I think just about everyone believes that drinking more water is good for you, and I understand that you haven't found the proof you need to determine exactly how much is best.
Look into some of the released studies by Joe Wieder (sp?) and the weightlifting groups in the eighties and ninetys, it isn't much, but there's good evidence finding that increased water intake corelates to increased weight loss (a lot of other factors, no doubt, but we are talking about healthy, exercising individuals here)
Nobody's interested in exactly how much because there's nothing to be gained by knowing it. If you drink extra water, you seldom put yourself at risk for more than an extra trip to the restroom. Like most mass applied constants, it will probably vary from indivdual to indivdual by body mass, activity level, and other factors.
Please, your concern is valid, but you seem to be backing it up with an argument that parallels that of the smoking industry. Don't turn people away from drinking water just because they don't have proof that 8 glasses is "just right", or is that 7 glasses, or 12? Oboviously, the people who need it the most are lucky if they get A glass a day.
While performing manuvers attached to a Marine Corps unit at the wonderful vacation spot of twenty-nine palms, I was drinking appx 4 to 4.5 Gallons of water per day.
When I worked in a bakery, I drank a gallon of water just during my shift.
So don't think that a paltry 2.5 liters is too much or unrealistic. There's nothing physically stopping you from being able to drink that much water.
Unfortunately, I too have slipped far too deeply in a programmer's lifestyle, so this topic has issued a well timed wakeup call.
Sounds like someone forgot a detail in thier biochemistry.
Nicatinamide (Not Nicatine) is a naturally occurring chemical in the body, and it IS needed. Needed quite badly because it's vital for harnessing energy at the cellular level. It is however, not Nicatine by any stretch of the imagination.
Guess the endings of those long winded chemical compounds are important after all, go figure:)
Although you're probably joking, (and a good joke it is too), there's prior art on this one.
Some old documents (verify them yourself) claim that the chinese actually built huge kites capable of carrying a human passenger (albeit I'd bet a light one) for spying purposes and even used them in wartime.
Somebody out there knows if this is true, or if this is true but merly something that was planned and never done (like many of Michaelangelo's ideas) or if this is complete fabrication.
If you know, please reply to this list; because, I'd like to know. Thank you.
I think he't talking about the string breaking, or the structure of the kite collapsing causing your beloved camera to plunge a few houndred (or more) feet to the ground.
I'll bet you that nobody who puts that much money on a kite would let go of the string.
Simply noting that ports works well, and is powerful isn't a compelling reason to shift from RPM, apt, or whatever. Ports needs to be so much better than alternatives that people flock to it in it's own right.
the *BSDs have a lot going for them, and ports is their crown jewel, but I'm getting tired of claims of superiority because they use a different packaging system. The one-command-line update of a system isn't unique to BSD, or even to Linux. RPM has yum (or up2date if you prefer), apt has apt-get, and even windows has something. Claiming that Linux is "good, but when will it catch up to having ports" is the same gripe as claiming that Linux is "good, but when will it run MS Word"
At least running MS Word has a compelling business purpose, but running ports is just the desire to pick your own flavor. If nobody makes horseradish ice cream, perhaps you should make your own.
Dude, I read that as a "flame-retarded coating", which only adds to the irony.
I think a wet donkey in a vat of Jello with post-it notes attached to it's back has better performance than the MS SQL servers of old that I encountered, but to be fair, I haven't seen the 2003 version.
Also if "lines of code" are going to be part of any code comparisions, then a standard should be propsed that does (at a minimum) the following:
1. Formats the code consistently. We don't want one project to have more lines of code (and therefore less bug density) because they put a brace or parenthesis on a separate line while others do not.
2. Strip the comments. Someone could decrease bug density by heavy, heavy commenting. Comments are a vital part of coding (and more usually is better), but they have no impact on the bugginess of the code.
3. Format conditionals, blocks, and function calls consistently, or better yet, ditch the line counting and count bugs per (function call, assignment operation, operation).
Lines are easy to count, but they hold so little meaning in determing code quality.
Well it's not the first time someone has marketed (or sold) a product before it's been invented.
I'd just hate to hear GE's robotics departement meeting today.
"Ok guys, based on the sudden demand for a fully automated domestic assistant, or salesreps have been cornering the marketplace and closing sales. You engineers need to have a working prototype ready by next week, and we hope to have these things shipping in six to eight weeks! Great job guys."
Gee, and I thought that iTaly was Apple's new accounting software with the Venice plugin for utilites, the Florence payroll system, and the Sicily add on for evading taxes.
But Susan was not one of them. She is human, and even in a revisionist "well it could be" point of view, it is clear that on occasion she violates the spirit of the 3 laws of robotics, although I'd have to carefully reread the books to see if she ever violated it in letter.
Re:Plain text passwords in web.xml
on
J2EE Security
·
· Score: 3, Informative
You use JAAS, and back the passwords to an authenticating service.
Depending on your choice, the authenticating service can be:/etc/passwd a different passwd file not in/etc a shadow password file a NIS setup a Windows Domain controller a kerberos setup and many many more...
JAAS is not simple to setup and it's documentation isn't written for the people who need it the most. Homebrew encryption is easy to break, so people don't bother encrypting. These factors play a big role in the number of plain text password files.
Re:Someone's going to say it, dos2unix
on
J2EE Security
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
International visitors usually say the same thing every time they visit the good old U.S. of A.
It's not pratical to maintain two dialects when they are not both in active use, in language or in computer software.
Never mind that DOS was created after UNIX, and decided to be particular about wanting thier own file format, so they embedded what was previously a printer command just in case the computer didn't realize that it already had a carrige return to process.
Of course, I'm not really trying to convince you that the UNIX way is better, but now you see it from a different point of view.
Re:J2EE security? should be just Java 2 security
on
J2EE Security
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Yes, you're correct, but consider that many of the "seasoned" programmers don't have a good concept of what security is in the first place.
I know it's a shame to have programmers who think that telnet is "secure" because they are prompted with a login, but usually these programmers are not stupid, they are just uninformed. As soon as they realize the issues involved, they take steps to correct them. That is why I am happy to see that the foundations of "what we mean by security" was laid out before the "how we do it in J2EE"
That said, I am sorry to see that they didn't devote a chapter to Java's authentication and authorization service (JAAS), as in my humble opinion, for all of its power, its not terribly straightforward or simple. In a mixed application environment, the pressures for "single sign-on" capabilites usually require JAAS or a home brew implementation which most likely would be even less secure.
Someone's going to say it, dos2unix
on
J2EE Security
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Although the author did a great review, it's a shame he added in a CR/LF gripe.
For those who may be unfamiliar with file conversion issues, here's (only a few) ways to convert DOS text files.
For Linux, there's dos2unix. For MacOSX, there's native2ascii (Haven't used it personally, but is reported to work) Also dos2unix has been ported to MacOSX, see http://www.osxgnu.org/software/Fileutils/Unix2Dos/
And I'm not including several dozen awk scripts, perl commands, shell scripts, etc. to do the same thing.
Have them cut the city a check. Cost of the Office suite, and cost of maintaining the records to prove proper licence in event of an audit. With the city's discounts, I'd be shocked if this was over $400, and it might even be able to come in under $300.
Then they'd really yell, but NOBODY would try to switch back to MS Office. (grin)
To some extent I agree. We shouldn't blame those who leave thier doors unlocked. But I'm not sure if the analogy holds, I would be less sympathetic to those who buy homes without doors.
I'm not saying that they should be robbed, but that they are naive, and will sadly learn the hard way. Funny thing is email is "good enough" for it's users most of the time that they never hang that door, much less lock it. As problems begin, they quickly accept that it's a small price to pay for shelter, and finally when it's obovious a door should be hung, most gripe and complain that it would bar their ability to enter and exit the building.
And I haven't even mentioned those who claim that door building is irrelevant or useless, as all doors can be opened, therefore premitting possible entry anyway.
Well, I met my quota on bad analogies for the day. Back to work for me.
Nearly every week there's a standard spam article on slashdot, every day the less savvy computer people like my stepfather get slammed with spam. The spammers are denegrated to the point of being dehumanized, and laws get bandied about to fix everything via litigation.
Meanwhile, there are a few people who have set up their own private mail relays, which reject all mail coming from "untrusted" servers. A fine step toward combating spam, but oboviously few are beating down their doors to climb on board. I haven't heard from them in years, so mabye they never hit critical mass.
And every two months or so, I read an article on how "redesigning email MY way" could save us all from the SPAM. Nevermind that there are tons of different ways, some of them fatally flawed, being presented. The lack of momentum in actually changing this is phenomenal.
But only on slashdot would suggesting that a less spam-prone mail delivery be designed, and then implemented, be considered a troll. What's next, would posting an article complaining about spam be a troll? Since that would seriously garner quite a few more responses than my quaint message.
And we should blame ourselves for the compelling lack of action in creating a mail protocol that makes spamming an easily handled phenomenon by authenticating it's users.
And we should blame ourselves again for not implementing said protocols (as I am sure a number of better approximations of the above exist)
And we should balme ourselves once more for acting so slowly in handling the spam as we did in the past.
But let's not blame someone else for the net's problems while distancing ourselves when we all sadly negligent.
Airplanes don't wait for passenger 42 to come on board, even when passenger 42 is a politician or powerful businessman.
Universities don't "reopen" enrollment for a tardy applicant, without compromising their perception of fairness.
Deadlines exist. Mabye the years of missing them in software development has numbed us, but they still exist. And as much as I find it ironic that Miguel isn't on board, let's not cry that he deserves a spot when he couldn't be bothered to get his application in on time.
If he was tardy in his application, that's not a pretty precedent to set as a board member. (Admittedly, I'd expect a few board memebers to be tardy at everything else, BUT the application process, hehehe)
If the hardware futzes up, it's not an internet download, or a "I'll mail you the CD" step away from recoving that upset customer.
Plus, it's very hard (although there's probably a VB command to do it) for software to expose it's users to UV radiation, microwaves, flying parts, etc.
To use the same product as the poster references:
Imagine his product goes haywire and blasts out a frequency deafening the user. Now imagine a piece of software trying to do the same. The software will be limited by the "certified" speakers.
It's not software that electrocutes those sloppy with their coffee. It's not software that interferes with someone's phone call via EMF down the hall.
That said, it would be beneficial for testing to be done on software before it is unleased on the masses, but the majority of software bugs lie in corner cases or unexpected interations (hence ones that you wouldn't test for anyway).
Compiere has been hounded for a postgresql database port for a long time now.
They have had a committee to oversee it, they have had numerous people (of varying skill) offer to contribute, and they have had a stunning lack of progress.
Their opinion has not changed much, which is, "If you have the Enterprise needing such software, Oracle is nothing more than a drop in the bucket" Eventually, they complained that it would be a finiancial burden to make the port happen. That's when someone indicated a "donation" web page should be set up (as a compromise).
I see the donation webpage as nothing more than an attempt to keep the port from never happening, by addressing the one point of money (raised when it became obovious that many wanted the feature, but few would donate time or money)
Slashdot Mirror
I think just about everyone believes that drinking more water is good for you, and I understand that you haven't found the proof you need to determine exactly how much is best.
Look into some of the released studies by Joe Wieder (sp?) and the weightlifting groups in the eighties and ninetys, it isn't much, but there's good evidence finding that increased water intake corelates to increased weight loss (a lot of other factors, no doubt, but we are talking about healthy, exercising individuals here)
Nobody's interested in exactly how much because there's nothing to be gained by knowing it. If you drink extra water, you seldom put yourself at risk for more than an extra trip to the restroom. Like most mass applied constants, it will probably vary from indivdual to indivdual by body mass, activity level, and other factors.
Please, your concern is valid, but you seem to be backing it up with an argument that parallels that of the smoking industry. Don't turn people away from drinking water just because they don't have proof that 8 glasses is "just right", or is that 7 glasses, or 12? Oboviously, the people who need it the most are lucky if they get A glass a day.
While performing manuvers attached to a Marine Corps unit at the wonderful vacation spot of twenty-nine palms, I was drinking appx 4 to 4.5 Gallons of water per day.
When I worked in a bakery, I drank a gallon of water just during my shift.
So don't think that a paltry 2.5 liters is too much or unrealistic. There's nothing physically stopping you from being able to drink that much water.
Unfortunately, I too have slipped far too deeply in a programmer's lifestyle, so this topic has issued a well timed wakeup call.
Sounds like someone forgot a detail in thier biochemistry.
:)
Nicatinamide (Not Nicatine) is a naturally occurring chemical in the body, and it IS needed. Needed quite badly because it's vital for harnessing energy at the cellular level. It is however, not Nicatine by any stretch of the imagination.
Guess the endings of those long winded chemical compounds are important after all, go figure
Although you're probably joking, (and a good joke it is too), there's prior art on this one.
Some old documents (verify them yourself) claim that the chinese actually built huge kites capable of carrying a human passenger (albeit I'd bet a light one) for spying purposes and even used them in wartime.
Somebody out there knows if this is true, or if this is true but merly something that was planned and never done (like many of Michaelangelo's ideas) or if this is complete fabrication.
If you know, please reply to this list; because, I'd like to know. Thank you.
I think he't talking about the string breaking, or the structure of the kite collapsing causing your beloved camera to plunge a few houndred (or more) feet to the ground.
I'll bet you that nobody who puts that much money on a kite would let go of the string.
Simply noting that ports works well, and is powerful isn't a compelling reason to shift from RPM, apt, or whatever. Ports needs to be so much better than alternatives that people flock to it in it's own right.
the *BSDs have a lot going for them, and ports is their crown jewel, but I'm getting tired of claims of superiority because they use a different packaging system. The one-command-line update of a system isn't unique to BSD, or even to Linux. RPM has yum (or up2date if you prefer), apt has apt-get, and even windows has something. Claiming that Linux is "good, but when will it catch up to having ports" is the same gripe as claiming that Linux is "good, but when will it run MS Word"
At least running MS Word has a compelling business purpose, but running ports is just the desire to pick your own flavor. If nobody makes horseradish ice cream, perhaps you should make your own.
Dude, I read that as a "flame-retarded coating", which only adds to the irony.
I think a wet donkey in a vat of Jello with post-it notes attached to it's back has better performance than the MS SQL servers of old that I encountered, but to be fair, I haven't seen the 2003 version.
Good points, and I agree.
Also if "lines of code" are going to be part of any code comparisions, then a standard should be propsed that does (at a minimum) the following:
1. Formats the code consistently. We don't want one project to have more lines of code (and therefore less bug density) because they put a brace or parenthesis on a separate line while others do not.
2. Strip the comments. Someone could decrease bug density by heavy, heavy commenting. Comments are a vital part of coding (and more usually is better), but they have no impact on the bugginess of the code.
3. Format conditionals, blocks, and function calls consistently, or better yet, ditch the line counting and count bugs per (function call, assignment operation, operation).
Lines are easy to count, but they hold so little meaning in determing code quality.
I for one embrace our giant robot...
Wait, what the Xell?
Well it's not the first time someone has marketed (or sold) a product before it's been invented.
I'd just hate to hear GE's robotics departement meeting today.
"Ok guys, based on the sudden demand for a fully automated domestic assistant, or salesreps have been cornering the marketplace and closing sales. You engineers need to have a working prototype ready by next week, and we hope to have these things shipping in six to eight weeks! Great job guys."
Gee, and I thought that iTaly was Apple's new accounting software with the Venice plugin for utilites, the Florence payroll system, and the Sicily add on for evading taxes.
I can't imagine how I read into your post that you thought Susan Calvin was a robot...
:)
I need more coffe
There were a number of robots in I, Robot.
But Susan was not one of them. She is human, and even in a revisionist "well it could be" point of view, it is clear that on occasion she violates the spirit of the 3 laws of robotics, although I'd have to carefully reread the books to see if she ever violated it in letter.
You use JAAS, and back the passwords to an authenticating service.
/etc/passwd /etc
Depending on your choice, the authenticating service can be:
a different passwd file not in
a shadow password file
a NIS setup
a Windows Domain controller
a kerberos setup
and many many more...
JAAS is not simple to setup and it's documentation isn't written for the people who need it the most. Homebrew encryption is easy to break, so people don't bother encrypting. These factors play a big role in the number of plain text password files.
International visitors usually say the same thing every time they visit the good old U.S. of A.
It's not pratical to maintain two dialects when they are not both in active use, in language or in computer software.
Never mind that DOS was created after UNIX, and decided to be particular about wanting thier own file format, so they embedded what was previously a printer command just in case the computer didn't realize that it already had a carrige return to process.
Of course, I'm not really trying to convince you that the UNIX way is better, but now you see it from a different point of view.
Yes, you're correct, but consider that many of the "seasoned" programmers don't have a good concept of what security is in the first place.
I know it's a shame to have programmers who think that telnet is "secure" because they are prompted with a login, but usually these programmers are not stupid, they are just uninformed. As soon as they realize the issues involved, they take steps to correct them. That is why I am happy to see that the foundations of "what we mean by security" was laid out before the "how we do it in J2EE"
That said, I am sorry to see that they didn't devote a chapter to Java's authentication and authorization service (JAAS), as in my humble opinion, for all of its power, its not terribly straightforward or simple. In a mixed application environment, the pressures for "single sign-on" capabilites usually require JAAS or a home brew implementation which most likely would be even less secure.
Although the author did a great review, it's a shame he added in a CR/LF gripe.
/
For those who may be unfamiliar with file conversion issues, here's (only a few) ways to convert DOS text files.
For Linux, there's dos2unix.
For MacOSX, there's native2ascii (Haven't used it personally, but is reported to work)
Also dos2unix has been ported to MacOSX, see http://www.osxgnu.org/software/Fileutils/Unix2Dos
And I'm not including several dozen awk scripts, perl commands, shell scripts, etc. to do the same thing.
They must be using 3 carat gold :)
I've got a better idea.
Have them cut the city a check. Cost of the Office suite, and cost of maintaining the records to prove proper licence in event of an audit. With the city's discounts, I'd be shocked if this was over $400, and it might even be able to come in under $300.
Then they'd really yell, but NOBODY would try to switch back to MS Office. (grin)
To some extent I agree. We shouldn't blame those who leave thier doors unlocked. But I'm not sure if the analogy holds, I would be less sympathetic to those who buy homes without doors.
I'm not saying that they should be robbed, but that they are naive, and will sadly learn the hard way. Funny thing is email is "good enough" for it's users most of the time that they never hang that door, much less lock it. As problems begin, they quickly accept that it's a small price to pay for shelter, and finally when it's obovious a door should be hung, most gripe and complain that it would bar their ability to enter and exit the building.
And I haven't even mentioned those who claim that door building is irrelevant or useless, as all doors can be opened, therefore premitting possible entry anyway.
Well, I met my quota on bad analogies for the day. Back to work for me.
Wow, my second troll!
Come on, let's not lose our heads here.
Nearly every week there's a standard spam article on slashdot, every day the less savvy computer people like my stepfather get slammed with spam. The spammers are denegrated to the point of being dehumanized, and laws get bandied about to fix everything via litigation.
Meanwhile, there are a few people who have set up their own private mail relays, which reject all mail coming from "untrusted" servers. A fine step toward combating spam, but oboviously few are beating down their doors to climb on board. I haven't heard from them in years, so mabye they never hit critical mass.
And every two months or so, I read an article on how "redesigning email MY way" could save us all from the SPAM. Nevermind that there are tons of different ways, some of them fatally flawed, being presented. The lack of momentum in actually changing this is phenomenal.
But only on slashdot would suggesting that a less spam-prone mail delivery be designed, and then implemented, be considered a troll. What's next, would posting an article complaining about spam be a troll? Since that would seriously garner quite a few more responses than my quaint message.
Cheers.
And we should blame ourselves for the compelling lack of action in creating a mail protocol that makes spamming an easily handled phenomenon by authenticating it's users.
And we should blame ourselves again for not implementing said protocols (as I am sure a number of better approximations of the above exist)
And we should balme ourselves once more for acting so slowly in handling the spam as we did in the past.
But let's not blame someone else for the net's problems while distancing ourselves when we all sadly negligent.
Airplanes don't wait for passenger 42 to come on board, even when passenger 42 is a politician or powerful businessman.
Universities don't "reopen" enrollment for a tardy applicant, without compromising their perception of fairness.
Deadlines exist. Mabye the years of missing them in software development has numbed us, but they still exist. And as much as I find it ironic that Miguel isn't on board, let's not cry that he deserves a spot when he couldn't be bothered to get his application in on time.
If he was tardy in his application, that's not a pretty precedent to set as a board member. (Admittedly, I'd expect a few board memebers to be tardy at everything else, BUT the application process, hehehe)
Relpacement Cost, Liability.
If the hardware futzes up, it's not an internet download, or a "I'll mail you the CD" step away from recoving that upset customer.
Plus, it's very hard (although there's probably a VB command to do it) for software to expose it's users to UV radiation, microwaves, flying parts, etc.
To use the same product as the poster references:
Imagine his product goes haywire and blasts out a frequency deafening the user. Now imagine a piece of software trying to do the same. The software will be limited by the "certified" speakers.
It's not software that electrocutes those sloppy with their coffee. It's not software that interferes with someone's phone call via EMF down the hall.
That said, it would be beneficial for testing to be done on software before it is unleased on the masses, but the majority of software bugs lie in corner cases or unexpected interations (hence ones that you wouldn't test for anyway).
Compiere has been hounded for a postgresql database port for a long time now.
They have had a committee to oversee it, they have had numerous people (of varying skill) offer to contribute, and they have had a stunning lack of progress.
Their opinion has not changed much, which is, "If you have the Enterprise needing such software, Oracle is nothing more than a drop in the bucket" Eventually, they complained that it would be a finiancial burden to make the port happen. That's when someone indicated a "donation" web page should be set up (as a compromise).
I see the donation webpage as nothing more than an attempt to keep the port from never happening, by addressing the one point of money (raised when it became obovious that many wanted the feature, but few would donate time or money)