Jim Gray, at Microsoft Research, has coauthored papers on this topic with at least one of the researchers mentioned in the article. There is some really good reading at:
http://research.microsoft.com/~Gray/JimGrayHomeP ag eSummary.htm
I read an article a couple of months ago where they described the engineering culture at Nokia (I don't remember where, somebody please post a link if you know).
In short, they worship geeks internally, not CYA lawyers, suits and the like.
So, I don't believe they'll ever stop *and* that's a good thing!
How many people will read this article, or the posts on Slashdot byt the people that were ripped off, then go and buy something from eBay? Clearly, eBay knows that the majority of you will.
Your credit card provider doesn't help you, the small losses they get are covered by fees and interest rates. If it were a major problem, then Visa or Mastercard would close eBay's accounts.
Stores can prevent shoplifting by strip searching you all at the exit, but you won't go back. So, they tolerate a certain amount of "inventory shrinkage".
The fraud on eBay is tolerable to eBay, they're making tons of money......
Viewed from the 10,000ft level, it sounds like a common Hollywood plot (Pd in parens):
It's the year 2050 (2004) and the government (MS) is telling everybody how they will live (compute). Trust is guaranteed by the government (MS) and violators will be punished (digitally locked out). The people (programmers), though outwardly happy (productive), harbor deep lingering desires for freedom (open source).
Then, along comes a rough-shaven, rogue hero (hacker), played by Stallone or Schwarzenegger (Torvalds). The aforementioned hero (hacker) then liberates the people (programmers) from the tyranny of the government (MS). The people (programmers) are overjoyed, their lives have returned to normal.
So - if it ever played out like this, I'm sure someone in Hollywood already has the rights to the script. Will they own us?
I think other posters have already mentioned that they never seem to make mistakes the other way round.
"Oh, crap, we forgot to carry the 1 when we added up the revenue, now we made an extra billion last year. Shit - we'd better give all the regular line employees a pay raise before our headquarters collapses under the weight of all the extra cash"
This used to be almost exclusively SGI's territory.
A few years ago I attended a presentation at NCSA where Larry Smarr was talking about their plans for a similar display, driven by about $1M of SGI boxes. I think they wanted to call it "The Great Wall of Power".
Some future PlayStation "n" will do this in your living room.
Isn't Moore's Law great?
Which leads me to ask, have we ever had a/. poll on your favourite law? -Moore's -Murphy's -Amdahl's -Newton's - Hooke's -Boyle's -whatever?
I've following Project Oxygen for a couple of years, I seem to remember an article in Scientific American about it some time back.
Anyway, despite the big dollars spent at MIT on it, I'll probably see it on the next generation cell phone from Nokia or Ericsson. Some of the ideas are pretty cool, I can't wait.
In other words, I believe that as lot of fundamental research will happen here (I live in the US for the moment), but that engineering and delivery will be elsewhere.
Being open to "reasonable" hacking is a very good thing. People will buy systems they can customize. The PC itself owes its existence to IBM having built an extensible system.
The Mac, albeit superior (or so Mac users tell me), was less open. It's market share is (in part) a result of that.
It's not just rabid slashdotters with bizarre cases, it's just being able to add hardware to do things you need.
Maybe it's the rock. The Chunnel was bored through chalk.
Also, the Chunnel is a train tunnel, with cars and trucks put in large wagons to take them through. Cars and trucks driving through a long tunnel are too fire prone (remember the tunnel under Mt. Blanc?).
Any civil engineers out there have a good explanation
One major difference between this story and a Bond film - there are no 6ft uber-models, featuring infeasibly large breasts almost bursting from their skin tight leotards, wielding deadly weapons as they cartwheel across the room,.....
Often, the Pointy Haired Boss (PHB) has an urgent need for me to evaluate some Left-Handed Swivelhopper, so I sign up for the eval. By the time I'm ready to try it out, the urgent need has changed, I'm chasing Object-Oriented Dooverlackies.
I've often downloaded large files (>100MB even), then lost interest or found another way to solve my problem. Oops - I think I just admitted that I even change my own priorities! Oh well......
Michael Godfrey, a University of Waterloo scientist, is equally hesitant but still finds the Lehman approach useful. In 2000, Godfrey and a fellow Waterloo researcher, Qiang Tu, released a study showing that several open-source software programs, including the Linux kernel and fetchmail, were growing at geometric rates, breaking the inverse squared barrier constraining most traditionally built programs. Although the discovery validated arguments within the software development community that large system development is best handled in an open-source manner, Godfrey says he is currently looking for ways to refine the quantitative approach to make it more meaningful.
It would have been interesting had they delved deeper into this finding. Yeah, I know, the true believers in open source all feel superior (we are, aren't we?), but exploring the reasons why it works would be interesting.
Is it the large-scale peer-review process? Is it that we occasionally rewrite parts (filesystems, VMM, etc)? Something else?
Additionally, he wrote: "The plan is purely voluntary but, as you can see, contemplates that each relevant industry will play a significant role. I intend to seek commitments along these lines in the near future."
The FCC said the chairman does not have specific enforcement measures in mind if the participants do not meet his goals.
Reminds me of Compulsory Voluntary Service (CVS), a term I learned in high-school (Hurlstone Agricultural). The boarding students would "volunteer" for 5AM dairy duty or suffer the consequences.
Now how many people out there can spare the time, effort, and money to have a system that really only performs marginally better than anything that can be bought off the shelf? Not many people, that's for sure.
Hmmm - what about overclockers? Submerge your MB in liquid nitrogen to gain a couple o' hundred MHz? I've seen some pretty cool hacks on/. over the last couple of years.
How about spending nights and weekends hacking the Linux kernel to reduce interrupt latency? Would the "average" computer user care or notice?
I would think that many people would do this. We nerds have a kindred spirit in hot-rodders. To them, a generic four-banger is the M$ of the automotive world.
I would like to add that I'm both a computer hacker and car hacker (Subaru WRX). I also brew my own beer (beer hacker?).
Though naturally distrustful of government spy agencies, I finally see some immediate return on my tax dollars. Something I can put on my own PC. This article really does send the message that open source is mainstream.
Another view - my employer has hundreds of Unix machines. We buy 3rd party software to make them more secure and our security group makes it near impossible to do things. Now, Linux isn't playing catch-up to Unix / NT / whatever, it leads.
For the last couple of months I've been working on getting a Beowulf cluster for a new project, moving away from commercial Linux
Mmmmmm - Imagine a Beowulf of SELinux.....
(Sorry, I'll go slap myself). Anyway, getting people to accept Linux is still tough. Who supports it? Who to sue when it breaks?
This article is ammunition. SELinux is a good thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Jim Gray, at Microsoft Research, has coauthored papers on this topic with at least one of the researchers mentioned in the article. There is some really good reading at:
P ag eSummary.htm
http://research.microsoft.com/~Gray/JimGrayHome
Alan.
Need line of sight. DoD likes lasers. Big lasers, with lots of power. Could be dangerous.
I wouldn't want to hold one of these up to the side of my head and start talking, it might make it's own line of sight to the nearest tower.
Ouch!
Their engineering culture pretty guarantees that this innovation will keep going.
Will this company ever stop?
I read an article a couple of months ago where they described the engineering culture at Nokia (I don't remember where, somebody please post a link if you know).
In short, they worship geeks internally, not CYA lawyers, suits and the like.
So, I don't believe they'll ever stop *and* that's a good thing!
I'm sure that many /. readers, like me, are wondering if asynchronous chips get faster if you pour liquid nitrogen on them.
Seriously though, does the temperature affect the switching time? Or does the liquid nitrogen trick just prevent meltdown of an overclocked chip?
Anybody that's used C++ templates a lot would know that compile errors can easily be 10-20 lines long (per error).
I don't remember who said it, but C++ templates are clearly the work of the devil.
Yes, the title is provocative.
How many people will read this article, or the posts on Slashdot byt the people that were ripped off, then go and buy something from eBay? Clearly, eBay knows that the majority of you will.
Your credit card provider doesn't help you, the small losses they get are covered by fees and interest rates. If it were a major problem, then Visa or Mastercard would close eBay's accounts.
Stores can prevent shoplifting by strip searching you all at the exit, but you won't go back. So, they tolerate a certain amount of "inventory shrinkage".
The fraud on eBay is tolerable to eBay, they're making tons of money......
You vote with your feet^H^H^H^Hmouse !
I agree, no drill bit is ever going to need more that 640 Kbits / second.
I'd be truly impressed if he had all 37 different operating systems running simultaneously in separate virtual machines!
Alan.
Well, I'll tell you......
The future of libraries and information is clearly online, correct? So, by logical extension, this law would apply to Slashdot, would it not?
So, if you mod me down, the FBI might subpoena Cowboy Neal to tell them you did it and you will never know!
Are your moderation choices in accordance with the correct political views as defined by your elected representatives in Washington?
Viewed from the 10,000ft level, it sounds like a common Hollywood plot (Pd in parens):
It's the year 2050 (2004) and the government (MS) is telling everybody how they will live (compute). Trust is guaranteed by the government (MS) and violators will be punished (digitally locked out). The people (programmers), though outwardly happy (productive), harbor deep lingering desires for freedom (open source).
Then, along comes a rough-shaven, rogue hero (hacker), played by Stallone or Schwarzenegger (Torvalds). The aforementioned hero (hacker) then liberates the people (programmers) from the tyranny of the government (MS). The people (programmers) are overjoyed, their lives have returned to normal.
So - if it ever played out like this, I'm sure someone in Hollywood already has the rights to the script. Will they own us?
Alan.
1. Used a Pentium to do the calculations
2. Used Excel to do the calculations
I think other posters have already mentioned that they never seem to make mistakes the other way round.
"Oh, crap, we forgot to carry the 1 when we added up the revenue, now we made an extra billion last year. Shit - we'd better give all the regular line employees a pay raise before our headquarters collapses under the weight of all the extra cash"
Like that would ever happen......
This used to be almost exclusively SGI's territory.
/. poll on your favourite law?
- Hooke's
A few years ago I attended a presentation at NCSA where Larry Smarr was talking about their plans for a similar display, driven by about $1M of SGI boxes. I think they wanted to call it "The Great Wall of Power".
Some future PlayStation "n" will do this in your living room.
Isn't Moore's Law great?
Which leads me to ask, have we ever had a
-Moore's
-Murphy's
-Amdahl's
-Newton's
-Boyle's
-whatever?
OK..............
Nokia = Finland
Ericsson = Sweden
MIT = US
Doesn't it strike you as odd that US tax $$$ fund research but the leading brands for cell phones come from abroad?
So, MIT get's the dollars for research, hopefully they'll see some patent and licence fees for delivering these things.
I've following Project Oxygen for a couple of years, I seem to remember an article in Scientific American about it some time back.
Anyway, despite the big dollars spent at MIT on it, I'll probably see it on the next generation cell phone from Nokia or Ericsson. Some of the ideas are pretty cool, I can't wait.
In other words, I believe that as lot of fundamental research will happen here (I live in the US for the moment), but that engineering and delivery will be elsewhere.
Being open to "reasonable" hacking is a very good thing. People will buy systems they can customize. The PC itself owes its existence to IBM having built an extensible system.
The Mac, albeit superior (or so Mac users tell me), was less open. It's market share is (in part) a result of that.
It's not just rabid slashdotters with bizarre cases, it's just being able to add hardware to do things you need.
Not sure, it's not like the water is too deep:
n s/ rubino/fig8.html
http://www.ifm.uni-hamburg.de/~wwwrs/publicatio
Maybe it's the rock. The Chunnel was bored through chalk.
Also, the Chunnel is a train tunnel, with cars and trucks put in large wagons to take them through. Cars and trucks driving through a long tunnel are too fire prone (remember the tunnel under Mt. Blanc?).
Any civil engineers out there have a good explanation
One major difference between this story and a Bond film - there are no 6ft uber-models, featuring infeasibly large breasts almost bursting from their skin tight leotards, wielding deadly weapons as they cartwheel across the room,.....
Gimme the 6ft uber-models!
Pleeeeeeezzzzzzze.............
... for me. I couldn't vote on the latest Megahertz poll, my stately 33 MHz 486 didn't even have a category in which to put it.
For me, a single completed simulation from 1950-2050 AD should take a little over 100 years. Can't wait to get started.
With luck, however, I should get the right answer.
Often, the Pointy Haired Boss (PHB) has an urgent need for me to evaluate some Left-Handed Swivelhopper, so I sign up for the eval. By the time I'm ready to try it out, the urgent need has changed, I'm chasing Object-Oriented Dooverlackies.
I've often downloaded large files (>100MB even), then lost interest or found another way to solve my problem. Oops - I think I just admitted that I even change my own priorities! Oh well......
From the article:
Michael Godfrey, a University of Waterloo scientist, is equally hesitant but still finds the Lehman approach useful. In 2000, Godfrey and a fellow Waterloo researcher, Qiang Tu, released a study showing that several open-source software programs, including the Linux kernel and fetchmail, were growing at geometric rates, breaking the inverse squared barrier constraining most traditionally built programs. Although the discovery validated arguments within the software development community that large system development is best handled in an open-source manner, Godfrey says he is currently looking for ways to refine the quantitative approach to make it more meaningful.
It would have been interesting had they delved deeper into this finding. Yeah, I know, the true believers in open source all feel superior (we are, aren't we?), but exploring the reasons why it works would be interesting.
Is it the large-scale peer-review process? Is it that we occasionally rewrite parts (filesystems, VMM, etc)? Something else?
Consider these two statements:
Additionally, he wrote: "The plan is purely voluntary but, as you can see, contemplates that each relevant industry will play a significant role. I intend to seek commitments along these lines in the near future."
The FCC said the chairman does not have specific enforcement measures in mind if the participants do not meet his goals.
Reminds me of Compulsory Voluntary Service (CVS), a term I learned in high-school (Hurlstone Agricultural). The boarding students would "volunteer" for 5AM dairy duty or suffer the consequences.
Now how many people out there can spare the time, effort, and money to have a system that really only performs marginally better than anything that can be bought off the shelf? Not many people, that's for sure.
/. over the last couple of years.
Hmmm - what about overclockers? Submerge your MB in liquid nitrogen to gain a couple o' hundred MHz? I've seen some pretty cool hacks on
How about spending nights and weekends hacking the Linux kernel to reduce interrupt latency? Would the "average" computer user care or notice?
I would think that many people would do this. We nerds have a kindred spirit in hot-rodders. To them, a generic four-banger is the M$ of the automotive world.
I would like to add that I'm both a computer hacker and car hacker (Subaru WRX). I also brew my own beer (beer hacker?).
Yep, you got it. I'll buy a beer for the first true hack on a Segway.
Suppose you had one, what would a cool hacker (such as you, dear reader) make it do?
Oh, BTW, I guess I'd have to buy you a Ginger Beer.
Alan.
(and I haven't even tried it yet!)
Though naturally distrustful of government spy agencies, I finally see some immediate return on my tax dollars. Something I can put on my own PC. This article really does send the message that open source is mainstream.
Another view - my employer has hundreds of Unix machines. We buy 3rd party software to make them more secure and our security group makes it near impossible to do things. Now, Linux isn't playing catch-up to Unix / NT / whatever, it leads.
For the last couple of months I've been working on getting a Beowulf cluster for a new project, moving away from commercial Linux
Mmmmmm - Imagine a Beowulf of SELinux.....
(Sorry, I'll go slap myself). Anyway, getting people to accept Linux is still tough. Who supports it? Who to sue when it breaks?
This article is ammunition. SELinux is a good thing.