You may not like XML, but it's pretty good for config files.
Sure it is. Okay, say Linux distros accept XML for config files. Next thing we know, Red Hat adopts a schema specficiation language that is incompatible with Debian's is incompatible with Slackware's is incompatible with SuSE's is incompatible ad nauseum. It's just like Microsoft Word "XML." XML must be the most overrated technology of the century.
Give people an inch, and they will take a yard to hang themselves. Why? Because our way is better! Why is that? Look at the pretty colors! I don't care about color...I'm doing it my own way! You suck! (continue with basic loser flamewar but this time about needlessly complex XML issues)
Even simple programs that require very simple configuraiton store it in random places and formats.
This is one area where GNU hasn't helped with the hard coded paths stuck everywhere in awful toolname-config scripts and *.la files. What utter garbage that doesn't allow relocating installation directories! Who thinks up crap like this?!?
I think some of the engineering problems with turbines are:
- how to efficiently gear down something spinning at tens of thousands of RPM
- how to muffle them, since turbines are very sensitive to intake and exhaust restriction
- do turbines consume their oil supply, too? I'm not sure.
I'd love a super-efficient turbine in my car (direct fuel to rotational energy conversion!) but I'm not sure if the engineering problems have been solved, yet.
Slightly above average for the south-east USA (meaning, certainly not great, but it is possible to learn the basics, there).
How much time do you spend in town?
Given that it takes about a minute (two if you hit the two stop lights) to cross town, not much.
In return, you believe that your kids are going to one of the better public school systems in the state.
Well educated but depressed and confused from the abundance doesn't mean much. For every shining star of academic idealism, I'd bet there are a dozen burnt-out kids who can barely muster the energy to be a janitor.
Towns and cities are interesting because of the density of interesting people drawn to them, and also because the density creates economic opportunities.
Cities like Chicago, Boston, and New York are one thing, but the suburban sprawl everywhere else just plain sucks. You get all The Wrong Kind Of People without the real benefits of urban infrastructure leaving me to wonder why people wanted that lifestle in the first place. There are areas where it takes 45 minutes just to drive to the freakin mall (traffic traffic traffic) because people can't figure out mass transit where the population density is just high enough to need it but no one can afford it.
Boston has spent around $14 billion on...around twenty miles of two freeways.
Trains would have been cheaper. I'd bet the Big Dig is obselete in a decade (if it isn't already). The drivers in Massachusetts are probably better off on a train, anyway.
I said "purest" not "politically viable". Imagine having no trade laws other than tarriffs to help level the playing field among countries. It allows politially desirable amounts of protectionism without creating ultra complex trade treaties.
I look forward to IPv6 just because it will kill the random port scanning by all the Windoze worms.
I like IPv4 for the relative anonymity afforded by DHCP and NAT. All the kludgy hacks that made IPv4 scale actually made it better for life on the WWW.
Very well said. Publicly traded companies do have a place, but only the ones that still have significant family ownership still give a damn about their employees (in my experience). The rest look at their employees purely in the context of the balance sheets, which leads to terrible bone-headed management (if you're a cost center, watch out!).
One thing you can add to money saved: property taxes. My property taxes are 1/20 what some of my family pays. 1/20! All because I live outside city borders, I don't mind well/septic, I don't care about municipal trash pick-up, I live in a low-crime area, etc. They live in yuppie neighborhoods and pay in the thousands of dollars...for what? Sure, they have a nice library, but who cares?
Yeah, but doesn't it suck when employers don't provide the continuing education needed to help us not be cogs? What about when employers "restructure" HR and Payroll, such that there are no secretaries left and we get stuck doing all of our own expense filing and travel arrangements? What about when they put everything on-line in such a way that it now takes ten times longer to fill out timesheets? What about all the compliance and ethics training?
It's getting to a point where its hard enough to even find time to be just a cog!
Thank you, on-line revolution! I want my secretary back! She cost tons less than your multi-million dollar restructuring that improved nothing!
I don't see it being nearly as bad as the millions of parents who lie to their children about Santa Claus. We teach our children not to lie in other circumstances, so why is it perfectly okay for parents to lie about Santa and the Easter Bunny? Lying during very significant events in the Christian tradition, no less!
Needless to say, property values plummeted overnight. It took a determined group of neighbors to buy out the guy and return our neighborhood to normalicy.
A thicket of fast-growing trees would have been cheaper. Was the guy also obnoxious with dogs penned up in the yard next to three rotting unlicensed cars?
And, if he wanted to, he could zoom in on and "enhance" a single pixel until it looked like his christmas lights.
That's old tech. The new stuff can enhance a single channel of a single pixel for really hard to make out reflections in spoons on a bar in a dark restaurant. Holy cow, if only we had this stuff when I had to analyze photos with a scratched magnifying glass in two feet of snow while walking uphill (both ways!) to the office during a hurricane.
No, I'm talking about an application developed for Windows XP being broken on selected versions of Windows XP. I'd fully forgive an application being developed for Windows XP but not working on 2000, 98, 95, 2003, Longhorn, whatever, but not even being able to guarantee it for the target platform just plain sucks. There is no other way to put it.
This is where companies like IBM and Sun gain an edge with their more conservative product lines (not perfect, just better).
My response was something along the lines of, wait, let me get this straight, you're complainig because an application you rely on is designed around security risks in the operating system, and those holes were fixed?
Actually, they probably wrote that app using the API documentation of the day. They are not solely to blame, here. How could regular Windows developers know which parts of Windows would be broken by SP2?
It's better to use a vendor who provides clear guidence about binary, source, and API compatibility across versions of their software. Microsoft ain't it, because they still call it Windows XP. So, now, Windows XP != Windows XP. That sucks.
A friend of mine made the mistake of signing up to AOL with his debit card.
Why do so many people fall into this trap?!? A debit card is a direct line into a checking account, which for most people is all the money they have.
I wouldn't be suprised for there to be some huge consumer-action backlash in a few years against debit cards and direct-withdrawal billing schemes. The people sucked into this mess tend to be poor, which is a shame.
Everyone, the cost of a stamp is little to pay for keeping people's hands out of your only cash reserve!
Even using a credit card is risky, as I have seen CCs billed that required calling the company to have them credit back the charges. Imagine the unnecessary pain if the company decided to be jerks about it? You have to call your bank and even might have to hire a lawyer. It isn't worth it. Just send them a damn check and make them cry to you for more money if they want it so badly.
Actually, there's material there, too. For example, the computer I'm typing this post on. Or the paper an author uses to mail in a manuscript. Or the canvas used by a painter.
Bascially, IP cannot exist without a recording medium. That's why some people get all pissy over DRM, DMCA, etc. The issue is not regulating IP but its media.
People die so often and in such great numbers in so many varied disasters that ranking them is all we can do to set the scope of one disaster over another. Get over it.
so you are not liable for their crimes. There is no way for you to compose some magic AI that can detect illegal pornography, so all you can do is make sure everything is in writing with their signatures.
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You may not like XML, but it's pretty good for config files.
Sure it is. Okay, say Linux distros accept XML for config files. Next thing we know, Red Hat adopts a schema specficiation language that is incompatible with Debian's is incompatible with Slackware's is incompatible with SuSE's is incompatible ad nauseum. It's just like Microsoft Word "XML." XML must be the most overrated technology of the century.
Give people an inch, and they will take a yard to hang themselves. Why? Because our way is better! Why is that? Look at the pretty colors! I don't care about color...I'm doing it my own way! You suck! (continue with basic loser flamewar but this time about needlessly complex XML issues)
Even simple programs that require very simple configuraiton store it in random places and formats.
This is one area where GNU hasn't helped with the hard coded paths stuck everywhere in awful toolname-config scripts and *.la files. What utter garbage that doesn't allow relocating installation directories! Who thinks up crap like this?!?
You are an animal, too. And, yes, your clothes are quite funny.
I think some of the engineering problems with turbines are:
- how to efficiently gear down something spinning at tens of thousands of RPM
- how to muffle them, since turbines are very sensitive to intake and exhaust restriction
- do turbines consume their oil supply, too? I'm not sure.
I'd love a super-efficient turbine in my car (direct fuel to rotational energy conversion!) but I'm not sure if the engineering problems have been solved, yet.
what are your good flood stories?
Are there any good flood stories?
What's your school district like?
Slightly above average for the south-east USA (meaning, certainly not great, but it is possible to learn the basics, there).
How much time do you spend in town?
Given that it takes about a minute (two if you hit the two stop lights) to cross town, not much.
In return, you believe that your kids are going to one of the better public school systems in the state.
Well educated but depressed and confused from the abundance doesn't mean much. For every shining star of academic idealism, I'd bet there are a dozen burnt-out kids who can barely muster the energy to be a janitor.
Towns and cities are interesting because of the density of interesting people drawn to them, and also because the density creates economic opportunities.
Cities like Chicago, Boston, and New York are one thing, but the suburban sprawl everywhere else just plain sucks. You get all The Wrong Kind Of People without the real benefits of urban infrastructure leaving me to wonder why people wanted that lifestle in the first place. There are areas where it takes 45 minutes just to drive to the freakin mall (traffic traffic traffic) because people can't figure out mass transit where the population density is just high enough to need it but no one can afford it.
Boston has spent around $14 billion on...around twenty miles of two freeways.
Trains would have been cheaper. I'd bet the Big Dig is obselete in a decade (if it isn't already). The drivers in Massachusetts are probably better off on a train, anyway.
I said "purest" not "politically viable". Imagine having no trade laws other than tarriffs to help level the playing field among countries. It allows politially desirable amounts of protectionism without creating ultra complex trade treaties.
I look forward to IPv6 just because it will kill the random port scanning by all the Windoze worms.
I like IPv4 for the relative anonymity afforded by DHCP and NAT. All the kludgy hacks that made IPv4 scale actually made it better for life on the WWW.
Very well said. Publicly traded companies do have a place, but only the ones that still have significant family ownership still give a damn about their employees (in my experience). The rest look at their employees purely in the context of the balance sheets, which leads to terrible bone-headed management (if you're a cost center, watch out!).
One thing you can add to money saved: property taxes. My property taxes are 1/20 what some of my family pays. 1/20! All because I live outside city borders, I don't mind well/septic, I don't care about municipal trash pick-up, I live in a low-crime area, etc. They live in yuppie neighborhoods and pay in the thousands of dollars...for what? Sure, they have a nice library, but who cares?
The state is looking at outsourcing its accounting and auditing review to India and Russia.
My gut tells me there are some jobs best done in the USA. It isn't good when we outsource our own government!
American manufacturing is in serious decline, Walmart and Home Depot are driving down prices and manufacturers are moving the jobs overseas.
Remember when Wal-Mart was pro-American? I don't see any advertisements about creating jobs, any more.
The only middle class left will be the specialized service industry (police, nurses, teachers).
Well, until RoboCop comes along. Why is it that humans are so motivated to make humans obselete? Do we hate ourselves that much?
What about his books that are purely about software engineering? I read one he did a long time ago that wasn't bad at all.
Tarriffs are a good thing. They are probably the purest way to regulate free trade such that it doesn't suck us dry.
Going to school for four years doesn't automatically qualify you a salary of $100K a year.
No, but that's what the marketing materials imply. College is somewhat overrated, but prestigious colleges are so overrated that it is just pathetic.
Don't be a cog.
Yeah, but doesn't it suck when employers don't provide the continuing education needed to help us not be cogs? What about when employers "restructure" HR and Payroll, such that there are no secretaries left and we get stuck doing all of our own expense filing and travel arrangements? What about when they put everything on-line in such a way that it now takes ten times longer to fill out timesheets? What about all the compliance and ethics training?
It's getting to a point where its hard enough to even find time to be just a cog!
Thank you, on-line revolution! I want my secretary back! She cost tons less than your multi-million dollar restructuring that improved nothing!
That being said... Alek, you suck. :)
I don't see it being nearly as bad as the millions of parents who lie to their children about Santa Claus. We teach our children not to lie in other circumstances, so why is it perfectly okay for parents to lie about Santa and the Easter Bunny? Lying during very significant events in the Christian tradition, no less!
Needless to say, property values plummeted overnight. It took a determined group of neighbors to buy out the guy and return our neighborhood to normalicy.
A thicket of fast-growing trees would have been cheaper. Was the guy also obnoxious with dogs penned up in the yard next to three rotting unlicensed cars?
And, if he wanted to, he could zoom in on and "enhance" a single pixel until it looked like his christmas lights.
That's old tech. The new stuff can enhance a single channel of a single pixel for really hard to make out reflections in spoons on a bar in a dark restaurant. Holy cow, if only we had this stuff when I had to analyze photos with a scratched magnifying glass in two feet of snow while walking uphill (both ways!) to the office during a hurricane.
No, I'm talking about an application developed for Windows XP being broken on selected versions of Windows XP. I'd fully forgive an application being developed for Windows XP but not working on 2000, 98, 95, 2003, Longhorn, whatever, but not even being able to guarantee it for the target platform just plain sucks. There is no other way to put it.
This is where companies like IBM and Sun gain an edge with their more conservative product lines (not perfect, just better).
My response was something along the lines of, wait, let me get this straight, you're complainig because an application you rely on is designed around security risks in the operating system, and those holes were fixed?
Actually, they probably wrote that app using the API documentation of the day. They are not solely to blame, here. How could regular Windows developers know which parts of Windows would be broken by SP2?
It's better to use a vendor who provides clear guidence about binary, source, and API compatibility across versions of their software. Microsoft ain't it, because they still call it Windows XP. So, now, Windows XP != Windows XP. That sucks.
A friend of mine made the mistake of signing up to AOL with his debit card.
Why do so many people fall into this trap?!? A debit card is a direct line into a checking account, which for most people is all the money they have.
I wouldn't be suprised for there to be some huge consumer-action backlash in a few years against debit cards and direct-withdrawal billing schemes. The people sucked into this mess tend to be poor, which is a shame.
Everyone, the cost of a stamp is little to pay for keeping people's hands out of your only cash reserve!
Even using a credit card is risky, as I have seen CCs billed that required calling the company to have them credit back the charges. Imagine the unnecessary pain if the company decided to be jerks about it? You have to call your bank and even might have to hire a lawyer. It isn't worth it. Just send them a damn check and make them cry to you for more money if they want it so badly.
Intellectual Property=Time * Effort
Actually, there's material there, too. For example, the computer I'm typing this post on. Or the paper an author uses to mail in a manuscript. Or the canvas used by a painter.
Bascially, IP cannot exist without a recording medium. That's why some people get all pissy over DRM, DMCA, etc. The issue is not regulating IP but its media.
People die so often and in such great numbers in so many varied disasters that ranking them is all we can do to set the scope of one disaster over another. Get over it.
so you are not liable for their crimes. There is no way for you to compose some magic AI that can detect illegal pornography, so all you can do is make sure everything is in writing with their signatures.
Microsoft programmers are apparently not allowed to finish their work.
They are probably allowed to work up to the point where they can reluctantly say "Yes" to "Well, can we sell it, yet?"