Being modded Funny doesn't affect the writer's karma, whileas Insightful does. So some people mod Funny stuff Insightful/Interesting/etc. for purposes of karma.
Then again, the moderator might just be an idiot. On/., one never knows...
I work for a consulting company (quality assurance) as a consultant and part of our bonuses are determined by customer satisfaction. The way we get customers to give actual feedback is by making it part of the contract; they're surprisingly willing to take the time to tick boxes when the whole scheme is explained to them, and the consultants are sure to bug their clients to do it, too.
the next Indiana Jones Move (tentatively titled 'Indiana Jones 4')
I sincerely hope that was sarcasm on the orginal submitter's part, or else Hollywood has lost the last of the small amount of creativity it has (arguably) had. "We're making the fourth Indy Jones flick, so what shall we call it? Something witty and imaginative...wait, it's coming to me. I know! Let's call it 'Indiana Jones 4'!"
offer one euro downloads, isn't this why they (europe) went to one currency?
Well, for starters, only 12 of the current 15 EU countries have adopted the euro, and there's still about 30 countries in Europe that are not EU members, all with their own currencies. Granted, using the euro as the default currency in iTMS would capture the core Central European market, but it would also leave countries from the UK to Bosnia-Herzegovina without iTMS access. So enabling the use of all local currencies seems the only rational way to go.
Anyhow, I don't think the point was the myriad of currencies used in Europe, but the complexities of getting to record companies to agree (colour me surprised).
Often, it's a result of an overzealous spam list that decides that because the spammer forged headers that make it look like mail passed through one of our machines, mail MUST HAVE come through that machine, so we should be blocked
Slighty off-topic, but still... this reminds me of one of my pet peeves. One or two of my older email addresses have been used in forged headers (To: field, namely) to make it appear that I, not some anonymous dickwad spammer, sent the spam. Consequently, not only do I get bounce messages for emails I didn't send (easy to filter away) but also the occasional irate email from someone who objected to the "Grow Your P.E.N.I.S Herbal Viagra from Nigeria with Free Digital Camera!!!!!" email I supposedly sent. Agh! I explain the thing to the hapless souls but it still drives me nuts for my email to be used in this obscene manner.
Anyway. Spammers. Where are a few convenient unemployed inquisitors when you need them? I'd have a job for them.
But if you bought a char to develop it further (which is what I'd assume, given that the primary function of a character is to be a playable object), wouldn't it be beneficial if people were more likely to give you free stuff? I.e. female characters would be more desirable and hence more pricey?
I was disappointed by the lack of depth, and I thought the author was a bit full of himself.
Full of himself? Jacob Nielsen? Nahhh... nevah. Nuh-uh. Nope.
At my Uni the toilets have those hand drying machines that blow hot air onto your mitts. I've often entertained the thought of going to the loo in the Usability lab and scribbling next to the dryer activation button, "Press here for a free two-minute speech from Jacob Nielsen."
The only problem with taking part in a fad like tatooing is that you need to live with it forever. Ten years from now, you are not likely to be with a crowd that still finds tatoos to be a "cool" thing.
Uh, pardon my French, but who the fsck cares? And besides, in my experience, one tends to gravitate unconsciously towards crowds that share common interests and mores -- not all my friends have tattoos, but somehow they all seem to be people who don't care one way or the other about other people's body art. Somehow, it seems unlikely I will ever hang out with tightwads who judge people by the colour of or on their skin, be it natural pigmentation or ink.
In the workplace, my tattoos have not caused any problems -- in fact, they have generated some interesting discussions and mutual skin art viewing. However, they are placed so that they can be hidden by business clothing and are nonobjective art.
Even if you never grow up mentally, time and gravity will take it's toll, and your tatoo will turn into a black and blue smear. Tatoo removal people will be rich when all the girls putting giant butterflies on their backs and ass turn 40
Sure. But that shows the people with butterflies on their asses (or tattooed names of their boy/girlfriends, etc.) didn't really stop and think what they're committing themselves to.
I wanted a tattoo (I have four at this point, actually) just because it was permanent. I didn't take them to make my body more interesting or just for the pretty picture, but instead, to commemorate special moments in my life. So while they might turn into black blobs 40 years from now (although I doubt it; there is such a thing as retouching available for tattoos, too...I also took the time to research for a good artist who did work of excellent quality), they will still inalienably be mementoes I will cherish till the day I die. Something a hair dye surely can't accomplish. By now, the tattoos are such a part of my body that I occasionally forget I have them, and when I see them, they just seem like a natural part of my body.
Krall is absolutely fabulous, especially live -- on record she comes across as a swing singer, live she's a true piano playing goddess. I'm terribly envious of Elvis Costello:).
I'd also add Harry Connick Jr. to the list of good contemporary jazz. His album "20" is an instrumental jazz masterpiece.
Fortunately Mac OS X comes with gzip pre-installed, but for those moment when I insist on a GUI, I use StuffIt, just for the puerile name it got saddled with. StuffIt (WinZip) where the sun don't shine...
Would this be from the same benchmark/study that innovated by using minutes containing 100 seconds, among other things? Not to mention the fact that Adobe appear schizophrenic at best about their preferred OS. My guess? They'll "prefer" any operating system that will bring in the greenbacks at a suitable pace.
Anyway. While we could debate the merits of PowerPC vs. x86 till our faces turned blue, I do agree with you on the assesment of the server market. Xserve will be a niche player, but then again, being a niche player on the whole hasn't been too bad for Apple.
Yeah, that'd be one of the other methods (server voting was presented just as an example). In reality, having attempted building a simple monitoring software capable of this (i.e. all monitors can boot one another), it turns out it ain't so simple at all:). Self-awareness and building enough checks but not too much into the rebooting mechanism...well, that was one complex mo-fo of a NFA to draw out. In practical cluster applications, it is often easier just to boot the whole machine and have everything start anew.
so it is basically two synchronized computers, it probably cost 3x the normal, and if you wiped out the self-correcting logic the system was likely to die, you mentioned that they managed to duplicate everything did they duplicated the self-correcting logic itself ?
Uh...? No self-correcting logic itself, merely hardware duplication. The processor checks were (IIRC) implemented with checksums or some such integrity checks, so this is not in essence a self-correcting system in anything but the assembly level (i.e. things are processed correctly) -- it does not in any way take a stance in the relative "correctness" of the software that runs on it, merely on how its instructions are actualised on the hardware.
As for price, this is Compaq/HP enterprise division we're talking about, so it'll be 10x the cost of any ordinary dual-processor computer. However, lock-step != sychronised. In synch computing, there will be a delay between an error occurring and its detection; in the Compaq solution, no data is transferred our of the processor's sandbox before its integrity has been verified.
there will be always a single point of failure for ever
Well, yes and no. Single points of failure are extremely difficult to find in the first place, not to mention remove, but it can be done on the hardware side. I could mention the servers formerly known as Compaq Himalaya, nowadays part of HP's NonStop Enterprise Division in some manner. Duplicated everything, from processors and power sources to I/O and all manner of computing doo-dads. Scalable from 2 to 4000 processors.
They are (or were, when I did my research piece on the Himalayas) also self-correcting in the sense that the two processors do lock-step processing and if the two differ in their opinions, the primary immediately hands over the responsibility to the redundant/backup -- data self-correcting on the assembly level. Of course, this doesn't prevent software from being a point of failure or from functioning incorrectly, but one or a cluster of these is as close as you're going to get without automated hotswapping or nanobot parts building, or other such sci-fi notions.
I've done some work on high availability computing (incl. my Master's thesis) and one of the more interesting problems is the one you described here -- true metaphysics.
The question as it is usually posed goes, How does one self-diagnose? Can a computer program distinguish between a malfunctioning software or malfunctioning software monitoring software -- is the problem in the running program or in the actual diagnostic software? How do you run diagnostics on diagnostics running diagnostics on diagnostics... ugh:).
My particular system of research finally wound up relying on the Windows method: if uncertain, erase and reboot. It didn't have to be 99.999% available, after all. There are other ways with which to solve this in distributed/clustered computing, such as voting: servers in the cluster vote for each other's sanity (i.e. determine if the messages sent by one computer make sense to at least two others). However, even not this system is rock solid (what if two computers happen to malfunction in the same manner simultaneously? what if the malfunction is contagious? or widespread in the cluster?).
So, self-correcting is an intriguing question, to say the least. I'll be keenly following what the ROC fellas come up with.
Well, I guess to make onto the list, you don't need to be famous. Just infamous. It can be said that Bill is a visionary -- his visualisations of piles of money have worked rather well so far;P.
Well for goodness sakes. This is a guy who has his own category in Google Directory, under Computers, History, Pioneers.
See?
While he has admittedly been standing on the shoulders of giants, there is also a smattering of true visionary in all the things he has done. The Salon article on him, although old, is a fascinating read.
Slashdot Mirror
I can imagine it being controversial indeed.
+1 Giggletypo
Being modded Funny doesn't affect the writer's karma, whileas Insightful does. So some people mod Funny stuff Insightful/Interesting/etc. for purposes of karma.
Then again, the moderator might just be an idiot. On /., one never knows...
Oh, man. Really? I totally want to watch that! Damn MTV Finland for showing only Pimp My Ride: Original Flava.
I work for a consulting company (quality assurance) as a consultant and part of our bonuses are determined by customer satisfaction. The way we get customers to give actual feedback is by making it part of the contract; they're surprisingly willing to take the time to tick boxes when the whole scheme is explained to them, and the consultants are sure to bug their clients to do it, too.
Or for those hankering to be on the cutting edge of technology, Links.
Ooh, thanks for reminding me about the Tripod trilogy -- I read it when I was a kid and loved it. Ought to re-read it ASAP!
And thank you for having it as "hear, hear", not as the oft-seen murder-by-homophone-confusion, "here, here".
It's illegal in most cunties in Nevada (Emphasis mine.) Oh, sir, sir! I do believe your Freudian slip is showing.
I sincerely hope that was sarcasm on the orginal submitter's part, or else Hollywood has lost the last of the small amount of creativity it has (arguably) had. "We're making the fourth Indy Jones flick, so what shall we call it? Something witty and imaginative...wait, it's coming to me. I know! Let's call it 'Indiana Jones 4'!"
Well, for starters, only 12 of the current 15 EU countries have adopted the euro, and there's still about 30 countries in Europe that are not EU members, all with their own currencies. Granted, using the euro as the default currency in iTMS would capture the core Central European market, but it would also leave countries from the UK to Bosnia-Herzegovina without iTMS access. So enabling the use of all local currencies seems the only rational way to go.
Anyhow, I don't think the point was the myriad of currencies used in Europe, but the complexities of getting to record companies to agree (colour me surprised).
Slighty off-topic, but still... this reminds me of one of my pet peeves. One or two of my older email addresses have been used in forged headers (To: field, namely) to make it appear that I, not some anonymous dickwad spammer, sent the spam. Consequently, not only do I get bounce messages for emails I didn't send (easy to filter away) but also the occasional irate email from someone who objected to the "Grow Your P.E.N.I.S Herbal Viagra from Nigeria with Free Digital Camera!!!!!" email I supposedly sent. Agh! I explain the thing to the hapless souls but it still drives me nuts for my email to be used in this obscene manner.
Anyway. Spammers. Where are a few convenient unemployed inquisitors when you need them? I'd have a job for them.
But if you bought a char to develop it further (which is what I'd assume, given that the primary function of a character is to be a playable object), wouldn't it be beneficial if people were more likely to give you free stuff? I.e. female characters would be more desirable and hence more pricey?
Full of himself? Jacob Nielsen? Nahhh... nevah. Nuh-uh. Nope.
At my Uni the toilets have those hand drying machines that blow hot air onto your mitts. I've often entertained the thought of going to the loo in the Usability lab and scribbling next to the dryer activation button, "Press here for a free two-minute speech from Jacob Nielsen."
'Nuff said.
Uh, pardon my French, but who the fsck cares? And besides, in my experience, one tends to gravitate unconsciously towards crowds that share common interests and mores -- not all my friends have tattoos, but somehow they all seem to be people who don't care one way or the other about other people's body art. Somehow, it seems unlikely I will ever hang out with tightwads who judge people by the colour of or on their skin, be it natural pigmentation or ink.
In the workplace, my tattoos have not caused any problems -- in fact, they have generated some interesting discussions and mutual skin art viewing. However, they are placed so that they can be hidden by business clothing and are nonobjective art.
Sure. But that shows the people with butterflies on their asses (or tattooed names of their boy/girlfriends, etc.) didn't really stop and think what they're committing themselves to.
I wanted a tattoo (I have four at this point, actually) just because it was permanent. I didn't take them to make my body more interesting or just for the pretty picture, but instead, to commemorate special moments in my life. So while they might turn into black blobs 40 years from now (although I doubt it; there is such a thing as retouching available for tattoos, too...I also took the time to research for a good artist who did work of excellent quality), they will still inalienably be mementoes I will cherish till the day I die. Something a hair dye surely can't accomplish. By now, the tattoos are such a part of my body that I occasionally forget I have them, and when I see them, they just seem like a natural part of my body.
I'd also add Harry Connick Jr. to the list of good contemporary jazz. His album "20" is an instrumental jazz masterpiece.
Fortunately Mac OS X comes with gzip pre-installed, but for those moment when I insist on a GUI, I use StuffIt, just for the puerile name it got saddled with. StuffIt (WinZip) where the sun don't shine...
Would this be from the same benchmark/study that innovated by using minutes containing 100 seconds, among other things? Not to mention the fact that Adobe appear schizophrenic at best about their preferred OS. My guess? They'll "prefer" any operating system that will bring in the greenbacks at a suitable pace.
Anyway. While we could debate the merits of PowerPC vs. x86 till our faces turned blue, I do agree with you on the assesment of the server market. Xserve will be a niche player, but then again, being a niche player on the whole hasn't been too bad for Apple.
And if said aliens turn out to be hostile, all those cricket bats and football hooligans can finally come in handy.
Uh... since one kilogram is 1000 grams, wouldn't 1/100th of a kilogram be 10 grams?
Yeah, that'd be one of the other methods (server voting was presented just as an example). In reality, having attempted building a simple monitoring software capable of this (i.e. all monitors can boot one another), it turns out it ain't so simple at all :). Self-awareness and building enough checks but not too much into the rebooting mechanism...well, that was one complex mo-fo of a NFA to draw out. In practical cluster applications, it is often easier just to boot the whole machine and have everything start anew.
so it is basically two synchronized computers, it probably cost 3x the normal, and if you wiped out the self-correcting logic the system was likely to die, you mentioned that they managed to duplicate everything did they duplicated the self-correcting logic itself ?
Uh...? No self-correcting logic itself, merely hardware duplication. The processor checks were (IIRC) implemented with checksums or some such integrity checks, so this is not in essence a self-correcting system in anything but the assembly level (i.e. things are processed correctly) -- it does not in any way take a stance in the relative "correctness" of the software that runs on it, merely on how its instructions are actualised on the hardware.
As for price, this is Compaq/HP enterprise division we're talking about, so it'll be 10x the cost of any ordinary dual-processor computer. However, lock-step != sychronised. In synch computing, there will be a delay between an error occurring and its detection; in the Compaq solution, no data is transferred our of the processor's sandbox before its integrity has been verified.
there will be always a single point of failure for ever
Well, yes and no. Single points of failure are extremely difficult to find in the first place, not to mention remove, but it can be done on the hardware side. I could mention the servers formerly known as Compaq Himalaya, nowadays part of HP's NonStop Enterprise Division in some manner. Duplicated everything, from processors and power sources to I/O and all manner of computing doo-dads. Scalable from 2 to 4000 processors.
They are (or were, when I did my research piece on the Himalayas) also self-correcting in the sense that the two processors do lock-step processing and if the two differ in their opinions, the primary immediately hands over the responsibility to the redundant/backup -- data self-correcting on the assembly level. Of course, this doesn't prevent software from being a point of failure or from functioning incorrectly, but one or a cluster of these is as close as you're going to get without automated hotswapping or nanobot parts building, or other such sci-fi notions.
My particular system of research finally wound up relying on the Windows method: if uncertain, erase and reboot. It didn't have to be 99.999% available, after all. There are other ways with which to solve this in distributed/clustered computing, such as voting: servers in the cluster vote for each other's sanity (i.e. determine if the messages sent by one computer make sense to at least two others). However, even not this system is rock solid (what if two computers happen to malfunction in the same manner simultaneously? what if the malfunction is contagious? or widespread in the cluster?).
So, self-correcting is an intriguing question, to say the least. I'll be keenly following what the ROC fellas come up with.
Well, I guess to make onto the list, you don't need to be famous. Just infamous. It can be said that Bill is a visionary -- his visualisations of piles of money have worked rather well so far ;P.
While he has admittedly been standing on the shoulders of giants, there is also a smattering of true visionary in all the things he has done. The Salon article on him, although old, is a fascinating read.