Our director of engineering and one of the VPs were courted by Microsoft in late 1998 or early 1999 to consider using Windows NT to serve our pages and do our directory searches.
As evidence of Microsoft's ability to handle large loads, they were shown racks upon racks of rack-mounted NT boxes. Hundreds of boxes. The idea being that when some fall over, there are plenty to take up the load.
Our VP was told that these machines were to be the new Hotmail servers.
The director and VP came back to town all excited and wanted us to look into getting rid of our pesky Sun Enterprise boxes.
About a month after they got back, we showed them an article about Microsoft's failed conversion of Hotmail to NT, and how they had to roll back to FreeBSD and Apache.
to see how the story worked out, check out what your Directory EXpertis using today. --- Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
really--I've got a sun 'type 5' optical mouse, and associated reflective grid mousepad, sitting on my desk right now.
I just love constantly picking the mouse up and putting it back in the center of the mousepad.
PHB: My mouse is at the edge of my mousepad, and I still can't get the cursor to the edge of the screen. Techsupport: have you tried rebooting your machine? PHB: Yes, twice. Techsupport: it looks like you will need my $800 mousepad 'upgrade' PHB: OK --- Scott Adams
Update from B. Perens' website: I've withdrawn this article after enough people convinced me that I didn't know what I was talking about. It happens sometimes.
Thanks
Bruce
Note to self: idea for new article->Blame programmers for buffer overflow security exploits. --- Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
There are architectures (Gould/SEL-32/xx is one) that allow for and, in some cases, insist on strict divisions of code and data pages. The code sections are read only, and will generate a fault if an attempt to write to it occurs from a non-system level.
The data sections are read/write, but you cannot branch there.
It makes it a bit difficult to write self-modifying code, but not impossible if you really need to. --- Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
jeesh, I can remember way back around 1976 or so that we had plastic lasers as a kid.
Of course we called them "light sabres", and we made strange "OHHHM VMMMM" noises as we brandished them treateningly at our playmates. --- Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
a new 3D video compression algorithm by Caltech's Peter Schroeder and Bell Labs' Wim Sweldens that they claim is 12 times smaller than MPEG4 and 6 times smaller than the previously best published algorithm.
That's great that the algorithm is smaller, but what we really want is smaller data
We don't need new laws in cyberspace any more than we need new laws 'in the real world'.
Legislators don't normally think this way, as most feel that their job is to push forward new legislation, but we need to concentrate on enforcement of current laws.
Maybe even remove some of the archaic laws on the books...
Don't we have a higher percentage of people in prison than any other large country? --- Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
I like Stephen King's work, but I think that he must be smoking something pretty nice to think that 75% of the people who download his online book will send him a dollar.
I think that he will be lucky to get a 30% return rate...and if he does, he will still make a pretty nice profit.
It will be interesting to see if he truly will NOT release the final chapter when he still makes millions on the novel. --- Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
I've been electricity for more than a year in the quest to be in the top "N thousand", where N is where I currently am....
These boards look pretty cool---hmm, 9 units in 24 hours per card? I could gain some serious headway by installing a couple of these puppies.
I just broke into the top 5000 today, btw.
I wonder how much I've personally contributed to global warming....how much has the SETI project overall contributed to global warming? --- Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
/* sarcasm detected */ No, the folks who cruise around telling computer users "Windows suxs---you should use Linux" without offering explanations or assistance to others to get started down the Linux path.
I'm glad to see that you aren't one of the elite --- Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
The phenomenon does exist, but I couldn't tell you how prevelant it is in percentages.
I've helped many folks get started using Linux, and most of them are not in the militant category. However, there are a handfull who come back to me after six months and say things like "why are you using NT at work?--you should shitcan it for Linux--haven't I taught you better than that?" etc....
Age doesn't seem to be a factor, I've seen this in folks who are in their teens/twenties, and one in his 50s.
Gender may have something to do with it--I've yet to see a female militant Linux user...not to say that they don't exist. --- Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
These Militant Linux Geeks are a major issue today. While helpful to the development of Linux because they are often programmers who like to go in and hack around in the code, they are also potentially a threat to the OS. These are not people who use Linux because it is better; these are people who use Linux because they like the elitism that Linux gives them. They prefer to understand things that others don't.
This is an excellent point--I've come across several folks who are relatively new Linux users (I've been using/developing under Linux since '94) but consider themselves "Linux Gods".
The elitist attitude that they spout forth does more to damage the Linux "cause" than they know. --- Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
Slashdot Mirror
I was a consultant at an online yellow pages company from 1998->2000.
Our director of engineering and one of the VPs were courted by Microsoft in late 1998 or early 1999 to consider using Windows NT to serve our pages and do our directory searches.
As evidence of Microsoft's ability to handle large loads, they were shown racks upon racks of rack-mounted NT boxes. Hundreds of boxes. The idea being that when some fall over, there are plenty to take up the load.
Our VP was told that these machines were to be the new Hotmail servers.
The director and VP came back to town all excited and wanted us to look into getting rid of our pesky Sun Enterprise boxes.
About a month after they got back, we showed them an article about Microsoft's failed conversion of Hotmail to NT, and how they had to roll back to FreeBSD and Apache.
to see how the story worked out, check out what your Directory EXpert is using today.
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
Every software development project that I have been on has been late and over budget
I've been in the business for 18 years, and this doesn't reflect on my experience.
Did you ever consider that this might have something to do with you?
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
really--I've got a sun 'type 5' optical mouse, and associated reflective grid mousepad, sitting on my desk right now.
I just love constantly picking the mouse up and putting it back in the center of the mousepad.
PHB: My mouse is at the edge of my mousepad, and I still can't get the cursor to the edge of the screen.
Techsupport: have you tried rebooting your machine?
PHB: Yes, twice.
Techsupport: it looks like you will need my $800 mousepad 'upgrade'
PHB: OK
--- Scott Adams
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
Update from B. Perens' website:
I've withdrawn this article after enough people convinced me that I didn't know what I was talking about. It happens sometimes.
Thanks
Bruce
Note to self: idea for new article->Blame programmers for buffer overflow security exploits.
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
I wouldn't blame the intel architecture, but..
There are architectures (Gould/SEL-32/xx is one) that allow for and, in some cases, insist on strict divisions of code and data pages. The code sections are read only, and will generate a fault if an attempt to write to it occurs from a non-system level.
The data sections are read/write, but you cannot branch there.
It makes it a bit difficult to write self-modifying code, but not impossible if you really need to.
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
jeesh, I can remember way back around 1976 or so that we had plastic lasers as a kid.
Of course we called them "light sabres", and we made strange "OHHHM VMMMM" noises as we brandished them treateningly at our playmates.
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
cool-now I can exceed my monthly kilobyte allocation all in one day!
time to sign up for the unlimited volume plan
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
a new 3D video compression algorithm by Caltech's Peter Schroeder and Bell Labs' Wim Sweldens that they claim is 12 times smaller than MPEG4 and 6 times smaller than the previously best published algorithm.
That's great that the algorithm is smaller, but what we really want is smaller data
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
Robert, please tell us what the X in Robert X. Cringely stands for!
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
In the recent past, I've worked on Sybase databases that were in the hundreds of gigabytes on unix.
Currently, I work on small databases in the 8 to 20 GB range.
I've got a dual processor box at home with 512 meg of memory running Sybase on Linux and I've got a couple of 10+ GB databases loaded there.
So, don't sweat the small stuff.
my advice, get as much memory as you can afford/use. RDBMSes love memory!
---
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A very nice and well run ruse.
Congrats to the founders of KrasnoConv!
---
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when I say 'we', I'm referring to the U.S.
I know that slashdot is an international community...
---
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We don't need new laws in cyberspace any more than we need new laws 'in the real world'.
Legislators don't normally think this way, as most feel that their job is to push forward new legislation, but we need to concentrate on enforcement of current laws.
Maybe even remove some of the archaic laws on the books...
Don't we have a higher percentage of people in prison than any other large country?
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
A local radio station (KRFX FM in Denver) has been doing this for at least two years.
...etc
They have a recording of their morning drive-time shockjocks calling people to remind them to listen to their morning show.
something like:
"Hello....Hello....Turn down your radio, I can't hear you....."
kind of a prank call, but AFAIK, no one has every turned them in for doing this.
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
I like Stephen King's work, but I think that he must be smoking something pretty nice to think that 75% of the people who download his online book will send him a dollar.
I think that he will be lucky to get a 30% return rate...and if he does, he will still make a pretty nice profit.
It will be interesting to see if he truly will NOT release the final chapter when he still makes millions on the novel.
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
I saw that as well--I've got more than one machine at my disposal...
but, then I saw the cost for the six processor card-- ~ US$500.00!
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
Hmm...almost $500 for the fully populated card with six processors...
maybe I'll just load the SETI client at work on our Sun E-10000 production box....
I wonder how long till someone would notice....
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
I've been electricity for more than a year in the quest to be in the top "N thousand", where N is where I currently am....
These boards look pretty cool---hmm, 9 units in 24 hours per card? I could gain some serious headway by installing a couple of these puppies.
I just broke into the top 5000 today, btw.
I wonder how much I've personally contributed to global warming....how much has the SETI project overall contributed to global warming?
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
That's the idea :)
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
I don't believe that I could get my hands on a 1.0Ghz PIII, even if I wanted to.
so, Intel is doing yet another paper launch.
I guess that it is all about marketing, not about availability.
Wouldn't it be cool if AMD beats them to the punch by a week, just like last time?
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
/* sarcasm detected */
No, the folks who cruise around telling computer users "Windows suxs---you should use Linux" without offering explanations or assistance to others to get started down the Linux path.
I'm glad to see that you aren't one of the elite
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
The phenomenon does exist, but I couldn't tell you how prevelant it is in percentages.
I've helped many folks get started using Linux, and most of them are not in the militant category. However, there are a handfull who come back to me after six months and say things like "why are you using NT at work?--you should shitcan it for Linux--haven't I taught you better than that?" etc....
Age doesn't seem to be a factor, I've seen this in folks who are in their teens/twenties, and one in his 50s.
Gender may have something to do with it--I've yet to see a female militant Linux user...not to say that they don't exist.
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
These Militant Linux Geeks are a major issue today. While helpful to the development of Linux because they are often programmers who like to go in and hack around in the code, they are also potentially a threat to the OS. These are not people who use Linux because it is better; these are people who use Linux because they like the elitism that Linux gives them. They prefer to understand things that others don't.
This is an excellent point--I've come across several folks who are relatively new Linux users (I've been using/developing under Linux since '94) but consider themselves "Linux Gods".
The elitist attitude that they spout forth does more to damage the Linux "cause" than they know.
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
oops--left out a word....I meant to post:
Wednesday's flare caused a few radio blackouts.
---
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According to CNN, we were hit by a massiv e solar flare on Wednesday at around 6:30am EDT.
Wednesday's flare caused a few blackouts.
Today's solar flare was predicted, and was expected to be larger than the one that hit us on Wendesday.
---
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