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Ah, Switzerland... The population of New York City, spread across the area of Maryland, where social stratification is hidden by a stigma against looking too rich or looking too poor.

Doesn't sound much different from U.S. Anyway, I think there is evidence that small countries are more business friendly, because their only chance to be successful is to attract trade (or finance). Larger countries can't rely entirely on that, because they have too large population to be supported only by trade. So successful smaller countries generally do have lower taxes than successful large countries.

You're missing the other observed evidence of a direct democracy: ancient Athens, where playwrights swayed politics more easily than politicians did.

Comparing anything ancient to today is not meaningful. Even though this is commonly said, it should also be said the system that ancient Athens had was way superior to anything else of that era. Also, if someone needs to resort to manipulation, that's already a victory. To manipulate masses is always more expensive than having direct control (by force) over them. Maybe you don't see it that way, but that's because you never lived in totalitarian regime. I also take offense when someone talks about "ruling mob", completely ignoring the real problem, i.e. those who actually do the manipulation. They are the problem, not the people! You can manipulate almost anyone, high IQ or not, any magician can attest to that.

You're also assuming a requirement of absolute morality, where whatever you want is morally right. In your example, it depends entirely upon what expert visited your home and what your actions are in response to their suggestions are. If an interior decorator came and suggested you change the color scheme of your kitchen, you are certainly free to do so or not, as you like. If the expert is a serial killer suggesting good ways to torture victims, I don't believe you should be allowed to follow his suggestions.

No, that's wrong. I only assume there are subjective morals and the democracy is a good way to agree on common morality. It's you who imposes absolute morality onto others in saying that other people should not be allowed to listen to serial killers.

At the level of the United States government, every decision affects millions of people. The simple choice to reject an expert's opinion in favor of a celebrity's (for instance) has consequences far more serious than the color of your dishes. Yes, the expert opinions are wrong on occasion, but I believe that happens less often than the naive and easily-swayed opinions of the ruling mob.

Well, what evidence do you have, apart from "I believe"? There is for example a study from CATO institute that statistically shows that people are more able to limit politicians' spending that politicians do themselves. Similar studies have been done in Switzerland on cantonal level and confirm this finding. It's not a coincidence that the most successful countries in the world are usually also the most democratic (i.e. USA on local level and Switzerland).

I think you miss the point of (semi)direct democracy. The point is more power to the people who can keep politicians in democratic countries in check. In Switzerland, you can observe this directly - because people can decide things, politics is much less controversial. And as I said, if anything, there is evidence that the masses are actually more conservative than politicians.

And at last, there exist interesting proposals to solve the "expert" problem. My favorite is that you select a handful of people from population randomly (k

Ah, Switzerland... The population of New York City, spread across the area of Maryland, where social stratification is hidden by a stigma against looking too rich or looking too poor.

You're missing the other observed evidence of a direct democracy: ancient Athens, where playwrights swayed politics more easily than politicians did.

You're also assuming a requirement of absolute morality, where whatever you want is morally right. In your example, it depends entirely upon what expert visited your home and what your actions are in response to their suggestions are. If an interior decorator came and suggested you change the color scheme of your kitchen, you are certainly free to do so or not, as you like. If the expert is a serial killer suggesting good ways to torture victims, I don't believe you should be allowed to follow his suggestions.

At the level of the United States government, every decision affects millions of people. The simple choice to reject an expert's opinion in favor of a celebrity's (for instance) has consequences far more serious than the color of your dishes. Yes, the expert opinions are wrong on occasion, but I believe that happens less often than the naive and easily-swayed opinions of the ruling mob.

Ah, Switzerland... The population of New York City, spread across the area of Maryland, where social stratification is hidden by a stigma against looking too rich or looking too poor.

You're missing the other observed evidence of a direct democracy: ancient Athens, where playwrights swayed politics more easily than politicians did.

You're also assuming a requirement of absolute morality, where whatever you want is morally right. In your example, it depends entirely upon what expert visited your home and what your actions are in response to their suggestions are. If an interior decorator came and suggested you change the color scheme of your kitchen, you are certainly free to do so or not, as you like. If the expert is a serial killer suggesting good ways to torture victims, I don't believe you should be allowed to follow his suggestions.

At the level of the United States government, every decision affects millions of people. The simple choice to reject an expert's opinion in favor of a celebrity's (for instance) has consequences far more serious than the color of your dishes. Yes, the expert opinions are wrong on occasion, but I believe that happens less often than the naive and easily-swayed opinions of the ruling mob.

Ah, Switzerland... The population of New York City, spread across the area of Maryland, where social stratification is hidden by a stigma against looking too rich or looking too poor.

You're missing the other observed evidence of a direct democracy: ancient Athens, where playwrights swayed politics more easily than politicians did.

You're also assuming a requirement of absolute morality, where whatever you want is morally right. In your example, it depends entirely upon what expert visited your home and what your actions are in response to their suggestions are. If an interior decorator came and suggested you change the color scheme of your kitchen, you are certainly free to do so or not, as you like. If the expert is a serial killer suggesting good ways to torture victims, I don't believe you should be allowed to follow his suggestions.

At the level of the United States government, every decision affects millions of people. The simple choice to reject an expert's opinion in favor of a celebrity's (for instance) has consequences far more serious than the color of your dishes. Yes, the expert opinions are wrong on occasion, but I believe that happens less often than the naive and easily-swayed opinions of the ruling mob.

Ah, Switzerland... The population of New York City, spread across the area of Maryland, where social stratification is hidden by a stigma against looking too rich or looking too poor.

You're missing the other observed evidence of a direct democracy: ancient Athens, where playwrights swayed politics more easily than politicians did.

You're also assuming a requirement of absolute morality, where whatever you want is morally right. In your example, it depends entirely upon what expert visited your home and what your actions are in response to their suggestions are. If an interior decorator came and suggested you change the color scheme of your kitchen, you are certainly free to do so or not, as you like. If the expert is a serial killer suggesting good ways to torture victims, I don't believe you should be allowed to follow his suggestions.

At the level of the United States government, every decision affects millions of people. The simple choice to reject an expert's opinion in favor of a celebrity's (for instance) has consequences far more serious than the color of your dishes. Yes, the expert opinions are wrong on occasion, but I believe that happens less often than the naive and easily-swayed opinions of the ruling mob.

It's called a Dynamic Database:

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?DynamicRelational

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?MultiParadigmDatabase

"parent=rowID" references would make it hierarchical; or put another way, provide a hierarchical view.

It's called a Dynamic Database:

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?DynamicRelational

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?MultiParadigmDatabase

"parent=rowID" references would make it hierarchical; or put another way, provide a hierarchical view.

I can't think of any apps that would really need access to things not on that list

Accessing FireWire devices. Accessing Bluetooth devices. Making your application scriptable. (The entitlement for Apple events, used by AppleScript on Mac OS 7-9 and Mac OS X, is marked as one of "a couple of temporary exception entitlements that will be going away.") Taking layered screenshots. Loading third-party plug-ins that add functionality to a given application but aren't usable as stand-alone applications by themselves.

(keeping in mind that mounted hard drives would presumably come under filesystem)

There isn't an entitlement for accessing any file, other than using an Open or Save dialog. For example, a program for backing up the user's files is limited to the Movies, Music, Pictures, and Downloads folders unless the user chooses each file using an Open dialog followed by a Save dialog. And I don't see any entitlement for being able to open and save all files in an entire folder; otherwise, it'd be "files and folders the user has selected using an Open or Save dialog" instead of "files the user has selected using an Open or Save dialog".

that still make sense in the app store context.

So that we don't trip up on definitions and talk past each other, what does "the app store context" mean to you?

"screw it, they can exist outside the app store"

The persistent worry is that there won't be an "outside the app store", much as in the transition from Windows Mobile 6 to Windows Phone 7.

It's just that immutability is default, and you have to sprinkle "mutable" in your data structures where you actually need it.

That's a related idea to functional programming - single-assignment languages. The idea is that all (or at least most) names are "const" - they can only be assigned a value once. This works a lot like functional programming, but there's not so much nesting, and most things have names, rather than being anonymous within some nested expression.

Pure functional languages force programs into a tree form, with one output. A single assignment language forces programs into directed acyclic graph form, with multiple outputs, but no loops in the graph. (At least if you have some way to get multiple values returned from a function.)

Many newer "functional" languages are really single-assignment languages. This avoids getting buried in deeply nested parentheses, as with LISP.

Sounds like the environmentalists haven't heard of Profile Before Optimizing, aka "find out what draws power, first".

Why would the GSA possibly want your tweets?

A spec? Here ya go; just fill out the Language Feature Form, and hit the "Make Compiler/Interpreter" button*.

http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?InstantLanguageForm

* Button still in very early stages of implementation.

http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?GuiMarkupProposal

OK, we appear to have hit a definition clash. Let's start over: The advantage of an HTML5 web application over a native application is that a web application can be installed transparently into a more-or-less secure sandbox, unlike native applications that generally have access to the entire user account and whose installers have access to the entire system.

Because I have been defining "home theater PC" broadly as any PC using a TV as a monitor. (We appear to have fallen into Layne's Law.) Is there a better term that I should have used to refer to "a PC using a TV as a monitor"?

Why does it even have to be a PC using a TV as a monitor? Wouldn't a decent monitor be just as good?

So I guess next time I meet one of them, I need to ask: "How good would a game need to be to get people to hook a PC up to a TV to play it?"

I still don't understand why it has to be hooked up to a TV, but yes if that's what you want that's what you should ask rather than asking about HTPCs.

Because they don't already have the hardware to run its multiplayer mode

That's a different problem altogether, if they don't have the hardware they're unlikely to play anyway.

I guess one option is to get players hooked on the single-player portion of a PC game and then start introducing multiplayer; is this what you were thinking of?

Well generally gamers will play the single player portion first, so yes that works.

That's HTPCs again, why are you thinking of only targeting HTPCs?

Because I have been defining "home theater PC" broadly as any PC using a TV as a monitor. (We appear to have fallen into Layne's Law.) Is there a better term that I should have used to refer to "a PC using a TV as a monitor"?

No, they appear to believe there is no desire currently.

So I guess next time I meet one of them, I need to ask: "How good would a game need to be to get people to hook a PC up to a TV to play it?"

Why wouldn't they try an indie PC game?

Because they don't already have the hardware to run its multiplayer mode, such as a second PC next to the TV and PC-compatible gamepads for players 2 through 4. (Xbox 360 wired controllers work fine under Windows XP and later and Ubuntu, but Wii and PLAYSTATION 3 controllers and Xbox 360 wireless controllers need obscure drivers and/or dongles to work on a PC.) I guess one option is to get players hooked on the single-player portion of a PC game and then start introducing multiplayer; is this what you were thinking of?

My point is simply that to say its not locked down is a lie. [...] Why do people insist on trying to pretend GPL and LGPL are something they aren't?

Because "locked down" lately is more likely to mean "mandatory verification of digital signatures on all executables, with no way for a home user to permanently add his own root CA". This is true of TiVo, iOS, and all modern video game consoles, specifically to prevent users from taking advantage of the freedoms that developers have locked down for them. Ultimately we've run into yet another case of Layne's Law: discussion breaks down once it becomes a debate over the definition of a word.

Achmed will be able to make his 7pm WoW raid on Ragnaros in the Firelands.

You're closer to the truth than you know.

To borrow an image from a revolution ago (Unintentionally-ironic CAPTCHA: "macros"!), the folks that turned "If the government shuts down the internet, shut down your government" into a meme are now batting .750 - three out of four.

(No, really, here is some dude from some internet company being quoted on CNN as drawing inspiration from - and I quote - "someone who anonymously advocated for change")

Bouazizi? Down. Mubarak? Down. Gadaffi? OK, so he went full retard and it took a little longer and the Internet needed some help (in the form of bombs) from NATO, but down is still [i]down[/i].

Iran? Well, you always plan to throw one away. But even there, the regime's time is limited.

Are they Legion? Hell if I know. At three governments out of four, Anonymous is learning.

It appears we have an open definition debate. Let me define it how I see it: When used with a force unit, "weighs" means "has a weight of". When used with a mass unit, it means "has a mass of" despite its etymological link to "weight".

A good "secure-by-default" installation

One fundamental problem in home computer security is that vendors disagree on how to define "good 'secure-by-default' installation". For example, does it involve establishing a policy of trusting a third party to determine whether each program is safe and enforcing this policy with no way for the end user to override it? Apple (iOS), Microsoft (Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7), Nintendo, and Sony seem to think so.

It sounds like something between Excel and OpenDoc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDoc, http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?OpenDoc).

well, you know what they say: "Make it work, Make it right, Make it fast".

If you are seeing total loss of picture, or even uncorrected errors, then that is "not working".

It appears we are running into a definition conflict. Then let me try to reword my point under your definitions: In products intended for home entertainment, there exists a state of "not working yet acceptable". A better cable will reduce the chance that the signal will degrade from working to "not working yet acceptable" or from "not working yet acceptable" to unusable.

I'd rather pull long hours at a Foxconn plant than go to an early grave working in a US textile plant or coal mine decades ago.

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FalseDichotomy

Does it contain creative genius? Yes. The creative genius was the creator's decision to allow anyone to contribute, when everyone said it wouldn't work.

Then by your definition, the original c2 Wiki should be nominated (not Wikipedia)

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki

Yes, an Android-powered phone with the "Unknown sources" checkbox turned on is a general-purpose personal computer in a handheld form factor.

We appear to disagree on the definition of a word. Layne's Law implies that rational debate cannot continue until this is resolved. So what is the fundamental difference between a video game console and a personal computer? I can think of two differences, neither of which appears relevant to the processing or graphics rendering capability:

• Consoles come with standard-definition TV output as a standard feature, in addition to any high-definition capability. This, along with the smaller form factor, is responsible for getting a console into a living room instead of under a desk.
• Console firmware verifies digital signatures of all applications, and a home user ordinarily cannot add a certificate to run his own homemade applications or free software.

Right now, I couldn't name a single unlicensed sports game of any success level at all.

First, let's agree on what "licensed" means; otherwise, discussion is not fruitful. In one meaning of "licensed", all sports games for consoles are licensed because the consoles' firmware automatically rejects unlicensed games. So I'll assume you mean licensed by a league, as opposed to licensed by a console maker. But even within that stipulation, neither the meaning of "licensed" nor that of "sports game" is clear:

• Is chess a sport? BumpityBoo seems to think so.
• Is karate a sport? If so, do Street Fighter series and Super Smash Bros. series count as "licensed" or "unlicensed"?
• Is motor racing a sport? If so, does Mario Kart series count as "licensed" or "unlicensed"?
• And even if not, do Nintendo's other Mario sports games count as "licensed" or "unlicensed"?

Perl

Its just 0.01% efficiency I am worried about

Look, their ODF implementation in Office actually meets the word of the standard , yet can't open any file created by OO

1. Blog your progress. Whatever you did today, blog it. Let people know what you did that worked, or what was faster (Nginx vs. Apache), or what wasn't (ColdFusion?). Don't reinvent the wheel, use WordPress, regardless of whether you like PHP/MySQL or not.

2. Use a subscription/payment management company. You're just a small group of nerds, not accounts receivable clerks. Fastspring, Plimus are free; Chargify, Subsify, Cheddar Getter, BrainTree, Spreedly charge; and Zuora is expensive.

3. Use Google Docs and Slideshare to share documents.

4. Chat. Don't just rely on email. Emails can often read like "this way or the highway". Be collaborative. You can often accomplish more with 15-30min collaboratively as opposed to composing and responding to long emails. Skype, Jabber, SIP

5. Take notes on what you did. Made a server configuration or a setting change in your CMS, your compiler, or whatever? Copy and paste from xterm so you don't have to guess about those commandline switches next time. Take screenshots and make them available to others. Zim, Projly, DokuWiki.

6. Have a phone numbers. If not bog-standard landline phones, take advantage of Google Voice and SkypeOut and SkypeIn (people can call your Skype line on a normal phone number). I realize Google Voice might not be available in South Africa yet.

7. Someone mentioned version control. Use git if you're a cool kid. Or svn if you're old and busted. Read the RedBean book. I've had success in having non-tech colleagues using graphical clients like TortoiseSVN (integrates into Windows Explorer).

8. Write tests. Any member of your team, sitting anyplace, should be able to push a button and run all your tests. Tests document how you're supposed to use a given method, class, etc., especially valuable when you're so far flung. Use JUnit, PHPUnit, FooUnit for your language. Write the tests before you develop, and you're doing Test Driven Development.

9. If you're writing tests, that implies loose coupling, which might require dependency injection. Can be difficult to climb that mountain, but it's worth it when you can just run a test and be sure your project works.

10. Development processes: Scrum, Extreme Programming. UML lets you communicate graphically about objects.

I volunteered in sub-Saharan Africa, and I saw parents fighting for the right to have their children caned in school. Is that what you mean?

Any spam there is 10 years in prison offence

And thanks for all the fish. I will always the day I saw the article about legal threats to Linux Men I feel old now...

There are rumours that Apple will sue Android vendors for few of their patents in the Linux EXT4 filesystem that is going to be used in Android.

Yeah, HTC was sued recently for patents in the kernel by a patent troll

I mean they attack Linux from various angles? Like the FAT patent? Or various attacks against Google and android (yeah google is evil cause they didn't release the source, but yet?

Here help yourself.

I've found that people who believe that people with different tastes are simply choosing "whomever the movie studios tell them to elect through their co-owned TV news channels" almost never have anything remotely perceptive or interesting to say.

So you appear to dispute the effectiveness of MPAA-owned news outlets framing the issues. Is there a better way to explain why A. nobody proposing real change makes it past the primaries, and B. Ron Paul wasn't allowed to get a word in edgewise in the 2008 presidential debates, and C. both relevant U.S. political parties agree on expansion of the scope of copyright?

ObTopic: One of the articles comes from a source accused of pandering to people vulnerable to framing. The comparison between people vulnerable to framing and farm animals has been challenged. Productive discussion can't continue until participants agree on a better term for people vulnerable to framing.

If people are coming into video game programming without a working knowledge of the data structures and algorithms taught in second-year undergraduate computer science curriculum, then I agree, that's another thing entirely. Perhaps they've been able to get away with lack of such knowledge so far after years of having done the simplest thing that could possibly work on toy data sets. But having to know data structures and algorithms isn't the same as having to know "roll in the mud" C++, especially when your deployment method (BlackBerry App World, Windows Phone Marketplace, or Xbox Live Indie Games) doesn't allow standard C++.

While I'm not sold on TOP, Tablizer has a lot of interesting things to say. I very much enjoy his contributions to c2.com

I'd say he's vindicated here.

Those of us that are forced to work with the 'official corporate browser, IE' are the ones that end up paying for this.

It's not always that simple, but my immediate response to this would be change your organization or change your organization

I think Nintendo is evil but they have done less harm to gaming than Sony or Microsoft, and ALSO done less harm to the world.

I will admit that Atari is responsible for cryptographic lockout in the 7800, but Nintendo is single-handedly responsible for region coding. DVD borrows a principle invented by Nintendo.

Those aren't game consoles.

Definition disagreement detected. Layne's Law states that rational discussion cannot proceed without a solid definition of "game console". Can you define it to exclude small-form-factor gaming PCs with a 10-foot launcher installed but include the PS3 that "only does everything"?

http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?ThreeLawsOfRobotics

One, to avoid repeating cleanup/logging code when an error occurs within a deeply nested conditional. There are many who disagree with the use (or overuse) of exceptions, especially when used to control normal flow rather than catching true errors.

Two, when you're writing in assembler.

P.S. reading an essay, especially a polemic one, hardly counts as thinking for yourself.

In one line you offer a consumer line at 0.5 Mbps, in the next you offer that without overselling stuff would be more expensive.

What I meant to say but appear to have failed to get across is that ISPs advertise a speed in large print and then in small print disclaim that the advertised speed is not the sustained speed. If they were to provide their large-print speed as sustained rather than burst speed, they would have to charge far more. As I understand it, "overselling" in the home and small-business Internet access market refers to this practice of not buying enough upstream to serve advertised speed times the number of customers, relying on results from queueing theory under the assumption that traffic will be intermittent. If I misunderstand this, we have run into Layne's Law.

Words mean what they mean.

Another Layne's Law issue. If a government agency defines "broadband" for the purpose of its own study, then discussion of the study should use "broadband" in the way that the agency has defined it. Wikipedia's article about baseband appears to claim that the opposite is passband, not broadband. Broadband means only greater bandwidth, and since 2010, the U.S. FCC has defined broadband Internet access as 4000 kbps down and 1000 kbps up. I'd love to be proven wrong with reliable sources stating the contrary.

So we have a Layne's Law issue; now let's solve it. The PIC microcontroller or whatever in your microwave is a computer too, but most people don't think of that when they hear "computer" because it's embedded in an appliance. What is a short, catchy term by which one should refer to an end-user-programmable computer in statements to the public?

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CGN/is_1999_May_7/ai_54580586/
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?DotNetEcmaProcess

parent.element("person").element("addresses").element("work").element("line3").Value

That's not too hard to work around. Suppose that instead of returning an absolute NULL, each of those functions instead returns an "null" object? If they all work by returning a flyweight, then really you're just looping through the same empty-object over and over again.

I've done this in C++, PHP, and Python. I imagine it extends equally into other languages. The C or C++ approach would be to have a global static hidden somewhere in the source file, and just use that constant as your null object.