Good news! We're merging with another company and embracing open source! Most of our stuff won't change, but we do need to point our business logic and web systems at their tables, in Postgre, and I also think most of the table relationships are similar but the table and field names are different. About half the data will be coming from a web service too.
[pause]
What do you mean we've hard coded all of the SQL table and field names and relationships directly into our business logic and web pages? What idiot assumed we'd never, ever change anything?
Or... We've grown to the point were all the connections are affecting our performance. We need to put some application servers into the mix.
Or... We need to provide web services to our customer database. We can just reference the existing objects, right? We don't need to recreate all that business logic, do we?
Bottom line. Your "no fuss, no muss" is simple and efficient... right up until it isn't.
BTW, that first example isn't made up. Of course, in our case, we just changed the data layer around a bit to feed the same objects the rest of the system depended upon.
This is backwards. Part of the problem, from my perspective, is that people DON'T want yet another special-purpose battery-powered device to lug around. I think they'll become available when Apple enables the iBook store and they're readable on the new 3x5" multiMediaPod. (books, music, audiobooks, videos on one device)
And to answer another question, I want them. I want to be able to lug my entire library in my back pocket. I move and travel constantly, and physical books are a pain...
"That coupled with a relatively small threat of being caught and sued..."
Bingo. There is no downside. People don't, however, tend to shoplift because of the security devices, cameras, guards, and the very real and immediate consequences of getting caught.
If the odds, and consequences, of getting caught downloading illegal material were equally high and equally significant, how many people do you think would continue to partake?
From the Freenet web site: "It is for this reason that Freenet, a system designed to protect Freedom of Speech, must prevent enforcement of copyright."
Of course, there's a major flaw in your reasoning. Yes, 99% of New Orleans survived. But only because of a major and ongoing support effort from outside of the affected region. What would be the death toll WITHOUT that effort, if everyone there had to fend for themself? No clean water, no food, no sanitation, no power, no medicine?
What happens in a major event, when there ARE no unaffected regions able to provide aid to those that are?
"More parts of our daily life are becoming wireless. It is in essence creating on big microwave oven on the surface of our planet."
Sheesh. That's got to be your own personal private pet theory.
Okay, let's put things into perspective. There's 96,000 TERAWATT/hours of solar energy hitting the surface of our planet each day. There's about 7 exajoules (1 EJ = 10^18 joules = 1000 PJ) of energy in the earth's magnetic field. An average of 700 nuclear particles per second hit each square metre of the Earth's surface.
Sounds good, but... you're say the transmission is from A to B to C, and B is snagging it for their own use.
However, if "B" is your home computer, as most in this case are, then 6GB of information is being routed to it through your ISP's network. They know you're not supposed to be a router in the middle of a route, AND they know you've received AND retransmitted 6GB of data, AND they have the ability to know you've done so using a non-standard set of protocols. (If the specified protocols didn't have their own signatures and weren't trackable the parent article would not exist.)
The only way to do what you're suggesting anonymously is to be at a point in the ISPs network where you could sniff packets you've arranged to be sent past your sniffer. Not something 99.999% of the population is able to do.
Great. Now instead of checking off a box in a dialog I need a 500 page reference manual to figure out what entry I need to add to what node to get the same result.
You're right. Some people never learn. Continued abuse of those protocols will simply give the industry the hammer they need to outlaw their use.
No matter how many times you encrypt a packet and sneak it around the net, at some point in time you, the recipient, have to actually receive it at your IP address. Request that 6GB Lost episode mentioned above, and you have to receive 6GB of data. That's a detectable pattern, especially large amounts of encrypted data hopping in from various unknown sources.
Use a "forbidden" P2P protocol, and your ISP can and will dump you; your school, should you use their net, expel you; and your employer, should you abuse theirs, fire you.
People would be far better off finding ways to create and use legitimate "material". But no, some people just have to prove they're "smarter" than everyone else, dispite all evidence to the contrary...
Your right, they should still install updates. In fact, they need to install an update that inadvertently opens up about 50 nasty eat-your-machine exploits on "dubious" copies of Windows. Then after the viruses kill 'em off, we no longer need to worry about those computers.
Not hard pressed at all. My quintessential comparison to HP, and during the same period, is Apple. They bit the bullet, kept their employees, and kept pouring dollars into R&D. End result? Over a 75% share of a major market with iTunes. World class OS. Best of class music player, the iPod. The best-selling Mac mini. Best of class video editor, Final Cut Pro.
As I said in a prior post a few days ago, there are many ways to maximize profit and shareholder value, and I suspect that after Enron and HP, I think that some boards will have to reconsider which of those ways are "best".
Ah, yes. The old Agatha Christie / Ansel Adams / Albert Einstein genuis-exception-is-the-rule argument. Fine. So show me your list of your own fifty or so top best-selling mysteries...
Don't have one? Huh. So you're not a prize-winning novelist with your own personal editor?
Now for something different. Tell me how many employers would love to get a college graduate these days with basic communication skills in their native language?
Sorry, but if you can't put a coherent paragraph together without automated assistance, then your ignorance is showing... badly.
"If they think they can get a $300 profit on a part even after their R&D costs, they'll do it in a heartbeat. And moreover, their shareholders would be howling for their blood..."
As has been mentioned, if one gets too greedy then they leave the door wide open for someone else (AMD) to come in and eat their lunch. One has to consider things like customer goodwill and retention in addition to current dollars and profits, so that there will be future dollars and profits. Shareholders ALSO tend to get pissed when companies kill off the golden goose.
And on a side note, I'd like to hear about the last salary increase you turned down...
Sorry, but with writing the word choice, order, syntax, and grammar IS the content.
If spelling and grammar are incorrect, then why should I assume that the content, as you put it, is free of error? If the writer thinks that some details are unimportant and not worthy of attention, then one has to wonder how many other little details in the "content" have been treated equally as well.
Bottom line, your data is worth saving and backing up... or it's not. If it's not worth an extra $200 drive or two for A/B offsite backups, then stop bitching when a single 500GB fails and you lose everything. It wasn't worth saving, remember?
"That said, there are STILL little details they can do to improve the device; enhance the texture of the scroll wheel so you can easily tell left/right and up down."
Perhaps it's just me, but I'd don't have that problem. The scroll wheel is, after all, offset on the bottom half of the unit. That tells me its orientation, even if I can't see it.
""EVERY major browser" renders pages differently because few of them actually follow the html standard...."
It would help your credibility if you actually seemed to know what you're talking about.
Specifically, the HTML "Standard" describes tags and markup and behaviours, but not the specific implementation.
Example: How many pixels of space follow a H1 tag? A P tag?
The "standard" medium font size is what? Large? Lists indent, but how far? Default padding around the outside of a frame is what? Around a table? Internal cell padding and spacing?
None of these implementation-specific values are specified in the "standard". As such, different vendors and platforms have choosen their own values, with the end result being that they each display the same exact html file differently, with different word and paragraph breaks.
And still discounts display errors, bugs, and differing feature sets...
It's an INTERVIEW with the system's author and he's giving his opinion. Which, come to think of it, is what one DOES in an interview, you know, ask someone what they think? Sheesh.
Slashdot Mirror
[pause]
What do you mean we've hard coded all of the SQL table and field names and relationships directly into our business logic and web pages? What idiot assumed we'd never, ever change anything?
Or... We've grown to the point were all the connections are affecting our performance. We need to put some application servers into the mix.
Or... We need to provide web services to our customer database. We can just reference the existing objects, right? We don't need to recreate all that business logic, do we?
Bottom line. Your "no fuss, no muss" is simple and efficient... right up until it isn't.
BTW, that first example isn't made up. Of course, in our case, we just changed the data layer around a bit to feed the same objects the rest of the system depended upon.
And to answer another question, I want them. I want to be able to lug my entire library in my back pocket. I move and travel constantly, and physical books are a pain...
Doesn't say much for the people who download it then, does it? Afer all, if it's so bad who could possibly want it?
Bingo. There is no downside. People don't, however, tend to shoplift because of the security devices, cameras, guards, and the very real and immediate consequences of getting caught.
If the odds, and consequences, of getting caught downloading illegal material were equally high and equally significant, how many people do you think would continue to partake?
That's the direction we're headed...
And people were ripping off copies of VHS movies left and right until MacroVision was developed and put into production. Then things settled down.
From the Freenet web site: "It is for this reason that Freenet, a system designed to protect Freedom of Speech, must prevent enforcement of copyright."
What happens in a major event, when there ARE no unaffected regions able to provide aid to those that are?
Sheesh. That's got to be your own personal private pet theory.
Okay, let's put things into perspective. There's 96,000 TERAWATT/hours of solar energy hitting the surface of our planet each day. There's about 7 exajoules (1 EJ = 10^18 joules = 1000 PJ) of energy in the earth's magnetic field. An average of 700 nuclear particles per second hit each square metre of the Earth's surface.
And you're worried about a cell phone tower?
However, if "B" is your home computer, as most in this case are, then 6GB of information is being routed to it through your ISP's network. They know you're not supposed to be a router in the middle of a route, AND they know you've received AND retransmitted 6GB of data, AND they have the ability to know you've done so using a non-standard set of protocols. (If the specified protocols didn't have their own signatures and weren't trackable the parent article would not exist.)
The only way to do what you're suggesting anonymously is to be at a point in the ISPs network where you could sniff packets you've arranged to be sent past your sniffer. Not something 99.999% of the population is able to do.
Then again, there's no technical reason why they could't choose a future AMD design once the software and systems are on x86.
At which point in time they would no longer be legal, so their use would be illegal. Follow the logic there bud? So yes, I'll call you...
Great. Now instead of checking off a box in a dialog I need a 500 page reference manual to figure out what entry I need to add to what node to get the same result.
No matter how many times you encrypt a packet and sneak it around the net, at some point in time you, the recipient, have to actually receive it at your IP address. Request that 6GB Lost episode mentioned above, and you have to receive 6GB of data. That's a detectable pattern, especially large amounts of encrypted data hopping in from various unknown sources.
Use a "forbidden" P2P protocol, and your ISP can and will dump you; your school, should you use their net, expel you; and your employer, should you abuse theirs, fire you.
People would be far better off finding ways to create and use legitimate "material". But no, some people just have to prove they're "smarter" than everyone else, dispite all evidence to the contrary...
One would think that using advanced Layer-7 technology, routers could be instructed to drop P2P packets relatively easily...
Your right, they should still install updates. In fact, they need to install an update that inadvertently opens up about 50 nasty eat-your-machine exploits on "dubious" copies of Windows. Then after the viruses kill 'em off, we no longer need to worry about those computers.
As I said in a prior post a few days ago, there are many ways to maximize profit and shareholder value, and I suspect that after Enron and HP, I think that some boards will have to reconsider which of those ways are "best".
Don't have one? Huh. So you're not a prize-winning novelist with your own personal editor?
Now for something different. Tell me how many employers would love to get a college graduate these days with basic communication skills in their native language?
Sorry, but if you can't put a coherent paragraph together without automated assistance, then your ignorance is showing... badly.
As has been mentioned, if one gets too greedy then they leave the door wide open for someone else (AMD) to come in and eat their lunch. One has to consider things like customer goodwill and retention in addition to current dollars and profits, so that there will be future dollars and profits. Shareholders ALSO tend to get pissed when companies kill off the golden goose.
And on a side note, I'd like to hear about the last salary increase you turned down...
If spelling and grammar are incorrect, then why should I assume that the content, as you put it, is free of error? If the writer thinks that some details are unimportant and not worthy of attention, then one has to wonder how many other little details in the "content" have been treated equally as well.
Bottom line, your data is worth saving and backing up... or it's not. If it's not worth an extra $200 drive or two for A/B offsite backups, then stop bitching when a single 500GB fails and you lose everything. It wasn't worth saving, remember?
Perhaps it's just me, but I'd don't have that problem. The scroll wheel is, after all, offset on the bottom half of the unit. That tells me its orientation, even if I can't see it.
Hrmm... $200 vs. still nothing (cause the software was ripped off by the I'm entitled to it crowd)
It would help your credibility if you actually seemed to know what you're talking about.
Specifically, the HTML "Standard" describes tags and markup and behaviours, but not the specific implementation.
Example: How many pixels of space follow a H1 tag? A P tag?
The "standard" medium font size is what? Large? Lists indent, but how far? Default padding around the outside of a frame is what? Around a table? Internal cell padding and spacing?
None of these implementation-specific values are specified in the "standard". As such, different vendors and platforms have choosen their own values, with the end result being that they each display the same exact html file differently, with different word and paragraph breaks.
And still discounts display errors, bugs, and differing feature sets...
Personally, I'd look at that as a consideration, but I wouldn't let something that stop me from using the best available tool for the job...
It's an INTERVIEW with the system's author and he's giving his opinion. Which, come to think of it, is what one DOES in an interview, you know, ask someone what they think? Sheesh.