Ummm... You do realize that all these people have been (incorrectly) using "OS" as "Open Source" rather than "Operating System," right? I know, I know, "OSS" is the more proper term...
Oh, right. Like Microsoft's "Excel." Of course, swing the other way and you have "Word." Shouldn't they have called it "Document"? And what is the "PowerPoint" thing? Sounds like an auto-targeting system for a cannon. And "Access"? Does that get me onto the Internet or something?
At least they seemed to get it right with their server products. I mean, "SQL Server" for a database seems obvious, and "Exchange" is for... well, if you don't count attracting virii, it's for exchanging things with people. "Internet Information Server" is for serving information to the Internet. Oh, yes, and of course "Windows Server" is for... um... uh... hmm....
If this catches on, maybe the Discovery Network will sit up and take notice and start having programs for people who can think. DirecTV beams twenty-odd "educational" channels to my television, and I still spend a lot of time watching PBS that I could get for free.
Okay, so maybe it's not "a lot" of time, but it's a significant amount. What I'd like to see is "television for people with three digit IQs." The current fare is distinctly lacking in that area.
We use RAID 0+1 for our large DAS. Our system guys seem to think that it's safer than RAID 5. We've spent the last couple of years migrating a lot of our storage to SAN, though, and I'm not sure if the 0+1 methodology got migrated along with it. Seems unlikely.
If you spread your RAID 5 over sixteen volumes (as someone upthread said they did), it seems to me that any individual drive failing wouldn't incur a ton of work on the rest of the drives, because the amount of data any one of them would have to contribute to rebuilding the lost one would be inversely proportional to the number of drives in the overall system.
While I wouldn't have put it quite the way you did, I have to agree with you. If the OSS community keeps up the attitude that Shakrai puts forth, adoption into corporate datacenters and business areas will be slow and agonizing. As you said, people want assurances.
The upside is that companies are used to and willing to fork over large sums of cash for those assurances. So, if you love an OSS project enough to dedicate your life to it, then get to know it inside and out and start offering commercial support for it. If the product is stable, you never have to answer the phone. If you charge $500 per year for support, 100 customers makes for a tidy income. And, honestly, most midsize corporations wouldn't even blink at $500 per year for support on something that goes on a server, unless it was in astonishment at how cheap it was.
'Dr. Joanne Pransky Credentials' Comes up with 0 hits on google. Wow.
I just googled for a guy whom I know to have a doctorate in experimental nuclear physics from Berkeley using the same method with the same results. A check of another doctorate holder with a much more common name turned up a bunch of medical doctors, but nothing on his specialty (mathematics). I'm not sure your method is a sound one, though I suspect that your conclusions aren't far off the mark.
I had one of those, too, though it was just a partial kit that I think came from a garage sale or something. I fooled with it on and off for a couple of years, but never seemed to have the blocks I needed to make something go right or do something truly interesting.
I kind of wish I still had it now that I'm in my 30's with a little more knowledge of how electronics work and a definite nostalgia for anachronistic tech gear. If you've still got one, I suggest holding onto it.:^)
Okay, this is off topic, but actually, while I wouldn't recommend STANDING in the path of a wireless power transmission, walking through the path shouldn't affect a person too much. The cell phone, PDA, digital watch, pager, digital camera, laptop, pocket calculator or other nifty gadget might have issues if they're not well shielded, but the human body shouldn't.
This link is a summary paper of information from a variety of sources on Solar Power Satellites. This one has a couple pictures of a test in California.
Yes I have, and I plan to get involved with them as soon as SUSE 9.1 is released and I can get upgraded to KDE 3.2. I tried upgrading 9.0 to KDE 3.2, but the result was unwieldly. I'll wait another month or so for the new distro to come out. From there I hope to be a significant contributor to the Quality Team. What they're doing is fantastic, and needed for a long time in the Open Source world.
You know, much like twofidyKidd above, I don't want to "toot my own horn" too much, but I'm one of those weird people that does a fair job of writing documentation. Knowing this about myself, and knowing that there are a lot of OSS projects out there that could use such talent at whatever level, I've gone in search of a project to help out.
Here's the rub: If I want to find an existing project to write documentation for, I have to either a) read all the existing documentation, figure out what the product does, then figure out what documentation is needed and write it, or b) find that there's no documentation at all, read the code, figure out what the product does, then write documentation from that.
In no way should I be allowed to approach a project's web site, introduce myself on the forum saying that I'm a documentation writer, and have people offer their expertise as developers in telling me what the product does so I can write documentation for it. God forbid that I should ask questions that are clearly evident if I would just read every post to the forum boards for the last year and corrolate that with code snippets that were submitted to CVS.
So, based on that, I spend my time fooling around with bad software and figuring out how to use it on my own. Once I do, I'll be pretty good at it, and I can be an elitist (l33t???) that tells people how I could lower myself to telling them the answer to their question, but I don't really have the time because I'm too busy posting to Slashdot.:-\
I have to say that I'm still a little confused. If the author is referring to Open Source Software, but not Free Software (as you stated, a subset), and not packages that vendors have released as Open Source, it seems to me that they've handily reduced the scope of their statement while keeping the moniker of Open Source Software so they can bash on it.
"...buy me an acre of land, between the salt water and the sea strand."
That URL doesn't work. I tried the home page, but don't read Chinese (or whatever it is). And there's no "go to our English site" link on the page that's identifiable to an English speaker.
Too bad, too. I'm always in the market for a cool new case.
Read The Getaway Special. Synopsis: Wacky scientist invents teleportation device that makes long distance space travel instantaneous with parts that can be bought from a Radio Shack. Plans GPL'd. Earth gov'ts freaked out. Chaos ensues. Protagonist travels around galaxy in a modified septic tank (good pressure vessel). Definitely not "hard sci-fi," but a fun romp to be sure.
They did, indeed, switch to a powered landing profile. Carmack has been working the bugs out of the driver software, and has a full simulator built (one of his blogs has a moderately humorous anecdode about the simulator mis-estimating ground level by a meter the wrong way. It made for some rough landings when it resolved itself at the last second).
I'm a little concerned that the powered landing thing will slow them down enough to miss their chance at the prize, but I think in the long run it will give them a more marketable vehicle. That might be the bigger prize.
Well, talk about being in a minority, I kind of liked Lynch's Dune. Now, I'll give you that the "wierding modules" were just... weird. But as far as the feeling of the movie, it did a lot to impress the age of the civilization on the viewer.
And, while I appreciated the Sci-Fi Channel's rendition of the novel, particularly that they more or less stuck to the story, the sets all had a very Star Trek feeling to them. In scenes that were supposed to be out in the open desert, it was obvious that they were on a soundstage with a wooden floor under their feet. In 1977, Star Wars did a better job of convincing me that the deserts of Tatoonie (sp?) were real than this did.
I suppose that I should be happy for any true-to-the-story rendition of a novel that I like, but I've gotten so used to epic-scale visuals in theatrical movies that watching "made for TV" productions is hard.
Well, spam comes from somewhere and points you to somewhere (not necessarily the same places). If communities ran campaigns against the companies that advertise through spammers, notifying them that their advertisement practices aren't appreciated, then maybe (though undecidedly likely) they would stop using advertising agencies that employ spam techniques.
"You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."
My wife (the best thing that ever happened to me) isn't much of a computer user (an understatement to say the least). She helps me balance my life with things like backpacking, sea kayaking (our latest passion), walking, winemaking (and grape picking) as well as dining out.
Slashdot Mirror
Ummm... You do realize that all these people have been (incorrectly) using "OS" as "Open Source" rather than "Operating System," right? I know, I know, "OSS" is the more proper term...
Oh, right. Like Microsoft's "Excel." Of course, swing the other way and you have "Word." Shouldn't they have called it "Document"? And what is the "PowerPoint" thing? Sounds like an auto-targeting system for a cannon. And "Access"? Does that get me onto the Internet or something?
At least they seemed to get it right with their server products. I mean, "SQL Server" for a database seems obvious, and "Exchange" is for... well, if you don't count attracting virii, it's for exchanging things with people. "Internet Information Server" is for serving information to the Internet. Oh, yes, and of course "Windows Server" is for... um... uh... hmm....
Dammit! I never know when to shut up.
Okay, so maybe it's not "a lot" of time, but it's a significant amount. What I'd like to see is "television for people with three digit IQs." The current fare is distinctly lacking in that area.
We use RAID 0+1 for our large DAS. Our system guys seem to think that it's safer than RAID 5. We've spent the last couple of years migrating a lot of our storage to SAN, though, and I'm not sure if the 0+1 methodology got migrated along with it. Seems unlikely.
If you spread your RAID 5 over sixteen volumes (as someone upthread said they did), it seems to me that any individual drive failing wouldn't incur a ton of work on the rest of the drives, because the amount of data any one of them would have to contribute to rebuilding the lost one would be inversely proportional to the number of drives in the overall system.
Wow. Talk about a run-on sentance...
Yup. It's amazing what happens when you pay US$1.5M for software, then the "standard annual maintenance fee" of 17% (plus or minus 2%).
While I wouldn't have put it quite the way you did, I have to agree with you. If the OSS community keeps up the attitude that Shakrai puts forth, adoption into corporate datacenters and business areas will be slow and agonizing. As you said, people want assurances.
The upside is that companies are used to and willing to fork over large sums of cash for those assurances. So, if you love an OSS project enough to dedicate your life to it, then get to know it inside and out and start offering commercial support for it. If the product is stable, you never have to answer the phone. If you charge $500 per year for support, 100 customers makes for a tidy income. And, honestly, most midsize corporations wouldn't even blink at $500 per year for support on something that goes on a server, unless it was in astonishment at how cheap it was.
I just googled for a guy whom I know to have a doctorate in experimental nuclear physics from Berkeley using the same method with the same results. A check of another doctorate holder with a much more common name turned up a bunch of medical doctors, but nothing on his specialty (mathematics). I'm not sure your method is a sound one, though I suspect that your conclusions aren't far off the mark.
Not to be confused with The Turing Test, the Turin test has been long shrouded in controversy...
Right. I think it was Fezzik (the Giant) that said, "I don't think that word means what you think it means." My mistake.
What is the lifespan of a bit of information? Storage of bits can be handled many ways.
A Slashdotter steals lines from a deceased giant who had a passion for wrestling? Inconceivable!
I had one of those, too, though it was just a partial kit that I think came from a garage sale or something. I fooled with it on and off for a couple of years, but never seemed to have the blocks I needed to make something go right or do something truly interesting.
:^)
I kind of wish I still had it now that I'm in my 30's with a little more knowledge of how electronics work and a definite nostalgia for anachronistic tech gear. If you've still got one, I suggest holding onto it.
This link is a summary paper of information from a variety of sources on Solar Power Satellites. This one has a couple pictures of a test in California.
Yes I have, and I plan to get involved with them as soon as SUSE 9.1 is released and I can get upgraded to KDE 3.2. I tried upgrading 9.0 to KDE 3.2, but the result was unwieldly. I'll wait another month or so for the new distro to come out. From there I hope to be a significant contributor to the Quality Team. What they're doing is fantastic, and needed for a long time in the Open Source world.
You know, much like twofidyKidd above, I don't want to "toot my own horn" too much, but I'm one of those weird people that does a fair job of writing documentation. Knowing this about myself, and knowing that there are a lot of OSS projects out there that could use such talent at whatever level, I've gone in search of a project to help out.
:-\
Here's the rub: If I want to find an existing project to write documentation for, I have to either a) read all the existing documentation, figure out what the product does, then figure out what documentation is needed and write it, or b) find that there's no documentation at all, read the code, figure out what the product does, then write documentation from that.
In no way should I be allowed to approach a project's web site, introduce myself on the forum saying that I'm a documentation writer, and have people offer their expertise as developers in telling me what the product does so I can write documentation for it. God forbid that I should ask questions that are clearly evident if I would just read every post to the forum boards for the last year and corrolate that with code snippets that were submitted to CVS.
So, based on that, I spend my time fooling around with bad software and figuring out how to use it on my own. Once I do, I'll be pretty good at it, and I can be an elitist (l33t???) that tells people how I could lower myself to telling them the answer to their question, but I don't really have the time because I'm too busy posting to Slashdot.
Heck, I've got a whole five left, but posted too. I'm with you. Mod this author up.
I have to say that I'm still a little confused. If the author is referring to Open Source Software, but not Free Software (as you stated, a subset), and not packages that vendors have released as Open Source, it seems to me that they've handily reduced the scope of their statement while keeping the moniker of Open Source Software so they can bash on it.
"...buy me an acre of land,
between the salt water and the sea strand."
Too bad, too. I'm always in the market for a cool new case.
Read The Getaway Special . Synopsis: Wacky scientist invents teleportation device that makes long distance space travel instantaneous with parts that can be bought from a Radio Shack. Plans GPL'd. Earth gov'ts freaked out. Chaos ensues. Protagonist travels around galaxy in a modified septic tank (good pressure vessel). Definitely not "hard sci-fi," but a fun romp to be sure.
Ha! Oregon has no sales tax.
"What have the Romans ever done for us?"
"Aqueducts?"
I'm a little concerned that the powered landing thing will slow them down enough to miss their chance at the prize, but I think in the long run it will give them a more marketable vehicle. That might be the bigger prize.
And, while I appreciated the Sci-Fi Channel's rendition of the novel, particularly that they more or less stuck to the story, the sets all had a very Star Trek feeling to them. In scenes that were supposed to be out in the open desert, it was obvious that they were on a soundstage with a wooden floor under their feet. In 1977, Star Wars did a better job of convincing me that the deserts of Tatoonie (sp?) were real than this did.
I suppose that I should be happy for any true-to-the-story rendition of a novel that I like, but I've gotten so used to epic-scale visuals in theatrical movies that watching "made for TV" productions is hard.
Well, spam comes from somewhere and points you to somewhere (not necessarily the same places). If communities ran campaigns against the companies that advertise through spammers, notifying them that their advertisement practices aren't appreciated, then maybe (though undecidedly likely) they would stop using advertising agencies that employ spam techniques.
"You may say that I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one."
My wife (the best thing that ever happened to me) isn't much of a computer user (an understatement to say the least). She helps me balance my life with things like backpacking, sea kayaking (our latest passion), walking, winemaking (and grape picking) as well as dining out.