The way I see it, Anakin balanced the force by moving from an great number of jedi vs two sith to two of each (Vader/Sidious vs Yoda/Kenobi).
Not quite what the jedi wanted, but they didn't realise the prophecy was a warning not a promise!
Re:Testing - The Anti Quality Process
on
QA != Testing
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· Score: 1
People do test software like that - web applications and computer games being two examples that spring to mind. If you _only_ test them like that then you're doomed, but conversely if you don't test a product the way the user experiences them then you're equally in trouble.
Re:Testing - The Anti Quality Process
on
QA != Testing
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· Score: 1
You've missed the important bit about the model - you're not looking at all of the beans (or routes through a process to remove the analogy) at once, you're looking at a sample. And each time you pick a sample you see some beans you've seen before. Hence to pick enough samples that you've seen all the beans you needs to pick a vast number of samples.
Similarly each time you go through a process in a bit of software you're mostly going through the same code over and over again until you get to a new branch you've not seen yet. You can't (by testing the software as a whole) just look at the individual parts.
In this case the specification does help for the next part of the conversation, where the contractor points out this is a change request and hence requires more cash/time/whatever. Admittedly in most circumstances the contractor will just buckle under any sort of pressure from the customer, but without a specification you've not even got a starting point as to why the customer's shouldn't expect you to do this for free.
The guy who marries the Queen doesn't become the king, even though a woman who marries a king becomes the queen (usually). Similarly Queen Victoria's husband was Prince Albert, not king anything. Something to do with queens being seen as inferior to kings (at least, 100 odd years ago), so if they were king and queen people would get confused as to who's in charge. See http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a970214a.html for some more terminology...:)
As an aside, the king's wife isn't always queen - e.g. when Charles marries Camilla and later (presumably) becomes King, she won't be queen. I think that's because she's a divorcee - we don't have a problem with kings getting divorceed (ref Henry VIII)...
Heinlein did the same thing in Starship Troopers as Ursula Le Guin did in Earthsea - introduce the character first, and then mention that they might not be white. Right at the end (blink and you might miss it) he reveals that Rico's native language is Tagalog.
No comment on whether the film version was faithful to that book...!
Ignoring the trolly bits of the parents (no, we don't have a Bill of Rights, so enumerating the differences would be tricky) gambling is quite accepted here in the UK, be it on sports (football, horse racing, boxing, etc) and more casino type games.
As for is it profitable, Hilton Group (the hotel people, also own Ladbrokes bookies and Vernons pools) reported worldwide betting profits up 31.5% to 149.3 million in 2002. I'm sure the government is quite happy with the tax they get on that.
Games Workshop is disturbed by the infringement of copyrights on their intellectual property so rampant on the internet. Therefore to protect their IP GW will be closing the internet to all uses of their intellectual property except for a handful of permitted images.
However, GW's (current?) IP policy is very encouraging in tone, quote: "the higher profile the hobby gets the better it is for all of us". The full policy is here - http://www.gamesworkshop.com/Legal/ippolicy.htm
Is this a case of left hand - right hand, or will that policy change dramatically in the near future?
Paul
Re:RADAR was invented by the brits!
on
Tuxedo Park
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Erm?
British scientists had made semi-working radar systems
British scientists had made a totally working radar system. What they didn't have was one you could fit into a plane (for night fighting/maritime stuff/etc).
Isn't the distinction that tax cameras take pictures of the front (where they can see both the tax disk, and the license plate), whereas speed cameras take pictures of the rear (presumably because of the way that the speed measurement works)? So the chances are that the camera you wheelied past didn't care how fast you were going (but was no doubt impressed anyway:)
In special recently (televised here at Christmas) Matilda was completely demolished by Razer (iirc) - major cosmetic damage, followed by an internal fire.
So either they didn't know about that rule, or they didn't care...:)
I assume you consider yourself to be a good driver (in the same way everyone thinks they have dress sense and a good sense of humour...)? Even if that is the case, it's a fair bet that there's a driver near you who's not, and it's no bad thing to see them limited, especially in built up areas.
On the other hand, drivers here routinely speed on motorways - safely for the most part - and I'd rather have speed limits there enforced by a human being than a machine. They're on the spot, and can see the condition of the car, the road conditions, visibility, the behaviour of surrounding traffic, etc, and hopefully come to an educated decision whether it's "safe to speed", or to pull you over.
That's what a spokesman said in a Radio 4 interview this morning - in the same way that phone companies keep a record of the fact that a call has been made, rather than recording the call.
Although, to take a cynical viewpoint, that's what they _would_ say...
Paul
Re:Banks is Wonderful but Awful
on
Look to Windward
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· Score: 1
I agree totally - after putting his characters through so much grief he should compensate them a little...:)
I went to see him speak at a launch for Use of Weapons a month or so back, and asked him why his characters have such a bad time (in person he's a cheerful chap, which you wouldn't expect from reading his work). He said that it wouldn't be right (for the story) for them all to live happily every after - you have to see his point, but still...
IIRC German was actually a fair way from becoming the official language of the US (although it was discussed). I don't remember the details - I read about it in one of Bill Brysons books - does anyone have any better info?
I think this is incorrect on CNN's part (more's the pity).
The reason it was broken so (relatively) easily was that the encryption algorithm was basically flawed, and hence one (unencrypted) key lead to the discovery of others (ask someone else for details, I know nothing about the subject...)
And the Japanese (IIRC) are allowed really strong encryption as a right. Maybe they're allowed them, but can't export them, or maybe CNN, as a US news service, was feeling patriotic?
Either way, it wasn't down to US encrytion export laws, which is a pity, as having big guns like Sony, etc, lobbying strongly for stronger encryption exports would quickly change the US export laws. Or am I just being cynical?
Paul
It's more likely to be competing with this...
on
Warcraft 3 Announced
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· Score: 1
Sierra's Orcs Revenge of the Ancient has a similar theme - training small groups of fighters to use against your opponents.
I am an Irish citizen. I dont think this a 'neccesary' evil. I think it frightening.
OK, not necessary, but better-than-the-alternative. And yeah, it's frightening too. What's really frightening is the things that people on both sides will do to other human beings in the name of a cause.
Hmmmm.....
OK - my numbers are slightly way off. But my point is that a majority (although a less significant majority than I thought) are in favour of union with GB.
1/ The reduction in civil liberty related to the intelligence campaign against republican and/or unionist terrorism extends far beyond this. And in general the public have accepted it as a necessary evil.
2/ Braveheart was about William Wallace, who was a Scot, fighting for Scottish autonomy. Nothing to do with Ireland.
3/ The vast (like 80 or 90%) majority of the population of Nothern Ireland (aka Ulster) don't want to leave the Union (of Great Britain and Nothern Ireland, not of England and Northern Ireland). It's nothing to do with 'England letting Ireland go'.
Feel free to comment on paranoia, civil liberty, etc. Stay way from commenting on other stuff which you clearly know nothing about.
Apologies in general for the tone of this comment, but this sort of wildly inaccurate rubbish really gets my back up...:(
I've seen this girl somewhere before (no, really...):)
It was a website somewhere, got the URL from the Hash AM mailing list. The personal site of (presumably) one of the guys who's been working on this. I'll see if I can dig out the URL when I get home...
I'm no lawyer but IIRC most software licenses have a clause about the governing law in event of any dispute (usually the law of the country the software company is based in).
So I imagine that, if this law is passed in the US, its terms would be included in the licenses of an software from a US company.
Slashdot Mirror
The factions are already balanced - see this cartoon... :)
You might have to click past the annoying ad.
http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/628/628693p1.html
The way I see it, Anakin balanced the force by moving from an great number of jedi vs two sith to two of each (Vader/Sidious vs Yoda/Kenobi).
Not quite what the jedi wanted, but they didn't realise the prophecy was a warning not a promise!
People do test software like that - web applications and computer games being two examples that spring to mind. If you _only_ test them like that then you're doomed, but conversely if you don't test a product the way the user experiences them then you're equally in trouble.
You've missed the important bit about the model - you're not looking at all of the beans (or routes through a process to remove the analogy) at once, you're looking at a sample. And each time you pick a sample you see some beans you've seen before. Hence to pick enough samples that you've seen all the beans you needs to pick a vast number of samples.
Similarly each time you go through a process in a bit of software you're mostly going through the same code over and over again until you get to a new branch you've not seen yet. You can't (by testing the software as a whole) just look at the individual parts.
In this case the specification does help for the next part of the conversation, where the contractor points out this is a change request and hence requires more cash/time/whatever. Admittedly in most circumstances the contractor will just buckle under any sort of pressure from the customer, but without a specification you've not even got a starting point as to why the customer's shouldn't expect you to do this for free.
The guy who marries the Queen doesn't become the king, even though a woman who marries a king becomes the queen (usually). Similarly Queen Victoria's husband was Prince Albert, not king anything. Something to do with queens being seen as inferior to kings (at least, 100 odd years ago), so if they were king and queen people would get confused as to who's in charge. See http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a970214a.html for some more terminology... :)
As an aside, the king's wife isn't always queen - e.g. when Charles marries Camilla and later (presumably) becomes King, she won't be queen. I think that's because she's a divorcee - we don't have a problem with kings getting divorceed (ref Henry VIII)...
Heinlein did the same thing in Starship Troopers as Ursula Le Guin did in Earthsea - introduce the character first, and then mention that they might not be white. Right at the end (blink and you might miss it) he reveals that Rico's native language is Tagalog.
No comment on whether the film version was faithful to that book...!
Ignoring the trolly bits of the parents (no, we don't have a Bill of Rights, so enumerating the differences would be tricky) gambling is quite accepted here in the UK, be it on sports (football, horse racing, boxing, etc) and more casino type games.
As for is it profitable, Hilton Group (the hotel people, also own Ladbrokes bookies and Vernons pools) reported worldwide betting profits up 31.5% to 149.3 million in 2002. I'm sure the government is quite happy with the tax they get on that.
From the Usenet post -
Games Workshop is disturbed by the infringement of copyrights on their intellectual property so rampant on the internet. Therefore to protect their IP GW will be closing the internet to all uses of their intellectual property except for a handful of permitted images.
However, GW's (current?) IP policy is very encouraging in tone, quote: "the higher profile the hobby gets the better it is for all of us". The full policy is here - http://www.gamesworkshop.com/Legal/ippolicy.htm
Is this a case of left hand - right hand, or will that policy change dramatically in the near future?
Paul
Erm?
British scientists had made semi-working radar systems
British scientists had made a totally working radar system. What they didn't have was one you could fit into a plane (for night fighting/maritime stuff/etc).
Isn't the distinction that tax cameras take pictures of the front (where they can see both the tax disk, and the license plate), whereas speed cameras take pictures of the rear (presumably because of the way that the speed measurement works)? So the chances are that the camera you wheelied past didn't care how fast you were going (but was no doubt impressed anyway :)
In special recently (televised here at Christmas) Matilda was completely demolished by Razer (iirc) - major cosmetic damage, followed by an internal fire.
:)
So either they didn't know about that rule, or they didn't care...
It's fun to speed when it's safe to do so?
I assume you consider yourself to be a good driver (in the same way everyone thinks they have dress sense and a good sense of humour...)? Even if that is the case, it's a fair bet that there's a driver near you who's not, and it's no bad thing to see them limited, especially in built up areas.
On the other hand, drivers here routinely speed on motorways - safely for the most part - and I'd rather have speed limits there enforced by a human being than a machine. They're on the spot, and can see the condition of the car, the road conditions, visibility, the behaviour of surrounding traffic, etc, and hopefully come to an educated decision whether it's "safe to speed", or to pull you over.
Paul
That's what a spokesman said in a Radio 4 interview this morning - in the same way that phone companies keep a record of the fact that a call has been made, rather than recording the call.
Although, to take a cynical viewpoint, that's what they _would_ say...
Paul
I agree totally - after putting his characters through so much grief he should compensate them a little... :)
I went to see him speak at a launch for Use of Weapons a month or so back, and asked him why his characters have such a bad time (in person he's a cheerful chap, which you wouldn't expect from reading his work). He said that it wouldn't be right (for the story) for them all to live happily every after - you have to see his point, but still...
That seems slightly negative. Since the rule was 'hit the target' grapeshot seems the obvious approach.
Paul
IIRC German was actually a fair way from becoming the official language of the US (although it was discussed). I don't remember the details - I read about it in one of Bill Brysons books - does anyone have any better info?
Paul
I think this is incorrect on CNN's part (more's the pity).
The reason it was broken so (relatively) easily was that the encryption algorithm was basically flawed, and hence one (unencrypted) key lead to the discovery of others (ask someone else for details, I know nothing about the subject...)
And the Japanese (IIRC) are allowed really strong encryption as a right. Maybe they're allowed them, but can't export them, or maybe CNN, as a US news service, was feeling patriotic?
Either way, it wasn't down to US encrytion export laws, which is a pity, as having big guns like Sony, etc, lobbying strongly for stronger encryption exports would quickly change the US export laws. Or am I just being cynical?
Paul
Sierra's Orcs Revenge of the Ancient has a similar theme - training small groups of fighters to use against your opponents.
I am an Irish citizen. I dont think this a 'neccesary' evil. I think it frightening.
OK, not necessary, but better-than-the-alternative. And yeah, it's frightening too. What's really frightening is the things that people on both sides will do to other human beings in the name of a cause.
Hmmmm.....
OK - my numbers are slightly way off. But my point is that a majority (although a less significant majority than I thought) are in favour of union with GB.
There was, but he was just fighting for the fun of it. Well something like that, but the point was that Braveheart was about the Scots.
:)
If I remember correctly, the Irish Protestants are actually originally from Scotland (or vice versa), but that is all far to complicated...
1/ The reduction in civil liberty related to the intelligence campaign against republican and/or unionist terrorism extends far beyond this. And in general the public have accepted it as a necessary evil.
:(
2/ Braveheart was about William Wallace, who was a Scot, fighting for Scottish autonomy. Nothing to do with Ireland.
3/ The vast (like 80 or 90%) majority of the population of Nothern Ireland (aka Ulster) don't want to leave the Union (of Great Britain and Nothern Ireland, not of England and Northern Ireland). It's nothing to do with 'England letting Ireland go'.
Feel free to comment on paranoia, civil liberty, etc. Stay way from commenting on other stuff which you clearly know nothing about.
Apologies in general for the tone of this comment, but this sort of wildly inaccurate rubbish really gets my back up...
Paul
Steven Stahlberg's 3D Gallery:
http://www.optidigit.com/stevens/
I've seen this girl somewhere before (no, really...) :)
It was a website somewhere, got the URL from the Hash AM mailing list. The personal site of (presumably) one of the guys who's been working on this. I'll see if I can dig out the URL when I get home...
Otherwise, can anyone here fill in the blanks?
Paul
I'm no lawyer but IIRC most software licenses have a clause about the governing law in event of any dispute (usually the law of the country the software company is based in).
So I imagine that, if this law is passed in the US, its terms would be included in the licenses of an software from a US company.
Or I could be totally wrong...
Paul