Yes, not everyone is a "big picture" person. I myself am a big picture person, and I've found that it has hampered my ability to be productive at a lower level, such as coding, because I keep worrying about larger issues in the development.
On the other hand, if you aren't aware of at least some of the big picture, you may end up doing things with consequences that you didn't anticipate.
I highly doubt that the computers were a major factor in the disaster. The shuttle itself was losing integrity, and the computers/software were designed to keep an intact shuttle on course. The computers were trying to do that until the very end.
Maybe the software could have been designed to try to keep a damaged shuttle intact. But, I suspect that doing that, at best, would make the software much more complex, and more likely to fail under non-emergency conditions. IMHO, it wouldn't have been worth the risk.
In the case of Rick (the guy who asked Slashdot), he was already hired when they tried to get him to give permission for the credit check. So, it's not really a condition for employment. It seems like they just want to know all about their employees.
IMHO, they want to know too much. It's none of the company's business. It all seems really shady to me. The only justification this company has is that everyone else went along with it. So what? Consistency? Yeah, right.
The company isn't giving Rick a loan. Rather, he's agreed to work for a paycheck. His credit history is irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is his performance on the job.
Also, aren't some other nations, for example, the Chinese, ramping up their space programs? I doubt the U.S. is just going to sit back and let them take over the role of the top nation in space.
Yes, they are trying to discourage you from register from their do-not-call list. But, take a close look at the snail mail removal process. They've cleverly arranged it to be significantly more complicated for you, yet trivial for them. The only data entry a human at the DMA has to do is to enter a tracking number.
Observe that to generate the form they want you to send by snail mail, you submit all of your personal data to their webserver, which returns to you a page for you to print and mail to them. Since you are sending the data to their webserver they are almost definitely collecting it, even though they won't act on it unless you mail it in.
Not convinced? Then take a look at the page the webserver sends back to you. Along with your name, address, etc. there is a unique tracking number. Not only that, but the same tracking number is included in the address they ask you to mail the form to. I'll bet the DMA doesn't even open the envolopes sent to them. Someone just enters in the tracking number from the address and POOF, the data they collected earlier is used to add you to the do-not-call list.
What's my point? I guess it's that these guys aren't idiots. I trust them to actually put my name on this list with little chance for error, seeing as how easy they've made it for themselves.
Notice that you have to submit a form (via http) to generate the webpage that you print and send by mail. Notice also that each form generated has a "unique tracking number." I'll bet we can all figure out what's going on here.
The DMA collects all your information when you submit the webform. Then, if you bother to send in the printout by mail, someone enters in the unique number and adds you to the do-not-call list. This makes for minimal extra processing for the mail-ins. The $5 online processing fee is obviously just to discourage too many people from signing up.
I just printed out the free form. Now I need to get a stamp...
Relational databases (and "file systems") are nice, but I don't think it's a complete solution. The relational model can't handle everything well. Sometimes it would be useful to have some object-orientedness.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Granted, it has little to do with filesystems, but I hope you see my point. Say you have a table in a relational database to store addresses. Now let's say you want to store U.S. addresses (city/state/zipcode) and international addresses (format depending on country. What do you do? Yes, you can make a table for each type of address. But, think about what you are actually doing. You are defining object types - and even subtypes. If the database itself could handle tables of objects for you, you could save a lot of work. Then all you'd have to do is define. This is above the level of the relational model, however.
I'm not saying we should do away with the relational model. It's still useful when, say, relating a person to different addresses, etc.
To be slightly more on topic, I'd love to have a DB-oriented filesystem, just as I'd love to have a version control-oriented filesystem. (Actually, with a DB-oriented filesystem, version control easily follows). There would be a very steep learning curve for such systems though.
A DB-oriented filesystem would be very useful for one project I'm working on: organizing my photos. Right now, my images are all numbered and stored in a flat directory. If I want to find all pictures at a particular location, I have to look it up in my separate database. If the file were DB-oriented, I could run a query and browse through the results "directory." Assuming SQL, I'm envisioning a system where the GROUP BY clause could be used to sort files into subdirectories in the query result. Also, I envision a system where views could be permanently mounted. That would be soooo useful.
I believe language plays a very definite role in memory, helping us encode the data somehow.
I think language goes a long way to helping us trigger memories that are stored, but I don't think it necessarily has much to do with actual storage of memories. There are other things that trigger memories as well. For example, seeing an old friend after many years (and I mean actually seeing, with your eyes, rather than "having a chat with") can bring back lots of memories of the things you did together.
As for early childhood memories, I have several distinct ones from when I was 2 years old or younger, becuase they involve the house I lived in until that age. I'm pretty sure they aren't false memories. The thing is though, I've been remembering these things for almost as long as I can, um, remember. So it seems to me that the following happened: A short while after the events in question took place, something happened to trigger the memory of them, which reinforced the memory in my brain. After that, they were slightly more easy to trigger, and some were triggered and reinforced again. And so on to the present day. AS a result, there are a handful of random memories from my childhood that I can easily trigger.
But, I haven't remembered anything new from my childhood in a long time. So, either these memories are lost, or simply inaccessible. I think it's a little of both. Before I learned to talk, most of my memories were probably based on sight, or emotion. So it would probably take seeing/feeling the same things again to trigger any of those memories.
Right on. Maybe we should lobby Congress to pass a law stating that, for example, the copyright for a motion picture automatically expires after it earns the copyright owners 10% profit. Or $300 million. Or ten years. How about that? Then the studios will have their incentive, and we, the people, can get free access to the works.
Notice he says "new car offer." Sounds like he's willing to negotiate up from the appraisal value, rather than down from the sticker price, or the "dealer price," whatever that is.
It wouldn't surprise me at all. I think you make a big mistake assuming that everyone's mind works the same way, that everyone can listen to reason, that everyone has a conscience, etc.
Why does porn clog search engine results? Because it can't be easily filtered. Well, maybe it can, but it would be easier if webpages had definite content identifiers built-in to them. DNS might not be the right level to do it at though. Maybe changes could be made to HTTP (think "Content-type-2: porn\n") or HTML (think <meta name="content" content="porn"/>).
Anything done now, though, whether at the DNS, HTTP, or HTML would be voluntary, probably hardly used by anyone, probably misused by porn sites, and a kludge besides. This leads me to think about sites like Yahoo(!). They already categorize lots of websites for us. They already have a system for doing so. Perhaps it can be put to use.
According to the article, that's exactly what he did. He unplugged the network cable, even. Apparently, though, there was some sort of endless routing loop (the article doesn't really say).
The Slashdot headline mentions a spanning-tree algorithm problem. This is a problem at the Ethernet level, IIRC. I didn't see any mention of that when I skimmed the article. If I had to guess, though, I'd say that some switches or bridges or whatever they're called lost track of what they were connected to and stopped passing packets along. Or they passed packets along in a loop, so the packets never went away.
I normally don't complain about stuff like this, but c'mon. Would it have killed the submitter to put the word "was" in the headline?? It would make it so much easier to understand on first read. I know headlines are supposed to be brief, but they are also supposed to make sense. All I ask is for the one word!
University of Twente NOC Fire was Arson.
And before anyone replies that the headline isn't supposed to do anything, such as make sense, allow me to rephrase: The headline would be much more useful if it made sense.
Not only that, but who among your friends and family would be able to remember your wacky email address? Even if they write it down, it would probably be easy to make a mistake on it.
Money flows in circles. Not only are things taxed "twice", they are taxed indefinitely. I pay income tax on the money I earn. I pay sales tax on the same money when I spend it. The store owner, employees, etc. pay income tax on the same money that I just spent, and previously earned, and so on.
That's just an example. I know there are other taxes besides sales tax and income tax. But, in the end, the government will get money from you one way or another. They skim it from everywhere.
Nothing is certain but death and taxes.
Re:Yeah, MS is thinking about OS...
on
Halloween VII
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· Score: 1
Yes, yes. But I did have to read your comment twice. I was just pointing it out, to perhaps avoid confusion in future duscussions involving OS OSes.
Re:Yeah, MS is thinking about OS...
on
Halloween VII
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· Score: 1
Gaaaah! Your post confusing. Did you realize that you are using the acronym "OS" with two different expansions? ("Open Source" and "Operating System")
These conspiracy theorists are so wrong. Not only have we been to the moon, we've also been to Mars already. That's what the government is covering up.
Bugzilla needs an easier way to search for duplicate bugs.
I reported a Mozilla bug once. I tried to search for duplicates, but have you seen that god-awful search form that Bugzilla has? I must have done the search wrong, because it turns out there were several duplicates.
Big waste of everyone's time, because someone had to analyze my bug report before they noticed it was a dupe.
Slashdot Mirror
On the other hand, if you aren't aware of at least some of the big picture, you may end up doing things with consequences that you didn't anticipate.
Maybe the software could have been designed to try to keep a damaged shuttle intact. But, I suspect that doing that, at best, would make the software much more complex, and more likely to fail under non-emergency conditions. IMHO, it wouldn't have been worth the risk.
IMHO, they want to know too much. It's none of the company's business. It all seems really shady to me. The only justification this company has is that everyone else went along with it. So what? Consistency? Yeah, right.
The company isn't giving Rick a loan. Rather, he's agreed to work for a paycheck. His credit history is irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is his performance on the job.
Also, aren't some other nations, for example, the Chinese, ramping up their space programs? I doubt the U.S. is just going to sit back and let them take over the role of the top nation in space.
Observe that to generate the form they want you to send by snail mail, you submit all of your personal data to their webserver, which returns to you a page for you to print and mail to them. Since you are sending the data to their webserver they are almost definitely collecting it, even though they won't act on it unless you mail it in.
Not convinced? Then take a look at the page the webserver sends back to you. Along with your name, address, etc. there is a unique tracking number. Not only that, but the same tracking number is included in the address they ask you to mail the form to. I'll bet the DMA doesn't even open the envolopes sent to them. Someone just enters in the tracking number from the address and POOF, the data they collected earlier is used to add you to the do-not-call list.
What's my point? I guess it's that these guys aren't idiots. I trust them to actually put my name on this list with little chance for error, seeing as how easy they've made it for themselves.
I used to use .pvt, as in "private."
The DMA collects all your information when you submit the webform. Then, if you bother to send in the printout by mail, someone enters in the unique number and adds you to the do-not-call list. This makes for minimal extra processing for the mail-ins. The $5 online processing fee is obviously just to discourage too many people from signing up.
I just printed out the free form. Now I need to get a stamp...
Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Granted, it has little to do with filesystems, but I hope you see my point. Say you have a table in a relational database to store addresses. Now let's say you want to store U.S. addresses (city/state/zipcode) and international addresses (format depending on country. What do you do? Yes, you can make a table for each type of address. But, think about what you are actually doing. You are defining object types - and even subtypes. If the database itself could handle tables of objects for you, you could save a lot of work. Then all you'd have to do is define. This is above the level of the relational model, however.
I'm not saying we should do away with the relational model. It's still useful when, say, relating a person to different addresses, etc.
To be slightly more on topic, I'd love to have a DB-oriented filesystem, just as I'd love to have a version control-oriented filesystem. (Actually, with a DB-oriented filesystem, version control easily follows). There would be a very steep learning curve for such systems though.
A DB-oriented filesystem would be very useful for one project I'm working on: organizing my photos. Right now, my images are all numbered and stored in a flat directory. If I want to find all pictures at a particular location, I have to look it up in my separate database. If the file were DB-oriented, I could run a query and browse through the results "directory." Assuming SQL, I'm envisioning a system where the GROUP BY clause could be used to sort files into subdirectories in the query result. Also, I envision a system where views could be permanently mounted. That would be soooo useful.
As for early childhood memories, I have several distinct ones from when I was 2 years old or younger, becuase they involve the house I lived in until that age. I'm pretty sure they aren't false memories. The thing is though, I've been remembering these things for almost as long as I can, um, remember. So it seems to me that the following happened: A short while after the events in question took place, something happened to trigger the memory of them, which reinforced the memory in my brain. After that, they were slightly more easy to trigger, and some were triggered and reinforced again. And so on to the present day. AS a result, there are a handful of random memories from my childhood that I can easily trigger.
But, I haven't remembered anything new from my childhood in a long time. So, either these memories are lost, or simply inaccessible. I think it's a little of both. Before I learned to talk, most of my memories were probably based on sight, or emotion. So it would probably take seeing/feeling the same things again to trigger any of those memories.
Right on. Maybe we should lobby Congress to pass a law stating that, for example, the copyright for a motion picture automatically expires after it earns the copyright owners 10% profit. Or $300 million. Or ten years. How about that? Then the studios will have their incentive, and we, the people, can get free access to the works.
Notice he says "new car offer." Sounds like he's willing to negotiate up from the appraisal value, rather than down from the sticker price, or the "dealer price," whatever that is.
It wouldn't surprise me at all. I think you make a big mistake assuming that everyone's mind works the same way, that everyone can listen to reason, that everyone has a conscience, etc.
Or you could take a taxi and avoid the subway. This detection system seems so incomplete, I wonder why the city bothered.
Anything done now, though, whether at the DNS, HTTP, or HTML would be voluntary, probably hardly used by anyone, probably misused by porn sites, and a kludge besides. This leads me to think about sites like Yahoo(!). They already categorize lots of websites for us. They already have a system for doing so. Perhaps it can be put to use.
The Slashdot headline mentions a spanning-tree algorithm problem. This is a problem at the Ethernet level, IIRC. I didn't see any mention of that when I skimmed the article. If I had to guess, though, I'd say that some switches or bridges or whatever they're called lost track of what they were connected to and stopped passing packets along. Or they passed packets along in a loop, so the packets never went away.
University of Twente NOC Fire was Arson.
And before anyone replies that the headline isn't supposed to do anything, such as make sense, allow me to rephrase: The headline would be much more useful if it made sense.
Not only that, but who among your friends and family would be able to remember your wacky email address? Even if they write it down, it would probably be easy to make a mistake on it.
That's just an example. I know there are other taxes besides sales tax and income tax. But, in the end, the government will get money from you one way or another. They skim it from everywhere.
Nothing is certain but death and taxes.
Yes, yes. But I did have to read your comment twice. I was just pointing it out, to perhaps avoid confusion in future duscussions involving OS OSes.
Gaaaah! Your post confusing. Did you realize that you are using the acronym "OS" with two different expansions? ("Open Source" and "Operating System")
The previous paragraph is meant to be read tongue-in-cheek.
I reported a Mozilla bug once. I tried to search for duplicates, but have you seen that god-awful search form that Bugzilla has? I must have done the search wrong, because it turns out there were several duplicates.
Big waste of everyone's time, because someone had to analyze my bug report before they noticed it was a dupe.
The two party system (in the U.S.) wasn't designed at all, AFAIK. It just happened.
Yeah, but look how close it is to the beach! It's just a quick dash across the highway.