Interesting, but the species are still mosquitos, they didn't become frogs or blu-jays, or grow gills or learn to spin webs, or change phylum. In the end, they're still mosquitos.
As a believer in Creationism, I will first admit, I'm firm to believe that species change and more or less, "adapt" to their environments, out of need for survival.
Think of a computer programmer. We create an object, and derive other objects from it, thus "inheriting" a certain behavior. Who's to say that God didn't create a common DNA for certain species, and derive more specific species from that base DNA, because it works so well? Why reinvent the wheel...? I've heard some point out some details about why certain design characteristics of humans are inefficient, but who's to say, if in 100 years, we actually learn that they are quite efficient for their purpose?
In any case, as I stated, the new mosquitos are still mosquitos and not some other creature.
Amdendment I: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
The simply truth is that if there is a true seperation of church and state, then the state would not be constantly dictating and regulating the church. Hence, there is no true seperation, but an oppression of religous practice.
Further more, the first amendment guarantees freedom *of* religion, not freedom *from* religion. The Constitution is only a contract between the people and the government, not people and private enterprises. Thus, while you may not be able to speak freely or practice religion freely on someone elses private property, the government is supposed to protect your rights on public property. Thus, when the govenment begins "cracking down" on any religious practice, excercise, or speach on public property, they are no longer protecting, but oppressing/restricting, in violation of the First Amendment.
However, there's a fine line. The government isn't supposed to endorse a religion, at the same time it is supposed to protect religious practice on public property, since it cannot on private property. The argument to keep religion out of politics doesn't hold up, either. Many (but not all) of our founding fathers were religious (despite what Wikipedia says, there's more evidence, even from their own personal journals to support that many of our founding fathers were indeed religious) and they regularily made religious statements on record in office and made decisions effected by religion... the simple fact being, everyone believes something, and that something effects that person's decision making process severely, whether religious or anti-religious. This is exactly why the First Amendment exists in the first place: if the govenment can't endorse a religion and be succumbed to it, then they shouldn't restrict it or favor one over the other, otherwise it is the same as endorsing. So they protect the right and remain nuetral. That is the contract between the people and the govenment, but like many contracts these days, is broken.
The right to free speech and privacy? Speech is a hard one. I believe we should be able to say whatever we want to say even to the offense of the listeners. Read up on early American history and you'll see that the people were sharply divided and easily angered, but free spech was considered sacred. If you offend me, so what. That's the price to pay. If I offend you, so what. Opinions differ and through those difference of opinions, mingled with blood, was this nation forged. However, to purposely slander someone falsely, should not be protected, without consequence. That, I believe, should be the extend of the limits on free speech. But these days, there is so much liability in what you say that we really don't have protected speech at all.
Privacy? For all those who want to believe that the constitution doesn't explicity prohibit or protect privacy, you may or may not be correct. But when you look at the lives of our founding fathers, it was a common practice to write letters under an alias or anonymously in order to push their political agenda. Therefore, while the Constitution doesn't mention it directly, the lives of the people who wrote the Constitution certainly reflect that the right to privacy and anonymous letter-writing (blogging/newgroups postings/etc.) are protected.
Perhaps the USPTO should post a slashdot story on the summary and first few claims of the patent, get everyones blood boiling, and then sit back as everyone digs up prior art for them.
I'll second this. An even more valuable resource is http://groups.google.com/ . That's a favorite place for me to search when looking up technical, troubleshooting, or user opinion on my favorite topic of the minute.
I see programming language, in the future, naturally taking advantage of SMP. Currently, we have OMP and Visual C++ 2005 just got it. While that's good for parallelizing for() loops, it doesn't much for methods and objects. We saw from the PDC05 (http://microsoft.sitestream.com/pdc05) that the Visual C++ v.next is getting first-class support for SMP. They will be adding keyword and compiler support for this stuff. For example, marking a function, variable, for() loop, do(), while() loop, or class as "active" automatically makes it parallel. Then, they have very special syntax for syncronizing and avoiding conflicts and race conditions.
Perhaps C# and Java will get similar constructs. I know that COmega was demonstrating some asyncronous syntax, but I don't like the idea of using delegates (internally or otherwise) for that task, as a rule of them, behind the scenes, as delegates use the default thread-pool. Instead, I'd like to see the compiler intelligentally thread the address location of the "active" code block or jump into another threaded method or use delegates if necessary. But the point, is that it would actually be optimized.
For now, as a programmer, we have to deal with such things ourselves. But in the future I see programming languages (Visual C++ at least) actually baking it into the language, making very easy for people to take advantage of.
The real issue, as you are basically correct, isn't to limit the speed to the actual speed limit. If this system were to be implemented in America, it would create a stink. We are free to break the law and get caught by a camera, patrol craft, or peace officer as well. But with a system like that, it removes your ability to make such a choice. Because our governments are so dependant on money and shrinking funding from the state and Congress, removing the ability to speed means removing the ability to get caught which removes the ability to collect excees income from penalties for being caught.
Really, what they *should* do, is limit you so you cannot speed more than 20mph over the speed limit. That solves the problem of speeding to avoid accidents. I know, there have been many times, especially on wet surfaces, where most Californians don't know how to drive in such conditions, specially with their big SUV's and Hummers, where I'd see in the mirror someone weaving then hurling at me like a speeding bullet when I'm already doing 70mps (on a very straigh surface with little traffic conditions). I can't move out of their way and keeping my pace or slowing will result in an accident. What I do? I speed up to give them time to speed down without hydroplaning.
20mph should be sufficient for any posted speed. The real problem, what if the system malfuctions or if the GPS satellite goes down? Unlikely, but possible. That means that it could wreak havoc and I'd hate to be on the road such a day.
Sorry that you've had these problems. I regularily purchase electronics that are discounted via mail-in-rebates. In 4 years time, I must have received over $1,000 in rebates, everything from $50 for Sony 19" flatscreens to $10 for a Microsoft Keyboard, among other things. While I've had to wait so long that I forgot I even submitted rebates, I've never once yet been rejected or asked for additional information. I must have filled out about 15 of these things and I'm in the process of filling out another one tonight for $10.
I purchase this equipment everywhere, from Fry's Electronics, Best Buy, and mostly Microcenter.
An advertiser does not have the right to install a sign on your property advertising their product without your permission. If we can get a law that states that our computers and web browser are personal property, then they no longer have the right (not that the have that right in the first place) to place a popup when you're browsing without tresspassing. The only reason this will never fly is because a website is property of other people and they choose to allow popups, no different than the neigbor across the street can give them permission to display the billboard on their property wheter you like it or not.
At some point, the line has to be drawn legally. Perhaps the property argument can only be extended as far as it actually modifies your PC, sans Sony Rootkit DRM and other malware. But it would be nice if it can be extended to your web browser, also.
From the article, "Recently there has been a quiet controversy around the Goto BLAS because Mr. Goto has been slow to offer his work as open-source software, the free model of software distribution.
Some programmers have suggested that Mr. Goto has not joined the open-source movement because he wants to protect his secrets and strategies from competitors."
Why does it matter? For a talent as unique as his, and as competitive as it is (according to the article), why is it so wrong to keep it proprietary and actually, uck, profit from his work? Why should there be a contraversy? Here's a thought, the zealots should go immitate him like they do every other commercial venture if its so important to them.
Anyway, from the article, he says that its not so and there will be an open source release at some point in the future. In anycase, the open source world isn't entitled anything and its shame that they should stirr up tension just because their savory jaws are dripping.
If I were a store owner, which I'm not, but if I were, I would have not allowed anyone to purchase a 360 on opening day, and then taken the lot of 40 xboxes and auctioned them on Ebay for what people are willing to pay (just saw one close at $3,890 without any games). Seems a better way to make a buck. Is it moral or ethical? No. But if people are willing to pay, perhaps its not unethical, at least not to the person paying. Note to self... when the xbox 640 is release, prepare in advance for the feeding frenzy to follow.
I gave up on Visio about two years ago when I discovered visual-paradigm. Our company uses Visio and so must I, but I do my modeling in VP and export to Visio and leave it at that. I can copy-paste directly into word from VP, also. Besides, the diagrams look pretty in VP.
I'm with you, the sequence diagram is the most useful feature of UML and as such, is the one I most commonly use (I also use the Textual Analysis feature of VP and Activity Diagrams).
The workflow paradigm is wonderful. I like just hovering the object and then click-dragging the context-actions (whatever their called) and voila... and the mouse gestures are splendid. Too bad they don't allow you to define your own mouse gestures.
Anyway... for a few extra bucks VP will rount-trip Java for you. But that's not important to me as I'm a.NET developer (who's gradually gravitating towards Java for some unexplicable reason). I have not heard of Enterprise Architect. I'll have to look at it.
Offtopic but I find www.visual-paradigm.com to be an excellent UML tool. While I haven't used many others besides pseidon (or whatever it is) and Rose, I must say if you learn the specifics of its workflow (including mouse gestures) you'll get more done in an amazing amount of time. The only UML tool I'll use unless forced to use another. The newest release (5.1) is excellent.
Actuall, I'd agree. The fact the people are using p2p illegally is being used as an excuse for the **AA's to commit internal terrorism against the people of this country (USA) and the world. So he's got it right, he's just misinformed (or paid too much) to understand who the real terrorists are.
Not only does Windows not require it, compiling your own kernel in Windows isn't even an option. If you want binary drivers and no options for customization, Windows may be the OS for you.
I suspect this is not only perfectly acceptable, but preferable for the vast majoriy of people out there (non-geeky shlashdot types) such as business manager, mom, pa, grandma, senate, etc. and wouldn't be an issue to people other than OSS purists and uber geeks and people who won't embrace change. I mean, let's face it, the Zealots want market pentration, but the conditions by which it much happen (compile your own kernel, etc.) may not exactly be helping (or inhibiting) the matter, but not requiring a kernel compilation or even providing the ability to for some proprietary driver may not exactly inhibit it, either, and very well, could help. But what do I know. I'm not a Zealot(tm).
the biggest problem is the proliferation of voice recorded calls that require you to call a number to be removed from their call list. I refuse to return a call to be remove, mostly out of fear of not knowing whether I'll get a hidden charge for the phone call. The downside is that after 9 months of refusing to pick up the phone or reply, every day, 7 days a week, I still get the same stupid message. There are very many recorded calls that dial me, and there's no human on the other side to tell them to put you on the DNC list or whatever.
I sense a logic fallacy here. I'm a very accomplished developer. I very much know how to design and implement properly for the long term, as well as the short term. While I don't *need* the IDE to *understand* the code, I have an exceptionally difficult time making sense of the *all* the code without the IDE. This of it this way, I can open up the files off the file system in Notepad, or I can open them up in VS.NET/Eclipse and have many features, such as syntax coloring which *helps* my brain to see varying code block, quite naturally, by their color, or I can click on a symbol or method and jump straight to its declaration. If people use the #region block, in the IDE, it collapses them so I can filter out code I don't want to look at.
In short, I've become quite dependant on the IDE, and can probably write better code than the vast majority of coders/developers/architects out there that complain about everyone elses code. But alas, I'm by no means perfect. The IDE just makes me more productive. I would venture to dissagree with your assertion that if the person needs the IDE to understand the code then they are not a programmer. Of course, I can do all that by Notepad and understand the code, so perhaps I'm proving your point, but alas, the IDE makes me 10x more likely to understand the code 10x quicker than using Notepad to open the files.
I don't know whether you'll read this by now... but...
One thing I left out of my ramblings is, that, I don't have children at the moment. I will soon. Teaching them how to be financially responsible, I think, is critical to their ultimate success in life. I have coworkers that taught their children early about credit. They would pay their children a certain allowance and if the child wanted to overextend themselves, the parent would allow it to an extent, but would collection payments from future allowance plus interest. It wasn't egregious, as it was meant to reflect real life as much as possible. But the children hated it greatly. With time, they hated credit greatly. Now, those children themsevles have children, moderate incomes, and are completely fruegel. They know how to manage money and make it grow better than anyone I've ever heard that isn't financially trained (formally).
I think I'll train my children the same way, allow them to also put money away that I can contribute to, in order to teach them the value of making it grow (and patience).
I read a post from a Slashdotter that hit home, about a week or two ago. He said that his daughter wanted a bike and asked for it but he said "save up your money and then you can purchase it". So she did, she saved up for 6 weeks all her allowance money and finally came to daddy and said here, I saved up for 6 weeks and then dropped $15 on his lap. "Can we go get the bike now?". Well, the bike was $100 (or so). In the end, he paid the difference because it would be impracticle for her to keep saving. I think he was making the point about inflation and how, at some point, you just don't have enough money to barely survive, but the story itself has a merit in other contexts. I'd say the daughter learned the value of saving.
In much the same way, I have a cousine that loves horses. She saved her entire life savings (8 years worth) to come up with $6,000 to buy a horse. She was 15 last year when her parents agreed to pay the other $6,000. Now, she has her horse, knows how to groom it and everything (something she's been doing for the last 8 years of her life).
How you learn financial responsibility varies from person to person, but with children, it is important to both teach them a lesson, and not make them hate life at the same time, because in the end, the will learn "something" from it, just a matter of what they'll learn.
I didn't have the benefit of being taught anything. But I learned the hard way as an adult. Moreso now that ever, people need to start saving for their later years at an early age (at least by the time they turn 21). Real estate is truly the only way to go (unless you win the lottery or start a successful business). Land, is becoming scarce and expensive everywhere. Better get it now while there is still a chance. People will always pay for a place to live, even in a depressions. Just be the person being paid, not the one paying.
Just because we haven't been successful in reproducing the machine, doesn't mean it was a myth. It just means that it was poorly documented, or too heavily copyrighted with DRM for the original documentation to have been released into the public domain for us to dissiminate, or that we just don't know how to reproduce the exact circumstances that led to the event.
From employment alone... $155k (split evently between my income and my wife's income). However, beyond that, even though I get to claim the income/loss, I'm at break-even. It'll be approximately 1 year before I begin to see profit from the investments. I went into this (real-estate investing) about a year ago with very high asperations but it didn't take long to learn the harsh realities... it isn't a get rich quick scheme (and I wasn't looking for one). Its a LOT of hard work, and research, and playing the game or getting played (as I learned the hard way). I'm completely honest and because of that, it takes me longer to get where I want to go, but I always get there, and when I do, I'm not fragile. I've earned it. Time to grow and move on to the next.
Also, everyones advise is different. Mine usually contradicts popular belief, but works exceptionally well for me (I'm a problem solver, I think for myself). It's okay to invest into real-estate if you have consumer debt, just remember, your borrowing power is diminished and your interest rates will be higher. I waited 2 years before I could pay off my debts. Having spoke with a financial adviser, they ask you to pay off higher interest debts first. We came up with a plan. It would have taken me 5 years to pay off with that plan. Instead, I paid of the highest per month first, and then combined it with the difference to pay off the next highest per month, and repeated until I had no debt, took 2 years. Do with that advice as you will.
Next, I have no degree. I'm working towards a business degree. I'm paying for this myself out of my pocket, as well as my wife's masters degree (which her company reimburses if she gets A's and she does). I started as a VB6 programmer (professionally) in 1997. But I've been programming since 1989 otherwise. Did some database/front ends for some warehouse companies, real-estate, disbtribution and so on. My first 4 jobs, I changed every year, doubled my income. Then I got laid off a year and found my current job. Consulting during the unemployment. My income didn't double, but when I got married it did, I'm a geek. She manages geeks. We both very much want to have income whether or not we're working. So we started investing into realestate, we can't afford to purchase a house and live in it in Southern California.
As the old saying goes, a house is worthless until you sell it. True. At some point, you have to put more down on a house before it'll become profitable. Or you just become very patient, pay extra, be smart about rent increases, and at somepoint you've paid enough off on enough properties that you earn, say, $5,000/mo. income (10 years later I presume, on about 10 properties), accumulated about 1 property per year in diverse markets.
Plans are just guides, and you won't hardly ever achieve exactly what you planned for, sometimes less, sometimes more. I purchase for results, thus I purchase such properties The best advice is this: find an area you want to purchase, work with an agent that has "pocket" or "exclusive" listings. This means no one else knows about them. They are, in my experience, very high quality purchases and usually sold by sick or elderly people that very much loved their homes. This translates into tenants that will love it also. If you find a good tenant, don't raise rent if they renew. A good tenant is more valuable than 10 rent increases. A good tenant will take care of the house for you, thus saving money from repairs.
I don't believe a CS degree is necessary for the type of work I do. Its just C#/ASP.NET/SQL. I love it. Most people would call it boring, but this company is so dynmaic. We write everything from scratch (such as fax server, web based printqueues, and so on).
But I want to be an architect. I love designing and creating infrastructure and making hard tasks to be really easy tasks. I feel getting a degree in business is the better way to go. Besides that (as I write this from my work co
I'm a programmer that writes web applications. The boring stuff, as the slashdotters put it, but I rather enjoy it. I've been doing it for 7 years for various companies but I'm almost always fulltime. My income, as reported to the IRS last year and years before that, is a little less than $200k. But you wouldn't know that by the way I dress, car I drive, place I live, or things I do.
I dress with normal clothes that are about 2 years old. I bargain shop for shoes and such. rather than spending $40+/mo. at Blockbuster. I pay $24 for Netflix, instead of paying full price for a movie ticket ($10 these days) I use the Entertainment book and spend $5.50 instead. I pay to have my car washed only once or so every 3 months. I pay to have my hair cut about once every 3 months or so. My cars were purchased new but are paid in full and are not indicitive of my income in any way. I live in an apartment, don't own a house (wherein I live). Don't have any credit card debt. Strong savings and so on. Most people who don't know me well would have no idea how much money I make.
The key to building wealth is to not spend more than you have coming in. Save at least 30% if you can. I save 50%. If you must have something (read: really "want" it), then save for it and pay it in full. Avoid the credit cards. Those will kill ya in the long run, because youre money isn't working for you, but against you. Purchase books/electronics from Amazon/Ebay and for Amazon, use the SuperSaver shipping so you don't have to pay shipping. For cars, buying new is okay, but buying a slightly used car/truck is cheaper and you'll get basically the same thing out of it. But personally, I buy new, I just pay cash or more than 60% down. That means I have to save longer. But that's okay.
Study the realestate market in various places and determine where a good place to invest would be. I purchase houses and rent them out. But these are very nice houses. Every house I've purchased is the type that, in markets where it takes 8 to 12 weeks to find an occupant, mine take as much time as for the first person to walk through it. Usually with 0% down. But in some places, you have to put more down to break even. Just be smart about it. For realestate investments, try using as little of your own money as possible, and keep accumulating as you see fit, and keep building a savings. Don't just buy what you would live in yourself, buy what will rent -- its an investment, always keep that in mind.
I know people that make less money than I do and live more lavishly. But they are living month-to-month and at the first sign of trouble, their lives collapse. Mainly due to debt, rather than anything else. I learned the lesson. I was once laid off and my wife (girlfriend at the time) the next day at an unrelated company. Having to choose between impeccable credit and food is a hard one. I was trying to pay off as quickly as possible ($2,500/mo. for about 2 1/2 years). My savings went to zero the day we found our current jobs that we've been at for 3 years now. Had to cach in her lucrative 401k and various IRA's and stuff to stay afloat. That's not a good thing at all, so I've learned from that. I don't pay for TV or cable, instead I'll just rent the season DVD's when/if they come out. As I stated early, "impeccable credit": because I protected it during that situation, I get extremely competitive rates on real estate loans and it helps me in other areas.
While I don't "coupon shop", I am smart about it (in many the ways I stated above). In the end, it works out really well. I am, by nature, compulsive. But I have to fight it. Sometimes, it's okay. But its best to be less compulsive and more "smart shopper" if you want to accumulate wealth.
You best not judge a book by its cover. One of the highest paid people I've ever known drives a clunker and lives comfortably (comfort is relative: for me it means paying bills, never worrying about it, and accumulating a savings, and being able to invest wisely and afford a loss if need be (note: I don't gamble). For others, it means living lavishly). One of the most lowest paid person I know drives a very nice status mobile and stuggles with life and payments.
What's even more interesting, is, when in traffic school a few months back, one guy was in there for speeding. He questioned whether the speed radar gun was accurate, because he was sure that he wasn't doing the speed the officer said he was (aren't we all?).
The office permitted him to aim the radar gun at people passing by and register a speed rating. This happend for about 10 cars or so. The officer wasn't looking at the speed reading, couldn't see them. But what the officer "thought" the speed of the vehicles were, and what the radar gun said the speed was, matched everytime within 5 MPH.
Appearantly, he's not he only one, there were others ticketed by the same officer and got the same experience using the speed guns. Not only that, but most officers are specially trained such that they don't need radar guns.
That being said, I don't know why they use radar guns to detect speed, but I wonder why questioning the radar gun would lead to get the case thrown out, espectially if the officer already knew you were speeding without the gun.
There is nothing special in my relationship with MS. If anything, I'm wanting to get out of my "relationship" with MS in the next few years. I pay about $1,600/yr. for MSDN Universal. I was quite happy to do so for 5 years. Sometimes I paid less, but never paid more. I'm only a developer, I have no production uses for the software apart from developing the software. But I've never activated Windows or Office, so it doesn't concern me what they do. Sometimes I'll use a VLM key and then just back an unintended install into a slipstream or other times I'll just install a trial and reformat by the time it expires. But I still despise their activate as much as the next, its just that I depend very heavily on MS technologies for my bread and butter so I'm more likely to accept it since it more than pays for itself (my wife also depends on MS technologies for her work and our combined income is well over $150k/yr.).
But I don't depend on any other product for my income so they are expendable. I take activate seriously enough to avoid it. I will not be caught purchasing software that I'll have to get permission to reinstall everytime I change something in my computer or that I'll have to purchase again for any reason, whatsoever. If it is important enough to me, I'll purchase a license and then I'll find a way around the activation in order to use it. In my mind, I'm justified, regardless whether all these new laws they're purchasing every month say otherwise. Most of the time, I'll just avoid the software alltogether, mostly on principle, rather than economics.
Actually, every object you define is not a proper COM object in the.NET world. By default, if you use the VS.NET IDE, then it will create a GUID to be used with COM Interop if you choose, but by default, it is not a COM interop object. Even so, the minute you add constructor parameters and method overloads, you are definind an object that cannot be registered for COM interop.
Even when you do mark the project (in VS.NET) to register for COM Interop, and register the type library, if you consume it from another.NET application, the ref counting doesn't happen automatically. Instead, you actually have to call System.Runtime.Interop.Marshal.ReleaseCOMObject otherwise the ref counter will not be properly decremented..NET may be a replacement for COM in many ways, but it is not compatible.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting, but the species are still mosquitos, they didn't become frogs or blu-jays, or grow gills or learn to spin webs, or change phylum. In the end, they're still mosquitos.
As a believer in Creationism, I will first admit, I'm firm to believe that species change and more or less, "adapt" to their environments, out of need for survival.
Think of a computer programmer. We create an object, and derive other objects from it, thus "inheriting" a certain behavior. Who's to say that God didn't create a common DNA for certain species, and derive more specific species from that base DNA, because it works so well? Why reinvent the wheel...? I've heard some point out some details about why certain design characteristics of humans are inefficient, but who's to say, if in 100 years, we actually learn that they are quite efficient for their purpose?
In any case, as I stated, the new mosquitos are still mosquitos and not some other creature.
Thanks,
Leabre
Amdendment I: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
The simply truth is that if there is a true seperation of church and state, then the state would not be constantly dictating and regulating the church. Hence, there is no true seperation, but an oppression of religous practice.
Further more, the first amendment guarantees freedom *of* religion, not freedom *from* religion. The Constitution is only a contract between the people and the government, not people and private enterprises. Thus, while you may not be able to speak freely or practice religion freely on someone elses private property, the government is supposed to protect your rights on public property. Thus, when the govenment begins "cracking down" on any religious practice, excercise, or speach on public property, they are no longer protecting, but oppressing/restricting, in violation of the First Amendment.
However, there's a fine line. The government isn't supposed to endorse a religion, at the same time it is supposed to protect religious practice on public property, since it cannot on private property. The argument to keep religion out of politics doesn't hold up, either. Many (but not all) of our founding fathers were religious (despite what Wikipedia says, there's more evidence, even from their own personal journals to support that many of our founding fathers were indeed religious) and they regularily made religious statements on record in office and made decisions effected by religion... the simple fact being, everyone believes something, and that something effects that person's decision making process severely, whether religious or anti-religious. This is exactly why the First Amendment exists in the first place: if the govenment can't endorse a religion and be succumbed to it, then they shouldn't restrict it or favor one over the other, otherwise it is the same as endorsing. So they protect the right and remain nuetral. That is the contract between the people and the govenment, but like many contracts these days, is broken.
The right to free speech and privacy? Speech is a hard one. I believe we should be able to say whatever we want to say even to the offense of the listeners. Read up on early American history and you'll see that the people were sharply divided and easily angered, but free spech was considered sacred. If you offend me, so what. That's the price to pay. If I offend you, so what. Opinions differ and through those difference of opinions, mingled with blood, was this nation forged. However, to purposely slander someone falsely, should not be protected, without consequence. That, I believe, should be the extend of the limits on free speech. But these days, there is so much liability in what you say that we really don't have protected speech at all.
Privacy? For all those who want to believe that the constitution doesn't explicity prohibit or protect privacy, you may or may not be correct. But when you look at the lives of our founding fathers, it was a common practice to write letters under an alias or anonymously in order to push their political agenda. Therefore, while the Constitution doesn't mention it directly, the lives of the people who wrote the Constitution certainly reflect that the right to privacy and anonymous letter-writing (blogging/newgroups postings/etc.) are protected.
Let the flames begine
Thanks
Leabre
I can predict the success of a movie, also... ready?
Where R = Ratings,
R
There you go.
Thanks, I'll be in all night.
Perhaps the USPTO should post a slashdot story on the summary and first few claims of the patent, get everyones blood boiling, and then sit back as everyone digs up prior art for them.
Thanks,
Leabre
I'll second this. An even more valuable resource is http://groups.google.com/ . That's a favorite place for me to search when looking up technical, troubleshooting, or user opinion on my favorite topic of the minute.
Thanks,
Leabre
I see programming language, in the future, naturally taking advantage of SMP. Currently, we have OMP and Visual C++ 2005 just got it. While that's good for parallelizing for() loops, it doesn't much for methods and objects. We saw from the PDC05 (http://microsoft.sitestream.com/pdc05) that the Visual C++ v.next is getting first-class support for SMP. They will be adding keyword and compiler support for this stuff. For example, marking a function, variable, for() loop, do(), while() loop, or class as "active" automatically makes it parallel. Then, they have very special syntax for syncronizing and avoiding conflicts and race conditions.
Perhaps C# and Java will get similar constructs. I know that COmega was demonstrating some asyncronous syntax, but I don't like the idea of using delegates (internally or otherwise) for that task, as a rule of them, behind the scenes, as delegates use the default thread-pool. Instead, I'd like to see the compiler intelligentally thread the address location of the "active" code block or jump into another threaded method or use delegates if necessary. But the point, is that it would actually be optimized.
For now, as a programmer, we have to deal with such things ourselves. But in the future I see programming languages (Visual C++ at least) actually baking it into the language, making very easy for people to take advantage of.
Thanks,
Leabre
The real issue, as you are basically correct, isn't to limit the speed to the actual speed limit. If this system were to be implemented in America, it would create a stink. We are free to break the law and get caught by a camera, patrol craft, or peace officer as well. But with a system like that, it removes your ability to make such a choice. Because our governments are so dependant on money and shrinking funding from the state and Congress, removing the ability to speed means removing the ability to get caught which removes the ability to collect excees income from penalties for being caught.
Really, what they *should* do, is limit you so you cannot speed more than 20mph over the speed limit. That solves the problem of speeding to avoid accidents. I know, there have been many times, especially on wet surfaces, where most Californians don't know how to drive in such conditions, specially with their big SUV's and Hummers, where I'd see in the mirror someone weaving then hurling at me like a speeding bullet when I'm already doing 70mps (on a very straigh surface with little traffic conditions). I can't move out of their way and keeping my pace or slowing will result in an accident. What I do? I speed up to give them time to speed down without hydroplaning.
20mph should be sufficient for any posted speed. The real problem, what if the system malfuctions or if the GPS satellite goes down? Unlikely, but possible. That means that it could wreak havoc and I'd hate to be on the road such a day.
Thanks,
Leabre
Sorry that you've had these problems. I regularily purchase electronics that are discounted via mail-in-rebates. In 4 years time, I must have received over $1,000 in rebates, everything from $50 for Sony 19" flatscreens to $10 for a Microsoft Keyboard, among other things. While I've had to wait so long that I forgot I even submitted rebates, I've never once yet been rejected or asked for additional information. I must have filled out about 15 of these things and I'm in the process of filling out another one tonight for $10.
I purchase this equipment everywhere, from Fry's Electronics, Best Buy, and mostly Microcenter.
Thanks,
Leabre
An advertiser does not have the right to install a sign on your property advertising their product without your permission. If we can get a law that states that our computers and web browser are personal property, then they no longer have the right (not that the have that right in the first place) to place a popup when you're browsing without tresspassing. The only reason this will never fly is because a website is property of other people and they choose to allow popups, no different than the neigbor across the street can give them permission to display the billboard on their property wheter you like it or not.
At some point, the line has to be drawn legally. Perhaps the property argument can only be extended as far as it actually modifies your PC, sans Sony Rootkit DRM and other malware. But it would be nice if it can be extended to your web browser, also.
Thanks,
Leabre
From the article, "Recently there has been a quiet controversy around the Goto BLAS because Mr. Goto has been slow to offer his work as open-source software, the free model of software distribution.
Some programmers have suggested that Mr. Goto has not joined the open-source movement because he wants to protect his secrets and strategies from competitors."
Why does it matter? For a talent as unique as his, and as competitive as it is (according to the article), why is it so wrong to keep it proprietary and actually, uck, profit from his work? Why should there be a contraversy? Here's a thought, the zealots should go immitate him like they do every other commercial venture if its so important to them.
Anyway, from the article, he says that its not so and there will be an open source release at some point in the future. In anycase, the open source world isn't entitled anything and its shame that they should stirr up tension just because their savory jaws are dripping.
Good grief.
Thanks, Leabre
If Microsoft was smart they'd be auctioning a few off on Ebay at outrageous prices, too. Seems a more sure way to help recover costs.
Thanks,
Leabre
If I were a store owner, which I'm not, but if I were, I would have not allowed anyone to purchase a 360 on opening day, and then taken the lot of 40 xboxes and auctioned them on Ebay for what people are willing to pay (just saw one close at $3,890 without any games). Seems a better way to make a buck. Is it moral or ethical? No. But if people are willing to pay, perhaps its not unethical, at least not to the person paying. Note to self... when the xbox 640 is release, prepare in advance for the feeding frenzy to follow.
Thanks,
Leabre
Continuing OT once more...
.NET developer (who's gradually gravitating towards Java for some unexplicable reason). I have not heard of Enterprise Architect. I'll have to look at it.
I gave up on Visio about two years ago when I discovered visual-paradigm. Our company uses Visio and so must I, but I do my modeling in VP and export to Visio and leave it at that. I can copy-paste directly into word from VP, also. Besides, the diagrams look pretty in VP.
I'm with you, the sequence diagram is the most useful feature of UML and as such, is the one I most commonly use (I also use the Textual Analysis feature of VP and Activity Diagrams).
The workflow paradigm is wonderful. I like just hovering the object and then click-dragging the context-actions (whatever their called) and voila... and the mouse gestures are splendid. Too bad they don't allow you to define your own mouse gestures.
Anyway... for a few extra bucks VP will rount-trip Java for you. But that's not important to me as I'm a
Thanks,
Leabre
Offtopic but I find www.visual-paradigm.com to be an excellent UML tool. While I haven't used many others besides pseidon (or whatever it is) and Rose, I must say if you learn the specifics of its workflow (including mouse gestures) you'll get more done in an amazing amount of time. The only UML tool I'll use unless forced to use another. The newest release (5.1) is excellent.
Thanks,
Leabre
Actuall, I'd agree. The fact the people are using p2p illegally is being used as an excuse for the **AA's to commit internal terrorism against the people of this country (USA) and the world. So he's got it right, he's just misinformed (or paid too much) to understand who the real terrorists are.
Thanks,
Leabre
Not only does Windows not require it, compiling your own kernel in Windows isn't even an option. If you want binary drivers and no options for customization, Windows may be the OS for you.
I suspect this is not only perfectly acceptable, but preferable for the vast majoriy of people out there (non-geeky shlashdot types) such as business manager, mom, pa, grandma, senate, etc. and wouldn't be an issue to people other than OSS purists and uber geeks and people who won't embrace change. I mean, let's face it, the Zealots want market pentration, but the conditions by which it much happen (compile your own kernel, etc.) may not exactly be helping (or inhibiting) the matter, but not requiring a kernel compilation or even providing the ability to for some proprietary driver may not exactly inhibit it, either, and very well, could help. But what do I know. I'm not a Zealot(tm).
Thanks,
Leabre
the biggest problem is the proliferation of voice recorded calls that require you to call a number to be removed from their call list. I refuse to return a call to be remove, mostly out of fear of not knowing whether I'll get a hidden charge for the phone call. The downside is that after 9 months of refusing to pick up the phone or reply, every day, 7 days a week, I still get the same stupid message. There are very many recorded calls that dial me, and there's no human on the other side to tell them to put you on the DNC list or whatever.
Thanks,
Leabre
I sense a logic fallacy here. I'm a very accomplished developer. I very much know how to design and implement properly for the long term, as well as the short term. While I don't *need* the IDE to *understand* the code, I have an exceptionally difficult time making sense of the *all* the code without the IDE. This of it this way, I can open up the files off the file system in Notepad, or I can open them up in VS.NET/Eclipse and have many features, such as syntax coloring which *helps* my brain to see varying code block, quite naturally, by their color, or I can click on a symbol or method and jump straight to its declaration. If people use the #region block, in the IDE, it collapses them so I can filter out code I don't want to look at.
In short, I've become quite dependant on the IDE, and can probably write better code than the vast majority of coders/developers/architects out there that complain about everyone elses code. But alas, I'm by no means perfect. The IDE just makes me more productive. I would venture to dissagree with your assertion that if the person needs the IDE to understand the code then they are not a programmer. Of course, I can do all that by Notepad and understand the code, so perhaps I'm proving your point, but alas, the IDE makes me 10x more likely to understand the code 10x quicker than using Notepad to open the files.
Thanks,
Leabre
I don't know whether you'll read this by now... but...
One thing I left out of my ramblings is, that, I don't have children at the moment. I will soon. Teaching them how to be financially responsible, I think, is critical to their ultimate success in life. I have coworkers that taught their children early about credit. They would pay their children a certain allowance and if the child wanted to overextend themselves, the parent would allow it to an extent, but would collection payments from future allowance plus interest. It wasn't egregious, as it was meant to reflect real life as much as possible. But the children hated it greatly. With time, they hated credit greatly. Now, those children themsevles have children, moderate incomes, and are completely fruegel. They know how to manage money and make it grow better than anyone I've ever heard that isn't financially trained (formally).
I think I'll train my children the same way, allow them to also put money away that I can contribute to, in order to teach them the value of making it grow (and patience).
I read a post from a Slashdotter that hit home, about a week or two ago. He said that his daughter wanted a bike and asked for it but he said "save up your money and then you can purchase it". So she did, she saved up for 6 weeks all her allowance money and finally came to daddy and said here, I saved up for 6 weeks and then dropped $15 on his lap. "Can we go get the bike now?". Well, the bike was $100 (or so). In the end, he paid the difference because it would be impracticle for her to keep saving. I think he was making the point about inflation and how, at some point, you just don't have enough money to barely survive, but the story itself has a merit in other contexts. I'd say the daughter learned the value of saving.
In much the same way, I have a cousine that loves horses. She saved her entire life savings (8 years worth) to come up with $6,000 to buy a horse. She was 15 last year when her parents agreed to pay the other $6,000. Now, she has her horse, knows how to groom it and everything (something she's been doing for the last 8 years of her life).
How you learn financial responsibility varies from person to person, but with children, it is important to both teach them a lesson, and not make them hate life at the same time, because in the end, the will learn "something" from it, just a matter of what they'll learn.
I didn't have the benefit of being taught anything. But I learned the hard way as an adult. Moreso now that ever, people need to start saving for their later years at an early age (at least by the time they turn 21). Real estate is truly the only way to go (unless you win the lottery or start a successful business). Land, is becoming scarce and expensive everywhere. Better get it now while there is still a chance. People will always pay for a place to live, even in a depressions. Just be the person being paid, not the one paying.
Thanks,
Leabre.
Just because we haven't been successful in reproducing the machine, doesn't mean it was a myth. It just means that it was poorly documented, or too heavily copyrighted with DRM for the original documentation to have been released into the public domain for us to dissiminate, or that we just don't know how to reproduce the exact circumstances that led to the event.
Thanks,
Leabre
Interesting question.
From employment alone... $155k (split evently between my income and my wife's income). However, beyond that, even though I get to claim the income/loss, I'm at break-even. It'll be approximately 1 year before I begin to see profit from the investments. I went into this (real-estate investing) about a year ago with very high asperations but it didn't take long to learn the harsh realities... it isn't a get rich quick scheme (and I wasn't looking for one). Its a LOT of hard work, and research, and playing the game or getting played (as I learned the hard way). I'm completely honest and because of that, it takes me longer to get where I want to go, but I always get there, and when I do, I'm not fragile. I've earned it. Time to grow and move on to the next.
Also, everyones advise is different. Mine usually contradicts popular belief, but works exceptionally well for me (I'm a problem solver, I think for myself). It's okay to invest into real-estate if you have consumer debt, just remember, your borrowing power is diminished and your interest rates will be higher. I waited 2 years before I could pay off my debts. Having spoke with a financial adviser, they ask you to pay off higher interest debts first. We came up with a plan. It would have taken me 5 years to pay off with that plan. Instead, I paid of the highest per month first, and then combined it with the difference to pay off the next highest per month, and repeated until I had no debt, took 2 years. Do with that advice as you will.
Next, I have no degree. I'm working towards a business degree. I'm paying for this myself out of my pocket, as well as my wife's masters degree (which her company reimburses if she gets A's and she does). I started as a VB6 programmer (professionally) in 1997. But I've been programming since 1989 otherwise. Did some database/front ends for some warehouse companies, real-estate, disbtribution and so on. My first 4 jobs, I changed every year, doubled my income. Then I got laid off a year and found my current job. Consulting during the unemployment. My income didn't double, but when I got married it did, I'm a geek. She manages geeks. We both very much want to have income whether or not we're working. So we started investing into realestate, we can't afford to purchase a house and live in it in Southern California.
As the old saying goes, a house is worthless until you sell it. True. At some point, you have to put more down on a house before it'll become profitable. Or you just become very patient, pay extra, be smart about rent increases, and at somepoint you've paid enough off on enough properties that you earn, say, $5,000/mo. income (10 years later I presume, on about 10 properties), accumulated about 1 property per year in diverse markets.
Plans are just guides, and you won't hardly ever achieve exactly what you planned for, sometimes less, sometimes more. I purchase for results, thus I purchase such properties The best advice is this: find an area you want to purchase, work with an agent that has "pocket" or "exclusive" listings. This means no one else knows about them. They are, in my experience, very high quality purchases and usually sold by sick or elderly people that very much loved their homes. This translates into tenants that will love it also. If you find a good tenant, don't raise rent if they renew. A good tenant is more valuable than 10 rent increases. A good tenant will take care of the house for you, thus saving money from repairs.
I don't believe a CS degree is necessary for the type of work I do. Its just C#/ASP.NET/SQL. I love it. Most people would call it boring, but this company is so dynmaic. We write everything from scratch (such as fax server, web based printqueues, and so on).
But I want to be an architect. I love designing and creating infrastructure and making hard tasks to be really easy tasks. I feel getting a degree in business is the better way to go. Besides that (as I write this from my work co
I'm a programmer that writes web applications. The boring stuff, as the slashdotters put it, but I rather enjoy it. I've been doing it for 7 years for various companies but I'm almost always fulltime. My income, as reported to the IRS last year and years before that, is a little less than $200k. But you wouldn't know that by the way I dress, car I drive, place I live, or things I do.
I dress with normal clothes that are about 2 years old. I bargain shop for shoes and such. rather than spending $40+/mo. at Blockbuster. I pay $24 for Netflix, instead of paying full price for a movie ticket ($10 these days) I use the Entertainment book and spend $5.50 instead. I pay to have my car washed only once or so every 3 months. I pay to have my hair cut about once every 3 months or so. My cars were purchased new but are paid in full and are not indicitive of my income in any way. I live in an apartment, don't own a house (wherein I live). Don't have any credit card debt. Strong savings and so on. Most people who don't know me well would have no idea how much money I make.
The key to building wealth is to not spend more than you have coming in. Save at least 30% if you can. I save 50%. If you must have something (read: really "want" it), then save for it and pay it in full. Avoid the credit cards. Those will kill ya in the long run, because youre money isn't working for you, but against you. Purchase books/electronics from Amazon/Ebay and for Amazon, use the SuperSaver shipping so you don't have to pay shipping. For cars, buying new is okay, but buying a slightly used car/truck is cheaper and you'll get basically the same thing out of it. But personally, I buy new, I just pay cash or more than 60% down. That means I have to save longer. But that's okay.
Study the realestate market in various places and determine where a good place to invest would be. I purchase houses and rent them out. But these are very nice houses. Every house I've purchased is the type that, in markets where it takes 8 to 12 weeks to find an occupant, mine take as much time as for the first person to walk through it. Usually with 0% down. But in some places, you have to put more down to break even. Just be smart about it. For realestate investments, try using as little of your own money as possible, and keep accumulating as you see fit, and keep building a savings. Don't just buy what you would live in yourself, buy what will rent -- its an investment, always keep that in mind.
I know people that make less money than I do and live more lavishly. But they are living month-to-month and at the first sign of trouble, their lives collapse. Mainly due to debt, rather than anything else. I learned the lesson. I was once laid off and my wife (girlfriend at the time) the next day at an unrelated company. Having to choose between impeccable credit and food is a hard one. I was trying to pay off as quickly as possible ($2,500/mo. for about 2 1/2 years). My savings went to zero the day we found our current jobs that we've been at for 3 years now. Had to cach in her lucrative 401k and various IRA's and stuff to stay afloat. That's not a good thing at all, so I've learned from that. I don't pay for TV or cable, instead I'll just rent the season DVD's when/if they come out. As I stated early, "impeccable credit": because I protected it during that situation, I get extremely competitive rates on real estate loans and it helps me in other areas.
While I don't "coupon shop", I am smart about it (in many the ways I stated above). In the end, it works out really well. I am, by nature, compulsive. But I have to fight it. Sometimes, it's okay. But its best to be less compulsive and more "smart shopper" if you want to accumulate wealth.
You best not judge a book by its cover. One of the highest paid people I've ever known drives a clunker and lives comfortably (comfort is relative: for me it means paying bills, never worrying about it, and accumulating a savings, and being able to invest wisely and afford a loss if need be (note: I don't gamble). For others, it means living lavishly). One of the most lowest paid person I know drives a very nice status mobile and stuggles with life and payments.
Just my two cents.
Thanks,
Leabre
What's even more interesting, is, when in traffic school a few months back, one guy was in there for speeding. He questioned whether the speed radar gun was accurate, because he was sure that he wasn't doing the speed the officer said he was (aren't we all?).
The office permitted him to aim the radar gun at people passing by and register a speed rating. This happend for about 10 cars or so. The officer wasn't looking at the speed reading, couldn't see them. But what the officer "thought" the speed of the vehicles were, and what the radar gun said the speed was, matched everytime within 5 MPH.
Appearantly, he's not he only one, there were others ticketed by the same officer and got the same experience using the speed guns. Not only that, but most officers are specially trained such that they don't need radar guns.
That being said, I don't know why they use radar guns to detect speed, but I wonder why questioning the radar gun would lead to get the case thrown out, espectially if the officer already knew you were speeding without the gun.
Thanks,
Leabre
There is nothing special in my relationship with MS. If anything, I'm wanting to get out of my "relationship" with MS in the next few years. I pay about $1,600 /yr. for MSDN Universal. I was quite happy to do so for 5 years. Sometimes I paid less, but never paid more. I'm only a developer, I have no production uses for the software apart from developing the software. But I've never activated Windows or Office, so it doesn't concern me what they do. Sometimes I'll use a VLM key and then just back an unintended install into a slipstream or other times I'll just install a trial and reformat by the time it expires. But I still despise their activate as much as the next, its just that I depend very heavily on MS technologies for my bread and butter so I'm more likely to accept it since it more than pays for itself (my wife also depends on MS technologies for her work and our combined income is well over $150k /yr.).
But I don't depend on any other product for my income so they are expendable. I take activate seriously enough to avoid it. I will not be caught purchasing software that I'll have to get permission to reinstall everytime I change something in my computer or that I'll have to purchase again for any reason, whatsoever. If it is important enough to me, I'll purchase a license and then I'll find a way around the activation in order to use it. In my mind, I'm justified, regardless whether all these new laws they're purchasing every month say otherwise. Most of the time, I'll just avoid the software alltogether, mostly on principle, rather than economics.
Thanks,
Leabre
Actually, every object you define is not a proper COM object in the .NET world. By default, if you use the VS.NET IDE, then it will create a GUID to be used with COM Interop if you choose, but by default, it is not a COM interop object. Even so, the minute you add constructor parameters and method overloads, you are definind an object that cannot be registered for COM interop.
.NET application, the ref counting doesn't happen automatically. Instead, you actually have to call System.Runtime.Interop.Marshal.ReleaseCOMObject otherwise the ref counter will not be properly decremented. .NET may be a replacement for COM in many ways, but it is not compatible.
Even when you do mark the project (in VS.NET) to register for COM Interop, and register the type library, if you consume it from another
Thanks,
Leabre