Most colleges/universities in the US are run as non-profit organizations. Their mission is to educate. The Devry/Kaplan/Phoenix schools are for-profit companies. Their mission is to increase shareholder value.
So, while all schools charge tuition, and both types of schools seek to educate and not lose money, their aims are significantly different.
For example, each commercial aircraft in the US has their own set of engineering designs specifically for that aircraft. Every single nut, bolt, and rivet is documented and signed off my multiple engineers - materials, electrical, mechanical, stress, etc. In the event of a plane crash, the FAA swoops in, grabs up all the pieces and reconstructs everything to determine the cause of the crash and they review all engineering drawings and documents. If the cause of the crash was due to the design of the aircraft - a lot of engineers are going to lose their license to practice engineering. Now, think about the "auto-pilot" software or other control software on the plane. If the plane crashes, do you think that the FAA will accept index cards as an acceptable substitute for documented design and specification?
How about the anti-lock breaks and traction control software in your car?
Or the software that is used to control medical equipment? I suppose you are not familiar with the programming mistake in the software of a nuclear medicine machine that exposed a patient to 20,000 times the expected dose of radiation and killed them.
>> Pick an antivirus to run and constantly worry if it's good enough to keep up with all the malware There is an easy solution to this. 1). Do not click on any popup banners that tell you to download software 2). Do not get any files from p2p networks or warez sites. 3). Do not download any screen-savers or other crap from download sites. 3). Do not open email attachments from people you don't know 4). If you get an email attachment from someone you do know, stop to think about whether they actually wanted to send you the file or if their system could be compromised.
This will prevent 99.99 % of all the virus/ad-ware/malware from getting on your machine. The corollary is that in over 99% of the time, YOUR BEHAVIOR, not Microsoft, is responsible for anything bad that ends up on your hard drive.
>>make sure the firewall is on at all times On W2K, your computer was exposed because IIS was on by default and there was no firewall. Since then, Windows has included a firewall and IIS is disabled by default. If you enable your computer to download windows updates, as soon as you got the first security update, the Security Center will popup and let you know that if your firewall isn't on. If your firewall isn't on, it is because YOU chose not to turn it on. And this has been the case since 2001.
>>disable unneeded services that are on by default and those that pop up by themselves misteriously later Most unneeded services are not started - and none turn themselves on mysteriously. You may download and run an executable that turns on a service - that is a sign that you should be more careful regarding the files you download.
>>always on the lookout for spyware and malware Don't download files from the internet and you will be fine.
>>wonder why the fuck it won't stop asking for drivers for that Bluetooth dongle I plugged in two weeks ago Windows can pick up *most* hardware that you plug into your computer... provided that the hardware manufacturer followed the proper specifications for the hardware. Did you buy a name brand bluetooth device or did you buy some el-cheapo brand. Most likely, it is not a Microsoft's problem.
>>hunting down programs to use by myself and always worry which of them might contain spyware or trojans Easy solution here. Do not download programs from the internet except those from *trustworthy sources*. Or, considering that this is/., you can go to sourceforge, download the code and compile it yourself. Since you have the code, you can read through it and make sure that it doesn't have any malware in it.
>>Add the inherent rot of every Windows installation I've ever seen, which makes you need to reinstall at least once a year, if not 6 months. OK - I certainly have to call you out on this. FUD, FUD, FUD. I am a professional software developer. I've been using XP on my computer since its release in 2001. (I moved from Win2K because it did have some of the problems that you mention). I have never had a virus. I have never had malware. I've never had to reinstall. So, for over 6 years, constantly using my computer, for over 10 hours a day on average, I've never had a single problem that you mention.
Driver Hunting? If you are referring to driver hunting for windows, I am sorry to inform you that this hasn't been an issue for YEARS. As for the effort for keeping up a Windows box - it takes almost zero effort.
Getting proper drivers USED to be a problem back in the days of DOS games when Windows 2.11, 3.0 and 3.1 were still started from the command prompt. By the time Windows 95 rolled around, *almost all* hardware vendors shipped Windows drivers with their hardware, and game programmers were moving aware from writing to the hardware interface and instead writing to low level Windows primitives. After Windows 95, the only games that had driver issues were the OEM versions of games that were packaged with hardware since they were written specifically for a certain video card. An example of this was the nVidia Edge 3D card that shipped with Panzer Dragoon and Descent. How do I know this? I worked on the port of Descent to nVidia's 1st generation chipset, the nV1. This version of Descent was a Windows 95 native application that would only run with an nVidia card.
Since about 2000, game developers have been writing to Direct X, and letting windows handle the details of the video card. Back in the Windows 95 days, Windows was pretty stupid regarding hardware recognition, and Linux was pretty smart about recognizing hardware. However, once it became established that the OS should detect the hardware and be able to find the drivers for it, Microsoft didn't take much time to figure out how to do this and provide a TON of drivers on the Windows installation diskettes/CDs. Any special hardware that you purchased came with Windows drivers. Drivers have not been an issue for years.
The market for linux games is non-existent. To produce a top notch game these days costs several million dollars (the average cost was around $2M when I left the gaming industry 7 years ago) and the common perception, whether correct or not, is that linux users won't pay for a game. There might be some inroads on the MMORPG side of gaming since they make their money by charging you a monthly fee, but the standard boxed software market will not make a game for linux until it is established that linux users will pay for software. Given the emotional/religious arguments over OSS/Free Software/commercial(closed source), companies aren't going to deal the the hassle.
1). Create a game/music/movie/book that some will find culturally offense. 2). Wait for the government/church/other to ban/boycott the product. 3). Stock the shelves for those who will buy the product as a form of protest. 4). $Profit$
First - thanks for replying. I think that it is pretty cool that you did.
I appreciate your clarifying the history of how this occured and 'fessing up to the fact that you did break some things, but had to revert them. Yes, sometimes that happens. Having an inexperienced programmer (or perhaps only inexperienced in web programming) impliment something that is an essential work function, without oversight, stringent QA, or adherance to specs (doing things prohibited in the original documentation) shows that at minimum there is a PHB/management problem and a process problem. Bad programmers will create bad code, but a bad manager is one who will release a bad product.
Your assumption seems interesting to me. In a production environment end users are using an application that obviously is useful. In your attempt to "clean up unreadable code", it no longer works. What you did instead was make the code perhaps more readable, but you changed the functionality. Perhaps more pejoratively, you broke what was previously working. Instead of looking at your self to see what you broke, your assumption is that it all worked by accident.
Before committing any changes to a production system, I would expect that a developer would test the functionality before making change and compare the results after changes were made. This would have uncovered that you changed functionality. Another tact would have been to create unit tests before making your changes, and then run those test as you were making changes. You have have discovered that you changed functionality. Instead, you did neither, and you broke a feature.
I'm a little long in the tooth, working 18 years as a programmer. I've seen this situation many times. Every young new hire thinks that they are smarter than the people hired before them and that all of the existing code is crap. It all needs to be rewritten because the previous coders were bad programmers and if it were redone, it would be cleaner. So they rewrite existing code and they break things. I can only assume that you work for a PHB.
Any manager worth their salt would initially halt a rewrite of WORKING code. If you want to modify something that is working and has been working and has had the bugs worked out, you will really need to prove that there are benefits to doing so. And as a manager of a development group, anytime someone who is still wet behind the ears wants to rewrite code, I tell them to step back and look at the code again. Is the code really crap or is it that you just don't understand what it is doing? Perhaps having an older coder walk through some of the code, maybe explain why the code was written a certain way, might shed some light on how it is really functioning. The fact that in your case you changed functionality, it shows that you didn't understand what was going on in the first place.
I think we should keep the courts out of this. There is the very real possibility that the courts could rule in favor of FightDemBack and have the blogs removed, and this is a far greater evil than leaving the blogs out there.
If the court rules in favor of the removing the blogs, the court has engaged in, and set the precedent, for state sponsered censorship. The precedent is that anti-racist blogs are OK, but their opposite racist blogs are not OK. Now that you have set this precedent, what is next? Are Christian blogs OK, but athiest blogs are not? Or is it the other way around, that athiest blogs are OK, but Christian blogs are not? What about Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Bhudist, Rastafarian, Zorastarian? Or how about Scientologist? If the courts start deciding which ideas are allowed and which ideas are not allowed, you have already lost whatever democracy that you had.
From the article, "The blog posts photographs and full names of anti-racism activists from Australia and New Zealand, in effect making this information available to those who wish to do these activists physical harm." Hmmmm, I sure hope that is not the justification for banning the blog. If that is the case, then they need to block The Sydney Herald and/., because I just saw a photo of "online vigilante Brian Stokes".
Posting the name and picture of an anti-racist advocate is far different than advocating harm to come to this person. Even if harm were to come to these people, is it because of their actions against racism which they freely engage in or because they I saw their picture on a hate blog. Suppose I am a racist and I decided to go beat up Brian Stokes. Tell me, was I influenced to do this from the/. article, the Syndey Herald article, or the Patriot Alliance Downunder blog? You have no way of knowing.
I think that most reasonable people can discern that racist ideas are absolute crap and it is easy to get everyone on the bandwagon that the courts are OK in blocking these ideas. I however, obviously, disagree. What is next? Since the precedent has been set that it is OK for the courts to block certain ideas, which ideas are OK to block? Can the courts decide that left leaning political blogs are a threat to the safety of the country or its individuals, so these blogs should be blocked? Or can right leaning political blogs be a threat to the country or its individuals, so these blogs should be blocked.
No, I think Google is right. The motto of "Don't be evil" means that you have to allow all ideas to exist on their blogs, regardless of how reprehensible these ideas are.
Speed is an issue with this type of application, as it is with all applications. I tried the beta about six months ago. It was slower than molasses in January. It took over a minute to initially load and then the UI was sluggish. The amount of frustration that I experienced as an end user was incredible. The other part of the beta is that the only part that was working was the calendar. I was using the 0.6 release and I haven't yet seen what is new in the 0.7 release. It is not even a minimally functioning alpha product.
And this is a damn shame. I came across Chandler while looking for a client application to automate GTD. Visually, it is a pretty application and the color coded calendar with transparency and overlays is well done. Entering tasks and calendar items can be improved, and integration with mail clients was not supported. Given the amount of time that Chandler has been under development, I was hoping for a lot more.
In the end, I ended up deleting Chandler from my computer. I like what they had done so far, but given the amount of time spent so far, it looks like it will be between 3 and 5 more years they have a product that will be a functional pim. Sure, I could sign up to help develop the software and get it out faster, but I'm trying to find a pim that will let me setup GTD so I can get more stuff done now. Joining chandler merely delays me in getting something that helps me get more done now.
I remember a few years back when LAMP was all the rage. The argument went something like this: Linux rocks and Windows sucks; Apache rocks and IIS sucks; MySQL rocks and SQL server sucks; Perl rocks and everything else sucks. At the time, most web sites were running Windows/IIS/ASP/SQLServer. The conventional wisdom, on/. at least, was that you had to run Linux because all other OS were inferior and if you were truly l33t, you would run Linux. The argument for apache was that it was the "proof" that the OSS model was superior and that you should embrace the pure and virtuous model of OSS.
I'm really surprised to see that there are knocks against MySQL, particularly the argument that it could have been PostgreSQL or SQLite. This seems like revisionist history to me - MySQL was THE END ALL AND BE ALL of databases. Referential integrity - who needs it if your programmers have a clue, and anyone arguing for this was an IT weenie or a SUIT. Anyone advocating "real db functionality" was old school and didn't realize the world had moved past them because the only important feature was speed. Boy, how things have changed. Now, his argument must be "all of the/. crowd from year back must be complete idiots." , or "Now that I'm smarter, I see that I was dumb a few years back".
The same was true for Perl - back in the day, Larry Wall was God incarnate, and only an idiot would ever write code to sit behind a web site when you could script it with Perl. Of course, now P stands for PHP. And in this respect, the guy is just a bigot. To quote, "PHP is another sore spot for me. I've gotten to the point that not only will I not write PHP code, I won't even run applications written in PHP (my long search for decent blogging software was due to the restriction that it not be written in PHP)." So, even though there may be a perfect tool for me to solve a problem I need solved, I refuse to use it because it is written in PHP.
So, what happened? Perhaps the problem is that LAMP became popular. A popular undercurrent of sentiment is that if something is popular, then it is no longer l33t, and to express how l33t you are, you need to be a champion for the next "big thing". This shows how cool you are and how much smarter you are than everyone else. The problem is, once the cause that you are championing becomes popular, you are just like everyone else.
One of the arguments for LAMP was that it was easy to create websites. In fact, it was so easy, that you could teach your friends and family how to create web sites with LAMP. The argument was that it was just like BASIC. Now, that it has become popular and it is ubiquitous, the argument against it is that it is just like BASIC.
Based on the questions from the survey, I fit all of the categories.
Current console? GameCube. (Wii) Current handheld? DS (Wii) Band? Nirvana (X360) Favorite TV show? Lost (X360) Tivo? Yes (X360) Movies in past 30? Yes (PS3) iPod? Yes (X360)
So, will I buy a Wii, X360 or PS3? Per the survey, they believe that I will buy the X360, but I am going to buy the Wii. Why? Because I am buying it for my kids.
The survey is geared to those who play the games, not necessarily the people buying the consoles. Since the people who read IGN are older and more likely have the cash to buy the consoles, the X360 and PS3 are over weighted. For people like me who will buy a console for their kids, our input is not considered on the survey so the Wii is underrepresented for what will be the likely purchase pattern for the consoles.
I find your comment here intriguing. One of the main mantras that I hear from linux advocates is that the fact there are so many distributions, you can pick the one that suits you best. I've always wondered how does a user know which distribution they should pick? Redhat, Mandrake, Suse, Debian, other? Why should a user prefer one over another?
In my view of a perfect world, there are only two distributions - Linux Server and Linux Desktop. It spells it out nice and simply and is easy for users to figure out.
You probably consider this trolling, but I don't mean it to be so. My linux usage started back in 1995 when Walnut Creek was distributing Slackware, back in the days when you needed a special bios in your computer if you wanted to have a hard drive larger than 528 MB. This was back in the days when there was no noticible difference between Linux and Unix. The same is not true anymore - there is a large difference between the two. Although some things are better now, I still consider the old Slackware as being awesome because it was small, sleak and, Unix.
Now, when I talk to my friends who are solely Linux users (although I found out today that one is switching over to OSX), it seems that they prefer Debian because of the social contract. I consider myself more pragmatic when it comes to usage - I just want the OS and softare to work well. As long as it does what I want it to do, I don't mind paying for it and I don't care if I can see the code. Same thing with my car, I don't fix my own car so I don't look under the hood.
If I were to pick a distribution, I would probably pick Slackware or FreeBSD. Why? Slackware is the most like old fashioned Unix. FreeBSD will let me do with the code what I want. Contrary to what I hear people say about the GPL being part of a gift culture, it is a gift with handcuffs on it, so it isn't much of a gift. When you give something to someone for their birthday/boxing day/christmas, do you put limitations on what they can do with it? That is why I would pick Free BSD.
Oh well, this post certainly turned out much different than I was expecting. I must have had too much beer while golfing today.
>>Of course Tom Lord is allowed to say whatever he wishes, but his immature behavior then >>directly affects the public perception of the project. The large number of negative posts in >>this story alone isn't some vast conspiracy, it's just the result of Tom acting like a total >>asshat for years. Personally, I try to choose software that doesn't rely on asshats, it's >>usually a lot less stress in the long run.
You obviously don't use Microsoft products, do you?
(let me see if I can do this correctly without my laptop screwing up on me).... Dick Cheney!
"Dick told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did..." - GWB
"I believe Cheney/Rice/Rumsfeld has called us into action. Our country has got a responsibility, we are a great nation, we are a wealthy nation, we have a responsibility to help a neighbour in need, a brother and sister in crisis." -GWB
>A very, very important demographic: those who are unable, or unwilling, to peer behind the curtain
You are aware, of course, that the Cato Institute is the think tank associated with the Libertarian Party, whose mission is to do research to support Libertarian public policy. Their audience isn't the common man; their audience is Washington insiders who decide public policy.
>Michael Moore [sic] will get to the common man... where Cato Institute will not.
For partisan politics that are aimed at the 'common man', try the Soft Money sponsored MoveOn.org. It is backed by Democrat supporters, but is backed by soft money so they don't have to disclose their true nature. I'm sure the Republicans also have their soft money puppets, but the fact that I can't recall one makes me think that they are not effective. Perhaps the NRA might be the closest, but the NRA was for gun nuts ^H^H^H^H enthusiats before they got involved with politics.
Original Revenue = 10,000 * $60 = $600,000 New Revenue1 = 15,000 * $40 = $600,000 (0% increase in revenue)
You have more customers, but no more revenue. Considering production/distribution costs per unit, the overhead of the 5000 additional units means you probably lose money.
First of all, Microsoft didn't annouce the specs. The article says "Microsoft is expected to recommend".
Who is expecting them to recommend this system? Again, from the article, "That's according to developer sources close to the company". Hmmm,... not an internal source to M$, not a person who is working on the code, but someone outside of the company who is 'close to the company'.
The company I work for is a "Microsoft Developer Partner" and we get early releases of OSes, development platforms, etc. I guess this makes me a "source close to the company". And I say "This sounds like FUD".
Think about it this way, how close are any computers to having these requirements? None. And yet, the OS is approaching alpha. How are they testing it? Since they are approaching alpha, the code is being internally tested to some degree, yet no computers are near those specs. If those are the average specs, the OS would be soooo slow on todays computers that it would be unusable and a complete waste of time to test.
M$ may be monopolists, they may be a$$holes, but they are good at making money. And to have developers and alpha testers test software that performs so poorly on todays hardware wastes the time of the testors and is a waste of money - and this runs counter to their pursuit of the almighty dollar.
>>It hadn't occurred to me that he needs the money.
I am not sure if you were facetious or not, but old George rates up there as #159 on the worlds richest person list with a net worth of $3,000,000,000 U.S Dollars.
http://www.forbes.com/maserati/billionaires2004/ LI RPNOV.html?passListId=10&passYear=2004&passListTyp e=Person&uniqueId=PNOV&datatype=Person
I don't see what the big deal is about M$ charging an access fee. Posts to this thread have mentioned that IM is similar to a phone company - and last I checked, I get monthly bills so I can use the service. There is an infrastructure involved that requires resources that cost money. The money has to come from somewhere. It can come from advertising, licensing fees, or philanthropic donations.
If you don't want to pay the fee, use a service that doesn't have one. However, be aware that if too many people switch over to the free alternatives, the IM service provider may have to charge a fee to recoup the extra expense of handling all the extra people.
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Most colleges/universities in the US are run as non-profit organizations. Their mission is to educate.
The Devry/Kaplan/Phoenix schools are for-profit companies. Their mission is to increase shareholder value.
So, while all schools charge tuition, and both types of schools seek to educate and not lose money, their aims are significantly different.
Agile is not sufficient for regulated industries.
For example, each commercial aircraft in the US has their own set of engineering designs specifically for that aircraft. Every single nut, bolt, and rivet is documented and signed off my multiple engineers - materials, electrical, mechanical, stress, etc. In the event of a plane crash, the FAA swoops in, grabs up all the pieces and reconstructs everything to determine the cause of the crash and they review all engineering drawings and documents. If the cause of the crash was due to the design of the aircraft - a lot of engineers are going to lose their license to practice engineering. Now, think about the "auto-pilot" software or other control software on the plane. If the plane crashes, do you think that the FAA will accept index cards as an acceptable substitute for documented design and specification?
How about the anti-lock breaks and traction control software in your car?
Or the software that is used to control medical equipment? I suppose you are not familiar with the programming mistake in the software of a nuclear medicine machine that exposed a patient to 20,000 times the expected dose of radiation and killed them.
>> Pick an antivirus to run and constantly worry if it's good enough to keep up with all the malware
/., you can go to sourceforge, download the code and compile it yourself. Since you have the code, you can read through it and make sure that it doesn't have any malware in it.
There is an easy solution to this.
1). Do not click on any popup banners that tell you to download software
2). Do not get any files from p2p networks or warez sites.
3). Do not download any screen-savers or other crap from download sites.
3). Do not open email attachments from people you don't know
4). If you get an email attachment from someone you do know, stop to think about whether they actually wanted to send you the file or if their system could be compromised.
This will prevent 99.99 % of all the virus/ad-ware/malware from getting on your machine. The corollary is that in over 99% of the time, YOUR BEHAVIOR, not Microsoft, is responsible for anything bad that ends up on your hard drive.
>>make sure the firewall is on at all times
On W2K, your computer was exposed because IIS was on by default and there was no firewall. Since then, Windows has included a firewall and IIS is disabled by default.
If you enable your computer to download windows updates, as soon as you got the first security update, the Security Center will popup and let you know that if your firewall isn't on. If your firewall isn't on, it is because YOU chose not to turn it on. And this has been the case since 2001.
>>disable unneeded services that are on by default and those that pop up by themselves misteriously later
Most unneeded services are not started - and none turn themselves on mysteriously. You may download and run an executable that turns on a service - that is a sign that you should be more careful regarding the files you download.
>>always on the lookout for spyware and malware
Don't download files from the internet and you will be fine.
>>wonder why the fuck it won't stop asking for drivers for that Bluetooth dongle I plugged in two weeks ago
Windows can pick up *most* hardware that you plug into your computer... provided that the hardware manufacturer followed the proper specifications for the hardware. Did you buy a name brand bluetooth device or did you buy some el-cheapo brand. Most likely, it is not a Microsoft's problem.
>>hunting down programs to use by myself and always worry which of them might contain spyware or trojans
Easy solution here. Do not download programs from the internet except those from *trustworthy sources*. Or, considering that this is
>>Add the inherent rot of every Windows installation I've ever seen, which makes you need to reinstall at least once a year, if not 6 months.
OK - I certainly have to call you out on this. FUD, FUD, FUD. I am a professional software developer. I've been using XP on my computer since its release in 2001. (I moved from Win2K because it did have some of the problems that you mention). I have never had a virus. I have never had malware. I've never had to reinstall. So, for over 6 years, constantly using my computer, for over 10 hours a day on average, I've never had a single problem that you mention.
Driver Hunting? If you are referring to driver hunting for windows, I am sorry to inform you that this hasn't been an issue for YEARS. As for the effort for keeping up a Windows box - it takes almost zero effort.
Getting proper drivers USED to be a problem back in the days of DOS games when Windows 2.11, 3.0 and 3.1 were still started from the command prompt. By the time Windows 95 rolled around, *almost all* hardware vendors shipped Windows drivers with their hardware, and game programmers were moving aware from writing to the hardware interface and instead writing to low level Windows primitives. After Windows 95, the only games that had driver issues were the OEM versions of games that were packaged with hardware since they were written specifically for a certain video card. An example of this was the nVidia Edge 3D card that shipped with Panzer Dragoon and Descent. How do I know this? I worked on the port of Descent to nVidia's 1st generation chipset, the nV1. This version of Descent was a Windows 95 native application that would only run with an nVidia card.
Since about 2000, game developers have been writing to Direct X, and letting windows handle the details of the video card. Back in the Windows 95 days, Windows was pretty stupid regarding hardware recognition, and Linux was pretty smart about recognizing hardware. However, once it became established that the OS should detect the hardware and be able to find the drivers for it, Microsoft didn't take much time to figure out how to do this and provide a TON of drivers on the Windows installation diskettes/CDs. Any special hardware that you purchased came with Windows drivers. Drivers have not been an issue for years.
The market for linux games is non-existent. To produce a top notch game these days costs several million dollars (the average cost was around $2M when I left the gaming industry 7 years ago) and the common perception, whether correct or not, is that linux users won't pay for a game. There might be some inroads on the MMORPG side of gaming since they make their money by charging you a monthly fee, but the standard boxed software market will not make a game for linux until it is established that linux users will pay for software. Given the emotional/religious arguments over OSS/Free Software/commercial(closed source), companies aren't going to deal the the hassle.
1). Create a game/music/movie/book that some will find culturally offense.
2). Wait for the government/church/other to ban/boycott the product.
3). Stock the shelves for those who will buy the product as a form of protest.
4). $Profit$
First - thanks for replying. I think that it is pretty cool that you did.
I appreciate your clarifying the history of how this occured and 'fessing up to the fact that you did break some things, but had to revert them. Yes, sometimes that happens. Having an inexperienced programmer (or perhaps only inexperienced in web programming) impliment something that is an essential work function, without oversight, stringent QA, or adherance to specs (doing things prohibited in the original documentation) shows that at minimum there is a PHB/management problem and a process problem. Bad programmers will create bad code, but a bad manager is one who will release a bad product.
Your assumption seems interesting to me. In a production environment end users are using an application that obviously is useful. In your attempt to "clean up unreadable code", it no longer works. What you did instead was make the code perhaps more readable, but you changed the functionality. Perhaps more pejoratively, you broke what was previously working. Instead of looking at your self to see what you broke, your assumption is that it all worked by accident.
Before committing any changes to a production system, I would expect that a developer would test the functionality before making change and compare the results after changes were made. This would have uncovered that you changed functionality. Another tact would have been to create unit tests before making your changes, and then run those test as you were making changes. You have have discovered that you changed functionality. Instead, you did neither, and you broke a feature.
I'm a little long in the tooth, working 18 years as a programmer. I've seen this situation many times. Every young new hire thinks that they are smarter than the people hired before them and that all of the existing code is crap. It all needs to be rewritten because the previous coders were bad programmers and if it were redone, it would be cleaner. So they rewrite existing code and they break things. I can only assume that you work for a PHB.
Any manager worth their salt would initially halt a rewrite of WORKING code. If you want to modify something that is working and has been working and has had the bugs worked out, you will really need to prove that there are benefits to doing so. And as a manager of a development group, anytime someone who is still wet behind the ears wants to rewrite code, I tell them to step back and look at the code again. Is the code really crap or is it that you just don't understand what it is doing? Perhaps having an older coder walk through some of the code, maybe explain why the code was written a certain way, might shed some light on how it is really functioning. The fact that in your case you changed functionality, it shows that you didn't understand what was going on in the first place.
Activia Yogurt - Not only does it get me going, it really gets me going.
I think we should keep the courts out of this. There is the very real possibility that the courts could rule in favor of FightDemBack and have the blogs removed, and this is a far greater evil than leaving the blogs out there.
/., because I just saw a photo of "online vigilante Brian Stokes".
/. article, the Syndey Herald article, or the Patriot Alliance Downunder blog? You have no way of knowing.
If the court rules in favor of the removing the blogs, the court has engaged in, and set the precedent, for state sponsered censorship. The precedent is that anti-racist blogs are OK, but their opposite racist blogs are not OK. Now that you have set this precedent, what is next? Are Christian blogs OK, but athiest blogs are not? Or is it the other way around, that athiest blogs are OK, but Christian blogs are not? What about Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Bhudist, Rastafarian, Zorastarian? Or how about Scientologist? If the courts start deciding which ideas are allowed and which ideas are not allowed, you have already lost whatever democracy that you had.
From the article, "The blog posts photographs and full names of anti-racism activists from Australia and New Zealand, in effect making this information available to those who wish to do these activists physical harm." Hmmmm, I sure hope that is not the justification for banning the blog. If that is the case, then they need to block The Sydney Herald and
Posting the name and picture of an anti-racist advocate is far different than advocating harm to come to this person. Even if harm were to come to these people, is it because of their actions against racism which they freely engage in or because they I saw their picture on a hate blog. Suppose I am a racist and I decided to go beat up Brian Stokes. Tell me, was I influenced to do this from the
I think that most reasonable people can discern that racist ideas are absolute crap and it is easy to get everyone on the bandwagon that the courts are OK in blocking these ideas. I however, obviously, disagree. What is next? Since the precedent has been set that it is OK for the courts to block certain ideas, which ideas are OK to block? Can the courts decide that left leaning political blogs are a threat to the safety of the country or its individuals, so these blogs should be blocked? Or can right leaning political blogs be a threat to the country or its individuals, so these blogs should be blocked.
No, I think Google is right. The motto of "Don't be evil" means that you have to allow all ideas to exist on their blogs, regardless of how reprehensible these ideas are.
>> Women are more secretive about this stuff than guys are about jerking off.
Guy jerk off? Who knew?
Speed is an issue with this type of application, as it is with all applications. I tried the beta about six months ago. It was slower than molasses in January. It took over a minute to initially load and then the UI was sluggish. The amount of frustration that I experienced as an end user was incredible. The other part of the beta is that the only part that was working was the calendar. I was using the 0.6 release and I haven't yet seen what is new in the 0.7 release. It is not even a minimally functioning alpha product.
And this is a damn shame. I came across Chandler while looking for a client application to automate GTD. Visually, it is a pretty application and the color coded calendar with transparency and overlays is well done. Entering tasks and calendar items can be improved, and integration with mail clients was not supported. Given the amount of time that Chandler has been under development, I was hoping for a lot more.
In the end, I ended up deleting Chandler from my computer. I like what they had done so far, but given the amount of time spent so far, it looks like it will be between 3 and 5 more years they have a product that will be a functional pim. Sure, I could sign up to help develop the software and get it out faster, but I'm trying to find a pim that will let me setup GTD so I can get more stuff done now. Joining chandler merely delays me in getting something that helps me get more done now.
I remember a few years back when LAMP was all the rage. The argument went something like this: Linux rocks and Windows sucks; Apache rocks and IIS sucks; MySQL rocks and SQL server sucks; Perl rocks and everything else sucks. At the time, most web sites were running Windows/IIS/ASP/SQLServer. The conventional wisdom, on /. at least, was that you had to run Linux because all other OS were inferior and if you were truly l33t, you would run Linux. The argument for apache was that it was the "proof" that the OSS model was superior and that you should embrace the pure and virtuous model of OSS.
/. crowd from year back must be complete idiots." , or "Now that I'm smarter, I see that I was dumb a few years back".
I'm really surprised to see that there are knocks against MySQL, particularly the argument that it could have been PostgreSQL or SQLite. This seems like revisionist history to me - MySQL was THE END ALL AND BE ALL of databases. Referential integrity - who needs it if your programmers have a clue, and anyone arguing for this was an IT weenie or a SUIT. Anyone advocating "real db functionality" was old school and didn't realize the world had moved past them because the only important feature was speed. Boy, how things have changed. Now, his argument must be "all of the
The same was true for Perl - back in the day, Larry Wall was God incarnate, and only an idiot would ever write code to sit behind a web site when you could script it with Perl. Of course, now P stands for PHP. And in this respect, the guy is just a bigot. To quote, "PHP is another sore spot for me. I've gotten to the point that not only will I not write PHP code, I won't even run applications written in PHP (my long search for decent blogging software was due to the restriction that it not be written in PHP)." So, even though there may be a perfect tool for me to solve a problem I need solved, I refuse to use it because it is written in PHP.
So, what happened? Perhaps the problem is that LAMP became popular. A popular undercurrent of sentiment is that if something is popular, then it is no longer l33t, and to express how l33t you are, you need to be a champion for the next "big thing". This shows how cool you are and how much smarter you are than everyone else. The problem is, once the cause that you are championing becomes popular, you are just like everyone else.
One of the arguments for LAMP was that it was easy to create websites. In fact, it was so easy, that you could teach your friends and family how to create web sites with LAMP. The argument was that it was just like BASIC. Now, that it has become popular and it is ubiquitous, the argument against it is that it is just like BASIC.
You just can't seem to win.
Based on the questions from the survey, I fit all of the categories.
Current console? GameCube. (Wii)
Current handheld? DS (Wii)
Band? Nirvana (X360)
Favorite TV show? Lost (X360)
Tivo? Yes (X360)
Movies in past 30? Yes (PS3)
iPod? Yes (X360)
So, will I buy a Wii, X360 or PS3? Per the survey, they believe that I will buy the X360, but I am going to buy the Wii. Why? Because I am buying it for my kids.
The survey is geared to those who play the games, not necessarily the people buying the consoles. Since the people who read IGN are older and more likely have the cash to buy the consoles, the X360 and PS3 are over weighted. For people like me who will buy a console for their kids, our input is not considered on the survey so the Wii is underrepresented for what will be the likely purchase pattern for the consoles.
Dean Kamen, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates all can't be wrong.
>>1) Which distro to learn on? Doesn't matter.
I find your comment here intriguing. One of the main mantras that I hear from linux advocates is that the fact there are so many distributions, you can pick the one that suits you best. I've always wondered how does a user know which distribution they should pick? Redhat, Mandrake, Suse, Debian, other? Why should a user prefer one over another?
In my view of a perfect world, there are only two distributions - Linux Server and Linux Desktop. It spells it out nice and simply and is easy for users to figure out.
You probably consider this trolling, but I don't mean it to be so. My linux usage started back in 1995 when Walnut Creek was distributing Slackware, back in the days when you needed a special bios in your computer if you wanted to have a hard drive larger than 528 MB. This was back in the days when there was no noticible difference between Linux and Unix. The same is not true anymore - there is a large difference between the two. Although some things are better now, I still consider the old Slackware as being awesome because it was small, sleak and, Unix.
Now, when I talk to my friends who are solely Linux users (although I found out today that one is switching over to OSX), it seems that they prefer Debian because of the social contract. I consider myself more pragmatic when it comes to usage - I just want the OS and softare to work well. As long as it does what I want it to do, I don't mind paying for it and I don't care if I can see the code. Same thing with my car, I don't fix my own car so I don't look under the hood.
If I were to pick a distribution, I would probably pick Slackware or FreeBSD. Why? Slackware is the most like old fashioned Unix. FreeBSD will let me do with the code what I want. Contrary to what I hear people say about the GPL being part of a gift culture, it is a gift with handcuffs on it, so it isn't much of a gift. When you give something to someone for their birthday/boxing day/christmas, do you put limitations on what they can do with it? That is why I would pick Free BSD.
Oh well, this post certainly turned out much different than I was expecting. I must have had too much beer while golfing today.
>>Of course Tom Lord is allowed to say whatever he wishes, but his immature behavior then
>>directly affects the public perception of the project. The large number of negative posts in
>>this story alone isn't some vast conspiracy, it's just the result of Tom acting like a total
>>asshat for years. Personally, I try to choose software that doesn't rely on asshats, it's
>>usually a lot less stress in the long run.
You obviously don't use Microsoft products, do you?
(let me see if I can do this correctly without my laptop screwing up on me). ... Dick Cheney!
"Dick told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did..." - GWB
"I believe Cheney/Rice/Rumsfeld has called us into action. Our country has got a responsibility, we are a great nation, we are a wealthy nation, we have a responsibility to help a neighbour in need, a brother and sister in crisis." -GWB
Dick Cheney whispering into his ear
>A very, very important demographic: those who are unable, or unwilling, to peer behind the curtain
... where Cato Institute will not.
You are aware, of course, that the Cato Institute is the think tank associated with the Libertarian Party, whose mission is to do research to support Libertarian public policy. Their audience isn't the common man; their audience is Washington insiders who decide public policy.
>Michael Moore [sic] will get to the common man
For partisan politics that are aimed at the 'common man', try the Soft Money sponsored MoveOn.org. It is backed by Democrat supporters, but is backed by soft money so they don't have to disclose their true nature. I'm sure the Republicans also have their soft money puppets, but the fact that I can't recall one makes me think that they are not effective. Perhaps the NRA might be the closest, but the NRA was for gun nuts ^H^H^H^H enthusiats before they got involved with politics.
When I add the numbers, I get
Original Revenue = 10,000 * $60 = $600,000
New Revenue1 = 15,000 * $40 = $600,000 (0% increase in revenue)
You have more customers, but no more revenue. Considering production/distribution costs per unit, the overhead of the 5000 additional units means you probably lose money.
It sounds to me that the specs are a lot of FUD.
First of all, Microsoft didn't annouce the specs. The article says "Microsoft is expected to recommend".
Who is expecting them to recommend this system? Again, from the article, "That's according to developer sources close to the company". Hmmm,... not an internal source to M$, not a person who is working on the code, but someone outside of the company who is 'close to the company'.
The company I work for is a "Microsoft Developer Partner" and we get early releases of OSes, development platforms, etc. I guess this makes me a "source close to the company". And I say "This sounds like FUD".
Think about it this way, how close are any computers to having these requirements? None. And yet, the OS is approaching alpha. How are they testing it? Since they are approaching alpha, the code is being internally tested to some degree, yet no computers are near those specs. If those are the average specs, the OS would be soooo slow on todays computers that it would be unusable and a complete waste of time to test.
M$ may be monopolists, they may be a$$holes, but they are good at making money. And to have developers and alpha testers test software that performs so poorly on todays hardware wastes the time of the testors and is a waste of money - and this runs counter to their pursuit of the almighty dollar.
It just doesn't ring true.
>>It hadn't occurred to me that he needs the money.
/ LI RPNOV.html?passListId=10&passYear=2004&passListTyp e=Person&uniqueId=PNOV&datatype=Person
I am not sure if you were facetious or not, but old George rates up there as #159 on the worlds richest person list with a net worth of $3,000,000,000 U.S Dollars.
http://www.forbes.com/maserati/billionaires2004
(sorry about the url)
If he can figure that one out, then he is certainly qualified to be govenor of California.
I don't like pejorative label of terrorist. It just doesn't rhyme.
Give me some of those good old-fashioned anti-communist slogans from back in the days of Rambo and Reagan:
"Better dead than red"
and my favorite,
"Kill a commie for mommy".
Poor W, if only he did better in school, he might have come up with a catchy slogan.
I don't see what the big deal is about M$ charging an access fee. Posts to this thread have mentioned that IM is similar to a phone company - and last I checked, I get monthly bills so I can use the service. There is an infrastructure involved that requires resources that cost money. The money has to come from somewhere. It can come from advertising, licensing fees, or philanthropic donations.
If you don't want to pay the fee, use a service that doesn't have one. However, be aware that if too many people switch over to the free alternatives, the IM service provider may have to charge a fee to recoup the extra expense of handling all the extra people.