its paces. (and anyone who thinks you can't have gcc and X in a 200MB full system, has never used NetBSD)
Actually, the differences are quite small between NetBSD and OpenBSD because Open is a fork of Net. Free, however, actually has a very different feel to it. Of course they all have a lot of similarities at the source level, and you'll see NetBSD banners all over FreeBSD kernel source files.
As much as one could say what you just said, Cisco does have an advantage. They have routers for the high-end, the low-end, and the middle-ground, all with consistency of the interface.
I've seen competitors with good high-end gear, and sometimes good really-low-end gear (SOHO). But the middle ground, where you'd use something like a 2500 series, 4000 series, or the 2600/3600 is where I wonder if there are any competing products.
Of course there are those all-in-one four-million-feature boxes (firewall, router, spam filtering, load balancing, IDS, etc.), but sometimes people just want a router to throw in a closet somewhere and grok OSPF between buildings on a campus site.
Hehe... I've always wanted to find myself in that situation with tech support for my DSL provider, just for the fun of it. (of course my router is a far more meager Cisco 4500, though that makes it small enough and practical to use) Though the service is reliable enough, and they seem to already know about problems when I do have brief outages, so I've never actually spoken with a human at their tech support. Probably a good thing, though.
Yeah, that's because your tiny cars are half the size of your average car sold in the US. Heck, we can't even buy cars as small as what you have over there. Of course, diesel engines also help mileage, though those are also hard to find around here in cars.
Then again, our government doesn't tax cars and fuel to death, so we can actually afford to buy and use our vehicles.