When considering most of the drivel on TV today, I agree with you. However, I find a lot of shows on e.g. PBS/WTTW interesting, but I wouldn't expect them all to be self-sufficient. I would be happy funding a fair amount of those shows with tax dollars, since 1) they serve an education purpose in a way that meets the most viewers, and 2) they're not spoon-feeding laugh-track drivel, which I already "pay" for by the ubiquity of advertisements littered around the city.
Demolition man is a direct descendent of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Even down to the character names (John the Savage = John Spartan, Lenina Crowne = Lenina Huxley).
But maybe I'm over-analyzing it all. Another theory is that it's just dumbness at work. If you've ever worked on any significant corporate projects, you've seen lots of requirements that make no sense at all to the techies in the labs. This is just one of them.
If you want my opinion, I say fuck'em. Take your passive/aggressive behavior and just change it to assertiveness, and call him out in front of his boss on why arbitrary demands need to be checked at the door. They're detracting from the company's bottom line, and surely someone at his level or above understands that. Or if that won't fly, spend extra time learning your craft better, so you can make yourself a more valuable asset, then avail yourself to someone with more sense in their head. If you're not in a position to get out of a braindead culture like that, my condolences go to you.
Well, yes, but here's the thing. It's easy to make a page look good in all browsers and be future-proof, but it does limit the artistic control of the designer. It's really just another application of the 80/20 rule. 80% of the desired style can be developed cheaply and be both accessible and (mostly) standards-compliant. The other 20% that customers get really goddamn picky about is what causes the expense. That's the stuff like pixel-perfect accuracy, arbitrary embedded media, and all of the gaudy flash that most sites would be better off without anyways.
And that's why I never got into the mercenery web developer business.
Does your room-mate have full blown anaphylaxis or does she just get red/itchy/swollen?
Never heard that word before, so I don't know. Touching her arm with a banana would give her a rash, and if she were to blow up a balloon, she would probably die.
Did you have to make many concessions?
Nope, I just had to remember to not leave balloons around. She provided the bandaids, we never needed the condoms, and she wasn't allowed to eat my guacamole.
Wanna tell me how I can easily replace my captcha system with something a blind person, but not scammers can use?
No, because in the worst case, scammers will employ people to solve the captcha. Moderation systems, while being much more work to maintain, are also more effective at blocking spam and allowing blind people (unless the blind people do nothing but spew unintelligible crap and shady URLs).
I'm a huge proponent of REASONABLE accommodations. Expecting a double-cost change is silly. Expecting simple, standard practices is community-beneficial...
The problem is that the average web developer is technically incompetant, simply because of the low barriers to entry. I know that for me, making a website "accessible" from the ground up requires negligable overhead, because sites like validator.w3.org are already standard debugging tools. However, a professional web developer of equivalent skill could easily charge twice the median going rate and be worth the money. But so many customers are just accustomed to crap websites and "look at the static image of our site in IE 6.0, it's shiny" that they can't see the value in paying more.
1) Latex isn't aromatic. It should be possible to keep the child away from the Latex without removing it from the school.
2) The gloves are used for safety and a good substitute may not exist.
I had a roommate who was allergic to latex. She informed me that many good hospitals are switching over to entirely non-latex equipment (mostly gloves and bandages). For most situations, good substitutes do exist. She also informed me that she has allergic reactions from powdery dust stuff coming off of other people's latex gloves.
Now the masses will turn somewhere else for high-quality FOSS SQL...
You mean like Postgres? (^:
Re:It is not just the language
on
The Return of Ada
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
> In Ada, you can declare a variable to be an integer in the range 1..100, and if it goes outside that range at any point during its lifetime, an exception is immediately thrown. In most languages, you'd have to check it every time you assign it.
I know it's not the same, but can't you get the same effect in other languages? In particular, C++ can be used to implement numbers with ranges and units. Something like this...
template <int min_value, int max_value, typename type_tag> class checked_integer;
You can cast a HashMap to HashMap without any way to check if it is valid at compile OR run time. Compared to that, C++ can be used for safer programming by encapsulating all pointers into template classes and relying on local destructors for reliable memory management.
Don't get me wrong, I definitely prefer C++ over Java, but you're missing something huge.
C++ compilation is Turing-complete because of templates, making it balls-hard to write effective tools for. Java source can be fed into static analysis tools that will guarantee that your HashMap will only contain Doubles, and never any other type of Object. The same can generally not be said for C++ code with templates, because no one wants to write the tools to do so. Just look at the relative power for refactoring that Eclipse has with Java when compared to Visual C++ and any of the best C++ refactoring tools currently in existence. Eclipse wins, hands down.
...I actually play my movies on a Linux box using VLC and Nvidia (with Nvidia drivers). It simply works better than any commercial upscaler I have seen so far. In fact it works so good that I do not see the point of buying and HD media for at least the next few years.
You know, no amount of upsampling will increase the resolution (which is what you get with HD media). But anyways, do you know offhand what algorithms your setup uses for upsampling? I'm curious how that would compare to how most hardware HD upsamplers work, since it's easier to introduce nonlinear filters in software, but arbitrarily more expensive.
The idea of "statutory rape" has been around for a while, and that's a good thing. I'm pretty sure that no matter how "consensual" you might think it is, an adult having sex with a thirteen year-old cannot be anything but rape.
IANADad, but the idea that I had was that statutory rape laws break down when a different-age couple hits a certain age, depending on local laws for "age of consent"; and their previously irresponsible activities become criminal. In particular, because girls tend to date older guys, it gives the parents of the girl tremendous legal leverage against her boyfriend. A situation like that is IMO abuse of the corner cases of the law, and significantly different from the black-and-white of 13yo vs. 21yo.
Quick googling shows Illinois laws. If the younger is between 13-17 and the older is within 5 years, it's only "criminal sexual abuse". If the older is over 5 years above, it's "aggrivated criminal sexual abuse". So Illinois is sort-of accounting for this situation.
At most, they should probably release movies in 3D and 2D formats. (Which is what Pixar is planning on doing, I believe.)
Especially since the right eye of most stereoscopic images would be sufficient footage. Not doing a 2D version would be like saying, "Sorry, I can't sell you a car; I have two of them for sale."
I don't think to myself, "you know, this movie is good, but it would be GREAT IN COLOR!" I thought Robin Hood was great, but that's because it had a great, compelling story.
Color is just sugar coating. It's in the same league as sound. Maybe it can show you something you've never seen before, but it doesn't really expand the story.
When it comes to 3D movies, the people who make them assume that the images are going to line up perfectly in your brain to make the 3D effect. The images don't line up right for her so the 3D effect is ruined.
As sad as that may be for your mother and people like her... I don't know what alternative the studios would have, short of not producing 3D films. I'd say it's a pretty fair assumption to make, from a technical standpoint.
it's easier to do this on computer animation films since you already have all of the z-depth values.
Nitpick... z-depth values are the result of projecting a 3D scene onto a "layered" 2D raster. What's important is the original scene geometry (which you then film from 2 cameras instead of 1). If all you had was z-depth, you would already be partially SOL.
Erm, if they decompose in the water and release tons of CO2, won't it turn into carbonic acid and decrease the water's pH? (It wouldn't be by a lot, but the whole point to this is that small changes may produce systemic effects.)
IANABiologist, but I do have a planted aquarium. There are a few other things to consider:
Plants respirate at night (just like animals), and all planted tanks have daily pH shifts due to the varying CO2 level. This happens in other bodies of water as well, but it would be less pronounced in the ocean with higher ratio of water:plants.
Aquatic plants use a lot less CO2 than terrestrial plants. IIRC, air has 300 times the capacity for CO2 at room temperature. It would take a lot of aquatic plant growth to make even a minor impact in the terrestrial CO2.
Most of the CO2 gets converted into solid matter, which means it's more probable that adding CO2 to a system may result in more organic matter all around (more grass -> more rabbits -> more foxes), rather than just an increase in dissolved CO2 in the water.
I'm leery of projects that are written to MySQL specifically...if you don't know enough to use an abstraction layer...
It's more than just the abstraction layer. There are two levels to deal with:
API functions used to access the database. For example, mysql_*() and pgsql_*() functions in PHP should be replaced with PDO for consistent access regardless of database.
SQL syntax and functionality used. ADOdb solves this by providing PHP functions for building specific SQL portions (e.g. using LIMIT for MySQL and Postgres, but something else for other database engines).
I'm all for using PDO, but I looked at ADOdb and decided I'd rather use my database rather than attempt to hide it under the covers. Plus, something like PDO doesn's support advanced database features, like Postgres's LISTEN and NOTIFY support, which can be very valuable for basic asynchronous communication between e.g. a web interface and any particular backend daemon.
Slashdot Mirror
For some reason, that triggered the thought of a mod -1: Bad Command or File name.
When considering most of the drivel on TV today, I agree with you. However, I find a lot of shows on e.g. PBS/WTTW interesting, but I wouldn't expect them all to be self-sufficient. I would be happy funding a fair amount of those shows with tax dollars, since 1) they serve an education purpose in a way that meets the most viewers, and 2) they're not spoon-feeding laugh-track drivel, which I already "pay" for by the ubiquity of advertisements littered around the city.
Demolition man is a direct descendent of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Even down to the character names (John the Savage = John Spartan, Lenina Crowne = Lenina Huxley).
If you want my opinion, I say fuck'em. Take your passive/aggressive behavior and just change it to assertiveness, and call him out in front of his boss on why arbitrary demands need to be checked at the door. They're detracting from the company's bottom line, and surely someone at his level or above understands that. Or if that won't fly, spend extra time learning your craft better, so you can make yourself a more valuable asset, then avail yourself to someone with more sense in their head. If you're not in a position to get out of a braindead culture like that, my condolences go to you.
Well, yes, but here's the thing. It's easy to make a page look good in all browsers and be future-proof, but it does limit the artistic control of the designer. It's really just another application of the 80/20 rule. 80% of the desired style can be developed cheaply and be both accessible and (mostly) standards-compliant. The other 20% that customers get really goddamn picky about is what causes the expense. That's the stuff like pixel-perfect accuracy, arbitrary embedded media, and all of the gaudy flash that most sites would be better off without anyways.
And that's why I never got into the mercenery web developer business.
Never heard that word before, so I don't know. Touching her arm with a banana would give her a rash, and if she were to blow up a balloon, she would probably die.
Nope, I just had to remember to not leave balloons around. She provided the bandaids, we never needed the condoms, and she wasn't allowed to eat my guacamole.
No, because in the worst case, scammers will employ people to solve the captcha. Moderation systems, while being much more work to maintain, are also more effective at blocking spam and allowing blind people (unless the blind people do nothing but spew unintelligible crap and shady URLs).
Fixed that for you, even though I know you're joking.
The problem is that the average web developer is technically incompetant, simply because of the low barriers to entry. I know that for me, making a website "accessible" from the ground up requires negligable overhead, because sites like validator.w3.org are already standard debugging tools. However, a professional web developer of equivalent skill could easily charge twice the median going rate and be worth the money. But so many customers are just accustomed to crap websites and "look at the static image of our site in IE 6.0, it's shiny" that they can't see the value in paying more.
I had a roommate who was allergic to latex. She informed me that many good hospitals are switching over to entirely non-latex equipment (mostly gloves and bandages). For most situations, good substitutes do exist. She also informed me that she has allergic reactions from powdery dust stuff coming off of other people's latex gloves.
You mean like Postgres? (^:
> In Ada, you can declare a variable to be an integer in the range 1..100, and if it goes outside that range at any point during its lifetime, an exception is immediately thrown. In most languages, you'd have to check it every time you assign it.
// whoops, colliding with C runtime, ignore that
// compiles // doesn't compile
// throws exception when instantiated with out-of-range value
I know it's not the same, but can't you get the same effect in other languages? In particular, C++ can be used to implement numbers with ranges and units. Something like this...
template <int min_value, int max_value, typename type_tag>
class checked_integer;
struct distance_tag { };
struct time_tag { };
struct speed_tag { };
typedef checked_integer<1, 100, distance_tag> distance_t;
typedef checked_integer<1, 10, time_tag> time_t;
typedef checked_integer<1, 10, speed_tag> speed_t;
// add some other function or template specification that distance / time = speed
meters_t distance = 30;
seconds_t time = 5;
speed_t speed = distance / time;
meters_t whoops = distance / time;
meters_t distance = 100000;
Don't get me wrong, I definitely prefer C++ over Java, but you're missing something huge.
C++ compilation is Turing-complete because of templates, making it balls-hard to write effective tools for. Java source can be fed into static analysis tools that will guarantee that your HashMap will only contain Doubles, and never any other type of Object. The same can generally not be said for C++ code with templates, because no one wants to write the tools to do so. Just look at the relative power for refactoring that Eclipse has with Java when compared to Visual C++ and any of the best C++ refactoring tools currently in existence. Eclipse wins, hands down.
You know, no amount of upsampling will increase the resolution (which is what you get with HD media). But anyways, do you know offhand what algorithms your setup uses for upsampling? I'm curious how that would compare to how most hardware HD upsamplers work, since it's easier to introduce nonlinear filters in software, but arbitrarily more expensive.
IANADad, but the idea that I had was that statutory rape laws break down when a different-age couple hits a certain age, depending on local laws for "age of consent"; and their previously irresponsible activities become criminal. In particular, because girls tend to date older guys, it gives the parents of the girl tremendous legal leverage against her boyfriend. A situation like that is IMO abuse of the corner cases of the law, and significantly different from the black-and-white of 13yo vs. 21yo.
Quick googling shows Illinois laws. If the younger is between 13-17 and the older is within 5 years, it's only "criminal sexual abuse". If the older is over 5 years above, it's "aggrivated criminal sexual abuse". So Illinois is sort-of accounting for this situation.
Especially since the right eye of most stereoscopic images would be sufficient footage. Not doing a 2D version would be like saying, "Sorry, I can't sell you a car; I have two of them for sale."
Fixed that for you.
Oh yeah? Well you're grouchy!
As sad as that may be for your mother and people like her... I don't know what alternative the studios would have, short of not producing 3D films. I'd say it's a pretty fair assumption to make, from a technical standpoint.
The Prisoner? I can't think of a more masterful abuse of striped "french mime" shirts technology. And Tinker-Toys.
Nitpick... z-depth values are the result of projecting a 3D scene onto a "layered" 2D raster. What's important is the original scene geometry (which you then film from 2 cameras instead of 1). If all you had was z-depth, you would already be partially SOL.
IANABiologist, but I do have a planted aquarium. There are a few other things to consider:
What, like one of those movies with the 3d glasses?
Symmetry and the Golden Ratio. There, I did it.
It's more than just the abstraction layer. There are two levels to deal with:
- API functions used to access the database. For example, mysql_*() and pgsql_*() functions in PHP should be replaced with PDO for consistent access regardless of database.
- SQL syntax and functionality used. ADOdb solves this by providing PHP functions for building specific SQL portions (e.g. using LIMIT for MySQL and Postgres, but something else for other database engines).
I'm all for using PDO, but I looked at ADOdb and decided I'd rather use my database rather than attempt to hide it under the covers. Plus, something like PDO doesn's support advanced database features, like Postgres's LISTEN and NOTIFY support, which can be very valuable for basic asynchronous communication between e.g. a web interface and any particular backend daemon.