let's not forget the newer cfgadm command, and all it's possibilities...

with the new ssd driver removing lun per target limits (at least raising them substantially), and allowing for usb, fibre, scsi, etc to be scanned, configured, updated, refreshed on the fly...

Also, don't forget drvconfig and the ability to reload/refresh drivers in memory, while up and running...

Hmmmm - and have you noticed that the changelog incorporates almost all of these technologies?

I think the poster merely stated the most recent innovations to show ones that the majority of the slashdot posters would be familiar with.

Check out this link, for a list of Sun contributions...
http://mediacast.sun.com/users/pgdh/media/sum_of_parts_v2.8a.pdf

I'll highlight just a few, probably found in your beloved *BSD* as well..

NFS, NIS, XDR, Posix, SVR4, mmap, Streams, ld.so, diskless boot, autofs, rpc, news, abi, xdr, vfs.... /proc, truss, nsswitch, ptools, dynamic kernel, smp, domains, libthread, nis+, vold, jumpstart

hls, mpss, pools, fss, zones, brandz, s8ma, mdb, dtrace, fma, pgrep, smf, mpo, least privelege, zfs

and for additional software contributions...

JAVA, OpenOffice for starters...

Now.. this list is not all inclusive... but I think it shows a more than fair share of technologies, a lot of which are considered to be *common* tools, that would either not be here, or would not be what they are today, without Sun's contributions...

Most of that will crop up in the real world as well... (part of that learn something new every day angle) - always, always be on the lookout for new (to you) information.

On the converse, if you were taught that *something can't be done* you typically don't try to do it, which leads to you never knowing that it can, and has, been done.

When it comes down to it, experience will trump a degree anyday... Let's face it... A degree means you were taught how things *should* work. Real world experience teaches you how things *really* work. The only way to get that real world experience is to do it.

If you don't have the experience, or just want the degree, then the degree is worth it.
However, please don't wave the degree around saying that "I, who have a degree, will trump you, who doesn't, every time". It's just not going to work out that way.
Now, if you have your degree, and experience then it's a more equal footing, and let the best person win. If a place only looks at the degree, then chances are, they're missing out on some of the most talented people in the field.

In 24 years, I've received job offers for every job I've interviewed for, and that's without any kind of degree, unless you count real world experience. I was lucky in that I was able to pick the job I wanted, and do the things I want to do. I work in a field that I've chosen as a hobby, as well as where my aptitude and interests are. It's fun to go to work on most days, and a learning experience, even on the days that aren't so fun.

You're only as old as you think you are... I started working with UNIX at 17, 24 years ago, and am still at the bleeding edge, working with many up and coming technologies. I skipped college in favor of real world experience, and it has served me very well.

If you want to go to school, then go. If you run into ageism at a place of employment, you don't want to work there. At 35, you'll hardly be old, and you'll have more experience and knowledge under your belt.

I try and teach myself something new everyday, just to stay abreast of this field and several others. Science periodicals, journals, a little experimentation on the side.. It's all good. It keeps your mind active and able to learn and adapt.

Who gave the Principal the authority to order anything, especially a strip-search.

#1) Principal - Should be arrested, child endangerment, pedophile charges, placed on sex-offender list for life, his children taken away from him, his wife divorce him, any and all assets that he has should go to the 13 year old girl.

#2) Nurse - should be arrested, child endangerment, pedophile charges, placed on sex-offender list for life, her children if any taken away from her, her wife divorce her (heh-heh), any and all assets that she has should go to the 13 year old girl.

The principal and the nurse should share a cell for the rest of their natural (or in this case un-natural) lives.

That's just for starters.

but the length of the light *HAS* to be standard... ie - the same AT EVERY intersection within the township...

If it's not identical, then it WILL (and does) cause accidents - regardless of Cameras...

Ever watch an intersection that's been forced to alternate ahead of time (Sirens, flashing lights - cops - fire, etc) - it almost always causes someone to slam on the brakes, and nearly causes a pile-up whenever it happens around here....

Really.. it all boils down to your monthly utility fees and what you are willing to pay...

You can pick up 1-off servers being ditched by corporations (if you degauss the drives and certify that you will destroy them if you ever stop using them, you may get the drives as well) - otherwise, it will probably be sans hard drives, for next to nothing....

I picked up a test platform, Two Dual Core 2.66Ghz 64 Bit Xeons, 16GB RAM, 8 hot swap U320 72GB Drives, battery backed raid caching controller, dvd, floppy, 2 x 720 watt hot swap power supplies, in a nice deskside case, for zilch, nada, zip.. Just haul it away...

Currently running VMWare ESXi, with 16 VMs installed (I normally don't run more than 6 at a time, but it will run 12 without too much latency)...

Solaris x86 (64 bit and 32bit installs), Ubuntu, Nexenta (the v2 beta), OpenSolaris, Windows 7 Beta (32 and 64 bit) - blech, CentOS 4 & 5 (32 and 64 bit), PCLinuxOS 2007 and 2009, ReactOS, Windows XP (32 and 64) - configured as static - ie - no changes ever saved...

It's lots of fun to work with, and a great learning platform.

There's a simple way to fix it...

Sue the city that shortens the light, showing accident rates, long waits at the lights causing wasted fuel, out of sync lights, causing wasted fuel.

Make it too expensive to operate the lights in question, and they will disappear.

Better yet, take your own video of the intersection, then send it to the local news to show how the lights are *too short* but only at the camera intersections. Site safety issues and government corruption... They won't stay in office for long.

I've found that the easiest way to make applications run great is to give the developers systems that are at least 2 generations older than what will be used in production (with the latest software, patches, drivers, etc)...

Then, hold them to making the application perform as you want it to, on that hardware. They don't get paid (their final lump amount) until said application performs as you'd like on the 2 gen old hardware.

Then, when you migrate to the production hardware, it's quite a bit faster, and doesn't contain the bloat that could have crept in, if the developers had been given access to hardware identical to the production hardware.

I cringed and nearly cried when I read that...

I didn't have to click the imdb link (or hover over) to know you referred to the secret ingredient to artificial kryptonite, created by Richard Pryor's character.

Yes - I watch too much tv for my own (and future generation's) good.

since it's a personal system, I'm the only one using it, so why would I need to plant a back door???

If only DRM were one of the feature sets that could be disable with the click of a mouse.

Next would be the *hooks* that enable *software provider kill-switches* - get that one turned off immediately.

Finally, any type of phone-home settings being disabled. For updates, have the full catalog downloaded, then patches downloaded via anonymous ftp... =)

But that's only a pipe-dream...

I have one, but you have to port-knock a 32,768 sequence knock before it opens the door. The knock sequence is randomly generated, based off an RSA-token seed, and when you finally get the knock right, it opens a 30 second firewall rule to allow an ssh connection (requiring a pre-shared pub-key authentication), which then starts a reverse session tunnel to allow you to authenticate using userid/password and challenge/token...

finally once you are in, it waits 15 seconds, and dumps you out.

all in all it was fun to write, and fun to watch people's eyes while doing the session authentication...

then the question starts... why? after all that? do you drop the session? my response - because I can.