Would you be happier if Sam professed is love for Frodo, they had sex and discussed Tolstoy while smoking a cigarette?
This is fantasy, story/plot with no deep relationships. The main topic in LoTR is a great Quest to destroy the ring and all the trials and tribulations that happen along the way.
You're asking something of this particular kind of story that it is specifically not designed to provide.
That said even though this kind of story need not provide it you did get some interpersonal dynamics... Frodo/Sam/Gollum, Denethor/Boromir/Faramir.
Now we have to make money selling service rather than software.
Don't we want network printing to be hard? Then someone has to pay me for the Service of working my "knowledge worker" magic and getting the bits to start flowing. Sort of a high tech plumber.
What two shouts keep net admins working hard? "I can't print" and "I am not getting my emails."
So CUPS guys, even if you fix this you will want to keep some regression faults handy... we need to eat, after all...
They are backing up data to a MiniDV camcorder adding forward error correction using a simple command line utility to allow holes in the tape the size of a pin without any data loss.
I'm not sure what your argument is... Yeah, I agree too that the State needs to be able to conduct its investigations. On occasion that will mean confiscation of computer systems for LIMITED periods of time. But there are horror stories out there where when they do finally get returned they are completely obsolete. That's too long.
And yeah I can can worry about this while still wishing there were some form of compensation for the wrongly imprisoned. I don't see the incompatibility there...
I'm surprised they're keeping you being a Unix type admin to administer their Windows network. Basically you're getting an opportunity to learn a whole new environment and skillset on the job at the company's expense.
Believe me, having a wide variety of skills will suit you best. Look at it as an opportunity and take advantage of it.
And if you just can't cope with learning new stuff, go find a different industry to be in, because that's how this one works. We adapt given our circumstances. If the job just starts to totally suck quit for that reason.
F/OSS will achieve TWD whether you have money to pay for rent and groceries or not. Take advantage of the opportunities as you find them.
I have this magical ability to make R-rated jokes so veiled in actual meaning that they can be spoken in polite company without much fear of anyone but the intended audience being offended.
Unfortunately, I also have the magical ability to leave many scratching their heads, and the rest merely bemused.
You're ignoring the fact that losing computer systems for n number of days is such a hardship on many businesses that you're in fact dealing them a severe punishment never having actually proven them guilty of anything.
You're right that the State needs to be able to investigate crimes. That's fine. But this whole thing about seizure of computer hardware is totally out of hand. There is no reason, in general to hold on to a computer for longer than it takes to reimage the hard drive and give it back.
Anything less is putting too severe a burden on companies and individuals when there are actually workable alternatives that satisfy the needs of the State.
You only get 100,000 writes on an flash chip. You need a strategy for minimizing writes. No general purpose file system made for a hard disk is going to do that optimally.
In any event, the type of glitch they had on the rover wasn't an obvious file system bug. It was more one of those confluence of supposedly normally handleable events that in concert with each other make for a bad situation.
Hire a couple people who have experience with seat of the pants (SOtP). They'll deliver exactly what you want, without bugs*, with a release every week.
You tell them the most important things to do, and they'll do them in order of your priority (not some made-up technical priority). They won't do other things that they think are nice, just the parts that you ask them for. Hopefully, you'll ask them for only what is needed for your demos.
The weekly releases are key; you can see exactly what's happening. You don't have to wait 6 months to find out that the program doesn't really work, or doesn't do what you want it to do. You'll also quickly get a usable program that does the few things that you need to demo. If at that point you realize that your product idea wasn't so hot after all, you've just saved a lot of money over what you would have spent if you hired a team that wanted to spend all kinds of time creating a flowery design and building infrastructure.
As far as hiring seat of the pants types, try to find a local seat of the pants person who is well-respected and ask him or her for some leads. Maybe get a technical friend to help interview the programmers. But be sure to hire people who have experience working this way. You don't want to pay them to learn how do release software incrementally.
(*By "without bugs", I mean "without known bugs". Lots of people write software and leave a lot of bugs in until the end. That hurts demos. Seat of the pants people will fix buggy code as soon as they see it. And they'll write automated tests to make sure that bug never shows up again.)
My experience is that the only contact I get from sites like Dice and Monster are from headhunters.
All my best leads on new contracts have come from friends or customers. Every once in a while I've gotten a call from a headhunter but it has never led to anything.
Corporations get special rights: like being treated as an individual when they are not, like not being pushed too hard on tax shelters, like having the hear of congress and the president to help them carve out laws that benefit them.
With special rights can come special responsibilities. Don't fool yourself. Corporations exist at our sufferance.
I think that's true. But then the court is in general applying the law which is sort of set in stone (though of course open to interpretation and amendment/repeal).
One way or another we have some idea today of what constitutes fair use. But all we're ever told about is what we cannot do with a copyrighted work.
In fact the media companies would have us believe that there is no guarantee of fair use, and DMCA would seem to imply that it may in fact be the case (it appears you aren't able to legally do things typically considered fair use like make a backup copy of an encrypted work whereas you would be able to for an unencrypted work).
Real Pirate upon seeing the Warning: "Oooooh I'm sooooo scared!"
Yeah this stuff is just there so that you can't give try excuse that you didn't know it was illegal. However, I would be happier if in addition to this the companies spelled out the purchaser's fair use rights along with this stuff.
Well, yeah I am proud of telling the truth even though the judge gives me a hard time about it.
In fact, you're right, I don't want to be there... in the end most people with important stuff to do get excused and the juries end up being made solely of little old ladies and public servants.
And I feel guilty/lucky in some way that I have a legitimate way out.
But if I didn't have the out I wouldn't lie or make up some lame excuse like some do.
It's the judge that gets rid of me every time, and the reason is that they don't like jury nullification, even though it's probably the only reason we're there. I say that since the judge could make a better determination of law than a group of little old ladies and bureaucrats. All I do is answer the lawyers' and judge's questions to the best of my knowledge.
Yeah just mentioning jury nullification though is a sure way to get kicked off a jury.
Works every time. Little unnerving though when the judge asks me if in all cases I can follow the law as he describes it to me: my answer is "No. I am a strong proponent of jury nullification."
Dismissed immediately, three times in a row... and it happens to be the truth!
If the jury was always expected to follow the law as the judge describes it we wouldn't need juries. Jury nullification is why we're there, IMHO.
Yeah I use Ion 2 on a daily basis. Now that you can use the floating wm for difficult apps, I never have to leave Ion.
I liked Ratpoison too.
Still I'd try something that's really different... say a desktop that was actually a visually programmable shell with ways of connecting up objects representing command line tools like grep, and cat and loops and variables.. (don't care about 3d).
But for just getting work done, Ion or Ratpoison have simplified things for an old keyboard user like myself.
All media wears out eventually Flash media is typically good for 100,000 writes per sector.
You defintely wouldn't want to use it for swap space (Knoppix et al either don't use swap space or they can use the hard disk if there is one).
However, for small files like configuration of your email client, holding your keys, some documents, flash drives are good for that since that's what they are designed for.
Is the code that bad such that this news story considers this so dangerous to Microsoft? Seems a bit hysterical to me.
I don't know how useful it is to WINE, etc... OSS developers not wanting to be "contaminated" by looking at the source code won't look at this stuff anyway.
Eventually you want to read and be instructed in the trade if you want to go far, but I'd warrant that it's not how the best of us started out.
The best of us started out with a home computer/hobbyist machine connected to a TV that gave us an OK prompt when we turned it on and waited for programmatic instructions.
That and program listings in magazines to type in that didn't quite work since we always typed something wrong. Even in BASIC typing in other people's code was a good way to see reasonably commented, structured (GOSUB) vs. spaghetti GOTO messes.
Good practices can come later. First the student needs to figure out what the machine can do (mechanism) before we impose 'the rules' (policy). You've got to keep the kid interested.
Slashdot Mirror
Would you be happier if Sam professed is love for Frodo, they had sex and discussed Tolstoy while smoking a cigarette?
This is fantasy, story/plot with no deep relationships. The main topic in LoTR is a great Quest to destroy the ring and all the trials and tribulations that happen along the way.
You're asking something of this particular kind of story that it is specifically not designed to provide.
That said even though this kind of story need not provide it you did get some interpersonal dynamics... Frodo/Sam/Gollum, Denethor/Boromir/Faramir.
(Tongue FIRMLY in cheek...)
Well, assume F/OSS TWD.
Now we have to make money selling service rather than software.
Don't we want network printing to be hard? Then someone has to pay me for the Service of working my "knowledge worker" magic and getting the bits to start flowing. Sort of a high tech plumber.
What two shouts keep net admins working hard? "I can't print" and "I am not getting my emails."
So CUPS guys, even if you fix this you will want to keep some regression faults handy... we need to eat, after all...
-- John.
They are backing up data to a MiniDV camcorder adding forward error correction using a simple command line utility to allow holes in the tape the size of a pin without any data loss.
-- John.
I'm not sure what your argument is... Yeah, I agree too that the State needs to be able to conduct its investigations. On occasion that will mean confiscation of computer systems for LIMITED periods of time. But there are horror stories out there where when they do finally get returned they are completely obsolete. That's too long.
And yeah I can can worry about this while still wishing there were some form of compensation for the wrongly imprisoned. I don't see the incompatibility there...
I'm surprised they're keeping you being a Unix type admin to administer their Windows network. Basically you're getting an opportunity to learn a whole new environment and skillset on the job at the company's expense.
Believe me, having a wide variety of skills will suit you best. Look at it as an opportunity and take advantage of it.
And if you just can't cope with learning new stuff, go find a different industry to be in, because that's how this one works. We adapt given our circumstances. If the job just starts to totally suck quit for that reason.
F/OSS will achieve TWD whether you have money to pay for rent and groceries or not. Take advantage of the opportunities as you find them.
I have this magical ability to make R-rated jokes so veiled in actual meaning that they can be spoken in polite company without much fear of anyone but the intended audience being offended.
Unfortunately, I also have the magical ability to leave many scratching their heads, and the rest merely bemused.
To play devil's advocate:
Of course, in the F/OSS world, proprietary applications running on Free platforms can be commoditized out of existence by other F/OSS projects.
In fact the distros will package the F/OSS equivalent specifically because it is Free even if the proprietary app is arguably better.
I happen to like having the code, and as a contract programmer, it doesn't really matter to me. I make money off of providing service, not bits.
But given that, is the ISV really any better off?
-- John.
Sort of like double bagging...
You could use two, it might make you marginally safer, but that just ain't gonna feel quite right...
-- John.
You're ignoring the fact that losing computer systems for n number of days is such a hardship on many businesses that you're in fact dealing them a severe punishment never having actually proven them guilty of anything.
You're right that the State needs to be able to investigate crimes. That's fine. But this whole thing about seizure of computer hardware is totally out of hand. There is no reason, in general to hold on to a computer for longer than it takes to reimage the hard drive and give it back.
Anything less is putting too severe a burden on companies and individuals when there are actually workable alternatives that satisfy the needs of the State.
-- John.
You're right of course.
The equivalent in WindRiver tools is TFFS.
The OP though seemed to think that the Linux file system (usually ext2 or 3) would somehow magically help the rovers.
Try using ext2 et al on a flash file system.
You only get 100,000 writes on an flash chip. You need a strategy for minimizing writes. No general purpose file system made for a hard disk is going to do that optimally.
In any event, the type of glitch they had on the rover wasn't an obvious file system bug. It was more one of those confluence of supposedly normally handleable events that in concert with each other make for a bad situation.
Well, Gary 7 was able to fit enough important stuff into just one pen.
-- John.
Here's what I would do:
Hire a couple people who have experience with seat of the pants (SOtP). They'll deliver exactly what you want, without bugs*, with a release every week.
You tell them the most important things to do, and they'll do them in order of your priority (not some made-up technical priority). They won't do other things that they think are nice, just the parts that you ask them for. Hopefully, you'll ask them for only what is needed for your demos.
The weekly releases are key; you can see exactly what's happening. You don't have to wait 6 months to find out that the program doesn't really work, or doesn't do what you want it to do. You'll also quickly get a usable program that does the few things that you need to demo. If at that point you realize that your product idea wasn't so hot after all, you've just saved a lot of money over what you would have spent if you hired a team that wanted to spend all kinds of time creating a flowery design and building infrastructure.
As far as hiring seat of the pants types, try to find a local seat of the pants person who is well-respected and ask him or her for some leads. Maybe get a technical friend to help interview the programmers. But be sure to hire people who have experience working this way. You don't want to pay them to learn how do release software incrementally.
(*By "without bugs", I mean "without known bugs". Lots of people write software and leave a lot of bugs in until the end. That hurts demos. Seat of the pants people will fix buggy code as soon as they see it. And they'll write automated tests to make sure that bug never shows up again.)
My experience is that the only contact I get from sites like Dice and Monster are from headhunters.
All my best leads on new contracts have come from friends or customers. Every once in a while I've gotten a call from a headhunter but it has never led to anything.
-- John.
Corporations get special rights: like being treated as an individual when they are not, like not being pushed too hard on tax shelters, like having the hear of congress and the president to help them carve out laws that benefit them.
With special rights can come special responsibilities. Don't fool yourself. Corporations exist at our sufferance.
I think that's true. But then the court is in general applying the law which is sort of set in stone (though of course open to interpretation and amendment/repeal).
One way or another we have some idea today of what constitutes fair use. But all we're ever told about is what we cannot do with a copyrighted work.
In fact the media companies would have us believe that there is no guarantee of fair use, and DMCA would seem to imply that it may in fact be the case (it appears you aren't able to legally do things typically considered fair use like make a backup copy of an encrypted work whereas you would be able to for an unencrypted work).
Real Pirate upon seeing the Warning: "Oooooh I'm sooooo scared!"
Yeah this stuff is just there so that you can't give try excuse that you didn't know it was illegal. However, I would be happier if in addition to this the companies spelled out the purchaser's fair use rights along with this stuff.
Well, yeah I am proud of telling the truth even though the judge gives me a hard time about it.
In fact, you're right, I don't want to be there... in the end most people with important stuff to do get excused and the juries end up being made solely of little old ladies and public servants.
And I feel guilty/lucky in some way that I have a legitimate way out.
But if I didn't have the out I wouldn't lie or make up some lame excuse like some do.
It's the judge that gets rid of me every time, and the reason is that they don't like jury nullification, even though it's probably the only reason we're there. I say that since the judge could make a better determination of law than a group of little old ladies and bureaucrats. All I do is answer the lawyers' and judge's questions to the best of my knowledge.
Yeah just mentioning jury nullification though is a sure way to get kicked off a jury.
Works every time. Little unnerving though when the judge asks me if in all cases I can follow the law as he describes it to me: my answer is "No. I am a strong proponent of jury nullification."
Dismissed immediately, three times in a row... and it happens to be the truth!
If the jury was always expected to follow the law as the judge describes it we wouldn't need juries. Jury nullification is why we're there, IMHO.
Yeah I use Ion 2 on a daily basis. Now that you can use the floating wm for difficult apps, I never have to leave Ion.
I liked Ratpoison too.
Still I'd try something that's really different... say a desktop that was actually a visually programmable shell with ways of connecting up objects representing command line tools like grep, and cat and loops and variables.. (don't care about 3d).
But for just getting work done, Ion or Ratpoison have simplified things for an old keyboard user like myself.
They could just write that part of the code in a write-only language like Perl, or maybe Forth.
Safe as houses!
-- John.
All media wears out eventually Flash media is typically good for 100,000 writes per sector.
You defintely wouldn't want to use it for swap space (Knoppix et al either don't use swap space or they can use the hard disk if there is one).
However, for small files like configuration of your email client, holding your keys, some documents, flash drives are good for that since that's what they are designed for.
Is the code that bad such that this news story considers this so dangerous to Microsoft? Seems a bit hysterical to me.
I don't know how useful it is to WINE, etc... OSS developers not wanting to be "contaminated" by looking at the source code won't look at this stuff anyway.
Testing Computer Software
by Kaner, Falk, Nguyen
You can't go wrong with this one.
Eventually you want to read and be instructed in the trade if you want to go far, but I'd warrant that it's not how the best of us started out.
The best of us started out with a home computer/hobbyist machine connected to a TV that gave us an OK prompt when we turned it on and waited for programmatic instructions.
That and program listings in magazines to type in that didn't quite work since we always typed something wrong. Even in BASIC typing in other people's code was a good way to see reasonably commented, structured (GOSUB) vs. spaghetti GOTO messes.
Good practices can come later. First the student needs to figure out what the machine can do (mechanism) before we impose 'the rules' (policy). You've got to keep the kid interested.