I am an experimetal physcist and luckily i am spared from handling biologically active or organic compounds. However, i observe the following
* electrical/fire safety (my father was an electrical engineer, and we installed the electrical outlets in a holiday home together): The most important princiciple i see violated is that the electrical conductor should not carry force. In the lab people regularly attach no additional mounting. An all scales of electrical wire, from nA to 200V*30A
* procedural safety. Are there rules like: just do certain things with two persons? No, after all you have a PHD, masters, or bachelor, so you are more intelligent than the stupid morons and can handle that alone
* instruction: have you ever had to sign of a "sheet which says: yes, i was instrcten on this machine, which potentially releases dangerous gases". Fuck. In industry, to operate a dangerous machine there needs to be some kind of proof you can do it. In research claiming to have seen somebody operating a similar machine is enough.
* Exits. Hey, its resarch. We need this rack here, now. We dont care what you say, what we do is important and no, we dont have time to mount this cable over the door instead of creating a tripwire.
* Gross miseducation in the lab courses (noe spefic instruction, operating devices by general rules of thumb). Instead of: "this is a pump. Dont the fuck operate it outside its operation range. may burn or explode" we hear: "yes, the inlet pressure meter is a little broken. The manual is actuall for another pump type, because we gave the students lab course the smallest pump. No problem it ran the last 5 years in that way". The other part is that if you mention in a lab course something is broken you usually get punished by spending more time there, and no reward at all.
* After all: organizational issues: If student burns his hand, who is responsible? The Professor? he wasn there. The direct Supervisor (maybe also a student)? No, he usually doen not oficially supervise, its the professor. The security responsible of the institute: he has done his job with checking one time per year everything is roughly in order.
Yes. labs are a fucking mess. I was my hands all the time when going out the lab. You never know what the asshole before you left on the desk. I always look for the exits and usually check the safety valves (i work with cryogenics), at least verifyin that no fuck-up blocked them by a clamp (i have seen that, that dewar could have levelled the lab quite efficiently). I check if the ground wire is attached. I make tricky questions to estimate the credibility of the co-workers. I am a pain in the butt if believe sth is dangerous. And i get really annoyed if people exhibit a "i kept the checklist by the letters" approach. Such assholes just make the checklist longer and longer and less comprehensible because they force the one keeping it to add every single part to be checked (i knew people whos task it was to check the marks of the fire exit which lead trouch a small storage room, they walked around up to the door of that room, i said "there is a huge pile blocking the door in this exit and the bulb in the small room is burned out. They just said: "yes but the markers leading there are ok", and put a check mark). I am very willing to bend rules, but everbody should be kept responsible for his safety and the safety of co-workers in the lab.
I see that you dont understand. i have a simple viewpoint. If i build technology, i am responsible. Would i keep people from running into walls? no, heck they may if they like. So i demand an exoskeloton to keep people from beating up each other? no! Do i ask to put everybody under surveillance for 24 hours? No. Nothing like that! Heck, i did not even demand a black box in the car to record the last 5 minutes before an accident. I am not sure where you recognize a police state.
What do i demand:
*If you syntesize/clean a chemical substance in cocentration 100000hinger than natural, where no living being could have adopted by evolution to it, and neither its brain dealing with disabling million year old mechanisms of control and counterbalance, then i ask you to be fucking careful with it
*If you give somebody the direct control over 1000 times his normal body power, and an absorbtion capability of his containment without causing damage to him 100times higher, then think for a few seconds if you would not like to wish to limit this power
*If you, on top of an information processing system develop a mass production a feeling rewarded which you multiply mechanically by a new technology, i also ask you to be careful
So, not i do not want to restrict anybody freedom. Everybody should be able to freely walk, talk, ride, and construct everything he likes. However, he is responsible for his actions. If I put a stick across a path n a bad intention and someboy falls there and gets hurt, yes, thats my responsibility. If i send somebody an email luring him into believing i am a lonely beatiful girl and he needs to send me expensive messages to meet me, yes that is betrayal. If i am a game company who claims that i want to provide the best experience for my customers and i *know* that the best experience is *not* losing control, i am lying, aint I? There have been times when the tobacco industry taregeted children in their advertisements. There have been times when they advertised it actually helps the health of your lungs..... It has been proven that tobacco industry intentionally use combinations of substances which cause addictions and this has been (and will be) held against them.
So i ask a simple question: lets assume MMO provider know what they are doing, the i would assume that they make the games intentionally addicting, or do you see some restriction in that?
Yes. my personal opinion is that a car which allows to accelerate to 200mph outside a race track should be forbidden. No need for that on the normal highway. And yes, given nowadays computational power and progress in image processing and 60GHz personal radar systems i actually would expect that a car does not run into a wall with 200mph. And yes, i also would suggest to make special licences which allow only to specially educated drivers to put a car to 200mph. However i also suggest a override button which lifts als restrictions but informs the authorities immediately (e.g. emergency).
*That* would be interesting uses of new technology, given the amount of people dying on the streets because some fucking asshole believes it is the right of everybody to crash his car with 250mph (excuse my language. The mere number of deatch by cars requires IMHO drastic language).
b) Some people are more prone to developing addictions due to genetics or education that others
c) When you are addicted, just stopping is not a choice you have (otherwise it would not be called addiction).
d) There is nothing immoral about beeing addicted. Since the guy is not free to make this decision, you can not argue with him.
e) There are side-factors or circumstances which help or cause to develop addictions.
f) There is no way you handle the situation correctly without help
So, yes, your friend will need professional help to solve this thing. How can you bring it to him? I guess asking the school counselor may be a good idea. Maybe it is necessary that he fails some exams. Maybe his parents can help (a friend of mine had a classmate who started university and got addicted to some game. At some points his parents stopped paying the bill, came with a car on the last day of the appartment rent, picked him up and took him to recovery.). This requires that his parents undertsand the situation. Sometimes their behaviour may be one of the circumstances causing the addiction.
A few more side notes
a) I personally am surprised that MMOs allow you to stay online for 18h/day. The Problem was known in MUDs a long time ago (e.g. 1994/1995). Some of these offered you a limitation of you online-time, which a lot of people gladly did.
b) At that time maximum considered suitable something like 20h/week.
c) I don't think a serious MMO addition is less problematic than an alcohol addiction. Sleep deprivation can do funny thing to you memory
d) My personal opinion is that MMO providers should be held liable for the damages they do carelessly in peoples lifes. Due to the nature of the service, namely one person holding one account, it would be more than easy to program triggers who warn the person or even lock down his account by force (one could implement more subtle gradual measures like increasing hte lag with time etc.). Yes, the company may loose money. But the barkeeper who give somebody who has enough a few more drinks also has responsibility (at least in Germany). So if you make the responsible the companyu will loose less money if they restrict their users behaviour.
My impression is that mysql is in very widespread use. If beeing concerned about developer drain to forks, i am sure oracle will hire new developers. They may be not working as long on the project as the old ones, but i am sure oracle is not going to let mysql down. Oracle has a *big* advertisement over main entrance of the biggest public transport station in Tokyo, moreover they plaster nearly every airport i know with advertisements. My estimation is that all these advertisements today cost *much* more per effect they have today than the comparatively cheap development of mysql for influencing tomorrows decision makers. Moreover, selling support for mysql also gives them direct access to customers they otherwise would never get.
Try to comprehend my first post. I give you a good hint in case you move out of the cellar at some time: Assume nothing works as expected when you are on the road. Equipment may die, get stolen etc. Dont assume Network works. Maybe it works, but maybe the schedule does not allow you to stay long enough to update or download kernels. The arrogance you exhibit is typical of a certain class of admin who had the priviledge to select the tasks he was given to fit into his picture of the world. Do you really think i dont know about virtualization (i use real virtualization since 1999) or booting from USB sticks? There *may* be reasons why i dont consider these *technical features* to be a *solution*.
Think about it. If you dont get it, then please stay in a controlled environment.
Exactly such advocacy gives Linux a bad name. Yes, linux is pretty flexible. I use it regularly (as main OS on my private machine) since 1995. I use it for my own computers (develpment/simulation/math/typesettings) in environments which are 95% Windows, and it still is more productive than using Windows.
> (all else fails use ndiswrapper)
Thanks. This is exactly the problem. "If all else fails" means you already spent a few hours. And ndiswrapper, at least for me gave very mixed results. Some drivers worked w/o problems, some crashed every day.
Honestly. I also love Open Source/linux. The biggest service i could do to convince people that this is good was to not advocate - actually i am quite good in scaring people off linux whom i thin kwould not get happy with it- but just make it work at exactly the places where it world best (yes, even my boss, and hard-core windows lover saw a certain advantage after our servers running w/o trouble on cheap HW for several years, whil;e the Novell/NT solution we used before was a pain in the ass).
I guess the task you describe is your job. Your job is not to advocate, but your job is to provide the team with computers. From what you say it is the best to settle on some hw which you can buy (to replace lost/broken ones) around the world - with OS preinstalled to keep you from doing importanty work. So yes, that would be windows. In a bigger city it takes you 15 minutes to get a new, working, installed machine.(DONT come with "yes, i can install Debian in 15 Minutes". ME too, but i wont get the wifi running in 15 minutes if the manufacturer decided the old chipset to be to expensive by 5 cents).
i suggest to carry one wireless AP with you, and maybe a small linux server (laptop), if internal communication involves sharing documents, depending on the requirements. i also suggest you think about backups.
Yes it sounds more like a list of personal disappopintments, someting like 'although my computer was an intanium based machine with firewire and bluetooth, speech recognition under vista did not work and i was too stupid to complete the ubuntu installation, because the biometric (fingerprint) scanner did not work'.
i consider nearly nothing of what he find disappointing to be disappointing, not even vista. ALso things which comercially fail have sometime catalysing effect on other things.
Assessing quality depends on the metric you apply.
If you measure "range of systems installation works without crashing/requiring drivers etc." i'd say XP wins. That not 'stability' but 'Average Cost'. But you are right. for making small, tailored, well controlled systems, 2000 was better.
MS has more than two feet. MS has previously shot themself in their foot (e.g. DOS4.0 DOS 6.0). Since that time a "skip one update" strategy was always useful. It just spares you half of the negative side effects. If you skip the updates which introduce a lot of new technology, you wont have any trouble. This means: use the x.1 version (or a high service pack), and not the x.0 version. MS x.0 versions are usually crap from viewpoint of compatibility and reliability.
5.0: 2000
5.1: XP
6.0: Vista
Exactly. The freedom which open source is about is the freedom to use you computer and your future computers in a way you tailor your system. Nobody will be able to force you to buy the next distributom from Redhat if you invest the time to make the required changes yourself. If it is GNU you may even redistribute this work.
If it is GPL, no matter hoe many trademarks there are associated with some project, you may redistribute it under another name.
who has published something in an Elsevier Journal (they publish a lot of conference series), i am personnaly disappointed. I wonder if it is possible to retract that article and republish it somewhere else.
Yes, when the consumer pays for a service, like providing an tested Software, where the distibutor promises a certain function, several thing should happen
a) A distributor should have mandatory documented testing standards, where the documentation is public to the users (before buying).
b) These testing Standards should be formulated in terms of an ISO norm. E.g. Tests, source code review, etc. should be formulated as clear statements.
c) There should be a simple label system classifying highly speacialized (and qulity assured software) vs. broad function (but not so well tested) software. An free open source would be an extreme case of the latter one.
d) the difference in liability should correspond to usual goods. While i can buy an Radio clock and sue the manufacturer if it does not function i can not buy a do it youself set, fuck up and then sue. While instant foods which taste unedible may be a case for returning them i thik if you fuck up when cooking your pizza, nobody will accept the return.
e) Yes, i would appreciate if companies could not restrict their liability to situations which require the planets to be in perfect alignment and a pink hedgehog running over your table.
then do it. Try to negotiate that you may run certain aspects (e.g. selecting the team etc.) in the way you want it. I work at a research center of a large company (as a normal employee), and yes, the rules there can de a pain in the ass. On the other hand it gives you access to ressources, connections and people you can not imagine. If you want to give a talk at some institute to get people interested it will be substentially easier to get invited with a name of a big company. At some occasaions, your company may hold own conferences and ask you for recommendations whom to invite - a great occasion to figure out who is good. In my fields (physics) access to many journals is provided and a big library is present.
Yes, as the owner ok a Nokia phone i sometimes look envious to the iphone users when it comes to multimedia (but by no ways in general regarding the technology), but all the times the apple policies are disdussed the envy stops rapidly.....
a) 20 Wireless acess points will not be able to deliver the same troughput as a 1Gb switch (especially if your servers have multiple ports), even when polluting the whole band for just conneting a single large office. And before somebody asks: Yes, there are people who use that kind of BW for remote fs. And before another onjection comes: when wireless will be at 1Gb i dont now where cable/fiber will be
b) Identifying problems/costs. Pull the plug and something changes. Then you at least know that your card is working, and if the link led goes on and off you know something about the other side. If maintainace time on 5% of the computers rises twice, putting ethernet ports on all pays of
c) Electricity. I dont think wireless access points and receivers for the same rate take less than cabled ones. This just does not match my current experience. Maybe it changes, but hte cabled one also could go down in power.
d) Security. Yes i know. Relying on the ethernet cable not radiating may be a bad idea, but relying on nobidy beeing able to physically inject packets into you net may be a good one.
e) Unproven technology. You know. Never change a running system. Companies begin to understand how to handle wired Networks (even if i have heavy doubts from time to time). Without a really good reason (and no, "my iphone does not have an ethernet port" is not one of these), one should not move to something new.
if you are that uninterested in computers that these algorithms are uninteresting for you, you should leave. Moreover there can be *extremely* tricky performance things to consider about your cache/physical ram size (just write a loop which covers more and more memory.....). There are algorithms which work extremely well unless you exceed the available size of ram, but break down suddenly (i have the feeling that something of this class happens on my Nokia E61 with the bundled e-mail client. There was a day when my imap folders exceeded a certain number of e-mails, and suddenly the times to process things where growing by a factor of approx. 20-100).
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I am an experimetal physcist and luckily i am spared from handling biologically active or organic compounds. However, i observe the following
* electrical/fire safety (my father was an electrical engineer, and we installed the electrical outlets in a holiday home together): The most important princiciple i see violated is that the electrical conductor should not carry force. In the lab people regularly attach no additional mounting. An all scales of electrical wire, from nA to 200V*30A
* procedural safety. Are there rules like: just do certain things with two persons? No, after all you have a PHD, masters, or bachelor, so you are more intelligent than the stupid morons and can handle that alone
* instruction: have you ever had to sign of a "sheet which says: yes, i was instrcten on this machine, which potentially releases dangerous gases". Fuck. In industry, to operate a dangerous machine there needs to be some kind of proof you can do it. In research claiming to have seen somebody operating a similar machine is enough.
* Exits. Hey, its resarch. We need this rack here, now. We dont care what you say, what we do is important and no, we dont have time to mount this cable over the door instead of creating a tripwire.
* Gross miseducation in the lab courses (noe spefic instruction, operating devices by general rules of thumb). Instead of: "this is a pump. Dont the fuck operate it outside its operation range. may burn or explode" we hear: "yes, the inlet pressure meter is a little broken. The manual is actuall for another pump type, because we gave the students lab course the smallest pump. No problem it ran the last 5 years in that way". The other part is that if you mention in a lab course something is broken you usually get punished by spending more time there, and no reward at all.
* After all: organizational issues: If student burns his hand, who is responsible? The Professor? he wasn there. The direct Supervisor (maybe also a student)? No, he usually doen not oficially supervise, its the professor. The security responsible of the institute: he has done his job with checking one time per year everything is roughly in order.
Yes. labs are a fucking mess. I was my hands all the time when going out the lab. You never know what the asshole before you left on the desk. I always look for the exits and usually check the safety valves (i work with cryogenics), at least verifyin that no fuck-up blocked them by a clamp (i have seen that, that dewar could have levelled the lab quite efficiently). I check if the ground wire is attached. I make tricky questions to estimate the credibility of the co-workers. I am a pain in the butt if believe sth is dangerous. And i get really annoyed if people exhibit a "i kept the checklist by the letters" approach. Such assholes just make the checklist longer and longer and less comprehensible because they force the one keeping it to add every single part to be checked (i knew people whos task it was to check the marks of the fire exit which lead trouch a small storage room, they walked around up to the door of that room, i said "there is a huge pile blocking the door in this exit and the bulb in the small room is burned out. They just said: "yes but the markers leading there are ok", and put a check mark). I am very willing to bend rules, but everbody should be kept responsible for his safety and the safety of co-workers in the lab.
we all know what happens it you put new species which did not co-evolve into an ecosystem. They dont need to be intelligent to do harm.
Yes. These more complicated cases exist, however i think that is not the case here.
I see that you dont understand. i have a simple viewpoint. If i build technology, i am responsible. Would i keep people from running into walls? no, heck they may if they like. So i demand an exoskeloton to keep people from beating up each other? no! Do i ask to put everybody under surveillance for 24 hours? No. Nothing like that! Heck, i did not even demand a black box in the car to record the last 5 minutes before an accident. I am not sure where you recognize a police state.
What do i demand:
*If you syntesize/clean a chemical substance in cocentration 100000hinger than natural, where no living being could have adopted by evolution to it, and neither its brain dealing with disabling million year old mechanisms of control and counterbalance, then i ask you to be fucking careful with it
*If you give somebody the direct control over 1000 times his normal body power, and an absorbtion capability of his containment without causing damage to him 100times higher, then think for a few seconds if you would not like to wish to limit this power
*If you, on top of an information processing system develop a mass production a feeling rewarded which you multiply mechanically by a new technology, i also ask you to be careful
So, not i do not want to restrict anybody freedom. Everybody should be able to freely walk, talk, ride, and construct everything he likes. However, he is responsible for his actions. If I put a stick across a path n a bad intention and someboy falls there and gets hurt, yes, thats my responsibility. If i send somebody an email luring him into believing i am a lonely beatiful girl and he needs to send me expensive messages to meet me, yes that is betrayal. If i am a game company who claims that i want to provide the best experience for my customers and i *know* that the best experience is *not* losing control, i am lying, aint I? There have been times when the tobacco industry taregeted children in their advertisements. There have been times when they advertised it actually helps the health of your lungs..... It has been proven that tobacco industry intentionally use combinations of substances which cause addictions and this has been (and will be) held against them.
So i ask a simple question: lets assume MMO provider know what they are doing, the i would assume that they make the games intentionally addicting, or do you see some restriction in that?
Yes. my personal opinion is that a car which allows to accelerate to 200mph outside a race track should be forbidden. No need for that on the normal highway. And yes, given nowadays computational power and progress in image processing and 60GHz personal radar systems i actually would expect that a car does not run into a wall with 200mph. And yes, i also would suggest to make special licences which allow only to specially educated drivers to put a car to 200mph. However i also suggest a override button which lifts als restrictions but informs the authorities immediately (e.g. emergency).
*That* would be interesting uses of new technology, given the amount of people dying on the streets because some fucking asshole believes it is the right of everybody to crash his car with 250mph (excuse my language. The mere number of deatch by cars requires IMHO drastic language).
Mod parent up.
Let's face some things
a) Addiction is a psychological symptom.
b) Some people are more prone to developing addictions due to genetics or education that others
c) When you are addicted, just stopping is not a choice you have (otherwise it would not be called addiction).
d) There is nothing immoral about beeing addicted. Since the guy is not free to make this decision, you can not argue with him.
e) There are side-factors or circumstances which help or cause to develop addictions.
f) There is no way you handle the situation correctly without help
So, yes, your friend will need professional help to solve this thing. How can you bring it to him? I guess asking the school counselor may be a good idea. Maybe it is necessary that he fails some exams. Maybe his parents can help (a friend of mine had a classmate who started university and got addicted to some game. At some points his parents stopped paying the bill, came with a car on the last day of the appartment rent, picked him up and took him to recovery.). This requires that his parents undertsand the situation. Sometimes their behaviour may be one of the circumstances causing the addiction.
A few more side notes
a) I personally am surprised that MMOs allow you to stay online for 18h/day. The Problem was known in MUDs a long time ago (e.g. 1994/1995). Some of these offered you a limitation of you online-time, which a lot of people gladly did.
b) At that time maximum considered suitable something like 20h/week.
c) I don't think a serious MMO addition is less problematic than an alcohol addiction. Sleep deprivation can do funny thing to you memory
d) My personal opinion is that MMO providers should be held liable for the damages they do carelessly in peoples lifes. Due to the nature of the service, namely one person holding one account, it would be more than easy to program triggers who warn the person or even lock down his account by force (one could implement more subtle gradual measures like increasing hte lag with time etc.). Yes, the company may loose money. But the barkeeper who give somebody who has enough a few more drinks also has responsibility (at least in Germany). So if you make the responsible the companyu will loose less money if they restrict their users behaviour.
My impression is that mysql is in very widespread use. If beeing concerned about developer drain to forks, i am sure oracle will hire new developers. They may be not working as long on the project as the old ones, but i am sure oracle is not going to let mysql down. Oracle has a *big* advertisement over main entrance of the biggest public transport station in Tokyo, moreover they plaster nearly every airport i know with advertisements. My estimation is that all these advertisements today cost *much* more per effect they have today than the comparatively cheap development of mysql for influencing tomorrows decision makers. Moreover, selling support for mysql also gives them direct access to customers they otherwise would never get.
Try to comprehend my first post. I give you a good hint in case you move out of the cellar at some time: Assume nothing works as expected when you are on the road. Equipment may die, get stolen etc. Dont assume Network works. Maybe it works, but maybe the schedule does not allow you to stay long enough to update or download kernels. The arrogance you exhibit is typical of a certain class of admin who had the priviledge to select the tasks he was given to fit into his picture of the world. Do you really think i dont know about virtualization (i use real virtualization since 1999) or booting from USB sticks? There *may* be reasons why i dont consider these *technical features* to be a *solution*.
Think about it. If you dont get it, then please stay in a controlled environment.
Exactly such advocacy gives Linux a bad name. Yes, linux is pretty flexible. I use it regularly (as main OS on my private machine) since 1995. I use it for my own computers (develpment/simulation/math/typesettings) in environments which are 95% Windows, and it still is more productive than using Windows.
> (all else fails use ndiswrapper)
Thanks. This is exactly the problem. "If all else fails" means you already spent a few hours. And ndiswrapper, at least for me gave very mixed results. Some drivers worked w/o problems, some crashed every day.
Honestly. I also love Open Source/linux. The biggest service i could do to convince people that this is good was to not advocate - actually i am quite good in scaring people off linux whom i thin kwould not get happy with it- but just make it work at exactly the places where it world best (yes, even my boss, and hard-core windows lover saw a certain advantage after our servers running w/o trouble on cheap HW for several years, whil;e the Novell/NT solution we used before was a pain in the ass).
I guess the task you describe is your job. Your job is not to advocate, but your job is to provide the team with computers. From what you say it is the best to settle on some hw which you can buy (to replace lost/broken ones) around the world - with OS preinstalled to keep you from doing importanty work. So yes, that would be windows. In a bigger city it takes you 15 minutes to get a new, working, installed machine.(DONT come with "yes, i can install Debian in 15 Minutes". ME too, but i wont get the wifi running in 15 minutes if the manufacturer decided the old chipset to be to expensive by 5 cents).
i suggest to carry one wireless AP with you, and maybe a small linux server (laptop), if internal communication involves sharing documents, depending on the requirements. i also suggest you think about backups.
Oh my God! the 80s are coming back.... Duck and cover!
Yes it sounds more like a list of personal disappopintments, someting like 'although my computer was an intanium based machine with firewire and bluetooth, speech recognition under vista did not work and i was too stupid to complete the ubuntu installation, because the biometric (fingerprint) scanner did not work'. i consider nearly nothing of what he find disappointing to be disappointing, not even vista. ALso things which comercially fail have sometime catalysing effect on other things.
Assessing quality depends on the metric you apply.
If you measure "range of systems installation works without crashing/requiring drivers etc." i'd say XP wins. That not 'stability' but 'Average Cost'. But you are right. for making small, tailored, well controlled systems, 2000 was better.
Sound level meter? Did i miss something particularly difficult or innovative about this thing?
Whats the point? Selling MC Kits?
No! no! no! no!
Creation "scientists" may conclude that the genes making the plant adoptable to radiation have been wisely designed.... How else could it work.....
MS has more than two feet. MS has previously shot themself in their foot (e.g. DOS4.0 DOS 6.0). Since that time a "skip one update" strategy was always useful. It just spares you half of the negative side effects. If you skip the updates which introduce a lot of new technology, you wont have any trouble. This means: use the x.1 version (or a high service pack), and not the x.0 version. MS x.0 versions are usually crap from viewpoint of compatibility and reliability. 5.0: 2000 5.1: XP 6.0: Vista
Exactly. The freedom which open source is about is the freedom to use you computer and your future computers in a way you tailor your system. Nobody will be able to force you to buy the next distributom from Redhat if you invest the time to make the required changes yourself. If it is GNU you may even redistribute this work.
If it is GPL, no matter hoe many trademarks there are associated with some project, you may redistribute it under another name.
who has published something in an Elsevier Journal (they publish a lot of conference series), i am personnaly disappointed. I wonder if it is possible to retract that article and republish it somewhere else.
Yes, when the consumer pays for a service, like providing an tested Software, where the distibutor promises a certain function, several thing should happen
a) A distributor should have mandatory documented testing standards, where the documentation is public to the users (before buying).
b) These testing Standards should be formulated in terms of an ISO norm. E.g. Tests, source code review, etc. should be formulated as clear statements.
c) There should be a simple label system classifying highly speacialized (and qulity assured software) vs. broad function (but not so well tested) software. An free open source would be an extreme case of the latter one.
d) the difference in liability should correspond to usual goods. While i can buy an Radio clock and sue the manufacturer if it does not function i can not buy a do it youself set, fuck up and then sue. While instant foods which taste unedible may be a case for returning them i thik if you fuck up when cooking your pizza, nobody will accept the return.
e) Yes, i would appreciate if companies could not restrict their liability to situations which require the planets to be in perfect alignment and a pink hedgehog running over your table.
then do it. Try to negotiate that you may run certain aspects (e.g. selecting the team etc.) in the way you want it. I work at a research center of a large company (as a normal employee), and yes, the rules there can de a pain in the ass. On the other hand it gives you access to ressources, connections and people you can not imagine. If you want to give a talk at some institute to get people interested it will be substentially easier to get invited with a name of a big company. At some occasaions, your company may hold own conferences and ask you for recommendations whom to invite - a great occasion to figure out who is good. In my fields (physics) access to many journals is provided and a big library is present.
Yes, as the owner ok a Nokia phone i sometimes look envious to the iphone users when it comes to multimedia (but by no ways in general regarding the technology), but all the times the apple policies are disdussed the envy stops rapidly.....
I finally did not buy it, but i considered it. I seems to have no camera.
> Disabling the camera with a script or somesuch won't convince the $12/hour security guard that there's no camera.
It also would not convince me.
These guys must be mad
I assume an office configuration.
a) 20 Wireless acess points will not be able to deliver the same troughput as a 1Gb switch (especially if your servers have multiple ports), even when polluting the whole band for just conneting a single large office. And before somebody asks: Yes, there are people who use that kind of BW for remote fs. And before another onjection comes: when wireless will be at 1Gb i dont now where cable/fiber will be
b) Identifying problems/costs. Pull the plug and something changes. Then you at least know that your card is working, and if the link led goes on and off you know something about the other side. If maintainace time on 5% of the computers rises twice, putting ethernet ports on all pays of
c) Electricity. I dont think wireless access points and receivers for the same rate take less than cabled ones. This just does not match my current experience. Maybe it changes, but hte cabled one also could go down in power.
d) Security. Yes i know. Relying on the ethernet cable not radiating may be a bad idea, but relying on nobidy beeing able to physically inject packets into you net may be a good one.
e) Unproven technology. You know. Never change a running system. Companies begin to understand how to handle wired Networks (even if i have heavy doubts from time to time). Without a really good reason (and no, "my iphone does not have an ethernet port" is not one of these), one should not move to something new.
mod parent up.
if you are that uninterested in computers that these algorithms are uninteresting for you, you should leave. Moreover there can be *extremely* tricky performance things to consider about your cache/physical ram size (just write a loop which covers more and more memory.....). There are algorithms which work extremely well unless you exceed the available size of ram, but break down suddenly (i have the feeling that something of this class happens on my Nokia E61 with the bundled e-mail client. There was a day when my imap folders exceeded a certain number of e-mails, and suddenly the times to process things where growing by a factor of approx. 20-100).