Don't donate to any organized cause. Even the best run, most efficient ones still have part of your dollar go to administrative or marketing costs.
As you move through life, you will meet plenty of people that need help. Give that pan handler on the side of the road a hamburger. Help your single-working-mother neighbor by paying for a baby sitter so she can have a night out. Buy groceries for the person in line at the store behind you that is using food stamps.
Or, donate your time. Join Habitat for Humanity and build a house for someone.
While all these options take more time/effort than just entering your credit card into a website, those donations of money/time will be completely dedicated to the person in need.
Man, R2-D2 was such a wimp. I want a Mr. Gusty. Later on I can upgrade to the Sentry Bot. In fact, Knightscope needs to change it's name to RobCo. THAT would be awesome.
You and I must be exact opposites. I play games specifically for their rich story lines. Sure, I play MW2 or Borderlands to blow some stuff up on occasion, but I enjoy rich stories like Lost Odyssey much more.
Games are 40-80 hour movies to me. With that length, each character can be explored, their background and motives explained, creating a richer involvement in the story. The reason those games are "grown-up" is because it takes a grown-up patience to play them. Most 10 year olds aren't going to have the patience to watch all the FMVs and read the dialog in a game like Final Fantasy.
I for one certainly hope that more games like Lost Odyssey are released. As the "original" video game generation gets older, I think we'll see more of these games.
OK, I may agree that the Ponzi scheme is not a true "problem" I am all for the financial darwinism aspect. But there are problems in EVE:
- Hacking a user's account and stealing their ISK/loot is against the rules - Selling ISK for real dollars is against the rules - Spamming to sell ISK in game is against the rules, and damn annoying.
The system above can still be used for these kind of issues.
LL or CCP (makers of EVE) can stop this the same way real credit card companies find fraud. Velocity.
Given that all monetary transactions go through a single transaction system. Those transactions can be monitored by a set of fraud rules. I'll use EVE as an example, since I play the game. Rules would be like:
- Player donations into an account of X ISK over Y hours exceeds Z
(probably hacked accounts feeding a central account)
- Player donations out of account of X ISK to more than Y different players
(probably an ISK-seller)
- Player donations into an account from more than X players over Y hours
(could be ponzi schemes)
Each scam that comes up will have a pattern in monetary transactions that can be flagged using these rules. once an account is flagged, a security representative can review the specifics of the account and determine if it is potentiall fraud, and perhaps suspend the account.
Human interaction is critical here, because the rules are not perfect. For example, the last rule would trigger for most EVE-Radio DJs that run lottos during their on-air time. A perfectly legitimate concept. That where the addition of a white list becomes useful.
A few hours or days with an "expert" who works for a major bank would help curb these issue somewhat. The bad news is, these systems only work when installed in the core of the transaction system. Only LL/CCP can solve this problem, and they have to WANT to solve it.
Wait you mean a blogger's comments aren't what they really think? SAY IT ISN'T SO!
Some people are pissed at MS, some are pissed at the bloggers, but I cannot understand why this is surprising to anyone. Blogging is just another advertising vehicle. For some reason people out there think blogs are unbiased sources of The Truth(tm). Blogs are carefully (or sometimes not-so-carefully) crafted marketing vehicles designed to sell you something without it looking like they are selling you something. Keep that in mind.
Actually, come to think of it, EVERY communication can be considered someone selling you something. Sometimes it's a product, other times it's an concept.
We need a Lobby, or a PAC. The EFF, FSF, etc. are great for defending the rights of Joe User and his computer. But are seriously deficient when it comes to defending the common ITer. And maybe this is on purpose, I don't remember anywhere on the EFF site saying they exist to help the IT workers. So it's up to us.
It's obvious that money talks in Washington, and you need LOTS of money. You know why seniors are so listened to and placated by Washinton? (And they are, big time) Because the AARP has LOTS of money and they use it.
Here and Today I suggest and offer to form the IT Political Action Committee (PACIT) -- heh packet -- anyone want to join me?
As usual seems many people did not read the article. The lawsuit is NOT about tracking the individuals in their vehicles (though the article does play that aspect up). The lawsuit is about wording in the contract. Specifically that the renters thought it was $1/mile in the "out of bounds" area and Budget charged them $1/mile on their whole trip. Having not actually seen the contract, I cannot comment on whose right, but this leads to the point.
Companies make rules, if you don't like the rules, then don't buy from them. If you are willing to accept the rules, then you must also be willing to accept the methods used to enforce those rules. Otherwise the rule is pointless.
Now, many people may get upset becuase they previously took advantage of the fact that the company couldn't enforce the rule accurately. But those people have no right to complain. They got lucky and their luck has run out.
I also find it odd that people think that they are allow privacy in a rented vehicle. It's their vehicle, they can do what they want. It is not your vehicle. In the same way that if I was to loan my car to a friend, it is still my vehicle, and if I want to monitor what my friend does with the car, I can. And yes, I would expect my friend to pay for any damages he inflicts on the vehicle as well. Again, if you don't like it, don't rent it.
Is any of this real?
on
Quark Stars
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Ok, seriously, I'm not a physicist, but I did pay attention in High School/College, and I have to ask: Do we KNOW any of this stuff. Or is everything just one (educated) guess on top of another.
Yes, we've made some discoveries, and for the most part things can be explained with the current line of thinking in Physics (Newton, Einstein, etc), but that's the problem, things are only MOSTLY explained, and certain keys are missing.
Take Newton, we've got all sorts of formulas, rules, and experiements built upon the concept of gravity. Something which we cannot define, do not know how it is "made" nor where it comes from. Or perhaps think of the stars, do we KNOW that this star is 8 billion light-year away? Or are we just guessing based on some color-shifting theory that seems to work here on Earth, based on guesses about the total mass of the universe (that we can't find some large percentage of...)
What if we humans are all WAY WAY wrong? What if like the "flat-earthers" of centuries ago, we've justified our THEORY of the planets, stars, solar systems, and the universe based on a completely incorrect model just becuase researchers (or humans in general) don't like to admit they are wrong, or that they don't know something? Are there any radical thinkers left? someone perhaps not starting from Newton or Einstein's work and trying to move it forward, but someone with NO preconsceptions, NO ingrained ideas, and NO outside influences?
Actually, nevermind, even if a person like that did exist, he'd be labeled as a quack in the media, shunned and laughed at by acedemia and problably killed by a nervous government.
So I'm playing devil's advocate here, and thinking of a way to get this to work. Here's my thought:
Germany tells Microsoft they are going to unleash a BIG NASTY lawsuit unless MS makes a couple of changes in their browser, since browsers are country-dependant to some extent anyway, this isn't all that hard. MS adds code into the German version of IE that calls out to an external time server to grab the correct time. If it's not 11-6 wherever the person is they cannot view the X-rated sites. Repeat process for Netscape and Opera and you have 90-something percent of the browsers out there.
But how to determine an X-rated site? Two options, one have the browser read the RSCA(?) rathing information for the site, if it's not there assume it's X-rated; two, have a state run server that the browsers talk to and a bunch of government workers finding the porn sites to enter in the server (I'm sure there's some religious zealots who would be GLAD to help). The first is userful if you know the web sites will conform, which, if more countries jump on the band wagon, they will for fear of losing customers. The second is a "start-up" plan until the idea gains traction.
Will this stop all the porn? No. Many people will stick to a browser version that doesn't have the "locks" (but they'll be left out of new browser features) or change to a less-known browser, but that's doesn't matter, if the German gov't has the major players under it's belt it can claim a success.
Seriously... if they hand some smart planners, they could pull it off...
I've seen several people comment about the relocation of the fat to another part of the body. IANAB (I am not a biologist) but my understanding is that if the enzyme does not process the fat it will move through your system and come out as waste. The fat will not go anywhere but the toilet.
Since you are not taking in any more fat, the fat you have will be burned off during the normal course of the day and you will lose weight.
By the time you find a tool to help with the migration, learn how the tool works, fix the inevitable quirks, and solve the blantant errors with the software, you could have exported the schema from Sybase, translated it with search/replace by hand, and created the new schema in PostgreSQL for a lot less time and money.
Once the schemas are setup, you can use any number of raw copy tools out there. Borland Delphi comes with one (DataPamp) there are several java-based ones out there. Or you could just write a series of "INSERT INTO" SQL statements with ODBC. This assumes that you are a competent DBA and not like all those Oracle "experts" out there that can't write SQL.
*puts on asbestos*
Ok, seriously, I'm not trying to be difficult here, but where is the part in the constitution that says you have the right to be anonymous. I understand the right of free speech, and general "freedoms" granted, but the right to say what you want is not the same as the right to say things anonymously. People need to be responsible for their actions and their words. While sometimes anonymity is usefull and necessary (such as children reporting sexual abusers), most of the time all an anonymous service does is encourage people to behave poorly. When people are not responsible for their actions, they behave irresponsibly.
Take for example the SPAM I get through YIM (or Email). If one was REQUIRED to properly identify themselves in order to get a YIM account, and that identity included name, phone number, etc. How many "HOT SEXXX!!!" messages would you get? Very few, considering you could call them or get their address and harass them back if they annoyed you.
The same applies to the web, I see no reason why a company can't track you through a site. your are on THEIR servers, using THEIR service. They can do what they want as far as it extends to tracking your way around their system. AS for telling you about it. I think people need to realize that they have NO privacy unless they work to create it. Assume all companies are trying to get EVERYTHING from you they can (since they are) and assume that any information you give out unsecured on the web is public domain (since it is anyway).
I know this has been discussed before, but I do honestly believe that a "National ID system" may be useful. The question is making the system difficult to circumvent. The best solution I have at the moment is smartcard chips embedded under the skin (seriously, I think this is cool!) that could be used to track you, grant you access to things you should have access to, and keep you out of things your shouldn't. Just think of the criminal uses if anyone could be tracked. The whole determination of who was at the scene of a crime and who wasn't would be a simple database query. Yea, yea, I know, mark of the beast, but I don't subscribe to that religion.
Oh, no, I don't see National ID cards, tracking, or the FBI reading my E-mail as a loss of my privacy, I didn't think I had privacy in the first place. Besides, if the FBI is really interested in reading the love letters between me and my Fiancee, be my guest.
Those Sir, are fighting words! *throws down gauntlet*
HEH... just kidding. Actually, I like doing the research, the part that is frustrating is having to buy the components from so many different places to get a good deal.
One company has cheap RAM, but marks up CPUs, one has cheap CPUs, but marks up Drives. And then every two weeks they change which are good deals. (thank god for PriceWatch). The companies I GUESS hope that you will buy their marked up products along with their sale items to avoid multiple shipping charges. All it does is piss me off. One of these days someone will find out how to make money in Hardware.
This might be a little off-topic, but as far as I see it, the problem with Gateway not being able to support a line of computers that does sell that many, is the support cost behind it. You need AMD-knowledgeable tech support, different MoBos, different assemblies, etc.
Dell, IBM, etc. all have the same problem. And it all seems to be related to the fact that the support costs for a low-margin, low-sales product line is too high. So why are the costs so high? From my experience, it's customer support. Too many people don't know how to use a computer and call (harass) the computer companies tech-support for the most minor of issues.
So I was thinking... let's turn it around. Create a computer company for smart people. Do not offer tech support. Do not offer customer service (outside of basic order processing) Just assemble and ship the product. If you don't know how to use it, don't buy it from us. A side benefit of this idea would be that "hard-core" computer geeks can stop wandering from site to site to build their computers. Since there's little over-head to cover, prices will stay cheap.
The same idea can be applied to ISPs. The major cost of an ISP is the customer support staff to go along with it. I'm sure there's a LOT of people out there that would gladly save 10%-25% of their Internet fee in exchange for having no customer support (since most people-in-the-know don't use it anyway).
I code almost 100% in Java with a smattering of Delphi. In the case of Delphi, I cannot see using command-line tools. It would be a mess (though possible). Generally, GUI apps require a GUI to design. otherwise you spend a lot of time fiddling with variouos parameters to get the window to look right. (or you end up with interfaces like those nasty Java 1.1 applets... ICK!)
In the case of java, which for me is mostly server apps. A GUI is not as important I used VIM for 4 years to write java. However, I have since changed to Forte and can confirm that my productivity has increased. I find the GUI IDE to be faster to perform tasks across mulitple files, faster to compile and re-run applications and easier to use than text-based editors.
On the other hand, one has to be careful to not rely on and IDE too much. If you become so attached to a particular IDE such that you cannot debug an app or run a program without it, you become less useful as a programmer, esp. in the open source arena where some things you didn't write just won't work under an IDE. I see this a lot with HTML developers, many of them cannot write HTML, they NEED FrontPage or Visual InterDEV just to work. I see this a serious flaw in their experience.
For me, all my HTML is written in TextPad or Forte. I've found by not relying on IDE tools my code comes out cleaner and smaller. and has less problems with the various different browsers.
1. CRA in Phoenix, AZ (602-944-1548) has Ultra 1s complete with 20" Monitor, 4GB SCA HDD, 128MB RAM for about $200-$400. Some systems actually come with the Creator3D card (be sure to ask for it).
2. Not sure what your budget is, but SUN is offering SUN Blades for under $1000 if you don't want anything fancy. One neat add-in is the PC card, for about $250 you can get a 700MHz Pentium on a chip and run both windows/solaris on the same box... I THINK you can run windows inside an X window under solaris at full speed...
3. If you find/want some hardware let me know, I have various SUN parts I can part with for cheep. SCA drives, drive brackets, memory, SPARC IPX, etc.
4. Though it cannot support Solaris 8, Old SUN equipment is still in use a lot of places. At my office here we use two SPARC 2 (Pizza boxes) as DNS servers. They have the longest uptime of any machine in the office and only cost $40 each. For playing around though, they are a bit slow, but you can't beat $40. SPARC 1/2 can usually be found on eBay.
Re:looking forward to the russian response...
on
Sklyarov Indicted
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· Score: 1
I seem to remeber a guy getting caned in China (or was it Hong Kong?) for breaking a law. I also seem to remeber the US population screaming and whining about the brutality and unfairness.
But in the end, the US said, "he broke the law, he gets the punishment." And let it happen.
Therefore I doubt Russia will raise a fuss, and I don't think Sklyarov should be set free. you don't break a country's laws (no matter how stupid), go to that country and expect not to get arrested.
On the otherhand, I do think the DMCA is a dumb law. But I actually don't attribute that to heavy bribes by the RIAA, MPAA, et al. I attribute it to minor-to-moderate lobbying, and our government's complete lack of understanding when it comes to technical issues. The Patent Office should be a prime example of that.
1. How to merge the 1200 independant sites. I will assume that there is no phone system at these locations, otherwise I would suggest creating a central office and have the sites dialup to the office, and use normal means (UUCP, PPP, etc) to talk to the Internet. My suggestion for this is to create a radio network. There are many program to transmit packets over the radio, I used to use several of the HAM variety. The important thing to note is that not being in the US, you are not restricted to HAM frequencies or Wattage (distance) restrictions. You may find some inexpensive equipment to blast the packet back to a central office for transfer to the internet. Note, this does require a lot of power
One other idea I had, there are SAT-cell phones not based on Iridium I've seen around. It may be cheaper just to buy one for each office and use that.
2. How to get the central office to talk to the internet. Well, this is a little more tricky. Of course you can always place your central office near the national ISP, but it doesn't sound like they have the bandwidth. Other options include place the central office near the border of the most technologically advanced country and Broadband (ala Sprint-type) the data to them. Try and buy some time on a Iridium-like system for transfer of data (good for mail, bad for web). As a last option, It may be somewhat economical to lay a cable from your central office into the next country. Remeber you probably don't have any of the bureaucratic BS there is in the US, and you probably have cheap labor.
In any case, you need money. I suggest going to the peace corps, or save the children, or the like and ask for funding under the premise of providing internet for the children around these base stations (hey, "It's for the children" seems to work real well). There's always people willing to give money for something. Also, may want to approach Cisco, Intel, etc. Remeber that in these kinds of countries a "small" donation of $500,000 US goes a LONG way.
Rather than weighing the pros and cons of the databases, you should look into the reasons that management wants to convert. Do they want distributable database because they need it? Or becuase it's a cool buzzword? Unless you really need the features and there's no way around it, I would stick with Postgres. At a previous job we used Oracle, and it was expensive, VERY VERY expensive. RIDICULOUSLY expensive. Not only that, but some of the more advanced features (such as parallel server, for true distributed DBs) cost millions (yes, Millions) and can only be implemented (let alone managed) by about three people on the planet.
If you're a company like American Express or Citibank then perhaps Oracle is the way to go. Otherwise, stick with Postgres, if only for the cost reasons. Cost of Oracle is based on how many servers you are running, how many processors on those servers, the speed of those processors, what your business is, and probably the relative IQ of your full-time Oracle DBA. (You do have a licensed Oracle DBA don't you?) On the average, you are looking at $150,000+ per year for software licenses, more if you need 24/7/4 support.
I can't speak for DB2, but I definitely recommend against Oracle. I would seriously spend a lot of time trying to convince management that they don't need the fancy buzzword, and that for anything else, Postgres is fine.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't donate to any organized cause. Even the best run, most efficient ones still have part of your dollar go to administrative or marketing costs.
As you move through life, you will meet plenty of people that need help. Give that pan handler on the side of the road a hamburger. Help your single-working-mother neighbor by paying for a baby sitter so she can have a night out. Buy groceries for the person in line at the store behind you that is using food stamps.
Or, donate your time. Join Habitat for Humanity and build a house for someone.
While all these options take more time/effort than just entering your credit card into a website, those donations of money/time will be completely dedicated to the person in need.
Man, R2-D2 was such a wimp. I want a Mr. Gusty. Later on I can upgrade to the Sentry Bot. In fact, Knightscope needs to change it's name to RobCo. THAT would be awesome.
Guru Meditaiton # 81070000.00524950
Simple solution, just make your pass-phrase "IKilledAGuyIn1998@Work!"
Not only does it meat the requiments of a strong password. Your pass-phrase WOULD be incriminating evidence, and they cannot get you to reveal it.
You and I must be exact opposites. I play games specifically for their rich story lines. Sure, I play MW2 or Borderlands to blow some stuff up on occasion, but I enjoy rich stories like Lost Odyssey much more.
Games are 40-80 hour movies to me. With that length, each character can be explored, their background and motives explained, creating a richer involvement in the story. The reason those games are "grown-up" is because it takes a grown-up patience to play them. Most 10 year olds aren't going to have the patience to watch all the FMVs and read the dialog in a game like Final Fantasy.
I for one certainly hope that more games like Lost Odyssey are released. As the "original" video game generation gets older, I think we'll see more of these games.
I'm soooo gonna collect all the achievement. People will do anything for points...
OK, I may agree that the Ponzi scheme is not a true "problem" I am all for the financial darwinism aspect. But there are problems in EVE:
- Hacking a user's account and stealing their ISK/loot is against the rules
- Selling ISK for real dollars is against the rules
- Spamming to sell ISK in game is against the rules, and damn annoying.
The system above can still be used for these kind of issues.
LL or CCP (makers of EVE) can stop this the same way real credit card companies find fraud. Velocity.
Given that all monetary transactions go through a single transaction system. Those transactions can be monitored by a set of fraud rules. I'll use EVE as an example, since I play the game. Rules would be like:
- Player donations into an account of X ISK over Y hours exceeds Z
(probably hacked accounts feeding a central account)
- Player donations out of account of X ISK to more than Y different players
(probably an ISK-seller)
- Player donations into an account from more than X players over Y hours
(could be ponzi schemes)
Each scam that comes up will have a pattern in monetary transactions that can be flagged using these rules. once an account is flagged, a security representative can review the specifics of the account and determine if it is potentiall fraud, and perhaps suspend the account.
Human interaction is critical here, because the rules are not perfect. For example, the last rule would trigger for most EVE-Radio DJs that run lottos during their on-air time. A perfectly legitimate concept. That where the addition of a white list becomes useful.
A few hours or days with an "expert" who works for a major bank would help curb these issue somewhat. The bad news is, these systems only work when installed in the core of the transaction system. Only LL/CCP can solve this problem, and they have to WANT to solve it.
Wait you mean a blogger's comments aren't what they really think? SAY IT ISN'T SO!
Some people are pissed at MS, some are pissed at the bloggers, but I cannot understand why this is surprising to anyone. Blogging is just another advertising vehicle. For some reason people out there think blogs are unbiased sources of The Truth(tm). Blogs are carefully (or sometimes not-so-carefully) crafted marketing vehicles designed to sell you something without it looking like they are selling you something. Keep that in mind.
Actually, come to think of it, EVERY communication can be considered someone selling you something. Sometimes it's a product, other times it's an concept.
You should be promoting Resin. http://www.caucho.com
We need a Lobby, or a PAC. The EFF, FSF, etc. are great for defending the rights of Joe User and his computer. But are seriously deficient when it comes to defending the common ITer. And maybe this is on purpose, I don't remember anywhere on the EFF site saying they exist to help the IT workers. So it's up to us.
It's obvious that money talks in Washington, and you need LOTS of money. You know why seniors are so listened to and placated by Washinton? (And they are, big time) Because the AARP has LOTS of money and they use it.
Here and Today I suggest and offer to form the IT Political Action Committee (PACIT) -- heh packet -- anyone want to join me?
The main problem I have with the Zarus is that it is FAR heavier than it competitors. I can't carry it around in my pocket, so what good is it?
As usual seems many people did not read the article. The lawsuit is NOT about tracking the individuals in their vehicles (though the article does play that aspect up). The lawsuit is about wording in the contract. Specifically that the renters thought it was $1/mile in the "out of bounds" area and Budget charged them $1/mile on their whole trip. Having not actually seen the contract, I cannot comment on whose right, but this leads to the point.
Companies make rules, if you don't like the rules, then don't buy from them. If you are willing to accept the rules, then you must also be willing to accept the methods used to enforce those rules. Otherwise the rule is pointless.
Now, many people may get upset becuase they previously took advantage of the fact that the company couldn't enforce the rule accurately. But those people have no right to complain. They got lucky and their luck has run out.
I also find it odd that people think that they are allow privacy in a rented vehicle. It's their vehicle, they can do what they want. It is not your vehicle. In the same way that if I was to loan my car to a friend, it is still my vehicle, and if I want to monitor what my friend does with the car, I can. And yes, I would expect my friend to pay for any damages he inflicts on the vehicle as well. Again, if you don't like it, don't rent it.
Ok, seriously, I'm not a physicist, but I did pay attention in High School/College, and I have to ask: Do we KNOW any of this stuff. Or is everything just one (educated) guess on top of another.
Yes, we've made some discoveries, and for the most part things can be explained with the current line of thinking in Physics (Newton, Einstein, etc), but that's the problem, things are only MOSTLY explained, and certain keys are missing.
Take Newton, we've got all sorts of formulas, rules, and experiements built upon the concept of gravity. Something which we cannot define, do not know how it is "made" nor where it comes from. Or perhaps think of the stars, do we KNOW that this star is 8 billion light-year away? Or are we just guessing based on some color-shifting theory that seems to work here on Earth, based on guesses about the total mass of the universe (that we can't find some large percentage of...)
What if we humans are all WAY WAY wrong? What if like the "flat-earthers" of centuries ago, we've justified our THEORY of the planets, stars, solar systems, and the universe based on a completely incorrect model just becuase researchers (or humans in general) don't like to admit they are wrong, or that they don't know something? Are there any radical thinkers left? someone perhaps not starting from Newton or Einstein's work and trying to move it forward, but someone with NO preconsceptions, NO ingrained ideas, and NO outside influences?
Actually, nevermind, even if a person like that did exist, he'd be labeled as a quack in the media, shunned and laughed at by acedemia and problably killed by a nervous government.
Just some random thoughts on a quiet night...
So I'm playing devil's advocate here, and thinking of a way to get this to work. Here's my thought:
Germany tells Microsoft they are going to unleash a BIG NASTY lawsuit unless MS makes a couple of changes in their browser, since browsers are country-dependant to some extent anyway, this isn't all that hard. MS adds code into the German version of IE that calls out to an external time server to grab the correct time. If it's not 11-6 wherever the person is they cannot view the X-rated sites. Repeat process for Netscape and Opera and you have 90-something percent of the browsers out there.
But how to determine an X-rated site? Two options, one have the browser read the RSCA(?) rathing information for the site, if it's not there assume it's X-rated; two, have a state run server that the browsers talk to and a bunch of government workers finding the porn sites to enter in the server (I'm sure there's some religious zealots who would be GLAD to help). The first is userful if you know the web sites will conform, which, if more countries jump on the band wagon, they will for fear of losing customers. The second is a "start-up" plan until the idea gains traction.
Will this stop all the porn? No. Many people will stick to a browser version that doesn't have the "locks" (but they'll be left out of new browser features) or change to a less-known browser, but that's doesn't matter, if the German gov't has the major players under it's belt it can claim a success.
Seriously... if they hand some smart planners, they could pull it off...
I've seen several people comment about the relocation of the fat to another part of the body. IANAB (I am not a biologist) but my understanding is that if the enzyme does not process the fat it will move through your system and come out as waste. The fat will not go anywhere but the toilet.
Since you are not taking in any more fat, the fat you have will be burned off during the normal course of the day and you will lose weight.
By the time you find a tool to help with the migration, learn how the tool works, fix the inevitable quirks, and solve the blantant errors with the software, you could have exported the schema from Sybase, translated it with search/replace by hand, and created the new schema in PostgreSQL for a lot less time and money.
Once the schemas are setup, you can use any number of raw copy tools out there. Borland Delphi comes with one (DataPamp) there are several java-based ones out there. Or you could just write a series of "INSERT INTO" SQL statements with ODBC. This assumes that you are a competent DBA and not like all those Oracle "experts" out there that can't write SQL.
*puts on asbestos*
Ok, seriously, I'm not trying to be difficult here, but where is the part in the constitution that says you have the right to be anonymous. I understand the right of free speech, and general "freedoms" granted, but the right to say what you want is not the same as the right to say things anonymously. People need to be responsible for their actions and their words. While sometimes anonymity is usefull and necessary (such as children reporting sexual abusers), most of the time all an anonymous service does is encourage people to behave poorly. When people are not responsible for their actions, they behave irresponsibly.
Take for example the SPAM I get through YIM (or Email). If one was REQUIRED to properly identify themselves in order to get a YIM account, and that identity included name, phone number, etc. How many "HOT SEXXX!!!" messages would you get? Very few, considering you could call them or get their address and harass them back if they annoyed you.
The same applies to the web, I see no reason why a company can't track you through a site. your are on THEIR servers, using THEIR service. They can do what they want as far as it extends to tracking your way around their system. AS for telling you about it. I think people need to realize that they have NO privacy unless they work to create it. Assume all companies are trying to get EVERYTHING from you they can (since they are) and assume that any information you give out unsecured on the web is public domain (since it is anyway).
I know this has been discussed before, but I do honestly believe that a "National ID system" may be useful. The question is making the system difficult to circumvent. The best solution I have at the moment is smartcard chips embedded under the skin (seriously, I think this is cool!) that could be used to track you, grant you access to things you should have access to, and keep you out of things your shouldn't. Just think of the criminal uses if anyone could be tracked. The whole determination of who was at the scene of a crime and who wasn't would be a simple database query. Yea, yea, I know, mark of the beast, but I don't subscribe to that religion.
Oh, no, I don't see National ID cards, tracking, or the FBI reading my E-mail as a loss of my privacy, I didn't think I had privacy in the first place. Besides, if the FBI is really interested in reading the love letters between me and my Fiancee, be my guest.
*takes asbestos off*
Those Sir, are fighting words! *throws down gauntlet*
HEH... just kidding. Actually, I like doing the research, the part that is frustrating is having to buy the components from so many different places to get a good deal.
One company has cheap RAM, but marks up CPUs, one has cheap CPUs, but marks up Drives. And then every two weeks they change which are good deals. (thank god for PriceWatch). The companies I GUESS hope that you will buy their marked up products along with their sale items to avoid multiple shipping charges. All it does is piss me off. One of these days someone will find out how to make money in Hardware.
This might be a little off-topic, but as far as I see it, the problem with Gateway not being able to support a line of computers that does sell that many, is the support cost behind it. You need AMD-knowledgeable tech support, different MoBos, different assemblies, etc.
Dell, IBM, etc. all have the same problem. And it all seems to be related to the fact that the support costs for a low-margin, low-sales product line is too high. So why are the costs so high? From my experience, it's customer support. Too many people don't know how to use a computer and call (harass) the computer companies tech-support for the most minor of issues.
So I was thinking... let's turn it around. Create a computer company for smart people. Do not offer tech support. Do not offer customer service (outside of basic order processing) Just assemble and ship the product. If you don't know how to use it, don't buy it from us. A side benefit of this idea would be that "hard-core" computer geeks can stop wandering from site to site to build their computers. Since there's little over-head to cover, prices will stay cheap.
The same idea can be applied to ISPs. The major cost of an ISP is the customer support staff to go along with it. I'm sure there's a LOT of people out there that would gladly save 10%-25% of their Internet fee in exchange for having no customer support (since most people-in-the-know don't use it anyway).
I code almost 100% in Java with a smattering of Delphi. In the case of Delphi, I cannot see using command-line tools. It would be a mess (though possible). Generally, GUI apps require a GUI to design. otherwise you spend a lot of time fiddling with variouos parameters to get the window to look right. (or you end up with interfaces like those nasty Java 1.1 applets... ICK!)
In the case of java, which for me is mostly server apps. A GUI is not as important I used VIM for 4 years to write java. However, I have since changed to Forte and can confirm that my productivity has increased. I find the GUI IDE to be faster to perform tasks across mulitple files, faster to compile and re-run applications and easier to use than text-based editors.
On the other hand, one has to be careful to not rely on and IDE too much. If you become so attached to a particular IDE such that you cannot debug an app or run a program without it, you become less useful as a programmer, esp. in the open source arena where some things you didn't write just won't work under an IDE. I see this a lot with HTML developers, many of them cannot write HTML, they NEED FrontPage or Visual InterDEV just to work. I see this a serious flaw in their experience.
For me, all my HTML is written in TextPad or Forte. I've found by not relying on IDE tools my code comes out cleaner and smaller. and has less problems with the various different browsers.
Couple of things:
1. CRA in Phoenix, AZ (602-944-1548) has Ultra 1s complete with 20" Monitor, 4GB SCA HDD, 128MB RAM for about $200-$400. Some systems actually come with the Creator3D card (be sure to ask for it).
2. Not sure what your budget is, but SUN is offering SUN Blades for under $1000 if you don't want anything fancy. One neat add-in is the PC card, for about $250 you can get a 700MHz Pentium on a chip and run both windows/solaris on the same box... I THINK you can run windows inside an X window under solaris at full speed...
3. If you find/want some hardware let me know, I have various SUN parts I can part with for cheep. SCA drives, drive brackets, memory, SPARC IPX, etc.
4. Though it cannot support Solaris 8, Old SUN equipment is still in use a lot of places. At my office here we use two SPARC 2 (Pizza boxes) as DNS servers. They have the longest uptime of any machine in the office and only cost $40 each. For playing around though, they are a bit slow, but you can't beat $40. SPARC 1/2 can usually be found on eBay.
I seem to remeber a guy getting caned in China (or was it Hong Kong?) for breaking a law. I also seem to remeber the US population screaming and whining about the brutality and unfairness.
But in the end, the US said, "he broke the law, he gets the punishment." And let it happen.
Therefore I doubt Russia will raise a fuss, and I don't think Sklyarov should be set free. you don't break a country's laws (no matter how stupid), go to that country and expect not to get arrested.
On the otherhand, I do think the DMCA is a dumb law. But I actually don't attribute that to heavy bribes by the RIAA, MPAA, et al. I attribute it to minor-to-moderate lobbying, and our government's complete lack of understanding when it comes to technical issues. The Patent Office should be a prime example of that.
There seems to be two problems here:
1. How to merge the 1200 independant sites. I will assume that there is no phone system at these locations, otherwise I would suggest creating a central office and have the sites dialup to the office, and use normal means (UUCP, PPP, etc) to talk to the Internet. My suggestion for this is to create a radio network. There are many program to transmit packets over the radio, I used to use several of the HAM variety. The important thing to note is that not being in the US, you are not restricted to HAM frequencies or Wattage (distance) restrictions. You may find some inexpensive equipment to blast the packet back to a central office for transfer to the internet. Note, this does require a lot of power
One other idea I had, there are SAT-cell phones not based on Iridium I've seen around. It may be cheaper just to buy one for each office and use that.
2. How to get the central office to talk to the internet. Well, this is a little more tricky. Of course you can always place your central office near the national ISP, but it doesn't sound like they have the bandwidth. Other options include place the central office near the border of the most technologically advanced country and Broadband (ala Sprint-type) the data to them. Try and buy some time on a Iridium-like system for transfer of data (good for mail, bad for web). As a last option, It may be somewhat economical to lay a cable from your central office into the next country. Remeber you probably don't have any of the bureaucratic BS there is in the US, and you probably have cheap labor.
In any case, you need money. I suggest going to the peace corps, or save the children, or the like and ask for funding under the premise of providing internet for the children around these base stations (hey, "It's for the children" seems to work real well). There's always people willing to give money for something. Also, may want to approach Cisco, Intel, etc. Remeber that in these kinds of countries a "small" donation of $500,000 US goes a LONG way.
Rather than weighing the pros and cons of the databases, you should look into the reasons that management wants to convert. Do they want distributable database because they need it? Or becuase it's a cool buzzword? Unless you really need the features and there's no way around it, I would stick with Postgres. At a previous job we used Oracle, and it was expensive, VERY VERY expensive. RIDICULOUSLY expensive. Not only that, but some of the more advanced features (such as parallel server, for true distributed DBs) cost millions (yes, Millions) and can only be implemented (let alone managed) by about three people on the planet.
If you're a company like American Express or Citibank then perhaps Oracle is the way to go. Otherwise, stick with Postgres, if only for the cost reasons. Cost of Oracle is based on how many servers you are running, how many processors on those servers, the speed of those processors, what your business is, and probably the relative IQ of your full-time Oracle DBA. (You do have a licensed Oracle DBA don't you?) On the average, you are looking at $150,000+ per year for software licenses, more if you need 24/7/4 support.
I can't speak for DB2, but I definitely recommend against Oracle. I would seriously spend a lot of time trying to convince management that they don't need the fancy buzzword, and that for anything else, Postgres is fine.
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He had come like a thief in the night,