The problem with our Supreme Court is they'll likely side with SOCAN and we'll end up paying. This is the same court who sided with our domestic DTH satellite providers and outright made it illegal to subscribe to US services in our country, yup for years we did our darndest to broadcast signals behind the iron curtain but when it comes to protecting a few broadcasting monopolies it's ok to ban foreign signals.
As a fellow Canuck, I must state the following: SOCAN will most likely be told to go insert their little idea where the sun doesnt shine.
The three biggest canadian ISP's are Bell, Rogers and Videotron (THE phone company, and the two biggest cable distributor). Bell (or BCE) has enough money to buy out the music industry, and the two cable provider do not want any more laws. In fact, Bell already told SOCAN to go f*ck themselves.
Now consider that the law usually sides with the money, and they're ahead. Bell actually markets it's internet broadband service as a good way to get music online.
This is only a dying industry begging for another party to foot the bill, and unfortunately for them, the other party has more money, ressource and motivation to fight this off... So do not look for that new law anytime soon.
In montreal, we have quite a few buildings where several companies are installed, and when it comes to cabling, you just can not install anything yourself. You rent the space, you rent the lines.
You need a new drop ? No problem, a contractor is on site to install them, label them, keep track of them.
It can lead to some pretty conflicts, but overall, when you get used to the fact that your responsability ends at the wall jack, it's a pretty good way to relieve us IT guys from one of the most boring area of the job.
Do this ten times and then ask yourself the same question...
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
If you really did this all by hand and got a nice working bare system you really know what drives a GNU/Linux machine.
I call bulls*it...
Take a F1 driver for example... They might be awesome at keeping the car on track, and doing laps in record time, but most of them could not do an oil change, or simple repairs on a car.
You have no need to know every nooks and cranny of the install process to keep a network running smoothly. In fact, I'd be wary of a sysadmin who insists on re-inventing the wheel instead of using one of the fine pre-rolled distribution and THEN tuning it to specific corporate needs.
To me, and admin that wastes company time rolling a distribution is a hazard, because most likely, he/she will not have time to properly document the installation, and when/if he/she becomes unavailable, the new admin in place will have a hell of a time putting every ends together...
Rolling your own at home is one thing. Wasting my budget for pursuing your geekiness is another... And one of those two will lead you to unemployment. Guess which one ?
sugarcoating...
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Pirate Hunter
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Disney's ability to sugarcoat things is a well known one...
They've been doing it forever... Ghost's, pirate's, even lions... I for one have seen a lion feed, and trust me, it's not a cuddly thing...
I shudder to think of the next Disney huggy-feely movie... Something like "My dear serial-killer..." or "The pedophile King"... These guys could probably make Saddam into a model neighbourg...
Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go wash my twisted mind with bleach...
Anyone who is actually old enough to have used one of these would certainly know how to spell it correctly.
I call faker! You are just trying to pretend you are some 31337 old geek when you probably have never used anything slower than a DSL line.
I still have (somewhere in my parent's basement) an old DECWriter teletype, with a switchable 75 baud modem. I think you can switch it to either 115 or 150, but I can't recall which one. And the worst part: It's still in working condition. I'm holding on to it, it might be worth something someday.
But as far as modem goes, I held on to all my modems, from my Atari 130XT 300bps modem, all the way up to my first 9600baud telebit.
Afraid of robots? Nonsense! Why, I myself have dozens and dozens of...
DIE ROBOT SCUM!!! *arms himself with an arsenal of weaponry from kitchen knives to a staple gun and proceeds to fire upon the mini-Hindenberg*
HERF guns... Leave the kitchen knives out of it... We have to put our foot down, and teach 'dem robots who their daddy's are...
Else, we'll start being refered to as "them puny hoo-manz" by the kitchen blenders.
I remembember from my youth, that some warez site used a funky scheme where you would have to go dig the 6th letter of the 1st word on some page, then the 3rd letter of the 4th word on some other, and so on, to form a password.
So what if I provide a block of words, all ascii (easily readable by a braille reader) and then some instructions to pick letters from this and that word, all text, but then, no computer could reconstruct the password... I mean, eventually, you could program it to do text recognition, but then, throw some spelling mistakes in there.
See, software piracy ain't all that bad! IT HELPS THE BLINDS!
Also, I strongly believe that this is a problem to which the solution should be technical, and not legal. Let's not collectively get our panties in a bunch here, and instead of pointing fingers, and calling people/corp. names, let's just solve the TECHNICAL problem, rob a lawyer from it's meal, and be happy with it ever after.
Does anyone remember battletech? It was kind of like an arcade, but just with the one game, a Mech type battle simulator, complete with cockpit, joystick, and multiple screens for views just like this. I remember playing at the Navy Pier in Chicago many years ago....
It's amazing how much multiple screens increases the realism. You look left, right, and there's still more game!
Please, do not remind me. We had a Virtual World center with 16 "pods" linked up. I painfully remember the 10,000$ I spent there in one year. And I probably have all the score sheets to prove it. Multiple display, network play, and a great game. THAT is addiction at it's best.
but is it really possible to remotely fry a motherboard or break my hard drive? And if it is possible, how come this hasn't been written into some worm yet?
What's to prevent MS and the hardware maker to build it as a paladium feature ? I guess that it would not be hard to engineer a component that would allow more voltage/amps into key components if the correct string is received.
The day this technology becomes widespread, we'll have a fun time watching computers go up in flames.
And that will be the day I unhook my box from the internet... You tought melissa was bad ? You thought that the bear spread fast ? Now imagine coming in to the office one morning to find a pile of useless computers that got nuked using the remote destruct feature propagated by the latest and greatest undetected worm.
This is why Paladium and DRM are bad. They will give too much control and too little accountability to the wrong people.
Surely the Senator didn't create the page himself? He might not even know what the Javascript is for. Sure, if he knew that the webmaster was doing something wrong, and he didn't stop it, then he would be at fault, but there's no proof of that here.
Who's the owner of the site ? Hatch or the webmonkey ?
His name is all over the place, it is HIS website, so he should be held accountable of what's found on it. I remember hearing something like "ignorance is not a valid defense". If I was going to put my name on something I did not write, I'd damn well make sure my legal team audits each and every bit of it to insure I wouldnt get myself in hot water over it.
This man is a self-proclaimed copyright professional. I guess he should have known better.
Hmm. I just have a problem with someone charging $900 for JavaScript code that is easily viewable by almost any visitor to a site. It's common practice to steal bits of HTML and JavaScript, so I'm surprised people would get so annoyed when they try to sell code for use on the Web..
But everyone goes up in arms as soon as a company steals some GPL'ed code and includes it in their products ?
If I see an image on a pro photographer's site, and it's got the proper copyright notice and request for royalties if used elsewhere, the fact that it's freely visible on the web, and easy for me to copy probably makes it right for me to use on my own site, despite the request from the author not to right ?
The way this code is available could probably help you learn about Javascript, but if this trend continues, what prevents the author from releasing it as a closed source activex dll in the future ?
I dont buy the "steal it since it's readable" arguments, sorry.
Re:Theres no scientific proof for any of this.
on
Working with ADHD?
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· Score: 2, Informative
Its the SAME kinda problem, I consider ADHD a personality trait. Just like short temper is a personality trait, and
manic depression is a personality trait.
manic depression is a personality trait ? Well... IIRC, the body undergoes chemical changes when a person goes into depression. It gets totally wacked out of balance with regards to a "healthy" body. The meds they feed you when you're depressive are barely there to balance your chemical back to a normal level.
Once someone goes into depression deep enough, no matter how much effort they put into it, they're chemically unbalanced, and will not likely pull out of it by themselves. Meds are not a miracle cure. You have to combine meds with self-help, and counselling.
Just dont strut in here claiming that these are not disorder. Whenever the body goes chemically off balance, you can safely claim that something is out of order.
As to why these meds are not available OTC, well, they have a potential for abuse, as well as a potential to help. The problem is that some people will abuse them (a minority) and the only way to prevent this is to restrict the sale of the meds. What are you going to come up with ? That addiction to drugs is only a personality trait ? Come on now...
His itinerary includes a brief stop-over in Utah, during which time he will hunt down Darl McBride and maul his body beyond recognition. His court defense will be temporary sanity and David Boies will merrily defend him to acquittal.
Actually, if I'd be in Linus's shoes, I'd let my wife take care of McBride. After all, McBride is going after the bread and butter of the family, and Tove IIRC was 6 time karate champion of finland wasnt she ?
I remember, as a child, asking my dad why didn't they use deathrow residents for the cint-eastwood-cowboys movies... that way the shootings wold look a lot more real!
I won't copy here his answer...
Let's face it. Someone condemn to deathrow has somehow taken away alot from society. They're also very costly to maintain (prison maintenance, guards, food, etc etc). They've already been sentenced to death (while I may not agree with it, those in power elected by the majority do.) and are a weight on society while they're waiting out. This is not a realistic movie issue. They could be benifiting society, and at least give a try to redeeming themselves. You'd be surprised at what someone can achieve when his/her life is on the line. And they wont be escaping... Where would they go ?
On a side note, I also believe that electric chair, gas chamber and needles are inhumane ways to die. With so many people in need of organs, it just seems a waste not to use theirs (provided they are drug free, healthy and whatnot.) it might not erase the whole pain of losing someone to a murderer, but at least the murderer would not die in vain. You could save lives.
In reality it costs a LOT more to send a manned flight into space (safety concerns).
Then, get some cheaper, more expandable astronauts... Some deathrow residents... You know... You might make it, you might not. If you make it we'll give you life instead of the needle ?
The amount of security devices on the shuttle if I'm not mistaken exceeds the amount of other devices.
Build cheaper shuttles, get expandable bodies, profit!
As far as "networking for linux", I wouldn't put any of those computers "online" without something else between them and the internet. Like a linux box running a BSD, Slackware, or Debian. The overhead and unneccessary packaging for those systems makes it an internet nightmare
Like a LINUX box running a BSD ?? I think packaging nightmare is the least of your concerns;-)
A number of large businesses and private and public universities in the SF Bay Area have been installing Peoplesoft. The name "Peoplesoft" keeps coming up in discussions, and is usually accompanied by some cussing by the people who use it.
A couple of years ago, I was contracting for a mining research center which shall remain nameless, and they were blessed (read: bent over and took one for the team) with a peoplesoft setup forced from the head office.
"Some cussing" does not start to describe some of our weekly meetings about the beast.
You're taling about spotty linux support. What we had was spotty windows support. Weird database handling, unexplained crashes, and 6 figures Peoplesoft consultant that were as helpfull as a can of gas in a 5 alarm fire.
Hopefully, I left there before it got worse. But I was talking with some guys I knew that still worked there 2 years after, and the software was still not 100% operational, they still had crashes and bugs, and were looking at other options.
Now, I wish the execs of those companies would read Slashdot for once. I've seen a few good ideas here, like opensourcing the product, throwing a wrench in Oracle's machine, becoming a good guy, and moving to support instead of development.
They're already in deep doo-doo, because everyone knows that once Larry sets his sights on something, he usually gets his way. And even if Oracle is "supporting" Linux, the redneck in me would like to see him get mud on his face for once... This is starting to look like a car accident... You dont want to look but you just have to... You might catch a glimpse of something squishy:)
Re:I can't wait for the day
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C&W Bails Out
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· Score: 1
I can't wait for the day that I can lose almost $10 billion (that's 9 frickin zero's) two years in a row, and still be capable of 'restructuring'.
They're just bailing out of the states if I read this correctly.
I used to have a T1 with them in the carribeans, and although I had shitty service, no QoS, no support outside business hours, and no reliability (which were all in my contract... But then again, who are you going to sue ?) they still managed to charge us 25K US$ a month for a T1... So I said, I'll go to the competition... Whoa there boy... There is NO competition. They're a monopoly on most of those backwater places... And trust me, they're not a loss-leader there... Phone is expensive, cell is expensive, connectivity is expensive.
And they are on of the big boys IIRC... So just getting out of one money losing market will not take'em out of business...
So, I would say that Microsoft does a better job in this aspect. Also, you're going to knock Microsoft because they are pro-actively getting people security updates? Wow, this seems to me like a better way, because we all know that many exploits have actually been patched, it's the sysadmins who don't patch their systems that get hacked.
I'm not knocking them off because they're being pro-active. I'm knocking them off because they release patches without proper testing.
And for the records, I'm not pro-MS or pro-Linux or pro-Anything. I'm pro-Uptime,revenue,stable job.
Also, you're right in the fact that their EULA disclaim whatever responsability they have. I'm just from the old mentality that if I pay for something that should work a certain way, the provider has an obligation to make it behave the way it is stated. And yes, I paid for my Windows XP (not by choice.) and no, I'm not paying for RH update. So this is why I claim I have a right to bitch against MS, and none to bitch against RH, since I never paid RH for the update. But I did pay MS for the update, so I believe that part of the money I gave them should go to Q&A instead of Bill's new yacht or something.
Also, how is this different from any automated Linux update method? Software has bugs. Patches may have bugs. Regardless of vendor, patches are not perfect and may induce problems.
Agree or disagree with me, when you think about it without bias it's true.
I'll agree with you on the bias issue. Slashdot for all I can remember (which is a couple of years) was not pro-microsoft. I'm not speaking for anyone, just stating a fact.
But there is a difference between Microsoft and where with Windows Update, you have paid for the update service, and you should expect at least a minimum of Q&A done to a patch. With Linux, well... I can remember some packages I installed in which they gave you a very explicit warranty : This might screw you up, we're not responsible if it does.
I've always installed packages on Linux with this in mind. This might not be the best mentality if we really want Linux on the desktop, but at least, I know what I'm getting myself into.
MS Update makes it seem like everything was double-checked for you, and all is well and good to install... MS even goes so far as to recommend URGENT patches, which may or may not leave you worst off... And this you (should have) paid for. So yes, there is a difference, bias or not, since I paid money for my MS release, whereas my RedHat is downloaded and free... So yes, I should expect working patches from MS, and not expect RedHat to give me the time of day if they dont feel like it.
Well you can thank the Party Quebecois for that, and its strong meddling with the Caisse for that.
Do not waste your energy preaching to a convert. In an ideal world, the company would have been sold to Rodgers, and I'd have been a freaking millionaire... But noooooo... They needed to intervene so it was sold to national interests... Anyways... We'll be safe for another 4 years now... Or at least we'll get the liberal kind of meddling... Better ? Worst ? Who knows... It's all the same to me...
In fact, this is already being done by several carriers including Sprint, MCI, Intermedia, Verizon and probably others.
I have also installed numerous private networks utilizing Nortel or Cisco equipment to carry VoIP over dedicated private networks, usually frame-relay WANs. These VoIP calls are 100% reliable and are perfectly clear.
A couple of years back, Videotron had a project going to provide phone service over their cable modem infrastructure.
They had the pilot going with the employees, and it worked VERY well. So well that most of them dropped the Bell landlines in favor of the VoIP service. But you would not believe all the red tape you have to cut through in order to provide phone service. The VoIP unit was brick sized but required a UPS in case electricity went out. And also a bunch of other safety's. Anyways. When they got sold to Satan^H^H^H^H^HQuebecor, the project was quickly canned, and Videotron started losing money.
As for the 100% reliability, I installed and admined a BCM system from Nortel, and while I agree it's pretty reliable, it's very far from 100% reliable. And remember that Nortel will not guarantee anything over public network. They only guarantee reliability over QoS'ed end to end private circuits. But yeah, they were pretty sweet. And at the lowest quality, were clear enough to have a conversation at 6K second.
I don't know if the ecological impact is any better though as stated. You need a specific quantity of replacement fuel pumps regardless of what type. How would fewer models but the same quantity represent less waste?
I tought this was a one off, but hell, it's getting interesting:D
Say that theoretically, Ford, Mazda, and Toyota each manufacture 5 cars. We have 15 cars. So 15 gas pumps total.(all different models.) Not all of the 15 gas pumps are going to break. But the manufacturer has to stock parts for all 15 models. If they had a universal gas pump, they could stock one each for their 5 cars. If one runs out, they still can rely on the other two. As it stands, they each stock up on 5 gas pump models, some of which will never leave the shelf during the useful life of the car (5yrs after it's out of production.). So I do believe that having a universal model would reduce the amount of pumps in stock/returning to nature.
We dont expect Ford to make parts that fit in a Toyota as well.
And while I'm being soooo off topic here, it might not be a bad business decision to start manufacturing cross-compatible car parts. Think of it. I've done the maths once (for fun) and the cost of rebuilding my car from scratch with parts, would be 5 times higher then to purchase it from the dealer. This means that they take a higher markup on parts, and since they always break down, one company could make massive money just manufacturing parts, and not going through the hell of manufacturing the whole car. The car business is just a way for them to create potential customers for parts.
Secondly, think about the ecologic impact cross-compatible parts would have. You dont need 10 different gas pumps (for example.) you can have only one model that fits 10 different cars. This way you get to reduce the amount of gas pumps on inventory, which will eventually find their way back to nature if they dont get used.
Now for the open-source angle, so I don't get modded down into oblivion... I've seen the advocacy of re-usable code thrown around so many times. Write once, use many, yadi yadi yada... Why not the same for car parts ? There is only so much tuning you can bring to a piece of code. Once you're there, what can you do ? Pull a Microsoft on it, and make sure it won't work with the next version, so they have to purchase your next version which consist of the same exact code, plus the compatibility flag checked in at compile time.
So let's calculate here... -1 Offtopic, +1 insightful, +1 informative, +1 funny, -1 troll, +2 posting bonus, so I should end up at +5 funny or something... Thank god for Slash moderation:D
Smile... You're dying already, it's only a question of time...
Slashdot Mirror
As a fellow Canuck, I must state the following: SOCAN will most likely be told to go insert their little idea where the sun doesnt shine.
The three biggest canadian ISP's are Bell, Rogers and Videotron (THE phone company, and the two biggest cable distributor). Bell (or BCE) has enough money to buy out the music industry, and the two cable provider do not want any more laws. In fact, Bell already told SOCAN to go f*ck themselves.
Now consider that the law usually sides with the money, and they're ahead. Bell actually markets it's internet broadband service as a good way to get music online.
This is only a dying industry begging for another party to foot the bill, and unfortunately for them, the other party has more money, ressource and motivation to fight this off... So do not look for that new law anytime soon.
In montreal, we have quite a few buildings where several companies are installed, and when it comes to cabling, you just can not install anything yourself. You rent the space, you rent the lines.
You need a new drop ? No problem, a contractor is on site to install them, label them, keep track of them.
It can lead to some pretty conflicts, but overall, when you get used to the fact that your responsability ends at the wall jack, it's a pretty good way to relieve us IT guys from one of the most boring area of the job.
I call bulls*it...
Take a F1 driver for example... They might be awesome at keeping the car on track, and doing laps in record time, but most of them could not do an oil change, or simple repairs on a car.
You have no need to know every nooks and cranny of the install process to keep a network running smoothly.
In fact, I'd be wary of a sysadmin who insists on re-inventing the wheel instead of using one of the fine pre-rolled distribution and THEN tuning it to specific corporate needs.
To me, and admin that wastes company time rolling a distribution is a hazard, because most likely, he/she will not have time to properly document the installation, and when/if he/she becomes unavailable, the new admin in place will have a hell of a time putting every ends together...
Rolling your own at home is one thing. Wasting my budget for pursuing your geekiness is another... And one of those two will lead you to unemployment. Guess which one ?
Disney's ability to sugarcoat things is a well known one...
... These guys could probably make Saddam into a model neighbourg...
They've been doing it forever... Ghost's, pirate's, even lions... I for one have seen a lion feed, and trust me, it's not a cuddly thing...
I shudder to think of the next Disney huggy-feely movie... Something like "My dear serial-killer..." or "The pedophile King"
Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go wash my twisted mind with bleach...
I still have (somewhere in my parent's basement) an old DECWriter teletype, with a switchable 75 baud modem. I think you can switch it to either 115 or 150, but I can't recall which one. And the worst part: It's still in working condition. I'm holding on to it, it might be worth something someday.
But as far as modem goes, I held on to all my modems, from my Atari 130XT 300bps modem, all the way up to my first 9600baud telebit.
Sometime, it's just not worth it to scrap those.
HERF guns... Leave the kitchen knives out of it... We have to put our foot down, and teach 'dem robots who their daddy's are...
Else, we'll start being refered to as "them puny hoo-manz" by the kitchen blenders.
I remembember from my youth, that some warez site used a funky scheme where you would have to go dig the 6th letter of the 1st word on some page, then the 3rd letter of the 4th word on some other, and so on, to form a password.
So what if I provide a block of words, all ascii (easily readable by a braille reader) and then some instructions to pick letters from this and that word, all text, but then, no computer could reconstruct the password... I mean, eventually, you could program it to do text recognition, but then, throw some spelling mistakes in there.
See, software piracy ain't all that bad! IT HELPS THE BLINDS!
Also, I strongly believe that this is a problem to which the solution should be technical, and not legal. Let's not collectively get our panties in a bunch here, and instead of pointing fingers, and calling people/corp. names, let's just solve the TECHNICAL problem, rob a lawyer from it's meal, and be happy with it ever after.
Please, do not remind me. We had a Virtual World center with 16 "pods" linked up. I painfully remember the 10,000$ I spent there in one year. And I probably have all the score sheets to prove it. Multiple display, network play, and a great game. THAT is addiction at it's best.
Nobody ever forced anyone to use that javascript. You dont like the price ? Find an alternative, or write your own.
Putting an insane price on something is not illegal. It might not be good business wise, but it's still the owner's choice.
Using it without paying what the author requests for it _is_ illegal tho.
What's to prevent MS and the hardware maker to build it as a paladium feature ?
I guess that it would not be hard to engineer a component that would allow more voltage/amps into key components if the correct string is received.
The day this technology becomes widespread, we'll have a fun time watching computers go up in flames.
And that will be the day I unhook my box from the internet... You tought melissa was bad ? You thought that the bear spread fast ? Now imagine coming in to the office one morning to find a pile of useless computers that got nuked using the remote destruct feature propagated by the latest and greatest undetected worm.
This is why Paladium and DRM are bad. They will give too much control and too little accountability to the wrong people.
Who's the owner of the site ? Hatch or the webmonkey ?
His name is all over the place, it is HIS website, so he should be held accountable of what's found on it. I remember hearing something like "ignorance is not a valid defense".
If I was going to put my name on something I did not write, I'd damn well make sure my legal team audits each and every bit of it to insure I wouldnt get myself in hot water over it.
This man is a self-proclaimed copyright professional. I guess he should have known better.
But everyone goes up in arms as soon as a company steals some GPL'ed code and includes it in their products ?
If I see an image on a pro photographer's site, and it's got the proper copyright notice and request for royalties if used elsewhere, the fact that it's freely visible on the web, and easy for me to copy probably makes it right for me to use on my own site, despite the request from the author not to right ?
The way this code is available could probably help you learn about Javascript, but if this trend continues, what prevents the author from releasing it as a closed source activex dll in the future ?
I dont buy the "steal it since it's readable" arguments, sorry.
manic depression is a personality trait ? Well... IIRC, the body undergoes chemical changes when a person goes into depression. It gets totally wacked out of balance with regards to a "healthy" body. The meds they feed you when you're depressive are barely there to balance your chemical back to a normal level.
Once someone goes into depression deep enough, no matter how much effort they put into it, they're chemically unbalanced, and will not likely pull out of it by themselves. Meds are not a miracle cure. You have to combine meds with self-help, and counselling.
Just dont strut in here claiming that these are not disorder. Whenever the body goes chemically off balance, you can safely claim that something is out of order.
As to why these meds are not available OTC, well, they have a potential for abuse, as well as a potential to help. The problem is that some people will abuse them (a minority) and the only way to prevent this is to restrict the sale of the meds. What are you going to come up with ? That addiction to drugs is only a personality trait ? Come on now...
Actually, if I'd be in Linus's shoes, I'd let my wife take care of McBride. After all, McBride is going after the bread and butter of the family, and Tove IIRC was 6 time karate champion of finland wasnt she ?
Let's face it. Someone condemn to deathrow has somehow taken away alot from society.
They're also very costly to maintain (prison maintenance, guards, food, etc etc).
They've already been sentenced to death (while I may not agree with it, those in power elected by the majority do.) and are a weight on society while they're waiting out.
This is not a realistic movie issue. They could be benifiting society, and at least give a try to redeeming themselves. You'd be surprised at what someone can achieve when his/her life is on the line.
And they wont be escaping... Where would they go ?
On a side note, I also believe that electric chair, gas chamber and needles are inhumane ways to die. With so many people in need of organs, it just seems a waste not to use theirs (provided they are drug free, healthy and whatnot.) it might not erase the whole pain of losing someone to a murderer, but at least the murderer would not die in vain. You could save lives.
Anyways...
Then, get some cheaper, more expandable astronauts... Some deathrow residents... You know... You might make it, you might not. If you make it we'll give you life instead of the needle ?
The amount of security devices on the shuttle if I'm not mistaken exceeds the amount of other devices.
Build cheaper shuttles, get expandable bodies, profit!
Like a LINUX box running a BSD ?? I think packaging nightmare is the least of your concerns
A couple of years ago, I was contracting for a mining research center which shall remain nameless, and they were blessed (read: bent over and took one for the team) with a peoplesoft setup forced from the head office.
"Some cussing" does not start to describe some of our weekly meetings about the beast.
You're taling about spotty linux support. What we had was spotty windows support. Weird database handling, unexplained crashes, and 6 figures Peoplesoft consultant that were as helpfull as a can of gas in a 5 alarm fire.
Hopefully, I left there before it got worse. But I was talking with some guys I knew that still worked there 2 years after, and the software was still not 100% operational, they still had crashes and bugs, and were looking at other options.
Now, I wish the execs of those companies would read Slashdot for once. I've seen a few good ideas here, like opensourcing the product, throwing a wrench in Oracle's machine, becoming a good guy, and moving to support instead of development.
They're already in deep doo-doo, because everyone knows that once Larry sets his sights on something, he usually gets his way. And even if Oracle is "supporting" Linux, the redneck in me would like to see him get mud on his face for once... This is starting to look like a car accident... You dont want to look but you just have to... You might catch a glimpse of something squishy
They're just bailing out of the states if I read this correctly.
I used to have a T1 with them in the carribeans, and although I had shitty service, no QoS, no support outside business hours, and no reliability (which were all in my contract... But then again, who are you going to sue ?) they still managed to charge us 25K US$ a month for a T1... So I said, I'll go to the competition... Whoa there boy... There is NO competition. They're a monopoly on most of those backwater places... And trust me, they're not a loss-leader there... Phone is expensive, cell is expensive, connectivity is expensive.
And they are on of the big boys IIRC... So just getting out of one money losing market will not take'em out of business...
I'm not knocking them off because they're being pro-active. I'm knocking them off because they release patches without proper testing.
And for the records, I'm not pro-MS or pro-Linux or pro-Anything. I'm pro-Uptime,revenue,stable job.
Also, you're right in the fact that their EULA disclaim whatever responsability they have. I'm just from the old mentality that if I pay for something that should work a certain way, the provider has an obligation to make it behave the way it is stated.
And yes, I paid for my Windows XP (not by choice.) and no, I'm not paying for RH update. So this is why I claim I have a right to bitch against MS, and none to bitch against RH, since I never paid RH for the update. But I did pay MS for the update, so I believe that part of the money I gave them should go to Q&A instead of Bill's new yacht or something.
I'll agree with you on the bias issue. Slashdot for all I can remember (which is a couple of years) was not pro-microsoft. I'm not speaking for anyone, just stating a fact.
But there is a difference between Microsoft and where with Windows Update, you have paid for the update service, and you should expect at least a minimum of Q&A done to a patch. With Linux, well... I can remember some packages I installed in which they gave you a very explicit warranty : This might screw you up, we're not responsible if it does.
I've always installed packages on Linux with this in mind. This might not be the best mentality if we really want Linux on the desktop, but at least, I know what I'm getting myself into.
MS Update makes it seem like everything was double-checked for you, and all is well and good to install... MS even goes so far as to recommend URGENT patches, which may or may not leave you worst off... And this you (should have) paid for. So yes, there is a difference, bias or not, since I paid money for my MS release, whereas my RedHat is downloaded and free... So yes, I should expect working patches from MS, and not expect RedHat to give me the time of day if they dont feel like it.
'nuff said.
Do not waste your energy preaching to a convert. In an ideal world, the company would have been sold to Rodgers, and I'd have been a freaking millionaire... But noooooo... They needed to intervene so it was sold to national interests... Anyways... We'll be safe for another 4 years now... Or at least we'll get the liberal kind of meddling... Better ? Worst ? Who knows... It's all the same to me...
A couple of years back, Videotron had a project going to provide phone service over their cable modem infrastructure.
They had the pilot going with the employees, and it worked VERY well. So well that most of them dropped the Bell landlines in favor of the VoIP service.
But you would not believe all the red tape you have to cut through in order to provide phone service. The VoIP unit was brick sized but required a UPS in case electricity went out. And also a bunch of other safety's. Anyways. When they got sold to Satan^H^H^H^H^HQuebecor, the project was quickly canned, and Videotron started losing money.
As for the 100% reliability, I installed and admined a BCM system from Nortel, and while I agree it's pretty reliable, it's very far from 100% reliable. And remember that Nortel will not guarantee anything over public network. They only guarantee reliability over QoS'ed end to end private circuits. But yeah, they were pretty sweet. And at the lowest quality, were clear enough to have a conversation at 6K second.
I tought this was a one off, but hell, it's getting interesting
Say that theoretically, Ford, Mazda, and Toyota each manufacture 5 cars. We have 15 cars. So 15 gas pumps total.(all different models.)
Not all of the 15 gas pumps are going to break. But the manufacturer has to stock parts for all 15 models. If they had a universal gas pump, they could stock one each for their 5 cars. If one runs out, they still can rely on the other two. As it stands, they each stock up on 5 gas pump models, some of which will never leave the shelf during the useful life of the car (5yrs after it's out of production.).
So I do believe that having a universal model would reduce the amount of pumps in stock/returning to nature.
And while I'm being soooo off topic here, it might not be a bad business decision to start manufacturing cross-compatible car parts.
Think of it. I've done the maths once (for fun) and the cost of rebuilding my car from scratch with parts, would be 5 times higher then to purchase it from the dealer. This means that they take a higher markup on parts, and since they always break down, one company could make massive money just manufacturing parts, and not going through the hell of manufacturing the whole car. The car business is just a way for them to create potential customers for parts.
Secondly, think about the ecologic impact cross-compatible parts would have. You dont need 10 different gas pumps (for example.) you can have only one model that fits 10 different cars. This way you get to reduce the amount of gas pumps on inventory, which will eventually find their way back to nature if they dont get used.
Now for the open-source angle, so I don't get modded down into oblivion... I've seen the advocacy of re-usable code thrown around so many times. Write once, use many, yadi yadi yada... Why not the same for car parts ? There is only so much tuning you can bring to a piece of code. Once you're there, what can you do ? Pull a Microsoft on it, and make sure it won't work with the next version, so they have to purchase your next version which consist of the same exact code, plus the compatibility flag checked in at compile time.
So let's calculate here... -1 Offtopic, +1 insightful, +1 informative, +1 funny, -1 troll, +2 posting bonus, so I should end up at +5 funny or something... Thank god for Slash moderation
Smile... You're dying already, it's only a question of time...