Try processing 100 million records a day in a telecoms
I agree, and your example would be a small telecom at that, if that's all it's processing! Power Point Lecture notes on telephone resilience based around incidents like on Sept 11, 2001 by Prof. Jonathan Liebenau (Columbia University) give the number of telephone calls per day for AT&T in 2001 at 300 million. There will be several usage record writes for each call, but let's be conservative and say only 2, one at the start of the call, and one at the end to give the time. So there are 600 million transactions. Most phone companies divide up the billing cycles among thedsays of the month to reduce stress on the system, and AT&T has according to some public records I looked at a while ago, something like 300,000,000 accounts (yep, three hundred million... and I'm low-balling it). So that is conservatively 30,000,000 bills to be processed each day, each requiring many database operations (but let's say 10 for arguments sake... but it might be as high as an order of magnitude higher given all the details that needs to be gathered and processed for each account). Etc. etc. etc. 900,000,000/(3600*24) ~ 10,400 transactions per second if you assume that all processing is evenly spaced through the day (and that number is likely very low compared to the actual number) Of course transactions are not ever evenly spaced through the day, so there will be periods will it will need to process much higher volumes (e.g. peak periods). Just a few of the other database operations I'm leaving out things like OLTPs for CSRs and customer web access, ETL's for data warehousing as well as the data warehousing reports, etc. etc. etc. And the key here is that most of these operations usually do not involve only simple look ups like for content serving. There is usually a lot of heavy processing going on the app side as well. FWIW, often they won't do a lot of processing in cursors on the DBs, they will move very large buffers of data onto the app servers for processing to reduce the DB load. The ability to dump large pages of a result set (as you work through the result set) into buffers for access/processing by app servers is something that Oracle does very well. I know JDBC essentially does this, but I'm talking about malloc type operations, not using a lot of intermediate code in an (albeit very good) api like JDBC and the various frameworks around it.
Granted, things like Call Usage and Mediation, OLTP, and DWH, et al all run on their own database servers (often multiple for each app) and application servers (again multiple servers for each), but this is a lot of processing going on and enterprises like these don't run them on giant server farms. Bottom line is that to get the processing horsepower with high availability without having to manage a tonne of servers, companies like these will use a smaller number of heavy machines. Something like HP Superdomes or equivalent. I say a smaller number, but given their cost, I'd also say it is still a significant number.:) And I am not sure, but I don't think ATT uses HPUX much... but still use heavy weight servers.
Usain Bolt's extraordinary world championships continued as he broke his own 200m world record, running in a time of 19.19sec that slashed 0.11sec off the time he set in Beijing last year. Earlier this week he ran a time of 9.58sec to break his own 100m world record by exactly the same margin.
We were both wrong.:) My local news station misreported it, is where I got my figure. I should have verified it. Ah well.
I tend to agree with you. Now who I would test though is that Jamaican guy, Bolt. No-one these days comes in and just blows away the world record in the 100m by over a second. That seems too big a delta to the record. For both that and the 200m (which is what I believe is), the other race he set the world record in these games, by a similarly huge margin.
As you point out, bloggers are answerable to noone and will give their own opinions...
But for-profit companies are answerable to their profit margins, and will report whatever makes them the most profit
First, you shoot yourself in the foot right away: opinion is not journalism. It is opinion, not the reporting of facts. Second, people will not watch news that is suspect. I don't believe there is anyone who will willingly get their news from organizations that are known to lie. Yes Fox commentators spout blatantly right wing propaganda, but I have found that their news reporting by and large is pretty accurate. I don't watch it though because it is suspect to me. And that is why 'good' news organizations will exist, people like me will go to them because they have developed our trust. We know that their reporters are monitored and vetted, their stories are vetted, and accuracy and bias is important to them. Those new organizations prosper because of trust. Bloggers have nothing to vet them or ensure accuracy. At best, their data is not information, but is rather opinion.
And speaking of trust how do you know that whenever you go to the dentist he won't nick a good tooth with his polisher so that you have to come in to fix the cavity that will happen later on. You trust him because he/she has sworn an oath to take care of you and not hurt you. If they breach the oath or do something unethical they can lose their license.
How does that relate to journalism? Journalism, and journalism editors in particular live by a canon that says they must be truthful, accurate, and impartial. I know this is not everywhere, and I am not so naive as to think that corporate head offices, Murdock being one of the very worst offenders, doesn't try to influence what is reported. In fact we know that at least some of the his outlets verge on lying. But because of the oath, the lies gain more prominence than they would otherwise. A profession that has a code of ethics like this, makes a big deal of transgressions, so that we know about them. Again, bloggers have nothing to do this so that others know what is true or not. That is why opinion is not journalism and is not real 'news'.
In the case of Rupert Murdock, we often are presented with rabidly right wing 'journalists' who are misinformed due to their own narrow view point, spout untruths that they themselves believe since it is easy for them to believe in the things they want to believe in without verifying what they say. I phrased the previous sentence the way I did, including putting the word 'journalists' in quotes, to highlight how many people, due to what I can only ascribe to weak thinking, are now incorrectly labelling commentating as journalism, and commentators or pundits as journalists. Much of this is not journalism (sorry John Stewart;-) ) and the people commentating are not journalists. A good example is Bill O'Reilly (a ocmmentator) who announced to his listeners around 2004, that Canada's federal government was running a deficit for years when in fact it was maintaining a balanced budget and in fact had budget surpluses for years. Don't mistake these commentators for journalists. They aren't. Unfortunately as you yourself evidence, people are also incorrectly ascribing the title of journalism to blogs. Very few bloggers if any, keep their own feelings out of what they write, which lands them too, in the boat called commentary. I do listen and watch a wide range of sources so that I can see, understand, and assess the various sources of news, form my own opinion on what is credible and what is not. So far, bloggers are at the very bottom of my list as to what is credible 'news'... I can't help it, I have to put 'news' in quotes when in conjunction with bloggers.
Real journalists are constantly subject to review by their colleagues (working for the same organization and otherwise) and the public. Their long term job security depen
I know Firefox isn't the most popular browser out there by a long shot (I myself use it), the onset of ad blocking technology like adblock plus means a move like this doesn't surprise me much. It costs money to field professional reporters (queue suitable Fox News Network sarcasm) and no matter what the news organization, this is not cheap. These organizations need to make money in order to create reputable news reports. I'm sorry, but blogs don't do much for me as sources of news. Bloggers answer to no-one but themselves so there is no guarantee of veracity from them. Anyway, the bottom line is that without money we can't have believable news. If we start choking off advertising revenue, they have to do something to get money rolling in. I will grant you that this is likely not as much of an issue currently as it will be in future if the ad blocking craze continues. I will admit, I use adblock plus, but wouldn't if the marketers would stop making the online ads so bloody annoying, or at least give us the choice whether we wanted to have static ads, or be smacked in the face hard enough to shock neurologically normal individuals into epileptic fits. I think many people likely feel this way, so I will deflect all accusations of being hypocritical by blaming my adblock plus installation on flash crazed marketers (very similar to zombies but the survive on sushi and unpronounceable foreign beer instead of brains).
I have to disagree entirely that Windows and Windows 7 is only built for home users (as you seem to imply). It will be in use in corporate and medium, small, and every business basically too. Unlike you it seems, I see a lot of power users in corporate settings, all of whom like to tweak their PC if they are able to provide themselves with at least a little personalization in a bland corporate environment. And as a power user (as is, I am pretty sure, most anyone who reads Slashdot, regardless of whether they like it or admin or program for other systems) I find that Windows 7 is a supreme pain in the ass, and dumbed down and locked down to the point of being frustrating as hell to use. For instance, why do they lock so many folders even for admins. It's plain stupid. I and I know others like to rearrange even things like their start menu hierarchy, which is now an onerous activity. Or if my account is an administrator account, why do I have to install apps using 'run as admin' to avoid the install screwing up half the time? And if they are going to do that, why did I have to add a new registry key to do the same for MSI files?
I can't name all the frustrating things in W7 because there is no one big thing, but a seemingly never ending things that hamper operations and personalizations that were a lot easier to do in XP. And while I am purposefully trying dive right in to W7, when I try to do things I often feel like I am being asked to fix a time piece wearing oven mitts (and sometimes being asked to beat off using cactus thorns, its not just hard, it hurts a fuck of a lot). I am learning to use it as it seems I will have to if I want a 64 bit system on a home PC, but I don't particularly like it... it reminds me of Gnome (I prefer KDE). Unfortunately my system is quite new so I will have to use it till it wears out when I will buy a Power Mac workstation (or Apple gets their heads out of their asses and sells a version of their OS to work on PCs). I have given up on Linux for the desktop and decided to only use it for server purposes. And before any Linux fans who don't know me starts to lambaste me about being only some know nothing Windows user, I am very well versed in Unix and Linux. I'm getting older now, and don't enjoy screwing around with configuration or compiling and installing programs by hand or the free time it eats into when I am at home. I just want the OS (the tool) to work so I can concentrate on the things I really want to do, whether it be investigating new programming languages or frameworks, or surfing the web.
I do want to comment on your CLI argument. It is at the very least a little specious (mmmmmm... kind of along the lines of 'a little pregnant'). Sure Windows power users don't use the CLI very much, but when they do, they want/need to be able to do what they need to do. They need it to work. In Windows it does to a certain extent, but I think power users would enjoy the flexibility and shear functionality of a Bourne (type) shell. I would think at a minimum, the corporate Windows admins would love it... I am pretty sure they still use the CLI and would benefit from a CLI with greatly expanded functionality. And saying to remove the Bourne shell and try using Linux is completely specious; it is a fundamental part of the OS as it is in every *nix system in existence, including OSX, even if not accessed by the user. It's like saying "I'd like to see how well that stupid Windows OS works if you take away the WinAPI libraries. I bet it can't, so stupid Windows is."
I get a kick out of those TV commercials where they anthropomorphize the toilet paper and have them as happy little pillows dancing around. I wonder to myself how much they will be smiling once I wipe shit all over their faces.
I live in Canada. I don't call myself American. No one in Canada calls themselves American. In fact you will really piss off a Canadian if you go up and insist that they are American. It's not that we don't like America. Most do, granted that for some reason some people in Canada missed the memo that the War of 1812 ended nearly 200 years ago, but most people here do like America. But naturally, being Canadian we are proud of our country, and many like me are as patriotic as Americans are, but toward Canada of course. To put it another way, here is a little anecdote: I was in Austria and a taxi driver told me I was a cheap fucking American when I asked the driver next to him how much it was to go to the west train station in Vienna from the east train station. I only had about 50 Austrian schillings on me and wasn't sure if it was enough or whether I had to go to a 'bank machine':) (this was a while ago). My driver said it was enough, and I told him when I got in that his buddy pissed me off but not for the reason he would think. He asked what that was and told him that I wasn't a cheap fucking American, I am a cheap fucking Canadian. He looked at me puzzled when I told him that if you want to piss of a Canadian, call him an American. He said he didn't understand. Then I said (remembering this is in Vienna, Austria), well I guess you Germans wouldn't. He smiled and said, now I understand.:D
To tell the truth I had this happen in more places than I can remember. Granted I have probably been more places than I can remember too since I have travelled more than your average bear. But I know for sure I have had to correct myself from saying bathroom or washroom (and say rest room) enough times that now that I am back in Canada I still call them rest rooms now. Now I could see by how they looked at me that some of those people had a good idea but wanted me to say restroom just to make sure, but some didn't get it at all.
The best example that I can remember since it was the first time that it happened and the waitress really wasn't getting it was in Wichita, KS. I was down there for a couple of weeks doing some work at Excel Beef and some of the guys I was working with took me down to a bar they liked since I didn't know the lay of the land. I was half cut after a number of beers (about half again as many as it have taken in Canada... and probably four times as many as it would take in England:) ) and I really needed to take a piss.
I stopped a waitress and asked where the bathroom was since it wsa a really big place.
She looked at me like I was strange (not like that hasn't happened before but I digress) and asked "bathroom? I don't think we have one."
I said, "no no no... the washroom, you have a washroom right?"
"No, I don't think I understand, but I don't think we have one of those either," or something like that.
I was pissed and getting pissed off and said somewhat belligerently, "OK, how about the warshroom?"
Just then a buddy from work stepped in and said, "you're looking for the restroom, that's what we call it here," and looked at the waitress and told her, "he's from Canada, you have to excuse him!":-)
Then she looked as relieved as I was about to be and pointed out where the 'restroom' was.
I remember that one the best because it was the first time it happened. But I know it has happened a good number of times after at different places in the U.S. I am always surprised that it wasn't just that one girl each time it happens, but not enough since to make me remember more than it did happen again somewhere (i.e. it was no longer really surprising). But like I said, a lot of people could figure it out, but for some reason there are people who just don't 'get it'. Kind of funny if you ask me. And truthfully, I think I've had a couple of times where someone up here wasn't sure if I meant washroom when I asked where the restroom is... but not so much.:)
Actually they put R's in the wrong place all over the U.S. especially in places like Kansas, and believe it or not Rhode Island and Massachusetts. I did some work in both places and heard it every day there. On one contract I was in Providence for about seven months and they told me in order to speak like them "you have to take out all the R's and then put a few back in the wrong place.":-) One of the trainers I brought on site was named Melissa, but half of the people there called her Mellisser. It's a great place to hang out, as is most all of coastal New England. Everyone should check out Newport RI and Martha's Vineyard MA. NOTE: take your wife or girlfriend and stay at a good B&B in either of the two places and you will have mega brownie points for a long time to counter balance your screw ups LOL.
BTW to speak like a Bostonian use the old saw, "I parked my car in Harvard Gardens"... BUT, when you say it, take out all the R's and pronounce the A's the same way as if the R's were still there (i.e. use a 'soft' A). Something like "I paacked my caa in Haavaad Gaadens." It is scary how good this works:-D.
Being Canadian I usually call it a 'bank machine' rather than an ATM. That is the common term here, very few people call it an ATM. The funny thing is, when I lived in the U.S. I would have to remember to use the term ATM instead of bank machine. While some people knew what I meant when I would ask, "where's the closest bank machine," an unbelievable number would look at me with a blank stare and ask what I meant. Then I would remember and say, "the closest ATM." Then I would get a look of understanding and then the directions. In fact I would hazard that something like 60 or 70% of the people would respond like that. I can't give exact numbers, but absolutely for sure, most people didn't know what I meant by 'bank machine'. The same when I asked for the 'bathroom'. I would have to translate to 'rest room' (the WC for those overseas:) ). When I remembered to use the local term, they would ask why I call it a bathroom, there aren't any baths there. And I would reply, why do you call it a rest room, I can tell you for sure I won't be doing any resting... maybe a lot of grunting, but no resting. It's funny how English can be so different. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
What about Fedora? Yes it is community driven, but Redhat does put money into it, and they do give it away for free as in beer. Not to mention all the value added installation packages and configuration tools they add in order to make the bare bones kernel that Linus develops into a usable system. Or do you suppose that most people install all the software by hand first compiling and installing the kernel, and the same for each piece of software on their system (of course they don't). Then there are all the updates and update packages they create whenever bugs are found in fixed in the various pieces of software that makes up the distribution. No, they don't code the patches for all apps, but they make it far easier to get them on to your system, installed and configured correctly. As easy as clicking a few buttons. And they provide the updates for both the paid Redhat product and the unpaid Fedora product. So while your sarcastic argument seems to hold water on the surface, it quickly sinks and disappears below the surface, down to where the leeches are.
This is actually an interesting point. This could be a case of 'bus syndrome'. What happens to a critical project when only one person has all the knowledge, but gets hit and killed by a bus on the way to work? After we find out whether he put on clean underwear like his mother told him, the project gets hit by the same bus. The project might be a little more resilient but it still gets seriously hurt.
I don't have any sympathy for anyone involved with a project where this happens. It is so preventable. As time has gone on, I have been getting more vocal in work situations when I see this kind of thing happening. It's a pain in the ass when the Asperger King or Queen decides to leave because they don't like to share. And half the time they don't use any sort of recognizable organizational structure to what they do, so it takes longer for others to figure what's there, which makes a bad situation even worse.
I hope the guy wasn't hit by a bus, or hurt in any way. In any case, this should be an eye opener for the other members of the project and any people who rely on CentOS for critical systems. To throw gas on the fire, I think it is also a good reason to go with a 'for profit' company like Red Hat, Ubuntu (Canonical), or Suse if you need to use an OS for mission critical systems (or even their pressure cooker products). A for profit company has a lot more incentive to make sure these kinds of issues don't happen, and the resources to make sure these kinds of issues don't happen.
I personally won't use software produced by projects like CentOS. My belief is that projects like CentOS are there because people want to skate on the backs of people and companies who have spent time and money making a good product, just because they don't want to pay for that hard work. I believe this is the flaw in the GNU license, and not open source in general. It is like stealing money from those who created the original work. Redhat spends a lot of money to develop their product, and others just copy it and give it away for free. I think the idea of open source was to be able to modify drivers and software so that it better meets your needs. I don't think it was so you could take other people's ideas and sell them as your own. If Redhat were just starting and were still on the edge of financial stability, and a 'CentOS' product started giving away Redhat's product for free, the for profit company could fail. We periodically see companies trying to make open source products switch to closed source for this very reason. The service support paradigm only works for products that are too big and complicated for the 'little guy' to take on. And even then it is a risky proposition until the code base is reasonably stable, since the time and money going into stabilizing the code can outweigh the money coming in from sales and support work. Even CentOS and others like it rely on Redhat to fix bugs and copy those updates too. While legal, I think it is morally wrong. As a note, every couple of years I will go out and purchase a copy of a Linux distribution. We all rely on them to create our Linux installs. How many out there who spout all the GNU propaganda actually try to contribute this way so that these distributions are able to continue? While some may contribute code, which I believe counts for just as much as contributing financially, I really doubt that more than an extremely small handful of people even do this for the distros. Most just want the free as in beer software and feel like they're cool because they aren't using MS or Apple. Yes I am getting more cynical as I get older... and I was pretty damned cynical when I was young.:)
Possible, but not necessarily. The caveat to this is that power companies might be more comfortable skirting safety regulations, and build nuclear plants that are less safe. This is the usual action of large faceless companies when they are allowed to operate in places where the government or people are more complacent to the dangers of their products (whether by economic necessity or by ignorance, or both).
Anyway, even if true, it might only be a cure for acute radiation sickness as the article doesn't say anything about triggering the human body to produce these so called protective proteins, rather they have to be injected. Almost anything injected eventually gets purged from the body. Which would mean people would have to take the drug over and over and over again if living in a contaminated area. Long term use could cause problems and would at the very least make people who need it hostage to the companies and/or governments who produce it. Even if this drug does indeed prove real, I know I would still not agree that my home being effectively and permanently contaminated by radioactivity is not a non-issue. And per my previous paragraph, I would in fact be more leery of the power company's intentions etc.
You can probably guess I one of those evil socialist types;o), but I come from a country where we have socialised medicine. It is certainly not perfect, but I don't believe that is a fault with the system, but a fault with the people running it.
If you mean Canada, then you mean that everyone should not be able to get decent medical care equally. Most Canadians don't understand how bad the system is since they never have to use it further than their annual physical at their family physician. Except if you are one of the many who don't have a family physician. And if you have any sort of more serious issues, you will wait a long time to get treated. The exceptions are the diseases of the day. For example, those with breast cancer will be treated right away. Those with aggressive brain tumors will likely die unless they take it on themselves and go broke saving their own lives as anyone in the U.S.A. Those suffering extreme pain and who have to take months and months off work on disability due to herniated lumbar disks pushing into the nerves in the spinal canal will be told to wait up to 13 months for a surgery with a 97% success rate, never mind how it ruins their lives and mental health. (This latter describes my predicament... here is the worst part... the only people who get treated quickly for this... and it causes pain that I don't wish on anyone, where no position you are in doesn't hurt at 8 or 9 out of 10... and sometimes at 10... the only people who get treated quickly are those where it is so bad they lose control of the bladder and bowel functions... and sometimes they still can't find room in Canada and have to put them in an ambulance bound for Buffalo... one of my doctor's other patients had this happen.) Or those who damage a knee and have to stay on crutches and often suffer permanent disabilities because their wait times for treatment can be even longer. There are more than a few who need heart surgery such as valve replacement who literally have waited so long they died before they made it into the operating room.
Two years ago, Canadians per capita paid around the same as Europeans who have a much better health system than either the United States or Canada (which consists of taking the positive synergy or public and private health care insurance... single payer does not exist). This past year, it is expected that Canadians will pay almost double that, and within one or two thousand dollars or the per capita expenditure of Americans. If it keeps going, we'll end up paying more than Americans and continue to have terrible health care. I think if we get to the point where we do pay the same as Americans, we should just get credits from the government to go out and purchase our own health care insurance from private companies. After living in the U.S. I have found that if you have a good enough job to belong to a good health plan, you are better off than in Canada's health care system.
I don't care if it is proprietary, but it has to be 'for profit'. Otherwise there is not enough motivation for them to stay in business (provide service) in the long run. I don't count 'having good intentions' and such as good enough motivation. Not being able to eat, or pay the rent if your business goes under does count as good motivation. It also has to promise a certain level of security. I know we can't get around nosy governments now, but I do want assurance that everyone else will not be able to listen in (yes I know nothing is absolute, so anyone wanting to be anal can stop right now).
Skype in Canada doesn't provide you with a phone number (i.e.what they used to call 'Skype In'). We have the highest cell phone rates in the world or very close to it (some cell companies want you to pay long distance rates even if you are the one receiving the call!!!... granted some have stopped this practice but still...). The land area is so big, and the population density so small, you will find yourself talking long distance at least several times a week, just for personal business. In other words, long distance is a 'need to have' not a 'nice to have'. Oh and I forgot to mention, the cost for a plan that automatically includes long distance for the whole country is prohibitively high for a personal phone... i.e. generally, only those who have their companies pay for it will have that plan. The bottom line is that if there is one country in the world that is prime picking for a company that can offer extremely low long distance rates, it is Canada. But you NEED to have a telephone number so that people without Skype can dial you up. Too bad Skype is missing out. Too bad for Canadians.:(
I have voted for the conservative for at least the last ten years. The liberals who used to be the middle of the road party have drifted much too far to the left. When they used to sit in the centre, sometimes they even drifted to the right a little bit, especially in terms of finances. They were the ones who balanced the budget federally, and started paying it down in a big way (it's why Canada is the country best off of the G8 and whose banks are still making profits). However they have gone so far left it is scary.
I'm hoping the Ignatieff (Canada's federal Liberal Party leader) moves the party back to the middle. If so, coupled with net neutrality, I'll definitely move back to the liberal camp. At least until it is passes parliament and gets Royal Assent. Heck, they only need to move a little towards centre. Once it is passed, I can always vote conservative again.:)
OK punter, put this in your Google: sony mz 700 manual
First search I did today, looking for the manual for my mini disk player. Sony was in the search... you have to look 50 or more hits down to find Sony. It is quicker to go to Sony and sift through there web site than to do a Google search.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree, and your example would be a small telecom at that, if that's all it's processing! Power Point Lecture notes on telephone resilience based around incidents like on Sept 11, 2001 by Prof. Jonathan Liebenau (Columbia University) give the number of telephone calls per day for AT&T in 2001 at 300 million. There will be several usage record writes for each call, but let's be conservative and say only 2, one at the start of the call, and one at the end to give the time. So there are 600 million transactions. Most phone companies divide up the billing cycles among thedsays of the month to reduce stress on the system, and AT&T has according to some public records I looked at a while ago, something like 300,000,000 accounts (yep, three hundred million... and I'm low-balling it). So that is conservatively 30,000,000 bills to be processed each day, each requiring many database operations (but let's say 10 for arguments sake... but it might be as high as an order of magnitude higher given all the details that needs to be gathered and processed for each account). Etc. etc. etc. 900,000,000/(3600*24) ~ 10,400 transactions per second if you assume that all processing is evenly spaced through the day (and that number is likely very low compared to the actual number) Of course transactions are not ever evenly spaced through the day, so there will be periods will it will need to process much higher volumes (e.g. peak periods). Just a few of the other database operations I'm leaving out things like OLTPs for CSRs and customer web access, ETL's for data warehousing as well as the data warehousing reports, etc. etc. etc. And the key here is that most of these operations usually do not involve only simple look ups like for content serving. There is usually a lot of heavy processing going on the app side as well. FWIW, often they won't do a lot of processing in cursors on the DBs, they will move very large buffers of data onto the app servers for processing to reduce the DB load. The ability to dump large pages of a result set (as you work through the result set) into buffers for access/processing by app servers is something that Oracle does very well. I know JDBC essentially does this, but I'm talking about malloc type operations, not using a lot of intermediate code in an (albeit very good) api like JDBC and the various frameworks around it.
Granted, things like Call Usage and Mediation, OLTP, and DWH, et al all run on their own database servers (often multiple for each app) and application servers (again multiple servers for each), but this is a lot of processing going on and enterprises like these don't run them on giant server farms. Bottom line is that to get the processing horsepower with high availability without having to manage a tonne of servers, companies like these will use a smaller number of heavy machines. Something like HP Superdomes or equivalent. I say a smaller number, but given their cost, I'd also say it is still a significant number. :) And I am not sure, but I don't think ATT uses HPUX much... but still use heavy weight servers.
We were both wrong. :) My local news station misreported it, is where I got my figure. I should have verified it. Ah well.
It was funny. And harsh. :)
I tend to agree with you. Now who I would test though is that Jamaican guy, Bolt. No-one these days comes in and just blows away the world record in the 100m by over a second. That seems too big a delta to the record. For both that and the 200m (which is what I believe is), the other race he set the world record in these games, by a similarly huge margin.
Now that's harsh.
First, you shoot yourself in the foot right away: opinion is not journalism. It is opinion, not the reporting of facts. Second, people will not watch news that is suspect. I don't believe there is anyone who will willingly get their news from organizations that are known to lie. Yes Fox commentators spout blatantly right wing propaganda, but I have found that their news reporting by and large is pretty accurate. I don't watch it though because it is suspect to me. And that is why 'good' news organizations will exist, people like me will go to them because they have developed our trust. We know that their reporters are monitored and vetted, their stories are vetted, and accuracy and bias is important to them. Those new organizations prosper because of trust. Bloggers have nothing to vet them or ensure accuracy. At best, their data is not information, but is rather opinion.
And speaking of trust how do you know that whenever you go to the dentist he won't nick a good tooth with his polisher so that you have to come in to fix the cavity that will happen later on. You trust him because he/she has sworn an oath to take care of you and not hurt you. If they breach the oath or do something unethical they can lose their license.
How does that relate to journalism? Journalism, and journalism editors in particular live by a canon that says they must be truthful, accurate, and impartial. I know this is not everywhere, and I am not so naive as to think that corporate head offices, Murdock being one of the very worst offenders, doesn't try to influence what is reported. In fact we know that at least some of the his outlets verge on lying. But because of the oath, the lies gain more prominence than they would otherwise. A profession that has a code of ethics like this, makes a big deal of transgressions, so that we know about them. Again, bloggers have nothing to do this so that others know what is true or not. That is why opinion is not journalism and is not real 'news'.
In the case of Rupert Murdock, we often are presented with rabidly right wing 'journalists' who are misinformed due to their own narrow view point, spout untruths that they themselves believe since it is easy for them to believe in the things they want to believe in without verifying what they say. I phrased the previous sentence the way I did, including putting the word 'journalists' in quotes, to highlight how many people, due to what I can only ascribe to weak thinking, are now incorrectly labelling commentating as journalism, and commentators or pundits as journalists. Much of this is not journalism (sorry John Stewart ;-) ) and the people commentating are not journalists. A good example is Bill O'Reilly (a ocmmentator) who announced to his listeners around 2004, that Canada's federal government was running a deficit for years when in fact it was maintaining a balanced budget and in fact had budget surpluses for years. Don't mistake these commentators for journalists. They aren't. Unfortunately as you yourself evidence, people are also incorrectly ascribing the title of journalism to blogs. Very few bloggers if any, keep their own feelings out of what they write, which lands them too, in the boat called commentary. I do listen and watch a wide range of sources so that I can see, understand, and assess the various sources of news, form my own opinion on what is credible and what is not. So far, bloggers are at the very bottom of my list as to what is credible 'news'... I can't help it, I have to put 'news' in quotes when in conjunction with bloggers.
Real journalists are constantly subject to review by their colleagues (working for the same organization and otherwise) and the public. Their long term job security depen
You're right something must b.........all you computer are belong to us.................
And wait till the marketing firms get a hold of it.
I know Firefox isn't the most popular browser out there by a long shot (I myself use it), the onset of ad blocking technology like adblock plus means a move like this doesn't surprise me much. It costs money to field professional reporters (queue suitable Fox News Network sarcasm) and no matter what the news organization, this is not cheap. These organizations need to make money in order to create reputable news reports. I'm sorry, but blogs don't do much for me as sources of news. Bloggers answer to no-one but themselves so there is no guarantee of veracity from them. Anyway, the bottom line is that without money we can't have believable news. If we start choking off advertising revenue, they have to do something to get money rolling in. I will grant you that this is likely not as much of an issue currently as it will be in future if the ad blocking craze continues. I will admit, I use adblock plus, but wouldn't if the marketers would stop making the online ads so bloody annoying, or at least give us the choice whether we wanted to have static ads, or be smacked in the face hard enough to shock neurologically normal individuals into epileptic fits. I think many people likely feel this way, so I will deflect all accusations of being hypocritical by blaming my adblock plus installation on flash crazed marketers (very similar to zombies but the survive on sushi and unpronounceable foreign beer instead of brains).
I have to disagree entirely that Windows and Windows 7 is only built for home users (as you seem to imply). It will be in use in corporate and medium, small, and every business basically too. Unlike you it seems, I see a lot of power users in corporate settings, all of whom like to tweak their PC if they are able to provide themselves with at least a little personalization in a bland corporate environment. And as a power user (as is, I am pretty sure, most anyone who reads Slashdot, regardless of whether they like it or admin or program for other systems) I find that Windows 7 is a supreme pain in the ass, and dumbed down and locked down to the point of being frustrating as hell to use. For instance, why do they lock so many folders even for admins. It's plain stupid. I and I know others like to rearrange even things like their start menu hierarchy, which is now an onerous activity. Or if my account is an administrator account, why do I have to install apps using 'run as admin' to avoid the install screwing up half the time? And if they are going to do that, why did I have to add a new registry key to do the same for MSI files?
I can't name all the frustrating things in W7 because there is no one big thing, but a seemingly never ending things that hamper operations and personalizations that were a lot easier to do in XP. And while I am purposefully trying dive right in to W7, when I try to do things I often feel like I am being asked to fix a time piece wearing oven mitts (and sometimes being asked to beat off using cactus thorns, its not just hard, it hurts a fuck of a lot). I am learning to use it as it seems I will have to if I want a 64 bit system on a home PC, but I don't particularly like it... it reminds me of Gnome (I prefer KDE). Unfortunately my system is quite new so I will have to use it till it wears out when I will buy a Power Mac workstation (or Apple gets their heads out of their asses and sells a version of their OS to work on PCs). I have given up on Linux for the desktop and decided to only use it for server purposes. And before any Linux fans who don't know me starts to lambaste me about being only some know nothing Windows user, I am very well versed in Unix and Linux. I'm getting older now, and don't enjoy screwing around with configuration or compiling and installing programs by hand or the free time it eats into when I am at home. I just want the OS (the tool) to work so I can concentrate on the things I really want to do, whether it be investigating new programming languages or frameworks, or surfing the web.
I do want to comment on your CLI argument. It is at the very least a little specious (mmmmmm... kind of along the lines of 'a little pregnant'). Sure Windows power users don't use the CLI very much, but when they do, they want/need to be able to do what they need to do. They need it to work. In Windows it does to a certain extent, but I think power users would enjoy the flexibility and shear functionality of a Bourne (type) shell. I would think at a minimum, the corporate Windows admins would love it... I am pretty sure they still use the CLI and would benefit from a CLI with greatly expanded functionality. And saying to remove the Bourne shell and try using Linux is completely specious; it is a fundamental part of the OS as it is in every *nix system in existence, including OSX, even if not accessed by the user. It's like saying "I'd like to see how well that stupid Windows OS works if you take away the WinAPI libraries. I bet it can't, so stupid Windows is."
I get a kick out of those TV commercials where they anthropomorphize the toilet paper and have them as happy little pillows dancing around. I wonder to myself how much they will be smiling once I wipe shit all over their faces.
I live in Canada. I don't call myself American. No one in Canada calls themselves American. In fact you will really piss off a Canadian if you go up and insist that they are American. It's not that we don't like America. Most do, granted that for some reason some people in Canada missed the memo that the War of 1812 ended nearly 200 years ago, but most people here do like America. But naturally, being Canadian we are proud of our country, and many like me are as patriotic as Americans are, but toward Canada of course. To put it another way, here is a little anecdote: I was in Austria and a taxi driver told me I was a cheap fucking American when I asked the driver next to him how much it was to go to the west train station in Vienna from the east train station. I only had about 50 Austrian schillings on me and wasn't sure if it was enough or whether I had to go to a 'bank machine' :) (this was a while ago). My driver said it was enough, and I told him when I got in that his buddy pissed me off but not for the reason he would think. He asked what that was and told him that I wasn't a cheap fucking American, I am a cheap fucking Canadian. He looked at me puzzled when I told him that if you want to piss of a Canadian, call him an American. He said he didn't understand. Then I said (remembering this is in Vienna, Austria), well I guess you Germans wouldn't. He smiled and said, now I understand. :D
To tell the truth I had this happen in more places than I can remember. Granted I have probably been more places than I can remember too since I have travelled more than your average bear. But I know for sure I have had to correct myself from saying bathroom or washroom (and say rest room) enough times that now that I am back in Canada I still call them rest rooms now. Now I could see by how they looked at me that some of those people had a good idea but wanted me to say restroom just to make sure, but some didn't get it at all.
The best example that I can remember since it was the first time that it happened and the waitress really wasn't getting it was in Wichita, KS. I was down there for a couple of weeks doing some work at Excel Beef and some of the guys I was working with took me down to a bar they liked since I didn't know the lay of the land. I was half cut after a number of beers (about half again as many as it have taken in Canada... and probably four times as many as it would take in England :) ) and I really needed to take a piss.
:-)
I stopped a waitress and asked where the bathroom was since it wsa a really big place.
She looked at me like I was strange (not like that hasn't happened before but I digress) and asked "bathroom? I don't think we have one."
I said, "no no no... the washroom, you have a washroom right?"
"No, I don't think I understand, but I don't think we have one of those either," or something like that.
I was pissed and getting pissed off and said somewhat belligerently, "OK, how about the warshroom?"
Just then a buddy from work stepped in and said, "you're looking for the restroom, that's what we call it here," and looked at the waitress and told her, "he's from Canada, you have to excuse him!"
Then she looked as relieved as I was about to be and pointed out where the 'restroom' was.
I remember that one the best because it was the first time it happened. But I know it has happened a good number of times after at different places in the U.S. I am always surprised that it wasn't just that one girl each time it happens, but not enough since to make me remember more than it did happen again somewhere (i.e. it was no longer really surprising). But like I said, a lot of people could figure it out, but for some reason there are people who just don't 'get it'. Kind of funny if you ask me. And truthfully, I think I've had a couple of times where someone up here wasn't sure if I meant washroom when I asked where the restroom is... but not so much. :)
Actually they put R's in the wrong place all over the U.S. especially in places like Kansas, and believe it or not Rhode Island and Massachusetts. I did some work in both places and heard it every day there. On one contract I was in Providence for about seven months and they told me in order to speak like them "you have to take out all the R's and then put a few back in the wrong place." :-) One of the trainers I brought on site was named Melissa, but half of the people there called her Mellisser. It's a great place to hang out, as is most all of coastal New England. Everyone should check out Newport RI and Martha's Vineyard MA. NOTE: take your wife or girlfriend and stay at a good B&B in either of the two places and you will have mega brownie points for a long time to counter balance your screw ups LOL.
BTW to speak like a Bostonian use the old saw, "I parked my car in Harvard Gardens"... BUT, when you say it, take out all the R's and pronounce the A's the same way as if the R's were still there (i.e. use a 'soft' A). Something like "I paacked my caa in Haavaad Gaadens." It is scary how good this works :-D .
That's the 'warsh room' to you buddy. ;-)
Way too funny... please mod up? roflmao
Being Canadian I usually call it a 'bank machine' rather than an ATM. That is the common term here, very few people call it an ATM. The funny thing is, when I lived in the U.S. I would have to remember to use the term ATM instead of bank machine. While some people knew what I meant when I would ask, "where's the closest bank machine," an unbelievable number would look at me with a blank stare and ask what I meant. Then I would remember and say, "the closest ATM." Then I would get a look of understanding and then the directions. In fact I would hazard that something like 60 or 70% of the people would respond like that. I can't give exact numbers, but absolutely for sure, most people didn't know what I meant by 'bank machine'. The same when I asked for the 'bathroom'. I would have to translate to 'rest room' (the WC for those overseas :) ). When I remembered to use the local term, they would ask why I call it a bathroom, there aren't any baths there. And I would reply, why do you call it a rest room, I can tell you for sure I won't be doing any resting... maybe a lot of grunting, but no resting. It's funny how English can be so different. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
What about Fedora? Yes it is community driven, but Redhat does put money into it, and they do give it away for free as in beer. Not to mention all the value added installation packages and configuration tools they add in order to make the bare bones kernel that Linus develops into a usable system. Or do you suppose that most people install all the software by hand first compiling and installing the kernel, and the same for each piece of software on their system (of course they don't). Then there are all the updates and update packages they create whenever bugs are found in fixed in the various pieces of software that makes up the distribution. No, they don't code the patches for all apps, but they make it far easier to get them on to your system, installed and configured correctly. As easy as clicking a few buttons. And they provide the updates for both the paid Redhat product and the unpaid Fedora product. So while your sarcastic argument seems to hold water on the surface, it quickly sinks and disappears below the surface, down to where the leeches are.
This is actually an interesting point. This could be a case of 'bus syndrome'. What happens to a critical project when only one person has all the knowledge, but gets hit and killed by a bus on the way to work? After we find out whether he put on clean underwear like his mother told him, the project gets hit by the same bus. The project might be a little more resilient but it still gets seriously hurt.
I don't have any sympathy for anyone involved with a project where this happens. It is so preventable. As time has gone on, I have been getting more vocal in work situations when I see this kind of thing happening. It's a pain in the ass when the Asperger King or Queen decides to leave because they don't like to share. And half the time they don't use any sort of recognizable organizational structure to what they do, so it takes longer for others to figure what's there, which makes a bad situation even worse.
I hope the guy wasn't hit by a bus, or hurt in any way. In any case, this should be an eye opener for the other members of the project and any people who rely on CentOS for critical systems. To throw gas on the fire, I think it is also a good reason to go with a 'for profit' company like Red Hat, Ubuntu (Canonical), or Suse if you need to use an OS for mission critical systems (or even their pressure cooker products). A for profit company has a lot more incentive to make sure these kinds of issues don't happen, and the resources to make sure these kinds of issues don't happen.
I personally won't use software produced by projects like CentOS. My belief is that projects like CentOS are there because people want to skate on the backs of people and companies who have spent time and money making a good product, just because they don't want to pay for that hard work. I believe this is the flaw in the GNU license, and not open source in general. It is like stealing money from those who created the original work. Redhat spends a lot of money to develop their product, and others just copy it and give it away for free. I think the idea of open source was to be able to modify drivers and software so that it better meets your needs. I don't think it was so you could take other people's ideas and sell them as your own. If Redhat were just starting and were still on the edge of financial stability, and a 'CentOS' product started giving away Redhat's product for free, the for profit company could fail. We periodically see companies trying to make open source products switch to closed source for this very reason. The service support paradigm only works for products that are too big and complicated for the 'little guy' to take on. And even then it is a risky proposition until the code base is reasonably stable, since the time and money going into stabilizing the code can outweigh the money coming in from sales and support work. Even CentOS and others like it rely on Redhat to fix bugs and copy those updates too. While legal, I think it is morally wrong. As a note, every couple of years I will go out and purchase a copy of a Linux distribution. We all rely on them to create our Linux installs. How many out there who spout all the GNU propaganda actually try to contribute this way so that these distributions are able to continue? While some may contribute code, which I believe counts for just as much as contributing financially, I really doubt that more than an extremely small handful of people even do this for the distros. Most just want the free as in beer software and feel like they're cool because they aren't using MS or Apple. Yes I am getting more cynical as I get older... and I was pretty damned cynical when I was young. :)
Possible, but not necessarily. The caveat to this is that power companies might be more comfortable skirting safety regulations, and build nuclear plants that are less safe. This is the usual action of large faceless companies when they are allowed to operate in places where the government or people are more complacent to the dangers of their products (whether by economic necessity or by ignorance, or both).
Anyway, even if true, it might only be a cure for acute radiation sickness as the article doesn't say anything about triggering the human body to produce these so called protective proteins, rather they have to be injected. Almost anything injected eventually gets purged from the body. Which would mean people would have to take the drug over and over and over again if living in a contaminated area. Long term use could cause problems and would at the very least make people who need it hostage to the companies and/or governments who produce it. Even if this drug does indeed prove real, I know I would still not agree that my home being effectively and permanently contaminated by radioactivity is not a non-issue. And per my previous paragraph, I would in fact be more leery of the power company's intentions etc.
If you mean Canada, then you mean that everyone should not be able to get decent medical care equally. Most Canadians don't understand how bad the system is since they never have to use it further than their annual physical at their family physician. Except if you are one of the many who don't have a family physician. And if you have any sort of more serious issues, you will wait a long time to get treated. The exceptions are the diseases of the day. For example, those with breast cancer will be treated right away. Those with aggressive brain tumors will likely die unless they take it on themselves and go broke saving their own lives as anyone in the U.S.A. Those suffering extreme pain and who have to take months and months off work on disability due to herniated lumbar disks pushing into the nerves in the spinal canal will be told to wait up to 13 months for a surgery with a 97% success rate, never mind how it ruins their lives and mental health. (This latter describes my predicament... here is the worst part... the only people who get treated quickly for this... and it causes pain that I don't wish on anyone, where no position you are in doesn't hurt at 8 or 9 out of 10... and sometimes at 10... the only people who get treated quickly are those where it is so bad they lose control of the bladder and bowel functions... and sometimes they still can't find room in Canada and have to put them in an ambulance bound for Buffalo... one of my doctor's other patients had this happen.) Or those who damage a knee and have to stay on crutches and often suffer permanent disabilities because their wait times for treatment can be even longer. There are more than a few who need heart surgery such as valve replacement who literally have waited so long they died before they made it into the operating room.
Two years ago, Canadians per capita paid around the same as Europeans who have a much better health system than either the United States or Canada (which consists of taking the positive synergy or public and private health care insurance... single payer does not exist). This past year, it is expected that Canadians will pay almost double that, and within one or two thousand dollars or the per capita expenditure of Americans. If it keeps going, we'll end up paying more than Americans and continue to have terrible health care. I think if we get to the point where we do pay the same as Americans, we should just get credits from the government to go out and purchase our own health care insurance from private companies. After living in the U.S. I have found that if you have a good enough job to belong to a good health plan, you are better off than in Canada's health care system.
Anyone who uses Netbeans needs to start leaning how to use Eclipse or JDeveloper. Never mind all those who use Open Office.
I don't care if it is proprietary, but it has to be 'for profit'. Otherwise there is not enough motivation for them to stay in business (provide service) in the long run. I don't count 'having good intentions' and such as good enough motivation. Not being able to eat, or pay the rent if your business goes under does count as good motivation. It also has to promise a certain level of security. I know we can't get around nosy governments now, but I do want assurance that everyone else will not be able to listen in (yes I know nothing is absolute, so anyone wanting to be anal can stop right now).
Skype in Canada doesn't provide you with a phone number (i.e.what they used to call 'Skype In'). We have the highest cell phone rates in the world or very close to it (some cell companies want you to pay long distance rates even if you are the one receiving the call!!!... granted some have stopped this practice but still...). The land area is so big, and the population density so small, you will find yourself talking long distance at least several times a week, just for personal business. In other words, long distance is a 'need to have' not a 'nice to have'. Oh and I forgot to mention, the cost for a plan that automatically includes long distance for the whole country is prohibitively high for a personal phone... i.e. generally, only those who have their companies pay for it will have that plan. The bottom line is that if there is one country in the world that is prime picking for a company that can offer extremely low long distance rates, it is Canada. But you NEED to have a telephone number so that people without Skype can dial you up. Too bad Skype is missing out. Too bad for Canadians. :(
I have voted for the conservative for at least the last ten years. The liberals who used to be the middle of the road party have drifted much too far to the left. When they used to sit in the centre, sometimes they even drifted to the right a little bit, especially in terms of finances. They were the ones who balanced the budget federally, and started paying it down in a big way (it's why Canada is the country best off of the G8 and whose banks are still making profits). However they have gone so far left it is scary.
I'm hoping the Ignatieff (Canada's federal Liberal Party leader) moves the party back to the middle. If so, coupled with net neutrality, I'll definitely move back to the liberal camp. At least until it is passes parliament and gets Royal Assent. Heck, they only need to move a little towards centre. Once it is passed, I can always vote conservative again. :)
OK punter, put this in your Google: sony mz 700 manual
First search I did today, looking for the manual for my mini disk player. Sony was in the search... you have to look 50 or more hits down to find Sony. It is quicker to go to Sony and sift through there web site than to do a Google search.