Some of us still have to maintain those HPUX systems on the older subs, you insensitive clod!
But seriously...the Navy is moving forward with leaps and bounds in this regard...but assurance about the reliability of critical systems is assured with several billions dollars and most of a decade spent on testing...the sub that the previous poster is referring to is the USS Virginia, which is in the ocean undergoing testing as we speak, even though it won't deploy for 4 years...
I somehow failed to notice the "faster" part. I multiboot Mandrake 8 on the same hardware and it's very comparable, performance-wise. If anything, I'm not stressing WinXP as much, because I'm not running things like Apache and mysqld in the background, since I do most of my work on the other OS. I just boot WinXP to test stuff on it.
I probably should have qualified that better... What I meant to say that WinXP runs better on my Celery 466 laptop than Windows 2000 did...when I installed it, I fully expected it to *crawl*...but it ended up feeling about the same...and then after I turned off some of the silly multimedia "enhancements", I was flying.
Although I use XP at home, I, ironically, use Mandrake at work, which kicks butt for the sort of work I do (some coding, IT research, email, UNIX administration, remote X-term logins)... Zippy and rock-solid of course.
Now, if you'd actually read my post, you'd see the phrase "is close behind in terms of speed" in comparing WinXP to Linux, which is remarkably similar to your comment "it's very comparable, performance-wise" on the same subject.
I guess what I'm saying is that the way it used to be, speaking very generally, was that you had the choice between an OS that was stable and reliable and one that was easy to use. In the days hence, Microsoft has come leaps and bounds in the stability realm...and Linux has come leaps and bounds in the useability realm.
They could also write a faster, more secure OS, that does not crash. Then sell it for production cost+1$/copy, and release the source code.
Have you used Windows XP lately? Not to be a troll, but it really is faster and doesn't crash anymore... I installed it 10 days ago, and it's been up and running since, under heavy usage too, I might add...
As for secure, well, who knows...we'll see what the next big MS security holes are.. and as for price and open-source-ness, still a long way to go there.
In terms of usability and stability, MS has really come a long way from then Windows 9X days...the latest Windows seems to, in my opinion, have caught up to Linux in terms of stability, and is close behind in terms of speed as well... Of course, the argument of MS being an evil monopolistic company with equally evil business practices still certainly stands:-)
I think Star Wars is a perfect example of how you can take one really long epic story and convert it into a series of movies, with each movie having it's own conflict/climax/resolution parts...I mean, Star Wars would be quite boring if it was just one long meandering journey from the birth of Anakin to his death and the fall of the Empire...instead, each section of the story is a story in it's own right, yet still following the overall epic plot line. I don't think it's even necessary to change any of the facts of the plot to make it do that, just a change in the buildup and for god's sakes, an ending.
What disappointed me about the first LOTR movie was that the movie just seemed to come to an abrupt halt three hours into it. Does the second one suffer the same malady, or is there more of a conflict/resolution/ending to it? I haven't read the books, so I'm hoping it's not just three hours of walking though the woods fighting things... I realize the LOTR has a cult-like following, and I'll probably get flamed for saying this, but movies should stand on their own two feet - the first movie ended like a 2-part sitcom "To Be Continued...", which I find wholly inacceptable for a major-production movie. The actual plot of the movie is not scheduled to be resolved until 2 movies later! Of course, if Hollywood can do that and still make hundreds of millions (which they have), I suppose I'm none the wiser...
How is this different from a single purpose workstation in a corporate environment? e.g. call centre, stock control system, supermarket till, parcel tracking, airline check in, etc. Single task workstations are commonplace in supporting commercial busines. Even an "office" may only require a handful of applications, email, web browser, wordprocessor, spreadsheet.
Because, if your stock control system malfunctions, you don't risk nuclear disaster:)
Unfortunately, OSS is much more suitable for military applications than in corporate America... a typical workstation on a submarine will have one purpose, say, to look at radar or fire weapons...so you have an OS, some special hardware, and typically a single application built specifically for you to control it all.
So, it's really easy to develop something like this on an OSS platform as opposed to a Windows platform or whatnot. Migrating OSS to the desktops of large corporations, on the other hand, is an entirely different endeavour.
Suppose you're the government, and you're in charge of acquiring software to run the latest nuclear submarine, one that with the push of a few buttons can launch medium-range ballistic nuclear missiles (real example here).
Whatever runs these systems has to be totally, unequivocally, 100% bug-free and secure. To do this, the government takes the code written by one company, and gives it to another company or two to comb though it and make SURE it's clean! In fact, for code that runs nuclear systems, a company is paid to remove any dead or unused code from the system, and at a considerable expense. Billions of dollars are spent on testing, testing, and re-testing these systems to make sure they are absolutely rock-solid.
Now, given such an environment...it's pretty silly to even consider something like, "Hey...we'll sell you MS Nuker 95 because Windows is fast, reliable, and secure! Of course we can't show you our source code, you just have to trust us..."
And that's the position the government is in. For that type of application, you can't get much more mission-critical or content-sensitive. For these types of military applications, the source code must must must be available...not necessarily to the world, but at least to the gov't developers.
Why were new versions of HP-UX required ? My guesses:
Threads. A version of Java later than 1.1.8.
Actually, the problem was that HP-UX ran only on HP processors. A brand new Navy nuclear submarine has a lifespan of 35-40 years, while a typical computer operating system becomes outdated in 5-7 years. The problem was that after about a year ago, HP stopped supporting the latest version of HP-UX that ran on those processors, stopped making patches for it, stopped adding support for new hardware, etc., etc. Thus, as the Navy's needs changed, their operating system couldn't change to meet the new needs. The options were to either upgrade all the hardware to all new HP processors and OSes (and probably get screwed again in the future), or move to something that was more likely to be supported, upgradeable, and backwards-compatible in the future. Since Linux is a relative newcomer, the choice was made at the time to use Sun Solaris, though the big push now is towards Linux.
I work for the DoD, in a technology policy branch.
Not only is proprietary softare inherently insecure, it's inherently more expensive, inherently doesn't work as well, and inherently causes the government to be screwed if the company goes out of business or decides to stop supporting the software. In fact, the government got screwed by using HP-UX when HP decided not to make new versions of the OS backwards-compatible with the older HP processors being used in most of our submarines...now, wisely, half of the computers in the NEXT generation of subs are running Linux (the rest are running Solaris...)
I work for the DoD, in a branch that plans technology policy for various projects. Over the last 5-10 years, the push for "Open Standards Architecture" (OSA) has been at the forefront. It's the stated policy of the DoD, which comes from the mouth of a former Secretary of Defense, to push for open standards, open interfaces, and in general to be as far from proprietary as possible. Proprietary software means more expense for the government due to non-competition, and it also puts the government in the hands of a private corporation.
Open Source, while not specifically targeted by the DoD, is the next logical step. Although the previous generation of nuclear submarines ran HP-UX, the next generation (due to be delivered starting 2006) will run about half Solaris, half Linux. So yes, open source is on the way in in the government. Slightly off-topic, but if you want a good example of why proprietary software is no good for mission-critical work, look up on Google the problems the USS Yorktown had with Windows NT about 5 years ago...
Outside of talk radio, which is typically conservative and uses the term "Communism" to refer to those of the far left, Commumism really isn't mentioned in the national press outside of reference to Communist and post-Communist nations.
For example, Cuba and China are communist countries, and to a a degree proudly so... The last Fascist countries fell over 50 years ago (WWII axis nations)
But anyhow...your original premise is that liberalism is thought of as a 'bad thing' in America, and the fact that Communism is thought to be an evil thing supports that fact; I would actually say it's more likely that the average uneducated Joe doesn't like Communism with far-leftism but rather with "evil" countries like China, Cuba, and the former Soviet bloc.
Now, I've also heard the flip side...there are those that associate "conservative" and "Republican" with the whole right-wing religious wacko, ten commandments, creationist deal.
I've also heard countless times from either side of the political spectrum claims that the major news outlets have a political bent to the opposite direction. While no one would doubt that radio is dominated by right-wingers, the print media seems to lean in whatever direction the local politics swing. For example, the Boston Globe or the Sacramento Bee most likely have a left-wing bent, whereas the Dallas Star-Telegram I would assume to have a right-wing bias.
As far as the televised national media, well, I've heard the arguments from both sides, but I just don't see it. The national outlets spend so much time reporting on the actual news that there's little opportunity for bias...more news, less discussion of the news. I also suspect that if a national outlet began to develop a bias to one side, people would immediately begin to disregard it as such.
So...I have to say that I'm of the opinion that there's no real swing in either direction over the term "liberal" or "conservative"...look at elections...each side accuses the other of being too liberal or too conservative as if the label is an insult...I think it's more true that the labels leave bad tastes in the mouths of those too far to the other side of the political spectrum.
Communism is extreme economic control by the government, which is a far-left concept...whereas Fascism is extreme personal/social control by the government, which is a far-right concept. I thought that point was clear...
Communism is a poor example...on the other side you have Fascism, which almost everyone would agree is just as bad if not worse, with the same inability to say why.
the average American...believes that his government can do no wrong, is misinformed about their individual rights, has had little exposure to liberal setiments, is not politically active, and is primed to have a knee jerk-reaction to whatever liberal opinions that they might hear....Not much time left in that equation to develop a curiousity about politics
...
My post did not show any favoratism for either liberal or traditional views
...
Now, I'm not supporting any political position...but it seems obvious to me that your first post very strongly makes the statement that those that are not liberal are such because they are misinformed, stupid, or don't care. Conversely, you are saying that if people were properly informed and paid attention to current events, then OBVIOUSLY they would have liberal ideas. By adding the phrase about "knee-jerk reaction to liberal ideas", you are clearly associating the previous statements with non-liberals.
I would also recommend Bigfoot, which has all those features, and depending on what level of service you want, only costs $5-$10 per quarter... The service is decent, and the spam filtering is quite good - and you can forward them any spam that does get though and it'll get caught next time. There's also a free email option available as well, for those that don't mind filtering out the ads and spams themselves.
Technology that renders optical media useless... [snip]
This was already tried with DiVX, as introduced by Circuit City. You'd buy a DVD and it would only be good for a few viewings. It failed miserably, just as this will fail miserably - not to mention the ridiculous waste of material.
You would be correct other than the fact that there are always older versions of Windows...and in the case that the new Windows.NET (or whatever they call it) is unworkable, M$ will see sales lag...
Not the codec, but the DVD-ish format introduced by Circuit City. It flopped because average-Joe consumer saw it for the fraud that it was, and you can bet that the same will be true when consumers have the choice between a crippled DRM version of something and a non-crippled version of the same.
DRM will NEVER, EVER catch on with John Q. Public...which is why the effort to implement it via legislation MUST be stopped.
Second, if I come up to you on the street and say: "if you give me $5 a week, I will give you back $5.25 when you take the money out". Does that make me a bank? Should I be federally regulated? Whats the difference if PayPal does it on a large scale?
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Some of us still have to maintain those HPUX systems on the older subs, you insensitive clod!
But seriously...the Navy is moving forward with leaps and bounds in this regard...but assurance about the reliability of critical systems is assured with several billions dollars and most of a decade spent on testing...the sub that the previous poster is referring to is the USS Virginia, which is in the ocean undergoing testing as we speak, even though it won't deploy for 4 years...
I probably should have qualified that better... What I meant to say that WinXP runs better on my Celery 466 laptop than Windows 2000 did...when I installed it, I fully expected it to *crawl*...but it ended up feeling about the same...and then after I turned off some of the silly multimedia "enhancements", I was flying.
Although I use XP at home, I, ironically, use Mandrake at work, which kicks butt for the sort of work I do (some coding, IT research, email, UNIX administration, remote X-term logins)... Zippy and rock-solid of course.
Now, if you'd actually read my post, you'd see the phrase "is close behind in terms of speed" in comparing WinXP to Linux, which is remarkably similar to your comment "it's very comparable, performance-wise" on the same subject.
I guess what I'm saying is that the way it used to be, speaking very generally, was that you had the choice between an OS that was stable and reliable and one that was easy to use. In the days hence, Microsoft has come leaps and bounds in the stability realm...and Linux has come leaps and bounds in the useability realm.
Well, gee...I wasn't implying that anyone should actually pay money for it... ;-)
As for secure, well, who knows...we'll see what the next big MS security holes are.. and as for price and open-source-ness, still a long way to go there.
In terms of usability and stability, MS has really come a long way from then Windows 9X days...the latest Windows seems to, in my opinion, have caught up to Linux in terms of stability, and is close behind in terms of speed as well... Of course, the argument of MS being an evil monopolistic company with equally evil business practices still certainly stands
I would be curious as to what that percentage would be if pre-installed OS's were discounted and only sales of boxed software were counted.
I think Star Wars is a perfect example of how you can take one really long epic story and convert it into a series of movies, with each movie having it's own conflict/climax/resolution parts...I mean, Star Wars would be quite boring if it was just one long meandering journey from the birth of Anakin to his death and the fall of the Empire...instead, each section of the story is a story in it's own right, yet still following the overall epic plot line. I don't think it's even necessary to change any of the facts of the plot to make it do that, just a change in the buildup and for god's sakes, an ending.
What disappointed me about the first LOTR movie was that the movie just seemed to come to an abrupt halt three hours into it. Does the second one suffer the same malady, or is there more of a conflict/resolution/ending to it? I haven't read the books, so I'm hoping it's not just three hours of walking though the woods fighting things... I realize the LOTR has a cult-like following, and I'll probably get flamed for saying this, but movies should stand on their own two feet - the first movie ended like a 2-part sitcom "To Be Continued...", which I find wholly inacceptable for a major-production movie. The actual plot of the movie is not scheduled to be resolved until 2 movies later! Of course, if Hollywood can do that and still make hundreds of millions (which they have), I suppose I'm none the wiser...
How is this different from a single purpose workstation in a corporate environment? e.g. call centre, stock control system, supermarket till, parcel tracking, airline check in, etc. Single task workstations are commonplace in supporting commercial busines. Even an "office" may only require a handful of applications, email, web browser, wordprocessor, spreadsheet.
:)
Because, if your stock control system malfunctions, you don't risk nuclear disaster
Unfortunately, OSS is much more suitable for military applications than in corporate America... a typical workstation on a submarine will have one purpose, say, to look at radar or fire weapons...so you have an OS, some special hardware, and typically a single application built specifically for you to control it all.
So, it's really easy to develop something like this on an OSS platform as opposed to a Windows platform or whatnot. Migrating OSS to the desktops of large corporations, on the other hand, is an entirely different endeavour.
Suppose you're the government, and you're in charge of acquiring software to run the latest nuclear submarine, one that with the push of a few buttons can launch medium-range ballistic nuclear missiles (real example here).
Whatever runs these systems has to be totally, unequivocally, 100% bug-free and secure. To do this, the government takes the code written by one company, and gives it to another company or two to comb though it and make SURE it's clean! In fact, for code that runs nuclear systems, a company is paid to remove any dead or unused code from the system, and at a considerable expense. Billions of dollars are spent on testing, testing, and re-testing these systems to make sure they are absolutely rock-solid.
Now, given such an environment...it's pretty silly to even consider something like, "Hey...we'll sell you MS Nuker 95 because Windows is fast, reliable, and secure! Of course we can't show you our source code, you just have to trust us..."
And that's the position the government is in. For that type of application, you can't get much more mission-critical or content-sensitive. For these types of military applications, the source code must must must be available...not necessarily to the world, but at least to the gov't developers.
Actually, the problem was that HP-UX ran only on HP processors. A brand new Navy nuclear submarine has a lifespan of 35-40 years, while a typical computer operating system becomes outdated in 5-7 years. The problem was that after about a year ago, HP stopped supporting the latest version of HP-UX that ran on those processors, stopped making patches for it, stopped adding support for new hardware, etc., etc. Thus, as the Navy's needs changed, their operating system couldn't change to meet the new needs. The options were to either upgrade all the hardware to all new HP processors and OSes (and probably get screwed again in the future), or move to something that was more likely to be supported, upgradeable, and backwards-compatible in the future. Since Linux is a relative newcomer, the choice was made at the time to use Sun Solaris, though the big push now is towards Linux.
I work for the DoD, in a technology policy branch.
Not only is proprietary softare inherently insecure, it's inherently more expensive, inherently doesn't work as well, and inherently causes the government to be screwed if the company goes out of business or decides to stop supporting the software. In fact, the government got screwed by using HP-UX when HP decided not to make new versions of the OS backwards-compatible with the older HP processors being used in most of our submarines...now, wisely, half of the computers in the NEXT generation of subs are running Linux (the rest are running Solaris...)
I work for the DoD, in a branch that plans technology policy for various projects. Over the last 5-10 years, the push for "Open Standards Architecture" (OSA) has been at the forefront. It's the stated policy of the DoD, which comes from the mouth of a former Secretary of Defense, to push for open standards, open interfaces, and in general to be as far from proprietary as possible. Proprietary software means more expense for the government due to non-competition, and it also puts the government in the hands of a private corporation.
Open Source, while not specifically targeted by the DoD, is the next logical step. Although the previous generation of nuclear submarines ran HP-UX, the next generation (due to be delivered starting 2006) will run about half Solaris, half Linux. So yes, open source is on the way in in the government. Slightly off-topic, but if you want a good example of why proprietary software is no good for mission-critical work, look up on Google the problems the USS Yorktown had with Windows NT about 5 years ago...
Outside of talk radio, which is typically conservative and uses the term "Communism" to refer to those of the far left, Commumism really isn't mentioned in the national press outside of reference to Communist and post-Communist nations.
For example, Cuba and China are communist countries, and to a a degree proudly so... The last Fascist countries fell over 50 years ago (WWII axis nations)
But anyhow...your original premise is that liberalism is thought of as a 'bad thing' in America, and the fact that Communism is thought to be an evil thing supports that fact; I would actually say it's more likely that the average uneducated Joe doesn't like Communism with far-leftism but rather with "evil" countries like China, Cuba, and the former Soviet bloc.
Now, I've also heard the flip side...there are those that associate "conservative" and "Republican" with the whole right-wing religious wacko, ten commandments, creationist deal.
I've also heard countless times from either side of the political spectrum claims that the major news outlets have a political bent to the opposite direction. While no one would doubt that radio is dominated by right-wingers, the print media seems to lean in whatever direction the local politics swing. For example, the Boston Globe or the Sacramento Bee most likely have a left-wing bent, whereas the Dallas Star-Telegram I would assume to have a right-wing bias.
As far as the televised national media, well, I've heard the arguments from both sides, but I just don't see it. The national outlets spend so much time reporting on the actual news that there's little opportunity for bias...more news, less discussion of the news. I also suspect that if a national outlet began to develop a bias to one side, people would immediately begin to disregard it as such.
So...I have to say that I'm of the opinion that there's no real swing in either direction over the term "liberal" or "conservative"...look at elections...each side accuses the other of being too liberal or too conservative as if the label is an insult...I think it's more true that the labels leave bad tastes in the mouths of those too far to the other side of the political spectrum.
Communism is extreme economic control by the government, which is a far-left concept...whereas Fascism is extreme personal/social control by the government, which is a far-right concept. I thought that point was clear...
Communism is a poor example...on the other side you have Fascism, which almost everyone would agree is just as bad if not worse, with the same inability to say why.
the average American...believes that his government can do no wrong, is misinformed about their individual rights, has had little exposure to liberal setiments, is not politically active, and is primed to have a knee jerk-reaction to whatever liberal opinions that they might hear....Not much time left in that equation to develop a curiousity about politics
...
...
My post did not show any favoratism for either liberal or traditional views
Now, I'm not supporting any political position...but it seems obvious to me that your first post very strongly makes the statement that those that are not liberal are such because they are misinformed, stupid, or don't care. Conversely, you are saying that if people were properly informed and paid attention to current events, then OBVIOUSLY they would have liberal ideas. By adding the phrase about "knee-jerk reaction to liberal ideas", you are clearly associating the previous statements with non-liberals.
I would also recommend Bigfoot, which has all those features, and depending on what level of service you want, only costs $5-$10 per quarter... The service is decent, and the spam filtering is quite good - and you can forward them any spam that does get though and it'll get caught next time. There's also a free email option available as well, for those that don't mind filtering out the ads and spams themselves.
Technology that renders optical media useless... [snip]
This was already tried with DiVX, as introduced by Circuit City. You'd buy a DVD and it would only be good for a few viewings. It failed miserably, just as this will fail miserably - not to mention the ridiculous waste of material.
Unfortunately, bzip2 is horribly slow compared to zip or gzip, which is why I don't think it will catch on until computing gets horribly fast.
I'm not really so sure that a flipping or loss of magnetic poles would really be so catastrophic to life as we know it...
You would be correct other than the fact that there are always older versions of Windows...and in the case that the new Windows.NET (or whatever they call it) is unworkable, M$ will see sales lag...
I hope...
DIVX.
Not the codec, but the DVD-ish format introduced by Circuit City. It flopped because average-Joe consumer saw it for the fraud that it was, and you can bet that the same will be true when consumers have the choice between a crippled DRM version of something and a non-crippled version of the same.
DRM will NEVER, EVER catch on with John Q. Public...which is why the effort to implement it via legislation MUST be stopped.
Yes there is. Washington State has a registry of e-mail addresses [waisp.org] that residents can sign up for.
Hmmm...do you actually have to be a Washington resident to sign up?