I've coded PHP for a living and never had problems reusing code with minor changes such as altering parameters in functions and the like.
That's not actually "reusability", that's copy-paste-edit coding, which is a reusability nightmare. As soon as you have slightly altered versions of of same code, and then you find a bug in that code, you'll have hard time fixing the bug in all the places. Or if you don't plan to do that, then you'll have hard time remembering which instances of this code has the bug fixed and can be further copied, and which shouldn't be copied since they still contain the bug. If it doesn't sound like a big issue, then multiply that by a hundred snippets of copy-paste-edit code, and a few generations of bugs...
Version-controlled copy-paste-edit code snippet library certainly can have it's uses, and it can make small things easy, but it isn't real re-usability.
1.) It takes energy to get the barges into position.
Compared to all the shipping activity happening all over the northern Atlantic, this would be totally negligible amount of energy. After all, they could be anchored once in position so no energy needed to stay in the correct spot.
2.) It takes energy to pump water.
Again, probably a negligible amount in the grand scheme of things. Consider for example anchoring and then tapping the energy of the Golf stream and/or wind and/or solar energy. Or if all those can't be worked out, there's the option of using nuclear power, a proven off-the-shelf technlogy for ice breakers, aircraft carriers and submarines.
3.) The barges would be reflecting or absorbing sunlight that would otherwise be absorbed by the sea, and used by gazillions of planktons and other micro-organisms in the food chain.
Just how big you think the barges are? Imagine that each barge is really huge, say 0,1 square *kilometers*. That's 800 square kilometers total. Now compare this to the area of norther Atlantic (millions of square kilometers).
4.) It's stupid.
Well, you might have something here anyway;-)
But IMHO it's stupid because of the cost, and because we really have no idea how it would *really* affect the entire water circulation, if there would be some drastic side effects etc.
Then again, if things start to get desperate, it might be cheap... Consider the cost of average temperatures in Central Europe dropping 5 degrees because of the Golf stream turning south...
Wrong idea IMHO, something which can't be sold to the masses. A social change to a *different* standard of living is needed. Initially it may be lower for some, but stuff like balanced birth rate pretty much requires a high standard of living.
Of course this requires a shift in thinking (at least for some people), that standard of living is not really equal to, or even related to the total value of cars owned...:-)
Dont those in the third world need reliable power and healthcare before they worry about setting up a TV and cell phone to check their email?
It's not that simple, things go hand in hand. Reliable power and modern healthcare depend on communication and IT infrastructure. And at this age, there's no point in installing telephone lines all over the place, like was done in the "1st world" earlier. It's better to go directly to mobile networks, since it's far cheaper. And there's no reason to limit oneself to oral communication when email is so much better for some purposes. So going to email communication and mobile networks won't delay healthcare or stuff like that, on the contrary something like that is required for it to happen.
especially that RIGHT NOW, they need all the positive press they could get.
Indeed... Only redeeming factor for Sony after the rootkit fiasco was that they had some cool stuff. Now they scrapped the coolest of the cool stuff. Oh well, now I don't even have to think about buying any Sony stuff for years.
Even if you're kidding, there are still too many knumbnills out there that think the ozone layer depletion from CFC use is contributing to global warming, when it's a buildup of greenhouse gasses that does it.
Though note that CFCs are strong greenhouse gasses too...
I'm so sick of this bullshit. Stop blaming companies for trying to protect their interests.
I don't think he means to blame companies for trying to protect company interests. He blames companies for hurting his own interests, and I think he has not only the right, but *obligation* (as a member of a supposedly democratic society) to do so.
So, what's so evil about Disney again? I mean, other than the whole no-pants thing corrupting minds of youngsters, and the various "Donald Duck"-parties that have been inspired by this...
I guess I could google for the evilness of Disney, but you should never trust the Internet so I'd rather read about it here on peer-reviewed slashdot.
I'd imagine there's a real risk of the rocket actually breaking up because of the wind, or not just moving sideways but actually tilting ie changing direction. And the rocket is already close to it's limits, there aren't too big margins on structural strength or amount of fuel on rockets, as every extra gram on rocket structure is one gram away from payloal.
"(a) by "public transporation" you mean something that picks up lots of people at point A at x o'clock and delivers them to point B at y o'clock. Problem is, of course, I neither live at point A, nor work at point B. Nor do I typically want to leave my house at x or arrive at y."
Then public transportation is not for you. However, then you should not complain about driving a car being boring. There's limited amount of space for roads etc, so either you put up with annoyances of being dependant on a car, or you arrange your life so that you don't have to suffer those annoyances. Ok, to be fair, you didn't really complain in your previous post, so no offence meant.
"The inevitable result is an absurd waste of my time in transportation that is a far more convoluted than it needs to be. And for what purpose? What is the benefit for which I should bear this invisible tax on my labor?"
Indeed. So instead, you choose to sit in a car doing nothing useful, just watching the tail lights of the car in front of you. Your choice... Mind you, I'm not critizing your choice, car is my choice too, because I get a nasty headache that lasts until lunch if I read (or play games on my phone or anything like that) in a bus... So I go to work in a car (10 minutes) instead of a bus (20 minutes). If only I could read the morning newspaper or a book while in a bus, I'd be more than happy to take it.
But the purpose of using public transportation generally should be (for the individual person) *saving* personal time, being able to do something useful instead of wasting time behind the wheel, so you've got that a bit backwards. Also, if things get ugly with parking, introducing a public transportation might actually *save* total travel time (doesn't apply if you have your own parking spots at both ends of the journey, but how big % of rush hour commuters have that?).
Most days, I'd much rather just slide into the seat, tell the car "To the office, Bud, and don't spare the horses" -- then sit back and read, catch some more Z's, or jack in to some mobile wireless Internet connection and read the headlines while sipping coffee.
That's called "a decent public transportation"... Of course not every place has a decent public transportation, in which case I'd suggest moving somewhere where they have it. Or somewhere where it only takes 10 minutes to drive to work, that's a good alternative too.
yeah, thats going to be real popular, untill there is a sensor malfunction and you take out the little old lady in the pinto stationwagon. Those would have to be out for a few years before, and open source, before Id even begin to trust them. You're not supposed *trust* any kind of automatic braking. You're supposed to make sure automatic braking doesn't ever need to do emergency braking, much like you're supposed to make sure that seat belts and air bags never need to save your life, yet lives are saved by those all the time.
I agree that it's an old, stupid joke, but how is it anti-Australian? It's just a joke about a country, and they're all like that, aren't they... I thought Australians are more like proud of the "criminal history" of their country, not ashamed of it, but I could be wrong here.
Nah, too small display. A bit wider screen (just 5mm would make the difference), a bit less thick, a bit shorter, about that weight, with good and fast UI. Probably would have to be a clam shell model to be able to fit both decent keyboard and decent display, but then those are still too thick for my taste at the moment.
No, the technology isn't quite there yet. Maybe in a year or so...
If they had WAP support, then I'd be immediately interested... Oh well, maybe soon they'll be selling HTML-capable phones that are small enough for my pocket and I'll upgrade...
Social Engineering can get around any encryption or local software security. If a person can get to the restricted machine, chances are they also got all the information they need to access the system.
"...and Sony is the only organisation that has all three bits of the value chain together."
Yeah, and the three bits are: - protecting user from unlawful access to digital content - improving customers' stored digital media (eg MP3 files on PC hard disk) - enabling automatic installation of useful software by third parties
They just need to verify that you do have a credit card. If you don't, you're not going to make them any money, so might as well not waste their server resources on you. Wether they make their money from you buying stuff with your credit card, or from selling your verified personal details to organized crime (including the government), well... Nah, they wouldn't, would they?
It is stupid if it loses Linksys sales to competitors that have models with better specs for almost the same price or only marginally more expensive.
Indeed. But the question is, how many of their customers actually even realize that their router has some RAM and an operating system inside the physical device? If they sell 5 million units at $5 profit margin per unit, it's $1000000 better than selling 6 million units at $4 profit margin.
And in this specific case I do believe that the increased profit far outweighs any lost sales. Of course I'm not an economist, so that's just a gut feeling.
"And yes, they crippled the hardware (halved the RAM) so that third-party firmware can not be installed anymore."
Uh... Saving on components after replacing the OS with something that doesn't need as much memory is hardly "crippling". Hinting that they should have more RAM than they need is a bit... detached from harsh business reality.
I would not call Europe communist in general. I would not call Europe communist at all, not even current Eastern Europe. If you knew what the actual real totalitarian communism was (and unfortunately still is in some corners of the World), you wouldn't even make the comparison.
BB needs inflation to get information from each bit of the universe to all the others faster than light, so that future generations can be provided that all-important (nearly!) uniform cosmic background radiation
I've never quite grasped *why* this is needed. I mean, think about two persons at the opposite sides of the Earth throwing a regular coin a thousand times. It can even be a different coin, and still you'd expect them to get about same distribution of heads and tails, without any information exchange between them.
So why is it so important to have "information exchange" to get even background radiation, then?
Slashdot Mirror
I've coded PHP for a living and never had problems reusing code with minor changes such as altering parameters in functions and the like.
That's not actually "reusability", that's copy-paste-edit coding, which is a reusability nightmare. As soon as you have slightly altered versions of of same code, and then you find a bug in that code, you'll have hard time fixing the bug in all the places. Or if you don't plan to do that, then you'll have hard time remembering which instances of this code has the bug fixed and can be further copied, and which shouldn't be copied since they still contain the bug. If it doesn't sound like a big issue, then multiply that by a hundred snippets of copy-paste-edit code, and a few generations of bugs...
Version-controlled copy-paste-edit code snippet library certainly can have it's uses, and it can make small things easy, but it isn't real re-usability.
1.) It takes energy to get the barges into position.
;-)
Compared to all the shipping activity happening all over the northern Atlantic, this would be totally negligible amount of energy. After all, they could be anchored once in position so no energy needed to stay in the correct spot.
2.) It takes energy to pump water.
Again, probably a negligible amount in the grand scheme of things. Consider for example anchoring and then tapping the energy of the Golf stream and/or wind and/or solar energy. Or if all those can't be worked out, there's the option of using nuclear power, a proven off-the-shelf technlogy for ice breakers, aircraft carriers and submarines.
3.) The barges would be reflecting or absorbing sunlight that would otherwise be absorbed by the sea, and used by gazillions of planktons and other micro-organisms in the food chain.
Just how big you think the barges are? Imagine that each barge is really huge, say 0,1 square *kilometers*. That's 800 square kilometers total. Now compare this to the area of norther Atlantic (millions of square kilometers).
4.) It's stupid.
Well, you might have something here anyway
But IMHO it's stupid because of the cost, and because we really have no idea how it would *really* affect the entire water circulation, if there would be some drastic side effects etc.
Then again, if things start to get desperate, it might be cheap... Consider the cost of average temperatures in Central Europe dropping 5 degrees because of the Golf stream turning south...
a social change to a lower standard of living
:-)
Wrong idea IMHO, something which can't be sold to the masses. A social change to a *different* standard of living is needed. Initially it may be lower for some, but stuff like balanced birth rate pretty much requires a high standard of living.
Of course this requires a shift in thinking (at least for some people), that standard of living is not really equal to, or even related to the total value of cars owned...
From TFA: 'I wonder if some Photoshop fans just haven't looked at GIMP's upcoming 2.4 update.'
Gee, I wonder that too... I mean, everybody should just look at upcoming updates of all software they're not using... Stupid Photoshop fans.
Dont those in the third world need reliable power and healthcare before they worry about setting up a TV and cell phone to check their email?
It's not that simple, things go hand in hand. Reliable power and modern healthcare depend on communication and IT infrastructure. And at this age, there's no point in installing telephone lines all over the place, like was done in the "1st world" earlier. It's better to go directly to mobile networks, since it's far cheaper. And there's no reason to limit oneself to oral communication when email is so much better for some purposes. So going to email communication and mobile networks won't delay healthcare or stuff like that, on the contrary something like that is required for it to happen.
especially that RIGHT NOW, they need all the positive press they could get.
Indeed... Only redeeming factor for Sony after the rootkit fiasco was that they had some cool stuff. Now they scrapped the coolest of the cool stuff. Oh well, now I don't even have to think about buying any Sony stuff for years.
That dog (so to speak) was practically an unofficial mascot to Sony and Japan to foreigners...
Well, there's still Honda's Asimo...
Even if you're kidding, there are still too many knumbnills out there that think the ozone layer depletion from CFC use is contributing to global warming, when it's a buildup of greenhouse gasses that does it.
Though note that CFCs are strong greenhouse gasses too...
I'm so sick of this bullshit. Stop blaming companies for trying to protect their interests.
I don't think he means to blame companies for trying to protect company interests. He blames companies for hurting his own interests, and I think he has not only the right, but *obligation* (as a member of a supposedly democratic society) to do so.
So, what's so evil about Disney again? I mean, other than the whole no-pants thing corrupting minds of youngsters, and the various "Donald Duck"-parties that have been inspired by this...
I guess I could google for the evilness of Disney, but you should never trust the Internet so I'd rather read about it here on peer-reviewed slashdot.
I'd imagine there's a real risk of the rocket actually breaking up because of the wind, or not just moving sideways but actually tilting ie changing direction. And the rocket is already close to it's limits, there aren't too big margins on structural strength or amount of fuel on rockets, as every extra gram on rocket structure is one gram away from payloal.
"(a) by "public transporation" you mean something that picks up lots of people at point A at x o'clock and delivers them to point B at y o'clock. Problem is, of course, I neither live at point A, nor work at point B. Nor do I typically want to leave my house at x or arrive at y."
Then public transportation is not for you. However, then you should not complain about driving a car being boring. There's limited amount of space for roads etc, so either you put up with annoyances of being dependant on a car, or you arrange your life so that you don't have to suffer those annoyances. Ok, to be fair, you didn't really complain in your previous post, so no offence meant.
"The inevitable result is an absurd waste of my time in transportation that is a far more convoluted than it needs to be. And for what purpose? What is the benefit for which I should bear this invisible tax on my labor?"
Indeed. So instead, you choose to sit in a car doing nothing useful, just watching the tail lights of the car in front of you. Your choice... Mind you, I'm not critizing your choice, car is my choice too, because I get a nasty headache that lasts until lunch if I read (or play games on my phone or anything like that) in a bus... So I go to work in a car (10 minutes) instead of a bus (20 minutes). If only I could read the morning newspaper or a book while in a bus, I'd be more than happy to take it.
But the purpose of using public transportation generally should be (for the individual person) *saving* personal time, being able to do something useful instead of wasting time behind the wheel, so you've got that a bit backwards. Also, if things get ugly with parking, introducing a public transportation might actually *save* total travel time (doesn't apply if you have your own parking spots at both ends of the journey, but how big % of rush hour commuters have that?).
Most days, I'd much rather just slide into the seat, tell the car "To the office, Bud, and don't spare the horses" -- then sit back and read, catch some more Z's, or jack in to some mobile wireless Internet connection and read the headlines while sipping coffee.
That's called "a decent public transportation"... Of course not every place has a decent public transportation, in which case I'd suggest moving somewhere where they have it. Or somewhere where it only takes 10 minutes to drive to work, that's a good alternative too.
yeah, thats going to be real popular, untill there is a sensor malfunction and you take out the little old lady in the pinto stationwagon. Those would have to be out for a few years before, and open source, before Id even begin to trust them.
You're not supposed *trust* any kind of automatic braking. You're supposed to make sure automatic braking doesn't ever need to do emergency braking, much like you're supposed to make sure that seat belts and air bags never need to save your life, yet lives are saved by those all the time.
I agree that it's an old, stupid joke, but how is it anti-Australian? It's just a joke about a country, and they're all like that, aren't they... I thought Australians are more like proud of the "criminal history" of their country, not ashamed of it, but I could be wrong here.
Well, I guess it requires XHTML support, and older WAP phones only do WML.
Nah, too small display. A bit wider screen (just 5mm would make the difference), a bit less thick, a bit shorter, about that weight, with good and fast UI. Probably would have to be a clam shell model to be able to fit both decent keyboard and decent display, but then those are still too thick for my taste at the moment.
No, the technology isn't quite there yet. Maybe in a year or so...
If they had WAP support, then I'd be immediately interested... Oh well, maybe soon they'll be selling HTML-capable phones that are small enough for my pocket and I'll upgrade...
Social Engineering can get around any encryption or local software security. If a person can get to the restricted machine, chances are they also got all the information they need to access the system.
Also don't forget lead pipe cryptography...
"...and Sony is the only organisation that has all three bits of the value chain together."
Yeah, and the three bits are:
- protecting user from unlawful access to digital content
- improving customers' stored digital media (eg MP3 files on PC hard disk)
- enabling automatic installation of useful software by third parties
They just need to verify that you do have a credit card. If you don't, you're not going to make them any money, so might as well not waste their server resources on you. Wether they make their money from you buying stuff with your credit card, or from selling your verified personal details to organized crime (including the government), well... Nah, they wouldn't, would they?
It is stupid if it loses Linksys sales to competitors that have models with better specs for almost the same price or only marginally more expensive.
Indeed. But the question is, how many of their customers actually even realize that their router has some RAM and an operating system inside the physical device? If they sell 5 million units at $5 profit margin per unit, it's $1000000 better than selling 6 million units at $4 profit margin.
And in this specific case I do believe that the increased profit far outweighs any lost sales. Of course I'm not an economist, so that's just a gut feeling.
"And yes, they crippled the hardware (halved the RAM) so that third-party firmware can not be installed anymore."
Uh... Saving on components after replacing the OS with something that doesn't need as much memory is hardly "crippling". Hinting that they should have more RAM than they need is a bit... detached from harsh business reality.
I would not call Europe communist in general.
I would not call Europe communist at all, not even current Eastern Europe. If you knew what the actual real totalitarian communism was (and unfortunately still is in some corners of the World), you wouldn't even make the comparison.
I've never quite grasped *why* this is needed. I mean, think about two persons at the opposite sides of the Earth throwing a regular coin a thousand times. It can even be a different coin, and still you'd expect them to get about same distribution of heads and tails, without any information exchange between them.
So why is it so important to have "information exchange" to get even background radiation, then?