I've worked in large data centers, and they absolutely do use enterprise equipment. The difference is they can use their size and buying power to get that equipment with full-time on-site engineers at a fraction of the cost the little guys are paying for the equipment and phone support in India.
That's the nature of funding in any large organization that has different departments with separately managed budgets. I've worked in large companies, and they all do this.
I agree with the government's effort to consolidate, because you can take advantage of cheaper per-gigabyte costs and have more robust backup, recovery, disaster recovery, and redundancy solutions when you're using enterprise equipment in large data centers. I think the government has a lot to gain from consolidation in this manner.
However, I don't see that they'd have much to gain by outsourcing. Government data, by nature, is quite a bit more sensitive than just about any private company's data. The kind of security the government needs is not going to come cheaply, and it's arguable that any private company is really capable of providing it (although they say they are). Even if they can provide it, it's doubtful they can do it cheaper than the government could. For people in need of true commodity services like web hosting, outsourcing makes sense because it can be done far cheaper that way. For people in need of large-scale custom solutions, like the government, keeping it in-house is going to tend to be both more secure and less expensive.
Yes, CO2 is plant food. Of course, we've been spending the last several decades cutting down all the trees and pumping out CO2 at an ever-increasing rate. At some point, fewer plants and more emissions mean you're producing far more CO2 than all the plants on Earth can reasonably use. We reached that point a long time ago.
Rebranding is usually done for one of two reasons:
1.) The old brand is so horribly tainted that it can't possibly be revived. See: Philip Morris/Altria
2.) The company is failing. The rebranding in this case is a last-ditch effort when everyone has run out of actual good ideas.
In either case, it rarely does any good. In the first case, the company will change the name but not anything else, so the bad reputation gets attached to the new name fairly quickly. In the second case, the company is too far gone for anything to help.
In theory, rebranding can work if it's used as one tool in a total overhaul of the company's culture and philosophy. This generally necessitates a total replacement of all upper management, which of course almost never happens short of a bankruptcy or acquisition.
He was obviously very excited to tell everyone about his creation. A more level-headed person probably would have at least put batteries in the Wiimote before shooting the video, or even done another take without so much shaking. Honestly, a more level-headed person probably would have made a second version of the device without the nonfunctioning battery stuck in it and the upside down CD drive before unveiling it to the world, but we take what we can get.
It's a cool hack from someone who obviously was way too excited and probably should have taken a few deep breaths before setting the camera rolling. Despite all that, though, it's pretty neat. I'm kind of curious where the motion sensor is though, which is why I'm a little disappointed that there was no interaction with the wiimote shown. If the motion sensor is still external to the device, it becomes quite a bit less useful.
While there's no doubt golden parachutes in contracts are often excessive, in this case (from a quick scan of the article), the bulk of the compensation these guys received are from the buyout of the stock. They owned lots of stock (due to stock grants and options from the company, most likely), and so they get a big payout when Oracle buys all of that stock. Yes, they got a straight cash parachute too, but the bulk seems to be from stock.
So, isn't the fact that they owned a lot of stock in the company, and thus their personal fortunes were tied directly to the company's performance, a good thing? We can argue all day as to whether or not their compensation in general was excessive (and it probably was), but it seems to me the fact that most of their golden parachute was due to the buyout of stock they already owned is a good thing.
I hate talking on the phone, and I avoid it at all costs. I use my phone primarily for texting, the Internet, and games. The fact that it's also capable of making and receiving telephone calls is just a (sometimes unwanted) bonus.
Seriously is child pornography going to be trotted out for EVERY encroachment on privacy that we have to endure year after year?
Yes, because it works so well. Just try passing "The Invasion of Privacy Act of 2010" and you'll get laughed off the Senate floor. Present the exact same bill, only change the title to "Child Protection Against Predators Act of 2010" and it'll pass easily. If you can link your bill to child porn, then everyone who even dares to say a word against it is instantly labeled as a supporter of the sexual abuse of children. This is because whenever you say anything about child porn or child predators, the entire electorate completely loses the ability to think rationally and responds in a completely emotionally reactionary way. Emotionally reactionary people are extremely easy to manipulate.
It's sort of funny how so many people who decry the loss of civil liberties in the name of "socialism" will gladly give up their civil liberties in the name of "protecting children".
The article seems to suggest (although does not explicitly state) that the hacker would be able to read the files, not overwrite them. If that's the case, I don't see why the System32 directory would be that important, unless you keep secret data embedded in your system binaries.
High-end storage devices have been using SSD for years to speed things up. It basically allows for a larger cache than RAM (for less money), and also means non-volatile cache like you noted. Of course, how much of a speed gain you get depends on what your workload looks like and how good their caching algorithms are. So, I'm not impressed at all by this little device, but I would be impressed if it came with a new and more efficient caching algorithm.
Hey, it's okay, these things happen. At least they caught it before it could cause any major damage or start some anti-vaccine movement or anything. Good job, guys.
The biggest spending areas are Medicare, Social Security, and Defense. Fiddling with any of these is a sure way to lose the next election, not only for yourself but for your party. So, no one will touch them except to add more to them and make the problem worse. Meanwhile, trying to even get taxes back up to where they were 10 years ago is political suicide. So, we're stuck with politicians doing the will of the people to stay in office, and the will of the people is more benefits, more defense, less taxes. This is obviously unsustainable, but no one seems to care. Oh sure, people go on TV screaming about it, and people grumble about it amongst themselves, but then what? Back in the late 1990s/early 2000s, we had a budget surplus. At that time, the few people suggesting we use it to pay down the debt were drowned out by those demanding it be "given back" in the form of a tax cut. Bush came into office and gave the people what they want, and we ended up back in the red again.
We need to raise taxes, cut benefits, and slash defense spending. We now spend more than every other country in the world combined on defense, at some point we have to say we're spending too much on it. Of course, if anyone even suggests cutting defense spending they're labeled as an unpatriotic terrorist sympathizer, and their political career goes down the toilet. Similarly, if anyone suggests cutting social security or Medicare, they're accused of wanting to kill old people, and old people vote more than anyone else. Talk about raising taxes, and you're a big government socialist. The whole system has gone off the rails, and everyone is too busy trying to tear everyone else down and look good for the voters to actually fix any of it. All we can accomplish is bickering about discretionary spending, which is such a small part of the budget that even taking it all the way down to zero wouldn't solve the problem.
That quote ignores the influence of the mass media. From all accounts, this problem with Toyota's accelerator is extremely rare. However, Toyota has been getting absolutely reamed in the press for weeks over it. There's no telling how many potential customers they've lost because of this, but the damage to their previously spotless reputation for quality could take decades to recover. When people talk about quality reliable automobiles, Toyota and Honda are almost always the first two names that come up. For a company like that to have an issue like this, and to have handled it like they did, is devastating.
The problem is the really competent people almost never actually call customer service, because they know better. 99.9% of the "experts" that call customer service are people who think they know a whole lot, and can talk a good game, but don't actually know what they're talking about. Also, first level techs are basically script-reading drones who get paid garbage wages for an essentially unskilled job. You can't expect people like that to accurately determine if someone is an expert or not.
The end result is you would end up with a lot of people who sound like they know what they're talking about being escalated and wasting the time of your skilled (and highly paid) engineers.
Agreed, but Apple is not the first to try and sell a tablet device. Many other companies have failed at this, and I'm not at all convinced that the tablet form factor can be a winner for anyone. Having said that, Apple has shown they can make a shit-ton of money selling stuff lots of people have failed at before.
However, it's still fair to note that in the eyes of many of us, their big reveal failed to show us why we would want this device. The iPhone reveal convinced me I wanted one pretty much immediately, but this one didn't excite me at all. Sure, the really rabid Apple fanboys will probably get one, but the road to this thing becoming a huge trend like the iPod or the iPhone were is difficult to see. I don't understand why someone who already owns both a smartphone and a laptop (much of their target market) would want a device that seems to be a poor substitute for either. Maybe Apple will prove me wrong, it wouldn't be the first time...but I don't see how at this stage.
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I've worked in large data centers, and they absolutely do use enterprise equipment. The difference is they can use their size and buying power to get that equipment with full-time on-site engineers at a fraction of the cost the little guys are paying for the equipment and phone support in India.
That's the nature of funding in any large organization that has different departments with separately managed budgets. I've worked in large companies, and they all do this.
I agree with the government's effort to consolidate, because you can take advantage of cheaper per-gigabyte costs and have more robust backup, recovery, disaster recovery, and redundancy solutions when you're using enterprise equipment in large data centers. I think the government has a lot to gain from consolidation in this manner.
However, I don't see that they'd have much to gain by outsourcing. Government data, by nature, is quite a bit more sensitive than just about any private company's data. The kind of security the government needs is not going to come cheaply, and it's arguable that any private company is really capable of providing it (although they say they are). Even if they can provide it, it's doubtful they can do it cheaper than the government could. For people in need of true commodity services like web hosting, outsourcing makes sense because it can be done far cheaper that way. For people in need of large-scale custom solutions, like the government, keeping it in-house is going to tend to be both more secure and less expensive.
Only if you consider Druish people space junk...racist.
So my warranty is safe so long as I only use my phone in the Sahara Desert...got it.
Yes, CO2 is plant food. Of course, we've been spending the last several decades cutting down all the trees and pumping out CO2 at an ever-increasing rate. At some point, fewer plants and more emissions mean you're producing far more CO2 than all the plants on Earth can reasonably use. We reached that point a long time ago.
Rebranding is usually done for one of two reasons:
1.) The old brand is so horribly tainted that it can't possibly be revived. See: Philip Morris/Altria
2.) The company is failing. The rebranding in this case is a last-ditch effort when everyone has run out of actual good ideas.
In either case, it rarely does any good. In the first case, the company will change the name but not anything else, so the bad reputation gets attached to the new name fairly quickly. In the second case, the company is too far gone for anything to help.
In theory, rebranding can work if it's used as one tool in a total overhaul of the company's culture and philosophy. This generally necessitates a total replacement of all upper management, which of course almost never happens short of a bankruptcy or acquisition.
He was obviously very excited to tell everyone about his creation. A more level-headed person probably would have at least put batteries in the Wiimote before shooting the video, or even done another take without so much shaking. Honestly, a more level-headed person probably would have made a second version of the device without the nonfunctioning battery stuck in it and the upside down CD drive before unveiling it to the world, but we take what we can get.
It's a cool hack from someone who obviously was way too excited and probably should have taken a few deep breaths before setting the camera rolling. Despite all that, though, it's pretty neat. I'm kind of curious where the motion sensor is though, which is why I'm a little disappointed that there was no interaction with the wiimote shown. If the motion sensor is still external to the device, it becomes quite a bit less useful.
Google's voice recognition software combined with Google's translation software. I predict this will cause World War III within hours of going live.
Reading TFA is boring. The GP was clearly avoiding it in order to increase his life expectancy.
While there's no doubt golden parachutes in contracts are often excessive, in this case (from a quick scan of the article), the bulk of the compensation these guys received are from the buyout of the stock. They owned lots of stock (due to stock grants and options from the company, most likely), and so they get a big payout when Oracle buys all of that stock. Yes, they got a straight cash parachute too, but the bulk seems to be from stock.
So, isn't the fact that they owned a lot of stock in the company, and thus their personal fortunes were tied directly to the company's performance, a good thing? We can argue all day as to whether or not their compensation in general was excessive (and it probably was), but it seems to me the fact that most of their golden parachute was due to the buyout of stock they already owned is a good thing.
On a totally unrelated note, my girlfriend dumped me because I kept explaining obvious jokes over the Internet.
I hate talking on the phone, and I avoid it at all costs. I use my phone primarily for texting, the Internet, and games. The fact that it's also capable of making and receiving telephone calls is just a (sometimes unwanted) bonus.
Seriously is child pornography going to be trotted out for EVERY encroachment on privacy that we have to endure year after year?
Yes, because it works so well. Just try passing "The Invasion of Privacy Act of 2010" and you'll get laughed off the Senate floor. Present the exact same bill, only change the title to "Child Protection Against Predators Act of 2010" and it'll pass easily. If you can link your bill to child porn, then everyone who even dares to say a word against it is instantly labeled as a supporter of the sexual abuse of children. This is because whenever you say anything about child porn or child predators, the entire electorate completely loses the ability to think rationally and responds in a completely emotionally reactionary way. Emotionally reactionary people are extremely easy to manipulate.
It's sort of funny how so many people who decry the loss of civil liberties in the name of "socialism" will gladly give up their civil liberties in the name of "protecting children".
The article seems to suggest (although does not explicitly state) that the hacker would be able to read the files, not overwrite them. If that's the case, I don't see why the System32 directory would be that important, unless you keep secret data embedded in your system binaries.
I think what makes Ender's Game unfilmable is all the naked kids running around in it, not how "cerebral" it is.
High-end storage devices have been using SSD for years to speed things up. It basically allows for a larger cache than RAM (for less money), and also means non-volatile cache like you noted. Of course, how much of a speed gain you get depends on what your workload looks like and how good their caching algorithms are. So, I'm not impressed at all by this little device, but I would be impressed if it came with a new and more efficient caching algorithm.
Hey, it's okay, these things happen. At least they caught it before it could cause any major damage or start some anti-vaccine movement or anything. Good job, guys.
The biggest spending areas are Medicare, Social Security, and Defense. Fiddling with any of these is a sure way to lose the next election, not only for yourself but for your party. So, no one will touch them except to add more to them and make the problem worse. Meanwhile, trying to even get taxes back up to where they were 10 years ago is political suicide. So, we're stuck with politicians doing the will of the people to stay in office, and the will of the people is more benefits, more defense, less taxes. This is obviously unsustainable, but no one seems to care. Oh sure, people go on TV screaming about it, and people grumble about it amongst themselves, but then what? Back in the late 1990s/early 2000s, we had a budget surplus. At that time, the few people suggesting we use it to pay down the debt were drowned out by those demanding it be "given back" in the form of a tax cut. Bush came into office and gave the people what they want, and we ended up back in the red again.
We need to raise taxes, cut benefits, and slash defense spending. We now spend more than every other country in the world combined on defense, at some point we have to say we're spending too much on it. Of course, if anyone even suggests cutting defense spending they're labeled as an unpatriotic terrorist sympathizer, and their political career goes down the toilet. Similarly, if anyone suggests cutting social security or Medicare, they're accused of wanting to kill old people, and old people vote more than anyone else. Talk about raising taxes, and you're a big government socialist. The whole system has gone off the rails, and everyone is too busy trying to tear everyone else down and look good for the voters to actually fix any of it. All we can accomplish is bickering about discretionary spending, which is such a small part of the budget that even taking it all the way down to zero wouldn't solve the problem.
End of rant.
That quote ignores the influence of the mass media. From all accounts, this problem with Toyota's accelerator is extremely rare. However, Toyota has been getting absolutely reamed in the press for weeks over it. There's no telling how many potential customers they've lost because of this, but the damage to their previously spotless reputation for quality could take decades to recover. When people talk about quality reliable automobiles, Toyota and Honda are almost always the first two names that come up. For a company like that to have an issue like this, and to have handled it like they did, is devastating.
The problem is the really competent people almost never actually call customer service, because they know better. 99.9% of the "experts" that call customer service are people who think they know a whole lot, and can talk a good game, but don't actually know what they're talking about. Also, first level techs are basically script-reading drones who get paid garbage wages for an essentially unskilled job. You can't expect people like that to accurately determine if someone is an expert or not.
The end result is you would end up with a lot of people who sound like they know what they're talking about being escalated and wasting the time of your skilled (and highly paid) engineers.
While I agree with you where Garfield is concerned, you're sorely mistaken as far as Family Circus: That strip was never any good.
Agreed, but Apple is not the first to try and sell a tablet device. Many other companies have failed at this, and I'm not at all convinced that the tablet form factor can be a winner for anyone. Having said that, Apple has shown they can make a shit-ton of money selling stuff lots of people have failed at before.
However, it's still fair to note that in the eyes of many of us, their big reveal failed to show us why we would want this device. The iPhone reveal convinced me I wanted one pretty much immediately, but this one didn't excite me at all. Sure, the really rabid Apple fanboys will probably get one, but the road to this thing becoming a huge trend like the iPod or the iPhone were is difficult to see. I don't understand why someone who already owns both a smartphone and a laptop (much of their target market) would want a device that seems to be a poor substitute for either. Maybe Apple will prove me wrong, it wouldn't be the first time...but I don't see how at this stage.
It's more than just an iPod touch that won't fit in your pocket...it's also an underpowered netbook with no keyboard. It's the worst of both worlds!
This is excellent news. In addition to making the spacecraft lightweight, carbon composites will render it completely invisible to DRADIS!