Former Microsoft security chief Howard Schmidt now works for the government as the vice chairman of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Board. (Emphasis mine)
Anyone else see where this is going? The FORMER HEAD of MICROSOFT SECURITY (and quite frankly, microsoft and security should *snicker* never *snicker* be used in the same sentence together).
Obviously... Microsoft is very very happy now. They got the x-head of their security to be high up in government PROTECTION. Now this chicken little is running around squawking. Ya, I can see the next *initiative*... Paladium anyone? Government sanctioned because some LOSER who couldn't design a SECURE HOUSE LOCK is squawking.
For as many times as we accidently bomb some afgani wedding, can't we accidently bomb redmond? Please? Purty Please? With sugar on top?
This is kinda confusing... because on one hand I totally agree with the article... on the other hand, it seems incredibly obvious and thus rather stupid that they needed to do research on it.
It's just plain bad email ettiquite to send an email an reveal the *list* your sending it to, unless your sending it to a specific group for a reason (e.g., a work group and you want it obvious who received a copy).
I totally agree with the article... if I see that the email *looks* to be generic (subject line doesn't affect me personally) and then I see the CC line has more than 2 or 3 names on it, I almost universally delete them without reading further. I usually also find myself thinking hostile thoughts about the sender, because I consider it a privicy issue when the sender reveals MY address to someone I do not know or am not affiliated with (simply because it allows others to build email lists with my name on them).
Interestingly enough, a year or so ago, most spammers (and yes, I know the article was not about spamming) were not revealing the CC list, but lately, more and more have seemed to reveal the CC list (probably because they're trying to get more efficiency from sendmails that they're relaying through).
Another VERY disturbing trend is placing a valid email address as the return address to an email, but never routing the email through that users computer. I have had a number of emails *bounce* to me from AOL because the recipient's name no longer exists. Careful examination of the expanded headers shows that my email address was used as the FROM address, but at no time did the email pass our servers except for the final rejection from AOL. This is a very nasty trend.
Why is all the fibre dark? Because the last mile problem still hasn't been solved (getting the fiber into the home).
Why did worldcom go down? Because of bad management and siphoning off money and cooking the book. They need to go to jail for a very long time.
WHO will bail worldcom (and the others out)?
The government might write a huge trillion dollar check to worldcom to keep their networks afloat, if worldcom agrees to pay back some of it into the republican national party... the rest the crooked execs can pocket, wait 6 months, then go bankrupt again.
Microsoft... they have enough cash, and look what they would end up with. The largest 1st tier network in the world, AOL dependency, MCI and other phone networks. Geeze, and I'll bet that billy goats would even be willing to throw a few billion at the republican national party if they look the other way during the purchase.
As the SMUDGEreport.com says.... Harmless nut John Walker Lindh in jail for 20 years, Enron (and worldcom) execs who collapsed US economy walking around free.
How dare you accuse me of hatered. My original post said nothing at all about the topic. Furthermore, regardless of what you and others may think, my UNITED STATES PASSPORT, under COUNTRY OF BIRTH says "Palestine".
I do not hate *jews* or *israelis*, I never once, in any post, said any such thing. I wish for peace in that neck of the woods, nothing more, nothing less.
Why you would accuse me of such a thing, MERELY on the fact that I stated I was palestinian, is beyond me, but shows very poorly for the peace process as long as you insist on such stupid thinking.
If you read my original post, it was discussing profiling and how it appears to me not to be terribly effective. It never once said anything about israeli's, except to quote a top security official in israel comment on how they profile.
The fact that you posted this as an anonymous coward says it all.
Your thoughts sir (and I'm assuming your a sir) are terroristic. Please avoid opening your mouth again.
After watching his show for over a year now, I had to have his book as well.
GREAT BOOK. This is NOT a cookbook - it's a book on kitchen science directed specifically to HOW TO HEAT FOOD PROPERLY.
As a lot of you geeks probably already know... cooking is about science. Physics and chemstry are paramount to making a good meal (unless your cooking out of a box).
Before the advent of FOOD TV, and experts like Alton Brown, I tended to eat out most. If I ate in at all, I'd just slap some chops on a skillet and eat them with some store bought sauce. Thanks to FOOD TV and his show, I've now become quite a good chef and greatly enjoy making myself and friends gourmet meals.
Browns show is intense... super funny, and chock full of unbelievably useful information. He is never satisfied to *just do something*, no, he has to explain each and every WHY to it. And while he's doing that, he's throwing out tons of other useful suggestions that you would never have thought of.
The book goes IN DEPTH into exactly how heat works and cooks... and the various types of heating and when they are appropriate and why. He covers in depth exactly how heat reacts with the food. He explains exactly what the difference is between Radiation, Convection and Conduction (with excellant and funny examples) and then relates them to the various types of cooking (e.g., oven roasting is radiation, while boiling or steaming is conduction etc).
Each page has side panels that blow apart current cooking and food myths, such as salt being bad for you, etc...
Unlike most books that INSTRUCT you... his book and show not only instructs you, but tells you the why, the history, the mistakes and most importantly... the science!
A book every geek should own and read - and then stop going to McDonalds, buy a BowFlex and drop those pounds and build that body!
Here are two solutions to the airplane problem, that would sove the security situation, take your pick:
1) Force all passengers to fly naked. Your clothes will be returned to you when you disembark. (Or, conversely, I could see hospital garb being issued).
2) Force a 5 drink minimum before takeoff. You must be breathalized to prove you are legally drunk before you can board.
Actually, we should do both and the huge orgy would be better than a promise of 13 virgins.
Here are three stories I can relate about airline security since 9/11:
Story 1:
I am an arab american, palestinian to be exact (born in palestine but adopted as a baby by american missionaries).
A few weeks after 9/11 I had to fly from my home in Hawaii to Witchita Kansas (the home of modern aviation I might add, this is where all the big planes are made). I expected the worst.
Throughout the entire trip, I was never once searched nor questioned. I waltzed right through with minimal checks (e.g., normal xray, that's all). Everyone was asked to compare their ID with their ticket, by a guard at the gates EXCEPT on the way out of Witchita... there, I showed my ID and a very irate guard told me she didn't need to see it and to please move on (nobody else was in line with me either).
Now... I certainly look arab. I AM arab... I would expect to be profiled. However, being adopted I do not have an arab name, and being adopted as a baby, I do not have an accent. Add a Hawaiian Aloha shirt and viola... an arab waltzes right through security.
Story 2:
In december I took a vacation back to the mainland with a male friend of mine. Again, no checks, no stops, no Scarlet Pumpernickle (the *S* search S they scrawl on your ticket). On the way over there was a HUGE search line. I saw a number of pakastani women (in full garb) in one line and IMMEDIATLY got in that line. The pakastani women were made to stand over rubber mats and they were very well checked. I was brisked on through, no check. Hrmmmmmmm. Profileing? Lousy job.
Interestingly enough, on the way back my friend made an expensive impulse buy of a Parrot. At the gate, this time, we both received the Scarlet Pumpernickel... were very simply patted (the guy in front had to remove his shoes, but we were wearing rubba slipahs and they didn't make us remove them). However, they insisted that the parrot had to be removed from the cage and searched. My friend refused and said the parrot would simply fly away. Eventually the captulated and allowed us to board the plane without checking the parrot.
Story 3:
Friend of mine owns a hotel here. About a year before 9/11 a 80ish year old couple came to the island and, on one of their hikes, found a huge bowie knife (7 inch blade, huge thing). THey put it in their luggage and returned to the mainland.
AFTER 9/11 (this January for that matter) they returned to Hawaii. Upon flying from the East Coast, making transfers, and then flying to several islands over several days (therefore, lots of security checks), lo and behold they found in their suitcase, the forgotten bowie knife. HOW did this make it through that many security checks?
Bottom line? Profileing? Yes, it happens (witness the Pakastani women) - but they're doing a lousy job. As I heard the head of Israel security say the other day on TV... "yes we profile, but we only profile those we need to... there is no need to profile an 80 year old couple". With this type of thinking - it's obvious to me that even if you ARE arab... having no accent, an enlish name, and an aloha shirt, or being 80 years old, gets you out of the profile list. If it's that easy for me to figure out, won't others figure it out too?
Security is only good if it WORKS. Security for security sake does nothing. Losing your rights over security that does not work is a travesty.
Boy, what an intelligent statement. Just 60 fucking years ago you would have been invaded by the Japanese, had your women raped, children murdered, been beheaded during sword practice, etc. if it weren't for the U.S. military.
And boy, nevermind the fact these young guys volunteer to sit on g-ddamn Navy ships/subs for months at a fucking time to defend your ass. God forbid we kill a couple of dolphins or whales to defend ourselves. Unless you're a Dalai Lama-type and brush insects out of your path so as not to step on them, you have no reason to whine.
First of all, you moron, the main reason the islands were attacked was BECAUSE THE US MILITARY WAS HERE. Second, you moron, the US took over hawaii ILLEGALLY, and even this year the world court sided with the hawaiians on the issue. Thirdly, you moron, you can stick your GUN back in your pants. We don't need your fucked up american viewpoints - your *without the US you will die* mentality... that is EXACTLY the type of viewpoint that makes the US hated world wide.
Finally, you moron, your fucking military bombs our lands and our waters... kills our fish. Your mainland corruption drains our resources and money from the islands. We do not need people with your mindset. So just stay on the mainland and play battleship in your little bathtub with your little toy gun.
Unlike most games that run at 320 x 200, this game runs at full resolution. Additonally, it is a GL based game so it requires the GL driver and hardware in your video card (your CPU can't crank out 30 to 70 fps). Finally, depending on the particular tranquility game, there are over 30,000 objects in constant motion (including the player) - as opposed to a non-moving texture map painted onto a square.
But, the largest factor is your hardware. Since the game fits the entire game, plus alpha buffers, etc... the hardware has to have enough to run. Your framerate indicates that your not running in hardware. Alas, CPU's can't move that many polygons at that framerate on PC's yet (in GL). That's why this game originally came out on SGI platform, and it took 10 years after that for PC's and MAC's to catch up.
This is on our front pages of todays paper here in Hawaii. This is a blow for the island and the marine creatures that surround it.
Yes... it causes whales and dolphins to die. Much of the experiments were carried out in the water around Hawaii, thanks to the military idiots that abound here.
And yes, they know that it cause havoc with the animals. It's sad, because whales travel thousands of miles each year to give birth to their babies off the coasts of our islands. Not only will this dissrupt their normal cycle of life, but also will drive them away (which also hurts our tourist industry as well as our scientific industries who try to study the whales).
But, like everything else... our government has it's preverbal head up it's ass and only thinks of itself with it's MIGHT MAKES RIGHT mentality.
I think personally, it is time for Hawaii to secceed the US... kick out the military, and bring back a balance to life on these beautiful islands.
The game tranquility (TQworld.com) has, among many other things, a TQworld Builder option that allows you to create your own TQ levels.
The game let's you build not only personal levels for yourself and to share with friends, but also allows you to post your favorite personal levels into a TQ Universe where other members can play your games as well.
Additionally, TQworld has begun to open up the internal language (the forum on the TQworld site has this information beginning to appear). Since the games are stored on your hard drive in clear-text format, you can tweak them (or completely rewrite/design new ones) in your favorite editor.
Being a sedentary scientist (e.g., spending ones time on ones ass) I had gradually gotten larger and larger when, about 6 years ago, I discovered that I was over 250 pounds (yikes!!!). My wife and tried numerous *diets* only to find that the weight didn't come off.
Watching an infomercial one day on Atkins, it sounded too good to be true, so we bought his book and tried his diet.
First... here are the good things about the diet (then I'll list the bad things):
THE GOOD
1) Yes, you can eat *unlimited* quantities of meats etc... as long as you totally control your carb intake. We would go to Outback or Ruths Chris and I would eat 3 or 4 porkchops... and some brocolli... till I could eat no more.
2) The diet throws you into ketosis - which is a diabetic term for pure fat burning. You can go to the drug store and get ketosis testing strips, little PH papers that you pass your pee stream over. The color the paper turns indicates the amount you are in ketosis. Once in ketosis, you are in pure fat burning mode.
3) Did I lose weight? YOU BET!!! I dropped from 250+ pounds to 190 pounds in about 8 months. The diet is amazing because on a daily basis, you can easily see 1/2 to 2 pounds disappear (make sure you weigh yourself at exactly the same time each day for accurate statistics). My wife also dropped 50 pounds.
THE BAD
Here are some negative things about the diet:
1) You must be sure to drink LOTS of water on this diet... and I mean LOTS. The diet is very hard on the kidneys because they have to work overtime to break down the larger molocules. By drinking lots of water you assist your kidneys and actually drop the weight even faster. If you don't drink water, kidney damage can result.
2) The closer you get to your desired weight (e.g., the longer you are on the diet), the slower you begin to drop weight. At the start of the diet, the pounds were flying off. By the end, we would even out for a few days and then drop a pound or two. The book says this happens - and indeed it does. The main reason for this is that your body has adapted to the new diet - so for us, that was the stopping point.
3) Upfront it is very gratifying to eat unlimited amounts of all those wonderful foods... but in the end we tended to become bored with the diet - which happens in most diets. But don't get me wrong, we were still happy as can be that we dropped 60 pounds in such a short time.
THE UGLY
You stop pooping. Because you are getting little fiber in your diet (and the diet recommends that you keep up on high fiber, but it's hard) - you literally stop pooping. Other problems associated with not pooping can raise their ugly bumps at this point. However, this all goes away once you ease yourself off the diet.
The other negative... you drop weight so fast that your skin ends up loose. This was a shock to my wife and me. We actually had skin that looked to be very loose. It took about 3 months after the diet was over for the skin to tighten up to our new bodies - but tighten it did.
So did I keep the pounds off?
The diet encourages you to reach a point and then back off the diet. The wonderful thing about the diet is that you now understand how to quickly lose weight... so if you indulge in a weekend of excess, all you need to do is go on the diet for 3 days to lose that excess and back down you are.
I've managed to keep the weight off - and right now I'm fluxuating around 200 lbs. I'm about to start again because I want to drop the final 30 lbs.
Another positive point... if you have cronic heart burn - we discovered it was from eating carbs. In fact, a friend of mine who had been told to sleep upright because of his cronic heartburn, had the symptoms totally disappear (as did I) on this diet. Amazing. And since, I've noticed that I only get heart burn if I eat too many carbs in a meal.
The diet is not for everyone... and it helps to have a partner go through it with you (otherwise whoever you eat with won't like the meat-only choices you are forcing).
Anyway... it worked for me - and it tought me to not listen to the government bullshit about the food pyrimid or any of their other crap they shovel out about dieting. They don't have a clue.
ALOHA!
It'll be hotter when it's done I suspect...
on
Am I Hot or Not
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· Score: 4, Insightful
The web page is sorely lacking in details other than a wishlist. Though the two sensors do appear to update in realtime.
The project is a great idea, but I would have rather the post had waited until the designer had actually done the computer controlled vents. I would certainly like to see what vents he chose, and any problems he had hooking them up.
I also wonder about feedback problems in such a design... that is... consider that the house finds some rooms too warm... it closes their vents and other rooms heat up, as this occurs it oscilates between the rooms and vents opening and closing. Obviously this could be tweazed, but what is the electrical overhead. Where I live, electricity is extremely expensive and so it would be questionable if such a design would be cost effective.
It would also be nice to have variable vents, that is, vents that could be selectivly opened a certain amount (which would reduce the feedback problem).
Of course, here on the Island our problem is not heat control, it's dampness and channeling of tradewinds through the house - so I wonder what the possibilities of a computer controlled window screen would be, with moisture and wind sensors (probably motorized louvered windows).
Ah well, nice idea but it seems a bit premature for a solid slashdot discussion.
While many computers do have thermal shutdown circuits (which can themselves be annoying)... in my experience it isn't the computer itself that is the most dangerous component.
Twice I have had a (rather large) UPS explode. When a UPS goes, it goes spectacularly. Really explodes. Smoke, fire, huge BANG. Talk about dangerous. We actually had one UPS disintegrate into pieces... luckly nobody was close at the time.
Monitors can also be pretty spectacular. Where I live we get 150 to 200 inches of rain a year... needless to say, it's frequently damp. I've had monitors, when turned on, explode (luckly never the screen though, only the power supply). We tend to leave all our equipment on, and baking, to avoid this - but still we go through a monitor a year (we are starting to replace them with LCD, we'll see how those stand up to the elements).
But the worst were definatly the UPS - especially since they are near your feet - they can be very dangerous indeed.
The only reason I purchased a PS2 last month was because of the LINUX kit. When the package arrive I was DELIGHTED at what I found.
The article is extremely accurate as to the packaging. I had expected a small box with a CD and a drive... but it was a large box that was well-crammed with packages. Sorta like xmas.
Like the author, of all the monitors I had none that were sync-on-green (www.playstation2-linux.com has a compatible monitor database so you can check before you try to see if you have a proper monitor). Like the author, I did the blind install (instructions also available at the above URL).
The blind install worked flawlessly for me and took about an hour (45 minutes of which it simply rattled away on it's own doing the install).
So... what do I do with it? Well, I have a number of uses. First... it is a wonderfully inexpensive full *NIX workstation. Because I am in Hawaii and my servers are in the mainland, I use computers in my house to monitor my remote servers on a full-time basis... the PS2 allows me to check my servers from the living room (instead of having to go up to the office constantly). Towards this end, I am designing 3D remote monitor software (that will monitor servers and display load, disk space, users, mail, dns health, etc... in a nice 3D graphical environment).
We also run the game 'tranquility' (www.TQworld.com), and are looking at rewriting it for the PS2 under Linux (I don't know if there is a market yet for Linux based PS2 games, but we'll give it a shot anyway).
The bottom line? Very very very impressive packaging. Good attention to detail - but yes, it's a geek thing because you have to be innovative and a digger to find all the info you want.
A very nice design... and also... price-wise pretty good. I can certainly envision a rack of PS2's humming along. According to the www.playstation2-linux.com website, a number of people have had them up and running as web servers for quite some time... and report great stability.
I have seen only one problem so far. When I ssh to remote servers and run 'top' for 5 days straight, upon stopping the remote connection and trying to do something else I have now twice seen ethernet errors of *no more space* (no more space on ethernet???? what gives with that)... so there are some caveats - but all in all, very very impressive.
The author, however, is 100% correct when he says it will be 6 months learning to fully understand/use the device. The manuals are complex and somewhat confusing (even though I have 25+ years of assembly and graphics coding on SGI etc..) it WILL take a while to understand and experiment with.
The only thing I need now is a MUCH longer keyboard cable so I can program from the sofa;))
Aloha Nui Loa
It strikes me that the more *personal* information that abounds in pure digital format, the easier it is to frame someone who is innocent, of whatever you would like.
Unlike physical evidence... evidence based on biometric data can be introduced into the system AFTER the scanner itself. For example... as long as someone knows your iris or fingerprint, they could offer a digital file directly into the system, bypassing the sensor, that would make it look like you had used that system.
It will be difficult for courts to find people innocent, if computers *record* your iris, fingerprint, etc... and show you accessed something illegally... even if there is no physical evidence.
Guilt based on data is not a good solution to me.... and quite frankly scares me.
I found my Handspring PDA to be a lifesaver.
As a SUN system admin... when I was on a vacation in New Zealand I used my PDA not only to read and respond to email... but the TELNETs available for it allowed me to simply snap it into a foldable keyboard and telnet directly to the servers to handle emergencies. 'vi' worked extremely well, although cramped.
I am always looking for the smallest, lightest, most useable technology I can carry to allow me, from anywhere, to admin my servers (and I'm in Hawaii, so I mean *from ANYWHERE*... be it at the beach or playing in the snow on the mountains... or cooking chicken in the flowing lava).
I keep eyeing the phone/comb's... because currently I use a phone AND a pda... and it only makes sense to combine these. But they don't work well yet with our networks here on the islands and are still a bit too pricy and not enough battery power.
Soon though. soon.
A restriction such as what they are attempting would be fairly easy to defeat by anyone who really wanted to.
One possible method would be to have something BEFORE the ADC that plays with the analog signal. For example, if you invert and phase shift and generally muck with the signal such as it is no longer the same, I doubt the 'cop' chip will find a signature whatsoever.
Then, after the ADC, an algorithm reverses the original filter to produce the now digital-copy.
Perhaps they would have better luck trying to make our ears and eyes illegal.
(Btw... what would happen now to someone who had purchased copyright use... no equipment would allow them to use it, regardless. idiots)
so... if everything we see around us is based on a simple series of initial algorithms (rules)... and keeping in mind that he states that we can't know the end game until it plays itself out... should we not be able to build one REALLY BIG COMPUTER (no, not the universe) and have it try rule sets endlessly until it produces a George W Bush? (I use GWB as a proof point of success because NOBODY would have predicted that asshole:)).
Anyway... running such a simulation would therefore produce everything around us... and running it to the end-game will tell us what happens next.
Kinda like this idea... take a 64 x 64 matrix where only 8 shades of grey can exist. Produce every possible combination (yes, it's a lot)... but eventually you will produce a subset of every possible and impossible picture (rendered in 8 shades of grey) that could ever exist or not. One of the pictures will be you. One of them will be you with a lamp shade on your head, etc... (granted, at 64 x 64 x 8 - very pixelated - but you get the drift).
Hard to know which picture is real and which one isn't - especially since one of them will undoubtedly be George W Bush.
Having been in the computer industry for more than 20 years... here are my 2 cents about good documentation and good code.
We have always required, in our corporation, a 3 to 1 ratio of inline documentation to code. What that means is... if we count overall comments in code to lines of actual code, we should find roughly 3 times the number of comments to lines of code. This does not mean that each and every line is commented... but that SECTIONS are well comment and clear.
Now... holding to a *fixed* amount of comments does not make for good comments... but it DOES require the programmer to PRODUCE comments. So what does make for good comments?
Comments should be used where ever code might be confusing, or where you do something in a manner that would make the reader say *gee, I could do this more efficiently* - to tell the reader WHY NOT.
Comments must ALWAYS be written WHEN THE CODE IS WRITTEN OR CHANGED. Why? Because if you say *well, I'll go back later and add the comments* - later NEVER happens. Period. Thus comments MUST be placed at the same time code is written. We prefer to see the comment occur first and then the code - because while writing the comment you often realize something about the code itself.
Comments are NEVER for the coder. They are for OTHER coders. So, when writing comments we must be careful to think *does this explain what happens to someone who has never seen my code or coding style before*? If not, rewrite the comment till it does. The point of comments is to make code MAINTAINABLE even when the original coder is gone.
Comments should NEVER be placed in a separate document. They should ALWAYS be placed in the code itself. Any company who spends weeks/months writing up detailed documents that describe code are simply wasting time because the code will NOT reflect the documents. When making changes, a programmer won't stop to think *gee, I wonder if I need to change the separate documentation too*. But if the comments are in-line with the code than it is much simplier and clearer for both the programmer and others to maintain.
Humor. Comments should contain programming humor. Why? To make it enjoyable to read and write. Quite frankly, I *LOVE* writing comments. Not only does it make it clear in MY mind as I code, it is enjoyable to read later. By introducing humor into the code you actually help to promote comment coding (e.g., make it fun) and also comment reading (e.g., READ the damn comment before you make changes)
Comments should ALWAYS preceed the code it describes. It should NEVER be after the code it describes (Duh)
However, there are more to comments than just this. Coding style must also be taken into account.
When I was learning computers years and years and years ago... self modifying code, self modifying data segments, and the use of GOTO's were encouraged. Shortly after I left college, colleges started teaching that self modifying code/data and GOTO's are EVIL. Why? Not because they are REALLY evil... but because middle management couldn't read code. This is why we have attempts at OOP and other stupidity... because middle management can't read code.
So... we say *don't use goto's* but instead we make tons of flags and nested IF's and checks to break out of conditions. Now... a simple WELL COMMENTED GOTO is much more efficient, and less wasteful, and less bug prone... than making a bunch of flags and checking them in numerous places. But students were taught to use flags, etc.. because middle management couldn't handle a GOTO. Case in point... let's say your in a nested WHILE() statement... and in there you are in a series of IF statements... and a condition occurs and you want to break out of the entire set of whiles. Well, if you use a GOTO, it's one line of code - which relates EXACTLY to one line of assembly. However, if you use flags... its a variable that has to be maintained... and checked in a couple of places, with breaks. That's LOTS of code and LOTS of possibilities for bugs. Inefficient and bad. A simple WELL COMMENTED goto would have saved quite a bit.
Other coding styles are also important to think about when commenting and coding. For example, consider this chunk:
if (somecondition)
{
do something here;
}
The above line of code is how many people are taught to program. That is... put the curly bracket on it's own line.
But this is much clearer:
if (somecondition) {
do something here;
}
Why? Because in the second example it is IMPOSSIBLE to accidently put a line of code below the IF, and have it interrupt the curly. For example...
if (somecondition)
a = b + c;
{
do something here;
}
In the above example some programmer didn't look at the code carefully and pasted his formula under the IF instead of above... because the curly bracket is on it's own line, this changes the meaning of the IF entirely. The formula now becomes the IF clause... and the curly bracket expressions will ALWAYS be executed. This will be VERY hard to catch. But by putting the curly bracket at teh END of the IF statement, instead of the next line, only for formula will be incorrect and will be easier to catch.
Does this have anything to do with comments? Yes... because CODING STYLE can in itself act as a comment!!
The bottom line for comments and coding style is that they should NOT be written for the programmer who wrote them... they should be written for the programmers who have NEVER seen the coding style and code before - and have to maintain the program. The comment must be explicit... clear... and up to date.
You've never heard anything like it before...
on
The Plague of Frogs
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· Score: 1
I live on the Big Island of Hawaii and let me tell you, these frogs are something else.
They are about the size of your pinky fingernail... very very tiny. During the day they sleep under rocks and leaves, but at night, usually between about 8:00 PM and midnight, they climb the trees and sing.
EACH frog has a decibel level over 100. If you get 20 to 30 frogs going, it's deafening.
At the nearby Lava Tree Park, they have a terrible case of them. I estimate easily 1000 or more frogs. Sitting in your car at night is unbelievable there - loudest thing you have EVER heard.
I *suppose* people get used to them... but even if you get rid of them on your property, if your neighbor has them, it's just as loud.
Luckly for me, they're still 2 streets away from my house - but advancing slowly.
MOST of the frogs came in via plants imported to greenhouses and places like Wal-Mart, etc... they are not native to the islands and we would REALLY REALLY REALLY like them to go away now!
The big problem is... we don't know how to get rid of them in a way that won't hurt other things in our environment. For example, dropping caffine, which causes them to internally hemorage... what will that do to our native insects? Hawaii has an incredibly fragile ecosystem - in that invasive species can do quite a bit of damage.
Personally, I suspect we will be seeing gecko's wearing sun glasses;)
Having been a web-host for over 10 years... here are my 2 cents on the best process:
Buy your own servers... preferably SUN. First, you have TOTAL CONTROL... second... they are not so virus prone as microsoft etc..., third... more open source... don't have BSA breathing down your neck
Do NOT go with companies like RACKSPACE. MAIN reasons are as follows... first, you would prefer to admin your own server. By relying on OTHERS to admin you, you rely on OTHERS to make you secure. Great until you get hacked... then it's *hope they fix me soon*. Second... control control control control control
Pick your COLO carefully. If you can't afford being your own tier... you need to colo. OBVIOUSLY you have to pick your colo carefully. Prefer to stay away from east/west coast because of bandwidth clog. Personally, we've found the southern US (texas, etc) to be pretty good at not being clogged with bandwidth and having international channels open.
Your comment about *do anything I want*... well gee, if your going to do *bad* things, like pr0n, or war3z, or hax0ring... then you should probably NOT be on US servers... in that case, go off continent... cause any main haul here will eventually ban your ass. But if your legit (as you SHOULD be)... than you have no problems hosting anywhere. Try to go with the highest tier you can.
of course of course of course... OWN YOUR OWN DOMAIN. And if at ALL possible... own your own IP block (in old speak... Class C or better). By owning your own IP block, you can easily move from machine to machine and dictate your own configuration. Moveing is easy and painless.
GOOD COLO... the bigger the colo, the less time they have for you if a problem occurs. However, terribly small ones are also prone to inefficiency. You want a good sized, but not too big, colo with GREAT redundancy. AND YOU WANT TOTAL CONTROL OF YOUR CONNECTIONS!!!
Bottom line... you GET what you PAY for. You can't be a good host for no money. Good rack space and bandwidth (assuing your buying your own server) should cost you a MINIMUM of around $500 a month. Paying less than that, and your probably ending up with a shitty deal.
Obviously, any COLO situation can get you shut down if your doing *bad* things. But... that's true period unless your 4th or 5th tier. The more tiers you are removed, the harder you are to track down... but that implies that your doing something you shouldn't be doing... so don't! - because you want to be the highest tier possible - for the best possible bandwidth
This all confuses me terribly. First... television basically sucks. If they actually had content that was WORTH riping off and WORTH watching I could see the point... but 99% of television is terrible. What is the point of strongarming other industries to protect something that MOST people don't want to record anyway. Normally, if I want a copy of something that I saw on TV, I usually buy the Video tape or DVD. The DVD is useful because they tend to pack extra material on it that you would not normally see on TV anyway - making it added value.
Instead, it appears that they want to remove value. I don't see how this can work.
Here in Hawaii we have digital cable. But MOST subscribers refuse to get it because of the cost (hawaii has terrible economy). When 2006 rolls around are they going to turn off normal cable? If they do that... will my TV simply stop working period? If that happens... I'll gladly smash my TV into thousands of pieces and ship it to hollywood.
But, as another poster pointed out... this can be pretty easily defeated. Signal Processing algorithms can do AMAZING things in cleaning up recorded data. Thus... to *rip* a digital signal all you would need to do is point a camera or microphone (in the case of audio) and capture the material. Then apply filters to remove the noise and scan lines and have a very very good quality reproduction.
Are these nitwits forgetting that we really don't care about PERFECT playback? We're more than happy to settle on ANY playback - otherwise VCR's wouldn't have been popular.
So that brings up the next point... at what point will they make designing software algorithms illegal without a license? When will they force us to submit our source code to a goverment entity to ensure that the source can't be used to record signals?
Don't throw out your old electronics.... they could become very very useful.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone else see where this is going? The FORMER HEAD of MICROSOFT SECURITY (and quite frankly, microsoft and security should *snicker* never *snicker* be used in the same sentence together).
Obviously... Microsoft is very very happy now. They got the x-head of their security to be high up in government PROTECTION. Now this chicken little is running around squawking. Ya, I can see the next *initiative*... Paladium anyone? Government sanctioned because some LOSER who couldn't design a SECURE HOUSE LOCK is squawking.
For as many times as we accidently bomb some afgani wedding, can't we accidently bomb redmond? Please? Purty Please? With sugar on top?
It's just plain bad email ettiquite to send an email an reveal the *list* your sending it to, unless your sending it to a specific group for a reason (e.g., a work group and you want it obvious who received a copy).
I totally agree with the article... if I see that the email *looks* to be generic (subject line doesn't affect me personally) and then I see the CC line has more than 2 or 3 names on it, I almost universally delete them without reading further. I usually also find myself thinking hostile thoughts about the sender, because I consider it a privicy issue when the sender reveals MY address to someone I do not know or am not affiliated with (simply because it allows others to build email lists with my name on them).
Interestingly enough, a year or so ago, most spammers (and yes, I know the article was not about spamming) were not revealing the CC list, but lately, more and more have seemed to reveal the CC list (probably because they're trying to get more efficiency from sendmails that they're relaying through).
Another VERY disturbing trend is placing a valid email address as the return address to an email, but never routing the email through that users computer. I have had a number of emails *bounce* to me from AOL because the recipient's name no longer exists. Careful examination of the expanded headers shows that my email address was used as the FROM address, but at no time did the email pass our servers except for the final rejection from AOL. This is a very nasty trend.
Why did worldcom go down? Because of bad management and siphoning off money and cooking the book. They need to go to jail for a very long time.
WHO will bail worldcom (and the others out)?
As the SMUDGEreport.com says.... Harmless nut John Walker Lindh in jail for 20 years, Enron (and worldcom) execs who collapsed US economy walking around free.
How dare you accuse me of hatered. My original post said nothing at all about the topic. Furthermore, regardless of what you and others may think, my UNITED STATES PASSPORT, under COUNTRY OF BIRTH says "Palestine".
I do not hate *jews* or *israelis*, I never once, in any post, said any such thing. I wish for peace in that neck of the woods, nothing more, nothing less.
Why you would accuse me of such a thing, MERELY on the fact that I stated I was palestinian, is beyond me, but shows very poorly for the peace process as long as you insist on such stupid thinking.
If you read my original post, it was discussing profiling and how it appears to me not to be terribly effective. It never once said anything about israeli's, except to quote a top security official in israel comment on how they profile.
The fact that you posted this as an anonymous coward says it all.
Your thoughts sir (and I'm assuming your a sir) are terroristic. Please avoid opening your mouth again.
Aloha asshole.
GREAT BOOK. This is NOT a cookbook - it's a book on kitchen science directed specifically to HOW TO HEAT FOOD PROPERLY.
As a lot of you geeks probably already know... cooking is about science. Physics and chemstry are paramount to making a good meal (unless your cooking out of a box).
Before the advent of FOOD TV, and experts like Alton Brown, I tended to eat out most. If I ate in at all, I'd just slap some chops on a skillet and eat them with some store bought sauce. Thanks to FOOD TV and his show, I've now become quite a good chef and greatly enjoy making myself and friends gourmet meals.
Browns show is intense... super funny, and chock full of unbelievably useful information. He is never satisfied to *just do something*, no, he has to explain each and every WHY to it. And while he's doing that, he's throwing out tons of other useful suggestions that you would never have thought of.
The book goes IN DEPTH into exactly how heat works and cooks... and the various types of heating and when they are appropriate and why. He covers in depth exactly how heat reacts with the food. He explains exactly what the difference is between Radiation, Convection and Conduction (with excellant and funny examples) and then relates them to the various types of cooking (e.g., oven roasting is radiation, while boiling or steaming is conduction etc).
Each page has side panels that blow apart current cooking and food myths, such as salt being bad for you, etc...
Unlike most books that INSTRUCT you... his book and show not only instructs you, but tells you the why, the history, the mistakes and most importantly... the science!
A book every geek should own and read - and then stop going to McDonalds, buy a BowFlex and drop those pounds and build that body!
1) Force all passengers to fly naked. Your clothes will be returned to you when you disembark. (Or, conversely, I could see hospital garb being issued).
2) Force a 5 drink minimum before takeoff. You must be breathalized to prove you are legally drunk before you can board.
Actually, we should do both and the huge orgy would be better than a promise of 13 virgins.
Story 1:
I am an arab american, palestinian to be exact (born in palestine but adopted as a baby by american missionaries).
A few weeks after 9/11 I had to fly from my home in Hawaii to Witchita Kansas (the home of modern aviation I might add, this is where all the big planes are made). I expected the worst.
Throughout the entire trip, I was never once searched nor questioned. I waltzed right through with minimal checks (e.g., normal xray, that's all). Everyone was asked to compare their ID with their ticket, by a guard at the gates EXCEPT on the way out of Witchita... there, I showed my ID and a very irate guard told me she didn't need to see it and to please move on (nobody else was in line with me either).
Now... I certainly look arab. I AM arab... I would expect to be profiled. However, being adopted I do not have an arab name, and being adopted as a baby, I do not have an accent. Add a Hawaiian Aloha shirt and viola... an arab waltzes right through security.
Story 2:
In december I took a vacation back to the mainland with a male friend of mine. Again, no checks, no stops, no Scarlet Pumpernickle (the *S* search S they scrawl on your ticket). On the way over there was a HUGE search line. I saw a number of pakastani women (in full garb) in one line and IMMEDIATLY got in that line. The pakastani women were made to stand over rubber mats and they were very well checked. I was brisked on through, no check. Hrmmmmmmm. Profileing? Lousy job.
Interestingly enough, on the way back my friend made an expensive impulse buy of a Parrot. At the gate, this time, we both received the Scarlet Pumpernickel... were very simply patted (the guy in front had to remove his shoes, but we were wearing rubba slipahs and they didn't make us remove them). However, they insisted that the parrot had to be removed from the cage and searched. My friend refused and said the parrot would simply fly away. Eventually the captulated and allowed us to board the plane without checking the parrot.
Story 3:
Friend of mine owns a hotel here. About a year before 9/11 a 80ish year old couple came to the island and, on one of their hikes, found a huge bowie knife (7 inch blade, huge thing). THey put it in their luggage and returned to the mainland.
AFTER 9/11 (this January for that matter) they returned to Hawaii. Upon flying from the East Coast, making transfers, and then flying to several islands over several days (therefore, lots of security checks), lo and behold they found in their suitcase, the forgotten bowie knife. HOW did this make it through that many security checks?
Bottom line? Profileing? Yes, it happens (witness the Pakastani women) - but they're doing a lousy job. As I heard the head of Israel security say the other day on TV... "yes we profile, but we only profile those we need to... there is no need to profile an 80 year old couple". With this type of thinking - it's obvious to me that even if you ARE arab... having no accent, an enlish name, and an aloha shirt, or being 80 years old, gets you out of the profile list. If it's that easy for me to figure out, won't others figure it out too?
Security is only good if it WORKS. Security for security sake does nothing. Losing your rights over security that does not work is a travesty.
Aloha
And boy, nevermind the fact these young guys volunteer to sit on g-ddamn Navy ships/subs for months at a fucking time to defend your ass. God forbid we kill a couple of dolphins or whales to defend ourselves. Unless you're a Dalai Lama-type and brush insects out of your path so as not to step on them, you have no reason to whine.
First of all, you moron, the main reason the islands were attacked was BECAUSE THE US MILITARY WAS HERE. Second, you moron, the US took over hawaii ILLEGALLY, and even this year the world court sided with the hawaiians on the issue. Thirdly, you moron, you can stick your GUN back in your pants. We don't need your fucked up american viewpoints - your *without the US you will die* mentality... that is EXACTLY the type of viewpoint that makes the US hated world wide.
Finally, you moron, your fucking military bombs our lands and our waters... kills our fish. Your mainland corruption drains our resources and money from the islands. We do not need people with your mindset. So just stay on the mainland and play battleship in your little bathtub with your little toy gun.
Aloha
But, the largest factor is your hardware. Since the game fits the entire game, plus alpha buffers, etc... the hardware has to have enough to run. Your framerate indicates that your not running in hardware. Alas, CPU's can't move that many polygons at that framerate on PC's yet (in GL). That's why this game originally came out on SGI platform, and it took 10 years after that for PC's and MAC's to catch up.
Sorry.
Yes... it causes whales and dolphins to die. Much of the experiments were carried out in the water around Hawaii, thanks to the military idiots that abound here.
And yes, they know that it cause havoc with the animals. It's sad, because whales travel thousands of miles each year to give birth to their babies off the coasts of our islands. Not only will this dissrupt their normal cycle of life, but also will drive them away (which also hurts our tourist industry as well as our scientific industries who try to study the whales).
But, like everything else... our government has it's preverbal head up it's ass and only thinks of itself with it's MIGHT MAKES RIGHT mentality.
I think personally, it is time for Hawaii to secceed the US... kick out the military, and bring back a balance to life on these beautiful islands.
The game let's you build not only personal levels for yourself and to share with friends, but also allows you to post your favorite personal levels into a TQ Universe where other members can play your games as well.
Additionally, TQworld has begun to open up the internal language (the forum on the TQworld site has this information beginning to appear). Since the games are stored on your hard drive in clear-text format, you can tweak them (or completely rewrite/design new ones) in your favorite editor.
Watching an infomercial one day on Atkins, it sounded too good to be true, so we bought his book and tried his diet.
First... here are the good things about the diet (then I'll list the bad things):
THE GOOD
1) Yes, you can eat *unlimited* quantities of meats etc... as long as you totally control your carb intake. We would go to Outback or Ruths Chris and I would eat 3 or 4 porkchops... and some brocolli... till I could eat no more.
2) The diet throws you into ketosis - which is a diabetic term for pure fat burning. You can go to the drug store and get ketosis testing strips, little PH papers that you pass your pee stream over. The color the paper turns indicates the amount you are in ketosis. Once in ketosis, you are in pure fat burning mode.
3) Did I lose weight? YOU BET!!! I dropped from 250+ pounds to 190 pounds in about 8 months. The diet is amazing because on a daily basis, you can easily see 1/2 to 2 pounds disappear (make sure you weigh yourself at exactly the same time each day for accurate statistics). My wife also dropped 50 pounds.
THE BAD
Here are some negative things about the diet:
1) You must be sure to drink LOTS of water on this diet... and I mean LOTS. The diet is very hard on the kidneys because they have to work overtime to break down the larger molocules. By drinking lots of water you assist your kidneys and actually drop the weight even faster. If you don't drink water, kidney damage can result.
2) The closer you get to your desired weight (e.g., the longer you are on the diet), the slower you begin to drop weight. At the start of the diet, the pounds were flying off. By the end, we would even out for a few days and then drop a pound or two. The book says this happens - and indeed it does. The main reason for this is that your body has adapted to the new diet - so for us, that was the stopping point.
3) Upfront it is very gratifying to eat unlimited amounts of all those wonderful foods... but in the end we tended to become bored with the diet - which happens in most diets. But don't get me wrong, we were still happy as can be that we dropped 60 pounds in such a short time.
THE UGLY
You stop pooping. Because you are getting little fiber in your diet (and the diet recommends that you keep up on high fiber, but it's hard) - you literally stop pooping. Other problems associated with not pooping can raise their ugly bumps at this point. However, this all goes away once you ease yourself off the diet.
The other negative... you drop weight so fast that your skin ends up loose. This was a shock to my wife and me. We actually had skin that looked to be very loose. It took about 3 months after the diet was over for the skin to tighten up to our new bodies - but tighten it did.
So did I keep the pounds off?
The diet encourages you to reach a point and then back off the diet. The wonderful thing about the diet is that you now understand how to quickly lose weight... so if you indulge in a weekend of excess, all you need to do is go on the diet for 3 days to lose that excess and back down you are.
I've managed to keep the weight off - and right now I'm fluxuating around 200 lbs. I'm about to start again because I want to drop the final 30 lbs.
Another positive point... if you have cronic heart burn - we discovered it was from eating carbs. In fact, a friend of mine who had been told to sleep upright because of his cronic heartburn, had the symptoms totally disappear (as did I) on this diet. Amazing. And since, I've noticed that I only get heart burn if I eat too many carbs in a meal.
The diet is not for everyone... and it helps to have a partner go through it with you (otherwise whoever you eat with won't like the meat-only choices you are forcing). Anyway... it worked for me - and it tought me to not listen to the government bullshit about the food pyrimid or any of their other crap they shovel out about dieting. They don't have a clue.
ALOHA!
The project is a great idea, but I would have rather the post had waited until the designer had actually done the computer controlled vents. I would certainly like to see what vents he chose, and any problems he had hooking them up.
I also wonder about feedback problems in such a design... that is... consider that the house finds some rooms too warm... it closes their vents and other rooms heat up, as this occurs it oscilates between the rooms and vents opening and closing. Obviously this could be tweazed, but what is the electrical overhead. Where I live, electricity is extremely expensive and so it would be questionable if such a design would be cost effective.
It would also be nice to have variable vents, that is, vents that could be selectivly opened a certain amount (which would reduce the feedback problem).
Of course, here on the Island our problem is not heat control, it's dampness and channeling of tradewinds through the house - so I wonder what the possibilities of a computer controlled window screen would be, with moisture and wind sensors (probably motorized louvered windows).
Ah well, nice idea but it seems a bit premature for a solid slashdot discussion.
Twice I have had a (rather large) UPS explode. When a UPS goes, it goes spectacularly. Really explodes. Smoke, fire, huge BANG. Talk about dangerous. We actually had one UPS disintegrate into pieces... luckly nobody was close at the time.
Monitors can also be pretty spectacular. Where I live we get 150 to 200 inches of rain a year... needless to say, it's frequently damp. I've had monitors, when turned on, explode (luckly never the screen though, only the power supply). We tend to leave all our equipment on, and baking, to avoid this - but still we go through a monitor a year (we are starting to replace them with LCD, we'll see how those stand up to the elements).
But the worst were definatly the UPS - especially since they are near your feet - they can be very dangerous indeed.
The article is extremely accurate as to the packaging. I had expected a small box with a CD and a drive... but it was a large box that was well-crammed with packages. Sorta like xmas.
Like the author, of all the monitors I had none that were sync-on-green (www.playstation2-linux.com has a compatible monitor database so you can check before you try to see if you have a proper monitor). Like the author, I did the blind install (instructions also available at the above URL).
The blind install worked flawlessly for me and took about an hour (45 minutes of which it simply rattled away on it's own doing the install).
So... what do I do with it? Well, I have a number of uses. First... it is a wonderfully inexpensive full *NIX workstation. Because I am in Hawaii and my servers are in the mainland, I use computers in my house to monitor my remote servers on a full-time basis... the PS2 allows me to check my servers from the living room (instead of having to go up to the office constantly). Towards this end, I am designing 3D remote monitor software (that will monitor servers and display load, disk space, users, mail, dns health, etc... in a nice 3D graphical environment).
We also run the game 'tranquility' (www.TQworld.com), and are looking at rewriting it for the PS2 under Linux (I don't know if there is a market yet for Linux based PS2 games, but we'll give it a shot anyway).
The bottom line? Very very very impressive packaging. Good attention to detail - but yes, it's a geek thing because you have to be innovative and a digger to find all the info you want.
A very nice design... and also... price-wise pretty good. I can certainly envision a rack of PS2's humming along. According to the www.playstation2-linux.com website, a number of people have had them up and running as web servers for quite some time... and report great stability.
I have seen only one problem so far. When I ssh to remote servers and run 'top' for 5 days straight, upon stopping the remote connection and trying to do something else I have now twice seen ethernet errors of *no more space* (no more space on ethernet???? what gives with that)... so there are some caveats - but all in all, very very impressive.
The author, however, is 100% correct when he says it will be 6 months learning to fully understand/use the device. The manuals are complex and somewhat confusing (even though I have 25+ years of assembly and graphics coding on SGI etc..) it WILL take a while to understand and experiment with.
The only thing I need now is a MUCH longer keyboard cable so I can program from the sofa ;))
Aloha Nui Loa
Unlike physical evidence... evidence based on biometric data can be introduced into the system AFTER the scanner itself. For example... as long as someone knows your iris or fingerprint, they could offer a digital file directly into the system, bypassing the sensor, that would make it look like you had used that system.
It will be difficult for courts to find people innocent, if computers *record* your iris, fingerprint, etc... and show you accessed something illegally... even if there is no physical evidence.
Guilt based on data is not a good solution to me.... and quite frankly scares me.
I found my Handspring PDA to be a lifesaver. As a SUN system admin... when I was on a vacation in New Zealand I used my PDA not only to read and respond to email... but the TELNETs available for it allowed me to simply snap it into a foldable keyboard and telnet directly to the servers to handle emergencies. 'vi' worked extremely well, although cramped. I am always looking for the smallest, lightest, most useable technology I can carry to allow me, from anywhere, to admin my servers (and I'm in Hawaii, so I mean *from ANYWHERE*... be it at the beach or playing in the snow on the mountains... or cooking chicken in the flowing lava). I keep eyeing the phone/comb's... because currently I use a phone AND a pda... and it only makes sense to combine these. But they don't work well yet with our networks here on the islands and are still a bit too pricy and not enough battery power. Soon though. soon.
One possible method would be to have something BEFORE the ADC that plays with the analog signal. For example, if you invert and phase shift and generally muck with the signal such as it is no longer the same, I doubt the 'cop' chip will find a signature whatsoever.
Then, after the ADC, an algorithm reverses the original filter to produce the now digital-copy.
Perhaps they would have better luck trying to make our ears and eyes illegal.
(Btw... what would happen now to someone who had purchased copyright use... no equipment would allow them to use it, regardless. idiots)
Anyway... running such a simulation would therefore produce everything around us... and running it to the end-game will tell us what happens next.
Kinda like this idea... take a 64 x 64 matrix where only 8 shades of grey can exist. Produce every possible combination (yes, it's a lot)... but eventually you will produce a subset of every possible and impossible picture (rendered in 8 shades of grey) that could ever exist or not. One of the pictures will be you. One of them will be you with a lamp shade on your head, etc... (granted, at 64 x 64 x 8 - very pixelated - but you get the drift).
Hard to know which picture is real and which one isn't - especially since one of them will undoubtedly be George W Bush.
We have always required, in our corporation, a 3 to 1 ratio of inline documentation to code. What that means is... if we count overall comments in code to lines of actual code, we should find roughly 3 times the number of comments to lines of code. This does not mean that each and every line is commented... but that SECTIONS are well comment and clear.
Now... holding to a *fixed* amount of comments does not make for good comments... but it DOES require the programmer to PRODUCE comments. So what does make for good comments?
- Comments should be used where ever code might be confusing, or where you do something in a manner that would make the reader say *gee, I could do this more efficiently* - to tell the reader WHY NOT.
- Comments must ALWAYS be written WHEN THE CODE IS WRITTEN OR CHANGED. Why? Because if you say *well, I'll go back later and add the comments* - later NEVER happens. Period. Thus comments MUST be placed at the same time code is written. We prefer to see the comment occur first and then the code - because while writing the comment you often realize something about the code itself.
- Comments are NEVER for the coder. They are for OTHER coders. So, when writing comments we must be careful to think *does this explain what happens to someone who has never seen my code or coding style before*? If not, rewrite the comment till it does. The point of comments is to make code MAINTAINABLE even when the original coder is gone.
- Comments should NEVER be placed in a separate document. They should ALWAYS be placed in the code itself. Any company who spends weeks/months writing up detailed documents that describe code are simply wasting time because the code will NOT reflect the documents. When making changes, a programmer won't stop to think *gee, I wonder if I need to change the separate documentation too*. But if the comments are in-line with the code than it is much simplier and clearer for both the programmer and others to maintain.
- Humor. Comments should contain programming humor. Why? To make it enjoyable to read and write. Quite frankly, I *LOVE* writing comments. Not only does it make it clear in MY mind as I code, it is enjoyable to read later. By introducing humor into the code you actually help to promote comment coding (e.g., make it fun) and also comment reading (e.g., READ the damn comment before you make changes)
- Comments should ALWAYS preceed the code it describes. It should NEVER be after the code it describes (Duh)
However, there are more to comments than just this. Coding style must also be taken into account.When I was learning computers years and years and years ago... self modifying code, self modifying data segments, and the use of GOTO's were encouraged. Shortly after I left college, colleges started teaching that self modifying code/data and GOTO's are EVIL. Why? Not because they are REALLY evil... but because middle management couldn't read code. This is why we have attempts at OOP and other stupidity... because middle management can't read code.
So... we say *don't use goto's* but instead we make tons of flags and nested IF's and checks to break out of conditions. Now... a simple WELL COMMENTED GOTO is much more efficient, and less wasteful, and less bug prone... than making a bunch of flags and checking them in numerous places. But students were taught to use flags, etc.. because middle management couldn't handle a GOTO. Case in point... let's say your in a nested WHILE() statement... and in there you are in a series of IF statements... and a condition occurs and you want to break out of the entire set of whiles. Well, if you use a GOTO, it's one line of code - which relates EXACTLY to one line of assembly. However, if you use flags... its a variable that has to be maintained... and checked in a couple of places, with breaks. That's LOTS of code and LOTS of possibilities for bugs. Inefficient and bad. A simple WELL COMMENTED goto would have saved quite a bit.
Other coding styles are also important to think about when commenting and coding. For example, consider this chunk:
- if (somecondition)
The above line of code is how many people are taught to program. That is... put the curly bracket on it's own line.{
do something here;
}
But this is much clearer:
- if (somecondition) {
Why? Because in the second example it is IMPOSSIBLE to accidently put a line of code below the IF, and have it interrupt the curly. For example...do something here;
}
- if (somecondition)
In the above example some programmer didn't look at the code carefully and pasted his formula under the IF instead of above... because the curly bracket is on it's own line, this changes the meaning of the IF entirely. The formula now becomes the IF clause... and the curly bracket expressions will ALWAYS be executed. This will be VERY hard to catch. But by putting the curly bracket at teh END of the IF statement, instead of the next line, only for formula will be incorrect and will be easier to catch.a = b + c;
{
do something here;
}
Does this have anything to do with comments? Yes... because CODING STYLE can in itself act as a comment!!
The bottom line for comments and coding style is that they should NOT be written for the programmer who wrote them... they should be written for the programmers who have NEVER seen the coding style and code before - and have to maintain the program. The comment must be explicit... clear... and up to date.
Soap Box Off
...did he like it?
They are about the size of your pinky fingernail... very very tiny. During the day they sleep under rocks and leaves, but at night, usually between about 8:00 PM and midnight, they climb the trees and sing.
EACH frog has a decibel level over 100. If you get 20 to 30 frogs going, it's deafening.
At the nearby Lava Tree Park, they have a terrible case of them. I estimate easily 1000 or more frogs. Sitting in your car at night is unbelievable there - loudest thing you have EVER heard.
I *suppose* people get used to them... but even if you get rid of them on your property, if your neighbor has them, it's just as loud.
Luckly for me, they're still 2 streets away from my house - but advancing slowly.
MOST of the frogs came in via plants imported to greenhouses and places like Wal-Mart, etc... they are not native to the islands and we would REALLY REALLY REALLY like them to go away now!
The big problem is... we don't know how to get rid of them in a way that won't hurt other things in our environment. For example, dropping caffine, which causes them to internally hemorage... what will that do to our native insects? Hawaii has an incredibly fragile ecosystem - in that invasive species can do quite a bit of damage.
Personally, I suspect we will be seeing gecko's wearing sun glasses ;)
- Buy your own servers... preferably SUN. First, you have TOTAL CONTROL... second... they are not so virus prone as microsoft etc..., third... more open source... don't have BSA breathing down your neck
- Do NOT go with companies like RACKSPACE. MAIN reasons are as follows... first, you would prefer to admin your own server. By relying on OTHERS to admin you, you rely on OTHERS to make you secure. Great until you get hacked... then it's *hope they fix me soon*. Second... control control control control control
- Pick your COLO carefully. If you can't afford being your own tier... you need to colo. OBVIOUSLY you have to pick your colo carefully. Prefer to stay away from east/west coast because of bandwidth clog. Personally, we've found the southern US (texas, etc) to be pretty good at not being clogged with bandwidth and having international channels open.
- Your comment about *do anything I want*... well gee, if your going to do *bad* things, like pr0n, or war3z, or hax0ring... then you should probably NOT be on US servers... in that case, go off continent... cause any main haul here will eventually ban your ass. But if your legit (as you SHOULD be)... than you have no problems hosting anywhere. Try to go with the highest tier you can.
- of course of course of course... OWN YOUR OWN DOMAIN. And if at ALL possible... own your own IP block (in old speak... Class C or better). By owning your own IP block, you can easily move from machine to machine and dictate your own configuration. Moveing is easy and painless.
- GOOD COLO... the bigger the colo, the less time they have for you if a problem occurs. However, terribly small ones are also prone to inefficiency. You want a good sized, but not too big, colo with GREAT redundancy. AND YOU WANT TOTAL CONTROL OF YOUR CONNECTIONS!!!
- Bottom line... you GET what you PAY for. You can't be a good host for no money. Good rack space and bandwidth (assuing your buying your own server) should cost you a MINIMUM of around $500 a month. Paying less than that, and your probably ending up with a shitty deal.
- Obviously, any COLO situation can get you shut down if your doing *bad* things. But... that's true period unless your 4th or 5th tier. The more tiers you are removed, the harder you are to track down... but that implies that your doing something you shouldn't be doing... so don't! - because you want to be the highest tier possible - for the best possible bandwidth
Bye bye now!Instead, it appears that they want to remove value. I don't see how this can work.
Here in Hawaii we have digital cable. But MOST subscribers refuse to get it because of the cost (hawaii has terrible economy). When 2006 rolls around are they going to turn off normal cable? If they do that... will my TV simply stop working period? If that happens... I'll gladly smash my TV into thousands of pieces and ship it to hollywood.
But, as another poster pointed out... this can be pretty easily defeated. Signal Processing algorithms can do AMAZING things in cleaning up recorded data. Thus... to *rip* a digital signal all you would need to do is point a camera or microphone (in the case of audio) and capture the material. Then apply filters to remove the noise and scan lines and have a very very good quality reproduction.
Are these nitwits forgetting that we really don't care about PERFECT playback? We're more than happy to settle on ANY playback - otherwise VCR's wouldn't have been popular.
So that brings up the next point... at what point will they make designing software algorithms illegal without a license? When will they force us to submit our source code to a goverment entity to ensure that the source can't be used to record signals?
Don't throw out your old electronics.... they could become very very useful.