All I want is to price a Windows XP server, OK?
Because the client's bug database, FogBugz, runs on Windows. And uses Microsoft's crap web server, IIS. But it's okay security-wise, cause it's behind a (Linux) firewall.
I should never have recommended this thing in the first place. I knew when I recommended it that you can't run more than one server program per Windows machine. Windows can't handle it.
I even knew that Microsoft still doesn't let you have more than 10 inbound connections on their allegedly professional OS line (NT, 2000 Pro, XP Pro). After all, it's tradition.
But now they want to know how much it would cost to "upgrade to" (read "get a") server OS without the 10-connection limit.
And farging Microsoft won't tell me!
I go to their website and look for servers and I find this page, which is useless, so I click through to this page mostly about server programs. No thanks, I want server OS's. Oh wait, there it is down at the bottom: Windows Server 2003. Click.
ARGH! "Microsoft Windows Server 2003 is now available for customer preview."
YOU BASTARDS!!!
I KNOW YOU SHIPPED SOMETHING CALLED WINDOWS XP SERVER, DAMMIT! NOW TELL ME HOW MUCH IT COSTS!
This is Linus's revenge on me for recommending FogBugz over Bugzilla.
Derek Lowe doesn't do quantum:
Yep, it's true. I've got a lot more quantum in my head than someone picked randomly out of the phone book, but by no definition am I a quantum mechanics guy.... the best way to make an organic chemist immediately turn the page of a journal article is to use the phrase "consider the Hamiltonian." No, thank you.
Which is fine, since big organic molecules give me the screaming heebie-jeebies. I was okay as long as the correct answer to every question was "use a Grignard reagent" -- that was the end of first semester organic. But in second semester organic they started introducing cycloadditions and rearrangements and all sorts of bizarre named reactions.
I turned away into the pure clean world of quantum chemistry. Four atoms is the right size for a molecule. Ten or so -- that's pretty big. Molecular weight over 100? Sorry, not my department.
The funny thing is that in quantum chemistry I had no difficulty reconciling my belief with my work. I found quantum mechanics so weird that it didn't seem a stretch to believe in Creation. I mean, if God created electrons -- and they behave like that -- then why shouldn't He create the earth with built-in fossils?