'Albums' as such came about WAY long ago when the standard audio medium was a 78 rpm record. Generally speaking, it was one song-per side, so one disk = 2 songs. So to compile say, 10 or 12 songs by any artist, or maybe put a whole symphony into a single package, multiple disks were put into a bound book of record sleeves (literally, an 'album' of records). When technology changed and brought about 33-1/3 LPs (Long Play, for the kids out there) the same number of tracks could be put onto a single disk; when CDs came along, they just copied the current de facto standard. The idea that you have to continue to somehow package 'albums' within the context of digital distribution is absurd. Sure, bundle tracks that form parts of a coherent whole, or can be mashed-up to, say, feature all recorded versions of a song over the years, but stop forcing artists to come up with filler, and let them do their thing instead.
/late to the part I know //at least no one has to read my rants ///and *stay* off my lawn.
This is the same guy (different article) the was discussed earlier in the week... I am not trying to pimp my own submission; just trying to maybe provide more fodder for the discussion.
In my opinion we need a better model for serving ads -- or else these services need to add more servers/bandwidth.
I know that this doesn't speak specifically to the rest of your question, but IMHO, we need a better model than having ads. Just because we can have 'em doesn't mean we should all the time. It seems to me that the click-throughs, browser-tracking, etc., benefit the ad companies themselves far more than the individual content providers.
I realize I'm tilting at windmills here, but the current web ad-model has even city and local community web pages (like libraries) littering their pages with 'ads' for other parts of the same site, etc. It is really quite annoying.
At the risk of getting flamed into hell and back out the other side, I seem to remember reading that the Solitaire game that came with MS Windows originally ('way back when) was designed specifically to get people used to using a mouse, since up until that point, you had DOS at home and LIKED it that way!/a 'mouse'?!//wtf would I do with THAT?
I was the young gun a while back. Did a lot of stuff, held many of my cow-orkers in disdain, for not knowing, not caring, not understanding all of the awesome things I did. I knew I was better than them, and they were, indeed, all stupid (though I cannot fix a mainframe).
I now am 40+ and have some more perspective. Other than showing off for the sheer intellectual high of it, being a snob really doesn't get me anything. Who am I trying to impress?...and most times, if I have cowboyed a system together that no one else understands, how am I supposed to go on vacation? 'Stupid' or not, my co-workers, most of whom are now friends of many years, help me out on those occasions when my Exceptionally Large Brain needs an assist.
YMMV, and I'm sorry if folks have actually *hated* you for being smart, but hang out for a few years and the accretion of not-your-fault system failures, late nights hunting down bugs, and having good friends (and good employees) laid off all around you -- all that tends to color your gung-ho-ness about how hard you want to work for The Company.
Actually, the 'rise of albums' can be linked to the rise of 78 RPM records. A 'record album' is called that because back before 33.3 LPs (Long Play), you'd buy something that looked just like a photo album -- except that it was full of records! Each album would contain 5 or 6 disks, each of which had a single cut, or 2 per disk, or around 10-12 songs per album. Hence, that was the standard number of tracks on LPs and is still the standard number on a CD. I too was a teen in the early '80s, but was raised by WWII era parents, who owned actual record albums.
As an aside, IMHO, recordings like _In A Gadda Da Vida_, _Thick As A Brick_, etc., were ground-breaking not so much because of the music, but rather that they made use of the new medium -- an entire LP side, rather than the standard 'single' length of around 3 minutes, which is about what 78s could handle.
I was working at a steel mill, and the little VAX midrange which served up almost all computer service to the Shop seized up. Our 'Systems Administrator' (yes, the quotes are sarcastic, see below) jumps into action... after we finally track him down. He wanders into the computer room, puts the key in the box, and then hits the Big White Button. 20 minutes later, everything is back on line, the shop quits phoning us up to yell at whoever answers, and all is well. We're in the computer room talking with the guy, who now has his back to the server and is playing with his key ring, having pulled it back out of the server. Well, he drops his keys on the floor, and bending over to pick them up, presses his big fat ass up against the Big White Button -- rebooting the server AGAIN! Yup, he'd pulled the key out without locking out the button again. 20 minutes later, we are once again operational, in the meantime, he's on the phone the whole time and you can hear him going "yeah, not sure what the problem is, server went down again..."
I agree with the java rant here. AFAIK, Oracle (possibly Informix, etc.) actually does get date/time information right from the OS, so traditionally (can Y2K be called a tradition?) has been a conundrum for the OS -- displaying Y2K dates required a patch, but otherwise things were pretty ok....BUT now that Java's being bundled into the distros because it's just so darn useful, patches to DB software bundles have to be released. With Oracle specifically, the best time to cram the DST patch into place might right along with the 1/07 quarterly patch release.
>> Did unions protect steel workers? Or textile workers or airline employees here in the US?
Well yeah. Maybe not recently, but back when they were formed ('20s, '30s) they sure did. Unions were formed for workers' rights. It wasn't about job protectionism, it was about safe work environments and fair wages for a day's work. BUT, once they had big membership, they became self-perpetuating businesses of their own.
Job protectionism is a development of the late 20th century, and the unions didn't matter because of new economic forces (globalization) they can't control.
But as far as protecting *workers*, yeah, the unions did their jobs.
Unionizing IT should be predicated on ensuring that death-march projects and abuse of folks' personal lives through mandated overtime are eliminated. Good luck with that, though.
OMG, I screwed up twice with a single post. This was meant as a reply to a reply of the parent.
Also, I wrote: >>but if there are fixes for giant security holes, then you're just asking for Bad Things to happen.
When I *should* have written: but if there are fixes for giant security holes, and you ignore the fixes, then you're just asking for Bad Things to happen.
That's the point. It IS broke. Oracle started these quarterly updates because severe vulnerabilities were being identified. If your systems are that far out of rev., you're going to be doing a lot of fancy footwork if your customers' data is stolen/hacked/etc.
I agree that trying to stay on top of all the myriad of patches They put out in the past was a losing battle, but this idea of a consolidated patchset has really changed that.
Personally, I had to just get over myself and start applying the things. Yeah, you have to work out what the newest version of opatch is (1.0.0.55, I think) and yeah, you have to figure out what's up on each individual OS, but that's getting streamlined and is making inroads to a more unified view of patching across platforms.
This is not a meant as a personal attack on you, but if someone was posting on Slashdot saying how they were ignoring each and every Microsoft update for the last few years since it might break something, they'd be laughed right out of here. Sure the products should be more stable, but if there are fixes for giant security holes, then you're just asking for Bad Things to happen.
The secret to getting rid of lingering connections is to become a sort of a bastard. Give folks some 'consulting' time, but don't fix their systems. Talk with your new manager/supervisor/reporty-guy and have them step in and explain that whateveritis is not really your job any more. Organizations are lazy, and so are individuals, they will, in general, not willingly take over other responsibilities unless forced to.
Slashdot Mirror
^^^ This. If nothing else, it drives the ill-read crazy.
Mockingbird by Walter Tevis.
Mod Fritz up!
'Albums' as such came about WAY long ago when the standard audio medium was a 78 rpm record. Generally speaking, it was one song-per side, so one disk = 2 songs. So to compile say, 10 or 12 songs by any artist, or maybe put a whole symphony into a single package, multiple disks were put into a bound book of record sleeves (literally, an 'album' of records). When technology changed and brought about 33-1/3 LPs (Long Play, for the kids out there) the same number of tracks could be put onto a single disk; when CDs came along, they just copied the current de facto standard. The idea that you have to continue to somehow package 'albums' within the context of digital distribution is absurd. Sure, bundle tracks that form parts of a coherent whole, or can be mashed-up to, say, feature all recorded versions of a song over the years, but stop forcing artists to come up with filler, and let them do their thing instead.
/late to the part I know
//at least no one has to read my rants
///and *stay* off my lawn.
Meh. I think he's just milking his research.
As an aside, Oracle also has OCFS2 which is intended for clustering. Still needs some work, but is really pretty robust.
1 in 3 Sysadmins don't have enough to do.
>>His Kipling quote at the end should help bring closure to all his fans.
And only a few tears.
ooops. linky
This is the same guy (different article) the was discussed earlier in the week... I am not trying to pimp my own submission; just trying to maybe provide more fodder for the discussion.
I know that this doesn't speak specifically to the rest of your question, but IMHO, we need a better model than having ads. Just because we can have 'em doesn't mean we should all the time. It seems to me that the click-throughs, browser-tracking, etc., benefit the ad companies themselves far more than the individual content providers.
I realize I'm tilting at windmills here, but the current web ad-model has even city and local community web pages (like libraries) littering their pages with 'ads' for other parts of the same site, etc. It is really quite annoying.
/...and stay off my lawn!
At the risk of getting flamed into hell and back out the other side, I seem to remember reading that the Solitaire game that came with MS Windows originally ('way back when) was designed specifically to get people used to using a mouse, since up until that point, you had DOS at home and LIKED it that way! /a 'mouse'?! //wtf would I do with THAT?
I was the young gun a while back. Did a lot of stuff, held many of my cow-orkers in disdain, for not knowing, not caring, not understanding all of the awesome things I did. I knew I was better than them, and they were, indeed, all stupid (though I cannot fix a mainframe).
...and most times, if I have cowboyed a system together that no one else understands, how am I supposed to go on vacation? 'Stupid' or not, my co-workers, most of whom are now friends of many years, help me out on those occasions when my Exceptionally Large Brain needs an assist.
I now am 40+ and have some more perspective. Other than showing off for the sheer intellectual high of it, being a snob really doesn't get me anything. Who am I trying to impress?
YMMV, and I'm sorry if folks have actually *hated* you for being smart, but hang out for a few years and the accretion of not-your-fault system failures, late nights hunting down bugs, and having good friends (and good employees) laid off all around you -- all that tends to color your gung-ho-ness about how hard you want to work for The Company.
Actually, the 'rise of albums' can be linked to the rise of 78 RPM records. A 'record album' is called that because back before 33.3 LPs (Long Play), you'd buy something that looked just like a photo album -- except that it was full of records! Each album would contain 5 or 6 disks, each of which had a single cut, or 2 per disk, or around 10-12 songs per album. Hence, that was the standard number of tracks on LPs and is still the standard number on a CD. I too was a teen in the early '80s, but was raised by WWII era parents, who owned actual record albums.
As an aside, IMHO, recordings like _In A Gadda Da Vida_, _Thick As A Brick_, etc., were ground-breaking not so much because of the music, but rather that they made use of the new medium -- an entire LP side, rather than the standard 'single' length of around 3 minutes, which is about what 78s could handle.
...welcome our new... oh god I'm so depressed.
You asked, they listened. Does a August 3rd Launch work for your schedule?
I agree with the java rant here. AFAIK, Oracle (possibly Informix, etc.) actually does get date/time information right from the OS, so traditionally (can Y2K be called a tradition?) has been a conundrum for the OS -- displaying Y2K dates required a patch, but otherwise things were pretty ok. ...BUT now that Java's being bundled into the distros because it's just so darn useful, patches to DB software bundles have to be released. With Oracle specifically, the best time to cram the DST patch into place might right along with the 1/07 quarterly patch release.
>> Did unions protect steel workers? Or textile workers or airline employees here in the US?
Well yeah. Maybe not recently, but back when they were formed ('20s, '30s) they sure did. Unions were formed for workers' rights. It wasn't about job protectionism, it was about safe work environments and fair wages for a day's work. BUT, once they had big membership, they became self-perpetuating businesses of their own.
Job protectionism is a development of the late 20th century, and the unions didn't matter because of new economic forces (globalization) they can't control.
But as far as protecting *workers*, yeah, the unions did their jobs.
Unionizing IT should be predicated on ensuring that death-march projects and abuse of folks' personal lives through mandated overtime are eliminated. Good luck with that, though.
OMG, I screwed up twice with a single post. This was meant as a reply to a reply of the parent.
Also, I wrote:
>>but if there are fixes for giant security holes, then you're just asking for Bad Things to happen.
When I *should* have written:
but if there are fixes for giant security holes, and you ignore the fixes, then you're just asking for Bad Things to happen.
Goodness even 'preview' can't help me.
>>if it ain't broke, we don't fix it.
That's the point. It IS broke. Oracle started these quarterly updates because severe vulnerabilities were being identified. If your systems are that far out of rev., you're going to be doing a lot of fancy footwork if your customers' data is stolen/hacked/etc.
I agree that trying to stay on top of all the myriad of patches They put out in the past was a losing battle, but this idea of a consolidated patchset has really changed that.
Personally, I had to just get over myself and start applying the things. Yeah, you have to work out what the newest version of opatch is (1.0.0.55, I think) and yeah, you have to figure out what's up on each individual OS, but that's getting streamlined and is making inroads to a more unified view of patching across platforms.
This is not a meant as a personal attack on you, but if someone was posting on Slashdot saying how they were ignoring each and every Microsoft update for the last few years since it might break something, they'd be laughed right out of here. Sure the products should be more stable, but if there are fixes for giant security holes, then you're just asking for Bad Things to happen.
The secret to getting rid of lingering connections is to become a sort of a bastard. Give folks some 'consulting' time, but don't fix their systems. Talk with your new manager/supervisor/reporty-guy and have them step in and explain that whateveritis is not really your job any more. Organizations are lazy, and so are individuals, they will, in general, not willingly take over other responsibilities unless forced to.