While I enjoy both "Mythbusters" and "Air Crash Investigations", I happen to agree with you on the "fucking idiot" part.
Pilots are there to deal with stuff the autopilot can't. It's always the unexpected things that crash planes as all the expected ones have been taken care of. The jetliner pilot is there to figure out what the problem is in order to land the plane as safely as possible or die trying.
That said, I see it's inevitable that some automated flight control mechanism will end up helping to make "flying cars" feasible someday. OTOH, major breakthroughs in materials, propulsion and manufacturing techniques will be required before we can fly to work instead of drive.
You know... Solaris 8 is not the latest, greatest thing Sun made. Between 8 and 10 there is a lot of difference. IIRC, Solaris 8 is from 2003 or 2004, right? I think I got my disks in late 2002, but I am not sure.
Linux was not nearly as usable as it is now. I still remember Gnome 1.
Also, there is no such thing as a "better operating system" if you don't consider someone's needs. I did recommend Linux to my mother, who spends most of the day on the phone and on e-mail (she is happy with MacOS 9 and won't move until her computer dies). I did not recommend Linux to my wife because she relies too much on Office documents - she uses a Mac with OSX. The best OS for you may very well be Solaris, if you have a SPARC server with lots of storage, Linux if you develop software like I do, MacOS if you need to exchange documents with Windows users. Depending on your needs, you may consider Plan9;-) The right choice may even be Windows, if your boss married you to Exchange or Sharepoint (I am sorry for you in this case - in which you really have no choice).
I gather HP-UX and Solaris are pretty good with multi-processor boxes.
A painful enough (read "expensive") settlement will certainly make the institution reconsider its criteria. It will fix this one, at least for the current generation of managers.
It's precisely their fear of light that will make them settle for even a very "educational" sum of money.
"For a user new to Linux who wants to get a feel for the ins and outs and get used to the commandline really fast, gentoo is for them"
That's a good way to ensure the newbie keeps badmouthing Linux, pointing out the chores required just to keep it working, in front of his fellow Windows users.
A newbie needs a gentle introduction to Linux first. Ubuntu (disclaimer: I use it) is just fine - it's good enough, pretty and mostly works. In fact, many of my gurus prefer Ubuntu or Debian manly because it lets them focus on what they are doing when whatever they are doing is not maintaining their boxes. If the newbie then feels like he wants to go deeper, then, maybe, Gentoo would be interesting. Or perhaps, it would be educational, if not too scary, to build a Linux box from scratch.
Gentoo is the best choice for the hackers who love to manage their computers.
"I'd personally rather have my civil liberties and live with that basic fact than trade them in for the illusion of security."
I think the whole idea is to deprive you of this choice.
And, while they are at it, make it look like you are supporting terrorists when you speak up against it.
2008 is an election year in the US. You know the drill: register as a voter, make your friends register too (maybe you can filter out the dumber ones), organize informed discussions about candidates and vote consciously.
A day on the beach can become a very regrettable experience if you let other people chose your representatives.
I would love it because it would be different. Better at certain things (the Cell is a very respectable number-cruncher), worse at others (playing Windows games, perhaps), but would push the envelope in directions x86 processors won't because x86 machines are built, mainly, to run Windows.
There are a lot of very cool processors around, like the Octeon (8 MIPS cores) or the Niagara 2 or the Cell that would, certainly, end up being the cores of very interesting computers.
I would love to see a multi-core ARM 11 with lots of cache and a GPU-like appendage for heavy number-crunching. It would be low power, fast and could easily run most programs I use daily.
Laptops could be smaller, batteries could last longer. What people has done with the EeePC and the XO doesn't even scratch what could be done with non-x86 architectures.
And yes. I have outgrown Windows. Windows was cool back in the 90s, but Free Software allows us to experiment with computers in ways we couldn't since the late 70s and early 80s. That's why I am not going back.
This reminds me of a Mythbusters episode when they investigated how deadly a coin falling from the top of the Empire State Building would be to someone down on the street. They interviewed a lady that lives (or works) a couple dozen floors down, where most of the coins end up falling and she wondered what they had in mind - because they are either throwing money away for no reason or they are throwing it away because they are trying to get someone killed on the streets below.
I never mentioned "international freedom" or similar concept.
The point is this story is an US-centric one. BTW, I prefer "US" over "America" because there is a lot of America outside the US. This story is US-centric just like the one about Tata's new car is, for now, an India-centric one and many other stories are "nowhere-centric" as there is little or no geography involved if someone develops a new solar cell or if someone studies a Chinese dinosaur. There are many of US-centric stories just because a lot of the audience and editors live in the US. If audience demographics shift, so will the content. It's natural for a site like Slashdot.
I think this internet thing mostly did away with that other thing of national borders and geography.
In the end, every article and every discussion here and on every other discussion-centric site has different demographics.
I use Ubuntu and I don't think of it as American, European or African.
For the rest of the world, it's interesting to note how the stranglehold of the telcos (due to probably insuficient consumer-protection laws) has held the US back in respect to mobile telephony.
"Since I have no demand for any of the higher phone features"
It sounds suspiciously like the folks who thought they didn't need a cellphone because they never had one before;-)
I too didn't knew how nice is to have web browsing, high speed data connections or e-mail in my pocket until I had a phone with a full keyboard and a decent screen.
I didn't mean that the military should not be funded.
Anyway, the companies that developed the internet, wireless comm, GPS and medical advances are the ones it's OK to fund. It's fine to fund the military, but just as far as they don't invade anything. In that event, you start funding a lot of companies that make pretty little contributions to science and technology (some "innovative" interrogation techniques are not a meaningful contribution, after all), yet, still, those efforts are very expensive.
The unfortunate aspect of the present state of affairs is that, since less of their money does end in research and development (as opposed to, say, Lockheed's), more is left for political campaign contributions - as perverse an incentive as they can get.
Well... I am sure there are a lot of promotions and heavily discounted items after the holidays, but I never imagined the practice extended to space telescopes and launch services.
Slashdot Mirror
If helium threatens to get expensive enough, lot's of research will go into hydrogen fusion.
It doesn't even need to generate energy - it just has to be less expensive than recycling or extracting natural helium.
It's actually a good thing.
While I enjoy both "Mythbusters" and "Air Crash Investigations", I happen to agree with you on the "fucking idiot" part.
Pilots are there to deal with stuff the autopilot can't. It's always the unexpected things that crash planes as all the expected ones have been taken care of. The jetliner pilot is there to figure out what the problem is in order to land the plane as safely as possible or die trying.
That said, I see it's inevitable that some automated flight control mechanism will end up helping to make "flying cars" feasible someday. OTOH, major breakthroughs in materials, propulsion and manufacturing techniques will be required before we can fly to work instead of drive.
You know... Solaris 8 is not the latest, greatest thing Sun made. Between 8 and 10 there is a lot of difference. IIRC, Solaris 8 is from 2003 or 2004, right? I think I got my disks in late 2002, but I am not sure.
;-) The right choice may even be Windows, if your boss married you to Exchange or Sharepoint (I am sorry for you in this case - in which you really have no choice).
Linux was not nearly as usable as it is now. I still remember Gnome 1.
Also, there is no such thing as a "better operating system" if you don't consider someone's needs. I did recommend Linux to my mother, who spends most of the day on the phone and on e-mail (she is happy with MacOS 9 and won't move until her computer dies). I did not recommend Linux to my wife because she relies too much on Office documents - she uses a Mac with OSX. The best OS for you may very well be Solaris, if you have a SPARC server with lots of storage, Linux if you develop software like I do, MacOS if you need to exchange documents with Windows users. Depending on your needs, you may consider Plan9
I gather HP-UX and Solaris are pretty good with multi-processor boxes.
If you really need ZFS, you can rather easily and painlessly move from Linux to Solaris.
they are very similar OSs and both offer more or less the same userland (you can bring up the latest Gnome on both).
A painful enough (read "expensive") settlement will certainly make the institution reconsider its criteria. It will fix this one, at least for the current generation of managers.
It's precisely their fear of light that will make them settle for even a very "educational" sum of money.
"For a user new to Linux who wants to get a feel for the ins and outs and get used to the commandline really fast, gentoo is for them"
That's a good way to ensure the newbie keeps badmouthing Linux, pointing out the chores required just to keep it working, in front of his fellow Windows users.
A newbie needs a gentle introduction to Linux first. Ubuntu (disclaimer: I use it) is just fine - it's good enough, pretty and mostly works. In fact, many of my gurus prefer Ubuntu or Debian manly because it lets them focus on what they are doing when whatever they are doing is not maintaining their boxes. If the newbie then feels like he wants to go deeper, then, maybe, Gentoo would be interesting. Or perhaps, it would be educational, if not too scary, to build a Linux box from scratch.
Gentoo is the best choice for the hackers who love to manage their computers.
"I'd personally rather have my civil liberties and live with that basic fact than trade them in for the illusion of security."
I think the whole idea is to deprive you of this choice.
And, while they are at it, make it look like you are supporting terrorists when you speak up against it.
2008 is an election year in the US. You know the drill: register as a voter, make your friends register too (maybe you can filter out the dumber ones), organize informed discussions about candidates and vote consciously.
A day on the beach can become a very regrettable experience if you let other people chose your representatives.
No.
I would love it because it would be different. Better at certain things (the Cell is a very respectable number-cruncher), worse at others (playing Windows games, perhaps), but would push the envelope in directions x86 processors won't because x86 machines are built, mainly, to run Windows.
There are a lot of very cool processors around, like the Octeon (8 MIPS cores) or the Niagara 2 or the Cell that would, certainly, end up being the cores of very interesting computers.
I would love to see a multi-core ARM 11 with lots of cache and a GPU-like appendage for heavy number-crunching. It would be low power, fast and could easily run most programs I use daily.
Laptops could be smaller, batteries could last longer. What people has done with the EeePC and the XO doesn't even scratch what could be done with non-x86 architectures.
And yes. I have outgrown Windows. Windows was cool back in the 90s, but Free Software allows us to experiment with computers in ways we couldn't since the late 70s and early 80s. That's why I am not going back.
This reminds me of a Mythbusters episode when they investigated how deadly a coin falling from the top of the Empire State Building would be to someone down on the street. They interviewed a lady that lives (or works) a couple dozen floors down, where most of the coins end up falling and she wondered what they had in mind - because they are either throwing money away for no reason or they are throwing it away because they are trying to get someone killed on the streets below.
"I suspect it is the norm everywhere that large companies are collaborating in some areas"
It's not even rare to see them cooperating in some areas while suing each other on other areas.
This is called business.
"You can't just compile an entire software catalog to PPC within a week"
You can recompile an entire software catalog for PPC. It's done routinely by the folks at almost all major Linux distros.
I would love a 100% windows-proof notebook.
Somehow I doubt the TI-89 costs more than $75 to build.
Actually, it's something between 92.3 and 98.7% depending on the day of the week.
Wrong.
I never mentioned "international freedom" or similar concept.
The point is this story is an US-centric one. BTW, I prefer "US" over "America" because there is a lot of America outside the US. This story is US-centric just like the one about Tata's new car is, for now, an India-centric one and many other stories are "nowhere-centric" as there is little or no geography involved if someone develops a new solar cell or if someone studies a Chinese dinosaur. There are many of US-centric stories just because a lot of the audience and editors live in the US. If audience demographics shift, so will the content. It's natural for a site like Slashdot.
Accept it.
Not at all.
My interesting computer collection shifted to the Unix workstation segment, but I would love to have any of those.
I think this internet thing mostly did away with that other thing of national borders and geography.
In the end, every article and every discussion here and on every other discussion-centric site has different demographics.
I use Ubuntu and I don't think of it as American, European or African.
For the rest of the world, it's interesting to note how the stranglehold of the telcos (due to probably insuficient consumer-protection laws) has held the US back in respect to mobile telephony.
"Since I have no demand for any of the higher phone features"
;-)
It sounds suspiciously like the folks who thought they didn't need a cellphone because they never had one before
I too didn't knew how nice is to have web browsing, high speed data connections or e-mail in my pocket until I had a phone with a full keyboard and a decent screen.
I, for one, would be delighted if I could figure out a way to put Android on them.
It's an excelent phone and it's perfect for that emergency SSH when your laptop batteries are dead, but the PDA side sucks incredibly.
That very old. My PS2 had an Emotion Engine (TM) years ago.
Erm... I think anyone who can do embedded systems can learn Java.
Not that Java is perfect - I don't even like it very much - but it does not suck as much as most people imply.
I didn't mean that the military should not be funded.
Anyway, the companies that developed the internet, wireless comm, GPS and medical advances are the ones it's OK to fund. It's fine to fund the military, but just as far as they don't invade anything. In that event, you start funding a lot of companies that make pretty little contributions to science and technology (some "innovative" interrogation techniques are not a meaningful contribution, after all), yet, still, those efforts are very expensive.
The unfortunate aspect of the present state of affairs is that, since less of their money does end in research and development (as opposed to, say, Lockheed's), more is left for political campaign contributions - as perverse an incentive as they can get.
"Maximising profits for shareholders" does indeed make it okay to break contracts, lie, cheat or steal, but only as long as you don't get caught.
Well... I am sure there are a lot of promotions and heavily discounted items after the holidays, but I never imagined the practice extended to space telescopes and launch services.
After you point the telescope to a nearby rocky planet, it's trivial to record and later analyze possible radio transmission.
Whatever you get by piggybacking an observation is, by definition, free.
The exhaust port problem can be fixed tomorrow, if money is no object.