Relatable's technology identifies music based on the recordings themselves and analyzes the acoustical properties of a recording's waveform to identify it precisely, regardless of its audio format, bit rate or minor signal distortion, the companies said.
How doable is this really? What if I'm a member of a metallica cover band who strives to sound like the real thing? Can this fingerprinting software tell the difference? I doubt it. This filter should be no more effective than speech recognition software. And to be legally safe, they'll have to block the greatest common denominator. Better to unintentionally block some legal-to-trade stuff than to unintentionally not block copyrighted stuff, right?
And here's an idea... what if someone writes software to encrypt an mp3? with a winamp plugin or hacked napster client of some kind to decrypt? Will they block files they can't get a signature on? How can they tell the difference between a song with a "wrong" looking signature and, say, an mp3 with sound effects?
While I agree that music piracy is wrong, there's a lot of grey. I use napster to replace 80s music I listened to in high school. Those tapes I had are long gone. But I did once pay for that music. So is it illegal? The recording industry would probably argue that it is. But I'm not so sure that's The Right Thing, even if it is illegal.
I think the recording industry is fighting a losing battle. The legal game playing can only go on for so long. And sooner or later, they'll kill napster outright. But that's wont be the end of the war. Right or wrong, the recording industry will lose this war. Maybe they should embrace the new technology so that they can steer it in a direction that's more compatible with their business models.
Re:I think this is "piss on email" day.
on
Buried in email?
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· Score: 2
Hah! You're telling me! I write code all day. My job would be impossible without computers!
What was the father doing while Sean was being bullied? Did he go to the school then? Did he report the bullying? Did he demand that the bullies (if they actually touched Sean) be charged with assault? Whatever you may think of Texas criminal justice, there are still laws against assault, you know.
It's not always that easy. The bullying is far more insideous than that. (I'm speaking as a person who had a high school experience very similar to Sean's) My parents did call. Over and over again. Usually, they got nowhere. "Oh, we'll look into it." But nothing was ever done. One time, my mother was told, "we'll we can't send a body guard with your son everywhere he goes." Her response was a suggestion to require teachers to monitor the hallways at all times. But nothing was done.
And often, the problem isn't direct violence. What do you do when you're leaving school and a bully takes youe bicycle? Get him charged with theft? What if he returns it and vanishes after only 45 minutes? What if he takes it, but doesn't leave, just prevents you from leaving?
And what about spreading rumors? They accused him of being gay. How do you think that affects him being required to change for P.E. in the locker room?
Or what if the bully robs you. Do you really think the police are going to want to charge a kid with the theft of $4.75? True it's not much, but maybe it kept you from eating that day.
Here are the problems:
School administrators are powerless to fix this problem. So it doesn't really matter if the parents care or not from that perspective. All they can do is help the student cope.
It doesn't matter if the bully's parents care or not since, by this age, the damage is already done. And the parents are often powerless to control their children.
What needs to happen is for schools to have a zero tolerance program for bullying, as much as I hate the term zero tolerance. Had the bullies been thrown out of school on the first offense, this never would have been a problem.
Sean's comment was foolish, his father says, especially in the post-Columbine environment where candid speech about schools is dangerous. And he isn't averse to some milder form of punishment.
Was it? Exactly what kind of recourse did he have? Perhaps the threat of physical violence is the only thing fools like that understand. In hind-sight, it was obviously a bad idea. But I'm not sure that any of us (including the school administrators) at 16-17 would have responded any differently.
"I just don't know what to do," says Patrick, who can't afford a lawyer, and who wants to protect his kid. Sheeley is aware that this kind of record could have implications for Sean down the line.
I doubt it. The records of minors are sealed. It may affect which universities he can get into, but even that's not such a big deal. And I bet there are many teachers at that school who would be willing to write letters of recommendation for him.
"...I would appreciate any suggestions as to what recourse we may have, or where we might find some help."... Patrick Sheeley has some decisions to make and could use some help. Should he try to get Sean back into school or walk away? Should he take legal action to force due process?
Here's my suggestion. Because of an administrative screw-up when I went from the 8th to the 9th grade, I ended up being a year behind most people in math. But math was clearly my strength. So to fix the problem, a math teacher in my high school suggested that I take a trigonomitry class at a local community college at night. If I did, he agreed to skip me a year to the correct math class. This was in the 11th grade. It worked perfectly.
Looking back, I should have done things very differently in high school. My senior year was largely a waste of time. If I could do it again, I would get a GED and enter college early. Many colleges and universities don't even require a high school diploma. If I were the parent here, I would leave the school behind. Don't bother with the legal battle. It's not worth the time, money, and frustration. I think home schooling is the right idea. Then he can learn at his own pace. I'm willing to bet that he can get through all of this years work and the senior year's work by the fall semester at the local college/university. And I think graduating a year early mixed with some good SAT/ACT scores would go a long way toward impressing some universities.
On the other hand, that may not be a real necessity either. I'm 30 and make more than most vice presidents as an IT consultant. And I have a computer science degree from a generic state university.
Good stuff, i guess, especially if you can turn off the "that's not how it works" part of your brain.
I'm still saving my pennies for a powerbook. Because when the aliens arrive on July 4th, I want to be able to hack their network up in orbit. Why do you suppose the aliens are using appletalk?
It looks like the network in the new park is more advanced than the technology in the Future World part of EPCOT.
BTW: I used to work for disney. I once went to the underground cafeteria in the magic kingdom in orlando and saw the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life: Snow White sitting on her boyfriend's lap smoking a cigarette.
Customer always available: Actually, that's often possible. And once you've delivered one project like that, it's much much easier to get business buy-in to doing it again.
Sometimes they're there, sometimes they're not. And in many cases, their presence doesn't help anyway.
Unit test first : It's possible more often than not.
I'm not saying unit testing is bad. It's vital. I'm saying that it's not always possible to write the test plan/code before the code is written. After all, we don't know exactly how all that elegant pair programmed code is going to flow, right?
Collective code ownership
Once again, real programmers test their code as they write it, then unit test, then assembly test. If someone makes a change in the code, that change should be tested and the unit tests run again. This is different from everyone owning the code. I'm not sure that that's really a good or a bad thing. But I do know that everyone who uses source code control already does this.
Pair programming: Maybe your ego prevents you working with someone. Most intelligent people seem to manage fine.
The issue is not that I'm unwilling to work with other people. It's that I'm unwilling to discuss every single line of code with a less experienced programmer sitting next to me while I'm writing it. Or put up with the excruciating experience of watching someone else type. I type faster that I write and think faster than I talk. Slowing down for another programmer would interrupt the free flow of thoughts and ideas. It's disruptive and annoying. I'd rather delegate a piece of the project to that junior programmer and examine it when they're done.
Please, don't go dissing techniques you haven't yet tried.
Actually, they're considering using this where I'm working now. So I've done some research into this.
I've been trying them, and there are flaws, and I'm publicising them within my company. But there are also major benefits, and I'm sharing those.
You're right, there are flaws and benefits. And as far as I can tell, the flaws are many, and the benefits are things that many people have been doing in IT for many years.
I congratulate you on your good testing. I sounds like it serves you well. I also suspect that the entire testing system you have could have been created without paying a lick of attention to XP.
No. In this case the two bad programmers will see most of the mistakes the other one makes (it's very improbable that their weaknesses are identical), so the code will be improved and they will learn.
I suppose that depends on what we mean by bad programmers. Sometimes, it's a skill issue, in which case, you're right. But more often than not, it's that american work ethic. In those cases, I think they're more likely to collaborate on which site to surf to next.
Even a good programmer makes the occasional mistakes just because he does so many routine jobs. A not so experienced programmer will slow him down and discuss the complicated issues with him. The poor programmer will not make the code worse!
A good programmer's mistakes are caught by the compiler, by sanity checks, asserting values, checking return codes, and unit testing. Even then, some bugs will slip through. But putting a good programmer and a not-so-good programmer, I think, is not likely to improve this situation since, in the majority of cases, the poor programmer may not be together enough to catch the mistakes of the good programmer. But this isn't really about programming errors. This is more about good design. And any good programmer should be able to produce a good design all by himself.
Two good programmers could inspire themselves and develop genius and elegant ideas that one of them would never come up with.
Which can be done at the design stage, right? Large projects are usually designed in groups before-hand. After that, it's only the small pieces, the details, that need to be designed. Those pieces should be trivial for a good (not even great) programmer. If they're not, they were discussed in the design meeting, right?
OK, if you think of programming performance in some sort of a lines-per-minute output pair programming will spoil your results. But if you consider the quality and number of errors in the code (and believe me, coding errors can be very hard to find) pair programming will drastically reduce the number of errors.
This is simply not reality. Writing code is like building military aircraft. 50% of the cost goes to the last 5% of the performance. Do you really want to cut your productivity in half to get that extra 5% before unit testing? When unit testing is likely to flush out most of the remaining 5% anyway? It looks to me like you're cutting productivity in half (effectivly doubling the required man-hours) in the hopes of more than making up the difference in testing. I just don't see the return on the investment.
Why does everyone only think: "Hey, there's someone worse than me. I don't want to teach him, if he's bad, he should be fired." Pair programming is one of the few examples for true teamwork.
If it were my job to teach him, I would teach him. If it's my job to hit deadlines, I'm going to hit deadlines, while trying to remove anything that slows me down. Training employees should be completely separate from project tasks.
I can't see any good scenarios, for me, from pair programming. I can see how the less skilled/experienced programmer gets trained. I can see how the manager got his cheap employee trained without having to pay for training. But I also see how I had to slow down to explain what I'm doing to another person. And to justify what I know to be a good design to begin with. And possibly to put up with an arguement from another employee who doesn't quite know what he's doing and hasn't learned office politics yet. Maybe it would work for some people in some cases, but I can see it causing a lot more problems than it solves.
"If no one is watching, I'll get lazy, (do) cut-and-paste programming, no test writing, no re-factoring--the sort of anti-patterns that make software suck," Extreme programmer Lyle Hayhurst said via e-mail. "If someone is watching me, I'll probably feel guilty and do the right thing."
Let's have a quick look at extremeprogramming.org...
user stories = requirements gathering
release planning = project plan
project velocity = hitting milestones
moving people around... now this can be a very good or very bad idea. You definitly don't want all your eggs in one basket, but you also don't want to switch someone to a different task just as they're hitting their stride.
The customer is always available = wishful thinking
Code must be written to agreed standards = common sense
unit test first... I would say this could be a good idea, but I suspect that it's impossible more often than not. And when there's scope creep and the deadline's tomorrow, do we update the test plan first? yeah, right.
pair programming... this *may* work for *some* programmers. Writing code takes man-hours. If you put two people on one task, unless that task is done at least twice as fast, you lose. And there's no guarantee that you'll get better code. I see three scenarios, none of which are good. One, you put two poor programmers together in which case, they both write bad code, only twice as slowly. Two, you put a good programmer and a poor programmer together in which case one programmer carries the load. Or three, you put two good programmers together and they try to kill each other and things get done twice as slowly.
Only one pair integrates at a time... this is an extension of pair programming. If you reword this to "only one person integrates at a time" that's source code control! Except that with good communication, more than one person can integrate at the same time assuming they're in different modules.
Collective code ownership = chaos. I once wrote a TCP/IP layer for a big blue 800lbs gorilla. The code was complete, it entered testing, and was half way through (two weeks worth of testing!) when one of the other programmers decided to rewrite a section of my code suposedly to improve performance. So let's see, someone else's code with my name on it. Great!
Leave optimization till last = common sense
Maybe I should invent my own methodology! I could make millions! I can make up my own jargon!
Doesn't this all sound a bit too much like scientology?
I think everyone should lighten up about this. Remember who we're dealing with? That's like getting mad at the devil for trying to steal your soul. Of course they're going to write the legalese this way. 99.9% of their users never read the terms of service. And they know it. So they write them to their advantage. And they try to include everything, including the kitchen sink if their lawers think there's even a minute chance that something bad could happen to them legally. This is no different from park-at-your-own-risk signs in parking lots. Sure if the attendant keys your car, you'll want to sue. But will that really stop you from parking there? If you're really concerned about all this then do one of these things:
1. Don't use the service
2. Use a service with a more agreeable TOS
3. Encrypt your transmissions
4. Send truly important things fedex or registered mail.
Is it just me, or does it sound to anyone else like microsoft is finally dying? Dying may be a bit harsh. I'm certain that they'll always be around in one form or another. Even Novell is still with us. But there really seems to be serious issues with nearly every one of their products.
Does anyone know anybody who likes the idea of renting their software? It sounds to me like.NET will be the last nail in the coffin for MS. I can see entire companies leaving microsoft in droves over this one. Which is good for me. I'm a consultant who specializes in MS/Unix interoperability and porting from one to the other.
And what about becomming a license nazi? MS has already been caught collecting info from users machines and sending it back to MS. I read a newsgroup post saying that even some of their games were doing this. They're going after corporate customers now, when will they send a bomb to private users? Maybe it's not a coinsidence that this outlook/activex bug won't seem to die.
And has anyone actually looked at OS X? I played with it at compusa the other day. For the first time ever, I'm actually considering buying a macintosh. I'm telling you, it's unix, I was shocked. I opened a tcsh shell and looked around. With the MACH kernel and the aqua interface, it's everything that linux should be.
And they're taking a beating on the server front as we all know, especially with IIS. If I were doing a new web development project, I would certainly hesitate to go the IIS/ASP route. And is anyone really using C#?
All we need now is a champion for Star Office so that it's as polished as Office, yet still free/open-source.
It looks to me like they've dug their own grave, and now it's time for us to dance on it.
When I was younger, I was very pale, very small, and had a very sharp tongue. I also grew up without a father and instead being raised by my drill sergeant mother and spineless door-knob step father. The Pink Floyd album "The Wall" has special meaning for me.
From the 5th grade to the 9th grade, I was the target of constant ridicule and physical violence from other students. Invariably, these students had social problems that they were unable to handle. So they looked for a target on which to vent. My poor people skills, high intellegence, sarcastic tone, and effeminant manerisms made me an ideal target. My mother had always indoctrinated me with non-violence. So when I was the target of abuse from other students, I always backed down. And even if I hadn't I figured I was smaller than everyone else, so I would have lost anyway. Dating was also hell for me since I was exactly the opposite of what every highschool girl wants.
Ashcroft said video games contribute to an "ethic of violence."
Video games, violent and otherwise, were an escape for me. had those been taken away, I'm sure I would have vented in more destructive ways.
The question really is whether vicious kids and hostile school environments are turning kids into
killers. It's a question neither politicians nor the media seem to want to ask.
I suspect that's because politics and the media tend to attract extroverted people. These types of people, in my opinion, would tend to be the popular people at school. So drawing on their own school experiences would be useless in understanding the plight of these targeted children.
What makes big news -- and what doesn't -- is always telling. We hear a lot about kids who get gunned down in schools by their peers. We usually hear even more about the evil influences on their lives, from gaming to violent TV and
movies to the Net. Yet a vastly greater number kill themselves because of their peers. That doesn't draw many headlines or stories on the evening news, or denunciations from the President.
The media is in business to make money. And sensation sells. That's why they cover it. And if they can promote their liberal agneda in the process, all the better. No one wants to hear about how johnny got beaten up on the way home from school for the fourth time this week.
As usual, the government has tended to blame video games and violent movies and TV shows. Aschroft said "the entertainment industry, with it's video games and the like, which sometimes literally teach shooting and all, we've got to ask ourselves, how do we as a culture... be more responsible."
LOL. I know our public schools are bad, but even the worst educated students can figure out how to fire a gun. They don't need a video game to learn that. I hate it when old conservative politicians try to find some "morally reprehensible" activity, one they don't engage in themsemves, on which to blame society's problems. Morality is part of the answer, not the answer.
Psychologists and researchers report that bullying, taunting or constant ridicule by peers is often a major factor in these suicides, as well as a constant thread running through the horrific series of school shootings.
This is bullshit. A student fearing a shooting at their school is like a passenger on a plane fearing a plane crash. I guess the APA has to get their gun control agenda in there somewhere.
Kids who are non-conformist, rebellious, individualistic or different in other ways are routinely subjected to harassment all kinds, as
well as life in schools that cling to outdated curriculums, punish non-conformity and isolate individuals.
It's not just the goths. All I worked hard at being normal.
Yet 81 percent of Americans told the Gallup they blame the Internet for Columbine.
This is because that's what the media told them to believe
A handful of schools have instituted anti-bullying and harrassment programs, but the popular media and most politicians seem much more interested in kids who go over the edge and shoot others than in the many more who are driven over the edge and kill themselves. Maybe it's time to shift focus.
I'll believe it when I see it. And that is why my four kids are in a private school. There's no more powerful weapon to get schools to fix a problem than money.
I have a very clear opinion as to the cause of schools shootings. You can agree or not. I don't care. But it goes something like this:
1. In the lower grades, the "killer" student is ridiculed. Singled out by the other class mates as someone who is different. Maybe they look different, like a very pale person in sunny california. Or an over weight person at a very athletics-oriented high school. Or maybe their parents are poor, so their clothes are an issue. Who knows.
2. Then the killer student either goes to someone they can trust and gets nowhere or the have no one to go to. For me, the people I trusted did nothing.
3. The student feels trapped. Nothing is resolved. The physical and emotional abuse goes on and on, unchecked. Somewhere around now, the student may exhibit emotional or behavioral problems and is more than likely placed on some kind of drug.
4. Then the killer student reaches puberty. The student is now feeling a volatile mixture of self-destructive feelings, poor self-esteem, and unbridled rage.
5. What happens next depends on the student and how they were brought up. If they were brought up in a religious, but not too religious home, with caring, if out of touch parents, they simply kill themselves while leaving a note designed to exact the maximum pain on the ones responsible. If the student was brought up in a home where the parents had no involvement at all, or were really out of touch, and the student has a weak moral background, they may decide to take out as many students as possible on their way out.
In any event, suicides, and shootings are designed to send a strong message to people who aren't listening, while putting an end to the student's pain.
I was close to suicide on many occaisions. I was constantly considering ways to end my life. I eventually decided that the only ways available to me were slashing wrists, jumping from my high-rise apartment building, or jumping in front of a subway train. None were certain or instant enough for me. Salvation for me was puberty which finally hit in the 9th grade. I grew nearly a foot in one year. And over a summer vacation, nearly all of the bullying stopped. Now I'm 6'5" and 270lbs. People tend to leave me alone now. My manerisms are also very different now.
What these kids need today is a good moral background. And good parenting from both parents.
If every child got this, the targets would survive the bullying and the bullies wouldn't need to. But parents/adults/politicians don't want to hear this. They want a scapegoat, an easy solution that doesn't involve a behavor change for the parents. Today it's the internet and first person shooters. When I was growing up, it was heavy metal and D&D. Tomorrow it will be something else. Is it really so hard to see?
The people who created that site truly believe that they are at war. This is a perfect example of "the ends justify the means." To them, abortion doctors are state sanctioned murderers killing babies for money. If a group of child molesters were set free, and even encouraged, by the government to continue their activities, and someone created a similar website with similar information, many of us would have a hard time complaining. In deed, if we really were at war, most of us would gladly provide information, publicly, about traitors. And I actually hold the same views as these lunatics (about abortion, not violence). So while I don't agree that that website is a good idea, I can understand their thinking. This isn't like yelling fire in a crowded theater, this is more like going to south chicago and telling everyone that guy over there has $1000 in his pocket.
The difference between a hero and a terrorist depends on which side you're fighting for.
I was bored last night so I was watching a shopping channel. They had a p3-800 with 64 megs of ram, 20 gig disk, 17" monitor, and a throw-away printer and scanner for $1800! The salesman implied that AMD processors are unreliable. Just what we need: used car salesmen selling computers.
I agree man! I just bought a 1.1Ghz athlon so I could check my mail faster! With a beowulf cluster, I bet they could process those 50,000 e-mails in a few seconds!
Slashdot Mirror
Read the fucking article:
Relatable's technology identifies music based on the recordings themselves and analyzes the acoustical properties of a recording's waveform to identify it precisely, regardless of its audio format, bit rate or minor signal distortion, the companies said.
How doable is this really? What if I'm a member of a metallica cover band who strives to sound like the real thing? Can this fingerprinting software tell the difference? I doubt it. This filter should be no more effective than speech recognition software. And to be legally safe, they'll have to block the greatest common denominator. Better to unintentionally block some legal-to-trade stuff than to unintentionally not block copyrighted stuff, right?
And here's an idea... what if someone writes software to encrypt an mp3? with a winamp plugin or hacked napster client of some kind to decrypt? Will they block files they can't get a signature on? How can they tell the difference between a song with a "wrong" looking signature and, say, an mp3 with sound effects?
While I agree that music piracy is wrong, there's a lot of grey. I use napster to replace 80s music I listened to in high school. Those tapes I had are long gone. But I did once pay for that music. So is it illegal? The recording industry would probably argue that it is. But I'm not so sure that's The Right Thing, even if it is illegal.
I think the recording industry is fighting a losing battle. The legal game playing can only go on for so long. And sooner or later, they'll kill napster outright. But that's wont be the end of the war. Right or wrong, the recording industry will lose this war. Maybe they should embrace the new technology so that they can steer it in a direction that's more compatible with their business models.
Hah! You're telling me! I write code all day. My job would be impossible without computers!
What was the father doing while Sean was being bullied? Did he go to the school then? Did he report the bullying? Did he demand that the bullies (if they actually touched Sean) be charged with assault? Whatever you may think of Texas criminal justice, there are still laws against assault, you know.
It's not always that easy. The bullying is far more insideous than that. (I'm speaking as a person who had a high school experience very similar to Sean's) My parents did call. Over and over again. Usually, they got nowhere. "Oh, we'll look into it." But nothing was ever done. One time, my mother was told, "we'll we can't send a body guard with your son everywhere he goes." Her response was a suggestion to require teachers to monitor the hallways at all times. But nothing was done.
And often, the problem isn't direct violence. What do you do when you're leaving school and a bully takes youe bicycle? Get him charged with theft? What if he returns it and vanishes after only 45 minutes? What if he takes it, but doesn't leave, just prevents you from leaving?
And what about spreading rumors? They accused him of being gay. How do you think that affects him being required to change for P.E. in the locker room?
Or what if the bully robs you. Do you really think the police are going to want to charge a kid with the theft of $4.75? True it's not much, but maybe it kept you from eating that day.
Here are the problems:
School administrators are powerless to fix this problem. So it doesn't really matter if the parents care or not from that perspective. All they can do is help the student cope.
It doesn't matter if the bully's parents care or not since, by this age, the damage is already done. And the parents are often powerless to control their children.
What needs to happen is for schools to have a zero tolerance program for bullying, as much as I hate the term zero tolerance. Had the bullies been thrown out of school on the first offense, this never would have been a problem.
Sean's comment was foolish, his father says, especially in the post-Columbine environment where candid speech about schools is dangerous. And he isn't averse to some milder form of punishment.
Was it? Exactly what kind of recourse did he have? Perhaps the threat of physical violence is the only thing fools like that understand. In hind-sight, it was obviously a bad idea. But I'm not sure that any of us (including the school administrators) at 16-17 would have responded any differently.
"I just don't know what to do," says Patrick, who can't afford a lawyer, and who wants to protect his kid. Sheeley is aware that this kind of record could have implications for Sean down the line.
I doubt it. The records of minors are sealed. It may affect which universities he can get into, but even that's not such a big deal. And I bet there are many teachers at that school who would be willing to write letters of recommendation for him.
"...I would appreciate any suggestions as to what recourse we may have, or where we might find some help." ... Patrick Sheeley has some decisions to make and could use some help. Should he try to get Sean back into school or walk away? Should he take legal action to force due process?
Here's my suggestion. Because of an administrative screw-up when I went from the 8th to the 9th grade, I ended up being a year behind most people in math. But math was clearly my strength. So to fix the problem, a math teacher in my high school suggested that I take a trigonomitry class at a local community college at night. If I did, he agreed to skip me a year to the correct math class. This was in the 11th grade. It worked perfectly.
Looking back, I should have done things very differently in high school. My senior year was largely a waste of time. If I could do it again, I would get a GED and enter college early. Many colleges and universities don't even require a high school diploma. If I were the parent here, I would leave the school behind. Don't bother with the legal battle. It's not worth the time, money, and frustration. I think home schooling is the right idea. Then he can learn at his own pace. I'm willing to bet that he can get through all of this years work and the senior year's work by the fall semester at the local college/university. And I think graduating a year early mixed with some good SAT/ACT scores would go a long way toward impressing some universities.
On the other hand, that may not be a real necessity either. I'm 30 and make more than most vice presidents as an IT consultant. And I have a computer science degree from a generic state university.
I think he has more options than are obvious.
If nasa wants Mach 5, why don't they just ask Speed Racer? He already has one.
Microsoft Museum(tm)? That's impossible! How can you reboot a museum?!
Good stuff, i guess, especially if you can turn off the "that's not how it works" part of your brain.
I'm still saving my pennies for a powerbook. Because when the aliens arrive on July 4th, I want to be able to hack their network up in orbit. Why do you suppose the aliens are using appletalk?
It looks like the network in the new park is more advanced than the technology in the Future World part of EPCOT. BTW: I used to work for disney. I once went to the underground cafeteria in the magic kingdom in orlando and saw the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life: Snow White sitting on her boyfriend's lap smoking a cigarette.
Customer always available: Actually, that's often possible. And once you've delivered one project like that, it's much much easier to get business buy-in to doing it again.
Sometimes they're there, sometimes they're not. And in many cases, their presence doesn't help anyway.
Unit test first : It's possible more often than not.
I'm not saying unit testing is bad. It's vital. I'm saying that it's not always possible to write the test plan/code before the code is written. After all, we don't know exactly how all that elegant pair programmed code is going to flow, right?
Collective code ownership
Once again, real programmers test their code as they write it, then unit test, then assembly test. If someone makes a change in the code, that change should be tested and the unit tests run again. This is different from everyone owning the code. I'm not sure that that's really a good or a bad thing. But I do know that everyone who uses source code control already does this.
Pair programming: Maybe your ego prevents you working with someone. Most intelligent people seem to manage fine.
The issue is not that I'm unwilling to work with other people. It's that I'm unwilling to discuss every single line of code with a less experienced programmer sitting next to me while I'm writing it. Or put up with the excruciating experience of watching someone else type. I type faster that I write and think faster than I talk. Slowing down for another programmer would interrupt the free flow of thoughts and ideas. It's disruptive and annoying. I'd rather delegate a piece of the project to that junior programmer and examine it when they're done.
Please, don't go dissing techniques you haven't yet tried.
Actually, they're considering using this where I'm working now. So I've done some research into this.
I've been trying them, and there are flaws, and I'm publicising them within my company. But there are also major benefits, and I'm sharing those.
You're right, there are flaws and benefits. And as far as I can tell, the flaws are many, and the benefits are things that many people have been doing in IT for many years.
I congratulate you on your good testing. I sounds like it serves you well. I also suspect that the entire testing system you have could have been created without paying a lick of attention to XP.
No. In this case the two bad programmers will see most of the mistakes the other one makes (it's very improbable that their weaknesses are identical), so the code will be improved and they will learn.
I suppose that depends on what we mean by bad programmers. Sometimes, it's a skill issue, in which case, you're right. But more often than not, it's that american work ethic. In those cases, I think they're more likely to collaborate on which site to surf to next.
Even a good programmer makes the occasional mistakes just because he does so many routine jobs. A not so experienced programmer will slow him down and discuss the complicated issues with him. The poor programmer will not make the code worse!
A good programmer's mistakes are caught by the compiler, by sanity checks, asserting values, checking return codes, and unit testing. Even then, some bugs will slip through. But putting a good programmer and a not-so-good programmer, I think, is not likely to improve this situation since, in the majority of cases, the poor programmer may not be together enough to catch the mistakes of the good programmer. But this isn't really about programming errors. This is more about good design. And any good programmer should be able to produce a good design all by himself.
Two good programmers could inspire themselves and develop genius and elegant ideas that one of them would never come up with.
Which can be done at the design stage, right? Large projects are usually designed in groups before-hand. After that, it's only the small pieces, the details, that need to be designed. Those pieces should be trivial for a good (not even great) programmer. If they're not, they were discussed in the design meeting, right?
OK, if you think of programming performance in some sort of a lines-per-minute output pair programming will spoil your results. But if you consider the quality and number of errors in the code (and believe me, coding errors can be very hard to find) pair programming will drastically reduce the number of errors.
This is simply not reality. Writing code is like building military aircraft. 50% of the cost goes to the last 5% of the performance. Do you really want to cut your productivity in half to get that extra 5% before unit testing? When unit testing is likely to flush out most of the remaining 5% anyway? It looks to me like you're cutting productivity in half (effectivly doubling the required man-hours) in the hopes of more than making up the difference in testing. I just don't see the return on the investment.
Why does everyone only think: "Hey, there's someone worse than me. I don't want to teach him, if he's bad, he should be fired." Pair programming is one of the few examples for true teamwork.
If it were my job to teach him, I would teach him. If it's my job to hit deadlines, I'm going to hit deadlines, while trying to remove anything that slows me down. Training employees should be completely separate from project tasks.
I can't see any good scenarios, for me, from pair programming. I can see how the less skilled/experienced programmer gets trained. I can see how the manager got his cheap employee trained without having to pay for training. But I also see how I had to slow down to explain what I'm doing to another person. And to justify what I know to be a good design to begin with. And possibly to put up with an arguement from another employee who doesn't quite know what he's doing and hasn't learned office politics yet. Maybe it would work for some people in some cases, but I can see it causing a lot more problems than it solves.
Behold the american work ethic:
"If no one is watching, I'll get lazy, (do) cut-and-paste programming, no test writing, no re-factoring--the sort of anti-patterns that make software suck," Extreme programmer Lyle Hayhurst said via e-mail. "If someone is watching me, I'll probably feel guilty and do the right thing."
Let's have a quick look at extremeprogramming.org...
user stories = requirements gatheringrelease planning = project plan
project velocity = hitting milestones
moving people around... now this can be a very good or very bad idea. You definitly don't want all your eggs in one basket, but you also don't want to switch someone to a different task just as they're hitting their stride.
The customer is always available = wishful thinking
Code must be written to agreed standards = common sense
unit test first... I would say this could be a good idea, but I suspect that it's impossible more often than not. And when there's scope creep and the deadline's tomorrow, do we update the test plan first? yeah, right.
pair programming... this *may* work for *some* programmers. Writing code takes man-hours. If you put two people on one task, unless that task is done at least twice as fast, you lose. And there's no guarantee that you'll get better code. I see three scenarios, none of which are good. One, you put two poor programmers together in which case, they both write bad code, only twice as slowly. Two, you put a good programmer and a poor programmer together in which case one programmer carries the load. Or three, you put two good programmers together and they try to kill each other and things get done twice as slowly.
Only one pair integrates at a time... this is an extension of pair programming. If you reword this to "only one person integrates at a time" that's source code control! Except that with good communication, more than one person can integrate at the same time assuming they're in different modules.
Collective code ownership = chaos. I once wrote a TCP/IP layer for a big blue 800lbs gorilla. The code was complete, it entered testing, and was half way through (two weeks worth of testing!) when one of the other programmers decided to rewrite a section of my code suposedly to improve performance. So let's see, someone else's code with my name on it. Great!
Leave optimization till last = common sense
Maybe I should invent my own methodology! I could make millions! I can make up my own jargon!
Doesn't this all sound a bit too much like scientology?
I think everyone should lighten up about this. Remember who we're dealing with? That's like getting mad at the devil for trying to steal your soul. Of course they're going to write the legalese this way. 99.9% of their users never read the terms of service. And they know it. So they write them to their advantage. And they try to include everything, including the kitchen sink if their lawers think there's even a minute chance that something bad could happen to them legally. This is no different from park-at-your-own-risk signs in parking lots. Sure if the attendant keys your car, you'll want to sue. But will that really stop you from parking there? If you're really concerned about all this then do one of these things:
1. Don't use the service
2. Use a service with a more agreeable TOS
3. Encrypt your transmissions
4. Send truly important things fedex or registered mail.
I think a little grown-up thinking is in order.
Is it just me, or does it sound to anyone else like microsoft is finally dying? Dying may be a bit harsh. I'm certain that they'll always be around in one form or another. Even Novell is still with us. But there really seems to be serious issues with nearly every one of their products.
Does anyone know anybody who likes the idea of renting their software? It sounds to me like .NET will be the last nail in the coffin for MS. I can see entire companies leaving microsoft in droves over this one. Which is good for me. I'm a consultant who specializes in MS/Unix interoperability and porting from one to the other.
And what about becomming a license nazi? MS has already been caught collecting info from users machines and sending it back to MS. I read a newsgroup post saying that even some of their games were doing this. They're going after corporate customers now, when will they send a bomb to private users? Maybe it's not a coinsidence that this outlook/activex bug won't seem to die.
And has anyone actually looked at OS X? I played with it at compusa the other day. For the first time ever, I'm actually considering buying a macintosh. I'm telling you, it's unix, I was shocked. I opened a tcsh shell and looked around. With the MACH kernel and the aqua interface, it's everything that linux should be.
And they're taking a beating on the server front as we all know, especially with IIS. If I were doing a new web development project, I would certainly hesitate to go the IIS/ASP route. And is anyone really using C#?
All we need now is a champion for Star Office so that it's as polished as Office, yet still free/open-source.
It looks to me like they've dug their own grave, and now it's time for us to dance on it.
When I was younger, I was very pale, very small, and had a very sharp tongue. I also grew up without a father and instead being raised by my drill sergeant mother and spineless door-knob step father. The Pink Floyd album "The Wall" has special meaning for me.
From the 5th grade to the 9th grade, I was the target of constant ridicule and physical violence from other students. Invariably, these students had social problems that they were unable to handle. So they looked for a target on which to vent. My poor people skills, high intellegence, sarcastic tone, and effeminant manerisms made me an ideal target. My mother had always indoctrinated me with non-violence. So when I was the target of abuse from other students, I always backed down. And even if I hadn't I figured I was smaller than everyone else, so I would have lost anyway. Dating was also hell for me since I was exactly the opposite of what every highschool girl wants.
Ashcroft said video games contribute to an "ethic of violence."
Video games, violent and otherwise, were an escape for me. had those been taken away, I'm sure I would have vented in more destructive ways.
The question really is whether vicious kids and hostile school environments are turning kids into killers. It's a question neither politicians nor the media seem to want to ask.
I suspect that's because politics and the media tend to attract extroverted people. These types of people, in my opinion, would tend to be the popular people at school. So drawing on their own school experiences would be useless in understanding the plight of these targeted children.
What makes big news -- and what doesn't -- is always telling. We hear a lot about kids who get gunned down in schools by their peers. We usually hear even more about the evil influences on their lives, from gaming to violent TV and movies to the Net. Yet a vastly greater number kill themselves because of their peers. That doesn't draw many headlines or stories on the evening news, or denunciations from the President.
The media is in business to make money. And sensation sells. That's why they cover it. And if they can promote their liberal agneda in the process, all the better. No one wants to hear about how johnny got beaten up on the way home from school for the fourth time this week.
As usual, the government has tended to blame video games and violent movies and TV shows. Aschroft said "the entertainment industry, with it's video games and the like, which sometimes literally teach shooting and all, we've got to ask ourselves, how do we as a culture ... be more responsible."
LOL. I know our public schools are bad, but even the worst educated students can figure out how to fire a gun. They don't need a video game to learn that. I hate it when old conservative politicians try to find some "morally reprehensible" activity, one they don't engage in themsemves, on which to blame society's problems. Morality is part of the answer, not the answer.
Psychologists and researchers report that bullying, taunting or constant ridicule by peers is often a major factor in these suicides, as well as a constant thread running through the horrific series of school shootings.
This is bullshit. A student fearing a shooting at their school is like a passenger on a plane fearing a plane crash. I guess the APA has to get their gun control agenda in there somewhere.
Kids who are non-conformist, rebellious, individualistic or different in other ways are routinely subjected to harassment all kinds, as well as life in schools that cling to outdated curriculums, punish non-conformity and isolate individuals.
It's not just the goths. All I worked hard at being normal.
Yet 81 percent of Americans told the Gallup they blame the Internet for Columbine.
This is because that's what the media told them to believe
A handful of schools have instituted anti-bullying and harrassment programs, but the popular media and most politicians seem much more interested in kids who go over the edge and shoot others than in the many more who are driven over the edge and kill themselves. Maybe it's time to shift focus.
I'll believe it when I see it. And that is why my four kids are in a private school. There's no more powerful weapon to get schools to fix a problem than money.
I have a very clear opinion as to the cause of schools shootings. You can agree or not. I don't care. But it goes something like this:
1. In the lower grades, the "killer" student is ridiculed. Singled out by the other class mates as someone who is different. Maybe they look different, like a very pale person in sunny california. Or an over weight person at a very athletics-oriented high school. Or maybe their parents are poor, so their clothes are an issue. Who knows.
2. Then the killer student either goes to someone they can trust and gets nowhere or the have no one to go to. For me, the people I trusted did nothing.
3. The student feels trapped. Nothing is resolved. The physical and emotional abuse goes on and on, unchecked. Somewhere around now, the student may exhibit emotional or behavioral problems and is more than likely placed on some kind of drug.
4. Then the killer student reaches puberty. The student is now feeling a volatile mixture of self-destructive feelings, poor self-esteem, and unbridled rage.
5. What happens next depends on the student and how they were brought up. If they were brought up in a religious, but not too religious home, with caring, if out of touch parents, they simply kill themselves while leaving a note designed to exact the maximum pain on the ones responsible. If the student was brought up in a home where the parents had no involvement at all, or were really out of touch, and the student has a weak moral background, they may decide to take out as many students as possible on their way out.
In any event, suicides, and shootings are designed to send a strong message to people who aren't listening, while putting an end to the student's pain.
I was close to suicide on many occaisions. I was constantly considering ways to end my life. I eventually decided that the only ways available to me were slashing wrists, jumping from my high-rise apartment building, or jumping in front of a subway train. None were certain or instant enough for me. Salvation for me was puberty which finally hit in the 9th grade. I grew nearly a foot in one year. And over a summer vacation, nearly all of the bullying stopped. Now I'm 6'5" and 270lbs. People tend to leave me alone now. My manerisms are also very different now.
What these kids need today is a good moral background. And good parenting from both parents. If every child got this, the targets would survive the bullying and the bullies wouldn't need to. But parents/adults/politicians don't want to hear this. They want a scapegoat, an easy solution that doesn't involve a behavor change for the parents. Today it's the internet and first person shooters. When I was growing up, it was heavy metal and D&D. Tomorrow it will be something else. Is it really so hard to see?
I'm not trying to get flamed but...
The people who created that site truly believe that they are at war. This is a perfect example of "the ends justify the means." To them, abortion doctors are state sanctioned murderers killing babies for money. If a group of child molesters were set free, and even encouraged, by the government to continue their activities, and someone created a similar website with similar information, many of us would have a hard time complaining. In deed, if we really were at war, most of us would gladly provide information, publicly, about traitors. And I actually hold the same views as these lunatics (about abortion, not violence). So while I don't agree that that website is a good idea, I can understand their thinking. This isn't like yelling fire in a crowded theater, this is more like going to south chicago and telling everyone that guy over there has $1000 in his pocket.
The difference between a hero and a terrorist depends on which side you're fighting for.
Did anyone else notice that Yahoo's picture of the reentry is upside-down?
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/p/nm/20010323/ts/mdf2 6924.html
Uh oh! The russians broke the Mir! I guess that's 7 years bad luck for them!
Holy Fibers Batman!
I was bored last night so I was watching a shopping channel. They had a p3-800 with 64 megs of ram, 20 gig disk, 17" monitor, and a throw-away printer and scanner for $1800! The salesman implied that AMD processors are unreliable. Just what we need: used car salesmen selling computers.
Yeah, apple delivers... their site delivers a bus error to my solaris/netscape browser.
here's always getting a case with coasters on the bottom.
Coasters?! Isn't that the thing that slides out when you push the button?
I agree man! I just bought a 1.1Ghz athlon so I could check my mail faster! With a beowulf cluster, I bet they could process those 50,000 e-mails in a few seconds!
You mean CmdrTaco has constituents?! What's his jurisdiction?! I want to move there!
This is unfortunate, but not unsurprising.
Did CmdrTaco ever learn about double negatives in school? If it's not unsurprising, doesn't that make it surprising? in this language anyway?
I guess he's free to use double negatives if he likes. That don't make me no never mind.