the notion (reality?) of "card counters" - I mean, what exactly are they, and why are they bad?
Casinos (and in fact and organised gambling of any
form) relies on odds. Betting in a casino
will, in the long run lose you more than you gain.
That's because the odds are stacked in favour of
the casino. However, there's one exception -- Black Jack. There, the odds are very slightly in
favour of the gambler. Card counters are basically
people that have learned techniques to help take
advantage of this fact, and so, in the long run,
can expect to win more than they lose. There's
nothing bad about it, unless you're a casino,
at which point, you're obviously going to be less
than impressed. If casinos tolerated card
counting, it would seriously affect their bottom
line, and they're not prepared to do that.
And yet both fall way behind in most areas,
compared to mh. I just wish mh was more consistent
internally. replcomps/replfilter rule, but forw
doesn't behave the same way, for example. And it
needs to handle MIME better...
the more advanced features (such as parallel server, for true distributed DBs) cost millions (yes, Millions)
No they don't. We were only quoted 600 grand:-)
Needless to say, we stuck with a non-OPS version
of Oracle. The parallel features would be nice,
but there simply isn't the business justification
to spend that much money on them. As we grow,
perhaps we'll need it, but for us (and for most
companies, in fact), the cost is just too high
to justify parallel server.
Actually, unless you have a really good reason
for doing so, stick with PostgreSQL. A really
good reason, BTW, means more than just a vague
management feeling that it doesn't have enough
grunt. Have you done accurate performance
benchmarking? Have you checked that it really is
Postgres that's having a problem, and not an issue
with inadequate hardware? 24x7 support could count
as a "good reason", should you decide you need it.
Yes, I know there are companies that support
PostgreSQL now, but I don't know if they do 24x7,
and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be considered
sufficiently established to support a large scale
implementation by the corporate world.
At the end of the day,
no one ever got fired for choosing Oracle, but
you have to be aware of what you're letting yourself in for.
Mine is awful. Absolutely hideous. I suspect that
it's a problem with configuration, but I haven't
had time to reinstall to fnid out. Basically,
it's too slow to be useful. When I telnet or ssh
into the box, it'll do nothing for perhaps 15 to 20
seconds, then I'll hear the disk spin up, and I'll
get in. Once the machine has woken up, it performs
quite reasonably (although network performance is
still extremely slow). The symptoms lead me to
think it's a power management issue, but I haven't
changed anything from the standard configuration.
The machine is basically as it came from Sun.
Maybe a reinstall will fix things, but until our
dealines are out of the way, I just don't have
time...
it's tough to load the scsi driver as a module when all my disks are scsi
initrd is your friend -- this is the technique
most of the main distributions use for dealing
with SCSI install disks. However, if you're
compiling your own kernel, then there's no
point in having modular SCSI for an all-SCSI
system. You might as well just compile it straight
in.
cat:/proc/scsi/driver_name/0: No such file or directory
that's why.
Pah! Out-pedanted -- how embarassing:-) Substitute "driver_name" with the name of the
driver for your particular SCSI card. In my case,
that's "aic7xxx". Note that if your SCSI driver
is compiled as a module, you won't see it unless
the module is loaded -- but then you wouldn't have
seen it at boot time either...
WordPerfect is still the defacto standard in the
legal profession. Virtually no lawyers use Word.
Given that the document was written in WP, that's
what they provide. The PDF and HTML versions they
provide are viewable anywhere anyway.
know that germany will ban the game on the first day it hits stores
Actually, Germany would probably have banned the
game anyway. From speaking to friends who develop
games, they typically have to make modifications
for the German market such as using green blood,
rather than the traditional human red variety.
Apparently, realistic violence isn't allowed in
German games. However, they release the
"full gore" versions anyway, and usually have up to a
couple of weeks of boxes on sale in stores before
it's banned, and they have to replace it with the
tamed down version. They do this, because there's
a certain status to owning the full gore version,
and it helps drive initial sales (which apparently
are sufficient to justify the cost of the recall
when it does get banned).
Maybe this time they won't have you kill off Hitler in only the 3rd of 6 misssions.
From memory, I thought there originally only were
three missions. I thought 4, 5 and 6 were added
later as a bonus pack. It was a long time ago
now, and I could be mistaken, but I'm reasonably
sure that's how it was.
Many companies have tried this approach with their Unices...
The commercial Unices were typically licensed on a
per-user basis, not the
per-seat licensing that Caldera are using.
Of course, I'm sure Caldera would use per-user
licensing if they could. The problem is that
anyone could just download and compile a stock
kernel, and the user limit enforcement would
be gone. Yes, I guess you could play some tricks
in userland, but they're equally trivial to
circumvent.
ObReminiscing: My Unix experience started with
4.1BSD, which of course had no user limits. When
I graduated, and moved to the commercial world,
I was completely stunned by SCO's 2 user limit.
It seemed to take away half of the point of
using Unix in the first place.
These puppies really bring out the geek in me, but I'm not sure exactly where the practical side is. I understand the need to save space, but you don't need to get THAT small.
Actually, these are the perfect size for home
or small office firewall type machines, which
you *want* to be as small and unobtrusive as
possible. The only problem is that with only
one ethernet port, they're not much use for that...
BSD revenue or paid copies are tracked as part of IDC's research on Unix. In 1999, just over 8,000 paid copies of BSD server software were shipped. This would give BSD about 0.9% share of worldwide Unix server operating environment shipments.
Which is great for your supply-side surveys. But
surely demand-side clients are far more interested
in actual deployments rather than paid for
shipments. When making a decision about an OS,
I don't care how much revenue it's generated for
a given company, but I am interested in
how widely it's being used, and in what areas.
For example, of our 25
or so servers running Linux, Solaris and OpenBSD,
only 5 or 6 have paid-for copies of the OS, and
I know that plenty of others are in the same
situation. Going purely by paid for shipments,
your figures are going to be wildly inaccurate.
The most interesting part about the interview
was the snippet that implies Google didn't have
much of a say in the Deja archives being down
after the buyout. So it wasn't the complete
cock up that we all thought it was. They still
handled the PR really badly, though. If they'd
just told people what was happening, I'm sure
they wouldn't have come across half as badly as
they did.
The real values that a good rdbms provide are: Relations, relational constraints, SPEED
*Cough* A good RDBMS is many things, but fast
isn't one of them. The reason the industry moved
to relational databases (and SQL in particular)
was flexibility. Non-relational databases like
Berkeley DB
or BTrieve
are significantly faster. The reason they're not
more widely used is that the flexibility of SQL
vastly outweighs the performance loss it incurs.
It's a matter of using the right tool for the job.
Netscape and Sendmail use Berkely DB because it
makes sense to do so for what they need.
Similarly, Remedy uses Oracle because it needs
the flexibility more than the speed.
Yes, a good RDBMS is faster than a poor one, but
they're both slower than a good non-relational database.
IIS (which pulled off 5,137 transactions per second) beat Apache (4,602 tps)
Not only that, but
IIS (with SWC) also beat
Tux 2.0
on nearly identical hardware. The question is
whether or not the difference in hard drives was
enough to account for the difference in performance.
My hunch is that it is, but that's just a hunch.
Either way, it's obvious that MS have been
shocked into action by the performance of Tux,
and have come up with something comparable.
I'd like to see a real comparisson of Tux, IIS/SWC
and X15 on identical hardware.
Freedom To Surf
are offering gigabit connections in the UK
(last time I asked, it was only available in
central London, but no doubt the area will
increase over time). The thing that really
surprised me was how cheap it was. No, it's not
within the reach of the average home user yet,
but a reasonable sized business can now afford
true gigabit internet access.
has anyone ever sat at their PC and said "Oh my, the window redraw rate in this is slowing me down..."?
Yes. When I first upgraded one of my machines to an S3
accelerated card, the non-accelerated ones seemed
unbearably slow. However, even today, an opaque
move of a large window can cause the machine to
become less responsive. If the X server can help
minimize this, so much the better.
Slashdot Mirror
Casinos (and in fact and organised gambling of any form) relies on odds. Betting in a casino will, in the long run lose you more than you gain. That's because the odds are stacked in favour of the casino. However, there's one exception -- Black Jack. There, the odds are very slightly in favour of the gambler. Card counters are basically people that have learned techniques to help take advantage of this fact, and so, in the long run, can expect to win more than they lose. There's nothing bad about it, unless you're a casino, at which point, you're obviously going to be less than impressed. If casinos tolerated card counting, it would seriously affect their bottom line, and they're not prepared to do that.
And yet both fall way behind in most areas, compared to mh. I just wish mh was more consistent internally. replcomps/replfilter rule, but forw doesn't behave the same way, for example. And it needs to handle MIME better...
No they don't. We were only quoted 600 grand :-)
Needless to say, we stuck with a non-OPS version
of Oracle. The parallel features would be nice,
but there simply isn't the business justification
to spend that much money on them. As we grow,
perhaps we'll need it, but for us (and for most
companies, in fact), the cost is just too high
to justify parallel server.
Actually, unless you have a really good reason for doing so, stick with PostgreSQL. A really good reason, BTW, means more than just a vague management feeling that it doesn't have enough grunt. Have you done accurate performance benchmarking? Have you checked that it really is Postgres that's having a problem, and not an issue with inadequate hardware? 24x7 support could count as a "good reason", should you decide you need it. Yes, I know there are companies that support PostgreSQL now, but I don't know if they do 24x7, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be considered sufficiently established to support a large scale implementation by the corporate world. At the end of the day, no one ever got fired for choosing Oracle, but you have to be aware of what you're letting yourself in for.
Mine is awful. Absolutely hideous. I suspect that it's a problem with configuration, but I haven't had time to reinstall to fnid out. Basically, it's too slow to be useful. When I telnet or ssh into the box, it'll do nothing for perhaps 15 to 20 seconds, then I'll hear the disk spin up, and I'll get in. Once the machine has woken up, it performs quite reasonably (although network performance is still extremely slow). The symptoms lead me to think it's a power management issue, but I haven't changed anything from the standard configuration. The machine is basically as it came from Sun. Maybe a reinstall will fix things, but until our dealines are out of the way, I just don't have time...
initrd is your friend -- this is the technique most of the main distributions use for dealing with SCSI install disks. However, if you're compiling your own kernel, then there's no point in having modular SCSI for an all-SCSI system. You might as well just compile it straight in.
that's why.
Pah! Out-pedanted -- how embarassing :-) Substitute "driver_name" with the name of the
driver for your particular SCSI card. In my case,
that's "aic7xxx". Note that if your SCSI driver
is compiled as a module, you won't see it unless
the module is loaded -- but then you wouldn't have
seen it at boot time either...
Or do you mean Darwin?
In my case, that gives:
Now tell me again exactly why you need the version printed at boot time?
WordPerfect is still the defacto standard in the legal profession. Virtually no lawyers use Word. Given that the document was written in WP, that's what they provide. The PDF and HTML versions they provide are viewable anywhere anyway.
Hmmm. Maybe I should try and stir up a public outcry about them dropping Java from IE6 then...
(I work for a startup that currently relies on a Java applet for some of it's features).
Actually, Germany would probably have banned the game anyway. From speaking to friends who develop games, they typically have to make modifications for the German market such as using green blood, rather than the traditional human red variety. Apparently, realistic violence isn't allowed in German games. However, they release the "full gore" versions anyway, and usually have up to a couple of weeks of boxes on sale in stores before it's banned, and they have to replace it with the tamed down version. They do this, because there's a certain status to owning the full gore version, and it helps drive initial sales (which apparently are sufficient to justify the cost of the recall when it does get banned).
From memory, I thought there originally only were three missions. I thought 4, 5 and 6 were added later as a bonus pack. It was a long time ago now, and I could be mistaken, but I'm reasonably sure that's how it was.
The commercial Unices were typically licensed on a per-user basis, not the per-seat licensing that Caldera are using. Of course, I'm sure Caldera would use per-user licensing if they could. The problem is that anyone could just download and compile a stock kernel, and the user limit enforcement would be gone. Yes, I guess you could play some tricks in userland, but they're equally trivial to circumvent.
ObReminiscing: My Unix experience started with 4.1BSD, which of course had no user limits. When I graduated, and moved to the commercial world, I was completely stunned by SCO's 2 user limit. It seemed to take away half of the point of using Unix in the first place.
Without two ports, you can't do things like block malicious broadcasts from the outside world.
Actually, these are the perfect size for home or small office firewall type machines, which you *want* to be as small and unobtrusive as possible. The only problem is that with only one ethernet port, they're not much use for that...
Which is great for your supply-side surveys. But surely demand-side clients are far more interested in actual deployments rather than paid for shipments. When making a decision about an OS, I don't care how much revenue it's generated for a given company, but I am interested in how widely it's being used, and in what areas. For example, of our 25 or so servers running Linux, Solaris and OpenBSD, only 5 or 6 have paid-for copies of the OS, and I know that plenty of others are in the same situation. Going purely by paid for shipments, your figures are going to be wildly inaccurate.
The most interesting part about the interview was the snippet that implies Google didn't have much of a say in the Deja archives being down after the buyout. So it wasn't the complete cock up that we all thought it was. They still handled the PR really badly, though. If they'd just told people what was happening, I'm sure they wouldn't have come across half as badly as they did.
*Cough* A good RDBMS is many things, but fast isn't one of them. The reason the industry moved to relational databases (and SQL in particular) was flexibility. Non-relational databases like Berkeley DB or BTrieve are significantly faster. The reason they're not more widely used is that the flexibility of SQL vastly outweighs the performance loss it incurs. It's a matter of using the right tool for the job. Netscape and Sendmail use Berkely DB because it makes sense to do so for what they need. Similarly, Remedy uses Oracle because it needs the flexibility more than the speed. Yes, a good RDBMS is faster than a poor one, but they're both slower than a good non-relational database.
Yes, but the article implies that they're likely to call it the Redhat Database. That would lead to the equally confusing RDB acronym...
Errr... no. Even Fabio (X15's author) only claims a 5% perfomance increase over Tux 2.0.
Not only that, but IIS (with SWC) also beat Tux 2.0 on nearly identical hardware. The question is whether or not the difference in hard drives was enough to account for the difference in performance. My hunch is that it is, but that's just a hunch. Either way, it's obvious that MS have been shocked into action by the performance of Tux, and have come up with something comparable. I'd like to see a real comparisson of Tux, IIS/SWC and X15 on identical hardware.
Freedom To Surf are offering gigabit connections in the UK (last time I asked, it was only available in central London, but no doubt the area will increase over time). The thing that really surprised me was how cheap it was. No, it's not within the reach of the average home user yet, but a reasonable sized business can now afford true gigabit internet access.
Of course it will. It just won't come from lossy compression schemes like MP3 and Ogg Vorbis.
That's hardly an innovation. exmh has been doing that for years.
Yes. When I first upgraded one of my machines to an S3 accelerated card, the non-accelerated ones seemed unbearably slow. However, even today, an opaque move of a large window can cause the machine to become less responsive. If the X server can help minimize this, so much the better.