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User: Taliesan999

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  1. Re:PHP is great stuff on PHP Succeeding Where Java Has Failed · · Score: 1

    I love the way you seem to think that strong typing is a DISADVANTAGE.

    In an application which has any kind of thought put into it, strong typing ensures consistancy of the data and ensures that when the application reaches the maintenance phase people don't have to wonder just what data might be in that variable or what format it might be in.

  2. Re:convenient on ABC Affiliates Grapple With TV-Show Downloads · · Score: 1

    I heartily agree.

    I currently download about 8 shows via bitorrent that I would happily pay for ($2 AUD would seem fair). The problem for me is I don't have a hope in hell of catching shows like Battlestar Galactica or even Stargate on TV. The Australian networks shuffle things around so much that I've quit even bothering trying to catch things anymore. Even mainstream shows like CSI or NCIS are regularly shuffled around. Add to that their habit of showing repeats during school holidays or whenever they deem it to be a non ratings period (in the middle of showing a current season) and you have no idea how difficult it is to catch even 50% of the shows.

    Australia doesn't have TIVO and building your own MythTV box requires you to find a decent feed for TV schedules.

    I'd much rather pay the price and download what I want to watch and watch it when I want to watch it. Preferably from some media box that will let me keep and play the files whenever I want and back them up. That's all I ask.

  3. What About The Personell? on Body Scanners for the London Underground · · Score: 1

    Fine, you get the scanners, but they're pretty useless unless someone's watching them.

    That means one employee per scanner and alot of scanners would need to be open at peak hour. The personell requirements for this are phenomenal, not to mention you need to rotate these folks regularly.

    AFAIK the tube system already operates at a loss.

    No matter what you do the terrorists will find a way to cause death and destruction. Take away the tube (and make it unusable for the commuter) and they'll move to buses (which they've already proved they can do), take those away and they'll fill cars with explosives etc. etc.

  4. Re:Great idea. on Microsoft to Offer Patches to U.S. Govt. First · · Score: 1

    So either you're getting patches which are not production quality, or you're getting patches that SHOULD be available to everyone, when they've reached production quality. Microsoft is merely delyaing the release to everyone else.

    There's no magic time machine. Microsoft isn't jumping into the future to bring back patches that wouldn't have already available.

    This speaks both of desperation to try and placate a large client who must be looking at other solutions (presumably Linux in one form or another) and contempt for other customers since they're willing to sit on patches for a month to make the US DoD feel special.

    I'd be mighty unhappy if I were one of Microsoft's large corporate customers (actually screw it, all I have is Windows on my desktop and I'm unhappy). Somehow US DoD servers/clients are more "critical" than bank desktops/servers, insurance company desktops/servers, hospital desktops/servers... you name it.

  5. Turning This On It's Head on Public Park Designated Copyrighted Space · · Score: 1

    Interesting. Does this mean if I wear a T-Shirt of my own design to a public demonstration, I can charge the police for taking photos of me?

  6. Re:What happens when the RFID chip dies? on Following the Chips in Wynn's New Casino · · Score: 1

    I realise the ratio is the same from 1 to n decks, but the number of smaller cards means there is more chance of a clump of small cards (which is good for the dealer). It doesn't make a great deal of difference the difference in the house edge is small (something like .3%) from 1 to 6 decks (see the rec.blackjack FAQ for some figures), but it does make a difference. It does also make it harder to count cards because the variations in makeup of the deck through play even out more, the more decks you add.

    For the continuous shufflers (the ones in which the cards are shuffled back into the shoe while the shoe is being played), there is definately an advantage of faster play, but the main reason the casinos use them I assume is it makes it impossible to count cards, because the deck penetration is never more than something like 1/10th of the deck, which is highly unlikely to leave the count in favour of the player by even a small margin (here's an interesting article on one of the machines).

  7. Re:What happens when the RFID chip dies? on Following the Chips in Wynn's New Casino · · Score: 1

    Actually the house edge depends on the number of decks of cards, not them being shuffled more often. Larger numbers of decks increases the number of smaller cards (as well as larger ones), meaning that combinations like 2 3 2 3 4 2 5 to make 21 are more likely. This is advantageous to dealer, since the dealer has to hit on a soft 17 or below.

    Shuffling more often reduces the card counters advantage, because it reduces the penetration (number of cards dealt before the shoe is reshuffled) into the shoe (i.e. the amount of information the card counter has to determine the likely mix of cards to be dealt next).

    BTW, penetration is the reason on low value tables in some casinos (Crown and Star City here in Australia), "continuous reshufflers" have been introduced. These let the dealer put cards that have been used from the shoe back to be reshuffled in every 3 hands or so, meaning there is not enough penetration for any card counting strategy to be effective.

  8. Awesome... Interesting Links in Results Though on Google Launches Mapping Service · · Score: 1

    Awesome interface, very intuitive, nice graphical touches too. Google has a real winner here. No Australia/Sydney yet, but it is only a Beta. Can't wait.

    One interesting thing though, I typed in "Pet Stores Springfield" just for fun (ok I was bored), as expected I got a list of pet related matches in Springfield, IL. The first on the list is a company called Petsmart. Clicked on the "24 more" in the balloon and got a layout of the address plus a closeup of the map and other search results. The interesting thing is clicking "driving directions@ on the address takes you to MapQuest. Could be because the link comes from something called "superpages.com" and Google is just displaying the link. It kind of blends in with their own mapping related links though.

  9. The Possibilities are Endless on Bluesnarfing At CeBIT 2004 · · Score: 1

    Somebody mentioned using this in somewhere where a number of phones are gathered, like a cafe or railway station to send SMS spam.

    Even better idea. If you can get a connection to a couple of phones in the area, make the guy at table A's phone SMS the guy at table B's phone. Wait for the guy at table B to call A depending on the message, the results could be hilarious.

  10. Re:Article Text/Psuedo-Mirror on Radar For Safer Driving · · Score: 1


    The other thing is a little bit of defensive driving. Be aware where other people's blind spots are and try and make sure you don't dissapear into them for any length of time, giving them the opportunity to forget you are there. Difficult in heavy traffic I know, but in alot of situations you can avoid the idiot who sees a gap open up and doesn't do an over the shoulder check.


  11. Re:Validation and the GUI on XForms Essentials · · Score: 1

    For usability you should avoid popping up a message saying to the user that they got the date wrong. Javascript date popups are so much friendlier for the average user (either attached to a read only text field or a read write one to allow advanced users to tab through fields and enter manually).

    You should try and make it difficult for the user to enter invalid data in the first place, as well as popping up messages to indicate the wrong data has been entered.

    From a quick glance, XForms seems an excellent way to specify data validation on both the client and the server side. The same XML that is used to validate/generate validation for data on the client side can be used to do the initial validation on the server side.

  12. Re:The only Real Remedy... on SGI Code Changes Not Enough, Says SCO · · Score: 1

    SCO's (executives) motives are simple greed, everything else is collatoral damage. If they actually had some kind of crusade against Open
    Source or ANY motive other than just plain making money without any concern for anyone/anything else, that would actually be an improvement to the situation and make these people just a little less loathsome.

  13. Re:Telstra on Telstra To Put Linux On Desktop · · Score: 1

    Firstly charging $20/month for line a rural line rental is nothing. The costs of maintaining that line mean Telstra likely doesnt make a cent. Rentals are a flat rate across the whole of Australia, regardless of how much geography alters the cost of service delivery.

    Secondly Telstra itself had relatively little to do with the T2 failure. Chalk that up to an over inflated market and a government far too eager to sell off what it can while it can. If you bought T2 expecting to make as much money as folks did with T1, well, I have this little thing called the harbour bridge I'd like to sell you :).

    As for them adopting Linux, yeah for them. They're cutting IT costs and Linux means a saving for them, probably both on support and price of the software, something Open Source folks have been saying for a while. It will be a good example to point to for business OSS use.

  14. Missing The Point on Nikon D2H: Digital Camera + 802.11b Option · · Score: 1

    I think alot of posts are missing the point. The WiFi solution is largely going to be useful in the studio for alot of photographers. Bluetooth might be a better choice for amateur cameras (less setup hassles).

    Uploading the image over a WiFi link is likely to be much cheaper and more convenient than storing the image on the camera itself and then downloading. This also eliminates the cables that doing the same thing with Firewire or USB 2 would entail.

    It does open up a bunch of possibilities for sporting events and conferences though.

  15. Re:In the Land of Redmond, where the Shadows lie. on Weta Prepares to Render LOTR: ROTK · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yes, but it will drive you insane.

  16. Don't Forget The Possible Boost In The Stock Price on Microsoft To License SCO's Unix Code · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Don't forget the possible boost for SCO's stock price.

    Would be interesting to see who offloads the stock if the price rises as a result of this.

  17. Re:Seriously ... on Java Enterprise In A Nutshell · · Score: 1

    My thoughts exactly, API documentation lookups are much quicker done with the aid of a good IDE like IntelliJ IDEA. Just type in the class name press Shift+F1 and you have the documentation. Same for function references.

    Books like this should stick to a giving a good idea of what's in each package and how to use them and skip the API reference, it's just dead weight.

  18. Re:Why Bother ? on Falling to Earth's Core in a Big Blob of Iron · · Score: 1

    For some reason I misread "layers lower" in the above as "lower laywers" then thought not a bad idea...

    Lower lawyers down to probe the Earth's core. Hell, once they hit the molten stuff they'll last all of 5 seconds, but we can keep trying. Eventually we'll run out of lawyers or succeed, either outcome works.

  19. Re:Aeron Chairs, post dot-com era on The Ultimate Computer Chair? · · Score: 1

    The aeron is still the most comfortable workstation chair I think I've ever sat in.

    Got to try one out for 3 days while testing and performance tuning at SGI in the UK.

    Could never quite justify the cost for my home office though. Probably a good thing considering the seeming association with Aeron chairs and company layoffs ;)

  20. Re:SCO on SCO Drops Linux, Says Current Vendors May Be Liable · · Score: 1

    Which in this case presumably applies to IBM and possibly SCO themselves, since the code was allegedly released by IBM, not RedHat.

    Isn't this the precise sort of thing that that clause of the GPL is designed to prevent. i.e. companies/individuals introducing encumbered code into a product and then requiring licencing fees or monetary compensation.

    So in this case the violation of clause 7 would be by IBM at worst (for incorporating encumbered code) or by SCO itself, since it knowingly distributed the encumbered code in it's own version of Linux.

  21. Added to the Police Breathalyser on Sniffing Out Cancer · · Score: 1

    Added to the police breathalyser tests, I can just see it now...

    "Thank you Sir, you're under the legal limit, but might I suggest you go see your doctor!"

    Or better still the cop could issue YOU with a defect notice instead of your car.

    Windows encountered a "problem" while running SigGenerator...

  22. Network While You're Networking ;) on Intel's 'Personal Server': The Handheld Killer? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Makes for a whole bunch of interesting possibilites...

    How long before someone develops a piece of software that lets you swap files with other such devices in the area automatically, maybe even search for specific files on other's shares?

    Turn up to a lecture and just by being there you get a copy of the audio and notes streamed to your personal server.

    Add an access mechanism to a television/home entertainment system. Boom, instant portable TIVO!

  23. Re:Another Microsoft Moment on Microsoft To Demo 'Palladium' At WinHEC · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually there is, while ycan use an ODBC driver with C# at a programmatic level, the IDE happily tells you that only Access and SQL Server are supported when you attempt to use the IDE's tools to access the datasource, link it with controls etc. This is Visual Studio .Net Standard btw.

  24. Another Microsoft Moment on Microsoft To Demo 'Palladium' At WinHEC · · Score: 5, Funny

    After having bought MS Visual Studio C# .Net, not realising that the "Standard" version doesn't play with non MS databases, I can't wait for the day when my OS/Computer refuses to let me use MySQL via ODBC because the drivers aren't signed/Palladium compatiable. I'll be so happy to be secure and safe from subversive and dangerous open source technolgies.

  25. Economic Stimulus, not War on CDMA vs. GSM in Post-war Iraq · · Score: 1

    Blow them to kingdom come then provide aid in the form of contracts to US companies to rebuild their country at the cost of their oil.

    One hell of an economic stimulus package.