Re:Why would you want to go with other people?
on
The Science of Avatar
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· Score: 1
FWIW, Cameron included the "We're not in Kansas line" because Wizard of Oz is his favourite film.
Saw this in an interview with Cameron (look for "T4 Avatar Film Special") where the film was compared to Oz, and Cameron said he "just had to work that line in somewhere".
Not that there aren't a fair sprinkling of absolute groaners in the movie, but at least he had a reason for that particular one.;)
The recently released game "Borderlands" takes place on a world called "Pandora" that is full of hostile indigenous life. Funny thing is that when you die, returning to consciousness (via save point "resurrection") is rendered on screen as passing through a chaotic tunnel of light that looks exactly like the scenes from Avatar.;)
The game is actually quite fun in a mindless loot-hunting kind've of way, esp with 4 player co-op. Think Diablo FPS with emphasis on guns, set in a Fallout 3-esque wasteland.
It's true, you certainly weren't trolling, at worst you probably deserved an Offtopic (you must admit, your post didn't have anything even remotely to do with "the science of Avatar" anymore).
My guess is some mod saw it, thought, "huh, offtopic", proceeded to scan it without really reading it (or taking it in context of the parent), and concluded, "offtopic socio-political/religious post... TROLL!".
PHP reuses a connection within a script but afaik every time a client requests dbrequest.php from the browser that script loads in its own little world and starts up its own personal connection to the server
Incorrect, PHP can indeed maintain persistent DB connections across multiple requests.
1) Defending yourself against criticism by accusing your opponent of the same is a fucking weak-ass fallacy. A favourite of politicians, in fact.
2) I don't claim to speak for the editors. Would you like a source?
Slashdot is a very open community; in the user comments our readers are free to say whatever they please. But we feel that the unique nature of Slashdot is largely because the contents of the homepage are determined by a handful of people.
I'm sure a very cool website could be developed based on the concept of allowing public voting to determine the content of the homepage, but that website wouldn't be "Slashdot". If we tried to do it "by committee" it would suffer from the same problem that most projects done by committee suffer from: it would get bland.
Let me put this another way: in the comments, any pro-Linux or anti-MS comment is probably gonna get rated up. Any time Microsoft does anything even slightly naughty, it gets submitted 50 times. Does that mean that it should be posted to the Slashdot homepage? For me personally, I don't want to read the "Bitch at Microsoft" website, but if ruled by popular consensus, Slashdot would very likely degenerate to this point. Since the days of Chips & Dips and the first days of Slashdot, my first goal has always been to post stories that I thought were interesting. I think a lot of people share my idea of interesting, and that's part of why Slashdot became successful.
Slashdot is an eclectic mix of stories maintained by a small group of people, but contributed to by anyone who wants to. I think that the personality and character of Slashdot is part of the fun and charm of the site, and I think it would suck to lose it. That's why the decision of what ends up on the homepage will continue to be determined by me, Hemos, and the rest of the guys.
What the heck does some theory about galaxy shape have to do with this?
On earth (ie according to our local reference frame), gravity exerts force in one direction; down. So, if the rocket was simply firing a specific thrust causing circular motion in a vertical plane, one would expect the downward part of each arc to be accelerated by gravity, and the upward part to be resisted, breaking the symmetry of the circle.
That particle simulation is all well and good, but it seems to be an idealized simulation... it's what I would expect to see in zero g, for example, I don't see how that simulation takes gravity into account.
Of course, assuming the rocket is providing constant thrust is pure conjecture, it's entirely possible the flight control system (while clearly malfunctioning) is perfectly compensating for the effects of gravity, adjusting thrust according to orientation.
I must congratulate you for only saying it seems odd rather than insisting it can't be true because it defies your expectations
That would be an argument from incredulity; I don't do fallacies. I would never take my casual layman's observation as anything remotely conclusive, I just thought it might make an interesting point for discussion.
If the rocket was in a steady roll it could easily make a nigh perfect spiral
It still seems like a remarkably symmetrical and near perfect circular pattern, for something that would have non-symmetric forces (ie, gravity) acting on it. Weird.
Tell me, what percentage of Bell consisted of Bell Labs? Over 20% of its entire workforce? If not, then Google allowing EVERY employee 20% free time for personal interest projects constitutes a greater percentage of their resources than Bell's.
I think it's more that Java web frameworks tend to be (or at least seem) very convoluted and heavy weight, rather than the Java language itself being slow (it's not).
The number of method calls you see in a typical stack trace, even in a "lightweight" framework like Spring, JUST TO SERVE A DAMN WEB PAGE (even static ones), is frankly ridiculous IMHO.
Perhaps I just suck at Java web apps (entirely possible, it's something I've consciously avoided really specializing in), but it always seems to take 5x longer to get the equivalent amount of work done on a Java webapp compared to something like PHP. And I'm no slouch at Java itself, I did client/server app development for 5+ years before moving into the web space.
Or maybe I'm just ranting because I'm stuck working on a bloated e-commerce Java webapp that performs like a sack of wet concrete at my job right now.:P
Slashdot has ALWAYS been about things of personal interest to the editors. We have a LEGO icon, FFS, why? Because one of the founders likes Lego stories. And I'm fine with that.
Don't like it, GTFO, instead of bitching about how you feel entitled to have your "standards" met.
In my experience, Wordpress "themes" are piles of spaghetti code (with tons of logic in the presentation layer), and you have to hack core to do any non-trivial custom stuff.
It might be great for blogging, but it's a lousy platform for adding custom functionality IMHO. Would love to find out I'm wrong though, anyone had better experiences doing custom dev with Wordpress?
Oh FFS, there's no fallacy in recognizing that law enforcement, who deal with the life-and-death effects of handguns on a daily basis, are particularly well suited to judge their merits. Do you think using expert witnesses in court is fallacy?
arguments from authority are an important part of informal logic. Since we cannot have expert knowledge of many subjects, we often rely on the judgments of those who do. There is no fallacy involved in simply arguing that the assertion made by an authority is true. The fallacy only arises when it is claimed or implied that the authority is infallible in principle and can hence be exempted from criticism.
The GP is not claiming law enforcement is infallible and couldn't possibly be wrong, he's simply recognizing the obvious fact that they have massive experience that is relevant here. I agree with him. Maybe you don't, but that doesn't make it a logical fallacy.
Re:Drupal: The Off-the-Shelf CMS...
on
Drupal Multimedia
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Whatever.
I've done 2 large, complex Drupal projects over the last year, and 90% of our functionality for both was easily provided by existing modules, and virtually all of the rest was accomplished by tweaking other modules. Then you just need to learn some theming (which the Theme Developer module makes falling-over-easy) to have full control of your theme layer.
I also built a small portfolio site for a friend (after giving up on both Wordpress and ModX), and had it up in a single day. It's amazing how quickly you can snap together whatever data structures (via CCK) & functionality you can think up once you learn the ropes.
Yes, it has a helluva learning curve (especially when you are trying to wade through the thousands of available modules, we spent a couple weeks just looking at modules on the first project I was on). Yes, you need to be a PHP ninja to get the most from it. All true.
But "from scratch"? That's a joke. The breadth of functionality available from contributed modules is staggering, and the override/hook system is incredibly powerful and flexible if you need to change default behaviour without modifying core.
You're ignoring the benefits of seamless collaboration. Sure, someone can author a Word doc, and pass it around over email for revisions, and wind up with a dozen different versions floating around and the ensuing confusion this often causes (pretty much the case at every company I've worked at). "Just use a file server", you say, and sure, that works fine until some executive asks to be emailed a file because he can't be arsed to browse the file server. Which always happens.
With Google Docs, you create the document online, and there's only ever ONE version (but with stored revisions if rollbacks are needed). You can access (and edit!) it from anywhere with a web browser, no client software to worry about. Multiple people can work on the document at the same time, instead of playing "hot potato". When our aforementioned executive asks to be emailed the file, you simply send him a link.
Sure, things like SVN can enable local collaboration, but if you think you're going to get an office full of Joe Averages using SVN for all document management, you're a fucking masochistic lunatic.
Online document editing can never be as fast and responsive as local editing.
You could say the same about webmail. Doesn't seem to have prevented its widespread adoption.
There are severe issues with reliability, availability, security
Again, you could make these exact same complaints about normal email. What if it goes down? What if I have no network access? Email is inherently insecure!
All these complaints are true, yet have not prevented email from being used productively. At the same time, "regular mail" has survived, and has its place. I suspect we will see the same with online document management.
Google recently (1 week) added the ability to share entire folders in Google Docs.
This is HUGE, previously you had to "invite" people (or otherwise provide a link) to every single Doc individually. This effectively made Google Docs useless as a centralized repository. (Believe me, we tried. Closest we got to a working solution was an unholy crossbreed of Docs and Sites, but it was still overly cumbersome)
Now you can create a folder, share/invite people to it ONCE, and just drop stuff in it, including additional sub-folders.
Seriously, Google Docs just became a killer app with this addition. Centralized, hierarchical, browser-editable, collaborative nirvana. I'm sure there are many valid use cases for local storage (highly sensitive materials, etc), but for general stuff Docs is so superior now to the de facto sharing model of MS Office + shared drive(s) + email/version hell it's not even a contest.
I'm amazed at how well this seems to automatically extract subjects from their background, something that usually requires a lot of painstaking manual work... honestly that's the real challenge of "photoshopping", becoming a ninja with the selection tools.
In my RSS reader, right above the previous headline "PhotoSketch Image Manipulation Tool Taking the World by Storm", I totally misread this as something like "Analysts predict androids overtake world by 2012" at first glance.;)
Slashdot Mirror
FWIW, Cameron included the "We're not in Kansas line" because Wizard of Oz is his favourite film.
Saw this in an interview with Cameron (look for "T4 Avatar Film Special") where the film was compared to Oz, and Cameron said he "just had to work that line in somewhere".
Not that there aren't a fair sprinkling of absolute groaners in the movie, but at least he had a reason for that particular one. ;)
Eating during a quiet scene is obnoxious. I say go for it during action scenes... they're called "popcorn movies" for a reason! ;)
The recently released game "Borderlands" takes place on a world called "Pandora" that is full of hostile indigenous life. Funny thing is that when you die, returning to consciousness (via save point "resurrection") is rendered on screen as passing through a chaotic tunnel of light that looks exactly like the scenes from Avatar. ;)
The game is actually quite fun in a mindless loot-hunting kind've of way, esp with 4 player co-op. Think Diablo FPS with emphasis on guns, set in a Fallout 3-esque wasteland.
It's true, you certainly weren't trolling, at worst you probably deserved an Offtopic (you must admit, your post didn't have anything even remotely to do with "the science of Avatar" anymore).
My guess is some mod saw it, thought, "huh, offtopic", proceeded to scan it without really reading it (or taking it in context of the parent), and concluded, "offtopic socio-political/religious post... TROLL!".
Incorrect, PHP can indeed maintain persistent DB connections across multiple requests.
http://php.net/manual/en/function.mysql-pconnect.php
"the connection to the SQL server will not be closed when the execution of the script ends"
A couple points, champ.
1) Defending yourself against criticism by accusing your opponent of the same is a fucking weak-ass fallacy. A favourite of politicians, in fact.
2) I don't claim to speak for the editors. Would you like a source?
http://slashdot.org/faq/suggestions.shtml#su600
Have a nice day.
What the heck does some theory about galaxy shape have to do with this?
On earth (ie according to our local reference frame), gravity exerts force in one direction; down. So, if the rocket was simply firing a specific thrust causing circular motion in a vertical plane, one would expect the downward part of each arc to be accelerated by gravity, and the upward part to be resisted, breaking the symmetry of the circle.
That particle simulation is all well and good, but it seems to be an idealized simulation... it's what I would expect to see in zero g, for example, I don't see how that simulation takes gravity into account.
Of course, assuming the rocket is providing constant thrust is pure conjecture, it's entirely possible the flight control system (while clearly malfunctioning) is perfectly compensating for the effects of gravity, adjusting thrust according to orientation.
That would be an argument from incredulity; I don't do fallacies. I would never take my casual layman's observation as anything remotely conclusive, I just thought it might make an interesting point for discussion.
This. Also music with nigh-indecipherable lyrics, like Nirvana. ;)
If the lyrics are clear though, I just find myself listening to them.
It still seems like a remarkably symmetrical and near perfect circular pattern, for something that would have non-symmetric forces (ie, gravity) acting on it. Weird.
And Bell wasn't in business to make money?
Tell me, what percentage of Bell consisted of Bell Labs? Over 20% of its entire workforce? If not, then Google allowing EVERY employee 20% free time for personal interest projects constitutes a greater percentage of their resources than Bell's.
I think it's more that Java web frameworks tend to be (or at least seem) very convoluted and heavy weight, rather than the Java language itself being slow (it's not).
The number of method calls you see in a typical stack trace, even in a "lightweight" framework like Spring, JUST TO SERVE A DAMN WEB PAGE (even static ones), is frankly ridiculous IMHO.
Perhaps I just suck at Java web apps (entirely possible, it's something I've consciously avoided really specializing in), but it always seems to take 5x longer to get the equivalent amount of work done on a Java webapp compared to something like PHP. And I'm no slouch at Java itself, I did client/server app development for 5+ years before moving into the web space.
Or maybe I'm just ranting because I'm stuck working on a bloated e-commerce Java webapp that performs like a sack of wet concrete at my job right now. :P
Of course you have the right.
You have the right to be a pretentious asshat pretending to speak for others ("we do expect certain standards here").
That doesn't mean you should.
Sense, schmense. It's clear that a Beowulf cluster of LHCs would be AWESOME. Like Natalie Portman hot grits awesome.
In your heart, you know it's true too.
Um, start your own fucking site?
Slashdot has ALWAYS been about things of personal interest to the editors. We have a LEGO icon, FFS, why? Because one of the founders likes Lego stories. And I'm fine with that.
Don't like it, GTFO, instead of bitching about how you feel entitled to have your "standards" met.
I heard the corks attained critical mass and are currently devouring the planet.
In my experience, Wordpress "themes" are piles of spaghetti code (with tons of logic in the presentation layer), and you have to hack core to do any non-trivial custom stuff.
It might be great for blogging, but it's a lousy platform for adding custom functionality IMHO. Would love to find out I'm wrong though, anyone had better experiences doing custom dev with Wordpress?
Oh FFS, there's no fallacy in recognizing that law enforcement, who deal with the life-and-death effects of handguns on a daily basis, are particularly well suited to judge their merits. Do you think using expert witnesses in court is fallacy?
Or as Wikipedia puts it:
The GP is not claiming law enforcement is infallible and couldn't possibly be wrong, he's simply recognizing the obvious fact that they have massive experience that is relevant here. I agree with him. Maybe you don't, but that doesn't make it a logical fallacy.
Whatever.
I've done 2 large, complex Drupal projects over the last year, and 90% of our functionality for both was easily provided by existing modules, and virtually all of the rest was accomplished by tweaking other modules. Then you just need to learn some theming (which the Theme Developer module makes falling-over-easy) to have full control of your theme layer.
I also built a small portfolio site for a friend (after giving up on both Wordpress and ModX), and had it up in a single day. It's amazing how quickly you can snap together whatever data structures (via CCK) & functionality you can think up once you learn the ropes.
Yes, it has a helluva learning curve (especially when you are trying to wade through the thousands of available modules, we spent a couple weeks just looking at modules on the first project I was on). Yes, you need to be a PHP ninja to get the most from it. All true.
But "from scratch"? That's a joke. The breadth of functionality available from contributed modules is staggering, and the override/hook system is incredibly powerful and flexible if you need to change default behaviour without modifying core.
"Listen, a 4 ounce bird could not possibly hit a small thermal exhaust port. It's impossible!"
"It's not impossible, I used to bullseye wamp rats - wait, do you mean a European or an African swallow?"
You're ignoring the benefits of seamless collaboration. Sure, someone can author a Word doc, and pass it around over email for revisions, and wind up with a dozen different versions floating around and the ensuing confusion this often causes (pretty much the case at every company I've worked at). "Just use a file server", you say, and sure, that works fine until some executive asks to be emailed a file because he can't be arsed to browse the file server. Which always happens.
With Google Docs, you create the document online, and there's only ever ONE version (but with stored revisions if rollbacks are needed). You can access (and edit!) it from anywhere with a web browser, no client software to worry about. Multiple people can work on the document at the same time, instead of playing "hot potato". When our aforementioned executive asks to be emailed the file, you simply send him a link.
Sure, things like SVN can enable local collaboration, but if you think you're going to get an office full of Joe Averages using SVN for all document management, you're a fucking masochistic lunatic.
You could say the same about webmail. Doesn't seem to have prevented its widespread adoption.
Again, you could make these exact same complaints about normal email. What if it goes down? What if I have no network access? Email is inherently insecure!
All these complaints are true, yet have not prevented email from being used productively. At the same time, "regular mail" has survived, and has its place. I suspect we will see the same with online document management.
Google recently (1 week) added the ability to share entire folders in Google Docs.
This is HUGE, previously you had to "invite" people (or otherwise provide a link) to every single Doc individually. This effectively made Google Docs useless as a centralized repository. (Believe me, we tried. Closest we got to a working solution was an unholy crossbreed of Docs and Sites, but it was still overly cumbersome)
Now you can create a folder, share/invite people to it ONCE, and just drop stuff in it, including additional sub-folders.
Seriously, Google Docs just became a killer app with this addition. Centralized, hierarchical, browser-editable, collaborative nirvana. I'm sure there are many valid use cases for local storage (highly sensitive materials, etc), but for general stuff Docs is so superior now to the de facto sharing model of MS Office + shared drive(s) + email/version hell it's not even a contest.
I'm amazed at how well this seems to automatically extract subjects from their background, something that usually requires a lot of painstaking manual work... honestly that's the real challenge of "photoshopping", becoming a ninja with the selection tools.
In my RSS reader, right above the previous headline "PhotoSketch Image Manipulation Tool Taking the World by Storm", I totally misread this as something like "Analysts predict androids overtake world by 2012" at first glance. ;)
Fuck that, let's fire up some Tie Fighter / X-Wing :)
Buh? How did they release the original theatrical versions on the latest trilogy release then? I have it at home.