The patent is over 6 years old and they're just now bothering to speak up about these "infringing industry standards".
Sounds like an awesome business plan to fall back in case your crappy company starts to flounder because it hasn't done anything useful in years. Keep your mouth shut for more than half a decade until your patented technology becomes an industry standard that everyone uses, then suddenly start launching lawsuits up everyone's asses.
Here, found the actual quote (from Miramax's Rick Sands, conveniently enough):
"In the old days, there used to be a term, 'buying your gross'. You could buy your gross for the weekend and overcome bad word of mouth, because it took time to filter out into the general audience."
Ok - I stand corrected. They weren't saying it should be banned, just being whiny, bitch-ass crybabies because they can't push their crap-ola down peoples' throats as easily as they used to. In fact, now I'm more pissed off because they have a code word for "anally raping the consumer". They call it "buying your gross".
And dude... honestly... if you take anything on Slashdot without a HUGE grain of salt and without backing it up, you have a serious problem and I have a bridge to sell you.
I congratulate you for being smart enough NOT to just believe whatever dredge people post (note, however, that posting unsupported dredge is obviously a good way to reap karma).
Look buddy.. I don't know whether to just laugh in your face and waltz off, or skewer your idiotic post where it sits. I think I'll take the high road here and skewer it alive.
So you haven't seen the evidence, but you can make this claim and foraward it as the truth? Which is it jackass.
In other words... any claim is true... until proven FALSE? Seriously man, drop the shrooms, you're about to OD. In case you've been MIA for the last 250 years or so, it's generally accepted that if you make a claim, you need to back it up with evidence. There's this whole big thing in this country based on this premise. It's called the.. uh.. "JUSTICE SYSTEM". Usually works pretty well too.
In case you're having trouble straining that awfully complicated concept back into the original point, I'll do it for you:
The man made a bunch of claims. The man has not provided backup for those claims in the year since they started. I'd say a year to justify your claims is plenty of time, especially since the claims have already been acted upon. Now, I don't know about YOUR fucked up little world, but where the smarter people live, if a person consistently fails to provide backup for their claims, that's pretty good justification for dismissing the claims as unsubstantiated bullshit.
Maybe if you spent a little more time actually thinking about something important instead of coming up with lame insults like "fuckstick" you wouldn't have your foot so far down your throat that you're shitting yourself around it right now.
You know, I saw a story about that somewhere and I didn't know if I should laugh or cry. They (the movie studios) were bitching that people shouldn't be allowed to have text messaging tools like cell-phones and whatnot in movie theaters because people were leaving the Hulk and similarly lame movies and TM'ing their friends not to see it. They would leave the studio and immediately let a dozen people know that the movie was a bonafide peice of Hulking (sorry) crap-a-roo.
The justification for this idiotic "thought" process? Yep, you guessed it! It's cutting into our profits when people TM other people not to go see a movie! Ohhh... boo-frickin-hoo. At what point does the fact that your product is total shit actually kick in around here anymore? I love how these big interests are so conveniently redefining the rules so that they have a right to steal people's money in the name of "profits".
By the way.. if you're wondering what a crap-a-roo is, it's like a kangaroo, only crappier.
By removing these links, he's making it more difficult for people to purchase these films, thereby allowing us to protect our interest in these properties. -- Matthew Hiltzik
Uhhh... what? Sooooo... it's in my best interest to... uh... NOT let people buy my products? Umm... I think I must've missed that econ class.
Direct translation from bullshit PR spin-ese:
By removing these links, he's making it easier for our people to rape consumers when it comes to purchasing our films, thereby allowing us to extort as much money as possible from innocent buyers by locking away legally purchased media. We do all of this under the guise of "protecting our rights" because we, big shitheaded corporate assholes, think that the only right consumers have is the right to give us money.
Bye bye Miramax! I hardly ever go to see movies or buy DVDs now because 1) movies in theatres are way too expensive and 2) I hate fucking around with CSS protectionist bullshit. I'm happy to report that in the rare event that I do plan to buy / go to a movie, I will make sure ahead of time it's not got anything to do with Miramax (and yes, I keep a list of these things).
I doubt there would be any significant implications. Barring detrimental health effects, anyway.
"Aging" is primarily affected by movement through time. Time is slowed down either by an increase in velocity in the first 3 dimensions (i.e. "move around faster") or an increase in gravity. The only effects that this trip would have on aging (again, barring detrimental health effects) would be due to the various changes in gravity and speed the travelers experience. However, the changes would be so miniscule (you have to be traveling a *significant* fraction of the speed of light or greatly increase/decrease gravity to change your own time noticeably) that this would result in an almost immeasurable difference in aging.
Already handed another poster their ass on a plate regarding this. YOU go read the words that are in print. That's a tiny sampling of comments Bush and his administration made on the matter. I merely got tired of quoting them.
Do not just swallow whatever shit dribbles from Howard Dean's ass.
Never said a thing about Howard Dean, don't really like the man, and have no plans to vote for him at the moment. Thanks for the pointless strawman though - just gives me ammo when I point out the fact that you can't respond to the actual issue at hand.
Note especially that he said we cannot wait until the threat is imminent, not that the threat was imminent...
That doesn't mean they weren't lying about the threat level, now does it? You've got a credible report from DoD/CIA/other? Then cough it up or shut up.
...overcome your political bias...
I counted 4 unkind suggestions and/or direct references to "leftists", "democrats", and a democratic Presidential contender in your post. Not considering that you're now attacking me personally at this point (which doesn't bother me in the least as I have no qualms personally attacking you annoying apologists myself), I might suggest you re-read my postings where I've bashed two Presidencies spanning both of the major political parties. Guess that pointless drivel doesn't hold water either.
Oh, and regarding Kay's report - so what? Here's a clue - bitchslap those irritating little European crybabies that wanted to coddle Hussien for their petty contracts and root the motherfucking country out with weapons inspectors. Oooooo.... now THERE'S a tough concept. Rather than sending the inspectors off with their tails between their legs, give the bastard a black eye and tell him to open whatever goddamn door he's told to open.
Real tough concept for bloodthirsty nutjobs looking for re-election material, I know.
Keep it coming boys. I can keep ripping you nuts down as fast as you come. Amazingly, all it takes for me to be force fed my own foot is for ONE of you to offer up credible evidence that there were WMDs in Iraq when the war-mongering started or the production of a credible report showing that Iraq was a significantly greater threat than other hostile countries. Lots of conjecture so far, no proof.
Awesome evidence there, buddy. I'm sure inclined to believe incomplete conclusions drawn from indirect comparisons when stories include quotes like:
"Like, derrrrrr! I mean, what, actually, do you expect?" - Newsmax
and
Another intriguing coincidence... - Newsmax
And of course, "proof that Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks against the US, was trained in Baghdad by Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist." obviously proves everything, right? Yes, of course. We're not drawing more irrelevant conclusions here, are we? Nooooo... not at all! A terrorist IN a country must mean that the country is responsible for what the terrorist does! Yes, of course! It makes sense now! Of course, that means we just implicated ourselves in 9/11 since they LEARNED TO FLY THE FUCKING PLANES IN THE U.S.
As for backing up my claims about the administrations bullshit WMD garbage, I think Dubya's boys and girls can do that for themselves, thank you:
In the case of Saddam Hussein, we've got a dictator who is clearly pursuing and already possesses some of these weapons... - Cheney
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. - Cheney
We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. - Rice
Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons. - Bush
Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. - Bush
The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. - Bush
After eleven years.. Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. - Bush
Iraq could decide on any given day to provide biological or chemical weapons to a terrorist group or to individual terrorists... - Cheney
And, here's a real kick in the nuts for you if you were going to try and tell me that this doesn't prove that's why he started the war:
If Iraq had disarmed itself, gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction over the past 12 years, or over the last several months since (UN Resolution) 1441 was enacted, we would not be facing the crisis that we now have before us. - Powell
And I'll kick you in the nuts about the 2 "mobile factories" that were found before you get a chance to bring them up:
They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were -- facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons. - British Weapons Inspector
Come on then. The Telegraph link and the Newsmax link both draw baseless conclusions on current unknowns and TWP link doesn't really say much of anything the proves there's a connection. It just says that there's potentially new evidence that there was one. Once that new intel has been scrutinized and verified, THEN I'll look. Got any evidence for me NOW, or am I supposed to just infer things from your BS links and pretend that my guesses prove something?
There are posters in this thread who are obviously disappointed that W and the boys captured Saddham. That's sad.
Nice to know. Go pester THEM and leave ME the fuck alone until you have real evidence, not a bunch of opinionated bullshit on new developments. My point stands, as of 12/14/03 at 2:19 P.M. EST, the real reasons for the war in Iraq are as yet unproven claims about terrorist links and Weapons of Mass Destruction. And, I might point out before we get too deep into that, why the fuck is this idiot even TRYING to justify a war AFTER it's over!? I'd say that starting a war without evidence of its necessity is grounds for impeachment, wouldn't you?
And, as usually happens when I post this sort of rant, the response is to a completely different topic.
The point isn't that something good came of the attack on Iraq. I have NO qualms about blowing away nutjobs like Hussien. HOWEVER "freeing the Iraqi people" is not the reason that was originally given, it's just what the asshole is playing up now. The administration subtly drew connections between Saddam and Al Quaeda that DO NOT exist. It lied about a current WMD program. It lied about Iraq being a significant threat to the U.S. It put out garbage like "they could sell their weapons" or "the weapons could be stolen" as if Iraq was a serious threat for this happening. Newsflash people: N. Korea has threatened to nuke portions of the U.S. and has been selling shit to countries like Iran for years. No mention of them anywhere.
The POINT is not WHAT he did, but HOW he did it. He's a liar. He's a sniveling crybaby that can't play nice with anyone else, so he grabs his ball and heads home. Fuck it - I'm tired of him doing this sort of shit. I want to see the 9/11 evidence. I want to see these WMDs. I want to see credible reports that Iraq was a significant threat to the U.S. in early 2003. I want to see credible reports showing how terrorism has been affected since 9/11/01.
I will never see them while Bush is in office. Because they don't exist. They won't exist until another President requests them, because they will prove that GWB is a total... fucking... liar.
1) Oh, yes. I forgot that in this New Bush World Order, bombs going off and killing U.S. soldiers in Baghdad is proof of how successful we are. Obviously, then, the fact that there are still plenty of people rushing into terrorism is evidence that we're changing their attitudes.
2) You're an idiot. You can't just rip free speech away from people because you don't want to listen to them. Why the fuck do you think these people are so easily swayed to terrorism? Gee... because NOBODY LISTENS TO THEM OTHERWISE. And whether you act on their demands or not, at least now you're listening when they go about blowing up innocent people, so it must be at least partially effective.
3) Ok, Holmes. Brilliant deduction. We haven't seen him, so he must be dead. He couldn't possibly be hiding or simply evading us. No, he MUST be dead. It doesn't matter that there's no body, people who claim to spot him, and nobody who's stepped up to say he is, in fact, dead. Nope, despite all these things, he MUST be dead.
And, seeing as you're an AC posting totally illogical nonsense, you'll get exactly NO further responses from me. Night!
You know, I'M getting tired of this crap about having to "pick one of the two".
The man is, quite simply, the truest form of a politician.
He's sleazy. We go to war with Afghanistan because Al Quaeda attacked us (let's not mention that we're taking that assertion that it was Al Quaeda on faith since the administration wouldn't share any of the "evidence" it magically had only hours after the attacks). Bin Laden, the psychofuck we're supposed to get, gets away. Solution? Look harder? No. Divert attention to Iraq. Pretend they have a current WMD program (again, present no [truthful] evidence), blow them the fuck up, and then, when you realize your ass is getting handed to you by all the people who want to see this Great Big Threat to America and all these WMDs, start pretending like you started yammering about all this a year ago because you wanted to "liberate" people.
Bull fucking shit. He knows damn well that Hussein is already a villian in everybody's minds and that he can back that up because the man IS a villian. He knows he can whip people into a frenzy every time he passes "ter'rism" through his lips and he can sweep his fuck-ups under the carpet by changing his story later.
You want to know why I hate him more than any recent prez in history? More than lying, two-faced, backstabbing Clinton? Because everytime I cried for evidence when the man started making claims, I got nasty looks from idiots who just wanted to hear that ter'rists were being taken out of their happy little world. When I start pointing out that the man has lied his way into two wars so far and changed the story or conveniently just closed the book halfway through, I get the same goddamn looks.
I'm tired of Bush apologists in particular and political apologists in general. The man doesn't know what the truth is and probably wouldn't know it if he choked on it watching football. He wasn't elected to push his own personal agendas, and I'm sick of it. The man is the epitomy of slimy politicians through and through. The fact that good things (like this) occasionally happen as a result of his constant fucking about doesn't excuse the fact that he's a sniveling, manipulative, two-faced liar. At least when Clinton lied about a blow job from a mildly unattractive ditz nobody got killed. Can't say nobody died as a result of this asshole's lies. I don't appreciate that.
The point, I believe, came screaming straight in at your head, then hopped right over it.;)
The mentality among terrorists and terrorist recruits is that it IS ok to violently retaliate against innocent people. That attitude needs to be changed and open dialog needs to be institued. Until people who feel they are being repressed (Python jokes notwithstanding) are given the opportunity to make their cases heard and convinved that discussion is the best way to resolve issues, we can capture all the terrorists we want. For every one we capture or kill, we'll help them recruit 2 more. Fighting is a stopgap necessity. Hopefully we can get rid of the ruling tyrants which will give us the opportunity to install venues for open communication.
That said, I hope that people don't let this divert them from the real objective - Bin Laden. While it's wonderful for the Iraqi people and Iraq's neighbors that this psychotic butcher is captured (I hope - mind you, they haven't completed DNA tests yet), he's not our main objective and he wasn't really much of a threat to us. Now we need to get the guy that really pissed everybody off in the first place - Bin Laden. Let the IRAQI people celebrate this one and be happy for them. The U.S. and it's buddies still have a job to do.
You might sound a bit unreasonable if you insist that a database storing relational data is not a relational database.
You mean like... oh, say, Fabian Pacal, that guy I keep reading?:)
Everything you've said now comes down to the realm of current practical implementations. Yes, Oracle is "pretty close" as is SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and a slew of others, but they're just not there yet. I don't really have a problem with Oracle (excepting price...), SQL Server, or PostgreSQL. In fact, I love PostgreSQL. However, when I hear people arguing for OOP Database architectures or XML Databases, they always try to argue that "relational database management systems just don't meet the needs of the data being modeled in these circumstances" (note, now, we're in the realm of theory). This is total BS. There's no reason you couldn't have an XML data type in a real RDBMS or create a network model of your data within the RDBMS (although, that latter would stupid, you COULD do it). The problem is that vendors aren't offering relational system in the true sense of Codd's works, and when something comes along like XML, people jump up and run around thinking they need to have a new DBMS and yell that the "relation system is dead".
Baloney!
And, since I've already gotten the two original posts modded to Trolls, why not go for a three peat by tossing out a totally opinionated, offtopic statement:)
I'll respond to your three posts here for convenience.
Yes, you're right, of course, on Codd's assertions regarding the NULL. I'm strictly speaking in the sense of SQL, however, and the issues that the current implementations of that messy language and the resultant DMBSs that are raised. Of course, I realize I didn't SAY that, so my apologies for confusing the matter (perhaps I need to add myself to my last journal entry regarding people who type before they think...).
At any rate, back to NULL. It's not that storing unknown values is bad, it's that it's abused. It turns into a catch-all like the eye color issue the AC raised. NULL (in the current SQL sense - perhaps this wouldn't even be an issue if NULLs were treated properly) makes no sense with that issue because the correct eye color for someone without eyes is "none", not NULL. People assume that anything that's not a cozy little tailor-made fit with their views of things can be represented as NULL, which is simply not the case.
That goes back to my other two posts though (that have, apparently, been bitchslapped to Troll) regarding people like Ellison and companies like Oracle that develop systems that claim to be relational because they implement PORTIONS of the Relational Model, and then sell them to people who don't want to bother learning what the Relational Model really is. I may not always agree with Fabian, but I think he and Date are right when they say that a truly relational system would render the whole frenzy over "XML Databases" and "Ob-Relational Databases" and all that other garbage moot and it's a crime that these companies get away with pushing the garbage they do by claiming it's something it's not. If a truly relational system were implemented, it could represent data in the ways that those systems do simply through the proper use of data types and attribute definitions (why, pray tell, could one not simply define and XML datatype in a true RDBMS?). It is a great source of annoyance to me that people will sit and argue with me about the nature of a Relational Database based solely on the fact that a vendor says it's relational. I actually sat and argued with a professor for hours once that Access barely qualifies as a DBMS, much less a relational one. He kept arguing, however, that, because it had "tables" and keys and a handful of data types, it must be relational. I seriously wanted to clobber him with the copy of "Intro to Database Systems" that I had on hand (that's one heavy freakin' book in case you've never held a copy).
BTW - I don't condone the use of a kludgy string unless it's necessary. By necessary I mean "you happen to realize part way through the process that you don't know a value, but you will get it and replace the kludge as quickly as possible". In fact, I don't think ANY kludge like that should ever go to production because it causes problems in app development later on.
You would define it as 'none'. Lack of an eye color is a perfectly valid piece of data. It's not unknown - you know they have no eyes, therefore, they have no eye color: 'none'.
A Null value is one that does not have a value.
I'm not trolling (despite some clueless moderator's beliefs otherwise - I wish mods wouldn't moderate posts on subjects they don't understand...) or trying to belittle you or anything here, I'm just trying to point out that RDBMSs don't really exist and things like stupid NULLs are what's to blame. Oracle, SQL Server, Hell, even my favorite - PostgreSQL, all are to blame for stuffing non-relational tools down peoples' throats while screaming about RDBMs's. Think about how illogical your statement is:
A Null value... does not have a value.
That makes absolutely NO sense. How can a value NOT have a value? A NULL is meant to represent something YOU DON'T KNOW. However, if you regularly find you don't know how to describe something completely, you probably shouldn't be trying to describe it within a relation. If you're occasionally going to have the need to temporarily represent an "unknown" value (perhaps you haven't seen this individual yet to know what eye color they have), why not just use the string 'unknown' as a placeholder? It's logical, it's true, and it signals that it needs to be changed eventually. Simple.
E.F. Codd:In a relational database all data should be represented explicitly and in only one way, as values in tables.
The very IDEA of a "Null value" is not only contradictory to this idea, it's outright silly. You can not represent an "unknown value" in a relational database where "all data should be represented explicitly and in only one way". You can not, logically, represent the "unknown" in only one way. Rather, it's more like saying "this could be anything, but it's only one thing, which is not necessarily the same as all the other one things, that could be anything but might be the same as this one thing".
In other words, it's ridiculous to even use a "Null value". If you don't even know what it is your representing, why are you trying to represent it?
That's only one example that peeves me in particular. Go check out Fabian Pascal's articles and Database Debunkings for a heck of a lot more thorough and eloquent justification on the position than I could rehash here.
When my job description says that I'm supposed to build a RDBMS, I'll do that. Until then, the people like Larry Ellison and his developers that are claiming they build and sell RDBMSs need to get off their lazy duffs and do their jobs right.
Either that or they need to stop claiming that they're building Relational systems. One or the other.
E.F. Codd (recently deceased, actually) developed the Relational Model back in the late 60's while working at IBM. The System R project at IBM was one of several research projects in the early 70's that aimed at implementing a RDBMS (Ingres was the other big one out in Berkeley).
SEQUEL developed out of the System R project as a simplification of the first query language - SQUARE. It further developed to SQL which ANSI bastardized in 1986.
Editorial follows. Generally speaking, sick mutations of that bastardized query language from 1986 are what we have today and are, in fact, the reason that many people mistakenly think that RDBMS's aren't terribly effective anymore (the problem is that SQL is a grotesque kludge that ANSI screwed up to make people happy because those people didn't want to bother learning the basics of the Relational Model and/or the mathematics behind the Relational Theory. It's also this intense stupidity that has prevented us from having a major vendor that actually provides a real RDBMS to this very day. If DBMS people would actually invest a little time in learning about the Relational Model, maybe they'd stop purchasing the crap that Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, etc. keep forcing out and (flamebait here) maybe people would stop installing MySQL and Access and thinking they're going to be good for anything more important than cookie recipes).
Yea, I read Fabian Pascal a little too often, what's your point?
I'm self-centered, yet 2/3 of all your posts so far have revolved around.. who? That's right sunshine - me!
Instead of wasting your time with this thread, why don't you just go use your shiny new Friend/Foe feature that came with your brand-spanking new account to Foe me and STFU?
And, while we're on the subject of blithering idiocy, I won't do anything like point out this whopper of a brilliant post that just so happens to be the only one that you've posted so far that's NOT about me:
One of the guys you'd try to coerce will turn out to be a loon with poor impulse control who will blow away your enforcer and bring your scheme to the attention of the authorities.
Is that a documented fact? I'd love to see your research on the subject. Got a link?
I experience the same/similar issue, particularly when Previewing / Submitting comments. If you hit Preview / Submit, the table of links to the left seems to render across the entire page for some bizarre reason. I've noticed that if you add / delete a couple of useless spaces in the HTML of the comment, it will be more likely to re-render the page properly when you hit Preview again than if you just keep reloading the page.
Oddly, Slashdot is the only place that I have any problems with Firebird (well, except lousy sites that do browser sniffing).
Please see the full response to this post in my journal (well, if you're interested anyway). You can skip the first part of the entry since it's about a completely unrelated post.
Slashdot Mirror
September 9, 1997
The patent is over 6 years old and they're just now bothering to speak up about these "infringing industry standards".
Sounds like an awesome business plan to fall back in case your crappy company starts to flounder because it hasn't done anything useful in years. Keep your mouth shut for more than half a decade until your patented technology becomes an industry standard that everyone uses, then suddenly start launching lawsuits up everyone's asses.
Here, found the actual quote (from Miramax's Rick Sands, conveniently enough):
"In the old days, there used to be a term, 'buying your gross'. You could buy your gross for the weekend and overcome bad word of mouth, because it took time to filter out into the general audience."
Ok - I stand corrected. They weren't saying it should be banned, just being whiny, bitch-ass crybabies because they can't push their crap-ola down peoples' throats as easily as they used to. In fact, now I'm more pissed off because they have a code word for "anally raping the consumer". They call it "buying your gross".
And dude... honestly... if you take anything on Slashdot without a HUGE grain of salt and without backing it up, you have a serious problem and I have a bridge to sell you.
I congratulate you for being smart enough NOT to just believe whatever dredge people post (note, however, that posting unsupported dredge is obviously a good way to reap karma).
Wow. You're absolutely brilliant, I must say.
Look buddy.. I don't know whether to just laugh in your face and waltz off, or skewer your idiotic post where it sits. I think I'll take the high road here and skewer it alive.
So you haven't seen the evidence, but you can make this claim and foraward it as the truth? Which is it jackass.
In other words... any claim is true... until proven FALSE? Seriously man, drop the shrooms, you're about to OD. In case you've been MIA for the last 250 years or so, it's generally accepted that if you make a claim, you need to back it up with evidence. There's this whole big thing in this country based on this premise. It's called the.. uh.. "JUSTICE SYSTEM". Usually works pretty well too.
In case you're having trouble straining that awfully complicated concept back into the original point, I'll do it for you:
The man made a bunch of claims. The man has not provided backup for those claims in the year since they started. I'd say a year to justify your claims is plenty of time, especially since the claims have already been acted upon. Now, I don't know about YOUR fucked up little world, but where the smarter people live, if a person consistently fails to provide backup for their claims, that's pretty good justification for dismissing the claims as unsubstantiated bullshit.
Maybe if you spent a little more time actually thinking about something important instead of coming up with lame insults like "fuckstick" you wouldn't have your foot so far down your throat that you're shitting yourself around it right now.
You know, I saw a story about that somewhere and I didn't know if I should laugh or cry. They (the movie studios) were bitching that people shouldn't be allowed to have text messaging tools like cell-phones and whatnot in movie theaters because people were leaving the Hulk and similarly lame movies and TM'ing their friends not to see it. They would leave the studio and immediately let a dozen people know that the movie was a bonafide peice of Hulking (sorry) crap-a-roo.
The justification for this idiotic "thought" process? Yep, you guessed it! It's cutting into our profits when people TM other people not to go see a movie! Ohhh... boo-frickin-hoo. At what point does the fact that your product is total shit actually kick in around here anymore? I love how these big interests are so conveniently redefining the rules so that they have a right to steal people's money in the name of "profits".
By the way.. if you're wondering what a crap-a-roo is, it's like a kangaroo, only crappier.
By removing these links, he's making it more difficult for people to purchase these films, thereby allowing us to protect our interest in these properties. -- Matthew Hiltzik
Uhhh... what? Sooooo... it's in my best interest to... uh... NOT let people buy my products? Umm... I think I must've missed that econ class.
Direct translation from bullshit PR spin-ese:
By removing these links, he's making it easier for our people to rape consumers when it comes to purchasing our films, thereby allowing us to extort as much money as possible from innocent buyers by locking away legally purchased media. We do all of this under the guise of "protecting our rights" because we, big shitheaded corporate assholes, think that the only right consumers have is the right to give us money.
Bye bye Miramax! I hardly ever go to see movies or buy DVDs now because 1) movies in theatres are way too expensive and 2) I hate fucking around with CSS protectionist bullshit. I'm happy to report that in the rare event that I do plan to buy / go to a movie, I will make sure ahead of time it's not got anything to do with Miramax (and yes, I keep a list of these things).
I doubt there would be any significant implications. Barring detrimental health effects, anyway.
"Aging" is primarily affected by movement through time. Time is slowed down either by an increase in velocity in the first 3 dimensions (i.e. "move around faster") or an increase in gravity. The only effects that this trip would have on aging (again, barring detrimental health effects) would be due to the various changes in gravity and speed the travelers experience. However, the changes would be so miniscule (you have to be traveling a *significant* fraction of the speed of light or greatly increase/decrease gravity to change your own time noticeably) that this would result in an almost immeasurable difference in aging.
Already handed another poster their ass on a plate regarding this. YOU go read the words that are in print. That's a tiny sampling of comments Bush and his administration made on the matter. I merely got tired of quoting them.
Do not just swallow whatever shit dribbles from Howard Dean's ass.
Never said a thing about Howard Dean, don't really like the man, and have no plans to vote for him at the moment. Thanks for the pointless strawman though - just gives me ammo when I point out the fact that you can't respond to the actual issue at hand.
Note especially that he said we cannot wait until the threat is imminent, not that the threat was imminent...
That doesn't mean they weren't lying about the threat level, now does it? You've got a credible report from DoD/CIA/other? Then cough it up or shut up.
I counted 4 unkind suggestions and/or direct references to "leftists", "democrats", and a democratic Presidential contender in your post. Not considering that you're now attacking me personally at this point (which doesn't bother me in the least as I have no qualms personally attacking you annoying apologists myself), I might suggest you re-read my postings where I've bashed two Presidencies spanning both of the major political parties. Guess that pointless drivel doesn't hold water either.
Oh, and regarding Kay's report - so what? Here's a clue - bitchslap those irritating little European crybabies that wanted to coddle Hussien for their petty contracts and root the motherfucking country out with weapons inspectors. Oooooo.... now THERE'S a tough concept. Rather than sending the inspectors off with their tails between their legs, give the bastard a black eye and tell him to open whatever goddamn door he's told to open.
Real tough concept for bloodthirsty nutjobs looking for re-election material, I know.
Keep it coming boys. I can keep ripping you nuts down as fast as you come. Amazingly, all it takes for me to be force fed my own foot is for ONE of you to offer up credible evidence that there were WMDs in Iraq when the war-mongering started or the production of a credible report showing that Iraq was a significantly greater threat than other hostile countries. Lots of conjecture so far, no proof.
As of 12/14/03 21:10 EST, my point STILL stands.
Awesome evidence there, buddy. I'm sure inclined to believe incomplete conclusions drawn from indirect comparisons when stories include quotes like:
"Like, derrrrrr! I mean, what, actually, do you expect?" - Newsmax
and
Another intriguing coincidence... - Newsmax
And of course, "proof that Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks against the US, was trained in Baghdad by Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist." obviously proves everything, right? Yes, of course. We're not drawing more irrelevant conclusions here, are we? Nooooo... not at all! A terrorist IN a country must mean that the country is responsible for what the terrorist does! Yes, of course! It makes sense now! Of course, that means we just implicated ourselves in 9/11 since they LEARNED TO FLY THE FUCKING PLANES IN THE U.S.
As for backing up my claims about the administrations bullshit WMD garbage, I think Dubya's boys and girls can do that for themselves, thank you:
In the case of Saddam Hussein, we've got a dictator who is clearly pursuing and already possesses some of these weapons... - Cheney
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. - Cheney
We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. - Rice
Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons. - Bush
Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. - Bush
The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. - Bush
After eleven years .. Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. - Bush
Iraq could decide on any given day to provide biological or chemical weapons to a terrorist group or to individual terrorists... - Cheney
And, here's a real kick in the nuts for you if you were going to try and tell me that this doesn't prove that's why he started the war:
If Iraq had disarmed itself, gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction over the past 12 years, or over the last several months since (UN Resolution) 1441 was enacted, we would not be facing the crisis that we now have before us. - Powell
And I'll kick you in the nuts about the 2 "mobile factories" that were found before you get a chance to bring them up:
They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were -- facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons. - British Weapons Inspector
Come on then. The Telegraph link and the Newsmax link both draw baseless conclusions on current unknowns and TWP link doesn't really say much of anything the proves there's a connection. It just says that there's potentially new evidence that there was one. Once that new intel has been scrutinized and verified, THEN I'll look. Got any evidence for me NOW, or am I supposed to just infer things from your BS links and pretend that my guesses prove something?
There are posters in this thread who are obviously disappointed that W and the boys captured Saddham. That's sad.
Nice to know. Go pester THEM and leave ME the fuck alone until you have real evidence, not a bunch of opinionated bullshit on new developments. My point stands, as of 12/14/03 at 2:19 P.M. EST, the real reasons for the war in Iraq are as yet unproven claims about terrorist links and Weapons of Mass Destruction. And, I might point out before we get too deep into that, why the fuck is this idiot even TRYING to justify a war AFTER it's over!? I'd say that starting a war without evidence of its necessity is grounds for impeachment, wouldn't you?
And, as usually happens when I post this sort of rant, the response is to a completely different topic.
The point isn't that something good came of the attack on Iraq. I have NO qualms about blowing away nutjobs like Hussien. HOWEVER "freeing the Iraqi people" is not the reason that was originally given, it's just what the asshole is playing up now. The administration subtly drew connections between Saddam and Al Quaeda that DO NOT exist. It lied about a current WMD program. It lied about Iraq being a significant threat to the U.S. It put out garbage like "they could sell their weapons" or "the weapons could be stolen" as if Iraq was a serious threat for this happening. Newsflash people: N. Korea has threatened to nuke portions of the U.S. and has been selling shit to countries like Iran for years. No mention of them anywhere.
The POINT is not WHAT he did, but HOW he did it. He's a liar. He's a sniveling crybaby that can't play nice with anyone else, so he grabs his ball and heads home. Fuck it - I'm tired of him doing this sort of shit. I want to see the 9/11 evidence. I want to see these WMDs. I want to see credible reports that Iraq was a significant threat to the U.S. in early 2003. I want to see credible reports showing how terrorism has been affected since 9/11/01.
I will never see them while Bush is in office. Because they don't exist. They won't exist until another President requests them, because they will prove that GWB is a total... fucking... liar.
Mental giant here....
1) Oh, yes. I forgot that in this New Bush World Order, bombs going off and killing U.S. soldiers in Baghdad is proof of how successful we are. Obviously, then, the fact that there are still plenty of people rushing into terrorism is evidence that we're changing their attitudes.
2) You're an idiot. You can't just rip free speech away from people because you don't want to listen to them. Why the fuck do you think these people are so easily swayed to terrorism? Gee... because NOBODY LISTENS TO THEM OTHERWISE. And whether you act on their demands or not, at least now you're listening when they go about blowing up innocent people, so it must be at least partially effective.
3) Ok, Holmes. Brilliant deduction. We haven't seen him, so he must be dead. He couldn't possibly be hiding or simply evading us. No, he MUST be dead. It doesn't matter that there's no body, people who claim to spot him, and nobody who's stepped up to say he is, in fact, dead. Nope, despite all these things, he MUST be dead.
And, seeing as you're an AC posting totally illogical nonsense, you'll get exactly NO further responses from me. Night!
You know, I'M getting tired of this crap about having to "pick one of the two".
The man is, quite simply, the truest form of a politician.
He's sleazy. We go to war with Afghanistan because Al Quaeda attacked us (let's not mention that we're taking that assertion that it was Al Quaeda on faith since the administration wouldn't share any of the "evidence" it magically had only hours after the attacks). Bin Laden, the psychofuck we're supposed to get, gets away. Solution? Look harder? No. Divert attention to Iraq. Pretend they have a current WMD program (again, present no [truthful] evidence), blow them the fuck up, and then, when you realize your ass is getting handed to you by all the people who want to see this Great Big Threat to America and all these WMDs, start pretending like you started yammering about all this a year ago because you wanted to "liberate" people.
Bull fucking shit. He knows damn well that Hussein is already a villian in everybody's minds and that he can back that up because the man IS a villian. He knows he can whip people into a frenzy every time he passes "ter'rism" through his lips and he can sweep his fuck-ups under the carpet by changing his story later.
You want to know why I hate him more than any recent prez in history? More than lying, two-faced, backstabbing Clinton? Because everytime I cried for evidence when the man started making claims, I got nasty looks from idiots who just wanted to hear that ter'rists were being taken out of their happy little world. When I start pointing out that the man has lied his way into two wars so far and changed the story or conveniently just closed the book halfway through, I get the same goddamn looks.
I'm tired of Bush apologists in particular and political apologists in general. The man doesn't know what the truth is and probably wouldn't know it if he choked on it watching football. He wasn't elected to push his own personal agendas, and I'm sick of it. The man is the epitomy of slimy politicians through and through. The fact that good things (like this) occasionally happen as a result of his constant fucking about doesn't excuse the fact that he's a sniveling, manipulative, two-faced liar. At least when Clinton lied about a blow job from a mildly unattractive ditz nobody got killed. Can't say nobody died as a result of this asshole's lies. I don't appreciate that.
The point, I believe, came screaming straight in at your head, then hopped right over it. ;)
The mentality among terrorists and terrorist recruits is that it IS ok to violently retaliate against innocent people. That attitude needs to be changed and open dialog needs to be institued. Until people who feel they are being repressed (Python jokes notwithstanding) are given the opportunity to make their cases heard and convinved that discussion is the best way to resolve issues, we can capture all the terrorists we want. For every one we capture or kill, we'll help them recruit 2 more. Fighting is a stopgap necessity. Hopefully we can get rid of the ruling tyrants which will give us the opportunity to install venues for open communication.
That said, I hope that people don't let this divert them from the real objective - Bin Laden. While it's wonderful for the Iraqi people and Iraq's neighbors that this psychotic butcher is captured (I hope - mind you, they haven't completed DNA tests yet), he's not our main objective and he wasn't really much of a threat to us. Now we need to get the guy that really pissed everybody off in the first place - Bin Laden. Let the IRAQI people celebrate this one and be happy for them. The U.S. and it's buddies still have a job to do.
You might sound a bit unreasonable if you insist that a database storing relational data is not a relational database.
You mean like... oh, say, Fabian Pacal, that guy I keep reading? :)
Everything you've said now comes down to the realm of current practical implementations. Yes, Oracle is "pretty close" as is SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and a slew of others, but they're just not there yet. I don't really have a problem with Oracle (excepting price...), SQL Server, or PostgreSQL. In fact, I love PostgreSQL. However, when I hear people arguing for OOP Database architectures or XML Databases, they always try to argue that "relational database management systems just don't meet the needs of the data being modeled in these circumstances" (note, now, we're in the realm of theory). This is total BS. There's no reason you couldn't have an XML data type in a real RDBMS or create a network model of your data within the RDBMS (although, that latter would stupid, you COULD do it). The problem is that vendors aren't offering relational system in the true sense of Codd's works, and when something comes along like XML, people jump up and run around thinking they need to have a new DBMS and yell that the "relation system is dead".
Baloney!
And, since I've already gotten the two original posts modded to Trolls, why not go for a three peat by tossing out a totally opinionated, offtopic statement :)
XML is a stupid idea anyway.
I'll respond to your three posts here for convenience.
Yes, you're right, of course, on Codd's assertions regarding the NULL. I'm strictly speaking in the sense of SQL, however, and the issues that the current implementations of that messy language and the resultant DMBSs that are raised. Of course, I realize I didn't SAY that, so my apologies for confusing the matter (perhaps I need to add myself to my last journal entry regarding people who type before they think...).
At any rate, back to NULL. It's not that storing unknown values is bad, it's that it's abused. It turns into a catch-all like the eye color issue the AC raised. NULL (in the current SQL sense - perhaps this wouldn't even be an issue if NULLs were treated properly) makes no sense with that issue because the correct eye color for someone without eyes is "none", not NULL. People assume that anything that's not a cozy little tailor-made fit with their views of things can be represented as NULL, which is simply not the case.
That goes back to my other two posts though (that have, apparently, been bitchslapped to Troll) regarding people like Ellison and companies like Oracle that develop systems that claim to be relational because they implement PORTIONS of the Relational Model, and then sell them to people who don't want to bother learning what the Relational Model really is. I may not always agree with Fabian, but I think he and Date are right when they say that a truly relational system would render the whole frenzy over "XML Databases" and "Ob-Relational Databases" and all that other garbage moot and it's a crime that these companies get away with pushing the garbage they do by claiming it's something it's not. If a truly relational system were implemented, it could represent data in the ways that those systems do simply through the proper use of data types and attribute definitions (why, pray tell, could one not simply define and XML datatype in a true RDBMS?). It is a great source of annoyance to me that people will sit and argue with me about the nature of a Relational Database based solely on the fact that a vendor says it's relational. I actually sat and argued with a professor for hours once that Access barely qualifies as a DBMS, much less a relational one. He kept arguing, however, that, because it had "tables" and keys and a handful of data types, it must be relational. I seriously wanted to clobber him with the copy of "Intro to Database Systems" that I had on hand (that's one heavy freakin' book in case you've never held a copy).
BTW - I don't condone the use of a kludgy string unless it's necessary. By necessary I mean "you happen to realize part way through the process that you don't know a value, but you will get it and replace the kludge as quickly as possible". In fact, I don't think ANY kludge like that should ever go to production because it causes problems in app development later on.
You would define it as 'none'. Lack of an eye color is a perfectly valid piece of data. It's not unknown - you know they have no eyes, therefore, they have no eye color: 'none'.
A Null value is one that does not have a value.
I'm not trolling (despite some clueless moderator's beliefs otherwise - I wish mods wouldn't moderate posts on subjects they don't understand...) or trying to belittle you or anything here, I'm just trying to point out that RDBMSs don't really exist and things like stupid NULLs are what's to blame. Oracle, SQL Server, Hell, even my favorite - PostgreSQL, all are to blame for stuffing non-relational tools down peoples' throats while screaming about RDBMs's. Think about how illogical your statement is:
A Null value ... does not have a value.
That makes absolutely NO sense. How can a value NOT have a value? A NULL is meant to represent something YOU DON'T KNOW. However, if you regularly find you don't know how to describe something completely, you probably shouldn't be trying to describe it within a relation. If you're occasionally going to have the need to temporarily represent an "unknown" value (perhaps you haven't seen this individual yet to know what eye color they have), why not just use the string 'unknown' as a placeholder? It's logical, it's true, and it signals that it needs to be changed eventually. Simple.
E.F. Codd: In a relational database all data should be represented explicitly and in only one way, as values in tables.
The very IDEA of a "Null value" is not only contradictory to this idea, it's outright silly. You can not represent an "unknown value" in a relational database where "all data should be represented explicitly and in only one way". You can not, logically, represent the "unknown" in only one way. Rather, it's more like saying "this could be anything, but it's only one thing, which is not necessarily the same as all the other one things, that could be anything but might be the same as this one thing".
In other words, it's ridiculous to even use a "Null value". If you don't even know what it is your representing, why are you trying to represent it?
That's only one example that peeves me in particular. Go check out Fabian Pascal's articles and Database Debunkings for a heck of a lot more thorough and eloquent justification on the position than I could rehash here.
When my job description says that I'm supposed to build a RDBMS, I'll do that. Until then, the people like Larry Ellison and his developers that are claiming they build and sell RDBMSs need to get off their lazy duffs and do their jobs right.
Either that or they need to stop claiming that they're building Relational systems. One or the other.
E.F. Codd (recently deceased, actually) developed the Relational Model back in the late 60's while working at IBM. The System R project at IBM was one of several research projects in the early 70's that aimed at implementing a RDBMS (Ingres was the other big one out in Berkeley).
SEQUEL developed out of the System R project as a simplification of the first query language - SQUARE. It further developed to SQL which ANSI bastardized in 1986.
Editorial follows. Generally speaking, sick mutations of that bastardized query language from 1986 are what we have today and are, in fact, the reason that many people mistakenly think that RDBMS's aren't terribly effective anymore (the problem is that SQL is a grotesque kludge that ANSI screwed up to make people happy because those people didn't want to bother learning the basics of the Relational Model and/or the mathematics behind the Relational Theory. It's also this intense stupidity that has prevented us from having a major vendor that actually provides a real RDBMS to this very day. If DBMS people would actually invest a little time in learning about the Relational Model, maybe they'd stop purchasing the crap that Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, etc. keep forcing out and (flamebait here) maybe people would stop installing MySQL and Access and thinking they're going to be good for anything more important than cookie recipes).
Yea, I read Fabian Pascal a little too often, what's your point?
I'm self-centered, yet 2/3 of all your posts so far have revolved around.. who? That's right sunshine - me!
Instead of wasting your time with this thread, why don't you just go use your shiny new Friend/Foe feature that came with your brand-spanking new account to Foe me and STFU?
And, while we're on the subject of blithering idiocy, I won't do anything like point out this whopper of a brilliant post that just so happens to be the only one that you've posted so far that's NOT about me:
Oops, looks like your tossing stones from your glass house.
Actually, I think the funniest part is that you're so pathetic that you appear to have actually registered an account just to post that lame "retort".
One of the guys you'd try to coerce will turn out to be a loon with poor impulse control who will blow away your enforcer and bring your scheme to the attention of the authorities.
Is that a documented fact? I'd love to see your research on the subject. Got a link?
And the killjoy says: Unless you're making a Star Wars reference in the middle of a Monty Python joke, I think you mean "newt".
I experience the same/similar issue, particularly when Previewing / Submitting comments. If you hit Preview / Submit, the table of links to the left seems to render across the entire page for some bizarre reason. I've noticed that if you add / delete a couple of useless spaces in the HTML of the comment, it will be more likely to re-render the page properly when you hit Preview again than if you just keep reloading the page.
Oddly, Slashdot is the only place that I have any problems with Firebird (well, except lousy sites that do browser sniffing).
Please see the full response to this post in my journal (well, if you're interested anyway). You can skip the first part of the entry since it's about a completely unrelated post.
The funniest part of that joke is that none of the mods were smart enough to get it.