Its amazing in my opinion how just about everything, not just natural resources like water, rivers, perhaps even air in the future, are just getting owned / regulared and "privatized". Meaning something that once was public and beloging to all for free - a God given right, gets just snatched by some egocentric insecure individuals that believe money is the only important thing on the planet.
The Olympics is no exception. Its supposed to represent the unity of mankind through a sporting event. Now somebody has the "rights" to it. Its now just another business for milking the population of their hard earned money. A bill such as this should never be passed - its absurd.
Its only natural and expected that the companies that are investing in the games should get some sort of protection - but it should be intelligent protection, which, IMHO means one that protects not just those companies, but the public interest and the ideal of the Games. This is irresponsible of the Olympic Comittee and only serves to prove its demagocical abuse of the Olympic ideal.
I think it really depends on use and in your facility. For example:
Do you host your servers at your own facility or do you host them in a data-center where rack space is a premium?
Is your application CPU intensive, disk intensive, memory intensive (i.e. scientific application, web servers, database servers, etc.)
We run a very large website. We have a 1U dual Athlon MP box for administration and log processing, and a 2U dual Xeon box with a 6 disk RAID 10 solution for apache + mysql. Its a great solution to us because we run things in a data center co-lo where space is a premium. Both servers use off-the-shelf components and are easy to upgrade and maintain.
If we were running some scientific application and had our own location and good network connection (for example, a university), then I suppose a cluster of standard hardware components like how Google does it would be perfect. If you were doing the same CPU-intensive stuff, but at a co-lo facility, then perhaps a blade solution would be best... it really all depends - you have to look at what your main needs and constraints are, and look at what is available and what will best suit your needs. There is no way to give a standard answer.
Hardly anyone doing professional work on a machine will overclock it. Generally it just makes your system unstable and prone to crashing and making murphey's law become a reality on your precious data. Overclocking IMHO is more for gamers that want to take out as much juice as possible from their processors, and even so, it won't make that much of a difference. Generally its just for bragging rights.
If I'm not mistaken, the first service that google launched that was able to help you keep track of your friends was Orkut. Orkut has been hugely successfull here in Brazil. So much so, to the point where a lot of people have closed their accounts because of security concerns.
I remember reading a cartoon one of these days where basically before a job interview, the interviewer starts to mention all this "nasty" stuff about the interviewee because he checked the interviewee's Orkut and found all the groups where he belongs to, etc. I've also heard about people getting dumped because of Orkut. Many people have already closed their accounts because of this. If you are evil, you can find out A LOT about the person's life and do them harm.
Obviously dodgeball does not fall into this category, but it makes me think about all the services Google has planned. Obviously that overall they do more good than harm, but I can't help but think that some of this will be abused and used by organized crime, identity theft etc.
Think about it.
Orkut
Google maps
Dodgeball
Now mix those three together. I wonder how far Google will go in integrating these services, and how much care they will take in preventing abuse. We'll just have to wait and see.
Its obvious these laptops would be intended as desktop replacements.
Think about it, in the PC world of today people:
don't have much space
want a computer they can move arround not just in their homes
want a computer that doesn't have 1000 cables connected to it
want an elegant and compact design (none of those plastic mod cases with ugly neon all over)
want a large screen
A laptop with a 19" would fit perfectly here. Remember, Dell isn't where it is because its dumb. It does its research, and if its coming up with a 19" laptop, its because there is a market for it. Don't be fooled, airplane junkies won't be using this kind of laptop, they'll want something ultra compact with a long battery life.
Lucas should have stuck to what he was good at: having a fertile imagination, having the knack of transferring the detailed worlds he created to the big screen and being a very successfull business man in terms of negotiating with the big studios merchandising rights and so on.
Unfortunately he made the huge mistake of trying to be director again, instead of just a producer. IMHO, the best Star Wars movies where episodes V and VI, both of which he didn't direct.
Maybe he could come up with something totally new and awe inspiring with SOME story this time. Gone are the days where eye candy was enough to make a great hit.
... exactly. Google is very careful about the way it develops its business model because IMHO they know that to a great extent, their success has been achieved by its concentrated effort to make the search experience as efficient as possible for people. This means getting relevant results always, and in a very fast way.
Google didn't have Windows to levarage its products. Microsoft has that, so perhaps it can afford to be a lot more aggressive and capitalistic about it. Perhaps one day Google will change and do similar things when their platforms are more widespread (gmail, etc). I just don't see this Microsoft tactic of manipulating results as something that would work in the search industry.
... and they still think they can beat Google to the game. When are they going to realize that what made Google so successfull was the fact that is has been so unbiased in all ways imaginable, including not accepting payments to get higher rankings.
Google makes money by prioritising quality. Microsoft makes money by prioritising money.
Go figure.
Don't underestimate a company as big as Dell
on
Dell Still Intel Only
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
One thing you can all bet on. Dell does its numbers. If it didn't, it wouldn't be where it is now.
In the end it ALWAYS comes down to numbers. Intel probably gives Dell quite a discount for having Dell's exclusivety. Most corporate customers don't mind the performance difference, since they will never get fired for buying Intel... on the contrary, in the corporate / server world, Intel has a great reputation.
The press fanfare generated by such announcements probably is beneficial to Dell. Remember, (almost) any publicity is good publicity. Everyone that read this thread now remembered Dell exists:)
Don't worry, one day they probably will conclude its more profitable to also sell AMD - probably when AMD manages to give them a nice discount too:)
The fact that is has taken Yahoo this long to play catch-up says a lot more than we may initially think. Many argue that the secret to Google's success is its highly adaptable and powerfull hardware architecture. They can increase their storage capacity very quickly just by adding more machines to its cluster. Yahoo has nowhere near the same adaptability as Google.
Interesting how this is the first post in this thread that tries to think out of the sandbox.
Seems everyone is arguing about whether its ethical or not to have students forcefully use a hand-in plagiarism-checking system.
In my opinion things are never as simple as they seem, and your post definately touched the REAL issue IMHO. Which is the issue of the way the current School System works.
Think about it, today's schools have been "Fordized" into these student assembly lines. You hardly ever see today teachers that really care about students and have a one on one learning relationship with them. Students are expected to think and behave as the curriculum expects them to, and does not accept any deviation from that. You never see 10-15 student classrooms anylonger.
Since when is ensuring that an essay is original proof that the student is on the right track and has learned the issue? Learning is so much more than just memorizing some book, or interpreting the issues in the expected way. Imagine for example the situation where a student has to write an essay about some historical event. What is wrong if the student does this work together with 2 or 3 other students, and uses other essays on the net as source material? as long as the student cites what he has used from the net there should be nothing wrong with it!
In my opinion the current school system is fundamentally flawed. The sooner it breaks, the sooner a new alternative will emerge.
No, the REAL issue is memory space. 32 bit just won't cut it anymore for large database servers and the like, regardless of the movement for clustering.
The thing is, in the desktop it will take longer for machines to require more than 4/8 GB of memory.
Very interesting to see this kind of statement off AMD. IMHO though 32-bit systems will never die. However, for those systems that require 32 bit operation, 32 bit emulation from 64 bit systems will suffice.
Processors are always just getting ridiculously fast, no point in developping in a realm doomed for obsolecense, if 64 bit systems are able to attend to it adequately.
Then again, there are processors for mobile phones and other mobile devices, that won't require a 64 bit processor so soon... but then again, I suppose AMD is not in that market.
Its hard to believe that even after books like 1986 and A Brave New World, people accept this kind of control.
Its because people accept this kind of control, and think its ok that we will face BigDaddydom in the future.
I believe in PREVENTATIVE medicine more than in CORRECTIVE medicine... and in the same way, belive that problems should be fought at their source, and not at the consequences.
E.g. Better educate people better, stimulate production to increase jobs, give away free tecnical education for the poor, than to build more jails, put more cops on the streets, etc.
I really don't understand why so many people get caught in this stupid discussion about what is better, MySQL or PostgreSQL.
It seems as though people live in a 2 dimensional world, a black and white world, where you only have one answer to a question.
MySQL has its advantages and disadvantages, just like any other RDBMS on the planet. It doesn't mean its CRAP or SUPER. It ALWAYS depends on what you are trying to do with it, the time you have on your hands to develop software that will use it, the number of records you will be holding, if you need transactions or not, if you need replication or not, if you need just SELECT speed on simple tables, or if you are developping a transaction-based e-commerce app.
There is a reason why Oracle is so popular There is a reason why MySQL is so popular There is a reason why PostgreSQL is so popular
My motto is: "Don't be a bigoted nerd! Always use the best tool for your specific project/job"
In some cases MySQL will be the best, in others it will be the worst.
In most cases people talk too much and read too little about what they are talking about.
(p.s. this is NOT a flaimbait... just a call for an end to all the nonsense!)
You can't expect us to take a dicussion about nuclear energy from 1975 seriously. There have been many advances in nuclear powerplant designs since then.
In your reply to my post, you neglect to notice three points
1) Chernobyl was a very OLD design, and as someone previously mentioned here, it would be like comparing a corsair with a saab. There are designs for nuclear powerplants that use the WASTE it produces to AGAIN produce more nuclear power from it, reducing the costs and hazards from the toxic waste
2) Nuclear power is expensive per megawatt compared with other power plant designs, however, it produces an AWEFULL lot of energy, more than any coal or natural gas power plant
3) It is not true that France uses nuclear because it can't use anything else. Even if it had small coal or natural gas reserves, it could buy those from other countries, etc. The main reason why they use it is because its non-polluting and produces a lot of power.
I understand that there are a lot of environmental activists that strongly oppose the use of nuclear energy, however I would very much like to know what their main arguments are.
It is true that Chernobyl was a humanitarian/environmental disaster of global proportions, however I feel that since that incident, nuclear power has been stereotyped as a devil energy souce.
First of all, Chernobyl was a very old (one of the first designs, if not the first "production" design) nuclear power plant of the soviet era. Today besides the stigma arround nuclear energy, many advances have been made to nuclear energy powerplants, and there are designs of powerplants today which produce reclyclable radioactive wastes.
Look at France. France produces, as far as I can remember (don't take my numbers for granted) 70% of its engery with nuclear power plants. Although their designs are much more modern than the Chernobyl design, they are not of the type that produce very little recyclable waste. I often feel that this is the case becasue research and development into nuclear energy power plants is avoided because of all the environmental PR hassle.
I would be very interested to hear from some Nuclear Physisists out here that could enlighten us a little further on nuclear power energy, and how safe it REALLY is. France doesn't have an energy problem, and I think this is largely due to its heavy use of nuclear power plants.
I can understand there must be a lot of pro-nuclear energy publicity coming out of the current Bush administration - since they probably feel that this is one of the ways to curb the energy problem in the US without creating too much polution from it.
Again, I would love to hear some hard facts from Nuclear Physisists about the dangers and advantages of the current or potential nuclear power plant designs.
This is not meant as a flaimbait, however, I'm quit sick of this kind of attitude about Microsoft. Its always microsoft sucks this, microsoft sucks that... bla bla bla... its becoming harder and harder for me to read a lot of this and take it seriously.
Although most of us here dont' approve of Microsoft's business practices (and its true they can seem almost evil at times) you CANNOT forget OR deny that they DO make some good pieces of software and somtimes can do GOOD.
Although I'm sure sapdb is the most complete GPL RDBMS system, it will be very interesting to see how well it performs in comparisson to such database systems as mySQL and Postgress.
I for one, am mostly interested in RDBMS's for web applications - where often performance usually counts more than just functionality and perfect ANSI compliance.
Perhaps its a little too early, but are there any comparisson benchmarks out there yet?
Slashdot Mirror
Its amazing in my opinion how just about everything, not just natural resources like water, rivers, perhaps even air in the future, are just getting owned / regulared and "privatized". Meaning something that once was public and beloging to all for free - a God given right, gets just snatched by some egocentric insecure individuals that believe money is the only important thing on the planet.
:/
The Olympics is no exception. Its supposed to represent the unity of mankind through a sporting event. Now somebody has the "rights" to it. Its now just another business for milking the population of their hard earned money. A bill such as this should never be passed - its absurd.
Its only natural and expected that the companies that are investing in the games should get some sort of protection - but it should be intelligent protection, which, IMHO means one that protects not just those companies, but the public interest and the ideal of the Games. This is irresponsible of the Olympic Comittee and only serves to prove its demagocical abuse of the Olympic ideal.
My 2 cents anyway.
We run a very large website. We have a 1U dual Athlon MP box for administration and log processing, and a 2U dual Xeon box with a 6 disk RAID 10 solution for apache + mysql. Its a great solution to us because we run things in a data center co-lo where space is a premium. Both servers use off-the-shelf components and are easy to upgrade and maintain.
If we were running some scientific application and had our own location and good network connection (for example, a university), then I suppose a cluster of standard hardware components like how Google does it would be perfect. If you were doing the same CPU-intensive stuff, but at a co-lo facility, then perhaps a blade solution would be best... it really all depends - you have to look at what your main needs and constraints are, and look at what is available and what will best suit your needs. There is no way to give a standard answer.
Hardly anyone doing professional work on a machine will overclock it. Generally it just makes your system unstable and prone to crashing and making murphey's law become a reality on your precious data. Overclocking IMHO is more for gamers that want to take out as much juice as possible from their processors, and even so, it won't make that much of a difference. Generally its just for bragging rights.
I remember reading a cartoon one of these days where basically before a job interview, the interviewer starts to mention all this "nasty" stuff about the interviewee because he checked the interviewee's Orkut and found all the groups where he belongs to, etc. I've also heard about people getting dumped because of Orkut. Many people have already closed their accounts because of this. If you are evil, you can find out A LOT about the person's life and do them harm.
Obviously dodgeball does not fall into this category, but it makes me think about all the services Google has planned. Obviously that overall they do more good than harm, but I can't help but think that some of this will be abused and used by organized crime, identity theft etc.
Think about it.
Now mix those three together. I wonder how far Google will go in integrating these services, and how much care they will take in preventing abuse. We'll just have to wait and see.
Think about it, in the PC world of today people:
A laptop with a 19" would fit perfectly here. Remember, Dell isn't where it is because its dumb. It does its research, and if its coming up with a 19" laptop, its because there is a market for it. Don't be fooled, airplane junkies won't be using this kind of laptop, they'll want something ultra compact with a long battery life.
Lucas should have stuck to what he was good at: having a fertile imagination, having the knack of transferring the detailed worlds he created to the big screen and being a very successfull business man in terms of negotiating with the big studios merchandising rights and so on.
Unfortunately he made the huge mistake of trying to be director again, instead of just a producer. IMHO, the best Star Wars movies where episodes V and VI, both of which he didn't direct.
Maybe he could come up with something totally new and awe inspiring with SOME story this time. Gone are the days where eye candy was enough to make a great hit.
... exactly. Google is very careful about the way it develops its business model because IMHO they know that to a great extent, their success has been achieved by its concentrated effort to make the search experience as efficient as possible for people. This means getting relevant results always, and in a very fast way.
Google didn't have Windows to levarage its products. Microsoft has that, so perhaps it can afford to be a lot more aggressive and capitalistic about it. Perhaps one day Google will change and do similar things when their platforms are more widespread (gmail, etc). I just don't see this Microsoft tactic of manipulating results as something that would work in the search industry.
... and they still think they can beat Google to the game. When are they going to realize that what made Google so successfull was the fact that is has been so unbiased in all ways imaginable, including not accepting payments to get higher rankings.
Google makes money by prioritising quality. Microsoft makes money by prioritising money.
Go figure.
One thing you can all bet on. Dell does its numbers. If it didn't, it wouldn't be where it is now.
:)
:)
In the end it ALWAYS comes down to numbers. Intel probably gives Dell quite a discount for having Dell's exclusivety. Most corporate customers don't mind the performance difference, since they will never get fired for buying Intel... on the contrary, in the corporate / server world, Intel has a great reputation.
The press fanfare generated by such announcements probably is beneficial to Dell. Remember, (almost) any publicity is good publicity. Everyone that read this thread now remembered Dell exists
Don't worry, one day they probably will conclude its more profitable to also sell AMD - probably when AMD manages to give them a nice discount too
The fact that is has taken Yahoo this long to play catch-up says a lot more than we may initially think. Many argue that the secret to Google's success is its highly adaptable and powerfull hardware architecture. They can increase their storage capacity very quickly just by adding more machines to its cluster. Yahoo has nowhere near the same adaptability as Google.
Interesting how this is the first post in this thread that tries to think out of the sandbox.
Seems everyone is arguing about whether its ethical or not to have students forcefully use a hand-in plagiarism-checking system.
In my opinion things are never as simple as they seem, and your post definately touched the REAL issue IMHO. Which is the issue of the way the current School System works.
Think about it, today's schools have been "Fordized" into these student assembly lines. You hardly ever see today teachers that really care about students and have a one on one learning relationship with them. Students are expected to think and behave as the curriculum expects them to, and does not accept any deviation from that. You never see 10-15 student classrooms anylonger.
Since when is ensuring that an essay is original proof that the student is on the right track and has learned the issue? Learning is so much more than just memorizing some book, or interpreting the issues in the expected way. Imagine for example the situation where a student has to write an essay about some historical event. What is wrong if the student does this work together with 2 or 3 other students, and uses other essays on the net as source material? as long as the student cites what he has used from the net there should be nothing wrong with it!
In my opinion the current school system is fundamentally flawed. The sooner it breaks, the sooner a new alternative will emerge.
Anything to stop these parasites from smuggling our precious productivity.
:)
I say go for it. I mean, SOMEONE has to try something. I don't care HOW it gets done. JUST DO IT
I wonder when someone will patent thinking and breathing. Geez. When will the madness end?
No, the REAL issue is memory space. 32 bit just won't cut it anymore for large database servers and the like, regardless of the movement for clustering.
The thing is, in the desktop it will take longer for machines to require more than 4/8 GB of memory.
Very interesting to see this kind of statement off AMD. IMHO though 32-bit systems will never die. However, for those systems that require 32 bit operation, 32 bit emulation from 64 bit systems will suffice.
Processors are always just getting ridiculously fast, no point in developping in a realm doomed for obsolecense, if 64 bit systems are able to attend to it adequately.
Then again, there are processors for mobile phones and other mobile devices, that won't require a 64 bit processor so soon... but then again, I suppose AMD is not in that market.
Ummm. No.
Ever heard of mysqldump? It ALSO backs up InnoDB tables.
One thing is comparing a database system to another when you have used and tested them both extensively.
MySQL might "suck" transaction-wise, IF you use the default table manager - MyISAM. Try using InnoDB. Its a whole new ball game, as they say.
Supports row-level locking, and is fully ACID compliant.
Ummm. No.
MySQL is pronounced "My s queue elle", and not "My Sequel" as you suggested.
Its hard to believe that even after books like 1986 and A Brave New World, people accept this kind of control.
Its because people accept this kind of control, and think its ok that we will face BigDaddydom in the future.
I believe in PREVENTATIVE medicine more than in CORRECTIVE medicine... and in the same way, belive that problems should be fought at their source, and not at the consequences.
E.g. Better educate people better, stimulate production to increase jobs, give away free tecnical education for the poor, than to build more jails, put more cops on the streets, etc.
I really don't understand why so many people get caught in this stupid discussion about what is better, MySQL or PostgreSQL.
It seems as though people live in a 2 dimensional world, a black and white world, where you only have one answer to a question.
MySQL has its advantages and disadvantages, just like any other RDBMS on the planet. It doesn't mean its CRAP or SUPER. It ALWAYS depends on what you are trying to do with it, the time you have on your hands to develop software that will use it, the number of records you will be holding, if you need transactions or not, if you need replication or not, if you need just SELECT speed on simple tables, or if you are developping a transaction-based e-commerce app.
There is a reason why Oracle is so popular
There is a reason why MySQL is so popular
There is a reason why PostgreSQL is so popular
My motto is: "Don't be a bigoted nerd! Always use the best tool for your specific project/job"
In some cases MySQL will be the best, in others it will be the worst.
In most cases people talk too much and read too little about what they are talking about.
(p.s. this is NOT a flaimbait... just a call for an end to all the nonsense!)
You can't expect us to take a dicussion about nuclear energy from 1975 seriously. There have been many advances in nuclear powerplant designs since then.
In your reply to my post, you neglect to notice three points 1) Chernobyl was a very OLD design, and as someone previously mentioned here, it would be like comparing a corsair with a saab. There are designs for nuclear powerplants that use the WASTE it produces to AGAIN produce more nuclear power from it, reducing the costs and hazards from the toxic waste 2) Nuclear power is expensive per megawatt compared with other power plant designs, however, it produces an AWEFULL lot of energy, more than any coal or natural gas power plant 3) It is not true that France uses nuclear because it can't use anything else. Even if it had small coal or natural gas reserves, it could buy those from other countries, etc. The main reason why they use it is because its non-polluting and produces a lot of power.
I understand that there are a lot of environmental activists that strongly oppose the use of nuclear energy, however I would very much like to know what their main arguments are.
It is true that Chernobyl was a humanitarian/environmental disaster of global proportions, however I feel that since that incident, nuclear power has been stereotyped as a devil energy souce.
First of all, Chernobyl was a very old (one of the first designs, if not the first "production" design) nuclear power plant of the soviet era. Today besides the stigma arround nuclear energy, many advances have been made to nuclear energy powerplants, and there are designs of powerplants today which produce reclyclable radioactive wastes.
Look at France. France produces, as far as I can remember (don't take my numbers for granted) 70% of its engery with nuclear power plants. Although their designs are much more modern than the Chernobyl design, they are not of the type that produce very little recyclable waste. I often feel that this is the case becasue research and development into nuclear energy power plants is avoided because of all the environmental PR hassle.
I would be very interested to hear from some Nuclear Physisists out here that could enlighten us a little further on nuclear power energy, and how safe it REALLY is. France doesn't have an energy problem, and I think this is largely due to its heavy use of nuclear power plants.
I can understand there must be a lot of pro-nuclear energy publicity coming out of the current Bush administration - since they probably feel that this is one of the ways to curb the energy problem in the US without creating too much polution from it.
Again, I would love to hear some hard facts from Nuclear Physisists about the dangers and advantages of the current or potential nuclear power plant designs.
This is not meant as a flaimbait, however, I'm quit sick of this kind of attitude about Microsoft. Its always microsoft sucks this, microsoft sucks that... bla bla bla... its becoming harder and harder for me to read a lot of this and take it seriously.
Although most of us here dont' approve of Microsoft's business practices (and its true they can seem almost evil at times) you CANNOT forget OR deny that they DO make some good pieces of software and somtimes can do GOOD.
So pretty please, with sugar on time, get a grip!
Although I'm sure sapdb is the most complete GPL RDBMS system, it will be very interesting to see how well it performs in comparisson to such database systems as mySQL and Postgress.
I for one, am mostly interested in RDBMS's for web applications - where often performance usually counts more than just functionality and perfect ANSI compliance.
Perhaps its a little too early, but are there any comparisson benchmarks out there yet?