Its actually a reference to 4:20, sort of like tea-time for stoners. Has nothing to do with Hitler. I suggest you Germans need a more positive connotation for 4/20. Because the Holocaust was some serious shit. I'm glad we kicked the Nazis ass in WWII, I strongly identify with the Jewish people although I'm not Jewish, and I hope such a horror never is allowed to happen again.
But seriously now, is this book to be sold through normal channels, or only through thinkgeek? I think you are limiting your audience if its only the latter.
Seems like everytime there is a book review here, someone is slamming ThinkGeek for being more expensive. Is that really the point? Slashdot only has a couple of ways of making money - banner ads and affiliate fees. Considering the incredible service they are for our community, I'd rather support slashdot than save a few bucks at an unrelated website.
If you do want to save money, try bestbookbuys. You can price shop for any book. I suggest we leave price comparisons to these guys and keep the discussions to the books in question.
Disclaimer: Pinball Wizard is not affiliated with slashdot in any way and does not speak for them.
You see, I have a Palm Pilot. I love it. But I'm sorry, I want more. I want it to have superfast speed and gigabites of memory. I want to carry a complete computer around in my pocket! Computers help you make smarter decisions(blah, blah, I don't need to be telling Slashdot readers this). I say, give me the most powerful computer possible in the palm of my hand.
And of course there's the cool factor. I was always amazed at how the average Joe Sixpack gazed in wonder as I sported my Palm. Now that I'll be able to read books, play music, transcribe speech, and browse websites on this little thing, well I JUST MIGHT GET LAID WITH IT!!!.
Ah technology. The power to turn the average geek into Superman. I don't care if its from Microsoft, I think its great, and I want to see more.
of Congress anyway?(If anyone knows, post the answer.)
Because I didn't vote for him. Someone with this much authority has the responsibility for preserving our nations data, and I don't think he's doing a good job!
Remember the Library of Alexandria? Much of the ancient worlds knowledge was burned in a fire, a legacy that we will forever be unable to share. How easy would it be for a fire or natural disaster or god forbid a war to destroy a huge chunk of our national heritage?
Please, somebody put someone with a clue in charge of our library. If there is a problem with being able to fund digitizing the books, I'm sure there would be lots of volunteers from the computer geek community. I certainly would volunteer to help such a worthwhile and noble project as preserving our nations data.
Thats right, data. Someone who thinks "Internet seems to be largely amplifying the worst features of television's preoccupation with sex and violence, semi-literate chatter, shortened attention spans, and near-total subservience to commercial marketing" does not belong running our Library of Congress.
>> According to the leader board, 8 out of 10 of the codes have already been broken, so get going if you wanted to participate in the last two!
I think it would still be worthwhile to participate. As I recall, the first 4 or 5 codes were somewhat trivial. Also, each code is something like an order of magnitude harder to break than the one previous to it. It may be years before the last two codes are broken. If all ten codes are not broken by October, the contest will strech to the year 2010.
OK, if someone is going to blatantly advertise their website in a slashdot article they should at least make sure it can handle being slashdotted.
I will give no credence to those who pull these kind of stunts. He should have at least tried to contact Be. Nope, he's just looking for hits on his site. Too bad he couldn't handle them.
Perhaps you are looking in the wrong place. Benchmarking a processor and looking at server performance are two completely unrelated things. If you are looking at a 500GB database there are many other things besides processor performance to look at(unless you are working for one of those server companies you mention and are designing a box, but sounds to me like you are designing a system.) IMHO, hard drive speed, RAID performance, the number of drives in your system, and the amount and type of RAM you have are all somewhat more important things to look at. Bottlenecks in a database system are rarely at the processor.
That said, there is a great site that compares the servers and databases you mention, and will likely give you the stats you are looking for. Its www.tpc.org.
/. please moderate up before archiving...
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...and I'll see to it that people in the publishing industry see the/. comments.
(Damn, this always happens...the stories that are the best ones for me to post to inevitably occur on the weekend when I'm doing non-computer related activities.)
I run a online bookstore and thus try to pay attention to this sort of thing. We are a smallish independent place that has watched the number of independent bookstores dwindle from over 5,000 bookstores to just over 3,000 in the last 10 years, a 40% drop.
If you really care about where you get your information, do what you can to ensure that your local independents survive and try to diversify your online spending rather than just going to amazon or wherever. From my standpoint, these digital books are just going to proliferate. I combined my 3 "O'Reilly Bookshelves" into 1 CD and I love it. Computer books and travel books in particular are really useful to put into digital form. It is happening and it will continue to happen. Even though I sell books I want to see this happen. Being able to carry 100 books in my handheld reader would be awesome. Within 5 years, the display will be as readable as the printed page, and of course searching, indexing and linking are vastly superior to the printed form.
In this business, we survive by keeping up with technology, and my company knows based on past experience as well as having an inside ear to the publishing companies that this is going to proliferate. The King ebook promotion was very successful for Simon & Schuster, and I just got through emailing my agreement to promote several other upcoming ebooks. We're going to be there when it happens.
I have somewhat of a positive view about this, and I'm pretty sure that authors and publishers together will work toward an amicable solution for readers. They have to. If for example Random House finds that it sells 3 times as many ebooks that are say, encrypted text that you could transfer from computer to computer after decrypting than it does by distributing it in a closed program, guess which way is going to win? The fact that King could not read his own book was very telling.
You can ensure that the publishers of ebooks play fair by demanding certain things from them before you buy. Simon & Schuster is the publisher doing the most stuff now, why not email them your concerns? I was able to get some positive comments through to them and so can you. Trust me, publishers are *far* more concerned with the popularity of the publication than they are with the technology used. It should be easy to convince them that using proprietary readers is not the way to go, and that good old plain text is.
Suggestions for the future sale of e-books.
- Insist that publishers publish in text. Encrypted text would be the best way to do this. Don't buy anything stored in a "glassbook reader" or anything else that you cannot transfer your property to and from. The Glassbook reader was very buggy, not only that what happens in a few years when I can't use the program at all because I upgraded my OS?
- Write some publishers and show how using proprietary technology is limiting their sales. They are there to make money and not only that would likely listen to your intelligent comment because the book industry is notoriously non-technical while at the same time relying a great deal on technology.
- Encourage the creation of a digital library. Write your congressman and let him/her know that our society needs one. We should have a library where works can be "checked out" for a period of time by those who can't afford to pay for them. This is absolutely vital.
Remember, the book industry is driven by user demand. We are all here trying to compete with amazon and the chains. Innovation rules in this industry, that's why I don't see knowledge being tightly controlled by the publishers. They are really just trying to keep up with the changes brought by the digital age.
And support your independent bookstores! Most of us are deeply concerned about freedom of speech and will defend the 1st amendment with our careers if not our lives.
Read this only if you didn't get the joke.
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"Moving to Montana soon" is a song by Frank Zappa. The main lyric goes "moving to Montana soon, gonna be a dental floss tycoon."
As the man said, its funny. Laugh.
Re:Have you ever gone slow?
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>> I think I am moving to Montana soon.
...gonna be a dental floss tycoon? Gotta supply those early morning emailers.:)
I know this is somewhat of a "me too" post but its really disappointing when a band(Metallica) that used to have so much integrity in their music and personal lives has sold out like they have.
(for slightly younger geeks than I) That said, my fav hard rock band has long been Rush. They put out most of their best stuff in the late 70's/early 80's, but they still consistently rock. They are the ultimate geek band in my opinion - there is no other hard rock band that can compare in terms of musicianship and intelligent lyrics. They've been around for 27 years, and I can tell you with confidence that they will never become a corporate sellout. If you've never experienced them, try Hemispheres. Music that will put just about any new hard rock to shame.
Well, I actually do need good database performance - need to run fast queries against a 700,000 row table in SQL Server. I'm using transactions and replication so I can't just move it to mySQL(easily) I'm hoping to increase the number of hits too:)
But I think I agree with you there about Apache. I'm thinking move to Apache, keep NT/SQL server just as the backend database. Apache, Sendmail & SQL Server just might be the best of breed solution I'm looking for, and I wouldn't have to worry as much about NT's security flaws since it wouldn't be running the website, and the only permissions on the database would be those given to Apache. Comments and suggestions welcome.
Disclaimer: I also run a 64-user AIX box! And a couple of Linux systems, one thats getting ready to run my own customized version of slash. I actually know something about computers! So just because I run an NT box does not mean I'm one of those "Minesweeper Consultants and Solitare Experts"
aaaargh! Why do I have to read about this shit in/. Microsoft should have emailed their customers about this immediately. Its not even on their site. Thank you/.ers who posted relavent links. Luckily I wasn't affected, this time. This particular security hole does not let anyone in, just if you already have developer permissions on the server. So, for instance, if you have an ISP running IIS, you might have to worry about certain web developers accessing other sites on your box.
This is the 2nd time I've had to fix a security flaw where the information was documented and a fix was posted on the web some time before MS got a clue.
Ya know, I'm probably one of the few that actually bought something from MS because I thought it was worth it. SQL and IIS performance wise really kick ass, and I'll be happy to provide some relavant links if you want to question this. NT is not 100% stable for me, but I have uptimes in the 3 month range with about 35,000 hits a day on my site. Crap like this, however, is rapidly making me a former customer of Microsoft.
Hmm...as I read this story, especially that little blurb of about the "anonymous reporting culture" I must admit some chills ran up my spine(I read a lot of Solzhenitsyn at a very young age.) Then I started thinking...wait a minute these guys are the same rent-a-cops you wouldn't be afraid to smoke a joint in front of at a concert, so why get so worked up about it?
Not to mention that these guys are not exactly America's best and brightest. Someone mentioned that most of these people were there because they couldn't cut it in the police or military. They can't throw you in jail. Whats the worst they could do? Report you to your school. Pass along a piece of unsubstantiated, circumstantial evidence that wouldn't wash with any court in the country. BAFD.
Its almost comical. The people who they are going to go after will be almost invariably smarter than them. Oh gee, I'm being chased by a snail. I'm really going to have to run after I finish my coffee and a smoke.
I've read some very good suggestions on how to counter attack this "threat" and they're all pretty good. Might I suggest another? How about some "I got harrased by Pinkerton/Wave America" t-shirts to proudly display. Maybe thinkgeek could sell them.:^)
Who else would like to see a mindstorms version of this? Lets see... a difference engine, and a way to program it via your PC. If you could somehow transfer your program to something that was entirely mechanical, that would be cool!
(Their book division is already profitable, with their other divisions not far behind) I imagine their book division is very profitable when separated from their marketing divison. However, separating the "Accounts Receivable" from "Accounts Payable" and saying that one of your divisions is profitable is not exactly the most sincere business practice.
You don't have to imagine. That is exactly how amazon was able to report a profit. They took their sales and subtracted the cost of goods to get their figure. No account for dollars spent on promotion, warehouse space, or even salaries.
Its not even worth Bill's time to pick up a $20 bill lying on the floor.
However... he has given $17.1 billion to charity so far through the Gates foundation. He's also hell-bent on being the worlds greatest philanthropist, ever. Seems to be doing a pretty good job so far.
Interesting point, coming from a site that is overwhelmingly male.
-- How many girls were in your programming/math/engineering classes?
--When was the last time you took a date to the Star Trek convention? Maybe my view is off, but most of the "geeky" stuff that I like(Star Wars, Star Trek, Rush, math, science, computers) is not shared by the women I've dated.
I know there are girl geeks out there. They are just few and far between. I discovered a long time ago that I was far more successful with the opposite sex by cultivating a few "feminine" interests like gardening and cooking than to insist that my girlfriend be as into The Matrix as I am.
Every time you see something about grits or Natalie Portman, or some other lewd comment on this site you realize how clubby of an environment this is. Its tailored to guys, much like that treehouse that said "no girlz allowed" when we were kids.
Slashdot Mirror
Its actually a reference to 4:20, sort of like tea-time for stoners. Has nothing to do with Hitler. I suggest you Germans need a more positive connotation for 4/20. Because the Holocaust was some serious shit. I'm glad we kicked the Nazis ass in WWII, I strongly identify with the Jewish people although I'm not Jewish, and I hope such a horror never is allowed to happen again.
Happy 4/20, everyone!
But seriously now, is this book to be sold through normal channels, or only through thinkgeek? I think you are limiting your audience if its only the latter.
If you do want to save money, try bestbookbuys. You can price shop for any book. I suggest we leave price comparisons to these guys and keep the discussions to the books in question.
Disclaimer: Pinball Wizard is not affiliated with slashdot in any way and does not speak for them.
You see, I have a Palm Pilot. I love it. But I'm sorry, I want more. I want it to have superfast speed and gigabites of memory. I want to carry a complete computer around in my pocket! Computers help you make smarter decisions(blah, blah, I don't need to be telling Slashdot readers this). I say, give me the most powerful computer possible in the palm of my hand.
And of course there's the cool factor. I was always amazed at how the average Joe Sixpack gazed in wonder as I sported my Palm. Now that I'll be able to read books, play music, transcribe speech, and browse websites on this little thing, well I JUST MIGHT GET LAID WITH IT!!!.
Ah technology. The power to turn the average geek into Superman. I don't care if its from Microsoft, I think its great, and I want to see more.
Because I didn't vote for him. Someone with this much authority has the responsibility for preserving our nations data, and I don't think he's doing a good job!
Remember the Library of Alexandria? Much of the ancient worlds knowledge was burned in a fire, a legacy that we will forever be unable to share. How easy would it be for a fire or natural disaster or god forbid a war to destroy a huge chunk of our national heritage?
Please, somebody put someone with a clue in charge of our library. If there is a problem with being able to fund digitizing the books, I'm sure there would be lots of volunteers from the computer geek community. I certainly would volunteer to help such a worthwhile and noble project as preserving our nations data.
Thats right, data. Someone who thinks "Internet seems to be largely amplifying the worst features of television's preoccupation with sex and violence, semi-literate chatter, shortened attention spans, and near-total subservience to commercial marketing" does not belong running our Library of Congress.
I think it would still be worthwhile to participate. As I recall, the first 4 or 5 codes were somewhat trivial. Also, each code is something like an order of magnitude harder to break than the one previous to it. It may be years before the last two codes are broken. If all ten codes are not broken by October, the contest will strech to the year 2010.
Jeeves, why does salad.com think they can hide their javascript behind frames?
!-- ha ha ha ha ha ha ha function checkBrowser() { // returns true if using Netscape 3+ or MSIE 4+, else returns false browseapp = navigator.appName; vers = navigator.appVersion; if( ( browseapp.indexOf( "Netscape" ) >= 0 ) && ( vers.substring( 0, 1 ).indexOf( "5" ) >= 0 ) ) return 1; else if( ( browseapp.indexOf( "Netscape" ) >= 0 ) && ( vers.substring( 0, 1 ).indexOf( "4" ) >= 0 ) ) return 1; else if( ( browseapp.indexOf( "Netscape" ) >= 0 ) && ( vers.substring( 0, 1 ).indexOf( "3" ) >= 0 ) ) return 1; else if( ( browseapp.indexOf( "Microsoft" ) >= 0 ) && ( vers.substring( 0, 1 ).indexOf( "5" ) >= 0 ) ) return 1; else if( ( browseapp.indexOf( "Microsoft" ) >= 0 ) && ( vers.substring( 0, 1 ).indexOf( "4" ) >= 0 ) ) return 1; else if( ( browseapp.indexOf( "Microsoft" ) >= 0 ) && ( vers.substring( 0, 1 ).indexOf( "2" ) >= 0 ) && ( vers.charAt( 22 ) == "3" ) ) return 0; else if( ( browseapp.indexOf( "Microsoft" ) >= 0 ) && ( vers.substring( 0, 1 ).indexOf( "3" ) >= 0 ) ) return 0; else // if using really old or non-MS/Netscape browser, return false return 0; } if( checkBrowser() ) { // navbar preloads here var home_on=new Image(53,91); home_on.src="images/home_on.gif"; var faq_on=new Image(46,91); faq_on.src="images/faq_on.gif"; var register_on=new Image(81,91); register_on.src="images/register_on.gif"; // recipe nav preloads var recipes_on=new Image(62,91); recipes_on.src="images/recipes_on.gif"; var recipes_appson=new Image(62,91); recipes_appson.src="images/recipes_appson.gif"; var recipes_mainson=new Image(62,91); recipes_mainson.src="images/recipes_mainson.gif"; var recipes_sideson=new Image(62,91); recipes_sideson.src="images/recipes_sideson.gif"; var recipes_saladson=new Image(62,91); recipes_saladson.src="images/recipes_saladson.gif" ; var recipes_sandson=new Image(62,91); recipes_sandson.src="images/recipes_sandson.gif"; // prodinfo nav preloads var prodinfo_on=new Image(89,91); prodinfo_on.src="images/prodinfo_on.gif"; var prodinfo_newon=new Image(89,91); prodinfo_newon.src="images/prodinfo_newon.gif"; var prodinfo_existon=new Image(89,91); prodinfo_existon.src="images/prodinfo_existon.gif" ; // about nav preloads var abcon_abon=new Image(139,91); abcon_abon.src="images/abcon_abon.gif"; var abcon_conon=new Image(139,91); abcon_conon.src="images/abcon_conon.gif"; var about_histon=new Image(139,91); about_histon.src="images/about_histon.gif"; var about_mileson=new Image(139,91); about_mileson.src="images/about_mileson.gif"; var about_bioon=new Image(139,91); about_bioon.src="images/about_bioon.gif"; var about_annivon=new Image(139,91); about_annivon.src="images/about_annivon.gif"; } function senseOne(imgName,fileName) { if (document.images && checkBrowser()) document[imgName].src="images/"+fileName+".gif"; } function senseTwo(imgName,fileName,imgNamea,fileNamea) { if (document.images && checkBrowser()) { document[imgName].src="images/"+fileName+".gif"; document[imgNamea].src="images/"+fileNamea+".gif"; } } // ha ha ha ha ha ha ha -->
Jeeves, why do people put ha ha ha ha ha ha in their scripts(oh wait, Rob did that too!)
I will give no credence to those who pull these kind of stunts. He should have at least tried to contact Be. Nope, he's just looking for hits on his site. Too bad he couldn't handle them.
That said, there is a great site that compares the servers and databases you mention, and will likely give you the stats you are looking for. Its www.tpc.org.
(Damn, this always happens...the stories that are the best ones for me to post to inevitably occur on the weekend when I'm doing non-computer related activities.)
I run a online bookstore and thus try to pay attention to this sort of thing. We are a smallish independent place that has watched the number of independent bookstores dwindle from over 5,000 bookstores to just over 3,000 in the last 10 years, a 40% drop.
If you really care about where you get your information, do what you can to ensure that your local independents survive and try to diversify your online spending rather than just going to amazon or wherever. From my standpoint, these digital books are just going to proliferate. I combined my 3 "O'Reilly Bookshelves" into 1 CD and I love it. Computer books and travel books in particular are really useful to put into digital form. It is happening and it will continue to happen. Even though I sell books I want to see this happen. Being able to carry 100 books in my handheld reader would be awesome. Within 5 years, the display will be as readable as the printed page, and of course searching, indexing and linking are vastly superior to the printed form.
In this business, we survive by keeping up with technology, and my company knows based on past experience as well as having an inside ear to the publishing companies that this is going to proliferate. The King ebook promotion was very successful for Simon & Schuster, and I just got through emailing my agreement to promote several other upcoming ebooks. We're going to be there when it happens.
I have somewhat of a positive view about this, and I'm pretty sure that authors and publishers together will work toward an amicable solution for readers. They have to. If for example Random House finds that it sells 3 times as many ebooks that are say, encrypted text that you could transfer from computer to computer after decrypting than it does by distributing it in a closed program, guess which way is going to win? The fact that King could not read his own book was very telling.
You can ensure that the publishers of ebooks play fair by demanding certain things from them before you buy. Simon & Schuster is the publisher doing the most stuff now, why not email them your concerns? I was able to get some positive comments through to them and so can you. Trust me, publishers are *far* more concerned with the popularity of the publication than they are with the technology used. It should be easy to convince them that using proprietary readers is not the way to go, and that good old plain text is.
Suggestions for the future sale of e-books.
- Insist that publishers publish in text. Encrypted text would be the best way to do this. Don't buy anything stored in a "glassbook reader" or anything else that you cannot transfer your property to and from. The Glassbook reader was very buggy, not only that what happens in a few years when I can't use the program at all because I upgraded my OS?
- Write some publishers and show how using proprietary technology is limiting their sales. They are there to make money and not only that would likely listen to your intelligent comment because the book industry is notoriously non-technical while at the same time relying a great deal on technology.
- Encourage the creation of a digital library. Write your congressman and let him/her know that our society needs one. We should have a library where works can be "checked out" for a period of time by those who can't afford to pay for them. This is absolutely vital.
Remember, the book industry is driven by user demand. We are all here trying to compete with amazon and the chains. Innovation rules in this industry, that's why I don't see knowledge being tightly controlled by the publishers. They are really just trying to keep up with the changes brought by the digital age.
And support your independent bookstores! Most of us are deeply concerned about freedom of speech and will defend the 1st amendment with our careers if not our lives.
As the man said, its funny. Laugh.
Is it because the Pentium has a larger cache? Sorry if this seems trivial. I'm a software guy.
(for slightly younger geeks than I) That said, my fav hard rock band has long been Rush. They put out most of their best stuff in the late 70's/early 80's, but they still consistently rock. They are the ultimate geek band in my opinion - there is no other hard rock band that can compare in terms of musicianship and intelligent lyrics. They've been around for 27 years, and I can tell you with confidence that they will never become a corporate sellout. If you've never experienced them, try Hemispheres. Music that will put just about any new hard rock to shame.
But I think I agree with you there about Apache. I'm thinking move to Apache, keep NT/SQL server just as the backend database. Apache, Sendmail & SQL Server just might be the best of breed solution I'm looking for, and I wouldn't have to worry as much about NT's security flaws since it wouldn't be running the website, and the only permissions on the database would be those given to Apache. Comments and suggestions welcome.
Disclaimer: I also run a 64-user AIX box! And a couple of Linux systems, one thats getting ready to run my own customized version of slash. I actually know something about computers! So just because I run an NT box does not mean I'm one of those "Minesweeper Consultants and Solitare Experts"
This is the 2nd time I've had to fix a security flaw where the information was documented and a fix was posted on the web some time before MS got a clue.
Ya know, I'm probably one of the few that actually bought something from MS because I thought it was worth it. SQL and IIS performance wise really kick ass, and I'll be happy to provide some relavant links if you want to question this. NT is not 100% stable for me, but I have uptimes in the 3 month range with about 35,000 hits a day on my site. Crap like this, however, is rapidly making me a former customer of Microsoft.
Kudos indeed.
Not to mention that these guys are not exactly America's best and brightest. Someone mentioned that most of these people were there because they couldn't cut it in the police or military. They can't throw you in jail. Whats the worst they could do? Report you to your school. Pass along a piece of unsubstantiated, circumstantial evidence that wouldn't wash with any court in the country. BAFD.
Its almost comical. The people who they are going to go after will be almost invariably smarter than them. Oh gee, I'm being chased by a snail. I'm really going to have to run after I finish my coffee and a smoke.
I've read some very good suggestions on how to counter attack this "threat" and they're all pretty good. Might I suggest another? How about some "I got harrased by Pinkerton/Wave America" t-shirts to proudly display. Maybe thinkgeek could sell them. :^)
Who else would like to see a mindstorms version of this? Lets see... a difference engine, and a way to program it via your PC. If you could somehow transfer your program to something that was entirely mechanical, that would be cool!
You don't have to imagine. That is exactly how amazon was able to report a profit. They took their sales and subtracted the cost of goods to get their figure. No account for dollars spent on promotion, warehouse space, or even salaries.
However... he has given $17.1 billion to charity so far through the Gates foundation. He's also hell-bent on being the worlds greatest philanthropist, ever. Seems to be doing a pretty good job so far.
Here are a few links for further reading.
Bill Gates' foundation named nation's wealthiest
The Gates of Philanthropy Open Wide
-- How many girls were in your programming/math/engineering classes?
--When was the last time you took a date to the Star Trek convention? Maybe my view is off, but most of the "geeky" stuff that I like(Star Wars, Star Trek, Rush, math, science, computers) is not shared by the women I've dated.
I know there are girl geeks out there. They are just few and far between. I discovered a long time ago that I was far more successful with the opposite sex by cultivating a few "feminine" interests like gardening and cooking than to insist that my girlfriend be as into The Matrix as I am.
Every time you see something about grits or Natalie Portman, or some other lewd comment on this site you realize how clubby of an environment this is. Its tailored to guys, much like that treehouse that said "no girlz allowed" when we were kids.