Re:Why does /. have to concentrate on this film?
on
LoTR Takes 4 Oscars
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· Score: 1
Why does/. have to concentrate on this film? Sure, it was certainly the most popular on/....
I found an interesting contrast: as I listened to "Morning Edition" on NPR while driving to work, they described the Denzel Washington & Halle Berry awards, mentioned Jennifer Connelly, played a snippet from Ron Howard's speech and one from Jim Broadbent, and left me thinking, "I guess FoTR got completely snubbed. Too bad."
While the others are the "big" awards, winning four "little" Oscars deserves a mention as well...
From the article, I would expect them to only support the RedHat distribution, on hardware sold by Oracle/RedHat pre-configured with the OS & RDBMS:
Oracle also will work closely with Linux provider Red Hat Inc. in Research Triangle Park, N.C., to offer
customers preconfigured servers loaded with Oracle's application server, Ellison said. "You'll see us
taking full support responsibility for Linux," he said. "If you're running the app server and something
goes wrong, call us and we'll come and fix it."
This dramatically simplifies the support responsibility Oracle has accepted. I imagine they'll use commodity hardware and fully redundant RAID systems, so if something dies, they just drop in a replacement and you're running again.
So rather than just getting revenues from selling and supporting the RDBMS, Oracle now gets all that plus revenue from the sale of the hardware & OS and all the continuing revenue of the support contracts.
Sounds like an excellent business opportunity to me.
If you need a database, and losing even a one email could mean the difference in thousands of dollars in fines for violating
your service agreements with your client's, you need another big pocketed company to blame when it's the database fault, and not yours.
If you need the security of protection in case of financial liability, you buy insurance. That's what insurance is for.
It is almost invariably more expensive to buy insurance disguised as something else, be it an extended warranty, support contract, software license, or my personal favorite: a credit card/loan payment protection plan. Straight insurance is almost always less expensive and gives dramatically higher benefits.
Anyway, the irony is that the offer I took instead lead to me being laid off just recently, so according to Murhpy's Law I guess
P:Entropia will go on to be very successful, and I will sit here like a bitter man wondering, why oh why didn't I go there instead.
This is actually a common phenomenon, with a very reasonable explanation. Take choosing a store checkout line. You choose the one you think is best, then looking to the side, you realize the one next to you is moving faster.
The problem is that there are at least two lines right next to you. If the speeds of the lines are randomly distributed, you only have a 33% chance of picking the fastest line out of 3. It gets worse with more options. There is thus a large probability that one of the two lines beside you will go faster than your choice, and a much larger chance that some line out of the set of available lines will go faster.
Similarly, when picking a job, you probably have many choices, and chances are that _some_ job you could have chosen will do better than the job you do choose.
Summary: You most likely will not make the optimal choice.
the Willamette (a major river, incidentally one of only a handful in the world that run south to north)...As a former Oregonian, I find this kind of cool...
Let me guess - you are a former Oregonian from near the Willamette?
"Apparently there is a widely held belief that there are only two rivers in the world that flow
northward. Those two rivers are the Nile and whatever nearby river flows north."
RiverNorth gives a nice list of 41 significant rivers that would have to be included in that handful.
I was amused to note that the list includes the Deschutes, also used as an Intel codename...
really don't want to get into the topic of the oldest fallacy, which I think is actually getting into a land war in asia, or possibly never
bet with a Sicilian when life is on the line,
Actually, those are "classic blunders" not fallacies...
(since we're arguing semantics)
kb
I think everybody does the most efficient thing, as they see it.
The variance is in which variables are being optimized, and possibly in overlooked variables or missed optimization opportunities.
Manual transmissions and lightweight cars optimize fuel economy and purchase cost. Vans/trucks optimize carrying capacity. SUVs optimize...OK, I don't know what they optimize (I drive a Toyota Corolla...) - there's a perception they increase safety, they can increase convenience via 4WD/carrying capacity, they can optimize status accumulation...
Most users want to optimize (minimize) their time commitment to the computer (including both learning programs and using the computer).
Note that this means learning IS a problem, if your increased efficiency doesn't pay off quickly -- how many years of use does it take to make up for the time you spent learning the program?
Almost nobody (read: only we geeks) really cares about computational efficiency, until it starts impacting user time. Thus, everyone should write almost everything in Python.:-)
Beautiful, cutting-edge special effects for Fellowship of the Ring.
One year old, OK special effects for The Two Towers.
Two year old, dated special effects for The Return of the King.
*sigh*
Oh, well. At least when watching the trilogy on DVD, drastic changes in visual appearance won't interfere with suspension of disbelief like watching Star Wars 1-6...
kb
Windows XP Embedded - Inconceivable
on
Windows XP Embedded
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· Score: 3, Funny
You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
doSomethingRemote() # RPC that may take 100 ms and may throw an exception because of network failures
and
doSomethingRemote2() # local call that formats information into a message to send to a socket, then waits for the response, possibly taking 100 ms and possibly throwing an exception because of network failures
What is the primary difference? The amount of programmer effort required to implement #2.
If you're going to use remote functionality, you're going to pay the price whether you do it in a standardized, automated way, or in a custom, manual way. Yes, you need to be aware of the performance implications, but you need to be aware of the performance implications of _ANY_ function you call - the function may do database accesses, may open files, may consume huge amounts of memory, may sleep for 10 minutes, etc. These concerns are not unique to RPC.
A bottle of water doesn't have enough energy present to split it into hydrogen. You can say "yes, if it's at 30,000 feet or 99 degrees C" or
whatever, but that bottle of water required EXTERNAL energy to raise it to that potential. And that external energy is the entire point. It had to come from somewhere, it's not free.
Note that the low pressure (30K feet)/high temperature (99 degrees C) are to boil water, which changes state from liquid to gas. It does not break the molecular bonds to separate into hydrogen & oxygen. The gas is still water molecules - H2O, not H2 and O2 molecules.
But the main point is correct - it takes an energy input to get the hydrogen that you then use in whatever reaction you're using to create your new energy. Hydrogen is a transmission and storage medium, not an energy source. Note that some companies are getting the hydrogen from gasoline or methanol, using the previously-stored solar energy.
kb
Cisco calls it a modem, was Re:Dearth of technical
on
WinDSL Coming?
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· Score: 1
Okay everyone, repeat after me. There IS NO SUCH THING AS A DSL "MODEM". "D" in DSL is for digital.
Actually, Cisco calls its 675 a "modem":
"The Cisco 675 is an Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) modem"
In a similar vein, the appropriate response to this situation is to employ parody (a protected use under copyright law, anyone know about trademark law?) Replace all the Apple logos with something similar, but obviously parody: How about an apple with a worm coming out of it? Graphic artists, anyone?
Slashdot Mirror
I found an interesting contrast: as I listened to "Morning Edition" on NPR while driving to work, they described the Denzel Washington & Halle Berry awards, mentioned Jennifer Connelly, played a snippet from Ron Howard's speech and one from Jim Broadbent, and left me thinking, "I guess FoTR got completely snubbed. Too bad."
While the others are the "big" awards, winning four "little" Oscars deserves a mention as well...
kb
Oracle also will work closely with Linux provider Red Hat Inc. in Research Triangle Park, N.C., to offer customers preconfigured servers loaded with Oracle's application server, Ellison said. "You'll see us taking full support responsibility for Linux," he said. "If you're running the app server and something goes wrong, call us and we'll come and fix it."
This dramatically simplifies the support responsibility Oracle has accepted. I imagine they'll use commodity hardware and fully redundant RAID systems, so if something dies, they just drop in a replacement and you're running again.
So rather than just getting revenues from selling and supporting the RDBMS, Oracle now gets all that plus revenue from the sale of the hardware & OS and all the continuing revenue of the support contracts.
Sounds like an excellent business opportunity to me.
kb
If you need the security of protection in case of financial liability, you buy insurance. That's what insurance is for.
It is almost invariably more expensive to buy insurance disguised as something else, be it an extended warranty, support contract, software license, or my personal favorite: a credit card/loan payment protection plan. Straight insurance is almost always less expensive and gives dramatically higher benefits.
kb
This is actually a common phenomenon, with a very reasonable explanation. Take choosing a store checkout line. You choose the one you think is best, then looking to the side, you realize the one next to you is moving faster.
The problem is that there are at least two lines right next to you. If the speeds of the lines are randomly distributed, you only have a 33% chance of picking the fastest line out of 3. It gets worse with more options. There is thus a large probability that one of the two lines beside you will go faster than your choice, and a much larger chance that some line out of the set of available lines will go faster.
Similarly, when picking a job, you probably have many choices, and chances are that _some_ job you could have chosen will do better than the job you do choose.
Summary: You most likely will not make the optimal choice.
Murphy was an optimist.
kb
Let me guess - you are a former Oregonian from near the Willamette?
"Apparently there is a widely held belief that there are only two rivers in the world that flow northward. Those two rivers are the Nile and whatever nearby river flows north."
RiverNorth gives a nice list of 41 significant rivers that would have to be included in that handful.
I was amused to note that the list includes the Deschutes, also used as an Intel codename...
really don't want to get into the topic of the oldest fallacy, which I think is actually getting into a land war in asia, or possibly never bet with a Sicilian when life is on the line, Actually, those are "classic blunders" not fallacies... (since we're arguing semantics) kb
I think everybody does the most efficient thing, as they see it.
:-)
The variance is in which variables are being optimized, and possibly in overlooked variables or missed optimization opportunities.
Manual transmissions and lightweight cars optimize fuel economy and purchase cost. Vans/trucks optimize carrying capacity. SUVs optimize...OK, I don't know what they optimize (I drive a Toyota Corolla...) - there's a perception they increase safety, they can increase convenience via 4WD/carrying capacity, they can optimize status accumulation...
Most users want to optimize (minimize) their time commitment to the computer (including both learning programs and using the computer).
Note that this means learning IS a problem, if your increased efficiency doesn't pay off quickly -- how many years of use does it take to make up for the time you spent learning the program?
Almost nobody (read: only we geeks) really cares about computational efficiency, until it starts impacting user time. Thus, everyone should write almost everything in Python.
Beautiful, cutting-edge special effects for Fellowship of the Ring.
One year old, OK special effects for The Two Towers.
Two year old, dated special effects for The Return of the King.
*sigh*
Oh, well. At least when watching the trilogy on DVD, drastic changes in visual appearance won't interfere with suspension of disbelief like watching Star Wars 1-6...
kb
System requirements
Two cases:
doSomethingRemote() # RPC that may take 100 ms and may throw an exception because of network failures
and
doSomethingRemote2() # local call that formats information into a message to send to a socket, then waits for the response, possibly taking 100 ms and possibly throwing an exception because of network failures
What is the primary difference? The amount of programmer effort required to implement #2.
If you're going to use remote functionality, you're going to pay the price whether you do it in a standardized, automated way, or in a custom, manual way. Yes, you need to be aware of the performance implications, but you need to be aware of the performance implications of _ANY_ function you call - the function may do database accesses, may open files, may consume huge amounts of memory, may sleep for 10 minutes, etc. These concerns are not unique to RPC.
A bottle of water doesn't have enough energy present to split it into hydrogen. You can say "yes, if it's at 30,000 feet or 99 degrees C" or
whatever, but that bottle of water required EXTERNAL energy to raise it to that potential. And that external energy is the entire point. It had to come from somewhere, it's not free.
Note that the low pressure (30K feet)/high temperature (99 degrees C) are to boil water, which changes state from liquid to gas. It does not break the molecular bonds to separate into hydrogen & oxygen. The gas is still water molecules - H2O, not H2 and O2 molecules.
But the main point is correct - it takes an energy input to get the hydrogen that you then use in whatever reaction you're using to create your new energy. Hydrogen is a transmission and storage medium, not an energy source. Note that some companies are getting the hydrogen from gasoline or methanol, using the previously-stored solar energy.
kb
Actually, Cisco calls its 675 a "modem":
"The Cisco 675 is an Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) modem"
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/ds l_prod/c600s/c675/c675inop/0467501 .htm
That's good enough to establish "common usage" for me. :-)
kb
In a similar vein, the appropriate response to this situation is to employ parody (a protected use under copyright law, anyone know about trademark law?) Replace all the Apple logos with something similar, but obviously parody: How about an apple with a worm coming out of it? Graphic artists, anyone?