I'm a WebObjects developer that is always looking for something new and RoR so far seems great.
While there are clearly still some things that could be improved (especially in the ActiveRecord ORM), for being less than a year old this thing is VERY far along.
The opposite of something like Struts, you can feel that RoR came from a real application instead of design-by-committe.
This could have interesting implications with the IRS.
Right now casinos have to report you if you win $1200 or greater on a slot machine, hence the myriad of $1199 jackpots on slots.
In table games they have no reporting requirement (save the $10,000 casino cage transaction report requirement), mostly due to the complexity of tracking wins vs. losses.
If technology makes that simple, does that mean I'll now be taxed on my table game winnings? That the casino will be obligated to report them? Yikes.
If enough users report messages coming from a host as spam the automated AOL system takes over...
First it checks if the reverse DNS for the host is correct. If not, you go right on to the blocked list.
If your reverse DNS is correct they supposedly contact you and ask you to stop spamming. If you don't, they block you.
The blocks usually last a week and according to AOL Postmaster staff, cannot be overridden.
My only difficulty with this is that you can get on the list for one user abusing your system, even in one day and then be stuck without a connection to AOL for over a week.
The engineers there told us that the new policies (as few as a handful of spam reports can trigger this action) had produced TONS of complaints and requests to be removed from the blocks, thus slowing the process even more.
This is exactly what I was getting out the article and I was surprised I had to scroll down this far to see a similar viewpoint.
This is like the Matrix (minus the deception part) or the Metaverse or something similar. This is one step towards a totally immersive "cyberspace".
Some folks might choose to "live" in this world instead of the "real" world.
The first truly cyberspace millionaire... Interesting... Think of the incredible opportunity... Some of the obstacles or intrinsic difficulty of the real world might not exist here (i.e. all the good Manhattan real estate isn't already owned by someone else in the cyber-NYC).
I guess what I'm saying is that if people want to play a game like this, they should be able to. Just because you're not interested or think that it might diminish the game in the areas that you find important doesn't mean that someone else might disagree with you.
There are people that gamble for a living, hunting out the mistakes casinos make calculating their payouts vs. complimentaries on games like video poker... It takes something fun like gambling and makes it a job... Not for me, but some folks obviously like it enough.
While I think I see your point about architecture, I would argue that it is up to the developer/architect to choose an architecture that makes sense...
Design patterns can help, but as you said nothing in J2EE is forcing you to over-architect.
I've been very successful in building J2EE web apps that handle lots of clients and resemble what I think is a good design that is still useable.
I haven't used.Net yet but I do plan on getting a PC to try it out (I do all my stuff on OS X and I don't think the Mono port is anywhere far enough along yet). From what I have read it seems like.Net is a good step forward for Win programming and that is good...
Still, I think J2EE is more mature and at this point probably a 'safer' bet. That's not to say that.Net is no good. I really don't have any personal experience with it.
Watch out for Oracle Financials. In our experience, they promised us the world but were never actually able to demo anything beyond the most basic accounting features...
We used to have a bunch of servers at an Exodus IDC in co-lo. Exodus service was great. Lots of bandwidth, responsive tech support, etc... BUT their sales team totally screwed us over and overcharged us. When this continued for months and we heard from others this was a common practice, we jumped ship.
We are now on managed servers from Rackspace. KILLER. Don't have to worry about hardware costs and we get great support from them. Fast connections, great service, no hassles. Rackspace rocks.
In addition to setting up offline folders, you need to force Outlook to 'Work Offline' or present the user with a choice between 'Connect' and 'Work Offline' when Outlook starts.
If Outlook sees any kind of network connection, it will default to 'Connect' if not told otherwise, no matter if the link is 56k or 100Mbps...
So, combine that with properly sync'd offline folders (sync when logging off when connected), you'll have none of this trouble.
While they may be good at marketing, I'm not so sure they're good at knowing what to market...
The failure rate for new signings is VERY high. Only a slim percentage get gold albums (RIAA 500,000) and even more slim for platinum (RIAA 1,000,000).
I mean look at Nirvana, Creed, and Limp Bizkit as examples of bands that started feeding frenzy signings...
The fact that the only band in the list that's not total crap is Nirvana doesn't mean that the others didn't generate a lot of new contracts being signed...
Formula: you are in a genre where your 'formula' of music pretty much always sells, at some level (a la pop music).
Shotgun Approach: Another band of your type got signed and got big. Now the labels want all bands like them. Look at Nirvana, Creed, and Limp Bizkit as independent examples of feeding frenzy signings.
Artistic Bait: You are Sonic Youth. Other bands think you are so cool that it does the label good service to have you. They can sign other possible big sellers and say, 'We have Sonic Youth'.
The majors all play follow the leader. One type of music sells some records and all of a sudden there are one hundred clones out there (same as TV and the movies)... Anyway...
Don't forget you only have 50 minutes to do the whole exam... Not a lot of time to "think through a solution" and then code it (on paper). You have to RUSH.
This was my least favorite thing about CS at school...
I am much better at solving a programming problem in front of a computer.
Also, they are nothing like real world conditions... Do you know any programmers without reference books on their desks? That have the whole Java API memorized?
I don't know if he saw the movie or not but Harry Knowles is probably "cool enough" to have a source that would show him the film.
Hollywood studios are actually scared of him, or at least of the power he seems to wield on his site... He has become something of a celebrity in the movie world... Hell, Michael DeLuca (head of production at Dreamworks - was at New Line during LOTR production) wrote the introduction to Harry's book...
I think him seeing the movie is entirely possible, but if so a well placed publicity stunt by Lucasfilm...
Slashdot Mirror
I really enjoyed this book.
I'm a WebObjects developer that is always looking for something new and RoR so far seems great.
While there are clearly still some things that could be improved (especially in the ActiveRecord ORM), for being less than a year old this thing is VERY far along.
The opposite of something like Struts, you can feel that RoR came from a real application instead of design-by-committe.
A lot of casinos are now offering one deck blackjack... The twist is that a blackjack pays 6:5 instead of 3:2, majorly bad for the player.
This could have interesting implications with the IRS.
Right now casinos have to report you if you win $1200 or greater on a slot machine, hence the myriad of $1199 jackpots on slots.
In table games they have no reporting requirement (save the $10,000 casino cage transaction report requirement), mostly due to the complexity of tracking wins vs. losses.
If technology makes that simple, does that mean I'll now be taxed on my table game winnings? That the casino will be obligated to report them? Yikes.
It's equally bad in Santa Barbara County and I can't WAIT to get away from ATTWS.
I'd get a Treo 600. It freaking rocks.
Good cell phone, good PDA.
I run SSH on it as well as Windows Terminal Server client. Works great.
Sigh... Now I must change all of my scripts...
Still, I think bash is a better default.
Yes, they have tightened their policies...
If enough users report messages coming from a host as spam the automated AOL system takes over...
First it checks if the reverse DNS for the host is correct. If not, you go right on to the blocked list.
If your reverse DNS is correct they supposedly contact you and ask you to stop spamming. If you don't, they block you.
The blocks usually last a week and according to AOL Postmaster staff, cannot be overridden.
My only difficulty with this is that you can get on the list for one user abusing your system, even in one day and then be stuck without a connection to AOL for over a week.
The engineers there told us that the new policies (as few as a handful of spam reports can trigger this action) had produced TONS of complaints and requests to be removed from the blocks, thus slowing the process even more.
There are certainly a lot of holes to poke at in this idea but think of the possibilities...
It seems as if the tech was far enough along these other issues could be worked out by some group of folks that were willing to go the distance.
These aren't impossible problems, just difficult ones.
This is exactly what I was getting out the article and I was surprised I had to scroll down this far to see a similar viewpoint.
This is like the Matrix (minus the deception part) or the Metaverse or something similar. This is one step towards a totally immersive "cyberspace".
Some folks might choose to "live" in this world instead of the "real" world.
The first truly cyberspace millionaire... Interesting... Think of the incredible opportunity... Some of the obstacles or intrinsic difficulty of the real world might not exist here (i.e. all the good Manhattan real estate isn't already owned by someone else in the cyber-NYC).
Interesting stuff.
Why does this game have to be a roleplaying game?
I guess what I'm saying is that if people want to play a game like this, they should be able to. Just because you're not interested or think that it might diminish the game in the areas that you find important doesn't mean that someone else might disagree with you.
There are people that gamble for a living, hunting out the mistakes casinos make calculating their payouts vs. complimentaries on games like video poker... It takes something fun like gambling and makes it a job... Not for me, but some folks obviously like it enough.
While I think I see your point about architecture, I would argue that it is up to the developer/architect to choose an architecture that makes sense...
.Net yet but I do plan on getting a PC to try it out (I do all my stuff on OS X and I don't think the Mono port is anywhere far enough along yet). From what I have read it seems like .Net is a good step forward for Win programming and that is good...
.Net is no good. I really don't have any personal experience with it.
Design patterns can help, but as you said nothing in J2EE is forcing you to over-architect.
I've been very successful in building J2EE web apps that handle lots of clients and resemble what I think is a good design that is still useable.
I haven't used
Still, I think J2EE is more mature and at this point probably a 'safer' bet. That's not to say that
Watch out for Oracle Financials. In our experience, they promised us the world but were never actually able to demo anything beyond the most basic accounting features...
Looks like this link is now dead... Anyone have another?
I agree with ain't broke don't fix it... But...
If the Shuttle tech could be built once to that reliability standard, it could be again.
It seems that the advent of technology could produce a lighter, cheaper spacecraft... I'm not only talking about computers but airframe, etc...
Please name more than 5 records made for $30,000 that have gone multi-platinum.
We used to have a bunch of servers at an Exodus IDC in co-lo. Exodus service was great. Lots of bandwidth, responsive tech support, etc... BUT their sales team totally screwed us over and overcharged us. When this continued for months and we heard from others this was a common practice, we jumped ship.
We are now on managed servers from Rackspace. KILLER. Don't have to worry about hardware costs and we get great support from them. Fast connections, great service, no hassles. Rackspace rocks.
In addition to setting up offline folders, you need to force Outlook to 'Work Offline' or present the user with a choice between 'Connect' and 'Work Offline' when Outlook starts.
If Outlook sees any kind of network connection, it will default to 'Connect' if not told otherwise, no matter if the link is 56k or 100Mbps...
So, combine that with properly sync'd offline folders (sync when logging off when connected), you'll have none of this trouble.
While they may be good at marketing, I'm not so sure they're good at knowing what to market...
The failure rate for new signings is VERY high. Only a slim percentage get gold albums (RIAA 500,000) and even more slim for platinum (RIAA 1,000,000).
I mean look at Nirvana, Creed, and Limp Bizkit as examples of bands that started feeding frenzy signings...
The fact that the only band in the list that's not total crap is Nirvana doesn't mean that the others didn't generate a lot of new contracts being signed...
Actually I disagree...
There seem to be several ways to get signed:
Formula: you are in a genre where your 'formula' of music pretty much always sells, at some level (a la pop music).
Shotgun Approach: Another band of your type got signed and got big. Now the labels want all bands like them. Look at Nirvana, Creed, and Limp Bizkit as independent examples of feeding frenzy signings.
Artistic Bait: You are Sonic Youth. Other bands think you are so cool that it does the label good service to have you. They can sign other possible big sellers and say, 'We have Sonic Youth'.
The majors all play follow the leader. One type of music sells some records and all of a sudden there are one hundred clones out there (same as TV and the movies)... Anyway...
Make sure that you:
1. Post at the Velvet Rope (http://www.velvetrope.com) telling people how great you are.
2. Make sure the release is available for sale on Amazon. They do consignment-type stuff all the time.
3. Put up samples of stuff at mp3.com.
4. TOUR TOUR TOUR TOUR. Promote the Web site at every show.
Does it really matter what the label agrees to?
Wouldn't you have to have an agreement with whoever owns the songs' publishing, which is usually a publishing company and also the songwriter?
At least in addition to an agreement with the label?
Don't forget you only have 50 minutes to do the whole exam... Not a lot of time to "think through a solution" and then code it (on paper). You have to RUSH.
This was my least favorite thing about CS at school...
I am much better at solving a programming problem in front of a computer.
Also, they are nothing like real world conditions... Do you know any programmers without reference books on their desks? That have the whole Java API memorized?
I don't know if he saw the movie or not but Harry Knowles is probably "cool enough" to have a source that would show him the film.
Hollywood studios are actually scared of him, or at least of the power he seems to wield on his site... He has become something of a celebrity in the movie world... Hell, Michael DeLuca (head of production at Dreamworks - was at New Line during LOTR production) wrote the introduction to Harry's book...
I think him seeing the movie is entirely possible, but if so a well placed publicity stunt by Lucasfilm...