Our CEO was asked to go to DC to tell the legislators why SOPA/PIPA is such a bad idea:
Sink the Pirates, Not the Internet
http://www.rackspace.com/blog/?p=2741
My uncle was in cancer remission for >20ys when the US-VA went in to fix a simple abdominal hernia. After they sewed him up, he was okay for a couple of weeks, but then got very sick. An infection was ravaging his body and the doctors could not localize the infection. After months of antibiotics, they found the rags and removed them and scooped out all the necrosing tissue. By this time, his immune system had sunken so low that the cancer was able to make a come back which ended up killing him (after months of chemo).
All this to say.. forgotten rags (and implements) are a pretty significant problem in many disciplines (not just fuel lines), and why many operating rooms now have a "time out" materials count in pre and post-op. Maybe launch pad protocols should adopt the same.
I hadn't heard anyone discuss the limited lifespan of optical and other eDoc mediums. They have very short/finite life spans (5-20 yrs) and have to be remastered or transferred off to another medium. Also.. would such a system be "safe" from technology attack like EMP, etc? Paper is cheap, and good for a couple hundred years.
They're just trying to hang onto any/all install-base they can now. The iPhone (with all of it's problems (and zealots)) actually HELPED the effort of moving the world away from flash and to the W3 HTML5 standard. Thank you Apple!:) IMHO, Flash is now just another example of legacy, greed-ware. Open Source..
Open Standards..
Open Life.
and all implementations of a claim should have to bear the originator's name/credit. Just like (some) OSS software licensing works.:)
We would end up with much less "pro-active patent hording".. and artistic pride would flourish.:) Not to mention putting an end to all the dark trends of patent wars such as genetic/seed and biotech patent battles currently brewing!
Short Term, BW capping is wrong. That's why when I bought an Android phone I went with an uncapped provider (Sprint).
Long term, all providers should plan their networks better and throttle all content (or enable fair QoS based traffic shaping). This isn't new technology.. nor is it anti-neutrality. It's simple good network design planning (or lack thereof).
Really cool and brave move (embracing Internet Democracy). But the three big challenges that need to be addressed are: 1) Address the inequality/access issue 2) Deal with user authentication + anonymity issue 3) Maintain national sovereignty
If I see those key points addressed.. Internet Democracy might be worth its weight in electrons.:)
Such a system could get rid of soooo much governmental cruft!
These folks need to go open source.. for the safety of the world! In fact.. go one step further and have all governments of the world require all public infrastructure to only be run on open source systems. This is our only hope of staying ahead of terrorists. This same type of problem (and need) has also been seen in the problems with US electronic Voting Booth. The recent RSA seed + proprietary algorythm lead has proven that closed source = security risk. Wake up politicians!
My last laptop was a high gloss.. and most of the time I didn't notice (work in the dark).. but when you're in an airport or something with lots of light.. it's terrible. This reason is why I ended up NOT getting an HP 311 for my new netbook.. and why I DID get an 11.6" Lenovo x100e:
http://www.slashgear.com/lenovo-thinkpad-x100e-review-2972091/
(in red of course)
Talk with your cash.. Some vendors have obviously started to "Get it" and kick the marketers out of the design groups.. Let's hope more vendors do the same.
[repost authenticated] Freaking awesome.. I work for Rackspace and didn't know that THIS was coming down.. !:) Anyone in here from the Ubuntu project involved want to comment on how it we came together on this? I know that we have a LOT of Ubuntu lovers at Rackspace. We even have our own internal mail list at Rackspace called ubuntu@rackspace.com (not external obviously).:)
My favorite distro and my favorite cloud storage solution... two great tastes..
Wireless providers have been storing triangulated data centrally for years. It was just never a) disclosed and b) stored on the handset. I can see why they do it on the handset.. 1) it's cheaper (storage/data wise) and 2) less liability (centralized hack/break ins/leaks, etc). This just validates many of Richard Stallman's base concerns about technology that you don't control. And Arthur Weasley's open source truism (from "Harry Potter"), "Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain.";)
Read between the lines folks. MS-Russia is in real trouble here. Their install base is all but eroded away.
Russia (just like many other governments) are out of cash and are mandating Free (as in beer) OSS. They've been told that all schools must use FOSS: http://news.slashdot.org/story/08/10/23/1627250/Russia-Mandates-Free-Software-For-Public-Schools " If a school doesn't want to use the free software supplied by the government, it has to buy commercial licences using its own funds."
And since they're already GIVING it away to non-profits and NGOs just to maintain their install base: http://politics.slashdot.org/story/10/10/17/2241228/MS-Gives-Free-Licenses-To-Oppressed-Nonprofits http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/09/13/221216/Microsoft-To-Issue-Blanket-License-To-NGOs
Plus they're loosing the battle in anti-piracy: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/131247/Microsoft-Complaints-Help-Russian-Govt-Pursue-Political-Opposition-Groups
MS-Russia is really grasping at straws here.
The funny thing in their latest statement is self contradicting.: "We must bear in mind that Linux is not a Russian OS and, moreover, is at the end of its life cycle."
"Linux is not a Russian OS..." (does not have the back doors we need)..
But they are about to MAKE it a Russian OS. Just like China did with RedFlag Linux: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flag_Linux
And "is at the end of its life cycle"?!? Last I checked is is growing like crazy! The funny thing is that by making their own Linux.. they are, in fact extending it's reach (and life) further.. and further retarding the install base of Windows. Microsoft knows this.. but just can not say it aloud.
I think it was Gartner who said that MS would have to have an Open Source offering to compete with Linux by 2008. The real work going forward for MS is three fold: 1) How to harness Open Source, given their OSS rep 2) How to make money at it.. and from a closed-source perspective: 3) How to keep GPL from "tainting" your closed source products
(developers love to eat Asian food and pizza together..;)
As a Russian MD refugee friend of mine once told me regarding the government's view on how Russia sees its citizens,
"They say, 'Russia is such nice place. Who woult evah vant to leef?' "
Censor-ware should really grate with the artsy fartsy types (the real ones anyways).
Haha.. Silly boy.. "artsy fartsy types" will always side with fashion and hip-ness over morals! hehe Plus, they all own and love cats.. which again, dubious at best.;)
Maybe we should view it as a market of freedom... as long as there IS choice (i.e. it exists), you don't HAVE to chose one over the other. The slippery part is for those who only use proprietary systems. The use of proprietary systems tends toward vendor-lock, which leads to more of the same. As long as you keep at least some mix of FOSS in there, at least you have options.
Well, this just validates what most FOSS advocates preach... closed systems are self serving and antagonistic toward freedom. This is one reason why I've never financially supported Apple products (since the introduction of the Mac in the 80s).
In a nut shell, Cloud Files is the Rackspace equivalent to AmazonS3 online storage webservice or "file hosting service", except Cloud Files also includes CDN (content distribution services) via limelight. Cloud Servers is the Rackspace Xen offering, and Cloud Sites is the web and DB hosting services. All wrapped up with the Rackspace Cloud control panel and back end auth-API. Here's some sales-less info on them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rackspace_Cloud Scanning over it though I see that wikipedia article is a bit out of date. Our Cloud Servers offering DOES actually support Windows VMs now (in beta). Though I'm more a Linux guys myself..;)
Part of the coolness is that between the Cloud Servers and Cloud Files systems, we have a publicnet and servicenet interface. The latter allows direct "intra-cloud" transfers, while public (external) clients can hit the same content via CDN (limelight), allowing you to distribute your content and load via embedded URL around the world without hitting any one data center.
When an antivirus subscription expires, it's an excellent time to reconsider your OS selection. Here's my story...
For a while, one of my Christmas presents for my wife every year was her NortonAV re-up subscription. It was frustrating, and made me (and avid Linux evangelist) livid -- paying into the very system that I every fiber in my being was techno-morally opposed to. However.. the NAV re-up what she wanted, and it was a necessary evil as it was the one Windows box on our network that we also used for running the TurboTax CD-install from every year.
When I found that Turbo-tax could be run completely on-line now, AND was non-IE/Firefox friendly.. I asked her, "so what do you need your machine to do now if we can do taxes on line instead of buying the Windows/CD every year?"... To which she replied.. "As long as it makes toast.. I don't care what OS it is!". "Makes Toast?", I asked. "Yes.. Unlike for you, to me a computer is just a toaster. If it doesn't 'make toast'' (check email, surf the web, and play a few games) then I don't want it!.". "Oh! Okay.. let me see what I can do." So I set her up with a second laptop in the form of a new, Dell mini-9 with Ubuntu preinstalled and she loved it. It "Made Toast" and I had no more Antivirus subscriptions to deal with (and no more viruses or worries about the backdoor known as MS-Outlook).
She now checks email with Thunderbird and Squirrelmail, plays all her regular web-flash games... Plus, what really made her fall in love w/Linux were all the free/included versions of FreeCell/Blackjac and Mahjongg. Come to find out, FREE GAMES was the "big driver" for my wife's acceptance of the mythical "Linux Desktop".
Now I take that $50 every Christmas and buy her something from Victoria Secrets. A gift that keeps on giving;)... instead of taking.
HP Buying Palm eh? Hmmm... Superior OS/hardware platform. Best GUI and multitasking sytem in the market. Original company can't market its way out of a wet paper sack. Palm's WebOS/Pre makes me feel like an Amiga owner all over again! I'm in! Wonder if I can run UAE on it?! hehe
I am a 10 year subscriber, SA author, and loved the zine. It was the only magazine that I subscribed to for the past 10 years.
They most probably died due to internal/reader struggles between their dedicated Solaris and Linux bases. This can be seen back to around 2003 when they started shifting their content from more traditional UN*X/Solaris/AIX/HPUX content over to Linux more and more. At one point in 2003, almost all the articles and readers letters were about Linux and the older UN*X specific content had all but died off. Here in the past two years, it seemed that they tried to force the situation back the other way (maybe to achieve balance?), by hiring a couple of hard core Solaris writer/editors (esp in the reader letters area). In short, it just felt "wrong", like they were trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole. Many folks had started to move over to Linux and they started ignoring that part of their customer base. I've heard that they had some internal struggles around these issues too.
But I'm right there with you. No other UN*X professional magazine existed where every single issue I picked up had between 2-3 articles that were prudent to my job and profession. It's a very sad day indeed.
I'm definitely be opting for the archiveCD, and probably be adding Linux Professional as my next subscription.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm in line to get my FREE Pi. Picked up a coupon at the Blacksbug FudCON:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Archive:FUDCon:Blacksburg_2012
Planning on turning mine into a MythTV frontend unit. :)
Good times..
Tweeks
Our CEO was asked to go to DC to tell the legislators why SOPA/PIPA is such a bad idea:
Sink the Pirates, Not the Internet
http://www.rackspace.com/blog/?p=2741
Tweeks
My uncle was in cancer remission for >20ys when the US-VA went in to fix a simple abdominal hernia. After they sewed him up, he was okay for a couple of weeks, but then got very sick. An infection was ravaging his body and the doctors could not localize the infection. After months of antibiotics, they found the rags and removed them and scooped out all the necrosing tissue. By this time, his immune system had sunken so low that the cancer was able to make a come back which ended up killing him (after months of chemo).
All this to say.. forgotten rags (and implements) are a pretty significant problem in many disciplines (not just fuel lines), and why many operating rooms now have a "time out" materials count in pre and post-op. Maybe launch pad protocols should adopt the same.
Tweeks
I hadn't heard anyone discuss the limited lifespan of optical and other eDoc mediums. They have very short/finite life spans (5-20 yrs) and have to be remastered or transferred off to another medium. Also.. would such a system be "safe" from technology attack like EMP, etc? Paper is cheap, and good for a couple hundred years.
Tweeks
+1
That bastard 15iUDqk6nLmav3B1xUHPQivDpfMruVsu9f !! Call the cops! :v/
This is the perfect example of the self-perpetuating machine that IS modern, academic research-grant grabbing.. ;)
Tweeks
They're just trying to hang onto any/all install-base they can now. The iPhone (with all of it's problems (and zealots)) actually HELPED the effort of moving the world away from flash and to the W3 HTML5 standard. Thank you Apple! :) IMHO, Flash is now just another example of legacy, greed-ware.
Open Source..
Open Standards..
Open Life.
Tweeks
and all implementations of a claim should have to bear the originator's name/credit. Just like (some) OSS software licensing works. :)
We would end up with much less "pro-active patent hording".. and artistic pride would flourish. :) Not to mention putting an end to all the dark trends of patent wars such as genetic/seed and biotech patent battles currently brewing!
Tweeks
Short Term, BW capping is wrong. That's why when I bought an Android phone I went with an uncapped provider (Sprint).
Long term, all providers should plan their networks better and throttle all content (or enable fair QoS based traffic shaping). This isn't new technology.. nor is it anti-neutrality. It's simple good network design planning (or lack thereof).
Tweeks
Really cool and brave move (embracing Internet Democracy). But the three big challenges that need to be addressed are:
1) Address the inequality/access issue
2) Deal with user authentication + anonymity issue
3) Maintain national sovereignty
If I see those key points addressed.. Internet Democracy might be worth its weight in electrons. :)
Such a system could get rid of soooo much governmental cruft!
Tweeks
These folks need to go open source.. for the safety of the world!
In fact.. go one step further and have all governments of the world require all public infrastructure to only be run on open source systems. This is our only hope of staying ahead of terrorists. This same type of problem (and need) has also been seen in the problems with US electronic Voting Booth. The recent RSA seed + proprietary algorythm lead has proven that closed source = security risk. Wake up politicians!
Tweeks
My last laptop was a high gloss.. and most of the time I didn't notice (work in the dark).. but when you're in an airport or something with lots of light.. it's terrible. This reason is why I ended up NOT getting an HP 311 for my new netbook.. and why I DID get an 11.6" Lenovo x100e:
http://www.slashgear.com/lenovo-thinkpad-x100e-review-2972091/
(in red of course)
Talk with your cash.. Some vendors have obviously started to "Get it" and kick the marketers out of the design groups.. Let's hope more vendors do the same.
Tweeks
[repost authenticated] :) :)
Freaking awesome.. I work for Rackspace and didn't know that THIS was coming down.. !
Anyone in here from the Ubuntu project involved want to comment on how it we came together on this? I know that we have a LOT of Ubuntu lovers at Rackspace. We even have our own internal mail list at Rackspace called ubuntu@rackspace.com (not external obviously).
My favorite distro and my favorite cloud storage solution... two great tastes..
Tweeks
Wireless providers have been storing triangulated data centrally for years. It was just never a) disclosed and b) stored on the handset. I can see why they do it on the handset.. 1) it's cheaper (storage/data wise) and 2) less liability (centralized hack/break ins/leaks, etc). This just validates many of Richard Stallman's base concerns about technology that you don't control. And Arthur Weasley's open source truism (from "Harry Potter"), "Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain." ;)
Tweeks
Read between the lines folks.
MS-Russia is in real trouble here. Their install base is all but eroded away.
Russia (just like many other governments) are out of cash and are mandating Free (as in beer) OSS. They've been told that all schools must use FOSS:
http://news.slashdot.org/story/08/10/23/1627250/Russia-Mandates-Free-Software-For-Public-Schools
" If a school doesn't want to use the free software supplied by the government, it has to buy commercial licences using its own funds."
And since they're already GIVING it away to non-profits and NGOs just to maintain their install base:
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/10/10/17/2241228/MS-Gives-Free-Licenses-To-Oppressed-Nonprofits
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/09/13/221216/Microsoft-To-Issue-Blanket-License-To-NGOs
Plus they're loosing the battle in anti-piracy:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/131247/Microsoft-Complaints-Help-Russian-Govt-Pursue-Political-Opposition-Groups
MS-Russia is really grasping at straws here.
The funny thing in their latest statement is self contradicting.:
"We must bear in mind that Linux is not a Russian OS and, moreover, is at the end of its life cycle."
"Linux is not a Russian OS..."
(does not have the back doors we need)..
But they are about to MAKE it a Russian OS. Just like China did with RedFlag Linux:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flag_Linux
And "is at the end of its life cycle"?!?
Last I checked is is growing like crazy!
The funny thing is that by making their own Linux.. they are, in fact extending it's reach (and life) further.. and further retarding the install base of Windows.
Microsoft knows this.. but just can not say it aloud.
I think it was Gartner who said that MS would have to have an Open Source offering to compete with Linux by 2008. The real work going forward for MS is three fold:
1) How to harness Open Source, given their OSS rep
2) How to make money at it..
and from a closed-source perspective:
3) How to keep GPL from "tainting" your closed source products
(developers love to eat Asian food and pizza together..;)
As a Russian MD refugee friend of mine once told me regarding the government's view on how Russia sees its citizens,
"They say, 'Russia is such nice place. Who woult evah vant to leef?' "
Russia and Microsoft have so much in common.
Tweeks
Censor-ware should really grate with the artsy fartsy types (the real ones anyways).
Haha.. Silly boy.. "artsy fartsy types" will always side with fashion and hip-ness over morals! hehe Plus, they all own and love cats.. which again, dubious at best. ;)
Tweeks
Maybe we should view it as a market of freedom... as long as there IS choice (i.e. it exists), you don't HAVE to chose one over the other. The slippery part is for those who only use proprietary systems. The use of proprietary systems tends toward vendor-lock, which leads to more of the same. As long as you keep at least some mix of FOSS in there, at least you have options.
Tweeks
Well, this just validates what most FOSS advocates preach... closed systems are self serving and antagonistic toward freedom. This is one reason why I've never financially supported Apple products (since the introduction of the Mac in the 80s).
Tweeks
Hey there... man, :)
In a nut shell, Cloud Files is the Rackspace equivalent to AmazonS3 online storage webservice or "file hosting service", except Cloud Files also includes CDN (content distribution services) via limelight. Cloud Servers is the Rackspace Xen offering, and Cloud Sites is the web and DB hosting services. All wrapped up with the Rackspace Cloud control panel and back end auth-API. Here's some sales-less info on them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rackspace_Cloud Scanning over it though I see that wikipedia article is a bit out of date. Our Cloud Servers offering DOES actually support Windows VMs now (in beta). Though I'm more a Linux guys myself.. ;)
Part of the coolness is that between the Cloud Servers and Cloud Files systems, we have a publicnet and servicenet interface. The latter allows direct "intra-cloud" transfers, while public (external) clients can hit the same content via CDN (limelight), allowing you to distribute your content and load via embedded URL around the world without hitting any one data center.
Tweeks
When an antivirus subscription expires, it's an excellent time to reconsider your OS selection. Here's my story...
For a while, one of my Christmas presents for my wife every year was her NortonAV re-up subscription. It was frustrating, and made me (and avid Linux evangelist) livid -- paying into the very system that I every fiber in my being was techno-morally opposed to. However.. the NAV re-up what she wanted, and it was a necessary evil as it was the one Windows box on our network that we also used for running the TurboTax CD-install from every year.
When I found that Turbo-tax could be run completely on-line now, AND was non-IE/Firefox friendly.. I asked her, "so what do you need your machine to do now if we can do taxes on line instead of buying the Windows/CD every year?"... To which she replied.. "As long as it makes toast.. I don't care what OS it is!". "Makes Toast?", I asked. "Yes.. Unlike for you, to me a computer is just a toaster. If it doesn't 'make toast'' (check email, surf the web, and play a few games) then I don't want it!.". "Oh! Okay.. let me see what I can do." So I set her up with a second laptop in the form of a new, Dell mini-9 with Ubuntu preinstalled and she loved it. It "Made Toast" and I had no more Antivirus subscriptions to deal with (and no more viruses or worries about the backdoor known as MS-Outlook).
She now checks email with Thunderbird and Squirrelmail, plays all her regular web-flash games... Plus, what really made her fall in love w/Linux were all the free/included versions of FreeCell/Blackjac and Mahjongg. Come to find out, FREE GAMES was the "big driver" for my wife's acceptance of the mythical "Linux Desktop".
Now I take that $50 every Christmas and buy her something from Victoria Secrets. A gift that keeps on giving ;)... instead of taking.
HP Buying Palm eh? Hmmm... Superior OS/hardware platform. Best GUI and multitasking sytem in the market. Original company can't market its way out of a wet paper sack. Palm's WebOS/Pre makes me feel like an Amiga owner all over again! I'm in! Wonder if I can run UAE on it?! hehe
Then you can tell people that running Linux is an elemental experience. :)
Tweeks
They most probably died due to internal/reader struggles between their dedicated Solaris and Linux bases. This can be seen back to around 2003 when they started shifting their content from more traditional UN*X/Solaris/AIX/HPUX content over to Linux more and more. At one point in 2003, almost all the articles and readers letters were about Linux and the older UN*X specific content had all but died off. Here in the past two years, it seemed that they tried to force the situation back the other way (maybe to achieve balance?), by hiring a couple of hard core Solaris writer/editors (esp in the reader letters area). In short, it just felt "wrong", like they were trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole. Many folks had started to move over to Linux and they started ignoring that part of their customer base. I've heard that they had some internal struggles around these issues too.
But I'm right there with you. No other UN*X professional magazine existed where every single issue I picked up had between 2-3 articles that were prudent to my job and profession. It's a very sad day indeed.
I'm definitely be opting for the archiveCD, and probably be adding Linux Professional as my next subscription.
A moment of silence please,
Thomas Weeks