Yours is the first comment I've seen in many forums over the past few months that seems to think it was tripe, so I find it curious.
I'm not saying that his commentary is 'tripe' as you say, so much as bonehead obvious and not news-worthy. He managed to talk for three pages about how 'varied technologies and disciplines with a varied engineering staff makes Amazon worx lawlz!' I believe he is scholarly - otherwise he would not be able to ramble on about nothing for so long.
His point is that Amazon has found that a decentralied archtiecture that can work reliably but still respond to new demands with agility. That's a huge deal, considering the contortions, pain, and centralized bottlenecks that most large IT shops have to deal with. Not to mention over-obsession with technological buzzes instead of looking at the business architecture of the firm.
Perhaps that's obvious, but perhaps it's important to restate the obvious when most people don't follow it.
--
-Stu
My enterprise is not even 1/100th the size of Amazon and I could ramble on with the same amount of detail about their technical engineering problems and solutions. That is the point I am making - Blogging + Interviews == NEWS FOR THE SAKE OF NEWS THAT IS ACTUALLY NOT NEWS BECAUSE IT IS NOT ENTERTAINING OR INFORMATIVE
Even after RTFA, the whole thing seemed like the guy sucking himself off.
WV: Yeah. So, I think there are two answers to your question there. The first part addresses autonomic computing, which is I think just like Web services or service-oriented architecture, one of those buzzwords, you know?
One of those 'buzzwords, you know?' was your entire interview buddy. Imagine that? Scalability is achieved through many different technologies with many different engineers? I would never have thought that. I guess you have won that argument.
Jeez, I'm glad this guy is just the CTO, not somebody important.
I don't know what exactly your elderly parents agreed to, but at least in the US if you agree to service, and use the service, you are liable to be held accountable to every little bit of fine print hiding anywhere the company says you are liable to. Everyone so far has said horror stories of the like happening to them. I just yelled at US Bank about my credit card today, and have absolutely no leverage due to the contract. I have had a similar experience to the OP but with Sprint. Everyone is talking of the crooked right-wing politicians just taking business bribes... well... YES!!!! What else do you expect politicians to do?
Bottom line - Service businesses leveraging consumers into long contract terms that indubitably favors them == PROFIT
And why don't these service providers deserve this profit? They spent the kagillions of dollars on the pipe from your house to their equipment. And the service runs entirely on their equipment that they own and can operate however they please. There is nothing wrong with extorting subscribers for simple services that cost pennies for the dollars they return -- that's big business!!!
Flashback - 1982: Ma Bell gets broken up becausse of anti-trust. At this point in time, they owned most of the network and routed most of the calls. Judges decide their potential for abuse is too great. Many smaller companies emerge to enumerate change, and more importantly to meet the ever-growing needs of the phone service consumer.
Hop to 1994: You: Woah, interweb is kinda neat! I bet that data is going to be huge now that porn can go to every computer in the world! Telco: Let's lay fiber-optic cable everywhere but only turn 3% of it on so we can say 'We have the best network evar get interweb from us!'
Skip to 1997: You: Man, this internet shit totally kicks the crap out of the phone; I don't even ever need to leave my house ever again! Telco: Dude, good idea on that fiber-optic cable bro! Let's go count our money.
Jump to 2006: AT&T + SBC just merged again, and provide voice, ip, telephony, and mobile coverage throughout the entire United States. They have so many billions of dollars to lobby the FCC, we no longer need fear the government will do anything to affect the flow of packets ever again! The nations interests are much better served by giving all the money to the Megacorp that got all the politicians coke, booze, and whores (or the political dick-sucking equivalent).
The solution is you. Vote with your dollar. Give the money to the smallest ISP that is local and offers the services you want. Maybe you can speak to the owner if you have a problem. That way, your money stays in the community, and they actually give a rip about your problem when you call - because they work hard for your money. Long live low-priced, small-fry competition from the little guy! If enough people give in to competing enterprises, eventually one of them will work hard enough for the consumer that they feel like paying a fair amount for the service.
I don't know if you flappy-headed Canadians have a FCC equivalent, but if you do - threatening to call them and actually calling them if need be is how you get the attention of the ISP. Or like the other guy said, hire a lawyer. But, beware. I am the Director of Operations for a small ISP, and even our contracts are air-tight. The best bet might just be let it go and move on with your life.
TFA and most of the replies fail to miss the point. "DRM SUCKS DRM SUCKS" DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!
Don't buy music or software that is copywritten in this way. There are open alternatives. Show the entertainment industry what you think with your dollar. Why spend money on recordings of movies or music anymore when you cannot even utilize them the way you would like without becoming a criminal?
Hollywood and Washington are taking a big fat dump on the entire point of copyright and anti-trust laws - protecting the interests of business and the interests of consumers EQUALLY. I hear stories every day of the RIAA or MPAA sueing Joe Blow for downloading X - that's just as assinine as sueing twenty years ago him for copying the same crappy ass rock from the radio to tape.
The solution - Just vote with your dollar! Ever since that whole Sony DRM scandal - I have boycotted their products even though I do not utilize Windows. This is no longer just a privacy or copyright issue, it is one of personal civil liberties being trampled by big business.
The reason the push to virtualization could (not necessarily will) squish MS, is the whole per-user or even per-workstation, hell even per-site license thing. Let's say for example, you are building a simple network for a small school. You could buy one large sun server for like $5k with the educational discount, get the enterprise support, run vmware to virtualize many dumb terminals to something like desktop Ubuntu. 0$ total cost per workstation in licensing - as opposed to the $200-$1000 a workstation that Microsoft will try to squeeze out of them depending on os, word processing, and educational needs. Warren Buffet was a smart guy and gave all his money to Gates, and I sure hope that all ends up in schools or africa or whatever part-time billionaire humanitarians are in to fixing these days. He got to be that big by being smart enough to charge for every little thing, which has enterprise level systems integrators stuck in utilizing their software because MS gives them kicks for pushing the product that is normally right for the task. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that - in fact, it's straight-up good for the industry. There needs to be a product to push, there needs to be something of value to sell. The reason it is worth something is because it is developed.
OSS changes that. The reason a product is developed is because it is useful. The reason integrators push it is because it is the tool for the task, not because they get %20 of the list price. The entire model of support vs licensing really is economical for business. It's why I see these lame Dell commercials every five minutes talking about 'Unix migration with Dell Servers!!!!!! Returned investment on your IT dollar!' (translation= give us ur money kthx!) Why would there be that big of a push if it wasn't working? Everybody thinks this has reached its peak when we are just on the verge of crazy crazy exponential growth.
Microsoft is scared, this is the first time I can ever recall them becoming MORE lax on licensing schemes for a new OS. They're not just scared, they're terrified! This huge industry push to OSS and virtualization could be the end of Microsoft and the tech economy as we know it. Or, they could pull another halfway-decent suite out of their backsides and surprise us. Even if this is the climax of the market share crescendo... at least at the end of the day the poor IT guys stuck in Microsoft solutions will thank us all for it.
Hey I'm sure that everyone working on Debian's dev servers have lower uids than most of us, and I find the flak to really be undeserved. It's Linux not OpenBSD; the focus of the operating system favors usability over security. If you don't like it, move to a bsd or commercial *nix platform. Also, any machine that maintains services will eventually obtain some sort of vulnerability even with heavy-handed administration and monitoring. I think the speed at which the compromise was detected in addition to the service being taken offline immediately is cause for thanks to the security team!
More like refocusing on what actually makes AOL profitable. We knew this was coming when we saw AOL ad-words on superbowl commercials, and REALLY knew it was coming with the 10% Google aquisition. Can you really blame them for no longer competing in the sub $25/month dialup when FIMUX and muni wi-fi networks easily bring in close to 2X that per month for broadband after taking out TCO?
Spam and content filtering will always be a struggle for anybody who actually utilizes email. Simply adding more logic will not solve the problem. Reporting spammers to every rbl list you can think of, and alerting forums and newsgroups of abusive ip blocks on the other hand is already doing quite nicely.
I want to chime in here that everyone saying 'start your own web design business dood!' is not even coming close to hitting the nail on the head about bitchy clients and paycheck-less weeks. I did it for over a year, and it worked for me until I got my first feature creep contract bid out too low and it tanked my business. Not eating for weeks because you are waiting for a client to pay for work already done is a bad situation to be in. I ended up with a lucky break getting into wireless network engineering, and landed a sweet job for a start-up wisp/equipment sales company. There is just as much (more!) money in hardware engineering and equipment sales consulting (buy this, it will do this) and takes less overall effort. Hardware changes much less frequently than the software that runs on it. More has changed about web design in the last six months than tcp/ip and unix basics have changed in a decade!
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One of those 'buzzwords, you know?' was your entire interview buddy. Imagine that? Scalability is achieved through many different technologies with many different engineers? I would never have thought that. I guess you have won that argument.
Jeez, I'm glad this guy is just the CTO, not somebody important.
I don't know what exactly your elderly parents agreed to, but at least in the US if you agree to service, and use the service, you are liable to be held accountable to every little bit of fine print hiding anywhere the company says you are liable to. Everyone so far has said horror stories of the like happening to them. I just yelled at US Bank about my credit card today, and have absolutely no leverage due to the contract. I have had a similar experience to the OP but with Sprint. Everyone is talking of the crooked right-wing politicians just taking business bribes... well... YES!!!! What else do you expect politicians to do?
Bottom line - Service businesses leveraging consumers into long contract terms that indubitably favors them == PROFIT
And why don't these service providers deserve this profit? They spent the kagillions of dollars on the pipe from your house to their equipment. And the service runs entirely on their equipment that they own and can operate however they please. There is nothing wrong with extorting subscribers for simple services that cost pennies for the dollars they return -- that's big business!!!
Flashback - 1982: Ma Bell gets broken up becausse of anti-trust. At this point in time, they owned most of the network and routed most of the calls. Judges decide their potential for abuse is too great. Many smaller companies emerge to enumerate change, and more importantly to meet the ever-growing needs of the phone service consumer.
Hop to 1994: You: Woah, interweb is kinda neat! I bet that data is going to be huge now that porn can go to every computer in the world! Telco: Let's lay fiber-optic cable everywhere but only turn 3% of it on so we can say 'We have the best network evar get interweb from us!'
Skip to 1997: You: Man, this internet shit totally kicks the crap out of the phone; I don't even ever need to leave my house ever again! Telco: Dude, good idea on that fiber-optic cable bro! Let's go count our money.
Jump to 2006: AT&T + SBC just merged again, and provide voice, ip, telephony, and mobile coverage throughout the entire United States. They have so many billions of dollars to lobby the FCC, we no longer need fear the government will do anything to affect the flow of packets ever again! The nations interests are much better served by giving all the money to the Megacorp that got all the politicians coke, booze, and whores (or the political dick-sucking equivalent).
The solution is you. Vote with your dollar. Give the money to the smallest ISP that is local and offers the services you want. Maybe you can speak to the owner if you have a problem. That way, your money stays in the community, and they actually give a rip about your problem when you call - because they work hard for your money. Long live low-priced, small-fry competition from the little guy! If enough people give in to competing enterprises, eventually one of them will work hard enough for the consumer that they feel like paying a fair amount for the service.
I don't know if you flappy-headed Canadians have a FCC equivalent, but if you do - threatening to call them and actually calling them if need be is how you get the attention of the ISP. Or like the other guy said, hire a lawyer. But, beware. I am the Director of Operations for a small ISP, and even our contracts are air-tight. The best bet might just be let it go and move on with your life.
TFA and most of the replies fail to miss the point. "DRM SUCKS DRM SUCKS" DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!
Don't buy music or software that is copywritten in this way. There are open alternatives. Show the entertainment industry what you think with your dollar. Why spend money on recordings of movies or music anymore when you cannot even utilize them the way you would like without becoming a criminal?
Hollywood and Washington are taking a big fat dump on the entire point of copyright and anti-trust laws - protecting the interests of business and the interests of consumers EQUALLY. I hear stories every day of the RIAA or MPAA sueing Joe Blow for downloading X - that's just as assinine as sueing twenty years ago him for copying the same crappy ass rock from the radio to tape.
The solution - Just vote with your dollar! Ever since that whole Sony DRM scandal - I have boycotted their products even though I do not utilize Windows. This is no longer just a privacy or copyright issue, it is one of personal civil liberties being trampled by big business.
The reason the push to virtualization could (not necessarily will) squish MS, is the whole per-user or even per-workstation, hell even per-site license thing. Let's say for example, you are building a simple network for a small school. You could buy one large sun server for like $5k with the educational discount, get the enterprise support, run vmware to virtualize many dumb terminals to something like desktop Ubuntu. 0$ total cost per workstation in licensing - as opposed to the $200-$1000 a workstation that Microsoft will try to squeeze out of them depending on os, word processing, and educational needs. Warren Buffet was a smart guy and gave all his money to Gates, and I sure hope that all ends up in schools or africa or whatever part-time billionaire humanitarians are in to fixing these days. He got to be that big by being smart enough to charge for every little thing, which has enterprise level systems integrators stuck in utilizing their software because MS gives them kicks for pushing the product that is normally right for the task. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that - in fact, it's straight-up good for the industry. There needs to be a product to push, there needs to be something of value to sell. The reason it is worth something is because it is developed. OSS changes that. The reason a product is developed is because it is useful. The reason integrators push it is because it is the tool for the task, not because they get %20 of the list price. The entire model of support vs licensing really is economical for business. It's why I see these lame Dell commercials every five minutes talking about 'Unix migration with Dell Servers!!!!!! Returned investment on your IT dollar!' (translation= give us ur money kthx!) Why would there be that big of a push if it wasn't working? Everybody thinks this has reached its peak when we are just on the verge of crazy crazy exponential growth.
Microsoft is scared, this is the first time I can ever recall them becoming MORE lax on licensing schemes for a new OS. They're not just scared, they're terrified! This huge industry push to OSS and virtualization could be the end of Microsoft and the tech economy as we know it. Or, they could pull another halfway-decent suite out of their backsides and surprise us. Even if this is the climax of the market share crescendo... at least at the end of the day the poor IT guys stuck in Microsoft solutions will thank us all for it.
Hey I'm sure that everyone working on Debian's dev servers have lower uids than most of us, and I find the flak to really be undeserved. It's Linux not OpenBSD; the focus of the operating system favors usability over security. If you don't like it, move to a bsd or commercial *nix platform. Also, any machine that maintains services will eventually obtain some sort of vulnerability even with heavy-handed administration and monitoring. I think the speed at which the compromise was detected in addition to the service being taken offline immediately is cause for thanks to the security team!
More like refocusing on what actually makes AOL profitable. We knew this was coming when we saw AOL ad-words on superbowl commercials, and REALLY knew it was coming with the 10% Google aquisition. Can you really blame them for no longer competing in the sub $25/month dialup when FIMUX and muni wi-fi networks easily bring in close to 2X that per month for broadband after taking out TCO?
Spam and content filtering will always be a struggle for anybody who actually utilizes email. Simply adding more logic will not solve the problem. Reporting spammers to every rbl list you can think of, and alerting forums and newsgroups of abusive ip blocks on the other hand is already doing quite nicely.
I want to chime in here that everyone saying 'start your own web design business dood!' is not even coming close to hitting the nail on the head about bitchy clients and paycheck-less weeks. I did it for over a year, and it worked for me until I got my first feature creep contract bid out too low and it tanked my business. Not eating for weeks because you are waiting for a client to pay for work already done is a bad situation to be in. I ended up with a lucky break getting into wireless network engineering, and landed a sweet job for a start-up wisp/equipment sales company. There is just as much (more!) money in hardware engineering and equipment sales consulting (buy this, it will do this) and takes less overall effort. Hardware changes much less frequently than the software that runs on it. More has changed about web design in the last six months than tcp/ip and unix basics have changed in a decade!