Commonsense suggests that that environmental change, more than likely manifesting in climate change, is inevitable.
"We" are, today, on an annual basis pumping thousands of millions of tons of CO2 and other gasses into the atmosphere (California alone spews out > 100 million tons just for electricy production annually), at an accelerating rate. Soon "we" will be "WE", since the economic development of the world is about to turn a corner where the less-developed world is suddenly going to match and within most of our lifetimes surpass the (IMO wasteful) developed world in output of same.
Naysayers fought science when early work suggested chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) were behind the destruction of Ozone. Today its widely accepted.
"Greenhouse" gas production is on a scale far vaster than CFCs.
Commonsense suggests we are furtzing the planet up royally, but hey, the naysayers (or their grandkids or their grandkids) will be dead along with the rest of our progeny so who cares, lets get in the Ford Explorer and Hummer and head to the 7/11 for some Twinkies!
Training is a big issue; but not the ONLY issue by far.
In a recent former life I built document and workflow management solutions - integrated with "office" applications, as well as with line of business applications (permits, licensing, parks n rec, planning, GIS, etc) - for large municipal governments.
Training was always the second largest cost impact after licensing itself.
Chances are LA uses some form of document mangagement solution (Hummingbird, Open Text, or others) and perhaps even more than one.
Strangely there are no "open source" DMS applications really ready to cut a large scale "desktop" (as opposed to "webtop") deployment, although it frankly would not be that difficult an endeavor to design and write one in this day and age. Quite a lot of the work was all the furtzing about with Microsoft as their products would tend to break integration ever so slightly with every new release.
There is more to it than just putting files under management; larger organizations also have records management rules which need to be followed, the DMS needs to manage these as well, and there are zero, as far as I am aware, open source records classification and retention application with document management capabilities suitable for a large deployment.
Again the metadata management is not terribly complex, but to date its been a rather arcane, boring, business and government-centric requirement that the open source community has not responded to.
I'd love to see an open source solution come out of such a big migration but there may be a chicken/egg scenario with the lack of a DMS / Records Management solution preventing them from moving.
Saving licensing costs on a DM/RM system could pay for an open source solution to be developed. Typical costs for a 1000 seat implementation (software only) tend to run around 200 - 500K depending on options.
And no, Microsoft does not have a Records Management solution and their DM piece is sorely lacking, so they don't have a compelling edge there themselves.
I'd be interested, and am even somewhat qualified, to work on such a project.
The issue is not whether "Kos" is getting worked up over the 'Gannon' issue or not. No, the real meat of the matter is more about the way the administration is - politely put - managing perceptions through the paid, or at minimum 'invited friendly' journalistic support.
Put impolitely, they are gaming the system, going beyond "spin" to manufacturing news coverage. One man's media is another's propaganda just a little further down the slippery slope.
Python: for p in pets: p.upper() 'DOG' 'CAT' 'SNAKE'
SQL Example? I prefer higher level abstractions than "row" but you can do that too, with examples similar to what you've given but more readable in my opinion (due to python, not me).
Better yet is a higher level abstraction like SQLObject (ignore the ____ whitespace pretender...)
But Love of Whitespace (tm) is what makes Python terrific...;-)
Initially I was afraid of whitespace, and now I can't imagine a language that did not enforce its use. Whitespace makes code readable, and makes it possible for me to maintain other peoples code long after they have left with a minimum of head bashing against the desk.
But enough about Whitespace, I wanted to comment on Rails - I had a good look at it - very cool stuff. However I'm not willing to switch languages and Python has very bool web-stuff too, so I don't need to.
I have not used ASP or PHP in years now - have long since switched to Python and a lesser known but growing in community web framework called Quixote.
Quixote (and related framework helper Dulcinea, and object database Durus) make quick work out of data driven web applications, particularly if your thought process is more "Programmer developing web application" rather than "Web GUI developer needing to intergrate some data pieces". Highly recommended.
Durus is a relation in some ways to Zope's ZODB, but infinitely simpler -- you can understand the unerpinings of Durus with a simple readthrough of the code.
Check out the stuff even if you don't use Python - its very useful software that doesn't believe in magic. If you have the time to invest, Quixote, Dulcinea and Durus make a terrific combo that will give you all sorts of pre-done app components and get you going quickly, more than saving the up front learning curve time invested in the end.
And if object db's aren't your think, nothing in Quixote prevents using Postgres or any common SQL DB with a tool like SQLObject (been there, done that). I come from a long background of SQL driven apps but now will question whether I need them and use an ODB like Durus where it makes sense. Its a real treat to be able to do this:
class SomeThing(Persistent): ____ foo = None ____ children = {} ____ def add_child(self, child): ________ children[child.key] = child
class Child(Persistent): ____ someotherstuff = foobar()
... And that's it -- regular python. No db code, everything is saved to the Durus object db, attribute changes etc - I don't have to think about it.
There are quite a few hams out there in tech land, not all doing "big" work, although probably more than a few pulling down big paychecks.
Among many radios built or collected over the years (I've been a radio amateur since the early 80's) I have the Elecraft K1's bigger brother http://elecraft.com/ (which is still very small) the K2.
These are not your father's HeathKit! Fabulous design, terrific functionality, and they are truly excellent radios, comparable with commercial gear from overseas easily, better in many cases.
Building them is great fun - something anyone with patience and the desire can do, with barely more than a multimeter and a good soldering iron like a temp controlled Weller. Being a ham first might be a good pre-req here..., although the K2 might convince some to become one.
Soldering is a good diversion from writing web apps. de VE7__
There may be a trend away from the Superpowers "openly" fighting one another, but make no mistake, the US is already engaged in World War IV (or V depending on how one tracks these things) only this time the battle is for dominance of *easy to get oil reserves*.
Fact: The US has 4% of world population yet consumes, believe it or not, 25% of world energy output annually.
Fact: US GDP is approx 10% higher per capita (33K$ vs 29K$) than other advanced economies (such as France and Germany) yet it uses close to 100% more energy per capita to produce this output.
I've not even counted the energy used in imported materials that are an input component of that output.
Western Europe (if you add the countries that the Department of Energy considers included) has roughly the same population as the US, produces more total GDP, but uses 1/2 as much energy.
There is no real effort to make the US economy more energy efficient. This domestic policy represents the single biggest issue for US foreign policy since the long term trend has been to assert "strategic" control of less than friendly regions to secure oil access.
China has 1/3 of world population (India close to it and will likely overtake China within two decades) yet uses far less energy. Sound good? Well, no, China's energy use is blooming. This is going to bring her in to conflict with the US as will India be. Its inevitable. They all want "in" to the club of profligate energy users since energy drives economic output.
Conflict over energy is avoidable, however the US isn't making any moves to avoid it.
Search result clustering is nothing new. Search engine technology companies like Verity, Fulcrum (from U of Waterloo grads among others, now owed by Knowledge Manager vendor Hummingbird), and others have been working in this space for many years.
While I've seen no overt evidence of this from Google, I would be shocked and amazed if Google did not already have this technology in a highly advanced state.
Google's own "Similar Pages" link associated with search results probably in part uses clustering technology in the background to achieve its results.
You haven't looked at Microsoft's stock lately, obviously.
Sure, they have a ton of cash, and right now the expectation on the street is that the best way to play with that cash is for MSFT to give it back to shareholders as dividends.
That doesn't sound very "innovative" to me.
Instead, they should open source everything they do and use the cash to fund important open source initiatives.
I have 3 u-locks, 2 of the Kryptonite. We have a unique and slightly expensive tandem bike and have always carried multiple types of locks, especially when we are going to be away from the bike - but lock differentiation has until now meant a U-Lock and a cable lock.
Guess what, both have cylinderical keys.
The thrust of this story should not be focused on Kryptonite, the Kleenex of bike locks -- it should be to point out that ALL cylinderical locks are at risk. You'll find them all over the place, protecting mailboxes, storage compartments, systems panels, etc.
So now lock diversity will mean a ulock, a regular keyed lock and a combination lock... ugh.
"... buy a gun."
LOL
Sadly that is the approach of many, even though it doesn't work and death from guns, crime related or not, in the US far outstrips any other western "civilized" country.
Here's the stats for a financial services website, which while doesn't attract traffic such as the likes of Schwab, is visited enough to be a good sampling:
Anomolies are present due to better browser detection implemented mid 2004. This particular site put out a couple of articles (out of many hundreds of other articles on its core topic, financial services) which suggested a browser switch to clients.
Apparently several paragraphs of advocacy make a difference.
Slashdot Mirror
Commonsense suggests that that environmental change, more than likely manifesting in climate change, is inevitable.
"We" are, today, on an annual basis pumping thousands of millions of tons of CO2 and other gasses into the atmosphere (California alone spews out > 100 million tons just for electricy production annually), at an accelerating rate. Soon "we" will be "WE", since the economic development of the world is about to turn a corner where the less-developed world is suddenly going to match and within most of our lifetimes surpass the (IMO wasteful) developed world in output of same.
Naysayers fought science when early work suggested chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) were behind the destruction of Ozone. Today its widely accepted.
"Greenhouse" gas production is on a scale far vaster than CFCs.
Commonsense suggests we are furtzing the planet up royally, but hey, the naysayers (or their grandkids or their grandkids) will be dead along with the rest of our progeny so who cares, lets get in the Ford Explorer and Hummer and head to the 7/11 for some Twinkies!
Training is a big issue; but not the ONLY issue by far.
In a recent former life I built document and workflow management solutions - integrated with "office" applications, as well as with line of business applications (permits, licensing, parks n rec, planning, GIS, etc) - for large municipal governments.
Training was always the second largest cost impact after licensing itself.
Chances are LA uses some form of document mangagement solution (Hummingbird, Open Text, or others) and perhaps even more than one.
Strangely there are no "open source" DMS applications really ready to cut a large scale "desktop" (as opposed to "webtop") deployment, although it frankly would not be that difficult an endeavor to design and write one in this day and age. Quite a lot of the work was all the furtzing about with Microsoft as their products would tend to break integration ever so slightly with every new release.
There is more to it than just putting files under management; larger organizations also have records management rules which need to be followed, the DMS needs to manage these as well, and there are zero, as far as I am aware, open source records classification and retention application with document management capabilities suitable for a large deployment.
Again the metadata management is not terribly complex, but to date its been a rather arcane, boring, business and government-centric requirement that the open source community has not responded to.
I'd love to see an open source solution come out of such a big migration but there may be a chicken/egg scenario with the lack of a DMS / Records Management solution preventing them from moving.
Saving licensing costs on a DM/RM system could pay for an open source solution to be developed. Typical costs for a 1000 seat implementation (software only) tend to run around 200 - 500K depending on options.
And no, Microsoft does not have a Records Management solution and their DM piece is sorely lacking, so they don't have a compelling edge there themselves.
I'd be interested, and am even somewhat qualified, to work on such a project.
The issue is not whether "Kos" is getting worked up over the 'Gannon' issue or not. No, the real meat of the matter is more about the way the administration is - politely put - managing perceptions through the paid, or at minimum 'invited friendly' journalistic support.
Put impolitely, they are gaming the system, going beyond "spin" to manufacturing news coverage. One man's media is another's propaganda just a little further down the slippery slope.
Python on the other hand offends no one. ;-)
Love it.
If there is any change to beastie it should simply be to adopt the color BLUE over RED.
I dont find ruby any more clear to read than python.
SQL Example? I prefer higher level abstractions than "row" but you can do that too, with examples similar to what you've given but more readable in my opinion (due to python, not me).
Better yet is a higher level abstraction like SQLObject (ignore the ____ whitespace pretender...)
Don't have your schema setup? No problem, just call
Person.createTable()
Have an existing schema? No problem don't define any data attributes and tell SQLObject to create them for you.
All very cool...
Or, move to an object database like Durus or ZODB and skip SQL altogether, where possible.... I posted a note in this thread elsewhere.
But Love of Whitespace (tm) is what makes Python terrific... ;-)
Initially I was afraid of whitespace, and now I can't imagine a language that did not enforce its use. Whitespace makes code readable, and makes it possible for me to maintain other peoples code long after they have left with a minimum of head bashing against the desk.
But enough about Whitespace, I wanted to comment on Rails - I had a good look at it - very cool stuff. However I'm not willing to switch languages and Python has very bool web-stuff too, so I don't need to.
I have not used ASP or PHP in years now - have long since switched to Python and a lesser known but growing in community web framework called Quixote.
See: http://www.mems-exchange.org/software/
Quixote (and related framework helper Dulcinea, and object database Durus) make quick work out of data driven web applications, particularly if your thought process is more "Programmer developing web application" rather than "Web GUI developer needing to intergrate some data pieces". Highly recommended.
Durus is a relation in some ways to Zope's ZODB, but infinitely simpler -- you can understand the unerpinings of Durus with a simple readthrough of the code.
Check out the stuff even if you don't use Python - its very useful software that doesn't believe in magic. If you have the time to invest, Quixote, Dulcinea and Durus make a terrific combo that will give you all sorts of pre-done app components and get you going quickly, more than saving the up front learning curve time invested in the end.
And if object db's aren't your think, nothing in Quixote prevents using Postgres or any common SQL DB with a tool like SQLObject (been there, done that). I come from a long background of SQL driven apps but now will question whether I need them and use an ODB like Durus where it makes sense. Its a real treat to be able to do this:
... And that's it -- regular python. No db code, everything is saved to the Durus object db, attribute changes etc - I don't have to think about it.
There are quite a few hams out there in tech land, not all doing "big" work, although probably more than a few pulling down big paychecks.
Among many radios built or collected over the years (I've been a radio amateur since the early 80's) I have the Elecraft K1's bigger brother http://elecraft.com/ (which is still very small) the K2.
These are not your father's HeathKit! Fabulous design, terrific functionality, and they are truly excellent radios, comparable with commercial gear from overseas easily, better in many cases.
Building them is great fun - something anyone with patience and the desire can do, with barely more than a multimeter and a good soldering iron like a temp controlled Weller. Being a ham first might be a good pre-req here..., although the K2 might convince some to become one.
Soldering is a good diversion from writing web apps. de VE7__
They fired a guy for having an idea (drives for caching images)? Gee, sounds like they invalidated their informal corporate mottoe "Don't be evil"
http://www.google.com/governance/conduct.html
There may be a trend away from the Superpowers "openly" fighting one another, but make no mistake, the US is already engaged in World War IV (or V depending on how one tracks these things) only this time the battle is for dominance of *easy to get oil reserves*.
Fact: The US has 4% of world population yet consumes, believe it or not, 25% of world energy output annually.
Fact: US GDP is approx 10% higher per capita (33K$ vs 29K$) than other advanced economies (such as France and Germany) yet it uses close to 100% more energy per capita to produce this output.
I've not even counted the energy used in imported materials that are an input component of that output.
Western Europe (if you add the countries that the Department of Energy considers included) has roughly the same population as the US, produces more total GDP, but uses 1/2 as much energy.
There is no real effort to make the US economy more energy efficient. This domestic policy represents the single biggest issue for US foreign policy since the long term trend has been to assert "strategic" control of less than friendly regions to secure oil access.
China has 1/3 of world population (India close to it and will likely overtake China within two decades) yet uses far less energy. Sound good? Well, no, China's energy use is blooming. This is going to bring her in to conflict with the US as will India be. Its inevitable. They all want "in" to the club of profligate energy users since energy drives economic output.
Conflict over energy is avoidable, however the US isn't making any moves to avoid it.
Duck and cover!
Search result clustering is nothing new. Search engine technology companies like Verity, Fulcrum (from U of Waterloo grads among others, now owed by Knowledge Manager vendor Hummingbird), and others have been working in this space for many years.
While I've seen no overt evidence of this from Google, I would be shocked and amazed if Google did not already have this technology in a highly advanced state.
Google's own "Similar Pages" link associated with search results probably in part uses clustering technology in the background to achieve its results.
But I guess Chimp hacks Access Database isn't really news.
Why should that be news? Access is evidence enough on its own that it was developed by chimps.
You haven't looked at Microsoft's stock lately, obviously.
;-)
Sure, they have a ton of cash, and right now the expectation on the street is that the best way to play with that cash is for MSFT to give it back to shareholders as dividends.
That doesn't sound very "innovative" to me.
Instead, they should open source everything they do and use the cash to fund important open source initiatives.
Sack windows, long live the command line!
I have 3 u-locks, 2 of the Kryptonite. We have a unique and slightly expensive tandem bike and have always carried multiple types of locks, especially when we are going to be away from the bike - but lock differentiation has until now meant a U-Lock and a cable lock.
Guess what, both have cylinderical keys.
The thrust of this story should not be focused on Kryptonite, the Kleenex of bike locks -- it should be to point out that ALL cylinderical locks are at risk. You'll find them all over the place, protecting mailboxes, storage compartments, systems panels, etc.
So now lock diversity will mean a ulock, a regular keyed lock and a combination lock... ugh.
"... buy a gun." LOL Sadly that is the approach of many, even though it doesn't work and death from guns, crime related or not, in the US far outstrips any other western "civilized" country.
Here's the stats for a financial services website, which while doesn't attract traffic such as the likes of Schwab, is visited enough to be a good sampling:
Anomolies are present due to better browser detection implemented mid 2004. This particular site put out a couple of articles (out of many hundreds of other articles on its core topic, financial services) which suggested a browser switch to clients.
Apparently several paragraphs of advocacy make a difference.
dell ships their first laptop with FreeBSD and Gnome preinstalled.