>Ty very much, but our DBs are running fine with over 100million rows that's almost purely
>textual data being searched (relational full text searches) and 500+ q/s
With all due respect, that's a fraction of the scale that these massively distributed systems are aimed at. Imagine if your load was the next order of magnitude -- you had that much pressure just on your *indexes*.
Most people can't even think of a problem that fits that solution, which is why the hype is really just that.
On the other hand there are lots of applications that need datastores that are not a good fit for any conventional relational model, and plenty of things that can be done in the kind of brute-force parallel algorithm where MapReduce is a big win and huge distributed non-relational databases are perfectly suited.
Table indexes can be cached, you know that, right? That's called learning how to tune your DB, and requires knowledge of how to change the config file. And of course, knowing what hardware you need to allow DB tuning. One for instance wouldn't assign a 1GB cache to indexes on a machine with 1GB of RAM.
The real problem is scale. Any SQL-DB server will cope with most application fine, but add live data on a public facing site with a decent volume of users, and they're crawl to a slow death. This is why non-crucial sites use denomenilization and do the dastardly deed of data duplication to speed up their bad query and suspect table design.
So what's the solution? Very large and expensive boxes for the simplest method (no one likes this these days), and then lots of boxes performing certain tasks. Which has its own huge costs, because skilled people in this field are very few and far between, and are already working for Yahoo, Google and Fartybook.
Wow, you've got no experience in the database world at all, do you? Or perhaps your experience is with MSSQL and their other database "solutions"?
It really doesnt take massive hardware to serve a ton of connections. There was a time when the patent database, which was (at that time) run by IBM, was on a few small (tiny compared to today's hardware) boxes running OS/2 and DB/2. On an ancient piece of hardware (quad 550MHz CPUs), we've done *INSERTS* (while reads, inserts and writes (modifies) are going on for the web clients) using only ONE CPU for the bulk inserts, at speeds in the high hundreds per second (so close it might as well be a thousand a second).
Now... with the correct disk and SQL caching set up... or maybe with using a machine that isn't a dinosaur, we'd be able to easily quadruple that performance. Our newer box is: CPU=5x faster, Memory=4x faster, HDD=11x faster, SCSI controller cache=16x larger, SQL cache=4x larger (on memory that's 4x faster).
I'm not sure what our limits are (actually, I have calculated estimates for such - we're at 15% load during peak usage), but I do know we haven't reached them yet - or even come close. As a matter of fact, we are sooooo far away that we haven't seen the need to migrate to the bigger, newer, more powerful server.
Here's just a few things you need to learn (enough to get you started):
-How to make a proper RDB
-How to properly tune your server (DB, web server, disk cache, file system cache, etc)
Any idea how many people who think they know what they are doing that I have found who are TRIPLE caching things? That doesnt speed things up - it slows them down and wastes hardware resources! -Which hardware components are the vital ones to spend money on upgrading (is it disk? is it memory? is it CPU? is it a combination of 2 or more of those?)
-How to do proper queries, merges and inserts
-How to properly index columns (and which ones to index, and whether separate key columns make sense or waste space)
-How to properly tune fulltext indices.
-DONT rely on a Microsoft product, otherwise, yes, you will need massive hardware. You have NO IDEA how many MS solutions we've replaced with MySQL to gain a hundred-fold increase in performance on the same hardware.
While we don't get too much traffic (only a few million requests a day per server), our servers generally run at 3% CPU utilization, and 98% cache hits on the disk.
There are some good books out there to get you started... you may want to check some of them out.
Agreed... the biggest limitation I see with SQL (My, DB2, Postgres anyway... found plenty in MS) are people who don't know how to lay out a database, people who don't know how to install and configure the server daemon(s), people who have no idea how to properly select appropriate hardware, and people who don't know how the heck to do a query (as a for instance, I worked on some code done by someone else, where on massive records, they were always selecting "*" instead of the needed or anticipated values. Big waste when one needs (by ID#) last and first name and selects a whole row instead - then wonders why it's not scaling upwards).
Good thing Bob Pisano is neither a legislator nor a judge!
The First Amendment was also not intended as a shield for people who call the MPAA a gang of turd-burglars, but here we are.
Yeah, well you/they are trying to hide the fact that no such law is needed (for the purposes/advantages claimed by the **AA), because copyright laws already cover all of this. The MPAA's statement is a nice way of speaking of something unrelated in a fashion that implies something else entirely - all in an effort to control speech under a different guise.
Actually, you raise an interesting point. Streetlight posts are designed to shear off in the event that a car runs into them. That's going to be problematic in a tree big enough to overhang traffic.
This might make for some pretty walkways in parks though.
I suspect it will require guard rails at the shoulder's edge, similar to what they do on parkways... but at the very least, that will increase expenses. It will be pretty though...
The plant these guys used in TFA is a perennial, so it's not going to matter until they can figure out how to do the same in a large tree. At that point, I would imagine they would focus efforts on broadleaf evergreens (boxwoods, euonymous, some others). I don't know why conifers wouldn't be possible either, there's just generally a much lower surface area.
What the hell?!?!?! C'mon!!!! There's a rule here against RTFA!!!!
Oh, wait... I forgot... The rule actually is:
- one set of people here needs to NOT RTFA
- the other set has to RTFA so they can tell the first group of people they shoulda RTFA.
That aside, on a serious note, what happens to the "streetlights" when the Fall comes each year?
Doesn't really matter here in the Southwest, as fall and winter together seem to last about a month.
Sure it does... one still has to "re-gold" the trees each year. And a month of no streetlights on streets that are required to have them every night is also problematic (lawsuits, fines, etc).
So most people don't mind sharing personal information with these "friends", but when it comes to sharing their email is where they draw the line?
I would think it would be the reverse. Many people have my email address, very few of them know who I am dating or what I did last night.
I think you don't understand the issue here. "Most people" seeing whatever information you deem to make public or semi-private is a lot different than a corporation, without your permission, obtaining and keeping and selling and using your personal contact information (ie: email address). Heck, that info isn't even displayed on one's info page on Facebook if they dont want.
Nah, I know the particles are so small it would make the effort a waste of time. That aside, on a serious note, what happens to the "streetlights" when the Fall comes each year?
It does suck balls, traveling into and through the good ol USA. All I want to travel with is is some weed, which used to be NBD until crotchbomber came along.
I guess it's good one of my flying destinations is Amsterdam.
Nope, no ball sucking yet. Just ball fondling. The TSA hasnt gone that far yet...
Wow, you are so wrong. I've done it in under 36 hours... Vegas to DC. And 2900 miles (Cali to NY) at 75 is a little over 38.5 hours. Add an hour for 3 gas stops and drive-thru food and driver changes.
Now, when I did it, I had a co-driver, and we took turns all the way. And we were lucky enough to not hit traffic. And there were no daytime speed limits in some of the states we drove through... so we were going over 90mph for much of the trip, and then 80+ for most of the rest, then down to 70 for the remaining 10% (when we hit the 65mph zone), and 55-60 for 50-100 miles.
Of course, it was a lot cheaper back then too... nowadays, it would cost me $280-300 in gas... compared to less than half that back then. Still cheaper than flying two people, and very scenic. But, I'd prefer to fly...
If you think that "privatizing" security operations (which usually means outsourcing it to the company that pays their employees the least) will cut down on thefts, you are abysmally naive. Or you've been sucking on the rich Republican cock so long you think their disinformational jizz tastes yummy.
Well, exactly how rich is this Republican cock you speak of?
Sorry to pull you back to the real world... any patent that has been issued and has not expired or invalidated, is valid. It's a simple as that.
If a patent is issued in error or in contravention of the law, it's not valid. It's as simple as that.
If you think it's not valid for whatever reason, you will have to ask a judge to invalidate it. And until they agree with you and invalidate the patent, it is valid.
No, upon the judge finding it invalid the government will start treating it as invalid. It was invalid all along.
It's like unconstitutional laws: segregation and the "separate but equal" doctrine didn't suddenly become unconstitutional when the courts woke up in the 1950s and 60s. They were unconstitutional since Amendment XIV was ratified. Court rulings don't change basic facts, they change what facts the government will admit to as being true.
Very interesting (and misleading) post. While technically, it may be correct, it changes nothing. Invalid all along or not, in effect it was still very valid until that legal determination was made, including often, the damages that were done during the time frame when the (whatever) was considered valid or went unchallenged...
...Just like the poor example you gave. Do you think those who lived in the 40's and 50's and part of the 60's suddenly woke up when Amendment XIV was ratified thinking "wow, that's great that everything that happened to me back then has suddenly un-happened!"
Sure, I am sure they were happy that it was no longer legal - but the earlier effects dont magically get wiped away all of a sudden. That's the funny thing about the past... we havent figured out how to change it.
Slashdot: where everybody who disagrees with you is a shill. Because companies pour thousands of dollars on arguing with a half dozen slashdotters.
Ummm... it wouldnt be the first time, would it? So, I guess, if one assumes there's no sarcasm in your post, then the informative mod is well warranted.
Macros are one exception - and 90% of applications I've seen developed as macros should never have been developed as macros in the first place.
Be that as it may, you won't get people to migrate off Office by saying "Your processes built around huge numbers of macros (which, for all its sins, broadly works) was developed in the wrong way in the first place, you must rip the whole lot out and start again".
No, but the next version of Excel may force you to... happened before.
However, Excel is seriously better than OO.org Spreadsheet. Especially Excel 2010. We've replaced an expensive CrystalReports report builder with Excel and everyone is super-happy. It consumes data from OLAP database, it can easily run various analyses and it's even possible to export spreadsheets using Web.
Wow, honestly? People still use Excel for that sort of stuff? We've made a decent little business in getting rid of such uses of Excel and moving the data to MySQL databases with report managers and such that output the reports in HTML or PDF format. The speed increase has been tremendous. We've gotten some of the bigger reports running in 5-10 seconds instead of 5-10 MINUTES that Access and Excel or MSSQL and Excel were doing. It wasn't even too complex of a report... roughly 50,000 records to be loaded and used for calculations for a 10 page report (9 sections, one summary page, same 200 users each page, monthly stats for each user for each page, sub totals and capped totals for each user for each stat for each page for the year).
I also still remember the nightmares of working at CompUSA (Technician turned Tech Manager) and having to run 45 minute reports via Excel and MSSQL that should have taken no more than 45 seconds. Sadly, the Seibel people's "report module" consisted of using Excel and MSSQL for anything more than very very basic reporting. It was a nigthmare... though on the flip side, it did give me time to go get a snack, make coffee or whatever else.
Excel may be "really neat" and make people "super-happy" with it's ease in creating ugly reports linked to a database, but it is horrendously inefficient and slow.
Note, I haven't tried the 2010 version, so maybe they've incorporated some speed improvements in it? Of course, they'd have to be VAST speed improvements to make it speed-competitive. Wasted time=wasted productivity=wasted money. As of now, none of our clients are using the Microsoft solution and cant understand why they were ever suckered into using it ever.
What you're talking about is great for small, non-complex data sets... but idiotic (IMHO and experience) for anything more "complex".
What's interesting is that they said newer models are placed in the engine compartment. It would seem wise to bug your own engine compartment so you know when the hood has been raised.
I call such a device a "Car alarm" - every time I've installed one, I wire it to a hood and trunk switch - not for fear of someone sticking something into either compartment, but to prevent someone from taking stuff out of one of them. Regardless, such method works just as well for the other scenario.:-)
LoL, no such thing. We're still trying to figure this out and even had an electrician come in and meter peak usage. No changes since the last time (when the bill was less). There was a recent rate increase (but not double or even close), so next we are trying to get an idea of whether there's some new idiotic method (of billing) they are doing things that may be causing this. Our power usageis generally consistent every hour of the day (we run a stack of always on servers - same stack for years, same server loads), so maybe a "residential" increase that's "only a few percent" could be affecting our more business-like current draw.
Regardless of our current power usage though, companies like BGE have been found to "mis-bill" multiple times, including "verified" readings for empty buildings not connected to anything. So, maybe LIPA is on the up and up, but with such bad experiences with BGE, one (we) tend to wonder when we see such odd discrepencies.
Here's one news report on BGE's billing idiocy and the problems it has created. Voice
Note how much effort it takes to fight their "errors" and the 40% refund granted. Most people there dont know how to fight the errors or have the time to survive long enough to do so (without power, etc).
And an interesting reading about how (as of 2005) BGE gets away with not paying for power generated by self-sufficient homes (ie: solar powered, etc): http://www2.citypaper.com/printStory.asp?id=10295
Really? What if one wants to know that they are being billed correctly? BGE is big on overbilling. Heck, we went off grid, and got $2900 in bills for usage we could not have made (meter disconnected - by THEM no less). It took NINE months for them to admit it was some sort of "error" - a fucking "error" that they were claiming the smart meter, disconnected from everything, was reporting such power usage? My ass. Baltimore City was charged a quarter of a million in usage charges for a building that had been taken off grid. Our current LIPA bill here in NY has DOUBLED for some reason, with no new appliances, and no new usage patterns.
Medical Marijuana is illegal. In EVERY state. Period.... Interstate Commerce laws trump any state law.
Back to reality. Medical marijuana is legal in Michigan law. So far, the federal government hasn't prosecuted. For all intents, you're not going to jail.
Back to reality... "so far..." means nothing, especially considering it's not true (nationally). The feds have indeed prosecuted such cases (though perhaps not in Michigan yet), and won, claiming jurisdiction via the Interstate Commerce Clause. The ruling was also upheld on appeal. As a matter of fact, just a few days ago, the feds seized a bunch of medical marijuana from "legal" dispensaries in Las Vegas, Nevada, and reportedly seized patient and financial records. You may also want to read up on Raich v. Ashcroft to see where the precedent was set. There are other similar actions going on (or recently happened) as well.
Which brings us back to, (1) marijuana (medical or otherwise) is illegal in every state, because, as noted in the Constitution, state laws do not trump federal laws (and as long as they can stretch the meaning of the Interstate Commerce Clause to grant them such powers, this will remain the case), and (2) the Feds are already making examples of both individuals and dispensaries. Dontcha think that T-Mobile would make a great target for the Feds to make an example of in an effort to make other companies and individuals think twice about doing what the Feds say is illegal? As for me, I think it's possible. Likely? Dunno. BUT, if I were T-Mo, I wouldnt take the chance, especially when forfeiture (of equipment or worse) is a possible end result of any such charges leveled against them. And at the very least, they may have entire servers taken as "evidence" in any proceedings that happen.
Please move to a different country or learn the Constitution.
Please move back to reality. In cases related to drug offenses, there are various statutes (per jurisdiction, or even federal) that allow the seizure or forfeiture of property used in the commission of such a crime. They've been applied very broadly in some cases.
In this case, T-Mobile would be knowingly facilitating the illegal sales of drugs (ie: "discussions relating to such transactions"). Facilitation is a crime.
Really, I suspect this is far more simple than that. Medical Marijuana is illegal. In EVERY state. Period. We all already know that Interstate Commerce laws trump any state law. Do we have to agree with that? No. Can the states decide to continue to ignore that fact? Sure. But the fact is, in Federal Court, such things dont matter. It is still illegal at the federal level.
As a company, T-Mobile cannot allow the use of their services to knowingly allow such drug transactions or discussions related to such transactions. In addition, them blocking a company that's violating such Interstate Commerce Laws is also a wise thing (in legal terms). Kinda like if you have a friend who wants to keep borrowing your car to go buy drugs. You stop letting your friend borrow your car at all - even though much of the time it might not to buy drugs, that way ensuring you distance yourself from his activities so no one can make claims that you're knowingly a part of it. This is a LOT different than Joe texting Jim for a dime bag.
Anyway, that's my opinion on the matter, and though IANAL, I think it makes sense.
Slashdot Mirror
>Ty very much, but our DBs are running fine with over 100million rows that's almost purely >textual data being searched (relational full text searches) and 500+ q/s
With all due respect, that's a fraction of the scale that these massively distributed systems are aimed at. Imagine if your load was the next order of magnitude -- you had that much pressure just on your *indexes*.
Most people can't even think of a problem that fits that solution, which is why the hype is really just that.
On the other hand there are lots of applications that need datastores that are not a good fit for any conventional relational model, and plenty of things that can be done in the kind of brute-force parallel algorithm where MapReduce is a big win and huge distributed non-relational databases are perfectly suited.
Table indexes can be cached, you know that, right? That's called learning how to tune your DB, and requires knowledge of how to change the config file. And of course, knowing what hardware you need to allow DB tuning. One for instance wouldn't assign a 1GB cache to indexes on a machine with 1GB of RAM.
The real problem is scale. Any SQL-DB server will cope with most application fine, but add live data on a public facing site with a decent volume of users, and they're crawl to a slow death. This is why non-crucial sites use denomenilization and do the dastardly deed of data duplication to speed up their bad query and suspect table design.
So what's the solution? Very large and expensive boxes for the simplest method (no one likes this these days), and then lots of boxes performing certain tasks. Which has its own huge costs, because skilled people in this field are very few and far between, and are already working for Yahoo, Google and Fartybook.
Wow, you've got no experience in the database world at all, do you? Or perhaps your experience is with MSSQL and their other database "solutions"?
It really doesnt take massive hardware to serve a ton of connections. There was a time when the patent database, which was (at that time) run by IBM, was on a few small (tiny compared to today's hardware) boxes running OS/2 and DB/2. On an ancient piece of hardware (quad 550MHz CPUs), we've done *INSERTS* (while reads, inserts and writes (modifies) are going on for the web clients) using only ONE CPU for the bulk inserts, at speeds in the high hundreds per second (so close it might as well be a thousand a second).
Now... with the correct disk and SQL caching set up... or maybe with using a machine that isn't a dinosaur, we'd be able to easily quadruple that performance. Our newer box is: CPU=5x faster, Memory=4x faster, HDD=11x faster, SCSI controller cache=16x larger, SQL cache=4x larger (on memory that's 4x faster).
I'm not sure what our limits are (actually, I have calculated estimates for such - we're at 15% load during peak usage), but I do know we haven't reached them yet - or even come close. As a matter of fact, we are sooooo far away that we haven't seen the need to migrate to the bigger, newer, more powerful server.
Here's just a few things you need to learn (enough to get you started):
-How to make a proper RDB
-How to properly tune your server (DB, web server, disk cache, file system cache, etc)
Any idea how many people who think they know what they are doing that I have found who are TRIPLE caching things? That doesnt speed things up - it slows them down and wastes hardware resources!
-Which hardware components are the vital ones to spend money on upgrading (is it disk? is it memory? is it CPU? is it a combination of 2 or more of those?)
-How to do proper queries, merges and inserts
-How to properly index columns (and which ones to index, and whether separate key columns make sense or waste space)
-How to properly tune fulltext indices.
-DONT rely on a Microsoft product, otherwise, yes, you will need massive hardware. You have NO IDEA how many MS solutions we've replaced with MySQL to gain a hundred-fold increase in performance on the same hardware.
While we don't get too much traffic (only a few million requests a day per server), our servers generally run at 3% CPU utilization, and 98% cache hits on the disk.
There are some good books out there to get you started... you may want to check some of them out.
Agreed... the biggest limitation I see with SQL (My, DB2, Postgres anyway... found plenty in MS) are people who don't know how to lay out a database, people who don't know how to install and configure the server daemon(s), people who have no idea how to properly select appropriate hardware, and people who don't know how the heck to do a query (as a for instance, I worked on some code done by someone else, where on massive records, they were always selecting "*" instead of the needed or anticipated values. Big waste when one needs (by ID#) last and first name and selects a whole row instead - then wonders why it's not scaling upwards).
Good thing Bob Pisano is neither a legislator nor a judge!
The First Amendment was also not intended as a shield for people who call the MPAA a gang of turd-burglars, but here we are.
Yeah, well you/they are trying to hide the fact that no such law is needed (for the purposes/advantages claimed by the **AA), because copyright laws already cover all of this. The MPAA's statement is a nice way of speaking of something unrelated in a fashion that implies something else entirely - all in an effort to control speech under a different guise.
Actually, you raise an interesting point. Streetlight posts are designed to shear off in the event that a car runs into them. That's going to be problematic in a tree big enough to overhang traffic.
This might make for some pretty walkways in parks though.
I suspect it will require guard rails at the shoulder's edge, similar to what they do on parkways... but at the very least, that will increase expenses. It will be pretty though...
Don't worry, next week, I'll RTFA (instead of just looking at the pretty pictures)... at least once... I promise ;-)
Or is that just me?
Nah, it probably wasn't just you who cried yourself to sleep in his cold lonely apartment... ;-)
The plant these guys used in TFA is a perennial, so it's not going to matter until they can figure out how to do the same in a large tree. At that point, I would imagine they would focus efforts on broadleaf evergreens (boxwoods, euonymous, some others). I don't know why conifers wouldn't be possible either, there's just generally a much lower surface area.
What the hell?!?!?! C'mon!!!! There's a rule here against RTFA!!!!
Oh, wait... I forgot... The rule actually is:
- one set of people here needs to NOT RTFA
- the other set has to RTFA so they can tell the first group of people they shoulda RTFA.
Next week I think I am in the "Must RTFA" group.
;-)
That aside, on a serious note, what happens to the "streetlights" when the Fall comes each year?
Doesn't really matter here in the Southwest, as fall and winter together seem to last about a month.
Sure it does... one still has to "re-gold" the trees each year. And a month of no streetlights on streets that are required to have them every night is also problematic (lawsuits, fines, etc).
So most people don't mind sharing personal information with these "friends", but when it comes to sharing their email is where they draw the line?
I would think it would be the reverse. Many people have my email address, very few of them know who I am dating or what I did last night.
I think you don't understand the issue here. "Most people" seeing whatever information you deem to make public or semi-private is a lot different than a corporation, without your permission, obtaining and keeping and selling and using your personal contact information (ie: email address). Heck, that info isn't even displayed on one's info page on Facebook if they dont want.
I'd be chopping down trees everywhere!!!!
Nah, I know the particles are so small it would make the effort a waste of time. That aside, on a serious note, what happens to the "streetlights" when the Fall comes each year?
It does suck balls, traveling into and through the good ol USA. All I want to travel with is is some weed, which used to be NBD until crotchbomber came along.
I guess it's good one of my flying destinations is Amsterdam.
Nope, no ball sucking yet. Just ball fondling. The TSA hasnt gone that far yet...
Wow, you are so wrong. I've done it in under 36 hours... Vegas to DC. And 2900 miles (Cali to NY) at 75 is a little over 38.5 hours. Add an hour for 3 gas stops and drive-thru food and driver changes.
Now, when I did it, I had a co-driver, and we took turns all the way. And we were lucky enough to not hit traffic. And there were no daytime speed limits in some of the states we drove through... so we were going over 90mph for much of the trip, and then 80+ for most of the rest, then down to 70 for the remaining 10% (when we hit the 65mph zone), and 55-60 for 50-100 miles.
Of course, it was a lot cheaper back then too... nowadays, it would cost me $280-300 in gas... compared to less than half that back then. Still cheaper than flying two people, and very scenic. But, I'd prefer to fly...
If you think that "privatizing" security operations (which usually means outsourcing it to the company that pays their employees the least) will cut down on thefts, you are abysmally naive. Or you've been sucking on the rich Republican cock so long you think their disinformational jizz tastes yummy.
Well, exactly how rich is this Republican cock you speak of?
If a patent is issued in error or in contravention of the law, it's not valid. It's as simple as that.
No, upon the judge finding it invalid the government will start treating it as invalid. It was invalid all along.
It's like unconstitutional laws: segregation and the "separate but equal" doctrine didn't suddenly become unconstitutional when the courts woke up in the 1950s and 60s. They were unconstitutional since Amendment XIV was ratified. Court rulings don't change basic facts, they change what facts the government will admit to as being true.
Very interesting (and misleading) post. While technically, it may be correct, it changes nothing. Invalid all along or not, in effect it was still very valid until that legal determination was made, including often, the damages that were done during the time frame when the (whatever) was considered valid or went unchallenged...
...Just like the poor example you gave. Do you think those who lived in the 40's and 50's and part of the 60's suddenly woke up when Amendment XIV was ratified thinking "wow, that's great that everything that happened to me back then has suddenly un-happened!"
Sure, I am sure they were happy that it was no longer legal - but the earlier effects dont magically get wiped away all of a sudden. That's the funny thing about the past... we havent figured out how to change it.
Slashdot: where everybody who disagrees with you is a shill. Because companies pour thousands of dollars on arguing with a half dozen slashdotters.
Ummm... it wouldnt be the first time, would it? So, I guess, if one assumes there's no sarcasm in your post, then the informative mod is well warranted.
Macros are one exception - and 90% of applications I've seen developed as macros should never have been developed as macros in the first place.
Be that as it may, you won't get people to migrate off Office by saying "Your processes built around huge numbers of macros (which, for all its sins, broadly works) was developed in the wrong way in the first place, you must rip the whole lot out and start again".
No, but the next version of Excel may force you to... happened before.
OpenOffice Writer is about as good as Word.
However, Excel is seriously better than OO.org Spreadsheet. Especially Excel 2010. We've replaced an expensive CrystalReports report builder with Excel and everyone is super-happy. It consumes data from OLAP database, it can easily run various analyses and it's even possible to export spreadsheets using Web.
Wow, honestly? People still use Excel for that sort of stuff? We've made a decent little business in getting rid of such uses of Excel and moving the data to MySQL databases with report managers and such that output the reports in HTML or PDF format. The speed increase has been tremendous. We've gotten some of the bigger reports running in 5-10 seconds instead of 5-10 MINUTES that Access and Excel or MSSQL and Excel were doing. It wasn't even too complex of a report... roughly 50,000 records to be loaded and used for calculations for a 10 page report (9 sections, one summary page, same 200 users each page, monthly stats for each user for each page, sub totals and capped totals for each user for each stat for each page for the year).
I also still remember the nightmares of working at CompUSA (Technician turned Tech Manager) and having to run 45 minute reports via Excel and MSSQL that should have taken no more than 45 seconds. Sadly, the Seibel people's "report module" consisted of using Excel and MSSQL for anything more than very very basic reporting. It was a nigthmare... though on the flip side, it did give me time to go get a snack, make coffee or whatever else.
Excel may be "really neat" and make people "super-happy" with it's ease in creating ugly reports linked to a database, but it is horrendously inefficient and slow.
Note, I haven't tried the 2010 version, so maybe they've incorporated some speed improvements in it? Of course, they'd have to be VAST speed improvements to make it speed-competitive. Wasted time=wasted productivity=wasted money. As of now, none of our clients are using the Microsoft solution and cant understand why they were ever suckered into using it ever.
What you're talking about is great for small, non-complex data sets... but idiotic (IMHO and experience) for anything more "complex".
What's interesting is that they said newer models are placed in the engine compartment. It would seem wise to bug your own engine compartment so you know when the hood has been raised.
I call such a device a "Car alarm" - every time I've installed one, I wire it to a hood and trunk switch - not for fear of someone sticking something into either compartment, but to prevent someone from taking stuff out of one of them. Regardless, such method works just as well for the other scenario. :-)
LoL, no such thing. We're still trying to figure this out and even had an electrician come in and meter peak usage. No changes since the last time (when the bill was less). There was a recent rate increase (but not double or even close), so next we are trying to get an idea of whether there's some new idiotic method (of billing) they are doing things that may be causing this. Our power usageis generally consistent every hour of the day (we run a stack of always on servers - same stack for years, same server loads), so maybe a "residential" increase that's "only a few percent" could be affecting our more business-like current draw.
Regardless of our current power usage though, companies like BGE have been found to "mis-bill" multiple times, including "verified" readings for empty buildings not connected to anything. So, maybe LIPA is on the up and up, but with such bad experiences with BGE, one (we) tend to wonder when we see such odd discrepencies.
Here's one news report on BGE's billing idiocy and the problems it has created. Voice
Note how much effort it takes to fight their "errors" and the 40% refund granted. Most people there dont know how to fight the errors or have the time to survive long enough to do so (without power, etc).
And an interesting reading about how (as of 2005) BGE gets away with not paying for power generated by self-sufficient homes (ie: solar powered, etc): http://www2.citypaper.com/printStory.asp?id=10295
And even more complaints "aired" by a local Baltimore TV station: http://wjz.com/local/bge.bills.2.944635.html
Makes it hard to trust any utility company.
Really? What if one wants to know that they are being billed correctly? BGE is big on overbilling. Heck, we went off grid, and got $2900 in bills for usage we could not have made (meter disconnected - by THEM no less). It took NINE months for them to admit it was some sort of "error" - a fucking "error" that they were claiming the smart meter, disconnected from everything, was reporting such power usage? My ass. Baltimore City was charged a quarter of a million in usage charges for a building that had been taken off grid. Our current LIPA bill here in NY has DOUBLED for some reason, with no new appliances, and no new usage patterns.
There really are certain posts that should be able to be modded to +10 or +20, and yours is one of them. :-)
Medical Marijuana is illegal. In EVERY state. Period. ... Interstate Commerce laws trump any state law.
Back to reality. Medical marijuana is legal in Michigan law. So far, the federal government hasn't prosecuted. For all intents, you're not going to jail.
Back to reality... "so far..." means nothing, especially considering it's not true (nationally). The feds have indeed prosecuted such cases (though perhaps not in Michigan yet), and won, claiming jurisdiction via the Interstate Commerce Clause. The ruling was also upheld on appeal. As a matter of fact, just a few days ago, the feds seized a bunch of medical marijuana from "legal" dispensaries in Las Vegas, Nevada, and reportedly seized patient and financial records. You may also want to read up on Raich v. Ashcroft to see where the precedent was set. There are other similar actions going on (or recently happened) as well.
Which brings us back to, (1) marijuana (medical or otherwise) is illegal in every state, because, as noted in the Constitution, state laws do not trump federal laws (and as long as they can stretch the meaning of the Interstate Commerce Clause to grant them such powers, this will remain the case), and (2) the Feds are already making examples of both individuals and dispensaries. Dontcha think that T-Mobile would make a great target for the Feds to make an example of in an effort to make other companies and individuals think twice about doing what the Feds say is illegal? As for me, I think it's possible. Likely? Dunno. BUT, if I were T-Mo, I wouldnt take the chance, especially when forfeiture (of equipment or worse) is a possible end result of any such charges leveled against them. And at the very least, they may have entire servers taken as "evidence" in any proceedings that happen.
or discussions related to such transactions.
Please move to a different country or learn the Constitution.
Please move back to reality. In cases related to drug offenses, there are various statutes (per jurisdiction, or even federal) that allow the seizure or forfeiture of property used in the commission of such a crime. They've been applied very broadly in some cases.
In this case, T-Mobile would be knowingly facilitating the illegal sales of drugs (ie: "discussions relating to such transactions"). Facilitation is a crime.
Really, I suspect this is far more simple than that. Medical Marijuana is illegal. In EVERY state. Period. We all already know that Interstate Commerce laws trump any state law. Do we have to agree with that? No. Can the states decide to continue to ignore that fact? Sure. But the fact is, in Federal Court, such things dont matter. It is still illegal at the federal level.
As a company, T-Mobile cannot allow the use of their services to knowingly allow such drug transactions or discussions related to such transactions. In addition, them blocking a company that's violating such Interstate Commerce Laws is also a wise thing (in legal terms). Kinda like if you have a friend who wants to keep borrowing your car to go buy drugs. You stop letting your friend borrow your car at all - even though much of the time it might not to buy drugs, that way ensuring you distance yourself from his activities so no one can make claims that you're knowingly a part of it. This is a LOT different than Joe texting Jim for a dime bag.
Anyway, that's my opinion on the matter, and though IANAL, I think it makes sense.