On 1/26/2012 10:10 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:35:37 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>
>>>> I've noticed that some people regard Obama was the Messiah, the most
>>>> wonderful thing ever to happen in American history. And others regard
>>>> him as pure, liquid evil. Clearly these two viewpoints cannot both be
>>>> correct. Having no clue what Obama has actually done, I have no idea
>>>> which one to believe.
>>>
>>> It's subjective.
>>>
>>> You could probably learn a lot by reading his Wikipedia entry.
>>
>> Yeah, but... it's subjective. ;-)
>
> Wikipedia is often a starting point rather than an ending point.
>
>> The other day, I read about something called "the church of
>> scientology". From what Wikipedia said, this is /obviously/ a criminal
>> organisation that should be shut down immediately. And yet, various
>> national governments have investigated it and decided either to take no
>> action, or to officially recognise it as legit. So clearly Wikipedia
>> isn't presenting the full picture here.
>
> CoS is an interesting organisation because of how closely they try to
> protect their identity and information, to the point of making it
> difficult for anyone to objectively write about them.
>
> They're classified as a religion.  "Cult" is probably much more apt a
> description, and a cult with some very high-profile members.  But what
> I've read on the history of it, apparently L. Ron Hubbard (the author)
> had a bet with his son that he could create a religion and get people to
> donate lots of money to it.
>
Part of the issue is that, due to the secrecy, and other factors, most 
of the "its a church" decisions where made *prior* to a full 
understanding of what went on in it. Its now undergoing "reform", what 
ever the hell that actually means. But, a lot of the stuff it does, like 
requiring people to shell out huge swaths of money to them for bullshit, 
or locking people into the religion, etc., are not *that* terribly 
different than some Christian cults do. Some of those flat out try to 
require their members to "never" associate, if possible, on a 
family/social level, with anyone that isn't in the same cult. Though, 
they don't usually manage to get by with locking people up, and 
preventing them leaving, the way CoS was doing.

But, basically, its sort of a toss up. If you can get by with declaring 
"only" it criminal, while excusing nearly identical insanity in other 
cults, great, if you can't... the uncomfortable situation arises where 
the person trying to ban gets asked, "Yes, but group X, and Y do the 
same thing, why are they not illegal too?" And, the only answer anyone 
can give is, "Well, they are Christian!" The problem doesn't come up 
with Islam, or Hindu, simply because in the former case, everyone is 
against the extremist versions that do crazy shit anyway, in the 
countries that accept CoS, and in the later case, almost no westerner 
has a single damn clue what Karma actually is, the abuses it supports, 
or the long list of caste distinctions, and silly restrictions, that 
arise out of them.

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On 26/01/2012 8:10 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> and in the later case, almost no westerner has a single damn clue what
> Karma actually is, the abuses it supports, or the long list of caste
> distinctions, and silly restrictions, that arise out of them.

You're not a fan of "My name is Earl", then?

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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BTW, as clarification. My understanding of the "real" meaning behind 
Karma would be more or less these rules:

1. Karma doesn't happen "now", its generally punishment for action in a 
*prior* life.
2. Its karma that determines if you are lucky/unlucky, born rich, or 
poor, gain in business, of fail, and everything else.
3. In the most extreme case, someone from the absolute top caste could 
go nuts, murder someone in the bottom caste, and not be charged (at 
least in the old days, though maybe less so now), based on the theory 
that the higher status of the offender made it divine justice, and the 
low caste of the victim made it karma, for something they did wrong, in 
the prior life.

The west has turned this into some idiot version of, 'like calls like', 
mysticism, and uses the term to describe the fantastically rare cases 
where someone does something bad and suffers a similar reward, almost 
immediately, rather than the much more common thing, which is to get by 
with it, or the nearly as common result of being hammered by some random 
event, that is magnitudes out of proportion to the supposed "crime". 
Though, the later is often taken as a "sign" that some sort of justice 
was served via karma as well.

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On 1/26/2012 1:20 PM, Stephen wrote:
> On 26/01/2012 8:10 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> and in the later case, almost no westerner has a single damn clue what
>> Karma actually is, the abuses it supports, or the long list of caste
>> distinctions, and silly restrictions, that arise out of them.
>
> You're not a fan of "My name is Earl", then?
>
Uh, don't think I have ever heard of it. lol

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On 1/26/2012 10:07 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:55:39 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> The right claims that there are people on the left that think he is like
>> a messiah. The left, exaggerates, but only slightly, the behavior of the
>> right, which has literally called him everything from a socialist, to
>> the anti-christ, to merely, "The worst president ever".
>
> Oh, you missed the best one, Patrick....
>
> The lady who asked Rick Santorum (Aside to Andy:  He's one of the
> Republican candidates trying to get the nomination.  While I often
> suggest that you google stuff, googling "Santorum" is something you
> should NOT do from work.  Seriously, wait until you're home.  Dan Savage
> - a columnist here in the US - Google-bombed his name to mean something
> that you're probably better off not knowing.) a question and stated that
> Obama isn't our legitimate president because he's an avowed Muslim, etc,
> etc, etc - and Santorum didn't correct one thing, later using the excuse
> "well, she's an old lady and she was leaning on a cane" as if that had
> any relevance to it.  Stephen Colbert did an awesome send-up of that
> response on Tuesday's Colbert Report.
>
> Jim
Uh, yeah, haven't missed *either* of those. Not sure what they think he 
is at this point. Its been everything from, I think, Kenyan, to the 
illegitimate son of the clone of Hitler, by now. The "tamest" claim of 
all of them has probably been that he "somehow" rigged the election, 
using the names of dead people. Which is, at least in part, why Dumb and 
Dumber, from the Republican party's, "Unaffiliated, so we have no 
control over these people, honest!", sideshow, decided to stop posing at 
pimps, to take down loan institutions (i.e. Acorn and the like), using 
false video footage, and go straight to committing real voter fraud, 
using the names of *living* people. The birther movement is alive and 
well for some people. Sadly, so is the belief that having an IQ slightly 
higher than Sarah Palin and Macheal Bachman combined makes you, "A 
political genuis."

Actually, I am being unfair there. I am sure if you combined their IQs, 
it would at least reach "average".

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On 26/01/2012 8:24 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>
>> You're not a fan of "My name is Earl", then?
>>
> Uh, don't think I have ever heard of it. lol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Earl



-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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Le 26/01/2012 21:23, Patrick Elliott nous fit lire :
> BTW, as clarification. My understanding of the "real" meaning behind
> Karma would be more or less these rules:
> 
> 1. Karma doesn't happen "now", its generally punishment for action in a
> *prior* life.
> 2. Its karma that determines if you are lucky/unlucky, born rich, or
> poor, gain in business, of fail, and everything else.
> 3. In the most extreme case, someone from the absolute top caste could
> go nuts, murder someone in the bottom caste, and not be charged (at
> least in the old days, though maybe less so now), based on the theory
> that the higher status of the offender made it divine justice, and the
> low caste of the victim made it karma, for something they did wrong, in
> the prior life.
> 
> The west has turned this into some idiot version of, 'like calls like',
> mysticism, and uses the term to describe the fantastically rare cases
> where someone does something bad and suffers a similar reward, almost
> immediately, rather than the much more common thing, which is to get by
> with it, or the nearly as common result of being hammered by some random
> event, that is magnitudes out of proportion to the supposed "crime".
> Though, the later is often taken as a "sign" that some sort of justice
> was served via karma as well.

Speaking of Karma without raising Darma seems a mooth point...
Same as looking at the worshipers of Shiva (goddess of "destruction")
and not understanding their points.

Karma is a concept... judging a concept by its application is like
looking at the concepts of communism applied to Russia, China, Vietnam
and North Korea. The main issue of communism is that the axiom of
rational people is damn wrong. It's a story for 6 year old children so
far in its theory... used to abuse so many millions of people.
(Capitalism is not better, it's just more reality based about the
human's nature).

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On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:10:16 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Part of the issue is that, due to the secrecy, and other factors, most
> of the "its a church" decisions where made *prior* to a full
> understanding of what went on in it. Its now undergoing "reform", what
> ever the hell that actually means.

Oh, goodie, sects for CoS. :)

Jim

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On 1/26/2012 12:23, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> 1. Karma doesn't happen "now", its generally punishment for action in a
> *prior* life.

I think that depends on whether you ask Buddhists or Wiccams/

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   People tell me I am the counter-example.

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On 1/23/2012 2:42, Invisible wrote:
> On 23/01/2012 10:29 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
>> Wait, isn't Pipa some gal who's in the tabloids a lot?
>
> I wouldn't know; I don't read comic books.

"I'm not into Pokeman."

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   People tell me I am the counter-example.

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:17:37 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> On 1/23/2012 2:42, Invisible wrote:
>> On 23/01/2012 10:29 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
>>> Wait, isn't Pipa some gal who's in the tabloids a lot?
>>
>> I wouldn't know; I don't read comic books.
> 
> "I'm not into Pokeman."

I didn't know you were that into Herman Cain. ;)

Jim

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On 27/01/2012 04:17 AM, Darren New wrote:
> On 1/23/2012 2:42, Invisible wrote:
>> On 23/01/2012 10:29 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
>>> Wait, isn't Pipa some gal who's in the tabloids a lot?
>>
>> I wouldn't know; I don't read comic books.
>
> "I'm not into Pokeman."

Is it bad that I realise it's actually spelt Pokémon?

Post a reply to this message

>> I'm not saying it's unnecessary to know anything about technology. I'm
>> saying it seems unnecessary to know about technology we're not actually
>> using. (Whether it would help my job prospects is another matter... but
>> you have to find jobs to apply for first.)
>
> It's easier to find jobs to apply to when you have a broader awareness of
> the world than just what's relevant to you right now.

I doubt you're going to get that by reading some text on a screen. To 
understand what a new capability means, you often need to experience it 
for yourself.

>> I got the impression that Slashdot was more a forum for idle gossip and
>> bored people starting flamewars. I wasn't aware any useful information
>> existed there.
>
> It is, but the articles are good pointers to what's important.  I rarely
> read the comments (unless I'm bored).  But I have an RSS feed set up from
> the stories page so I can see what's 'hot', read the story, and follow
> the link to the source story so I can learn more.

OK, I have to ask: What the hell is this "RSS" everybody keeps mentioning?

>> I also got the impression that The Register was a satire site. Hell, it
>> even subtitles itself "biting the hand that feeds IT". I'm not making
>> this up. The few times I've read it, it was amusing, but contained no
>> real-world data.
>
> It has elements of satire, but it actually reports on real stuff.  They
> do hardware reviews and talk about software and technology companies in a
> real and non-satirical way.

I usually visit Tom's Hardware when I want to see what's happening in 
the hardware world.

Unfortunately, while there seem to be plenty of sites that track the 
latest up-to-the-minute developments, if you stop paying attention for a 
while, it seems very hard to get back up to speed. Every article assumes 
you've been following the story so far... There don't seem to be any 
high-level summaries around on the Internet. (Except for ones that are 
10 years old.)

>>>> PS. What is Netflix? And does it only operate in America?
>>>
>>> It's a streaming movie service, and if you'd been reading Slashdot or
>>> The Register, you'd know they've just started operating in Europe as
>>> well. :)
>>
>> I still don't comprehend what "streaming" actually means in this
>> context...
>
> 2 seconds with Google yielded this:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media

I know what streaming *is*. (Indeed, I knew what it was 15 years ago.) 
I'm failing to comprehend how it applies in this situation.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > It's easier to find jobs to apply to when you have a broader awareness of
> > the world than just what's relevant to you right now.
>
> I doubt you're going to get that by reading some text on a screen. To
> understand what a new capability means, you often need to experience it
> for yourself.

You don't need that to have a broader awareness of the world, you need many
blurbs and often.


> > It is, but the articles are good pointers to what's important.  I rarely
> > read the comments (unless I'm bored).  But I have an RSS feed set up from
> > the stories page so I can see what's 'hot', read the story, and follow
> > the link to the source story so I can learn more.
>
> OK, I have to ask: What the hell is this "RSS" everybody keeps mentioning?

Crowned.



> >>>> PS. What is Netflix? And does it only operate in America?
> >>>
> >>> It's a streaming movie service, and if you'd been reading Slashdot or
> >>> The Register, you'd know they've just started operating in Europe as
> >>> well. :)
> >>
> >> I still don't comprehend what "streaming" actually means in this
> >> context...
> >
> > 2 seconds with Google yielded this:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media
>
> I know what streaming *is*. (Indeed, I knew what it was 15 years ago.)
> I'm failing to comprehend how it applies in this situation.

It means that now rather than going into the closest blockbuster and renting a
movie, or waiting for the movie to show up on TV on a schedule, or waiting for
the illegal torrent to download, you may simply turn on the tv, choose a movie
and watch it on-the-fly.

Post a reply to this message

On 1/27/2012 2:43 AM, Invisible wrote:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media
>
> I know what streaming *is*. (Indeed, I knew what it was 15 years ago.)
> I'm failing to comprehend how it applies in this situation.

Its mostly taking the existing "streaming" technology, as understood on 
the net, and installing it in other devices, like DVRs, not to mention 
digital TVs. The reason this is possible is, of course, because its now 
broadcast digital, so uses the same streamable compression systems 
(though, in many cases, encrypted). It should be noted however that 
MP2/MP4, etc. was actually created to digitally store TV, and the like, 
in the first place, for "streaming" between the original source company, 
satellites, and base stations (which is to say, either your own dish, or 
your cable provider). The primary change has been that they no longer 
down-convert to analog. In principle, the same "data" as Youtube sends, 
or you get off your DVD, is being used to broadcast your TV programs 
now. Its just the encryption, and other key things, used to prevent the 
wrong people getting it, which changes at each point in the chain.

So, *everything* is not "streamed". And, its the reason why, if you have 
a DVR (no idea if you can do it with TVs), you can have "on demand" 
programming. Instead of just linking in to the stream that is already 
running, like you might do using say WinAmp and online radio, you are 
"requesting" the program to start sending to you, at the specific time 
you need it, just like you "request" Youtube start playing a movie from 
their site.

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On 1/26/2012 1:34 PM, Stephen wrote:
> On 26/01/2012 8:24 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>>
>>> You're not a fan of "My name is Earl", then?
>>>
>> Uh, don't think I have ever heard of it. lol
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Earl
>
>
>
Ah.. Yeah, not something I would have watched, short of having a 
lobotomy, sort of like 'The Ghost Whisperer'. I prefer my fiction to 
actually be fiction, like 'Being Human'. lol

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On 1/26/2012 3:04 PM, Le_Forgeron wrote:
> Le 26/01/2012 21:23, Patrick Elliott nous fit lire :
>> BTW, as clarification. My understanding of the "real" meaning behind
>> Karma would be more or less these rules:
>>
>> 1. Karma doesn't happen "now", its generally punishment for action in a
>> *prior* life.
>> 2. Its karma that determines if you are lucky/unlucky, born rich, or
>> poor, gain in business, of fail, and everything else.
>> 3. In the most extreme case, someone from the absolute top caste could
>> go nuts, murder someone in the bottom caste, and not be charged (at
>> least in the old days, though maybe less so now), based on the theory
>> that the higher status of the offender made it divine justice, and the
>> low caste of the victim made it karma, for something they did wrong, in
>> the prior life.
>>
>> The west has turned this into some idiot version of, 'like calls like',
>> mysticism, and uses the term to describe the fantastically rare cases
>> where someone does something bad and suffers a similar reward, almost
>> immediately, rather than the much more common thing, which is to get by
>> with it, or the nearly as common result of being hammered by some random
>> event, that is magnitudes out of proportion to the supposed "crime".
>> Though, the later is often taken as a "sign" that some sort of justice
>> was served via karma as well.
>
> Speaking of Karma without raising Darma seems a mooth point...
> Same as looking at the worshipers of Shiva (goddess of "destruction")
> and not understanding their points.
>
> Karma is a concept... judging a concept by its application is like
> looking at the concepts of communism applied to Russia, China, Vietnam
> and North Korea. The main issue of communism is that the axiom of
> rational people is damn wrong. It's a story for 6 year old children so
> far in its theory... used to abuse so many millions of people.
> (Capitalism is not better, it's just more reality based about the
> human's nature).
Its fairly irrelevant if the "concept" can be reduced to some silly 
false causality, which makes people feel better. Just because we would 
*like* life to be fair, doesn't mean that universe gives a shit, or 
corrects things in the long run. It doesn't. Often, as long as someone 
has power, and/or wealth, they can do great harm, and not suffer. 
Others, can do no harm their entire lives, and do nothing *but* suffer. 
Those are often "poor" people, or those with no power at all.

Its not about its "application". Its about whether or not it has any 
basis, what so ever, in reality. And, it simply doesn't.

However, if you are talking about the original origins of the principle, 
and how it was used, then you *do* have to look at its application. And, 
must like the "divine right of kings", its purpose wasn't to explain why 
bad things happened, or give some sort of hope (save in the entirely 
false sense, rather like the after life of Christianity), but to 
maintain how things already are. If you don't have a next life, or there 
isn't someone telling you, "If you do all the right things, it will be 
better next time", you will act to change things. If you think your 
deserve what you get, or will be rewarded for suffering it, then, the 
very act of apposing it is, by definition of how what those rules say 
about your caste, life, choices, failures, and even luck, evil (or bad 
karma).

Its not about hope, its about conformity. Adding other words to it, like 
Darma, as though anything in that concept mitigates it, just helps 
perpetuate the original purpose.

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On 1/26/2012 9:15 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 1/26/2012 12:23, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> 1. Karma doesn't happen "now", its generally punishment for action in a
>> *prior* life.
>
> I think that depends on whether you ask Buddhists or Wiccams/
>
Yeah, well.. I didn't say that they modern twits that believe the new 
version didn't manage to mangle half a dozen other things in the process 
of getting there. lol But, yeah, they took the name, and the general 
concept, from India, mixed in a heavy dose of Wicca, and came up with 
something that is less oppressive, but also at least as much based in 
reality (which is to say, not at all).

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Le 28/01/2012 02:53, Patrick Elliott nous fit lire :
> And, must like the "divine right of kings", its purpose wasn't to
> explain why bad things happened, or give some sort of hope (save in the
> entirely false sense, rather like the after life of Christianity), but
> to maintain how things already are. If you don't have a next life, or
> there isn't someone telling you, "If you do all the right things, it
> will be better next time", you will act to change things. If you think
> your deserve what you get, or will be rewarded for suffering it, then,
> the very act of apposing it is, by definition of how what those rules
> say about your caste, life, choices, failures, and even luck, evil (or
> bad karma).

Yep, you have some clues.
Human nature has a boon: consciousness of its own inescapable death.
And a malediction: high vulnerability in early years of life.

It generates so much stress on the long term that any derivative is
happily welcomed: here comes the various religions and ruling systems.
Most bad positions become acceptable (to most, not for all) if you have
the possibilities or probabilities to reach the other position in the
futur. children might become parents, young one might become old ones...
the vassal system is that kind too: serf to lord, lord to count, count
to duc, duc to king... and king need a top also to stay similar, it can
be emperor or god(s). It's also a repetition of the parental scheme of
younger time... "all is good, I have a powerful and mighty protector"

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On 28/01/2012 1:42 AM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 1/26/2012 1:34 PM, Stephen wrote:
>> On 26/01/2012 8:24 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>>>
>>>> You're not a fan of "My name is Earl", then?
>>>>
>>> Uh, don't think I have ever heard of it. lol
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Earl
>>
>>
>>
> Ah.. Yeah, not something I would have watched, short of having a
> lobotomy, sort of like 'The Ghost Whisperer'. I prefer my fiction to
> actually be fiction, like 'Being Human'. lol

Not my cup of tea either but I saw a few episodes when someone else was 
watching it. I prefer my TV to be off. ;-)

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 1/28/2012 2:25 AM, Le_Forgeron wrote:
> Le 28/01/2012 02:53, Patrick Elliott nous fit lire :
>> And, must like the "divine right of kings", its purpose wasn't to
>> explain why bad things happened, or give some sort of hope (save in the
>> entirely false sense, rather like the after life of Christianity), but
>> to maintain how things already are. If you don't have a next life, or
>> there isn't someone telling you, "If you do all the right things, it
>> will be better next time", you will act to change things. If you think
>> your deserve what you get, or will be rewarded for suffering it, then,
>> the very act of apposing it is, by definition of how what those rules
>> say about your caste, life, choices, failures, and even luck, evil (or
>> bad karma).
>
> Yep, you have some clues.
> Human nature has a boon: consciousness of its own inescapable death.
> And a malediction: high vulnerability in early years of life.
>
> It generates so much stress on the long term that any derivative is
> happily welcomed: here comes the various religions and ruling systems.
> Most bad positions become acceptable (to most, not for all) if you have
> the possibilities or probabilities to reach the other position in the
> futur. children might become parents, young one might become old ones...
> the vassal system is that kind too: serf to lord, lord to count, count
> to duc, duc to king... and king need a top also to stay similar, it can
> be emperor or god(s). It's also a repetition of the parental scheme of
> younger time... "all is good, I have a powerful and mighty protector"
>
Like I argued just today, on someone complaining about "New atheists", 
the problem with entirely false ones, like religion though is that they 
anesthetize the people in them with respect to actually trying to change 
any inequity. This doesn't address the problems, it merely presents one 
with a seemingly plausible reason why they are not *as bad*, while 
allowing the problems to perpetuate (or possibly get worse). The example 
I used was the LA riots, where a few hundred people ran wild, destroying 
their own neighborhoods. Where where the rest of the people, who 
outnumbered them by a huge margin? In churches, praying that they 
wouldn't be victim to it, and that it would all magically go away. A 
tactic which didn't address the questionable verdict that triggered the 
event, the sense of powerlessness, the rage, or anything else. It simply 
gave people an easy way out of the immediate problem. And, since it did, 
it will again, and again, and again, without ever changing anything that 
causes the problems.

That is the core thing that makes such stuff dangerous. It doesn't deal 
with reality at all, it just hands people a bottle of pain pills, and 
tells them, "I hope it goes away on its own."

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Le 28/01/2012 19:53, Patrick Elliott nous fit lire :
> That is the core thing that makes such stuff dangerous. It doesn't deal
> with reality at all, it just hands people a bottle of pain pills, and
> tells them, "I hope it goes away on its own."

to quote (badly, probably) a movie:
"You want the truth ? You can't handle the truth."

(Now in quizz mode, name that movie !)

(in rot13 for you: N Srj Tbbq Zna "Lbh Pna'g Unaqyr gur Gehgu" )

I'd like to beware also about the Allegory of the Cave (Plato).

The one which know the full truth in a company must be fired.

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On Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:27:31 +0100, Le_Forgeron wrote:

> to quote (badly, probably) a movie:
> "You want the truth ? You can't handle the truth."
> 
> (Now in quizz mode, name that movie !)

A Few Good Men.  One of my favourites.  Nicholson was extremely well in 
the role of Col. Jessup.

Jim

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On 1/27/2012 4:36 AM, Invisible wrote:
> On 27/01/2012 04:17 AM, Darren New wrote:
>> On 1/23/2012 2:42, Invisible wrote:
>>> On 23/01/2012 10:29 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
>>>> Wait, isn't Pipa some gal who's in the tabloids a lot?
>>>
>>> I wouldn't know; I don't read comic books.
>>
>> "I'm not into Pokeman."
>
> Is it bad that I realise it's actually spelt Pokémon?

Not really, they have been mainstream so long that even non-virgins know 
this.

Regards,
John

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On Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:43:38 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>> It's easier to find jobs to apply to when you have a broader awareness
>> of the world than just what's relevant to you right now.
> 
> I doubt you're going to get that by reading some text on a screen. To
> understand what a new capability means, you often need to experience it
> for yourself.

Hmmm, so let me see if I understand this correctly....You're asserting 
that one of the methods that I actually use to keep up on technology 
doesn't work?  Interesting that you'd have insight into what works for me 
on such a deep level. 

>>> I got the impression that Slashdot was more a forum for idle gossip
>>> and bored people starting flamewars. I wasn't aware any useful
>>> information existed there.
>>
>> It is, but the articles are good pointers to what's important.  I
>> rarely read the comments (unless I'm bored).  But I have an RSS feed
>> set up from the stories page so I can see what's 'hot', read the story,
>> and follow the link to the source story so I can learn more.
> 
> OK, I have to ask: What the hell is this "RSS" everybody keeps
> mentioning?

Google it.  If that doesn't work, try "Really Simple Syndication".  It's 
only all over the web.

>> It has elements of satire, but it actually reports on real stuff.  They
>> do hardware reviews and talk about software and technology companies in
>> a real and non-satirical way.
> 
> I usually visit Tom's Hardware when I want to see what's happening in
> the hardware world.

I doubt you're going to get that by reading some text on a screen.  
(Sorry, I couldn't resist - but I hope that makes the point intended)

> Unfortunately, while there seem to be plenty of sites that track the
> latest up-to-the-minute developments, if you stop paying attention for a
> while, it seems very hard to get back up to speed. Every article assumes
> you've been following the story so far... There don't seem to be any
> high-level summaries around on the Internet. (Except for ones that are
> 10 years old.)

That's why I skim a fair bit of things.

>>> I still don't comprehend what "streaming" actually means in this
>>> context...
>>
>> 2 seconds with Google yielded this:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media
> 
> I know what streaming *is*. (Indeed, I knew what it was 15 years ago.)
> I'm failing to comprehend how it applies in this situation.

I'm not sure I understand how this is so difficult to comprehend.  Netflix 
has servers in their data centres that stream data to clients running the 
NetFlix software on them.  You pick a movie you want to watch, and you 
instantly start watching it.

And before you say it, yes, it actually works.  We've only subscribed to 
Netflix since before they got into the streaming business.

Or are you going to again claim that something that I use on a regular 
basis doesn't exist or is impossible or couldn't *possibly* work?  I'm 
sure my son would love to know that we didn't actually spend over 3 hours 
streaming Battlestar Galactica today and have watched almost all of the 
first three series that way.  I'm sure it was just a blu-ray disc and we 
didn't realise we'd put it in the PS3 to watch it.  Yeah, that's it.  ;)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

>>> It's easier to find jobs to apply to when you have a broader awareness
>>> of the world than just what's relevant to you right now.
>>
>> I doubt you're going to get that by reading some text on a screen. To
>> understand what a new capability means, you often need to experience it
>> for yourself.
>
> Hmmm, so let me see if I understand this correctly....You're asserting
> that one of the methods that I actually use to keep up on technology
> doesn't work?  Interesting that you'd have insight into what works for me
> on such a deep level.

I'm saying that if (for example) I read somewhere that a lot of 
companies use Citrix to host their applications, that doesn't really 
qualify me for a job managing Citrix. If I had actually /used/ Citrix, 
or something vaguely like it, then yes. But having read about how it 
exists and people use it? Not so much, no.

>> OK, I have to ask: What the hell is this "RSS" everybody keeps
>> mentioning?
>
> Google it.  If that doesn't work, try "Really Simple Syndication".  It's
> only all over the web.

Ooo, because I haven't tried *that* before. :-P

OK, so let's see... First hit from Google is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS

(Unless you meant Royal Statistical Society, which I'm pretty sure you 
didn't.)

As usual with Wikipedia, the page babbles about updates and feeds and 
XML and "syndication" and something about RDF, but utterly fails to 
explain WHAT IT IS.

>> I usually visit Tom's Hardware when I want to see what's happening in
>> the hardware world.
>
> I doubt you're going to get that by reading some text on a screen.

That's why I just built a new PC - to experience the Core i7 first-hand. :-P

>> I know what streaming *is*. (Indeed, I knew what it was 15 years ago.)
>> I'm failing to comprehend how it applies in this situation.
>
> I'm not sure I understand how this is so difficult to comprehend.  Netflix
> has servers in their data centres that stream data to clients running the
> NetFlix software on them.  You pick a movie you want to watch, and you
> instantly start watching it.
>
> And before you say it, yes, it actually works.

The BBC's iPlayer system "works". I mean, it's so horrifyingly blurry 
that you sometimes can't see people's faces clearly enough to recognise 
who's who, and often the end credits are unreadable. But technically 
that still counts as "works", right?

I just looked it up. The transfer rate of a DVD is 10.5 mbit/sec. The 
maximum broadband speed you can get is 8 mbit/sec. So... does that mean 
that people in America have something faster than ADSL or something?

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-01-31 04:12, Invisible a écrit :
>
> I'm saying that if (for example) I read somewhere that a lot of
> companies use Citrix to host their applications, that doesn't really
> qualify me for a job managing Citrix. If I had actually /used/ Citrix,
> or something vaguely like it, then yes. But having read about how it
> exists and people use it? Not so much, no.
>

It would allow you to have a better understanding of how that business 
operates.  Having a general idea of how entrerpise apps like SAP, BEA 
Weblogic, or Websphere work is never a bad thing.  While no one would 
hopefully expect you to be able to manage their Citrix server farms 
based on having read something about it on CNET, it would probably be 
easier for you to understand where your job fits in the grander scheme 
of things, or helkp you move up the corporate ladder.

For example, my current job is network performance & capacity planning. 
  I gather usage statistics from Cisco devices, and make nice graphs 
with them.  However, knowing a little about the applications running on 
the servers connected to these switch ports allows me to be more helpful 
when a problem ticket comes in saying "Users say that app XYZ is slow" 
instead of having to wait for someone else to ask me to look for errors 
on port 15 of switch C.

>>> OK, I have to ask: What the hell is this "RSS" everybody keeps
>>> mentioning?
>>
>> Google it. If that doesn't work, try "Really Simple Syndication". It's
>> only all over the web.
>
> As usual with Wikipedia, the page babbles about updates and feeds and
> XML and "syndication" and something about RDF, but utterly fails to
> explain WHAT IT IS.
>

This is similar to what news organizations do with newsfeeds from 
Reuters, AP, AFP, etcept it's for the common mortal.  It's a 
standardized way to package news items (or in many cases, blog entries). 
  It allows you to view content that comes from other sources.  Some 
people use that to put "in the news..." sections on their websites, some 
others use RSS readers to gather news flashes and what nots from 
multiple sources they find interesting.

For example, If I had a website devoted to 3D graphics, I could set up 
RSS feeds from various makers of 3D software (those, that have a feed, 
of course!) and whenever they had news releases or announcements, they 
would automagically show up on my web site, without me having to hunt 
for them.

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > I'm not sure I understand how this is so difficult to comprehend.  Netflix
> > has servers in their data centres that stream data to clients running the
> > NetFlix software on them.  You pick a movie you want to watch, and you
> > instantly start watching it.
> >
> > And before you say it, yes, it actually works.
>
> The BBC's iPlayer system "works". I mean, it's so horrifyingly blurry
> that you sometimes can't see people's faces clearly enough to recognise
> who's who, and often the end credits are unreadable. But technically
> that still counts as "works", right?
>
> I just looked it up. The transfer rate of a DVD is 10.5 mbit/sec. The
> maximum broadband speed you can get is 8 mbit/sec. So... does that mean
> that people in America have something faster than ADSL or something?

no, it simply means MP4 does a way better job at compressing than DVD codecs...
they are watching non-blurry HD streams, real-time.

Post a reply to this message

>> The BBC's iPlayer system "works". I mean, it's so horrifyingly blurry
>> that you sometimes can't see people's faces clearly enough to recognise
>> who's who, and often the end credits are unreadable. But technically
>> that still counts as "works", right?
>>
>> I just looked it up. The transfer rate of a DVD is 10.5 mbit/sec. The
>> maximum broadband speed you can get is 8 mbit/sec. So... does that mean
>> that people in America have something faster than ADSL or something?
>
> no, it simply means MP4 does a way better job at compressing than DVD codecs...
> they are watching non-blurry HD streams, real-time.

DVD is MPEG2. (?) I thought nobody had implemented MPEG4 yet.

Post a reply to this message

On 31/01/2012 13:36, Francois Labreque wrote:
> Le 2012-01-31 04:12, Invisible a écrit :
>>
>> I'm saying that if (for example) I read somewhere that a lot of
>> companies use Citrix to host their applications, that doesn't really
>> qualify me for a job managing Citrix. If I had actually /used/ Citrix,
>> or something vaguely like it, then yes. But having read about how it
>> exists and people use it? Not so much, no.
>>
>
> It would allow you to have a better understanding of how that business
> operates. Having a general idea of how entrerpise apps like SAP, BEA
> Weblogic, or Websphere work is never a bad thing

Sure. But (for example) I gather that some people use SAN technology. I 
cannot for the life of me begin to imagine why you would accept such a 
massive performance hit in exchange for the mere ability to plug and 
unplug disks virtually rather than physically. But apparently everybody 
is doing it, for reasons unknown.

So in this instance, I know what the world is doing, but I still have 
absolutely no insight at all. It hasn't helped.

>>>> OK, I have to ask: What the hell is this "RSS" everybody keeps
>>>> mentioning?
>>>
>>> Google it. If that doesn't work, try "Really Simple Syndication". It's
>>> only all over the web.
>>
>> As usual with Wikipedia, the page babbles about updates and feeds and
>> XML and "syndication" and something about RDF, but utterly fails to
>> explain WHAT IT IS.
>
> This is similar to what news organizations do with newsfeeds from
> Reuters, AP, AFP, etcept it's for the common mortal. It's a standardized
> way to package news items (or in many cases, blog entries). It allows
> you to view content that comes from other sources. Some people use that
> to put "in the news..." sections on their websites, some others use RSS
> readers to gather news flashes and what nots from multiple sources they
> find interesting.

I'm still failing to see why this is in any way "useful". Unless you run 
a news website, which I don't.

Post a reply to this message

>>> "I'm not into Pokeman."
>>
>> Is it bad that I realise it's actually spelt Pokémon?
>
> Not really, they have been mainstream so long that even non-virgins know
> this.

...Is it bad that I own a copy of The Pokémon Trainer's Handbook? o_O

Post a reply to this message

Orchid Win7 v1 escreveu:
>>> The BBC's iPlayer system "works". I mean, it's so horrifyingly blurry
>>> that you sometimes can't see people's faces clearly enough to recognise
>>> who's who, and often the end credits are unreadable. But technically
>>> that still counts as "works", right?
>>>
>>> I just looked it up. The transfer rate of a DVD is 10.5 mbit/sec. The
>>> maximum broadband speed you can get is 8 mbit/sec. So... does that mean
>>> that people in America have something faster than ADSL or something?
>>
>> no, it simply means MP4 does a way better job at compressing than DVD 
>> codecs...
>> they are watching non-blurry HD streams, real-time.
> 
> DVD is MPEG2. (?) I thought nobody had implemented MPEG4 yet.

bluray is almost 6 years old already.  MP4 is almost already in every 
browser as part of HTML5 spec.

see what you get for not reading slashdot feeds?  You sound almost like 
a caveman!

Post a reply to this message

>>> no, it simply means MP4 does a way better job at compressing than DVD
>>> codecs...
>>> they are watching non-blurry HD streams, real-time.
>>
>> DVD is MPEG2. (?) I thought nobody had implemented MPEG4 yet.
>
> bluray is almost 6 years old already.

And? I used standard definition video as an example because it has more 
modest data rate requirements. If broadband is too slow for standard 
definition, it is /obviously/ too slow for HD.

> MP4 is almost already in every browser as part of HTML5 spec.

I also thought nobody has implemented HTML5 yet. (Hell, I thought they 
hadn't even finished /specifying/ it yet - not that that ever stopped 
anybody. :-P )

> see what you get for not reading slashdot feeds? You sound almost like a
> caveman!

Riiiight. Because if I visited Slashdot everyday I would already know 
all these things. Oh, wait...

Post a reply to this message

Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >>> no, it simply means MP4 does a way better job at compressing than DVD
> >>> codecs...
> >>> they are watching non-blurry HD streams, real-time.
> >>
> >> DVD is MPEG2. (?) I thought nobody had implemented MPEG4 yet.
> >
> > bluray is almost 6 years old already.
>
> And? I used standard definition video as an example because it has more
> modest data rate requirements. If broadband is too slow for standard
> definition, it is /obviously/ too slow for HD.
>
> > MP4 is almost already in every browser as part of HTML5 spec.
>
> I also thought nobody has implemented HTML5 yet. (Hell, I thought they
> hadn't even finished /specifying/ it yet - not that that ever stopped
> anybody. :-P )
>
> > see what you get for not reading slashdot feeds? You sound almost like a
> > caveman!
>
> Riiiight. Because if I visited Slashdot everyday I would already know
> all these things. Oh, wait...

"oh, wait!  I know nothing, I want to know nothing and I'm actually trying to
argue with people who know it better."

I don't think you're dumb actually.  I think you're a very skilled
attention-whore troll.

I don't time or fun any more for this BS routine...

Post a reply to this message

On 1/31/2012 12:52 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>> As usual with Wikipedia, the page babbles about updates and feeds and
>>> XML and "syndication" and something about RDF, but utterly fails to
>>> explain WHAT IT IS.
>>
>> This is similar to what news organizations do with newsfeeds from
>> Reuters, AP, AFP, etcept it's for the common mortal. It's a standardized
>> way to package news items (or in many cases, blog entries). It allows
>> you to view content that comes from other sources. Some people use that
>> to put "in the news..." sections on their websites, some others use RSS
>> readers to gather news flashes and what nots from multiple sources they
>> find interesting.
>
> I'm still failing to see why this is in any way "useful". Unless you run
> a news website, which I don't.
Its also used by blogs, and the like, in which case, instead of going to 
the blog, you might get the text, and links, packaged differently, for 
use in something like a cell phone app. Or, for example, you might have 
something like here, where comments are collected, into a single 
package, and "filed" along with the original item, sort of like news 
readers do with threads.

Basically, its a way of delivering content automatically, to clients 
that support it, by "subscribing", the same way you tell a news reader 
that you want to get everything sent to povray.off-topic when you log in 
to the server, rather than having to go to every single website you want 
to read them from.

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-01-31 14:52, Orchid Win7 v1 a écrit :
> On 31/01/2012 13:36, Francois Labreque wrote:
>> Le 2012-01-31 04:12, Invisible a écrit :
>>>
>>> I'm saying that if (for example) I read somewhere that a lot of
>>> companies use Citrix to host their applications, that doesn't really
>>> qualify me for a job managing Citrix. If I had actually /used/ Citrix,
>>> or something vaguely like it, then yes. But having read about how it
>>> exists and people use it? Not so much, no.
>>>
>>
>> It would allow you to have a better understanding of how that business
>> operates. Having a general idea of how entrerpise apps like SAP, BEA
>> Weblogic, or Websphere work is never a bad thing
>
> Sure. But (for example) I gather that some people use SAN technology. I
> cannot for the life of me begin to imagine why you would accept such a
> massive performance hit in exchange for the mere ability to plug and
> unplug disks virtually rather than physically. But apparently everybody
> is doing it, for reasons unknown.
>

The big advantage to adding disks virtually instead of physically is 
that you are not limited by the form factor of the server, the power 
output of the PSUs and most importantly, they can be done on the fly, 
without having to take an outage.

In your environment, it may not be that big of an issue, but when you 
have contracted service level agreements that you will have 99.99% 
uptime, you have no other choice.  Do the math, that means 1m42s of 
downtime per month... try powering off a server, taking it out of the 
rack, adding a disk and powering it back on in less than 10 times that!

We've also had the performance discussion before.  Yes, the theoretical 
access speed of a local SATA drive is much faster than that of a SAN 
attached logical disk, but in actual real world practice, with real 
world data, there's not much of a difference, even on SANs located 
halfway across town in another building.

Which brings us to the last big advantage of SANs.  Instant disaster 
recovery!  Your main office is now a pile of smoldering ruins?  No 
biggie, just reassing the LUNs from that offsite SAN to another machine 
at the business continuity location and power it up, and presto! your 
business is back on its feet.

sometimes, taking a small performance hit on each I/O operation is 
nothing compared to being able to get the company back up and running 
even though a hurricane decided to pay your data centre a visit.

> So in this instance, I know what the world is doing, but I still have
> absolutely no insight at all. It hasn't helped.
>

That's because you keep forgetting that other people may have other 
needs than yours.  Reading about technology often includes case studies. 
  From those, you'll learn that the needs of the petrochemical industry 
are very different than those of the financial industry, the online 
services industry or that of hospitals, for example.

>>>>> OK, I have to ask: What the hell is this "RSS" everybody keeps
>>>>> mentioning?
>>>>
>>>> Google it. If that doesn't work, try "Really Simple Syndication". It's
>>>> only all over the web.
>>>
>>> As usual with Wikipedia, the page babbles about updates and feeds and
>>> XML and "syndication" and something about RDF, but utterly fails to
>>> explain WHAT IT IS.
>>
>> This is similar to what news organizations do with newsfeeds from
>> Reuters, AP, AFP, etcept it's for the common mortal. It's a standardized
>> way to package news items (or in many cases, blog entries). It allows
>> you to view content that comes from other sources. Some people use that
>> to put "in the news..." sections on their websites, some others use RSS
>> readers to gather news flashes and what nots from multiple sources they
>> find interesting.
>
> I'm still failing to see why this is in any way "useful". Unless you run
> a news website, which I don't.

It is also very useful for people who READ news websites as you can 
configure an RSS reader to pick up those feeds that interest you and get 
the news you want in Thunderbird, for example, instead of having to read 
half a dozen different web sites every morning, while your coffee brews.

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

Post a reply to this message

>>> Having a general idea of how entrerpise apps like SAP, BEA
>>> Weblogic, or Websphere work is never a bad thing
>>
>> Sure. But (for example) I gather that some people use SAN technology. I
>> cannot for the life of me begin to imagine why you would accept such a
>> massive performance hit in exchange for the mere ability to plug and
>> unplug disks virtually rather than physically. But apparently everybody
>> is doing it, for reasons unknown.
>
> The big advantage to adding disks virtually instead of physically is
> that you are not limited by the form factor of the server, the power
> output of the PSUs and most importantly, they can be done on the fly,
> without having to take an outage.

But you still need to (at a minimum) reboot the server after you change 
the SAN mapping anyway.

> In your environment, it may not be that big of an issue, but when you
> have contracted service level agreements that you will have 99.99%
> uptime, you have no other choice. Do the math, that means 1m42s of
> downtime per month... try powering off a server, taking it out of the
> rack, adding a disk and powering it back on in less than 10 times that!

Uhuh. And when one server physically dies, it's going to be down a tad 
longer than 1m42s. So if you don't have the spare capacity to handle 
that, a SAN still hasn't solved your problem.

> We've also had the performance discussion before. Yes, the theoretical
> access speed of a local SATA drive is much faster than that of a SAN
> attached logical disk, but in actual real world practice, with real
> world data, there's not much of a difference, even on SANs located
> halfway across town in another building.

This makes no sense at all. How the hell can a 6 Gbit/s SATA link 
perform the same as a 100 Mbit/sec Ethernet link? Never mind a 10 
Mbit/sec Internet link. That makes no sense at all. (Unless your actual 
disks are so feeble that all of them combined deliver less than 10 
Mbit/sec of data transfer speed...)

> Which brings us to the last big advantage of SANs. Instant disaster
> recovery! Your main office is now a pile of smoldering ruins? No biggie,
> just reassing the LUNs from that offsite SAN to another machine at the
> business continuity location and power it up, and presto! your business
> is back on its feet.
>
> sometimes, taking a small performance hit on each I/O operation is
> nothing compared to being able to get the company back up and running
> even though a hurricane decided to pay your data centre a visit.

That works if a hurricane takes out the data centre with your SAN in it. 
Not so much if it takes out the data centre with your compute devices in 
it. :-P

For that, you would need [at least] two geographically remote sites 
which duplicate everything - disk and other hardware as well. I'm 
struggling to think of a situation where the volume of data produced per 
hour is so low that you can actually keep it synchronised over the 
Internet. And if it isn't in sync, then a failover to from primary to 
secondary system entails data loss.

>> So in this instance, I know what the world is doing, but I still have
>> absolutely no insight at all. It hasn't helped.
>
> That's because you keep forgetting that other people may have other
> needs than yours.

Perhaps. But saying "we work in the financial industry" doesn't tell me 
how your needs are different than mine. Really, the only way you'd truly 
come to understand this is by actually /working/ in that industry. And 
that's just not possible.

>> I'm still failing to see why this is in any way "useful". Unless you run
>> a news website, which I don't.
>
> It is also very useful for people who READ news websites as you can
> configure an RSS reader to pick up those feeds that interest you and get
> the news you want in Thunderbird, for example, instead of having to read
> half a dozen different web sites every morning, while your coffee brews.

Right. So it's a way to track what's new on multiple sites simultaneously?

If that's all it is, why didn't somebody just *say* so?

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-02-01 09:03, Invisible a écrit :
>>>> Having a general idea of how entrerpise apps like SAP, BEA
>>>> Weblogic, or Websphere work is never a bad thing
>>>
>>> Sure. But (for example) I gather that some people use SAN technology. I
>>> cannot for the life of me begin to imagine why you would accept such a
>>> massive performance hit in exchange for the mere ability to plug and
>>> unplug disks virtually rather than physically. But apparently everybody
>>> is doing it, for reasons unknown.
>>
>> The big advantage to adding disks virtually instead of physically is
>> that you are not limited by the form factor of the server, the power
>> output of the PSUs and most importantly, they can be done on the fly,
>> without having to take an outage.
>
> But you still need to (at a minimum) reboot the server after you change
> the SAN mapping anyway.
>

No.  Do you need to reboot after swapping a CD or a usb key?  OSes have 
been able to handle adding and removing storage space for a while, now.

Obviously, Windows may complain if you try to pull the C: drive from 
under its feet, but you shouldn't actually boot from a SAN drive under 
normal circumstances anyway.

I'm no Windows Server expert, so I don't know if it allows you to extend 
disk space on the fly, but I do know that many flavors of Unix do allow it.

>> In your environment, it may not be that big of an issue, but when you
>> have contracted service level agreements that you will have 99.99%
>> uptime, you have no other choice. Do the math, that means 1m42s of
>> downtime per month... try powering off a server, taking it out of the
>> rack, adding a disk and powering it back on in less than 10 times that!
>
> Uhuh. And when one server physically dies, it's going to be down a tad
> longer than 1m42s. So if you don't have the spare capacity to handle
> that, a SAN still hasn't solved your problem.
>

Need help moving those goalposts?  They look heavy!  We weren't talking 
about a server dying.  We were talking about needing mroe disk space.  A 
SAN is not the remedy to all problem, obviously.  Just like having 
onsite generators can help you avoid power outages, but as we saw last 
March, they aren't necessarily very helpful if a tsunami took the fuel 
tanks away.

>> We've also had the performance discussion before. Yes, the theoretical
>> access speed of a local SATA drive is much faster than that of a SAN
>> attached logical disk, but in actual real world practice, with real
>> world data, there's not much of a difference, even on SANs located
>> halfway across town in another building.
>
> This makes no sense at all. How the hell can a 6 Gbit/s SATA link
> perform the same as a 100 Mbit/sec Ethernet link? Never mind a 10
> Mbit/sec Internet link. That makes no sense at all. (Unless your actual
> disks are so feeble that all of them combined deliver less than 10
> Mbit/sec of data transfer speed...)
>

You're making a strawman argument.  No one ever said that SANs run over 
10Mbit ethernet.  While it is possible to use iSCSI on a 10 or 100 Mbps 
ehternet lan, most SAN implementations run dedicated protocols over 
fibre at Gbps speeds.

Last time we went over this, I pointed you to studies that showed that 
over millions of "real-life" I/O operations, the SAN was performing no 
worse than locally-connected disks.

See for example: 
http://www.sqlteam.com/article/which-is-faster-san-or-directly-attached-storage

>> Which brings us to the last big advantage of SANs. Instant disaster
>> recovery! Your main office is now a pile of smoldering ruins? No biggie,
>> just reassing the LUNs from that offsite SAN to another machine at the
>> business continuity location and power it up, and presto! your business
>> is back on its feet.
>>
>> sometimes, taking a small performance hit on each I/O operation is
>> nothing compared to being able to get the company back up and running
>> even though a hurricane decided to pay your data centre a visit.
>
> That works if a hurricane takes out the data centre with your SAN in it.
> Not so much if it takes out the data centre with your compute devices in
> it. :-P
>

Most businesses will invest in redundant servers BEFORE investing in 
redundant facilities, therefore, if you have more than one data centre 
with redundand SANs, you more than likely built your business continuity 
plan so that you also have enough CPUs avaialble at both sites to run 
your entire operation from just one of those sites, and you probably run 
monthly or quarterly disaster drills to make sure that your plan 
actually works.

Four 9s and Five 9s uptime is expensive.

> For that, you would need [at least] two geographically remote sites
> which duplicate everything - disk and other hardware as well. I'm
> struggling to think of a situation where the volume of data produced per
> hour is so low that you can actually keep it synchronised over the
> Internet. And if it isn't in sync, then a failover to from primary to
> secondary system entails data loss.
>

Not the Internet, multiple dedicated 10Gbps DWDM links.  You'd be 
surprised to know that most Fortune 1000 entreprises actually do this 
already.

All entreprise database systems (Oracle, DB2, MS-SQL, et al.) allow for 
the real-time duplication of the data across multiple tables, so it's 
easy to tell your DBMS to write to table 1 on disk E: and to table 2 on 
disk F:, and to map those disks to LUNs that are on different physical 
SANs.  Most SANs can also handle this internally without the server OS 
knowing anything about it, just like RAID is transparent to the OS and 
applications.

>>> So in this instance, I know what the world is doing, but I still have
>>> absolutely no insight at all. It hasn't helped.
>>
>> That's because you keep forgetting that other people may have other
>> needs than yours.
>
> Perhaps. But saying "we work in the financial industry" doesn't tell me
> how your needs are different than mine. Really, the only way you'd truly
> come to understand this is by actually /working/ in that industry. And
> that's just not possible.
>

Are you saying it's impossible to work in the banking industry?  Or are 
you saying that the banking industry is so secretive about their work 
that you can't even find out how they operate without working there?

Google "Tandem computers".  Their story is very well known and was 
instrumental to the rise of computers in the financial world.  There's 
no need to be working at a bank to find out about that.  Look at the job 
offers for a big bank.  If, for example, they're looking for someone 
with Solaris and Oracle knowledge and "experience with high-availablilty 
is an asset" that should tell you enough about the products used at the 
bank in question, and if you're interested to know more about how 
Solaris and Oracle handle HA, you can simply go to their web site, read 
white papers, Gartner studies, etc...

Of course, you can also decide that it's not worth it to learn about 
these things and simply shrug it off, but don't complain that you can't 
get jobs outside of the little hole you dug yourself into.

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
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/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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>>> The big advantage to adding disks virtually instead of physically is
>>> that you are not limited by the form factor of the server, the power
>>> output of the PSUs and most importantly, they can be done on the fly,
>>> without having to take an outage.
>>
>> But you still need to (at a minimum) reboot the server after you change
>> the SAN mapping anyway.
>
> Obviously, Windows may complain if you try to pull the C: drive from
> under its feet, but you shouldn't actually boot from a SAN drive under
> normal circumstances anyway.

Oh, I see. Well, if you're not changing the OS partition, then yes, that 
should work.

>>> In your environment, it may not be that big of an issue, but when you
>>> have contracted service level agreements that you will have 99.99%
>>> uptime, you have no other choice. Do the math, that means 1m42s of
>>> downtime per month... try powering off a server, taking it out of the
>>> rack, adding a disk and powering it back on in less than 10 times that!
>>
>> Uhuh. And when one server physically dies, it's going to be down a tad
>> longer than 1m42s. So if you don't have the spare capacity to handle
>> that, a SAN still hasn't solved your problem.
>
> Need help moving those goalposts? They look heavy! We weren't talking
> about a server dying. We were talking about needing more disk space.

That was not clear to me. You made it sound like "hey, if you have a 
SAN, then when one data centre dies, you can just use the other one!" 
You're going to need more than just a SAN to do that.

I would have thought that needing more disk space is such a crushingly 
rare event that it makes almost no sense to optimise for it. If you have 
to take a server offline once every 5 years to add another disk, that's 
still 99.99% uptime.

>> This makes no sense at all. How the hell can a 6 Gbit/s SATA link
>> perform the same as a 100 Mbit/sec Ethernet link? Never mind a 10
>> Mbit/sec Internet link. That makes no sense at all. (Unless your actual
>> disks are so feeble that all of them combined deliver less than 10
>> Mbit/sec of data transfer speed...)
>
> You're making a strawman argument. No one ever said that SANs run over
> 10Mbit ethernet.

Neither did I. I said 100 Mbit Etherhet. (It's quoted right there.)

You claimed that it's not insane to run a SAN over the Internet, despite 
the fact that typical Internet speeds are roughly 10 Mbit/sec or slower.

> most SAN implementations run dedicated protocols over
> fibre at Gbps speeds.

It's news to me that such things even exist yet - but perhaps that was 
your point?

Still, it looks like the UK site will soon be in possession of their 
very own SAN, so I guess I'll be able to watch it fail up close and 
personal. o_O

> Four 9s and Five 9s uptime is expensive.

Hell yes.

Actually, I think we can simplify this to "uptime is expensive". I've 
yet to see a method of improving uptime that's cheap.

>> For that, you would need [at least] two geographically remote sites
>> which duplicate everything - disk and other hardware as well. I'm
>> struggling to think of a situation where the volume of data produced per
>> hour is so low that you can actually keep it synchronised over the
>> Internet. And if it isn't in sync, then a failover to from primary to
>> secondary system entails data loss.
>
> Not the Internet, multiple dedicated 10Gbps DWDM links. You'd be
> surprised to know that most Fortune 1000 entreprises actually do this
> already.

So what you're saying is that a handful of the richest companies on 
Earth can afford to do this? Yeah, I guess that'll be why I haven't seen 
it before. :-P

>>> That's because you keep forgetting that other people may have other
>>> needs than yours.
>>
>> Perhaps. But saying "we work in the financial industry" doesn't tell me
>> how your needs are different than mine. Really, the only way you'd truly
>> come to understand this is by actually /working/ in that industry. And
>> that's just not possible.
>
> Are you saying it's impossible to work in the banking industry? Or are
> you saying that the banking industry is so secretive about their work
> that you can't even find out how they operate without working there?

I'm saying it's not possible to go work in every random industry just to 
find out what makes it tick.

> Of course, you can also decide that it's not worth it to learn about
> these things and simply shrug it off, but don't complain that you can't
> get jobs outside of the little hole you dug yourself into.

I didn't say it's not possible to get a job, I said it's not possible to 
get insight without getting a job.

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-02-01 11:45, Invisible a écrit :
>>>> The big advantage to adding disks virtually instead of physically is
>>>> that you are not limited by the form factor of the server, the power
>>>> output of the PSUs and most importantly, they can be done on the fly,
>>>> without having to take an outage.
>>>
>>> But you still need to (at a minimum) reboot the server after you change
>>> the SAN mapping anyway.
>>
>> Obviously, Windows may complain if you try to pull the C: drive from
>> under its feet, but you shouldn't actually boot from a SAN drive under
>> normal circumstances anyway.
>
> Oh, I see. Well, if you're not changing the OS partition, then yes, that
> should work.
>
>>>> In your environment, it may not be that big of an issue, but when you
>>>> have contracted service level agreements that you will have 99.99%
>>>> uptime, you have no other choice. Do the math, that means 1m42s of
>>>> downtime per month... try powering off a server, taking it out of the
>>>> rack, adding a disk and powering it back on in less than 10 times that!
>>>
>>> Uhuh. And when one server physically dies, it's going to be down a tad
>>> longer than 1m42s. So if you don't have the spare capacity to handle
>>> that, a SAN still hasn't solved your problem.
>>
>> Need help moving those goalposts? They look heavy! We weren't talking
>> about a server dying. We were talking about needing more disk space.
>
> That was not clear to me. You made it sound like "hey, if you have a
> SAN, then when one data centre dies, you can just use the other one!"
> You're going to need more than just a SAN to do that.
>

No. I said that if you have two SANs in separate data centres, with data 
replicated on both data centres, then it greatly reduces your down time 
in case of a disaster.  I never claimed that all SANs were designed that 
way, nor that it was the only requirement for instant recovery.

> I would have thought that needing more disk space is such a crushingly
> rare event that it makes almost no sense to optimise for it.

No it's not.  You may need to run an app in debug mode for a while and 
need extra space to store the dumps.  You may run into seasonal peeks 
and need extra storage just for that period. Etc...  Sizing hundreds of 
servers for a worst case scenario is not efficient use of the company's 
money.  You are much better off having some amount of slack space that 
you can swing around when needed.

> If you have
> to take a server offline once every 5 years to add another disk, that's
> still 99.99% uptime.
>

Not if your contract says "monthly uptime of 99.99%". ;-)

>>> This makes no sense at all. How the hell can a 6 Gbit/s SATA link
>>> perform the same as a 100 Mbit/sec Ethernet link? Never mind a 10
>>> Mbit/sec Internet link. That makes no sense at all. (Unless your actual
>>> disks are so feeble that all of them combined deliver less than 10
>>> Mbit/sec of data transfer speed...)
>>
>> You're making a strawman argument. No one ever said that SANs run over
>> 10Mbit ethernet.
>
> Neither did I. I said 100 Mbit Etherhet. (It's quoted right there.)
>
> You claimed that it's not insane to run a SAN over the Internet,

When did I say that?

> despite
> the fact that typical Internet speeds are roughly 10 Mbit/sec or slower.
>
>> most SAN implementations run dedicated protocols over
>> fibre at Gbps speeds.
>
> It's news to me that such things even exist yet - but perhaps that was
> your point?
>

Actually, it shouldn't be news to you.  We went over this in great 
details a few months ago.  Remember my nice ascii-graphics chart with 
the servers, SAN switches, drive enclosures and tape units?

> Still, it looks like the UK site will soon be in possession of their
> very own SAN, so I guess I'll be able to watch it fail up close and
> personal. o_O
>

Not that SANs are infaillible, but why do you assume that it will fail?

>> Four 9s and Five 9s uptime is expensive.
>
> Hell yes.
>
> Actually, I think we can simplify this to "uptime is expensive". I've
> yet to see a method of improving uptime that's cheap.
>
>>> For that, you would need [at least] two geographically remote sites
>>> which duplicate everything - disk and other hardware as well. I'm
>>> struggling to think of a situation where the volume of data produced per
>>> hour is so low that you can actually keep it synchronised over the
>>> Internet. And if it isn't in sync, then a failover to from primary to
>>> secondary system entails data loss.
>>
>> Not the Internet, multiple dedicated 10Gbps DWDM links. You'd be
>> surprised to know that most Fortune 1000 entreprises actually do this
>> already.
>
> So what you're saying is that a handful of the richest companies on
> Earth can afford to do this?

There's more than a handful of companies who can afford it.  A few £M in 
extra telco costs per year is nothing compared to the prospect of going 
out of business because your data centre had a 110-story building crash 
on top of it.

 > Yeah, I guess that'll be why I haven't seen it before. :-P

I have never seen the Merryll-Lynch data centre first hand, either, but 
that isn't necessary to know that they were back up and running hours 
after the WTC towers fell... Reading the story of how they restarted 
their operations from their disaster recovery location was enough.  Then 
the "Interesting...how'd they manage that?" questions popped up in my 
head, and I started digging...

Which is the main point of this whole discussion: reading the newspaper 
and other news-related web sites, once in a while, is not a bad thing, 
even if the event in question doesn't affect you directly, there may be 
bits of insight to be gathered.

-- 
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On 1-2-2012 17:45, Invisible wrote:

>> Of course, you can also decide that it's not worth it to learn about
>> these things and simply shrug it off, but don't complain that you can't
>> get jobs outside of the little hole you dug yourself into.
>
> I didn't say it's not possible to get a job, I said it's not possible to
> get insight without getting a job.

This was a more general remark. We know that you are in a job where you 
are not happy and that is probably below your capacities. At the same 
time you repeatedly show that you are not interested in a wider view on 
the field you work in. In this field you have to read a number of 
different sources to get a feeling for what direction the industry is 
taking (or if you are realy good: what direction it will be taking in a 
couple of years). If you don't develop yourself there is no way you will 
ever get a job elsewhere and it is quite likely that you loose the one 
you have as soon as a competent manager enters. I know it is unlikely, 
but such persons do exist, although few and far between, so you still 
have a chance.

In short you have to choose: complain about your job or complain about 
all sorts of technologies that you were not aware of, but you can not do 
both.


-- 
tip: do not run in an unknown place when it is too dark to see the 
floor, unless you prefer to not use uppercase.

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:12:09 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>>> It's easier to find jobs to apply to when you have a broader
>>>> awareness of the world than just what's relevant to you right now.
>>>
>>> I doubt you're going to get that by reading some text on a screen. To
>>> understand what a new capability means, you often need to experience
>>> it for yourself.
>>
>> Hmmm, so let me see if I understand this correctly....You're asserting
>> that one of the methods that I actually use to keep up on technology
>> doesn't work?  Interesting that you'd have insight into what works for
>> me on such a deep level.
> 
> I'm saying that if (for example) I read somewhere that a lot of
> companies use Citrix to host their applications, that doesn't really
> qualify me for a job managing Citrix. If I had actually /used/ Citrix,
> or something vaguely like it, then yes. But having read about how it
> exists and people use it? Not so much, no.

Knowing about the trend, though, in the use of Citrix for telecommuting 
(for example) is something that's actually useful.  No, it doesn't 
qualify you to manage a Citrix system - but that's not the point.  The 
point is not looking like you're not aware of the trend when asked about 
it in an interview.

Combine a demonstrated ability to quickly assimilate technologies with an 
awareness of what's going on with the industry, and that is something 
that looks good.

But if you're unaware of what Citrix even *does*, then that calls into 
question (in an interview) whether you even know what's going on in IT.

>>> OK, I have to ask: What the hell is this "RSS" everybody keeps
>>> mentioning?
>>
>> Google it.  If that doesn't work, try "Really Simple Syndication". 
>> It's only all over the web.
> 
> Ooo, because I haven't tried *that* before. :-P
> 
> OK, so let's see... First hit from Google is
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS
> 
> (Unless you meant Royal Statistical Society, which I'm pretty sure you
> didn't.)
> 
> As usual with Wikipedia, the page babbles about updates and feeds and
> XML and "syndication" and something about RDF, but utterly fails to
> explain WHAT IT IS.


<sigh>

From wikipedia:

--- snip ---

RSS feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content 
automatically. A standardized XML file format allows the information to 
be published once and viewed by many different programs. They benefit 
readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favorite websites or 
to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place.

RSS feeds can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed 
reader", or "aggregator", which can be web-based, desktop-based, or 
mobile-device-based. The user subscribes to a feed by entering into the 
reader the feed's URI or by clicking a feed icon in a web browser that 
initiates the subscription process. The RSS reader checks the user's 
subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it 
finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds. RSS 
allows users to avoid manually inspecting all of the websites they are 
interested in, and instead subscribe to websites such that all new 
content is pushed onto their browsers when it becomes available.

--- snip ---

Now, I read your blog and keep up on it by using - that's right - an RSS 
feed.  I have the feed set up in Google Reader so that when you post 
something new on your blog, I see it as part of the Reader page.

That way I don't have to visit your blog to see what's going on in your 
blog.  I see an item show up in my reading list so, as wikipedia says, I 
"avoid manually inspecting all of the websites [I] am interested in" and 
can see what's new.

>>> I usually visit Tom's Hardware when I want to see what's happening in
>>> the hardware world.
>>
>> I doubt you're going to get that by reading some text on a screen.
> 
> That's why I just built a new PC - to experience the Core i7 first-hand.
> :-P

So then why bother going to Tom's Hardware again?

> The BBC's iPlayer system "works". I mean, it's so horrifyingly blurry
> that you sometimes can't see people's faces clearly enough to recognise
> who's who, and often the end credits are unreadable. But technically
> that still counts as "works", right?

I don't know what kind of connection you use, but I stream on iPlayer 
occasionally from halfway around the world (did that with last night of 
the proms IIRC) and projected it onto a 10' screen.  Didn't look 
particularly blurry to me.

> 
> I just looked it up. The transfer rate of a DVD is 10.5 mbit/sec. The
> maximum broadband speed you can get is 8 mbit/sec. So... does that mean
> that people in America have something faster than ADSL or something?

I don't - I have 3 Mbps down ADSL.  I have to not be doing other things 
with the network connection when I'm streaming Netflix, but I do get a 
high quality HD image with 5.1 sound with programmes that include it.

But more to the point, do you now understand what streaming is?

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:45:18 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>> Of course, you can also decide that it's not worth it to learn about
>> these things and simply shrug it off, but don't complain that you can't
>> get jobs outside of the little hole you dug yourself into.
> 
> I didn't say it's not possible to get a job, I said it's not possible to
> get insight without getting a job.

That's simply not true.

Case in point:  I worked as a system administrator and systems engineer 
for years.  Then I moved into technical training and education.  I had no 
formal background in technical training, course development, etc.  So I 
talked to people in that line of work before moving into it to see if it 
was something I might be good at.

I got insight without getting the job.

Similarly, I've never been a software engineer before, but I've gotten 
insight into how things like SCRUM and Agile work by talking to people 
who use them on a daily basis.  Again, no job, but insight.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 1/31/2012 1:12, Invisible wrote:
> As usual with Wikipedia, the page babbles about updates and feeds and XML
> and "syndication" and something about RDF, but utterly fails to explain WHAT
> IT IS.

I have to ask... Do you start reading at the beginning of the article, or do 
you skip over the part that comes before the table of contents or something?

First sentence in the article:

"RSS ...  is a family of ... formats used to publish frequently updated 
works ... in a standardized format."

How is that not telling you what it is?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   People tell me I am the counter-example.

Post a reply to this message

On 2/1/2012 8:09, Francois Labreque wrote:
> I'm no Windows Server expert, so I don't know if it allows you to extend
> disk space on the fly, but I do know that many flavors of Unix do allow it.

It does.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   People tell me I am the counter-example.

Post a reply to this message

On 01/02/2012 6:25 PM, andrel wrote:
> In short you have to choose: complain about your job or complain about
> all sorts of technologies that you were not aware of, but you can not do
> both.

I think that you are wrong, there. ;-)

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 02/02/2012 02:50 AM, Darren New wrote:
> On 1/31/2012 1:12, Invisible wrote:
>> As usual with Wikipedia, the page babbles about updates and feeds and XML
>> and "syndication" and something about RDF, but utterly fails to
>> explain WHAT
>> IT IS.
>
> I have to ask... Do you start reading at the beginning of the article,
> or do you skip over the part that comes before the table of contents or
> something?
>
> First sentence in the article:
>
> "RSS ... is a family of ... formats used to publish frequently updated
> works ... in a standardized format."
>
> How is that not telling you what it is?

HTML is "a family of formats used to publish works [frequently updated 
or not] in a standardized format". As is PDF. As is PostScript. How is 
RSS different?

Sometimes the dictionary definition of what something is turns out not 
to be very enlightening. For example, you could say that

   "A knife is a device constructed from a hard material, usually in the 
shape of a triangular prism who's cross-section has a very acute angle 
between two of the sides."

Or you could say "a knife is a device for cutting things". The latter is 
infinitely more illuminating.

Post a reply to this message

>> I'm saying that if (for example) I read somewhere that a lot of
>> companies use Citrix to host their applications, that doesn't really
>> qualify me for a job managing Citrix. If I had actually /used/ Citrix,
>> or something vaguely like it, then yes. But having read about how it
>> exists and people use it? Not so much, no.
>
> Knowing about the trend, though, in the use of Citrix for telecommuting
> (for example) is something that's actually useful.  No, it doesn't
> qualify you to manage a Citrix system - but that's not the point.  The
> point is not looking like you're not aware of the trend when asked about
> it in an interview.
>
> Combine a demonstrated ability to quickly assimilate technologies with an
> awareness of what's going on with the industry, and that is something
> that looks good.
>
> But if you're unaware of what Citrix even *does*, then that calls into
> question (in an interview) whether you even know what's going on in IT.

I can see that knowing about how (say) Google manages their data centres 
might be quite useful if you're applying to Google. If you're applying 
to somebody who isn't Google, I'm not sure how that's useful.

...unless it *isn't* useful at all, it's just another one of those 
worthless things that "create the right impression".

>> As usual with Wikipedia, the page babbles about updates and feeds and
>> XML and "syndication" and something about RDF, but utterly fails to
>> explain WHAT IT IS.
>
> <sigh>
>
>  From wikipedia:
>
> --- snip ---
>
> RSS feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content
> automatically.

WTF does "syndicate" mean?

> A standardized XML file format allows the information to
> be published once and viewed by many different programs.

Because XHTML isn't an XML format already. Oh, wait... actually yes it 
is. And many different programs can view it. So...?

> They benefit
> readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favorite websites or
> to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place.

This at least hints at what RSS is actually about. But it still seems 
quite vague. I'm still not clear exactly what it's getting at.

> RSS feeds can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed
> reader", or "aggregator", which can be web-based, desktop-based, or
> mobile-device-based.

So... you need software that supports RSS in order to use RSS? OK, fair 
enough.

> The user subscribes to a feed by entering into the
> reader the feed's URI or by clicking a feed icon in a web browser that
> initiates the subscription process.

We still haven't established exactly what point "subscribing" serves, 
but OK...

> The RSS reader checks the user's
> subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it
> finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds.

This is all very abstract. It checks "regularly" for "new work", 
downloads any "updates", and provides a UI to "monitor" such updates. So 
what does that *mean*, in real world terms?

> RSS
> allows users to avoid manually inspecting all of the websites they are
> interested in, and instead subscribe to websites such that all new
> content is pushed onto their browsers when it becomes available.

As best as I can tell, the idea behind RSS seems to be that you can see 
if any of your subscribed websites have been updated, without having to 
visit each of them one at a time. (As if that's in some way "hard" or 
something.) Why the heck the article doesn't just /say/ this on line 
one, I don't know. Instead it talks obliquely about how "all new content 
is pushed onto the browser when it becomes available". (Funny, when it 
says a feed reader "regularly checks for updates", that sounds to me 
like a /pull/ model, not /push/...)

> Now, I read your blog and keep up on it by using - that's right - an RSS
> feed.

Damn... and I thought I'd turned that off... heh. Apparently not.

> I have the feed set up in Google Reader so that when you post
> something new on your blog, I see it as part of the Reader page.
>
> That way I don't have to visit your blog to see what's going on in your
> blog.  I see an item show up in my reading list so, as wikipedia says, I
> "avoid manually inspecting all of the websites [I] am interested in" and
> can see what's new.

So what does that actually look like? I'm still trying to get my head 
around how this actually works. What counts as "new content", how it 
displays all this stuff in an intelligible form, and so on.

>>>> I usually visit Tom's Hardware when I want to see what's happening in
>>>> the hardware world.
>>>
>>> I doubt you're going to get that by reading some text on a screen.
>>
>> That's why I just built a new PC - to experience the Core i7 first-hand.
>> :-P
>
> So then why bother going to Tom's Hardware again?

Sarcasm? :-P

>> The BBC's iPlayer system "works". I mean, it's so horrifyingly blurry
>> that you sometimes can't see people's faces clearly enough to recognise
>> who's who, and often the end credits are unreadable. But technically
>> that still counts as "works", right?
>
> I don't know what kind of connection you use, but I stream on iPlayer
> occasionally from halfway around the world (did that with last night of
> the proms IIRC) and projected it onto a 10' screen.  Didn't look
> particularly blurry to me.

Want to bet that the BBC has servers all over the world?

With the latest update to our set top box, we can actually access 
iPlayer and display it on a real TV. I can actually compare the recorded 
TV broadcast directly next to the iPlayer version of the exact same 
program. And let me tell you, the image quality is incomparable. (And 
that's only SD, not HD.)

On top of that, at peak times iPlayer becomes almost unusable. It 
freezes constantly. I'm not sure whether it's the BBC servers or the ISP 
network that can't keep up, but you just can't watch anything. But then, 
if you select "high quality mode", then it runs like that all the time.

I don't think an 8 Mbit/sec Internet connection would be considered 
especially slow...

>> I just looked it up. The transfer rate of a DVD is 10.5 mbit/sec. The
>> maximum broadband speed you can get is 8 mbit/sec. So... does that mean
>> that people in America have something faster than ADSL or something?
>
> I don't - I have 3 Mbps down ADSL.  I have to not be doing other things
> with the network connection when I'm streaming Netflix, but I do get a
> high quality HD image with 5.1 sound with programmes that include it.

The sound isn't the problem, it's the video. Sound is easily streamable. 
But I'm baffled as to how you can download video in anything approaching 
real-time, unless the quality is diabolically poor.

> But more to the point, do you now understand what streaming is?

Yes. Although I'm still puzzled as to how anybody could make money out 
of selling such poor quality stuff...

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>> I would have thought that needing more disk space is such a crushingly
>> rare event that it makes almost no sense to optimise for it.
>
> No it's not. You may need to run an app in debug mode for a while and
> need extra space to store the dumps. You may run into seasonal peeks and
> need extra storage just for that period. Etc... Sizing hundreds of
> servers for a worst case scenario is not efficient use of the company's
> money. You are much better off having some amount of slack space that
> you can swing around when needed.

Maybe that's the problem. I cannot imagine any task that would ever 
require "hundreds of servers". I'm struggling to think of a task that 
would require more than about a dozen at worst. I mean, unless you work 
for one of the largest companies on the planet, which almost nobody does.

>> If you have
>> to take a server offline once every 5 years to add another disk, that's
>> still 99.99% uptime.
>
> Not if your contract says "monthly uptime of 99.99%". ;-)

Mmm, good point.

>> You claimed that it's not insane to run a SAN over the Internet,
>
> When did I say that?

Francois Labreque wrote:
 > We've also had the performance discussion before.  Yes, the
 > theoretical access speed of a local SATA drive is much faster than
 > that of a SAN attached logical disk, but in actual real world
 > practice, with real world data, there's not much of a difference,
 > even on SANs located halfway across town in another building.

>>> most SAN implementations run dedicated protocols over
>>> fibre at Gbps speeds.
>>
>> It's news to me that such things even exist yet - but perhaps that was
>> your point?
>
> Actually, it shouldn't be news to you. We went over this in great
> details a few months ago. Remember my nice ascii-graphics chart with the
> servers, SAN switches, drive enclosures and tape units?

I don't remember much of the detail of that discussion - in particular, 
I don't recall there being any actual speed numbers involved. But still, 
as I say, it looks like I will get to see for myself shortly.

> Not that SANs are infaillible, but why do you assume that it will fail?

They want to back up 200GB of data per day over a 5 Mbit/sec Internet 
connection. You do the math.

Plus, since when does rolling out a brand new complex system go 
smoothly? ;-)

>> So what you're saying is that a handful of the richest companies on
>> Earth can afford to do this?
>
> There's more than a handful of companies who can afford it. A few £M in
> extra telco costs per year is nothing compared to the prospect of going
> out of business because your data centre had a 110-story building crash
> on top of it.

So you're saying that more than "a handful" of telco companies exist?

>> Yeah, I guess that'll be why I haven't seen it before. :-P
>
> I have never seen the Merryll-Lynch data centre first hand, either, but
> that isn't necessary to know that they were back up and running hours
> after the WTC towers fell... Reading the story of how they restarted
> their operations from their disaster recovery location was enough. Then
> the "Interesting...how'd they manage that?" questions popped up in my
> head, and I started digging...

My first question would have been "who is Merryll-Lynch?", but OK.

> Which is the main point of this whole discussion: reading the newspaper
> and other news-related web sites, once in a while, is not a bad thing,
> even if the event in question doesn't affect you directly, there may be
> bits of insight to be gathered.

Hmm. I'm now trying to remember how the hell we *got* to this topic in 
the first place... (Just look at that subject line!)

At any rate, I agree there certainly isn't anything /bad/ about reading 
news-related stuff. I just don't see how it is an absolutely mandatory 
requirement of being alive, that's all.

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-02-02 05:24, Invisible a écrit :
>
> I can see that knowing about how (say) Google manages their data centres
> might be quite useful if you're applying to Google. If you're applying
> to somebody who isn't Google, I'm not sure how that's useful.
>

IT manager: "We have multiple data centres, built out of containers, 
each with their own blah blah blah..."

Darren: "Ah.. Like Google?"

IT Manager (to himself) "Good.  I won't have to go over it with this 
candidate."  (to Darren) "Yes, except that they do XYZ, whereas we rely 
on ABC to do that... Yada Yada Yada...

-----

IT manager: "We have multiple data centres, built out of containers, 
each with their own blah blah blah..."

Andy: "I didn't know you could do that!"

IT Manager (to himself) "Sigh.  I'm going to have to start from the 
birds and Bees with this guy..."


-----

Which of the two, do you think the IT manager will hire?

> ...unless it *isn't* useful at all, it's just another one of those
> worthless things that "create the right impression".
>
>>> As usual with Wikipedia, the page babbles about updates and feeds and
>>> XML and "syndication" and something about RDF, but utterly fails to
>>> explain WHAT IT IS.
>>
>> <sigh>
>>
>> From wikipedia:
>>
>> --- snip ---
>>
>> RSS feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content
>> automatically.
>
> WTF does "syndicate" mean?
>
>> A standardized XML file format allows the information to
>> be published once and viewed by many different programs.
>
> Because XHTML isn't an XML format already. Oh, wait... actually yes it
> is. And many different programs can view it. So...?
>
>> They benefit
>> readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favorite websites or
>> to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place.
>
> This at least hints at what RSS is actually about. But it still seems
> quite vague. I'm still not clear exactly what it's getting at.
>
>> RSS feeds can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed
>> reader", or "aggregator", which can be web-based, desktop-based, or
>> mobile-device-based.
>
> So... you need software that supports RSS in order to use RSS? OK, fair
> enough.
>
>> The user subscribes to a feed by entering into the
>> reader the feed's URI or by clicking a feed icon in a web browser that
>> initiates the subscription process.
>
> We still haven't established exactly what point "subscribing" serves,
> but OK...
>
>> The RSS reader checks the user's
>> subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it
>> finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds.
>
> This is all very abstract. It checks "regularly" for "new work",
> downloads any "updates", and provides a UI to "monitor" such updates. So
> what does that *mean*, in real world terms?
>
>> RSS
>> allows users to avoid manually inspecting all of the websites they are
>> interested in, and instead subscribe to websites such that all new
>> content is pushed onto their browsers when it becomes available.
>
> As best as I can tell, the idea behind RSS seems to be that you can see
> if any of your subscribed websites have been updated, without having to
> visit each of them one at a time. (As if that's in some way "hard" or
> something.) Why the heck the article doesn't just /say/ this on line
> one, I don't know. Instead it talks obliquely about how "all new content
> is pushed onto the browser when it becomes available". (Funny, when it
> says a feed reader "regularly checks for updates", that sounds to me
> like a /pull/ model, not /push/...)
>
>> Now, I read your blog and keep up on it by using - that's right - an RSS
>> feed.
>
> Damn... and I thought I'd turned that off... heh. Apparently not.
>
>> I have the feed set up in Google Reader so that when you post
>> something new on your blog, I see it as part of the Reader page.
>>
>> That way I don't have to visit your blog to see what's going on in your
>> blog. I see an item show up in my reading list so, as wikipedia says, I
>> "avoid manually inspecting all of the websites [I] am interested in" and
>> can see what's new.
>
> So what does that actually look like? I'm still trying to get my head
> around how this actually works. What counts as "new content", how it
> displays all this stuff in an intelligible form, and so on.
>
>>>>> I usually visit Tom's Hardware when I want to see what's happening in
>>>>> the hardware world.
>>>>
>>>> I doubt you're going to get that by reading some text on a screen.
>>>
>>> That's why I just built a new PC - to experience the Core i7 first-hand.
>>> :-P
>>
>> So then why bother going to Tom's Hardware again?
>
> Sarcasm? :-P
>
>>> The BBC's iPlayer system "works". I mean, it's so horrifyingly blurry
>>> that you sometimes can't see people's faces clearly enough to recognise
>>> who's who, and often the end credits are unreadable. But technically
>>> that still counts as "works", right?
>>
>> I don't know what kind of connection you use, but I stream on iPlayer
>> occasionally from halfway around the world (did that with last night of
>> the proms IIRC) and projected it onto a 10' screen. Didn't look
>> particularly blurry to me.
>
> Want to bet that the BBC has servers all over the world?
>
> With the latest update to our set top box, we can actually access
> iPlayer and display it on a real TV. I can actually compare the recorded
> TV broadcast directly next to the iPlayer version of the exact same
> program. And let me tell you, the image quality is incomparable. (And
> that's only SD, not HD.)
>
> On top of that, at peak times iPlayer becomes almost unusable. It
> freezes constantly. I'm not sure whether it's the BBC servers or the ISP
> network that can't keep up, but you just can't watch anything. But then,
> if you select "high quality mode", then it runs like that all the time.
>
> I don't think an 8 Mbit/sec Internet connection would be considered
> especially slow...
>
>>> I just looked it up. The transfer rate of a DVD is 10.5 mbit/sec. The
>>> maximum broadband speed you can get is 8 mbit/sec. So... does that mean
>>> that people in America have something faster than ADSL or something?
>>
>> I don't - I have 3 Mbps down ADSL. I have to not be doing other things
>> with the network connection when I'm streaming Netflix, but I do get a
>> high quality HD image with 5.1 sound with programmes that include it.
>
> The sound isn't the problem, it's the video. Sound is easily streamable.
> But I'm baffled as to how you can download video in anything approaching
> real-time, unless the quality is diabolically poor.
>
>> But more to the point, do you now understand what streaming is?
>
> Yes. Although I'm still puzzled as to how anybody could make money out
> of selling such poor quality stuff...


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/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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