UCC is not a doctrinaire sect, that's kind of the point. Rev. Wright does not represent the views of the entire UCC. In fact, the UCC supports rights for gays--including gay marriage. They also allow female pastors and support women's abortion rights. Yeah, you can pick out one example showing one crazy UCC pastor, but those are Wright's views, not the positions advocated by the UCC as an organization. Each church is self-governing and may have its own doctrines which could be more or less conservative than the General Synod.
I always find it bizarre when I hear of Protestant Christians acting this way, particularly since one trait all Protestant sects share is the belief that it's faith, not works that get you into heaven. As someone said upthread, it's like they missed the entire point of their belief system. Protestants should theoretically be some of the least judgmental people on Earth, since all you need to get to heaven is belief in Jesus Christ and that he died for our sins.
Instead, they seem to represent many of the worst aspects of organized religion, making Catholics look downright sane.
Maybe Protestants need their own Reformation to help tone down the crazy.
(I say all the above as a current atheist who was raised Protestant, in a United Church of Christ which really did practice tolerance and forgiveness. I find ultraconservative denominations like Baptists to be utterly repugnant.)
Is there some reason you can't just ignore Facebook games? That's what I do. I have it set not to show me any invitations or game-related posts. I've never played a Facebook game and I doubt I ever will.
Always confused by people saying they left Facebook or won't use Facebook because of the games. They're optional, people.
Yup, I was asked as soon as I installed it whether I it to automatically upload photos/videos. I unchecked that. I'll decide what I want to upload, thank you very much.
I deal with legacy code that's 20+ years old, and the most frustrating aspect of it is the lack of documentation. While I can easily figure out what the code is doing, why it's doing it is much less obvious--and without comments to give me some clue as to what this code was meant to accomplish, no original requirements to refer back to, I have no idea if a given module is doing what it should. I can always explain exactly what it does, but that's only half the work. Putting comments in your code doesn't take that long, and it not only ensures you can refresh your memory next time you have to look at it ("Why did I do it this way? Oh yeah!") it also means someone else can maintain your code later, knowing not just what it does but what you intended it to do, and why.
Coders who take a "job security" approach by not documenting are just assholes and frankly they should be fired if they won't document. It's part of the job, take it or leave it.
I wholeheartedly agree with this but I think it deserves some clarification.
Code review isn't and shouldn't be about judging someone's coding style. It is certainly worthwhile to have some company- (or at least project-)wide standards regarding things like interfaces, documentation, and the general structure of your programs, but at a line-by-line level there's no reason to quibble over exactly how someone wrote a specific piece of code unless there is an objectively better way to do it, or there is actually something wrong with it.
I think some developers object to code reviews on the basis that it implies a lack of trust and that it will result in them being told how to code. That is not what it's for. We all make mistakes, and sometimes someone else will know a faster or shorter way to do something, and everyone's code benefits when this knowledge is shared. I have both learned a lot and taught a lot by doing code reviews.
None of this excuses code that is written in a way that's difficult for others to understand or maintain, or code that is not documented.
Even if your code already works, it's very likely someone who reviews your code will know some way you can improve it--to make it faster, more concise, or easier to maintain. It has the added benefit of letting someone else understand your code. There is really no good reason not to do it--the quality implications alone make it worth the cost.
You don't even have to use a different query language. Let's say you have a Web frontend to a database that lets people enter search terms. An obvious avenue for SQL injection, right? Not if you run it with a user that has only permission to SELECT, and not to INSERT or DELETE or anything else.
Some of these things are really not hard to address, just seems a lot of Web developers are pathologically lazy.
For the umpteenth time: Rybka is available for sale on its website. Is that not "distribution" in your world? I swear, nobody reads the articles, the comments, or does even the slightest bit of research here before spouting off.
Google would have to claim they hold some kind of copyright over the contents of the search results, which would definitely not fly in a US court. Search engine results are just arrangements of facts. Since the results contain no original work on Google's part, they can't copyright the results themselves. Same reason the phone book isn't copyrightable. Copyright covers expressions of ideas only, not facts or collections of facts. I think it would be quite a stretch for Google to claim the specific order of the results constitutes a creative work. At best, the code behind the search engine is copyrighted, the algorithms may be patented (or kept as trade secrets), but that's it.
The teaching style used in the referenced episode was one where the teacher provided little direct instruction. What instruction was given was turned into a game, and most of the time the students were left to learn on their own, given access to books and science materials to peruse/experiment with at their leisure. The idea being, I guess, that smart kids are self-motivating and will learn on their own without being forced to sit still and do rote exercises.
Which is a pretty shitty thing to do and I don't understand why Google doesn't immediately de-index sites that do things like that. If you show a spider substantially different content from what a normal user would see, you are deliberately tainting the search results.
Yup. Representative government isn't about being the "best," it's about legitimacy. It ensures that people get the government they want, for better or for worse, rather than having it rammed down their throats with no consent. In the end, a democracy is only as good as its voters make it. Voters being idiots isn't a fault of democracy but of the system that produced such voters.
You're assuming some other OS would have managed to reach the market penetration of Windows, which is certainly not guaranteed. Without Windows' market share, and the fact that Windows only runs on x86 hardware, Intel wouldn't be where they are today.
Supposing Microsoft settled on some other architecture, Intel would probably be making nothing but big iron and embedded chips now.
I think where most (lay) people get confused is that deleting a file doesn't really delete it, it just removes its link from the file system so you can't see it anymore. The data is still there and may get overwritten the next time something is written to disk, but you can't guarantee it and the data could sit around indefinitely. This is pretty straightforward for the/. crowd to grasp (I assume most people here understand at least a little of how file systems work) but it's kind of a mindfuck to tell Joe Blow that "delete" doesn't really mean "delete."
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Good point. I wasn't thinking like a fascist.
It's always a good time for an Alpha Centauri reference. Where's a "thumbs up" emoticon when you need it?
UCC is not a doctrinaire sect, that's kind of the point. Rev. Wright does not represent the views of the entire UCC. In fact, the UCC supports rights for gays--including gay marriage. They also allow female pastors and support women's abortion rights. Yeah, you can pick out one example showing one crazy UCC pastor, but those are Wright's views, not the positions advocated by the UCC as an organization. Each church is self-governing and may have its own doctrines which could be more or less conservative than the General Synod.
Was there something wrong with good old HTTPS? Using ActiveX for encryption... now I have something new to give me nightmares.
I always find it bizarre when I hear of Protestant Christians acting this way, particularly since one trait all Protestant sects share is the belief that it's faith, not works that get you into heaven. As someone said upthread, it's like they missed the entire point of their belief system. Protestants should theoretically be some of the least judgmental people on Earth, since all you need to get to heaven is belief in Jesus Christ and that he died for our sins.
Instead, they seem to represent many of the worst aspects of organized religion, making Catholics look downright sane.
Maybe Protestants need their own Reformation to help tone down the crazy.
(I say all the above as a current atheist who was raised Protestant, in a United Church of Christ which really did practice tolerance and forgiveness. I find ultraconservative denominations like Baptists to be utterly repugnant.)
I would defriend people if they were that obnoxious. Yes, even family members.
(But I never befriend family members on FB to begin with.)
Is there some reason you can't just ignore Facebook games? That's what I do. I have it set not to show me any invitations or game-related posts. I've never played a Facebook game and I doubt I ever will.
Always confused by people saying they left Facebook or won't use Facebook because of the games. They're optional, people.
Yup, I was asked as soon as I installed it whether I it to automatically upload photos/videos. I unchecked that. I'll decide what I want to upload, thank you very much.
I agree with you again. :)
I deal with legacy code that's 20+ years old, and the most frustrating aspect of it is the lack of documentation. While I can easily figure out what the code is doing, why it's doing it is much less obvious--and without comments to give me some clue as to what this code was meant to accomplish, no original requirements to refer back to, I have no idea if a given module is doing what it should. I can always explain exactly what it does, but that's only half the work. Putting comments in your code doesn't take that long, and it not only ensures you can refresh your memory next time you have to look at it ("Why did I do it this way? Oh yeah!") it also means someone else can maintain your code later, knowing not just what it does but what you intended it to do, and why.
Coders who take a "job security" approach by not documenting are just assholes and frankly they should be fired if they won't document. It's part of the job, take it or leave it.
I wholeheartedly agree with this but I think it deserves some clarification.
Code review isn't and shouldn't be about judging someone's coding style. It is certainly worthwhile to have some company- (or at least project-)wide standards regarding things like interfaces, documentation, and the general structure of your programs, but at a line-by-line level there's no reason to quibble over exactly how someone wrote a specific piece of code unless there is an objectively better way to do it, or there is actually something wrong with it.
I think some developers object to code reviews on the basis that it implies a lack of trust and that it will result in them being told how to code. That is not what it's for. We all make mistakes, and sometimes someone else will know a faster or shorter way to do something, and everyone's code benefits when this knowledge is shared. I have both learned a lot and taught a lot by doing code reviews.
None of this excuses code that is written in a way that's difficult for others to understand or maintain, or code that is not documented.
Even if your code already works, it's very likely someone who reviews your code will know some way you can improve it--to make it faster, more concise, or easier to maintain. It has the added benefit of letting someone else understand your code. There is really no good reason not to do it--the quality implications alone make it worth the cost.
Bah! Real programmers use ordinal dates. Today is 2011188.
You don't even have to use a different query language. Let's say you have a Web frontend to a database that lets people enter search terms. An obvious avenue for SQL injection, right? Not if you run it with a user that has only permission to SELECT, and not to INSERT or DELETE or anything else.
Some of these things are really not hard to address, just seems a lot of Web developers are pathologically lazy.
For the umpteenth time: Rybka is available for sale on its website. Is that not "distribution" in your world? I swear, nobody reads the articles, the comments, or does even the slightest bit of research here before spouting off.
Google would have to claim they hold some kind of copyright over the contents of the search results, which would definitely not fly in a US court. Search engine results are just arrangements of facts. Since the results contain no original work on Google's part, they can't copyright the results themselves. Same reason the phone book isn't copyrightable. Copyright covers expressions of ideas only, not facts or collections of facts. I think it would be quite a stretch for Google to claim the specific order of the results constitutes a creative work. At best, the code behind the search engine is copyrighted, the algorithms may be patented (or kept as trade secrets), but that's it.
How is Facebook forcing you to do any of that?
I reject the notion that we must hide any and all information that could be remotely useful to terrorists and criminals.
Might as well take down every site that describes how locks work, how cars are wired, how explosives are made, how to use a gun, etc. etc. etc.
That's where this goes if you start cherry-picking and saying "this information, despite being public knowledge, is not safe."
The vast majority of people do not care enough about their own privacy to make protecting it a viable business model. Sad but true.
The teaching style used in the referenced episode was one where the teacher provided little direct instruction. What instruction was given was turned into a game, and most of the time the students were left to learn on their own, given access to books and science materials to peruse/experiment with at their leisure. The idea being, I guess, that smart kids are self-motivating and will learn on their own without being forced to sit still and do rote exercises.
Which is a pretty shitty thing to do and I don't understand why Google doesn't immediately de-index sites that do things like that. If you show a spider substantially different content from what a normal user would see, you are deliberately tainting the search results.
Same here. For various kinds of recordkeeping I have to "Reply All" many times a day. A lot of people have to be kept in the loop.
FYI, the "unsubscribe" button isn't working and I'm still getting these messages.
Yup. Representative government isn't about being the "best," it's about legitimacy. It ensures that people get the government they want, for better or for worse, rather than having it rammed down their throats with no consent. In the end, a democracy is only as good as its voters make it. Voters being idiots isn't a fault of democracy but of the system that produced such voters.
You're assuming some other OS would have managed to reach the market penetration of Windows, which is certainly not guaranteed. Without Windows' market share, and the fact that Windows only runs on x86 hardware, Intel wouldn't be where they are today.
Supposing Microsoft settled on some other architecture, Intel would probably be making nothing but big iron and embedded chips now.
Yup. It's all about stopping the flow of information. Pretty difficult to organize and coordinate if you can't communicate in real-time.
I think where most (lay) people get confused is that deleting a file doesn't really delete it, it just removes its link from the file system so you can't see it anymore. The data is still there and may get overwritten the next time something is written to disk, but you can't guarantee it and the data could sit around indefinitely. This is pretty straightforward for the /. crowd to grasp (I assume most people here understand at least a little of how file systems work) but it's kind of a mindfuck to tell Joe Blow that "delete" doesn't really mean "delete."