I've heard it referred to as, "Microsoft Blood Money" in meetings.
What really makes me pause is that nearly every computer in the organization comes from a large OEM, the computers through the years that came from small OEMs still had licensed Windows with them, and those very few internally-built computers had OEM license packs purchased for them, yet we still end up paying and paying for something that we theoretically bought.
When we're taught mathematics, we're taught basic, basic operations, then we're taught more advanced basic operations, then we're taught about concepts like zero, negative numbers, fractions, and decimals. If our math education continues past this point we then move on to letters representing numbers, and situations where more than one number provides an answer. We then learn about angles and how numbers apply to real space, and we eventually move into derivatives and integrals.
In each and every case, we learn how to do the process manually before we're allowed tools to make doing the old processes easier while doing the new process. We manually learn how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide and are required to demonstrate mastery before we're allowed to use a basic calculator to do these functions, and sometimes this manual process integrates fractions, decimals, and negative numbers before we're allowed the calculator. Once we're working on algebra we might use calculators to speed the rote math, but we don't get to use the calculators for the algebraic stuff, and likewise with the geometry and trig; we don't get to let the calculator figure out sine and tangent until we've shown that we know how to ourselves, usually when we've gotten into Calculus and need to get to figuring out the relationships between things like distance, velocity, and acceleration.
In that sense each and every mathematics student is learning how to reinvent the wheel. It takes us more than a decade to do this, and as we do this we come to understand math reasonably well to the point that the low level skills are ingrained and the high level skills can probably be worked out again if necessary.
We don't do this for computers. We teach kids how to use computers, but not how to build. That doesn't mean slapping components together, it means understanding what a simple operating system did and the programs that ran on it had to do, in terms of hardware calls and memory management, or what more complex operating systems with concepts like hardware abstraction layers or kernels do. I suspect this contributes to the amount of crappy single-threaded programs despite having had mass-production multicore processors in consumer-grade computers for over a decade.
I'm not going to call myself any kind of expert programmer. But I'm also not trying to pass myself off professionally as a programmer either.
I can find entertainment in situations that are ridiculous. It's hard to find something even redeeming like humor in a situation with true hatred, even when situations could be amusing if the true hatred wasn't present.
That's my point, they used two other instruments, and both of those instruments told them they were wrong, and they pushed ahead with what they had anyway. This is a failure of both the manufacturer (Perkin-Elmer) and of the customer (NASA, the Federal Government) and given the boondoggle I really don't think that Perkin-Elmer should have been allowed to continue as a company. That NASA didn't test the mirror independently is also quite troubling. Even in relatively low-end, simple work it's necessary to check a contractor's work if one wants it done right.
Cisco seems, for the most part, to have the best balance of features in their basic infrastructure grade switches, and seems to have the broadest product line in all of their managed switches. For certain specific features other brands may perform better (thinking cut-through in Brocade vs more traditional store-and-forward) and other brands might have less expensive managed gear, but the feature set seems well balanced.
Cisco tried to get into end-user peripherals like the video conferencing and telephone handsets, and they've made inroads into servers, but there's either not a lot of interest (video conferencing) or a hell of a lot of well established competitors already in the market (servers), or they're chasing a product line that's more of a solution looking for a problem (why replace functional, paid-for phone systems that work independently of the LAN's problems?) and I don't see them getting the adoption that they want.
I wish they'd fix some of their existing products. Make Prime actually work right for switches, instead of being so AP-centric. Get Jabber to work on more platforms and get it to work independently of the handset phone so that it actually does something that the existing phone systems don't do. That sort of thing.
Maybe they've reached peak-Cisco, there's just not enough demand to grow the company anymore even with these attempts at tech.
And here I was, thinking that maybe they'd considered a battery strap, but with the rather public cases of batteries swelling up and bursting or catching fire, they didn't want customers blowing their hands off at the wrists...
Might even be a case where the ISP is actually not answering Microsoft's queries about the IP, so they felt a need to go public to try to embarrass the ISP into spilling customer information.
No one thought to sanity-check the huge mirror that Perkin-Elmer designed for the single most expensive and ambitious astronomy project that the world had ever seen, even though two secondary instruments disagreed with the 'correct' measurements that the primary calibration tool reported. Consequently it cost a billion and a half dollars, several years, and required a daring in-orbit repair of components never meant to be space-serviced in order to get the instrument working properly.
In 2003, a NOAA weather satellite being manufactured fell off of its assembly tilting table because no one followed the directions to verify that the table's bolts were installed. The damage cost $135 million to correct.
Mars Climate Orbiter burned up in the Martian atmosphere because no one bothered to rectify that one team used fractional units and another team used SI units, so raw data in one unit was assumed to be in another unit, causing the problem that led to being steered incorrectly and hitting the planet.
I never underestimate the ability for people to overlook the most basic things. If massive high-profile projects can be screwed up this easily, then a few people working a relatively unimportant thing like this could easily overlook things.
Last time I installed OEM windows using the correct OEM discs (Windows 7), I was not prompted for registration codes of any kind. I installed multiple computers across two or three models from one manufacturer with the same DVD and on checking what keys were used for activation they were all unique. I don't know if the installer somehow determined a preset key based on a unique identifier associated with the computer itself, or if the OEM sysprep process on the disc determined that the computer was from that manufacturer and generated a somewhat random key based on the legitimacy of the platform, but they all worked fine.
I don't hate them, but I do not think they make the best decisions for themselves with the limited amount of funds they have. The number of luxuries that are treated as necessities is a little ridiculous, and people live dangerously close to the margins. I would like to see less people living so close to needing the safety net.
Makes me wonder if this is a proxy, a Tor exit node, or some other form of gateway through which hundreds or thousands of PCs get some kind of Internet connection through.
On the other hand, my work has 30,000+ computers that communicate through no more than ten public IP addresses, so if we weren't using a corporate solution for Windows activations then we might pop up in much the same way.
Machines in every form benefit the owners of the means of production, not the worker that works for someone else.
Is that why the average worker is no better off today than they were in 1800?
Damn, you beat me to it!
It's fascinating watching supposedly educated people pining for the good old days when Real Men (tm) were mostly peasants. Sorry guys, automation is what makes things like cars, computers, TVs, refrigerators, fresh fruit in winter, etc. possible....
The average person is definitely better off, but that's because we still have more work to do than humans to do it, so increased efficiency per human can still keep people employed. The concern is that we reach a point where our efficiency trumps the need for the mass of humanity to do the work. Some have predicted utopia, but I fully expect strife where the rich continue to get richer while more and more are unemployed. This could lead to a tipping point for revolution. Given that mostly like society as it is, I would rather changes be gradual and beneficial than disruptive and possibly outright revolutionary.
That doesn't really surprise me. As the American automobile industry has contracted and manufacturing has spread out to other geographic areas, lots of skilled workers have lost their jobs in addition to the large numbers of unskilled assembly-line workers. On top of that there are plenty of unskilled or lightly skilled jobs in a modern fab, and with depressed wages in Greater Detroit due to an overabundance of possible workers relative to jobs, wages can be lower and still attract employees.
I would hope that those auto executives would care if the companies they built would significantly contract or collapse within their lifetimes. It's one thing for a company that makes disposable goods to go under, but a company that makes durable goods should last longer than the goods it produces.
I live in a city where people routinely do fifteen miles an hour over the posted speed limit on the freeways, and usually to 5 to 10 miles per hour over the speed limit on surface streets. So, upwards of 80 in a 65, 70 in a 55, 55 in a 45, 50 in a 40, 30 to 35 in a 25.
To be pulled over for obstructing traffic on a freeway, you have to be going at least ten miles an hour slower than the posted speed limit, and honestly have to be too far to the left. You won't be pulled over for obstructing traffic on a surface street unless you're not moving or again, you're too far to the left.
No, I claimed the prices that I paid didn't hurt me. While I usually make an effort to get low prices, it doesn't physically pain me if there are circumstances when relatively inexpensive transactions are not absolutely bargain-basement in the interests of expediency. The two times most recently I used a taxi were hailing one in a high density city, and taking one home from the airport. In both cases I got my transport essentially immediately.
I do not have a problem with a good user experience out of the box. What I object to is when that user experience convinces ignorant people that they're better experts than they really are. Provide someone with too much in the way of a GUI and they think they know the system better than they actually do, and when it doesn't work they don't know how to troubleshoot it. It gets even worse when the vendor doesn't provide a means to administer or service the system without the GUI, as now the customer becomes dependent on the vendor and the associated support contract just to keep it working.
OSX is actually pretty close to good; I'm typing this on an OSX machine. There are some nagging things I don't care for though; a degree of abstraction more than I want compared to the Linux machines I use most of the time, and some Apple GUI-specific choices that are design holdovers from the MacOS era (how to manipulate multiple windows from a single application for example) get on my nerves. I also don't like how Apple seems interested in taking out more and more of the manipulatable aspects as they go.
When I was grounded from the 486 I dragged out my Compaq Portable Computer, the first clone ever built, and dialed up text to the public library at 2400 baud to use their Dynix frontend on presumably a UNIX or RS/6000 platform to connect to Usenet at night. My parents didn't know that there was a functional phone jack in my bedroom (the old-school four prong job) and that I'd taken the 2400 baud modem out of the first computer and kept it when we got the 486. No hard disk but two 5.25" drives, so I would boot DOS on one and load Qmodem off of the other. Easier than swapping floppies.
They found out one night when I got greedy and started connecting too soon; they didn't take it away from me though, probably figured there were worse things I could get myself into.
I worked tech support for an ISP when it was still realistic for dialup customers to have Windows 3.1. I had to help customers install Trumpet Winsock from floppy.
A few high end customers had ISDN lines. It was always weird, helping a customer on one 64k line while the other 64k line was being used to test the connection.
My ancient 3.2 megapixel Olympus Stylus camera still takes better pictures than my cell phone. Doesn't matter that the cell phone's theoretical resolution is several times the point-and-shoot's, the effective resolution in the phone may as well be lower the quality is so bad.
If taking pictures is a primary objective, stop using a cell phone as your camera. Yes, that means carrying an actual camera, but if you really want to be a photographer, even as a hobbyist, get a real camera with real optical zoom, even if it's still a point and shoot.
Yep, I used that format. Then I got a Zip drive and suddenly I didn't have to hack hardware to have enough portable read/write storage. As long as I didn't need the drive to continue to work properly after a few years...
Back when I was playing with beta versions of Windows Chicago (which became Windows 95) it was available on floppy. Build 112 was only 14 floppies, but later builds got huge. Even though we had CD WORM drives no one seemed to want to take that approach, instead we spent hours duplicating floppies...
It took far longer than it should have to find a flashlight app to just toggle the flash on and off that didn't require access to more than the camera. For those that care the app I use is called "LED Light".
Slashdot Mirror
I've heard it referred to as, "Microsoft Blood Money" in meetings.
What really makes me pause is that nearly every computer in the organization comes from a large OEM, the computers through the years that came from small OEMs still had licensed Windows with them, and those very few internally-built computers had OEM license packs purchased for them, yet we still end up paying and paying for something that we theoretically bought.
When we're taught mathematics, we're taught basic, basic operations, then we're taught more advanced basic operations, then we're taught about concepts like zero, negative numbers, fractions, and decimals. If our math education continues past this point we then move on to letters representing numbers, and situations where more than one number provides an answer. We then learn about angles and how numbers apply to real space, and we eventually move into derivatives and integrals.
In each and every case, we learn how to do the process manually before we're allowed tools to make doing the old processes easier while doing the new process. We manually learn how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide and are required to demonstrate mastery before we're allowed to use a basic calculator to do these functions, and sometimes this manual process integrates fractions, decimals, and negative numbers before we're allowed the calculator. Once we're working on algebra we might use calculators to speed the rote math, but we don't get to use the calculators for the algebraic stuff, and likewise with the geometry and trig; we don't get to let the calculator figure out sine and tangent until we've shown that we know how to ourselves, usually when we've gotten into Calculus and need to get to figuring out the relationships between things like distance, velocity, and acceleration.
In that sense each and every mathematics student is learning how to reinvent the wheel. It takes us more than a decade to do this, and as we do this we come to understand math reasonably well to the point that the low level skills are ingrained and the high level skills can probably be worked out again if necessary.
We don't do this for computers. We teach kids how to use computers, but not how to build. That doesn't mean slapping components together, it means understanding what a simple operating system did and the programs that ran on it had to do, in terms of hardware calls and memory management, or what more complex operating systems with concepts like hardware abstraction layers or kernels do. I suspect this contributes to the amount of crappy single-threaded programs despite having had mass-production multicore processors in consumer-grade computers for over a decade.
I'm not going to call myself any kind of expert programmer. But I'm also not trying to pass myself off professionally as a programmer either.
I can find entertainment in situations that are ridiculous. It's hard to find something even redeeming like humor in a situation with true hatred, even when situations could be amusing if the true hatred wasn't present.
That's my point, they used two other instruments, and both of those instruments told them they were wrong, and they pushed ahead with what they had anyway. This is a failure of both the manufacturer (Perkin-Elmer) and of the customer (NASA, the Federal Government) and given the boondoggle I really don't think that Perkin-Elmer should have been allowed to continue as a company. That NASA didn't test the mirror independently is also quite troubling. Even in relatively low-end, simple work it's necessary to check a contractor's work if one wants it done right.
...to do one thing, and to do it well?
Cisco seems, for the most part, to have the best balance of features in their basic infrastructure grade switches, and seems to have the broadest product line in all of their managed switches. For certain specific features other brands may perform better (thinking cut-through in Brocade vs more traditional store-and-forward) and other brands might have less expensive managed gear, but the feature set seems well balanced.
Cisco tried to get into end-user peripherals like the video conferencing and telephone handsets, and they've made inroads into servers, but there's either not a lot of interest (video conferencing) or a hell of a lot of well established competitors already in the market (servers), or they're chasing a product line that's more of a solution looking for a problem (why replace functional, paid-for phone systems that work independently of the LAN's problems?) and I don't see them getting the adoption that they want.
I wish they'd fix some of their existing products. Make Prime actually work right for switches, instead of being so AP-centric. Get Jabber to work on more platforms and get it to work independently of the handset phone so that it actually does something that the existing phone systems don't do. That sort of thing.
Maybe they've reached peak-Cisco, there's just not enough demand to grow the company anymore even with these attempts at tech.
And here I was, thinking that maybe they'd considered a battery strap, but with the rather public cases of batteries swelling up and bursting or catching fire, they didn't want customers blowing their hands off at the wrists...
Might even be a case where the ISP is actually not answering Microsoft's queries about the IP, so they felt a need to go public to try to embarrass the ISP into spilling customer information.
No one thought to sanity-check the huge mirror that Perkin-Elmer designed for the single most expensive and ambitious astronomy project that the world had ever seen, even though two secondary instruments disagreed with the 'correct' measurements that the primary calibration tool reported. Consequently it cost a billion and a half dollars, several years, and required a daring in-orbit repair of components never meant to be space-serviced in order to get the instrument working properly.
In 2003, a NOAA weather satellite being manufactured fell off of its assembly tilting table because no one followed the directions to verify that the table's bolts were installed. The damage cost $135 million to correct.
Mars Climate Orbiter burned up in the Martian atmosphere because no one bothered to rectify that one team used fractional units and another team used SI units, so raw data in one unit was assumed to be in another unit, causing the problem that led to being steered incorrectly and hitting the planet.
I never underestimate the ability for people to overlook the most basic things. If massive high-profile projects can be screwed up this easily, then a few people working a relatively unimportant thing like this could easily overlook things.
Last time I installed OEM windows using the correct OEM discs (Windows 7), I was not prompted for registration codes of any kind. I installed multiple computers across two or three models from one manufacturer with the same DVD and on checking what keys were used for activation they were all unique. I don't know if the installer somehow determined a preset key based on a unique identifier associated with the computer itself, or if the OEM sysprep process on the disc determined that the computer was from that manufacturer and generated a somewhat random key based on the legitimacy of the platform, but they all worked fine.
I've seen it done before. Not lately admittedly, but I don't doubt that it's still the practice in some some cases.
I don't hate them, but I do not think they make the best decisions for themselves with the limited amount of funds they have. The number of luxuries that are treated as necessities is a little ridiculous, and people live dangerously close to the margins. I would like to see less people living so close to needing the safety net.
Back when I initially wanted one there was no single click solution to quickly turn on the light. That may have changed in the intervening years.
Makes me wonder if this is a proxy, a Tor exit node, or some other form of gateway through which hundreds or thousands of PCs get some kind of Internet connection through.
On the other hand, my work has 30,000+ computers that communicate through no more than ten public IP addresses, so if we weren't using a corporate solution for Windows activations then we might pop up in much the same way.
Damn, you beat me to it!
It's fascinating watching supposedly educated people pining for the good old days when Real Men (tm) were mostly peasants. Sorry guys, automation is what makes things like cars, computers, TVs, refrigerators, fresh fruit in winter, etc. possible....
The average person is definitely better off, but that's because we still have more work to do than humans to do it, so increased efficiency per human can still keep people employed. The concern is that we reach a point where our efficiency trumps the need for the mass of humanity to do the work. Some have predicted utopia, but I fully expect strife where the rich continue to get richer while more and more are unemployed. This could lead to a tipping point for revolution. Given that mostly like society as it is, I would rather changes be gradual and beneficial than disruptive and possibly outright revolutionary.
That doesn't really surprise me. As the American automobile industry has contracted and manufacturing has spread out to other geographic areas, lots of skilled workers have lost their jobs in addition to the large numbers of unskilled assembly-line workers. On top of that there are plenty of unskilled or lightly skilled jobs in a modern fab, and with depressed wages in Greater Detroit due to an overabundance of possible workers relative to jobs, wages can be lower and still attract employees.
I would hope that those auto executives would care if the companies they built would significantly contract or collapse within their lifetimes. It's one thing for a company that makes disposable goods to go under, but a company that makes durable goods should last longer than the goods it produces.
I live in a city where people routinely do fifteen miles an hour over the posted speed limit on the freeways, and usually to 5 to 10 miles per hour over the speed limit on surface streets. So, upwards of 80 in a 65, 70 in a 55, 55 in a 45, 50 in a 40, 30 to 35 in a 25.
To be pulled over for obstructing traffic on a freeway, you have to be going at least ten miles an hour slower than the posted speed limit, and honestly have to be too far to the left. You won't be pulled over for obstructing traffic on a surface street unless you're not moving or again, you're too far to the left.
No, I claimed the prices that I paid didn't hurt me. While I usually make an effort to get low prices, it doesn't physically pain me if there are circumstances when relatively inexpensive transactions are not absolutely bargain-basement in the interests of expediency. The two times most recently I used a taxi were hailing one in a high density city, and taking one home from the airport. In both cases I got my transport essentially immediately.
I do not have a problem with a good user experience out of the box. What I object to is when that user experience convinces ignorant people that they're better experts than they really are. Provide someone with too much in the way of a GUI and they think they know the system better than they actually do, and when it doesn't work they don't know how to troubleshoot it. It gets even worse when the vendor doesn't provide a means to administer or service the system without the GUI, as now the customer becomes dependent on the vendor and the associated support contract just to keep it working.
OSX is actually pretty close to good; I'm typing this on an OSX machine. There are some nagging things I don't care for though; a degree of abstraction more than I want compared to the Linux machines I use most of the time, and some Apple GUI-specific choices that are design holdovers from the MacOS era (how to manipulate multiple windows from a single application for example) get on my nerves. I also don't like how Apple seems interested in taking out more and more of the manipulatable aspects as they go.
When I was grounded from the 486 I dragged out my Compaq Portable Computer, the first clone ever built, and dialed up text to the public library at 2400 baud to use their Dynix frontend on presumably a UNIX or RS/6000 platform to connect to Usenet at night. My parents didn't know that there was a functional phone jack in my bedroom (the old-school four prong job) and that I'd taken the 2400 baud modem out of the first computer and kept it when we got the 486. No hard disk but two 5.25" drives, so I would boot DOS on one and load Qmodem off of the other. Easier than swapping floppies.
They found out one night when I got greedy and started connecting too soon; they didn't take it away from me though, probably figured there were worse things I could get myself into.
I worked tech support for an ISP when it was still realistic for dialup customers to have Windows 3.1. I had to help customers install Trumpet Winsock from floppy.
A few high end customers had ISDN lines. It was always weird, helping a customer on one 64k line while the other 64k line was being used to test the connection.
My ancient 3.2 megapixel Olympus Stylus camera still takes better pictures than my cell phone. Doesn't matter that the cell phone's theoretical resolution is several times the point-and-shoot's, the effective resolution in the phone may as well be lower the quality is so bad.
If taking pictures is a primary objective, stop using a cell phone as your camera. Yes, that means carrying an actual camera, but if you really want to be a photographer, even as a hobbyist, get a real camera with real optical zoom, even if it's still a point and shoot.
Yep, I used that format. Then I got a Zip drive and suddenly I didn't have to hack hardware to have enough portable read/write storage. As long as I didn't need the drive to continue to work properly after a few years...
Back when I was playing with beta versions of Windows Chicago (which became Windows 95) it was available on floppy. Build 112 was only 14 floppies, but later builds got huge. Even though we had CD WORM drives no one seemed to want to take that approach, instead we spent hours duplicating floppies...
It took far longer than it should have to find a flashlight app to just toggle the flash on and off that didn't require access to more than the camera. For those that care the app I use is called "LED Light".
Why doesn't GNU Hurd run on my phone?
'cause it doesn't run on any real hardware?