You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away, provided that the ground is fairly soft. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes
On Being the Right SizeJ. B. S. Haldane in 1928
Sextus Empiricus could have told us that 1750 years sooner if he had a mouse, a rat, a spare horse and a thousand-yard mine shaft.
That's why you have the manager sign off on the requirements and functional specification. He can change his mind (and often does as a company better understands the market) but the cost is then his responsibility which he can balance with the potential reward in his decision and communicate a justification to stake holders. If you just make the box, the responsibility is then fairly yours. How was the manager to know the cost of his decision?
Tight algorithms are nice to have for most of the people actually using software. Engineering is an applied science. Engineers solve real problems which means clearly identifying the potential for their investment.
Identify who is going to use the software. Who is this person? Put together a profile on a couple sheets of paper. Have a face for this person. There may be a few personas that will use the software.
Given these personas. How do they accomplish the task you intend to improve today? What is painful in their current workflow? A possible answer is they can't do it.
Given these pain points. Create a list of pain points you can address. When you can say how these will be addressed, they become a functional specification. Part of the functional specification may include performance related concerns if it is driven by the persona.
Given a functional specification, you will need some architectural design to make the implementation possible, document that.
Now you have enough to say how you will test it; some will be unit tests and some will be operational. As you document the testing, you may find your functional specification needs to be more precise.
From there, use what you already know. Improve upon how you implement as time permits but keep the larger picture in mind.
Ideally you will have others review your documentation and code before letting it out the door.
When you are done, everything goes back to the original persona with pain points you are improving. If the tests are passing and the end user is not satisfied, you missed a requirement in your functional specification.
Having lived in the Colorado front range, some of the comments sounded odd enough that I looked at his site and try to read between the lines - some of the comments blur the lines of politics and science. His copper and magnanese observations may be pointing to something that will later make sense in a more refined theory.
Mark sounds like he was an intesting person. It looks like he itching to know if a copper supplement helped.
The EU could invalidate all intellectual property protections for microsoft products in the EU.
They could but keep in mind those protections are part of the post WWII agreements. There are probably better solutions that don't involve teenagers dying.
Why this got rated as informitive is beyond me. It has an honest mistake which is very misleading.
"Yes, you are correct, that's why downloading songs without paying for them isn't theft -- it's copyright infringement."
downloading songs is not illegal. Even downloading copyrighted songs is legal. What is illegal is giving someone a copy of copyrighted material.
As an example from when copyright laws made more sense in the 1750's.
I buy a book from England. I setup my printing press in the USA to make a copy of the book. One page at a time. Its a labor of love. It feels patriotic. It really is the american way. Sure there are laws that predate the future USA that came from England. Our colonies all adopted these laws but it is time for a change; these taxes do not make sense. After a printing of the book and when I sell the book for a fraction of the price of the books comming over the pond, I have commited copyright infringment. The person that purchased (downloaded) the book did nothing wrong.
The antitrust case in the US started out with Sun, Oracle, Netscape and AOL listing a few reasons Microsoft was a monopoly. The one they had solid proof of was the browser. Netscape was (disputably) trying to sell a product. Microsoft bundled IE and destroyed Netscapes marketshare almost overnight. It was a clear case of monopoly abuse despite the effort Microsoft put into their browser.
Netscape wasn't just going to browse the Internet. It would read news groups, function as a mail client,... It was a 'platform' for other products. It was a closed source fork of Mosaic and it was out to take on Microsoft. The Firefox of today is a shadow of the dream (with a fraction of the bugs).
Dell claims to be following Linux. I don't think they have the nads to act. We hear about how MSFT has them cornered with MSOffice licensing (OS licensing was more or less fixed by the DOJ).
So MSFT can punish Dell as soon as you see linux in the Dell flyer sent to your door.
Linux can do just fine with other vendors. If Dell wants to be significant in that play, they can start acting like leaders just like Linux and other vendors are.
The problem is, I don't think Dell is going to make a real move until they know they can drop MSFT. They talk the talk. Machines come and go on impossible to find pages. Thats not the type of vendor I want to get Linux machines from.
By the time they make a significant move, it will be too late (for them).
Yikes. I saw a trasformer go in 1972 in an Arizona desert storm. It was more the direct lightening in the parent post picture. I had just got out of a vehicle, looked up and there was a direct strike in the back yard of my house. The picture does not capture how much power there is when you are 40 yards from it.
The transformer ceramic flew on about 6 houses as white hot cinders. So it when from ducking to wondering to fighting fires in about 30 seconds.
Wonderful use of language in an effort to change perceptions.
MSFT isnt a Monopoly. They are a predatory abusive monopoly. Yes they are still abusing their market position as the 80% marketshare of their inferior legacy IE shows. They are still trying to abuse their marketshare as their abuse of the ECMA standards group with their draconian MS Word document format shows. They are still dumping inferior outdated products to the point where only Open Source produced by the good will of comopanies and individuals programming at home proves.
The exact market share of MSFT is not as important as their abuse of their marketshare which hinders inovation, economic growth freedom and democracy. Come back when MSFT does not have a position to abuse. Then we can talk.
Google with a fraction of a percent of Microsoft's money has survived...
I must be confused about "fractions of percents" (or I'm new here). Google's market cap is about 50% as large as MicroSoft's. They have about 20% as much cash. When you say "fraction of a percent", do you mean the fraction "50" or "20"
Half of MSFT's 40 billion is slated for a stock buyback (19 Billion). So googles 8 Billion in cash is 40% of MSFT's free cash and short term investments.
>>
I have written numerous macros (which automate less obvious, or screamingly obvious, tasks), including the word count for version 1.
Not to detract from his points - bringing more focus can't hurt in the long run - but around 1.2 days I surfed the bug database and found an amazing number of bugs relating to... word counts.
I wondered what was up with that. I was more concerned about printer bugs and other bugs. Rather funny to see him raise that flag though.
SCOX may well have contract disputes but they will have to file new claims in New York if they have not expired. I doubt they can still file in even New York.
If this is about contract disputes in Utah, laugh politely as you look at how little cash SCOX has at this point. Contract disputes also do not translate to end user liability.
Linux users should not care about this on multiple levels.
"wouldn't it be easier to set it at (say) 5% for everyone which goes to a central pot and is then distributed to the individual states based on population or estimated online sales or who-needs-it-the-most"
Then they could vote on it. New York, Florida and California would all agree the states with the most votes should get the entire pot and that would be that.
Sure something could happen. Maybe firefox leaks personal information or your previous draft of an email to Ford reveals you are talking to GM too in a Word doc.
These are risks. If the risks are serious enough in your mind, you can buy insurance; often from someone backed by companies like Lloyds Bank that have expertise in such areas. But don't demand that everyone pay for insurance.
It is your freedom to decide if you want insurance or not. Don't try to dictate your wishes upon everyone. The costs will just be passed right back to you.
"I agree with the idea that the market should set the prices, and that those prices will inevitably land all over the place, but he wants to define a lower bound."
If we let the market decide prices lets look at this from eco 101.
Supply: Unlimited. Demand: Limited.
Without false markets and scarcity of goods (RIAA) the music has little value. It would be measured in cents not dollars.
RNA is the hardest to work with in the laboratory. It just fall to pieces. When I was working with DNA/RNA/protien it was just really hard to work with RNA.
so DNA->RNA->Protein
We could work with DNA we could work with most protiens. RNA? no way. well sortof but.. no way.
So DNA and Protein do play major rolls no doubt. but we could not get an angle on the RNA. 1990's tech.
Slashdot Mirror
On Being the Right Size J. B. S. Haldane in 1928
Sextus Empiricus could have told us that 1750 years sooner if he had a mouse, a rat, a spare horse and a thousand-yard mine shaft.
Wow, two launches in one day. That's amaz..
Nevermind.
US pennies made before 1982 are mostly copper with a current melt down (illegal) value of $0.02 each. Post 1982, the content is 95+% zinc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_(United_States_coin)
My family has had a ranch in the mountains for about 100 years within line of sight of a military airport in more recent years.
The B17 and other wreckage there was horrible, uncommon and yet eventual.
You won't see those pictures on the Internet.
That's why you have the manager sign off on the requirements and functional specification. He can change his mind (and often does as a company better understands the market) but the cost is then his responsibility which he can balance with the potential reward in his decision and communicate a justification to stake holders. If you just make the box, the responsibility is then fairly yours. How was the manager to know the cost of his decision?
Tight algorithms are nice to have for most of the people actually using software. Engineering is an applied science. Engineers solve real problems which means clearly identifying the potential for their investment.
Identify who is going to use the software. Who is this person? Put together a profile on a couple sheets of paper. Have a face for this person. There may be a few personas that will use the software.
Given these personas. How do they accomplish the task you intend to improve today? What is painful in their current workflow? A possible answer is they can't do it.
Given these pain points. Create a list of pain points you can address. When you can say how these will be addressed, they become a functional specification. Part of the functional specification may include performance related concerns if it is driven by the persona.
Given a functional specification, you will need some architectural design to make the implementation possible, document that.
Now you have enough to say how you will test it; some will be unit tests and some will be operational. As you document the testing, you may find your functional specification needs to be more precise.
From there, use what you already know. Improve upon how you implement as time permits but keep the larger picture in mind.
Ideally you will have others review your documentation and code before letting it out the door.
When you are done, everything goes back to the original persona with pain points you are improving. If the tests are passing and the end user is not satisfied, you missed a requirement in your functional specification.
>> This is the longest, paved, straight, flat stretch of road that the organizers are aware of, in the US.
I'm guessing this could be the tourist attraction North Dakota has been looking for.
The Red River Valley is a prime place for long flat paved roads. Think "curve of the earth" flat.
Having lived in the Colorado front range, some of the comments sounded odd enough that I looked at his site and try to read between the lines - some of the comments blur the lines of politics and science. His copper and magnanese observations may be pointing to something that will later make sense in a more refined theory.
Mark sounds like he was an intesting person. It looks like he itching to know if a copper supplement helped.
The EU could invalidate all intellectual property protections for microsoft products in the EU.
They could but keep in mind those protections are part of the post WWII agreements. There are probably better solutions that don't involve teenagers dying.
Why this got rated as informitive is beyond me. It has an honest mistake which is very misleading.
"Yes, you are correct, that's why downloading songs without paying for them isn't theft -- it's copyright infringement."
downloading songs is not illegal. Even downloading copyrighted songs is legal. What is illegal is giving someone a copy of copyrighted material.
As an example from when copyright laws made more sense in the 1750's.
I buy a book from England. I setup my printing press in the USA to make a copy of the book. One page at a time. Its a labor of love. It feels patriotic. It really is the american way. Sure there are laws that predate the future USA that came from England. Our colonies all adopted these laws but it is time for a change; these taxes do not make sense. After a printing of the book and when I sell the book for a fraction of the price of the books comming over the pond, I have commited copyright infringment. The person that purchased (downloaded) the book did nothing wrong.
Long live the printing press.
The antitrust case in the US started out with Sun, Oracle, Netscape and AOL listing a few reasons Microsoft was a monopoly. The one they had solid proof of was the browser. Netscape was (disputably) trying to sell a product. Microsoft bundled IE and destroyed Netscapes marketshare almost overnight. It was a clear case of monopoly abuse despite the effort Microsoft put into their browser.
... It was a 'platform' for other products. It was a closed source fork of Mosaic and it was out to take on Microsoft. The Firefox of today is a shadow of the dream (with a fraction of the bugs).
Netscape wasn't just going to browse the Internet. It would read news groups, function as a mail client,
Dell claims to be following Linux. I don't think they have the nads to act. We hear about how MSFT has them cornered with MSOffice licensing (OS licensing was more or less fixed by the DOJ).
So MSFT can punish Dell as soon as you see linux in the Dell flyer sent to your door.
Linux can do just fine with other vendors. If Dell wants to be significant in that play, they can start acting like leaders just like Linux and other vendors are.
The problem is, I don't think Dell is going to make a real move until they know they can drop MSFT. They talk the talk. Machines come and go on impossible to find pages. Thats not the type of vendor I want to get Linux machines from.
By the time they make a significant move, it will be too late (for them).
Yikes. I saw a trasformer go in 1972 in an Arizona desert storm. It was more the direct lightening in the parent post picture. I had just got out of a vehicle, looked up and there was a direct strike in the back yard of my house. The picture does not capture how much power there is when you are 40 yards from it.
The transformer ceramic flew on about 6 houses as white hot cinders. So it when from ducking to wondering to fighting fires in about 30 seconds.
Wonderful use of language in an effort to change perceptions.
MSFT isnt a Monopoly. They are a predatory abusive monopoly. Yes they are still abusing their market position as the 80% marketshare of their inferior legacy IE shows. They are still trying to abuse their marketshare as their abuse of the ECMA standards group with their draconian MS Word document format shows. They are still dumping inferior outdated products to the point where only Open Source produced by the good will of comopanies and individuals programming at home proves.
The exact market share of MSFT is not as important as their abuse of their marketshare which hinders inovation, economic growth freedom and democracy. Come back when MSFT does not have a position to abuse. Then we can talk.
Very usable, does nothing, Everyone understands it. Developers consider themselves visionary looking at 0 bugs filed.
Half of MSFT's 40 billion is slated for a stock buyback (19 Billion). So googles 8 Billion in cash is 40% of MSFT's free cash and short term investments.
>>
I have written numerous macros (which automate less obvious, or screamingly obvious, tasks), including the word count for version 1.
Not to detract from his points - bringing more focus can't hurt in the long run - but around 1.2 days I surfed the bug database and found an amazing number of bugs relating to
I wondered what was up with that. I was more concerned about printer bugs and other bugs. Rather funny to see him raise that flag though.
SCOX may well have contract disputes but they will have to file new claims in New York if they have not expired. I doubt they can still file in even New York.
If this is about contract disputes in Utah, laugh politely as you look at how little cash SCOX has at this point. Contract disputes also do not translate to end user liability.
Linux users should not care about this on multiple levels.
Forgive me for being cold but the black blague sent us back over 200 years.
Yes its nice to characterize this virus but it looks like our genetics have the advantage. In a very cold statistical manor.
Not to distract from the research which is important but this is not the end of humanity.
"wouldn't it be easier to set it at (say) 5% for everyone which goes to a central pot and is then distributed to the individual states based on population or estimated online sales or who-needs-it-the-most"
Then they could vote on it. New York, Florida and California would all agree the states with the most votes should get the entire pot and that would be that.
Sure something could happen. Maybe firefox leaks personal information or your previous draft of an email to Ford reveals you are talking to GM too in a Word doc.
These are risks. If the risks are serious enough in your mind, you can buy insurance; often from someone backed by companies like Lloyds Bank that have expertise in such areas. But don't demand that everyone pay for insurance.
It is your freedom to decide if you want insurance or not. Don't try to dictate your wishes upon everyone. The costs will just be passed right back to you.
"I agree with the idea that the market should set the prices, and that those prices will inevitably land all over the place, but he wants to define a lower bound."
If we let the market decide prices lets look at this from eco 101.
Supply: Unlimited.
Demand: Limited.
Without false markets and scarcity of goods (RIAA) the music has little value. It would be measured in cents not dollars.
Bring on fair markets.
RNA is the hardest to work with in the laboratory. It just fall to pieces. When I was working with DNA/RNA/protien it was just really hard to work with RNA.
so DNA->RNA->Protein
We could work with DNA we could work with most protiens. RNA? no way. well sortof but.. no way.
So DNA and Protein do play major rolls no doubt. but we could not get an angle on the RNA. 1990's tech.
Microsoft said interoperability was their top priority. What else did they need to know? Apache is 70% of the internet.
http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/xseries/win