Hardware boom not surprising at all
on
The New Boom
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· Score: 1
The current hardware boom is easily explained.
Historically (prior to 2000) businesses all typically operated on a 4-5 year technology life-cycle. The only thing that's changed is that the Y2K projects of the late 90's brought all those cycles into sync.
This will be the only "real" hardware boom as differing approaches to hardware replacement are already bringing them back out of sync.
Nothing to see here, move along...
Re:The future is tangiable
on
The New Boom
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· Score: 1
Oh good grief, do you think they're going to fire you when you're doing the work of two people? Then they'd have to hire two or even three people at roughly twice the pay. If they decide that they can just pile the work on some other poor bastard, then you really do need to leave anyway.
Unfortunately there's a surprisingly high number of middle managers who aren't that smart. (Ref. "Peter Principle")
Any data suggesting it was within an order of magnitude or so of the effect of atmospheric greenhouse gas levels, I would treat as significant. That is what I was hoping you (or someone else) would provide.
I wouldn't be qualified to provide anything like it, but I do know that every graph I've ever seen of global atmospheric temperatures shows a definite trend upwards right after the beginning of the industrial revolution with that trend showing some kind of geometric progression not too far off of the population growth curve. But I'm just a computer geek, what do I know?:)
Sum fossil fuel use + solar + wind + other alternitives + energy consumed by people themselves + others I have no doubt forgotten.... what makes this so difficult?
At risk of replying to a troll...:)
It's virtually impossible to quantify any one of the above, let alone all of them, and that "forgotten" section includes a heck of a lot, from an itinerant sheep-herder's campfire to unregulated third world industrial parks. Heck, we can't even get accurate numbers for oil production and that is one of the closely monitored of them all! Even the best numbers available could easily still be off by an order of magnitude or more in the aggregate.
Get a data plan and a PCICMA [sic] card from Verizon or Sprint...
I would recommend Sprint as they're the only carrier with an unlimited data plan.
Also, if he already has a cell phone it's quite possible he can hook it up to his laptop via bluetooth or an adaptor cable.
I travel a lot and have a PowerBook and Treo 650 connected via bluetooth. Interestingly, even though the Blazer browser is truly horribly slow, that is actually due to the proxy server they use for page-munging and not at all due to the data connection itself. From my laptop using it as a pure data connection I can get 100k-200k rates sometimes!
Well, let's see. A quick Google for "group video conference" (minus the quotes of course) brings up 50M+ hits with the very first one being a canonical list of same.
So unless you want to narrow your request down a bit the universal response here is likely to be "WTF? Google it!"
Only with one firmware update 1.6? when we test drove the spyware firewall, the reporting via e-mail was not working correctly...
Ah, that would be a whole different animal. The spyware filter is a relatively new addition to their product line. My post above was referring to the spam filter which has been around for some years now.
I'll second that! If he's already on an Apple environment the Xserve RAID is really the best choice. They're ridiculously easy to set up and they're surprisingly fast for still using ATA-133 technology.
Of course I'd recommend a decent-sized tape drive (or possibly firewire hardrives) for off-site archiving as well...
Re:smartest-kids-read-slashdot
on
The Prodigy Puzzle
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I've heard more intelligent and original discussion over trucker band cb radio. I've got an uncle who was a trucker for 40 years and his IQ is off the charts...
Then again you probably wouldn't have heard much from him on the CB, he always said he liked trucking because it was the only job where 99% of the time he didn't have to talk to anybody!:)
Re:Never underestimate the power of Nandrolone...
on
Cow Tipping is a Myth
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· Score: 4, Informative
...put his shoulder through the dorm room wall (concrete block)...
A concrete block wall, (especially if it's not a filled and rebar-reinforced load-bearing wall:), is actually surprisingly weak. Concrete can be incredibly strong when subjected solely to compression forces, but has minimal tensile strength. Consider also that not only does your college roommate have a fair amount of weight, but he is likely delivering it near the center (floor to ceiling) and so has maximum leverage to his advantage as well. I can't say I've ever attempted that particular feat myself but I've done enough other "interesting" things to concrete with my bare hands that I'm not too surprised to hear a drunk jock managed to break a wall...
Hrm, I can see that some assumptions are being made about VC involvement in OSS!
Assumption: OSS is a charity, it's impossible for a VC to make any money investing in OSS
Reality: This is a really narrow-minded view which assumes that the only way to make money in the software business is to sell software!
In reality there are a number of profitable OSS companies out there; and while it is true that they don't make (much) money selling software they make a tidy profit selling their expertise in packaging, customization, installation, aftermarket support, training, etc.
(Not to mention many VCs don't really care about long term prospects, they just want to take it public and flip their stock at the crest of public opinion...:)
The key difference between OSS investment and any other investment is that there can never be a true "loss" in value. I'm probably not going to explain this very well but I'll try anyway.
What I am getting at is that every dollar invested in OSS which leads to publicly released code is a dollar whose benefit will last long beyond any potential demise of the original VC group and/or development team.
This is the ultimate difference between OSS and CSS...
The platform can be moved. It has propulsion, an anchor that can be lifted, the ability to reel the cable in and out for movement up to 3 miles, and the ability to detach from the cable, leaving the end floating on a buoy, and move at up to 20 knots to get out of the way of a storm. All via remote control.
This, combined with the fact that one of the target markets is developing nations, makes me wonder how long it will be before they are hijacked and either taken somewhere else (e.g. third world dictator's private island) or black-marketed and/or sold for scrap value. (Many miles of telephone and power line were torn down in Africa because the natives, who weren't using those services themselves, wanted the metal for other things...)
On Windows, it's not "just an app"... it comes with drivers and various other lowlevel drm junk.
That's a very good point. Anyone coming from Windows could be expected to assume a similar implementation of iTunes for the OSX version.
However, to be fair, all except the DRM (which is also present in the OSX app) is baggage that is required by the Windows environment!
So the baggage-less OSX version is much more self contained and better behaved...
Re:Anyone with iTunes 5 done the OSX upgrade yet?
on
Mac OS X 10.4.3 Released
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· Score: 4, Informative
I'm new to Apple and their package updating scheme, so I'm worried the update might change other dependencies or my ability to update it back to 6, later.
There speaks a Windows refugee...:)
Fear not! A - the iTunes updates are always separate, so if it shows up in the list just deselect it and B - it is just an app, so if you make an archive of whatever you've got then if you did accidentally grab 6 by mistake just delete that, un-archive and you're good to go!
What if it's not about thinking different?
What if it's just about getting the job done?
I use all three - Macs, Windows and Linux - on a daily basis. Many years ago when I really had no need for a Mac that a Windows or 'Nix box couldn't do better the ratio was:
Windows = 50%
Linux = 45%
Mac = 5%
Then Linux started to suck less and Windows hand't improved enough to make up the difference:
Windows = 20%
Linux = 75%
Mac = 5%
Then OSX came out:
Windows = 5%
Linux = 25%
Mac = 70%
I don't hate/love/like/dislike any one in particular, they all have their strengths and weaknesses, but I'm a techie who also has a business to run. Most of my clients have businesses to run as well. While there are numerous exceptions the greater majority of businesses out there really don't give a damn what it is as long as it gets whatever the job might be done as quickly and efficiently as possible!
Here's the shorter version: "Delete some of that shit!"
How to do it? Easy, make a "long term archive" folder of stuff you *know* you'll want someday, everything else if you haven't touched it in a year (or three or five or whatever arbitrary cutoff you decide on) - delete it!
It's all about negotiation and no matter how similar it might seem every deal is unique(!).
You can: A - flip for who gets the larger percentage:) B - meet in the middle C - company officers meet, lay all the cards on the table (by which I mean expose operational costs) and let that form the basis
Whatever you do, assume that the product will take off and that you'll both grow to several hundred times current size. Be sure that the numbers will still work at that point as economies of scale will tweak things and you don't want either side thinking they got the short end of the stick five years down the road. (This may be part of why the other folks aren't happy with the percentages you're offering).
You'll probably end up with a sliding scale formula.
And if the numbers are too fuzzy to project far enough then make it a short-term contract(s).
E.g. A six month contract at a percentage that both sides can live with for the time being and renegotiate at the end. Repeat as necessary...
Slashdot Mirror
The current hardware boom is easily explained.
Historically (prior to 2000) businesses all typically operated on a 4-5 year technology life-cycle. The only thing that's changed is that the Y2K projects of the late 90's brought all those cycles into sync.
This will be the only "real" hardware boom as differing approaches to hardware replacement are already bringing them back out of sync.
Nothing to see here, move along...
I remember the web...
I remember Gopher...
Oh good grief, do you think they're going to fire you when you're doing the work of two people? Then they'd have to hire two or even three people at roughly twice the pay. If they decide that they can just pile the work on some other poor bastard, then you really do need to leave anyway.
Unfortunately there's a surprisingly high number of middle managers who aren't that smart. (Ref. "Peter Principle")
Any data suggesting it was within an order of magnitude or so of the effect of atmospheric greenhouse gas levels, I would treat as significant. That is what I was hoping you (or someone else) would provide.
:)
I wouldn't be qualified to provide anything like it, but I do know that every graph I've ever seen of global atmospheric temperatures shows a definite trend upwards right after the beginning of the industrial revolution with that trend showing some kind of geometric progression not too far off of the population growth curve. But I'm just a computer geek, what do I know?
Sum fossil fuel use + solar + wind + other alternitives + energy consumed by people themselves + others I have no doubt forgotten .... what makes this so difficult?
:)
At risk of replying to a troll...
It's virtually impossible to quantify any one of the above, let alone all of them, and that "forgotten" section includes a heck of a lot, from an itinerant sheep-herder's campfire to unregulated third world industrial parks. Heck, we can't even get accurate numbers for oil production and that is one of the closely monitored of them all! Even the best numbers available could easily still be off by an order of magnitude or more in the aggregate.
Get a data plan and a PCICMA [sic] card from Verizon or Sprint...
I would recommend Sprint as they're the only carrier with an unlimited data plan.
Also, if he already has a cell phone it's quite possible he can hook it up to his laptop via bluetooth or an adaptor cable.
I travel a lot and have a PowerBook and Treo 650 connected via bluetooth. Interestingly, even though the Blazer browser is truly horribly slow, that is actually due to the proxy server they use for page-munging and not at all due to the data connection itself. From my laptop using it as a pure data connection I can get 100k-200k rates sometimes!
Err, wouldn't the amount of heat produced by society be quite an easy quantity to estimate?
Err, no.
remove the intentional underclocking
The underclocking is to keep it from overheating.
If you remove the underclock you better have a little fan around to keep it from dying...
Roger that.
And I'm sure you meant to say " Jolly Roger that."
Well, let's see. A quick Google for "group video conference" (minus the quotes of course) brings up 50M+ hits with the very first one being a canonical list of same.
So unless you want to narrow your request down a bit the universal response here is likely to be "WTF? Google it!"
Only with one firmware update 1.6? when we test drove the spyware firewall, the reporting via e-mail was not working correctly...
Ah, that would be a whole different animal. The spyware filter is a relatively new addition to their product line. My post above was referring to the spam filter which has been around for some years now.
...have you had any trouble with your Barracuda?
Other than a couple of software bugs in the 2.x version range it's been fine.
He should get an Xserve RAID, of course.
I'll second that! If he's already on an Apple environment the Xserve RAID is really the best choice. They're ridiculously easy to set up and they're surprisingly fast for still using ATA-133 technology.
Of course I'd recommend a decent-sized tape drive (or possibly firewire hardrives) for off-site archiving as well...
I've heard more intelligent and original discussion over trucker band cb radio. :)
I've got an uncle who was a trucker for 40 years and his IQ is off the charts...
Then again you probably wouldn't have heard much from him on the CB, he always said he liked trucking because it was the only job where 99% of the time he didn't have to talk to anybody!
...put his shoulder through the dorm room wall (concrete block)...
:), is actually surprisingly weak. Concrete can be incredibly strong when subjected solely to compression forces, but has minimal tensile strength. Consider also that not only does your college roommate have a fair amount of weight, but he is likely delivering it near the center (floor to ceiling) and so has maximum leverage to his advantage as well. I can't say I've ever attempted that particular feat myself but I've done enough other "interesting" things to concrete with my bare hands that I'm not too surprised to hear a drunk jock managed to break a wall...
A concrete block wall, (especially if it's not a filled and rebar-reinforced load-bearing wall
Hrm, I can see that some assumptions are being made about VC involvement in OSS!
:)
Assumption: OSS is a charity, it's impossible for a VC to make any money investing in OSS
Reality: This is a really narrow-minded view which assumes that the only way to make money in the software business is to sell software!
In reality there are a number of profitable OSS companies out there; and while it is true that they don't make (much) money selling software they make a tidy profit selling their expertise in packaging, customization, installation, aftermarket support, training, etc.
(Not to mention many VCs don't really care about long term prospects, they just want to take it public and flip their stock at the crest of public opinion...
The key difference between OSS investment and any other investment is that there can never be a true "loss" in value. I'm probably not going to explain this very well but I'll try anyway.
What I am getting at is that every dollar invested in OSS which leads to publicly released code is a dollar whose benefit will last long beyond any potential demise of the original VC group and/or development team.
This is the ultimate difference between OSS and CSS...
I usually find that fiddling with my screen contrast and brightness usually takes care of any fade... :)
The platform can be moved. It has propulsion, an anchor that can be lifted, the ability to reel the cable in and out for movement up to 3 miles, and the ability to detach from the cable, leaving the end floating on a buoy, and move at up to 20 knots to get out of the way of a storm. All via remote control.
This, combined with the fact that one of the target markets is developing nations, makes me wonder how long it will be before they are hijacked and either taken somewhere else (e.g. third world dictator's private island) or black-marketed and/or sold for scrap value. (Many miles of telephone and power line were torn down in Africa because the natives, who weren't using those services themselves, wanted the metal for other things...)
On Windows, it's not "just an app" ... it comes with drivers and various other lowlevel drm junk.
That's a very good point. Anyone coming from Windows could be expected to assume a similar implementation of iTunes for the OSX version.
However, to be fair, all except the DRM (which is also present in the OSX app) is baggage that is required by the Windows environment!
So the baggage-less OSX version is much more self contained and better behaved...
I'm new to Apple and their package updating scheme, so I'm worried the update might change other dependencies or my ability to update it back to 6, later.
:)
There speaks a Windows refugee...
Fear not! A - the iTunes updates are always separate, so if it shows up in the list just deselect it and B - it is just an app, so if you make an archive of whatever you've got then if you did accidentally grab 6 by mistake just delete that, un-archive and you're good to go!
What if it's not about thinking different?
What if it's just about getting the job done?
I use all three - Macs, Windows and Linux - on a daily basis. Many years ago when I really had no need for a Mac that a Windows or 'Nix box couldn't do better the ratio was:
Windows = 50%
Linux = 45%
Mac = 5%
Then Linux started to suck less and Windows hand't improved enough to make up the difference:
Windows = 20%
Linux = 75%
Mac = 5%
Then OSX came out:
Windows = 5%
Linux = 25%
Mac = 70%
I don't hate/love/like/dislike any one in particular, they all have their strengths and weaknesses, but I'm a techie who also has a business to run. Most of my clients have businesses to run as well. While there are numerous exceptions the greater majority of businesses out there really don't give a damn what it is as long as it gets whatever the job might be done as quickly and efficiently as possible!
I'll second the Timbuktu!!!!!! Got mine awhile back after years of searching for "just the right bag" - luv it!!!
(Specifically the Commuter series.)
Here's the shorter version: "Delete some of that shit!"
How to do it? Easy, make a "long term archive" folder of stuff you *know* you'll want someday, everything else if you haven't touched it in a year (or three or five or whatever arbitrary cutoff you decide on) - delete it!
It's all about negotiation and no matter how similar it might seem every deal is unique(!).
:)
You can:
A - flip for who gets the larger percentage
B - meet in the middle
C - company officers meet, lay all the cards on the table (by which I mean expose operational costs) and let that form the basis
Whatever you do, assume that the product will take off and that you'll both grow to several hundred times current size. Be sure that the numbers will still work at that point as economies of scale will tweak things and you don't want either side thinking they got the short end of the stick five years down the road. (This may be part of why the other folks aren't happy with the percentages you're offering).
You'll probably end up with a sliding scale formula.
And if the numbers are too fuzzy to project far enough then make it a short-term contract(s).
E.g. A six month contract at a percentage that both sides can live with for the time being and renegotiate at the end. Repeat as necessary...