Actually, Visa USA was big into trying to roll out smart cards as well. I used to work for a start-up company that had a loyalty application to be used on the smart card, though we never got out of the pilot phase (for Target most notably). Visa USA's big push was because of the increased security, and hoped that loyalty would be the killer app to get it out in the marketplace.
In my first job out of University, I was a programmer (not an operator) for the R&D division of a multinational that dealt with mainframes. At 22, not only was I a mainframe systems programmer, but most of the work I was doing wasn't on MVS (the IBM flagship mainfram OS), but VSE, the evil, hunchbacked midget brother of MVS.
Trust me: ugly. Nasty, nasty, nasty. As other people have pointed out, I didn't do any mainframe courses at University. What I did at this job was read a _lot_ of IBM manuals, and attend a bunch of IBM courses.
For those that know the territory, I even went on a JCL (Job Control Language) course.
Basically, for those people used to working and developing in the modern GUI and development tool environment - run in fear. The other people I worked with though pointed out that if you knew this stuff, you would always have a job. Something which this article seems to be higlighting.
I must point out that in hindsight it was very good experience. Being taught to read mainframe dumps, and having to deal with things every day on the bit and byte level was a great foundation for my continued career.
I also bailed from the company after being there for just over one year, wanting to get out of the mainfram environment. And trust me - being an operator is WAAAAAY less interesting than being a systems programmer.
One of the models of payment described in the article ( where you can bid for computer resources ), was described in a novel by Greg Egan called "Permutation City". In it there is a central exchange where you can bid for computer time for intensive tasks. At one point a woman who is using a simulation requiring extra computer cycles gets "bumped off", 'cause a consortium has out-bidded everyone at ludicrously high rates.
A good book (for other reasons as well). Unfortunately I managed to leave it in a Sydney hotel room.
I hope LaTex does replace HTML for one important reason: inbuilt support for LaTex is a really good argument I like to use when I'm explaining to an addled vi user why Emacs is better;)
Ahhh, holy wars, how I love thee. A great way to break up a boring meeting...
Cheers,
SuperG
Re:Logic Variables for Thread Synchronization
on
Perl 6 Showcase
·
· Score: 1
I may not be correct here, but my take on "logic programming" is that Larry is referring to logic programming languages such as prolog. This is a language that uses a sort of predicate logic to form logical statements and conditions which are then examined for truthfulness. Sorry I'm not being real clear here. Logic programming does that to you:P
If you're really keen, a link to some info on Prolog is here.
I think it is true that Prolog is also neither "complete" or "correct", so caveat emptor. Oh, and you'll probably get the error "out of local stack" often - stupid infinite trees:P
I know someone is going to mention "why did the dinosaurs die out? Because they didn't have a space program", but reading this article reminded me of some science fiction that explored this idea.
Greg Egan's book, "Diaspora", is set in the future, where a vast amount of people have "downloaded" themselves, and are now software agents. They discover that there is an incoming Gamma Ray burst occurring, and mount a diaspora, to flee the incoming tragedy.
As an aside, the gamma ray burst _is_ caused by two colliding celestial bodies (suns? can't remember), which are falling together faster than they should - this suggests underlying physics theorems which allow our intrepid heroes to escape to a different universe.
Of course I'm not proposing that (at least, not yet!), but currently we do we have the resources to go "We've got 5 years to get off this planet!!", and do it? How about 10? 20?
Anyway, check out Greg Egan's work. He is an Aussie, from Perth, and has written other books which should especially appeal to slashdot readers, including "Permutation City", and "Distress".
OK, here is some stuff I know about the DOS you mentioned. The DOS (disk operating system) came after TOS (tape operating system). It was out there before OS/360 etc. and instead of dying, continued on. DOS/VSE became VSE/ESA (eventually), and, believe it or not, VSE/ESA 2.4 was released last year!
AFAIK, IBM wanted VSE to die, so as to allow the OS/390 juggernaut to take up these users - but people a) seem to like the primitive VSE (yeah, the cylinder/track thing is f%$^&ing annoying), and b) if someone is going to switch from VSE - they might not go to another mainframe OS.
The VSE development is now done in Germany(?) if I recall correctly - some IBM politics is involved here as well..
OK, advance warning - I saw this on TV, and have done no research whatsoever, but apparently Bill Gates (again, unsure whther he has gone through a "real" company eg. Microsoft to do this) has purchased the broadcasting rights for English Premier League soccer. They used to be owned by Murdoch's Sky B (if I remember correctly).
I seem to recall he also has part-ownership of Aston Villa as well.
Now, this could either be cause: a) it's cool b) content for broadcasting (set-top boxes anyone) c) so TimeWarner/AOL can't have it d) so Murdoch can't have it e) wants to target new product "Microsoft Hooligan" to English soccer lager louts f) to pick up chicks
So maybe your comment is valid - maybe Gates has had enough......though I _do_ find it hard to believe...
Actually, your mainframe comment was spot on - I have just clocked up one year at my first job out of university, which is working on mainframe system software. There _is_ a lot of money to be made, yet I'm starting a new job in three weeks.
Why? For (some) of the reasons mentioned above: the mainframe area _is_ on the decline, though it will take a long time to disappear, and as this is my first job I don't want to be "trapped" into one over-specific category. I have learnt an absolute truckload about being a coder, and about work in general, but I feel like I have learnt a large slice of any "general" knowledge I can gain from here.
And after learning all that, I decided I wanted something else. For now.
Hope it turns out I guess;)
Cheers, SuperG
P.S. MVS (OS/390) yeah done that. Have you heard of VSE/ESA though? FEAR
Hope this guy is ready for the slashdot effect on his project - not only massive number of additions, but the trolls etc. adding their favourite beastiality sites.
Actually, come to think of it, he'll probably be able to use the project as the basis for a phD thesis on the mind of the 'net geek...
Someone else may remember the details more clearly, but I seem to recall that a couple of years ago PUblic enemy posted their new album in mp3 format on their website for download something like a month before it actually went to stores. It's great to see Chuck D continuing to fight Recording Industry fascism (OK, allow me some hyperbole here). Public Enemy: Not just lyrics, a lifestyle.
Whether the adaption of "Snowcrash" comes to fruition or not, there is always that danger in adapting "cult" books like "Snowcrash" (OK, you might disagree with my loose use of cult, but you get the idea). The only way it will work is by somehow creating a perfect movie, because any way you do it, I can guarantee you're going to have a legion of pissed off fans of the book, angry at the adaption. "Johnny Mnemonic" anyone? (Yeah, it was a bad movie any way you look at it.....a bit of a loaded example).
Worst of all is adapting a sci-fi novel, as the image presented is _never_ going to match what people visualise by the text itself....What do _you_ think the Metaverse looks like? How about the Ringworld? Rama? (Yeah "Bladerunner" was an awesome adaption of "Do androids dream of electric sheep", but the novel was more about atmosphere anyway....and though a cool novel, it didn't quite have the status of "Snowcrash" at the time - feel free to disagree with me here).
Anyway, if the "Neuromancer" and "Snowcrash" projects end up coming to fruition, I hope they kick ass. Classic sci-fi films are generally thin on the ground.....
This really reminds me of Douglas Coupland's book, "Microserfs", when a bunch of geeks defect from MS to write "Oop!", an object-oriented lego style program.....if this CAD program is anywhere near as cool as that, I'm _very_ interested.
This article was interesting, and made some valid points, but all in all, I don't think it's going to matter. As the author states, figures being thrown around relating to e-commerce are just too large for any government to resist. No matter what is said by "experts", the government will have a tilt at reaping tax revenue, and only after probably throwing large amounts of money at the problem of collecting such tax will it be seen to not be a possible, or even a financially viable proposition.
Call me paranoid, but I can't but think that Intel would like to keep tabs on what their employees use their machines for. Since they are Pentium III's maybe they'll ensure that the chip ID number (which had everyone annoyed when it first came out) locked on. Hopefully not, but you can only trust a multinational as far as you can throw it.
A comment may receive more moderator points than it takes to get to 5. This probably happens because it is intended (for such a situation as this, or also because it is possible for a moderator to use "redundant" etc. flags to lessen the score after the fact), rather than a bug (where multiple moderators are moderating on a page - while they are doing this a comment they will moderate up is set to 5, so they add superfluous points).
Whatever this guy's motives for squatting, they seem to be a trifle weird. Since he's apparently into open crypto, building a mailing list of "security-minded" people could work, I guess.
Hell, he might just be hoping to have a web page with a significant amount of customer through-put of people with interest in security, and then go sell it to anti-online or something. Since the openssh.com people mention they have offered him cash, I can only surmise he's after more than they were prepared to give.
Every now and then someone mentions that at the moment it's not actually possible for man to land on the moon - and to do so would mean getting out the old Saturn V plans, and rebuilding 30 year old technology.
Now with this series of rocket being developed by these guys, despite the fact that they are being built with the main objective of deploying satellites, could they be modified to perform moon-landing-type missions? It would mean that a) development of the necessary hardware wouldn't have to start from the ground up, and b) it isn't being built using 30 year old technology (based on maybe, but you catch my drift.)
I realise that the base model of rocket would have to be modfied to stick on the lunar module etc. but is this conceivable? I would just think that this would perhaps make any NASA, or any other space agency for that matter, prick up it's ears regarding picking up moon development where we left off a quarter-century ago.
The article mentions gaming-type courses also now being offered by MIT and NYU, but are there many (any?) instituitons that have been set up solely for gaming education. If memory serves me correctly there is a school recently opened in Brisbane, Australia for gaming education (requiring some sort of portfolio of previous work). So what about the US and elsewhere?
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, Visa USA was big into trying to roll out smart cards as well. I used to work for a start-up company that had a loyalty application to be used on the smart card, though we never got out of the pilot phase (for Target most notably). Visa USA's big push was because of the increased security, and hoped that loyalty would be the killer app to get it out in the marketplace.
That's true. If he was "almost anonymous", I'd hope they'd just call him "Gavin".
In my first job out of University, I was a programmer (not an operator) for the R&D division of a multinational that dealt with mainframes. At 22, not only was I a mainframe systems programmer, but most of the work I was doing wasn't on MVS (the IBM flagship mainfram OS), but VSE, the evil, hunchbacked midget brother of MVS.
Trust me: ugly. Nasty, nasty, nasty. As other people have pointed out, I didn't do any mainframe courses at University. What I did at this job was read a _lot_ of IBM manuals, and attend a bunch of IBM courses.
For those that know the territory, I even went on a JCL (Job Control Language) course.
Basically, for those people used to working and developing in the modern GUI and development tool environment - run in fear. The other people I worked with though pointed out that if you knew this stuff, you would always have a job. Something which this article seems to be higlighting.
I must point out that in hindsight it was very good experience. Being taught to read mainframe dumps, and having to deal with things every day on the bit and byte level was a great foundation for my continued career.
I also bailed from the company after being there for just over one year, wanting to get out of the mainfram environment. And trust me - being an operator is WAAAAAY less interesting than being a systems programmer.
One of the models of payment described in the article ( where you can bid for computer resources ), was described in a novel by Greg Egan called "Permutation City". In it there is a central exchange where you can bid for computer time for intensive tasks. At one point a woman who is using a simulation requiring extra computer cycles gets "bumped off", 'cause a consortium has out-bidded everyone at ludicrously high rates.
A good book (for other reasons as well). Unfortunately I managed to leave it in a Sydney hotel room.
Cheers,
SuperG
I hope LaTex does replace HTML for one important reason: inbuilt support for LaTex is a really good argument I like to use when I'm explaining to an addled vi user why Emacs is better ;)
Ahhh, holy wars, how I love thee. A great way to break up a boring meeting...
Cheers,
SuperG
If you're really keen, a link to some info on Prolog is here.
I think it is true that Prolog is also neither "complete" or "correct", so caveat emptor. Oh, and you'll probably get the error "out of local stack" often - stupid infinite trees :P
Cheers,
SuperG
Greg Egan's book, "Diaspora", is set in the future, where a vast amount of people have "downloaded" themselves, and are now software agents. They discover that there is an incoming Gamma Ray burst occurring, and mount a diaspora, to flee the incoming tragedy.
As an aside, the gamma ray burst _is_ caused by two colliding celestial bodies (suns? can't remember), which are falling together faster than they should - this suggests underlying physics theorems which allow our intrepid heroes to escape to a different universe.
Of course I'm not proposing that (at least, not yet!), but currently we do we have the resources to go "We've got 5 years to get off this planet!!", and do it? How about 10? 20?
Anyway, check out Greg Egan's work. He is an Aussie, from Perth, and has written other books which should especially appeal to slashdot readers, including "Permutation City", and "Distress".
Cheers,
SuperG
OK, here is some stuff I know about the DOS you mentioned. The DOS (disk operating system) came after TOS (tape operating system). It was out there before OS/360 etc. and instead of dying, continued on. DOS/VSE became VSE/ESA (eventually), and, believe it or not, VSE/ESA 2.4 was released last year!
AFAIK, IBM wanted VSE to die, so as to allow the OS/390 juggernaut to take up these users - but people a) seem to like the primitive VSE (yeah, the cylinder/track thing is f%$^&ing annoying), and b) if someone is going to switch from VSE - they might not go to another mainframe OS.
The VSE development is now done in Germany(?) if I recall correctly - some IBM politics is involved here as well..
OK, advance warning - I saw this on TV, and have done no research whatsoever, but apparently Bill Gates (again, unsure whther he has gone through a "real" company eg. Microsoft to do this) has purchased the broadcasting rights for English Premier League soccer. They used to be owned by Murdoch's Sky B (if I remember correctly).
I seem to recall he also has part-ownership of Aston Villa as well.
Now, this could either be cause:
a) it's cool
b) content for broadcasting (set-top boxes anyone)
c) so TimeWarner/AOL can't have it
d) so Murdoch can't have it
e) wants to target new product "Microsoft Hooligan" to English soccer lager louts
f) to pick up chicks
So maybe your comment is valid - maybe Gates has had enough......though I _do_ find it hard to believe...
Cheers,
SuperG
Actually, your mainframe comment was spot on - I have just clocked up one year at my first job out of university, which is working on mainframe system software. There _is_ a lot of money to be made, yet I'm starting a new job in three weeks.
;)
Why? For (some) of the reasons mentioned above: the mainframe area _is_ on the decline, though it will take a long time to disappear, and as this is my first job I don't want to be "trapped" into one over-specific category. I have learnt an absolute truckload about being a coder, and about work in general, but I feel like I have learnt a large slice of any "general" knowledge I can gain from here.
And after learning all that, I decided I wanted something else. For now.
Hope it turns out I guess
Cheers,
SuperG
P.S. MVS (OS/390) yeah done that. Have you heard of VSE/ESA though? FEAR
Hope this guy is ready for the slashdot effect on his project - not only massive number of additions, but the trolls etc. adding their favourite beastiality sites.
Actually, come to think of it, he'll probably be able to use the project as the basis for a phD thesis on the mind of the 'net geek...
Cheers,
SuperG
I think you're right. I thought that their record label was pissed: are Public Enemy now on their own label?
Someone else may remember the details more clearly, but I seem to recall that a couple of years ago PUblic enemy posted their new album in mp3 format on their website for download something like a month before it actually went to stores. It's great to see Chuck D continuing to fight Recording Industry fascism (OK, allow me some hyperbole here). Public Enemy: Not just lyrics, a lifestyle.
Whether the adaption of "Snowcrash" comes to fruition or not, there is always that danger in adapting "cult" books like "Snowcrash" (OK, you might disagree with my loose use of cult, but you get the idea). The only way it will work is by somehow creating a perfect movie, because any way you do it, I can guarantee you're going to have a legion of pissed off fans of the book, angry at the adaption. "Johnny Mnemonic" anyone? (Yeah, it was a bad movie any way you look at it.....a bit of a loaded example).
Worst of all is adapting a sci-fi novel, as the image presented is _never_ going to match what people visualise by the text itself....What do _you_ think the Metaverse looks like? How about the Ringworld? Rama? (Yeah "Bladerunner" was an awesome adaption of "Do androids dream of electric sheep", but the novel was more about atmosphere anyway....and though a cool novel, it didn't quite have the status of "Snowcrash" at the time - feel free to disagree with me here).
Anyway, if the "Neuromancer" and "Snowcrash" projects end up coming to fruition, I hope they kick ass. Classic sci-fi films are generally thin on the ground.....
Cheers,
SuperG
This really reminds me of Douglas Coupland's book, "Microserfs", when a bunch of geeks defect from MS to write "Oop!", an object-oriented lego style program.....if this CAD program is anywhere near as cool as that, I'm _very_ interested.
Cheers,
SuperG
It might help if they stopped insisting on running their systems with NT.....
Cheers,
SuperG
I can see it now....
Male Lovegety profile:
Good sense of humour [x]
Caring [x]
Obsessive [ ]
Large Income [x]
Ex-wife [ ]
Children [ ]
Romantic [x]
Large penis [x]
Cheers,
SuperG
This article was interesting, and made some valid points, but all in all, I don't think it's going to matter. As the author states, figures being thrown around relating to e-commerce are just too large for any government to resist. No matter what is said by "experts", the government will have a tilt at reaping tax revenue, and only after probably throwing large amounts of money at the problem of collecting such tax will it be seen to not be a possible, or even a financially viable proposition.
Call me paranoid, but I can't but think that Intel would like to keep tabs on what their employees use their machines for. Since they are Pentium III's maybe they'll ensure that the chip ID number (which had everyone annoyed when it first came out) locked on. Hopefully not, but you can only trust a multinational as far as you can throw it.
A comment may receive more moderator points than it takes to get to 5. This probably happens because it is intended (for such a situation as this, or also because it is possible for a moderator to use "redundant" etc. flags to lessen the score after the fact), rather than a bug (where multiple moderators are moderating on a page - while they are doing this a comment they will moderate up is set to 5, so they add superfluous points).
We all know the _real_ question here:
Is plex86 is easier to say than VMWare?
plex-eight-e-six = 4 syllables
V-M-Ware = 3 syllables
followed by the tongue-twister-test:
Be scared and beware VMWare's fare.
Rexx and Beck's plex86 flex best.
No contest - plex86 is harder to say. Harder to type? Hmm..a closer call.
plex86 - mostly lowercase letters, but the numerics on the end complicate matters. plex876 plex86 plex86 plex76
VMWare - All letters, but the change in case (though in two sections), makes it harder to type. VMWare VMware VMWare VMware
Too close to call, obviously.
--Conclusion--
Well, VMWare has it, by virtue of being easier to pronounce.
Of course, the actual question was is it easier to remember? Is what easier to remember? If you're not going to make sense I'm going home *slam*
Whatever this guy's motives for squatting, they seem to be a trifle weird. Since he's apparently into open crypto, building a mailing list of "security-minded" people could work, I guess.
Hell, he might just be hoping to have a web page with a significant amount of customer through-put of people with interest in security, and then go sell it to anti-online or something. Since the openssh.com people mention they have offered him cash, I can only surmise he's after more than they were prepared to give.
Cheers,
SuperG
Every now and then someone mentions that at the moment it's not actually possible for man to land on the moon - and to do so would mean getting out the old Saturn V plans, and rebuilding 30 year old technology.
Now with this series of rocket being developed by these guys, despite the fact that they are being built with the main objective of deploying satellites, could they be modified to perform moon-landing-type missions? It would mean that a) development of the necessary hardware wouldn't have to start from the ground up, and b) it isn't being built using 30 year old technology (based on maybe, but you catch my drift.)
I realise that the base model of rocket would have to be modfied to stick on the lunar module etc. but is this conceivable? I would just think that this would perhaps make any NASA, or any other space agency for that matter, prick up it's ears regarding picking up moon development where we left off a quarter-century ago.
The article mentions gaming-type courses also now being offered by MIT and NYU, but are there many (any?) instituitons that have been set up solely for gaming education. If memory serves me correctly there is a school recently opened in Brisbane, Australia for gaming education (requiring some sort of portfolio of previous work). So what about the US and elsewhere?
From the links on the page:
Company Name: Microsoft Corporation
Name: Mr. Tux The penguin
Title: Linux Mascot
Email: tux@linux.org
Phone#: 555.1212
Fax#: 555.1212
Cheers,
SuperG