I did. I admit it. I enjoyed "The Stand" miniseries, long after I read (and enjoyed) the book. What I did not enjoy was the re-released book with 400 more pages. Most of the material cut for the original book was stuff that should have been cut.
The savings is supposed to come from less people freeloading on the system (by not having insurance and getting free ER care when they get sick). Whether that savings actually is realized or not, who knows. As an independent, I'm constantly surprised by Republicans And Libertarians suggesting that the current system (pre Affordable Care Act) which encourages the young and working poor to freeload on the system. Where did the "personal responsibility" crowd disappear to?
If he didn't have health insurance before, than you were already subsidizing *all* of his medical costs (because uninsured people use emergency rooms and insured people end up footing the bill). Now, with ACA, you may be subsidizing *less* of his medical costs.
Most large organizations these days have at least some familiarity with what Linux is, even if they don't make much use of it. If they ask what kernel you are using, you say 3.11 (as in three point eleven or three eleven). They're not going to ask "What is it's nickname?" They just want the version number.
You and I know that there's nothing really new here. But the business types who don't understand how the technology works think that it is all new.. and they need new (e.g. young) developers to understand the new (i.e. variations on the old) technologies.
I'm pretty sure that if you do some research, you'll find that the Irish famine was made worse by the fact that the Irish were governed by a stable English parliamentary democracy instead of a stable Irish parliamentary democracy. The Irish did not have complete self-determination and were not allowed to try all remedies available to counter a famine.
So let me get this straight...
Your comparison is between an organization that protected and moved its employees from one location to another and allowed them continued contact with children [the Catholic Church] to an organization which removes those employees from contact with children immediately (sometimes without actual proof of abuse) [the New York City Schools]. I think your evidence is actually against your point.
Well, the government does have to approve permits for new power plants and arrange for right-of-way for power-lines and transformer stations (and probably should be checking the output of coal-fired plants). I think the government's hope is that, as population density increases, that the average person's usage drops -- so they can avoid costly upgrades.
Unless your goal is to improve the technology to the point where it does become cost-effective. These types of investments are common to governments all over the world -- and are not new to the United States. It is not a sign that we are living under a repressive socialist government (at least not a repressive socialist government that started in January of 2009),
Now whether this project is a good investment or not...
The issue is, wind power is needs a lot of space to operate. And for aesthetic reasons, they need to be placed in fairly remote locations away from urban centers, which reduces efficiency.
As opposed to nuclear plants? They don't tend to get built in densely populated areas either.
(I agree with most of your points - I just think wind farms aren't alone with the NIMBY issues).
I don't understand what you mean by "... those companies have already made it clear what their terms and conditions are and we won't compromise."
I work for a company that sells software (and support contracts for that software) for Linux (Red Hat RHEL and SuSE SLES). The user-space ABI is fairly stable. We build on two platforms RHEL 3 and RHEL 5 and run on five RHEL 3, 4, 5 and SuSE SLES 9 and 10.
Yes, the kernel driver interfaces change more frequently -- but that affects people who write device drivers, not user-space applications.
I'm fairly certain that the main reason there aren't more commercial applications on Linux is market share. All of the other reasons (e.g. ease of install, attitudes of the community) have fallen by the wayside as the Linux desktop and server experience have improved.
Microsoft was a member of Oasis while ODF 1.0 was being developed. They could have addressed feature X, Y and Z during the ODF 1.0 development process. They could have ensured that ODF met the needs of Microsoft Office. They chose not to contribute. If it doesn't met their needs, it is their own fault.
Having said that, I think it would be great if they contributed to future versions of ODF, as long as they aren't the only voice being heard.
I have been denied access to countries for less than not providing a password. They can pretty much turn you away because they feel like it. Given your slashdot ID, I'm assuming that those countries you were denied access to were Prussia, Austro-Hungary and Vichy France.
The fact that there are existing GPL drivers for the hardware is a red-herring (and just more of Microsoft's GPL FUD).
If there are published specs for the hardware, they can write drivers from the specs.
If there are no published specs for the hardware, they can pay an outside consulting firm to reverse-engineer specs from the GPL code.
We're not talking about patents here, we're talking about copyrights. You want to avoid violating copyrights in GPL software, write your own fucking code.
Either way, they have to write new drivers anyway -- because the existing drivers are for Linux.
Microsoft is free to publish documentation on their file formats at any time. They don't have to be a standard to be unlocked. That they haven't published their file formats until now indicates, to me, that inter-operability with other office suites is low on their priority list.
I think you missed the parent poster's point, probably because you are not American or old enough to remember when the phone company was a monopoly (AT&T) and required you to lease all of your equipment from them. Back in the late 1960s my dad hooked up an old phone in our basement with the ringer disabled. He said that that was the only way they could detect how many phones you had installed -- and he designed phone switching systems for Bell Labs so I assumed he knew what he was talking about.
I think the parent poster's point was that opening up the American phone system to allow customers to own their equipment was beneficial for the consumer -- and didn't prevent phone companies from making a profit. I think that this point also applies to most European locales, as well. I seem to remember that connecting a modem to a land line in Europe was a big deal as recently as the late-eighties.
No, You're thinking of the White House Counsel. The Attorney General is supposed to be working for *us*. He is supposed to be the highest law enforcement officer in the United States, not a mindless shill for the administration's policies.
What is the best way for new IS managers to convince their superiors of the need for widespread change?
Quit?
I hate to say it. My experience is that management usually won't take any action until things get bad. As long as you are keeping things running, management won't be willing to make any changes (read as: spend any money).
Slashdot Mirror
I did. I admit it. I enjoyed "The Stand" miniseries, long after I read (and enjoyed) the book. What I did not enjoy was the re-released book with 400 more pages. Most of the material cut for the original book was stuff that should have been cut.
The savings is supposed to come from less people freeloading on the system (by not having insurance and getting free ER care when they get sick). Whether that savings actually is realized or not, who knows. As an independent, I'm constantly surprised by Republicans And Libertarians suggesting that the current system (pre Affordable Care Act) which encourages the young and working poor to freeload on the system. Where did the "personal responsibility" crowd disappear to?
If he didn't have health insurance before, than you were already subsidizing *all* of his medical costs (because uninsured people use emergency rooms and insured people end up footing the bill). Now, with ACA, you may be subsidizing *less* of his medical costs.
Most large organizations these days have at least some familiarity with what Linux is, even if they don't make much use of it. If they ask what kernel you are using, you say 3.11 (as in three point eleven or three eleven). They're not going to ask "What is it's nickname?" They just want the version number.
And why did I capitalize modem, when it isn't an acronym? Or should it be MoDem?
I also learned to program (in Basic) on a remote system using a Teletype 33 ASR with acoustic-coupled MODEM. Where are my billions of dollars? Sigh ...
You and I know that there's nothing really new here. But the business types who don't understand how the technology works think that it is all new .. and they need new (e.g. young) developers to understand the new (i.e. variations on the old) technologies.
I'm pretty sure that if you do some research, you'll find that the Irish famine was made worse by the fact that the Irish were governed by a stable English parliamentary democracy instead of a stable Irish parliamentary democracy. The Irish did not have complete self-determination and were not allowed to try all remedies available to counter a famine.
So let me get this straight... Your comparison is between an organization that protected and moved its employees from one location to another and allowed them continued contact with children [the Catholic Church] to an organization which removes those employees from contact with children immediately (sometimes without actual proof of abuse) [the New York City Schools]. I think your evidence is actually against your point.
Well, the government does have to approve permits for new power plants and arrange for right-of-way for power-lines and transformer stations (and probably should be checking the output of coal-fired plants). I think the government's hope is that, as population density increases, that the average person's usage drops -- so they can avoid costly upgrades.
Now whether this project is a good investment or not ...
Is it too early to start calling them SCOracle?
FTFA:
"The funny thing is I haven't even come close since then," McGilberry said. "There must have been something special about that day."
So he's like Mark Buehrle?
The issue is, wind power is needs a lot of space to operate. And for aesthetic reasons, they need to be placed in fairly remote locations away from urban centers, which reduces efficiency.
As opposed to nuclear plants? They don't tend to get built in densely populated areas either.
(I agree with most of your points - I just think wind farms aren't alone with the NIMBY issues).
No thanks. Even if I get all of the achievements they'll just add more achievements to get me to buy new slashdot downloadable content.
I don't understand what you mean by "... those companies have already made it clear what their terms and conditions are and we won't compromise."
I work for a company that sells software (and support contracts for that software) for Linux (Red Hat RHEL and SuSE SLES). The user-space ABI is fairly stable. We build on two platforms RHEL 3 and RHEL 5 and run on five RHEL 3, 4, 5 and SuSE SLES 9 and 10.
Yes, the kernel driver interfaces change more frequently -- but that affects people who write device drivers, not user-space applications.
I'm fairly certain that the main reason there aren't more commercial applications on Linux is market share. All of the other reasons (e.g. ease of install, attitudes of the community) have fallen by the wayside as the Linux desktop and server experience have improved.
Your grandmother knows how to find drivers for her network card and install them? Wow. I'm impressed.
Having said that, I think it would be great if they contributed to future versions of ODF, as long as they aren't the only voice being heard.
The fact that there are existing GPL drivers for the hardware is a red-herring (and just more of Microsoft's GPL FUD).
If there are published specs for the hardware, they can write drivers from the specs.
If there are no published specs for the hardware, they can pay an outside consulting firm to reverse-engineer specs from the GPL code.
We're not talking about patents here, we're talking about copyrights. You want to avoid violating copyrights in GPL software, write your own fucking code.
Either way, they have to write new drivers anyway -- because the existing drivers are for Linux.
Microsoft is free to publish documentation on their file formats at any time. They don't have to be a standard to be unlocked. That they haven't published their file formats until now indicates, to me, that inter-operability with other office suites is low on their priority list.
I think you missed the parent poster's point, probably because you are not American or old enough to remember when the phone company was a monopoly (AT&T) and required you to lease all of your equipment from them. Back in the late 1960s my dad hooked up an old phone in our basement with the ringer disabled. He said that that was the only way they could detect how many phones you had installed -- and he designed phone switching systems for Bell Labs so I assumed he knew what he was talking about.
I think the parent poster's point was that opening up the American phone system to allow customers to own their equipment was beneficial for the consumer -- and didn't prevent phone companies from making a profit. I think that this point also applies to most European locales, as well. I seem to remember that connecting a modem to a land line in Europe was a big deal as recently as the late-eighties.
No, You're thinking of the White House Counsel. The Attorney General is supposed to be working for *us*. He is supposed to be the highest law enforcement officer in the United States, not a mindless shill for the administration's policies.
Why should I assume that this would kill only Free Software?
Wouldn't proprietary software be more vulnerable to liability? People only sue those with deep pockets.
What is the best way for new IS managers to convince their superiors of the need for widespread change?
Quit?
I hate to say it. My experience is that management usually won't take any action until things get bad. As long as you are keeping things running, management won't be willing to make any changes (read as: spend any money).