Here in Australia the Japanese atrocities are very much remembered. We lost many more servicemen and women to the Japanese than we did to the Germans.
At the time, Australians were very worried about Japan invading. And with good reason, I think. Our troops were fighting them very close-by in Indonesia and other countries. They managed to bomb Darwin, launch an (unsuccessfull) submarine attack on Sydney Harbour, and fly a reconnaissance flight over Melbourne (right at the bottom of Australia).
Most people my age have a grandfather or uncle who fought the Japanese. And they all have stories they don't like talking about.
I remember seeing an IBM advertisement, just after they started pushing Linux on mainframes, which said something along the lines of :
Run Linux on your mainframe for $50 per virtual server!
The fine print said "$50 is an estimate based on running 10,000 virtual Linux servers on one mainframe."
Re:RAID virgin pops cherry...
on
Basics of RAID
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· Score: 3, Interesting
If that RAID array is the only place you are storing all those home movies, I highly recommend you take a backup to some other kind of media. As other people have said, the RAID controller is a single point of failure. If you lose that, you lose the lot. And there's no guarantee that another controller will be able to rebuild it. Sad but true.
Re:Wow, a whole story I disagree with! Hmm....
on
Basics of RAID
·
· Score: 1
I also disagree with the story. People always confuse RAID with backups.
RAID provides *redundancy and availability*. If a disk fails, you can get your system up and running again almost instantly - obviously very important in the business world.
Backups provide *data protection*, so that if your data is lost or corrupted for any reason, you can retrieve it from a safe copy.
The only purpose I can see in the home for RAID would be RAID-0 (striping) for performance improvements. But the only home application I can think of that would utilise that improved sequential throughput would be video capturing/conversion. Most home applications are random I/O intensive, which doesn't get much improvement from striped disks.
For backups at home, most people should be able to get by with occasionally burning a CD or DVD of their really important documents and records and storing that at another location. If people *really* feel they need a backup of those "linux distributions and home movies" that are occupying hundreds of GB on their hard drives, external USB hard drives are probably the best option at the moment.
I'm a *system* admin, who uses the best tool for the particular job.
You've got the right idea - I wish more of the admins I've worked with had that attitude.
I started as an "computer operator" and had to know MVS, VM, VMS, OS/400, VRX and others, but all at a fairly high level.
Nowadays I specialise in the storage area; So my users, or customers, are usually sysadmins and DBAs of all shapes and colours; Windows, UNIX, mainframe, Oracle, Sybase, DB2, and so on...
I've lost the point I was trying to make, but I I'll just say that there is a place for both specialists and generalists. I'm a bit of both myself - a specialist in storage, but a generalist in operating systems. Luckily for me, storage is so hot right now, and there are very few storage specialists who know both mainframe and open systems (Unix/Windows):)
I was a pure "Star Wars kid"; 7 years old when I saw the first movie in the cinema when it was released here. It was my first real introduction to "sci-fi", and I loved it, for the reasons you say ("more for the intriguing, plausible questions it raised, than for its escapism").
But I'm 34 now, and I love Science Fiction, as opposed to "sci-fi". I've learnt that real Science Fiction is mainly found in novels or short stories, rather than movies and TV shows (there are a few exceptions, of course). As a teen I discovered SF novels, and am still an avid reader, and the stories I read still regularly blow my mind with some of concepts and possibilities they raise.
I can understand that many people would only be familiar with the sci-fi they see on TV and movies, but I think the "real geeks" will enjoy the sci-fi as young geeks, and progress on to the real stuff when they get older, as I did:)
How would IBM for example prevent all it's employees from leaking the information...
Well, they wouldn't be able to prevent that. The answer is to only tell those who "need to know" where the chips are going.
I'm sure the folk on the chip assembly lines don't know, or even care, where the umpteen processors they QC'd on any day will end up.
IBM is probably a bad example for the parent poster to use. IBM, more-so than just about any other IT company, would have been involved in a lot of "secret" transactions with government agencies from various countries over many years. (For example, I can't imagine the Soviets knew much detail about the computers in the Apollo missions, but I may be wrong.)
Even deals with non-government companies are commonly kept confidential, at least until the deal is signed, and indefinitely if the customer requires it.
Exactly. I see this kind of thing all the time (I'm in IT in Australia). There's a particular piece of backup software that I work on, consulting to different companies.
Almost all of them are exceeding their licensing agreements.
These companies want to clean up their act, so ask 3rd parties like me to audit them and tell them how many licenses they need to buy. The vendor usually charges them a much lower price for the extra licenses, or asks them to just backpay maintenance or something similar.
It's better to have a big customer using your software, even if they're not paying market rates, rather than having them looking at your competitors' software.
Maybe when the Jedi were more numerous and in control of the galaxy, they could be more selective about who they took on as trainees.
Later on, in Eps IV to VI, there aren't many Jedi left, so perhaps the few survivors have, uh... loosened the entry requirements somewhat.
I did the Netview/Rexx thing too. Rexx was great on MVS and VM - much better than the alternatives. Being able to quickly write a script that could run from a batch job, or be triggered by a system message, and address ISPF, TSO, Netview, and even CICS or IMS, was very useful when it came to automating mainframe operations.
I believe Perl could be even helpful for these kinds of tasks, but I've struggled to understand it to the extent that I knew Rexx. That's probably due more to my age now than anything else:/
There would be many more younger geeks who missed the BBS scene and would be interested to watch. And if they marketed it right, they might get a decent audience. For some of the Australian cable stations, even 10,000 would be a good audience;)
But, uh, I doubt it will be shown on TV here any time soon.
* it is carrying on an enterprise and its annual turnover is $50 000 or more ($100 000 or more if the entity is a non-profit organisation)
* it supplies taxi or limousine travel for fares
* if it is a representative of an incapacitated entity (where the incapacitated entity is registered or required to be registered), or
* if the entity is a resident agent acting for a non resident (where the non resident is registered or required to be registered)." ---- I heard the story on the radio news this morning and they said they were going after online stores. But not for *avoiding* tax.
In Australia, unlike the US, prices are supposed to be advertised including tax. So if an item is advertised and sold at $29.99, the pre-tax price is $27.27 (GST=10%). The buyer pays $29.99.* The seller owes the tax office $2.73.
In this news radio story, they said that it was because items were being sold without GST, then the seller would add GST, and the buyer would complain to consumer affairs.
*footnote : if the buyer is paying cash, they'd actually have to pay $30 rather than $29.99 since we ditched 1 cent coins years ago.
I saw someone on TV recently, I can't recall who, saying that the reason digital cinema projection hasn't been taken up is that it is the cinema owners who would have to pay for the upgrades, but the distributors would reap the greatest savings out of it.
Slashdot Mirror
news.com.au is the online arm of a bunch of low grade tabloid newspapers
...otherwise known as News Limited, which is News Corporation outside Australia.
;)
"low brow" or "low class" is probably more accurate
Here in Australia the Japanese atrocities are very much remembered. We lost many more servicemen and women to the Japanese than we did to the Germans.
At the time, Australians were very worried about Japan invading. And with good reason, I think. Our troops were fighting them very close-by in Indonesia and other countries. They managed to bomb Darwin, launch an (unsuccessfull) submarine attack on Sydney Harbour, and fly a reconnaissance flight over Melbourne (right at the bottom of Australia).
Most people my age have a grandfather or uncle who fought the Japanese. And they all have stories they don't like talking about.
in fact things may have turned out worse both for the populations of the US and Japan.
And many other countries!
I think he's referring to Team OS/2, who carried the anti-Microsoft torch back when Linux was still in nappies.
I remember seeing an IBM advertisement, just after they started pushing Linux on mainframes, which said something along the lines of :
Run Linux on your mainframe for $50 per virtual server!
The fine print said "$50 is an estimate based on running 10,000 virtual Linux servers on one mainframe."
If that RAID array is the only place you are storing all those home movies, I highly recommend you take a backup to some other kind of media. As other people have said, the RAID controller is a single point of failure. If you lose that, you lose the lot. And there's no guarantee that another controller will be able to rebuild it. Sad but true.
I also disagree with the story. People always confuse RAID with backups.
RAID provides *redundancy and availability*. If a disk fails, you can get your system up and running again almost instantly - obviously very important in the business world.
Backups provide *data protection*, so that if your data is lost or corrupted for any reason, you can retrieve it from a safe copy.
The only purpose I can see in the home for RAID would be RAID-0 (striping) for performance improvements. But the only home application I can think of that would utilise that improved sequential throughput would be video capturing/conversion. Most home applications are random I/O intensive, which doesn't get much improvement from striped disks.
For backups at home, most people should be able to get by with occasionally burning a CD or DVD of their really important documents and records and storing that at another location. If people *really* feel they need a backup of those "linux distributions and home movies" that are occupying hundreds of GB on their hard drives, external USB hard drives are probably the best option at the moment.
I'm a *system* admin, who uses the best tool for the particular job.
...
:)
You've got the right idea - I wish more of the admins I've worked with had that attitude.
I started as an "computer operator" and had to know MVS, VM, VMS, OS/400, VRX and others, but all at a fairly high level.
Nowadays I specialise in the storage area; So my users, or customers, are usually sysadmins and DBAs of all shapes and colours; Windows, UNIX, mainframe, Oracle, Sybase, DB2, and so on
I've lost the point I was trying to make, but I I'll just say that there is a place for both specialists and generalists. I'm a bit of both myself - a specialist in storage, but a generalist in operating systems. Luckily for me, storage is so hot right now, and there are very few storage specialists who know both mainframe and open systems (Unix/Windows)
Interesting perspective, but I tend to disagree.
:)
I was a pure "Star Wars kid"; 7 years old when I saw the first movie in the cinema when it was released here. It was my first real introduction to "sci-fi", and I loved it, for the reasons you say ("more for the intriguing, plausible questions it raised, than for its escapism").
But I'm 34 now, and I love Science Fiction, as opposed to "sci-fi". I've learnt that real Science Fiction is mainly found in novels or short stories, rather than movies and TV shows (there are a few exceptions, of course). As a teen I discovered SF novels, and am still an avid reader, and the stories I read still regularly blow my mind with some of concepts and possibilities they raise.
I can understand that many people would only be familiar with the sci-fi they see on TV and movies, but I think the "real geeks" will enjoy the sci-fi as young geeks, and progress on to the real stuff when they get older, as I did
It proves that the US is a nation that is busy at night, as opposed to Africa, which is not busy at any time.
Not really. It shows that America has a lot of large urbanised areas with street lighting on all night.
A rabbi, a doctor, and the Holy Seal walk into a bar...
.. The barman says "Sorry, we don't serve seals here".
Let me try ...
Naff?
Manky?
Spiffy!
"A spiffy 91.29 teraflops."
How would IBM for example prevent all it's employees from leaking the information...
Well, they wouldn't be able to prevent that. The answer is to only tell those who "need to know" where the chips are going.
I'm sure the folk on the chip assembly lines don't know, or even care, where the umpteen processors they QC'd on any day will end up.
IBM is probably a bad example for the parent poster to use. IBM, more-so than just about any other IT company, would have been involved in a lot of "secret" transactions with government agencies from various countries over many years. (For example, I can't imagine the Soviets knew much detail about the computers in the Apollo missions, but I may be wrong.)
Even deals with non-government companies are commonly kept confidential, at least until the deal is signed, and indefinitely if the customer requires it.
Correct.
"What advice should I give them?" (advice is a noun)
or
"How should I advise them?" (advise is a verb)
No, I'm thinking people can afford zero-cost software.
The cost of converting 50,000 desktops from Windows to Linux would be somewhat more than $0. Not to mention re-training all those users.
(Yes, you WOULD need to train most users.)
Exactly. I see this kind of thing all the time (I'm in IT in Australia). There's a particular piece of backup software that I work on, consulting to different companies. Almost all of them are exceeding their licensing agreements.
These companies want to clean up their act, so ask 3rd parties like me to audit them and tell them how many licenses they need to buy. The vendor usually charges them a much lower price for the extra licenses, or asks them to just backpay maintenance or something similar.
It's better to have a big customer using your software, even if they're not paying market rates, rather than having them looking at your competitors' software.
...just saw a remake of ep IV, with it starting on Tattoine. Again. And ending with the destruction of a Death Star. Again.
Amen brother. And here I was for 22 years thinking I was the only one.
Maybe when the Jedi were more numerous and in control of the galaxy, they could be more selective about who they took on as trainees.
...maybe?
Later on, in Eps IV to VI, there aren't many Jedi left, so perhaps the few survivors have, uh... loosened the entry requirements somewhat.
I did the Netview/Rexx thing too. Rexx was great on MVS and VM - much better than the alternatives. Being able to quickly write a script that could run from a batch job, or be triggered by a system message, and address ISPF, TSO, Netview, and even CICS or IMS, was very useful when it came to automating mainframe operations.
:/
I believe Perl could be even helpful for these kinds of tasks, but I've struggled to understand it to the extent that I knew Rexx. That's probably due more to my age now than anything else
There would be many more younger geeks who missed the BBS scene and would be interested to watch. And if they marketed it right, they might get a decent audience. For some of the Australian cable stations, even 10,000 would be a good audience ;)
But, uh, I doubt it will be shown on TV here any time soon.
my bank card pin to this day is a portion of a telephone number of a BBS i used to call daily back in '87 or '88
Holy cow. I have done exactly the same thing.
Spooky.
It's the same here. From the government's Australian Business Register website http://www.help.abr.gov.au/content.asp?doc=/conten t/19247.htm&placement=ABH/SUP/FLH&usertype=BC...
---
"An entity is required by law to register for Goods and Services Tax (GST) if:
* it is carrying on an enterprise and its annual turnover is $50 000 or more ($100 000 or more if the entity is a non-profit organisation)
* it supplies taxi or limousine travel for fares
* if it is a representative of an incapacitated entity (where the incapacitated entity is registered or required to be registered), or
* if the entity is a resident agent acting for a non resident (where the non resident is registered or required to be registered)."
----
I heard the story on the radio news this morning and they said they were going after online stores. But not for *avoiding* tax.
In Australia, unlike the US, prices are supposed to be advertised including tax. So if an item is advertised and sold at $29.99, the pre-tax price is $27.27 (GST=10%). The buyer pays $29.99.* The seller owes the tax office $2.73.
In this news radio story, they said that it was because items were being sold without GST, then the seller would add GST, and the buyer would complain to consumer affairs.
*footnote : if the buyer is paying cash, they'd actually have to pay $30 rather than $29.99 since we ditched 1 cent coins years ago.
You see what happens when you leave your parent's basement and try to start a life of your own?
You resort to begging for HTML from strangers.
I think the answer to that's pretty obvious.
I saw someone on TV recently, I can't recall who, saying that the reason digital cinema projection hasn't been taken up is that it is the cinema owners who would have to pay for the upgrades, but the distributors would reap the greatest savings out of it.