If you can use something other than Linux, then ZFS is the winner. Take a look at the FreeBSD ZFS Quick Start, particularly the examples. That's possibly the coolest filesystem demo I've ever seen.
The cheapest 16 GB flash drives are like $40-$50 aren't they? And that won't even hold the movie.
A blank BluRay disc probably costs around $1 I'd guess [...]
So how many times can you re-write that Blu-Ray disc?
And if we don't like outsourcing we can stop it with strikes. It'll work because they can't stop the company from functioning this year just to save money for next year.
Please do strike! That means a nice bonus for me when I VPN in to fix your union-addled messes. All the scab benefits, but without having to cross a picket line. Let's get started!
I worked in an office in a union-heavy town. Our department was moving from one floor in our office building to another, but the mandatory union laborers were taking forever to carry our PCs up that flight of stairs. After a few hours of waiting, I gave up and moved my own (10 pound) PC which riled the union mightily.
Screw 'em. If they're going to artificially inflate their wages, then they better also increase the workload they can manage.
No, it's an "I understand economics" mentality. Loosely, price = supply * demand, where supply is inversely proportional to skills. If you raise your price, then you better be able to lower the supply of people of people like you or else demand will drop.
Not everyone can be a CEO or manager.
Who'd want to be? Yuck. But take up web development if you haven't already, or learn Asterisk, or improve the spam filter on your email system, or... There are unlimited ways to make yourself more valuable.
Re:Yes, tech workers need unions
on
Should IT Unionize?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
By joining a union, workers can push back against being treated as nothing more than a disposable tool.
If you can be treated as a disposable tool, then guess what: you are. The solution is to pick up harder-to-replace job skills, not to make your easily-replaceable skills more expensive.
Anything except find another job, apparently. Sheesh, quit whining. NO! Not every job is like that, and if you think every job requires 24/7, then you're simply myopic. Come out of your cave and do some research.
Amen. I get to work every day after dropping the kids off at school at around 8:15, then leave to pick them up at 3:00. I get home and telecommute for a couple hours while my kids are doing homework and playing outside, then I'm done for the day. I only get called at home in case of hardware failure or serious system problems (maybe 3-4 times in the last 5 years). The only weekend work I do is stuff that can't be done during business hours, like firewall upgrades or database maintenance - and I get either paid overtime or comp time for it.
A lot of people put up with crappy working conditions, but that doesn't mean we've all been suckered into it.
The AMA and ABA have very strict tests before one gets into these schools, and even harder tests at the end of them before they'll let you in the club.
Furthermore, those difficult credentials are appropriate to those professions. There aren't a lot of jobs for minimally-skilled doctors or lawyers. On the other hand, there are plenty of ways for new IT workers to get into the workforce. Someone has to be the printer tech or mouse replacer.
I had to quit the ACM because I could not ethically comply with their Code of Ethics:
1.5 Honor property rights including copyrights and patent.
Violation of copyrights, patents, trade secrets and the terms of license agreements is prohibited by law in most circumstances. Even when software is not so protected, such violations are contrary to professional behavior. Copies of software should be made only with proper authorization. Unauthorized duplication of materials must not be condoned.
First, I do not feel morally obligated to agree with EULAs, nor will I ever. If the law eventually says that they're binding, then I'll go along grudgingly, but I certainly won't voluntarily submit to hidden contracts.
Second, it is impossible to write a modern program without violating patents. Even if I believed that software patents are legitimate - and I don't - there are simply too many to avoid stepping on a few in all but the most trivial of applications.
I like the ACM in general, but don't support their core values. As such, I can't be a member anymore.
and then in 2-4 years, when the lease runs out, have the domain owner either (i) increase the rent by 1000x or worse, (ii) offer to put it on the market.
To sum it up, there's often no real benefit to doing trivial things (e.g. rendering JPEGs) in parallel, because you're obligating the OS to say "you, now you, now you" when the designer should have just done them in series anyway.
Well, the one advantage is that the "abundantly" threaded version will continue to scale on those 64-core CPUs that Intel and AMD like to show off every now and then. 4-core systems are comparatively common now, either with Core 2 Quad CPUs or two Core 2 Duos (or Opterons), and I'm betting that Microsoft thinks that the extra overhead will be smaller than the gain from having more threads which can be load-balanced.
I'm guessing (!!!) that they're doing things like rendering graphics in separate threads, so that a very complex page would display images as they're completed instead of working throw them one at a time. Were something like that the case, I could see how that could be a clean way to go.
Or perhaps they're just smoking crack. I'll be darned if I'm going to be cornered into defending Microsoft's development methods.
Sorry but that's rubbish! How you can start a process which ONLY contains the webpage and no executable code? How would it render? If you're using Google Chrome's model, every new tab has to have the entire rending engine and user interface in it - the complete browser. Looks to me like you haven't RTFA or you'd understand how it works.
Oh, sorry. I assumed that Windows was a real OS by now and used some variant of COW so that child processes share data with their parents. On Linux, *BSD, etc., the only memory used by child processes is the data unique to them.
Because obviously an OS that schedules everything you throw at it â" from Windows Movie Maker to Firefox to RealPlayer to Excel, to trivially name a few â" is going to know how to schedule the threads for a browser, without actually knowing it's a browser, better than, say, the browser's developer.
You're correct. There are two primary types of web pages: static information displays and interactive applications. The former don't require scheduling because they just sit there passively waiting for you to click something. The latter are conceptually identical to desktop applications, except that they happen to be running in a browser tab. If you had three different Google apps open in three different Firefox instances, you'd expect the OS to schedule them appropriately.
It creates a new entire browser PROCESS for each tab. What could be more bloaty than that? That will mean LOTS more RAM.
Why? The only extra RAM used by each process would be the amount used to render and display its page, which would be required anyway, plus a little overhead for IPC to the shared buffer, etc.
I do not think all is lost on this browser, however... even if it assumes RAM is cheap and your CPU has over 171 cores to spare.
I currently have 191 processes on my dual-core processor. I also have an OS that knows how to run more than one program at a time. Basically, I'd rather have an interactive program that splits its load over 171 threads or processes and let the OS handle scheduling than one that tries to do everything in one thread or process. After all, the OS has a few decades of optimizations for exactly this under its belt.
I'd much rather have 200 mostly-idle threads than 1 core-burning monster. The real news here is that MSIE will probably run better on modern CPUs. I'm kind of glad in a way to see Firefox getting some real competition and incentive for improvement.
Posted via Konqueror. I don't have a dog in this hunt, although I'd be much happier with Firefox dominance than with IE.
Hey, Udo! I bought a copy of WebLord from you at an Amiga show in St. Louis. That was about a month after I'd managed to get a RealAudio player compiled for AmigaOS. Small world, eh?:-)
Yeah, but such a short prison sentence for murder?
A guaranteed minimum of 15 years is not short. Graduate high school, go away for 15, and come back to a mid-30s version of yourself. While your friends were coming of age and starting careers and making lives, you were rotting in prison. I'm mid-30s now, and I'd hate to wake up one morning as a 50-year-old. Now, I'm not saying that he doesn't deserve a harsh sentence, but honestly, 15 years in PMITA prison isn't a cake walk.
My mom was the sysadmin for the world's second installation of a Xerox Star system (the first commercial WIMP desktop). She can do her own BSD upgrades.
So the existence of these proprietary postgres-derived databases means that you don't get to use postgres because its code is now "locked up"?
No. It means that I don't get to use the modified, enhanced derivatives that are tucked away where no one can get at them. Still, that's the choice of the PostgreSQL developers. They chose a license that explicitly allowed that, as is their right. The post I replied to was complaining that GPL-using authors did not make the same choice.
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If you can use something other than Linux, then ZFS is the winner. Take a look at the FreeBSD ZFS Quick Start, particularly the examples. That's possibly the coolest filesystem demo I've ever seen.
The cheapest 16 GB flash drives are like $40-$50 aren't they? And that won't even hold the movie.
A blank BluRay disc probably costs around $1 I'd guess [...]
So how many times can you re-write that Blu-Ray disc?
And if we don't like outsourcing we can stop it with strikes. It'll work because they can't stop the company from functioning this year just to save money for next year.
Please do strike! That means a nice bonus for me when I VPN in to fix your union-addled messes. All the scab benefits, but without having to cross a picket line. Let's get started!
I told this story recently, but to recap:
I worked in an office in a union-heavy town. Our department was moving from one floor in our office building to another, but the mandatory union laborers were taking forever to carry our PCs up that flight of stairs. After a few hours of waiting, I gave up and moved my own (10 pound) PC which riled the union mightily.
Screw 'em. If they're going to artificially inflate their wages, then they better also increase the workload they can manage.
OK, but this is a "I got mine" mentality.
No, it's an "I understand economics" mentality. Loosely, price = supply * demand, where supply is inversely proportional to skills. If you raise your price, then you better be able to lower the supply of people of people like you or else demand will drop.
Not everyone can be a CEO or manager.
Who'd want to be? Yuck. But take up web development if you haven't already, or learn Asterisk, or improve the spam filter on your email system, or... There are unlimited ways to make yourself more valuable.
By joining a union, workers can push back against being treated as nothing more than a disposable tool.
If you can be treated as a disposable tool, then guess what: you are. The solution is to pick up harder-to-replace job skills, not to make your easily-replaceable skills more expensive.
Anything except find another job, apparently. Sheesh, quit whining. NO! Not every job is like that, and if you think every job requires 24/7, then you're simply myopic. Come out of your cave and do some research.
Amen. I get to work every day after dropping the kids off at school at around 8:15, then leave to pick them up at 3:00. I get home and telecommute for a couple hours while my kids are doing homework and playing outside, then I'm done for the day. I only get called at home in case of hardware failure or serious system problems (maybe 3-4 times in the last 5 years). The only weekend work I do is stuff that can't be done during business hours, like firewall upgrades or database maintenance - and I get either paid overtime or comp time for it.
A lot of people put up with crappy working conditions, but that doesn't mean we've all been suckered into it.
The AMA and ABA have very strict tests before one gets into these schools, and even harder tests at the end of them before they'll let you in the club.
Furthermore, those difficult credentials are appropriate to those professions. There aren't a lot of jobs for minimally-skilled doctors or lawyers. On the other hand, there are plenty of ways for new IT workers to get into the workforce. Someone has to be the printer tech or mouse replacer.
You mean that I'd finally be able to afford a house there?
Sure, but the armor plating may get pricey.
We already have an association: ACM.org
I had to quit the ACM because I could not ethically comply with their Code of Ethics:
First, I do not feel morally obligated to agree with EULAs, nor will I ever. If the law eventually says that they're binding, then I'll go along grudgingly, but I certainly won't voluntarily submit to hidden contracts.
Second, it is impossible to write a modern program without violating patents. Even if I believed that software patents are legitimate - and I don't - there are simply too many to avoid stepping on a few in all but the most trivial of applications.
I like the ACM in general, but don't support their core values. As such, I can't be a member anymore.
I m sure you never use flash on crappy web pages
Gnash plays Youtube - on FreeBSD/AMD64 no less. If there are other uses of Flash, I've never been tempted to learn about them.
and then in 2-4 years, when the lease runs out, have the domain owner either (i) increase the rent by 1000x or worse, (ii) offer to put it on the market.
In the business world, 99-year leases are common.
Keep it, but offer to lease DNS records to them. Basically, rent "www IN A ....." while keeping control of the domain itself.
To sum it up, there's often no real benefit to doing trivial things (e.g. rendering JPEGs) in parallel, because you're obligating the OS to say "you, now you, now you" when the designer should have just done them in series anyway.
Well, the one advantage is that the "abundantly" threaded version will continue to scale on those 64-core CPUs that Intel and AMD like to show off every now and then. 4-core systems are comparatively common now, either with Core 2 Quad CPUs or two Core 2 Duos (or Opterons), and I'm betting that Microsoft thinks that the extra overhead will be smaller than the gain from having more threads which can be load-balanced.
Well, that sounds a whole awful lot like their problem, and not a problem with the concept in general.
I'm guessing (!!!) that they're doing things like rendering graphics in separate threads, so that a very complex page would display images as they're completed instead of working throw them one at a time. Were something like that the case, I could see how that could be a clean way to go.
Or perhaps they're just smoking crack. I'll be darned if I'm going to be cornered into defending Microsoft's development methods.
Sorry but that's rubbish! How you can start a process which ONLY contains the webpage and no executable code? How would it render? If you're using Google Chrome's model, every new tab has to have the entire rending engine and user interface in it - the complete browser. Looks to me like you haven't RTFA or you'd understand how it works.
Oh, sorry. I assumed that Windows was a real OS by now and used some variant of COW so that child processes share data with their parents. On Linux, *BSD, etc., the only memory used by child processes is the data unique to them.
Because obviously an OS that schedules everything you throw at it â" from Windows Movie Maker to Firefox to RealPlayer to Excel, to trivially name a few â" is going to know how to schedule the threads for a browser, without actually knowing it's a browser, better than, say, the browser's developer.
You're correct. There are two primary types of web pages: static information displays and interactive applications. The former don't require scheduling because they just sit there passively waiting for you to click something. The latter are conceptually identical to desktop applications, except that they happen to be running in a browser tab. If you had three different Google apps open in three different Firefox instances, you'd expect the OS to schedule them appropriately.
It creates a new entire browser PROCESS for each tab. What could be more bloaty than that? That will mean LOTS more RAM.
Why? The only extra RAM used by each process would be the amount used to render and display its page, which would be required anyway, plus a little overhead for IPC to the shared buffer, etc.
I do not think all is lost on this browser, however ... even if it assumes RAM is cheap and your CPU has over 171 cores to spare.
I currently have 191 processes on my dual-core processor. I also have an OS that knows how to run more than one program at a time. Basically, I'd rather have an interactive program that splits its load over 171 threads or processes and let the OS handle scheduling than one that tries to do everything in one thread or process. After all, the OS has a few decades of optimizations for exactly this under its belt.
I'd much rather have 200 mostly-idle threads than 1 core-burning monster. The real news here is that MSIE will probably run better on modern CPUs. I'm kind of glad in a way to see Firefox getting some real competition and incentive for improvement.
Posted via Konqueror. I don't have a dog in this hunt, although I'd be much happier with Firefox dominance than with IE.
Hey, Udo! I bought a copy of WebLord from you at an Amiga show in St. Louis. That was about a month after I'd managed to get a RealAudio player compiled for AmigaOS. Small world, eh? :-)
Yeah, but such a short prison sentence for murder?
A guaranteed minimum of 15 years is not short. Graduate high school, go away for 15, and come back to a mid-30s version of yourself. While your friends were coming of age and starting careers and making lives, you were rotting in prison. I'm mid-30s now, and I'd hate to wake up one morning as a 50-year-old. Now, I'm not saying that he doesn't deserve a harsh sentence, but honestly, 15 years in PMITA prison isn't a cake walk.
My mom was the sysadmin for the world's second installation of a Xerox Star system (the first commercial WIMP desktop). She can do her own BSD upgrades.
So the existence of these proprietary postgres-derived databases means that you don't get to use postgres because its code is now "locked up"?
No. It means that I don't get to use the modified, enhanced derivatives that are tucked away where no one can get at them. Still, that's the choice of the PostgreSQL developers. They chose a license that explicitly allowed that, as is their right. The post I replied to was complaining that GPL-using authors did not make the same choice.