That would be approximately £4,000 per capita. I'd say that's a plausible figure for _general retail_ spending, perhaps. Obviously if you include home purchases, rental, other big purchases (cars, etc.), utilities and so on it'll be dwarfed.
At least in Perl, when you import multiple modules, you can guarantee that their code is initialised in a certain order. A Javascript program typically can't rely on this, so descendant classes must either be declared in the same module that their ancestor is in, or use some kind of event handling system to force their own initialisation to be after the ancestor classes.
And you've just proven that you don't understand JavaScript. JavaScript != Java (or C++, or C#). It's not designed around functions and classes. Javascript is a functional language, and as such is designed around closures.
It's a pretty piss-poor attempt at a functional language. Sure, it has closures, which are useful at times. Hell, they're useful a lot of the time. And.apply() is beautiful. But a decent class abstraction would still save everyone a lot of hassle. The world has converged on OOP as the "best" way of writing large-scale applications. Now that may or may not be true, it's a religious war I don't want to get involved in; all I know is that if you're used to thinking in OOP terms, OOP is easier than a large functional program. And Javascript isn't very good for implementing OO designs.
but most of the things you mention are irrelevant (well, they're important to understanding JavaScript, but that's a core competency for any type of web design, not just AJAX).
Sorry, I've worked in the web design field for something like 10 years now. I was a late javascript adopter, not starting to use it until the Netscape 4/IE 3 era. But not until I started writing serious client-side apps (i.e. what people are now calling AJAX) did I even care about how javascript objects are created, how one would define new object types, and any of these other issues. Most web programming is simple event handling. AJAX programs typically manipulate complex data on the client side, which is where the complexities start coming in.
Of the things I listed, only one of them is a serious problem for traditional page-reload-request style web programming: lack of consistency. Such apps tend not to use enough javascript for the modularity to be a problem. They tend not to be written or designed in an OO style; certainly they don't use inheritance, let alone multiple inheritance. But those things are important in many circumstances, and this is what makes AJAX programming intimidating.
For intranet applications you could force everyone to use the same browser, as they will need to go there anyway.
True. Then you only need to work around half as many browser bugs. You get to choose IE (more bizarre and insidious bugs that sometimes take days to figure out) or Gecko (more numerous bugs that are better documented and easier to work with).
Actually, if I had free choice, I'd probably pick Safari. I'm not a mac fanboy, in fact we're a PC-only shop, but we recently had to demo one of our apps to a client who uses macs, so I fired up a VNC link to a hired mac, expecting to have to spend a couple of days debugging to get the app to work, but it was flawless first time. I think this app had had something like 3 weeks of time spent on it, roughly evenly distributed between fixing IE bugs and fixing Gecko bugs, but Safari worked first time. So either it has no bugs, or it has bugs that are exact duplicates of IE/Gecko.;)
Used to be services could directly interact with the desktop. Well I guess that makes you venerable to a certain class of attacks called shatter attacks. I don't know the details of what they are, but at any rate. So Vista changed the model.
There was a much better solution to shatter attacks that MS could have used, but clearly decided not to. Simply prevent sending messages across user boundaries. Would have resulted in no loss of functionality (other than obscure stuff, liking running DDE exchanges between apps running as different users... not sure why you'd do that) and would have solved the problem completely. Instead, they remove features.
Now you have to have the service separate and then a program that interacts with the desktop and controls it.
BTW: does anyone know what's happened to "runas"? It used to run as an interactive service. You can't take the step you suggest to make it work, because the whole idea was the service (which ran as priveleged code) started the application you wanted to run as a different user for you, and that app was then allowed to interact with the desktop.
Congratulations. You've just read the most exemplary case of "fact-checking required" published by an international news agency since... well... probably a few hours previously, actually.
Basically, it looks as though Reuters have simply translated an article from another language, tried to understand what the hell it was going on about, and printed the results. They've missed that the game isn't a new Iranian game called Counterstrike, but (presumably) a mod for the existing game of that name.
But it's the third to last paragraph that really shines for me...
A popular U.S. game, called "U.S. attacks Iran" or "Assault on Iran" and made by Kuma Reality games, revolved around a special forces mission to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities.
Err... couldn't decide how to tranlate the name back to English, so decided to use both possible translations, eh?
Next task: Blow up the centrifuge. So back you go, and weirdly you can't blow up the centrifuge by pumping 40mm grenades into it. You expend all the 40mm grenades on hand. Did anyone think to bring along any C4? No, I thought you packed it! You knew we were going to have to blow up a centrifuge and no one brought any C4? What kind of chickenshit outfit is this? No C4. Oh well. But! Happy thing, just a few rifle rounds makes the centrifuge blow up. Task complete!
How well does a team of bombers (whether suicidal or not) need to communicate anyway? I mean, they might as well train by watching 1950s war films instead, 'cause that'll teach them everything they need to know.
I've heard time and again about ubiquitous cameras in Britain... I don't know about the rest of Europe, but if they act in any similar manner, then any praise for their protection of their citizens' privacy rights in this seems pretty silly to me. Perhaps I'm wrong?
What you need to know to understand the British security camera obsession:
* First of all, there really aren't that many. They may be described as "ubiquitous", but generally speaking they (or at least government-operated cameras) only cover very limited areas, typically just the most problematic areas of major cities and towns. * There are laws that cover the way they can be used. Examining recordings to monitor a particular individual would be considered a violation of the data protection act, unless it was carried out under a set of very limited circumstances; generally it would be necessary to be fairly certain that the person was involved in a crime of some kind.
I had horrendous trouble a couple of years back with Maxtor 40GB "DiamondMax Plus 8" half-height drives. Had three of them fail within three months of each other; two of them were a RAID-0 pair where the second failed before I'd had time to replace the first drive. Replaced them with 80GB drives from the same range, and everything has been fine since.
So basically, this guy is pissed off that J2EE-focussed magazines won't buy his articles about technologies that aren't core J2EE technologies but which he thinks are cool anyway. And thinks an AJAX analogy will make his point, which is of course totally wrong.
Having been working on a few AJAX applications myself lately, I can kind-of see his point. Writing a complex AJAX program is hard. You have to work around the limitations of javascript, and you have to work around the limitations of browser support. A typical day these days involves about an hour writing new code and about seven fixing obscure browser bugs that only turn up in one browser in some obscure circumstance.
Compared to writing more traditional desktop applications, I'd say AJAX takes at least twice as long to achieve similar results. It also needs a much more competent developer. For most businesses, whose development needs are for internal applications (i.e. intranet applications), you just can't justify it. You can develop the desktop application and roll it out to every desktop for significantly less money.
There's somewhat more to writing a large-scale AJAX application than "understanding a javascript function call". You have to contend with multiple implementations that work different ways. You have to work around the fact that javascript has little or no support for techniques that are typically used in writing large applications. Modularising a javascript application is hell. The method of defining a class is bizarre. Inheritance is horrible, particularly if the class you're inheriting from is in a different file, because there are no guarantees about the order in which they will be loaded. Multiple inheritance...? The language can do it, sure, but it isn't trivial.
Their FAQ cites that the primary reason for not using theora is that it doesn't support interlaced sources very well, and most BBC content is interlaced.
This is done by means of the so called 'license fee' - a license to watch TV, all of the receipts from which go to the BBC.
Not entirely true. Some of the proceeds go to the Independent Television Commission, who are essencially the UK equivalent of the FCC's TV-related departments in the US.
As a result, one of the main activities of magistrates courts in the UK is to jail single mothers for not subscribing to the BBC.
Hardly. As stated in the response to this parliamentary question, "Custodial sentences are not available for television licence evasion, the maximum penalty being a fine. However, custodial sentences can be imposed for non-payment of such a fine." The repsonse goes on to indicate that in 2001 (the most recent year for which the statistics were presented), a grand total of 21 people were so imprisoned.
Note that magistrates fines in the UK are calculated in accordance to the fined person's income, so as to not be either unduly burdensome on people with low incomes or completely ineffective on those with high incomes, so theoretically at least anyone fined for not having a TV license should be able to afford to pay the fine.
So the UK State Broadcaster is also the UK State Magazine Publisher, and is the largest magazine publisher in the UK.
Err... no it isn't. BBC sold 90 million magazines in the financial year 2005-06, which is dwarfed by figures for IPC and Emap.
What we in the UK need more than anything is to make subscription to the State Broadcaster optional, and to stop jailing poor people for the crime of wanting to watch some other TV channels, while not subscribing to it.
No. That's the last thing we need. What makes the BBC unique is that it is under little or no pressure to make popular programming, because as long as enough people support it, it doesn't matter how many people actually subscribe or whatever. This has made a lot of unique programming possible. The BBC produces some of the best TV in the world, precisely because it doesn't have to worry whether an experimental project will be popular or not.
What we need, I think, is to do what we should have done long ago: fund the BBC centrally from government, rather than making it collect its own revenue. This will cut costs significantly, because there will no longer be any need for the organisation called "TV Licensing". It can just go, replaced by a small increase in income tax. Good riddance.
The TV licencing folk are like pitbulls, and they have some similar rights as baliffs the way I understand it.
TV Licensing have essentially no rights beyond those you and I do. If they suspect you're committing a criminal offence (i.e. watching broadcast TV without a licence) they can collect evidence and approach the CPS to prosecute you.
Note that bailiffs have few additional rights also. They can serve official notices on you, and after serving appropriate notices may remove your property and sell it. But only if you allow them access to your property.
Does streaming video count if you don't have a TV card?
Another poster has linked to the warning that TVLicensing issued about this. Note that nobody has been prosecuted for this so far. What will happen when these cases do reach court? Who knows. It'll require a lot of legal analysis to determine whether a law written in the 1930s (?) will apply to a technology that hadn't even been visualized at the time. It is worth noting, though, that such a system is technologically similar to digital cable, for which I believe prosecutions have been brought successfully.
However, in order to prosecute you for it, they'd have to prove you'd done it.
The CPU will clock at 2.66GHz with a 1066MHz effective FSB
I'm sure earlier articles were saying it would have a 1333MHz FSB. Has the spec been dropped for some reason, or is it just early models that will have this limitation?
noun (pl. embargoes) 1 an official ban, especially on trade or other commercial activity with a particular country. 2 historical an order of a state forbidding foreign ships to enter, or any ships to leave, its ports.
verb (embargoes, embargoed) impose an embargo on.
Meaning 1, not in the "especially" sense, (i.e. "an official ban") seems to fit.
And you think reading a discussion board and randomly insulting people who have posted there is somehow better than pointing out where somebody's criticism of an article is based on an incorrect assumption?
Frankly, I think you're the one who needs to "get a life".
Slashdot Mirror
When are they going to start selling hardware?
Err... they already do. A friend recently acquired a P4 3.0GHz with 15" TFT screen from them for (IIRC) about £400.
That would be approximately £4,000 per capita. I'd say that's a plausible figure for _general retail_ spending, perhaps. Obviously if you include home purchases, rental, other big purchases (cars, etc.), utilities and so on it'll be dwarfed.
I think this is because the range hasn't actually launched yet. See pre-launch web site here.
Anyway, speaking as someone from the UK who shops at tesco regularly... yep, their website sucks.
At least in Perl, when you import multiple modules, you can guarantee that their code is initialised in a certain order. A Javascript program typically can't rely on this, so descendant classes must either be declared in the same module that their ancestor is in, or use some kind of event handling system to force their own initialisation to be after the ancestor classes.
And you've just proven that you don't understand JavaScript. JavaScript != Java (or C++, or C#). It's not designed around functions and classes. Javascript is a functional language, and as such is designed around closures.
.apply() is beautiful. But a decent class abstraction would still save everyone a lot of hassle. The world has converged on OOP as the "best" way of writing large-scale applications. Now that may or may not be true, it's a religious war I don't want to get involved in; all I know is that if you're used to thinking in OOP terms, OOP is easier than a large functional program. And Javascript isn't very good for implementing OO designs.
It's a pretty piss-poor attempt at a functional language. Sure, it has closures, which are useful at times. Hell, they're useful a lot of the time. And
but most of the things you mention are irrelevant (well, they're important to understanding JavaScript, but that's a core competency for any type of web design, not just AJAX).
Sorry, I've worked in the web design field for something like 10 years now. I was a late javascript adopter, not starting to use it until the Netscape 4/IE 3 era. But not until I started writing serious client-side apps (i.e. what people are now calling AJAX) did I even care about how javascript objects are created, how one would define new object types, and any of these other issues. Most web programming is simple event handling. AJAX programs typically manipulate complex data on the client side, which is where the complexities start coming in.
Of the things I listed, only one of them is a serious problem for traditional page-reload-request style web programming: lack of consistency. Such apps tend not to use enough javascript for the modularity to be a problem. They tend not to be written or designed in an OO style; certainly they don't use inheritance, let alone multiple inheritance. But those things are important in many circumstances, and this is what makes AJAX programming intimidating.
For intranet applications you could force everyone to use the same browser, as they will need to go there anyway.
;)
True. Then you only need to work around half as many browser bugs. You get to choose IE (more bizarre and insidious bugs that sometimes take days to figure out) or Gecko (more numerous bugs that are better documented and easier to work with).
Actually, if I had free choice, I'd probably pick Safari. I'm not a mac fanboy, in fact we're a PC-only shop, but we recently had to demo one of our apps to a client who uses macs, so I fired up a VNC link to a hired mac, expecting to have to spend a couple of days debugging to get the app to work, but it was flawless first time. I think this app had had something like 3 weeks of time spent on it, roughly evenly distributed between fixing IE bugs and fixing Gecko bugs, but Safari worked first time. So either it has no bugs, or it has bugs that are exact duplicates of IE/Gecko.
Used to be services could directly interact with the desktop. Well I guess that makes you venerable to a certain class of attacks called shatter attacks. I don't know the details of what they are, but at any rate. So Vista changed the model.
There was a much better solution to shatter attacks that MS could have used, but clearly decided not to. Simply prevent sending messages across user boundaries. Would have resulted in no loss of functionality (other than obscure stuff, liking running DDE exchanges between apps running as different users... not sure why you'd do that) and would have solved the problem completely. Instead, they remove features.
Now you have to have the service separate and then a program that interacts with the desktop and controls it.
BTW: does anyone know what's happened to "runas"? It used to run as an interactive service. You can't take the step you suggest to make it work, because the whole idea was the service (which ran as priveleged code) started the application you wanted to run as a different user for you, and that app was then allowed to interact with the desktop.
Basically, it looks as though Reuters have simply translated an article from another language, tried to understand what the hell it was going on about, and printed the results. They've missed that the game isn't a new Iranian game called Counterstrike, but (presumably) a mod for the existing game of that name.
But it's the third to last paragraph that really shines for me...
A popular U.S. game, called "U.S. attacks Iran" or "Assault on Iran" and made by Kuma Reality games, revolved around a special forces mission to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities.
Err... couldn't decide how to tranlate the name back to English, so decided to use both possible translations, eh?
Anyway. Kuma games. I've only ever heard of them once before, and thought the review was rather fun.
How well does a team of bombers (whether suicidal or not) need to communicate anyway? I mean, they might as well train by watching 1950s war films instead, 'cause that'll teach them everything they need to know.
I've heard time and again about ubiquitous cameras in Britain... I don't know about the rest of Europe, but if they act in any similar manner, then any praise for their protection of their citizens' privacy rights in this seems pretty silly to me. Perhaps I'm wrong?
What you need to know to understand the British security camera obsession:
* First of all, there really aren't that many. They may be described as "ubiquitous", but generally speaking they (or at least government-operated cameras) only cover very limited areas, typically just the most problematic areas of major cities and towns.
* There are laws that cover the way they can be used. Examining recordings to monitor a particular individual would be considered a violation of the data protection act, unless it was carried out under a set of very limited circumstances; generally it would be necessary to be fairly certain that the person was involved in a crime of some kind.
I had horrendous trouble a couple of years back with Maxtor 40GB "DiamondMax Plus 8" half-height drives. Had three of them fail within three months of each other; two of them were a RAID-0 pair where the second failed before I'd had time to replace the first drive. Replaced them with 80GB drives from the same range, and everything has been fine since.
So basically, this guy is pissed off that J2EE-focussed magazines won't buy his articles about technologies that aren't core J2EE technologies but which he thinks are cool anyway. And thinks an AJAX analogy will make his point, which is of course totally wrong.
Having been working on a few AJAX applications myself lately, I can kind-of see his point. Writing a complex AJAX program is hard. You have to work around the limitations of javascript, and you have to work around the limitations of browser support. A typical day these days involves about an hour writing new code and about seven fixing obscure browser bugs that only turn up in one browser in some obscure circumstance.
Compared to writing more traditional desktop applications, I'd say AJAX takes at least twice as long to achieve similar results. It also needs a much more competent developer. For most businesses, whose development needs are for internal applications (i.e. intranet applications), you just can't justify it. You can develop the desktop application and roll it out to every desktop for significantly less money.
There's somewhat more to writing a large-scale AJAX application than "understanding a javascript function call". You have to contend with multiple implementations that work different ways. You have to work around the fact that javascript has little or no support for techniques that are typically used in writing large applications. Modularising a javascript application is hell. The method of defining a class is bizarre. Inheritance is horrible, particularly if the class you're inheriting from is in a different file, because there are no guarantees about the order in which they will be loaded. Multiple inheritance...? The language can do it, sure, but it isn't trivial.
Their FAQ cites that the primary reason for not using theora is that it doesn't support interlaced sources very well, and most BBC content is interlaced.
A large chunk of their radio programming is currently available in MP3 format.
This is done by means of the so called 'license fee' - a license to watch TV, all of the receipts from which go to the BBC.
Not entirely true. Some of the proceeds go to the Independent Television Commission, who are essencially the UK equivalent of the FCC's TV-related departments in the US.
As a result, one of the main activities of magistrates courts in the UK is to jail single mothers for not subscribing to the BBC.
Hardly. As stated in the response to this parliamentary question, "Custodial sentences are not available for television licence evasion, the maximum penalty being a fine. However, custodial sentences can be imposed for non-payment of such a fine." The repsonse goes on to indicate that in 2001 (the most recent year for which the statistics were presented), a grand total of 21 people were so imprisoned.
Note that magistrates fines in the UK are calculated in accordance to the fined person's income, so as to not be either unduly burdensome on people with low incomes or completely ineffective on those with high incomes, so theoretically at least anyone fined for not having a TV license should be able to afford to pay the fine.
So the UK State Broadcaster is also the UK State Magazine Publisher, and is the largest magazine publisher in the UK.
Err... no it isn't. BBC sold 90 million magazines in the financial year 2005-06, which is dwarfed by figures for IPC and Emap.
What we in the UK need more than anything is to make subscription to the State Broadcaster optional, and to stop jailing poor people for the crime of wanting to watch some other TV channels, while not subscribing to it.
No. That's the last thing we need. What makes the BBC unique is that it is under little or no pressure to make popular programming, because as long as enough people support it, it doesn't matter how many people actually subscribe or whatever. This has made a lot of unique programming possible. The BBC produces some of the best TV in the world, precisely because it doesn't have to worry whether an experimental project will be popular or not.
What we need, I think, is to do what we should have done long ago: fund the BBC centrally from government, rather than making it collect its own revenue. This will cut costs significantly, because there will no longer be any need for the organisation called "TV Licensing". It can just go, replaced by a small increase in income tax. Good riddance.
The TV licencing folk are like pitbulls, and they have some similar rights as baliffs the way I understand it.
TV Licensing have essentially no rights beyond those you and I do. If they suspect you're committing a criminal offence (i.e. watching broadcast TV without a licence) they can collect evidence and approach the CPS to prosecute you.
Note that bailiffs have few additional rights also. They can serve official notices on you, and after serving appropriate notices may remove your property and sell it. But only if you allow them access to your property.
Does streaming video count if you don't have a TV card?
Another poster has linked to the warning that TVLicensing issued about this. Note that nobody has been prosecuted for this so far. What will happen when these cases do reach court? Who knows. It'll require a lot of legal analysis to determine whether a law written in the 1930s (?) will apply to a technology that hadn't even been visualized at the time. It is worth noting, though, that such a system is technologically similar to digital cable, for which I believe prosecutions have been brought successfully.
However, in order to prosecute you for it, they'd have to prove you'd done it.
The CPU will clock at 2.66GHz with a 1066MHz effective FSB
I'm sure earlier articles were saying it would have a 1333MHz FSB. Has the spec been dropped for some reason, or is it just early models that will have this limitation?
Meaning 1, not in the "especially" sense, (i.e. "an official ban") seems to fit.
Ok, maybe they never called Java2 1.4 Java 4, but that's my point: with Java2 1.5, they officially changed this approach.
And you think calling it "Java 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0" is any better?
And you think reading a discussion board and randomly insulting people who have posted there is somehow better than pointing out where somebody's criticism of an article is based on an incorrect assumption?
Frankly, I think you're the one who needs to "get a life".
Use XSS to insert a script that contains 'location.replace("http://my.dodgy.server.com/ownm e")' perhaps?
You just need a better dictionary.
swank
informal
[...]
noun - behaviour, talk, or display intended to impress others.
(www.askoxford.com)