Compile in kernel support for misc binaries on linux.
The point is that Java doesn't play well with others. By having to special case how to build per use implies it doesn't play well.
To futher illustrate take a Makefile for building java. Java sucks with traditional Makefile invocations. The javac JVM will get invoked repeatedly unless all the java files are on the same command line. So, the language that doesn't play well needs to re-invent the wheel and call it Ant. The main bonus to ant is that Java files are compiled in place. The overwhelming minus to Ant is that it can't build anything but Java. Again, Java doesn't play well with others. But the point is that Java didn't play well with Make. Implicit rules in Make failed because Java files have to be batched in-line. Java Developers claim that "tabs" and other oddities in Make lead them to write Ant but in my opinion, and it is just my opinion, the real reason was because performance with the javac compilier using make really sucked. Java doesn't play well with others.
Perl, on other hand, doesn't need any special compilation, run-time Jar files are whatever. There is nothing to build. In fact, the Java designers were stupid for compiling an interpreted language. The JVM is not a virtual machine, it is an interpreter that ultimately makes system calls into the OS, end of story. A real virtual machine emits hardware instructions that get translated from one machine to another via a *hardware* vm layer. Everything else is interpreting for the OS. It's stupid to force programmers to compile interpreted code.
C++ and C programs chain together nicely at the command line without having to be repackaged or recompiled or yeah even knowledge by the person programming that progam will be used a pipe.
And don't forget... Java doesn't play well with others.
Java sucks because trying to chain Java to a shell script or any other program really really sucks.
Larry Wall has the right notion of software engineering and languages. This is taken from the Social Engineering chapter 6 of the Camel book.
Languages have different personalities. You can classify computer languages by how introverted or extroverted they are; for instance Icon and Lisp [EDITOR's note: and Java] are stay-at-home languages, while Tcl and the various shells are party animals. Self-sufficient languages prefer to compete with other languages, which social languages prefer to coordinate with other languages. As usual, Perl tries to do both.
Java sucks because in the Unix environment it is impossible to easily invoke Java. What if you want to chain using pipes at the command line like this:
java_program1 | shell_script1 | java_program2
Most likely the JVM will start up and stop with each invocation rather than using an already running JVM. That really sucks. Java doesn't play well with others with regards to the JNDI interface either.
My experience as someone who works with enterprise Java is as follows:
Impeadance mismatch. In electronics hooking a 4 ohm speaker to an 8 ohm amplifier output results in a power loss because of the impeadance mismatch. Same is true in software. Hooking a virtual OS into a real OS results in a power loss because of different underlying assumptions. The result is not just a performance loss but a performance fragility. A change in the load on the parent OS can have dramatic penalizing performance degradation for a JVM. Especially when real memory is exhausted the swapping occurs. The JVM with its constant garbage collection defeats the paging algorthm of the OS. They work against each other.
Multiple JVMs. The JVMs don't play well with each other with regards to performance and interfer with each other's performance. Our company often has to have a minimum of two JVMs, one with secure and another with non-secure data.
Application servers. So, the JVM is insufficient and cannot be run directly from web server invocation. The deficiencies inccur a penalty called a web application server making web application server a misnomer. It is not an application server. It is yet another layer of OS abastraction to provide long running transactions for web usage. The right answer would've been to augment the Unix operating system to provide C/CGI with a security model and memory system for web services. Instead, Sun sold out Solaris with Java and paid the price. Sun has virtually none of the web application server market.
As someone who holds both a bachelors and masters in computer science from the school of
engineering from U.C. Berkeley, one huge problem is too many "para-engineers."
If only licensed engineers were allowed to be employed as engineers then this problem would not exist. The problem is there are too many high-school graduates, history majors, and every other discpline imaginable practicing being software engineers. And this causes untold problems with software because of the lack of formal training.
Yeah, maybe we have too many lawyers, but you know they are all licensed to practice law. A para-legal cannot be hired as a lawyer. A nurse cannot be hired as a doctored.
The problem in computer science is too many hacks are being paid and labeled as engineers when they are not. And yeah, there are lots of good programmers without degrees, but guess what, there could be lots of good lawyers and doctors without degrees too if we didn't insist on licensing them. But as a culture we realize the benefits and trade offs of licensing these professions and the same logic needs to be applied to engineering.
If we don't do this then an engineering degree isn't worth the paper its printed on. Today thousands and thousands of people filling jobs labeled as *engineers* have no formal education or have a degree in a different field.
Either an engineering degree matters or it doesn't.
Who, on this God's green earth doesn't interface with legacy code?
Millions of lines of legacy code?
His solution of turning warnings into errors is a pipe dream only realizable in world where companies are going to discard existing software.
As a consultant doing contract work I've seen what happens when large corporations try to use lint, splint or other tools on new code that compiles against old code. It's not pretty.
Security, as it goes, needs to be applied to legacy code being compiled into new code. He completely fails to mention legacy code and the cost of bringing it up to date.
Now we can pretty much treat garbage collection as "free" and recognize that a programmer's time is too valuable to spend worrying about memory allocation.
As a systems programmer, I say "go ahead and keep on living in that fantasy world and then pay me the big bucks when you run into problems".
Java is such a farce. Java has the "great elbow" in every performance curve I've ever seen. Once the garbage collection kicks in just watch preformance drop through the floor. I've never seen it do anything less even in the latest JDKs. Whenever I tell them "buy more machines" my management gets pissed off because GC is suppose to be as fast as non-GC code. A GC machine is only as fast as a non-GC machine when its under a partial load, ideally around 50%. We have non-GC production machines running at near capacity (100% VM and 80% CPU) with uptimes of six-months or longer. Management wants to know why they can't load Java machines up to capacity the way their other servers not running Java are loaded.
Java is NOT a systems programming language and GC is not for systems programs, period.
And don't get me going on memory leaks. We've been running our JVM logging on "verbose" logging mode for three years running because developers continually allocate buffers for PDFs and other large files in ways that defeat garbage collection. They inerrantly allocate memory faster than GC can collect. THIS HAPPENS every production release. Tell a developer they can be sloppy and they will.
Nope. That's not true at all, just as "trickle down" ecnomics doesn't work either. In all the countries where 5% of the population owns 90% the populace lives in abject poverty and there isn't a middle class. Look at Latin America. On paper they have Democracy and free markets, captilasim.
In reality they have tyranny.
Capitalism hinges on a ver key point, fairness.
Mmm, in bowling (yeah, ok, I admit I use to bowl) sandbagging was basically under-performing, sluffing off, deliberately under-achieving so as to get a handicap. Sounds like Java to me.
Java, quite frankly, isn't prone to viruses because most viruses attach desktop systems and most desktop system don't have a JVM running.
How the heck would the virus spread if in fact only 1% of the desktop computers, if that, at any given time is running Java?
Yes, he claims to be smart. The notion that a person's chance of dying by terrorism is "1" as he claims is telling. I wonder if he realizes that means statistically every person in America is likely to be victimized by terrosim? Let's see, 2,000 divided by 300 million equates to about 1. That sounds like Bible arithmetic. Yeah. Let's see, if one million died of terrorism then that would be 1 in 300, or about 1/3 of 1 percent chance of being killed by terrorism. But 1 million didn't, only a 2000. Somehow, that equates to one. Ah well. So much for the American education system.
Reason escapes you. As Mark Twain once quipped, "Logic is the justification of ones own feelings." Terrorism, like Christianity in general, relies on one overarching emotion for control of its constituants and that is fear. Fear of God. Fear of the Devil. Fear of whatever. People who are thusly entralled are called "fear-driven".
Life boat ethics is the topic at hand. Let's try reason. If one life is priceless, what is the cost of two lives?
Terrorism is an unimportant threat if you consider facts and not fear. The method of box cutter/airplane was a fluke method of terrorism that has been resolved. 9/11 was the first *external* terrorist attack of any important,ever and we've had none since. Considering terrorism has been going on for years then statistically it is a fluke both by measure of method and frequency of occurence.
You are extremely simple-minded if you believe toppling Sadaam Hussein had anything to do with terrorism and accomplished any measurable way of "reducing" 0 to 0. (Statistically the chance of another terrorist attack is near 0). It has everything to do with control of the middle-east and oil.
Let's get back to life boat ethics. Every year, thousands of people in Colombia die due to terrorism. It is not war when the main target is non-combatants. The "revolutionaries" in Colombia mainly target civilians and not soldiers, thus making them terrorists. The mostly kill citizens and not soldiers.
However, Colombia is nothing compared to Africa and the terrorism that goes on there. Remember the terrorism of Rawanda? Again, mostly citizens died thus making it terrorism and not "war". Seems the world wasn't crying "Rawanda, we will always remember" after 500,000 people died.
What is anti-American? Define it? It is rhetoric or is it in the results of actions taken? If Clinton was "ant-American" please explain the economy during his administration and please, oh please, explain the ecomony under Bush. Oh, and you can't claim the prior administration as an excuse. Otherwise, Jimmy Carter should get all the credit for Ronnald Reagans success and Bill Clinton gets a face on Mount Rushmore for turning around the economy that George Bush left him.
George Washington, the original GW, would label Bush anti-American. You know why? Because he was an isolationist because an isolation philosophy put *trade* first. He certainly would've never, ever advocated the pre-emptive strike because pre-emptive strikes are anti-trade. Why?, because WAR is anti-trade. Does IRAQ have allies? How is our trade with them now?
You are laughable when you state that Clinton and Carter reduced the military. It was the first Bush that closed all the bases. Or have you forgotten?
Even on this issue you are fear driven. Do you realize that the US spends more on its military every year than the top three countries combined? I think that factual criticism that is not fear-driven is valid when relatively speaking we are spending grotesquely more money than any country we could possibly need to defend ourselves from.
You are ruled by fear.
Rationally, the Bush administration is war-mongering and fear-mongering to control the US. They obviously have control of your brain.
Well met. Well done. Remember Jimmy Carter? The Republicans since JFK have shown they will do anything immorral and untoward to get elected. Jimmy Carter was demonized out of office and undermined. Oh how the Republicans worship Ronnald Reagan who duplicitously had the hostages brought home the day he is innaugurated. In my opinion the same thing would happen to Howard Dean. Face it, the Republicans started investigating Bill Clinton his first year in office. Clinton has the distinction of being the only president to be under investigation all eight years. It was a witch hunt. First it was White Water, then a perjury charge for lying about sex.
I like early American history, read it a lot, and one thing that is impressive about those guys in 1776 is that they had lots of factions. Unfortunately for Dean he is a loner. If he was a leader for a faction that could weather the Republican witch hunt then fine. However, as a Jimmy Carter'esque loner he's a goner. He stands no chance against the Republican demon machine.
Just my humble opinion but also insight as to why I would not vote for Dean.
Umm, in case you don't live in the US, we don't live by the rule of Dictionary, we live by the rule of law. The law defines monopoly by a dictionary and precedent.
Hi!
I agree. Java is not cheap to upgrade. Porting Java code to J2EE and its EAR and WAR files was very expense. Porting Java code to library upgrades is very expensve. Not to mention that Java has been tied to the HIP with XML and JSPs which are really hard to maintain.
Java has traded portability expense for a hardware platform with portability expense with version upgrades.
I've seen Java JDK version upgrades cost 3 times more than C/C++ ports to other platforms.
Don't forget "write once, run anywhere". Oops, we meant except when there are major standards revisions like J2EE. Now IBM and BEA aren't happy with J2EE and have released there own standard. Well, I guess porting your code to the latest standard is not porting your code to the latest machine.
Very good foray into the business thinking. To be fair though you'll need to do a cost/benefit analysis and not just a cost analysis.
One benefit to Microsoft is that many business software *client* applications exclusively runs on Windows. I'm thinking large vendors like Oracle, PeopleSoft, IBM, SAP, you name it. While their server software may run on UNIX, typically the client applications only run on Windows. By having Microsoft as your business platform you then get access to things that otherwise don't exist. Yes as a company you could pay some company to port to Linux but that is the monopoly financial barrier. This barrier cost alone is much higher in expenses than the costs you outline above. One benefit to running Microsoft is that you don't have the cost of asking companies that mostly provide only Window's clients to port their code.
Your point about Homogenous systems is an interesting one. While it is true there is a risk of some homogenous break down (Microsoft Outlook Email going down for example), there is a known cost of administering a heterogenous environment. Then you need an actuary to run the numbers and tell you what the final decision should be. Most companies don't have in-house actuaries so they typical will side with the risk. That is to say, with risk there is always a chance you don't have to spend money. Maybe you'll get lucky. With a known expense like administering a heterogenous email server environment you always have to pay. My guess is that most companies do track how much a virus really costs them.
Another benefit to a homogeneous environment (beyond gambling with catastrophe risk) is that of homogenous back-up and storage. Most companies have to legally retain 3-5 years of email. Imagine the expense of trying to do that with 2 flavors of email? Two storage formats?
Individually each of the above business benefits can easily outweigh the costs you site.
Finally, let's look at the individual level such as yourself. You state that your computers do what you need to do.
Well, below is a list of very popular and common Microsoft applications that people who want to run them are forced to use Microsoft:
Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Power Point, also on the Mac)
Adobe Photoshop (also on the Mac)
Adobe Illustrator (also on the Mac)
Adobe Pagemaker (also on the Mac)
Autocad
Quiken (check books, also on Mac)
Digital Camera software (most digital cameras come with download applications that only run on Windows).
Roxio and other CD Burner, MP3, all-in-one software.
You can see that many of these applications already run the Mac. The problem with the Mac is that you will pay more so financially many people feel forced to run windows. Also much of this Micorosoft software comes bundled for *free* with a computer price.:( So still that monopolistic barreir. Now the good news is that with Apple running Unix under-the-hood then perhaps applications ported to OS X can be also ported to Linux? Depends on how different X and Apple's Windowing system is, which is probably a lot but on can always hope.
So, sadly, we do depend on Microsoft both at home in business for now.
Very good point about the informed decision. However, I would argue that even with an informed decision you would still by Microsoft unless you are a techie. Why? First, Microsoft is more supported than Linux and not just at the official level. Friends helping friends are a reality. If all my friends run Windows? Second, Windows comes bundled with the computer and the odds are you are NOT going to save $100 buying a PC with Linux instead of Windows. Most likely to get Linux or another operating system (outside of a Mac) you'll need to install the software? That is an additional expense of time. Why don't more people by Macs? I think it is because of the first reason I stated where people depend on other people and who do you know that can help you with a Mac problem? Give you "free" Mac software? Economically I think it makes "sense" for most people to buy Microsoft.
What point are you trying to make?
Your company clearly chooses to do something stupid.
The point is to try and get you to think. Obviously I failed.
Why is it a stupid choice? In the overall scheme of things the cost/benefit business analysis mandates Microsoft is the only smart financial choice, that's why it is called a monopoly. If a company, especially a fortune 500 company, wants to do business without Microsoft then the expense of going against the monopoly is huge. This is why it is called a monopoly. In this case the "force" is money. The anti-trust laws recognize that at some point a monopoly "forces" a market because of financial barriers and the government uses a counter-force of law to break the trust. Obviously, many people such as myself, believe that Microsoft is not a benevolent monopoly.
You are certainly free to argue a theoretical, spiritual arugment that one is always "free". But in the real world most of us realize we depend on clean air, clean water, healthy food, money, we have real costs, we depend on automobiles, airplanes and oil and in the information age we now depend on computers. This was the point of the Matrix dialog I quoted, but alas it was lost on you.
You are also free to move to a country without law and without first amendment rights. Would you be more free as a result of that choice? The point? not all choices are equal.
Hi! First thanks, I learned something from your Google query. I've used quoted words but never "site:microsoft". Maybe Apache should use that. Many sites use Google as the search engine but that's the first I've seen that query.
"report a bug" site:microsoft.com
Perhaps you should try being less negative. I almost skipped over your article because generally I find negative people rarely have anything positive to offer.
This brings up a usability trade-off with Google. By keeping their web site clean (I love that) it inadvertently encourages keyword only searches. How many people know to use this feature? Not many is my guess and I think it is a little disingenious to diss someone for not having uncommon knowledge.
This also brings up a usability problem with Microsoft. "Report a Bug" should be on their home page "microsoft.com". One should be able to report any and all bugs via one form. The URL I'm reporting below based upon your search is for Security bugs only.
Also, I typed in "report a bug" to Microsoft's search engine on their home page and did not come up with the URL below. How is it that Google runs a better search on their site than they do? If I were a typical user I would not suppose this and "give up" after trying "report a bug" on Microsoft's web site.
I think we all need to be reminded that using Microsoft products is an act of free will.
By that logic we can choose not to go to the hospital when we need to too. That doesn't mean it makes any sense.
Umm, you need to be reminded that Microsoft is a court proven monopoly. By definition that means you have no real choice. The average user is not going to use Linux. The company I work for uses Microsoft Outlook exclusively and it is against company policy to use anything else.
Sure, people can choose not use computers and not to have a job, but are they smart choices? Is that really free will? Didn't you watch the Matrix when Neo makes they statement, "we control these machines. We can turn them off or destroy them if we want." To which the Senator replies, "and then we'd have no water and no air."
Hi!
Happy Monday! I just wanted to point out the econmics of printing is vastly more expensive than publishing on the web. This means that research previously not available historically because of the printing expense will now be available. This is a good thing I think. However, there will exist the problem of peer review or authentication; both will be onerous as the sheer volume of publication will defy peer review and authentication capabilities. It is definitely worth taking this problem seriously and finding solutions in my opinion.
My opinion, which is wrong, but still my opinion anyway is that the Matrix is a hollywood indictment. Perhaps it is a minor indictment of Megasoft as well. It is a combination of Total Recall meets Hotel California. In the title track to the album Hotel California Don Henley quips, "we are programmed to recieve, you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave." You can never leave the Matrix. Thus you will never see the real world, ever. When Morpheous quips, "what is real" he is asking on behalf of the W brothers, "what is not-real, what is entertainment"? After all, isn't all future entertainment going to be a computer generated dream world? Think about what Cipher said, "I know what you are asking yourself, why didn't I just take the blue pill?" In fact, looking at reality from Cipher's point of view "living" is more real and more attractive inside the Matrix. I certainly wouldn't want to live on that ship eating gruel. AT this point the W brothers are making their statement point blank, Hollywood will eventually be able to offer you a better "reality" then your boring, gruel riddled life can every hope for. At that point entertainment becomes control, a drug addiction and so most people won't be able to be unplugged, ever. What if you could plug in to entertainment 24 hours/day? What kind of movie would it be? Would it be utopia? As Agent Smith quips, "the program wouldn't take." The Matrix then, like all good science fiction, looks into the future and comes to a conclusion: beware being seduced by technology lest we lose our grip on what is "real" and what is "entertainment" and in the process lose our sense of self and end like Agent Smith who states, "purpose, there is no purpose, the only purpose is to end." Finally, I also get the moment of Magritte who's painting of a pipe includes the phrase, " this is not a pipe."
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The point is that Java doesn't play well with others. By having to special case how to build per use implies it doesn't play well.
To futher illustrate take a Makefile for building java. Java sucks with traditional Makefile invocations. The javac JVM will get invoked repeatedly unless all the java files are on the same command line. So, the language that doesn't play well needs to re-invent the wheel and call it Ant. The main bonus to ant is that Java files are compiled in place. The overwhelming minus to Ant is that it can't build anything but Java. Again, Java doesn't play well with others. But the point is that Java didn't play well with Make. Implicit rules in Make failed because Java files have to be batched in-line. Java Developers claim that "tabs" and other oddities in Make lead them to write Ant but in my opinion, and it is just my opinion, the real reason was because performance with the javac compilier using make really sucked. Java doesn't play well with others.
Perl, on other hand, doesn't need any special compilation, run-time Jar files are whatever. There is nothing to build. In fact, the Java designers were stupid for compiling an interpreted language. The JVM is not a virtual machine, it is an interpreter that ultimately makes system calls into the OS, end of story. A real virtual machine emits hardware instructions that get translated from one machine to another via a *hardware* vm layer. Everything else is interpreting for the OS. It's stupid to force programmers to compile interpreted code.
C++ and C programs chain together nicely at the command line without having to be repackaged or recompiled or yeah even knowledge by the person programming that progam will be used a pipe.
Java doesn't play well with others.
Java sucks because trying to chain Java to a shell script or any other program really really sucks.
Larry Wall has the right notion of software engineering and languages. This is taken from the Social Engineering chapter 6 of the Camel book.
Java sucks because in the Unix environment it is impossible to easily invoke Java. What if you want to chain using pipes at the command line like this:
Most likely the JVM will start up and stop with each invocation rather than using an already running JVM. That really sucks. Java doesn't play well with others with regards to the JNDI interface either.
Java sucks.
Just my opinion of course!
Cheers!
As someone who holds both a bachelors and masters in computer science from the school of engineering from U.C. Berkeley, one huge problem is too many "para-engineers."
If only licensed engineers were allowed to be employed as engineers then this problem would not exist. The problem is there are too many high-school graduates, history majors, and every other discpline imaginable practicing being software engineers. And this causes untold problems with software because of the lack of formal training.
Yeah, maybe we have too many lawyers, but you know they are all licensed to practice law. A para-legal cannot be hired as a lawyer. A nurse cannot be hired as a doctored.
The problem in computer science is too many hacks are being paid and labeled as engineers when they are not. And yeah, there are lots of good programmers without degrees, but guess what, there could be lots of good lawyers and doctors without degrees too if we didn't insist on licensing them. But as a culture we realize the benefits and trade offs of licensing these professions and the same logic needs to be applied to engineering.
If we don't do this then an engineering degree isn't worth the paper its printed on. Today thousands and thousands of people filling jobs labeled as *engineers* have no formal education or have a degree in a different field.
Either an engineering degree matters or it doesn't.
Millions of lines of legacy code?
His solution of turning warnings into errors is a pipe dream only realizable in world where companies are going to discard existing software.
As a consultant doing contract work I've seen what happens when large corporations try to use lint, splint or other tools on new code that compiles against old code. It's not pretty.
Security, as it goes, needs to be applied to legacy code being compiled into new code. He completely fails to mention legacy code and the cost of bringing it up to date.
Who's going to pay for it?
As a systems programmer, I say "go ahead and keep on living in that fantasy world and then pay me the big bucks when you run into problems".
Java is such a farce. Java has the "great elbow" in every performance curve I've ever seen. Once the garbage collection kicks in just watch preformance drop through the floor. I've never seen it do anything less even in the latest JDKs. Whenever I tell them "buy more machines" my management gets pissed off because GC is suppose to be as fast as non-GC code. A GC machine is only as fast as a non-GC machine when its under a partial load, ideally around 50%. We have non-GC production machines running at near capacity (100% VM and 80% CPU) with uptimes of six-months or longer. Management wants to know why they can't load Java machines up to capacity the way their other servers not running Java are loaded.
Java is NOT a systems programming language and GC is not for systems programs, period.
And don't get me going on memory leaks. We've been running our JVM logging on "verbose" logging mode for three years running because developers continually allocate buffers for PDFs and other large files in ways that defeat garbage collection. They inerrantly allocate memory faster than GC can collect. THIS HAPPENS every production release. Tell a developer they can be sloppy and they will.
Ha! Ha! Check your sources, dude. The $1 million dollar was not in the general bracket. Nice try though.
Nope. That's not true at all, just as "trickle down" ecnomics doesn't work either. In all the countries where 5% of the population owns 90% the populace lives in abject poverty and there isn't a middle class. Look at Latin America. On paper they have Democracy and free markets, captilasim. In reality they have tyranny. Capitalism hinges on a ver key point, fairness.
Actually, the income tax as first created did tax 100% of an income over one million dollars. This was changed in 1940.
Mmm, in bowling (yeah, ok, I admit I use to bowl) sandbagging was basically under-performing, sluffing off, deliberately under-achieving so as to get a handicap. Sounds like Java to me.
Java, quite frankly, isn't prone to viruses because most viruses attach desktop systems and most desktop system don't have a JVM running.
How the heck would the virus spread if in fact only 1% of the desktop computers, if that, at any given time is running Java?
That's sandbagging alright!
-Mybrid
Yes, he claims to be smart. The notion that a person's chance of dying by terrorism is "1" as he claims is telling. I wonder if he realizes that means statistically every person in America is likely to be victimized by terrosim? Let's see, 2,000 divided by 300 million equates to about 1. That sounds like Bible arithmetic. Yeah. Let's see, if one million died of terrorism then that would be 1 in 300, or about 1/3 of 1 percent chance of being killed by terrorism. But 1 million didn't, only a 2000. Somehow, that equates to one. Ah well. So much for the American education system.
Reason escapes you. As Mark Twain once quipped, "Logic is the justification of ones own feelings." Terrorism, like Christianity in general, relies on one overarching emotion for control of its constituants and that is fear. Fear of God. Fear of the Devil. Fear of whatever. People who are thusly entralled are called "fear-driven".
Life boat ethics is the topic at hand. Let's try reason. If one life is priceless, what is the cost of two lives?
Terrorism is an unimportant threat if you consider facts and not fear. The method of box cutter/airplane was a fluke method of terrorism that has been resolved. 9/11 was the first *external* terrorist attack of any important,ever and we've had none since. Considering terrorism has been going on for years then statistically it is a fluke both by measure of method and frequency of occurence.
You are extremely simple-minded if you believe toppling Sadaam Hussein had anything to do with terrorism and accomplished any measurable way of "reducing" 0 to 0. (Statistically the chance of another terrorist attack is near 0). It has everything to do with control of the middle-east and oil.
Let's get back to life boat ethics. Every year, thousands of people in Colombia die due to terrorism. It is not war when the main target is non-combatants. The "revolutionaries" in Colombia mainly target civilians and not soldiers, thus making them terrorists. The mostly kill citizens and not soldiers.
However, Colombia is nothing compared to Africa and the terrorism that goes on there. Remember the terrorism of Rawanda? Again, mostly citizens died thus making it terrorism and not "war". Seems the world wasn't crying "Rawanda, we will always remember" after 500,000 people died.
What is anti-American? Define it? It is rhetoric or is it in the results of actions taken? If Clinton was "ant-American" please explain the economy during his administration and please, oh please, explain the ecomony under Bush. Oh, and you can't claim the prior administration as an excuse. Otherwise, Jimmy Carter should get all the credit for Ronnald Reagans success and Bill Clinton gets a face on Mount Rushmore for turning around the economy that George Bush left him.
George Washington, the original GW, would label Bush anti-American. You know why? Because he was an isolationist because an isolation philosophy put *trade* first. He certainly would've never, ever advocated the pre-emptive strike because pre-emptive strikes are anti-trade. Why?, because WAR is anti-trade. Does IRAQ have allies? How is our trade with them now?
You are laughable when you state that Clinton and Carter reduced the military. It was the first Bush that closed all the bases. Or have you forgotten? Even on this issue you are fear driven. Do you realize that the US spends more on its military every year than the top three countries combined? I think that factual criticism that is not fear-driven is valid when relatively speaking we are spending grotesquely more money than any country we could possibly need to defend ourselves from.
You are ruled by fear.
Rationally, the Bush administration is war-mongering and fear-mongering to control the US. They obviously have control of your brain.
Yellow Alert! ORANGE ALERT! DUCK AND COVER!
Cheers!
Mybrid
Well met. Well done. Remember Jimmy Carter? The Republicans since JFK have shown they will do anything immorral and untoward to get elected. Jimmy Carter was demonized out of office and undermined. Oh how the Republicans worship Ronnald Reagan who duplicitously had the hostages brought home the day he is innaugurated. In my opinion the same thing would happen to Howard Dean. Face it, the Republicans started investigating Bill Clinton his first year in office. Clinton has the distinction of being the only president to be under investigation all eight years. It was a witch hunt. First it was White Water, then a perjury charge for lying about sex.
I like early American history, read it a lot, and one thing that is impressive about those guys in 1776 is that they had lots of factions. Unfortunately for Dean he is a loner. If he was a leader for a faction that could weather the Republican witch hunt then fine. However, as a Jimmy Carter'esque loner he's a goner. He stands no chance against the Republican demon machine.
Just my humble opinion but also insight as to why I would not vote for Dean.
Cheers!
Mybrid
Umm, in case you don't live in the US, we don't live by the rule of Dictionary, we live by the rule of law. The law defines monopoly by a dictionary and precedent.
Hi!
I agree. Java is not cheap to upgrade. Porting Java code to J2EE and its EAR and WAR files was very expense. Porting Java code to library upgrades is very expensve. Not to mention that Java has been tied to the HIP with XML and JSPs which are really hard to maintain.
Java has traded portability expense for a hardware platform with portability expense with version upgrades.
I've seen Java JDK version upgrades cost 3 times more than C/C++ ports to other platforms.
Don't forget "write once, run anywhere". Oops, we meant except when there are major standards revisions like J2EE. Now IBM and BEA aren't happy with J2EE and have released there own standard. Well, I guess porting your code to the latest standard is not porting your code to the latest machine.
Very good foray into the business thinking. To be fair though you'll need to do a cost/benefit analysis and not just a cost analysis.
One benefit to Microsoft is that many business software *client* applications exclusively runs on Windows. I'm thinking large vendors like Oracle, PeopleSoft, IBM, SAP, you name it. While their server software may run on UNIX, typically the client applications only run on Windows. By having Microsoft as your business platform you then get access to things that otherwise don't exist. Yes as a company you could pay some company to port to Linux but that is the monopoly financial barrier. This barrier cost alone is much higher in expenses than the costs you outline above. One benefit to running Microsoft is that you don't have the cost of asking companies that mostly provide only Window's clients to port their code.
Your point about Homogenous systems is an interesting one. While it is true there is a risk of some homogenous break down (Microsoft Outlook Email going down for example), there is a known cost of administering a heterogenous environment. Then you need an actuary to run the numbers and tell you what the final decision should be. Most companies don't have in-house actuaries so they typical will side with the risk. That is to say, with risk there is always a chance you don't have to spend money. Maybe you'll get lucky. With a known expense like administering a heterogenous email server environment you always have to pay. My guess is that most companies do track how much a virus really costs them.
Another benefit to a homogeneous environment (beyond gambling with catastrophe risk) is that of homogenous back-up and storage. Most companies have to legally retain 3-5 years of email. Imagine the expense of trying to do that with 2 flavors of email? Two storage formats?
Individually each of the above business benefits can easily outweigh the costs you site.
Finally, let's look at the individual level such as yourself. You state that your computers do what you need to do.
Well, below is a list of very popular and common Microsoft applications that people who want to run them are forced to use Microsoft:
You can see that many of these applications already run the Mac. The problem with the Mac is that you will pay more so financially many people feel forced to run windows. Also much of this Micorosoft software comes bundled for *free* with a computer price. :( So still that monopolistic barreir. Now the good news is that with Apple running Unix under-the-hood then perhaps applications ported to OS X can be also ported to Linux? Depends on how different X and Apple's Windowing system is, which is probably a lot but on can always hope.
So, sadly, we do depend on Microsoft both at home in business for now.
Cheers!
-Mybrid
Very good point about the informed decision. However, I would argue that even with an informed decision you would still by Microsoft unless you are a techie. Why? First, Microsoft is more supported than Linux and not just at the official level. Friends helping friends are a reality. If all my friends run Windows? Second, Windows comes bundled with the computer and the odds are you are NOT going to save $100 buying a PC with Linux instead of Windows. Most likely to get Linux or another operating system (outside of a Mac) you'll need to install the software? That is an additional expense of time. Why don't more people by Macs? I think it is because of the first reason I stated where people depend on other people and who do you know that can help you with a Mac problem? Give you "free" Mac software? Economically I think it makes "sense" for most people to buy Microsoft.
Your company clearly chooses to do something stupid.
The point is to try and get you to think. Obviously I failed.
Why is it a stupid choice? In the overall scheme of things the cost/benefit business analysis mandates Microsoft is the only smart financial choice, that's why it is called a monopoly. If a company, especially a fortune 500 company, wants to do business without Microsoft then the expense of going against the monopoly is huge. This is why it is called a monopoly. In this case the "force" is money. The anti-trust laws recognize that at some point a monopoly "forces" a market because of financial barriers and the government uses a counter-force of law to break the trust. Obviously, many people such as myself, believe that Microsoft is not a benevolent monopoly.
You are certainly free to argue a theoretical, spiritual arugment that one is always "free". But in the real world most of us realize we depend on clean air, clean water, healthy food, money, we have real costs, we depend on automobiles, airplanes and oil and in the information age we now depend on computers. This was the point of the Matrix dialog I quoted, but alas it was lost on you.
You are also free to move to a country without law and without first amendment rights. Would you be more free as a result of that choice? The point? not all choices are equal.
Cheers!
Mybrid
This brings up a usability trade-off with Google. By keeping their web site clean (I love that) it inadvertently encourages keyword only searches. How many people know to use this feature? Not many is my guess and I think it is a little disingenious to diss someone for not having uncommon knowledge.
This also brings up a usability problem with Microsoft. "Report a Bug" should be on their home page "microsoft.com". One should be able to report any and all bugs via one form. The URL I'm reporting below based upon your search is for Security bugs only.
Also, I typed in "report a bug" to Microsoft's search engine on their home page and did not come up with the URL below. How is it that Google runs a better search on their site than they do? If I were a typical user I would not suppose this and "give up" after trying "report a bug" on Microsoft's web site.
Report a security problem with Microsoft here:
The Microsoft Security Response Center
Thanks again! for the Google tip!
Cheers!
Mybrid
I think we all need to be reminded that using Microsoft products is an act of free will.
By that logic we can choose not to go to the hospital when we need to too. That doesn't mean it makes any sense. Umm, you need to be reminded that Microsoft is a court proven monopoly. By definition that means you have no real choice. The average user is not going to use Linux. The company I work for uses Microsoft Outlook exclusively and it is against company policy to use anything else.
Sure, people can choose not use computers and not to have a job, but are they smart choices? Is that really free will? Didn't you watch the Matrix when Neo makes they statement, "we control these machines. We can turn them off or destroy them if we want." To which the Senator replies, "and then we'd have no water and no air."
Mmm, I pointed out that as a response to that Bill is *only* talking about security bugs. All other bugs you need to wait until you buy the upgrade
Hi!
Happy Monday! I just wanted to point out the econmics of printing is vastly more expensive than publishing on the web. This means that research previously not available historically because of the printing expense will now be available. This is a good thing I think. However, there will exist the problem of peer review or authentication; both will be onerous as the sheer volume of publication will defy peer review and authentication capabilities. It is definitely worth taking this problem seriously and finding solutions in my opinion.
My opinion, which is wrong, but still my opinion anyway is that the Matrix is a hollywood indictment. Perhaps it is a minor indictment of Megasoft as well. It is a combination of Total Recall meets Hotel California. In the title track to the album Hotel California Don Henley quips, "we are programmed to recieve, you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave." You can never leave the Matrix. Thus you will never see the real world, ever. When Morpheous quips, "what is real" he is asking on behalf of the W brothers, "what is not-real, what is entertainment"? After all, isn't all future entertainment going to be a computer generated dream world? Think about what Cipher said, "I know what you are asking yourself, why didn't I just take the blue pill?" In fact, looking at reality from Cipher's point of view "living" is more real and more attractive inside the Matrix. I certainly wouldn't want to live on that ship eating gruel. AT this point the W brothers are making their statement point blank, Hollywood will eventually be able to offer you a better "reality" then your boring, gruel riddled life can every hope for. At that point entertainment becomes control, a drug addiction and so most people won't be able to be unplugged, ever. What if you could plug in to entertainment 24 hours/day? What kind of movie would it be? Would it be utopia? As Agent Smith quips, "the program wouldn't take." The Matrix then, like all good science fiction, looks into the future and comes to a conclusion: beware being seduced by technology lest we lose our grip on what is "real" and what is "entertainment" and in the process lose our sense of self and end like Agent Smith who states, "purpose, there is no purpose, the only purpose is to end." Finally, I also get the moment of Magritte who's painting of a pipe includes the phrase, " this is not a pipe."