More survived than died. IIRC, of the 100 or so people on board, only about 30 died. Almost all of the deaths were from jumping. When it caught fire, people panicked and jumped; the ground is what killed them. Almost everybody who rode the ship to the ground lived to tell their tale. It was a relatively slow and controlled crash, and the flames were all above the people and billowing upward. Try that with an jetliner.
The reason the Hindenburg disaster is remembered so fervently is that it was the first transportation accident covered in mass-media audio/video distribution. Bloody everybody has heard Herbert Morrison's "Oh the humanity". These days, the general population would hardly bat an eye, but at the time, it was unprecedented.
The real tragedy of the Hindenburg disaster is that the world gave up on lighter-than-air craft, perceiving hydrogen-filled balloons as inherently dangerous. In fact, it's very likely it would have been safer than conventional fixed-wing jetliners. You don't fall out of the sky due to engine failure in an airship. Meanwhile, a blimp on approach hold uses drastically less fuel. Sure, they're nowhere near as fast as jets, but they would have made a great complimentary technology.
Over a year ago, Verizon went through my mom's condo complex (heh, no, I'm not living in her basement), tearing up walls and ceilings to run innerduct for fiber. Last week, on her behalf, I again called Verzion to ask about FiOS availability. Still no availability, still no idea when it will be available, still no idea who knows.
But the truck is nice, I guess.
(Yes, I'm aware that there are legions of people using FiOS. Doesn't mean it's not vaporware elsewhere.)
Well, assuming they have a minimal set of software installed (kernel, standard library, Apache, SQL client, SSH), there's not much to maintain. And it's entirely likely that many of those are custom builds, configured and compiled locally, to get exactly the options they need and none they don't. That's not unusual when you're talking about a high profile site with a heavy traffic load. In such cases, optimizations which are not worth it for most cases suddenly become very important.
Of course, I'm just guessing. For all I know, there is a full GNOME install and a world-writable/etc/ on each server.;-)
I've yet to go to a polling place with optical scanners that actually scanned the ballots as people submitted them
I live (and vote) in NH. When I voted in the 2004 election, I had to feed my ballot into a machine of some kind. I assumed it was scanning the ballot when I did so. It certainly did more than just feed it into the lock box. And it didn't sound like a shredder.;-)
I used to upgrade hardware re-using my legal copy of Windows 98... XP will retire on the hardware it arrived on.
Purely FYI, this always violated the terms of Microsoft's license agreement. OEM licenses are considered "married" to the machine they are bought with. They are not transferable. If the machine dies, the license dies with it.
Note that I'm not saying this is a fair or reasonable practice by Microsoft, or even that it's legally enforceable; I'm just saying it violated the terms of their EULA. One more reason to hate Microsoft, in my book.
I did not detect any humor in the parent's comment.
I wrote that not everyone is the same. That not everyone thinks the same way. So you are either stating the blindingly obvious (that you are one of the many people who do not find gallows humor funny), or you just do not grasp what I am saying (that not everyone thinks the same way you do). Either way, you are doing nothing productive.
Reading a lot of the comments for this article, the thought that occurs to me most often is that many here (on all sides of the various issues) would stand to remember that not everyone is the same. Some people love the whole series, others though it started off strong but then lost its way, others couldn't get past page three of book one. Some people find humor and death are perfectly appropriate together, others think such is the lowest of low blows. People should stop assuming that just because someone doesn't think the same way you do, it's a personal attack on you or yours.
I find "The Robustness Principle" applies to human interactions as well: Be conservative in what you do, and liberal in what you accept.
(My personal opinions (unlikely anyone cares, but in the interests of full disclosure): I thought "The Eye of the World" was fantastic, with the alluded-to backstory appearing fabulously rich. I thought the series had the makings of the next major fantasy classic. But after that, I felt WoT quickly developed problems with pacing and repetitiveness, and lost interest around book three and stopped reading at the end of book five. My opinion. I also enjoy gallows humor, and I often cope with grief and stress by cracking jokes, so I laughed at the humor here. That is also part of my personality, and I do not demand that others be the same as me.)
I view Turbo/Object Pascal the same way a lot of people view a classic car: It may have been eclipsed by more modern technology, but it still has a certain elegance and appeal to those who knew it in its heyday. Sure, the latest cars have electronic fuel injection and engine monitors and other advanced technology, but there's still nothing like working on a classic engine. It's nostalgia, yes, but good stuff, still.
I'm aware of the Nicoll quote, of which the quote I posted is almost certainly a paraphrase. But strictly speaking, those are not his words, and I don't know who penned them. I suppose I could have been more complete in my attribution, something like "-- Unknown, likely paraphrase of James D. Nicoll". Given the quotes under discussion, though, I do find this whole meta-discussion quite ironic.:)
Thanks for the link to that well-sourced attribution, though; that's better than anything I have.
Because some of our language is borrowed from French...
Obligatory: "English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar." -- Author unknown
It's too hard to implement, because there is no default way it should look like.
One of the stated design goals of HTML, from way back, has been that it will look different for different people. The web isn't supposed to be the same everywhere. It's supposed to vary from person to person, the way people vary from person to person. I know there are a ton of anal-retentive control freaks who just can't seem to stand that, but it's the truth. Someone already posted examples about things like cell phones and braille. I'll add: What about the spoken word? What about the fact that I might want fonts to be bigger, smaller, rounder, or more cromulent?
If you want everything to look the same as on your screen, invite everyone into your office to see it.
If what you say is true, the Amiga would never had survived the era of the Internet.
Well, first, there's the minor detail that the Amiga (as it was) didn't really survive, and that death happened before the Internet hit the big time. Sure, there's a strong enthusiast community that has done an admirable job keeping the platform alive without OEM support, but you can't exactly ignore the collapse of CBM, either. Well, maybe you can, but most people can't.:)
Second, the mechanism the Amiga used for message passing is well-documented. Try these Google searches for some good results:
The next generation of computing is going to come from the vast multitude of developers who are accustomed to writing client-server applications applying what they know to computers that behave like a server cluster.
Wow. You seem awful sure of the future. Can I borrow your crystal ball? I'd like to look up next week's lottery numbers...
Looking at history, the computer industry seems to show a remarkable propensity to not learn from experience, and instead keep making the same mistakes over and over again (with different names). What evidence do you have that suggests that is going to change?
The Amiga had a great messaging system in it's OS....
But at too steep a price. The messaging system relied on passing pointers between processes. So if we're both processes and I wanted to send a message to you, I'd build the message in my memory space, and then pass you a pointer to it. Fast, for sure, but it meant a lack of memory protection was a requirement built-in to the OS API. That's a real problem. It's not just a matter of "knowing what you were doing", as you put it. Even ignoring that fact that a great many programmers apparently don't know what they're doing, even the best programmers make mistakes (being human).
The Amiga was a neat platform, and did some really cool things, but let's not get too carried away with our rose-colored glasses.:)
Okay, so you back up your PST, do the upgrade, Outlook converts the PST and then you download more mail into the PST. What good did that backup do you again?
None. But the "File -> Export" to the Outlook 2000 PST format should work just fine. FYI, the new Outlook 2003 format (also called "Unicode PST", vs "ANSI PST" for the old one) removes the 2 GB limitation of the old format, so there really is a benefit to be had if you're dealing with people with huge mailboxes.
(WIAK's Law: The longer a Star Wars discussion goes on, especially on Slashdot, the greater the likelyhood that someone mentions either Han shooting first or George Lucas raping their childhood.)
Han raped my childhood first, you insensitive clod!
Consider Natalie Portman, Soviet Russia, and our new overlords included by reference.
Newsflash: If you're checking the results of monitoring software, you're not a manager, you're an SA or an operator.
I work for a small manufacturing company. I am 50% of the IT department. My job title in the HR database says "IT Manager". In practice, that means I'm CTO, system administrator, network administrator, server operator, software architect, DBA, phone guy, cable guy, automated test equipment tech, webmaster, desktop support, and that's just the short list. I also keep tabs on our application software specialist, but ultimately, I manage technology more than I manage people. If it uses electricity and isn't greasy or wet, it's my problem. (If it's greasy or wet, it's Maintenance's problem.) I like it this way; it keeps me from getting bored. To each their own, but don't assume yours is the only way.:)
Doesn't the owner of a rental property have say over a modification like that, since it is his house?
While I cannot speak to FiOS in particular, and it may vary by jurisdiction, too, I can say that it is not that simple. In many cases, the law recognizes that tenants have certain rights, and those rights may trump the property owner's rights. For example, a property owner has to provide a safe dwelling. The law may also require the property owner to grant access to public utilities. In cases where specific law doesn't apply, the utility will often require the property owner to sign an agreement granting the utility a right-of-way to each and every tenant. Since it's hard to rent out a property which cannot get electricity or water, the property owner has to have those agreements.
As a practical example, when we wanted to get Comcast Internet installed at work, we had to sign one of those multi-tenant agreements, because we owned the building, and it was easily large enough to be sublet in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
More survived than died. IIRC, of the 100 or so people on board, only about 30 died. Almost all of the deaths were from jumping. When it caught fire, people panicked and jumped; the ground is what killed them. Almost everybody who rode the ship to the ground lived to tell their tale. It was a relatively slow and controlled crash, and the flames were all above the people and billowing upward. Try that with an jetliner.
The reason the Hindenburg disaster is remembered so fervently is that it was the first transportation accident covered in mass-media audio/video distribution. Bloody everybody has heard Herbert Morrison's "Oh the humanity". These days, the general population would hardly bat an eye, but at the time, it was unprecedented.
The real tragedy of the Hindenburg disaster is that the world gave up on lighter-than-air craft, perceiving hydrogen-filled balloons as inherently dangerous. In fact, it's very likely it would have been safer than conventional fixed-wing jetliners. You don't fall out of the sky due to engine failure in an airship. Meanwhile, a blimp on approach hold uses drastically less fuel. Sure, they're nowhere near as fast as jets, but they would have made a great complimentary technology.
Terms Of Service are a lot like backups. Most people never worry about them until they become important, and then it's too late.
(Note that I'm not saying *you* should care, just that *some* people should care, but don't, and end up very upset.)
Over a year ago, Verizon went through my mom's condo complex (heh, no, I'm not living in her basement), tearing up walls and ceilings to run innerduct for fiber. Last week, on her behalf, I again called Verzion to ask about FiOS availability. Still no availability, still no idea when it will be available, still no idea who knows.
But the truck is nice, I guess.
(Yes, I'm aware that there are legions of people using FiOS. Doesn't mean it's not vaporware elsewhere.)
Well, assuming they have a minimal set of software installed (kernel, standard library, Apache, SQL client, SSH), there's not much to maintain. And it's entirely likely that many of those are custom builds, configured and compiled locally, to get exactly the options they need and none they don't. That's not unusual when you're talking about a high profile site with a heavy traffic load. In such cases, optimizations which are not worth it for most cases suddenly become very important.
/etc/ on each server. ;-)
Of course, I'm just guessing. For all I know, there is a full GNOME install and a world-writable
Now that's true love. (No joke. Taking care of a sick person is one of the least-fun things you can do.)
I live (and vote) in NH. When I voted in the 2004 election, I had to feed my ballot into a machine of some kind. I assumed it was scanning the ballot when I did so. It certainly did more than just feed it into the lock box. And it didn't sound like a shredder.
Purely FYI, this always violated the terms of Microsoft's license agreement. OEM licenses are considered "married" to the machine they are bought with. They are not transferable. If the machine dies, the license dies with it.
Note that I'm not saying this is a fair or reasonable practice by Microsoft, or even that it's legally enforceable; I'm just saying it violated the terms of their EULA. One more reason to hate Microsoft, in my book.
I wrote that not everyone is the same. That not everyone thinks the same way. So you are either stating the blindingly obvious (that you are one of the many people who do not find gallows humor funny), or you just do not grasp what I am saying (that not everyone thinks the same way you do). Either way, you are doing nothing productive.
Reading a lot of the comments for this article, the thought that occurs to me most often is that many here (on all sides of the various issues) would stand to remember that not everyone is the same. Some people love the whole series, others though it started off strong but then lost its way, others couldn't get past page three of book one. Some people find humor and death are perfectly appropriate together, others think such is the lowest of low blows. People should stop assuming that just because someone doesn't think the same way you do, it's a personal attack on you or yours.
I find "The Robustness Principle" applies to human interactions as well: Be conservative in what you do, and liberal in what you accept.
(My personal opinions (unlikely anyone cares, but in the interests of full disclosure): I thought "The Eye of the World" was fantastic, with the alluded-to backstory appearing fabulously rich. I thought the series had the makings of the next major fantasy classic. But after that, I felt WoT quickly developed problems with pacing and repetitiveness, and lost interest around book three and stopped reading at the end of book five. My opinion. I also enjoy gallows humor, and I often cope with grief and stress by cracking jokes, so I laughed at the humor here. That is also part of my personality, and I do not demand that others be the same as me.)
I view Turbo/Object Pascal the same way a lot of people view a classic car: It may have been eclipsed by more modern technology, but it still has a certain elegance and appeal to those who knew it in its heyday. Sure, the latest cars have electronic fuel injection and engine monitors and other advanced technology, but there's still nothing like working on a classic engine. It's nostalgia, yes, but good stuff, still.
END. (* PROGRAM *)
It's worth pointing out that most, if not all, of the objections in Kernighan's famous essay do not apply to Borland's Pascal dialect.
Isn't that last bit there redundant?
(With credit to Mark Twain.)
You didn't read the headline, did you? ;-)
I'm aware of the Nicoll quote, of which the quote I posted is almost certainly a paraphrase. But strictly speaking, those are not his words, and I don't know who penned them. I suppose I could have been more complete in my attribution, something like "-- Unknown, likely paraphrase of James D. Nicoll". Given the quotes under discussion, though, I do find this whole meta-discussion quite ironic. :)
Thanks for the link to that well-sourced attribution, though; that's better than anything I have.
Obligatory: "English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar." -- Author unknown
One of the stated design goals of HTML, from way back, has been that it will look different for different people. The web isn't supposed to be the same everywhere. It's supposed to vary from person to person, the way people vary from person to person. I know there are a ton of anal-retentive control freaks who just can't seem to stand that, but it's the truth. Someone already posted examples about things like cell phones and braille. I'll add: What about the spoken word? What about the fact that I might want fonts to be bigger, smaller, rounder, or more cromulent?
If you want everything to look the same as on your screen, invite everyone into your office to see it.
OpenOffice should sue them? Don't you mean OpenOffice.org should?
(See here, under "Trademark", for what I'm talking about.)
Well, first, there's the minor detail that the Amiga (as it was) didn't really survive, and that death happened before the Internet hit the big time. Sure, there's a strong enthusiast community that has done an admirable job keeping the platform alive without OEM support, but you can't exactly ignore the collapse of CBM, either. Well, maybe you can, but most people can't. :)
Second, the mechanism the Amiga used for message passing is well-documented. Try these Google searches for some good results:
Wow. You seem awful sure of the future. Can I borrow your crystal ball? I'd like to look up next week's lottery numbers...
Looking at history, the computer industry seems to show a remarkable propensity to not learn from experience, and instead keep making the same mistakes over and over again (with different names). What evidence do you have that suggests that is going to change?
But at too steep a price. The messaging system relied on passing pointers between processes. So if we're both processes and I wanted to send a message to you, I'd build the message in my memory space, and then pass you a pointer to it. Fast, for sure, but it meant a lack of memory protection was a requirement built-in to the OS API. That's a real problem. It's not just a matter of "knowing what you were doing", as you put it. Even ignoring that fact that a great many programmers apparently don't know what they're doing, even the best programmers make mistakes (being human).
The Amiga was a neat platform, and did some really cool things, but let's not get too carried away with our rose-colored glasses. :)
None. But the "File -> Export" to the Outlook 2000 PST format should work just fine. FYI, the new Outlook 2003 format (also called "Unicode PST", vs "ANSI PST" for the old one) removes the 2 GB limitation of the old format, so there really is a benefit to be had if you're dealing with people with huge mailboxes.
That word you keep using. I do not think it means what you think it means. ;-)
Han raped my childhood first, you insensitive clod!
Consider Natalie Portman, Soviet Russia, and our new overlords included by reference.
I work for a small manufacturing company. I am 50% of the IT department. My job title in the HR database says "IT Manager". In practice, that means I'm CTO, system administrator, network administrator, server operator, software architect, DBA, phone guy, cable guy, automated test equipment tech, webmaster, desktop support, and that's just the short list. I also keep tabs on our application software specialist, but ultimately, I manage technology more than I manage people. If it uses electricity and isn't greasy or wet, it's my problem. (If it's greasy or wet, it's Maintenance's problem.) I like it this way; it keeps me from getting bored. To each their own, but don't assume yours is the only way. :)
While I cannot speak to FiOS in particular, and it may vary by jurisdiction, too, I can say that it is not that simple. In many cases, the law recognizes that tenants have certain rights, and those rights may trump the property owner's rights. For example, a property owner has to provide a safe dwelling. The law may also require the property owner to grant access to public utilities. In cases where specific law doesn't apply, the utility will often require the property owner to sign an agreement granting the utility a right-of-way to each and every tenant. Since it's hard to rent out a property which cannot get electricity or water, the property owner has to have those agreements.
As a practical example, when we wanted to get Comcast Internet installed at work, we had to sign one of those multi-tenant agreements, because we owned the building, and it was easily large enough to be sublet in the future.