Actually, it's already been determined that the collapse of a quantum entanglement is not a 'communication', since you cannot determine or effect which state these particles are in, just that they are in a similar state. I've read a doc somewhere which explains this much more clearly, but basically, it doesn't break GR.
Actually, as is commonly noted alongside this experiment, if you use a device which measures which slit the particle goes through, the wave is collapsed at the moment that device performs that detection. That means you will always get a collapsed wave, whether the cat has a soul/is alive/etc or not.
There is a lot of talk around just now about the net is changing economic paradigms. Amongst the talk of dot com companies, and net based organisations going broke, and the differences between intellectual property and traditional property, there seems to be emerging a fundamental underlying difference between the way the net works and the way traditional commerce works.
The examples I give above are probably only a very few of the indications that applying traditional economic and marketing strategies to the net just doesn't work.
Am I the only one here who can see that split?
So why are people still insisting on trying to employ those useless techniques to a field where they obviously will fail?
In my opinion, given a little time, what we'll see is a settling of the 'net economy.. the process of natural selection will weed out the ones who are stuck in the past, or limited by 50 year old mission statements, and what will remain will be those who have innovated, picked a market and made their own way into it, thinking their way around the problem, rather than picking up a solution off the historical shelf.
Perhaps it's a few years off, but I'd say that in the not-too distant future, we'll see a new set of business practices and marketing techniques.. ones that apply purely to the net, and ones that work only on the net.
The best thing about it right now is that I'm living at the time when I can think up those innovations, develop those business practices, and have a chance to make a real change to the world (or at least the 'net world).
From what I've heard from the Australian 2600 mailing list, the broadcast will be about 15 seconds long, and spaced such that each frame is easily captured on a standard video cassette, and can be re-viewed page by page using frame-by-frame advance.
The guy who's setting it up has actually put a fair amount of thought into it, and the DeCSS won't be the only thing that is broadcast. From what I remember, he intends to broadcast a number of other 'supressed' images or texts in the 15 second slot.
Also from memory, he's organising a local mob to do a little music to run over it, and he'll be flashing the 2600 web address at the end.
For all of those who are already asking 'but isn't this pointless, everyone already has DeCSS?', the point is not to distribute DeCSS, but to demonstrate that censorship of items such as DeCSS leads only to more and more widespread distribution, even to the point of datacasting it across Australian television at 3am.
I can't seem to find where to do meta-moderation anywhere, although I have a vague recollection of a question "Have you meta-moderated today?".
No idea where it was though, and I can't find it now. From reading some of the info on meta-moderation, it seems if you're eligible to moderate, you're eligible to meta-moderate. I've moderated in the past, but just can't for the life of me work out how to meta-moderate.
What might be a nice idea would be to have some ongoing puzzles, of the 'classic' variety, like the knight's tour and such. These sorts of puzzles have been around forever and a day, and it's not so much a matter of solving them, as all the implications of the solution.
In a book I read recently, there were quite a few connections drawn between chess and chess puzzles, and the mathematics behind things like the knights tour and the mathematics behind other forms of 'entertainment' like classical music and such.
These sorts of puzzles are likely to inspire conversations on those related topics, and many of them could be quite enlightening..
Perhaps there could even be a small karma reward (like 1 point) for each regular puzzle, and some random awards for contributions to the ongoing puzzles?
Anyone who has read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson will be familiar with the concept of the great library.. a gigantic database that is the store of every little piece of information you can imagine.
People pay to access the information, and a part of that payment goes to whomever provided it in the first place, making it a very nice system indeed:)
Of course, it also spawns a series of 'gargoyles' who strap video cameras and sensors and other input devices to themselves so that they can transmit everything they experience back to the library.. in the hope that by sheer volume, someone will access their information, and they'll be paid for it:)
Perhaps an online movie database is a first step.. would you pay a small amount to view those movies?
I've just finished reading the transcript of the application for an injunction against the distribution of DeCSS, and I've got to say the defence really looked fairly weak. The laws that the plantiffs are pursuing seem to be deliberately aimed at the sort of software that DeCSS is, and the way it was manufactured.
The incredible uprising against the supression of this information really had better be as a demonstration against the way they treated Jon and his father (and does anyone actually have even a second hand account of that ordeal?), because the legal situation looks very very cut and dried.
Despite what any linux zealots might like to think, the case is being made purely against the production of software that is "primarily designed for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls the access to a work"
In a purely legal sense, the judge very quickly, and I think justifiably, knocked back every single defence that was put forth, because none of them actually related to the case that had been presented.
We can all rave on forever about how this is an example of repression of a "small entity" (to quote the above article) by a "Big Business", but really, you can't abjure responsibility by attributing personalities to the opposing sides. Calling Big Business "BB" reduces those companies to a nameless, faceless force, thus making them emminently more suitable as a target for hatred, while simultaneously personalising the "small entity" by calling them "a son and his father" evokes sympathy.
If you actually stop for a millisecond and take note of these things, and think about reversing them, you might get a different image.
A father and his son today were finally forced to take legal action against a Big Business that had illegally bypassed the security measures on their product, known as 'DVD's. The father and son had developed their encryption to protect the content of these distributed DVDs in line with various US and international laws. Their livelihood is founded on the security of this data, and so they had to take steps to prevent it becoming publicly accessible.
As it became clear that this Big Business had deliberately circumvented their protection system, in order to use these DVDs on their internal platform of choice, as opposed to the platforms for which it was available, they took steps to prevent the circulation of the code which allowed this circumvention.
As information of this prevention attempt became available, the Big Business immediately took steps to widely distribute the code in an attempt thwart any restrictions the courts might impose. It has been speculated that the genie might never be put back in the bottle due to this deliberate action, which was frequently accompanied with rude or abusive comments: "Jon and his father are cock suckers!"
(Don't forget, Big Business is run by People too, it even employs some)
---
I mean give me a break. Any time we hear of big corporations trying to use loopholes in the law to escape from obvious infringements, we get all narky, but when it's some 'father and his son', it's suddenly a human rights issue.
Yes, I can see that the purchasing of that DVD should entitle you to view the information stored therein. However, I don't think that the fact there is no player for linux justifies the creation and distribution of source code that is obviously intended only to break DVD encryption. All these script kiddies are just rabid about anything that might undermine some Big Business, so as soon as they see something like that, are they thinking "Oh good, now I can use linux to play my DVDs"? Hell no. They're thinking "SCREW YOU Big Business! I'm going to copy and distribute as many DVDs as I like now, hahahahaha!"
---
Having said all that, I still do think that there are some fairly serious issues here in regards to production of code, and whether it forms a part of 'speech' in terms of 'free', and whether it should be protected as such. I think that producing code is an expression of human ingenuity, an advance in the field of human endeavour, whatever that code might do, and however small that advance may be.
As it stands though, that code is illegal, it was produced illegally and it is intended for a purely illegal use. I for one won't defend it.
This nanotech is a step in the right direction, for as far as I know circuts cannot be made any smaller than this (due to quantum uncertanty).
Actually this is a very good point, and one that could tie in nicely with another emerging technology, quantum processors.
Just grabbing the nearest link, you can read a fairly detailed exploration of the idea of quantum computers here. (With another bit of reading here)
Wouldn't it be interesting to consider pursuing the idea of quantum-level circuits, with perhaps some form of quantum circuit-control that takes full advantage of the nature of quantum matter? I can imagine that the computing industry already has such vast momentum in terms of making things smaller and faster that the barrier of quantum mechanics will be one that is eventually broken, or at least bent to the will of computer manufacturers.
When that happens, we might see single-processor lateral processing as well as fully integrated quantum circuitry with near-instantaneous feedback (or even instantaneous, if quantum entanglement can be leveraged?).
In fact, I've just been reminded of a Monty Python sketch which talks about a typical day in the life of Ralph Aldis Melish, who, "but for his total lack of involvement in anything illegal, the full weight of the law would have ensured that Ralph Aldis Melish would have ended up like all those who challenge the fundamentals of our society: In an iron coffin, with spikes on the inside"
Is it just me, or are other people getting sick of the dirty end of the law impinging on the rights of people?
Here we are, a world well on it's way to globalisation of pretty much everything.. a strong belief in personal and individual rights, established universal human rights laws... all these things that seem to indicate that the world wants people to be treated fairly in all cases, whether they are convicted or not..
And then we hear about things like this.. and in fact, a huge range of other examples of law enforcement directly inhibiting the 'fairness' of the systems we as a global population are trying to put in place.
It's a shame that the nature of law enforcement tends to require relatively short chains of command from go to woe, otherwise we might have a better chance of filtering out idiots that order and carry out raids like this.
B.
Re:Site from whence I can obtain the mythical Troo
on
TIE-Tanic Movie
·
· Score: 1
Just posted a little below this, but you can find Troops here.
B.
There's more where that came from...
on
TIE-Tanic Movie
·
· Score: 2
Actually, though TIE-Tanic was quite good, TROOPS is a hell of a lot better:)
Hmm, in this case, XML is purely used as a transfer agent, not to hold concurrent data, directly effect writes upon the database. I agree that that would be very very ugly, but then, I also don't think that a system should necessarily be trying to provide concurrency on the client side, especially if the client base is expected to be extensive. In this case, as you say, record locking and concurrency handling problems would all but preclude the use of anything but the most 'beefy' RDBMS's.
In my case, perhaps I am lucky in that user interaction is not 'live', but transactional. I just present some output, and wait for the user to respond in whatever way. Once that response comes in, I have a heap of middle-tier business logic handling exactly what we should do with it. Record locking and such issues are dealt with at that level, rather than in the backend.
And yes, I do believe that SQL Server could handle such a solution, coupled with MTS and perhaps using a little DCOM:P
In any case, transactions can do nothing but help the cause:P
The reason we use XML in our multi-tier solution is simple. ADO cannot support detached, hierachical record sets.
In our case, this meant we had to find a way to store that hierachical information, which is vital to the front end, in an intermediate format that did not put load on the database itself.
The reason for that, of course, is that when you're running a distributed application to potentially thousands of clients, you want any database hit to be as few, fast and clean as possible. That means we can't sustain connections to the DB. That means we have to use disconnected record sets. Disconnected recordsets don't hold hierachy information, and that means that we have find some other way of hitting the database once, getting enough data to build the hierachy externally, then shutting down the DB link.
XML provides the functionality we need to parse a flat recordset back up to a hierachical structure, without hitting the database again. It also has the added bonus that when it comes to presenting the front end in a browser, we can feed it directly to the browser if it's "XML compliant" (IE5, though there is a patch for IE4).
B.
PS: You'll also find that XSL can do similar things to your XML as CSS does to HTML;)
Yep, but I specifically didn't say that it was Nitrogen gas vs CO2. I said guinness CONTAINED Nitrogen, which is heavier than Carbon.
I've also since read a post on here that talks about using the gas in the widgets in Guinness cans for various cool stuff. Again, I'm no chemist, but I doubt anyone would be too fascinated with playing around with plain old Nitrogen (N2) gas, which leads me to the conclusion that the gas released into guinness is something else...
Aren't there rules about what you can trademark? I thought there were restrictions on trademarks - you can't trademark common words or concepts (like one-click shopping), only things that you can prove are significantly and identifiably distinct to your company/usage?
I guess these must vary country to country.
I tend to doubt though that any trademark office will give out a trademark of such a common word.. and if it does, is there not a process to allow the repealing of that?
This whole story sounds to me like a pack of idiots fighting over something that's only going to be taken away from them anyway.
Since both groups are claiming to have the true interests of the linux community at heart, I'm sure they will turn the trademark over to Linus once they have secured it (if they do) rather than risk the ire of slashdotters everywhere;)
Aren't there rules about what you can trademark? I thought there were restrictions on trademarks - you can't trademark common words or concepts (like one-click shopping), only things that you can prove are significantly and identifiably distinct to your company/usage? I guess these must vary country to country. I tend to doubt though that any trademark office will give out a trademark of such a common word.. and if it does, is there not a process to allow the repealing of that? This whole story sounds to me like a pack of idiots fighting over something that's only going to be taken away from them anyway. Since both groups are claiming to have the true interests of the linux community at heart, I'm sure they will turn the trademark over to Linus once they have secured it (if they do) rather than risk the ire of slashdotters everywhere;) B.
There is a difference between an idiot and a neophyte.
The difference is not the volume of knowledge they have in the field, it is their applied intelligence when it comes to that field.
A friend of mine, who works for a government department here in Western Australia is no expert when it comes to computing, but if he ever approaches me with a question, it becomes immediately evident that he has read every help file he can find, looked for solutions on the web, in user manuals and in related applications. Unable to uncover an answer in any of these places, he arms himself with every seemingly relevant piece of information he can find, and then comes to ask me how to solve his problem. This person is not an expert in computing, but he's damn good at applying his intelligence to computing issues.
In contrast, he (let's call him Fizzle) recently sent me a story relating to his co-worker...
Last week, [co-worker]'s keyboard stopped working, which confused her no end. I casually plugged it in and lied 'it could have happened to anyone'. However, the conversation today went like this:
[Co-worker]: Fizzle, I think the thing that happened with my keyboard last week is happening with my computer. Me: What do you mean? [Co-worker]: I've turned on my computer and its making sounds, but my monitor isn't on!! Me: (looking at the little light next to the power button which was significantly dark) I'm going to pretend you didn't say that, and you're going to figure it out by yourself. It isn't going to take you long. [Co-worker]: But, but... Me: I want you to pretend that your monitor is not part of a computer, but simply a normal piece of machinery, and you want to get it to work. [Co-worker]: So I...turn it on...? Me: Yes [i.e. EUREKA!, it thinks!] [Co-worker]: How?
True story. ....
Here, I am presenting a story which seems to poke fun at a person's technical skill, in a somewhat similar manner to UF and various other 'techie' strips. What is actually being poked fun at is the obvious and complete stupidity of the person portrayed, irrespective of the fact that computers are involved.
I personally am very happy to help people who are willing to make a genuine effort to learn, and who demonstrate that they can apply at least a tiny bit of intelligence to the task before them, whether it be computer related or not.
I am not happy to help idiots who don't read help files or simple on-screen instructions. If you ask a question that can be answered by hitting a single key (like F1), then you deserve to be derided, and hopefully next time you will take some pains to hit that key before asking.
You will most likely find that school children are far better in learning computer-related areas that these 'idiots' I refer to, and what's more, they want to learn.
So no, don't deride school children, that is cruel. But, do deride fully grown adults who don't think to try turning the monitor on.
(Perhaps if it weren't so socially acceptable to be stupid, less people would be?)
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, it's already been determined that the collapse of a quantum entanglement is not a 'communication', since you cannot determine or effect which state these particles are in, just that they are in a similar state. I've read a doc somewhere which explains this much more clearly, but basically, it doesn't break GR.
Actually, as is commonly noted alongside this experiment, if you use a device which measures which slit the particle goes through, the wave is collapsed at the moment that device performs that detection. That means you will always get a collapsed wave, whether the cat has a soul/is alive/etc or not.
:P
Sorry to burst the bubble.
There is a lot of talk around just now about the net is changing economic paradigms. Amongst the talk of dot com companies, and net based organisations going broke, and the differences between intellectual property and traditional property, there seems to be emerging a fundamental underlying difference between the way the net works and the way traditional commerce works.
;)
The examples I give above are probably only a very few of the indications that applying traditional economic and marketing strategies to the net just doesn't work.
Am I the only one here who can see that split?
So why are people still insisting on trying to employ those useless techniques to a field where they obviously will fail?
In my opinion, given a little time, what we'll see is a settling of the 'net economy.. the process of natural selection will weed out the ones who are stuck in the past, or limited by 50 year old mission statements, and what will remain will be those who have innovated, picked a market and made their own way into it, thinking their way around the problem, rather than picking up a solution off the historical shelf.
Perhaps it's a few years off, but I'd say that in the not-too distant future, we'll see a new set of business practices and marketing techniques.. ones that apply purely to the net, and ones that work only on the net.
The best thing about it right now is that I'm living at the time when I can think up those innovations, develop those business practices, and have a chance to make a real change to the world (or at least the 'net world).
May you live in interesting times
B.
From what I've heard from the Australian 2600 mailing list, the broadcast will be about 15 seconds long, and spaced such that each frame is easily captured on a standard video cassette, and can be re-viewed page by page using frame-by-frame advance.
;)
The guy who's setting it up has actually put a fair amount of thought into it, and the DeCSS won't be the only thing that is broadcast. From what I remember, he intends to broadcast a number of other 'supressed' images or texts in the 15 second slot.
Also from memory, he's organising a local mob to do a little music to run over it, and he'll be flashing the 2600 web address at the end.
For all of those who are already asking 'but isn't this pointless, everyone already has DeCSS?', the point is not to distribute DeCSS, but to demonstrate that censorship of items such as DeCSS leads only to more and more widespread distribution, even to the point of datacasting it across Australian television at 3am.
Oh, and he got the slot for free
B.
Interesting. I don't get that at all. Wonder if this is a bug or something?
Either that, or I'm just not eligible, I guess.. but I would have thought I might be, given I've moderated in the past...
Might have to drop those wacky admin type people a line.
B.
Where does that question appear for you?
I can't seem to find where to do meta-moderation anywhere, although I have a vague recollection of a question "Have you meta-moderated today?".
No idea where it was though, and I can't find it now. From reading some of the info on meta-moderation, it seems if you're eligible to moderate, you're eligible to meta-moderate. I've moderated in the past, but just can't for the life of me work out how to meta-moderate.
B.
What might be a nice idea would be to have some ongoing puzzles, of the 'classic' variety, like the knight's tour and such. These sorts of puzzles have been around forever and a day, and it's not so much a matter of solving them, as all the implications of the solution.
In a book I read recently, there were quite a few connections drawn between chess and chess puzzles, and the mathematics behind things like the knights tour and the mathematics behind other forms of 'entertainment' like classical music and such.
These sorts of puzzles are likely to inspire conversations on those related topics, and many of them could be quite enlightening..
Perhaps there could even be a small karma reward (like 1 point) for each regular puzzle, and some random awards for contributions to the ongoing puzzles?
B.
Anyone who has read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson will be familiar with the concept of the great library.. a gigantic database that is the store of every little piece of information you can imagine.
:)
:)
People pay to access the information, and a part of that payment goes to whomever provided it in the first place, making it a very nice system indeed
Of course, it also spawns a series of 'gargoyles' who strap video cameras and sensors and other input devices to themselves so that they can transmit everything they experience back to the library.. in the hope that by sheer volume, someone will access their information, and they'll be paid for it
Perhaps an online movie database is a first step.. would you pay a small amount to view those movies?
B.
I've just finished reading the transcript of the application for an injunction against the distribution of DeCSS, and I've got to say the defence really looked fairly weak. The laws that the plantiffs are pursuing seem to be deliberately aimed at the sort of software that DeCSS is, and the way it was manufactured.
The incredible uprising against the supression of this information really had better be as a demonstration against the way they treated Jon and his father (and does anyone actually have even a second hand account of that ordeal?), because the legal situation looks very very cut and dried.
Despite what any linux zealots might like to think, the case is being made purely against the production of software that is "primarily designed for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls the access to a work"
In a purely legal sense, the judge very quickly, and I think justifiably, knocked back every single defence that was put forth, because none of them actually related to the case that had been presented.
We can all rave on forever about how this is an example of repression of a "small entity" (to quote the above article) by a "Big Business", but really, you can't abjure responsibility by attributing personalities to the opposing sides. Calling Big Business "BB" reduces those companies to a nameless, faceless force, thus making them emminently more suitable as a target for hatred, while simultaneously personalising the "small entity" by calling them "a son and his father" evokes sympathy.
If you actually stop for a millisecond and take note of these things, and think about reversing them, you might get a different image.
A father and his son today were finally forced to take legal action against a Big Business that had illegally bypassed the security measures on their product, known as 'DVD's. The father and son had developed their encryption to protect the content of these distributed DVDs in line with various US and international laws. Their livelihood is founded on the security of this data, and so they had to take steps to prevent it becoming publicly accessible.
As it became clear that this Big Business had deliberately circumvented their protection system, in order to use these DVDs on their internal platform of choice, as opposed to the platforms for which it was available, they took steps to prevent the circulation of the code which allowed this circumvention.
As information of this prevention attempt became available, the Big Business immediately took steps to widely distribute the code in an attempt thwart any restrictions the courts might impose. It has been speculated that the genie might never be put back in the bottle due to this deliberate action, which was frequently accompanied with rude or abusive comments: "Jon and his father are cock suckers!"
(Don't forget, Big Business is run by People too, it even employs some)
---
I mean give me a break. Any time we hear of big corporations trying to use loopholes in the law to escape from obvious infringements, we get all narky, but when it's some 'father and his son', it's suddenly a human rights issue.
Yes, I can see that the purchasing of that DVD should entitle you to view the information stored therein. However, I don't think that the fact there is no player for linux justifies the creation and distribution of source code that is obviously intended only to break DVD encryption.
All these script kiddies are just rabid about anything that might undermine some Big Business, so as soon as they see something like that, are they thinking "Oh good, now I can use linux to play my DVDs"? Hell no. They're thinking "SCREW YOU Big Business! I'm going to copy and distribute as many DVDs as I like now, hahahahaha!"
---
Having said all that, I still do think that there are some fairly serious issues here in regards to production of code, and whether it forms a part of 'speech' in terms of 'free', and whether it should be protected as such. I think that producing code is an expression of human ingenuity, an advance in the field of human endeavour, whatever that code might do, and however small that advance may be.
As it stands though, that code is illegal, it was produced illegally and it is intended for a purely illegal use. I for one won't defend it.
B.
This nanotech is a step in the right direction, for as far as I know circuts cannot be made any smaller than this (due to quantum uncertanty).
:)
Actually this is a very good point, and one that could tie in nicely with another emerging technology, quantum processors.
Just grabbing the nearest link, you can read a fairly detailed exploration of the idea of quantum computers here. (With another bit of reading here)
Wouldn't it be interesting to consider pursuing the idea of quantum-level circuits, with perhaps some form of quantum circuit-control that takes full advantage of the nature of quantum matter?
I can imagine that the computing industry already has such vast momentum in terms of making things smaller and faster that the barrier of quantum mechanics will be one that is eventually broken, or at least bent to the will of computer manufacturers.
When that happens, we might see single-processor lateral processing as well as fully integrated quantum circuitry with near-instantaneous feedback (or even instantaneous, if quantum entanglement can be leveraged?).
Very interesting, and exciting stuff
B.
In fact, I've just been reminded of a Monty Python sketch which talks about a typical day in the life of Ralph Aldis Melish, who, "but for his total lack of involvement in anything illegal, the full weight of the law would have ensured that Ralph Aldis Melish would have ended up like all those who challenge the fundamentals of our society: In an iron coffin, with spikes on the inside"
B.
Is it just me, or are other people getting sick of the dirty end of the law impinging on the rights of people?
Here we are, a world well on it's way to globalisation of pretty much everything.. a strong belief in personal and individual rights, established universal human rights laws... all these things that seem to indicate that the world wants people to be treated fairly in all cases, whether they are convicted or not..
And then we hear about things like this.. and in fact, a huge range of other examples of law enforcement directly inhibiting the 'fairness' of the systems we as a global population are trying to put in place.
It's a shame that the nature of law enforcement tends to require relatively short chains of command from go to woe, otherwise we might have a better chance of filtering out idiots that order and carry out raids like this.
B.
Just posted a little below this, but you can find Troops here.
B.
Actually, though TIE-Tanic was quite good, TROOPS is a hell of a lot better :)
B.
Hmm, in this case, XML is purely used as a transfer agent, not to hold concurrent data, directly effect writes upon the database.
:P
:P
I agree that that would be very very ugly, but then, I also don't think that a system should necessarily be trying to provide concurrency on the client side, especially if the client base is expected to be extensive.
In this case, as you say, record locking and concurrency handling problems would all but preclude the use of anything but the most 'beefy' RDBMS's.
In my case, perhaps I am lucky in that user interaction is not 'live', but transactional. I just present some output, and wait for the user to respond in whatever way. Once that response comes in, I have a heap of middle-tier business logic handling exactly what we should do with it.
Record locking and such issues are dealt with at that level, rather than in the backend.
And yes, I do believe that SQL Server could handle such a solution, coupled with MTS and perhaps using a little DCOM
In any case, transactions can do nothing but help the cause
The reason we use XML in our multi-tier solution is simple. ADO cannot support detached, hierachical record sets.
;)
In our case, this meant we had to find a way to store that hierachical information, which is vital to the front end, in an intermediate format that did not put load on the database itself.
The reason for that, of course, is that when you're running a distributed application to potentially thousands of clients, you want any database hit to be as few, fast and clean as possible.
That means we can't sustain connections to the DB.
That means we have to use disconnected record sets.
Disconnected recordsets don't hold hierachy information, and that means that we have find some other way of hitting the database once, getting enough data to build the hierachy externally, then shutting down the DB link.
XML provides the functionality we need to parse a flat recordset back up to a hierachical structure, without hitting the database again. It also has the added bonus that when it comes to presenting the front end in a browser, we can feed it directly to the browser if it's "XML compliant" (IE5, though there is a patch for IE4).
B.
PS: You'll also find that XSL can do similar things to your XML as CSS does to HTML
There's an archived page h ere with a little more information on the Nitrogenising of beer, and the widget in guinness cans.
B.
Yep, but I specifically didn't say that it was Nitrogen gas vs CO2. I said guinness CONTAINED Nitrogen, which is heavier than Carbon.
I've also since read a post on here that talks about using the gas in the widgets in Guinness cans for various cool stuff. Again, I'm no chemist, but I doubt anyone would be too fascinated with playing around with plain old Nitrogen (N2) gas, which leads me to the conclusion that the gas released into guinness is something else...
B.
Is this actually a valid study? The write up is very scant if it is :)
:)
I thought that the reason the bubbles in Guiness fell was that they contained a gas that was heavier than that in normal beer.
From memory, Guiness contained Nitrogen, which makes it's bubbles heavier than the normal beer bubbles which contain Carbon Dioxide.
I'm no chemist, but on the periodic table, Nitrogen is heavier than Carbon, so perhaps there is some truth in this
As for the 'they go up, but then there's no room, so they go back down' theory.. wouldn't that happen in all beers?
B.
Aren't there rules about what you can trademark? I thought there were restrictions on trademarks - you can't trademark common words or concepts (like one-click shopping), only things that you can prove are significantly and identifiably distinct to your company/usage?
;)
I guess these must vary country to country.
I tend to doubt though that any trademark office will give out a trademark of such a common word.. and if it does, is there not a process to allow the repealing of that?
This whole story sounds to me like a pack of idiots fighting over something that's only going to be taken away from them anyway.
Since both groups are claiming to have the true interests of the linux community at heart, I'm sure they will turn the trademark over to Linus once they have secured it (if they do) rather than risk the ire of slashdotters everywhere
B.
(Gah, damn HTML formatting)
Aren't there rules about what you can trademark? I thought there were restrictions on trademarks - you can't trademark common words or concepts (like one-click shopping), only things that you can prove are significantly and identifiably distinct to your company/usage? I guess these must vary country to country. I tend to doubt though that any trademark office will give out a trademark of such a common word.. and if it does, is there not a process to allow the repealing of that? This whole story sounds to me like a pack of idiots fighting over something that's only going to be taken away from them anyway. Since both groups are claiming to have the true interests of the linux community at heart, I'm sure they will turn the trademark over to Linus once they have secured it (if they do) rather than risk the ire of slashdotters everywhere ;) B.
There is a difference between an idiot and a neophyte.
....
The difference is not the volume of knowledge they have in the field, it is their applied intelligence when it comes to that field.
A friend of mine, who works for a government department here in Western Australia is no expert when it comes to computing, but if he ever approaches me with a question, it becomes immediately evident that he has read every help file he can find, looked for solutions on the web, in user manuals and in related applications.
Unable to uncover an answer in any of these places, he arms himself with every seemingly relevant piece of information he can find, and then comes to ask me how to solve his problem.
This person is not an expert in computing, but he's damn good at applying his intelligence to computing issues.
In contrast, he (let's call him Fizzle) recently sent me a story relating to his co-worker...
Last week, [co-worker]'s keyboard stopped working, which confused her no end.
I casually plugged it in and lied 'it could have happened to anyone'.
However, the conversation today went like this:
[Co-worker]: Fizzle, I think the thing that happened with my keyboard last week is happening with my computer.
Me: What do you mean?
[Co-worker]: I've turned on my computer and its making sounds, but my monitor isn't on!!
Me: (looking at the little light next to the power button which was significantly dark) I'm going to pretend you didn't say that, and you're going to figure it out by yourself. It isn't going to take you long.
[Co-worker]: But, but...
Me: I want you to pretend that your monitor is not part of a computer, but simply a normal piece of machinery, and you want to get it to work.
[Co-worker]: So I...turn it on...?
Me: Yes [i.e. EUREKA!, it thinks!]
[Co-worker]: How?
True story.
Here, I am presenting a story which seems to poke fun at a person's technical skill, in a somewhat similar manner to UF and various other 'techie' strips. What is actually being poked fun at is the obvious and complete stupidity of the person portrayed, irrespective of the fact that computers are involved.
I personally am very happy to help people who are willing to make a genuine effort to learn, and who demonstrate that they can apply at least a tiny bit of intelligence to the task before them, whether it be computer related or not.
I am not happy to help idiots who don't read help files or simple on-screen instructions. If you ask a question that can be answered by hitting a single key (like F1), then you deserve to be derided, and hopefully next time you will take some pains to hit that key before asking.
You will most likely find that school children are far better in learning computer-related areas that these 'idiots' I refer to, and what's more, they want to learn.
So no, don't deride school children, that is cruel.
But, do deride fully grown adults who don't think to try turning the monitor on.
(Perhaps if it weren't so socially acceptable to be stupid, less people would be?)
Obscenity is the crutch of inarticulate mutherfuckers.