The Supreme Court is not doing its job when it allows the federal government to unconstitutionally link areas where they do have authority to other areas where they do not. This is somewhat like a company that holds a monopoly in one business "leveraging" that strength into another market -- with one important difference. The government does it with the implicit backing of guns.
Either the Constitution means nothing at all or it means what is says. For government to use other means to accomplish goals forbidden in the Constitution is *exactly* the same offense as violating those prohibitions directly. If the government is to be allowed to do things via other means that it is forbidden to do directly, what good is the Supreme Court and the explicit limitations on federal authority?
...We even have them in the mainframe community! Certainly Apple, OS/2, and MS-Windows have their share... as well as others I fear to mention.:)
For a journalist to post a factually incorrect, borderline slanderous article about virtually any widely used OS is to invite something similar to what Mr. Bryar experienced -- the difference being more a matter of scale and timing than anything else.
I think much of the "problem" here has much to do with the concentration of enthusiasts around such sites as/. and LT. An article goes up on/. and, suddenly, we all know about it.
Well, I'd like to advise all the careless journalists of the world, whatever they write about: get used to a networked and weblog-stratified world./. is merely the leading edge.
Yeah, now that we have a lot of people collected to the Internet, memes can really start to spread and evolve. For example, "the meme" is itself a meme and I first heard of it here.
Different memes, like viruses, propagate with vastly varying success rates in different populations. We'll have an interesting opportunity to study memes as the networked population becomes more stratified.
I do not question MS's repositories of cash, brilliant people, or their strategic and tactical business brilliance. I am curious about one thing though... what is the good technology that has come out of Micros~1? (Oh, and no fair listing things that they bought. Also, remember that NT is based on "portable OS/2" from the IBM/MS partnership of days gone by -- but I suppose they must get credit for half.)
Re:So what are the terms? ...and what is compared?
on
Salon on Mindcraft II
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· Score: 1
agreed. If they insist on using Apache, they must be taken to task for claiming "NT vs Linux web performance". Clearly they are measuring Apache, not Linux, and in an area upon which it is not focused.
That two obvious solutions to this problem exist points out a rather blatant lack of objectivity on the part of Mindcraft:
1) Use the fastest available static page server for Linux, as is done for Micros~1. (compare both OS's under their best conditions)
2) Use Apache on both platforms to eliminate the rather massive application variable. (compare the two OS's in an "apples to apples" test)
Unless, of course, the whole point of this test is to provide the documentation for a misleading MS ad campaign that claims NT is a faster web server platform than Linux.
Imagine for a moment that such a thing is possible. 60,000(!) times faster than a PII-350. Ok, so we get this speed by a machine that re-implements itself into a specialized hardware processor for whatever it needs to do next.
Hmmm... that sounds like a hard program to write -- the part that re-optimizes the hardware. How many different virtual hardware processor "personalities" will it need to achieve 60K x PII speeds? Of course, in order to get full advantage from it, it will have to be done frequently. How fast will *that* be?
I can't wait to buy the equivalent of a 21 Tera Hertz PII in 1.5 years. I assume the "hardware compiler" will be ready as well and included in the $1K.
Going into the building will involve personal risk and probably some considerable expense. Hacking into a lame Micros~1 server can be done from a different continent in a country where it's not even illegal! Some people do the remote thing for nothing more than low-budget entertainment.
There are people who are in sensitive positions, relative to their employment. Unless they are allowed to voice their opinions anonymously, free speech is effectively denied to them -- or at least, subordinated to some other important concern.
Doesn't sound very objective to me. I guess he wasn't trying for credibility with this piece. Let's see... we have "just beginning to be retrofitted for symmetric multiprocessing", heheh. All those internet services NT Ent. Server has "will soon be available as a multivendor product" under Linux. And, this wonderful piece of FUDware: companies may add features to Linux "that are not accepted into the core distribution". I guess it never occurred to this Micros~t apologist that it's kinda hard to get your local upgrades into the core distribution of NT...
Assuming for the moment that they meant "crackerware", they are just revealing their ignorance -- as you say, "Corporate Security" is an oxymoron. I've heard many similar statements, although usually about Unix in general. If you ask them to explain you get some argument like "it doesn't run RACF". These are people who will never know the Dilbert comic strip is about them.;)
...anyway. The fact that they are armed and interspersed with the rest of the people puts a serious damper on tyrannical actions. The General and his family, friends, relatives, and subordinates have to live somewhere. Possibly next door to a member of the group being oppressed this week.
An determined man with a rifle is the most dangerous weapon in the world. I can see why dictators aren't fond of citizens owning guns.
Assassination is, after all, the ultimate heckler's veto.
Meanwhile, closer to home, the personal safety of gun control nuts depends heavily on the fact that criminals don't know they are unarmed. They are relying on an atmosphere created by their gun-owning neighbors for protection. If criminals knew who was unarmed, burglaries and muggings would go up dramatically for the completely unarmed. For gun control backers who don't believe or understand this argument, please prove your independence from the guns of hated conservatives and libertarians; put an "unarmed and proud of it" sign in your yard and on your car.
MTBC should be a standard measure, laboratory tested, and included along with all the benchmarks and checkboxes. Maybe if enough of us start using the term, it'll become a standard.;)
Your point #1 is correct. I can shutdown or reboot my active SSP any time... the only thing you notice is that the fans in the 10000 kick into high since temperature is no longer being monitored by the SSP. You can still access the 10000 domains through other network connections and do anything you could do on any other Sun machine -- you just can't do 10000-specific things like dynamic domain reconfiguration and the like.
On your second point, a 10000 can be configured with fully redundant hardware. You are correct there too -- it's not fault-tolerant. It can crash, but a 10K can be configured so that it can reconfigure itself and reboot, resulting in only a brief outage.
When people can't design a reliable system with budgets that allow the purchase of Sun 10000's!
I run a Sun 10000 with two SSP's. 10000's are connected to their SSP's via private ethernets. I have three private networks; two to allow redundant interconnects between the SSP's and the two 10K control boards and a third for general use, NFS mounting CDROM's and the like. Most people will have no reason to put the SSP's on a public network at all -- I certainly don't. In order to hack the SSP, one must first hack the 10000. Once they've done that, the ability to reach the SSP's by network is irrelevant. The point about the "problem" of the SSP having control is as silly as claiming that EMC Symmetrix disk arrays (heavily used in IBM mainframe shops) can be crashed by the single laptop each array contains.
I would love to know the details of their failures -- I suspect the article is hinting at issues that have nothing to do with their real problems. Further, I'd bet that the main vulnerability that people cluster Sun's against is hardware failure -- and I'd also bet that the main reason people cluster NT boxes is software unreliability!
I think the future of the PC is secure. There are just too many creative things you can do with one. In any event, I'm not giving up mine!
However, with the power of the PC comes responsibility. Responsibility for a complex device that can only be a reflection of each user's habits, expertise, and organization. The power to mold the PC can be a curse in the hands of those not paying attention or lacking interest -- as the latest MS-macro-virus shows.
It is for that reason that business will move to some sort of networked device, lacking significant user configurability, for well defined tasks like OLTP, email, and word processing. Of course, they will move slowly and cautiously, but economics and risk will push them inexorably toward a simpler, centrally-managed computer for most employees.
Yes, but what is she really trying to say?
on
The Onion on Robots
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· Score: 2
My guess is that she has watched too many Terminator flicks and is issuing a veiled warning to humanity about what awaits us if we aren't careful about the broader ramification of our rampaging cyber progress.
The part of his experience I found most apalling was their refusal to support their product because they didn't understand *why* he wanted to use it (in that way). As a sysadmin, I sometimes uncover a bug by doing something that the tech's don't undertand. The fact that they don't understand *why* is no reason to refuse support. I will not accept that excuse -- unless they can tell me a better way!
Re:What about the seek time?...and network backup!
on
High Density Storage
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· Score: 1
As people find uses that actually store original/modified data on their drives, what will that do to those online backup companies?;)
I didn't realize I was reading an "unrelated statement" stuck there in the middle of the article. I thought he deliberately included it as part of his argument against the advantage of open source.
As for the numbers, you might note that I preceded my sentence with "If we accept his number of 99%..." You might also note that the point I was challenging was not how many "kernel hackers" there are but rather trying to show the absurdity of his claim about how few people really care about the source code being available. You introduced the term kernel hacker and implied that I was claiming there were 100,000. Please don't make up arguments to shoot down. That's too easy.
My apologies if my previous comment was unclear... I'll try to do better -- starting with my very *next* comment.:)
The writer suggests that 99% of users couldn't care less about having access to the source code [of an OS]. He has it almost backwards here. If we accept his number of 99% and apply the remaining 1% to the 10 million or so Linux users, we are left with 100,000 people who *do* care about digging in source code. Thank you, Scot, for pointing out the mindboggling advantage that Linux holds over closed OS's.
I have no particular interest in kernel hacking. Ordinarily, I "couldn't care less" about digging in the source. However, when I found myself needing a tiny tweak to my server OS, I was *SO* glad I could just go in and change a single line of code and solve my problem.
I have to disagree with your phrases about the "failure of capitalism" here. In the case of monopolies, there is almost always government force backing it, making monopolies pretty inconsistent with a free market. Of course, you go on to make a similar point -- my quibble is just with your choice of the subject and the opening phrase. Perhaps "Failure of Intellectual Property Law" would be closer.
Coincidently, Terra happens to be between Venus and Mars in another important way... Or, I should say, your analysis implies that it is merely coincidental.
The Open Source (LGPL'd) Crystal Space engine looks like a wonderful platform for building a front-end to networked games. It supports all my favorite platforms, as well as the Ma$s market one, and has networking support built in. Now I'm going to have to reconsider my plans for writing a Java-based game client.
Slashdot Mirror
The Supreme Court is not doing its job when it allows the federal government to unconstitutionally link areas where they do have authority to other areas where they do not. This is somewhat like a company that holds a monopoly in one business "leveraging" that strength into another market -- with one important difference. The government does it with the implicit backing of guns.
Either the Constitution means nothing at all or it means what is says. For government to use other means to accomplish goals forbidden in the Constitution is *exactly* the same offense as violating those prohibitions directly. If the government is to be allowed to do things via other means that it is forbidden to do directly, what good is the Supreme Court and the explicit limitations on federal authority?
Somehow I doubt they will put it on eBay...
Do you 'spoze they'll take old atari 800's in trade?
...We even have them in the mainframe community! Certainly Apple, OS/2, and MS-Windows have their share... as well as others I fear to mention. :)
/. and LT. An article goes up on /. and, suddenly, we all know about it.
/. is merely the leading edge.
For a journalist to post a factually incorrect, borderline slanderous article about virtually any widely used OS is to invite something similar to what Mr. Bryar experienced -- the difference being more a matter of scale and timing than anything else.
I think much of the "problem" here has much to do with the concentration of enthusiasts around such sites as
Well, I'd like to advise all the careless journalists of the world, whatever they write about: get used to a networked and weblog-stratified world.
Yeah, now that we have a lot of people collected to the Internet, memes can really start to spread and evolve. For example, "the meme" is itself a meme and I first heard of it here.
Different memes, like viruses, propagate with vastly varying success rates in different populations. We'll have an interesting opportunity to study memes as the networked population becomes more stratified.
Mimes give memes a bad name.
I do not question MS's repositories of cash, brilliant people, or their strategic and tactical business brilliance. I am curious about one thing though... what is the good technology that has come out of Micros~1? (Oh, and no fair listing things that they bought. Also, remember that NT is based on "portable OS/2" from the IBM/MS partnership of days gone by -- but I suppose they must get credit for half.)
agreed. If they insist on using Apache, they must be taken to task for claiming "NT vs Linux web performance". Clearly they are measuring Apache, not Linux, and in an area upon which it is not focused.
That two obvious solutions to this problem exist points out a rather blatant lack of objectivity on the part of Mindcraft:
1) Use the fastest available static page server for Linux, as is done for Micros~1. (compare both OS's under their best conditions)
2) Use Apache on both platforms to eliminate the rather massive application variable. (compare the two OS's in an "apples to apples" test)
Unless, of course, the whole point of this test is to provide the documentation for a misleading MS ad campaign that claims NT is a faster web server platform than Linux.
Imagine for a moment that such a thing is possible. 60,000(!) times faster than a PII-350. Ok, so we get this speed by a machine that re-implements itself into a specialized hardware processor for whatever it needs to do next.
Hmmm... that sounds like a hard program to write -- the part that re-optimizes the hardware. How many different virtual hardware processor "personalities" will it need to achieve 60K x PII speeds? Of course, in order to get full advantage from it, it will have to be done frequently. How fast will *that* be?
I can't wait to buy the equivalent of a 21 Tera Hertz PII in 1.5 years. I assume the "hardware compiler" will be ready as well and included in the $1K.
Going into the building will involve personal risk and probably some considerable expense. Hacking into a lame Micros~1 server can be done from a different continent in a country where it's not even illegal! Some people do the remote thing for nothing more than low-budget entertainment.
There are people who are in sensitive positions, relative to their employment. Unless they are allowed to voice their opinions anonymously, free speech is effectively denied to them -- or at least, subordinated to some other important concern.
Linux provides a better value proposition!
Doesn't sound very objective to me. I guess he wasn't trying for credibility with this piece. Let's see... we have "just beginning to be retrofitted for symmetric multiprocessing", heheh. All those internet services NT Ent. Server has "will soon be available as a multivendor product" under Linux. And, this wonderful piece of FUDware: companies may add features to Linux "that are not accepted into the core distribution". I guess it never occurred to this Micros~t apologist that it's kinda hard to get your local upgrades into the core distribution of NT...
Assuming for the moment that they meant "crackerware", they are just revealing their ignorance -- as you say, "Corporate Security" is an oxymoron. I've heard many similar statements, although usually about Unix in general. If you ask them to explain you get some argument like "it doesn't run RACF". These are people who will never know the Dilbert comic strip is about them. ;)
...anyway. The fact that they are armed and interspersed with the rest of the people puts a serious damper on tyrannical actions. The General and his family, friends, relatives, and subordinates have to live somewhere. Possibly next door to a member of the group being oppressed this week.
An determined man with a rifle is the most dangerous weapon in the world. I can see why dictators aren't fond of citizens owning guns.
Assassination is, after all, the ultimate heckler's veto.
Meanwhile, closer to home, the personal safety of gun control nuts depends heavily on the fact that criminals don't know they are unarmed. They are relying on an atmosphere created by their gun-owning neighbors for protection. If criminals knew who was unarmed, burglaries and muggings would go up dramatically for the completely unarmed. For gun control backers who don't believe or understand this argument, please prove your independence from the guns of hated conservatives and libertarians; put an "unarmed and proud of it" sign in your yard and on your car.
MTBC should be a standard measure, laboratory tested, and included along with all the benchmarks and checkboxes. Maybe if enough of us start using the term, it'll become a standard. ;)
Your point #1 is correct. I can shutdown or reboot my active SSP any time... the only thing you notice is that the fans in the 10000 kick into high since temperature is no longer being monitored by the SSP. You can still access the 10000 domains through other network connections and do anything you could do on any other Sun machine -- you just can't do 10000-specific things like dynamic domain reconfiguration and the like.
On your second point, a 10000 can be configured with fully redundant hardware. You are correct there too -- it's not fault-tolerant. It can crash, but a 10K can be configured so that it can reconfigure itself and reboot, resulting in only a brief outage.
When people can't design a reliable system with budgets that allow the purchase of Sun 10000's!
I run a Sun 10000 with two SSP's. 10000's are connected to their SSP's via private ethernets. I have three private networks; two to allow redundant interconnects between the SSP's and the two 10K control boards and a third for general use, NFS mounting CDROM's and the like. Most people will have no reason to put the SSP's on a public network at all -- I certainly don't. In order to hack the SSP, one must first hack the 10000. Once they've done that, the ability to reach the SSP's by network is irrelevant. The point about the "problem" of the SSP having control is as silly as claiming that EMC Symmetrix disk arrays (heavily used in IBM mainframe shops) can be crashed by the single laptop each array contains.
I would love to know the details of their failures -- I suspect the article is hinting at issues that have nothing to do with their real problems. Further, I'd bet that the main vulnerability that people cluster Sun's against is hardware failure -- and I'd also bet that the main reason people cluster NT boxes is software unreliability!
I think the future of the PC is secure. There are just too many creative things you can do with one. In any event, I'm not giving up mine!
However, with the power of the PC comes responsibility. Responsibility for a complex device that can only be a reflection of each user's habits, expertise, and organization. The power to mold the PC can be a curse in the hands of those not paying attention or lacking interest -- as the latest MS-macro-virus shows.
It is for that reason that business will move to some sort of networked device, lacking significant user configurability, for well defined tasks like OLTP, email, and word processing. Of course, they will move slowly and cautiously, but economics and risk will push them inexorably toward a simpler, centrally-managed computer for most employees.
My guess is that she has watched too many Terminator flicks and is issuing a veiled warning to humanity about what awaits us if we aren't careful about the broader ramification of our rampaging cyber progress.
The part of his experience I found most apalling was their refusal to support their product because they didn't understand *why* he wanted to use it (in that way). As a sysadmin, I sometimes uncover a bug by doing something that the tech's don't undertand. The fact that they don't understand *why* is no reason to refuse support. I will not accept that excuse -- unless they can tell me a better way!
As people find uses that actually store original/modified data on their drives, what will that do to those online backup companies? ;)
*sigh*
:)
I didn't realize I was reading an "unrelated statement" stuck there in the middle of the article. I thought he deliberately included it as part of his argument against the advantage of open source.
As for the numbers, you might note that I preceded my sentence with "If we accept his number of 99%..." You might also note that the point I was challenging was not how many "kernel hackers" there are but rather trying to show the absurdity of his claim about how few people really care about the source code being available. You introduced the term kernel hacker and implied that I was claiming there were 100,000. Please don't make up arguments to shoot down. That's too easy.
My apologies if my previous comment was unclear... I'll try to do better -- starting with my very *next* comment.
The writer suggests that 99% of users couldn't care less about having access to the source code [of an OS]. He has it almost backwards here. If we accept his number of 99% and apply the remaining 1% to the 10 million or so Linux users, we are left with 100,000 people who *do* care about digging in source code. Thank you, Scot, for pointing out the mindboggling advantage that Linux holds over closed OS's.
I have no particular interest in kernel hacking. Ordinarily, I "couldn't care less" about digging in the source. However, when I found myself needing a tiny tweak to my server OS, I was *SO* glad I could just go in and change a single line of code and solve my problem.
I have to disagree with your phrases about the "failure of capitalism" here. In the case of monopolies, there is almost always government force backing it, making monopolies pretty inconsistent with a free market. Of course, you go on to make a similar point -- my quibble is just with your choice of the subject and the opening phrase. Perhaps "Failure of Intellectual Property Law" would be closer.
Coincidently, Terra happens to be between Venus and Mars in another important way... Or, I should say, your analysis implies that it is merely coincidental.
The Open Source (LGPL'd) Crystal Space engine looks like a wonderful platform for building a front-end to networked games. It supports all my favorite platforms, as well as the Ma$s market one, and has networking support built in. Now I'm going to have to reconsider my plans for writing a Java-based game client.