That thephpwtf site is great amusement, but I fail to see how 99% of that code is a result of the language. It's just as easy to write 5 page switch() statements, call external scripts written in other languages to do even the most mundane task that the language already has built in, or do things like "if ($I1[(int)0==4]===$lI||(int)4==0)" in C++. The remaining 1% of stupid code seems to be the result of PHP's loose type casting mechanism.
In other words, stupid is as stupid codes.
I suppose next they'll publish a study concluding that wreckless driving is the auto manufacturer's fault for making a steering wheel that moves? =Smidge=
You just need a critical mass of U238, conventional explosives and a neutron source. Split the U238 in two parts, assemble it in a way that they'll be pushed together again by the conv. explosion, which is also the right point in time to start pumping neutrons in the U238. Voila!
That would be the hard part, you see. There's are requirements in engineering know-how, manufacturing ability and equipment required to make that happen exactly when you want it to. It's all very good in theory but it'll never work in practice. =Smidge=
If you open the file up in a hex editor, the information is there. Also, the data is there even if copied to/viewed from a FAT partition or CD (formatted RW or otherwise). That info is part of the main file and not using a feature of NTFS.
Again, I'm not saying that justifies the 19k overhead, and I agree it seems like there should be more info than that given the size, but that's all part of it. =Smidge=
Well you have to be careful.... some file systems have minimal increments in file sizes. For example, on my NTFS formatted system, a plain text document with one "a" in it is officially 4KB, even though there is onlt one byte of data in it.
This is not an excuse fro a BLANK MSWord document being 19,456 bytes of course. But there is "useful" data in there...
I'm running Win2K, and if I right click on the file and sepect "Properties", there is a summary tab that displays all the info stored in that 19k. (You might have to click "Advanced")
The data includes: -Title -Subject -Category -Keywords -Template name -Page Count -Word Count -Character Count -Line Count -Paragraph Count -Scale (No idea what this means) -"Links Dirty?" (No idea what this is... maybe it's true if there's porn links in it?) -Comments -Author (From computer info) -Last Saved By... (From computer info) -Revision Number (Number of saves?) -Application -Company Name (From registration info) -Creation Date (Seperate from file system creation date) -Last Saved Date (Seperate from file system modified date) -Edit time
Now is this ACTUALLY useful? I dunno. It might be in some situations. There should be an option for not saving this metadata though, for security if not for file size. =Smidge=
You're right! How insensitive I've been... I bet Uganda would like to have a say about what happens to a planet that most of their population probably has no knowledge of.
Oh, and I bet Chile, with it's whopping US$2bln/yr copper exports, deserves a say too. Just think of all the copper that mission would use!
World vote my ass. You don't get to vote in an election if you're not a citizen, you don't get to say during a board meeting unless you're a stockholder, and I fail to see why you should get to vote on what happens to a frozen ball of dirt no less than 60 million miles away if you don't have a space program. Frontier rules, Theo: You get there first and you get to choose what to do with it. =Smidge=
Since nobody owns Mars, and what happens on Mars has no bearing at all on what happens on Earth, then the people who have both the technology and the money to make it happen have the final say. Namely, NASA and ESA (and maybe China and India in the reasonably near future?)
Even if the whole world was a democracy (which it's not), the world at large does not have the means to get there first and claim it... and the certaintly wouldn't contribute to the effort even if they did support it. So nyah nyah to them. =Smidge=
No user account. Not that you'ld actually need one, but there isn't even an opportunity to have one. Part of what I consider a "portal" website is the ability to customize to a high degree what I want to show up on the main page when I visit.
Primary use of Google is a search tool. Portals, for me, tend to be more about central content delivery and "oh yeah, we have a search box too!". Even Google News is a search. Yahoo has their own news system, Google gives you news from other sources. About the only services they offer that aren't searches are Alerts, Blogger, Keyhole and the translation page.
No weather reports.
No online shopping. Froogle does not count since you're not buying anything from Google directly, it's a search tool.
No classified ad service.
It's missing a lot of things I normally think of when someone says "web portal". It's a "swiss army knife" of search tools. =Smidge=
Safety would be the absolute top priority. I'd recommend hot air as a popping medium! Not only would hot air be safest, but there would be no lasting mess - only dry popcorn.
You can pick up a hot air popper or two (or more...) for less than $15. Might as well get a fairly cheap kind since you're only going to abuse 'em...
Set up a few of them, perhaps mounted to a wood plank so they are more portable, and start popping. I'd do it in stages so you get a steady stream of popcorn. Looking around it seems 1200 watts if average per machine, so assuming 30 amp breakers I wouldn't put more than 4 machines on a single circuit. Remember that it's very likely, in a residential setting, that every outlet in the room is on the same circuit (or even every outlet in adjacent rooms is on the same circuit!)
Lesse, your average largish popper can make about two gallons (0.27 cubic feet)of popcorn in 15 minutes (one quart per minute plus cooldown time between cycles). I suppose you could modify the machines to bypass the cooldown cycle but that would be bad...
Failing that, a good quality heat gun or two would draw more electriciy but produce hotter air, so you might be able to rig up something where the hot air blows in through the kernels through a metal mesh (basically building your own hot air popper). Using a wire mesh strainer should work fine, and the popped kernels would fly out the top. You could even add more to it while it's running for a continuous flow.
If you do all the popping on-site, I think the better part of this revenge would be his electric bill!;) =Smidge=
Last I checked, they aren't becoming a portal. Google search is still Google search.
However, Google as a company is branching out into related (and sometimes not so related) services. Now that they are publically owned they need to actually make real profits instead of just staying afloat. Becoming a domain registrar seems like a very good way to make money directly instead of relying on advertizing, and at the same time bring in more people to increase the value of their ads and profit that way.
As for Google Groups "sucking", that's an opinion. I can't really agree or disagree since I don't use it though...
I don't think anyone really has a problem with a company doing what it can to make a profit, providing that they aren't stabbing others in the back, hoarding patents or copyrights, subverting other industries with bogus standards, using asinine legal threats or trying to push through oppressive laws to do it. (ala RIAA/MPAA/MS/SCO etc) =Smidge=
The ping time would probably be pretty good, considering I can ping servers all over the planet with good response and that almost invariably takes the data through at least one satellite somewhere... so it would be the same except it would be DEDICATED traffic instead of shared with a bunch of spam and porn! =Smidge=
I don't know where you get your power supplies from, but mine is capable of drawing (and putting out) quite a bit more than 0.5 Amps... so I think you're getting too specific!
Does it matter to you if a power supply is called a power cube or a consumer energy solution?
Yes, because if I read an ad for a "consumer energy solution", I have no idea what it is. How is that being specific?
Is it a battery pack? Is it a gasoline powered generator? Is it some miniature fusion reactor that I can put in my basement and "solve" my "energy problem" (eg: Paying my utility bills...)? Even "Power Cube" is horrible. Sounds like a game console. "Desktop computer power supply." That's specific - and rather non-techical!
(I know your post was just an example, but so was mine!) =Smidge=
No, because guys in rat suits are sidekicks than snotty dumbass pre-teens... and better comic relief. Beakman was the guy in the neon green lab coat with the huge hair.
Almost everything Beakman did could be repeated at home with common objects and materials, even if they didn't explicitly tell you how... and there was always at least one demonstration per show where they DID show you how, step by step. It was a very energetic show aimed squarely at young viewers, but without actually treating the viewer like a child. Lots of props, colorful animations and creative analogies.
Last time I watched Nye, it was a half hour of the same basic concept getting repeated every 5 minutes, usually with terribly songs and jokes. Not to say that Bill personally sucks, but his show pales in comparison to Beakman's World. =Smidge=
They already control the Spyware market, so logically they have the most experience with it...
Seriously, if MS's Antispyware app DOESN'T fail just as bad as the other products in the long run, then that's some pretty good conspiracy fodder..
1) Become market leader in desktop and workstation software, but allow tons of security problems to get exploited until the problem reaches epedemic proportions
2) Develop (or in this case, aquire and modify) additional software to fix the problem you created in the first place
Unfortunately, in order to display the data correctly you need to know how to read it, and that typically requires codecs and plugins... unless you want to recompile/redownload the program each and every time a new format for video/audio/features (subtitles, etc) comes out. (And sometimes it seems everyone and their grandmother has their own codec...)
Is that a good enough explaination?
As for what they were thinking, probably something along the lines of: "Our target user has little or no in-depth knowledge of computers, so we will automate everything as much as possible with default settings that will work 99% of the time." Considering the market share Windows has, that's obviously pretty sound logic.
Unfortunately it backfires a lot, because this makes the users trust the computer to make the right decisions for them, and trust that the default settings are an adequate balance of function and security. The only fault I can find in MS on this one is doing too good a job at making it easy for Joe Public. =Smidge=
You don't want to suck fog, dust, and pollen from the outside into your computer, so using outdoor air is a bad idea.
The amount of crap floating in the air outside would likely be a lot less than the amount inside, especially if he's doing a lot of woodworking. In most cases, indoor air quality is worse than outdoor air quality. This is why minimum ventilation rates mandated by code have been increasing for the past two decades. Unless you're in the middle of a dust storm the air outside is likely much cleaner than the air you're currently breathing, unless you have a filter in the room of course.
Condensation is not likely to be a problem because the computer will be warmer than the air.
As long as the computer is running, yes. What happens when you don't use it for a few days, or it sits unused all summer like the submitter suggests? Moisture might be an issue. =Smidge-
The article says the shop is an outbuilding. There's no indication of how far from the house this building is. Don't assume they're next to each other.
Build or find an enclosure. Doesn't have to be fancy, just big enough and reasonably well sealed.
Not only will you have to worry about dust, but possibly insects and rodents. If it's feasible, set it up so it draws in air directly from outside and into the enclosure (optionally exhaust the air to the outside as well). Failing that, get a decent filter and a stronger fan to pull the air through it. A large automotive air filter will probably be sufficient and those are fairly cheap. Suck air through the filter, don't blow into it.
Keep the enclosure under positive pressure (Blow air in) to keep dust from sneaking in any cracks or seams. Very little wiring would be needed for a remote power switch so you can turn it on without opening the cabinet, and a small access door with a decent seal to access drives/ports. (Don't have any ports exposed if you don't want them clogged with dust!)
I honestly don't see cold weather being a problem. Moisture might be, though... you don't want condensation inside the case! Using a chemical desiccant of some sort will help keep the moisture out of the way and hopefully eliminate the need for a heater or leaving it on all the time to prevent condensation.
First link on Google that seems to actually sell the stuff retail. Reusable packs are best so you don't have to keep disposing of the stuff. =Smidge=
Slashdot Mirror
So how many slices of salami are equivalent to one Elephant?
=Smidge=
So it works kinda like a Pentium, then?
=Smidge=
That thephpwtf site is great amusement, but I fail to see how 99% of that code is a result of the language. It's just as easy to write 5 page switch() statements, call external scripts written in other languages to do even the most mundane task that the language already has built in, or do things like "if ($I1[(int)0==4]===$lI||(int)4==0)" in C++. The remaining 1% of stupid code seems to be the result of PHP's loose type casting mechanism.
In other words, stupid is as stupid codes.
I suppose next they'll publish a study concluding that wreckless driving is the auto manufacturer's fault for making a steering wheel that moves?
=Smidge=
You just need a critical mass of U238, conventional explosives and a neutron source. Split the U238 in two parts, assemble it in a way that they'll be pushed together again by the conv. explosion, which is also the right point in time to start pumping neutrons in the U238. Voila!
That would be the hard part, you see. There's are requirements in engineering know-how, manufacturing ability and equipment required to make that happen exactly when you want it to. It's all very good in theory but it'll never work in practice.
=Smidge=
If you open the file up in a hex editor, the information is there. Also, the data is there even if copied to/viewed from a FAT partition or CD (formatted RW or otherwise). That info is part of the main file and not using a feature of NTFS.
Again, I'm not saying that justifies the 19k overhead, and I agree it seems like there should be more info than that given the size, but that's all part of it.
=Smidge=
Well you have to be careful.... some file systems have minimal increments in file sizes. For example, on my NTFS formatted system, a plain text document with one "a" in it is officially 4KB, even though there is onlt one byte of data in it.
This is not an excuse fro a BLANK MSWord document being 19,456 bytes of course. But there is "useful" data in there...
I'm running Win2K, and if I right click on the file and sepect "Properties", there is a summary tab that displays all the info stored in that 19k. (You might have to click "Advanced")
The data includes:
-Title
-Subject
-Category
-Keywords
-Template name
-Page Count
-Word Count
-Character Count
-Line Count
-Paragraph Count
-Scale (No idea what this means)
-"Links Dirty?" (No idea what this is... maybe it's true if there's porn links in it?)
-Comments
-Author (From computer info)
-Last Saved By... (From computer info)
-Revision Number (Number of saves?)
-Application
-Company Name (From registration info)
-Creation Date (Seperate from file system creation date)
-Last Saved Date (Seperate from file system modified date)
-Edit time
Now is this ACTUALLY useful? I dunno. It might be in some situations. There should be an option for not saving this metadata though, for security if not for file size.
=Smidge=
You're right! How insensitive I've been... I bet Uganda would like to have a say about what happens to a planet that most of their population probably has no knowledge of.
Oh, and I bet Chile, with it's whopping US$2bln/yr copper exports, deserves a say too. Just think of all the copper that mission would use!
World vote my ass. You don't get to vote in an election if you're not a citizen, you don't get to say during a board meeting unless you're a stockholder, and I fail to see why you should get to vote on what happens to a frozen ball of dirt no less than 60 million miles away if you don't have a space program. Frontier rules, Theo: You get there first and you get to choose what to do with it.
=Smidge=
Since nobody owns Mars, and what happens on Mars has no bearing at all on what happens on Earth, then the people who have both the technology and the money to make it happen have the final say. Namely, NASA and ESA (and maybe China and India in the reasonably near future?)
Even if the whole world was a democracy (which it's not), the world at large does not have the means to get there first and claim it... and the certaintly wouldn't contribute to the effort even if they did support it. So nyah nyah to them.
=Smidge=
Reasons why I don't consider it a portal:
No user account. Not that you'ld actually need one, but there isn't even an opportunity to have one. Part of what I consider a "portal" website is the ability to customize to a high degree what I want to show up on the main page when I visit.
Primary use of Google is a search tool. Portals, for me, tend to be more about central content delivery and "oh yeah, we have a search box too!". Even Google News is a search. Yahoo has their own news system, Google gives you news from other sources. About the only services they offer that aren't searches are Alerts, Blogger, Keyhole and the translation page.
No weather reports.
No online shopping. Froogle does not count since you're not buying anything from Google directly, it's a search tool.
No classified ad service.
It's missing a lot of things I normally think of when someone says "web portal". It's a "swiss army knife" of search tools.
=Smidge=
This is a web portal.
This is not a web portal.
Despite the growing collection of features Google offers, they sure do a good job of not becoming a portal.
=Smidge=
Safety would be the absolute top priority. I'd recommend hot air as a popping medium! Not only would hot air be safest, but there would be no lasting mess - only dry popcorn.
;)
You can pick up a hot air popper or two (or more...) for less than $15. Might as well get a fairly cheap kind since you're only going to abuse 'em...
Set up a few of them, perhaps mounted to a wood plank so they are more portable, and start popping. I'd do it in stages so you get a steady stream of popcorn. Looking around it seems 1200 watts if average per machine, so assuming 30 amp breakers I wouldn't put more than 4 machines on a single circuit. Remember that it's very likely, in a residential setting, that every outlet in the room is on the same circuit (or even every outlet in adjacent rooms is on the same circuit!)
Lesse, your average largish popper can make about two gallons (0.27 cubic feet)of popcorn in 15 minutes (one quart per minute plus cooldown time between cycles). I suppose you could modify the machines to bypass the cooldown cycle but that would be bad...
Failing that, a good quality heat gun or two would draw more electriciy but produce hotter air, so you might be able to rig up something where the hot air blows in through the kernels through a metal mesh (basically building your own hot air popper). Using a wire mesh strainer should work fine, and the popped kernels would fly out the top. You could even add more to it while it's running for a continuous flow.
If you do all the popping on-site, I think the better part of this revenge would be his electric bill!
=Smidge=
Last I checked, they aren't becoming a portal. Google search is still Google search.
However, Google as a company is branching out into related (and sometimes not so related) services. Now that they are publically owned they need to actually make real profits instead of just staying afloat. Becoming a domain registrar seems like a very good way to make money directly instead of relying on advertizing, and at the same time bring in more people to increase the value of their ads and profit that way.
As for Google Groups "sucking", that's an opinion. I can't really agree or disagree since I don't use it though...
I don't think anyone really has a problem with a company doing what it can to make a profit, providing that they aren't stabbing others in the back, hoarding patents or copyrights, subverting other industries with bogus standards, using asinine legal threats or trying to push through oppressive laws to do it. (ala RIAA/MPAA/MS/SCO etc)
=Smidge=
The ping time would probably be pretty good, considering I can ping servers all over the planet with good response and that almost invariably takes the data through at least one satellite somewhere... so it would be the same except it would be DEDICATED traffic instead of shared with a bunch of spam and porn!
=Smidge=
I don't know where you get your power supplies from, but mine is capable of drawing (and putting out) quite a bit more than 0.5 Amps... so I think you're getting too specific!
=Smidge=
Does it matter to you if a power supply is called a power cube or a consumer energy solution?
Yes, because if I read an ad for a "consumer energy solution", I have no idea what it is. How is that being specific?
Is it a battery pack? Is it a gasoline powered generator? Is it some miniature fusion reactor that I can put in my basement and "solve" my "energy problem" (eg: Paying my utility bills...)? Even "Power Cube" is horrible. Sounds like a game console. "Desktop computer power supply." That's specific - and rather non-techical!
(I know your post was just an example, but so was mine!)
=Smidge=
That sounds unusual. What's the temperature inside your PC case?
Or maybe you're buying cheap hardware...?
=Smidge=
No, because guys in rat suits are sidekicks than snotty dumbass pre-teens... and better comic relief. Beakman was the guy in the neon green lab coat with the huge hair.
Almost everything Beakman did could be repeated at home with common objects and materials, even if they didn't explicitly tell you how... and there was always at least one demonstration per show where they DID show you how, step by step. It was a very energetic show aimed squarely at young viewers, but without actually treating the viewer like a child. Lots of props, colorful animations and creative analogies.
Last time I watched Nye, it was a half hour of the same basic concept getting repeated every 5 minutes, usually with terribly songs and jokes. Not to say that Bill personally sucks, but his show pales in comparison to Beakman's World.
=Smidge=
Still is, dammit. Don Herbert still alive.
And Bill Nye can suck a nut. Paul (aka Prof. Beakman) is a hundred times cooler than Bill will ever be!
=Smidge=
Got any examples?
=Smidge=
If this was an open source project, "Beta" would translate to something like... "I'm bored, let's do something else."
=Smidge=
They already control the Spyware market, so logically they have the most experience with it...
Seriously, if MS's Antispyware app DOESN'T fail just as bad as the other products in the long run, then that's some pretty good conspiracy fodder..
1) Become market leader in desktop and workstation software, but allow tons of security problems to get exploited until the problem reaches epedemic proportions
2) Develop (or in this case, aquire and modify) additional software to fix the problem you created in the first place
3) Profit!
=Smidge=
Unfortunately, in order to display the data correctly you need to know how to read it, and that typically requires codecs and plugins... unless you want to recompile/redownload the program each and every time a new format for video/audio/features (subtitles, etc) comes out. (And sometimes it seems everyone and their grandmother has their own codec...)
Is that a good enough explaination?
As for what they were thinking, probably something along the lines of: "Our target user has little or no in-depth knowledge of computers, so we will automate everything as much as possible with default settings that will work 99% of the time." Considering the market share Windows has, that's obviously pretty sound logic.
Unfortunately it backfires a lot, because this makes the users trust the computer to make the right decisions for them, and trust that the default settings are an adequate balance of function and security. The only fault I can find in MS on this one is doing too good a job at making it easy for Joe Public.
=Smidge=
You don't want to suck fog, dust, and pollen from the outside into your computer, so using outdoor air is a bad idea.
The amount of crap floating in the air outside would likely be a lot less than the amount inside, especially if he's doing a lot of woodworking. In most cases, indoor air quality is worse than outdoor air quality. This is why minimum ventilation rates mandated by code have been increasing for the past two decades. Unless you're in the middle of a dust storm the air outside is likely much cleaner than the air you're currently breathing, unless you have a filter in the room of course.
Condensation is not likely to be a problem because the computer will be warmer than the air.
As long as the computer is running, yes. What happens when you don't use it for a few days, or it sits unused all summer like the submitter suggests? Moisture might be an issue.
=Smidge-
The article says the shop is an outbuilding. There's no indication of how far from the house this building is. Don't assume they're next to each other.
=Smidge=
Build or find an enclosure. Doesn't have to be fancy, just big enough and reasonably well sealed.
Not only will you have to worry about dust, but possibly insects and rodents. If it's feasible, set it up so it draws in air directly from outside and into the enclosure (optionally exhaust the air to the outside as well). Failing that, get a decent filter and a stronger fan to pull the air through it. A large automotive air filter will probably be sufficient and those are fairly cheap. Suck air through the filter, don't blow into it.
Keep the enclosure under positive pressure (Blow air in) to keep dust from sneaking in any cracks or seams. Very little wiring would be needed for a remote power switch so you can turn it on without opening the cabinet, and a small access door with a decent seal to access drives/ports. (Don't have any ports exposed if you don't want them clogged with dust!)
I honestly don't see cold weather being a problem. Moisture might be, though... you don't want condensation inside the case! Using a chemical desiccant of some sort will help keep the moisture out of the way and hopefully eliminate the need for a heater or leaving it on all the time to prevent condensation.
First link on Google that seems to actually sell the stuff retail. Reusable packs are best so you don't have to keep disposing of the stuff.
=Smidge=