PHP may be just "good enough", rather than good, or well designed, but by being so easy to learn it will undoubtedly get people interested in higher level languages who might otherwise never have tried them. Good enough is often good enough to serve your purposes.
I think I still have my manual for SNOBOL somewhere. I doubt I would have gotten rid of it. Anyways I remember it fondly as well, although I didn't end up using it a lot.
Yeah, having worked near some marketing types and met others from other companies, I have to say they were mostly type-A personalities, and clueless as hell about anything. Obviously there must be good marketing people out there, someone creates the ads that are good enough to not get tiring quickly and generate a laugh or two, but the majority of people in marketing and sales seemed to me to be exactly the people I would not hire to do those functions.
If by "Left" you mean Obama and the Democrats, please realize that you are using US definitions for "Left" and "Right". In the rest of the world, Obama qualifies as "Right-wing" and the Republicans range from "Right-wing to Very-Far-Right-wing". There is no "Left" in US politics as seen by the rest of the world.
It seems hard for most/. posters from the US to keep this in mind, everything is relative I suppose, but the US is generally speaking, very right wing in its politics and culture. That doesn't mean all Americans are of course, but those I would view as "left-wing" by say, Canadian standards (where I live), are few and far between. Now, of course my country is finlandizing to the US and growing increasingly rightwing itself in the process. Our current PM, Stephen Harper is about as right-wing a leader as this country has ever seen, and even he probably qualifies as just a left-leaning Republican in the US.
Sadly democracy relies on the bulk of the citizens actually keeping appraised of various issues, having the education and intelligence to really make an intelligent decision and then actually acting upon it by at least electing representatives that represent their opinions - and keeping a leash on them to ensure they don't waver from the path.
Most people don't care at all until a government does something they don't like - and by then its way too late. They won't notice until someone abuses this legislation to take down some website they care about with no recourse, no warrant and no time in court.
Sad to see Ireland sell itself to the big Media corporations like this. So much for all the years of struggle for an independent Ireland.
The vast majority of people do not care as you said. That is why governments and corporations can get away with massive abuse, why the 99% are slaves to the 1%, why the best politicians we can find are often outright loons who hold ideas that are often very opposed to the ideas held by their constituents and why the world is so very fucked up at the moment. As you said, the vast majority only react when things stop working. When combined with politicians who can only see to the end of their term, and only act in the interest of getting re-elected (or hired to head some corporate board of directors when they retire), this is disastrous. It is for this reason I have come to the conclusion that when global warming threatens to kill millions of people elsewhere, we will do nothing. When those people die, we will largely continue to do nothing. When its too late, the general population will be yelling that they didn't know:P
Yeah, none of my friends were even remotely interested in seeing it, but I decided to pony up the cash to go see Avatar. The special effects were pretty decent for the most part, although it didn't quite blow me away as I had hoped it would, but the plot, OMFG the plot was so insipid. It was so identical to so many other films I have seen. With all the hype I had expected an intelligent and complex plot - but instead got "Corporations bad, control the military, exploit indigenous people, destroy their culture". Yes, and I already knew that, except that when the natives fight back, the forces of "civilization" always win in the end and get to do their best to destroy the indigenous people, their culture, and in particular their language. I would say Avatar was an okay film, but I doubt I would recommend it to anyone and I certainly don't think it deserved any awards outside of Special Effects or Animation, where it obviously excelled.
is the fact that most new cars are very difficult for the owner to repair themselves, given that many are highly integrated with computer systems. Shade-tree mechanics are going to disappear. That and the fact that every new car seems to be built on the principle that repair costs are no obstacle, so if a car gets hit, its highly damaged, extremely expensive to repair, and much more likely to be a write off - meaning you need to buy a replacement.
Have the captcha page displays some really good porn video footage - drawn from a huge repository of suitable images (say, the rest of the internet). The clips are fairly long (say 3-5 mins or so). To pass the captcha the user merely has to click on a button at the right time. So, if the user clicks right away, its a bot. if there is a suitable pause (say 3-5 mins), then its more likely human:P
Well why do you think there is so much talk and push to store your data in "the cloud"? Once all your data is backed up in the cloud they can just cut off your access to it and then scan it at their leisure:P
To cause havoc and/or gain access to the nuclear weapon on board a train, I just have to have a well timed attack on the tracks its on. To do the same with the truck I have to actually attack the truck and its escort vehicles. The vehicle can be rerouted to avoid a potential ambush much more readily than the train can. I would guess that might be a contributing factor in the decision on transport means.
It will be the media lobbies, they have been trying to chip away at Canadian law for years. They are making the same attempts at other countries and of course in the US. I am sure they own the Conservatives in the same way they seem to own or influence a lot of other governments. This bill should be retitled "The Eliminate All Electronic Privacy Act" to reflect its real purpose.
Despite all the spite and screaming against Apple that will populate this thread, I thought I would point out that people are *still* judging the iPad as if it were a laptop. Its perfect for what it is: a tool that is great for certain uses, and not for others. I wouldn't do programming on one, its not suited to it - even if you use a keyboard - in my opinion but if I want to view images, watch TV off the net, use Netflix, its a perfect tool. Its well designed, performs well, seems fairly bug free, easy to use, quite portable, has good if not great battery life etc. All that said, my wife bought an iPad, and stopped using her netbook entirely at the same time. It is serving all her needs - including writing (using a keyboard mind you) quite well, and I have yet to hear a complaint. If I had a need for one, I wouldn't hesitate to buy one myself. I am however a desktop person. I hate laptops, netbooks etc. I might get an iPad at some point but I will most likely never buy a laptop or netbook.
From what I can see, Universities in Canada are now more about making money and less about education. Not that you can't get a good education in the process but they are very focused on maximizing the amount of money generated. At University of Victoria, they added an Engineering Department, it got a brand new building, tons of funding etc, and the reasoning at the time was that it would generate revenue via patents etc. Meanwhile the Fine Arts department languished in the same ancient Quonset huts it had been in for 20 years or more, and didn't get a building of its own for another 10 years or so. Students these days pay as much for 1 years tuition as I did for 3 years or more back in the late 70s/early 80s. I used to spend about $200 on all my books for a year, now some books cost over $100 easily. I think the Businessification (if I can coin a term) of the University system is only going to continue sadly.
"HARPER IS AN ASSHOLE" - they should print that on the next issue of our money up here in Canada. I couldn't agree more. Like Bush he has some vision in his head of the way things should be, and he is going to ram it through into law until he succeeds. Since he now has a majority government, thats probably just a matter of waiting for it to happen. If the laws the Conservatives are pushing through Parliament at the moment are passed, Canada is no longer the "Home of the Free", period.
Oh I have zero doubt this is about filesharing and getting the Canadian Government to foot the bill on behalf the MAFIAA. The entertainment industry has put a lot of effort (and money) into getting government support to change our laws concerning file sharing to be more draconian. I am sure the bribe money has been quite effective, although admittedly this government seems willing to do whatever business - or the US administration - tells it to do. Nonetheless, the Canadian public seems fairly opposed to this legislation (C-30 and others). However the Conservatives have a majority and I am sure they will force it all through no matter what objections are raised.
Yep, my wife and I concluded that there was not enough good shows on TV to justify paying for cable. There are good shows on TV that we like but they are all broadcast elsewhere and not available in our area. Furthermore anything we did watch was in large part actually advertisements. Older shows that had less room made for ads were further trimmed to make room for the new requirements for ads (probably 1 min out of every 4-5 of show). Watching a show without advertisements is so much more enjoyable. Netflix is now our primary source of entertainment - other than movies from the library - and its at an affordable price. Previously Cable+Internet+Phone was costing us around $100/mo. Internet+Netflix is costing us around $48/mo, and we use our cellphones instead of a land line. True, with Netflix we don't get the latest and greatest stuff right away, but I can live with the delay. I have all but stopped going to movies because paying $30 for movie+food got unreasonable.
"Sir, I will need another number, according to our records there are apparently 1675 people living at that residence"... Not a bad idea but with the way companies are building up databases detailing individuals, I am sure they could check to see that that number is not located at the residence you gave them, OR that a ton of people seem to be listing the same residence etc. They need to put a minimum fine that is very hefty on each illegal call, so if someone is caught robocalling someone against the rules, they pay enough to make it no longer a viable option...
Given the amount of advertising money spent on making people want to own certain products, it shouldn't be a surprise that some people want to own them but can't afford them (because the price is too high) and as a result seek other means to obtain them (be it buying used, borrowing it from the library, or downloading it). The media companies create the desire, then do not offer an affordable option for satisfying that desire. Lower the price and they can make money off of volume of sales - and with digital media the cost to them is negligible. Netflix is the direction they need to take IMHO: $8/mo and enough content to make it worthwhile. iTunes is obviously doing well too, although I no longer listen to music so I haven't spent any money there.
Its not the Libraries, its the publishers who are unwilling to license the libraries to distribute e-books without these limitations. As well, the Library can only distribute a book so many times before they have to buy it again.
Publishers already hate libraries for the most part because they limit their profits (all those readers reading books they didn't buy) apparently. This ignores the fact that no one is going to choose to buy all the books they get from the library instead if the library was shut down; they'd just read a lot less.
Slashdot Mirror
There's gotta be a good pun about "Penn State" and the "State Pen" in there somewhere but I am insufficiently caffeinated at the moment...
PHP may be just "good enough", rather than good, or well designed, but by being so easy to learn it will undoubtedly get people interested in higher level languages who might otherwise never have tried them. Good enough is often good enough to serve your purposes.
I think I still have my manual for SNOBOL somewhere. I doubt I would have gotten rid of it. Anyways I remember it fondly as well, although I didn't end up using it a lot.
Note: for those of us up in Canada, Arnold should be considered a patriot - since he stayed loyal to the King :P
Yeah, having worked near some marketing types and met others from other companies, I have to say they were mostly type-A personalities, and clueless as hell about anything. Obviously there must be good marketing people out there, someone creates the ads that are good enough to not get tiring quickly and generate a laugh or two, but the majority of people in marketing and sales seemed to me to be exactly the people I would not hire to do those functions.
If by "Left" you mean Obama and the Democrats, please realize that you are using US definitions for "Left" and "Right". In the rest of the world, Obama qualifies as "Right-wing" and the Republicans range from "Right-wing to Very-Far-Right-wing". There is no "Left" in US politics as seen by the rest of the world.
It seems hard for most /. posters from the US to keep this in mind, everything is relative I suppose, but the US is generally speaking, very right wing in its politics and culture. That doesn't mean all Americans are of course, but those I would view as "left-wing" by say, Canadian standards (where I live), are few and far between. Now, of course my country is finlandizing to the US and growing increasingly rightwing itself in the process. Our current PM, Stephen Harper is about as right-wing a leader as this country has ever seen, and even he probably qualifies as just a left-leaning Republican in the US.
Sadly democracy relies on the bulk of the citizens actually keeping appraised of various issues, having the education and intelligence to really make an intelligent decision and then actually acting upon it by at least electing representatives that represent their opinions - and keeping a leash on them to ensure they don't waver from the path.
Most people don't care at all until a government does something they don't like - and by then its way too late.
They won't notice until someone abuses this legislation to take down some website they care about with no recourse, no warrant and no time in court.
Sad to see Ireland sell itself to the big Media corporations like this. So much for all the years of struggle for an independent Ireland.
The vast majority of people do not care as you said. That is why governments and corporations can get away with massive abuse, why the 99% are slaves to the 1%, why the best politicians we can find are often outright loons who hold ideas that are often very opposed to the ideas held by their constituents and why the world is so very fucked up at the moment. :P
As you said, the vast majority only react when things stop working. When combined with politicians who can only see to the end of their term, and only act in the interest of getting re-elected (or hired to head some corporate board of directors when they retire), this is disastrous. It is for this reason I have come to the conclusion that when global warming threatens to kill millions of people elsewhere, we will do nothing. When those people die, we will largely continue to do nothing. When its too late, the general population will be yelling that they didn't know
Yeah, none of my friends were even remotely interested in seeing it, but I decided to pony up the cash to go see Avatar. The special effects were pretty decent for the most part, although it didn't quite blow me away as I had hoped it would, but the plot, OMFG the plot was so insipid. It was so identical to so many other films I have seen. With all the hype I had expected an intelligent and complex plot - but instead got "Corporations bad, control the military, exploit indigenous people, destroy their culture". Yes, and I already knew that, except that when the natives fight back, the forces of "civilization" always win in the end and get to do their best to destroy the indigenous people, their culture, and in particular their language.
I would say Avatar was an okay film, but I doubt I would recommend it to anyone and I certainly don't think it deserved any awards outside of Special Effects or Animation, where it obviously excelled.
is the fact that most new cars are very difficult for the owner to repair themselves, given that many are highly integrated with computer systems. Shade-tree mechanics are going to disappear.
That and the fact that every new car seems to be built on the principle that repair costs are no obstacle, so if a car gets hit, its highly damaged, extremely expensive to repair, and much more likely to be a write off - meaning you need to buy a replacement.
Have the captcha page displays some really good porn video footage - drawn from a huge repository of suitable images (say, the rest of the internet). The clips are fairly long (say 3-5 mins or so). To pass the captcha the user merely has to click on a button at the right time. :P
So, if the user clicks right away, its a bot. if there is a suitable pause (say 3-5 mins), then its more likely human
Well why do you think there is so much talk and push to store your data in "the cloud"? Once all your data is backed up in the cloud they can just cut off your access to it and then scan it at their leisure :P
No thats up here in Canada. We are taking our lead from the UK and US mind you, the Harper Regime is all about removing personal privacy these days.
To cause havoc and/or gain access to the nuclear weapon on board a train, I just have to have a well timed attack on the tracks its on. To do the same with the truck I have to actually attack the truck and its escort vehicles. The vehicle can be rerouted to avoid a potential ambush much more readily than the train can. I would guess that might be a contributing factor in the decision on transport means.
And as Hollywood has shown us, LA is clearly a major deployment destination for all Nuclear weapons :P
It will be the media lobbies, they have been trying to chip away at Canadian law for years. They are making the same attempts at other countries and of course in the US. I am sure they own the Conservatives in the same way they seem to own or influence a lot of other governments.
This bill should be retitled "The Eliminate All Electronic Privacy Act" to reflect its real purpose.
Despite all the spite and screaming against Apple that will populate this thread, I thought I would point out that people are *still* judging the iPad as if it were a laptop.
Its perfect for what it is: a tool that is great for certain uses, and not for others. I wouldn't do programming on one, its not suited to it - even if you use a keyboard - in my opinion but if I want to view images, watch TV off the net, use Netflix, its a perfect tool. Its well designed, performs well, seems fairly bug free, easy to use, quite portable, has good if not great battery life etc.
All that said, my wife bought an iPad, and stopped using her netbook entirely at the same time. It is serving all her needs - including writing (using a keyboard mind you) quite well, and I have yet to hear a complaint.
If I had a need for one, I wouldn't hesitate to buy one myself. I am however a desktop person. I hate laptops, netbooks etc. I might get an iPad at some point but I will most likely never buy a laptop or netbook.
From what I can see, Universities in Canada are now more about making money and less about education. Not that you can't get a good education in the process but they are very focused on maximizing the amount of money generated.
At University of Victoria, they added an Engineering Department, it got a brand new building, tons of funding etc, and the reasoning at the time was that it would generate revenue via patents etc.
Meanwhile the Fine Arts department languished in the same ancient Quonset huts it had been in for 20 years or more, and didn't get a building of its own for another 10 years or so.
Students these days pay as much for 1 years tuition as I did for 3 years or more back in the late 70s/early 80s. I used to spend about $200 on all my books for a year, now some books cost over $100 easily.
I think the Businessification (if I can coin a term) of the University system is only going to continue sadly.
"HARPER IS AN ASSHOLE" - they should print that on the next issue of our money up here in Canada. I couldn't agree more. Like Bush he has some vision in his head of the way things should be, and he is going to ram it through into law until he succeeds. Since he now has a majority government, thats probably just a matter of waiting for it to happen.
If the laws the Conservatives are pushing through Parliament at the moment are passed, Canada is no longer the "Home of the Free", period.
Oh I have zero doubt this is about filesharing and getting the Canadian Government to foot the bill on behalf the MAFIAA. The entertainment industry has put a lot of effort (and money) into getting government support to change our laws concerning file sharing to be more draconian. I am sure the bribe money has been quite effective, although admittedly this government seems willing to do whatever business - or the US administration - tells it to do.
Nonetheless, the Canadian public seems fairly opposed to this legislation (C-30 and others). However the Conservatives have a majority and I am sure they will force it all through no matter what objections are raised.
Yep, my wife and I concluded that there was not enough good shows on TV to justify paying for cable. There are good shows on TV that we like but they are all broadcast elsewhere and not available in our area.
Furthermore anything we did watch was in large part actually advertisements. Older shows that had less room made for ads were further trimmed to make room for the new requirements for ads (probably 1 min out of every 4-5 of show). Watching a show without advertisements is so much more enjoyable.
Netflix is now our primary source of entertainment - other than movies from the library - and its at an affordable price. Previously Cable+Internet+Phone was costing us around $100/mo. Internet+Netflix is costing us around $48/mo, and we use our cellphones instead of a land line. True, with Netflix we don't get the latest and greatest stuff right away, but I can live with the delay. I have all but stopped going to movies because paying $30 for movie+food got unreasonable.
So that would be pretty much the entire government of the US (and Canada where I live) then?
"Sir, I will need another number, according to our records there are apparently 1675 people living at that residence"...
Not a bad idea but with the way companies are building up databases detailing individuals, I am sure they could check to see that that number is not located at the residence you gave them, OR that a ton of people seem to be listing the same residence etc.
They need to put a minimum fine that is very hefty on each illegal call, so if someone is caught robocalling someone against the rules, they pay enough to make it no longer a viable option...
Given the amount of advertising money spent on making people want to own certain products, it shouldn't be a surprise that some people want to own them but can't afford them (because the price is too high) and as a result seek other means to obtain them (be it buying used, borrowing it from the library, or downloading it). The media companies create the desire, then do not offer an affordable option for satisfying that desire.
Lower the price and they can make money off of volume of sales - and with digital media the cost to them is negligible.
Netflix is the direction they need to take IMHO: $8/mo and enough content to make it worthwhile. iTunes is obviously doing well too, although I no longer listen to music so I haven't spent any money there.
Its not the Libraries, its the publishers who are unwilling to license the libraries to distribute e-books without these limitations. As well, the Library can only distribute a book so many times before they have to buy it again.
Publishers already hate libraries for the most part because they limit their profits (all those readers reading books they didn't buy) apparently. This ignores the fact that no one is going to choose to buy all the books they get from the library instead if the library was shut down; they'd just read a lot less.