In picking a wire size people often think going from 120 volts to 12 volts only involves the math of supplying a wire 10X larger to handle the current without overheating.
WTF?!? The current is higher yes, but the voltage is commensurately lower, the wattage hasn't changed!
An inverter is handy only if you can't source a piece of equipment in a 12v model and practically everything can be found in 12v, just look at your nearest marine outfitting shop.
Most of the parent post is a load of bollocks, and I speak as someone who spent many years in a third world country living in a 12-volt powered house with a kerosene generator and a bank of old car batteries for storage.
"Wire 10X larger" me arse...
that 'goddamn piece of paper' as our beloved leader calls it. That "quote" keeps getting brought up, probably because it jives with your perceptions of President Bush.
Doesn't matter if he really said them or not. The DC pre-crime unit has confirmed, based on his file, that there is a 95% probability he will say it in the near future.
...working with *nix, hacking away to do various things, is the game.
There's a corollary to that. Anyone who is comfortable in a Linux environment is generally sufficiently technology-savvy to have a pretty good idea of what all is involved behind the scenes and that takes half the fun out of it. My first and only FPS was the original Doom, and I honestly haven't seen anything compellingly different since then. Sure, there are scads of incremental improvements in graphics, game AI, etc but fundamentally one is still just poking around in a pretend "world" created by a team of programmers. All of the games currently available, including MMORPGs, follow the same basic set of concepts and goals.
In a nutshell, it's just not compelling... (Now get true all-senses-engaged VR in the mix and we can have this conversation again!:)
A software developer must be part writer and poet, part salesperson and public speaker, part artist and designer, and always equal parts logic and empathy.
But you only get a 2D image from satellite. Depth measurements like these give you more of a 3D image.
Like the difference between seeing a sketch of a new building from a single perspective vs an architect's model that you can peer into and around from any angle.
Far more money goes into marketing and litigation than into science.
If the big pharma money wasn't there, even if the patent protection wasn't there, the research would continue. The people who actually do that research don't benefit from the money *now*, but they still work.
Or perhaps switching will cause things like ethanol generation to reach a critical mass where it's actually LESS expensive to use it than it would be to use oil.
Ethanol production is already driving the price of corn higher than ever...
Other than some solar power all he needs is a GPS unit with a serial feed to a PIC motor controller and some code for steering based on current location.
whether or not your software can outlive your company is a major concern when big businesses buy software.
I've seen numerous cases where a Fortune x00 company simply bought out a small vendor, lock, stock and barrel, just to ensure long term continuity of development and support for some key business application or unique hardware component.
Similarly, we have a couple of clients that do classified work for the DoD and while cost is no object, for some projects they are required to provide business operations and support continuity plans with up to a 30-year time horizon!
I think most readers will understand that was not meant to be a real world example. Nonetheless, to take your version at face value, one is still putting the onus of the decision on the bean-counters. You don't provide the 25% number with that phrasing and you don't say "probably nothing". Both of those result in IT taking on some or all of the burden of the decision.
Instead you say there's a 100% chance of failure, which is true. Then you can say there's ~25% chance that the failure will result in LAX shutting down but you need [some number less than $Bazillion] for proper risk analysis. That way if the problem isn't remedied it's NOT the the IT dept's head on the block.
The fact is that IT people are regularly expected to perform risk and cost/benefit analysis which they are simply not qualified to do. Not to say that IT people can't do either one at all, but IT people are famous for not setting boundaries and this is one area where IT regularly plays cowboy and shoots itself in the foot.
That's very difficult to do, and your estimates of the costs will be called into question.
Right, but that's why IT doesn't provide the numbers. It just provides the scenario and it's the bean-counters (BC) that provide the numbers.
IT: "We have some really old hardware that's going to fail any day now..."
BC: "So what?"
IT: "Well, that's a good question, we know it's going to cost $Bazillion to fix so we need to find out if it's worth it or not. Here's what will happen when it dies - LAX completely shuts down. Would that hurt the bottom line enough to justify budgeting $Bazillion?"
The basic assumption is that he wanted to teach her stuff.
Of course with this as the reason for building the new PC, (from TFA):...had started to make the most amazing grinding noises. It had also been giving me lots of error messages......it's obvious that basic troubleshooting wasn't on the list.
But then again they both get total geek cred for finding any excuse to have a new computer!:)
Wish there was a way to mod an entire thread Offtopic.
From TFA: "So far I've only been able to find commercial and hardware-based solutions. I would prefer to use an open source solution." FP: Write them to a DVD jukebox
Hmm, yeah, I'm sure there's dozens of open source hardware designs for DVD jukeboxes - I'll have that Googled by the time my soldering iron heats up!
Only on Slashdot can the First Post get modded to +5 for a reply which is so completely Offtopic it's Funny, obviously written by somebody who didn't RTFA, followed by dozens of posts debating the merits of the "answer" without noticing that it's not what the submitter is looking for!!
And we wonder why the rest of the world thinks IT people can't communicate...
If you want to run OSX, on a non-Apple computer, just read the Supported Hardware lists and buy only that.
And that advice applies to the same narrow segment of the population that is also perfectly capable of running Linux. You can see how far along Linux is in the "average user" desktop market so far.:(
Not to mention, in the context of this article, that compatibility list comprises a tiny, tiny fraction of all the PC hardware that's available out there...
As for supporting PC hardware, it's a) very easy and b) already there anyway. Nope, not true for either case. Hardware manufacturers release buggy drivers constantly. And hardware manufacturers which are not targeting the Apple market do NOT release drivers, buggy or not, for OSX.
Well, sounds like you've got yourself convinced. You must have one helluva score in executive grab-ass.
No conviction needed. I just have a reasonably well rounded education and I've been around the block a few times. I've also been to both ends of the chain of command and lived to tell the tale.
People like simple problems and simple solutions. For all that some think otherwise executives are people too. They just happen to be a lot more visible, so if they have a favorite buzzword they're a heck of a lot more likely to be heard using it than some word or phrase that the programmers or data entry or some other lower-level position folks use.
Buzz words are only bad when they get used incorrectly.
The reason they become buzz words in the first place is because they more accurately convey the speaker's intent than any other word and there are a number of people with that same intent.
The reason business conversation is so rife with buzz words is that business per se shares a more common goal than virtually any other community - making money.
In the lower ranks of any business entity the goal will be making widgets or shipping fizzbits or designing wombats or whatever so the language is "normal", (or at least unique to that very narrow segment of the working population), but the higher one goes into the layers of upper management, the more similarity there is in the goals and, hence, the language.
By way of example, take any annoying buzzword like "metrics" which is being used properly in context, examine the dictionary meaning of it, and call it a challenge to come up with a better word or shorter phrase. You can't!
And that's why the word is being used so often, thousands of people before you have been trying to convey the same essence of meaning and stretching their brains for the simplest, most concise way to convey their intent and the buzz word became what it is because it was the cream of the crop. The word that whenever someone heard it, they thought, "Sonuvagun! That's perfect! I'm going to use that word the next time I'm trying to communicate that same concept to somebody else!"
One could even go so far as to say that a buzz word is a specialized case of a meme.
So I stand firmly by my use of the word "metrics", buzz word or not, it means no more and no less than exactly what I wanted it to!:)
Slashdot Mirror
In picking a wire size people often think going from 120 volts to 12 volts only involves the math of supplying a wire 10X larger to handle the current without overheating.
WTF?!? The current is higher yes, but the voltage is commensurately lower, the wattage hasn't changed!
An inverter is handy only if you can't source a piece of equipment in a 12v model and practically everything can be found in 12v, just look at your nearest marine outfitting shop.
Most of the parent post is a load of bollocks, and I speak as someone who spent many years in a third world country living in a 12-volt powered house with a kerosene generator and a bank of old car batteries for storage.
"Wire 10X larger" me arse...
that 'goddamn piece of paper' as our beloved leader calls it.
That "quote" keeps getting brought up, probably because it jives with your perceptions of President Bush.
Doesn't matter if he really said them or not. The DC pre-crime unit has confirmed, based on his file, that there is a 95% probability he will say it in the near future.
...working with *nix, hacking away to do various things, is the game.
:)
There's a corollary to that. Anyone who is comfortable in a Linux environment is generally sufficiently technology-savvy to have a pretty good idea of what all is involved behind the scenes and that takes half the fun out of it. My first and only FPS was the original Doom, and I honestly haven't seen anything compellingly different since then. Sure, there are scads of incremental improvements in graphics, game AI, etc but fundamentally one is still just poking around in a pretend "world" created by a team of programmers. All of the games currently available, including MMORPGs, follow the same basic set of concepts and goals.
In a nutshell, it's just not compelling... (Now get true all-senses-engaged VR in the mix and we can have this conversation again!
A software developer must be part writer and poet, part salesperson and public speaker, part artist and designer, and always equal parts logic and empathy.
A mythical beast then, eh?
Sea temperature can be measures by satellite...
But you only get a 2D image from satellite. Depth measurements like these give you more of a 3D image.
Like the difference between seeing a sketch of a new building from a single perspective vs an architect's model that you can peer into and around from any angle.
Far more money goes into marketing and litigation than into science.
If the big pharma money wasn't there, even if the patent protection wasn't there, the research would continue. The people who actually do that research don't benefit from the money *now*, but they still work.
Mod parent up!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No, that's a distortion of the market brought about by the subsidies the government is giving corn farmers.
:)
I was actually implying what your posted stated far more clearly - just didn't feel like typing that much!
Or perhaps switching will cause things like ethanol generation to reach a critical mass where it's actually LESS expensive to use it than it would be to use oil.
Ethanol production is already driving the price of corn higher than ever...
algorithm on a PIC microcontroller
That was just to keep power consumption to a minimum.
MATLAB?!? WTF?!?
Other than some solar power all he needs is a GPS unit with a serial feed to a PIC motor controller and some code for steering based on current location.
It is not dead...erotic DOS-zombie flick.
Please mod parent up.
(I'm not sure why exactly, but anybody who can string together a post like that deserves some kudos!)
If I were really thinking
Ah, there's the rub! Most criminals are lazy and/or stupid. The few who aren't tend to be engaged in pursuits far more profitable than mugging.
whether or not your software can outlive your company is a major concern when big businesses buy software.
I've seen numerous cases where a Fortune x00 company simply bought out a small vendor, lock, stock and barrel, just to ensure long term continuity of development and support for some key business application or unique hardware component.
Similarly, we have a couple of clients that do classified work for the DoD and while cost is no object, for some projects they are required to provide business operations and support continuity plans with up to a 30-year time horizon!
Just seems like this is a more or less honest attempt at avoiding as many future trademark complaints as possible.
:)
Either that or it's just soundex and "eunuch" is on the naughty word list.
Sounds like somebody is bitter about getting an English degree instead of an Engineering degree...
:)
Not too sure about the English degree either, I see at least one typo and one grammatical error in the AC's post.
The download site says it'll take forever.
Not that slow - I just got it down from between 300KBs and 1.7MBs. Took a grand total of about 5 minutes.
I think most readers will understand that was not meant to be a real world example. Nonetheless, to take your version at face value, one is still putting the onus of the decision on the bean-counters. You don't provide the 25% number with that phrasing and you don't say "probably nothing". Both of those result in IT taking on some or all of the burden of the decision.
Instead you say there's a 100% chance of failure, which is true. Then you can say there's ~25% chance that the failure will result in LAX shutting down but you need [some number less than $Bazillion] for proper risk analysis. That way if the problem isn't remedied it's NOT the the IT dept's head on the block.
The fact is that IT people are regularly expected to perform risk and cost/benefit analysis which they are simply not qualified to do. Not to say that IT people can't do either one at all, but IT people are famous for not setting boundaries and this is one area where IT regularly plays cowboy and shoots itself in the foot.
That's very difficult to do, and your estimates of the costs will be called into question.
Right, but that's why IT doesn't provide the numbers. It just provides the scenario and it's the bean-counters (BC) that provide the numbers.
IT: "We have some really old hardware that's going to fail any day now..."
BC: "So what?"
IT: "Well, that's a good question, we know it's going to cost $Bazillion to fix so we need to find out if it's worth it or not. Here's what will happen when it dies - LAX completely shuts down. Would that hurt the bottom line enough to justify budgeting $Bazillion?"
BC: "OMFG!" [throws money]
The basic assumption is that he wanted to teach her stuff.
...had started to make the most amazing grinding noises. It had also been giving me lots of error messages... ...it's obvious that basic troubleshooting wasn't on the list. :)
Of course with this as the reason for building the new PC, (from TFA):
But then again they both get total geek cred for finding any excuse to have a new computer!
Wish there was a way to mod an entire thread Offtopic.
From TFA:
"So far I've only been able to find commercial and hardware-based solutions. I would prefer to use an open source solution."
FP:
Write them to a DVD jukebox
Hmm, yeah, I'm sure there's dozens of open source hardware designs for DVD jukeboxes - I'll have that Googled by the time my soldering iron heats up!
Only on Slashdot can the First Post get modded to +5 for a reply which is so completely Offtopic it's Funny, obviously written by somebody who didn't RTFA, followed by dozens of posts debating the merits of the "answer" without noticing that it's not what the submitter is looking for!!
And we wonder why the rest of the world thinks IT people can't communicate...
If you want to run OSX, on a non-Apple computer, just read the Supported Hardware lists and buy only that.
:(
And that advice applies to the same narrow segment of the population that is also perfectly capable of running Linux. You can see how far along Linux is in the "average user" desktop market so far.
Not to mention, in the context of this article, that compatibility list comprises a tiny, tiny fraction of all the PC hardware that's available out there...
Because I can't buy a Mac... :)
Er, why not?
As for supporting PC hardware, it's a) very easy and b) already there anyway.
Nope, not true for either case. Hardware manufacturers release buggy drivers constantly. And hardware manufacturers which are not targeting the Apple market do NOT release drivers, buggy or not, for OSX.
Well, sounds like you've got yourself convinced. You must have one helluva score in executive grab-ass.
No conviction needed. I just have a reasonably well rounded education and I've been around the block a few times. I've also been to both ends of the chain of command and lived to tell the tale.
People like simple problems and simple solutions. For all that some think otherwise executives are people too. They just happen to be a lot more visible, so if they have a favorite buzzword they're a heck of a lot more likely to be heard using it than some word or phrase that the programmers or data entry or some other lower-level position folks use.
Nope, just an overused and annoying buzz word.
:)
Buzz words are only bad when they get used incorrectly.
The reason they become buzz words in the first place is because they more accurately convey the speaker's intent than any other word and there are a number of people with that same intent.
The reason business conversation is so rife with buzz words is that business per se shares a more common goal than virtually any other community - making money.
In the lower ranks of any business entity the goal will be making widgets or shipping fizzbits or designing wombats or whatever so the language is "normal", (or at least unique to that very narrow segment of the working population), but the higher one goes into the layers of upper management, the more similarity there is in the goals and, hence, the language.
By way of example, take any annoying buzzword like "metrics" which is being used properly in context, examine the dictionary meaning of it, and call it a challenge to come up with a better word or shorter phrase. You can't!
And that's why the word is being used so often, thousands of people before you have been trying to convey the same essence of meaning and stretching their brains for the simplest, most concise way to convey their intent and the buzz word became what it is because it was the cream of the crop. The word that whenever someone heard it, they thought, "Sonuvagun! That's perfect! I'm going to use that word the next time I'm trying to communicate that same concept to somebody else!"
One could even go so far as to say that a buzz word is a specialized case of a meme.
So I stand firmly by my use of the word "metrics", buzz word or not, it means no more and no less than exactly what I wanted it to!
Quit saying metrics.
:)
Er, why? Is there some part of it that you don't understand? It doesn't only apply to music you know...