if they manage to get their act together. One of the good points about Former Soviet Countries was that education was relatively good. It is only in the last 10 years or so that things have fallen behind.
If you go to the surrounding coutries such as Uzbekistan and Pakistan (even Iran), they have quite a good infrastructure. It is just Afghanistan that has been left behind because of the war.
Why Linux, well getting aid money to buy software isn't so hard. Unfortunately, it isn't going to pay for the updates. WIth Linux, you at least have a chance of ensuring your stuff is well maintained. At least in Pakistan and Uzbekistan (I worked there, so I know), you can buy Win2K3 or XP for a couple of dollars, but you can't really use aid money for pirated software.
In palces like that, the replacement cycle for PCs lasts a long time. Three years ago, I was still seeing 486s in Uzbekistan under Win95. The ability of Linux to last longer with the same hardware is definitely an advantage.
The court of the Sun King is now in Brussels....
on
DMCA-Alikes Sweep Europe
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Sorry, the EU now ruled from Brussels/Strasburg. The commission and the parliamentarians are now surrounded by corporate lobbying groups - much like the nobles in the royal courts of old.
The one thing about the Berlesconi incident (another publisher with alleged crooked links) is that it did prove that there is some life in the Parliament.
This is particularly a shame because the inventor of the MP3 was the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, a publicly funded research institute.
MP3 players are popular in Germany, particularly now for cars (MP3/CD) where the compression means you don't need large and inconvenient changers.
Bertelsmann are big though and control distribution rights for both souznd and video products in Germany. They have been lobbying for the implementation of this rule.
However, the real problem is that it is an EU directive. Unless countries can prove a get out under subsidiarity, they must implement the directives or risk a large fine.
The other problem is the multi-region DVD players on sale. This will certainly stop under this technical measures clause. Shame for all those people who want to look at non-region 2 DVDs, for example that large immigrant population from the former Soviet Union.
The things is that for everything except enterprise servers, the x86 looks better from a cost viewpoint. Everyone produces x86, so even high-end systems are relatively cheap. Sun sells Solaris and Sparcs primarily. You can get Linux from them or buy their x86, but both lose Sun their competitive advantage,
I don't say this but the company where I'm currently working (a very large bank) has published an internal strategy document. Essentially they see the future being split between Linux and Windows. This may not seem like news to a lot of you reading this, however 1) they used to be an AIX customer, they currently have a *lot* of Sun boxes. Sun is very big in investment banking since companies like Digital screwed up their pricing/marketing. If a lot of banks decide to ditch Sun boxes, it will hurt them as the banbks like to buy big high-margin enterprise servers.
AIX itself wasn't bad, but the bank had a bad case of management consultants who told them that Sun was in fashion. Now it seems that Linux is in.
There will be. I've been using SCSI and ide-scsi without problems. Note that some players seem to prefer IDE-SCSI when ypu go away from a pure ISO-9660 disk format.
What I don't understand is that at the same time, the developers are talking about changing the way that the IDE drivers work so that they use the SCSI driver backend processing routines.
As a member of staff formerly working in a dinosaur pen and one time something did go bang, we were all sent on a fire fighting course.
The primary extinguishing system in our room was Halon - we were advised breathing was theoretically possible, but get out quickly, because there may not be enough if you were stressed out and fumes from combusted plastics could be a problem. If we were in a situation where we could fight the fire (no automatic system), we were advised to use BCF (dry powder). The temperature drop from CO2 tended to cause more damage than the fire, when it first starts. Dry powder has the benefit that most quipment can be cleaned with a vacum cleaner.
Later I worked in rooms protected by CO2. This was definitely get out quickly time. In the end, what with the computer room being in the basement, there were safety concerns and the system was disconnected.
Nowadays, I have seen rack CO2 systems which have the benefit of delivering CO2 to the source of the fire quite quickly and underfloor systems for wiring based fires. Some CO2 would intrude into the room, but comparatively little.
For a regular room (or even an office), a sprinkler system works well. However when the water starts, remember it should also be able drain.
Re:It doesn't run on windows
on
Opengroupware
·
· Score: 1
To be more specific, there must be a windows supporting front end. This is why Outlook connectivity is a must have. Replacing the backend isn't so hard from a mangement viewpoint as long as everything can be migrated, although it should ideally be possible to make a step-wise replacement in a multi-server environment.
Re:Still not good enough for enterprise...
on
Opengroupware
·
· Score: 1
*2. Well at least the Exchange license as you would really want to mirror your data store on a second system even if that is not the machine's primary function. EMail is usually abusiness critical function. Exchange mirroring works well, but thats another $4K if you want hot standby. Cold standby doesn't cost, but it can't be relied upon if you need to recover quickly.
If you just play around with MSDN, MS software is cheap. Once you get around to deployment, doing things the rightway with splitting functionality for performance and providing hot standby or load sharing gets very expensive very quickly.
I use RH, but I stop using it at the ide-SCSI level. I use a locally compiled MPlayer CDRtools at the latest release level and XCDroast. Its a bit more fiddly to configure, but it works well on my older machines. I also have it on a true SCSI machine and again it works ok.
Chechnya wasn't really independent and they had a puppet regime forced upon them from Moscow. The Dagestan invasion was really an incursion by a warlord who needed some territory.
I agree that the place has a problem with extremists and war lords like Afghanistan. However, the existing situation with the army, the MVD and the FSB treating the place as a playground isn't really on either.
Disclaimer: my wife worked for a company that had staff out there. We know people that have served there (and lived). It is a brutal place.
I agree, in Russia, civil servants are not well paid. At least not in their official capacity. Many do have business interests on the side, actually most, I think. Those who are in a position to abuse their access to information often do and blackmail is a frequent problem due to widespread tax evasion.
Last I heard, SORM compliance was variable. Not only did the provider have to grant the facilitz of making a tape, they also had to pay for a network connection back to the FSB.
Many ISPs have started compliance but then just stalled indefinitely. The same for the mobile networks. In any case, if you want to be really secure, just give the FSB full access to a high bandwidth data stream as they lack the equipment to analyze this.
This is essentially a publicity seeking move to show that the Government is doing something (guess the Russians aren't alone in doing this but at least they don't suddenly invade an unrelated coutry). If the dishonest policeman were cleaned out in Russia, the stations would be very empty. They are paid almost nothing so they tend to have a number of little 'enterprises' on the side.
The Chechnyan situation exists for the convenience of the military (it is a very convenient way of concealing all manner of problems). The real answer is to turn Chechnya into a quasi-autonomous area. However, the Kremlin and the military are too linked and against reform.
Technically, GSM networks are quite hard to tap in the conventional sense because the way that the switches are interconnected and the calls bounce around between BSEs. Essentially, monitoring GSM requires extra software, that even in Western countries, is only being grudgingly installed by the networks.
Also, to activate the tap requires the cooperation of the network. This means a nasty trail of paperwork and inconvenient things like warrants. This is fine when you are chasing Chechnyans, but awefully inconvenient when all you want to do is to place a squeeze on an oligarch.
Other government departments, even other governments tend to have the same problem. Even some large companies. Carry forward, if possible requires too much paperwork.
One way of doing carry forward in a controlled way by allowing carry-over and combination with the new budget for a designated purpose, i.e. I combine the remaining $1000 from this year with the $2000 from next to buy that new router next June.
According to this report, the Soyuz recent TMA-1 that went off track sustained 8.1G. The crew were unharmed. Normally Soyuz, which makes a hard-landing pulls about 3-4G during descent.
With shock absorbing crash couches and a reclined position, higher vales should be possible. The issue is failed parachute depolyment. Single parachutes may deploy incorrectly or not at all increasing the G load. Normally a cluster of parachutes are used hence the margin needed for error. Without access to the web site, I can't see how many chutes were being used.
... is seeing how a bunch of geeks on some website can criticize the physics knowledge of a bunch of rocket scientists.
Sorry, they have mostly gone in the cutbacks. The young guys brought into replace them have most of their rocketry experience from the 4th July. The cases you site are engineering management errors. Problems happen, but they should be minimised and then caught by QA. Management decided not to rerun the test involving the acceleration sensitive switch because it cost too much. The problem could have been simply fixed in software without any hardware tests, but it takes tests to show this.
The ISS is in a bit of a wonky orbit anyway because of the shuttle's inability to get to higher altitudes. This is a bit of a problem because there is enough atmosphere around to cause the space station to need relatively frequent orbital corrections.
Please remember that NASA tends towards political correctness as regards its management. Many senior engineers have retired and there aren't enough experienced people around these days.
Others have already commented that although impossible when the shuttle was first built, a repair kit would now be possible. Whether it would have helped in the case of STS-107 is another issue.
One of the problems about the shuttle is the flight profile that exposes the shuttle to extended heating. This was a direct requirement of the USAF who wanted a single orbit configuration to allow for quick recconaissance misisons during the cold-war and still the possibility of always being able to land on US territory. This meant a long reentry phase as the shuttle needed to be able to 'fly'. Other designs would have allowed a controlled stall, reducing the 'flying time' and thus the exposure to heat.
Bottom line, the Shuttle was probbaly doomed as you say when the accident ocurred. Mostly because the kind of people that saved Apollo 13 have gone from NASA.
This particular shuttle disn't have the lift capability to get into the ISS orbit. It was one of the earliest built and was somewhat more heavily engineered. For example, the temperature sensors that were used to pinpoint the damage were left over from the early days of shuttle flying.
With a movie, there is a LOT less content to work on and the standrards are way lower so it only takes about a week, if that.
Which explains the rather poor quality of many script translations. In any case, I understand that script translations are not particularly well paid (about the same as a business report) and the translator doesn't really get a chance to learn the backstory which directly influences how a translation should proceed.
In one of the better examples "let's split this joint" was translated as "let's go somewhere and smoke some marijuana". A bit sad considering the character saying this was a very straight policeman.
GAIN maybe but there are many that are not so easily removed, attempting to conceal themselves and having 'repair' software attached to reinstall the rest.
Anyway, I only complain about my nearest and dearest. Other people who ask for their PCs to be cleaned up end up with a bill of between $50 and $100 which they are usually delighted to pay. Removing the crapware often gives a noticeable increase in performance.
If anyone has an Apache 2.1 dist around, they say they checked 58,000 lines - does this seem reasonable? Is this with any of the modules such as PHP or Perl or is this raw????
I know that Apache has vulnerabilities but it should come better than IIS. You can't realisticly give a verdict on IIS without looking at the libraries called.
As for the rest, I can imagine some commercial products coming in better, but not many.
Good in principle...
on
Space Blog
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
but I know about the problems of accounting in Russia. I would want very much that the bulk of the money goes to the space program and doesn't get diverted via miscellaneous off-shore companies and swiss-bank accounts.
Slashdot Mirror
If you go to the surrounding coutries such as Uzbekistan and Pakistan (even Iran), they have quite a good infrastructure. It is just Afghanistan that has been left behind because of the war.
Why Linux, well getting aid money to buy software isn't so hard. Unfortunately, it isn't going to pay for the updates. WIth Linux, you at least have a chance of ensuring your stuff is well maintained. At least in Pakistan and Uzbekistan (I worked there, so I know), you can buy Win2K3 or XP for a couple of dollars, but you can't really use aid money for pirated software.
In palces like that, the replacement cycle for PCs lasts a long time. Three years ago, I was still seeing 486s in Uzbekistan under Win95. The ability of Linux to last longer with the same hardware is definitely an advantage.
The one thing about the Berlesconi incident (another publisher with alleged crooked links) is that it did prove that there is some life in the Parliament.
MP3 players are popular in Germany, particularly now for cars (MP3/CD) where the compression means you don't need large and inconvenient changers.
Bertelsmann are big though and control distribution rights for both souznd and video products in Germany. They have been lobbying for the implementation of this rule.
However, the real problem is that it is an EU directive. Unless countries can prove a get out under subsidiarity, they must implement the directives or risk a large fine.
The other problem is the multi-region DVD players on sale. This will certainly stop under this technical measures clause. Shame for all those people who want to look at non-region 2 DVDs, for example that large immigrant population from the former Soviet Union.
The things is that for everything except enterprise servers, the x86 looks better from a cost viewpoint. Everyone produces x86, so even high-end systems are relatively cheap. Sun sells Solaris and Sparcs primarily. You can get Linux from them or buy their x86, but both lose Sun their competitive advantage,
AIX itself wasn't bad, but the bank had a bad case of management consultants who told them that Sun was in fashion. Now it seems that Linux is in.
What I don't understand is that at the same time, the developers are talking about changing the way that the IDE drivers work so that they use the SCSI driver backend processing routines.
The primary extinguishing system in our room was Halon - we were advised breathing was theoretically possible, but get out quickly, because there may not be enough if you were stressed out and fumes from combusted plastics could be a problem. If we were in a situation where we could fight the fire (no automatic system), we were advised to use BCF (dry powder). The temperature drop from CO2 tended to cause more damage than the fire, when it first starts. Dry powder has the benefit that most quipment can be cleaned with a vacum cleaner.
Later I worked in rooms protected by CO2. This was definitely get out quickly time. In the end, what with the computer room being in the basement, there were safety concerns and the system was disconnected.
Nowadays, I have seen rack CO2 systems which have the benefit of delivering CO2 to the source of the fire quite quickly and underfloor systems for wiring based fires. Some CO2 would intrude into the room, but comparatively little.
For a regular room (or even an office), a sprinkler system works well. However when the water starts, remember it should also be able drain.
To be more specific, there must be a windows supporting front end. This is why Outlook connectivity is a must have. Replacing the backend isn't so hard from a mangement viewpoint as long as everything can be migrated, although it should ideally be possible to make a step-wise replacement in a multi-server environment.
If you just play around with MSDN, MS software is cheap. Once you get around to deployment, doing things the rightway with splitting functionality for performance and providing hot standby or load sharing gets very expensive very quickly.
I use RH, but I stop using it at the ide-SCSI level. I use a locally compiled MPlayer CDRtools at the latest release level and XCDroast. Its a bit more fiddly to configure, but it works well on my older machines. I also have it on a true SCSI machine and again it works ok.
I agree that the place has a problem with extremists and war lords like Afghanistan. However, the existing situation with the army, the MVD and the FSB treating the place as a playground isn't really on either.
Disclaimer: my wife worked for a company that had staff out there. We know people that have served there (and lived). It is a brutal place.
Actually another more informative term is 'design recovery'. You are handed 100K source lines and are asked to change it. How do you do it?
I agree, in Russia, civil servants are not well paid. At least not in their official capacity. Many do have business interests on the side, actually most, I think. Those who are in a position to abuse their access to information often do and blackmail is a frequent problem due to widespread tax evasion.
Many ISPs have started compliance but then just stalled indefinitely. The same for the mobile networks. In any case, if you want to be really secure, just give the FSB full access to a high bandwidth data stream as they lack the equipment to analyze this.
This is essentially a publicity seeking move to show that the Government is doing something (guess the Russians aren't alone in doing this but at least they don't suddenly invade an unrelated coutry). If the dishonest policeman were cleaned out in Russia, the stations would be very empty. They are paid almost nothing so they tend to have a number of little 'enterprises' on the side.
The Chechnyan situation exists for the convenience of the military (it is a very convenient way of concealing all manner of problems). The real answer is to turn Chechnya into a quasi-autonomous area. However, the Kremlin and the military are too linked and against reform.
Also, to activate the tap requires the cooperation of the network. This means a nasty trail of paperwork and inconvenient things like warrants. This is fine when you are chasing Chechnyans, but awefully inconvenient when all you want to do is to place a squeeze on an oligarch.
One way of doing carry forward in a controlled way by allowing carry-over and combination with the new budget for a designated purpose, i.e. I combine the remaining $1000 from this year with the $2000 from next to buy that new router next June.
Yes quite correct, but I don't know about Carmacks rocket.
With shock absorbing crash couches and a reclined position, higher vales should be possible. The issue is failed parachute depolyment. Single parachutes may deploy incorrectly or not at all increasing the G load. Normally a cluster of parachutes are used hence the margin needed for error. Without access to the web site, I can't see how many chutes were being used.
Please remember that NASA tends towards political correctness as regards its management. Many senior engineers have retired and there aren't enough experienced people around these days.
Others have already commented that although impossible when the shuttle was first built, a repair kit would now be possible. Whether it would have helped in the case of STS-107 is another issue.
One of the problems about the shuttle is the flight profile that exposes the shuttle to extended heating. This was a direct requirement of the USAF who wanted a single orbit configuration to allow for quick recconaissance misisons during the cold-war and still the possibility of always being able to land on US territory. This meant a long reentry phase as the shuttle needed to be able to 'fly'. Other designs would have allowed a controlled stall, reducing the 'flying time' and thus the exposure to heat.
Bottom line, the Shuttle was probbaly doomed as you say when the accident ocurred. Mostly because the kind of people that saved Apollo 13 have gone from NASA.
This particular shuttle disn't have the lift capability to get into the ISS orbit. It was one of the earliest built and was somewhat more heavily engineered. For example, the temperature sensors that were used to pinpoint the damage were left over from the early days of shuttle flying.
In one of the better examples "let's split this joint" was translated as "let's go somewhere and smoke some marijuana". A bit sad considering the character saying this was a very straight policeman.
Anyway, I only complain about my nearest and dearest. Other people who ask for their PCs to be cleaned up end up with a bill of between $50 and $100 which they are usually delighted to pay. Removing the crapware often gives a noticeable increase in performance.
I know that Apache has vulnerabilities but it should come better than IIS. You can't realisticly give a verdict on IIS without looking at the libraries called.
As for the rest, I can imagine some commercial products coming in better, but not many.
but I know about the problems of accounting in Russia. I would want very much that the bulk of the money goes to the space program and doesn't get diverted via miscellaneous off-shore companies and swiss-bank accounts.