I hate everything about (anti-)security questions, which are (IMHO) nothing more than a time/money saver for the institution in case I forget my password and have to bother them about it. These security questions amount to having a link ("Click here to hack this account") where the unauthorized person gets a hint at a weak password. And that weak password could potentially be found in public records. Security questions are practically a gift to criminals.
Place of birth? Maiden name? Parent's middle name? Easily information for someone to dig up. Favorite teacher/coach? I was home schooled, so it's either my mom or my dad, which if anyone knew I was home schooled they'd figure that one out in two tries. Favorite movie/book/fictional character? Well, my favorites change from time to time, what's the likelihood that I'll remember when I answered that question and what was my favorite then? And favorites come up in conversation frequently, so someone eavesdropping on a conversation or reading one of my online posts might pick it up.
I always answer their security questions with some kind of nonsense. I don't need a simple password bypass. The system is only as strong as it's weakest link, and I'm not going to add another weak link. Hell, rarely do I find 3 different questions that are even applicable to me, and they don't let you skip setting up security questions, so I'd be forced to enter nonsense for at least one of them most of the time./rant
That's pretty much how I read reviews every time. Most of the reviews in the middle of the bunch are not likely to affect my decision to buy or not. I want to know what's best about the product and what's the worst. Most of that information can be found quickly in the 5 and 1 point reviews while the 3 point reviews often tell very little.
I was just using "fast and loose" in the context of TFA, which called it "fast and loose" to allow a process to execute when key data is null (or at least that's how I interpreted it, TFA wasn't exactly clear).
The tip wasn't even about the use of that new feature in Java. It was about the kind of "fast and loose" programming that leads to the need to check for nulls here.
In the end, however, such syntax improvements can only prevent code from crashing, not ensure that it's useful. After all, it doesn't eliminate the root of the problem: the proliferation of null values due to fast and loose programming.
I write code all the time that wastes a few CPU cycles for basically having insufficient user input (the "proliferation of null values"), but the result of the whole process is null. Yeah, executing at that time isn't USEFUL, but the CPU is a far more abundant resource than the time it would take to optimize it. If the CPU isn't getting hammered for more than a fraction of a second, it isn't worth it. Fast and loose programming (in this circumstance) is perfectly fine. Better checking for null in one common place and let the process fail gracefully than to check for nulls in the multitude of places that call this function.
Fast and loose programming is great as long as: 1. the process accomplishes nothing when key data is null, and 2. the process doesn't use a great deal of CPU to accomplish this.
Yes. Laws should never create a public benefit to murder.
If I came up with a magic-bullet cure for cancer and patented it, holding out for the drug companies to meet my demands, they could easily turn half the country into headhunters after me so they can use the patent without paying me.
Still, the patent would expire prematurely. And you think that a multi-million-dollar corporation couldn't find a way to get away with it? Laws should not create the means for a corporation to benefit from someone's death. You would be creating an incentive for them to creatively eliminate patent holders. And they are quite resourceful. More so than law enforcement.
However patents should not be able to change owner, a patent should die with it's owner.
Sometimes, a hit man is cheaper than licensing. Bonus if you can split the cost of the hit with several other corporations that are interested in producing a product using your patent.
[Computer executed instructions] load book into memory; turn to page 43, line 12, word 4, change word to "ass"; read book; [/instructions]
They don't sell the book or the copy of that page. They sell the instructions about how to change the book to read the same way they designed it to be read.
You take a book you bought and copy a page. Take that copy, white out a few words and put other words in their places, change face to ass or whatever absurdity you please to make the story funny to you. Place that page in the book and read the book, reading that page instead of the one it was copied from.
Blizzard is claiming that's copyright infringement?
* No "draw borders" functionality in the spreadsheet program (and the addon/plugin kinda sucks). Doing cell borders is a pain in OOo but very easy in Excel.
I used this feature a few times this week, no difficulty at all. OOo 3.1.1.
* Asking me every single time whether I want to delete everything in the cell, or just the formula, or the formatting, or...
My favorite is when I decide to rearrange the contents of the bag and I pick up an item, move them around, I put it back in the bag and the machine starts accusing me of stealing.
"Unexpected item in the bagging area. Please remove the item."
The libertarian principle is more like giving the least trust to those with the greatest power. It's not in support of anything except personal freedom. It just happens that you get the worst of both worlds when you introduce regulation as the government selects "qualified" individuals, such as former CEO's of industry leaders, to give regulatory power to in their given field. I wouldn't want them selecting unqualified individuals, but the qualified ones have a history of personal investment and are likely quite partial. They don't make for impartial regulators.
Such as Michael Taylor, former VP of Public Policy at Monsanto Corp. and Monsanto lobbyist, appointed to senior FDA food safety adviser. Or Roger Beachy, former president of the Danforth Plant Science Center, another branch of the Monsanto Corp., is now heading the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
You don't trust corporations, but you refuse to realize that regulation just supports more corporatism?
Your government only gives you the illusion of protection and safety. You are really on your own in this world. We'd just like to have the government acknowledge that fact.
The government is going to ruin the lives of my children. The US is going to become a third-world country by the time they're my age unless there's a complete reversal in spending policy. To accomplish that, we need higher taxes on the majority of voters, particularly the ones that pay little or no income tax.
What I'm advocating isn't about giving the government more money to spend, it's about hurting you. I want the government to hurt you, because it's the only way to get your ass into gear to kick their asses.
I don't want to give that monster more tax dollars, I want you to reign in that monster, which probably won't happen without such drastic changes.
If you don't reign in that monster it's going to eat my daughters' lunches. For the rest of their lives.
Yes, you can raise taxes on people barely making enough to get by. I'm one of them.
If you don't raise taxes on the majority of voters you will never see serious government cuts. With $110 trillion in unfunded liabilities and an attitude that they have to spend more, the government is going to crash and my children will have to pay the bills. That is a bigger tragedy than me paying 10% more taxes now.
The only way our government will turn that around is if the people, today, demand a change. They aren't going to demand a change without feeling the pain of taxation. Stealing more from the rich feels good and we won't have to worry about the future now.
If you want to fund $110 trillion over the next 75 years, and if the upper-bracket (rich) hold around 25% of the national income, assuming a healthy growth of 2% each year, you'd have to tax the rich at a rate of about 55% to come up with $110 trillion. That doesn't sound so bad, eh? Add the trillion-dollar deficits for as far as the eye can see and it's more like 70%. Ok, we've had rates that high before. No big deal. But never for more than a few short years have we sustained such a tax hike on the rich. If we did, they would leave the country.
But here's the kicker: unfunded liabilities have gone up $45 trillion in the last 2 years. Nearly half of the total current liabilities was raised in just the time since Obama was elected. One of the reasons is that Social Security, Medicaid and the other funds taxed for future obligations, $5.1 trillion in 2009, is counted as an asset when the government balances their books. So you thought we had a $1.2 trillion-dollar deficit last year, it's really $6.3 trillion. And for every year they spend that money, another $5.1 trillion (using 2009 figures) is added to unfunded liabilities.
So, come up with another $5 trillion in taxes per year, plus a modest growth rate of 2% per year. The rich don't have it. Take 100% from them and it doesn't even cover that $5 trillion alone.
Tax them all, let the voters sort it out. Yes, you can raise taxes on them. It would be immoral not to.
Slashdot Mirror
I hate everything about (anti-)security questions, which are (IMHO) nothing more than a time/money saver for the institution in case I forget my password and have to bother them about it. These security questions amount to having a link ("Click here to hack this account") where the unauthorized person gets a hint at a weak password. And that weak password could potentially be found in public records. Security questions are practically a gift to criminals.
Place of birth? Maiden name? Parent's middle name? Easily information for someone to dig up.
Favorite teacher/coach? I was home schooled, so it's either my mom or my dad, which if anyone knew I was home schooled they'd figure that one out in two tries.
Favorite movie/book/fictional character? Well, my favorites change from time to time, what's the likelihood that I'll remember when I answered that question and what was my favorite then? And favorites come up in conversation frequently, so someone eavesdropping on a conversation or reading one of my online posts might pick it up.
I always answer their security questions with some kind of nonsense. I don't need a simple password bypass. The system is only as strong as it's weakest link, and I'm not going to add another weak link. Hell, rarely do I find 3 different questions that are even applicable to me, and they don't let you skip setting up security questions, so I'd be forced to enter nonsense for at least one of them most of the time. /rant
That's pretty much how I read reviews every time. Most of the reviews in the middle of the bunch are not likely to affect my decision to buy or not. I want to know what's best about the product and what's the worst. Most of that information can be found quickly in the 5 and 1 point reviews while the 3 point reviews often tell very little.
I was just using "fast and loose" in the context of TFA, which called it "fast and loose" to allow a process to execute when key data is null (or at least that's how I interpreted it, TFA wasn't exactly clear).
The tip wasn't even about the use of that new feature in Java. It was about the kind of "fast and loose" programming that leads to the need to check for nulls here.
In the end, however, such syntax improvements can only prevent code from crashing, not ensure that it's useful. After all, it doesn't eliminate the root of the problem: the proliferation of null values due to fast and loose programming.
I write code all the time that wastes a few CPU cycles for basically having insufficient user input (the "proliferation of null values"), but the result of the whole process is null. Yeah, executing at that time isn't USEFUL, but the CPU is a far more abundant resource than the time it would take to optimize it. If the CPU isn't getting hammered for more than a fraction of a second, it isn't worth it. Fast and loose programming (in this circumstance) is perfectly fine. Better checking for null in one common place and let the process fail gracefully than to check for nulls in the multitude of places that call this function.
Fast and loose programming is great as long as:
1. the process accomplishes nothing when key data is null, and
2. the process doesn't use a great deal of CPU to accomplish this.
Yes. Laws should never create a public benefit to murder.
If I came up with a magic-bullet cure for cancer and patented it, holding out for the drug companies to meet my demands, they could easily turn half the country into headhunters after me so they can use the patent without paying me.
Still, the patent would expire prematurely. And you think that a multi-million-dollar corporation couldn't find a way to get away with it? Laws should not create the means for a corporation to benefit from someone's death. You would be creating an incentive for them to creatively eliminate patent holders. And they are quite resourceful. More so than law enforcement.
However patents should not be able to change owner, a patent should die with it's owner.
Sometimes, a hit man is cheaper than licensing. Bonus if you can split the cost of the hit with several other corporations that are interested in producing a product using your patent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#ASCII_control_characters
^H (control + H) is backspace.
Tether. Think of a swing. It transfers momentum pretty efficiently.
Hologram! Wonderful hologram!
But I don't like holograms!
Selling a hack is like this.
[Computer executed instructions]
load book into memory;
turn to page 43, line 12, word 4, change word to "ass";
read book;
[/instructions]
They don't sell the book or the copy of that page. They sell the instructions about how to change the book to read the same way they designed it to be read.
You take a book you bought and copy a page. Take that copy, white out a few words and put other words in their places, change face to ass or whatever absurdity you please to make the story funny to you. Place that page in the book and read the book, reading that page instead of the one it was copied from.
Blizzard is claiming that's copyright infringement?
* No "draw borders" functionality in the spreadsheet program (and the addon/plugin kinda sucks). Doing cell borders is a pain in OOo but very easy in Excel.
I used this feature a few times this week, no difficulty at all. OOo 3.1.1.
* Asking me every single time whether I want to delete everything in the cell, or just the formula, or the formatting, or...
Use backspace to delete just the data/formula.
I still have a dumb phone, you insensitive clod!
Do you have any compelling reason why I SHOULD trust my government? They are a bunch of strangers to me. I don't trust strangers in general.
How about lawyers? Congress is largely comprised of lawyers. I REALLY don't trust lawyers.
Or 5 years experience in Office 2007.
Modernization is all about making things smaller and more expensive.
Set buttocks to stun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYBRfFVPZ3w
My favorite is when I decide to rearrange the contents of the bag and I pick up an item, move them around, I put it back in the bag and the machine starts accusing me of stealing.
"Unexpected item in the bagging area. Please remove the item."
Bonus if you use cloth bags, they don't tear and dump your groceries on the ground.
Next thing, I'll be waking up to hear the same damn song at the same time every morning. In a small bed & breakfast in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.
The libertarian principle is more like giving the least trust to those with the greatest power. It's not in support of anything except personal freedom. It just happens that you get the worst of both worlds when you introduce regulation as the government selects "qualified" individuals, such as former CEO's of industry leaders, to give regulatory power to in their given field. I wouldn't want them selecting unqualified individuals, but the qualified ones have a history of personal investment and are likely quite partial. They don't make for impartial regulators.
Such as Michael Taylor, former VP of Public Policy at Monsanto Corp. and Monsanto lobbyist, appointed to senior FDA food safety adviser. Or Roger Beachy, former president of the Danforth Plant Science Center, another branch of the Monsanto Corp., is now heading the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
You don't trust corporations, but you refuse to realize that regulation just supports more corporatism?
Your government only gives you the illusion of protection and safety. You are really on your own in this world. We'd just like to have the government acknowledge that fact.
If you think the system is working, you must not be paying attention to the real numbers. The country is already in ruins, just not realized yet.
You miss the point entirely.
The government is going to ruin the lives of my children. The US is going to become a third-world country by the time they're my age unless there's a complete reversal in spending policy. To accomplish that, we need higher taxes on the majority of voters, particularly the ones that pay little or no income tax.
What I'm advocating isn't about giving the government more money to spend, it's about hurting you. I want the government to hurt you, because it's the only way to get your ass into gear to kick their asses.
I don't want to give that monster more tax dollars, I want you to reign in that monster, which probably won't happen without such drastic changes.
If you don't reign in that monster it's going to eat my daughters' lunches. For the rest of their lives.
Yes, you can raise taxes on people barely making enough to get by. I'm one of them.
If you don't raise taxes on the majority of voters you will never see serious government cuts. With $110 trillion in unfunded liabilities and an attitude that they have to spend more, the government is going to crash and my children will have to pay the bills. That is a bigger tragedy than me paying 10% more taxes now.
The only way our government will turn that around is if the people, today, demand a change. They aren't going to demand a change without feeling the pain of taxation. Stealing more from the rich feels good and we won't have to worry about the future now.
If you want to fund $110 trillion over the next 75 years, and if the upper-bracket (rich) hold around 25% of the national income, assuming a healthy growth of 2% each year, you'd have to tax the rich at a rate of about 55% to come up with $110 trillion. That doesn't sound so bad, eh? Add the trillion-dollar deficits for as far as the eye can see and it's more like 70%. Ok, we've had rates that high before. No big deal. But never for more than a few short years have we sustained such a tax hike on the rich. If we did, they would leave the country.
But here's the kicker: unfunded liabilities have gone up $45 trillion in the last 2 years. Nearly half of the total current liabilities was raised in just the time since Obama was elected. One of the reasons is that Social Security, Medicaid and the other funds taxed for future obligations, $5.1 trillion in 2009, is counted as an asset when the government balances their books. So you thought we had a $1.2 trillion-dollar deficit last year, it's really $6.3 trillion. And for every year they spend that money, another $5.1 trillion (using 2009 figures) is added to unfunded liabilities.
So, come up with another $5 trillion in taxes per year, plus a modest growth rate of 2% per year. The rich don't have it. Take 100% from them and it doesn't even cover that $5 trillion alone.
Tax them all, let the voters sort it out. Yes, you can raise taxes on them. It would be immoral not to.
Pay your fucking bills already, goddammit.