That's possibly a VERY bad idea. Even with small queries it's possible to create huge intermediate result tables and loading all that data into your application will make it crash. And if that doesn't happen, breaking a complex SQL statement into separate parts robs the SQL query optimizer of useful information. Your code limits the choices for an optimum evaluation plan, but how close is your code to the optimum plan that can be achieved?
Having said that, the optimizers can't work magic. I sometimes split up SQL statements to force a certain strategy, when the result of the optimized plan is garbage.
Add in an expert commission to review the machines...
Fail. The ruling specifically says that evoting has to be transparent to the average citizen that is no computer expert. Good look coming up with a scheme that fulfills this requirement.
Your personal health has no direct dealing with the government in the nominal case unless you socialize health care.
That wasn't true in the old days when you had to be healthy enough to work on the field to pay your taxes. It's even less true in a modern state, where the government pays out social services to all kinds of people.
The government has a HUGE interest in keeping the people healthy, because sick people are a drain on the economy. As twostic has so aptly pointed out the US already has parts of socialism in it. There are many other examples. Once you go down that road, universal or "socialised" health care becomes a nobrainer.
I think the other error is far more likely, because when a vision-impaired person brings something in their hand to their face they look down and therefore the phone will be in an angled position. But what happens when you want to take a picture of something in that position?
On the other hand, using both hands to hold a camera steadies it which leads to better pictures. The device could use its surface sensors to enforce this behavior (whenever possible), subtly helping people making better pics.
Broadening the focus on technical properties other than megapixel still misses the point that people take pictures and not cameras. The fact is that no technical property is a good indicator of the quality of a picture, because technology improves and changes all the time. Restricting yourself to an old and/or lofi camera can be lots of fun and that's the real challenge: making good pics with any camera.
The law does state clear limits on the usage of the Bundestrojaner, but those don't mean squat if the courts just rubber stamp requests from law enforcement.
Which is exactly what is happening with phone wiretaps in Germany right now. A court request for a phone wiretap is basically a simple form with a line that says "check here to authorize" and that's it.
Unsurprisingly, Germany is the country with the most wiretaps per capita in the EU by a very large margin.
In fairness, I should add that the requirements are more stringent in theory in that the judge has to argue in writing why the Bundestrojaner is required in a case. (The CCC calls it "Richtervorbehalt 2.0".) But it remains it be seen if that has any practical effect and personally I am skeptical given the current political climate.
Most of the problems you describe can be solved by automatic transparent versioning and a snapshot feature. A "Save" operation would create a named snapshot of the current object state. Snapshots are of course auto-deleted like old backup copies, unless the user locks them.
The privacy issues with sharing object history when sharing a file are bogus as well. A user could simply export the current version without any history. The downside here is that it requires interaction by the user. On the other hand, it could be wrapped in a "Share" operation.
IMNSHO, the explicit "File-Save" operation is a 30-year-old crutch that is bad UI design and I can't wait until an operating system implements auto-save and transparent versioning.
The sound comes from the mirror flipping up (and down). Better DSLRs have a mirror lock-up feature: The mirror flips up (making the sound), but the shutter stays closed. As you've guessed, this is done to minimize vibrations when the picture is actually taken.
The up-shot is that this law would effectively outlaw that feature: Pervs could just keep the mirror in the up position all the time.
The bill of rights only protects citizens of the USA. It doesn't protect anyone else.
Most rights laid out in the Bill of RIghts do apply to anybody in the US, even if their relationship might be different. For example, a foreigner can be deported, but he still has the right to due process and doesn't have to incriminate himself (5th amendment). On the other hand, if a foreigner is accused of a capital crime, he has a right to contact his embassy and to be represented by them (treaty obligation), a right which US citizens do not enjoy, because it makes no sense there.
And of course, the 1st amendment applies to anybody (*cough*Rupert Murdoch*cough*).
As far as the Holocaust goes, the worst that the Wehrmacht did was use slave labour, which is extremely bad, but not "the mass murders that the Nazi regime is most famous for".
That's flat out wrong and your own link contradicts this view. Specifically, the Wehrmacht (thanks for the correction) is guilty of mass executing the Jewish civilian population in the conquered areas and not only POWs and partisans. And while it's true that the SS did a lot of the dirty work, the Wehrmacht provided support and is thus as much as culpable as the SS. Also in many cases Wehrmacht soldiers did the shooting themselves.
Fuzzing over the details a bit, it helps to think of the SS as not being part of the German millitary. They were more like a Praetorian Guard/political police force. As such, they weren't brought up in the millitary tradition and codes of conduct. That's why it was them who carried out pretty much all of the horrible war crimes, and not the Bundeswehr.
(I'm sure the Bundeswehr did commit plenty of war crimes, but generally speaking, not the mass murders that the Nazi regime is most famous for.)
That piece of historical revisionism has been thoroughly debunked. The Bundeswehr was as guilty of the Nazi atrocities as the rest.
Self-censorship is not the same as censorship by another party, insofar as it has a very different effect on people. It's not that you can't say certain things, but that you don't know exactly what will get you in trouble. Plus, the spys will collect dirt on you until they need it. Both facts will make you drastically change your behavior in ways that direct censorship wouldn't. IHMO, spying on people to make them censor themselves is much more heinous.
And censoring kiddie porn might have some merits because the censored content is clearly illegal. Public attitudes about it will not be changed by this action which was really the goal of the East German secret police and not the censorship per se.
The problem here is that the filter will most likely expand into other areas once it is implemented.
No, she shouldn't. If she "bought" the software less than two weeks ago she can cancel without a reason (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernabsatzgesetz). If the two weeks have passed she should contact the local consumer protection agencies.
IIRC, courts in Germany have ruled outrageous clauses hidden in the fine print of a contract to be void.
I suspect the scammers hide this fact somewhere in the fine print and then wait two weeks to mail out the first payment request.
Even then a court will most likely render the contract void. A contract requires that both parties know what they are agreeing to. A good lawyer could successfully argue that everybody knows OpenOffice is a free download and that's what she was expecting to get. IIRC, German courts have ruled that outrageous claims hidden in the fine print of a contract are void.
Camera phones are a great invention, but the quality of the camera component is really at the low end. These includes better models like the Sony Cybershot series.
You can make beautiful pictures with a phone if you keep its limitations in mind. Personally, my goal is always to make the picture look good on the phone display and not to care about viewing it on the big screen where artifacts and camera shake are more obvious.
But bearing a breakthrough in miniaturization, camera phones will never offer the options that a real camera offers (including the better digital point and shoots), simply due to size constraints in the optics department.
Just read X.m(Y) as "use X to do m on Y" instead:)
But that's really the opposite of OO semantics which is do m on X with Y. That's bad in a sense that it is not the intuitive thing to do for a beginner. I agree, once you get the idiom, it's very powerful.
Your join example is of the same kind. But still better than have something like StringUtils.join(sep, collection) in Java.
Good question. IHMO, substitute would be a better choice since that's always going on, isn't it?
In Java format belongs to a Formatter class and there's DateFormatter etc., so the code would look differently and convey another set of semantics.
What's really wrong with the new Python syntax is that format is applied to the wrong entity. In:
"foo: {bar}".format(bar="baz")
the data that is formatted is bar="baz" and "foo: {bar}" is really the representation. So it should be:
data = { key=value,...) data.format("representation")
I forget, does Python support inline creation of hash tables? Then you could inline data:
{key=value,...}.format("representation")
Now, if you change format to toString, the API makes sense.
It's kinda like the if ("string".equals(variable)) idiom in Java. It works and has the added benefit of protecting against NullPointerExceptions, but it's not really conveying the intent of the programmer at first glance. Takes a while to get used to.
Slashdot Mirror
That's possibly a VERY bad idea. Even with small queries it's possible to create huge intermediate result tables and loading all that data into your application will make it crash. And if that doesn't happen, breaking a complex SQL statement into separate parts robs the SQL query optimizer of useful information. Your code limits the choices for an optimum evaluation plan, but how close is your code to the optimum plan that can be achieved?
Having said that, the optimizers can't work magic. I sometimes split up SQL statements to force a certain strategy, when the result of the optimized plan is garbage.
Add in an expert commission to review the machines ...
Fail. The ruling specifically says that evoting has to be transparent to the average citizen that is no computer expert. Good look coming up with a scheme that fulfills this requirement.
Are you sure it wasn't a Safari 3 update?
I ran Software Update last night and it did not install the Safari 4 beta.
That wasn't true in the old days when you had to be healthy enough to work on the field to pay your taxes. It's even less true in a modern state, where the government pays out social services to all kinds of people.
The government has a HUGE interest in keeping the people healthy, because sick people are a drain on the economy. As twostic has so aptly pointed out the US already has parts of socialism in it. There are many other examples. Once you go down that road, universal or "socialised" health care becomes a nobrainer.
Consequences that are way out of proportion like the relevant case are tyranny.
On the other hand, as I'm fairly confident that this will go nowhere, it makes for a good story when she's older.
I think the other error is far more likely, because when a vision-impaired person brings something in their hand to their face they look down and therefore the phone will be in an angled position. But what happens when you want to take a picture of something in that position?
On the other hand, using both hands to hold a camera steadies it which leads to better pictures. The device could use its surface sensors to enforce this behavior (whenever possible), subtly helping people making better pics.
Broadening the focus on technical properties other than megapixel still misses the point that people take pictures and not cameras. The fact is that no technical property is a good indicator of the quality of a picture, because technology improves and changes all the time. Restricting yourself to an old and/or lofi camera can be lots of fun and that's the real challenge: making good pics with any camera.
The law does state clear limits on the usage of the Bundestrojaner, but those don't mean squat if the courts just rubber stamp requests from law enforcement.
Which is exactly what is happening with phone wiretaps in Germany right now. A court request for a phone wiretap is basically a simple form with a line that says "check here to authorize" and that's it.
Unsurprisingly, Germany is the country with the most wiretaps per capita in the EU by a very large margin.
In fairness, I should add that the requirements are more stringent in theory in that the judge has to argue in writing why the Bundestrojaner is required in a case. (The CCC calls it "Richtervorbehalt 2.0".) But it remains it be seen if that has any practical effect and personally I am skeptical given the current political climate.
Most of the problems you describe can be solved by automatic transparent versioning and a snapshot feature. A "Save" operation would create a named snapshot of the current object state. Snapshots are of course auto-deleted like old backup copies, unless the user locks them.
The privacy issues with sharing object history when sharing a file are bogus as well. A user could simply export the current version without any history. The downside here is that it requires interaction by the user. On the other hand, it could be wrapped in a "Share" operation.
IMNSHO, the explicit "File-Save" operation is a 30-year-old crutch that is bad UI design and I can't wait until an operating system implements auto-save and transparent versioning.
True. That's what tripods are for.
Practically though, having a huge DSLR in your face already draws enough attention around you, so there's really no need for a artificial sound.
Lobbyists will argue for an exemption on high-end cameras. And once you have one exemption...
The sound comes from the mirror flipping up (and down). Better DSLRs have a mirror lock-up feature: The mirror flips up (making the sound), but the shutter stays closed. As you've guessed, this is done to minimize vibrations when the picture is actually taken.
The up-shot is that this law would effectively outlaw that feature: Pervs could just keep the mirror in the up position all the time.
The bill of rights only protects citizens of the USA. It doesn't protect anyone else.
Most rights laid out in the Bill of RIghts do apply to anybody in the US, even if their relationship might be different. For example, a foreigner can be deported, but he still has the right to due process and doesn't have to incriminate himself (5th amendment). On the other hand, if a foreigner is accused of a capital crime, he has a right to contact his embassy and to be represented by them (treaty obligation), a right which US citizens do not enjoy, because it makes no sense there.
And of course, the 1st amendment applies to anybody (*cough*Rupert Murdoch*cough*).
As far as the Holocaust goes, the worst that the Wehrmacht did was use slave labour, which is extremely bad, but not "the mass murders that the Nazi regime is most famous for".
That's flat out wrong and your own link contradicts this view. Specifically, the Wehrmacht (thanks for the correction) is guilty of mass executing the Jewish civilian population in the conquered areas and not only POWs and partisans. And while it's true that the SS did a lot of the dirty work, the Wehrmacht provided support and is thus as much as culpable as the SS. Also in many cases Wehrmacht soldiers did the shooting themselves.
Fuzzing over the details a bit, it helps to think of the SS as not being part of the German millitary. They were more like a Praetorian Guard/political police force. As such, they weren't brought up in the millitary tradition and codes of conduct. That's why it was them who carried out pretty much all of the horrible war crimes, and not the Bundeswehr.
(I'm sure the Bundeswehr did commit plenty of war crimes, but generally speaking, not the mass murders that the Nazi regime is most famous for.)
That piece of historical revisionism has been thoroughly debunked. The Bundeswehr was as guilty of the Nazi atrocities as the rest.
a cereal fucker
Self-censorship is not the same as censorship by another party, insofar as it has a very different effect on people. It's not that you can't say certain things, but that you don't know exactly what will get you in trouble. Plus, the spys will collect dirt on you until they need it. Both facts will make you drastically change your behavior in ways that direct censorship wouldn't. IHMO, spying on people to make them censor themselves is much more heinous.
And censoring kiddie porn might have some merits because the censored content is clearly illegal. Public attitudes about it will not be changed by this action which was really the goal of the East German secret police and not the censorship per se.
The problem here is that the filter will most likely expand into other areas once it is implemented.
No, she shouldn't. If she "bought" the software less than two weeks ago she can cancel without a reason (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernabsatzgesetz). If the two weeks have passed she should contact the local consumer protection agencies.
IIRC, courts in Germany have ruled outrageous clauses hidden in the fine print of a contract to be void.
I suspect the scammers hide this fact somewhere in the fine print and then wait two weeks to mail out the first payment request.
Even then a court will most likely render the contract void. A contract requires that both parties know what they are agreeing to. A good lawyer could successfully argue that everybody knows OpenOffice is a free download and that's what she was expecting to get. IIRC, German courts have ruled that outrageous claims hidden in the fine print of a contract are void.
The Life Of Others dealt with the secret police spying on the people. That's not the same as censorship.
Yes, I have done aspirin, ibuprofen, alcohol, and probably a couple of others, but never anything injected, smoked, or illegal.
How do you do aspirin? Snort it like cheap blow?
SCNR
If you want a crappy camera phone, sure.
Camera phones are a great invention, but the quality of the camera component is really at the low end. These includes better models like the Sony Cybershot series.
You can make beautiful pictures with a phone if you keep its limitations in mind. Personally, my goal is always to make the picture look good on the phone display and not to care about viewing it on the big screen where artifacts and camera shake are more obvious.
But bearing a breakthrough in miniaturization, camera phones will never offer the options that a real camera offers (including the better digital point and shoots), simply due to size constraints in the optics department.
Just read X.m(Y) as "use X to do m on Y" instead :)
But that's really the opposite of OO semantics which is do m on X with Y. That's bad in a sense that it is not the intuitive thing to do for a beginner. I agree, once you get the idiom, it's very powerful.
Your join example is of the same kind. But still better than have something like StringUtils.join(sep, collection) in Java.
Good question. IHMO, substitute would be a better choice since that's always going on, isn't it?
...)
...}.format("representation")
In Java format belongs to a Formatter class and there's DateFormatter etc., so the code would look differently and convey another set of semantics.
What's really wrong with the new Python syntax is that format is applied to the wrong entity. In:
"foo: {bar}".format(bar="baz")
the data that is formatted is bar="baz" and "foo: {bar}" is really the representation. So it should be:
data = { key=value,
data.format("representation")
I forget, does Python support inline creation of hash tables? Then you could inline data:
{key=value,
Now, if you change format to toString, the API makes sense.
It's kinda like the if ("string".equals(variable)) idiom in Java. It works and has the added benefit of protecting against NullPointerExceptions, but it's not really conveying the intent of the programmer at first glance. Takes a while to get used to.
Accidentally hit the submit button. The code should be
>>> "User ID: {uid} Last seen: {last_login}".format(
... uid="root",
... last_login = "5 Mar 2008 07:20")