Posts involving snarkiness.
At the point where I left off, I figured I was pretty good to go. I had Xcode installed, so I grabbed the Thunderbird 2.0b2 source so I could compile it – hacking on Thunderbird is one of my soon-to-be all-encompassing projects.
There are many options in the database world. Many solutions for all kinds of work loads, and solutions for all kinds of financing models.
Oracle, a database vendor, is pretty tight-lipped about its financing. Nowhere on the website is price listed. Today, we managed to breach this obfuscation. We had to call them.
Licensing for Oracle is offered on a per-CPU basis for the database servers, and on a per-machine basis for the user clients. They weren’t clear as to what constitutes a CPU – does Hyperthreading count as 2 CPUs? does Dual-Core?
Either way, the price per CPU is $40,000.
Per client machine, the license cost is $800.
Plus a support contract.
So, instead of spending well over $200,000 on this…
We’re replacing one of Kosada’s consulting clients’ ancient Oracle servers with one running PostgreSQL.
And there’s a pretty steep curve attached to switching Operating Systems. This is especially the case when you’ve used a very dynamic, customizable operating system like Linux the majority of the time. In this article I’d like to address some of the issues noted, less than 12 hours after I’ve opened the box, to perhaps help others get reoriented.
For much of my computer-using life, I’ve been an Intel-based computer user. This means that I grew up on
For one of Kosada’s consulting clients, we’ve set up this dual-core AMD Opteron server. Normally it runs all happy-like and does what it needs to. We take care of its basic needs, and it takes care of the rest.
However, Tyan – the motherboard manufacturer – saw fit to include only 1 of the typical 3 heat sink mounting tabs. Somehow, this 1 tab managed to suddenly break on Sunday, March 18, at about 4:45pm.
And now the processor has Opteron Cancer.
Good day to you sirs
this is Otto von Bismarck
otherwise known as The Kitten With The Red Collar
but unlike MacGyver
I prefer violence as a means of conflict-resolution
whenever possible
such as when
Robert and I have been doing some consulting for an out-of-state mid-sized business recently.
We were analyzing the IT budget, and discovered this expenditure:
This was probably a pretty big job, even compared to the task of getting this business’s IT situation under control…
From: French Impossible <tsvytkoxaj @projectdelivery.com> Subject: ar Etail Invades Real
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pre>Darius Trevino
<kgovernor@gearwest.com> to me
7:31 am (7 hours ago)
will more often be forced to conceive and work on his ideas in changed the way in which society views and values visual art. talk on how important it is!”
I meandered from Digg through some rabbit holes to this Roughtype post on the “amorality” of “Web 2.0” by Nicholas Carr.
This is what I read:
“INTERACTIVITY IS TURNING THE INTERNET EVIL! Now Digg my post plz!”
For someone trying to remind us of the “objectivity” of the Web, Carr seems just as hysterical as the ecstatic self-styled e-prophets this article seeks to rebutt.
He also misses the point of Wikipedia as well as overvaluing print materials as a general information source. (I have noticed that one side effect of the era of the Internet and T.V. is that anything with a binding is automatically uncritically revered, but that is a subject for another blogpost.)
The latest parlor game among friends and family when I’m in their presence has been, “What are you doing with your life, Tina?” I thought that, rather than responding with the standard “I’m dropping out of grad school. And then I don’t know! I just don’t know! Please don’t ask me again because I’m going to explode if you do!” line, I’d mix things up for a change.
So I’ve been saying instead, “Oh, you know. I’m going to move to a bigger city and be a performance artist and work on the side to pay the rent.”
I’ve been getting some interesting responses.
There’s the concerned parent always looking out for her daughter’s well-being: “You could marry some rich doctor or lawyer. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about working. Or you could work for airport security. Or, this friend of mine’s daughter got this job somewhere in New Albany, and the HR manager brings in decorations for holidays – or, when things are slow, she brings in balloons, tapes them to the wall, and all the employees get to throw darts at them! Now, doesn’t that sound like a fun place to work?”
The ex-boyfriend who never understood my existential crises: “Oh. Well…. Well. Wow. I mean, my aunt was a film producer and had to work some odd jobs to cover that - at least until she started getting government grants. She and her husband never had enough money to raise a family… I mean, maybe they could have if they really wanted to. Well, they seem to be the happiest couple in our family. But they just never had much money. Well… Wow.”
The random English grad student acquaintances: “Oh. That’s cool. I wonder how you report a pound of cheesefries on your tax return?”
The college drinking buddy, whom I thought knew me better than he actually did: “I don’t know what’s more shocking: that, or the fact that you seriously contemplated the rich-old-doctor-or-lawyer thing as an option.”
The one person so far who has actually responded positively: “Cool! So we can all say someday, ‘yup, we knew Tina back when she was nothing but a horribly lazy grad student and borderline alcoholic.’ “
