As you said, "depending on the circumstances"; but as I read IRS code and advisement, that is exactly what I am saying. Judgments are punishment for violation of criminal or civil law or failure to pay an legally obligated debt and thus are not "business expenses" in the "normal course" of business. Forgiveness of these debts is considered "income" and thus like all other income is taxable.
The IRS has a separate category for bankruptcy in which case the *discharged* (not the same as forgiven) debt is not a taxable event.
I cannot quote tax code, but from my reading, any debt forgiveness. Do not however confuse bankruptcy with forgiveness. Bankruptcy is legal discharge of debt, not forgiveness. Your penance for bankruptcy is the credit record hit and high interest rates on future credit.
The debtor forgiving debt is entitled to a tax deduction for their loss (it essentially acts as negative income for the debtor), you consequently pay that back as tax on "other" income.
Bankruptcy is legal discharge of debt, not debtor forgiveness and not a taxable event. Debt imposed (by judgement) is not an inverse taxable event (deduction).
Debt imposed by legal judgement is punishment for doing wrong (violating the law or harming one civilly) and is not a tax deduction. Debt otherwise, was willfully opted into for services rendered or product and generally is not a tax deduction except for tax certain loophole exceptions.
The fed looks at forgiveness the same as having earned that (as extra) income.
Let's not forget that any forgiven debt is a taxable event in the US. It is seen as a gift and counts as "income". But I suppose it's still better than paying the full bill.
The CPU's could be in an bloacked IO stage simply asking in a loop: Is it ready yet?, Is it ready yet?...
In Linux watch top and not the amount of time CPUs have allocated to '%wa' That accounts partly for IO blocked processes. So a CPU can be at 0% idle and still doing nothing effective, just simply trying to write tot he disk that is too busy to accept the data.
That polling is not processor intensive. So adding cores will not help much except to reduce cache misses due to task swapping. But even there that only works if the OS is smart enough to prevent unnecessary process/CPU migration.
This may sound silly but we do something like this. On performance critical systems, we have one or two 'OS' and communication dedicated processors and then we use the rest (up to 14 more for 16 total) for the actual data crunching.
Those off-CPU processors may exist but if they bind up, your main processors trying to read or write IO will go into wait states until the IO unbinds. having your data process unbind data crunching from IO helps quite a bit to smooth out the IO spikes that exceed instantaneous IO throughput capabilities.
Skip RAID6 and move straight to RAID10. Maintaining redundancy internally, it is as fast as it gets with optimal RAID hardware. And it does scale as more drives are added to the stripe(s) up to the maximum performance of the RAID controller chip and PCI(e) throughput.
The problem with bigger RAM and more battery is that if you have sustained IO that exceeds your write performance, your buffer no matter how large is eventually going to fill and either bind or drop data.
More RAM simply allows you to handle larger IO spikes. Sustained performance is an entirely different animal. Only real IO performance helps there.
I n my environment we have to deal with spikes and high baseline sustained throughput.
Even if you 'offload' IO, there is the problem that many programs are still blocked until the IO is completed. Watch top when you system is bogged down and see how much time each processor loses to '%wa'. That represents not how much time is spent by that CPU on IO, but how much time is lost to waiting on IO (is it ready yet?, is it ready yet?...).
I also work in an environment developing massive computing embedded systems all based on x86/x86_64. Our smaller systems start with four cores and we currently ship up to 16 although we have a 24 core x86/x86_64 system in house for testing.
We run into pure processing limits in some cases and in other IO throughput (using high performance PCIe based Areca RAID cards in RAID10 configuration). For absolute performance IO throughput we are looking at Violin-Memory systems which implement storage as an external device that is attached via PCIe. The increased throughput is astounding (up to 5x increased insert record rate into a database over a internally hosted PCIe connected RAID10). Yes the Violins are not cheap, but customers that need that kind of throughput will pay the price for it.
RAID5 is ultimately a net performance loss over RAID1 and even a single disk. Simple RAID1 mirroring provides better throughput (single disk write performance, split disk read performance is the RAID1's read algorithm is implemented correctly (on Adaptec's cheaper stuff it appears not as an example; all on-board assisted softRAIDs I have tested do not optimize on the RAID1 and RAID0 performance, however Linux softRAID (md) does). Add striping to the mirror and you get boosted write performance on a RAID system that implements the write algorithm correctly.
RAID10 (2n disks) will of course increase your storage costs over RAID5 (n+1 disks) because you need twice as many disks as the space you want to offer for storage. But the performance gain will justify the costs if you are truly IO limited.
Has it occurred to anyone that you are used to the vibration as a form of feedback. Additionally you associate certain vibrational sensations with certain speeds and conditions.
Chances are that your older perception of speed and control may not co-inside with a younger person's perception who has not driven older vehicles?
Even more, take a simple test, drive at 65MPH for a long distance, then drive at 85MPH for a long distance, then go back to 65. It will not feel as fast as 65 did the first time. Why? because your perception of 'regular' speed has adjusted for handling 85MPH.
Perception is simply natural comparison allowing you to compare relative events and experiences. Driving around a tight corner at high speed when you first learned to drive felt risky because your perception has been against not driving fast around corners. Once you force yourself to accept that that speed at that radius is safe, then you get more comfortable and your baseline perception adjusts.
Therefore I argue, you just need to learn how to feel your new vehicle. And face it, newer vehicles do corner better (sway bars, suspension, tires, etc...) and hold the road much better so the fact that your perception allows you to feel as safe at faster speeds is an accurate adjustment.
The poster and the article title also leap to a conclusion not supported by the article itself. The main thesis of the article, the Peltzman effect (as defined in the article) indicates a relatively even trade, not a tilt towards less safety. You are simply trading one set of issues for a different set. Bad road grip for inattentive driving for example. Both can be equally unsafe.
Has anyone else notice the coincidental (?!) connection in sound and appearance of "EULA" and "eulogy"?
From Wikipedia: A eulogy is a speech or writing in praise of a person or thing, especially one recently deceased or retired.
So a EULA would then be a death speech for the software or device for which it is written....We think this is great software, but now due to this EULA, it's dead (or at least we are going to make it that way)...
Working for salary should not imply working 'free' hours. Being paid salary means you get paid to do a job, not just to be present. Now there are *many* companies that abuse the concept of salary pay to get free over time, but that does not mean all of them do it nor that you should put up with it. I work for a company that at times makes large demands of my time with occasional trips out of town (effectively all of my time is eaten). But on the same token, when the big push is over, no one cares if you show up a bit late or leave a bit early (yes it does happen). I am really lucky in that during (youth) baseball season, my work overlooks all the time I am present, but dealing with baseball matters, parents, coaches, umpires, scheduling, lineups (I coach in addition to working on the board) and various board matters. Not to mention the times I leave very early to prepare for and coach or umpire games.
So long as I delver on time and am around so proper communication can occur, no one complains. If I miss my deadlines, then I either need to spend more time per day to get the job done or need to give better estimates and set reasonable expectations. My schedule is not much less flexible than 1099 development work have done full time in the past. Customer needs dictated much of that work occurred at specific times and I still had schedules and expectations to make. Not to mention that you generally do not work 1099 jobs for 'as long as it takes' (yes some contracts are open-ended). Customers expect much like my current job, that I can gather the necessary information to make accurate time estimates and thus make reliable cost estimates which are negotiated up front. I then give a price for the *job*. Chances are if you underestimate the time it takes you to write a contact application, that you 'eat' the extra hours. If you are smart, you do not allow much in the way change orders without additional payment and time being added. If you have open ended development work, then you either are very good at negotiation or have a very dumb customer (I have seen this too, and happy to comply of they are that stupid).
Working 1099 is much like working mini salary jobs. You get to negotiate your salary more often depending on the length and number of 'jobs' or contracts.
Now you may be working a support type contract in which you get paid for number of 'base' hours with an open-ended agreement for extra paid hours as-needed, but then you have to live with the times when you are not needed and get the minimum hour payments. You DO make them pay for a base amount of hours even if not used, right? That's how they get to pay you $100/hr instead of $120 those months they needed you for five times the base number of hours. Yes you are not working 'free' hours but then you may not get many hours at all. Now if you are smart, you have many of these contacts and total of all the base hours is at least the needed income to get by comfortably but not so many hours that you have no free time, otherwise, what is the point, right?
Yes and TMI is also a success story. By use of the designed and built-in multiple layers of control and safety procedures, both automatic and human manipulated, the situation was CONTAINED.
A full blown accident happened and were it not for them (the power company per NRC requirement) telling you about it, you would have NEVER known. You would have been unable to externally determine there was any issue other than the total facility maximum output reduced by one third.
The only (non-reactor) damage was the (most likely) hanging by the balls of personnel that allowed a very expensive reactor core to melt.
Let's keep the examples in the proper perspective and ponder the actual continual radiological release occurring at every single coal burning plant in the world.
Or they could see that with a MS, you are likely to start looking for a better position (not entry or even second level programmer) as soon as the economy improves. Companies do not like to hire 'known' transient people for permanent positions. They want to be able to hire and forget. Think of it as the overqualified complex.
1) A PCIx socket carries the same bandwidth as a 1-lane PCIe socket.
2) Using either PCIx or PCIe (1-lane even!) you can run 1G bidirectionally through a Linux system with as little as a single 2.4G P4HT (been there, done that, got the proverbial smoking copper cable to prove it). The CPU will not be stressed.
3) You can buy up to 6 ports on one full height PCIx or PCIe card. If you buy a multi-port PCIe NIC, it will most likely be of the 4-lane variety (and if not, keep shopping).
4) The Linux kernel's ability to route and intellegently bridge are both high performance capable. Throughput loss comes from engaging netfilter and more specifically conntracking. However, perform load testing on a top-end Cisco with and without ACLs and watch what happens to its performance; the results are very interesting. In short running any kind of ACL (Cisco, iptables, etc...) is expensive.
5) If you are building a performance Linux router, you are not using low-end desktop equipment. I hold in my hands a lower-end Intel AspenHill (S3000AH) server mainboard and it has 1 PCIx socket and 2 PCIe sockets (4 and 8 lane). The Intel Alcolu (S5000PAL) server board has a flexible socket layout (depends on the reiser card you buy) of (1) PCIx and either (2) 8-lane or (4) 4-lane. Either way, that is a fair number of potential interfaces to route across. Drop in a nice Core2 Duo on the Aspen Hill or a Dual Core2 Duo (or Dual Core2 Quadros if you decide to load up 16 interfaces) on the Alcolu and you have a ton of CPU horsepower to handle the interupts and make routing decisions. While not cheap per say, the costs are still less than Cisco routing gear with equivelent horsepower.
The larger issue in using x86 equipment to act in routing duties is interrrupt processing. Using NAPI enabled cards such as those produced by Intel and Broadcom lessens the interrupt load (you get multiple packets per interrupt). PCIx/PCIe single-lane as a dual NIC pair or PCIe multi-lane for multiple paths provides enough bus bandwidth to move the packet data. PCIe makes the process even smoother due to the dedicated contollers per lane (think of it as one socket per bus instead of the old all sockets on one bus model). In addition, PCIe supports simultanious reads and writes (which lowers per packet latency in bi-directional communications). All other flavors of PCI are read or write at any one time.
What you do get when you buy Cisco, is (in theory as in practice it seems to vary) a tried and proven user interface and and solid under pinning of which you the admin require little knowledge. You buy the components Cisco tells you to put in it depending on the job you want to do.
With Linux, you are usually on your own in selecting hardware, setting up the software and using the many interfaces required to configure each component of a Linux system used in a routing function. Very few admins have the time or resources to test hardware compatibility and evaluate the performance of various equipment options. If any group can put together a recommended (read: tried and tested and performance evaluated) hardware set and for it produce a ready to run (read: quick install with a single interface for the all router setup (IPs, ACLs, routes, etc...)), then more power to them. It makes it that much more likely that Linux based routers will show up in performance demanding environments.
Actually, no I am not, I work with others who are. I code the the communications and backend. I do not do GUI coding as I tend to fall into the Dogbert camp in the belief that the interface should hurt the user. Or simply stated, any interface I design would only make sense to someone who thought like I did. I let others who understand the issues of user interaction deal with users. I code communications, data processing components, platforms, etc...
I do stand corrected on the byte code compile point however.
Notwithstanding, as a client side application, it works simply as a data requester and presenter. We maintain all the authentication, security and data processing on a backend server for which we will eventually publish an API for 3rd party use. The Flash interface takes event requests (clicks on buttons, menu items, graph components, etc...), sends them back to the server, and waits for data to present as the response. The server is responsible for deciding if the user request is acceptable and kicking back data or an error message. Nothing the user is not allowed to see is ever handled by the Flash component and should not be as you cannot trust the client system.
Also data processing client side is rather inefficient for most purposes. It make sense to compact your results at the database end and only send the client what it really needs to satisfy the user request. To do otherwise chokes the network with data flow that is unnecessary. It also as you mentioned exposes the system to security breaches in untrustable components.
Actually Flash is quite useful for creating mostly cross platform applications (consider business/government audiences), not just animations and simple games although it does excel in those uses. The company I work for solved the need for an interface for cross platform requirements by writing an entire interface in Flash. Flash allows you to frame, create menus, show graphs, transport data back and forth between the client and server, create secondary windows, have frames and windows trigger events in other frames and windows, trigger print jobs and so forth. With Linux being brought up to Flash 9, the ability to use the latest flash backend (flex, aka actionscript3) actually simplifies our work. Classes, data types, it's there. It does not require client side compiles (eg java byte code) and runs faster than cross platform java can dream of. We cover Windows, MacOSX, and Linux x86 (and x86_64 with the 32 to 64 wrapper for Mozilla products) all with one fell swoop.
Your perception probably stems from a lack of exposure. I assure you though that Flash can do much more and that you will be experiencing it more and more at time moves on. That a bank has noticed Flash's capability only now, surprises me. Although I see yet a whole new opportunity for phishers praying on the weak minded.
Actually to run many programs you need to have Admin access or at least Power User which is 85-90% Admin access. Even $70K financial applications (low prices ones too) require Admin privileges or an Admin who knows how and where to dig deep into the registry and alter branch privileges. Many applications (games mostly) can not be run as anything less that Admin even after digging through the registry and file system.
While Windows architecture has been upgraded to provide user level security the mentality around it is slow to move. It also does not help that during the XP Pro and Home install, Windows creates any given users in the Admin group. OEMs that do the last stage install after the user takes the system out of the box do the same thing. It is only in the last two years that OEMs shipped XP on the NTFS file system by default. I bought "business" PCs with XP Pro on them installed from the factory on Fat32.
How many people knew that there was a very poorly documented utility to convert Fat32 to NTFS and reset all the permissions to basically secured setup?
The technical architecture may have changed for the better but the mental architecture is still a work in progress.
I actually have hardware that is 'promised' (no certification program I am aware of) to run on Linux. All my Keyspan USB hardware (USB to serial adaptor) comes with the penguin right on the box (next to the Windows Logo and the MacOS X logo) as did my USB to IDE adaptor (Newer Technology USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter). Somewhere I have some network gear with our buddy Tux on the box too.
As someone said previously in the conversation about software media, it is a war of choice. With multiple selections you get a mix of price, features and performance. But the costs is potential install issues that vary between peripherals of the same type. Besides, very few vendors make hardware specifically for Linux.
That said, a LUG could not afford to purchase hardware in bulk and hope they have enough customers to buy all of it over a short period of time. Hardware changes (improves) too rapidly and most people want to buy the best unit they can when they do choose to purchase. Even regular (sell the Windows users) computer stores keep very little inventory. The price (value) of hardware on the shelf deteriorates too rapidly. You have to buy in *massive* bulk to get the initial wholesale price so low that you can sell 'retail' above your purchase price for longer period of time and still cut a profit if you intend for your hardware to have a shelf life.
The price you pay to run a free (libre), flexible, stable and powerful operating system that is not "main stream" is that you have to work a little harder to buy your hardware and may need to know a little mare that "Start -> Run -> d:\setup.exe".
That document is not all inclusive of HP's problem although it is inclusive of what they will replace. We have a number of zd8000 laptops (not listed) one of which went up in flame and explosion last week (factory battery). HP claims that the batteries shiped with zd8000s are safe*, but the battery serial numbers match those of the recall. We are still 'in discussion' with them on the remander of our batteries including three factory replacements which also have matching serial numbers from the recall.
* HP claims that to have an unsafe battery both the laptop model and the battery serial have to be listed in the recall.
We also have zd7000 units with battery serial numbers that match, but zd7000's are not listed nor have we had one of those go up (yet!).
All of those benchmarks where for Core 2 Duo processors (see http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/core2-chipset s/index.x?pg=3). While the NVidia chipset implemented hypertransport between the chipset components, none of them showed an Opteron or Athlon64 using hypertransport as a linkage to the CPU (or between CPU cores).
Does anyone else find it funny that after Microsoft's long campaign touting how Linux has a higher TCO than Windows, they are sponsoring a new study that says businesses will have to spend a ton more on IT staff to install and maintain Vista?
Slashdot Mirror
As you said, "depending on the circumstances"; but as I read IRS code and advisement, that is exactly what I am saying. Judgments are punishment for violation of criminal or civil law or failure to pay an legally obligated debt and thus are not "business expenses" in the "normal course" of business. Forgiveness of these debts is considered "income" and thus like all other income is taxable.
The IRS has a separate category for bankruptcy in which case the *discharged* (not the same as forgiven) debt is not a taxable event.
Here is the IRS stance: http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc431.html It details tax forms you should get, what has to be reported and doesn't.
I cannot quote tax code, but from my reading, any debt forgiveness. Do not however confuse bankruptcy with forgiveness. Bankruptcy is legal discharge of debt, not forgiveness. Your penance for bankruptcy is the credit record hit and high interest rates on future credit.
The debtor forgiving debt is entitled to a tax deduction for their loss (it essentially acts as negative income for the debtor), you consequently pay that back as tax on "other" income.
Bankruptcy is legal discharge of debt, not debtor forgiveness and not a taxable event. Debt imposed (by judgement) is not an inverse taxable event (deduction).
Debt imposed by legal judgement is punishment for doing wrong (violating the law or harming one civilly) and is not a tax deduction. Debt otherwise, was willfully opted into for services rendered or product and generally is not a tax deduction except for tax certain loophole exceptions.
The fed looks at forgiveness the same as having earned that (as extra) income.
Woody
Let's not forget that any forgiven debt is a taxable event in the US. It is seen as a gift and counts as "income". But I suppose it's still better than paying the full bill.
The CPU's could be in an bloacked IO stage simply asking in a loop: Is it ready yet?, Is it ready yet? ...
In Linux watch top and not the amount of time CPUs have allocated to '%wa' That accounts partly for IO blocked processes. So a CPU can be at 0% idle and still doing nothing effective, just simply trying to write tot he disk that is too busy to accept the data.
That polling is not processor intensive. So adding cores will not help much except to reduce cache misses due to task swapping. But even there that only works if the OS is smart enough to prevent unnecessary process/CPU migration.
This may sound silly but we do something like this. On performance critical systems, we have one or two 'OS' and communication dedicated processors and then we use the rest (up to 14 more for 16 total) for the actual data crunching.
Those off-CPU processors may exist but if they bind up, your main processors trying to read or write IO will go into wait states until the IO unbinds. having your data process unbind data crunching from IO helps quite a bit to smooth out the IO spikes that exceed instantaneous IO throughput capabilities.
Skip RAID6 and move straight to RAID10. Maintaining redundancy internally, it is as fast as it gets with optimal RAID hardware. And it does scale as more drives are added to the stripe(s) up to the maximum performance of the RAID controller chip and PCI(e) throughput.
The problem with bigger RAM and more battery is that if you have sustained IO that exceeds your write performance, your buffer no matter how large is eventually going to fill and either bind or drop data.
More RAM simply allows you to handle larger IO spikes. Sustained performance is an entirely different animal. Only real IO performance helps there.
I n my environment we have to deal with spikes and high baseline sustained throughput.
Even if you 'offload' IO, there is the problem that many programs are still blocked until the IO is completed. Watch top when you system is bogged down and see how much time each processor loses to '%wa'. That represents not how much time is spent by that CPU on IO, but how much time is lost to waiting on IO (is it ready yet?, is it ready yet?...).
I also work in an environment developing massive computing embedded systems all based on x86/x86_64. Our smaller systems start with four cores and we currently ship up to 16 although we have a 24 core x86/x86_64 system in house for testing.
We run into pure processing limits in some cases and in other IO throughput (using high performance PCIe based Areca RAID cards in RAID10 configuration). For absolute performance IO throughput we are looking at Violin-Memory systems which implement storage as an external device that is attached via PCIe. The increased throughput is astounding (up to 5x increased insert record rate into a database over a internally hosted PCIe connected RAID10). Yes the Violins are not cheap, but customers that need that kind of throughput will pay the price for it.
RAID5 is ultimately a net performance loss over RAID1 and even a single disk. Simple RAID1 mirroring provides better throughput (single disk write performance, split disk read performance is the RAID1's read algorithm is implemented correctly (on Adaptec's cheaper stuff it appears not as an example; all on-board assisted softRAIDs I have tested do not optimize on the RAID1 and RAID0 performance, however Linux softRAID (md) does). Add striping to the mirror and you get boosted write performance on a RAID system that implements the write algorithm correctly.
RAID10 (2n disks) will of course increase your storage costs over RAID5 (n+1 disks) because you need twice as many disks as the space you want to offer for storage. But the performance gain will justify the costs if you are truly IO limited.
Has it occurred to anyone that you are used to the vibration as a form of feedback. Additionally you associate certain vibrational sensations with certain speeds and conditions.
Chances are that your older perception of speed and control may not co-inside with a younger person's perception who has not driven older vehicles?
Even more, take a simple test, drive at 65MPH for a long distance, then drive at 85MPH for a long distance, then go back to 65. It will not feel as fast as 65 did the first time. Why? because your perception of 'regular' speed has adjusted for handling 85MPH.
Perception is simply natural comparison allowing you to compare relative events and experiences. Driving around a tight corner at high speed when you first learned to drive felt risky because your perception has been against not driving fast around corners. Once you force yourself to accept that that speed at that radius is safe, then you get more comfortable and your baseline perception adjusts.
Therefore I argue, you just need to learn how to feel your new vehicle. And face it, newer vehicles do corner better (sway bars, suspension, tires, etc...) and hold the road much better so the fact that your perception allows you to feel as safe at faster speeds is an accurate adjustment.
The poster and the article title also leap to a conclusion not supported by the article itself. The main thesis of the article, the Peltzman effect (as defined in the article) indicates a relatively even trade, not a tilt towards less safety. You are simply trading one set of issues for a different set. Bad road grip for inattentive driving for example. Both can be equally unsafe.
Has anyone else notice the coincidental (?!) connection in sound and appearance of "EULA" and "eulogy"?
From Wikipedia: A eulogy is a speech or writing in praise of a person or thing, especially one recently deceased or retired.
So a EULA would then be a death speech for the software or device for which it is written. ...We think this is great software, but now due to this EULA, it's dead (or at least we are going to make it that way)...
Working for salary should not imply working 'free' hours. Being paid salary means you get paid to do a job, not just to be present. Now there are *many* companies that abuse the concept of salary pay to get free over time, but that does not mean all of them do it nor that you should put up with it. I work for a company that at times makes large demands of my time with occasional trips out of town (effectively all of my time is eaten). But on the same token, when the big push is over, no one cares if you show up a bit late or leave a bit early (yes it does happen). I am really lucky in that during (youth) baseball season, my work overlooks all the time I am present, but dealing with baseball matters, parents, coaches, umpires, scheduling, lineups (I coach in addition to working on the board) and various board matters. Not to mention the times I leave very early to prepare for and coach or umpire games.
So long as I delver on time and am around so proper communication can occur, no one complains. If I miss my deadlines, then I either need to spend more time per day to get the job done or need to give better estimates and set reasonable expectations. My schedule is not much less flexible than 1099 development work have done full time in the past. Customer needs dictated much of that work occurred at specific times and I still had schedules and expectations to make. Not to mention that you generally do not work 1099 jobs for 'as long as it takes' (yes some contracts are open-ended). Customers expect much like my current job, that I can gather the necessary information to make accurate time estimates and thus make reliable cost estimates which are negotiated up front. I then give a price for the *job*. Chances are if you underestimate the time it takes you to write a contact application, that you 'eat' the extra hours. If you are smart, you do not allow much in the way change orders without additional payment and time being added. If you have open ended development work, then you either are very good at negotiation or have a very dumb customer (I have seen this too, and happy to comply of they are that stupid).
Working 1099 is much like working mini salary jobs. You get to negotiate your salary more often depending on the length and number of 'jobs' or contracts.
Now you may be working a support type contract in which you get paid for number of 'base' hours with an open-ended agreement for extra paid hours as-needed, but then you have to live with the times when you are not needed and get the minimum hour payments. You DO make them pay for a base amount of hours even if not used, right? That's how they get to pay you $100/hr instead of $120 those months they needed you for five times the base number of hours. Yes you are not working 'free' hours but then you may not get many hours at all. Now if you are smart, you have many of these contacts and total of all the base hours is at least the needed income to get by comfortably but not so many hours that you have no free time, otherwise, what is the point, right?
Yes and TMI is also a success story. By use of the designed and built-in multiple layers of control and safety procedures, both automatic and human manipulated, the situation was CONTAINED.
A full blown accident happened and were it not for them (the power company per NRC requirement) telling you about it, you would have NEVER known. You would have been unable to externally determine there was any issue other than the total facility maximum output reduced by one third.
The only (non-reactor) damage was the (most likely) hanging by the balls of personnel that allowed a very expensive reactor core to melt.
Let's keep the examples in the proper perspective and ponder the actual continual radiological release occurring at every single coal burning plant in the world.
Or they could see that with a MS, you are likely to start looking for a better position (not entry or even second level programmer) as soon as the economy improves. Companies do not like to hire 'known' transient people for permanent positions. They want to be able to hire and forget. Think of it as the overqualified complex.
mplayer -playlist http://www.cnn.com/video/live/cnnlive_1.asx
OK, I call.
1) A PCIx socket carries the same bandwidth as a 1-lane PCIe socket.
2) Using either PCIx or PCIe (1-lane even!) you can run 1G bidirectionally through a Linux system with as little as a single 2.4G P4HT (been there, done that, got the proverbial smoking copper cable to prove it). The CPU will not be stressed.
3) You can buy up to 6 ports on one full height PCIx or PCIe card. If you buy a multi-port PCIe NIC, it will most likely be of the 4-lane variety (and if not, keep shopping).
4) The Linux kernel's ability to route and intellegently bridge are both high performance capable. Throughput loss comes from engaging netfilter and more specifically conntracking. However, perform load testing on a top-end Cisco with and without ACLs and watch what happens to its performance; the results are very interesting. In short running any kind of ACL (Cisco, iptables, etc...) is expensive.
5) If you are building a performance Linux router, you are not using low-end desktop equipment. I hold in my hands a lower-end Intel AspenHill (S3000AH) server mainboard and it has 1 PCIx socket and 2 PCIe sockets (4 and 8 lane). The Intel Alcolu (S5000PAL) server board has a flexible socket layout (depends on the reiser card you buy) of (1) PCIx and either (2) 8-lane or (4) 4-lane. Either way, that is a fair number of potential interfaces to route across. Drop in a nice Core2 Duo on the Aspen Hill or a Dual Core2 Duo (or Dual Core2 Quadros if you decide to load up 16 interfaces) on the Alcolu and you have a ton of CPU horsepower to handle the interupts and make routing decisions. While not cheap per say, the costs are still less than Cisco routing gear with equivelent horsepower.
The larger issue in using x86 equipment to act in routing duties is interrrupt processing. Using NAPI enabled cards such as those produced by Intel and Broadcom lessens the interrupt load (you get multiple packets per interrupt). PCIx/PCIe single-lane as a dual NIC pair or PCIe multi-lane for multiple paths provides enough bus bandwidth to move the packet data. PCIe makes the process even smoother due to the dedicated contollers per lane (think of it as one socket per bus instead of the old all sockets on one bus model). In addition, PCIe supports simultanious reads and writes (which lowers per packet latency in bi-directional communications). All other flavors of PCI are read or write at any one time.
What you do get when you buy Cisco, is (in theory as in practice it seems to vary) a tried and proven user interface and and solid under pinning of which you the admin require little knowledge. You buy the components Cisco tells you to put in it depending on the job you want to do.
With Linux, you are usually on your own in selecting hardware, setting up the software and using the many interfaces required to configure each component of a Linux system used in a routing function. Very few admins have the time or resources to test hardware compatibility and evaluate the performance of various equipment options. If any group can put together a recommended (read: tried and tested and performance evaluated) hardware set and for it produce a ready to run (read: quick install with a single interface for the all router setup (IPs, ACLs, routes, etc...)), then more power to them. It makes it that much more likely that Linux based routers will show up in performance demanding environments.
Food for thought.
Actually, no I am not, I work with others who are. I code the the communications and backend. I do not do GUI coding as I tend to fall into the Dogbert camp in the belief that the interface should hurt the user. Or simply stated, any interface I design would only make sense to someone who thought like I did. I let others who understand the issues of user interaction deal with users. I code communications, data processing components, platforms, etc...
I do stand corrected on the byte code compile point however.
Notwithstanding, as a client side application, it works simply as a data requester and presenter. We maintain all the authentication, security and data processing on a backend server for which we will eventually publish an API for 3rd party use. The Flash interface takes event requests (clicks on buttons, menu items, graph components, etc...), sends them back to the server, and waits for data to present as the response. The server is responsible for deciding if the user request is acceptable and kicking back data or an error message. Nothing the user is not allowed to see is ever handled by the Flash component and should not be as you cannot trust the client system.
Also data processing client side is rather inefficient for most purposes. It make sense to compact your results at the database end and only send the client what it really needs to satisfy the user request. To do otherwise chokes the network with data flow that is unnecessary. It also as you mentioned exposes the system to security breaches in untrustable components.
Actually Flash is quite useful for creating mostly cross platform applications (consider business/government audiences), not just animations and simple games although it does excel in those uses. The company I work for solved the need for an interface for cross platform requirements by writing an entire interface in Flash. Flash allows you to frame, create menus, show graphs, transport data back and forth between the client and server, create secondary windows, have frames and windows trigger events in other frames and windows, trigger print jobs and so forth. With Linux being brought up to Flash 9, the ability to use the latest flash backend (flex, aka actionscript3) actually simplifies our work. Classes, data types, it's there. It does not require client side compiles (eg java byte code) and runs faster than cross platform java can dream of. We cover Windows, MacOSX, and Linux x86 (and x86_64 with the 32 to 64 wrapper for Mozilla products) all with one fell swoop.
Your perception probably stems from a lack of exposure. I assure you though that Flash can do much more and that you will be experiencing it more and more at time moves on. That a bank has noticed Flash's capability only now, surprises me. Although I see yet a whole new opportunity for phishers praying on the weak minded.
Actually to run many programs you need to have Admin access or at least Power User which is 85-90% Admin access. Even $70K financial applications (low prices ones too) require Admin privileges or an Admin who knows how and where to dig deep into the registry and alter branch privileges. Many applications (games mostly) can not be run as anything less that Admin even after digging through the registry and file system.
While Windows architecture has been upgraded to provide user level security the mentality around it is slow to move. It also does not help that during the XP Pro and Home install, Windows creates any given users in the Admin group. OEMs that do the last stage install after the user takes the system out of the box do the same thing. It is only in the last two years that OEMs shipped XP on the NTFS file system by default. I bought "business" PCs with XP Pro on them installed from the factory on Fat32.
How many people knew that there was a very poorly documented utility to convert Fat32 to NTFS and reset all the permissions to basically secured setup?
The technical architecture may have changed for the better but the mental architecture is still a work in progress.
I have a one-year-old HP zd8000 (17" model w/P4) and the bcm43xx works fine for me. It also works on our two-year-old zd7000 models.
I actually have hardware that is 'promised' (no certification program I am aware of) to run on Linux. All my Keyspan USB hardware (USB to serial adaptor) comes with the penguin right on the box (next to the Windows Logo and the MacOS X logo) as did my USB to IDE adaptor (Newer Technology USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter). Somewhere I have some network gear with our buddy Tux on the box too.
Some vendors do care enough to show it.
As someone said previously in the conversation about software media, it is a war of choice. With multiple selections you get a mix of price, features and performance. But the costs is potential install issues that vary between peripherals of the same type. Besides, very few vendors make hardware specifically for Linux.
That said, a LUG could not afford to purchase hardware in bulk and hope they have enough customers to buy all of it over a short period of time. Hardware changes (improves) too rapidly and most people want to buy the best unit they can when they do choose to purchase. Even regular (sell the Windows users) computer stores keep very little inventory. The price (value) of hardware on the shelf deteriorates too rapidly. You have to buy in *massive* bulk to get the initial wholesale price so low that you can sell 'retail' above your purchase price for longer period of time and still cut a profit if you intend for your hardware to have a shelf life.
The price you pay to run a free (libre), flexible, stable and powerful operating system that is not "main stream" is that you have to work a little harder to buy your hardware and may need to know a little mare that "Start -> Run -> d:\setup.exe".
That document is not all inclusive of HP's problem although it is inclusive of what they will replace. We have a number of zd8000 laptops (not listed) one of which went up in flame and explosion last week (factory battery). HP claims that the batteries shiped with zd8000s are safe*, but the battery serial numbers match those of the recall. We are still 'in discussion' with them on the remander of our batteries including three factory replacements which also have matching serial numbers from the recall.
* HP claims that to have an unsafe battery both the laptop model and the battery serial have to be listed in the recall.
We also have zd7000 units with battery serial numbers that match, but zd7000's are not listed nor have we had one of those go up (yet!).
All of those benchmarks where for Core 2 Duo processors (see http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/core2-chipset s/index.x?pg=3). While the NVidia chipset implemented hypertransport between the chipset components, none of them showed an Opteron or Athlon64 using hypertransport as a linkage to the CPU (or between CPU cores).
Does anyone else find it funny that after Microsoft's long campaign touting how Linux has a higher TCO than Windows, they are sponsoring a new study that says businesses will have to spend a ton more on IT staff to install and maintain Vista?