Reliability does cost. Firstly in development, it's something else that has to be coded and it usually involves a fairly high degree of complexity so is not simple to get right. Where the user will notice the cost is in performance. If you're not worried about reliability or data integrity then you can delay writing transactions to disk (disk i/o being one of the slower things that databases do) until there's no other activity on the system or you run out of memory to cache the transactions in. When you are worried about reliability then you have to write out a transaction as soon as it is commited, even if you've got a million and one other things going on you have to write it out then,preferably in more than one place (protects against bad blocks and sysadmins who want to clear space and think: "Well, it's only a log file.").
last year I had to help port PHPBB from using MySQL to Oracle. The biggest problem we found wasn't that the SQL needed huge amounts of editing (just some stuff about making join types and setwise operations work right as I recall), it was data types. Oracle uses SQL92/ANSI datatypes where as MySQL doesn't so you end up having to change types of fields to their nearest ANSI equivalent, sometimes this would leave the SQL working, other times it caused the SQL to need editing.
Sometime ago I read about the origins of MySQL. It was essentially written for a very specific purpose, high volume datawarehouse where if the data got screwed it could be just reloaded from the source files. This caused decisions to be made, correctly for that purpose, that are now comming back to haunt it when it's used for other purposes.
PostGres, Oracle, DB2, Sybase and Ingres all pass the minimal requirement for ACID (normal operations) but only PostGres and Oracle pass a strict requirement (when it all goes pearshaped). They have multi level redundancy and things like processes that watch the processes that do the work and if the processes that do the work die the watcher processes restart them or tidy up after them as appropriate.
I'm not sure about Sybase or Ingres but I do know that read consistency in DB2 is a joke in non-trivial systems.
And then there's situations like where I've installed it on one PC which is shared by 6 different people at different times. Or the installation we have on some of our midrange boxes where one install can be in use by dozens of different users at the same time. Although that might be Mozilla Suite rather than Firefox, I'm not 100% sure as we originally had Mozilla suite installed but there was a plan to replace it with Firefox as they only use the browser part.
I agree it's not a democracy, anymore than an army unit or naval ship is. It's a meritocracy. Those in charge have achieved that position by demonstrating that they have earned the right to be in charge and will do a good job of it. You might disagree with the system used to assess the merits or think that people are advancing through patronage (far more likely IME) but that's a different matter. Protest that if you want.
Wish I had mod points. I'm really getting sick and tired of this, mjedia fed, perception that all paedophiles are predatory loners hanging around in parks and children's play areas when they're not surfing the net downloading child porn or grooming kids in chatrooms. Most of them are parents or people who work with children. Probably the biggest child abuse case in recent years in the UK was Ian Huntley, a school caretaker (Janitor) at the school the children he killed attended, who lived with his girlfriend (I think she also worked at the school) and was well known for being really good with children to the extent that parents had no qualms about their children visiting him in his home. As I recall there was no mention of him even owning a PC let alone downloading child porn or frequenting chat rooms.
We've had the complete first season here in the UK. They seem to be going for something decidedly more complex than your guess. The old lines of "Human,Good. Cylon, Bad." are much fuzzier than in the original, and get fuzzier as the series progresses. Can't really say any more, or go into details, without posting spoilers.
In an ideal world every system would be administered by a well trained and experienced system admin, or a trainee admin being mentored by one, who had plenty of time to investigate and maintain the machine. In practice most system admins are people in other roles (developers, DBAs, desktop support or even receptionists) who have been handed the task of managing half a dozen white box Wintel servers (with maybe a SCO or Linux box or even an aging Sun box in the mix) and probably a Netware server doing file and print, most were built and installed by someone one of the manager's knows or have been inherited third hand from another company. If they're lucky they get a training course where they'll learn a few of the GUI screens, more likely they'll be given a few dozen pages of handwritten notes (aka 'the manual') and told to go to the nearest Waterstones/Borders/Whatever and buy a book if they need more.
That was pretty much my first job. I had trained as a C programmer; then I found myself managing 70 desktops running various versions of Windows, a dozen or so White Box Intel based servers running Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0, a SCO OpenServer box, an Alpha running VMS, a 3 member VAX cluster running VMS and an RS6000 running AIX. All with no usable documentation or training. A little later they added in DBAing the Oracle databases and managing the network (a variety of devices from 3Com, Cisco and Bay), at the time I only knew a bit of SQL and wasn't really sure of the difference between a router and a switch. After spending a lot of money on books then a lot of time reading them (I didn't have web access at the time, when I did I started reading websites as well) I eventually learned what I needed to know.
This script is a separate issue. Inpractice I don't expect those sorts of admins to run it, they probably wouldn't know what to do with the information if they did. Where I think it would be useful is for the professional admin who suddenly inherits a bunch of machines (maybe they've moved companies or their company has merged with another). Put this script on them and run it for a few days then see what it turns up. No matter how wonderful and professional you are unless you built and installed a machine yourself and can guarantee that no-one else has ever had the root/admin password to a box you can't be 100% sure that there's not some process running somewhere that is quietly logging something somewhere. No-one who manages a non-trivial number of machines has time to check every machine to make sure that there are no new or unexpected services that have snuck in (and remember it's not something you could do once and then not again, you'd have to keep on doing it). That's why you need scripts that look for anything that could point to unexpected activity. Not just looking for anything that looks like a log on a box but also ports that shouldn't be open (I've lost count of the number of times I've found a box with port 25 open when I know I've disabled SMTP, only to find that someone has re-enabled it without telling me) or unexpected activity on a switch or firewall port. Not only do we have too many machines to manage but also users who delete files they shouldn't which then must be restored from backup, managers who constantly demand reports on system availabity stats and projects that we have to keep an eye on to make sure they don't run wild and break every standard we have.
Yes! Edison patented a light bulb in the US after Swan had patented his in Britain. The tungsten filament bulb we use these days is pretty much what Swan patented, Edison's Carbon Filament bulb was unreliable and never really took off. Unfortunately many USians let misguided patriotism get in the way of recorded fact.
There are a lot of places that would refuse to serve you if you tried to pay cash for high value items (or a number of lower value items that added up to a big value). Sure you could go somewhere else, assuming there's a somewhere else that sells the item(s) you want at a comparable price and they don't have the same policy. Plus, if you carry large quatities of cash you're likely to get mugged (and have less come back if you are) or subject to justified suspicion (when only criminals and Securicor vans carry large quatities of cash anyone carrying large quantities of cash who isn't a Securicor van is suspected to be a criminal).
Well, here in the UK it first goes over BarclayCard or NatWestMerchantServices network to a regional clearing centre where it is logged then put on the Visa, MasterCard or whatever card it is network. Barclay and NatWest match the protection that your card issuer provides you with in the event that it was on their network the theft/fraud/whatever occured.
Herte in the Uk we have some legislation (Trades Description Act) that basically says that any product must be accurately described. Is there something similar in the US? If so could that not be used to force Fox News to change their name to something more accurate? "Fox Fiction", "Fox Republican Propaganda", "When Reporters Don't Attack" or "Fox Extreme Right Wing Fantasy" might be suitable new names.
The DMCA(?) makes exceptions for ISPs in content violation cases just because they are ISPs: they are not supposed to (or be able to) monitor what goes over their networks.
As I recall it was more like an ISP cannot be held responsible for not knowing that someone is sending illegal material over their network, however, they can be held responsible for failing to act or failing to co-operate with suitably warranted and empowered law enforcement when notified that a particular user is sending illegal material over their network.
I thought it was Farsi (the alphabet used is a Persian variation of Arabic so technically we're all three right to a degree). Either way I can't read it.
What I've seen a lot of is that director and senior executive level management will not have a payrise themselves (to justify giving the employees no rise, a very small rise or even a pay cut) then give themselves a big bonus.
As a variation on this theme, in one certain large public sector body here in the UK the salaries of directors are all a proportion of the Chief Executive's salary. A number of years ago he froze his salary and went on a bonus scheme set up so that he was getting between 10 and 20% more per annum. He announced to the other directors what his projected income for the next year was (not telling them the split between salary and bonus) and they all expected a 10% pay rise themselves. There was much wailing an gnashingof teeth when they discovered what he had actually done, by which time they had already accepted their salaries for the next year.
Which is still better than what you get on a lot of savings accounts. Plus if you suddenly need a lump sump you can't secure a mortgage on your savings account.
Extra code that doesn't add useful functionality to the program (e.g. the MS Office 'Easter Eggs', or indeed pretty much anything to do with MS office) is bloat IMO. If it's something you can use then it's not bloat. I guess that for people who only need the features of Firefox the suite will seem bloated. Personally I love the suite and will continue to use it for the forseeable future.
And given the common feelings expressed about Bush over here that's a few more electoral college votes for the Democrats. According to the US Census in 2000 the UK has the about the population of California, Texas and Nevada added together (UK Population is somewhere around 55million). Even England alone has over 50million so that's about the same as California and either Texas or New York. Should be worth a few Electoral college votes.
Prior to the war and in the early stages the US traded freely with Germany and provided monetary and logistical support to the NAZI political machine. This included the supply of many IBM tabulators used in the census of the Jews prior to and in the organisation of the 'Final Solution'. With the invasion of Poland the support was severely cut back but the trading continued at a declining rate. Trading ceased when a German U-boat sank the US merchat ship Robin Moor (there is some debate if this was an accident, as claimed by the German High command at the time, or deliberate) in May 1941.
For obvious political reasons this was largely 'hushed up' during the war and after. What i know about it I have pieced together from various sources, mainly documentaries about US corporations and merchant fleet.
After the war the former western allies (mainly UK and US) invested heavily in the rebuilding of Germany, partially due to a realisation that the seeds of the WWII were planted in the reparations demanded by the French in German surrender at the end of WWI but largely to prevent West Germany going communist.
Same is happening to me and has been for the last 2 years, about 10,000 bounce messages a day right now, they are arriving literally faster than I can download them. Fortunately I nolonger use that account for email (just webspace and backup dialup incase my main ISP has problems) so at least I'm not losing legitimate mail. I'm thinking of asking the ISP to just redirect all mail to my domain into/dev/null.
Before this started I used that address for complaining about spam so I can only assume that somewhere along the line some spammer got hold of it and decided to use it as their spoof address.
Slashdot Mirror
Reliability does cost. Firstly in development, it's something else that has to be coded and it usually involves a fairly high degree of complexity so is not simple to get right. Where the user will notice the cost is in performance. If you're not worried about reliability or data integrity then you can delay writing transactions to disk (disk i/o being one of the slower things that databases do) until there's no other activity on the system or you run out of memory to cache the transactions in. When you are worried about reliability then you have to write out a transaction as soon as it is commited, even if you've got a million and one other things going on you have to write it out then,preferably in more than one place (protects against bad blocks and sysadmins who want to clear space and think: "Well, it's only a log file.").
Stephen
last year I had to help port PHPBB from using MySQL to Oracle. The biggest problem we found wasn't that the SQL needed huge amounts of editing (just some stuff about making join types and setwise operations work right as I recall), it was data types. Oracle uses SQL92/ANSI datatypes where as MySQL doesn't so you end up having to change types of fields to their nearest ANSI equivalent, sometimes this would leave the SQL working, other times it caused the SQL to need editing.
Sometime ago I read about the origins of MySQL. It was essentially written for a very specific purpose, high volume datawarehouse where if the data got screwed it could be just reloaded from the source files. This caused decisions to be made, correctly for that purpose, that are now comming back to haunt it when it's used for other purposes.
Stephen
PostGres, Oracle, DB2, Sybase and Ingres all pass the minimal requirement for ACID (normal operations) but only PostGres and Oracle pass a strict requirement (when it all goes pearshaped). They have multi level redundancy and things like processes that watch the processes that do the work and if the processes that do the work die the watcher processes restart them or tidy up after them as appropriate.
I'm not sure about Sybase or Ingres but I do know that read consistency in DB2 is a joke in non-trivial systems.
Stephen
And then there's situations like where I've installed it on one PC which is shared by 6 different people at different times. Or the installation we have on some of our midrange boxes where one install can be in use by dozens of different users at the same time. Although that might be Mozilla Suite rather than Firefox, I'm not 100% sure as we originally had Mozilla suite installed but there was a plan to replace it with Firefox as they only use the browser part.
Stephen
I agree it's not a democracy, anymore than an army unit or naval ship is. It's a meritocracy. Those in charge have achieved that position by demonstrating that they have earned the right to be in charge and will do a good job of it. You might disagree with the system used to assess the merits or think that people are advancing through patronage (far more likely IME) but that's a different matter. Protest that if you want.
Stephen
Wish I had mod points. I'm really getting sick and tired of this, mjedia fed, perception that all paedophiles are predatory loners hanging around in parks and children's play areas when they're not surfing the net downloading child porn or grooming kids in chatrooms. Most of them are parents or people who work with children. Probably the biggest child abuse case in recent years in the UK was Ian Huntley, a school caretaker (Janitor) at the school the children he killed attended, who lived with his girlfriend (I think she also worked at the school) and was well known for being really good with children to the extent that parents had no qualms about their children visiting him in his home. As I recall there was no mention of him even owning a PC let alone downloading child porn or frequenting chat rooms.
MOD PARENT UP
Stephen
We've had the complete first season here in the UK. They seem to be going for something decidedly more complex than your guess. The old lines of "Human,Good. Cylon, Bad." are much fuzzier than in the original, and get fuzzier as the series progresses. Can't really say any more, or go into details, without posting spoilers.
Stephen
In an ideal world every system would be administered by a well trained and experienced system admin, or a trainee admin being mentored by one, who had plenty of time to investigate and maintain the machine. In practice most system admins are people in other roles (developers, DBAs, desktop support or even receptionists) who have been handed the task of managing half a dozen white box Wintel servers (with maybe a SCO or Linux box or even an aging Sun box in the mix) and probably a Netware server doing file and print, most were built and installed by someone one of the manager's knows or have been inherited third hand from another company. If they're lucky they get a training course where they'll learn a few of the GUI screens, more likely they'll be given a few dozen pages of handwritten notes (aka 'the manual') and told to go to the nearest Waterstones/Borders/Whatever and buy a book if they need more.
That was pretty much my first job. I had trained as a C programmer; then I found myself managing 70 desktops running various versions of Windows, a dozen or so White Box Intel based servers running Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0, a SCO OpenServer box, an Alpha running VMS, a 3 member VAX cluster running VMS and an RS6000 running AIX. All with no usable documentation or training. A little later they added in DBAing the Oracle databases and managing the network (a variety of devices from 3Com, Cisco and Bay), at the time I only knew a bit of SQL and wasn't really sure of the difference between a router and a switch. After spending a lot of money on books then a lot of time reading them (I didn't have web access at the time, when I did I started reading websites as well) I eventually learned what I needed to know.
This script is a separate issue. Inpractice I don't expect those sorts of admins to run it, they probably wouldn't know what to do with the information if they did. Where I think it would be useful is for the professional admin who suddenly inherits a bunch of machines (maybe they've moved companies or their company has merged with another). Put this script on them and run it for a few days then see what it turns up. No matter how wonderful and professional you are unless you built and installed a machine yourself and can guarantee that no-one else has ever had the root/admin password to a box you can't be 100% sure that there's not some process running somewhere that is quietly logging something somewhere. No-one who manages a non-trivial number of machines has time to check every machine to make sure that there are no new or unexpected services that have snuck in (and remember it's not something you could do once and then not again, you'd have to keep on doing it). That's why you need scripts that look for anything that could point to unexpected activity. Not just looking for anything that looks like a log on a box but also ports that shouldn't be open (I've lost count of the number of times I've found a box with port 25 open when I know I've disabled SMTP, only to find that someone has re-enabled it without telling me) or unexpected activity on a switch or firewall port. Not only do we have too many machines to manage but also users who delete files they shouldn't which then must be restored from backup, managers who constantly demand reports on system availabity stats and projects that we have to keep an eye on to make sure they don't run wild and break every standard we have.
Stephen
Yes! Edison patented a light bulb in the US after Swan had patented his in Britain. The tungsten filament bulb we use these days is pretty much what Swan patented, Edison's Carbon Filament bulb was unreliable and never really took off. Unfortunately many USians let misguided patriotism get in the way of recorded fact.
Stephen
There are a lot of places that would refuse to serve you if you tried to pay cash for high value items (or a number of lower value items that added up to a big value). Sure you could go somewhere else, assuming there's a somewhere else that sells the item(s) you want at a comparable price and they don't have the same policy. Plus, if you carry large quatities of cash you're likely to get mugged (and have less come back if you are) or subject to justified suspicion (when only criminals and Securicor vans carry large quatities of cash anyone carrying large quantities of cash who isn't a Securicor van is suspected to be a criminal).
Stephen
Well, here in the UK it first goes over BarclayCard or NatWestMerchantServices network to a regional clearing centre where it is logged then put on the Visa, MasterCard or whatever card it is network. Barclay and NatWest match the protection that your card issuer provides you with in the event that it was on their network the theft/fraud/whatever occured.
Stephen
I didn't know Kilroy-Silk was a /. member!
Herte in the Uk we have some legislation (Trades Description Act) that basically says that any product must be accurately described. Is there something similar in the US? If so could that not be used to force Fox News to change their name to something more accurate? "Fox Fiction", "Fox Republican Propaganda", "When Reporters Don't Attack" or "Fox Extreme Right Wing Fantasy" might be suitable new names.
Stephen
As I recall it was more like an ISP cannot be held responsible for not knowing that someone is sending illegal material over their network, however, they can be held responsible for failing to act or failing to co-operate with suitably warranted and empowered law enforcement when notified that a particular user is sending illegal material over their network.
Stephen
I thought it was Farsi (the alphabet used is a Persian variation of Arabic so technically we're all three right to a degree). Either way I can't read it.
Stephen
What I've seen a lot of is that director and senior executive level management will not have a payrise themselves (to justify giving the employees no rise, a very small rise or even a pay cut) then give themselves a big bonus.
As a variation on this theme, in one certain large public sector body here in the UK the salaries of directors are all a proportion of the Chief Executive's salary. A number of years ago he froze his salary and went on a bonus scheme set up so that he was getting between 10 and 20% more per annum. He announced to the other directors what his projected income for the next year was (not telling them the split between salary and bonus) and they all expected a 10% pay rise themselves. There was much wailing an gnashingof teeth when they discovered what he had actually done, by which time they had already accepted their salaries for the next year.
Stephen
Which is still better than what you get on a lot of savings accounts. Plus if you suddenly need a lump sump you can't secure a mortgage on your savings account.
Stephen
Extra code that doesn't add useful functionality to the program (e.g. the MS Office 'Easter Eggs', or indeed pretty much anything to do with MS office) is bloat IMO. If it's something you can use then it's not bloat. I guess that for people who only need the features of Firefox the suite will seem bloated. Personally I love the suite and will continue to use it for the forseeable future.
Stephen
Someone asked Brad directly if it was Danga or just LJ that was being sold and he stated it was all of it.
Stephen
Yeah, but 219,000,000 of the Linux hits are Microsoft 'astroturf roots' campaign sites saying that Windows has a lower TCO than Linux.
Stephen
I think that they go to number 17 with "Baby I want your love thing".
Stephen
And given the common feelings expressed about Bush over here that's a few more electoral college votes for the Democrats. According to the US Census in 2000 the UK has the about the population of California, Texas and Nevada added together (UK Population is somewhere around 55million). Even England alone has over 50million so that's about the same as California and either Texas or New York. Should be worth a few Electoral college votes.
Stephen
Safety concerns following when the last one blew up during re-entry.
Stephen
Prior to the war and in the early stages the US traded freely with Germany and provided monetary and logistical support to the NAZI political machine. This included the supply of many IBM tabulators used in the census of the Jews prior to and in the organisation of the 'Final Solution'. With the invasion of Poland the support was severely cut back but the trading continued at a declining rate. Trading ceased when a German U-boat sank the US merchat ship Robin Moor (there is some debate if this was an accident, as claimed by the German High command at the time, or deliberate) in May 1941.
For obvious political reasons this was largely 'hushed up' during the war and after. What i know about it I have pieced together from various sources, mainly documentaries about US corporations and merchant fleet.
After the war the former western allies (mainly UK and US) invested heavily in the rebuilding of Germany, partially due to a realisation that the seeds of the WWII were planted in the reparations demanded by the French in German surrender at the end of WWI but largely to prevent West Germany going communist.
Stephen
Same is happening to me and has been for the last 2 years, about 10,000 bounce messages a day right now, they are arriving literally faster than I can download them. Fortunately I nolonger use that account for email (just webspace and backup dialup incase my main ISP has problems) so at least I'm not losing legitimate mail. I'm thinking of asking the ISP to just redirect all mail to my domain into /dev/null.
Before this started I used that address for complaining about spam so I can only assume that somewhere along the line some spammer got hold of it and decided to use it as their spoof address.
Stephen