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User: Doomdark

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  1. Re:From the article.... on Oracle Releases MySQL 5.5 · · Score: 1

    Does 'on duplicate key' have many use cases beyond typical "UPSERT" functionality (aka MERGE etc etc) that almost every other DB engine also happens to implement (just using different name and syntax)? That is, ability to either modify (UPdate) existing row, or if none exists, to add (inSERT) one.

  2. Re:You have nothing to fear. on Oracle Releases MySQL 5.5 · · Score: 1
    1. Over two or three years, Oracle can merge mysql into their Express edition. That'll basically require adding a mysql API onto it. They can probably do that over a few weeks, but why hurry?

    Surely you are jesting here. Getting anything done at Oracle goes at glacial speeds, in general; but change you are talking about is not exactly trivial (at too many levels to enumerate).

  3. Re:User donation model on Should Wikipedia Just Accept Ads Already? · · Score: 1

    If you are comparing TV broadcast ads to online ads you are doing apples-to-oranges comparison however: with sites, adding ads has negligible cost increase so even with low revenue it is very hard to actually lose money, as compared to not including ads. My blog for example earns just couple of dollars a month via adsense, but adding those ads does not add cost to site hosting, so it is "extra" money, if a very low amount.

  4. Re:Relax everyone! on Amazon Taking Down Erotica, Removing From Kindles · · Score: 1
    Yeah, I am eagerly awaiting what "Seattle Sam" (counterpart of Bagdad Bob) might be saying about these alleged acts of censorship. :-)

    (see http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/jokes/bljoke-iraqinfominister.htm for background)

  5. Re:Anonymous HAD the resources. on Why Anonymous Can't Take Down Amazon.com · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Should have used Amazon's EC cloud to attack Amazon itself, morons.

    Yeah, that would be REALLY cost-effective -- pay AWS for cpu time and traffic (Amazon.com itself is not within AWS realm so traffic between EC2 and Amazon.com is not free) in order to try to hurt the retail web site. Doing that would have been colossally stupid; and quite profitable for Amazon.

    I guess this is based on common mis-conception that Amazon.com itself runs on AWS systems. This is not true; ask any Amazonian and they can explain separation (which is due to historical reasons more than anything else; but there are strong security concerns too).

  6. Re:Anonymous Makes Assange Look Like a Terrorist on Why Anonymous Can't Take Down Amazon.com · · Score: 1
    That doesn't imply violence, but violence is an easy way to achieve fear.

    I think you may be trying to re-define common understanding of terrorism -- threat of violence is typically included as part of definition. This is supported by Wikipedia's definition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism). And if "making someone worried" would be sufficient grounds for terrorist label you would include pretty much any and all activist organizations: many corporations fear ACLU might decide to target them; but I doubt many could be comfortable calling ACLU a terrorist organization (feel free to replace ACLU with a conservative-side organization -- this is not about political worldview).

    As such I do not see how you could credibly consider WikiLeaks a terrorist organization, nor Assange a terrorist.

  7. Re:Why attack Amazon? on Why Anonymous Can't Take Down Amazon.com · · Score: 1
    This is a bogus argument if anything: government actually does not have copyright over said documents (see http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html , section 3.1.2: "In the United States, U.S. Government works are covered by 17 USC 105.59 "Copyright protection is not available for any work of the United States Government,").

    And since when has it been Amazon's business to pro-actively go after possible infringement even with no formal request, complaint or court order? If anything, I would think AWS would ideally not have to moderate content -- if they do, they become publishers and open themselves up for more lawsuits in cases where they did not proactively censor content that was found to be illegal. AWS is ideally just a data storage and delivery mechanism, not a content moderation system.

    This is not to say I agree with attacks, of course; it was not only a stupid idea but wrong. I just think Amazon royally pooped up this case and that they deserve all and any flak they get (even if only from geeks like slashdot readers).

  8. Re:Just Leave on Michael Moore Posts Julian Assange's Bail · · Score: 1
    A lot of people here like this country just the way it is and don't want anyone, Moore, Obama, or anyone else changing it in to something else.

    And many, many more would like to change it in one way or another. Most of them fully disagreeing in actual changes.

    If you are uncomfortable with such a state of things, where changes happen over time; and often in conflicting directions, you might want to considering moving yourself. There are still dictatorships where things change more slowly and in more predictable direction. Ironically enough Cuba has been such a country at least until recently.

  9. Re:Doomed on Michael Moore Posts Julian Assange's Bail · · Score: 1
    My problem with him on a personal level is he doesn't let the evidence speak for itself.

    Minor nitpick: that would be your problem with his professional side, not personal, unless this bothers you when directly interacting with him. Maybe this confusion may stem from common but misguided use of "I personally believe" (instead of plain old "I believe").

  10. Re:Cynical but true... on Oracle Asks Apache To Rethink Java Committee Exit · · Score: 1

    Yeah, certainly should be considered; but I am not one deciding what to use. I personally prefer Postgresql, and would start by investigating it but others have different opinions. And in the end I think both can be made to work. Decisions to use MySQL were done quite a while ok so Oracle ownership was not a factor back in the day when opinions seem to have formed.

  11. Re:Cynical but true... on Oracle Asks Apache To Rethink Java Committee Exit · · Score: 1
    but everyone's scared to death of Oracle quadrupling the price for next year's service contract and making a mess of support.

    True. And while I don't know the exact details (wrt is it factor of 4 or something else), I do know that support contract costs have already risen; and this is big part of why my employer is urgently working on moving systems that still run on Solaris boxes (minority) to run on linux systems (which is already majority). Likewise there are projects to move DBs off of Oracle; although mostly to MySQL which may not be complete solution. But at least for now MySQL support is still much less expensive than Oracle DB, and may remain so because of different profiling (expensive "enterprise" DB, slightly less expensive "medium-size" mysql).

    These fears are well-founded; Oracle is competent at squeezing more money out of existing customers. That's why they are so profitable.

  12. Re:Since when is he a billionaire? on Facebook's Zuckerberg To Give Away Half His Cash · · Score: 1
    I don't know very much beyond the basic idea that one can trade with securities that are pre-IPO, unfortunately.

    But the idea as I understand it is that since shares can not be sold and bought in regular stock exchanges (due to there not having been a public offering), this works more like a single-equity-type exchange, essentially matching buyers and sellers. One downside would be that there are fewer sellers; second that due to lack of regulation there are more things that could go wrong and so forth. Upside is that you can invest early, without being a VC, early on so potential profits are also big as are risks.

  13. Re:M.A.D. on WikiLeaks Defenders Threaten Amazon · · Score: 1
    Who's the terrorist? The one who did the *acts* reported in the documentation? Or the one who's letting others know they did it?

    How about neither? Or which one is using acts to spread actual terror (fear)? While there is no commonly accepted strict definition, "Terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion." seems like a reasonable consensus definition (as per wikipedia).

    Word terrorist is as misused as word liberal these days, at least in US (not much of news, but worth reiterating).

  14. Re:where does the burden of proof lie? on Doubling of CO2 Not So Tragic After All? · · Score: 1
    Did you read the article? It said exactly that increased levels of CO2 will be mitigated by increased growth of green plant life, and that the current models are too aggressive in their estimations of negative effects....

    The bottom line is that we don't really know what's going on.

    Huh? No -- put simply, all report suggested was "not changing as rapidly as other studies suggest". It did not question consensus that what is going on is human-induced changes to CO2 levels, which are very likely to cause significant climate changes. It just claimed that magnitude of changes may be over-estimated.

    Which part again would support your position of "but one really knows anything" again?

  15. Re:No shit. on X Particle Might Explain Dark Matter & Antimatter · · Score: 1

    More specifically, not a "scientific theory" (as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory). Term theory is used for other kinds ("philosophical theories"), too, but given context this should obviously be scientific one. :-)

  16. Re:Since when is he a billionaire? on Facebook's Zuckerberg To Give Away Half His Cash · · Score: 1

    There is actually marketplace for selling such securities ("Secondary Private Equity Sales"?), so Facebook equity is actually quite liquid. So there is nothing odd about this; he does have assets that are easy enough to liquidate.

  17. Re:in reality... on Facebook's Zuckerberg To Give Away Half His Cash · · Score: 1

    So by your logic, assuming (quite possibly incorrectly) that wealth was obtained by illegal or immoral means, it should not be now shared? That is, the action of distributing wealth to charitable causes is no better than leaving it as inheritance to offsprings? Your moral view differs a lot from mine.

  18. Re:So is there an enforcement clause in this? on Facebook's Zuckerberg To Give Away Half His Cash · · Score: 1
    The whole idea (of BillG's and others project) is that publicly stating intent does make it MUCH more likely that person follows it. If you want to understand how and why, you can read any reasonable modern behavior psych book; anything from the classic "The Psychology of Persuasion" or newer. Turns out that human behavior often follows backwards route (from how I feel to what the situation must be like); and in this case it starts with "I am a good person since I will give money to charity" and increases chances of actually acting this belief. This is much simplified explanation but the underlying principle is sound and based on clinical research.

    So, yes, technically he could just change his mind and not do it; it just is less likely than what you seem to think.

    Plus from what I have read, it does not look like Z is actually obsessed with personal wealth; either for accumulating or spending it. And he has started doling out charitable contributions already; so I would give him quite a bit of benefit of doubt here.

  19. Re:Some People on A Nude Awakening — the TSA and Privacy · · Score: 1

    I truly have no fucking clue what you trying to convey here, nor much interest in grokking it. I had no difficulty understanding the original comment or arguments. I suggest you stop reading material that is too challenging to your level of reading comprehension.

  20. Re:Some People on A Nude Awakening — the TSA and Privacy · · Score: 1
    Nice apples to oranges comparison here. Followed by ad-hominem attack, you managed to negate any validity your argument might have.

    Obviously there are cases where one should restrain from desperate measures; just as clearly as there are cases where passengers absolutely should use their superiority in numbers to storm hi-jackers. The main problem with latter is just coordination; not the fact that with 10x as many participants it is possible subdue hi-jackers even when they are armed and passengers are not.

  21. Re:List of US facilities? on Digging Into the WikiLeaks Cables · · Score: 1
    However, when I read earlier today about the leak of the list of vital US facilities, I had to wonder just what they're thinking.

    While it is questionable as to what the point was with the release, I doubt it is of much help to terrorists. I would assume it would rather draw a big yawn from them. Hitting vital targets is important for regular warfare, but for terrorists the real deal is, well, causing terror. And that is much more efficiently caused by hitting proper "soft" targets, people in highly public places (public gatherings), or things that are scary by nature to most people (airplanes). And specifically giving the idea that they might hit anyone, anywhere, at any time.

    As such it is of little relevancy as to what actually is considered important for national security.

  22. Re:Is this Wikileaks day? on Digging Into the WikiLeaks Cables · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I kind of wish I was in a psychology course during all this..

    My amateur psychologist impression is that many quoted officials are taking the "5 year old with tantrum" route. Slightly more refined than what terrible-two toddlers do, but still at kindergarten level. This is not meant as a snipe, but just an observation (not a flattering one of course, but no point in blaming mirror if face looks ugly).

  23. Re:There's no need to fear Joe Lieberman on Wikileaks Booted From Amazon · · Score: 1
    I don't disagree with notion of "careful for what you wish for", but I would like to point out one fallacy in the statement:

    *Being completely prone to a Pearl Harbor type surprise attack at any time

    The reason Japanese attacked was exactly because they viewed US as having keen interest in things happening what they considered their sphere of interest; if US was seen as isolationist, there would have been little point in attacking. This is not necessarily much of a reason to become isolationist, but one consequence is that without being (or trying to be) an empire, you don't have many conflicts of interests with others who do.

    And obviously defending yourself does not fall outside of "only care for what happens here"; information relevant to protecting yourself does fall within "what happens here" category.

  24. Re:Can't see a reason in the Acceptable Use Policy on Wikileaks Booted From Amazon · · Score: 1
    The US State Department disagrees.

    Yeah, same way as 95% of convicted criminals disagree with (a) finding of them being found guilty and (b) appropriateness of sentencing. Amongst other things. This is hardly news.

    Meaning that they are hardly objective party; and their statements are based on what they want to see happen, not on objectively interpreting sets of laws.

  25. Re:Essay writing in the techie world on Shadow Scholar Details Student Cheating · · Score: 1
    Ask yourself how popular Linux would be today, if Linus had published a well-written series of introductory articles about it in the popular press, 20 years ago.

    Simple answer: none more popular. Linux was not usable for most people back then, so why would they care?

    Consider this: Minix was the operating system that was well documented by such articles. How popular is it nowadays, compared to Linux?

    Btw, your point of usefulness of documentation and publishing is completely valid. I am just focused on trashing your case study here. :-)