Pretty much modifying any hardware with basic protections
I can just see it now. Using the DMCA, US companies will get lazier and lazier since their "encryption" is protected by law so that no one can break it. Do you think people in other countries care about the DMCA? The current trend in the US of companies using law to strengthen their so-called security is pathetic. If MS can't make their xbox bulletproof, then no amount of law would change that fact.
After all, this case would sound extremely stupid over time. iPods uses simple file hiding for their "protection". Does that mean if I set windows to display hidden files, I'm liable to get prosecuted under DMCA for "circumventing" Apple's protection?
Hell, pretty soon typing "ls -la" would be illegal
Ha I did a better one by not bothering with removing the price tags.
When I was 5-ish I wanted a toy really bad but my mom won't get it for me. What I did was open the box and put the toy in the basket. The cashier have no clue what that thing is (it was a transformer-like robot thingy) and just pass it on to me.
The IRC Wired mentioned in the article is not the IRC I know. Must be from the 70s or something.
IRC is the single most useless crap on the internet right now. Total waste of bandwidth if you ask me, ever since 1995. Judging from the replies in this topic, my experiences are not unique. Generally everybody is pissed off with IRC people. Out-geeking people is actually the least annoying aspect of it. It's the power corrupt syndrome, where in IRC you'll see it in full force.
I especially hated the ops that seems to have the thought that having an '@' in front of your name means that you can do whatever you please with no consequences. Once an op kicked me repeatedly out of a channel just because it's 11pm. Anyway at that time the latest windows is win95, with the glorious ping flood bug still intact. I admit this sounds so geeky, but I do have the pleasure of crashing his comp many many times that day. I just stopped short of putting a backdoor in his comp, just because it's 12am:)
I agree with your points. Derivative work as you say is reasonable and that's what us non-lawyer would tend to think. I'm not as concerned about people that's been posting in this thread since we all hold reason in high regard, but in general there's been increasing trend of bashing something away without due process, and this is what's been bothering me greatly about what's wrong in OSS today. As I mentioned, some of the comparisons doesn't even make any sense or based on faulty premises, and I'm afraid it's quite contagious to people new to the scheme of things.
But anyway, your points about databases in general is well said. Your application is different than mine. Where you (might) focus more on the coding side, I focus on the connectivity and ease of management side. Both of us want reasonable data integrity protection. But I'm afraid we get quite sidetracked:)
I'm all for free exchange of ideas and good constructive criticism. I'm just sick of hearing really bad criticism that degenerates into name-calling. It is not reasonable to compare A and B where A is a version from 5 years ago. As far as I'm concerned, I'm keeping my option open and I have both postgres & mysql running in my comp. I know the facts supports postgres as the better product overall for some needs, but until a decent matlab connectivity option is available, I have to stay with mysql whether I want to or not. It's just that people from both camps are incredibly stubborn about their choice and won't even listen.
I'm not a good coder. In fact I'm not a coder at all, so extending the functionality of any program is not an option. I would most likely be screwing some things instead of fixing them. People just need to remember that there are many, many people like me out there that want to use OSS software but with zero ability to fix/improve/create something. This thread have been my personal frustration over the state of affairs in OSS.
BTW you might want to look at mysql, the beta, now. It's all coming together now and look hell of a lot better than it was a year ago. I'm also looking forward to the new postgres, although they don't seem to bother with ease of management or connectivity options in the new version.
Let's just forget about the whole thing and start with an open mind instead. There are valid criticism coming from postgres people, and valid defenses from mysql people. However, some criticism aimed toward mysql are ridiculously out-of-date and irrelevant and start to degenerate into "mysql sucks because it is" category. THIS is the attitude that's destroying us. Another case in point is the "windows is unstable toy OS" thing. Guess what, windows now is stable. All the security holes will eventually be closed or minimized with Bill's billions. We can't live in the past where linux is more superior since now it is, simply, not true anymore. Living in the past and ignoring the current facts are a dangerous combination that'll do nothing good. And friends, this is how Bill Gates will beat us to the punch. I'm sure he already realized this fact and is working toward this.
Another case in point, many critics were trying to prove over and over again about mysql's "guessing" behavior and table-locking. This is simply not true anymore. Innodb doesn't use table locking, but uses a similar multiversioning approach like postgres.
Also, mysql CAN be configured to be as restrictive as you like. Those "guessing" behavior is the default, which any knowledgeable DBA would disable immediately. Granted, it's a pretty moronic default, but it's changeable nonetheless.
I've seen some so-called DBA posting with impressive resume and cool-looking terminal dump with dubious results here. Too many people are calling themselves DBA with millions of years of experience with terabytes of data, where they testing databases against one another using its DEFAULT setting, which is, useless in my opinion. You don't compare NT vs linux using their default settings, no? Contrary to popular belief, NT is actually very stable with proper setting.
My advice is simple. Before dropping judgment on whatever database/text editor/OS you're comparing, take some time to actually learn the feature set of the contenders. Most of the complaints and examples of errors about mysql I've seen are NOT repeatable once I properly set my own install. Zealotry toward one program won't do any good and would look childish in hindsight.
Re:Wishes for the next VIM and why use Vim
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Vim 6.4 Released
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I thought I'm the only one who's been typing Vim commands into notepad or word. Seriously, Vim is more of a lock-in than MS word will ever be. Cryptic file format? Bah! The lock-in is in your mind!
Re:Did someone mention the Fantastic Four?
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Vim 6.4 Released
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Slashdot should have a strict no-posting rule to certain topics to stop us embarrasing ourselves. Topics that came to mind:
emacs & vi postgresql & mysql linux & bsd anything involving Bill Gates & his company anything involving Paris Hilton & her companies
Sorry if I sound too frontal, it was late in Australia and I was quite tired, so no hard feelings or anything:)
But anyway, I do want to use the best AND most reliable tool available to me. I've been having doubts about mysql's reliability (with Innodb of course) and instead I found that postgres survived the pull-the-plug test intact while I've been unable to see the same result for mysql. Since my data is on multiple databases and involves millions upon millions of rows, I can't afford to let an error creep through.
I just simply came to the conclusion that day that while postgres' integrity might be what I need, mysql has better connectivity option available to me. But on to the point of my original post:
I think what's happening in the OSS world currently (postgres vs mysql, bsd vs linux, etc) is not productive and misses the point. If this keeps happening, Bill Gates don't have to worry about OSS at all since we will destroy ourselves by petty bickering and unreasonable side-taking. ESPECIALLY about mysql's license. Remember that this license was oh-so praised a while ago, now it became public enemy #1 just because some people like the free ride too much and demands everything to be free for their own selfish reason, like including a free database program into their own for-profit adventures, the practice of which have been sneered upon in the past.
Now this hit me like a double standard in ourselves. We don't want companies to use OSS stuff for their profit, but if we want to do so it's within our rights. I remember everyone here called foul when a company was discovered using GPLed stuff for their product. At the same time, GPL was judged to be too restrictive as it requires derivative works to include the source. The posts about mysql have been around this point lately, with lots of posts claiming that postgres is "freer" and attempts at any cost to discredit mysql. I'm not surprised if the OSS movement is dead in 20 years if this continues.
As for myself, I'm happy to do my part. If using mysql means that I have to release the source code of my experiments, then so be it. I just don't think people would enjoy reading it since over time it's become quite a spaghetti code full of hacks that even I have problem understanding sometimes:)
That, sir, is called a hack. It can be done. Although I never tried pushing tools around the table as you suggest. Might worth trying.
Anyway, I'm not as dumb as you suggest. I just don't want to spend time trying to tweak and learn databases when what I NEED is a good program that stores data and can arrange them according to my needs. I don't have to use super duper ultra powerful database that can do billions of requests per second since I'm the only one that access that thing. By suggesting me to dump Mysql and use postgres for its power is just overkill. Plus, postgres is more complicated to operate than Mysql. Try to grant a select permission in postgres in a database with 50 tables. You can't. You have to use script or pgadmin, whereas in mysql you can grant select permission on whole databases and its tables. Other thing is, try to get data back from postgres into matlab. You have to write a script that does looping over all the result set instead of getting them instantly into variables like mysql. I did skim the manual and the tools available of both databases, and came to the conclusion that to do research work that lean heavily on matlab (no C or whatever) mysql is the best, free tool available.
I honestly think that some tech savvy people are using technology for ego's sake and look down upon other people that don't use the latest and the greatest and thus insult other people's intelligence without any reasoning. This is a dangerous trend that most of us have fallen into once or twice (I know I have), and need not be repeated. Case in point is that repeated post over here that called Bill Gates an idiot because of whatever he's trying to do. Well, if he's dumb then he won't be the richest man in the world, would he? On other topic it reminds me of a remark a guitarist in Jet said about Eddie Van Halen, saying Van Halen can't play guitar with feeling. I never laughed so hard in my life and never care to listen to Jet anymore, not with their high opinion of themselves.
Another is better support for matlab connectivity. Granted, it's not created by Mysql, but the matlab connectivity in postgres is just total hell. I use matlab for simplicity, wrapping postgres' C functions in matlab doesn't make it an interface. And no, writing the interface myself is NOT an option.
Also, better windows support. You people that think everything should be done in UNIX needs to get out more.
This Mysql bashing trend really make me sick. You OSS supporters should be supporting OSS, no? Everyone's been saying postgres is the best thing since Jesus was here, but that is simply not true. Both databases could only get better with competition, killing Mysql by advertising it as a bad product everywhere is counterproductive.
Don't even start with the licensing issue with me. Some Mysql bashers have an undeniably large reserve of excuses. First, it was the triggers, stored proc, etc. Then it was data integrity (which was solved by InnoDB). Then the license. Probably their mascot after this. They probably don't even know why they don't like it in the first place.
Also, don't tell me since it's OSS I can write my own goddamn function and extend the goddamn program. That is simply not an option to many people, I actually start to think that people keep saying those mantra as an excuse but never actually DO it.
As for myself, I prefer to use simple tools to help with my work and not get bogged down trying to learn how to use the tools in the first place. Some OSS zealots may get weird sensations in their sensitive part by trying to comprehend what this source code's doing, but that's just not normal for a lot of people, including me.
In short, Mysql does what I need right now. Postgres does not. In the future that might be reversed. If everything have to be perfect, then use the goddamn Oracle for everything.
Exactly right. I think this is the leftover from the 60s & 70s where there are many capable engineers but not so many able managers. Since now there are less numbers of able engineers in the US, the companies will be left with only managers but no worker. I remember Citibank started this by calling every salesperson a "management trainee" and calling every manager an "assistant vice president", essentially downgrading those positions and implies that everyone should be a manager someday and no one should be a worker.
Remember that when Europe was in the dark ages, Arab is the center of learning. Now, Arab is controlled by religious leaders while the center of learning is in the US & Europe. It seems that the religious leader are starting to take hold in the US, while China start to produce engineers & scientists like no tomorrow. How the wheel turns.
I agree that it sounds like propaganda. However I doubt he's on MySQL payroll.
Anyway you're right. MySQL actually doesn't do very good if a table has a million entries. It may seem fast at first, but try to do a select on a table with a million entries, joined with itself three times, and do a group by command. It's gonna take a while to finish. Granted, it's minutes instead of the usual seconds, but I would tend to think that commercial databases would do better than that.
IMHO MySQL is fine as long as you don't do anything challenging. As for me, I'm happy that in spite of taking minutes, it's giving me the correct answer. That's all I need and I don't think it's fair to directly compare MySQL to a $20,000 database. Of course it won't perform as good. It's like comparing a Toyota to a Ferrari and complaining that the Toyota won't go as fast.
Actually, wait until the 2nd senator Bush got elected as president, then the terrorist will start to attack randomly. The MPAA & RIAA will start a blockade on small third world countries for copyright infringement, where two attorneys are sent in their defense but tried to be killed as they arrive there by the RIAA.
In light of this development, president Bush will then declare emergency power and declare herself emperor to combat the terrorist attacks. This is after the president got one of the justices to pass strange laws in exchange for a promise to save the justice's illegitimate wife from terminal illness. The attorneys will then disappear one by one save for two which narrowly escape order 66. Construction of the submersible aircraft carrier that carry enough firepower to destroy a small country will then begin.
20 years will pass as the American empire spread its influence by fear of heavy weaponry and copyright infringement, until one day the son of the justice will then bring balance to the law. He is the one that helps small countries stand up against the submersible aircraft carrier. Turns out he got a twin sister.
Praise George Lucas! He is actually our current age Nostradamus. The scenario is somewhat plausible too.
Interesting research. I would have never thought that we perceive our world depending on our surrounding and it seems that our brain is hardwired to seeing something in its context without regard on the object itself. This is essentialy your conclusion in your paper, if I'm not mistaken.
I wouldn't care if you've actually done a PhD based on this or not, like a poster said. I believe this is a worthwhile observation and merits a PhD by itself. The result is not as interesting as the process and the proofs in the paper.
This visual results combined with psyhchoacoustic research that's been done to death, seems to point that our senses don't work like we thought they should. Similar phenomena has been observed in auditory perception that we don't hear as much as we thought we do. The practical application to that observation is your ordinary mp3.
So if I may expand a little, our brain perceive something based not on what we actually see and hear, but taking into account the surrounding visual and auditory context we craft our own understanding that sometimes has little to do with the actual reality itself. Perhaps this has something to do with evolution? To strip everything of irrelevant information subconsciously? How does the brain judges what is relevant and what is not? And what impact do we have on our own evolution as a species if we constantly exploit these "flaws" to construct future technologies such as mp3 and the like?
To me personally, it sounds as if the writer of the article in question has never done any research himself.
In a research, the conclusion is just that, a conclusion. There's no way for you to know the conclusion beforehand. Not before you do the research with the methodology you decide to do. If a researcher can know for sure the conclusion beforehand, that can lead to the danger of skewing the research methodology and data to conform to that conclusion and thus makes a bad science.
Of course repeating the same methodology may sound like cheating as some posters suggested, but then again, how do you know that the previous work doesn't do bad science themselves? Not unless you try it again with their methods and arriving at the same conclusion, no? Confirming a result is NOT worthless. It's often how a groundbreaking theory got accepted into the mainstream.
Also, doing something totally new and meaningful is not easy. Chances are, even if you're very smart, once you dive into a subject and have some "groundreaking" idea, that idea has been thought up before. The goal of research is not to find something new and out of this world, but to do small steps at a time and hopefully you'll get somewhere. If you don't, at least you confirm something. Otherwise, you can easily fall into a trap of skewing your data to fit your idea of grandeur.
This is the case with research, either now or 100 years ago. Remember that in the 1800s scientists in the western world have concluded that anything worth discovering has been discovered. It's the same mindset that we have today, yet we know very little.
That is exactly the reason I chose to study in Australia. And recommended my brother to do the same. And my cousins too.
I was educated in Canada for my bachelor degree, but for fear of US control spreading over the border, I decided to go here instead.
I heard enough stories about how international students in the US are practically treated like a criminal by requiring them to report regularly to the govt. Hell, I paid a lot of money to get an education AND I'm gonna be treated like a criminal? That idea sounds weird by anyone's standard.
Now for the punchline, we're not even able to study peacefully without some stupid rules hampering us. This export restriction bullshit is the best act they pulled yet. What's next? Non-WASP cannot study in American universities? This sounds more and more like Germany before WW2, with US invading Iraq and all. I'm not surprised to see G.W. Bush the Great will announce something along the line of "American superiority above all" in the near future.
Post 9/11 the US is simply a bad place to live for international students. I'm avoiding the US at all cost. I don't even want to have my flight transit in the US. Even some Australians that are doing research with me are avoiding the US as well.
This effect, I believe, is exactly what 9/11 supposed to do. Notice the lack of any terrorist attack on US soil lately? Bin Laden was probably smart enough to know that his attack will cause America to be so paranoid they'll continually shooting themselves in the foot without any help from him. In essence, he's right.
You just have to wait until one groundbreaking scientific paper is published in Chinese, then we know the American golden age is truly over.
I would think the/. effect is the total opposite of a spreading worm, i.e. as time progresses, more people would hit a server until the story is reposted on another day (or sometimes another hour) and the effect cycle repeats itself.
The cycle will definitely repeats as we have that uncontrollable twitch that automatically click on any link on the front page, repost or not.
Would be interesting to know the net total traffic generated by zombies DDOS-ing a server combined with/. effect at the same time.
...are scary. This, and numerous other pdf-related security breaches which happened (remember the blacked-out pdf that was modified to reveal its contents?) are all the more reason for MS pushing its software everywhere by declaring competing software are not as secure as theirs. Doesn't matter if the security breach originated from the user's lack of understanding of the most basic security concepts.
My fear is that knee-jerk reactions to incident like this someday could be as extreme as invoking the DMCA against copy and paste. That, and further control from MS for information in the government due to the inherent "security" of MS stuff. It's unimaginable that a corporation can be more powerful than the government, but more incidents like this and this will happen.
You hit it right on the head. I had the advantage of living in a third world country and thus experienced those things first hand.
Although I was born and raised in Indonesia, I was lucky enough to be educated in North America & Australia, the so-called "first world". I don't doubt that most people would call Indonesia the "third world" or whatever number of worlds.
Dropping bags of food actually does create more problem than solving them. It only applies to disaster areas in need of a quick relief and nothing else.
Due to the never ending foreign aids coming to Indonesia, not many people can withstand the onslaught of endless supply of money coming out from thin air. They started to become corrupt and emulate the first-world's consumption while they chose to ignore the fact that the country's economics are shrinking and thus unable to sustain the level of consumption. Their solution? Park their money in foreign banks and buy stuff from overseas. The result is disastrous as it drives the Indonesian currency down.
The mentality of work and ye shall receive is slowly being replaced by sit in a government post and ye shall receive. And this mentality trickles down to all levels, be it government or not.
I, for one, support the thinking that aids coming to Indonesia is actually complicating matters in the long run instead of solving them. On the macro scale, if you provide the knowledge for basic stuff without revealing the most cutting edge knowledge, it will kickstart a new round of capitalism. The "cutting edge knowledge" will be discovered naturally by Indonesians as the need arise.
I've honestly seen this trend for a while, and I don't even live in the US.
From simple things like cell phones, the US is horribly behind European and even some Asian countries they consider "third world". In fact, no so-called "first world" country can even compete with Korea on broadband right now.
It all comes down to the philosophy of capitalism. I'm not an expert, but capitalism supposed to give benefits when everyone competes with everyone else thus pushing everyone to give a better technology at better prices. The flaw in that is if everyone pretends to compete and instead creates an invisible cartel thus creating a monopoly by many firms. As you can see, this is already happening in cell phones and broadband market.
This process is not unseen for, but it's uncontrollable if lobbying groups for said virtual monopolies practically have a stranglehold on the congress, thus creating a bigger problem by disguising their acts by saying that their actions are supported by the congress and thus by the people. If you don't agree, you have to blame yourself for electing the congress in the first place. It's like a thief saying that you urged them to steal because you drive expensive car and thus YOU are at fault. The fact that they stole from you is ignored.
Seeing how the RIAA and the carriers acted in the past year by manipulating congress and creating their own law in the meantime, I believe the worst is yet to happen. This is all but a preview. The RIAA practically grow bolder with each move, short of creating their own private army to raid people's houses.
But I doubt a bank failure is gonna happen soon. The US is economically very strong and the government will do whatever it can to keep the world's confidence on the US dollar. What I think will happen first is the transfer of power from congress to the corporations, invisibly, by manipulation of words such as intellectual property, copyright and patent. And don't forget those anti-terrorist acts that slowly eats away your privacy and freedom, or anyone on US soil right now.
Damn man, you're just too nice. Stop doing that or you'll get strangled pretty soon. I echo the sentiments in the other comments, they NEED you, you NEED them, that's where the relationship ends. They ask more, you have to ask more too. It's the art of saying "fuck you" with a smile that's proven invaluable, at least for me.
In turn, there are at least that many shitty IT companies too that screws people over. I was consulting for a company that wants to redesign their network and database system. In short, the whole thing. I look at every contract and basically try to get the best deal for my client. Up until the signing of the contract, I rechecked every term to make sure there's no shithole wide open. The IT company agreed to make a 3 months free support after final deployment.
Then after that it takes a turn for the worse. They start recommending ridiculous spec for a terminal and the servers. Who the hell needs LCD screen and a DVD drive on the cheapo terminals in 2002? They also suggested a RAID array on the servers, but no mention of UPS. I immediately smell a rat, since all their spec is based on Compaq's offering. When I asked them why I need all this junk, they replied that buying bulk from Compaq can save me heaps.
I give them a virtual fuck you by recommending to my client a competing spec, which is more reasonable and way cheaper. I let the client decide.
It's getting even better after that. They put a new programmer in the project. After some careful checking, I honestly think this guy was fresh form college with minimal knowledge of databases. Long story short, the project dragged on longer and longer, with them finishing all deployment 3 months late.
And then the manager of the IT company told me that I have to renew my support contract, since the free 3 months I got was expired. Me and my client then told them, since their deployment was 3 months late, then there's no way in hell they're getting paid for their screwups in the first place. They retort by saying that the date for the end of the free support was clearly indicated in the contract. We retort by saying that if you don't honor your deployment date, then we don't honor the payment detail. It was a funny meeting to watch. Luckily I told my client to not sign the contract unless there's another term of payment AFTER the project's all done and all free support term finished.
Well, after all those rubbish, everything is ok and they proceeded to give us the final source code. I insist to see it compile and working in front of my eyes.
Moral of the story is, business is business. If you let no shithole open for anyone to screw you over with, they can't do it. Even then, they'll try to screw you. Just make sure you have the arsenal to hit them back just in case they tried, preferably with a bigger gun. Just be on your guard at all times. This is a management skill, and the reason why their pay is higher than engineers. Honestly it's not an easy task to guard the livelihood of your company. One small mistake and the whole company could be over.
That is the truth anywhere in the world. Realize it or not, safety nets are everywhere and inadvertently you'll start building it yourself when you advance to a managerial post.
That safety net I built enabled me not to have to send my resume again to look for another job, as long as it's connected to my old job somehow. I haven't even updated my resume for 4 years and counting. Combine my own safety net with that of my family's and my friend's, I'm pretty much secure for some time.
And that is the reason why MS or its kind can thrive. They provide a kind of safety net as well. I'm an open source lover, but open source doesn't provide that, although I do tend to replace any ASP I found with PHP and use MySQL whenever I see fit, with excuses like "I understand those better so I needed them for me to do my job better". But zealotry for those won't get you anywhere.
Ivy League schools sure give you some head start to build those nets, but even without it you can build a net that even they will envy. It's all down to the individual, I say.
Note that my view is not the popular one here, I even got flamed a couple of times because I'm "one of them assholes" for saying this. Unfortunately this is the truth, and I keep my job where others have lost it.
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I can just see it now. Using the DMCA, US companies will get lazier and lazier since their "encryption" is protected by law so that no one can break it. Do you think people in other countries care about the DMCA? The current trend in the US of companies using law to strengthen their so-called security is pathetic. If MS can't make their xbox bulletproof, then no amount of law would change that fact.
After all, this case would sound extremely stupid over time. iPods uses simple file hiding for their "protection". Does that mean if I set windows to display hidden files, I'm liable to get prosecuted under DMCA for "circumventing" Apple's protection?
Hell, pretty soon typing "ls -la" would be illegal
Ha I did a better one by not bothering with removing the price tags.
When I was 5-ish I wanted a toy really bad but my mom won't get it for me. What I did was open the box and put the toy in the basket. The cashier have no clue what that thing is (it was a transformer-like robot thingy) and just pass it on to me.
The IRC Wired mentioned in the article is not the IRC I know. Must be from the 70s or something.
:)
IRC is the single most useless crap on the internet right now. Total waste of bandwidth if you ask me, ever since 1995. Judging from the replies in this topic, my experiences are not unique. Generally everybody is pissed off with IRC people. Out-geeking people is actually the least annoying aspect of it. It's the power corrupt syndrome, where in IRC you'll see it in full force.
I especially hated the ops that seems to have the thought that having an '@' in front of your name means that you can do whatever you please with no consequences. Once an op kicked me repeatedly out of a channel just because it's 11pm. Anyway at that time the latest windows is win95, with the glorious ping flood bug still intact. I admit this sounds so geeky, but I do have the pleasure of crashing his comp many many times that day. I just stopped short of putting a backdoor in his comp, just because it's 12am
I agree with your points. Derivative work as you say is reasonable and that's what us non-lawyer would tend to think. I'm not as concerned about people that's been posting in this thread since we all hold reason in high regard, but in general there's been increasing trend of bashing something away without due process, and this is what's been bothering me greatly about what's wrong in OSS today. As I mentioned, some of the comparisons doesn't even make any sense or based on faulty premises, and I'm afraid it's quite contagious to people new to the scheme of things.
:)
But anyway, your points about databases in general is well said. Your application is different than mine. Where you (might) focus more on the coding side, I focus on the connectivity and ease of management side. Both of us want reasonable data integrity protection. But I'm afraid we get quite sidetracked
I'm all for free exchange of ideas and good constructive criticism. I'm just sick of hearing really bad criticism that degenerates into name-calling. It is not reasonable to compare A and B where A is a version from 5 years ago. As far as I'm concerned, I'm keeping my option open and I have both postgres & mysql running in my comp. I know the facts supports postgres as the better product overall for some needs, but until a decent matlab connectivity option is available, I have to stay with mysql whether I want to or not. It's just that people from both camps are incredibly stubborn about their choice and won't even listen.
I'm not a good coder. In fact I'm not a coder at all, so extending the functionality of any program is not an option. I would most likely be screwing some things instead of fixing them. People just need to remember that there are many, many people like me out there that want to use OSS software but with zero ability to fix/improve/create something. This thread have been my personal frustration over the state of affairs in OSS.
BTW you might want to look at mysql, the beta, now. It's all coming together now and look hell of a lot better than it was a year ago. I'm also looking forward to the new postgres, although they don't seem to bother with ease of management or connectivity options in the new version.
Let's just forget about the whole thing and start with an open mind instead. There are valid criticism coming from postgres people, and valid defenses from mysql people. However, some criticism aimed toward mysql are ridiculously out-of-date and irrelevant and start to degenerate into "mysql sucks because it is" category. THIS is the attitude that's destroying us. Another case in point is the "windows is unstable toy OS" thing. Guess what, windows now is stable. All the security holes will eventually be closed or minimized with Bill's billions. We can't live in the past where linux is more superior since now it is, simply, not true anymore. Living in the past and ignoring the current facts are a dangerous combination that'll do nothing good. And friends, this is how Bill Gates will beat us to the punch. I'm sure he already realized this fact and is working toward this.
Another case in point, many critics were trying to prove over and over again about mysql's "guessing" behavior and table-locking. This is simply not true anymore. Innodb doesn't use table locking, but uses a similar multiversioning approach like postgres.
Also, mysql CAN be configured to be as restrictive as you like. Those "guessing" behavior is the default, which any knowledgeable DBA would disable immediately. Granted, it's a pretty moronic default, but it's changeable nonetheless.
I've seen some so-called DBA posting with impressive resume and cool-looking terminal dump with dubious results here. Too many people are calling themselves DBA with millions of years of experience with terabytes of data, where they testing databases against one another using its DEFAULT setting, which is, useless in my opinion. You don't compare NT vs linux using their default settings, no? Contrary to popular belief, NT is actually very stable with proper setting.
My advice is simple. Before dropping judgment on whatever database/text editor/OS you're comparing, take some time to actually learn the feature set of the contenders. Most of the complaints and examples of errors about mysql I've seen are NOT repeatable once I properly set my own install. Zealotry toward one program won't do any good and would look childish in hindsight.
I thought I'm the only one who's been typing Vim commands into notepad or word. Seriously, Vim is more of a lock-in than MS word will ever be. Cryptic file format? Bah! The lock-in is in your mind!
Slashdot should have a strict no-posting rule to certain topics to stop us embarrasing ourselves. Topics that came to mind:
emacs & vi
postgresql & mysql
linux & bsd
anything involving Bill Gates & his company
anything involving Paris Hilton & her companies
Exactly the point. That, and the name "postgresql" does sound more leet than "mysql" :)
I guess no matter what philosophy we hold dear, nothing can get in the way of human nature of jumping on bandwagons.
Sorry if I sound too frontal, it was late in Australia and I was quite tired, so no hard feelings or anything :)
:)
But anyway, I do want to use the best AND most reliable tool available to me. I've been having doubts about mysql's reliability (with Innodb of course) and instead I found that postgres survived the pull-the-plug test intact while I've been unable to see the same result for mysql. Since my data is on multiple databases and involves millions upon millions of rows, I can't afford to let an error creep through.
I just simply came to the conclusion that day that while postgres' integrity might be what I need, mysql has better connectivity option available to me. But on to the point of my original post:
I think what's happening in the OSS world currently (postgres vs mysql, bsd vs linux, etc) is not productive and misses the point. If this keeps happening, Bill Gates don't have to worry about OSS at all since we will destroy ourselves by petty bickering and unreasonable side-taking. ESPECIALLY about mysql's license. Remember that this license was oh-so praised a while ago, now it became public enemy #1 just because some people like the free ride too much and demands everything to be free for their own selfish reason, like including a free database program into their own for-profit adventures, the practice of which have been sneered upon in the past.
Now this hit me like a double standard in ourselves. We don't want companies to use OSS stuff for their profit, but if we want to do so it's within our rights. I remember everyone here called foul when a company was discovered using GPLed stuff for their product. At the same time, GPL was judged to be too restrictive as it requires derivative works to include the source. The posts about mysql have been around this point lately, with lots of posts claiming that postgres is "freer" and attempts at any cost to discredit mysql. I'm not surprised if the OSS movement is dead in 20 years if this continues.
As for myself, I'm happy to do my part. If using mysql means that I have to release the source code of my experiments, then so be it. I just don't think people would enjoy reading it since over time it's become quite a spaghetti code full of hacks that even I have problem understanding sometimes
That, sir, is called a hack. It can be done. Although I never tried pushing tools around the table as you suggest. Might worth trying.
Anyway, I'm not as dumb as you suggest. I just don't want to spend time trying to tweak and learn databases when what I NEED is a good program that stores data and can arrange them according to my needs. I don't have to use super duper ultra powerful database that can do billions of requests per second since I'm the only one that access that thing. By suggesting me to dump Mysql and use postgres for its power is just overkill. Plus, postgres is more complicated to operate than Mysql. Try to grant a select permission in postgres in a database with 50 tables. You can't. You have to use script or pgadmin, whereas in mysql you can grant select permission on whole databases and its tables. Other thing is, try to get data back from postgres into matlab. You have to write a script that does looping over all the result set instead of getting them instantly into variables like mysql. I did skim the manual and the tools available of both databases, and came to the conclusion that to do research work that lean heavily on matlab (no C or whatever) mysql is the best, free tool available.
I honestly think that some tech savvy people are using technology for ego's sake and look down upon other people that don't use the latest and the greatest and thus insult other people's intelligence without any reasoning. This is a dangerous trend that most of us have fallen into once or twice (I know I have), and need not be repeated. Case in point is that repeated post over here that called Bill Gates an idiot because of whatever he's trying to do. Well, if he's dumb then he won't be the richest man in the world, would he? On other topic it reminds me of a remark a guitarist in Jet said about Eddie Van Halen, saying Van Halen can't play guitar with feeling. I never laughed so hard in my life and never care to listen to Jet anymore, not with their high opinion of themselves.
Another is better support for matlab connectivity. Granted, it's not created by Mysql, but the matlab connectivity in postgres is just total hell. I use matlab for simplicity, wrapping postgres' C functions in matlab doesn't make it an interface. And no, writing the interface myself is NOT an option.
Also, better windows support. You people that think everything should be done in UNIX needs to get out more.
This Mysql bashing trend really make me sick. You OSS supporters should be supporting OSS, no? Everyone's been saying postgres is the best thing since Jesus was here, but that is simply not true. Both databases could only get better with competition, killing Mysql by advertising it as a bad product everywhere is counterproductive.
Don't even start with the licensing issue with me. Some Mysql bashers have an undeniably large reserve of excuses. First, it was the triggers, stored proc, etc. Then it was data integrity (which was solved by InnoDB). Then the license. Probably their mascot after this. They probably don't even know why they don't like it in the first place.
Also, don't tell me since it's OSS I can write my own goddamn function and extend the goddamn program. That is simply not an option to many people, I actually start to think that people keep saying those mantra as an excuse but never actually DO it.
As for myself, I prefer to use simple tools to help with my work and not get bogged down trying to learn how to use the tools in the first place. Some OSS zealots may get weird sensations in their sensitive part by trying to comprehend what this source code's doing, but that's just not normal for a lot of people, including me.
In short, Mysql does what I need right now. Postgres does not. In the future that might be reversed. If everything have to be perfect, then use the goddamn Oracle for everything.
Exactly right. I think this is the leftover from the 60s & 70s where there are many capable engineers but not so many able managers. Since now there are less numbers of able engineers in the US, the companies will be left with only managers but no worker. I remember Citibank started this by calling every salesperson a "management trainee" and calling every manager an "assistant vice president", essentially downgrading those positions and implies that everyone should be a manager someday and no one should be a worker.
Remember that when Europe was in the dark ages, Arab is the center of learning. Now, Arab is controlled by religious leaders while the center of learning is in the US & Europe. It seems that the religious leader are starting to take hold in the US, while China start to produce engineers & scientists like no tomorrow. How the wheel turns.
Somehow that phrase reminds me of Amway.
I can see it now. MS desperate to beat UNIX down, now turning to MLM type scheme when the FUD stops working.
I agree that it sounds like propaganda. However I doubt he's on MySQL payroll.
Anyway you're right. MySQL actually doesn't do very good if a table has a million entries. It may seem fast at first, but try to do a select on a table with a million entries, joined with itself three times, and do a group by command. It's gonna take a while to finish. Granted, it's minutes instead of the usual seconds, but I would tend to think that commercial databases would do better than that.
IMHO MySQL is fine as long as you don't do anything challenging. As for me, I'm happy that in spite of taking minutes, it's giving me the correct answer. That's all I need and I don't think it's fair to directly compare MySQL to a $20,000 database. Of course it won't perform as good. It's like comparing a Toyota to a Ferrari and complaining that the Toyota won't go as fast.
Actually, wait until the 2nd senator Bush got elected as president, then the terrorist will start to attack randomly. The MPAA & RIAA will start a blockade on small third world countries for copyright infringement, where two attorneys are sent in their defense but tried to be killed as they arrive there by the RIAA.
In light of this development, president Bush will then declare emergency power and declare herself emperor to combat the terrorist attacks. This is after the president got one of the justices to pass strange laws in exchange for a promise to save the justice's illegitimate wife from terminal illness. The attorneys will then disappear one by one save for two which narrowly escape order 66. Construction of the submersible aircraft carrier that carry enough firepower to destroy a small country will then begin.
20 years will pass as the American empire spread its influence by fear of heavy weaponry and copyright infringement, until one day the son of the justice will then bring balance to the law. He is the one that helps small countries stand up against the submersible aircraft carrier. Turns out he got a twin sister.
Praise George Lucas! He is actually our current age Nostradamus. The scenario is somewhat plausible too.
Interesting research. I would have never thought that we perceive our world depending on our surrounding and it seems that our brain is hardwired to seeing something in its context without regard on the object itself. This is essentialy your conclusion in your paper, if I'm not mistaken.
:)
I wouldn't care if you've actually done a PhD based on this or not, like a poster said. I believe this is a worthwhile observation and merits a PhD by itself. The result is not as interesting as the process and the proofs in the paper.
This visual results combined with psyhchoacoustic research that's been done to death, seems to point that our senses don't work like we thought they should. Similar phenomena has been observed in auditory perception that we don't hear as much as we thought we do. The practical application to that observation is your ordinary mp3.
So if I may expand a little, our brain perceive something based not on what we actually see and hear, but taking into account the surrounding visual and auditory context we craft our own understanding that sometimes has little to do with the actual reality itself. Perhaps this has something to do with evolution? To strip everything of irrelevant information subconsciously? How does the brain judges what is relevant and what is not? And what impact do we have on our own evolution as a species if we constantly exploit these "flaws" to construct future technologies such as mp3 and the like?
Big questions, so little time
To me personally, it sounds as if the writer of the article in question has never done any research himself.
In a research, the conclusion is just that, a conclusion. There's no way for you to know the conclusion beforehand. Not before you do the research with the methodology you decide to do. If a researcher can know for sure the conclusion beforehand, that can lead to the danger of skewing the research methodology and data to conform to that conclusion and thus makes a bad science.
Of course repeating the same methodology may sound like cheating as some posters suggested, but then again, how do you know that the previous work doesn't do bad science themselves? Not unless you try it again with their methods and arriving at the same conclusion, no? Confirming a result is NOT worthless. It's often how a groundbreaking theory got accepted into the mainstream.
Also, doing something totally new and meaningful is not easy. Chances are, even if you're very smart, once you dive into a subject and have some "groundreaking" idea, that idea has been thought up before. The goal of research is not to find something new and out of this world, but to do small steps at a time and hopefully you'll get somewhere. If you don't, at least you confirm something. Otherwise, you can easily fall into a trap of skewing your data to fit your idea of grandeur.
This is the case with research, either now or 100 years ago. Remember that in the 1800s scientists in the western world have concluded that anything worth discovering has been discovered. It's the same mindset that we have today, yet we know very little.
That is exactly the reason I chose to study in Australia. And recommended my brother to do the same. And my cousins too.
I was educated in Canada for my bachelor degree, but for fear of US control spreading over the border, I decided to go here instead.
I heard enough stories about how international students in the US are practically treated like a criminal by requiring them to report regularly to the govt. Hell, I paid a lot of money to get an education AND I'm gonna be treated like a criminal? That idea sounds weird by anyone's standard.
Now for the punchline, we're not even able to study peacefully without some stupid rules hampering us. This export restriction bullshit is the best act they pulled yet. What's next? Non-WASP cannot study in American universities? This sounds more and more like Germany before WW2, with US invading Iraq and all. I'm not surprised to see G.W. Bush the Great will announce something along the line of "American superiority above all" in the near future.
Post 9/11 the US is simply a bad place to live for international students. I'm avoiding the US at all cost. I don't even want to have my flight transit in the US. Even some Australians that are doing research with me are avoiding the US as well.
This effect, I believe, is exactly what 9/11 supposed to do. Notice the lack of any terrorist attack on US soil lately? Bin Laden was probably smart enough to know that his attack will cause America to be so paranoid they'll continually shooting themselves in the foot without any help from him. In essence, he's right.
You just have to wait until one groundbreaking scientific paper is published in Chinese, then we know the American golden age is truly over.
I would think the /. effect is the total opposite of a spreading worm, i.e. as time progresses, more people would hit a server until the story is reposted on another day (or sometimes another hour) and the effect cycle repeats itself.
/. effect at the same time.
The cycle will definitely repeats as we have that uncontrollable twitch that automatically click on any link on the front page, repost or not.
Would be interesting to know the net total traffic generated by zombies DDOS-ing a server combined with
...are scary. This, and numerous other pdf-related security breaches which happened (remember the blacked-out pdf that was modified to reveal its contents?) are all the more reason for MS pushing its software everywhere by declaring competing software are not as secure as theirs. Doesn't matter if the security breach originated from the user's lack of understanding of the most basic security concepts.
My fear is that knee-jerk reactions to incident like this someday could be as extreme as invoking the DMCA against copy and paste. That, and further control from MS for information in the government due to the inherent "security" of MS stuff. It's unimaginable that a corporation can be more powerful than the government, but more incidents like this and this will happen.
You hit it right on the head. I had the advantage of living in a third world country and thus experienced those things first hand.
Although I was born and raised in Indonesia, I was lucky enough to be educated in North America & Australia, the so-called "first world". I don't doubt that most people would call Indonesia the "third world" or whatever number of worlds.
Dropping bags of food actually does create more problem than solving them. It only applies to disaster areas in need of a quick relief and nothing else.
Due to the never ending foreign aids coming to Indonesia, not many people can withstand the onslaught of endless supply of money coming out from thin air. They started to become corrupt and emulate the first-world's consumption while they chose to ignore the fact that the country's economics are shrinking and thus unable to sustain the level of consumption. Their solution? Park their money in foreign banks and buy stuff from overseas. The result is disastrous as it drives the Indonesian currency down.
The mentality of work and ye shall receive is slowly being replaced by sit in a government post and ye shall receive. And this mentality trickles down to all levels, be it government or not.
I, for one, support the thinking that aids coming to Indonesia is actually complicating matters in the long run instead of solving them. On the macro scale, if you provide the knowledge for basic stuff without revealing the most cutting edge knowledge, it will kickstart a new round of capitalism. The "cutting edge knowledge" will be discovered naturally by Indonesians as the need arise.
don't forget WE'RE NOT WORTHY
I've honestly seen this trend for a while, and I don't even live in the US.
From simple things like cell phones, the US is horribly behind European and even some Asian countries they consider "third world". In fact, no so-called "first world" country can even compete with Korea on broadband right now.
It all comes down to the philosophy of capitalism. I'm not an expert, but capitalism supposed to give benefits when everyone competes with everyone else thus pushing everyone to give a better technology at better prices. The flaw in that is if everyone pretends to compete and instead creates an invisible cartel thus creating a monopoly by many firms. As you can see, this is already happening in cell phones and broadband market.
This process is not unseen for, but it's uncontrollable if lobbying groups for said virtual monopolies practically have a stranglehold on the congress, thus creating a bigger problem by disguising their acts by saying that their actions are supported by the congress and thus by the people. If you don't agree, you have to blame yourself for electing the congress in the first place. It's like a thief saying that you urged them to steal because you drive expensive car and thus YOU are at fault. The fact that they stole from you is ignored.
Seeing how the RIAA and the carriers acted in the past year by manipulating congress and creating their own law in the meantime, I believe the worst is yet to happen. This is all but a preview. The RIAA practically grow bolder with each move, short of creating their own private army to raid people's houses.
But I doubt a bank failure is gonna happen soon. The US is economically very strong and the government will do whatever it can to keep the world's confidence on the US dollar. What I think will happen first is the transfer of power from congress to the corporations, invisibly, by manipulation of words such as intellectual property, copyright and patent. And don't forget those anti-terrorist acts that slowly eats away your privacy and freedom, or anyone on US soil right now.
Damn man, you're just too nice. Stop doing that or you'll get strangled pretty soon. I echo the sentiments in the other comments, they NEED you, you NEED them, that's where the relationship ends. They ask more, you have to ask more too. It's the art of saying "fuck you" with a smile that's proven invaluable, at least for me.
In turn, there are at least that many shitty IT companies too that screws people over. I was consulting for a company that wants to redesign their network and database system. In short, the whole thing. I look at every contract and basically try to get the best deal for my client. Up until the signing of the contract, I rechecked every term to make sure there's no shithole wide open. The IT company agreed to make a 3 months free support after final deployment.
Then after that it takes a turn for the worse. They start recommending ridiculous spec for a terminal and the servers. Who the hell needs LCD screen and a DVD drive on the cheapo terminals in 2002? They also suggested a RAID array on the servers, but no mention of UPS. I immediately smell a rat, since all their spec is based on Compaq's offering. When I asked them why I need all this junk, they replied that buying bulk from Compaq can save me heaps.
I give them a virtual fuck you by recommending to my client a competing spec, which is more reasonable and way cheaper. I let the client decide.
It's getting even better after that. They put a new programmer in the project. After some careful checking, I honestly think this guy was fresh form college with minimal knowledge of databases. Long story short, the project dragged on longer and longer, with them finishing all deployment 3 months late.
And then the manager of the IT company told me that I have to renew my support contract, since the free 3 months I got was expired. Me and my client then told them, since their deployment was 3 months late, then there's no way in hell they're getting paid for their screwups in the first place. They retort by saying that the date for the end of the free support was clearly indicated in the contract. We retort by saying that if you don't honor your deployment date, then we don't honor the payment detail. It was a funny meeting to watch. Luckily I told my client to not sign the contract unless there's another term of payment AFTER the project's all done and all free support term finished.
Well, after all those rubbish, everything is ok and they proceeded to give us the final source code. I insist to see it compile and working in front of my eyes.
Moral of the story is, business is business. If you let no shithole open for anyone to screw you over with, they can't do it. Even then, they'll try to screw you. Just make sure you have the arsenal to hit them back just in case they tried, preferably with a bigger gun. Just be on your guard at all times. This is a management skill, and the reason why their pay is higher than engineers. Honestly it's not an easy task to guard the livelihood of your company. One small mistake and the whole company could be over.
That is the truth anywhere in the world. Realize it or not, safety nets are everywhere and inadvertently you'll start building it yourself when you advance to a managerial post.
That safety net I built enabled me not to have to send my resume again to look for another job, as long as it's connected to my old job somehow. I haven't even updated my resume for 4 years and counting. Combine my own safety net with that of my family's and my friend's, I'm pretty much secure for some time.
And that is the reason why MS or its kind can thrive. They provide a kind of safety net as well. I'm an open source lover, but open source doesn't provide that, although I do tend to replace any ASP I found with PHP and use MySQL whenever I see fit, with excuses like "I understand those better so I needed them for me to do my job better". But zealotry for those won't get you anywhere.
Ivy League schools sure give you some head start to build those nets, but even without it you can build a net that even they will envy. It's all down to the individual, I say.
Note that my view is not the popular one here, I even got flamed a couple of times because I'm "one of them assholes" for saying this. Unfortunately this is the truth, and I keep my job where others have lost it.