Rock on! I think Oracle is getting the picture with Oracle 10g. I'll have to check out the client.
Oracle also has a simpler version of the database called Oracle 10g Express Edition, which should work for many people. I read that installation is almost as simple as 'apt-get install oracle-xe' for Debian users.
On the other hand, Oracle 10g is overkill for many shops. MySQL is a great solution for many small databases, and Oracle Support now offers some more legitimacy to the product.
I've seen a number of shops with a situation like this:
Customer: "We're a small shop. We need an RDMBS. We can't afford a DBA. The sales rep said the Oracle Installer is easy to use, and I can install Oracle on my own.
But to install the Oracle *client* , I need to download 3 ISOs, install Xwindows on the server, tunnel Xwindows over SSH. While installing the Oracle Server, the installer crashed out halfway through due to some Java bug. When I tried the installer a second time, the installer refuses to proceed and says that this database already exists.
I called your support line urgently for help, and was transferred not once, not twice but SIX times before they threw my case over over to some department called 'Customer Care' because of a problem with my 'entitlement'. This is my first time calling Oracle Support, so forgive me if I don't understand your byzantine phone support.
I opened this case last Thursday. Today is Tuesday, and I only just heard back from the entitlement department--- I called Saturday, but was told I had to call back Monday (I thought I said this was urgent)--- they finally got back to me with the proper license.
Now that I have the license, can someone please help me with the problem I ran into 5 days ago?
While I was waiting for this problem, my friend came over, installed MySQL in 5 minutes, and created a basic data model in 30 minutes. I can do basic data changes with phpMyAdmin. THIS is what I need. Please tell me why I need to spend $10K on some Oracle 10g Support Licenses?"
I agree. Since Google gets the images from various data sources, the quality of the data will differ. Some vendors obscure the images of sensitive sites, others do not.
Not sure who provides the data for other areas, but I have used Google Maps and Google Earth to locate several 'sensitive' structures, such as Diablo Nuclear Power Plant in California, Vandenberg Air Force Base, etc.
For me, it's a cool feature since I grew up in the area, visited the Nuclear Power Plant while in elementary school, got special tours of Vandenberg while in Boy Scouts, etc.
There is no point in obscuring the overhead images of the plant--- PG&E provide aerial images to public groups, school children, etc. Usually the images are marked in a way to clearly label the water evaporation towers, and reassure the public that the steam venting form the tanks is water vapor-- not some strange nuclear contaminated gas.
The individual states often minted them, which would likely not be allowed under our increasingly powerful central government of today.
The the lack of Mille tokens has nothing to do with a strong central Federal government. That same Federal government defined the 'Mille' back in 1792-- Mille's themselves were never a state money.
Back when you could buy something for a Penny, states minted Mille 'tokens' (not coins) as a convenient way to collect sales and other taxes. Today, States don't make Mille tokens because inflation has made them worthless. However, States, Feds and some banks still collect Milles -- it's just done in a different way; and at some point, everyone just rounds up to the next cent.
- When I bought a house, I paid some of the taxes in Milles - The gas pump still uses 'mille' units like "$3.199/gallon - Banks make billions of transactions, and they sometimes need to account for amounts less then 1-cent, otherwise they could loose millions of dollars.
DHS lost a $50 thousand surveillance van because a Ford engineering team used metric units of measurement while the agency's team used the more conventional Imperial system for a key driving operation, according to a review finding released Thursday.
As a result of this mishap, the Van operator misjudged the driving angle, and crashed into a neighbors pool.
The Department of Homeland Security plans to prevent this sort of confusion by converting the agency from the old "Imperial" measuring system of English miles to a new "American" measuring system utilizing "freedom miles".
One idea I heard floating around was the to buy one for yourself, you would have to buy one towards the initiative.
This is similar to what the Freeplay Foundatation and C. Crane were doing with the Freeplay Lifeline Radios. Buy one for yourself, and one is donated to orphans in Rawanda.
Apparently this wasn't popular enough, because it looks like Freeplay and C. Crane have discontinued the program. The radios were probably too large and ugly for most American shortwave consumers, I suppose.
Sealand's datacenter runs uses gas-powered generators. The staff need food.
The RIAA/MPAA could just hire some private ships to blockade Sealand. Sealand's generators will run out of fuel, and the staff will run low on food & morale.
This conflict would remain between two private entities in international territory, and I doubt that any other nation would bat an eye at the conflict. The RIAA wouldn't even need to call the fiber provider.
Maybe they could survive with a rack of the new low-power computers, some wind generators, battery backup and some satellite uplinks to the internet.
Heck, it doesn't even have a keyboard. AppleTV isn't a "living room computer" like I was hoping.
If they made AppleTV a bit smaller, you could stack it on top of a Mac Mini-- much like component stereo equipment. But the Apple TV is 1" wider and 1" longer...
"Liberty" sometimes sounds honorable, like something out of the US Constitution. "Free" sounds cheap... like "free soda".
In the business world, it's not unusual to hear something like "Oh, MySQL? Oh, we don't support freeware." The perception is often that "Free" == "Cheap and unsupported". In reality, MySQL is a good product, and support is available in several forms.
I am intensely uncomfortable with the morality in that statement: that it is acceptable to have a separate group of people being paid less than minimum wage in order to make living easier for the rest of the country.
This has been the situation in American agriculture for a very long time. Agriculture workers are rarely paid an hourly wage or paid for the number of hours that they work in a day. Instead, they are paid by the amount of food they pick, which usually pays far less then the minimum wage.
Where I grew up in the 80s, I had friends who would help their families to work the fields. They would show up at the fields 6:00AM with their own baskets, meals, stuffed 6 to a car, etc. The foreman gave them a row to pick. After filling the basket, the foreman would would weigh the crops, and pay the workers on the spot.
There was nothing resembling a wage. It was almost like a trade--- one bushel of crops for $5.
Sometimes you had to compete aggressively with other workers on the fields-- there were turf fights if someone moved into your row. Sometimes someone else would steal your basket behind your back, and get paid by the foreman.
In 2004, I worked for a 15,000 Fortune 50 company which required Microsoft Java (last updated in 1999?) for the web-based payroll system. There were hundreds of remote offices in this organization, IT support was completely fractured, and it took weeks (sometimes months) for the central IT organization to send out corporate copy of the MS JVM binaries to some remote offices, to the traveling salespeople, etc.. As a result, people were seeking MS JVM binaries anywhere they could find it, including strange watez sites.
Exactly the type of "safe" software you want for your payroll system.
The wikipedia article on panspermia cites its usage as early as 2000.
This BBC article doesn't make sense. 1. panspermia is not a "fact", it's an idea. 2. It's been a popular idea for decades... BBC's own article talks about the 1960s:
"The main reason why Dr Louis's ideas have not been immediately laughed out of court is because they tie in with a theory promoted by two UK scientists ever since the 1960s."
Chandra Wickramasin himself has been promoting panspermia since 2001. So why is this special now?
What I want to know, is it possible to make CFLs that oscillate above 60Hz?
The flicker problem was a problem with the old magnetic ballasts. I think the oscillation rate is actually twice the rate of AC power--- so 60Hz AC power results in 120Hz "flicker"
Most modern CFLs use an electronic ballast, and oscillate at something like 60-120kHz. The flicker should not be noticeable by people. However, some people still claim to sense the flicker.
Spinning Space Stations are mostly reserved for science fiction. Here is my layman's understanding of one of the fundamental problems.
The weight on the outer rim of the space station will be uneven. As a result, the space station will wobble and move as it spins. How would you compensate for this wobble? Rockets require fuel, which adds weight and a tremendous expense (The rockets need to be fired frequently).
I would argue that most Medium businesses are fine with using unsupported technology, especially for non-mission-critical or non-user-facing services. Debian and MySQL might work perfectly fine in some situations. In my experience, support for many smaller commercial products is worthless 95% of the time.
The cost savings of going on a month-to-month plan are tremendous.
The cost savings for a prepaid plan can be much less then a month-to-month plan. Many people could easily save $100-200 per year with a prepaid plan.
I have friends and family who are paying around $100 a year with their TracFone plan. This cost include a free phone and the taxes. That's a far better deal then the budget 300 minute/month plan-- these seem to average $30/month, with another $5-10 in taxes per month.
Most people I know don't come close to using the minutes in a cheap month-to-month plan. It would be a much better deal to get a pre-paid plan from a good company.
They don't need a 300 minute/month plan when they only use 5-60 minutes per month or a handful of text messages. If they need to be on the phone for an hour, they still have that option. The minutes roll over at the end of the term if they buy new minutes.
It doesn't work for everyone, and the prepaid plans from some vendors is a complete rip-off. It doesn't work for me because my phone is a work pager, and I need the texting abilities.\
Poke around for some good deals with Tracfone. If you don't use the phone alot, they have some good deals.
I found that that Prepaid plans from the major subscription services, such as Verizon, Sprint, etc. were all very deceptive and expensive.
Tracphone has saved
I have several friends and family members who use them. None of them use more then 30 minutes per month. Each of these people saved $150-400 dollars per year. This is a very good deal for them.
The cheapest subscription plans are around $30 a month, with another $5-10 in surcharges and taxes. That's over $400 per year--- and is still way too expensive for my tastes.
We started with a simple budget phone and 300 'units'. This cost something around $110, including tax. The minutes expire in one year, but they will roll over if you purchase 100 more units, which costs another $30.
At the end of the year, each person had around 50-200 minutes.
When IE7 comes in they will just consider it another one of Windows quirks and happily chug along with it.
I bet most people will probably consider it more then just a quirk, since the UI in IE7 is different then IE6 (and most other Windows applications). After upgrading, I can see many people asking "Where the heck are my Favorites? Where are my toolbars?"
Slashdot Mirror
I don't see why not. It may be kinda hard to prove exactly who to throw in jail, though.
Follow the money. Someone was paid to take the pictures, and there are records of the payment.
I love that phrase so much, I used it for my ringtone. My coworkers love it!
Rock on! I think Oracle is getting the picture with Oracle 10g. I'll have to check out the client.
Oracle also has a simpler version of the database called Oracle 10g Express Edition, which should work for many people. I read that installation is almost as simple as 'apt-get install oracle-xe' for Debian users.
On the other hand, Oracle 10g is overkill for many shops. MySQL is a great solution for many small databases, and Oracle Support now offers some more legitimacy to the product.
I've seen a number of shops with a situation like this:
Customer: "We're a small shop. We need an RDMBS. We can't afford a DBA. The sales rep said the Oracle Installer is easy to use, and I can install Oracle on my own.
But to install the Oracle *client* , I need to download 3 ISOs, install Xwindows on the server, tunnel Xwindows over SSH. While installing the Oracle Server, the installer crashed out halfway through due to some Java bug. When I tried the installer a second time, the installer refuses to proceed and says that this database already exists.
I called your support line urgently for help, and was transferred not once, not twice but SIX times before they threw my case over over to some department called 'Customer Care' because of a problem with my 'entitlement'. This is my first time calling Oracle Support, so forgive me if I don't understand your byzantine phone support.
I opened this case last Thursday. Today is Tuesday, and I only just heard back from the entitlement department--- I called Saturday, but was told I had to call back Monday (I thought I said this was urgent)--- they finally got back to me with the proper license.
Now that I have the license, can someone please help me with the problem I ran into 5 days ago?
While I was waiting for this problem, my friend came over, installed MySQL in 5 minutes, and created a basic data model in 30 minutes. I can do basic data changes with phpMyAdmin. THIS is what I need. Please tell me why I need to spend $10K on some Oracle 10g Support Licenses?"
I agree. Since Google gets the images from various data sources, the quality of the data will differ. Some vendors obscure the images of sensitive sites, others do not.
Not sure who provides the data for other areas, but I have used Google Maps and Google Earth to locate several 'sensitive' structures, such as Diablo Nuclear Power Plant in California, Vandenberg Air Force Base, etc.
For me, it's a cool feature since I grew up in the area, visited the Nuclear Power Plant while in elementary school, got special tours of Vandenberg while in Boy Scouts, etc.
There is no point in obscuring the overhead images of the plant--- PG&E provide aerial images to public groups, school children, etc. Usually the images are marked in a way to clearly label the water evaporation towers, and reassure the public that the steam venting form the tanks is water vapor-- not some strange nuclear contaminated gas.
The iPhone GSM based. In theory, it may have a SIM card and have the same swapability as other GSM-based phones.
Of course, there are many other ways to lock a phone into a service.
The individual states often minted them, which would likely not be allowed under our increasingly powerful central government of today.
The the lack of Mille tokens has nothing to do with a strong central Federal government. That same Federal government defined the 'Mille' back in 1792-- Mille's themselves were never a state money.
Back when you could buy something for a Penny, states minted Mille 'tokens' (not coins) as a convenient way to collect sales and other taxes. Today, States don't make Mille tokens because inflation has made them worthless. However, States, Feds and some banks still collect Milles -- it's just done in a different way; and at some point, everyone just rounds up to the next cent.
- When I bought a house, I paid some of the taxes in Milles
- The gas pump still uses 'mille' units like "$3.199/gallon
- Banks make billions of transactions, and they sometimes need to account for amounts less then 1-cent, otherwise they could loose millions of dollars.
DHS lost a $50 thousand surveillance van because a Ford engineering team used metric units of measurement while the agency's team used the more conventional Imperial system for a key driving operation, according to a review finding released Thursday.
As a result of this mishap, the Van operator misjudged the driving angle, and crashed into a neighbors pool.
The Department of Homeland Security plans to prevent this sort of confusion by converting the agency from the old "Imperial" measuring system of English miles to a new "American" measuring system utilizing "freedom miles".
One idea I heard floating around was the to buy one for yourself, you would have to buy one towards the initiative.
This is similar to what the Freeplay Foundatation and C. Crane were doing with the Freeplay Lifeline Radios. Buy one for yourself, and one is donated to orphans in Rawanda.
Apparently this wasn't popular enough, because it looks like Freeplay and C. Crane have discontinued the program. The radios were probably too large and ugly for most American shortwave consumers, I suppose.
Sealand's datacenter runs uses gas-powered generators. The staff need food.
The RIAA/MPAA could just hire some private ships to blockade Sealand. Sealand's generators will run out of fuel, and the staff will run low on food & morale.
This conflict would remain between two private entities in international territory, and I doubt that any other nation would bat an eye at the conflict. The RIAA wouldn't even need to call the fiber provider.
Maybe they could survive with a rack of the new low-power computers, some wind generators, battery backup and some satellite uplinks to the internet.
Yeah, but for $900, I want clean lines! ;)
Doesn't play Divx, doesn't record anything --
Heck, it doesn't even have a keyboard. AppleTV isn't a "living room computer" like I was hoping.
If they made AppleTV a bit smaller, you could stack it on top of a Mac Mini-- much like component stereo equipment. But the Apple TV is 1" wider and 1" longer...
It depends...
"Liberty" sometimes sounds honorable, like something out of the US Constitution. "Free" sounds cheap... like "free soda".
In the business world, it's not unusual to hear something like "Oh, MySQL? Oh, we don't support freeware." The perception is often that "Free" == "Cheap and unsupported". In reality, MySQL is a good product, and support is available in several forms.
Get your free painted Liberty silver dollar here!
I guess that's why some people prefer "Libre".
I am intensely uncomfortable with the morality in that statement: that it is acceptable to have a separate group of people being paid less than minimum wage in order to make living easier for the rest of the country.
This has been the situation in American agriculture for a very long time. Agriculture workers are rarely paid an hourly wage or paid for the number of hours that they work in a day. Instead, they are paid by the amount of food they pick, which usually pays far less then the minimum wage.
Where I grew up in the 80s, I had friends who would help their families to work the fields. They would show up at the fields 6:00AM with their own baskets, meals, stuffed 6 to a car, etc. The foreman gave them a row to pick. After filling the basket, the foreman would would weigh the crops, and pay the workers on the spot.
There was nothing resembling a wage. It was almost like a trade--- one bushel of crops for $5.
Sometimes you had to compete aggressively with other workers on the fields-- there were turf fights if someone moved into your row. Sometimes someone else would steal your basket behind your back, and get paid by the foreman.
Ah.. 1997 called, they want their rant back.
Did it ever go away?
In 2004, I worked for a 15,000 Fortune 50 company which required Microsoft Java (last updated in 1999?) for the web-based payroll system. There were hundreds of remote offices in this organization, IT support was completely fractured, and it took weeks (sometimes months) for the central IT organization to send out corporate copy of the MS JVM binaries to some remote offices, to the traveling salespeople, etc.. As a result, people were seeking MS JVM binaries anywhere they could find it, including strange watez sites.
Exactly the type of "safe" software you want for your payroll system.
The wikipedia article on panspermia cites its usage as early as 2000.
This BBC article doesn't make sense. 1. panspermia is not a "fact", it's an idea. 2. It's been a popular idea for decades... BBC's own article talks about the 1960s:
"The main reason why Dr Louis's ideas have not been immediately laughed out of court is because they tie in with a theory promoted by two UK scientists ever since the 1960s."
Chandra Wickramasin himself has been promoting panspermia since 2001. So why is this special now?
What I want to know, is it possible to make CFLs that oscillate above 60Hz?
c trical_aspects_of_operation
The flicker problem was a problem with the old magnetic ballasts. I think the oscillation rate is actually twice the rate of AC power--- so 60Hz AC power results in 120Hz "flicker"
Most modern CFLs use an electronic ballast, and oscillate at something like 60-120kHz. The flicker should not be noticeable by people. However, some people still claim to sense the flicker.
More information here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescent_lamp#Ele
The last time I bought a Fluorescent Light bulb with a magnetic ballast was over 10 years ago, and it was for my budget fish tank.
Some old office buildings and warehouses still use old magnetic ballasts, so you can definitely sense the flicker.
Spinning Space Stations are mostly reserved for science fiction. Here is my layman's understanding of one of the fundamental problems.
The weight on the outer rim of the space station will be uneven. As a result, the space station will wobble and move as it spins. How would you compensate for this wobble? Rockets require fuel, which adds weight and a tremendous expense (The rockets need to be fired frequently).
If it isn't supported, it isn't worth running.
If that's the case, would they be running Debian?
I would argue that most Medium businesses are fine with using unsupported technology, especially for non-mission-critical or non-user-facing services. Debian and MySQL might work perfectly fine in some situations. In my experience, support for many smaller commercial products is worthless 95% of the time.
The cost savings of going on a month-to-month plan are tremendous.
The cost savings for a prepaid plan can be much less then a month-to-month plan. Many people could easily save $100-200 per year with a prepaid plan.
I have friends and family who are paying around $100 a year with their TracFone plan. This cost include a free phone and the taxes. That's a far better deal then the budget 300 minute/month plan-- these seem to average $30/month, with another $5-10 in taxes per month.
Most people I know don't come close to using the minutes in a cheap month-to-month plan. It would be a much better deal to get a pre-paid plan from a good company.
They don't need a 300 minute/month plan when they only use 5-60 minutes per month or a handful of text messages. If they need to be on the phone for an hour, they still have that option. The minutes roll over at the end of the term if they buy new minutes.
It doesn't work for everyone, and the prepaid plans from some vendors is a complete rip-off. It doesn't work for me because my phone is a work pager, and I need the texting abilities.\
Poke around for some good deals with Tracfone. If you don't use the phone alot, they have some good deals.
I found that that Prepaid plans from the major subscription services, such as Verizon, Sprint, etc. were all very deceptive and expensive.
Tracphone has saved
I have several friends and family members who use them. None of them use more then 30 minutes per month. Each of these people saved $150-400 dollars per year. This is a very good deal for them.
The cheapest subscription plans are around $30 a month, with another $5-10 in surcharges and taxes. That's over $400 per year--- and is still way too expensive for my tastes.
We started with a simple budget phone and 300 'units'. This cost something around $110, including tax. The minutes expire in one year, but they will roll over if you purchase 100 more units, which costs another $30.
At the end of the year, each person had around 50-200 minutes.
but didn't have a product ready yet.
That doesn't make sense. Why would they release a crippled product at all, when they could wait a while to perfect the iPhone.
Perhaps the ROKR phone was simply a mistake?
When IE7 comes in they will just consider it another one of Windows quirks and happily chug along with it.
I bet most people will probably consider it more then just a quirk, since the UI in IE7 is different then IE6 (and most other Windows applications). After upgrading, I can see many people asking "Where the heck are my Favorites? Where are my toolbars?"
It doesn't matter how good things are going. There will be always be one person to complain.
</rant:>
Many scientists have been in space. Some of them probably consider themselves 'nerds'.
Maybe I'm out of the loop with modern lingo, but 'nerd' doesn't necessarily have anything to do with computers.