RPGs need more variety. The first Fallout was great. It had great gameplay, an interesting story, and most importantly, didn't involve elves, rangers, swords and spells.
It's not that I have anything against Dungeons and Dragons. I just think that a pen and paper RPG doesn't necessarily make a good computer RPG, and that it's great to shake things up a little.
Far too many modern RPGs still have annoyances that just don't need to be there. Why must I play
inventory tetris instead of playing the game? Why are my classes always "Fighter", "Paladin", "Ranger", "Wizard" instead of "Inventor", "Lawyer", "Cop"? Why are the races the typical "Elf", "Human", "Barbarian" rather than "Elemental", "Ape-man" or "Grey Alien"?
Fallout 3 may not be a great game. The Fallout franchise has become worse and worse since the first game came out. But, even if it isn't a great game, I'll be really happy to see it come out, because it means variety in a genre that desperately needs it.
According to the page you linked to, the motto hasn't changed, and isn't "The Truth Shall Set You Free" but "The truth shall make you free".
And it's obvious that the poster meant that what was disgraceful was the actions of the US with regards to Iraq. I don't think anybody thinks that Saddam was a great guy, who treated all the people of Iraq well.
What is disgraceful is how the US squandered the good will of essentially the entire world by invading Iraq.
Take a look at that final UN resolution about Iraq. Does it say that the UN will authorize the use of force against Iraq? Nope. What it says is "Decides... to afford Iraq, by this resolution, a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council; and accordingly decides to set up an enhanced inspection regime with the aim of bringing to full and verified completion the disarmament process..."
And guess what, there were no WMD found! I guess that means that Iraq complied with its requirements to get rid of its WMD programs.
But did the US follow the UN security council resolution and give the inspectors time to determine this? Nope. They decided that the UN wasn't going to authorize an invasion on their time frame, so they simply ignored the UN and their obligations to follow the UN charter and invaded Iraq.
In a few decades, maybe less if we're lucky, the people of Iraq will be better off than they were under Saddam Hussein, but from everything I've read, the majority of Iraqis don't think they're there yet. They may have had fewer personal freedoms under Saddam, and may have been scared about speaking out against him, but there were no random suicide bombers attacking them in downtown Baghdad. They generally had running water, electricity, and jobs.
It could be that the only way to depose Saddam Hussein was through military force. But wouldn't it have been better if that force had been a truly international one? Instead of hundreds of dead Americans and thousands of maimed ones, other countries could have shared the burden. Do you think that Iraqis would be just as resentful if the international force included all the countries that Bush Sr. had for the first Gulf war?
Even if you think that Bush was right to send US soldiers into harm's way, do you think he was right to paint a bulls-eye on their chests before doing it?
When there's 1 company making everything, there's no problems with incompatibilities from other companies, and with less friction there is more efficiency. A well regulated monopoly can also benefit the population better than companies in cutthroat competition.
Instead of having 10 people constantly re-inventing the wheel, you can have 1 person doing a job, and freeing up the other 9 people to do other innovative things. Sure, with 10 peopld doing the exact same job, over and over, you might end up with one finding a truly innovative way of doing something, but you might also just end up with 10 more or less equal "wheels".
Think, for example, about cell-phone service. In many places in the world, there is only 1 provider. This means the consumer doesn't have to worry about roaming to other networks, or whether provider X has better coverage in their area. Instead of 6 competing vendors wasting time and resources putting up 6 overlapping cells, the one company can put up 1 cell and save materials and money.
Even better, is that in many places, monopolies are regulated by the government and the government can tell the monopoly "Hey, you guys don't have to worry about competition, so in order to keep your sweet deal, you have to do X, Y, and Z". In the cell-phone example, that can mean forcing them to put up towers to provide coverage for more people, or keeping the rates under control, or many other things.
Sometimes monopolies reduce prices, but often they don't. When there is fierce competition, companies spend a lot of money on advertising. Who ends up paying for the advertising? The consumers. Under a monopoly, there's no need for advertising, so those costs aren't passed on. A bigger problem is dealing with all the paperwork. Hospitals in the US have to have enormous paper-pushing departments to deal with the hundreds of insurance companies, health-care plans, and other annoyances resulting from competition. In countries with government-provided healthcare, this process is competely streamlined, and the costs of providing health care are greatly reduced.
Monopolies lend themselves to abuse, but monopolies aren't inherently bad. A well regulated monopoly can really benefit consumers.
I answer my phone at work "Hello?". I don't answer "Bob's Slaughterhouse, We Stab Em' for You, Merk Speaking, How may I direct your call." Why? I'm not a receptionist. My phone rings maybe once a week, and it's almost always someone within the company calling. "Hello?" is short and to the point, and lets them tell me why they're calling right away.
Being told to "hang on a sec" and having the phone placed down while something is done is much more pleasant than being put on hold. I've often been abandoned while on hold, but I've *never* been abandoned while the phone was off the hook. And no, I'm not so stupid that I think there's a "hang on" button somewhere. When the phone is off the hook I can hear a little of what's going on, and I'm reassured that things are happening. Besides, there is no annoying musak when the handset is placed on the desk.
Now, I agree that "who are you?" is a little rude, and would prefer (and use), "can I ask who's calling?" The other points though, I disagree.
But don't you know? RFID tags are evil. See, somehow the electromagnetic energy used to read them somehow scans your brain and destroys your privacy. Sure, on the surface you might think that they're not too different from barcodes, but that's just what they want you to think. Barcode lasers don't have the privacy-removal side effect!
Sure, Narc's like you will argue that the only real difference between a bar code and an RFID tag is that an RFID tag isn't "immediate line-of-sight", but that's just because the Men In Black don't want us to know about the privacy-removal field!
Like in this story, you'll see all kinds of Agents writing things that seem sensible. They'll be saying stuff like: "Well, they already track the luggage, so what difference will replacing a bar code with an RFID tag make? Won't it just make things more efficient? Afterall, you just take the tag off at the other end." Sounds sensible, doesn't it? But try to ask one of them about the anti-privacy field and they'll act like you're crazy!
These Agents are good at their job, so people really have to be careful. When a story comes up about Wal*Mart using RFID tags in their warehouses, the Government Agents will try to claim that it won't even affect you. They'll pretend that whatever goes on in Wal*Mart warehouses and shipping areas doesn't even affect the consumer. Riiiight... Big deal if they take the tags off before the consumer buys them. The problem isn't the tag on the product you walk out of the store with -- it's with the tags themselves!!!! What they don't want you to know is that when they put hundreds of tags all over the warehouse in the back, the anti-privacy field is amplified by 2000 orders of magnitude. Instead of just knowing your Wal*Mart shopping habits, now they'll know those dirty, dirty thoughts you had about your sister a while back. (Btw, you're a sick, sick puppy!).
You Agent types have all kinds of reasonable-sounding arguments. You claim that a bar code is almost the same thing as an RFID tag. You pretend that it is far easier to track people with credit cards, customer loyalty cards, photographs, footprints and DNA. You pretend that the problem goes away when you get rid of the RFID tag after buying it. But let me tell you, smart people like me aren't buying it!!! We know the truth about RFID. We know that it *really* stands for Really Fun Identity Destruction. We know about how it causes cancer, makes you impotent, and reads your mind. But you better watch out. We know how to stop it too, and there's no way you'll ever attach an RFID tag to my tinfoil bodysuit!
What aspect of farming does it simulate? The "getting up before the sun to do mindless chores"? The "growing corn because the government pays you to" part? The "having to sell the family farm to the huge agribusiness" part? The "paying Monsanto through the nose every single year for GM seeds"? The "getting an arm caught in a thresher"? The "doing unnatural things to livestock so that profits are maximized" part?
I'm really annoyed by the advertising embedded in everything today, but at least this game is honest about it. But by using a real brand, they blow away the suspension of disbelief for me. The only thing I think would make a less fun computer game than my job is a fake farming job.
RIAA stupidity? Um, if you read the (20 line) release, you'd know that the US and UK versiond aren't crippled, it's only the one sold in the rest of Europe. Since RIAA stands for Recording Industry Association of America, I wouldn't blame them for this one. I'm sure it's different people in the same suits, but at least blame the people on the right continent.
Great idea! My only complaint is you didn't go far enough. The same should be required for voting too. If you don't even know your candidates' stances on basic issues, why should your vote count as much as someone who actually pays attention?
Waking life was *awful*. It was pretentious, and had no substance at all. It was all kinds of conversation-snippets that might seem deep and meaningful if you were either a) dumb, or b) stoned, with only vaguely interesting animation thrown on top.
Really, when a typical Disney movie is more imaginative than an adult-aimed movie, that's pretty sad.
irb(main):001:0> 2 + "2" TypeError: String can't be coerced into Fixnum from (irb):1:in `+' from (irb):1 irb(main):002:0> "2" + 2 TypeError: cannot convert Fixnum into String from (irb):2:in `+' from (irb):2
You don't get 22, you don't get 4 either. You get an error. IMHO, that's more sensible than either of those behaviours. If you want string concatenation, then make sure you're dealing with strings. If you want numbers, then make sure you're dealing with numbers:
They've been really open about this since the beginning, i.e. 4 years or more. They collect data on viewing habits, and provide aggregate stats on those viewing habits, but they don't tie them to individual viewers. If you don't even want them to do that, then you can ask them not to, and they won't. Simple, no?
How do you distinguish those constants from class names? To me, there are 4 ways of naming things:
things_like_this are variables. No uppercase, words are separated by underscores.
thingsLikeThis are methods/functions. The first letter is lowercase. No underscores allowed, and new words start with uppercase letters.
ThingsLikeThis are classes. They start with an uppercase letter, and each new word starts with an uppercase letter, no underscores allowed.
THINGS_LIKE_THIS are constants/#defines. (Note that I typed that with caps lock on). They're all uppercase, with the words separated by underscores.
Those are the things I've found useful to distinguish visually. Why? It's very important to know the difference between a constant value and a variable value, so they look different. It's also important to be able to distinguish variables from functions/methods. This is especially true in C-like languages where you can pass a pointer to a function around. And finally, in OO programming, I think it makes sense to have a convention where classes are named in a special way.
Values of the constants aside, that's pretty good constant, well #define naming. They're generic, can be used in many code sections, and explain well what's going on. Now I can normally expand them in Emacs, but when I want to type them in, they're way too long to be typed using the shift key mashed down.
When something is much more popular than its alternatives, you get a number of benefits:
Lots of information on the 'net from other users of the software, in case you need help
Lots of tools to work with the software
The most important one, I think: lots of other software expects that standard software
For example, there are packages to connect BIND with DHCP servers, allowing dynamic DNS for DHCP clients. You're unlikely to find those as easily for another DNS server. The same thing was true for sendmail -- there were tons of programs that expected to be able to use/usr/bin/sendmail. That required people writing other mail programs to stub out this binary.
I have an iBook. Granted, it's a few years old now, so maybe things have changed, but I get nowhere near 6 hours of battery life. I typically get around 3, 2 if I'm using the CD/DVD drive extensively. But then again, that doesn't bother me. The things are really well built. Just the right number of ports, a well built case that is tough enough to withstand all kinds of light bumps, and the great OS X software.
I had a PDA that I used on occasion, but now that I have this, I haven't turned it on in years. If I want something extremely portable, I have my contacts in my iPod. Sure, I can't edit them, but I rarely need to.
Now my situation might not be typical. I bike to work, so I can't use a PDA/laptop on my way to work. If I were using public transportation, maybe a PDA would be a better choice? I don't know.
Either a troll or you're blind. I hope you're a troll. FOX news is about as biased as news can be and not be outright laughed at.
This 'liberal media bias' is a myth. The media is shallow, but not very biased, except for Fox which is the mouthpiece of the Bush administration. If anything, the media is currently right-biased, but that's just because the right is in power, and it's smart to lean towards those in power.
Compare any other news to any other country's news (CBC (canada), ABC (australia), BBC (great britain), DW (germany),...) You'll see that the one that's way out to lunch is Fox.
Well that Michael Moore example is an interesting one. This is all based on my memory of the event, but here's what I recall. The academy awards people tried really hard to muzzle him by drowning him out with the instruments soon after he started speaking. this is also the way they dealt with overly long speeches too, so that's not necessarily political censorship.
The other thing I remember is that the live broadcast showed him making his speech, and there was cheering, applause, some booing, and a mix of reactions from the crowd. All the cuts of the event I saw the next day had much more emphasis on people booing, and many more shots of audience members looking upset or exasperated.
Why leave any HTML? Does <blink> make a message more compelling? Do you really need someone to send a message with baloons in the background? If someone really likes the handwriting font, should I be forced to see that in their email?
Sure, sometimes in a complex email it would be nice to be able to use headers or bulleted lists. But nobody should be able to force me to display the message with their ugly-ass markup.
The only thing that makes any sense here is to use strict stylesheet-based markup. Someone can label things as 'headers' and 'bulleted lists'. Then, the receiver can have a stylesheet that properly renders these types of content markers so the information isn't lost. That way, 'chick who likes baloon backgrounds' can display all her incoming emails that way, and 'guy who likes unreadable fonts' can have all his incoming emails displayed in that font... but those of us who like black, 12pt Times New Roman text on white backgrounds can avoid being driven insane.
Tags like <i> and <b> and <blink> and <font> shouldn't ever be part of email.
How many furlongs in a mile? How many inches in a mile? How many fluid ounces in a barrel? How many tablespoons in a quart? How many square feet in a square mile?
It's marginally easier to sub divide a foot into inches, but it's harder to divide a yard into feet, and you're really in trouble when you try to deal with something that's not a normal number of units away from the other thing.
If I want to convert from km to cm, it's easy. I just divide by 100,000. If I want to convert from miles to inches, it isn't nearly as easy. Metric is also far easier when you're doing conversions between types of measurement. If I have 2kg object travelling at 1km/s I know that it will have a kinetic energy of 0.5*2*(1000^2) = 1,000,000J = 1MJ. Easy, right? Try doing that with miles/s, pounds, and whatever energy unit you prefer.
Well there are other ways that copyright infringement is like real theft. For instance, if you altered the song, or distributed a fake version pretending it was real, and ended up making people think the original was awful, then you'd be damaging the song's owner. This is like libel/slander.
But, there's still a fundamental difference between that and theft. Even identity theft is a misapplied label. It's not that when someone 'steals your identity' that you no longer have one, it just means that it's no longer unique. It has been diluted. Identity theft would be when someone steals your identity and you no longer have one -- they are the new 'Clint Eastwood', to use your example.
I'm being serious. What's so bad about nudity? Why is it that it was such a good thing to teach the heathen masses modesty, and to 'cover their shame'?
And besides, all these wonderful Xtian things are wiped out by one horrible thing: fighting birth control. Teach the starving, unhealthy peasant that it is a sin to use birth control, and the starving, uneducated peasant has 10 kids, all of whom are starving and unhealthy. By fighting birth control, these religious freaks are creating more naked, hungry, thirsty and sick orphans.
Re:Practical or somebody's thesis?
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Robocones
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Even worse, I think it could be a real hazard to drivers.
Right now, if a construction worker is setting up or moving cones or barrels, an approaching driver will know the cones or barrels are about to move because there's a large person (most likely wearing a reflective vest) moving around near the barrels, and most good drivers will slow down and make sure they give him/her some space.
Can you imagine what'll happen when you're approaching some traffic barrels and all of a sudden they start moving on their own? All of a sudden, the lane that was open is now blocked by a whole bunch of traffic cones! "The bollards, which are connected via a radio link, move at just over a metre a second." That's fast. I can just picture drivers swerving to avoid them barrels which are suddenly in their path, losing control of their cars, and possibly killing someone.
The only way I can see this working is to make them move really, really slowly. If they do that, then any given passing driver will be unlikely to notice them moving. They'll effectively be stationary for each passing driver, but after a few minutes they'll be reconfigured. Any faster than about 1cm/second and these things are going to cause accidents. But don't worry, you can protect the accident scene with these funky new moving traffic barrels!!! Oh... wait...
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RPGs need more variety. The first Fallout was great. It had great gameplay, an interesting story, and most importantly, didn't involve elves, rangers, swords and spells.
It's not that I have anything against Dungeons and Dragons. I just think that a pen and paper RPG doesn't necessarily make a good computer RPG, and that it's great to shake things up a little.
Far too many modern RPGs still have annoyances that just don't need to be there. Why must I play inventory tetris instead of playing the game? Why are my classes always "Fighter", "Paladin", "Ranger", "Wizard" instead of "Inventor", "Lawyer", "Cop"? Why are the races the typical "Elf", "Human", "Barbarian" rather than "Elemental", "Ape-man" or "Grey Alien"?
Fallout 3 may not be a great game. The Fallout franchise has become worse and worse since the first game came out. But, even if it isn't a great game, I'll be really happy to see it come out, because it means variety in a genre that desperately needs it.
According to the page you linked to, the motto hasn't changed, and isn't "The Truth Shall Set You Free" but "The truth shall make you free".
And it's obvious that the poster meant that what was disgraceful was the actions of the US with regards to Iraq. I don't think anybody thinks that Saddam was a great guy, who treated all the people of Iraq well.
What is disgraceful is how the US squandered the good will of essentially the entire world by invading Iraq.
Take a look at that final UN resolution about Iraq. Does it say that the UN will authorize the use of force against Iraq? Nope. What it says is "Decides ... to afford Iraq, by this resolution, a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council; and accordingly decides to set up an enhanced inspection regime with the aim of bringing to full and verified completion the disarmament process ..."
And guess what, there were no WMD found! I guess that means that Iraq complied with its requirements to get rid of its WMD programs.
But did the US follow the UN security council resolution and give the inspectors time to determine this? Nope. They decided that the UN wasn't going to authorize an invasion on their time frame, so they simply ignored the UN and their obligations to follow the UN charter and invaded Iraq.
In a few decades, maybe less if we're lucky, the people of Iraq will be better off than they were under Saddam Hussein, but from everything I've read, the majority of Iraqis don't think they're there yet. They may have had fewer personal freedoms under Saddam, and may have been scared about speaking out against him, but there were no random suicide bombers attacking them in downtown Baghdad. They generally had running water, electricity, and jobs.
It could be that the only way to depose Saddam Hussein was through military force. But wouldn't it have been better if that force had been a truly international one? Instead of hundreds of dead Americans and thousands of maimed ones, other countries could have shared the burden. Do you think that Iraqis would be just as resentful if the international force included all the countries that Bush Sr. had for the first Gulf war?
Even if you think that Bush was right to send US soldiers into harm's way, do you think he was right to paint a bulls-eye on their chests before doing it?
Naah, not true.
When there's 1 company making everything, there's no problems with incompatibilities from other companies, and with less friction there is more efficiency. A well regulated monopoly can also benefit the population better than companies in cutthroat competition.
Instead of having 10 people constantly re-inventing the wheel, you can have 1 person doing a job, and freeing up the other 9 people to do other innovative things. Sure, with 10 peopld doing the exact same job, over and over, you might end up with one finding a truly innovative way of doing something, but you might also just end up with 10 more or less equal "wheels".
Think, for example, about cell-phone service. In many places in the world, there is only 1 provider. This means the consumer doesn't have to worry about roaming to other networks, or whether provider X has better coverage in their area. Instead of 6 competing vendors wasting time and resources putting up 6 overlapping cells, the one company can put up 1 cell and save materials and money.
Even better, is that in many places, monopolies are regulated by the government and the government can tell the monopoly "Hey, you guys don't have to worry about competition, so in order to keep your sweet deal, you have to do X, Y, and Z". In the cell-phone example, that can mean forcing them to put up towers to provide coverage for more people, or keeping the rates under control, or many other things.
Sometimes monopolies reduce prices, but often they don't. When there is fierce competition, companies spend a lot of money on advertising. Who ends up paying for the advertising? The consumers. Under a monopoly, there's no need for advertising, so those costs aren't passed on. A bigger problem is dealing with all the paperwork. Hospitals in the US have to have enormous paper-pushing departments to deal with the hundreds of insurance companies, health-care plans, and other annoyances resulting from competition. In countries with government-provided healthcare, this process is competely streamlined, and the costs of providing health care are greatly reduced.
Monopolies lend themselves to abuse, but monopolies aren't inherently bad. A well regulated monopoly can really benefit consumers.
Bah, I disagree.
I answer my phone at work "Hello?". I don't answer "Bob's Slaughterhouse, We Stab Em' for You, Merk Speaking, How may I direct your call." Why? I'm not a receptionist. My phone rings maybe once a week, and it's almost always someone within the company calling. "Hello?" is short and to the point, and lets them tell me why they're calling right away.
Being told to "hang on a sec" and having the phone placed down while something is done is much more pleasant than being put on hold. I've often been abandoned while on hold, but I've *never* been abandoned while the phone was off the hook. And no, I'm not so stupid that I think there's a "hang on" button somewhere. When the phone is off the hook I can hear a little of what's going on, and I'm reassured that things are happening. Besides, there is no annoying musak when the handset is placed on the desk.
Now, I agree that "who are you?" is a little rude, and would prefer (and use), "can I ask who's calling?" The other points though, I disagree.
Rouge is a French adjective for red. Rogue is an English adjective for "something which behaves in an unexpected and often destructive way".
But don't you know? RFID tags are evil. See, somehow the electromagnetic energy used to read them somehow scans your brain and destroys your privacy. Sure, on the surface you might think that they're not too different from barcodes, but that's just what they want you to think. Barcode lasers don't have the privacy-removal side effect!
Sure, Narc's like you will argue that the only real difference between a bar code and an RFID tag is that an RFID tag isn't "immediate line-of-sight", but that's just because the Men In Black don't want us to know about the privacy-removal field!
Like in this story, you'll see all kinds of Agents writing things that seem sensible. They'll be saying stuff like: "Well, they already track the luggage, so what difference will replacing a bar code with an RFID tag make? Won't it just make things more efficient? Afterall, you just take the tag off at the other end." Sounds sensible, doesn't it? But try to ask one of them about the anti-privacy field and they'll act like you're crazy!
These Agents are good at their job, so people really have to be careful. When a story comes up about Wal*Mart using RFID tags in their warehouses, the Government Agents will try to claim that it won't even affect you. They'll pretend that whatever goes on in Wal*Mart warehouses and shipping areas doesn't even affect the consumer. Riiiight... Big deal if they take the tags off before the consumer buys them. The problem isn't the tag on the product you walk out of the store with -- it's with the tags themselves!!!! What they don't want you to know is that when they put hundreds of tags all over the warehouse in the back, the anti-privacy field is amplified by 2000 orders of magnitude. Instead of just knowing your Wal*Mart shopping habits, now they'll know those dirty, dirty thoughts you had about your sister a while back. (Btw, you're a sick, sick puppy!).
You Agent types have all kinds of reasonable-sounding arguments. You claim that a bar code is almost the same thing as an RFID tag. You pretend that it is far easier to track people with credit cards, customer loyalty cards, photographs, footprints and DNA. You pretend that the problem goes away when you get rid of the RFID tag after buying it. But let me tell you, smart people like me aren't buying it!!! We know the truth about RFID. We know that it *really* stands for Really Fun Identity Destruction. We know about how it causes cancer, makes you impotent, and reads your mind. But you better watch out. We know how to stop it too, and there's no way you'll ever attach an RFID tag to my tinfoil bodysuit!
What aspect of farming does it simulate? The "getting up before the sun to do mindless chores"? The "growing corn because the government pays you to" part? The "having to sell the family farm to the huge agribusiness" part? The "paying Monsanto through the nose every single year for GM seeds"? The "getting an arm caught in a thresher"? The "doing unnatural things to livestock so that profits are maximized" part?
I'm really annoyed by the advertising embedded in everything today, but at least this game is honest about it. But by using a real brand, they blow away the suspension of disbelief for me. The only thing I think would make a less fun computer game than my job is a fake farming job.
But hey, that's just my rant.
RIAA stupidity? Um, if you read the (20 line) release, you'd know that the US and UK versiond aren't crippled, it's only the one sold in the rest of Europe. Since RIAA stands for Recording Industry Association of America, I wouldn't blame them for this one. I'm sure it's different people in the same suits, but at least blame the people on the right continent.
Great idea! My only complaint is you didn't go far enough. The same should be required for voting too. If you don't even know your candidates' stances on basic issues, why should your vote count as much as someone who actually pays attention?
Good god, and I thought the American diet was unhealthy. Please tell me you don't eat Homer's Space Age(out of this world) Moon Waffles.
Waking life was *awful*. It was pretentious, and had no substance at all. It was all kinds of conversation-snippets that might seem deep and meaningful if you were either a) dumb, or b) stoned, with only vaguely interesting animation thrown on top.
Really, when a typical Disney movie is more imaginative than an adult-aimed movie, that's pretty sad.
C'mon people. The emperor has no clothes.
irb(main):001:0> 2 + "2"
TypeError: String can't be coerced into Fixnum
from (irb):1:in `+'
from (irb):1
irb(main):002:0> "2" + 2
TypeError: cannot convert Fixnum into String
from (irb):2:in `+'
from (irb):2
You don't get 22, you don't get 4 either. You get an error. IMHO, that's more sensible than either of those behaviours. If you want string concatenation, then make sure you're dealing with strings. If you want numbers, then make sure you're dealing with numbers:
irb(main):003:0> "2" + 2.to_s
=> "22"
irb(main):004:0> 2 + "2".to_i
=> 4
They've been really open about this since the beginning, i.e. 4 years or more. They collect data on viewing habits, and provide aggregate stats on those viewing habits, but they don't tie them to individual viewers. If you don't even want them to do that, then you can ask them not to, and they won't. Simple, no?
How do you distinguish those constants from class names? To me, there are 4 ways of naming things:
things_like_this are variables. No uppercase, words are separated by underscores.
thingsLikeThis are methods/functions. The first letter is lowercase. No underscores allowed, and new words start with uppercase letters.
ThingsLikeThis are classes. They start with an uppercase letter, and each new word starts with an uppercase letter, no underscores allowed.
THINGS_LIKE_THIS are constants/#defines. (Note that I typed that with caps lock on). They're all uppercase, with the words separated by underscores.
Those are the things I've found useful to distinguish visually. Why? It's very important to know the difference between a constant value and a variable value, so they look different. It's also important to be able to distinguish variables from functions/methods. This is especially true in C-like languages where you can pass a pointer to a function around. And finally, in OO programming, I think it makes sense to have a convention where classes are named in a special way.
Some examples from actual code:
#define OPERATION_IDLE (0)
#define OPERATION_WAITING_TO_RUN (-1)
#define OPERATION_IN_PROGRESS (-2)
#define OPERATION_DONE (-3)
#define OPERATION_TIMED_OUT (-4)
#define STATE_ACTIVE (-10)
#define STATE_CLEANUP (-11)
#define STATE_ERROR (-12)
#define STATE_IDLE (-13)
#define STATE_POWERUP (-14)
#define STATE_RUNNING (-15)
#define STATE_WAITING (-16)
#define STATE_CATCHUP (-17)
Values of the constants aside, that's pretty good constant, well #define naming. They're generic, can be used in many code sections, and explain well what's going on. Now I can normally expand them in Emacs, but when I want to type them in, they're way too long to be typed using the shift key mashed down.
When something is much more popular than its alternatives, you get a number of benefits:
For example, there are packages to connect BIND with DHCP servers, allowing dynamic DNS for DHCP clients. You're unlikely to find those as easily for another DNS server. The same thing was true for sendmail -- there were tons of programs that expected to be able to use /usr/bin/sendmail. That required people writing other mail programs to stub out this binary.
There's a fun solution to that problem:
http://www.glarkware.com/securestore/c181844p16288 268.2.html
I have an iBook. Granted, it's a few years old now, so maybe things have changed, but I get nowhere near 6 hours of battery life. I typically get around 3, 2 if I'm using the CD/DVD drive extensively. But then again, that doesn't bother me. The things are really well built. Just the right number of ports, a well built case that is tough enough to withstand all kinds of light bumps, and the great OS X software.
I had a PDA that I used on occasion, but now that I have this, I haven't turned it on in years. If I want something extremely portable, I have my contacts in my iPod. Sure, I can't edit them, but I rarely need to.
Now my situation might not be typical. I bike to work, so I can't use a PDA/laptop on my way to work. If I were using public transportation, maybe a PDA would be a better choice? I don't know.
Either a troll or you're blind. I hope you're a troll. FOX news is about as biased as news can be and not be outright laughed at.
This 'liberal media bias' is a myth. The media is shallow, but not very biased, except for Fox which is the mouthpiece of the Bush administration. If anything, the media is currently right-biased, but that's just because the right is in power, and it's smart to lean towards those in power.
Compare any other news to any other country's news (CBC (canada), ABC (australia), BBC (great britain), DW (germany), ...) You'll see that the one that's way out to lunch is Fox.
Well that Michael Moore example is an interesting one. This is all based on my memory of the event, but here's what I recall. The academy awards people tried really hard to muzzle him by drowning him out with the instruments soon after he started speaking. this is also the way they dealt with overly long speeches too, so that's not necessarily political censorship.
The other thing I remember is that the live broadcast showed him making his speech, and there was cheering, applause, some booing, and a mix of reactions from the crowd. All the cuts of the event I saw the next day had much more emphasis on people booing, and many more shots of audience members looking upset or exasperated.
Why leave any HTML? Does <blink> make a message more compelling? Do you really need someone to send a message with baloons in the background? If someone really likes the handwriting font, should I be forced to see that in their email?
Sure, sometimes in a complex email it would be nice to be able to use headers or bulleted lists. But nobody should be able to force me to display the message with their ugly-ass markup.
The only thing that makes any sense here is to use strict stylesheet-based markup. Someone can label things as 'headers' and 'bulleted lists'. Then, the receiver can have a stylesheet that properly renders these types of content markers so the information isn't lost. That way, 'chick who likes baloon backgrounds' can display all her incoming emails that way, and 'guy who likes unreadable fonts' can have all his incoming emails displayed in that font... but those of us who like black, 12pt Times New Roman text on white backgrounds can avoid being driven insane.
Tags like <i> and <b> and <blink> and <font> shouldn't ever be part of email.How many furlongs in a mile? How many inches in a mile? How many fluid ounces in a barrel? How many tablespoons in a quart? How many square feet in a square mile?
It's marginally easier to sub divide a foot into inches, but it's harder to divide a yard into feet, and you're really in trouble when you try to deal with something that's not a normal number of units away from the other thing.
If I want to convert from km to cm, it's easy. I just divide by 100,000. If I want to convert from miles to inches, it isn't nearly as easy. Metric is also far easier when you're doing conversions between types of measurement. If I have 2kg object travelling at 1km/s I know that it will have a kinetic energy of 0.5*2*(1000^2) = 1,000,000J = 1MJ. Easy, right? Try doing that with miles/s, pounds, and whatever energy unit you prefer.
Well there are other ways that copyright infringement is like real theft. For instance, if you altered the song, or distributed a fake version pretending it was real, and ended up making people think the original was awful, then you'd be damaging the song's owner. This is like libel/slander.
But, there's still a fundamental difference between that and theft. Even identity theft is a misapplied label. It's not that when someone 'steals your identity' that you no longer have one, it just means that it's no longer unique. It has been diluted. Identity theft would be when someone steals your identity and you no longer have one -- they are the new 'Clint Eastwood', to use your example.
You say that as if it's a good thing.
I'm being serious. What's so bad about nudity? Why is it that it was such a good thing to teach the heathen masses modesty, and to 'cover their shame'?
And besides, all these wonderful Xtian things are wiped out by one horrible thing: fighting birth control. Teach the starving, unhealthy peasant that it is a sin to use birth control, and the starving, uneducated peasant has 10 kids, all of whom are starving and unhealthy. By fighting birth control, these religious freaks are creating more naked, hungry, thirsty and sick orphans.
Even worse, I think it could be a real hazard to drivers.
Right now, if a construction worker is setting up or moving cones or barrels, an approaching driver will know the cones or barrels are about to move because there's a large person (most likely wearing a reflective vest) moving around near the barrels, and most good drivers will slow down and make sure they give him/her some space.
Can you imagine what'll happen when you're approaching some traffic barrels and all of a sudden they start moving on their own? All of a sudden, the lane that was open is now blocked by a whole bunch of traffic cones! "The bollards, which are connected via a radio link, move at just over a metre a second." That's fast. I can just picture drivers swerving to avoid them barrels which are suddenly in their path, losing control of their cars, and possibly killing someone.
The only way I can see this working is to make them move really, really slowly. If they do that, then any given passing driver will be unlikely to notice them moving. They'll effectively be stationary for each passing driver, but after a few minutes they'll be reconfigured. Any faster than about 1cm/second and these things are going to cause accidents. But don't worry, you can protect the accident scene with these funky new moving traffic barrels!!! Oh... wait...