A single A-10 aircraft can fire 2100 or 4200 of these per minute (depending upon the configuration). Ever picked up a 30mm DU bullet of the type fired by the A-10? Each DU round contains 300g of DU. That is a lot of DU that could become airborne, and that is only from a single A-10.
Here is an excerpt from the "Responses to Questions" section:
2. Should staff have special medical examinations before, during or after working in DU areas?
Staff undertaking a medical examination prior to taking up duties in areas where DU munitions were used should [emphasis added by me] be healthy. If there is kidney impairment, judgement should be made on the basis of their fitness to perform the tasks required and not on any possible exposure to DU.
Even if present in areas in which large amounts of DU munitions were used, the possibility that significant quantities of dust and debris could have been inhaled or ingested by civilians is remote. Small intakes of DU will be passed quickly by the urine or faeces without residual effects.
Unless there are special circumstances where significant amounts of DU could have been inhaled or ingested [emphasis added by me], people should only be treated on the basis of symptoms observed. People normallly do not show any symptoms related to DU exposure.
As I read this, there are known potential risks when significant amounts of DU are inhaled. Given this, I think the WHO would agree with my first statement.
By using these very same data, 2% of uranium entering the body via ingestion *is* absorbed. And 30% of that which is absorbed is not filtered by the kidney. Alpha and beta radiation do cause harm when absorbed by live cells (as opposed to the dead skin that covers the outsides of our bodies). Therefore DU held against the skin for long periods is not relevant to the case of ingested DU.
Why don't we simply study the long-term health problems seen by Iraqis since 1991, using as a control Iraqis living in areas that were not shelled by DU? There is a lot we don't understand about long-term health effects of exposure to airborne DU. We have several wonderful areas to study further. As I understand it, Iraqis in areas that received large levels of shelling have had very significant increases in a wide variety of normally unusual health problems. I'd love to see further studies into this matter, but the US government seems to think the matter has already been decided (and, I might add, without studying the long-term health effects of populations that received high levels of shelling from DU munitions).
Read that statement closely, then re-read my statement. This statement is talking about external exposure to DU. I repeat again that alpha and beta particles are stopped sufficiently by the layer of dead skin that covers our body. No damage will be done by this.
Now, pulverize the same DU into particles that can be airborne. Now ingest those same particles and repeat the study. I believe you will find different results. This is because ingested radioactive material producing alpha and beta radiation will not be absorbed by dead skin, but instead by live cells. The results in this case are quite different.
Actually, depleted uranium is radioactive. I refer you to the World Health Organization's report on depleted uranium. It is considered "weakly" radioactive, producing about 60% of the radiation of purified uranium of the same weight. As I understand it (and I am not a nuclear engineer), depleted uranium produces alpha and beta radiation. Gamma radiation is the stuff that is more generally considered harmful, requiring a somewhat significant layer of mass (usually lead or concrete) to stop the radiation and prevent exposure. Alpha and beta radiation are able to be stopped by the layer of dead skin on our bodies or the clothing that we wear. The problem with alpha and beta radiation is when they are "stopped" by live cells. This doesn't occur when the munitions are whole, but when a munition strikes its target, very small particles are released into the air. These particles are often ingested, and thus absorbed directly into live cells in the lungs. Alpha and beta radiation absorbed in this manner is considered to be harmful, although the extent of harm that is done is not well known. Given the levels of DU munitions used first in 1991, then again this year, it is safe to say that Iraq provides an excellent case study to analyze the effects of ingested alpha and beta radiation. Given the extremely high levels of birth defects and rare cancers seen by Iraqis since 1991, the general consensus among the medical community is that DU munitions do cause considerable harm when used in battle.
The New York Times had the social security numbers of its members available in a poorly secured area. Adrian found this out and notified them. He also added his name to the list of contributors to the newspaper. As I understand it, he told the New York Times of his deads, including adding his name to the list of contributors.
From my perspective, the New York Times was being extremely negligent in their actions. It's not so much as simple as not fencing in their yard. It's more like leaving the bank vault open and then prosecuting the person that discovers it, informs the bank security folk about it, and leaving a note behind saying "I was here". I don't take very kindly to identity theft, and my social security number in the hands of the wrong person can lead to serious financial damage to me.
Adrian is the very best sort of black hat, and I applaud him for his actions. He is still a black hat, and for that he may be punished. But if all black hats were of the same type as Adrian, the world would be a better place.
Lexis/Nexis is a legal data warehouse/data mining service that includes a great deal of personal information on people. It primarily is used by lawyers when investigating lawsuits. Given a social security number, a great deal can be found out about an individual. As I understand it, there is a great deal of very personal information that can be gleamed, including detailed credit reports. Sounds like he was doing some digging to see what everyone has on him.
Adrian Lamo may be a black hat, but he is a black hat of the best kind. Although he operates on the shady side of the law, he his very strong morals and ethics about how he operates, and has done the security world a great deal of benefit through his actions (unlike, say, Kevin Mitnick). I wish him the best of luck.
Here are some of my observations having applied many forms of testing.
One of the chief goals of XP is that units can, and should, be redesigned whenever any programmer identifies a unit that is poorly designed (contrast this to RUP, which is far less ad-hoc but still relies upon unit testing). This requires that your code be designed as components, and that each component have a well-defined contract.
Based upon the brief bit you mentioned in your story, it sounds like integration testing is more applicable than unit testing. 300,000 lines of functionality (whatever that means...I follow Mark Twain's concept of "if I had more time I would have written a smaller program") written by smart but conscientious hackers sounds to me like design that does not meet the criteria of small components with well-designed contracts. One developer likely cannot redesign a portion of the program without it having undesirable side effects in different parts of the program. Of course, I am making assumptions about your code that may be incorrect, but you have given scant little regarding the project itself (what language was it in? is it a web app? a server app? a client app?)
If your code meets the requirements for unit testing, write small, simple tests that should require little in the way of debugging (very small--most of my testing methods consist of only a few lines each). Test the contracts defined by each component. Build unit tests that test 3 things: successful conditions (maybe even repeat the test 100s of times to simulate load...code often behaves differently as buffers/queues fill up), errant conditions (to ensure things behave as expected), and boundary conditions (to ensure the contracts are met). My favorite unit testing tool is JUnit (I'm a Java guy).
If your code isn't well suited towards unit testing, perhaps integration testing is more appropriate. This won't give you the XP capabilities of allowing complete redesign of components without affecting the system as a whole, but it can lead to more reliable code releases going forward. Furthermore, I find it helpful to build an integration test for each bug that surfaces, so that I don't reintroduce the same bugs I've previously fixed. In my experience, this works better than unit testing when writing tests for existing code. HttpUnit is great for integration testing web applications. There are many off-the-shell commercial apps to integration test GUI applications, too. Many of these are point-and-click. They basically record macros of mouse/keyboard events that can be replayed. Build up a large enough suite of these and you can regression test code, even if it was not designed well as encapsulated components. However, don't kid yourself--this isn't XP-like testing. These tests won't help you rewrite small units of your code. But they will help you test the functionality of the entire system when changes are made. That is not XP coding. XP really requires component-based design.
Good luck! But don't kid yourself--XP cannot be bootstrapped onto code developed without using proper design principles. Testing is still very useful...but this testing is not in the spirit of XP.
FreeBSD has fewer buffer overflow exploits. It's that simple. Most BSD-based solutions (NetBSD & OpenBSD included) are considered more secure for server systems. Of course, application security is still an issue....
Wow. Lots of errors. First off, MS isn't worth $50B, they have $50B in cash and liquid assets. They are worth far more than that (at least as far as stock market valuations go). As of this weekend, MS has a stock market valuation of $285,646.9 million (said holding pinkie to mouth). For those of you that have problems with decimal math, that's about $285 billion.
At $50M per settlement, 100 settlements leads to $5B. $50B - $5B = $45B. So, 100 settlements will lead to a reduction in total cash and equivalent assets of $5B / $285B of net worth (or less than 1/50 of their net worth). Of course, empirical evidence shows that market capitalizations have less to do with total assets and more to do with total discounted expected future earnings. So losing $5B in cash would reduce their stock market valuation by more than $5B.
It's all pretty bad for Microsoft, but not the end of the world for them. But the math quoted in this post (and most of its children posts) are pretty horrible.
No you don't. Basic electromagnetic theory shows that a Gaussian surface (any volume surrounded mostly by metal) will cause any electrostatic charge to exist solely on the *outside* of the surface. Michael Faraday proved this by making a mostly solid metallic surface around a volume, poking a hole through it, then measuring the static electric charge on the inside.
The same effect works on a car (with massive "holes" in the form of the windows). During a lightning storm, being on the inside of a car is the safest place to be. This is because a lightning string will result in *no* electric charge being transferred to the inside othe Gaussian surface (i.e. the inside of a car). This is why planes don't crash when struck by lightning, even though it is not uncommon for planes to be struck by lightning often during a storm.
Don't worry about holes or tears, except in as much as it allows humid air to flow inside. Humidity and corrosion are far worse problems than any electrostatic charge.
This is really quite funny. I must extract this quote:
But the chance of protectionism becoming law is nearly nil in the current U.S. political climate, and even if it did, the harm it might do -- by raising the U.S. sales prices of goods ranging from RAM to baby shoes -- might easily kill any economic gains from an increased number of U.S. manufacturing sector paychecks.
So let me see if I understand this correctly...protectionism will make the problem worse? But it is a shame we're losing all of these jobs? Hahahaha.
I remember hearing this same argument back in the 80s regarding the computer chip manufaturing industry (yes, not everyone that reads/. just started shaving). The argument is complete bullshit (excuse my language). I mean, what has happened with industries like the textile industry? Sure, we've lost lots of minimum wage jobs to Indonesia. But we've gained tons of jobs in sales, marketing, design, and distribution for textiles. And these aren't minimum wage jobs. The people employed in these industries consume further goods, leading to markets for Wal Mart cashiers making minimum wage (the same workers that used to work in the textile industry). Are we better off as a result? Well, it sure hurt during the transition. But the US as a whole is wealthier as a result. So are the workers in India. This is a classic "win-win" situation, so long as the people caught in the transition are not left to whither.
Getting back to the computer hardware industry, it is quite true that much of the computer manufacturing industry has fled to the Far East. But guess who designed the latest Pentium M chip? My guess is that it was a team of American engineers. And I bet each one of those engineers made 10x as much as a computer hardware manufaturer would have made had those manufaturing jobs stayed here in the US. And I bet the goods consumed by these folks now employ the very people that would have been employed at the manufacturing facilities had they remained in the US. Does is suck for those displaced by the changing economy? Yes. Is the US economy better off as a result? I would claim so. [note: the downside to all of this is a greater separation of wealth between the folks that would have worked at the manufacturing facilities and those that design the chips...how we deal with the separation of wealth is a far greater problem than the flight of these manufacturing jobs to countries with lower wages]
How many of you have worked with Indian computer software programming firms? I've worked with dozens during my tenure as a programmer. Care to guess the general quality of software design and engineering coming from these firms? Let's just say that I wouldn't mind having these firms implement something designed by my fellow lazy Americans, but my experience leads me to avoid having the design work being exported. [note2: I have had the best luck with the design coming from Russian firms...but have had other issues with their work that still leads me to chose American design over low-wage design any day of the week] What is the result? The low-wage jobs do and will flee to countries such as India. But the high-wage jobs, generally in design and engineering, will remain in the US. Fewer jobs, perhaps. But higher-wage jobs.
Do I want my Nikes and underwear to be manufacturing in the US? I couldn't give a damn. Do I want the materials design for the space-age foam used in my Nikes to be developed in the US? Yes. These materials design jobs are high paying. The people working in a shoe manufacturing facility likely would be making minimum wage. The end result? Our economy continues its flight from manufacturing towards service-sector jobs such as design. And the low-wage workers in the US end up working in "trickle-down" jobs, such as McDonalds and Wal-Mart.
Are there social issues regarding this separation of wealth? Yes. Very large ones. This is why I believe in social programs
I think you are confusing Communism with Stalinism. There aren't any good cases of Communism that I am aware of--it was more of an ideal. But Communism doesn't force labor upon people based upon an unspecified threat. Stalinism...now they forced labor on people.
That isn't an enterprise backup solution. It is a hack. An enterprise backup solution won't require a full backup of every file each time the backup is performed. The backup should only backup files that have changed. Otherwise you'll find your network bandwidth slows to a crawl. Or, worse yet, you have to back up so much data that one backup isn't finished before the next one is scheduled. Or, unless you have gobs of money to throw at the solution, you won't be able to retrieve a file as it existed on a particular date (i.e. you will only be able to keep the latest backup).
ADSM and its kin are enterprise capable because they perform incremental backups to conserve bandwidth, disk/tape space, and improve backup times. They keep multiple versions of a each file in "near online"--so that a file can be recovered as it existed on a specific date. They have features to perform smart (as in record-level backups), live backups of databases. In the event of a catastrophe, they allow a machine to be completely rebuilt in a minimal amount of time. Using tar/gzip/wget is not an enterprise-capable backup solution.
Get hot-swappable, removable hard drives. CD-R backups are for small fry. ADSM and the like are for the big boys. It's not hard to set up a hard drive-based backup system using enterprise-capable backup solutions like ADSM (no, this isn't an endorsement for ADSM...they are simply the only enterprise-capable backup solution I am personally familiar with).
Israel's leaders are elected, and are leaders of an official country. Arafat may be called the president (or whatever term is being used today) of the PLO, but it's not an accountable position. Arafat's the stated leader of a legitimate group, but in reality is just figure head for groups of Islamic terrorists.
Arafat was elected. Abbas was appointed. I think you are confusing the two. Arafat is the elected leader of the Palestinians, while Abbas is the figure head. The US simply chooses to ignore the will of the Palestinians, choosing someone they think will do their bidding for them (or should I say "us"...I am American) instead.
It seemed to everyone except Arafat that the proposed agreement brought forth by then president Clinton was very reasonable, and very workable. Arafat's rejection clearly demonstrates he isn't interested in living peacefully next to the acknowledged country of Israel. If I was a betting man, I would say that Arafat will never agree to anything that doesn't include the total destruction of the state of Israel.
Yes, the peace plan rejected by Arafat in 2000 was, IMHO, quite reasonable. I'm really not trying to absolve the Palestinians of blame. I'm only trying to state that the Israelis are just as much to blame. But do remember that the Palestinians have repeatedly asserted that the Israelis should return to pre-1967 borders, with the question of Jerusalem to be discussed at a later date. The 2000 land-for-peace offering restored about 93% of the West Bank and the Golan Heights. I think the Palestinians should be more flexible here, but they weren't inconsistant.
I think you're being very naive about this. Look at what just happened - a cease fire was in effect, and seemed to be working well, until Palestinian extremist groups killed more Israelis with suicide bombers. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Aqsa (sp?), and Hezbullah do not recognize peaceful means. Why? Because they refuse to recognize the existence of Israel. And Palestinians, like the dumb sheep they seem to be, will keep backing these groups, regardless of the fact that they hurt the cause of the Palestinian people.
You do realize that the Israeli military has killed approximately 30 Palestinians during this "cease fire"? Yes, they did not come at the hands of a suicide bomber blowing up a bus that contained children. But the Israelis are not innocent in this matter either.
How can you logically compare the American Revolution, which was fought against another military force, to sending people into another country with the intent to maim and murder innocent civilians (please note the word intent)?
At the time of the American Revolution, the United States was actually not a country yet. Britain was sending people into their *own* country to maim and murder military officers. They were upset because the Americans didn't fight by "the rules"--they didn't wear military uniforms, they hid in trees rather than facing each other on a battle ground. The Americans weren't blowing up busses, but they were violating the internationally (or at least Europe-wide) accepted norms of warfare for the time. In today's world we consider acts that are outside the accepted norms of warfare as acts of terrorism.
It seems Israel has already learned how to be prosperous by having an open, capitalistic economy, and by having an elected government. Israel thrives, even during periods of suicide bombing.
Hahaha....I'm glad you think the Israeli economy is prosperous. I refer you to some statistics on the Israeli economy. Note the high, and rising, unemployment. Note the decreasing GDP. These are signs of an economy in crisis. This, despite the fact that Israel is the recipient of almost $5 billion in economic and military aid from the US government, as
If you use my software without compensating me, then you are depriving me of money. You see, I get paid for letting people use the software I create. It's that simple. I don't get paid for the act of writing it (i.e. if I take 2x as long to write it, I don't get paid 2x as much). I get paid for the finished product. And, since I license my software, I get paid for the *use* of my software. If everyone were able to use my software without compensating me (after all, their money was never mine in the first place, right?), then I would have no way to get paid! You see, I get paid for people using my software! And by using my software without paying for it, you are depriving me of money.
I write software for a living. If you copy and use my software illegally, then you are depriving me of compensation for my hard work. Please don't do that. It's not nice.
I am not Jewish or Arab, but I have lived a consiberable part of my life in the Middle East. My family has had to live under a personal threat of terrorism at the hands of the Islamic Jihad. I consider myself neither pro- nor anti-Israeli, just as I consider myself neither pro- nor anti-Arab. However, your comment struck me as very naive at best.
How many innocent Israelis have died at the hands of Palestinian terrorists? How many innocent Palestinians have died at the hands of the Israeli military?
I'm not trying to be an apologist for Arab terrorism, but I think you ought to consider the history a bit. In 1948, the Israelis may have had the moral high ground. However, the 1956 war was pure, naked aggression (and, it seems, according to many reports that have surfaced since, it was part of a plot conceived by the British and the French to resume control over the Suez Canal). Despite the massive buildup of Arab armed forces in 1967, the Israelis struck first. During the 1973 war, the Israelis again had the moral high ground. However, the current Intifada started during the 1980s, after Israel had once again committed an act of naked aggression, this time by invading Lebanon. As far as I can tell, the Intifada seems to be a reaction, not a cause, of Israeli aggression. Of course, the conflict predates the current state of Israel by several millenia, but a simple review of history since the inception of the state of Israel shows that Israelis are far from innocent in this conflict.
As for your suggestion of a DMZ consisting of hog farms, how big should this DMZ be? Where should it be? How should Jerusalum be divided? What about Israeli demands for a *defensible* border? (remember that there are only about 13 miles between the Mediterranean and Jerusalem--a densible DMZ between Tel Aviv and the West Bank is really not possible)
Perahps, along with the members of Islamic Jihad, Hammas, and Arafat, we ought to drag out members of the Knesset, the Mossad, and Sharon. They are no less guilty in perpetuating the conflict.
Perhaps Israel should be threatened with annihilation if they exceed their borders. Of course, with what experts consider to be the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world, annihilating Israel might very well mean annihilating the world.
As for the world stepping in and settling it for good, it seems that this whole mess started as a result of the checkerboard-like pattern of Palestinian and Israeli territory outlined in 1947 by the United Nations. Six fairly distinct areas (3 Palestinian, 3 Israeli), literally laid out in a checkerboard fashion. The world doesn't have a good record at settling this issue.
The Israeli/Palestinian problem is a very complex one with no simple or easy answers. Perhaps the Israelis ought to take a cue from their Jewish heritage and "turn the other cheek". Perhaps the Palestinians ought to realize that, in the immortal words of Ghandi, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." The answer here isn't more aggression, a bigger wall, and massive forced ethnic evacuation.
To put this in a more America-centric perspective, realize that the American Revolution was seen at the time by many in the world as a group of renegades committing unspeakable acts that, if they occurred today, would be seen as terrorism. I suspect that should the anti-Israeli forces succeed in eliminating the state of Israel, several hundred years later the terrorists will be viewed as revolutionary heroes.
I wonder if, instead of the conflict ending by the elimination of one or the other, if both sides were able to settle their differences without resorting to violence, the entire region would enter into a long period of prosperity for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. This seems a far better outcome to me. I only wish there was an easy way to get there from here. The violence committed by both sides in this conflict is reprehensible and should be condemned for the anti-human acts that they represent.
Of course, if you purchase a ticket for a venue that only sells tickets through TicketMaster, you'll be paying an additional ~$6 per ticket to their monopoly. That is a far cry from "a situation that doesn't involve any middle men".
Local bands are different, though. One of the things that has the studio execs worried is that mp3s are driving more people to listen to more obscure (read: local) music. All in all, it sounds to me like the listener's revolt is coming along quite well.
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DU *is* radioactive. It just doesn't release gamma radiation. Read up on it. DU is "weakly" radioactive.
A single A-10 aircraft can fire 2100 or 4200 of these per minute (depending upon the configuration). Ever picked up a 30mm DU bullet of the type fired by the A-10? Each DU round contains 300g of DU. That is a lot of DU that could become airborne, and that is only from a single A-10.
Here is an excerpt from the "Responses to Questions" section:As I read this, there are known potential risks when significant amounts of DU are inhaled. Given this, I think the WHO would agree with my first statement.
By using these very same data, 2% of uranium entering the body via ingestion *is* absorbed. And 30% of that which is absorbed is not filtered by the kidney. Alpha and beta radiation do cause harm when absorbed by live cells (as opposed to the dead skin that covers the outsides of our bodies). Therefore DU held against the skin for long periods is not relevant to the case of ingested DU.
Why don't we simply study the long-term health problems seen by Iraqis since 1991, using as a control Iraqis living in areas that were not shelled by DU? There is a lot we don't understand about long-term health effects of exposure to airborne DU. We have several wonderful areas to study further. As I understand it, Iraqis in areas that received large levels of shelling have had very significant increases in a wide variety of normally unusual health problems. I'd love to see further studies into this matter, but the US government seems to think the matter has already been decided (and, I might add, without studying the long-term health effects of populations that received high levels of shelling from DU munitions).
Read that statement closely, then re-read my statement. This statement is talking about external exposure to DU. I repeat again that alpha and beta particles are stopped sufficiently by the layer of dead skin that covers our body. No damage will be done by this.
Now, pulverize the same DU into particles that can be airborne. Now ingest those same particles and repeat the study. I believe you will find different results. This is because ingested radioactive material producing alpha and beta radiation will not be absorbed by dead skin, but instead by live cells. The results in this case are quite different.
Hehe...the link didn't go through. I must learn to preview my posts first :-)
Here's an updated link: The WHO report on DU
Actually, depleted uranium is radioactive. I refer you to the World Health Organization's report on depleted uranium. It is considered "weakly" radioactive, producing about 60% of the radiation of purified uranium of the same weight. As I understand it (and I am not a nuclear engineer), depleted uranium produces alpha and beta radiation. Gamma radiation is the stuff that is more generally considered harmful, requiring a somewhat significant layer of mass (usually lead or concrete) to stop the radiation and prevent exposure. Alpha and beta radiation are able to be stopped by the layer of dead skin on our bodies or the clothing that we wear. The problem with alpha and beta radiation is when they are "stopped" by live cells. This doesn't occur when the munitions are whole, but when a munition strikes its target, very small particles are released into the air. These particles are often ingested, and thus absorbed directly into live cells in the lungs. Alpha and beta radiation absorbed in this manner is considered to be harmful, although the extent of harm that is done is not well known. Given the levels of DU munitions used first in 1991, then again this year, it is safe to say that Iraq provides an excellent case study to analyze the effects of ingested alpha and beta radiation. Given the extremely high levels of birth defects and rare cancers seen by Iraqis since 1991, the general consensus among the medical community is that DU munitions do cause considerable harm when used in battle.
The New York Times had the social security numbers of its members available in a poorly secured area. Adrian found this out and notified them. He also added his name to the list of contributors to the newspaper. As I understand it, he told the New York Times of his deads, including adding his name to the list of contributors.
From my perspective, the New York Times was being extremely negligent in their actions. It's not so much as simple as not fencing in their yard. It's more like leaving the bank vault open and then prosecuting the person that discovers it, informs the bank security folk about it, and leaving a note behind saying "I was here". I don't take very kindly to identity theft, and my social security number in the hands of the wrong person can lead to serious financial damage to me.
Adrian is the very best sort of black hat, and I applaud him for his actions. He is still a black hat, and for that he may be punished. But if all black hats were of the same type as Adrian, the world would be a better place.
Lexis/Nexis is a legal data warehouse/data mining service that includes a great deal of personal information on people. It primarily is used by lawyers when investigating lawsuits. Given a social security number, a great deal can be found out about an individual. As I understand it, there is a great deal of very personal information that can be gleamed, including detailed credit reports. Sounds like he was doing some digging to see what everyone has on him.
Adrian Lamo may be a black hat, but he is a black hat of the best kind. Although he operates on the shady side of the law, he his very strong morals and ethics about how he operates, and has done the security world a great deal of benefit through his actions (unlike, say, Kevin Mitnick). I wish him the best of luck.
Here are some of my observations having applied many forms of testing.
One of the chief goals of XP is that units can, and should, be redesigned whenever any programmer identifies a unit that is poorly designed (contrast this to RUP, which is far less ad-hoc but still relies upon unit testing). This requires that your code be designed as components, and that each component have a well-defined contract.
Based upon the brief bit you mentioned in your story, it sounds like integration testing is more applicable than unit testing. 300,000 lines of functionality (whatever that means...I follow Mark Twain's concept of "if I had more time I would have written a smaller program") written by smart but conscientious hackers sounds to me like design that does not meet the criteria of small components with well-designed contracts. One developer likely cannot redesign a portion of the program without it having undesirable side effects in different parts of the program. Of course, I am making assumptions about your code that may be incorrect, but you have given scant little regarding the project itself (what language was it in? is it a web app? a server app? a client app?)
If your code meets the requirements for unit testing, write small, simple tests that should require little in the way of debugging (very small--most of my testing methods consist of only a few lines each). Test the contracts defined by each component. Build unit tests that test 3 things: successful conditions (maybe even repeat the test 100s of times to simulate load...code often behaves differently as buffers/queues fill up), errant conditions (to ensure things behave as expected), and boundary conditions (to ensure the contracts are met). My favorite unit testing tool is JUnit (I'm a Java guy).
If your code isn't well suited towards unit testing, perhaps integration testing is more appropriate. This won't give you the XP capabilities of allowing complete redesign of components without affecting the system as a whole, but it can lead to more reliable code releases going forward. Furthermore, I find it helpful to build an integration test for each bug that surfaces, so that I don't reintroduce the same bugs I've previously fixed. In my experience, this works better than unit testing when writing tests for existing code. HttpUnit is great for integration testing web applications. There are many off-the-shell commercial apps to integration test GUI applications, too. Many of these are point-and-click. They basically record macros of mouse/keyboard events that can be replayed. Build up a large enough suite of these and you can regression test code, even if it was not designed well as encapsulated components. However, don't kid yourself--this isn't XP-like testing. These tests won't help you rewrite small units of your code. But they will help you test the functionality of the entire system when changes are made. That is not XP coding. XP really requires component-based design.
Good luck! But don't kid yourself--XP cannot be bootstrapped onto code developed without using proper design principles. Testing is still very useful...but this testing is not in the spirit of XP.
FreeBSD has fewer buffer overflow exploits. It's that simple. Most BSD-based solutions (NetBSD & OpenBSD included) are considered more secure for server systems. Of course, application security is still an issue....
Wow. Lots of errors. First off, MS isn't worth $50B, they have $50B in cash and liquid assets. They are worth far more than that (at least as far as stock market valuations go). As of this weekend, MS has a stock market valuation of $285,646.9 million (said holding pinkie to mouth). For those of you that have problems with decimal math, that's about $285 billion.
At $50M per settlement, 100 settlements leads to $5B. $50B - $5B = $45B. So, 100 settlements will lead to a reduction in total cash and equivalent assets of $5B / $285B of net worth (or less than 1/50 of their net worth). Of course, empirical evidence shows that market capitalizations have less to do with total assets and more to do with total discounted expected future earnings. So losing $5B in cash would reduce their stock market valuation by more than $5B.
It's all pretty bad for Microsoft, but not the end of the world for them. But the math quoted in this post (and most of its children posts) are pretty horrible.
No you don't. Basic electromagnetic theory shows that a Gaussian surface (any volume surrounded mostly by metal) will cause any electrostatic charge to exist solely on the *outside* of the surface. Michael Faraday proved this by making a mostly solid metallic surface around a volume, poking a hole through it, then measuring the static electric charge on the inside.
The same effect works on a car (with massive "holes" in the form of the windows). During a lightning storm, being on the inside of a car is the safest place to be. This is because a lightning string will result in *no* electric charge being transferred to the inside othe Gaussian surface (i.e. the inside of a car). This is why planes don't crash when struck by lightning, even though it is not uncommon for planes to be struck by lightning often during a storm.
Don't worry about holes or tears, except in as much as it allows humid air to flow inside. Humidity and corrosion are far worse problems than any electrostatic charge.
So let me see if I understand this correctly...protectionism will make the problem worse? But it is a shame we're losing all of these jobs? Hahahaha.
/. just started shaving). The argument is complete bullshit (excuse my language). I mean, what has happened with industries like the textile industry? Sure, we've lost lots of minimum wage jobs to Indonesia. But we've gained tons of jobs in sales, marketing, design, and distribution for textiles. And these aren't minimum wage jobs. The people employed in these industries consume further goods, leading to markets for Wal Mart cashiers making minimum wage (the same workers that used to work in the textile industry). Are we better off as a result? Well, it sure hurt during the transition. But the US as a whole is wealthier as a result. So are the workers in India. This is a classic "win-win" situation, so long as the people caught in the transition are not left to whither.
I remember hearing this same argument back in the 80s regarding the computer chip manufaturing industry (yes, not everyone that reads
Getting back to the computer hardware industry, it is quite true that much of the computer manufacturing industry has fled to the Far East. But guess who designed the latest Pentium M chip? My guess is that it was a team of American engineers. And I bet each one of those engineers made 10x as much as a computer hardware manufaturer would have made had those manufaturing jobs stayed here in the US. And I bet the goods consumed by these folks now employ the very people that would have been employed at the manufacturing facilities had they remained in the US. Does is suck for those displaced by the changing economy? Yes. Is the US economy better off as a result? I would claim so. [note: the downside to all of this is a greater separation of wealth between the folks that would have worked at the manufacturing facilities and those that design the chips...how we deal with the separation of wealth is a far greater problem than the flight of these manufacturing jobs to countries with lower wages]
How many of you have worked with Indian computer software programming firms? I've worked with dozens during my tenure as a programmer. Care to guess the general quality of software design and engineering coming from these firms? Let's just say that I wouldn't mind having these firms implement something designed by my fellow lazy Americans, but my experience leads me to avoid having the design work being exported. [note2: I have had the best luck with the design coming from Russian firms...but have had other issues with their work that still leads me to chose American design over low-wage design any day of the week] What is the result? The low-wage jobs do and will flee to countries such as India. But the high-wage jobs, generally in design and engineering, will remain in the US. Fewer jobs, perhaps. But higher-wage jobs.
Do I want my Nikes and underwear to be manufacturing in the US? I couldn't give a damn. Do I want the materials design for the space-age foam used in my Nikes to be developed in the US? Yes. These materials design jobs are high paying. The people working in a shoe manufacturing facility likely would be making minimum wage. The end result? Our economy continues its flight from manufacturing towards service-sector jobs such as design. And the low-wage workers in the US end up working in "trickle-down" jobs, such as McDonalds and Wal-Mart.
Are there social issues regarding this separation of wealth? Yes. Very large ones. This is why I believe in social programs
I think you are confusing Communism with Stalinism. There aren't any good cases of Communism that I am aware of--it was more of an ideal. But Communism doesn't force labor upon people based upon an unspecified threat. Stalinism...now they forced labor on people.
That isn't an enterprise backup solution. It is a hack. An enterprise backup solution won't require a full backup of every file each time the backup is performed. The backup should only backup files that have changed. Otherwise you'll find your network bandwidth slows to a crawl. Or, worse yet, you have to back up so much data that one backup isn't finished before the next one is scheduled. Or, unless you have gobs of money to throw at the solution, you won't be able to retrieve a file as it existed on a particular date (i.e. you will only be able to keep the latest backup).
ADSM and its kin are enterprise capable because they perform incremental backups to conserve bandwidth, disk/tape space, and improve backup times. They keep multiple versions of a each file in "near online"--so that a file can be recovered as it existed on a specific date. They have features to perform smart (as in record-level backups), live backups of databases. In the event of a catastrophe, they allow a machine to be completely rebuilt in a minimal amount of time. Using tar/gzip/wget is not an enterprise-capable backup solution.
Get hot-swappable, removable hard drives. CD-R backups are for small fry. ADSM and the like are for the big boys. It's not hard to set up a hard drive-based backup system using enterprise-capable backup solutions like ADSM (no, this isn't an endorsement for ADSM...they are simply the only enterprise-capable backup solution I am personally familiar with).
Arafat was elected. Abbas was appointed. I think you are confusing the two. Arafat is the elected leader of the Palestinians, while Abbas is the figure head. The US simply chooses to ignore the will of the Palestinians, choosing someone they think will do their bidding for them (or should I say "us"...I am American) instead.
Yes, the peace plan rejected by Arafat in 2000 was, IMHO, quite reasonable. I'm really not trying to absolve the Palestinians of blame. I'm only trying to state that the Israelis are just as much to blame. But do remember that the Palestinians have repeatedly asserted that the Israelis should return to pre-1967 borders, with the question of Jerusalem to be discussed at a later date. The 2000 land-for-peace offering restored about 93% of the West Bank and the Golan Heights. I think the Palestinians should be more flexible here, but they weren't inconsistant.
You do realize that the Israeli military has killed approximately 30 Palestinians during this "cease fire"? Yes, they did not come at the hands of a suicide bomber blowing up a bus that contained children. But the Israelis are not innocent in this matter either.
At the time of the American Revolution, the United States was actually not a country yet. Britain was sending people into their *own* country to maim and murder military officers. They were upset because the Americans didn't fight by "the rules"--they didn't wear military uniforms, they hid in trees rather than facing each other on a battle ground. The Americans weren't blowing up busses, but they were violating the internationally (or at least Europe-wide) accepted norms of warfare for the time. In today's world we consider acts that are outside the accepted norms of warfare as acts of terrorism.
Hahaha....I'm glad you think the Israeli economy is prosperous. I refer you to some statistics on the Israeli economy. Note the high, and rising, unemployment. Note the decreasing GDP. These are signs of an economy in crisis. This, despite the fact that Israel is the recipient of almost $5 billion in economic and military aid from the US government, as
If you use my software without compensating me, then you are depriving me of money. You see, I get paid for letting people use the software I create. It's that simple. I don't get paid for the act of writing it (i.e. if I take 2x as long to write it, I don't get paid 2x as much). I get paid for the finished product. And, since I license my software, I get paid for the *use* of my software. If everyone were able to use my software without compensating me (after all, their money was never mine in the first place, right?), then I would have no way to get paid! You see, I get paid for people using my software! And by using my software without paying for it, you are depriving me of money.
I write software for a living. If you copy and use my software illegally, then you are depriving me of compensation for my hard work. Please don't do that. It's not nice.
I am not Jewish or Arab, but I have lived a consiberable part of my life in the Middle East. My family has had to live under a personal threat of terrorism at the hands of the Islamic Jihad. I consider myself neither pro- nor anti-Israeli, just as I consider myself neither pro- nor anti-Arab. However, your comment struck me as very naive at best.
How many innocent Israelis have died at the hands of Palestinian terrorists? How many innocent Palestinians have died at the hands of the Israeli military?
I'm not trying to be an apologist for Arab terrorism, but I think you ought to consider the history a bit. In 1948, the Israelis may have had the moral high ground. However, the 1956 war was pure, naked aggression (and, it seems, according to many reports that have surfaced since, it was part of a plot conceived by the British and the French to resume control over the Suez Canal). Despite the massive buildup of Arab armed forces in 1967, the Israelis struck first. During the 1973 war, the Israelis again had the moral high ground. However, the current Intifada started during the 1980s, after Israel had once again committed an act of naked aggression, this time by invading Lebanon. As far as I can tell, the Intifada seems to be a reaction, not a cause, of Israeli aggression. Of course, the conflict predates the current state of Israel by several millenia, but a simple review of history since the inception of the state of Israel shows that Israelis are far from innocent in this conflict.
As for your suggestion of a DMZ consisting of hog farms, how big should this DMZ be? Where should it be? How should Jerusalum be divided? What about Israeli demands for a *defensible* border? (remember that there are only about 13 miles between the Mediterranean and Jerusalem--a densible DMZ between Tel Aviv and the West Bank is really not possible)
Perahps, along with the members of Islamic Jihad, Hammas, and Arafat, we ought to drag out members of the Knesset, the Mossad, and Sharon. They are no less guilty in perpetuating the conflict.
Perhaps Israel should be threatened with annihilation if they exceed their borders. Of course, with what experts consider to be the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world, annihilating Israel might very well mean annihilating the world.
As for the world stepping in and settling it for good, it seems that this whole mess started as a result of the checkerboard-like pattern of Palestinian and Israeli territory outlined in 1947 by the United Nations. Six fairly distinct areas (3 Palestinian, 3 Israeli), literally laid out in a checkerboard fashion. The world doesn't have a good record at settling this issue.
The Israeli/Palestinian problem is a very complex one with no simple or easy answers. Perhaps the Israelis ought to take a cue from their Jewish heritage and "turn the other cheek". Perhaps the Palestinians ought to realize that, in the immortal words of Ghandi, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." The answer here isn't more aggression, a bigger wall, and massive forced ethnic evacuation.
To put this in a more America-centric perspective, realize that the American Revolution was seen at the time by many in the world as a group of renegades committing unspeakable acts that, if they occurred today, would be seen as terrorism. I suspect that should the anti-Israeli forces succeed in eliminating the state of Israel, several hundred years later the terrorists will be viewed as revolutionary heroes.
I wonder if, instead of the conflict ending by the elimination of one or the other, if both sides were able to settle their differences without resorting to violence, the entire region would enter into a long period of prosperity for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. This seems a far better outcome to me. I only wish there was an easy way to get there from here. The violence committed by both sides in this conflict is reprehensible and should be condemned for the anti-human acts that they represent.
Of course, if you purchase a ticket for a venue that only sells tickets through TicketMaster, you'll be paying an additional ~$6 per ticket to their monopoly. That is a far cry from "a situation that doesn't involve any middle men".
Local bands are different, though. One of the things that has the studio execs worried is that mp3s are driving more people to listen to more obscure (read: local) music. All in all, it sounds to me like the listener's revolt is coming along quite well.
hehe....thinks...not things....
Ever think he might want the degree in order to gain knowledge? An MBA program will alter the way one things, for better and for worse.
OK. I know I'll burn karma with this one, but how about:
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!