Folks, maybe it's just me, but could it be that we're all missing the bigger picture in this game? Specifically, I play games because they're fun, interesting, adventurous diversions from real life... but now we have games that put people in a virtual world where they have to work to build themselves and their society up... call me nuts, but why waste time in the virtual world if you're just going to simulate work? I've got a novel idea for those of you who have spent the last 10 years engulfed in an online world. Try unplugging your computer and go outside!! It's free, and it's REAL (whoa!)... The mind boggles over this one... now we simulate work on a computer and call it entertainment, or a game... anyone else catching on to what I'm saying?
I agree with you 100%. I'd go a little further though and say that big companies have a habit of manipulating verbage to persuade people into believing fiction, or more importantly to re-write history. I think it's important for the linux community to recognize this, and combat the problem whenever it arises. For example, an MS CEO on television, through the course of conversation inserting statements like "...and MS, the backbone of operating systems, etc...". Or "...and MS, being the only real scientific work environment, etc...". When folks hear this enough times, they believe it to be true. Anymore I find myself correcting management who have heard this same type of misdirection so often they believe it. I could go on for hours about what people believe of the MS certifications, but I am trying to avoid the appearance of inciting 'flamation' and simply point out my observations of back-alley manipulation of facts.
I believe that what the OSRM is saying is that there are 283 patents specifically related to linux source, waiting to be validated as patents. And specifically that out of the thousands of patents waiting to be validated, the 283 mentioned above could be very harmful, or allow companies to pursue litigation against linux programmers, or OS companies. I would be interested to see what these 283 patents are, and validate them myself. The OSRM is smart to put out the press release, because it incites folks to seek umbrella-legal protection under them. I'm not sure I doubt the validity of the 283 potential risks the OSRM mentions, but find it a little curious that they now have a 'waiting list' of potential clients (as a result of the press release? I'm not sure...). If the release was intended to scare linux folks, then this would be tantamount to extortion, or racketeering (i.e. -- pay us for protection or be sued for potentially violating 283 virtual patents)...
It's an interestinig dilemma for the OS community. On the one hand OS by it's nature isn't necessarily about patenting; but if another person 'beats you to the draw' then you could face legal issues for not going through the patent proceedures. You almost, anymore, need a lawyer to even walk you through the process and deal with the ramifications of a big company challenging your patent....
Might be time to put in a few hundred thousand emails to local senators and request an overhaul on the Patent office/procedures. But what do I know...
"Users at both these sites are real supercomputer users: they REQUIRE large memory, high memory bandwidth, and scalable interconnects to get their problems done AT ALL." -- Please define these problem metrics for me -- what kinds of memory are we talking about, what kinds of bandwidth (memory/interconnects)?
Somewhat annoying to have someone throw out a statement like this without any definition of what they're doing specifically. What software? Without that information, without knowing the problems, you'll never know if a cluster will work or not. I've heard this same FUD from colleagues who swore their software would never run on a cluster -- key note here -- We retired the last onsite Cray almost two years ago and my colleagues are finding they're MUCH more productive running their software on (*surprise*) a cluster. They too require large memory, high memory bandwidth, and scalable interconnects to get their problems done...
I love it when folks say their problems are too big for us poor little cluster folks. I really love proving these folks wrong.
Personally I'd rather have 1024 chickens.. assuming that each chicken is tethered to the wagon and can only pull at most 1 pound in any direction, I figure let the little birds go nuts and move all over the place... even if only a quarter of the chickens move in the direction you want to go, you're still better off... why?? simple... Even if you never make it to your destination, at least you'll be well fed!
All joking aside for a moment... I hope Cray realizes that the analogy in the question is wrong -- here's the corrected version: Would you rather have 1024 big Ox pulling your wagon or one big ox?
I hear this type of FUD all the time from some of the older folks I work with -- all the hype about Cray systems, shared memory capabilities. There are several problems with the 'supercomputing' market though. First off if you go to any local University, they teach fortran as a basic intro course, but most professors will footnote their comments by saying things like "Fortran is no longer considered a marketable language"... so students think -- why waste time learning it (other than the basic programming capability?); this erodes the base support for vectorized programming support (putting aside arguements that fortran is not vector programming for now please). More importantly (and secondly), Cray architectures are MASSIVELY expensive in relation to where the standard desktop CPU is without enough benefit to make them worth it. People talk about the need to play "catch up" as if there is a real crisis at hand. The reality is that clusters are gaining in popularity because they're cheap, and per CPU tend to be more 'powerful'. Institutions that purchase Crays end up with a number of folks trying to run software and inevitably you run into time bottlenecks. What folks at these institutions realized is that by purchasing a 'state-of-the-art' 32/64 bit system with dual processors and a couple gig of memory, that by the time their jobs were starting on the Crays, they could already be running on their new desktops.... In the end I say why rent time on a big Cray when you can purchase your own system and run it into the ground with jobs? Despite some of the FUD I've seen splashed around by folks who are proponents of Cray systems, Clusters are relatively simple to setup, do not require multi-million dollar yearly contracts, and can generally be maintained by the purchaser without much effort. Most of the cost of clusters anymore is the cost of the system administration -- which you don't need a "staff" of SA's to administer. IMHO, you don't even need an SA anymore for designing, building, and running a cluster; with only a baseline of knowledge of computers, and a little reading just about anyone could build their own. When all is said and done, you end up with more compute power in a cluster at a much lower cost. Some folks would say that throughput is an issue; that's problem dependent, and can be rectified with a little problem solving. Some folks indicated that clusters aren't optimized for peak performance... WHO CARES?? If it takes me two minutes longer for a 5 week job to finish, I've still made out better for not purchasing a Cray. I've heard folks complain about not enough memory, or programming problems -- generally these tend to be older folks (what I like to call the obsolete-engineers; aka -- old fogies) These are generally the folks that complain about the 'new fangled' software they have to use, and simply don't want to have to reinvent their "marvelous software" in a new environment. I've run 64 gig memory jobs on clusters without a problem; again my problems allow for parallelization optimization... Eventually I end up telling folks who are steadfast supporters of the Cray to wake up, this is a brand new era about you. The days of the single supercomputer vendor filling all your needs are over. You now have choices, and with those choices you have to take the responsibility of defining how your new parallel supercomputer will function. Either learn and adapt, or become obsolete.
Actually you're only partially correct. The alpha processor despite popular opinion was headed towards the scrap heap before Compaq bought them. The reality is that the conventional 'supercomputer' markets were falling away from the Alpha because of the promise of the Itanium and Opterons (which were just poking their heads out of their holes at the time and announcing their existance). In additional benchmarks of the existing alphas were only marginally better than the Intel Pentiums of the time (pre-Itanium & AMD Opteron) despite the 64 bit processing. The stall wasn't because of Compaq, but because the core development teams for the Alpha were... well, getting old and retiring without suitable replacements. Plus I heard it rumored that Compaq purchased Alpha not for the processor, but for the architecture which it intended to 'reinvent' in a new image. Dunno what happened with that though...
I've heard a lot of nonsense on all sides while reading this board. Some folks have made good points, others just a lot of hooey. The reality for NASA is that the bureaucracy of the Space Agency is like a noose around real research getting done. Countless billions wasted on management that does very little. NASA kills projects just as they show real potential, or after they've had a success with what appears to be no thought towards the amount of research and tax dollars that went into getting a project to where it is. The space station is a floating debris field waiting to happen, but the purpose is still correct -- a foot-hold off this rock. The reality for humanity is that in the near future (depending on who you listen too either sooner or later) we will exhaust our natural resources -- this is INEVITABLE. I'm not personally a tree-hugger, but I do recognize that there are finite resources available, and they are being consumed very very quickly. I doubt that we'll be beaming back any heat waves, or energy if we were in space, but at the very least, while we have the time to do the research and try and get beyond our own solar system, we should be trying. With that said, we should also be trying to get the most out of what we have, product better energy systems, and look even more deeply into what's "in our own backyard".
NASA has a real problem to face though. For NASA, the United States has to "either sit on the pot and shit or get off" -- meaning either space exploration should be a real, present, top priority or it needs to be dropped. We've dangled our toes in the heavens up till now, and with a real monetary push, a constant driving effort, and a vision for NASA that doesn't change with the passing of political administrations we could be, should be, and will be able to reach beyond our solar system. While I don't expect to reach the stars in my lifetime, I know with absolute certainty, that we'll never make it at all if we don't first lay the foundation to try.
I think porlw is right in his response. Linux is all about files. My suggestions to all linux newbs is to take it very slowly and start with (what porlw calls) a "fat" OS such as RedHat. Start out doing a full install of everything, then sift through the programs reading man pages, or pick up one of the many "linux bibles" that walks you through an install, the OS, basic administration, etc..
Very important! -- Be prepared to be frustrated and spend awhile learning new things. There is no such thing as knowing everything in linux... There are a couple good certs you can pick up, but reality is that the more exposure you have to linux, the better off you'll be in the long run. Never stop reading the man pages, asking questions, howto's, faqs, and poking around in your system...
If you have the resources for it, find an old POS system, and go nuts with linux (key is that it can't be a main workstation for you with your childrens pictures at birth or anything...) I always stress for newbs the importance of a 'throw away' system where you can just hack away without fear of losing critical data. Until you have a 'firm' grasp (firm is a relative term) of how to admin, maintain, secure, etc. your system, don't use it as your mainstay.
word of advice... beware of the advice you take in chatrooms and on message boards... and think before you cut/paste a command line from one of the above... you never know when a kiddie is playing with you and will either deliberately give you bad information, or be using you as a guinea pig to test a theory... rule of thumb -- if you don't understand the command, look it up and test it in a safe environment before using it.
USE THE COMMUNITY RESOURCES!! Don't be afraid to ask a question when you know the response from 99% of the people will be RTFM (
USE GOOGLE!! Very important groups.google.com and www.google.com -- asking intelligent questions after you've done a little research will save you a ton of RTFM responses. There are a billion resources out there... use them and don't be intimidated by folks who appear to know-it-all (generally they know a lot about a little, and little about a lot)... Not sure that was useful, there are a ton of suggestions and I could go on, but it's almost 1 a.m.... Time to get some sleep...
I guess I'd answer your question with another question... top ten tools for what job?
Hardware configuration
OS installation
Software installation
Software security
Software managment
Network security
Network Configuration
.
.
.
etc.
Among the tools I use most often in a given day...
ls
mv
cp
ln
make
vi *vi tops of the list of all time most useful tools for nearly all occasions imho*
ps
netstat
find
perl
sh
cat
awk
sed
as far as security, some useful tools
chkrootkit
nessus
tripwire
cisscan
bastille
guarddog
netsaint
snort
iptables
tiger
sara
etc.
Networking tools?
telnet
ssh
netconfig
ifconfig
route
netstat (again)
any/all of the service oriented tools...
etc....
This list could go on forever... there are just so many tools available ... I guess it's really the right tools for the right job, which is entirely dependent on what you're doing...
IMHO, it would be more intelligent to give a seminar on overall system competency than tools. Programming/scripting capability, hardware understanding, understanding networking (even if only at a rudimentary LAN level), understanding the OS itself (ala where files are, file permissions, how to lock down the system at a service level, and a kernel level, etc. etc. etc.) If you have a core competency in linux and a fundamental understanding of the OS and hardware platform then toolsets become a luxury not a necessity. In the end, for me, the number 1 tool that I've used in almost any situation has been vi.
I'd be lost without my linux OS.
Am I a bad person if I don't care? Frankly, the initial concept of Jake 2.0 was great, but the implementation of it was garbage with mediocre acting (at best), and predictable plots that were pseudo-xfiles-meets-million-dollar-man. Enterprise wasn't much better, the main plot point being an attack from some unknown civilization, and now humans are hellbent on revenge. The best thing for Enterprise is to fade into oblivion, just like the rest of the Star Trek franchise. While all very cutsy, where else do you go after generations? Hell, 99% of the 'new species' they came up against were inferior races. The only bonus to Enterprise was seeing how puny they were compared to what Generations considered inferior. Frankly the entire show/franchise was a waste of my time, because given the current climate of people in the world, we'll never actually develope the types of technologies that we'd need to break away from this rock to begin with... therefore, this is all just a lot of drivel without any real benefit other than entertainment... And to get back to what I said earlier... the entertainment factor has been pretty well played out for the Trek saga's... oh well, time to move on!
How many times are we going to let them do this?... "We aren't going to sue anyone" -- lawsuits now going on with IBM... "we're not going to charge anyone for our software" -- bills in the mail... "we're not going to sue anyone else" -- whispers of a lawsuit against BSD...
how many times will this happen before we take SCO on as a serious threat to open source... Wake up folks... this is the divide and conquer strategy... similar to the -- say one thing, and quietly slip your hand around the back and slit the throat from behind -- strategy...
Without a doubt, you summed up not only military IT, but NASA as well! Without a doubt one of the best summaries of what it's like being a fly on the wall of activity.
"...a neutron detector in an Idaho Falls scrap metal yard...." -- Idaho metal yards are coming up in the world... used to just be able to find metal... now you can find whole particle accelerators!! Woohoo!!
"Craig built a neutron modulator (which slows down the emitted neutrons so they can be detected) out of a few hundred spare CDs." -- Thank you AOL for your endless contributions... I was just thinking, maybe later I'll build my own neutron modulator... have to finish my scramjet engine first though... oh yeah, and walk the dog. But I'll get to it after that.:D
"They found a broken turbo molecular pump lying forgotten at Deseret Industries." -- OH! I wish you had told me you needed one, I was just down at Radio Shack pricing turbo molecular pumps... Had one in my hand this morning, turned it over and it said -- Made in North Korea.
"Too poor to buy pricey deuterium gas" -- Again... I have endless supplies of gas it seems. Might have been useful, for both of us.
"Craig bought a container of deuterium oxide, or heavy water, for 20 bucks and came up with a way to make it a gas and get rid of the accompanying oxygen by passing it over heated magnesium filings." -- Craig, do you keep your magnesium filings dry? Mine tend to attract water. I would love to be a fly on your wall come Christmas time... nothing like a Helmholtz coil and Oscilloscope hanging out of your stockings when you come down the stairs!
Seriously... What address do you live at? I'd like to take your dad out back and whoop him for raising the bar... now all my kids are gonna want to build their own fusion devices. "So honey how about doing a solar system for a science project?" -- "No thanks dad, my friends and I are going build our own sun instead."
Hope you enjoyed this... it was meant in good humor!
Anyway you look at it, nonsense is nonsense. If IBM buys the stock, then they've purchased stock from a failing company, and execs still make out. If IBM fights in court, they stand to lose more money if they lose, and some money (cost of courts) if they don't. Any way you look at it it's a frustrating scenario. I blame SCO for devaluing the open source community and deliberately attempting to segregate the community from business opportunities. What I find most interesting is the way that things are playing out. Initially SCO was coming out against IBM, and said they weren't going after anyone else. Then businesses get letters saying they owe money to SCO for software. Then SCO says they won't go after any businesses or developers. Then they file suit against SGI, saying they won't go after the OSS. Then they release statements saying the OSS is a violation of copyright laws. etc., etc., etc.,... might be time to start scrutinizing the released statements and articles that SCO has put out to see the pattern of behavior.
I was thinking about how SCO was 'nearly bankrupt' (vaguely remember that from awhile back...), and then this lawsuit comes up. SCO went from near obscurity to being all over the press. Wouldn't it benefit the OSS more to not talk about the SCO debacle and let the lawsuits fad into obscurity than give them the attention they are so desperate to get? I'm not saying to turn our backs on the SCO, and let them dictate to courts whatever they like, but instead to let the larger corporations handle the issue, and simply ignore them at the 'user' level? This kind of reminds me of the episode of the Simpsons where Bart goes nuts saying "I can't stand it! Look at me! I want attention! Hey people! Look at me! Look at me!"... Seems like the SCO is doing the same here, and their stock is coming back from the brink. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I could use some insight on this.
I think it only makes sense that since Red Hat's product is service oriented around the Open Source community, that what the SCO is doing is devaluing Red Hat's service by making claims which Red Hat considers to be unfounded, unfair, and/or untrue. Red Hat could make some headway if they focused on their law suit against the SCO as being a deliberate violation of Title 16 of the Code of Federal Regulations, specifically the part dealing with Torts (deliberate misrepresentation of product or services for the purpose of devaluation). Unfortunately, I think the way that Red Hat's joined this process of litigation will work against them though considering the initial hype wasn't focused on devaluation of service, so much as a kind of "robin hood" complex... Just thinking aloud...
" And while we are at it, thank you NASA for inventing fire, the wheel, alphabet, pottery and everything else." -- Is that the best you've got? Because you don't like that I made valid points, you belittle the idea?
"not really hard if you get billions of dollars in funding" -- Not true, billions go into research that goes nowhere all the time.
"Anyway, the point that I wanted to make was that space should not be our top priority. You didn't disprove it." -- Actually I did by pointing out the research introduced into the economy and technologies is invaluable. To belittle the accomplishments by saying "NASA has R&D capacity and it developed some useful things" is simply stupid. Any space agency has to have the research and technology development capability to push new 'frontiers', not to focus solely on advancing technology, especially since most technology finds it's own way into the economy anyway, while NASA trudges on.
Now onto your less important points:
1) your 'rough estimates' fail to take into account the cost of infrastructure, the personnel to maintain, the cost of installation, dealing with contracting, dealing with hardware changes, and even if you got a fibre only nation, how long before the next big thing came along and someone was saying "why not just re'install the lastest technology across the nation?"... On top of that, your estimates only take into account the cost of not only communications within the US but around the world. Think global, not local; then start moving onto thinking Universal, and not just global.
2) Energy from fusion is nonsense... and is NOT feasible. Fusion is what physicists looking for grant money use to get politicians excited about free energy. Every couple years a theoretical nuclear and particle physicist comes out with a paper on the subject. Let me make this clear to you -- it's crap.
3) The last time you checked our defense plan was still in place and the world knew we continue to improve our defense capabilities. That's why you don't have warheads falling on your head. An arms race for the sake of an arms race would be stupid, but logical deterance through proactive and known defense intiatives work.
"It's not like there is a shortage of LEO satellites and if we want more, our present technology is good and cheap enough." -- Good and cheap, and without NASA non-existant. Thank you NASA for providing the research that put the satalites in orbit and moved the Space Program away from Government Space access ONLY by funding multinational organizations and space intiatives.
"fibre-optics are much better, unless you are talking about Internet in the middle of the ocean" -- Thank you NASA, Engineers and Physics institutions for getting funding that did the initial research on fibre technology 30 years ago instead of not doing the research (in which case we wouldn't have these technologies).
"ultimately fibre is again the way to go" -- Conformity is the hobgoblin of little minds... What comes after fibre-optics? Have you thought that one out yet? or is fibre the end of advancement?
"fusion is much more feasible than any space based projects." -- fusion?? fusion?? You need a couple Phyisics 101 courses before making a statement like that.
"GPS is useful, but it's not like it needs any addtional stimuli. There will also be a competing European system soon (Galileo?) and there is a Russian one already (Glonas?)." -- And while we're at it, we don't need to invest in research or be a first world nation... we can sit back on our laurels and be self-congratulatory about how wonderful our accomplishments are, while we watch the rest of the world leave us behind. The keyword in your statement was "soon"... soon is not NOW, NOW is NOW... Soon means nothing...
"What we need are scientific advances in applied sciences (geology, climatology, etc.) to analyse these pictures." -- Thank you NASA for funding NUMEROUS University Earth Science programs for the purpose of generating 'advances in applied sciences...'
"it's not like the ability to kill more people is such a compelling reason. Not for me, certainly." -- Thank you NASA for continuing research into technologies that work from space to prevent warheads from killing Americans who disagree with your work with National Defense and Strategic Security.
"It would be a smarter decision to invest more money in nanotech and AI and then get into space in a couple of years with these new capabilities." -- Thank you NASA for funding one of the most advanced AI labs and nanotech research in Universities so we have the tools available for use WHEN we get into space, and not waiting to develop the technologies when the time comes.
"we don't need new jobs, we need to eliminate existing ones. That's why nanotech and AI are important. And if you still want jobs, just open some widget-making factories." -- I welcome my AI masters rule, and taking away the need for me to think on my own. (Do you work for Microsoft by any chance?)
"a completely outdated vision from 20th century. Flying into space will not change anything. Mars is beyond our reach, unless we get really important advanced technologies - nanotech and AI. To truly open new frontiers for us, we need to oncentrate on these, not on useless space launches." -- Thank you NASA for continuing research in all areas related to future thinking people with the vision to see beyond the 2 year limitations and think about long term goals. Thank you for not shying away from people who have nothing but criticism for the valuable research you do, and the professional way you do it. Thank you for not giving up despite the cost of many lives, and many setbacks to the invaluable programs at NASA. Thank you for the progress that most times is not seen or ever receives a single accolade that still adds to the value of this nation. In short... Thank you NASA for making this a First World Nation, and not shrinking from the responsibility of the difficult and hard to explain work that you do!
While not the best reason, this is still A reason for the space program (whether folks want to believe it or not)...
...because NASA is doing the kinds of research that makes this a first world nation.
We're a first world nation because our government puts monetary resources into research intiatives. Without the ability to 'expand our horizons' (in NASA's case literally), we stagnate as a nation and rely on random research, with questionable methods, and no verification ability, to lead progress in the future. Imagine if the government didn't subsidize medical research facilities, or physics research, or bio-engeering work? Where would your cancer treatments come from? Who would want to pay for that kind of research with potentially no pay-off? The costs of the types of research that NASA and other DOD/DOE agencies fund provide real world results. Unfortunately, and more often than not, research doesn't pay off in the form of 'another moon landing', or a 'critical cure for AIDS'... but at the very least the nay-sayer's have to admit that we're still moving forward instead of applying leaches to our bodies to ward off evil spirits, or hooking up horse-n-buggy to get from point A to point B.
Remember it's easy to take pot shots at the big guys, but harder to really understand why money is spent where it is...
millions of homeless in America -- the majority of homeless in America do not (despite popular belief) suffer from 'the man keeping them down', or from a never-ending string of bad luck that keeps them from moving up in life, so much as lack of motivation to succeed, mental and/or emotional disabilities, or simply poor decision making. I'm not saying that there are not cases of cutbacks and financial ruin leading to poverty, but that the majority of homeless will not take the steps necessary to really pick themselves up 'by the bootstraps' and help themselves out (and YES, there are TONS of government funded programs to assist homeless LOOK IT UP PEOPLE!!). In addition, no amount of money is going to fix this problem, it only enables futhur abuses of system resources. When you generate a program, there are bound to be abuses, but in America we have the most blantant disregard for the sanctity of the programs and the intentions of their creation, that we have to then generate more programs to monitor the resources and verify that the programs are not being abused. (What a waste of resources just to verify that people are being honest...)
underfunded schools -- Throwing money into state of the art computer labs, or resurfacing basketball courts does nothing to improve students motivation to learn. Dumping money into video's that are geared towards learning don't motivate students to learn. Paying teachers more money doesn't make teachers teach any better. While there is a valid arguement that our teachers are underfunded for the jobs they do, and a lack of teachers and schools, and in some instances a lack of basic necessities within the schools (pencils, pens, paper), there is not a justification that says that more money will correllate to higher grades, or students that have a desire to learn. Paying a teacher more may improve their attitudes, and may even influence better teaching styles, but without a student interested in subjects instead of sports, grades instead of goals, or simply education instead of ignorance, then you continue to perpetuate the cycle of motivation-less americans.
predatory health care system -- The best cartoon I've ever seen was on a psychology professors door. A man sitting on a couch, the councelor saying "I could tell you what's wrong with you, but I've got a mortgage, a car, and a boat to pay off." I don't think anyone here will argue that we have a failing health care system with doctors who spend less time with patients than they do with insurance companies. We have insurance companies dictating to doctors what treatments to prescribe, with very nearly hostile consequences for failure to comply. My question is why does the doctor, who's spent most of his adult life in school and learning how to 'heal', have to take orders from a business major who spent 6 years in school getting his/her BS (because they partied the first couple years)? We have a problem in this country with the authoritative structure. There should never have come a time when doctors were required to not only not treat, but not efficiently 'heal' patients because insurance agencies dictate what they will and won't pay for; nor should there have ever come a time when the Hippocratic oath was subnoted with company logos. We have a very real problem with our health care system, but dumping money into it, will only perpetuate insurance companies to continue to dictate health care standards, at the expense of your health, to protect the 'almighty buck'.
Yes, we have real problems in this nation, I would suggest you start focusing, instead of on where money is going, to who's making decisions, and on fixing the 'authority structure' that is badly screwed up.
Knowing how to handle money does not mean you are a leader, nor should it imply that you have the power to make decisions which effect people who actually work... and yet every day we face leadership centered around people who think they know what's best based on financial impacts and without understanding the full implications of the decisions mandated.
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Folks, maybe it's just me, but could it be that we're all missing the bigger picture in this game? Specifically, I play games because they're fun, interesting, adventurous diversions from real life... but now we have games that put people in a virtual world where they have to work to build themselves and their society up... call me nuts, but why waste time in the virtual world if you're just going to simulate work? I've got a novel idea for those of you who have spent the last 10 years engulfed in an online world. Try unplugging your computer and go outside!! It's free, and it's REAL (whoa!)... The mind boggles over this one... now we simulate work on a computer and call it entertainment, or a game... anyone else catching on to what I'm saying?
I agree with you 100%. I'd go a little further though and say that big companies have a habit of manipulating verbage to persuade people into believing fiction, or more importantly to re-write history. I think it's important for the linux community to recognize this, and combat the problem whenever it arises. For example, an MS CEO on television, through the course of conversation inserting statements like "...and MS, the backbone of operating systems, etc...". Or "...and MS, being the only real scientific work environment, etc...". When folks hear this enough times, they believe it to be true. Anymore I find myself correcting management who have heard this same type of misdirection so often they believe it. I could go on for hours about what people believe of the MS certifications, but I am trying to avoid the appearance of inciting 'flamation' and simply point out my observations of back-alley manipulation of facts.
I believe that what the OSRM is saying is that there are 283 patents specifically related to linux source, waiting to be validated as patents. And specifically that out of the thousands of patents waiting to be validated, the 283 mentioned above could be very harmful, or allow companies to pursue litigation against linux programmers, or OS companies. I would be interested to see what these 283 patents are, and validate them myself. The OSRM is smart to put out the press release, because it incites folks to seek umbrella-legal protection under them. I'm not sure I doubt the validity of the 283 potential risks the OSRM mentions, but find it a little curious that they now have a 'waiting list' of potential clients (as a result of the press release? I'm not sure...). If the release was intended to scare linux folks, then this would be tantamount to extortion, or racketeering (i.e. -- pay us for protection or be sued for potentially violating 283 virtual patents)...
...
It's an interestinig dilemma for the OS community. On the one hand OS by it's nature isn't necessarily about patenting; but if another person 'beats you to the draw' then you could face legal issues for not going through the patent proceedures. You almost, anymore, need a lawyer to even walk you through the process and deal with the ramifications of a big company challenging your patent.
Might be time to put in a few hundred thousand emails to local senators and request an overhaul on the Patent office/procedures. But what do I know...
True Freedom = Absolute Freedom
...just a thought.
Absolute Freedom = Absolute Anarchy
"Users at both these sites are real supercomputer users: they REQUIRE large memory, high memory bandwidth, and scalable interconnects to get their problems done AT ALL." -- Please define these problem metrics for me -- what kinds of memory are we talking about, what kinds of bandwidth (memory/interconnects)?
Somewhat annoying to have someone throw out a statement like this without any definition of what they're doing specifically. What software? Without that information, without knowing the problems, you'll never know if a cluster will work or not. I've heard this same FUD from colleagues who swore their software would never run on a cluster -- key note here -- We retired the last onsite Cray almost two years ago and my colleagues are finding they're MUCH more productive running their software on (*surprise*) a cluster. They too require large memory, high memory bandwidth, and scalable interconnects to get their problems done...
I love it when folks say their problems are too big for us poor little cluster folks. I really love proving these folks wrong.
Personally I'd rather have 1024 chickens.. assuming that each chicken is tethered to the wagon and can only pull at most 1 pound in any direction, I figure let the little birds go nuts and move all over the place... even if only a quarter of the chickens move in the direction you want to go, you're still better off... why?? simple... Even if you never make it to your destination, at least you'll be well fed!
All joking aside for a moment... I hope Cray realizes that the analogy in the question is wrong -- here's the corrected version: Would you rather have 1024 big Ox pulling your wagon or one big ox?
I hear this type of FUD all the time from some of the older folks I work with -- all the hype about Cray systems, shared memory capabilities. There are several problems with the 'supercomputing' market though. First off if you go to any local University, they teach fortran as a basic intro course, but most professors will footnote their comments by saying things like "Fortran is no longer considered a marketable language"... so students think -- why waste time learning it (other than the basic programming capability?); this erodes the base support for vectorized programming support (putting aside arguements that fortran is not vector programming for now please). More importantly (and secondly), Cray architectures are MASSIVELY expensive in relation to where the standard desktop CPU is without enough benefit to make them worth it. People talk about the need to play "catch up" as if there is a real crisis at hand. The reality is that clusters are gaining in popularity because they're cheap, and per CPU tend to be more 'powerful'. Institutions that purchase Crays end up with a number of folks trying to run software and inevitably you run into time bottlenecks. What folks at these institutions realized is that by purchasing a 'state-of-the-art' 32/64 bit system with dual processors and a couple gig of memory, that by the time their jobs were starting on the Crays, they could already be running on their new desktops.... In the end I say why rent time on a big Cray when you can purchase your own system and run it into the ground with jobs? Despite some of the FUD I've seen splashed around by folks who are proponents of Cray systems, Clusters are relatively simple to setup, do not require multi-million dollar yearly contracts, and can generally be maintained by the purchaser without much effort. Most of the cost of clusters anymore is the cost of the system administration -- which you don't need a "staff" of SA's to administer. IMHO, you don't even need an SA anymore for designing, building, and running a cluster; with only a baseline of knowledge of computers, and a little reading just about anyone could build their own. When all is said and done, you end up with more compute power in a cluster at a much lower cost. Some folks would say that throughput is an issue; that's problem dependent, and can be rectified with a little problem solving. Some folks indicated that clusters aren't optimized for peak performance... WHO CARES?? If it takes me two minutes longer for a 5 week job to finish, I've still made out better for not purchasing a Cray. I've heard folks complain about not enough memory, or programming problems -- generally these tend to be older folks (what I like to call the obsolete-engineers; aka -- old fogies) These are generally the folks that complain about the 'new fangled' software they have to use, and simply don't want to have to reinvent their "marvelous software" in a new environment. I've run 64 gig memory jobs on clusters without a problem; again my problems allow for parallelization optimization... Eventually I end up telling folks who are steadfast supporters of the Cray to wake up, this is a brand new era about you. The days of the single supercomputer vendor filling all your needs are over. You now have choices, and with those choices you have to take the responsibility of defining how your new parallel supercomputer will function. Either learn and adapt, or become obsolete.
Actually you're only partially correct. The alpha processor despite popular opinion was headed towards the scrap heap before Compaq bought them. The reality is that the conventional 'supercomputer' markets were falling away from the Alpha because of the promise of the Itanium and Opterons (which were just poking their heads out of their holes at the time and announcing their existance). In additional benchmarks of the existing alphas were only marginally better than the Intel Pentiums of the time (pre-Itanium & AMD Opteron) despite the 64 bit processing. The stall wasn't because of Compaq, but because the core development teams for the Alpha were... well, getting old and retiring without suitable replacements. Plus I heard it rumored that Compaq purchased Alpha not for the processor, but for the architecture which it intended to 'reinvent' in a new image. Dunno what happened with that though...
I've heard a lot of nonsense on all sides while reading this board. Some folks have made good points, others just a lot of hooey. The reality for NASA is that the bureaucracy of the Space Agency is like a noose around real research getting done. Countless billions wasted on management that does very little. NASA kills projects just as they show real potential, or after they've had a success with what appears to be no thought towards the amount of research and tax dollars that went into getting a project to where it is. The space station is a floating debris field waiting to happen, but the purpose is still correct -- a foot-hold off this rock. The reality for humanity is that in the near future (depending on who you listen too either sooner or later) we will exhaust our natural resources -- this is INEVITABLE. I'm not personally a tree-hugger, but I do recognize that there are finite resources available, and they are being consumed very very quickly. I doubt that we'll be beaming back any heat waves, or energy if we were in space, but at the very least, while we have the time to do the research and try and get beyond our own solar system, we should be trying. With that said, we should also be trying to get the most out of what we have, product better energy systems, and look even more deeply into what's "in our own backyard".
NASA has a real problem to face though. For NASA, the United States has to "either sit on the pot and shit or get off" -- meaning either space exploration should be a real, present, top priority or it needs to be dropped. We've dangled our toes in the heavens up till now, and with a real monetary push, a constant driving effort, and a vision for NASA that doesn't change with the passing of political administrations we could be, should be, and will be able to reach beyond our solar system. While I don't expect to reach the stars in my lifetime, I know with absolute certainty, that we'll never make it at all if we don't first lay the foundation to try.
I think porlw is right in his response. Linux is all about files. My suggestions to all linux newbs is to take it very slowly and start with (what porlw calls) a "fat" OS such as RedHat. Start out doing a full install of everything, then sift through the programs reading man pages, or pick up one of the many "linux bibles" that walks you through an install, the OS, basic administration, etc..
Very important! -- Be prepared to be frustrated and spend awhile learning new things. There is no such thing as knowing everything in linux... There are a couple good certs you can pick up, but reality is that the more exposure you have to linux, the better off you'll be in the long run. Never stop reading the man pages, asking questions, howto's, faqs, and poking around in your system...
If you have the resources for it, find an old POS system, and go nuts with linux (key is that it can't be a main workstation for you with your childrens pictures at birth or anything...) I always stress for newbs the importance of a 'throw away' system where you can just hack away without fear of losing critical data. Until you have a 'firm' grasp (firm is a relative term) of how to admin, maintain, secure, etc. your system, don't use it as your mainstay.
word of advice... beware of the advice you take in chatrooms and on message boards... and think before you cut/paste a command line from one of the above... you never know when a kiddie is playing with you and will either deliberately give you bad information, or be using you as a guinea pig to test a theory... rule of thumb -- if you don't understand the command, look it up and test it in a safe environment before using it.
USE THE COMMUNITY RESOURCES!! Don't be afraid to ask a question when you know the response from 99% of the people will be RTFM ( USE GOOGLE!! Very important groups.google.com and www.google.com -- asking intelligent questions after you've done a little research will save you a ton of RTFM responses.
There are a billion resources out there... use them and don't be intimidated by folks who appear to know-it-all (generally they know a lot about a little, and little about a lot)... Not sure that was useful, there are a ton of suggestions and I could go on, but it's almost 1 a.m.... Time to get some sleep...
Excellent response... so what do you think ARE the most overlooked, underused, misused, or whose full power is forgotten, unrecognized, or unused?
I guess I'd answer your question with another question... top ten tools for what job?
... I guess it's really the right tools for the right job, which is entirely dependent on what you're doing...
Hardware configuration OS installation Software installation Software security Software managment Network security Network Configuration . . . etc.
Among the tools I use most often in a given day...
ls mv cp ln make
vi *vi tops of the list of all time most useful tools for nearly all occasions imho*
ps netstat find perl sh cat awk sed
as far as security, some useful tools
chkrootkit nessus tripwire cisscan bastille guarddog netsaint snort iptables tiger sara etc.
Networking tools?
telnet ssh netconfig ifconfig route netstat (again) any/all of the service oriented tools... etc....
This list could go on forever... there are just so many tools available
IMHO, it would be more intelligent to give a seminar on overall system competency than tools. Programming/scripting capability, hardware understanding, understanding networking (even if only at a rudimentary LAN level), understanding the OS itself (ala where files are, file permissions, how to lock down the system at a service level, and a kernel level, etc. etc. etc.) If you have a core competency in linux and a fundamental understanding of the OS and hardware platform then toolsets become a luxury not a necessity. In the end, for me, the number 1 tool that I've used in almost any situation has been vi.
I'd be lost without my linux OS.
Am I a bad person if I don't care? Frankly, the initial concept of Jake 2.0 was great, but the implementation of it was garbage with mediocre acting (at best), and predictable plots that were pseudo-xfiles-meets-million-dollar-man. Enterprise wasn't much better, the main plot point being an attack from some unknown civilization, and now humans are hellbent on revenge. The best thing for Enterprise is to fade into oblivion, just like the rest of the Star Trek franchise. While all very cutsy, where else do you go after generations? Hell, 99% of the 'new species' they came up against were inferior races. The only bonus to Enterprise was seeing how puny they were compared to what Generations considered inferior. Frankly the entire show/franchise was a waste of my time, because given the current climate of people in the world, we'll never actually develope the types of technologies that we'd need to break away from this rock to begin with... therefore, this is all just a lot of drivel without any real benefit other than entertainment... And to get back to what I said earlier... the entertainment factor has been pretty well played out for the Trek saga's... oh well, time to move on!
How many times are we going to let them do this?... "We aren't going to sue anyone" -- lawsuits now going on with IBM... "we're not going to charge anyone for our software" -- bills in the mail... "we're not going to sue anyone else" -- whispers of a lawsuit against BSD... how many times will this happen before we take SCO on as a serious threat to open source... Wake up folks... this is the divide and conquer strategy... similar to the -- say one thing, and quietly slip your hand around the back and slit the throat from behind -- strategy...
Without a doubt, you summed up not only military IT, but NASA as well! Without a doubt one of the best summaries of what it's like being a fly on the wall of activity.
"...a neutron detector in an Idaho Falls scrap metal yard...." -- Idaho metal yards are coming up in the world... used to just be able to find metal... now you can find whole particle accelerators!! Woohoo!!
:D
"Craig built a neutron modulator (which slows down the emitted neutrons so they can be detected) out of a few hundred spare CDs." -- Thank you AOL for your endless contributions... I was just thinking, maybe later I'll build my own neutron modulator... have to finish my scramjet engine first though... oh yeah, and walk the dog. But I'll get to it after that.
"They found a broken turbo molecular pump lying forgotten at Deseret Industries." -- OH! I wish you had told me you needed one, I was just down at Radio Shack pricing turbo molecular pumps... Had one in my hand this morning, turned it over and it said -- Made in North Korea.
"Too poor to buy pricey deuterium gas" -- Again... I have endless supplies of gas it seems. Might have been useful, for both of us.
"Craig bought a container of deuterium oxide, or heavy water, for 20 bucks and came up with a way to make it a gas and get rid of the accompanying oxygen by passing it over heated magnesium filings." -- Craig, do you keep your magnesium filings dry? Mine tend to attract water. I would love to be a fly on your wall come Christmas time... nothing like a Helmholtz coil and Oscilloscope hanging out of your stockings when you come down the stairs!
Seriously... What address do you live at? I'd like to take your dad out back and whoop him for raising the bar... now all my kids are gonna want to build their own fusion devices. "So honey how about doing a solar system for a science project?" -- "No thanks dad, my friends and I are going build our own sun instead."
Hope you enjoyed this... it was meant in good humor!
Actually... #2) Fusion generators are a reality... I was mixing 'fusion' with the idea of 'cold fusion'. My apologies.
Anyway you look at it, nonsense is nonsense. If IBM buys the stock, then they've purchased stock from a failing company, and execs still make out. If IBM fights in court, they stand to lose more money if they lose, and some money (cost of courts) if they don't. Any way you look at it it's a frustrating scenario. I blame SCO for devaluing the open source community and deliberately attempting to segregate the community from business opportunities. What I find most interesting is the way that things are playing out. Initially SCO was coming out against IBM, and said they weren't going after anyone else. Then businesses get letters saying they owe money to SCO for software. Then SCO says they won't go after any businesses or developers. Then they file suit against SGI, saying they won't go after the OSS. Then they release statements saying the OSS is a violation of copyright laws. etc., etc., etc.,... might be time to start scrutinizing the released statements and articles that SCO has put out to see the pattern of behavior.
I was thinking about how SCO was 'nearly bankrupt' (vaguely remember that from awhile back...), and then this lawsuit comes up. SCO went from near obscurity to being all over the press. Wouldn't it benefit the OSS more to not talk about the SCO debacle and let the lawsuits fad into obscurity than give them the attention they are so desperate to get? I'm not saying to turn our backs on the SCO, and let them dictate to courts whatever they like, but instead to let the larger corporations handle the issue, and simply ignore them at the 'user' level? This kind of reminds me of the episode of the Simpsons where Bart goes nuts saying "I can't stand it! Look at me! I want attention! Hey people! Look at me! Look at me!"... Seems like the SCO is doing the same here, and their stock is coming back from the brink. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I could use some insight on this.
I think it only makes sense that since Red Hat's product is service oriented around the Open Source community, that what the SCO is doing is devaluing Red Hat's service by making claims which Red Hat considers to be unfounded, unfair, and/or untrue. Red Hat could make some headway if they focused on their law suit against the SCO as being a deliberate violation of Title 16 of the Code of Federal Regulations, specifically the part dealing with Torts (deliberate misrepresentation of product or services for the purpose of devaluation). Unfortunately, I think the way that Red Hat's joined this process of litigation will work against them though considering the initial hype wasn't focused on devaluation of service, so much as a kind of "robin hood" complex... Just thinking aloud...
" And while we are at it, thank you NASA for inventing fire, the wheel, alphabet, pottery and everything else." -- Is that the best you've got? Because you don't like that I made valid points, you belittle the idea?
"not really hard if you get billions of dollars in funding" -- Not true, billions go into research that goes nowhere all the time.
"Anyway, the point that I wanted to make was that space should not be our top priority. You didn't disprove it." -- Actually I did by pointing out the research introduced into the economy and technologies is invaluable. To belittle the accomplishments by saying "NASA has R&D capacity and it developed some useful things" is simply stupid. Any space agency has to have the research and technology development capability to push new 'frontiers', not to focus solely on advancing technology, especially since most technology finds it's own way into the economy anyway, while NASA trudges on.
Now onto your less important points:
1) your 'rough estimates' fail to take into account the cost of infrastructure, the personnel to maintain, the cost of installation, dealing with contracting, dealing with hardware changes, and even if you got a fibre only nation, how long before the next big thing came along and someone was saying "why not just re'install the lastest technology across the nation?"... On top of that, your estimates only take into account the cost of not only communications within the US but around the world. Think global, not local; then start moving onto thinking Universal, and not just global.
2) Energy from fusion is nonsense... and is NOT feasible. Fusion is what physicists looking for grant money use to get politicians excited about free energy. Every couple years a theoretical nuclear and particle physicist comes out with a paper on the subject. Let me make this clear to you -- it's crap.
3) The last time you checked our defense plan was still in place and the world knew we continue to improve our defense capabilities. That's why you don't have warheads falling on your head. An arms race for the sake of an arms race would be stupid, but logical deterance through proactive and known defense intiatives work.
spelling like a turd today...
"It's not like there is a shortage of LEO satellites and if we want more, our present technology is good and cheap enough." -- Good and cheap, and without NASA non-existant. Thank you NASA for providing the research that put the satalites in orbit and moved the Space Program away from Government Space access ONLY by funding multinational organizations and space intiatives.
"fibre-optics are much better, unless you are talking about Internet in the middle of the ocean" -- Thank you NASA, Engineers and Physics institutions for getting funding that did the initial research on fibre technology 30 years ago instead of not doing the research (in which case we wouldn't have these technologies).
"ultimately fibre is again the way to go" -- Conformity is the hobgoblin of little minds... What comes after fibre-optics? Have you thought that one out yet? or is fibre the end of advancement?
"fusion is much more feasible than any space based projects." -- fusion?? fusion?? You need a couple Phyisics 101 courses before making a statement like that.
"GPS is useful, but it's not like it needs any addtional stimuli. There will also be a competing European system soon (Galileo?) and there is a Russian one already (Glonas?)." -- And while we're at it, we don't need to invest in research or be a first world nation... we can sit back on our laurels and be self-congratulatory about how wonderful our accomplishments are, while we watch the rest of the world leave us behind. The keyword in your statement was "soon"... soon is not NOW, NOW is NOW... Soon means nothing...
"What we need are scientific advances in applied sciences (geology, climatology, etc.) to analyse these pictures." -- Thank you NASA for funding NUMEROUS University Earth Science programs for the purpose of generating 'advances in applied sciences...'
"it's not like the ability to kill more people is such a compelling reason. Not for me, certainly." -- Thank you NASA for continuing research into technologies that work from space to prevent warheads from killing Americans who disagree with your work with National Defense and Strategic Security.
"It would be a smarter decision to invest more money in nanotech and AI and then get into space in a couple of years with these new capabilities." -- Thank you NASA for funding one of the most advanced AI labs and nanotech research in Universities so we have the tools available for use WHEN we get into space, and not waiting to develop the technologies when the time comes.
"we don't need new jobs, we need to eliminate existing ones. That's why nanotech and AI are important. And if you still want jobs, just open some widget-making factories." -- I welcome my AI masters rule, and taking away the need for me to think on my own. (Do you work for Microsoft by any chance?)
"a completely outdated vision from 20th century. Flying into space will not change anything. Mars is beyond our reach, unless we get really important advanced technologies - nanotech and AI. To truly open new frontiers for us, we need to oncentrate on these, not on useless space launches." -- Thank you NASA for continuing research in all areas related to future thinking people with the vision to see beyond the 2 year limitations and think about long term goals. Thank you for not shying away from people who have nothing but criticism for the valuable research you do, and the professional way you do it. Thank you for not giving up despite the cost of many lives, and many setbacks to the invaluable programs at NASA. Thank you for the progress that most times is not seen or ever receives a single accolade that still adds to the value of this nation. In short... Thank you NASA for making this a First World Nation, and not shrinking from the responsibility of the difficult and hard to explain work that you do!
While not the best reason, this is still A reason for the space program (whether folks want to believe it or not)...
...because NASA is doing the kinds of research that makes this a first world nation.
We're a first world nation because our government puts monetary resources into research intiatives. Without the ability to 'expand our horizons' (in NASA's case literally), we stagnate as a nation and rely on random research, with questionable methods, and no verification ability, to lead progress in the future. Imagine if the government didn't subsidize medical research facilities, or physics research, or bio-engeering work? Where would your cancer treatments come from? Who would want to pay for that kind of research with potentially no pay-off? The costs of the types of research that NASA and other DOD/DOE agencies fund provide real world results. Unfortunately, and more often than not, research doesn't pay off in the form of 'another moon landing', or a 'critical cure for AIDS'... but at the very least the nay-sayer's have to admit that we're still moving forward instead of applying leaches to our bodies to ward off evil spirits, or hooking up horse-n-buggy to get from point A to point B.
Remember it's easy to take pot shots at the big guys, but harder to really understand why money is spent where it is...
millions of homeless in America -- the majority of homeless in America do not (despite popular belief) suffer from 'the man keeping them down', or from a never-ending string of bad luck that keeps them from moving up in life, so much as lack of motivation to succeed, mental and/or emotional disabilities, or simply poor decision making. I'm not saying that there are not cases of cutbacks and financial ruin leading to poverty, but that the majority of homeless will not take the steps necessary to really pick themselves up 'by the bootstraps' and help themselves out (and YES, there are TONS of government funded programs to assist homeless LOOK IT UP PEOPLE!!). In addition, no amount of money is going to fix this problem, it only enables futhur abuses of system resources. When you generate a program, there are bound to be abuses, but in America we have the most blantant disregard for the sanctity of the programs and the intentions of their creation, that we have to then generate more programs to monitor the resources and verify that the programs are not being abused. (What a waste of resources just to verify that people are being honest...)
underfunded schools -- Throwing money into state of the art computer labs, or resurfacing basketball courts does nothing to improve students motivation to learn. Dumping money into video's that are geared towards learning don't motivate students to learn. Paying teachers more money doesn't make teachers teach any better. While there is a valid arguement that our teachers are underfunded for the jobs they do, and a lack of teachers and schools, and in some instances a lack of basic necessities within the schools (pencils, pens, paper), there is not a justification that says that more money will correllate to higher grades, or students that have a desire to learn. Paying a teacher more may improve their attitudes, and may even influence better teaching styles, but without a student interested in subjects instead of sports, grades instead of goals, or simply education instead of ignorance, then you continue to perpetuate the cycle of motivation-less americans.
predatory health care system -- The best cartoon I've ever seen was on a psychology professors door. A man sitting on a couch, the councelor saying "I could tell you what's wrong with you, but I've got a mortgage, a car, and a boat to pay off." I don't think anyone here will argue that we have a failing health care system with doctors who spend less time with patients than they do with insurance companies. We have insurance companies dictating to doctors what treatments to prescribe, with very nearly hostile consequences for failure to comply. My question is why does the doctor, who's spent most of his adult life in school and learning how to 'heal', have to take orders from a business major who spent 6 years in school getting his/her BS (because they partied the first couple years)? We have a problem in this country with the authoritative structure. There should never have come a time when doctors were required to not only not treat, but not efficiently 'heal' patients because insurance agencies dictate what they will and won't pay for; nor should there have ever come a time when the Hippocratic oath was subnoted with company logos. We have a very real problem with our health care system, but dumping money into it, will only perpetuate insurance companies to continue to dictate health care standards, at the expense of your health, to protect the 'almighty buck'.
Yes, we have real problems in this nation, I would suggest you start focusing, instead of on where money is going, to who's making decisions, and on fixing the 'authority structure' that is badly screwed up.
Knowing how to handle money does not mean you are a leader, nor should it imply that you have the power to make decisions which effect people who actually work... and yet every day we face leadership centered around people who think they know what's best based on financial impacts and without understanding the full implications of the decisions mandated.