A. Definitely. Then her bottom lip will start to tremble and I'll start to feel like the terrible father I undoubtedly am. By way of recompense we go for ice cream, and strangely enough, the idea of a mini-marshmallow at the bottom of my waffle cone gives me the insight I need to fix my problem.
I'm at home today (said little girl just wandered into my office and made a bee-line for the other PC: I have half a dozen unplugged keyboards strewn around the room to try to distract her but she has an instinct for which ones allow her to cause damage). This is where I work when I'm not at the office. Working at the beach doesn't work for me: (a) because of the sand thing; (b) because I'm in Minnesota, and if it's warm enough to go outside there are too many mosquitos; and (c) because this 366MHzPII laptop I have generates enough heat to cause second degree burns on an unprotected lap.
If I'm working at home, the kids are either with their mother or at day care, or in bed. I enforce a break (except for support pages) between leaving work at 4:30 and when the kids go to bed at 8pm. I can get a surprising amount done when the house is quiet.
There may have been a point when I started this post. I'm sure there isn't now.
My point was that Metallica gave up almost all control over what I do with my copy of the CD once I've bought it.
Somewhere there's a line between wrong (making copies and selling them) and right (making an archival copy), with a whole 16-bit gray scale that includes:
making a copy for the car;
making a copy for my wife's car (thanks, Orrin);
giving the copy I had in my car to a friend;
making a copy for a friend;
making copies for 20 friends and
making copies for 20 million friends.
People on/. are supportive of Napster (as in.exe) for the same reason they oppose gun control: they don't blame the tool for the actions of the user.
I think you'll see a lot less support for Napster (as in Inc.) once they start trying to make a profit. Right now they're just giving us software, server time, disk space and connectivity. What geek wouldn't love that?
If they want control of their music they shouldn't have sold several million copies, should they? In the real world, once I sell you something, I can't tell you what to do with it any more. Copyright is different, but it's limited. Metallica shouldn't be able to force me to only play their music on a standalone CD player, despite the fact that my computer's cdrom drive is just as capable of playing it.
When I see people burning CDs of Metallica's music and selling them on street corners, then I'll believe Metallica has a point. But the whole thing about "control" is just a fallback because no-one bought the line about them losing money.
Assume for a moment that someone with the Win32 and Office source code is porting the office apps to Linux (and pretty much only Linux86, maybe LinuxAlpha if you're lucky, but you get the same horrible 32 bit kludging you do in NTAlpha). Assume it's Mainsoft. They're still doing it with Microsoft's permission, and M$, unlike IBM of old, is a company with a vision. The Office group does not crap on the OS group.
If you or I were given all this source code and told "port Office to Linux" we would run away screaming in horror and hide under our beds for a year. Perhaps if we had enough intestinal fortitude we'd identify the APIs that Office uses that aren't supported by Wine and implement those. Licencing would be a bitch, of course.
This isn't what Mainsoft are doing. They're porting Office without benefit of Wine. Remember that Microsoft wants you to buy Office, but most of all they want you to buy Windows and Office.
My predictions:
Office for Linux will be slower, uglier and less stable than the Windows version;
when Office for Linux crashes it will take down the OS. Don't say it can't be done - remember that the smart guys at Microsoft figured out an unknown weakness in the Linux TCP/IP stack for the Mindcraft tests;
Microsoft will blame it on Linux and offer "competitive upgrades" to W2K.
Well, I suppose it's up to the reader to decide whether it's a utopia or not. Iain describes it as a utopia, so I'm going by his view:)
What he said to me, when I asked if he liked the Culture was "It's a fucking utopia. Of course I like it".
Oh yeah and it's Iain, not Ian. He publishes sci-fi under Iain and his other novels under Ian. For no particular reason apparently.
It's Iain in both cases, because he's Scots, and the Scots can't spell;-) He uses Iain M. Banks for the scifi stuff presumably so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of people who liked the Wasp Factory or Song of Stone.
I have yet to see a database that doesn't require a large amount of "rigamarole": some of it nightly, some of it weekly, and maybe even some of it annually. When you're dealing with something as complex as a modern RDBMS, maintenance is a given. A good DBA will automate most of it, with notification of exceptions, of course.
I'd be surprised if your installation (you don't say what you chose) doesn't have a lot of maintenance associated with it, even if cron's doing all of it for you.
I have a 25MHz 486 box with 16Mb of RAM as the firewall/NAT box for my home network. I have my RedHat box, my wife's Win98 box and two NT boxen from work, all talking through the 486 to the cable modem, and also a dialup modem to the RAS server at work. The throughput of the 486 has not been an issue, even with my wife and I both doing large downloads. The biggest bottleneck is the 5 port hub, which gets a lot of collisions when I do a large download . Count the boxen - it's full.
A long while ago (but not that long ago) I acquired a customer who had a requirement that their C programs be compiled with Microsoft C 6.0. They had a DB library that wouldn't support any other compiler. At the time, MS had just started selling Visual C++ 2.0, which had a 16-bit compiler, but it wasn't compatible with 6.0.
I called Microsoft. They told me that I couldn't have 6.0, as they didn't sell it any more. However, if I copied 6.0 from my customer and bought VC++ 2.0 at full retail, they would turn a blind eye. Not that I could get that in writing, of course, but I had the personal assurance of the guy who answers the phones.
This actually sounds quite reasonable, until you realise how much more VC++ 2 cost than C6. IIRC it was about 4 times the price.
One for each of the regions/continents. Kind of like the US primary elections. Then we let the candidates know that they are "Slashdot-endorsed" and they can put that on their lawn signs.
More seriously, while it is obvious that no one candidate can adequately represent everyone on slashdot (since Natalie Portman was not nominated), if a large group "gets behind" a candidate that every one agrees is "not too bad" they stand a much better chance of not having someone they hate elected. It sucks that it works this way, and this is the main reason that first past the post elections suck. But it's what we've got, so let's use it.
There is a pretty good summary of how it works posted here, but since it's in reply to a low score post I thought it could do with a little more exposure.
Next thing you will be complaining that some companies have too high of profit margins.
No, next thing I will be complaining of an entire industry where the indiviual companies collude to keep profit margins high. That's what the RIAA does.
This particular "best mind" flocked to the US because of the ridiculously high material standard of living available to computer programmers. No bureaucrat was telling what to do (apart from when I was on government projects - I have heard that isn't to different here).
<flamebait>
As much as I like it here, I often wonder about the overall sanity of a country where the shooter has a right to carry his gun, but the shootee does not have a right to hospital treatment.
</flamebait>
Only two years until I move back. I wonder what I'll miss most?
Except the RIAA have refused to provide such a list.
Really, I wouldn't expect them to. A thriving, legal, Napster is the worst possible outcome for them. They are just out to shut them down so they can bring their own (pay-for, of course) version online without fear of competition.
My source is a (possibly misremembered) report on convicted murderers awaiting execution where DNA evidence was not brought forward in the trial, but DNA testing was subsequently done. Texas, it should be noted, does not allow this, but several other states do, notably Illinois, which now has a moratorium on executions.
So my quote was a little over-generalized. I should have said that 50% of death row inmates who did not have a DNA test at the time of the trial, but did have a DNA test subsequent to conviction, are innocent.
The fact remains that if you are falsely accused of murder, your best chance of getting off is if the real murderer left some DNA behind.
Or more accurately, if someone loses their life in a violent crime, someone else is going to lose theirs. If it happens to be the person that committed the crime, that's a bonus, but that only happens in about 50% of cases.
Someone does. Saw them at MS TechEd (shoot me) about a year ago. They said they were putting the 'I' back in "RAID". It was all PCI-based, and looked very nice for the price. If I find their name I'll post it here.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't forget those smart Americans who cracked the Enigma machine.
--
A. Definitely. Then her bottom lip will start to tremble and I'll start to feel like the terrible father I undoubtedly am. By way of recompense we go for ice cream, and strangely enough, the idea of a mini-marshmallow at the bottom of my waffle cone gives me the insight I need to fix my problem.
I'm at home today (said little girl just wandered into my office and made a bee-line for the other PC: I have half a dozen unplugged keyboards strewn around the room to try to distract her but she has an instinct for which ones allow her to cause damage). This is where I work when I'm not at the office. Working at the beach doesn't work for me: (a) because of the sand thing; (b) because I'm in Minnesota, and if it's warm enough to go outside there are too many mosquitos; and (c) because this 366MHzPII laptop I have generates enough heat to cause second degree burns on an unprotected lap.
If I'm working at home, the kids are either with their mother or at day care, or in bed. I enforce a break (except for support pages) between leaving work at 4:30 and when the kids go to bed at 8pm. I can get a surprising amount done when the house is quiet.
There may have been a point when I started this post. I'm sure there isn't now.
--
Is this Germany's subnet? Wait a minute, 540 isn't a valid octet. Is that how they got 2.5 million hosts in a class C address space?
--
My point was that Metallica gave up almost all control over what I do with my copy of the CD once I've bought it.
Somewhere there's a line between wrong (making copies and selling them) and right (making an archival copy), with a whole 16-bit gray scale that includes:
making a copy for the car;
making a copy for my wife's car (thanks, Orrin);
giving the copy I had in my car to a friend;
making a copy for a friend;
making copies for 20 friends and
making copies for 20 million friends.
Maybe we need to ask the Brunching Shuttlecocks to do a Good or Bad poll to find the line.
--
How did that get anonymous? I swear I didn't check the little box!
Anyway, it was me, i admit it!
--
People on /. are supportive of Napster (as in .exe) for the same reason they oppose gun control: they don't blame the tool for the actions of the user.
I think you'll see a lot less support for Napster (as in Inc.) once they start trying to make a profit. Right now they're just giving us software, server time, disk space and connectivity. What geek wouldn't love that?
--
Or is there a new law (since 1997) that changes this?
DMCA, 1998.
--
If they want control of their music they shouldn't have sold several million copies, should they? In the real world, once I sell you something, I can't tell you what to do with it any more. Copyright is different, but it's limited. Metallica shouldn't be able to force me to only play their music on a standalone CD player, despite the fact that my computer's cdrom drive is just as capable of playing it.
When I see people burning CDs of Metallica's music and selling them on street corners, then I'll believe Metallica has a point. But the whole thing about "control" is just a fallback because no-one bought the line about them losing money.
--
Assume for a moment that someone with the Win32 and Office source code is porting the office apps to Linux (and pretty much only Linux86, maybe LinuxAlpha if you're lucky, but you get the same horrible 32 bit kludging you do in NTAlpha). Assume it's Mainsoft. They're still doing it with Microsoft's permission, and M$, unlike IBM of old, is a company with a vision. The Office group does not crap on the OS group.
If you or I were given all this source code and told "port Office to Linux" we would run away screaming in horror and hide under our beds for a year. Perhaps if we had enough intestinal fortitude we'd identify the APIs that Office uses that aren't supported by Wine and implement those. Licencing would be a bitch, of course.
This isn't what Mainsoft are doing. They're porting Office without benefit of Wine. Remember that Microsoft wants you to buy Office, but most of all they want you to buy Windows and Office.
My predictions:
Office for Linux will be slower, uglier and less stable than the Windows version;
when Office for Linux crashes it will take down the OS. Don't say it can't be done - remember that the smart guys at Microsoft figured out an unknown weakness in the Linux TCP/IP stack for the Mindcraft tests;
Microsoft will blame it on Linux and offer "competitive upgrades" to W2K.
You just see if I'm right!
--
Well, I suppose it's up to the reader to decide whether it's a utopia or not. Iain describes it as a utopia, so I'm going by his view :)
;-) He uses Iain M. Banks for the scifi stuff presumably so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of people who liked the Wasp Factory or Song of Stone.
What he said to me, when I asked if he liked the Culture was "It's a fucking utopia. Of course I like it".
Oh yeah and it's Iain, not Ian. He publishes sci-fi under Iain and his other novels under Ian. For no particular reason apparently.
It's Iain in both cases, because he's Scots, and the Scots can't spell
--
I have yet to see a database that doesn't require a large amount of "rigamarole": some of it nightly, some of it weekly, and maybe even some of it annually. When you're dealing with something as complex as a modern RDBMS, maintenance is a given. A good DBA will automate most of it, with notification of exceptions, of course.
I'd be surprised if your installation (you don't say what you chose) doesn't have a lot of maintenance associated with it, even if cron's doing all of it for you.
--
I have a 25MHz 486 box with 16Mb of RAM as the firewall/NAT box for my home network. I have my RedHat box, my wife's Win98 box and two NT boxen from work, all talking through the 486 to the cable modem, and also a dialup modem to the RAS server at work. The throughput of the 486 has not been an issue, even with my wife and I both doing large downloads. The biggest bottleneck is the 5 port hub, which gets a lot of collisions when I do a large download . Count the boxen - it's full.
--
A long while ago (but not that long ago) I acquired a customer who had a requirement that their C programs be compiled with Microsoft C 6.0. They had a DB library that wouldn't support any other compiler. At the time, MS had just started selling Visual C++ 2.0, which had a 16-bit compiler, but it wasn't compatible with 6.0.
I called Microsoft. They told me that I couldn't have 6.0, as they didn't sell it any more. However, if I copied 6.0 from my customer and bought VC++ 2.0 at full retail, they would turn a blind eye. Not that I could get that in writing, of course, but I had the personal assurance of the guy who answers the phones.
This actually sounds quite reasonable, until you realise how much more VC++ 2 cost than C6. IIRC it was about 4 times the price.
--
One for each of the regions/continents. Kind of like the US primary elections. Then we let the candidates know that they are "Slashdot-endorsed" and they can put that on their lawn signs.
More seriously, while it is obvious that no one candidate can adequately represent everyone on slashdot (since Natalie Portman was not nominated), if a large group "gets behind" a candidate that every one agrees is "not too bad" they stand a much better chance of not having someone they hate elected. It sucks that it works this way, and this is the main reason that first past the post elections suck. But it's what we've got, so let's use it.
--
Cebu!
Sing it with me!
--
Everybody's got a water buffalo
--
There is a pretty good summary of how it works posted here, but since it's in reply to a low score post I thought it could do with a little more exposure.
<grumble>submitted this story yesterday</grumble>
--
--
Kind of late to reply to this, but I think the City of Minneapolis totally overreacted to the potential for violence.
Every building worth keeping at the south end of Nicollet Mall has been bulldozed by Target, anyway.
[disclaimer: I work for Target. I like my job. But architecturally speaking, Target Plaza sucks]
--
This particular "best mind" flocked to the US because of the ridiculously high material standard of living available to computer programmers. No bureaucrat was telling what to do (apart from when I was on government projects - I have heard that isn't to different here).
<flamebait>
As much as I like it here, I often wonder about the overall sanity of a country where the shooter has a right to carry his gun, but the shootee does not have a right to hospital treatment.
</flamebait>
Only two years until I move back. I wonder what I'll miss most?
--
[shudder]
--
Except the RIAA have refused to provide such a list.
Really, I wouldn't expect them to. A thriving, legal, Napster is the worst possible outcome for them. They are just out to shut them down so they can bring their own (pay-for, of course) version online without fear of competition.
--
My source is a (possibly misremembered) report on convicted murderers awaiting execution where DNA evidence was not brought forward in the trial, but DNA testing was subsequently done. Texas, it should be noted, does not allow this, but several other states do, notably Illinois, which now has a moratorium on executions.
So my quote was a little over-generalized. I should have said that 50% of death row inmates who did not have a DNA test at the time of the trial, but did have a DNA test subsequent to conviction, are innocent.
The fact remains that if you are falsely accused of murder, your best chance of getting off is if the real murderer left some DNA behind.
--
Or more accurately, if someone loses their life in a violent crime, someone else is going to lose theirs. If it happens to be the person that committed the crime, that's a bonus, but that only happens in about 50% of cases.
--
Someone does. Saw them at MS TechEd (shoot me) about a year ago. They said they were putting the 'I' back in "RAID". It was all PCI-based, and looked very nice for the price.
If I find their name I'll post it here.