The Deutsche Telekom has done some piloting experiments that did not turn out entirely bad, but they still haven't been able to entirely solve the key generator problem.
They have a system in Germany called the GeldKarte (link in German, of course, since it's a German system) which is basically a phonecard-esque payment card linked to a special type of account at your bank; you can load your card with arbitrary amounts of money and use it for cash. This is basically the same thing, except that it works without putting your card in some slot but by specifying your 16-digit number.
The advantage over credit cards is not that evident, except (possibly) that people can't steal over 100 German marks (at present, about $42 or 48) by stealing your number. On the other hand, the high granularity always forces you to keep a large number of cards if you want to order anything online that costs more than these 100 marks.
BTW the card is Euro-aware, of course, because the value stays the same, it's just a different currency. So you buy a 100 marks card and when you use it after January 1, 2002, it's an 48 card. Not a problem. After the euro introduction, they'll probably shift to 50 and start selling them throughout Europe.
Of course every schoolchild in Germany knows that we started the war, that Hitler was democratically elected in Germany and that the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did save the lives of those who would have died in a territorial invasion of Japan. We learn that and we get to live with the historical responsibility of our people. This perspective appears to lack in the American approach which I see behind Pearl Harbor: you think dropping a nuke on 250,000 is a good thing when it saves you from killing 500,000, but actually both are crimes. Historical responsibility is owed by any nation that ever participated in organized mass slaughter.
In war, crimes get committed by both sides, and none of them can be justified by the greater cause. That's the main lesson to be learned. My ancestors who died in the war (grandfather at Remagen, grandmother died in Berlin, other died in the bombing of Dresden in 1945 which militarically redundant) did not start the war.
That Ben Affleck's character has just returned from Europe having fought in the Battle of Britain and incarceration in a prisoner of war camp is completely laughable
There were, actually, some pilots from other countries than Britain who fought in the Battle of Britain; for example, some Polish and Canadians actually managed to get quite a good reputation. However, the bit about incarceration in POW camps is quite laughable indeed... However, it somehow had to be included for the sake of war athmosphere, it seems.
U-571 is an absolute joke: American sailor's boarding a German U-boat to capture a Enigma cypher machine is how Hollywood tells the story. History, on the other hand, tells us that the first Enigma was captured by the British before the US even entered the war!
One should add that the best movie about German submarine warfare is still the classic Das Boot (see other review with different trailers). The submarines were actually one of Germany's most technologically advanced and most terrifying weapons, especially since they did see some large scale use; on the other hand, more than 90% of German submariners did not return from the War.
I know that's not really relevant for the apparent majority of Slashdot readers, but both here in Germany and over there in Japan people do see catastrophically patriotic movies like Pearl Harbor with a bit of a mixed feeling. In the same category of movie, we have, for example, The Bridge at Remagen (I think that's the English title) which is where my grandfather happened to die, countless movies about the Battle of Britain, about the war in the Pacific and so on. Are you aware that a war that people who are now your allies lost may actually cause problems to these very people when they're portrayed as "100% baddie, 0% character"? (I mean, over here about 60% of the population lost a relative during the War, and I don't really want to imagine what a Japanese feels like when he looks at a video that depicts Nagasaki.)
What is your point, in reference to the discussion at hand, which is journalling?
None. I was referring to the thetorical quality of the discussion as such. Sort of a meta-remark. Since meta-discussions are not a canonical part of Slashdot discussions, however, I realize that my post was probably offtopic; however, by specifying "OT" in the subject line, I had thought this would have been sufficiently stated.
Excuse me, but I think you're missing a point here: I'm not complaining because these people say something against a post of mine, but because they're all saying the same thing. I don't know about your opinion, but I wouldn't classify that as being rhetorically valuable. Imagine the following discussion:
Solaris is in use mainly as a server operating system at the moment, and most servers do _not_ need a smooth integrated desktop solution. Solaris has served web pages, databases and firewalls for years without having GNOME as a polished desktop. It looks like it's just another We can do it as well sort of show for Sun and hence little better than Microsoft's fairly old Internet Explorer for Solaris, except that it has some (does it?) value for the Open Source crowd.
On a side note: Does anyone know whether Solaris is named Solaris because of the name of it's producing company or has anyone thought of Stanislaw Lem's great novel Solaris where the planet of Solaris is inhabited by an immense monocellular living intelligent ocean that is too large and too complex to understand?
OT: Oracle's advantages over mySQL
on
Benchmark Madness
·
· Score: 1
Other "only" advantages of Oracle over MySQL include triggers, stored procedures, sensible handling of validation rules, better handling of multiple data spaces and better performance on large-scale OLAP environments...:-)
It's absurd how much FUD slashdot is spreading these days.
Isn't it about time you guys revisited your submission process, and the way stories get posted.
What Slashdot definitely lacks is an equivalent of Kuro5hin's Meta forum where Slashdot-relevant things could be discussed. Then one wouldn't have to file legitimate complaints like this one under other topics, they wouldn't get moderated to Offtopic or Troll, and maybe they'd even get read...
Otherwise, there can never be a sensible discussion among Slashdot users how Slashdot community problems might be solved.
New Filesystems Aren't Apparently Faster
on
Benchmark Madness
·
· Score: 5
It's really amazing that all these new filesystems that people have invested tremendous amounts of work into are not really significantly faster than the good old Ext2; ReiserFS is better in some disciplines, admittedly, but in others Ext2 is best.
The only advantage the new FSes hold is probably their journaling capability, leading to faster fscks, faster bootups and less risk of data loss. Did we really need a new set of filesystems for that? ( BSD Soft Updates show that the whole speed and reliability advantage can be had with old filesystems as well!) Where's the advantage? Where's the progress? The benchmarks only leave me disappointed.
Slashdot Mirror
The Deutsche Telekom has done some piloting experiments that did not turn out entirely bad, but they still haven't been able to entirely solve the key generator problem. They have a system in Germany called the GeldKarte (link in German, of course, since it's a German system) which is basically a phonecard-esque payment card linked to a special type of account at your bank; you can load your card with arbitrary amounts of money and use it for cash. This is basically the same thing, except that it works without putting your card in some slot but by specifying your 16-digit number. The advantage over credit cards is not that evident, except (possibly) that people can't steal over 100 German marks (at present, about $42 or 48) by stealing your number. On the other hand, the high granularity always forces you to keep a large number of cards if you want to order anything online that costs more than these 100 marks. BTW the card is Euro-aware, of course, because the value stays the same, it's just a different currency. So you buy a 100 marks card and when you use it after January 1, 2002, it's an 48 card. Not a problem. After the euro introduction, they'll probably shift to 50 and start selling them throughout Europe.
In war, crimes get committed by both sides, and none of them can be justified by the greater cause. That's the main lesson to be learned. My ancestors who died in the war (grandfather at Remagen, grandmother died in Berlin, other died in the bombing of Dresden in 1945 which militarically redundant) did not start the war.
There were, actually, some pilots from other countries than Britain who fought in the Battle of Britain; for example, some Polish and Canadians actually managed to get quite a good reputation. However, the bit about incarceration in POW camps is quite laughable indeed... However, it somehow had to be included for the sake of war athmosphere, it seems.
One should add that the best movie about German submarine warfare is still the classic Das Boot (see other review with different trailers). The submarines were actually one of Germany's most technologically advanced and most terrifying weapons, especially since they did see some large scale use; on the other hand, more than 90% of German submariners did not return from the War.
I know that's not really relevant for the apparent majority of Slashdot readers, but both here in Germany and over there in Japan people do see catastrophically patriotic movies like Pearl Harbor with a bit of a mixed feeling. In the same category of movie, we have, for example, The Bridge at Remagen (I think that's the English title) which is where my grandfather happened to die, countless movies about the Battle of Britain, about the war in the Pacific and so on. Are you aware that a war that people who are now your allies lost may actually cause problems to these very people when they're portrayed as "100% baddie, 0% character"? (I mean, over here about 60% of the population lost a relative during the War, and I don't really want to imagine what a Japanese feels like when he looks at a video that depicts Nagasaki.)
None. I was referring to the thetorical quality of the discussion as such. Sort of a meta-remark. Since meta-discussions are not a canonical part of Slashdot discussions, however, I realize that my post was probably offtopic; however, by specifying "OT" in the subject line, I had thought this would have been sufficiently stated.
A: Question 1
B: Reply 1
C: Reply 2
D: Reply 1
E: Reply 1
F: Reply 1
Not very elegant, is it? Three absolutely redundant replies, just because D, E and F thought that they'd get some Karma out of saying something. Whoa.
That has nothing to do with me being luddite; I mean, I wouldn't post a question if I wasn't prepared for the answer.
On a side note: Does anyone know whether Solaris is named Solaris because of the name of it's producing company or has anyone thought of Stanislaw Lem's great novel Solaris where the planet of Solaris is inhabited by an immense monocellular living intelligent ocean that is too large and too complex to understand?
Other "only" advantages of Oracle over MySQL include triggers, stored procedures, sensible handling of validation rules, better handling of multiple data spaces and better performance on large-scale OLAP environments... :-)
What Slashdot definitely lacks is an equivalent of Kuro5hin's Meta forum where Slashdot-relevant things could be discussed. Then one wouldn't have to file legitimate complaints like this one under other topics, they wouldn't get moderated to Offtopic or Troll, and maybe they'd even get read...
Otherwise, there can never be a sensible discussion among Slashdot users how Slashdot community problems might be solved.
The only advantage the new FSes hold is probably their journaling capability, leading to faster fscks, faster bootups and less risk of data loss. Did we really need a new set of filesystems for that? ( BSD Soft Updates show that the whole speed and reliability advantage can be had with old filesystems as well!) Where's the advantage? Where's the progress? The benchmarks only leave me disappointed.