Faulty hardware found on shuttle

On or about Mon, 29 Mar 2004 22:08:37 -0500, Peter Stickney
made the sensational claim that:
And MS_Word 2204 will require a semitrailer full of terabyte
SVHDDVDs. run like a Sloth on your MeraHertz Anthill processor, and
provide no more useful functionality than Word 6.

But by then that semitrailer of storage will be smaller than a shoebox.
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Kevin Willoughby wrote:

On the other hand, if you have a bit of margin in cpu-speed, real-time
requirements, and memory, it is valid engineering to consider not
forcing the programmers to be careful with memory allocations. Let the
machine keep track of memory usage (keyword: "garbage collection").

Of course to use that margin, you have to ensure not only that the
garbage collector is called, but that it actually functions as
intended and is itself bug free.

D.
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Kevin Willoughby wrote:
Let's try a realistic standard: compare it to other contemporary
systems. While the Windows XP that is running on my laptop is waaaay
better than Windows 3.1, it still falls short of contemporary Linux
systems.

Sure. But what you list above isn't a realistic standard, it's a
value judgement somewhere in the grey area between subjective
impression and objective fact. (I.E. the features you find that 'fall
short' may be ones that matter little to someone else.)

A realistic standard is "does the machine meet the daily needs of it's
owner/user".

With a exception of a single machine that had its network interface
removed and its floppy drive expoxyed shut, no Windows machine has ever
received a non-lousy Orange Book security rating, yet various Unix
systems have received high evaluations.

All very nice and very true, but diverging from the topic of whether a
*user* finds it adequate to his daily needs.

There are legitimate arguments that Windows machines are not just a
hazard to their owners, but also endanger non-Windows systems since
Windows-born malware can seriously disrupt the shared resource of the
Internet. No other operating system has been singled out for this kind
of disruption.

*cough*Morris Worm*cough*

D.
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Brett Buck wrote:

Derek Lyons wrote:
Marvin wrote:
Microsoft has a great sales department, second only to their legal staff.
But quality control is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down on the
priority list.

*Right*. That's why millions of people around the world use it on a
daily basis. It's far from perfect, but it does work, people hold it
to an unrealistic standard and them complain when it fails to meet
that standard.

Oh, horsehit! Expecting it to run with negligible maintainence and no
progressive degeneration is not an unrealistic standard.

Why should I expect my computer to operate as nothing else in my life
does?

This only true if your standards have degraded due to constant exposure.
Run multiple different systems on a regular basis and the ****-poor quality
and reliability of all versions of Windows is perfectly obvious.

Hmm... My Windows box hasn't crashed outright in over a week, hasn't
had a program freeze in two or three days, and only needs rebooting
when one particular memory picky game is run.[1] The only people to
whom that is not acceptable are those with a pathological hatred of
Redmond, or an unrealistic standard of performance.

[1]Helps that I'm an informed user, and have tuned and cleaned my box.

D.
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(Peter Stickney) wrote:

I'll admit that systems with Windows Servers can be made to run
acceptably well, but that it's much more likely to occur when they're
being run by *NIX Sysadmins. (It's all in knowing the fundamentals)

Right. Which is why a friend of mine has run a large Windows network
without a whit of *nix experience, and without 99% of the problems
people lay at the feet of a Microsoft based system.

But then he's actually troubled himself to learn (sans a Microsoft
certificate) how the system works and how to tune it. *That* is why
large numbers of Windows installations have such problems. MCSE's who
never trouble themselves to learn beyond their training, and *nix
administrators who can't be bothered.

D.
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Kevin Willoughby wrote:

The best example of this aren't weak, but might not be easy to explain
to a "jury of your peers". My favorite example: having written programs
that create web sites, I used to have a least a half dozen web browsers
on my office machine. Somehow, IE managed to find some way to reset the
file-associations/MIME types so that IE was always the preferred
browser, regardless of my efforts to the contrary.

The frankly you may have screwed up somehow, as exactly *none* of my
systems ever behaved this way.

D.
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(Henry Spencer) wrote:

In article ,
Derek Lyons wrote:
But quality control is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down on the
[Microsoft] priority list.

*Right*. That's why millions of people around the world use it on a
daily basis. It's far from perfect, but it does work, people hold it
to an unrealistic standard and them complain when it fails to meet
that standard.

Nothing unrealistic about the standard at all. All it takes is a certain
amount of *attention* to things like stability and security. There are
several other systems which are at least an order of magnitude better in
those respects.

Given the stability and security of my Windows box, an order of
magnitude better simply isn't needed for my day to day work. 99%
percent of all Windows problems can be traced to poor installation,
configuration, and maintenance. (Admittedly Microsoft could make
things easier however.) Windows has problems, but they are not
insurmountable to anyone willing to put in a little time and effort.

It's equally possible to have a *nux system be insecure if you are not
fully conversant with the installation and configuration process.
*nix tends not to have those problems because it's generally run by
knowledgeable people. Unsurprisingly, Windows systems run by
knowledgeable people have fewer stability and security problems as
well.

The key problem is less Microsofts coding, than the impression they
leave the customer that all is automagically taken care of.

D.
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Dave Michelson wrote:

Derek Lyons wrote:

*Right*. That's why millions of people around the world use it on a daily
basis. It's far from perfect, but it does work, people hold it to an
unrealistic standard and them complain when it fails to meet that standard.

Perhaps you should preface your remark, "In my uninformed opinion, people
hold it to an unrealistic standard...."

If my opinion was uninformed, you'd have a point. But I'll give you a
free clue: "uninformed" != "disagrees with yours".

D.
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(Peter Stickney) wrote:

(Derek Lyons) writes:
Marvin wrote:

Microsoft has a great sales department, second only to their legal staff.
But quality control is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down on the
priority list.

*Right*. That's why millions of people around the world use it on a
daily basis. It's far from perfect, but it does work, people hold it
to an unrealistic standard and them complain when it fails to meet
that standard.

But nobody used Windows in a situation where Somebody COuld Die or Go
To Jail.

Certainly. But "not reliable enough situations where Somebody Could
Die or Go To Jail" does not mean "not reliable for average day to day
use". I don't hold my $5.99 Kmart cooking knife to the same standards
I hold my $159.90 Wusthof-Trident chef's knife, nor do I reach for
them interchangeably.

One of the biggest problems with Windows-based systems is that you
don't ever really know what's on it. Every bit of code, every
application, every little widget has to insert its own little bit of
cruft into the fundamental operation of the machine. With that many
cooks whizzing into the soup, you aren't going to get Lobster Bisque.

Not a problem when one doesn't install every damm thing in the
universe. (My father-in-laws XP machine is far less stable than my
Win98 machine, the key difference? He keeps installing crap, never
optimizes his registry, never uses the tools I've tried to teach him
to use etc...)

(Which leads to another big gripe about MS-Window-oid code - the UI is
shotgunned throughout the OS Kernal, and through all of the app &
middleware. This makes layering, and optimizing the function of any
particular bit of code an almost unworkable nightmare, for any sort of
serious project.)

That depends on your definition of 'serious'. The vertical app my
wife used at her old accounting office was certainly serious, to
them, the IRS, and their customers. And it worked just fine.

D.
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(Henry Spencer) wrote:

It did, as did other military aircraft (and even some cruise missiles)
dating back well into the 50s. Both the military star trackers and the
civilian navigators were swept away by the advent of aircraft-sized
inertial navigation systems.

Early inertial systems weren't considered particularly stable. It was
not uncommon to have *both* systems installed. Civilian navigators
were also helped out the door by the increasing availability and
reliability of LORAN/DECCA/OMEGA etc...

D.
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