ahem... ever tried to propose idea of using hacked software to your IT dept? Most users of both will be stylish ladies (or meterosexuals) just for the sake of having smallest IT gadget or actual road warriors (this marketing, think sales, think executive, think CEO) for whom it matters that it JustFuckinWorksWhenINeedIt.
NT 4.0 went stable with SP3. Ish. SP6a really made a difference, but came too late. Windows 2000? SP4. Again, rather late in the cycle. XP - ok, SP2 is pretty good. SP3, if to judge by past experience, will be a fuckin hotrod screamer (good;)) Vista and SP1? No way. SP1 (from microsoft) qualifies product for initial experiments and light research. As in - stable beta.
I thought it was CIA or whatever name they are doing their secret operations under now screwing up major: 1) existing splices rerouted thru existing infrastructure 2) one of links fail 3) splices give up and sever connection as it cannot be reliably copied anymore...
Not really. If this is a ships fault - ignoring directions to anchor, marked warning signs (and there are a lot of them), causing an accident - recovery is very much possible and actually happens all the time with minor regional cables being cut by idiots (ish one incident every 6 months).
The fun part is the fact that when you touch the backbone cables suddenly the [direct] damages rises in a few orders of magnitude. And at that point it becomes more economically feasible for insurer to pull up any lawyer around than just to shrug it off.
With the farce that any elections are now in USA why not skip the touch screens, OCRs or whatevers in first place? Anyway there is a 100% chance that recount will be requested by ether side. Going with paper only in first place will save quite a few million dollars and will be set up in what - 6 months including training?
How will you account for lost productivity for power users? Leaving your desktop set up ready to go in the morning while system just turns off the monitor and spins down cpu/hdd is a great way to save about an hour each day. (+ shutdown/bootup times...) Most electrical equipment failures are not due to running_time but power_off_on_cycles. Are you sure prolonging equipment life is a valid excuse for you?
Now, secretaries that have no idea how to use their pcs are a problem, but what about power users, what about research crunching their numbers overnights?
Some good points (verifying reproducibility, version control, profiler, establishing baselines) and a pure bollocks one.
If you are an idiot - no tool will help you. No good dev will ever trust anything but his favorite IDE set up on the current codebase (or a preprocessed version of one if source pushes it a bit) operating on his 101 times tested code jumps, breaks and stack traces.
If you are in a rush - risking new tools or approaches is the worst you can do. You are in a paid job and expected to deliver predictable results. "I'll let you know in three months if I can do anything about deciding whether I can do about anything about it" is NOT an answer (although then you resemble one of my current colleagues. Gosh he has to be soooo fired...). If you have no tools or approaches that are working for you and you could apply now - well, you are screwed. Or the company. Or the code.
Use brain. Use what you know works. Do not, ever, risk an experiment where the outcome is not 99% certain and your failure may have an... impact...
Asking on slashdot does not inspires confidence ether.
New codebase: 1) make sure you can run it. dependencies will enlighten you. Existing build scripts or assumptions will drive you mad ("it works on MY machine..."). 2) make sure you can modify it. Comments are not to be trusted. Define pre and after conditions and track them. 3) make sure you can pinpoint a problem in it. break an stack, break and stack... 4) make sure you at least can predict scope impact of your modifications. Encapsulation is rarely to be trusted. There will be code dealing with framebuffer in the kernel registers or calculations in DAOs' easily. 5) make sure you can PREDICT it. Once you have that, you are the guru. Alas usually comes after a year or two on a larger codebases.
And - of course - each code, each dev, each team creates their own 'taste'/'feel' in a codebase. The sooner you will understand what are the driving assumptions and working practices of the previous team - the better. Team-maintained codebases usually contain some certain degree of conflict. Look for casual comments containing 'fuck' or 'shit' or the ever-lying 'todo:' in them...
Concept seems compelling. Now whether you can expand that to "Communication Apparatus With Interfacing Means" and "Unsolicited Interaction With Existing Apparatus" really raises an interesting question...;)
Try asking for less and not upfront. Maybe. Not sure how it would work, but I see a very big difference between what I can put on my shelf and what just sits on my hard disk and will be gone with the next reinstall. For example I bought one simple casual game (similar to the TIM) about a year ago. Paid something in order of 11GBP. As a download. If it would have been any more it would have been a no brainer - I pass. I know I could try to grep my e-mails to find the key and just redownload the exe from developers site, but for all practical purposes it is gone now. Not unlike two freelancer copies I am looking at now (with first one the disc went too bad. and.iso is now permanently in the games folder too. Just decided - microsoft or not, game is good enough so that 18GBP I paid for the second copy just Might motivate someone enough to follow up with part 2).
All in all - quality matters. And each channel will bear pricing only up to x. I.E. Steam - I will never touch it with a 10 feet pole, althou they are offering quite tempting freebies occasionally. Pay the same as for the proper copy + bear with some shitty software on my PC? No, thanks.
As far as it goes I am looking at half a bookshelf of legit, purchased, paid for, _monetized_ copies of stuff (mainly games, but there is more).
Why? I sampled the shit - not the castrated 'demo' or 'first level' or no online play versions and decided that my 29quids of worth will be well spent. For physical copy. CD. Case. Booklet. On my shelf.
Create good stuff - expect great sales. Create shit, eat your own. Torrents or whatever has nothing to do with it (unless your copy-protection/activation or installation procedures goes so far beyond what is reasonable (I just HATE extra code/services running on my system) that I find it easier just to keep using pirated copy and keep the bought one just on the shelf).
On the other notes. Some DVDs. Same story. If I buy five Disney DVDs and all of them have shitty 30minutes of ads - fuck it. I can play divx off my htpc and grabbing the shit off torrents just makes sure that WHEN I (or kids) WILL FUCKING WANT TO SEE THE FUCKING MOVIE - I WILL SEE IT. NOW. Not some idiots interpretation of what I have to be made aware of (Yes, I fucking know that you have released X! It is sitting on my fucking shelf!). Best buy over last 6 months? Godfather trilogy. Great movie, NO FUCKING CRAP WHEN STARTING THE PLAYBACK!
Java has nothing to do with it. I work primarily in Java. Yet, memory fragmentation, stupid implementations of GC (without heap compacting), re-implementing String class to utilize implicit char[] buffers to prevent re-allocations on most basic operations when getting some fucked up code to fix and get up to speed - this all is there. Machine is no different than C or Lisp with all the same problems.
Any fuckin language will have the same challenges if you push it far enough. It is easy to leak memory in Java, it is easy to mess up GC if you are using any of (GCs) implementations in C(++). Overflow stack in lisp, run out of memory in haskell. Piece of cake. Alas for the usual CS course the assignments and problems ignore the 'we do this ___because otherwise you will be toasted if...___' part. Just truncated to 'we do this'. algorithms. data structures. Everything. And the problems to solve never have practical limitations.
Want to see your CS course suddenly realize fully what happens underneath? Assignment/Competition: Calculate 10'000'000th fibonacci number (ish 26M digits (base 10), btw;)) in least amount of time. Java can do bitwise operations just as easily as C. C can overflow just as easily as java. Basic might struggle a bit, thou;)
Funny, since I disagree. DVD is current format - even if I understand all the technical stuff, I want NEW. I want COOL. Blue LEDs are cool!
Althou honestly - I am looking at ish 4000 usd investement in my home system before I would even consider adding a hi-def source. Proper screen, upping sound, simplifying wiring and making sure my spouse is happy how it looks (hint: currently it is a bad ass superbly okay system - she hates it. it is 'ugly'). After that - okay, I will consider adding a reason to spend 60usd per movie disc. Currently an old sempron 2800+ connected via ATI 9800 and powerstrip -> rgb cable -> scart works just fine for me.
aaah, but there is a catch;) Use of the word 'AND' allows to go ahead if ether one is false. And believe me, RIAA certainly do not expect such penalties to be [perceived as] 'unusual':)
Bought any CDs or DVDs lately? Take a closer look at the packaging (or, in the case of DVDs all that crap about being licensed for home viewing only)...
Bullshit. Nootropil (or piracetam) type of shit takes quite a long time to actually start to act. Think about two weeks of use before it builds up to any kind of effect. There is basically no way you could just grab a few tabs and get any noticeable effect (or you could as well be taking placebos and making the shit up).
Guy was... dealt with because he messed up with country's image. That's all. Corruption was just an excuse. In purely internal affairs nobody gives a damn - all china cares these days is to crush any internal commentary and keep up appearances for the west.
Warranty parts - yes. But what about the case where you pay for the new drive, pay for the labor (aka "service") and are not allowed to request the broken part back? Sure this also smells like fraud - charge the customer and then charge the manufacturer too?
...and he shared it afterwards. There is quite a cause for questions to be raised althou summary is not clear in what context they raise the 'authorized' copy issue (btw - implictly acknowledging that such a thing exists!)
ahem... funny thing, nobody I know actually wanted vista (for any reasons and even while it was still believed to be coming out good). Generally a week+ for machine rebuild and losing existing investment in know-how how to run the machine seemed risky enough...
OTOH, maybe you have no friends and are spending too much time reading trade press;)
Slashdot Mirror
ahem... ever tried to propose idea of using hacked software to your IT dept?
Most users of both will be stylish ladies (or meterosexuals) just for the sake of having smallest IT gadget or actual road warriors (this marketing, think sales, think executive, think CEO) for whom it matters that it JustFuckinWorksWhenINeedIt.
banks actually say - Yes, it is.
SP1? you are quite brave...
;))
NT 4.0 went stable with SP3. Ish. SP6a really made a difference, but came too late.
Windows 2000? SP4. Again, rather late in the cycle.
XP - ok, SP2 is pretty good. SP3, if to judge by past experience, will be a fuckin hotrod screamer (good
Vista and SP1? No way. SP1 (from microsoft) qualifies product for initial experiments and light research. As in - stable beta.
Obviously you have missed all the fla^Wdebates about tuning linux kernel for server usage or ui responsiveness over last 6 months...
I thought it was CIA or whatever name they are doing their secret operations under now screwing up major:
1) existing splices rerouted thru existing infrastructure
2) one of links fail
3) splices give up and sever connection as it cannot be reliably copied anymore...
Not really. If this is a ships fault - ignoring directions to anchor, marked warning signs (and there are a lot of them), causing an accident - recovery is very much possible and actually happens all the time with minor regional cables being cut by idiots (ish one incident every 6 months).
The fun part is the fact that when you touch the backbone cables suddenly the [direct] damages rises in a few orders of magnitude. And at that point it becomes more economically feasible for insurer to pull up any lawyer around than just to shrug it off.
With the farce that any elections are now in USA why not skip the touch screens, OCRs or whatevers in first place? Anyway there is a 100% chance that recount will be requested by ether side.
Going with paper only in first place will save quite a few million dollars and will be set up in what - 6 months including training?
How will you account for lost productivity for power users? Leaving your desktop set up ready to go in the morning while system just turns off the monitor and spins down cpu/hdd is a great way to save about an hour each day. (+ shutdown/bootup times...)
Most electrical equipment failures are not due to running_time but power_off_on_cycles. Are you sure prolonging equipment life is a valid excuse for you?
Now, secretaries that have no idea how to use their pcs are a problem, but what about power users, what about research crunching their numbers overnights?
Some good points (verifying reproducibility, version control, profiler, establishing baselines) and a pure bollocks one.
... impact...
If you are an idiot - no tool will help you. No good dev will ever trust anything but his favorite IDE set up on the current codebase (or a preprocessed version of one if source pushes it a bit) operating on his 101 times tested code jumps, breaks and stack traces.
If you are in a rush - risking new tools or approaches is the worst you can do. You are in a paid job and expected to deliver predictable results. "I'll let you know in three months if I can do anything about deciding whether I can do about anything about it" is NOT an answer (although then you resemble one of my current colleagues. Gosh he has to be soooo fired...). If you have no tools or approaches that are working for you and you could apply now - well, you are screwed. Or the company. Or the code.
Use brain. Use what you know works. Do not, ever, risk an experiment where the outcome is not 99% certain and your failure may have an
Asking on slashdot does not inspires confidence ether.
New codebase:
1) make sure you can run it. dependencies will enlighten you. Existing build scripts or assumptions will drive you mad ("it works on MY machine...").
2) make sure you can modify it. Comments are not to be trusted. Define pre and after conditions and track them.
3) make sure you can pinpoint a problem in it. break an stack, break and stack...
4) make sure you at least can predict scope impact of your modifications. Encapsulation is rarely to be trusted. There will be code dealing with framebuffer in the kernel registers or calculations in DAOs' easily.
5) make sure you can PREDICT it. Once you have that, you are the guru. Alas usually comes after a year or two on a larger codebases.
And - of course - each code, each dev, each team creates their own 'taste'/'feel' in a codebase. The sooner you will understand what are the driving assumptions and working practices of the previous team - the better. Team-maintained codebases usually contain some certain degree of conflict. Look for casual comments containing 'fuck' or 'shit' or the ever-lying 'todo:' in them...
Concept seems compelling. Now whether you can expand that to "Communication Apparatus With Interfacing Means" and "Unsolicited Interaction With Existing Apparatus" really raises an interesting question... ;)
Try asking for less and not upfront. Maybe. Not sure how it would work, but I see a very big difference between what I can put on my shelf and what just sits on my hard disk and will be gone with the next reinstall. For example I bought one simple casual game (similar to the TIM) about a year ago. Paid something in order of 11GBP. As a download. If it would have been any more it would have been a no brainer - I pass. I know I could try to grep my e-mails to find the key and just redownload the exe from developers site, but for all practical purposes it is gone now. Not unlike two freelancer copies I am looking at now (with first one the disc went too bad. and .iso is now permanently in the games folder too. Just decided - microsoft or not, game is good enough so that 18GBP I paid for the second copy just Might motivate someone enough to follow up with part 2).
All in all - quality matters. And each channel will bear pricing only up to x. I.E. Steam - I will never touch it with a 10 feet pole, althou they are offering quite tempting freebies occasionally. Pay the same as for the proper copy + bear with some shitty software on my PC? No, thanks.
never used date_trunc(or _part) and group by, haven't you?
bullshit.
As far as it goes I am looking at half a bookshelf of legit, purchased, paid for, _monetized_ copies of stuff (mainly games, but there is more).
Why? I sampled the shit - not the castrated 'demo' or 'first level' or no online play versions and decided that my 29quids of worth will be well spent. For physical copy. CD. Case. Booklet. On my shelf.
Create good stuff - expect great sales. Create shit, eat your own. Torrents or whatever has nothing to do with it (unless your copy-protection/activation or installation procedures goes so far beyond what is reasonable (I just HATE extra code/services running on my system) that I find it easier just to keep using pirated copy and keep the bought one just on the shelf).
On the other notes. Some DVDs. Same story. If I buy five Disney DVDs and all of them have shitty 30minutes of ads - fuck it. I can play divx off my htpc and grabbing the shit off torrents just makes sure that WHEN I (or kids) WILL FUCKING WANT TO SEE THE FUCKING MOVIE - I WILL SEE IT. NOW. Not some idiots interpretation of what I have to be made aware of (Yes, I fucking know that you have released X! It is sitting on my fucking shelf!). Best buy over last 6 months? Godfather trilogy. Great movie, NO FUCKING CRAP WHEN STARTING THE PLAYBACK!
Java has nothing to do with it. I work primarily in Java. Yet, memory fragmentation, stupid implementations of GC (without heap compacting), re-implementing String class to utilize implicit char[] buffers to prevent re-allocations on most basic operations when getting some fucked up code to fix and get up to speed - this all is there. Machine is no different than C or Lisp with all the same problems.
;)) in least amount of time. Java can do bitwise operations just as easily as C. C can overflow just as easily as java. Basic might struggle a bit, thou ;)
Any fuckin language will have the same challenges if you push it far enough. It is easy to leak memory in Java, it is easy to mess up GC if you are using any of (GCs) implementations in C(++). Overflow stack in lisp, run out of memory in haskell. Piece of cake. Alas for the usual CS course the assignments and problems ignore the 'we do this ___because otherwise you will be toasted if...___' part. Just truncated to 'we do this'. algorithms. data structures. Everything. And the problems to solve never have practical limitations.
Want to see your CS course suddenly realize fully what happens underneath? Assignment/Competition: Calculate 10'000'000th fibonacci number (ish 26M digits (base 10), btw
Funny, since I disagree. DVD is current format - even if I understand all the technical stuff, I want NEW. I want COOL. Blue LEDs are cool!
Althou honestly - I am looking at ish 4000 usd investement in my home system before I would even consider adding a hi-def source. Proper screen, upping sound, simplifying wiring and making sure my spouse is happy how it looks (hint: currently it is a bad ass superbly okay system - she hates it. it is 'ugly'). After that - okay, I will consider adding a reason to spend 60usd per movie disc. Currently an old sempron 2800+ connected via ATI 9800 and powerstrip -> rgb cable -> scart works just fine for me.
aaah, but there is a catch ;) :)
Use of the word 'AND' allows to go ahead if ether one is false. And believe me, RIAA certainly do not expect such penalties to be [perceived as] 'unusual'
Bought any CDs or DVDs lately? Take a closer look at the packaging (or, in the case of DVDs all that crap about being licensed for home viewing only)...
uhm, ehm, ahm... triangulating w/o gps chip? Maybe you meant triangulating based on GSM base stations?
Bullshit.
Nootropil (or piracetam) type of shit takes quite a long time to actually start to act. Think about two weeks of use before it builds up to any kind of effect. There is basically no way you could just grab a few tabs and get any noticeable effect (or you could as well be taking placebos and making the shit up).
Guy was ... dealt with because he messed up with country's image. That's all. Corruption was just an excuse.
In purely internal affairs nobody gives a damn - all china cares these days is to crush any internal commentary and keep up appearances for the west.
Warranty parts - yes. But what about the case where you pay for the new drive, pay for the labor (aka "service") and are not allowed to request the broken part back? Sure this also smells like fraud - charge the customer and then charge the manufacturer too?
...and he shared it afterwards. There is quite a cause for questions to be raised althou summary is not clear in what context they raise the 'authorized' copy issue (btw - implictly acknowledging that such a thing exists!)
;)
RTFA
ahem... funny thing, nobody I know actually wanted vista (for any reasons and even while it was still believed to be coming out good). Generally a week+ for machine rebuild and losing existing investment in know-how how to run the machine seemed risky enough...
;)
OTOH, maybe you have no friends and are spending too much time reading trade press
heh... same story.
...
Pull it out, take a look - seems fine. So I plug my memstick in. (non-brand thou).
USB device not recognized.
bad.
closer look. I open the case and let the water out (in essence the casing was full of water). Now bare board w/ usb plug. Good shake, plug it in.
Works.
USB memsticks seems to be able to take quite a lot these days...
Class Action Suit!
Now, who will take on to fill one?