I've just fallen off my chair for a number of reasons
Firstly about the ideal of using Bugzilla for one of the most safety critical programmes in the world.
Secondly at the idea that this will make a dent in the cost (hint: the cost of change in this environment is in the process not the IT support technology)
Thirdly at idea of a mass produced shuttle saving a ton of money, that is like saying "if only they made 2 million Corvettes a day then the US auto industry wouldn't be in trouble".
Finally at the general idiot savant arrogance of looking at one of the most complex engineering achievements of all time and trying to fix it the same way you'd fix a web site that went over budget.
Seriously, how is this a story? I used AIX back in the 90s and it was okay. What do I use AIX for today? Back-end processing when I can't get a Linux box past the procurement guys.
Do I code on AIX? Nope I code on Mac OSX or Linux. Do I manage on AIX? Nope the management stuff lives on Linux and Windows.
A story would be IBM pushing AIX on the desktop. But this is just sensible and if you really want an AIX desktop then its an X environment so just run a server and use an old box as an X Terminal.
Personally I've been looking at getting a server as my next box and concentrating on networking, monitor et al on an XTerm running a stripped down Linux. What is this 1995 to say you have to have a box running under your desk?
You don't need a computer science degree for that. You can buy all the books you want from Amazon, you can find the answers to all your questions online, and you can write any app you want in Python or Ruby or Objective C or the language of your choice. There's no need to deal with dry courses about operating systems and so on.
Yup, all you need is a "dummies" book and you are away. Your argument is the equivalent of saying that a Medical degree isn't required do operate on people you just need a book and a knife.
What I know is that when I did my degree (1990, 30% women on the course) it was the social, architecture and theoretical aspects that the women on the course tended to be strongest at and the low level coding and electronics was the dull stuff that the geeks preferred.
Wily Coyote certified Genius was said Monday to be disappointed that the Road Runner had yet again managed to elude him but denied that the Road Runner had demonstrated more brains than him.
"Although it may appear that the Road Runner is smarter due to the fact that I have fallen off cliffs, blown myself up and run into brick walls in fact I am significantly more intelligent and am an ACME top engineer"
IBM's Media Minder for Road Runner passed on a single comment
Of course it can't compete, the question is whether you want to make a charitable donation and get a lower quality machine, or make a decent contribution to a charity and get a decent machine.
OLPC is a reasonable charity, but personally I'll get a netbook and put the money towards research on malaria.
Congratulations, beating out hot favourites Karl Rove and Dick Cheney you have just won single most arrogant statement of the year
"I wrote something better"
When you get several million users then call, until then you've got a pet project doing something that loads of people before you have done, and lots of people after you have done.
One of the first things that should be done is to mandate equal consideration for.NET and LAMP because Java has way too much of a fanboi following in the federal government.
Of course the fact that the federal government has done research that finds that reducing the number of languages reduces costs has nothing to do with them preferring to pick a single standards based, multi-vendor approach. Nope its because they are "Fanboys" and that stuff in the military drones would be better done in LAMP than in Java...
Federal Government uses LOADS of different technologies most of them are in the heavy lifting space rather than being about LAMP type areas (LAMP for Air Traffic Control?).
Ah but you are just talking about websites, which is a single part of the estate and are of course not thinking at all about support and maintenance across thousands of sites and the advantage of having a limited set of technologies would bring in enabling more cross government sharing.
Nope you just want to see your favourite technology being used.
Personally I'd like to see the CTO take a machete to the costs of IT in federal government, OSS would be part of that but consistency would be the major element.
Come on we've all seen independence day and Jeff looking at the 1s and 0s and then just spotting the pattern and the problem.
Jumped up security people with there fancy visualisation tools. 1s and 0s is where it is at, all you really need is a very very large green screen monitor and the force.
Personally I don't even use the monitor but instead lay hands on the ethernet cables and just squeeze out the bad packets.
Personally I'm against the death penalty as I think its state sanctioned murder. I do however believe in the right to self-defence and therefore I'd say that this is where the courts should be able to use the death penalty, as a punishment to those who waste their time with ridiculous lawsuits.
Imagine the scene.
Judge: Trivial lawsuit, I'm finding for the plantiff, awarding him costs and sentencing you to death for wasting my time
Its the self-defence of the justice system and would I think stop these cases very quickly. Especially if the appeal was only allowed to consider if the case was a complete waste of time.
All I want is something I can subscribe to that will "ring" when the election gets called. I want to know as soon as its called so I can flip on the TV and watch the acceptance/submission speeches but I don't want to keep polling a website.
A simple SMS of "Obama has won... Wheeeee" or "Oh Fuck its Palin" would be sufficient.
I believe that it is no accident that here (as elsewhere) Paul borrows political imagery to describe the church--the church is, in fact, an alternative power structure that should fundamentally subvert traditional power relationships.
Someone is going to have to tell me how this post is any better than a Muslim fundamentalist wanting a global Caliphate. The idea that God is above all and the Church as an alternative power structure is exactly what Muslim fundamentalists want.
This is why it is bad.
This is why the world is in the trouble it is.
The worst thing is that in the Middle East and in the US people with these destructive beliefs are pandered to and hold inordinate amounts of power over sane and rational people.
WTF would the founding fathers think of a view that placed god and the church above democracy?
Next door there are two teenage boys with a younger sister, she is mad for High School Musical and they like rock. So far we've had raised shouting, a TV being ripped for the wall and one son actually throwing himself out of a window (no injuries) to get away from the music.
Now you could say that they are just being older brothers and mocking their sister's taste, but I say its proof that High School Musical causes violence in teens and so should therefore be banned.
Some would further say that this is evidence of "appropriate" for groups and how the horror movies that the boys watch aren't appropriate for their younger sister while HSM is not appropriate for the boys. You'd almost think some sort of certification should be placed on movies and games to give an idea of what is appropriate (Harry Potter - both sexes and aged 7 to adult, HSM - girls between the ages of 7 and 11).
Sorry couldn't resist, given that this is a post talking about the most expensive election in world history in which the level of abusive rhetoric is at levels that are only ever seen in the US or 3rd world countries.
Quiet and polite? Which election have you been watching?
1) Obama - raised by a single mother to a kenyan father who buggered off, progressed through school and demonstrating ability and prowess at all stages before coming top in Harvard Law.
2) McCain - Rich family with a history in the services, graduated near the bottom of his class, married a richer woman on the second try. Paired up with Palin who things that education is elitist.
Seriously when it comes to education shouldn't we be teaching kids than anyone can become the leader of the country if they work hard and are smart enough not just that you have the right set of bigotry and name-calling to get yourself elected?
Given that in the US education is a State (or lower) level then this isn't a big area for impact at the Federal level, but the best thing the US President could do for the children of the country is demonstrate the value of a good education.
Obama: Iraq is Bad we should withdraw on a fixed timetable agreed with the Iraqi government. Afghanistan is good, might invade Pakistan but wouldn't invade Iran
McCain: Iraq is Good we should withdraw without a fixed timetable with agreement from the Iraqi government, Afghanistan is good, wouldn't invade Pakistan but would invade Iran
And of course there is the Sarah Palin view
Palin: I live near Russia I do. War is good, war is what folks in our small towns want its what Dave the Electrician and Marge the Checkout Gal are after. Anyone who doesn't want to invade a country if just palling around with them and we need to know WHY Obama doesn't want to invade France, is he really French?
"Marketing is not a science even if its an Open Source project"
Run some tests on a drive. Run TrueCrypt, re-run the tests, look the difference in CPU load and performance and then try and work out where the 1% number comes from.
Personally I think its based on averaging time across when you aren't using the machine.
1) Betting you've never lived in France 2) 13% of MacDonalds' revenue comes from France, its the biggest market outside of the US 3) The french traditional foods are high fat (lots of cream) not potatoes and stews, that is Germany and its ilk 4) They drink wine like people in the US drink Coke, its just what you do and its perfectly normal 5) They smoke
Seriously if you are going to have a go at the French Paradox then get some sort of perspective on what they eat. Its loads of "McDo" and then rich meals with Duck, cream and the like. "Stew" and potatoes I've hardly ever had. Beans in a rich tomato sauce with meat, yup had that, but its hard to call it "stew". The French don't exercise much, although they do walk around more and do things more on the weekend than is "normal" in the US, this doesn't make them exercise freaks though.
The French Paradox of smoke, eat rich food and drink wine might not be down to the wine, but its certainly not down to them eating a German/Hungarian mix of potato and stew.
The real French paradox is how come the women all dress like the most stylish people on the planet and yet the blokes all wear jumpers that look like an aunt knitted them for Christmas.
Come on its 2008, we can't just take such trifling things as an individuals vouching for someone and their previous good record. She SAYS that she didn't make the call, but what would she say if she was waterboarded? Would she stick to her story or switch it to admit that she did make all the calls?
Sure she claims that she doesn't want to change her number just because she has had it for 50 years, but couldn't that be because she co-ordinates a major terrorist cell of grandmas across america (known in intelligence circles as Al-Quilter)? These evil women are spreading hate through out of date sugary treats and a fondness for knowing everything that is going on in the world while comparing it unfavourably with their own personal ideology of "it was better when I was young". We must stop these pedallers of hate against modern American who condemn the US of A as going to hell in a hand cart and not the sort of country that they want to live in. Death to Al-Quilter
I say condemn her based on the irrefutable caller ID evidence.
Seriously though its good that this old dear has someone looking out for her because in modern America you could easily see her being prosecuted because of an unfortunate conjunction of evidence.
Several people will post about how this validates the TINY, TINY, TINY, number of scientists and LARGE number of completely uneducated "opinion" formers and MASSIVE number of people who think that "belief" is the same as fact.
What they will miss:
This article talks about how things are put out there then invalidated by SUBSEQUENT PUBLISHED RESEARCH, not about how there is a great conspiracy around something being "right" and everyone shouting down those who dare to disagree. Global Warming is something that has consistently been found to be happening and while certain bits have been revised due to subsequent research, most of that research has found that previously incorrect models were in fact too optimistic in their view.
This article doesn't strengthen your misguided, and uneducated, belief that Global Warming isn't real. When even the Republican candidate says its real then its time to let go and become part of the solution.
Slashdot Mirror
I've just fallen off my chair for a number of reasons
Firstly about the ideal of using Bugzilla for one of the most safety critical programmes in the world.
Secondly at the idea that this will make a dent in the cost (hint: the cost of change in this environment is in the process not the IT support technology)
Thirdly at idea of a mass produced shuttle saving a ton of money, that is like saying "if only they made 2 million Corvettes a day then the US auto industry wouldn't be in trouble".
Finally at the general idiot savant arrogance of looking at one of the most complex engineering achievements of all time and trying to fix it the same way you'd fix a web site that went over budget.
Seriously, how is this a story? I used AIX back in the 90s and it was okay. What do I use AIX for today? Back-end processing when I can't get a Linux box past the procurement guys.
Do I code on AIX? Nope I code on Mac OSX or Linux.
Do I manage on AIX? Nope the management stuff lives on Linux and Windows.
A story would be IBM pushing AIX on the desktop. But this is just sensible and if you really want an AIX desktop then its an X environment so just run a server and use an old box as an X Terminal.
Personally I've been looking at getting a server as my next box and concentrating on networking, monitor et al on an XTerm running a stripped down Linux. What is this 1995 to say you have to have a box running under your desk?
You don't need a computer science degree for that. You can buy all the books you want from Amazon, you can find the answers to all your questions online, and you can write any app you want in Python or Ruby or Objective C or the language of your choice. There's no need to deal with dry courses about operating systems and so on.
Yup, all you need is a "dummies" book and you are away. Your argument is the equivalent of saying that a Medical degree isn't required do operate on people you just need a book and a knife.
What I know is that when I did my degree (1990, 30% women on the course) it was the social, architecture and theoretical aspects that the women on the course tended to be strongest at and the low level coding and electronics was the dull stuff that the geeks preferred.
Wily Coyote certified Genius was said Monday to be disappointed that the Road Runner had yet again managed to elude him but denied that the Road Runner had demonstrated more brains than him.
"Although it may appear that the Road Runner is smarter due to the fact that I have fallen off cliffs, blown myself up and run into brick walls in fact I am significantly more intelligent and am an ACME top engineer"
IBM's Media Minder for Road Runner passed on a single comment
"MIP MIP"
Of course it can't compete, the question is whether you want to make a charitable donation and get a lower quality machine, or make a decent contribution to a charity and get a decent machine.
OLPC is a reasonable charity, but personally I'll get a netbook and put the money towards research on malaria.
In his book "All fun and games until somebody loses an eye" he has exactly this piece and its embedded in a gel to make it stick to surfaces.
Top author, but I doubt he is getting royalties for this.
Interestingly what they are saying here is that they think that
a) Hackers are smarter than they actually are
b) Microsoft code is easier to exploit than it actually is
So the perception is that Microsoft is better than their prediction, but the implication of that is that Microsoft think they are rubbish.
Maybe all these years of "Microsoft sucks" posts on Slashdot have actually come from the MS security team.
Congratulations, beating out hot favourites Karl Rove and Dick Cheney you have just won single most arrogant statement of the year
"I wrote something better"
When you get several million users then call, until then you've got a pet project doing something that loads of people before you have done, and lots of people after you have done.
and more people will still be using VI and Emacs
One of the first things that should be done is to mandate equal consideration for .NET and LAMP because Java has way too much of a fanboi following in the federal government.
Of course the fact that the federal government has done research that finds that reducing the number of languages reduces costs has nothing to do with them preferring to pick a single standards based, multi-vendor approach. Nope its because they are "Fanboys" and that stuff in the military drones would be better done in LAMP than in Java...
Federal Government uses LOADS of different technologies most of them are in the heavy lifting space rather than being about LAMP type areas (LAMP for Air Traffic Control?).
Ah but you are just talking about websites, which is a single part of the estate and are of course not thinking at all about support and maintenance across thousands of sites and the advantage of having a limited set of technologies would bring in enabling more cross government sharing.
Nope you just want to see your favourite technology being used.
Personally I'd like to see the CTO take a machete to the costs of IT in federal government, OSS would be part of that but consistency would be the major element.
Come on we've all seen independence day and Jeff looking at the 1s and 0s and then just spotting the pattern and the problem.
Jumped up security people with there fancy visualisation tools. 1s and 0s is where it is at, all you really need is a very very large green screen monitor and the force.
Personally I don't even use the monitor but instead lay hands on the ethernet cables and just squeeze out the bad packets.
Personally I'm against the death penalty as I think its state sanctioned murder. I do however believe in the right to self-defence and therefore I'd say that this is where the courts should be able to use the death penalty, as a punishment to those who waste their time with ridiculous lawsuits.
Imagine the scene.
Judge: Trivial lawsuit, I'm finding for the plantiff, awarding him costs and sentencing you to death for wasting my time
Its the self-defence of the justice system and would I think stop these cases very quickly. Especially if the appeal was only allowed to consider if the case was a complete waste of time.
All I want is something I can subscribe to that will "ring" when the election gets called. I want to know as soon as its called so I can flip on the TV and watch the acceptance/submission speeches but I don't want to keep polling a website.
A simple SMS of "Obama has won... Wheeeee" or "Oh Fuck its Palin" would be sufficient.
Anyone know where I can get it?
From the GPP
I believe that it is no accident that here (as elsewhere) Paul borrows political imagery to describe the church--the church is, in fact, an alternative power structure that should fundamentally subvert traditional power relationships.
Emphasis mine.
Now do you get what I was talking about?
Someone is going to have to tell me how this post is any better than a Muslim fundamentalist wanting a global Caliphate. The idea that God is above all and the Church as an alternative power structure is exactly what Muslim fundamentalists want.
This is why it is bad.
This is why the world is in the trouble it is.
The worst thing is that in the Middle East and in the US people with these destructive beliefs are pandered to and hold inordinate amounts of power over sane and rational people.
WTF would the founding fathers think of a view that placed god and the church above democracy?
Meanwhile Mono struggles on a few versions behind pushing interoperability to the limits of 2006.
Never got that project, never will.
Next door there are two teenage boys with a younger sister, she is mad for High School Musical and they like rock. So far we've had raised shouting, a TV being ripped for the wall and one son actually throwing himself out of a window (no injuries) to get away from the music.
Now you could say that they are just being older brothers and mocking their sister's taste, but I say its proof that High School Musical causes violence in teens and so should therefore be banned.
Some would further say that this is evidence of "appropriate" for groups and how the horror movies that the boys watch aren't appropriate for their younger sister while HSM is not appropriate for the boys. You'd almost think some sort of certification should be placed on movies and games to give an idea of what is appropriate (Harry Potter - both sexes and aged 7 to adult, HSM - girls between the ages of 7 and 11).
Quiet, polite, like Americans are.
Of whom are these Americans that you speak?
Sorry couldn't resist, given that this is a post talking about the most expensive election in world history in which the level of abusive rhetoric is at levels that are only ever seen in the US or 3rd world countries.
Quiet and polite? Which election have you been watching?
In terms of education here we have
1) Obama - raised by a single mother to a kenyan father who buggered off, progressed through school and demonstrating ability and prowess at all stages before coming top in Harvard Law.
2) McCain - Rich family with a history in the services, graduated near the bottom of his class, married a richer woman on the second try. Paired up with Palin who things that education is elitist.
Seriously when it comes to education shouldn't we be teaching kids than anyone can become the leader of the country if they work hard and are smart enough not just that you have the right set of bigotry and name-calling to get yourself elected?
Given that in the US education is a State (or lower) level then this isn't a big area for impact at the Federal level, but the best thing the US President could do for the children of the country is demonstrate the value of a good education.
Only Obama does that.
The current deficit and the $700bn bailout sort of ensures that this will be sold off to get ANY sort of money back into the central pot.
Obama: Iraq is Bad we should withdraw on a fixed timetable agreed with the Iraqi government. Afghanistan is good, might invade Pakistan but wouldn't invade Iran
McCain: Iraq is Good we should withdraw without a fixed timetable with agreement from the Iraqi government, Afghanistan is good, wouldn't invade Pakistan but would invade Iran
And of course there is the Sarah Palin view
Palin: I live near Russia I do. War is good, war is what folks in our small towns want its what Dave the Electrician and Marge the Checkout Gal are after. Anyone who doesn't want to invade a country if just palling around with them and we need to know WHY Obama doesn't want to invade France, is he really French?
"Marketing is not a science even if its an Open Source project"
Run some tests on a drive. Run TrueCrypt, re-run the tests, look the difference in CPU load and performance and then try and work out where the 1% number comes from.
Personally I think its based on averaging time across when you aren't using the machine.
1) Betting you've never lived in France
2) 13% of MacDonalds' revenue comes from France, its the biggest market outside of the US
3) The french traditional foods are high fat (lots of cream) not potatoes and stews, that is Germany and its ilk
4) They drink wine like people in the US drink Coke, its just what you do and its perfectly normal
5) They smoke
Seriously if you are going to have a go at the French Paradox then get some sort of perspective on what they eat. Its loads of "McDo" and then rich meals with Duck, cream and the like. "Stew" and potatoes I've hardly ever had. Beans in a rich tomato sauce with meat, yup had that, but its hard to call it "stew". The French don't exercise much, although they do walk around more and do things more on the weekend than is "normal" in the US, this doesn't make them exercise freaks though.
The French Paradox of smoke, eat rich food and drink wine might not be down to the wine, but its certainly not down to them eating a German/Hungarian mix of potato and stew.
The real French paradox is how come the women all dress like the most stylish people on the planet and yet the blokes all wear jumpers that look like an aunt knitted them for Christmas.
Come on its 2008, we can't just take such trifling things as an individuals vouching for someone and their previous good record. She SAYS that she didn't make the call, but what would she say if she was waterboarded? Would she stick to her story or switch it to admit that she did make all the calls?
Sure she claims that she doesn't want to change her number just because she has had it for 50 years, but couldn't that be because she co-ordinates a major terrorist cell of grandmas across america (known in intelligence circles as Al-Quilter)? These evil women are spreading hate through out of date sugary treats and a fondness for knowing everything that is going on in the world while comparing it unfavourably with their own personal ideology of "it was better when I was young". We must stop these pedallers of hate against modern American who condemn the US of A as going to hell in a hand cart and not the sort of country that they want to live in. Death to Al-Quilter
I say condemn her based on the irrefutable caller ID evidence.
Seriously though its good that this old dear has someone looking out for her because in modern America you could easily see her being prosecuted because of an unfortunate conjunction of evidence.
There are several thousand more advance societies within a thousand miles of Scotland.
Of course if he had been in Alabama then the number would have been higher.
My prediction for this thread:
Several people will post about how this validates the TINY, TINY, TINY, number of scientists and LARGE number of completely uneducated "opinion" formers and MASSIVE number of people who think that "belief" is the same as fact.
What they will miss:
This article talks about how things are put out there then invalidated by SUBSEQUENT PUBLISHED RESEARCH, not about how there is a great conspiracy around something being "right" and everyone shouting down those who dare to disagree. Global Warming is something that has consistently been found to be happening and while certain bits have been revised due to subsequent research, most of that research has found that previously incorrect models were in fact too optimistic in their view.
This article doesn't strengthen your misguided, and uneducated, belief that Global Warming isn't real. When even the Republican candidate says its real then its time to let go and become part of the solution.