Ugh...Paradox database. Lousy in-house apps coded around it, original developers dead/missing/downsized/laughing from afar...but us IT schmucks still get to support it.
Well, OK, actually it runs just fine and rarely gives us trouble. Can't say the same for our MS-SQL servers...
>and IMHO is much less deserving of mockery than the >Salon author makes it out to be.
I agree...this article contains most of the requisite elements of a Salon author's work: an obvious disdain for science and especially those who practice it, a lot of unfunny non-humor, contrived anti-government cynicism, and the obligatory stab at George W.
It's fine, though - as long as the scientists keep doing what they do, and the pseudo-intellectual hipsters at Salon confine themselves to their useless pursuits, real progress should remain unimpeded.
Same here. I generally find the "sequel" pronounciation among the more clueless (disclaimer: I am making no statement regarding my own cluefulness) borne-into-MS developers, and management types. Even I got tired of correcting them after a while.
Phonetically, I'd think one would say "sickle" for "SQL" before "sequel." It depends whether you believe 'q' must always make a 'kw' sound, I suppose.
I believe it was originally said "ess kyoo ell" so that's what I'll stick to. Or maybe I'll go do some real work.
I thought the same - I am in NW Suburbs of Chicago, so I started with Mediaone, then forced over to AT&T/@Home, whose customer service was far worse but the data service stayed about the same, now I'm AT&T after the 3-day interruption during transition. I have *never* had anything more than 1.5mbps downstream, and I'm not sure it ever got even that fast. Upstream started out pretty good, I could server FTP (not that I'd do such a thing;) at 25k/sec, then suddenly (about 1.5 years ago?) it fell to about 15k/sec. Still getting that now.
Maybe it's because I never had anything faster, and going from dialup to 1.5mbps cable was so great, but I'm still pretty happy with this service.
I felt so cool for having two CPUs in my machine (128-D)
I had never used CP/M before, being 13 or 14 and a C-64 user only up to that point. I made a point to learn as much as could about it, though. It was cool just to be running in 80-col mode, too, as us C= users always felt a little inferior next to the Apple// folks, being stuck with 40.
And the 128D had an extra 64k of video ram! It allowed it to do something like 320x200x16 (someone correct this?) which I thought was amazing, for a week or so. There was a DTP package or two written for this mode, but that was about it.
I did manage to set up dBase1 for CP/M for my dad.
"And it's high time that computer users insisted that the security community live up to its obligation to protect them."
Hmmm...I didn't realize there was any obligation involved. I figured it was each user's responsibility to "protect" (read: properly administer) their own systems. The security professional's job is too give them the tools (knowledge and software) to help them do that *for themselves.* Neither Walther nor my martial arts instructor have an obligation to protect me, just because they have tools and knowledge that I do not. But, they make those tools available to me so that I can protect myself.
I suppose their view is that a world in which it is impossible to harm one's self (or one's computer system) much like the soccer moms who would like to see the world coated with Nerf so their precious brats will never know pain.
>Let's not argue over international airspace, isn't it clear that the plane is a spy plane?
No, it is incredibly non-clear. This plane was doing reconnaissance. It was not disguised in any way, it was not attempting to evade detection. It was not invading the terratorial airspace of another nation (yes I realize that is somewhat up for debate as of this monent.) It was flying off the coast of China, attempting to pick up whatever signals radiated from the mainland. As many other posts have stated, we've been doing this for years, and it's been done to us for years. Sure, China might not like it, they don't have to. We never "liked it" when the Soviets did it to us, but we never brought down any of their planes over it. And if the Chinese could do it, we'd have to allow them too. Better yet, we'd develop more secure communications to make them work harder at it. It's as if a radio station in Texas wanted to prevent Mexicans from receiving their signal - by the nature of the technology, it can't be done.
It feels like Y2K - when Arthur C. Clarke and various others kept reminding anyone that would listen that the "real" millenium was another year away, and the major press just kept shouting "new millenium!" oblivious the whole time to the truth. Blah.
This is true, I've seen it many times. A lot of big companies around here has entire IT staffs full of clueless monkeys who have CS degrees, or even unrelated degrees - just the "piece of paper" that got them in. I suppose it shows that since you were willing/able to subject yourself to four years in one institution, you're more likely to become complacent in theirs.
This reminds me of an old movie/short film/thinly disguised propaganda piece (possibly an episode of Dragnet?) from the 1950's that ennumerated a similar list of traits. Back then the list ended with "...perfect for recruitment by the Communists." So, now we have a new enemy: Terrorism. Sounds like the same old root cause to me: fear of knowledge.
They fear the Net because it facilitates communication. (And that's all it is: millions of people talking and writing to each other, and leaving data behind for others to view later.) They know what happens when people who are dissatisfied (regardless of whether this is justified) talk to each other. So did the Founding Fathers, that's why we have the First Amendment (... the right of the people peaceably to assemble...)
I was surprised to see this as the first post/response, at it is similar to the naming scheme I used for my lil' home network:
NT Server: Stalin (Unstable, imposing, dangerous to work with) Linux box: Kruschev (because Linux "will bury you") Win98: Gorby (friendly, accessable, and in the end ineffective) NeXT (Black Hardware): Lenin (the intellectual!) Vaxstation 3100/VMS: He's not on the network yet...any ideas for this one?
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Ugh...Paradox database. Lousy in-house apps coded around it, original developers dead/missing/downsized/laughing from afar...but us IT schmucks still get to support it.
Well, OK, actually it runs just fine and rarely gives us trouble. Can't say the same for our MS-SQL servers...
A future where the M$ monopoly years and all its closed-standard horrors are simply referred to with a shrug as the "dark ages of software."
It could happen...
>and IMHO is much less deserving of mockery than the
>Salon author makes it out to be.
I agree...this article contains most of the requisite elements of a Salon author's work: an obvious disdain for science and especially those who practice it, a lot of unfunny non-humor, contrived anti-government cynicism, and the obligatory stab at George W.
It's fine, though - as long as the scientists keep doing what they do, and the pseudo-intellectual hipsters at Salon confine themselves to their useless pursuits, real progress should remain unimpeded.
the same "technology" found in this "t-touch:"
http://www.lindatellingtonjones.com/
Same here. I generally find the "sequel" pronounciation among the more clueless (disclaimer: I am making no statement regarding my own cluefulness) borne-into-MS developers, and management types. Even I got tired of correcting them after a while.
Phonetically, I'd think one would say "sickle" for "SQL" before "sequel." It depends whether you believe 'q' must always make a 'kw' sound, I suppose.
I believe it was originally said "ess kyoo ell" so that's what I'll stick to. Or maybe I'll go do some real work.
?
I thought the same - I am in NW Suburbs of Chicago, so I started with Mediaone, then forced over to AT&T/@Home, whose customer service was far worse but the data service stayed about the same, now I'm AT&T after the 3-day interruption during transition. I have *never* had anything more than 1.5mbps downstream, and I'm not sure it ever got even that fast. Upstream started out pretty good, I could server FTP (not that I'd do such a thing ;) at 25k/sec, then suddenly (about 1.5 years ago?) it fell to about 15k/sec. Still getting that now.
Maybe it's because I never had anything faster, and going from dialup to 1.5mbps cable was so great, but I'm still pretty happy with this service.
-cw
In this case "jingoism" == "willing to accept socialism because you know it's the Right Way, don't you?"
I felt so cool for having two CPUs in my machine (128-D)
// folks, being stuck with 40.
I had never used CP/M before, being 13 or 14 and a C-64 user only up to that point. I made a point to learn as much as could about it, though. It was cool just to be running in 80-col mode, too, as us C= users always felt a little inferior next to the Apple
And the 128D had an extra 64k of video ram! It allowed it to do something like 320x200x16 (someone correct this?) which I thought was amazing, for a week or so. There was a DTP package or two written for this mode, but that was about it.
I did manage to set up dBase1 for CP/M for my dad.
-cw
...are a big geek.
And I applaud you for it!
Cool idea!
-cw
"And it's high time that computer users insisted that the security community live up to its obligation to protect them."
Hmmm...I didn't realize there was any obligation involved. I figured it was each user's responsibility to "protect" (read: properly administer) their own systems. The security professional's job is too give them the tools (knowledge and software) to help them do that *for themselves.* Neither Walther nor my martial arts instructor have an obligation to protect me, just because they have tools and knowledge that I do not. But, they make those tools available to me so that I can protect myself.
I suppose their view is that a world in which it is impossible to harm one's self (or one's computer system) much like the soccer moms who would like to see the world coated with Nerf so their precious brats will never know pain.
Blah.
-cw
>Let's not argue over international airspace, isn't it clear that the plane is a spy plane?
No, it is incredibly non-clear. This plane was doing reconnaissance. It was not disguised in any way, it was not attempting to evade detection. It was not invading the terratorial airspace of another nation (yes I realize that is somewhat up for debate as of this monent.) It was flying off the coast of China, attempting to pick up whatever signals radiated from the mainland. As many other posts have stated, we've been doing this for years, and it's been done to us for years. Sure, China might not like it, they don't have to. We never "liked it" when the Soviets did it to us, but we never brought down any of their planes over it. And if the Chinese could do it, we'd have to allow them too. Better yet, we'd develop more secure communications to make them work harder at it. It's as if a radio station in Texas wanted to prevent Mexicans from receiving their signal - by the nature of the technology, it can't be done. It feels like Y2K - when Arthur C. Clarke and various others kept reminding anyone that would listen that the "real" millenium was another year away, and the major press just kept shouting "new millenium!" oblivious the whole time to the truth.
Blah.
-cw
This is true, I've seen it many times. A lot of big companies around here has entire IT staffs full of clueless monkeys who have CS degrees, or even unrelated degrees - just the "piece of paper" that got them in. I suppose it shows that since you were willing/able to subject yourself to four years in one institution, you're more likely to become complacent in theirs.
This reminds me of an old movie/short film/thinly disguised propaganda piece (possibly an episode of Dragnet?) from the 1950's that ennumerated a similar list of traits. Back then the list ended with "...perfect for recruitment by the Communists." So, now we have a new enemy: Terrorism. Sounds like the same old root cause to me: fear of knowledge.
They fear the Net because it facilitates communication. (And that's all it is: millions of people talking and writing to each other, and leaving data behind for others to view later.) They know what happens when people who are dissatisfied (regardless of whether this is justified) talk to each other. So did the Founding Fathers, that's why we have the First Amendment (... the right of the people peaceably to assemble...)
I was surprised to see this as the first post/response, at it is similar to the naming scheme I used for my lil' home network:
NT Server: Stalin (Unstable, imposing, dangerous to work with)
Linux box: Kruschev (because Linux "will bury you")
Win98: Gorby (friendly, accessable, and in the end ineffective)
NeXT (Black Hardware): Lenin (the intellectual!)
Vaxstation 3100/VMS: He's not on the network yet...any ideas for this one?
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coldwar@pobox.com
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