Re:Maybe, but it doesn't work with databases...
on
An Early Look at JUnit 4
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I understand your frustration. One workaround I've seen uses the Spring framework's annoyingly-named AbstractTransactionalDataSourceSpringContextTests. Your test classes subclass that monstrosity, and after each test method is run the transaction is rolled back to avoid mucking up the DB for subsequent tests.
When you test DAOs, you have to have a custom method for inserting test data before or during each test. Once you get above the data access layer, you just use your now-tested DAOs.
It requires you to define the way you get your database connection through Spring, but that abstraction is necessary for unit testing DB-driven apps anyway. On one of my projects, I have one set of bean descriptions for unit testing which connects right to the DB and one set of beans for when the app is running in a Tomcat container. It's not a perfect method, that's for sure, but it allows me to unit test my code pretty painlessly once it's set up.
People can copy ones and zeroes across a wire at almost no cost, and if I'm in the business of producing ones and zeroes, then it's time to get creative.
I think you are confusing the two distinct entities collaborating here. The musicians create the ones and zeros, and the RIAA and big labels finance and distribute the ones and zeros. The creators are creating new music every moment of every day, but it's the distributors who need to get creative about how they run their business. Either you're confused or just an asshole.
so maybe they should all just walk away from the RIAA. What? There was no physical duress? Then shut up.
Once again, your lack of understanding of the topic at hand becomes apparent. The above statement is akin to an IT worker declaring "I will do my job, but I refuse to interact with Microsoft products in any way." Obviously, that person will not stay employed for long. Yes, the way the RIAA ridiculously pursues their own consumer base is wrong. Yes, the system needs to change. And the Internet will make that change happen in time. But to casually tell musicians to forge their own way is simply not possible in the current climate. You cannot fault musicians for attempting to advance their careers by using what is essentially the only game in town.
Your comment regarding musicians is utterly ridiculous. You forget that the RIAA does not have the interests of the average musician in mind. Most musicians would love to be able to make a decent working wage making music and are not the lazy slackers which you depict. It is the RIAA which exploits them the vast majority of the time, not the musicians which exploit the listener.
As an aside, if someone told you that you could make double your current salary working 3 days a week doing something you love, would you take that job? Of course you would, so don't pretend to be so ethically pure.
You're thinking too small, however. The number of people who are willing to take increased admin responsibility over their machine in exchange for not paying Microsoft is still in the minority of users.
For OSS to truly become as ubiquitous as Windows, you have to appeal to the vast user base of people who simply don't care about what OS they're running as long as it's dead easy to use. Despite what OSS advocates might think, most people are concerned with just being able to use the machine, not how customizable it is, and certainly not with the politics of a certain OS. For many people, the computer is a foreign object which does mysterious things within its beige interior, and there is absolutely no motivation to learn how it works. To successfully use an open source operating system (OSOS?:) you still need that expertise. I simply don't see Joe User investing the time to learn it.
Also, you're forgetting an important part of paying someone for a product: blame. If you buy an OS and it fails you, you can point to the manufacturer and say "Fix this." If your self-installed free OS tanks, you only have yourself to rely upon. The technically able, myself included, are more than willing to shoulder that blame for the responsibility of figuring some things out for themselves. Many, however, are not and will never be so inclined.
This problem represents the biggest quandary to the open source community. We will only capture significant market share if we make our software easier to use and more secure than proprietary alternatives. In doing so, we lose the freedom and customization which differentiates us from the rest of the pack.
You know, it's funny how this looks like a blow to consumers, when actually it's a blow against other businesses. How much revenue does TiVo and the NFL really think they are going to lose with this technology? This technology, in the consumer space, competes only with those "all games nationwide in a sport" package like DirectTV's NBA League Pass. How many consumers will both a) want to buy that package and b) be technically proficient and financially liquid enough to set up TiVo's around the country to stream all the games to their house? Not too many, entirely too much effort to get around paying ~$200/season.
Where I can see this being used is the sports bar market (for example). You get a bunch of sports bars nationwide which agree to stream each other the games from each market. Now the major cable/dish networks lose the revenue from each of those bars buying a premium sports package. Multiply this by tens of thousands of interested businesses, and it adds up to a significant amount. It seems to me that this is the real issue at hand.
It's not just the warmer sound, however. For guitar playing, at least, it's also the way the amp reacts to dynamics. A tube amp feels "spongy" in a way, it almost feels like the tubes push back at your playing slightly. I would imagine that if you played bass-heavy music through a tube power amp, it would react in the same manner. Admittedly, it's a very subjective feeling, you have to experience it to know what I'm talking about. It's just as subjective, in fact, as the tube vs. solid-state debate.;-)
I remember reading about the first round of Apple vs. Apple lawsuits in Mac Secrets.
(A *very* small summary here.)
You thought Apple Records went apeshit when Apple Computer started putting microphones with their machines, that was nothing!:)
All of your objections have been dealt with in one way or another.
1)...compromise a nearby machine first and install a packet sniffer...
Use a one-time pad system, as mentioned above.
2)...you'd see a lot of people writing down the knock...
If you'd read the Linux Journal article, they address that by saying the program that executes the knock needs to be very secure. Say, like the USB key they mention.
This isn't a great system for continued, heavy use as this guy pointed out, but it could be used for emergency purposes. For example, if you had to remotely administer a server. You have an emergency USB key that you plug in your local machine, knock, then gain remote access with the opened port (using whatever authentication you would have if the port was simply open).
I think, at very least, the concept needs to be thoroughly debated and vetted. (Maybe that's what we're doing here, or maybe we're just wanking;)
... means that the auto-tuner isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'm a guitar player, and I know that compression, for example, can be used in two different ways. It can be used before the mixer to limit vocal or sonic extremes and make it easier to balance with the rest of the band. On the other hand, I can stick a compressor set to an infinite compression ratio right after my distortion and use it to color my sound on purpose.
If this is the same technology that Kid Rock used on his ballad "Only God Knows Why" (I think that's the song) then that kind of treatment fits well with what technology should do for music. Fixing a crappy vocalist's inability to sing is another story entirely.
"For all its faults, Microsoft is not known for kicking its customers in the teeth."
Are you kidding me? Planned obsolescence? Squeezing consumers dry with each "upgrade"? Bundling an insecure scripting language with almost EVERY product it produces, thus singlehandedly giving the antivirus industry a job? Snuggling closer to content providers every day at the expense of individual users' rights? Further solidifying its monopoly, even after it was supposedly "disciplined" by the DOJ?
I find it funny/scary/ridiculous that MS and content providers will stand behind the CBDTPA, whose claim is ostensibly to promote the adoption of high-bandwidth Internet connections (by limiting what users can do with their computers), and then turn around and accuse them of limiting the freedoms of users. I suppose it's just another case of self-serving interests.
And BTW, since when is it the BSA's job to complain about other companies limiting user freedom? Don't they have enough to do finding "licence infringments" that they don't need to dip their claw in this?
So if Disney supports the SSSCA (or whatever they're calling it this week), which outlaws OS's that don't interface nicely with DRM-enabled hardware, what happens when their new render farm is suddenly illegal?;)
PrisonerCX
Re:Have they fixed the fonts?
on
KDE 3.0 is Out
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· Score: 1
Eventually I did turn off AA, but how do I fix the defaulting problem? Is there a config file that I can edit so it'll default to Courier or something when I log in?
Have they fixed the fonts?
on
KDE 3.0 is Out
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· Score: 1
I'm downloading KDE3 right now, but to anyone who already has it - have they fixed the atrocious font problem they had? At least on my machine (2.4.5, Slackware 8, KDE 2.2.2), no matter what I did about fonts, it always defaulted to Agate. It made terminal windows completely unreadable, an incredibly annoying problem. I mean, I'm sure it was something I could've fixed, but it drove me nuts. If it was just me, does anyone have any suggestions?
"some guitar models come with something called a sustainer"
See, now, the pessimist in me would say that this is just Fernandes' way of making do with an inferior product to begin with. I know it's a gimmick (the paint job), but as a guitarist on a budget, it pains me to see someone drop so much coin on a toy.
Case in point - I bought an Epiphone LP from Guitar Center, ebony with cream binding. I had it for a month and went to change the strings, and the freaking low E tuner breaks. Won't turn. The manager of the GC was real nice and traded me straight up for a limited edition Epi cherry sunburst LP, but even that is having problems with the pickup selector. Moral? You get what you pay for. If you buy cheap hardware, there's a *reason* why it's so cheap. Both LPs were in the $400-$600 range, with every single Gibson LP in the store going for over a grand.
For this price, I could buy a Gibson Les Paul Studio new from Guitar Center. I guarantee you it would be just as beautiful, and sound about a hundred times better.;)
I don't care what anyone says, a Cherry Sunburst LP is one of the most beautiful things in the world.
Of course, IANAL, but I don't see the distinction between a company that breaks compatibility by attempting to copy protect its wares and a company that breaks compatibility to further its own market share. I mean, could MS get away with starting its own record label, exclusively putting its music out in encrypted, hobbled WMA format on CDs (or something), then calling it a Compact Disc or an Album? If it's a small company, then it would be poor business sense, but we're talking about a near-monopoly (the labels represented by the RIAA produce the vast amount of the commercially-available music on the market).
I'm not telling anyone here anything they don't know already, but it just makes me shake my head and sigh every time I see this: When an article is about how an industry (recording, movie) is being negatively impacted, you can bet there will *always* be a mention of piracy. You need proof? Look at the press releases and stories about the music industry for the last year and a half. 10 to 1 odds that if the article is even slightly negative, and possibly unrelated in its scope, the piracy card gets played. Not once do you see piracy mentioned here. To be honest, I'm kinda surprised its not, but I guess ol' Jack is trying to drum up sales by pointing out how much they are all loved.;)
I get so pissed when I see stories (e.g. about a settlement of a pissed-off purchaser of a copy-protected CD with the industry) turn into a screed about the evils of the Internet and how it's screwing artists out of money. That part of their argument always pissed me off. It seems to me like they've pretty much led by example in the screwing of the artists department.
Cmdr - I'd suggest making a new category for stories like this, naming it "Your Lack Of Rights Online" and have a picture of a generic Congressman (maybe one that looks like Hollings) sodomizing you with a legal document. That seems more appropriate than the current icon.
(I say this with a deeply heavy heart. I am honestly scared as to what the world holds for me as a CS major when I graduate.)
Please don't flame me, I'm just brainstorming here. If someone was truly worried about fidelity, couldn't they get a high-end CD player with S/PDIF out and use it with some set of computer audio hardware (SB LiveDrive2 or even higher-end equipment) to get near-perfect results? Of course, the pollution of the original stream because of their "copy protection" would still be there, but at least this would minimize any further signal degradation.
On the subject of Mac-is-better-than-Windows-is-better-than-Linux:
I have been a Mac user for years (mostly by virtue of the fact that both my parents are teachers) and have worked the past 3 years for a practically all Mac school district doing repairs/upgrades and maintenance. Having built my own PC (Win2k/Mandrake 8) when I went off to college last year, I can categorically say that I would go crazy if I had to administer a 700+ machine PC environment. The ease with which Macs are administered is astonishing. Sure, there's not as much to the machines, but from the guy who has to administer them's point of view, that is a definite good thing.
Also, about the whole 1 or 2 button mouse deal, I would have to say that after using X Windows and Win2k, I sorely miss that second mouse button when going back to a stock Mac. (Having said that, I plugged my IntelliMouse Explorer into an iMac last year, and it used the wheel with no problem w/o IntelliPoint being installed.)
I've never understood why some Wintel zealots hate Macs so much. They're a niche market, and nowhere near overturning your beloved platform. Why even bother expending the energy to hate them?
Slashdot Mirror
It requires you to define the way you get your database connection through Spring, but that abstraction is necessary for unit testing DB-driven apps anyway. On one of my projects, I have one set of bean descriptions for unit testing which connects right to the DB and one set of beans for when the app is running in a Tomcat container. It's not a perfect method, that's for sure, but it allows me to unit test my code pretty painlessly once it's set up.
Don't be too sad for him, he got his wish. He's about to be far more involved with anal probing.
We should definitely throw all 12-year-old iPod owners in jail for the poor musicians.
Did you even read the first half of my post?
On second thought, you're not an asshole. You're just confused and trolling.
People can copy ones and zeroes across a wire at almost no cost, and if I'm in the business of producing ones and zeroes, then it's time to get creative.
I think you are confusing the two distinct entities collaborating here. The musicians create the ones and zeros, and the RIAA and big labels finance and distribute the ones and zeros. The creators are creating new music every moment of every day, but it's the distributors who need to get creative about how they run their business. Either you're confused or just an asshole.
so maybe they should all just walk away from the RIAA. What? There was no physical duress? Then shut up.
Once again, your lack of understanding of the topic at hand becomes apparent. The above statement is akin to an IT worker declaring "I will do my job, but I refuse to interact with Microsoft products in any way." Obviously, that person will not stay employed for long. Yes, the way the RIAA ridiculously pursues their own consumer base is wrong. Yes, the system needs to change. And the Internet will make that change happen in time. But to casually tell musicians to forge their own way is simply not possible in the current climate. You cannot fault musicians for attempting to advance their careers by using what is essentially the only game in town.
Your comment regarding musicians is utterly ridiculous. You forget that the RIAA does not have the interests of the average musician in mind. Most musicians would love to be able to make a decent working wage making music and are not the lazy slackers which you depict. It is the RIAA which exploits them the vast majority of the time, not the musicians which exploit the listener.
As an aside, if someone told you that you could make double your current salary working 3 days a week doing something you love, would you take that job? Of course you would, so don't pretend to be so ethically pure.
You're thinking too small, however. The number of people who are willing to take increased admin responsibility over their machine in exchange for not paying Microsoft is still in the minority of users.
:) you still need that expertise. I simply don't see Joe User investing the time to learn it.
For OSS to truly become as ubiquitous as Windows, you have to appeal to the vast user base of people who simply don't care about what OS they're running as long as it's dead easy to use. Despite what OSS advocates might think, most people are concerned with just being able to use the machine, not how customizable it is, and certainly not with the politics of a certain OS. For many people, the computer is a foreign object which does mysterious things within its beige interior, and there is absolutely no motivation to learn how it works. To successfully use an open source operating system (OSOS?
Also, you're forgetting an important part of paying someone for a product: blame. If you buy an OS and it fails you, you can point to the manufacturer and say "Fix this." If your self-installed free OS tanks, you only have yourself to rely upon. The technically able, myself included, are more than willing to shoulder that blame for the responsibility of figuring some things out for themselves. Many, however, are not and will never be so inclined.
This problem represents the biggest quandary to the open source community. We will only capture significant market share if we make our software easier to use and more secure than proprietary alternatives. In doing so, we lose the freedom and customization which differentiates us from the rest of the pack.
You know, it's funny how this looks like a blow to consumers, when actually it's a blow against other businesses. How much revenue does TiVo and the NFL really think they are going to lose with this technology? This technology, in the consumer space, competes only with those "all games nationwide in a sport" package like DirectTV's NBA League Pass. How many consumers will both a) want to buy that package and b) be technically proficient and financially liquid enough to set up TiVo's around the country to stream all the games to their house? Not too many, entirely too much effort to get around paying ~$200/season.
Where I can see this being used is the sports bar market (for example). You get a bunch of sports bars nationwide which agree to stream each other the games from each market. Now the major cable/dish networks lose the revenue from each of those bars buying a premium sports package. Multiply this by tens of thousands of interested businesses, and it adds up to a significant amount. It seems to me that this is the real issue at hand.
Reminds me of an old joke.
Audiophile (n): A person who listens to the equipment rather than the music.
It's not just the warmer sound, however. For guitar playing, at least, it's also the way the amp reacts to dynamics. A tube amp feels "spongy" in a way, it almost feels like the tubes push back at your playing slightly. I would imagine that if you played bass-heavy music through a tube power amp, it would react in the same manner. Admittedly, it's a very subjective feeling, you have to experience it to know what I'm talking about. It's just as subjective, in fact, as the tube vs. solid-state debate. ;-)
I remember reading about the first round of Apple vs. Apple lawsuits in Mac Secrets. :)
(A *very* small summary here.)
You thought Apple Records went apeshit when Apple Computer started putting microphones with their machines, that was nothing!
1) ...compromise a nearby machine first and install a packet sniffer...
Use a one-time pad system, as mentioned above.
2) ...you'd see a lot of people writing down the knock...
If you'd read the Linux Journal article, they address that by saying the program that executes the knock needs to be very secure. Say, like the USB key they mention.
This isn't a great system for continued, heavy use as this guy pointed out, but it could be used for emergency purposes. For example, if you had to remotely administer a server. You have an emergency USB key that you plug in your local machine, knock, then gain remote access with the opened port (using whatever authentication you would have if the port was simply open).
I think, at very least, the concept needs to be thoroughly debated and vetted. (Maybe that's what we're doing here, or maybe we're just wanking ;)
PrisonerCX
... means that the auto-tuner isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'm a guitar player, and I know that compression, for example, can be used in two different ways. It can be used before the mixer to limit vocal or sonic extremes and make it easier to balance with the rest of the band. On the other hand, I can stick a compressor set to an infinite compression ratio right after my distortion and use it to color my sound on purpose.
If this is the same technology that Kid Rock used on his ballad "Only God Knows Why" (I think that's the song) then that kind of treatment fits well with what technology should do for music. Fixing a crappy vocalist's inability to sing is another story entirely.
PrisonerCX
Are you kidding me? Planned obsolescence? Squeezing consumers dry with each "upgrade"? Bundling an insecure scripting language with almost EVERY product it produces, thus singlehandedly giving the antivirus industry a job? Snuggling closer to content providers every day at the expense of individual users' rights? Further solidifying its monopoly, even after it was supposedly "disciplined" by the DOJ?
Maybe this guy sees something I don't. ;)
PrisonerCX
I find it funny/scary/ridiculous that MS and content providers will stand behind the CBDTPA, whose claim is ostensibly to promote the adoption of high-bandwidth Internet connections (by limiting what users can do with their computers), and then turn around and accuse them of limiting the freedoms of users. I suppose it's just another case of self-serving interests.
And BTW, since when is it the BSA's job to complain about other companies limiting user freedom? Don't they have enough to do finding "licence infringments" that they don't need to dip their claw in this?
PrisonerCX
So if Disney supports the SSSCA (or whatever they're calling it this week), which outlaws OS's that don't interface nicely with DRM-enabled hardware, what happens when their new render farm is suddenly illegal? ;)
PrisonerCX
Eventually I did turn off AA, but how do I fix the defaulting problem? Is there a config file that I can edit so it'll default to Courier or something when I log in?
I'm downloading KDE3 right now, but to anyone who already has it - have they fixed the atrocious font problem they had? At least on my machine (2.4.5, Slackware 8, KDE 2.2.2), no matter what I did about fonts, it always defaulted to Agate. It made terminal windows completely unreadable, an incredibly annoying problem. I mean, I'm sure it was something I could've fixed, but it drove me nuts. If it was just me, does anyone have any suggestions?
"some guitar models come with something called a sustainer"
See, now, the pessimist in me would say that this is just Fernandes' way of making do with an inferior product to begin with. I know it's a gimmick (the paint job), but as a guitarist on a budget, it pains me to see someone drop so much coin on a toy.
Case in point - I bought an Epiphone LP from Guitar Center, ebony with cream binding. I had it for a month and went to change the strings, and the freaking low E tuner breaks. Won't turn. The manager of the GC was real nice and traded me straight up for a limited edition Epi cherry sunburst LP, but even that is having problems with the pickup selector. Moral? You get what you pay for. If you buy cheap hardware, there's a *reason* why it's so cheap. Both LPs were in the $400-$600 range, with every single Gibson LP in the store going for over a grand.
PrisonerCX
"in their price range"
;)
For this price, I could buy a Gibson Les Paul Studio new from Guitar Center. I guarantee you it would be just as beautiful, and sound about a hundred times better.
I don't care what anyone says, a Cherry Sunburst LP is one of the most beautiful things in the world.
PrisonerCX
Of course, IANAL, but I don't see the distinction between a company that breaks compatibility by attempting to copy protect its wares and a company that breaks compatibility to further its own market share. I mean, could MS get away with starting its own record label, exclusively putting its music out in encrypted, hobbled WMA format on CDs (or something), then calling it a Compact Disc or an Album? If it's a small company, then it would be poor business sense, but we're talking about a near-monopoly (the labels represented by the RIAA produce the vast amount of the commercially-available music on the market).
PrisonerCX
I'm not telling anyone here anything they don't know already, but it just makes me shake my head and sigh every time I see this: When an article is about how an industry (recording, movie) is being negatively impacted, you can bet there will *always* be a mention of piracy. You need proof? Look at the press releases and stories about the music industry for the last year and a half. 10 to 1 odds that if the article is even slightly negative, and possibly unrelated in its scope, the piracy card gets played. Not once do you see piracy mentioned here. To be honest, I'm kinda surprised its not, but I guess ol' Jack is trying to drum up sales by pointing out how much they are all loved. ;)
I get so pissed when I see stories (e.g. about a settlement of a pissed-off purchaser of a copy-protected CD with the industry) turn into a screed about the evils of the Internet and how it's screwing artists out of money. That part of their argument always pissed me off. It seems to me like they've pretty much led by example in the screwing of the artists department.
PrisonerCX
Cmdr - I'd suggest making a new category for stories like this, naming it "Your Lack Of Rights Online" and have a picture of a generic Congressman (maybe one that looks like Hollings) sodomizing you with a legal document. That seems more appropriate than the current icon.
(I say this with a deeply heavy heart. I am honestly scared as to what the world holds for me as a CS major when I graduate.)
PrisonerCX
to get them to switch to a Microsoft cluster?" How about not shafting everybody who's ever used your OS? ;)
Please don't flame me, I'm just brainstorming here. If someone was truly worried about fidelity, couldn't they get a high-end CD player with S/PDIF out and use it with some set of computer audio hardware (SB LiveDrive2 or even higher-end equipment) to get near-perfect results? Of course, the pollution of the original stream because of their "copy protection" would still be there, but at least this would minimize any further signal degradation.
Also, about the whole 1 or 2 button mouse deal, I would have to say that after using X Windows and Win2k, I sorely miss that second mouse button when going back to a stock Mac. (Having said that, I plugged my IntelliMouse Explorer into an iMac last year, and it used the wheel with no problem w/o IntelliPoint being installed.)
I've never understood why some Wintel zealots hate Macs so much. They're a niche market, and nowhere near overturning your beloved platform. Why even bother expending the energy to hate them?
PrisonerCX