In my current capacity as a magazine editor, after a few thousand manuscripts I came to recogmize I was performing the same series of keystrokes over and over during the dditing process (mostly related to formatting). I now have approximately 12 MS Word macros that perform these taskes with a couple of keystrokes on my part.
I have similar formatting "algorithms" (okay, macros) running under MS Excel that puts text into the correct order, form, and format for integration in Quark for publication.
"Automation" comes in many forms. I spent many years creating automated technology solutions as a consultant d.b.a. A.T.E. Texhnical Services (Automated Test Equipment). I find it most gratifying and valuable that the same thought processes, evaluation points, and implementations that served so well in that capacity translate well into other less "techy" areas.
It was more of a "menacing crowd" and a "stern talking-to" rather than an ass-whipping. But the potential was definitely there. I think the reason it didn't devolve into that was that a security guard showed up.
Odd. The more "sophisticated" programming languages have this problem, but old, "simple" stuff like BASIC generates an error and halts execution (or enters an error-handling routine) when an array overflow occurs.
I worked for a couple of decades as a consultant to design and implement solutions of exactly this type.
In one case, a computer manufacturer was functionally testing motehrboards on the bench, employing dozens of technicians. For each board tested, setup and teardown (plugging in/unplugging power supplies, drive cables, keyboard, monitor, etc.) was about 7 minutes per board, test time about 3 minutes, total 10 minutes per board.
I designed an interface utilizing "pogo pins," a.k.a. "bed of nails" in a vacuum actuated interface adaptor to connect all the peripherals, effectively redicing setup/teardown to zero, plus eliminating the wear-and-tear on connectors, both on the motherboards and the peripheral cables. Tes t time went from 10 to 3 minutes per board.
You can see what this did for throughput, plus 1 person/test station could now do the same work in the same time as previously required 3 people.
Needless to say, I was a hero--and invoiced accordingly.
1. Natural space material (no man-made) 2. Visible with naked eye from surface of orbited plant 3. Interesting enough that people will pay to have it named for them 4. Profit!
Okay, 3 & 4 are lame, but if you get past the difficulty of determining visibility from the orbited plant, 1 & 2 seem reasonable.
OTOH, a simpler formula, such as minimum percentage of size relative to the orbited planet (10 percent?) would be more managable.
Perhaps I am guilty of underexplaining. I wrote, " there are not octopus in Texas coastal waters." Perhaps I should have added there are octopus in the deeper waters *off* the Texas coast (continental shelf), but no one crabs at that depth. Crabbing done in in the near-shore bays and estuaries.
And I did not intimate (at least not deliberately) that the other items you cite are not problems, just that the original article's reference to "ghost nets" was similar to the "ghost traps."
I developed an interest in electronics from watching ST TOS. One of the first circuits I designed was to sound a piezo beeper in the cadence of the Enterprise computer. *beep-beep-beep*
The reason Comcast can't get off the blacklists (they were on 22 of them last I checked) is because they *continue to allow spam to proliferate unchecked*.
It's a bit like getting on your buddy's shitlist for denting his car, saying, "Oh, I'm sorry, won't happen again," then hitting his fender with a hammer. Lather, rinse, repeat....
There are not octopus in Texas coastal waters where crabbing is done. And the money for the cleanup is minimal, only what it costs to have game wardens et al oversee the activities. The actual cleaners are volunteers.
"Eventually either the traps fill up or other animals start eating the crabs and getting out."
It doesn't work that way. The only other "anaimals" that eat the crabs are other crabs and small fishes, because (a) only other ceabs can enter the small openings in the traps, and (b) othe crabs have the hardware for breaking into the trapped cran's shells. Small fishes can feed through natural orifices in the shells and are small enough to dwim through the mesh of the wire traps.
The traps do not fill up because the combination of breaking up the shells, feeding on the fragments by small toothy fishes and other crustaceans, and natural deterioration keep the traps cleaned out.
Besides, don't you think fisheries scientists would have researched this sufficiently to identify it as a problem severe enough to justify an annul cleanup of the traps?
FTA: "'One piece of driftnet that was still stretched out, and presumably still fishing, was 200-300 meters (650-975 feet) long,' Churnside said."
The article links to a NOAA article, "Ghost Fishing."
This is similar to the "ghost traps" crab trapproblem. Crabs enter abandoned crab traps. The crabs die. More crabs enter the traps to feed on the dead ones, then they die. An endless cycle.
The Texas Parks & Wildlife Department has an annual Crab Trap Cleanup Day. Notices are sent out, and any crab traps still in the water during the cleanup day(s) are considered abandoned. Volunteers annually collect somewhere around 2000 traps from Texas coastal waters.
As I posted to another comment, of the spam that winds up in my filtered folder, on any given day 50-70 percent comes from a Comcast IP address. SpamCop lists Comcast as the biggest source of spam, period.
If enough Comcast customers would either switch and tell Comcast why or complain about them not locking down there servers (most are configured as open proxies), them maybe Comcast would get off their greeedy asses and do something about it.
Of the spam that winds up in my filtered folder, on any given day 50-70 percent comes from a Comcast IP address.
If enough Comcast customers would either switch and tell Comcast why or complain about them not locking down there servers (most are configured as open proxies), them maybe Comcast would get off their greeedy asses and do something about it.
Slashdot Mirror
"I hope someone will start a 'fork' so that we can all move over."
They did. http://www.technocrat.net/
Jeez. Makes one wonder what management was smoking to make them resistant to improved productivity.
And I identify with the "greybeard" reference.
In my current capacity as a magazine editor, after a few thousand manuscripts I came to recogmize I was performing the same series of keystrokes over and over during the dditing process (mostly related to formatting). I now have approximately 12 MS Word macros that perform these taskes with a couple of keystrokes on my part.
I have similar formatting "algorithms" (okay, macros) running under MS Excel that puts text into the correct order, form, and format for integration in Quark for publication.
"Automation" comes in many forms. I spent many years creating automated technology solutions as a consultant d.b.a. A.T.E. Texhnical Services (Automated Test Equipment). I find it most gratifying and valuable that the same thought processes, evaluation points, and implementations that served so well in that capacity translate well into other less "techy" areas.
It was more of a "menacing crowd" and a "stern talking-to" rather than an ass-whipping. But the potential was definitely there. I think the reason it didn't devolve into that was that a security guard showed up.
"And then got your ass kicked in the parking lot by the two guys who just lost their jobs!"
Give this man a +10 Clairvoyant!
Okay, maybe +1 Funny, but the fact is, he ain't far from wrong, and it was more like 17.
"It's something that we "just have to live with", and should take into consideration when writing software."
The "take into consideration" bit is what separates real programmers from hacks.
I really do wish someone had modded you funny. Best line in the whole thread, IMNSHO.
Boss design?
Odd. The more "sophisticated" programming languages have this problem, but old, "simple" stuff like BASIC generates an error and halts execution (or enters an error-handling routine) when an array overflow occurs.
"Progress," a curious thing, indeed.
Embodiment of the principle: Work smarter, not harder.
I worked for a couple of decades as a consultant to design and implement solutions of exactly this type.
In one case, a computer manufacturer was functionally testing motehrboards on the bench, employing dozens of technicians. For each board tested, setup and teardown (plugging in/unplugging power supplies, drive cables, keyboard, monitor, etc.) was about 7 minutes per board, test time about 3 minutes, total 10 minutes per board.
I designed an interface utilizing "pogo pins," a.k.a. "bed of nails" in a vacuum actuated interface adaptor to connect all the peripherals, effectively redicing setup/teardown to zero, plus eliminating the wear-and-tear on connectors, both on the motherboards and the peripheral cables. Tes t time went from 10 to 3 minutes per board.
You can see what this did for throughput, plus 1 person/test station could now do the same work in the same time as previously required 3 people.
Needless to say, I was a hero--and invoiced accordingly.
So, if we colonize Earth's moon, then what?
Besides, some of the races encountered by assort ST crews lived on moons of larger planets, so there is anecdotal precedent.
Rules (arbitrary) for defining moon:
1. Natural space material (no man-made)
2. Visible with naked eye from surface of orbited plant
3. Interesting enough that people will pay to have it named for them
4. Profit!
Okay, 3 & 4 are lame, but if you get past the difficulty of determining visibility from the orbited plant, 1 & 2 seem reasonable.
OTOH, a simpler formula, such as minimum percentage of size relative to the orbited planet (10 percent?) would be more managable.
Perhaps I am guilty of underexplaining. I wrote, " there are not octopus in Texas coastal waters." Perhaps I should have added there are octopus in the deeper waters *off* the Texas coast (continental shelf), but no one crabs at that depth. Crabbing done in in the near-shore bays and estuaries.
And I did not intimate (at least not deliberately) that the other items you cite are not problems, just that the original article's reference to "ghost nets" was similar to the "ghost traps."
...or the one.
I developed an interest in electronics from watching ST TOS. One of the first circuits I designed was to sound a piezo beeper in the cadence of the Enterprise computer. *beep-beep-beep*
The reason Comcast can't get off the blacklists (they were on 22 of them last I checked) is because they *continue to allow spam to proliferate unchecked*.
It's a bit like getting on your buddy's shitlist for denting his car, saying, "Oh, I'm sorry, won't happen again," then hitting his fender with a hammer. Lather, rinse, repeat....
"But I still wonder what this has that water does not? "
Density?
There are not octopus in Texas coastal waters where crabbing is done. And the money for the cleanup is minimal, only what it costs to have game wardens et al oversee the activities. The actual cleaners are volunteers.
"Eventually either the traps fill up or other animals start eating the crabs and getting out."
It doesn't work that way. The only other "anaimals" that eat the crabs are other crabs and small fishes, because (a) only other ceabs can enter the small openings in the traps, and (b) othe crabs have the hardware for breaking into the trapped cran's shells. Small fishes can feed through natural orifices in the shells and are small enough to dwim through the mesh of the wire traps.
The traps do not fill up because the combination of breaking up the shells, feeding on the fragments by small toothy fishes and other crustaceans, and natural deterioration keep the traps cleaned out.
Besides, don't you think fisheries scientists would have researched this sufficiently to identify it as a problem severe enough to justify an annul cleanup of the traps?
Strike 3: clueless or sycophant judge
I hope somebody mods the parent Funny. It deserves it.
Actually, I wish we had a +5 Hilarious.
Best laugh today!
FTA: "'One piece of driftnet that was still stretched out, and presumably still fishing, was 200-300 meters (650-975 feet) long,' Churnside said."
The article links to a NOAA article, "Ghost Fishing."
This is similar to the "ghost traps" crab trapproblem. Crabs enter abandoned crab traps. The crabs die. More crabs enter the traps to feed on the dead ones, then they die. An endless cycle.
The Texas Parks & Wildlife Department has an annual Crab Trap Cleanup Day. Notices are sent out, and any crab traps still in the water during the cleanup day(s) are considered abandoned. Volunteers annually collect somewhere around 2000 traps from Texas coastal waters.
The problem is Comcast, not AOL.
As I posted to another comment, of the spam that winds up in my filtered folder, on any given day 50-70 percent comes from a Comcast IP address. SpamCop lists Comcast as the biggest source of spam, period.
If enough Comcast customers would either switch and tell Comcast why or complain about them not locking down there servers (most are configured as open proxies), them maybe Comcast would get off their greeedy asses and do something about it.
Blame Comcast, not AOL.
"Aparently b/c they block all comcast email."
There is a reason for that.
Of the spam that winds up in my filtered folder, on any given day 50-70 percent comes from a Comcast IP address.
If enough Comcast customers would either switch and tell Comcast why or complain about them not locking down there servers (most are configured as open proxies), them maybe Comcast would get off their greeedy asses and do something about it.
Blame Comcast, not AOL.