I haven't been to a movie theater in about a decade either, but that doesn't change the fact that there is still a huge market around Hollywood movies.
Indy films and the like are improving as the tech gets cheaper and distribution costs drops.. but lets not dilude ourselves into thinking this is making a huge impact yet. It's still a niche. Whether it makes one in the future, well, that's still up for argument... I'm thinking not in the near future, but I've been wrong before.
That's kind of the definition of a dinosaur though.
Yes, they made the Internet what it is today. Yes they went from nothing to huge. And now, they are in a position where they can just sit on their haunches and let the money pour in while using their established influence to keep competition at bay (and avoiding the need to innovate to stay competitive).
So, with other words, in your lifetime, say the next 10 years, there will be a great shift and changes of what media is, how to distribute it, how to pay it, and that model is simply not compatible with the current one.
And the established companies are going to do everything in their power to prevent all of that... and I think they are more able than people give them credit for. A big part of that will be driven by the internet.. which they control. Maybe things arn't as bleak as I think, but I don't think they are as rosy as you do;p
And all that said, with the growing popularity of "average guy" generated content and the massive lowering of the bar to get content out there.. people still want their multi-million dollar Hollywood flicks and TV shows.
In fact the crux of the issue was that the main provider wanted to increase those "reasonable fee's" to the point where 3rd party providers would pretty much have to do caps/usage based billing to stay out of the red. The CRTC, which is supposed to prevent that kind of thing, said "sounds good". It came really damn close to happening, but got effectively vetoed at the last stages by our government due to massive public outcry.
I would guess that it's just as easy for a very large percentage of people.
Personally I cut the cable a long time ago.. but I don't watch sport. From talking to a few friends who do watch sports, this seems to be the big reason you still need cable.
But even for regular TV viewing, the big problem (at least here in Canada) was the rates and caps they were planning would have essentially limit edyou to a few shows a month... which I think is the plan. Make watching movies and TV shows over the internet so ludicrously expensive that it doesn't make sense. There are definitely a few people (like me) who don't watch much over the current offering anyway and can do without, but there are a lot of people who can't/won't.
This has been on the horizon for some time here in Canada. We came damn close recently (but massive public outrage managed to stop it), but they are talking about it yet again.
I wish we could just skip through this long painful phase where the established dinosaurs hold back natural progress for as long as possible. We all know this is the future.. and it annoys me that I may not actually see in my lifetime things we could be doing from a technological standpoint right now because some huge established companies refuse to adapt or get out of the way and have the piles of money and armies of lawyers/lobbyists to keep it up for decades.
Honestly, while I don’t have much faith in governments doing things properly nor illusions that it wouldn’t be influenced.. I think at this point I’d love to see Internet access become a government run utility.
Or more likely, just refuse to collect garbage with substantial compostable materials.
We have a composing program here and it works fine. As a Canadian, the standard selfish American "fuck that shit" response to this kind of stuff is always humorous. I mean my god.. when you eat a banana, you toss the peel into a different bin. Tiny bit of effort, huge benifits to everyone! American response: "HAWR I PAY TAXES WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO DO THAT SHIT!!"
They FAIL to realize the power of dynamically typed UI.
What would non-geeks actually use that for?
For that matter, how many people actually use their computer for much beyond a communications device. Writing reports, preparing presentations, reading/sending email, talking on facebook, and viewing/publishing info on the web... that's most of what people use their computers for, and very little of that is aided substantially by a dynamic UI.
Maybe an argument for number crunching.. but there is Excel for that.
As developers we want our users to want the same things we do.. but they don't.
As a developer my first instinct was to baulk.. but I've come to accept that Excel can be pretty useful for ultra simple business "apps". Most business-y stuff revolves around tables of numbers anyway.. throw a little VB logic in there and you can get a lot done for very little effort (and you won't even miss that chunk of inner child).
Sad/annoying/depressing thing is.. he was kinda right.
I'm definitely no fan of Steve Jobs or Apple.. but I have to admit they identified the subset of functionality that most people wanted and nailed it. It sucks that powerful computers full of potential are being replaced with locked down portable facebook appliances.. but that's what most people want.
I've come to accept that what is best for most users, best for software in general, hell best for technology in general tends to directly conflict with the way I personally want things to work.
Web apps, "the cloud", computers being replaced with media appliances, software development being more about understanding all the existing technologies out there and how to glue them together than doing actual problem solving (big time if you've done the Java thing but even our venerable c++ is going that way), software as a service.. all things I hate, but I get that this is the result of the universe evolving itself into something that makes more sense.
Dunno how complicated your backup process is, but we are talking from one line (rsync or dd) to a few dozen lines at most here for the actual backup.. a few lines for the verification.. and finally a call to dban (or whatever) to wipe the disk. I could have written that script in the time it took me to write this reply. Testing and minor corrections will take a few hours to a day or so realistically.. but certainly not years.
Then it's just a matter of plugging that script into one of many live cd distros (there are several that pretty much have a "put your stuff here" file).
If he had to create the live cd distro from scratch your point might have merit.. but this has all already been done for you. Hell Debian even has a "build your own live cd" web app that lets you select what additional packages you want to include, and generates the ISO for you.
When I "discontinue" one of my boxes, I just shut it down, boot up a live cd, mount my NFS share (I have an internal file server), and dd the whole hard drive to it.
I then use the "convert from raw" feature of virtual box to create a new virtual hard drive. Create a new virtual machine using that hard drive.. and done.
Obviously this is an "at home" solution, and I don't intend to actually use the virtual machine (it's just for backup).. and is being done offline.
I'll just add, verification of the backups is probably a good idea before you wipe.
For actually wiping the drive, would be just as easy to have something like DBAN on the livecd (and would alleviate any Gutmann inspired paranoia on the part of management/policy/requirements)
It could get tricky with the Live boot automation. Computer have a wide variety of drives, IDE, SCSI, SATA, Flash. You would have to write a very comprehensive script to cover all possibilities. If it gets stuck, it could be set up to log the problem to a central server. Sounds complicated but you need to do a rough estimate tradeoff between developing a solution like this may outweigh the time it would take to manually back up and wipe 100s of machines.
I guess it depends on how diverse their setup is. If it's a really diverse setup I can see it getting complicated. Would also depend on how they are doing the backup (just imaging the disks should be straight forward, especially with newer versions of udev that handle most of that variety for you). If you need to be mounting partitions and stuff.. then yeah, gets a little more complicated).
I'll do agree that the benifits of this need to be calculated vs just doing it manually. People always do underestimate how long it takes to develop a solution like this. It will take some research, some implementation, troubleshooting, and finally testing.. and it will still take time for the process to run on each box (although now you can do parallel). If we are only talking 10 or 20 boxes, probably not worth it.
If this is just for their own paranoia, then yeah, I agree.
However they are probably trying to be compliant with some standard/requirement (the backup makes me think that).. in which case it is probably mandated that they have to use a tool from some approved list with a minimum number of wipes.
Don’t know of any off the shelf software that does this, but should be easy to homebrew if you have the available skill set.
At the very simplest, you could probably build a custom livecd linux distro to automate the process after plugging in the machine and inserting the CD/pendrive. It’s not as complicated as it sounds if you base it off an existing livecd distro!
More complex, you could do PXE if the boxes are capable/configured for it (if not, probably more effort to change the bios settings than it would be to plug in the CD).
You’re probably content just with the backed up files, but I’ll also throw out there that I’ve found a very effective way to back up old machines/drives is to convert them into virtual disk files. Lets you boot up the old machine in a VM and poke around should the need arise. (disclaimer: I’m a dev not a sysadmin, so this is purely from “at home” experience).
I think there's a large difference between understanding what your customer needs/wants and being able to seek out/do business with said customer. The first part, yes, crutial for good software, the second one not so much.
It seems like most people, especially geeks, want to take the easy route and try get a job. Being self-employed or running a business isn't all that hard and it is much more rewarding, especially for a computer geek now in internet age.
Guilty!
I hate marketing stuff, I hate business stuff, and I really hate "networking".. what I love is building software. I'm happy to be able to come in, do my thing, and let someone else worry about all that other shit. Long as I'm reasonably well treated and paid... I'm happy being a wage slave.
I suspect the same is true of most geeks. As a community we are not known for wanting to wear suits, speak in buzzwords, work with excel and powerpoint, etc. Some pull it off, and some even enjoy it, but I think for the most part we like to be in the background doing our thing while the "suits" figure out how to make money from it.
Personally, as a software developer who feels fairly comfortable administering a surprisingly complex home network, I know jack all about maintaining a large multi-user multi-service environment where downtime costs money... and I know it!
(2) The flip side, you end up with an IT department that has too much process. Change control processes that take forever to work through. Security czars that summarily approve/deny requests. See this in mega-corps and smaller corps that like to pretend they're megacorps.
This would be my objection and really what I was thinking about when writing my original post. Worked for a mega-corp (that actually was a mega-corp) that had a painfully slow process for getting new software on our machines. I get that there are all manner of considerations and people are always worried about "support costs" (god I hated hearing that phrase) and they can't just give everyone root access and let them manager their own shit.. but when you are under stress and a tight deadline and everything is being held up while IT is contemplating the enterprise wide implications of installing and maintaining some tool... it's impossible for a geek to _not_ go down the "I could have this installed in 5 minutes" route in their mind..
Users can be real dicks.. but so can IT guys. Yes it's the IT departments job to keep the system running and secure.. but the whole point of that system is so everyone else can do their work. When IT starts unreasonably hindering that, you see the hostility build.
This is especially true in software shops, where everyone tends to be fairly technically literate and have unusual needs for their systems.
Slashdot Mirror
I haven't been to a movie theater in about a decade either, but that doesn't change the fact that there is still a huge market around Hollywood movies.
Indy films and the like are improving as the tech gets cheaper and distribution costs drops.. but lets not dilude ourselves into thinking this is making a huge impact yet. It's still a niche. Whether it makes one in the future, well, that's still up for argument... I'm thinking not in the near future, but I've been wrong before.
That's kind of the definition of a dinosaur though.
Yes, they made the Internet what it is today. Yes they went from nothing to huge. And now, they are in a position where they can just sit on their haunches and let the money pour in while using their established influence to keep competition at bay (and avoiding the need to innovate to stay competitive).
So, with other words, in your lifetime, say the next 10 years, there will be a great shift and changes of what media is, how to distribute it, how to pay it, and that model is simply not compatible with the current one.
And the established companies are going to do everything in their power to prevent all of that... and I think they are more able than people give them credit for. A big part of that will be driven by the internet.. which they control. Maybe things arn't as bleak as I think, but I don't think they are as rosy as you do ;p
And all that said, with the growing popularity of "average guy" generated content and the massive lowering of the bar to get content out there.. people still want their multi-million dollar Hollywood flicks and TV shows.
That's actually very close to what we have here.
In fact the crux of the issue was that the main provider wanted to increase those "reasonable fee's" to the point where 3rd party providers would pretty much have to do caps/usage based billing to stay out of the red. The CRTC, which is supposed to prevent that kind of thing, said "sounds good". It came really damn close to happening, but got effectively vetoed at the last stages by our government due to massive public outcry.
I would guess that it's just as easy for a very large percentage of people.
Personally I cut the cable a long time ago.. but I don't watch sport. From talking to a few friends who do watch sports, this seems to be the big reason you still need cable.
But even for regular TV viewing, the big problem (at least here in Canada) was the rates and caps they were planning would have essentially limit edyou to a few shows a month... which I think is the plan. Make watching movies and TV shows over the internet so ludicrously expensive that it doesn't make sense. There are definitely a few people (like me) who don't watch much over the current offering anyway and can do without, but there are a lot of people who can't/won't.
This has been on the horizon for some time here in Canada. We came damn close recently (but massive public outrage managed to stop it), but they are talking about it yet again.
I wish we could just skip through this long painful phase where the established dinosaurs hold back natural progress for as long as possible. We all know this is the future.. and it annoys me that I may not actually see in my lifetime things we could be doing from a technological standpoint right now because some huge established companies refuse to adapt or get out of the way and have the piles of money and armies of lawyers/lobbyists to keep it up for decades.
Honestly, while I don’t have much faith in governments doing things properly nor illusions that it wouldn’t be influenced.. I think at this point I’d love to see Internet access become a government run utility.
I fight (and surprisingly, I actually won once) stuff that makes no sense.. but this did make sense and has since proven to be successful.
Or more likely, just refuse to collect garbage with substantial compostable materials.
We have a composing program here and it works fine. As a Canadian, the standard selfish American "fuck that shit" response to this kind of stuff is always humorous. I mean my god.. when you eat a banana, you toss the peel into a different bin. Tiny bit of effort, huge benifits to everyone! American response: "HAWR I PAY TAXES WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO DO THAT SHIT!!"
Damn slashdot!
* My friends: "yeah we did that in the <whatever> branch.. lemme know if it doesn't make sense!"
I find replying to those people slow, because I go into full on uptight mode and agonize over every paragraph.
My friends: "yeah we did that in the branch.. lemme know if it doesn't make sense!"
They FAIL to realize the power of dynamically typed UI.
What would non-geeks actually use that for?
For that matter, how many people actually use their computer for much beyond a communications device. Writing reports, preparing presentations, reading/sending email, talking on facebook, and viewing/publishing info on the web... that's most of what people use their computers for, and very little of that is aided substantially by a dynamic UI.
Maybe an argument for number crunching .. but there is Excel for that.
As developers we want our users to want the same things we do.. but they don't.
Or Excel.
As a developer my first instinct was to baulk.. but I've come to accept that Excel can be pretty useful for ultra simple business "apps". Most business-y stuff revolves around tables of numbers anyway.. throw a little VB logic in there and you can get a lot done for very little effort (and you won't even miss that chunk of inner child).
Sad/annoying/depressing thing is.. he was kinda right.
I'm definitely no fan of Steve Jobs or Apple .. but I have to admit they identified the subset of functionality that most people wanted and nailed it. It sucks that powerful computers full of potential are being replaced with locked down portable facebook appliances .. but that's what most people want.
With you, and it sucks.
I've come to accept that what is best for most users, best for software in general, hell best for technology in general tends to directly conflict with the way I personally want things to work.
Web apps, "the cloud", computers being replaced with media appliances, software development being more about understanding all the existing technologies out there and how to glue them together than doing actual problem solving (big time if you've done the Java thing but even our venerable c++ is going that way), software as a service .. all things I hate, but I get that this is the result of the universe evolving itself into something that makes more sense.
Maybe this is the college kid... ;p
Seriously...
Dunno how complicated your backup process is, but we are talking from one line (rsync or dd) to a few dozen lines at most here for the actual backup.. a few lines for the verification.. and finally a call to dban (or whatever) to wipe the disk. I could have written that script in the time it took me to write this reply. Testing and minor corrections will take a few hours to a day or so realistically.. but certainly not years.
Then it's just a matter of plugging that script into one of many live cd distros (there are several that pretty much have a "put your stuff here" file).
If he had to create the live cd distro from scratch your point might have merit .. but this has all already been done for you. Hell Debian even has a "build your own live cd" web app that lets you select what additional packages you want to include, and generates the ISO for you.
When I "discontinue" one of my boxes, I just shut it down, boot up a live cd, mount my NFS share (I have an internal file server), and dd the whole hard drive to it.
I then use the "convert from raw" feature of virtual box to create a new virtual hard drive. Create a new virtual machine using that hard drive.. and done.
Obviously this is an "at home" solution, and I don't intend to actually use the virtual machine (it's just for backup) .. and is being done offline.
I'll just add, verification of the backups is probably a good idea before you wipe.
For actually wiping the drive, would be just as easy to have something like DBAN on the livecd (and would alleviate any Gutmann inspired paranoia on the part of management/policy/requirements)
It could get tricky with the Live boot automation. Computer have a wide variety of drives, IDE, SCSI, SATA, Flash. You would have to write a very comprehensive script to cover all possibilities. If it gets stuck, it could be set up to log the problem to a central server. Sounds complicated but you need to do a rough estimate tradeoff between developing a solution like this may outweigh the time it would take to manually back up and wipe 100s of machines.
I guess it depends on how diverse their setup is. If it's a really diverse setup I can see it getting complicated. Would also depend on how they are doing the backup (just imaging the disks should be straight forward, especially with newer versions of udev that handle most of that variety for you). If you need to be mounting partitions and stuff.. then yeah, gets a little more complicated).
I'll do agree that the benifits of this need to be calculated vs just doing it manually. People always do underestimate how long it takes to develop a solution like this. It will take some research, some implementation, troubleshooting, and finally testing.. and it will still take time for the process to run on each box (although now you can do parallel). If we are only talking 10 or 20 boxes, probably not worth it.
If this is just for their own paranoia, then yeah, I agree.
However they are probably trying to be compliant with some standard/requirement (the backup makes me think that).. in which case it is probably mandated that they have to use a tool from some approved list with a minimum number of wipes.
Don’t know of any off the shelf software that does this, but should be easy to homebrew if you have the available skill set.
At the very simplest, you could probably build a custom livecd linux distro to automate the process after plugging in the machine and inserting the CD/pendrive. It’s not as complicated as it sounds if you base it off an existing livecd distro!
More complex, you could do PXE if the boxes are capable/configured for it (if not, probably more effort to change the bios settings than it would be to plug in the CD).
You’re probably content just with the backed up files, but I’ll also throw out there that I’ve found a very effective way to back up old machines/drives is to convert them into virtual disk files. Lets you boot up the old machine in a VM and poke around should the need arise. (disclaimer: I’m a dev not a sysadmin, so this is purely from “at home” experience).
I think there's a large difference between understanding what your customer needs/wants and being able to seek out/do business with said customer. The first part, yes, crutial for good software, the second one not so much.
It seems like most people, especially geeks, want to take the easy route and try get a job. Being self-employed or running a business isn't all that hard and it is much more rewarding, especially for a computer geek now in internet age.
Guilty!
I hate marketing stuff, I hate business stuff, and I really hate "networking" .. what I love is building software. I'm happy to be able to come in, do my thing, and let someone else worry about all that other shit. Long as I'm reasonably well treated and paid... I'm happy being a wage slave.
I suspect the same is true of most geeks. As a community we are not known for wanting to wear suits, speak in buzzwords, work with excel and powerpoint, etc. Some pull it off, and some even enjoy it, but I think for the most part we like to be in the background doing our thing while the "suits" figure out how to make money from it.
I can't really argue with any of that.
Personally, as a software developer who feels fairly comfortable administering a surprisingly complex home network, I know jack all about maintaining a large multi-user multi-service environment where downtime costs money... and I know it!
(2) The flip side, you end up with an IT department that has too much process. Change control processes that take forever to work through. Security czars that summarily approve/deny requests. See this in mega-corps and smaller corps that like to pretend they're megacorps.
This would be my objection and really what I was thinking about when writing my original post. Worked for a mega-corp (that actually was a mega-corp) that had a painfully slow process for getting new software on our machines. I get that there are all manner of considerations and people are always worried about "support costs" (god I hated hearing that phrase) and they can't just give everyone root access and let them manager their own shit.. but when you are under stress and a tight deadline and everything is being held up while IT is contemplating the enterprise wide implications of installing and maintaining some tool... it's impossible for a geek to _not_ go down the "I could have this installed in 5 minutes" route in their mind..
Yup.. works both ways.
Users can be real dicks.. but so can IT guys. Yes it's the IT departments job to keep the system running and secure.. but the whole point of that system is so everyone else can do their work. When IT starts unreasonably hindering that, you see the hostility build.
This is especially true in software shops, where everyone tends to be fairly technically literate and have unusual needs for their systems.