Bah. Tim Hortons went to shit after Wendys bought it. It'll continue until peoples psychological perceptions of the Tim Hortons brand finally catch up to reality. Such is the value of a good name in the modern economy.
There has been ongoing interest in developing a spaceport in this region for some time. Because of its location, they are able to reuse Russian telemetry data.
This is a great place for such an effort. We are on the ocean and have the worlds deepest harbour nearby. The site is all solid rock, the top of what's left of the Appalachian mountain chain. There is a huge deposit of undersea natural gas nearby waiting to be developed and supply energy needs.
The population here are the most overeducated, underpaid group of people in the country, there are engineers all over the place that were raised in a naval tradition, and one of the major industries of the provincial capital is educating foreigners, so there's a great foundation for inbound brain drain.
They aren't the only company interested in this effort either.
I'm quite looking forward to hopping in the car for a few hours and kicking back in Cape Breton National Park with a case of beer and a joint to watch rocket ships take off.
On the contrary. I think there is a ton left to discover. I do not think that dedicating all these resources to creating what amounts to a common language that encapsulates what we already know without superseding it is helping us get there.
Both Religion and Science are bound by the demands of utility. It is on this common basis that they compete. None of it is really true anyway, it's all contrived for a purpose.
If a unified theory was to be conceived, and it encapsulated everything we know, but added neither knowledge nor capacity to act as a consequence, the endeavor to get to that point would have been of no consequence whatsoever. None. Without utility, without use.
So, what is string theory supposed to teach us that we don't already know? Nothing. If you disagree, come back with something tangible that it has taught us that we don't already know and can put to use.
I'm quite confident that you can't. People with a great deal more vested interest than you have never succeeded, and you're not likely to be the first. But go ahead and PROVE me wrong. If you can.
I'm neither joking nor trolling. Absolutely serious. I think there are two common things tying the two together. The first is that both are absolutely useless as a practical tool for understanding how the world works, and the second is that you need to believe in them in the absence of any tangible proof.
String theory is USELESS. It's disgraceful that something so absolutely useless has been taken so seriously for so many years. It's the sort of disconnected, imaginary, convoluted system of thought you might expect to spring from the mind of someone who has been living in a sensory deprivation chamber.
String "theory" is not a theory at all, it is merely a hypothesis. It will not become a "theory" unless and until it can be tested by experiment! Come on, people! I am not nitpicking: the scientific among you know the difference. Do not accept the name "string theory" at face value. That is just String Propaganda.
String theory is a theory. A theory is a big old (mathematical, preferably) framework for explaining how something works.
I know a label that unifies both of these disparate ideas into one cohesive whole.
I've got 86 tables at the moment in my latest project, and 231 stored procedures. It's very easy to manage, very secure, and it's easy to reuse the functionality.
I don't bother using classes to represent the business objects, I just use database views to control the shape of the data that comes back across the stored procedures and pass the properly formatted arrays to another set of functions that generate the appropriate HTML/XHTML/XML as needed.
When it comes time to do caching, I'll have the ability to add that caching to the data layer within the Biz class and to the middle layer within the appropriate view functions as the usage data comes back.
As it scales, I'll have no dirty objects within objects within objects to worry about, just arrays and strings to cache and database replication to set up within Biz.
The database views and stored procedures are the db admins contract with the script writer, while the shape of the various View functions are the script writers contract with the designer. Each role has a great deal of latitude with clearly defined boundaries.
I've written similar systems that used a more object oriented approach, and while it can work well, I've found that either you have the pain in the ass of maintaining an objects clean/dirty state and using lazy writes, or you have the objects operate as a thin layer over a bunch of db functions and you end up with more db traffic than you need. This avoids that completely.
I couldn't comment about making it work as well as MySQL clustering, but I haven't had any problems with using Slony-I. It can be kind of complicated though. I'm expecting that my latest project is going to need some horizontally partitioned materialized views on the slaves to allow it to scale up effectively.
If it has a browser on one end, a database on the other and a web server in the middle, it's an n-tier application. It doesn't even matter if the database is on the same physical server, it's still an n-tier application because the browser isn't directly connecting to the database.
What you're describing is an application with an MVC architecture running as an n-tier application.
Hell, if you'd read the link you posted, you'd know that.
Personally, I don't trust MySQL to anything more significant than forum software. Referential integrity is important, strong typing is important, enforcement of declared constraints is important. MySQL can't be trusted with any of these things.
For a long time, the MySQL team put forth that good design practices were not important. They never did accomplish the task of designing a good table manager. They hobbled along into enterprise space after InnoDB was written by someone else. Now it belongs to Oracle.
If you trust this database software with anything where accuracy is important, you're asking for trouble. Great for Google, sure. How the hell are we supposed to confirm that it dropped a few pages that might have been more relevant?
I'll stick with PostgreSQL for my OSS DB needs, thanks. If it's not fast enough, I'll use technologies like memcached.
It's a shame... there are still servers, but it's just not the same anymore.
I was an offensive pyro. All the dirty guerrilla tactics that allowed you win as a Pyro have been disabled on the new maps, and I doubt TF2 is going to have anything like the napalm grenades of old.
Last time I tried to play, I turned their 3 man defensive chokepoint in the spiral into a raging inferno, watched the scout zip past, backtracked to the enemy ammo room and snuck in to get more napalm, only to get -10 applied to my score and get called a dirty camper.
All the while, soldiers are bouncing through the map faster than a scout can jumpjet talking about how it's the epitome of skill. Made most of the classes obsolete and most of the natural barriers of the maps irrelevant. Kind of sad.
Re:Orange Box just confirms PC gaming demise
on
The Orange Box Review
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
When you don't need a PC anymore for PC gaming... PC gaming is on the decline.
I think you've got it kind of backwards there. People buy PCs for non gaming purposes and then choose to buy games as an afterthought a hell of a lot more than they do when they're buying game systems. If I buy a game system, I still need a PC for a large number of reasons. The reverse is not true.
If all the best games are ports of PC games (or simultaneous releases), rather than great console games that are only available on the game platform, there is little reason to get a console in addition to your PC.
Team Fortress was for casual players. MegaTF was the shit. I used to play in the Team Pro League under [FoE]War. Team South in Texas on defense, Team North in Ottawa on offense, yelling to each other from various rooms in the apartment. That stuff was the beginning of the age. (sniffle)
And I certainly think Nolan misses the point when calling all games these days crap.
Nolan compares himself to Disney. He created Chuck E. Cheese. He bemoans the way people don't socialize the way they used to, and how men don't buy board games anymore.
Clearly, to someone like Nolan, a game like Portal is a bad game, because the better it is at being what it tries to be, the more it disinclines you to connect to other human beings.
Those who disagree with him point out all the social aspects of online gaming, which is missing his point. Reminds me of my buddy Tom. When he's not out in the field on military exercise, he's playing video games online, and if you go visit him, he won't even look up to talk to you. He might grunt and point at one of the other game systems that are scattered around the room, but that's about it.
At the end of the day, the purpose modern video games serve was once served by a campfire. It's something to stare at when you've got nothing useful to do and nothing to talk about.
I like FPS's but consoles will always be better for "twitch" games, except flight sims.
Are you kidding? The entire console world are nothing but a bunch of keyboarders. There hasn't been the analogue stick designed that compares to using a mouse.
On Wed, 15 Feb 2006, ***** wrote: "Fuck you and your karma you stupid buddhist fags. Fucking elitist prick bastards. I will just open another account. I will just troll more now because you guys pissed me off with your homo statements. Slashdot is fucking gay, the stories you post are fucking gay, the commentary is gay, all of you are gay.
I have to confess. I'm not gay, but I did let ***** suck my dick in jail just for the hell of it. He's very conflicted inside, have pity on him.
Trailers and advertisements are the reason I don't spend money on DVDs and cancelled my cable. I got one as a present recently. I was going to just rip it and so I could watch it commercial free, but my old ripping software doesn't work anymore, so I just downloaded it off a torrent and gave the disc away without even watching it. I don't like having broken garbage cluttering up the house.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't use your iPhone where I can see you. I will knock you to the ground, take it from you and smash it to bits. Better yet, don't buy one.
Bah. Tim Hortons went to shit after Wendys bought it. It'll continue until peoples psychological perceptions of the Tim Hortons brand finally catch up to reality. Such is the value of a good name in the modern economy.
There has been ongoing interest in developing a spaceport in this region for some time. Because of its location, they are able to reuse Russian telemetry data.
This is a great place for such an effort. We are on the ocean and have the worlds deepest harbour nearby. The site is all solid rock, the top of what's left of the Appalachian mountain chain. There is a huge deposit of undersea natural gas nearby waiting to be developed and supply energy needs.
The population here are the most overeducated, underpaid group of people in the country, there are engineers all over the place that were raised in a naval tradition, and one of the major industries of the provincial capital is educating foreigners, so there's a great foundation for inbound brain drain.
They aren't the only company interested in this effort either.
I'm quite looking forward to hopping in the car for a few hours and kicking back in Cape Breton National Park with a case of beer and a joint to watch rocket ships take off.
On the contrary. I think there is a ton left to discover. I do not think that dedicating all these resources to creating what amounts to a common language that encapsulates what we already know without superseding it is helping us get there.
Both Religion and Science are bound by the demands of utility. It is on this common basis that they compete. None of it is really true anyway, it's all contrived for a purpose.
The best way forward, to what?
If a unified theory was to be conceived, and it encapsulated everything we know, but added neither knowledge nor capacity to act as a consequence, the endeavor to get to that point would have been of no consequence whatsoever. None. Without utility, without use.
So, what is string theory supposed to teach us that we don't already know? Nothing. If you disagree, come back with something tangible that it has taught us that we don't already know and can put to use.
I'm quite confident that you can't. People with a great deal more vested interest than you have never succeeded, and you're not likely to be the first. But go ahead and PROVE me wrong. If you can.
I'm neither joking nor trolling. Absolutely serious. I think there are two common things tying the two together. The first is that both are absolutely useless as a practical tool for understanding how the world works, and the second is that you need to believe in them in the absence of any tangible proof.
String theory is USELESS. It's disgraceful that something so absolutely useless has been taken so seriously for so many years. It's the sort of disconnected, imaginary, convoluted system of thought you might expect to spring from the mind of someone who has been living in a sensory deprivation chamber.
String "theory" is not a theory at all, it is merely a hypothesis. It will not become a "theory" unless and until it can be tested by experiment! Come on, people! I am not nitpicking: the scientific among you know the difference. Do not accept the name "string theory" at face value. That is just String Propaganda.
String theory is a theory. A theory is a big old (mathematical, preferably) framework for explaining how something works.
I know a label that unifies both of these disparate ideas into one cohesive whole.
Lets call it "The Church of String".
No, but I'm hoping I'll be ready to slashdot my new service by the end of the year if all goes well. Maybe I'll publish parts of it then.
Those go in Version 2. I'm also adding some pseudo-morphic transformative marketing algorithms that will blow your socks off. You just wait and see.
I've got 86 tables at the moment in my latest project, and 231 stored procedures. It's very easy to manage, very secure, and it's easy to reuse the functionality.
I don't bother using classes to represent the business objects, I just use database views to control the shape of the data that comes back across the stored procedures and pass the properly formatted arrays to another set of functions that generate the appropriate HTML/XHTML/XML as needed.
When it comes time to do caching, I'll have the ability to add that caching to the data layer within the Biz class and to the middle layer within the appropriate view functions as the usage data comes back.
As it scales, I'll have no dirty objects within objects within objects to worry about, just arrays and strings to cache and database replication to set up within Biz.
The database views and stored procedures are the db admins contract with the script writer, while the shape of the various View functions are the script writers contract with the designer. Each role has a great deal of latitude with clearly defined boundaries.
I've written similar systems that used a more object oriented approach, and while it can work well, I've found that either you have the pain in the ass of maintaining an objects clean/dirty state and using lazy writes, or you have the objects operate as a thin layer over a bunch of db functions and you end up with more db traffic than you need. This avoids that completely.
Each their own, but this works well for me.
Heh, isn't me. My GF says I get intolerably antagonistic if she leaves me too long.
I couldn't comment about making it work as well as MySQL clustering, but I haven't had any problems with using Slony-I. It can be kind of complicated though. I'm expecting that my latest project is going to need some horizontally partitioned materialized views on the slaves to allow it to scale up effectively.
Man, are you on glue?
If it has a browser on one end, a database on the other and a web server in the middle, it's an n-tier application. It doesn't even matter if the database is on the same physical server, it's still an n-tier application because the browser isn't directly connecting to the database.
What you're describing is an application with an MVC architecture running as an n-tier application.
Hell, if you'd read the link you posted, you'd know that.
Here's a simple DB Abstraction layer for Postgres. Just stored procedures, so there's zero possibility for SQL Injection.
// Business Functions
<?php
class Biz
{
// Internal Database Functions
static private $cs;
static function SetConnString($connstring)
{
Biz::$cs = $connstring;
}
static private function SendQuery($q)
{
$db = pg_connect(Biz::$cs);
$r = pg_send_query($db, $q);
return;
}
static private function SendParamQuery($q, $args)
{
$db = pg_connect(Biz::$cs);
$r = pg_send_query_params($db, $q, $args);
return;
}
static private function QueryForRow($q)
{
$db = pg_connect(Biz::$cs);
$r = pg_query($db, $q);
$a = pg_fetch_all($r);
return $a[0];
}
static private function ParamQueryForRow($q, $args)
{
$db = pg_connect(Biz::$cs);
$r = pg_query_params($db, $q, $args);
$a = pg_fetch_all($r);
return $a[0];
}
static private function QueryForRows($q)
{
$db = pg_connect(Biz::$cs);
$r = pg_query($db, $q);
$a = pg_fetch_all($r);
return $a;
}
static private function ParamQueryForRows($q, $args)
{
$db = pg_connect(Biz::$cs);
$r = pg_query_params($db, $q, $args);
$a = pg_fetch_all($r);
return $a;
}
static function AddJournalEntry($PersonID, $EntryTitle, $EntryDetails, $EntryDate)
{
$JournalEntry = Biz::ParamQueryForRow('SELECT * FROM addjournalentry($1, $2, $3, $4);', array($PersonID, $EntryTitle, $EntryDetails, $EntryDate) );
$JournalEntryID = $JournalEntry['addjournalentry'];
return $JournalEntryID;
}
static function GetJournalEntry($EntryID)
{
return Biz::ParamQueryForRow('SELECT * FROM getjournalentry($1);', array($EntryID) );
}
static function GetPersonJournalEntries($PersonID, $PageSize = 20, $PageNumber = 1)
{
return Biz::ParamQueryForRows('SELECT * FROM getpersonjournalentries($1, $2, $3);', array($PersonID, $PageSize, $PageNumber));
}
}
?>
Personally, I don't trust MySQL to anything more significant than forum software. Referential integrity is important, strong typing is important, enforcement of declared constraints is important. MySQL can't be trusted with any of these things.
For a long time, the MySQL team put forth that good design practices were not important. They never did accomplish the task of designing a good table manager. They hobbled along into enterprise space after InnoDB was written by someone else. Now it belongs to Oracle.
If you trust this database software with anything where accuracy is important, you're asking for trouble. Great for Google, sure. How the hell are we supposed to confirm that it dropped a few pages that might have been more relevant?
I'll stick with PostgreSQL for my OSS DB needs, thanks. If it's not fast enough, I'll use technologies like memcached.
Yes, but that's not one of the choices before you. You have "do research and get it working" or "doesn't work, sorry, wait for service pack". Pick.
You should try it out by grabbing the DVD Install/LiveCD off of bittorrent here:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/dvd/current/
Disclaimer: My download will get faster if you do this.
It's a shame... there are still servers, but it's just not the same anymore.
I was an offensive pyro. All the dirty guerrilla tactics that allowed you win as a Pyro have been disabled on the new maps, and I doubt TF2 is going to have anything like the napalm grenades of old.
Last time I tried to play, I turned their 3 man defensive chokepoint in the spiral into a raging inferno, watched the scout zip past, backtracked to the enemy ammo room and snuck in to get more napalm, only to get -10 applied to my score and get called a dirty camper.
All the while, soldiers are bouncing through the map faster than a scout can jumpjet talking about how it's the epitome of skill. Made most of the classes obsolete and most of the natural barriers of the maps irrelevant. Kind of sad.
Hopefully TF2 hits that balanced sweet spot. It looks good. Just about laughed my ass off watching the soldiers rocket jump ballet.
When you don't need a PC anymore for PC gaming... PC gaming is on the decline.
I think you've got it kind of backwards there. People buy PCs for non gaming purposes and then choose to buy games as an afterthought a hell of a lot more than they do when they're buying game systems. If I buy a game system, I still need a PC for a large number of reasons. The reverse is not true.
If all the best games are ports of PC games (or simultaneous releases), rather than great console games that are only available on the game platform, there is little reason to get a console in addition to your PC.
Team Fortress was for casual players. MegaTF was the shit. I used to play in the Team Pro League under [FoE]War. Team South in Texas on defense, Team North in Ottawa on offense, yelling to each other from various rooms in the apartment. That stuff was the beginning of the age. (sniffle)
So replayability is the primary value of games? Gee, everything I've played in the last half year sucks ass, then.
That sounds pretty logical.
In the grand scheme of things, can anyone dispute that Chess is a better game than Halo?
And I certainly think Nolan misses the point when calling all games these days crap.
Nolan compares himself to Disney. He created Chuck E. Cheese. He bemoans the way people don't socialize the way they used to, and how men don't buy board games anymore.
Clearly, to someone like Nolan, a game like Portal is a bad game, because the better it is at being what it tries to be, the more it disinclines you to connect to other human beings.
Those who disagree with him point out all the social aspects of online gaming, which is missing his point. Reminds me of my buddy Tom. When he's not out in the field on military exercise, he's playing video games online, and if you go visit him, he won't even look up to talk to you. He might grunt and point at one of the other game systems that are scattered around the room, but that's about it.
At the end of the day, the purpose modern video games serve was once served by a campfire. It's something to stare at when you've got nothing useful to do and nothing to talk about.
I like FPS's but consoles will always be better for "twitch" games, except flight sims.
Are you kidding? The entire console world are nothing but a bunch of keyboarders. There hasn't been the analogue stick designed that compares to using a mouse.
On Wed, 15 Feb 2006, ***** wrote: "Fuck you and your karma you stupid buddhist fags. Fucking elitist prick bastards. I will just open another account. I will just troll more now because you guys pissed me off with your homo statements. Slashdot is fucking gay, the stories you post are fucking gay, the commentary is gay, all of you are gay.
I have to confess. I'm not gay, but I did let ***** suck my dick in jail just for the hell of it. He's very conflicted inside, have pity on him.
Trailers and advertisements are the reason I don't spend money on DVDs and cancelled my cable. I got one as a present recently. I was going to just rip it and so I could watch it commercial free, but my old ripping software doesn't work anymore, so I just downloaded it off a torrent and gave the disc away without even watching it. I don't like having broken garbage cluttering up the house.