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Comments · 191

  1. SQLite for database on Platform Independent C++ OS Library? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    SQLite dominates discussions of embedded databases these days, but Berkeley DB still has fans who don't need SQL. There are a lot of comparisons on the web.

  2. Sue the bastards; it's unconstitutional on Solution For College's Bad Network Policy? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A private university might get away with this, but a public institution is constrained by the Constitution. I'd say that scanning your hard drive is an unconstitutional search, because there are less invasive means of keeping their network safe.

    I can't write your brief for you, but talk to the ACLU and the EFF.

  3. Re:Yes, go for it. on With a Computer Science Degree, an Old Man At 35? · · Score: 5, Informative

    The article was discussed here last week: Brain Decline Begins At Age 27.

  4. Re:Wow, you got almost every point wrong on NASA's Orion Mock-Up Fails Parachute Test · · Score: 1

    You seem to have some involvement with the company making the parachutes, so I suggest you take tlambert's comment seriously. It was apparent to me, too, that the large chute never had a chance to open because the shroud lines were pulling with too much force, keeping the chute closed.

  5. Flawed premise on Smarter-than-Human Intelligence & The Singularity Summit · · Score: 1

    The notion of such a singularity rests on a false premise, that intelligence is a quality applicable to all domains. The kid who wins the spelling bee may not win the science fair, and the computer that beats a grandmaster in chess may not be able to forecast the weather. A machine that designs other machine-designing machines, may begin a succession of generations of machines, each better than the last, but they will be better only at their narrow task of designing machine-designing machines. There will be plenty of intelligence-requiring tasks left for the rest of us.

  6. Re:What's really interesting about this situation. on A Year In Prison For a 20-Second Film Clip? · · Score: 1

    Thanks, Slopppy, for getting it. I'm surprised and discouraged by all the comments that say, "She broke the law so that's that." What's the point of democracy if people don't think critically about the laws, even laws with such absurdly unfair outcomes?

    One point: it's not clear from the article whether the girl is being charged under the federal law or a similar state law. The lobbyists are active at both levels.

  7. Here's Why on Firstborn Get the Brains · · Score: 1

    I'm late to the discussion and may be redundant, but here's my explanation from observing my own siblings and children:

    The oldest spends more time with adults. He comes into a family of all adults, and typically continues to orient his thoughts and conversations toward them more than younger siblings do. Later-born children look to the oldest child for guidance and are less oriented toward adults.

    The oldest child isn't different from the younger ones. He just spends more time in a family that is all adults besides him. It's the family composition that makes the difference.

    I would expect only-children to get the same intellectual benefits as oldest children from increased exposure to parents, though only-children might lack some of the social experience that comes from interacting with siblings.

  8. Pipes okay, but not tubes? on A Succinct Definition of the Internet? · · Score: 1

    I think Senator Stevens got a bad rap for that one. Techies often talk about "fat pipes" when they mean fast network connections, and evidently the image stuck in Stevens' head. I'd give him the benefit of assuming he was speaking metaphorically, since he must know that there's no actual tube connected to his computer.

  9. Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? on UK Schools Bans WiFi Due To Health Concerns · · Score: 1

    Who's that from?

  10. Unfair contracts not for young people, either on The Internet Not for Old People · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is really about the ISP wanting to be able to enforce its contract. If the terms were fair, it wouldn't be an issue. The terms probably aren't fair, so the ISP is worried that she'll cancel the service and claim ignorance of the contract's disclaimer of sevice warranty, authorization to throttle bandwidth, permission to share private information, multi-year commitment, punitive cancellation charge, multiple hidden monthly fees, restrictions on ports and services, and advance agreement to any additional unfair terms the ISP's evil lawyers can dream up.

    Young people are probably even more casual than old people about signing such agreements, because young people haven't been burned by them yet, but the ISP doesn't care whether the customer actually agrees to the terms. The ISP cares only about being able to enforce the terms. If a customer was able to read and understand the terms, the terms will probably be enforced against her. The ISP has more trouble proving agreement to the terms by a senior citizen.

  11. Oh, and P.S. on Radio Shack E-Fires 400 Workers · · Score: 4, Funny

    Do you need any batteries today?

  12. Re:Linguistic speculation on New Alienware PC an Overpriced Underperformer · · Score: 1

    Now that you mention it, I can easily imagine someone hearing "six of one, half dozen of the other," and thinking it was "six and one half dozen of the other." I don't doubt that's where the phrase came from.

  13. Linguistic speculation on New Alienware PC an Overpriced Underperformer · · Score: 1
    The irony of this saying is that it must have come from the UK because we all get it right, it must have been picked up by someone who didn't understand the meaning and now the senseless version spreads across the US.
    As long as we're speculating, I'll guess that the phrase came from the southern U.S., where many idiomatic phrases like "couldn't care less" and "six and one-half dozen of the other" were commonly used to express simple ideas in a complex way. I'm sure linguists have a term for that. First- and second-generation English speakers would have heard such a phrase and understood its meaning from its context, but might not have grasped the internal sense of the phrase, and could therefore distort it when they repeated it phonetically. Frankly, I'm extrapolating from observations of my southern, WASP mother and my northern, immigrants'-son father, who always warned me that it's a doggy-dog world.
  14. Re:Mutation? on Viruses the New Condiment · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm worried that recolonizing the intestinal tract would just feed the viruses. Antibiotics get cleared from your system, but viruses keep multiplying until the hosts are destroyed.

  15. Tired of Amazon on Dropping Profits Sends Amazon In Odd Directions · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sure, the inventory's huge, but Amazon is cumbersome to browse. More and more of their listings are obsolete and no longer stocked, and too many are just listings for 3rd-party sellers. Amazon's prices aren't that great, and the customer feedback is actually more limited than what some other sites offer. Customer support is bureaucratic too.

    In the brick and mortar world, a big department store can beat small specialty stores because one-stop shopping really saves time. But it doesn't take long to hop from one website to another. If Amazon's corporate goal is still growth through diversification, it could become a dinosaur and lose business to more-narrowly focused competitors, which often sell at lower prices (e.g. Bookpool) and are easier to shop (e.g. Newegg).

  16. Re:You (do not) prove the point on Why Aren't Powergrids Underground? · · Score: 1

    Georgetown's power outages happen not because the lines are underground, but because the lines that were put underground in decades past are now overloaded, due to population growth, universal air conditioning, and of course pervasive computer use. Burying cables makes them harder and more expensive to upgrade, so it brings a risk of inadequate capacity planning. But underground cables are protected from ice storms and falling tree limbs, which cause a lot of damage to pole-hung lines.

  17. You prove the point on Why Aren't Powergrids Underground? · · Score: 4, Informative

    Downtown Washington rarely has power outages because the power lines are underground.

  18. Re:port blocking is a violation of net neutrality on Eric Schmidt on Net Neutrality · · Score: 1

    Hear, hear! Allowing any IP address to run any web service is essential to a free Internet. Unfortunately, the little guys who care about this don't have lobbyists to fight port blocking the way the big media companies can fight quality-of-service discrimination.

  19. Good, but how good not known yet on MySQL to Adopt Solid Storage Engine · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Solid's database server has a good reputation. Philip Greenspun used to recommend Solid as a cheaper alternative to Oracle, though it seems he now recommends PostgreSQL. What all three systems have in common is multi-version concurrency control, which improves concurrent data access by tracking the changing versions of data rather than locking the data when a user might change it.

    I'm just worried about this quote from Solid's V.P. of Marketing:
    So we're going to make available code that works only with mySQL. On the side we have a proprietary line of products.
    It sounds like MySQL will use only a subset of the Solid product. So how good this news is will depend on how complete a subset of its product Solid opens.
  20. Re:It's called a newsgroup on Microsoft To Launch 'Question' Site · · Score: 1

    I use newsgroups every day, but they are usually hosted by a software company, not on Usenet. They are generally excellent sources of quick, reliable information. Microsoft's newsgroups are among the worst because most questions there are left unanswered.

  21. It's called a newsgroup on Microsoft To Launch 'Question' Site · · Score: 1

    But I guess the problem with newsgroups is that their nntp protocol doesn't give make enough provision for advertising. Yes, that's one reason I like it.

  22. NASA tried to change the name on Blue Ring Around Uranus · · Score: 4, Informative

    Do you remember some years ago when the first probe visited Uranus? The astronomers couldn't talk about "our probe of Uranus" with straight faces, so they changed the planet's pronunciation from "your anus" to "urinous." Not that "our urinous probe" is much better, if you ask me.

  23. LOW system requirements??? on Keeping the OS/2 Flame Alive · · Score: 2, Funny

    Oh, sure, IBM says OS/2 will run on 2 MB of RAM, but you won't get decent performance unless you spring for 4 MB. And if you want it to fly with graphical apps, be ready to empty your bank account for a 486 with a full 8 megs!

  24. Re:I can't imagine that you'll agree, but on SCO Demands Linux 2.7 Information · · Score: 1

    All those good works, but they're still worse off than before we started dropping bombs on their country.

    Did I miss the poll we took before we invaded, asking Iraqis whether they wanted the U.S. to destroy their government? Please stop pretending that we did the Iraqi people a favor. Life used to be hard and dangerous there for dissidents and secessionists. Now it's hard and dangerous for everyone.

  25. Clause Order on How Would You Improve SQL? · · Score: 1

    SQL would be easier for people to learn if the order of a statement's clauses was the same as the order in which they are processed. Specifically, move the SELECT (projection) clause to the end of the statement, instead of the beginning:

    FROM ...
    WHERE ...
    GROUP BY ...
    HAVING ...
    SELECT ...

    Declarative languages are fine, but it always helps a programmer to be able to imagine how a statement will be processed, because order of evaluation makes a difference.