Now, call me an idealist, but certainly there's a workflow that, give something like 30,000 employees, would take only 24 hours to create the patch from start to finish? If they find out about a bug on monday night and begin the next morning, with each party putting aside what they're working on (a critical security flaw is highest priority, right?), then complete the fix in an assembly-line-like fashion. They should be able to get the patch out by Tuesday at midnight.
And I'm not just criticizing Microsoft, but most companies out there. There's so much beaurocracy and overhead in most organizations that nothing ever gets done quickly by following the usual pathways. If they really wanted to, though, there shouldn't be a problem getting every patch out next-day.
It kinda depends where you live. In the city, hunters and gatherers are known as bums. I'm not even sure it's technically legal to kill animals you find in the city.
Re:The real 90s versus outdated 00s software
on
Java Is So 90s
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Because those oh-so-free PHP developers can't stand that sun-controlled Java can be easily lumped in with Linux and MySQL. I use only Linux and MySQL w/ Java and I'd feel severely handicapped w/o many of JSP's cool features. I still meet people (developers) who think that Java means 'applet' which only proves that the applet was the most retarded marketing mistake ever created. I don't even touch Java GUI.
I'm not trying to flamebait, but I'd like to point out why JSP is much more attractive to me than PHP:
JSP tags w/ expression language-- I barely need to code inside of a JSP page. JSP works as the ideal 'pure templating language' along w/ CSS.
The webapp environment w/ web.xml-- okay, I'm not sure if PHP has a similar construct, but
it's great to be able to organize an entire web application in a single file.
The option to move into full-fledged J2EE (scalability)
The language and libraries, while maybe not well implemented, are extremely well thought-out. The collection libraries are absolutely perfect! The 1.5 features make them even better
Very standardized. Those that don't want to track the versions of all their supplementary libraries need not worry. Sun and Apache have nearly everything you'll need.
Eclipse! Amazing IDE! Handles refactorings, remote revision control, builds & deployment, Javadoc tooltips and it 'knows' Java well. You'll never get compile-time errors and very few run-time errors.
"Of course nobody's paying anybody. Seriously, what would make you think that?"
Umm, like he was saying, there were three stories in a row from the same writer and posted by the same editor. The same editor has posted like 16 of the guy's last 19 stories. I really don't care, but I will the next time I submit some news and get rejected in 5 minutes. Considering there are nearly a million accounts on Slashdot it seems extremely unlikely 1 person would get three stories in a row posted 'at random.' Nobody but you guys know what the quality of the other news items are, but, seriously, if Scuttlemonkey's going to raise eyebrows among your thousands of readers, don't you think he better at least say something in explanation? He could at least acknowledge that things look fishy, but that he's honestly picking the best stories from the queue.
"But lately the comment volume devoted to silly speculation is just out of control."
This may be true, but your argument doesn't rule out separate cubicles/offices. If something needs discussion its a simple matter to walk down the hall. I even find that the telephone works well for quick resolutions. Myself, I get a little edgy with a lot of people around and it's harder for me to work. And managers typically know who's screwing around and who's getting the work done. If they pretend not to to avoid confrontation or they really don't know, that's their own occupational shortcoming.
I do like your second paragraph, though and you might have a very good point. I wouldn't mind trying out 'pair/group programming' at least on the occasional project to see what good comes out of it.
When I took political science years and years ago, my professor said that we should read two thinks as often as possible to get a handle on world events-- The New York Times and the Economist. The Economist is a little over my head in many areas (I know little or nothing about politics in, say, Southeast Asia or South America). The short articles are informative, well-written and to-the-point. It's out of Britian, but covers world news indiscriminately without all of the fluff. They even have science, technology and literature sections.
Also, if you don't mind the liberal slant (that's putting it lightly, but even so the editor Lewis Lapham is a hell of a writer), then Harpers, IMO, just nudges out the Atlantic for some of the most interesting and entertaining topical writing you'll find in a print magazine.
I'm just saying I can relax better in my own space. I'm not advocating solo programming. Teams can work by email, telephone, etc (Linux and OS are a perfect example of a very "wide-area team"). Even the telephone can be very distracting when you're trying to hold a train of thought.
Yeah, but not everybody needs somebody looking over their shoulder. The suggestion that I won't do my job well without peer pressure is insulting to my work ethic.
It's nine o'clock here in Seattle right now. After my coffee sets in and my brain wakes up, I will do the job of three men, if required. While doing this, I will crank up my stereo, sing along if I want to, take a cigarette break whenever I feel like it, and have a dignified sense of independence and self-empowerment. And my job will get done very well.
We all like to know what the most successful and innovative companies in recent years is telling its employees (or itself). Also, their list is a proposed manual of how to manage "knowledge workers." This could apply to hundreds of companies.
Also, I take issue with the "Pack them in" criterium. What I like most about my job right now is the space I get. Email, instant-message, radio, etc, make "packing them in" a reality for any company with these technologies. I'd like to be able to fart at my desk or turn on a stereo and not have anybody make a fuss about it.
I think they're trying to justify sticking their employees two-per-cubicle for lack of floor space.
I agree with you for the most part, but remember the article said they had something like forty million users! Myspace stinks because it is so goddamn slow and they need to limit the blinking lights and shit people can put on their pages. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who seem to enjoy it. I doubt it will just go away like a fad. I wouldn't be surprised if, like all businesses today, most *individuals* will have their own page on the internet in a few years. When I got my first email address in 1995 when I started college, I used the name 'asswipe' thinking I'd never use it. I had to pay $25 to change it a couple years later because I was having to use it all the time and it was a very embarassing email name.
For you myspace nay-sayers, I recommend repeated listens of the first track on Bob Dylan's 3rd album.
I know it's almost unproveable at this point, unless an actual investigation were done and incriminating emails, memos, etc were discovered. Unfortunately, anytime the word 'conspiracy' comes up, democratic politicians grow silent. It's too much of a PR risk and too much work to push out a full-scale investigation when there are so many other problems for democrats to overcome. The exit poll discrencies were further damning evidence, as I've heard, but I know very little about the history of exit polling.
Harper's Magazine, including its editor, while of course notoriously liberal, have used very fervent language on the topic of election fixing to almost no effect on mainstream media; meanwhile their article on Heaven's Gate Church resulted in a watered-down NBC (?) special on the topic.
It seems the possibility of election fixing is so unbelievably repulsive to average US citizens that they'd rather ignore it unless there's some very, very solid evidence. They're right to think so, but somebody needs to be keeping an eye on the companies making the machines that count our votes. Election fixing simply shouldn't BE ABLE to happen.
This sounds conspiratorial, but there's a lot of very fishy evidence. It seems that if Diebold weren't fixing the election, it would be very easy for them to offer proof. Diebold's ATM machines all leave very clear paper trails of the transactions. Why didn't they use the exact same technology for their voting machines?
Johns Hopkins researchers at the Information Security Institute issued a report declaring that Diebold's electronic voting software contained "stunning flaws." The researchers concluded that vote totals could be altered at the voting machines and by remote access.
and:
Wired News reported that ". . . a former worker in Diebold's Georgia warehouse says the company installed patches on its machine before the state's 2002 gubernatorial election that were never certified by independent testing authorities or cleared with Georgia election officials." Questions were raised in Texas when three Republican candidates in Comal County each received exactly the same number of votes - 18,181.
It gets spookier still when you look at Diebold's CEO Bob Urosevich's ties to the Republican Party and strong fundamentalist backgrounds. Whereever Diebold goes, the article says, historic Republic upsets follow.
Unless they deleted it right away, I didn't see any article posted 6 times in at least the last 12 days. The only dupe was about colored bubbles and multiple different articles about sony rootkit.
I don't see what the big deal is with 'dupes.' I've hit slashdot several times a day for the past four or five years and hardly noticed it. When I do it doesn't bother me. It usually links to a different article or it brings out commenters that didn't see it the first time. CNN.com and every other newspaper has a whole page of dupes everyday. Libby, Alito, blah blah blah. Same information, different language.
Now, a 10 hour gap between articles is something I've never seen before. Even overnight. And the polls, which used to be funny, almost daily entertainment, have updated wayyyyy less frequently. And when I submitted a book review recently, it took two months for them to publish it. So I have a few complaints, but where do you draw the line between saying "this is a free service so enjoy it or don't read it" and saying "This is a really great thing that a lot of people have come to depend on and the editors owe it to the users to do an outstanding job, or they can get another job"?
Apparently you've been here for quite awhile, so maybe the good ol' days were actually way cooler than I can remember.
Turns out the original post was referring to my run-on sentence, but I had replied to him explaining my reasons for stating that mathematical symmetry is a difficult concept to grasp at first. My reasoning was simply that you're used to seeing visual symmetry, which makes sense when studying symmetry groups, but is more difficult to grasp when nothing about a group *looks* symmetrical... see the provided link for more information. I would be surprised if most people didn't have the same problems in first-year abstract algebra.
Well then... nevermind what I said before. And you're right, the sentence is rather an uncomfortable read. That's one of the disadvantages of attending the Henry Miller School of Prose-Writing and Mathematics. I should have gone to State like my parents wanted me to..
I'll stand by that sentence. It was years ago when I first studied group theory-- it was taught in a very standard format-- and I remember always thinking how the talk of symmetry was more confusing than helpful. Only in symmetry groups did the concept seem useful or relevant. Think about it: the usual lay-conception of symmetry doesn't work on, say, a non-abelian group. If you lay out the usual table of symbols and products, it isn't symmetric about the i=j line. What kind of symmetry exists besides visual symmetry? The word symmetry usually refers to something you can see. When I was new to group theory, I thought "this doesn't look symmetric! why is my professor talking about symmetry?!" It was a mental leap at the time to consider that a group that didn't have some sort of visual symmetry could be isomorphic to the symmetry groups or have a symmetric property that I couldn't 'see'.
Now I may not have passed all of the mental competency exams with flying colors, but I think its reasonable to say that first-year group theory courses don't always explain the concept of symmetry that clearly. My point, since you declined to read further, was to say that this book does, in fact, provide an intuitive notion of the symmetry concept to a greater extent than textbooks or instructors. Admittedly not the most common obstacle in learning group theory, but I needed a lede dammit!:)
I meant what you said.. groups need sets but sets don't need groups. As far as my comment about not needing equations, I was of course totally wrong; I should of said something to the effect that, unlike algebra or calculus, equations aren't the central focus of study... well, that's not quite precise either.. oh well
hmm.. that's what I got too, but it doesn't seem right. It seems like it would hit the asteroid within a few seconds of coming into line with it (at 1 km). And I double checked the force as well. Keep in mind this is the fourth largest asteroid, probably significantly larger than what it would take to wipe out life on earth.
If they approached it with a high velocity at an angle, moving away from it, so that it formed an arc with the asteroid's gravity (or maybe it could sine-wave back and forth..?)...
but since it seemed strange to me that a 20 ton object could possess any considerable gravitational force I did a quick calculation, with a lot of rounding, to determine the force between the 20-ton object (~18150 kg) and the fourth largest asteroid Hygiea which has a mass of about 9x10^19 kg. My result, for a distance of 1 kilometer between the spacecraft and the asteriod, was 10^8 Newtons of force.
So comes the hard part of determining how far out the spacecraft would have to meet the asteriod and glide along beside it so as to veer the asteroid to a safe range of R kilometers from Earth. Any ideas?
Slashdot Mirror
And I'm not just criticizing Microsoft, but most companies out there. There's so much beaurocracy and overhead in most organizations that nothing ever gets done quickly by following the usual pathways. If they really wanted to, though, there shouldn't be a problem getting every patch out next-day.
It kinda depends where you live. In the city, hunters and gatherers are known as bums. I'm not even sure it's technically legal to kill animals you find in the city.
I'm not trying to flamebait, but I'd like to point out why JSP is much more attractive to me than PHP:
Umm, like he was saying, there were three stories in a row from the same writer and posted by the same editor. The same editor has posted like 16 of the guy's last 19 stories. I really don't care, but I will the next time I submit some news and get rejected in 5 minutes. Considering there are nearly a million accounts on Slashdot it seems extremely unlikely 1 person would get three stories in a row posted 'at random.' Nobody but you guys know what the quality of the other news items are, but, seriously, if Scuttlemonkey's going to raise eyebrows among your thousands of readers, don't you think he better at least say something in explanation? He could at least acknowledge that things look fishy, but that he's honestly picking the best stories from the queue.
Yeah, that's always the readers' fault, isn't it?
I do like your second paragraph, though and you might have a very good point. I wouldn't mind trying out 'pair/group programming' at least on the occasional project to see what good comes out of it.
Also, if you don't mind the liberal slant (that's putting it lightly, but even so the editor Lewis Lapham is a hell of a writer), then Harpers, IMO, just nudges out the Atlantic for some of the most interesting and entertaining topical writing you'll find in a print magazine.
I'm just saying I can relax better in my own space. I'm not advocating solo programming. Teams can work by email, telephone, etc (Linux and OS are a perfect example of a very "wide-area team"). Even the telephone can be very distracting when you're trying to hold a train of thought.
I'm discussing work ethics on a tech news site. How is this not work ethic?
It's nine o'clock here in Seattle right now. After my coffee sets in and my brain wakes up, I will do the job of three men, if required. While doing this, I will crank up my stereo, sing along if I want to, take a cigarette break whenever I feel like it, and have a dignified sense of independence and self-empowerment. And my job will get done very well.
Also, I take issue with the "Pack them in" criterium. What I like most about my job right now is the space I get. Email, instant-message, radio, etc, make "packing them in" a reality for any company with these technologies. I'd like to be able to fart at my desk or turn on a stereo and not have anybody make a fuss about it.
I think they're trying to justify sticking their employees two-per-cubicle for lack of floor space.
For you myspace nay-sayers, I recommend repeated listens of the first track on Bob Dylan's 3rd album.
"Intellectually consistent"
Believe it or not, some of us actually enjoy our lives every now and then.
I'm glad your enjoying all of this.
Harper's Magazine, including its editor, while of course notoriously liberal, have used very fervent language on the topic of election fixing to almost no effect on mainstream media; meanwhile their article on Heaven's Gate Church resulted in a watered-down NBC (?) special on the topic.
It seems the possibility of election fixing is so unbelievably repulsive to average US citizens that they'd rather ignore it unless there's some very, very solid evidence. They're right to think so, but somebody needs to be keeping an eye on the companies making the machines that count our votes. Election fixing simply shouldn't BE ABLE to happen.
And even spookier, this link says:
and:
It gets spookier still when you look at Diebold's CEO Bob Urosevich's ties to the Republican Party and strong fundamentalist backgrounds. Whereever Diebold goes, the article says, historic Republic upsets follow.
Holy cow, I stand corrected.. can't believe I didn't notice that.
Unless they deleted it right away, I didn't see any article posted 6 times in at least the last 12 days. The only dupe was about colored bubbles and multiple different articles about sony rootkit.
Now, a 10 hour gap between articles is something I've never seen before. Even overnight. And the polls, which used to be funny, almost daily entertainment, have updated wayyyyy less frequently. And when I submitted a book review recently, it took two months for them to publish it. So I have a few complaints, but where do you draw the line between saying "this is a free service so enjoy it or don't read it" and saying "This is a really great thing that a lot of people have come to depend on and the editors owe it to the users to do an outstanding job, or they can get another job"?
Apparently you've been here for quite awhile, so maybe the good ol' days were actually way cooler than I can remember.
Turns out the original post was referring to my run-on sentence, but I had replied to him explaining my reasons for stating that mathematical symmetry is a difficult concept to grasp at first. My reasoning was simply that you're used to seeing visual symmetry, which makes sense when studying symmetry groups, but is more difficult to grasp when nothing about a group *looks* symmetrical... see the provided link for more information. I would be surprised if most people didn't have the same problems in first-year abstract algebra.
Well then... nevermind what I said before. And you're right, the sentence is rather an uncomfortable read. That's one of the disadvantages of attending the Henry Miller School of Prose-Writing and Mathematics. I should have gone to State like my parents wanted me to..
Now I may not have passed all of the mental competency exams with flying colors, but I think its reasonable to say that first-year group theory courses don't always explain the concept of symmetry that clearly. My point, since you declined to read further, was to say that this book does, in fact, provide an intuitive notion of the symmetry concept to a greater extent than textbooks or instructors. Admittedly not the most common obstacle in learning group theory, but I needed a lede dammit! :)
I meant what you said.. groups need sets but sets don't need groups. As far as my comment about not needing equations, I was of course totally wrong; I should of said something to the effect that, unlike algebra or calculus, equations aren't the central focus of study... well, that's not quite precise either.. oh well
If they approached it with a high velocity at an angle, moving away from it, so that it formed an arc with the asteroid's gravity (or maybe it could sine-wave back and forth..?)...
Nevermind.. I'll stick to programming computers.
So comes the hard part of determining how far out the spacecraft would have to meet the asteriod and glide along beside it so as to veer the asteroid to a safe range of R kilometers from Earth. Any ideas?