I've worked in two environments where code reviews took place.
When I worked at TIS on the Trusted Mach project, code had to be reviewed by the "trust engineers" for compliance with the security model. Problem was that some of these folks, while very knowledgable about the theory of building a trusted operating system, were not all that knowledgable about C++, and a lot of their problems - in some cases, the vast majority - were cleared by developers explaining basic programming issues.
A few years later I worked at TRW on EDOS. Code reviews were a mandatory part of the process. Unfortunately, in my experience they ended up more focused on ensuring that the code met the style standards (indentation, brace placement, format of function headers, and the like) than on the proper functioning of the code. (Of course, that may be because my code was just so good that no one had any suggestions, questions, or issues other than where I put the curly braces. B-) )
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Several threads have already recycled the myth that you "can't fool" the MMPI because it repeats questions and checks your
answers for consistency.
Somewhat off-topic, but amusing: when Timothy Leary was jailed for cannabis possession, as part of standard procedure the prison shrink gave him a personality test, so they could see whether he'd be a difficult prisoner. Leary had helped develop this test during his Harvard days, and so gave all the right answers to appear a model prisoner.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Philip K. Dick said "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." One measure of sanity is whether your conception of reality agrees with the actual reality.
But what is that actual reality? Knowing that you're subject to illusions and delusions, how do you verify that your observations correspond to external objective reality? (If such a thing even exists, but that's a whole other topic...)
Humans are so good at being delusional that Dick's test is useless - when we stop believing in it, we often just stop seeing it! And vice-versa - when we believe in it, we see it whether it's there or not. Our political and social structures are rife with examples of this. (And let's not even start on religion...)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
2) We already have "pretty good privacy". It's not the best, but it is sufficient and now we need to work on the next big step: securing both ends.
Sufficient for what? And for how long? Yes, I'd trust my credit card number or my love letters to PGP/GPG. But espionage data? Military orders? Nuclear missle lauch codes? No way.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
How does a platform that requires weekly rebooting when simply used as a light duty client
(I only run Exceed, Netscape, and Bloated Notes on my Win2k box at work) qualify as "stable"? (Perhaps when compared to Windows 95, when I had to reboot daily (at least)?)
I also thouroughly enjoy the way that a slow DNS lookup will cause the entire machine to lock up - leaving me unable to even move a window on the screen - until it resolves, or times out.
I won't even discuss the hideousness of the user interfaces.
MS might not be the "nicest" company in the world, but nobody looking at the success of Windows would argue that the are not "competent."
Competent in marketing, yes. Competent in the crafting of a decent computer operating system, no.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
...all most of us (this includes a lot geeks as well) want is a stable platform that is maintained by a competent
company so we don't have to. Hence the real-life success of companies like Microsoft...
Non sequitor. What does M$ have to do with a stable platform maintained by a competent
company?
When was the last time you looked at the blueprints of your car's engine, anyway?
Get thee to an auto parts store. See that big rack of maintenance manuals?
Now that I make good money as a software geek, I pay other people to do my vehicle maintence; but when I was in grad school, rolling nickles to come up with lunch money, I checked the maintenance manual (and its diagrams) pretty often in order to keep my clunker running.
And engine blueprints are several orders of magnitude less useful than source code; you can't modify an engine with just the blueprints, and the blueprints don't give you full documentation of the engine's behavior.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
The original comic he did felt almost insulting at the time, particularly since I've (and I'm sure many others) had the
ability to make donations to me on my site for quite awhile. The thing is that a very very minute portion of traffic actually pays
anything!
Because the proceedure to do so is highly inconvenient - I need a credit card and a PayPal account - and won't work for payments at the, say, 10 cent level, since PayPal will eat it all up in fees. Mircopayments means more than the ability to make donations - it means being able to make very small payments (thus, the micro) with almost zero inconvenience.
Part of the inconvenience is a matter of site design. I took a quick look at your site, and even with your current PayPal setup, there are a few simple improvements that could probably increase your rate of donations.
I certainly should not have to leave your site to make a donation. Make the PayPal link pop up a new window.
Do you appreciate small donations? Make that clear! "For as little as $1, you can make an artist smile."
I should be able to donate directly from any page on your site. A good micropayment system would be built into the browser; but for now, I would suggest a small form on every page with a "Donate to this site" message that links to more information, a drop down menu with a few sample amounts (starting very small, and with an "other amount" option), and a submit button that pops up a new browser window that handles the rest of the transaction
Still a far cry from micropayments, of course, but I'd say its better than what you've got now.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
n.
1.pl. percent, also per cent One part in a hundred: The report states that 42 percent of the alumni contributed
to the endowment. Also called per centum.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Good job in pissing them off, development just got 100 times harder (and more expensive).*/sarcasm*
For whom? Not me, chum. I don't develop on MS platforms, or with MS tools. Why? Aside form the fact that they're crap, there's the important fact that when you deal with the devil, sooner or later you get burned. *Sniff* *sniff*...is that roasted developer I smell?
If you think that development on MS platforms just got 100 time harder and more expensive, I invite you to take the opportunity to move to an easier and cheaper platform that doesn't suck.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Microsoft does not support eth concept of Open Source and that it is
Open Source, not Free Software, that Microsoft is actively attempting to discredit.
You know, some of your customers want the same; they want to predictably
produce inexpensive systems solutions to business problems.
And they're not getting it, are they? They usually get overpriced crap that doesn't work.
We need "clueless PHBs, the cookbook programmers in it for the money, the middle managers who choose our tools based on
marketing hype and FUD" to do the laborous work of implementing recipes.
No. What we need to do the "laborous work of implementing recipes" are apprentice and journeyman coders.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
By raising the cost of labor to the employer (and the employee) they force companies to look for third world solutions to labor costs.
Oh, pity the poor company, forced by its employees acting en masse to pay them a decent wage! The outrage!
The way to prevent jobs from going overseas is not to prevent U.S. workers from making a decent wage. It's to 1) enable developing nations to grow their own companies, rather than becoming a cheap labor pool for the first world, and 2) require by law that corporations, as a condition of getting and keeping a government charter in the U.S., keep the majority of their business here.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
At my University I have to pay $140 fucking bucks a semester - compulsary union fee (for 'services' - lesbian councilling and condoms for faggits) or your enrolment get cancelled! Hmmm.. Nice 'democracy'.
In my country, I have to pay thousands of fucking bucks a year - compulsary tax fee - (for 'services' - soldiers going all over the globe to kick the shit out of people for no good reasons, cops locking up junkies, corporate welfare payments, and don't forget debt interest) or your freedom gets cancelled!
BTW, do you mean that they only give out condoms to gay men? Or that there are special condoms made just for them?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
A better solution, though, would be to just use batteries. You will get a longer operating time and less carpal tunnel syndrome.
The thing about batteries, though, is that they always seem to have run out just when you need them most.
These hand-cranked gizmos are great for emergency or seldom-used gear, because you don't have to worry about batteries having been stored too long, or having run down. Maybe this would be a good way to power emergency-use-only cell phones? Crank it up to dial 911.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
For technology that lets me see comercials for things I'm interested in, and lets me pick stupid commercials that I never ever want to see again and avoids those.
If I'm interested in it, I will go and seek it out on my own, and most advertizing thus becomes superfluous. The purpose of the Great Advertizing Blitz in which we live is not to inform you, but to get you to buy stuff you weren't interested in, to keep consumption high to that production will be high so that corporate profits will be high. I'd rather not play, thanks.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
But a slip of paper isn't that hard to secure -- no harder than, say, your front door key. So the question of making the password memorizable is really moot.
I have to disagree. I only need to view the paper for a second to break the security, while I'd have to remove your key, go get it copied, and return it.
If you're consulting that paper every time you log in, shoulder surfing becomes a real possibility.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Most of these large corporations are publicly held. That means anyone can invest in
them, and share in the wealth if they do well.
Your $100 investment in Amalgamated Profits, Incorporated, does not give you any control over the corporation. It does, however, put more wealth under the control of the Board of Directors, who will act in the interests of the handful of majority stockholders (who, in many cases, are other corporations), to crush competition (thus reducing your choices in the marketplace), buy politicians (for reasons probably not in your best interest), etc.
The exhistence of corporations allows a large number of people to pool their
resources and share in the benefits.
...without sharing in the responsibilities.
If also allows employees with stock benefits a chance to achieve considerable levels of wealth if the company they work for does well.
Excepting employee-owned companies, the wealth that is gained through stock options is negligible compared to that gained by "absentess owner" stockholders.
It also is harder for poor people to get a good education, and to learn those skills, but there are a lot of people who do it. It used to be considered the "American Dream".
Yes, because you had to be asleep to believe in it. The idea that anyone, with the right effort, can rise from poverty to wealth is a wonderful way to keep the poor from rising up. (Almost as good as the promise of eternal reward in an afterlife they used to use to keep serfs in line.) Like hitting the jackpot in Vegas, it happens just often enough to keep suckers believing, and feeding the system.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
FYI: WHFS has gone downhill since it started broadcasting, more so in the past few years.
Yeah, 'HFS (99.1, out of Landover MD) sold its soul years ago.
The original owner of WHFS started a new station, WRNR (103.1, out of Annapolis). He's since sold it, and it has gone somewhat more corporate, but it's still the best music station in the area (IM ever so HO).
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Hmm, maybe I'm just too right thinking, but isn't it RIGHT for the corporations to have more money than the government?
Let's remember for a minute who issues corporate charters.
Corporations are entities created by the state to concentrate control of wealth into the hands of a few. Excessive corporate power should be of concern both to libertarians on both the right and the left (due to its origins in the government) and to leftists of both statist and libertarian leanings (due to its tendancy to exploit laborers).
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Slashdot Mirror
I've worked in two environments where code reviews took place.
When I worked at TIS on the Trusted Mach project, code had to be reviewed by the "trust engineers" for compliance with the security model. Problem was that some of these folks, while very knowledgable about the theory of building a trusted operating system, were not all that knowledgable about C++, and a lot of their problems - in some cases, the vast majority - were cleared by developers explaining basic programming issues.
A few years later I worked at TRW on EDOS. Code reviews were a mandatory part of the process. Unfortunately, in my experience they ended up more focused on ensuring that the code met the style standards (indentation, brace placement, format of function headers, and the like) than on the proper functioning of the code. (Of course, that may be because my code was just so good that no one had any suggestions, questions, or issues other than where I put the curly braces. B-) )
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
But what is that actual reality? Knowing that you're subject to illusions and delusions, how do you verify that your observations correspond to external objective reality? (If such a thing even exists, but that's a whole other topic...)
Humans are so good at being delusional that Dick's test is useless - when we stop believing in it, we often just stop seeing it! And vice-versa - when we believe in it, we see it whether it's there or not. Our political and social structures are rife with examples of this. (And let's not even start on religion...)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
How does a platform that requires weekly rebooting when simply used as a light duty client (I only run Exceed, Netscape, and Bloated Notes on my Win2k box at work) qualify as "stable"? (Perhaps when compared to Windows 95, when I had to reboot daily (at least)?)
I also thouroughly enjoy the way that a slow DNS lookup will cause the entire machine to lock up - leaving me unable to even move a window on the screen - until it resolves, or times out.
I won't even discuss the hideousness of the user interfaces.
Competent in marketing, yes. Competent in the crafting of a decent computer operating system, no.Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Non sequitor. What does M$ have to do with a stable platform maintained by a competent company?
Get thee to an auto parts store. See that big rack of maintenance manuals?
Now that I make good money as a software geek, I pay other people to do my vehicle maintence; but when I was in grad school, rolling nickles to come up with lunch money, I checked the maintenance manual (and its diagrams) pretty often in order to keep my clunker running.
And engine blueprints are several orders of magnitude less useful than source code; you can't modify an engine with just the blueprints, and the blueprints don't give you full documentation of the engine's behavior.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Part of the inconvenience is a matter of site design. I took a quick look at your site, and even with your current PayPal setup, there are a few simple improvements that could probably increase your rate of donations.
Still a far cry from micropayments, of course, but I'd say its better than what you've got now.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
If you think that development on MS platforms just got 100 time harder and more expensive, I invite you to take the opportunity to move to an easier and cheaper platform that doesn't suck.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Good explanation. Thanks!
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
So this this mean that:
Please, some physics geek tell us how to resolve "neutrinos has mass" with "neutrinos travel at c.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Oh, pity the poor company, forced by its employees acting en masse to pay them a decent wage! The outrage!
The way to prevent jobs from going overseas is not to prevent U.S. workers from making a decent wage. It's to 1) enable developing nations to grow their own companies, rather than becoming a cheap labor pool for the first world, and 2) require by law that corporations, as a condition of getting and keeping a government charter in the U.S., keep the majority of their business here.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
In my country, I have to pay thousands of fucking bucks a year - compulsary tax fee - (for 'services' - soldiers going all over the globe to kick the shit out of people for no good reasons, cops locking up junkies, corporate welfare payments, and don't forget debt interest) or your freedom gets cancelled!
BTW, do you mean that they only give out condoms to gay men? Or that there are special condoms made just for them?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
The thing about batteries, though, is that they always seem to have run out just when you need them most.
These hand-cranked gizmos are great for emergency or seldom-used gear, because you don't have to worry about batteries having been stored too long, or having run down. Maybe this would be a good way to power emergency-use-only cell phones? Crank it up to dial 911.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
If I'm interested in it, I will go and seek it out on my own, and most advertizing thus becomes superfluous. The purpose of the Great Advertizing Blitz in which we live is not to inform you, but to get you to buy stuff you weren't interested in, to keep consumption high to that production will be high so that corporate profits will be high. I'd rather not play, thanks.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
I have to disagree. I only need to view the paper for a second to break the security, while I'd have to remove your key, go get it copied, and return it.
If you're consulting that paper every time you log in, shoulder surfing becomes a real possibility.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Your $100 investment in Amalgamated Profits, Incorporated, does not give you any control over the corporation. It does, however, put more wealth under the control of the Board of Directors, who will act in the interests of the handful of majority stockholders (who, in many cases, are other corporations), to crush competition (thus reducing your choices in the marketplace), buy politicians (for reasons probably not in your best interest), etc.
Excepting employee-owned companies, the wealth that is gained through stock options is negligible compared to that gained by "absentess owner" stockholders.
Yes, because you had to be asleep to believe in it. The idea that anyone, with the right effort, can rise from poverty to wealth is a wonderful way to keep the poor from rising up. (Almost as good as the promise of eternal reward in an afterlife they used to use to keep serfs in line.) Like hitting the jackpot in Vegas, it happens just often enough to keep suckers believing, and feeding the system.Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Yeah, 'HFS (99.1, out of Landover MD) sold its soul years ago.
The original owner of WHFS started a new station, WRNR (103.1, out of Annapolis). He's since sold it, and it has gone somewhat more corporate, but it's still the best music station in the area (IM ever so HO).
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Let's remember for a minute who issues corporate charters.
Corporations are entities created by the state to concentrate control of wealth into the hands of a few. Excessive corporate power should be of concern both to libertarians on both the right and the left (due to its origins in the government) and to leftists of both statist and libertarian leanings (due to its tendancy to exploit laborers).
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/