Oooh - that *is* bad. I'm glad I donated to our local police officer's weapons training program.
As an 'enthusiast' (and I sometimes compete informally), I probably fire about 300 rounds a week between pistols and rifles. That's centerfire ammunition - more would be cost-prohibitive.
I use a nice and modestly accurate airsoft AEG rig to practice the rest of the time, since that is CRAZY cheap to operate.
It doesn't change my opinion that a safety is a good thing to have, but it certainly makes more sense than simply "It doesn't need one" and "It's faster than fumbling with a safety".
My favorite safety is still the 'grip safety' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_(firearms)#Grip_safety just because it encourages you to actually hold your firearm firmly. I do like a nice visible indicator (like the selector switch on an HK-MP5 variant or AR-15(M4) variant) but with a pistol that would be a bit obnoxious considering that they are typically drawn from a holster and not held 'ready'.
Ok, so that lack of a safety is deliberate. I know when I asked they told me it didn't have one (and I couldn't find one) but for the life of me I was unable to imagine that as a *selling* point.
Ok - well, fair enough. I suppose to each their own, right?:)
If you're right that a lot of police officers shoot rarely, that's pretty scary. It would explain why the safety officer in a concealed weapons class would shoot his foot though...
Not to start a massive flame war here, but what is it with the Glock love?
The people down at my local shooting range are all totally in love with the Glocks, but I freaking hate them. They're ugly, they're uncomfortable, they jam, and they're expensive. I put 10 boxes of ammo through 3 different models while a friend down there tried to convince me that they were far superior.
I personally like my Colt a whole lot better, and my Smith and Wesson even more than that. Berettas are awesome though, and I have to say that it seems to be a very comfortable pistol. I haven't done all that much shooting with one though.
I'm sure there is an appeal to them - but I'd love to hear what it is.
I disagree - I happen to work for a massive piece of this 'M-I Complex', and we're dying here. All the major aerospace and defense companies are going through a seriously hard time and shedding people or outsourcing like mad.
If it were as simple as this, I wouldn't be looking for work:)
I have an Aspire One 110 with the SSD that's been smooth so far, and I just followed the suggestions for optimizing it for Linux. I also made sure that everything in/home points to the left hand SD card (the right hand one is crazy unreliable on my BIOS version). This has stood up to a year of heavy use under Mint and Ubuntu NBR.
I used to work at a BBS back in the days before the internet was 'readily available', in the era when BBS owners were still debating if it was worth getting a connection to the internet. I *liked* being a SysOp:)
The biggest difference between now and then is probably in game manuals. At the time, most games had little dial-up (for cost) numbers for a support BBS/hint line.
Hopefully GEnie will *never* return. I would love to see something like Sierra's INN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImagiNation_Network) come back. I really loved spending time on there, mostly playing Shadows of Yserbius and Red Baron.
The thing I'm happiest to see gone is the hourly timers, and I suspect that's what I'd miss the most.
That particular variety of Libertarian is more what people in the US think of, but they tend to really be more like republicans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism
Sort of like not all democrats want abortions and the destruction of the military, not all republicans want freedom and religious facism, and not all greens walk to work:) Not all libertarians are facists, or communists, or free-market/anti-market - take your pick. Most just want maximal individual freedoms with minimal government.
I'd say the F/OSS market is the BEST expression of Libertarian though, especially the Limited BSD/MIT style licenses. The GPL, well, that's another debate;)
It's really one of those look and feel things, I guess. I should probably go to the trouble of putting my finger on it some day.
SELinux probably has a lot to do with it, especially since it pops up like mad unless you do a lot with it. I've traditionally also had very bad luck with wifi configuration (but that's not much different for Fedora than Debian).
I'll be giving it a shot too - ironically, I support RHEL professionally, but have hated Fedora since FC8. It's not even a Gnome/KDE thing, since I use KDE on my PC-BSD laptop and Gnome on my Debian desktops.
I think that's pretty much the nail on the head - this and jim_v2000's "open manufacturing plant" comment.
Open source software isn't so incredibly hard to do when compared to open source hardware.
Hardware requires a ton of money and infrastructure - you can't just create a modern high-quality fab plant in your garage in your spare time, and nobody is out there willing to do that for you piecemeal.
The problem is you basically have to choose between NVidia and ATI.
What we really need is someone to come up with the graphics equiv of OpenMoko and get it out there. A truly open graphics card. If you can point me to one, I'll buy it:)
We spent years trying to get IBM to stop being a monopolistic and evil company, finally got them to change (a bit). Then Ma Bell, resulting in them being broken up.
Now ATT/Bell is back to being a gigantic mega-company again, and IBM is back to the same stuff they tried against DEC and others.
I have probably every interesting movie that came out on UMD that was interesting - most purchased at $5 or less (yay firesales!).
I also own 3 PSPs (I use a 1k, my kid and my wife a 2k)
The problem I have with the go is still much the same as your problem - with over 40 games and 30 some movies on UMD, I have no interest in a new device that makes me as a customer re-re-buy all of that. Screw that - I'll be buying another used PSP at some point to keep as backup:)
I spent a lot of effort and time setting up my reporting sites with JS and tables instead of flash for just this reason. Flash doesn't belong everywhere - and not everyone wants it turned on.
There is really no excuse for using it just to display charts.
I've been using HP deskjet/laserjet printers for years - I currently have one that's over 10 years old and one that's fairly new.
They're fairly solid, reasonably priced, and the newer ones do a nice job as a networked printer server with no complicated setup.
I print to it from OSX, BSD, and Linux with no issues or special drivers. Windows needs this massive HP driver unless you set it up as an ultra-generic PCL printer
Because of exactly the reasons you point out. OSX, Windows, and BSD are considered operating systems, while Linux is not an operating system but a kernel around which a variety of software distributions exist.
I'm pointing out that the nomenclature 'distro' doesn't quite adequately describe the correct term to characterize these - but I'm loosely and generically applying it for the sake of brevity.
Been in IT for almost 15 years now, and I never recall there being glory. Maybe in the 60s or something - but I doubt it. I like to fix stuff. I don't like people. I like computers. I didn't do it for glory - I did it for a living, and for the fun of playing with new tech years before most people even hear of it.
Thank you. That's my point exactly. Benchmark testing is very unscientific it would seem, since there is rarely ever a "control" and the test suites seem to run nearly random load sets.
They're also almost always impossible to reproduce since the test suites are typically quite expensive... and many companies forbid publishing benchmarks!
It'd be nice if a 3rd party like W3C did a webserver comparison where every company got to bring their big guns (each server configured by the *vendor* for best performance on given hardware) and then the W3C put it up on a standard heavy load tester than ramped all the way up to "crushing load".
Same with databases.
I want to see not just how a server from vendor X would perform, I want to see where it dies.
I must say that I'm really fed up with these sorts of benchmarks. They insult the intelligence of IT/technical people AND business people/endusers.
I need to find or create a site that actually benchmarks a variety of systems (windows/linux/unix/bsd) for ACTUAL scenarios that the users of the systems expect them to perform. Not sure how important LAME encoding is for BSD people - I know I don't use it for that. Not sure how many Ubuntu users run DB servers or firewall routers.
Can anyone point me to someplace like this? Someplace where I can see, for example, DB driven dynamic pages served per second - concurrent DB users, scalability to 4+ processors, etc?
I want metrics like SAN performance, DB performance, mail server performance, HA, clustering, firewall performance etc for server "distros" (Windows Server, AIX, Solaris, BSD, Linux, OSX Server) I want metrics like graphics benchmarks, app response time, those classic GUI task tests for desktop "distros" (Windows, OSX, Linux, BSD).
It annoys me that I see benchmarks that are so narrow and pointless. I can't make reasonable non-fanboy type comparisons when the benchmark doesn't include anything that matters to me.
I happen to have firsthand experience in a shop where the astronautical architecture teams (yes, several dozen of them, with 10-15 people each) come up with rigid and overengineered concepts that they then throw over the wall onto piles of outsourced contractors who are sub-duct tape level.
This results is crazy weird decisions with awful execution.
Yes, you are right. Having both is a freaking nightmare. I had to sit in the middle, attempting to preserve database and system uptime while developers wrote code to store massive PDFs of every single EDI transaction inside a database, then killed appservers writing code to parse the PDFs and turn them in XML on the fly at the other end.
I found the particular benchmark I think you're referring to - and that was Ubuntu, OpenSolaris, and FreeBSD. Neither the FreeBSD nor OpenSolaris versions were release versions, they were both beta.
It was a desktop test - hardly a useful comparison in a realm where the vast majority of Solaris and BSD boxes don't even have X installed. Try again with a loaded server comparison test handling firewall/apache/mail services. That is a benchmark I'll take seriously.
I'm trying to find any current benchmarks (2008/2009), but what I'd like to remind you is that there are quite a few benchmarks proving that Windows 2003 advanced server is faster than anything;)
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Oooh - that *is* bad. I'm glad I donated to our local police officer's weapons training program.
As an 'enthusiast' (and I sometimes compete informally), I probably fire about 300 rounds a week between pistols and rifles. That's centerfire ammunition - more would be cost-prohibitive.
I use a nice and modestly accurate airsoft AEG rig to practice the rest of the time, since that is CRAZY cheap to operate.
Interesting perspective. Thank you :)
It doesn't change my opinion that a safety is a good thing to have, but it certainly makes more sense than simply "It doesn't need one" and "It's faster than fumbling with a safety".
My favorite safety is still the 'grip safety' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_(firearms)#Grip_safety just because it encourages you to actually hold your firearm firmly.
I do like a nice visible indicator (like the selector switch on an HK-MP5 variant or AR-15(M4) variant) but with a pistol that would be a bit obnoxious considering that they are typically drawn from a holster and not held 'ready'.
Ok, so that lack of a safety is deliberate. I know when I asked they told me it didn't have one (and I couldn't find one) but for the life of me I was unable to imagine that as a *selling* point.
Ok - well, fair enough. I suppose to each their own, right? :)
If you're right that a lot of police officers shoot rarely, that's pretty scary. It would explain why the safety officer in a concealed weapons class would shoot his foot though...
No, I just disagree. Most people seem to vote *against* defense companies coming to town, especially in places like California.
There is also a lot less funding going into it. Like it or not, it has been a major field employing highly educated people for a long time.
Not to start a massive flame war here, but what is it with the Glock love?
The people down at my local shooting range are all totally in love with the Glocks, but I freaking hate them. They're ugly, they're uncomfortable, they jam, and they're expensive. I put 10 boxes of ammo through 3 different models while a friend down there tried to convince me that they were far superior.
I personally like my Colt a whole lot better, and my Smith and Wesson even more than that. Berettas are awesome though, and I have to say that it seems to be a very comfortable pistol. I haven't done all that much shooting with one though.
I'm sure there is an appeal to them - but I'd love to hear what it is.
I disagree - I happen to work for a massive piece of this 'M-I Complex', and we're dying here. All the major aerospace and defense companies are going through a seriously hard time and shedding people or outsourcing like mad.
If it were as simple as this, I wouldn't be looking for work :)
I have an Aspire One 110 with the SSD that's been smooth so far, and I just followed the suggestions for optimizing it for Linux. I also made sure that everything in /home points to the left hand SD card (the right hand one is crazy unreliable on my BIOS version). This has stood up to a year of heavy use under Mint and Ubuntu NBR.
Not fast - but stable.
I used to work at a BBS back in the days before the internet was 'readily available', in the era when BBS owners were still debating if it was worth getting a connection to the internet. :)
I *liked* being a SysOp
The biggest difference between now and then is probably in game manuals. At the time, most games had little dial-up (for cost) numbers for a support BBS/hint line.
Hopefully GEnie will *never* return. I would love to see something like Sierra's INN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImagiNation_Network) come back. I really loved spending time on there, mostly playing Shadows of Yserbius and Red Baron.
The thing I'm happiest to see gone is the hourly timers, and I suspect that's what I'd miss the most.
That particular variety of Libertarian is more what people in the US think of, but they tend to really be more like republicans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism
Sort of like not all democrats want abortions and the destruction of the military, not all republicans want freedom and religious facism, and not all greens walk to work :)
Not all libertarians are facists, or communists, or free-market/anti-market - take your pick.
Most just want maximal individual freedoms with minimal government.
I'd say the F/OSS market is the BEST expression of Libertarian though, especially the Limited BSD/MIT style licenses. The GPL, well, that's another debate ;)
You know, I'm not sure :D
It's really one of those look and feel things, I guess. I should probably go to the trouble of putting my finger on it some day.
SELinux probably has a lot to do with it, especially since it pops up like mad unless you do a lot with it. I've traditionally also had very bad luck with wifi configuration (but that's not much different for Fedora than Debian).
I'll be giving it a shot too - ironically, I support RHEL professionally, but have hated Fedora since FC8. It's not even a Gnome/KDE thing, since I use KDE on my PC-BSD laptop and Gnome on my Debian desktops.
I'm hoping to have a good experience with 12 :)
I think that's pretty much the nail on the head - this and jim_v2000's "open manufacturing plant" comment.
Open source software isn't so incredibly hard to do when compared to open source hardware.
Hardware requires a ton of money and infrastructure - you can't just create a modern high-quality fab plant in your garage in your spare time, and nobody is out there willing to do that for you piecemeal.
The problem is you basically have to choose between NVidia and ATI.
What we really need is someone to come up with the graphics equiv of OpenMoko and get it out there. A truly open graphics card. :)
If you can point me to one, I'll buy it
We spent years trying to get IBM to stop being a monopolistic and evil company, finally got them to change (a bit).
Then Ma Bell, resulting in them being broken up.
Now ATT/Bell is back to being a gigantic mega-company again, and IBM is back to the same stuff they tried against DEC and others.
The more things change...
I have probably every interesting movie that came out on UMD that was interesting - most purchased at $5 or less (yay firesales!).
I also own 3 PSPs (I use a 1k, my kid and my wife a 2k)
The problem I have with the go is still much the same as your problem - with over 40 games and 30 some movies on UMD, I have no interest in a new device that makes me as a customer re-re-buy all of that. :)
Screw that - I'll be buying another used PSP at some point to keep as backup
I spent a lot of effort and time setting up my reporting sites with JS and tables instead of flash for just this reason. Flash doesn't belong everywhere - and not everyone wants it turned on.
There is really no excuse for using it just to display charts.
I've been using HP deskjet/laserjet printers for years - I currently have one that's over 10 years old and one that's fairly new.
They're fairly solid, reasonably priced, and the newer ones do a nice job as a networked printer server with no complicated setup.
I print to it from OSX, BSD, and Linux with no issues or special drivers. Windows needs this massive HP driver unless you set it up as an ultra-generic PCL printer
Because of exactly the reasons you point out. OSX, Windows, and BSD are considered operating systems, while Linux is not an operating system but a kernel around which a variety of software distributions exist.
I'm pointing out that the nomenclature 'distro' doesn't quite adequately describe the correct term to characterize these - but I'm loosely and generically applying it for the sake of brevity.
Yup, agreed, like the rest :D
Been in IT for almost 15 years now, and I never recall there being glory. Maybe in the 60s or something - but I doubt it.
I like to fix stuff. I don't like people. I like computers. I didn't do it for glory - I did it for a living, and for the fun of playing with new tech years before most people even hear of it.
Thank you. That's my point exactly.
Benchmark testing is very unscientific it would seem, since there is rarely ever a "control" and the test suites seem to run nearly random load sets.
They're also almost always impossible to reproduce since the test suites are typically quite expensive... and many companies forbid publishing benchmarks!
It'd be nice if a 3rd party like W3C did a webserver comparison where every company got to bring their big guns (each server configured by the *vendor* for best performance on given hardware) and then the W3C put it up on a standard heavy load tester than ramped all the way up to "crushing load".
Same with databases.
I want to see not just how a server from vendor X would perform, I want to see where it dies.
I must say that I'm really fed up with these sorts of benchmarks. They insult the intelligence of IT/technical people AND business people/endusers.
I need to find or create a site that actually benchmarks a variety of systems (windows/linux/unix/bsd) for ACTUAL scenarios that the users of the systems expect them to perform. Not sure how important LAME encoding is for BSD people - I know I don't use it for that. Not sure how many Ubuntu users run DB servers or firewall routers.
Can anyone point me to someplace like this? Someplace where I can see, for example, DB driven dynamic pages served per second - concurrent DB users, scalability to 4+ processors, etc?
I want metrics like SAN performance, DB performance, mail server performance, HA, clustering, firewall performance etc for server "distros" (Windows Server, AIX, Solaris, BSD, Linux, OSX Server)
I want metrics like graphics benchmarks, app response time, those classic GUI task tests for desktop "distros" (Windows, OSX, Linux, BSD).
It annoys me that I see benchmarks that are so narrow and pointless. I can't make reasonable non-fanboy type comparisons when the benchmark doesn't include anything that matters to me.
I happen to have firsthand experience in a shop where the astronautical architecture teams (yes, several dozen of them, with 10-15 people each) come up with rigid and overengineered concepts that they then throw over the wall onto piles of outsourced contractors who are sub-duct tape level.
This results is crazy weird decisions with awful execution.
Yes, you are right. Having both is a freaking nightmare. I had to sit in the middle, attempting to preserve database and system uptime while developers wrote code to store massive PDFs of every single EDI transaction inside a database, then killed appservers writing code to parse the PDFs and turn them in XML on the fly at the other end.
Worthless. Just utter crap.
Hopefully not the people posting to Slashdot!
Agreed. Also, as per the GP - Why on earth would someone confuse either Sugar or Gnome with an OS?
Really people - get outside the GUI on occasion...
I found the particular benchmark I think you're referring to - and that was Ubuntu, OpenSolaris, and FreeBSD. Neither the FreeBSD nor OpenSolaris versions were release versions, they were both beta.
It was a desktop test - hardly a useful comparison in a realm where the vast majority of Solaris and BSD boxes don't even have X installed. Try again with a loaded server comparison test handling firewall/apache/mail services. That is a benchmark I'll take seriously.
I'm trying to find any current benchmarks (2008/2009), but what I'd like to remind you is that there are quite a few benchmarks proving that Windows 2003 advanced server is faster than anything ;)