You do realize that emerge isn't only source-based, right? Granted, there aren't as many binary packages available, due to the fact that nobody wants to waste their time compiling, as you said. But there's nothing preventing a sysadmin from emerging a package onto one machine and then using that binary as the package to distribute to the rest of the machines. Emerge actually has a very good installation process - it will even diff the/etc files for you so you can preview/edit the changes. Last I remembered, redhat either overwrites your configs or doesn't install new ones.
Wait a minute, you are a sysadmin for linux machines and you don't install the compiler??:-P Oh, I hated admins like you...
You're right, though - I don't think that gentoo is a fit for a corporate installation, but that's due mostly to the lack of driver support from companies (for some reason they think that once they make a redhat enterprise driver, that's all they need to do).
As for most office workers jobs not including compiling, their jobs also don't include windowsupdate, virus scanning, spyware scanning, etc, etc. Those all fall under the category of your job as the corporate sysadmin. But it's not like compiling is really any more work for a user anyway, they aren't the ones physically converting C code to machine language, they just run the command (or if you are running a tight ship, it will run automagically in the middle of the night).
Crap, I didn't mean to start a distribution war - oops
Gentoo may be a Niche, but unless portage dissapears, I don't see why it would fade. It has some things that still don't exist in other distributions...
I was once a RedHat user but I got irritated with how I needed to reinstall every time I wanted to upgrade a major version (5.2 -> 6.2, 6.2 -> 7.3, etc).
When installing a package, I spent a LONG time on rpmfind.net looking for the right packages for software. Rpm did a great job of telling me what I was missing, but I'd still end up back at rpmfind looking for the next package, and the next....all manually.
I guess up2date is available now....but doesn't that require some kind of payment to redhat? I might be mistaken about that, but isn't that the equivalent of paying Microsoft to use WindowsUpdate?
If redhat/debian find a way to get the utility of gentoo, it will win over the gentoo users. Sure, everyone makes fun of the compiling of everything...but if there were a way for another distribution to accomplish the same feat with binary packages, I'd like to see it. I type "emerge packagename" and that's the end of it. In Redhat or Debian, I have to wait for a version to be released to RPM or DEB, and I have to pray that I'm running standard hardware and want to use the configuration they built it with.
So in hopes to not appear like the stereotyped gentoo user, here is what I'd hope to see in whatever the winning distro/package management setup: - Up to date software, previous versions also available - multiple configurations of packages (for packages that have important options) - automatic dependency resolution - mirrored distribution on free servers
Notice that I don't really care if it's compiled on the fly....if they want to make a binary package for every distribution/type of hardware/kernel version, that's fine with me, I'll install it.
I guess the *package management interface* is unified....but nothing about the actual packages is unified at all
and IMHO, it was the packages that needed the unifying, not the interface. Sure, now administrators can say "install apache on every PC here"...but they still have no way of making sure they all have the same version, configuration, etc, since all the packages are different for each dist.
What if....
There were a server out there, where you could just upload a tar.gz, and it would compile and find dependencies....add itself to the database of packages and create ALL the rpms, debs, ebuilds, etc for all distributions. All the distributions would only need to be told to connect to that server for the information and packages.
Oh wait, I remember why that won't work - some dependencies are so screwy that people can't even make them work manually, so there's def. no way to make it autonomous. darn.
thought I had a solution for you. oops.
Isn't the idea of a "Unified Package Management System" a way for multiple distributions to use the same installation source? Why on earth did they make a way for a single distribution to use MULTIPLE sources? that's not unified at all....if I wanted to install RPMs, DEBs, and TGZs on my system all at once, I'd have done it
Wow, this is surprising! I was expecting "Russian accused of writing SoBig worm admits to it, despite the flagrant lack of evidence to actually convict him of anything."
Now, does this mean that he gives up? Or are they still going to count the votes to determine the winner, technically? I mean, it was pretty mature of Kerry to not bicker over the votes....but at the same time, he basically just said "I don't care about the rest of the votes, your votes don't count...."
Why isn't anyone concentrating on looking for fake PAPER ballots? All I needed to provide when I showed up to vote was:
My Street Name My House Number My Name
THAT'S IT! NO ID! NOTHING!
I'm glad I happened to be the first one to show up and give my name today, but who's to prevent anybody from showing up and pretending to be somebody they're not? You could have a whole army of people who file their absentee ballots, and then show up and give somebody else's name and address and file their vote for them (names and addresses from a rival political party supporting group, for example).
Having to pass the word test before sending an instant message would be a real pain, not to mention the fact that gaim would need to be reengineered..... If EVERY time a person sends a message, they get warned, maybe AOL should do something about that? (I mean, obviously people get warned by people they know all the time....but if a particular sn gets warned all the way up to 100% every time they come online? They should just be shut off.) That seems like a much easier way to determine who is real and who is spam-bot.
I often get messages from a sn of aim####### (where ###'s are just random numbers). What's weird is that I added one of these to my buddy list after being spammed, just to see what happened. The warning goes up to 100%, they log out. They come back a week later, same thing, etc etc etc. You know, if everybody used the "warn" feature, aim spamming would only suceed in getting maybe 10 people before the name was kicked. And the spammers would give up, since it's more work than it's worth. Figure email spamming is probably like a 1/100000 return or some tiny percentage. They'd need 10000 accounts just to get ONE return. (keep in mind that I totally manufactured these numbers, but you get the idea).
looks like they have the same phone I do, the samsung x426/7.
What I'm worried about is that if I trade up to Cingular, I have to get a new contract, and a new plan. It doesn't look like any of Cingular's plans match my current plan (650 anytime, unlimited night/weekend/mobile-to-mobile, $39/mo). Will they let me just keep my current plan? And for how long?
Ok, here are two snippits from the article. Can somebody make sense of them for me?
#1
Plans are already underway to make Rollover Minutes available to you. Please check back on November 10, 2004 for an update. Our goal is to have this feature available to you by this holiday season. To get a plan with Rollover, you will need to change to a Cingular Nation® Plan $39.99 or higher. You will also need to get a new Cingular GSM phone.
#2
Q: What happens to my existing rate plan?
A: Rest assured, you will continue to enjoy the benefits of your current rate plan and features.
Ok, my question is - is it possible to KEEP my at&t plan and get rollover minutes? I don't see how they say I can keep my current rate plan and features when I would have to change plans to get the features they advertise (I would normally have no problem with switching to Cingular...but my att plan has 650 anytime minutes....and I don't think Cingular even offers that).
ALSO - why on earth do I need a new phone to change how they bill me? the PHONE doesn't bill me (and I'm sure if it did, people would have hacked/phreaked them by now to make free calls)
I'm not so sure it's financially possible for a company to make a new PC designed to be saleable for under $100. People have mentioned the xbox and buying individual parts that are "new", but have been in stock since they were top-of-the-line, but those ways won't work, for reasons I'll get into.
Reason #1: Look at the pricing curve for parts. a 20 gig hard drive doesn't sell below $30, but a 120 gig harddrive can be had for $39. Why? Because nobody is MAKING 20 gig harddrives anymore. The ones you see are just overstock.
Reason #2: In addition to the lack of market for those computers, we have the lack of profit. Just because we can FIND a new motherboard for $10 or w/e doesn't mean it will be around for long. It's not being manufactured for that price, it's just being sold off since there's an overstock. $10 won't buy parts, manufacturing cost and developing costs for a board. We'd like to believe that mass producing makes everything cost a penny, but it's just not true. Somebody's salary has to be paid with the profits, and they don't want to make fractions of pennies.
Reason #3: The reason the XBox is so cheap is because the profit plan for the company involves the sale of games. They figure nobody will use the system without buying games. That's why they are so pissed at people buying them and modding them - they are actually losing money, since those people will potentially never buy a game.
Should have been yes. It's not ALL courses, but it is offered.
Computer ethics policy in place?
Yes, the "Acceptable Use Policy, or AUP. Every person in the technology departments knows about this. All students have to agree to abide by it or their accounts are revoked.
Does the school provide multimedia equipment?
We have a friggin MOVIE LAB for editing videos. Jesus, did they even LOOK?
Does the school stream campus radio?
WWPI - Internet and CCTV radio station. So yes, it is streamed via internet.
ok, so they got 5/19 WRONG. Where does that place us?
So do many other schools. WPI was a beta tester for Banner, one of the foremost software packages to incorporate financial aid, schedules, housing, tuition payments, alumni, employees salary, etc etc etc. It's all in ONE system.
But they didn't look at that. They just looked to see who had the most computers / student.
I second that opinion that computer/student ratio is useless. Having computers in labs are for non-technological universities. Real geek schools expect the geeks to have their own PCs and spend the money on cooler equipment.
WPI has campus-wide wifi (including all the dorms/apartments and even some fraternities), Internet2, and 10/100 in all buildings. Just because they don't have as many physical PCs sitting in labs doesn't mean that we aren't as connected!
Compare that to MIT who doesn't even encrypt their wireless!! Can you believe that?!
The above letter explains that there are no specific heat-related regulations, just the general duty clause requiring each employer to "furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm."
So I would have had to prove that a hot kitchen was likely to cause death or serious physical harm. Considering nobody was every actually harmed in the heat (this was a Maine summer, and they did give us spot fans), it would have been a very fruitless attempt at legal action. And like I said before, nobody *requires* air conditioning.
Yeah, there's a *great* idea. Lets have a kid making minimum wage at a fast food restaurant throw all his well-earned money at a lawyer. 4 months later when it finally goes through the system it'd have been winter, I wouldn't have been working there anymore, and all they would have done would be to require them to fix the A/C, which they would have done in the spring anyway.
Do you really think there are OSHA regulations to limit the heat in a KITCHEN? Most kitchens don't even have A/C to begin with, and I'm fairly certain they aren't required to (Think about all those small restaurants and diners you've seen). Think about other occupations where it gets even hotter, are they going to have A/C at a steel mill?
They had some fans here and there, and while it wasn't a comfortable place to work, I don't think it broke any laws. I think people are a little sue-crazy anyway - save the lawyers for real civil disturbances....like Spyware!
Will the iPod read files that aren't in those particular directories? (ie, is it just iTunes that picks them randomly, or does the iPod itself require it to have the names that iTunes picks for it) I'll probably be getting an iPod at some point in the future*, and I'd like to avoid having to use iTunes, since they don't have a linux version. It'd be much easier to just do a nice cp -R rather than having to put them into the same randomly-named directories.
( * Yeah, I did the silly freeipod thing. It says my order is in and "waiting for product". We'll see if I ever end up with an iPod, but I didn't think there was any shortage of them at the moment to need to backorder. )
Back in my youth (~5 years ago) I worked a summer at a McDonalds when they opted not to fix the broken air conditioning, since they had plans to rebuild the restaurant a year later. It was often over 110 in the kitchen.
Management changed their story a little when we sang this parody of Ironman loud enough for the customers to hear for the duration of the lunch hour:
It's real hot in here They're not gonna fix the A/C this year
But no raises for it, unfortunately. Extra sweat in all the burgers, though, free of charge!
Perhaps when the office was raised to 77 degrees the employees decided "The sooner I finish typing this the sooner I can go home to where it's not a friggin sauna"...notice they didn't have any data on the *duration* of work...just that when typing, they were more accurate.
Really? I thought they had to have some kind of anyi-piracy thing so you couldn't give your mp3s away to people when you plugged into their PC. I guess I spoke without knowing on that part...
1). Yes, I did consider that people have CDs. That's why I said "CDs" in the original post. CDs still cost the same per track approximately. If you don't like my estimate, make a new one. That's still 600 someodd CDs. Do YOU have 600 cds?
2). True, you can use the iPod for something other than music. That's a bit of a niche market at the moment, kind of a "well, I have an iPod anyway, I may as well use it for X" because if they wanted a real portable drive, they'd get one that didn't need special drivers just to copy files OFF it.
3). Is it none of their business? Is Apple selling devices marketed toward stolen music any different than cigarette companies using cartoons and the "cool" image to sell? At least cigarettes have a sizeable legal market... I'm still unconvinced that there are enough people with that large a *legal* collection to justify needing 60 gigs of storage for it.
No, I never said they have to IMMEDIATELY go out and buy 12 grand in CDs....I was just saying "how many people REALLY own that many / plan to buy that many"
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You do realize that emerge isn't only source-based, right? Granted, there aren't as many binary packages available, due to the fact that nobody wants to waste their time compiling, as you said. But there's nothing preventing a sysadmin from emerging a package onto one machine and then using that binary as the package to distribute to the rest of the machines. Emerge actually has a very good installation process - it will even diff the /etc files for you so you can preview/edit the changes. Last I remembered, redhat either overwrites your configs or doesn't install new ones.
:-P Oh, I hated admins like you...
Wait a minute, you are a sysadmin for linux machines and you don't install the compiler??
You're right, though - I don't think that gentoo is a fit for a corporate installation, but that's due mostly to the lack of driver support from companies (for some reason they think that once they make a redhat enterprise driver, that's all they need to do).
As for most office workers jobs not including compiling, their jobs also don't include windowsupdate, virus scanning, spyware scanning, etc, etc. Those all fall under the category of your job as the corporate sysadmin. But it's not like compiling is really any more work for a user anyway, they aren't the ones physically converting C code to machine language, they just run the command (or if you are running a tight ship, it will run automagically in the middle of the night).
Crap, I didn't mean to start a distribution war - oops
Gentoo may be a Niche, but unless portage dissapears, I don't see why it would fade. It has some things that still don't exist in other distributions...
I was once a RedHat user but I got irritated with how I needed to reinstall every time I wanted to upgrade a major version (5.2 -> 6.2, 6.2 -> 7.3, etc).
When installing a package, I spent a LONG time on rpmfind.net looking for the right packages for software. Rpm did a great job of telling me what I was missing, but I'd still end up back at rpmfind looking for the next package, and the next....all manually.
I guess up2date is available now....but doesn't that require some kind of payment to redhat? I might be mistaken about that, but isn't that the equivalent of paying Microsoft to use WindowsUpdate?
If redhat/debian find a way to get the utility of gentoo, it will win over the gentoo users. Sure, everyone makes fun of the compiling of everything...but if there were a way for another distribution to accomplish the same feat with binary packages, I'd like to see it. I type "emerge packagename" and that's the end of it. In Redhat or Debian, I have to wait for a version to be released to RPM or DEB, and I have to pray that I'm running standard hardware and want to use the configuration they built it with.
So in hopes to not appear like the stereotyped gentoo user, here is what I'd hope to see in whatever the winning distro/package management setup:
- Up to date software, previous versions also available
- multiple configurations of packages (for packages that have important options)
- automatic dependency resolution
- mirrored distribution on free servers
Notice that I don't really care if it's compiled on the fly....if they want to make a binary package for every distribution/type of hardware/kernel version, that's fine with me, I'll install it.
I guess the *package management interface* is unified....but nothing about the actual packages is unified at all and IMHO, it was the packages that needed the unifying, not the interface. Sure, now administrators can say "install apache on every PC here"...but they still have no way of making sure they all have the same version, configuration, etc, since all the packages are different for each dist.
What if.... There were a server out there, where you could just upload a tar.gz, and it would compile and find dependencies....add itself to the database of packages and create ALL the rpms, debs, ebuilds, etc for all distributions. All the distributions would only need to be told to connect to that server for the information and packages. Oh wait, I remember why that won't work - some dependencies are so screwy that people can't even make them work manually, so there's def. no way to make it autonomous. darn. thought I had a solution for you. oops.
Isn't the idea of a "Unified Package Management System" a way for multiple distributions to use the same installation source? Why on earth did they make a way for a single distribution to use MULTIPLE sources? that's not unified at all....if I wanted to install RPMs, DEBs, and TGZs on my system all at once, I'd have done it
deb...rpm...slack What? no Portage? what about my eBuilds?
Wow, this is surprising! I was expecting "Russian accused of writing SoBig worm admits to it, despite the flagrant lack of evidence to actually convict him of anything."
Now, does this mean that he gives up? Or are they still going to count the votes to determine the winner, technically? I mean, it was pretty mature of Kerry to not bicker over the votes....but at the same time, he basically just said "I don't care about the rest of the votes, your votes don't count...."
Why isn't anyone concentrating on looking for fake PAPER ballots? All I needed to provide when I showed up to vote was:
My Street Name
My House Number
My Name
THAT'S IT! NO ID! NOTHING!
I'm glad I happened to be the first one to show up and give my name today, but who's to prevent anybody from showing up and pretending to be somebody they're not? You could have a whole army of people who file their absentee ballots, and then show up and give somebody else's name and address and file their vote for them (names and addresses from a rival political party supporting group, for example).
If Virtual Reality is VR, is a Virtual Display something I should see my doctor about?
Having to pass the word test before sending an instant message would be a real pain, not to mention the fact that gaim would need to be reengineered..... If EVERY time a person sends a message, they get warned, maybe AOL should do something about that? (I mean, obviously people get warned by people they know all the time....but if a particular sn gets warned all the way up to 100% every time they come online? They should just be shut off.) That seems like a much easier way to determine who is real and who is spam-bot.
I often get messages from a sn of aim####### (where ###'s are just random numbers). What's weird is that I added one of these to my buddy list after being spammed, just to see what happened. The warning goes up to 100%, they log out. They come back a week later, same thing, etc etc etc. You know, if everybody used the "warn" feature, aim spamming would only suceed in getting maybe 10 people before the name was kicked. And the spammers would give up, since it's more work than it's worth. Figure email spamming is probably like a 1/100000 return or some tiny percentage. They'd need 10000 accounts just to get ONE return. (keep in mind that I totally manufactured these numbers, but you get the idea).
looks like they have the same phone I do, the samsung x426/7.
What I'm worried about is that if I trade up to Cingular, I have to get a new contract, and a new plan. It doesn't look like any of Cingular's plans match my current plan (650 anytime, unlimited night/weekend/mobile-to-mobile, $39/mo). Will they let me just keep my current plan? And for how long?
Ok, here are two snippits from the article. Can somebody make sense of them for me?
#1
Plans are already underway to make Rollover Minutes available to you. Please check back on November 10, 2004 for an update. Our goal is to have this feature available to you by this holiday season. To get a plan with Rollover, you will need to change to a Cingular Nation® Plan $39.99 or higher. You will also need to get a new Cingular GSM phone.
#2
Q: What happens to my existing rate plan?
A: Rest assured, you will continue to enjoy the benefits of your current rate plan and features.
Ok, my question is - is it possible to KEEP my at&t plan and get rollover minutes? I don't see how they say I can keep my current rate plan and features when I would have to change plans to get the features they advertise (I would normally have no problem with switching to Cingular...but my att plan has 650 anytime minutes....and I don't think Cingular even offers that).
ALSO - why on earth do I need a new phone to change how they bill me? the PHONE doesn't bill me (and I'm sure if it did, people would have hacked/phreaked them by now to make free calls)
I'm not so sure it's financially possible for a company to make a new PC designed to be saleable for under $100. People have mentioned the xbox and buying individual parts that are "new", but have been in stock since they were top-of-the-line, but those ways won't work, for reasons I'll get into.
Reason #1: Look at the pricing curve for parts. a 20 gig hard drive doesn't sell below $30, but a 120 gig harddrive can be had for $39. Why? Because nobody is MAKING 20 gig harddrives anymore. The ones you see are just overstock.
Reason #2: In addition to the lack of market for those computers, we have the lack of profit. Just because we can FIND a new motherboard for $10 or w/e doesn't mean it will be around for long. It's not being manufactured for that price, it's just being sold off since there's an overstock. $10 won't buy parts, manufacturing cost and developing costs for a board. We'd like to believe that mass producing makes everything cost a penny, but it's just not true. Somebody's salary has to be paid with the profits, and they don't want to make fractions of pennies.
Reason #3: The reason the XBox is so cheap is because the profit plan for the company involves the sale of games. They figure nobody will use the system without buying games. That's why they are so pissed at people buying them and modding them - they are actually losing money, since those people will potentially never buy a game.
Wow, did they even DO research?!
Does the school offer courses online?
Should have been yes.
Does the school stream audio/video of courses?
Should have been yes. It's not ALL courses, but it is offered.
Computer ethics policy in place?
Yes, the "Acceptable Use Policy, or AUP. Every person in the technology departments knows about this. All students have to agree to abide by it or their accounts are revoked.
Does the school provide multimedia equipment?
We have a friggin MOVIE LAB for editing videos. Jesus, did they even LOOK?
Does the school stream campus radio?
WWPI - Internet and CCTV radio station. So yes, it is streamed via internet.
ok, so they got 5/19 WRONG. Where does that place us?
So do many other schools. WPI was a beta tester for Banner, one of the foremost software packages to incorporate financial aid, schedules, housing, tuition payments, alumni, employees salary, etc etc etc. It's all in ONE system.
But they didn't look at that. They just looked to see who had the most computers / student.
I second that opinion that computer/student ratio is useless. Having computers in labs are for non-technological universities. Real geek schools expect the geeks to have their own PCs and spend the money on cooler equipment. WPI has campus-wide wifi (including all the dorms/apartments and even some fraternities), Internet2, and 10/100 in all buildings. Just because they don't have as many physical PCs sitting in labs doesn't mean that we aren't as connected! Compare that to MIT who doesn't even encrypt their wireless!! Can you believe that?!
Acceptable methods to reduce heat stress hazards in the workplace.
The above letter explains that there are no specific heat-related regulations, just the general duty clause requiring each employer to "furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm."
So I would have had to prove that a hot kitchen was likely to cause death or serious physical harm. Considering nobody was every actually harmed in the heat (this was a Maine summer, and they did give us spot fans), it would have been a very fruitless attempt at legal action. And like I said before, nobody *requires* air conditioning.
Yeah, there's a *great* idea. Lets have a kid making minimum wage at a fast food restaurant throw all his well-earned money at a lawyer. 4 months later when it finally goes through the system it'd have been winter, I wouldn't have been working there anymore, and all they would have done would be to require them to fix the A/C, which they would have done in the spring anyway.
Do you really think there are OSHA regulations to limit the heat in a KITCHEN? Most kitchens don't even have A/C to begin with, and I'm fairly certain they aren't required to (Think about all those small restaurants and diners you've seen). Think about other occupations where it gets even hotter, are they going to have A/C at a steel mill?
They had some fans here and there, and while it wasn't a comfortable place to work, I don't think it broke any laws. I think people are a little sue-crazy anyway - save the lawyers for real civil disturbances....like Spyware!
Will the iPod read files that aren't in those particular directories? (ie, is it just iTunes that picks them randomly, or does the iPod itself require it to have the names that iTunes picks for it) I'll probably be getting an iPod at some point in the future*, and I'd like to avoid having to use iTunes, since they don't have a linux version. It'd be much easier to just do a nice cp -R rather than having to put them into the same randomly-named directories. ( * Yeah, I did the silly freeipod thing. It says my order is in and "waiting for product". We'll see if I ever end up with an iPod, but I didn't think there was any shortage of them at the moment to need to backorder. )
Back in my youth (~5 years ago) I worked a summer at a McDonalds when they opted not to fix the broken air conditioning, since they had plans to rebuild the restaurant a year later. It was often over 110 in the kitchen.
Management changed their story a little when we sang this parody of Ironman loud enough for the customers to hear for the duration of the lunch hour:
It's real hot in here
They're not gonna fix the A/C this year
But no raises for it, unfortunately. Extra sweat in all the burgers, though, free of charge!
Perhaps when the office was raised to 77 degrees the employees decided "The sooner I finish typing this the sooner I can go home to where it's not a friggin sauna"...notice they didn't have any data on the *duration* of work...just that when typing, they were more accurate.
Really? I thought they had to have some kind of anyi-piracy thing so you couldn't give your mp3s away to people when you plugged into their PC. I guess I spoke without knowing on that part...
Way to say the same thing everyone else did...
1). Yes, I did consider that people have CDs. That's why I said "CDs" in the original post. CDs still cost the same per track approximately. If you don't like my estimate, make a new one. That's still 600 someodd CDs. Do YOU have 600 cds?
2). True, you can use the iPod for something other than music. That's a bit of a niche market at the moment, kind of a "well, I have an iPod anyway, I may as well use it for X" because if they wanted a real portable drive, they'd get one that didn't need special drivers just to copy files OFF it.
3). Is it none of their business? Is Apple selling devices marketed toward stolen music any different than cigarette companies using cartoons and the "cool" image to sell? At least cigarettes have a sizeable legal market... I'm still unconvinced that there are enough people with that large a *legal* collection to justify needing 60 gigs of storage for it.
No, I never said they have to IMMEDIATELY go out and buy 12 grand in CDs....I was just saying "how many people REALLY own that many / plan to buy that many"