The situation in most European countries is that the phone companies provide really cool offers to get new subscribers.
This of course makes some sense, considering the stock market valuation per subscriber for the mobile phone companies. (Look at what Telekom paid for VoiceStream).
This is actually nice, since I got an incredibly cool Nokia 8210 for a mere 180 bucks (plus 80 $ subscription charges). The phone at that time went for 600 - 700$.
Not only the phones are subsidized, but also the merchants get some 350$ per new contract they sell.
This is a real dilemma for the service providers, because if one of them lowers commissions or subsidies on the phones, the others are more then happy to pick up the slack.
The only thing that really changed is that the minmum subscription duration went from 6 - to 12 month. This might vary in other countries.
like MCI World Com who wouldn't load a calling card with 10$ charged to my Swiss credit card.
In Australia some gung-how cowboy phone company can do that without pain and repeatedly.
AT&T can automatically route a call by punching in your European (!) CC number. I assume that they can't verify it on-line but they rather lose 10$ then seriously piss off a customer.
Oh, and piss off customer, that's precisely what they did. I manage a small but growing company. We will have growing network and telecommunications needs in years to come. MCI is heavily trying to get its feet into the European market.
Guess what I tell a sales representative of a billion $ company trying to sell crucial services when they can't even verify a 10$ transaction on a valid credit card...
Well, after having worked for four years + for Sybase Professional Services I consider my support for 11.0.3.3 under Linux better then what 98% of the customers get with supported versions.
Despite being phased out it's still a great industry strength database engine and if you don't really run heaviest load OLTP systems (and the official support is an issue of course), I don't really see a need to upgrade.
Despite Sybase' motivation I think they're doing a lot of good for the Linux community (e.g. release of Replication Server) and they deserve more credit for technically great products then their rotten marketing department would make you believe...
I glanced over the article and it sure has valid points. Like specifically each database has it's weak points and it's strength and that benchmarks can and will be ultimatelively unfair.
Nothing new here.
I worked for over 4 years for a major database vendor (the competition would deny that) and the amount of dirt throwing and mud slinging going on in this area is unbelievable. The then major competitor (Oracle, powering the Internet - or so they claim) explicitely prohibits benchmarks by end users (customers) in their EULA (so I was told on/.) now go figure...
What's my point ? Very simple, let's be very careful when it comes to whack each other in the Open Source community in terms of Gnome is better then KDE, Postgres is better then MySQL or even SuSE is better then Red hat all of the above applies vice versa of course.
Hey, maybe I watched too much Casablanca and believe in ethics, honesty and not whining und trashing others that do a good job, but - yeah - I think it's important to respect each other or even join forces.
First for the sanity check: Of course the original question was if it's capabale of running on Linux/Intel. I've managed telco billing systems which are rather active and rather large by defintion on HP/UX 10.20 that worked just fine. So, yeah: The question is Linux of course.
Getting in another RDBMS is certainly not an option. It's a full, worldwide distributed Sybase shop with a lot of Replication going between the sites (this database would be not within the scope of a distributed system). Even the dump / load incomptibility between HP/UX and Linux (tested) might be the show stopper.
The 2 Gb file limit is not an issue with Sybase. The storage architecture is so, that you create devices (which reside on files or raw partitions). A database can theoretically span 253 such devices (2 are reseved for system databases). So file size is not an issue.
Lastly, there's so much exteremely interesting stuff to draw on and I want to thank everybody who contributed. The gist for me is not to advise to do it, since the headaches just don't seem to be worth the hassle (especially from a manageability POV).
I still think that Sybase on Linux is very viably (we implemented a few test DBs) for smaller scale databases and for non-mission critical data. Initial tests have not identified significant glitches and the whole HP/UX support environment can be used almost 1:1 (provided ksh is used)
How can you actually sit there and claim that China has the right idea when it comes to society? Easily.
Ah, would you mind elaborating on that. Do you mean it's the right idea to roll with tanks over oponents or let people rot in jail for having a different opinion ?
You know what the difference between the US government and the Chinese government is? The Chinese government is straight up about it.
So where the Nazis. However my ancestors on the fathers side (most of them Polish and all of them Jews) with the very exception of my father and a cousin of his got killed in concentration camps. I don't think that they appreciated the German governments being straight up.
Have you read the New York Times editorial page recently? Those works of fiction make the editorials in the China Daily seem like goddamn encyclopedia entries.
Yeah right! Thatswhy it's the EDITORIAL page. Just for starters: An editorial is actually BIASED and has everey right to be. Now if the editors bias (or even worse, the publishers -) sneeks into the contents part of a paper then there's a serious problem. But you're welcome to go back to read USA Today or the National Enquirer where the bias in editorials is certainly the least of your worries.
You know why I'm not worried about this? I'm not an idiot, and I'm not going to do anything stupid. That easy. Only the stupid and the foolish get busted. Anyone intelligent and clever will be doing the busting himself soon enough.
This statement makes you sou sound like the ideal candidate for the Secret Police...
as much I like most of the stuff put up on/. (especially Jon Katz' essays) this is a non-story and certainly doesn't deserve the server space.
Why Zapp, you may ask. OK, here's why:
What the heck did anybody expect ? That the evil empire just goes away after the verdict, pouting ? Hell no! of course their spin doctors start their spinning using every feasible and non-feasible tool. So what ?
Further, putting up this story has such a predictable effect. (Nja, nja, grassroots blah blah, bloody liars, etc).
GROW UP !
Now, I say that from a perspective of a database consultant disliking M$ desperately. I hate the perception they imply on Average Joe User how software oughta be. I think that from a perspective of an ex-employee from a company that M$ (literally) nearly killed with their business tactics and I strongly feel that as a computer professional that really dislikes just about everything about M$ and their software.
Nevertheless, this story is so much fuel in the fire of all those pointing out why the free software community applies real bad advodacy for their cause.
Thanks Cowerd, for this enlightening, albeit frightening report.
I knew about Roundup Ready, but not about the terminator gene. Thrills the hell out of me.
Some insight into Monsantos tactics to deal with everything remotely threatening their balance sheet is described in this report by the Environmental News Service.
I'm sure that that's no news to you, but maybe some of you other corporate drones cares for a click ?
I just came up with the absolutely perfect encryption scheme for "content" of all sorts:
A one way hash, sort of like a unix password which can never be actually decrypted! Let's call it CRAPto(tm, etc) Bear with me:
CD's, DVDs, tapes and any other content is produced by using the CRAPto(tm) encryption scheme in a secure environment. This of course applies to all prints of a film shipped to movie theatres worldwide. Since it can't be read by any player at all, piracy is impossible.
Then the master tapes, the negatives, the source code of closed source software is also mangled through CRAPto(tm). This ensures that not even company insiders in high positions can aid to copyright violation and piracy.
Then all directors, producers, musicians, authors and closed source software writers are also processed through the CRAPto(tm) scramble. So there's nobody anymore, who can actually produce content which, ergo, can't be pirated.
TV signals may only be disseminated CRAPto(tm)ed. And presto: The end of piracy.
I think, for a nominal service charge, I'll license it to the RIAA, the MPIA and the BSA
Yeah, but you know, privacy laws hurt the economy and impact the right of major businesses to make money and infringe on free speech and if you have nothing to hide why do you need privacy laws in the first place and lahdidadida...
On second thoughts I'm damn glad to live in a country where laws value the right of an individual higher, then the one of corporate greed freaks to get bigger and richer by violating my privacy.
I think the song (or the punchline) refers to some Loonie, approaching Dan Rather (not absolutely certain, but it was a famous news anchor), asking him "What's the frequency Keneth ?" and smacking him in his face.
Now, when Milos Forman just makes a movie with the approppriate title, this fact will be much better known:>
Compression is (and imo) will remain very important. Two reasons:
Assuming that everybody has a dedicated T1 trunc or even a DSL is a tad arrogant. Probably > 90% of the worldwide internet users still run on modems (56k, if lucky).
Even having a couple dozen gigs of disk space, I'd aprreciate if it's not sucked up by uncompressed 2million pixels, 24 bit images.
I totally second that, albeit you didn't mention that the technical info is layed out in a way that it's understandable by folks who don't happen to be kick-ass graphics - or web page designer.
Actually it's not so much popup adds (I rarely stumble over them), but the emerging trend of banner ads appearing like a genuine link that severely pisses me off.
In countless tough and tearful sessions with my sweetie she finally grasped the concept of hyperlinking.
Now those stupid $%#@&%!@$ introduce adds that look like legitimate links which is really, really annoying if you try to teach the virtues of the net to somebody who doesn't really care for computers.
Those advertisers should all be punished with a lifetime AOL subscription on a 2400 baud modem.
I was referring to high unemployment rates which prevail across all of Europe even though the economies are so different. That high unemployment is directly due to higher government intervention in the economy than in the US. Nobody with half a brain would argue that point.
Well, I could argue that the most regulated economies (let's take the German Democratic Republic) had an unemployment rate of nil. Granted, that the five year plan concept didn't really provide for a successful economy.
Still, my point stands: You make an absolute statement which is unfunded. Example: People eating baby food turn into convicts. Proof ? 98% of all convicts ate baby food.
On a more serious level there's the argument of the zero tolerance crowd, that smoking marijuana leads to heroin. True, a lot of junkies did smoke marijuana before turning to the needle. But even more smoked cigarettes or drank booze. Or ate baby food for that matter.
Privacy regulations lead to a smaller economy. Companies are willing to pay for information about consumers because it has economic value. Banning these transactions slows the economy down.
You might be right here. But, who profits from that economic value ? Is it for the common good or is it to stuff the pockets of those that already have ? Mind you, I don't believe in the concept of a socialized economy. But there's a trade off between corporate interests and the rights of an individual. If in doubt I vouch for the individual.
But you are stupid if you say that what I say is not true, and you did, so that makes you... yes, you guessed it, stupid.
What I say, is that you're throwing around figures on a completely unfunded basis (sheesh: 1000 times more robust...). See, I'd argue the same point with Europeans that tell me that Americans are fat, undereducated stupid fucks from the mid-west that dress badly. There are fat, undereducated stupid fucks from the mid-west in America, possibly a lot of them. But all my American friends (and there are quite a few) are quite insightful, cultivated and intelligent people, who dress smart and enjoy fine wines and food. What I do resent is brushing something, anything with a broad brush especially if it's based on totally unfunded data...
The fact that a program has been developed using that process should in theory mean that it is bug free.
Nope, ISO 9000 doesn't guarantee that software is bug free (it's ISO 9002 for software, I believe).
ISO 9000 specifies a formal approach in terms of a documented, reproducible process. How you define this process is up to you. An independent audit just verifies that you follow your own specs and that your specs are ISO 9000 compliant. It does not verify if your processes actually produce good software or services.
As an example (my ex-employer went through this crap) we had documented rules that mandated the documentation to be provided for a project, responsibilities, follow-up, repository, etc...
The irony is that you can very well define that we, pointy haired acme soft produce software which is so crappy that the customer is forced to upgrade because it doesn't really work. To achieve that we have such and such testing cycles. If those tests don't fail the software must go back to development and be broken in 24 hours
In terms of ISO 9000 this is a completely valid procedure and perfectly certifiable. As long you document it and follow the procedure.
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This of course makes some sense, considering the stock market valuation per subscriber for the mobile phone companies. (Look at what Telekom paid for VoiceStream).
This is actually nice, since I got an incredibly cool Nokia 8210 for a mere 180 bucks (plus 80 $ subscription charges). The phone at that time went for 600 - 700$.
Not only the phones are subsidized, but also the merchants get some 350$ per new contract they sell.
This is a real dilemma for the service providers, because if one of them lowers commissions or subsidies on the phones, the others are more then happy to pick up the slack.
The only thing that really changed is that the minmum subscription duration went from 6 - to 12 month. This might vary in other countries.
Ain't competition great ?
like MCI World Com who wouldn't load a calling card with 10$ charged to my Swiss credit card.
In Australia some gung-how cowboy phone company can do that without pain and repeatedly.
AT&T can automatically route a call by punching in your European (!) CC number. I assume that they can't verify it on-line but they rather lose 10$ then seriously piss off a customer.
Oh, and piss off customer, that's precisely what they did. I manage a small but growing company. We will have growing network and telecommunications needs in years to come. MCI is heavily trying to get its feet into the European market.
Guess what I tell a sales representative of a billion $ company trying to sell crucial services when they can't even verify a 10$ transaction on a valid credit card...
Despite being phased out it's still a great industry strength database engine and if you don't really run heaviest load OLTP systems (and the official support is an issue of course), I don't really see a need to upgrade.
Despite Sybase' motivation I think they're doing a lot of good for the Linux community (e.g. release of Replication Server) and they deserve more credit for technically great products then their rotten marketing department would make you believe...
I glanced over the article and it sure has valid points. Like specifically each database has it's weak points and it's strength and that benchmarks can and will be ultimatelively unfair.
Nothing new here.
I worked for over 4 years for a major database vendor (the competition would deny that) and the amount of dirt throwing and mud slinging going on in this area is unbelievable. The then major competitor (Oracle, powering the Internet - or so they claim) explicitely prohibits benchmarks by end users (customers) in their EULA (so I was told on /.) now go figure...
What's my point ? Very simple, let's be very careful when it comes to whack each other in the Open Source community in terms of Gnome is better then KDE, Postgres is better then MySQL or even SuSE is better then Red hat all of the above applies vice versa of course.
Hey, maybe I watched too much Casablanca and believe in ethics, honesty and not whining und trashing others that do a good job, but - yeah - I think it's important to respect each other or even join forces.
Yes, and this is illegal as hell in most countries.
One of the big issues about Napster is that it's specifically for trading MP3s. This is not the case with Gnutella.
Their only recourse - if they don't want to engage in criminal activity - is to sue every single user who swaps copyrighted material.
Even if they appear to be a darn litigation friendly lot, this is not likely to happen.
I tend to agree with a lot of the points he makes.
Getting in another RDBMS is certainly not an option. It's a full, worldwide distributed Sybase shop with a lot of Replication going between the sites (this database would be not within the scope of a distributed system). Even the dump / load incomptibility between HP/UX and Linux (tested) might be the show stopper.
The 2 Gb file limit is not an issue with Sybase. The storage architecture is so, that you create devices (which reside on files or raw partitions). A database can theoretically span 253 such devices (2 are reseved for system databases). So file size is not an issue.
Lastly, there's so much exteremely interesting stuff to draw on and I want to thank everybody who contributed. The gist for me is not to advise to do it, since the headaches just don't seem to be worth the hassle (especially from a manageability POV).
I still think that Sybase on Linux is very viably (we implemented a few test DBs) for smaller scale databases and for non-mission critical data. Initial tests have not identified significant glitches and the whole HP/UX support environment can be used almost 1:1 (provided ksh is used)
But what did you actually want to say with this article ? That genetical engineering is bad, bad, bad ?
That it will be abused by greedy corporations and evil individuals ? That we actually dive into a technology whose consequences cannot be handled ?Guess what, I agree with you on all counts. But this is a fairly lame repeat of (albeit important) issues you brought up in earlier features.
Actually the only real information value is that we all know now who Dr. Hunkapiller is.
The problem with binary drivers is that they are glued to a kernel version. So if you need to compile a new kernel: tough shit.
A fourfold increase acording to this article .
You know what the difference between the US government and the Chinese government is? The Chinese government is straight up about it.
So where the Nazis. However my ancestors on the fathers side (most of them Polish and all of them Jews) with the very exception of my father and a cousin of his got killed in concentration camps. I don't think that they appreciated the German governments being straight up.Have you read the New York Times editorial page recently? Those works of fiction make the editorials in the China Daily seem like goddamn encyclopedia entries.
Yeah right! Thatswhy it's the EDITORIAL page. Just for starters: An editorial is actually BIASED and has everey right to be. Now if the editors bias (or even worse, the publishers -) sneeks into the contents part of a paper then there's a serious problem. But you're welcome to go back to read USA Today or the National Enquirer where the bias in editorials is certainly the least of your worries.You know why I'm not worried about this? I'm not an idiot, and I'm not going to do anything stupid. That easy. Only the stupid and the foolish get busted. Anyone intelligent and clever will be doing the busting himself soon enough.
This statement makes you sou sound like the ideal candidate for the Secret Police...as much I like most of the stuff put up on /. (especially Jon Katz' essays) this is a non-story and certainly doesn't deserve the server space.
Why Zapp, you may ask. OK, here's why:
What the heck did anybody expect ? That the evil empire just goes away after the verdict, pouting ? Hell no! of course their spin doctors start their spinning using every feasible and non-feasible tool. So what ?
Further, putting up this story has such a predictable effect. (Nja, nja, grassroots blah blah, bloody liars, etc).
GROW UP !
Now, I say that from a perspective of a database consultant disliking M$ desperately. I hate the perception they imply on Average Joe User how software oughta be. I think that from a perspective of an ex-employee from a company that M$ (literally) nearly killed with their business tactics and I strongly feel that as a computer professional that really dislikes just about everything about M$ and their software.
Nevertheless, this story is so much fuel in the fire of all those pointing out why the free software community applies real bad advodacy for their cause.
I knew about Roundup Ready, but not about the terminator gene. Thrills the hell out of me.
Some insight into Monsantos tactics to deal with everything remotely threatening their balance sheet is described in this report by the Environmental News Service.
I'm sure that that's no news to you, but maybe some of you other corporate drones cares for a click ?
You could use Sybase Adaptive Server on either, but running Apache (for the sake of the same environment) on both would be a tad unfair.
In either case it's prolly virtually impossible to set up a meaningful comaprison.
But then, benchmarks are never set up for meaningful comparisons but because they look good on marketing brochures.
A one way hash, sort of like a unix password which can never be actually decrypted! Let's call it CRAPto(tm, etc) Bear with me:
CD's, DVDs, tapes and any other content is produced by using the CRAPto(tm) encryption scheme in a secure environment. This of course applies to all prints of a film shipped to movie theatres worldwide. Since it can't be read by any player at all, piracy is impossible.
Then the master tapes, the negatives, the source code of closed source software is also mangled through CRAPto(tm). This ensures that not even company insiders in high positions can aid to copyright violation and piracy.
Then all directors, producers, musicians, authors and closed source software writers are also processed through the CRAPto(tm) scramble. So there's nobody anymore, who can actually produce content which, ergo, can't be pirated.
TV signals may only be disseminated CRAPto(tm)ed. And presto: The end of piracy.
I think, for a nominal service charge, I'll license it to the RIAA, the MPIA and the BSA
Ho!ho!
On second thoughts I'm damn glad to live in a country where laws value the right of an individual higher, then the one of corporate greed freaks to get bigger and richer by violating my privacy.
Damn! It's unbelievable: The things you can learn on /. :>
I think the song (or the punchline) refers to some Loonie, approaching Dan Rather (not absolutely certain, but it was a famous news anchor), asking him "What's the frequency Keneth ?" and smacking him in his face.
Now, when Milos Forman just makes a movie with the approppriate title, this fact will be much better known :>
Assuming that everybody has a dedicated T1 trunc or even a DSL is a tad arrogant. Probably > 90% of the worldwide internet users still run on modems (56k, if lucky).
Even having a couple dozen gigs of disk space, I'd aprreciate if it's not sucked up by uncompressed 2million pixels, 24 bit images.
Thank you for your attention
Yeah, thank's very much indeed...
In countless tough and tearful sessions with my sweetie she finally grasped the concept of hyperlinking.
Now those stupid $%#@&%!@$ introduce adds that look like legitimate links which is really, really annoying if you try to teach the virtues of the net to somebody who doesn't really care for computers.
Those advertisers should all be punished with a lifetime AOL subscription on a 2400 baud modem.
Well, I could argue that the most regulated economies (let's take the German Democratic Republic) had an unemployment rate of nil. Granted, that the five year plan concept didn't really provide for a successful economy.
Still, my point stands: You make an absolute statement which is unfunded. Example: People eating baby food turn into convicts. Proof ? 98% of all convicts ate baby food. On a more serious level there's the argument of the zero tolerance crowd, that smoking marijuana leads to heroin. True, a lot of junkies did smoke marijuana before turning to the needle. But even more smoked cigarettes or drank booze. Or ate baby food for that matter.Privacy regulations lead to a smaller economy. Companies are willing to pay for information about consumers because it has economic value. Banning these transactions slows the economy down.
You might be right here. But, who profits from that economic value ? Is it for the common good or is it to stuff the pockets of those that already have ? Mind you, I don't believe in the concept of a socialized economy. But there's a trade off between corporate interests and the rights of an individual. If in doubt I vouch for the individual.
But you are stupid if you say that what I say is not true, and you did, so that makes you ... yes, you guessed it, stupid.
What I say, is that you're throwing around figures on a completely unfunded basis (sheesh: 1000 times more robust...). See, I'd argue the same point with Europeans that tell me that Americans are fat, undereducated stupid fucks from the mid-west that dress badly. There are fat, undereducated stupid fucks from the mid-west in America, possibly a lot of them. But all my American friends (and there are quite a few) are quite insightful, cultivated and intelligent people, who dress smart and enjoy fine wines and food. What I do resent is brushing something, anything with a broad brush especially if it's based on totally unfunded data...
Thatswhy they act so embarrassed. Sort of like the kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar...
Doesn't mean that they didn't act like a bunch of clueless jerks in the first place.
Nope, ISO 9000 doesn't guarantee that software is bug free (it's ISO 9002 for software, I believe).
ISO 9000 specifies a formal approach in terms of a documented, reproducible process. How you define this process is up to you. An independent audit just verifies that you follow your own specs and that your specs are ISO 9000 compliant. It does not verify if your processes actually produce good software or services.
As an example (my ex-employer went through this crap) we had documented rules that mandated the documentation to be provided for a project, responsibilities, follow-up, repository, etc...
The irony is that you can very well define that we, pointy haired acme soft produce software which is so crappy that the customer is forced to upgrade because it doesn't really work. To achieve that we have such and such testing cycles. If those tests don't fail the software must go back to development and be broken in 24 hours
In terms of ISO 9000 this is a completely valid procedure and perfectly certifiable. As long you document it and follow the procedure.