> Massive shortages of consumer goods, poverty,
> crime, housing problems, political
> corruption/oppression. Oh yeah but a they had
>a good space station.
Which goes to show something else entirely.
The political/economic system doesn't matter much. If you give smart people lots of resources, they can build some really cool things.
It also goes to show the major failing of ALL political systems - resources will get allocated according to political process rather than according to logic and common sense.
If russia was truely communistic, and truely believed in "the people" (afterall, isn't the basic tennant of socialism that the welfare of the people is paramount?) then maybe they would have allocated resources to raising the standard of living and producing enough food and goods for their entire populace - rather than trying to shoot cool toys into space and engaging in an insane arms race?
Of course the same could be said of the US. Armed forces Generals have been saying for years "We have enough nukes, we can stop making them" yet every year congress allocated more money to making new nukes.
> so you work in a place where people BUY their
> own macintoshes and bring them in?
Worked....I terminated my employment there over a year ago.
and no...they didn't have to. Each department had a budget (often not even from the central administration - it was a hospital - departments and people had grants) and could buy whatever they wanted.
> Its only a matter of time until the user says
>"I can't open your PowerPoint file because I run
> Gnulix..."
As I said, if they don't NEED a specific OS for their job functions (which if they are manipulating power point slides they certainly DO need Windows) THEN I think its stupid to limit them.
Certainly there will always be people who spend more time working on other things than they should. Does it matter whether they are dinking with init scripts or playing solitaire?
> The smart IT shops cut this shit off at the pass
It is the IT shops job to police how employees in other departments spend their time? Isn't that the job of the individual departments to manage their employees and set what is and is not acceptable productivity levels?
At least in places where I have worked, IT is looked at as "Customer service" - they serve the other departments by providing computer systems. It is not the customer service reps place to tell his customer how to do his job, just to provide him with the tools to do it.
For servers - mission critical stuff - basically anything that users use and you provide. Yes.
I am a debian developer. I use debian at home. My work DESKTOP is a Debian Box. However - noone else uses debian where I work. When I had to install a linux server - I used redhat.
I hate redhat myself - can't stand it. It gets in my way and I think its a horrid system. However - I am not the only admin. Others need to be able to admin the system - so I installed redhat on it.
However like I said, if its a desktop machine thats used 99.9% of the time by one single user - let them install what they want. As long as the job can get done.
Not following standards and procedures on a server that many admins need to be able to fix is definitly evil and deserves to get one fired. Not following standards on a desktop box - I chaulk that up to personal preference.
(however - I do hope to sell some of my co-workers on debian and see if I can't get us to start moving to debian boxen)
it eaither says something for linux's stability or the intelligence of the users.
It has been my experience that Users who KNOW that their machines are not supported, and have been TOLD not to call, are just as likely to call when they have a problem as any other user.
They don't usually stop calling until after they have been completely unsuccessful getting help 3 or 4 times, and even after telling lies about what they are running to get support.
While I agree that it is the companies computer and their right - I still think its stupid.
People work differently. People who like linux and work best in linux, might not work well in windows.
Its like telling a person how to decorate their cubical walls. Sure - certain things would be very inapropriate (like say playboy centerfolds), and its the companies cubical. However - setting rigid standards and forcing people to work under them is just goin gto make the workplace less enjoyable of a place to be.
Making the place less enjoyable will just make people want to work elsewhere. Work already isn't fun, at least give a person the ability to "personalize" the place a little bit.
Now, if their use of linux interfeared with actual work and made it so they couldn't do their job - then certainly the company needs to step in.
However, if they can support the machine themselves, and they can get their job done - then why should it matter at all? I don't know about others but I am all for letting people do what they want - as long as they can get the job done then leave the details up to them.
As for IT support - its simple. You just need a policy that says "This is what we support. This is standard. Diviate from it at your own risk - we will not fix it for you."
I have to agree..and frontline tech support SUCKS.
The only thing that made my job bearable was that I spent alot of time in medical research labs working, and I get off on that sort of thing. I think the researchers liked me cuz I had some clue as to what they were doing and showed interest:).
(that and I would give them the straight talk on my own department I was quite used to answering the greeting "Your department sucks" with "Yes we do, but since im here you want me to look at the problem?")
I have found that in front level support you get 2 types. The first is people like I was - very clued and very skilled, just not enough work experience and stuff to land a better job. The second are complete idiots who know how to navigate windows and "run installsheild" better than most users.
The first type does it for a year or two and moves on. The second type stays there forever (this is espcially true at helpdesks). If the first type doesn't leave after a year or two, then they get lots of crap dumped on them and eventually have a breakdown and get fired - then recover and move on.
The worker shortage doesn't make this better. There is too much work and too few people. Its no wonder that things like "ghost" are seen as a god send. When you have a 24 hour turn around time policy, but real turn around is more like 4-5 days because of shear call volume - its not like you have the time to devote to really solving problems.
I litterally worked where 7 people or so doing desktop support for several thousand machines. Spanning 3-4 types of supported PC hardware (the standard had changed a few times over the years) 2 main OSs (Windows 3.1 and Win95 - the Win95 rollout was still going on in 1999 when I left) PLUS macintoshes (which got a lesser level of support due to myself and one other tech being the ONLY mac experienced techs)
This is one of the reasons that I left my old job (Ok that and I was tired of frontline tech support for windows machines and got offered a Unix system programer position)
They didn't want to FIX machines. There was litterally a policy "If you can't fix it in 15 mins, escalate the problem". Anytime the problem required more than a scandisk or running some IT-aproved simple fix - then it was "rebuild" (which used a system much like ghost)
It made the job boreing and unbearable. I ENJOY finding problems. I don't want to have to look at a problem and "blow it away" just to have it surface again in a few months.
As for linux - I was one of those "Insurgent linux users". What was IT policy? Simple..."If its not standard software and hardware - we don't touch it" That was it - anyone can run whatever they want - if it breaks, don't come crying to us (unless its "100% aproved").
Was a very sensible policy, and it worked. Those who were able to manage linux boxen ran them. Those who could manage NT (which was unsupported for Users) could run it. Those who had Macs - could run them (though macs were unsupporte dbut we fixed them - was kind of a weird grey area for political and practical reasons).
Personally I think that what a person uses on their desktop machine doesn't need to be much of an issue. As long as they can handle any issues that come up, and they can get their work done - why does it matter? (other than some people feel a need to feel like they are in control of everything - I never did understand that mentality)
> Sorry. I'm just annoyed at all these people on
> this board who think that life is a bad scifi
> flick.
ROTFL it does seem that way doesn't it.
> save that the vast majority of _Bacillus_
> bacteria are nonpathogenic.
How about a specific example...
Whose ever eaten yogurt? guess what....its a live bacteria culture! Boil som emilk then let it cool in a covered pan to about 97 F....plop in some store bought yogurt - cover - keep it at about 97F for 24 hours
The result? A whole crapload of tastey yogurt. mmmmm mix in some cucumbers, mint, and some black pepper....mmmm thank you lactobacillus acidopholus!
Actually it doesn't even say that. It says that because organisms end up competing for resources, the organisms that are most adapted towards obtaining those resources will rtend to survive and pass on their genes more readily than those that don't.
Should the environment become hostile to life, life will not survive.
Ya know - its a story . a "legend" some story that someone thought might be found interesting.
What I find "far off" is your quickness to call anyone who holds a position different than you a "nut".
Do you really find it so hard to believe that a sane, stable, non-criminally-inclined person would want to own a gun or find guns interesting.
Certainly nitting, soap operas, and homosexual sex don't interest me one bit - however I don't go around calling the people who do practice these things "nuts".
--Steve
Re:Linux Torvalds has been working on Crusoe linux
on
HURD For 'Big Iron'?
·
· Score: 1
> I can fully understand him not accepting patches
> that are going to end up being a _lot_ of work
> to satisfy less the 1% of his "customers."
I agree completely.
I didn't mean it in the context of "Couldn't linus make it such that..." I meant more of the "I doubt he would reject it if the patch was submitted as an optional replacement"
It wouldn't have to be alot of work for him and others - just for the people wirtting maimframe code. Let them maintain the code that they submit.
Even if its completely broken - its their own problem. I don't mind the kernel source getting a tiny bit bigger for their conveienece.
certainly it already contains many many device drivers that I will never use - and thats true for most people. The only downside to including it - IF it is submitted as a proper OPTION so it wont degrade performance on "miniscule iron", then its only downside is making the code larger - adding a feature that most people will never use.
Really - only a few core kernel options can be said to be used by "most people". Take the NE2000 ethernet driver. I use it on a few machines. "Most people" don't. The same is true for every other ethernet card driver. There is no one single ethernet card that "most people use" (there may be one that is used more frequently than the rest - but I doubt its enough that more than 50% of linux users have it)
My point simply being - I would bet, from the discussion about how it would "effect small systems" that the patch was rejected because it replaced the original code - rather than simply being an optional drop-in. - a problem which the original authors should fix and resubmit rather than complaining.
> Also, it could just be that the thought it
> was too late in the 2.4 development cycle
While very true, its not something that most kernel hackers could test/work on anyway. Since it only effects the small subset of people who are on big iron - well it doesn't matter does it...
that would be a perfectly valid reason for rejection. However - the reason being talked about is the effect on smaller machines - which is a completely different issue and can be made insignifigant as I said above.
> The problem was, Westinghouse dropped his
> support of it because it became difficult to
> charge people for it.
I supose we should be glad though. Between the health risks of that much electromagnetic radiation, and the fact that tesla coils have the annoying habbit of proving that ground isn't an infinite energy sink (even back then one end of the AC generator was grounded - Tesla sent so much energy into ground once that it burnt out and the generators at the power plant and set them on fire)
I do have to wonder how modern electronics would have evolved in such a world though. Circuits would be way different - they would have to be to survive.
-Steve
Re:Linux Torvalds has been working on Crusoe linux
on
HURD For 'Big Iron'?
·
· Score: 1
> These patches are not being accepted simply
> because the memory management patches to support
> these large machines doesn't scale back down
> to desktops, laptops or handhelds.
I think I saw the same article. Makes alot of sense - BUT.... couldn't they be changed to be optional? Set a kernel option at compile for which code you need?
Seriously - noone is going to be compiling a kernel for a big iron machine and then expect to move the kernel binary to a desktop and boot.
But it is important to keep it running well on desktops and low end servers - thats the general popularion of linux users. I LOVE knowing that I can ressurect an old 486 as a linux box - not fast but runs reasonably.
Course my last 486 linux box was decomissioned earlier this year - but its good to know that I can ressurect it with the latest kernel et al.
How does USE of a game cause damage, in this case?
If I buy a copy of SimCity 3000 or Final Fantasy 8 and pop it in my PC to play on an emulator...how is that damaging to the company that made the game?
> So maybe running old games (note: NOT illegal
> copies of current games) on emulators does not
> infringe on copyright after all
According to my understanding (mostly gained from listening to the comments of lawyers through several articles - and reading the US Copyright office FAQ) that:
A) Distribution of copyrighted works is what is illegal. Distributing an old game is (unfortunaly - as I have said the fact that its illegal is the real crime) is "infringement".
B) Playing the game (use) is NOT illegal, as it is fair use (even if the game was obtained illegally - this interpretation comes from one of the old MP3 cases - and it was a lawyer for the record companies that said it! - thats why it sticks in my mind)
As I said - its distribution - the actual act of trnasfering a copy from one person to another that is "infingement" - not its subsequent use.
Ok Why is this Andlow being listened to? (Ok I know why - he has a fancy title in front of his name)
"By emulating a computer system or game, you are effectively reproducing a trademark and, without
permission, that is an infringement of intellectual property rights.
Excuse me? This man doesn't even know that the issue is copyright and NOT trademark? Does he possibly have ANY clue what he is talking about? Or perhaps is this yet another attempt to use words interchangably as to confuse people to the REAL meaning and thus push forward the purposterous idea of "Intellectual Property"?
(I supose I shouldn't attribute it to malice,
it can adequetly be explained by stupidity)
I think this whole article is an interesting example of "imprecise language" being used. Like programmers "Allowing the use" of games. No...Use is already allowed - its covered under "fair use" doctrine. Its distribution that is the issue, and the ONLY issue.
"There is still a
rights holder somewhere.
Copying is no different from any
other crime."
I emphatically disagree. This seems to imply that
all crimes are created equal. Is shoplifting no different from murder? Should we give jay-walkers the death penalty?
More to the point, Copying is completely non-violent, and has no direct victem. The "Damages" are arguable at best. This makes it VERY different from other crimes.
The real crime is the length of copyright. There is NO reason for copyright to last as long as it does. When the author is no longer profiting from the copyright - then their "limited monopoly on distribution" should end. It is given to them, not because they "deserve it" or "its their right" but to encourage production and to encourage distribution. As such, when they use copyright to stop distribution and DO NOT distribute - they are subverting the trust of the system.
Her Anonymous Free Speech has already been violated. It was violated by the court. Bob's Widgets didn't force the server admins to give up the information - It was the powers of the court.
As for unfair termination....yea true there are laws. However that doesn't mean much. Its possible to get around the laws. (don't fire her now - put her under a microscope. Find any excuse to fire her "legitimatly". Make her work life hell so she will quit - these tactics are employed every day, and quite successfully - and often for nothing more than personal dislike)
Alice has a problem with her employer, Bob's Widgets. She posts something on slashdot anonymously complaining about them.
Now, it might be defamation. It might not. Thats for a court to decide right?
Well so Bob's Widgets brings a lawsuit charging defamation. BEFORE they can rule on whether Alice is guilty of defamation they must first identify who she is (using the powers of the court), so she can provide a defense.
Now Alice is exposed. Whether or not what she said was defamitory. So even if it was ruled that she was within her rights to say what she said, her anonimity has been compromised - and Bob's can now take action against her (termination probably) at any time.
So how exactly does this "protect" "Anonymous Free Speech"?
Heh recently I started playing FF8 - and once again i remembered why i don't play many games. I start to dream about them (esp when a 6 hour session of sitting there after work playing is the last thing that I do before bed)
Its really weird - normally I don't dream much. However when I play for long periods, I almost always dream about it.
The only other thing that has had that much of an effect on my dreaming is reading. Sometimes reading a good book before bed will REALLY do some weird things (of course, when i noticed this I was reading the Illuminaus! Triology)
As for waking up...only had the alarm clock thing once. I was walking into a hotel and the person at the desk suddenly opened her mouth and started singing...then I went upstrairs and someone else was doing it...same song... and it was in spanish!
Then I woke up and heard the radio blaring o/~ I am carlos santana o/~
I like that alot. If implimented properly - it could be quite secure. In fact, it would even protect against dedicated hardware looking for stuff on the disk - since nothing ever goes to the disk unencrypted. (the recent BUGTRAQ thread on shred(1) being fresh in my mind)
I should look into that - its a very cool idea afterall. Of course - one needs a way to get the key to it - I would imagine that it could be kept on a floppy and inserted at boot time, or whenever the partition needs to be mounted.
Of course - if say/home were kept encrypted - it would mean that remote reboots couldn't be done, unless the disk was left in. (of course the problem is probably more of an issue on a laptop)
> (Every web session over SSL, every shell over
> SSH etc...)
I have to agree.
One of the battle cry's we have used at work is
"Plaintext Passwords must die" (they wont die soon but we are working on it).
I am in favor of doing it up right. Phase out http in favor of https. I know my webserver will soon have a rewrite rule to redirect all http traffic to https.
I like the analogy used in the PGP manual the best. Would you send all your personal mail on psotcards? If everyone did, then sending something in an envelope would look weird - suspicous even.
So encrypt it all. Everything. ALL traffic in and out of everywhere. What is really needed is a free public CA, who can sign ssl certs for people. Or, better yet, come up with a "web of trust" system and build support for it into the web browsers...then into everything else.
Crypto needs to be made painless to use. Simple and default.
Of course - I am from boston - my fammily mostly italien and sicilian. My grandmother was a bookie for a while. I have no doubt that the fammily had some mob ties at some point (probably post-prohibition era though - great grandpa bought their house for $8,000 in cash around the 1940s - was always kinda tight lipped about money and stuff)
In any case probably true - what I said about guns was just my guess - probably more fueld by tv images than anything else. Its pretty easy sometimes to overlook things like that.
> Marx ignored human nature. We are a competitive
> species.
I don't see the comment that brought up marx...I don't see what he has to do with this discussion. Anyway, I disagree somewhat. Marx DID miss some parts of human nature though.
> Life itself is competitive (predator, prey,
> limited resources and all that).
Whats your point? Competition for limited resources is definitly a fact of life. However, when resources are plentiful, there is nothing to compete for. In our case, they are most certainly plentiful.
> Communism/socialism/whatever ignores this and
> places people in situations where their
> productivity is totally irrelevant.
In some instances correct. That depends though, there are many different types of socialism and communism. You are ignoring other types of competition.
> . I could go out and double my productivity and
> it would make exactly zero material difference
> in my family's lifestyle.
And material difference is the only difference that you recognize? I assure you that this is a culturally influenced veiwpoint. It is also not true for all types of socialism/communism.
As I see it, all "communist" and "socialist" systems have failed more due to corrupt leadership and mis-management than anything else. A true socialist system is about the people, to focus all of its energy on building up the power of a state - building a huge military and entering a futile arms race - thats a sure way to make it fail.
(of course - killing millions of your own people doesn't help either)
Believe it or not, there are lots of reasons to work besides money. Have you ever seen a person who has retired...has no need for more money than they have - and is bored to death? They want to go back to work! I have 2 grand parents who would kill to be able to go back to work.
Being produductive feels good! It is a reward in and of itself. I can come to work and do nothing all day if I want - or I can work and get something done. I will tell you - I feel great when I feel like I got something accomplished (the worst are days when I work all day long and feel like I got nothing accomplished - such a downer)
And yes, there are plenty of incentives to work in a good socialist system. If you don't work - you don't get the benefits. You get to feel productive. You get to know that what you are doing is helping others (another good feeling).
Of course, I work for half the money that I could make for no other reason that I love my job and the people that I work with are just great. Low pressure and great atmosphere. I make enough to live very comfortably - even with a few excesses.
Frankly - I have interests outside of my job and how I make money. As much as I enjoy my job - its not the center of my life.
> You can defend your safety (your right to life,
> if you will) by attacking someone else's rights.
Really?
> You are most likely alive right now because
> everyone else's right to kill you has been
> taken away by the government
So what you are saying is that others have the right to kill me, and the government is opressing them by saying that they can't?
Firstly, I would object by saying that no right to kill exists, regardless of what a government says.
Secondly, This is bull. It is social pressure and the fact that killing a person, outside of self defense, is considered to be morally wrong that people don't kill.
Thirdly, Safety is a feeling, You can never truely be absolutely safe. You may FEEL safer because there are laws against murder, however the law is NOT what stops me, or anyone else, from shooting you. ALL the law does is make you FEEL better.
> I know there are plenty of people I would have
> killed in the heat of the moment if I knew there
> would be no repercussions from law enforcement,
> I would drive much faster if the government
> didn't take that right away, and I would steal
> food from the grocery store if the government
> didn't take that right away.
Really? You are in the minority then, in fact, you may even have some sort of psycological problem - giving up control of your own decisions to an outside force can't be healthy.
I drive faster than speed limits - sometimes signifigantly faster. I wouldn't drive faster than I do now - because I wouldn't feel safe doing it. I drive exactly as fast as _I_ judge is safe and apropriate (sometimes thats much slower than the speed limit posted - sometimes much faster - it depends on road conditions and the state of my vehicle - NOT the numbers on a sign)
I do not steal from stores. I know I could, and I know I could get away with it if I wanted to. I don't want to. My moral beliefs do not allow me to, even if I could get away with it. The law never enters into the picture here.
Kill people? Hell no. Not unless my life, or the life of another was in danger. I may have been mad, I may have felt like visiting violent acts upon a person. However...I have never been so mad as to be actually ready to kill someone. I have control over my anger, enough as to not present a danger to society.
Again...law doesn't enter into the picture. I was brought up to respect life and to respect others. THAT is what keeps me from comming to your house and shooting you, and your whole fammily. THAT is what keeps just about everyone else from doing it too.
To get back to the point of guns. If you take away guns legally, then they will be replaced with illegal guns. Do you REALLY think that a person who is willing to kill a person is going to even think twice abou tbuying an illegal gun?
Do you actually expect that someone is going to say "Darn, I want to kill him, shoot him right dead, but I can't break the law and buy a gun".
Face it, the people who own guns now, and will not go out and buy illegal guns, are the ones that you didn't need to worry about anyway. Someone who is willing to use a gun to commit violent acts, outside of self defense, are the ones who wont think twice about buying illegal guns.
As for whether they will be available - you can close down all of the gun manafacturers in the world, new black market ones will spring up over night.
the ONLY effect that it could possibly have is giving the black market YET ANOTHER product that they can sell to make more money.
> Fully-automatic firearms were readily available
> in the early part of this century.
While true... they were somewhat more bulky than they are today. Also I doubt they were quite as prevalent and easily obtained by people without much income.
> It wasn't much of a problem until
> alcohol prohibtion ignited a violent black
> market.
A good point. Nothing better for the profits in the black market than giving them a new product that they can make cheaply and lots of people want.
However, still besides my point. I seriously don't think much has changed in the past thousand years or so.
A co-worker was just telling me about some letters between people complaining about how "Kids today don't respect their elders like we did. All they want to do is stay up to all hours and listen to loud music" - that were written before the Americain Revolution.
Slashdot Mirror
> Massive shortages of consumer goods, poverty,
> crime, housing problems, political
> corruption/oppression. Oh yeah but a they had
>a good space station.
Which goes to show something else entirely.
The political/economic system doesn't matter much. If you give smart people lots of resources, they can build some really cool things.
It also goes to show the major failing of ALL political systems - resources will get allocated according to political process rather than according to logic and common sense.
If russia was truely communistic, and truely believed in "the people" (afterall, isn't the basic tennant of socialism that the welfare of the people is paramount?) then maybe they would have allocated resources to raising the standard of living and producing enough food and goods for their entire populace - rather than trying to shoot cool toys into space and engaging in an insane arms race?
Of course the same could be said of the US. Armed forces Generals have been saying for years "We have enough nukes, we can stop making them" yet every year congress allocated more money to making new nukes.
Politics in action!
-Steve
> so you work in a place where people BUY their
> own macintoshes and bring them in?
Worked....I terminated my employment there over a year ago.
and no...they didn't have to. Each department had a budget (often not even from the central administration - it was a hospital - departments and people had grants) and could buy whatever they wanted.
-Steve
> Its only a matter of time until the user says
>"I can't open your PowerPoint file because I run
> Gnulix..."
As I said, if they don't NEED a specific OS for their job functions (which if they are manipulating power point slides they certainly DO need Windows) THEN I think its stupid to limit them.
Certainly there will always be people who spend more time working on other things than they should. Does it matter whether they are dinking with init scripts or playing solitaire?
> The smart IT shops cut this shit off at the pass
It is the IT shops job to police how employees in other departments spend their time? Isn't that the job of the individual departments to manage their employees and set what is and is not acceptable productivity levels?
At least in places where I have worked, IT is looked at as "Customer service" - they serve the other departments by providing computer systems. It is not the customer service reps place to tell his customer how to do his job, just to provide him with the tools to do it.
-Steve
I agree - sorta.
For servers - mission critical stuff - basically anything that users use and you provide. Yes.
I am a debian developer. I use debian at home. My work DESKTOP is a Debian Box. However - noone else uses debian where I work. When I had to install a linux server - I used redhat.
I hate redhat myself - can't stand it. It gets in my way and I think its a horrid system. However - I am not the only admin. Others need to be able to admin the system - so I installed redhat on it.
However like I said, if its a desktop machine thats used 99.9% of the time by one single user - let them install what they want. As long as the job can get done.
Not following standards and procedures on a server that many admins need to be able to fix is definitly evil and deserves to get one fired. Not following standards on a desktop box - I chaulk that up to personal preference.
(however - I do hope to sell some of my co-workers on debian and see if I can't get us to start moving to debian boxen)
-Steve
Well
it eaither says something for linux's stability or the intelligence of the users.
It has been my experience that Users who KNOW that their machines are not supported, and have been TOLD not to call, are just as likely to call when they have a problem as any other user.
They don't usually stop calling until after they have been completely unsuccessful getting help 3 or 4 times, and even after telling lies about what they are running to get support.
-Steve
-Steve
While I agree that it is the companies computer and their right - I still think its stupid.
People work differently. People who like linux and work best in linux, might not work well in windows.
Its like telling a person how to decorate their cubical walls. Sure - certain things would be very inapropriate (like say playboy centerfolds), and its the companies cubical. However - setting rigid standards and forcing people to work under them is just goin gto make the workplace less enjoyable of a place to be.
Making the place less enjoyable will just make people want to work elsewhere. Work already isn't fun, at least give a person the ability to "personalize" the place a little bit.
Now, if their use of linux interfeared with actual work and made it so they couldn't do their job - then certainly the company needs to step in.
However, if they can support the machine themselves, and they can get their job done - then why should it matter at all? I don't know about others but I am all for letting people do what they want - as long as they can get the job done then leave the details up to them.
As for IT support - its simple. You just need a policy that says "This is what we support. This is standard. Diviate from it at your own risk - we will not fix it for you."
--Steve
I have to agree..and frontline tech support SUCKS.
:).
The only thing that made my job bearable was that I spent alot of time in medical research labs working, and I get off on that sort of thing. I think the researchers liked me cuz I had some clue as to what they were doing and showed interest
(that and I would give them the straight talk on my own department I was quite used to answering the greeting "Your department sucks" with "Yes we do, but since im here you want me to look at the problem?")
I have found that in front level support you get 2 types. The first is people like I was - very clued and very skilled, just not enough work experience and stuff to land a better job. The second are complete idiots who know how to navigate windows and "run installsheild" better than most users.
The first type does it for a year or two and moves on. The second type stays there forever (this is espcially true at helpdesks). If the first type doesn't leave after a year or two, then they get lots of crap dumped on them and eventually have a breakdown and get fired - then recover and move on.
The worker shortage doesn't make this better. There is too much work and too few people. Its no wonder that things like "ghost" are seen as a god send. When you have a 24 hour turn around time policy, but real turn around is more like 4-5 days because of shear call volume - its not like you have the time to devote to really solving problems.
I litterally worked where 7 people or so doing desktop support for several thousand machines. Spanning 3-4 types of supported PC hardware (the standard had changed a few times over the years) 2 main OSs (Windows 3.1 and Win95 - the Win95 rollout was still going on in 1999 when I left) PLUS macintoshes (which got a lesser level of support due to myself and one other tech being the ONLY mac experienced techs)
-Steve
This is one of the reasons that I left my old job (Ok that and I was tired of frontline tech support for windows machines and got offered a Unix system programer position)
They didn't want to FIX machines. There was litterally a policy "If you can't fix it in 15 mins, escalate the problem". Anytime the problem required more than a scandisk or running some IT-aproved simple fix - then it was "rebuild" (which used a system much like ghost)
It made the job boreing and unbearable. I ENJOY finding problems. I don't want to have to look at a problem and "blow it away" just to have it surface again in a few months.
As for linux - I was one of those "Insurgent linux users". What was IT policy? Simple..."If its not standard software and hardware - we don't touch it" That was it - anyone can run whatever they want - if it breaks, don't come crying to us (unless its "100% aproved").
Was a very sensible policy, and it worked. Those who were able to manage linux boxen ran them. Those who could manage NT (which was unsupported for Users) could run it. Those who had Macs - could run them (though macs were unsupporte dbut we fixed them - was kind of a weird grey area for political and practical reasons).
Personally I think that what a person uses on their desktop machine doesn't need to be much of an issue. As long as they can handle any issues that come up, and they can get their work done - why does it matter? (other than some people feel a need to feel like they are in control of everything - I never did understand that mentality)
-Steve
> Sorry. I'm just annoyed at all these people on
> this board who think that life is a bad scifi
> flick.
ROTFL it does seem that way doesn't it.
> save that the vast majority of _Bacillus_
> bacteria are nonpathogenic.
How about a specific example...
Whose ever eaten yogurt? guess what....its a live bacteria culture! Boil som emilk then let it cool in a covered pan to about 97 F....plop in some store bought yogurt - cover - keep it at about 97F for 24 hours
The result? A whole crapload of tastey yogurt. mmmmm mix in some cucumbers, mint, and some black pepper....mmmm thank you lactobacillus acidopholus!
-Steve
Actually it doesn't even say that. It says that because organisms end up competing for resources, the organisms that are most adapted towards obtaining those resources will rtend to survive and pass on their genes more readily than those that don't.
Should the environment become hostile to life, life will not survive.
-Steve
Ya know - its a story . a "legend" some story that someone thought might be found interesting.
What I find "far off" is your quickness to call anyone who holds a position different than you a "nut".
Do you really find it so hard to believe that a sane, stable, non-criminally-inclined person would want to own a gun or find guns interesting.
Certainly nitting, soap operas, and homosexual sex don't interest me one bit - however I don't go around calling the people who do practice these things "nuts".
--Steve
> I can fully understand him not accepting patches
> that are going to end up being a _lot_ of work
> to satisfy less the 1% of his "customers."
I agree completely.
I didn't mean it in the context of "Couldn't linus make it such that..." I meant more of the "I doubt he would reject it if the patch was submitted as an optional replacement"
It wouldn't have to be alot of work for him and others - just for the people wirtting maimframe code. Let them maintain the code that they submit.
Even if its completely broken - its their own problem. I don't mind the kernel source getting a tiny bit bigger for their conveienece.
certainly it already contains many many device drivers that I will never use - and thats true for most people. The only downside to including it - IF it is submitted as a proper OPTION so it wont degrade performance on "miniscule iron", then its only downside is making the code larger - adding a feature that most people will never use.
Really - only a few core kernel options can be said to be used by "most people". Take the NE2000 ethernet driver. I use it on a few machines. "Most people" don't. The same is true for every other ethernet card driver. There is no one single ethernet card that "most people use" (there may be one that is used more frequently than the rest - but I doubt its enough that more than 50% of linux users have it)
My point simply being - I would bet, from the discussion about how it would "effect small systems" that the patch was rejected because it replaced the original code - rather than simply being an optional drop-in. - a problem which the original authors should fix and resubmit rather than complaining.
> Also, it could just be that the thought it
> was too late in the 2.4 development cycle
While very true, its not something that most kernel hackers could test/work on anyway. Since it only effects the small subset of people who are on big iron - well it doesn't matter does it...
that would be a perfectly valid reason for rejection. However - the reason being talked about is the effect on smaller machines - which is a completely different issue and can be made insignifigant as I said above.
-Steve
> The problem was, Westinghouse dropped his
> support of it because it became difficult to
> charge people for it.
I supose we should be glad though. Between the health risks of that much electromagnetic radiation, and the fact that tesla coils have the annoying habbit of proving that ground isn't an infinite energy sink (even back then one end of the AC generator was grounded - Tesla sent so much energy into ground once that it burnt out and the generators at the power plant and set them on fire)
I do have to wonder how modern electronics would have evolved in such a world though. Circuits would be way different - they would have to be to survive.
-Steve
> These patches are not being accepted simply
> because the memory management patches to support
> these large machines doesn't scale back down
> to desktops, laptops or handhelds.
I think I saw the same article. Makes alot of sense - BUT.... couldn't they be changed to be optional? Set a kernel option at compile for which code you need?
Seriously - noone is going to be compiling a kernel for a big iron machine and then expect to move the kernel binary to a desktop and boot.
But it is important to keep it running well on desktops and low end servers - thats the general popularion of linux users. I LOVE knowing that I can ressurect an old 486 as a linux box - not fast but runs reasonably.
Course my last 486 linux box was decomissioned earlier this year - but its good to know that I can ressurect it with the latest kernel et al.
-Steve
How does USE of a game cause damage, in this case?
If I buy a copy of SimCity 3000 or Final Fantasy 8 and pop it in my PC to play on an emulator...how is that damaging to the company that made the game?
> So maybe running old games (note: NOT illegal
> copies of current games) on emulators does not
> infringe on copyright after all
According to my understanding (mostly gained from listening to the comments of lawyers through several articles - and reading the US Copyright office FAQ) that:
A) Distribution of copyrighted works is what is illegal. Distributing an old game is (unfortunaly - as I have said the fact that its illegal is the real crime) is "infringement".
B) Playing the game (use) is NOT illegal, as it is fair use (even if the game was obtained illegally - this interpretation comes from one of the old MP3 cases - and it was a lawyer for the record companies that said it! - thats why it sticks in my mind)
As I said - its distribution - the actual act of trnasfering a copy from one person to another that is "infingement" - not its subsequent use.
-Steve
Ok Why is this Andlow being listened to? (Ok I know why - he has a fancy title in front of his name)
Excuse me? This man doesn't even know that the issue is copyright and NOT trademark? Does he possibly have ANY clue what he is talking about? Or perhaps is this yet another attempt to use words interchangably as to confuse people to the REAL meaning and thus push forward the purposterous idea of "Intellectual Property"? (I supose I shouldn't attribute it to malice, it can adequetly be explained by stupidity)
I think this whole article is an interesting example of "imprecise language" being used. Like programmers "Allowing the use" of games. No...Use is already allowed - its covered under "fair use" doctrine. Its distribution that is the issue, and the ONLY issue.
I emphatically disagree. This seems to imply that all crimes are created equal. Is shoplifting no different from murder? Should we give jay-walkers the death penalty?
More to the point, Copying is completely non-violent, and has no direct victem. The "Damages" are arguable at best. This makes it VERY different from other crimes.
The real crime is the length of copyright. There is NO reason for copyright to last as long as it does. When the author is no longer profiting from the copyright - then their "limited monopoly on distribution" should end. It is given to them, not because they "deserve it" or "its their right" but to encourage production and to encourage distribution. As such, when they use copyright to stop distribution and DO NOT distribute - they are subverting the trust of the system.
-Steve
Completely besides the point.
Her Anonymous Free Speech has already been violated. It was violated by the court. Bob's Widgets didn't force the server admins to give up the information - It was the powers of the court.
As for unfair termination....yea true there are laws. However that doesn't mean much. Its possible to get around the laws. (don't fire her now - put her under a microscope. Find any excuse to fire her "legitimatly". Make her work life hell so she will quit - these tactics are employed every day, and quite successfully - and often for nothing more than personal dislike)
-Steve
Whats the difference?
Here is my problem wih this.
Alice has a problem with her employer, Bob's Widgets. She posts something on slashdot anonymously complaining about them.
Now, it might be defamation. It might not. Thats for a court to decide right?
Well so Bob's Widgets brings a lawsuit charging defamation. BEFORE they can rule on whether Alice is guilty of defamation they must first identify who she is (using the powers of the court), so she can provide a defense.
Now Alice is exposed. Whether or not what she said was defamitory. So even if it was ruled that she was within her rights to say what she said, her anonimity has been compromised - and Bob's can now take action against her (termination probably) at any time.
So how exactly does this "protect" "Anonymous Free Speech"?
-Steve
Heh recently I started playing FF8 - and once again i remembered why i don't play many games. I start to dream about them (esp when a 6 hour session of sitting there after work playing is the last thing that I do before bed)
Its really weird - normally I don't dream much. However when I play for long periods, I almost always dream about it.
The only other thing that has had that much of an effect on my dreaming is reading. Sometimes reading a good book before bed will REALLY do some weird things (of course, when i noticed this I was reading the Illuminaus! Triology)
As for waking up...only had the alarm clock thing once. I was walking into a hotel and the person at the desk suddenly opened her mouth and started singing...then I went upstrairs and someone else was doing it...same song... and it was in spanish!
Then I woke up and heard the radio blaring o/~ I am carlos santana o/~
-Steve
hmmmm an encrypting device driver....
/home were kept encrypted - it would mean that remote reboots couldn't be done, unless the disk was left in. (of course the problem is probably more of an issue on a laptop)
I like that alot. If implimented properly - it could be quite secure. In fact, it would even protect against dedicated hardware looking for stuff on the disk - since nothing ever goes to the disk unencrypted. (the recent BUGTRAQ thread on shred(1) being fresh in my mind)
I should look into that - its a very cool idea afterall. Of course - one needs a way to get the key to it - I would imagine that it could be kept on a floppy and inserted at boot time, or whenever the partition needs to be mounted.
Of course - if say
-Steve
> (Every web session over SSL, every shell over
> SSH etc...)
I have to agree.
One of the battle cry's we have used at work is
"Plaintext Passwords must die" (they wont die soon but we are working on it).
I am in favor of doing it up right. Phase out http in favor of https. I know my webserver will soon have a rewrite rule to redirect all http traffic to https.
I like the analogy used in the PGP manual the best. Would you send all your personal mail on psotcards? If everyone did, then sending something in an envelope would look weird - suspicous even.
So encrypt it all. Everything. ALL traffic in and out of everywhere. What is really needed is a free public CA, who can sign ssl certs for people. Or, better yet, come up with a "web of trust" system and build support for it into the web browsers...then into everything else.
Crypto needs to be made painless to use. Simple and default.
-Steve
I wouldn't doubt that at all.
Of course - I am from boston - my fammily mostly italien and sicilian. My grandmother was a bookie for a while. I have no doubt that the fammily had some mob ties at some point (probably post-prohibition era though - great grandpa bought their house for $8,000 in cash around the 1940s - was always kinda tight lipped about money and stuff)
In any case probably true - what I said about guns was just my guess - probably more fueld by tv images than anything else. Its pretty easy sometimes to overlook things like that.
-Steve
> Marx ignored human nature. We are a competitive
> species.
I don't see the comment that brought up marx...I don't see what he has to do with this discussion. Anyway, I disagree somewhat. Marx DID miss some parts of human nature though.
> Life itself is competitive (predator, prey,
> limited resources and all that).
Whats your point? Competition for limited resources is definitly a fact of life. However, when resources are plentiful, there is nothing to compete for. In our case, they are most certainly plentiful.
> Communism/socialism/whatever ignores this and
> places people in situations where their
> productivity is totally irrelevant.
In some instances correct. That depends though, there are many different types of socialism and communism. You are ignoring other types of competition.
> . I could go out and double my productivity and
> it would make exactly zero material difference
> in my family's lifestyle.
And material difference is the only difference that you recognize? I assure you that this is a culturally influenced veiwpoint. It is also not true for all types of socialism/communism.
As I see it, all "communist" and "socialist" systems have failed more due to corrupt leadership and mis-management than anything else. A true socialist system is about the people, to focus all of its energy on building up the power of a state - building a huge military and entering a futile arms race - thats a sure way to make it fail.
(of course - killing millions of your own people doesn't help either)
Believe it or not, there are lots of reasons to work besides money. Have you ever seen a person who has retired...has no need for more money than they have - and is bored to death? They want to go back to work! I have 2 grand parents who would kill to be able to go back to work.
Being produductive feels good! It is a reward in and of itself. I can come to work and do nothing all day if I want - or I can work and get something done. I will tell you - I feel great when I feel like I got something accomplished (the worst are days when I work all day long and feel like I got nothing accomplished - such a downer)
And yes, there are plenty of incentives to work in a good socialist system. If you don't work - you don't get the benefits. You get to feel productive. You get to know that what you are doing is helping others (another good feeling).
Of course, I work for half the money that I could make for no other reason that I love my job and the people that I work with are just great. Low pressure and great atmosphere. I make enough to live very comfortably - even with a few excesses.
Frankly - I have interests outside of my job and how I make money. As much as I enjoy my job - its not the center of my life.
-Steve
> You can defend your safety (your right to life,
> if you will) by attacking someone else's rights.
Really?
> You are most likely alive right now because
> everyone else's right to kill you has been
> taken away by the government
So what you are saying is that others have the right to kill me, and the government is opressing them by saying that they can't?
Firstly, I would object by saying that no right to kill exists, regardless of what a government says.
Secondly, This is bull. It is social pressure and the fact that killing a person, outside of self defense, is considered to be morally wrong that people don't kill.
Thirdly, Safety is a feeling, You can never truely be absolutely safe. You may FEEL safer because there are laws against murder, however the law is NOT what stops me, or anyone else, from shooting you. ALL the law does is make you FEEL better.
> I know there are plenty of people I would have
> killed in the heat of the moment if I knew there
> would be no repercussions from law enforcement,
> I would drive much faster if the government
> didn't take that right away, and I would steal
> food from the grocery store if the government
> didn't take that right away.
Really? You are in the minority then, in fact, you may even have some sort of psycological problem - giving up control of your own decisions to an outside force can't be healthy.
I drive faster than speed limits - sometimes signifigantly faster. I wouldn't drive faster than I do now - because I wouldn't feel safe doing it. I drive exactly as fast as _I_ judge is safe and apropriate (sometimes thats much slower than the speed limit posted - sometimes much faster - it depends on road conditions and the state of my vehicle - NOT the numbers on a sign)
I do not steal from stores. I know I could, and I know I could get away with it if I wanted to. I don't want to. My moral beliefs do not allow me to, even if I could get away with it. The law never enters into the picture here.
Kill people? Hell no. Not unless my life, or the life of another was in danger. I may have been mad, I may have felt like visiting violent acts upon a person. However...I have never been so mad as to be actually ready to kill someone. I have control over my anger, enough as to not present a danger to society.
Again...law doesn't enter into the picture. I was brought up to respect life and to respect others. THAT is what keeps me from comming to your house and shooting you, and your whole fammily. THAT is what keeps just about everyone else from doing it too.
To get back to the point of guns. If you take away guns legally, then they will be replaced with illegal guns. Do you REALLY think that a person who is willing to kill a person is going to even think twice abou tbuying an illegal gun?
Do you actually expect that someone is going to say "Darn, I want to kill him, shoot him right dead, but I can't break the law and buy a gun".
Face it, the people who own guns now, and will not go out and buy illegal guns, are the ones that you didn't need to worry about anyway. Someone who is willing to use a gun to commit violent acts, outside of self defense, are the ones who wont think twice about buying illegal guns.
As for whether they will be available - you can close down all of the gun manafacturers in the world, new black market ones will spring up over night.
the ONLY effect that it could possibly have is giving the black market YET ANOTHER product that they can sell to make more money.
--Steve
> Fully-automatic firearms were readily available
> in the early part of this century.
While true... they were somewhat more bulky than they are today. Also I doubt they were quite as prevalent and easily obtained by people without much income.
> It wasn't much of a problem until
> alcohol prohibtion ignited a violent black
> market.
A good point. Nothing better for the profits in the black market than giving them a new product that they can make cheaply and lots of people want.
However, still besides my point. I seriously don't think much has changed in the past thousand years or so.
A co-worker was just telling me about some letters between people complaining about how "Kids today don't respect their elders like we did. All they want to do is stay up to all hours and listen to loud music" - that were written before the Americain Revolution.
-Steve