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Comment Re:they ignore us. (Score 1) 920

I hope things get messy real soon. because that is the hope and change we can believe in.

I don't quite think you quite realize what it is you're advocating. In fact, I don't think many people that advocate revolution realize what it is they're calling for. Let's get this straight, a revolution would make things a lot WORSE before it made things better. In fact, it would take decades before our standard of life would approach what it is now if there was a revolution.

We are facing very complex problems as a country now. Admittedly, the system needs reform. But it does not need a revolution. Why? Because too much of the world economy depends on America. Things may be bad for us now, but if unrest starts to take hold then faith in the US economy would surely falter. If companies get concerned about our ability to function or the government to maintain control then panic would grip the global markets. Trade would virtually stop and the world would be thrown into a global depression far worse than what we are facing right now. Kiss your electronics good bye. We import all of them, you know. Maybe you could live without them, but what about food? You think gas and food prices are high now? If a revolution took place then they would skyrocket. People would be thrown into true poverty. People would die, and not because of the revolution battles - because of starvation and not being able to afford the inflated prices. The kicker in all of this? It wouldn't be the 1% or the politicians you're complaining about that would suffer. No, they'd have the means to escape. The common man? The one that's advocating the revolution. He'd be the one that would suffer.

Don't be naive. Calls for a revolution must be taken very seriously because they would drastically affect your daily life. This is why movements such as OWS need to be watched very closely. People are upset. They don't have jobs. The future doesn't look bright. But they don't realize that if they actually start introducing unrest then their lives will get far, far worse.

We need reform. New political parties and representatives - not just left and right. OWS could play a part in this. They should be forming a party with ideas and proposed solutions. That would be a means to achieving their goals. Right now, sitting in parks and protesting is merely raising the probability of unrest. And whether the protesters realize that or not, it will help no one.

Comment A matter of practicality (Score 1) 370

It's quite clear that we possess the technology to make a 100+ MPG vehicle. The real question, though, is whether a practical vehicle can be made to attain those figures that the public would be willing to buy. Would tens of thousands of people be willing to buy it? No way.

People give American car companies a lot of crap for their vehicles performing inefficiently, but truthfully they're providing what the American consumer is willing to buy. Your average Joe won't buy a vehicle without trunk space and without comfortable seats. There are also factors such as appearance/design, safety (where are the airbags on these?), and the very basics like radio and cruise control. Keep in mind that up until the past few years, the best selling vehicle in the world was a pickup truck.

These Xprize vehicles would be hard pressed to make even the tiniest of dents in the market. They're a PR stunt and research platforms more than anything. Could the technology be used elsewhere? Absolutely. But don't expect to see these mass produced and highly sold anytime soon.

IT

Moving Away From the IT Field? 783

irving47 writes 'With the economy the way it is, it's a little iffy to even think about switching careers completely, but lately, I've gotten more and more fed up with trying to keep up with the technical demands of companies and customers that are financially and even verbally unappreciative. While I might be good at it, and the money is adequate, I'm curious to hear from Slashdotters who have gone cold-turkey from their IT/Networking careers to something once foreign to them. How did you deal with the income difference, if any? Do you find yourself dealing with people more, and if so, how did that work out?'

Comment Re:Sound cannon in action (Score 5, Informative) 630

Here is the clip. YouTube is processing it now (might take a few minutes). The HD version should also be at the same link in an hour or so (again, YouTube processing time).

The footage is a bit rough since I just threw it together now. However you kind of get the idea. People were standing around just watching and the police decided to disperse the crowd with the sound cannon. Apologies for the bad camera work - we weren't filming anything in particular and the police refused to let us set up near the major news networks. Interestingly, they also pushed back another Japanese news network.

Comment Re:Eyecandy in cost of usability (Score 1) 1124

I don't think this is because of organization, I think it is because of all the rote learning you've done. You aren't reading & reacting to the menu bar you "just know" where to go because you've done it a million times.

Actually I specifically meant to refer to situations where I don't know how to perform the task in question. With the menu bar I can quickly figure it out. With the ribbon I am flipping things in and out, trying to find something that seems relevant, wasting vast amounts of time waiting for tooltips to appear on undecipherable icons.

I'm not sure what you're looking at, but the ribbon has a label for every single icon visible. Don't like the icons? Ignore them and look at the text.

Honestly, I think most users are upset because Microsoft changed what they had used for over half a decade. The new ribbon scheme makes perfect sense to me. And it's much easier to find what you're looking for than with the old menu system where you were constantly searching huge menus. Everything is now organized how it should be. Looking for margins or page orientation? It's in a logical location - the page layout tab.

If people would learn to adapt, try new things, maybe they'd realize that they could like the new layout. Instead it just seems people are too busy complaining about how they want the old way back as opposed to attempting to learn a new way of doing things.

Comment Additional details from tv station (Score 1) 272

I'm not the asker but I also work in the campus TV station and can provide additional details.

The primary method of storage right now is a RAID 5 based array containing around 6 TB of data. We'll be adding a Drobo Pro in the next few days with an additional 6TB of storage. Together this will serve the 12TB of data on the server located in the studio. The system storing the data now is running CentOS 5.

However, this is not a good method of backup. It just provides redundancy in case a hard drive fails. What we want is an offsite server which will serve as a backup system. The system will be located in a separate building but on the campus network (transfer speeds not an issue).

We want the backup system to be able to store the original 12TB. HOWEVER, it needs to be expandable or at least have enough space to accommodate additional data over the years. So I'm thinking the original setup could have around 16TB of storage. However this needs to be expandable up to 24TB or 32TB without too much extra work involved. With a transition to HD video we plan on having at approximately 1TB of new data per year and this will increase over time.

Because we want the system to be expandable we don't think RAID would be ideal. The idea of having to use identical drives feels very limiting. Hence the reason a Drobo Pro is very appealing. However, it just doesn't support the capacity we require beyond the initial studio server. We want to have a version control system which will require additional storage as well. We don't need daily complete backups. Just something like subversion or CVS which will log when changes are made and save them. That way if someone decides to delete all the directories a history will be stored. The snapshots of the versions don't have to be in real time - they can be done daily. If there are no changes in one day then no snapshot will be required. Typically we do a dump of all the data to the studio server once a month from each editing machine. So snapshots would occur approximately once per month. This data is rarely read - maybe once/twice per year and not all of it.

Restoration time is not that important. As long as it takes less than a few days. No application data is being stored. It's just raw project files and video files that are in directories.

We'd like this to cost between $3000 and $4000 for everything. Obviously, cheaper is preferred.

Comment Porting numbers... (Score 1) 106

Google Voice is a really nice service but the key issue I have with it is that I can't port my number. Sure, I'd love all the extra little perks it offers like visual voice mail, but I won't get any of these features until I tell everyone to use my new Google number. Call me attached and lazy if you will, but that's a fair amount of effort. Let me port my number and then I'll use your services.

That being said I've only used my Grand Central / Google Voice number on two occasions: helping my parents buy a car and buying a car myself. It's fantastic to give them this number and throw it on Do Not Disturb mode. I never had to deal with a single sales call.
Operating Systems

Submission + - Google introduces Chrome OS

Zaiff Urgulbunger writes: After years of speculation, Google has announced the Google Chrome OS which should be available mid-2010. Initially targeting netbooks, it's main unique selling points are speed, simplicity and security — which kind of implies that the current No.1 OS doesn't deliver in these areas!
The Chrome OS will run on both x86 and ARM architectures, uses a Linux kernel with a new windowing system. According to Google, "For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform."
Google say that this new OS is separate from Android as the latter was designed for mobile phones and set-top boxes, whereas Chrome OS is designed "for people who spend most of their time on the web".
In other news, chair sellers in Redmond are expecting an increase in sales.
Television

NFL's IT Chief Gears Up For His 25th Super Bowl 82

BobB-nw writes with this excerpt from NetworkWorld: "NFL IT guru David Port claims he doesn't have a favorite football team, but on Sunday he'll be working his 25th Super Bowl. As the league's vice president of information technology, Port and his IT staff are responsible for building a temporary network to support NFL staff and thousands of journalists during Super Bowl week. Port starts preparing for each Super Bowl two years in advance, working with the city and venues where IT operations and media professionals will be based. More intensive planning starts about 11 months before the big game. Port explained that the NFL essentially built a small data center with IBM blade servers at the temporary headquarters in a local Marriott near the Super Bowl site. 'We built out an infrastructure with approximately 300 computers, PCs and laptops, and wired and wireless networks that are used for NFL core operations, for game production and business operations. Much of it is also for media,' Port said." CNet is running a related story about the technology behind the Super Bowl, focusing on some of the visual effects viewers will see, as well as the hardware that makes everything happen.
The Internet

Unemployment Claims Crash State Web Sites 233

1sockchuck writes "A sign of the times: a surge in filings for unemployment benefits has crashed online application systems in four states this week. Web sites in Ohio, New York, Kentucky and North Carolina have been knocked offline by unusually high volumes of jobless claims. Phone applications systems appearing to be faring even worse in many states. The thin silver lining: states are hiring workers for phone banks and buying new servers to prop up their web sites."

Comment Re:DST is useless (Score 1) 755

As others have pointed out (http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/pubs/fulltext/nrcc49212/nrcc49212.pdf), Daylight Savings Time likely doesn't save us any energy.

I will admit that I haven't read the full text of that paper but I have read the conclusion. It certainly does not suggest that DST does not save us energy. In fact, it says there is not enough data to draw a conclusion. The data is either outdated, conflicting or based on constraining assumptions. Point being, don't try to twist your sources into saying something they're certainly not!

That being said, I view myself as a proponent of DST. Yes, it has its flaws (switching clocks is annoying), but I do believe it saves energy. I notice a lot of people here say "get up earlier or change business hours if you want more light." Do you really think that would work? We have a hard enough time getting people to go out and vote in a presidential election every 4 years and you want them to change their sleeping schedules? No, I don't have that much faith in others. DST standardizes everyone waking up earlier because most people wouldn't be bothered to on their own.

I suppose my assumption that it saves energy could be wrong, but I can't say I've seen a conclusive paper that gives a good argument either way.

Networking

Submission + - FireWire spec to boost data speeds to 3.2 Gbps 1

Stony Stevenson writes: A new set of specs for data transfer technology will quadruple top speeds to 3.2 Gbps. Formally known as IEEE 1394, the technology is called FireWire by Apple and i.LINK by Sony. The new version is called S3200 and builds on the earlier specification approved by the IEEE, according to the trade association that is preparing to unveil the details this week. The technology will be able to use existing FireWire 800 cables and connectors while delivering a major boost in performance. "It will probably go into storage products first," said 1394 Trade Association spokesman Richard Davies in an e-mail Wednesday. "It should turn up in set-top boxes and maybe Blue-ray devices, too. It's too soon to tell how fast consumer electronics makers might adopt it."
NASA

Submission + - One if by Land, Two if by Sea 1

Reservoir Hill writes: "Work is progressing on the design of the new Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), the next generation of NASA spacecraft that will take humans to the International Space Station, back to the Moon, and hopefully on to Mars but one major question about the spacecraft has yet to be answered. On returning to Earth, should the CEV land in water or terra firma? After initial studies, the first assessment by NASA and the contractor for the CEV, Lockheed Martin, was that landing on land was preferred in terms of total life cycle costs for the vehicles. But getting the CEV light enough for the Ares rockets to be able to launch it, and therefore eliminating the 1500 lb airbags for landing has its appeal so now a splashdown in water seems to be favored. "Looking at the landing itself, the event of actually touching down, water comes out to be preferable as less risk," says Jeff Hanley, Manager for the Constellation Program. The final decision will be made in 2008. "If the Orion team is able to come in at the preliminary design review later this next year with a concept for be able to land on land that is fairly robust but not cost a lot of mass to have to hurl to the moon and back, then it becomes an operational decision," added Hanley."
Patents

Submission + - House Passes Patent Overhaul Bill (itworld.com)

narramissic writes: "ITworld reports that the House of Representatives has passed a 'bill to overhaul the nation's patent system, overcoming objections by many Republicans, small inventors and some labor unions.' From the article:

The Patent Reform Act, supported by several large tech vendors including Microsoft Corp. and IBM Corp., would allow courts to change they way they assess damages in patent infringement cases. Currently, courts generally consider the value of the entire product when a small piece of the product infringes a patent; the bill would allow, but not require, courts to base damages only on the value of the infringing piece.
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