the word here in the Denver area is that the top people in US West will stay at the top after the merge.
Fortunately that's not the case. While it was officially billed as a merger of equals, the reality is that Qwest took over USW. That's fine by me; the service couldn't get any worse.
Check out this article in the Rocky Mountain News. (Near the end it talks about it being a takeover.)
I can say that US West is by far the worst major telco out there.
Amen to that! Given that Denver is USW's headquarters, I'm continuously amazed at how bad the high-speed internet infrastructure is here. And don't even get me started on all the problems I've had with my home phone service.........
The French on the other hand will condescendingly switch to English should only your accent be slightly off (ok, not really, but you get the point).
Hmm... I didn't consider that to be condenscending. I guess it's a matter of what you're expecting. I went to Paris figuring they wouldn't give me the time of day just because I was American. My thought at the time was, "Hey, they're being nice to me because I made the effort to speak French." I didn't really mind the switch to English though, because my French really isn't that good. I felt the people who didn't switch to English were remarkably patient given how I'm sure I was butchering their language.
Paris is very welcoming to people (Americans included) who approach it with an open mind and don't expect everything to be just like it is in Peoria.
I'll agree with that. I was in Paris back in '94, and I was very pleasantly surprised at how polite they were. Granted, I can hack my way through French, which I'm sure helped. In almost every case, I would initiate the conversation in French, and then they would reply in English!
(1) HOW COME YOU DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH?
Unfortunately, Americans, as a general rule, tend to assume that everyone speaks English. When I was in Europe (except in France - see above), I would first ask, "Do you speak English?" You would be amazed at how far that would get you! If an American initiates a conversation in English, all that does is perpetuate the stereotype that we're arrogant.
It was the Unix part (specifically stuff that came from Sun, not really Unix's fault)
Wasn't Sun's fault either. Yes, the system that went down was an E10K, and yes, it was a bug in Solaris that caused the outage, but the bug was already known, and there was a patch for it available before the outage occured. eBay's admin(s) simply neglected to install the patch.
It's ok. Not great by any stretch of the imagination, but just ok. The history was interesting, but some of the storyline was just appalling. The way Liet became part of the Fremen (as georgeha mentioned) was one. The way Duncan Idaho escaped from the Harkonnens was another. I just couldn't believe what a contrived tale I was reading.
The book does shed some more light on some of the other cultures in the Dune universe, such as House Corrino, the Guild Navigators, and the planets Ix and Caladan. So if you're into that sort of thing, it would probably be worth a read.
Supposedly, House Harkonnen will be out in the next year or so.
Great answer! At the risk of being redundant. This sounds like typical FUD tactics to compete against the Playstation 2. For a history of the relationship between M$ and Sony, check out Cringely's article. It's obvious M$ is afraid of losing the set-top box war with Sony, so the FUD machine is in high gear.
Until there's an actual box on their web site, this will be vaporware as far as I'm concerned.
Get the libc5 version of netscape. It doesn't crash. Ever. I mean it.
That is absolutely not true. I'm running the glibc2 version of 4.72 on 2.2.12, and it crashes almost daily. Granted, most of the crashes are due to java problems, but there is a web page that simply by resizing the window, I can make ns crash every single time, and no, it doesn't have any java parts.
The author makes a good point about the GUI working out of the box. While X is easy to use, configuring X can be a pain in the ass. Both 5.1 and 6.1 of RedHat's installation program configured my monitor incorrectly. With 6.1 I was able to rerun Xconfigurator, and on 5.1 I had to manually edit the config file.
Personally, if I were Sun, I would make pretty damn sure that one my highest profile customers had installed the patch, if it had even the slightest chance of causing a problem.
While that's great in theory, it's not feasable, for a couple of reasons:
1. Like you said, there are hundreds of patches for Solaris available, especially for the older OS's such as 2.5.1, but not all of them are "recommended" (i.e. you damn well better install them). Most of them fall under the category of "if you experience problem X, install patch Y."
2. Sun can pressure and posture as much as they want, but they can't force a customer to install a particular patch, regardless of how important it may be. The best they can do is say, "Hey, we've seen this problem before, and it's serious. You'd better install this patch." But that still doesn't mean the customer will install it.
But, anyways, if the situation was reversed, and eBay was running Microsoft, and experienced a crash (due to not installing a patch), I am certain that 99.44% of Slashdot readers would blame Microsoft, and Microsoft only
I'm not disputing that point, nor did I in my previous post. In fact, I would agree with you that Sun has gotten off easier than M$ in the security/patch/PR war. My main point in both of these posts (and I think you'd agree with me on this) is that the vendor can only do so much to enable a customer to set up a secure/stable site.
All of the problems which eBay has had are bugs in Solaris. When eBay had problems there were SUN engineers on site to fix the problems.
True, however yet again the issue comes down to whether or not the SA/DBA had decided to install the patch(es) which would have fixed a known problem.
The eBay outage you refer to was the result of a known problem that Sun had a patch for, but eBay didn't/wouldn't install the patch. So whose fault was the outage? Sun's?? Considering the fix was available but not implemented, I don't think so. eBay was clearly at fault on that one.
>please, tell me why. why does it need a standard GUI?
It needs a standard GUI, not for the power users and techno weenies like us, but for the average, non-technical user base. Netscape, Applix, Star Office, and the WM itself all look different, and it confuses the average user. I've seen this first hand.
Having multiple "standard" UI's also reinforces the impression that Linux is fragmented. The average user is not going to see all those UI's and say, "Wow, look how customizable Linux is!" They're going to think, "Geez, every Linux box I see has a different interface. I wonder if they're compatible." Are they going to make the effort to find out? Probably not. They're going to get drawn towards the least common denominator: Windoze.
Yes the Windoze UI sucks, but every application looks and acts the same in its own sucky way.
Should the ability to customize one's GUI remain? Absolutely! But there should be a single starting point for everyone, and all the Linux distros should have that GUI as its default.
> It get really really old... to see the same misinterpretation....
What's to misinterpret? In the wired article mentioned in the previous post, Gore is quoted as saying "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." OK, so he didn't say he invented it, but he certainly implies that he was there at the beginning and had an active (relevant) role in it.
To quote further from the same article, "In 1969, the Defense Department commissioned the ARPANET." "It would be eight more years before Gore would be elected to the US House of Representatives as a freshman Democrat"
The timelines aren't even close; you can't even give him the benefit of the doubt.
Gore is misleading the American public. There's just no other way to interpret it.
> I think what we really need is plugin support for all the fancy stuff that works on windows.
Damn straight we do. That's the biggest (only?) drawback to surfing on Linux. I've gotten my wife to prefer Linux over Windoze ("Linux never crashes! That's so cool!"), but every once in a while, she stumbles across a site that requires a plugin that's only available on Lose9X.
IMHO, having plugins are way more important than multiple browser choices. In fact, you could argue that plugins could help make a big push for Linux on the desktop.
Installing Solaris has been fairly straightforward since at least 2.5.1, and both 2.6 and 7 will install in an hour as well. Granted, Solaris does not come with a C compiler or Apache, but the Apache binary can be downloaded.
Slashdot Mirror
the word here in the Denver area is that the top people in US West will stay at the top after the merge.
Fortunately that's not the case. While it was officially billed as a merger of equals, the reality is that Qwest took over USW. That's fine by me; the service couldn't get any worse.
Check out this article in the Rocky Mountain News. (Near the end it talks about it being a takeover.)
I can say that US West is by far the worst major telco out there.
Amen to that! Given that Denver is USW's headquarters, I'm continuously amazed at how bad the high-speed internet infrastructure is here. And don't even get me started on all the problems I've had with my home phone service.........
What's Cape Town like? Both crime- and IT-wise. Some family traveled there a while back. That whole south coast (Garden Route) looked gorgeous.
(The stories I heard about Jo'berg made my skin crawl.........)
The French on the other hand will condescendingly switch to English should only your accent be slightly off (ok, not really, but you get the point).
Hmm... I didn't consider that to be condenscending. I guess it's a matter of what you're expecting. I went to Paris figuring they wouldn't give me the time of day just because I was American. My thought at the time was, "Hey, they're being nice to me because I made the effort to speak French." I didn't really mind the switch to English though, because my French really isn't that good. I felt the people who didn't switch to English were remarkably patient given how I'm sure I was butchering their language.
Paris is very welcoming to people (Americans included) who approach it with an open mind and don't expect everything to be just like it is in Peoria.
I'll agree with that. I was in Paris back in '94, and I was very pleasantly surprised at how polite they were. Granted, I can hack my way through French, which I'm sure helped. In almost every case, I would initiate the conversation in French, and then they would reply in English!
(1) HOW COME YOU DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH?
Unfortunately, Americans, as a general rule, tend to assume that everyone speaks English. When I was in Europe (except in France - see above), I would first ask, "Do you speak English?" You would be amazed at how far that would get you! If an American initiates a conversation in English, all that does is perpetuate the stereotype that we're arrogant.
Both Thursday and Friday. Check out this story at Wired.
Oy Vey. Here we go again........
It was the Unix part (specifically stuff that came from Sun, not really Unix's fault)
Wasn't Sun's fault either. Yes, the system that went down was an E10K, and yes, it was a bug in Solaris that caused the outage, but the bug was already known, and there was a patch for it available before the outage occured. eBay's admin(s) simply neglected to install the patch.
It's ok. Not great by any stretch of the imagination, but just ok. The history was interesting, but some of the storyline was just appalling. The way Liet became part of the Fremen (as georgeha mentioned) was one. The way Duncan Idaho escaped from the Harkonnens was another. I just couldn't believe what a contrived tale I was reading.
The book does shed some more light on some of the other cultures in the Dune universe, such as House Corrino, the Guild Navigators, and the planets Ix and Caladan. So if you're into that sort of thing, it would probably be worth a read.
Supposedly, House Harkonnen will be out in the next year or so.
Great answer! At the risk of being redundant. This sounds like typical FUD tactics to compete against the Playstation 2. For a history of the relationship between M$ and Sony, check out Cringely's article. It's obvious M$ is afraid of losing the set-top box war with Sony, so the FUD machine is in high gear.
Until there's an actual box on their web site, this will be vaporware as far as I'm concerned.
Ah crap! Ignore my previous post. Looks like I need new glasses.........
Get the libc5 version of netscape. It doesn't crash. Ever. I mean it.
That is absolutely not true. I'm running the glibc2 version of 4.72 on 2.2.12, and it crashes almost daily. Granted, most of the crashes are due to java problems, but there is a web page that simply by resizing the window, I can make ns crash every single time, and no, it doesn't have any java parts.
What I'm looking forward to is seeing how Mozilla will be intergrated into Gnome.
You mean how IE was "integrated" into Lose98? No thanks.
The author makes a good point about the GUI working out of the box. While X is easy to use, configuring X can be a pain in the ass. Both 5.1 and 6.1 of RedHat's installation program configured my monitor incorrectly. With 6.1 I was able to rerun Xconfigurator, and on 5.1 I had to manually edit the config file.
I know this is off topic, but whatever happened to the Q&A with Larry Augustin?
Personally, if I were Sun, I would make pretty damn sure that one my highest profile customers had installed the patch, if it had even the slightest chance of causing a problem.
While that's great in theory, it's not feasable, for a couple of reasons:
1. Like you said, there are hundreds of patches for Solaris available, especially for the older OS's such as 2.5.1, but not all of them are "recommended" (i.e. you damn well better install them). Most of them fall under the category of "if you experience problem X, install patch Y."
2. Sun can pressure and posture as much as they want, but they can't force a customer to install a particular patch, regardless of how important it may be. The best they can do is say, "Hey, we've seen this problem before, and it's serious. You'd better install this patch." But that still doesn't mean the customer will install it.
But, anyways, if the situation was reversed, and eBay was running Microsoft, and experienced a crash (due to not installing a patch), I am certain that 99.44% of Slashdot readers would blame Microsoft, and Microsoft only
I'm not disputing that point, nor did I in my previous post. In fact, I would agree with you that Sun has gotten off easier than M$ in the security/patch/PR war. My main point in both of these posts (and I think you'd agree with me on this) is that the vendor can only do so much to enable a customer to set up a secure/stable site.
All of the problems which eBay has had are bugs in Solaris. When eBay had problems there were SUN engineers on site to fix the problems.
True, however yet again the issue comes down to whether or not the SA/DBA had decided to install the patch(es) which would have fixed a known problem.
The eBay outage you refer to was the result of a known problem that Sun had a patch for, but eBay didn't/wouldn't install the patch. So whose fault was the outage? Sun's?? Considering the fix was available but not implemented, I don't think so. eBay was clearly at fault on that one.
Let's have that fight some other time, okay?
Works for me. I wasn't intending to start a holy war. I was genuinely curious.
Larry Wall mentions in the article that just having the GPL prevented people from using Perl, and that's why he added the Artistic License.
What are the limitations with the GPL that he was concerned with?
>please, tell me why. why does it need a standard GUI?
It needs a standard GUI, not for the power users and techno weenies like us, but for the average, non-technical user base. Netscape, Applix, Star Office, and the WM itself all look different, and it confuses the average user. I've seen this first hand.
Having multiple "standard" UI's also reinforces the impression that Linux is fragmented. The average user is not going to see all those UI's and say, "Wow, look how customizable Linux is!" They're going to think, "Geez, every Linux box I see has a different interface. I wonder if they're compatible." Are they going to make the effort to find out? Probably not. They're going to get drawn towards the least common denominator: Windoze.
Yes the Windoze UI sucks, but every application looks and acts the same in its own sucky way.
Should the ability to customize one's GUI remain? Absolutely! But there should be a single starting point for everyone, and all the Linux distros should have that GUI as its default.
> the pages seem to load slower than ever nowadays!
Here here!! Ain't that the friggin truth!
> It get really really old... to see the same misinterpretation....
What's to misinterpret? In the wired article mentioned in the previous post, Gore is quoted as saying "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." OK, so he didn't say he invented it, but he certainly implies that he was there at the beginning and had an active (relevant) role in it.
To quote further from the same article, "In 1969, the Defense Department commissioned the ARPANET." "It would be eight more years before Gore would be elected to the US House of Representatives as a freshman Democrat"
The timelines aren't even close; you can't even give him the benefit of the doubt.
Gore is misleading the American public. There's just no other way to interpret it.
> I think what we really need is plugin support for all the fancy stuff that works on windows.
Damn straight we do. That's the biggest (only?) drawback to surfing on Linux. I've gotten my wife to prefer Linux over Windoze ("Linux never crashes! That's so cool!"), but every once in a while, she stumbles across a site that requires a plugin that's only available on Lose9X.
IMHO, having plugins are way more important than multiple browser choices. In fact, you could argue that plugins could help make a big push for Linux on the desktop.
> Hmm, NHS tax rate? What's that?
National Health Service. I probably messed it up instead of calling it NI. At any rate, I obviously remembered the tax rate incorrectly.
> It works out about the same in the UK - top tax rate is 40%, plus national insurance. So no difference.
Hmm... I guess that is about the same. Figure the top federal tax rate is ~35%, plus state taxes of ~5% (at least here in Colorado)......
You know, I feel the exact same way. I haven't felt this good in years!!!
Installing Solaris has been fairly straightforward since at least 2.5.1, and both 2.6 and 7 will install in an hour as well. Granted, Solaris does not come with a C compiler or Apache, but the Apache binary can be downloaded.