It's off-topic because there are Wikipedia nazis with mod points. Since they can't edit jokes away, they will stamp them out with moderation. Every faction has its zealots; they jealously guard the "reputation" of their favorite thing, and don't appreciate anyone who disagrees with them or derides it in any way.
How much energy do they think we will save by moving up DST 3 weeks?
It has nothing to do with saving energy. It's about Congress and the Administration wanting to look like they're doing something about our dependence on foreign oil. There's very little energy savings to be had: these new weeks come in the heart of winter, where a few extra hours of daylight in the evening won't matter because who's going outside when it freezing, and more importantly, people will still have to be heating their homes and offices regardless. And since it will be darker in the morning, when people get up to go to work, any evening savings will be offset by morning usage.
They would have been better off writing a bill to increase tax credits for alternative energy sources and trying to encourage more fuel efficiency in cars and an increase in mass transit. Instead, we get window dressing.
People already get bombarded by radiation to kill tumor cells -- this isn't that much different, except that the damage to the tumor is more direct and probably at a higher concentration than with ordinary bursts of radiation. You get the twin effect of the anti-particles annihilating their particle counterparts and the secondary radiation (mainly gamma) given off by that annihilation.
I guess they should have considered mailing them inside a sealed aluminum foil pouch inside the envelope. Not that something like that would stop all of the other vulnerabilities, however.
Really? I picture some rich Geek-onaire putting it on, walking into bars, strolling up to beautiful women and intoning "I'm the Jedi you're looking for." But that's just one point of view.
In my opinion, all NASA needs to do is present congress with a scientific statistic claim with percent confidence of global destruction. If we have craters on our planet & there are bones of things that shouldn't have died lying all around, I'm guessing they could place something like a 1% chance of a decent sized asteroid hitting us within a couple thousand years. Given that information, $1 billion may not seem like a bad idea considering most of us employ smoke detectors with even less risk of harm/loss to us.
Normally I might agree, but we're talking the general populace here. You can show Congressmen and their constituents all the holes in the ground and Shoemaker-Levy photos you like, but we live in a world of "that's not my problem" and "can't happen to me" and "it's not going to happen tomorrow". Unless a sizable chunk of something streaks across the heavens, lights up the night's sky, and obliterates an area where there are a few hundred thousand people with cell-phone cameras and video cameras and a CNN satellite truck nearby, no one is really going to care. Remember, a larger number of people than was previously thought are starting to question evolution -- asking them to worry about an asteroid impact is probably asking too much.
The point is that if you write applications as web applications, and you target the standards and not a particular browser, then your application will continue to work. Sometimes this eliminates the possibility of using some kind of cutesy UI metaphor that can only be accomplished with javascript, or flash, or something else, but a well-written web application can ALWAYS degrade to using standard HTML. It might take more page loads, but that's hardly a show stopper.
The problem is this push to incorporate new technologies. I resist this trend every chance I get. I despise Flash, and while I find AJAX intriguing, I tend to think it introduces elements that can be hard to control. I've always been of the opinion that a web user, whether looking at a web site or using a web application wants two things: 1) to see the data they are looking for and 2) ease of use. Stick to standard technologies and you never have to fear about someone upgrading some part of the infrastructure that causes your apps to break.
Because a lot of our company's tools don't work very nicely inside of it. So I'm still using IE6 and my company sure isn't going to upgrade my MS Office suite. Did I mention I write web applications and I can only test them in IE6 and Firefox?
And you can make a business case for that. Face it -- you develop for your company based (hopefully) on a set of standards for what the company will use as its backbone technology. I worked at a Fortune 500 once, and they held on to Netscape 4.7 for the longest time, because it was deployed everywhere (globally), and everything was designed to work for it. It wasn't the greatest browser, but it was still better than IE5 at some critical things.
Change comes slowly at big companies/organizations, because it's due to economies of scale. The more machines you have to upgrade, the more applications you have to re-write to support the upgrades, the more the bottom line takes a pounding. Even if you manage to pull off a major, world-wide upgrade, you're going to spend the next couple of years fending off bugs that will turn up every day. Eventually you will get it stable -- just in time for the "next big thing".
Companies cannot afford to go chasing every new technology or upgrade that comes along, without risking the stability that IT works so hard to create.
Isn't twenty days long enough to disable a remotely exploitable and totally unnecessery, unsafe service that no admin in his right mind should have enabled on a box connected to the net anyway?
Yes, but some people are a little slow... others are just overworked... and then there are the stupid ones...
Honestly, does anybody have a use for telnet anymore? It really shouldn't be enabled by default anyway. I guess if your system isn't connected to the Internet you have no fears, but who would do that?
It's the same as if someone wanted to put up something on a billboard or on the side of a bus -- the company that owns that space is not required to put up something just because you have the money and you want them to. The major search engines don't want any part of this; that doesn't mean he can't start his own web site or find some other place that will take his material and his money. As it said in the article, this guy's a whiner.
I would prefer a clear and informative website rather than someone elses interpretation of 'beautiful'...
Amen. If you want art, go to an art gallery. I want websites to be clean, functional, easy-to-navigate, and more importantly, I want to be able to find the information I'm looking for without having to hunt through and around annoying graphics and being subjected to vomit-inducing color schemes.
It would seem to be a slight of epic proportions... I wonder if they would deign to give her one now? But let's face it, the computing field has been male-dominated since its inception -- there's no reason to wonder it took so long for a woman of Fran Allen's stature to win the award. Perhaps this will bring to light the contributions of other women in the field.
His view is far too complicated. The essence of security is: people think they are secure. They happily type their data into web sites without considering where it goes because in most cases, they have no clue what systems are in operation. Past the words "computer", "database", and "Internet (or Web)" the average person has no concept of how any of it works. Someone, their bank say, sends them a link to a website -- the first problem is, they really have no way to verify it is from their bank, other than going to their local branch and asking, which seems to be beyond anyone's capability. Now, once they've accepted that the link is "legitimate", whether it is or not, they plow ahead and begin banging on the keyboard and typing in their info. Screens come and go, they are admonished occasionally when they don't enter something right, and finally some message pops up thanking them and that's that. Whether the whole transaction was legitimate or not never enters into it.
"Security" is a misnomer -- you are no more secure against possible data theft or manipulation on the Internet than you are physically safe crossing the street in a crosswalk. The only security you can have is in being vigilant in what you do and following up everything you do to make sure it is legitimate. Past that, you're on you own.
But I suspect they would have enough technical acumen (accumulated and stolen) to cut off/severely limit traffic from the outside and impose their will on their own people. After all, even if their technology is not top-of-the-line, as long as they mandate its use, it will be top-of-the-line for China. Given no access vs. government-sponsored access, I think the Chinese would be pragmatic about it. However, as now, there would be a dissident community inside China trying to break through the restrictions. Sounds vaguely like something out of 'The Matrix'.
But if the companies' hands are tied by U.S. law, then they can basically present the Chinese government with a take-it-or-leave-it deal: You can use our e-mail and messenger and blog services, just know that our government won't let us turn over users' personal information if you ever want it. The Chinese censors are presumably coming from the point of view that they'd rather have a controlled Internet, but that it's more important to reap the economic benefits of having the Internet in their country, even if some control is lost (after all, if they didn't believe that, they wouldn't have connected to the Internet in the first place). Hence it's not likely that they'd throw out Yahoo Mail and Google search and MSN Messenger when so many users depend on these and use them for business as well as personal use. (Even if there are Chinese-made alternatives, there would be the huge cost of switching everyone over, and no longer being able to use the old tools to communicate with American companies.) So a law controlling the actions of U.S. companies would very probably allow them to keep doing business in censored countries, while giving them an excuse not to turn over users' data.
At which point the Chinese government will erect the Great Firewall of China (adding in their buddy North Korea for good measure), and then force their citizens to use government-sponsored computers, routers, network connections, mail clients, etc. And then Chinese censors will be able to have the data anytime they want it. China has all the capability needed to do this, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility.
I doubt MySQL is ever going to have the sort of PL/SQL support Oracle does, and you're not likely to see things like enterprise-class clustering, data partitioning, replication, and so forth. If you added all that to MySQL, it'd wind up just like Oracle - big, complex, and expensive. They occupy opposite ends of the spectrum.
And that heaven for that! Look, most of us want a database system we can use for our own limited but still important purposes. We don't need a lot of enterprise-level crud bogging us down. I'd never think of using MySQL on the large scale, but then that's what I have Oracle for. Oracle is over-muscled for a lot of simple stuff; MySQL is better for a medium-weight application.
And as an aside, the reason that Oracle is doing this is to get their name in the small-to-middle size market. Oracle's been dominating larger firms for years now, but that means there's little room for growth. If they can try to reach smaller markets and spread their name around, when some of these smaller companies outgrow their MySQL set-ups, Oracle will be ready to step in with their enterprise apps.
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It's off-topic because there are Wikipedia nazis with mod points. Since they can't edit jokes away, they will stamp them out with moderation. Every faction has its zealots; they jealously guard the "reputation" of their favorite thing, and don't appreciate anyone who disagrees with them or derides it in any way.
Credentials?!?! We don't need no stinkin' credentials!!!
It has nothing to do with saving energy. It's about Congress and the Administration wanting to look like they're doing something about our dependence on foreign oil. There's very little energy savings to be had: these new weeks come in the heart of winter, where a few extra hours of daylight in the evening won't matter because who's going outside when it freezing, and more importantly, people will still have to be heating their homes and offices regardless. And since it will be darker in the morning, when people get up to go to work, any evening savings will be offset by morning usage.
They would have been better off writing a bill to increase tax credits for alternative energy sources and trying to encourage more fuel efficiency in cars and an increase in mass transit. Instead, we get window dressing.
People already get bombarded by radiation to kill tumor cells -- this isn't that much different, except that the damage to the tumor is more direct and probably at a higher concentration than with ordinary bursts of radiation. You get the twin effect of the anti-particles annihilating their particle counterparts and the secondary radiation (mainly gamma) given off by that annihilation.
Mmmmmmmmm... vacuum-packed for freshness!!
Are they channeling Isaac Asimov?
...that a researcher sends them all the printouts of his/her data... on greenbar...
Really? I picture some rich Geek-onaire putting it on, walking into bars, strolling up to beautiful women and intoning "I'm the Jedi you're looking for." But that's just one point of view.
You're only a sad Dr. Who fanboy if you wrote that while wearing one of Tom Baker's original scarves.
Normally I might agree, but we're talking the general populace here. You can show Congressmen and their constituents all the holes in the ground and Shoemaker-Levy photos you like, but we live in a world of "that's not my problem" and "can't happen to me" and "it's not going to happen tomorrow". Unless a sizable chunk of something streaks across the heavens, lights up the night's sky, and obliterates an area where there are a few hundred thousand people with cell-phone cameras and video cameras and a CNN satellite truck nearby, no one is really going to care. Remember, a larger number of people than was previously thought are starting to question evolution -- asking them to worry about an asteroid impact is probably asking too much.
And speaking of silly...
The Email Server^H^H^H^H^H^H Shop
Investigator: This is an email server, isn't it?
IT Worker: Finest in the company.
Investigator: Explain the logic underlying that conclusion, please.
IT Worker: Well, it's so clean, sir.
Investigator: It's certainly uncontaminated by email.
But it will make a great coating for my stealth car... let's see the LIDAR catch me now!
The problem is this push to incorporate new technologies. I resist this trend every chance I get. I despise Flash, and while I find AJAX intriguing, I tend to think it introduces elements that can be hard to control. I've always been of the opinion that a web user, whether looking at a web site or using a web application wants two things: 1) to see the data they are looking for and 2) ease of use. Stick to standard technologies and you never have to fear about someone upgrading some part of the infrastructure that causes your apps to break.
And you can make a business case for that. Face it -- you develop for your company based (hopefully) on a set of standards for what the company will use as its backbone technology. I worked at a Fortune 500 once, and they held on to Netscape 4.7 for the longest time, because it was deployed everywhere (globally), and everything was designed to work for it. It wasn't the greatest browser, but it was still better than IE5 at some critical things.
Change comes slowly at big companies/organizations, because it's due to economies of scale. The more machines you have to upgrade, the more applications you have to re-write to support the upgrades, the more the bottom line takes a pounding. Even if you manage to pull off a major, world-wide upgrade, you're going to spend the next couple of years fending off bugs that will turn up every day. Eventually you will get it stable -- just in time for the "next big thing".
Companies cannot afford to go chasing every new technology or upgrade that comes along, without risking the stability that IT works so hard to create.
Yes, but some people are a little slow... others are just overworked... and then there are the stupid ones...
Honestly, does anybody have a use for telnet anymore? It really shouldn't be enabled by default anyway. I guess if your system isn't connected to the Internet you have no fears, but who would do that?
Free Solaris for everyone!
It's the same as if someone wanted to put up something on a billboard or on the side of a bus -- the company that owns that space is not required to put up something just because you have the money and you want them to. The major search engines don't want any part of this; that doesn't mean he can't start his own web site or find some other place that will take his material and his money. As it said in the article, this guy's a whiner.
Amen. If you want art, go to an art gallery. I want websites to be clean, functional, easy-to-navigate, and more importantly, I want to be able to find the information I'm looking for without having to hunt through and around annoying graphics and being subjected to vomit-inducing color schemes.
It would seem to be a slight of epic proportions... I wonder if they would deign to give her one now? But let's face it, the computing field has been male-dominated since its inception -- there's no reason to wonder it took so long for a woman of Fran Allen's stature to win the award. Perhaps this will bring to light the contributions of other women in the field.
...Media Companies imply greed and incompetence.
His view is far too complicated. The essence of security is: people think they are secure. They happily type their data into web sites without considering where it goes because in most cases, they have no clue what systems are in operation. Past the words "computer", "database", and "Internet (or Web)" the average person has no concept of how any of it works. Someone, their bank say, sends them a link to a website -- the first problem is, they really have no way to verify it is from their bank, other than going to their local branch and asking, which seems to be beyond anyone's capability. Now, once they've accepted that the link is "legitimate", whether it is or not, they plow ahead and begin banging on the keyboard and typing in their info. Screens come and go, they are admonished occasionally when they don't enter something right, and finally some message pops up thanking them and that's that. Whether the whole transaction was legitimate or not never enters into it.
"Security" is a misnomer -- you are no more secure against possible data theft or manipulation on the Internet than you are physically safe crossing the street in a crosswalk. The only security you can have is in being vigilant in what you do and following up everything you do to make sure it is legitimate. Past that, you're on you own.
But I suspect they would have enough technical acumen (accumulated and stolen) to cut off/severely limit traffic from the outside and impose their will on their own people. After all, even if their technology is not top-of-the-line, as long as they mandate its use, it will be top-of-the-line for China. Given no access vs. government-sponsored access, I think the Chinese would be pragmatic about it. However, as now, there would be a dissident community inside China trying to break through the restrictions. Sounds vaguely like something out of 'The Matrix'.
Au contrair. Given the Chinese penchant for copying what works, why wouldn't they let them in?
At which point the Chinese government will erect the Great Firewall of China (adding in their buddy North Korea for good measure), and then force their citizens to use government-sponsored computers, routers, network connections, mail clients, etc. And then Chinese censors will be able to have the data anytime they want it. China has all the capability needed to do this, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility.
And that heaven for that! Look, most of us want a database system we can use for our own limited but still important purposes. We don't need a lot of enterprise-level crud bogging us down. I'd never think of using MySQL on the large scale, but then that's what I have Oracle for. Oracle is over-muscled for a lot of simple stuff; MySQL is better for a medium-weight application.
And as an aside, the reason that Oracle is doing this is to get their name in the small-to-middle size market. Oracle's been dominating larger firms for years now, but that means there's little room for growth. If they can try to reach smaller markets and spread their name around, when some of these smaller companies outgrow their MySQL set-ups, Oracle will be ready to step in with their enterprise apps.