With 1000+ comments, the chances of this being read with any attention is small. And it is likely to be redundant. But here goes.
With a Slashdot subscription, I had hoped for something a little more. In fact, something even innovative. Instead, it is asking people to pay money to keep what Slashdot is currently like. Even worse, it has metering tied to it. How many times have we seen how popular an unmetered service is, versus a metered one?
GIVE us something for our money. And if you can be a trendsetter and do something new and innovative, all the better.
In our environment, the acronyms for test databases always start with a T and the acronym for production databases always start with a P. This was fine when then TENIS (electronic number inventory system) database was in development. Cute name, right?
Well, when they were putting it into production, they realized that they had a problem. Management decided to change the name to PNIS. Unfortunately, they didn't take into account how people would pronounce that, either.:)
As touched on above, yes, Sun is very committed to the GNOME project. It will become a "supported" desktop mid this year. Later, it will become the preferred desktop for Solaris.
People are correct in pointing out that Sun has slipped on their deadline for integrating GNOME into a Solaris release.
I certainly see this is a win for Sun. I'm hoping that the GNOME people are seeing Sun's contributions as a win, too.
Me? I've used Ximian Red Carpet to install GNOME + goodies on my Solaris 7 box. My only unhappyness is that all my keys on the left hand side of the keyboard (copy, paste, raise to front, etc) aren't working. Some of that can be handled in the configuration, though.
No ecache problems ever again... because they're going to fully mirrored. That was really a black eye for Sun that they don't want to repeat. BTW, they're saying one of the bad batches of L2 cache came from IBM.
Over 5Ghz running inside Sun? I suppose it is possible, but not an everyday event. They will absolutely break the 1Ghz barrier this year if they haven't already. 1050 should be the clock speed (150mhz bus x 7 multiplier).
Sun playing dead? Yes. We should have seen the 1Ghz processors a long time ago. Soon after the ecache problem surfaced, new technology enhancements almost completely stopped. Only now are we seeing stuff again (and at a cautious pace) now that the UltraSPARC III is shipping.
None of this is really inside stuff if you've got a finger on Sun's pulse. (Like a major customer.) Here are a few more things that are easily deduced:
The UltraSPARC IV should be compatible with the UltraSPARC III. Same line of servers and all. Even numbered CPUs at Sun are improvements over the odd numbers. Not a core redesign.
The UltraSPARC V will more than likely require new hardware, just like the UltraSPARC III did.
Sun's strength isn't in the performance of its servers. You don't buy a Sun because you want the fastest thing out there. You buy it for the support, reliability, software base, and probably a number of other things. As long as Sun's processing performance is "on par" with competitors, it isn't going to be a liability.
When I talk with management about servers, they don't ask me which one has the fastest CPUs. They've got a "short list" of hardware vendors (IBM/Sun, then further down HP/NT).
Just thought I'd add on a bit here. I just got through viewing the PDF presentation that is on Sun's website about the UltraSPARC. The online version is more of a marketing presentation. If you are a good large customer of Sun, you can probably request the NDA SPARC technical presentation.
The technical presentation has all the goodies you expect to hear when technical people are describing processors. I'm glad I got to see it.
Having recently participated in an NDA from Sun regarding the SPARC processor (and even with the knowledge I had walking into the meeting), SPARC is not dead or dying. In fact, I'd say that Sun squarely recognizes it as a strength. Their competition (HP for example), however, is wishing they didn't knife their baby.
As far as money to go another round, remember, Sun doesn't fab CPUs. What Sun does is design them, and they turn it over to Texas Instruments for production. And TI has their own reasons to keep up-to-date with the latest production technologies, so Sun doesn't eat that cost.
BTW: I really wish that I could talk about the SPARC presentation. I liked it a whole lot better than the NDA I attended with HP talking about their Itanic future.
This is something I've had my eye on...
on
Watches for UberGeeks?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
It is a watch from Timex that receives pages (and Yahoo! instant messages). Works via skytel. My main problem is that I hate carrying around my pager, and I don't necessarily have it with me when it goes off. If I had a pager that was a wrist-watch, it would have that problem.
Somehow, I had linked that in my mind with the *previous* Ask Slashdot story. Fahrenheit 451, indeed! More like Fahrenheit 200 for these chunks of plastic.
Of course, it was COX@Home. It was very fast (in excess of 1mbit/second). Now that they've transitioned to their own internet service, online speed rating programs put me at about 580kbit/second on my downloads. Seems to match what I've been seeing, actually.
Cost? $34.95/month + $10/month cable modem rental. I really need to stop renting that cable modem.
I hear a lot of people are addicted to Yahoo! Games. Your basic collection of games, and always another player (or players) to go against. It has been years since I played Spades in college. Nice to see I've still got the nack for it.
Typically, my attraction to a game will build to a peak then quickly drop off. Few games really can build a long-term addiction, at least for me.
Maybe he's talking in terms of TCO (total cost of ownership). Over its lifetime, RAM costs less than its hard drive counterpart?
Another point... as long as you don't store you METADATA 100% in RAM, you can store at least your data (cached web pages) in RAM. What happens if it gets dumped? Simple. Just respider the pages you lost and go on. Small amounts of data loss can be covered.
Okay. It may sound like I'm talking out of my ass because I am. It is really hard to cover for a statement like that. But lets talk again on the performance angle that has been covered (but with a little more emphasis on RAID disks).
You *may* be able to get better cost/performance with LOCAL memory (not ram-based drives) than you could with a RAID array. And a raid array could never equal the performance you get with local memory. Of course, local memory could never reach the storage you achieve with a raid array. So these two paths seem to diverge (bulk storage vs speed) when comparing local DRAM to RAID'd disks.
His statement MAY make sense, but it would have to be put into a larger context. (RAM is better than disk in X circumstances.)
I was clued into this here recently at another website. Now, with all the other geeks exposed to Nixie tubes, it looks like my chances of getting something, at least on eBay, are far worse. Nixie clocks (or, really, the tubes) are so cool because they're so retro. The displays are incredible.
Another new hobbie vanquished by the Slashdot Effect.
I'm probably the only person in my company running a Solaris desktop, and still am able to function quite adequately. In fact, much like the Linux folks, all the tools are there. (There is even Internet Explorer for Solaris! Can you believe it?) PDF viewer. MPEG viewer. DOC/XLS via Star Office/Open Office. Lotsa other little extras I forget at the moment.
I still do my email via Netscape mail. But the article pointed out the Ximian Evolution mail reader. I went to the Ximian site, and they have the desktop and Evolution both available for Solaris. I'm running the download/install now. Hopefully I'll be on my way to a mega-desktop.
I've used them for all my arcade articles. And you know what? When another site stole my material, they stood 100% behind me. (Not referring to the E10k review that was on Slashdot. I'm talking about my arcade game parts primer material.
And, of course, as the person above said, you can print a book, too. I recommend this license. You can go to their page and check out the terms to see if they are to your liking.
Perhaps this is Microsoft paranoia, but I see this as something more than Microsoft wimpering with its tail between its legs.
UTV, and WebTV, as a stand-alone product, was never of much value to Microsoft. However, if they can tie a number of things together (UTV with XBox, Homestation like), then it becomes a television computing platform. And that means money, and that means a core business. (Like palmtop computing, or mobile computing.)
Watch for the UTV not to disappear, but to merge into a larger product. And that product is to be the sucessor to the home PC. An always-on computing appliance that is connected right to your television.
How about an opposite POV?
on
Quoting in Emails?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Actually, I think that the default quoting of entire messages is a benefit. First the idea of "wasted storage" doesn't bug me. Storage is cheap these days.
What I find value in is being able to go back in the thread and see the line of discussion, and why someone is asking me a question, and from what angle they're looking at it. In other words, it gives me the background and frame of reference that makes it easier to respond. And I only have to go back as far as I need (agreed that the most relevant information is towards the top, but sometimes it can be at the very bottom -- like a Director asking a question).
Email, by far, is a 'lazy' medium. (Heck, they even have spell checkers built in.) However, there are worse ways to communicate. In the office, instant messenging has dropped to the lowest common denominator of communication. I've dropped down to using one letter replies like 'y' (yes), 'n' (no), 'k' (okay).
But I'm reluctant to share it with anyone by the MySQL people. Does this make me a bad Slashdotter for hording information?
There are a LOT of good possibilities out there. Play on the dolphin aspect, the database aspect, what the dolphin is doing, what you want a database to do, something that inspires confidence, something that isn't already protected by intellectual property laws, and a generally catchy theme.
I personally would like to see the top 10 rejected ones. You know. "Mr. Hankey the Database Dolphin." Or "Commander Taco."
Slashdot Mirror
With 1000+ comments, the chances of this being read with any attention is small. And it is likely to be redundant. But here goes.
With a Slashdot subscription, I had hoped for something a little more. In fact, something even innovative. Instead, it is asking people to pay money to keep what Slashdot is currently like. Even worse, it has metering tied to it. How many times have we seen how popular an unmetered service is, versus a metered one?
GIVE us something for our money. And if you can be a trendsetter and do something new and innovative, all the better.
In our environment, the acronyms for test databases always start with a T and the acronym for production databases always start with a P. This was fine when then TENIS (electronic number inventory system) database was in development. Cute name, right?
:)
Well, when they were putting it into production, they realized that they had a problem. Management decided to change the name to PNIS. Unfortunately, they didn't take into account how people would pronounce that, either.
Going from one controversial name to another. I bet Lycos just LOVES their new name! :)
As touched on above, yes, Sun is very committed to the GNOME project. It will become a "supported" desktop mid this year. Later, it will become the preferred desktop for Solaris.
People are correct in pointing out that Sun has slipped on their deadline for integrating GNOME into a Solaris release.
I certainly see this is a win for Sun. I'm hoping that the GNOME people are seeing Sun's contributions as a win, too.
Me? I've used Ximian Red Carpet to install GNOME + goodies on my Solaris 7 box. My only unhappyness is that all my keys on the left hand side of the keyboard (copy, paste, raise to front, etc) aren't working. Some of that can be handled in the configuration, though.
I'll go ahead and take this.
No ecache problems ever again... because they're going to fully mirrored. That was really a black eye for Sun that they don't want to repeat. BTW, they're saying one of the bad batches of L2 cache came from IBM.
Over 5Ghz running inside Sun? I suppose it is possible, but not an everyday event. They will absolutely break the 1Ghz barrier this year if they haven't already. 1050 should be the clock speed (150mhz bus x 7 multiplier).
Sun playing dead? Yes. We should have seen the 1Ghz processors a long time ago. Soon after the ecache problem surfaced, new technology enhancements almost completely stopped. Only now are we seeing stuff again (and at a cautious pace) now that the UltraSPARC III is shipping.
None of this is really inside stuff if you've got a finger on Sun's pulse. (Like a major customer.) Here are a few more things that are easily deduced:
The UltraSPARC IV should be compatible with the UltraSPARC III. Same line of servers and all. Even numbered CPUs at Sun are improvements over the odd numbers. Not a core redesign.
The UltraSPARC V will more than likely require new hardware, just like the UltraSPARC III did.
No. Leonardo DeCaprio will sing the praises of the Itanic. "My monopoly will go on, and, on..."
Can you say, "Heat dissapation for high wattage CPUs?"
Sun's strength isn't in the performance of its servers. You don't buy a Sun because you want the fastest thing out there. You buy it for the support, reliability, software base, and probably a number of other things. As long as Sun's processing performance is "on par" with competitors, it isn't going to be a liability.
When I talk with management about servers, they don't ask me which one has the fastest CPUs. They've got a "short list" of hardware vendors (IBM/Sun, then further down HP/NT).
Just thought I'd add on a bit here. I just got through viewing the PDF presentation that is on Sun's website about the UltraSPARC. The online version is more of a marketing presentation. If you are a good large customer of Sun, you can probably request the NDA SPARC technical presentation.
The technical presentation has all the goodies you expect to hear when technical people are describing processors. I'm glad I got to see it.
Having recently participated in an NDA from Sun regarding the SPARC processor (and even with the knowledge I had walking into the meeting), SPARC is not dead or dying. In fact, I'd say that Sun squarely recognizes it as a strength. Their competition (HP for example), however, is wishing they didn't knife their baby.
As far as money to go another round, remember, Sun doesn't fab CPUs. What Sun does is design them, and they turn it over to Texas Instruments for production. And TI has their own reasons to keep up-to-date with the latest production technologies, so Sun doesn't eat that cost.
BTW: I really wish that I could talk about the SPARC presentation. I liked it a whole lot better than the NDA I attended with HP talking about their Itanic future.
It is a watch from Timex that receives pages (and Yahoo! instant messages). Works via skytel. My main problem is that I hate carrying around my pager, and I don't necessarily have it with me when it goes off. If I had a pager that was a wrist-watch, it would have that problem.
Rich? He's powerful! He controls the eyes and collective IQs for a quarter million geeks! That's got to be worth something besides banner impressions.
Commander Taco becomes a married man! Geekfactor--. Webcast at 11.
Somehow, I had linked that in my mind with the *previous* Ask Slashdot story. Fahrenheit 451, indeed! More like Fahrenheit 200 for these chunks of plastic.
Of course, it was COX@Home. It was very fast (in excess of 1mbit/second). Now that they've transitioned to their own internet service, online speed rating programs put me at about 580kbit/second on my downloads. Seems to match what I've been seeing, actually.
Cost? $34.95/month + $10/month cable modem rental. I really need to stop renting that cable modem.
I hear a lot of people are addicted to Yahoo! Games. Your basic collection of games, and always another player (or players) to go against. It has been years since I played Spades in college. Nice to see I've still got the nack for it.
Typically, my attraction to a game will build to a peak then quickly drop off. Few games really can build a long-term addiction, at least for me.
Maybe he's talking in terms of TCO (total cost of ownership). Over its lifetime, RAM costs less than its hard drive counterpart?
Another point... as long as you don't store you METADATA 100% in RAM, you can store at least your data (cached web pages) in RAM. What happens if it gets dumped? Simple. Just respider the pages you lost and go on. Small amounts of data loss can be covered.
Okay. It may sound like I'm talking out of my ass because I am. It is really hard to cover for a statement like that. But lets talk again on the performance angle that has been covered (but with a little more emphasis on RAID disks).
You *may* be able to get better cost/performance with LOCAL memory (not ram-based drives) than you could with a RAID array. And a raid array could never equal the performance you get with local memory. Of course, local memory could never reach the storage you achieve with a raid array. So these two paths seem to diverge (bulk storage vs speed) when comparing local DRAM to RAID'd disks.
His statement MAY make sense, but it would have to be put into a larger context. (RAM is better than disk in X circumstances.)
I was clued into this here recently at another website. Now, with all the other geeks exposed to Nixie tubes, it looks like my chances of getting something, at least on eBay, are far worse. Nixie clocks (or, really, the tubes) are so cool because they're so retro. The displays are incredible.
Another new hobbie vanquished by the Slashdot Effect.
Obvious answer: He meant 1 gigasecond, which is somewhere just shy of 32 years old. Gee. Cliff isn't far ahead of me. I'm 29.
Actually, I like the question since I'm going to be turning 30 this year. I want something crazy and special but I have absolutely no idea what.
I'm probably the only person in my company running a Solaris desktop, and still am able to function quite adequately. In fact, much like the Linux folks, all the tools are there. (There is even Internet Explorer for Solaris! Can you believe it?) PDF viewer. MPEG viewer. DOC/XLS via Star Office/Open Office. Lotsa other little extras I forget at the moment.
I still do my email via Netscape mail. But the article pointed out the Ximian Evolution mail reader. I went to the Ximian site, and they have the desktop and Evolution both available for Solaris. I'm running the download/install now. Hopefully I'll be on my way to a mega-desktop.
I've used them for all my arcade articles. And you know what? When another site stole my material, they stood 100% behind me. (Not referring to the E10k review that was on Slashdot. I'm talking about my arcade game parts primer material.
And, of course, as the person above said, you can print a book, too. I recommend this license. You can go to their page and check out the terms to see if they are to your liking.
Perhaps this is Microsoft paranoia, but I see this as something more than Microsoft wimpering with its tail between its legs.
UTV, and WebTV, as a stand-alone product, was never of much value to Microsoft. However, if they can tie a number of things together (UTV with XBox, Homestation like), then it becomes a television computing platform. And that means money, and that means a core business. (Like palmtop computing, or mobile computing.)
Watch for the UTV not to disappear, but to merge into a larger product. And that product is to be the sucessor to the home PC. An always-on computing appliance that is connected right to your television.
Actually, I think that the default quoting of entire messages is a benefit. First the idea of "wasted storage" doesn't bug me. Storage is cheap these days.
What I find value in is being able to go back in the thread and see the line of discussion, and why someone is asking me a question, and from what angle they're looking at it. In other words, it gives me the background and frame of reference that makes it easier to respond. And I only have to go back as far as I need (agreed that the most relevant information is towards the top, but sometimes it can be at the very bottom -- like a Director asking a question).
Email, by far, is a 'lazy' medium. (Heck, they even have spell checkers built in.) However, there are worse ways to communicate. In the office, instant messenging has dropped to the lowest common denominator of communication. I've dropped down to using one letter replies like 'y' (yes), 'n' (no), 'k' (okay).
Although hardware, by definition, can't be "open source (code)". But how does/can any of Sun's hardware business meld with the open source concept?
But I'm reluctant to share it with anyone by the MySQL people. Does this make me a bad Slashdotter for hording information?
There are a LOT of good possibilities out there. Play on the dolphin aspect, the database aspect, what the dolphin is doing, what you want a database to do, something that inspires confidence, something that isn't already protected by intellectual property laws, and a generally catchy theme.
I personally would like to see the top 10 rejected ones. You know. "Mr. Hankey the Database Dolphin." Or "Commander Taco."