The two Amiga users left will have to split the money (and learn how to program), but $1800 or so is still quite a chunk of change. If this were 1985, they'd be able to buy a new Amiga with that kind of cash!
Heh. The last place I worked (here) bought our office (we were a smaller company at first) and, within 6 months, had laid off 50% of the staff. Obviously, things went to shit from that point on. They fired just about everyone else the day after the Christmas party in '01, and I held out until the end of January. (I was making about 30% more at a better job within 2 weeks.)
I was happy to discover they've since gone chapter 11, and their stock (DVINQ) has been delisted from NASDAQ, and is now trading at $0.021. They couldn't even pay the 2003 NASDAQ listing fee! I might buy them up after I clean my couch.
Everyone starts at zero for everything, so I'm not sure why it's a bad idea to learn from configs that have been done and redone a zillion times already.
It's a bad idea because you're teaching people to learn by rote memorization and coincidence, while giving them no real insight as to why or how any configuration option works the way it does, or what other desirable options may exist. Most well-written man pages should have example usage anyway, and most large software packages (sendmail, samba, BIND, apache, postfix, etc.) have sample config files.
Fooling inexperienced admins into believing that Linux is friendly and easy to use and can be picked up quickly by even novice users is disingenuous and ignores the real problem. Linux in reality is the same as any other UNIX: quirky, complicated, difficult to learn, and (in Linux's case especially) very poorly documented. Throwing new users a bone in the form of a few pre-built config files is hardly enough to combat what I see as a very grave shortcoming that is probably mostly to blame for Linux's slow desktop uptake. Linux simply needs more uniform, intuitive, helpful, and complete documentation (in the form of succinct, well-written, browsable, searchable manual pages, please.)
There's no need to further dilute the sysadmin talent pool by filling it with people who think they know Linux when all they really know is how to install a pre-fabbed config file. I wouldn't trust a system built in such a way and I certainly wouldn't hire someone who professed to be a Linux administrator, even for a junior role, if those were the only skills they possessed.
Your target audience here is beginners and administrators who are migrating to Linux services who want to get things working without having to read and decode **ALL** of the documentation up front.
In other words, I shouldn't trust these people to know how to fix any of these things when they break.
Important difference: porno won't fuck you up nearly as badly as drugs.
Depends on the porno, depends on the drugs. This is a very tenuous blanket statement to be making when a person who smokes pot or drinks alcohol in moderation can be the picture of health whereas a child pornographer obviously is very fundamentally broken.
What's otherwise a fairly interesting piece of hardware has no relation to the RIAA, so it's given one to make it more interesting.
I've been bootlegging shows with something known as a Digital Audio Tape (DAT) deck for years. I just moved to something known in taper circles as a "laptop with a S/PDIF card in it". These devices, on the surface, seem quite tame at first, as well.
When I saw this thing, I knew my illegal concert bootleg-creating days could continue on!
You are clearly deluded if you think evil music pirates such as myself won't take full advantage of this device. Expect to see me stealing all sorts of live concerts with this thing in a couple of years, and sharing them with everyone I know!
You miss the point. It is very possible to craft a physical object which is perfect, for all intents and purposes. (Take a look at the SL-1200, or, more realistically, any machine with relatively few moving parts, such as a baseball bat.)
Software companies like to argue that, because code is intangiable (and, to a lesser extent, because development cycles are so darn short these days) it is impossible to spot and fix every bug in it, so no one should realistically expect software to be reliable all the time.
This argument has become more and more valid over time as companies use it more and more often to justify increasingly defective products.
Anyway, since Microsoft was basically handed the PC operating systems market and has been running with it ever since, I think it's silly to say that $250B in market capitalization can't be wrong any more often than any other company can. They're atypical of the software industry and business in general.
But more seriously I'd suggest ProTools on the Mac. Yes I know its not PC, but it just works. PC's just can't cope with the data I/O properly, whilst Mac's do it no problem.
I can't believe you just suggested a PC can't handle the relatively minute demands of digital audio. Maybe if you were recording to floppy disks, this would be true, but even an older PC will have no trouble handling a couple dozen tracks at 24/96. (Do the math.)
Why on earth should we be worried about Iraq's networking capabilities when we're still fucking bombing them? Can we worry about that for a little while first? Shouldn't their ability to buy DVDs from Amazon be slightly lower on our list of things to do?
I guess I score some points for offending you, though.
Just because the PC's core is 20 years old, I'm not sure why we suddenly need to drop everything and change it.
I'm sure Apple asked this same question at several meetings when they decided to make the step up to PowerPC. There are dozens of reasons to abandon x86 as a hardware platform, not the least of which being its absolutely anemic memory subsystem and its lack of efficient multiprocessor design.
To look at it another way, x86 is the ONLY architecture still out there using 20-year-old hardware technology, which is vastly different in character and performance than 20-year-old software technology.
Sherman said that the RIAA will continue to investigate these types of services on college networks and that anyone with knowledge of such systems should report them to RIAA's music piracy hotline, 1-800-BAD-BEAT.
I'd like to encourage everyone to start calling this hotline.
I want you to report every time you or someone you know borrows a CD from a friend or family member.
I want you to report every time you or someone you know tapes something off the radio or television.
I want you to clog their hotline with millions upon millions of reports of what clearly is also piracy. If they're so afraid of losing money because of it, they should know how many millions of times it happens every day with pristine, CD-QUALITY AUDIO. None of this MP3 shit! These are ACTUAL CDS exchanging hands!
Flood their hotline with this information! It's just as important as online piracy, but it's being overlooked by the RIAA! We need to make them aware of this egregious violation of THEIR rights!
Rob, this story was great the first time I saw it. It was even better when you posted it 2 hours later. Now it's just utterly hilarious! Please post it again and again so it becomes the best April Fool's Joke EVAR.
Rob, this story was great the first time I saw it. It was even better when you posted it 2 hours later. Now it's just utterly hilarious! Please post it again and again so it becomes the best April Fool's Joke EVAR.
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The two Amiga users left will have to split the money (and learn how to program), but $1800 or so is still quite a chunk of change. If this were 1985, they'd be able to buy a new Amiga with that kind of cash!
- A.P.
Heh. The last place I worked (here) bought our office (we were a smaller company at first) and, within 6 months, had laid off 50% of the staff. Obviously, things went to shit from that point on. They fired just about everyone else the day after the Christmas party in '01, and I held out until the end of January. (I was making about 30% more at a better job within 2 weeks.)
I was happy to discover they've since gone chapter 11, and their stock (DVINQ) has been delisted from NASDAQ, and is now trading at $0.021. They couldn't even pay the 2003 NASDAQ listing fee! I might buy them up after I clean my couch.
Isn't karma a beautiful thing?
- A.P.
Everyone starts at zero for everything, so I'm not sure why it's a bad idea to learn from configs that have been done and redone a zillion times already.
It's a bad idea because you're teaching people to learn by rote memorization and coincidence, while giving them no real insight as to why or how any configuration option works the way it does, or what other desirable options may exist. Most well-written man pages should have example usage anyway, and most large software packages (sendmail, samba, BIND, apache, postfix, etc.) have sample config files.
Fooling inexperienced admins into believing that Linux is friendly and easy to use and can be picked up quickly by even novice users is disingenuous and ignores the real problem. Linux in reality is the same as any other UNIX: quirky, complicated, difficult to learn, and (in Linux's case especially) very poorly documented. Throwing new users a bone in the form of a few pre-built config files is hardly enough to combat what I see as a very grave shortcoming that is probably mostly to blame for Linux's slow desktop uptake. Linux simply needs more uniform, intuitive, helpful, and complete documentation (in the form of succinct, well-written, browsable, searchable manual pages, please.)
There's no need to further dilute the sysadmin talent pool by filling it with people who think they know Linux when all they really know is how to install a pre-fabbed config file. I wouldn't trust a system built in such a way and I certainly wouldn't hire someone who professed to be a Linux administrator, even for a junior role, if those were the only skills they possessed.
- A.P.
Your target audience here is beginners and administrators who are migrating to Linux services who want to get things working without having to read and decode **ALL** of the documentation up front.
In other words, I shouldn't trust these people to know how to fix any of these things when they break.
- A.P.
Important difference: porno won't fuck you up nearly as badly as drugs.
Depends on the porno, depends on the drugs. This is a very tenuous blanket statement to be making when a person who smokes pot or drinks alcohol in moderation can be the picture of health whereas a child pornographer obviously is very fundamentally broken.
- A.P.
I, as IT director, would fire my IT staff if they pulled this. Considering that I have some systems with uptimes in YEARS, a few going on a DECADE. . .
Way to keep those systems up-to-date and current, mister IT director. Are you planning on firing your security staff too?
- A.P.
Change controls.
Any place that doesn't use them deserves all the shit it causes itself.
- A.P.
Dude, just quit while you're behind. You've clearly been thoroughly schooled.
- A.P.
What's otherwise a fairly interesting piece of hardware has no relation to the RIAA, so it's given one to make it more interesting.
I've been bootlegging shows with something known as a Digital Audio Tape (DAT) deck for years. I just moved to something known in taper circles as a "laptop with a S/PDIF card in it". These devices, on the surface, seem quite tame at first, as well.
When I saw this thing, I knew my illegal concert bootleg-creating days could continue on!
You are clearly deluded if you think evil music pirates such as myself won't take full advantage of this device. Expect to see me stealing all sorts of live concerts with this thing in a couple of years, and sharing them with everyone I know!
- A.P.
You miss the point. It is very possible to craft a physical object which is perfect, for all intents and purposes. (Take a look at the SL-1200, or, more realistically, any machine with relatively few moving parts, such as a baseball bat.)
Software companies like to argue that, because code is intangiable (and, to a lesser extent, because development cycles are so darn short these days) it is impossible to spot and fix every bug in it, so no one should realistically expect software to be reliable all the time.
This argument has become more and more valid over time as companies use it more and more often to justify increasingly defective products.
- A.P.
Shut up and patch your systems like the rest of the planet.
Software isn't a physical thing so it's impossible to make it bug-free.
You knew about this vulnerability for months, there was a patch for it, and you did nothing about it."
Pick a defense, any defense...
- A.P.
speaking of "sound quality" a 5$ headphone is on par with a $100 headphone.
Your $5 crack clearly isn't on par with $100 crack.
I can't believe how wrong people on slashdot can be sometimes.
- A.P.
Longest. Slashdot article. Evar.
Anyway, since Microsoft was basically handed the PC operating systems market and has been running with it ever since, I think it's silly to say that $250B in market capitalization can't be wrong any more often than any other company can. They're atypical of the software industry and business in general.
- A.P.
Wow, is it April 1 again already?
- A.P.
You do know that you can run spamassassin without running a mailserver.
Well, now you do, anyway.
- A.P.
Or you could just use your ISP's SMTP server like you're supposed to.
Running domains on dynamic IP addresses is 3 types of lame.
- A.P.
But more seriously I'd suggest ProTools on the Mac. Yes I know its not PC, but it just works. PC's just can't cope with the data I/O properly, whilst Mac's do it no problem.
I can't believe you just suggested a PC can't handle the relatively minute demands of digital audio. Maybe if you were recording to floppy disks, this would be true, but even an older PC will have no trouble handling a couple dozen tracks at 24/96. (Do the math.)
- A.P.
You've completely missed the point.
Why on earth should we be worried about Iraq's networking capabilities when we're still fucking bombing them? Can we worry about that for a little while first? Shouldn't their ability to buy DVDs from Amazon be slightly lower on our list of things to do?
I guess I score some points for offending you, though.
- A.P.
The Iraqi people have been living without adequate food and water under an oppressive regime for the past 20 years.
Apparently, they've also been living without adequate access to online pornography, too.
We'll wait for someone else to fix those first two things.
- A.P.
Just because the PC's core is 20 years old, I'm not sure why we suddenly need to drop everything and change it.
I'm sure Apple asked this same question at several meetings when they decided to make the step up to PowerPC. There are dozens of reasons to abandon x86 as a hardware platform, not the least of which being its absolutely anemic memory subsystem and its lack of efficient multiprocessor design.
To look at it another way, x86 is the ONLY architecture still out there using 20-year-old hardware technology, which is vastly different in character and performance than 20-year-old software technology.
- A.P.
Sherman said that the RIAA will continue to investigate these types of services on college networks and that anyone with knowledge of such systems should report them to RIAA's music piracy hotline, 1-800-BAD-BEAT.
I'd like to encourage everyone to start calling this hotline.
I want you to report every time you or someone you know borrows a CD from a friend or family member.
I want you to report every time you or someone you know tapes something off the radio or television.
I want you to clog their hotline with millions upon millions of reports of what clearly is also piracy. If they're so afraid of losing money because of it, they should know how many millions of times it happens every day with pristine, CD-QUALITY AUDIO. None of this MP3 shit! These are ACTUAL CDS exchanging hands!
Flood their hotline with this information! It's just as important as online piracy, but it's being overlooked by the RIAA! We need to make them aware of this egregious violation of THEIR rights!
- A.P.
- A.P.
Who's your hookup, Rob, and can I get some of what he's getting you?
I know they talk about short-term memory loss, but this is out of hand.
- A.P.
Rob, this story was great the first time I saw it. It was even better when you posted it 2 hours later. Now it's just utterly hilarious! Please post it again and again so it becomes the best April Fool's Joke EVAR .
Go for it, man!!!
- A.P.
Rob, this story was great the first time I saw it. It was even better when you posted it 2 hours later. Now it's just utterly hilarious! Please post it again and again so it becomes the best April Fool's Joke EVAR .
Go for it!!!
- A.P.