A large CAD package I work comes with header files for its API. In many instances, the header files are really the only documentation available for certain functions and data structures. Imagine my delight when looking at the comments to see something that resembles english but makes so little sense that I had to write test programs to empirically determine what I needed to know.
It seemed pretty clear that the comments were written by someone who didn't learn english very well, and it would have saved me, a customer, hours of time, if someone fluent in english would have gone through the header files and updated the comments to be understandable.
Your amazement is well founded, and I'd bet any Diebold engineers reading these threads are too embarassed to reply. If they do reply, it would be because they are too stupid to be embarrassed.
Not so much that he said them but the sheer frequency of its usage.
It's no different than Microsoft and their use of "innovation." It's called marketing, which is usually made up of lies covered with doublespeak. They leave the populace confused over the intuitive contradiction in what a person of authority is saying. These tactics are a very powerful form of population control and are documented through the work of social psychologists.
Their principles list "distributed government" right along side "univeral health care." I don't know how they can reconcile the two, but this is their claim. They have to rely on an income tax as a crutch, however, because no other tax can be so unfairly high as to pay for medical coverage for the elderly.
I doubt it, as we're mainly just going through another period of history. American historians will look back to today and make documentaries just like they do for the industrialization, the civil war, conflicts over western territory, civil rights, etc.
Funny, how something as unconstitutional as a prohibition on alcohol required a new amendment, yet something just as unconstitutional--the war on drugs--simply requires a majority vote in Congress. Politicians are must be among the weakest people on earth.
Thank you, Nader supporters for helping GWB into office. He couldn't have done it without you.
This is a fallacy. You know, if it weren't for all those people voting for GWB and Gore, Nader would have won!
People who don't vote for the best canidate from their point-of-view are liars to both themselves and to their nation. They are terrible citizens and are doing a terrible disservice to their future. They are weak. They should be ashamed. But they aren't. Thus, they are criminals.
Do you feel better, now, for all those people who voted for GWB, because of their sheepish "vote for the winning team" crap philosophy? Or do you feel better for those who voted for Nader out of conscience? At least those who voted for what they believe in can feel good about themselves. Compare that to everyone who wanted to vote for Nader but didn't.
I, for one, will certainly not be voting for a Democrat nor a Republican, and I don't feel bad about it at all.
Actually, you completely misread Starship Troopers.
No, I don't think I did. I just didn't mention the more important meaning of putting one's self on the line for the sake of the nation (how much can I say in one sentence, anyway). The story of Starship Troopers really is not at all subtle, as the quotes before chapters and whole paragraphs were devoted to describing the ideology behind democracy and freedom. It is probably the case that the founding fathers of the USA had exactly these things in mind, but that, during their day, they simply took them for granted. Who wasn't a veteran in the late 18th century, for example?
I got the impression that Heinlein was not criticing democracy at all but was merely criticising the current form of it. The USA had the potential of being completely and truly awesome, but recent history shows it is beginning to wear. The Constitution is very close to the idealism from Starship Troopers, but perhaps with just a little tweak (it really doesn't need much) a lot of good can be done.
we're in for a civil war within the next 30 or 40 years at this rate
What comes next?
The US Constitution hit pretty close to the mark over 200 years ago. One problem is with its extension mechanism. It allowed amendments that took rights away, such as the Federal Income Tax and Prohibition amendments. We are still suffering under the income tax; thankfully, prohibition was temporary.
I'd prefer a peaceful resolution, such as recognizing issues with the Constitution, repealing the sixteenth amendment, and passing a new amendment that requires further new amendments to be additive in nature (i.e., adding rights to vote or adding rights to citizenship).
The Republicans foam at the mouth with this, but the Libertarians and, perhaps, the Greens are the only two major third parties that actually take limited and/or distributed government to heart.
The Libertarians are much more pure in their approach, as they don't rely on the morbidly-obese government to dole out "social justice."
After three years of total Republican rule, we have the largest and most intrusive government ever. So much for limited government and free enterprise out of the so-called party of limited government and free enterprise.
What? Do you really think Republicans stand for these ideals? What idealism are you calling for? That of the Democrats?
Limited government is absolutely essential to freedom. Free enterprise is absolutely essential to freedom. Unfortunately, both the Republicans and the Democrats have effectively forgotten these things through decades of political maneuvering and back-handed deals.
People should begin voting more for third parties and independent canidates. My hope is that over time, the two major parties together start taking up less than 50% of the vote and the other parties and canidates begin getting more opportunities for real change. Sadly, there is so much political inertia against third parties, that it would probably take anohter half-dozen elections for real change to become noticable.
The people who are in office are there because we put them there to represent our views....are they not representing our views? This scares me, but perhaps the average complacent piece of shit voter actually wants this "oversight." Remember, in a democracy, or more slowly in a representative democracy, it's the people that do themselves in.
This shit has been predicted for over 50 years, now!
No, make that 228 years (Declaration of Independence). No, wait, make that 2000 years (?, well, whenever Bhudda was around). I'm sure it goes back even further, too.
1) FBI can subpoena information about you from practically any business or organization
2) without approval or permission from a judge
3) a gag order on the targeted organization
4) spending bills are generally considered confidential and usually are not subject to public debate
5) not being publicized
Goddammit, why is it that so much of the science fiction I read is coming true? Just recently, I decided to read Starship Troopers, where the whole damn book is about how the 20th century democracies failed leading to a system that voluntary military service had to be completed before a person became a citizen.
I won't even mention 1984 (oops) or Farenheight 451 (oops again!).
This shit has been predicted for over 50 years, now! The visionaries spoke and were ignored.
While american companies abide by admittedly dodgy clean water and air laws, our foreign counterparts pollute with abandon, not to speak of fundamental labor issues.
The other countries are not unlike the USA was 100 years ago. They won't be like that forever as they generate wealth for themselves. The people there will be constantly seeking a better standard of living and their future will most likely parallel the history of the USA to a great extent.
I favor educational reform, akin to what I'm doing right here -- telling people why they should pay 10% more to purchase goods in a socially responsible way.
Education is one way to create markets for goods, and it is very much your right to pursue this. Symphonies wouldn't exist without people who love music, for example. However, these markets tend to be niches, like a symphony, because the inertia leading education is so high. People will really only react on a large scale once the damage is done, such as is the case in California with smog and emissions laws.
I think if this fear is true then it is incumbent on us to support local manufacturing, lest we empower foreign markets.
The only workable way to preserve domestic manufacturing is in the name of national defense. The only way that the DoD can enforce this preservation is through their purchase orders. For example, it would be pretty dumb for the DoD to allow all steel production to get shipped overseas, so they can require that all new tanks are made with domestically-produced steel. They have to understand that the price premium and lower quality of this steel is the price they pay for preserving some infrastructure in case of a war.
Why do we need to have small, power-efficient supercomputers?
It brings them into reach of small engineering firms and university engineering, science, and math departments.
Imagine if supercomputing goes the way of the PC: affordable and ubiquitous to those who want them. It is arguable that today's gigaflops CPUs are already supercomputers, but I guess people are always striving for more.
Everything that humans do is to eventually have a go at reproduction. Social hierarchies and other structures and behaviors all facilitate this in one way or another.
Why do professional women go to work looking like they just got laid? Why do men strive to look and appear like the silverback in a jungle? Why do people put loud stereos into their cars on the way to work?
It's all about the babboon's ass and the bullfrog's call, even at the height of human business and technology.
I've noticed that, with shared workspace, one Chatty Cathy or Loudmouth Larry can easily prevent the other 4 people from getting anything done.
Also, there are people with low self-esteem who will tend to ask lots of questions in the presense of other people. If left alone, they will eventually get their work done, but in a group they will basically get the other people to do their work for them.
I know of at least two people who are like this. They also tend to be the people who visit a therapist and are on various medications. Sadly, I think these kinds of people are becoming more common with therapy and Prozac being so fashionable. I'd love to slap one of them over the head and say, "You don't have ADD, you !@#$% loser; your shrink just tells you that to keep you coming back!"
You are aware that keyboards, mice and especially telephone handsets have a far higher bacterial count than e.g. toilets?
What a great argument for making buildings, where every computer station happens to be a bathroom stall! Put in a small sink and a vending machine, and no one has to leave their work all day!
if a stateside business can't meet their price point they go with an import
Not only is this their right, but it is the right thing to do.
They have such a dominant position that businesses can't afford not to do business with wal-mart.
Oh, like Sears, Target, Amazon.com, etc.etc.etc. don't exist. Start small, be happy with a slice of the pie, take on Wal-Mart when the time is right.
wal-mart is decimating many a good business.
Perhaps their time has simply come? The stubborn need to preserve the present is always a human failing, especially in light of the EU and Asia growing by leaps and bounds soon to eclipse the USA. In short, adapt or die. It's simply how the world works, and no pork-laden politician will stop it or change its course for long.
ALDI is a store I hope becomes more popular (it's cropping up in the South-East recently). It's the only place I know that under-sells Wal-Mart, and, from what I've seen, they build relatively small stores selling mostly non-perishable things (negating the doom-sayers' arguments about super-stores).
Slashdot Mirror
How well documented is the code?
A large CAD package I work comes with header files for its API. In many instances, the header files are really the only documentation available for certain functions and data structures. Imagine my delight when looking at the comments to see something that resembles english but makes so little sense that I had to write test programs to empirically determine what I needed to know.
It seemed pretty clear that the comments were written by someone who didn't learn english very well, and it would have saved me, a customer, hours of time, if someone fluent in english would have gone through the header files and updated the comments to be understandable.
Ah well. Just my $.02
Just tailor the Nachi worm, as you said, and it could be your $10,000.02.
Your amazement is well founded, and I'd bet any Diebold engineers reading these threads are too embarassed to reply. If they do reply, it would be because they are too stupid to be embarrassed.
Why in Gods name would anyone use a proven insecure operating system as the base for a series of teller machines?
Because their executives are idiots and their engineers are sheep.
Not so much that he said them but the sheer frequency of its usage.
It's no different than Microsoft and their use of "innovation." It's called marketing, which is usually made up of lies covered with doublespeak. They leave the populace confused over the intuitive contradiction in what a person of authority is saying. These tactics are a very powerful form of population control and are documented through the work of social psychologists.
Haha, are you also a comedian?
Their principles list "distributed government" right along side "univeral health care." I don't know how they can reconcile the two, but this is their claim. They have to rely on an income tax as a crutch, however, because no other tax can be so unfairly high as to pay for medical coverage for the elderly.
666 is "the" problem that`s coming...
I doubt it, as we're mainly just going through another period of history. American historians will look back to today and make documentaries just like they do for the industrialization, the civil war, conflicts over western territory, civil rights, etc.
Funny, how something as unconstitutional as a prohibition on alcohol required a new amendment, yet something just as unconstitutional--the war on drugs--simply requires a majority vote in Congress. Politicians are must be among the weakest people on earth.
Thank you, Nader supporters for helping GWB into office. He couldn't have done it without you.
This is a fallacy. You know, if it weren't for all those people voting for GWB and Gore, Nader would have won!
People who don't vote for the best canidate from their point-of-view are liars to both themselves and to their nation. They are terrible citizens and are doing a terrible disservice to their future. They are weak. They should be ashamed. But they aren't. Thus, they are criminals.
Do you feel better, now, for all those people who voted for GWB, because of their sheepish "vote for the winning team" crap philosophy? Or do you feel better for those who voted for Nader out of conscience? At least those who voted for what they believe in can feel good about themselves. Compare that to everyone who wanted to vote for Nader but didn't.
I, for one, will certainly not be voting for a Democrat nor a Republican, and I don't feel bad about it at all.
Actually, you completely misread Starship Troopers.
No, I don't think I did. I just didn't mention the more important meaning of putting one's self on the line for the sake of the nation (how much can I say in one sentence, anyway). The story of Starship Troopers really is not at all subtle, as the quotes before chapters and whole paragraphs were devoted to describing the ideology behind democracy and freedom. It is probably the case that the founding fathers of the USA had exactly these things in mind, but that, during their day, they simply took them for granted. Who wasn't a veteran in the late 18th century, for example?
I got the impression that Heinlein was not criticing democracy at all but was merely criticising the current form of it. The USA had the potential of being completely and truly awesome, but recent history shows it is beginning to wear. The Constitution is very close to the idealism from Starship Troopers, but perhaps with just a little tweak (it really doesn't need much) a lot of good can be done.
we're in for a civil war within the next 30 or 40 years at this rate
What comes next?
The US Constitution hit pretty close to the mark over 200 years ago. One problem is with its extension mechanism. It allowed amendments that took rights away, such as the Federal Income Tax and Prohibition amendments. We are still suffering under the income tax; thankfully, prohibition was temporary.
I'd prefer a peaceful resolution, such as recognizing issues with the Constitution, repealing the sixteenth amendment, and passing a new amendment that requires further new amendments to be additive in nature (i.e., adding rights to vote or adding rights to citizenship).
'smaller government' rhetoric
The Republicans foam at the mouth with this, but the Libertarians and, perhaps, the Greens are the only two major third parties that actually take limited and/or distributed government to heart.
The Libertarians are much more pure in their approach, as they don't rely on the morbidly-obese government to dole out "social justice."
After three years of total Republican rule, we have the largest and most intrusive government ever. So much for limited government and free enterprise out of the so-called party of limited government and free enterprise.
What? Do you really think Republicans stand for these ideals? What idealism are you calling for? That of the Democrats?
Limited government is absolutely essential to freedom. Free enterprise is absolutely essential to freedom. Unfortunately, both the Republicans and the Democrats have effectively forgotten these things through decades of political maneuvering and back-handed deals.
People should begin voting more for third parties and independent canidates. My hope is that over time, the two major parties together start taking up less than 50% of the vote and the other parties and canidates begin getting more opportunities for real change. Sadly, there is so much political inertia against third parties, that it would probably take anohter half-dozen elections for real change to become noticable.
The people who are in office are there because we put them there to represent our views.
Colder than the heart of an SCO executive.
Have a nice day.
This shit has been predicted for over 50 years, now!
No, make that 228 years (Declaration of Independence). No, wait, make that 2000 years (?, well, whenever Bhudda was around). I'm sure it goes back even further, too.
1) FBI can subpoena information about you from practically any business or organization
2) without approval or permission from a judge
3) a gag order on the targeted organization
4) spending bills are generally considered confidential and usually are not subject to public debate
5) not being publicized
Goddammit, why is it that so much of the science fiction I read is coming true? Just recently, I decided to read Starship Troopers, where the whole damn book is about how the 20th century democracies failed leading to a system that voluntary military service had to be completed before a person became a citizen.
I won't even mention 1984 (oops) or Farenheight 451 (oops again!).
This shit has been predicted for over 50 years, now! The visionaries spoke and were ignored.
While american companies abide by admittedly dodgy clean water and air laws, our foreign counterparts pollute with abandon, not to speak of fundamental labor issues.
The other countries are not unlike the USA was 100 years ago. They won't be like that forever as they generate wealth for themselves. The people there will be constantly seeking a better standard of living and their future will most likely parallel the history of the USA to a great extent.
I favor educational reform, akin to what I'm doing right here -- telling people why they should pay 10% more to purchase goods in a socially responsible way.
Education is one way to create markets for goods, and it is very much your right to pursue this. Symphonies wouldn't exist without people who love music, for example. However, these markets tend to be niches, like a symphony, because the inertia leading education is so high. People will really only react on a large scale once the damage is done, such as is the case in California with smog and emissions laws.
I think if this fear is true then it is incumbent on us to support local manufacturing, lest we empower foreign markets.
The only workable way to preserve domestic manufacturing is in the name of national defense. The only way that the DoD can enforce this preservation is through their purchase orders. For example, it would be pretty dumb for the DoD to allow all steel production to get shipped overseas, so they can require that all new tanks are made with domestically-produced steel. They have to understand that the price premium and lower quality of this steel is the price they pay for preserving some infrastructure in case of a war.
6 times faster, consume 1/15 of the power and be 1/10 the size of current models
You know, being 6-times faster at 1/10 the size is actually being 60-times faster, IMO. It's definitely win-win.
Why do we need to have small, power-efficient supercomputers?
It brings them into reach of small engineering firms and university engineering, science, and math departments.
Imagine if supercomputing goes the way of the PC: affordable and ubiquitous to those who want them. It is arguable that today's gigaflops CPUs are already supercomputers, but I guess people are always striving for more.
Humans may be by and large social creatures...
s/social/sexual/
Everything that humans do is to eventually have a go at reproduction. Social hierarchies and other structures and behaviors all facilitate this in one way or another.
Why do professional women go to work looking like they just got laid? Why do men strive to look and appear like the silverback in a jungle? Why do people put loud stereos into their cars on the way to work?
It's all about the babboon's ass and the bullfrog's call, even at the height of human business and technology.
I've noticed that, with shared workspace, one Chatty Cathy or Loudmouth Larry can easily prevent the other 4 people from getting anything done.
Also, there are people with low self-esteem who will tend to ask lots of questions in the presense of other people. If left alone, they will eventually get their work done, but in a group they will basically get the other people to do their work for them.
I know of at least two people who are like this. They also tend to be the people who visit a therapist and are on various medications. Sadly, I think these kinds of people are becoming more common with therapy and Prozac being so fashionable. I'd love to slap one of them over the head and say, "You don't have ADD, you !@#$% loser; your shrink just tells you that to keep you coming back!"
You are aware that keyboards, mice and especially telephone handsets have a far higher bacterial count than e.g. toilets?
What a great argument for making buildings, where every computer station happens to be a bathroom stall! Put in a small sink and a vending machine, and no one has to leave their work all day!
downtown industry
Downtown industry has been obselete for decades.
if a stateside business can't meet their price point they go with an import
Not only is this their right, but it is the right thing to do.
They have such a dominant position that businesses can't afford not to do business with wal-mart.
Oh, like Sears, Target, Amazon.com, etc.etc.etc. don't exist. Start small, be happy with a slice of the pie, take on Wal-Mart when the time is right.
wal-mart is decimating many a good business.
Perhaps their time has simply come? The stubborn need to preserve the present is always a human failing, especially in light of the EU and Asia growing by leaps and bounds soon to eclipse the USA. In short, adapt or die. It's simply how the world works, and no pork-laden politician will stop it or change its course for long.
ALDI is a store I hope becomes more popular (it's cropping up in the South-East recently). It's the only place I know that under-sells Wal-Mart, and, from what I've seen, they build relatively small stores selling mostly non-perishable things (negating the doom-sayers' arguments about super-stores).