Well, if it goes far enough, we may end up with leagues for "natural" and "enhanced" humans.
But what about cross-breeding athletes ?;)
Natural "genetic engineering" won't be outlawed and if artificial genetic engineering becomes an acceptable way of curing/preventing some diseases, it'll be hard to deny athletes access to such medicine...
Oh, and what about athletes using contact lenses? Or shoes? I suspect the organisation wouldn't let an all-natural athlete enter the competition because of nudity;)
I know the politically-correct policy is to consider that programmers from countries such as India do reasonable work, but my experience is that it is just not true. I keep finding that the resultant source-code from outsourcing is abysmal.
One reason could be that good programmers can move to other countries just as easily as multinational companies can move jobs around. That means that the best Indian programmers will make just as much as the best US programmers (and chances are they work in the same offices).
Companies get what they pay for and shouldn't expect good programmers for bargain prices...
My personal option for smaller data sets would be hard disks too. Specifically, hard disks in external fast-usb or firewire enclosures, so they really become hot pluggable.
A friend tells me that 20GB tapes are cheap. With a simple tape changing robot that might be manageable, just put in a new tape container every day...
If the FCC suddenly said one day ok, people have to be able to take their IPs with them. ISPs would be pissed, but they'd probably all move to IP6 where its much more possible.
Please read RFC 2772. Having portable IP addresses the way you describe is explicitly forbidden with IPv6, for good technical reasons!
I'm afraid it rather is like taking your home address (or zip code) with you.
The reason is that the internet core routers already have over 100.000 entries in the IPv4 routing table. When routing millions of packets a second, the router needs to do millions of route lookups a second.
This still works (barely) because the number of entries in the routing table (think of them as zip codes) can be looked up easily. If the postal service had portable, personal zip codes, the zip code system would also be completely useless...
Beyond a certain point, there is simply no physical way that you could fit all the routing table entries in a cache that can be accessed fast enough to look up the routing table entries as fast as the packets come in.
I'm sure the state of New Jersey will legislate a higher speed of light to get around this problem, but that's not going to fix it for the rest of us...
Ext3 has most of its metadata (inodes, block group descriptors, etc) in fixed places on disk and e2fsck has a decade of testing in cleaning up the non-journaled ext2, so it's probably better tested than any of the fscks for journaling filesystems.
That's why they need to be regulated, and probably given a few channels where they are allowed to broadcast at low power.
Freedom of speech is good, freedom to make yourself heard even better. I'd really like to see a way for microbroadcasters to get on the air without disturbing the current users of the spectrum.
Re: I CAN BLOCK ... the law says so!
on
Spammer Sues SpamCop
·
· Score: 2, Informative
and judges have time and again confirmed that the private property rights of mail server owners mean that they have the right to decide which mail they do and do not want to accept.
A similar principle applies to the users of the Spamcop block list; if they don't want mail from a certain source, there is no obligation for them to accept it. For various technical reasons I prefer some other lists (SBL, CBL, DSBL) over the spamcop list, but the people who do like spamcop should be able to use it.
As for the "free speech" argument: I have no obligation to subsidise the spammers' advertising. If they want to advertise, let them put the ads on a web page, instead of using spam and making others pay the costs...
Suppose you have something like a syscall number getting changed. Suddenly, all binaries compiled for a "vanilla" kernel need to be recompiled for the Redhat kernel. This is a massive undertaking.
This would create such a big maintenance hassle for everybody that changes like this aren't made. If new system calls are needed, they are first merged into the vanilla kernel, before being backported into a Red Hat kernel.
NPTL would be a good example. Red Hat customers requested a good threading system, so NPTL was developed. However, something that invasive can't be done in a distribution kernel, so it was developed for the 2.5/2.6 kernel first and only ported to 2.4 later.
Believe it or not, but people have actually thought about all the implications.;)
This is my personal opinions. Other people may have different opinions. Please check the facts and come up with your own opinion.
- Do I invalidate my license by running a non shipped kernel?
No, but the support people will look at you funny if you ask them to fix a bug in a non-Red Hat kernel.
- When will they ship 2.6?
The 2.6 kernel has been available for a long time, as a yum repository on Arjan's page. This kernel seems to work fine with some older distros, provided you also upgrade to the tools on that same page. Also, Fedora Core 2 test releases, with 2.6 kernel, have been released.
However, the support people will also not be able to help you with those. At the moment 2.6 is a good kernel, but it's still too rough around the edges to give to paying customers. After all, they pay for something they know that works, not for something that'll most likely work. Once 2.6 works for sure it's a good time to start shipping it as a supported product, not before that.
This is my personal opinion. Other people may disagree. With sufficient courage, they may even run 2.6 on their server. Isn't open source beautiful?
User x needs the O(1) scheduler in kernel 2.5, but NOT...
Not so hypothetical as you think. There was an article in Linux Journal (IIRC) recently that shows how RHEL kernel development is done.
Yes, I guess it DOES create a fork, but in this case, it's warranted for this user.
Note that maintaining hundreds of patches (and growing the pile) is a lot of work and would take up a lot of full-time employees; not something any business could justify if there was a better alternative:
only the most important/popular features are backported, since maintaining a backport for 5+ years is a lot of work
when a new feature is developed, it is first merged into the upstream kernel to avoid future incompatibility
because of the push to get every patch merged upstream eventually, it is really more of a branch than a fork
merging features upstream reduces the maintenance burden of the distribution developers, leaving them more time to work on other customer requests... there is actually a business reason for contributing to the Linux kernel!
Of course, this is strictly my personal opinion. Others may not see things the same way. The fact that I can't imagine somebody maintaining a large pile of patches for fun is probably due to a lack of imagination...
OffshoreExecutive.com proposes to have the secretary of state offshore, in the region where he's needed most. Lets offshore foreign affairs to the Middle East;)
The government of America is for Americans, and no one else.
That would be nice. However, in practice it seems to me like the government is trying to serve the corporations instead of the Americans...
If the government really went to serving we, the people instead of corporations, that'd almost certainly be a good thing. Even for the economy, which depends on a strong middle class and lots of consumer spending. Remember, once the jobs are shipped offshore, there won't be either a strong middle class, or lots of consumer spending. At least, not here...
Time to make upper management worried, tell them about shipping their own jobs offshore: OffshoreExecutive.com
history proves that growth around the world is a good thing
History has proven that having a strong middle class is a good thing.
I am not convinced that moving jobs to the country where workers can be most easily exploited helps creating a strong middle class anywhere. I wouldn't be surprised at all if globalisation, the way it is done today, only serves to increase the difference between the rich and the poor.
Just as an aside, who is off worse? The jobless former car industry worker in the US, or the guy in some third world country who's assembling the cars now, at way under minimum wage, without basic safety equipment, health coverage or a retirement plan?
The thing that made the US and European economies so rich is the big middle class, normal families earning a decent amount of money and SPENDING IT. If offshoring manages to make that go away, it won't be good for the economy anywhere...
It sucks to see valuable technology exported to keep a few greedy arseholes in silk shirts and sportscars.
Of course, the next trend will be moving those people's jobs overseas:
Executive Offshoring. Yeah that site is (still) satire, but pointing it out to higher management might make them think again about offshoring...
Freedom of choice is good, including the freedom to choose to share or not share the work you derived from public domain software.
Good for whom ?
Is the freedom to not share improvements a good thing for NASA, who originally paid to have the software developed ?
Is it good for the tax payers, who'll need to pay twice to get access to the derived work ?
(Once for NASA's contract, once for the repackaged commercial software)
Last but not least, is it good for the company who originally wrote the software for NASA, but is now facing repackaged, slightly enhanced versions from their competitors, without being allowed to use those enhancements ?
Slashdot Mirror
But what about cross-breeding athletes ?
Natural "genetic engineering" won't be outlawed and if artificial genetic engineering becomes an acceptable way of curing/preventing some diseases, it'll be hard to deny athletes access to such medicine...
Oh, and what about athletes using contact lenses? Or shoes? I suspect the organisation wouldn't let an all-natural athlete enter the competition because of nudity
Funny, over 100 of the addresses on that list are spamtraps received on my home system.
Makes me wonder how many of the email addresses on that list belong to ISPs that run really big spamtraps...
One reason could be that good programmers can move to other countries just as easily as multinational companies can move jobs around. That means that the best Indian programmers will make just as much as the best US programmers (and chances are they work in the same offices).
Companies get what they pay for and shouldn't expect good programmers for bargain prices...
I'm sure that Offshore Executive, Inc is ready to help out the Microsoft shareholders at any time...
Could a company afford to have 20 credit card numbers stolen a day? Hell, no!
IT outsourcing is different...
Oh, but they are cheap. Just buy a large IDE disk and a $30 firewire/fast-usb enclosure.
I'm just not sure about the "long term", though. I have no idea what the shelf life of a hard disk is.
My personal option for smaller data sets would be hard disks too. Specifically, hard disks in external fast-usb or firewire enclosures, so they really become hot pluggable.
A friend tells me that 20GB tapes are cheap. With a simple tape changing robot that might be manageable, just put in a new tape container every day...
Please read RFC 2772. Having portable IP addresses the way you describe is explicitly forbidden with IPv6, for good technical reasons!
I'm afraid it rather is like taking your home address (or zip code) with you.
The reason is that the internet core routers already have over 100.000 entries in the IPv4 routing table. When routing millions of packets a second, the router needs to do millions of route lookups a second.
This still works (barely) because the number of entries in the routing table (think of them as zip codes) can be looked up easily. If the postal service had portable, personal zip codes, the zip code system would also be completely useless...
Beyond a certain point, there is simply no physical way that you could fit all the routing table entries in a cache that can be accessed fast enough to look up the routing table entries as fast as the packets come in.
I'm sure the state of New Jersey will legislate a higher speed of light to get around this problem, but that's not going to fix it for the rest of us...
Though in this case, you can download GFS and all the related software for free. Just go to the
cluster project page.
Ext3 has most of its metadata (inodes, block group descriptors, etc) in fixed places on disk and e2fsck has a decade of testing in cleaning up the non-journaled ext2, so it's probably better tested than any of the fscks for journaling filesystems.
That's why they need to be regulated, and probably given a few channels where they are allowed to broadcast at low power.
Freedom of speech is good, freedom to make yourself heard even better. I'd really like to see a way for microbroadcasters to get on the air without disturbing the current users of the spectrum.
and judges have time and again confirmed that the private property rights of mail server owners mean that they have the right to decide which mail they do and do not want to accept.
A similar principle applies to the users of the Spamcop block list; if they don't want mail from a certain source, there is no obligation for them to accept it. For various technical reasons I prefer some other lists (SBL, CBL, DSBL) over the spamcop list, but the people who do like spamcop should be able to use it.
As for the "free speech" argument: I have no obligation to subsidise the spammers' advertising. If they want to advertise, let them put the ads on a web page, instead of using spam and making others pay the costs...
Isn't that what all insurance companies do? Playing the odds when statistics are firmly on their side...
I don't think this is a piece of Red Hat code. In fact, I believe the symbol "RED_HAT_LINUX_KERNEL
" doesn't even exist...
This would create such a big maintenance hassle for everybody that changes like this aren't made. If new system calls are needed, they are first merged into the vanilla kernel, before being backported into a Red Hat kernel.
NPTL would be a good example. Red Hat customers requested a good threading system, so NPTL was developed. However, something that invasive can't be done in a distribution kernel, so it was developed for the 2.5/2.6 kernel first and only ported to 2.4 later.
Believe it or not, but people have actually thought about all the implications. ;)
This is my personal opinions. Other people may have different opinions. Please check the facts and come up with your own opinion.
However, the support people will also not be able to help you with those. At the moment 2.6 is a good kernel, but it's still too rough around the edges to give to paying customers. After all, they pay for something they know that works, not for something that'll most likely work. Once 2.6 works for sure it's a good time to start shipping it as a supported product, not before that.
This is my personal opinion. Other people may disagree. With sufficient courage, they may even run 2.6 on their server. Isn't open source beautiful?
Not so hypothetical as you think. There was an article in Linux Journal (IIRC) recently that shows how RHEL kernel development is done.
Note that maintaining hundreds of patches (and growing the pile) is a lot of work and would take up a lot of full-time employees; not something any business could justify if there was a better alternative:
Of course, this is strictly my personal opinion. Others may not see things the same way. The fact that I can't imagine somebody maintaining a large pile of patches for fun is probably due to a lack of imagination...
OffshoreExecutive.com proposes to have the secretary of state offshore, in the region where he's needed most. Lets offshore foreign affairs to the Middle East ;)
That would be nice. However, in practice it seems to me like the government is trying to serve the corporations instead of the Americans...
If the government really went to serving we, the people instead of corporations, that'd almost certainly be a good thing. Even for the economy, which depends on a strong middle class and lots of consumer spending. Remember, once the jobs are shipped offshore, there won't be either a strong middle class, or lots of consumer spending. At least, not here...
Time to make upper management worried, tell them about shipping their own jobs offshore: OffshoreExecutive.com
History has proven that having a strong middle class is a good thing.
I am not convinced that moving jobs to the country where workers can be most easily exploited helps creating a strong middle class anywhere. I wouldn't be surprised at all if globalisation, the way it is done today, only serves to increase the difference between the rich and the poor.
Just as an aside, who is off worse? The jobless former car industry worker in the US, or the guy in some third world country who's assembling the cars now, at way under minimum wage, without basic safety equipment, health coverage or a retirement plan?
The thing that made the US and European economies so rich is the big middle class, normal families earning a decent amount of money and SPENDING IT. If offshoring manages to make that go away, it won't be good for the economy anywhere...
Of course, the next trend will be moving those people's jobs overseas: Executive Offshoring. Yeah that site is (still) satire, but pointing it out to higher management might make them think again about offshoring ...
The corresponding technology in Linux is called "vservers". It has been around for a number of years now, as an external kernel patch.
You can find more info about it on linux-vserver.org.
Good for whom ?
Is the freedom to not share improvements a good thing for NASA, who originally paid to have the software developed ?
Is it good for the tax payers, who'll need to pay twice to get access to the derived work ?
(Once for NASA's contract, once for the repackaged commercial software)
Last but not least, is it good for the company who originally wrote the software for NASA, but is now facing repackaged, slightly enhanced versions from their competitors, without being allowed to use those enhancements ?
That would work in a world where spammers paid their bills. ISPs don't see that happen all the time...