Insurance *is* mandatory in godd business practice and the world we live in.
It depends what kind of insurance you're talking about. For liability insurance you might be right, but some kinds of insurance make absolutely no business sense to large organisations.
If you run, for instance, a large fleet of vans, you *know* that each year a certain percentage of them will be involved in motor accidents. If you insure them against that then the insurance company will know it too, and will inevitably charge you a bit more in premiums than they pay out in your claims each year. It thus makes no sense at all to insure them.
The purpose of insurance is to *spread* the risk and cover you for things you can't afford to pay for. One individual with an expensive car probably can't afford to replace it if it's written off. A company with 10,000 vans can afford to pay for the percentage which are written off each year and so it makes no sense to insure them.
There's an old saying, "If you can afford not to be insured, then you can't afford to be insured."
I suspect the schools don't run the scheduler until a few days before school actually starts
Ouch! That would be a recipe for disaster. (OTOH, as they seem to have had a disaster, perhaps you're right.)
I'm an experienced school timetabler and I can tell you it doesn't (in sane institutions) work like that. The process of producing a school timetable starts in the autumn term of the year before. Producing a decent timetable takes *a lot* of time and concentration, and whilst there are computer programs which can *help*, there just isn't one which will do the whole job for you. Getting everything fitted in takes weeks, and I would generally expect to have the job done by the middle of the summer term. Then you need to publish the new timetable and find out problems from heads of department and staff. Teachers do expect to see (and moan about) the coming year's timetable before they finish the summer term.
This story isn't an example of just software failure - it's an even bigger example of management failure, because there should have been a contingency plan. I've never let a new timetabling system be used without knowing exactly how I'd cope if it failed to do its job. (And I've known one dismally fail to do its job - I'm looking at you Serco Facility.)
Sorry, I don't shill for Microsoft or hope to continue to use its products but if we ever hope to talk intelligently about Linux as a desktop operating system we have to be able to step back and look at what the #1 desktop operating system gets right.
Indeed, and once you analyse it that comes down to just one thing - its manufacturer does deals to get it installed by default on pretty much all hardware. This is and always has been Microsoft's sole USP - right back to the days of MS-DOS. Microsoft is first and foremost a marketing company, and always has been. The software is incidental.
Never having seen a Windows PC before, using common sense and your ability to read, you can figure out how to get (almost) anywhere.
In as much as this is true of Windows (not very) it's equally true of Linux. I've plonked naive users down in front of a PC running Linux with a Gnome desktop and they find it just as easy to use as beginners on Windows. People who have previously learnt to use Windows (and believe it or not - learning to use Windows also takes time) tend to find it slightly harder because they think they know where things should be and then are surprised to find them somewhere else.
When it comes to *administration* (which is what I think was under discussion) neither system is the slightest bit intuitive. Fixing a Windows PC if you don't already have a lot of experience of doing it is a positive nightmare. Nothing is where you would expect it to be, and the system will persistently think it knows better than you and refuse to do what you tell it. Yes, both Linux and Windows require quite a bit of study before you can administer them successfully, but once you've got the experience I find Linux by far the easier, precisely because you can see what's going on and the system doesn't keep trying to second guess you.
If Redhat were just starting and were still on the edge of financial stability, and a 'CentOS' product started giving away Redhat's product for free, the for profit company could fail.
The original Red Hat product, which they shipped when they were just starting and on the edge of financial stability, *was* completely open source and was very widely given away for free. You could download it from their servers, or get it copied onto a CD for a token charge. It still seems to have worked for them for quite a long time.
I've never noticed spammers making any attempt to communicate with me in my own language - I get spam (or rather, don't get - but it's there for me to scan if I want to check my filters are working correctly) in just about any language. The lack of an ability to speak English doesn't seem to have impeded them in the past, so why would auto-translation make a difference?
That's the protocol. Now what media do you recommend? Another hard drive?
Personally I use a dedicated backup server which has 2 x 1TB discs in a RAID1 configuration. The cron-scheduled backup uses Dirvish to create multiple historic backups, and the backup server is in a different building from the machines which it is backing up.
Not quite as good as multiple historic tapes, but have you seen the price of 1 TB tapes these days?
Accidental file deletion Check Disc failure Check File system corruption Check Fire damage Check
Obviously there are other risks which it doesn't cover, but you sometimes have to ask yourself just how important is your data? I'm not running a business these days.
What makes you say that? if(x) and if(!x) are perfectly good idiomatic C constructs, and their meaning is apparent at first glance.
Interesting how you've edited the text which I wrote in order to change its meaning.
I won't bother to address your invented version of what I said; I'll stick instead to what I actually said.
The problem with "if (!tun)" in terms of style is that it conceals what you're testing; specifically that tun is a pointer. I know many people do write code this way, and I would argue that it's a hang over from the days when it actually made a difference to the generated object code. Before optimising C compilers you actually got more efficient code if you wrote "if (!tun)" instead of "if (tun == NULL)". These days however are long past and informed opinion likes to make the meaning of code as clear as possible. If you write:
if (!flag)/* For a flag ^/ if (count == 0)/* For a counter */ if (ptr == NULL)/* For a pointer */
then you just make it that bit clearer what you're writing. Yes, using "if (!tun)" to test a pointer is entirely correct C, and what's more the practice is extremely widespread, but it fails the test of making the code as clear and self-documenting as possible. It is possible to do better, so I would always try and do it that bit better.
First, NULL is a preprocessor construct, not a language construct; by the time it gets to the compiler the preprocessor has replaced it with a magic constant[1].
Which must be either "0" or "(void *) 0".
The standard requires that it be defined as some value that may not be dereferenced, which is typically 0 (but doesn't have to be
Not true - the standard requires NULL to be defined as one of the two values given above.
and isn't on some mainframes
There are indeed some platforms where a null pointer is not an all-bits-zero value, but this is achieved by compiler magic behind the scenes. It is still created by assigning the constant value 0 to a pointer, and can be checked for by comparing a pointer with a constant 0.
Why do Visa's systems have the bandwitdh to *allow* 23 quadrillion dollars to make it to a credit card bill.
I've done work in the past on stock exchange price systems and it seems to be fairly standard there to allow numbers up to 18 digits - presumably because that's as big as you can fit in a 64 bit value.
My guess would be that they're just using stock financial calculation code and no-one ever thought to put a sanity check on it. "It's far bigger than we'll ever need so nothing to worry about there".
Me three. A&A provide a very solid service and are totally up-front about what you get for your money. None of this "Unlimited broadband" in the headline and then "actually, extremely limited" in the small print. It amazes me that the consumer watchdogs make lots of fuss about descriptions like "Up to 8 mbit" (which is accurate) but allow blatantly false claims about "Unlimited" packages to pass without a murmur.
I'm afraid it's you who doesn't have the clue. Obviously ISPs *shouldn't* use private addresses for their customers but nonetheless quite a few wireless ones do. I've yet to come across a wireless broadband offering in the UK which gives you a real unadulterated 'net connection.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think the original article suggests they are the same, although it does seem surprising if this thing can produce 2A.
Insurance *is* mandatory in godd business practice and the world we live in.
It depends what kind of insurance you're talking about. For liability insurance you might be right, but some kinds of insurance make absolutely no business sense to large organisations.
If you run, for instance, a large fleet of vans, you *know* that each year a certain percentage of them will be involved in motor accidents. If you insure them against that then the insurance company will know it too, and will inevitably charge you a bit more in premiums than they pay out in your claims each year. It thus makes no sense at all to insure them.
The purpose of insurance is to *spread* the risk and cover you for things you can't afford to pay for. One individual with an expensive car probably can't afford to replace it if it's written off. A company with 10,000 vans can afford to pay for the percentage which are written off each year and so it makes no sense to insure them.
There's an old saying, "If you can afford not to be insured, then you can't afford to be insured."
I suspect the schools don't run the scheduler until a few days before school actually starts
Ouch! That would be a recipe for disaster. (OTOH, as they seem to have had a disaster, perhaps you're right.)
I'm an experienced school timetabler and I can tell you it doesn't (in sane institutions) work like that. The process of producing a school timetable starts in the autumn term of the year before. Producing a decent timetable takes *a lot* of time and concentration, and whilst there are computer programs which can *help*, there just isn't one which will do the whole job for you. Getting everything fitted in takes weeks, and I would generally expect to have the job done by the middle of the summer term. Then you need to publish the new timetable and find out problems from heads of department and staff. Teachers do expect to see (and moan about) the coming year's timetable before they finish the summer term.
This story isn't an example of just software failure - it's an even bigger example of management failure, because there should have been a contingency plan. I've never let a new timetabling system be used without knowing exactly how I'd cope if it failed to do its job. (And I've known one dismally fail to do its job - I'm looking at you Serco Facility.)
0.123456789012345678901234567890... = 1234567890 / 9999999999
Any recurring decimal can trivially be written as a fraction.
Sorry, I don't shill for Microsoft or hope to continue to use its products but if we ever hope to talk intelligently about Linux as a desktop operating system we have to be able to step back and look at what the #1 desktop operating system gets right.
Indeed, and once you analyse it that comes down to just one thing - its manufacturer does deals to get it installed by default on pretty much all hardware. This is and always has been Microsoft's sole USP - right back to the days of MS-DOS. Microsoft is first and foremost a marketing company, and always has been. The software is incidental.
Never having seen a Windows PC before, using common sense and your ability to read, you can figure out how to get (almost) anywhere.
In as much as this is true of Windows (not very) it's equally true of Linux. I've plonked naive users down in front of a PC running Linux with a Gnome desktop and they find it just as easy to use as beginners on Windows. People who have previously learnt to use Windows (and believe it or not - learning to use Windows also takes time) tend to find it slightly harder because they think they know where things should be and then are surprised to find them somewhere else.
When it comes to *administration* (which is what I think was under discussion) neither system is the slightest bit intuitive. Fixing a Windows PC if you don't already have a lot of experience of doing it is a positive nightmare. Nothing is where you would expect it to be, and the system will persistently think it knows better than you and refuse to do what you tell it. Yes, both Linux and Windows require quite a bit of study before you can administer them successfully, but once you've got the experience I find Linux by far the easier, precisely because you can see what's going on and the system doesn't keep trying to second guess you.
If Redhat were just starting and were still on the edge of financial stability, and a 'CentOS' product started giving away Redhat's product for free, the for profit company could fail.
The original Red Hat product, which they shipped when they were just starting and on the edge of financial stability, *was* completely open source and was very widely given away for free. You could download it from their servers, or get it copied onto a CD for a token charge. It still seems to have worked for them for quite a long time.
I've never noticed spammers making any attempt to communicate with me in my own language - I get spam (or rather, don't get - but it's there for me to scan if I want to check my filters are working correctly) in just about any language. The lack of an ability to speak English doesn't seem to have impeded them in the past, so why would auto-translation make a difference?
Then, the mail proposes to you a double-check from the ISP
This posting has been auto-translated from French - yes?
That's the protocol. Now what media do you recommend? Another hard drive?
Personally I use a dedicated backup server which has 2 x 1TB discs in a RAID1 configuration. The cron-scheduled backup uses Dirvish to create multiple historic backups, and the backup server is in a different building from the machines which it is backing up.
Not quite as good as multiple historic tapes, but have you seen the price of 1 TB tapes these days?
Accidental file deletion Check
Disc failure Check
File system corruption Check
Fire damage Check
Obviously there are other risks which it doesn't cover, but you sometimes have to ask yourself just how important is your data? I'm not running a business these days.
What makes you say that? if(x) and if(!x) are perfectly good idiomatic C constructs, and their meaning is apparent at first glance.
Interesting how you've edited the text which I wrote in order to change its meaning.
I won't bother to address your invented version of what I said; I'll stick instead to what I actually said.
The problem with "if (!tun)" in terms of style is that it conceals what you're testing; specifically that tun is a pointer. I know many people do write code this way, and I would argue that it's a hang over from the days when it actually made a difference to the generated object code. Before optimising C compilers you actually got more efficient code if you wrote "if (!tun)" instead of "if (tun == NULL)". These days however are long past and informed opinion likes to make the meaning of code as clear as possible. If you write:
if (!flag) /* For a flag ^/ /* For a counter */ /* For a pointer */
if (count == 0)
if (ptr == NULL)
then you just make it that bit clearer what you're writing. Yes, using "if (!tun)" to test a pointer is entirely correct C, and what's more the practice is extremely widespread, but it fails the test of making the code as clear and self-documenting as possible. It is possible to do better, so I would always try and do it that bit better.
The fact that NULL does not have to be 0 is a good point.
No, it isn't. NULL *does* have to be 0.
That means that if(!tun) is bad in terms of portability.
If your premise were true then your conclusion would be. Since your premise is false your conclusion is unsound.
In fact "if (!tun)" is fine in terms of portability (though arguably weak in terms of style).
First, NULL is a preprocessor construct, not a language construct; by the time it gets to the compiler the preprocessor has replaced it with a magic constant[1].
Which must be either "0" or "(void *) 0".
The standard requires that it be defined as some value that may not be dereferenced, which is typically 0 (but doesn't have to be
Not true - the standard requires NULL to be defined as one of the two values given above.
and isn't on some mainframes
There are indeed some platforms where a null pointer is not an all-bits-zero value, but this is achieved by compiler magic behind the scenes. It is still created by assigning the constant value 0 to a pointer, and can be checked for by comparing a pointer with a constant 0.
That is: It don't have to be all 0 bits. It just need to be distinct from any valid pointer,
Correct - apart from the "just" bit.
It doesn't need to be all 0 bits.
It does need to be distinct from any valid pointer.
*and*
void *p = 0;
must generate a null pointer, and:
p == 0
must come out true if p is a null pointer. The internal implementation need not be all zeroes, but it does need to look rather like it to source code.
Why do Visa's systems have the bandwitdh to *allow* 23 quadrillion dollars to make it to a credit card bill.
I've done work in the past on stock exchange price systems and it seems to be fairly standard there to allow numbers up to 18 digits - presumably because that's as big as you can fit in a 64 bit value.
My guess would be that they're just using stock financial calculation code and no-one ever thought to put a sanity check on it. "It's far bigger than we'll ever need so nothing to worry about there".
Speaking of which it's time for me to do some practicing.
That should be "practising" - oh, and we're good at pedantry too.
Me three. A&A provide a very solid service and are totally up-front about what you get for your money. None of this "Unlimited broadband" in the headline and then "actually, extremely limited" in the small print. It amazes me that the consumer watchdogs make lots of fuss about descriptions like "Up to 8 mbit" (which is accurate) but allow blatantly false claims about "Unlimited" packages to pass without a murmur.
Though confusingly they're an "energy" company now, not just gas. They do my electricity.
And Southern Electric do my gas.
There's an American security agency called "AT&F"?
Dunno if the same thing exists for Linux, time machine might do the same thing for OSX.
Dirvish is excellent for providing versioned backups in Linux. I understand it's much like Time Machine, but I haven't tried Time Machine.
No ISP technically lets you run a server
Huh?! How do all the servers get connected then?
I don't actually know, I'm guessing here. But it seems like in base-8, you wouldn't be looking to include the digit 9 in your distribution analysis.
Since when was 9 not an octal digit?
Hmmm, I think it was since K&R2 actually.
Don't tell me! They removed the floppy disk drive - yes?
I'm afraid it's you who doesn't have the clue. Obviously ISPs *shouldn't* use private addresses for their customers but nonetheless quite a few wireless ones do. I've yet to come across a wireless broadband offering in the UK which gives you a real unadulterated 'net connection.
3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510
On the other hand, the digits of pi change far less often than your average IP address.