> Perl isn't meant to be simple, it's meant to be expressive.
I can express myself by writing a comment, or I can run down the middle of my town naked with peanut butter smeared all over me while shouting gibberish.
Perhaps it was momentary insanity, but I expected the syntax of Perl 6 to be more readable and less obstuse. Looking through the Perl 6 advent calendar, I noticed that, somehow, the people working on Perl 6 seem to have made it even worse.
Perl will always be the ugliest language in the world.
A product that stops electrical fires, you say? Well if you want big companies to buy it, then all you have to do is "think of the children." Get politicians at the local or national level to pass laws and regulations that require electrical products to have your kind of product. And then, gasp, look at what is in the market - your product.
Crony capitalism at its best. It's amoral and filthy, but it works.
I have experience with Alienware. I bought two systems through them, a desktop and a laptop, about 6 and 3 years ago, respectively.
There is a premium to be paid for their machines. That comes in the form of someone else putting all the right pieces together, letting it run a few days to make sure everything works, and shipping it in some cool looking cases. If something is wrong you send it back and they don't really give you any trouble.
They're solid machines, well built, and performance is quite good. For someone who wants a machine that "just works" without having to spend days putting pieces together and finding the best deals, it's really not a bad option. I would recommend CyberPowerPC over Alienware these days - they're less expensive for comparable hardware.
Also, unlike what the poster above mentions, Alienware does not load a bunch of crapware onto their systems. They usually have Steam preloaded, an application to control their lighting effects, whatever control software the video card comes with, and very little else. They're quite clean. You can get some extra stuff preloaded (like McAffe, for example) but it's all optional at the time you order the system.
That said: You WILL get more hardware for your money if you build yourself. No doubt about it. These days I just view my computer like I do my car: It runs and does what I want it to do when I turn the key. I don't really need to know, or even care, who made the engine or what material the brake pads are made out of as long as it goes vrooom.
Phones with no way to replace the battery? Gosh, your battery is dead, you have to buy a whole new device.
The video card on your lap top is flakey? What a shame, time to buy an entirely new machine.
Your provider won't update the official version of Android (or whatever) on your device? Well it's really hard to do, I guess if you want that new version you better buy a new device, or figure out how to jailbreak the old one and pray you don't brick the thing.
I also highly recommend Moba XTerm, at least if your main machine is Windows.
A brief selection of features:
* Tabs. Yes, tabs! After years of using Putty, tabs are amazing. * Integrated X11 server. No having to fuss with Cygwin and all that; it just works and automatically does the forwarding for you. * Local *NIX functionality, again, without having to deal with Cygwin manually. * Free (as in beer). * Also supports VNC, RDP, (S)FTP. * Mirroring of input to multiple sessions.
It's a great little piece of software. Never had any reliability issues. I use it daily.
I work for a company with about 250 employees, and it is rare that I work more than 45 hours a week. Our managers will tell people, "Go home, you've worked enough today," and when you go on vacation, "Don't check your mail or anything, you're on vacation, the rest of us are here and can handle any emergencies while you're gone."
My company has a TON of problems: Product owners make promises to clients we can't keep, our release process changes from product to product, logging is inadequate at best, requirements are often vague, and we have to deal with way too many terrible contractors from India, but unless there is a major emergency at least you won't be overworked.
I had an Ouya console. It was inexpensive, had support for four wireless controllers, and was easy to use.
The biggest problem was a lack of good content at launch. A vast majority of the content was cheap, buggy, and not entertaining. The Ouya folks let anyone throw crap up into the system, it seemed. It may have been more successful with less but higher quality content.
positivism päztivizm noun PHILOSOPHY 1. a philosophical system that holds that every rationally justifiable assertion can be scientifically verified or is capable of logical or mathematical proof, and that therefore rejects metaphysics and theism. 2. the theory that laws are to be understood as social rules, valid because they are enacted by authority or derive logically from existing decisions, and that ideal or moral considerations (e.g., that a rule is unjust) should not limit the scope or operation of the law.
My understanding is that this is how FedEx drivers work. They're all independent contractors with FedEx. They wear FedEx clothes, work a dictated schedule, etc., etc.
What IS the difference between a contractor and an "employee", really, aside from some legalese? In both cases you're agreeing to work for a company in exchange for money/benefits/etc.
I don't have a lot of time to spare right now, so I'll get right to the point:
There is a huge difference between moral capitalism (what product/service can I provide to make someone's life better/more convenient) and amoral capitalism (how much money can I make and damn anyone else).
Countries do not fall because of their economic policy (there are excellent arguments for each system). They fall because of a lack of principles and morality. What we are seeing in America now (and for several decades) is a huge swing towards amoral capitalism.
This is why Bernie Sanders, for example, is resonating so well for a certain segment of the population. His argument isn't a scholarly exercise. He's playing the "good vs evil" angle. He's turning it into a moral argument, saying (erroneously) that capitalism is inherently evil and Big Government will fix it all.
You can have amoral crony capitalism. You can have amoral crony socialism. The constant, and the problem, is the "amoral" and "crony" parts.
And, silly though it may sound, simply changing your phone number. A lot of people will think that this is great, and they'll use it, but then they'll want to change their phone number for one reason or another and then... Whooops.
I wish I had mod points for you today. I especially feel impassioned about this line:
A government however cannot ever be punished through any criminal court
Governments only allow you to receive justice or restitution if they WANT you to receive justice or restitution. Let's go way, way, way back to the EPA turning a major river strange colors.
If a private company had done that, they'd be completely out of business. But this was done by the EPA. "Whoops." That's it. And there's NOTHING you or I can do about it.
My high school had a Home Economics class that did, in fact, teach some basic economics. It wasn't how to bake a loaf of bread or whatever like a lot of other schools.
We learned things like:
1. Compound Interest and how it relates to investment for retirement. 2. How much a 30 year mortgage really costs. 3. How to budget. 4. How to eat healthily on $5 a day. 5. How insurance works.
I've rarely come across other people that had this kind of a class in their high school. It's weird to me that people are graduating high school when they're supposed to be fully functional, legal adults, ready to live an adult life, and they can't even track their own spending habits - but that's what the schools are churning out. Older children with no life skills.
Parents: Home school your kids, or at least supplement their public/private schooling with some stuff that actually matters. I know, I know, it means you have to spend time with your kids and actually be a parent, not a friend.
Yeah, I'm sure, a few rogue software guys got together and said, "Gosh, how can we cover for the people who built the engine that isn't as efficient as it is supposed to be? Surely there's no legal ramifications for cheating on federal emissions tests!"
It doesn't make sense on too many levels. What a bunch of crap.
I was told on occasion that "You don't belong here for asking such a stupid question".
Good to know. I guess I can cross that off the list of recommended things for my (rather bright) niece to try. It doesn't take a lot of effort to be a decent person to others. It really doesn't. It takes more effort to post some dick comment than it does not to post at all.
You see the same thing in a lot of online communities though. Massive egos, know-it-all types, people far more interested in putting others down instead of helping them up. The tech community is infamous for their treatment of non-technical users. Just yesterday we had articles about how toxic the Linux Kernel community is, and how people are making their own forks or dropping out entirely just so they don't have to deal with the condescending attitudes.
The Internet as a whole has taught that, deep down inside, most people are assholes. Selfish, insecure assholes. The relative anonymity of the Internet is what allows people to let their real selves shine through.
And there's an easy way to stop a lot of it, across all operating systems. A proxy server can scrub headers to only allow cookies from certain sources through, for example, and can do the same for outgoing requests. Privoxy is an OLD example of the technology (I was using that thing back in the late 90s). Set up something like that, set up whatever filters you want, tell your browser to use that proxy, and away you go.
Oh sure, there's code for being struck by a raccoon, or bitten by a pig, or "other contact" with a horse (I won't judge), but what about bears?
Yeah, that's right. We bears are shoved into the "other" category. I am so sick of the micro aggressions of the medical patriarchy that is trying to marginalize the needs of the ursine community.
Well I'm not going to take it anymore!
No garbage can will be safe, nor all the salmon in any river. We will break into your homes and eat your pies, and we will smash down your fences to eat your bird seed, we will wage a war on your apiaries and your cries of anguish from a lack of honey will only drive us deeper into rage.
I mention, twice, that corporate control over the government is the problem. I do end with less government control being the ultimate solution, and it is - because with less government control there is less opportunity for cronyism.
I'm also a touch annoyed that my comment was marked down as "troll" - it was not a troll comment. People can disagree with it, that's fine, but moderation is not a substitution for "I disagree" or "I have another point of view." There's a reply button for that.
The problem is, government regulation and interference is why the company is able to buy exclusive rights to the generic drug in the first place.
The government isn't the solution here. Government is what is causing the problems.
As others have stated, the drug is available very cheaply outside of this country. However, the government will not let us import the drug. If we were able to, the local company would be forced to drop the price or stop production. That is how capitalism works.
Unfortunately, the USA is not capitalist any longer, at least not in the way it pretends to be. The problem is the politicians getting in bed with the corporations so that laws which benefit the corporations - and only the corporations - are rammed through. The problem is not capitalism, because we don't really have it anymore. The problem is corruption.
So you are correct - we don't have a free market. We have a market controlled by the government, with the government controlled by the corporations.
A free market without the government bending to the will of the corporations wouldn't have this problem.
Wow, two years ago everyone here told us that NoSQL is evil and tried to convince us that we should stick to MySQL.
I will admit that I don't quite understand the fuss about "NoSQL".
It's just a two column table with a primary key and a data blob. Congratulations, I guess. Yes, a specialized piece of software for this might be fast, but it's not anything new or innovative. It's just a two column table with a bow on top.
That's the thing, though. Lots of people use Google, it's true, because it provides the best search results. However, the cost of entry to using another search engine is zero. This isn't like a company that is so expansive that it can keep the prices on a product very low, preventing another company from being able to enter the market.
The cost of entering the search engine market is also very low. You just need someone smart and innovative to build a better algorithm, then some money to buy the server space somewhere.
The cost of entry is low. The cost of switching to another product is zero. Google is the dominant product, but not because it is maliciously destroying all other alternatives.
I'm also not convinced that listing one's own products first is abusive in any way. Google doesn't prevent other services from being listed. Heck, when I search for "free email" I see providers I've never heard of before (GMX, Easy.com), and a few articles about free email services. That looks like a lot of options to me.
As far as I can tell this is just another attempt by a government to squeeze money out of something simply because they can. Google will sigh, roll its eyes, and pay out whatever the government wants because - wait - it doesn't have any choice but to pay that entry fee, otherwise it cannot operate there.
Which organization holds monopolistic power again?
Slashdot Mirror
> Perl isn't meant to be simple, it's meant to be expressive.
I can express myself by writing a comment, or I can run down the middle of my town naked with peanut butter smeared all over me while shouting gibberish.
I know which one I am doing right now.
Perhaps it was momentary insanity, but I expected the syntax of Perl 6 to be more readable and less obstuse. Looking through the Perl 6 advent calendar, I noticed that, somehow, the people working on Perl 6 seem to have made it even worse.
Perl will always be the ugliest language in the world.
A product that stops electrical fires, you say? Well if you want big companies to buy it, then all you have to do is "think of the children." Get politicians at the local or national level to pass laws and regulations that require electrical products to have your kind of product. And then, gasp, look at what is in the market - your product.
Crony capitalism at its best. It's amoral and filthy, but it works.
I have experience with Alienware. I bought two systems through them, a desktop and a laptop, about 6 and 3 years ago, respectively.
There is a premium to be paid for their machines. That comes in the form of someone else putting all the right pieces together, letting it run a few days to make sure everything works, and shipping it in some cool looking cases. If something is wrong you send it back and they don't really give you any trouble.
They're solid machines, well built, and performance is quite good. For someone who wants a machine that "just works" without having to spend days putting pieces together and finding the best deals, it's really not a bad option. I would recommend CyberPowerPC over Alienware these days - they're less expensive for comparable hardware.
Also, unlike what the poster above mentions, Alienware does not load a bunch of crapware onto their systems. They usually have Steam preloaded, an application to control their lighting effects, whatever control software the video card comes with, and very little else. They're quite clean. You can get some extra stuff preloaded (like McAffe, for example) but it's all optional at the time you order the system.
That said: You WILL get more hardware for your money if you build yourself. No doubt about it. These days I just view my computer like I do my car: It runs and does what I want it to do when I turn the key. I don't really need to know, or even care, who made the engine or what material the brake pads are made out of as long as it goes vrooom.
Phones with no way to replace the battery? Gosh, your battery is dead, you have to buy a whole new device.
The video card on your lap top is flakey? What a shame, time to buy an entirely new machine.
Your provider won't update the official version of Android (or whatever) on your device? Well it's really hard to do, I guess if you want that new version you better buy a new device, or figure out how to jailbreak the old one and pray you don't brick the thing.
I also highly recommend Moba XTerm, at least if your main machine is Windows.
A brief selection of features:
* Tabs. Yes, tabs! After years of using Putty, tabs are amazing.
* Integrated X11 server. No having to fuss with Cygwin and all that; it just works and automatically does the forwarding for you.
* Local *NIX functionality, again, without having to deal with Cygwin manually.
* Free (as in beer).
* Also supports VNC, RDP, (S)FTP.
* Mirroring of input to multiple sessions.
It's a great little piece of software. Never had any reliability issues. I use it daily.
I work for a company with about 250 employees, and it is rare that I work more than 45 hours a week. Our managers will tell people, "Go home, you've worked enough today," and when you go on vacation, "Don't check your mail or anything, you're on vacation, the rest of us are here and can handle any emergencies while you're gone."
My company has a TON of problems: Product owners make promises to clients we can't keep, our release process changes from product to product, logging is inadequate at best, requirements are often vague, and we have to deal with way too many terrible contractors from India, but unless there is a major emergency at least you won't be overworked.
I know that Undertale is the game that all the cool kids are playing, so I thought I would give it a try. I was told it would change my life.
I found it boring and heavy handed. Yup, killing bad, being nice good. How is this supposed to be a grand, innovative revelation?
I had an Ouya console. It was inexpensive, had support for four wireless controllers, and was easy to use.
The biggest problem was a lack of good content at launch. A vast majority of the content was cheap, buggy, and not entertaining. The Ouya folks let anyone throw crap up into the system, it seemed. It may have been more successful with less but higher quality content.
So Sayeth Google.
My understanding is that this is how FedEx drivers work. They're all independent contractors with FedEx. They wear FedEx clothes, work a dictated schedule, etc., etc.
What IS the difference between a contractor and an "employee", really, aside from some legalese? In both cases you're agreeing to work for a company in exchange for money/benefits/etc.
I don't have a lot of time to spare right now, so I'll get right to the point:
There is a huge difference between moral capitalism (what product/service can I provide to make someone's life better/more convenient) and amoral capitalism (how much money can I make and damn anyone else).
Countries do not fall because of their economic policy (there are excellent arguments for each system). They fall because of a lack of principles and morality. What we are seeing in America now (and for several decades) is a huge swing towards amoral capitalism.
This is why Bernie Sanders, for example, is resonating so well for a certain segment of the population. His argument isn't a scholarly exercise. He's playing the "good vs evil" angle. He's turning it into a moral argument, saying (erroneously) that capitalism is inherently evil and Big Government will fix it all.
You can have amoral crony capitalism. You can have amoral crony socialism. The constant, and the problem, is the "amoral" and "crony" parts.
Isn't this similar to what Nikola Tesla wanted to do in order to provide free electricity to the masses?
How can this be patented? Prior art must be all over the place.
And, silly though it may sound, simply changing your phone number. A lot of people will think that this is great, and they'll use it, but then they'll want to change their phone number for one reason or another and then... Whooops.
I wish I had mod points for you today. I especially feel impassioned about this line:
Governments only allow you to receive justice or restitution if they WANT you to receive justice or restitution. Let's go way, way, way back to the EPA turning a major river strange colors.
If a private company had done that, they'd be completely out of business. But this was done by the EPA. "Whoops." That's it. And there's NOTHING you or I can do about it.
My high school had a Home Economics class that did, in fact, teach some basic economics. It wasn't how to bake a loaf of bread or whatever like a lot of other schools.
We learned things like:
1. Compound Interest and how it relates to investment for retirement.
2. How much a 30 year mortgage really costs.
3. How to budget.
4. How to eat healthily on $5 a day.
5. How insurance works.
I've rarely come across other people that had this kind of a class in their high school. It's weird to me that people are graduating high school when they're supposed to be fully functional, legal adults, ready to live an adult life, and they can't even track their own spending habits - but that's what the schools are churning out. Older children with no life skills.
Parents: Home school your kids, or at least supplement their public/private schooling with some stuff that actually matters. I know, I know, it means you have to spend time with your kids and actually be a parent, not a friend.
Yeah, I'm sure, a few rogue software guys got together and said, "Gosh, how can we cover for the people who built the engine that isn't as efficient as it is supposed to be? Surely there's no legal ramifications for cheating on federal emissions tests!"
It doesn't make sense on too many levels. What a bunch of crap.
Good to know. I guess I can cross that off the list of recommended things for my (rather bright) niece to try. It doesn't take a lot of effort to be a decent person to others. It really doesn't. It takes more effort to post some dick comment than it does not to post at all.
You see the same thing in a lot of online communities though. Massive egos, know-it-all types, people far more interested in putting others down instead of helping them up. The tech community is infamous for their treatment of non-technical users. Just yesterday we had articles about how toxic the Linux Kernel community is, and how people are making their own forks or dropping out entirely just so they don't have to deal with the condescending attitudes.
The Internet as a whole has taught that, deep down inside, most people are assholes. Selfish, insecure assholes. The relative anonymity of the Internet is what allows people to let their real selves shine through.
And there's an easy way to stop a lot of it, across all operating systems. A proxy server can scrub headers to only allow cookies from certain sources through, for example, and can do the same for outgoing requests. Privoxy is an OLD example of the technology (I was using that thing back in the late 90s). Set up something like that, set up whatever filters you want, tell your browser to use that proxy, and away you go.
I am offended! Look! JUST LOOK AT THIS!
Oh sure, there's code for being struck by a raccoon, or bitten by a pig, or "other contact" with a horse (I won't judge), but what about bears?
Yeah, that's right. We bears are shoved into the "other" category. I am so sick of the micro aggressions of the medical patriarchy that is trying to marginalize the needs of the ursine community.
Well I'm not going to take it anymore!
No garbage can will be safe, nor all the salmon in any river. We will break into your homes and eat your pies, and we will smash down your fences to eat your bird seed, we will wage a war on your apiaries and your cries of anguish from a lack of honey will only drive us deeper into rage.
You've been warned!
I mention, twice, that corporate control over the government is the problem. I do end with less government control being the ultimate solution, and it is - because with less government control there is less opportunity for cronyism.
I'm also a touch annoyed that my comment was marked down as "troll" - it was not a troll comment. People can disagree with it, that's fine, but moderation is not a substitution for "I disagree" or "I have another point of view." There's a reply button for that.
The problem is, government regulation and interference is why the company is able to buy exclusive rights to the generic drug in the first place.
The government isn't the solution here. Government is what is causing the problems.
As others have stated, the drug is available very cheaply outside of this country. However, the government will not let us import the drug. If we were able to, the local company would be forced to drop the price or stop production. That is how capitalism works.
Unfortunately, the USA is not capitalist any longer, at least not in the way it pretends to be. The problem is the politicians getting in bed with the corporations so that laws which benefit the corporations - and only the corporations - are rammed through. The problem is not capitalism, because we don't really have it anymore. The problem is corruption.
So you are correct - we don't have a free market. We have a market controlled by the government, with the government controlled by the corporations.
A free market without the government bending to the will of the corporations wouldn't have this problem.
Less government control is the best solution.
I will admit that I don't quite understand the fuss about "NoSQL".
It's just a two column table with a primary key and a data blob. Congratulations, I guess. Yes, a specialized piece of software for this might be fast, but it's not anything new or innovative. It's just a two column table with a bow on top.
You assume that books cannot change, but books kept in an electronic format can, and do, receive updates.
Especially when your provider is threatened with a lawsuit of some kind and they pull it from your account.
That's the thing, though. Lots of people use Google, it's true, because it provides the best search results. However, the cost of entry to using another search engine is zero. This isn't like a company that is so expansive that it can keep the prices on a product very low, preventing another company from being able to enter the market.
The cost of entering the search engine market is also very low. You just need someone smart and innovative to build a better algorithm, then some money to buy the server space somewhere.
The cost of entry is low. The cost of switching to another product is zero. Google is the dominant product, but not because it is maliciously destroying all other alternatives.
I'm also not convinced that listing one's own products first is abusive in any way. Google doesn't prevent other services from being listed. Heck, when I search for "free email" I see providers I've never heard of before (GMX, Easy.com), and a few articles about free email services. That looks like a lot of options to me.
As far as I can tell this is just another attempt by a government to squeeze money out of something simply because they can. Google will sigh, roll its eyes, and pay out whatever the government wants because - wait - it doesn't have any choice but to pay that entry fee, otherwise it cannot operate there.
Which organization holds monopolistic power again?