/.ers outside of the NYC area should note that Oracle does not have a booth presence at LinuxWorldExpo. Doesn't look like a strategic change in course. If it were, they would have decided this weeks in advance and then it would have made sense to be publicizing this from the show.
What a weasel. He wants to catch some buzz from the Linux stories, and he doesn't even spend the money for a floor show.
Your DSL service is no better, if lots of customers start using all downstream bandwidth all the time, the ISP would have to discontinue the service at that price.
No, DSL customers are using downstream bandwidth all the time. My service, for example, offers each subscriber 600Kb down (and a pukey 90Kb up). This level of service can be "guaranteed" to all subscribers, and is automatically bandwidth limited. The DSL service is only in trouble when they have too many subscribers sucking down bandwidth at their network access center (more aggregate demand than their OC3 can handle).
An overly simplistic contrast of cable service is that they make the OC3 available to everyone on the cable service. You get ridiculously good bandwidth if you're the only subscriber. You get ridiculously bad performance if they hookup the entire town to it, and you're stuck sharing bandwidth with them. DSL users cannot exceed their 600/90kps allocation, regardless of how much bandwidth availability at the network access center.
The overly-simplified explanation why cable companies care more about NAT sharing is that if the neighborhood shares the line, its the same result as if they wired the entire neighborhood.
They experience the same costs in servicing the neighborhood but they cannot charge the "pirate" subscribers, and their price-model goes out the window. The overly-simplified explanation why DSL providers don't care if you NAT is that you are still bandwidth-capped. So the neighborhood is splitting one 600Kbs line, not sucking down the company's entire pipe.
I'm not familiar with Comcast's service but if they already cap each subscriber's bandwidth, they shouldn't be experiencing operation costs from having more than one computer sharing one line. This is why (almost) everyone thinks Comcast is merely being greedy by banning NAT. This bit of news really bugs me because a friend of mine is getting cable service, and he is counting on splitting the bill (and network connection) with his roommates. I haven't heard of RoadRunner giving users grief, so hopefully its not a trend.
1) He can shanghai the civil case, deeming the case a federal matter. Civil case gets put on hold while the federal prosecutor sits on it.
2) Its not so much that George gets to say "bury the case", but GWB nominates the federal judges. Since he picks all the ones that believe that the courts shouldn't interfere with Microsoft; you're only left with biased judges to referee the case... Look at the guy he appointed Attorney General. You don't see the AG pursuing Microsoft.
3) Finally, judges are people too. They can be lobbied like politicians. They just can't take money, or make any agreements in writing, and contact is limited to luncheons, dinners, golf course, and legal seminars. Call it "getting a better understanding of the issues".
There's no chance that balancing the books is AOL's motivation to pursue the antitrust case. Any sucessful in a antitrust decision will take at least 5 years to resolve. They would have to possess an open and shut case against M$ to be able to extort a settlement from them. Historically, M$'s predisposition is to fight any legal action to the bitter end, even if legal suicide. Furthermore, M$ has bought the right friends in government. Bush would have to lose the next election before there would be a credible chance of winning in court.
No, I think they did it as a tit-for-tat measure for M$ going into the internet subscription service and the appearance that M$ will use XP to leverage customers to M$N. They will probably use the monopoly hype to give M$ a more negative image to consumers. Look at it as chess move or marketing measure.
Re:which card does xfree86 love most?
on
Xfree86 4.2.0 Out
·
· Score: 2
Sorry, as far as I know, the best way to go is to buy nVidia and use their binary drivers - if you want to have decent OpenGL support that is.
Its not the best idea if you wish to have "closed" source drivers. The consequence being that Nvidia can decide not to develop their Xwindow drivers on future cards. The Xfree team would have to reverse engineer the cards and would not get the informational support from Nvidia. The company is very cagey about providing what they consider "proprietary" information that give their cards a "competitive" advantage.
On the bright side, it's so damn easy that even a Red Hat user could do it (can I start saying that already?;) ) - install two RPMs, add 4 words to the config file and start XFree, works like a charm.
I don't run Red Hat, so I don't know if Red Hat provides Nvidia's version of XWindows. If not, then you're just getting the stock (slow) version of Xwindows.
I actually am a bit surprised that Mandrake doesn't include nVidia drivers itself, and I'd say that unless some sort of licensing troubles are involved (hey, you never know) they probably will at some point.
All the more reason not to buy/use Nvidia graphic chips.
(Damn, why stick the Preview button next to the Submit button...)
Fiddling with this is just stupid.
It never fails to amaze me how a person bright enough to figure out such subtle environmental effects could come to such a stupid conclusion.
All technology is cause and effect. For each positive effect, there are negative effects. The question is whether the negative effects outweight the potential good.
What is the impact of fried birds dropping
onto this pool?
Ocean scavengers have a free lunch. KFC has a potential entree it can sell to consumers. Birds are dying at airports, electrical lines, skyscraper windows, etc. every day due to modern day technology. I'm not going to give up my lifestyle to save one flying rat. (What New Yorkers affectionately call their pidgeon population.)
What are they going to do with all the
Oxygenium? Since the air we breathe consists
to more than 70 percent of Nitrogen, not
Oxygene, simply freeing large volumes could
be problematic. (And can be quite a risk
for the installation itself. Think of
"no smoking".)
They'll compare it to the pollutants generated by the combustion engine. Also, I don't give a rat's ass about smokers, they can get a job flipping burgers... (no, make that collecting garbage). The explosion caused by the plant a hundred miles away from a population center concerns me less than a nuclear plant's meltdown in a residential neighborhood by a major population center (Shoreham, Long Island).
On a more serious note, its always a potential concern, but I doubt that much oxygen would be released by the laser energy transiting to the collection center. If it were a significant amount, it would indicate that the laser would lose too much of its energy to be economical. Finally, its possible to convert the solar energy to microwaves before being sent down.
What if a mislead plane happens to fly
into the beam? A weather balloon?
The same thing if they fly into a skyscraper, a microshear, or a airforce combat zone exercise. Sorry Osama bin Antity, I'm not going to give up my lifestyle to save an incompetant pilot and his passengers.
Impact on clouds? Hitting them (and the
H2O within them) will also split the H2O,
and then Ozone will react from the Oxygenium
radicals. And: Ozone is only good in exactly
the right height over ground. Every Ozone
lower than that is poisonous and, in the
volumes we're talking about, could lead
to quite interesting weather effects within
these clouds.
Are you suggesting its preferable for us to have hundreds of million (soon to be billion) internal combustion engines releasing that ozone at sea level?
Don't talk about what happens if this
cloud of ozone happens to drift over
some city. In cities, we usually call
this "smog" and try to avoid it.
Its still hundreds of feet higher than where the cars make the ozone.
Sulfur dioxide, raising up in clouds
from big cities or other things that burn
fuel (oil plants?) is known to react to
Sulfur Acid in the athmospere, with the help
of the power of sunlight. A while after,
we call this "sour rain" or "acid rain".
What amount of acid could react if a cloud
like this is hit by this _very_ strong
artificial sun?
Hydrogen technology means hydrogen-powered cars. No SO2 to make unpleasant acid compounds.
The only argument that really warrants concern is the ozone layer. But howabout not being such a Luddite, and let the scientists and engineers at least demonstrate that it can work before trying to shut it down without convincing evidence? That way, you stick it to The Man; the capitalist swine has to outlay all that cash before discovering he can't recoup his investment. This way (research before cruxifiction), progress is allowed to happen, and technology can improve peoples' and other living things' lives.
And why are you using a computer when you should be hugging a tree, hippie-lover? Don't you realize the toxic chemicals and metallic pollution caused by these metal boxes???
It never fails to amaze me how a person bright enough to figure out such subtle environmental effects could come to such a stupid conclusion.
All technology is cause and effect. For each positive effect, there are negative effects. The question is whether the negative effects outweight the potential good.
What is the impact of fried birds dropping
onto this pool?
Ocean scavengers have a free lunch. KFC has a potential entree it can sell to consumers. Birds are dying at airports, electrical lines, skyscraper windows, etc. every day due to modern day technology. I'm not going to give up my lifestyle to save one flying rat. (What New Yorkers affectionately call their pidgeon population)
What are they going to do with all the
Oxygenium? Since the air we breathe consists
to more than 70 percent of Nitrogen, not
Oxygene, simply freeing large volumes could
be problematic. (And can be quite a risk
for the installation itself. Think of
"no smoking".)
They'll compare it to the pollutants generated by the combustion engine. Also, I don't give a rat's ass about smokers, they can get a job flipping burgers... (no make that collecting garbage). The explosion caused by the plant a hundred miles away from a population center concerns me less than a nuclear plant's meltdown in a residential neighborhood by a major population center (Shoreham, Long Island).
On a more serious note, its always a potential concern, but I doubt that much oxygen would be released by the laser energy transiting to the collection center. If it were a significant amount, it would indicate that the laser would lose too much of its energy to be economical. Finally, its possible to convert the solar energy to microwaves before being sent down.
What if a mislead plane happens to fly
into the beam? A weather balloon?
The same thing if they fly into a skyscraper, a microshear, or a airforce combat zone exercise. Sorry Osama bin Antity, I'm not going to give up my lifestyle to save an incompetant pilot and his passengers.
Impact on clouds? Hitting them (and the
H2O within them) will also split the H2O,
and then Ozone will react from the Oxygenium
radicals. And: Ozone is only good in exactly
the right height over ground. Every Ozone
lower than that is poisonous and, in the
volumes we're talking about, could lead
to quite interesting weather effects within
these clouds.
Are you suggesting its preferable for us to have hundreds of million (soon to be billion) internal combustion engines releasing that ozone at sea level?
Don't talk about what happens if this
cloud of ozone happens to drift over
some city. In cities, we usually call
this "smog" and try to avoid it.
Its still hundreds of feet higher than where the cars make the ozone.
Sulfur dioxide, raising up in clouds
from big cities or other things that burn
fuel (oil plants?) is known to react to
Sulfur Acid in the athmospere, with the help
of the power of sunlight. A while after,
we call this "sour rain" or "acid rain".
What amount of acid could react if a cloud
like this is hit by this _very_ strong
artificial sun?
Hydrogen technology means hydrogen-powered cars. No SO2 to make unpleasant acid compounds.
The only argument that really warrants concern is the ozone layer. But howabout not being such a Luddite, and let the scientists and engineers at least demonstrate that it can work before trying to shut it down without convincing evidence? That way, you stick it to The Man; the capitalist swine has to outlay all those cash before discovering he can't recoup his investment. This way (research before cruxifiction), progress is allowed to happen, and technology can improve peoples' and other living things' lives.
Why are you using a computer when you should be hugging a tree, hippie-lover? Don't you realize the toxic chemicals and metallic pollution caused by these metal boxes???
(The unexpurgated version for M$ datacenter conversions...)
Replacing his sunglasses
MS Suit:(Holds up a metallic pen-like object) Before I go, let me show you the latest in M$ products. Just stare right here...
*flash*
MS Suit: You are a computer professional. Computer professionals buy M$ products. You do not waste your resources with Free Software garbage.
Joe, IT Manager: I am a computer professional. Computer professionals buy M$ products. I do not waste my resources with Free Software garbage.
MS Suit: (Spends an inordinate amount of time fumbling through his PocketPC device...) When Tom the M$ sales rep comes buy, you will order 10,000 M$ XP licenses.
Joe, IT Manager: When Tom the M$ sales rep comes by, I will order 10,000 M$ XP licenses.
I used to think that people were asking too much of VA software to cache article links; so much work, so much to ask of/.'s bandwidth. But it got me to thinking...
/.-ing really only occurs in the first 24 hours. Why couldn't a properly designed dynamic webpage set the link to a/. server cache, and after 24 hrs, reassign the link to the original server? This frees up the cache server(s) resources to cache the next day's stories.
I remember Taco(?) mentioning that it would be unfair to the server's advertisers, but I don't think its implausible to have someone contact the feature's producer and ask them permission to cache the story. Sure they lose the 1st day hits, but they were going to be/.-ed anyway. They still get the residual buzz from being a/. story (hopefully one that can handle residual/. traffic). Timeliness is a problem, but I've noticed many a story coming up weeks after its debut.
The level of caching service required is limited./. puts up 15 new stories per day maximum. You're only going to cache "amateur" sites. I can't see why contact permission can't be handled by either the story editors or one person. The cache servers could be limited to a couple of machines. The cache process (and dumping) could be automated. Caching doesn't mean you need to provide for all the story server's services (if its special, tough luck).
So expenses are limited to time for personnel to contact server owners (not much for a "journalistic" enterprise), some hardware, and some bandwidth (already procured). The biggest expense would be to modify slashcode to support it and tools for caching. The economic benefit (more like cost offset) to VA would be the added hits that would be otherwise (not) going to the story's server. It also adds value to/.'s service by making available content that would not be accessible to its readers.
there's one thing the P4 has in spades over the Athlon: it does exactly the right thing when it overheats -- it steps down its speed.
Its a matter of opinion. If you are properly configuring your cooling hardware, you do not need an auto shutdown/slowdown CPU. Also, AMD has a thermistor in its CPU. It beleives that stepdown/halts should be executed by the motherboard manufacturer. If you think CPU heat cutoff is an important feature, spend the extra money for a MB that supports it.
The drawback of the P4 thermal management? It never tells you when its stepping down the CPU. Congratulations. Not just are you paying hundreds more dollars for a less efficient CPU, but now you're paying a 2Ghz P4 price for a 500Mhz P3 (which is what its equivalent processing power may be when its starts doing CPU stepdowns). I think AMD's philosophy is the correct one.
I read also people asking why does HURD exist at all. The answer is pretty simple: Why not?
That's a pretty rotten explanation and justification of HURD that I've ever heard. The reason why HURD exists can be broken down into two categories: technical and political.
The technical reason(s) is the philosophy of uKernel design. It boils down the uKernel to the bare bone requirements; memory allocation and time slicing. This allows for greater abstraction of O/S services from system services. One practical benefit is greater ease in O/S porting (just a couple of K of assembler for the memory allocation and time slicing. All other services can be expressed in C code.) Another benefit is that one can prototype radically different design in O/S services without disrupting working implementation s of those services (multiple O/S APIs; Timeshare MVS with Linux with Hurd....). Its also been rationalized that uKernels will work more efficiently in SMP hardware environments, because it easier to distribute all O/S services as threads to different CPUs (better abstraction model in SMP environment).
The actual reason HURD still exists (sort of) is that RMS is a raving technoideologue that thinks HURD is a purer, ultimate form of an O/S than Linux.
Me? I like the ideas in HURD, but I want something that works better than M$ now. Wake me up when HURD officially runs on the L4 uKernel rather than MACH. Until that happens, HURD will always run like a dog.
I see so-o-o many Windows users doing exactly the same thing. Tweaking fonts, adjusting colors, downloading more screensavers than you can shake a stick at. It's not just a Linux phenomena and I see more UNIX users grow out of this more than I see Windows users getting tired of this tweaking. (I wonder why...)
1) Fiddling with colors or fonts is not tweaking. Tweaking is upgrading software packages or kernel replacement. In most cases, the OS runs fine without fiddling or tweaking.
2) The outrage of this Winadvocacy piece is not contrasting what I have to do when running windoze. "I installed this new piece of software, and now this other piece of software doesn't work." "I installed this piece of hardware, and it works like crap -- You mean I have to download and install new drivers? -- Okay, I installed the new drivers, and now nothing works right... Interrupt conflict? How do I resolve the interrupt conflict? Oh, I have to uninstall the software, open up the box and remove the card, reboot, then open up the box, uninstall all the cards, reinstall in different PCI slots, then install the driver, and then install the software..."
Remember the Apple ad with the two guys futzing with the PC for hours/days on end when the secretary asks when is that thing going to be ready to use. Their response ``We're tweaking it.'' followed by ``To make it easier to use.'' still cracks me up and is as applicable today as it was then.
Yeah, a good piece of marketing, but it still cracks me up why almost no Mac user can figure out why a vastly superior machine, when it was introduced, could not knock PCs out of the market (hint: cost influences market share). Today, I see Apple guys doing the same futzing for hours trying to get their OS 9 apps to work in the OS X environment. Sad.
Actually, my University was a *real* university and had a strong Computer Science department; no it was not a fly-by-night technical school or speciality school. It was Florida Institute of Technology, such as MIT is Mass. Institute of Technology.
Sure, give it 200 years...
And yes, theory is the most important thing; but it is hard to imagine how many people leave their universities with no skills
Its not the Universities' job to "train" skills (that is a VoTech school). As you said it yourself, its obsolete in a couple of years.
I was impressed at how easily some of the completely computer illerate people became semi-competant programmers.. but also was shocked at the complete opposite, how many people I ended up helping because they just didn't know how to RTFM or use simple logic
And all that says is that your CS department does a crappy job of educating.
Anyway, aren't Universities primarily making their money from Undergrads ?:)
The gross revenue stream are undergrads, but most of the costs are sunk in them too (low margins). The bulk of the profit stream is a combination of Alumni donations, research grants, and patent revenue (or state taxes). The percentage varies with the school. But with a few exceptions, we're really talking about not-for-profit institutions anyway.
Am I the only one who found this to be an incredibly disturbing statement?
Then the first shock came: someone blurted out, "nearly everyone who used Linux last year went on to fail their project". It came out that a number of individuals were missing from the final year due to failing the project element in year three. When I probed for the root cause of the project-failing problem, I got my second shock: "Linux is too hard to install".
Say what you want about Hamburger U. If students can't even get their UNIX systems up in time to pass their classes, what f**ked up rationale can one provide to support the notion that everyone (mom, pop, & cheerleader) should chuck M$ for Linux? Can anyone give a credible explanation for why this is merely an anomaly?
This is a serious problem and reality is swinging a mean cluestick.
...College professors are either incrediably under-educated in real-world software development or University policy is too slow to change...
...I ended up having to help the seniors with their Java programs as they were taught Ada, but later the professors required their applications to be written in Java...
Doesn't look like the professors had a problem picking up, teaching, and grading a "real world" language.
Its not the job of a "real" CS program to teach you "job" skills. Its job is to teach Computer Science; in other words, theory. The rationale here is that the industry will be pumping and dumping languages every decade, but an "educated" developer will be able to adapt to the new environment, because the concepts involved are the same, regardless of the language.
Now, BlahBlah Tech should be a different story, since its not their job to produce computer scientists. But note the contradiction in what you say. The majority of professors do not have a problem picking up new languages and environments. (In fact, the majority of professors I knew, either all had side jobs in IT, or were involved in current technical projects.)
The problem is that CS professors generally care more about their research or tenure. Teaching undergrads, in most cases, was scutwork that needed to be dealt with as efficiently and in as little time possible. That is the reason why many (not so good) programs still teach with dead languages. They only upgrade when they perceive they will lose paying customers because their department isn't offering a skill package predominantly found in the "real" world.
The problem is that CS departments do not educate. At least they could run the class in a "modern" language; that way it would look like they're doing something for your tuition money.
Timothy, are you being asked by your employers to include more NT issues, or are you looking to bail out of/. soon with an NT job?
The question posed does not help Linux penetrate a technical market niche; it helps give NT a functionality that Linux already has.
If you are running out of good "Ask Slashdot" submissions, please let us know. I could probably fire off 10 good ones if I knew the effort I expended would be worthwhile.
How does the gov't measure or categorize an MTOP?
How many MTOPs can an AMD 1900+ do?
How many MTOPs can an IBM S/390 do?
How many MTOPs can a Sun 4500 or Starfire do?
How many terrorist countries will care about MTOP restrictions when they can cobble together 500 bargain basement PCs (say $150/machine) to make a (beowulf) super computer?
Lets have a minute of silence for Windows 95.
I can't. Everytime I think of the death of Win95, I keep hearing "The Empire Strikes Back" music in my head (as the funeral dirge). Please, make it stop!
A quick win32 hack that has been a thorn in Microsofts side ever since.
O please, that win32 hack MADE Microsoft. It finally got those Apple twits off their backs.
It will be sad to see it go, since after 6 years of bugfixes it was just starting to look really good.
It spoils the sarcastic bon mot, but M$ stopped making bugfixes for Win95 years before that. It was Win98SE that finally started to make Windoze look good.
Slashdot Mirror
/.ers outside of the NYC area should note that Oracle does not have a booth presence at LinuxWorldExpo. Doesn't look like a strategic change in course. If it were, they would have decided this weeks in advance and then it would have made sense to be publicizing this from the show.
What a weasel. He wants to catch some buzz from the Linux stories, and he doesn't even spend the money for a floor show.
I know they're being used for resource tight kernel apps (like tomsbrt), but other than that, I'm drawing a blank.
1) Friday is the worst day for freebs. They are all gone.
2) Today was really bad for schwag, as expected in the economic downturn. Picture what won't be left on Friday.
3) They're not even throwing an after-show party on the galleria, like they did in previous years.
4) You're on the wrong side of the island to see protesting punks. (but I was rotfl when I read it.)
5) There is a dotbomb pall over the show this year. And its not Gates inspired either.
Your DSL service is no better, if lots of customers start using all downstream bandwidth all the time, the ISP would have to discontinue the service at that price.
No, DSL customers are using downstream bandwidth all the time. My service, for example, offers each subscriber 600Kb down (and a pukey 90Kb up). This level of service can be "guaranteed" to all subscribers, and is automatically bandwidth limited. The DSL service is only in trouble when they have too many subscribers sucking down bandwidth at their network access center (more aggregate demand than their OC3 can handle).
An overly simplistic contrast of cable service is that they make the OC3 available to everyone on the cable service. You get ridiculously good bandwidth if you're the only subscriber. You get ridiculously bad performance if they hookup the entire town to it, and you're stuck sharing bandwidth with them. DSL users cannot exceed their 600/90kps allocation, regardless of how much bandwidth availability at the network access center.
The overly-simplified explanation why cable companies care more about NAT sharing is that if the neighborhood shares the line, its the same result as if they wired the entire neighborhood. They experience the same costs in servicing the neighborhood but they cannot charge the "pirate" subscribers, and their price-model goes out the window. The overly-simplified explanation why DSL providers don't care if you NAT is that you are still bandwidth-capped. So the neighborhood is splitting one 600Kbs line, not sucking down the company's entire pipe.
I'm not familiar with Comcast's service but if they already cap each subscriber's bandwidth, they shouldn't be experiencing operation costs from having more than one computer sharing one line. This is why (almost) everyone thinks Comcast is merely being greedy by banning NAT. This bit of news really bugs me because a friend of mine is getting cable service, and he is counting on splitting the bill (and network connection) with his roommates. I haven't heard of RoadRunner giving users grief, so hopefully its not a trend.
1) He can shanghai the civil case, deeming the case a federal matter. Civil case gets put on hold while the federal prosecutor sits on it.
2) Its not so much that George gets to say "bury the case", but GWB nominates the federal judges. Since he picks all the ones that believe that the courts shouldn't interfere with Microsoft; you're only left with biased judges to referee the case... Look at the guy he appointed Attorney General. You don't see the AG pursuing Microsoft.
3) Finally, judges are people too. They can be lobbied like politicians. They just can't take money, or make any agreements in writing, and contact is limited to luncheons, dinners, golf course, and legal seminars. Call it "getting a better understanding of the issues".
There's no chance that balancing the books is AOL's motivation to pursue the antitrust case. Any sucessful in a antitrust decision will take at least 5 years to resolve. They would have to possess an open and shut case against M$ to be able to extort a settlement from them. Historically, M$'s predisposition is to fight any legal action to the bitter end, even if legal suicide. Furthermore, M$ has bought the right friends in government. Bush would have to lose the next election before there would be a credible chance of winning in court.
No, I think they did it as a tit-for-tat measure for M$ going into the internet subscription service and the appearance that M$ will use XP to leverage customers to M$N. They will probably use the monopoly hype to give M$ a more negative image to consumers. Look at it as chess move or marketing measure.
Sorry, as far as I know, the best way to go is to buy nVidia and use their binary drivers - if you want to have decent OpenGL support that is.
Its not the best idea if you wish to have "closed" source drivers. The consequence being that Nvidia can decide not to develop their Xwindow drivers on future cards. The Xfree team would have to reverse engineer the cards and would not get the informational support from Nvidia. The company is very cagey about providing what they consider "proprietary" information that give their cards a "competitive" advantage.
On the bright side, it's so damn easy that even a Red Hat user could do it (can I start saying that already? ;) ) - install two RPMs, add 4 words to the config file and start XFree, works like a charm.
I don't run Red Hat, so I don't know if Red Hat provides Nvidia's version of XWindows. If not, then you're just getting the stock (slow) version of Xwindows.
I actually am a bit surprised that Mandrake doesn't include nVidia drivers itself, and I'd say that unless some sort of licensing troubles are involved (hey, you never know) they probably will at some point.
All the more reason not to buy/use Nvidia graphic chips.
So, you gamers never heard of a LAN party? Geez, get a grip.
StarCraft allegedly runs under Wine. (which means it runs under Linux.)
Get those Korean geeks working on Fortress, and then we will own Korea.
Bahahahahahahahahahahahhaahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..
(Damn, why stick the Preview button next to the Submit button...)
Fiddling with this is just stupid.
It never fails to amaze me how a person bright enough to figure out such subtle environmental effects could come to such a stupid conclusion.
All technology is cause and effect. For each positive effect, there are negative effects. The question is whether the negative effects outweight the potential good.
What is the impact of fried birds dropping onto this pool?
Ocean scavengers have a free lunch. KFC has a potential entree it can sell to consumers. Birds are dying at airports, electrical lines, skyscraper windows, etc. every day due to modern day technology. I'm not going to give up my lifestyle to save one flying rat. (What New Yorkers affectionately call their pidgeon population.)
What are they going to do with all the Oxygenium? Since the air we breathe consists to more than 70 percent of Nitrogen, not Oxygene, simply freeing large volumes could be problematic. (And can be quite a risk for the installation itself. Think of "no smoking".)
They'll compare it to the pollutants generated by the combustion engine. Also, I don't give a rat's ass about smokers, they can get a job flipping burgers... (no, make that collecting garbage). The explosion caused by the plant a hundred miles away from a population center concerns me less than a nuclear plant's meltdown in a residential neighborhood by a major population center (Shoreham, Long Island).
On a more serious note, its always a potential concern, but I doubt that much oxygen would be released by the laser energy transiting to the collection center. If it were a significant amount, it would indicate that the laser would lose too much of its energy to be economical. Finally, its possible to convert the solar energy to microwaves before being sent down.
What if a mislead plane happens to fly into the beam? A weather balloon?
The same thing if they fly into a skyscraper, a microshear, or a airforce combat zone exercise. Sorry Osama bin Antity, I'm not going to give up my lifestyle to save an incompetant pilot and his passengers.
Impact on clouds? Hitting them (and the H2O within them) will also split the H2O, and then Ozone will react from the Oxygenium radicals. And: Ozone is only good in exactly the right height over ground. Every Ozone lower than that is poisonous and, in the volumes we're talking about, could lead to quite interesting weather effects within these clouds.
Are you suggesting its preferable for us to have hundreds of million (soon to be billion) internal combustion engines releasing that ozone at sea level?
Don't talk about what happens if this cloud of ozone happens to drift over some city. In cities, we usually call this "smog" and try to avoid it.
Its still hundreds of feet higher than where the cars make the ozone.
Sulfur dioxide, raising up in clouds from big cities or other things that burn fuel (oil plants?) is known to react to Sulfur Acid in the athmospere, with the help of the power of sunlight. A while after, we call this "sour rain" or "acid rain". What amount of acid could react if a cloud like this is hit by this _very_ strong artificial sun?
Hydrogen technology means hydrogen-powered cars. No SO2 to make unpleasant acid compounds.
The only argument that really warrants concern is the ozone layer. But howabout not being such a Luddite, and let the scientists and engineers at least demonstrate that it can work before trying to shut it down without convincing evidence? That way, you stick it to The Man; the capitalist swine has to outlay all that cash before discovering he can't recoup his investment. This way (research before cruxifiction), progress is allowed to happen, and technology can improve peoples' and other living things' lives.
And why are you using a computer when you should be hugging a tree, hippie-lover? Don't you realize the toxic chemicals and metallic pollution caused by these metal boxes???
Fiddling with this is just stupid.
It never fails to amaze me how a person bright enough to figure out such subtle environmental effects could come to such a stupid conclusion.
All technology is cause and effect. For each positive effect, there are negative effects. The question is whether the negative effects outweight the potential good.
What is the impact of fried birds dropping onto this pool?
Ocean scavengers have a free lunch. KFC has a potential entree it can sell to consumers. Birds are dying at airports, electrical lines, skyscraper windows, etc. every day due to modern day technology. I'm not going to give up my lifestyle to save one flying rat. (What New Yorkers affectionately call their pidgeon population)
What are they going to do with all the Oxygenium? Since the air we breathe consists to more than 70 percent of Nitrogen, not Oxygene, simply freeing large volumes could be problematic. (And can be quite a risk for the installation itself. Think of "no smoking".)
They'll compare it to the pollutants generated by the combustion engine. Also, I don't give a rat's ass about smokers, they can get a job flipping burgers... (no make that collecting garbage). The explosion caused by the plant a hundred miles away from a population center concerns me less than a nuclear plant's meltdown in a residential neighborhood by a major population center (Shoreham, Long Island).
On a more serious note, its always a potential concern, but I doubt that much oxygen would be released by the laser energy transiting to the collection center. If it were a significant amount, it would indicate that the laser would lose too much of its energy to be economical. Finally, its possible to convert the solar energy to microwaves before being sent down.
What if a mislead plane happens to fly into the beam? A weather balloon?
The same thing if they fly into a skyscraper, a microshear, or a airforce combat zone exercise. Sorry Osama bin Antity, I'm not going to give up my lifestyle to save an incompetant pilot and his passengers.
Impact on clouds? Hitting them (and the H2O within them) will also split the H2O, and then Ozone will react from the Oxygenium radicals. And: Ozone is only good in exactly the right height over ground. Every Ozone lower than that is poisonous and, in the volumes we're talking about, could lead to quite interesting weather effects within these clouds.
Are you suggesting its preferable for us to have hundreds of million (soon to be billion) internal combustion engines releasing that ozone at sea level?
Don't talk about what happens if this cloud of ozone happens to drift over some city. In cities, we usually call this "smog" and try to avoid it.
Its still hundreds of feet higher than where the cars make the ozone.
Sulfur dioxide, raising up in clouds from big cities or other things that burn fuel (oil plants?) is known to react to Sulfur Acid in the athmospere, with the help of the power of sunlight. A while after, we call this "sour rain" or "acid rain". What amount of acid could react if a cloud like this is hit by this _very_ strong artificial sun?
Hydrogen technology means hydrogen-powered cars. No SO2 to make unpleasant acid compounds.
The only argument that really warrants concern is the ozone layer. But howabout not being such a Luddite, and let the scientists and engineers at least demonstrate that it can work before trying to shut it down without convincing evidence? That way, you stick it to The Man; the capitalist swine has to outlay all those cash before discovering he can't recoup his investment. This way (research before cruxifiction), progress is allowed to happen, and technology can improve peoples' and other living things' lives.
Why are you using a computer when you should be hugging a tree, hippie-lover? Don't you realize the toxic chemicals and metallic pollution caused by these metal boxes???
Where is this day and age can you find a good book on Forth???
(The unexpurgated version for M$ datacenter conversions...)
Replacing his sunglasses
MS Suit: (Holds up a metallic pen-like object) Before I go, let me show you the latest in M$ products. Just stare right here...
*flash*
MS Suit: You are a computer professional. Computer professionals buy M$ products. You do not waste your resources with Free Software garbage.
Joe, IT Manager: I am a computer professional. Computer professionals buy M$ products. I do not waste my resources with Free Software garbage.
MS Suit: (Spends an inordinate amount of time fumbling through his PocketPC device...) When Tom the M$ sales rep comes buy, you will order 10,000 M$ XP licenses.
Joe, IT Manager: When Tom the M$ sales rep comes by, I will order 10,000 M$ XP licenses.
MS Suit: Very good!
We will be in touch
I used to think that people were asking too much of VA software to cache article links; so much work, so much to ask of
/.-ing really only occurs in the first 24 hours. Why couldn't a properly designed dynamic webpage set the link to a
I remember Taco(?) mentioning that it would be unfair to the server's advertisers, but I don't think its implausible to have someone contact the feature's producer and ask them permission to cache the story. Sure they lose the 1st day hits, but they were going to be
The level of caching service required is limited.
So expenses are limited to time for personnel to contact server owners (not much for a "journalistic" enterprise), some hardware, and some bandwidth (already procured). The biggest expense would be to modify slashcode to support it and tools for caching. The economic benefit (more like cost offset) to VA would be the added hits that would be otherwise (not) going to the story's server. It also adds value to
Is this really unfeasible?
there's one thing the P4 has in spades over the Athlon: it does exactly the right thing when it overheats -- it steps down its speed.
Its a matter of opinion. If you are properly configuring your cooling hardware, you do not need an auto shutdown/slowdown CPU. Also, AMD has a thermistor in its CPU. It beleives that stepdown/halts should be executed by the motherboard manufacturer. If you think CPU heat cutoff is an important feature, spend the extra money for a MB that supports it.
The drawback of the P4 thermal management? It never tells you when its stepping down the CPU. Congratulations. Not just are you paying hundreds more dollars for a less efficient CPU, but now you're paying a 2Ghz P4 price for a 500Mhz P3 (which is what its equivalent processing power may be when its starts doing CPU stepdowns). I think AMD's philosophy is the correct one.
I read also people asking why does HURD exist at all. The answer is pretty simple: Why not?
That's a pretty rotten explanation and justification of HURD that I've ever heard. The reason why HURD exists can be broken down into two categories: technical and political.
The technical reason(s) is the philosophy of uKernel design. It boils down the uKernel to the bare bone requirements; memory allocation and time slicing. This allows for greater abstraction of O/S services from system services. One practical benefit is greater ease in O/S porting (just a couple of K of assembler for the memory allocation and time slicing. All other services can be expressed in C code.) Another benefit is that one can prototype radically different design in O/S services without disrupting working implementation s of those services (multiple O/S APIs; Timeshare MVS with Linux with Hurd....). Its also been rationalized that uKernels will work more efficiently in SMP hardware environments, because it easier to distribute all O/S services as threads to different CPUs (better abstraction model in SMP environment).
The actual reason HURD still exists (sort of) is that RMS is a raving technoideologue that thinks HURD is a purer, ultimate form of an O/S than Linux.
Me? I like the ideas in HURD, but I want something that works better than M$ now. Wake me up when HURD officially runs on the L4 uKernel rather than MACH. Until that happens, HURD will always run like a dog.
I see so-o-o many Windows users doing exactly the same thing. Tweaking fonts, adjusting colors, downloading more screensavers than you can shake a stick at. It's not just a Linux phenomena and I see more UNIX users grow out of this more than I see Windows users getting tired of this tweaking. (I wonder why...)
1) Fiddling with colors or fonts is not tweaking. Tweaking is upgrading software packages or kernel replacement. In most cases, the OS runs fine without fiddling or tweaking.
2) The outrage of this Winadvocacy piece is not contrasting what I have to do when running windoze. "I installed this new piece of software, and now this other piece of software doesn't work." "I installed this piece of hardware, and it works like crap -- You mean I have to download and install new drivers? -- Okay, I installed the new drivers, and now nothing works right... Interrupt conflict? How do I resolve the interrupt conflict? Oh, I have to uninstall the software, open up the box and remove the card, reboot, then open up the box, uninstall all the cards, reinstall in different PCI slots, then install the driver, and then install the software..."
Remember the Apple ad with the two guys futzing with the PC for hours/days on end when the secretary asks when is that thing going to be ready to use. Their response ``We're tweaking it.'' followed by ``To make it easier to use.'' still cracks me up and is as applicable today as it was then.
Yeah, a good piece of marketing, but it still cracks me up why almost no Mac user can figure out why a vastly superior machine, when it was introduced, could not knock PCs out of the market (hint: cost influences market share). Today, I see Apple guys doing the same futzing for hours trying to get their OS 9 apps to work in the OS X environment. Sad.
Actually, my University was a *real* university and had a strong Computer Science department; no it was not a fly-by-night technical school or speciality school. It was Florida Institute of Technology, such as MIT is Mass. Institute of Technology.
:)
Sure, give it 200 years...
And yes, theory is the most important thing; but it is hard to imagine how many people leave their universities with no skills
Its not the Universities' job to "train" skills (that is a VoTech school). As you said it yourself, its obsolete in a couple of years.
I was impressed at how easily some of the completely computer illerate people became semi-competant programmers.. but also was shocked at the complete opposite, how many people I ended up helping because they just didn't know how to RTFM or use simple logic
And all that says is that your CS department does a crappy job of educating.
Anyway, aren't Universities primarily making their money from Undergrads ?
The gross revenue stream are undergrads, but most of the costs are sunk in them too (low margins). The bulk of the profit stream is a combination of Alumni donations, research grants, and patent revenue (or state taxes). The percentage varies with the school. But with a few exceptions, we're really talking about not-for-profit institutions anyway.
Am I the only one who found this to be an incredibly disturbing statement?
Then the first shock came: someone blurted out, "nearly everyone who used Linux last year went on to fail their project". It came out that a number of individuals were missing from the final year due to failing the project element in year three. When I probed for the root cause of the project-failing problem, I got my second shock: "Linux is too hard to install".
Say what you want about Hamburger U. If students can't even get their UNIX systems up in time to pass their classes, what f**ked up rationale can one provide to support the notion that everyone (mom, pop, & cheerleader) should chuck M$ for Linux? Can anyone give a credible explanation for why this is merely an anomaly?
This is a serious problem and reality is swinging a mean cluestick.
Doesn't look like the professors had a problem picking up, teaching, and grading a "real world" language.
Its not the job of a "real" CS program to teach you "job" skills. Its job is to teach Computer Science; in other words, theory. The rationale here is that the industry will be pumping and dumping languages every decade, but an "educated" developer will be able to adapt to the new environment, because the concepts involved are the same, regardless of the language.
Now, BlahBlah Tech should be a different story, since its not their job to produce computer scientists. But note the contradiction in what you say. The majority of professors do not have a problem picking up new languages and environments. (In fact, the majority of professors I knew, either all had side jobs in IT, or were involved in current technical projects.)
The problem is that CS professors generally care more about their research or tenure. Teaching undergrads, in most cases, was scutwork that needed to be dealt with as efficiently and in as little time possible. That is the reason why many (not so good) programs still teach with dead languages. They only upgrade when they perceive they will lose paying customers because their department isn't offering a skill package predominantly found in the "real" world.
The problem is that CS departments do not educate. At least they could run the class in a "modern" language; that way it would look like they're doing something for your tuition money.
The Viper is one versatile little airplane.
What's a Viper? F-16's nickname is the "Fighting Falcon".
Hmmm, I don't recall any version of IE working for linux. Perhaps the underlying truth is more embarrassing than we realize...
Nah, probably working stiffs who are stuck on NT/2K/Win9X boxes at work...
Timothy, are you being asked by your employers to include more NT issues, or are you looking to bail out of
The question posed does not help Linux penetrate a technical market niche; it helps give NT a functionality that Linux already has.
If you are running out of good "Ask Slashdot" submissions, please let us know. I could probably fire off 10 good ones if I knew the effort I expended would be worthwhile.
How does the gov't measure or categorize an MTOP?
How many MTOPs can an AMD 1900+ do?
How many MTOPs can an IBM S/390 do?
How many MTOPs can a Sun 4500 or Starfire do?
How many terrorist countries will care about MTOP restrictions when they can cobble together 500 bargain basement PCs (say $150/machine) to make a (beowulf) super computer?
Lets have a minute of silence for Windows 95.
I can't. Everytime I think of the death of Win95, I keep hearing "The Empire Strikes Back" music in my head (as the funeral dirge). Please, make it stop!
A quick win32 hack that has been a thorn in Microsofts side ever since.
O please, that win32 hack MADE Microsoft. It finally got those Apple twits off their backs.
It will be sad to see it go, since after 6 years of bugfixes it was just starting to look really good.
It spoils the sarcastic bon mot, but M$ stopped making bugfixes for Win95 years before that. It was Win98SE that finally started to make Windoze look good.