If the DNA and the resulting info is destroyed after suspect is released of found innocent; not a huge problem. If the DNA and the resulting info are kept in perpetuity, big problem.
It's such a shame. Sony used to be the best consumer electronics company. The problems started when Sony added Sony Music, which had the side effect of Sony not launching a MP3 player until years after other companies. Sony Music didn't want Sony Consumer Electronics making a device that might allow music copying. It got worse when Sony added Sony Pictures. They could have made the killer set top box but Sony Pictures didn't want Sony CE making a device that might hurt DVD sales. Now we have Sony suing people who are ostensibly trying to get back functionality that they took away. This sue your customers business model has got to stop.
I feel like they're follow Windows' tail lights over a cliff. This sort of mentality is ruining Linux distributions. If I wanted a dumbed-down buggy system, I'd use Windows.
I worked for a college that did this for a while. I inherited the situation. It worked OK for a while, but we got a batch of motherboards and power supplies that were substandard and it created a mess a couple of years down the road. I personally like hardware so I see the appeal but, as another poster pointed out, the person that comes in next may not be able to deal with it. Imagine if you bought 1000 video cards and find out that they have problems working with the motherboards.
If you do decide to "roll you own" be sure to weigh getting a three year warranty on the individual components versus the expected failure rate. Whatever you do, DO NOT buy "gamer" parts. Focus on reliability. Especially power supplies and motherboards.
A better approach, IMHO, is to buy from a major manufacturer, but spec them out with minimal RAM, etc and add RAM from Newegg. I personally like to pull RAM from every other system and put all aftermarket RAM in every other box. This keeps the pairs matched. It's also easy to swap RAM if Dell tech support starts complaining.
This can also be done with harddrives and works well if you're cloning images anyway. You can sometimes buy a larger drive outright for the price of a "upgrade" from the OEM. This way you get spares for older machines. Let's face it -- hard drives die.
Another cost saving measure is to skip the optical drive for some users. Most software installs and backups were ran from the network anyway and it keeps unauthorized installs down. It also saves power. Buy a few externals for checkout.
Even if you buy the computer from Dell, you might find a better deal on monitors elsewhere.
This isn't so much a Wikipedia problem as it is a problems of copyright laws not keeping up with the pace and realities of modern society/culture/technology. It's sad that our overly broad, overly restrictive intellectual property laws, written by and for Big Content providers have derailed the original intent of these laws to protect artists and creativity.
When advanced human civilizations came into contact with less advanced human civilization, they most always took advantage of the technological disparity (think of the Spanish conquistadors, or just about any time Europeans came into contact with "natives"). It's nice to think that technologically advanced "aliens" would also be enlightened altruists, but, in a first contact situation, we'd be better off keeping our collective heads down and letting their actions speak for them.
While I agree that some of the smartest people I've worked with don't have degrees, it's harder to convince HR, etc., What's worse is that our specialized industry certifications aren't a guarantee of being a competent employee or getting a job.
Personally, I don't like certs much, but when you have nothing, getting your A+, MCP, or CNA is a start. It will make your resume looks less empty.
I'd say that about half of the people where I live have degrees of some sort with the other half purely being self-taught. The folks I talk to with without degrees report a harder time getting their foot in the door and a harder time getting promoted after a certain level.
If you're the self-starter/entrepreneur type, I'd recommend getting any IT-related job you can, including Geek squad or a local PC repair shop for a couple of years to learn what customer support means and get some experience and then take off on your own when you think you can do better than who you work for.
Here's the most important part: With whatever job you get, work hard and show up on time. Being a good worker is something that takes practice. If you slack off because you have a "unimportant" or entry-level job, you'll develop bad work habits. If you work hard people will notice. After a few years (which seems like an eternity when you're just out of high school), former co-workers will start asking you if you want a job when they have openings.
The sad truth (for musicians and record companies) is that music is over priced.
When record companies had a collective monopoly on distribution of music, they were able to keep music prices artificially high. Now that the Internet provides a near zero cost distribution system, record companies are hard-pressed to add value (and thus price) to a comodity with a near-zero cost of reproduction.
Expect music prices to adjust radically downward in the next decade.
For me adblocking is an ergonomics issue. I block all animation on web pages because it gives me a headache in no time. Unfortunately, this means no Flash so no flash-only sites. I've tried Flashblock with limited success, but some sites just don't work right with it.
If the advertisers would eliminate the animation, I wouldn't have a compelling need to block ads. I really feal that the advertisers have brought this upon themselves because of the intrusiveness of the ads. When ads were static, I never felt the need to block.
Their arguement is so weak to begin with. Am I "stealing" a newspaper if I don't read the ads?
In the end, people who aren't going to click on ads are saving them bandwidth by blocking ads.
I've heard that doctors in China are paid when the patient is well, rather that when they are sick. Systems Administration is much the same thing. The best admins do things right the first time and aren't suprefically busy all of the time. Poor admins appear busy all of the time. I'm not sure how to convey the essence of this to a PHB,
I find it easier to fix when things go wrong. I find M$ to be "superficially easy," meaning that click, click, it probably works, but when something doesn't work as advertised/expected you generally screwed (or you re-install, which isn't always an option).
I find that a lot of commercial software promises much more than it delivers. In open source, I find that the claims are usually on par with reality (not having a profit motive to "overstate" capabilities/maturity).
I find doing advanced/complex thing much easier from a command line. When you click a GUI button, you have little idea what it's REALLY doing. And if I want to duplicate a configuration (or send it to a friend), sending off a config file to is so easy, or backing up a configuration. I find it very difficult to "wonder through the GUI maze" and remember every button that was clicked. In Linux, I make a.bak for the config and diff it later.
I also get the feeling that many Windows users THINK they are admins because they know how to click a button! At the command prompt, there's not much pretending.
I can remember struggling with the command prompt years ago, but once you learn the command prompt, GUI's are for the amatures (and entertainment applications) but not for server configuration. (no offense to anyone)
Not enough market share and immature (optional) GUI == Not Ready for Prime Time.
"Oh my. Editable XML configuration files, obscure command line interfaces, grayed out options in the GUI? Thanks, but no thanks. This thing doesn't sound like it's ready for prime time in Data Center USA."
I say if you can't use the command line YOU'RE not ready for "prime time in Data Center USA."
But that's the nature of Slashdot, any moron can say whatever he/she likes. Open Source doesn't have a PR department to weed out the one bad comment in a hundred. Who-ever it was probably hasn't contributed a line of code or even a bug report. If you hang around, you'll learn to ignore such things. I see it as a small price to pay for all of the other advantages of open source.
There are a lot of bad sysadmins out there and there's no good way to tell them apart, from a manangment prospective.
A bad sysadmin looks very busy all of the time so management and co-workers think that they are busy and important. Things are always breaking and they come to the rescue. Things are down for days and through their heroic efforts, (cough, reinstall Windows, cough) things are back working.
While good sysadmins are proactive and very little breaks or goes wrong. They remain calm during user's crisises (because panic never fixed anything). They are seldomly seen by co-workers and management. They do things like scheduling down time when the system is working fine or nagging users to do thinks a "better" way when the old way worked fine for the users.
No one see them fixing much, and nothing ever breaks, and the network is never down, so they must no be very important or valuable to the company.
I thought the "Does hyperthreading help in the realy world" issue was related to the way Windows does task switching.
I am under the impression that hyperthreading helps Windows more than Linux because Windows fails to save certain register states, and thus incures a higher cost, in terms of performance, when it task switches.
His test uses Windows VM's on top of Linux. Thus I could see when it could help in his situation, but believe that the generalization about hyperthreading is misleading.
The real problem is that a modern Linux disrto comes with hundreds of applications, all of which are counted against "Liunx" security vulnerabilities.
But when they count Windows vunerabilities, they don't count all of the third party apps you have to load to get the same functionality. They usually just count the base OS.
Further, Linux folks release a patch when they see a problem, M$ releases a patch when forced to by someone who's published exploit code.
I switched after GoDaddy started taking bribes from Microsoft.
GoDaddy's site is so full of advertising for "add-on" services that it's hard to manage your domain for all of the junk.
It's so dumbed down that it's actually difficult to use. For instance: One cannot designate a DNS server before it's up. If I want to point by domain's DNS to a server that's not up yet, that's my business. I could see giving a warning or whatever, but it's my decision.
If you've read some of the writing of Bob Parsons, the founder, you get the impression that he's something of a lunatic.
Sorry for ranting. The bottom line is that any company that is too focused on making money will alienate it's customer-base.
Slashdot Mirror
If the DNA and the resulting info is destroyed after suspect is released of found innocent; not a huge problem.
If the DNA and the resulting info are kept in perpetuity, big problem.
How come the biggest discussion threads on /. seem to revolve around semantics?
It's such a shame. Sony used to be the best consumer electronics company. The problems started when Sony added Sony Music, which had the side effect of Sony not launching a MP3 player until years after other companies. Sony Music didn't want Sony Consumer Electronics making a device that might allow music copying. It got worse when Sony added Sony Pictures. They could have made the killer set top box but Sony Pictures didn't want Sony CE making a device that might hurt DVD sales. Now we have Sony suing people who are ostensibly trying to get back functionality that they took away. This sue your customers business model has got to stop.
I feel like they're follow Windows' tail lights over a cliff.
This sort of mentality is ruining Linux distributions.
If I wanted a dumbed-down buggy system, I'd use Windows.
What would be really cool is if you buy 500 and build 500 and report back to us every year for five years.
I worked for a college that did this for a while. I inherited the situation. It worked OK for a while, but we got a batch of motherboards and power supplies that were substandard and it created a mess a couple of years down the road. I personally like hardware so I see the appeal but, as another poster pointed out, the person that comes in next may not be able to deal with it. Imagine if you bought 1000 video cards and find out that they have problems working with the motherboards.
If you do decide to "roll you own" be sure to weigh getting a three year warranty on the individual components versus the expected failure rate. Whatever you do, DO NOT buy "gamer" parts. Focus on reliability. Especially power supplies and motherboards.
A better approach, IMHO, is to buy from a major manufacturer, but spec them out with minimal RAM, etc and add RAM from Newegg. I personally like to pull RAM from every other system and put all aftermarket RAM in every other box. This keeps the pairs matched. It's also easy to swap RAM if Dell tech support starts complaining.
This can also be done with harddrives and works well if you're cloning images anyway. You can sometimes buy a larger drive outright for the price of a "upgrade" from the OEM. This way you get spares for older machines. Let's face it -- hard drives die.
Another cost saving measure is to skip the optical drive for some users. Most software installs and backups were ran from the network anyway and it keeps unauthorized installs down. It also saves power. Buy a few externals for checkout.
Even if you buy the computer from Dell, you might find a better deal on monitors elsewhere.
Is this really a quality issue?
Or, do people who buy more expensive products tend to be more computer-literate or take better care of products?
This isn't so much a Wikipedia problem as it is a problems of copyright laws not keeping up with the pace and realities of modern society/culture/technology. It's sad that our overly broad, overly restrictive intellectual property laws, written by and for Big Content providers have derailed the original intent of these laws to protect artists and creativity.
When advanced human civilizations came into contact with less advanced human civilization, they most always took advantage of the technological disparity (think of the Spanish conquistadors, or just about any time Europeans came into contact with "natives"). It's nice to think that technologically advanced "aliens" would also be enlightened altruists, but, in a first contact situation, we'd be better off keeping our collective heads down and letting their actions speak for them.
While I agree that some of the smartest people I've worked with don't have degrees, it's harder to convince HR, etc., What's worse is that our specialized industry certifications aren't a guarantee of being a competent employee or getting a job.
Personally, I don't like certs much, but when you have nothing, getting your A+, MCP, or CNA is a start. It will make your resume looks less empty.
I'd say that about half of the people where I live have degrees of some sort with the other half purely being self-taught. The folks I talk to with without degrees report a harder time getting their foot in the door and a harder time getting promoted after a certain level.
If you're the self-starter/entrepreneur type, I'd recommend getting any IT-related job you can, including Geek squad or a local PC repair shop for a couple of years to learn what customer support means and get some experience and then take off on your own when you think you can do better than who you work for.
Here's the most important part: With whatever job you get, work hard and show up on time. Being a good worker is something that takes practice. If you slack off because you have a "unimportant" or entry-level job, you'll develop bad work habits. If you work hard people will notice. After a few years (which seems like an eternity when you're just out of high school), former co-workers will start asking you if you want a job when they have openings.
"I have a dual-CPU setup, dual-quad cores for a total of eight cores, and 16 GB of memory."
Every programmer writes code that performs acceptable well on their PC.
When we give programmers average PC's instead of "god boxes" we will see smaller, faster programs that run well on average PC hardware.
The sad truth (for musicians and record companies) is that music is over priced.
When record companies had a collective monopoly on distribution of music, they were able to keep music prices artificially high. Now that the Internet provides a near zero cost distribution system, record companies are hard-pressed to add value (and thus price) to a comodity with a near-zero cost of reproduction.
Expect music prices to adjust radically downward in the next decade.
The EFF has a web form for submitting comments to your senators.
Don't let AT&T off the hook:
https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=337
For me adblocking is an ergonomics issue. I block all animation on web pages because it gives me a headache in no time. Unfortunately, this means no Flash so no flash-only sites. I've tried Flashblock with limited success, but some sites just don't work right with it.
If the advertisers would eliminate the animation, I wouldn't have a compelling need to block ads. I really feal that the advertisers have brought this upon themselves because of the intrusiveness of the ads. When ads were static, I never felt the need to block.
Their arguement is so weak to begin with. Am I "stealing" a newspaper if I don't read the ads?
In the end, people who aren't going to click on ads are saving them bandwidth by blocking ads.
I've heard that doctors in China are paid when the patient is well, rather that when they are sick.
Systems Administration is much the same thing.
The best admins do things right the first time and aren't suprefically busy all of the time.
Poor admins appear busy all of the time.
I'm not sure how to convey the essence of this to a PHB,
I find it easier to fix when things go wrong.
.bak for the config and diff it later.
I find M$ to be "superficially easy," meaning that click, click, it probably works, but when something doesn't work as advertised/expected you generally screwed (or you re-install, which isn't always an option).
I find that a lot of commercial software promises much more than it delivers. In open source, I find that the claims are usually on par with reality (not having a profit motive to "overstate" capabilities/maturity).
I find doing advanced/complex thing much easier from a command line. When you click a GUI button, you have little idea what it's REALLY doing. And if I want to duplicate a configuration (or send it to a friend), sending off a config file to is so easy, or backing up a configuration. I find it very difficult to "wonder through the GUI maze" and remember every button that was clicked. In Linux, I make a
I also get the feeling that many Windows users THINK they are admins because they know how to click a button! At the command prompt, there's not much pretending.
I can remember struggling with the command prompt years ago, but once you learn the command prompt, GUI's are for the amatures (and entertainment applications) but not for server configuration. (no offense to anyone)
Not enough market share and immature (optional) GUI == Not Ready for Prime Time.
"Oh my. Editable XML configuration files, obscure command line interfaces, grayed out options in the GUI? Thanks, but no thanks. This thing doesn't sound like it's ready for prime time in Data Center USA."
I say if you can't use the command line YOU'RE not ready for "prime time in Data Center USA."
As far as you know ... none of my Windows machines are in a botnet ;-)
But that's the nature of Slashdot, any moron can say whatever he/she likes.
Open Source doesn't have a PR department to weed out the one bad comment in a hundred.
Who-ever it was probably hasn't contributed a line of code or even a bug report.
If you hang around, you'll learn to ignore such things.
I see it as a small price to pay for all of the other advantages of open source.
There are a lot of bad sysadmins out there and there's no good way to tell them apart, from a manangment prospective.
A bad sysadmin looks very busy all of the time so management and co-workers think that they are busy and important.
Things are always breaking and they come to the rescue. Things are down for days and through their heroic efforts, (cough, reinstall Windows, cough) things are back working.
While good sysadmins are proactive and very little breaks or goes wrong. They remain calm during user's crisises (because panic never fixed anything). They are seldomly seen by co-workers and management. They do things like scheduling down time when the system is working fine or nagging users to do thinks a "better" way when the old way worked fine for the users.
No one see them fixing much, and nothing ever breaks, and the network is never down, so they must no be very important or valuable to the company.
I thought the "Does hyperthreading help in the realy world" issue was related to the way Windows does task switching.
I am under the impression that hyperthreading helps Windows more than Linux because Windows fails to save certain register states, and thus incures a higher cost, in terms of performance, when it task switches.
His test uses Windows VM's on top of Linux. Thus I could see when it could help in his situation, but believe that the generalization about hyperthreading is misleading.
Can anyone clarify this?
When an OS is capable of 440 days of uptime on a P90, who cares how long it takes to boot???
The real problem is that a modern Linux disrto comes with hundreds of applications, all of which are counted against "Liunx" security vulnerabilities.
But when they count Windows vunerabilities, they don't count all of the third party apps you have to load to get the same functionality. They usually just count the base OS.
Further, Linux folks release a patch when they see a problem, M$ releases a patch when forced to by someone who's published exploit code.
Symantec (who makes all of their profit from selling security products for Windows) says Windows is the way to go.
Patch release count is probably the worst security metric that you could come up with.
I switched after GoDaddy started taking bribes from Microsoft.
GoDaddy's site is so full of advertising for "add-on" services that it's hard to manage your domain for all of the junk.
It's so dumbed down that it's actually difficult to use. For instance: One cannot designate a DNS server before it's up. If I want to point by domain's DNS to a server that's not up yet, that's my business. I could see giving a warning or whatever, but it's my decision.
If you've read some of the writing of Bob Parsons, the founder, you get the impression that he's something of a lunatic.
Sorry for ranting. The bottom line is that any company that is too focused on making money will alienate it's customer-base.