And, if the computer algorithms are any good, it will also show that shoplifting from grocery stores is on the rise in the week prior to Thankgiving and packages burgled from automobiles in retail store parking lots is very high between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Spending money to research the blatantly obvious is an American tradition.
Actually the point of data mining is to discover the behavioral patterns that are not obvious. It works, its been proven in retail. I have a friend who does DB work for a major fast food chain. The connections they make are incredible and they do successfully predict consumer behaviors that are verified at the cash register.
This is not minority report type stuff. This stuff is more like: data shows an increase in vandalism in the vicinity of the sports stadium after a championship game. OK, most people get that because the relationship is somewhat easy to grasp. However with data mining much more subtle trends in human behavior can be discovered. This sort of stuff has been done in the past with respect to consumer behavior. For example Wal Mart discovered that when news in the gulf region warned of a possible hurricane there was a spike in the sales of pop tarts. So when the news mentions a possible hurricane Wal Mart immediately relocates pop tarts from the mid west to the gulf region before there is any apparent demand.
What will most likely occur is that data mining of law enforcement records will be used to schedule and position officers in different areas depending on various inputs: season, weather, temperature, community events, sports events, etc.
they understood the need to have an agreed upon coding standard to make things more readable to the group
I've taken over maintenance of an awful lot of old programs, and I've never had a case where I thought I would have been helped by anything I've ever seen in any coding standards.
The coding standard was more of a help during development. The idea was the dev team's. After two multiyear projects without any standards they decided they needed some for the next multiyear project.
Reviews, on the other hand, might catch things like variable names that clash with what's actually going on, not trusting error or transaction systems, writing code that duplicates database constraints, wrong comments, etc.
For this team part of the review process involved looking at diffs from the last release version. Their experience from earlier projects where anything goes led to bloated diffs with cosmetic changes, hiding real changes among a bunch of cosmetic changes. Just one of various reasons the *team* decided it needed a standard the next time around.
The same thing that happen when you privatize anything. Corporations overcharge, provide shitty service, and generally use their influence to manipulate the government.
Commercial aviation proves otherwise. You may wish to quibble over service but in constant dollars airfare has come down quite a bit in price over the decades so its not unreasonable that cuts were made in other areas, or that some costs are externalized from air fare. Are there occasional screw ups, absolutely, but I don't think I'd characterize overall service poorly. I've found airline employees as helpful as they can be most of the time.
Commercial space flight has no vision beyond sending tourists to LEO and throwing more satellites into higher orbits.
I know a few people involved in commercial space flight. Their vision extends beyond that. They are the same sort of dreamers that in the 1950s and 60s would have worked for NASA. Don't be misled by the first practical baby steps that they are attempting.
In general I agree that gov't needs to be involved in some of the more leading edge and purely scientific missions. However that is not quite what the shuttle was doing, it was generally doing those mundane things you mentioned regard commercial enterprises, well not so much the tourist part. Having the commercial folks replace the shuttle is not a bad first baby step.
I can't figure out why you jump to the conclusion that my code is 'crappy'.
Perhaps you are the exception, but I (25 years exp) agree with the other poster in a general sense. When someone says "I want my code to be judged on it's output / functionality instead of how it is written" that is a big warning sign. People who make such statements are often those who slap together mediocre code as fast as they can, with only narrow use in mind... code that in the long term tends to be difficult to maintain, buggy beyond the original narrow use envisioned, and difficult to adapt for related uses. Again, perhaps you are the exception but there is a strong correlation between mediocre code and the perspective offered.
Similar to the above, there is a high correlation with delusional overconfidence and statements like "I've never come to appreciate something as ridiculous as 'company-wide' ANYTHING. You don't hire me for my ability to conform!". I've had the pleasure of working on teams with incredibly talented and experienced professionals and their attitude is quite the opposite. For example they understood the need to have an agreed upon coding standard to make things more readable to the group, to minimize diffs that can be bloated by personal formatting tastes, etc. Personally preferences were prevalent when coming up with the coding standard for the team, blood was nearly spilled:-), but once negotiated and agreed upon everyone went with it. As for code reviews these people liked them. Highly talented people often like to learn from other highly talented people. Again, perhaps you are the exception, but the attitude offered is more commonly associated with those of lesser talents.
In short, shitty code can come up with the right answer. So arguing that your code comes up with the right answer is not necessarily informative. Once again, having not reviewed your code I can't speak towards your specific talents. I think myself and the other poster are saying that your comments seem to fit a pattern that we and many others have seen before. If you are truly an exception you might want to rephrase your comments to not fit this well established pattern.
... automatic testing is a joke, it just test something you already prove works in the automatic setting and generates totally, totally useless reports which tell nothing of the state of the actual project...
Sometimes changes inadvertently break previously working code. Some testing is beyond boring and is best automated if possible. For example I have a calculator application, Perpenso Calc for iPhone, and its regression testing checks the results of all operations, formatting options, etc. A human can only stand so much verification of 64 bit bitwise operations, 20 digit complex number operations, time value of money calculations, etc. The human time is better spent exercising the user interface in this case, and letting the machine do most (not all) of the numerical accuracy checks.
OK that was a pretty special case where automation is an obvious fit but automation works in other areas. Gaming for example, consider a real time strategy game's AI. An automated test might create a squad on squad battle, repeat 1,000 time, and compare the results to expected or desired results. This sort of thing can be particularly useful when balancing units, where the changes are not in code but rather in data being tweaked by designers. Of course none of this replaces good old fashioned beta testing, but it actually make for more valuable beta testing that focuses on the edge cases and not so much on the basics.
As for testing - that's a later stage in the process of development.
Testing and code reviews should occur at the earliest possible moment and be integrated throughout development. Bugs cost less when they are found earlier.
a new one will take some time to get up and going.
That was a well known issue and the plan was to have something new before shuttle retirement. Too bad all the attempts at something new were never followed through on.
Well the American government's dominance(*), there is still the American commercial spaceflight industry. Let's hope the government does not over-regulate or otherwise screw up this emerging industry.
(*) Dominance may be overstating things. The Russians have done a lot of important work, much of it complementary to America's work and experience.
I'm having trouble figuring out the fascination for knowing what the exact time is. Particularly when you're camping.
Some of us don't use the campsite much beyond sleeping and cooking. How long did it take to get from camp to a point of interest, well that might indicate about how long it will take to get back so you know how long to start the return trip before sunset. It also helps to organize a group, different people want see different things in the morning but agree to meet up in the afternoon at a specific place and time. You might want to monitor how many minutes that backpacking fuel canister has been used. You might want to measure cooking time, rehydration time, boiling time, etc. You might want to measure how long the water purification tablets have been doing their thing in the canteen. When you are warm and cozy in that sleeping bag you might want to know how far off dawn is so you can decide whether or not to try to hold that piss or just give in and put on the jacket and boots and go outside to get it over with.:-)
Under the version recently passed by the House, a person can get a patent unless "the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention..."... Instead of being "know or used" it has to be printed, patented or "otherwise available to the public."
No problem, create a small ad that describes the invention. Place that ad in your local newspaper. The letter of the law cuts both ways.
Personally I'm fine with it being an affectation,its the only piece of jewelry I wear, but lets at least be honest.
Some watches are functional, some people need to check/measure time when both hands are otherwise occupied. Some of us go outdoors, even in the rain. Some of us go to places where we can not recharge a phone. Some of us even go into water over our waist, on purpose.:-)
Cell phones are known for having other functionality as well as being able to tell the time. I've never seen the point of strapping a somewhat functional piece of jewelry to my arm when I have a small device in my pocket that tells the time, as well as doing a hundred or more other things that I find useful.
My analog display watch enables hands free operation and is water resistant to 100m. Its a far better choice in the rain or when scuba diving. When hiking/backpacking/camping my cellphone is generally powered down and in a dry bag, reserved for emergencies. "Never seen the point" is taking an otherwise reasonable argument too far.
Or they just got sick of spending their money on disposable razors.
My grandfathers and great-uncles who grew up during the great depression, and whose spending habits seem to have been determined by that era, did not seem to find the price of razor ***blades*** to be prohibitively expensive given the comfort and convenience of the safety razor. Those old gillette razors themselves seemed to be a once in a lifetime purchase.
The only straight razor I ever saw was in a great-uncle's barber shop. It was more decoration by the time I saw it. From what I heard they required a bit of care and maintenance when actually used.
For the Air it would have to be... but why not standardize. Great opportunity here for Apple.
The restore media may have different contents depending on the product family, more than the operating system may be included. My several year old media seems product family specific. Even if the media is universal they could save a lot of money by using less expensive DVDs for the majority of the computers to be sold.
Apple will no longer offer a bootable installer DVD...
Note that everyone is talking about the 10.7 ***upgrade***. If you are buying a new mac with 10.7 preinstalled you will probably have DVD media to restore your system.
I don't get the "Eww" comments. You do realize that what you flush down the toilet goes to a gigantic pond where the solids settle out then the remaining liquids are pumped through filters and sent right back to your faucet, don't you?
And to some of the bottled water bottling plants.:-)
And for those relieved that their bottled water comes from mountain streams... look into why hikers and backpackers near such stream generally carry water filters or sterilization tools.
With the realization that effluent from sewage plants has detectable amounts of antidepressants, estrogen (from birth control pills), and other modern drugs which may be impacting river life, I'd really like to know that this membrane stops those (as well as "virtually any liquid"). I'd hate to spend a couple of months in space and find that I now had breasts due to water-transported hormones from the women on the crew...and that they'd grown muscles and body hair due to mine.
Given the antidepressants are you sure you would hate it?:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Upgraded for manned missions? Other than a "pod" to carry an astronaut back as part of a rescue mission?
And, if the computer algorithms are any good, it will also show that shoplifting from grocery stores is on the rise in the week prior to Thankgiving and packages burgled from automobiles in retail store parking lots is very high between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Spending money to research the blatantly obvious is an American tradition.
Actually the point of data mining is to discover the behavioral patterns that are not obvious. It works, its been proven in retail. I have a friend who does DB work for a major fast food chain. The connections they make are incredible and they do successfully predict consumer behaviors that are verified at the cash register.
This is a joke right?
This is not minority report type stuff. This stuff is more like: data shows an increase in vandalism in the vicinity of the sports stadium after a championship game. OK, most people get that because the relationship is somewhat easy to grasp. However with data mining much more subtle trends in human behavior can be discovered. This sort of stuff has been done in the past with respect to consumer behavior. For example Wal Mart discovered that when news in the gulf region warned of a possible hurricane there was a spike in the sales of pop tarts. So when the news mentions a possible hurricane Wal Mart immediately relocates pop tarts from the mid west to the gulf region before there is any apparent demand.
What will most likely occur is that data mining of law enforcement records will be used to schedule and position officers in different areas depending on various inputs: season, weather, temperature, community events, sports events, etc.
they understood the need to have an agreed upon coding standard to make things more readable to the group
I've taken over maintenance of an awful lot of old programs, and I've never had a case where I thought I would have been helped by anything I've ever seen in any coding standards.
The coding standard was more of a help during development. The idea was the dev team's. After two multiyear projects without any standards they decided they needed some for the next multiyear project.
Reviews, on the other hand, might catch things like variable names that clash with what's actually going on, not trusting error or transaction systems, writing code that duplicates database constraints, wrong comments, etc.
For this team part of the review process involved looking at diffs from the last release version. Their experience from earlier projects where anything goes led to bloated diffs with cosmetic changes, hiding real changes among a bunch of cosmetic changes. Just one of various reasons the *team* decided it needed a standard the next time around.
I invite you to check back in 2022 and 2025 hand see how we are doing.
Do I have to wait that long? I haven't visited the Hofbräuhaus and other smaller establishments since 2007 and I'm starting to miss them. :-)
They also like a fat return on their investment, and 'space tourism' just won't cut it in the long run.
Sorry, but I think commercial aviation will be a better comparison than banking, and commercial aviation is not known for a fat return.
The same thing that happen when you privatize anything. Corporations overcharge, provide shitty service, and generally use their influence to manipulate the government.
Commercial aviation proves otherwise. You may wish to quibble over service but in constant dollars airfare has come down quite a bit in price over the decades so its not unreasonable that cuts were made in other areas, or that some costs are externalized from air fare. Are there occasional screw ups, absolutely, but I don't think I'd characterize overall service poorly. I've found airline employees as helpful as they can be most of the time.
Commercial space flight has no vision beyond sending tourists to LEO and throwing more satellites into higher orbits.
I know a few people involved in commercial space flight. Their vision extends beyond that. They are the same sort of dreamers that in the 1950s and 60s would have worked for NASA. Don't be misled by the first practical baby steps that they are attempting.
In general I agree that gov't needs to be involved in some of the more leading edge and purely scientific missions. However that is not quite what the shuttle was doing, it was generally doing those mundane things you mentioned regard commercial enterprises, well not so much the tourist part. Having the commercial folks replace the shuttle is not a bad first baby step.
I can't figure out why you jump to the conclusion that my code is 'crappy'.
Perhaps you are the exception, but I (25 years exp) agree with the other poster in a general sense. When someone says "I want my code to be judged on it's output / functionality instead of how it is written" that is a big warning sign. People who make such statements are often those who slap together mediocre code as fast as they can, with only narrow use in mind ... code that in the long term tends to be difficult to maintain, buggy beyond the original narrow use envisioned, and difficult to adapt for related uses. Again, perhaps you are the exception but there is a strong correlation between mediocre code and the perspective offered.
:-), but once negotiated and agreed upon everyone went with it. As for code reviews these people liked them. Highly talented people often like to learn from other highly talented people. Again, perhaps you are the exception, but the attitude offered is more commonly associated with those of lesser talents.
Similar to the above, there is a high correlation with delusional overconfidence and statements like "I've never come to appreciate something as ridiculous as 'company-wide' ANYTHING. You don't hire me for my ability to conform!". I've had the pleasure of working on teams with incredibly talented and experienced professionals and their attitude is quite the opposite. For example they understood the need to have an agreed upon coding standard to make things more readable to the group, to minimize diffs that can be bloated by personal formatting tastes, etc. Personally preferences were prevalent when coming up with the coding standard for the team, blood was nearly spilled
In short, shitty code can come up with the right answer. So arguing that your code comes up with the right answer is not necessarily informative. Once again, having not reviewed your code I can't speak towards your specific talents. I think myself and the other poster are saying that your comments seem to fit a pattern that we and many others have seen before. If you are truly an exception you might want to rephrase your comments to not fit this well established pattern.
... automatic testing is a joke, it just test something you already prove works in the automatic setting and generates totally, totally useless reports which tell nothing of the state of the actual project ...
Sometimes changes inadvertently break previously working code. Some testing is beyond boring and is best automated if possible. For example I have a calculator application, Perpenso Calc for iPhone, and its regression testing checks the results of all operations, formatting options, etc. A human can only stand so much verification of 64 bit bitwise operations, 20 digit complex number operations, time value of money calculations, etc. The human time is better spent exercising the user interface in this case, and letting the machine do most (not all) of the numerical accuracy checks.
OK that was a pretty special case where automation is an obvious fit but automation works in other areas. Gaming for example, consider a real time strategy game's AI. An automated test might create a squad on squad battle, repeat 1,000 time, and compare the results to expected or desired results. This sort of thing can be particularly useful when balancing units, where the changes are not in code but rather in data being tweaked by designers. Of course none of this replaces good old fashioned beta testing, but it actually make for more valuable beta testing that focuses on the edge cases and not so much on the basics.
As for testing - that's a later stage in the process of development.
Testing and code reviews should occur at the earliest possible moment and be integrated throughout development. Bugs cost less when they are found earlier.
a new one will take some time to get up and going.
That was a well known issue and the plan was to have something new before shuttle retirement. Too bad all the attempts at something new were never followed through on.
So goes America's dominance in space.
Well the American government's dominance(*), there is still the American commercial spaceflight industry. Let's hope the government does not over-regulate or otherwise screw up this emerging industry.
(*) Dominance may be overstating things. The Russians have done a lot of important work, much of it complementary to America's work and experience.
I'm having trouble figuring out the fascination for knowing what the exact time is. Particularly when you're camping.
Some of us don't use the campsite much beyond sleeping and cooking. How long did it take to get from camp to a point of interest, well that might indicate about how long it will take to get back so you know how long to start the return trip before sunset. It also helps to organize a group, different people want see different things in the morning but agree to meet up in the afternoon at a specific place and time. You might want to monitor how many minutes that backpacking fuel canister has been used. You might want to measure cooking time, rehydration time, boiling time, etc. You might want to measure how long the water purification tablets have been doing their thing in the canteen. When you are warm and cozy in that sleeping bag you might want to know how far off dawn is so you can decide whether or not to try to hold that piss or just give in and put on the jacket and boots and go outside to get it over with. :-)
Under the version recently passed by the House, a person can get a patent unless "the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention..."... Instead of being "know or used" it has to be printed, patented or "otherwise available to the public."
No problem, create a small ad that describes the invention. Place that ad in your local newspaper. The letter of the law cuts both ways.
Mechanical is closer to digital.
I think mechanical would more appropriately refer to a spring powered watch, something not battery powered.
Personally I'm fine with it being an affectation,its the only piece of jewelry I wear, but lets at least be honest.
Some watches are functional, some people need to check/measure time when both hands are otherwise occupied. Some of us go outdoors, even in the rain. Some of us go to places where we can not recharge a phone. Some of us even go into water over our waist, on purpose. :-)
Cell phones are known for having other functionality as well as being able to tell the time. I've never seen the point of strapping a somewhat functional piece of jewelry to my arm when I have a small device in my pocket that tells the time, as well as doing a hundred or more other things that I find useful.
My analog display watch enables hands free operation and is water resistant to 100m. Its a far better choice in the rain or when scuba diving. When hiking/backpacking/camping my cellphone is generally powered down and in a dry bag, reserved for emergencies. "Never seen the point" is taking an otherwise reasonable argument too far.
Stupid ass british aristocrat telling people that 'shaving your face' is manly. Pft.
Actually that would have been Alexander the Great, a Macedonian aristocrat from 300-something BC if I recall Iron Maiden lyrics correctly. :-)
Or they just got sick of spending their money on disposable razors.
My grandfathers and great-uncles who grew up during the great depression, and whose spending habits seem to have been determined by that era, did not seem to find the price of razor ***blades*** to be prohibitively expensive given the comfort and convenience of the safety razor. Those old gillette razors themselves seemed to be a once in a lifetime purchase.
The only straight razor I ever saw was in a great-uncle's barber shop. It was more decoration by the time I saw it. From what I heard they required a bit of care and maintenance when actually used.
Nah, steampunk is a faux-Victorian ...
I suspect that era would be using pocket watches not wrist watches.
I think the safety razor replaced the straight razor soon after WW1 (1920s) and that by WW2 (1940s) straight razors were nostalgic.
For the Air it would have to be... but why not standardize. Great opportunity here for Apple.
The restore media may have different contents depending on the product family, more than the operating system may be included. My several year old media seems product family specific. Even if the media is universal they could save a lot of money by using less expensive DVDs for the majority of the computers to be sold.
Apple will no longer offer a bootable installer DVD ...
Note that everyone is talking about the 10.7 ***upgrade***. If you are buying a new mac with 10.7 preinstalled you will probably have DVD media to restore your system.
I don't get the "Eww" comments. You do realize that what you flush down the toilet goes to a gigantic pond where the solids settle out then the remaining liquids are pumped through filters and sent right back to your faucet, don't you?
And to some of the bottled water bottling plants. :-)
... look into why hikers and backpackers near such stream generally carry water filters or sterilization tools.
And for those relieved that their bottled water comes from mountain streams
With the realization that effluent from sewage plants has detectable amounts of antidepressants, estrogen (from birth control pills), and other modern drugs which may be impacting river life, I'd really like to know that this membrane stops those (as well as "virtually any liquid"). I'd hate to spend a couple of months in space and find that I now had breasts due to water-transported hormones from the women on the crew...and that they'd grown muscles and body hair due to mine.
Given the antidepressants are you sure you would hate it? :-)