NetWare ------> Linux + Xen + NetWare = Less Risk.
Doesn't make sense to me. How can you assume that the NetWare services running under Xen running under Linux are 100 percent as reliable as the native NetWare services? That seems like an unlikely result.
This is a brillant solution for people still dependent on Netware.
Wait... if you're only using it because it "just works," how come you say you're "dependent" on it? "Dependent" sounds like you have a vested interest in not changing -- which is what I mean by "risk averse." Change = risk, always. (Note: "Risk" does not equal failure, just greater statistical chance of failure than you'd incur from changing nothing.)
I've donated using this method, but they asked that I give a double serving of red blood cells, rather than platelets. Your blood bank will tell you what would be most useful to receive from you, based on your own characteristics as well as current demand.
(BTW, the upshot of donating double red cells is that you won't have to give again for twice as long.)
I only post this because I have heard so much over the decades about how blood transfusions have saved lives. Now I read this and have to wonder.
I don't get it. What is it about this brand-new proposed therapy that makes you suspect that the therapy that has been used for years and years does not save lives?
If blood transfusions don't save lives, then what the hell else has kept all those people alive? Were they just mutants who didn't need as much blood as you or I?
Regardless of who said what to whom, there is never enough blood in the system for more than a few days.
Indeed. I am blood type O+. This is one of the most common types of blood. One might conclude, then, that I don't need to worry so much about giving blood, because there's plenty of it out there. But that's flawed logic; if more people in the world have type O+ and car accidents (for example) are randomly distributed across the entire population, then it stands to reason that type O+ blood is in much greater demand than other, rarer types. And, indeed, my local blood bank informs me that it regularly experiences severe shortages of type O+ blood (as in, "two pints left"). I try to donate regularly.
Presumably the reason you are sticking with a platform that has not really changed much in a decade is because you are too risk-averse to jump to something else. That said, is swapping out your NetWare servers with "Nu-NetWare" running on top of a Linux kernel really less risky than just switching to Linux -- or to Windows with Active Directory, for that matter? If it's taken you this long to even consider replacing those servers, couldn't you have spent some of that time constructively -- by coming up with a longterm migration strategy that would enable you to minimize risk? Seriously, I have heard some arguments why NetWare is so much "better" or "more elegant" (or whatever) than a Windows network, but these arguments usually seem to hinge on some specific minor capability. It seems to me that you can get pretty much everything NetWare gives you on a Windows network with some third-party management products, with the upshot that your platform is not obsolete.
I never did like Ubuntu. It always had this weird sudo setup and set the root password to some random password.
In Ubuntu the root account is disabled by default. You cannot login as root and you cannot su to root unless you manually assign it a password. Most users have no reason to do so, however.
Could someone please remind me how patenting something obvious is not evil?
Could you please explain to me how this is "obvious"?
Once somebody invented the internal combustion engine, slapping it onto a wheeled cart probably seemed like a pretty "obvious" choice. Kinda hard to do without a drive train, though.
Is an Allen wrench "obvious"? A pair of locking pliers? They all seem pretty obvious once somebody invents them. Oh wait! I wonder if that has anything to do with why we have patents...
I wouldn't claim to possess the insight -- and, I daresay, genius -- required to imagine putting computers in a shipping container.
I know it's popular sentiment on Slashdot to put down anybody who claims any kind of intellectual property rights, but there's nothing in the patent codes that requires an invention to be a work of genius.
Then again, based on your sarcasm I presume you don't believe this to be a work of genius. You (modestly) admit that you are not a genius. You should be in the running, then. If you can assemble 3/4 of a working prototype of a datacenter wholly enclosed in a movable shipping container, based on what you know right now, I'll lobby to get you rights to 3/4 of the patent.
If you can't build it, though, no deal. "Business process" patents notwithstanding, patents cover actually doing something, remember -- not ideas cooked up by armchair inventors.
You've got me there. Now that you mention it, I don't recall reading much of anything by a European writer in ages. I still read the occasional Arturo Perez-Reverte, but he's hardly new on the scene and he seems to be growing less and less "literary." I was going to recommend Carlos Ruis Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind -- kind of an enjoyable gothic potboiler (about books) -- but then I found out that, although he writes in Spanish, he's lived in and worked as a screenwriter in Los Angeles for more than a decade. I've picked up some British stuff here and there. I can only assume that the European writers you mention don't generally make their way across to these shores...
I've noticed this, but I can't decide whether to blame the writers. Most of the practice of novel-writing is not about traveling to exotic book-signings, inking deals for the movies based on your books, and sipping vintage Chablis as you put the finishing touches on your last chapter. Most of it is solitary work, locked away at home or in your office, avoiding conversation or anything else that will distract you from the work at hand. In other words, maybe so many novelists use writers as their protagonists because they simply don't know anything else, and have a hard time making a character from any other occupation sound believable?
Besides, nobody reads a Stephen King book for his meticulous research... no matter how much the authors may protest, a lot of genre fiction is basically plot-driven, so why waste time building unusual characters?
Another thing: Habitual readers seem to like books about books. Consider the sub-genre of novels like The Rule of Four,The Club Dumas,The Historian,The Shadow of the Wind,The Dante Club, etc... all devoted to people who spend a lot of time lurking around with books. You can say it's lazy writing, but it certainly does seem to sell. It makes sense that the same readers might be attracted to books whose central characters are writers.
If a writer does it once, I usually let him/her off the hook. Michael Chabon did his, but he's since moved on to other topics (and won the Pulitzer). Maybe, for someone as insular and solitary as a writer, at least one book about a character who is a writer just comes with the territory.
Thank you. My jaw dropped when I saw the selection of "writers" surveyed. "No great loss" is putting it mildly. Now how do we get "RU Sirius" to STFU?
Indeed. Reality Hackers started out as an interesting concept, but by the time it had morphed into Mondo 2000 it became plain that it was a concept with only one possible direction: chasing its own tail. Or should that be swallowing its own tail? Related: The literal translation of the German slang term "schwanz" is "tail"...
The parent speaks truth. Romance may not really have "the lion's share" of all fiction publishing, but in 2004 romance novels really did account for about 55 percent of all paperback book sales, totaling some $1.2 billion.
Here's another factoid for you armchair publishing-industry pundits to ponder: That same year, the Christian book market was said to be worth about $1.3 billion in net sales. You may not realize it, but there's a whole parallel market for Christian romances, Christian mysteries, and even Christian sci-fi and fantasy. And in 2004, it apparently brought in more money than romance books -- or, the equivalent of more than 55 percent of mainstream paperback book sales.
Remember these points, the next time you want to start mouthing platitudes like "only bad writers need to worry" and "the quality will rise to the top." When it comes to the business of writing, those writers who are most capable at reaching the market -- the real market, not the one they assume exists -- will be the most successful.
I've noticed that over the past 10 years, paragraphs are getting shorter and shorter. It seems that even a simple sentence now constitutes a complete paragraph.
I suspect this habit comes from imitating the newspaper writing style. Newspapers often break paragraphs pretty much willy-nilly, and you'll quite often find paragraphs that are no more than a single sentence. In this context it makes sense, though, because newspaper column widths are very narrow. Put two or three sentences together and you might end up with a single paragraph that's four column-inches long, which is sure to drive away readers.
Beware of people you've never heard of who claim to be Writers who write about writing. Like musicians who write songs about being on the road doing gigs or business people who spend all their time attending effectiveness training seminars, it demonstrates a certain loss of perspective in the craft.
So freakin' true. And my personal favorite: Hollywood screenwriters and directors who make movies about the [choose one: fabulous/romantic/cutthroat/melancholy/hilarious/gritty] world of life in Hollywood.
Wow! Does this mean I can sue everyone who ever makes a disparaging remark about me on the internet?
You can sue anybody you want, at any time, for pretty much anything. Winning is another matter, but the courts do little to prevent you from being a nuisance.
I wanted to get a ticket to a local event recently. The only online option was TicketBastard. The ticket cost $28.50. The combination of "convenience charges" and "handling charges" came to $15, plus it was recommended to me that -- for my maximum convenience -- I print out my own ticket on my own printer, which would merely cost me another $2.50.
In the end, I drove down to the venue box office and bought my ticket for list price. Just one of the perks of living in the city that hosts the events. People out in the burbs presumably don't have that option.
And blackboards have been criticized for years about the chalk dust they create if air circulation isn't ample.
What -- seriously?? All the problems with the education system in the U.S. and this is what people focus on? Whoah, wait...is there a correlation here?
Somebody once took me to a Radiohead show to get rid of an extra ticket. I wasn't expecting much, but I was curious enough to check it out. I have to say: They blew the doors off. They were a really, really, really solid live band, and it took me a bit by surprise. Since then I've gone back and listened to their records and gained a lot more respect for their music. It's still not necessarily my cup of tea, but if there are any mainstream rock bands working that deserve respect I would say that Radiohead is one of them.
In the 1990s I worked for a packaging design firm that had Intel as a client. The company's assignment was to design packaging and in-store displays for the latest Intel processor, the Pentium II, now with MMX. So Intel shipped us all the latest logos associated with the chip.
I don't know if you remember that logo, but it looked pretty much like this. Blue Intel logo, purple and black Pentium II logo down below, and an ugly little purple-red-yellow rainbow gradient thing in the corner that said "MMX."
So the designers did their designs, they conferred with Intel, final designs were agreed upon, and the designers delivered their comps to Intel. Somebody gets a call:
Intel: We're looking at the final designs and everything seems in order. Except the logo seems all messed up.
(Our designers didn't do anything to the logo, so far as we knew, so this was a little surprising.) Us: What's wrong?
Intel: Well, this doesn't really look like Pentium Purple, and this logo definitely is not Intel Blue.
Us: Ah. Well... yes, I see what you mean. Not to worry. This is pretty normal when dealing with four-color process. We'll have one of our production people on-site at the printer's to make sure it matches your sample as closely as possible.
Intel: As closely as possible doesn't cut it. I need this to be Intel Blue and this absolutely must be Pentium Purple. And now that you mention it, the rainbow gradient doesn't really look like it goes from Intel Red to Intel Purple to Intel Yellow, either. Did you get our Pantone swatches?
Us: Well, yes. But since this is a four-color job, you realize that you can't really get all those colors into the job. They don't all fit into the four-color gamut. We assumed that you wanted the closest approximation for each (and I think they match pretty well, but we can do better).
Intel: Not acceptable. We NEED this to be Intel Blue. This MUST be Pentium Purple.
Us: The only way to do that is to use custom spot colors. We'd have to run an additional pass through the printer for each color.
Intel: Then that's what you have to do.
Us: OK, so just to confirm. For every single piece of advertising we produce for you -- every box, every poster, every five-foot-high cardboard cutout, every display -- in addition to the four-color process for all the photographs and box art, you want us to run four additional spot colors. And you're willing to incur the additional charges that this entails. And this is just to print the Intel Pentium II logo, which on this box I have here is exactly 1.2cm tall on the lower righthand corner of the box.
Intel: That is correct. Spare no expense.
The lesson learned: Don't expect rational decisionmaking from the internal marketing department of a behemoth corporation.
You are talking about money, pay and jobs. But what about interest in knowledge and the subject matter? Is that a fringe aspect for americans?
In my experience, yes. Most Americans go to college to "get a better job" or because they want to enter a certain field. They are, to coin a phrase, "goal oriented" -- school is a funnel into which they jump and once they get out the other end they can go back to living their lives, only now they will have been granted permission to enter into the career of their choice. So-called elite schools are desirable, not because they offer a better learning experience, but because they will "look better" to potential employers.
Slashdot Mirror
Soooooo... NetWare -----> Linux = Risk.
NetWare ------> Linux + Xen + NetWare = Less Risk.
Doesn't make sense to me. How can you assume that the NetWare services running under Xen running under Linux are 100 percent as reliable as the native NetWare services? That seems like an unlikely result.
Wait... if you're only using it because it "just works," how come you say you're "dependent" on it? "Dependent" sounds like you have a vested interest in not changing -- which is what I mean by "risk averse." Change = risk, always. (Note: "Risk" does not equal failure, just greater statistical chance of failure than you'd incur from changing nothing.)
I've donated using this method, but they asked that I give a double serving of red blood cells, rather than platelets. Your blood bank will tell you what would be most useful to receive from you, based on your own characteristics as well as current demand.
(BTW, the upshot of donating double red cells is that you won't have to give again for twice as long.)
I don't get it. What is it about this brand-new proposed therapy that makes you suspect that the therapy that has been used for years and years does not save lives?
If blood transfusions don't save lives, then what the hell else has kept all those people alive? Were they just mutants who didn't need as much blood as you or I?
Presumably the reason you are sticking with a platform that has not really changed much in a decade is because you are too risk-averse to jump to something else. That said, is swapping out your NetWare servers with "Nu-NetWare" running on top of a Linux kernel really less risky than just switching to Linux -- or to Windows with Active Directory, for that matter? If it's taken you this long to even consider replacing those servers, couldn't you have spent some of that time constructively -- by coming up with a longterm migration strategy that would enable you to minimize risk? Seriously, I have heard some arguments why NetWare is so much "better" or "more elegant" (or whatever) than a Windows network, but these arguments usually seem to hinge on some specific minor capability. It seems to me that you can get pretty much everything NetWare gives you on a Windows network with some third-party management products, with the upshot that your platform is not obsolete.
Could you please explain to me how this is "obvious"?
Once somebody invented the internal combustion engine, slapping it onto a wheeled cart probably seemed like a pretty "obvious" choice. Kinda hard to do without a drive train, though.
Is an Allen wrench "obvious"? A pair of locking pliers? They all seem pretty obvious once somebody invents them. Oh wait! I wonder if that has anything to do with why we have patents...
I know it's popular sentiment on Slashdot to put down anybody who claims any kind of intellectual property rights, but there's nothing in the patent codes that requires an invention to be a work of genius.
Then again, based on your sarcasm I presume you don't believe this to be a work of genius. You (modestly) admit that you are not a genius. You should be in the running, then. If you can assemble 3/4 of a working prototype of a datacenter wholly enclosed in a movable shipping container, based on what you know right now, I'll lobby to get you rights to 3/4 of the patent.
If you can't build it, though, no deal. "Business process" patents notwithstanding, patents cover actually doing something, remember -- not ideas cooked up by armchair inventors.
You've got me there. Now that you mention it, I don't recall reading much of anything by a European writer in ages. I still read the occasional Arturo Perez-Reverte, but he's hardly new on the scene and he seems to be growing less and less "literary." I was going to recommend Carlos Ruis Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind -- kind of an enjoyable gothic potboiler (about books) -- but then I found out that, although he writes in Spanish, he's lived in and worked as a screenwriter in Los Angeles for more than a decade. I've picked up some British stuff here and there. I can only assume that the European writers you mention don't generally make their way across to these shores...
I've noticed this, but I can't decide whether to blame the writers. Most of the practice of novel-writing is not about traveling to exotic book-signings, inking deals for the movies based on your books, and sipping vintage Chablis as you put the finishing touches on your last chapter. Most of it is solitary work, locked away at home or in your office, avoiding conversation or anything else that will distract you from the work at hand. In other words, maybe so many novelists use writers as their protagonists because they simply don't know anything else, and have a hard time making a character from any other occupation sound believable?
... no matter how much the authors may protest, a lot of genre fiction is basically plot-driven, so why waste time building unusual characters?
Besides, nobody reads a Stephen King book for his meticulous research
Another thing: Habitual readers seem to like books about books. Consider the sub-genre of novels like The Rule of Four, The Club Dumas, The Historian, The Shadow of the Wind, The Dante Club, etc... all devoted to people who spend a lot of time lurking around with books. You can say it's lazy writing, but it certainly does seem to sell. It makes sense that the same readers might be attracted to books whose central characters are writers.
If a writer does it once, I usually let him/her off the hook. Michael Chabon did his, but he's since moved on to other topics (and won the Pulitzer). Maybe, for someone as insular and solitary as a writer, at least one book about a character who is a writer just comes with the territory.
Indeed. Reality Hackers started out as an interesting concept, but by the time it had morphed into Mondo 2000 it became plain that it was a concept with only one possible direction: chasing its own tail. Or should that be swallowing its own tail? Related: The literal translation of the German slang term "schwanz" is "tail"...
The parent speaks truth. Romance may not really have "the lion's share" of all fiction publishing, but in 2004 romance novels really did account for about 55 percent of all paperback book sales, totaling some $1.2 billion.
Here's another factoid for you armchair publishing-industry pundits to ponder: That same year, the Christian book market was said to be worth about $1.3 billion in net sales. You may not realize it, but there's a whole parallel market for Christian romances, Christian mysteries, and even Christian sci-fi and fantasy. And in 2004, it apparently brought in more money than romance books -- or, the equivalent of more than 55 percent of mainstream paperback book sales.
Remember these points, the next time you want to start mouthing platitudes like "only bad writers need to worry" and "the quality will rise to the top." When it comes to the business of writing, those writers who are most capable at reaching the market -- the real market, not the one they assume exists -- will be the most successful.
I suspect this habit comes from imitating the newspaper writing style. Newspapers often break paragraphs pretty much willy-nilly, and you'll quite often find paragraphs that are no more than a single sentence. In this context it makes sense, though, because newspaper column widths are very narrow. Put two or three sentences together and you might end up with a single paragraph that's four column-inches long, which is sure to drive away readers.
You can sue anybody you want, at any time, for pretty much anything. Winning is another matter, but the courts do little to prevent you from being a nuisance.
I wanted to get a ticket to a local event recently. The only online option was TicketBastard. The ticket cost $28.50. The combination of "convenience charges" and "handling charges" came to $15, plus it was recommended to me that -- for my maximum convenience -- I print out my own ticket on my own printer, which would merely cost me another $2.50.
In the end, I drove down to the venue box office and bought my ticket for list price. Just one of the perks of living in the city that hosts the events. People out in the burbs presumably don't have that option.
I actually figured this out a while ago.
1.5 million people jump through hoops to get unauthorized copies of something they can't get any other way. What do you do?
You start selling it to them legitimately. It's genius. It's so brilliant it's diabolical. The people will never see it coming.
What -- seriously?? All the problems with the education system in the U.S. and this is what people focus on? Whoah, wait...is there a correlation here?
IDNPTG (I DO Not Play The Guitar) but I'll give the presumed counter-argument ... that only amateurs have the luxury of not being lazy.
Mind if I cut in line?
...I have CIPA, you insensitive clod!!
Somebody once took me to a Radiohead show to get rid of an extra ticket. I wasn't expecting much, but I was curious enough to check it out. I have to say: They blew the doors off. They were a really, really, really solid live band, and it took me a bit by surprise. Since then I've gone back and listened to their records and gained a lot more respect for their music. It's still not necessarily my cup of tea, but if there are any mainstream rock bands working that deserve respect I would say that Radiohead is one of them.
In the 1990s I worked for a packaging design firm that had Intel as a client. The company's assignment was to design packaging and in-store displays for the latest Intel processor, the Pentium II, now with MMX. So Intel shipped us all the latest logos associated with the chip.
I don't know if you remember that logo, but it looked pretty much like this. Blue Intel logo, purple and black Pentium II logo down below, and an ugly little purple-red-yellow rainbow gradient thing in the corner that said "MMX."
So the designers did their designs, they conferred with Intel, final designs were agreed upon, and the designers delivered their comps to Intel. Somebody gets a call:
Intel: We're looking at the final designs and everything seems in order. Except the logo seems all messed up.
(Our designers didn't do anything to the logo, so far as we knew, so this was a little surprising.) Us: What's wrong?
Intel: Well, this doesn't really look like Pentium Purple, and this logo definitely is not Intel Blue.
Us: Ah. Well... yes, I see what you mean. Not to worry. This is pretty normal when dealing with four-color process. We'll have one of our production people on-site at the printer's to make sure it matches your sample as closely as possible.
Intel: As closely as possible doesn't cut it. I need this to be Intel Blue and this absolutely must be Pentium Purple. And now that you mention it, the rainbow gradient doesn't really look like it goes from Intel Red to Intel Purple to Intel Yellow, either. Did you get our Pantone swatches?
Us: Well, yes. But since this is a four-color job, you realize that you can't really get all those colors into the job. They don't all fit into the four-color gamut. We assumed that you wanted the closest approximation for each (and I think they match pretty well, but we can do better).
Intel: Not acceptable. We NEED this to be Intel Blue. This MUST be Pentium Purple.
Us: The only way to do that is to use custom spot colors. We'd have to run an additional pass through the printer for each color.
Intel: Then that's what you have to do.
Us: OK, so just to confirm. For every single piece of advertising we produce for you -- every box, every poster, every five-foot-high cardboard cutout, every display -- in addition to the four-color process for all the photographs and box art, you want us to run four additional spot colors. And you're willing to incur the additional charges that this entails. And this is just to print the Intel Pentium II logo, which on this box I have here is exactly 1.2cm tall on the lower righthand corner of the box.
Intel: That is correct. Spare no expense.
The lesson learned: Don't expect rational decisionmaking from the internal marketing department of a behemoth corporation.
In my experience, yes. Most Americans go to college to "get a better job" or because they want to enter a certain field. They are, to coin a phrase, "goal oriented" -- school is a funnel into which they jump and once they get out the other end they can go back to living their lives, only now they will have been granted permission to enter into the career of their choice. So-called elite schools are desirable, not because they offer a better learning experience, but because they will "look better" to potential employers.