Posts by Tom Maddox

Why now?

Clearly the government has been hiding something. Why didn't they put this Web site up back in 1969 right after the launch? This is just another sham to conceal the use of a sound stage on Mars to fabricate the lunar landing!

Paging Ted Dziuba...

... FAIL detected.

1) Data Domain boxes actually do have a VTL mode, it's just an add-on.

2) DD may not have direct tape duplication functionality, but that can certainly be done by software.

3) DD also does post-process dedupe on top of inline.

Other than that, great article.

All righty, then

There's another reason not to buy a Kindle.

Also, Paxil would be more likely to sponsor Brave New World than 1984.

@Apocalypse Later

Mmm, neocon tears: sweet, refreshing, delicious. Thanks for allowing me to enjoy my daily dose of schadenfreude!

Sue everyone!

Clearly, rather than take responsibility for the raising of their own children, the only recourse is for parents to sue everyone. MySpace is only the first stop. After that, it's clear that Tim Berners-Lee should be held liable for inventing the Web, the telcos should be held responsible for carrying the traffic, DARPA should be sued for inventing the Internet, Cisco, Juniper, et al. should be sued for building the equipment that allowed the traffic to be carried, MySpace's colocation facilities are clearly responsible for housing the vile site, and finally the rest of humanity as a class should be hauled into court to face the music for not preventing the little Julies from falling prey to these molesters.

Nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

@AC22:04

Lighten up, Francis. Anyway, the same technology will be coming to Blighty just as soon as we formally make you our 51st state, so the news is still relevant to you.

Coming from Opera . . .

It will be innovative yet so appallingly ugly to look at that no one will use it.

IAWTPC

Everything that he said and more. Sharepoint's version control is crap: it's unable to track deltas, instead just making multiple copies of changed files (imagine doing that with Powerpoint or giant Excel spreadsheets!), and it only works for documents, not for actual site content. Also, backing it up reliably is a huge pain in the ass. Sharepoint is an overengineered POS which constitutes a nightmare to deploy and administer; it may be acceptable for users, but there are plenty of solutions which do almost as much for substantially less time, effort, pain, and money.

@Hollerith

You must be a load of fun at parties.

@Smokers: You can smoke as long as I can piss in your face to extinguish the cigarette. It's all about respecting my choice, doncha know.

@Mei Lewis

Strangely, people remain concerned about major historic events which had profound effects on later generations. For this reason, we still study the ancient Greeks because of their largely positive influence on the modern Western world, and we still study World War II because of its manifold effects on the entirety of the world. In addition, had you read the comments, you would realize that the Holocaust was not only directed against Jews but against many other groups as well; it is worthwhile to study, understand, and remember the Holocaust in order to prevent another one. Perhaps you've heard Santayana's quote, "Those who do not study the past are doomed to repeat it"? It's not just hot air.

Attacking Mac users

"Tored takes a different approach towards attacking Mac fans"

True. I personally prefer a tire iron and road flares, as they don't draw suspicion until used.

In before the haters

I expect to see a gusher of caustic vitriol from The Usual Xuspects(TM) touting the advantages of Linux which, somehow, despite its amazing superiority, manages never to get more than 1% of the desktop market. And, of course, I think we can count on the TUXers never having actually used 7 and thus not actually being able to contribute anything meaningful to the conversation except to rehash tired cliches about Windows while continuing to overlook the many shortcomings of Linux as a desktop operating system.

Come on, guys, don't let me down.

Sounds familiar

“The south has wind and sun but no proper rules,” he complains.

So, just like the US, then.

<fanboi>

That's not true! That's IMPOSSIBLE!

</fanboi>

This should be good . . .

Like a monkey fucking a football.

Came for the hate . . .

. . . left satisfied.

@PC and SJ

I've seen the Xiotech presentation on what they do to improve drive reliability, and it's a lot more interesting than you suspect. In essence, one reason that drives fail is because of resonance which occurs as a result of a bunch of drives in a rack all facing the same direction and rotating the same way. The Xiotech canisters are set up to optimize rotational direction and improve air flow to reduce heat (the other big reason drives fail). In addition, the controller software has the capacity to detect when a hard drive is reporting errors, move the data off to a hot spare, and make adjustments to the "failing" drive's configuration to compensate for its condition, essentially remanufacturing the drive on the fly so that it can go back into service.

Got my popcorn

I'm just going to sit back and wait for the zealots to light up the flamethrowers since this article mentioned Linux and Microsoft in the same breath . . . and the review is positive.

Come on, guys, don't let me down.

@Mectron

Kim Jong-Il, is that you trolling the forums again?

Fun

It's interesting reading the competing threads of people talking past each other. To summarize:

Thread 1: Ease-of-use advocates who assess that users have gotten used to having things "just work" and would not be keen on having to install drivers from CD/Internet to use their mass storage devices.

Thread 2: Linux users who assert that there are many technical solutions superior to FAT which are not very hard to implement.

Basically, as usual, the Linux advocates fail to understand that their solutions make things harder for the end user than the current solution . . . which reflects why Linux still languishes on the desktop.

No surprises

Well, this article brought out the fanboi community in a hurry. My personal, anecdotal experience is that Mac hardware reliability is subpar, especially where laptops are concerned. IBM's laptop reliability used to be quite good, but then Lenovo bought the PC division, so it looks like Lenovo have finally caught back up.

Shenanigans

It's Kentucky--they don't have electricity there.

Wow

I have no words. I'm not even a *nix or Mac fanboi, and even I recognize that this is fairly ludicrous. I guess the upside is that Microsoft is used to having to deal with their infrastructure and code being targeted by malicious individuals.

OTOH

He did prove that their system was insecure and apparently lacked a functional DR plan, so it's not like he was wrong in theory, just in execution.

@Peter Fox

Shut the fuck up, you fucking fucker. It's fucking Friday, so maybe you should get a fucking life. Fuck.

@Les

I know, it 's hard to understand. If only there were some way of finding information on the Internet, some kind of "search engine," into which you could put words and find out what they mean. Here, maybe this will help:

http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=astroturfing

8 minutes

Has anyone mentioned that the Caddy will only run for 8 minutes off the battery? Because it, will in fact, only run for 8 minutes. Definitely only 8 minutes.

GTG, time to watch Wapner.

Whoa

@AC 21:25: Sounds like someone needs to up his meds and maybe tighten his tinfoil hat a little.

Simple solution

Why not provide the hippies with complimentary tinfoil-lined Guatemalan knit hats? They should keep the radiation out and, hopefully, the stupid in.

Perfect synergy

The frothing madness of Internet chat boards can meet the frothing madness of the American Far Right (aka Sarah Palin supporters), and hopefully the lot of them will combust in a thermonuclear holocaust of rage and hate. At the very least, seeing the unleashed vitriol should scare off a good chunk of the more moderate Republicans.

SRSLY?

They want $550 per server or $400 per blade to enable this technology? Come on, HP, pull the other one.

Also, a fully-populated c7000 chassis has six power supplies. Or has that been said?

All major browsers

I guess Opera users are safe, then.

Riiiight

We can put W in charge (maybe he can use "The Google" to find a candidate) or McCain (he can find one after he gets done tying an onion to his belt). Why not, instead, pick someone who's not completely incompetent to run the DHS or, even better, disband it entirely?

I've got it

Webster Phreaky is amanfromMars run through the Twat-O-Tron!

Fail mk. 2

As I commented yesterday, VDI == Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, which is VMware's term for a particular virtualization approach to serving up virtual desktops. Admittedly, the acronym for virtual desktop, VD, leaves something to be desired. Here's a hint:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=vdi&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=

Acronym fail

VDI == Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, which is VMware's term for a particular virtualization approach to serving up virtual desktops. Admittedly, the acronym for virtual desktop, VD, leaves something to be desired.

@ JIM THE BOSS

Excellent use of misspellings and screaming, but a tad excessive. I give it 3/10 because of obviousness.

Does the Opera UI still look like something that came out of a cat's ass, or have the developers hired a design team?

In before the fanboys

Come on, guys, I'm waiting for it--how will running Linux/OS X/*BSD utterly prevent this vulnerability?

Whatever

As a Mission-dweller myself, I would like to offer the stencil "artists" a free ride on the Whaaaaaambulance. Parts of the Mission have gone upscale, it's true, but there are still plenty of crack whores, drug dealers, and derelicts surrounding the BART stations (especially 16th Street), so it seems gentrification has not fully taken hold. Also, the locals have done a pretty good job so far of keeping independent bookstores, coffee shops, restaurants, and other businesses thriving.

The main problem with housing prices in SF is that the same people who bemoan the rising cost of housing are also highly active in making sure that only a paucity of new housing is built and therefore what gets built tends to be highly profitable luxury condominiums instead of more affordable housing.

Has anyone mentioned . . .

the Tom Lehrer song?