Slashdot Mirror


User: rho

rho's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
1,510
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 1,510

  1. Re:Better tools, good process, learning from other on Website Security Without Breaking the Bank? · · Score: 1

    He said MySQL, so no stored procedures unless he's running > v5. I don't know what the penetration is for MySQL 5 in the hosting market.

    With PHP and most PHP-based Web sites stored procedures are overkill. Use ADOdb or PDO and you'll get similar protection with less hassle.

  2. Re:Read About Face... on Phantom OS, the 21st Century OS? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There have been similar things tried in the past, for instance PalmOS had a behavior very similar to this, but it tends to be more trouble than it's worth.

    I don't see how you can say that. The never-saving paradigm of the PalmOS was one of its brilliant features. Combined with the flash memory of the Tungsten E2 Palm reached its pinnacle IMO. Having a computer that never forgets what you've done is, really, what people expect a computer to be. It's just that we've been amateur sysadmins for so long we think it's normal.

    Which is not to say that the PalmOS was perfect. I believe it could have been perfected, but they company was more interested in eating itself alive. And I'm also not saying that this Phantom OS is going to change the world. But the nature of what they're talking about is eminently non-crazy.

    Your concerns are notable, but they're also not terribly obscure. I'm pretty sure they're thinking about such things.

  3. Re:Time to tighten our belts on IBM Hides the Bodies, Eyes US Government Billions · · Score: 1

    You're very strange.

    Anyway, the point was that just because the government does it that does not mean that they are the best ones to do it. Nor does it mean that lacking the government's involvement that it won't get done. It does mean, however, that once the government starts doing it it's pretty hard to get them to stop--even if they're doing a shit job of it. So citizens would be wise to consider carefully before they turn things over to an unelected bureaucracy.

    Not that citizens ever do. I'm just saying they should.

  4. Re:Time to tighten our belts on IBM Hides the Bodies, Eyes US Government Billions · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah, 'cause our roads are in such great shape now, the cops are doing a bang-up job, we're producing public-school Einsteins at the rate of E=mc^2, and by golly were going to eat to the bottom of this jar of salmonella-laced peanut butter if it kills us.

  5. Re:Just two words on Daemon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Primer was a heck of a good movie. It probably could have been tweaked just a bit so you wouldn't need the voiceover to make sense of everything, but all in all it was brilliant for such a low-budget movie.

    Compare it to, for example, The Butterfly Effect. It cost millions in special effects, but it sucked ass.

  6. Re:Garbage rises on Do Nice Engineers Finish Last In Tough Times? · · Score: 1

    I agree. However, "smart regulation" is extremely hard to do. In order to have regulation in the first place you need strong centralized power to enforce the regulations. That strong, centralized power attracts the ruthless, and thus you get corrupted regulation.

    I use government as the example because it is generally the only entity large enough that it can dictate how it wants things to be. Standards bodies have all the authority of a wet noodle.

  7. Re:Garbage rises on Do Nice Engineers Finish Last In Tough Times? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With capitalism, the liar rises regardless of whether or not times are tough.

    I would say the ruthless rather than the liar tends to rise in capitalism. Which doesn't mean that a decent, competent company can't do well, but they can be threatened by the ruthless company. Usually the demise of a good company at the hands of a ruthless company comes about through government collusion. For example, Ruthless Inc. spends the time and money to bribe lawmakers to legislate that Ruthless Inc's software is the new standard for official government widgets. Now DecentCorp's DiscoWidget app has no buyers. Ruthless Inc. buys the dregs of DecentCorp and sends the former employees to the salt mines.

    Capitalism gets a bad rap, but sometimes that bad rap is more the direct result of centralized government's intervention rather than lack thereof. Sometimes not--witness Madoff's hedge fund.

  8. Re:all or nothing on Google Challenging Proposition 8 · · Score: 1

    "Appalling"?

    I looked for "Squeeze the jelly from their eyes!" but didn't see it. Maybe you list the appalling parts in a subsequent post?

    The hyperbole on both sides of this argument is pretty absurd.

  9. Re:I'm against the state marrying anyone on Google Challenging Proposition 8 · · Score: 1

    Interestingly black turnout for the election was extremely high, and they voted overwhelmingly for Prop. 8. You'd think they'd recognize "separate but equal" if they saw it.

  10. Re:The UAW - a poster child! on Tech Firms Oppose Union Organizing · · Score: 1

    Heck, the UAW might not even exist if the companies weren't such big pricks earlier in the last century.

    Therein lies one problem with unions. At one time, long, long ago, they provided a valued and needed service. However, they're still here, only now they mainly work to perpetuate themselves.

  11. Re:SugarCRM is old hat. on Best Open Source Alternatives To Enterprise Apps · · Score: 2, Funny

    http://demo.opengoo.org/en_us/index.php

    Not Found
    The requested URL /en_us/index.php was not found on this server.
    Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
    Apache/2.2.10 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.10 OpenSSL/0.9.8i DAV/2 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 Server at demo.opengoo.org Port 80

  12. Re:Just some answers on Freelance Web Developer Best Practices? · · Score: 1

    Scope-creep is a separate issue. I'm assuming that you've already established scope, which is a matter of specificity in the quote.

    You did explicitly lay out what you will do, right? And that nothing further beyond what you did lay out is implied or can be inferred?

    Maybe contracts should be on the comp. sci. curriculum.

  13. Just some answers on Freelance Web Developer Best Practices? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Should I bill by the hour or provide a fixed quote on a per-project basis? What kind of assurances should I get from the client before I begin work? What is the best way to create accurate time estimates?

    1. Maximize what you get from the client. Do hourly or fixed-quote, whichever is most appropriate. If you have the luxury of choosing only high-paying clients, well, nice to meetcha, Santa. How's the skiing in Hell?

    2. Half up front. No exceptions.

    3. Years of experience.

  14. Re:Actually, it was on The Other Side of the Sprint Vs. Cogent Depeering · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Had the federal government responded initially by cutting taxes and spending, lowering trade barriers and streamlining regulation, it probably would have been just a very bad recession.

    Or they could have done nothing at all. One of the most helpful things for the business environment is stability. Knowing exactly what the government is going to do, because that's what it has always done, relieves a business from expending capital on adjusting to changing conditions.

    Of course, no government would ever have done nothing, as the citizens wouldn't have stood for it. But, so long as we're spinning moonbeams...

  15. Re:There seems to be a tags issue on The Other Side of the Sprint Vs. Cogent Depeering · · Score: 1

    I'm surprised anybody looks at the tags.

    They're not good for anything, even if they were utterly correct.

    I take that back--I'm sure they're good for something, but they're not at all useful. Meaningless featureitis for Slashcode.

  16. Re:Equipment alone is useless on How To Help Our Public Schools With Technology? · · Score: 1

    Having access to the technology is a pretty important thing, IMO. This isn't 1980 when personal computers were a rarity. Being computer illiterate is almost as bad as being actually illiterate.

    There are also several things that computers can do that even good teachers cannot do. Computer-guided instruction allows the student to go at their own pace, rather than be held behind or left behind. You don't want to lose either of these groups. Students who fall behind tend to drop out, and bored students are, if anything even worse. Computer-guided instruction may also allow for a student to wander off the beaten track to follow a particular interest. Instead of just studying when Einstein developed his theory of relativity, the student can follow the theory itself.

    We broke up school into discreet subjects because that's a good method for one-to-many instruction. But learning is rarely so segmented. A few hours of clicking through Wikipedia is often better than a couple of weeks of ordinary classroom instruction.

    With a well-designed computer-aided library of knowledge you could cram 50 kids into a room with one well-rounded and competent teacher without too much trouble. Going this route would radically change the way people think about education. It would, I believe, even be cheaper than our current warehouse-style, time-clocked factory schooling methods. But it would anger the teachers' unions, the textbook publishers, the thousands of people employed to service the status quo, and most of all politicians who like being in control of piles of money.

  17. Re:Good Riddance on Google Terminates Lively · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's worth noting that Google didn't write SketchUp. Google bought SketchUp. The app's original authors deserve the credit for creating a first-rate schematic design tool.

  18. Re:To Steve on Apple's New MacBooks Have Built-In Copy Protection · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Or stop watching TV/movies altogether.

    If you read a book a day from Project Gutenberg you'd likely be dead before you exhausted it.

    I find it really puzzling that some people are so exercised that they cannot watch "American Pie" without restrictions.

  19. Re:Hey, remember when Ender's Game was good? on Ender in Exile · · Score: 1, Insightful

    But as a onetime fan of Card's work, I am saddened to learn that he shares much in common with groups like the Taliban.

    Hyperbole--excusing poor thinking since 4004 B.C.

  20. Re:Can science find God? on Science's Alternative To an Intelligent Creator · · Score: 1

    If God exists, he's not talking to us, no matter how much some people would like to believe that he is.

    Even in the Bible God didn't do much chatting.

    Such guesswork is the entire basis of religion.

    Guesswork is the basis of our understanding of how the Universe came into being, the nature of black holes, and the composition of extra-solar atmospheres. Of course, we call the guesswork "science", just as we call the guesswork on God "religion" (or spirituality, if you like). We have rational, logical and internally consistent rules for explaining the origin of the Universe, which we call science. We have something similar, if not exactly the same, with regards to religion. Neither have explained everything fully, but that doesn't make either one less valuable.

    Too many see the two disciplines as utterly contradictory, often because they haven't fully studied the other side, or because they harbor instinctual hostility. It's too bad really, as both can improve the human condition.

  21. Re:Can science find God? on Science's Alternative To an Intelligent Creator · · Score: 1

    "Why" is only a good question to ask once. You can ask "Why?" until you regress all the way back to a singularity, at which point you have to engage in guesswork.

    I'd rephrase the statement "science is for understanding how we exist, spirituality is for understanding why" to, "Science is a discussion about how we exist; spirituality is a discussion about why we exist." Both science and spirituality are a process, not an end.

  22. Re:Just plain bullying on Irish Gov't Seeks To Rein In Cyber Bullying · · Score: 1

    This explains why terrorism is not only tolerated but encouraged but many cultures around the world.

    Congratulations, champ!

  23. Re:Just plain bullying on Irish Gov't Seeks To Rein In Cyber Bullying · · Score: 1

    Having been an adult for a while now, I can safely say that, no, adults don't act that way.

    I suspect either A) you hang around shitty adults, or B) there's something wrong with you.

    This "bullying" meme is really catching on to Slashdot nerds. Why is that?

  24. Re:Just plain bullying on Irish Gov't Seeks To Rein In Cyber Bullying · · Score: 1

    The solution is to stop raising a bunch of rude brats. The parents/teachers need to tell teenagers, "You have the body of an adult (reproduction, et cetera), and now it's time to start acting like one. Abuse of your peers will Not be tolerated."

    Why not coordinate your hodgepodge coterie of goths, KAWAIIS! and nerds over SMS to beat the shit out of the bullies one at a time? It seems both a direct and effective evolutionary response to unsocial behavior.

    IMO we don't read nearly enough sensational AP stories about jocks fagslapped to their death.

  25. Re:Another common mystery on 11,000-Year-Old Temple Found In Turkey · · Score: 1

    Then I suggest you argue with Dawkins or Gould.

    Arguing with the latter would be a very neat trick and would really honk off the former.