Nevermind AOL, this is the choice quote: "Our ability to receive 999 calls has not been affected but the ability of people using those 10,000 lines to make 999 calls from land lines may have been.
So... isn't this like when here in Denver a blizard rolls through and the authorities boast how the aircraft landings and takeoffs never even slow down at our fancy new airport... but the road to the airport is frelling closed!
but at great personal cost to her health. Nobody else would go there
A trained physicist with a radiation detector is not the average kid looking for thrills. Read the text accompaning the pictures. It's clear she knows exactly where it is OK to go for how long. Also where just walking over would kill her. No wonder no one else goes there; they wouldn't know where to stay safe. Also note that there are guards living there full time to warn off foolhardy visitors and guided tours for the weathly adventurous from time to time.
unlike other services outsourced for which they could pick the supplier, IT department is the only help they could use.
Not at all; let's say the other department is the sales department. Let's say the internal IT department charges $x per service call. When making the budget for the coming year, the sales manager has to figure in $x times 365 times 4 for an average of 4 IT service calls per day. Each time there's a call, the IT dept creates a ticket. They submit the number of tickets to the accounting office who subtracts $x times tickets from the sales dept budget and puts it in IT's ledger column. Now, let's say the sales manager thinks the internal IT dept sucks. He/she should be able to take the $x for IT total in the sales dept's budget and spend it anywhere. If the independent shop down the road will do calls for $x or less, then the internal IT department suddenly no longer has any budget. This is a powerful incentive to keep internal services up to par! It is also fair because if the internal department provides good service and keeps their expenses under control then all works well. There is only a problem if the internal IT dept is inefficient and/or lousy. And then it's only a problem for the internal IT dept. Furthermore, if the internal IT dept really has their act together then it can be THEY who provide outsourcing for the company down the street whose IT dept is the one that sucks. This can be how an adept IT dept can grow far larger than the company it is in needs. There's no reason not to do this.
then IT professionals have to fix it (for free every time, because they're on contract)
I don't get it; is it done for free or does is the IT person(s) paid a blanket fee to cover all incidents?
In the case of an internal department doing it for 'free' this is bad internal accounting. The IT department should bill its customers for time even if this is all internal paperwork where no real cash changes hands. The IT department's budget becomes paid by other departments who get paid by external customers.
cry as you come back into the UK and pay 2.5% tax on electronic goods, and then 17.5% VAT>br> Nope: Step -1: Buy same brand laptop in UK from store with liberal return policy. Step 0: Carry receipt for said to US. ... Step 6: Present UK receipt for US laptop. Customs people will not be able to tell difference. Step 7: Return UK bought laptop.
The simplest way to go is to get a mailbox in New York via a company like The Mail Box
No, the best way is to have it sent to the hotel where you'll be staying. Assuming you will be at a reputable international brand (Hilton, Sheraton, etc) and not one marked 'men only' in Harlem. Big hotels have recieving departments where shipments are logged and accounted for. Just call the concierge or bell captain and tell them you're arriving on the x-th and are expecting a package delivered a few days (or whatever) before you arrive. This gives you time to account for backorders and other delays in shipping.
No, slaves are a bad example. If I pay income tax to France then I get a deduction from the USA's IRS for that amount. Furthermore, if I pay a use tax (AKA sales tax) on something bought in France, and I keep the receipt showing itemized tax, then I get that off the customs duty.
And the next logical question is, if I buy a hard drive while on a trip to France am I exempt from suits when I bring the drive back to the USA and download music to it?
some municipalities have plans for building their own networks... There are many people who don't want that to happen
I'm usually in agreement with complaints about monopolies but in some cases they have their uses. This is one of them. Rather than several companies all running their own cables everywhere in town, it is a LOT more cost effective (and therefore more likely to get done) to have ONE set of cables. Note that this cuts down on construction (digging up the streets for buried cable) and/or clutter in the sky (poles and cables strung along). As citizens, instead of private consumers, you have to use the apropriate weapon in case you are unhappy with the service (for whatever reason). In the case of a government owned service, use the vote. So given that one provider is more efficient than multiple providers in this case, consumers have a choice. Do you want a government sponsored company to run it or a private one? Keep in mind there are plusses and minuses on both sides.
there was massive and endless inflation that persists today... I'd rather slay thieves and murderers than a dragon that will just respawn
Then an ideal game would have a fixed amount of gold. If someone slays the dragon and takes his cash then the respawned dragon needs to go hunt down replacement not just get it free. Shopkeepers beware!
floating point performance... of VIA CPUs is just abyssmal
Nevermind the individual CPU performance; I thought the biggest slowdown in clusters was inter-CPU communication. This setup is using the built in 100base-t and connecting all the nodes plus the controller to the same 16 port unmanged switch. While a nice project just to do it, doesn't it really want gigabit and a segmented layout?
It's simple I say, either I drop my landline and get rid of my DSL, or drop the landline and keep the DSL
I argued this with QWest several times and finally gave up just last month. I cancelled the land line and DSL, since both were tied together, and got 900mhz wireless. Now they offer this; but it still would cost me more per month and the wireless is faster.
Don't know about where you are but around here the Walmarts sell guns and ammo. And there are already a good 30 to 40 employees already inside. Good luck taking over the place.
So in the event of a meteroid strike, I for one will welcome our new Walmart line level employee overlords... As opposed to the Walmart corporate type overlords we have now.
beyond benchmarking, are we going to actually COMPUTE anything?
You've either never been to a significantly large LAN party or are incredibly lucky. Getting x,000 randomly selected laptops to even all communicate together properly for the benchmark will be a major undertaking, nevermind doing any useful work in the amount of time allotted. The planners give the impression of being quite organized with their pre-made Knoppix disks but I assure you there will be something to gum up the works. This leads to a whole new discussion of why can't PC's be plug-n-go appliances after 20+ years, but nevermind that now...
preferably in the form of true collaboration and not just let's-all-keep-reinventing-the-wheel kind of silly competition
Let's see... collaboration came up with the ISS, an over budget, behind schedule, understaffed white elephant. Competition put men on the moon in less than 10 years from (almost) scratch.
Asking 100 randomly selected scientists to give an analysis of some data will probably get you a good 20 to 30 different conclusions. It should be no suprise that you can find a group that will complain that the conclusion reached in a politically sensitive issue is not their own.
The US spends more on education than it does on defense.
And furthermore, I'm not in the least convinced that throwing more money at the problem of lousy public education is the correct solution. The same people complaining the loudest about government spending waste in general make the most noise refusing reforming the teachers' unions. Want accountability for the army's spending? Fine, but where's the accountability for the teachers? Nowhere! Look at all the resistance to the No Child Left Behind program. How dare the federal government want results for their money! It's the entrenched interests in the education system that's the problem, not a lack of money.
As an individual consumer one is tempted to think that debt is bad no matter what. But look at things like mortgages. Even if you have the cash to buy a house, you should put the money in a good mix of mutual funds because over 30 years you'll earn more than you pay out in interest. Furthermore, there is a well known (in finance) theory that says a little bit of debt is good for a company. Why? Because there is pressure to perform month to month that is higher than the year to year market pressures. If the company can't make its debt payments, it's S.O.L. If the managers don't run it well enough to have cash every month, they lose their jobs when the company goes insolvent.
> an increase of 3.1 per cent from the previous year OMG! Military spending increased at about the rate of inflation! OMG!
the US accounted for 37 per cent of that total. Today, the number is closer to 40 per cent of that total. So all of the US's allies who can spend diddly on defense while hiding behind the US's capabilities should have loads of cash available for space exploration that they'd otherwise be spending on their militaries. Please see how much money the US government throws away to farmers to not grow anything and to "low income" people to have more low income babies before complaining about defense spending.
Slashdot Mirror
Nevermind AOL, this is the choice quote:
"Our ability to receive 999 calls has not been affected but the ability of people using those 10,000 lines to make 999 calls from land lines may have been.
So... isn't this like when here in Denver a blizard rolls through and the authorities boast how the aircraft landings and takeoffs never even slow down at our fancy new airport... but the road to the airport is frelling closed!
subduction zone disposal - return it to the earth's core, which is used to it. Does anybody know why this disappeared off the map?
Because the best subduction zone on the planet is the Marianas Trench off the east coast of Japan. And we all know why dumping radioactive material off the coast of Japan is bad.
but at great personal cost to her health. Nobody else would go there
A trained physicist with a radiation detector is not the average kid looking for thrills. Read the text accompaning the pictures. It's clear she knows exactly where it is OK to go for how long. Also where just walking over would kill her. No wonder no one else goes there; they wouldn't know where to stay safe. Also note that there are guards living there full time to warn off foolhardy visitors and guided tours for the weathly adventurous from time to time.
I suppose she should watch for dust storms, though.
If you read the complete text in with the pictures, she goes by herself to avoid having another motorcycle kicking up dust for this very reason.
unlike other services outsourced for which they could pick the supplier, IT department is the only help they could use.
Not at all; let's say the other department is the sales department. Let's say the internal IT department charges $x per service call. When making the budget for the coming year, the sales manager has to figure in $x times 365 times 4 for an average of 4 IT service calls per day. Each time there's a call, the IT dept creates a ticket. They submit the number of tickets to the accounting office who subtracts $x times tickets from the sales dept budget and puts it in IT's ledger column. Now, let's say the sales manager thinks the internal IT dept sucks. He/she should be able to take the $x for IT total in the sales dept's budget and spend it anywhere. If the independent shop down the road will do calls for $x or less, then the internal IT department suddenly no longer has any budget. This is a powerful incentive to keep internal services up to par! It is also fair because if the internal department provides good service and keeps their expenses under control then all works well. There is only a problem if the internal IT dept is inefficient and/or lousy. And then it's only a problem for the internal IT dept. Furthermore, if the internal IT dept really has their act together then it can be THEY who provide outsourcing for the company down the street whose IT dept is the one that sucks. This can be how an adept IT dept can grow far larger than the company it is in needs. There's no reason not to do this.
then IT professionals have to fix it (for free every time, because they're on contract)
I don't get it; is it done for free or does is the IT person(s) paid a blanket fee to cover all incidents?
In the case of an internal department doing it for 'free' this is bad internal accounting. The IT department should bill its customers for time even if this is all internal paperwork where no real cash changes hands. The IT department's budget becomes paid by other departments who get paid by external customers.
cry as you come back into the UK and pay 2.5% tax on electronic goods, and then 17.5% VAT>br>
Nope:
Step -1: Buy same brand laptop in UK from store with liberal return policy.
Step 0: Carry receipt for said to US.
...
Step 6: Present UK receipt for US laptop. Customs people will not be able to tell difference.
Step 7: Return UK bought laptop.
The simplest way to go is to get a mailbox in New York via a company like The Mail Box
No, the best way is to have it sent to the hotel where you'll be staying. Assuming you will be at a reputable international brand (Hilton, Sheraton, etc) and not one marked 'men only' in Harlem. Big hotels have recieving departments where shipments are logged and accounted for. Just call the concierge or bell captain and tell them you're arriving on the x-th and are expecting a package delivered a few days (or whatever) before you arrive. This gives you time to account for backorders and other delays in shipping.
SMP support for i386
:D
I once saw a dual CPU 386-class motherboard but i686 might be a better target for SMP support.
after sitting in a class at university with my Dell my legs feel like they are about to melt
Sounds like your university needs to invest in some of those newfangled 'desk' things.
No, slaves are a bad example. If I pay income tax to France then I get a deduction from the USA's IRS for that amount. Furthermore, if I pay a use tax (AKA sales tax) on something bought in France, and I keep the receipt showing itemized tax, then I get that off the customs duty.
And the next logical question is, if I buy a hard drive while on a trip to France am I exempt from suits when I bring the drive back to the USA and download music to it?
some municipalities have plans for building their own networks ... There are many people who don't want that to happen
I'm usually in agreement with complaints about monopolies but in some cases they have their uses. This is one of them. Rather than several companies all running their own cables everywhere in town, it is a LOT more cost effective (and therefore more likely to get done) to have ONE set of cables. Note that this cuts down on construction (digging up the streets for buried cable) and/or clutter in the sky (poles and cables strung along).
As citizens, instead of private consumers, you have to use the apropriate weapon in case you are unhappy with the service (for whatever reason). In the case of a government owned service, use the vote.
So given that one provider is more efficient than multiple providers in this case, consumers have a choice. Do you want a government sponsored company to run it or a private one? Keep in mind there are plusses and minuses on both sides.
A lot of the US mirrors are on universities. Your tax dollars at work, assuming you are in USA too, so "saving" them is not really a strong concern.
there was massive and endless inflation that persists today ... I'd rather slay thieves and murderers than a dragon that will just respawn
Then an ideal game would have a fixed amount of gold. If someone slays the dragon and takes his cash then the respawned dragon needs to go hunt down replacement not just get it free. Shopkeepers beware!
floating point performance ... of VIA CPUs is just abyssmal
Nevermind the individual CPU performance; I thought the biggest slowdown in clusters was inter-CPU communication. This setup is using the built in 100base-t and connecting all the nodes plus the controller to the same 16 port unmanged switch. While a nice project just to do it, doesn't it really want gigabit and a segmented layout?
It's simple I say, either I drop my landline and get rid of my DSL, or drop the landline and keep the DSL
I argued this with QWest several times and finally gave up just last month. I cancelled the land line and DSL, since both were tied together, and got 900mhz wireless. Now they offer this; but it still would cost me more per month and the wireless is faster.
Don't know about where you are but around here the Walmarts sell guns and ammo. And there are already a good 30 to 40 employees already inside. Good luck taking over the place.
So in the event of a meteroid strike, I for one will welcome our new Walmart line level employee overlords... As opposed to the Walmart corporate type overlords we have now.
beyond benchmarking, are we going to actually COMPUTE anything?
You've either never been to a significantly large LAN party or are incredibly lucky. Getting x,000 randomly selected laptops to even all communicate together properly for the benchmark will be a major undertaking, nevermind doing any useful work in the amount of time allotted. The planners give the impression of being quite organized with their pre-made Knoppix disks but I assure you there will be something to gum up the works. This leads to a whole new discussion of why can't PC's be plug-n-go appliances after 20+ years, but nevermind that now...
preferably in the form of true collaboration and not just let's-all-keep-reinventing-the-wheel kind of silly competition
Let's see... collaboration came up with the ISS, an over budget, behind schedule, understaffed white elephant. Competition put men on the moon in less than 10 years from (almost) scratch.
Asking 100 randomly selected scientists to give an analysis of some data will probably get you a good 20 to 30 different conclusions. It should be no suprise that you can find a group that will complain that the conclusion reached in a politically sensitive issue is not their own.
What a mess! I'd rather have food on the table.
The US spends more on education than it does on defense.
And furthermore, I'm not in the least convinced that throwing more money at the problem of lousy public education is the correct solution. The same people complaining the loudest about government spending waste in general make the most noise refusing reforming the teachers' unions. Want accountability for the army's spending? Fine, but where's the accountability for the teachers? Nowhere! Look at all the resistance to the No Child Left Behind program. How dare the federal government want results for their money! It's the entrenched interests in the education system that's the problem, not a lack of money.
As an individual consumer one is tempted to think that debt is bad no matter what. But look at things like mortgages. Even if you have the cash to buy a house, you should put the money in a good mix of mutual funds because over 30 years you'll earn more than you pay out in interest. Furthermore, there is a well known (in finance) theory that says a little bit of debt is good for a company. Why? Because there is pressure to perform month to month that is higher than the year to year market pressures. If the company can't make its debt payments, it's S.O.L. If the managers don't run it well enough to have cash every month, they lose their jobs when the company goes insolvent.
> an increase of 3.1 per cent from the previous year
OMG! Military spending increased at about the rate of inflation! OMG!
the US accounted for 37 per cent of that total. Today, the number is closer to 40 per cent of that total.
So all of the US's allies who can spend diddly on defense while hiding behind the US's capabilities should have loads of cash available for space exploration that they'd otherwise be spending on their militaries. Please see how much money the US government throws away to farmers to not grow anything and to "low income" people to have more low income babies before complaining about defense spending.