A legitimate criteria in deciding on the ``best available package'' is access (by a government and its citizens) to the source code. I believe Microsoft is even beginning to accept this view (at least for governments). I agree that ``the best available package'' be used, as long as the criteria included revealing the source code and considering the stability and security of the operating system (rather than the ``popularity'' of the OS).
The version of Windows (NT 3.5 ?) for Alphas was the most stable "Microsoft" (by DEC ?) product I have ever used. While I was using it, I forgot how unstable Windows is. If all of Microsoft's products were as stable as this was, they would have a much better reputation. (Of course, I like Linux much better; I think NT is still installed on my Alpha but I am not certain.)
This
pdf
document seems to support some of the comments you dismiss. " EV7 (21364 = (21264 core w/improvements + RAMBUS controller" - page 4 of the pdf file.
"RAMBUS memory controller onboard the chip (256-bit dual channel, so it actually isn't a POS like many RAMBUS inmplentations" - pages 5-7. Etc. on the hardware. We know "Slot A was originally an Alpha slot" is true.
From this German language web page (translated) "A 200 MHz system bus based on the protocol from alpha EV6 processor" supports "(additionally, MANY alpha engineers were hired by AMD when DEC was merging, and the EV6 bus (and many other tech goodies) were licenced to AMD" in the post about which you say "I don't think there is even one thing in his post that is correct."
I hate to call anyone a troll and some comments in the post might be wrong, but your credibility is pretty low (and yes, I did look at your scores and strong karma is not one of your strengths).
I may be asleep here, but am I missing something? My 533 MHz 164 Alpha runs Red Hat 7.3 perfectly. X, KDE, Gnome, gimp, xfig, LaTeX,... (of course, sendmail, apache, etc.) anything I have tried to use works. OK, I have not tried cups yet. (I don't recall what kind of video card I have - sorry.)
How much liability has an individual or company that does not adequately protect someone else's data? Does it matter if the data loss occurs because of the physical theft of hardware (e.g. hard drives) or insecure OS's (e.g. worm or Trojan) or the loss of data by a "computer repairperson" (e.g. by accident)? Should "computer repairpersons" be bonded? (I do not think so, but who knows? The answers may be determined by insurance companies.)
"blowing up" snide comment was a little rude
When you are considering sending people (as compared with equipment) into space, you should have an outstanding safety record. So far this seems to be a problem.
Why isn't NASA interested in sending people to Mars?
Enron was prepared to set up an energy trading office on the moon but Arthur Anderson could not create enough tax benefits. Worldcom would have paid for the cable but they discovered there was too much "moonie" capacity already.
Don't forget that Knuth's PhD is in Mathematics (Cal Tech, 1963), not CS, and he was a Professor of Mathematics at Cal Tech from '63-'68. His opinions sound a lot like those of mathematicians and physicists; ascetics are important (i.e. only beautiful math or physics will last). I think really good "programmers" are actually mathematicians (in the sense in Devlin's "The Language of Mathematics", where he says "mathematics is the science of patterns") - even though many of them would hate to be described this way.
If Massachusetts wins (i.e. more appropriate penalties are applied), the taxpayers of Massachusetts may end up saving money. One cannot say whether a particular legal action is cost-effective (for Mass.) until the case is done. Remember Microsoft appealed the initial penalties (and won); should we object if another party to the suit exercises its privileges under the law?
IE has a long history of
unpatched security holes.
Recall the
recent IE holes.
While Apache, Samba, etc. are not perfect (w.r.t. security), patches are developed quickly (e.g. Samba 2.2.7.).
Think, "IT support for Math/Biology professors" - If you have actual academic experience related to switching OSs, I would like to hear your story. As a math prof., I cannot change my dept. but I can encourage them to change. As chair (a job I would never want), I would simply tell our sys. admin. not to fix windows problems (e.g. virus problems) but just maintain the Linux server. Graduate students (forced to use Linux) and Linux or OS2 faculty cause few maintenance problems. Faculty wedded to windows take most of the sys. ad.'s maintenance time; I think that if they were forced to maintain their own machines, they would eventually move to Linux.
I bought four 5500s and am very happy with the display. I will buy a 5600 ASAP, but I really want the larger "size" screen C300. Anyone going to Japan? (Or is bringing a C300 here against the Patroit Act?)
CompUSA sold them yesterday for under $400. Was there a price increase I missed? (I did not think so.) The four Zauruses (?) I bought cost $313 each because BestBuy lost (or gave up?) the contract with Sharp and wanted to get rid of them. At the moment, my Zaurus "runs" my life; it tells me about the next meeting I am about to forget, lets me check facts on the web via 802.11b, ssh into my office computer, etc. That said, I think CompUSA could do a better job of getting accessories for the Zaurus. I would also love to see more hardware for the Zaurus.
In many countries, algebra is taught in the fifth or sixth grade. Examine the TIMSS studies and decide for yourself on the state of math/science education in the US.
TIMSS
and TIMSS-R.
As a eighth grade student, my daughter earned a composite score of 27 on the May(?), 2002 ACT exam; not a terrible score for a student in this grade. She has taken courses through trigonometry at the state university here. Other students here have earned higher ACT scores and followed a similar schedule (i.e. Algebra 1 in sixth or seventh grade, Geometry and Algebra 2 at a local high school, trig. at a state university). Students in the US can do well in math if they are given an opportunity and encouragement.
I do not see much disagreement between us. However, at many universities it seems that discussion across departments (e.g. biology and math) about serious research issues is too limited. I know NSF wants to change this; do you know how NIH feels about this?
The fiscal year 2002 budget of the NSF Directorate for Biological Sciences is slightly over $500,000,000 and additional money is spent on biology elsewhere in NSF. Other federal agencies (e.g. NIH, DoD) certainly spend "serious" money on biology; my guess is that NIH spends by far the most. However, since the NSF covers all of science, its positions are worthy of serious consideration.
I believe the line between bioinformatics and (biological) data mining is hard to determine; the chair of our biology department has discussed the importance of these and the contributions which math/stat can make to these areas. The article "Mathematical Challenges from Genomics and Molecular Biology" (http://www.ams.org/notices/200205/200205-toc.html )
might be of interest.
The National Science Foundation is very interested in the combination of MATHEMATICS and the sciences, especially biology. The sciences are coming up with problems which are so complex that the primary difficulty is mathematical. NSF increased funding for math by 24.7% for fiscal year 2002 and requested a 20% increase for fiscal year 2003. I believe Jonathan is partially correct, but I think he/she ignores the need for better models/analysis which will come from math rather than microbiology or computer science.
Georgia Tech University and private companies were apparently infected. Norton did not work against this version of Klez until this afternoon. Computers running Linux (and OS-2, OSX) were safe here. Windows users cannot depend on antivirus software when a new version of a virus comes out. (Also, many users could learn to be more careful... or run Linux.)
I hope you learn to write secure code. Almost all of our MS computers are turned off until our sys-admin can remove the latest virus (Klez) from them. Our Linux and (one) OS-2 computers and our (Linux) servers are fine.
Who owns the videotaped lectures? (The professor or UW?) How long will it be until the professor is unnecessary and the university is (only) a business? Universities in the US are doing the same thing (e.g. online lectures, lecture notes in html or xml or pdf). For most people, learning remotely is not enough; personal interaction with an "expert" (e.g. a professor) is also needed. However, how many elected representatives or university administrators might decide otherwise? (By the way, U. Waterloo is a great place; they will probably do a good job of maintaining an appropriate prespective.)
Our experience is that getting jobs with a math degree is not that difficult (if you look hard).
Each of the 20-30 Ph.D. graduates from our department (http://www.math.twsu.edu) has received a job; about half were in industry and half received tenure-track positions. Although our university is not as well known as many others, our Ph.D.s have tenure-track (or tenured) positions at Georgetown University, the University of Arizona, Middle Tennessee State University, Georgia Southern University (?), etc. One of our (1996) Ph.D.s is a vice president at a private company ($20 billion(?) annual revenue) based here. Other of our Ph.D.s work in industry in Boston, Alabama, etc.
Our Masters and BA/BS students also are doing well, working at universities, for insurance or reinsurance companies, the aviation industry, software companies, etc. One of my undergraduate students attended a NSF R.E.U. at Cornell, wrote papers with faculty at Cornell and with me; he graduated last May, got a job in KC, "reinvented" the job so he can do math and programming, and may make a substantial contribution to his employer. His long term plans may include earning a Ph.D. in math.
The reputation of the university is important, but a student's effort and ability is much more important. I think the future is bright if you work hard, have ability, learn as much as possible about computers/software, look for opportunities (e.g. REUs, postDoc positions at Cal Tech, Stanford, Brown, etc.), considering earning an additional degree (e.g. EE) while completing your Ph.D. in math, etc.
PS A lot of university math faculty will retire in the "near" future. We are trying to fill three junior/senior positions right now. (I hope the state does not run out of money.)
One of my students earned a Math degree last May, accepted a job as an "actuary" job in KC with some coding required, convinced the company to change his job so he studies (and will eventually program) fuzzy logic, and now the company is looking for a new "actuary."
Slashdot Mirror
A legitimate criteria in deciding on the ``best available package'' is access (by a government and its citizens) to the source code. I believe Microsoft is even beginning to accept this view (at least for governments). I agree that ``the best available package'' be used, as long as the criteria included revealing the source code and considering the stability and security of the operating system (rather than the ``popularity'' of the OS).
The version of Windows (NT 3.5 ?) for Alphas was the most stable "Microsoft" (by DEC ?) product I have ever used. While I was using it, I forgot how unstable Windows is. If all of Microsoft's products were as stable as this was, they would have a much better reputation. (Of course, I like Linux much better; I think NT is still installed on my Alpha but I am not certain.)
This pdf document seems to support some of the comments you dismiss. " EV7 (21364 = (21264 core w/improvements + RAMBUS controller" - page 4 of the pdf file. "RAMBUS memory controller onboard the chip (256-bit dual channel, so it actually isn't a POS like many RAMBUS inmplentations" - pages 5-7. Etc. on the hardware. We know "Slot A was originally an Alpha slot" is true. From this German language web page (translated) "A 200 MHz system bus based on the protocol from alpha EV6 processor" supports "(additionally, MANY alpha engineers were hired by AMD when DEC was merging, and the EV6 bus (and many other tech goodies) were licenced to AMD" in the post about which you say "I don't think there is even one thing in his post that is correct."
I hate to call anyone a troll and some comments in the post might be wrong, but your credibility is pretty low (and yes, I did look at your scores and strong karma is not one of your strengths).
I may be asleep here, but am I missing something? My 533 MHz 164 Alpha runs Red Hat 7.3 perfectly. X, KDE, Gnome, gimp, xfig, LaTeX, ... (of course, sendmail, apache, etc.) anything I have tried to use works. OK, I have not tried cups yet. (I don't recall what kind of video card I have - sorry.)
How much liability has an individual or company that does not adequately protect someone else's data? Does it matter if the data loss occurs because of the physical theft of hardware (e.g. hard drives) or insecure OS's (e.g. worm or Trojan) or the loss of data by a "computer repairperson" (e.g. by accident)? Should "computer repairpersons" be bonded? (I do not think so, but who knows? The answers may be determined by insurance companies.)
"blowing up" snide comment was a little rude
When you are considering sending people (as compared with equipment) into space, you should have an outstanding safety record. So far this seems to be a problem.
Why isn't NASA interested in sending people to Mars?
Enron was prepared to set up an energy trading office on the moon but Arthur Anderson could not create enough tax benefits. Worldcom would have paid for the cable but they discovered there was too much "moonie" capacity already.
Don't forget that Knuth's PhD is in Mathematics (Cal Tech, 1963), not CS, and he was a Professor of Mathematics at Cal Tech from '63-'68. His opinions sound a lot like those of mathematicians and physicists; ascetics are important (i.e. only beautiful math or physics will last). I think really good "programmers" are actually mathematicians (in the sense in Devlin's "The Language of Mathematics", where he says "mathematics is the science of patterns") - even though many of them would hate to be described this way.
If Massachusetts wins (i.e. more appropriate penalties are applied), the taxpayers of Massachusetts may end up saving money. One cannot say whether a particular legal action is cost-effective (for Mass.) until the case is done. Remember Microsoft appealed the initial penalties (and won); should we object if another party to the suit exercises its privileges under the law?
This link on unpatched security holes did not work in the post above. Sorry.
IE has a long history of unpatched security holes. Recall the recent IE holes. While Apache, Samba, etc. are not perfect (w.r.t. security), patches are developed quickly (e.g. Samba 2.2.7.).
Think, "IT support for Math/Biology professors" - If you have actual academic experience related to switching OSs, I would like to hear your story. As a math prof., I cannot change my dept. but I can encourage them to change. As chair (a job I would never want), I would simply tell our sys. admin. not to fix windows problems (e.g. virus problems) but just maintain the Linux server. Graduate students (forced to use Linux) and Linux or OS2 faculty cause few maintenance problems. Faculty wedded to windows take most of the sys. ad.'s maintenance time; I think that if they were forced to maintain their own machines, they would eventually move to Linux.
I bought four 5500s and am very happy with the display. I will buy a 5600 ASAP, but I really want the larger "size" screen C300. Anyone going to Japan? (Or is bringing a C300 here against the Patroit Act?)
CompUSA sold them yesterday for under $400. Was there a price increase I missed? (I did not think so.) The four Zauruses (?) I bought cost $313 each because BestBuy lost (or gave up?) the contract with Sharp and wanted to get rid of them. At the moment, my Zaurus "runs" my life; it tells me about the next meeting I am about to forget, lets me check facts on the web via 802.11b, ssh into my office computer, etc. That said, I think CompUSA could do a better job of getting accessories for the Zaurus. I would also love to see more hardware for the Zaurus.
In many countries, algebra is taught in the fifth or sixth grade. Examine the TIMSS studies and decide for yourself on the state of math/science education in the US. TIMSS and TIMSS-R. As a eighth grade student, my daughter earned a composite score of 27 on the May(?), 2002 ACT exam; not a terrible score for a student in this grade. She has taken courses through trigonometry at the state university here. Other students here have earned higher ACT scores and followed a similar schedule (i.e. Algebra 1 in sixth or seventh grade, Geometry and Algebra 2 at a local high school, trig. at a state university). Students in the US can do well in math if they are given an opportunity and encouragement.
I do not see much disagreement between us. However, at many universities it seems that discussion across departments (e.g. biology and math) about serious research issues is too limited. I know NSF wants to change this; do you know how NIH feels about this?
The fiscal year 2002 budget of the NSF Directorate for Biological Sciences is slightly over $500,000,000 and additional money is spent on biology elsewhere in NSF. Other federal agencies (e.g. NIH, DoD) certainly spend "serious" money on biology; my guess is that NIH spends by far the most. However, since the NSF covers all of science, its positions are worthy of serious consideration. I believe the line between bioinformatics and (biological) data mining is hard to determine; the chair of our biology department has discussed the importance of these and the contributions which math/stat can make to these areas. The article "Mathematical Challenges from Genomics and Molecular Biology" (http://www.ams.org/notices/200205/200205-toc.html )
might be of interest.
The National Science Foundation is very interested in the combination of MATHEMATICS and the sciences, especially biology. The sciences are coming up with problems which are so complex that the primary difficulty is mathematical. NSF increased funding for math by 24.7% for fiscal year 2002 and requested a 20% increase for fiscal year 2003. I believe Jonathan is partially correct, but I think he/she ignores the need for better models/analysis which will come from math rather than microbiology or computer science.
Georgia Tech University and private companies were apparently infected. Norton did not work against this version of Klez until this afternoon. Computers running Linux (and OS-2, OSX) were safe here. Windows users cannot depend on antivirus software when a new version of a virus comes out. ... or run Linux.)
(Also, many users could learn to be more careful
I hope you learn to write secure code. Almost all of our MS computers are turned off until our sys-admin can remove the latest virus (Klez) from them. Our Linux and (one) OS-2 computers and our (Linux) servers are fine.
Who owns the videotaped lectures? (The professor or UW?) How long will it be until the professor is unnecessary and the university is (only) a business? Universities in the US are doing the same thing (e.g. online lectures, lecture notes in html or xml or pdf). For most people, learning remotely is not enough; personal interaction with an "expert" (e.g. a professor) is also needed. However, how many elected representatives or university administrators might decide otherwise?
(By the way, U. Waterloo is a great place; they will probably do a good job of maintaining an appropriate prespective.)
There is a nice math career page at http://www.sbuniv.edu/~khopkins/mathdo.html
Just remember Don Knuth earned a Ph.D. in math and he seems the know the "Art of Programming."
Our experience is that getting jobs with a math degree is not that difficult (if you look hard).
Each of the 20-30 Ph.D. graduates from our department (http://www.math.twsu.edu) has received a job; about half were in industry and half received tenure-track positions. Although our university is not as well known as many others, our Ph.D.s have tenure-track (or tenured) positions at Georgetown University, the University of Arizona, Middle Tennessee State University, Georgia Southern University (?), etc. One of our (1996) Ph.D.s is a vice president at a private company ($20 billion(?) annual revenue) based here. Other of our Ph.D.s work in industry in Boston, Alabama, etc.
Our Masters and BA/BS students also are doing well, working at universities, for insurance or reinsurance companies, the aviation industry, software companies, etc. One of my undergraduate students attended a NSF R.E.U. at Cornell, wrote papers with faculty at Cornell and with me; he graduated last May, got a job in KC, "reinvented" the job so he can do math and programming, and may make a substantial contribution to his employer. His long term plans may include earning a Ph.D. in math.
The reputation of the university is important, but a student's effort and ability is much more important. I think the future is bright if you work hard, have ability, learn as much as possible about computers/software, look for opportunities (e.g. REUs, postDoc positions at Cal Tech, Stanford, Brown, etc.), considering earning an additional degree (e.g. EE) while completing your Ph.D. in math, etc.
PS A lot of university math faculty will retire in the "near" future. We are trying to fill three junior/senior positions right now. (I hope the state does not run out of money.)
One of my students earned a Math degree last May, accepted a job as an "actuary" job in KC with some coding required, convinced the company to change his job so he studies (and will eventually program) fuzzy logic, and now the company is looking for a new "actuary."
LaTeX is an excellent mark-up language; the combination of LaTeX and CSS (e.g. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/12/04/203920 5)
might be useful.