I work at a large for-profit educational company that advertises a lot via web banners (no, not Phoenix University... and with that, you should be able figure out who we are) and we've been told that raises are capped for the forseeable future at two percent for "super-duper-amazing" levels of performance, wheras it used to be five percent. I don't know of anybody in the IT department who has gotten above a point and a half. Supposedly our management is under the same cap, but we all know they get fat bonuses as compensation so raises mean nothing to them.
You might find this depressing, but it gets worse -- two percent is the cap, unless you're a lucky dog like me in which case you have your review and are told "Well, HR still hasn't approved your raise, so we'll let you know sometime in the future what percentage you can expect." Being presumptuous enough to ask for an actual date when you might know what your raise is (if any) results in lots of vague assurances that "the Company will take care of you." Sure, and Travis "took care" of Old Yeller, too. Lest you dismiss this as sour grapes, keep in mind I'm a senior network engineer with almost ten years in the company who has been promoted repeatedly and given bonuses numerous times for performance and cost-saving initiatives.
Is it any wonder I'm considering quitting the tech field to become a goat farmer?
The poster asks the question, "Does anyone really want this?"
Well, isn't convergance of media devices almost exactly what numerous OSS projects are trying to accomplish? Between loading Linux and custom software on Xboxes to make them into PVR and webservers (Dreamix or Xebian, for example) to programs that make your average PC into a PVR with the help of software (MythTV or Freevo) and some hardware (WinTV PVR-250 or 350), it would seem that yes, people want this. They want to play their video games, stream their MP3s and watch DVDs all on the same box, while said box also records the latest episode of "The Simpsons." Right now the above projects consolidate the number of boxes but don't make it into an "all-in-one." Don't tell me that you haven't looked at your entertainment center and grumbled at the sheer number of devices sitting on your shelves (Mine currently has the TV, the PS2, the Xbox, my VCR, my DVR from Comcast, my DVD player and my receiver on it... and I haven't gotten my "Squeezebox" MP3 streamer installed yet). I know I'd love to regain some of the shelf space and eliminate some cable clutter by getting rid of some of those metal cases.
And hey... if people want it then it's only logical that commercial manufacturers will try to cash in on it. We already have Tivo and ReplayTV (along with the cable-branded options from Motorola, etc). It should not come as a surprise to anybody that other major "brands" are going to try to diversify into this market when their technology is already being directed that way, leveraging the other features (Say... Doom3 on the PC) as an added selling point.
With a big enough die size (CPUs don't seem to be getting smaller, do they?) I'm sure they could inflict some serious blunt trauma if you were to hit somebody in the head with one... but then, so can a lamp -- and we haven't banned the export of those just yet.
Without reading the article (as the site is down) I'm having a hard time understanding if he swapped the Camaro's stock motor out with the one from the Subaru, or if he's using it as some sort of augmentation.
If the car was an SS or a Z28 I definately do not understand why he would do an engine swap -- it's difficult to believe that the Subaru's engine brings much to the table that the LS1 couldn't. The LS1 engine puts out around 325hp stock in the 01-02 model years, is a V8 and has an all-aluminum construction. It's also a torque monster in the upper RPM bands. What's not to love about that?
Now if the car were just a plain-jane Camaro or an RS running the 5800 V6 engine it makes perfect sense to swap the engine out, although I can't imagine what a PITA it must have been to make a Subaru engine run in a Camaro. The rewiring couldn't have been pretty.
[Also, many employees have to sign a contract to say that anything they produce belongs to the company.]
It's been standard operating procedure for years for most companies to have any employee who might even touch programming sign such a waiver/contract that gives all rights to the employer. Even some of the higher education systems (what we traditionally viewed as a bastion of free innovation because of projects like those put out by Berkely, etc) are taking on this practice. It's gotten to be a very dog-eat-dog world out there and everyone's looking to keep their cards close to the vest in hopes of gaining an edge over their competitors.
On the other hand it's generally a smart move on the employer's part to weigh the advice of the creator when they're about to do something with the project that the creator feels strongly about. They may not agree and ultimately they may not act on the employee's advice, but it's good form and wise business practice to at least listen to his or her opinion. Every once in a while these folks have an idea what they're talking about and it makes the employee feel as if his input is valued, meaning the company is less likely to lose a valuable resource.
I think the posting summed it up neatly when it said "The question will be whether their PR department can spin this into a big enough story to sell to the Average Joe."
The Average Joe doesn't know what a buffer overflow is and he doesn't care. When you think about it... really, how many buffer overflow problems does Average Joe encounter? Yes, they're a plague to sysadmins, but for the regular guy who just wants to play EverQuest and surf the web it's not an issue. He isn't going to leap up and say "This is the solution to my problems!" He's more likely to frown at the phrase, scratch his head, mutter "Huh... I don't want to pay extra for something I'm not going to use," and go on his way.
So, this will never see adoption outside of a niche market for servers. AMD will not see a profit because of it, and I'd go so far as to wager they know that. I expect they're not going to spend all that much money in any marketing attempts.
...but hopefully the colleges are putting a little thought into their designs for the dorms. While it's true that outlets are usually in short supply, you can still be up an electrical creek without a paddle if all the outlets are on the same (underpowered) circuit.
A lot of apartments suffer from this problem as well no matter what their age... I have lived in an apartment that was over 20 years old, and it had a total of three ten-amp circuits for the entire place (not counting the circuits for the appliances which are pretty much dedicated). This was not exactly optimal for supporting five PCs and their peripherals along with a SUN Ultra 450. I've lived in newer (5 years old or so) apartments that had the exact same problem.
It's my opinion that the best thing you can do is go to Radio Shack and invest in one of those Circuit Detectives. Use that to determine what outlets correspond to which breaker, and how much power you have through that breaker (the ratings are printed on their for your sanity). Once you have that figured out you can begin learning the fine art of load-balancing on your outlets. "Let's see, I have 2 amps for my PS2 here on circuit A, and 3 amps for my TV on circuit B, and 2 amps for my PC on circuit A...."
Yep, our cars are inefficient. You know it, I know it, your neighbor's pet cat knows it. Some cars (SUVs) are much worse than others... but even if you buy a Dodge Colt that can get 45 miles per gallon on the highway you've still got an engine that's simply not realizing maximum efficiency. I for one would welcome a better solution -- something a great deal more fuel-efficient, more environment friendly and less costly to maintain (Oil changes are expensive).
But what is the point of this article? So our vehicles utilize a material that took a monumental amount of material over a monumental timeline to create. The supercar we keep waiting for hasn't arrived yet (I wouldn't mind flying around like George Jetson, complete with crazy sound effect) so what exactly are we supposed to do beyond what we already do (carpooling, not buying Hummer H2s, etc)?
This will be interesting. Perhaps the coalition will take lessons on exactly how to achieve this goal from our friends over at OpenBSD, who are working towards much the same goal with BSD. One of the first lessons they should learn is realistic goal setting. The second lesson they should take from OpenBSD is the understanding of the impact that a remote exploit can have, versus one that is only available to users local to the system.
Another lesson that this new coalition should learn is humility. I would hope after the "Unbreakable" campaign Oracle launched, and the blowback it received, that they'd take the time to tone down their attitude and ensure they're somewhere near as unbreakable as they'd like to think. If their claims aren't so grandiose they're less likely to suffer an explosive userland reaction when a flaw is (and there will be flaws, it's just Murphy's law) is discovered.
Otherwise, I applaud the idea. Linux can benefit from a hardened, secure-from-the-box distribution initiative powered by folks with the pockets to fund the massive codewalks it will take to tighten things up. OpenBSD brought several benefits to the BSD community, I can see this doing much the same thing.
[Is this just too much work for our lazy American manufacturers to do?]
Why is it the manufacturer's responsibility to make the users read the manual? I'm not sure how their lack of catering to the lowest common denominator makes the manufacturer lazy or at fault. I'd say, in fact, that the statement above indicates that it is in fact the user who is lazy.
It's not a matter of making manuals that are more "entertaining," they're manuals for crying out loud. It's a matter of training the users to recognize they'll save time, aggravation and perhaps even money if they would just spare the ten, twenty or fifty minutes to read the manual so they know what they're doing.
A wise old BOFH once said, "A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine." Likewise, the burden should not fall to the manufacturer to make the user read the book. If the choose not to, on their head be it....
[This used to be true, however, Sun dropped the ball big time with their UltraSparcIII. There was a bug in the CPU that caused "ecache parity errors". We had half a dozen E6500's ]
Um, what you said there is just not possible. There's no way you've had problems with UltraSPARC-III chips in your E6500s... no 6500 has shipped with an UltraSPARC-III, ever. They can't even accept the chip. The US-III is only available in the SunFire product line, namely the SunBlade 1k/2k, the 280R (which is just a SunBlade 1k in rackmount clothing), the 3800/4800/4810/6800 models, the 12k and the 15k.
Sun did indeed have a problem with parity errors within the last 18 months: they were due to faulty cache chips that made their way into a few runs of the UltraSPARC-II chip. There's plenty of articles that have been written about it and the lousy way Sun handled the issue.
The UltraSPARC-III chip is an entirely different architecture (it's copper-based, for one) than the US-II and we've been running them in our datacenter since pretty much day one. They've run flawlessly.
>Because they make a lot of money selling Solaris, and selling maintenance contracts for Solaris.
Sorry, that's wrong. You can download the ISOs for Solaris for free. If you feel inclined to buy the "media kit" for it you'll be set back about $80 bucks, and that's for the whole kit and kaboodle (docs, CDs, bonus software packages).
They make squat selling Solaris. Maintenance contracts they make a little back on, but that profit is probably eaten in three or four days by salespersons taking clients out to lunch.
Sun is, and always has been, primarily driven by their hardware (and resulting support contract) sales. Trust me on this.
I happened to see that Nick was cancelling Zim about two days ago via a notice on this fan site. They have set up a petition that you can sign to help show your support of Invader Zim.
I strongly recommend that people go there and voice their support and desire for this series to be continued. To me, Invader Zim is cutting-edge humor on the level of other cult classics like "Space Ghost Coast to Coast." It would be a shame to see it die this young. If enough people speak out Nick might realize the risk they took with this show paid off and that they've gotten the attention of some very choice demographics (eg you and I).
The water leaking in and flooding the place (through seeping walls, half-open missle doors or what have you) isn't what bothers me. The potential for radiation contamination does, however. Someone has already posted a link to the now-infamous Abandoned Missle Base VR Tour. I suggest people take the time to go and read it. It is very neat (I have an affinity for exploring old buildings/etc, they provide a neat window into the past). At one point not long after "entering" the VR tour you will see the author's comment that even though there were lots of ways for things (wildlife, people) to get in, there didn't seem to be ANYTHING living down there (spiders, rats, etc). That is just a little creepy, to me. The person who explored the missle site (and got caught doing so) also remarked on the immense piles of asbestos laying around the place, the stagnant flooded water and the sharp pieces of rusted metal waiting to cut you and give you tetnus (or more). Not exactly a healthy place to be poking around.
I can see how this place MIGHT be okay if a huge amount of money was sunk into it for reconditioning; if you pump out all the water, seal the walls, decontaminate (radiation AND asbestos), remove all the rusted metal, remove all the abandoned/vandalized/destroyed/obsolete equipment, scrape the lead-based paint off the walls, repaint it, repair the spring-mounted floors (to absorb the shock of nuclear blast), put lighting in and in general spend an exorbiant amount of cash you could have something that would serve passably well as a hidey-hole for a group of "survivalists". But the rooms in these places don't seem very large, and they weren't meant to be... they were meant to protect the missle crew in the event of nuclear attack long enough to let them launch their missles in a counterstrike. No thought was given beyond that point, and the design shows. I would NOT want to live in there, and frankly I wouldn't want to put all my eggs in one basket by hosting all my machines there without having some sort of redundant backup located somewhere else geographically. If you're going to spend the money to have machines placed there, you must have enough money to have a redundant site, I would think....
Final analysis: As a data center it's high on the novelty scale, but on the usability factor (cost of implementing/maintaining versus actual usefulness/probability your work is justified) it's mighty low. As a home? No thanks. I can think of better ways to spend half a million dollars (minimum) on my house.
To have any HOPE of effectiveness, you'd have to outlaw portscanning utilities. And give that law enough teeth to allow the stormtroopers (police) the ability to "find out who has them".
This has probably already been said, but for any law to be effective it must have a snowball's chance in hades of being reliably enforced.:p
-Da cat
Don't laugh. My employer received a loaner server (E3500) from Sun that had done a stint at Fermi. They had to pass components of the system through radiation testing several times before they'd allow it to leave the premesis to come to us.
Oddly enough, they didn't wipe its drives first. Oh well.
Slashdot Mirror
I work at a large for-profit educational company that advertises a lot via web banners (no, not Phoenix University... and with that, you should be able figure out who we are) and we've been told that raises are capped for the forseeable future at two percent for "super-duper-amazing" levels of performance, wheras it used to be five percent. I don't know of anybody in the IT department who has gotten above a point and a half. Supposedly our management is under the same cap, but we all know they get fat bonuses as compensation so raises mean nothing to them.
You might find this depressing, but it gets worse -- two percent is the cap, unless you're a lucky dog like me in which case you have your review and are told "Well, HR still hasn't approved your raise, so we'll let you know sometime in the future what percentage you can expect." Being presumptuous enough to ask for an actual date when you might know what your raise is (if any) results in lots of vague assurances that "the Company will take care of you." Sure, and Travis "took care" of Old Yeller, too. Lest you dismiss this as sour grapes, keep in mind I'm a senior network engineer with almost ten years in the company who has been promoted repeatedly and given bonuses numerous times for performance and cost-saving initiatives.
Is it any wonder I'm considering quitting the tech field to become a goat farmer?
The poster asks the question, "Does anyone really want this?"
Well, isn't convergance of media devices almost exactly what numerous OSS projects are trying to accomplish? Between loading Linux and custom software on Xboxes to make them into PVR and webservers (Dreamix or Xebian, for example) to programs that make your average PC into a PVR with the help of software (MythTV or Freevo) and some hardware (WinTV PVR-250 or 350), it would seem that yes, people want this. They want to play their video games, stream their MP3s and watch DVDs all on the same box, while said box also records the latest episode of "The Simpsons." Right now the above projects consolidate the number of boxes but don't make it into an "all-in-one." Don't tell me that you haven't looked at your entertainment center and grumbled at the sheer number of devices sitting on your shelves (Mine currently has the TV, the PS2, the Xbox, my VCR, my DVR from Comcast, my DVD player and my receiver on it... and I haven't gotten my "Squeezebox" MP3 streamer installed yet). I know I'd love to regain some of the shelf space and eliminate some cable clutter by getting rid of some of those metal cases.
And hey... if people want it then it's only logical that commercial manufacturers will try to cash in on it. We already have Tivo and ReplayTV (along with the cable-branded options from Motorola, etc). It should not come as a surprise to anybody that other major "brands" are going to try to diversify into this market when their technology is already being directed that way, leveraging the other features (Say... Doom3 on the PC) as an added selling point.
With a big enough die size (CPUs don't seem to be getting smaller, do they?) I'm sure they could inflict some serious blunt trauma if you were to hit somebody in the head with one... but then, so can a lamp -- and we haven't banned the export of those just yet.
Without reading the article (as the site is down) I'm having a hard time understanding if he swapped the Camaro's stock motor out with the one from the Subaru, or if he's using it as some sort of augmentation.
If the car was an SS or a Z28 I definately do not understand why he would do an engine swap -- it's difficult to believe that the Subaru's engine brings much to the table that the LS1 couldn't. The LS1 engine puts out around 325hp stock in the 01-02 model years, is a V8 and has an all-aluminum construction. It's also a torque monster in the upper RPM bands. What's not to love about that?
Now if the car were just a plain-jane Camaro or an RS running the 5800 V6 engine it makes perfect sense to swap the engine out, although I can't imagine what a PITA it must have been to make a Subaru engine run in a Camaro. The rewiring couldn't have been pretty.
It's been standard operating procedure for years for most companies to have any employee who might even touch programming sign such a waiver/contract that gives all rights to the employer. Even some of the higher education systems (what we traditionally viewed as a bastion of free innovation because of projects like those put out by Berkely, etc) are taking on this practice. It's gotten to be a very dog-eat-dog world out there and everyone's looking to keep their cards close to the vest in hopes of gaining an edge over their competitors.
On the other hand it's generally a smart move on the employer's part to weigh the advice of the creator when they're about to do something with the project that the creator feels strongly about. They may not agree and ultimately they may not act on the employee's advice, but it's good form and wise business practice to at least listen to his or her opinion. Every once in a while these folks have an idea what they're talking about and it makes the employee feel as if his input is valued, meaning the company is less likely to lose a valuable resource.
I think the posting summed it up neatly when it said "The question will be whether their PR department can spin this into a big enough story to sell to the Average Joe."
The Average Joe doesn't know what a buffer overflow is and he doesn't care. When you think about it... really, how many buffer overflow problems does Average Joe encounter? Yes, they're a plague to sysadmins, but for the regular guy who just wants to play EverQuest and surf the web it's not an issue. He isn't going to leap up and say "This is the solution to my problems!" He's more likely to frown at the phrase, scratch his head, mutter "Huh... I don't want to pay extra for something I'm not going to use," and go on his way.
So, this will never see adoption outside of a niche market for servers. AMD will not see a profit because of it, and I'd go so far as to wager they know that. I expect they're not going to spend all that much money in any marketing attempts.
...but hopefully the colleges are putting a little thought into their designs for the dorms. While it's true that outlets are usually in short supply, you can still be up an electrical creek without a paddle if all the outlets are on the same (underpowered) circuit.
A lot of apartments suffer from this problem as well no matter what their age... I have lived in an apartment that was over 20 years old, and it had a total of three ten-amp circuits for the entire place (not counting the circuits for the appliances which are pretty much dedicated). This was not exactly optimal for supporting five PCs and their peripherals along with a SUN Ultra 450. I've lived in newer (5 years old or so) apartments that had the exact same problem.
It's my opinion that the best thing you can do is go to Radio Shack and invest in one of those Circuit Detectives. Use that to determine what outlets correspond to which breaker, and how much power you have through that breaker (the ratings are printed on their for your sanity). Once you have that figured out you can begin learning the fine art of load-balancing on your outlets. "Let's see, I have 2 amps for my PS2 here on circuit A, and 3 amps for my TV on circuit B, and 2 amps for my PC on circuit A...."
Yep, our cars are inefficient. You know it, I know it, your neighbor's pet cat knows it. Some cars (SUVs) are much worse than others... but even if you buy a Dodge Colt that can get 45 miles per gallon on the highway you've still got an engine that's simply not realizing maximum efficiency. I for one would welcome a better solution -- something a great deal more fuel-efficient, more environment friendly and less costly to maintain (Oil changes are expensive).
But what is the point of this article? So our vehicles utilize a material that took a monumental amount of material over a monumental timeline to create. The supercar we keep waiting for hasn't arrived yet (I wouldn't mind flying around like George Jetson, complete with crazy sound effect) so what exactly are we supposed to do beyond what we already do (carpooling, not buying Hummer H2s, etc)?
Another lesson that this new coalition should learn is humility. I would hope after the "Unbreakable" campaign Oracle launched, and the blowback it received, that they'd take the time to tone down their attitude and ensure they're somewhere near as unbreakable as they'd like to think. If their claims aren't so grandiose they're less likely to suffer an explosive userland reaction when a flaw is (and there will be flaws, it's just Murphy's law) is discovered.
Otherwise, I applaud the idea. Linux can benefit from a hardened, secure-from-the-box distribution initiative powered by folks with the pockets to fund the massive codewalks it will take to tighten things up. OpenBSD brought several benefits to the BSD community, I can see this doing much the same thing.
Why is it the manufacturer's responsibility to make the users read the manual? I'm not sure how their lack of catering to the lowest common denominator makes the manufacturer lazy or at fault. I'd say, in fact, that the statement above indicates that it is in fact the user who is lazy.
It's not a matter of making manuals that are more "entertaining," they're manuals for crying out loud. It's a matter of training the users to recognize they'll save time, aggravation and perhaps even money if they would just spare the ten, twenty or fifty minutes to read the manual so they know what they're doing.
A wise old BOFH once said, "A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine." Likewise, the burden should not fall to the manufacturer to make the user read the book. If the choose not to, on their head be it....
Um, what you said there is just not possible. There's no way you've had problems with UltraSPARC-III chips in your E6500s... no 6500 has shipped with an UltraSPARC-III, ever. They can't even accept the chip. The US-III is only available in the SunFire product line, namely the SunBlade 1k/2k, the 280R (which is just a SunBlade 1k in rackmount clothing), the 3800/4800/4810/6800 models, the 12k and the 15k.
Sun did indeed have a problem with parity errors within the last 18 months: they were due to faulty cache chips that made their way into a few runs of the UltraSPARC-II chip. There's plenty of articles that have been written about it and the lousy way Sun handled the issue.
The UltraSPARC-III chip is an entirely different architecture (it's copper-based, for one) than the US-II and we've been running them in our datacenter since pretty much day one. They've run flawlessly.
>Because they make a lot of money selling Solaris, and selling maintenance contracts for Solaris.
Sorry, that's wrong. You can download the ISOs for Solaris for free. If you feel inclined to buy the "media kit" for it you'll be set back about $80 bucks, and that's for the whole kit and kaboodle (docs, CDs, bonus software packages).
They make squat selling Solaris. Maintenance contracts they make a little back on, but that profit is probably eaten in three or four days by salespersons taking clients out to lunch.
Sun is, and always has been, primarily driven by their hardware (and resulting support contract) sales. Trust me on this.
I strongly recommend that people go there and voice their support and desire for this series to be continued. To me, Invader Zim is cutting-edge humor on the level of other cult classics like "Space Ghost Coast to Coast." It would be a shame to see it die this young. If enough people speak out Nick might realize the risk they took with this show paid off and that they've gotten the attention of some very choice demographics (eg you and I).
Whatever.
I can see how this place MIGHT be okay if a huge amount of money was sunk into it for reconditioning; if you pump out all the water, seal the walls, decontaminate (radiation AND asbestos), remove all the rusted metal, remove all the abandoned/vandalized/destroyed/obsolete equipment, scrape the lead-based paint off the walls, repaint it, repair the spring-mounted floors (to absorb the shock of nuclear blast), put lighting in and in general spend an exorbiant amount of cash you could have something that would serve passably well as a hidey-hole for a group of "survivalists". But the rooms in these places don't seem very large, and they weren't meant to be... they were meant to protect the missle crew in the event of nuclear attack long enough to let them launch their missles in a counterstrike. No thought was given beyond that point, and the design shows. I would NOT want to live in there, and frankly I wouldn't want to put all my eggs in one basket by hosting all my machines there without having some sort of redundant backup located somewhere else geographically. If you're going to spend the money to have machines placed there, you must have enough money to have a redundant site, I would think....
Final analysis: As a data center it's high on the novelty scale, but on the usability factor (cost of implementing/maintaining versus actual usefulness/probability your work is justified) it's mighty low. As a home? No thanks. I can think of better ways to spend half a million dollars (minimum) on my house.
-Da cat
Malice: I can't find your email address.... I'd like to talk to you about seeing if you can find any information/software. -Feren
Don't laugh. My employer received a loaner server (E3500) from Sun that had done a stint at Fermi. They had to pass components of the system through radiation testing several times before they'd allow it to leave the premesis to come to us. Oddly enough, they didn't wipe its drives first. Oh well.