This is too funny: you realize this is Cisco we're talking about here, right? The company that still requires obscene steps and wads of cash to get security updates for a paid-for product?
I don't mean to flamebait, but seriously. Cisco is one of the most frustrating (large) companies to deal with in this regard. Smaller companies try to do the same things, but ultimately those behaviors turn people off their products. Why is Cisco still bannered about as the end-all, be-all for networking equipment, given that:
* feature for feature, their switches are inferior in many ways to their competetors * Cisco products have less fabric provisioning than, say, HP switches, which cost a fraction as much (off the top of my head, 30% less fabric at 4x the cost) * Less usability built into the devices themselves (limited interface feature set). This applies to the 'home' routers, too: the Buffalo home routers are comparable to the Linksys (in some cases, 'identical'), cost less, and have better firmware. And lately, the radios have been better, too (for wireless). * Getting upgrades for an old Cisco is difficult and costly. "Old" usually means "not a couple years new and doesn't have a current service contract".
I mean, seriously: it still costs how much for a Cisco PIX 50x? We're not even talking about something recent; 501s still sell, new, for over $150. It's no small wonder that small businesses buy things like Sonicwall devices given the alternative in 'name brand networking equipment'.
You can argue that it's worth the money due to comprehensive support, lifetime this or that, or what have you. For most people, upon careful examination, the truth is that Cisco isn't a good value decision.
I, for one, am quite pleased that the Pre line isn't dead. I plan to buy a Pre of some variety as my next phone.
You see, I've not yet taken the $50+ a month plunge to get a smartphone. I still have a stupid 'free' phone, and pay a relative pittance each month. But I'd like the features of a smartphone; for what's available, the Pre seems the best bet in terms of "going to work and not piss me off".
I should note that I'm not a 'technology dinosaur' - I'm a sysadmin, deal with fun things like multiplexing, ZFS SANs, virtualization, and a myriad of other things on a daily basis. However, I try to lead a relatively simple, uncomplicated life (which technology is supposed to help, not hinder): I drive a reliable MFI diesel; I prefer solid state devices over the latest wiz bang with a dozen fans for heat suppression (thankfully, SSDs and the latest architectures have made this distinction all but useless for storage); I don't own a TV or an expensive entertainment system. I want tools that work and work well: single-purpose functionality is great (grep, sed, awk, etc.) but if I can have a tool that does all that (and better - eg. perl) in one, I'll take it.
I want a Pre for the same reason I drive an old diesel and not a newer EFI vehicle or a hybrid, and why I don't have TV and cable service. It's a tool which I will use, to limited functionality, and will fit it's role. I don't want my work devices to also be play devices (chainsaws, in the case of a zombie apocalypse, will be an obvious exception).
If I want to play games, I'll get a Gameboy.
How many carriers did the iPhone have when it first came out? One, wasn't it? This is no clear distinction on "fail" or "success". There are a lot of other factors. Windows 95 didn't run on most older hardware, but took off like wildfire. The timeframe criticism has merit, however. That is a bit disconcerting.
* "Thou shalt not murder" - unless the person isn't really a person, but a lower class not seen by Allah as a valueable asset (like a Jew, Christian, or unbeliever). Or a woman - their lives are worth a mere fraction of that of a man. * Rape? That's corporal punishment. * Rape? It isn't rape, it's a cure for AIDS (not specifically confined to the Muslim world). * Everyone has a right to be a Muslim, or to death.
Certain world views are incompatible. There is no reconciliation of views when one extreme (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) is in direct contradiction with the other ("submission to Allah"). This isn't a critique of any one view within the Muslim world, but some of its core tenants; there are obviously some which adhere to these tenants more strongly than others.
Yeah, me too. The machine in question is a lowly 700Mhz Celeron with 386Mb and has been humming away happily for the better part of a decade (2002) - the original install was migrated from an older 233Mhz w/ 128Mb (Debian 2 or 3, I think), and it's been upgraded since that point. This, IMO, is one of the biggest strengths debian has: upgrades are literally painless to the point of never really needing to worry about it.
It's amazing how much longevity Debian releases have, even though they're considered 'old and behind the curve'. As long as the hardware in question isn't cutting edge in some fashion (eg. a new screamer of a workstation) I typically put Debian on there and it's happy for a couple years.
I got really excited when I read this at first, but then I realized it's probably going to have many of the same bugs that the FreeBSD kernel has surrounding the various subsystems (jails) and drivers (recent Intel ethernet crashing, USB, etc. that still don't work for the better part of a year), as well as crippling limitations as it regards adaptability on filesystems (ext*, NTFS, NFS - all limiting) and the like.
i wonder if they managed to get ZFS to work fully with the userland utilities written? That would be the biggest point that might pull me over to give it a go.
It's a good thing that public works doesn't innovate like IT people tend to.
If they did, we'd end up with bridges without guardrails to reduce costs, or maybe bridges with curves in them (to make people driver slower, of course). Road signs would only be printed on the back side, and backwards, so drivers would pay attention to the road ahead of them - they could view the road signs from their rear view mirrors. They'd double the road lanes, with the exception that only the mini-cars and/or hybrids/electrics could drive in the extra lanes - make the lanes narrower and put them on the inside, so any larger vehicle crossing them to get off the roadway would have to effectively drive in them, too, causing all sorts of issues.
(Well, except if you're in California, I suppose.)
Point being: the US (and western world) does not need more address space. What we need to do is stop using the existing address space foolishly. My ISP gave me a static/30 - why? (I suppose there could be a good reason for carving up subnets and wasting extra addresses for broadcast and gateways, but I'm unaware of it). Seems to me there'd be a better, more efficient way to perform that task.
IPv6 is going to cause more problems than it fixes in the western world, for some time. It's going to provide little/no benefit for the end user or carriers once it's implemented, and will largely be a 'subsidy' to get the 3rd world and undeveloped regions (including large swaths of China, I imagine) online.
IPv6 is the IT equivalent to a large, bureaucratic government's programs.
It's something that is a technically legitimate fix for a certain problem - but due to the political nature of the implementation (in this case, "technically pure"), it ignores the reality of the status quo.
In this case, the problem has to do with people not knowing IPv6 - everyone from managers on down to the cable people, and the programmers who write things like VoIP software or the myriads of 'network appliances'. How many appliances are there out there which (say) run Linux and have IPv6 built in, but the UI has a type constrained IPv4 address for interface configuration? A hell of a lot. Nothing is ready, and many many people use IP addressing for infrastructure, still. (The smaller the network, the more likely it is, so the cost for compliance is disproportionately burdensome on smaller companies.)
The problems will be a marked increases to IT costs, incompatibility, and general "growing pains". No, most infrastructure is not "IPv6" ready. Most people do not know how to work with it. And no, companies do not want to pay for what most in IT see as more pain than it's worth (let the 3rd world rot in obscurity).
As opposed to a so-called "blue state", where smarts have been devalued to a point where people are throwing them on the streets?
I have no idea what this has to do with political parties and affiliation, honestly. This is one egotistical individual butting heads against an entrenched politician. Honestly, you don't think such things would get the "computer scientist" in hot water in (say) San Francisco? (You know, where they 'pave' their streets with steel plates and rebuild bridges to add curves, so people will driver slower - resulting in hundreds if not thousands of fatalities per year.)
State licensure as a professional engineer depends on the state, but generally, you need:
* 4 years working under an engineer * a bachelor of science degree in an engineering discipline
or
* 6 years working under an engineer * a BS degree in another scientifically oriented discipline
Again, it depends on the state, and to some degree the whim of the state board. Engineering is one of the last remaining 'apprenticeship' fields and, arguably, it's suffered from it to some degree. (Medicine is one of the others, and look how cocked off that's gotten from reality.)
I know some guys who claim to be "Systems Engineers" that are most definitely not legitimate engineers and it bugs me to no end.
Yeah, that's somewhat irksome. Yet there are some scrupulous individuals who will only describe themselves as such once they realize they've atoned themselves sufficiently to reach that point. It's difficult to honestly be able to say "I'm a systems engineer" simply because there isn't that much of a need for them - for the most case, an 'administrator' will do when a 'technician' and a pile of hardware isn't available. The later is usually cheaper, if not as good, long-term. (You'll eventually need an engineer, anyway.)
You do not want non licensed Engineers doing engineering work. Bad things will come of it.
I wish there was a PE equivalent for Computer programming in my state. well, in all states, really.
I disagree with your first supposition but agree with the second - likely, for different reasons than you.
Licensed engineers are lazy. They do make bad decisions - more often than not, simple because "I'm an engineer, I know what I'm doing". They're myopic in vision. Myopia is great for solving a single, small problem. It is really, really bad when you're actually trying to look at a whole system. In IT, an "engineer" is typically someone who does just that - look at the whole system and assess it for what it is. An administrator is a closer analogy for your typical engineer.
So licensing IT engineers, as we do PEs? Don't even try it. It's a stupid idea - one only a PE
-- Caimlas, someone who was parented by engineers, grew up around other engineers, and has ended up having to fix a lot of their 'elegant solutions'.
(Software developers, on the other hand, could probably benefit - as a whole - from such things. But you'll lose the good ones due to frustration with the stupidity of it all.)
If you're a licensed engineer, then you're bound by a number of stupid archaic regulations. You're at the mercy of the whims of the licensing board - as they are responsible for reviewing complaints.
Licensing is no picnic. I'm glad I don't have to be licensed as a "network engineer" - even though I wish such a fate upon others. If you're in a licensed field, lose your license, and still practice, you can go to prison. Not cool - and usually because someone disagrees (however wrong or right) with the way you do business (or, more likely, simply because they dislike you or they're bureaucratic fuckwits).
I've grown up around "licensed engineeeeers": most are dibshits, and if I had a dollar for every word of poor advice one of them has given me as diktat (as it pertains to their field) I'd have a lot of dollars.
A license, no matter how finite the figuring required is, is no compensation for the intellectual mettle required to get the goddamn job done properly.
GPS is just an enabling device that helps that ignorance get them killed
Would it be too much to ask that every vehicle - boat, airplane, or automobile - be equiped with GPS, then? While we're at it, let's put it in $150+ Kelty backpacks, as a "feature".
The 95% that isn't considered 'high data'? Most of them are still on "dumbphones".
Sorry: we don't want more cost just for data. We have computers. We have the internet. We're already paying as much as we want to: this is a recession.
If you want to pull people onto data networks (nevermind that Verizon's wireless data is slow as shit), you're going to have to a) make it appealing and b) make it low/no cost. This isn't 2005, when people still had teh conception that America wasn't utterly imploding. This is 2011. Most of us realize that shit is getting deep: $3.25+ gas isn't going away; 20%/year food costs aren't going to stop, and an annual 10-30% increase in taxes is the new norm. We're not going to throw $30+ more a month at a 'data service' which isn't - if our one single friend with disposable income, who took the jump, is to be trusted, that is.
It's like saying we no longer use sledges because the pneumatic hammer was invented - or that a stone axe is a 'dead tool' because the hammer was invented. No - they just get an upgrade. The fundamental tool is the same, albeit somewhat incompatible. The work performed is performed by other tools to superior methods.
But, maybe I'm missing the point. In my mind, a sextant isn't dead any more than a slide rule or abacus - even though they're no longer used except in the rarest of situations. People still use primitive cryptology methods today for method transmittal, after all - that doesn't mean the tools are dead.
In my mind, a 'dead tool' would be a tool that is no longer used at all, not simply replaced with a superior model. The tools we have which replaced that 'unnamed tool' is the hard drive/microphone/whatever. The tools used to make the pyramids, however, are another story entirely: whatever they did to make them, we can't figure it out using existing methods/practices or reconstruct them using known tools.
Good examples of 'lost tools' are the metallurgy/manufacturing methods used to make various ooparts - for instance, the tools used to derive the information used to create the Greek Antikythera mechanism (mentioned here on/. recently, even), or the supposed 'rust-free iron' fossilized hammer or plastic disc ooparts found (true or not, these things are very fascinating for the 'lost tool' fascination alone, despite this site's mission - http://www.s8int.com/)
Raster - oh, I followed it right along; I just never really understood the push until I saw E running on smart phones in the last couple of years.
I appreciate the dedication, even though I will not likely directly appreciate the result (ie build something using them - I'm not much of a programmer). Someone with less vision would've probably bogged themselves down with a public wm release, and burdened by support and bugs, would've never gotten their libraries to where they idealistically wanted them.
While I haven't used E in years (too busy to pull from the repos and build myself, I suppose?), instead using awesome for my window manager (finding the mouse decreasingly useful for what I do), E still looks like it's got a heck of a lot of potential. Probably not as light as fltk2, I'd imagine, but undoubtedly more adaptable and (I'd guess) faster.
The other window manager (desktop environment...) projects need more people with your level of dedication and vision.:) I look forward to possibly using "Enlightenment 1.0" someday.;)
E16 was a feature-rich, but pretty bloated window manager. E17, when I first tried it some seven years ago, was very lean: I’d put it on a computer too underpowered for either Windows XP or the then-current version of either KDE or Gnome. All of them positively dragged. E17 was not very stable, but it was small and fast, and its image viewer (AFAICT also discontinued) ran circles around GQview. Zooming huge photos in or out was instantaneous in E; GQview would take up to 10 seconds.
I ran E16 on my 233Mhz with 128Mb of RAM without much issue; the early builds (about 10 years ago) were a wee bit bloated when I stopped trying them; it was faster, but more bloated. As of 7 years ago, I think efm was long discontinued - and it was just getting started in the timeframe I was thinking of (if that's any help). I stopped using Enlightenment by the time XP came out, but I can't imagine it was all that slow. (Though, E16 is relatively slow on newer hardware, too - it's just not that well designed.)
I believe 'feh' was the image viewer in E17, at the time. IIRC, it still uses imlib2 (which was originally part of the Enlightenment stack, IIRC). I still use it almost exclusively for viewing images.
Even a lot of the refuse from the Enlightenment project has been well used over the years: ESD (E Sound Daemon) was still my preferred daemon until quite recently (honestly, I'd be using it still if it hadn't become a pain to set up). imlib2 and feh, of course, are also there.
Very interesting that E17 is that awesome now. It's certainly lighter than it was at the time (I think - system perf/usage recollections seem to fade with time:P)
In retrospect I think it's a combination of both slimming/improvement as well as other things bloating faster. The design for the libraries didn't change much since inception, just the implementation. "We can do this better" was their mantra. Compare that to GTK, KDE, or even Windows and OSX, where the libraries have almost invariably increased in bloat - the old stuff wasn't improved upon, it was augmented by new stuff or replaced outright with heavier functionality.
E17 ran acceptably with 128Mb of RAM back in the day, but could easily use 256 once you included your browser. It was a bit tight. The same is still more than possible today (seemingly more possible, actually), on smart phones.
I never said it was a perfect portfolio; their assets are improving in those areas. The greatest benefit those things offer is in the '3rd party components' - which in many cases, are all Intel - such as Intel chipsets for audio, video, and ethernet. They'll work on essentially any platform you decide to put on it - Windows, Mac, Linux, *BSD...
Intel's video may not be the most performance-savvy option, but I will say one thing: it usually works, as opposed to nvidia/AMD stuff, as it relates to (say) suspending. The hardware isn't stellar in and of itself, no. But it's a great package.
Slashdot Mirror
This is too funny: you realize this is Cisco we're talking about here, right? The company that still requires obscene steps and wads of cash to get security updates for a paid-for product?
I don't mean to flamebait, but seriously. Cisco is one of the most frustrating (large) companies to deal with in this regard. Smaller companies try to do the same things, but ultimately those behaviors turn people off their products. Why is Cisco still bannered about as the end-all, be-all for networking equipment, given that:
* feature for feature, their switches are inferior in many ways to their competetors
* Cisco products have less fabric provisioning than, say, HP switches, which cost a fraction as much (off the top of my head, 30% less fabric at 4x the cost)
* Less usability built into the devices themselves (limited interface feature set). This applies to the 'home' routers, too: the Buffalo home routers are comparable to the Linksys (in some cases, 'identical'), cost less, and have better firmware. And lately, the radios have been better, too (for wireless).
* Getting upgrades for an old Cisco is difficult and costly. "Old" usually means "not a couple years new and doesn't have a current service contract".
I mean, seriously: it still costs how much for a Cisco PIX 50x? We're not even talking about something recent; 501s still sell, new, for over $150. It's no small wonder that small businesses buy things like Sonicwall devices given the alternative in 'name brand networking equipment'.
You can argue that it's worth the money due to comprehensive support, lifetime this or that, or what have you. For most people, upon careful examination, the truth is that Cisco isn't a good value decision.
I, for one, am quite pleased that the Pre line isn't dead. I plan to buy a Pre of some variety as my next phone.
You see, I've not yet taken the $50+ a month plunge to get a smartphone. I still have a stupid 'free' phone, and pay a relative pittance each month. But I'd like the features of a smartphone; for what's available, the Pre seems the best bet in terms of "going to work and not piss me off".
I should note that I'm not a 'technology dinosaur' - I'm a sysadmin, deal with fun things like multiplexing, ZFS SANs, virtualization, and a myriad of other things on a daily basis. However, I try to lead a relatively simple, uncomplicated life (which technology is supposed to help, not hinder): I drive a reliable MFI diesel; I prefer solid state devices over the latest wiz bang with a dozen fans for heat suppression (thankfully, SSDs and the latest architectures have made this distinction all but useless for storage); I don't own a TV or an expensive entertainment system. I want tools that work and work well: single-purpose functionality is great (grep, sed, awk, etc.) but if I can have a tool that does all that (and better - eg. perl) in one, I'll take it.
I want a Pre for the same reason I drive an old diesel and not a newer EFI vehicle or a hybrid, and why I don't have TV and cable service. It's a tool which I will use, to limited functionality, and will fit it's role. I don't want my work devices to also be play devices (chainsaws, in the case of a zombie apocalypse, will be an obvious exception).
If I want to play games, I'll get a Gameboy.
How many carriers did the iPhone have when it first came out? One, wasn't it? This is no clear distinction on "fail" or "success". There are a lot of other factors. Windows 95 didn't run on most older hardware, but took off like wildfire. The timeframe criticism has merit, however. That is a bit disconcerting.
essentials that we would all agree on.
* "Thou shalt not murder" - unless the person isn't really a person, but a lower class not seen by Allah as a valueable asset (like a Jew, Christian, or unbeliever). Or a woman - their lives are worth a mere fraction of that of a man.
* Rape? That's corporal punishment.
* Rape? It isn't rape, it's a cure for AIDS (not specifically confined to the Muslim world).
* Everyone has a right to be a Muslim, or to death.
Certain world views are incompatible. There is no reconciliation of views when one extreme (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) is in direct contradiction with the other ("submission to Allah"). This isn't a critique of any one view within the Muslim world, but some of its core tenants; there are obviously some which adhere to these tenants more strongly than others.
Yeah, me too. The machine in question is a lowly 700Mhz Celeron with 386Mb and has been humming away happily for the better part of a decade (2002) - the original install was migrated from an older 233Mhz w/ 128Mb (Debian 2 or 3, I think), and it's been upgraded since that point. This, IMO, is one of the biggest strengths debian has: upgrades are literally painless to the point of never really needing to worry about it.
It's amazing how much longevity Debian releases have, even though they're considered 'old and behind the curve'. As long as the hardware in question isn't cutting edge in some fashion (eg. a new screamer of a workstation) I typically put Debian on there and it's happy for a couple years.
I got really excited when I read this at first, but then I realized it's probably going to have many of the same bugs that the FreeBSD kernel has surrounding the various subsystems (jails) and drivers (recent Intel ethernet crashing, USB, etc. that still don't work for the better part of a year), as well as crippling limitations as it regards adaptability on filesystems (ext*, NTFS, NFS - all limiting) and the like.
i wonder if they managed to get ZFS to work fully with the userland utilities written? That would be the biggest point that might pull me over to give it a go.
It's a good thing that public works doesn't innovate like IT people tend to.
If they did, we'd end up with bridges without guardrails to reduce costs, or maybe bridges with curves in them (to make people driver slower, of course). Road signs would only be printed on the back side, and backwards, so drivers would pay attention to the road ahead of them - they could view the road signs from their rear view mirrors. They'd double the road lanes, with the exception that only the mini-cars and/or hybrids/electrics could drive in the extra lanes - make the lanes narrower and put them on the inside, so any larger vehicle crossing them to get off the roadway would have to effectively drive in them, too, causing all sorts of issues.
(Well, except if you're in California, I suppose.)
Point being: the US (and western world) does not need more address space. What we need to do is stop using the existing address space foolishly. My ISP gave me a static /30 - why? (I suppose there could be a good reason for carving up subnets and wasting extra addresses for broadcast and gateways, but I'm unaware of it). Seems to me there'd be a better, more efficient way to perform that task.
IPv6 is going to cause more problems than it fixes in the western world, for some time. It's going to provide little/no benefit for the end user or carriers once it's implemented, and will largely be a 'subsidy' to get the 3rd world and undeveloped regions (including large swaths of China, I imagine) online.
IPv6 is the IT equivalent to a large, bureaucratic government's programs.
It's something that is a technically legitimate fix for a certain problem - but due to the political nature of the implementation (in this case, "technically pure"), it ignores the reality of the status quo.
In this case, the problem has to do with people not knowing IPv6 - everyone from managers on down to the cable people, and the programmers who write things like VoIP software or the myriads of 'network appliances'. How many appliances are there out there which (say) run Linux and have IPv6 built in, but the UI has a type constrained IPv4 address for interface configuration? A hell of a lot. Nothing is ready, and many many people use IP addressing for infrastructure, still. (The smaller the network, the more likely it is, so the cost for compliance is disproportionately burdensome on smaller companies.)
The problems will be a marked increases to IT costs, incompatibility, and general "growing pains". No, most infrastructure is not "IPv6" ready. Most people do not know how to work with it. And no, companies do not want to pay for what most in IT see as more pain than it's worth (let the 3rd world rot in obscurity).
As opposed to a so-called "blue state", where smarts have been devalued to a point where people are throwing them on the streets?
I have no idea what this has to do with political parties and affiliation, honestly. This is one egotistical individual butting heads against an entrenched politician. Honestly, you don't think such things would get the "computer scientist" in hot water in (say) San Francisco? (You know, where they 'pave' their streets with steel plates and rebuild bridges to add curves, so people will driver slower - resulting in hundreds if not thousands of fatalities per year.)
State licensure as a professional engineer depends on the state, but generally, you need:
* 4 years working under an engineer
* a bachelor of science degree in an engineering discipline
or
* 6 years working under an engineer
* a BS degree in another scientifically oriented discipline
Again, it depends on the state, and to some degree the whim of the state board. Engineering is one of the last remaining 'apprenticeship' fields and, arguably, it's suffered from it to some degree. (Medicine is one of the others, and look how cocked off that's gotten from reality.)
I know some guys who claim to be "Systems Engineers" that are most definitely not legitimate engineers and it bugs me to no end.
Yeah, that's somewhat irksome. Yet there are some scrupulous individuals who will only describe themselves as such once they realize they've atoned themselves sufficiently to reach that point. It's difficult to honestly be able to say "I'm a systems engineer" simply because there isn't that much of a need for them - for the most case, an 'administrator' will do when a 'technician' and a pile of hardware isn't available. The later is usually cheaper, if not as good, long-term. (You'll eventually need an engineer, anyway.)
You do not want non licensed Engineers doing engineering work. Bad things will come of it.
I wish there was a PE equivalent for Computer programming in my state. well, in all states, really.
I disagree with your first supposition but agree with the second - likely, for different reasons than you.
Licensed engineers are lazy. They do make bad decisions - more often than not, simple because "I'm an engineer, I know what I'm doing". They're myopic in vision. Myopia is great for solving a single, small problem. It is really, really bad when you're actually trying to look at a whole system. In IT, an "engineer" is typically someone who does just that - look at the whole system and assess it for what it is. An administrator is a closer analogy for your typical engineer.
So licensing IT engineers, as we do PEs? Don't even try it. It's a stupid idea - one only a PE
-- Caimlas, someone who was parented by engineers, grew up around other engineers, and has ended up having to fix a lot of their 'elegant solutions'.
(Software developers, on the other hand, could probably benefit - as a whole - from such things. But you'll lose the good ones due to frustration with the stupidity of it all.)
Then again, State law is supposed to trump Federal Authority. If the state says it goes - barring some limitations, of course - it goes.
So-called "network engineers" are not licensed. (Thank God!)
The real travesty is that we've got "technicians" doing engineering, and we've got licensed engineers at all.
It's bullshit on a number of grounds.
If you're a licensed engineer, then you're bound by a number of stupid archaic regulations. You're at the mercy of the whims of the licensing board - as they are responsible for reviewing complaints.
Licensing is no picnic. I'm glad I don't have to be licensed as a "network engineer" - even though I wish such a fate upon others. If you're in a licensed field, lose your license, and still practice, you can go to prison. Not cool - and usually because someone disagrees (however wrong or right) with the way you do business (or, more likely, simply because they dislike you or they're bureaucratic fuckwits).
I've grown up around "licensed engineeeeers": most are dibshits, and if I had a dollar for every word of poor advice one of them has given me as diktat (as it pertains to their field) I'd have a lot of dollars.
A license, no matter how finite the figuring required is, is no compensation for the intellectual mettle required to get the goddamn job done properly.
Funny you mention it, my coworker just expressed concern to me for self-representing themselves legally.
What's the world coming to...
Judging by my shady recollection of an ISO file taking "almost two days" to download, you are corrrect - as verified by my good frind, Evan Willians.
GPS is just an enabling device that helps that ignorance get them killed
Would it be too much to ask that every vehicle - boat, airplane, or automobile - be equiped with GPS, then? While we're at it, let's put it in $150+ Kelty backpacks, as a "feature".
The 95% that isn't considered 'high data'? Most of them are still on "dumbphones".
Sorry: we don't want more cost just for data. We have computers. We have the internet. We're already paying as much as we want to: this is a recession.
If you want to pull people onto data networks (nevermind that Verizon's wireless data is slow as shit), you're going to have to a) make it appealing and b) make it low/no cost. This isn't 2005, when people still had teh conception that America wasn't utterly imploding. This is 2011. Most of us realize that shit is getting deep: $3.25+ gas isn't going away; 20%/year food costs aren't going to stop, and an annual 10-30% increase in taxes is the new norm. We're not going to throw $30+ more a month at a 'data service' which isn't - if our one single friend with disposable income, who took the jump, is to be trusted, that is.
"App" is not a tech word. It's an abbreviation that geeks have used for well over a decade which has become commonplace, commercialized
The worst words (and abbreviations) in IT are:
* "QA/QC"
* "just get it done"
* "I know you've got a lot to do, but..."
These things lead to leadership failure, on account of projects not meeting deadlines and repeated performance issues. If you rush shit, shit breaks.
Look at it this way: auto lots will have some cheap vehicles with GPS features in March.
I don't think that really qualifies.
It's like saying we no longer use sledges because the pneumatic hammer was invented - or that a stone axe is a 'dead tool' because the hammer was invented. No - they just get an upgrade. The fundamental tool is the same, albeit somewhat incompatible. The work performed is performed by other tools to superior methods.
But, maybe I'm missing the point. In my mind, a sextant isn't dead any more than a slide rule or abacus - even though they're no longer used except in the rarest of situations. People still use primitive cryptology methods today for method transmittal, after all - that doesn't mean the tools are dead.
In my mind, a 'dead tool' would be a tool that is no longer used at all, not simply replaced with a superior model. The tools we have which replaced that 'unnamed tool' is the hard drive/microphone/whatever. The tools used to make the pyramids, however, are another story entirely: whatever they did to make them, we can't figure it out using existing methods/practices or reconstruct them using known tools.
Good examples of 'lost tools' are the metallurgy/manufacturing methods used to make various ooparts - for instance, the tools used to derive the information used to create the Greek Antikythera mechanism (mentioned here on /. recently, even), or the supposed 'rust-free iron' fossilized hammer or plastic disc ooparts found (true or not, these things are very fascinating for the 'lost tool' fascination alone, despite this site's mission - http://www.s8int.com/)
Water, at what temperature?
Raster - oh, I followed it right along; I just never really understood the push until I saw E running on smart phones in the last couple of years.
I appreciate the dedication, even though I will not likely directly appreciate the result (ie build something using them - I'm not much of a programmer). Someone with less vision would've probably bogged themselves down with a public wm release, and burdened by support and bugs, would've never gotten their libraries to where they idealistically wanted them.
While I haven't used E in years (too busy to pull from the repos and build myself, I suppose?), instead using awesome for my window manager (finding the mouse decreasingly useful for what I do), E still looks like it's got a heck of a lot of potential. Probably not as light as fltk2, I'd imagine, but undoubtedly more adaptable and (I'd guess) faster.
The other window manager (desktop environment...) projects need more people with your level of dedication and vision. :) I look forward to possibly using "Enlightenment 1.0" someday. ;)
E16 was a feature-rich, but pretty bloated window manager. E17, when I first tried it some seven years ago, was very lean: I’d put it on a computer too underpowered for either Windows XP or the then-current version of either KDE or Gnome. All of them positively dragged.
E17 was not very stable, but it was small and fast, and its image viewer (AFAICT also discontinued) ran circles around GQview. Zooming huge photos in or out was instantaneous in E; GQview would take up to 10 seconds.
I ran E16 on my 233Mhz with 128Mb of RAM without much issue; the early builds (about 10 years ago) were a wee bit bloated when I stopped trying them; it was faster, but more bloated. As of 7 years ago, I think efm was long discontinued - and it was just getting started in the timeframe I was thinking of (if that's any help). I stopped using Enlightenment by the time XP came out, but I can't imagine it was all that slow. (Though, E16 is relatively slow on newer hardware, too - it's just not that well designed.)
I believe 'feh' was the image viewer in E17, at the time. IIRC, it still uses imlib2 (which was originally part of the Enlightenment stack, IIRC). I still use it almost exclusively for viewing images.
Even a lot of the refuse from the Enlightenment project has been well used over the years: ESD (E Sound Daemon) was still my preferred daemon until quite recently (honestly, I'd be using it still if it hadn't become a pain to set up). imlib2 and feh, of course, are also there.
Very interesting that E17 is that awesome now. It's certainly lighter than it was at the time (I think - system perf/usage recollections seem to fade with time :P)
In retrospect I think it's a combination of both slimming/improvement as well as other things bloating faster. The design for the libraries didn't change much since inception, just the implementation. "We can do this better" was their mantra. Compare that to GTK, KDE, or even Windows and OSX, where the libraries have almost invariably increased in bloat - the old stuff wasn't improved upon, it was augmented by new stuff or replaced outright with heavier functionality.
E17 ran acceptably with 128Mb of RAM back in the day, but could easily use 256 once you included your browser. It was a bit tight. The same is still more than possible today (seemingly more possible, actually), on smart phones.
I never said it was a perfect portfolio; their assets are improving in those areas. The greatest benefit those things offer is in the '3rd party components' - which in many cases, are all Intel - such as Intel chipsets for audio, video, and ethernet. They'll work on essentially any platform you decide to put on it - Windows, Mac, Linux, *BSD...
Intel's video may not be the most performance-savvy option, but I will say one thing: it usually works, as opposed to nvidia/AMD stuff, as it relates to (say) suspending. The hardware isn't stellar in and of itself, no. But it's a great package.