Check the "Rainbow 6" rubbish sometime. It's *very* poor writing, even if you get past the premise that the "good guys" can go round killing at will without oversight because hey, they're the good guys.
Clancy *was* first-class until he let his political ideology (which is so far to the right that even Ghenghiz Khan and Attila the Hun would probably have said "Woah dude, chill out a bit") trample all over his storytelling. "The Sum of all Fears" was probably his last good one, before he descended into Alastair Maclean Hell.
Turning off and on at the same mains outlet will generally be "off, count 10 elephants/mississippis, on". Moving outlets usually involves physically moving the damn thing around, or unplugging a wire from one socket, taking the wire across the room and plugging it in somewhere else. Consider the time it takes to do this - could the power-off time be the significant factor, and the phase thing is a coincidence?
Or on a similar theme, how about disconnecting the mains cable (and waiting some time) so that the mobos are fully powered down? That happens naturally when you disconnect the cable and plug it in somewhere else. Maybe try repeating the same action, but on the original phase.
Not to doubt the fault-finding you've already done, but just adding a bit of devil's advocacy to suggest possible alternative situations with the same symptom.
If there was no "5mph bumper" rule for light trucks, they certainly could...
Back on topic though:-) you're right that DRM needs clear definition. Unless you can point to something and show that it's DRM (even if it's called something else) then you're stuck. And defining DRM will be tough.
Oh yes they can. SUVs are the classic example - the reason the average miles-per-gallon of US automobiles is lower now than it was in 1980 is because of SUVs. "Automobiles" are allowed a certain miles-per-gallon, and below that they get hit with tax penalties. SUVs though are officially classed as "trucks", even though 99.99-recurring% of owners use them as an automobile. They therefore don't come into the same mileage-and-tax bracket, and they can have as crappy mileage figures as you like.
So it's perfectly possible for someone to say "this is not a whatever" when they sell it, even if it's perfectly clear that it will be used for that. It just means that the ppl selling it aren't liable for it being used for purposes other than what they're officially selling it as.
You're making the incorrect (but common) assumption of "effective" meaning "carrying out its job well". The actual meaning of "effective" in law is "having the effect of". It doesn't have to do its job well, it just has to do its job such that it gives a certain effect.
For example, a cheap padlock out of a Christmas cracker is not "effective" in that it does its job well, because anyone can pick it with a paperclip. But it's "effective" in that if you, say, secure your house with it, then anyone picking the lock to gain entry is automatically guilty of breaking and entering.
That's one of the ironies of the DMCA. Any DRM system doesn't have to do its job well - it's enough for the RIAA to say "this is the intention of the system" and they're covered. That's why it's such a bad law, because it gives total advantage to one group of people (media producers) without requiring any corresponding responsibilities from them.
WFR was mostly OK. However a few things (the magic missile equivalent for one) were very unbalanced, which made life difficult for the GM. When a level 2 (of 4) wizard gets a spell that allows one instant kill per turn, then it's tricky finding opponents that'll provide a challenge!
The combat system was easy to use (just percentages to hit). I found it unsatisfactory though, because it didn't take into account the relative skills of the other person. It allowed parrying to try and cover that, but parrying was very underpowered so it didn't really work. Instead of trying to block attacks, it was always better just to steam in and try and land more hits on the NPC than you took yourself.
You seem to be forgetting 1945-1989, during which time the US deliberately provoked the USSR on so many occasions, when the US government was directly harassing and destroying anyone who'd ever agreed with the USSR or communism in general, and when Western Europe was designated the sacrifice zone on which the US would fight so that the US itself would be safe. Sorry if we don't just kiss your ass for the Cuba missile crisis, dude. Iran, well if you read your history then you'll find the reason Iran currently is run by Islamic militants is down to the US, who gave Khomeini the ability to take over the country in the first place. North Korea (or Cuba, I guess) - let me know when they do anything, because they haven't done a damn thing to anyone.
FWIW, I *do* think that military action in Afghanistan and Iraq was the right thing to do. What I *don't* think was the right thing to do was bombing them to shit without a plan for what to do afterwards. The Boston Irish thought the British Army were bad for killing a few dozen Irish protesters? Hell, the US military have currently killed thousands of civilians in both countries (some estimates are well into the tens of thousands), so how much do you think they're going to like you there?
And don't you think their friends in other countries are going to try to help them, the same way the Boston Irish did with the IRA? So you've got two mega-Northern-Ireland situations underway, both of which are directly caused by the US military's incredible skills at warfare and their equally incredible incompetence at peacekeeping (not that this should have been a surprise to anyone after Somalia), and by the current US President's Dr Strangelove fixation. And does Northern Ireland's history tell you anything about the methods that are likely to be used.
Santayana's line of "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it" has never been so apt as for US foreign policy. Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran, Iraq, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, and now Afghanistan and Iraq (again). If the US stayed the fuck out of foreign policy, the rest of the West would feel a lot safer, because the Second and Third Worlds wouldn't be busy working out ways of protecting against invasion from the West.
You're misunderstanding the real purpose of comments.
If your comment says "Increment i" and the code says "--i" then yes, things are fucked. But the purpose of comments is not to describe *what* the code does but *why* it does it (and occasionally *how* as well if it's not clear, for example if there's some particularly gnarly maths or pointer weirdness involved).
Anyone writing comments saying *what* their code does what it does needs their code reworked at review - and if they're not on their first job then they need firing.
Anyone *not* writing comments saying *why* their code does what it does needs their code reworked at review - and if they're not on their first job then they need firing.
But it also negatively affects *realism*. You want to stop someone going through point X in a dungeon, do you (a) install a large monster, or do you (b) put in a door which triggers an alarm when opened, so that your bodyguards are ready and waiting further down the corridor?
The reason traps make sense is that they're an automated way of stopping people getting in. Build them once, and that's it. Stopping people going through by putting in a monster lair is all very well, but it kind of impacts on *your* ability to get *out*.:-/ And of course, what does the monster live on? bcos you can't assume you'll get enough intruders to keep it fed. A credible Evil Overlord needs to give thought to those kind of things...
Yeah, I'm taking the piss a bit, but only slightly. For an RPG to work, the NPCs need to be making realistic decisions. As soon as you get some geezer going "You'll never escape my Scorpion Pit of Doom!! Muhuhuhuhaaaa!!!!" then you can safely kiss goodbye to suspension of disbelief.
Erm, possibly learning the basics at home, then going on vacation to that country for 2 weeks armed with a really good English-to-whatever dictionary?
I know that when I go to another country, as a minimum I'll always pick up a decent phrasebook at the airport and learn some basics. That way I've got a chance of at least saying "please/thank you/excuse me/yes/no" and working out how much checkout assistants are asking for, without looking like a complete tourist tosser. (And in Greece, being able to decipher the shop signs - I can tell you that you'll learn the letters for "TAVERNA" really damn quickly, cos there's some incentive there!;-) And that's just on a basic holiday, without knowing any of the language before and no real intention to do serious language-learning.
If you're going to fail anyway, decide to do so beforehand. It saves you all that worry.
When it came to revision time, me and my best mate at uni had a choice. We could spend 4 weeks straight learning crystal structures and other shit for Materials, and we might scrape 50% in that one exam. Or we could spend that time revising everything else, and pass overall. Simple decision really. So come exam day, it was in there, names on papers, wait the required 15 minutes, walk out again, enjoy the sunshine.
As for horror stories, the whole course was shit. If anyone went to Loughborough University to do Elec Eng, do they have a decent course these days? cos when I was there 8 years back, if you weren't there to study power electronics then you were wasting your time. Of course, this didn't become apparent until you got to the 3rd year and found that there were precisely 3 modules related to embedded software and systems (for reference, a Masters course requires 10 modules). Oh, and a compulsory course in Materials (WTF?) was a double-weighting course at at time when you're choosing your options - great for anyone doing transistor design, but crap for everyone else.
That year, I'd had enough. I finally cracked, and went and told the head of my department that this course was doing nothing for me. I told him that I'd specifically come to uni to get the knowledge I'd need to work in embedded software and embedded control, and the course was failing to do this. And this guy's answer? "We will teach you what we think you should know, not what will be useful to you." Word for word from the head of an engineering department, I shit you not.
The moral of the story? Before you apply for a course, insist on getting the lists of final-year module options *before* you go there. It'll save lots of grief later.
And you do realise that you're legally required to have license plates in the UK, just as you are in every country in the Western world...?
"Disable" might be technically possible (special coatings on the plates, etc), but so far has proved elusive. Simply having dirty plates so that the number is unreadable is actually an offence itself, for obvious reasons.
Developpers in FOSS companies are in the same situation...
Sure. But if the FOSS *companies* are not the prime movers, you're SOL. If you're relying on hobbyists, you'll likely get a very good solution - but in that hobbyist's time, not yours. (Unless you pay them.;-) As someone working on his own pet projects, this is an entirely reasonable situation. You can't *force* a hobbyist to do what you want - you have to wait for them to do it in their own free time, and see what they come up with.
But then it becomes arrogance of the highest order for the leader of a bunch of hobbyists (and, to be fair, a few engineers professionally employed on it) to tell us that anyone not using their software is behaving immorally! Never mind whether their software actually does what we want...
BTW, what do you call GNU?
That's a good point. The GNU site lists over 4000 programs affiliated with GNU, most of which are not in any way related to the OS. So let's restrict ourselves to the parts of GNU which are related to the OS. This basically gets us down to the kernel and the support structures (shell, etc). Maybe GCC could be included as well, although that's dubious.
How many professional engineers are working at "GNU"?
Buggered if I know! And by working at "GNU" this would have to only include those paid to work on GNU projects, not professional engineers working on GNU projects on a hobbyist basis.
But that's where the problem lies. As an organisation of hobbyists, it's achieved wonders. But GNU (or its leader, RMS) can't realistically say "we're going to do this" and have the same credibility as the head of a professional company saying "we're going to do this". Sure, professional companies spout vapourware too. But professional companies at some point get taken to task for it, whereas FS still has the hobbyist (and academic) attitude that you can slip dates as much as you want and it doesn't matter. If you want professional-level credibility, that kills you.
OK - sorry, it looked like your previous post was missing the FS/OSS difference.
RMS is absolutely entitled to use whatever software meets his belief system. And if I needed to send him a document, it would be in a format that he had ready access to - RTF, plain text, PNG, whatever. But what file formats I use myself, and the software I choose to use to read them, are my own choice. And if I send an RTF file to RMS, I'll use whatever program I choose, whether it be Word, OpenOffice or whatever. When RMS then tells me (and the rest of the software-creating world) that we shouldn't be doing our jobs bcos we're not using his software, that's where he can get off.
I agree with you (and RMS!) that interoperability of software is essential, and open data formats are vital in that. Without interoperability, we get held back from efficient working. But ultimately, what I want is efficient working, and whether this is best done with FOSS or closed-source is dependent on which of them will let me do what I need with my data. RMS's philosophy doesn't care about that, though - he *only* wants open data formats because it allows the use of free software to read them. Whether the open data formats allow me to work more efficiently is immaterial to him, even if it's a nice side-effect. That's where FS crashes and burns, as far as I'm concerned.
You've missed the "free software" and "open-source software" distinction.
OSS I'm 100% in favour of. The intention of OSS is to produce open-source replacements for closed-source software that will be used because they are of superior quality and significantly cheaper. To that end, the ability to find/fix your own bugs is intended to lead to superior quality. OSS doesn't say that closed-source software *shouldn't* exist, simply that they will replace mass-market closed-source software wherever possible. And OSS also allows for closed-source software to exist where it's fulfilling a specific niche - again, we're talking about how to do the job better/faster/cheaper, and measuring on quality.
"Free software" though has a political angle which I don't agree with. OSS is about getting the job done. RMS though has explicitly said that if you can't do the job with free software then you shouldn't be doing that job! In other words, simply using closed-source software is immoral. As far as I'm concerned, that's crap - if we're talking rights, then no-one has a right to say "you shouldn't be working and making a living bcos you're using closed-source software".
Somewhat flamebait, admittedly.;-) But also something I feel strongly about, bcos I don't think RMS has any place making *his* flamebait comments.
Why would you? On which software editor do you rely?
I quote "If the tool exists then I'll use it..."
So you're clearly excluding almost every one...
If you work in software and you *don't* need to produce anything for customers (whether internal or external) or produce anything within an agreed timeframe, AND you get paid for doing that - please let me know, because I want a job there! In the real world, every software engineer has a job to do: someone's told them what it is, and someone's got expectations of when it'll be done. If you're lucky enough to have your own software house then you need to take a guess at what your customers want and when they want it, but don't be under any illusions: if you don't meet these two requirements then you'll lose their business.
In a few years, they have come with a major complete operating system that is a direct competitor of Microsoft and Apple.
But the OS kernel was NOT produced by GNU - hence "GNU/Linux". GNU on their own were incapable of developing a "complete operating system" in any timely manner. If Linux hadn't arrived, maybe Hurd would have appeared sometime around now, perhaps. Who knows? One thing for sure though, FOSS would be at least 5 years behind where it is now if we'd been relying on RMS and GNU exclusively.
As an organisation of hobbyists and amateurs, I have a great deal of respect for GNU. As an organisation of professional engineers, GNU is a dead loss.
JP: But is there still an ethical issue if there is no alternative? If, say, there is no free software way of doing a particular job, for ZNet for example? RMS: One can live without doing those jobs.
Very easy to say if you've never had a "real" job, as RMS's bio makes it clear he has not. By "real" job, I mean a job in which you are required to meet deadlines imposed by customers and to produce end products specified by customers, otherwise your business fails. When your whole working life has been spent in a succession of pure research environments, with no contact with other people outside the research environment, you'll naturally assume that research is all, and all the other software engineers working on customer-driven projects are the minority. Sad to say, that ain't the case.
JP: What criteria? How can one decide such a thing? RMS: If you absolutely must do a particular job then you should contribute to the creation of a free replacement. If you are not a programmer, you can still find a way to contribute--such as by donating money so others can develop it.
That's a nice ideal. However, it's worth noting that there are cases (such as the recent fork of XEmacs) in which people *have* thrown money and development time at GNU projects and got nothing but disappointment. Linux is another example - the reason we're using GNU/Linux instead of GNU/Hurd is that RMS and the whole GNU kernel team were fundamentally unable to develop a working Hurd kernel in the time that a single Finnish student could write the first-draft Linux kernel. They spent FIVE YEARS on Hurd and had literally nothing working at the end of that time that anyone could use.
Frankly, if I was running a business and I had to keep my family fed, there's no way in hell I'd be relying on GNU to develop the tools I needed. Their track record is simply appalling. If the tool exists then I'll use it (GCC, for example), but if the tool doesn't already exist then only an idiot would pay GNU to write it for them, bcos they've already proved their inability to do work to time. The only way I'd trust GNU to do it would be to hire the relevant GNU engineers directly and impose penalty clauses. Donations to a project and hope that they do what I need them to do? No way.
Yeah, FF don't sound a bit like Travis & co. However, nor do they sound like anyone with talent... In particular, they don't sound at all like INXS. If I had to pick someone they sounded like, it'd be one of the 70s wannabe punk bands who thought shouting down a mic made them the Sex Pistols.
About 2-3 times a week, I do a 75-minute commute. I listen to the radio during that time (either Radio 1 or Radio 2, cos I'm in the UK). Rest of the time, I've got a 10-minute commute when I listen to local radio. I have to say I haven't heard any good new rock all year. The closest to "good" have been Robbie Williams and Charlotte Church, and both of them are the product of marketing rather than music. Last year, the most original new singer was KT Tunstall, and the rest of her stuff didn't match up to "Black horse and a cherry tree" so that was a blowout.
The ID hypothesis itself cannot be proven true or false (except by direct contact with the Creator...;-) However, the "evidence" that ID proponents are using can very easily be proven true or false - and so far, it's all proven to be false.
Most scientists don't mind religion, because religion is inherently unprovable and so can't have any effect on scientists' fields of study. However, the "evidence" for ID is flat-out incorrect, and *that's* what bugs most people with an interest in science - to have things put forward as "science" which are clearly unjustifiable, and to be told that they are not allowed to reject them in the same way as they'd reject an equation that said 2+2=5.
Too right - follow KISS and you won't go far wrong.
And if you want a GUI, then it's a simple bit of Python to add a front end to that serial comms and text. A web interface is usually a pretty dumb move, unless you're sure that the person using the interface won't have the relevant software.
Note though that it would require more than "buggy code". Software engineers know that code has bugs, in the same way that mechanical engineers know that things can be built or specified badly. Individual people make mistakes. The process behind software engineering is to ensure that we've covered all the ways bugs could creep in. To be sued personally would require gross negligence/misconduct such that you deliberately falsified the process to get round the various checks and balances. In that case the company would carry the can, but they'd be at liberty to sue you personally if they chose, in the same way as any company is at liberty in case of gross negligence to start proceedings against employees (or ex-employees, as they inevitably are by then!). If a bug still gets out despite everyone's best efforts, this falls into the same category as a faulty mechanical assembly getting out despite everyone's best efforts - sometimes shit happens, and all that QA guarantees is a certain percentage probability of catching issues. If you've followed best practise and still got unlucky, you're 100% covered if it gets to court.
By "professional engineer", what do you mean, exactly? To my knowledge, the only engineering profession in the UK that's got rules attached in membership is civil engineering, and that's only because of various screw-ups by civil engineers in Victorian times. Mechanical engineers aren't required to be members of an institution. Aerospace engineers aren't. Automotive engineers aren't. Electrical and electronic engineers aren't. And yet somehow we all still seem to produce decent quality stuff...;-)
As far as liability goes, that cascades from the work you're doing. If you're working on safety-related software, there are many good sets of best-practise rules. All automotive software companies, for example, have either had their own lawyers and top engineers draw up the rules together, or they've lifted an off-the-shelf plan from someone like MISRA. Aerospace has MIL-spec rules in the US and UK for how to do stuff (and pretty much every other country). So as a company you agree to follow those rules, and you institute working practises to ensure they're followed. As an employee then, there are checks and balances between other engineers to ensure that you've done stuff right, and to make sure that one person *can't* arbitrarily screw up everything.
I note that the professions you list as regulated - doctors and lawyers - are professions in which one person has ultimate power and can literally do what the hell they like. There is oversight of junior doctors and junior lawyers, but the hot-shots get to do what the hell they like, and the systems (enforced by their professional institutions) ensure that junior doctors or lawyers "whistle-blowing" on senior doctors/lawyers can wave goodbye to their careers. In institutions without oversight or without a 360-degree reviewing culture, you're screwed that way. So the only way to keep them on the straight-and-narrow is to allow their customers to take revenge.
And even then there's little recourse for most people - for starters you need lots of money (the "no-win no-fee" lawyers only take dead-cert cases), and you need another doctor to give evidence that this wasn't the best treatment (which you won't get because of their system, see above). So you're screwed. The *very* few cases that ever get to court, you *always* find dozens of people coming out of the woodwork, because these people have been doing it for years, sometimes decades, and have got away with it in every other case. "Legal guarantee of quality and soundness of workmanship"? I really don't think so.
Engineering is (or should be) rather different, and software in particular because of the knowledge that bugs are more likely. If you're working from the basis that *everyone* can create bugs, from the boss downwards, then your processes become rather different. Everyone gets their work reviewed and everyt
Engineering doesn't have any special status in the UK (where I am). There are "governing bodies" for engineers (IEE for electrical/electronic/software, for example, or IMechE for mechanical), but there's no obligation to belong to them, and many engineers (myself included) see them as not much more than a protection racket. Elsewhere in Europe, you get slightly more recognition job-wise if you've got chartered status from one of these governing bodies, but even there it's pretty random - some countries take it very seriously, and some countries don't.
And all engineering degrees from UK universities are sufficient for membership of these professional organisations (known as "Honours" degrees in the UK).
Slashdot Mirror
Check the "Rainbow 6" rubbish sometime. It's *very* poor writing, even if you get past the premise that the "good guys" can go round killing at will without oversight because hey, they're the good guys.
Clancy *was* first-class until he let his political ideology (which is so far to the right that even Ghenghiz Khan and Attila the Hun would probably have said "Woah dude, chill out a bit") trample all over his storytelling. "The Sum of all Fears" was probably his last good one, before he descended into Alastair Maclean Hell.
Grab.
(Or some other kind of scarlet swimmy thing...)
Turning off and on at the same mains outlet will generally be "off, count 10 elephants/mississippis, on". Moving outlets usually involves physically moving the damn thing around, or unplugging a wire from one socket, taking the wire across the room and plugging it in somewhere else. Consider the time it takes to do this - could the power-off time be the significant factor, and the phase thing is a coincidence?
Or on a similar theme, how about disconnecting the mains cable (and waiting some time) so that the mobos are fully powered down? That happens naturally when you disconnect the cable and plug it in somewhere else. Maybe try repeating the same action, but on the original phase.
Not to doubt the fault-finding you've already done, but just adding a bit of devil's advocacy to suggest possible alternative situations with the same symptom.
Grab.
If there was no "5mph bumper" rule for light trucks, they certainly could...
:-) you're right that DRM needs clear definition. Unless you can point to something and show that it's DRM (even if it's called something else) then you're stuck. And defining DRM will be tough.
Back on topic though
Grab.
Oh yes they can. SUVs are the classic example - the reason the average miles-per-gallon of US automobiles is lower now than it was in 1980 is because of SUVs. "Automobiles" are allowed a certain miles-per-gallon, and below that they get hit with tax penalties. SUVs though are officially classed as "trucks", even though 99.99-recurring% of owners use them as an automobile. They therefore don't come into the same mileage-and-tax bracket, and they can have as crappy mileage figures as you like.
So it's perfectly possible for someone to say "this is not a whatever" when they sell it, even if it's perfectly clear that it will be used for that. It just means that the ppl selling it aren't liable for it being used for purposes other than what they're officially selling it as.
Grab.
You're making the incorrect (but common) assumption of "effective" meaning "carrying out its job well". The actual meaning of "effective" in law is "having the effect of". It doesn't have to do its job well, it just has to do its job such that it gives a certain effect.
For example, a cheap padlock out of a Christmas cracker is not "effective" in that it does its job well, because anyone can pick it with a paperclip. But it's "effective" in that if you, say, secure your house with it, then anyone picking the lock to gain entry is automatically guilty of breaking and entering.
That's one of the ironies of the DMCA. Any DRM system doesn't have to do its job well - it's enough for the RIAA to say "this is the intention of the system" and they're covered. That's why it's such a bad law, because it gives total advantage to one group of people (media producers) without requiring any corresponding responsibilities from them.
Grab.
WFR was mostly OK. However a few things (the magic missile equivalent for one) were very unbalanced, which made life difficult for the GM. When a level 2 (of 4) wizard gets a spell that allows one instant kill per turn, then it's tricky finding opponents that'll provide a challenge!
The combat system was easy to use (just percentages to hit). I found it unsatisfactory though, because it didn't take into account the relative skills of the other person. It allowed parrying to try and cover that, but parrying was very underpowered so it didn't really work. Instead of trying to block attacks, it was always better just to steam in and try and land more hits on the NPC than you took yourself.
Grab.
Excuse me?
You seem to be forgetting 1945-1989, during which time the US deliberately provoked the USSR on so many occasions, when the US government was directly harassing and destroying anyone who'd ever agreed with the USSR or communism in general, and when Western Europe was designated the sacrifice zone on which the US would fight so that the US itself would be safe. Sorry if we don't just kiss your ass for the Cuba missile crisis, dude. Iran, well if you read your history then you'll find the reason Iran currently is run by Islamic militants is down to the US, who gave Khomeini the ability to take over the country in the first place. North Korea (or Cuba, I guess) - let me know when they do anything, because they haven't done a damn thing to anyone.
FWIW, I *do* think that military action in Afghanistan and Iraq was the right thing to do. What I *don't* think was the right thing to do was bombing them to shit without a plan for what to do afterwards. The Boston Irish thought the British Army were bad for killing a few dozen Irish protesters? Hell, the US military have currently killed thousands of civilians in both countries (some estimates are well into the tens of thousands), so how much do you think they're going to like you there?
And don't you think their friends in other countries are going to try to help them, the same way the Boston Irish did with the IRA? So you've got two mega-Northern-Ireland situations underway, both of which are directly caused by the US military's incredible skills at warfare and their equally incredible incompetence at peacekeeping (not that this should have been a surprise to anyone after Somalia), and by the current US President's Dr Strangelove fixation. And does Northern Ireland's history tell you anything about the methods that are likely to be used.
Santayana's line of "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it" has never been so apt as for US foreign policy. Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran, Iraq, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, and now Afghanistan and Iraq (again). If the US stayed the fuck out of foreign policy, the rest of the West would feel a lot safer, because the Second and Third Worlds wouldn't be busy working out ways of protecting against invasion from the West.
Grab.
Did you even *read* the parent post? If you did, you might have found they said *not* to keep the history...
Shame I don't have modpoints for "-1, can't be arsed to read other people's posts so we shouldn't have to read yours".
You're misunderstanding the real purpose of comments.
If your comment says "Increment i" and the code says "--i" then yes, things are fucked. But the purpose of comments is not to describe *what* the code does but *why* it does it (and occasionally *how* as well if it's not clear, for example if there's some particularly gnarly maths or pointer weirdness involved).
Anyone writing comments saying *what* their code does what it does needs their code reworked at review - and if they're not on their first job then they need firing.
Anyone *not* writing comments saying *why* their code does what it does needs their code reworked at review - and if they're not on their first job then they need firing.
Grab.
No such code exists. There are *portions* of code that don't need comments, but the code in general *will*.
Grab.
But it also negatively affects *realism*. You want to stop someone going through point X in a dungeon, do you (a) install a large monster, or do you (b) put in a door which triggers an alarm when opened, so that your bodyguards are ready and waiting further down the corridor?
:-/ And of course, what does the monster live on? bcos you can't assume you'll get enough intruders to keep it fed. A credible Evil Overlord needs to give thought to those kind of things...
The reason traps make sense is that they're an automated way of stopping people getting in. Build them once, and that's it. Stopping people going through by putting in a monster lair is all very well, but it kind of impacts on *your* ability to get *out*.
Yeah, I'm taking the piss a bit, but only slightly. For an RPG to work, the NPCs need to be making realistic decisions. As soon as you get some geezer going "You'll never escape my Scorpion Pit of Doom!! Muhuhuhuhaaaa!!!!" then you can safely kiss goodbye to suspension of disbelief.
Grab.
Erm, possibly learning the basics at home, then going on vacation to that country for 2 weeks armed with a really good English-to-whatever dictionary?
;-) And that's just on a basic holiday, without knowing any of the language before and no real intention to do serious language-learning.
I know that when I go to another country, as a minimum I'll always pick up a decent phrasebook at the airport and learn some basics. That way I've got a chance of at least saying "please/thank you/excuse me/yes/no" and working out how much checkout assistants are asking for, without looking like a complete tourist tosser. (And in Greece, being able to decipher the shop signs - I can tell you that you'll learn the letters for "TAVERNA" really damn quickly, cos there's some incentive there!
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If you're going to fail anyway, decide to do so beforehand. It saves you all that worry.
When it came to revision time, me and my best mate at uni had a choice. We could spend 4 weeks straight learning crystal structures and other shit for Materials, and we might scrape 50% in that one exam. Or we could spend that time revising everything else, and pass overall. Simple decision really. So come exam day, it was in there, names on papers, wait the required 15 minutes, walk out again, enjoy the sunshine.
As for horror stories, the whole course was shit. If anyone went to Loughborough University to do Elec Eng, do they have a decent course these days? cos when I was there 8 years back, if you weren't there to study power electronics then you were wasting your time. Of course, this didn't become apparent until you got to the 3rd year and found that there were precisely 3 modules related to embedded software and systems (for reference, a Masters course requires 10 modules). Oh, and a compulsory course in Materials (WTF?) was a double-weighting course at at time when you're choosing your options - great for anyone doing transistor design, but crap for everyone else.
That year, I'd had enough. I finally cracked, and went and told the head of my department that this course was doing nothing for me. I told him that I'd specifically come to uni to get the knowledge I'd need to work in embedded software and embedded control, and the course was failing to do this. And this guy's answer? "We will teach you what we think you should know, not what will be useful to you." Word for word from the head of an engineering department, I shit you not.
The moral of the story? Before you apply for a course, insist on getting the lists of final-year module options *before* you go there. It'll save lots of grief later.
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And you do realise that you're legally required to have license plates in the UK, just as you are in every country in the Western world...?
"Disable" might be technically possible (special coatings on the plates, etc), but so far has proved elusive. Simply having dirty plates so that the number is unreadable is actually an offence itself, for obvious reasons.
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Developpers in FOSS companies are in the same situation...
;-) As someone working on his own pet projects, this is an entirely reasonable situation. You can't *force* a hobbyist to do what you want - you have to wait for them to do it in their own free time, and see what they come up with.
Sure. But if the FOSS *companies* are not the prime movers, you're SOL. If you're relying on hobbyists, you'll likely get a very good solution - but in that hobbyist's time, not yours. (Unless you pay them.
But then it becomes arrogance of the highest order for the leader of a bunch of hobbyists (and, to be fair, a few engineers professionally employed on it) to tell us that anyone not using their software is behaving immorally! Never mind whether their software actually does what we want...
BTW, what do you call GNU?
That's a good point. The GNU site lists over 4000 programs affiliated with GNU, most of which are not in any way related to the OS. So let's restrict ourselves to the parts of GNU which are related to the OS. This basically gets us down to the kernel and the support structures (shell, etc). Maybe GCC could be included as well, although that's dubious.
How many professional engineers are working at "GNU"?
Buggered if I know! And by working at "GNU" this would have to only include those paid to work on GNU projects, not professional engineers working on GNU projects on a hobbyist basis.
But that's where the problem lies. As an organisation of hobbyists, it's achieved wonders. But GNU (or its leader, RMS) can't realistically say "we're going to do this" and have the same credibility as the head of a professional company saying "we're going to do this". Sure, professional companies spout vapourware too. But professional companies at some point get taken to task for it, whereas FS still has the hobbyist (and academic) attitude that you can slip dates as much as you want and it doesn't matter. If you want professional-level credibility, that kills you.
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OK - sorry, it looked like your previous post was missing the FS/OSS difference.
RMS is absolutely entitled to use whatever software meets his belief system. And if I needed to send him a document, it would be in a format that he had ready access to - RTF, plain text, PNG, whatever. But what file formats I use myself, and the software I choose to use to read them, are my own choice. And if I send an RTF file to RMS, I'll use whatever program I choose, whether it be Word, OpenOffice or whatever. When RMS then tells me (and the rest of the software-creating world) that we shouldn't be doing our jobs bcos we're not using his software, that's where he can get off.
I agree with you (and RMS!) that interoperability of software is essential, and open data formats are vital in that. Without interoperability, we get held back from efficient working. But ultimately, what I want is efficient working, and whether this is best done with FOSS or closed-source is dependent on which of them will let me do what I need with my data. RMS's philosophy doesn't care about that, though - he *only* wants open data formats because it allows the use of free software to read them. Whether the open data formats allow me to work more efficiently is immaterial to him, even if it's a nice side-effect. That's where FS crashes and burns, as far as I'm concerned.
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You've missed the "free software" and "open-source software" distinction.
OSS I'm 100% in favour of. The intention of OSS is to produce open-source replacements for closed-source software that will be used because they are of superior quality and significantly cheaper. To that end, the ability to find/fix your own bugs is intended to lead to superior quality. OSS doesn't say that closed-source software *shouldn't* exist, simply that they will replace mass-market closed-source software wherever possible. And OSS also allows for closed-source software to exist where it's fulfilling a specific niche - again, we're talking about how to do the job better/faster/cheaper, and measuring on quality.
"Free software" though has a political angle which I don't agree with. OSS is about getting the job done. RMS though has explicitly said that if you can't do the job with free software then you shouldn't be doing that job! In other words, simply using closed-source software is immoral. As far as I'm concerned, that's crap - if we're talking rights, then no-one has a right to say "you shouldn't be working and making a living bcos you're using closed-source software".
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Somewhat flamebait, admittedly. ;-) But also something I feel strongly about, bcos I don't think RMS has any place making *his* flamebait comments.
Why would you? On which software editor do you rely?
I quote "If the tool exists then I'll use it..."
So you're clearly excluding almost every one...
If you work in software and you *don't* need to produce anything for customers (whether internal or external) or produce anything within an agreed timeframe, AND you get paid for doing that - please let me know, because I want a job there! In the real world, every software engineer has a job to do: someone's told them what it is, and someone's got expectations of when it'll be done. If you're lucky enough to have your own software house then you need to take a guess at what your customers want and when they want it, but don't be under any illusions: if you don't meet these two requirements then you'll lose their business.
In a few years, they have come with a major complete operating system that is a direct competitor of Microsoft and Apple.
But the OS kernel was NOT produced by GNU - hence "GNU/Linux". GNU on their own were incapable of developing a "complete operating system" in any timely manner. If Linux hadn't arrived, maybe Hurd would have appeared sometime around now, perhaps. Who knows? One thing for sure though, FOSS would be at least 5 years behind where it is now if we'd been relying on RMS and GNU exclusively.
As an organisation of hobbyists and amateurs, I have a great deal of respect for GNU. As an organisation of professional engineers, GNU is a dead loss.
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JP: But is there still an ethical issue if there is no alternative? If, say, there is no free software way of doing a particular job, for ZNet for example?
RMS: One can live without doing those jobs.
Very easy to say if you've never had a "real" job, as RMS's bio makes it clear he has not. By "real" job, I mean a job in which you are required to meet deadlines imposed by customers and to produce end products specified by customers, otherwise your business fails. When your whole working life has been spent in a succession of pure research environments, with no contact with other people outside the research environment, you'll naturally assume that research is all, and all the other software engineers working on customer-driven projects are the minority. Sad to say, that ain't the case.
JP: What criteria? How can one decide such a thing?
RMS: If you absolutely must do a particular job then you should contribute to the creation of a free replacement. If you are not a programmer, you can still find a way to contribute--such as by donating money so others can develop it.
That's a nice ideal. However, it's worth noting that there are cases (such as the recent fork of XEmacs) in which people *have* thrown money and development time at GNU projects and got nothing but disappointment. Linux is another example - the reason we're using GNU/Linux instead of GNU/Hurd is that RMS and the whole GNU kernel team were fundamentally unable to develop a working Hurd kernel in the time that a single Finnish student could write the first-draft Linux kernel. They spent FIVE YEARS on Hurd and had literally nothing working at the end of that time that anyone could use.
Frankly, if I was running a business and I had to keep my family fed, there's no way in hell I'd be relying on GNU to develop the tools I needed. Their track record is simply appalling. If the tool exists then I'll use it (GCC, for example), but if the tool doesn't already exist then only an idiot would pay GNU to write it for them, bcos they've already proved their inability to do work to time. The only way I'd trust GNU to do it would be to hire the relevant GNU engineers directly and impose penalty clauses. Donations to a project and hope that they do what I need them to do? No way.
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Yeah, FF don't sound a bit like Travis & co. However, nor do they sound like anyone with talent... In particular, they don't sound at all like INXS. If I had to pick someone they sounded like, it'd be one of the 70s wannabe punk bands who thought shouting down a mic made them the Sex Pistols.
About 2-3 times a week, I do a 75-minute commute. I listen to the radio during that time (either Radio 1 or Radio 2, cos I'm in the UK). Rest of the time, I've got a 10-minute commute when I listen to local radio. I have to say I haven't heard any good new rock all year. The closest to "good" have been Robbie Williams and Charlotte Church, and both of them are the product of marketing rather than music. Last year, the most original new singer was KT Tunstall, and the rest of her stuff didn't match up to "Black horse and a cherry tree" so that was a blowout.
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"Numeeja" = "new media", pronounced badly by dimwits involved in it
"Epater le bourgeois" = shock the middle-class (although bourgeois has more offensive connotations than just "middle-class")
Pisstake = piss-take (should have a hyphen really) = making fun of (Brit phrase)
Pap = mush, baby-food, easy to swallow but no substance
The ID hypothesis itself cannot be proven true or false (except by direct contact with the Creator... ;-) However, the "evidence" that ID proponents are using can very easily be proven true or false - and so far, it's all proven to be false.
Most scientists don't mind religion, because religion is inherently unprovable and so can't have any effect on scientists' fields of study. However, the "evidence" for ID is flat-out incorrect, and *that's* what bugs most people with an interest in science - to have things put forward as "science" which are clearly unjustifiable, and to be told that they are not allowed to reject them in the same way as they'd reject an equation that said 2+2=5.
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Too right - follow KISS and you won't go far wrong.
And if you want a GUI, then it's a simple bit of Python to add a front end to that serial comms and text. A web interface is usually a pretty dumb move, unless you're sure that the person using the interface won't have the relevant software.
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Sued? Oh yes.
;-)
Note though that it would require more than "buggy code". Software engineers know that code has bugs, in the same way that mechanical engineers know that things can be built or specified badly. Individual people make mistakes. The process behind software engineering is to ensure that we've covered all the ways bugs could creep in. To be sued personally would require gross negligence/misconduct such that you deliberately falsified the process to get round the various checks and balances. In that case the company would carry the can, but they'd be at liberty to sue you personally if they chose, in the same way as any company is at liberty in case of gross negligence to start proceedings against employees (or ex-employees, as they inevitably are by then!). If a bug still gets out despite everyone's best efforts, this falls into the same category as a faulty mechanical assembly getting out despite everyone's best efforts - sometimes shit happens, and all that QA guarantees is a certain percentage probability of catching issues. If you've followed best practise and still got unlucky, you're 100% covered if it gets to court.
By "professional engineer", what do you mean, exactly? To my knowledge, the only engineering profession in the UK that's got rules attached in membership is civil engineering, and that's only because of various screw-ups by civil engineers in Victorian times. Mechanical engineers aren't required to be members of an institution. Aerospace engineers aren't. Automotive engineers aren't. Electrical and electronic engineers aren't. And yet somehow we all still seem to produce decent quality stuff...
As far as liability goes, that cascades from the work you're doing. If you're working on safety-related software, there are many good sets of best-practise rules. All automotive software companies, for example, have either had their own lawyers and top engineers draw up the rules together, or they've lifted an off-the-shelf plan from someone like MISRA. Aerospace has MIL-spec rules in the US and UK for how to do stuff (and pretty much every other country). So as a company you agree to follow those rules, and you institute working practises to ensure they're followed. As an employee then, there are checks and balances between other engineers to ensure that you've done stuff right, and to make sure that one person *can't* arbitrarily screw up everything.
I note that the professions you list as regulated - doctors and lawyers - are professions in which one person has ultimate power and can literally do what the hell they like. There is oversight of junior doctors and junior lawyers, but the hot-shots get to do what the hell they like, and the systems (enforced by their professional institutions) ensure that junior doctors or lawyers "whistle-blowing" on senior doctors/lawyers can wave goodbye to their careers. In institutions without oversight or without a 360-degree reviewing culture, you're screwed that way. So the only way to keep them on the straight-and-narrow is to allow their customers to take revenge.
And even then there's little recourse for most people - for starters you need lots of money (the "no-win no-fee" lawyers only take dead-cert cases), and you need another doctor to give evidence that this wasn't the best treatment (which you won't get because of their system, see above). So you're screwed. The *very* few cases that ever get to court, you *always* find dozens of people coming out of the woodwork, because these people have been doing it for years, sometimes decades, and have got away with it in every other case. "Legal guarantee of quality and soundness of workmanship"? I really don't think so.
Engineering is (or should be) rather different, and software in particular because of the knowledge that bugs are more likely. If you're working from the basis that *everyone* can create bugs, from the boss downwards, then your processes become rather different. Everyone gets their work reviewed and everyt
Engineering doesn't have any special status in the UK (where I am). There are "governing bodies" for engineers (IEE for electrical/electronic/software, for example, or IMechE for mechanical), but there's no obligation to belong to them, and many engineers (myself included) see them as not much more than a protection racket. Elsewhere in Europe, you get slightly more recognition job-wise if you've got chartered status from one of these governing bodies, but even there it's pretty random - some countries take it very seriously, and some countries don't.
And all engineering degrees from UK universities are sufficient for membership of these professional organisations (known as "Honours" degrees in the UK).
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