These guys aren't nutcases, and they aren't stupid.
However, it is clear to me that they're more interested in supporting their own unpublished agenda versus fighting government waste.
Their little rant doesn't merit a quiet, personal reply - their statement was a public, well-crafted, and baseless commentary which they can leverage to gain additional support from some of their corporate sponsors.
Their statement merits a quick and complete public reply, exposing their failure to support the principles that they pretend to stand for.
"Against government waste?" Bullshit. I looks like they're for lining their own pockets first.
Yahoo! Free breakfast! I'll see you guys on the 9th at, um, let's say 8:15 AM.... but I'll be out of there by 9:00 (or after all the food has been picked over).
Usually there are reasonable things that can be done to increase performance at a low cost. Optimize a query here, cache some data there, remove a big memory sink there, and next thing you know, your application is running a lot leaner.
On the other hand, sometimes it is worthwhile to just chuck out the whole implementation and start over again. In my case, we're thinking of doing that because we want to implement a bunch of new functionality that really changes the intent of our application. And after 7 years of crappy coding practices, the codebase is a mess.
However, as an IT manager, I rarely find it "sellable" to take an internally-ugly application, replace it with another application of identical functionality, and tell anyone that it's a success. Especially given the teething pains you will experience with a new implementation.
Your note goes on to suggest that your organization can replace hardware platform (Sun), vendors, application technology (Java), and the application itself. Is your organization really in a situation to make so many changes right now? So many changes sounds like a huge risk!
If the application can be fixed, and the cost isn't too high, and there are no other organizational reasons to switch out all this technology - then I say keep it where it is for now.
Later, you might want to build a long term vision for future development efforts.
HTTPS with appropriate authentication and authorization modules.
Otherwise, you have to support god knows how many idiots with the VPN client software. Forget it unless you want to support a collection of non-http services.
As an IT professional, I do see that Open Source solutions do in fact save money in the longer term. Five years ago my organization was using mostly closed-source products... and our software budget was several thousand dollars per developer per year.
Today my IT development organization is virtually 100% open source. We're running Linux on the desktop and use open source development tools. Our software costs have dramatically fallen. Nope, we don't even use MS-Exchange or MS-Office.
If we extend this to the average user's desktop (versus just developers), we could see an even greater savings. And yes, we're working on it.
Saving money is always a good thing. Again, even the wealthiest of states, such as Massachusetts, need to save money given the very bad state of the US economy.
Other states may want to investigate this strategy in order to save $$$.
Reducing the cost of IT is always a good thing, even for the wealthiest states.
If you can save money on IT, maybe you can redirect it to health care or education or better unemployment benefits or debt reduction or even (*gasp*) lower taxes.
As many, many researchers know, this is why so much commercial research is flawed - there are too many strong influences out there that taint the data.
This is the first overt firing that I've heard of in the IT industry, but I'm sure there have been thousands that we just never heard of.
Just think of those poor researchers at the cigarette companies - you know, the ones where if you found that there was a link between cigarettes and cancer, well, you must be fired.
Or the researchers for pharmacuticals... where if you find that drug X doesn't help cure Y, then you shouldn't expect any grant money next year. Yeah, not fired, but certainly the same net result.
The fact is that research SHOULD be independent. I don't know or care if this guy's paper was right or wrong. But it should be the research community, not MBAs, who decide the quality of research. Period.
I think that firing this guy due to his research is wrong. It looks like he was fired for financial relationship reasons, not because his study was consistently rejected by the research community. Should his employers be considered biased? As a potential customer, should I trust this company? If they are motivated more by their relationship with microsoft versus upholding the truth, I'll never recommend anyone to do business with them. And it looks like they are, and so I'll make sure they're scratched off the list.
Initiate or advertise in an unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement to a California electronic mail address, or advertise in an unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement sent to a California electronic mail address.
So when Discover Card ads fill your spambox, you can sue the advertiser - Discover Card - no matter where the source server is and no matter how they disguise the money trail.
Of course, after they lose their suit with me, they can sue their "marketing partner" all they want - and for good reason.
I don't care where the email comes from. I care about who is paying for it - directly or indirectly. Chances are, if they're selling a product, there is an easy-to-follow trail right back to the good old USA.
Why does Sun's license agreement explicitly state that Sun can not be held liable for loses caused by Sun software?
It sounds like Sun doesn't have faith in their own product line. Should I use Sun products for mission-critical applications? Well, I know that Sun won't stand behind me if I do!
Nonono, you miss my point. I am -not- an advocate of dumping money into lost industries (like steel!).
But I am encouraging appropriate investment in up-and-coming industries where the start-up cost is so high that only a government can pull it off.
I think aerospace is one of those industries. Investing in a viable industry is good, for both capitalistic and socialistic reasons. Investing in a forever-lost industry is just the opposite.
I don't know if anyone has done any formal study on the complexity of development tools over time - but the fact is that programming tools are getting "lower" over time.
When I started out in this business, a language like C was a high level programming language. It did a lot for the programmer, especially compared to assembler and FORTRAN.
Everything we did every day was to save memory and CPU cycles. Can we squeeze a date field into 8 bits? You bet we'd try! And we did! Heck, we could ignore weekends and holidays. Phew!
At the same time, databases were heirarchical. The databases were very close to the machine, so they were darn fast. As long as you didn't do any unexpected queries (like "sort by first name"), everything was blazing fast and tight.
Then came the higher level systems. Ouch, they sucked! We were the very first customer to run DB2 in production (quiz- you know which one?) Anyhow, it sucked rocks compared to the heirarchical databases - they were just optimized for speed! Why would anyone ever want a relational database?
But over years we came to see the light. With faster and faster machines, the number of cycles was less important. With bigger memory and disk, storage was less important. And it was butt-easy to use these tools. Easier and MUCH more maintainable.
So yeah, Java and C# are going to use more memory and more cycles than plain old C (if using the languages as expected). But for most tasks, that isn't the whole story.
The whole story is that Java and C# result in less expensive programs. And those programs should run fast enough. Yeah, not in EVERY case. But in most cases.
OK, I admit it - I like the coolness of NASA. I disagree with the article - most of those "top 10" are not in NASA's mission - but maybe it's just because NASA is a good service provider to those who do have strong, even noble missions.
I do believe that there is a good need to fund the science and engineering of areospace technologies - and the people at NASA are certainly the right people to do it.
And I'm certainly not totally against the manned space program. And being American, I think the US should invest heavily into the technology and trade where it still has clear leadership (because we all here see where industries like manufacturing and IT have/are going).
But alas, NASA needs to do more to both commercialize the business aspects of space, and to invest towards useful goals - too often I think that the billions in contracts could be better invested. ---
It's a good idea to have resources that are committed to security. Although some will claim that languages such as Java or C# prevent security issues, this is simply not true - there are many avenues to building security weaknesses... and those that think they're safe merely by using a particular programming language are in for a nasty surprise.
Of course, a web site and a few books won't prevent security issues - but the more it gets the word out about good programming practices, the better!
OK, I admit it - I go into music stores once in a while. There's this song I like, and I don't really mind supporting the artist & other people who technically support the artist.
I've been buying CDs for the past 15 years or so. And before that I bought a whole bunch of LPs.
And there was always the $18 and the $12. I can say, with confidence, that I've never bought an $18 CD.
I'd always retract from the $18 CDs. Why does album XYZ deserve $6 a pop? It certainly isn't quality.
In contrast, I've never had a problem buying a $12 CD. Sometimes I buy a $12 CD on a whim. But $18? Never. No freakin' way. I'll just wait for radio airplay.
The only exception to my rule would be a multi-CD set. I can see paying $18 for a couple quality CDs.
And there we have it. From my sample of one person, $18 CDs simply don't sell. On the other hand, people readily buy $12 CDs, and they'll even buy them even if they're not 100% sure if it's something they'd like.
Universal has learned this. Maybe some others in the industry will learn this too. And do you know what? If the others don't go along, that's fine with me - I just won't be their customer.
At $18, I won't buy. I don't pirate music. So I won't listen. The only real loss is to the aritst and the label. Is there anything wrong with that?
* you get a fairly permanent phone number and the ability to receive incoming calls as Mandated by law. * there's no "activation procedure" required before each session of telephone use as Mandated by law. * 99.9999% uptime! as Mandated by law. * you can choose any long distance carrier as Mandated by law. * the network has sufficient capacity that under normal circumstances, you always get a dialtone when you pick up the phone, and your phone always rings when someone calls you as Mandated by law. * no arbitrary restrictions on calls to modems, fax machines, voicemail / answering machines and the like as Mandated by law. * no limit on your talk-time per day or month as Mandated by law.
Hmmm, I notice a trend here... Is it that SBC is a great carrier? Or are they just doing what the minimum that they're required to do?
Clearly SCO is not hopeful that it will win the lawsuit against IBM - if it were, it wouldn't care about how many "SCO Linux licensees" are out there, and it wouldn't be trying to collect hundreds or thousands of dollars from them.
Just think: If SCO thought it could win the IBM suit, SCO would be very successful financially. SCO could then take that financial success and license their technology in terms that are legally clear to their customers.
Instead, they're trying to force organizations to be their customers by threatening them with potential lawsuits. And unclear lawsuits at that.
SCO is merely looking for extremely high visibility in the short term - negative visibility which can damage it's ability to be a product OR IP property. Basically, they're pissing off potential customers of their technology (no matter WHO they license it to).
SCO is looking for some short term cash with this deal, likely because all other forms of cashflow have stopped or in the process of stopping. Again, they can only bite the hand that COULD feed it, as at this point they have no product of any value except the threat of lawsuits (which isn't really considered a product).
Hmmm, just for the record, as far as I can recall:
- My Linux box has never crashed. - My Windows 2000 box crashed once. - My Girlfriend's Windows XP laptop crashes once in a while. - My Dad's Win98 box crashes once in a while.
I generally keep all these boxes up to date with the current service packs/updates.
From "Navigation Satellites & GPS v2.2.3 / 01 dec 02 / gvgoebel@earthlink.net/"
Geophysicists have been exploiting GPS since the mid-1980s, using it to measure continental drift and the movement of the Earth's surface in geologically active regions. They have been able to obtain accurate surface measurements to within a few millimeters through a procedure known as "carrier tracking", which is even more accurate than differential GPS. Carrier tracking actually senses the phase of the carrier signals on which the location code sequences are broadcast. It is, not surprisingly, a tricky and subtle procedure, and not applicable for general use.
Slashdot Mirror
These guys aren't nutcases, and they aren't stupid.
However, it is clear to me that they're more interested in supporting their own unpublished agenda versus fighting government waste.
Their little rant doesn't merit a quiet, personal reply - their statement was a public, well-crafted, and baseless commentary which they can leverage to gain additional support from some of their corporate sponsors.
Their statement merits a quick and complete public reply, exposing their failure to support the principles that they pretend to stand for.
"Against government waste?" Bullshit. I looks like they're for lining their own pockets first.
Yahoo! Free breakfast! I'll see you guys on the 9th at, um, let's say 8:15 AM. ... but I'll be out of there by 9:00 (or after all the food has been picked over).
Usually there are reasonable things that can be done to increase performance at a low cost. Optimize a query here, cache some data there, remove a big memory sink there, and next thing you know, your application is running a lot leaner.
On the other hand, sometimes it is worthwhile to just chuck out the whole implementation and start over again. In my case, we're thinking of doing that because we want to implement a bunch of new functionality that really changes the intent of our application. And after 7 years of crappy coding practices, the codebase is a mess.
However, as an IT manager, I rarely find it "sellable" to take an internally-ugly application, replace it with another application of identical functionality, and tell anyone that it's a success. Especially given the teething pains you will experience with a new implementation.
Your note goes on to suggest that your organization can replace hardware platform (Sun), vendors, application technology (Java), and the application itself. Is your organization really in a situation to make so many changes right now? So many changes sounds like a huge risk!
If the application can be fixed, and the cost isn't too high, and there are no other organizational reasons to switch out all this technology - then I say keep it where it is for now.
Later, you might want to build a long term vision for future development efforts.
HTTPS with appropriate authentication and authorization modules.
Otherwise, you have to support god knows how many idiots with the VPN client software. Forget it unless you want to support a collection of non-http services.
As an IT professional, I do see that Open Source solutions do in fact save money in the longer term. Five years ago my organization was using mostly closed-source products... and our software budget was several thousand dollars per developer per year.
Today my IT development organization is virtually 100% open source. We're running Linux on the desktop and use open source development tools. Our software costs have dramatically fallen. Nope, we don't even use MS-Exchange or MS-Office.
If we extend this to the average user's desktop (versus just developers), we could see an even greater savings. And yes, we're working on it.
Saving money is always a good thing. Again, even the wealthiest of states, such as Massachusetts, need to save money given the very bad state of the US economy.
Other states may want to investigate this strategy in order to save $$$.
Reducing the cost of IT is always a good thing, even for the wealthiest states.
If you can save money on IT, maybe you can redirect it to health care or education or better unemployment benefits or debt reduction or even (*gasp*) lower taxes.
As many, many researchers know, this is why so much commercial research is flawed - there are too many strong influences out there that taint the data.
This is the first overt firing that I've heard of in the IT industry, but I'm sure there have been thousands that we just never heard of.
Just think of those poor researchers at the cigarette companies - you know, the ones where if you found that there was a link between cigarettes and cancer, well, you must be fired.
Or the researchers for pharmacuticals... where if you find that drug X doesn't help cure Y, then you shouldn't expect any grant money next year. Yeah, not fired, but certainly the same net result.
The fact is that research SHOULD be independent. I don't know or care if this guy's paper was right or wrong. But it should be the research community, not MBAs, who decide the quality of research. Period.
I think that firing this guy due to his research is wrong. It looks like he was fired for financial relationship reasons, not because his study was consistently rejected by the research community. Should his employers be considered biased? As a potential customer, should I trust this company? If they are motivated more by their relationship with microsoft versus upholding the truth, I'll never recommend anyone to do business with them. And it looks like they are, and so I'll make sure they're scratched off the list.
Ah, you missed the point:
Initiate or advertise in an unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement to a California electronic mail address, or advertise in an unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement sent to a California electronic mail address.
So when Discover Card ads fill your spambox, you can sue the advertiser - Discover Card - no matter where the source server is and no matter how they disguise the money trail.
Of course, after they lose their suit with me, they can sue their "marketing partner" all they want - and for good reason.
I don't care where the email comes from. I care about who is paying for it - directly or indirectly. Chances are, if they're selling a product, there is an easy-to-follow trail right back to the good old USA.
MS-Office isn't required for me. I switched to OpenOffice just last week when I finally converted my desktop PC to Linux from Windows 2000.
:-( ).
No, OO it isn't perfect. And not all MS-Office documents convert perfectly (I use call-outs in PPT a lot
But it is good and useful. I approve.
These are the things that should be public knowledge...
---
Sun is being so hypocritical.
Why does Sun's license agreement explicitly state that Sun can not be held liable for loses caused by Sun software?
It sounds like Sun doesn't have faith in their own product line. Should I use Sun products for mission-critical applications? Well, I know that Sun won't stand behind me if I do!
Nonono, you miss my point. I am -not- an advocate of dumping money into lost industries (like steel!).
But I am encouraging appropriate investment in up-and-coming industries where the start-up cost is so high that only a government can pull it off.
I think aerospace is one of those industries. Investing in a viable industry is good, for both capitalistic and socialistic reasons. Investing in a forever-lost industry is just the opposite.
I don't know if anyone has done any formal study on the complexity of development tools over time - but the fact is that programming tools are getting "lower" over time.
When I started out in this business, a language like C was a high level programming language. It did a lot for the programmer, especially compared to assembler and FORTRAN.
Everything we did every day was to save memory and CPU cycles. Can we squeeze a date field into 8 bits? You bet we'd try! And we did! Heck, we could ignore weekends and holidays. Phew!
At the same time, databases were heirarchical. The databases were very close to the machine, so they were darn fast. As long as you didn't do any unexpected queries (like "sort by first name"), everything was blazing fast and tight.
Then came the higher level systems. Ouch, they sucked! We were the very first customer to run DB2 in production (quiz- you know which one?) Anyhow, it sucked rocks compared to the heirarchical databases - they were just optimized for speed! Why would anyone ever want a relational database?
But over years we came to see the light. With faster and faster machines, the number of cycles was less important. With bigger memory and disk, storage was less important. And it was butt-easy to use these tools. Easier and MUCH more maintainable.
So yeah, Java and C# are going to use more memory and more cycles than plain old C (if using the languages as expected). But for most tasks, that isn't the whole story.
The whole story is that Java and C# result in less expensive programs. And those programs should run fast enough. Yeah, not in EVERY case. But in most cases.
Performance comparisons be damned.
OK, I admit it - I like the coolness of NASA. I disagree with the article - most of those "top 10" are not in NASA's mission - but maybe it's just because NASA is a good service provider to those who do have strong, even noble missions.
I do believe that there is a good need to fund the science and engineering of areospace technologies - and the people at NASA are certainly the right people to do it.
And I'm certainly not totally against the manned space program. And being American, I think the US should invest heavily into the technology and trade where it still has clear leadership (because we all here see where industries like manufacturing and IT have/are going).
But alas, NASA needs to do more to both commercialize the business aspects of space, and to invest towards useful goals - too often I think that the billions in contracts could be better invested.
---
It's a good idea to have resources that are committed to security. Although some will claim that languages such as Java or C# prevent security issues, this is simply not true - there are many avenues to building security weaknesses... and those that think they're safe merely by using a particular programming language are in for a nasty surprise.
Of course, a web site and a few books won't prevent security issues - but the more it gets the word out about good programming practices, the better!
---
Herb Chambers - where my nightmare came true!
Isn't little Stevie Jobs the bastard child that Paul McCartney gave up for adoption?
I'm soooo confused....
Why not just make it the "Pixar iPod" and be done with it?
OK, I admit it - I go into music stores once in a while. There's this song I like, and I don't really mind supporting the artist & other people who technically support the artist.
I've been buying CDs for the past 15 years or so. And before that I bought a whole bunch of LPs.
And there was always the $18 and the $12. I can say, with confidence, that I've never bought an $18 CD.
I'd always retract from the $18 CDs. Why does album XYZ deserve $6 a pop? It certainly isn't quality.
In contrast, I've never had a problem buying a $12 CD. Sometimes I buy a $12 CD on a whim. But $18? Never. No freakin' way. I'll just wait for radio airplay.
The only exception to my rule would be a multi-CD set. I can see paying $18 for a couple quality CDs.
And there we have it. From my sample of one person, $18 CDs simply don't sell. On the other hand, people readily buy $12 CDs, and they'll even buy them even if they're not 100% sure if it's something they'd like.
Universal has learned this. Maybe some others in the industry will learn this too. And do you know what? If the others don't go along, that's fine with me - I just won't be their customer.
At $18, I won't buy.
I don't pirate music.
So I won't listen.
The only real loss is to the aritst and the label.
Is there anything wrong with that?
* you get a fairly permanent phone number and the ability to receive incoming calls
as Mandated by law.
* there's no "activation procedure" required before each session of telephone use
as Mandated by law.
* 99.9999% uptime!
as Mandated by law.
* you can choose any long distance carrier
as Mandated by law.
* the network has sufficient capacity that under normal circumstances, you always get a dialtone when you pick up the phone, and your phone always rings when someone calls you
as Mandated by law.
* no arbitrary restrictions on calls to modems, fax machines, voicemail / answering machines and the like
as Mandated by law.
* no limit on your talk-time per day or month
as Mandated by law.
Hmmm, I notice a trend here... Is it that SBC is a great carrier? Or are they just doing what the minimum that they're required to do?
Clearly SCO is not hopeful that it will win the lawsuit against IBM - if it were, it wouldn't care about how many "SCO Linux licensees" are out there, and it wouldn't be trying to collect hundreds or thousands of dollars from them.
Just think: If SCO thought it could win the IBM suit, SCO would be very successful financially. SCO could then take that financial success and license their technology in terms that are legally clear to their customers.
Instead, they're trying to force organizations to be their customers by threatening them with potential lawsuits. And unclear lawsuits at that.
SCO is merely looking for extremely high visibility in the short term - negative visibility which can damage it's ability to be a product OR IP property. Basically, they're pissing off potential customers of their technology (no matter WHO they license it to).
SCO is looking for some short term cash with this deal, likely because all other forms of cashflow have stopped or in the process of stopping. Again, they can only bite the hand that COULD feed it, as at this point they have no product of any value except the threat of lawsuits (which isn't really considered a product).
This processor will most certainly weed out all those CS majors that thought that assembler was as easy as apple pie ;-)
64 mile commute? Gee, I have a 15 mile commute (round trip) and it's WAY too long.
In fact, I want to move so it can be a 3 mile commute.
Why people want to spend hundreds of hours a year driving to and from work, I will never ever understand.
Hmmm, just for the record, as far as I can recall:
- My Linux box has never crashed.
- My Windows 2000 box crashed once.
- My Girlfriend's Windows XP laptop crashes once in a while.
- My Dad's Win98 box crashes once in a while.
I generally keep all these boxes up to date with the current service packs/updates.
I'm not against guns... I'm pro-gun. I don't have a thing against them. They're nice and usually made of metal and plastic.
But I am against nuts with guns. Yep, I'm against it.
If you're for nuts with guns, I suggest you put a sign on your lawn that says "I think all nuts should own guns!"
I agree... no sane person agrees with damaging someoneâ(TM)s computer over copyright violations.
Additionally, it was clear that Senator Hatch does believe in damaging people's computers if they're guilty of copyright violation.
In the worst case, computer manufacturers would be HAPPY if some PCs were shot dead! Just think - more sales!
From "Navigation Satellites & GPS v2.2.3 / 01 dec 02 / gvgoebel@earthlink.net /"
Geophysicists have been exploiting GPS since the mid-1980s, using it to measure continental drift and the movement of the Earth's surface in geologically active regions. They have been able to obtain accurate surface measurements to within a few millimeters through a procedure known as "carrier tracking", which is even more accurate than differential GPS. Carrier tracking actually senses the phase of the carrier signals on which the location code sequences are broadcast. It is, not surprisingly, a tricky and subtle procedure, and not applicable for general use.