When an auto manufacturer ships a new engine, they don't immediately halt production of the old ones that it is destined to supplant. A phased transition is simply a reality of the manufacturing business.
Apple doesn't have to rush out an entire new line of units in one big bang. Good engineering and facility planning take time.
I use Windows 98 because it works well, and so there is no motivation to use something newer like XP or 2000.
Ah, the moderators of Slashdot are certainly a politically motivated group. Say something that can be misconstrued as not shining Microsoft in good light is worthy of "troll".
residents of a city are forced by the state to fund a WiFi connection with their taxes
You think that's bad... I'm being forced along with millions of others to pay for a half-trillion dollar war to merely please energy companies and to stroke the ego of a few guys in Washington.
Some poor people are even being killed, as well as taxed.
OS have acquisition costs and maintenance costs. The person who applies an OS patch most likely doesn't work for free.
Absolutely true. However, you are speaking of "PCO", or partial cost of ownership. In of itself, the PCO value is meaningless, as it fails to consider all value and costs. But your post body does speak of TCO. So I'm not sure where you're coming from - I think we're on the same page.
Let's take the dead BeOS versus PrimeOS debate (just to remove religious issues). Which one has a lower PCO? BeOS is $10. In contrast, PrimeOS costs $99. (these are fake numbers, by the way, just as an example).
But wait! There is the cost of administration. OK, a BeOS expert needed to maintain your system costs $20000/year, in contrast to a PrimeOS expert that costs $15000/year.
And now we consider the APPLICATION. You need you operating system to provide a critical application to the accounting department. The cost to run the department is $1000 per hour. With BeOS, you predict to be down 16 prime time hours per year; with PrimeOS you expect to be down 4 hours a year.
Looking at IT costs alone is looking at PCO. You must look at the TCO to solve the equation. The main cost isn't IT people, it's the overall business cost.
Only the dumbest manager would say "Oh, which platform has the lowest TCO? - we'll buy that exclusively"... because a opereating system in of itself simply does NOT HAVE A TCO!
The TCO comes in EXCLUSIVELY at the application level. You should make TCO calculations at the Application level ONLY.
What is the TCO to run PeopleSoft on Windows versus PeopleSoft on Solaris? That's a GREAT question, and it's highly dependent on the application and the organization it's going into.
What's the TCO of Windows versus Linux? That makes no sense. It depends on the application.
Just look at Apple's strategy. It keeps only high quality products being created.
Apple does not have a "licensed periferal program". Any manufacturer can make a product and have it work with the Mac with no licensing fees involved.
Apple-related products are of such high quality only because there is a high demand for high-quality products. The fact that Mac OS is based on Unix has nothing to do with it.
This is truly amazing once you understand the details.
They take audio from the Shuttle, digitize it, convert it into an MP3 audio file, create an XML document that refers to the MP3 file, and then jam it all on an accessible web server.
The most amazing part: they have a pretty good workflow to do this whole thing!
Strangely, the web server was not actually located on the shuttle itself. What gives?
One way to greatly reduce the impact of the space program on the environment is to have contractual agreements with the suppliers regarding the amount of waste products they release.
Does anyone have a tally of the waste water, smoke stack emissions, and solid waste produced by Shuttle suppliers?
My wager is that the waste produced by suppliers is in range of thousands of tons per year. And that's with producing no new shuttles.
Ah! You're missing the point of this law! The point isn't saving energy. The point is increasing RETAIL SHOPPING HOURS.
As a large retailer, we know that core shopping happens during daylight hours. As the sun sets, people start clearing out of the retail stores.
In most parts of the country, retail stores open at a fixed time, either 9AM (or 10AM in some areas). Almost no stores open at "sunrise".
Therefore, core shopping hours are from a 9AM until sunset. Maybe the store is open until 9 PM, but in general shopping activity slows way down at sunset. This is just a known fact in the retail industry.
By changing the clock, sunset can happen later relative to clock time. Therefore, if we add a month of DST, we add about 30 hours of prime-time shopping to our annual retail calendar!
To a retailer, this is huge news - this is almost like adding 3+ full shopping days to our calendar at almost zero cost.
My management was amazingly happy by this rule change.
This has happened many times before in the fairly recent past - the last time in the US was in 1987.... and "summertime/DST" rule changes happen around the world virtually every few months. OS and application developers that have international deployments are already familiar with this issue.
If device developers haven't figured out that rules change over time, shame on them. You have two years to push your new rule into your systems. If people don't patch their systems for one reason or another in two years, well, then I guess they have a problem.
No, that's a methane-based rocket. I'm sure others here have experimented with that special class of technology. Sadly, it has a scaling problem too... the larger you are, the more methane you produce - but the larger you are, the more mass you have to move.
If this line of tube engine development works out, we can make a 5,000 lbf engine with very little more effort than the test engine."
Interestingly enough, as a kid I made my own alcohol fueled rocket motor, based around a bottle filled with a alcohol/oxygen mix, a small orifice, and an ignition source.
If thing were the way I'd like them to be, I could have scaled it up to be something like twice the power of the Saturn V rocket. But after the first successful test, I was unable to scale the device.
Best of luck to John, may he do better than I did.
I can only tell you that it is similar advances have taken about 10 years to hit the fab facilities that we've been associated with. Of course some hit the street sooner, and some never make it to production due to an orthogonal advance or an insurmountable implementation problem.
Obviously, someone could make a full-court press and invest a few extra billion to make it (potentially) happen faster. But in general it isn't though of as being wise, as it could be a huge money sink that doesn't pay off the investment.
Even a massive initial investment doesn't solve all technical hurdles in a faster way. I'd be pissed if I were an investor, sinking a billion, and then have some weenie with a better, cheaper, faster alternative make my investment valueless.
Just a word of warning for those not familiar with this advance - there are still a lot of issues to be worked out to being this technology into the field.
My group estimates that it will be 10 or more years before we see this technology impacting consumers around the world.
We all want much more powerful CPUs in a smaller package disapating little heat. But so far built only a few transistors using said technology - far from the density and complexity of a next generation CPU. The reliability of the process needs to be made very very high, orders of magnitude high, in order to make a next generation CPU using this technology... and those techniques are far, far away from being available today at any high volume chip fab facility.
Don't get me wrong - its an important scientific advance, but the manufacturing process still needs a lot of new science to make it happen in a way we'd like to see it.
Dear Slashdot Editors: I realize that readers don't have to read the articles before getting hysterical. But would it be too much to ask for the EDITORS to do a little critical thinking? Love and kisses.
Note that the (super)parent poster that you replied to is wrong. It is fact and law that your boss may prohibit you from being friends with your work colleauges.
Read the article for yourself - there were TWO rulings on two different issues. The parent post you replied to is correct about the soliciting in uniform ruling... but the other decision, stated clearly in the article, is that a boss may legally prohibit you from "fraternizing" with your work colleagues.
It's very clear IF you read the whole thing.
Conclusion: The article posted on slashdot was factually correct. The reply that is named "The actual ruling..." is wrong.
Whoops! Mod the parent DOWN. The ruling also plainly states that an employer MAY institute a rule that prohibits off-duty fraternization with co-workers:
Respondent did not violate the Act by maintaining a work rule that directs employees not to "fraternize on duty or off duty, date[,] or become overly friendly with the client's employees or with co-employees."
I think the parent mistakenly addressed a different part of the ruling.
I'd say an employer's implementation of such a rule is dumb in most cases. It may be sane if you're talking about security guards, however ("scheming is prohibited").
Releasing the XBox without HD-DVD will permit the delivery of the games and consoles many many months before the delivery of the PS3 . And the lack of HD-DVD will negatively impact very few users - please recall that few world-wide households have HDTV - less than 1%! And about zero percent have HD-DVD discs.
Microsoft is playing second fiddle now, and it's XBox division WILL die if it doesn't improve its very disappointing numbers. Microsoft requires the advantage of delivering significantly before Sony. If it means that HD-DVD comes in as an upgrade, so be it.
Will some people want HD-DVD? Yes. But those people who can actually use the technology are in the very very distant minority.
Famous last words from someone who seems to have a serious backup of testosterone. Unless you've written all the code for all the tools your clients rely on, I can't see how you can possibly know for sure what is going to happen.
Eh? I didn't say I was stupid. I always ask my primary vendors about potential impact. As I stated earlier, we suffer through a timezone rule changes quite frequently, being an international company with servers located all over the world (networking isn't what we'd all like it to be).
Of course, unexpected things happen every day. So we always have contingency and recovery plans.
Can shit happen? Yes. Do I worry about things? Yes. Do I make sure we do whatever we can within budget and manpower constraints to have 100% availability? Yes. I've had 100% availability for more than 3 years in all of our locations. Don't tell me about what "*good* admins" say and do.
Like others have said, I will reboot zero machines.
Of course, this may be a problem for some other operating systems or some weirdo (flawed) programs that try to figure out local time on their own. I can't speak for them. But I know my Unix and Linux based hosts and applications won't be a problem.
So if you're running BeOS or Windows or CMS, well, I dunno.
Every country has different timezone rules, and they are always changing. This is not a big deal - in fact, it happens all the time. For those with International operations with localtime representation, this is par for the course.
Slashdot Mirror
When an auto manufacturer ships a new engine, they don't immediately halt production of the old ones that it is destined to supplant. A phased transition is simply a reality of the manufacturing business.
Apple doesn't have to rush out an entire new line of units in one big bang. Good engineering and facility planning take time.
I use Windows 98 because it works well, and so there is no motivation to use something newer like XP or 2000.
Ah, the moderators of Slashdot are certainly a politically motivated group. Say something that can be misconstrued as not shining Microsoft in good light is worthy of "troll".
When I have to use Windows, I use Windows 98.
I don't know of any features in 2000, XP, or Vista that is compelling.
More bloat, that's all.
There is another, even more impressive system for controlling crap from getting into your building and energy getting out.
It's called the revolving door.
residents of a city are forced by the state to fund a WiFi connection with their taxes
You think that's bad... I'm being forced along with millions of others to pay for a half-trillion dollar war to merely please energy companies and to stroke the ego of a few guys in Washington.
Some poor people are even being killed, as well as taxed.
Again, I think we're on the same page. TCO isn't based on simply one variable (like "windows" or "linux").
It's quite sophisticated, and IT costs are (hopefully) a small part of the equation. However, how well IT systems are run can greatly impact TCO.
As always, "it depends". If you try to say "Windows has lower TCO", good luck... because it greatly depends on your specific application.
OS have acquisition costs and maintenance costs. The person who applies an OS patch most likely doesn't work for free.
Absolutely true. However, you are speaking of "PCO", or partial cost of ownership. In of itself, the PCO value is meaningless, as it fails to consider all value and costs. But your post body does speak of TCO. So I'm not sure where you're coming from - I think we're on the same page.
Let's take the dead BeOS versus PrimeOS debate (just to remove religious issues). Which one has a lower PCO? BeOS is $10. In contrast, PrimeOS costs $99. (these are fake numbers, by the way, just as an example).
But wait! There is the cost of administration. OK, a BeOS expert needed to maintain your system costs $20000/year, in contrast to a PrimeOS expert that costs $15000/year.
And now we consider the APPLICATION. You need you operating system to provide a critical application to the accounting department. The cost to run the department is $1000 per hour. With BeOS, you predict to be down 16 prime time hours per year; with PrimeOS you expect to be down 4 hours a year.
Looking at IT costs alone is looking at PCO. You must look at the TCO to solve the equation. The main cost isn't IT people, it's the overall business cost.
Only the dumbest manager would say "Oh, which platform has the lowest TCO? - we'll buy that exclusively"... because a opereating system in of itself simply does NOT HAVE A TCO!
The TCO comes in EXCLUSIVELY at the application level. You should make TCO calculations at the Application level ONLY.
What is the TCO to run PeopleSoft on Windows versus PeopleSoft on Solaris? That's a GREAT question, and it's highly dependent on the application and the organization it's going into.
What's the TCO of Windows versus Linux? That makes no sense. It depends on the application.
Just look at Apple's strategy. It keeps only high quality products being created.
Apple does not have a "licensed periferal program". Any manufacturer can make a product and have it work with the Mac with no licensing fees involved.
Apple-related products are of such high quality only because there is a high demand for high-quality products. The fact that Mac OS is based on Unix has nothing to do with it.
Our stores open at 10 AM because there are no customers before 10 AM.
This is truly amazing once you understand the details.
They take audio from the Shuttle, digitize it, convert it into an MP3 audio file, create an XML document that refers to the MP3 file, and then jam it all on an accessible web server.
The most amazing part: they have a pretty good workflow to do this whole thing!
Strangely, the web server was not actually located on the shuttle itself. What gives?
The sun goes down at the same time, even the clock is changed back and forth.
Whoops, you're wrong. Here is a counter example:
Yesterday, the sun set here at 8:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time. If it were Eastern Standard Time, the sun would have set at 7:03 PM.
Therefore, the sun would go down at a DIFFERENT time of day based on how we set our clock.
One way to greatly reduce the impact of the space program on the environment is to have contractual agreements with the suppliers regarding the amount of waste products they release.
Does anyone have a tally of the waste water, smoke stack emissions, and solid waste produced by Shuttle suppliers?
My wager is that the waste produced by suppliers is in range of thousands of tons per year. And that's with producing no new shuttles.
Ah! You're missing the point of this law! The point isn't saving energy. The point is increasing RETAIL SHOPPING HOURS.
As a large retailer, we know that core shopping happens during daylight hours. As the sun sets, people start clearing out of the retail stores.
In most parts of the country, retail stores open at a fixed time, either 9AM (or 10AM in some areas). Almost no stores open at "sunrise".
Therefore, core shopping hours are from a 9AM until sunset. Maybe the store is open until 9 PM, but in general shopping activity slows way down at sunset. This is just a known fact in the retail industry.
By changing the clock, sunset can happen later relative to clock time. Therefore, if we add a month of DST, we add about 30 hours of prime-time shopping to our annual retail calendar!
To a retailer, this is huge news - this is almost like adding 3+ full shopping days to our calendar at almost zero cost.
My management was amazingly happy by this rule change.
This has happened many times before in the fairly recent past - the last time in the US was in 1987.... and "summertime/DST" rule changes happen around the world virtually every few months. OS and application developers that have international deployments are already familiar with this issue.
If device developers haven't figured out that rules change over time, shame on them. You have two years to push your new rule into your systems. If people don't patch their systems for one reason or another in two years, well, then I guess they have a problem.
So, in other words... you lit your own farts?
No, that's a methane-based rocket. I'm sure others here have experimented with that special class of technology. Sadly, it has a scaling problem too... the larger you are, the more methane you produce - but the larger you are, the more mass you have to move.
If this line of tube engine development works out, we can make a 5,000 lbf engine with very little more effort than the test engine."
Interestingly enough, as a kid I made my own alcohol fueled rocket motor, based around a bottle filled with a alcohol/oxygen mix, a small orifice, and an ignition source.
If thing were the way I'd like them to be, I could have scaled it up to be something like twice the power of the Saturn V rocket. But after the first successful test, I was unable to scale the device.
Best of luck to John, may he do better than I did.
I can only tell you that it is similar advances have taken about 10 years to hit the fab facilities that we've been associated with. Of course some hit the street sooner, and some never make it to production due to an orthogonal advance or an insurmountable implementation problem.
Obviously, someone could make a full-court press and invest a few extra billion to make it (potentially) happen faster. But in general it isn't though of as being wise, as it could be a huge money sink that doesn't pay off the investment.
Even a massive initial investment doesn't solve all technical hurdles in a faster way. I'd be pissed if I were an investor, sinking a billion, and then have some weenie with a better, cheaper, faster alternative make my investment valueless.
Chip fabrication is a business.
Just a word of warning for those not familiar with this advance - there are still a lot of issues to be worked out to being this technology into the field.
My group estimates that it will be 10 or more years before we see this technology impacting consumers around the world.
We all want much more powerful CPUs in a smaller package disapating little heat. But so far built only a few transistors using said technology - far from the density and complexity of a next generation CPU. The reliability of the process needs to be made very very high, orders of magnitude high, in order to make a next generation CPU using this technology... and those techniques are far, far away from being available today at any high volume chip fab facility.
Don't get me wrong - its an important scientific advance, but the manufacturing process still needs a lot of new science to make it happen in a way we'd like to see it.
Dear Slashdot Editors: I realize that readers don't have to read the articles before getting hysterical. But would it be too much to ask for the EDITORS to do a little critical thinking? Love and kisses.
Note that the (super)parent poster that you replied to is wrong. It is fact and law that your boss may prohibit you from being friends with your work colleauges.
Read the article for yourself - there were TWO rulings on two different issues. The parent post you replied to is correct about the soliciting in uniform ruling... but the other decision, stated clearly in the article, is that a boss may legally prohibit you from "fraternizing" with your work colleagues.
It's very clear IF you read the whole thing.
Conclusion: The article posted on slashdot was factually correct. The reply that is named "The actual ruling..." is wrong.
Whoops! Mod the parent DOWN. The ruling also plainly states that an employer MAY institute a rule that prohibits off-duty fraternization with co-workers:
Respondent did not violate the Act by maintaining a work rule that directs employees not to "fraternize on duty or off duty, date[,] or become overly friendly with the client's employees or with co-employees."
I think the parent mistakenly addressed a different part of the ruling.
I'd say an employer's implementation of such a rule is dumb in most cases. It may be sane if you're talking about security guards, however ("scheming is prohibited").
Releasing the XBox without HD-DVD will permit the delivery of the games and consoles many many months before the delivery of the PS3 . And the lack of HD-DVD will negatively impact very few users - please recall that few world-wide households have HDTV - less than 1%! And about zero percent have HD-DVD discs.
Microsoft is playing second fiddle now, and it's XBox division WILL die if it doesn't improve its very disappointing numbers. Microsoft requires the advantage of delivering significantly before Sony. If it means that HD-DVD comes in as an upgrade, so be it.
Will some people want HD-DVD? Yes. But those people who can actually use the technology are in the very very distant minority.
Famous last words from someone who seems to have a serious backup of testosterone. Unless you've written all the code for all the tools your clients rely on, I can't see how you can possibly know for sure what is going to happen.
Eh? I didn't say I was stupid. I always ask my primary vendors about potential impact. As I stated earlier, we suffer through a timezone rule changes quite frequently, being an international company with servers located all over the world (networking isn't what we'd all like it to be).
Of course, unexpected things happen every day. So we always have contingency and recovery plans.
Can shit happen? Yes. Do I worry about things? Yes. Do I make sure we do whatever we can within budget and manpower constraints to have 100% availability? Yes. I've had 100% availability for more than 3 years in all of our locations. Don't tell me about what "*good* admins" say and do.
Like others have said, I will reboot zero machines.
Of course, this may be a problem for some other operating systems or some weirdo (flawed) programs that try to figure out local time on their own. I can't speak for them. But I know my Unix and Linux based hosts and applications won't be a problem.
So if you're running BeOS or Windows or CMS, well, I dunno.
Every country has different timezone rules, and they are always changing. This is not a big deal - in fact, it happens all the time. For those with International operations with localtime representation, this is par for the course.
Would you prefer that google had no competition? Competition can be a powerful drive to improvement, after all.
Yes, I wish Google had competition to drive improvement.
But Microsoft isn't doing it.