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User: lawpoop

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  1. Re:A time and place for everything on Enthusiasts Convene To Say No To SQL, Hash Out New DB Breed · · Score: 1

    So in order to insert one node you have to traverse the entire tree to recalculate left/right values? that is, update each row (either left or right value)? That kind of rules it out when there are lots of concurrent users modifying the tree.

    You don't have to update *each* row, just those to the right of the leftmost value before the node you're inserting. But you're not 'traversing' a tree, you're just doing a simple update: "UPDATE trees SET rgt = rgt + 27 WHERE rgt > 107 AND tree_id = 34". That creates the space for you to insert a new branch.

    And yes, you would have to lock the table ( or at least the rows of that particular tree, if you database has that capability ). How big are your trees, and how many concurrent users do you want updating them? The structure of the of this is pretty simple, so I would think that the updates would go pretty quickly.

  2. Re:A time and place for everything on Enthusiasts Convene To Say No To SQL, Hash Out New DB Breed · · Score: 3, Informative

    For anyone wondering, parent is talking about a preorder tree traversal algorithm:
    Link 1
    Link 2

    And parent it right. I was doing an adjacency list in MySQL for a while, because I thought that preorder trees were just a little too complicated, but they are *way* easier and more intuitive.

  3. Re:I'm pretty sure... on Ant Mega-Colony Covers the World · · Score: 1

    I saw this movie 10 years ago when it was called, "Starship Trooper". Shortly thereafter, I played the video game version, called "Starcraft", until I blew out the tendons in my elbow.

  4. Re:Obligatory quote on Ant Mega-Colony Covers the World · · Score: 1

    I don't know, I think the big chemo-receipting antennae towering over the ants path tell the ant more about the world than colors. I think it's something they don't like chemically about the chalk, and I don't think a blue color is going to trick them into thinking that chalk chemical is water chemical.

  5. Re:Its not rocket surgery... on Staying In Shape vs. a Busy IT Job Schedule? · · Score: 1

    I tried jogging for a while but it bored the shit out of my. I joined a local capoeira group, and it's a blast! It's like Kinetic chess with music. I'm in the best shape of my life.

  6. Re:In a bind on Staying In Shape vs. a Busy IT Job Schedule? · · Score: 1

    that's 60 hours a month.

    Yeah, but you can't trade it in for cash. Are you suggesting that he add more work to his schedule to pay for that apartment so he can spend less time getting to work?

    Saving time is nice and all, but if you don't have the money, you just don't have the money.

  7. Re:Its not rocket surgery... on Staying In Shape vs. a Busy IT Job Schedule? · · Score: 2, Informative

    The OP said he can't get up early or work out before bed, which is nonsense. Everybody's a little different, but I found that I actually needed less sleep, slept more soundly, and felt more refreshed in the morning, when I exercised regularly, particularly when I did so shortly before bedtime. Exhausting my body also helped to keep it more in sync with my mental state, whereas after an 8 hour day I can feel mentally drained, but not get sleepy for hours after a normal bedtime.

    I get migraine headaches if I wake up before 7 AM. I have a regular headache, all day, if I wake up before 8 AM.

    I'm a night owl, and my period of peak alertness and energy is 10PM to 2AM. I can exercise and do any chore at that time, and it doesn't feel taxing or draining at all. You sound like you might be a morning lark.

    I've tried for 10 years ( the 10 years since I was 18, had control of my life and schedule ) to "buck up" , discipline myself, stop being a complainer, and all that other bullshit. It was 10 years of pure misery, with no benefit. The fact is, my body and metabolism is just different than yours.

  8. Re:No Optimism on HIV on HIV/AIDS Vaccine To Begin Phase I Human Trials · · Score: 1

    Option #2 is science fiction for now. The genetic resistance to HIV is conferred by the lack of a particular cell-surface receptor, so you'd have to find a way to effectively eliminate that piece of genetic material from every genome in the body. And since T cells are quite long-lived, you'd have to mess with a lot of quiescent DNA to do it.

    Unless I'm misunderstanding you, we don't really need to 'upgrade' all the bone marrow in the body to start producing resistant T-cells. We just need to establish a colony of modified cells that produce resistant T-cells. So, while they could still spread HIV, it wouldn't totally wipe out their immune system.

  9. Re:Is this it? on HIV/AIDS Vaccine To Begin Phase I Human Trials · · Score: 1

    I don't know. The dormancy period of AIDS is so much that I think if it fell of the public's radar, people would stop practicing safe sex, and after 10,15, or 20 years, we would have a resurgence of AIDS cases. I think that's sort of happening now, if I understand correctly.

  10. Re:Now what about on Madoff Sentenced To 150 Years · · Score: 1

    OK, sure you don't expect it, but that means you don't check into anything at all, especially when you're doing an audit? What did these investigators do during the audit? Just shoot the shit with Madoff? "Hey, how are thing over at NASDAQ? Heh, heh, heh, yup... Say, remember the time..."

    This is a crock of shit. If there were an investigation of the Police Chief, and he were a drug dealer, I would think they would find something. MAdoff *hadn't made a single trade*.

  11. Re:As usual with new Firefox releases... on Firefox 3.5 Reviewed; Draws Praise For HTML5, Speed · · Score: 2, Interesting

    12.6 MB per tab -- which means per page? That sounds like an awful lot to me. For testing, I save the page of this slashdot thread using FF. It's size on disk ( html file + its folder) is 836 Kb.

    Are you telling me to keep 836 KB of data as a live page takes 12MB? What am I missing?

  12. A serious question on PHP 5.3 Released · · Score: 1

    Can anyone give an example of a good use of lambdas in php? I'd appreciate both 1. A situation where you would *have* to use it ( or the way to do it without lambdas is such an ugly, counter-intuitive hack that no one would do it ), and 2. an example of where you might use lambdas naturally.

    I've been trying to figure them out since they were announced for 5.3. I think I understand them, but I don't know whey or where you would want to use them.

  13. Re:Stop giving them power on EPA Quashed Report Skeptical of Global Warming · · Score: 2, Informative

    Please tell me, how am I supposed to stop giving them power (with legal means of course).

    Your champions can't win when the playing field is stacked against them. The thing you need to do is work for instant run-off voting. The libertarian and green parties are working towards this at the local level and they are finding success. Once people start using it they will slowly realize they can actually vote in a candidate they want without worrying about throwing away their vote. Then we can push to have it at the state and national level. That will break the two-party system in the US, which neither the democrats nor the republicans have an interest in doing.

    Sorry I don't have an immediate fix for you. We must plant trees now so that our great-grandchildren can eat fruit in the shade.

  14. Re:Good ideas. on Buzz Aldrin's Radical Plan For NASA · · Score: 1

    Listen, meathead, before you go parroting crap that was utter drivel 40 years ago, perhaps you should compare NASA'a annual budget against, say, oh maybe the amount of money the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or the U.S. Department of Defense burns through in a WEEK.

    Yeah, like the US is the only country in the world, and represents entirely the history of human kind. Have a look at Europe and see what standard of living the people there have. Then check out Guatemala and see what's going on for the average person there. Consider these two scenarios.

    Social services work, so long as you don't have conservatives ruining them to 'prove' that they don't.

  15. personal project? on How To Get Out of Developer's Block? · · Score: 1

    You didn't specify if this was a work project, but if it isn't, the message is clear: Take a fucking break! The human mind developed to work in cycles, not in constant-output mode. Change up the scenery a bit, forget all about your project. You'll be refreshed, have energy, a clear state of mind, and be able to jump back up on the horse when the time is right.

  16. Re:also: Africa has greater genetic diversity on DNA Suggests Three Basic Human Groups · · Score: 1

    Maybe Africans got fed up with them and kicked them out, the way the Europeans did with the Pilgrims.

    Yeah, kicked them out because they refused to practice the official state-sponsored religion i.e. conform to the Church of England.

  17. Re:Will this be the future of racism? on DNA Suggests Three Basic Human Groups · · Score: 1

    There has been an evolutionary pressure towards racism for millions of years. Your genes are more likely to survive if they regard anything not carrying them as an enemy.

    I don't think that's exactly accurate. Remember, chimpanzees share some 95-99 percent of our genes, depending on whose numbers you use. These near-humans were even closer. That's a very small number of non-shared genes that the rest of the genes are singling out. If we killed anything that was less related to us, then we would be uprooting trees, killing squirrels, etc. So I think the way it works is "as close as can be without being" -- in other words, a competitor.

  18. Re:Will this be the future of racism? on DNA Suggests Three Basic Human Groups · · Score: 1

    I think modern humans came to dominate the planet by wiping out all the other hominids at the time. Some 500,000 years ago, there were several different kinds of Bigfoots running around along side humans. They all died out. Some say that humans out competed them, by literally stealing their lunch; others say that there was direct killing. I think human have some kind of racism psychologically hard-wired, to see people who look slightly different as non-human. Look at all the examples of racists calling people of other backgrounds as some kind of animal. Also, groups that practice cannibalism say it's okay to eat their neighbors because "They're not really human; they're animals."

  19. Re:How is this News? on Hitler's Stealth Fighter · · Score: 1

    As others are saying, the stealth part of this is not the flying wing shape, but rather the composite material in the nose that reduced its radar signature.

  20. Re:*snort* on The Imminent Demise of SORBS · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the case nowadays that blackhole lists ( or whatever they're called ) are used mainly as a factor in weighing scores in Bayesian methods of filtering spam, rather than just blocking email outright? In other words, the usage is still widespread, not for direct blocking, but for helping a program decide if its spam or not?

    If so, this would let more spam through spam filters, really.

  21. Re:2 Months is very fast on Steve Jobs Had a Liver Transplant Two Months Ago · · Score: 1

    The same thing happens here with regular doctors. I saw a urologist and needed a kidney scan. My insurance didn't cover it, but what the hospital wanted to charge me was about 60% of what they tried to pass to the insurance company. I applied for financial hardship and they charged me 20% of the cost, I think. And I make a decent salary.

    I think most doctors and hospitals understand that the average person can't afford health care if they don't have insurance, so they charge a sliding scale.

  22. Re:2 Months is very fast on Steve Jobs Had a Liver Transplant Two Months Ago · · Score: 1

    But when such a society treats the most despised better than they treat the most valued

    False dichotomy. We don't need to treat criminals terribly in order to treat upstanding citizens well. We just need to treat them with a baseline level of humanity.

  23. Re:How about a real open governance system on US Open Government Initiative Enters Phase Three · · Score: 1

    Without the democracy in "democratic republic", you won't have a republic; you'll have a plutocracy. Do you know what that word means?

  24. Re:These things are nothing like a tree on DoE Considers Artificial Trees To Remove CO2 · · Score: 1

    They should try to genetically modify trees/plants to perform more active photosynthesis in order to make them capable of pulling more CO2 out of the air in a useful manner.

    Actually, there are probably plants already that would be good at sequestering carbon -- some kind of fast growing weed or grass. Just need to grow a bunch and warehouse it. Trees are way too slow growing.

  25. Re:What exactly is the main thrust of the study? on NIH Spends $400K To Figure Out Why Men Don't Like Condoms · · Score: 1

    Also, if they made one that felt BETTER, we could eliminate women altogether.

    Fleshlight.