PropHead – HR's Industrial Strength Stuff

Tarting Up the Pig

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The More Things Change…

One hears a lot of hype these days about cloud computing, on demand computing, and software as a service (SaaS). Depending on what a particular entity is trying to sell, one may hear arguments that each of these terms define subtle differences in the services being offered. Well, in my black and white world, they can all be summed up by one term that says it all….

Time-Sharing!

While it is indeed true that advances in hardware, software and networking technology have resulted in an end user experience that makes the original mainframe-based time-sharing look tired and ancient, it’s stll time-sharing. All we’ve done is tarted up the pig with shiny lipstick and more fashionable clothing. And increased its oink rate over the years.

Toil and Trouble

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Round about the caldron go; In the poison’d entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone, Days and nights has thirty-one; Swelter’d venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot! — First Witch, “Macbeth,” IV:1

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. — Witches, “Macbeth,” IV:1

Fillet of a fenny snake, in the cauldron boil and bake: eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog, adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting, lizard’s leg and howler’s wing, for a charm of pow’rful trouble, like a hell-broth boil and bubble. — Second Witch, “Macbeth,” IV:1

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. — Witches, “Macbeth,” IV:1

Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf; Witches’ mummy; maw and gulf Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark; Root of emlock digg’d i’ the dark; Liver of blaspheming Jew; Gall of goat, and slips of yew Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse; Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips; Finger of birth-strangled babe Ditch-deliver’d by a drab, Make the gruel thick and slab: Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron, For the ingrediants of our caldron. — Third Witch, “Macbeth,” IV:1

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. — Witches, “Macbeth,” IV:1

Cool it with a baboon’s blood, Then the charm is firm and good. — Second Witch, “Macbeth,” IV:1

Still a Work in Progress

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I discovered yet one more reason for my insistence that Linux is still not ready for primetime as as desktop operating system. Until recently, my biggest complaint was the lousy support for wireless cards using the Broadcom chip sets. However, the version of Ubuntu Linux and the kernel I have installed now appears to have finally resolved this issue (at least for the ancient 802.11b/11g card in my laptop). So much for that…on to my next rant. Continue reading “Still a Work in Progress”