The people in the road crew outside working on the road are called "the road crew outside working on the road." I didn't question what it was called, or why it was called that.
I am afraid that the AC tried to do that, and has failed.
I put OpenBSD on my first machine this past weekend. Now I have Slackware, NetBSD, OpenBSD, NT, Win95, and Win98 boxes all running on my home network (all on single machines- dual/multi boot systems drive me crazy). It all works together quite well. Slackware was good 'practice' for running a BSD system. A lot of the core infrastructure is the same on all the free unices, when you get right down to it. The O'Reilly "Essential System Administration" book and all of the "blue cover" O'Reilly books are valuable with any of the Freenixes.
I'd hate to give any of them up.
My interpretation of the "fracture" of the BSDs is as follows:
NetBSD is the most 'research-oriented' branch, the aim with NetBSD is to port the OS to as many architectures as possible. As such, NetBSD is what new hardware vendors can latch onto to explore their architecture and develop infrastucture. The StrongARM port is an example of that. Now that NetBSD has plowed some ground people are starting to port Linux over to, say, the Chalice CATS motherboard.
OpenBSD is the branch where Security and stabiltiy are the most important priority. These are the folks who set up the whole system to be tight as a drum. It's the only install I have done which forced me to establish a Root password VERY early in the install process. (as an aside- Slackware 3.6 never even reminds you to set up a Root password- a friend of mine browesed the Net with a wide open Slack 3.6 system for weeks before I discovered [by telnetting into her system!] that there was no root password at all on her system. This is 'fixed' on Slack 4.0)
FreeBSD is the branch whose primary aim is robust 'popular' support for lots of hardware on the i386 processors. For some reason a number of people are also porting FreeBSD to Alpha and other architectures (I've never understood why they don't just use NetBSD, but to each his/her own, I guess)
They are all closely related, as they all come from the same origins. And they complement each other, for the most part, IMHO.
Of course, this is ALL my humble opinion, as I don't have direct contact with anybody in the core teams of these fine products. Kudos to them all, of course.
As everybody knows, there are a LOT of different widget sets in the Unix world, where every program used to have it's own before Gnome/KDE.
Indeed. Maybe that's why X Window interfaces weren't brought up in any substancial way. When the whole building is on fire, you don't point at smoke coming out of the wastebasket.
You are right, in my estimation, about the need for a common user interface. I, for instance, walk around the lab at work using a whole bunch of keyboards on different equipment. I look at those split "natural" keyboards, and the Dvorak layout, and think "maybe it would be better" but then think about how many keyboards would have to change in my life (and my employer would NOT buy me new keyboards for the Sun, the embedded systems I debug and test on, my main Windows machine, my Main OS/2 machine, etc.), and I just have to accept that things are the way they are.... because that's the way they are.
There is a tendency for mavericks, people-who-run-with-scissors, etc. to be attracted to OSes like Linux. It allows them to be different, and to set up a User Interface that is radically different from the norm. This is a dangerous trend, however, if Linux is expected to ever go mainstream. We should "celebrate difference" where it's appropriate. But we shouldn't proliferate difference wherever possible.
If I am not mistaken (please correct me if I am) the convention for wall-mounted light switches is 'up' for on in the United States, and 'down' for on in many other countries.
Actually, having the 'fallback' or 'default' response to a prompt fold back to the option safest for the system (and most frustrating for the user) is ye olde UNIX tradition. On ancient unices that I have run, you can just close your eyes and hit control-d a few times and be assured that you'll be logged out of the system. Or as the case may be (if you're at a command prompt) a single control-d and you're often out of the system sitting at a login: prompt.
Microsoft's Plug-and-Play continues to get better with each iteration. (show your ignorance by telling your horror stories about Windows 95 on your 486 if you really feel you must.)
Apple's Macintosh-based Plug-and-Play is even better, arguably it's always been superior (smaller set of components=less combinations to worry about, of course.)
We won't even get into Xerox copier Plug-and-play, or how little is really involved in admining a company network these days.
Believe me, sit still if you like, but practice your skills pulling ethernet cable through conduits, if you're planning on a long-term career in "information technology" in the abstract.
You're just talking about a SysAdmin position. That's an "operator" position. Back ten years ago that was, umm, like being one of the monkeys who mounted the tape reels. Now there's a mystique about it all, so saying you want a job as a SysAdmin is like being the kid who wants to be a Train Engineer.
The real tech positions involve things like developing hardware or software. Not just running the machines. And business is SCREAMING for people who can develop product.
I suspect Andover's not your typical tech company.
I suspect Andover is more of a Meta-tech company. There are lots of them around these days. They're not really 'tech' companies because they don't, umm, actually produce anything. They just throw around information, and since a focus of their business is 'tech' types such as the audience at Slashdot.org (shouldn't it be changed to a.com now that it's a bought-out pure commercial site?), they want to appear 'techie.'
I work at a major Medical Device manufacturer. We make stuff that gets implanted in people's bodies. Real hardware. With real software embedded into it, of course. Real tech, not a business riding on the back of tech people. A lot of the suits still wear suits. Always will, I suspect.
You'd better be careful before you start throwing around your prejudical attitudes about age. I am only 39, but I work with people ten years my senior who know more than any 20-something could possibly know. There are old timers who can code microcontrollers in machine code (Assembly language is for sissies!) ya know. And experience counts for something in the real world. Sure, there are branches of technology where it all changes overnight four times a decade, but generally those areas have little or nothing to do with the general discipline of Computer Science, and more to do with hardware engineering.
Don't they have "Data Structure", "Communications Protocol", and "Operating Systems" courses? I ask this as a general question. All you listed were language classes.
Well, the MSCE courses are "operator" courses, not programming courses.
The distinctions have blurred in the last decade, but basically an "operator" is someone who can sit at the console and keep things running, mount tapes, and perform backups.
That's the curriculum of the MSCE and it's siblings for other systems. The 'E' on the end cannot stand for "Engineer" in many jurisdictions.
Microsoft talked tough to competitors, but generally backed down when their bluff was called. That, folks, is what is known as ordinary business practices.
For example, Microsoft threatened to withold Windows 95 from IBM. IBM didn't budge from their position. Microsoft backed down.
It's just 'bad luck' that you didn't buy when ram was a tad cheaper.
A tad cheaper???
I bought a 128 M SIMM (PC-100) this summer for $79. The same SIMM from the same dealer is now over $300. Luckily I bought enough (two more) for my new system when the price was $110. I pissed and moaned then (because it had been $79 a few weeks earlier) but don't regret spending the money now.
I remember back when I paid $2 for 256Kx1bit RAM chips (they were used, desoldered-from-equipment parts) and how I later regretted not buying as many as I could afford, when the same used chips were going for $12 each. Back then 640K was pretty darn expensive for us poor suckers and our 8088 system boards with hungry IC sockets.
MAC addresses are supposed to be unique to each individual Ethernet card in the world. That is the reason for a central body who assign blocks of addresses. That also means that you in effect own the number on any NIC that you have in your posession. All those old 8-bit ISA etherlink cards have a number assigned to them that you can somewhat righteously recycle for your use if you're building ethernet hardware.
Recently on one of the Embedded programming newsgroups someone handed out blocks of NIC addresses to anybody who wanted some. Since it's a 'commodity' that is hard to come by, and I have plans in the future, I requested a block. What with IPV6 it now looks like maybe I OWN a block of IP addresses, when it goes into effect.
The reason for globally unique MAC addresses is so that hardware address conflicts are rendered impossible on any network anywhere. Reprogramming two NICs within a single institution (or household, or personal lab) is a rather foolish idea, and negates a numbering scheme that otherwise prevents address conflicts from occuring anywhere, at any time.
It better not be my numbers you've grabbed. heheh.
Re:I almost read the Big U
on
The Big U
·
· Score: 1
I liked it loads better than Cryptonomicon.
But then I think Neil is getting a bit heady these days about his reputation.
Re:Pick this book up at Amazon?
on
The Big U
·
· Score: 1
In any event, you can get any of the books that can be acquired off the links at the bottom of the article at better prices elsewhere. Bookpool , for instance, has lower prices and is a pure techie bookstore, so you don't have to steep through all the dreck and nick-nacks when you're looking for the latest O'reilly book (which are all discounted about 45% off cover).
Amazon is the Sears Roebuck of websites. But Slashdot gets a cut of the sales, I suppose. So it's inevitable that there will always be links.
Slashdot Mirror
The people in the road crew outside working on the road are called "the road crew outside working on the road." I didn't question what it was called, or why it was called that.
I questioned why it was being done.
This isn't flamebait. I am just curious.
Nope,
I am afraid that the AC tried to do that, and has failed.
I put OpenBSD on my first machine this past weekend. Now I have Slackware, NetBSD, OpenBSD, NT, Win95, and Win98 boxes all running on my home network (all on single machines- dual/multi boot systems drive me crazy). It all works together quite well. Slackware was good 'practice' for running a BSD system. A lot of the core infrastructure is the same on all the free unices, when you get right down to it. The O'Reilly "Essential System Administration" book and all of the "blue cover" O'Reilly books are valuable with any of the Freenixes.
I'd hate to give any of them up.
My interpretation of the "fracture" of the BSDs is as follows:
NetBSD is the most 'research-oriented' branch, the aim with NetBSD is to port the OS to as many architectures as possible. As such, NetBSD is what new hardware vendors can latch onto to explore their architecture and develop infrastucture. The StrongARM port is an example of that. Now that NetBSD has plowed some ground people are starting to port Linux over to, say, the Chalice CATS motherboard.
OpenBSD is the branch where Security and stabiltiy are the most important priority. These are the folks who set up the whole system to be tight as a drum. It's the only install I have done which forced me to establish a Root password VERY early in the install process. (as an aside- Slackware 3.6 never even reminds you to set up a Root password- a friend of mine browesed the Net with a wide open Slack 3.6 system for weeks before I discovered [by telnetting into her system!] that there was no root password at all on her system. This is 'fixed' on Slack 4.0)
FreeBSD is the branch whose primary aim is robust 'popular' support for lots of hardware on the i386 processors. For some reason a number of people are also porting FreeBSD to Alpha and other architectures (I've never understood why they don't just use NetBSD, but to each his/her own, I guess)
They are all closely related, as they all come from the same origins. And they complement each other, for the most part, IMHO.
Of course, this is ALL my humble opinion, as I don't have direct contact with anybody in the core teams of these fine products. Kudos to them all, of course.
As everybody knows, there are a LOT of different widget sets in the Unix world, where every program used to have it's own before Gnome/KDE.
Indeed. Maybe that's why X Window interfaces weren't brought up in any substancial way. When the whole building is on fire, you don't point at smoke coming out of the wastebasket.
You are right, in my estimation, about the need for a common user interface. I, for instance, walk around the lab at work using a whole bunch of keyboards on different equipment. I look at those split "natural" keyboards, and the Dvorak layout, and think "maybe it would be better" but then think about how many keyboards would have to change in my life (and my employer would NOT buy me new keyboards for the Sun, the embedded systems I debug and test on, my main Windows machine, my Main OS/2 machine, etc.), and I just have to accept that things are the way they are.... because that's the way they are.
There is a tendency for mavericks, people-who-run-with-scissors, etc. to be attracted to OSes like Linux. It allows them to be different, and to set up a User Interface that is radically different from the norm. This is a dangerous trend, however, if Linux is expected to ever go mainstream. We should "celebrate difference" where it's appropriate. But we shouldn't proliferate difference wherever possible.
If I am not mistaken (please correct me if I am) the convention for wall-mounted light switches is 'up' for on in the United States, and 'down' for on in many other countries.
Actually, having the 'fallback' or 'default' response to a prompt fold back to the option safest for the system (and most frustrating for the user) is ye olde UNIX tradition. On ancient unices that I have run, you can just close your eyes and hit control-d a few times and be assured that you'll be logged out of the system. Or as the case may be (if you're at a command prompt) a single control-d and you're often out of the system sitting at a login: prompt.
You're all a bunch of software types.
LASCR
UART
CMOS
TTL
Schmitt Trigger
Open Collector
Totem Pole
hFE
Vcc
Compactron
Nixie
Microsoft's Plug-and-Play continues to get better with each iteration. (show your ignorance by telling your horror stories about Windows 95 on your 486 if you really feel you must.)
Apple's Macintosh-based Plug-and-Play is even better, arguably it's always been superior (smaller set of components=less combinations to worry about, of course.)
We won't even get into Xerox copier Plug-and-play, or how little is really involved in admining a company network these days.
Believe me, sit still if you like, but practice your skills pulling ethernet cable through conduits, if you're planning on a long-term career in "information technology" in the abstract.
Telegraph operators thought of themselves as way-kewl-radical-dudes about 100 years ago. People like Thomas Edison came from their ranks.
I bet they could spill out a lot of acronyms and buzzwords back then, too.
You're just talking about a SysAdmin position. That's an "operator" position. Back ten years ago that was, umm, like being one of the monkeys who mounted the tape reels. Now there's a mystique about it all, so saying you want a job as a SysAdmin is like being the kid who wants to be a Train Engineer.
The real tech positions involve things like developing hardware or software. Not just running the machines. And business is SCREAMING for people who can develop product.
I suspect Andover's not your typical tech company.
.com now that it's a bought-out pure commercial site?), they want to appear 'techie.'
I suspect Andover is more of a Meta-tech company. There are lots of them around these days. They're not really 'tech' companies because they don't, umm, actually produce anything. They just throw around information, and since a focus of their business is 'tech' types such as the audience at Slashdot.org (shouldn't it be changed to a
I work at a major Medical Device manufacturer. We make stuff that gets implanted in people's bodies. Real hardware. With real software embedded into it, of course. Real tech, not a business riding on the back of tech people. A lot of the suits still wear suits. Always will, I suspect.
You mean, like in the case of the S&L scandal of the 80's, the bandits have already made off with the dough.
Yes. That's true.
When the whole scheme falls down, the culprits will be off somewhere else. That doesn't make it any different from Tulip bulb speculating.
You'd better be careful before you start throwing around your prejudical attitudes about age. I am only 39, but I work with people ten years my senior who know more than any 20-something could possibly know. There are old timers who can code microcontrollers in machine code (Assembly language is for sissies!) ya know. And experience counts for something in the real world. Sure, there are branches of technology where it all changes overnight four times a decade, but generally those areas have little or nothing to do with the general discipline of Computer Science, and more to do with hardware engineering.
Don't they have "Data Structure", "Communications Protocol", and "Operating Systems" courses? I ask this as a general question. All you listed were language classes.
Well, the MSCE courses are "operator" courses, not programming courses.
The distinctions have blurred in the last decade, but basically an "operator" is someone who can sit at the console and keep things running, mount tapes, and perform backups.
That's the curriculum of the MSCE and it's siblings for other systems. The 'E' on the end cannot stand for "Engineer" in many jurisdictions.
Yes. You have to "get past" balance sheets.
Think tulip bulbs.
"Plays well to the choir" can be translated as meaning: "Sounds good to the already convinced."
Stuffed shirt theoreticians who get off on sounding all mighty and powerful when giving speeches to their followers have existed for centuries.
It doesn't mean a damn thing on Main Street.
Microsoft talked tough to competitors, but generally backed down when their bluff was called. That, folks, is what is known as ordinary business practices.
For example, Microsoft threatened to withold Windows 95 from IBM. IBM didn't budge from their position. Microsoft backed down.
Indeed, ESR is a Programmer?
Why, then, oh why, do so many people act like he's a Visionary?
This rather substantial article cuts through a lot of the amateur pop-economist stuff ESR tries to pull off whenever he can.
Let's just admit that the Cathederal/Bazzaar paradigm plays well to the choir, but that there's a whole world out there.
What a pity, if that's all you got from it.
Oh well.
Nope. Can't blame it on the quake. The prices were up by a factor of four from the July low by a week before the earthquake in Japan.
So it's because of other factors. A wafer shortage is what I had heard.
It's just 'bad luck' that you didn't buy when ram was a tad cheaper.
A tad cheaper???
I bought a 128 M SIMM (PC-100) this summer for $79. The same SIMM from the same dealer is now over $300. Luckily I bought enough (two more) for my new system when the price was $110. I pissed and moaned then (because it had been $79 a few weeks earlier) but don't regret spending the money now.
I remember back when I paid $2 for 256Kx1bit RAM chips (they were used, desoldered-from-equipment parts) and how I later regretted not buying as many as I could afford, when the same used chips were going for $12 each. Back then 640K was pretty darn expensive for us poor suckers and our 8088 system boards with hungry IC sockets.
Kids these days... thumping along on crutch...
MAC addresses are supposed to be unique to each individual Ethernet card in the world. That is the reason for a central body who assign blocks of addresses. That also means that you in effect own the number on any NIC that you have in your posession. All those old 8-bit ISA etherlink cards have a number assigned to them that you can somewhat righteously recycle for your use if you're building ethernet hardware.
Recently on one of the Embedded programming newsgroups someone handed out blocks of NIC addresses to anybody who wanted some. Since it's a 'commodity' that is hard to come by, and I have plans in the future, I requested a block. What with IPV6 it now looks like maybe I OWN a block of IP addresses, when it goes into effect.
The reason for globally unique MAC addresses is so that hardware address conflicts are rendered impossible on any network anywhere. Reprogramming two NICs within a single institution (or household, or personal lab) is a rather foolish idea, and negates a numbering scheme that otherwise prevents address conflicts from occuring anywhere, at any time.
It better not be my numbers you've grabbed. heheh.
I liked it loads better than Cryptonomicon.
But then I think Neil is getting a bit heady these days about his reputation.
In any event, you can get any of the books that can be acquired off the links at the bottom of the article at better prices elsewhere. Bookpool , for instance, has lower prices and is a pure techie bookstore, so you don't have to steep through all the dreck and nick-nacks when you're looking for the latest O'reilly book (which are all discounted about 45% off cover).
Amazon is the Sears Roebuck of websites. But Slashdot gets a cut of the sales, I suppose. So it's inevitable that there will always be links.