My favorite part is that they aren't even trying to be reasonable about it. I mean, wouldn't activists have to be self-appointed? It's not like we're talking about jury duty here:
"Dude, what's up with Bob lately? He's been all up in my face ever since I started the Atkins diet."
"Didn't you hear? He got conscripted by PETA local 356."
I try not to play the "My Browser is Better than Yours" game, but with Galeon, you can deny Javascript the right to resize a window (I assume Mozilla does the same), and you can consign popups to new tabs that don't automatically get focus, so at worst, all you see is that a new tab exists. That's all assuming it can somehow get past the fact that "Allow unrequested popup windows" is unchecked.
My suspicion is that, come tomorrow, I'll notice nothing out of the ordinary (except the level of complaint from Web-surfing co-workers).
And if you browse in Light Mode, the only "legitimate" images you'd lose anyway are the/. logo, the friend/foe/fan/freak indicators, and the slashbox icons.
See, I still don't understand why everyone complains about E.T. Yes, Atari went bezerk with their production, but I fail to see how it was any worse than their Pac-Man, Activision's Space Shuttle, or Winter Games from Epyx.
My favorite thing to do when I got bored was to play E.T. and dork around with a neat little bug where E.T.'s ship grabbed Elliott.
...building computers into your refridgerator which order milk for you when you run out,...
This always seemed to me a very poorly-thought out example. Too often, people have leftovers, or homemade casseroles, or whatever. What good does it do me to track the four or five things in my refrigerator (no 'D') that may or may not have spoiled, be 99% empty, etc., just because they came from the grocer? Unless my cupboard also "knows" what it contains ("You have... five... slices of bread. It is time to refill your salt shaker."), it just seems a half-assed solution that adds a step to the cooking process.
The way you describe things, support contracts sound more like an insurance policy. "Pay a periodic premium, and you're covered in the event of unexpected blame."
This is not to suggest you're wrong; I happen to believe the single largest factor in day-to-day business decisions is blame-avoidance. Someone pauses by my cube and asks my opinion on some random issue, and an hour later I get CCed on an email with the phrase, "I consulted with [my name], and he suggested I...". Meetings swell with extraneous attendees to ensure anyone looking to fling blame about will find no one in particular to strike.
It's really fascinating to observe, if you aren't emotionally invested in the incident.
Re. the original post, I think a lot of the problem is caused by bad code commenting. When you make a "little tweak", or fix some minor bug, or fix a subtle logic bug, you should clearly comment in the code what you have done, so that it can serve as a warning when somebody else looks at the code and does not realise the subtlety involved.
Ain't that the truth. This advice also applies to slap-dash work, too. You know the kind:
The code was supposed to be frozen a week ago.
There are still at least a dozen "show-stopper" bugs.
Jobs have been threatened. Director's jobs.
Since shit rolls downhill, everyone within fifty yards of the code repository is conscripted to work 12x7 for the next three weeks, regardless of whatever he or she was once working on (cancellation of vacation time goes without saying).
Hacks are inevitable. The least one can do is take a minute to include a little note explaining just what you were thinking. Also, deleting the existing comment which no longer applies would be nice.
There have been times when my hacks have been so frightful, so horridly brittle, that my explanatory comments conclude with an apology to whichever poor sap gets the responsibility of maintaining it.
The so-called "Twinkie Defense" was horribly distorted by the media (see The Straight Dope for a detailed account). Basically, counsel for the defense argued that the defendant was severely depressed, as evidenced by his over-consumption of junk food (including Twinkies). The media turned around and reported that the defendant's case was that the junk food caused his depression. It's a classic example of how news agencies repeatedly fail to understand the difference between correlation and causation.
You said it. As soon as I read, "Gabucino from the Mplayer team is furious," I thought to myself, "so, aside from shaking his fists in impotent rage, what exactly will he do about it?"
So, I'm working on tracking down some random bug, and login to the production server to see if I can recreate it. I go scrolling through the logs, looking for my username, when lo and behold, there it is, looking something like this:
Now, that's pretty bad, and at least I can say that this bug wasn't my fault. Then I made the mistake of mentioning it to the guy in the next cube. It was all of ten seconds before the tech lead found out, and got busy writing a script to delete all the passwords from the log archives. Thus, the greatest password harvesting scheme of my life was stillborn.
My only objection to your method would be that you're missing out on the opportunity to let your money work for you. You're earning less interest (or fewer dividends) than you would if you paid your bills as they came. You'll also have less wiggle-room when unexpected expenses occur.
I'm sure your utility companies love you, though; they get an extra couple of months to let their interest compound.
I asked my accountant about this, he said that the statute of limitations on unpaid taxes is 7 years,...
You might want to get a new accountant. As I mentioned above, the IRS' FAQ clearly states, "There is no period of limitations when a return is false or fraudulent or when no return is filed."
Records such as receipts, canceled checks, and other documents that prove an item of income or a deduction appearing on your return should be kept at least until the statute of limitations expires for that return. Usually this is three years from the date the return was due or filed, or two years from the date the tax was paid, whichever is later. There is no period of limitations when a return is false or fraudulent or when no return is filed. You should keep some records indefinitely, such as property records, since you may need them to determine the basis of the property if it to prove the amount of gain or loss if the property is sold. For more details, refer to Publication 552Recordkeeping for Individuals, or Tax Topic 305 on Recordkeeping.
There's more if you're an employer or a business, but I figured that was outside the scope of discussion. Also, their site's search function isn't exactly the most useful; I couldn't find anything meaningful about audits.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought SMTP ran on a privileged port. Is that not the case? Will "legitimate" mail servers accept mail coming from a non-privileged port?
A witty saying proves nothing.
---Voltaire
My favorite part is that they aren't even trying to be reasonable about it. I mean, wouldn't activists have to be self-appointed? It's not like we're talking about jury duty here:
Seriously.
I try not to play the "My Browser is Better than Yours" game, but with Galeon, you can deny Javascript the right to resize a window (I assume Mozilla does the same), and you can consign popups to new tabs that don't automatically get focus, so at worst, all you see is that a new tab exists. That's all assuming it can somehow get past the fact that "Allow unrequested popup windows" is unchecked.
My suspicion is that, come tomorrow, I'll notice nothing out of the ordinary (except the level of complaint from Web-surfing co-workers).
Part of me wants to believe that, to this day, McDonald's still has a warehouse filled with unused McD.L.T. containers.
I'd say you're high. Linux runs on everything from mainframes to wristwatches. On Windows, you have two choices: Intel or AMD.
And if you browse in Light Mode, the only "legitimate" images you'd lose anyway are the /. logo, the friend/foe/fan/freak indicators, and the slashbox icons.
See, I still don't understand why everyone complains about E.T. Yes, Atari went bezerk with their production, but I fail to see how it was any worse than their Pac-Man, Activision's Space Shuttle, or Winter Games from Epyx.
My favorite thing to do when I got bored was to play E.T. and dork around with a neat little bug where E.T.'s ship grabbed Elliott.
Moderators, please give parent (+1, Funny). The author of the review linked to is quite obviously joking.
This always seemed to me a very poorly-thought out example. Too often, people have leftovers, or homemade casseroles, or whatever. What good does it do me to track the four or five things in my refrigerator (no 'D') that may or may not have spoiled, be 99% empty, etc., just because they came from the grocer? Unless my cupboard also "knows" what it contains ("You have... five... slices of bread. It is time to refill your salt shaker."), it just seems a half-assed solution that adds a step to the cooking process.
Apple and oranges. Apache runs on Windows.
While IIS implies Windows, it is not the case that Windows implies IIS.
The way you describe things, support contracts sound more like an insurance policy. "Pay a periodic premium, and you're covered in the event of unexpected blame."
This is not to suggest you're wrong; I happen to believe the single largest factor in day-to-day business decisions is blame-avoidance. Someone pauses by my cube and asks my opinion on some random issue, and an hour later I get CCed on an email with the phrase, "I consulted with [my name], and he suggested I...". Meetings swell with extraneous attendees to ensure anyone looking to fling blame about will find no one in particular to strike.
It's really fascinating to observe, if you aren't emotionally invested in the incident.
Ahem, don't you mean brainf*ck.NET?
Ain't that the truth. This advice also applies to slap-dash work, too. You know the kind:
Hacks are inevitable. The least one can do is take a minute to include a little note explaining just what you were thinking. Also, deleting the existing comment which no longer applies would be nice.
There have been times when my hacks have been so frightful, so horridly brittle, that my explanatory comments conclude with an apology to whichever poor sap gets the responsibility of maintaining it.
Dude, you have a pretty peculiar definition of "ever."
Hey, thanks for the heads up; now I know what's going on my birthday wishlist.
Pardon me, because I'm definitely no guru, but shouldn't the regex be .*
Also, pardon the omission of a question mark from the preceding question, but I couldn't think of a way to include it without changing the regex.
The so-called "Twinkie Defense" was horribly distorted by the media (see The Straight Dope for a detailed account). Basically, counsel for the defense argued that the defendant was severely depressed, as evidenced by his over-consumption of junk food (including Twinkies). The media turned around and reported that the defendant's case was that the junk food caused his depression. It's a classic example of how news agencies repeatedly fail to understand the difference between correlation and causation.
You said it. As soon as I read, "Gabucino from the Mplayer team is furious," I thought to myself, "so, aside from shaking his fists in impotent rage, what exactly will he do about it?"
So, I'm working on tracking down some random bug, and login to the production server to see if I can recreate it. I go scrolling through the logs, looking for my username, when lo and behold, there it is, looking something like this:
2003-12-11 14:30:07 UI: Adding UserName --> mylogin
2003-12-11 14:30:07 UI: Adding LoginType --> LDAP
2003-12-11 14:30:07 UI: Adding UserPassword --> cleartextpassword
Needless to say, I had a new priority.
Now, that's pretty bad, and at least I can say that this bug wasn't my fault. Then I made the mistake of mentioning it to the guy in the next cube. It was all of ten seconds before the tech lead found out, and got busy writing a script to delete all the passwords from the log archives. Thus, the greatest password harvesting scheme of my life was stillborn.
Dude, if you're going to insist on filling your answer with so many digits of precision, you need your data to have that many to begin with.
You have only 3 digits of precision in both your speed of light (186 000) and your distance in light-years (47.5), so it's 2.79 x 10^14 mi.
At least you can still say one milliard.
My only objection to your method would be that you're missing out on the opportunity to let your money work for you. You're earning less interest (or fewer dividends) than you would if you paid your bills as they came. You'll also have less wiggle-room when unexpected expenses occur.
I'm sure your utility companies love you, though; they get an extra couple of months to let their interest compound.
You might want to get a new accountant. As I mentioned above, the IRS' FAQ clearly states, "There is no period of limitations when a return is false or fraudulent or when no return is filed."
Relevent FAQ for individuals:
There's more if you're an employer or a business, but I figured that was outside the scope of discussion. Also, their site's search function isn't exactly the most useful; I couldn't find anything meaningful about audits.