For one, your code could benefit from a little bit more consistentcy. 'manager' and 'manager.schedule' are both objects, as indicated by the member access operations; but in the 'manager' context, you access member data directly (the presumably boolean 'clueless'), while in 'manager.schedule', you use a method of 'manager', 'isRidiculous()'. Another naming inconsistency is the adjectival boolean 'manager.clueless' vs. another boolean member of 'manager', 'isEvil', with a verbal name. Direct member data access seems to be the norm in this fragment, although good OOP practices should dictate the use of data-hiding and accessor methods.
By your capitalization scheme, I'll make the assumption that the the platform for this code fragment is Java, so I won't be so bold as to suggest Hungarian notation.
"Terrorist" may be an extreme term to apply to Hatch, mostly because it places him in such extreme company, but it is not an entirely inaccurate word to describe him. After all, he does want to employ the fear of extreme reactionary measures to coerce people into complying with his agenda.
There are a lot of words that could be used to describe Senator Hatch, and though "terrorist" may not be incredibly accurate, it's not all that far off the mark.
The problem with that system is that you end up with strong fighters who are almost always complete idiots, clever wizards who can't lift their familiars of the ground without a system of pullies, and rogues who either build around a charisma of 18 (for deception skills)
You sound like you're describing the cast of 8-bit Theater.:-)
Thanks very much for your patience. I'm reminded of another saying that I cannot recall exactly; but it went something like "if quantum mechanics does not confuse you, then you don't get it.";-)
I don't have a background in the sciences beyond introductory college physics and chemistry. I'm a student right now, just beginning a major in EE with a minor in physics, so I obviously have quite a lot of ground to cover.
I am (somewhat) familiar with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, but what I perhaps fail to see is how the fact that it is impossible for us to measure or predict a phenomenon necessarily means that the phenomenon has no cause. Seems to me that if it's not possible to measure something like that, it would simply be impossible to determine what (if any) principles govern its behavior, not that that there are no principles. That idea seems to defy causality - if nothing caused it, why did it happen?
I'm not at all offended by your tone; as a student looking to further my understanding of these subjects, I recognize that I have a long way to go, and it wouldn't be very scientific to dismiss the words of the better-informed simply because they seem to defy logic.:-)
So, it's random just because we don't understand why it does what it does? That sounds sorta like the "it's a mystery to us, so it must be GOD doing it!" excuse, if you'll pardon the comparison.:-)
Maybe by "random," you just mean something that has no apparent cause, or something that is best described as a probability distribution, but to a layperson, the word "random" often implies an event with no governing principles whatsoever.
Sure, but all that's saying is that it's a phenomenon we can't predict. Perhaps I shouldn't say "Laws of Physics," as that implies the human description and understanding of a phenomenon, not the phenomenon itself. Just because we don't understand how something works doesn't mean there aren't any rules.
I'm actually a little surpised to see Slashdotters so eager for the goverment to jump into this.
Well, the government is already jumping into this, in the form of legislation forbidding communities and municipalities from offering services that compete with those provided by large corporations. Do we really want large service providers telling our local governments (emphasis on local) what they can and cannot do?
We go through all this trouble to block pop-up ads, and they come up with some way to cram them through our browsers anyway. What's the point? Do they really think I'm going to buy anything from them, when it was me who installed an alternate browser/pop-blocker add-on so I'd never ever have to come into contact them in the first place?
It's sorta like this:
"SCREW YOU, POPUP-BLOCKING BASTARD!! Now buy our cheap cameras.
Heh, if only that were true. Maybe they check more thoroughly after 9/11, but some time a few decades ago, my dad landed a civilian government job in some military office while he was wanted for something or other relating to his more dubious anti-nuclear protest activities. (He was a bit of a radical hippie.) They fired him when he didn't show up to work one day. Of course, the reason he didn't show up was because the US Marshals had finally caught up with him. I don't think they ever figured it out...
That's a common misconception; the prefatory clause "A well regulated militia..." does not alter the fact that "the right of the people" refers to a right of the people in general. The second amendment does not require that persons be a member of the militia in order to bear arms. Also, do not confuse the "Militia" with the United States Military, or the National Guard. Very different things.:-)
It's a moot point anyway. If you're a male United States citizen between the ages of 17 and 45, you are a member of the United States militia. I refer you to USC Title 10, Chapter 13, Section 311.
No, it's a reference to the "Eternal September," or the September of 1993, when AOL first provided Usenet access to its users. September was usually a time when a lot of new users showed up; things would normally calm down pretty quickly as the new users learned proper conduct. This didn't happen when AOL stormed onto the scene, and the september of 1993 came to be known as the "September that never Ended."
Now that they're gone, maybe the ordeal is finally over? Probably not, but we can dream, can't we?:-)
More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
Bulletproof, even for invalid HTML? There is such a thing as stretching the standards, but how can the browser be expected to compensate for flagrant user error? You can only bend over backwards so far in an attempt to provide backwards compatibility. If I'm a non-compliant web page writer, how far should I reasonably expect the platform for which I am writing HTML to "do what I meant, not what I said"?
Bottom line: the standards are there for a reason; namely, that a web page written with standards-compliant HTML will render correctly in a standards-compliant browser. Insisting that the browser also render non-compliant code correctly defeats the entire purpose of having standards in the first place; it's just unreasonable.
OS integration is one of the problems with IE; sure, there's the opportunity for many convenient features, but the way they implemented it (viz: poorly) created a lot of security holes that were later exploited by malware writers.
"When a transaction is complete, the user has an identical copy of the file on his or her computer..."
Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Just tweak the software to change a couple of bytes in the header during transfer.:-) It's not an identical copy, your honor! You could even use their ignorance of technology to your advantage - bring in the MD5 digests of the two files in court: "Just look at the huge differences between these two unique file identifiers. Coincidence? I think not!";-)
Actually, I think I read once (might have even been on/.) about another potential application for a similar technology, which seemed much more useful than this. The idea involved using images to search, say, a parts database. If you were holding some unidentified doohickey in your hand, and you needed to know what it was so you could find a replacement, you could sketch a rough outline of the object, and the sketch would be used to search through the design information in the database (say, CAD drawings and whatnot). Limited application, sure, but it's a more immediately realistic goal than full photographic image recognition. (Especially when, as you point out, the human processing is more practical in those sorts of situations.)
Well, there's the fact that in almost any war, civilian casualties usually account for most of the deaths. Somehow I doubt war can be made less brutal with more deadly technology. One Richard Gatling thought that once, I recall...
Restocking fee? Where do you buy electronics, Best Buy?:-P I've always been able to get a 100% refund, even if I was only the slightest bit dissatisfied with my purchase. It's only infrequently that I've had to do a bit of persuasive negotiations to get my way.
It is, in fact a perfect analogy, as explained by the grandparent. An analogy is a comparison made on the basis of a similarity in some attribute or property between two otherwise dissimilar concepts. Thus, G4's decision to eliminate the existing staff (thus shooting themselves in the foot) can be compared by analogy to Hitler's segregation of the Jewish population, which had the effect of reducing the available pool of some of the most brilliant scientists.
And yes, a good analogy could also be made to compare the pop-rock to the nuclear bomb.
Ah, but they can, and do. If the customer is pissed off about the dead pixels in their display, you'd better believe they'll let the retailer know about it. In almost all electronics stores I patronize, you could just take the monitor back for a refund, even if it wasn't actually defective. Retailers would rather not buy items that get taken back all the time, so manufacturers have a motivation for improving display quality.
It is the very act of "whining" that drives improvements in both product and service. If manufacturers could get away with foisting crappy products on everbody, you'd better believe they would (see: Microsoft:P), and Samsung's new policy never would've happened. It is only because customer whining can have a tangible impact on profits that these companies realize they have to work harder to stay competitive.
True, but take another look at the context for my post. The discussion was about an object potentially being broken into small pieces, and thus burning up in the atmosphere before striking the Earth. In this instance, much of the energy would in fact be transferred directly to the atmosphere. Then, the only real energy loss is from radiant heat or possibly deflected matter, and conduction between the atmosphere and the ground; but none of these are as significant as the collision of an intact object with the ground.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, since you asked for it... :-)
For one, your code could benefit from a little bit more consistentcy. 'manager' and 'manager.schedule' are both objects, as indicated by the member access operations; but in the 'manager' context, you access member data directly (the presumably boolean 'clueless'), while in 'manager.schedule', you use a method of 'manager', 'isRidiculous()'. Another naming inconsistency is the adjectival boolean 'manager.clueless' vs. another boolean member of 'manager', 'isEvil', with a verbal name. Direct member data access seems to be the norm in this fragment, although good OOP practices should dictate the use of data-hiding and accessor methods.
By your capitalization scheme, I'll make the assumption that the the platform for this code fragment is Java, so I won't be so bold as to suggest Hungarian notation.
Other than that, no, looks good. :-)
There are a lot of words that could be used to describe Senator Hatch, and though "terrorist" may not be incredibly accurate, it's not all that far off the mark.
You sound like you're describing the cast of 8-bit Theater. :-)
Thanks very much for your patience. I'm reminded of another saying that I cannot recall exactly; but it went something like "if quantum mechanics does not confuse you, then you don't get it." ;-)
I am (somewhat) familiar with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, but what I perhaps fail to see is how the fact that it is impossible for us to measure or predict a phenomenon necessarily means that the phenomenon has no cause. Seems to me that if it's not possible to measure something like that, it would simply be impossible to determine what (if any) principles govern its behavior, not that that there are no principles. That idea seems to defy causality - if nothing caused it, why did it happen?
I'm not at all offended by your tone; as a student looking to further my understanding of these subjects, I recognize that I have a long way to go, and it wouldn't be very scientific to dismiss the words of the better-informed simply because they seem to defy logic. :-)
Maybe by "random," you just mean something that has no apparent cause, or something that is best described as a probability distribution, but to a layperson, the word "random" often implies an event with no governing principles whatsoever.
Sure, but all that's saying is that it's a phenomenon we can't predict. Perhaps I shouldn't say "Laws of Physics," as that implies the human description and understanding of a phenomenon, not the phenomenon itself. Just because we don't understand how something works doesn't mean there aren't any rules.
Well, strictly speaking, that's not random either, since the laws of physics dictate how and when the particles decay in a radioactive material. ;-)
Well, the government is already jumping into this, in the form of legislation forbidding communities and municipalities from offering services that compete with those provided by large corporations. Do we really want large service providers telling our local governments (emphasis on local) what they can and cannot do?
It's sorta like this:
"SCREW YOU, POPUP-BLOCKING BASTARD!! Now buy our cheap cameras.
Hmm...
Heh, if only that were true. Maybe they check more thoroughly after 9/11, but some time a few decades ago, my dad landed a civilian government job in some military office while he was wanted for something or other relating to his more dubious anti-nuclear protest activities. (He was a bit of a radical hippie.) They fired him when he didn't show up to work one day. Of course, the reason he didn't show up was because the US Marshals had finally caught up with him. I don't think they ever figured it out...
I would recommend reading this.
It's a moot point anyway. If you're a male United States citizen between the ages of 17 and 45, you are a member of the United States militia. I refer you to USC Title 10, Chapter 13, Section 311.
No, it's a reference to the "Eternal September," or the September of 1993, when AOL first provided Usenet access to its users. September was usually a time when a lot of new users showed up; things would normally calm down pretty quickly as the new users learned proper conduct. This didn't happen when AOL stormed onto the scene, and the september of 1993 came to be known as the "September that never Ended."
:-)
Now that they're gone, maybe the ordeal is finally over? Probably not, but we can dream, can't we?
More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
Bulletproof, even for invalid HTML? There is such a thing as stretching the standards, but how can the browser be expected to compensate for flagrant user error? You can only bend over backwards so far in an attempt to provide backwards compatibility. If I'm a non-compliant web page writer, how far should I reasonably expect the platform for which I am writing HTML to "do what I meant, not what I said"?
Bottom line: the standards are there for a reason; namely, that a web page written with standards-compliant HTML will render correctly in a standards-compliant browser. Insisting that the browser also render non-compliant code correctly defeats the entire purpose of having standards in the first place; it's just unreasonable.
OS integration is one of the problems with IE; sure, there's the opportunity for many convenient features, but the way they implemented it (viz: poorly) created a lot of security holes that were later exploited by malware writers.
You were being sarcastic, right?
Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Just tweak the software to change a couple of bytes in the header during transfer. :-) It's not an identical copy, your honor! You could even use their ignorance of technology to your advantage - bring in the MD5 digests of the two files in court: "Just look at the huge differences between these two unique file identifiers. Coincidence? I think not!" ;-)
Actually, I think I read once (might have even been on /.) about another potential application for a similar technology, which seemed much more useful than this. The idea involved using images to search, say, a parts database. If you were holding some unidentified doohickey in your hand, and you needed to know what it was so you could find a replacement, you could sketch a rough outline of the object, and the sketch would be used to search through the design information in the database (say, CAD drawings and whatnot). Limited application, sure, but it's a more immediately realistic goal than full photographic image recognition. (Especially when, as you point out, the human processing is more practical in those sorts of situations.)
Well, there's the fact that in almost any war, civilian casualties usually account for most of the deaths. Somehow I doubt war can be made less brutal with more deadly technology. One Richard Gatling thought that once, I recall...
Samsung Electronics unveiled the world's largest 21-inch organic light emitting diode (OLED) display...
Hmm... Maybe I should call Guinness; I might just have the world's heaviest 8-ounce potato!
And about 63.54435899% of statistics claim a level of precision far greater than their sampling methods warrant.
Restocking fee? Where do you buy electronics, Best Buy? :-P I've always been able to get a 100% refund, even if I was only the slightest bit dissatisfied with my purchase. It's only infrequently that I've had to do a bit of persuasive negotiations to get my way.
And yes, a good analogy could also be made to compare the pop-rock to the nuclear bomb.
Ah, but they can, and do. If the customer is pissed off about the dead pixels in their display, you'd better believe they'll let the retailer know about it. In almost all electronics stores I patronize, you could just take the monitor back for a refund, even if it wasn't actually defective. Retailers would rather not buy items that get taken back all the time, so manufacturers have a motivation for improving display quality.
It is the very act of "whining" that drives improvements in both product and service. If manufacturers could get away with foisting crappy products on everbody, you'd better believe they would (see: Microsoft :P), and Samsung's new policy never would've happened. It is only because customer whining can have a tangible impact on profits that these companies realize they have to work harder to stay competitive.
So it's the extended edition of the Slashdot story, huh? Not a dupe! Maybe they included the never-before-seen CowboyNeal scene.
True, but take another look at the context for my post. The discussion was about an object potentially being broken into small pieces, and thus burning up in the atmosphere before striking the Earth. In this instance, much of the energy would in fact be transferred directly to the atmosphere. Then, the only real energy loss is from radiant heat or possibly deflected matter, and conduction between the atmosphere and the ground; but none of these are as significant as the collision of an intact object with the ground.