Yes, technically Scrabble has access to the religion of its users. Yes, it could be storing this. Actually, the developer terms of service explicitly prohibit storing anything other than ids (pretty much):
Yeah, interesting fellow... more nuggets
here and
here and
here...
The google-watch-watch one has a good quote from a Salon article:
When you type "NameBase" into Google, Brandt's site comes up first, but Brandt is not satisfied with that. "My problem has been to get Google to go deep enough into my site," he says. In other words, Brandt wants Google to index the 100,000 names he has in his database, so that a Google search for "Donald Rumsfeld" will bring up NameBase's page for the secretary of defense.
This also adds a little interesting twist to his disdain for wikipedia...
Talking about native XML databases... My company can't find a decent one, preferably open source.
Did you take a look at eXist (http://exist.sourceforge.net/). I've used it a bit and found it well-documented and with useful tools like a swing query tool and a web app to run the server from. Alas, Xindice seems to have gone no where though.
Ops, of course I should have been more clear. What I meant is that I don't think XML is meant (IMHO) to be used to store MASSIVE amounts of the kind of data you USUALLY store on a DB.
That's because you are a data bigot.:-) The general bar=foo stuff may be far more common than document-centric or heavily hierarchical data, but that just makes the latter "minority" data... you treat minority people as if there irrelevant too? In all seriousness though, a relational db quickly becomes a major pain in the ass when storing hierarchical data... like querying parentage of arbitrary depth... yech. And, the best thing about IBM adding native XML abilities to DB2 is that you get the best of both worlds... no need to deal with two different servers. That sounds like a winning proposition to me.
Not to mention a HUGE waste of space. Seriously, how long could it have taken them to grab an XML parser and store the relevant data of the XML in a tree format?
Um, that's what they did... what do you think "native XML" means? That they store formatted XML strings in a huge text field? No, they parse the XML into some sort of DOM and store the pieces in hierarchical fashion... which creates -- ta-da -- a tree! And, if IBM has been as fastidious as I've usually found them to be (particularly on one of their flagship, high-dollar products) this tree is probably heavily optimized, with appropriate re-use of nodes and indexed to make queries faster.
I have to say, I really, really can't fathom the rampant XML prejudice I keep running into. There may have been a better approach to marking up documents or modeling hierarchical but, well, the W3C didn't pick those. Sorry if you had a brilliant markup format that was passed over. But too bad! It's done! XML is now far, far too entrenched to be worth throwing out at this point.
And it's really not that bad. I'm so sick of seeing, "ew, it's a waste of space"... Why, because the file is formatted? Well, stip the formatting out... and compress it for crying out loud. Hmm, kind of like OpenOffice did... I actually saw some (paid!) ding dong on a major tech site say that it would be a disaster for Microsoft to switch to XML-based file formats... "think about how huge the files would be!" Um, OpenOffice's file formats are a zipped group of XML files... have you ever compared OpenOffice file size to binary Word doc file size? Say no more! (Plus there's the benefit of being able to write programs that unzip the OO file and parse data out of the XML content... all with readily available open-source tools.)
XML is very useful for a number of things. There is a huge number of tools available to work with it. And it has finally given the IT world at least a start on a common data format. Yes, it can be abused... but then so can a relational db or sql or any programming language, etc. etc.
If you're interested in seeing more bizarre sea creatures, check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium's
Deep Sea exhibit. My favorite: "In some species of anglerfish, the males are tiny, with simplified body features, and they live as parasites on the females." Heh, heh.
Ah yes, how silly of me... I forgot to take my happy pill today... must remember: capitalism is good, the free market will provide... capitalism is good, the free market will provide... capitalism is good (well, at least when you're on top), the free market will provide (at least when you decide what's "free")...
Basically the problem with your rosy theory is that companies regularly conspire to control wages and benefits. And the idea of a "free" market is a fairy tale. Capitalism isn't about free markets, it's about who gets to control the market and make the rules. An industry leader would like nothing more than to relax regulations, because they already have the advantage.
Also, why in the world would a competitor come in and hire away the "best people" (too bad about the "not so best") and pay them more? That's going to translate into higher profits? No, the business imperative is to pay people as little as possible... slavery is the best possible rate. And, the only thing that keeps keeps companies from completely fucking over their employees is the unions.
And finally, the public is going to "abhor [the evil company's] products, and put the slave-driver corporation out of business"? Yeah right, Nike, Unocal, Dow, Chevron... they're all running scared.
Yeah, pity the poor company... they should be able to pay Joe barely enough to live in a hovel and feed his family mac & cheese while the board of directors trade in that nasty old mercedes for a hummer (or just keep both!) and put in some gold-plated fuacets at their vacation "cottage" in Cancun. Oh, and it's just too bad if Joe's kid gets sick, he can just make another one... except his wife's hospital bills won't be covered either... oh, and his wife has to work right through the pregnancy too. But it's okay, cuz Joe and his wife and all his children can work for the company too... eighty hours a week or more, for which we won't pay them overtime (cuz our pal in the white house is doing away with that crap). But if Joe works really really hard for his whole life, we'll give him a little party (no-host bar of course) and nudge him on his way towards the great beyond with enough dough to keep him in the ramen, but not enough to take care of all those health bills caused by the unsafe work conditions and hazardous chemicals that we exposed him to...
Well, you get the point... and, by the way... you're a fucking idiot.
Amazing... you're about the 200th poster on this story but the first to notice that glaring typo. That was the first thing I noticed...
It's pretty pathetic really... I mean, I know that your average joe may have no idea who SCO is (or what linux is), but a major news outlet like Reuters should have caught that.
And speaking of news outlets, why are all of them covering myDoom like it's got a mind of its own... "spreading and taking over unsuspecting peoples' computers"? They should put a 48pt. headline at the top of every article saying YOU WON'T GET THE VIRUS IF YOU DON'T OPEN ANY ATTACHMENTS... SO DON'T!!! Every damn report I read on this says, "update your virus defs, buy more av software!" and maybe, at the bottom says don't open any attachments. I just don't get it. Why don't people know by now not to open the damn attachments?!?
Yeah... had the same idea... was planning on writing a plug-in for mozilla to do that one of these days. Though hopefully someone will beat me to it. Any moz hackers out there with their ears on?
Wasn't SCO supposed to reveal their cards a couple days ago? Haven't seen a lick of news about that... maybe they missed the deadline cuz all the executives have fled to tropical islands without extradition treaties.
Linus:... It's really about "Oops. Now they actually see us doing this stuff. And so we'd better be careful."
I will be very surprised if them SCO jackasses don't jump on this quote as Linus admitting his guilt. They've misconstrued and misappropriated less usable quotes by RMS, Perens ad others.
I have a windows box and a linux box. I wanted dual monitors on both, but I didn't want to deal with two KVMs and monitors that have switched, dual inputs are expensive. So, I got three monitors... the middle one is switched by the KVM, the outer ones are dedicated to each box. The nice thing about that is you can view stuff from one box while working in the other. I've become completely addicted to it... I couldn't imagine using just two monitors!;-)
Do you mean the brightly colored page with a couples links that say something like "click here to go to..."? If so, yes, I have seen them and wondered what the hell was up with them. I don't remember what I was searching for but it did seem weird that a blank page (except) for a couple links would be high in the google results. I didn't really think about it until I saw your post. Now, I'll have to keep an eye out for another one. Interesting...
Yahoo has had this capability for months. I was excited about it at first but a) I never do anything in this town and b) I'm lazy and always type my searches into Mozilla's address bar... so I always use google. Which is funny, cuz I think Google sucks!
Oh, and it's still slashdotted at 10:05... har har har...
Dynebolic is at 1.0beta... It's pretty nice, though it wouldn't boot on one of my boxes. Still, once they work out the kinks, it'll be a nice little linux-on-a-cd.
Because most broadband providers in the US (Time Warner, for example) specifically prohibt residental-class customers from running web servers, and get royally pissed if you start sucking down huge amounts of bandwidth.
I've wondered about this though... I mean, yeah, you're not supposed to run a web server, but if you've got a p2p program running 24/7 with all your slots full all the time, what's the difference? It's almost certainly more bandwith than running your own little web page that will never get any visitors after your aunt Tilly and your girlfriend go there once. I'm really surprised--and almost scared to even speak about it--that we haven't heard about more ISPs cracking down on p2p usage due to bandwith concerns.
I wish more companies offering symmetric broadband--like speakeasy--would spring up. (Speakeasy's a bit too pricey for me right now...) Then again, maybe that's why the big ISPs aren't making a stink... they don't want to rock the boat.
Yeah, that's right... I said google sucks. Well, okay, I have to admit that I still use it for 99% of my searching without even a second thought. But they still suck.
They suck because of this stupid page rank algorithm they use... they need to re-think that. How do I know? Well, when I search google for my name (which is unique... I am the only human being on the planet with this name, I'm almost positive) it comes back with all the questions I posed to mailing lists and the articles I've written for newspapers... but it doesn't return my own personal web site, which has my name on every page and the url of which is my name!!
I mean if the idea is to come back with the most accurate results possible, what could possibly be a better result than a site that is all about me!!! But, no, google knows better... they've got their top secret algorithm. Every other search engine I've tried finds at least one of the pages from my site. Seems to me that their inferior algorithms have google beat in this case.
But, then again I know I'm biased on this... and hell, I'm too lazy to use a different search engine. Actually, I really should use a metasearch that includes google and some others... anyone know of any?
Re:Yes, I posted this story yesterday
on
SCO Roundup
·
· Score: 1
Don't feel bad... I submitted the link to the EFF email campaign and was rejected. I suppose it doesn't really matter, as long as the word gets around and people do it!
Slashdot Mirror
Uh, it's called Ruby on RAILS... like a train. MagLev is a really really fast train. Seems like a pretty sensible name to me.
http://developers.facebook.com/documentation.php?v=1.0&doc=misc
Yeah, interesting fellow... more nuggets here and here and here...
The google-watch-watch one has a good quote from a Salon article:
This also adds a little interesting twist to his disdain for wikipedia...
Talking about native XML databases... My company can't find a decent one, preferably open source.
Did you take a look at eXist (http://exist.sourceforge.net/). I've used it a bit and found it well-documented and with useful tools like a swing query tool and a web app to run the server from. Alas, Xindice seems to have gone no where though.
Ops, of course I should have been more clear. What I meant is that I don't think XML is meant (IMHO) to be used to store MASSIVE amounts of the kind of data you USUALLY store on a DB.
That's because you are a data bigot. :-) The general bar=foo stuff may be far more common than document-centric or heavily hierarchical data, but that just makes the latter "minority" data... you treat minority people as if there irrelevant too? In all seriousness though, a relational db quickly becomes a major pain in the ass when storing hierarchical data... like querying parentage of arbitrary depth... yech. And, the best thing about IBM adding native XML abilities to DB2 is that you get the best of both worlds... no need to deal with two different servers. That sounds like a winning proposition to me.
Not to mention a HUGE waste of space. Seriously, how long could it have taken them to grab an XML parser and store the relevant data of the XML in a tree format?
Um, that's what they did... what do you think "native XML" means? That they store formatted XML strings in a huge text field? No, they parse the XML into some sort of DOM and store the pieces in hierarchical fashion... which creates -- ta-da -- a tree! And, if IBM has been as fastidious as I've usually found them to be (particularly on one of their flagship, high-dollar products) this tree is probably heavily optimized, with appropriate re-use of nodes and indexed to make queries faster.
I have to say, I really, really can't fathom the rampant XML prejudice I keep running into. There may have been a better approach to marking up documents or modeling hierarchical but, well, the W3C didn't pick those. Sorry if you had a brilliant markup format that was passed over. But too bad! It's done! XML is now far, far too entrenched to be worth throwing out at this point.
And it's really not that bad. I'm so sick of seeing, "ew, it's a waste of space"... Why, because the file is formatted? Well, stip the formatting out... and compress it for crying out loud. Hmm, kind of like OpenOffice did... I actually saw some (paid!) ding dong on a major tech site say that it would be a disaster for Microsoft to switch to XML-based file formats... "think about how huge the files would be!" Um, OpenOffice's file formats are a zipped group of XML files... have you ever compared OpenOffice file size to binary Word doc file size? Say no more! (Plus there's the benefit of being able to write programs that unzip the OO file and parse data out of the XML content... all with readily available open-source tools.)
XML is very useful for a number of things. There is a huge number of tools available to work with it. And it has finally given the IT world at least a start on a common data format. Yes, it can be abused... but then so can a relational db or sql or any programming language, etc. etc.
If you're interested in seeing more bizarre sea creatures, check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Deep Sea exhibit. My favorite: "In some species of anglerfish, the males are tiny, with simplified body features, and they live as parasites on the females." Heh, heh.
Ah yes, how silly of me... I forgot to take my happy pill today... must remember: capitalism is good, the free market will provide... capitalism is good, the free market will provide... capitalism is good (well, at least when you're on top), the free market will provide (at least when you decide what's "free")...
Basically the problem with your rosy theory is that companies regularly conspire to control wages and benefits. And the idea of a "free" market is a fairy tale. Capitalism isn't about free markets, it's about who gets to control the market and make the rules. An industry leader would like nothing more than to relax regulations, because they already have the advantage.
Also, why in the world would a competitor come in and hire away the "best people" (too bad about the "not so best") and pay them more? That's going to translate into higher profits? No, the business imperative is to pay people as little as possible... slavery is the best possible rate. And, the only thing that keeps keeps companies from completely fucking over their employees is the unions.
And finally, the public is going to "abhor [the evil company's] products, and put the slave-driver corporation out of business"? Yeah right, Nike, Unocal, Dow, Chevron... they're all running scared.
Yeah, pity the poor company... they should be able to pay Joe barely enough to live in a hovel and feed his family mac & cheese while the board of directors trade in that nasty old mercedes for a hummer (or just keep both!) and put in some gold-plated fuacets at their vacation "cottage" in Cancun. Oh, and it's just too bad if Joe's kid gets sick, he can just make another one... except his wife's hospital bills won't be covered either... oh, and his wife has to work right through the pregnancy too. But it's okay, cuz Joe and his wife and all his children can work for the company too... eighty hours a week or more, for which we won't pay them overtime (cuz our pal in the white house is doing away with that crap). But if Joe works really really hard for his whole life, we'll give him a little party (no-host bar of course) and nudge him on his way towards the great beyond with enough dough to keep him in the ramen, but not enough to take care of all those health bills caused by the unsafe work conditions and hazardous chemicals that we exposed him to...
Well, you get the point... and, by the way... you're a fucking idiot.
This is just another skirmish in the linux/freebsd holy war. :-)
Hey, that's pretty funny... except if you have mozilla set to ask before setting a cookie!!! Ahhhhh!!
This is a terrible idea... and that's a fact.
(Please see my lawyers if you'd like to license this fact...)
Amazing... you're about the 200th poster on this story but the first to notice that glaring typo. That was the first thing I noticed... It's pretty pathetic really... I mean, I know that your average joe may have no idea who SCO is (or what linux is), but a major news outlet like Reuters should have caught that.
And speaking of news outlets, why are all of them covering myDoom like it's got a mind of its own... "spreading and taking over unsuspecting peoples' computers"? They should put a 48pt. headline at the top of every article saying YOU WON'T GET THE VIRUS IF YOU DON'T OPEN ANY ATTACHMENTS... SO DON'T!!! Every damn report I read on this says, "update your virus defs, buy more av software!" and maybe, at the bottom says don't open any attachments. I just don't get it. Why don't people know by now not to open the damn attachments?!?
Yeah... had the same idea... was planning on writing a plug-in for mozilla to do that one of these days. Though hopefully someone will beat me to it. Any moz hackers out there with their ears on?
Wasn't SCO supposed to reveal their cards a couple days ago? Haven't seen a lick of news about that... maybe they missed the deadline cuz all the executives have fled to tropical islands without extradition treaties.
I will be very surprised if them SCO jackasses don't jump on this quote as Linus admitting his guilt. They've misconstrued and misappropriated less usable quotes by RMS, Perens ad others.
That's pretty cool... open both at the same time and listen to the impromptu mega-mix...
I have a windows box and a linux box. I wanted dual monitors on both, but I didn't want to deal with two KVMs and monitors that have switched, dual inputs are expensive. So, I got three monitors... the middle one is switched by the KVM, the outer ones are dedicated to each box. The nice thing about that is you can view stuff from one box while working in the other. I've become completely addicted to it... I couldn't imagine using just two monitors! ;-)
Do you mean the brightly colored page with a couples links that say something like "click here to go to ..."? If so, yes, I have seen them and wondered what the hell was up with them. I don't remember what I was searching for but it did seem weird that a blank page (except) for a couple links would be high in the google results. I didn't really think about it until I saw your post. Now, I'll have to keep an eye out for another one. Interesting...
Yahoo has had this capability for months. I was excited about it at first but a) I never do anything in this town and b) I'm lazy and always type my searches into Mozilla's address bar... so I always use google. Which is funny, cuz I think Google sucks!
Oh, and it's still slashdotted at 10:05... har har har...
Dynebolic is at 1.0beta... It's pretty nice, though it wouldn't boot on one of my boxes. Still, once they work out the kinks, it'll be a nice little linux-on-a-cd.
Perle don't get paid for nothing...
Amen brother... I use E16 and can't wait for E17. C'mon Rasterman... kick it out!
Because most broadband providers in the US (Time Warner, for example) specifically prohibt residental-class customers from running web servers, and get royally pissed if you start sucking down huge amounts of bandwidth.
I've wondered about this though... I mean, yeah, you're not supposed to run a web server, but if you've got a p2p program running 24/7 with all your slots full all the time, what's the difference? It's almost certainly more bandwith than running your own little web page that will never get any visitors after your aunt Tilly and your girlfriend go there once. I'm really surprised--and almost scared to even speak about it--that we haven't heard about more ISPs cracking down on p2p usage due to bandwith concerns.
I wish more companies offering symmetric broadband--like speakeasy--would spring up. (Speakeasy's a bit too pricey for me right now...) Then again, maybe that's why the big ISPs aren't making a stink... they don't want to rock the boat.
Yeah, that's right... I said google sucks. Well, okay, I have to admit that I still use it for 99% of my searching without even a second thought. But they still suck.
They suck because of this stupid page rank algorithm they use... they need to re-think that. How do I know? Well, when I search google for my name (which is unique... I am the only human being on the planet with this name, I'm almost positive) it comes back with all the questions I posed to mailing lists and the articles I've written for newspapers... but it doesn't return my own personal web site, which has my name on every page and the url of which is my name!!
I mean if the idea is to come back with the most accurate results possible, what could possibly be a better result than a site that is all about me!!! But, no, google knows better... they've got their top secret algorithm. Every other search engine I've tried finds at least one of the pages from my site. Seems to me that their inferior algorithms have google beat in this case.
But, then again I know I'm biased on this... and hell, I'm too lazy to use a different search engine. Actually, I really should use a metasearch that includes google and some others... anyone know of any?
Don't feel bad... I submitted the link to the EFF email campaign and was rejected. I suppose it doesn't really matter, as long as the word gets around and people do it!
Ya hear that everyone?? Git to it!
NOTE: Don't miss parent's link Fucking hilarious. I just about peed my pants.