They are open-sourcing their development "stuff", and are doing so because it will help them keep the "critical mass" of developers writing stuff for their platforms. As long as software keeps being released for Windows (all flavors) or Azure, they are pretty much guaranteed a place in the market.
It's really smart positioning on their part, and really shows that someone in upper management is thinking 20+ years in advance...
It's because he wasted his public trust by not practicing what he preached and therefore made himself out to be a hypocrite... If he really wanted people to follow him, he'd live in a modest home that has been (recently) energy audited and upgraded, then buy carbon credits for the energy he uses (like the rest of us). Then he'd take the savings (vs. the mansions he bought) and put that toward actually addressing the problem at hand.
Notice, BTW, I'm not saying he's wrong in the message he preaches (cutting GHG emissions is almost certainly a good thing, even if he is wrong), just that he needs to leave the preaching to the people that haven't squandered the public trust...
"Climate Change" is not some major conspiracy; But there are plenty of unscrupulous people who are trying to profit from it. This is the nature of people. Sorry, nothing to see here, move along...
That said, the only way to truly get people "on board" with reducing carbon emissons is to make it less expensive than the alternative. Otherwise, you have the (huge) uphill battle of making them believe it is their natural "God-given" right to be carbon-neutral. Good luck with that...
The answer is, and has always been, better technology. Do more with less energy, generate more energy with less fuel, "make" more fuel with less "fossil"... You get the picture.
The only catch is, "Who is going to pay for the R&D?" I would argue most people would be quite OK with the government providing grants & subsidies to research centers dedicated to doing just that. "Oh, you're using my tax dollars to help reduce my cost of living? Carry on!"
...is that the only truly successful development projects are the ones which engineer the software and the processes at the same time. I've seen this first-hand several times, and have seen evidence of it in many other cases where I did not have direct access to the development effort. It really doesn't matter where the software came from (COTS, outsource, in-house, etc.), just that the processes are engineered at the same time.
Another thing I have observed in my region is that most heavily technology-using companies of 150+ employees will employ a software person on-staff (maybe with a dual role on help-desk or the like). Used properly, this is a great formula for successful projects as the in-house person can make the determination (in concert w/ the employees affected) as to how to develop the software.
You do realize, though, that we Americans are almost exlusively Gasoline-based for anything smaller than a large truck or SUV. There are exceptions, but most of them say VW on them somewhere. We also don't have to mess with as much diesel smoke during our commutes (which is arguably a significant advantage).
Well, that worked out a lot better than I had anticipated... We called the local guys back, and they have now quoted us about $4650/Month for 100 Mbit/s fiber, and minimal buildout. This is probably just as well, because the rooftop space on TCBY tower would be about $1000/Month (found that out this morning). Anyway, thanks!
That's what I originally thought of, but my boss (the CIO) won't do that... "You want me to bet our disaster recovery on *what*?". He's probably right, too.
We are trying to do multiple things:
- AD Replication (not much bandwidth)
- SQL Replication (average usage isn't much, but overnight processes generate multiple gigs of changes, and have to be done before 5am)
- File Replication (Big bandwidth; scanned documents & the like)
- Line-of-business Apps (Big SQL bandwidth; they aren't very efficient, but we didn't write them, so... =P )
- VOIP for 24 lines (1.5Mb or so max)
We also need to be able to grow pretty significantly over the next few years.
Something else is that the LR location will be moving within the next 2.5 years, and most local telco's won't touch a short lease for this much bandwidth...
If I were making the decision myself, and could just sign the check, we'd have done this already. Unfortunatly, the 2004 IT budget has already been finalized, and the 80K just isn't there (we run a really lean IT shop).
Maybe we'll just have to wait until 2005 to do this, or go with wire-line service...
1.17 caret Tsavorite Garnet on a custom Platinum band. It's not a diamond, it has a lot of value, and it's a beautiful green color (darker than emerald, with higher refractive index).
If you read above, there were two of them. The failover didn't work, and the secondary router didn't ever come online (until this morning). Even Cisco was surprised by this, but that's what happened.
Well, usually apt is rock-solid, and provides (quite nice) dependancy resolution. Only rarely does it screw a system. The Debian developers do a very fine job keeping everything running smoothly, but they are human, and do make mistakes periodically.
RPM, OTOH, makes you have to go find all the dependancies (btw, I'm referring to RPM as a package type, not as an upgrade system, as I have little experience with those). It is also very easy for a newbie or lesser guru to screw their system because they installed the wrong package. Another thing is that RPM doesn't inherently guaranty that the package is legitimate, whereas.deb does (in the form of pgp signatures).
So, anyways, before I ramble too much more, RPM only wins for people who could build their GNU/Linux install from scratch to begin with. Apt's.deb wins for everyone else.
I use asp, java, javascript, and VB at work (my bosses like Microsoft... oh well, the paycheck is good), and C, php4, & bash scripting at home, and I gotta tell ya, this can't be more true. I learned javascript in something like 30 minutes, and have been doing some really cool things with it since... it's not what you use, it's how you use it...
I have a theory I'd like some feedback on (yes, it's on-topic... =)
From what I can see (which is admitedly not much), it seems that the people who are _best_qualified_ to do computer jobs (with a few notable exceptions) are also the _least_credentialed_. All the CS BS degree holders I've ever seen are, shall we say, a little lacking in ablity. They know the theories, but they don't have *any* real-world experiance using those theories, and are no better than a beginner. However, those who decided to forgo college (usually because it seemed a waste of time for them, b/c they allready knew the material) have a lot of real world experiance, and are just better computer people.
PPP == Point-to-Point Protocal PPP is your connection protocal, or, how your system talks to your isp's system. PAP == Password Authentication Protocal PAP is your authentication protocal, or, how your system authenticates itself to the isp's system (this is how the isp knows who to bill, and how you log in)
The authentication protocal requires a connection protocal to work (how can you authenticate if you can't talk to the remote system?). It doesn't care what the connection protocal is, it just want s one. The connection protocal, OTOH, doesn't need the authentication protocal, unless the isp's system kicks unauthenticated connections.
WRT getting it to work, I used pppconfig, the ran pon to connect (I'm on a debian system), and it connected correctly the first time, no problems.
btw, I'm using swbell.net for my isp. They have _really_ good support for non-windows tcp/ip based machines (they don't even ask).
Just thought I'd comment on this... I think he was referring to the newer (i.e., since VAX) compilers. The older ones probably are pretty crusty, but then again, they were written for a crusty platform (OpenVMS).
Something that I think should be pointed out is that current CPU/bus tech. is far behind what 3d accelerators can use. Just as an example, take a voodoo2, and put it on any single processor system (except k7, which may finally do it) currently available... changing the clock speed of the CPU changes the frame rate of the card. Now, unless I'm really smokin' somethin', that is indicative of a CPU-bound operation. IOW, we STILL don't have a CPU that can feed a voodoo2 more than it can handle.
Sorry I don't have numbers, but I need to do some research before I can say anything about that (if someone would like to do that for me... =)
He did something positive for the computing community whether or not people accept that. Even with some of the flaws in the Windows operating system, it still is and will probably continue to be a dominating OS for years to come.
I beg to differ... #1) if Gates hadn't done it, someone else would have... it's just a matter of him being first. #2) Microsoft will have to work pretty hard to keep up with other alternatives (Linux, *BSD, BEOS, etc.)... I don't see them doing that...
Maybe I'm wrong, and if I am, so be it, but I just don't agree with you.
Slashdot Mirror
They are open-sourcing their development "stuff", and are doing so because it will help them keep the "critical mass" of developers writing stuff for their platforms. As long as software keeps being released for Windows (all flavors) or Azure, they are pretty much guaranteed a place in the market.
It's really smart positioning on their part, and really shows that someone in upper management is thinking 20+ years in advance...
It's because he wasted his public trust by not practicing what he preached and therefore made himself out to be a hypocrite... If he really wanted people to follow him, he'd live in a modest home that has been (recently) energy audited and upgraded, then buy carbon credits for the energy he uses (like the rest of us). Then he'd take the savings (vs. the mansions he bought) and put that toward actually addressing the problem at hand.
Notice, BTW, I'm not saying he's wrong in the message he preaches (cutting GHG emissions is almost certainly a good thing, even if he is wrong), just that he needs to leave the preaching to the people that haven't squandered the public trust...
"Climate Change" is not some major conspiracy; But there are plenty of unscrupulous people who are trying to profit from it. This is the nature of people. Sorry, nothing to see here, move along...
That said, the only way to truly get people "on board" with reducing carbon emissons is to make it less expensive than the alternative. Otherwise, you have the (huge) uphill battle of making them believe it is their natural "God-given" right to be carbon-neutral. Good luck with that...
The answer is, and has always been, better technology. Do more with less energy, generate more energy with less fuel, "make" more fuel with less "fossil"... You get the picture.
The only catch is, "Who is going to pay for the R&D?" I would argue most people would be quite OK with the government providing grants & subsidies to research centers dedicated to doing just that. "Oh, you're using my tax dollars to help reduce my cost of living? Carry on!"
For the less informed among us, do you have any urls to back up the comment on candidates for 2008?
-- ioctl
...is that the only truly successful development projects are the ones which engineer the software and the processes at the same time. I've seen this first-hand several times, and have seen evidence of it in many other cases where I did not have direct access to the development effort. It really doesn't matter where the software came from (COTS, outsource, in-house, etc.), just that the processes are engineered at the same time.
Another thing I have observed in my region is that most heavily technology-using companies of 150+ employees will employ a software person on-staff (maybe with a dual role on help-desk or the like). Used properly, this is a great formula for successful projects as the in-house person can make the determination (in concert w/ the employees affected) as to how to develop the software.
For those who haven't seen it in print yet, the ad is on pages A34 & A35.
You do realize, though, that we Americans are almost exlusively Gasoline-based for anything smaller than a large truck or SUV. There are exceptions, but most of them say VW on them somewhere. We also don't have to mess with as much diesel smoke during our commutes (which is arguably a significant advantage).
Well, that worked out a lot better than I had anticipated... We called the local guys back, and they have now quoted us about $4650/Month for 100 Mbit/s fiber, and minimal buildout. This is probably just as well, because the rooftop space on TCBY tower would be about $1000/Month (found that out this morning). Anyway, thanks!
I don't think they are in my area, but I'll look in more detail later.
802.15.3 won't work for us, because of the distance limitation. We have a minimum of 6.7 miles to cover in the longest hop.
That's what I originally thought of, but my boss (the CIO) won't do that... "You want me to bet our disaster recovery on *what*?". He's probably right, too.
Actually, no. It would cost us many times that to move (probably $500K+ for NLR, and > $4M for LR).
Acxiom?
OK, my bad...
We are trying to do multiple things:
- AD Replication (not much bandwidth)
- SQL Replication (average usage isn't much, but overnight processes generate multiple gigs of changes, and have to be done before 5am)
- File Replication (Big bandwidth; scanned documents & the like)
- Line-of-business Apps (Big SQL bandwidth; they aren't very efficient, but we didn't write them, so... =P )
- VOIP for 24 lines (1.5Mb or so max)
We also need to be able to grow pretty significantly over the next few years.
Something else is that the LR location will be moving within the next 2.5 years, and most local telco's won't touch a short lease for this much bandwidth...
We thought about that, but it doesn't provide us with a hot-backup site. Latency would just be a little too high. =)
We looked at that, but we really need more bandwidth than Mux'd T-1's can give us for a decent price.
If I were making the decision myself, and could just sign the check, we'd have done this already. Unfortunatly, the 2004 IT budget has already been finalized, and the 80K just isn't there (we run a really lean IT shop).
Maybe we'll just have to wait until 2005 to do this, or go with wire-line service...
1.17 caret Tsavorite Garnet on a custom Platinum band. It's not a diamond, it has a lot of value, and it's a beautiful green color (darker than emerald, with higher refractive index).
If you read above, there were two of them. The failover didn't work, and the secondary router didn't ever come online (until this morning). Even Cisco was surprised by this, but that's what happened.
Well, usually apt is rock-solid, and provides (quite nice) dependancy resolution. Only rarely does it screw a system. The Debian developers do a very fine job keeping everything running smoothly, but they are human, and do make mistakes periodically.
.deb does (in the form of pgp signatures).
.deb wins for everyone else.
RPM, OTOH, makes you have to go find all the dependancies (btw, I'm referring to RPM as a package type, not as an upgrade system, as I have little experience with those). It is also very easy for a newbie or lesser guru to screw their system because they installed the wrong package. Another thing is that RPM doesn't inherently guaranty that the package is legitimate, whereas
So, anyways, before I ramble too much more, RPM only wins for people who could build their GNU/Linux install from scratch to begin with. Apt's
Heh, had to comment on this one....
I use asp, java, javascript, and VB at work (my bosses like Microsoft... oh well, the paycheck is good), and C, php4, & bash scripting at home, and I gotta tell ya, this can't be more true. I learned javascript in something like 30 minutes, and have been doing some really cool things with it since... it's not what you use, it's how you use it...
I have a theory I'd like some feedback on (yes, it's on-topic... =)
From what I can see (which is admitedly not much), it seems that the people who are _best_qualified_ to do computer jobs (with a few notable exceptions) are also the _least_credentialed_. All the CS BS degree holders I've ever seen are, shall we say, a little lacking in ablity. They know the theories, but they don't have *any* real-world experiance using those theories, and are no better than a beginner. However, those who decided to forgo college (usually because it seemed a waste of time for them, b/c they allready knew the material) have a lot of real world experiance, and are just better computer people.
ok, I'm done. Stick a fork in me...
-- ioctl
I think something needs clarification...
PPP == Point-to-Point Protocal
PPP is your connection protocal, or, how your system talks to your isp's system.
PAP == Password Authentication Protocal
PAP is your authentication protocal, or, how your system authenticates itself to the isp's system (this is how the isp knows who to bill, and how you log in)
The authentication protocal requires a connection protocal to work (how can you authenticate if you can't talk to the remote system?). It doesn't care what the connection protocal is, it just want s one. The connection protocal, OTOH, doesn't need the authentication protocal, unless the isp's system kicks unauthenticated connections.
WRT getting it to work, I used pppconfig, the ran pon to connect (I'm on a debian system), and it connected correctly the first time, no problems.
btw, I'm using swbell.net for my isp. They have _really_ good support for non-windows tcp/ip based machines (they don't even ask).
just my $.02.
-- AC
Just thought I'd comment on this... I think he was referring to the newer (i.e., since VAX) compilers. The older ones probably are pretty crusty, but then again, they were written for a crusty platform (OpenVMS).
-- ioctl
Something that I think should be pointed out is that current CPU/bus tech. is far behind what 3d accelerators can use. Just as an example, take a voodoo2, and put it on any single processor system (except k7, which may finally do it) currently available... changing the clock speed of the CPU changes the frame rate of the card. Now, unless I'm really smokin' somethin', that is indicative of a CPU-bound operation. IOW, we STILL don't have a CPU that can feed a voodoo2 more than it can handle.
Sorry I don't have numbers, but I need to do some research before I can say anything about that (if someone would like to do that for me... =)
-- ioctl
Maybe I'm wrong, and if I am, so be it, but I just don't agree with you.
-- ioctl