I see a lot of posts claiming not to understand the problem with shill bidding. I'll give you a scenario. The key here is that INFORMATION is MONEY.
Imagine your wife's grandma's heirloom china set is worth $400 on the market, but priceless to her. You have recently dropped one plate, and it's irreplaceable. The plate is worth $80 on the market. 6 months later, you see the plate on Ebay, drawing insipid bidding, reflecting relatively low demand, stuck at $40. Your web design business has been doing well, and you can afford $200 to get back in grace with your wife. You therefore bid $200, raising the current bid to $42. On the final day, you see a series of bids in , all by the same person, raising the price to $160. This is the point at which the shiller did not dare to raise the bid for fear of outbidding you.
Effectively, he got free information about how much you are willing to bid. Information is money. It's like when you're bargaining on a used care--you start with your offer. You don't tell the salesman how much money you brought, and then start bargaining.
In the example above, you pay less than the item is worth TO YOU, but more than market, because the shiller was able to tease that info out of you.
Actually, the VistA medical informatics software, including medical imaging software, is available from the VA for a nominal administrative fee, under the Freedom of Information Act. I've used the non-imaging component for charting, etc. at the local large VA, and it's really usable. I'd bet it would port to Linux.
Hopefully all those newbies who are puzzled by the insistence of RMS that GNU on Linux be called GNU/Linux can now see the wisdom of the distinction. SCO is only attacking the linux kernel, nothing else--the lax use of "Linux" to describe the whole system amplifies the SCO FUD.
FWIW, even during SunOS days, the first thing I'd do with a new system was "civilize" it by installing the GNU environment. And yes, I'd call that GNU/SunOS, since there was a BIG difference between the GNU stuff and the painfully crappy native SUNOS stuff. (Same goes for ALL commercial Unices).
The problem with this solution is that it doesn't affect the spammers at all. This is essentially a whitelist with potential to "redeem" unsolicited email. It is implemented as a buffer between the server and the mail reader. Spammers can continue to inundate the net with their sea of output, which will wash upon the "shores" of mail servers, with "stamp" subscribers insulated, along with other whitelist and blacklist users. Much of the spam still gets through.
The only real solution is a "token" system which retains the email content on the originating mail server, passing a token to the recipient, which responds with a "send" or "refuse" token. This can be augmented with whitelists to simplify the transaction for expected emails, with minimal inconvenience and resource use for unexpected mail. For example, you see a token from a verified address, with brief header, in your mailbox, click "read", and the message is instantly requested and retrieved from the originators server.
Of course, this will require revamping of the email infrastructure, including mods to MTA's and MUAs
I used to live in the Bay area circa 1989, and would routinely stop at WierdStuff warehouse to get out of rush hour traffic on the way home. You really could find wierd stuff, old minicomputer parts. I picked up a "printer controller" for $20 that had a complete 68000 system in a VME backplane! Needless to say, I was very disappointed when I visited the Bay Area in 1999, and discovered that WierdStuff had moved, and transformed into a fairly boring clearing house for commodity PC/mac parts and obsolete software, with laughably optimistic pricing. I was also shocked to see Fry's selling washing machines! On the other hand, even in 1989, lots of engineers may not have bathed if Fry's didn't sell soap:-)
In Dallas, the first place to go is Tanner Electronics, on Valwood Pkwy. They've likely got the odd part, power supply, etc. you need. The surplus items are highly selected and new or working. You'll always meet other engineers here discussing tech or other issues with the Tanners.
Electronic Discount Sales, locations in Irving (Beltline&Walnut Hill), and Arlington. This is fairly comparable to the new Wierdstuff warehouse. Lots of old PC's and SUNS. They'll bust apart a PC to get you a 49cent simm if you need one. Lots of PC parts, new and old. Old macs for $5. The test equipment is way overpriced. I suppose the haven't checked out the competition on Ebay.
The UPS debugger is a complete debugger, not just a GDB front end, that ran on Linux and solaris at least 5 years ago. It had a built-in interpreter so you could type in a line of C anywhere during debugging and continue. It also had a really nice and functional GUI, which clearly displayed where you are, what you're doing, and simplified debugging of large multi-file projects without special config files. I don't know if it's currently being developed; the whole thing was largely the effort of a single talented individual in the UK.
1) Sophisticated memory use analysis tools, especially Purify, were
rare 30 years ago. These catch many bugs before they cause
symptoms. A must. Any production code *should* absolutely
be run through one of the tools that instruments the code (like
Purify), not just a malloc checker. Even all Free software should
be run through one of these as well.
2) IDE's may lower the threshold for code prodcution for beginners, but
rarely if ever improve the programming or debugging process. They
neither help nor hinder experienced programmers.
3) The wider use of Python brings to the masses many of the interactive
debugging luxuries previously enjoyed only by LISP programmers.
No, he would not say that. The name of the kernel is Linux. Linux forms the core system code for what is most accurately described as a GNU/Linux system (of which all the better known Linux-based distros are variants).
Make your products the best choice for the developers, and document that fact, provide good searchable knowledge base access, examples, etc.
But your selling needs to focus on the management, who will ultimately decide to go with your system, and force it down the (hopefully not reluctant) throats of the developers.
Check Ebay, and you will see that several diamond wholesalers (apparently including Empire, mentioned in the article) are selling diamonds directly, creating more of a true free market. After all, if bidder #1 can pay $x for a diamond on Ebay, so will bidder #2.
Although diamonds appear NOT to be a time-honored tradition, they are (like a fancy wedding) a social norm, and undoing that will require a lot of new ads, or a very understanding spouse. Why not check out Ebay. Be sure to use Escrow & right of return, and have it appraised.
Slashdot Mirror
Imagine your wife's grandma's heirloom china set is worth $400 on the market, but priceless to her. You have recently dropped one plate, and it's irreplaceable. The plate is worth $80 on the market. 6 months later, you see the plate on Ebay, drawing insipid bidding, reflecting relatively low demand, stuck at $40. Your web design business has been doing well, and you can afford $200 to get back in grace with your wife. You therefore bid $200, raising the current bid to $42. On the final day, you see a series of bids in , all by the same person, raising the price to $160. This is the point at which the shiller did not dare to raise the bid for fear of outbidding you.
Effectively, he got free information about how much you are willing to bid. Information is money. It's like when you're bargaining on a used care--you start with your offer. You don't tell the salesman how much money you brought, and then start bargaining.
In the example above, you pay less than the item is worth TO YOU, but more than market, because the shiller was able to tease that info out of you.
Actually, the VistA medical informatics software, including medical imaging software, is available from the VA for a nominal administrative fee, under the Freedom of Information Act. I've used the non-imaging component for charting, etc. at the local large VA, and it's really usable. I'd bet it would port to Linux.
Hopefully all those newbies who are puzzled by the insistence of RMS that GNU on Linux be called GNU/Linux can now see the wisdom of the distinction. SCO is only attacking the linux kernel, nothing else--the lax use of "Linux" to describe the whole system amplifies the SCO FUD.
FWIW, even during SunOS days, the first thing I'd do with a new system was "civilize" it by installing the GNU environment. And yes, I'd call that GNU/SunOS, since there was a BIG difference between the GNU stuff and the painfully crappy native SUNOS stuff. (Same goes for ALL commercial Unices).
Dave
The problem with this solution is that it doesn't affect the spammers at all. This is essentially a whitelist with potential to "redeem" unsolicited email. It is implemented as a buffer between the server and the mail reader. Spammers can continue to inundate the net with their sea of output, which will wash upon the "shores" of mail servers, with "stamp" subscribers insulated, along with other whitelist and blacklist users. Much of the spam still gets through.
The only real solution is a "token" system which retains the email content on the originating mail server, passing a token to the recipient, which responds with a "send" or "refuse" token. This can be augmented with whitelists to simplify the transaction for expected emails, with minimal inconvenience and resource use for unexpected mail. For example, you see a token from a verified address, with brief header, in your mailbox, click "read", and the message is instantly requested and retrieved from the originators server.
Of course, this will require revamping of the email infrastructure, including mods to MTA's and MUAs
I used to live in the Bay area circa 1989, and would routinely stop at WierdStuff warehouse to get out of rush hour traffic on the way home. You really could find wierd stuff, old minicomputer parts. I picked up a "printer controller" for $20 that had a complete 68000 system in a VME backplane! Needless to say, I was very disappointed when I visited the Bay Area in 1999, and discovered that WierdStuff had moved, and transformed into a fairly boring clearing house for commodity PC/mac parts and obsolete software, with laughably optimistic pricing. I was also shocked to see Fry's selling washing machines! On the other hand, even in 1989, lots of engineers may not have bathed if Fry's didn't sell soap :-)
In Dallas, the first place to go is Tanner Electronics, on Valwood Pkwy. They've likely got the odd part, power supply, etc. you need. The surplus items are highly selected and new or working. You'll always meet other engineers here discussing tech or other issues with the Tanners. Electronic Discount Sales, locations in Irving (Beltline&Walnut Hill), and Arlington. This is fairly comparable to the new Wierdstuff warehouse. Lots of old PC's and SUNS. They'll bust apart a PC to get you a 49cent simm if you need one. Lots of PC parts, new and old. Old macs for $5. The test equipment is way overpriced. I suppose the haven't checked out the competition on Ebay.
The UPS debugger is a complete debugger, not just a GDB front end, that ran on Linux and solaris at least 5 years ago. It had a built-in interpreter so you could type in a line of C anywhere during debugging and continue. It also had a really nice and functional GUI, which clearly displayed where you are, what you're doing, and simplified debugging of large multi-file projects without special config files. I don't know if it's currently being developed; the whole thing was largely the effort of a single talented individual in the UK.
A couple of observations:
1) Sophisticated memory use analysis tools, especially Purify, were rare 30 years ago. These catch many bugs before they cause symptoms. A must. Any production code *should* absolutely be run through one of the tools that instruments the code (like Purify), not just a malloc checker. Even all Free software should be run through one of these as well.
2) IDE's may lower the threshold for code prodcution for beginners, but rarely if ever improve the programming or debugging process. They neither help nor hinder experienced programmers.
3) The wider use of Python brings to the masses many of the interactive debugging luxuries previously enjoyed only by LISP programmers.
Dave
No, they innovate.
Make your products the best choice for the developers, and document that fact, provide good searchable knowledge base access, examples, etc. But your selling needs to focus on the management, who will ultimately decide to go with your system, and force it down the (hopefully not reluctant) throats of the developers.
Check Ebay, and you will see that several diamond wholesalers (apparently including Empire, mentioned in the article) are selling diamonds directly, creating more of a true free market. After all, if bidder #1 can pay $x for a diamond on Ebay, so will bidder #2.
Although diamonds appear NOT to be a time-honored tradition, they are (like a fancy wedding) a social norm, and undoing that will require a lot of new ads, or a very understanding spouse. Why not check out Ebay. Be sure to use Escrow & right of return, and have it appraised.