All manufacturers love clients who buy "potential." Check the price structures, you can usually buy two small boxes now for the price of one box twice as big. If you buy a box and consider doubling the size 18 months later it will probably cheaper to buy a new box twice as fast. If the box has space for 24 CPUs, get 24 CPUs, if you don't need 24 CPUs get the next lower model...
I've seen disks swapped (and I've swapped a number, old 9GB disks for O/S, new 144 GB disk for data files), but I've very rarely seen CPUs or RAM purchased for a server. Come to think of it I'm a sysadmin and I've very rarely seen a box pushed to its limits (CPUs, yes, RAM for a JVM, yes, disks, yes, whole boxen, only when someone does something bad). Most companies overbuy (the others get slashdotted).
It's already banned by PC IT in my company. Got "do not install" e-mails and warnings about MS marketing the patch.
Considering the various problems with 2000 and NT service packs I'd hold off (OK, the first few NT packs were basically new versions, but the 6/6a thing was ugly).
Street signs are generally pictorial. There was a nut on the fringe who said he was going to go through signs that say "stop," even though stop is a French word, but generally safety over language.
For that matter I think it is legal to have other languages on signs as long as French "predominates." I don't know how much the laws are enforced by now (used to be serious). They have a bureau to report language law violations, and the number of complaints is fairly high (a few hundred/month or year or something), but the number of complainants is pretty steady, same 5 or 6 guys. It's not a dead issue, but most people are content with the current situation.
On the other hand traditions, history, and notions of politeness tend to vary by country. Countries have different laws (like pseudolegal drugs in Holland that also impact culture), and different expectations. Some of these traditions, laws, and so forth lead to generalizations and stereotypes some of which are correct and some that are not. This is quite different from racial stereotyping which tends to be meaningless as shared genes don't appear to have a whole lot of impact on intelligence, personality, behavior etc.
I think there is a distinction in there, but I guess it is a pretty fine one. Stereotype only in ways that won't piss people off?
Quebec language laws vary between emotional reaction to finally not being treated as second class citizens by other Quebeckers, and an attempt to keep the culture looking strong. Most language protection in Quebec has been of the foot-shooting variety (translated movies trash the local industry now that translation is mandated, French speakers can no longer have their kids learn English or other languages at school, while the provincial premirer sends his kids to boarding school in England), but some of it (requiring French instruction manuals, street signs, even store signs) makes a lot of sense.
Quebecers were a persecuted minority for a few centuries (some think they still are, I would disagree) and you have to expect payback to go a little far. Compared to most colonized areas (India, South and Central America, Africa, Caribean etc.) Quebec is doing just fine. I was happy to live their as an English-speaker (though I speak reasonable French) and I expect to go back soon. It takes a few generations (at least) to get over being mistreated by another culture (not to mention the catholic church which has dropped way down in Quebec priorities).
I went to Paris a couple of years ago, and expected rudeness. Everyone I met was friendly and excessively polite, but then I spoke French to them. From what I saw the rudeness came not with language, but with long-windedness. Most people I spoke to wanted to be able to FINISH THEIR SENTENCES and when tourists cut them off in mid word and asked something else the Parisian got testy. Language is taken seriously in Paris. People try to not only say what they have to say, but to say it in an interesting way, and they don't like being cut off after three words.
Waiters and other service employees tend to expect some respect, too. Serious hierarchical stuff within companies, but not with the public.
Not very often, and mainly to older people (younger people get priority). At least people don't die of lack of funds.
I had knee surgery last summer, and I had the option of surgery the night I was injured (4 hour wait) from a guy who specialized in back surgery, but decided to wait and ended up having surgery a couple of weeks later from a guy who works with pro atheletes. The wait for transplants and some specialized surgeries is bad because of a shortage of specialists, most stuff gets done quick.
I used a lot of health care this year (highly unusual) got some tests, my wife had a kid. I was very impressed by the quality of care, and even though I was unemployed at the time, I paid nothing. No deductable, no fees, no booking, nothing.
OK, I'm glad to be back working with insurance for the dentist and prescriptions, but what do you do in the US if you're out of work and you hurt yourself? You blow your savings and go on medicaid.
And insurance only pays 80-90% of fees, and only for a while. Canadians leave the hospital feeless. No bankruptcies due to illness. No tests refused due to cost (you may wait, but you will get treated), and no one gets turned away until they are an emergency case.
US insurance is subsidised by the government who pay once the insurance company won't pony up any more and the insured is out of money. Lots more money is lost to lawyers in the US than in Canada.
Summary: Canada may spend more per capita than it would take to insure every Canadian with a US insurance company, but Canada still spends less than the US per capita on health care, and covers everyone all the time. OK, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and insurance companies don't profit quite as obscenely as their US equivalents, but patients come out ahead overall.
Try William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Mikhail Bulgakov (I think "The Master and Margarita" qualifies as sci-fi, and it's amazing, ask literally any Russian, if they've read at all they will have read it, and I haven't met anyone who hasn't liked it), Douglas Adams, Stephen Donaldson (OK, he tends to try real hard to make his stuff really unpleasant but his prose is great, "Daughter of Regals is a little more positive), Michael Crichton (hit or miss on the plots, but his better stuff is well written), Clifford Simak (a lot of his books repeat similar stuff, but it's good considering how long ago it was written), Edgar Allen Poe, HG Wells...
Avoid Asimov, Heinlein, Forward, and most other authors of the same generation if prose quality is a concern. Not that their books are that bad overall, but their level of written english is pretty low.
I'm bad about this, I would read junk mail from some of the suggested authors for the prose. I have not read quite a number of great books, sci-fi and classics, because I can't deal with the prose (especially that "dear reader" stuff from way back).
Pisses me off with some authors, too. James Joyce wrote beautiful prose when he cared to, but spent so much time being clever that not much of what he published is beautifully written. Brilliantly written, yes, but not beautiful, and not intended to be.
The temptation would be greater for Gandalf or Galadriel, as they have the power to use the ring to reorder middle earth as they see fit. The hobbits have no power, and are less affected. Boromir, or Aragorn might become greater leaders with the Ring, but they would also be corrupted as the nine (all powerful kings) were.
Gandalf fears the ring because he knows that he would be able to use it to do what he thinks is right, trampling over the rights of individuals in the process. Boromir wants the ring because he thinks it will bring him power. Frodo is resistant to the ring because he does not seek to dominate others, and also because he realizes that he is too weak to do so. There is never any question of Frodo or Bilbo bending the ring to their will and gaining power over others.
The problem is that the most patriotic people are often the most willing to give up freedom for nothing. Persecuting people for insufficient patriotism (like McCarthy, and now Bush) is only done to limit freedom and grab power.
I read it. He lost the first election, but his thugs did a good job of identifying and intimidating people who voted against him, and he did a good job of forming coalitions and duping other powerful and influential people. Germany was not a true democracy in the '30s anyway (political parties had street armies for one thing).
Sun hardware can do linux and Solaris, at least. Even midrange Sun hardware (4800-6800, and smaller systems going forward) can be split into virtual independent systems.
I've worked with HP-UX, and the new hardware seems way better than their old crap (though it's hot and power hungry), but I don't like the O/S much. Too geared to their buggy sysadmin gui, and too flaky in the way it stores patches. I have repeatedly seen HP-UX boxes die to the point of tape recovery during patch installs, I've never seen a Sun die on patching, or reach as unrecoverable a software state for any reason.
HP support is really, really, bad compared to Sun, as well. The Sun guys know what they are doing fix hardware, and offer advice on software stuff. The HP guys have trouble with the hardware and flee if you ask about software (and no, I'm not just talking about one or two techs, it's a pattern).
I don't think HP knows where it is going in hardware or O/S, either. They've changed their minds a few times in the last few years. Intel, PA-RISC, HP-UX, Linux...
And I think that it contributed to the quality of the narrative that it was not accessible. I liked Snow Crash, but I thought Neuromancer was special, in part because it is not "accessible." There is nothing terribly complicated about the narrative, people don't get through it because they don't think (and not because they can't think) about the story as they read it.
Product of modern media, I guess. Films, as an example, repeat everything so many times to make sure everyone gets it that the plotlines are boring just due to repetition. A number of movies (eg Enemy of the State) are more fun if you miss the first half hour and only hear the stuff once.
Exactly why Neuromancer was great, and better than the others in the series. No concessions. No dumb narrator everything has to be explained to, no long explanations, just enough background to give a clear picture if you actually read it.
I like Stephenson's stuff, and Gibson's other books (and Sterling's), but Neuromancer is better because it was not written for the masses, it was written for people who would read and think. Beautiful book, and sort of like Douglas Adams' later stuff, most people say "I didn't get that one, but I liked X (where X is one of his other books that sold better)."
This is not elitism, either, it's not a matter of intelligence it's a matter of liking the stuff enough to dig a little.
I think the problem was support, not physical distribution. Less and less people are buying boxes, and they need more and more support.
I never saw U of T stuck with excess Red Hat boxes. They would run out a week or two after shipment and need to order more. They would usually have no boxed distros for a couple of months before a release.
Don't know what they have now. I can't imagine people buying when you can download in a few hours.
I can remember buying distros back when downloads were slow (1996 or so), and the University of Toronto book store had Red Hat boxes stacked all over the place. They were all gone in a couple of weeks, too. Of course there were only so many stores that got boxes in any volume, but still, thousands of units (they were seriously piled up when they came in) in a couple of weeks.
Of course they probably don't sell any retail boxes now. The few students who don't have broadband (networked dorms) probably get copies from those who do. Good revenue stream while it lasted.
The first season of South Park was classic. The creators had lots of time to work on it, lots of stuff they wanted to do, lots of interest.
BR
Listen to later interviews, they're famous, bored, sick of killing Kenny, have a lousy deal on the show and make no money... They've done a few good episodes since, but the spirit is mostly gone. They are trying hard to shock instead of just running with weird, offensive storylines.
Corporate government, corporate practices. The feds are looking at outsourcing lots of services. So tax money drops and unemployment rises, you can't expect politicians (or businessmen) to look more than one quarter ahead.
And Microsoft updates tend to break stuff. I haven't had a linux update break anything yet.
I've had to reinstall hardware (and explicitly uninstall and reinstall some of it) after a Windows Update.
Most hardware vendors (even big ones like Dell) are lucky to pull off a 10% markup. Apple used to get 40%, and I think they are still up there. It's depressingly obvious now, too, because they use the same nvidia/ATI cards, the IDE drives, same everything except for motherboard, chip, case, and firewire. At least when they still used SCSI and custom video cards you could sort of avoid seeing it.
Apple made the decision long ago, and they chose the Sun model, not the M$ model. They could have licensed their OS and slugged it out for market share, but they chose to shoot for high margins and low penetration. It works, they make money. As long as they keep making cool stuff some people will spend the premium.
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Funny, I liked it. I guess an uninspiring teacher can make anything painful? I was not required to read it for school.
All manufacturers love clients who buy "potential." Check the price structures, you can usually buy two small boxes now for the price of one box twice as big. If you buy a box and consider doubling the size 18 months later it will probably cheaper to buy a new box twice as fast. If the box has space for 24 CPUs, get 24 CPUs, if you don't need 24 CPUs get the next lower model...
I've seen disks swapped (and I've swapped a number, old 9GB disks for O/S, new 144 GB disk for data files), but I've very rarely seen CPUs or RAM purchased for a server. Come to think of it I'm a sysadmin and I've very rarely seen a box pushed to its limits (CPUs, yes, RAM for a JVM, yes, disks, yes, whole boxen, only when someone does something bad). Most companies overbuy (the others get slashdotted).
It's already banned by PC IT in my company. Got "do not install" e-mails and warnings about MS marketing the patch. Considering the various problems with 2000 and NT service packs I'd hold off (OK, the first few NT packs were basically new versions, but the 6/6a thing was ugly).
True. But many European countries are smaller and more homogeneous than others. The US and Canada are large and varied. Now there's a stereotype...
Street signs are generally pictorial. There was a nut on the fringe who said he was going to go through signs that say "stop," even though stop is a French word, but generally safety over language.
For that matter I think it is legal to have other languages on signs as long as French "predominates." I don't know how much the laws are enforced by now (used to be serious). They have a bureau to report language law violations, and the number of complaints is fairly high (a few hundred/month or year or something), but the number of complainants is pretty steady, same 5 or 6 guys. It's not a dead issue, but most people are content with the current situation.
On the other hand traditions, history, and notions of politeness tend to vary by country. Countries have different laws (like pseudolegal drugs in Holland that also impact culture), and different expectations. Some of these traditions, laws, and so forth lead to generalizations and stereotypes some of which are correct and some that are not. This is quite different from racial stereotyping which tends to be meaningless as shared genes don't appear to have a whole lot of impact on intelligence, personality, behavior etc.
I think there is a distinction in there, but I guess it is a pretty fine one. Stereotype only in ways that won't piss people off?
Quebec language laws vary between emotional reaction to finally not being treated as second class citizens by other Quebeckers, and an attempt to keep the culture looking strong. Most language protection in Quebec has been of the foot-shooting variety (translated movies trash the local industry now that translation is mandated, French speakers can no longer have their kids learn English or other languages at school, while the provincial premirer sends his kids to boarding school in England), but some of it (requiring French instruction manuals, street signs, even store signs) makes a lot of sense.
Quebecers were a persecuted minority for a few centuries (some think they still are, I would disagree) and you have to expect payback to go a little far. Compared to most colonized areas (India, South and Central America, Africa, Caribean etc.) Quebec is doing just fine. I was happy to live their as an English-speaker (though I speak reasonable French) and I expect to go back soon. It takes a few generations (at least) to get over being mistreated by another culture (not to mention the catholic church which has dropped way down in Quebec priorities).
I went to Paris a couple of years ago, and expected rudeness. Everyone I met was friendly and excessively polite, but then I spoke French to them. From what I saw the rudeness came not with language, but with long-windedness. Most people I spoke to wanted to be able to FINISH THEIR SENTENCES and when tourists cut them off in mid word and asked something else the Parisian got testy. Language is taken seriously in Paris. People try to not only say what they have to say, but to say it in an interesting way, and they don't like being cut off after three words.
Waiters and other service employees tend to expect some respect, too. Serious hierarchical stuff within companies, but not with the public.
Not very often, and mainly to older people (younger people get priority). At least people don't die of lack of funds.
I had knee surgery last summer, and I had the option of surgery the night I was injured (4 hour wait) from a guy who specialized in back surgery, but decided to wait and ended up having surgery a couple of weeks later from a guy who works with pro atheletes. The wait for transplants and some specialized surgeries is bad because of a shortage of specialists, most stuff gets done quick.
I used a lot of health care this year (highly unusual) got some tests, my wife had a kid. I was very impressed by the quality of care, and even though I was unemployed at the time, I paid nothing. No deductable, no fees, no booking, nothing.
OK, I'm glad to be back working with insurance for the dentist and prescriptions, but what do you do in the US if you're out of work and you hurt yourself? You blow your savings and go on medicaid.
And insurance only pays 80-90% of fees, and only for a while. Canadians leave the hospital feeless. No bankruptcies due to illness. No tests refused due to cost (you may wait, but you will get treated), and no one gets turned away until they are an emergency case.
US insurance is subsidised by the government who pay once the insurance company won't pony up any more and the insured is out of money. Lots more money is lost to lawyers in the US than in Canada.
Summary: Canada may spend more per capita than it would take to insure every Canadian with a US insurance company, but Canada still spends less than the US per capita on health care, and covers everyone all the time. OK, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and insurance companies don't profit quite as obscenely as their US equivalents, but patients come out ahead overall.
Try William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Mikhail Bulgakov (I think "The Master and Margarita" qualifies as sci-fi, and it's amazing, ask literally any Russian, if they've read at all they will have read it, and I haven't met anyone who hasn't liked it), Douglas Adams, Stephen Donaldson (OK, he tends to try real hard to make his stuff really unpleasant but his prose is great, "Daughter of Regals is a little more positive), Michael Crichton (hit or miss on the plots, but his better stuff is well written), Clifford Simak (a lot of his books repeat similar stuff, but it's good considering how long ago it was written), Edgar Allen Poe, HG Wells... Avoid Asimov, Heinlein, Forward, and most other authors of the same generation if prose quality is a concern. Not that their books are that bad overall, but their level of written english is pretty low. I'm bad about this, I would read junk mail from some of the suggested authors for the prose. I have not read quite a number of great books, sci-fi and classics, because I can't deal with the prose (especially that "dear reader" stuff from way back). Pisses me off with some authors, too. James Joyce wrote beautiful prose when he cared to, but spent so much time being clever that not much of what he published is beautifully written. Brilliantly written, yes, but not beautiful, and not intended to be.
Trusted to provide illiterate sycophantic reviews.
1/7
The temptation would be greater for Gandalf or Galadriel, as they have the power to use the ring to reorder middle earth as they see fit. The hobbits have no power, and are less affected. Boromir, or Aragorn might become greater leaders with the Ring, but they would also be corrupted as the nine (all powerful kings) were.
Gandalf fears the ring because he knows that he would be able to use it to do what he thinks is right, trampling over the rights of individuals in the process. Boromir wants the ring because he thinks it will bring him power. Frodo is resistant to the ring because he does not seek to dominate others, and also because he realizes that he is too weak to do so. There is never any question of Frodo or Bilbo bending the ring to their will and gaining power over others.
The problem is that the most patriotic people are often the most willing to give up freedom for nothing. Persecuting people for insufficient patriotism (like McCarthy, and now Bush) is only done to limit freedom and grab power.
I read it. He lost the first election, but his thugs did a good job of identifying and intimidating people who voted against him, and he did a good job of forming coalitions and duping other powerful and influential people. Germany was not a true democracy in the '30s anyway (political parties had street armies for one thing).
Sun hardware can do linux and Solaris, at least. Even midrange Sun hardware (4800-6800, and smaller systems going forward) can be split into virtual independent systems.
I've worked with HP-UX, and the new hardware seems way better than their old crap (though it's hot and power hungry), but I don't like the O/S much. Too geared to their buggy sysadmin gui, and too flaky in the way it stores patches. I have repeatedly seen HP-UX boxes die to the point of tape recovery during patch installs, I've never seen a Sun die on patching, or reach as unrecoverable a software state for any reason.
HP support is really, really, bad compared to Sun, as well. The Sun guys know what they are doing fix hardware, and offer advice on software stuff. The HP guys have trouble with the hardware and flee if you ask about software (and no, I'm not just talking about one or two techs, it's a pattern).
I don't think HP knows where it is going in hardware or O/S, either. They've changed their minds a few times in the last few years. Intel, PA-RISC, HP-UX, Linux...
And I think that it contributed to the quality of the narrative that it was not accessible. I liked Snow Crash, but I thought Neuromancer was special, in part because it is not "accessible." There is nothing terribly complicated about the narrative, people don't get through it because they don't think (and not because they can't think) about the story as they read it.
Product of modern media, I guess. Films, as an example, repeat everything so many times to make sure everyone gets it that the plotlines are boring just due to repetition. A number of movies (eg Enemy of the State) are more fun if you miss the first half hour and only hear the stuff once.
Exactly why Neuromancer was great, and better than the others in the series. No concessions. No dumb narrator everything has to be explained to, no long explanations, just enough background to give a clear picture if you actually read it.
I like Stephenson's stuff, and Gibson's other books (and Sterling's), but Neuromancer is better because it was not written for the masses, it was written for people who would read and think. Beautiful book, and sort of like Douglas Adams' later stuff, most people say "I didn't get that one, but I liked X (where X is one of his other books that sold better)."
This is not elitism, either, it's not a matter of intelligence it's a matter of liking the stuff enough to dig a little.
I think the problem was support, not physical distribution. Less and less people are buying boxes, and they need more and more support.
I never saw U of T stuck with excess Red Hat boxes. They would run out a week or two after shipment and need to order more. They would usually have no boxed distros for a couple of months before a release.
Don't know what they have now. I can't imagine people buying when you can download in a few hours.
I can remember buying distros back when downloads were slow (1996 or so), and the University of Toronto book store had Red Hat boxes stacked all over the place. They were all gone in a couple of weeks, too. Of course there were only so many stores that got boxes in any volume, but still, thousands of units (they were seriously piled up when they came in) in a couple of weeks.
Of course they probably don't sell any retail boxes now. The few students who don't have broadband (networked dorms) probably get copies from those who do. Good revenue stream while it lasted.
The first season of South Park was classic. The creators had lots of time to work on it, lots of stuff they wanted to do, lots of interest.
BR Listen to later interviews, they're famous, bored, sick of killing Kenny, have a lousy deal on the show and make no money... They've done a few good episodes since, but the spirit is mostly gone. They are trying hard to shock instead of just running with weird, offensive storylines.
Corporate government, corporate practices. The feds are looking at outsourcing lots of services. So tax money drops and unemployment rises, you can't expect politicians (or businessmen) to look more than one quarter ahead.
And Microsoft updates tend to break stuff. I haven't had a linux update break anything yet. I've had to reinstall hardware (and explicitly uninstall and reinstall some of it) after a Windows Update.
Most hardware vendors (even big ones like Dell) are lucky to pull off a 10% markup. Apple used to get 40%, and I think they are still up there. It's depressingly obvious now, too, because they use the same nvidia/ATI cards, the IDE drives, same everything except for motherboard, chip, case, and firewire. At least when they still used SCSI and custom video cards you could sort of avoid seeing it.
Apple made the decision long ago, and they chose the Sun model, not the M$ model. They could have licensed their OS and slugged it out for market share, but they chose to shoot for high margins and low penetration. It works, they make money. As long as they keep making cool stuff some people will spend the premium.