Many of the EU bans were put in place before the crops were available and there was data to work from. It was what we call a knee-jerk reaction. Most of the studies have found no issues with GMO foods.
Requiring labeling and/or outright banning genetically modified (think about what that means...) food products for which we had no good human safety data or studies seems prudent, not "knee-jerk".
...without the will and courage to do something about it. It's not the idea guy who is creating the real value - it's the guy who took the idea and had the courage to try and do something with it. Probably everyone on/. has had an original idea at some point - how many of us have taken the step off the curb to actually quit our job (or sacrifice personal time) and try and bring it to fruition? Moreover, how many of us have had the belief in ourselves and our idea to seek out the best and brightest in their field (or anyone at all for that matter) and ask them to follow our lead?
Keeping commented out code around is not only distracting to developers but harmful. Code in comments isn't syntax checked, isn't compiled, and isn't tested and therefor quickly begins to suffer from bit rot. It would be better to refactor the surrounding code to work with different plugin-able implementations and to fully support both the "old" and the "new and improved" implementation if the intent is to be able to reliably revert that part of the system to a different implementation.
...I know this is doable for a reasonably experienced and skilled developer. I've worked in the logistics industry for several years and I've seen numerous home-grown barcode scanning systems designed and implemented by small teams (1-3 developers). Look at PointeWare (http://www.pointeware.com) as a starting point for a reasonably priced hardware + java api solution. It works with existing Motolora hardware which is easy to use, well supported, and cheap.
Still, unless you see an opportunity to do something that hasn't been done and you think there is a market to sell your system to additional customers OR your client is/very/ patient or taking this project on as a semi-charitable engagement then seriously think twice about doing this on your own. I've learned that barcoding, while a nice idea, is one of the finickiest and error prone technologies out there. Remember that barcodes are printed on paper and usually involve some degree of human intervention to match the right barcode on the right product. Barcodes are physical objects and are prone to damage and wear. The data capture mechanism is semi-manual which is also error prone. While your product may work well in the lab it is almost certain that you will run into unforseen problems dealing with things like:
symbologies - not all barcodes are encoded in the same format
encoded data - not all information on all barcodes are the same - some are EIN numbers, others are SKU's, and on and on
hardware incompatibilities - barcode scanners are NOTORIOUSLY unreliable and the manufacturers are notoriously bad at fulfilling orders
programming quirks on limited memory devices - forget about indexed databases - even commercial products like M$ PocketSQL quickly become major bottlenecks in performance
concurrent use locking nightmares - your system will require either real-time wireless communication with an in-store server or a sophisticated offline locking strategy to ensure data integrity when dealing with concurrent users. Yes, it's likely that there will be more than one user scanning data at one time
It is very likely that this system will be a huge time sink and financial loss for you.
in that they are conducting their vigilante justice in public spaces. The problem is that there doesn't exist a governing body with enough clout, knowledge of the subject and power to enforce any fair use of what amounts to a public resource. Hijacking a hijacker's own car doesn't clear the streets of the problem - if anything it enforces the notion that it's a viable way to get attention and/or address a grievance.
Books: Linux Device Drivers, Understanding the Linux Kernel, Robert Love's book. I totally agree. I own the first two books and they are virtually comprehensive. A thorough reading (Understanding the Linux Kernel is very dense) along with a copy of a 2.6 kernel source is a great way to learn advanced concepts.
However, I would say that it's rather difficult to just set out to "learn" the Linux kernel. The focus that a specific goal or project gives you will help you avoid the many diversions that you'll encounter when exploring a system as complex as a kernel. So you might want to go about this a different way - find a driver or subsystem that either doesn't exist or that needs an overhaul and do it - the process of working through a real world project and comparing and contrasting the ideas provided by the "text book" reference material with your own implementations will be very helpful.
That's only partially true. Many immigrants fill the role of "complementary labor" - jobs that/won't/ be filled by eligible, able-body Americans simply because they feel the work is not appropriate for their social status. Also, when you talk about quality of work you have to include a price component - they provide better work for the price. In the case of jobs where wages are depressed relative to the rest of the market the overhead and uncertainty (vis-a-vis organized strikes) that a union brings with it vastly outweighs any benefit of "easy access to labor force" that they purportedly provide.
>>IANAIDBT (I am not an interface designer by trade), but this really puts the the stupid in Keep It Simple, Stupid.
I know this is going to be modded as flamebait, but... "IANAIDBT"? If you have to explain it why use the acronym in the first place? And "Keep It Simple Stupid"? If you're so fond of acronyms why not just type 'KISS'?
I would bet that most of your app is proprietary libraries and it's all written in native. In the parent's case he's farming out a significant amount of the processing to a database (db2) which is not proprietary, but I'd bet it's written in native code. Funny how when people say "I wrote a php program" they usually mean "I wrote glue code".
So in both cases the heavy lifting is done in native code. FYI, most of the work we do here is in Perl and we see/major/ performance problems constructing complex object trees.
C++.Net does use the "handle" system you describe. Of course C++.Net is not C++, but I digress. In C++.Net the programmer has the option of pinning a memory address, so that when the heap-compactor tries to move the object in memory it cannot do so. In this way one can continue to use "unsafe" pointer-arithmetic alongside.Net "managed" objects.
It's not the fact that they/have/ plans, it's the fact that the plans they/have/ drawn up violate the freedom of the American people, and therefor harm the very people whom the plans are supposed to benefit. That's surprising.
The US Government acknowledges that in the effort to misinform non-americans whom they disagree with, they are actually spreading misinformation to their own people. Since they can no longer apply psyops with precision, they will try to spread misinformation globally - across all media - to everyone, including to their own people. The enemy can't be targed, so they'll target everyone. If they target everyone who are they serving and protecting? Themselves and business, under the guise of "a way of life for us all". That's basically fascism. And that's news.
Many aircraft failures in the last 20 years have been attributed to metal fatigue. These are not huge cracks that are necessariy visible to the naked eye. They may be microscopic or in difficult to see areas (ie. on internally facing surfaces of the fuselage or wing). Spaceflight is going to be expensive, and to be commercially viable these craft will have to last for many, many flights. I would say that not only is this of interest to NASA (and probably Richard Branson:) ) but also to the greater commercial aviation industry as well as other industries battling metal fatigue problems.
>What is probably more important (for home users) is actually something Steve side stepped, these new iMac should generate less heat and therefore run more quietly (because the fans won't need to spin as fast/often) for users in a domestic setting this is important.
So true. I recently built a server for my home. After I got everything working perfectly on my workbench upstairs I patted myself on the back and marched it downstairs to my room. After firing it up in the quiet of my humble bedroom my girlfriend pointed out that she would never be able to sleep with that obnoxious whirring going on in the back ground. So much for cron jobs running while I was at work.
Good point. And a good sysadmin with sufficient control over policy can limit user privileges with groups. Why isn't anyone mentioning groups here? It's my experience that few sysadmins use groups to partion user privileges very effectively.
I'll ignore the leading flamebait and jump into the reasonable points you make...
Humans are able to altar their environments to fit their needs.
Noone is arguing against that.
We no longer require evolution to keep up
The fact that you refute evolution is interesting. Do you have any solid evidence for this wild claim?
we make the world keep up with us (not always a good thing, but a fact).
Really, now? How, exactly, does the world "keep up" with/us/? When we over-consume, does our environment magically begin to crank out more fuel? Are you suggesting the existence of a "Magic Grinder"? The reality is that as long as we're on Earth we're constrained by resources. As the population grows indefinitely we're bound to push, and eventually begin to overflow those restraints. I personally believe that the overall natural balance is not within our mastery. As we push our natural population constraints to the brink Nature will intervene with sickness, poverty (leading to sickness), and more sickness.
Our technology dramatically limits the effects of natural selection, barring third world countries.
Limiting is not the same as rendering inneffective. Mike Tyson can kick my arse with one hand behind his back - he's limited, but he's still able to effect change on my person.
Why are we even pursuing anti-aging research? The cycle of birth and death and rebirth is literally what drives evolution and in turn life on earth. I sincerely hope this, or any other "breakthroughs", never lead to unnatural life extension beyond what can be obtained through sanitation improvements, exercise, diet, and improvements in mental health. Once we go down that route we're playing with natural forces that should not be meddled with.
Slashdot Mirror
Many of the EU bans were put in place before the crops were available and there was data to work from. It was what we call a knee-jerk reaction. Most of the studies have found no issues with GMO foods.
Requiring labeling and/or outright banning genetically modified (think about what that means...) food products for which we had no good human safety data or studies seems prudent, not "knee-jerk".
...without the will and courage to do something about it. It's not the idea guy who is creating the real value - it's the guy who took the idea and had the courage to try and do something with it. Probably everyone on /. has had an original idea at some point - how many of us have taken the step off the curb to actually quit our job (or sacrifice personal time) and try and bring it to fruition? Moreover, how many of us have had the belief in ourselves and our idea to seek out the best and brightest in their field (or anyone at all for that matter) and ask them to follow our lead?
...where it belongs, alongside other phobias, irrational behavior, groupthink, etc.
Keeping commented out code around is not only distracting to developers but harmful. Code in comments isn't syntax checked, isn't compiled, and isn't tested and therefor quickly begins to suffer from bit rot. It would be better to refactor the surrounding code to work with different plugin-able implementations and to fully support both the "old" and the "new and improved" implementation if the intent is to be able to reliably revert that part of the system to a different implementation.
Still, unless you see an opportunity to do something that hasn't been done and you think there is a market to sell your system to additional customers OR your client is
- symbologies - not all barcodes are encoded in the same format
- encoded data - not all information on all barcodes are the same - some are EIN numbers, others are SKU's, and on and on
- hardware incompatibilities - barcode scanners are NOTORIOUSLY unreliable and the manufacturers are notoriously bad at fulfilling orders
- programming quirks on limited memory devices - forget about indexed databases - even commercial products like M$ PocketSQL quickly become major bottlenecks in performance
- concurrent use locking nightmares - your system will require either real-time wireless communication with an in-store server or a sophisticated offline locking strategy to ensure data integrity when dealing with concurrent users. Yes, it's likely that there will be more than one user scanning data at one time
It is very likely that this system will be a huge time sink and financial loss for you.in that they are conducting their vigilante justice in public spaces. The problem is that there doesn't exist a governing body with enough clout, knowledge of the subject and power to enforce any fair use of what amounts to a public resource. Hijacking a hijacker's own car doesn't clear the streets of the problem - if anything it enforces the notion that it's a viable way to get attention and/or address a grievance.
However, I would say that it's rather difficult to just set out to "learn" the Linux kernel. The focus that a specific goal or project gives you will help you avoid the many diversions that you'll encounter when exploring a system as complex as a kernel. So you might want to go about this a different way - find a driver or subsystem that either doesn't exist or that needs an overhaul and do it - the process of working through a real world project and comparing and contrasting the ideas provided by the "text book" reference material with your own implementations will be very helpful.
That's only partially true. Many immigrants fill the role of "complementary labor" - jobs that /won't/ be filled by eligible, able-body Americans simply because they feel the work is not appropriate for their social status. Also, when you talk about quality of work you have to include a price component - they provide better work for the price. In the case of jobs where wages are depressed relative to the rest of the market the overhead and uncertainty (vis-a-vis organized strikes) that a union brings with it vastly outweighs any benefit of "easy access to labor force" that they purportedly provide.
/ 2007-1-11.htm
http://www.choicesmagazine.org/2007-1/immigration
Erm, that would be SEMANTIC web, as in the word "semantic" (see http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/semantic) not Symantec, as in the security software company (see http://www.symantec.com/index.htm).
It's all semantics, anyway I guess. Jesus.
Boss to Greg: You're fired for not using the raided shared drive.
Now replace those emails with CRM cases which have deadlines monitored by C-level execs and you can imagine what happens to your productivity level.
A future researcher asking Slashdotters where he/she should do research. Shudder....
>>IANAIDBT (I am not an interface designer by trade), but this really puts the the stupid in Keep It Simple, Stupid.
I know this is going to be modded as flamebait, but... "IANAIDBT"? If you have to explain it why use the acronym in the first place? And "Keep It Simple Stupid"? If you're so fond of acronyms why not just type 'KISS'?
...a long week.
I'm with you.
/major/ performance problems constructing complex object trees.
I would bet that most of your app is proprietary libraries and it's all written in native. In the parent's case he's farming out a significant amount of the processing to a database (db2) which is not proprietary, but I'd bet it's written in native code. Funny how when people say "I wrote a php program" they usually mean "I wrote glue code".
So in both cases the heavy lifting is done in native code. FYI, most of the work we do here is in Perl and we see
See "Mixing Managed and Unmanaged Code" in http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/01/07/vsn et/
It's not the fact that they /have/ plans, it's the fact that the plans they /have/ drawn up violate the freedom of the American people, and therefor harm the very people whom the plans are supposed to benefit. That's surprising.
Why is it news? I'll give you a good reason:
The US Government acknowledges that in the effort to misinform non-americans whom they disagree with, they are actually spreading misinformation to their own people. Since they can no longer apply psyops with precision, they will try to spread misinformation globally - across all media - to everyone, including to their own people. The enemy can't be targed, so they'll target everyone. If they target everyone who are they serving and protecting? Themselves and business, under the guise of "a way of life for us all". That's basically fascism. And that's news.
Many aircraft failures in the last 20 years have been attributed to metal fatigue. These are not huge cracks that are necessariy visible to the naked eye. They may be microscopic or in difficult to see areas (ie. on internally facing surfaces of the fuselage or wing). Spaceflight is going to be expensive, and to be commercially viable these craft will have to last for many, many flights. I would say that not only is this of interest to NASA (and probably Richard Branson :) ) but also to the greater commercial aviation industry as well as other industries battling metal fatigue problems.
>What is probably more important (for home users) is actually something Steve side stepped, these new iMac should generate less heat and therefore run more quietly (because the fans won't need to spin as fast/often) for users in a domestic setting this is important. So true. I recently built a server for my home. After I got everything working perfectly on my workbench upstairs I patted myself on the back and marched it downstairs to my room. After firing it up in the quiet of my humble bedroom my girlfriend pointed out that she would never be able to sleep with that obnoxious whirring going on in the back ground. So much for cron jobs running while I was at work.
Good point. And a good sysadmin with sufficient control over policy can limit user privileges with groups. Why isn't anyone mentioning groups here? It's my experience that few sysadmins use groups to partion user privileges very effectively.
Why are we even pursuing anti-aging research? The cycle of birth and death and rebirth is literally what drives evolution and in turn life on earth. I sincerely hope this, or any other "breakthroughs", never lead to unnatural life extension beyond what can be obtained through sanitation improvements, exercise, diet, and improvements in mental health. Once we go down that route we're playing with natural forces that should not be meddled with.