Because, where I live, these things are unavailable retail... and buying online is impossible because most online shops do not ship to my country and *if* they do, I have to pay over 33% import taxes.
I have indeed considered it, but I went for the AMD64 because it was cheap and I hoped that the Cool 'N Quiet feature would at least make the system a bit quieter. Alas, the OS it runs doesn't support it (OpenBSD 3.9, 4.0 should support it better according to the changelog) I know where to get Soekris systems, but those are 486 class to P-I class at best. I do use the extra power of the AMD64 now: imap was impossible on the P-I.
Sometimes it's frustrating living in a country where the "extravagant" stuff is hard to get.
I understand that, but the article talks about absolute energy consumption. That AMD64 is pretty much doing nothing all day since it's a fileserver. It can be easily handled by a P166... an old box, which I *only* replaced because I was scared that parts would fail that I couldn't replace with off-the-shelf stuff.
Still, I pay more for a box that is "more efficient".
Hmmmm.... Ah, yes, twin paradox. Sorry, I've always been under the impression that those 4.2 years would have been for the light itself. Still, "a matter of days" is still a bit of an overstatement when you look at the wikipedia "Specific Example" ( 0.866 speed of light, which isn't bad at all). I still don't call "2.57 years" a mere "days".
Are you sure? The closest star (except Sol) is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.2 light years away from here. This means that light itself takes 4.2 years to cross that distance. So, to get there you need at least 4.2 years at light speed. Slower is invariably going to take longer. Sure, 4.2 years is about 1500 days, so "in days" might be accurate to your definition.
The funny thing is that I was a consultant. I couldn't get fired, in the strict sense of the term. My company wouldn't have fired me for bending the rules in order to *please* the customer. (Reason found in link above)
As for "I signed for those regulations": no I did not. Typically they make you sign a paper that everything you see and hear should stay confidential, but that's it. That's what the law says here because of "bank secret". I didn't sign anything else.
Oh, and as in principle, I never take source code with me. Which is really very rare amongst consultants. I have the impression that they always leave a project with their pockets full of source code. Not that I've ever seen anyone reuse it. It's really odd.
3G mobiles are banned in some places, including banks. Especially if you're in the trading area. (I wasn't, but getting caught with a phone there wasn't your best day)
I don't think that I have to read "Federal Guidelines" because I am not employed in the US.;-) But, yes, I know I did something I shouldn't have done, but getting approval for that CD burn would have taken two weeks and they needed that CD *now*. Never underestimate bureaucracy in the banking sector. It wasn't even for me: I'm one of those guys that don't even bother to take the code he wrote with him (Which is illegal, you made it for that company... It still is common practice amongst IT consultants).
Oh, and "most companies will give you whatever access you need" most definitely isn't true in banks when you are not one of their employees: "Web access for a consultant? Forget it, too dangerous..." That's why I gave the laptop example: if they are strict, they have to be strict along the whole spectrum and not only about the Internet.
All user files are on the 2nd partition, and all system on the first.
No, all user files on a *network server* because hard disk crashes happen and servers are backed up. It is trivial to map "My Documents" to a network share.
I've worked for many financial corps (writing webbanking applications), and most of them don't have Internet access *at all*! Try doing your web-based job without the www. (Okay, they had "internet stations" for research, but it was a hassle.) Especially as a consultant, you can be lucky if you can send email to the outside. Usually, it's internal-mail only.
The banks where I have worked that have Internet access, usually have heavy filtering. I still have the find a bank that blocks my own domain and thus my own webmail service, but yeah, for n00bs it's probably hard to survive without hotmail, gmail and yahoo.
Still, I don't understand banks. I was allowed to take my *personal* laptop inside and I worked late when every employee was gone. It was a no-brainer to put a cross-cable between my bank-desktop and my laptop. (Did that once for burning a CD - for the employees of the bank.... Nothing illegal, just "bending the rules"). Sure, the switches were MAC-bound, but if I can get all the info on my desktop and them copy it over to my laptop all security is gone at once.
For those suggesting USB sticks/harddrives: these machines were all NT4, for a reason.... *grin*
Ehm, The Netherlands (not Holland, which is a province of The Netherlands) had the bronze-coloured eurocent coins in circulation . I had some in my wallet already. As probably pretty much everywhere in Europe, you just don't see them very often. The lowest coin I see in regular usage is the 5 cent coin, and I only see it very rarely.
The only country I know of that didn't release the smaller 1 and 2 cent coins is Finland . Those coins only were minted for collectors. That's it.
So, while The Netherlands don't issue the smaller 1 and 2 cent anymore, they did exist in circulation. Oh, and in *all* countries of Europe, they must accept the 1 and 2 cent coins from other countries, even in Finland and The Netherlands. (I bet most shop owners don't know it and will bitch, but well, that's life)
I live in Europe. I know the 3L Lupo and am quite informed about the VW models. That is why I was astonished that VW had hybrids. I was thinking of production. Prototypes do not matter for the consumer:-) Prototypes will only be there in a few years... So, for now he was not accurate. You can't buy a hybrid VW and that was my whole point.
Does it matter? Your car runs, you happy...they happy... Everybody happy. You will talk positively about Nissan (as I talk positively about VW (I drive an Audi, same thing)), which is good advertisement for them.
Point is: helping out people with older cars makes them look like "reliable", and every car manufacturer want to get that image.
Also: do remind that they want to build up a solid customer relationship. I bought an Audi 80 because my dad drove Audi and it was reliable. I went to the garage, my dad went to and they treated me like a king. Why? Not because I bought that car with them (I bought it from a ad in the paper)... They knew however, that I would buy with them if I would be satisfied with their service.
Guess what... I was.. and I bought an 35000€ Audi TT when I needed a new car. Treating me right, paid out for them. When I go for service, they know me... They know my car. I say my name and they know that I've got a blue Audi TT. (Yeah, probably they look it up on the computer while I call them for the next service)... Doesn't matter... Next car will be with them because they do the right thing.
VW IS NOT a freakin saint. Try getting parts for your VW K70 or 411. Ain't going to freakin happen.
Have you tried? And have you tried talking to your local VW garage? These guys are passionate about cars, and will try to help you. At least here in Europe, they are. They will try to help you. Heck, I got good service when my car was over 14 years old. They never ever sent me back while saying "you're car is too old, go screw yourself".
Exactly... That's the whole thing. I know someone that uses mandrake, and he wants to do "advanced" things. Problem is that he doesn't know where to look, nor how to solves his problems.
His mindset still is: "buy commercial package". Doesn't work that way on Linux. Nothing wrong with normal distribs, but in that case learn to live the distrib way and only use what is packaged.
Personally I like to know the insides. I prefer to edit a config file instead of clicking a few buttons.
Using Linux is not the same as learning Linux. The same can be said about any OS, by the way. My girlfriend knows (barely) how to use Windows XP, I *know* Windows XP (well, actually I know NT4 and 2000, and am still "learning XP")
Civilisation 1 (1992, if I recall correctly) works fine on my W2k installation (and most likely also on DosEmu in Linux). That's 12 years for you buddy, and there are many games that still work. Yes, I still like to play the original Civilisation in all it's 320x200x8bit goodness.
There are many many old games that work fine on current computers and I expect them to. If you want FPS: halflife 1 was released in 1999. Still play it today. That's five years buddy, and it better play in 5 years too. Heck, the fuckin game is still sold in stores at this day! (Saw a collector edition a few weeks ago:Halflife + Opposing Forces + Counterstrike + Blue Shift)
Besides, what with collectors? I know people that have a good old 486DX/2 to play vintage games. (There are even Commodore 64 enthousiasts....) Now in 10 years, I might still have my AMD 2400+ in order to play the good old games of my youth. Activation like this will make sure that it will be impossible.
And yes, if today I shelve my sports car (because I get kids), I expect it to be fully supported by my dealer when I retire. I know a girl that has a original Beetle and VW still supports those (even if it sometimes takes a bit longer to get the parts)
If you want to learn Linux and know (enough) about computers. (That is partitioning, a bit of Unix commands, how to use a command line), I would recommend not to use a "mainstream" distribution. Not Mandrake, Not SuSE, not Red Hat.
Personally, I started off on a Slackware derivate, that didn't come with a compiler and was a quite useful desktop (at least for the P120/32Meg RAM it ran). During installation I had to make the filesystem myself (mkext2), mount disks. XFree was also a joy (because it was on a laptop...) to get to work right. All in all, it took a lot of time to get it to run... The distribution was Peanut Linux , but that was back in the 8.1 days. A great many things may have changed. Perhaps you can scavenge a older PC somewhere to try it out, instead of trashing your config.
Still, I would recommend it simply because if you want to *learn* Linux, you better jump in head first. This also helped me a lot when I later learned a BSD. (OpenBSD to be specific)
If you want to *use* Linux, then go mainstream distribution. However, don't expect to stay on it. You'll be back to Windows before you know it. No killer app, you see...
Try to factor in quality of life... What are those 50k$ of use when you live in a city full of pollution? Better have 40k$, live modestly and have quality of life. If there is one thing I learnt from my mom, it was: "Be happy with what you have." If more people followed that advice, we would have more happy people and a lot less burnt out employees.
Don't forget to rape his wife and daughters... Oh, and burn hid house... All that while he is watching and before you blow his brains against the wall. Make sure daughters and wife live. Killing them is having mercy. If you conquer land, do it right;-)
Hmmmpf... Expensive is relative. Back when the PPro was new I bought one. The whole system was about 5000€ (full-SCSI, including a 9GB harddisk and a Pioneer CD-RW) back in the day, but it ran over 6 years before the motherboard died (not the CPU). The only upgrades done to that machine was adding RAM (began with 32Meg and ended with 256Meg) and another video card. Over those 6 years it made a damned fine desktop, it even played most games pretty well. That was a cost of about 833€ per year. In the end it was running Windows 2000 just fine.
Back in the day, medium-class machines were much more expensive than 833€. Noawdays this might not matter anymore, but back then... it did. Also: the SCSI hardware and the RAM is still in use in my family server, so even that investment still works for me.
I now have still two PPro 200 chips lying around. Alas, I have no motherboard that can fit them. I'd gladly upgrade my server to a dual PPro:-)
Oh, I did think of Pearl Harbour. It was evident you would point that out. However, the Japanese don't have a big military either (AFAIK) and are your allies. China is mostly concerned with itself as it has been the last few centuries. Besides, the economic links between the US and China are so big that a mutual war would be a disaster for both sides.
The nuclear threat is nonsense: if I would want to invade a country, I want it to be fertile and full of good slaves (cheap labour). A nuclear wasteland won't give you that. Besides, anyone stupid enough to launch a nuclear assault on the US will feel what it's like to be grilled at sun-like temperatures.
Oh, you meant that invaders would actually conquer nuclear weapons by invading the US? There are easier, cheaper and less dangerous ways to get nuclear weapons.
If terrorism presents a clear and present danger, it's only common since [sic] that we have the means of defending our selves.
Yes, it would be clever to defend yourself. However, you can't defend yourself from terrorism. Not by having large armies ready for action. Terrorism can be countered by intelligence, infiltration, undercover action. If Terrorism is fought correctly, the normal populace would not know. Large armies have no use agains terrorism.
Besides, the only people I know that fear terrorism are Americans. We had our fair share of terrorism, and we just learned to live with it. After all, it is more likely that I get smashed by a truck falling from the sky because it was sucked up by a tornado. The point that the US overreacts due to a shadow of terrorism over the country, means that the terrorism actually worked. Kinda of a bummer, no?
Dubya's leadership we have managed to piss off the world.
Yes, you did... but you also forget that no country (except perhaps China) is capable of even inflicting a tiny scratch to the fortress America. It is too far away, it would cost too much money and you will certainly die while trying. And don't come with "since 9/11 everything has changed". It hasn't: invading a country requires an organized army of thousands of men. Terrorism can't organize that without going undetected. Terrorists are like those annoying mosquitos. Yeah, they sting real hard, but in the end they are pretty much harmless. (this is a comparision: don't bring in malaria and what not of tropical illnesses)
We [...] are a clear and present danger to the free world. Wars have been started for less.
Of course... However, noone starts a war that he knows he will lose. The world is helpless in the face of US military might. Perhaps it is hard to understand for Americans, but we don't fight when the chances are nil of winning. That's why you call the French cheese-eating surrender monkies, because they surrendered when Germany invaded them back in WWII. This is completely ignoring the facts, that they actually realised that they were overpowered by the might of the Germans and the only sensible thing to do was to surrender.
Americans wouldn't do that: think "The Alamo".
Slashdot Mirror
Because, where I live, these things are unavailable retail... and buying online is impossible because most online shops do not ship to my country and *if* they do, I have to pay over 33% import taxes.
I have indeed considered it, but I went for the AMD64 because it was cheap and I hoped that the Cool 'N Quiet feature would at least make the system a bit quieter. Alas, the OS it runs doesn't support it (OpenBSD 3.9, 4.0 should support it better according to the changelog) I know where to get Soekris systems, but those are 486 class to P-I class at best. I do use the extra power of the AMD64 now: imap was impossible on the P-I.
Sometimes it's frustrating living in a country where the "extravagant" stuff is hard to get.
I understand that, but the article talks about absolute energy consumption. That AMD64 is pretty much doing nothing all day since it's a fileserver. It can be easily handled by a P166... an old box, which I *only* replaced because I was scared that parts would fail that I couldn't replace with off-the-shelf stuff.
Still, I pay more for a box that is "more efficient".
Ooops....
"uses less power than" should be "uses more power than".
Sure the P-I does less work for that amount of power, but overall the newer machine uses more power.
Are you really trying to tell me that my old Pentium I 166MHz MMX , uses less power than my current AMD64 2800+?
I don't even have to heat the room where my computers are.... (My wifes P-IV, my dual AMD MP and the above mentioned AMD64 2800+)
Hmmmm.... Ah, yes, twin paradox. Sorry, I've always been under the impression that those 4.2 years would have been for the light itself. Still, "a matter of days" is still a bit of an overstatement when you look at the wikipedia "Specific Example" ( 0.866 speed of light, which isn't bad at all). I still don't call "2.57 years" a mere "days".
Days?
Are you sure? The closest star (except Sol) is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.2 light years away from here. This means that light itself takes 4.2 years to cross that distance. So, to get there you need at least 4.2 years at light speed. Slower is invariably going to take longer. Sure, 4.2 years is about 1500 days, so "in days" might be accurate to your definition.
See reply here
The funny thing is that I was a consultant. I couldn't get fired, in the strict sense of the term. My company wouldn't have fired me for bending the rules in order to *please* the customer. (Reason found in link above)
As for "I signed for those regulations": no I did not. Typically they make you sign a paper that everything you see and hear should stay confidential, but that's it. That's what the law says here because of "bank secret". I didn't sign anything else.
Oh, and as in principle, I never take source code with me. Which is really very rare amongst consultants. I have the impression that they always leave a project with their pockets full of source code. Not that I've ever seen anyone reuse it. It's really odd.
3G mobiles are banned in some places, including banks. Especially if you're in the trading area. (I wasn't, but getting caught with a phone there wasn't your best day)
I don't think that I have to read "Federal Guidelines" because I am not employed in the US. ;-) But, yes, I know I did something I shouldn't have done, but getting approval for that CD burn would have taken two weeks and they needed that CD *now*. Never underestimate bureaucracy in the banking sector. It wasn't even for me: I'm one of those guys that don't even bother to take the code he wrote with him (Which is illegal, you made it for that company... It still is common practice amongst IT consultants).
Oh, and "most companies will give you whatever access you need" most definitely isn't true in banks when you are not one of their employees: "Web access for a consultant? Forget it, too dangerous..." That's why I gave the laptop example: if they are strict, they have to be strict along the whole spectrum and not only about the Internet.
All user files are on the 2nd partition, and all system on the first.
No, all user files on a *network server* because hard disk crashes happen and servers are backed up. It is trivial to map "My Documents" to a network share.
I've worked for many financial corps (writing webbanking applications), and most of them don't have Internet access *at all*! Try doing your web-based job without the www. (Okay, they had "internet stations" for research, but it was a hassle.) Especially as a consultant, you can be lucky if you can send email to the outside. Usually, it's internal-mail only.
The banks where I have worked that have Internet access, usually have heavy filtering. I still have the find a bank that blocks my own domain and thus my own webmail service, but yeah, for n00bs it's probably hard to survive without hotmail, gmail and yahoo.
Still, I don't understand banks. I was allowed to take my *personal* laptop inside and I worked late when every employee was gone. It was a no-brainer to put a cross-cable between my bank-desktop and my laptop. (Did that once for burning a CD - for the employees of the bank.... Nothing illegal, just "bending the rules"). Sure, the switches were MAC-bound, but if I can get all the info on my desktop and them copy it over to my laptop all security is gone at once.
For those suggesting USB sticks/harddrives: these machines were all NT4, for a reason.... *grin*
Quick, call Dr. Schlock!
Kinda reminds me of the typical Catholic school girl becoming a complete whore when she goes to college.
Why the fuck didn't anybody inform me of this *before* I got married? ;-)
Shows that I'm not Dutch myself, eh? I thought it was one province, seems you are right. That's what one calls "Owned", I guess.
Ehm, The Netherlands (not Holland, which is a province of The Netherlands) had the bronze-coloured eurocent coins in circulation . I had some in my wallet already. As probably pretty much everywhere in Europe, you just don't see them very often. The lowest coin I see in regular usage is the 5 cent coin, and I only see it very rarely.
The only country I know of that didn't release the smaller 1 and 2 cent coins is Finland . Those coins only were minted for collectors. That's it.
So, while The Netherlands don't issue the smaller 1 and 2 cent anymore, they did exist in circulation. Oh, and in *all* countries of Europe, they must accept the 1 and 2 cent coins from other countries, even in Finland and The Netherlands. (I bet most shop owners don't know it and will bitch, but well, that's life)
I live in Europe. I know the 3L Lupo and am quite informed about the VW models. That is why I was astonished that VW had hybrids. I was thinking of production. Prototypes do not matter for the consumer :-) Prototypes will only be there in a few years... So, for now he was not accurate. You can't buy a hybrid VW and that was my whole point.
They do? Since when? Links, please...
Point is: helping out people with older cars makes them look like "reliable", and every car manufacturer want to get that image.
Also: do remind that they want to build up a solid customer relationship. I bought an Audi 80 because my dad drove Audi and it was reliable. I went to the garage, my dad went to and they treated me like a king. Why? Not because I bought that car with them (I bought it from a ad in the paper)... They knew however, that I would buy with them if I would be satisfied with their service.
Guess what... I was.. and I bought an 35000€ Audi TT when I needed a new car. Treating me right, paid out for them. When I go for service, they know me... They know my car. I say my name and they know that I've got a blue Audi TT. (Yeah, probably they look it up on the computer while I call them for the next service)... Doesn't matter... Next car will be with them because they do the right thing.
Have you tried? And have you tried talking to your local VW garage? These guys are passionate about cars, and will try to help you. At least here in Europe, they are. They will try to help you. Heck, I got good service when my car was over 14 years old. They never ever sent me back while saying "you're car is too old, go screw yourself".
His mindset still is: "buy commercial package". Doesn't work that way on Linux. Nothing wrong with normal distribs, but in that case learn to live the distrib way and only use what is packaged.
Personally I like to know the insides. I prefer to edit a config file instead of clicking a few buttons.
Using Linux is not the same as learning Linux. The same can be said about any OS, by the way. My girlfriend knows (barely) how to use Windows XP, I *know* Windows XP (well, actually I know NT4 and 2000, and am still "learning XP")
There are many many old games that work fine on current computers and I expect them to. If you want FPS: halflife 1 was released in 1999. Still play it today. That's five years buddy, and it better play in 5 years too. Heck, the fuckin game is still sold in stores at this day! (Saw a collector edition a few weeks ago:Halflife + Opposing Forces + Counterstrike + Blue Shift)
Besides, what with collectors? I know people that have a good old 486DX/2 to play vintage games. (There are even Commodore 64 enthousiasts....) Now in 10 years, I might still have my AMD 2400+ in order to play the good old games of my youth. Activation like this will make sure that it will be impossible.
And yes, if today I shelve my sports car (because I get kids), I expect it to be fully supported by my dealer when I retire. I know a girl that has a original Beetle and VW still supports those (even if it sometimes takes a bit longer to get the parts)
Personally, I started off on a Slackware derivate, that didn't come with a compiler and was a quite useful desktop (at least for the P120/32Meg RAM it ran). During installation I had to make the filesystem myself (mkext2), mount disks. XFree was also a joy (because it was on a laptop...) to get to work right. All in all, it took a lot of time to get it to run... The distribution was Peanut Linux , but that was back in the 8.1 days. A great many things may have changed. Perhaps you can scavenge a older PC somewhere to try it out, instead of trashing your config.
Still, I would recommend it simply because if you want to *learn* Linux, you better jump in head first. This also helped me a lot when I later learned a BSD. (OpenBSD to be specific)
If you want to *use* Linux, then go mainstream distribution. However, don't expect to stay on it. You'll be back to Windows before you know it. No killer app, you see...
Try to factor in quality of life... What are those 50k$ of use when you live in a city full of pollution? Better have 40k$, live modestly and have quality of life. If there is one thing I learnt from my mom, it was: "Be happy with what you have." If more people followed that advice, we would have more happy people and a lot less burnt out employees.
Don't forget to rape his wife and daughters... Oh, and burn hid house... All that while he is watching and before you blow his brains against the wall. Make sure daughters and wife live. Killing them is having mercy. If you conquer land, do it right ;-)
Back in the day, medium-class machines were much more expensive than 833€. Noawdays this might not matter anymore, but back then... it did. Also: the SCSI hardware and the RAM is still in use in my family server, so even that investment still works for me.
I now have still two PPro 200 chips lying around. Alas, I have no motherboard that can fit them. I'd gladly upgrade my server to a dual PPro :-)
The nuclear threat is nonsense: if I would want to invade a country, I want it to be fertile and full of good slaves (cheap labour). A nuclear wasteland won't give you that. Besides, anyone stupid enough to launch a nuclear assault on the US will feel what it's like to be grilled at sun-like temperatures.
Oh, you meant that invaders would actually conquer nuclear weapons by invading the US? There are easier, cheaper and less dangerous ways to get nuclear weapons.
If terrorism presents a clear and present danger, it's only common since [sic] that we have the means of defending our selves.
Yes, it would be clever to defend yourself. However, you can't defend yourself from terrorism. Not by having large armies ready for action. Terrorism can be countered by intelligence, infiltration, undercover action. If Terrorism is fought correctly, the normal populace would not know. Large armies have no use agains terrorism.
Besides, the only people I know that fear terrorism are Americans. We had our fair share of terrorism, and we just learned to live with it. After all, it is more likely that I get smashed by a truck falling from the sky because it was sucked up by a tornado. The point that the US overreacts due to a shadow of terrorism over the country, means that the terrorism actually worked. Kinda of a bummer, no?
Dubya's leadership we have managed to piss off the world.
Yes, you did... but you also forget that no country (except perhaps China) is capable of even inflicting a tiny scratch to the fortress America. It is too far away, it would cost too much money and you will certainly die while trying.
And don't come with "since 9/11 everything has changed". It hasn't: invading a country requires an organized army of thousands of men. Terrorism can't organize that without going undetected. Terrorists are like those annoying mosquitos. Yeah, they sting real hard, but in the end they are pretty much harmless. (this is a comparision: don't bring in malaria and what not of tropical illnesses)
We [...] are a clear and present danger to the free world. Wars have been started for less.
Of course... However, noone starts a war that he knows he will lose. The world is helpless in the face of US military might. Perhaps it is hard to understand for Americans, but we don't fight when the chances are nil of winning. That's why you call the French cheese-eating surrender monkies, because they surrendered when Germany invaded them back in WWII. This is completely ignoring the facts, that they actually realised that they were overpowered by the might of the Germans and the only sensible thing to do was to surrender.
Americans wouldn't do that: think "The Alamo".