First off, I never said anything about programmers. All types of jobs are being shipped overseas, try to think outside yourself for a minute. But you are correct, no one pays programmers $1. The average salary of a programmer in China is 20,700 yuan, which is about $2500. That's a whopping $6.85 cents a day, which is %500 above the average household income.
" You get what you pay for, in case you failed to understand that concept."
What you pay for is relative, in case you failed to understand that concept. You know how much a legit copy of Windows XP goes for in China? The same in the US. The difference is it's not costing me my whole years salary. So does that make a copy of XP worth more in China than here? Will they get a better price/performance ratio using Windows over Linux? No. "You get what you pay for" is a cliche, not a fact of life. It's also an icredibly poor argument to back your position with, as it completely negates your assertion that foreign programmers produce the same quality of work for cheaper, because "You get what you pay for."
"People aren't going to ship jobs overseas if they get shit back. Garbage in, Garbage out."
Kathie Lee Gifford's line of clothing did phenomenal in terms of a return on investment. It's hard not to make money when your manufacturing costs are nil. I can't speak for the actual quality of the clothing, but the pricing was competitive, and sales did well. That's ok though, because those little kids in the sweatshops weren't obligated to live in a third world nation, and that nation isn't obligated to see to the welfare of it's people. Hey, it's just the globalization of the economy. If your 9 year old can't pull the 12 hour days like little Hsu Chao over there, he should quit and find another profession. He's "obsolete" and "over-capatalized".
"It's not like we're outsourcing mundane jobs that don't require intelligence or education."
Mundane isn't indicative of a job that doesn't require intelligence or education. Programming is mundane. Aside from that, yes, we are indeed outsourcing jobs that require no education and very little intelligence. Entry-level tech support for Dell requires no experience, training is provided, and requires very little intelligence. While this article focused mainly on the IT sector, it's notable that jobs are being outsourced overseas in almost every industry.
You are correct in that we aren't shipping management jobs out, only the jobs of the people who know how to do the real work.
"Why are you obligated to buy those goods?"
This doesn't make sense. Why am I obligated to buy penecillin to treat pneumonia? Why am I obligated to buy my child food and diapers?
"You know, there is an entire collection of (misguided) people who will only buy American made goods."
I doubt anyone but perhaps the amish can buy "only American". My computer was "made in USA" with foreign parts. Given an option, however, it makes sense to buy American if the quality and price are equivalent.
"For more information, why do you think that the US is the only nation that is supporting that company? "
Because they are operating within the United States, which is the most lucrative market in the world. It is also a country "owned" by the people, not by the corporations and not by the government. Your argument that the US makes up for a small percentage of consumers is irrelevant and overly vague. People naturally "consume", so consumer percentage can be interpreted directly as population percentage. The US is, however, the best consumer source. We will pay more for products or services than people in most other developed countries, because we make more. If the US people stop buying goods at the prices they can afford now, the world suffers. Why bother selling a t-shirt for $1 to 50 chinese people when you can sell a t-shirt to 1 american for $50?
"You can go ahead an elect officials to make it too expe
"Here's how it breaks down: They are just as good as you, and work just as hard, for a fraction of what you want to get paid.
No. Here's how it breaks down: They aren't protected by labor laws and work twice as hard for a fraction of a fraction what I HAVE to get paid. We have minimum wage in this country to protect people from working for $1 a day, a majority of the countries being outsourced to don't.
"You are not obligated to live in the US. Companies are not obligated to hire US based employees. "
No, but I am obligated to pay an import tax on foreign products to protect the same companies that are shipping jobs offshore. If they can ship off jobs so cheap, I should be able to import goods/services just as cheap. Why is it that a coproration should enjoy protection that the people of the nation supporting it don't receive?
"If you don't like it, well, shut up because you can't change it. It's called economics, and even if you want something else to be true, it isn't going to happen."
That was a pretty stupid statement. Yes, we CAN do something about it. We can elect officials into office who support an export tax on offshore work. and It's not economics, it's politics. Why should they be able to sell my job to foreigners for cheap, when I can't buy their product from foreigners for cheap?
"Why do people continue to bitch about this? You are over-capitalized, and are obsolete. Find another profession."
Again.. stupid. So if Uganda starts instituting slavery, and forcing slaves to do tech support, all paid tech support around the world becomes over-capatalized and obsolete? Find another profession where?
I'm getting tired of this whole "This is good because it will improve global economy, so adapt or die." crowd.
This will NOT improve global economy, this will improve local economy of OTHER countries. Do you think India is going to stop taxing American imports just because a very, VERY small minority of the population is getting paid well by third world standards? Are they going to start outsourcing their jobs back into the US? I doubt it. So corporations make some money from cheap labor, because the country they outsourced to doesn't have labor laws, the outsourced country is only slightly better off, and we have Americans who can't find work to feed their own families. I fully admit I CAN'T compete with an 8 year old chinese boy in a sweatshop. I would never WANT to compete for that job, and no one should have to live with that kind of job, just to survive. If you want to rememdy the global economy, human rights MUST come first, as money is just a measurement of a human time.
Also, as an American, I have given my governemnt certain rights over me, so that they can work in good faith toward my best interest and the best interests of the American people, not so that they can make the world a better place. I could give less of a shit if my job supports an Indian Family who were previously impoverished, if now MY family is impoverished.
If employers are allowed to ship our jobs off to foreign countries with no penalty, rather than hire us to produce their product/service, then I should be able to ship in products and service from foreign nations without penalty or tarrif. So explain to me how it is a fair playing field when corporations can undercut salary expenses by shipping jobs to foreign countries, while still being protected from Industry in those foreign countries underselling the same product/service over here?
It also undercuts traditional American values. We are beggining to no longer be the land of oppurtunity. If Americans can't get jobs, aliens can't either. So instead of a bright, well trained Indian worker coming over here to have a high standard of living, he has to stay in his home country, getting paid next to nothing and still living in third world conditions.
And to all the +5 Informatives spouting "Americans think just because they are American and have an education they have the right to a high standard of living and a decent job.", all I have to say is, You are god damn right we do. My father, grandfather, great grandfather, etc.. fought to give me that right, and I would fight to give my kids the same right. Why should I have to lower my standard of living so others can raise theirs? It's not like we've always been on top in the global economy, we made it there, and we made it there for ourselves, not for others, although we are gracious in letting others join in. Why should we sacrafice our high standard of living instead of foreigners sacraficing their nationality? If you want what we got, then you can come to America, but America should NEVER come to you.
I know, I know, I'm rambling in my digression. I do tend to get upset when I see non-Americans blaming the US for whatever is wrong with their countries. (ie. chinese bitching about US tax imports instead of 0 chinese labor laws).
I see a few -1 Flaimbaits coming, but oh well, this is how I feel:)
You can download ES from RedHat's site after you've paid it. You can get the same RedHat minus the Orcale and clustering from any of RedHat's mirrors, just without support, and only a year of updates
Provided you have all the hardware you'll already need, $2.4m shold be plenty to make the switch, and then some. Most of the cost involved is going to be terms of man hours. with 2.4m you could have a full team of high paid uberleet linux guru's working around the clock for a year, and about 8 of those can become full on admins with the supplementary income. $2.4 million is ALOT of money when you're talking about using it in order to make the MS->open source switch. If you're talking about it in terms of being a bribe to switch to Linux, then it's probably not cost effective.
On wether you should:
I think this is a bad idea. Not switching the college over to Linux, but the blanket ban on M$ products. I think you could get away with having a weekend training course on learning the concepts of M$, but not a total ban. Like it or not, M$ is out there in "the real world", and while anyone who understands the concepts of computing can use Windows, the whole GUI experience can some time to get comforatable in. I'm am 100% pro-linux and anti-M$, but I am damn glad I know both well. This consistantly gives me quite an edge over most of the competition out there, not to mention makes my job a whole lot easier.
So I don't think you should take this bribe, from whoever it is. I do think you should seriously look into at the very least integrating Linux into your network, even if it's at your own cost.
I'm sure their backbone isn't 100Mpbs, but the rates are very competitive, and the restrictions are no worse than most cable or DSL plans. This would be more than worth making an ISP switch if I can play quake with my friends across town on a 100Mps connection. $3.00 per extra gig seems a tad pricey though...
" Yeah, well that'll work for all sites except ones with dynamic content"
It seems you misunderstand the nature of dynamic content. Dynamic content comes from SSI languages and database backends. The content is derived from static code, such as a PHP script. The PHP script doesn't change, only the values it displays.
Don't want your web site defaced? Stick it on a CD and serve it from there. I know this isn't always feasible, but 99% of the time it is. Of course, this won't protect you from a rooting, as they can simply change the web directory to serve the defaced html. This is still a bit easier to remedy than having your customers files wiped out and having to notify them to re upload their webpage, as "hacked by chinese" doesn't seem to sell products/services well.
As far as securing Apache itself, don't load modules you don't need, and keep it patched. That's about all you'll need to do to shun a majority of exploits. There's plenty of other security hardening modes and methods for Apache out there, Google them up and you'll probably get more than out of this book.
Portage is thegreatest package management system IMHO. It's exactly what I always wanted, a powerful version of ports for Linux. Also, running an optimized distro is worth the extra effort it takes to build from a stage 1. All my Gentoo boxes outperform equivalent boxes with binary distros. I can definately see Gentoo becoming a big player in the Linux industry. If they make the install more user friendly, perhaps make some consolidated management tools, Gentoo could easily switch from being an "elitist" distro to a "newbie" distro, because portage really is that easy.
Mandrake has an excellent tool for handling rpm dependencies called urpmi (Universal RPM Insatller). I guess RedHat has their reasons for rpm being how it is, but remember, there's all sorts of package managers out there. That's why I like gentoo. emerge appname.. it doesnloads and compiles the source and all dependancies for you, optimized for you architecture.
I had a friend who got the Linux kit for his PS2, instead of buying a walmart PC. I was skeptical of it at first, especially since he knew nothing about Linux or computers in general, and was looking for this to be a cheap first PC (I had a hard time explaining how it wasn't really a PC). I did have to walk him through the install a little, but as soon as he had a desktop he was using it as well as many Windows user's use their desktops. He's since moved on to a real Linux PC as well, as well as moved away from the RedHat based Kondora Linux(that's what the Sony Linux distro is based on) but he still uses Linux on that machine as a desktop.
The PS2 Linux kit isn't for everybody, but it's not JUST for developers either. If you think you would like it or could use it, then it's probably for you. If you can't think of why anyone would want to Linux on their PS2, then it's probably just not for you.
I'm telling you man, it's the printer of the future! You don't have to replace ink! It tells you when your printing has start, and finished through an excellent system of horrible screeching! You can buy a box of paper and never have to reload a tray! Plus, you get alot of extra strips of paper with the perforated tracks, which you can use to make nests for some of the local fauna!
"Additionally, if a DNA computer gets a virus, could it spread to humans?"
This is kinda funny and kinda interesting at the same time. It's really amazing how the two types of virii parallell each other. Let's look how a typical biological virus works.
A protein coated DNA sequence infects a host. It then injects DNA code into an existing cells DNA, so that the cell then becomes a propigator of the virii.
And with a normal computer virus
A tiny bit of malicious code infects a host. It then injects its code into other executables, so that the new file becomes a propigation point for other virii.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to biological\technological parallels.
Agreed! Toughbooks rock! I've deployed toughbooks in two extremem weather situations that no other computer had been able to survive for any length to speak of. They were both drilling sites, one was in the middle of a large area of sandhills. The sand takes out computers pretty good, after about a month of eeven limited exposure. The other situation was at an off-shore drilling site where the salty sea air rusts computers to literally peices in a matter of weeks or months.
Last I heard, all deployed toughbooks were still in circulation at these sites.
I think this is a very good thing for tech support in general. I remember working tech-support for dell when I was 16. My second day I had a lady call in who's HDD had crashed and she lost basically her life's work. It should have been a simple diagnosis, her system was still warrantied, she'd get a new HDD the next day.
She was freaking out though, crying so loud between words I couldn't hardly make out anything she said. She was having spasmatic asthma attacks from crying so hard. She was crying out to God to please help her and not let this happen. This was truly a woman at the depths of despair.
And I a novice 16 year old geek on the other end, completely unprepared to handle anything like this. I was trying so hard to console her I couldn't even do a proper diagnosis. I ran to get my boss, who talked to her for a minute before he went to get a lady who used to be a school counselor.
She talked her down enough to get some sensible information from her, and we were able to diagnose her problem instantly.
She had left a non-bootable disk in the floppy drive.
"operating system: An integrated collection of routines that service the sequencing and processing of programs by a computer. Note: An operating system may provide many services, such as resource allocation, scheduling, input/output control, and data management. Although operating systems are predominantly software, partial or complete hardware implementations may be made in the form of firmware. (188)"
That's one of the definitions I've found that support my definition of an OS:) Basically I've always understood the OS to be the "main program" that controls most of the basic functions of hardware, and provides hooks for software to use the hardware.
I'd disagree with you on which would be considered which by which group:) It seems to me that Windows users usually don't consider the kernel the OS, but the GNU utilities + the kernel is the OS. Most Unix folks (as you said smarter and generally better qaulified to judge:)) would say that that the kernel IS the OS, and everything else is software. This is the school of thought I come from, at least.
Windows just has an easy job of passing itself off as one whole OS, being the only package, but it's really just "the kernel + the window manager + some crappy apps", as you said. Sorta like how win 3.1 was a window manager for MS-DOS, which was basically just command.com.
Like I said, most of it comes down to people misinterpreting Linux and GNU/Linux and OSS's in general. Add this in with M$ twisting industry terminology into what it wants and you have a recipe for disaster:)
I thought M$ admitted that they couldn't compete with the Linux's TCO? They switched the page claiming a lower cost with a page outlining the benefits of windows over linux.
You're analogy is flawed in that Mac architecture isn't much better or faster than x86.
You're second point is also flawed. Mac OSX doesn't compete with Windows or Linux. The only way to get Mac OSX is to buy or have mac hardware. Apple only competes in architecture. As long as x86 dominates the market, and OSX is confined to macs, OSX can never compete against Windows or Linux. Again, they can only compete for hardware marketshare.
Actually, the Linux kernel is itself the OS. You don't need init scripts, they're just really useful. Same with all of the non-core gnu utilities. I understand what you were saying as far as the full operating system, but as far as Linux goes, the kernel IS the OS. That's all Linux is really,.. a kernel. It's really just imprecise usage of Linux.
Directory layout and file placement should generally be POSIX compliant, but The details of init's processes and file layout are distro dependant, though. RedHat 7.3 will be the same with every install of RedHat 7.3. Mac OS X is a BSD distro. BSD ditros can vary as widely Linux, so it's really not fair to say Mac OS X is any more consolidated than any other distro.
The apartments I live in are inhabited by a bunch of broke ass young adults such as myself. Me and 7 or 8 of my geek friends in this all pitch in on a leased line and then operate a WiFi hotspot for anyone in the apartment to use.
The problem we run into most is still the cost of the hardware. For people who don't make alot of money, getting started can really take some sacrafice.
Slashdot Mirror
"Nobody pays programmers $1."
First off, I never said anything about programmers. All types of jobs are being shipped overseas, try to think outside yourself for a minute. But you are correct, no one pays programmers $1. The average salary of a programmer in China is 20,700 yuan, which is about $2500. That's a whopping $6.85 cents a day, which is %500 above the average household income.
" You get what you pay for, in case you failed to understand that concept."
What you pay for is relative, in case you failed to understand that concept. You know how much a legit copy of Windows XP goes for in China? The same in the US. The difference is it's not costing me my whole years salary. So does that make a copy of XP worth more in China than here? Will they get a better price/performance ratio using Windows over Linux? No. "You get what you pay for" is a cliche, not a fact of life. It's also an icredibly poor argument to back your position with, as it completely negates your assertion that foreign programmers produce the same quality of work for cheaper, because "You get what you pay for."
"People aren't going to ship jobs overseas if they get shit back. Garbage in, Garbage out."
Kathie Lee Gifford's line of clothing did phenomenal in terms of a return on investment. It's hard not to make money when your manufacturing costs are nil. I can't speak for the actual quality of the clothing, but the pricing was competitive, and sales did well.
That's ok though, because those little kids in the sweatshops weren't obligated to live in a third world nation, and that nation isn't obligated to see to the welfare of it's people. Hey, it's just the globalization of the economy. If your 9 year old can't pull the 12 hour days like little Hsu Chao over there, he should quit and find another profession. He's "obsolete" and "over-capatalized".
"It's not like we're outsourcing mundane jobs that don't require intelligence or education."
Mundane isn't indicative of a job that doesn't require intelligence or education. Programming is mundane. Aside from that, yes, we are indeed outsourcing jobs that require no education and very little intelligence. Entry-level tech support for Dell requires no experience, training is provided, and requires very little intelligence. While this article focused mainly on the IT sector, it's notable that jobs are being outsourced overseas in almost every industry.
You are correct in that we aren't shipping management jobs out, only the jobs of the people who know how to do the real work.
"Why are you obligated to buy those goods?"
This doesn't make sense. Why am I obligated to buy penecillin to treat pneumonia? Why am I obligated to buy my child food and diapers?
"You know, there is an entire collection of (misguided) people who will only buy American made goods."
I doubt anyone but perhaps the amish can buy "only American". My computer was "made in USA" with foreign parts. Given an option, however, it makes sense to buy American if the quality and price are equivalent.
"For more information, why do you think that the US is the only nation that is supporting that company? "
Because they are operating within the United States, which is the most lucrative market in the world. It is also a country "owned" by the people, not by the corporations and not by the government. Your argument that the US makes up for a small percentage of consumers is irrelevant and overly vague. People naturally "consume", so consumer percentage can be interpreted directly as population percentage. The US is, however, the best consumer source. We will pay more for products or services than people in most other developed countries, because we make more. If the US people stop buying goods at the prices they can afford now, the world suffers. Why bother selling a t-shirt for $1 to 50 chinese people when you can sell a t-shirt to 1 american for $50?
"You can go ahead an elect officials to make it too expe
"Here's how it breaks down: They are just as good as you, and work just as hard, for a fraction of what you want to get paid.
No. Here's how it breaks down: They aren't protected by labor laws and work twice as hard for a fraction of a fraction what I HAVE to get paid. We have minimum wage in this country to protect people from working for $1 a day, a majority of the countries being outsourced to don't.
"You are not obligated to live in the US. Companies are not obligated to hire US based employees. "
No, but I am obligated to pay an import tax on foreign products to protect the same companies that are shipping jobs offshore. If they can ship off jobs so cheap, I should be able to import goods/services just as cheap. Why is it that a coproration should enjoy protection that the people of the nation supporting it don't receive?
"If you don't like it, well, shut up because you can't change it. It's called economics, and even if you want something else to be true, it isn't going to happen."
That was a pretty stupid statement. Yes, we CAN do something about it. We can elect officials into office who support an export tax on offshore work. and It's not economics, it's politics. Why should they be able to sell my job to foreigners for cheap, when I can't buy their product from foreigners for cheap?
"Why do people continue to bitch about this? You are over-capitalized, and are obsolete. Find another profession."
Again.. stupid. So if Uganda starts instituting slavery, and forcing slaves to do tech support, all paid tech support around the world becomes over-capatalized and obsolete? Find another profession where?
I'm getting tired of this whole "This is good because it will improve global economy, so adapt or die." crowd.
:)
This will NOT improve global economy, this will improve local economy of OTHER countries. Do you think India is going to stop taxing American imports just because a very, VERY small minority of the population is getting paid well by third world standards? Are they going to start outsourcing their jobs back into the US? I doubt it. So corporations make some money from cheap labor, because the country they outsourced to doesn't have labor laws, the outsourced country is only slightly better off, and we have Americans who can't find work to feed their own families. I fully admit I CAN'T compete with an 8 year old chinese boy in a sweatshop. I would never WANT to compete for that job, and no one should have to live with that kind of job, just to survive. If you want to rememdy the global economy, human rights MUST come first, as money is just a measurement of a human time.
Also, as an American, I have given my governemnt certain rights over me, so that they can work in good faith toward my best interest and the best interests of the American people, not so that they can make the world a better place. I could give less of a shit if my job supports an Indian Family who were previously impoverished, if now MY family is impoverished.
If employers are allowed to ship our jobs off to foreign countries with no penalty, rather than hire us to produce their product/service, then I should be able to ship in products and service from foreign nations without penalty or tarrif.
So explain to me how it is a fair playing field when corporations can undercut salary expenses by shipping jobs to foreign countries, while still being protected from Industry in those foreign countries underselling the same product/service over here?
It also undercuts traditional American values. We are beggining to no longer be the land of oppurtunity. If Americans can't get jobs, aliens can't either. So instead of a bright, well trained Indian worker coming over here to have a high standard of living, he has to stay in his home country, getting paid next to nothing and still living in third world conditions.
And to all the +5 Informatives spouting "Americans think just because they are American and have an education they have the right to a high standard of living and a decent job.", all I have to say is, You are god damn right we do. My father, grandfather, great grandfather, etc.. fought to give me that right, and I would fight to give my kids the same right. Why should I have to lower my standard of living so others can raise theirs? It's not like we've always been on top in the global economy, we made it there, and we made it there for ourselves, not for others, although we are gracious in letting others join in. Why should we sacrafice our high standard of living instead of foreigners sacraficing their nationality? If you want what we got, then you can come to America, but America should NEVER come to you.
I know, I know, I'm rambling in my digression. I do tend to get upset when I see non-Americans blaming the US for whatever is wrong with their countries. (ie. chinese bitching about US tax imports instead of 0 chinese labor laws).
I see a few -1 Flaimbaits coming, but oh well, this is how I feel
You can download ES from RedHat's site after you've paid it. You can get the same RedHat minus the Orcale and clustering from any of RedHat's mirrors, just without support, and only a year of updates
Soon we'll be more hippocampus than human.
On wethere you can:
Provided you have all the hardware you'll already need, $2.4m shold be plenty to make the switch, and then some. Most of the cost involved is going to be terms of man hours. with 2.4m you could have a full team of high paid uberleet linux guru's working around the clock for a year, and about 8 of those can become full on admins with the supplementary income. $2.4 million is ALOT of money when you're talking about using it in order to make the MS->open source switch. If you're talking about it in terms of being a bribe to switch to Linux, then it's probably not cost effective.
On wether you should:
I think this is a bad idea. Not switching the college over to Linux, but the blanket ban on M$ products. I think you could get away with having a weekend training course on learning the concepts of M$, but not a total ban. Like it or not, M$ is out there in "the real world", and while anyone who understands the concepts of computing can use Windows, the whole GUI experience can some time to get comforatable in. I'm am 100% pro-linux and anti-M$, but I am damn glad I know both well. This consistantly gives me quite an edge over most of the competition out there, not to mention makes my job a whole lot easier.
So I don't think you should take this bribe, from whoever it is. I do think you should seriously look into at the very least integrating Linux into your network, even if it's at your own cost.
I'm sure their backbone isn't 100Mpbs, but the rates are very competitive, and the restrictions are no worse than most cable or DSL plans. This would be more than worth making an ISP switch if I can play quake with my friends across town on a 100Mps connection. $3.00 per extra gig seems a tad pricey though...
Publicfile serves it's purposes well, and apart from being secure has a really light footprint, but it is not a replacement for apache.
" Yeah, well that'll work for all sites except ones with dynamic content"
It seems you misunderstand the nature of dynamic content. Dynamic content comes from SSI languages and database backends. The content is derived from static code, such as a PHP script. The PHP script doesn't change, only the values it displays.
Don't want your web site defaced? Stick it on a CD and serve it from there. I know this isn't always feasible, but 99% of the time it is. Of course, this won't protect you from a rooting, as they can simply change the web directory to serve the defaced html. This is still a bit easier to remedy than having your customers files wiped out and having to notify them to re upload their webpage, as "hacked by chinese" doesn't seem to sell products/services well.
As far as securing Apache itself, don't load modules you don't need, and keep it patched. That's about all you'll need to do to shun a majority of exploits. There's plenty of other security hardening modes and methods for Apache out there, Google them up and you'll probably get more than out of this book.
Portage is thegreatest package management system IMHO. It's exactly what I always wanted, a powerful version of ports for Linux. Also, running an optimized distro is worth the extra effort it takes to build from a stage 1. All my Gentoo boxes outperform equivalent boxes with binary distros. I can definately see Gentoo becoming a big player in the Linux industry. If they make the install more user friendly, perhaps make some consolidated management tools, Gentoo could easily switch from being an "elitist" distro to a "newbie" distro, because portage really is that easy.
Mandrake has an excellent tool for handling rpm dependencies called urpmi (Universal RPM Insatller). I guess RedHat has their reasons for rpm being how it is, but remember, there's all sorts of package managers out there. That's why I like gentoo. emerge appname.. it doesnloads and compiles the source and all dependancies for you, optimized for you architecture.
Come to Texas, now where's my apple?
I had a friend who got the Linux kit for his PS2, instead of buying a walmart PC. I was skeptical of it at first, especially since he knew nothing about Linux or computers in general, and was looking for this to be a cheap first PC (I had a hard time explaining how it wasn't really a PC). I did have to walk him through the install a little, but as soon as he had a desktop he was using it as well as many Windows user's use their desktops. He's since moved on to a real Linux PC as well, as well as moved away from the RedHat based Kondora Linux(that's what the Sony Linux distro is based on) but he still uses Linux on that machine as a desktop.
The PS2 Linux kit isn't for everybody, but it's not JUST for developers either. If you think you would like it or could use it, then it's probably for you. If you can't think of why anyone would want to Linux on their PS2, then it's probably just not for you.
Those were fun... remapping all keys to delete fun files, and then mapping the backspace key as enter :)
Worked quite often...
I'm telling you man, it's the printer of the future! You don't have to replace ink! It tells you when your printing has start, and finished through an excellent system of horrible screeching! You can buy a box of paper and never have to reload a tray! Plus, you get alot of extra strips of paper with the perforated tracks, which you can use to make nests for some of the local fauna!
"Additionally, if a DNA computer gets a virus, could it spread to humans?"
This is kinda funny and kinda interesting at the same time. It's really amazing how the two types of virii parallell each other. Let's look how a typical biological virus works.
A protein coated DNA sequence infects a host. It then injects DNA code into an existing cells DNA, so that the cell then becomes a propigator of the virii.
And with a normal computer virus
A tiny bit of malicious code infects a host. It then injects its code into other executables, so that the new file becomes a propigation point for other virii.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to biological\technological parallels.
Agreed! Toughbooks rock! I've deployed toughbooks in two extremem weather situations that no other computer had been able to survive for any length to speak of. They were both drilling sites, one was in the middle of a large area of sandhills. The sand takes out computers pretty good, after about a month of eeven limited exposure. The other situation was at an off-shore drilling site where the salty sea air rusts computers to literally peices in a matter of weeks or months.
Last I heard, all deployed toughbooks were still in circulation at these sites.
I think this is a very good thing for tech support in general. I remember working tech-support for dell when I was 16. My second day I had a lady call in who's HDD had crashed and she lost basically her life's work. It should have been a simple diagnosis, her system was still warrantied, she'd get a new HDD the next day.
She was freaking out though, crying so loud between words I couldn't hardly make out anything she said. She was having spasmatic asthma attacks from crying so hard. She was crying out to God to please help her and not let this happen. This was truly a woman at the depths of despair.
And I a novice 16 year old geek on the other end, completely unprepared to handle anything like this. I was trying so hard to console her I couldn't even do a proper diagnosis. I ran to get my boss, who talked to her for a minute before he went to get a lady who used to be a school counselor.
She talked her down enough to get some sensible information from her, and we were able to diagnose her problem instantly.
She had left a non-bootable disk in the floppy drive.
"operating system: An integrated collection of routines that service the sequencing and processing of programs by a computer. Note: An operating system may provide many services, such as resource allocation, scheduling, input/output control, and data management. Although operating systems are predominantly software, partial or complete hardware implementations may be made in the form of firmware. (188)"
:) Basically I've always understood the OS to be the "main program" that controls most of the basic functions of hardware, and provides hooks for software to use the hardware.
:) It seems to me that Windows users usually don't consider the kernel the OS, but the GNU utilities + the kernel is the OS. Most Unix folks (as you said smarter and generally better qaulified to judge :)) would say that that the kernel IS the OS, and everything else is software. This is the school of thought I come from, at least.
:)
That's one of the definitions I've found that support my definition of an OS
I'd disagree with you on which would be considered which by which group
Windows just has an easy job of passing itself off as one whole OS, being the only package, but it's really just "the kernel + the window manager + some crappy apps", as you said. Sorta like how win 3.1 was a window manager for MS-DOS, which was basically just command.com.
Like I said, most of it comes down to people misinterpreting Linux and GNU/Linux and OSS's in general. Add this in with M$ twisting industry terminology into what it wants and you have a recipe for disaster
I thought M$ admitted that they couldn't compete with the Linux's TCO? They switched the page claiming a lower cost with a page outlining the benefits of windows over linux.
You're analogy is flawed in that Mac architecture isn't much better or faster than x86.
You're second point is also flawed. Mac OSX doesn't compete with Windows or Linux. The only way to get Mac OSX is to buy or have mac hardware. Apple only competes in architecture. As long as x86 dominates the market, and OSX is confined to macs, OSX can never compete against Windows or Linux. Again, they can only compete for hardware marketshare.
Actually, the Linux kernel is itself the OS. You don't need init scripts, they're just really useful. Same with all of the non-core gnu utilities. I understand what you were saying as far as the full operating system, but as far as Linux goes, the kernel IS the OS. That's all Linux is really,.. a kernel. It's really just imprecise usage of Linux.
Directory layout and file placement should generally be POSIX compliant, but The details of init's processes and file layout are distro dependant, though. RedHat 7.3 will be the same with every install of RedHat 7.3. Mac OS X is a BSD distro. BSD ditros can vary as widely Linux, so it's really not fair to say Mac OS X is any more consolidated than any other distro.
The apartments I live in are inhabited by a bunch of broke ass young adults such as myself. Me and 7 or 8 of my geek friends in this all pitch in on a leased line and then operate a WiFi hotspot for anyone in the apartment to use.
The problem we run into most is still the cost of the hardware. For people who don't make alot of money, getting started can really take some sacrafice.
Expressing your opinion is one thing, but using it in leiu of factual arguments for your case is quite another.