I'm slightly curious about the original poster's assertion that "I certainly hope this catches on." What does (s)he hope catches on; that distro companies offer free service while beta-ing their service? Seems an odd thing to wish for, since it's a one-time offer that's hardly going to set the world alight.
While one of the other responders to you is correct, and the email address from the submittor is a gen-ux.com email addr, I think the "I certainly hope this catches on," comment in the post comes from the editor./. tends to quote a submittor, and then non quoted text is from the editor, in this case, ScuttleMonkey. The posting looks like a GenUX person submitted a story saying, "we got this thing," and from the rest of the post, it looks like ScuttleMonkey called them up, checked it out, and posted his feelings on the topic, with no real commentary by the submittor in the posting at all. Anyway, that's how it read to me...
Attention citizen, you have been doing evil, posting to a capitalist website! Please report to the "Do No Evil" Friendship Happy Center.
I see by the Big Board we got a Negative Nellie in Sector Two. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to kind of freeze and prepare for Re-Neducation.
i remember a few years ago seeing someone at best buy or circuit city (can't remember which offhand) buying 5 printers at the friday after thanksgiving sale. the printers, with black and color cartridges, were on sale for something like $20 or $30 each. i asked him why he wanted 5 printers, and he told me that it was just so much cheaper to pay $30 for a printer and 2 cartridges than $30 each for 1 cartridge. the printers were pretty much disposable/one-time-use.
Re:Too many fronts for Microsoft
on
Gates on Google
·
· Score: 1
I was mostly thinking on the scale of Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, Altavista, and what have you. A tool in the context of searching your computer for files and/or information is one thing, writing a search engine to crawl the internet, generate ad revenue, and all the related ilk is quite another.
Too many fronts for Microsoft
on
Gates on Google
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I think that this section says a lot:
But Microsoft isn't exactly in fighting trim. Its ambitious new operating system, code-named Longhorn, is more than a year late, even after having been scaled back. Linux, the free operating system that Gates once scoffed at, is fighting Microsoft for share in both the server and desktop markets, forcing the company to do the unthinkable: offer customer discounts. Last year it had to spend $1 billion to rewrite thousands of lines of code to make its programs less susceptible to viruses. Its Xbox gaming console is winning raves from players but has yet to make serious money. Meanwhile, Apple has stolen the show in online music with its hugely popular iPod and iTunes Music Store. Plus, the recently released Firefox browser, which can be downloaded free, has forced Gates to reconstitute an Internet Explorer development team. Indeed, four years have passed since Microsoft released a piece of software that generated the kind of buzz Google seems to generate every month.
So Microsoft is competing with Linux on the overall OS, with Sony and Nintendo in the gaming market, with Apple for music related things, with Mozilla for browsers, and with Google (and Yahoo) for search. The battle is being fought on too many fronts. All of these companies that are succeeding in competing with Microsoft are succeeding because they're trying to do one thing well. They may have other projects they work on, but they devote themselves full out to that one arena in most cases. Apple isn't trying to write search engines. The Moz folks aren't getting into digital music. Too many fronts...
The thing I don't like about this new change is that, yes, there is already an exception for the pre-existing business relationship. If a company calls me now, I can tell the person who called "put me on your do not call list," and they won't bug me anymore.
However, my gripe about pre-recorded messages is it puts the burden on the consumer to get off the list -- you have to call the company that just called you back, then get a person on the phone and get them to remove you from their list.
It just makes it that much harder for consumers to deal with, and that much easier for the companies bugging them. Banks of computers are a lot cheaper than banks of people, when traversing a list of millions of phone numbers...
the problem with the quick fix is that it logs you on to a different server. if you log onto scs.yahoo.com, you cannot see people logged onto scs.msg.yahoo.com, which is where everyone using the official client logs onto. it will let you on, but you'll not be able to converse with anyone except others using scs.yahoo.com, so it's not exactly a useful solution.
"For the call center it is frustration -- you don't want to lose the customer because they are becoming frustrated."
i understand that they want to use the automated systems as much as possible to take the load off of people, but if they are finding that the systems are causing so much frustration that they need to guage the amount of frustration in a person's voice in order to potentially keep them as a customer, then there's obviously flaws in the system already, and perhaps super crazy automated phone systems isn't a great customer service idea to begin with.
First of all, what does my prospective employer have to do with what other positions I apply for?
I think the point he is making (or at least the way i interpreted it) is not to apply for 100 jobs at one company. For example, Amazon has hundreds of jobs listed on their website, with many of them containing overlapping requirements. Apply for a handful of them that sound really cool, don't apply for every job on their website. That will make you look desperate.
Clearly, something monumental must be going on in the world of computing for these technology titans simultaneously to discover something that is so profound and yet so hard to name.
There's nothing monumental that's really floated to the surface yet. I work in grid computing, which itself is an amazing buzzword that everyone wants to say and no one understands (hell, I am not really sure what the purpose of what I do is).
Everyone's grasping for straws right now, b/c when some research project actually does become useful, they want to be in front of the wave so they can ride it all the way. This is everyone throwing out made up words in the hopes that people will like some (or at least one) of them. Around here, our made up phrase that I love is that we are being called "the cornerstone of cyberinfrastructure." It's even been used so much that they've shortened cyberinfrastructure to "CI" in big rambling memos about our future and direction. It's sort of depressing, though, when you realize that none of this actually means anything yet. Maybe it will one day, but that's not quite here yet.
Why the conspiracy theory? Why isn't it possible that the bug had been identified, the developers decided it was enough of a reason to push a new release, and when the new release is pushed, with the reason being b/c of a bug that may or may not be exploitable. Then unsubstantiated rumors of exploits start floating around b/c of this.
There isn't a grand conspiracy. It's just how people work. I person says something like, "So I heared that there is the possibility of an exploit due to a bug in OpenSSH they found." Someone overhears and turns around and tells the next person they see, "There's a hole in ssh that's exploitable!" and it takes off from there.
There is a patch available, as well as it being fixed in 3.7, which was just released this morning. That's the point of all of this. The mention of the bug was in the 3.7 release notes, i believe.
And finally, off the actual topic: let's watch the Slashdot effect in action! When I first hit the Taipei Times article, it included this text at the bottom:
This story has been viewed 1128 times.
By the time I typed this comment, the number had not changed, so I'm probably getting a cached copy. What did it show when you hit it?
When I looked at 13:04 Central Time, it had been viewed 3346 times, though it took 2 minutes for the page to load.:)
"If there was a time we need a viable competitor to Office, it's now."
For people functioning in business environments, we don't need a competitor. We need cross platform compatibility. Windows people aren't going to use Open Office if MS Office exists in any form. If they can send.doc,.xls,.ppt, whatever, to 90% of their co-workers, then I have to conform to what they're using. They don't care about "Free as in speech." They care about "Work as in what's on their computer that they can use."
A competitor isn't needed. Putting a stop to this gross abuse of their monopoly is what is needed. Convincing MS that forcing people to upgrade and not talk to anyone not using Windows is bad is what's needed.
O'Reilly's Worst Failure
on
Linux Clustering
·
· Score: 3, Informative
In my mind, this is simple -- I have never read a worse O'Reilly book than Building Linux Clusters. There is a reason that ORA pulled this book out of print after only 6 months, and haven't even bothered to try to fix it and reprint a new edition. It was basically a commercial for the company the author ran, it read as if it hadn't been edited (spelling and grammar mistakes everywhere, included pictures were of the wrong thing that the text referred to), and the code included was so buggy it wouldn't work at all without a lot of fixing.
This was the first book on Linux Clustering I read, and I was hugely disappointed
Slashdot Mirror
I'm slightly curious about the original poster's assertion that "I certainly hope this catches on." What does (s)he hope catches on; that distro companies offer free service while beta-ing their service? Seems an odd thing to wish for, since it's a one-time offer that's hardly going to set the world alight.
While one of the other responders to you is correct, and the email address from the submittor is a gen-ux.com email addr, I think the "I certainly hope this catches on," comment in the post comes from the editor. /. tends to quote a submittor, and then non quoted text is from the editor, in this case, ScuttleMonkey. The posting looks like a GenUX person submitted a story saying, "we got this thing," and from the rest of the post, it looks like ScuttleMonkey called them up, checked it out, and posted his feelings on the topic, with no real commentary by the submittor in the posting at all. Anyway, that's how it read to me...
Attention citizen, you have been doing evil, posting to a capitalist website! Please report to the "Do No Evil" Friendship Happy Center.
I see by the Big Board we got a Negative Nellie in Sector Two. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to kind of freeze and prepare for Re-Neducation.
i remember a few years ago seeing someone at best buy or circuit city (can't remember which offhand) buying 5 printers at the friday after thanksgiving sale. the printers, with black and color cartridges, were on sale for something like $20 or $30 each. i asked him why he wanted 5 printers, and he told me that it was just so much cheaper to pay $30 for a printer and 2 cartridges than $30 each for 1 cartridge. the printers were pretty much disposable/one-time-use.
What else to say than...
"Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!"
What about, "I've got a bad feeling about this."
it was probably dobrk, that was one of the vulnerabilities the attacker(s) used last year to root systems.
see http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/xfdb/13880 (this was the 1st google link i saw, there are probably others with better information but i'm lazy).
I was mostly thinking on the scale of Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, Altavista, and what have you. A tool in the context of searching your computer for files and/or information is one thing, writing a search engine to crawl the internet, generate ad revenue, and all the related ilk is quite another.
I think that this section says a lot:
But Microsoft isn't exactly in fighting trim. Its ambitious new operating system, code-named Longhorn, is more than a year late, even after having been scaled back. Linux, the free operating system that Gates once scoffed at, is fighting Microsoft for share in both the server and desktop markets, forcing the company to do the unthinkable: offer customer discounts. Last year it had to spend $1 billion to rewrite thousands of lines of code to make its programs less susceptible to viruses. Its Xbox gaming console is winning raves from players but has yet to make serious money. Meanwhile, Apple has stolen the show in online music with its hugely popular iPod and iTunes Music Store. Plus, the recently released Firefox browser, which can be downloaded free, has forced Gates to reconstitute an Internet Explorer development team. Indeed, four years have passed since Microsoft released a piece of software that generated the kind of buzz Google seems to generate every month.
So Microsoft is competing with Linux on the overall OS, with Sony and Nintendo in the gaming market, with Apple for music related things, with Mozilla for browsers, and with Google (and Yahoo) for search. The battle is being fought on too many fronts. All of these companies that are succeeding in competing with Microsoft are succeeding because they're trying to do one thing well. They may have other projects they work on, but they devote themselves full out to that one arena in most cases. Apple isn't trying to write search engines. The Moz folks aren't getting into digital music. Too many fronts...
The thing I don't like about this new change is that, yes, there is already an exception for the pre-existing business relationship. If a company calls me now, I can tell the person who called "put me on your do not call list," and they won't bug me anymore.
However, my gripe about pre-recorded messages is it puts the burden on the consumer to get off the list -- you have to call the company that just called you back, then get a person on the phone and get them to remove you from their list.
It just makes it that much harder for consumers to deal with, and that much easier for the companies bugging them. Banks of computers are a lot cheaper than banks of people, when traversing a list of millions of phone numbers...
http://liftport.com/progress/index.php?blog=9&cat= 28
the problem with the quick fix is that it logs you on to a different server. if you log onto scs.yahoo.com, you cannot see people logged onto scs.msg.yahoo.com, which is where everyone using the official client logs onto. it will let you on, but you'll not be able to converse with anyone except others using scs.yahoo.com, so it's not exactly a useful solution.
From Stretch Dude and Clobber Girl Halloween episode:
Lucite...hardening...Must end life in classic Lorne Greene pose from Battlestar Gallactica. Best...death...ever!
Yeah, really what I want to come from a device that sits on my lap is radiation. That'll be great...
Purpose: Enables evildoers to do evil (and OS detection).
should be...
Purpose: Hacking the Matrix
CSI Gil Grissom suspects foul play as several small, yellow feathers were found at the scene.
You meant fowl play, right?
"For the call center it is frustration -- you don't want to lose the customer because they are becoming frustrated."
i understand that they want to use the automated systems as much as possible to take the load off of people, but if they are finding that the systems are causing so much frustration that they need to guage the amount of frustration in a person's voice in order to potentially keep them as a customer, then there's obviously flaws in the system already, and perhaps super crazy automated phone systems isn't a great customer service idea to begin with.
First of all, what does my prospective employer have to do with what other positions I apply for?
I think the point he is making (or at least the way i interpreted it) is not to apply for 100 jobs at one company. For example, Amazon has hundreds of jobs listed on their website, with many of them containing overlapping requirements. Apply for a handful of them that sound really cool, don't apply for every job on their website. That will make you look desperate.
Clearly, something monumental must be going on in the world of computing for these technology titans simultaneously to discover something that is so profound and yet so hard to name.
There's nothing monumental that's really floated to the surface yet. I work in grid computing, which itself is an amazing buzzword that everyone wants to say and no one understands (hell, I am not really sure what the purpose of what I do is).
Everyone's grasping for straws right now, b/c when some research project actually does become useful, they want to be in front of the wave so they can ride it all the way. This is everyone throwing out made up words in the hopes that people will like some (or at least one) of them. Around here, our made up phrase that I love is that we are being called "the cornerstone of cyberinfrastructure." It's even been used so much that they've shortened cyberinfrastructure to "CI" in big rambling memos about our future and direction. It's sort of depressing, though, when you realize that none of this actually means anything yet. Maybe it will one day, but that's not quite here yet.
wow. i'd like to apologize for my spelling and grammar. that was pretty atrocious. way too little sleep lately. :)
Why the conspiracy theory? Why isn't it possible that the bug had been identified, the developers decided it was enough of a reason to push a new release, and when the new release is pushed, with the reason being b/c of a bug that may or may not be exploitable. Then unsubstantiated rumors of exploits start floating around b/c of this.
There isn't a grand conspiracy. It's just how people work. I person says something like, "So I heared that there is the possibility of an exploit due to a bug in OpenSSH they found." Someone overhears and turns around and tells the next person they see, "There's a hole in ssh that's exploitable!" and it takes off from there.
Even though there is no patch available (yet)
There is a patch available, as well as it being fixed in 3.7, which was just released this morning. That's the point of all of this. The mention of the bug was in the 3.7 release notes, i believe.
You managed to meet, and then marry, a woman who reads Slashdot?!
And finally, off the actual topic: let's watch the Slashdot effect in action! When I first hit the Taipei Times article, it included this text at the bottom: This story has been viewed 1128 times.
By the time I typed this comment, the number had not changed, so I'm probably getting a cached copy. What did it show when you hit it?
When I looked at 13:04 Central Time, it had been viewed 3346 times, though it took 2 minutes for the page to load. :)
"If there was a time we need a viable competitor to Office, it's now."
For people functioning in business environments, we don't need a competitor. We need cross platform compatibility. Windows people aren't going to use Open Office if MS Office exists in any form. If they can send .doc, .xls, .ppt, whatever, to 90% of their co-workers, then I have to conform to what they're using. They don't care about "Free as in speech." They care about "Work as in what's on their computer that they can use."
A competitor isn't needed. Putting a stop to this gross abuse of their monopoly is what is needed. Convincing MS that forcing people to upgrade and not talk to anyone not using Windows is bad is what's needed.
In my mind, this is simple -- I have never read a worse O'Reilly book than Building Linux Clusters. There is a reason that ORA pulled this book out of print after only 6 months, and haven't even bothered to try to fix it and reprint a new edition. It was basically a commercial for the company the author ran, it read as if it hadn't been edited (spelling and grammar mistakes everywhere, included pictures were of the wrong thing that the text referred to), and the code included was so buggy it wouldn't work at all without a lot of fixing.
This was the first book on Linux Clustering I read, and I was hugely disappointed
Is there really that much need for this out there?
If Netflix has 1 million subscribers, then yes, there seems to be a market, and other people (Walmart, Blockbuster, etc) will want to compete for it.