I rarely post on/., but this is something I feel I need to get my $0.02 in on. I love computers for the power that they give you to solve problems. I have a BS in applied math and an MS in CS. I hate linux. I have a linux system and I absolutely hate having to deal with it. In fact, I don't have any coworkers that like to work with linux either. There's a simple reason for that. I see a computer as a powerful too to help me write software to implement my algorithms. Anything that makes that process take more time annoys me. Linux is for people who like to tinker with computers. Some CS people just want to write algorithms, or just want to write beautiful interfaces, or maybe just make interesting applications. There are others that love the OS and its interface with the hardware. Remember to keep in mind that just because someone is a "CS student" doesn't meant that they should know how to use, or even like, linux. Telling intro students that they have to either like linux or GTFO is counter-productive and you could drive off someone who could have made great advances in CS otherwise.
You seem to assume that your code is correct. What if, by allowing others to audit it, bugs were found that significantly altered the output. Wouldn't that be something that you'd be interested in? Or, what if you spent years working on your doctoral thesis but at the last second found an error in your software that was what allowed your results to be in line with your assumptions and theory work? Would you scrap your years of work, or would you ignore it since you're freaking tired of working on it and want to be done already? Now assume that the results of your work are used to set public policy somewhere down the road...would you be honest enough to stand up and say it was fraudulent?
Every gun will be a physics bending super shotgun that scatters with super-high density in all directions at once obliterating every enemy within two miles with every piece of shot being a smart projectile that can turn corners and hunt your enemies! BOOM HEADSHOTx1000!
I sit here, writing this reply, on a motherboard fake raid that's down one HD. All of my data is still here. It's all still easily accessible and I can keep using this system while I wait for the HD that I ordered to show up so I can get back to full data duplication. It's a very handy feature considering that if I had had the HD fail and wasn't using RAID, I'd be SOL as far as this system is concerned. To those who say that RAID isn't backup, they're right. Making any copies of your data and keeping them in the same building as the original data is also not a backup, as a fire can easily wipe it all out.
For general usage, keeping your systems operable during disk failures, I think that RAID is a wonderful thing to use and I just use the fake raid of the motherboard. On my linux system, I use a software raid because it's easier than getting the system to recognize the motherboard-based solutions. If that's changed by now, then that's great, but it wasn't an option when I built the system.
Pfft! I too have been through that station on I25 N of Las Cruces a hundred times. I got searched once, when I fit the profile of drug smuggler. Unfortunately, I did happen to have around an eighth of an ounce of pot in my golf bag. The searched with the drug dog. I was cooperative and told them what they would find. They marched me inside to the john, gave me the bag and told me to dump it and flush. I did. They let me go. They told me they were just there to catch large amounts of drugs. Someone has to do it I suppose. If those checkpoints didn't deter illegal immigration then illegals wouldn't pour across the border on foot far from roads. Quit your whining.
I now live in a sanctuary city, Denver. The illegal population here is HUGE and the government does nothing about it.
I started out in visual database modeling. I was using tools to build 3-D models of large-scale terrain simulation areas. The company that hired me wouldn't consider me for their software jobs because I have a degree in math. I made sure to do a good job at what I was doing and I made sure to make it known that I wanted to do more advanced work. It took a year, but I was finally given a chance to write software. It was in a limited capacity at first, but after I did a good job at that I was given more responsibilities. Throughout that time I made sure to do things as correctly as I could and I also made it known that I could do more. In the 10 years since, I've been writing software. I'm on my third company now. I'm about to get an MS in CS because even with 10 years experience it can still be hard to find a job without a CS degree. Don't think that you need to toot your own horn to make progress. If you can really do the work, people will know that. Don't be afraid to ask for what you want though. In fact, make sure you ask for what you want regularly. Don't be afraid to make it known that you need more challenges.
The DOJ will likely want to ensure that there's a backdoor into the system that's not going to be caught by AV and firewalls that will allow them to snoop into anyone's computer at will. If you don't think they want this, you've apparently had your head in the sand.
I hate to burst your bubble with chemistry and facts and all, but your claims are crap. First off, there is a specific air/fuel ratio at which you can get the most power from an engine. You can put in more fuel and get worse gas mileage, or you can put in less fuel and get better mileage(not always true since less power output on a heavy vehicle with a smaller engine would mean the engine would have to work harder to move it and therefore burn MORE gas, but probably at a higher RPM). For a given engine at a given barometric pressure with no power-adder(super or turbo charging), there is only a certain amount of air you can get in a cylinder. Therefore, there is only a certain amount of fuel that you can burn that is proportional to that volume of air. To get maximum power/efficiency from an engine, you want to have the most gas you possibly can without going over the right air/fuel ratio. You could run a 500 cid big block on the gas you'd put in a 2 liter 4-banger if you get it all set up right, but you'd get really crappy power and there'd really be no point in having those 500 inches.
As for your Ranchero claims, I note that you rejetted your car at the same time, and that can make all the difference in the world. Do you go to larger or smaller jets? Did you replace them all, or just the primaries, or just the secondaries? Did you rebuild your carb at that time? Did you change the power valve? How about the squirters? Did you clean it while you had it apart to change the jets? Carburetors don't stay tuned. It's a fact. If you rebuilt and tuned it I would expect a mileage increase.
It used to be that science/tech companies in the US were run by scientists, or at least people who understood science/tech. As a result, they took a great deal of pride in the scientific accomplishments of their companies. It was a big thing to say, "I cured disease X" or "I solved problem Y". Now that those companies are all run by marketers and lawyers whose interests lie in making shareholders the most money, that has been replaced by "We made Z dollars of profit for our shareholders". In China, it would be a huge matter of national and company pride to solve Y and cure X. See the difference?
I work for a small company. Our software is all written in C++ except for the parts that have to be some other language(java) to interface with customer systems. Finding fresh BS grads in CS to hire can be a real challenge because we need C++ skills far more than we need java. I'm currently getting my MS in CS, and I'm amazed by the number of people in my classes who are very bright people and are very knowledgeable about all things client/server/web oriented, but who have no clue how to write even the most rudimentary applications for straight computation.
I have a BS in math, and am nearly done with my MS in CS. I had 8 years of experience writing software before starting grad school and I can tell you a couple of things:
An MS doesn't mean you know how to write code at all, but it can help you get a job. I had several graduate classes with a guy who couldn't write code for anything, but got a great high-paying job right out of getting his MS.
I haven't learned anything in my MS classes that I wouldn't have learned getting a BS in CS.
I learned much more by actually working in my field than by going to grad school.
Am I going to get paid more when I have an MS degree? I sure am. Do I feel that value has been added to me as an employee? Nope.
All of this experience is from CS grad school. I have no comment on engineering grad school.
For all the complete idiots who thought this was the one new device that would finally fill the hole in their lives and make them truly happy....BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA For all the idiots who blindly buy any new apple product thinking it will make them cooler than everyone else....BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA For those who haven't learned that buying the first version of a product(especially one that's in a new area for a company) is a bad idea....BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I'll be very happy to have a faster connection...though my current connection is quite fast. Comcast already gives me 10mbps down and 1.5 mbps up. I'd really be happy to have just 20mbps up and down. That would be a very fast connection.
Maybe you should have an idea of what you're talking about.
The proposed site of the spaceport is about 15 minutes away from a large lake in the desert that already has most homes near it owned by vacationers and retirees. It's not like values are going to triple...they're already extremely high in the immediate area compared to the rest of the county.
Maybe you should attempt to learn a little about the people you insult before you assume that they're a bunch of poor ignorant rubes.
Dona Ana county is about an hour north of Las Cruces, NM, (home of New Mexico State University), and south of Socorro, NM, (home to New Mexico Tech and the VLA). Due to the very large lake that sits in the middle of that area, there are many people that both vacation and retire there. The lake has been down about 100' in the past several years, and the people of the area have seen their livelihoods take a big hit because of it. They'd like a more stable source of income for their area. I know, I've been going to that lake my whole life. My parents have even retired there and are looking forward to the SLIM possibility that there could be higher employment in the area as they are both educated people. At the same time, they're dreading the influx of people and general annoyingness that comes with the pretentiously wealthy.
As a Red Hat subscriber, I can tell you that their support is complete crap. I'm required to have Red Hat so customers/partners can't say that their apps don't work because I'm not on the same platform, but I'd never have it otherwise.
Their support people aren't helpful. In the time that it takes for them to help me with something, I can look it up online(not on the Red Hat site) and figure it out. Anybody who's not a Linux expert knows that figuring out how to do random things in Linux on your own can be quite a painful process, so I think that conveys my message quite well. In addition, their hardware support is terrible.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is by far the worst Linux I've used and I don't blame anybody for going with something other than Red Hat.
There's no way in hell I would ever offer support for Linux unless I absolutely had to. Since Dell hangs their hat on customer service, adding Linux to the mix would cause too many headaches for it to be worth it for the small market segment. With Microsoft, you just take what they give you and put it on the systems and then occasionally(frequently) tell people to reinstall if their problem seems the tiniest bit convoluted. My small company pays for Red Hat because we're required to for a contract system. Getting support from them is a nightmare. I've used 3 different mainstream distros of Linux and not a single one of them is really easy to use. Sure, if you're already an expert, Linux is easy. If you're not, Linux is hard because it's still based on an old system of using 100 billion little command line commands and arguments. It's not the LEAST BIT user friendly compared to the more mainstream OS's.
Due to the amount of money owed Novell vs the amount of money SCO has, it's possible that the stock price is going up due to speculators looking for Novell to acquire SCO in the near future....thereby getting Novell stock. Just a guess.
This is the attitude that's holding linux back. IDE's aren't bad things. A good IDE makes life easier for everyone. Both experts and novices can get things done with a good IDE. Using only a text editor and command line interfaces makes it so that only the greatly experienced can get anything done, thereby giving those who've mastered it the feeling of l337-ness that makes them think that anyone who prefers using an IDE is an incompetent fool. Elitist attitudes and awkward tools aren't going to advance linux.
Development: I'm gonna write some code to get some jobs done Tools: Things I use to write the code to get some jobs done.
I wouldn't buy a hammer that's still "developing quickly" but not ready for prime time, I'd buy a hammer that's ready to use! In fact, if someone gave me a free hammer, and said, "It may or may not work for now, but in a couple of years it'll work great!" I'd go out and buy myself a hammer that already works in spite of the increased immediate cost to myself.
If development tools slow down the development process, then they aren't good tools.
I'd have to agree with this statement for sure. Hunting up Linux documentation will certainly hone your randon-related-keyword skills, but that's not all that important to me. Having ALL the documentation in one central location like MSDN sure is nice. It's even quite complete and, unlike man pages, understandable AND CONTAINS EXAMPLES quite frequently.
I'd have to say that Visual Studio pretty much rocks. I use it for c++ development only, and am very happy with it. If linux had any dev environment that was ANYWHERE NEAR as good as VC++, maybe I wouldn't despise working on it.
I'll have to agree that shutdowns and startups are killers on hardware. I leave my systems running 24/7 and have for many years. The only time they ever fail is when I turn them off and then back on.
TRUE STORY: Me: I think I'll turn off the computer. Me(next day): I think I'll turn on the computer....click...no whirring noise....what's this? Computer: Ha-Ha! I win again, your power supply has gone out and fried your motherboard! Me: #$%@!
Computers that don't get power-cycled run much longer than computers that do. Over the years, the only times I've had hardware failures is when:
A) a fan goes out...we all know how much this happens B) I turn it off and back on.
Linux absolutely blows for a desktop. It's great for servers, there's no denying that. I have my linux server humming along 24/7. My only beef is when I have to actually work on linux for one reason or another. It's horribly painful to get anything done. Very little is as automatic as it should be, and my Logitech G5 mouse won't work with either SuSE or Red Hat(e) Enterprise for some unknown reason. As for development, HA! Developing software on linux involves grabbing your fingernails with pliars and pulling them out very slowly. Sure there are environments to use, but they really REALLY blow compared to MS/Apple offerings. Love the 80's? Maybe linux development is for you. Command line and vi baby! Woo! Nothing like having to remember the obscure flags for 80,000 options!
I guess it really comes down to:
If you love command line usage for everything, then linux is good for you...but you're much like someone who takes delight in speaking Klingon in my opinion in that you love it because very few other people will ever understand it.
Slashdot Mirror
I rarely post on /., but this is something I feel I need to get my $0.02 in on. I love computers for the power that they give you to solve problems. I have a BS in applied math and an MS in CS. I hate linux. I have a linux system and I absolutely hate having to deal with it. In fact, I don't have any coworkers that like to work with linux either. There's a simple reason for that. I see a computer as a powerful too to help me write software to implement my algorithms. Anything that makes that process take more time annoys me. Linux is for people who like to tinker with computers. Some CS people just want to write algorithms, or just want to write beautiful interfaces, or maybe just make interesting applications. There are others that love the OS and its interface with the hardware. Remember to keep in mind that just because someone is a "CS student" doesn't meant that they should know how to use, or even like, linux. Telling intro students that they have to either like linux or GTFO is counter-productive and you could drive off someone who could have made great advances in CS otherwise.
You seem to assume that your code is correct. What if, by allowing others to audit it, bugs were found that significantly altered the output. Wouldn't that be something that you'd be interested in? Or, what if you spent years working on your doctoral thesis but at the last second found an error in your software that was what allowed your results to be in line with your assumptions and theory work? Would you scrap your years of work, or would you ignore it since you're freaking tired of working on it and want to be done already? Now assume that the results of your work are used to set public policy somewhere down the road...would you be honest enough to stand up and say it was fraudulent?
Every gun will be a physics bending super shotgun that scatters with super-high density in all directions at once obliterating every enemy within two miles with every piece of shot being a smart projectile that can turn corners and hunt your enemies! BOOM HEADSHOTx1000!
I sit here, writing this reply, on a motherboard fake raid that's down one HD. All of my data is still here. It's all still easily accessible and I can keep using this system while I wait for the HD that I ordered to show up so I can get back to full data duplication. It's a very handy feature considering that if I had had the HD fail and wasn't using RAID, I'd be SOL as far as this system is concerned. To those who say that RAID isn't backup, they're right. Making any copies of your data and keeping them in the same building as the original data is also not a backup, as a fire can easily wipe it all out. For general usage, keeping your systems operable during disk failures, I think that RAID is a wonderful thing to use and I just use the fake raid of the motherboard. On my linux system, I use a software raid because it's easier than getting the system to recognize the motherboard-based solutions. If that's changed by now, then that's great, but it wasn't an option when I built the system.
Pfft! I too have been through that station on I25 N of Las Cruces a hundred times. I got searched once, when I fit the profile of drug smuggler. Unfortunately, I did happen to have around an eighth of an ounce of pot in my golf bag. The searched with the drug dog. I was cooperative and told them what they would find. They marched me inside to the john, gave me the bag and told me to dump it and flush. I did. They let me go. They told me they were just there to catch large amounts of drugs. Someone has to do it I suppose. If those checkpoints didn't deter illegal immigration then illegals wouldn't pour across the border on foot far from roads. Quit your whining. I now live in a sanctuary city, Denver. The illegal population here is HUGE and the government does nothing about it.
I started out in visual database modeling. I was using tools to build 3-D models of large-scale terrain simulation areas. The company that hired me wouldn't consider me for their software jobs because I have a degree in math. I made sure to do a good job at what I was doing and I made sure to make it known that I wanted to do more advanced work. It took a year, but I was finally given a chance to write software. It was in a limited capacity at first, but after I did a good job at that I was given more responsibilities. Throughout that time I made sure to do things as correctly as I could and I also made it known that I could do more. In the 10 years since, I've been writing software. I'm on my third company now. I'm about to get an MS in CS because even with 10 years experience it can still be hard to find a job without a CS degree. Don't think that you need to toot your own horn to make progress. If you can really do the work, people will know that. Don't be afraid to ask for what you want though. In fact, make sure you ask for what you want regularly. Don't be afraid to make it known that you need more challenges.
The DOJ will likely want to ensure that there's a backdoor into the system that's not going to be caught by AV and firewalls that will allow them to snoop into anyone's computer at will. If you don't think they want this, you've apparently had your head in the sand.
I hate to burst your bubble with chemistry and facts and all, but your claims are crap. First off, there is a specific air/fuel ratio at which you can get the most power from an engine. You can put in more fuel and get worse gas mileage, or you can put in less fuel and get better mileage(not always true since less power output on a heavy vehicle with a smaller engine would mean the engine would have to work harder to move it and therefore burn MORE gas, but probably at a higher RPM). For a given engine at a given barometric pressure with no power-adder(super or turbo charging), there is only a certain amount of air you can get in a cylinder. Therefore, there is only a certain amount of fuel that you can burn that is proportional to that volume of air. To get maximum power/efficiency from an engine, you want to have the most gas you possibly can without going over the right air/fuel ratio. You could run a 500 cid big block on the gas you'd put in a 2 liter 4-banger if you get it all set up right, but you'd get really crappy power and there'd really be no point in having those 500 inches.
As for your Ranchero claims, I note that you rejetted your car at the same time, and that can make all the difference in the world. Do you go to larger or smaller jets? Did you replace them all, or just the primaries, or just the secondaries? Did you rebuild your carb at that time? Did you change the power valve? How about the squirters? Did you clean it while you had it apart to change the jets? Carburetors don't stay tuned. It's a fact. If you rebuilt and tuned it I would expect a mileage increase.
It used to be that science/tech companies in the US were run by scientists, or at least people who understood science/tech. As a result, they took a great deal of pride in the scientific accomplishments of their companies. It was a big thing to say, "I cured disease X" or "I solved problem Y". Now that those companies are all run by marketers and lawyers whose interests lie in making shareholders the most money, that has been replaced by "We made Z dollars of profit for our shareholders". In China, it would be a huge matter of national and company pride to solve Y and cure X. See the difference?
I work for a small company. Our software is all written in C++ except for the parts that have to be some other language(java) to interface with customer systems. Finding fresh BS grads in CS to hire can be a real challenge because we need C++ skills far more than we need java. I'm currently getting my MS in CS, and I'm amazed by the number of people in my classes who are very bright people and are very knowledgeable about all things client/server/web oriented, but who have no clue how to write even the most rudimentary applications for straight computation.
I have a BS in math, and am nearly done with my MS in CS. I had 8 years of experience writing software before starting grad school and I can tell you a couple of things:
An MS doesn't mean you know how to write code at all, but it can help you get a job.
I had several graduate classes with a guy who couldn't write code for anything, but got a great high-paying job right out of getting his MS.
I haven't learned anything in my MS classes that I wouldn't have learned getting a BS in CS.
I learned much more by actually working in my field than by going to grad school.
Am I going to get paid more when I have an MS degree? I sure am. Do I feel that value has been added to me as an employee? Nope.
All of this experience is from CS grad school. I have no comment on engineering grad school.
For all the complete idiots who thought this was the one new device that would finally fill the hole in their lives and make them truly happy....BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
For all the idiots who blindly buy any new apple product thinking it will make them cooler than everyone else....BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
For those who haven't learned that buying the first version of a product(especially one that's in a new area for a company) is a bad idea....BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I get 10mbps down and 1.5mbps up from comcast as it is. It was recently upgraded from the dismal 384kbps up.
I'll be very happy to have a faster connection...though my current connection is quite fast. Comcast already gives me 10mbps down and 1.5 mbps up. I'd really be happy to have just 20mbps up and down. That would be a very fast connection.
Maybe you should have an idea of what you're talking about.
The proposed site of the spaceport is about 15 minutes away from a large lake in the desert that already has most homes near it owned by vacationers and retirees. It's not like values are going to triple...they're already extremely high in the immediate area compared to the rest of the county.
Maybe you should attempt to learn a little about the people you insult before you assume that they're a bunch of poor ignorant rubes.
Dona Ana county is about an hour north of Las Cruces, NM, (home of New Mexico State University), and south of Socorro, NM, (home to New Mexico Tech and the VLA). Due to the very large lake that sits in the middle of that area, there are many people that both vacation and retire there. The lake has been down about 100' in the past several years, and the people of the area have seen their livelihoods take a big hit because of it. They'd like a more stable source of income for their area. I know, I've been going to that lake my whole life. My parents have even retired there and are looking forward to the SLIM possibility that there could be higher employment in the area as they are both educated people. At the same time, they're dreading the influx of people and general annoyingness that comes with the pretentiously wealthy.
As a Red Hat subscriber, I can tell you that their support is complete crap. I'm required to have Red Hat so customers/partners can't say that their apps don't work because I'm not on the same platform, but I'd never have it otherwise.
Their support people aren't helpful. In the time that it takes for them to help me with something, I can look it up online(not on the Red Hat site) and figure it out. Anybody who's not a Linux expert knows that figuring out how to do random things in Linux on your own can be quite a painful process, so I think that conveys my message quite well. In addition, their hardware support is terrible.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is by far the worst Linux I've used and I don't blame anybody for going with something other than Red Hat.
There's no way in hell I would ever offer support for Linux unless I absolutely had to. Since Dell hangs their hat on customer service, adding Linux to the mix would cause too many headaches for it to be worth it for the small market segment. With Microsoft, you just take what they give you and put it on the systems and then occasionally(frequently) tell people to reinstall if their problem seems the tiniest bit convoluted. My small company pays for Red Hat because we're required to for a contract system. Getting support from them is a nightmare. I've used 3 different mainstream distros of Linux and not a single one of them is really easy to use. Sure, if you're already an expert, Linux is easy. If you're not, Linux is hard because it's still based on an old system of using 100 billion little command line commands and arguments. It's not the LEAST BIT user friendly compared to the more mainstream OS's.
Due to the amount of money owed Novell vs the amount of money SCO has, it's possible that the stock price is going up due to speculators looking for Novell to acquire SCO in the near future....thereby getting Novell stock. Just a guess.
This is the attitude that's holding linux back. IDE's aren't bad things. A good IDE makes life easier for everyone. Both experts and novices can get things done with a good IDE. Using only a text editor and command line interfaces makes it so that only the greatly experienced can get anything done, thereby giving those who've mastered it the feeling of l337-ness that makes them think that anyone who prefers using an IDE is an incompetent fool. Elitist attitudes and awkward tools aren't going to advance linux.
"Development tools"
Let's look at those words:
Development: I'm gonna write some code to get some jobs done
Tools: Things I use to write the code to get some jobs done.
I wouldn't buy a hammer that's still "developing quickly" but not ready for prime time, I'd buy a hammer that's ready to use! In fact, if someone gave me a free hammer, and said, "It may or may not work for now, but in a couple of years it'll work great!" I'd go out and buy myself a hammer that already works in spite of the increased immediate cost to myself.
If development tools slow down the development process, then they aren't good tools.
I'd have to agree with this statement for sure. Hunting up Linux documentation will certainly hone your randon-related-keyword skills, but that's not all that important to me. Having ALL the documentation in one central location like MSDN sure is nice. It's even quite complete and, unlike man pages, understandable AND CONTAINS EXAMPLES quite frequently.
I'd have to say that Visual Studio pretty much rocks. I use it for c++ development only, and am very happy with it. If linux had any dev environment that was ANYWHERE NEAR as good as VC++, maybe I wouldn't despise working on it.
I'll have to agree that shutdowns and startups are killers on hardware. I leave my systems running 24/7 and have for many years. The only time they ever fail is when I turn them off and then back on.
TRUE STORY:
Me: I think I'll turn off the computer.
Me(next day): I think I'll turn on the computer....click...no whirring noise....what's this?
Computer: Ha-Ha! I win again, your power supply has gone out and fried your motherboard!
Me: #$%@!
Computers that don't get power-cycled run much longer than computers that do. Over the years, the only times I've had hardware failures is when:
A) a fan goes out...we all know how much this happens
B) I turn it off and back on.
Linux absolutely blows for a desktop. It's great for servers, there's no denying that. I have my linux server humming along 24/7. My only beef is when I have to actually work on linux for one reason or another. It's horribly painful to get anything done. Very little is as automatic as it should be, and my Logitech G5 mouse won't work with either SuSE or Red Hat(e) Enterprise for some unknown reason. As for development, HA! Developing software on linux involves grabbing your fingernails with pliars and pulling them out very slowly. Sure there are environments to use, but they really REALLY blow compared to MS/Apple offerings. Love the 80's? Maybe linux development is for you. Command line and vi baby! Woo! Nothing like having to remember the obscure flags for 80,000 options! I guess it really comes down to: If you love command line usage for everything, then linux is good for you...but you're much like someone who takes delight in speaking Klingon in my opinion in that you love it because very few other people will ever understand it.