Back off, man -- he didn't mention having thought about using cron with a build system, so I suggested it. There was nothing else in the comments regarding an actual solution at the time, so I suggested an actual solution.
You attack my suggestion as being wasteful or suboptimal, but at the time I posted there were no solutions.
I hope it feels good to have pointed out the inadequacies of my attempt to provide some initial direction, especially given the fact that at the time I write this, 22 hours after the story hit the front page, there are still only 25 posts in the thread.
Have you suggested anything more useful than what my post mentioned, or are you just trying to be disagreeable?
STEAL - the wrongful or willful taking of money or property belonging to someone else with intent to deprive the owner of its use or benefit either temporarily or permanently. No particular type of movement or carrying away is required.
...which means that to have stolen something, you have to have both taken it and deprived the owner if its use or benefit.
Merriam-Webster's definitions of "take" (q.v., if you wish) all refer to obtaining possession of something.
Thus, stealing equates to taking possession of and depriving the owner of a given thing.
I believe copyright infringment falls under the "taking of money" portion since you are, in effect, depriving the copyright holder of legitimate sales (money).
In the case of making a copy without permission, have you both obtained possession of money and deprived the copyright owner of its use? You claim that you've deprived the copyright owner of the use of the money, which is half of the definition of theft. Are you honestly saying that you've obtained possession of the copyright holder's money by simply by the act of making a copy of something?
[M]any people, if pressed to do so, would agree that the world is at least a little bit safer without Saddam Hussein in charge in Iraq, regardless of whether he had any WMD's.
In a vacuum, perhaps.
However, something the media and the current administration both seem to ignore is the fact that hundreds of people felt strongly enough that the United States was doing something wrong in the world that they were compelled to plan the 9/11 attacks for years before carrying them out, some losing their own lives.
Other than the typical "they hate freedom" line, I've not seen Bush address the idea that there was a reason for the terror attacks. The United States is seen as the enemy, despite the fact that democracies also exist in countries other than the "land of the free".
Had Saddam died of a heart attack, overall it would have been a good thing. However, saying that the United States was right to disregard international law and anger the majority of the developed world in order to remove a leader who had already disarmed and had allowed access to inspectors until they pulled out voluntarily because the United States decided to drop some bombs in December 1998 after the CIA had been caught trying to introduce bombs into inspection teams might be going a little far. To me it seems like trying to pardon a doctor for cutting off your foot because you'd had an ingrown toenail, and obviously "many people, if pressed to do so, would agree" that your body is at least a little bit better off without a painfully ingrown toenail.
Few argue that the world isn't better off without Saddam. The question lies in the method -- for example, we're reportedly waiting for Castro to die on his own. Hussein was not immortal, and there was no evidence that there was an irrefutably pressing need for us to invade.
Scott Ritter was a U.S. Marine who served in the Gulf war and acted as chief inspector of the United Nations Special Commission to disarm Iraq (UNSCOM). He resigned his role as chief inspector after the CIA was caught trying to into the inspection teams in 1998.
In an interview with Paula Zahn, one of the United States' leading experts on Iraqi weapons programs left no question as to his feelings on the justification for war:
RITTER: What makes them convinced? What evidence do they have? We're talking about going to war here, Paula. [...] So frankly speaking, I'm going to need a hell of a lot more than some aluminum tubes before I'm convinced there's a case for war. The bottom line is in 1998 the International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iraq had no nuclear weapons capability, none whatsoever, zero. So how suddenly are they now an emerging nuclear threat? We'd better have a heck of a lot more to go on than some aluminum pipes.
ZAHN: Let's talk more about what some say is the only independent voice in this whole argument, and that is the International Institute for Strategic Studies. And you just cited the study. In this report, it suggests -- and this report is just out this morning -- that Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months if it had foreign help.
Let me read to you what the conclusion was, that, "War sanctions and inspections have reversed and retarded but not eliminated Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and long range missile capabilities, nor removed Baghdad's enduring interest in developing these capabilities."
RITTER: Paula, what do we have here? Rhetoric? Where's the facts? Enduring interest in weapons capability? What does that mean? What evidence do they cite for this enduring interest? You know, ballistic missiles, they say he has 12. What, did they grow? Where are they? They didn't have 12 when I was a weapons inspector.
Chemical weapons? Biological weapons? They talk about bulk agent in terms of Iraq's biological weapons program. What bulk agent? Where did they make it? Bulk agent has a three year lifetime in terms of storage in ideal conditions. The last time Iraq was known to have produced bulk agent was in 1990. That stuff, even if they held onto it, is no longer viable. So to have bulk agent today, Iraq would have had to reconstitute a manufacturing base in biological weapons. Where is it?
This report is absurd. It has zero factual basis. It's all rhetoric. It's all speculative and, frankly speaking, it's meaningless without, you know, with the sad exception that hawks in the Bush administration are going to point to this as justification for war.
We need a heck of a lot more than this if we're going to talk about sending our forces off to fight in a war in Iraq.
Scott Ritter was bashed by the media, who painted him as a traitor to the United States for failing to accept the White House's justifications. It's interesting how the media, often accused of being quite liberal, went out of their way to discredit Ritter and show loyalty to the White House in late 2002, yet reported of just which mouths had engulfed Clinton's penis could hardly be avoided during Monicagate.
The real story here isn't that the White House lied -- if you pay attention, White House officials "flip-flop" so much over the supposed motivations for war that even their caricature of Kerry looks rock solid. The real story here is that the media fell for the Iraq justification (or lack thereof) hook, line, and sinker, while doing the dirty work of discrediting Scott Ritter and ignoring or discrediting any other voices asking for more investigation for military action against Iraq.
You want links? Try these:
Documentation of "flip-flops" by the "liberal" media -- reporting the truth (that UN inspectors voluntarily left in December 1998), then
...except that they were different specs than what were used in prior centrifuge designs used by Iraqi scientists.
The tubes were stated as COULD be used for nuclear weapons.
And your computer as stated COULD be used for large-scale distribution of child pornography. Perhaps some men in black should take it away and lock you up -- in your own words, "I, for one, would rather NOT take that chance."
[Y]ou can clearly see that when we bombed Osama out of Afghanistan he would have up and moved his training and operations right into Iraq. Bush took care of that and in the process showed the rest of the middle eastern countries what would happen if they thought to support Osama.
So you're saying that the United States government is using systematic violence to coerce governments into refusing to harbor Bin Laden?
Merriam-Webster defines terrorism as "the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion". They define "terror" as "violence (as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands". Would this adequately describe the intent of the United States government in the Middle East?
Would you accept NCLB? From the first day of his presidency he was working on this program.
I have to admit knowing little about it. The link you provided explained some things that weren't true about NCLB, but it didn't give a clear picture of what it actually is. One question that came to mind is whether the rush to make sure that minimum standards were met was tempered with some consideration for students with greater-than-average potential.
Fox News mentions that gifted programs are not a focus of NCLB, and predicts that they are likely to be cut in favor of more funding for underperforming students. A link from the same source also mentioned that NCLB uses a simple pass/fail system to rate schools. Why not provide grades showing how schools perform in various areas, and allow the parents to decide whether a school meets their child's needs?
Does NCLB encourage providing children with curricula chosen to meet their learning needs, or does it just provide minimum profiency guidelines beyond which education is not such a focus?
Democrats like to paint the picture that it isn't funded well enough, but they forget there's a difference between authorization and appropriation.
I do get that impression (that is, that people aren't necessarily objective in claiming that the program is underfunded). I have heard it said that NCLB is underfunded, but while I have seen evidence that NCLB can leave certain individual schools with less funding than per-NCLB budgets, that's not quite the same idea as the program itself beign underfunded.
The fact is, Bush has spent more on education than any other administration.
This again raises the question of whether the money is meant to ensure appropriate education for all students, or merely to set minimum criteria beyond which no accountability exists. Kudos to the program if the former is true -- I'd love to hear that it is so intended. However, if (and only if) the latter is true, I wouldn't applaud Bush for throwing so much money at what is essentially an incomplete solution.
It is fair if it is true that there are five times as many good things to say about Kerry as there are good things to say about Bush.
And who makes that call? The election, by all scientific polling standards, is just about even at this point. Statements like this are what kill me about Democrats...they think that since THEY hate Bush so much, nobody has good reasons for voting for him.
Choices made by the general population shouldn't necessarily be mistaken for an indication of quality. A correlation may exist, but factors other than quality may exist. How many people purchase brand-name items (such as over-the-counter medicine) over cheaper generic items which do the job just as well?
On character alone I would vote for Bush because, while people love to criticize him on malapropisms, he's a regular guy, not some slick talking politician.
The "regular guy" thing was part of Bush's push for election in 2000. Him declaring it doesn't make it true, though -- if you seriously watch him during interviews, he often dances around direct questions quite well. Bush often answers questions by saying that he'll address the issue later, or claim that he's already discusses it.
The "liberal media" likes to focus on his malapropisms without looking into the deeper issue of whether he delivers what he promises. An examination of that would be much more damaging to Bush's image than hundreds of comedic monologues ridiculing Bush's lack of ability to speak well without a TelePrompTer.
Kerry's plan so far has been to promise things he can't pay for and doesn't detail how he'll implement. His war stance is, essentially, that he'll "stick it out" and "bring more countries in" to help us. How? I doubt that France and Germany are itching to jump in just because Bush is gone.
This is a fair point. However, Bush's plan so far has also been to promise things he thus far hasn't been able to deliver (such as evidence of WMD or links between Saddam and the attacks on 9/11/01). His war stance is that he'll act now and justify it later. If you review the debates between Bush and Gore prior to Nov. 2000, you'll see that Bush was often short on details as well. With those facts considered, it seems reasonable that Kerry would say that he doesn't plan on just pulling out and leaving the Iraqi people alone to sink or swim on their own, and that he is hopeful that the international community will decide to contribute.
He promises jobs based on reducing a corporate tax that affects less than 10% of businesses out there. The president has no real power over jobs, only by changing tax rates and incentives can they try to create jobs. It's really more a factor of the economy.
If Kerry waxing prophetic about policies intended to stimulate the economy isn't fair material for a run at the presidency, then one could point the same finger at Bush's attempt in 2000 to make an issue of the same thing.
This is off the top of my head, because I get so steamed whenever people dismiss Bush like there's not reason to consider him. Right now, half the country thinks there is.
Or, half of the country is holding out hope that Bush has a clue as he keeps promising. However, Bush has said himself that once he's made up his mind on an issue, he'll stick to his guns regardless of any actual facts presented. That's something the "liberal media" doesn't seem to have picked up on.
If you could come up with some examples of Bush making informed and realistic legislative decisions which benefit the general public, please please please (please!) post them.
If you'd like citations to justify anything I've stated, please ask. I have to go to work at the moment, but if you're interested I'd be glad to try to find some references or examples to back up what I've said.
Five pro-Kerry stories to every pro-Bush story is not balanced, no matter how you look at it.
It is fair if it is true that there are five times as many good things to say about Kerry as there are good things to say about Bush. Or, put in the negative light of most political stories, five bad things said about Bush to every one anti-Kerry statement doesn't necessarily mean that anyone is specifically attacking Bush.
It might mean that most Slashdotters don't think it makes sense to post another story questioning Kerry's conduct in Vietnam once one remembers that of Kerry and Bush, only one chose to go into Vietnam at all, but that they actually do care about their civil liberties, and are interested in how the attitude of their commander-in-chief compares to the views of those who founded this country, especially when it involves aggressive action against a nation without hard evidence that the nation in question actually did anything actionable against the United States. In this case it could be a fair and balanced look at the candidates in the context of what matters to the average Slashdot readership.
A "fair and balanced" look at, say, hydroformed automobile frames as compared to traditional stamped and welded frames doesn't necessarily have to say as many nice things about traditional frames as it does hydroformed frames. What it does have to do is seriously address the strengths and weaknesses of each. If there are more nice things to say about hydroformed frames, well, them's the breaks. "Fair and balanced" doesn't mean "we say nice things about everybody even though some deserve it more than others."
Don't take this as a pro-Kerry post. I don't trust Kerry. I just don't think it's quite time to complain about bias until Slashdot ignores Kerry mobilizing troops without congressional or international approval, breaking precident set by past commanders-in-chief.
Only because of the legalized monopolies that we allow in this country. Sadly single companies control entire areas and they don't have any reason to put broadband in if there's no competition.
And here I thought it was because it cost upwards of $50,000 to put in a CO combined with the fact that a CO can only provide those within a radius of a few miles with DSL service.
That $50,000 price tag was quoted to me by one of the guys who maintains the equipment in the COs run by NPTC. If anyone has more accurate numbers, please reply.
You cite lack of competition as a reason not to put in broadband. Legally, if one provider offers DSL they have to allow others to sell service over their network. This means that Verizon can't move in and install DSL huts in order to crush formerly monopolistic telcos, because Verizon would have to allow those telcos to offer DSL service via their equipment. Suddenly offering DSL is no longer much of a competitive advantage, since as soon as you offer DSL in an area, legally your competitors can too.
Is it possible to provide service to people in rural "Montanna"? Sure! Would a profit be realized soon enough to justify the hefty cost of blanketing Montana with a grid of $50k pieces of equipment little brick huts every 4-6 miles? Let's see...
Montana is about 630 miles by 280 miles. Assuming a grid of DSL huts spaced 6 miles apart, that's 105 by 46 2/3. Multiplying 105 and 46 2/3 gives us 4900 DSL huts required to cover all of Montana, rural or urban. At $50k a pop that ends up requiring $245 million for a service that doesn't exactly offer the highest profit margin. That's about $271 for each Montana resident. Assuming a profit margin of 50% on DSL service, every single Montana resident would have to subscribe to DSL service for at least a year in order to offset the costs of installing the huts. Time before realizing a profit of course increases as subscription rates fall below one line per person.
Those greedy monopolist bastards! Those un-American, cruel, heartless capitalist fat cats! Oh, the shame that a fellow member of the human race might think that a publicly traded company might try to balance investment with expected profit and serve the very shareholders who own the company! I await the day when CEOs will see past profit and realize just how essential it is for old Toothless Zeke living in the quiet solitude of rural Montana to receive his porn and OS updates in glorious 768k, profit be damned!
Of course, anyone with more accurate numbers is encouraged to respond.
Having spent tons of time playing Vice City, I've completed all of the missions several times over, bought all of the properties, basically done the game through and through.
Estimates of Vice City cites 50 hours of gameplay. San Andreas' reported 150 hours of gameplay tells me that there'll be much more to see, do, and experience.
Estimation of playtime is not an indicator of play quality -- that's why people read reviews. When you try to use hours of gameplay as the sole indicator of how much enjoyment you will receive, of course you'll be unhappy with the results. However, this isn't a system failure; you're simply trying to use one metric (estimated time of play) as a measure of another (enjoyment).
What you are doing is similar to saying that Toyota should not publish MPG estimates for the Prius because you need a vehicle which can be used for towing. Since MPG doesn't describe the overall utility you will receive from a vehicle and can also sometimes be inaccurate based on driving style, Toyota might as well stop focusing on a single number and start developing better vehicles. I mean, I saw an F350 with a fifth wheel pulling an RV recently. What is Toyota thinking in claiming 40+ MPG when their Prius can't even tow a mobile living space? That's totally misleading, isn't it?
Perhaps the gaming industry isn't the party which is overly obsessed with the estimates of playing time. San Andreas is estimated at three times Vice City, which means that given ALL OF THE OTHER INFORMATION which I know about Vice City, I'm definitely going to be purchasing San Andreas. If Rockstar estimated playing time at 10 hours, I wouldn't be quite so quick to shell out $50.
Try joe -- it's got a broader feature set than PICO, but doesn't trade off much in terms of friendliness to the user.
Additionally, it's under GPL, which allows for redistribution of binaries, unlike PICO, whose license is very restrictive regarding binary distribution. Some distros choose to ignore the license and redistribute modified binaries anyways, but for those who care, GPL can be a nice alternative to UW's license.
You won't have to resort to "IRC, man pages, and poor documentation", and you won't have to worry about whether a crazy license will force distributions into scripting a source download and local compilation just to install the freaking editor (which is the way Debian does it, as distributing a patched version is illegal).
Finally, distribution of joe often include jpico, which is basically joe with keys rebound to be friendly to those who were raised on PICO and are looking for a gentle upgrade.
Perhaps the boss has gotten the impression that you've not done adequate research. If somebody from Sun began a sales pitch by pointing out problems with a company's current Microsoft-centric setup and finished with "try our hardware -- you won't notice much of a change", that person would rightfully be called a loser.
If your job involves making IT decisions then you should either learn to do legitimate investigation before trying to pitch an idea to the higher-ups or invest in a 401(k) and try to keep your job as long as possible before somebody realizes that you don't seem to be doing much analysis when making decisions affecting the security and operation of the company.
Keep in mind that most people trying to make a business successful probably don't want to worry about whether their browser will get in the way of business. If you make your employer think about which browser to use, be damned sure you present it in language he'll understand and appreciate (hint: try costs and benefits of IE vs. Firefox vs. Opera vs. a 16-bit copy of Netscape Navigator Gold, including costs in terms of security and maintenance).
If you can't provide this information, you're wasting the boss's time by pitching an idea you can't support.
If it isn't your job to make such decisions, then keep in mind that your job is to provide what is best for your employer, and that wasting time recommending a course of action you haven't fully researched is probably less beneficial than other things you could be doing.
Either way, don't nag -- pitch an idea, and let the person in charge decide. Let those above you realize that when you make a suggestion, it's been researched and has definite business advantages, not that you thought that Firefox looked nifty and decided to "Ask Slashdot" how to get your way.
Why not look at specs? Because those who know how to look at specs (ie, determine whether it's a hardware modem) aren't the ones who need to be told what to buy.
My advice was for the general consumer that wants to be able to walk into CompUSA and find a modem that they'll be happy with, without having to pay extra for an external modem and without having to worry about not being able to easily return an item with which they're not happy.
The average person probably doesn't want to know what a chipset or command set is, or how to determine whether a modem has a UART. They just want to walk into a store and have some sense of what the difference between a $30 modem and a $90 modem is, and for those people I feel my post probably would have done more good than harm.
Besides, I did mention specific brands, and I also explained that there's nothing magical about the $80 I'd quoted.
Are there any other things I'd clearly covered that you'd like to try to refute?
I used to work tech support for a mid-sized ISP, and we used to take calls from unhappy Winmodem users constantly. No matter what your OS, don't waste your time with a Winmodem -- it's just not worth the time and hassle.
You probably spent at least a few hundred dollars on your computer, perhaps much more. Chances are, you'll be spending some time online with it. For many people, web browsing is their computer's primary use, but they insist on using a $13-on-Pricewatch modem (usually the one installed by the manufacturer -- Gateway, this means you!) to dial up.
Buy a US Robotics (or 3COM) modem, and spend at least $80 for it. Yes, I know that you can buy an HSP Micromodem for $8 on eBay, but as long as your computer can handle running IE (or Firefox, etc.) your modem is the single greatest influence on your dialup experience.
This goes for any operating system. Linux users are often forced into such a choice by the fact that Winmodems are rarely supported, and never work well.
Many here say "buy an external modem" -- initially, all modems were external, and plugged into a computer's serial port. This worked well, because serial ports are standard hardware, and no special drivers were required at all.
Modern quality modems (such as an $80+ 3COM) have a built-in serial port -- picture a serial port with a modem plugged into it, all contained within an ISA or PCI card. This is why they work so well, as dedicated hardware does what it was meant to do, and has been doing well for years.
Winmodems are like the bargain-basement "shared memory" video cards often shipped with home systems. Such video cards have no memory of their own, and consume system RAM for video memory. Similarly, software modems consume force the CPU to emulate an actual modem. While the CPU is a general-purpose computing device, it simply isn't a DSP, and isn't meant for signal processing. This means that it's less than efficient at processing signal data, and you'll notice the inefficiency in dropped connections.
Anecdotally, I once convinced a friend at my ISP to disable the auto-disconnect feature for my account. I was connected through a 33.6k US Robotis modem for 29 days before a power outage interrupted the connection. Soon after, I switched to broadband, but every winmodem user who has ever complained to me about dropped connections while refusing to shell out money for a real modem still brings a smile to my face.
I know I'm repeating myself here, but ANYONE USING DIALUP UNDER ANY OPERATING SYSTEM OWES IT TO THEMSELVES TO SPEND $80 OR MORE FOR A MODEM. And a PCI 3COM card (not a Winmodem -- again, be sure it's a hardware modem) will work fine under Linux. It'll show up as a serial port.
(Why $80? Sure, you may find a hardware modem for $75, but $80 should be a high enough bar to weed out even the priciest of Winmodems.)
Why would it make sense for settings relevant to the current application to be only shown in an unrelated application? Generally, whenever possible good UI design shows a direct link between an object and the things that modify it. The setting should be available from within the application.
It would not be sensible for Nautilus to ask on first launch, because until the user experiments they might not know which style they prefer. Furthermore, it would lead to confusion as to how they might change their mind in the future -- even if you mention it in the dialog box ("Would you like to try our spatial mode, or do you prefer traditional browsing methods? If you change your mind, you can always start gconf, click widgets, click frobnotz, and uncheck the 'spatial browsing' box") they probably won't remember the steps necessary to change the setting, because it's in a non-intuitive place.
This might lead a naive user to try reinstalling the app, as that's how they were presented the choice in the first place. It's poor technique to patch a bad UI choice by adding another.
I am not familiar with the software in question. However, the author of the article said a few things that lead me to believe that the overall interface is probably designed quite poorly.
"I even know few people who never open more than one browser window, viewing all pages in tabs; I hope they do not try to glue a daily set of newspapers together before reading them..."
Why would one artificially limit their use of tabs to only pages served from the same website? The author likens tabs in a browser to marks in a book. However, he almost suggests that use of such a tool should be limited in use to one specific style of usage. To me, it might make sense to use tabs within the same window to group pages related by task (recipies for tonight's dinner, for instance) rather than source.
By the way, I cannot imagine how spatial browsing must lead to screen clutter: opening folders with double-middle-click or Shift-double-click closes the parent folder window at once.
And this is intuitive how? The author seems to think that UI elements should map directly to real-world objects. I am left wondering which real-world object would lead the user to stumble across the idea of holding the shift button while double-clicking.
Why double-clicking? Why must a modifier key be used? My remote control never requires a double-click. Nor do the climate controls on my car. The author seems to like the book analogy -- I've definitely never had to turn a page twice while holding a random button to get the desired response from a novel.
And even if it is not enough, one can click one field in the gconf configuration editor and turn Nautilitus into "classical" non-spatial file browser. Don't know how to use gconf? Then you shouldn't change the way Nautilitus works, I presume.
The author also suggests that if one cannot figure out how to change the application's default behavior then they should constrain themselves to the developer's idea of what the proper settings should be. In other words, if a user finds a UI to be confusing and unfriendly, it's their own fault and they aren't qualified to determine what environment they prefer.
Is this really the type of thing one should be saying of an application with a well-designed UI?
Well, I'm amused by the possibility. Spammers use tricks to try to make one think that they are opening emails from friends or family when in reality it's just vulgar garbage.
Like raindrops adding up to a flood, for all of the times someone's 13-year-old daughter has gotten an "enlarge your penis" email this guy is owed an unwanted invasion of what he considers to be his personal property on a massive scale.
I think that it would be sweet, sweet justice if, after doing the dirty deed, his cellmate said, "You have received this invasion because you or someone you know opted in at a prior date. If you'd like to opt out of it, hold your mouth open for me, and you'll be removed from my list within 48 hours."
You call evolution (the idea that certain traits which affect one's chances of survival can be passed on genetically) "made up science", but a book which has been translated by countless people with countless individual agendas is to be believed without question?
Umm, yeah. You might as well say "Forget empirical evidence, the idea that the sky is blue is made up science -- I read in some guy's translation of some guy's translation of some guy's translation of some collection of two-thousand-year-old documents that it's green, and I see no reason to question that idea. By the way, I'm not trying to start a flame war."
If you're playing devil's advocate and trying to make those who believe in a higher power look foolish, you're an insensitive clod. If you're not, I'd be surprised if you actually considered the relative merits of the works offered by all major world religions as opposed to simply mimicking your parents' beliefs.
In other words, you're probably either an asshole or a sheep.
I was going to moderate this post "Overrated", but I'd rather just explain why you're wrong in stating that the "algorithm that was going to hold back your competition runs perfectly fast on new processors".
Certain algorithms take more-than-proportionately longer as the data size increases. For example, if you're writing route-planning software, each additional stop on a route might cause the number of calculations required to (roughly) double.
In such a case, having hardware which is twice as powerful would mean that performance would half, although as soon as the user added two more data points, the performance would be slower than the original machine.
To clarify a tad, let's say FedEx decides to optimize the routes drivers in Montana are travelling. Assume that there are 10,000 stops and 200 drivers, and that your code runs in, say, an hour on FedEx's machines.
Assume that you've used an algorithm for which each additional data point doubles the amount of computation required. Now FedEx deciding to hire 10 more drivers means that your route planning software is going to take 2^10 times as long to plan their routes (since it doubles for each new data point, that's 2^1 for one driver, 2^2 for two, 2^3 for three...).
The point is that tiny operations add up when you've chosen the wrong algorithm. Despite the fact that runtime was fine using FedEx's CPU farm in the original situation, your disregard for efficiency will cause the route-planning time to take not the overnight-batch-job-friendly hour, but a stunning 1024 times as long (hint: over a month).
Say a new big fast machine enters the market, with four times the CPU power. FedEx will still need 256 times as many machines to perform the same calculations in under an hour, or at least, say, 32 times as many in order to be able to perform them overnight.
All because you decided that choosing algorithms based on performance was poppycock.
Prematurely optimizing on a microscopic level may be "bad", but choosing the proper algorithm can make the difference between a product with a future and a product with too many designed-in limitations to be able to handle greater-than-expected loads.
(CS fans will note that the TSP problem was a unrefined to have pulled out given the whole P/NP thing, but that's the point -- sticky situations can and will arise for which no amount of source-level optimization will save the day.)
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Back off, man -- he didn't mention having thought about using cron with a build system, so I suggested it. There was nothing else in the comments regarding an actual solution at the time, so I suggested an actual solution.
You attack my suggestion as being wasteful or suboptimal, but at the time I posted there were no solutions.
I hope it feels good to have pointed out the inadequacies of my attempt to provide some initial direction, especially given the fact that at the time I write this, 22 hours after the story hit the front page, there are still only 25 posts in the thread.
Have you suggested anything more useful than what my post mentioned, or are you just trying to be disagreeable?
Ummmm... cron+make?
:)
Build systems aren't just for running compilers.
Merriam-Webster's definitions of "take" (q.v., if you wish) all refer to obtaining possession of something.
Thus, stealing equates to taking possession of and depriving the owner of a given thing.
I believe copyright infringment falls under the "taking of money" portion since you are, in effect, depriving the copyright holder of legitimate sales (money).
In the case of making a copy without permission, have you both obtained possession of money and deprived the copyright owner of its use? You claim that you've deprived the copyright owner of the use of the money, which is half of the definition of theft. Are you honestly saying that you've obtained possession of the copyright holder's money by simply by the act of making a copy of something?
However, something the media and the current administration both seem to ignore is the fact that hundreds of people felt strongly enough that the United States was doing something wrong in the world that they were compelled to plan the 9/11 attacks for years before carrying them out, some losing their own lives.
Other than the typical "they hate freedom" line, I've not seen Bush address the idea that there was a reason for the terror attacks. The United States is seen as the enemy, despite the fact that democracies also exist in countries other than the "land of the free".
Had Saddam died of a heart attack, overall it would have been a good thing. However, saying that the United States was right to disregard international law and anger the majority of the developed world in order to remove a leader who had already disarmed and had allowed access to inspectors until they pulled out voluntarily because the United States decided to drop some bombs in December 1998 after the CIA had been caught trying to introduce bombs into inspection teams might be going a little far. To me it seems like trying to pardon a doctor for cutting off your foot because you'd had an ingrown toenail, and obviously "many people, if pressed to do so, would agree" that your body is at least a little bit better off without a painfully ingrown toenail.
Few argue that the world isn't better off without Saddam. The question lies in the method -- for example, we're reportedly waiting for Castro to die on his own. Hussein was not immortal, and there was no evidence that there was an irrefutably pressing need for us to invade.
Scott Ritter was a U.S. Marine who served in the Gulf war and acted as chief inspector of the United Nations Special Commission to disarm Iraq (UNSCOM). He resigned his role as chief inspector after the CIA was caught trying to into the inspection teams in 1998.
In an interview with Paula Zahn, one of the United States' leading experts on Iraqi weapons programs left no question as to his feelings on the justification for war:
Scott Ritter was bashed by the media, who painted him as a traitor to the United States for failing to accept the White House's justifications. It's interesting how the media, often accused of being quite liberal, went out of their way to discredit Ritter and show loyalty to the White House in late 2002, yet reported of just which mouths had engulfed Clinton's penis could hardly be avoided during Monicagate.
The real story here isn't that the White House lied -- if you pay attention, White House officials "flip-flop" so much over the supposed motivations for war that even their caricature of Kerry looks rock solid. The real story here is that the media fell for the Iraq justification (or lack thereof) hook, line, and sinker, while doing the dirty work of discrediting Scott Ritter and ignoring or discrediting any other voices asking for more investigation for military action against Iraq.
You want links? Try these:
Documentation of "flip-flops" by the "liberal" media -- reporting the truth (that UN inspectors voluntarily left in December 1998), then
And your computer as stated COULD be used for large-scale distribution of child pornography. Perhaps some men in black should take it away and lock you up -- in your own words, "I, for one, would rather NOT take that chance."
So the end of the Gulf war was contingent on the assumption that Saddam was guilty until proven innocent? That sounds rather, er, un-American (tm).
Can you provide cite any sources which would support your claim?
Merriam-Webster defines terrorism as "the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion". They define "terror" as "violence (as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands". Would this adequately describe the intent of the United States government in the Middle East?
Would you accept NCLB? From the first day of his presidency he was working on this program.
I have to admit knowing little about it. The link you provided explained some things that weren't true about NCLB, but it didn't give a clear picture of what it actually is. One question that came to mind is whether the rush to make sure that minimum standards were met was tempered with some consideration for students with greater-than-average potential.
Fox News mentions that gifted programs are not a focus of NCLB, and predicts that they are likely to be cut in favor of more funding for underperforming students. A link from the same source also mentioned that NCLB uses a simple pass/fail system to rate schools. Why not provide grades showing how schools perform in various areas, and allow the parents to decide whether a school meets their child's needs?
Does NCLB encourage providing children with curricula chosen to meet their learning needs, or does it just provide minimum profiency guidelines beyond which education is not such a focus?
Democrats like to paint the picture that it isn't funded well enough, but they forget there's a difference between authorization and appropriation.
I do get that impression (that is, that people aren't necessarily objective in claiming that the program is underfunded). I have heard it said that NCLB is underfunded, but while I have seen evidence that NCLB can leave certain individual schools with less funding than per-NCLB budgets, that's not quite the same idea as the program itself beign underfunded.
The fact is, Bush has spent more on education than any other administration.
This again raises the question of whether the money is meant to ensure appropriate education for all students, or merely to set minimum criteria beyond which no accountability exists. Kudos to the program if the former is true -- I'd love to hear that it is so intended. However, if (and only if) the latter is true, I wouldn't applaud Bush for throwing so much money at what is essentially an incomplete solution.
Choices made by the general population shouldn't necessarily be mistaken for an indication of quality. A correlation may exist, but factors other than quality may exist. How many people purchase brand-name items (such as over-the-counter medicine) over cheaper generic items which do the job just as well?
On character alone I would vote for Bush because, while people love to criticize him on malapropisms, he's a regular guy, not some slick talking politician.
The "regular guy" thing was part of Bush's push for election in 2000. Him declaring it doesn't make it true, though -- if you seriously watch him during interviews, he often dances around direct questions quite well. Bush often answers questions by saying that he'll address the issue later, or claim that he's already discusses it.
The "liberal media" likes to focus on his malapropisms without looking into the deeper issue of whether he delivers what he promises. An examination of that would be much more damaging to Bush's image than hundreds of comedic monologues ridiculing Bush's lack of ability to speak well without a TelePrompTer.
Kerry's plan so far has been to promise things he can't pay for and doesn't detail how he'll implement. His war stance is, essentially, that he'll "stick it out" and "bring more countries in" to help us. How? I doubt that France and Germany are itching to jump in just because Bush is gone.
This is a fair point. However, Bush's plan so far has also been to promise things he thus far hasn't been able to deliver (such as evidence of WMD or links between Saddam and the attacks on 9/11/01). His war stance is that he'll act now and justify it later. If you review the debates between Bush and Gore prior to Nov. 2000, you'll see that Bush was often short on details as well. With those facts considered, it seems reasonable that Kerry would say that he doesn't plan on just pulling out and leaving the Iraqi people alone to sink or swim on their own, and that he is hopeful that the international community will decide to contribute.
He promises jobs based on reducing a corporate tax that affects less than 10% of businesses out there. The president has no real power over jobs, only by changing tax rates and incentives can they try to create jobs. It's really more a factor of the economy.
If Kerry waxing prophetic about policies intended to stimulate the economy isn't fair material for a run at the presidency, then one could point the same finger at Bush's attempt in 2000 to make an issue of the same thing.
This is off the top of my head, because I get so steamed whenever people dismiss Bush like there's not reason to consider him. Right now, half the country thinks there is.
Or, half of the country is holding out hope that Bush has a clue as he keeps promising. However, Bush has said himself that once he's made up his mind on an issue, he'll stick to his guns regardless of any actual facts presented. That's something the "liberal media" doesn't seem to have picked up on.
If you could come up with some examples of Bush making informed and realistic legislative decisions which benefit the general public, please please please (please!) post them.
If you'd like citations to justify anything I've stated, please ask. I have to go to work at the moment, but if you're interested I'd be glad to try to find some references or examples to back up what I've said.
It is fair if it is true that there are five times as many good things to say about Kerry as there are good things to say about Bush. Or, put in the negative light of most political stories, five bad things said about Bush to every one anti-Kerry statement doesn't necessarily mean that anyone is specifically attacking Bush.
It might mean that most Slashdotters don't think it makes sense to post another story questioning Kerry's conduct in Vietnam once one remembers that of Kerry and Bush, only one chose to go into Vietnam at all, but that they actually do care about their civil liberties, and are interested in how the attitude of their commander-in-chief compares to the views of those who founded this country, especially when it involves aggressive action against a nation without hard evidence that the nation in question actually did anything actionable against the United States. In this case it could be a fair and balanced look at the candidates in the context of what matters to the average Slashdot readership.
A "fair and balanced" look at, say, hydroformed automobile frames as compared to traditional stamped and welded frames doesn't necessarily have to say as many nice things about traditional frames as it does hydroformed frames. What it does have to do is seriously address the strengths and weaknesses of each. If there are more nice things to say about hydroformed frames, well, them's the breaks. "Fair and balanced" doesn't mean "we say nice things about everybody even though some deserve it more than others."
Don't take this as a pro-Kerry post. I don't trust Kerry. I just don't think it's quite time to complain about bias until Slashdot ignores Kerry mobilizing troops without congressional or international approval, breaking precident set by past commanders-in-chief.
The trick is to fill the pool with guar gum without getting caught.
Silly scientists...
That $50,000 price tag was quoted to me by one of the guys who maintains the equipment in the COs run by NPTC. If anyone has more accurate numbers, please reply.
You cite lack of competition as a reason not to put in broadband. Legally, if one provider offers DSL they have to allow others to sell service over their network. This means that Verizon can't move in and install DSL huts in order to crush formerly monopolistic telcos, because Verizon would have to allow those telcos to offer DSL service via their equipment. Suddenly offering DSL is no longer much of a competitive advantage, since as soon as you offer DSL in an area, legally your competitors can too.
Is it possible to provide service to people in rural "Montanna"? Sure! Would a profit be realized soon enough to justify the hefty cost of blanketing Montana with a grid of $50k pieces of equipment little brick huts every 4-6 miles? Let's see...
Montana is about 630 miles by 280 miles. Assuming a grid of DSL huts spaced 6 miles apart, that's 105 by 46 2/3. Multiplying 105 and 46 2/3 gives us 4900 DSL huts required to cover all of Montana, rural or urban. At $50k a pop that ends up requiring $245 million for a service that doesn't exactly offer the highest profit margin. That's about $271 for each Montana resident. Assuming a profit margin of 50% on DSL service, every single Montana resident would have to subscribe to DSL service for at least a year in order to offset the costs of installing the huts. Time before realizing a profit of course increases as subscription rates fall below one line per person.
Those greedy monopolist bastards! Those un-American, cruel, heartless capitalist fat cats! Oh, the shame that a fellow member of the human race might think that a publicly traded company might try to balance investment with expected profit and serve the very shareholders who own the company! I await the day when CEOs will see past profit and realize just how essential it is for old Toothless Zeke living in the quiet solitude of rural Montana to receive his porn and OS updates in glorious 768k, profit be damned!
Of course, anyone with more accurate numbers is encouraged to respond.
Having spent tons of time playing Vice City, I've completed all of the missions several times over, bought all of the properties, basically done the game through and through.
Estimates of Vice City cites 50 hours of gameplay. San Andreas' reported 150 hours of gameplay tells me that there'll be much more to see, do, and experience.
Estimation of playtime is not an indicator of play quality -- that's why people read reviews. When you try to use hours of gameplay as the sole indicator of how much enjoyment you will receive, of course you'll be unhappy with the results. However, this isn't a system failure; you're simply trying to use one metric (estimated time of play) as a measure of another (enjoyment).
What you are doing is similar to saying that Toyota should not publish MPG estimates for the Prius because you need a vehicle which can be used for towing. Since MPG doesn't describe the overall utility you will receive from a vehicle and can also sometimes be inaccurate based on driving style, Toyota might as well stop focusing on a single number and start developing better vehicles. I mean, I saw an F350 with a fifth wheel pulling an RV recently. What is Toyota thinking in claiming 40+ MPG when their Prius can't even tow a mobile living space? That's totally misleading, isn't it?
Perhaps the gaming industry isn't the party which is overly obsessed with the estimates of playing time. San Andreas is estimated at three times Vice City, which means that given ALL OF THE OTHER INFORMATION which I know about Vice City, I'm definitely going to be purchasing San Andreas. If Rockstar estimated playing time at 10 hours, I wouldn't be quite so quick to shell out $50.
Try joe -- it's got a broader feature set than PICO, but doesn't trade off much in terms of friendliness to the user.
Additionally, it's under GPL, which allows for redistribution of binaries, unlike PICO, whose license is very restrictive regarding binary distribution. Some distros choose to ignore the license and redistribute modified binaries anyways, but for those who care, GPL can be a nice alternative to UW's license.
You won't have to resort to "IRC, man pages, and poor documentation", and you won't have to worry about whether a crazy license will force distributions into scripting a source download and local compilation just to install the freaking editor (which is the way Debian does it, as distributing a patched version is illegal).
Finally, distribution of joe often include jpico, which is basically joe with keys rebound to be friendly to those who were raised on PICO and are looking for a gentle upgrade.
Perhaps the boss has gotten the impression that you've not done adequate research. If somebody from Sun began a sales pitch by pointing out problems with a company's current Microsoft-centric setup and finished with "try our hardware -- you won't notice much of a change", that person would rightfully be called a loser.
If your job involves making IT decisions then you should either learn to do legitimate investigation before trying to pitch an idea to the higher-ups or invest in a 401(k) and try to keep your job as long as possible before somebody realizes that you don't seem to be doing much analysis when making decisions affecting the security and operation of the company.
Keep in mind that most people trying to make a business successful probably don't want to worry about whether their browser will get in the way of business. If you make your employer think about which browser to use, be damned sure you present it in language he'll understand and appreciate (hint: try costs and benefits of IE vs. Firefox vs. Opera vs. a 16-bit copy of Netscape Navigator Gold, including costs in terms of security and maintenance).
If you can't provide this information, you're wasting the boss's time by pitching an idea you can't support.
If it isn't your job to make such decisions, then keep in mind that your job is to provide what is best for your employer, and that wasting time recommending a course of action you haven't fully researched is probably less beneficial than other things you could be doing.
Either way, don't nag -- pitch an idea, and let the person in charge decide. Let those above you realize that when you make a suggestion, it's been researched and has definite business advantages, not that you thought that Firefox looked nifty and decided to "Ask Slashdot" how to get your way.
How is this a change of policy? Let's look at Microsoft's old methods:
1) Embrace new methodology
2) Extend new methodology in a way that locks users into Microsoft products
Let's look at Microsoft's take on "open source":
1) Embrace OSS' idea of providing developers access to source code.
Would anyone care to guess what step #2 will be?
Why not look at specs? Because those who know how to look at specs (ie, determine whether it's a hardware modem) aren't the ones who need to be told what to buy.
My advice was for the general consumer that wants to be able to walk into CompUSA and find a modem that they'll be happy with, without having to pay extra for an external modem and without having to worry about not being able to easily return an item with which they're not happy.
The average person probably doesn't want to know what a chipset or command set is, or how to determine whether a modem has a UART. They just want to walk into a store and have some sense of what the difference between a $30 modem and a $90 modem is, and for those people I feel my post probably would have done more good than harm.
Besides, I did mention specific brands, and I also explained that there's nothing magical about the $80 I'd quoted.
Are there any other things I'd clearly covered that you'd like to try to refute?
I used to work tech support for a mid-sized ISP, and we used to take calls from unhappy Winmodem users constantly. No matter what your OS, don't waste your time with a Winmodem -- it's just not worth the time and hassle.
You probably spent at least a few hundred dollars on your computer, perhaps much more. Chances are, you'll be spending some time online with it. For many people, web browsing is their computer's primary use, but they insist on using a $13-on-Pricewatch modem (usually the one installed by the manufacturer -- Gateway, this means you!) to dial up.
Buy a US Robotics (or 3COM) modem, and spend at least $80 for it. Yes, I know that you can buy an HSP Micromodem for $8 on eBay, but as long as your computer can handle running IE (or Firefox, etc.) your modem is the single greatest influence on your dialup experience.
This goes for any operating system. Linux users are often forced into such a choice by the fact that Winmodems are rarely supported, and never work well.
Many here say "buy an external modem" -- initially, all modems were external, and plugged into a computer's serial port. This worked well, because serial ports are standard hardware, and no special drivers were required at all.
Modern quality modems (such as an $80+ 3COM) have a built-in serial port -- picture a serial port with a modem plugged into it, all contained within an ISA or PCI card. This is why they work so well, as dedicated hardware does what it was meant to do, and has been doing well for years.
Winmodems are like the bargain-basement "shared memory" video cards often shipped with home systems. Such video cards have no memory of their own, and consume system RAM for video memory. Similarly, software modems consume force the CPU to emulate an actual modem. While the CPU is a general-purpose computing device, it simply isn't a DSP, and isn't meant for signal processing. This means that it's less than efficient at processing signal data, and you'll notice the inefficiency in dropped connections.
Anecdotally, I once convinced a friend at my ISP to disable the auto-disconnect feature for my account. I was connected through a 33.6k US Robotis modem for 29 days before a power outage interrupted the connection. Soon after, I switched to broadband, but every winmodem user who has ever complained to me about dropped connections while refusing to shell out money for a real modem still brings a smile to my face.
I know I'm repeating myself here, but ANYONE USING DIALUP UNDER ANY OPERATING SYSTEM OWES IT TO THEMSELVES TO SPEND $80 OR MORE FOR A MODEM. And a PCI 3COM card (not a Winmodem -- again, be sure it's a hardware modem) will work fine under Linux. It'll show up as a serial port.
(Why $80? Sure, you may find a hardware modem for $75, but $80 should be a high enough bar to weed out even the priciest of Winmodems.)
Why would it make sense for settings relevant to the current application to be only shown in an unrelated application? Generally, whenever possible good UI design shows a direct link between an object and the things that modify it. The setting should be available from within the application.
It would not be sensible for Nautilus to ask on first launch, because until the user experiments they might not know which style they prefer. Furthermore, it would lead to confusion as to how they might change their mind in the future -- even if you mention it in the dialog box ("Would you like to try our spatial mode, or do you prefer traditional browsing methods? If you change your mind, you can always start gconf, click widgets, click frobnotz, and uncheck the 'spatial browsing' box") they probably won't remember the steps necessary to change the setting, because it's in a non-intuitive place.
This might lead a naive user to try reinstalling the app, as that's how they were presented the choice in the first place. It's poor technique to patch a bad UI choice by adding another.
Why would one artificially limit their use of tabs to only pages served from the same website? The author likens tabs in a browser to marks in a book. However, he almost suggests that use of such a tool should be limited in use to one specific style of usage. To me, it might make sense to use tabs within the same window to group pages related by task (recipies for tonight's dinner, for instance) rather than source.
And this is intuitive how? The author seems to think that UI elements should map directly to real-world objects. I am left wondering which real-world object would lead the user to stumble across the idea of holding the shift button while double-clicking.
Why double-clicking? Why must a modifier key be used? My remote control never requires a double-click. Nor do the climate controls on my car. The author seems to like the book analogy -- I've definitely never had to turn a page twice while holding a random button to get the desired response from a novel.
The author also suggests that if one cannot figure out how to change the application's default behavior then they should constrain themselves to the developer's idea of what the proper settings should be. In other words, if a user finds a UI to be confusing and unfriendly, it's their own fault and they aren't qualified to determine what environment they prefer.
Is this really the type of thing one should be saying of an application with a well-designed UI?
Well, I'm amused by the possibility. Spammers use tricks to try to make one think that they are opening emails from friends or family when in reality it's just vulgar garbage.
Like raindrops adding up to a flood, for all of the times someone's 13-year-old daughter has gotten an "enlarge your penis" email this guy is owed an unwanted invasion of what he considers to be his personal property on a massive scale.
I think that it would be sweet, sweet justice if, after doing the dirty deed, his cellmate said, "You have received this invasion because you or someone you know opted in at a prior date. If you'd like to opt out of it, hold your mouth open for me, and you'll be removed from my list within 48 hours."
You call evolution (the idea that certain traits which affect one's chances of survival can be passed on genetically) "made up science", but a book which has been translated by countless people with countless individual agendas is to be believed without question?
Umm, yeah. You might as well say "Forget empirical evidence, the idea that the sky is blue is made up science -- I read in some guy's translation of some guy's translation of some guy's translation of some collection of two-thousand-year-old documents that it's green, and I see no reason to question that idea. By the way, I'm not trying to start a flame war."
If you're playing devil's advocate and trying to make those who believe in a higher power look foolish, you're an insensitive clod. If you're not, I'd be surprised if you actually considered the relative merits of the works offered by all major world religions as opposed to simply mimicking your parents' beliefs.
In other words, you're probably either an asshole or a sheep.
I was going to moderate this post "Overrated", but I'd rather just explain why you're wrong in stating that the "algorithm that was going to hold back your competition runs perfectly fast on new processors".
Certain algorithms take more-than-proportionately longer as the data size increases. For example, if you're writing route-planning software, each additional stop on a route might cause the number of calculations required to (roughly) double.
In such a case, having hardware which is twice as powerful would mean that performance would half, although as soon as the user added two more data points, the performance would be slower than the original machine.
To clarify a tad, let's say FedEx decides to optimize the routes drivers in Montana are travelling. Assume that there are 10,000 stops and 200 drivers, and that your code runs in, say, an hour on FedEx's machines.
Assume that you've used an algorithm for which each additional data point doubles the amount of computation required. Now FedEx deciding to hire 10 more drivers means that your route planning software is going to take 2^10 times as long to plan their routes (since it doubles for each new data point, that's 2^1 for one driver, 2^2 for two, 2^3 for three...).
The point is that tiny operations add up when you've chosen the wrong algorithm. Despite the fact that runtime was fine using FedEx's CPU farm in the original situation, your disregard for efficiency will cause the route-planning time to take not the overnight-batch-job-friendly hour, but a stunning 1024 times as long (hint: over a month).
Say a new big fast machine enters the market, with four times the CPU power. FedEx will still need 256 times as many machines to perform the same calculations in under an hour, or at least, say, 32 times as many in order to be able to perform them overnight.
All because you decided that choosing algorithms based on performance was poppycock.
Prematurely optimizing on a microscopic level may be "bad", but choosing the proper algorithm can make the difference between a product with a future and a product with too many designed-in limitations to be able to handle greater-than-expected loads.
(CS fans will note that the TSP problem was a unrefined to have pulled out given the whole P/NP thing, but that's the point -- sticky situations can and will arise for which no amount of source-level optimization will save the day.)
Vim offers code folding. There are even Windows and KDE-enabled versions.
I'd be really surprised if EMACS didn't offer something similar.