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I don't think this should have happened, but they're not destroying civil liberties... just maybe making a poor business decision.

Having read Beck and Fowler's Planning Extreme Programming I get the impression that the XP model is less about bug-free code and more about driving your coders to suicide by showing them how annoying a cubicle-mate "partner programmer" can be. How employee nervous breakdown equates to profit, well, I still don't know, but a lot of companies sure seem to like the model.

This has definitely already been made into an excellent cinema Here

-circut
--
The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catchup.
- fortune

There are some very good books that explains this and how one should do calculations on computers and how to estimate the error propagation and growth. The field that covers this is called Numerical Analysis and should be part of any math or comp sci training. A good introduction textbook for this is Numerical Methods by Germunds Dahlquist http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486428079/qid=11 36506488/sr=8-5/ref=pd_bbs_5/104-6440517-4726329?n =507846&s=books&v=glance

Are you saying that my ... *cry* ... Star Fleet Technical Manual .. is.... WRONG?!

Is it really an "urban legend"? As much of a trope it has become in movies with technological whizzes, Snopes says it was reported in Whiteside's Computer Capers: Tales of Electronic Thievery, Embezzlement, and Fraud , which should have the necessary citation on the case.

Try the Futurama Adventures even my dumb as a dodo Sociology roomate liked it.

While the idea of a flatpack mouse is interesting, battery-life concerns (why does anyone need a bluetooth mouse for their NOTEBOOK?) and the ergonomic horror apparent from the photos lead me to give this one a pass. I'll stick with my compact, ergonomic, lightweight, batteryless, cord-storing, and inexpensive Logitech notebook mouse, thanks.

There're two volumes available. For a total of 8 out of 22 episodes. Buy them so they are more inclined to release the remainder.

Divine Right Davenport's VW Microbus

Urge launches with over 2 million tracks for purchase or as part of an all-you-can eat subscription

And here I was, thinking the Urge only had like two albums out.

I know slashdot ran a story on what went wrong, but they are far from dead. There is the FIRST Lego Racing League, which is a robotics compeition for grade school kids across the country. (Which then evolves into higher level products as they advance into high school). Heck I know several kids whose got RIS2.0 sets for Christmas. The parents are tired of their kids only seeing computers as video game machines - these kits are an excellent segway between fun and programming. There are plenty of high school and college kids, even adults doing stuff with them too... for example Jin Sato there is an available C compiler, even a Real Time OS!

-everphilski-

Even worse, they also make this USB Self Love Kit to use while surfing P0rN.

ZEN and the art of making a living by Laurence G. Boldt

There is extensive information on floating OTECs and making them economically profitable in _The Millennial Project_. One added issue is that deep-sea OTECs would bring deep nitrogen-rich water to the surface, making aquafarming a major industry in addition to energy production.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316771635/002-87 94637-7945626

1. No, it won't affect ocean currents. At all. That's a ludicrous suggestion. Global warming, and the melting of the polar ice caps, however, MAY VERY WELL cause the thermal gradient to change, possibly affecting the technology. Avery predicted in the early 1970s that global warming would cause major climate change and felt OTEC power was the only way to wean industrialized nations from their oil dependency.

2. Biofouling can be effectively and ecologically controlled and is not a problem.

3. Avery's project was canned by the Reagan administration, which felt nuclear energy was more valuable.

4. Why hasn't Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion caught on? The reason prototypes or venture capital have been slow is that the bottom line, the cost, has been prohibitively high. Shortly before he died (in 2004, at the age of 91), Avery concluded that the cost of oil was rising enough to make OTEC energy feasible.

5. Avery's vision was that OTEC plantships _would_ create methane and/or methanol; he even invented a very effective converter that could allow regular engines to run on NH4 (ammonia).

6. Direct solar power (through panels) remains prohibitively costly, relies on batteries (unecological to produce and dangerous to dispose of), and doesn't have the versatility of OTEC fuel, which can substitute for gasoline fuel or in place of thermo-electric or hydro-electric plants.

For anyone who thinks I'm pro-OTEC biased, you're right. It's an awesome technology that SHOULD have been adopted in the 1970s. Had the US had the foresight and intelligence to invest early on in the technology, we would not need to be addressing the global warming issues we are facing today. Economics, unfortunately, may be the bottom line, but OTEC energy remains one of the most spectacular alternative energy sources we have. Please at least read the book and get some actual facts before dismissing it. Whether Sea Solar Power International is going to fly or not, I've no idea, but OTEC energy is very much a renewable, valid, and environmentally safe energy alternate.

French resistance, while not terribly effective, was also present in the Franco-Prussian War. See Showalter, who was a bit of a scholarly overload, but most of the damage has healed. ;)
Of the kingdoms rising from the ashes of the Roman Empire, only that of the Franks had a name surviving to modern times.

Yeah, I like a good Gallic gouging too, but I recently read The Glorious Cause, as well.
The US has a lot to thank the French for, in the way of underwriting the Revolution (for all their motives were questionable). There were more French at Yorktown than Colonials, and the French fleet was key at Virginia Capes (though later kindling in the West Indies).
Would that more Yanks had clue #1 about history.

"Lastly, despite the book's title emphasizing C#, there are 130 or so pages on ASP.NET and XML web services. Sure, these are part of the .NET Framework, but it seems a diversion from focusing on C#. "

Programming ASP.NET 3rd Edition is a good book for those working with ASP.NET

OMG B&N is selling this book for LIST price. Save yourself $22.20 by buying the book here: Pro C#. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

OMG B&N is selling this book for LIST price. Save yourself $22.20 by buying the book here: Pro C#. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

Actually, now that you mention it, that would be kind of neat.

At first, I thought: "Passive game? That's just like a movie without the flesh -- boooooring"

But then I thought: What if you have a little world which you can explore, where multiple stories unfold simultaneously. And you're like a ghost, flying around, following people, eavesdropping on them, seeing what they're doing, watching the stories of your choice unfold. Night-time comes, your character of choice goes to sleep, what do you do for 7 hours? Fly over to the bank where there's a robbery in-progress. You could easily have several weeks' worth of scripted storytelling.

Plus, there's very decent replayability value, since you could explore each story separately and their intricate interactions (similar to movies like Go, where the story is told completely differenly from 3 different characters' persectievs).

Then, once this medium of storytelling is mastered (should be rather tricky, intertwining and synchronizing the world like that), they could start adding minute possibilities for interaction. Later on, you could become part of the story by playing a character (think racting, like in Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson).

Lots of potential, indeed.

- shazow

With this book.

Actually, according to Richard Feynman, light does have the ability to go faster than the speed of light. I'm not sure about the specifics, but for at least some events, there is a an established probability that light will travel between two points in less time than it would take to travel at c. However, at macro scale distances, small variations in the speed of light all cancel out. I read this in Feynman's book QED, which stands for quantum electrodynamics. I highly recommend QED to any non-physicist/non-math-major who wants to gain a better intuitive understanding of the bizarre world of quantum mechanics.

...in the 1960s, an unusual band of inventors, engineers and investors ... created the Aereon, a strange, wingless hybrid airplane/dirigible. The Aereon--the Deltoid Pumpkin Seed-- promised to be a safe workhorse of the skies, capable of carrying the payload of entire freight trains with minimal cost. ... McPhee ... makes us wonder why this promising technology hasn't been perfected.

say no to carrying around dvds. get an Archos AV5x0 (disclaimer: i have one and love it) and the DS (i don't have, waiting for less plasticky v2) for games. it's the geek solution.

1 GB USB for $60 USD at Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0003009DK/ref=pd _sl_aw_alx-jeb-9-1_ce_7071122_16/103-1132044-97166 55?n=172282

I predict he will never hit a "conclusion".

This struck me as a good idea at first, then I went to his web page, and the first thing that leaped out at me was his graphic with the $20 bill and the words "what you can do right now"... I think he wants to run a Howard Dean-style campaign (grass-roots, internet "cash machine" generating tremendous revenue in $10 or $20 increments), and for novelty he wants to have a Wiki.

The Wiki will be the realization of that oft-quoted maxim: "Given an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters, and an infinite amout of time, they could recreate the entire works of William Shakespeare" - but instead of "the entire works of William Shakespeare" he will have a platform, and instead of "monkeys with typewriters" he will have "monkeys with internet connections".

How will he limit edits/updates to people inside his state? That barrier alone makes this a stunt more than a sincere effort, in my opinion.

Say what you like about Orrin Hatch, but he has some skin in the game - he has a vested interest in protecting his music http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-ur l/index=music&field-keywords=orrin%252520hatch&sea rch-type=ss&bq=1&store-name=music/ref=xs_ap_l_xgl1 5/002-5700152-7677636

Pardon me for opening with an ad hominem, but you are an ASS, and so are the people that modded you up. You are looking at a static picture of where we as a society are today. The grandparent is really talking (offtopic perhaps, and in a somewhat inflammatory tone, I'll grant you) about what led to our present state of affairs.

The problem with your whole rebuttal is that you're addressing the symptoms, whereas the grandparent is looking towards the root cause. You're not arguing the same argument.

"It's always nice when someone new walks into a process that's been going on for hundreds of years and gets angry that no one sees his simple solution, even though that's where we started and we've been fixing the problems with it ever since."

There is a great body of libertarian thinking, dating back to the Moses time (for examples, read The Discovery of Freedom", Rose Wilder Lane) that supports some of the grandparents inadequately presented points.

"They're too busy talking about the financial freedom lost when you have a work force of illiterates who can't add."

It is a well documented fact that literacy rates were shockingly higher than today's throughout early American history, and without public education. On the other hand, mandatory state sponsored education has been used by every systematically tyrannical government as a means to keep the population in line (read Underground History of American Education). Why isn't education working?

"And your constructive solution is then to let thousands and thousands of people either die or turn to crime? Step one, end social security. What's step two? Please answer. If you've got a way to make this work, please tell us. I really, really want to be on your side, because that's a lot of money."

Here's a solution for you that's been suggested by a courageous few and rejected by many a fool for ages of men:

1. Love your enemies, as well as your neighbors. Forgive those who have done you wrong so as to end the animosity between you, rather than perpetuate it.
2. Treat others as you want to be treated
3. Do not judge others before you judge yourself.
4. Help anyone who asks you. Be approachable. Participate in your community and build strong ties in your family.
5. Stop assuming that institutions, laws and power hungry liars can possibly solve the worlds problems when you haven't even the decency and wherewithall to say hello to your own neighbors in passing.
6. Instead of robbing from peter to pay paul (are you a socialist?), just cut out the bloated middle man (uncle sam) and buy your elderly neighbor lady a bag of groceries.

The problem with this, is that in our degenerate society (I am not a Christian, btw), no one really fucking cares as long as they have beer, cable and cheesepuffs. Oh, and free porn...

"Genius! How could that possibly go bad? Combine this with your no-free-schooling idea and we've got ourselves a plan that just might solve everybody's problem."

Honestly, while I believe you're entitled to your opinion, I don't think it is in any way insightful to slap down someone else observation with an equal dose of pap.

Slashdot mods: How the hell does the grandparent get modded a troll and the parent's uninformed bullshit gets modded +5 insightful? Both of them are blowing hot air out their ass, regardless of which opinion I find more tolerable.

Here's a suggestion for everyone: Learn how to carry on a constructive argument, quit with the conversational terrorism already, and direct your energy to making the world a better place instead of sitting on your ass casting aspersions to the wind...

Thanks for reading,

Chris

You forgot to mention cats are also good for making small boots for children. Are a good source of pet food for other cats. Stuffed with wheat, can be used as a football. etc etc etc.

More great ideas at:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0517545160/104-92 05535-1106340?v=glance&n=283155/

There is nothing wrong with "Gut Feeling". Sometimes that will actually give you the best answer.

Check out Blink! a book by Malcome Gladwell. A very thought provoking read.

Blink!

We used:
Two GPU-180-L06 video/GPU water blocks (link)
One HX-360 radiator (link)
One Control Board (link)
One 120mm fan (link)
One LED display panel (link)
12ft of 3/8" hose
Standard 110v to 12v wall adapter

Now one has to consider if the time spent building and the cost of these materials could be more cheaply and easily reproduced by buying a compact refrigerator and drilling holes in it for the wiring?

You would just need a drill and one of these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009WNPEW/002-28 77125-6416806?v=glance&n=284507

Sure it's a portable computer, but it's not a moron-proof computer. Any idiot who puts a computer around any type of liquid deserves what they get. I always recommend the http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 809P2Q/qid=1136335960/sr=1-9/ref=sr_1_9/103-078829 5-7168611?v=glance&s=toys for folks who are too clueless to treat their computers with adequate respect.

Have you read ShowStopper?

I read the previous edition of this one:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735619174/ref=pd _bbs_null_1/002-1792261-2772810?s=books&v=glance&n =283155

Remember to remove any spaces slashdot puts in. It's not a bad book. I learned a lot even if it was a bit dry at times.

No parameters-by-name function calls.

Read Stroustrup's book on the history of C++ and you will know why this feature isn't already in C++. It is because C++ does not require that the header files use the same names for the parameters.

It's icky, but legal, to do this:

foo.h:

int DoSomething(int a, int b, int c);

foo.c:

int
DoSomething(int c, int a, int b)
{ ...
}

Any source file that includes foo.h will have different names for the parameters than the original. This is okay because the types all match, and the generated code is the same as if the names were the same. But if you want to start using the parameter name it's not okay anymore.

Stroustrup wanted to add this feature but it was just too much pain. If C++ started enforcing a requirement that parameter names always must be the same, it would break existing code, always a no-no. And it woudl require big changes to the linker IIRC.

He did mention a workaround, which is kind of interesting. The workaround is good enough that he didn't want to go through the pain to do this feature.

Here's the workaround: you make a set of method functions that can set a particular property, and make sure that each function returns a reference to your class. Then you chain-call the functions.

You can't do this:

SetGUIStuff(window, x=0, y=0, width=1024, height=768);

But you can do this:

window.X(0).Y(0).Width(1024).Height(768);

Most of the people here making shoot-from-the-hip comments about how C++ is stupid and should be better, those people should get the book and read it.

Here's the book at Amazon:

here

I think you misunderstand modeling. Take a brick. The very act of measuring the length of the brick involves modeling. Most of us use a very simple model that we learned in elementary school: length, height, width, volume. length > width; width > height; volume = length * width * height.

But the brick doesn't have these simple dimensions. Look closely and you will see that the brick has rough edges. Our simple model of an ideal rectangular solid doesn't capture all of the details of our brick. I would go so far as to say that the brick doesn't have length, only our model of the brick does. Indeed, this discussion is actually about a model brick because like snowflakes and fingerprints, no two bricks are alike. So talking about bricks requires that we all share some mental model of what a brick is.

For an introduction to some of the difficulties of measurement, see Mandelbrot's description of the lenght of coasts in "The Fractal Geometry of Nature."

To all those who think my above comment was "Flamebait" or a "Troll":

Firstly, I'm a Mac fan. I'm not a PC lover, a Microsoft fan, or a troll. But that doesn't prevent me from seeing the realities of my chosen community, and yes, Mac/Apple fans ARE still trendoids, far more so than PC folks.

Submitted as evidence:

Would the PC world pay forty bucks for a glorified volume knob? No, but these things have been on the Mac market for quite a while now.

How would a $100 trackball fare in the PC community? Pretty piss-poor, but these guys (and their ADB predecessors) were mainstays of the Mac community for years.

Fancy a thousand dollar low-end laptop? Mac fans buy them in droves. I've bought several.

Maybe a sixty dollar ONE-BUTTON mouse? Mac users buy 'em. By the thousands.

How about a $2,500 monitor? You'd be hard-pressed to find a Mac fan who wouldn't buy one if they had the money.

Thirty-five bucks for a small rubber sleeve? Three hundred bucks for a small pair of flat panel speakers? All of these things would fail miserably in the PC world, but there's a market for them in the Mac world.

That's not to say Mac fans (including myself) are stupid, merely that they (we) like gadgets, and are willing (if not always able) to pay a premium to get shiny goodies.

So, yes, Mac users are trendoids, but not stupid trendoids. If you want to talk about stupid trendoids, look at the "audiophile" morons buying $300 power cables.

Uh... formatting a hard drive in Windows XP:

My Computer > Right-click on drive > "Format"

You must not have looked very hard, and if it didn't cross your mind to use the drive's installation CD either, you shouldn't be using Windows or OSX - you should be using this.

I'm the proud owner of a Mac mini, by the way, and I'm no fan of Windows, but FUD is rediculous.

Here I was re-reading my somewhat battered copy of "On Growth and Form" and this turns up ... sweet.

Also, there is Dead Alive which, despite the URL in the link, I really liked. Incidently, and a bit OT, but the movie art looks like the inspiration for the goatse image.

Oh thanks man, I always love the Timecube guy. He sets the bar for crazy physics, in my opinion.

If you dig that, read this book if you can:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1585003522/104-15 99097-5395138?n=283155

called "I was aboard a ufo". It's absolutely perfectly insane. I used to have a nice color-illustrated PDF version I got from a buddy, but I guess I've lost the file; I suppose I'm probably cubeless stupid.

"I don't think that Churchill or FDR spent much time worrying about legacy, yet history counts them as great men."

Churchill cared so much about his legacy that he wrote a 6 volume memoir of his actions during the war, modestly entitled "The Second World War." It's good reading, but make no mistake about its purpose. From start to finish it's an apologia for his every action during that time.

And when talking about Roosevelts, I'm more prone to remember Eleanor Roosevelt as the modest one. This is a woman who, in the dark days of segregation, drove through southern towns with a pistol on the seat beside her, to address groups like the NAACP. When a bunch of up uptight matrons refused to allow a black soprano to perform at Constitution Hall in Washington, she arranged to have the concert at the Lincoln Memorial. 70,000 people attended.

Eleanor Roosevelt was also the driving force behind one of the most important documents since Hammurabi - the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Churchill and Roosevelt were both extremely dynamic personalities who knew exactly how to present themselves to the public, and whose private faces were sometimes strikingly different from their public ones. That said, they both made important - critical, even - contributions to world history.

John Horgan?! No way! He's not like that at all. Yeah. Read The End of Science . John Horgan is a grumpy, jealous, cynical agitator.

Save yourself $10.18 by buying the book here: Ambient Findability: What We Find Changes Who We Become. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

Save yourself $10.18 by buying the book here: Ambient Findability: What We Find Changes Who We Become. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

Until it hurts, U.S. consumers will not switch anything. The market will drive change. Gas prices are currently inconvenient but it is not something that keeps people from getting to work. When prices are prohibitive, maybe we will see changes.

U.S. citizens must also get out of the "grid" mentality. Electricty on site, not relying on the grid is a shifting in thinking for most. Lori Ryker addresses this in her book, "Off the Grid"

Here's a fictional account.

*cough* Holding on to Reality *cough*

Nobody in the information age should go without reading Borgmann's book. I found it very influencial back in college and still defines my understanding of information theory.

Conan was right!

Crom the God who lives under the earth will Rise again,
and bring fire and the riddle of steel to men.

CROM!