Local variance in temperatures over a short time span (our lifetimes) does not equate to "global warming". We had an unusually mild summer here. Am I to assume that an ice age is right around the corner? We're not talking about localized changes in weather patterns here. We're talking about the entire planet potentially increasing in the amount of heat - fractions of a degree, yes, but in a large storage system this amounts to a large quantity of heat. If (and this is a big if) this is because of greenhouse gases, then we need to take some sort of action. But, until we're sure, kneejerk reactions based on local fluctuations is intellectually vapid and scientifically invalid.
Everyone wants to blame environmental problems on either (1) industry or (2) governments, both playing politics. One has to remember that science is largely politically driven as well. What should be an objective, truly scientific process often turns into personal agenda promotion and/or a dash for cash from (1) or (2) above. Science is not above political ambition, although it should be. Scientists that are not above political ambition/agenda promotion aren't to be trusted.
What we need, and by definition cannot get, is an objective, non-biased, scientifically valid analysis of untainted data to determine what, if any, global impact greenhouse gases have had. There are big problems here, however. No one understands the natural variations in global temperatures. You can't remove the other variables from the system (solar activity, global windfield changes, ocean current variations, etc.). You can't establish a control (no second earth - darn!). We can't devise an experiment to perform any valid testing ("Let's release gigatons of CO2 this year, and then readsorb it all next, year, and study the results."). Even if you had these conditions covered, or cleverely circumvent the need for them, you can't get unbiased funding, and that taints the process unacceptably. Unbiased researchers are hard to come by as well. They exist (although in fewer numbers and in relative anonymity to the known players), but they're unlikely to be trusted based on the funding sources. Therefore, political statements like the Kyoto Accords are based on sketchy science at best, politics at worst, and shouldn't be considered to be solutions to a problem that may not even exist.
And this tying of guaranteed accessible serial numbers to individual hardware components is one of the reasons that Microsoft is sticking their noses in the BIOS business. That will certainly make things easier for them with respect to product registration, DRM, and the like, as well as provide an incentive for others like Symantec and Adobe to adopt and promote their DRM strategy. "one ring", as it were...
I can't count how many times I've had to clean up certain versions of the AOL software. One could strongly consider the new AOL 9, since it turns off Windows Messenger, malware. IMHO, it's not a bad idea to kill it, but to do so and not notify the user is insidious.
Not exactly. The 18-55m lens that comes as part of the camera kit (can get just the body, though) fits only this camera. EF lenses fit it, however. The mount is just slightly different (EF-S, I think it's called).
See this extensive review of this camera.
I've seen it demonstrated and played with it a bit at a local camera store. I own a Canon A2, and I'm a bit unsettled with how light the Digital Rebel/EOS 300 feels, especially with that little 18-55mm lens. After taking a few shots with it, however, I got used to its lightness, which would be appreciated by my neck after a few hours of wear, I'm sure.
If I'm good, Santa will bring me one with any luck!
then there needs to be total shutdown of space launch operations at NASA until (1) the managers responsible for this are no longer with the agency and (2) safety concerns are met with the proper attention all the way up and down the chain.
This type of sloppy attitude toward potential problems has gotten other federal agencies in enormous trouble in the past. Some of these agencies, like the DOE, have pushed safety back into the light and take it seriously. NASA has yet to do this.
It's sad, really, that what should be the shining star of the federal government turns out to be another sub-par agency, filled with bureaucrats, not technocrats.
How naive. Are you saying that we should have also handed over our nuclear technology willy-nilly in the 40's and 50's to the Soviets? How about landing our EP-3 Aries on Hainan Island after the Chinese cowboy in the Mig crashed into it without sanitizing it, in the interest of scientific progress? How about providing the Chinese will more sophisticated electronic listening devices, to help them track down "illegal" activist happenings in Taiwan?
Space is a big deal. The barriers to entry are high. The science behind space exploration is often cutting edge. The potential competitive edge of space dominance is significant. Politically and militarity, whoever controls space controls the world. And yet you advocate cooperation with regimes without basic human rights?
Nothing's completely safe. Fossil fuels aren't safe. Hydrogen isn't safe. Cows' bad breath will be the death of us all. Life is a risk-management exercise. So is designing space vehicles.
I work with some of the folks who are responsible for safety matters regarding hazardous/radioactive material aboard spacecraft. Believe me when I tell you that the utmost importance is placed on the "what-if's" of any given launch failure mode. The containers that house the radioactive material are ridiculously well scrutinized and tested, the failure scenarios are taken into consideration, including atmospheric dispersion of debris from a launch failure.
We've used plutonium powered modules for years now as a source of long-lasting (30 years or so) electrical power. Those capsules are some of the toughest, most durable, explosion-proof, reentry-proof items ever created.
For example, for one space mission, 25 sample power capsules were made for testing by using them as artillery projectiles fired by a cannon into a solid concrete wall. This induced many times the stress these capsules would ever see in even the most horrific failure of the launch vehicle. Of the 25, only one showed any sign of a stress-related crack. This tiny crack set into motion a full review of the capsule manufacturing process, a study of the atmospheric effects of a failed launch vehicle, and other safety-related processes that delayed the launch for about a year.
Whereas these newer power sources are going to be a challenge, they'll be well thought out, or they won't go.
I've been told straight out from the RH sales folks that they really couldn't care less about the "comsumer"/free as in beer version of RH. They don't believe that market penetration at the desktop level for general use is where they need to devote resources, therefore, they're going for the server and high-performance workstation market. Thus, we have the Enterprise AS/ES/WS products, with long-term support and more attention/quality focus. I for one like this idea of 5-year support cycles, but am worried about the increased costs, in particular at the workstation level.
I'm in the same situation as the article poster. I'm running 6.2 up to AS as well, and am somewhat confused as to what I will do with my workstation users. There's little to no economic incentive to prefer Enterprise WS over WXP. RH 7.3 and 8.0 lose support at the end of this year, and I'm not sure that 9's support will last much beyond that. It seems that the "comsumer" grade products will have only about a year of support. And, with no "apt-get dist-upgrade" equivalent, I'd have to visit these boxes personally to perform upgrades. In some cases, that's impossible for me to do, as they're embedded all over the country in remote-sensing applications.
Forget about Intel vs. AMD, RDRAM vs. DDR. This is the real political intrigue now. Two cheating hardware companies and the benchmark tool company who hasn't got the guts to stand behind the truth of the matter.
Once again, and this can't be stated strongly enough - synthetic benchmarks really don't tell you what you think you're hearing. Indicative? Yes. Conclusive? Absolutely not. Don't listen too deeply to them.
When this much money is at stake, don't expect to hear the truth from any angle associated with these companies. Remember, we're dealing with marketers and lawyers here...
It's all about the bits. There are just so many more of them now, and a great deal more pressure in the marketplace to bring ever newer software and hardware to market. Back in the day of the IBM 360 and the VAX, even though we were mesmerized by the capabilities of these machines, they were years and years in the making, debugged much more thoroughly than we can hope for today, and much, much simpler.
And let's not forget that this was the exclusive realm of the highly trained engineer, not some wannabe type that pervades the current service market. These guys knew these machines inside and out.
In the last 50 years many, many scientific discoveries have been made that invalidate the Miller experiment. For instance, studies performed by NASA in the 1980's pertaining to the composition of ancient Earth's atmosphere debunk the Miller experiment's hypothesis that the atmosphere was composed largely of methane, ammonia, and hydrogen. They found that the atmospheric composition was dominated by nitrogen and carbon dioxide, with very little of Miller's hand-picked concoction present.
The Miller experiment will go down in history as another irrational jump to conclusions based on a less-than-adequate scientific understanding to promote certain political needs in the scientific community in an attempt to prove macroevolution. I suspect that the only reason it's still promoted is political. It certainly isn't because it's good science. Decry the "nit-picking" all you wish, but the truth of the matter is that Miller's experiment, albeit revolutionary for the 1950's, is far from what modern science would ascribe as (1) reflective of the conditions of primeval earth and (2) extremely unlikely to occur even in the best of circumstances in the wild.
Very little of what SAIC does is secret in nature. There are over 600 different groups within SAIC. So, I doubt that more than 5% of the company does anything classified (I sure didn't in my 2.5 years there).
Anyway, what about publicly held companies that do work on secret stuff - Lockheed Martin, Boeing, etc?
As the president of a small C corp that is turning a small, under-the-tax-radar profit, the accountant's advice is worth much more than the cost. When it comes to getting the federal tax stuff right, with depreciation and all that jazz, plus getting the state return figured out properly, it's worth it to me for the several hundred dollars/year to not have to worry with the financial minutae.
The answer definitely isn't the price point. It's whether the work that you will be performing is ethically sound for both yourself and the client. Remember, it's their business. You have an obligation to see that you provide a value-added service. However, this must be a value-added deal for both the company and yourself. If it's not, then walk. If you're unwilling to provide your best, then walk. If you feel that you have to withhold information from them lest they learn too much and no longer need you, then get out of consulting and get a regular job. There are far too many consultants who hold their clients hostage/play the BOFH card who sully the reputations of those of us who don't act unethically/unprofessionally.
True, but at least (1) Sun has licensed SPARC openly and (2) they created Java. That's two more open contributions to the community than Microsoft have made.
I've been on the paying end. They're still way late.
The standing statement in federal security circles from the guys that really have to do something about security problems other than write volumes of procedures about them is that if you haven't fixed it by the time CERT announces it, you're hosed.
With GPS guided munitions, and most ground troops dependent on GPS for navigation, especially in sandstorms, burning oil fields, etc., with poor visibility, the last thing you want to do it jam GPS signals over a hot zone.
If it's going to be a continuation of the service like RHAS, there will be channels dedicated to these products, and entitlements of those channels. I suspect, that like RHAS, it's an automatic subscription and you can't pass it around like you can the basic subscriptions.
if the manufacturers of these 10K SATA drives would offer two different sets of firmware - one optimized for locality access for desktops and another for the more scatter/gather usage patterns seen on servers. How WD et.al. will position this drive for production remains to be seen.
Abit cheap. Many of Abit's products have been chosen as top picks by numerous reviewers. They are just one of the manufacturers impacted by these sorry caps. I've had about half a dozen bad Abit mobos, primarily dual P III and single Athlon mobos, that have had this problem, and Abit has handled the RMAs in a completely satisfactory manner.
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Let's change all our fingerprints to match SCO, and drown Boies and the boys in worthless bits.
Local variance in temperatures over a short time span (our lifetimes) does not equate to "global warming". We had an unusually mild summer here. Am I to assume that an ice age is right around the corner? We're not talking about localized changes in weather patterns here. We're talking about the entire planet potentially increasing in the amount of heat - fractions of a degree, yes, but in a large storage system this amounts to a large quantity of heat. If (and this is a big if) this is because of greenhouse gases, then we need to take some sort of action. But, until we're sure, kneejerk reactions based on local fluctuations is intellectually vapid and scientifically invalid.
Everyone wants to blame environmental problems on either (1) industry or (2) governments, both playing politics. One has to remember that science is largely politically driven as well. What should be an objective, truly scientific process often turns into personal agenda promotion and/or a dash for cash from (1) or (2) above. Science is not above political ambition, although it should be. Scientists that are not above political ambition/agenda promotion aren't to be trusted.
What we need, and by definition cannot get, is an objective, non-biased, scientifically valid analysis of untainted data to determine what, if any, global impact greenhouse gases have had. There are big problems here, however. No one understands the natural variations in global temperatures. You can't remove the other variables from the system (solar activity, global windfield changes, ocean current variations, etc.). You can't establish a control (no second earth - darn!). We can't devise an experiment to perform any valid testing ("Let's release gigatons of CO2 this year, and then readsorb it all next, year, and study the results."). Even if you had these conditions covered, or cleverely circumvent the need for them, you can't get unbiased funding, and that taints the process unacceptably. Unbiased researchers are hard to come by as well. They exist (although in fewer numbers and in relative anonymity to the known players), but they're unlikely to be trusted based on the funding sources. Therefore, political statements like the Kyoto Accords are based on sketchy science at best, politics at worst, and shouldn't be considered to be solutions to a problem that may not even exist.
And this tying of guaranteed accessible serial numbers to individual hardware components is one of the reasons that Microsoft is sticking their noses in the BIOS business. That will certainly make things easier for them with respect to product registration, DRM, and the like, as well as provide an incentive for others like Symantec and Adobe to adopt and promote their DRM strategy. "one ring", as it were...
I can't count how many times I've had to clean up certain versions of the AOL software. One could strongly consider the new AOL 9, since it turns off Windows Messenger, malware. IMHO, it's not a bad idea to kill it, but to do so and not notify the user is insidious.
Not exactly. The 18-55m lens that comes as part of the camera kit (can get just the body, though) fits only this camera. EF lenses fit it, however. The mount is just slightly different (EF-S, I think it's called). See this extensive review of this camera. I've seen it demonstrated and played with it a bit at a local camera store. I own a Canon A2, and I'm a bit unsettled with how light the Digital Rebel/EOS 300 feels, especially with that little 18-55mm lens. After taking a few shots with it, however, I got used to its lightness, which would be appreciated by my neck after a few hours of wear, I'm sure. If I'm good, Santa will bring me one with any luck!
then there needs to be total shutdown of space launch operations at NASA until (1) the managers responsible for this are no longer with the agency and (2) safety concerns are met with the proper attention all the way up and down the chain.
This type of sloppy attitude toward potential problems has gotten other federal agencies in enormous trouble in the past. Some of these agencies, like the DOE, have pushed safety back into the light and take it seriously. NASA has yet to do this.
It's sad, really, that what should be the shining star of the federal government turns out to be another sub-par agency, filled with bureaucrats, not technocrats.
a) USA; b) and c) not applicable.
How naive. Are you saying that we should have also handed over our nuclear technology willy-nilly in the 40's and 50's to the Soviets? How about landing our EP-3 Aries on Hainan Island after the Chinese cowboy in the Mig crashed into it without sanitizing it, in the interest of scientific progress? How about providing the Chinese will more sophisticated electronic listening devices, to help them track down "illegal" activist happenings in Taiwan?
Space is a big deal. The barriers to entry are high. The science behind space exploration is often cutting edge. The potential competitive edge of space dominance is significant. Politically and militarity, whoever controls space controls the world. And yet you advocate cooperation with regimes without basic human rights?
Not AES, but triple DES.
Might be a nice way to preserve searches for later perusal. Unlike bookmarking, the returned search results are stored in an email.
This would be a good way to preserve stuff that may be the subject of removal due to court order, like xenu.net and other similar de-Googlings.
Nothing's completely safe. Fossil fuels aren't safe. Hydrogen isn't safe. Cows' bad breath will be the death of us all. Life is a risk-management exercise. So is designing space vehicles.
I work with some of the folks who are responsible for safety matters regarding hazardous/radioactive material aboard spacecraft. Believe me when I tell you that the utmost importance is placed on the "what-if's" of any given launch failure mode. The containers that house the radioactive material are ridiculously well scrutinized and tested, the failure scenarios are taken into consideration, including atmospheric dispersion of debris from a launch failure.
We've used plutonium powered modules for years now as a source of long-lasting (30 years or so) electrical power. Those capsules are some of the toughest, most durable, explosion-proof, reentry-proof items ever created.
For example, for one space mission, 25 sample power capsules were made for testing by using them as artillery projectiles fired by a cannon into a solid concrete wall. This induced many times the stress these capsules would ever see in even the most horrific failure of the launch vehicle. Of the 25, only one showed any sign of a stress-related crack. This tiny crack set into motion a full review of the capsule manufacturing process, a study of the atmospheric effects of a failed launch vehicle, and other safety-related processes that delayed the launch for about a year.
Whereas these newer power sources are going to be a challenge, they'll be well thought out, or they won't go.
I've been told straight out from the RH sales folks that they really couldn't care less about the "comsumer"/free as in beer version of RH. They don't believe that market penetration at the desktop level for general use is where they need to devote resources, therefore, they're going for the server and high-performance workstation market. Thus, we have the Enterprise AS/ES/WS products, with long-term support and more attention/quality focus. I for one like this idea of 5-year support cycles, but am worried about the increased costs, in particular at the workstation level.
I'm in the same situation as the article poster. I'm running 6.2 up to AS as well, and am somewhat confused as to what I will do with my workstation users. There's little to no economic incentive to prefer Enterprise WS over WXP. RH 7.3 and 8.0 lose support at the end of this year, and I'm not sure that 9's support will last much beyond that. It seems that the "comsumer" grade products will have only about a year of support. And, with no "apt-get dist-upgrade" equivalent, I'd have to visit these boxes personally to perform upgrades. In some cases, that's impossible for me to do, as they're embedded all over the country in remote-sensing applications.
Forget about Intel vs. AMD, RDRAM vs. DDR. This is the real political intrigue now. Two cheating hardware companies and the benchmark tool company who hasn't got the guts to stand behind the truth of the matter.
Once again, and this can't be stated strongly enough - synthetic benchmarks really don't tell you what you think you're hearing. Indicative? Yes. Conclusive? Absolutely not. Don't listen too deeply to them.
When this much money is at stake, don't expect to hear the truth from any angle associated with these companies. Remember, we're dealing with marketers and lawyers here...
It's all about the bits. There are just so many more of them now, and a great deal more pressure in the marketplace to bring ever newer software and hardware to market. Back in the day of the IBM 360 and the VAX, even though we were mesmerized by the capabilities of these machines, they were years and years in the making, debugged much more thoroughly than we can hope for today, and much, much simpler.
And let's not forget that this was the exclusive realm of the highly trained engineer, not some wannabe type that pervades the current service market. These guys knew these machines inside and out.
In the last 50 years many, many scientific discoveries have been made that invalidate the Miller experiment. For instance, studies performed by NASA in the 1980's pertaining to the composition of ancient Earth's atmosphere debunk the Miller experiment's hypothesis that the atmosphere was composed largely of methane, ammonia, and hydrogen. They found that the atmospheric composition was dominated by nitrogen and carbon dioxide, with very little of Miller's hand-picked concoction present.
The Miller experiment will go down in history as another irrational jump to conclusions based on a less-than-adequate scientific understanding to promote certain political needs in the scientific community in an attempt to prove macroevolution. I suspect that the only reason it's still promoted is political. It certainly isn't because it's good science. Decry the "nit-picking" all you wish, but the truth of the matter is that Miller's experiment, albeit revolutionary for the 1950's, is far from what modern science would ascribe as (1) reflective of the conditions of primeval earth and (2) extremely unlikely to occur even in the best of circumstances in the wild.
Very little of what SAIC does is secret in nature. There are over 600 different groups within SAIC. So, I doubt that more than 5% of the company does anything classified (I sure didn't in my 2.5 years there).
Anyway, what about publicly held companies that do work on secret stuff - Lockheed Martin, Boeing, etc?
As the president of a small C corp that is turning a small, under-the-tax-radar profit, the accountant's advice is worth much more than the cost. When it comes to getting the federal tax stuff right, with depreciation and all that jazz, plus getting the state return figured out properly, it's worth it to me for the several hundred dollars/year to not have to worry with the financial minutae.
The answer definitely isn't the price point. It's whether the work that you will be performing is ethically sound for both yourself and the client. Remember, it's their business. You have an obligation to see that you provide a value-added service. However, this must be a value-added deal for both the company and yourself. If it's not, then walk. If you're unwilling to provide your best, then walk. If you feel that you have to withhold information from them lest they learn too much and no longer need you, then get out of consulting and get a regular job. There are far too many consultants who hold their clients hostage/play the BOFH card who sully the reputations of those of us who don't act unethically/unprofessionally.
True, but at least (1) Sun has licensed SPARC openly and (2) they created Java. That's two more open contributions to the community than Microsoft have made.
I've been on the paying end. They're still way late.
The standing statement in federal security circles from the guys that really have to do something about security problems other than write volumes of procedures about them is that if you haven't fixed it by the time CERT announces it, you're hosed.
With GPS guided munitions, and most ground troops dependent on GPS for navigation, especially in sandstorms, burning oil fields, etc., with poor visibility, the last thing you want to do it jam GPS signals over a hot zone.
If it's going to be a continuation of the service like RHAS, there will be channels dedicated to these products, and entitlements of those channels. I suspect, that like RHAS, it's an automatic subscription and you can't pass it around like you can the basic subscriptions.
if the manufacturers of these 10K SATA drives would offer two different sets of firmware - one optimized for locality access for desktops and another for the more scatter/gather usage patterns seen on servers. How WD et.al. will position this drive for production remains to be seen.
First off, kudos and thanks for a great game port to Linux. Works better there than on Windoze.
Second, was this running Mesa or a 64-bit secret driver from Nvidia? Big difference in performance, those two.
Abit cheap. Many of Abit's products have been chosen as top picks by numerous reviewers. They are just one of the manufacturers impacted by these sorry caps. I've had about half a dozen bad Abit mobos, primarily dual P III and single Athlon mobos, that have had this problem, and Abit has handled the RMAs in a completely satisfactory manner.
a whole slew of new and improved Elvis paintings.