If you want balance, it would make a great contrast if they showed how the innocents aren't entirely innocent just as how the evil person isn't entirely evil.
That's not balanced...you're marginalizing the evil of one person and marginalizing the innocence of another. In effect, you're excusing the suicide bomber by saying he's not so evil and, besides, his victims aren't exactly innocent.
Balance would be reporting the freaking story without opinion. Palestinian suicide bomber kills X Israelis on a bus. That's the story, plain and simple. When/If Israel strikes back at Palestine, cover that the same way: Israel sends ground troops into Palestinian territory. Cut it with the editorializing, that's what we're all complaining about in this thread.
I'd love to hear the justification for the wiretaps being legal, but to date, I haven't heard anything except that 'its legal because we're fighting terrorism.'
While not definitive, google 'wiretaps legal' and read the host of opinion that cites references in US law. For instance:
Under Section 4 of USSID 18, communications which are known to be to or from U.S. persons can't be intentionally intercepted without: (a) the approval of the FISA court...; OR (b) the approval of the Attorney General of the United States with respect to "communications to or from U.S. PERSONS outside the United States...international communications" and other categories of communications including for the purpose of collecting "significant foreign intelligence information."
USSID 18 goes on to allow NSA to gather intelligence about a U.S. person outside the United States even without Attorney General sanction in emergencies "when securing the approval of the Attorney General is not practical because...the time required to obtain such approval would result in the loss of significant foreign intelligence and would cause substantial harm to national security."
Like it, don't like it, agree, disagree, fine...realize that there are probably more loopholes in federal code than even a lawyer knows about off the top of his/her head. I never said the SCOTUS is infallible, I said that they make the determination on what is/is not legal. The fact that they are often split, and very evenly split, means that our laws are open to interpretation by everybody. You're saying it's very cut and dry, these wiretaps et al are illegal. I'm saying recognize that there are plenty of learned people that disagree with you, and they aren't wrong.
I'm going to tell you bullshit, because it really is that clear that its a violation
It's pure guess work determining to what extent the founders would want the 4th to go to. They didn't imagine communication on wires extending from their property across the state/country/world. IMO, what they intended was for limited search on their property only...if I want to conclude that an electronic message starting on my property and then travelling over 1000 other properties, including government owned land, does not constitute a private communication, that's my interpretation and opinion. The courts have, in some cases, leaned away from protection of privacy because of blurred lines; what constitutes unlawful search and seizure, and what constitutes private property? You're not the final word on that, and your opinion matters as much as mine; it's the courts' opinion that really matters.
Immoral acts, even if not illegal, need to be brought to light as well.
If an act is immoral, but bringing it to light would violate laws, the person should still be prosecuted. Ignoring laws for the sake of not impugning your sense of morality is not how I want the country run. We have laws for reasons, you may disagree with them, but that doesn't mean we can ignore them.
The 'bright legal minds' siding with the Bush administrator are clearly wrong.
Get off your high horse. The SCOTUS splits evenly on most cases. Bright legal minds of all types can have different opinions and judge a case two completely different ways. Because *you* think something is clearly wrong does not make it so.
Judges have personal motives as well; some may be more willing to ignore the 4th admendment than others.
Good god man, listen to yourself! There are opinions out there that differ from yours; they aren't wrong, they're just different. Judges never ignore the 4th amendment, they interpret it to mean something different from what you believe it means. That doesn't mena they're wrong, it means through their education and legal career they've come upon reasons to believe it should be implemented a certain way.
The overarching tone of your reply is that your opinion is right, other people are *clearly* wrong. That's an incredibly self-centered and bigoted world view.
The examples you sight are comedians that rant about or skewer the subjects in question. Colbert is trying to parody someone. The beauty of parody is when someone who actually likes something despite it's shortcomings can exaggerate and make fun of those shortcomings, e.g. Kevin Smith and Catholicism. Colbert has no love for the people he makes fun of, so it comes off mean spirited at times.
I don't think one needs to love the subject in order to satirize it.
I think the OP got it wrong; I think he meant parody. Parody is a form of satire, granted, but it mocks a work by trying to copy it. While TDS is somewhat satirical, the Colbert Report is almost a straight parody of O'Reilly. Mannerisms, the way he presents material, his set, the name of the show, they all reflect O'Reilly's program. When you parody something, it really helps to love the original work, as the OP said. Colbert doesn't love O'Reilly, or O'Reilly's style. He's making fun of it, and while I find it pretty funny sometimes, it doesn't rank up there with the great parodies.
If you're going to be a conservative, then be one based upon the merits of the platform.
First, are you confusing conservative with Republican? Conservatism doesn't have a 'platform', it's a way of thinking. Second, you can be conservative on some issues and very liberal on other issues. I'm fiscally very conservative, but socially very liberal. My Democrat friends put me in the Republican camp just beacuse of my fiscal feelings, and promptly forget about that when we talk gay marriage.
Miller's always been pretty fiscally conservative and a capitalist. One of my favorite skits of his talked about the hatred people have for public figures that are wealthy, and he ended with "What's wrong with making a little money first [before running for office]?"
I would consider him a libertarian, and I think he considers himself one too. Look at what he was skewering the Republicans of the 90s for...abortion, gay marriage, race; i.e., social issues. He skewers Democrats on fiscal issues and foreign policy. Socially liberal and fiscally/governmentally conservative? Libertarian (small L).
I fail to see how telling anyone of an illegal activity is themselves a criminal. Maybe the people being called out SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN ACTING ILLEGALLY TO BEGIN WITH.
It's a rather subjective line you're walking there...I doubt most infomants can definitively say that what they're revealing is an illegal act. Take the NSA wiretapping saga currently going on; bright legal minds on both sides of the aisle can't come to a consensus whether it's an illegal activity or not. Half say the president has these powers, half disagree. It will take a SCOTUS verdict, probably resulting in a 5-4 split, to determine that. If the SCOTUS is near evenly split on whether something is in fact illegal, why should we assume Joe Somebody have a clue?
Instead, they should take it through the proper channels *first* before talking to someone at the NY Times. In addition, the NY Times/USA Today/other papers should be concerned about GETTING THE STORY RIGHT instead of getting the scoop, something that it seems most reporters have lost sight of in recent days.
To segue...the first amendment determined that the government can't come in and shut down a newspaper for printing things it didn't like. Being subpoenad because someone committed a criminal act in revealing classified information does not fall into that category of free press violations. Being a reporter does not mean you can participate in breaking the law, it means you have the same rights to speak your mind as everyone else, and the government can't violate your right to publish those thoughts.
which goes back to conservatism being defined by a resistance to liberalism.
We may have a chicken/egg situation. I don't think that either conservatism or liberalism are defined by the other, they're two separate political philosophies. However, assuming the country is populated with people whose want something politically in the middle, when the country swings one direction, there is necessarily going to be a larger proportion of people who want it to swing back the other way. Roosevelt had an unprecedented increase in government, a stereotypical Democratic presidency, and the majority of the country wanted smaller government, hence Ike.
True, but the Republican party capitalized on the fear of Communism far more than the Democrats did.
Republicans focus more on protecting America than Democrats do, and this was a direct result of that. Had people been worried about invasions from Mars, the Republicans would have still done well because they're be talking about space based laser systems or some idiotic new approach to keeping America safe. As far as liberal sentiments=communism, the Democratic platform has, at least for the 20th century, had resolutions to issues that were closer to the tenants of communism than the capitalistic approach that Republicans typically take. In capitalism, some people get screwed...Democrats seem to want more than a fair shake for everyone, they want everyone to be protected. That could just be the capilist in me talking, but it's how I consider the 30s-50s to have developed. People even today can't seem to separate Communism the economic model from Communism (really, dictatorship) the political model. I'm not surprised people mistook the two back then.
A lot of the red-state rural base used to be Democrat based on traditional liberal philosophy.
Big L or small l liberal? Big-L Liberalism is probably closer to conservatism, at least REAL conservatism. When the Democrats were the party of the working class, they owned the rural base. Now that neither party is the party of the working class, social issues are at the forefront, and the red-states are primarily socially conservative.
The division now is not along classic liberal vs. conservative lines (ie, political) but rather social liberal vs. conservative.
Agreed.
Do you mean complacent, or pro-active?
Honestly, I'm not sure. Maybe I'm just not all that sure what progressivism is. IMO, the Democrats have become the opposite of classic Liberalism, whatever that's called.
I think you're oversimplifying the Republican election victories of the 50s and 80s. A good deal of Eisenhower's success was based on limiting spending and the size of government as a result of the unprecedented growth seen under Roosevelt. That's not to say fear of communism didn't play a big part, but when you consider Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs fiasco, not to mention the other Democratic presidents, like Johnson, in that period, I think that fear crossed the political aisle.
Reagan was more a result of combined weak foreign policy and stagflation under Carter than anything else. It's not like the fear of Communism went away during Democrat presidencies and was brought back to life during Republican ones. It was an overarching theme present and understood in both parties.
The modern Republican party is based on opposing Liberalism (though it opposes it with another kind of liberalism).
I assume you mean classic Liberalism, and I agree. However, that's not to say that the Democratic party is based on big-L Liberalism. While the Republicans have grown more reactionary as of recent, the Democrats are growing in the extreme opposite direction. What we're really talking about is bases; the Republican base is extremely reactionary and the Democratic base is the opposite (I don't really consider progressive to be the opposite of reactionary). While there are plenty of people that associate themselves with the parties and not the bases, it's the bases that by and large determine candidates. McCain and Giuliani are not liked by the Republican base; I'm not sure that Clinton would be acceptable to the Democratic base anymore.
No, he's not...he's considered pretty *socially* conservative, but in terms of fiscal issues and government intrusion he's decidedly NOT conservative. Pigeon holing someone with a single word when there's an array of issues to discuss is useless. At best you would need to use a 2 axis system to denote their social and fiscal policies, and even that is a drastic oversimplification engineered to provide a good soundbite on the nightly news.
Yes and no. A RDBMS is capable of optimizing queries OR inserts, but not necessarily both. It's sort of a sliding scale; the more you favor one side, the slower the other side gets. Add an index here to optimize querying, slow down your inserts. Remove indexes and normalize for inserts, slow down queries. We've been told to optimize for inserts, but then get complaints because queries take too long.
Yes, we have, and we're looking to going to a datawarehouse/mart solution, but a) the customer is slow to approve it, and b) there are still some concerns with throughput. I'm not a DBA by nature, but from what we've seen the query-optimized products would have trouble being fed and indexing our incoming data, leading to an increasing delta. We could possibly make up that delta after hours, but the customer doesn't really want to do that, and they *really* don't want the answer "well, we think for XYZ amount of data we'll lag at an increasing rate of ABC records/minute, meaning we'll catch up an hour after COB".
From what Sun's website is saying, I don't think so. It sounds like the compiler processes your source and essentially adds a new String(... ) around your literals. So in effect...
String s = "asdf";...becomes...
String s = new String("asdf");...in the compiler's eyes. Whereas...
String s = new String("asdf");...does NOT become...
String s = new String(new String("asdf"));...because it's already assumed to have instantiated a new String object.
That would be relatively simple compiler optimization, and my reading is that the javac compiler does it.
The problem with including everything and OR'ing statements together is that when you have 30 parameters and a well normalized database, that means joining a large number of tables. If I don't care what the field value is in tableXYZ, which has 1,000,000 rows and the column I'm checking isn't indexed, then I shouldn't include a join to it. Obvious statements:
1) Reduce the number of tables. Not possible, we have a lot of data and have normalized our table structure. Even with a normalized structure, we have millions of records in some tables.
2) Index everything. Also, not possible. We're optimized for inserting, not querying, so that stuff coming in is processed fast. Indexing would also add more overhead to disk storage and memory.
3) Optimize for querying. We're looking at this approach, sorta the 'datamart' vs 'datawarehouse' approach. It would result in a delay between when something comes in and when it could be retrieved, and so far that hasn't been acceptable.
I believe that the literal is turned into a new String object by the compmiler. While it may be unnecessary to add the new, it's functionally identical and will consume the same amount of memory. From Sun's website:
All string literals in Java programs, such as "abc", are implemented as instances of this class.
If you have 600 SPs, you're going to need 600 functions/classes that do the same thing. SPs are just as easy to name as functions/classes. Someone already mentioned naming conventions and source control, in addition, put all your SPs in text files and use a build script to install them. Much, much easier looking through systematically named SPs than code. We use something along the lines of __. Very easy to find SPs within seconds in Explorer.
I'm on a project where they tried mandating everything be in stored procedures. For truly dynamic querying, it's just not feasible. We have one query where the user can input around 30 pieces of data and they're all optional. A query like that would be painful to write in a stored procedure, so for those we have parameterized SQL. Parameterization solves the problem just the same and allows flexibility to create SQL on the fly (not: we're using Sybase, not Oracle. Don't ask why.)
Additionally, make sure you use PreparedStatements/CallableStatements correctly. I've seen people mark up a PreparedStatement like this:
String SQL = new String("select * from user where username = '" + username + "'"); PreparedStatement statemnet = connection.prepareStatement(SQL);
That does *nothing* for you, and is just as insecure. Instead, make sure you use parameterized statements:
String SQL = new String("select * from user where username = ?"); CallableStatement cs = connection.prepareCall(SQL,...); cs.setString(1, username);
Most databases treat the two very differently. In the second case, the database compiles the statement and then compares the username field with your value. In the first, your value is inserted and then compiled, allowing injection.
Specifically, one of the ads (there were three) was deemed racially insensitive because it showed a white chick in a dominating position over a black chick. Example article with image here. What people haven't talked about so much is that there are two other ads; one with the black chick in a dominant position over the white chick, and one where they're on equal footing.
It was a very different set of leaders in the mid 90s than what we have today. Sure, there are still some holdovers, but in general we now have a Republican Party that has thrown fiscal consevatism to the wind in favor of winning elections. Most of Bush's largest spending programs (the war and Medicare, to name two) weren't funded for altruistic reasons; they may have originally been (I'm not getting into whether the war was "just" or not, it's a separate and altogether debatable topic), but money was then heaped on top without a lot of thought just so that it would look like we were doing something about it.
Look at the response to hurricane Katrina; whole passles of money were thrown at that beast, and I'd argue it was because Bush was getting bad PR for not doing anything about it. Bush's Medicare plan is going to be a huge outlay, an the war has cost way more than anyone thought. Personally, I think it harkens back to NCLB...when that program was less than a year old, Democrats sparked the talking point that it was "un(der)funded", thus laying the groundwork for Bush to make sure *that* didn't happen again.
This is my personal opinion, but what's not just my opinion is that this administration is decidely *NOT* conservative. Pick up a copy of National Review sometime and read the scathing economic review of the president. Fiscal conservatives are not pleased. That being said, what are the alternatives? Libertarians, if not for their freaky tax/social plans, or Democrats, who most of us [fiscal conservatives] don't consider a better alternative. It's arguable whether or not Clinton was responsible for balancing the budget, but I think it's more accepted that the reason spending was down during the second half of his administration is that the Republican controlled Congress deadlocked with him on most spending measures. That hasn't happened (unfortunately) under Bush.
It used to be a Republican mantra, until they managed to win power, now suddenly old "tax-and-spend" liberals are thinking federalism isn't such a bad idea.
I agree that Republicans are quite the federalists they used to be, but liberals/Democrats still aren't the better option for a limited government. Nowadays, they just want to spend our tax dollars on different programs than the Republicans do. There may be a few fiscally conservative, limited government liberals out there, but I can't name many, and certainly none of the ones who get the majority of the limelight fall into that category.
As Kos said, there are corporations on both sides of this debate. If you want to argue that the government is siding with the telcos, i.e. the corporations with the larger bankroll, fine, but I think even that's a tenuous point that has yet to be made in this case.
FWIW, because they would be removing impediments to how the telcos do business, this sounds to me like deregulation...I have a hard time opposing that in most cases. It may suck for the consumer in the short term, but it will end up creating competition in the market.
Actually, true conservatives, which the Republican party used to be made up of, do that...there's plenty of fuel in the argument that Bush and Co. aren't true conservatives, never were.
In my opinion, you have to read the privacy agreement for whatever mode of transit you choose. I don't think it becomes public property in either case, but you're relying on the service you've chosen to keep it private.
In the case of USPS, I think this addresses that. Number 7 might fit a similar program to the NSA's.
For UPS, I would assume a similar code, but I haven't found that addresses the contents of your package in my 5 minutes of surfing their site.
In general, if I want it to be truly private, I hand deliver or encrypt. There are privacy acts out there that address what transport companies must keep private, but there seem to be a lot of legal loopholes that I don't fully understand.
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If you want balance, it would make a great contrast if they showed how the innocents aren't entirely innocent just as how the evil person isn't entirely evil.
That's not balanced...you're marginalizing the evil of one person and marginalizing the innocence of another. In effect, you're excusing the suicide bomber by saying he's not so evil and, besides, his victims aren't exactly innocent.
Balance would be reporting the freaking story without opinion. Palestinian suicide bomber kills X Israelis on a bus. That's the story, plain and simple. When/If Israel strikes back at Palestine, cover that the same way: Israel sends ground troops into Palestinian territory. Cut it with the editorializing, that's what we're all complaining about in this thread.
--trb
While not definitive, google 'wiretaps legal' and read the host of opinion that cites references in US law. For instance:
Like it, don't like it, agree, disagree, fine...realize that there are probably more loopholes in federal code than even a lawyer knows about off the top of his/her head. I never said the SCOTUS is infallible, I said that they make the determination on what is/is not legal. The fact that they are often split, and very evenly split, means that our laws are open to interpretation by everybody. You're saying it's very cut and dry, these wiretaps et al are illegal. I'm saying recognize that there are plenty of learned people that disagree with you, and they aren't wrong.
I'm going to tell you bullshit, because it really is that clear that its a violation
It's pure guess work determining to what extent the founders would want the 4th to go to. They didn't imagine communication on wires extending from their property across the state/country/world. IMO, what they intended was for limited search on their property only...if I want to conclude that an electronic message starting on my property and then travelling over 1000 other properties, including government owned land, does not constitute a private communication, that's my interpretation and opinion. The courts have, in some cases, leaned away from protection of privacy because of blurred lines; what constitutes unlawful search and seizure, and what constitutes private property? You're not the final word on that, and your opinion matters as much as mine; it's the courts' opinion that really matters.
--trb
Immoral acts, even if not illegal, need to be brought to light as well.
If an act is immoral, but bringing it to light would violate laws, the person should still be prosecuted. Ignoring laws for the sake of not impugning your sense of morality is not how I want the country run. We have laws for reasons, you may disagree with them, but that doesn't mean we can ignore them.
The 'bright legal minds' siding with the Bush administrator are clearly wrong.
Get off your high horse. The SCOTUS splits evenly on most cases. Bright legal minds of all types can have different opinions and judge a case two completely different ways. Because *you* think something is clearly wrong does not make it so.
Judges have personal motives as well; some may be more willing to ignore the 4th admendment than others.
Good god man, listen to yourself! There are opinions out there that differ from yours; they aren't wrong, they're just different. Judges never ignore the 4th amendment, they interpret it to mean something different from what you believe it means. That doesn't mena they're wrong, it means through their education and legal career they've come upon reasons to believe it should be implemented a certain way.
The overarching tone of your reply is that your opinion is right, other people are *clearly* wrong. That's an incredibly self-centered and bigoted world view.
--trb
The examples you sight are comedians that rant about or skewer the subjects in question. Colbert is trying to parody someone. The beauty of parody is when someone who actually likes something despite it's shortcomings can exaggerate and make fun of those shortcomings, e.g. Kevin Smith and Catholicism. Colbert has no love for the people he makes fun of, so it comes off mean spirited at times.
--trb
I don't think one needs to love the subject in order to satirize it.
I think the OP got it wrong; I think he meant parody. Parody is a form of satire, granted, but it mocks a work by trying to copy it. While TDS is somewhat satirical, the Colbert Report is almost a straight parody of O'Reilly. Mannerisms, the way he presents material, his set, the name of the show, they all reflect O'Reilly's program. When you parody something, it really helps to love the original work, as the OP said. Colbert doesn't love O'Reilly, or O'Reilly's style. He's making fun of it, and while I find it pretty funny sometimes, it doesn't rank up there with the great parodies.
--trb
If you're going to be a conservative, then be one based upon the merits of the platform.
First, are you confusing conservative with Republican? Conservatism doesn't have a 'platform', it's a way of thinking. Second, you can be conservative on some issues and very liberal on other issues. I'm fiscally very conservative, but socially very liberal. My Democrat friends put me in the Republican camp just beacuse of my fiscal feelings, and promptly forget about that when we talk gay marriage.
Miller's always been pretty fiscally conservative and a capitalist. One of my favorite skits of his talked about the hatred people have for public figures that are wealthy, and he ended with "What's wrong with making a little money first [before running for office]?"
I would consider him a libertarian, and I think he considers himself one too. Look at what he was skewering the Republicans of the 90s for...abortion, gay marriage, race; i.e., social issues. He skewers Democrats on fiscal issues and foreign policy. Socially liberal and fiscally/governmentally conservative? Libertarian (small L).
--trb
I fail to see how telling anyone of an illegal activity is themselves a criminal. Maybe the people being called out SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN ACTING ILLEGALLY TO BEGIN WITH.
It's a rather subjective line you're walking there...I doubt most infomants can definitively say that what they're revealing is an illegal act. Take the NSA wiretapping saga currently going on; bright legal minds on both sides of the aisle can't come to a consensus whether it's an illegal activity or not. Half say the president has these powers, half disagree. It will take a SCOTUS verdict, probably resulting in a 5-4 split, to determine that. If the SCOTUS is near evenly split on whether something is in fact illegal, why should we assume Joe Somebody have a clue?
Instead, they should take it through the proper channels *first* before talking to someone at the NY Times. In addition, the NY Times/USA Today/other papers should be concerned about GETTING THE STORY RIGHT instead of getting the scoop, something that it seems most reporters have lost sight of in recent days.
To segue...the first amendment determined that the government can't come in and shut down a newspaper for printing things it didn't like. Being subpoenad because someone committed a criminal act in revealing classified information does not fall into that category of free press violations. Being a reporter does not mean you can participate in breaking the law, it means you have the same rights to speak your mind as everyone else, and the government can't violate your right to publish those thoughts.
--trb
We may have a chicken/egg situation. I don't think that either conservatism or liberalism are defined by the other, they're two separate political philosophies. However, assuming the country is populated with people whose want something politically in the middle, when the country swings one direction, there is necessarily going to be a larger proportion of people who want it to swing back the other way. Roosevelt had an unprecedented increase in government, a stereotypical Democratic presidency, and the majority of the country wanted smaller government, hence Ike.
Republicans focus more on protecting America than Democrats do, and this was a direct result of that. Had people been worried about invasions from Mars, the Republicans would have still done well because they're be talking about space based laser systems or some idiotic new approach to keeping America safe. As far as liberal sentiments=communism, the Democratic platform has, at least for the 20th century, had resolutions to issues that were closer to the tenants of communism than the capitalistic approach that Republicans typically take. In capitalism, some people get screwed...Democrats seem to want more than a fair shake for everyone, they want everyone to be protected. That could just be the capilist in me talking, but it's how I consider the 30s-50s to have developed. People even today can't seem to separate Communism the economic model from Communism (really, dictatorship) the political model. I'm not surprised people mistook the two back then.
Big L or small l liberal? Big-L Liberalism is probably closer to conservatism, at least REAL conservatism. When the Democrats were the party of the working class, they owned the rural base. Now that neither party is the party of the working class, social issues are at the forefront, and the red-states are primarily socially conservative.
Agreed.
Honestly, I'm not sure. Maybe I'm just not all that sure what progressivism is. IMO, the Democrats have become the opposite of classic Liberalism, whatever that's called.
--trb
I think you're oversimplifying the Republican election victories of the 50s and 80s. A good deal of Eisenhower's success was based on limiting spending and the size of government as a result of the unprecedented growth seen under Roosevelt. That's not to say fear of communism didn't play a big part, but when you consider Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs fiasco, not to mention the other Democratic presidents, like Johnson, in that period, I think that fear crossed the political aisle.
Reagan was more a result of combined weak foreign policy and stagflation under Carter than anything else. It's not like the fear of Communism went away during Democrat presidencies and was brought back to life during Republican ones. It was an overarching theme present and understood in both parties.
The modern Republican party is based on opposing Liberalism (though it opposes it with another kind of liberalism).
I assume you mean classic Liberalism, and I agree. However, that's not to say that the Democratic party is based on big-L Liberalism. While the Republicans have grown more reactionary as of recent, the Democrats are growing in the extreme opposite direction. What we're really talking about is bases; the Republican base is extremely reactionary and the Democratic base is the opposite (I don't really consider progressive to be the opposite of reactionary). While there are plenty of people that associate themselves with the parties and not the bases, it's the bases that by and large determine candidates. McCain and Giuliani are not liked by the Republican base; I'm not sure that Clinton would be acceptable to the Democratic base anymore.
--trb
No, he's not...he's considered pretty *socially* conservative, but in terms of fiscal issues and government intrusion he's decidedly NOT conservative. Pigeon holing someone with a single word when there's an array of issues to discuss is useless. At best you would need to use a 2 axis system to denote their social and fiscal policies, and even that is a drastic oversimplification engineered to provide a good soundbite on the nightly news.
--trb
Yes and no. A RDBMS is capable of optimizing queries OR inserts, but not necessarily both. It's sort of a sliding scale; the more you favor one side, the slower the other side gets. Add an index here to optimize querying, slow down your inserts. Remove indexes and normalize for inserts, slow down queries. We've been told to optimize for inserts, but then get complaints because queries take too long.
--trb
Yes, we have, and we're looking to going to a datawarehouse/mart solution, but a) the customer is slow to approve it, and b) there are still some concerns with throughput. I'm not a DBA by nature, but from what we've seen the query-optimized products would have trouble being fed and indexing our incoming data, leading to an increasing delta. We could possibly make up that delta after hours, but the customer doesn't really want to do that, and they *really* don't want the answer "well, we think for XYZ amount of data we'll lag at an increasing rate of ABC records/minute, meaning we'll catch up an hour after COB".
--trb
From what Sun's website is saying, I don't think so. It sounds like the compiler processes your source and essentially adds a new String( ... ) around your literals. So in effect...
...becomes...
...in the compiler's eyes. Whereas...
...does NOT become...
...because it's already assumed to have instantiated a new String object.
String s = "asdf";
String s = new String("asdf");
String s = new String("asdf");
String s = new String(new String("asdf"));
That would be relatively simple compiler optimization, and my reading is that the javac compiler does it.
--trb
The problem with including everything and OR'ing statements together is that when you have 30 parameters and a well normalized database, that means joining a large number of tables. If I don't care what the field value is in tableXYZ, which has 1,000,000 rows and the column I'm checking isn't indexed, then I shouldn't include a join to it. Obvious statements:
1) Reduce the number of tables. Not possible, we have a lot of data and have normalized our table structure. Even with a normalized structure, we have millions of records in some tables.
2) Index everything. Also, not possible. We're optimized for inserting, not querying, so that stuff coming in is processed fast. Indexing would also add more overhead to disk storage and memory.
3) Optimize for querying. We're looking at this approach, sorta the 'datamart' vs 'datawarehouse' approach. It would result in a delay between when something comes in and when it could be retrieved, and so far that hasn't been acceptable.
--trb
I believe that the literal is turned into a new String object by the compmiler. While it may be unnecessary to add the new, it's functionally identical and will consume the same amount of memory. From Sun's website:
All string literals in Java programs, such as "abc", are implemented as instances of this class.
--trb
If you have 600 SPs, you're going to need 600 functions/classes that do the same thing. SPs are just as easy to name as functions/classes. Someone already mentioned naming conventions and source control, in addition, put all your SPs in text files and use a build script to install them. Much, much easier looking through systematically named SPs than code. We use something along the lines of __. Very easy to find SPs within seconds in Explorer.
--trb
I'm on a project where they tried mandating everything be in stored procedures. For truly dynamic querying, it's just not feasible. We have one query where the user can input around 30 pieces of data and they're all optional. A query like that would be painful to write in a stored procedure, so for those we have parameterized SQL. Parameterization solves the problem just the same and allows flexibility to create SQL on the fly (not: we're using Sybase, not Oracle. Don't ask why.)
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Additionally, make sure you use PreparedStatements/CallableStatements correctly. I've seen people mark up a PreparedStatement like this:
...);
String SQL = new String("select * from user where username = '" + username + "'");
PreparedStatement statemnet = connection.prepareStatement(SQL);
That does *nothing* for you, and is just as insecure. Instead, make sure you use parameterized statements:
String SQL = new String("select * from user where username = ?");
CallableStatement cs = connection.prepareCall(SQL,
cs.setString(1, username);
Most databases treat the two very differently. In the second case, the database compiles the statement and then compares the username field with your value. In the first, your value is inserted and then compiled, allowing injection.
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Specifically, one of the ads (there were three) was deemed racially insensitive because it showed a white chick in a dominating position over a black chick. Example article with image here. What people haven't talked about so much is that there are two other ads; one with the black chick in a dominant position over the white chick, and one where they're on equal footing.
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Whose influence lead us down this track?
It was a very different set of leaders in the mid 90s than what we have today. Sure, there are still some holdovers, but in general we now have a Republican Party that has thrown fiscal consevatism to the wind in favor of winning elections. Most of Bush's largest spending programs (the war and Medicare, to name two) weren't funded for altruistic reasons; they may have originally been (I'm not getting into whether the war was "just" or not, it's a separate and altogether debatable topic), but money was then heaped on top without a lot of thought just so that it would look like we were doing something about it.
Look at the response to hurricane Katrina; whole passles of money were thrown at that beast, and I'd argue it was because Bush was getting bad PR for not doing anything about it. Bush's Medicare plan is going to be a huge outlay, an the war has cost way more than anyone thought. Personally, I think it harkens back to NCLB...when that program was less than a year old, Democrats sparked the talking point that it was "un(der)funded", thus laying the groundwork for Bush to make sure *that* didn't happen again.
This is my personal opinion, but what's not just my opinion is that this administration is decidely *NOT* conservative. Pick up a copy of National Review sometime and read the scathing economic review of the president. Fiscal conservatives are not pleased. That being said, what are the alternatives? Libertarians, if not for their freaky tax/social plans, or Democrats, who most of us [fiscal conservatives] don't consider a better alternative. It's arguable whether or not Clinton was responsible for balancing the budget, but I think it's more accepted that the reason spending was down during the second half of his administration is that the Republican controlled Congress deadlocked with him on most spending measures. That hasn't happened (unfortunately) under Bush.
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Sigh.
I agree that Republicans aren't quite the federalists they used to be...
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It used to be a Republican mantra, until they managed to win power, now suddenly old "tax-and-spend" liberals are thinking federalism isn't such a bad idea.
I agree that Republicans are quite the federalists they used to be, but liberals/Democrats still aren't the better option for a limited government. Nowadays, they just want to spend our tax dollars on different programs than the Republicans do. There may be a few fiscally conservative, limited government liberals out there, but I can't name many, and certainly none of the ones who get the majority of the limelight fall into that category.
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As Kos said, there are corporations on both sides of this debate. If you want to argue that the government is siding with the telcos, i.e. the corporations with the larger bankroll, fine, but I think even that's a tenuous point that has yet to be made in this case.
FWIW, because they would be removing impediments to how the telcos do business, this sounds to me like deregulation...I have a hard time opposing that in most cases. It may suck for the consumer in the short term, but it will end up creating competition in the market.
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Actually, true conservatives, which the Republican party used to be made up of, do that...there's plenty of fuel in the argument that Bush and Co. aren't true conservatives, never were.
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In my opinion, you have to read the privacy agreement for whatever mode of transit you choose. I don't think it becomes public property in either case, but you're relying on the service you've chosen to keep it private.
In the case of USPS, I think this addresses that. Number 7 might fit a similar program to the NSA's.
For UPS, I would assume a similar code, but I haven't found that addresses the contents of your package in my 5 minutes of surfing their site.
In general, if I want it to be truly private, I hand deliver or encrypt. There are privacy acts out there that address what transport companies must keep private, but there seem to be a lot of legal loopholes that I don't fully understand.
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