When you hear breathless talk about new paradigms in management social structure it's always people grasping at straws attempting to pin the tail on the contributory factors to their synergy. Good shit comes from selfless people...
I kind of agree. I think part of the problem is that people are searching for a magical formula. Bad managers like to think in terms of, "If I just do [x], then every one will work hard, there will be no conflicts, and I will get rich." They just want to know what "x" is. The problem is, "x" actually includes all of the following (plus more):
One key element seems to be the size of each of its campuses. They limit them to 150 people. More than that and what you mention starts happening. A de facto hierarchy arises and bickering ensues. But below these numbers (and this seems to be corroborated by other sources) people work as in a small community/village and peer pressure keeps everyone working nicely.
I'm not so sure that's an accurate description of what happens. Under almost all situations, people will develop a de facto hierarchy. It may be fairly fluid and casual, but even among a group of 5 friends, there will usually be some kind of pecking order. Under 150 people, there's the possibility of that de facto hierarchy being managed well without formalized structures. Over 150 people, the social bonds become thin, and factions will form and compete with each other for power.
I would tend to agree with the analysis, "if a visible hierarchy isn't allowed, an invisible one will form." It's not certain whether it will bite you in the ass. One of the obvious ways it's likely to bite *someone* in the ass is if that person believes that they're setting themselves up to be "in charge" of this non-hierarchical structure, but that person doesn't have the social power and charisma to maintain their position by informal means. That is to say, if you start a company and create a flat structure without formally putting yourself in the position of being "in charge", then you'd better be popular. Otherwise, someone else might decide to take the reigns, and they might get more support in the ensuing power struggle.
What is this nonsense? Cut-throat businessmen will search out the cheapest method of attaining the labor they need. You don't have billionaire CEOs sitting around saying, "Well I really wish I could pay my employees tons of extra money, but unfortunately that Obamacare is making it unaffordable!" They pay people as little as possible because they can, and they would be doing the same thing even if healthcare reform had never been suggested.
If you want to blame anyone, blame the people who want to tax the middle class in order to provide benefits to the wealthy. Blame the people who want to give unlimited funds to the military and NSA while blocking infrastructure improvements because they believe that public investments is communistic.
I think part of the rationale is that a self-signed certificate very well might be a sign that you're the victim of a man-in-the-middle attack, and it needs to be treated as a serious potential threat.
Personally, I don't think the problem is that web browsers treat self-signed certs as dangerous. I think the real problem is that the only infrastructure we have for authenticating certificates is expensive and unwieldy. We need to have a way of generating and authenticating certificates that's easy enough for a novice, and functionally free for most legitimate uses.
I agree with you. I don't know these types you're rattling off, but I would guess that I myself am not a strict 5 defensing myself. I'm probably more of a middle-manager, but somewhat technically oriented and a little socially clumsy. Is there a number for that?
*However*, it takes all kinds to make the world go around, and a kick-ass programmer who is socially phobic can still be a hell of a valuable employee. When people start talking as though the introverted and socially awkward are worthless failures, it gives me a little pit in my stomach. Why do we have to be so quick to judge who is worthy of success? Why can't we start from the assumption that everyone has potential, and everyone has something to offer?
Ultimately, I guess it's this: If you say that people who don't do a good job networking will have a harder time finding a job, I wouldn't disagree. But if you then imply that they're not smart, not worthy, or not able to do a good job, I think there's probably something seriously wrong with the way you see the world.
I say that as someone who does not schmooze...Roughly every other month I send an invite to bunch of people I know in my area to meet at a bar or tavern.
I got news for you: that's schmoozing.
And if you're a programmer or developer and not self-employed, it absolutely 100% IS part of your job.
So if you're a programmer and you're not self-employed, then throwing regular parties for business contacts is part of your job? Yeah... I don't think so. It might be a smart thing to do, but it's not your job. If you're a programmer and you're not self-employed, then your job is to program. If you *are* self-employed, I could see a better argument that schmoozing is part of your job.
Or else, what's the implication here? Programmers who don't throw parties for you aren't doing their jobs? So if I interview someone that hasn't invited me to parties and won't invite me to parties, I shouldn't hire him even if he's a brilliant and productive programmer? If I employ such a programmer, I should fire him, because he's not doing his job?
I don't imagine you'd actually say that, but that's what it means when you say, "it absolutely 100% IS part of your job."
There's something a little funny about the expectation that we all should be developing large social networks of business connections, as though failing to do so makes you severely deficient. Lots of people don't take to it naturally, and it's often not required for your actual job. So for many of us, when you're actually focused on doing your job and building your life, you're not going to be going around schmoozing with good professional contacts on a regular basis.
And that's not so bad. It doesn't mean your bad at your job. It doesn't make you a deficient human being. On the contrary, it might mean that you're more interested in doing your job than on climbing the ladder. Frankly, the world would probably be a better place if more focus were placed on doing your current job properly, and less on attaining the next promotion.
But I guess people don't like to hear that, and businesses don't really value people who do their jobs.
Only minidisplay port is an Apple "proprietary" port.
Sort of, but not meaningfully. Apple did develop it in-house, but it's based on DisplayPort (which is not proprietary), and Apple offers an open license of the Mini DisplayPort design at no cost. I think the design was even adopted as a part of the official DisplayPort specifications, though I could be wrong about that.
The point is, even with Mini DisplayPort, other companies have access to the specs, and they can (and do) include the ports in their own products without paying Apple.
Nope. Both Apple and Intel were involved in developing both.
Intel developed Lightpeak, Apple simply purchased the technology and named it Thunderbolt, hence Apple owns the trademark on that one.
Not quite. It was called "Lightpeak" while it was in development, partially because it was an optical interface using fiber. Partially because they switched it to use coper, but perhaps also for other marketing reasons, they switched over to using Thunderbolt when it was released.
Intel can sell Lightpeak to other companies without Apple's permission, but not Thunderbolt as Thunderbolt belongs to Apple.
Then why is it being sold everywhere as "Thunderbolt" or even "Intel Thunderbolt" even when being used in generic PC hardware?
Also, just because Firewire is an IEEE standard does not mean it is not proprietary. Being non-proprietary was never a requirement for IEEE standards. If you want to use IEEE1394, you need to pay... Apple.
Well actually, yes, it does kind of mean it's not "proprietary"-- at least how people in the tech industry tend to use that word. Proprietary generally means that there is no standard for anyone else to develop against, and therefore people can't make competing products using the same technology. If you have an open standard, it is not considered "proprietary" even if it is encumbered by some patents or trademarks, so long as you're still able to pay licensing fees and develop your own version.
If that were not the case, then we would have to consider all kinds of things proprietary, including CDs, DVDs, and MP3 files. I believe it would even include USB and HDMI, but I don't remember for sure.
I would think the appeal for tech companies wouldn't be too far off from the appeal for a lot of businesses. The short answer is, there's a lot there.
It's not a small thing that there are a lot of people there. This means a large talent pool to recruit from. It also means that there's a certain draw for recruiting people from elsewhere, if we assume that NYC is considered a cool and desirable place to live. It also means that there are a lot of potential business contacts nearby, lots of potential business to partner with, and lots of potential customers. This is a huge benefit.
If you do have to travel, NYC is very close to a series of other major cities, e.g. Philidelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Washington DC. It's location makes it a relatively short flight to major European cities. Speaking of that, it's has airports that are major hubs, which makes it fairly easy to fly in and out of. All things considered, the infrastructure is pretty available and reliable.
No doubt there are some downsides to being in NYC, but there are certainly upsides.
Yup. That's the problem with using old outdated software that isn't receiving active support. Or at least not proper active support. If your tool is being actively supported and still requires Java 1.3.1, then they're doing something very wrong.
You know, some people are still running DOS apps from the 90s. That doesn't mean Microsoft is doing something wrong by refusing to support DOS.
But the bigger issue here: Developers should stop using Java. I don't really object to the language, but the Sun/Oracle platform sucks.
Well really it needs to be considered both ways. It's a little like saying, "If a bear is going around attacking people, we should kill it." Still, that doesn't make it less fair to say, "Don't go around poking at wild bears."
If you don't trust your IT support people, fire them. I would suggest that trust is even more important than competence in many cases. Still, be nice to your sysadmin.
Is that what he was referring to? I thought the "So... it has come to this..." was referencing that Slashdot is now posting articles like this one. Sysadmins have always used pressure and fear to get what they need from managers.
I would disagree. Many of the large superheros are more "mythological figures" than "characters", and as such they sometimes don't have realistic character development, but that doesn't mean they have no character. The characters traits that they have tend to shift a bit with the person telling the story, because we keep retelling the same stories over and over again. That's the nature of the thing. However, they have important symbolic/metaphoric meaning which is revealed by the depictions of their character.
Depictions of Batman, for example, tend to be about striving for control of the world around you. It's important that his origin story begins as a damaged child. It's symbolically important that Batman has no superpowers. It's relevant that his arch-nemesis is a clown, a figure linked with childhood, and that he plays the part of the embodiment of chaos. Batman is about a man who is essentially powerless in a world of chaos, and he's trying to take control and make sense of his own life.
Superman is kind of in the opposite situation, which is part of the reason why his nemesis resembles Batman so closely. Superman is about a man who has power and control, and he's struggling with the attempt to be perfect. He is not perfect. He's a normal human being who is put in the position where his decisions have massive consequences, and the stories tend to be (and should be) about the attempt to make good decisions while under the responsibility and pressure of having almost god-like powers, which gives him almost god-like responsibilities.
Internal FLASH only - that's fine for a MacBook Air, but aren't the target users for this video editors?
Real video editors are doing the actual work on external drives/arrays anyway. I don't think it's as big an issue as you're making it sound.
Limited RAM - only 4 ram slots. The old one had 8.
I think you have a point, but at the same time, shouldn't the real question be the maximum RAM capacity and RAM performance, and not the number of slots?
Exhaust from the top - Can't put anything on top and if you spill a drink on it, it goes straight into the machine.
So maybe don't pour your coffee into it?
Depending on the price point, I suspect this thing might be successful. What annoys me more is that I've wanted Apple to build something like this for a while (i.e. a larger and more powerful Mac mini), but aiming more for gamers than professional workstations. Apple has kept their monitor-less computers segmented between "low-power desktop productivity" and "high-power professional workstation", but neither is really suitable for "cost-effective mid-range enthusiast/gaming". They should take this design and put a Core i7 and a NVIDIA GTX card. Then they should allow you, if you choose, to plug it into a TV and run an Apple-TV-like interface that would also let you launch games.
The shorter answer would be no. Its not expandable, an incompatible rare expensive *external* interface is simply not a solution.
Of course, that "incompatible rare" interface is a standard developed by Intel, and there have been indications that they intend to eventually put them in motherboards as a matter of course. And it's worth noting that those "external" interfaces offer 20Gbps of throughput that the computer treats the same as PCI Express. In fact, from what I understand, you use thunderbolt to go to an external enclosure with a PCI Express card, and the system will treat it as though it's internal.
So I think you're left with the criticism of "expensive". Well, if you were planning to buy a Mac Pro and also upgrade it, I might suspect that you're not trying to find a system on the cheap.
I would argue that part of the issue is that 10GigE connections have limited use. Not that they're not useful, but at this point, with the amount of data we're moving around, most people aren't going to see a huge benefit over existing solutions. It's a little like why desktop computer sales have slowed in general: what people have now is kind of working "well enough".
Of course, part of the problem is that a lot of what people are doing now is over the Internet, which means that you're bottlenecked by your ISP. It doesn't matter as much if you have a 100Mb or 1Gb or 10Gb adapter if you're doing an Internet transfer bottlenecked to 8Mb.
Everyone wants to be a one stop shop. Companies are getting there by buying up smaller companies and over and over.
And it's a bit of a cycle. People want to be a one-stop shop because it's more efficient to use economies of scale. Sooner or later we'll find that those companies are inefficient and doing a bad job because their attention is too divided, and we'll start favoring companies that do just one thing, and do it well.
The IT people of the future (if this trend continues) will be glorified plumbers.
We're already there, but without the glory. Hell, I bet plumbers get more respect.
NAT is a security _step_, not a security solution... Neither are firewalls a security solution.
Well in that sense, you could say that nothing is a "security solution", because no one thing solves all problems everywhere, and every security measure is a "security step".
But that's not my objection to the way people are talking about NAT. Firewalls are a proper security measure, and they're designed to be. NAT is not really a security measure. NAT happens to make it more difficult to route to traffic behind the NAT, which can improve security by side effect, but it is not really a security feature.
It's a little like if you front door of your house was old and crooked, and it stuck when you tried to open it, and you had to press sort of hard before it would pop open. Sure, by side effect it might improve the security of your house, but it's kind of funny to treat it as a real security measure. A lock also wouldn't be a *complete* security solution, but at least it's a real security measure, and if you implemented a lock properly you shouldn't need to rely on a sticky door to secure your house.
Similarly with NAT. If you have a proper firewall, you shouldn't need NAT to prevent access to your internal network.
...all it's really saying is that IT will have to pay more attention to actual business needs. Anyone with their eyes open has already known that for years.
It's always been the case. There was just a period when computers themselves were just so overhyped that people treated them as something more than "a means to serve business needs."
Yes, the stereotypical BOFH doesn't have much of a future.
Depends. Do you mean "computer janitors"? Then yes, there is a future. People make the mistake of thinking, "Oh, you use Google Apps and then you don't need IT people because you don't have servers." Wrong. You've substituted one problem for another. You don't need a computer janitor watching over your internal server anymore, but now you need someone to help you set up and configure the Google Apps stuff, diagnose problems with it, train users, etc. And you still need desktop support. There's still no free lunch. However, if by "BOFH" you mean rude and problematic "computer janitors" who aren't very good at their jobs, then yes, there's no future there.
NYC isn't a crime-ridden shit hole. Many people have argued that the reason they've been able to attain such low crime rates is that they go after people for smaller crimes. [see Broken windows theory]
So, you know, it might make sense for the Mayor of NYC to be trying to find a solution when thefts of Apple devices account for a 3.3% boost in crime rate all by themselves.
This has been impressively ameliorated by the use of NAT... The growth of high capacity load balancers for web servers and other network services has also helped tremendously... people have learned how to economize in the ir IPv4 use... The result has been that the great need for IPv6 simply has not yet occurred, and is unlikely to occur for another 10 years.
I'm trying to think of a good analogy here. Maybe something like this: The holes in our boat has been impressively patched with paper, and the bucket brigade has helped tremendously by emptying the water out of the inside of our boat. Because of this, the sinking of our boat has simply not yet occurred, and is unlikely to occur for another 10 days.
It's not a great analogy, but do you see what I'm saying here? You have a serious problem that could be catastrophic. So far, we've mitigated the problem and kept it closer to the level of "inconvenience" than "catastrophe". So far. That doesn't justify a blasé attitude toward the problem.
The foundation of the need for IPv6 is basically that of ubiquitous comuputing: the idea that every single device scattered around the home or around the workplace will have its own IP address for remote communications, and they _should not have_ public IP addresses. Providing public, routable IP addresses puts them at risk of attack at all times: putting them in the unroutable, easily tracked and maintained IPv4 address space handles almost all internal network needs quie effectively and is a signigicant security advantage and eases scanning and tracking of local resources.
NAT isn't a good security solution. Firewalls are. You can put up a firewall and block IPv6 traffic. No doubt, giving everything a public IP address should cause you to consider the security implications, but if you were relying on NAT to keep your devices secure, you're doing it wrong.
I would think that ISPs would, for the course of a transition, support both IPv4 and IPv6 in some form. Since it would still need to handle all the IPv4 stuff it has been handling and then IPv6 in addition, I'd expect that supporting both might require larger and more complex firmware, and perhaps even more computing power.
I don't really know what I'm talking about, though.
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There could be other aspects of Indian cultural interaction that act as a spoiler to the effect.
When you hear breathless talk about new paradigms in management social structure it's always people grasping at straws attempting to pin the tail on the contributory factors to their synergy. Good shit comes from selfless people...
I kind of agree. I think part of the problem is that people are searching for a magical formula. Bad managers like to think in terms of, "If I just do [x], then every one will work hard, there will be no conflicts, and I will get rich." They just want to know what "x" is. The problem is, "x" actually includes all of the following (plus more):
Sorry. There's no magic.
One key element seems to be the size of each of its campuses. They limit them to 150 people. More than that and what you mention starts happening. A de facto hierarchy arises and bickering ensues. But below these numbers (and this seems to be corroborated by other sources) people work as in a small community/village and peer pressure keeps everyone working nicely.
I'm not so sure that's an accurate description of what happens. Under almost all situations, people will develop a de facto hierarchy. It may be fairly fluid and casual, but even among a group of 5 friends, there will usually be some kind of pecking order. Under 150 people, there's the possibility of that de facto hierarchy being managed well without formalized structures. Over 150 people, the social bonds become thin, and factions will form and compete with each other for power.
I would tend to agree with the analysis, "if a visible hierarchy isn't allowed, an invisible one will form." It's not certain whether it will bite you in the ass. One of the obvious ways it's likely to bite *someone* in the ass is if that person believes that they're setting themselves up to be "in charge" of this non-hierarchical structure, but that person doesn't have the social power and charisma to maintain their position by informal means. That is to say, if you start a company and create a flat structure without formally putting yourself in the position of being "in charge", then you'd better be popular. Otherwise, someone else might decide to take the reigns, and they might get more support in the ensuing power struggle.
What is this nonsense? Cut-throat businessmen will search out the cheapest method of attaining the labor they need. You don't have billionaire CEOs sitting around saying, "Well I really wish I could pay my employees tons of extra money, but unfortunately that Obamacare is making it unaffordable!" They pay people as little as possible because they can, and they would be doing the same thing even if healthcare reform had never been suggested.
If you want to blame anyone, blame the people who want to tax the middle class in order to provide benefits to the wealthy. Blame the people who want to give unlimited funds to the military and NSA while blocking infrastructure improvements because they believe that public investments is communistic.
I think part of the rationale is that a self-signed certificate very well might be a sign that you're the victim of a man-in-the-middle attack, and it needs to be treated as a serious potential threat.
Personally, I don't think the problem is that web browsers treat self-signed certs as dangerous. I think the real problem is that the only infrastructure we have for authenticating certificates is expensive and unwieldy. We need to have a way of generating and authenticating certificates that's easy enough for a novice, and functionally free for most legitimate uses.
I agree with you. I don't know these types you're rattling off, but I would guess that I myself am not a strict 5 defensing myself. I'm probably more of a middle-manager, but somewhat technically oriented and a little socially clumsy. Is there a number for that?
*However*, it takes all kinds to make the world go around, and a kick-ass programmer who is socially phobic can still be a hell of a valuable employee. When people start talking as though the introverted and socially awkward are worthless failures, it gives me a little pit in my stomach. Why do we have to be so quick to judge who is worthy of success? Why can't we start from the assumption that everyone has potential, and everyone has something to offer?
Ultimately, I guess it's this: If you say that people who don't do a good job networking will have a harder time finding a job, I wouldn't disagree. But if you then imply that they're not smart, not worthy, or not able to do a good job, I think there's probably something seriously wrong with the way you see the world.
I say that as someone who does not schmooze...Roughly every other month I send an invite to bunch of people I know in my area to meet at a bar or tavern.
I got news for you: that's schmoozing.
And if you're a programmer or developer and not self-employed, it absolutely 100% IS part of your job.
So if you're a programmer and you're not self-employed, then throwing regular parties for business contacts is part of your job? Yeah... I don't think so. It might be a smart thing to do, but it's not your job. If you're a programmer and you're not self-employed, then your job is to program. If you *are* self-employed, I could see a better argument that schmoozing is part of your job.
Or else, what's the implication here? Programmers who don't throw parties for you aren't doing their jobs? So if I interview someone that hasn't invited me to parties and won't invite me to parties, I shouldn't hire him even if he's a brilliant and productive programmer? If I employ such a programmer, I should fire him, because he's not doing his job?
I don't imagine you'd actually say that, but that's what it means when you say, "it absolutely 100% IS part of your job."
There's something a little funny about the expectation that we all should be developing large social networks of business connections, as though failing to do so makes you severely deficient. Lots of people don't take to it naturally, and it's often not required for your actual job. So for many of us, when you're actually focused on doing your job and building your life, you're not going to be going around schmoozing with good professional contacts on a regular basis.
And that's not so bad. It doesn't mean your bad at your job. It doesn't make you a deficient human being. On the contrary, it might mean that you're more interested in doing your job than on climbing the ladder. Frankly, the world would probably be a better place if more focus were placed on doing your current job properly, and less on attaining the next promotion.
But I guess people don't like to hear that, and businesses don't really value people who do their jobs.
Only minidisplay port is an Apple "proprietary" port.
Sort of, but not meaningfully. Apple did develop it in-house, but it's based on DisplayPort (which is not proprietary), and Apple offers an open license of the Mini DisplayPort design at no cost. I think the design was even adopted as a part of the official DisplayPort specifications, though I could be wrong about that.
The point is, even with Mini DisplayPort, other companies have access to the specs, and they can (and do) include the ports in their own products without paying Apple.
No, Lightpeak is Intel, Thunderbolt is Apple.
Nope. Both Apple and Intel were involved in developing both.
Intel developed Lightpeak, Apple simply purchased the technology and named it Thunderbolt, hence Apple owns the trademark on that one.
Not quite. It was called "Lightpeak" while it was in development, partially because it was an optical interface using fiber. Partially because they switched it to use coper, but perhaps also for other marketing reasons, they switched over to using Thunderbolt when it was released.
Intel can sell Lightpeak to other companies without Apple's permission, but not Thunderbolt as Thunderbolt belongs to Apple.
Then why is it being sold everywhere as "Thunderbolt" or even "Intel Thunderbolt" even when being used in generic PC hardware?
Also, just because Firewire is an IEEE standard does not mean it is not proprietary. Being non-proprietary was never a requirement for IEEE standards. If you want to use IEEE1394, you need to pay... Apple.
Well actually, yes, it does kind of mean it's not "proprietary"-- at least how people in the tech industry tend to use that word. Proprietary generally means that there is no standard for anyone else to develop against, and therefore people can't make competing products using the same technology. If you have an open standard, it is not considered "proprietary" even if it is encumbered by some patents or trademarks, so long as you're still able to pay licensing fees and develop your own version.
If that were not the case, then we would have to consider all kinds of things proprietary, including CDs, DVDs, and MP3 files. I believe it would even include USB and HDMI, but I don't remember for sure.
I would think the appeal for tech companies wouldn't be too far off from the appeal for a lot of businesses. The short answer is, there's a lot there.
It's not a small thing that there are a lot of people there. This means a large talent pool to recruit from. It also means that there's a certain draw for recruiting people from elsewhere, if we assume that NYC is considered a cool and desirable place to live. It also means that there are a lot of potential business contacts nearby, lots of potential business to partner with, and lots of potential customers. This is a huge benefit.
If you do have to travel, NYC is very close to a series of other major cities, e.g. Philidelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Washington DC. It's location makes it a relatively short flight to major European cities. Speaking of that, it's has airports that are major hubs, which makes it fairly easy to fly in and out of. All things considered, the infrastructure is pretty available and reliable.
No doubt there are some downsides to being in NYC, but there are certainly upsides.
Yup. That's the problem with using old outdated software that isn't receiving active support. Or at least not proper active support. If your tool is being actively supported and still requires Java 1.3.1, then they're doing something very wrong.
You know, some people are still running DOS apps from the 90s. That doesn't mean Microsoft is doing something wrong by refusing to support DOS.
But the bigger issue here: Developers should stop using Java. I don't really object to the language, but the Sun/Oracle platform sucks.
Well really it needs to be considered both ways. It's a little like saying, "If a bear is going around attacking people, we should kill it." Still, that doesn't make it less fair to say, "Don't go around poking at wild bears."
If you don't trust your IT support people, fire them. I would suggest that trust is even more important than competence in many cases. Still, be nice to your sysadmin.
Is that what he was referring to? I thought the "So... it has come to this..." was referencing that Slashdot is now posting articles like this one. Sysadmins have always used pressure and fear to get what they need from managers.
I would disagree. Many of the large superheros are more "mythological figures" than "characters", and as such they sometimes don't have realistic character development, but that doesn't mean they have no character. The characters traits that they have tend to shift a bit with the person telling the story, because we keep retelling the same stories over and over again. That's the nature of the thing. However, they have important symbolic/metaphoric meaning which is revealed by the depictions of their character.
Depictions of Batman, for example, tend to be about striving for control of the world around you. It's important that his origin story begins as a damaged child. It's symbolically important that Batman has no superpowers. It's relevant that his arch-nemesis is a clown, a figure linked with childhood, and that he plays the part of the embodiment of chaos. Batman is about a man who is essentially powerless in a world of chaos, and he's trying to take control and make sense of his own life.
Superman is kind of in the opposite situation, which is part of the reason why his nemesis resembles Batman so closely. Superman is about a man who has power and control, and he's struggling with the attempt to be perfect. He is not perfect. He's a normal human being who is put in the position where his decisions have massive consequences, and the stories tend to be (and should be) about the attempt to make good decisions while under the responsibility and pressure of having almost god-like powers, which gives him almost god-like responsibilities.
That's not really a solution. Gigabit ethernet doesn't have a practical throughput of 1 Gb either.
Oh, right, and sometimes there's a reason why people are using wireless.
Internal FLASH only - that's fine for a MacBook Air, but aren't the target users for this video editors?
Real video editors are doing the actual work on external drives/arrays anyway. I don't think it's as big an issue as you're making it sound.
Limited RAM - only 4 ram slots. The old one had 8.
I think you have a point, but at the same time, shouldn't the real question be the maximum RAM capacity and RAM performance, and not the number of slots?
Exhaust from the top - Can't put anything on top and if you spill a drink on it, it goes straight into the machine.
So maybe don't pour your coffee into it?
Depending on the price point, I suspect this thing might be successful. What annoys me more is that I've wanted Apple to build something like this for a while (i.e. a larger and more powerful Mac mini), but aiming more for gamers than professional workstations. Apple has kept their monitor-less computers segmented between "low-power desktop productivity" and "high-power professional workstation", but neither is really suitable for "cost-effective mid-range enthusiast/gaming". They should take this design and put a Core i7 and a NVIDIA GTX card. Then they should allow you, if you choose, to plug it into a TV and run an Apple-TV-like interface that would also let you launch games.
The shorter answer would be no. Its not expandable, an incompatible rare expensive *external* interface is simply not a solution.
Of course, that "incompatible rare" interface is a standard developed by Intel, and there have been indications that they intend to eventually put them in motherboards as a matter of course. And it's worth noting that those "external" interfaces offer 20Gbps of throughput that the computer treats the same as PCI Express. In fact, from what I understand, you use thunderbolt to go to an external enclosure with a PCI Express card, and the system will treat it as though it's internal.
So I think you're left with the criticism of "expensive". Well, if you were planning to buy a Mac Pro and also upgrade it, I might suspect that you're not trying to find a system on the cheap.
I would argue that part of the issue is that 10GigE connections have limited use. Not that they're not useful, but at this point, with the amount of data we're moving around, most people aren't going to see a huge benefit over existing solutions. It's a little like why desktop computer sales have slowed in general: what people have now is kind of working "well enough".
Of course, part of the problem is that a lot of what people are doing now is over the Internet, which means that you're bottlenecked by your ISP. It doesn't matter as much if you have a 100Mb or 1Gb or 10Gb adapter if you're doing an Internet transfer bottlenecked to 8Mb.
Everyone wants to be a one stop shop. Companies are getting there by buying up smaller companies and over and over.
And it's a bit of a cycle. People want to be a one-stop shop because it's more efficient to use economies of scale. Sooner or later we'll find that those companies are inefficient and doing a bad job because their attention is too divided, and we'll start favoring companies that do just one thing, and do it well.
The IT people of the future (if this trend continues) will be glorified plumbers.
We're already there, but without the glory. Hell, I bet plumbers get more respect.
NAT is a security _step_, not a security solution... Neither are firewalls a security solution.
Well in that sense, you could say that nothing is a "security solution", because no one thing solves all problems everywhere, and every security measure is a "security step".
But that's not my objection to the way people are talking about NAT. Firewalls are a proper security measure, and they're designed to be. NAT is not really a security measure. NAT happens to make it more difficult to route to traffic behind the NAT, which can improve security by side effect, but it is not really a security feature.
It's a little like if you front door of your house was old and crooked, and it stuck when you tried to open it, and you had to press sort of hard before it would pop open. Sure, by side effect it might improve the security of your house, but it's kind of funny to treat it as a real security measure. A lock also wouldn't be a *complete* security solution, but at least it's a real security measure, and if you implemented a lock properly you shouldn't need to rely on a sticky door to secure your house.
Similarly with NAT. If you have a proper firewall, you shouldn't need NAT to prevent access to your internal network.
...all it's really saying is that IT will have to pay more attention to actual business needs. Anyone with their eyes open has already known that for years.
It's always been the case. There was just a period when computers themselves were just so overhyped that people treated them as something more than "a means to serve business needs."
Yes, the stereotypical BOFH doesn't have much of a future.
Depends. Do you mean "computer janitors"? Then yes, there is a future. People make the mistake of thinking, "Oh, you use Google Apps and then you don't need IT people because you don't have servers." Wrong. You've substituted one problem for another. You don't need a computer janitor watching over your internal server anymore, but now you need someone to help you set up and configure the Google Apps stuff, diagnose problems with it, train users, etc. And you still need desktop support. There's still no free lunch. However, if by "BOFH" you mean rude and problematic "computer janitors" who aren't very good at their jobs, then yes, there's no future there.
NYC isn't a crime-ridden shit hole. Many people have argued that the reason they've been able to attain such low crime rates is that they go after people for smaller crimes. [see Broken windows theory]
So, you know, it might make sense for the Mayor of NYC to be trying to find a solution when thefts of Apple devices account for a 3.3% boost in crime rate all by themselves.
This has been impressively ameliorated by the use of NAT... The growth of high capacity load balancers for web servers and other network services has also helped tremendously... people have learned how to economize in the ir IPv4 use... The result has been that the great need for IPv6 simply has not yet occurred, and is unlikely to occur for another 10 years.
I'm trying to think of a good analogy here. Maybe something like this: The holes in our boat has been impressively patched with paper, and the bucket brigade has helped tremendously by emptying the water out of the inside of our boat. Because of this, the sinking of our boat has simply not yet occurred, and is unlikely to occur for another 10 days.
It's not a great analogy, but do you see what I'm saying here? You have a serious problem that could be catastrophic. So far, we've mitigated the problem and kept it closer to the level of "inconvenience" than "catastrophe". So far. That doesn't justify a blasé attitude toward the problem.
The foundation of the need for IPv6 is basically that of ubiquitous comuputing: the idea that every single device scattered around the home or around the workplace will have its own IP address for remote communications, and they _should not have_ public IP addresses. Providing public, routable IP addresses puts them at risk of attack at all times: putting them in the unroutable, easily tracked and maintained IPv4 address space handles almost all internal network needs quie effectively and is a signigicant security advantage and eases scanning and tracking of local resources.
NAT isn't a good security solution. Firewalls are. You can put up a firewall and block IPv6 traffic. No doubt, giving everything a public IP address should cause you to consider the security implications, but if you were relying on NAT to keep your devices secure, you're doing it wrong.
I would think that ISPs would, for the course of a transition, support both IPv4 and IPv6 in some form. Since it would still need to handle all the IPv4 stuff it has been handling and then IPv6 in addition, I'd expect that supporting both might require larger and more complex firmware, and perhaps even more computing power.
I don't really know what I'm talking about, though.