This makes no sense. The car could easily have been towed away even if it couldn't be driven. Heck, folks expect tow-trucks to be in a parking lot hooking up cars and if the owner comes out and objects the "operator" can "let him off with a warning" and drive away with no one ever realizing that a car was almost stolen.
If anyone sees anything, its a non-descript tow truck with a generic company name and a guy wearing a baseball cap, hooded sweater and sunglasses so you can't tell anything about him except skin color, height and build.
Or you fork glibc and anything else the kernel depends on from the last GPL2 version and the FSF rapidly loses its importance. One of these approaches is significantly easier than the other. How do you think the problem will be resolved?
They may have to pick a publication (such as the NY Times) with a significant global readership. Whatever - the lawyers can decide. But it's still entirely possible.
Okay, that takes care of the people who don't respond. Now you have to deal with all the people (like Linus) who respond and object to the license change.
The FSF is not forcing anyone to use GPL version 3.
That's not entirely accurate. Once glibc is licensed under "GPL Version 3 or later" nothing licensed under only GPL version 2 can be distributed as a binary staticly linked with glibc.
The memcpy function is available and used extensively in the kernel, one among a great many from libc. For obvious reasons it can't be dynamically included at runtime. Where do you think it comes from?
Then he's looking at the wrong threat. He should be paying attention to Novell and Red Hat. They're packaging closed source run-time loadable kernel modules with the OS.
I'll use Novell as my example. If you want to run Netware, you need some kernel modules. The kernel modules are closed source compiled against the specific Linux kernel they provide. If you compile a new kernel, they don't link. You can run your own kernel, but the netware components won't work with it. Consequently, you're locked into Novell's Linux kernel by your need to run the Netware software that you bought SuSE linux for in the first place.
If you're looking for furniture recommendations you should specify actual dimensions. 6.5' x 7' has very different solutions than 4.5' x 10'.
For three desktop-size servers, though, this is trivial. Use a cubical L-desk for a cube-shaped room and a bench along one wall for a rectangular room. The three servers sit under, the monitor keyboard and KVM sit on top and the entire other half of the desk is available for the tech with his laptop.
Do watch out for the air conditioning. A non-IT guy's definition of what's enough is usually underspeced by at least half. The "sensible cooling" from the office air conditioner will not cut it and vents large enough for the air conditioner to cool adequately will bake the room when they switch to winter heat.
For all practical purposes Linux is stuck with GPLv2. It would take a Herculean effort with massive schisms to get the all the authors to authorize another license and replace the code from those authors who refused. That's why the FSF recommends allowing distribution under "any future version."
When the FSF releases GCC and GLIBC under GPL3 only with the Linux kernel still under GPL2 its gonna be a mess.
On the one hand, the whole point of open source is that you can change it and then run your changed version. That shouldn't be suddenly untrue at the arbitrary border between hardware and software. Hardware that uses approved versions of open source while actively preventing my version from running violates the spirit of the thing.
On the other hand, most of us have spent the last decade saying that its OK to use both open source and closed source software on the same machine. No one argues, for example, that you can't run GCC on top of a closed-source unix kernel even though it requires that kernel in order to run. Nor does anyone argue that the processor and other chips used by the kernel must be an open, free design.
The real problem, I think, is that RMS (via the FSF) is trying to force it down our throats as usual. He's a strange bird in that he really gets the freedom issue at one level while it flies totally over his head at another.
I think I'd put the DRM stuff in GPL3 as an optional component and see what happens. Let us authors decide whether we want it. If it works for us, it can be made permanant in GPLv4.
So I'd do something like this: Software released under the GPL MAY designate (on either a file-by-file or full release basis) that it can not be used by any device which by design actively prevents its legitimate owner from adjusting the software or data. Distribution of code so designated would be fully compatible with distribution of any other interlinked GPLv3 code with the sole exception that binary forms of the portions so designated may not be distributed for use with the restricted systems.
But then I'm a vi guy. Maybe if I'd written emacs I'd see it differently.
I cannot support any action against people who use your network. It is against my understanding of hacker ethics.
Pranks are a big part of the hacker ethic. Before computers on college campuses like MIT, that's what hacks were: technically challenging pranks like humorously adjusting difficult to reach signs and relocating well known objects without getting caught.
Turning someone's images upside down while everything else works normally is a perfect example of a hack. Just shutting them off is something a suit would do.
If we're talking less than $10k and that's your emergency fund where you need immediate access then put it in either a savings account or a money market account. That's about it. Everything else depends on you accepting that your money is out of your hands for a while.
If we're talking more than $10k then what the hell is wrong with you? Why did you take out loans? Are you demented?
--
Once you get out of college, its a whole different ballgame. Pay your credit cards and loans to zero, put about $10k in the bank and go buy a house. A house is the single best investment most of us make. Let me explain why:
1. 95% of the time, homes go up in value. You owe the bank a fixed, decreasing amount. The bank doesn't get the increase in value; you do. That increase in value is 100% your money. Just because you sat there and owned a house.
2. 100% of the interest on the mortgage is tax deductable. This means that you pay the interest BEFORE you pay income tax. Let me put it another way: The federal government chips in for about 25% of the interest on the mortgage.
3. Get a 15 year loan. A 30 year loan is a sucker deal: The first three years you pay off about $200 and all the rest is interest. With a 15 year loan, half of what you pay goes to the principal on the loan right from the start. That means half your payment is really to yourself: you keep that money but its in your house instead of in your pocket.
If you're lucky, you end up in a situation like mine: I've spent $100k paying the loan on my house these past six years. In that time I've paid down about $40k worth of principal and my house has increased in value by $300k. For every dollar I've put in, I've gotten nearly three and a half back.
--
Later on when you're rich and famous the game is to keep most of your assets in an S-Corp. Individuals pay taxes on their raw income. You sell stock at a $1000 profit and you pay taxes on $1000 even if you turn around and invest it in another stock. If an S-Corp sells stock at a $1000 profit and then invests it all in another stock it pays no income taxes because its costs equal its gross revenues (no net profit). So, the S-Corp owns your car, your house and everything else you can get away with under the law. You pay normal income taxes on a modest self-paid salary that covers your routine consumption. Everything else operates out of the S-Corp and is damn near tax-free.
the rate of the passage of time is not a constant!
And I'm prepared to offer you an explanation of why, but if you don't have a foundation in High School algebra first I'm going to have to ask you to sign up for classes, because it's going to take an inordinate amount of my time otherwise.
"The rate of time varies in according to an equation versus the constant speed of light. It gradually changes such that you can never quite reach the speed of light. This means that anything moving relative to your current position is encountering a slightly different rate of flow of time. At normal speeds the difference is virtually undetectable but its there and it affects the numbers."
Congratulations, you explained it without algebra. I can't do calculations using that explanation but if I didn't have algebra I couldn't have done the calculations anyway and wouldn't expect to make a decision on that basis.
You're explaining something to a layman. You only have to explain it to the layman's level of understanding so that he can make a reasonable decision at that level. "Why do I need a ground Mr. Electrician?" "Because if that was accidentally wired backwards it would seem to work ok until you touched it and then you might die. With a ground it pops the circuit breaker and you stay safe." "Oh, okay. We better have a ground then."
Have you looked at modern buildings? [Novel ideas are] not their problem.
Ha! I've seen a lot of wackily artsy designs (have you seen the new Census Bureau headquarters building with the wacky fiberglass bent boards decorating the exterior?) but frankly I consider few of them novel. I'd characterize them as desperately uninspired attempts to distinguish the architect from all the other mediocre architects out there. Most of the floorplans really suck with office space that is uncomfortable to work in and poorly laid out.
Novel would be a layout that allowed the introverts a significant amount of privacy while giving the extroverts the communication they desire. That would require a psychologist AND an architect and things just aren't done that way.
Novel would be the HVAC people actually talking to the IT people so that they have some clue about the heat from the computers.
Novel would be a building that looked like all the rest except it was really convenient and easy to work in.
The artsy stuff isn't novel. Its cretinous junk from someone who lacks the imagination to truly be novel.
that doesn't prevent him from knowing the Romans already tried that; and why we don't do it much anymore
If my idea isn't workable I want him to do a good enough job explaining why not that I can make a rational choice about whether to rework the idea or abandon it and start fresh. I'm not asking him to make that choice; I'm asking for enough information so that I can make that choice.
Certainly I'll be better off for the experience. And once in a while the architect will encounter a novel idea that he wouldn't have considered simply because that isn't the way its done.
Remember: the body of knowledge in architecture was built iteratively, just like every other field of expertise. This year's knowledge is built upon the foundation of last year's knowledge. That creates blind spots: both undetected errors in the foundation knowledge (the rate of the passage of time is not a constant!) and situations where a bit of wisdom is retained long after the circumstances that spawned it have changed (like the aforementioned subfloor radiant heating which was valid again from the moment we started building floors with steel and concrete instead of wood).
Or you could just Ask Slashdot. Everyone else does.
Could be worse. The poster could have asked for legal adice. (eyeroll)
On a bad day it takes about 3 minutes for a generator start up, warm up and disengage the choke. In a large, critical data center you can keep the block and oil pan heated and cut that to 90 seconds or less. If the compressors can tolerate mildly dirty power (and virtually all of them can) then you transfer the HVAC to generator while the choke is still on, ten or twenty seconds after startup.
Furthermore, the HVAC system contributes to dirty power. You want it on the other side of the filters from the computing equipment.
No, hooking up the HVAC to the battery system instead of the generator is simply wrong.
And yes I've been there. I ran a small data center for a boss who pinched pennies so hard they screamed. At various times separately and together the underspeced air conditioner, underspeced UPS and aging generator all failed. It was real bad for the company but I learned a hell of a lot in the process about what works and what doesn't.
Lesson 1: DO NOT build a large power system. Build a lot of small power systems. That way when they fail (and they will fail) its a small failure quickly fixed.
Lesson 2: DO NOT build a football-field sized room. When it fails its a massive problem. Build smaller adjoining areas so that when one fails you have options for promptly restoring service to those few affected customers.
Above all: plan for failure and plan for a cascade of failures. Even with adequate funding it is going to happen. Trace the patterns through your system plans and make sure that when it does systems go down in a reasonably triaged fashion instead of taking out the entire data center.
I have a layman's understanding of architecture. That means I can't really create a correct blueprint. It doesn't preclude me coming up with a clever floorplan and asking an architect to turn it in to a usable blueprint.
The problem was not a simple power failure. The data center's UPS also failed, which took out the HVAC units.
Why would the HVAC be on the battery units instead of being fed directly from the generators via the transfer switch? Running the HVAC off an UPS is like running a photocopier off an UPS: foolish.
If what you said is accurate, somebody really screwed the pooch.
I hope they require it to work adequately in a high-performance clustered environment in order to win the prize. Every open source CMS I've worked with falls apart in such environments. Moveable Type, for example, requires some nasty rsyncing, generates several times as much backend traffic as it does front-end traffic and won't perform its read-only actions against a separate replica database server. Its performance blows chunks.
it misses the point about infringing on the freedom/liberty of others.
Its a valid point, but I didn't miss it. That's a gray area and it can be easily argued to absurdity in either direction. At one end of the spectrum you could argue that forcing someone to see your ugly self violates their freedom. At the other you could argue that a snuff film isn't murder if the victim willingly participates.
Since I don't care to engage in an absurd discussion, I brushed by it with the phrase, "pretty much any way you want."
Then too he has an odd definition of freedom. He seems to think freedom and democracy are exactly the same thing.
Don't get me wrong... Democracy and voting play substantial roles in assuring freedom. But they're not the only things.
Take for example the cohabitation law struck down in North Carolina recently. A democraticly elected majority said: an unrelated man and woman can't live with each other under the same roof unless they get married. Its fornication and society won't stand for it.
That's not freedom. Freedom says you can run your personal life pretty much any way you want to and its nobody else's business.
We're wondering how Jaffe intends to make us cry without playing up the story elements
If I want to cry, I'll read a sad book ($6.00) or buy a sad movie ($20.00). In a video game ($50.00) I expect any story to follow me, not the other way around. Since I'm very good at wandering off in directions the designer didn't expect and computers aren't very good at creating stories on the fly, things generally work better if there is little or no story to begin with.
Slashdot Mirror
This makes no sense. The car could easily have been towed away even if it couldn't be driven. Heck, folks expect tow-trucks to be in a parking lot hooking up cars and if the owner comes out and objects the "operator" can "let him off with a warning" and drive away with no one ever realizing that a car was almost stolen.
If anyone sees anything, its a non-descript tow truck with a generic company name and a guy wearing a baseball cap, hooded sweater and sunglasses so you can't tell anything about him except skin color, height and build.
Or you fork glibc and anything else the kernel depends on from the last GPL2 version and the FSF rapidly loses its importance. One of these approaches is significantly easier than the other. How do you think the problem will be resolved?
They may have to pick a publication (such as the NY Times) with a significant global readership. Whatever - the lawyers can decide. But it's still entirely possible.
Okay, that takes care of the people who don't respond. Now you have to deal with all the people (like Linus) who respond and object to the license change.
Yeah, and I missed the connection between living in the city and being forced to breath polluted city air. Don't be dense.
First use of various words in Sci Fi:
http://www.jessesword.com/sf/home
The FSF is not forcing anyone to use GPL version 3.
That's not entirely accurate. Once glibc is licensed under "GPL Version 3 or later" nothing licensed under only GPL version 2 can be distributed as a binary staticly linked with glibc.
And this doesn't strike you as a messy situation?
The memcpy function is available and used extensively in the kernel, one among a great many from libc. For obvious reasons it can't be dynamically included at runtime. Where do you think it comes from?
Then he's looking at the wrong threat. He should be paying attention to Novell and Red Hat. They're packaging closed source run-time loadable kernel modules with the OS.
I'll use Novell as my example. If you want to run Netware, you need some kernel modules. The kernel modules are closed source compiled against the specific Linux kernel they provide. If you compile a new kernel, they don't link. You can run your own kernel, but the netware components won't work with it. Consequently, you're locked into Novell's Linux kernel by your need to run the Netware software that you bought SuSE linux for in the first place.
>> No one argues, for example, that you can't run GCC on top of
>> a closed-source unix kernel
>
>RMS does.
Since when? He certainly didn't argue it in the early '90s when GCC's principal users ran it on Sun workstations.
Multiple 1U servers and a rack-mount UPS mounted above head-level on wall units. Buddy, I have one work for you: hernia.
If you're looking for furniture recommendations you should specify actual dimensions. 6.5' x 7' has very different solutions than 4.5' x 10'.
For three desktop-size servers, though, this is trivial. Use a cubical L-desk for a cube-shaped room and a bench along one wall for a rectangular room. The three servers sit under, the monitor keyboard and KVM sit on top and the entire other half of the desk is available for the tech with his laptop.
Do watch out for the air conditioning. A non-IT guy's definition of what's enough is usually underspeced by at least half. The "sensible cooling" from the office air conditioner will not cut it and vents large enough for the air conditioner to cool adequately will bake the room when they switch to winter heat.
For all practical purposes Linux is stuck with GPLv2. It would take a Herculean effort with massive schisms to get the all the authors to authorize another license and replace the code from those authors who refused. That's why the FSF recommends allowing distribution under "any future version."
When the FSF releases GCC and GLIBC under GPL3 only with the Linux kernel still under GPL2 its gonna be a mess.
This is a twisted and difficult issue.
On the one hand, the whole point of open source is that you can change it and then run your changed version. That shouldn't be suddenly untrue at the arbitrary border between hardware and software. Hardware that uses approved versions of open source while actively preventing my version from running violates the spirit of the thing.
On the other hand, most of us have spent the last decade saying that its OK to use both open source and closed source software on the same machine. No one argues, for example, that you can't run GCC on top of a closed-source unix kernel even though it requires that kernel in order to run. Nor does anyone argue that the processor and other chips used by the kernel must be an open, free design.
The real problem, I think, is that RMS (via the FSF) is trying to force it down our throats as usual. He's a strange bird in that he really gets the freedom issue at one level while it flies totally over his head at another.
I think I'd put the DRM stuff in GPL3 as an optional component and see what happens. Let us authors decide whether we want it. If it works for us, it can be made permanant in GPLv4.
So I'd do something like this: Software released under the GPL MAY designate (on either a file-by-file or full release basis) that it can not be used by any device which by design actively prevents its legitimate owner from adjusting the software or data. Distribution of code so designated would be fully compatible with distribution of any other interlinked GPLv3 code with the sole exception that binary forms of the portions so designated may not be distributed for use with the restricted systems.
But then I'm a vi guy. Maybe if I'd written emacs I'd see it differently.
I cannot support any action against people who use your network. It is against my understanding of hacker ethics.
Pranks are a big part of the hacker ethic. Before computers on college campuses like MIT, that's what hacks were: technically challenging pranks like humorously adjusting difficult to reach signs and relocating well known objects without getting caught.
Turning someone's images upside down while everything else works normally is a perfect example of a hack. Just shutting them off is something a suit would do.
If we're talking less than $10k and that's your emergency fund where you need immediate access then put it in either a savings account or a money market account. That's about it. Everything else depends on you accepting that your money is out of your hands for a while.
If we're talking more than $10k then what the hell is wrong with you? Why did you take out loans? Are you demented?
--
Once you get out of college, its a whole different ballgame. Pay your credit cards and loans to zero, put about $10k in the bank and go buy a house. A house is the single best investment most of us make. Let me explain why:
1. 95% of the time, homes go up in value. You owe the bank a fixed, decreasing amount. The bank doesn't get the increase in value; you do. That increase in value is 100% your money. Just because you sat there and owned a house.
2. 100% of the interest on the mortgage is tax deductable. This means that you pay the interest BEFORE you pay income tax. Let me put it another way: The federal government chips in for about 25% of the interest on the mortgage.
3. Get a 15 year loan. A 30 year loan is a sucker deal: The first three years you pay off about $200 and all the rest is interest. With a 15 year loan, half of what you pay goes to the principal on the loan right from the start. That means half your payment is really to yourself: you keep that money but its in your house instead of in your pocket.
If you're lucky, you end up in a situation like mine: I've spent $100k paying the loan on my house these past six years. In that time I've paid down about $40k worth of principal and my house has increased in value by $300k. For every dollar I've put in, I've gotten nearly three and a half back.
--
Later on when you're rich and famous the game is to keep most of your assets in an S-Corp. Individuals pay taxes on their raw income. You sell stock at a $1000 profit and you pay taxes on $1000 even if you turn around and invest it in another stock. If an S-Corp sells stock at a $1000 profit and then invests it all in another stock it pays no income taxes because its costs equal its gross revenues (no net profit). So, the S-Corp owns your car, your house and everything else you can get away with under the law. You pay normal income taxes on a modest self-paid salary that covers your routine consumption. Everything else operates out of the S-Corp and is damn near tax-free.
the rate of the passage of time is not a constant!
And I'm prepared to offer you an explanation of why, but if you don't have a foundation in High School algebra first I'm going to have to ask you to sign up for classes, because it's going to take an inordinate amount of my time otherwise.
"The rate of time varies in according to an equation versus the constant speed of light. It gradually changes such that you can never quite reach the speed of light. This means that anything moving relative to your current position is encountering a slightly different rate of flow of time. At normal speeds the difference is virtually undetectable but its there and it affects the numbers."
Congratulations, you explained it without algebra. I can't do calculations using that explanation but if I didn't have algebra I couldn't have done the calculations anyway and wouldn't expect to make a decision on that basis.
You're explaining something to a layman. You only have to explain it to the layman's level of understanding so that he can make a reasonable decision at that level. "Why do I need a ground Mr. Electrician?" "Because if that was accidentally wired backwards it would seem to work ok until you touched it and then you might die. With a ground it pops the circuit breaker and you stay safe." "Oh, okay. We better have a ground then."
Have you looked at modern buildings? [Novel ideas are] not their problem.
Ha! I've seen a lot of wackily artsy designs (have you seen the new Census Bureau headquarters building with the wacky fiberglass bent boards decorating the exterior?) but frankly I consider few of them novel. I'd characterize them as desperately uninspired attempts to distinguish the architect from all the other mediocre architects out there. Most of the floorplans really suck with office space that is uncomfortable to work in and poorly laid out.
Novel would be a layout that allowed the introverts a significant amount of privacy while giving the extroverts the communication they desire. That would require a psychologist AND an architect and things just aren't done that way.
Novel would be the HVAC people actually talking to the IT people so that they have some clue about the heat from the computers.
Novel would be a building that looked like all the rest except it was really convenient and easy to work in.
The artsy stuff isn't novel. Its cretinous junk from someone who lacks the imagination to truly be novel.
It may save your architect a lot of grief.
Meh. That's what I pay him for.
that doesn't prevent him from knowing the Romans already tried that; and why we don't do it much anymore
If my idea isn't workable I want him to do a good enough job explaining why not that I can make a rational choice about whether to rework the idea or abandon it and start fresh. I'm not asking him to make that choice; I'm asking for enough information so that I can make that choice.
Certainly I'll be better off for the experience. And once in a while the architect will encounter a novel idea that he wouldn't have considered simply because that isn't the way its done.
Remember: the body of knowledge in architecture was built iteratively, just like every other field of expertise. This year's knowledge is built upon the foundation of last year's knowledge. That creates blind spots: both undetected errors in the foundation knowledge (the rate of the passage of time is not a constant!) and situations where a bit of wisdom is retained long after the circumstances that spawned it have changed (like the aforementioned subfloor radiant heating which was valid again from the moment we started building floors with steel and concrete instead of wood).
Or you could just Ask Slashdot. Everyone else does.
Could be worse. The poster could have asked for legal adice. (eyeroll)
On a bad day it takes about 3 minutes for a generator start up, warm up and disengage the choke. In a large, critical data center you can keep the block and oil pan heated and cut that to 90 seconds or less. If the compressors can tolerate mildly dirty power (and virtually all of them can) then you transfer the HVAC to generator while the choke is still on, ten or twenty seconds after startup.
Furthermore, the HVAC system contributes to dirty power. You want it on the other side of the filters from the computing equipment.
No, hooking up the HVAC to the battery system instead of the generator is simply wrong.
And yes I've been there. I ran a small data center for a boss who pinched pennies so hard they screamed. At various times separately and together the underspeced air conditioner, underspeced UPS and aging generator all failed. It was real bad for the company but I learned a hell of a lot in the process about what works and what doesn't.
Lesson 1: DO NOT build a large power system. Build a lot of small power systems. That way when they fail (and they will fail) its a small failure quickly fixed.
Lesson 2: DO NOT build a football-field sized room. When it fails its a massive problem. Build smaller adjoining areas so that when one fails you have options for promptly restoring service to those few affected customers.
Above all: plan for failure and plan for a cascade of failures. Even with adequate funding it is going to happen. Trace the patterns through your system plans and make sure that when it does systems go down in a reasonably triaged fashion instead of taking out the entire data center.
I have a layman's understanding of architecture. That means I can't really create a correct blueprint. It doesn't preclude me coming up with a clever floorplan and asking an architect to turn it in to a usable blueprint.
The problem was not a simple power failure. The data center's UPS also failed, which took out the HVAC units.
Why would the HVAC be on the battery units instead of being fed directly from the generators via the transfer switch? Running the HVAC off an UPS is like running a photocopier off an UPS: foolish.
If what you said is accurate, somebody really screwed the pooch.
I hope they require it to work adequately in a high-performance clustered environment in order to win the prize. Every open source CMS I've worked with falls apart in such environments. Moveable Type, for example, requires some nasty rsyncing, generates several times as much backend traffic as it does front-end traffic and won't perform its read-only actions against a separate replica database server. Its performance blows chunks.
it misses the point about infringing on the freedom/liberty of others.
Its a valid point, but I didn't miss it. That's a gray area and it can be easily argued to absurdity in either direction. At one end of the spectrum you could argue that forcing someone to see your ugly self violates their freedom. At the other you could argue that a snuff film isn't murder if the victim willingly participates.
Since I don't care to engage in an absurd discussion, I brushed by it with the phrase, "pretty much any way you want."
Then too he has an odd definition of freedom. He seems to think freedom and democracy are exactly the same thing.
Don't get me wrong... Democracy and voting play substantial roles in assuring freedom. But they're not the only things.
Take for example the cohabitation law struck down in North Carolina recently. A democraticly elected majority said: an unrelated man and woman can't live with each other under the same roof unless they get married. Its fornication and society won't stand for it.
That's not freedom. Freedom says you can run your personal life pretty much any way you want to and its nobody else's business.
I don't think Dubya gets that.
We're wondering how Jaffe intends to make us cry without playing up the story elements
If I want to cry, I'll read a sad book ($6.00) or buy a sad movie ($20.00). In a video game ($50.00) I expect any story to follow me, not the other way around. Since I'm very good at wandering off in directions the designer didn't expect and computers aren't very good at creating stories on the fly, things generally work better if there is little or no story to begin with.