The US Patent office has issued so many unenforceable patents it is not even funny.
If this patent went to court, it would be smashed apart. As far as I am aware, you can only patent a PROCESS. In software terms, this would mean patenting code.. not the IDEA for a code base. Ideas are un-patentable.
But then.. we already have copyright for code, since it can be considered a written work. So what the hell is the patent office doing issuing patents for software based solutions?
Let me put it another way.. you can patent the subsystem of a car, but you have to patent the apparatus that performs that work.. you can't patent the -idea- of a windshield wiper. You can only patent a particular windshield wiper assembly. You can even patent it all the way down to the rubber used in the wiper. But if Joe Cars sees your wiper, and comes up with his own method of making windshield wipers, you have no claim.
Am I totally off base here? Hopelessly off my legal rocker? Please correct me, legions of legal liasons, and I shall recant.;)
I think that many of us are missing the point behind this piece.
There was a time a few years back when something like J.K's sentiment here struck me.. for the first time in recorded history communication between disparate groups has become trivial. And that's the operative word.. Trivial.
Mail has been around for a long time, but with delay times and lack of materials or money to send information to whomever needs it most, as well as government mail filtering, it has been very difficult to establish communication with this method. It is difficult to establish a paper-based forum that is egalitarian, so we ended up with Newspapers and magazines.
But with electronic transmission of information over a global network, now we have a means to disseminate information of any type we desire.. in fact -anyone- does, and likely will. Which is likely the reason for the fear of strong encryption by government.. they won't be able to stop information flows if they believe they need to, given strong encryption.
The Internet has proven its power to some members of congress, and so now we see all of these lovely laws related to what is essentially, in the US, a privately held collection of networked computers. Huh? We should all be concerned about that.. most of the Internet in America is privately held.. it is not a public utility at all.. and yet we are getting regulations proposed that curb content providers into actions deemed suitable by the government.
So, sure.. they are afraid. Afraid that because somebody always knows something about the latest scandal or power grab, etc, that somebody can -easily- give that information out to the community.. which will then have the power to react to it. They can't really play delay games anymore.. the information is out there, and somebody will sift through it and alert people of the relevant parts.
The Internet looks like it will become something of a hybrid.. part propaganda and part real (it already has, to some extent). The good thing about that is it puts more control in our hands. We can decide to simply cut and paste text, or email an URL to someone else.. they don't have to be up at 10pmEST to see the news piece.
My point? I think Jon is on the money. The Internet is more liberating than it can ever be enslaving (at least in its current form) and so it is causing a shift in power. I've seen it myself.. and you have too. Let's hope that -this- revolution is bloodless.
In the tests I've done, Linux is overwhelmingly faster than Solaris on the same hardware. Do some file system benchmarking.. ufs vs. ext2. You'll see what I mean. Talk to the Sparc/Ultra Linux boyz.. they have done an incredible job of actually taking full advantage of the Sun hardware.
This article -seems- to be reasonably okay, but I see a great deal of off the cuff remarks that are unsubstantiated. Yes, I realize they are obtusely referring to non-technical issues, however that is not entirely made clear here.
They make a couple of good points, I think, about the difficulty of migrating to Linux from Windows, but then that's not a Linux issue, is it? It's a culture issue.
And the statement about how there are a 'miniscule' amount of apps on Linux compared to Windows.. umm.. I think that's a bit harsh. It's true that you can't just go to EggHead and buy a paperclip energized office suite, or a nifty 3D screen saver, but Linux has a fair amount of apps. And more to come in the next year.:)
So overall, I think the article was a good read, but was biased a bit, and lacking vision. Heh. Grade: C.
Alternic was/is a good idea. In fact, I use (have been using) the db.root method for bind for a very long time now. But Alternic suffered from a lack of acceptance from the greater community, unfortunately. And they are a bit profit minded.
There is NO law that says I have to use the 'accepted' root servers for my name service. I can set my root servers to anything I damn well please. So then, this whole thing with NSI and et al is ridiculous, and strictly a matter of 'who does the government say runs the public database?'.
If 28 new registries pop up for new top level domains, it would take me 10 seconds to support each one of them. Why does that not happen? Well, BigCompany(tm) and its subsidiaries want to see central control instituted everywhere possible on everything in our lives, so that they can exploit those control points to leverage their profits. BigGovernment(tm) wants this too, so that they can 'Make Life Safer' for us by having it within their means to force direction and stifle radical change.
So, I would LOVE to see alternate registries and root servers, not under the purvue of any government agency or commitee, instituted. But That would take money. Gobs of it. And vision. And nobody whom HAS that money wants to spend it on this sort of thing. And noone whom has that vision seems to have that money. Also, noone has come up with a better way of maintaining all of this information, so it seems that the bind methodology will be with us for awhile. And so thus built into the DNS protocol is a central point of control.
Of course, it would be easy to use the existing bind implementation to ease that central control out from under us. There just needs to be a different strategy used for root server querying. Personally, I think that all of the top level domains should get their own root servers, if not multiple servers for each. The main root servers should only function as pointers to other TLD servers, thus eliminating the massive resource requirement. I believe.com is up to 400+megs, but that's no big deal these days, if that's all you have on your box. Now, all you have to do is a zone transfer of '.' once a week or two, and you have all of the root servers. Then you do an NS query for each TLD listed in the root server file once a day or two. Even if there are a thousand of them, it would be a small record. You would then be going directly to the TLD servers for that information. And in the systems that don't switch over to the new system, they would get one more referral than usual.
Under this scheme, any medium sized ISP could run a root server and have no problem keeping up with the load. It would NEVER get queried for name service unless you were running under the old system.
The issue then becomes, how the heck do the folks whom run TLD servers get compensated? I mean, there is no way I would run a TLD server unless I had funds coming in from somewhere. This is where the folks at BigCompany have exerted their control, and why we are left with the system we have now.
The current system has it that only registries would get money to support servers like this. Maybe that's the best way.. I don't know for certain. Something to think about.
Wow.. I'm getting long-winded..well, to sum up, I think the KEY here is to sluff off the TLD load from root servers to TLD servers. That way, root servers become less resource intensive, and the load gets distributed to all of the TLD servers, of which there could be many. Change the way we use bind a tiny bit, and we are off.
Yes, I KNOW that this would create additional traffic on an already loaded up internet.. but which do we want more.. a new method that decentralizes control a bit, or a few Kbps more of bandwidth at peak?
In clicking around from the Compaq article, I found my way to the supercomputer top 500 list, on which which I distinctly remember Avalon being listed.. it is not there anymore. In fact, no Beowulf clusters are listed.(Or, at least, in my fevered scan for 'beowulf' I found nothing)
I think loyal slashdotters everywhere should remind the keepers of that web site of the existence of the Beowulf class supercomputer, don't you?
The thing is.. you see.. you are not entirely correct.:)
Intel boxen can be very reliable and stable if you buy the right hardware and have a clue when you configure the boxes.
And with Linux, you can scale extremely well.. imagine 10 8-way boxen running beowulf. Oof.
No, Oracle doesn't support beowulf configurations, but generically, Linux is extremely scalable.
I've installed Linux on an 8-way PPro.. at last I checked, it was rock solid and serving database queries like lightning (Using Informix).
So, although commodity Intel hardware is crap.. yes.. I agree there.. there are non-commodity boxen out there which still rate better price/performance than Sparcs that light the world on fire.
the ext2 filesystem is the fastest thing around. Thank you for playing. Put SparcLinux on a Sparc20, and Solaris on a Sparc20, and run web hit tests that are filesystem intensive. You'll see the HUGE difference between UFS and ext2. And then there's the fact that Network performance on Sparc/Ultra Linux blows the panties off of Solaris..
Reliability? Reliability and availability are two different things. If you do not plan for availability, then you have some down time. Period. Slashdot is a good example. However, given that they have NOT planned for availability, it is up more often than I would expect, given the heavy load. And is reasonably reliable.
Scalability? Linux is more scalable than most OS's. my friends. We have Beowulf for PVM fun.. and we have SMP, for 4-8+ way fun. And we have the good old Linux Virtual Server project, whose functionality has almost completely been folded into the new kernel. With that you could scale to hundreds of servers. No, big scalability is techinically feasible, and extremely plausible on Linux.
Need I go on? There's quite a bit more I could spout about, but I'm sure the drift is floating in the right direction.
I don't know what kind of krak these folks at IBM were smoking, but they are dead wrong about Linux. AIX is a dead fish in the water compared to Linux, but IBM is still flopping around with it in the noon heat. Remember, IBM as a 'whole' doesn't really like Linux.. just a few divisions of it which managed to get the corporate nod. These folks are likely from the opposing camp.
I say ignore 'em and march stolidly on towards technical excellence. Or something like that.;)
There is a new Star Wars trailer that has been recently released and it uses the currently unsupported Sorenson Video codec. I have contacted Sorenson about licensing their codec. They responded that Apple won't allow them to license it to others. You may want to drop Sorenson and Apple a line asking about unix and/or xanim support for Sorenson. Probably should also send email to web sites that use sorenson so they know it has a limited audience.
For the record, I would gladly add support for Sorenson if allowed to. Same goes for all other currently unsupported video/audio codecs.
So.. send those letters! Apple has not been contacted yet.. well, likely by -now- it has.. but you get the drift.:-)
It's called a 'Moratorium' when you cannot work for a competitor for a certain amount of time..
And they are most definitely legal. However:
They MUST be accompanied by compensation for the moratorium. That is, if you cannot work for another company in your field for a year after you leave Foo.com, then Foo.com MUST compensate you during that time. In other words, if they don't pay, you don't have to play. The compensation can take the form of anything, as long as it is worth the price you will pay for being out of the market for a year, and potentially not even able to work for that time.
I have refused jobs based on the NDA. It's always the same story.. "It's just standard procedure. Everybody signs them.".. "Really? Well, I'm sorry, but if I have to sign this document, I'm not working for you. Thanks."
A company that is so paranoid that it needs to propagate unenforcable NDA's to make themselves feel better, is a company I would avoid working for.. long term, anyway.;-)
Is anyone else bothered by the intellectual property clauses as well? What I do at home is my own property, as far as I am concerned. I have refused to sign docs that had those sorts of things in them as well. "We own everything that you do that relates to our business." Umm... what? What's that? I don't think so, bubba.
I have no problem handing over things that I do with company resources, and on company time. Those are rightfully theirs. But if I do it at home, on my own time, nope. And I won't sign a document that says otherwise. If that costs me a job or two, so be it. I'm more than happy to fill the time with other work.
So.. the moral? If you really need the job, sign in vanishing ink. You'll thank me later.;)
Last I checked.. the Internet was a loosly held, privately run cooperative.. how in the hell does the government even have -jurisdiction- to tax something like that in this fashion? If I run a mail-order company, my remote customers do not have to pay sales tax.. but if I advertise and take orders on the net.. I do?
(Before the correctness folks yell, yes.. I am aware of the subtleties of interstate commerce. I am being brief on purpose. Other have already expressed views about import/export vagaries)
No...no... this stinks of big money lobbying to me..nobody's constituents want something like this. I would bet that some big money is moving behind this scene. Somebody doesn't like the Dells of the world..
Hey. Are you so blind and deaf that you cannot read an article and get the -spirit- of the thing? This article is supposed to provoke thought and cause you to consider elements of things around us that we might not be thinking about, not be a doctoral thesis on information technology.
We are in the middle of a huge maelstrom of information and power. Those who realize that will be able to navigate it, and perhaps even manipulate it. Jon is just trying to toss a few ideas on the fire for you to think about these issues.
I don't agree with everything he says, no. But if I wanted to rebut him, I would mention exactly WHAT I thought was 'drivel'. Those whom do not do that, well.. you rate below Bill Gates in my book.
Jon, I liked the article. I have already thought about these issues, in fact was thinking about them some years ago. People then looked at me funny, "It's just email" they said. Hah. Look at them now. *grin*
...is going to say that they will not 'give up the power' of their personal computer. Well of COURSE we won't. But then, we aren't joe consumer.
Joe wants something he doesn't have to think about, running as an appliance, that magically does everything he needs it to do, and is cool. Joe wants to exert as little effort as possible and achieve maximum return. Why else would WebTV make money? I've used it.. its HORRIBLE. But then, Joe doesn't know any better. Joe thinks WebTV is great, because he has a nifty remote that hooks him into the Internet, and he can look at his pr0n, or stock reports, or whatever, without leaving his couch.
Internet appliances will do well, mainly because people don't know any better. Joe thinks PGP is an Angel Dust variant.. he has no concept of what encryption means to privacy. Joe just wants his email and pretty pictures.
Does this sound bitter? Sure.. but it is absolutely true. There's one more thing that is not being addressed as well.. something I haven't seen people talk about much.. the PC saturation level right now.
There are alot of people whom own PC's right now. And they are pretty good. And I would bet that most people do what they need to do on their existing PC. They aren't looking to buy a new one anytime soon.. since the one they have cost them a few grand. PC's are moving into an auto buying cycle.. every 5 years people think about buying a new one. 5 years?!?!?! Yep. Perhaps it's a bit shorter on average, but you can still see my point.. the burning market for PC's is out there, but is being saturated. People whom own PC's already aren't upgrading at the drop of a hat, like some of us might.
So Joe, having spent $3k on his setup a few years ago, needs something better this year. He shops around and sees a sub $1k Internet appliance that promises to be fast, and flexible, and he won't have to worry about applications or software support, or anything like that. He just pays $800, and then $50 per month, and he is online, with everything he needs to function. Throw in the optional 'GamePak(tm)', a local hard drive and CDROM in a box that hot swaps into the unit, and he's good to go for QuakeIV.
The market is splitting. There will be people there to pick up those pieces. And while I don't agree that the PC is doomed, I do believe that it's market will shrink, and if Intel doesn't cater to both sides, they will get screwed.. because AMD is the shark circling the embedded PC style appliance waters, and Motorola and DEC are not far behind. Motorola won't run windows, you say? So, how hard would it be to use OSX on an internet appliance? And perhaps give it the 'feel' of Windows? Or perhaps even Virtual PC thrown in for the bargain? DEC chips already run WinNT. I'm using an AMD right now and it kicks butt. Intel should be afraid.. not right now.. but in 3 years or so.. ooooooh boy. Mind you, I don't think they will lose their shirts, but their power is diminishing, and will continue to diminish in the face of the information age's natural maturation.
The first headhunter had it more on the money than the second one. That much I can attest from personal experience.
The first advises us not to disclose our salary ranges for previous jobs.. it gives the potential employer leverage and takes away some of our negotiating power. I would disagree with that. It depends on how you present the issue to the interviewer. If you are going from a lower paying job to a higher paying one, yes.. it could hurt you. However what if the work you were doing was indeed not worth as much as the work you -will- be doing? I get paid quite a bit more for Networking/Routing work than basic IT work (server application installation and related troubleshooting, etc.). I am not afraid to say 'For -this- work I was paid $50/hour, but for that work I would normally ask for $80/hour'. I always do 2 things: Highball the price.. it gives you negotiating room, and double the time estimate for job completion (this only applies to consulting work, but you see what I mean). Now, if you disclose this information in the -fashion- of offering a bargain (i.e. I would normally ask for $80, but here I would be willing to negotiate that price) then the price puts you into the driver's seat.
As to the second, D.G's response, I am appalled. This response.. Companies want 'Team Players' who 'play by the rules'... ack. No they don't. Companies want to get as skilled people as possible, and pay as little for it as they can. They want to get you on salary without overtime and work you 70 hours per week. Companies want you to be dependent on them for your livelihood so they can give you that 3% raise you've been dreaming about. What I have to say to this 'team player' is: "The day I started making real money was the day I started saying NO"
And I did. It was amazing.. finally I had had it. I had been being underpaid, burnt, used and abused, and was taking it on the chin for a few years. I was cash poor, practically broke, and was getting married in less than a year. I was tired, and my Fiancee told me 'get the hell out of there'.. so I did. I sat back for a week or so, and my attitude changed. 'Damnit, if they don't want to pay me what I am worth, then I won't work for them. Simple.' I mean, what are we getting a job these days for anyway? Security? That went out in the 60's. There isn't any security in a corporate job anymore. You're on your own now, in a sea of changes and brutal competition.. how the heck do you come out on top in an ocean like that? I mean.. you just have a one person sloop, and your sail is tattered.. how to you brook the storm? It's easy. You say no.
I was on an interview for a Network Engineering position. We were discussing price finally, and after the conversation I felt I had a good feel for what this job was worth. I was surprised when the interviewer said to me 'Do you really think you are worth that much?' I just stared at her for a moment, then I stood up, smiled and said, to paraphrase 'Yes, and in fact I am worth more, based on the nature of what your requirements are, and the money you will be losing if I don't work for you. But, I think I'll pass on this offer. Thank you very much.' I started to walk out of the room when she stopped me. I was serious. I was walking right out. I was done taking that sort of treatment. She knew it. She was surprised too. We sat back down and she paid me the price I was asking, plus a couple of perqs.
Now, this won't always work. And you have to be polite, no matter how much you want to say 'What the hell are you talking about?!?' And the attitude must be crisp, clean and professional. But the word no has great power. They will let you walk out sometimes, telling themselves that you were a trouble maker, and etc. However, the ones whom -do- realize that they are on interview just as much as you are when you walk in that room, and whom start to sell -you- on the job and position.. those are the money jobs.. the career makers.
Different people will get different mileage out of this approach.. if you don't have good interpersonal skills, it's likely that you will fall on your face. It's important that these people be told no with respect and a smile, and with a professional attitude.
What if you -can't- say no? If you REALLY need the job? Well, you have to set standards for yourself. You have to decide what you are willing to do for what price. As a worker, we are -selling- our labor to an employer.. they are our customers. We have to decide if we want to do business with them or not, based on the conditions as they present themselves. And if you are satisfied that you are getting compensated well for what you are doing, that's pretty much all you can ask out of a position.. oh, and a little fun too. That's always good. Keeps you from chewing off your chair leg.
Aaagh. Please.. GTE is a monolith.. I've had occasion to work for them. Ick. They have more politics than you can possibly imagine.. and they will not commercially deploy Linux because of their Y2K policies.. even though it has been proven superior time and time again to their extant architecture.
I realize that cachedot is running from there, and they have good bandwidth, but I would never willingly be a GTE Internetworking customer.
The License agreement would then not hold up in a court of law.
Again, there is nothing illegal about an emulator like this. It is designed to mimic the behavior of a N64 console. Nintendo suing these boys would be like Microsoft suing the creators of Wine. It doesn't matter WHAT Nintendo puts in their license agreements. Since the authors cannot be shown to have done this for the sole purpose of pirating software, then the case is almost non-existant. Their license agreements I am sure are as harsh as they can make them, but they will not stand up to the test of legal scrutiny.
That's like signing a Non-disclosure agreement that bans you from working for a competitor for a full year after leaving an employer, without compensating you for it. The law clearly holds (As far as I am aware) that you must recieve specific compensation for a moratorium like that.
It's not a binding statement. How else are you supposed to protect your software? What if the software goes out of distribution? Oh gee.. we didn't think of that. At least with a backup copy you could have a new ROM burnt for you after Nintendo had given up that product.
I have no words for the praise I have for this poster. He rebutted the article clearly, concisely, and with more facts and analysis that you can shake a stick at. More users should take this example, and respond to such articles with this sort of rebuttal. Even more, they should be emailed to the appropriate news agencies to get their appetites whetted. We all know that many of the agencies lick the boots of those in power, however something like this, which refutes all of the basic premises the article was founded on, cannot be challenged in any substantive way. He is right. The article was wrong. Mail it away to someone who might publish it elsewhere.
We need to raise our voices high when something like this happens. 8-)
Slashdot Mirror
Come on...
;)
The US Patent office has issued so many unenforceable patents it is not even funny.
If this patent went to court, it would be smashed apart. As far as I am aware, you can only patent a PROCESS. In software terms, this would mean patenting code.. not the IDEA for a code base. Ideas are un-patentable.
But then.. we already have copyright for code, since it can be considered a written work. So what the hell is the patent office doing issuing patents for software based solutions?
Let me put it another way.. you can patent the subsystem of a car, but you have to patent the apparatus that performs that work.. you can't patent the -idea- of a windshield wiper. You can only patent a particular windshield wiper assembly. You can even patent it all the way down to the rubber used in the wiper. But if Joe Cars sees your wiper, and comes up with his own method of making windshield wipers, you have no claim.
Am I totally off base here? Hopelessly off my legal rocker? Please correct me, legions of legal liasons, and I shall recant.
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I think that many of us are missing the point behind this piece.
There was a time a few years back when something like J.K's sentiment here struck me.. for the first time in recorded history communication between disparate groups has become trivial. And that's the operative word.. Trivial.
Mail has been around for a long time, but with delay times and lack of materials or money to send information to whomever needs it most, as well as government mail filtering, it has been very difficult to establish communication with this method. It is difficult to establish a paper-based forum that is egalitarian, so we ended up with Newspapers and magazines.
But with electronic transmission of information over a global network, now we have a means to disseminate information of any type we desire.. in fact -anyone- does, and likely will. Which is likely the reason for the fear of strong encryption by government.. they won't be able to stop information flows if they believe they need to, given strong encryption.
The Internet has proven its power to some members of congress, and so now we see all of these lovely laws related to what is essentially, in the US, a privately held collection of networked computers. Huh? We should all be concerned about that.. most of the Internet in America is privately held.. it is not a public utility at all.. and yet we are getting regulations proposed that curb content providers into actions deemed suitable by the government.
So, sure.. they are afraid. Afraid that because somebody always knows something about the latest scandal or power grab, etc, that somebody can -easily- give that information out to the community.. which will then have the power to react to it. They can't really play delay games anymore.. the information is out there, and somebody will sift through it and alert people of the relevant parts.
The Internet looks like it will become something of a hybrid.. part propaganda and part real (it already has, to some extent). The good thing about that is it puts more control in our hands. We can decide to simply cut and paste text, or email an URL to someone else.. they don't have to be up at 10pmEST to see the news piece.
My point? I think Jon is on the money. The Internet is more liberating than it can ever be enslaving (at least in its current form) and so it is causing a shift in power. I've seen it myself.. and you have too. Let's hope that -this- revolution is bloodless.
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In the tests I've done, Linux is overwhelmingly faster than Solaris on the same hardware. Do some file system benchmarking.. ufs vs. ext2. You'll see what I mean. Talk to the Sparc/Ultra Linux boyz.. they have done an incredible job of actually taking full advantage of the Sun hardware.
:)
This article -seems- to be reasonably okay, but I see a great deal of off the cuff remarks that are unsubstantiated. Yes, I realize they are obtusely referring to non-technical issues, however that is not entirely made clear here.
They make a couple of good points, I think, about the difficulty of migrating to Linux from Windows, but then that's not a Linux issue, is it? It's a culture issue.
And the statement about how there are a 'miniscule' amount of apps on Linux compared to Windows.. umm.. I think that's a bit harsh. It's true that you can't just go to EggHead and buy a paperclip energized office suite, or a nifty 3D screen saver, but Linux has a fair amount of apps. And more to come in the next year.
So overall, I think the article was a good read, but was biased a bit, and lacking vision. Heh. Grade: C.
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That's a really good question..
.com is up to 400+megs, but that's no big deal these days, if that's all you have on your box. Now, all you have to do is a zone transfer of '.' once a week or two, and you have all of the root servers. Then you do an NS query for each TLD listed in the root server file once a day or two. Even if there are a thousand of them, it would be a small record. You would then be going directly to the TLD servers for that information. And in the systems that don't switch over to the new system, they would get one more referral than usual.
Alternic was/is a good idea. In fact, I use (have been using) the db.root method for bind for a very long time now. But Alternic suffered from a lack of acceptance from the greater community, unfortunately. And they are a bit profit minded.
There is NO law that says I have to use the 'accepted' root servers for my name service. I can set my root servers to anything I damn well please. So then, this whole thing with NSI and et al is ridiculous, and strictly a matter of 'who does the government say runs the public database?'.
If 28 new registries pop up for new top level domains, it would take me 10 seconds to support each one of them. Why does that not happen? Well, BigCompany(tm) and its subsidiaries want to see central control instituted everywhere possible on everything in our lives, so that they can exploit those control points to leverage their profits. BigGovernment(tm) wants this too, so that they can 'Make Life Safer' for us by having it within their means to force direction and stifle radical change.
So, I would LOVE to see alternate registries and root servers, not under the purvue of any government agency or commitee, instituted. But That would take money. Gobs of it. And vision. And nobody whom HAS that money wants to spend it on this sort of thing. And noone whom has that vision seems to have that money. Also, noone has come up with a better way of maintaining all of this information, so it seems that the bind methodology will be with us for awhile. And so thus built into the DNS protocol is a central point of control.
Of course, it would be easy to use the existing bind implementation to ease that central control out from under us. There just needs to be a different strategy used for root server querying. Personally, I think that all of the top level domains should get their own root servers, if not multiple servers for each. The main root servers should only function as pointers to other TLD servers, thus eliminating the massive resource requirement. I believe
Under this scheme, any medium sized ISP could run a root server and have no problem keeping up with the load. It would NEVER get queried for name service unless you were running under the old system.
The issue then becomes, how the heck do the folks whom run TLD servers get compensated? I mean, there is no way I would run a TLD server unless I had funds coming in from somewhere. This is where the folks at BigCompany have exerted their control, and why we are left with the system we have now.
The current system has it that only registries would get money to support servers like this. Maybe that's the best way.. I don't know for certain. Something to think about.
Wow.. I'm getting long-winded..well, to sum up, I think the KEY here is to sluff off the TLD load from root servers to TLD servers. That way, root servers become less resource intensive, and the load gets distributed to all of the TLD servers, of which there could be many. Change the way we use bind a tiny bit, and we are off.
Yes, I KNOW that this would create additional traffic on an already loaded up internet.. but which do we want more.. a new method that decentralizes control a bit, or a few Kbps more of bandwidth at peak?
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Hrm... not really confident about these guys...
1) They don't put their email addresses online. Nor any relevant contact information. They could vanish tomorrow and we would have no recourse.
2) 2 of their root name servers I cannot contact
3) Running a root nameserver is an exhaustive endeavor.. they should be on multiple T3 links.
4) Why in the heck are they running HTTP, SMTP, TELNET, POP and FTP on a root nameserver?!?!?!
Apologies. A for idea.. D for effort and planning.
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I think loyal slashdotters everywhere should remind the keepers of that web site of the existence of the Beowulf class supercomputer, don't you?
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The thing is.. you see.. you are not entirely correct. :)
Intel boxen can be very reliable and stable if you buy the right hardware and have a clue when you configure the boxes.
And with Linux, you can scale extremely well.. imagine 10 8-way boxen running beowulf. Oof.
No, Oracle doesn't support beowulf configurations, but generically, Linux is extremely scalable.
I've installed Linux on an 8-way PPro.. at last I checked, it was rock solid and serving database queries like lightning (Using Informix).
So, although commodity Intel hardware is crap.. yes.. I agree there.. there are non-commodity boxen out there which still rate better price/performance than Sparcs that light the world on fire.
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Have you considered running it on UltraLinux?
That way, you get the hardware reliability of a sparc, and the ext2 filesystem (which is INCREDIBLY better than UFS).
You can likely run the Solaris version of Oracle DB Server on UltraLinux, since UltraLinux can run Sparc binaries.
No, I haven't done this.. has anyone run Oracle on an UltraLinux box?
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Umm.. lets clear some of the air, folks. :-)
;)
the ext2 filesystem is the fastest thing around. Thank you for playing. Put SparcLinux on a Sparc20, and Solaris on a Sparc20, and run web hit tests that are filesystem intensive. You'll see the HUGE difference between UFS and ext2. And then there's the fact that Network performance on Sparc/Ultra Linux blows the panties off of Solaris..
Reliability? Reliability and availability are two different things. If you do not plan for availability, then you have some down time. Period. Slashdot is a good example. However, given that they have NOT planned for availability, it is up more often than I would expect, given the heavy load. And is reasonably reliable.
Scalability? Linux is more scalable than most OS's. my friends. We have Beowulf for PVM fun.. and we have SMP, for 4-8+ way fun. And we have the good old Linux Virtual Server project, whose functionality has almost completely been folded into the new kernel. With that you could scale to hundreds of servers. No, big scalability is techinically feasible, and extremely plausible on Linux.
Need I go on? There's quite a bit more I could spout about, but I'm sure the drift is floating in the right direction.
I don't know what kind of krak these folks at IBM were smoking, but they are dead wrong about Linux. AIX is a dead fish in the water compared to Linux, but IBM is still flopping around with it in the noon heat. Remember, IBM as a 'whole' doesn't really like Linux.. just a few divisions of it which managed to get the corporate nod. These folks are likely from the opposing camp.
I say ignore 'em and march stolidly on towards technical excellence. Or something like that.
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This has already been addressed.. look at the previous submission about this.
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BSD/BSDi used to be faster. Not in 2.2. :-)
I used to recommend BSDi for the best commercial web server implementation. Fastest and most stable stack. Best price/performance.
Not anymore.
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So.. send those letters! Apple has not been contacted yet.. well, likely by -now- it has.. but you get the drift.
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...of a quote from the head of the U.S. Patent Office back in the late 1800's:
"Everything that can be invented, has been invented."
This columnist should read more history. He might develop an education.
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It's called a 'Moratorium' when you cannot work for a competitor for a certain amount of time..
.. "Really? Well, I'm sorry, but if I have to sign this document, I'm not working for you. Thanks."
;-)
;)
And they are most definitely legal. However:
They MUST be accompanied by compensation for the moratorium. That is, if you cannot work for another company in your field for a year after you leave Foo.com, then Foo.com MUST compensate you during that time. In other words, if they don't pay, you don't have to play. The compensation can take the form of anything, as long as it is worth the price you will pay for being out of the market for a year, and potentially not even able to work for that time.
I have refused jobs based on the NDA. It's always the same story.. "It's just standard procedure. Everybody signs them."
A company that is so paranoid that it needs to propagate unenforcable NDA's to make themselves feel better, is a company I would avoid working for.. long term, anyway.
Is anyone else bothered by the intellectual property clauses as well? What I do at home is my own property, as far as I am concerned. I have refused to sign docs that had those sorts of things in them as well. "We own everything that you do that relates to our business." Umm... what? What's that? I don't think so, bubba.
I have no problem handing over things that I do with company resources, and on company time. Those are rightfully theirs. But if I do it at home, on my own time, nope. And I won't sign a document that says otherwise. If that costs me a job or two, so be it. I'm more than happy to fill the time with other work.
So.. the moral? If you really need the job, sign in vanishing ink. You'll thank me later.
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Last I checked.. the Internet was a loosly held, privately run cooperative.. how in the hell does the government even have -jurisdiction- to tax something like that in this fashion? If I run a mail-order company, my remote customers do not have to pay sales tax.. but if I advertise and take orders on the net.. I do?
(Before the correctness folks yell, yes.. I am aware of the subtleties of interstate commerce. I am being brief on purpose. Other have already expressed views about import/export vagaries)
No...no... this stinks of big money lobbying to me..nobody's constituents want something like this. I would bet that some big money is moving behind this scene. Somebody doesn't like the Dells of the world..
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Hey. Are you so blind and deaf that you cannot read an article and get the -spirit- of the thing? This article is supposed to provoke thought and cause you to consider elements of things around us that we might not be thinking about, not be a doctoral thesis on information technology.
We are in the middle of a huge maelstrom of information and power. Those who realize that will be able to navigate it, and perhaps even manipulate it. Jon is just trying to toss a few ideas on the fire for you to think about these issues.
I don't agree with everything he says, no. But if I wanted to rebut him, I would mention exactly WHAT I thought was 'drivel'. Those whom do not do that, well.. you rate below Bill Gates in my book.
Jon, I liked the article. I have already thought about these issues, in fact was thinking about them some years ago. People then looked at me funny, "It's just email" they said. Hah. Look at them now. *grin*
We live in interesting times...
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...is going to say that they will not 'give up the power' of their personal computer. Well of COURSE we won't. But then, we aren't joe consumer.
Joe wants something he doesn't have to think about, running as an appliance, that magically does everything he needs it to do, and is cool. Joe wants to exert as little effort as possible and achieve maximum return. Why else would WebTV make money? I've used it.. its HORRIBLE. But then, Joe doesn't know any better. Joe thinks WebTV is great, because he has a nifty remote that hooks him into the Internet, and he can look at his pr0n, or stock reports, or whatever, without leaving his couch.
Internet appliances will do well, mainly because people don't know any better. Joe thinks PGP is an Angel Dust variant.. he has no concept of what encryption means to privacy. Joe just wants his email and pretty pictures.
Does this sound bitter? Sure.. but it is absolutely true. There's one more thing that is not being addressed as well.. something I haven't seen people talk about much.. the PC saturation level right now.
There are alot of people whom own PC's right now. And they are pretty good. And I would bet that most people do what they need to do on their existing PC. They aren't looking to buy a new one anytime soon.. since the one they have cost them a few grand. PC's are moving into an auto buying cycle.. every 5 years people think about buying a new one. 5 years?!?!?! Yep. Perhaps it's a bit shorter on average, but you can still see my point.. the burning market for PC's is out there, but is being saturated. People whom own PC's already aren't upgrading at the drop of a hat, like some of us might.
So Joe, having spent $3k on his setup a few years ago, needs something better this year. He shops around and sees a sub $1k Internet appliance that promises to be fast, and flexible, and he won't have to worry about applications or software support, or anything like that. He just pays $800, and then $50 per month, and he is online, with everything he needs to function. Throw in the optional 'GamePak(tm)', a local hard drive and CDROM in a box that hot swaps into the unit, and he's good to go for QuakeIV.
The market is splitting. There will be people there to pick up those pieces. And while I don't agree that the PC is doomed, I do believe that it's market will shrink, and if Intel doesn't cater to both sides, they will get screwed.. because AMD is the shark circling the embedded PC style appliance waters, and Motorola and DEC are not far behind. Motorola won't run windows, you say? So, how hard would it be to use OSX on an internet appliance? And perhaps give it the 'feel' of Windows? Or perhaps even Virtual PC thrown in for the bargain? DEC chips already run WinNT. I'm using an AMD right now and it kicks butt. Intel should be afraid.. not right now.. but in 3 years or so.. ooooooh boy. Mind you, I don't think they will lose their shirts, but their power is diminishing, and will continue to diminish in the face of the information age's natural maturation.
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The first headhunter had it more on the money than the second one. That much I can attest from personal experience.
The first advises us not to disclose our salary ranges for previous jobs.. it gives the potential employer leverage and takes away some of our negotiating power. I would disagree with that. It depends on how you present the issue to the interviewer. If you are going from a lower paying job to a higher paying one, yes.. it could hurt you. However what if the work you were doing was indeed not worth as much as the work you -will- be doing? I get paid quite a bit more for Networking/Routing work than basic IT work (server application installation and related troubleshooting, etc.). I am not afraid to say 'For -this- work I was paid $50/hour, but for that work I would normally ask for $80/hour'. I always do 2 things: Highball the price.. it gives you negotiating room, and double the time estimate for job completion (this only applies to consulting work, but you see what I mean). Now, if you disclose this information in the -fashion- of offering a bargain (i.e. I would normally ask for $80, but here I would be willing to negotiate that price) then the price puts you into the driver's seat.
As to the second, D.G's response, I am appalled. This response.. Companies want 'Team Players' who 'play by the rules'... ack. No they don't. Companies want to get as skilled people as possible, and pay as little for it as they can. They want to get you on salary without overtime and work you 70 hours per week. Companies want you to be dependent on them for your livelihood so they can give you that 3% raise you've been dreaming about. What I have to say to this 'team player' is: "The day I started making real money was the day I started saying NO"
And I did. It was amazing.. finally I had had it. I had been being underpaid, burnt, used and abused, and was taking it on the chin for a few years. I was cash poor, practically broke, and was getting married in less than a year. I was tired, and my Fiancee told me 'get the hell out of there'.. so I did. I sat back for a week or so, and my attitude changed. 'Damnit, if they don't want to pay me what I am worth, then I won't work for them. Simple.' I mean, what are we getting a job these days for anyway? Security? That went out in the 60's. There isn't any security in a corporate job anymore. You're on your own now, in a sea of changes and brutal competition.. how the heck do you come out on top in an ocean like that? I mean.. you just have a one person sloop, and your sail is tattered.. how to you brook the storm? It's easy. You say no.
I was on an interview for a Network Engineering position. We were discussing price finally, and after the conversation I felt I had a good feel for what this job was worth. I was surprised when the interviewer said to me 'Do you really think you are worth that much?' I just stared at her for a moment, then I stood up, smiled and said, to paraphrase 'Yes, and in fact I am worth more, based on the nature of what your requirements are, and the money you will be losing if I don't work for you. But, I think I'll pass on this offer. Thank you very much.' I started to walk out of the room when she stopped me. I was serious. I was walking right out. I was done taking that sort of treatment. She knew it. She was surprised too. We sat back down and she paid me the price I was asking, plus a couple of perqs.
Now, this won't always work. And you have to be polite, no matter how much you want to say 'What the hell are you talking about?!?' And the attitude must be crisp, clean and professional. But the word no has great power. They will let you walk out sometimes, telling themselves that you were a trouble maker, and etc. However, the ones whom -do- realize that they are on interview just as much as you are when you walk in that room, and whom start to sell -you- on the job and position.. those are the money jobs.. the career makers.
Different people will get different mileage out of this approach.. if you don't have good interpersonal skills, it's likely that you will fall on your face. It's important that these people be told no with respect and a smile, and with a professional attitude.
What if you -can't- say no? If you REALLY need the job? Well, you have to set standards for yourself. You have to decide what you are willing to do for what price. As a worker, we are -selling- our labor to an employer.. they are our customers. We have to decide if we want to do business with them or not, based on the conditions as they present themselves. And if you are satisfied that you are getting compensated well for what you are doing, that's pretty much all you can ask out of a position.. oh, and a little fun too. That's always good. Keeps you from chewing off your chair leg.
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Aaagh. Please.. GTE is a monolith.. I've had occasion to work for them. Ick. They have more politics than you can possibly imagine.. and they will not commercially deploy Linux because of their Y2K policies.. even though it has been proven superior time and time again to their extant architecture.
I realize that cachedot is running from there, and they have good bandwidth, but I would never willingly be a GTE Internetworking customer.
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The License agreement would then not hold up in a court of law.
Again, there is nothing illegal about an emulator like this. It is designed to mimic the behavior of a N64 console. Nintendo suing these boys would be like Microsoft suing the creators of Wine. It doesn't matter WHAT Nintendo puts in their license agreements. Since the authors cannot be shown to have done this for the sole purpose of pirating software, then the case is almost non-existant. Their license agreements I am sure are as harsh as they can make them, but they will not stand up to the test of legal scrutiny.
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Sure. Ridiculous.
That's like signing a Non-disclosure agreement that bans you from working for a competitor for a full year after leaving an employer, without compensating you for it. The law clearly holds (As far as I am aware) that you must recieve specific compensation for a moratorium like that.
It's not a binding statement. How else are you supposed to protect your software? What if the software goes out of distribution? Oh gee.. we didn't think of that. At least with a backup copy you could have a new ROM burnt for you after Nintendo had given up that product.
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I have no words for the praise I have for this poster. He rebutted the article clearly, concisely, and with more facts and analysis that you can shake a stick at. More users should take this example, and respond to such articles with this sort of rebuttal. Even more, they should be emailed to the appropriate news agencies to get their appetites whetted. We all know that many of the agencies lick the boots of those in power, however something like this, which refutes all of the basic premises the article was founded on, cannot be challenged in any substantive way. He is right. The article was wrong. Mail it away to someone who might publish it elsewhere.
We need to raise our voices high when something like this happens. 8-)
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