I really liked the slow sales bit on the Palm 3c. What I really love about the palm is it's simplicity and the paradigm that it doesn't do a helluva lot of things, but what it does it does right.
As an independant consultant I track my hours on that Palm and I'd just hate to see $ 10k flushed down the drain for the ability to watch Mpeg videos, listen to Metallica songs or, for that mather, have some thousand colors on my PDA.
Of course, you're completely right here. But shouldn't we be using the GIMP to alter numbers on credit card photos that we send to stoopid buzinesses ? I mean this is/. after all..
Re:Visa and MC already have started fixing this
on
A Matter Of Trust?
·
· Score: 1
the big clunky things that make the "kachunka" sound
Have we been reading Don Martin 'til late at night, again ?
It's me. Just let me put down those HUGE Samsonite suitcases before I make you an offer which you can't resist. See this sleek watch. It does EVERYTHING you indicate, plus it has a few goodies. In addition to all your requirements. It has a navigation system (GPS) which shows you detailled and accurate maps for EVERY place in the world. Further you can beam your favorite (downloaded) movies to a screen size of 4000 ft. (6 channel, dolby stereo THX etc...) Oh, did I mention that it sends your faxes in color and automatically calls your mother on her birthday ? It's a prototype though, and not cheap, 50'000 bucks. OK, we have a deal ? Here's the watch (Sound of walking feet...) (Me, lifting the HUGE samsonites) : HEY! DONT FORGET THE BATTERIES...
Most European countries are _very_ sensitive to anything related to this extremely black chapter in European (world) history.
Seing this decision in this historical context I can understand how a court gets to such a decision.
Per se I do not believe that it's wrong to set up laws that limit free speech when such free speech is blattantly infringin on rights of other individuals. It is however difficult to draw the line. Is satire violating such laws ? That's probably very much dependent on the interpretation of the receiver.
Now for the decision as such. I do not agree that Yahoo has an obligation to block parts of it's service to selected countries.
If it is illegal to access such information (with which I can agree to some extent) then a country should go after it's citizens accessing such information or against a seller (or the buyer) ordering or shipping verboten items.
Do you have the right to "correct" data that isn't wrong?
Yes you do.
Of course there's always the problem that there's no such thing like a guarantee that you really get all your data presented
Re. Government: It's a tad dependent on the country, but at least here (Switzerland) inter-government data acccess is restricted. This means that the cops can't just look up the data that the unemployment office stores of you.
However, I'm certainly not that naive to believe that shit doesn't happen. But at least the law restricts the amount of shit that can be flushed down the pipe by data collectors.
Sheesh, sounds like quite a panel (even if those folks backgrounds might be pulled out of context).
I'm aware the Americans are very weary about regulations of all sorts, especially when it's the govinmint (or one of their designated agencies) regulationg.
What I don't quite get is what's so bet to set up privacy laws that are simple and streight forward. Basically they dictate that:
There must be a reason to collect data. This can have quite far reaching consequences. I.e. if an employer asks on an application about religion, sexual preferences or your dope smoking habits, this is verboten. Because this data is not relevant to the application
Data can't be past to third party without explicit consent of the err! victim. Some 235 page click through agreement with a well hidden check box is not considered explicit consent.
Every person has a right to get information what data is stored about her/him and has a right to correct wrong data.
Data may not be collected indiscrimnately
etc...
Personally I'm rather regulated by a govinmint that puts my interests as an individual before those of big business entities, then by some strange privacy advocacy panels set up by corporations whose business model is to violate my privacy. But of course your mileage may vary.
The free beer software movement must be stopped at once. It is dangerous and it's to all our disadvantage. Here are the reasons why:
This stuff usually comes in tarballs . I mean listen to how this sounds. Can beer that comes in a tarball be useful? Just compare those neat packages and the outstanding documentation that you get with expensive beer. Not to mention that nice silver disk.
Mr Stallman admits he's a communist. At least some of hist statements bear ideas of freedom and community. This is bad for big corporations. Mr. Raymond is probably also a communist, albeit a more articulate one.
Free beer software is distributed with source code. I mean shheeesh, get real! This stuff is grammatically so bad and the authors use far too many semicolons.
Think about how bad free beer software is for Corporate America. Do you really believe that the nice Intel company can crank out new, probably error prone, but at least expensive CPUs every three month when the expensive beer software is not able to distribute it's bloatware?
So people, Grow up! Give all your money to Mr. Gates and Mr. Ellison. Those are the people that make America the greatest place in the world.
"My cellphone company could tell me I have family in Scarborough"
It's actually a lot worse then that:
Provided that you have your phone switched on, your provider can actually map the physical location of the phone within a couple of miles.
GSM phones are always connected to a physical cell. When the cell changes this data is (must be) recorded by the system.
A paper investigated what's happening with this data and caught our local crap carrier storing it for six month. They argued that this is required for the billing (ho!ho!)
Scary ? Maybe. It doesn't make me stick my phone under the next plane to Albania, though...
"despite the fact they've not got their address. "
A reverse directory lookup shouldn't really be that hard for a phone company.
Re:Same old rant over and over again
on
Why Not MySQL?
·
· Score: 1
Sorry, but you're definitely wrong here.
The reason to use an industry strength database (be it Oracle, Sybase, Informix or whatever) is PRECISELY the rollback (or better recovery) capability.
When you yank the power chord from your U/X box, the server must guarantee full recoverability of the data adhering to the laws of online transaction processing. Provided that the database is set up correctly (alas I/O is handled via raw devices and not via the U/X I/O system, which is usually buffered).
What does this mean ?
A transaction must be atomic. That means that all subtasks dictated by the business rules must be completed either in full or not at all.
Consistency is another vital point. That means that a database server must guarantee that the database is transformed from one logical correct state to another. E.g. You can't allow that a customer is deleted while his deals are still stored on the database.
Isolation means that while a transaction is processed the data must be not accessible to outside entities. There are clearly defined exceptions. But in general this holds true.
The final rule is durability. When the status change according to the first two rules is processed. It's carved in stone.
Recoverability means that if you yank that chord that either all 4 rules are adhered to, or else that the database is reset to its status before any parts where processed. It doesn't mean that running transactions are preserved.
You are right that no system can be 100% watertight, Disks fail, IT centers burn down, or a dumb ass operator drops his Coke (the drink that is) into the air shafts of the box.
Provisions for that are redundant boxes (or data centers) and of course physical backups. In fact, very critical systems are built within atomic bomb shelters and are usually set up redundant in different locations. Still, there's no 100% guarantee.
Does that make MySQL a crappy product ? Of course not. But it does make it a product that is not applicable for mission critical data processing.
That would have probably been sort of funny. Albeit only then when you're anyway on the lookout for a new job.
That said, from a system managements perspective it would be an extremely unethical thing to essentially shut down the entire company based on a braindead memo from however has the corner office.
The solution ? I don't really know. But I'd probably work around it one way or another. Personally I'd invest tons of time into a comprehensive e-mail to however it might concern with the bottomline of the consequences.
If that's not feasible, well you can always go for a different job. In my case (not open source per se, but management stupidity far beyond comprehension) I went for my own company.
The evil empire certainly improved the interface and manageability of SQL Server. The database engine and the underlying architecture are still very much the same.
Sybase had a huge problem when they rushed System 10 to the market. It was buggy up to the point of unusable initially and not very scaleable. System XI is an excellent product. Very stable, quite scaleable and blazing fast.
I worked for a huge financial project that uses Sybase and benchmarked nine million transactions (each constituting ~ 8 TPC/C transactions) per day. Very stable, very reliable and very maintainable.
Where Sybase really kicks ass is when it comes to distributed data architectures. Name one product that is comparable to Sybase Replication Server. Granted that it has a steep learning curve and it' s far from easy to maintain it's unbelievable flexible and powerfull.
I agree that the DB management is far from sexy, in fact everything I've seen in terms of DBA tools from Sybase Inc. can be considered utter crap.
But who cares ? In a really mission critical environment the last thing you want is to point and click. You need scripts for all maintenance tasks and you need to treat them as source code. The alternative is to run fast and far in case of a desaster.
When you know what you do Adaptive Server is a cutting edge database which has the added advantage to be packed (11.0.3.3) with most Linux distributions.
Slashdot Mirror
I really liked the slow sales bit on the Palm 3c. What I really love about the palm is it's simplicity and the paradigm that it doesn't do a helluva lot of things, but what it does it does right. As an independant consultant I track my hours on that Palm and I'd just hate to see $ 10k flushed down the drain for the ability to watch Mpeg videos, listen to Metallica songs or, for that mather, have some thousand colors on my PDA.
Of course, you're completely right here. But shouldn't we be using the GIMP to alter numbers on credit card photos that we send to stoopid buzinesses ? I mean this is /. after all..
the big clunky things that make the "kachunka" sound Have we been reading Don Martin 'til late at night, again ?
It's me. Just let me put down those HUGE Samsonite suitcases before I make you an offer which you can't resist. See this sleek watch. It does EVERYTHING you indicate, plus it has a few goodies. In addition to all your requirements. It has a navigation system (GPS) which shows you detailled and accurate maps for EVERY place in the world. Further you can beam your favorite (downloaded) movies to a screen size of 4000 ft. (6 channel, dolby stereo THX etc...) Oh, did I mention that it sends your faxes in color and automatically calls your mother on her birthday ? It's a prototype though, and not cheap, 50'000 bucks. OK, we have a deal ? Here's the watch (Sound of walking feet...) (Me, lifting the HUGE samsonites) : HEY! DONT FORGET THE BATTERIES...
Dipping in late this is probably redundant but...
Most European countries are _very_ sensitive to anything related to this extremely black chapter in European (world) history.
Seing this decision in this historical context I can understand how a court gets to such a decision.
Per se I do not believe that it's wrong to set up laws that limit free speech when such free speech is blattantly infringin on rights of other individuals. It is however difficult to draw the line. Is satire violating such laws ? That's probably very much dependent on the interpretation of the receiver.
Now for the decision as such. I do not agree that Yahoo has an obligation to block parts of it's service to selected countries.
If it is illegal to access such information (with which I can agree to some extent) then a country should go after it's citizens accessing such information or against a seller (or the buyer) ordering or shipping verboten items.
Do you have the right to "correct" data that isn't wrong? Yes you do. Of course there's always the problem that there's no such thing like a guarantee that you really get all your data presented Re. Government: It's a tad dependent on the country, but at least here (Switzerland) inter-government data acccess is restricted. This means that the cops can't just look up the data that the unemployment office stores of you. However, I'm certainly not that naive to believe that shit doesn't happen. But at least the law restricts the amount of shit that can be flushed down the pipe by data collectors.
There must be a reason to collect data. This can have quite far reaching consequences. I.e. if an employer asks on an application about religion, sexual preferences or your dope smoking habits, this is verboten. Because this data is not relevant to the application
Data can't be past to third party without explicit consent of the err! victim. Some 235 page click through agreement with a well hidden check box is not considered explicit consent.
Every person has a right to get information what data is stored about her/him and has a right to correct wrong data.
Data may not be collected indiscrimnately
etc...
Personally I'm rather regulated by a govinmint that puts my interests as an individual before those of big business entities, then by some strange privacy advocacy panels set up by corporations whose business model is to violate my privacy. But of course your mileage may vary.This stuff usually comes in tarballs . I mean listen to how this sounds. Can beer that comes in a tarball be useful? Just compare those neat packages and the outstanding documentation that you get with expensive beer. Not to mention that nice silver disk.
Mr Stallman admits he's a communist. At least some of hist statements bear ideas of freedom and community. This is bad for big corporations. Mr. Raymond is probably also a communist, albeit a more articulate one.
Free beer software is distributed with source code. I mean shheeesh, get real! This stuff is grammatically so bad and the authors use far too many semicolons.
Think about how bad free beer software is for Corporate America. Do you really believe that the nice Intel company can crank out new, probably error prone, but at least expensive CPUs every three month when the expensive beer software is not able to distribute it's bloatware?
So people, Grow up! Give all your money to Mr. Gates and Mr. Ellison. Those are the people that make America the greatest place in the world."My cellphone company could tell me I have family in Scarborough"
It's actually a lot worse then that:
Provided that you have your phone switched on, your provider can actually map the physical location of the phone within a couple of miles.
GSM phones are always connected to a physical cell. When the cell changes this data is (must be) recorded by the system.
A paper investigated what's happening with this data and caught our local crap carrier storing it for six month. They argued that this is required for the billing (ho!ho!)
Scary ? Maybe. It doesn't make me stick my phone under the next plane to Albania, though...
"despite the fact they've not got their address. "
A reverse directory lookup shouldn't really be that hard for a phone company.
Sorry, but you're definitely wrong here.
The reason to use an industry strength database (be it Oracle, Sybase, Informix or whatever) is PRECISELY the rollback (or better recovery) capability.
When you yank the power chord from your U/X box, the server must guarantee full recoverability of the data adhering to the laws of online transaction processing. Provided that the database is set up correctly (alas I/O is handled via raw devices and not via the U/X I/O system, which is usually buffered).
What does this mean ?
A transaction must be atomic. That means that all subtasks dictated by the business rules must be completed either in full or not at all.
Consistency is another vital point. That means that a database server must guarantee that the database is transformed from one logical correct state to another. E.g. You can't allow that a customer is deleted while his deals are still stored on the database.
Isolation means that while a transaction is processed the data must be not accessible to outside entities. There are clearly defined exceptions. But in general this holds true.
The final rule is durability. When the status change according to the first two rules is processed. It's carved in stone.
Recoverability means that if you yank that chord that either all 4 rules are adhered to, or else that the database is reset to its status before any parts where processed. It doesn't mean that running transactions are preserved.
You are right that no system can be 100% watertight, Disks fail, IT centers burn down, or a dumb ass operator drops his Coke (the drink that is) into the air shafts of the box.
Provisions for that are redundant boxes (or data centers) and of course physical backups. In fact, very critical systems are built within atomic bomb shelters and are usually set up redundant in different locations. Still, there's no 100% guarantee.
Does that make MySQL a crappy product ? Of course not. But it does make it a product that is not applicable for mission critical data processing.
Cheers
/z
That would have probably been sort of funny. Albeit only then when you're anyway on the lookout for a new job.
That said, from a system managements perspective it would be an extremely unethical thing to essentially shut down the entire company based on a braindead memo from however has the corner office.
The solution ? I don't really know. But I'd probably work around it one way or another. Personally I'd invest tons of time into a comprehensive e-mail to however it might concern with the bottomline of the consequences.
If that's not feasible, well you can always go for a different job. In my case (not open source per se, but management stupidity far beyond comprehension) I went for my own company.
/z
Ahh, but then I disagree.
The evil empire certainly improved the interface and manageability of SQL Server. The database engine and the underlying architecture are still very much the same.
Sybase had a huge problem when they rushed System 10 to the market. It was buggy up to the point of unusable initially and not very scaleable. System XI is an excellent product. Very stable, quite scaleable and blazing fast.
I worked for a huge financial project that uses Sybase and benchmarked nine million transactions (each constituting ~ 8 TPC/C transactions) per day. Very stable, very reliable and very maintainable.
Where Sybase really kicks ass is when it comes to distributed data architectures. Name one product that is comparable to Sybase Replication Server. Granted that it has a steep learning curve and it' s far from easy to maintain it's unbelievable flexible and powerfull.
I agree that the DB management is far from sexy, in fact everything I've seen in terms of DBA tools from Sybase Inc. can be considered utter crap.
But who cares ? In a really mission critical environment the last thing you want is to point and click. You need scripts for all maintenance tasks and you need to treat them as source code. The alternative is to run fast and far in case of a desaster.
When you know what you do Adaptive Server is a cutting edge database which has the added advantage to be packed (11.0.3.3) with most Linux distributions.
/z