How much better would uptime be if the combined service resources of all of your utilities could be used on one physical plant? Theoretically it should be better than any single service. My phone service never goes out; I sure wish my cable and power were that reliable.
While Puritans may have been a minority in the formation of the US they had a disproportionate effect on our culture.
US workers continue to work longer hours than almost all other countries in the world. And there is no doubt that sex and "adult situations" are censored and generally discouraged in the mass media. This de facto evidence points to the conclusion that Puritan values are part of American culture.
I would argue that athletes and movie stars actually work pretty hard. They may have long breaks between work, during which they may be working hard on private enterprises or endorsements. While they are working they are often travelling and living in hotels and trailers. They often have to work long hours and weekends. And even in their private time they have to be a roll model.
Microsoft is a monopolist in the OS and Office Suite software categories because:
A. They have >90% market share B. Their profit margin is >50%
These factors indicate that they can charge relatively high prices because they face no significant competition. You sir, with your whitebox PC, are what we like to call an "exception", which does not disprove the rule.
At the bottom of the page you indicate that oil is more important than computers. This is probably true, but there isn't a single oil company today that could do business without computers. Actually there isn't a single mega corporation that could do business without computers.
The way capitalism works is that generally large companies have advantages that smaller companies don't. Once a market "matures" then the large companies have all the advantages and the successful ones buy all the less successful ones. This "consolidation" results in a few companies dominating the market. If one company dominates then this is a "monopoly". A monopolist can charge whatever they like for their products; basically they can print their own money.
Theoretically a monopolist could use all this free money to gain advantage in another market where they don't already have a monopoly. In reality this is exactly what businesses do; leverage one monopoly to try to gain another. We have laws against this because things would suck if all markets were controlled by monopolists.
In this case your example is invalid because you did not include any market specific information. M$ used their monopoly in one market (OSes) to illegally exert leverage in another market (browsers). Specifically they charged nothing for a piece of software they spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing. They also made their browser faster by using exclusive Windows APIs and preloading DLLs. This is also illegal since it is using one monopoly to try to gain another.
The C/Net article seemed to have a lot of positive M$ spin (as usual) but let's review the facts of the situation:
1. M$ gave $750 million (probably found underneath Bill Gate's couch cushions) to AOL. 2. M$ gave AOL non-exclusive rights to use IE and Windows Media formats (but see below). 3. AOL agreed to drop charges.
The real story is that M$ caved and agreed to pay AOL cash. A little Googling has determined that AOL already uses IE as its browser and has perpetual rights to do so, so the bit about non-exclusive rights to IE is just PR. The bit about Windows Media is a smokescreen too. AOL doesn't care at all about streaming technology; they care much more about services. If an online service makes a profitable proposal to them they won't examine the technology too closely while counting their money.
It is easy to see why M$ continues to dominate; they somehow managed to turn a $750 million loss into a business deal! Unfortunately our current forms of mass media are so expensive that publishers are required to sacrifice objectivity to continue to stay in business.
I can't even remember 7 digit phone numbers, much less arbitrary IP addresses. That's what cut and paste is for. What this world needs is universal wireless cut and paste!
The servers themselves may be cheap. However the hosting space, power, cooling, required network bandwidth, and support services add up pretty quickly. Most companies pay their IT departments to do these things; these costs get folded into runrate and only the cost of the servers and software are seen.
If you outsource all of that work and pay a "computing utility" to perform all of these jobs then it starts making sense. A company could provide this service to many companies, which makes managing the variations in load from month to month a little easier. If there are seasonal variations across all businesses (like quarter end closing) then you can charge a lot more during th e busy times to cut back on demand.
What standard isn't arbitrary? There's always another way to do things. The advantage of using the metric system is it's the same arbitrary measures that are used everywhere else.
I think the US will end up using the metric system whether they like it or not. With the proliferation of international trade we are being flooded with products that use the metric system. Eventually we'll give in.
Are you suggesting that a company should instead keep all of their employees forever? Most companies lay off employees when they are losing money; otherwise they go bankrupt and then everyone loses their job.
Why don't IBM or HP sell Opteron systems? They have actually done business with AMD before whereas Sun has not. The reason is that the businesses that buy servers from huge companies like IBM, HP or Sun want a rock solid system with good support. They don't want an unproven processor running an OS with first-generation modifications.
My guess is that Opteron will appear first in the educational and scientific sectors. Schools are always short on cash and long on knowledgable users with huge computational needs. Once Opteron has proven itself as a reliable solution there it will be adopted by the top tier enterprise server companies.
Maximum power consumption of 15-20 watts? The review also indicates that Nehemiah requires active cooling as well. A P3 based Celeron is also inexpensive, can be installed in a Shuttle SFF box, is much faster, and only consumes a few more watts. I think a Celeron based system would be a much better value.
The largest windtunnel requires something like 6 megawatts of power while in operation. NASA has their own transformer farm onsite, and they have to arrange with their host city of Santa Clara whenever they want to run it to avoid blacking out the city.
And I must respectfully disagree with you on the usefulness of online documentation.
I only need the docs when I am on my computer and I am always online so I always have access to documentation when I need it. And since I work from multiple locations I find it very inconvenient to lug around many pounds of dead trees everywhere I go. So I find the accessibility of online docs to be superior.
I also think hyperlinking and searching is more effective than bookmarks and vgrepping through the index. I like the ability to instantly check a reference without any manual effort. And if you use a tabbed browser you can hold open all of your references with no fuss.
Online docs do not require physical space for storage. This is significant for a product like Oracle, which could fill a wall with documentation. They can be automatically updated by the document owner. And best of all they are free.
I only use dead tree docs when there is no online equivalent.
Actually Doom has already been ported to the Series 60 platform. It looks kinda like the video for the Red Faction port. It may not look very impressive running on a modern PC but when you see it on a phone it looks pretty cool. The real problem with the game is the controls.
The N-Gage hasn't been released yet, but it has the same processor, OS, screen resolution and basic buttons as the 3650/7650. The main differences will be:
1. Uses removable media cards for games 2. Buttons are laid out like a handheld game system
I have played some games on my Nokia 3650 and it is a very capable gaming platform. The battery lasts for several hours while gameplaying. The screen is bright and clear, and the controls are reasonable if not exceptional.
If you want a perfect device for every possible function then more power to you. I found that my Palm PDA stayed in my bag because it was too large to carry in my pocket. I would rather have a slightly less functional device that I can (and do) carry with me all the time. I don't care for the idea of a batbelt for a separate phone, portable game machine, PDA, camera, etc.
Generally the inside of a computer case is not a hospitable place for analog signals. There is a lot of electromagnetic interference coming from all of the other cards and devices. Even if the A/D converter in a stereo is no better than the one on a sound card the result may be superior since there is less interference.
How does the perfomance difference between Oracle and MySQL impact your choice of hardware? Who is going to install your database? Who is going to support your database, and during what hours? What happens when the database goes down? What happens when disaster strikes and your database gets corrupted? What happens when your application requires a feature that your database doesn't have? How will you scale your database up when traffic increases?
The answers to these questions all cost money. I'm sure Oracle has documents that can answer all of these questions. You will need to provide the same answers for MySQL.
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How much better would uptime be if the combined service resources of all of your utilities could be used on one physical plant? Theoretically it should be better than any single service. My phone service never goes out; I sure wish my cable and power were that reliable.
While Puritans may have been a minority in the formation of the US they had a disproportionate effect on our culture.
US workers continue to work longer hours than almost all other countries in the world. And there is no doubt that sex and "adult situations" are censored and generally discouraged in the mass media. This de facto evidence points to the conclusion that Puritan values are part of American culture.
I would argue that athletes and movie stars actually work pretty hard. They may have long breaks between work, during which they may be working hard on private enterprises or endorsements. While they are working they are often travelling and living in hotels and trailers. They often have to work long hours and weekends. And even in their private time they have to be a roll model.
How about SunONE App Server 7 Platform Edition?
Microsoft is a monopolist in the OS and Office Suite software categories because:
A. They have >90% market share
B. Their profit margin is >50%
These factors indicate that they can charge relatively high prices because they face no significant competition. You sir, with your whitebox PC, are what we like to call an "exception", which does not disprove the rule.
At the bottom of the page you indicate that oil is more important than computers. This is probably true, but there isn't a single oil company today that could do business without computers. Actually there isn't a single mega corporation that could do business without computers.
The way capitalism works is that generally large companies have advantages that smaller companies don't. Once a market "matures" then the large companies have all the advantages and the successful ones buy all the less successful ones. This "consolidation" results in a few companies dominating the market. If one company dominates then this is a "monopoly". A monopolist can charge whatever they like for their products; basically they can print their own money.
Theoretically a monopolist could use all this free money to gain advantage in another market where they don't already have a monopoly. In reality this is exactly what businesses do; leverage one monopoly to try to gain another. We have laws against this because things would suck if all markets were controlled by monopolists.
In this case your example is invalid because you did not include any market specific information. M$ used their monopoly in one market (OSes) to illegally exert leverage in another market (browsers). Specifically they charged nothing for a piece of software they spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing. They also made their browser faster by using exclusive Windows APIs and preloading DLLs. This is also illegal since it is using one monopoly to try to gain another.
The C/Net article seemed to have a lot of positive M$ spin (as usual) but let's review the facts of the situation:
1. M$ gave $750 million (probably found underneath Bill Gate's couch cushions) to AOL.
2. M$ gave AOL non-exclusive rights to use IE and Windows Media formats (but see below).
3. AOL agreed to drop charges.
The real story is that M$ caved and agreed to pay AOL cash. A little Googling has determined that AOL already uses IE as its browser and has perpetual rights to do so, so the bit about non-exclusive rights to IE is just PR. The bit about Windows Media is a smokescreen too. AOL doesn't care at all about streaming technology; they care much more about services. If an online service makes a profitable proposal to them they won't examine the technology too closely while counting their money.
It is easy to see why M$ continues to dominate; they somehow managed to turn a $750 million loss into a business deal! Unfortunately our current forms of mass media are so expensive that publishers are required to sacrifice objectivity to continue to stay in business.
I can't even remember 7 digit phone numbers, much less arbitrary IP addresses. That's what cut and paste is for. What this world needs is universal wireless cut and paste!
The servers themselves may be cheap. However the hosting space, power, cooling, required network bandwidth, and support services add up pretty quickly. Most companies pay their IT departments to do these things; these costs get folded into runrate and only the cost of the servers and software are seen.
If you outsource all of that work and pay a "computing utility" to perform all of these jobs then it starts making sense. A company could provide this service to many companies, which makes managing the variations in load from month to month a little easier. If there are seasonal variations across all businesses (like quarter end closing) then you can charge a lot more during th e busy times to cut back on demand.
Yes sir, you are on drugs. Can I have some?
What standard isn't arbitrary? There's always another way to do things. The advantage of using the metric system is it's the same arbitrary measures that are used everywhere else.
I think the US will end up using the metric system whether they like it or not. With the proliferation of international trade we are being flooded with products that use the metric system. Eventually we'll give in.
Are you suggesting that a company should instead keep all of their employees forever? Most companies lay off employees when they are losing money; otherwise they go bankrupt and then everyone loses their job.
Why don't IBM or HP sell Opteron systems? They have actually done business with AMD before whereas Sun has not. The reason is that the businesses that buy servers from huge companies like IBM, HP or Sun want a rock solid system with good support. They don't want an unproven processor running an OS with first-generation modifications.
My guess is that Opteron will appear first in the educational and scientific sectors. Schools are always short on cash and long on knowledgable users with huge computational needs. Once Opteron has proven itself as a reliable solution there it will be adopted by the top tier enterprise server companies.
FYI Sun came from BSD, not System V.
There is further evidence that tends to lend credence to the theory that humans and chimps are more closely related than previously thought.
Just compare pictures of a chimp and your mom.
Maximum power consumption of 15-20 watts? The review also indicates that Nehemiah requires active cooling as well. A P3 based Celeron is also inexpensive, can be installed in a Shuttle SFF box, is much faster, and only consumes a few more watts. I think a Celeron based system would be a much better value.
The largest windtunnel requires something like 6 megawatts of power while in operation. NASA has their own transformer farm onsite, and they have to arrange with their host city of Santa Clara whenever they want to run it to avoid blacking out the city.
And I must respectfully disagree with you on the usefulness of online documentation.
I only need the docs when I am on my computer and I am always online so I always have access to documentation when I need it. And since I work from multiple locations I find it very inconvenient to lug around many pounds of dead trees everywhere I go. So I find the accessibility of online docs to be superior.
I also think hyperlinking and searching is more effective than bookmarks and vgrepping through the index. I like the ability to instantly check a reference without any manual effort. And if you use a tabbed browser you can hold open all of your references with no fuss.
Online docs do not require physical space for storage. This is significant for a product like Oracle, which could fill a wall with documentation. They can be automatically updated by the document owner. And best of all they are free.
I only use dead tree docs when there is no online equivalent.
Actually Doom has already been ported to the Series 60 platform. It looks kinda like the video for the Red Faction port. It may not look very impressive running on a modern PC but when you see it on a phone it looks pretty cool. The real problem with the game is the controls.
I wouldn't give him money either but ever since he made me his bitch I haven't had much choice.
The N-Gage hasn't been released yet, but it has the same processor, OS, screen resolution and basic buttons as the 3650/7650. The main differences will be:
1. Uses removable media cards for games
2. Buttons are laid out like a handheld game system
I have played some games on my Nokia 3650 and it is a very capable gaming platform. The battery lasts for several hours while gameplaying. The screen is bright and clear, and the controls are reasonable if not exceptional.
If you want a perfect device for every possible function then more power to you. I found that my Palm PDA stayed in my bag because it was too large to carry in my pocket. I would rather have a slightly less functional device that I can (and do) carry with me all the time. I don't care for the idea of a batbelt for a separate phone, portable game machine, PDA, camera, etc.
Too bad Santa ends up with a router up his ass every Christmas.
Generally the inside of a computer case is not a hospitable place for analog signals. There is a lot of electromagnetic interference coming from all of the other cards and devices. Even if the A/D converter in a stereo is no better than the one on a sound card the result may be superior since there is less interference.
Just a matter of re-ripping? Do you know how long it takes to rip several hundred CD's? I hope I never have to do that again.
How does the perfomance difference between Oracle and MySQL impact your choice of hardware? Who is going to install your database? Who is going to support your database, and during what hours? What happens when the database goes down? What happens when disaster strikes and your database gets corrupted? What happens when your application requires a feature that your database doesn't have? How will you scale your database up when traffic increases?
The answers to these questions all cost money. I'm sure Oracle has documents that can answer all of these questions. You will need to provide the same answers for MySQL.
What threads aren't degenerating into flame wars?!? CmdrTaco's "Rational Discussion Search and Destroy" script must be malfunctioning again.