On my box (a 1 GHz P3 running Gentoo), it took 13 hours and consumed 3 GiB of hard drive space in the process. I was grateful for choosing to partition my hard drive with LVM, as it allowed me to grow my/var filesystem on the fly to make room for the thing.
Why did I get flashbacks of Gilligan's Island when I saw that phrase? Hmmm...
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
a tale of a fateful day.
That started from Chicago's port,
aboard this here Segway.
The tour guide was way up front,
the crowd was brave and sure.
Five tourists set off that day,
for a three hour tour, a three hour tour
The weather started getting rough,
the Segways all were tossed.
If not for the courage of the fearless bunch,
the tour would be lost; the tour would be lost.
The Segways took ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle,
with Gilligan, the guide too,
the Millionaire, and his Wife,
the Movie Star, the Professor and Mary Ann,
here on Lake Michigan's Isle.
What size mirror would be needed for a telescope to be able to capture a reflected image?
Forget the mirror -- just haul the telescope out there. The mirror would have to be aligned very precisely, and constantly adjusted to account for the movement of the Earth, not to mention the other problems you mentioned.
If someone has the money to take such a case all the way to the Supreme Court, we might all get a huge (as in 100%) refund from Uncle Sam in the next few years.
Rest assured that if the Supreme Court did say income tax was unconstitutional, it would be only a matter of days before congress and the president passed a constitutional amendment to change that.
Infinite loop? Nonsense. There's no such thing. They're fairy tales told to scare young programmers into submission. I've been programming for 100 years and I've yet to see a loop that ran forever. One way or another, they always terminate, whether by a Control-C, hardware failure, or any of a million other ways. Infinite indeed.
And unfortunately, you may find that your 20.000 listeners dwindles down to 30 when you start playing the unknown, unpopular indy music, as they switch stations. A shame, really.
I used to listen to a station that dedicated 4 hours every Sunday evening to local and independant artists. That 4 hour block was very popular among their listeners. During the rest of the week, they mixed in independant music with the mainstream stuff. I doubt most of the listeners even realized that about 20% of the music they listened to was indy.
So, playing indy music can work if you do it right. People will support it once they become familiar with the bands. Unfortunately, very few stations seem interested in doing this.
But UFO means unidentified flying object. If it's falling out of the sky, it's not really flying. Maybe we should call it an unidentified falling object. Now we just need to figure out the acronym for it.
Are you sure you want to alert the entire company every time your server goes down? I prefer to quietly fix my bugs so the boss doesn't ever know I created them. It helps me justify my job:
Boss: I want you to start using this new high priced development tool. Some marketing guy said it would make you write better code.
Me: Better code? When was the last time my code has ever had a bug? Just name one time.
Boss: Uhhhhh.
Me: See, I write perfect code already. How do you know that tool will be written so perfectly?
Boss: Uhhhhh. It cost us millions of dollars, so it must be good. Plus, we already bought it, so you have to use it.
Me: Why you didn't consult any of the developers before buying a development package?
Boss: I would say I'm more qualified than you to select what tools you're going to use for development, despite not having never written a line of code in my life.
I occasionally run Evolution remotely across my cable modem (2Mb down, 384Kb up), and while it's a bit sluggish, it's not unusable. Maybe 30 seconds to start up, 2 or 3 seconds to bring up a message, etc. Scrolling through a message is pretty quick. It sounds like your network connection might have been dropping packets or just running really slow between you and the remote box. BTW, are you compressing your data stream? I run mine through a compressed SSH tunnel, and that helps out quite a bit.
I agree that development packages, databases, etc. are harder to install
If I wanted to install mysql, I would enter (as root, on Mandrake):
urpmi mysql
and the computer would take care of figuring out the dependencies, downloading everything off the internet, verifying the digital signatures, and installing the software onto my system.
Likewise, if I want to install Postgres, I would enter
urpmi postgres
and again, it would take care of everything. If you're doing more work than this, then you're not doing it right. And I would argue that this is easier than the equivalent on Windows.
Re:Instead of using my mod points...
on
Is Windows Worth $45?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
You like XP, and that's perfectly fine. But suppose you went to your local computer store to buy a new machine and found that every machine there came pre-installed with Redhat Linux. Also suppose you found out that $45 of the cost of each computer is going to the cost of Redhat. So you grudgingly buy one of these machines, remove Linux and install XP. In this scenario, was Linux worth $45 to you? Keep in mind this is what people like me are forced to accept. I had to pay some undisclosed amount for XP on my laptop, yet I have never used it (and never will). To me, that copy of XP was not worth $45. To me, it's not worth anything, yet I was forced to pay it to get the laptop.
You seem to be confusing manufactoring costs with research and development costs. Yes, there are high costs involved in developing Windows, but the manufactoring costs are limited to stamping a CD (do computers sold these days still include a Windows CD?)
Anyway, to compare with, for example, the hard drive industry -- they also spend millions or even billions developing hard drive technologies, but it also costs them quite a bit to create each hard drive. The former is R&D costs. The latter is manufactoring.
Re:Cha ching, reloaded.
on
Gates on Spam
·
· Score: 1
Newsletters? Daily mailings? News updates?
Wait, you forgot one -- webmail services. And what's the biggest webmail service around? Hotmail.com, of course. And who runs hotmail.com? Microsoft! I just love watching Bill Gates make a complete fool of himself without even realizing it. But then again, maybe his idea is to put other webmail services out of business, since M$ could afford this while many others couldn't.
I read your letter with great interest on the evils of free and open source software. After finishing it, I asked myself what someone in your position might do to help stop the spread of free software. Aside from encouraging young developers away from it, I would also recommend not making use of it anywhere in your business. Since I don't know your business, this may already be the case. Nevertheless, it's always good to verify this, since teaching the evils of writing free software on one hand while benefiting from it on the other would make you look insincere. Once you've verified your business is not using free software, the next step would be to talk with other companies to let them know about its evils.
Perhaps with enough effort, businesses and people will stop using free software. If nobody's running it, there will be little motivation for developers to continue writing it. Although there will always be free software, this would eliminate most if not all of the large projects that do the most damage to commercial interests.
Thank you for your time, and good day to you.
(Okay, it's subtle, so I'll just say it -- this letter is meant to be sarcastic, preying on those who speak out against open source while simultaneously reaping its benefits. It also encourages him to discourage those who benefit the most from open source, which is a hopeless endeavor. And no, I didn't actually send this letter to him.)
Or are companies only supposed to employ people who have no idea what they're doing?
That's generally how it works in most companies. People who have no idea what they're doing can be hired for less money, so it looks good to the executives. Not that I'm bitter or anything.
Slashdot Mirror
On my box (a 1 GHz P3 running Gentoo), it took 13 hours and consumed 3 GiB of hard drive space in the process. I was grateful for choosing to partition my hard drive with LVM, as it allowed me to grow my /var filesystem on the fly to make room for the thing.
... a three hour tour ...
Why did I get flashbacks of Gilligan's Island when I saw that phrase? Hmmm...
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
a tale of a fateful day.
That started from Chicago's port,
aboard this here Segway.
The tour guide was way up front,
the crowd was brave and sure.
Five tourists set off that day,
for a three hour tour, a three hour tour
The weather started getting rough,
the Segways all were tossed.
If not for the courage of the fearless bunch,
the tour would be lost; the tour would be lost.
The Segways took ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle,
with Gilligan, the guide too,
the Millionaire, and his Wife,
the Movie Star, the Professor and Mary Ann,
here on Lake Michigan's Isle.
Thanks to termites, my deck is pretty hollow.
What size mirror would be needed for a telescope to be able to capture a reflected image?
Forget the mirror -- just haul the telescope out there. The mirror would have to be aligned very precisely, and constantly adjusted to account for the movement of the Earth, not to mention the other problems you mentioned.
I used to play computer golf games, and as I remember, how hard you swung the club depended on how long you held the mouse button.
If someone has the money to take such a case all the way to the Supreme Court, we might all get a huge (as in 100%) refund from Uncle Sam in the next few years.
Rest assured that if the Supreme Court did say income tax was unconstitutional, it would be only a matter of days before congress and the president passed a constitutional amendment to change that.
Infinite loop? Nonsense. There's no such thing. They're fairy tales told to scare young programmers into submission. I've been programming for 100 years and I've yet to see a loop that ran forever. One way or another, they always terminate, whether by a Control-C, hardware failure, or any of a million other ways. Infinite indeed.
The neighbors must be thrilled!
if( $a < sqrt( 0 / i ) ){randomly_reboot;}
Unless i is 0, then it just randomly crashes (divide by zero).
Oh my GOD! You have to tell me where I can buy one of those! I've just gotta have one!
2) Speed of change (not 'velocity')
... that's known as 'acceleration' ...
No, acceleration is change of speed, not speed of change.
And unfortunately, you may find that your 20.000 listeners dwindles down to 30 when you start playing the unknown, unpopular indy music, as they switch stations. A shame, really.
I used to listen to a station that dedicated 4 hours every Sunday evening to local and independant artists. That 4 hour block was very popular among their listeners. During the rest of the week, they mixed in independant music with the mainstream stuff. I doubt most of the listeners even realized that about 20% of the music they listened to was indy.
So, playing indy music can work if you do it right. People will support it once they become familiar with the bands. Unfortunately, very few stations seem interested in doing this.
But UFO means unidentified flying object. If it's falling out of the sky, it's not really flying. Maybe we should call it an unidentified falling object. Now we just need to figure out the acronym for it.
So what happened to those intelligent life forms? Did they become extinct?
Are you sure you want to alert the entire company every time your server goes down? I prefer to quietly fix my bugs so the boss doesn't ever know I created them. It helps me justify my job:
Boss: I want you to start using this new high priced development tool. Some marketing guy said it would make you write better code.
Me: Better code? When was the last time my code has ever had a bug? Just name one time.
Boss: Uhhhhh.
Me: See, I write perfect code already. How do you know that tool will be written so perfectly?
Boss: Uhhhhh. It cost us millions of dollars, so it must be good. Plus, we already bought it, so you have to use it.
Me: Why you didn't consult any of the developers before buying a development package?
Boss: I would say I'm more qualified than you to select what tools you're going to use for development, despite not having never written a line of code in my life.
Well, at least I tried.
I occasionally run Evolution remotely across my cable modem (2Mb down, 384Kb up), and while it's a bit sluggish, it's not unusable. Maybe 30 seconds to start up, 2 or 3 seconds to bring up a message, etc. Scrolling through a message is pretty quick. It sounds like your network connection might have been dropping packets or just running really slow between you and the remote box. BTW, are you compressing your data stream? I run mine through a compressed SSH tunnel, and that helps out quite a bit.
If I wanted to install mysql, I would enter (as root, on Mandrake): and the computer would take care of figuring out the dependencies, downloading everything off the internet, verifying the digital signatures, and installing the software onto my system.
Likewise, if I want to install Postgres, I would enter and again, it would take care of everything. If you're doing more work than this, then you're not doing it right. And I would argue that this is easier than the equivalent on Windows.
You like XP, and that's perfectly fine. But suppose you went to your local computer store to buy a new machine and found that every machine there came pre-installed with Redhat Linux. Also suppose you found out that $45 of the cost of each computer is going to the cost of Redhat. So you grudgingly buy one of these machines, remove Linux and install XP. In this scenario, was Linux worth $45 to you? Keep in mind this is what people like me are forced to accept. I had to pay some undisclosed amount for XP on my laptop, yet I have never used it (and never will). To me, that copy of XP was not worth $45. To me, it's not worth anything, yet I was forced to pay it to get the laptop.
You seem to be confusing manufactoring costs with research and development costs. Yes, there are high costs involved in developing Windows, but the manufactoring costs are limited to stamping a CD (do computers sold these days still include a Windows CD?)
Anyway, to compare with, for example, the hard drive industry -- they also spend millions or even billions developing hard drive technologies, but it also costs them quite a bit to create each hard drive. The former is R&D costs. The latter is manufactoring.
Newsletters? Daily mailings? News updates?
Wait, you forgot one -- webmail services. And what's the biggest webmail service around? Hotmail.com, of course. And who runs hotmail.com? Microsoft! I just love watching Bill Gates make a complete fool of himself without even realizing it. But then again, maybe his idea is to put other webmail services out of business, since M$ could afford this while many others couldn't.
Someone once told me it was like this:
Heads: Gonna get me some head
Tails: Gonna get me some tail
So either way you win. I don't get it, though, since everytime I try this, the coin lands on its edge. Seriously, what are the odds of that?
I read your letter with great interest on the evils of free and open source software. After finishing it, I asked myself what someone in your position might do to help stop the spread of free software. Aside from encouraging young developers away from it, I would also recommend not making use of it anywhere in your business. Since I don't know your business, this may already be the case. Nevertheless, it's always good to verify this, since teaching the evils of writing free software on one hand while benefiting from it on the other would make you look insincere. Once you've verified your business is not using free software, the next step would be to talk with other companies to let them know about its evils.
Perhaps with enough effort, businesses and people will stop using free software. If nobody's running it, there will be little motivation for developers to continue writing it. Although there will always be free software, this would eliminate most if not all of the large projects that do the most damage to commercial interests.
Thank you for your time, and good day to you.
(Okay, it's subtle, so I'll just say it -- this letter is meant to be sarcastic, preying on those who speak out against open source while simultaneously reaping its benefits. It also encourages him to discourage those who benefit the most from open source, which is a hopeless endeavor. And no, I didn't actually send this letter to him.)
Or are companies only supposed to employ people who have no idea what they're doing?
That's generally how it works in most companies. People who have no idea what they're doing can be hired for less money, so it looks good to the executives. Not that I'm bitter or anything.
But at least your hair would be dry.
Also, man sh