I've heard this tale a few times from various vendors in the reprographics industry over the last decade or so. The last time I heard it, it was making the rounds at Sharp Labs where I was working about seven years ago. I was one of several new guys on the staff, and the story had the feel of being told a lot at that point. An urban legend for sure.
A good data model or standard does not indicate a complete one. Quite the contrary, a well constructed data model, or protocol, or whatever, assumes that there are going to be changes in the future and makes accomodations for those changes. That's the beauty (okay, one of the beauties) of the relational database model in that it supports additions to structures after they're created, rather than locking the developer into data structures where fields start n number of characters to the right of the previous field or something.
The best thing that you and any other application system developer can do is start building your systems in a loosely-coupled fashion, with clearly defined interfaces to a clean, yet extensible data model. At that point, systems components (tax calculators, payroll engines, etc.) can be swapped out (excised, killed, regrown) without rampant destruction to the rest of the system. So long as the interfaces are maintained, the inner workings can change all you want.
I agree that they probably got a little overwhelmed with the responses, and that they never dreamed they'd get that many people applying. There's probably a little bit of coercion going on by the "big guys" who would've been all right with a couple of garage monkeys in the mix, but don't want to be fighting it out with an army of them. It probably didn't take much talking to get DARPA to say, "Yeah, that's a lot of them to keep track of. We'd better limit it to commercially viable organizations to raise the bar for entry."
Oh, it might not get rid of the headaches, but it would probably make you not care so much about the headaches. Or much of anything else, for that matter, except where the bag of Doritos is.
Sorry if I'm sounding dense, but could you explain the math on that? If the landing area is 70 x 45 km, that's 3150 sq. km. A 1 km dia. crater has an area of (roughly) 0.8 sq. km, which is.025 percent of the overall area. Assuming that the (for illustration, point-sized) probe had an equal chance of hitting any point in the target area, I would say the chance of hitting a 1 km crater is one fortieth of one percent.
I say all this with the full disclaimer that I've been very wrong on this sort of thing before. That's why I asked for an explanation of your method.
Check out the Foxfire series sometime. It's got everything you need to live in the deep Ozarks, including instructions on "running 'shine" and "hidin' from them rev'nooers." I think there's about a dozen books in the series. Some really interesting American folklore for those of you who never get out of the city.
I only ever read SnowCrash, and, althouth I liked it very well, haven't been able to get interested in any of the other story lines by reading the blurb on the back of the books. My friends recommend them, but when they describe them, they don't interest me.
I think Carmack plans to do the whole project for less than $2M. Now, that's a lot of money to me, at least for my personal bank account (as is $2K), but to someone who plans to develop new technology, fly to "the edge of space," and get a check for $10M after his second return trip, it's a reasonable investment. And, even if they don't win the prize, they've still got marketable technology that they've developed.
Thanks. As I was reading down comments, I thought of the BD-10 and wondered what had ever happened to it. I was going to google after it, then saw your post.
They're repeating the "whole series" (both episodes) Sunday, AFAIK.
One thing that bothered me about it (maybe it's my TV, but I doubt it) was that in many cases, the music drowned out the dialog. I couldn't hear half of what they said. If I've got to have 5.1 surround sound to watch a TV program, I'm going to be a little annoyed.
That's interesting. I could post exactly the same text (including the.sig), because I find myself in the same situation. 'Course, that would get me modded -1:Redundant. Thbbttt...
However, I have yet to hear a single techie say, "Well, I guess I'm obsolete -- better go find a new, profitable skill set."
Interesting, yes. But you must not be talking to a lot of "techies." Yes, a lot of us have considered cross-training to another occupation, but consider this: Here's me, with a wife, a house and mortage, two cats, a reasonable amount of debt, and hopes for a kid to come along soon. Let's say I'm considering getting out of the dreary world of IT and into something else I'm interested in, like mechanical engineering. The quickest way to get there is to quit my job, take out $20K in student loans (on top of the $20K I've already got) and go full time to school to get my degree. If I'm lucky, when I graduate in two years, I can go straight to work for about a third less than what I'm making now, and spend another five years building my income level back up to what it is now, all the time trying to make payments on more student loans and figure out where the last seven years of my life just went. By that time, in my early forties, if we don't have a kid yet we're going to adopt. Where does that money come from? Most people we talk to says it costs about $15K. Seven years of inflation have driven up the cost of living by that time, too, so my current salary level isn't worth as much as it was back when I was in IT...
Yeah, a lot of us IT guys have considered a switch. It just doesn't seem to make sense, once you've been in it for a while. And, try to use the analogy with any other profession. How many lawyers do you know that quit to start another career, or doctors, or accountants, or...?
Thanks for the "On Site" insight. Something I'm curious about: What sort of standard of living do you achieve with Rs 15000 where you live? Do you live in a house or an apartment? Is the place nice? Do you own a car? What kind? Are cars commonly owned there, or do people use public transportation? Are you married? Kids? Who does your housework? What kind of computer do you have? Do you have much "disposable income" to spend on partying or whatever you might choose to do with it, or do you barely survive between paychecks?
I ask all these questions, because I know how far $60K ($5K per month) goes here in the U.S., and, while it's not an uncomfortable living, we're certainly not living in a mansion, and we've got to watch what we spend money on each month so that we make progress on our debts. People here in the U.S. often get caught up shouting about how foreign workers are underpaid, but neglect to note that foreign countries often have radically different economies than ours, and there's no direct translation method for comparing salaries.
A loaf of decent bread here costs $1.39, a gallon of milk $2.89; a two bedroom apartment in a low-crime neighborhood runs about $750 per month; dinner for two at a restaurant, without eating anything expensive, and without wine, runs about $25; if we go to a matinee movie (cheapest tickets), buy a small popcorn and two small sodas, we spend $20. What do all of these things cost where you live?
I think the "contamination" they don't want is typically referred to (terrestrially) as "litter." I understand that (thanks quite a bit to the Russian program, but also to "just leave it here" Americans) the moon is quite littered with a bunch of junk that either didn't work or doesn't any more. Biocontaminant or not, trying to do geologic science and having to move aside slagged lander parts that drilled into Tharsis to do it would be a little annoying...
The issue I see is with that whole lightspeed thing again. It's 1.25 light seconds from Earth to the moon, and so a round-trip radio signal (from command send to acknowledgement receipt) would be at least two and a half seconds, not counting processing time or sattelite relay overhead (the chances of getting a straight line signal are remote). So, teepers (telepresent operators) would be doing a lot of waiting between commands, which isn't very efficient if there is a lot of granularity to the commands. Teeping would be far better for management of generally autonomous machinery.
Attempts to mine asteroidal material from NEOs (Near Earth Objects) would present even greater problems for remote control. While asteroid mining presents a lot of advantages over lunar mining (your product is already in orbit, for instance), the moon has the noted quality of being local to us. Furthermore, we can see what's going on there from here without a whole lot of effort, assuming that mining operations stick to the Earth-facing side.
I suspect that, at least in the short term, Lunar and asteroidal mining operations are going to be carried out by small human crews with large arsenals of semi-automated equipment at their disposals.
Is it just me, or could the X-wing possibly have an intercom wired between the droid and the pilot's helmet. I mean, come on, we're talking fiction, not fantasy, right?
But, I disagree that Unix power users are the least efficient. I can do things within Unix much faster than my MS-Windows friends from their "user-friendly" GUI.
You know, I hear that lament a lot. Sure, there are a ton of things that can be done with Unix in an instant that Windows users take forever to do, or, for that matter, just can't get done, though I find that often the latter is due to "feature hiding" more than anything else. But, if I can say this without sounding like I'm defending Windows, just what are you accomplishing with these "things?"
If you want to find out how much disk you're using in Linux, pop a terminal and type "df". It spits out a list of your locally mounted partitions with a bunch of relevant information. Don't worry that you don't know what "df" stands for, it doesn't matter; you remember it, that's what counts. That, and the fact that your Windows buddy over there is still waiting for Windows Explorer to paint the left-hand tree, and he has no idea where to go from there, so he's digging a pencil and paper out of the drawer, preparing to make a list. He'll add up values later with Calculator, which might even give him an accurate answer.
But just how useful is something like this in the grand scheme of things? Oh, I know, I'm duffing this simple example, and there are a ton of Very Useful Things that can be done in Very Short Order on a well configured Linux (or Unix) system that leave users drifting aimlessly around panel after panel in Windows. But, for general usability, I think Windows is a reasonable operating system, though not as reasonable as OS X.
Having said all that, I have to say that I agree with your post. One thing that I think will help Linux immensely is a centralized (centralised for you Brits) system control center. I haven't seen an OS yet that had a robust, intuitive central system configuration application. I would like to see a single app with an intuitive interface that covers as many aspects of system configuration as possible. Webmin comes close to this, and does an admirable job, particularly because it works across so many platforms, but, frankly, I'd like to see it as a "fat client" app rather than web based (just personal preference there). And it seems to fall short on autodiscovery, too. I'd like to see it figure out whether apps are available for administration before giving me an icon to click on. It's just teasing me otherwise.
In all, I think the UserLinux project, except for the fact that it doesn't have a very catch name, is a great idea to get behind. I, for one, welcome our new distro overlords, and will stand firmly behind them.
I was thinking about that. A file is available on a network, even a private network, and available to the network's signers-on. Are those members not also members of the public? I realize this is an odd reading of the language, but in a world where guys admit to shooting someone in the head, chopping up and disposing of the body, then are accquitted, you've got to read things every way you can.
Well, it comes into play quite well if you consider that, if you inadvertently "share" a movie that's on your hard drive because of some Microsoft security hole (not that I'm indicating that those are common or anything), the argument for technical ignorance could play out.
Okay, I'll take that. The story is what set my mind on enterprises. The poster works for an energy company, definitely in the class of enterprise and not doctor, vet, mechanic or video store. Still, my mistake.
The main reason that companies buy vertical app is they do not WANT to know how to use a computer.
Pardon me for being so frank, but bullshit.
Enterprises buy vertical market apps for a variety of reasons. In regulated environments, they often don't want the responsibility of having to keep up with regulatory changes, and want a vendor to do it for them. There's also the issue of liability insulation. If something drops in the pot, they've got someone to sue (the hard sell for OSS, btw). One issue we've run up against is that our users constantly want small tweaks to the applications, a habit they picked up with in-house written software. We've been very responsive to their requests for changes. When they were introduced to vendor-based apps, they carried that habit with them, and it ended up costing the company a bunch of money. But sometimes, whether a company knows how something works or not, they don't, as you put it, want to fuss around with some particular app silo; they'd rather outsource it to someone and hope to reduce the cost of adding programming staff.
Slashdot Mirror
They used to have that option, but they killed it.
(Sorry, it had to be done)
I've heard this tale a few times from various vendors in the reprographics industry over the last decade or so. The last time I heard it, it was making the rounds at Sharp Labs where I was working about seven years ago. I was one of several new guys on the staff, and the story had the feel of being told a lot at that point. An urban legend for sure.
The best thing that you and any other application system developer can do is start building your systems in a loosely-coupled fashion, with clearly defined interfaces to a clean, yet extensible data model. At that point, systems components (tax calculators, payroll engines, etc.) can be swapped out (excised, killed, regrown) without rampant destruction to the rest of the system. So long as the interfaces are maintained, the inner workings can change all you want.
I agree that they probably got a little overwhelmed with the responses, and that they never dreamed they'd get that many people applying. There's probably a little bit of coercion going on by the "big guys" who would've been all right with a couple of garage monkeys in the mix, but don't want to be fighting it out with an army of them. It probably didn't take much talking to get DARPA to say, "Yeah, that's a lot of them to keep track of. We'd better limit it to commercially viable organizations to raise the bar for entry."
Oh, it might not get rid of the headaches, but it would probably make you not care so much about the headaches. Or much of anything else, for that matter, except where the bag of Doritos is.
Sorry if I'm sounding dense, but could you explain the math on that? If the landing area is 70 x 45 km, that's 3150 sq. km. A 1 km dia. crater has an area of (roughly) 0.8 sq. km, which is .025 percent of the overall area. Assuming that the (for illustration, point-sized) probe had an equal chance of hitting any point in the target area, I would say the chance of hitting a 1 km crater is one fortieth of one percent.
I say all this with the full disclaimer that I've been very wrong on this sort of thing before. That's why I asked for an explanation of your method.
Check out the Foxfire series sometime. It's got everything you need to live in the deep Ozarks, including instructions on "running 'shine" and "hidin' from them rev'nooers." I think there's about a dozen books in the series. Some really interesting American folklore for those of you who never get out of the city.
I only ever read SnowCrash, and, althouth I liked it very well, haven't been able to get interested in any of the other story lines by reading the blurb on the back of the books. My friends recommend them, but when they describe them, they don't interest me.
I think Carmack plans to do the whole project for less than $2M. Now, that's a lot of money to me, at least for my personal bank account (as is $2K), but to someone who plans to develop new technology, fly to "the edge of space," and get a check for $10M after his second return trip, it's a reasonable investment. And, even if they don't win the prize, they've still got marketable technology that they've developed.
Thanks. As I was reading down comments, I thought of the BD-10 and wondered what had ever happened to it. I was going to google after it, then saw your post.
Don't forget the "wife factor." She has to be able to use it, too.
They're repeating the "whole series" (both episodes) Sunday, AFAIK.
One thing that bothered me about it (maybe it's my TV, but I doubt it) was that in many cases, the music drowned out the dialog. I couldn't hear half of what they said. If I've got to have 5.1 surround sound to watch a TV program, I'm going to be a little annoyed.
How about KnoppMyth?
That's interesting. I could post exactly the same text (including the .sig), because I find myself in the same situation. 'Course, that would get me modded -1:Redundant. Thbbttt...
Ah, once virginity is breeched, you can never have the experience again. All subsequent fsckings are somehow shadows of the first one.
Interesting, yes. But you must not be talking to a lot of "techies." Yes, a lot of us have considered cross-training to another occupation, but consider this: Here's me, with a wife, a house and mortage, two cats, a reasonable amount of debt, and hopes for a kid to come along soon. Let's say I'm considering getting out of the dreary world of IT and into something else I'm interested in, like mechanical engineering. The quickest way to get there is to quit my job, take out $20K in student loans (on top of the $20K I've already got) and go full time to school to get my degree. If I'm lucky, when I graduate in two years, I can go straight to work for about a third less than what I'm making now, and spend another five years building my income level back up to what it is now, all the time trying to make payments on more student loans and figure out where the last seven years of my life just went. By that time, in my early forties, if we don't have a kid yet we're going to adopt. Where does that money come from? Most people we talk to says it costs about $15K. Seven years of inflation have driven up the cost of living by that time, too, so my current salary level isn't worth as much as it was back when I was in IT...
Yeah, a lot of us IT guys have considered a switch. It just doesn't seem to make sense, once you've been in it for a while. And, try to use the analogy with any other profession. How many lawyers do you know that quit to start another career, or doctors, or accountants, or...?
I ask all these questions, because I know how far $60K ($5K per month) goes here in the U.S., and, while it's not an uncomfortable living, we're certainly not living in a mansion, and we've got to watch what we spend money on each month so that we make progress on our debts. People here in the U.S. often get caught up shouting about how foreign workers are underpaid, but neglect to note that foreign countries often have radically different economies than ours, and there's no direct translation method for comparing salaries.
A loaf of decent bread here costs $1.39, a gallon of milk $2.89; a two bedroom apartment in a low-crime neighborhood runs about $750 per month; dinner for two at a restaurant, without eating anything expensive, and without wine, runs about $25; if we go to a matinee movie (cheapest tickets), buy a small popcorn and two small sodas, we spend $20. What do all of these things cost where you live?
Many thanks.
JD Ray
Portland, Oregon.
I think the "contamination" they don't want is typically referred to (terrestrially) as "litter." I understand that (thanks quite a bit to the Russian program, but also to "just leave it here" Americans) the moon is quite littered with a bunch of junk that either didn't work or doesn't any more. Biocontaminant or not, trying to do geologic science and having to move aside slagged lander parts that drilled into Tharsis to do it would be a little annoying...
Attempts to mine asteroidal material from NEOs (Near Earth Objects) would present even greater problems for remote control. While asteroid mining presents a lot of advantages over lunar mining (your product is already in orbit, for instance), the moon has the noted quality of being local to us. Furthermore, we can see what's going on there from here without a whole lot of effort, assuming that mining operations stick to the Earth-facing side.
I suspect that, at least in the short term, Lunar and asteroidal mining operations are going to be carried out by small human crews with large arsenals of semi-automated equipment at their disposals.
JD Ray
PERMANENT core member
Is it just me, or could the X-wing possibly have an intercom wired between the droid and the pilot's helmet. I mean, come on, we're talking fiction, not fantasy, right?
You know, I hear that lament a lot. Sure, there are a ton of things that can be done with Unix in an instant that Windows users take forever to do, or, for that matter, just can't get done, though I find that often the latter is due to "feature hiding" more than anything else. But, if I can say this without sounding like I'm defending Windows, just what are you accomplishing with these "things?"
If you want to find out how much disk you're using in Linux, pop a terminal and type "df". It spits out a list of your locally mounted partitions with a bunch of relevant information. Don't worry that you don't know what "df" stands for, it doesn't matter; you remember it, that's what counts. That, and the fact that your Windows buddy over there is still waiting for Windows Explorer to paint the left-hand tree, and he has no idea where to go from there, so he's digging a pencil and paper out of the drawer, preparing to make a list. He'll add up values later with Calculator, which might even give him an accurate answer.
But just how useful is something like this in the grand scheme of things? Oh, I know, I'm duffing this simple example, and there are a ton of Very Useful Things that can be done in Very Short Order on a well configured Linux (or Unix) system that leave users drifting aimlessly around panel after panel in Windows. But, for general usability, I think Windows is a reasonable operating system, though not as reasonable as OS X.
Having said all that, I have to say that I agree with your post. One thing that I think will help Linux immensely is a centralized (centralised for you Brits) system control center. I haven't seen an OS yet that had a robust, intuitive central system configuration application. I would like to see a single app with an intuitive interface that covers as many aspects of system configuration as possible. Webmin comes close to this, and does an admirable job, particularly because it works across so many platforms, but, frankly, I'd like to see it as a "fat client" app rather than web based (just personal preference there). And it seems to fall short on autodiscovery, too. I'd like to see it figure out whether apps are available for administration before giving me an icon to click on. It's just teasing me otherwise.
In all, I think the UserLinux project, except for the fact that it doesn't have a very catch name, is a great idea to get behind. I, for one, welcome our new distro overlords, and will stand firmly behind them.
I was thinking about that. A file is available on a network, even a private network, and available to the network's signers-on. Are those members not also members of the public? I realize this is an odd reading of the language, but in a world where guys admit to shooting someone in the head, chopping up and disposing of the body, then are accquitted, you've got to read things every way you can.
Well, it comes into play quite well if you consider that, if you inadvertently "share" a movie that's on your hard drive because of some Microsoft security hole (not that I'm indicating that those are common or anything), the argument for technical ignorance could play out.
Okay, I'll take that. The story is what set my mind on enterprises. The poster works for an energy company, definitely in the class of enterprise and not doctor, vet, mechanic or video store. Still, my mistake.
Pardon me for being so frank, but bullshit.
Enterprises buy vertical market apps for a variety of reasons. In regulated environments, they often don't want the responsibility of having to keep up with regulatory changes, and want a vendor to do it for them. There's also the issue of liability insulation. If something drops in the pot, they've got someone to sue (the hard sell for OSS, btw). One issue we've run up against is that our users constantly want small tweaks to the applications, a habit they picked up with in-house written software. We've been very responsive to their requests for changes. When they were introduced to vendor-based apps, they carried that habit with them, and it ended up costing the company a bunch of money. But sometimes, whether a company knows how something works or not, they don't, as you put it, want to fuss around with some particular app silo; they'd rather outsource it to someone and hope to reduce the cost of adding programming staff.