However I just made a decision to move to RH9 for my workstation, while leaving my server on Debian stable.
I tried upgrading to Debian sid, and I had all kinds of hassles and problems. I had to recompile my kernel many times to get the latest ALSA and NVIDIA drivers to work. And then, Gnome for some strange reason ran painfully slow, like it would take visibly long time to open a nautilus window. And in general I thought it was a bit too flaky for my taste. Somehow I believe it's possible to get all the latest stable versions and still have a stable distro! But Debian sid isn't it for me.
And then I hear RH has apt now too?!! Ok, I just had to give it a try. I now have a functioning RH9. What do I think? Let's see: flawless and brainless NVIDIA driver installation -- check; very, very nice bluecurve theme (man I love it, and I wish other distros would adopt it!) -- check; very smooth, stable, and *fast* Gnome desktop -- check; used apt-get from freshrpms.net to get ALSA and some other extra packages -- it's not as nice as Debian (i got some flaky complains about some missing signatures and such) -- check.
So far I had few problems: biggest annoyance is that RPM hung solid a few times. Namely it hangs in a way that I can't even use control-\ to kill it! I can kill -9 it, but then I have to *reboot* to get it unstuck. When i strace it, I notice that the last command it runs when it hangs is "futex". Anyway, it's definitely embarassing for Red Hat to have a flaw like that, but it happens rarely enough that I can overlook it.
Overall I am very pleased with RH9 and I plan to use it for a while. I'm also an official RHN subscriber too! Good work Red Hat!
Size of project: Writing a web-based app is usually not engineer-level work. I'm not putting this on what language you use, but in general anything written in perl/php/other-scripting-language is not engineer-level (a project we just finished at work was written entirely in perl/ksh, so this is not 100% true.)
Uh-huh, so as long it's it's done at your work or by you, perl/ksh can be called engineering, otherwise it's not.
I have never understood how is it possible or even sane to expect that a company grow forever? The stock market is based on growth. But a healthy company doesn't grow. Instead, a healthy company produces a steady profit (and not necessarily a large one), pays salaries, and produces useful products.
How is it sane to keep seeking companies that are going to grow 30% in revenue year to year for years? And if the company does do that for a few years, isn't it sane to expect it to stop? If so, why is Microsoft stock so expensive when the company is clearly maxxed out?
I think something is fundamentally wrong with the stock market. People who buy and sell stocks without actually investing into the company contribute nothing to the system. Some would say they contribute liquidity, but I think that's like saying that thieves provide free garbage disposal of your property.
some LCD's are good enough for games
on
LCD Overtaking CRT
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I have an 18" Hitachi CML181SXW and it's plenty good enough for all the games I play, including shooters like UT 2k3.
I don't know what people are talking about when they say that LCD's are not ready for games. I don't notice any ghosts or any other strange artifacts when I play games.
At modern memory sizes, you never get a perfect device without going through repair.
Can you please explain what do you mean by "repair"? I thought after the chip comes out of the lithography process, you can't change it, other than via fib process, which is very slow and only used for development. What am I missing here?
Now, people who for some reason need a modchip can be pissed off, and that's OK. So don't buy the console, right? Buy a PC and do whatever you want with it.
So how long until we can no longer buy a generic computing device known as 'PC'?
1) Software your business invests in, and owns outright is an Asset, not an expense. Obviously this doesn't include any shrink wrap software.
Not necessarily true. Owning a home can be a liability compared to renting an appartment under certain conditions. What you're saying makes a lot of sense under many conditions, but you'd be a fool to think you have a silver bullet here.
2) Software is not only an asset, but it is your intellectual property which represents a unique way on how you run your business.
Sure. This has been true for a very long time now. Does that mean anything? I don't think so. Companies follow this idea and invest into some ridiculously priced software like commercial J2EE containers,.NET, and other crap. They still get their customized software at the end of the day and they still benefit from the wisdom in your #2 bullet, but that doesn't stop them from investing in proprietary tech, as long as the proprietary vendor leaves enough room to play. And it's scary just how little room is acceptable for some companies (please understand this sentence in more ways than one).
Why would I buy SAP for example, and Windows 2000, when my competitor can buy the exact same thing?
Because you can't build a customized solution that's more cost-effective, long term, than a canned package. Remember that it pays to specialize. You do what you're good at and let the other guys do what they're good at. If every company should also become a software development shop, how well will that work? I'm not saying you can't customize a solution that's better than a canned package, but you imply that it's trivial and obviously the right choice.
What happened to your numbering scheme? Not very organized, Mr. CEO, are you? A point against you as a CEO.
Free and open source software will win for some good old-fashioned reasons: freedom, high quality, low price. Just the basics.
You don't have a silver bullet. You don't have a new insight. What you say is old news. I really hope you have some real software or solution to sell, with real benefits, like 1+1=2 kind of benefits and not some new age mumbo jumbo.
The difference between "scripting" and "non-scripting" languages is vanishing. Look at Parrot and Perl 6. Ruby is rumored to be getting its own VM (just like Java). Python has Psyco (Python Specializing Compiler, I believe).
On the other hand, look at clisp. Clisp has an interactive environment. So is clisp a "Scripting" language, even if it was probably invented before the whole "scripting" meme came about? If I make (or buy) an interactive environment for Java, does Java become a scripting language? What about ocaml where you don't have to specify the types, but they are inferred and enforced by the system, AND it comes with a compiler AND an interactive environment AND a VM...so what does that make ocaml?
I find this whole talk of "scripting" vs. "non-scripting" to be total and utter bollocks. There are good and bad programmers. Period. There are idiot Java programmers who make spaghetti code. There are brilliant Perl programmers who write clean, object oriented code you can understand that doesn't look like line noise.
It comes down to dynamic vs. static typing. Is there any *REAL EVIDENCE* that static typing results in better code when all else is equal?
As you say, "Bad Stuff" thends to accumulate more rapidly on the script side when the conditions are bad (such as when not following basic engineering best practices).
On the other hand, in the hands of a skilled programmer and in a good environment, "Good Stuff" tends to accumulate more rapidly on the script side too.
Ahem. You slam slashdot editors. But it is slashdot readers who are slamming this "apple is dying" trash. And it is slashdot readers who always slam the slashdot editors, including you.
There is no double standard. Just keep in mind that slashdot is not an "Entity" and it doesn't speak with one voice and that slashdot editors != slashdot readers.
Microsoft said the steps are based on several principles, including "erring on the side of reasonableness" and "listening to feedback and acting on it."
Does anyone else think it's funny that Microsoft likes to err on the side of reasonableness?
I tried installing a binary of it on Solaris 2.8 and it bombed severely. It just won't run. Then I read their web page and it turns out that "they have only tested it on Solaris 2.7". I should have read their web page more carefully to begin with. I realize that Solaris is not a free OS, but please, if you release a DB that you claim is "enterprise ready" it needs to work on all *nix platforms.
After this incident my opinion of SAP-DB went straight downhill. Good *nix DB should be portable and if it's not portable then it's not good.
This would sound a whole lot more compelling if we were not in the middle of a big corporate crackdown.
The question is, are accountants interested in this data? I don't think they are. They've been doing just "fine" with the flawed measurements so far. It's always fine, fine, up until the last moment.
Secondly, accountants do not decide company's direction. Even if an accountant reported that screwing up the commons was costly, what makes you think such an accountant wouldn't be fired on the spot? I think real life gives us plenty of examples of just this kind of thing happening.
On one hand, an accountant needs to report the truth, and on the other hand, an accountant needs to stay employed. It's a fine balance. When intangibles are involved, what do you think is a safer bet?
"I don't claim to every single thing about how microsoft sees web services"
You should have stopped right there. Save your PrimeTime predictions for things you know about.
You don't need to "[know] every single thing about [something]" to talk about "things you know about".
If you think that knowing every single thing about something is even possible...never mind. f00zbll was being humble. Do you understand what "humble" means and why it is good to be humble?
It is implied that greed and selfishness are the motivating factors, but I suggest these two are not motivators but are instead the actions taken on behalf of a lower-level motivator; specifically, the human need to be and to be recognized as successful.
Nice long post. But why do you suppose society only finds currency valuable and why do you suppose society often finds the intangibles to be worthless?
I say to you, it is because of greed and selfishness!
Actually, modern flywheels are almost never solid. They are usually made from rings, or fiber. There is a Russian scientist named Gulia who invented and patented (to my knowledge) a way to wind fiber so that both ends end up inside the flywheel. This is critical because at high RPM a loose end can undo the entire flywheel.
Using kevlar and other fiber like that allows you to have flywheels that can withstand incredible forces. In general, flywheels are far more efficient than any battery in terms of energy storage, and how fast they can store and release energy.
Also, modern flywheels can fly on a magnetic suspension and in vacuum as well.
Flywheels, in my opinion, are simply the best way to store energy. When fiber flywheel explodes, it does so one thread at a time. They are relatively safe and the only thing they generate when they explode is heat.
The answer is simple. The pressure to have adverts in programming comes from advertisers rather than broadcasters soliciting it.
If we move everything to a pay-per-view model, then what you will pay out of your ass to watch advertisements, just like people do with HBO. Basically, pay-per-view is a no-win siutation for consumers.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been a long time mostly happy Debian user.
However I just made a decision to move to RH9 for my workstation, while leaving my server on Debian stable.
I tried upgrading to Debian sid, and I had all kinds of hassles and problems. I had to recompile my kernel many times to get the latest ALSA and NVIDIA drivers to work. And then, Gnome for some strange reason ran painfully slow, like it would take visibly long time to open a nautilus window. And in general I thought it was a bit too flaky for my taste. Somehow I believe it's possible to get all the latest stable versions and still have a stable distro! But Debian sid isn't it for me.
And then I hear RH has apt now too?!! Ok, I just had to give it a try. I now have a functioning RH9. What do I think? Let's see: flawless and brainless NVIDIA driver installation -- check; very, very nice bluecurve theme (man I love it, and I wish other distros would adopt it!) -- check; very smooth, stable, and *fast* Gnome desktop -- check; used apt-get from freshrpms.net to get ALSA and some other extra packages -- it's not as nice as Debian (i got some flaky complains about some missing signatures and such) -- check.
So far I had few problems: biggest annoyance is that RPM hung solid a few times. Namely it hangs in a way that I can't even use control-\ to kill it! I can kill -9 it, but then I have to *reboot* to get it unstuck. When i strace it, I notice that the last command it runs when it hangs is "futex". Anyway, it's definitely embarassing for Red Hat to have a flaw like that, but it happens rarely enough that I can overlook it.
Overall I am very pleased with RH9 and I plan to use it for a while. I'm also an official RHN subscriber too! Good work Red Hat!
Uh-huh, so as long it's it's done at your work or by you, perl/ksh can be called engineering, otherwise it's not.
Awesome.
You hit the nail on the head.
I have never understood how is it possible or even sane to expect that a company grow forever? The stock market is based on growth. But a healthy company doesn't grow. Instead, a healthy company produces a steady profit (and not necessarily a large one), pays salaries, and produces useful products.
How is it sane to keep seeking companies that are going to grow 30% in revenue year to year for years? And if the company does do that for a few years, isn't it sane to expect it to stop? If so, why is Microsoft stock so expensive when the company is clearly maxxed out?
I think something is fundamentally wrong with the stock market. People who buy and sell stocks without actually investing into the company contribute nothing to the system. Some would say they contribute liquidity, but I think that's like saying that thieves provide free garbage disposal of your property.
I have an 18" Hitachi CML181SXW and it's plenty good enough for all the games I play, including shooters like UT 2k3.
I don't know what people are talking about when they say that LCD's are not ready for games. I don't notice any ghosts or any other strange artifacts when I play games.
Are you smocking crack? How many people own HDTV? At 6k a pop, I don't think Sony has to worry about that market yet.
At modern memory sizes, you never get a perfect device without going through repair.
Can you please explain what do you mean by "repair"? I thought after the chip comes out of the lithography process, you can't change it, other than via fib process, which is very slow and only used for development. What am I missing here?
(I fully expect to be modded down for this, but what the hell. I have karma to burn)
I am tired of reading this kind of crap. You damn well should be modded down for the tripe you included in parentheses.
You have something to say? Just say it. Arrrggggg!!!
Now, people who for some reason need a modchip can be pissed off, and that's OK. So don't buy the console, right? Buy a PC and do whatever you want with it.
So how long until we can no longer buy a generic computing device known as 'PC'?
What a useless comment.
Unless you absolutely, positively never use anything but Google, you'll likely bump into Overture
That's me. I don't use anything but Google to search.
1) Software your business invests in, and owns outright is an Asset, not an expense. Obviously this doesn't include any shrink wrap software.
.NET, and other crap. They still get their customized software at the end of the day and they still benefit from the wisdom in your #2 bullet, but that doesn't stop them from investing in proprietary tech, as long as the proprietary vendor leaves enough room to play. And it's scary just how little room is acceptable for some companies (please understand this sentence in more ways than one).
Not necessarily true. Owning a home can be a liability compared to renting an appartment under certain conditions. What you're saying makes a lot of sense under many conditions, but you'd be a fool to think you have a silver bullet here.
2) Software is not only an asset, but it is your intellectual property which represents a unique way on how you run your business.
Sure. This has been true for a very long time now. Does that mean anything? I don't think so. Companies follow this idea and invest into some ridiculously priced software like commercial J2EE containers,
Why would I buy SAP for example, and Windows 2000, when my competitor can buy the exact same thing?
Because you can't build a customized solution that's more cost-effective, long term, than a canned package. Remember that it pays to specialize. You do what you're good at and let the other guys do what they're good at. If every company should also become a software development shop, how well will that work? I'm not saying you can't customize a solution that's better than a canned package, but you imply that it's trivial and obviously the right choice.
What happened to your numbering scheme? Not very organized, Mr. CEO, are you? A point against you as a CEO.
Free and open source software will win for some good old-fashioned reasons: freedom, high quality, low price. Just the basics.
You don't have a silver bullet. You don't have a new insight. What you say is old news. I really hope you have some real software or solution to sell, with real benefits, like 1+1=2 kind of benefits and not some new age mumbo jumbo.
The difference between "scripting" and "non-scripting" languages is vanishing. Look at Parrot and Perl 6. Ruby is rumored to be getting its own VM (just like Java). Python has Psyco (Python Specializing Compiler, I believe).
On the other hand, look at clisp. Clisp has an interactive environment. So is clisp a "Scripting" language, even if it was probably invented before the whole "scripting" meme came about? If I make (or buy) an interactive environment for Java, does Java become a scripting language? What about ocaml where you don't have to specify the types, but they are inferred and enforced by the system, AND it comes with a compiler AND an interactive environment AND a VM...so what does that make ocaml?
I find this whole talk of "scripting" vs. "non-scripting" to be total and utter bollocks. There are good and bad programmers. Period. There are idiot Java programmers who make spaghetti code. There are brilliant Perl programmers who write clean, object oriented code you can understand that doesn't look like line noise.
It comes down to dynamic vs. static typing. Is there any *REAL EVIDENCE* that static typing results in better code when all else is equal?
As you say, "Bad Stuff" thends to accumulate more rapidly on the script side when the conditions are bad (such as when not following basic engineering best practices).
On the other hand, in the hands of a skilled programmer and in a good environment, "Good Stuff" tends to accumulate more rapidly on the script side too.
It doesn't matter. When management says do X in 5 days where you really need 3 months to do it right, then you will see some "Java cowboy" code too.
Are there scripting cowboys? Sure there are.
Are there C++/Java cowboys? Sure there are.
Can good C++/Java programmers be turned into cowboys by management? Sure. It happens all the time.
No offense to the real cowboys.
Ahem. You slam slashdot editors. But it is slashdot readers who are slamming this "apple is dying" trash. And it is slashdot readers who always slam the slashdot editors, including you.
There is no double standard. Just keep in mind that slashdot is not an "Entity" and it doesn't speak with one voice and that slashdot editors != slashdot readers.
From this link:
Does anyone else think it's funny that Microsoft likes to err on the side of reasonableness?
I tried installing a binary of it on Solaris 2.8 and it bombed severely. It just won't run. Then I read their web page and it turns out that "they have only tested it on Solaris 2.7". I should have read their web page more carefully to begin with. I realize that Solaris is not a free OS, but please, if you release a DB that you claim is "enterprise ready" it needs to work on all *nix platforms.
After this incident my opinion of SAP-DB went straight downhill. Good *nix DB should be portable and if it's not portable then it's not good.
J00 4RE 0WNED!!!
Bwahahahahaa!!!!
This would sound a whole lot more compelling if we were not in the middle of a big corporate crackdown.
The question is, are accountants interested in this data? I don't think they are. They've been doing just "fine" with the flawed measurements so far. It's always fine, fine, up until the last moment.
Secondly, accountants do not decide company's direction. Even if an accountant reported that screwing up the commons was costly, what makes you think such an accountant wouldn't be fired on the spot? I think real life gives us plenty of examples of just this kind of thing happening.
On one hand, an accountant needs to report the truth, and on the other hand, an accountant needs to stay employed. It's a fine balance. When intangibles are involved, what do you think is a safer bet?
You don't need to "[know] every single thing about [something]" to talk about "things you know about".
If you think that knowing every single thing about something is even possible...never mind. f00zbll was being humble. Do you understand what "humble" means and why it is good to be humble?
Nice long post. But why do you suppose society only finds currency valuable and why do you suppose society often finds the intangibles to be worthless?
I say to you, it is because of greed and selfishness!
Actually, modern flywheels are almost never solid. They are usually made from rings, or fiber. There is a Russian scientist named Gulia who invented and patented (to my knowledge) a way to wind fiber so that both ends end up inside the flywheel. This is critical because at high RPM a loose end can undo the entire flywheel. Using kevlar and other fiber like that allows you to have flywheels that can withstand incredible forces. In general, flywheels are far more efficient than any battery in terms of energy storage, and how fast they can store and release energy. Also, modern flywheels can fly on a magnetic suspension and in vacuum as well. Flywheels, in my opinion, are simply the best way to store energy. When fiber flywheel explodes, it does so one thread at a time. They are relatively safe and the only thing they generate when they explode is heat.
The answer is simple. The pressure to have adverts in programming comes from advertisers rather than broadcasters soliciting it.
If we move everything to a pay-per-view model, then what you will pay out of your ass to watch advertisements, just like people do with HBO. Basically, pay-per-view is a no-win siutation for consumers.