Looked through the comments and it seems nobody noticed the Phish reference in the department line.
"This is the work of Guelah Papyrus, stranded for a moment on the ocean of Osiris. Doin' all she can for every member of her clan. Expanding exponentially like some recursive virus."
You'd think that at least the King County Journal could read the police report before printing the article... one says "Robert Ballantine", the other "Gary Valentine"
Needless to say, I'm fairly sceptical that this is an actual speedup of browsing. If you can only fit 56Kbps down a line then you can only fit 56Kbps down a line...
Yes, and have you been by there lately? I live somewhat near Barrington NJ, and thought I'd entertain my wife and show her one of the neat places of my childhood. She's a Girl Scouts leader and a teacher, and thought she might find some interesting ideas or kits for making up projects.
The store is gone.
In its place is now "Anchor Optics" or something like that; basically the shop and outlet for any of their scratch-and-dent optical supplies that can't then be sold through Edmund Industrial Optics division. No more rows of science kits, wall of microscopes and lasers and optical toys, *no more surplus room*.
*sigh* I shed a tear on the way home. That place was the best.
Well, when I got it it was brand new, except it didn't work. The hard drive, airport card, and battery are the only things original as shipped from the factory. The display and motherboard were both replaced.
So I'm anal, but when I buy a new machine, I expect the MAC address printed on the sticker inside the machine next to its serial number to actually be the MAC address the machine has. At least until *I* do something to invalidate it. But this was the case before it ever successfully powered on.
I figure at this point, I'll keep it now, since the department paid for it, and if it dies in two years I'll get whatever their latest and greatest laptop is then. I seem to be the only person amongst quite a few who has had any of these sorts of problems, so it's probably a fluke. But a bad fluke on their part, considering I'm the one who recommends hardware/software purchases for the department:>
Being a Unix sysadmin, I wanted a laptop that ran Unix. And since I got to hand-hold all the users in my department when they had problems installing Linux on their laptops, I didn't want to do that with my own machine. Stupid little things, like you need to find and download a binary X server, built-in wireless doesn't quite work right... things that can be fixed, but perhaps require little work-arounds that make you end up keeping some sort of Windows on the box just in case you need feature X, Y or Z.
Enter the TiBook, top-of-the-line model that the department got for me (hey, if they want me to support it, I've got to have some way to learn it:> ) On the day it arrived, I powered it on to hear the Mac "Bong", followed by nothing. DOA unit, wouldn't turn on the display, external display didn't work either, nothing. So for the first week of owning it, it was in the shop getting its motherboard replaced. Now, the sticker inside the battery compartment which shows the serial number and MAC address, has the wrong MAC address (on-board NIC was replaced along with the mobo). Stupid little thing, yes, but it makes it look to me like it's got things wrong with it.
So a weekend goes by, and now it's got a purple line from the top of the screen to the bottom, right over F9. Call Apple again, they pick it up on Tuesday, I get it back on Thursday (damn nice if you ask me), purple line is gone but now there's a handful of stuck pixels throughout the screen. Apple says it's "within tolerance", but of the 4 other TiBooks in the department none of them have *any* problems with their screens.
While I love the OS, and adding packages with Fink is simple and handy (I now have a fully functional network analyzer, 10/100/1000 & wireless, running Ethereal, MacStumbler, etc. And unlike a Fluke, it runs Solitaire and Nethack too:> ), I am concerned with two things:
1) It was in Apple's posession more than it was in mine for the first two weeks of "ownership", for service.
2) Why did I just pay a hair over $4000 for what looks like a refurbished laptop, not a brand new one?
The solution might just be MacOS X. Granted I haven't used it much yet (just got my new powerbook), but with it being BSD on the backend, how hard could it be for them to port their code to Linux after porting to OS X? Hell, some enterprising person(s) might be able to write (if there doesn't already exist) API hooks to emulate or run Aqua in X, much like XDarwin does the opposite, so they wouldn't even have to port the graphics interfaces over.
I'll admit I don't know much about the details of porting from one OS to another. However, if Office X now runs on what's basically a BSD backend, how hard would it be to port it again to Linux? (I won't hold my breath even if someone responded with 2 minutes as an answer)
Some quote from 'Tron about energy being diverted was supposed to go here, but I couldn't find the exact quote on the internet and don't want to go hunting for the tape and I haven't bought the DVD (yet)
"Elementry physics, a beam of energy can always be diverted. Are we there yet mommy?"
If the forked version has feature X that most people want, and yours doesn't, they'll take the fork.
This is true; however, if most people want the feature that you felt didn't go with the project, then more likely than not most people wouldn't want your project anyway.
Start by defining the goals you have for the project. Put your vision down in writing, and maybe a roadmap (version 1.0 should do this, 2.0 should do this, etc). This way if someone submits a patch or feature request that you think is out of the scope of the project, you can politely point them to the roadmap and explain why, perhaps saying that it's something to look for as you approach another milestone.
As for things you don't understand or things that you don't think would fit, ask the submitter why they think it should go in there, and basically demand an answer better than "Because I like it". If they can convince you that it's a Good Thing, then look into including it. If not, then there's nothing wrong with disagreeing.
And just because someone forks the code to get their features included doesn't mean they can't be merged later. If your software has a clear and concise plan, people will generally choose that over another project slapped together because the project admin didn't like their idea. Yours shows thought and planning, and as I said before if you decide later that the previous idea is a good one, you can always add it later.
This is very true. While companies are there to make money, some of them even realize that you're there for the same reason. If you are in fact happy with where you are currently, and would only be changing jobs because of the money, then put it the way Dil NaOH did.
OTOH, if there's other reasons that you'd be leaving, those things won't change once you have the raise. They'll still be there, and possibly worse depending on the situation. In which case you might be better to jump ship and try something new (though it could be just as bad at the new place as well).
I was working retail and did basically the same thing. I told my employer that I was happy working here, however I needed to save money for college, and had to go where the money was. He not only matched the offer I had, but surpassed it by quite a bit, saying that he wanted me to stay there. Since my only reason for leaving was the money, this was perfectly acceptable and I stayed there for more than a year (until moving required I leave). No animosity, no hard feelings, because I was honest about my reasons for wanting to leave, and there was something he could easily do about it.
see discussions of killall linux vs hpux on comp.risks
I recall the admin at my college coming into the advanced lab (SGI Indys, "advanced" when they were new) one evening, and calling up the man page for 'killall' on my terminal. "Read the second paragraph there" he says. It read that typing killall without arguments will attempt to kill all processes not in the current group. "Guess what I just fat-fingered on Elvis" (our main server)
Guess folks at SGI never heard of the "path of least astonishment", such as printing a usage message if there's no arguments. Then again you could argue that it's not very astonishing if typing 'killall' really does kill *all*.
I've been there, didn't quite know what I wanted to do except something with computers when I went into college. The school I attended has no courses geared towards systems administration, and left after completing all but 4 of the comp sci courses and *none* of my "Gen Ed" requirements, which I've always felt were a waste of my time... a computer isn't going to "feel" one way or another, why do I need psychology? I know, "more rounded person", yadda yadda yadda.
Anyway, while there I started working for the networking folks at the university, and after one semester of working there realized that this was what I wanted to do. I venture to say I learned more from the 4 semesters of work than the 6 semesters of classes, quite possibly because I retain things better if I'm actually interested in the content. Left there when I left school (funny thing, student workers have to be students to work there) and picked up a job in another university as their full-time sysadmin.
Do I recommend you skip school? Not really, because not everyone's like me, you might enjoy the classes and some of the BS they put you through for a BS, and you might even discover that you prefer being an ADA junkie than a cable jockey. But quickly find out about the IT department there, and how to get a job. Most places have a work-study program, take advantage of it. Even if you have to start at the helpdesk, it's a foot in the door, get to know the Gurus and see where you can help out. Don't be afraid that places are going to turn their nose up at you if you don't have a degree; some will, yes, but do you want to work for that kind of shortsighted company?
As a somewhat related note, if you love to learn about the sysadminning aspects, and want to get a job where you can be a BOFH as well as keep up with new technology and expanding demands, look for jobs at university IT departments (either campus-wide or departmental, like I am). They're usually the type that not only likes it when their computers work, but like to see their admins researching new ideas and playing with new technology which might benefit them at the same time. Quite a few admins I know that work in the private sector are almost shunned for wanting to learn something new that falls just outside their specified job description ("You work the mail servers, don't worry about SANs.")
YMMV. "But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. --Dennis Miller"
Of course I'm a music geek, so some names are easy for me to think of:
rocinante, a management station: Rush, Cygnus X-1 ("On my ship the Rocinante, wheeling through the galaxies")
xanadu, my workstation: Rush, Xanadu ("Prison of the lost Xanadu")
Then I moved to some other random names, like claven for the mail server, and typesetter as the LPR server, lumberjack handles the syslogs, Floyd is the [fire]Wall, etc.
Since I'm the sysadmin at Princeton's astrophysics department, perhaps I can shed a few more links for the picture-hungry (and the information hungry):
The internet has standards and MSIE is the only browser that comes close to supporting those standards.
"The wonderful thing about standards is that there's so many to choose from."
There's quite a difference between supporting the standards, and creating new ones that only you can support, and then suddenly you're the only game in town.
I've always found that they didn't get me as big of a refund as filling out the tax forms by hand.
The only reason we used them was because we could e-file, and get the refund deposited directly in our account (Supposedly as soon as 10 days from the IRS getting it). She'd already done the taxes by hand, and came up with the same amount. Could we have gotten back more? Maybe.. but since we didn't want to go to a CPA and were going to mail them in, this was nice just to make it quicker.
My fiancee used Hdvest.com, who lets you file for free through their system. The only problem I noticed is that, under Netscape 4.76/Linux, it wouldn't open the form to enter W-2 information, had to do it in IE on Winders. Didn't try Mozilla tho...
Slashdot Mirror
So I guess I know what programs David Spergel will be running on the beowulf I just finished (92 nodes, 2.2-3.06GHz).
:>
It's always fun to see your place of work (or colleagues) mentioned on Slashdot, and not because of bankruptcy or failing stocks
Looked through the comments and it seems nobody noticed the Phish reference in the department line.
:>
"This is the work of Guelah Papyrus, stranded for a moment on the ocean of Osiris. Doin' all she can for every member of her clan. Expanding exponentially like some recursive virus."
Good show, CBN
You'd think that at least the King County Journal could read the police report before printing the article... one says "Robert Ballantine", the other "Gary Valentine"
That .sig is from Tron, isn't it?
"Elementry physics, a beam of energy can always be diverted. Are we there yet, mommy?"
Yes, unless you have one of these!
Yes, and have you been by there lately? I live somewhat near Barrington NJ, and thought I'd entertain my wife and show her one of the neat places of my childhood. She's a Girl Scouts leader and a teacher, and thought she might find some interesting ideas or kits for making up projects.
The store is gone.
In its place is now "Anchor Optics" or something like that; basically the shop and outlet for any of their scratch-and-dent optical supplies that can't then be sold through Edmund Industrial Optics division. No more rows of science kits, wall of microscopes and lasers and optical toys, *no more surplus room*.
*sigh* I shed a tear on the way home. That place was the best.
Where do you think I got the idea? :>
The Advanced Dynamic Hydraulically-Operated Computer, complete with AD HOC software.
Brings new meaning to the term "Bit bucket"
Building a computer, to tell you how to build another, larger, more complex computer. Hrmmm..
Well, when I got it it was brand new, except it didn't work. The hard drive, airport card, and battery are the only things original as shipped from the factory. The display and motherboard were both replaced.
:>
So I'm anal, but when I buy a new machine, I expect the MAC address printed on the sticker inside the machine next to its serial number to actually be the MAC address the machine has. At least until *I* do something to invalidate it. But this was the case before it ever successfully powered on.
I figure at this point, I'll keep it now, since the department paid for it, and if it dies in two years I'll get whatever their latest and greatest laptop is then. I seem to be the only person amongst quite a few who has had any of these sorts of problems, so it's probably a fluke. But a bad fluke on their part, considering I'm the one who recommends hardware/software purchases for the department
Enter the TiBook, top-of-the-line model that the department got for me (hey, if they want me to support it, I've got to have some way to learn it
So a weekend goes by, and now it's got a purple line from the top of the screen to the bottom, right over F9. Call Apple again, they pick it up on Tuesday, I get it back on Thursday (damn nice if you ask me), purple line is gone but now there's a handful of stuck pixels throughout the screen. Apple says it's "within tolerance", but of the 4 other TiBooks in the department none of them have *any* problems with their screens.
While I love the OS, and adding packages with Fink is simple and handy (I now have a fully functional network analyzer, 10/100/1000 & wireless, running Ethereal, MacStumbler, etc. And unlike a Fluke, it runs Solitaire and Nethack too
1) It was in Apple's posession more than it was in mine for the first two weeks of "ownership", for service.
2) Why did I just pay a hair over $4000 for what looks like a refurbished laptop, not a brand new one?
The solution might just be MacOS X. Granted I haven't used it much yet (just got my new powerbook), but with it being BSD on the backend, how hard could it be for them to port their code to Linux after porting to OS X? Hell, some enterprising person(s) might be able to write (if there doesn't already exist) API hooks to emulate or run Aqua in X, much like XDarwin does the opposite, so they wouldn't even have to port the graphics interfaces over.
I'll admit I don't know much about the details of porting from one OS to another. However, if Office X now runs on what's basically a BSD backend, how hard would it be to port it again to Linux? (I won't hold my breath even if someone responded with 2 minutes as an answer)
Start by defining the goals you have for the project. Put your vision down in writing, and maybe a roadmap (version 1.0 should do this, 2.0 should do this, etc). This way if someone submits a patch or feature request that you think is out of the scope of the project, you can politely point them to the roadmap and explain why, perhaps saying that it's something to look for as you approach another milestone.
As for things you don't understand or things that you don't think would fit, ask the submitter why they think it should go in there, and basically demand an answer better than "Because I like it". If they can convince you that it's a Good Thing, then look into including it. If not, then there's nothing wrong with disagreeing.
And just because someone forks the code to get their features included doesn't mean they can't be merged later. If your software has a clear and concise plan, people will generally choose that over another project slapped together because the project admin didn't like their idea. Yours shows thought and planning, and as I said before if you decide later that the previous idea is a good one, you can always add it later.
Looks like the source code to this worm is now here
This is very true. While companies are there to make money, some of them even realize that you're there for the same reason. If you are in fact happy with where you are currently, and would only be changing jobs because of the money, then put it the way Dil NaOH did.
OTOH, if there's other reasons that you'd be leaving, those things won't change once you have the raise. They'll still be there, and possibly worse depending on the situation. In which case you might be better to jump ship and try something new (though it could be just as bad at the new place as well).
I was working retail and did basically the same thing. I told my employer that I was happy working here, however I needed to save money for college, and had to go where the money was. He not only matched the offer I had, but surpassed it by quite a bit, saying that he wanted me to stay there. Since my only reason for leaving was the money, this was perfectly acceptable and I stayed there for more than a year (until moving required I leave). No animosity, no hard feelings, because I was honest about my reasons for wanting to leave, and there was something he could easily do about it.
Guess folks at SGI never heard of the "path of least astonishment", such as printing a usage message if there's no arguments. Then again you could argue that it's not very astonishing if typing 'killall' really does kill *all*.
I've been there, didn't quite know what I wanted to do except something with computers when I went into college. The school I attended has no courses geared towards systems administration, and left after completing all but 4 of the comp sci courses and *none* of my "Gen Ed" requirements, which I've always felt were a waste of my time... a computer isn't going to "feel" one way or another, why do I need psychology? I know, "more rounded person", yadda yadda yadda.
Anyway, while there I started working for the networking folks at the university, and after one semester of working there realized that this was what I wanted to do. I venture to say I learned more from the 4 semesters of work than the 6 semesters of classes, quite possibly because I retain things better if I'm actually interested in the content. Left there when I left school (funny thing, student workers have to be students to work there) and picked up a job in another university as their full-time sysadmin.
Do I recommend you skip school? Not really, because not everyone's like me, you might enjoy the classes and some of the BS they put you through for a BS, and you might even discover that you prefer being an ADA junkie than a cable jockey. But quickly find out about the IT department there, and how to get a job. Most places have a work-study program, take advantage of it. Even if you have to start at the helpdesk, it's a foot in the door, get to know the Gurus and see where you can help out. Don't be afraid that places are going to turn their nose up at you if you don't have a degree; some will, yes, but do you want to work for that kind of shortsighted company?
As a somewhat related note, if you love to learn about the sysadminning aspects, and want to get a job where you can be a BOFH as well as keep up with new technology and expanding demands, look for jobs at university IT departments (either campus-wide or departmental, like I am). They're usually the type that not only likes it when their computers work, but like to see their admins researching new ideas and playing with new technology which might benefit them at the same time. Quite a few admins I know that work in the private sector are almost shunned for wanting to learn something new that falls just outside their specified job description ("You work the mail servers, don't worry about SANs.")
YMMV. "But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. --Dennis Miller"
So their patent applies to using a form to gather customer information.
Having a look at PanIP's website, they list "PricewaterhouseCoopers" as their accountants.
Interesting that at This Link, PricewaterhouseCoopers has... well lookit that, a form where you enter your information so they can contact you.
Wonder if they made their own accountants pay them for their (non)intellectual property.
Then I moved to some other random names, like claven for the mail server, and typesetter as the LPR server, lumberjack handles the syslogs, Floyd is the [fire]Wall, etc.
The internet has standards and MSIE is the only browser that comes close to supporting those standards.
"The wonderful thing about standards is that there's so many to choose from."
There's quite a difference between supporting the standards, and creating new ones that only you can support, and then suddenly you're the only game in town.
"We've upped our standards, so up yours."
I've always found that they didn't get me as big of a refund as filling out the tax forms by hand.
The only reason we used them was because we could e-file, and get the refund deposited directly in our account (Supposedly as soon as 10 days from the IRS getting it). She'd already done the taxes by hand, and came up with the same amount. Could we have gotten back more? Maybe.. but since we didn't want to go to a CPA and were going to mail them in, this was nice just to make it quicker.
My fiancee used Hdvest.com, who lets you file for free through their system. The only problem I noticed is that, under Netscape 4.76/Linux, it wouldn't open the form to enter W-2 information, had to do it in IE on Winders. Didn't try Mozilla tho...