While I agree with you that piping the output of one program into another to stack utility upon utility is a great feature of [c|k|ba]sh, I don't think you weren't paying attention to the parent post.
The trick with Windows is that you can do many of these same things, but this power comes from doing it in WSH or VB (or C/C++ or an ASP or whatever language you're comfortable with. I've even done it in Perl.) You use the COM interfaces of the shell object to enumerate through directory trees and files. You can stream each of those files into the COM interface of another program that accepts streams. You can search, you can pipe stuff all over, and you're not limited to a single instance of stdin, stdout and/or stderr.
It's not unlike shell scripting, it's just a different language. Each application is able to expose whatever it feels is most important in whatever fashion it thinks is best. DevStudio, for example, lets the scripting host user get to the workspace, the project, and any of the tools.
The biggest problem I have with it is that stdio is not "guaranteed" to be supported by every application under Windows. stdio is the glue that binds all the UNIX utilities together. That's the beauty of stdio -- as the sole mechanism for I/O for most tools, it became the defacto application interaction interface. Windows doesn't have that: most Windows apps don't offer any automated IO at all. And some of the ones that do seem to have interfaces pasted on after the fact. But the ones that do expose properties and methods via COM are easy to access, and easy to control from anywhere. And using the interfaces tends to remove the ambiguities: in UNIX if you're using 'cut' to parse a phone list but the name field sometimes contains commas, you end up hacking around solutions to make them work. A COM-based solution would provide an interface containing a Name field.
Windows is not alone in this limiation, either. UNIX suffers from a similar problem: how do you meaningfully pipe data to and from an X window, or even to a curses app? Is it consistent between apps? Most apps I am familiar with that offer such features in their applications had to have code added to actively support a meaningful commandline interface to their programs through the use of dozens of command line switches. Without this sort of code, using stdio to parse the output of a curses-based application becomes a tedium of screen scraping.
Don't get me wrong: I have a bevy of UNIX-like command line utilities for Windows, I use Cygwin and bash when I need to (although the file system mapping is worse than I could have imagined), and I will fire up a CMD script long before I think to write it as a VB or C++ program. I'm far more comfortable with the sh-style tools -- I grew up with them.
I'm not saying stdio is better or worse than using the COM interfaces of Windows; I'm just saying it's "different." And you certainly shouldn't be reinventing the wheel to script up utilities in Windows.
Did he put the foil-wrapped cash back in his wallet? Did that foil-wrapped cash then form a "U" wrapped around the RFID tag leftover in his wallet from the day it was purchased, blocking its signal? We don't know, he didn't say. He didn't say what happened if he separated the bills. He didn't say he tried going through with 49 or 48 bills instead of 50 bills; he apparently didn't try to discover the threshhold of how many bills it takes to set off the Checkpoint sensors. But he goes home and in a separate act of misunderstanding microwaves this same bunch of paper that has metallic and magnetic ink printed in precise locations, and watches it ignite in precisely the same spot on each bill. (Do a google search for "magnetic ink currency" and you'll find an entire industry built around the valdiation of currency via checking the locations of magnetic ink on paper. Here's one to get you started.
As an aside, reading magnetic ink in a cost-effective manner still requires contact sensors. The only way to read it at a distance currently involves a machine that would very much resemble an MRI scanner. My guess is even this guy would have spotted one of those at the door.
So, he performed no scientifically valid experimentation at all, but through a series of marginally related accidents convinces himself he's discovered these secret "facts" about money tracking.
I'm personally surprised he had to go across the street to purchase aluminum foil, and that he didn't just take some out of his hat to use to wrap around the cash. This guy sounds like the poster child for Crackpots Anonymous. I'm almost embarrased to admit I've read this far into the Slashdot comments about it; it's kind of like reading the National Enquirer.
Re:Is this book good for C++ programmers, too?
on
Pragmatic JUnit Testing
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· Score: 2, Informative
Thank you, I'll have to add this book to my ever-expanding "In" queue of books. I've needed to "automate" my testing for some time now and while JUnit seems like the right way to go, it doesn't do much for a C++ project. But I've been reading up on CppUnit and I think that's the way I'll go from here.
Only in that extreme programming is a test-centric philosophy that requires you to continually recompile/test while developing.
My understanding of JUnit is that it's a test framework that simplifies running all the tests you've developed in conjunction with a project. So, if you use the JUnit foundation to build your unit tests, theory says that before turning your code over to the QA teams you'd run JUnit over the whole ball of wax to make sure you aren't sending out something stupidly broken.
But your question: "is JUnit linked with Extreme Programming" is a lot like asking if C++ is linked with Borland or Microsoft. If you're into extreme programming in Java and testing with JUnit, then yes, they're linked. And if you're into extreme programming in Java, then you're probably already using JUnit.
Is this book good for C++ programmers, too?
on
Pragmatic JUnit Testing
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I guess the question is, are the concepts in the book presented generically enough such that it would port (for a sufficiently loose definition of port) to another framework such as CppUnit?
I guess I wasn't trying to imply that only A-list actors win Oscars or that only they should be considered. I guess I was trying to say that for a movie to be "good" (in my subjective opinion) the finished product has to stand on its own merits. Whether Tom Cruise or Nobody Uknow plays the lead should be immaterial. Almost conversely, if a movie requires a Tom Cruise-type to pull it off then it's probably pretty weak in other ways.
I understand that the Academy doesn't knee-jerk nominate only their own A-Listers, and I'm glad to see it. My point was more along the lines of it won't matter to me if you spend $500,000 on a nobody or $10 million on a Winona Ryder -- as long as the story is compelling and the actors are believable. Return of the King demonstrated that point. I agree that none of the performances in RotK were "outstanding" because I think an outstanding performance would have been out of place for any of the hobbits. (How do you outstandingly portray "more pathetic," anyway?:-)
Perhaps an actor more full of himself (*cough* Sean Connery *cough*) could have been chosen to portray one of the brash kings, or Saruman (although I'm not picking on Christopher Lee here.)
Even so, the whole concept of Lead or Supporting actor is tough to nail down with a movie this large -- while Frodo was certainly the protagonist, he was only half of the story. For example, how do you relegate Ian McKellan's performance to supporting actor?
Anyway, the story didn't need big names to carry it to the box office -- the story itself was the big name. And I was glad to see it receive the honors it deserved (even though I shorted it in the office pool.:-( I mean really, how often do movies sweep the Oscars anymore?)
After the rape and the incessant whining about "poor, pitifiul, leprous me" and the frequent jarring reminders of "it was all just a dream, Auntie Em", I really stopped caring about him, and I believe I quit reading about halfway through the third book. (It's been a while, I read the series in the early '80s.) I know I won't pick that series up again.
The reason I kept reading was I was thinking to myself "he's got to improve; or he's got to get worse." But he didn't -- he was the same throughout, and I came to the conclusion that he wasn't worth my attention. There was no redemption, no venegance. Nothing. The author certainly achieved a character that was not likeable, but he failed to balance him with any understandable motivations. I was really hoping the character would just sit down at some point and say "I give up. Screw this stupid ficticious world. Kill me, get it over with." He didn't even do that right.
I think it's fairly telling that the movie won so big without any of the "best actor / actress / supporting actor / actress" nominations. To me, it says "an A-list lead actor is not required to make an entertaining film."
I personally think it's great news for everyone (except the big name actors.) Star-appeal is not important to me -- story-appeal is. As long as the actors portraying the story are competent (and so many actors are these days,) it always takes a well-written story to successfully entertain us. Sure, a new breakthrough in special effects will draw us, but that's fleeting (witness "The Matrix" vs. "The Sequel").
I'm obviously ignoring the obvious sex appeal that some actors and actresses bring to the screen here, but that, too, is fleeting. And again there is always a fresh crop of appealing 20-somethings poised to grab the brass ring if it ever swings their way.
Our company has gone one better: the virus scanner examines all inbound documents, plus they reject all executables AND they scrub executables from within ZIP files.
Why is this better? Because "autozip" leaves you in exactly the same place as non-zipped -- the sheeple simply get conditioned to clicking the ZIP archive and then clicking on the "KEWLSCREENSAVER.EXE" contained within. The system we have here prevents even this level, and stops all "accidental" executables from coming through. If you really really needed to get an executable through, you could of course play a round of "rename-the-file-extensions".
When I first heard of this policy, I thought "that's one of the stupidest decisions they've made in a long time." But, when you look at it from their perspective of the "you may not run unapproved software on company computers" policy, it's not bad. And having lived with it now for several years I can say that I don't find it onerous. I can still email executables if I need to, but the bar is raised so that casual use doesn't let it happen. If I have an executable to send, either I play the rename games or I find an FTP server somewhere. It's worked remarkably well at keeping our windows viral infections low, and keeps the clueless users from hurting themselves.
The brilliance of this system is that even if a virus writer were to attempt to send a suitably tarted-up executable, the chances are excellent that the subset of people who would give up in frustration at being unable to understand renaming the file to.EXE would coincide with the subset of people who wouldn't immediately recognize it as a virus ploy.
It doesn't even take a three step process to implement. Two steps: 1. Set your virus scanner to scrub out absolutely every executable, including those found inside ZIP files. 2. Send out a memo saying, "New corporate anti-virus policy: Effective as of ten minutes ago, there will be no more emailed executables ever."
This is similar to what Walmart did with the Gillette Mach 3 razors. They had Gillette include RFID tags in every packet of razors, then put an RFID reader on the shelf itself.
The privacy issues arose when they used the RFID reader as the trigger to a camera which photographed the person removing the razors from the shelf.
Now, I understand why they did what they did. A retailer needs to have evidence of the theft in order to prosecute. A photo of the person removing the merchandise from the shelf is pretty hard to refute. And if the video camera showed them stuffing the razors into their pockets, it's even harder to argue. But did they need to photograph everyone taking a razor off the shelf, or just the persons taking 30 packets of razors at once?
Except that turns off all formatting for every message, including the important stuff my cow-orkers are trying to send me. They include things like tables, or highlight errors in listings in bold or red or something useful. They're actually starting to put these features to real use, rather than simply make their emails as gaudy as possible.
I have installed Outclass, an Outlook plugin for running the outlook mail through POPFile. It comes with a nice "Safe View" button that displays the entire email in notepad, allowing me to do whatever I want with it without fear of triggering a spammer's web bug (or a cow-orkers stupid dancing signature line.)
For what it's worth, for me POPFile is down to about one misclassified email a month, either way. It's a very, very smart filter.
No, doing this to an entire program would obfuscate the critical sections, and that's the entire point. A reverse engineer can't just pop in, debug the stuff that looks complex (and therefore must be hiding the good stuff) and pop out again. That engineer will have to start with step one, every single time.
Remember, computers are now large enough and fast enough that there are plenty of cycles going to waste anyway. This theory is that if those idle cycles are spent rearranging the code, the reverse engineers' lives will be more miserable, and therefore the precious code is safer.
Just keeping a remote in the kitchen subjects it to nasty crud buildup. That's always been the worst one, and I've had to clean it more than once. I've cleaned others because of things like spilled grape juice, the ordinary stuff you get with a kid in the house.
But mostly, I figure if I'm going to all the trouble to take it apart just to clean the contact pads, I may as well give the whole thing a thorough cleaning. It's like anything you maintain -- if you have to fix it at all, you may as well do it right. It's not like it takes much more once you've got it apart.
And no, the dishwasher idea is not insane. Dishwashing detergents are mildly abrasive, and do a good job on lots of surfaces including metal. Virtually every electronic component is sealed in epoxy or a plastic case, so they're not at real risk. The board can withstand a little hot water (it survives a wave solder tank and a solvent bath for crying out loud.) As long as it is dried thoroughly afterward (especially before applying power) to prevent corrosion, it'll be fine.
I even had to rescue a car remote once after forgetting it in my pocket during a swim in the ocean. Had to replace the battery, and clean the hell out of it with lots and lots of water, and I had to take a file to the contacts. But it survived just fine (or at least long enough for me to return the rental car:-)
[ DISCLAIMER: The following instructions work for me, but I'm always very careful. They may or may not work for you. You may damage or destroy your remote if you try these suggestions. You are responsible for your own actions. By trying any of these suggestions, you agree that you will not hold me responsible for any damage you may cause to your own remote. Remember, this is Slashdot and not Chi1ton's Remote Control Repair Manual. Eat your vegetables. ]
Take the remote completely apart, removing every component possible. When disassembling, take notice of where the battery wires and/or springs run so that you can return them to their original positions. Also, note the order in which you removed the parts.
Clean the plastic housings and other case parts like the battery cover with dish soap, water and an old toothbrush. Clean the button side of the button membrane with the toothbrush, but do not get water on the contact pad side. The circuit board usually just needs a good dusting, I typically dry blow it off. (By dry-blow, I mean "don't use spit-or-humidity-laden breath".) And never directly contact any circuit board with the nozzle or brush of a vacuum cleaner, they generate tremendous amounts of static which can blow chips.
If the circuit board is really filthy or sticky, (as in "beer spill",) you will need to clean it and the membrane pads with the soap and toothbrush, too. Make sure you completely and thoroughly dry the parts afterwards. I use a hair dryer. I have heard of people washing the circuit boards in the silverware tray in their dishwasher, but I have not personally tried this. I would also not put any plastic components through a heated dry cycle.
Once the circuit board is clean and dry, take a pink pencil eraser and clean the contact pads. If they are bare copper, polish each one until it is bright and shiny. If they are carbon coated, lightly rub them with the eraser but do not deeply abrade them. You just want to break through any surface dirt, not reshape them. And be careful not to rub so hard as to lift the copper traces from the circuit board, or your remote is probably toast. Afterwards, carefully brush or dry-blow all residue from the polishing. Even the tiniest particles here will cause the buttons to fail.
The buttons, however, are usually where the problem lies. For many years I've used a new U.S. dollar bill (or any new paper currency) as a mild abrasive on the black contacts. Depending on the design of the button and the membrane, you can either grip the individual buttons and rub them one at a time on the abrasive, or you can sometimes place the whole membrane assembly flat on the paper, move it with a circular motion and press the buttons to the paper. Be careful, some membranes are extremely thin and fragile. When rubbing the contacts on the abrasive, it is very important that you maintain the parallel planes between the button pads and the circuit board pads -- if you grind too much off one edge of a button pad, you'll typically just make your problem worse. You want to rub off just enough to break through dirt and/or damage. You may need to abrade more to repair badly rounded or misshapen contacts. When it's properly done, each pad should be flat (or imperceptibly convex) and parallel to the circuit board.
Reassemble the remote, usually in the reverse order in which you took it apart. Carefully route the battery wires and/or springs back through their original positions. Finally, install out-of-the-package fresh batteries.
Re:Stereotype, that C/Cis "just faster"
on
Practical C++
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· Score: 2, Funny
Actually, I think it would go a lot faster without all those gratuitous commas. They really slow down the pre-parser.
I think that if you move the recipient of the money to the recipient of the email, the spam problem would completely disappear.
"So you want to send me advertising, and you're going to pay me $0.10 per message you email me? Send all you want, dude!"
But if that $0.10 per message just falls into the "Big AOL Pot O'Money(TM)", the whining would be louder than it is today.. "What, I'm paying for email and I STILL get spam? You said it'd be gone if I paid!!!"
That may be the original poster's idea, (and I realize you're just trolling for a fight with him here,) but that's not what the court based this decision on. It is, however, one of the arguments used to prevent telemarketing calls over cell phones and is the basis of the junk fax law.
The court said basically that since you can post a "No soliciting" sign and positively affirm your intention to keep solicitors from your door, you have that right and that the government is within their boundaries to pass laws enforcing your right to be left alone. So in a parallel vein, if you "post your intention to be left alone on the phone" in a public place, specifically signing up for this "do-not-call list," that it carries the same intent and it should therefore carry the same weight. And the government is equally qualified to pass a law enforcing your right to request to be left alone in this parallel case.
It's very much a common sense decision, and it was backed with lots of precedence. If you read the courts' opinions on these types of cases you'll find that most often the decisions are based on common sense rather than on some weird legal twist. Sure, the odd decision comes through occasionally, but for the most part judges do issue reasonable, understandable rulings.
Our Constitution is pretty firm on what Congress has the power to do on a federal level, and I can not see how Congress has the power to control who can call you and who can't. If someone is a burden, find one of the many solutions that already exist, rather than placing yet another law on the books that really helps no one and harms many.
For the most part, I agree with you that we already have so many bad laws on the books that we don't need any more. Regarding the powers granted to Congress by the Constitution, well, that has pretty much been derailed for many decades now, and you're free to go join a Congress v. Constitution debate over in any usenet group; I'm not interested in that argument here.
But, to answer your question as to how the judge upheld this, it was covered quite nicely by being an opt-in program. If you're not on the list, you are fair game. However, if you are on the list then you have explicitly made the statement of choice that you do not wish to receive calls of a commercial nature. There are other factors: you have always enjoyed special protections in your home; commercial speech has always been held in lower regard than other forms of speech.
The court has issued a very reasoned judgement, and it's backed by lots of precedent. You should at least read the summary. Here, I'll post it, it's short:
The four cases consolidated in this appeal involve challenges to the national do-not-call registry, which allows individuals to register their phone numbers on a national "do-not-call list" and prohibits most commercial telemarketers from calling the numbers on that list. The primary issue in this case is whether the First Amendment prevents the government from establishing an opt-in telemarketing regulation that provides a mechanism for consumers to restrict commercial sales calls but does not provide a similar mechanism to limit charitable or political calls. We hold that the do-not-call registry is a valid commercial speech regulation because it directly advances the government's important interests in safeguarding personal privacy and reducing the danger of telemarketing abuse without burdening an excessive amount of speech. In other words, there is a reasonable fit between the do-not-call regulations and the government's reasons for enacting them.
As we discuss below in greater detail, four key aspects of the do-not-call registry convince us that it is consistent with First Amendment requirements. First, the list restricts only core commercial speech i.e., commercial sales calls. Second, the do-not-call registry targets speech that invades the privacy of the home, a personal sanctuary that enjoys a unique status in our constitutional jurisprudence. See Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474, 484 (1988). Third, the do-not-call registry is an opt-in program that puts the choice of whether or not to restrict commercial calls entirely in the hands of consumers. Fourth, the do-not-call registry materially furthers the government's interests in combating the danger of abusive telemarketing and preventing the invasion of consumer privacy, blocking a significant number of the calls that cause these problems. Under these circumstances, we conclude that the requirements of the First Amendment are satisfied.
A number of additional features of the national do-not-call registry, although not dispositive, further demonstrate that the list is consistent with the First Amendment rights of commercial speakers. The challenged regulations do not hinder any business' ability to contact consumers by other means, such as through direct mailings or other forms of advertising. Moreover, they give consumers a number of different options to avoid calls they do not want to receive. Namely, consumers who wish to restrict some but not all commercial sales calls can do so by using company-specific do-not-call lists or by granting some businesses express permission to call. In addition, the government chose to offer consumers broader optio
Phone calls can be traced, but spam cannot. If you can trace the call, you can begin legal action against the caller. If you can't trace the spam, or if it leads offshore, you can do nothing.
The other big difference is due to the low cost of sending spam v. the relatively high expense of placing calls. Even if the CAN-SPAM law starts getting enforced, the spammers could simply move offshore and continue their harrassment. I constantly get Italian-language spam (salami?) even though I only know about ten words of Italian. But when you factor in the costs involved, international long distance is currently too high a barrier for telemarketers to cross.
Sadly, this might all change with VoIP. "Voila-marketers" (I just made that term up) from off-shore sweatshops who can place international sales calls for almost-free just might do for the telephone what spam did for email. Scripts and canned recordings would even drastically reduce the language barriers, permitting poor English speakers to control synthesized voices that sound as smooth as James Earl Jones'. And so your prediction may unfortunately come true.
The judge's opinion in this case was that a person's home has always enjoyed a unique place with respect to the homeowner's rights. The concept of "cost" to the recipient didn't enter into his argument.
Here's the relevant quote from Frisby v. Schultz the court cited in this ruling:
One important aspect of residential privacy is protection of the unwilling listener.... [A] special benefit of the privacy all citizens enjoy within their own walls, which the State may legislate to protect, is an ability to avoid intrusions. Thus, we have repeatedly held that individuals are not required to welcome unwanted speech into their own homes and that the government may protect this freedom.
Slashdot Mirror
The trick with Windows is that you can do many of these same things, but this power comes from doing it in WSH or VB (or C/C++ or an ASP or whatever language you're comfortable with. I've even done it in Perl.) You use the COM interfaces of the shell object to enumerate through directory trees and files. You can stream each of those files into the COM interface of another program that accepts streams. You can search, you can pipe stuff all over, and you're not limited to a single instance of stdin, stdout and/or stderr.
It's not unlike shell scripting, it's just a different language. Each application is able to expose whatever it feels is most important in whatever fashion it thinks is best. DevStudio, for example, lets the scripting host user get to the workspace, the project, and any of the tools.
The biggest problem I have with it is that stdio is not "guaranteed" to be supported by every application under Windows. stdio is the glue that binds all the UNIX utilities together. That's the beauty of stdio -- as the sole mechanism for I/O for most tools, it became the defacto application interaction interface. Windows doesn't have that: most Windows apps don't offer any automated IO at all. And some of the ones that do seem to have interfaces pasted on after the fact. But the ones that do expose properties and methods via COM are easy to access, and easy to control from anywhere. And using the interfaces tends to remove the ambiguities: in UNIX if you're using 'cut' to parse a phone list but the name field sometimes contains commas, you end up hacking around solutions to make them work. A COM-based solution would provide an interface containing a Name field.
Windows is not alone in this limiation, either. UNIX suffers from a similar problem: how do you meaningfully pipe data to and from an X window, or even to a curses app? Is it consistent between apps? Most apps I am familiar with that offer such features in their applications had to have code added to actively support a meaningful commandline interface to their programs through the use of dozens of command line switches. Without this sort of code, using stdio to parse the output of a curses-based application becomes a tedium of screen scraping.
Don't get me wrong: I have a bevy of UNIX-like command line utilities for Windows, I use Cygwin and bash when I need to (although the file system mapping is worse than I could have imagined), and I will fire up a CMD script long before I think to write it as a VB or C++ program. I'm far more comfortable with the sh-style tools -- I grew up with them.
I'm not saying stdio is better or worse than using the COM interfaces of Windows; I'm just saying it's "different." And you certainly shouldn't be reinventing the wheel to script up utilities in Windows.
you'll find it right beneath the "Spell Check the word 'Humorously'" option.
Of course, you may have been intending to post mulch. I suppose that's so; this is Slashdot after all.
With a 3GHz Pentium 4, not only could this be your lunchpail but it could also be your stove.
Did he put the foil-wrapped cash back in his wallet? Did that foil-wrapped cash then form a "U" wrapped around the RFID tag leftover in his wallet from the day it was purchased, blocking its signal? We don't know, he didn't say. He didn't say what happened if he separated the bills. He didn't say he tried going through with 49 or 48 bills instead of 50 bills; he apparently didn't try to discover the threshhold of how many bills it takes to set off the Checkpoint sensors. But he goes home and in a separate act of misunderstanding microwaves this same bunch of paper that has metallic and magnetic ink printed in precise locations, and watches it ignite in precisely the same spot on each bill. (Do a google search for "magnetic ink currency" and you'll find an entire industry built around the valdiation of currency via checking the locations of magnetic ink on paper. Here's one to get you started.
As an aside, reading magnetic ink in a cost-effective manner still requires contact sensors. The only way to read it at a distance currently involves a machine that would very much resemble an MRI scanner. My guess is even this guy would have spotted one of those at the door.
So, he performed no scientifically valid experimentation at all, but through a series of marginally related accidents convinces himself he's discovered these secret "facts" about money tracking.
I'm personally surprised he had to go across the street to purchase aluminum foil, and that he didn't just take some out of his hat to use to wrap around the cash. This guy sounds like the poster child for Crackpots Anonymous. I'm almost embarrased to admit I've read this far into the Slashdot comments about it; it's kind of like reading the National Enquirer.
Thanks again.
My understanding of JUnit is that it's a test framework that simplifies running all the tests you've developed in conjunction with a project. So, if you use the JUnit foundation to build your unit tests, theory says that before turning your code over to the QA teams you'd run JUnit over the whole ball of wax to make sure you aren't sending out something stupidly broken.
But your question: "is JUnit linked with Extreme Programming" is a lot like asking if C++ is linked with Borland or Microsoft. If you're into extreme programming in Java and testing with JUnit, then yes, they're linked. And if you're into extreme programming in Java, then you're probably already using JUnit.
I guess the question is, are the concepts in the book presented generically enough such that it would port (for a sufficiently loose definition of port) to another framework such as CppUnit?
I understand that the Academy doesn't knee-jerk nominate only their own A-Listers, and I'm glad to see it. My point was more along the lines of it won't matter to me if you spend $500,000 on a nobody or $10 million on a Winona Ryder -- as long as the story is compelling and the actors are believable. Return of the King demonstrated that point. I agree that none of the performances in RotK were "outstanding" because I think an outstanding performance would have been out of place for any of the hobbits. (How do you outstandingly portray "more pathetic," anyway? :-)
Perhaps an actor more full of himself (*cough* Sean Connery *cough*) could have been chosen to portray one of the brash kings, or Saruman (although I'm not picking on Christopher Lee here.)
Even so, the whole concept of Lead or Supporting actor is tough to nail down with a movie this large -- while Frodo was certainly the protagonist, he was only half of the story. For example, how do you relegate Ian McKellan's performance to supporting actor?
Anyway, the story didn't need big names to carry it to the box office -- the story itself was the big name. And I was glad to see it receive the honors it deserved (even though I shorted it in the office pool. :-( I mean really, how often do movies sweep the Oscars anymore?)
The reason I kept reading was I was thinking to myself "he's got to improve; or he's got to get worse." But he didn't -- he was the same throughout, and I came to the conclusion that he wasn't worth my attention. There was no redemption, no venegance. Nothing. The author certainly achieved a character that was not likeable, but he failed to balance him with any understandable motivations. I was really hoping the character would just sit down at some point and say "I give up. Screw this stupid ficticious world. Kill me, get it over with." He didn't even do that right.
I think it'd make a really lousy movie.
I personally think it's great news for everyone (except the big name actors.) Star-appeal is not important to me -- story-appeal is. As long as the actors portraying the story are competent (and so many actors are these days,) it always takes a well-written story to successfully entertain us. Sure, a new breakthrough in special effects will draw us, but that's fleeting (witness "The Matrix" vs. "The Sequel").
I'm obviously ignoring the obvious sex appeal that some actors and actresses bring to the screen here, but that, too, is fleeting. And again there is always a fresh crop of appealing 20-somethings poised to grab the brass ring if it ever swings their way.
I think it's more like hacking while listening to the cello being played really, really well.
Thanks in advance!
Why is this better? Because "autozip" leaves you in exactly the same place as non-zipped -- the sheeple simply get conditioned to clicking the ZIP archive and then clicking on the "KEWLSCREENSAVER.EXE" contained within. The system we have here prevents even this level, and stops all "accidental" executables from coming through. If you really really needed to get an executable through, you could of course play a round of "rename-the-file-extensions".
When I first heard of this policy, I thought "that's one of the stupidest decisions they've made in a long time." But, when you look at it from their perspective of the "you may not run unapproved software on company computers" policy, it's not bad. And having lived with it now for several years I can say that I don't find it onerous. I can still email executables if I need to, but the bar is raised so that casual use doesn't let it happen. If I have an executable to send, either I play the rename games or I find an FTP server somewhere. It's worked remarkably well at keeping our windows viral infections low, and keeps the clueless users from hurting themselves.
The brilliance of this system is that even if a virus writer were to attempt to send a suitably tarted-up executable, the chances are excellent that the subset of people who would give up in frustration at being unable to understand renaming the file to .EXE would coincide with the subset of people who wouldn't immediately recognize it as a virus ploy.
It doesn't even take a three step process to implement. Two steps: 1. Set your virus scanner to scrub out absolutely every executable, including those found inside ZIP files. 2. Send out a memo saying, "New corporate anti-virus policy: Effective as of ten minutes ago, there will be no more emailed executables ever."
The privacy issues arose when they used the RFID reader as the trigger to a camera which photographed the person removing the razors from the shelf.
Now, I understand why they did what they did. A retailer needs to have evidence of the theft in order to prosecute. A photo of the person removing the merchandise from the shelf is pretty hard to refute. And if the video camera showed them stuffing the razors into their pockets, it's even harder to argue. But did they need to photograph everyone taking a razor off the shelf, or just the persons taking 30 packets of razors at once?
I have installed Outclass, an Outlook plugin for running the outlook mail through POPFile. It comes with a nice "Safe View" button that displays the entire email in notepad, allowing me to do whatever I want with it without fear of triggering a spammer's web bug (or a cow-orkers stupid dancing signature line.)
For what it's worth, for me POPFile is down to about one misclassified email a month, either way. It's a very, very smart filter.
Remember, computers are now large enough and fast enough that there are plenty of cycles going to waste anyway. This theory is that if those idle cycles are spent rearranging the code, the reverse engineers' lives will be more miserable, and therefore the precious code is safer.
But mostly, I figure if I'm going to all the trouble to take it apart just to clean the contact pads, I may as well give the whole thing a thorough cleaning. It's like anything you maintain -- if you have to fix it at all, you may as well do it right. It's not like it takes much more once you've got it apart.
And no, the dishwasher idea is not insane. Dishwashing detergents are mildly abrasive, and do a good job on lots of surfaces including metal. Virtually every electronic component is sealed in epoxy or a plastic case, so they're not at real risk. The board can withstand a little hot water (it survives a wave solder tank and a solvent bath for crying out loud.) As long as it is dried thoroughly afterward (especially before applying power) to prevent corrosion, it'll be fine.
I even had to rescue a car remote once after forgetting it in my pocket during a swim in the ocean. Had to replace the battery, and clean the hell out of it with lots and lots of water, and I had to take a file to the contacts. But it survived just fine (or at least long enough for me to return the rental car :-)
Take the remote completely apart, removing every component possible. When disassembling, take notice of where the battery wires and/or springs run so that you can return them to their original positions. Also, note the order in which you removed the parts.
Clean the plastic housings and other case parts like the battery cover with dish soap, water and an old toothbrush. Clean the button side of the button membrane with the toothbrush, but do not get water on the contact pad side. The circuit board usually just needs a good dusting, I typically dry blow it off. (By dry-blow, I mean "don't use spit-or-humidity-laden breath".) And never directly contact any circuit board with the nozzle or brush of a vacuum cleaner, they generate tremendous amounts of static which can blow chips.
If the circuit board is really filthy or sticky, (as in "beer spill",) you will need to clean it and the membrane pads with the soap and toothbrush, too. Make sure you completely and thoroughly dry the parts afterwards. I use a hair dryer. I have heard of people washing the circuit boards in the silverware tray in their dishwasher, but I have not personally tried this. I would also not put any plastic components through a heated dry cycle.
Once the circuit board is clean and dry, take a pink pencil eraser and clean the contact pads. If they are bare copper, polish each one until it is bright and shiny. If they are carbon coated, lightly rub them with the eraser but do not deeply abrade them. You just want to break through any surface dirt, not reshape them. And be careful not to rub so hard as to lift the copper traces from the circuit board, or your remote is probably toast. Afterwards, carefully brush or dry-blow all residue from the polishing. Even the tiniest particles here will cause the buttons to fail.
The buttons, however, are usually where the problem lies. For many years I've used a new U.S. dollar bill (or any new paper currency) as a mild abrasive on the black contacts. Depending on the design of the button and the membrane, you can either grip the individual buttons and rub them one at a time on the abrasive, or you can sometimes place the whole membrane assembly flat on the paper, move it with a circular motion and press the buttons to the paper. Be careful, some membranes are extremely thin and fragile. When rubbing the contacts on the abrasive, it is very important that you maintain the parallel planes between the button pads and the circuit board pads -- if you grind too much off one edge of a button pad, you'll typically just make your problem worse. You want to rub off just enough to break through dirt and/or damage. You may need to abrade more to repair badly rounded or misshapen contacts. When it's properly done, each pad should be flat (or imperceptibly convex) and parallel to the circuit board.
Reassemble the remote, usually in the reverse order in which you took it apart. Carefully route the battery wires and/or springs back through their original positions. Finally, install out-of-the-package fresh batteries.
Actually, I think it would go a lot faster without all those gratuitous commas. They really slow down the pre-parser.
"So you want to send me advertising, and you're going to pay me $0.10 per message you email me? Send all you want, dude!"
But if that $0.10 per message just falls into the "Big AOL Pot O'Money(TM)", the whining would be louder than it is today.. "What, I'm paying for email and I STILL get spam? You said it'd be gone if I paid!!!"
The court said basically that since you can post a "No soliciting" sign and positively affirm your intention to keep solicitors from your door, you have that right and that the government is within their boundaries to pass laws enforcing your right to be left alone. So in a parallel vein, if you "post your intention to be left alone on the phone" in a public place, specifically signing up for this "do-not-call list," that it carries the same intent and it should therefore carry the same weight. And the government is equally qualified to pass a law enforcing your right to request to be left alone in this parallel case.
It's very much a common sense decision, and it was backed with lots of precedence. If you read the courts' opinions on these types of cases you'll find that most often the decisions are based on common sense rather than on some weird legal twist. Sure, the odd decision comes through occasionally, but for the most part judges do issue reasonable, understandable rulings.
For the most part, I agree with you that we already have so many bad laws on the books that we don't need any more. Regarding the powers granted to Congress by the Constitution, well, that has pretty much been derailed for many decades now, and you're free to go join a Congress v. Constitution debate over in any usenet group; I'm not interested in that argument here.
But, to answer your question as to how the judge upheld this, it was covered quite nicely by being an opt-in program. If you're not on the list, you are fair game. However, if you are on the list then you have explicitly made the statement of choice that you do not wish to receive calls of a commercial nature. There are other factors: you have always enjoyed special protections in your home; commercial speech has always been held in lower regard than other forms of speech.
The court has issued a very reasoned judgement, and it's backed by lots of precedent. You should at least read the summary. Here, I'll post it, it's short:
The other big difference is due to the low cost of sending spam v. the relatively high expense of placing calls. Even if the CAN-SPAM law starts getting enforced, the spammers could simply move offshore and continue their harrassment. I constantly get Italian-language spam (salami?) even though I only know about ten words of Italian. But when you factor in the costs involved, international long distance is currently too high a barrier for telemarketers to cross.
Sadly, this might all change with VoIP. "Voila-marketers" (I just made that term up) from off-shore sweatshops who can place international sales calls for almost-free just might do for the telephone what spam did for email. Scripts and canned recordings would even drastically reduce the language barriers, permitting poor English speakers to control synthesized voices that sound as smooth as James Earl Jones'. And so your prediction may unfortunately come true.
Here's the relevant quote from Frisby v. Schultz the court cited in this ruling:
One important aspect of residential privacy is protection of the unwilling listener. ... [A] special benefit of the privacy all citizens enjoy within their own walls, which the State may legislate to protect, is an ability to avoid intrusions. Thus, we have repeatedly held that individuals are not required to welcome unwanted speech into their own homes and that the government may protect this freedom.