Shouldn't we as people step up and sue some of these senators for not represnting us but instead representing big business and not even businesses that are in thier district?
There's no way in hell you're going to successfully sue a senator. He's doing his job, which is introducing and voting for laws that he likes.
There's no way in hell you're going to successfully sue the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committe.
Hatch is already a lawyer. His posterior is covered six ways to Sunday.
Your only hope is to try to vote him out of office. Good luck voting a powerful incumbent Republican senator out in Utah. Perhaps you'd like to get Ralph Nader elected president while your at it?
Why is Mr. Hatch so bent out of shape about copyright abuses? The claimed "because I have copywritten songs too" is unbelivable. Lets face it, who is going to download a senator's greatest Mormon hits?
Does he actually believe that he's losing money from the kazaa collective by this?
I'd really love to track sales, because there probably are some of his songs out there now, just out of sheer macabre fascination. Perhaps he'd try to say with a straight face that it has hurt his sales?
I'd guess that some folks have bought his album just out of sheer novelty. -------------------Stunning Insight Strikes ----------- It just hit me. I'm serious here, don't laugh. He's gotten more exposure for his singing out of this copyright fracas than he ever had a chance at. No doubt the RIAA is helping him market as well.
I'd bet his sales have skyrocketed, since he's been able to use this entire fiasco for personal gain.
I mean, who the heck knew he even HAD a singing career before this. Now it's mentioned every time he opens his mouth in the media.
Between him and McBride, I'm getting really embarassed about this whole Utah thing.
The truthfulness of my sig is really starting to bother me.
The parent post is absolutely not flamebait. It actually brings up an extremely good point. There will unquestionably be domain squatting and misdirection with use of accented characters.
I just re-read my above post responding to you and it certainly seems like an arrogant response to a rude reply. I'm sorry about that, I meant it to be polite response.
I didn't intend to be sarcastic, I really know little about the foibles of power generation and have to rely on the knowlege of others. If you do have a resource in the power industry, please feel free to check with him/her and post relevant info.
On the other hand, I am a fairly good judge of when somebody is lying, and my friend seems completely honest, and would have no apparent reason to want to lead me astray.
Obviously you have reason to doubt me, since your personal experience runs contrary. Should you have the resources to check with someone in the power generation industry: Apparently the two houses, though next door neighbors, were on seperate power systems.
I don't know how divided the power systems were, but apparently the division was rather significant. It's possible I'm wrong about phase being the defining difference.
The particular gentleman who was speaking with me is, as I stated before, responsible for turning off and on people's power, and I've verified this to my own satisfaction.
I shall ask him for complete details of the incident and why it caused problems, and relate such to you.
As to the veracity of that particular story, I have no reason to doubt him, as it was in the midst of a very long discussion of how to steal resources from neighbors and the problems therein. I'm not a thief, nor do I intend to be. I am in the process of purchasing my first house, and he was kind enough to relate some things I might want to look out for, to avoid being the victim of theft.
Given the context, I shall be happy to share some of the incidents he's seen, since you've been kind enough to relate your own experiences.
It seems that there are two different strategies, in general, for stealing utilities. It is very good to be familiar with both, because you might be getting robbed. YOU MIGHT ALSO BE UNKNOWINGLY STEALING BY INHERITING A THEFT SYSTEM. If so, it's far better to correct it on your own, or inform your utility, than it is for them to find it and contact you.
General division of theft tactics:
#1 Cause your meters to read incorrectly. #2 Steal it from your neighbor.
#1 Water: Normally it's done by going upstream of the meter. With the water company, the lines are leaky enough that you'll probably not get caught until somebody bumps into your line.
If you're simply determined to steal utilities outright, this is probably your best hope.
#1 Electricity: You can go upstream of your meter by splicing into the lines on the backside of the conduit against your building, upstream of the meter. Unfortunately, the more you take, the more likely you are to get caught. The power company checks historical records automatically, and will investigate any significant downward change. The power company also tracks where unmetered line losses go, and can isolate it to your feed. And they will if it's significant.
The problem with effectively stealing is that the punishment definetly outweighs any potential benefit. The more you take, the closer they will look.
#1 Natural Gas: Don't even think about it. Gas companies very closely track leaks in the lines, because such are extremely hazardous. Detection: Shut off your gas using appliances for a couple of hours while it's cold and see if the meter keeps going. If it does, the gas is going SOMEWHERE. Possibly a leak, possibly a neighbor. Checking is highly advised, and your gas company will be very willing to help.
#2 Electricity: If you're going to steal the neighbor's electricity, run it on a different circuit. If you plug it into your own circuit, a bad wiring job could cause large problems. This route is safest if you're in an apartment building, since it's highly unlikely you'd get the different flavor problems that inspired this sub-thread.
Detection: Shut off main breaker power sometime in the early evening while all the neighbor's houses are lit up. Listen for loud swearing and look for sudden darkness. Watch the power meter, it should go to zero (I don't remember if it will stop dead or just start to creep very slowly. I think the meter itself uses a trickle). If it keeps spinning, call the power company.
Apparently it is EXTREMELY common for both sides of a dividing wall between apartments or offices to be on one meter. You also get lazy contractors, or unscrouplous landlords, who subdivide one unit into two and don't b
It actually seems to work. I've seen 'demonstrations' before where it couldn't even control traffic lights.
If they're actually doing anything, it's a success, and it just needs scaling up. Even if it's a totally shared bus network, it could have _some_ uses. Just depends on what speed is available and what it's really going to cost to get hooked in.
I'd be a bit worried about the surges, though. Remember that a lightning bolt has already jumped through a mile or three (or more) of air, and blowing through your surge protector to eat your favorite game box isn't much more of a step.
Yes, I know that power systems have exactly the same problem, it's just that they're generally designed to absorb small spikes, and sometimes folks forget the modem is another route for bored electrons.
If the power cord under the fence analogy is going to continue:
THIEVES TAKE NOTE: A friend of mine works for the local power company. It's his job to shut off and restore power to non-bill payers. He has seen cases exactly like this where people with power shut off run an extension cord to the unknowing neighbor's outlet. They then plug it into their own wall (changed it to a male-male).
Result: Neighbor's power stolen, neighbor gets very high bills.
How is it found? Power guy reconnects electricity, but they're on a different transformer and the phase is off. Exploding power meter severely burns power guy, while transformers short out. Lawyers ensue.
HOW DOES THIS RELATE? Simple. Sometimes there are unintended, major consequences to misdeeds.
Another possible consequence is floods of spam originating at your IP and getting RBL'd for life (evidently it's tough to get off once you're on).
The greatest stressor in life is being responsible for things over which you have no control. Secure those AP's folks.
First off, I agree with you. Putting this system onto a bounty server would be very hard to work, if not impossible.
Perhaps it might be possible to change the system, and let it adapt?
The first purpose of the bounty server is open source projects needed. It would be pretty simple to implement it. Then, as the closed-folks move in and take advantage, they'd have to conform to the rules of the new playground.
For large and complicated stuff, it definetly wouldn't work that way at first. And a good thing too, since I imagine quite a bit of the high quality software libre comes from folks like you, who program for a living, as well as altruism.
However, this could also work to your advantage, since it would allow you to negotiate the high level stuff, then bid out software contracts in small, easy to digest chunks, on the bounty server.
Frankly, I'd imagine that the solid technical spec document is at least half of the work, and probably the most creative part, to boot.
I think this is a great idea. You think of something you really want, go to the bounty server and give it a price. If other people think it's worth kicking into, it'll add to the donation pot.
I think you've come up with another way to make money with free software.
The donators could also choose which licenses they'd accept the software to be released under.
This would also be interesting to try out with closed-source software. See how many donations are available.
I guess with the closed source option, you'd have to specify with whom you'd be willing to share the source. If I were donating 10,000 to get a closed source program that scours the stock market reports and lists the fast moving stocks, I don't think I'd like to share that particular program with the other two guys who bid +$3.28 each.
I spend quite a bit of time on/. I would like very much for a caching server that remembers each comment and story individually and only gets the general layout + updates from/.
Then, when I recheck a story I looked at earlier, it would only need to load the new comments. Older comments would be fetched locally.
I would prefer if it served up advertising, too. It could just send back to/. x# of page hits. Heck, my only complaint on/. ads is that we're paying for the bandwidth in time and money to see the same ads repeatedly.
The article explicitly says they're using NUMA archeticture.
Obviously, it's running SCO's intellectual property. SGI doesn't really own NUMA, they only wrote it. Deep down, it's really a derivative of vi.
Re:Oh puhleeze
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· Score: 2, Informative
Your points are good, and well taken. However, the motivations are completely different. I'm an computer and financial manager in a factory and I've learned a few important things: 1. Running out of supplies costs money. 2. Unhappy workers can bankrupt you. 3. The biggest source of workplace stress not being able to do a good work.
Lets discuss your assertions and implications directly." As if factory managers and workers and corporations never saved pennies in disgraceful ways. -And subcontractors living on a shoestring dont? this is a specious attack, without specifics, so there's not much to say besides "oh yeah, so are you"...-
I myself will never buy a tract home because I don't want to live in a tract, but by gum I will get a stick built home to my own design by a builder I trust before I buy a prefab. -your point seems to be you trust builders more than prefab builders. You seem to know and trust a plural of builders. Good on ya, and good luck. I, and many other people don't have pre-existing relationships of trust with any builders, so we have to use different criteria for decisions.- -You also seem to be more confident of your own design abilities than the abilities of the engineers/architects working for the prefab builders. Bully for you. I, and many others, don't have the confidence to pit our design abilities vs the prefab folks. This isn't blind faith in their abilities, but it is tempered by a known lack skill on the parts of many of the rest of us.-
Such a rosy picture. My my, to listen to you, factories are little sections of heaven, -Factories are better places to work than outside, in general. If that were not the case, factories wouldn't have roofs.-
populated by happy workers -From what I've seen, they're somewhat more happy than the typical subcontracting drywaller. Less stress and not worrying about an inability to feed the family in case of the all to common disabling accident. Most of them are very small outfits which don't pay unemployment, health, or even worker's comp. Factory work in the US is generally better.-
singing at their jobs. -Point to you, the radio is generally cranked at on-site buildings, while the suits in factories tend to think of music as "unprofessional"-
with bosses to die for -Very interesting you should say that. There is a reason that construction jobs have such an unbelivably high Workers Compensation rate. They're extremely dangerous. Since every house is different there are few ways to standardize and make safe the job in construction.- -In a factory, however, jobs are generally assigned to a particular area and standardized. This makes for greatly increased safety. Greedy bastard employers LIKE safety. Injured workers work slowly, require assistance are abscent and raise worker's comp rates. Honorable, trustable contractors just get a new carpentry subcontractor when the old one gets a sack of nails from two stories up. No muss, no fuss, no additional costs. If the subcontractor is unable to finish, it can be a bonus, since the work before the injury probably won't even be paid for (job not done- no paycheck).-
managers who really Really REALLY care about customers -I can give you my own perspective about the manager "really Really REALLY caring" about customers. Belkin recently treated their customers badly. It hurt sales. Do you really think the marketing droid who came up with the spamming router got a promotion? Do you think he's even still with the company?- -Paychecks don't materialize out of thin air. Somebody, generally customers, have to want to give that money to the company before it can land in my paycheck. So yes, I'm a manager and I absolutely care about customers. I want a relationship where they keep coming back and spending money with us again and again.- -Subcontractors, on the other hand, don't deal with the customers. They deal with the contractor who has his own interests at heart. He may not feel
I recommend Real Estate School
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Suggestion: go to real estate school and get your real estate license.
It's kind of like a law degree. You don't have to be a practicing lawyer for it to help.
A real estate license will teach you the great unknowns about the laws and pitfalls of the business.
Unlike law, the real estate license takes about a month (around here, at least) and is subsidized by the real estate brokerage firms. They don't care to make money by tuition, they just charge enough to make sure that the prospective students are serious, not timewasters.
Around here it's $500 dollars, and that more than covers the savings you'll make on every house you buy or sell. It's a month, but the hours are extremely flexible at most of the schools, and your real savings will probably be closer to $3-5000 on each house you buy. More than enough to pay back your time invested.
Earning a real estate license will also let you forgo the need to hire your own agent. You'll be able to split the fee with the selling agent, and pocket about 3%. Yes, it's legal in most, if not all places, to act as your own agent when purchasing on your own, but there are some thing you really need to know. Accordingly, this paragraph starts with the word "Earning" rather than "Having"
Also, there are a great many people who don't like realators for various reasons, and prefer to keep the comissions for themselves. Hence "For Sale by Owner". It is very helpful to know what you're doing in this circumstance because both of you might very well be clueless to the laws and ordinances and local "gotcha's".
Another worry is that "For Sale by Owner" might be because the current owner is attempting something that no realator would risk their license by being a party to.
Caveat emptor. Knowlege can keep you from getting burned.
Good luck.
One more extremely good option
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Tax laws in the U.S. say that you can build a home, live in it for 2 years, and sell it. You keep 100% of the profit (I think it requires rolling it into another home). The labor cost is generally 40% of the total, leaving a nice incentive.
There are people who take advantage of this by building and living in homes, one after another. They generally do this every two or three years, and earn a tidy profit each time.
These homes generally are extremely well built since the contractor is living there. They are sold to realize a profit, but are generally an extremely good deal, because they're so solidly built. High quality parts and materials are used, because they know what works, and have no desire to put up with the maintenance headaches associated with shoddy workmanship.
You have to do your homework, making certain that the real estate agent, or owner isn't lying about who built it, but (knowlegable) owner built homes are an incredible deal.
Also, right now is the time to buy, if you're going. Real estate is dead from halloween to New Years, and motivated sellers are often willing to take extremely low offers if they have to sell now. Like: moving to a new job, medical problems force sale, impending divorce, etc...
Also, get to be good friends with a real estate agent who's been around a while. My family has used the same broker for 20 years, and he looks out for us. It's also a big family full of real-estate-ophiles so he's got incentive.
Re:Consider how they're built
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Forgot 2 things:
#1: Apparently the expensive homes are generally very well built, since the owners are, or can afford, lawyers. The opposite is also generally accepted.
#2: Pa-in-law was the building inspector who caught the rebar theft out of foundations. He inspected multiple concrete buildings a contractor was putting up. The inspections were spaced far enough apart that they could pull the rebar out of building #1 and get it to #3 while #2 was inspected. Then #2's rebar went to #4.
Apparently they figured that once the cement was poured, there wouldn't be any way to tell the rebar was gone. They probably also figured that it would be such a boneheadedly stupid thing to do that nobody would think to look out for it.
Anyway, something triggered suspicions, and he went back and checked #1 as it was being poured. No rebar. Stop the pouring and drive straight to #2. Same story, but no cement yet.
The end of the story involved jackhammers and large fines. Building inspectors herabouts get badges and citation authority.
It was a huge risk for such a tiny gain, since rebar is so cheap. On the other hand, as my father in law says: If nobody ever tried it, there wouldn't be inspection requirements.
Consider how they're built
on
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· Score: 4, Informative
I've had exactly these questions. Fortunately my wife's father spent 20+ years building houses, and firmly believed that building a house to last a century saves money in the long run. Since he's gotten older, he's worked as a building inspector for the local city, and a couple of others.
When we get together, he tells me stories of stupid dishonest contractors. (I ask for them so I know what to look out for). Apparently, it's pretty common for the cities not to have enough inspectors, especially in fast growing areas. It's also common for inspectors to let the contractors know in advance what will be looked at closely and what wont. Large tracts of homes are especially vulnerable to inspection oversight. For dishonest contractors, it's cheaper to fix what an overworked inspector catches than to build the entire thing to code. Especially if you know the inspector, and know what he looks for and what he ignores.
He very much likes pre-fab houses for quite a few reasons (detailed below). He's also a big fan of steel framed houses, since they're strong and easy to put up. And don't burn. Wires are also very easy to fish through them. They also have extremely strong points under the supporting I beams, good for hanging unlikely things like water beds.
Pre fab vs onsite:
Pre Fabricated houses are built in a heated factory by workers with all tools and materials close at hand. Building supplies are instantly available, and are replaced as needed.
On-site building requires timing of delivery of supplies. Lumber brought in advance is subject to waiting in the rain, theft, vandalism, and bugs in the dirt. Tools are brought to the site, and if one breaks, gets lost, borrowed or needed elsewhere, an inferior tool will probably get drafted for the job. Supplies are bought in quantities just enough for the job, and if an accident or shortage happens, they're will probably be a "stretching" of supplies to make it through the job. Or it's running over budget and cheap stuff is substituted.
Pre-Fab: The compressed air is high pressure and lots of volume, meaning that the tools all work properly. The factory is well lit and problems, if arising, can be corrected immediately.
On Site: The compressors are small enough to carry around. They don't have the same power (they work, but can't handle the same duty cycle)
Pre Fab: completely engineered, and any problems have been long since solved, and properly corrected. It's on an assembly line.
On Site: often designed one at a time, for each plot of land, so each one is different. Sometimes boneheaded mistakes are made in the design, but not caught till later. The fixes are ugly, but hidden (suprises later!). Once the house is built the contractor is gone, and he didn't do the work anyway, he subcontracted it to guys who are operating on a shoestring,cutting corners everywhere possible.
Contractor: Get the job done for the least amount of cash acceptable. Do a good job where the building inspector is looking, unless it's a subdivision. Then there's no time for inspections and horrible things happen, like stealing the rebar out of the cement forms before the pouring. Unbelivably stupid, but it happened.
The mentality of the factory owners is like Avis rent-a-car "We're #2 so we try harder". Everybody equates them mentally with ramshackle mobile homes, so they have to be nearly perfect to even try to compete. Oh, and since the "mobile home" rep is still dogging them, they have to compete on price, and the house is a continuing "model home" because all the owners friends are going to ask about it.
Any materials for building on upper floors have to be lugged up stairs^h^h^h^h^h^h ladders (ever try to climb a ladder with both hands full?). Every extra bit of adhesive/lumber/brick/drywall mud/nail used is one more that has to be lugged up. Was it even delivered in the first place? If they run out of something, they'll substitute with something else to get the job done.
... prove the tendancy of the linux community to fragment, which isn't a good thing.
Au Contraire!
The tendancy of the Linux community to fragment is an extremely good thing! If we have no external competition, we'll make our own.
Competition is good, it prevents stagnation. Evolution slows to a crawl without competition. Competition gets people excited, and there's nothing I'd rather see than two groups of extremely talented people competing head to head to see who can make me happier.
65,000 processors x $699/processor= $45,435,000. 45.4 million dollars.
Don't you just know Daryl's about to go apoplectic over all that money IBM is "stealing". Let's face it, he has to really believe in his private universe.
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Your only hope is to try to vote him out of office. Good luck voting a powerful incumbent Republican senator out in Utah. Perhaps you'd like to get Ralph Nader elected president while your at it?
They are. Just watch what happens when elections are over.
Why is Mr. Hatch so bent out of shape about copyright abuses? The claimed "because I have copywritten songs too" is unbelivable. Lets face it, who is going to download a senator's greatest Mormon hits?
Does he actually believe that he's losing money from the kazaa collective by this?
I'd really love to track sales, because there probably are some of his songs out there now, just out of sheer macabre fascination. Perhaps he'd try to say with a straight face that it has hurt his sales?
I'd guess that some folks have bought his album just out of sheer novelty.
-------------------Stunning Insight Strikes -----------
It just hit me. I'm serious here, don't laugh. He's gotten more exposure for his singing out of this copyright fracas than he ever had a chance at. No doubt the RIAA is helping him market as well.
I'd bet his sales have skyrocketed, since he's been able to use this entire fiasco for personal gain.
I mean, who the heck knew he even HAD a singing career before this. Now it's mentioned every time he opens his mouth in the media.
Between him and McBride, I'm getting really embarassed about this whole Utah thing.
The truthfulness of my sig is really starting to bother me.
hanzie.
The parent post is absolutely not flamebait. It actually brings up an extremely good point. There will unquestionably be domain squatting and misdirection with use of accented characters.
Lordy, lordy.
I just re-read my above post responding to you and it certainly seems like an arrogant response to a rude reply. I'm sorry about that, I meant it to be polite response.
I didn't intend to be sarcastic, I really know little about the foibles of power generation and have to rely on the knowlege of others. If you do have a resource in the power industry, please feel free to check with him/her and post relevant info.
On the other hand, I am a fairly good judge of when somebody is lying, and my friend seems completely honest, and would have no apparent reason to want to lead me astray.
Thank you for your time.
Obviously you have reason to doubt me, since your personal experience runs contrary. Should you have the resources to check with someone in the power generation industry: Apparently the two houses, though next door neighbors, were on seperate power systems.
I don't know how divided the power systems were, but apparently the division was rather significant. It's possible I'm wrong about phase being the defining difference.
The particular gentleman who was speaking with me is, as I stated before, responsible for turning off and on people's power, and I've verified this to my own satisfaction.
I shall ask him for complete details of the incident and why it caused problems, and relate such to you.
As to the veracity of that particular story, I have no reason to doubt him, as it was in the midst of a very long discussion of how to steal resources from neighbors and the problems therein. I'm not a thief, nor do I intend to be. I am in the process of purchasing my first house, and he was kind enough to relate some things I might want to look out for, to avoid being the victim of theft.
Given the context, I shall be happy to share some of the incidents he's seen, since you've been kind enough to relate your own experiences.
It seems that there are two different strategies, in general, for stealing utilities. It is very good to be familiar with both, because you might be getting robbed. YOU MIGHT ALSO BE UNKNOWINGLY STEALING BY INHERITING A THEFT SYSTEM. If so, it's far better to correct it on your own, or inform your utility, than it is for them to find it and contact you.
General division of theft tactics:
#1 Cause your meters to read incorrectly.
#2 Steal it from your neighbor.
#1 Water: Normally it's done by going upstream of the meter. With the water company, the lines are leaky enough that you'll probably not get caught until somebody bumps into your line.
If you're simply determined to steal utilities outright, this is probably your best hope.
#1 Electricity: You can go upstream of your meter by splicing into the lines on the backside of the conduit against your building, upstream of the meter. Unfortunately, the more you take, the more likely you are to get caught. The power company checks historical records automatically, and will investigate any significant downward change. The power company also tracks where unmetered line losses go, and can isolate it to your feed. And they will if it's significant.
The problem with effectively stealing is that the punishment definetly outweighs any potential benefit. The more you take, the closer they will look.
#1 Natural Gas: Don't even think about it. Gas companies very closely track leaks in the lines, because such are extremely hazardous.
Detection: Shut off your gas using appliances for a couple of hours while it's cold and see if the meter keeps going. If it does, the gas is going SOMEWHERE. Possibly a leak, possibly a neighbor. Checking is highly advised, and your gas company will be very willing to help.
#2 Electricity: If you're going to steal the neighbor's electricity, run it on a different circuit. If you plug it into your own circuit, a bad wiring job could cause large problems. This route is safest if you're in an apartment building, since it's highly unlikely you'd get the different flavor problems that inspired this sub-thread.
Detection: Shut off main breaker power sometime in the early evening while all the neighbor's houses are lit up. Listen for loud swearing and look for sudden darkness. Watch the power meter, it should go to zero (I don't remember if it will stop dead or just start to creep very slowly. I think the meter itself uses a trickle). If it keeps spinning, call the power company.
Apparently it is EXTREMELY common for both sides of a dividing wall between apartments or offices to be on one meter. You also get lazy contractors, or unscrouplous landlords, who subdivide one unit into two and don't b
It actually seems to work. I've seen 'demonstrations' before where it couldn't even control traffic lights.
If they're actually doing anything, it's a success, and it just needs scaling up. Even if it's a totally shared bus network, it could have _some_ uses. Just depends on what speed is available and what it's really going to cost to get hooked in.
I'd be a bit worried about the surges, though. Remember that a lightning bolt has already jumped through a mile or three (or more) of air, and blowing through your surge protector to eat your favorite game box isn't much more of a step.
Yes, I know that power systems have exactly the same problem, it's just that they're generally designed to absorb small spikes, and sometimes folks forget the modem is another route for bored electrons.
Best of luck to 'em.
If the power cord under the fence analogy is going to continue:
THIEVES TAKE NOTE:
A friend of mine works for the local power company. It's his job to shut off and restore power to non-bill payers. He has seen cases exactly like this where people with power shut off run an extension cord to the unknowing neighbor's outlet. They then plug it into their own wall (changed it to a male-male).
Result: Neighbor's power stolen, neighbor gets very high bills.
How is it found? Power guy reconnects electricity, but they're on a different transformer and the phase is off. Exploding power meter severely burns power guy, while transformers short out. Lawyers ensue.
HOW DOES THIS RELATE?
Simple. Sometimes there are unintended, major consequences to misdeeds.
Another possible consequence is floods of spam originating at your IP and getting RBL'd for life (evidently it's tough to get off once you're on).
The greatest stressor in life is being responsible for things over which you have no control. Secure those AP's folks.
First off, I agree with you. Putting this system onto a bounty server would be very hard to work, if not impossible.
Perhaps it might be possible to change the system, and let it adapt?
The first purpose of the bounty server is open source projects needed. It would be pretty simple to implement it. Then, as the closed-folks move in and take advantage, they'd have to conform to the rules of the new playground.
For large and complicated stuff, it definetly wouldn't work that way at first. And a good thing too, since I imagine quite a bit of the high quality software libre comes from folks like you, who program for a living, as well as altruism.
However, this could also work to your advantage, since it would allow you to negotiate the high level stuff, then bid out software contracts in small, easy to digest chunks, on the bounty server.
Frankly, I'd imagine that the solid technical spec document is at least half of the work, and probably the most creative part, to boot.
Good luck.
Mod parent up.
I think this is a great idea. You think of something you really want, go to the bounty server and give it a price. If other people think it's worth kicking into, it'll add to the donation pot.
I think you've come up with another way to make money with free software.
The donators could also choose which licenses they'd accept the software to be released under.
This would also be interesting to try out with closed-source software. See how many donations are available.
I guess with the closed source option, you'd have to specify with whom you'd be willing to share the source. If I were donating 10,000 to get a closed source program that scours the stock market reports and lists the fast moving stocks, I don't think I'd like to share that particular program with the other two guys who bid +$3.28 each.
I spend quite a bit of time on /. I would like very much for a caching server that remembers each comment and story individually and only gets the general layout + updates from /.
Then, when I recheck a story I looked at earlier, it would only need to load the new comments. Older comments would be fetched locally.
I would prefer if it served up advertising, too. It could just send back to /. x# of page hits. Heck, my only complaint on /. ads is that we're paying for the bandwidth in time and money to see the same ads repeatedly.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions
The article explicitly says they're using NUMA archeticture.
Obviously, it's running SCO's intellectual property. SGI doesn't really own NUMA, they only wrote it. Deep down, it's really a derivative of vi.
Your points are good, and well taken. However, the motivations are completely different. I'm an computer and financial manager in a factory and I've learned a few important things:
...-
1. Running out of supplies costs money.
2. Unhappy workers can bankrupt you.
3. The biggest source of workplace stress not being able to do a good work.
Lets discuss your assertions and implications directly."
As if factory managers and workers and corporations never saved pennies in disgraceful ways.
-And subcontractors living on a shoestring dont? this is a specious attack, without specifics, so there's not much to say besides "oh yeah, so are you"
I myself will never buy a tract home because I don't want to live in a tract, but by gum I will get a stick built home to my own design by a builder I trust before I buy a prefab.
-your point seems to be you trust builders more than prefab builders. You seem to know and trust a plural of builders. Good on ya, and good luck. I, and many other people don't have pre-existing relationships of trust with any builders, so we have to use different criteria for decisions.-
-You also seem to be more confident of your own design abilities than the abilities of the engineers/architects working for the prefab builders. Bully for you. I, and many others, don't have the confidence to pit our design abilities vs the prefab folks. This isn't blind faith in their abilities, but it is tempered by a known lack skill on the parts of many of the rest of us.-
Such a rosy picture. My my, to listen to you, factories are little sections of heaven,
-Factories are better places to work than outside, in general. If that were not the case, factories wouldn't have roofs.-
populated by happy workers
-From what I've seen, they're somewhat more happy than the typical subcontracting drywaller. Less stress and not worrying about an inability to feed the family in case of the all to common disabling accident. Most of them are very small outfits which don't pay unemployment, health, or even worker's comp. Factory work in the US is generally better.-
singing at their jobs.
-Point to you, the radio is generally cranked at on-site buildings, while the suits in factories tend to think of music as "unprofessional"-
with bosses to die for
-Very interesting you should say that. There is a reason that construction jobs have such an unbelivably high Workers Compensation rate. They're extremely dangerous. Since every house is different there are few ways to standardize and make safe the job in construction.-
-In a factory, however, jobs are generally assigned to a particular area and standardized. This makes for greatly increased safety. Greedy bastard employers LIKE safety. Injured workers work slowly, require assistance are abscent and raise worker's comp rates. Honorable, trustable contractors just get a new carpentry subcontractor when the old one gets a sack of nails from two stories up. No muss, no fuss, no additional costs. If the subcontractor is unable to finish, it can be a bonus, since the work before the injury probably won't even be paid for (job not done- no paycheck).-
managers who really Really REALLY care about customers
-I can give you my own perspective about the manager "really Really REALLY caring" about customers. Belkin recently treated their customers badly. It hurt sales. Do you really think the marketing droid who came up with the spamming router got a promotion? Do you think he's even still with the company?-
-Paychecks don't materialize out of thin air. Somebody, generally customers, have to want to give that money to the company before it can land in my paycheck. So yes, I'm a manager and I absolutely care about customers. I want a relationship where they keep coming back and spending money with us again and again.-
-Subcontractors, on the other hand, don't deal with the customers. They deal with the contractor who has his own interests at heart. He may not feel
Suggestion: go to real estate school and get your real estate license.
It's kind of like a law degree. You don't have to be a practicing lawyer for it to help.
A real estate license will teach you the great unknowns about the laws and pitfalls of the business.
Unlike law, the real estate license takes about a month (around here, at least) and is subsidized by the real estate brokerage firms. They don't care to make money by tuition, they just charge enough to make sure that the prospective students are serious, not timewasters.
Around here it's $500 dollars, and that more than covers the savings you'll make on every house you buy or sell. It's a month, but the hours are extremely flexible at most of the schools, and your real savings will probably be closer to $3-5000 on each house you buy. More than enough to pay back your time invested.
Earning a real estate license will also let you forgo the need to hire your own agent. You'll be able to split the fee with the selling agent, and pocket about 3%. Yes, it's legal in most, if not all places, to act as your own agent when purchasing on your own, but there are some thing you really need to know. Accordingly, this paragraph starts with the word "Earning" rather than "Having"
Also, there are a great many people who don't like realators for various reasons, and prefer to keep the comissions for themselves. Hence "For Sale by Owner". It is very helpful to know what you're doing in this circumstance because both of you might very well be clueless to the laws and ordinances and local "gotcha's".
Another worry is that "For Sale by Owner" might be because the current owner is attempting something that no realator would risk their license by being a party to.
Caveat emptor. Knowlege can keep you from getting burned.
Good luck.
Tax laws in the U.S. say that you can build a home, live in it for 2 years, and sell it. You keep 100% of the profit (I think it requires rolling it into another home). The labor cost is generally 40% of the total, leaving a nice incentive.
There are people who take advantage of this by building and living in homes, one after another. They generally do this every two or three years, and earn a tidy profit each time.
These homes generally are extremely well built since the contractor is living there. They are sold to realize a profit, but are generally an extremely good deal, because they're so solidly built. High quality parts and materials are used, because they know what works, and have no desire to put up with the maintenance headaches associated with shoddy workmanship.
You have to do your homework, making certain that the real estate agent, or owner isn't lying about who built it, but (knowlegable) owner built homes are an incredible deal.
Also, right now is the time to buy, if you're going. Real estate is dead from halloween to New Years, and motivated sellers are often willing to take extremely low offers if they have to sell now. Like: moving to a new job, medical problems force sale, impending divorce, etc...
Also, get to be good friends with a real estate agent who's been around a while. My family has used the same broker for 20 years, and he looks out for us. It's also a big family full of real-estate-ophiles so he's got incentive.
Forgot 2 things:
#1: Apparently the expensive homes are generally very well built, since the owners are, or can afford, lawyers. The opposite is also generally accepted.
#2: Pa-in-law was the building inspector who caught the rebar theft out of foundations. He inspected multiple concrete buildings a contractor was putting up. The inspections were spaced far enough apart that they could pull the rebar out of building #1 and get it to #3 while #2 was inspected. Then #2's rebar went to #4.
Apparently they figured that once the cement was poured, there wouldn't be any way to tell the rebar was gone. They probably also figured that it would be such a boneheadedly stupid thing to do that nobody would think to look out for it.
Anyway, something triggered suspicions, and he went back and checked #1 as it was being poured. No rebar. Stop the pouring and drive straight to #2. Same story, but no cement yet.
The end of the story involved jackhammers and large fines. Building inspectors herabouts get badges and citation authority.
It was a huge risk for such a tiny gain, since rebar is so cheap. On the other hand, as my father in law says: If nobody ever tried it, there wouldn't be inspection requirements.
I've had exactly these questions. Fortunately my wife's father spent 20+ years building houses, and firmly believed that building a house to last a century saves money in the long run. Since he's gotten older, he's worked as a building inspector for the local city, and a couple of others.
When we get together, he tells me stories of stupid dishonest contractors. (I ask for them so I know what to look out for). Apparently, it's pretty common for the cities not to have enough inspectors, especially in fast growing areas. It's also common for inspectors to let the contractors know in advance what will be looked at closely and what wont. Large tracts of homes are especially vulnerable to inspection oversight. For dishonest contractors, it's cheaper to fix what an overworked inspector catches than to build the entire thing to code. Especially if you know the inspector, and know what he looks for and what he ignores.
He very much likes pre-fab houses for quite a few reasons (detailed below). He's also a big fan of steel framed houses, since they're strong and easy to put up. And don't burn. Wires are also very easy to fish through them. They also have extremely strong points under the supporting I beams, good for hanging unlikely things like water beds.
Pre fab vs onsite:
Pre Fabricated houses are built in a heated factory by workers with all tools and materials close at hand. Building supplies are instantly available, and are replaced as needed.
On-site building requires timing of delivery of supplies. Lumber brought in advance is subject to waiting in the rain, theft, vandalism, and bugs in the dirt. Tools are brought to the site, and if one breaks, gets lost, borrowed or needed elsewhere, an inferior tool will probably get drafted for the job. Supplies are bought in quantities just enough for the job, and if an accident or shortage happens, they're will probably be a "stretching" of supplies to make it through the job. Or it's running over budget and cheap stuff is substituted.
Pre-Fab: The compressed air is high pressure and lots of volume, meaning that the tools all work properly. The factory is well lit and problems, if arising, can be corrected immediately.
On Site: The compressors are small enough to carry around. They don't have the same power (they work, but can't handle the same duty cycle)
Pre Fab: completely engineered, and any problems have been long since solved, and properly corrected. It's on an assembly line.
On Site: often designed one at a time, for each plot of land, so each one is different. Sometimes boneheaded mistakes are made in the design, but not caught till later. The fixes are ugly, but hidden (suprises later!). Once the house is built the contractor is gone, and he didn't do the work anyway, he subcontracted it to guys who are operating on a shoestring,cutting corners everywhere possible.
Contractor: Get the job done for the least amount of cash acceptable. Do a good job where the building inspector is looking, unless it's a subdivision. Then there's no time for inspections and horrible things happen, like stealing the rebar out of the cement forms before the pouring. Unbelivably stupid, but it happened.
The mentality of the factory owners is like Avis rent-a-car "We're #2 so we try harder". Everybody equates them mentally with ramshackle mobile homes, so they have to be nearly perfect to even try to compete. Oh, and since the "mobile home" rep is still dogging them, they have to compete on price, and the house is a continuing "model home" because all the owners friends are going to ask about it.
Any materials for building on upper floors have to be lugged up stairs^h^h^h^h^h^h ladders (ever try to climb a ladder with both hands full?). Every extra bit of adhesive/lumber/brick/drywall mud/nail used is one more that has to be lugged up. Was it even delivered in the first place? If they run out of something, they'll substitute with something else to get the job done.
Au Contraire!
The tendancy of the Linux community to fragment is an extremely good thing! If we have no external competition, we'll make our own.
Competition is good, it prevents stagnation. Evolution slows to a crawl without competition. Competition gets people excited, and there's nothing I'd rather see than two groups of extremely talented people competing head to head to see who can make me happier.
The article says:
Attention SCO: Your plan has worked!
I'm migrating from MS to Linux right now in preparation for the incentives to migrate away later.
I'd be more than happy to let these folks monitor my computer network for pay.
They'd see a very nice little PC that didn't do much but talk back and say: "didn't do anything today...".
It would also say "slashdot.org who? Never heard of it." or "I've got a 'www.cnn.com' in my history. Is that what you mean by 'porn'?"
That PC would also have special jacks on the back preventing anyone but me from plugging in the keyboard.
It would also have a bumper sticker proclaiming "My other computer has wet feathers."
I would get a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that I was representing millions of other people.
65,000 processors x $699/processor= $45,435,000. 45.4 million dollars.
Don't you just know Daryl's about to go apoplectic over all that money IBM is "stealing". Let's face it, he has to really believe in his private universe.
May he pop a blood vessel.
Please mod parent as +1 insightful.
I guess we should call it "Not Spyware"
I was thinking about "gatorware" but I don't want to give out free advertising to Gator and it is probably a trademark infringement.
Please mod parent up (+1 insightful)
It's clear, common sense and logical. Damn rare sometimes.