I'd have to agree with what many others have posted, that this strict packer/mapper dichomotomy is presented far too rigidly, dogmatically and arrogantly. But there is something in it - it's more like a continuum.
Well, at least they're asking the right questions (which, as they would say, is a key feature of the mapper mentality!:-). It would be fascinating and enormously socially useful, to discover why some programmers are many times more effective than others, how we can avoid the catastrophic failure rates, etc.
My two cents - yes, he's spot on in that the education systems we have (and Japan's is the epitome of this, despite its work cultures) are ridiculously rigid, out-of-touch and inappropriate for creative or partly creative activities like programming. But having the right development tools and machines and OSs etc. which don't crash all the time etc. etc. make an enormous difference. I sometimes spend hours hunting down a piece of debuggin info when if only I had the right tools I could get it in a few minutes, AND have a dynamically updated view of the data. Cross-platform abilities have the potentional to cut costs enormously (yes, can you tell I'm a Java evangelist already?;-)
And of course, there's that well-known statistic which STILL isn't really widely appreciated and put into practice: Mistakes cost ten times more to fix at analyis than requirements, ten times more at design than analysis, etc. etc. all the way down the line so that a bug fixed after product has shipped is thousands of times more expensive (sorry if I'm using outdated terms here - but that's my school's fault!). Mundane but true. And big names like Siemens, Bull, MS still haven't latched on to this.
So sue me! It's true!
Actually, the reality is more complex. Often they (MS especially) ignore problems, even horrendous ones that cause users to tear their hair out, because they know they can get away with it.
Anyway, the commentary here on/. is unusually brilliant. A fascinating topic which has brought up some very diverse and thought-provoking . This is where/. really shines!:)
Re:And the application for this technology will be
on
Smart Dust
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· Score: 1
What a load of nonsense. They abhor dying No, killing people is part of their training. Therefore they do not "abhor dying". And you don't have to go back to the trenches of WWII to see how armies value life - the generals didn't exactly "abhor" killing thousands of Vietnamese *and* American soldiers in a not just fruitless but criminal war. Nobody has devised a better means... Have you heard of the NSF? The whole point about science is that much of the most groundbreaking discoveries were done purely to find out things - Pure Science as opposed to science which has obvious "applications". That's why a culture of "publish or perish" or even worse "everything must have an application" is highly detrimental to progress of pure science. And physicists *know* we haven't discovered all the fundamental laws yet....there is an altruistic purpose to this after all Govt? Altruistic? What??? If you ever read about how the US government supported the genocide in East Timor in the 1970s by stepping up arms sales - the largest genocide relative to population since the Holocaust - you'll realise the govt is never altruistic in a significant way. There's too much at stake. That was the most ridiculous post I've read in a long time on/. and that's saying something.
I think both sides have got a point though. I've heard that girls do often get patronised and put-down by computing teachers - and male pupils - at school (no surprise there).
In any case, affirmative action is bordering on sexism.
Customer account is toast, web page is no more, user bank account will be minus $500 from our clean-up fee, and the spammer is looking for his 50 Free Hours AOL cd.
We've recently tested the Orbital Anvil Bombardment System on this spammer. The results were promising. We had to hire the folks at http://www.asepsistechnology.com to clean up the mess.
... it's good to know that at least 60 people are doing the right things to fight spam. Keep on sending those complaints! I assure you, I (and most sysadmins) hate spammers as much as you do.
This user account has been terminated and charged $1,000 in accordance with our Terms and Conditions agreement.
Acrobat is already crap. The UI design is terrible - especially the rendering and the behaviour of the cursor keys. The only reason people use it is, they can't rely on their users having the latest browser with CSS and all.
SpamCop's going to get slower than adfu.blockstackers.com now that the New York Times has publicised it. Hopefully he'll get enough subscribers to pay for more bandwidth, but I should expect slow times ahead temporarily (particularly as Julian is out of the area at the moment).
Duh. Can you read?? The basic service is FREE, and automatic. A no-brainer. Easier than doing it yourself. I strongly recommend it.
The $15 is for extra stuff like spam-free email addresses (which I avoid like the plague in case they accidentally block anyone interesting. But that's just me).
I don't understand. What more do you expect? Spamcop explicitly tells its users to include full headers. What the hell more is it supposed to do - telepathy???? IMHO, if you can't analyse headers properly, go find out how - as someone listed as an admin, you should know.
Yes BUT if you've only got one received line, is there any better alternative than to send it to SpamCop? That's the key question.
Surely if the relays are allowing forgeries through, the solution is to get the relays in trouble, and the admins of that relay will get annoyed and decide to upgrade their software. Or does it not work like that?
Fact: SpamCop doesn't find out WHO the spammer is, let alone their email address. It finds one server that was responsible for delivering it, and emails the admin of that server. Hardly what I would call an invasion of privacy.
No, it is possible, at least to some extent. noproxy.com is in development, and there's another one (anonymiser.com or something) which has been going for some time now.
Ugh, I hope the UI design is better (not blue, blue and more blue) in the final Netscape release. (Not allowed to download software onto university machines so I have to use what they give us.)
RM Nimbus 186s had them. I used them at school... I believe they started off as network servers for 8-bit machines - diskless 480Zs. Yes, my school was at the cutting edge...
I think that might have been a joke. Anyway, communists are not precluded from acting tactically in the here-and-now to achieve their aims (ends justify the means and all that). Some businesses are really doing on balance, good stuff. Most of them are small.
The stupid nodes will only get voted down if there are less of them. I think it's a distinct possibility that the clueless will outnumber the, er, clue-full.
Windows is their crown jewels. Owning it helps them to monopolise the complementary products market for Windows. The last thing Microsoft would do is give up on Windows.
Even if it's so bad crashes several times a day, people will continue to use it in droves.
There's a very big difference between allowing people to write macro viruses (after all, almost any platform can have viruses written for it) and leaving a really big, stupid security hole up there a week after you've been told about it. I haven't read this in detail but it looks to be just a few lines, or one line, of verification code missing, right? MS would get flak big time.
When did Chomsky claim that his theories (of linguistics? of propaganda? which theory were you referring to?) could "explain all human behaviour"? I think he's much more level-headed than that. In fact, he has explicitly stated that linguistics and politics are quite unrelated - you can't use linguistics to draw non-trivial conclusions about politics, in general.
I don't think that damages of 1% of either the gross or net proceeds of the commercial product would be upheld.
The point is it might not just be one bugfix. It might be thousands of little ones. Large scale violation of the GPL might provoke a class-action suit (although of course the GPL has not yet been tested in court).
Slashdot Mirror
Well, at least they're asking the right questions (which, as they would say, is a key feature of the mapper mentality! :-). It would be fascinating and enormously socially useful, to discover why some programmers are many times more effective than others, how we can avoid the catastrophic failure rates, etc.
My two cents - yes, he's spot on in that the education systems we have (and Japan's is the epitome of this, despite its work cultures) are ridiculously rigid, out-of-touch and inappropriate for creative or partly creative activities like programming. But having the right development tools and machines and OSs etc. which don't crash all the time etc. etc. make an enormous difference. I sometimes spend hours hunting down a piece of debuggin info when if only I had the right tools I could get it in a few minutes, AND have a dynamically updated view of the data. Cross-platform abilities have the potentional to cut costs enormously (yes, can you tell I'm a Java evangelist already? ;-)
And of course, there's that well-known statistic which STILL isn't really widely appreciated and put into practice: Mistakes cost ten times more to fix at analyis than requirements, ten times more at design than analysis, etc. etc. all the way down the line so that a bug fixed after product has shipped is thousands of times more expensive (sorry if I'm using outdated terms here - but that's my school's fault!). Mundane but true. And big names like Siemens, Bull, MS still haven't latched on to this.
So sue me! It's true!
Actually, the reality is more complex. Often they (MS especially) ignore problems, even horrendous ones that cause users to tear their hair out, because they know they can get away with it.
Anyway, the commentary here on /. is unusually brilliant. A fascinating topic which has brought up some very diverse and thought-provoking . This is where /. really shines! :)
What a load of nonsense. They abhor dying No, killing people is part of their training. Therefore they do not "abhor dying". And you don't have to go back to the trenches of WWII to see how armies value life - the generals didn't exactly "abhor" killing thousands of Vietnamese *and* American soldiers in a not just fruitless but criminal war. Nobody has devised a better means... Have you heard of the NSF? The whole point about science is that much of the most groundbreaking discoveries were done purely to find out things - Pure Science as opposed to science which has obvious "applications". That's why a culture of "publish or perish" or even worse "everything must have an application" is highly detrimental to progress of pure science. And physicists *know* we haven't discovered all the fundamental laws yet. ...there is an altruistic purpose to this after all Govt? Altruistic? What??? If you ever read about how the US government supported the genocide in East Timor in the 1970s by stepping up arms sales - the largest genocide relative to population since the Holocaust - you'll realise the govt is never altruistic in a significant way. There's too much at stake. That was the most ridiculous post I've read in a long time on /. and that's saying something.
Good point.
I think both sides have got a point though. I've heard that girls do often get patronised and put-down by computing teachers - and male pupils - at school (no surprise there).
In any case, affirmative action is bordering on sexism.
Customer account is toast, web page is no more, user bank account will be minus $500 from our clean-up fee, and the spammer is looking for his 50 Free Hours AOL cd.
We've recently tested the Orbital Anvil Bombardment System on this spammer. The results were promising. We had to hire the folks at http://www.asepsistechnology.com to clean up the mess.
This user account has been terminated and charged $1,000 in accordance with our Terms and Conditions agreement.
Woohooh!
"Sir, news from the front - we are losing the war"
"Shoot that messenger."
The $15 is for extra stuff like spam-free email addresses (which I avoid like the plague in case they accidentally block anyone interesting. But that's just me).
Surely if the relays are allowing forgeries through, the solution is to get the relays in trouble, and the admins of that relay will get annoyed and decide to upgrade their software. Or does it not work like that?
But 32Mb RAM - come on, what's the point of buying a 450Mhz machine if doesn't have at least 64Mb RAM?
Even if it's so bad crashes several times a day, people will continue to use it in droves.
Duh. Yes it does. It's called JNI.
The point is it might not just be one bugfix. It might be thousands of little ones. Large scale violation of the GPL might provoke a class-action suit (although of course the GPL has not yet been tested in court).