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The problem with the study in the article is that it's comparing optimism among natural optimists vs. pessimism among pessimists. Basically they're assuming that the two strategies will work the same way for everyone. But what if the natural pessimists picked that strategy because optimism just didn't work for them?

The book linked below has an interesting take on all this. The idea is that optimist strategies don't work for some people, and that defensive pessimism is particularly useful for this group. So even if Optimists being optimistic are happier than Pessimists being pessimistic, according to this theory the Pessimists would be even less happy trying to be optimistic!

"The Positive Power of Negative Thinking: Using Defensive Pessimism to Harness Anxiety and Perform at Your Peak"
by Julie K. Norem
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465051391/qid=11 39153825/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-2922924-4895954?s=b ooks&v=glance&n=283155

Definitely, only I'd also recommend reading some books by Grady Booch such as:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805306080/sr=1-2 4/qid=1139120509/ref=sr_1_24/103-2402481-4199058?_ encoding=UTF8
also, I'd recommend programming in ADA in your free time if you have any, to get into the good habits it promotes... Although, that's a personal preference/bias I suppose.

Lots of people will try to work around your requirement for C++, but I'll assume your reasons are solid and let it stand.

What your are looking for are not design patters but software engineering practices. Specifically, you're interested in what would be called critical systems (think things like air-traffic control where failures can cost lives). These sorts of systems exist, and are written in all sorts of languages, but writing them is not a small undertaking. To get an idea of what you're undertaking, have a look at how reliability (RELY) affects things in the COCOMO II model.

http://sunset.usc.edu/research/COCOMOII/expert_coc omo/drivers.html

The next step is to look at some of the literature. I'd suggest starting with Somerville's 'Software Engineering', where you'll find part 4 dedicated to critical systems and part 5 dedicated to verification and validation. The chapter on critical systems validation is probably the meat of what you need, but the rest is likely needed for a solid background. Suffice to say that those saying 'test driven development' are on the way to enlightenment, but are missing a large part of the story.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321210263/102-91 00997-2271304

Best of luck though. It sounds like you'll be in for an interesting project.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00067AXYU/sr=1-1 /qid=1139117116/ref=sr_1_1/104-3007158-9135965?_en coding=UTF8
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00000K2H6/sr=1-4 /qid=1139117116/ref=sr_1_4/104-3007158-9135965?_en coding=UTF8

shall I continue?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00067AXYU/sr=1-1 /qid=1139117116/ref=sr_1_1/104-3007158-9135965?_en coding=UTF8
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00000K2H6/sr=1-4 /qid=1139117116/ref=sr_1_4/104-3007158-9135965?_en coding=UTF8

shall I continue?

1. Write a coding specification that specifies what portions of C++ that are usable on the project.
2. Read Code Complete 2
3. Only use Autopointers. No real pointers. Not for anything.
4. Spec the program out down to the routine level. Have this working before you write any code.
5. Code reviews, code reviews, code reviews.
6. Read the section in Effective C++ on interface/model separation. It will help you make each section of your code losely coupled enough that you have a chance to make your self-restarting idea work.
7. While you think you're going to be able to write this on windows, I think if you're going to try your "making sure nothing's dead for too long" scheme, you should look at Hard Real time linux to put under a linux installation, THEN port the program to windows if they demand it. Either that or make a hard real time linux monitor for the entire system to make sure the system is going.
8. Make this system LEAN LEAN LEAN. Cut out every feature imaginable. Develop the baseline system and a fully featured one. Have metrics on how every features changes the baseline so you can pull back in and out things

1. Write a coding specification that specifies what portions of C++ that are usable on the project.
2. Read Code Complete 2
3. Only use Autopointers. No real pointers. Not for anything.
4. Spec the program out down to the routine level. Have this working before you write any code.
5. Code reviews, code reviews, code reviews.
6. Read the section in Effective C++ on interface/model separation. It will help you make each section of your code losely coupled enough that you have a chance to make your self-restarting idea work.
7. While you think you're going to be able to write this on windows, I think if you're going to try your "making sure nothing's dead for too long" scheme, you should look at Hard Real time linux to put under a linux installation, THEN port the program to windows if they demand it. Either that or make a hard real time linux monitor for the entire system to make sure the system is going.
8. Make this system LEAN LEAN LEAN. Cut out every feature imaginable. Develop the baseline system and a fully featured one. Have metrics on how every features changes the baseline so you can pull back in and out things

Robert Heinlein used this as the central idea of his book "Then Number of the Beast" in 1986 The Number of the Beats

I so rarely get to actually recommend this book on-topic in a conversation... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394750799/103-05 21598-0730242?v=glance&n=283155

Managing Gigbytes author site Amazon

is a spectacular book on most of the underlying technologies. Although I've only read the first edition, I don't recall it talking about spidering/webcrawling. Instead it starts with building a simple index, and builds through all the refinements (ie stemming, etc) until you've built a serious workhorse for mining text documents. Its definitely at the core of what a search engine does,

Don't know if you're interested, but you might want to check out Richard Carrier's Sense and Goodness without God. Even if you might disagree with the premises of the author (metaphysical naturalism), I've found it a great read so far on these topics.

Amazon link

Ryan Fenton

those with a generally sunny outlook on life expect to succeed and tend to deny responsibility when they perform badly.

This kind of reminds me of Martin Seligman's book "Learned Optimism." Among other things it discusses research on how different kinds of people attribute their successes and failures. It's not at all "pop" psychology. Seligman was (is?) a research psychologist at Penn State. Definitely worth a read.

If you are going to the rainforest or even considering it, it is a good idea to pick up a good guide os you know what you are looking at. Me and my wife spent our honeymoon in the rainforests of 3 countries and I swear the only animal common in all 3 was human.

"Why isn't something that's more portable (perl/python) in such demand?"

Because Perl/Python aren't web languages? If you really want a job with Perl, why not try: http://www.amazon.com/ ? They use a Perl based web language called Mason.

Having programmed in both Mason and PHP, I can tell you that PHP (which is built for web applications) is superior. I strongly suspect that someone who has used both .NET and Mason would say the same thing.

Perl/Python are not competitors for .NET. Mason, PHP, and Ruby on Rails are.

Go read the reviews for this PC game on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 9YJM9W/002-6493180-4009643?v=glance

Seriously, it is about 99 out of 100 negative. I wish I had read those reviews before I bought it for my kids. The previous three HP games they made were very decent. This 4th one was awful. The worst thing about it was the way in which the game maintains a helicopter eye's view of everything. Instead of feeling like you are part of the action, it feels like you are watching somebody else play the game.

My kids have played the first 3 EA Harry Potter games hundreds of times and never tire of them. This 4th one, they barely touch after seeing how bad it is. I was assuming that the company just issued a clunker or was just fucking over their HP fans, whom they felt they could take for granted, in this one situation. But reading the other posts here, it is clear that their quality must have gone down across the board.

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Designing With Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman.

And it's cheaper .

Amazon has it cheaper than BN. ($23.07 vs $27.96)

"Book Description
Learn how to take the skills and knowledge you use to make games for entertainment to make serious games: games for education, training, healing, and more. ?Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform? teaches game developers how to tap into the rapidly expanding market of serious games. Explore the numerous possibilities that serious games represent such as the ability to teach military training in a non-lethal environment and the ability to convey a particular political viewpoint through a game?s storyline. You?ll get a detailed overview of all of the major markets for serious games, including the military, educators, government agencies, corporations, hospitals, non-profit organizations, religious groups, and activist groups. Discover the goals of each market, the types of games on which they focus, and market-specific issues you need to consider. Case studies of how professionals in these various markets utilize games provide ideas and inspiration as well as credibility for serious games. ?Serious Games? shows you how to apply your game development skills to a new and growing area and also teaches you techniques to make even entertainment-based games richer and more meaningful."

Book Description
The Machinima approach to creating movies promises to revolutionize the computer animation industry and this book will serve as the industry bible for emerging filmmakers. It expertly covers the very latest technology in filmmaking, from the history of Machinima, who the major players are, and where the Machinima movement is going. Conventional filmmakers are quickly adopting this medium as a much easier and economical way to produce animation films. This book contains a wealth of tips, tricks, and solid techniques to creating your own Machinima films from some of the best creative minds in the industry. Numerous hands-on projects are provided to show readers how to expertly create, edit, and view their own films. Some of the hot topics covered include developing actors, preparing sets, incorporating audio, adding special audio and visual effects, using the best post production techniques, using the best game engines, and much more.

"Book Description
Learn how to take the skills and knowledge you use to make games for entertainment to make serious games: games for education, training, healing, and more. ?Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform? teaches game developers how to tap into the rapidly expanding market of serious games. Explore the numerous possibilities that serious games represent such as the ability to teach military training in a non-lethal environment and the ability to convey a particular political viewpoint through a game?s storyline. You?ll get a detailed overview of all of the major markets for serious games, including the military, educators, government agencies, corporations, hospitals, non-profit organizations, religious groups, and activist groups. Discover the goals of each market, the types of games on which they focus, and market-specific issues you need to consider. Case studies of how professionals in these various markets utilize games provide ideas and inspiration as well as credibility for serious games. ?Serious Games? shows you how to apply your game development skills to a new and growing area and also teaches you techniques to make even entertainment-based games richer and more meaningful."

Book Description
The Machinima approach to creating movies promises to revolutionize the computer animation industry and this book will serve as the industry bible for emerging filmmakers. It expertly covers the very latest technology in filmmaking, from the history of Machinima, who the major players are, and where the Machinima movement is going. Conventional filmmakers are quickly adopting this medium as a much easier and economical way to produce animation films. This book contains a wealth of tips, tricks, and solid techniques to creating your own Machinima films from some of the best creative minds in the industry. Numerous hands-on projects are provided to show readers how to expertly create, edit, and view their own films. Some of the hot topics covered include developing actors, preparing sets, incorporating audio, adding special audio and visual effects, using the best post production techniques, using the best game engines, and much more.

I'm not dismissing your recommendations, but I believe that the utter best book for those interested in this area is "The Silent Takeover" by Noreena Hertz. She's a professor at the University of Cambridge and she's the woman who set up Russia's first stock exchange. Highly intelligent and a gifted writer.

She might be biased, but then she might simply be right. Very scary and very uplifting book.

I bought a mini just before they were discontinued, but my other friends have bought the 20 gig, 40 gig, and nano versions of the ipod. None of their purchases came with rubberized earbuds that form a seal in the ear, all of them are regular bud types with the slip-on foam covers. So what are these earbuds you're talking about? Are they even sold by Apple? Made by Apple?

He might be talking about these earbud headphones. They don't come with foam covers. The grey part you can see at the end is rubber or a similar material. (The grey rubber part is also replacable; the set comes with three different sizes.) I don't know if they form a "seal" when used, but they're pretty snug. While not the earbuds that come with the iPod, they're Apple products and specifically sold as being for iPods.

That said, I agree it's a silly case and have no worries about it. It'll be thrown out reasonably promptly.

As bad as this day? http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0689711735.01._S CLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

//mah favorite book

The future is multiparadigm programming.
This book was an eye-opener for me.

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A suggestion has been made, without hard evidence, for political reasons. In other words it's a lie.

I am not sure what senior managment means in your organisation but if what you call "senior managment" can't get the IT department to change, then the organisation has bigger problems. What I suspect is that senior management actually could get the IT department to change but thinks it is best to do what the IT department says and tell you that they can't change anything.

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Amazon has it for 16.47

Agile Web Development with Rails is very good, and cheap.

John Romero is a video game designer and programmer. From what I've read, he's an excellent designer, but often finds it frustrating that the programming aspect of the games he envisions often lacks the necessary capability to bring his work to life in the way it was originally intended.

He worked closely with John Carmack at id Software to develop various classics including: the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander_Keen>Comman der Keen series, Doom, Doom 2, Quake, then later Daikatana. Daikatana was a failure, especially compared to his previous work and the amount of hype he generated for it, which is why many people here are making sarcastic remarks about this new announced revolutionary MMOG.

There is an excellent book called Masters of Doom which details the early life and work of id Software, especially John Carmack and John Romero.

You may also find additional information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Romero

"Having not read the warning label I drank the whole bottle within 5 minutes. Within 10 minutes I was blacking out behind the wheel & shaking uncontrollably. I pulled over at a gas station I was having difficulty in swallowing and could not stand, breathe or see straight."

Yea, the whole bottle of concentrate is 30$ after a 50% off at Amazon. I doubt some one is going to spend 60$ on a small bottle of concentrate to chug it. This is probably the stupidest urban legend I've read in the past month.

Reading Curahee recently, he describes how during training at least one person fell without their parachute opening and survived, but I think this was a relatively low training jump.

Also surely once you reach terminal velocity, surely this becomes moot. I don't know how how you have to go before you reach terminal velocity, but surely after you reach that height, you have an equal chance no matter how much farther up you go. There might be some other unpleasant effects as you go higher (like frostbite). Maybe I am missing something here.

Sounds a lot like Virtual Light, a book from William Gibson. More and more you'll see this sort of thing done, especially as technology shrinks down the size of these things. Imagine a pair of sunglasses that overlay details of the car engine you're looking at or map notes as you travel around town.

Napster, founded by college student Shawn Fanning, as far as I can tell doesn't really exist any more. AFAIR Roxio bought it because they had a brand that meant "mediocre software" and wanted a brand/name that meant "cool".

Yeah, but did you know that Shawn Fanning didn't invent Napster?

It's true.

Hello? ...and I've been hanging around them from time to time since 1980. Meh.

how else could this man make a living?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385507755/104-33 57512-8407954?v=glance&n=283155

They still want to rake in the big bucks. Rather than dumping this liar they'll just put a bandaid on it and keep raking it in.

Amazon.com News from Doubleday & Anchor Books The controversy over James Frey's A Million Little Pieces has caused serious concern at Doubleday and Anchor Books. Recent interpretations of our previous statement notwithstanding, it is not the policy or stance of this company that it doesn't matter whether a book sold as nonfiction is true. A nonfiction book should adhere to the facts as the author knows them. It is, however, Doubleday and Anchor's policy to stand with our authors when accusations are initially leveled against their work, and we continue to believe this is right and proper. A publisher's relationship with an author is based to an extent on trust. Mr. Frey's repeated representations of the book's accuracy, throughout publication and promotion, assured us that everything in it was true to his recollections. When the Smoking Gun report appeared, our first response, given that we were still learning the facts of the matter, was to support our author. Since then, we have questioned him about the allegations and have sadly come to the realization that a number of facts have been altered and incidents embellished. We bear a responsibility for what we publish, and apologize to the reading public for any unintentional confusion surrounding the publication of A Million Little Pieces. We are immediately taking the following actions: # We are issuing a publisher's note to be included in all future printings of the book. # James Frey is writing an author's note that will appear in all future printings of the book. # The jacket for all future editions will carry the line "With new notes from the publisher and from the author."

The problem with these debates is... well.. security holes are patched by smart people and cretaed by the dumb ones. If you are a dumb adminstrator you might preface your $PATH with . and yes you would need to be shot.. but then again we're comparing you with most windows users, who also need to be shot.

While we're on the topic of linux "security flaws" try this one next time you see a college freshman logged into his terminal

cd ~
touch "-rf *"
logout

When the user logs on and sees this annoying file they should type
rm "-rf *"
but since they're a college freshman taking "Intro to basketweaving in Unix" they'll type
rm -rf *
(forgetting the quotes) and you'll laugh... and subsequently be damned to hell.

And as an FYI, in his book, The Art of Deception Kevin Mitnic condems the use of software hacks. He says that software is usually the strongest link in the system - it's the users who are foolish. He is considered such a great hacker/cracker, yet from his book he seemed much less technically literate than I had imagined. I wouldn't consider his mere opinion that open source software is more vunerable very persuasive. We are, however, admitting security flaws and simply sweeping them under the rug when we say "no intelligent user would do X." These are the users who may be administering our system - and the users who Mitnick preys on. If we want our computers more secure we need to start educating our communities and telling them to not open up e-mails from strangers saying "I love you"

However, on the ever-so-slight possibility that you're being cynical, biology is a physical system and metabolism is actually a very trivial example of the law of conservation of energy and the laws of thermodynamics.

What is expended - regardless of form, plus what you retain, must always exactly equal what you start off with plus what you add. That will be true both of physical matter and of the energy contained therein. It doesn't get much simpler, or more universal. The steps are only important in this discussion in the sense of whether a virus could alter them significantly. The physics on which the steps operate are independent of the steps themselves and, in general, are more significant as you can quantify matter and energy rather more easily than you can quantify the exact mechanics of mitochondria or the precise ppm of different enzymes or hormones.

(I also prefer working in low-level terms, as you only have to look at one subject. The full range of fields in biology and biochemistry that you'd need to learn to cover the topic at the cellular level would be horrible and I doubt there's anyone - on Slashdot or otherwise - with doctorates in each and every single one of them.)

However, on the ever-so-slight possibility that you're being cynical, biology is a physical system and metabolism is actually a very trivial example of the law of conservation of energy and the laws of thermodynamics.

What is expended - regardless of form, plus what you retain, must always exactly equal what you start off with plus what you add. That will be true both of physical matter and of the energy contained therein. It doesn't get much simpler, or more universal. The steps are only important in this discussion in the sense of whether a virus could alter them significantly. The physics on which the steps operate are independent of the steps themselves and, in general, are more significant as you can quantify matter and energy rather more easily than you can quantify the exact mechanics of mitochondria or the precise ppm of different enzymes or hormones.

(I also prefer working in low-level terms, as you only have to look at one subject. The full range of fields in biology and biochemistry that you'd need to learn to cover the topic at the cellular level would be horrible and I doubt there's anyone - on Slashdot or otherwise - with doctorates in each and every single one of them.)

There are some staggering data in there regarding the extent to which humans mimic the behavior of similar others. For example, there are statistically significant increases in the number of teenage-couples killed in car accidents among those teenage-couples who recently heard about accidents where teenage couples were killed. The increase is not observed in teenage-couples who didn't hear about the recent accidents, and is not observed among singleton teenagers or older couples who have been exposed to the news. These results have been repeated with a wide range of demographic groups, on a wide range of phenomena, and have been found to be consistent and strong. Hmm, notice a rash of mine accidents recently? Yes, I'm sure it's media focus-bias to some extent...

I really urge you to check that book out if you're interested in the instinct-level mental processes that control us without our being aware of them, or if you want to be..ah...evil?

It is happening and no matter what else, that is NOT a good thing!

Change happens. Whether it's a bad thing or good thing depends to a great extent on whether we deal with it, or just scream "CHANGE IS BAD!" and use that as a pretense to expand government power (as if out-of-control governments were less dangerous.

Envirocultists are funny; it's supposed to be conservatives who fear change.

Entropy is real. Deal with it.

The original AAAS report on the effect of patents on science was broadly conducted across disciplines. Patents are not only a problem in BioTech and genetic research. There are *many* reports of research being canceled in electronics and even, yes, in pure computer science. For example, take a look at Chapter 11 of Security and Usability. The chapter is an overview of keystroke biometrics, and contains a section on the patent minefield in this area. It also states that one of the authors of the article was forced to remove keystroke collection and classification tools from the Internet by patent holders (perhaps unjustly), effectively killing research they were conducting in this area. Also take a look at slashdot threads following the original article on patents chilling science (linked above); there you'll find several other "me too" stories just like this one where researchers in computer science departments had to drop what they were doing because of patent licensing issues.

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