I probably need to find another website to chime in on my opinion on the subject (confirmation bias anyone?) but after working with skydrive (consumer cloud storage) and MS office 2013 (not the 365 subscription one, I can't address that). The pretty much seamless integration between the two, with native app support on a few platforms I use frequently (android, iOS, windows) as well as a pretty solid web based version of office for many other situations has been great for me. I haven't had any down time (probably happened - didn't affect me yet). Since it automatically syncs to local storage on as many platforms as you want, a dropout (short-term) wouldn't hurt too bad.
There are some downsides - only basic file system usage on Linux - can mount it R/W but that's about it.
I spend about half my time doing tech work in the Linux world and the other half doing reporting, analysis, power point engineering and other administrative work in the windows world. I suggest anyone with a similar mix (or more slanted towards windows) give it shot. For much of my work none of the cloud services are secure enough for usage, so there are some limitations. I was using Google for these activities, and for me MS is the clear winner on this type of service.
So don't focus completely on the bad news with a dropout on a MS cloud service, and open your eyes a bit on their other progress on the user experience with consumer cloud services. You might be surprised. Or you might have your mind made up before you do.
I'm not a shill, I like all OSes from Windows to VxWorks - they ALL have their uses in the right environments depending on your needs.You may note I didn't crap on any of them.
I need a moderation option for 'good points, but excessive dickishness'
Anyways, I do pretty much exactly the same as you do; although in the firmware world.
Some options for all the knee-jerk complainers (pick the one that fits):
1. Don't watch any of them.
2. Wait until they are all out on blu-ray; then watch them (see Misagon's post)
3. Peter Jackson (and co.) can make as many movies as they want with the IP they 'own'. Get over it. See tip #1.
4. If you want a different story told, write some fan-fic. Otherwise either enjoy his vision, or go to tip #1
I guessing I'm whining now too; it's contagious.
I'll watch them when they are released - I enjoyed his interpretation of the LOTR books, and I expect to enjoy the Hobbit movies as well. If not, then that's a bummer; not psychotic nerd-rage inducement.
Little bit of hyperbole there - IT systems are absolutely critical in many ways, but I think you might want to consider other areas where inferior quality introduced by quota systems could be more or at least as harmful: Infrastructure design / construction, military contractors, nuclear site security, etc.
Just a nitpick; I agree with you in general. This is a situation where the policy may be well meaning, but it needs an exit ramp for situations where it is not applicable - first pass being qualifications, second pass being quota based; final choice then based on full project criteria - Obviously if there are insufficient qualified companies / individuals, the related quota must be irrelevant.
I followed your link, and read the following, which is incredibly depressing:
When asked for their views on the origin and development of human beings, between 40% and 50% of adults in the United States say they share the beliefs of young Earth creationism, depending on the poll. The percentage of believers decreases as the level of education increases—only 22% of respondents with postgraduate degrees believed compared with 47% of those with a high school education or less.
If you aren't in Texas, I would be a bit worried about this being looked at as a 'booby trap' as opposed to a honey pot. If the barrel is solder filled, and it's not obvious to the thief, the first time they try to fire that gun - bye bye hand / arm / face. This assumes that you hid the solder 'work' sufficiently that the thief would even bother to take it.
Not saying I disagree with you though - good thinking!
Having driven on rural roads in Nevada, I would hope you don't need a GPS for help - i.e. take next left turn in 115 miles. First business on left (28 miles).
I'm flying out for a 2 week vacation in April, I'm assuming we will get a season's worth of snow the day of the flight as well. (New Hampshire - only real snow this year was just before Halloween).
I've been struggling with the same issue and what I did is oddly similar to you - my well paying job has become a nightmare of incompetent management and soul-sucking grinds.
Looking for a change, I found a new passion for (substance abuse).
There is a ton of effort going on to prove that P != NP... I think you may be coming at this problem from just an odd enough perspective to finally solve it.
The chart you referenced has a logarithmic y-axis; a 'straight' line in logarithmic space is not linear; it's exponential. Try plotting the same data with a linear y-axis.
I'm sure it's not, but this really looks like you responding to yourself with an anonymous sock-puppet. Just saying. Please continue with the rational discourse.
Somehow I've missed this issue over the last couple of months (I read/. daily, my memory must be getting worse than I thought). At first look, the bill reads like a bad joke. The wording of this bill as it stands now will allow the take down of any website which provides user forums / comments. Simply visit the forum, post a link to download copy-written material or other 'illegal' data (which covers a tremendous amount of ground), and the owner of the website has committed a felony and immediately loses all advertising income.The owner is then guilty - you can't even say 'guilty until proven innocent' - you've likely lost your main income, their reputation among 'reputable' businesses is gone, and their opportunities for defense and damages seem pretty insignificant as stated in the bill.
The user forum example just scratches the surface of absurd possibilities.
Amazon selling a book which could facilitate access to whatever a corporation declares is 'illegal' data,e.g. computing book which touches on bit-torrents. Services like Pandora (you can record it on your home PC) or Google Music (obviously) Any data backup company (oops, had illegal data on my backed up hard drive - bye bye Carbonite).
Did I miss something? I don't see where in this bill that any line is drawn between a site like Pirate's Bay and the examples above.
I think you need to spend some time with the general population, not just your friends or coworkers --- they (or others) are giving you a false sense of the intelligence of the majority of the population - US, India, wherever.
A good percentage of the population does not have the intellectual capability to understand calculus. You might be able to force them to memorize things to the extent that they can pass an exam, but that doesn't serve any purpose to society (ostensibly the impetus behind making it a graduation requirement).
This idea that all kids are equally smart doesn't do any of them any good.
Most of the EE's (and SW engineers) I know, including myself, use a Linux based OS with variants of Windows in a VM. Most of the tools many of us use (Cadence, Matlab, ISE, Quartus, Mentor, Spice variants, Modelsim, Synplify, etc., etc.). are optimized to run on Linux. There's a huge number of other advantages to using Linux for this type of work - ease of scripting (TCL / Python / shell / you name it), ease of off-loading simulations to dedicated machines - RDP can't touch X forwarding, superior HW/SW support for tools, and so on. Bottom line - efficiency is way higher in a measurable way - as we used to be forced to run windows only, with cygwin as our only unixy fix.
But I spend a fair amount of time with MS Office, and most of the corporate infrastructure is windows based. So the virtual machine solution is fantastic for me and my co-workers. Seamless mode (aka Unity for VMWare) is nice for some people, but personally I like minimizing Windows (and the accompanying flood of email) while focusing on detailed work (easily distracted). I frequently move files between OSes, and dual-boot isn't a solution - I personally think virtualization will stay the main way to run a multi-OS environment for a long time to come. I like the direction things are going, and am looking forward to running a true multi-OS environment at some point in the future (with a light weight HV running the show), when Host / Guest start getting irrelevant.
A little off subject, but while talking about OSes and electrical engineering, a rising trend that is driving me nuts is that so many of the scope and logic/spectrum analyzer manufacturers are running windows as their OS - and they brag about it in their marketing materials. The only thing I can think of is that many engineers don't get to pick the specific scope they get, and the purchasing or mgmt types think having XP on a scope is just fantastic. In an environment with security issues, Windows has to be locked down so hard it needs 2 or 3x the RAM a normal install would, and I frequently end up with $25k scopes which perform worse then their 15 year old equivalents. Ask a sales rep from one of these companies about offering Linux (or whatever) alternative OSes, and you get a 'wtf is wrong with you?' look.
It's nice that so many of you put yourselves up on a pedestal that lets you see what all people in the 'real' world are doing with OSes. And to reference the GPs 'out' - EE/= Circle of Geeks (although I'll give you that there is pretty strong correlation).
It's a new service. While I understand that all/.ers release perfect products at initial release, google might take some time to collect user feedback and improve their service. I'm not a google fanatic, but over the years most reasonable people can see that their products follow a user beneficial trajectory over time.
Should they have taken a closer look at iTunes - maybe looking at complaints about that service, and incorporate those - but in general, my opinion is to give them time to improve. Whatever else you might say about Google, it's clear to me (at least) that they are dedicated to continuous improvement.
With that said, I have an android phone, and I don't like the Android Market all that much at this point either. Generally I 'search' for apps using google's search service, narrow down to what will do what I need, and then type the app name into the market. Works for right now, and I'm looking forward to better integration of searching - we all know they are good at that - into the Android Market.
Slashdot Mirror
I probably need to find another website to chime in on my opinion on the subject (confirmation bias anyone?) but after working with skydrive (consumer cloud storage) and MS office 2013 (not the 365 subscription one, I can't address that). The pretty much seamless integration between the two, with native app support on a few platforms I use frequently (android, iOS, windows) as well as a pretty solid web based version of office for many other situations has been great for me. I haven't had any down time (probably happened - didn't affect me yet). Since it automatically syncs to local storage on as many platforms as you want, a dropout (short-term) wouldn't hurt too bad.
There are some downsides - only basic file system usage on Linux - can mount it R/W but that's about it. I spend about half my time doing tech work in the Linux world and the other half doing reporting, analysis, power point engineering and other administrative work in the windows world. I suggest anyone with a similar mix (or more slanted towards windows) give it shot. For much of my work none of the cloud services are secure enough for usage, so there are some limitations. I was using Google for these activities, and for me MS is the clear winner on this type of service.
So don't focus completely on the bad news with a dropout on a MS cloud service, and open your eyes a bit on their other progress on the user experience with consumer cloud services. You might be surprised. Or you might have your mind made up before you do.
I'm not a shill, I like all OSes from Windows to VxWorks - they ALL have their uses in the right environments depending on your needs.You may note I didn't crap on any of them.
I need a moderation option for 'good points, but excessive dickishness' Anyways, I do pretty much exactly the same as you do; although in the firmware world.
First time I've seen compounded "That is to say's" in the wild.
The First Council of the Druids will find a way to recover the data.
Not to be pedantic, but that is an impressive way to misspell 'messureents'.
Some options for all the knee-jerk complainers (pick the one that fits):
1. Don't watch any of them.
2. Wait until they are all out on blu-ray; then watch them (see Misagon's post)
3. Peter Jackson (and co.) can make as many movies as they want with the IP they 'own'. Get over it. See tip #1.
4. If you want a different story told, write some fan-fic. Otherwise either enjoy his vision, or go to tip #1
I guessing I'm whining now too; it's contagious.
I'll watch them when they are released - I enjoyed his interpretation of the LOTR books, and I expect to enjoy the Hobbit movies as well. If not, then that's a bummer; not psychotic nerd-rage inducement.
What does NAS stand for in this context? The only NAS that I know is Naval Air Station.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=NAS
Little bit of hyperbole there - IT systems are absolutely critical in many ways, but I think you might want to consider other areas where inferior quality introduced by quota systems could be more or at least as harmful: Infrastructure design / construction, military contractors, nuclear site security, etc.
Just a nitpick; I agree with you in general. This is a situation where the policy may be well meaning, but it needs an exit ramp for situations where it is not applicable - first pass being qualifications, second pass being quota based; final choice then based on full project criteria - Obviously if there are insufficient qualified companies / individuals, the related quota must be irrelevant.
Archer > Janeway > Kirk > Picard. Somebody had to state the painful truth.
I followed your link, and read the following, which is incredibly depressing:
When asked for their views on the origin and development of human beings, between 40% and 50% of adults in the United States say they share the beliefs of young Earth creationism, depending on the poll. The percentage of believers decreases as the level of education increases—only 22% of respondents with postgraduate degrees believed compared with 47% of those with a high school education or less.
If you aren't in Texas, I would be a bit worried about this being looked at as a 'booby trap' as opposed to a honey pot. If the barrel is solder filled, and it's not obvious to the thief, the first time they try to fire that gun - bye bye hand / arm / face. This assumes that you hid the solder 'work' sufficiently that the thief would even bother to take it.
Not saying I disagree with you though - good thinking!
Having driven on rural roads in Nevada, I would hope you don't need a GPS for help - i.e. take next left turn in 115 miles. First business on left (28 miles).
I'm flying out for a 2 week vacation in April, I'm assuming we will get a season's worth of snow the day of the flight as well. (New Hampshire - only real snow this year was just before Halloween).
I would have modded this up, but I am terrified that could possibly be construed as a 'comment' by our Heartland masters.
I've been struggling with the same issue and what I did is oddly similar to you - my well paying job has become a nightmare of incompetent management and soul-sucking grinds.
Looking for a change, I found a new passion for (substance abuse).
There is a ton of effort going on to prove that P != NP ... I think you may be coming at this problem from just an odd enough perspective to finally solve it.
You should try www.amazon.com/prime
Newton? You might want to check up on that.
The chart you referenced has a logarithmic y-axis; a 'straight' line in logarithmic space is not linear; it's exponential. Try plotting the same data with a linear y-axis.
I'm sure it's not, but this really looks like you responding to yourself with an anonymous sock-puppet. Just saying. Please continue with the rational discourse.
Somehow I've missed this issue over the last couple of months (I read /. daily, my memory must be getting worse than I thought). At first look, the bill reads like a bad joke. The wording of this bill as it stands now will allow the take down of any website which provides user forums / comments. Simply visit the forum, post a link to download copy-written material or other 'illegal' data (which covers a tremendous amount of ground), and the owner of the website has committed a felony and immediately loses all advertising income.The owner is then guilty - you can't even say 'guilty until proven innocent' - you've likely lost your main income, their reputation among 'reputable' businesses is gone, and their opportunities for defense and damages seem pretty insignificant as stated in the bill.
The user forum example just scratches the surface of absurd possibilities.
Amazon selling a book which could facilitate access to whatever a corporation declares is 'illegal' data,e.g. computing book which touches on bit-torrents.
Services like Pandora (you can record it on your home PC) or Google Music (obviously)
Any data backup company (oops, had illegal data on my backed up hard drive - bye bye Carbonite).
Did I miss something? I don't see where in this bill that any line is drawn between a site like Pirate's Bay and the examples above.
I think you need to spend some time with the general population, not just your friends or coworkers --- they (or others) are giving you a false sense of the intelligence of the majority of the population - US, India, wherever. A good percentage of the population does not have the intellectual capability to understand calculus. You might be able to force them to memorize things to the extent that they can pass an exam, but that doesn't serve any purpose to society (ostensibly the impetus behind making it a graduation requirement). This idea that all kids are equally smart doesn't do any of them any good.
Most of the EE's (and SW engineers) I know, including myself, use a Linux based OS with variants of Windows in a VM. Most of the tools many of us use (Cadence, Matlab, ISE, Quartus, Mentor, Spice variants, Modelsim, Synplify, etc., etc.). are optimized to run on Linux. There's a huge number of other advantages to using Linux for this type of work - ease of scripting (TCL / Python / shell / you name it), ease of off-loading simulations to dedicated machines - RDP can't touch X forwarding, superior HW/SW support for tools, and so on. Bottom line - efficiency is way higher in a measurable way - as we used to be forced to run windows only, with cygwin as our only unixy fix.
/= Circle of Geeks (although I'll give you that there is pretty strong correlation).
But I spend a fair amount of time with MS Office, and most of the corporate infrastructure is windows based. So the virtual machine solution is fantastic for me and my co-workers. Seamless mode (aka Unity for VMWare) is nice for some people, but personally I like minimizing Windows (and the accompanying flood of email) while focusing on detailed work (easily distracted). I frequently move files between OSes, and dual-boot isn't a solution - I personally think virtualization will stay the main way to run a multi-OS environment for a long time to come. I like the direction things are going, and am looking forward to running a true multi-OS environment at some point in the future (with a light weight HV running the show), when Host / Guest start getting irrelevant.
A little off subject, but while talking about OSes and electrical engineering, a rising trend that is driving me nuts is that so many of the scope and logic/spectrum analyzer manufacturers are running windows as their OS - and they brag about it in their marketing materials. The only thing I can think of is that many engineers don't get to pick the specific scope they get, and the purchasing or mgmt types think having XP on a scope is just fantastic. In an environment with security issues, Windows has to be locked down so hard it needs 2 or 3x the RAM a normal install would, and I frequently end up with $25k scopes which perform worse then their 15 year old equivalents. Ask a sales rep from one of these companies about offering Linux (or whatever) alternative OSes, and you get a 'wtf is wrong with you?' look.
It's nice that so many of you put yourselves up on a pedestal that lets you see what all people in the 'real' world are doing with OSes. And to reference the GPs 'out' - EE
That might be the funniest thing I've ever read on Slashdot. Thanks. Applies to so many situations....
It's a new service. While I understand that all /.ers release perfect products at initial release, google might take some time to collect user feedback and improve their service. I'm not a google fanatic, but over the years most reasonable people can see that their products follow a user beneficial trajectory over time.
Should they have taken a closer look at iTunes - maybe looking at complaints about that service, and incorporate those - but in general, my opinion is to give them time to improve. Whatever else you might say about Google, it's clear to me (at least) that they are dedicated to continuous improvement.
With that said, I have an android phone, and I don't like the Android Market all that much at this point either. Generally I 'search' for apps using google's search service, narrow down to what will do what I need, and then type the app name into the market. Works for right now, and I'm looking forward to better integration of searching - we all know they are good at that - into the Android Market.