Let me start by saying I don't like anime. I'd like to think I've given it a fair shot. I've watched Akira, GiTS, GiTS 2, Metropolis, Cowboy Bebop (only the movie), some episodes of GiTS: SAC, Gundam, and other stuff that happens to be on Adult Swim. I just don't find it all that fun or interesting, with the exception of the original GiTS.
I have watched all twenty-six episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion though. The first twenty-four episodes...meh. The robots were kinda cool, and some of the interplay between Shinji and Asuka was funny...even though I wanted to constantly strangle Shinji for being such a coward. But NGE seemed well-regarded in anime circles, so I persisted.
Then I watched episodes twenty-five and twenty-six and couldn't believe what I was seeing. I didn't expect anything like what they did, and it was awesome.
Quote:
So unfortunately a lot of fans who found the TV ending too bizarre or not filled with enough fanservice tell a lot of people to just not even bother with the last two episodes, which is a shame.
As someone who's tried to watch anime and has given up on it, give NGE a shot. And the fools who tell you not to watch the last two episodes are just that, fools. Those episodes alone made the series worthwhile and turned me into a fan of NGE.
I think what's most interesting is that google released code to add functional language attributes to python.
Functional programming doesn't get a whole lot of attention, but if the guys at google are using functional-style programming so often that they feel it deserves a release on sourceforge, doesn't that make you wonder what you're missing in the land of procedural or object-oriented programming?
LISP might be the first functional language (among many other firsts) and has been around since the beginning of time (okay... the 1960's;)
From esr's "how to become a hacker":
"LISP is worth learning for a different reason -- the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it. That experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use LISP itself a lot."
Joel Spolsky re: programmers doing many things
on
Getting Things Done
·
· Score: 1
Joel Spolsky (from Joel on Software), wrote an article awhile back about trying to do many things at once...which just isn't possible. You can try and context-switch, but just like David Allen states, you're wasting time and breaking your flow.
For a programmer's perspective on this issue, check out the article here.
I've read Getting Things Done as well. Highly recommend if you want to get organized and have a "mind like water" like Allen talks about.
Re:OK we need some input from the Zope heads
on
Zope X3 3.0.0 Released
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
"Is it compiled into native code? I know this is more a Python thing but even mentioning an application server built in a scripting language will have me ridiculed out the door."
You're saying you'll be ridiculed for proposing an application server using an interpreted language, because it supposedly can't keep up with a J2EE server?
Maybe Zope, Inc.'s customers disagree. Or photo.net, a site getting over 10,000,000 hits a day that's written in OpenACS, which is itself written totally in Tcl?
If you feel forced to keep using J2EE because you'll be ridiculed otherwise for using a "non-compiled" app server, go ahead. But other developers are likely gaining a lot of productivity by using more dynamic and "slower" interpreted languages. Check out this 22MB quicktime demo movie of the Ruby on Rails framework...pretty awesome stuff.
Regarding why web clients haven't taken over...because MS doesn't want them to naturally. If web apps had good interfaces (approaching rich clients), and worked in any web browser, there'd be no need for Windows and IE.
MS has control over rich web interfaces being available because of this: the *vast* majority of browsers are IE. So if MS doesn't allow rich web interfaces in IE, web developers won't attempt to make a web app that can't be used by the majority of users.
I think it's possible to get close to rich web apps using JavaScript, DHTML, and other technologies, but it's very painful for web developers to get it to work correctly across Firefox, IE, Safari, etc. For an example, see oddpost.com webmail. It's very rich, but only works in IE 5.5+.
I've got a Spire backpack w/ sleeve for my TiBook. Highly recommended. I originally had a Timbuk2 bag, but I guess I just don't find messenger bags comfortable (distribution of weight)?
When I was shopping around for my Powerbook bag, I found bagreview.com to be a great resource. He reviews many different kinds of bags, loads them up with a laptop, iPod, CD, cables, etc, and puts them through their paces. Definitely worth checking out.
Is anyone aware of smaller companies coming together to battle SCO if need be?
As a small company who's lifeblood depends on Linux, it'd be great if we came together to fight SCO if and when the time comes. Pooling our resources would likely work much better than going it alone. It really does give me pause when wondering what I'd do if I were the recipient of this letter.
This whole deal is aggravating to others I'm sure; we want to focus our time and energy on technology, not on what we'll do if SCO starts demanding thousands of dollars from us.
quote: I've worked for enough good-sized companied to know that a difference of a few thousand (even a few hundred-thousand) dollars isn't as important as reliability when you get into enterprise-level systems. The old saying, 'nobody ever got fired for buying IBM', rings true for Intel as well.
This is definitely right, but I wonder if the name-brand is worth it if they're paying twice the amount for Intel vs. AMD.
The article says Linux Networx got the contract for just under $10 million, and will deliver 2816 Opterons.
Now, I've no idea how much the hardware costs them, but let's assume $8 million; the other $2 million goes towards salaries/profit.
$8 million / 2816 Opterons = $2850.91 per Opteron.
Compare that to the PowerEdge 3250 (Itanium) from Dell: $6229 per Itanium.
I'm sure Intel has quite a mark-up on Itaniums and could get the price lower when trying to win a contract, but AMD is in the same position with the Opteron as well.
Either way, a nice win for AMD, as it seems that the Opteron really is the best x86 processor at the moment.
David Pouge's Mac OS X: The Missing Manual is a well-respected book for showing both converts from OS 9 and the Unix/Windows world how things are done in OS X.
It's useless to call in and try to ask questions about this. I'm sure it'll be brought up by the financial analysts dialed in, and the SCO people will weasel out with something like "This just came to our attention today. We will be looking at the validity of the claims but are confident blah blah blah..."
You won't today be hearing a full-out apology to the OSS community, if ever at all. They might just quietly drop the whole thing while they figure out the next best lawsuit.
You're right that there are many more costs involved than just disks. I run a "hosting" company and extra space is $5/GB per month. Here are the factors that go into providing that space though.
- High-capacity SCSI disks. A 75 GB IDE is $77, whereas a 73.4 GB SCSI is $157 on pricewatch (not that you can get them anywhere near that cheap from Dell, where they cost $400). - RAID setups. Besides just SCSI we use RAID-10, meaning we get half the amount of usabable disk space per disk we buy. We also have to buy a quality RAID controller. - Backups. We also backup customer data to a separate RAID array. So this means an extra rackmounted server running disks in a RAID array just for backup purposes.
These are just the direct costs, but don't include other costs associated with hosting, such as: leasing data center space (Equinix = reliable, others = ?), buying bandwidth (Tier 1 = fast/reliable, cogent = ?), paying techs in the DC to fix drive failures, etc.
It's easy to compare the price/GB when you're buying a 200 GB IDE drive for your home PC, but there's a lot of other factors when buying space on a colocated enterprise-class server. However, I agree that $1/MB is pretty outrageous (we're $5/GB), and could be provided cheaper.
I'm reading an article in Fortune about the iTunes music store, and it says this regarding profit margins in the recording industry:
the five major record companies have had to slash costs in the face of declining sales. BMG laid off 1,400 people, EMI shed 1,800, and Sony Music recently announced it was reducing headcount by 1,000. Even with those cuts, average profit margins for the five majors have slipped to 5%, compared with 15% to 20% in the late 1980s when the CD came into vogue.
Now, this is only one person's statistic, but maybe they aren't making as much money as we really thought?
Unicast promotional materials suggest the new format will enable advertisers to reach their audiences "with the same impact" as TV.
Man this really bothers me. The web put the consumers back in control; We don't like what you've got to say? Then we just hit the "back" button. I really wish more people would stop trying to turn the web into TV and get onboard the cluetrain. Thank god "push" technology was stillborn in '98.
It sounds like mainstream sites won't be using them. It would just alienate users too much. From the article here are quotes from guy at AOL and CBS MarketWatch:
When asked about the new Unicast full-screen format, Chuck Gafvert, AOL's vice president of ad technologies and sales engineering, e-mailed back that "we are looking at a variety of ad formats -- including Unicast -- that advance advertiser interests without in any way negatively affecting the member experience. We look forward to expanding our advertising offerings."
Scot McLernon, CBS MarketWatch.com executive vice president of sales and marketing, said: "We're still in discussions with Unicast about the full-page on how we want to best utilize it. We might use it as you enter into channel headers, but I don't want to interrupt the reading of a story."
Of course, they did go along with 1st generation pop-ups; anyone with half a brain could tell they would only annoy users.
I thought the best statement in the article was "One person's invasion is another's convenience."
This was more in the context of what's bad for you is good for another, like the guy looking up interviewer's real estate appraisals.
However the same holds for individuals. Most often, the more convenience you'd like to have means more privacy that you give up. This is the current situation, but I'm not convinced that it has to be this way. Private and convenient systems could be built, but often people build systems for convenience first, and then only later tack on privacy measures.
I think this is more just a concept idea. From the article, "Customers are turning to IP telephony because it simplifies their network infrastructures and can lower costs, and a mobile IP phone would be attractive to many companies because it would let them add mobility without paying for cell phone airtime, Pratt said."
Why not just get those Nextel mobile/radio phones then? Seems like almost everyone in corp. america has a mobile phone, this cisco one would just be an extra gadget taking up pocket-space.
Anyways, I'm sure there are many other very cool possibilities with an 802.11 phone, like practical VoIP, more seamless syncing with enterprise-wide LDAP data, etc.
This could also be just a smart move by the FirebirdSQL team. The project has been relatively obscure up until now, but with the/. articles people are much more aware of its existence.
Maybe their methods aren't the greatest, but this is a good chance for them to raise awareness. The project should get more attention anyways, it's up there with Postgres (or maybe better) as a high-quality enterprise database (formerly SAP DB).
Could you at least back it up or something? GSM seems to be somewhat popular and catching on. Can it interoprate with GSM, or will we just have two competing standards and phones that won't interopate?
I envy people in Europe where they can buy just one nice phone and switch providers without hassles. One standard can be nice:)
'NPR.org had been offering some of its audio in the Apple QuickTime format under an arrangement with Apple QuickTime. We regret that we were unable to reach mutually acceptable terms for a new arrangement with Apple QuickTime. As a result, NPR is unable to continue offering its content in this format.
That's strange, the quicktime streaming server is opensource and free. Were they using a proprietary, licensed format to deliver the audio? If so, why not just switch to low-bitrate MP3, which QTSS supports with no problem?
Hubbard has said he joined Apple because they achieved the "holy grail", a easy-to-use UNIX-based desktop where he could hack and also play RtCW. He wanted to help so he went to Apple, while FreeBSD and Linux still aren't there yet.
This has been my own experience. After trying hard to use FreeBSD and Linux for a few years as my primary desktop, I just got frustrated. It wasn't worth my time, so I switched to OS X. And coincidentally enough, I also happen to work for Apple now.
It seems to have gotten progressively worse over the past couple months. I'd at least read the frontpage headlines as a/. editor, which should be enough to jog the memory when looking at story submissions. But I guess they don't always read their own headlines...
However, after a couple years of this (which most of the editors are at, and more), maybe this would get to be a really boring job. Time for new blood?
Slashdot Mirror
I have watched all twenty-six episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion though. The first twenty-four episodes...meh. The robots were kinda cool, and some of the interplay between Shinji and Asuka was funny...even though I wanted to constantly strangle Shinji for being such a coward. But NGE seemed well-regarded in anime circles, so I persisted.
Then I watched episodes twenty-five and twenty-six and couldn't believe what I was seeing. I didn't expect anything like what they did, and it was awesome.
Quote:
As someone who's tried to watch anime and has given up on it, give NGE a shot. And the fools who tell you not to watch the last two episodes are just that, fools. Those episodes alone made the series worthwhile and turned me into a fan of NGE.
I think what's most interesting is that google released code to add functional language attributes to python.
;)
Functional programming doesn't get a whole lot of attention, but if the guys at google are using functional-style programming so often that they feel it deserves a release on sourceforge, doesn't that make you wonder what you're missing in the land of procedural or object-oriented programming?
LISP might be the first functional language (among many other firsts) and has been around since the beginning of time (okay... the 1960's
From esr's "how to become a hacker":
"LISP is worth learning for a different reason -- the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it. That experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use LISP itself a lot."
Joel Spolsky (from Joel on Software), wrote an article awhile back about trying to do many things at once...which just isn't possible. You can try and context-switch, but just like David Allen states, you're wasting time and breaking your flow.
For a programmer's perspective on this issue, check out the article here.
I've read Getting Things Done as well. Highly recommend if you want to get organized and have a "mind like water" like Allen talks about.
Aktiom Networks: Debian, Fedora, RHEL Virtual Servers for Professionals
"Is it compiled into native code? I know this is more a Python thing but even mentioning an application server built in a scripting language will have me ridiculed out the door."
You're saying you'll be ridiculed for proposing an application server using an interpreted language, because it supposedly can't keep up with a J2EE server?
Maybe Zope, Inc.'s customers disagree. Or photo.net, a site getting over 10,000,000 hits a day that's written in OpenACS, which is itself written totally in Tcl?
If you feel forced to keep using J2EE because you'll be ridiculed otherwise for using a "non-compiled" app server, go ahead. But other developers are likely gaining a lot of productivity by using more dynamic and "slower" interpreted languages. Check out this 22MB quicktime demo movie of the Ruby on Rails framework...pretty awesome stuff.
Linux Virtual Private Servers for Professionals
Regarding why web clients haven't taken over...because MS doesn't want them to naturally. If web apps had good interfaces (approaching rich clients), and worked in any web browser, there'd be no need for Windows and IE.
MS has control over rich web interfaces being available because of this: the *vast* majority of browsers are IE. So if MS doesn't allow rich web interfaces in IE, web developers won't attempt to make a web app that can't be used by the majority of users.
I think it's possible to get close to rich web apps using JavaScript, DHTML, and other technologies, but it's very painful for web developers to get it to work correctly across Firefox, IE, Safari, etc. For an example, see oddpost.com webmail. It's very rich, but only works in IE 5.5+.
$60/month Debian Linux Server
For those of you who don't know what barratry is (I had no idea until 2 minutes ago): Wikipedia's Barratry entry.
$60/month Colo'd Linux Sever
I've got a Spire backpack w/ sleeve for my TiBook. Highly recommended. I originally had a Timbuk2 bag, but I guess I just don't find messenger bags comfortable (distribution of weight)?
When I was shopping around for my Powerbook bag, I found bagreview.com to be a great resource. He reviews many different kinds of bags, loads them up with a laptop, iPod, CD, cables, etc, and puts them through their paces. Definitely worth checking out.
$60/Month Colo'd Linux Server
Is anyone aware of smaller companies coming together to battle SCO if need be?
As a small company who's lifeblood depends on Linux, it'd be great if we came together to fight SCO if and when the time comes. Pooling our resources would likely work much better than going it alone. It really does give me pause when wondering what I'd do if I were the recipient of this letter.
This whole deal is aggravating to others I'm sure; we want to focus our time and energy on technology, not on what we'll do if SCO starts demanding thousands of dollars from us.
$60/Month Colocated Linux Server
quote:
I've worked for enough good-sized companied to know that a difference of a few thousand (even a few hundred-thousand) dollars isn't as important as reliability when you get into enterprise-level systems. The old saying, 'nobody ever got fired for buying IBM', rings true for Intel as well.
This is definitely right, but I wonder if the name-brand is worth it if they're paying twice the amount for Intel vs. AMD.
The article says Linux Networx got the contract for just under $10 million, and will deliver 2816 Opterons.
Now, I've no idea how much the hardware costs them, but let's assume $8 million; the other $2 million goes towards salaries/profit.
$8 million / 2816 Opterons = $2850.91 per Opteron.
Compare that to the PowerEdge 3250 (Itanium) from Dell: $6229 per Itanium.
I'm sure Intel has quite a mark-up on Itaniums and could get the price lower when trying to win a contract, but AMD is in the same position with the Opteron as well.
Either way, a nice win for AMD, as it seems that the Opteron really is the best x86 processor at the moment.
Colocated Linux Server - $60/mo
Safari doesn't use internal SPIs to speed up rendering. Even if it did, it doesn't matter since WebCore (the renderer) is open-sourced by Apple.
I'm not sure where Mac IEs renderer came from, but you'd assume it was written specifically for MacOS.
Compare this to Safari, which has a bridge layer converting Cocoa -> QT and back again.
Anyway's, since the WebCore source is free to download and use, MS can't claim Apple has an advantage there.
Colocated Linux Servers - $60/mo
David Pouge's Mac OS X: The Missing Manual is a well-respected book for showing both converts from OS 9 and the Unix/Windows world how things are done in OS X.
To get into the gritty Unix stuff, you can also pick up Mac OS X for Unix Geeks.
The combination of these two books might better server you rather than one "everything and the kitchen sink" Mac OS X book.
Colocated Linux Servers - From $60/mo
It's useless to call in and try to ask questions about this. I'm sure it'll be brought up by the financial analysts dialed in, and the SCO people will weasel out with something like "This just came to our attention today. We will be looking at the validity of the claims but are confident blah blah blah..."
You won't today be hearing a full-out apology to the OSS community, if ever at all. They might just quietly drop the whole thing while they figure out the next best lawsuit.
Colocated Linux Servers - From $60/mo
You're right that there are many more costs involved than just disks. I run a "hosting" company and extra space is $5/GB per month. Here are the factors that go into providing that space though.
- High-capacity SCSI disks. A 75 GB IDE is $77, whereas a 73.4 GB SCSI is $157 on pricewatch (not that you can get them anywhere near that cheap from Dell, where they cost $400).
- RAID setups. Besides just SCSI we use RAID-10, meaning we get half the amount of usabable disk space per disk we buy. We also have to buy a quality RAID controller.
- Backups. We also backup customer data to a separate RAID array. So this means an extra rackmounted server running disks in a RAID array just for backup purposes.
These are just the direct costs, but don't include other costs associated with hosting, such as: leasing data center space (Equinix = reliable, others = ?), buying bandwidth (Tier 1 = fast/reliable, cogent = ?), paying techs in the DC to fix drive failures, etc.
It's easy to compare the price/GB when you're buying a 200 GB IDE drive for your home PC, but there's a lot of other factors when buying space on a colocated enterprise-class server. However, I agree that $1/MB is pretty outrageous (we're $5/GB), and could be provided cheaper.
I'm reading an article in Fortune about the iTunes music store, and it says this regarding profit margins in the recording industry:
the five major record companies have had to slash costs in the face of declining sales. BMG laid off 1,400 people, EMI shed 1,800, and Sony Music recently announced it was reducing headcount by 1,000. Even with those cuts, average profit margins for the five majors have slipped to 5%, compared with 15% to 20% in the late 1980s when the CD came into vogue.
Now, this is only one person's statistic, but maybe they aren't making as much money as we really thought?
Unicast promotional materials suggest the new format will enable advertisers to reach their audiences "with the same impact" as TV.
Man this really bothers me. The web put the consumers back in control; We don't like what you've got to say? Then we just hit the "back" button. I really wish more people would stop trying to turn the web into TV and get onboard the cluetrain. Thank god "push" technology was stillborn in '98.
It sounds like mainstream sites won't be using them. It would just alienate users too much. From the article here are quotes from guy at AOL and CBS MarketWatch:
When asked about the new Unicast full-screen format, Chuck Gafvert, AOL's vice president of ad technologies and sales engineering, e-mailed back that "we are looking at a variety of ad formats -- including Unicast -- that advance advertiser interests without in any way negatively affecting the member experience. We look forward to expanding our advertising offerings."
Scot McLernon, CBS MarketWatch.com executive vice president of sales and marketing, said: "We're still in discussions with Unicast about the full-page on how we want to best utilize it. We might use it as you enter into channel headers, but I don't want to interrupt the reading of a story."
Of course, they did go along with 1st generation pop-ups; anyone with half a brain could tell they would only annoy users.
Yes, all the transactions are over 128-bit standard SSL. The backend workhorse is written in WebObjects from what I hear.
;)
I agree with the reviewers last comment, it's so easy to spend money there, it's almost scary.
I thought the best statement in the article was "One person's invasion is another's convenience."
This was more in the context of what's bad for you is good for another, like the guy looking up interviewer's real estate appraisals.
However the same holds for individuals. Most often, the more convenience you'd like to have means more privacy that you give up. This is the current situation, but I'm not convinced that it has to be this way. Private and convenient systems could be built, but often people build systems for convenience first, and then only later tack on privacy measures.
for right now at least?
I think this is more just a concept idea. From the article, "Customers are turning to IP telephony because it simplifies their network infrastructures and can lower costs, and a mobile IP phone would be attractive to many companies because it would let them add mobility without paying for cell phone airtime, Pratt said."
Why not just get those Nextel mobile/radio phones then? Seems like almost everyone in corp. america has a mobile phone, this cisco one would just be an extra gadget taking up pocket-space.
Anyways, I'm sure there are many other very cool possibilities with an 802.11 phone, like practical VoIP, more seamless syncing with enterprise-wide LDAP data, etc.
Yeah you're right, my bad. FirebirdSQL is from InterBase. And SAP DB is from...SAP!
This could also be just a smart move by the FirebirdSQL team. The project has been relatively obscure up until now, but with the /. articles people are much more aware of its existence.
Maybe their methods aren't the greatest, but this is a good chance for them to raise awareness. The project should get more attention anyways, it's up there with Postgres (or maybe better) as a high-quality enterprise database (formerly SAP DB).
Could you at least back it up or something? GSM seems to be somewhat popular and catching on. Can it interoprate with GSM, or will we just have two competing standards and phones that won't interopate?
:)
I envy people in Europe where they can buy just one nice phone and switch providers without hassles. One standard can be nice
'NPR.org had been offering some of its audio in the Apple QuickTime format under an arrangement with Apple QuickTime. We regret that we were unable to reach mutually acceptable terms for a new arrangement with Apple QuickTime. As a result, NPR is unable to continue offering its content in this format.
That's strange, the quicktime streaming server is opensource and free. Were they using a proprietary, licensed format to deliver the audio? If so, why not just switch to low-bitrate MP3, which QTSS supports with no problem?
Hubbard has said he joined Apple because they achieved the "holy grail", a easy-to-use UNIX-based desktop where he could hack and also play RtCW. He wanted to help so he went to Apple, while FreeBSD and Linux still aren't there yet.
This has been my own experience. After trying hard to use FreeBSD and Linux for a few years as my primary desktop, I just got frustrated. It wasn't worth my time, so I switched to OS X. And coincidentally enough, I also happen to work for Apple now.
It seems to have gotten progressively worse over the past couple months. I'd at least read the frontpage headlines as a /. editor, which should be enough to jog the memory when looking at story submissions. But I guess they don't always read their own headlines...
However, after a couple years of this (which most of the editors are at, and more), maybe this would get to be a really boring job. Time for new blood?