Denver is semi-arid -- the only way grass and trees can grow is through irrigation. Water is also not in abundant supply.
Since 2005, parks in Denver are irrigated with treated sewage. As well, the man-made lakes are filled with the same treated sewage, and there are paddleboats on said lakes. (And as a further water conservation measure, said lakes are now getting swimming-pool vinyl liners.)
If you fear treated sewage, you'd best avoid Denver parks, especially around 10:00pm when the high-powered sprinkler systems start up.
Java's deferred initialization of final members still does not eliminate the null reference problem with respect to contained objects. It is possible to assign a null to the final variable in the constructor without causing a compiler error. That means every time that member is accessed, the programmer has to ask the question, "do I need to check for null, or can I assume by convention that deferred initialized members will never be assigned null in the constructor?"
C/C++ always allowed a way to get around at least some NULL references: the lifetime instantiation of contained structs/objects. UML even came up with notation to distinguish between these two types of associations (aggregation vs. composition). Java threw composition to the wind, making everything a pointer (or "reference" in Java parlance), thus creating the potential for even more NULL pointer. Microsoft learned from Java's mistake and preserved "value objects" in C#.
I believe it was my friend, Galen Stephenson, who invented the term "cattle class" in the early 1990's. We had both recently graduated (late 1980's) and entered the workforce and started traveling for our respective jobs. Except Galen is 6'8" and big and invented the term to get his employer to spring for business class for him.
The earliest use on UseNet was 1990, and the earliest mention in the New York Times is 1999. So I'm fairly certain Galen was the first inventor.
Windows 7 wasn't the turning point for Microsoft. It was Bush. Compared to Bush, Bill Gates was no longer the personification of evil.
There is also a business-related issue. Microsoft is now the underdog compared to Google. Google gave away a free desktop sidebar, and now Microsoft has made that obsolete by bundling in their own with Vista and Windows 7. A decade ago, there would have been howls of monopolization, and using Windows to enter an adjacent market. Today, nothing. Today it is seen as Microsoft defending its desktop turf against Google's Internet challenge.
Sorry, C compilers weren't commonly available when I was 12. I was, however, a published programmer for the TI-59 calculator (1K of RAM) at the age of 11.
What you call "convention vs. customization" is really just a special case of "build vs. buy". You can research the standard factors that go into such a decision, but the most important one is whether the part you intend to build is both a) essential to the business and b) something that would give you a competitive advantage over buying.
Is Slashdot ever going to resume supporting IE7? Whenever I want to see moderation breakdowns on comments, the firehose rainbow threshold widget, or even just all the comments in a thread, I have to temporarily switch to Firefox. (No, I don't have any particular reason I'm using IE7 -- just habit, I guess.)
I waited until the last minute (Sunday, December 21) to order anything. I tried ordering from the manufacturer's website, but they were not set up for two-day shipping. So I ordered from Amazon, which advertised "in stock" and "two-day shipping". Amazingly, within minutes of getting the e-mail that Amazon had received the order, I got another e-mail from Amazon saying that my order had already shipped! When the boxes arrived on Christmas Eve, it was obvious they were very hurriedly packed from the random tape spews, but everything was fine. I can only imagine legions of temp workers at Amazon warehouses working late into the night that Sunday night -- like Santa's elves.
Another order that I did place from a manufacturer website did come OK and on time, but it was a nail-biting experience. Although the website offered second-day delivery as an option (actually it was one of those outsourced shopping cart sites), the confirmation e-mail that came directly from the manufacturer said "5-7 business days". I replied to that e-mail asking what was up, but never got a response.
I worry about the day when Amazon gets too big and starts becoming evil (e.g. censorship), but for now, I am a happy and loyal Amazon customer.
The best thing that happened to the Internet was when Clinton exploited the Peace Dividend and starved the military, and thereby the defense contractors, and they (and their employees who sometimes left to form their own companies) had to figure out how to produce for civilians rather than for the military. Without government interference and malinvestment, the people will figure out the most useful and profitable businesses.
Federal employment law does not apply to companies with fewer than 15 employees. I'm suggesting that that one-size-fits-all number is too low for Southern California, and that Diskeeper, with 103 employees, should also not be subject to federal employment law.
If the other 102 employees of Diskeeper wish to practice Scientology, why does employee #103 get to foist himself or herself into the party and ruin it for everyone else?
Why does the government get to involve itself in a private affair? I've already provided the only reasonable exception: if it's the only employer in town.
The freedoms of religion and association are two of our most important freedoms, and I am disappointed at the hostility shown by Slashdot readers to the argument advanced by Diskeeper's CEO.
This is not megacorp that is the only employer in a tiny "company town". This is a group of 103 individuals -- in Southern California where many other employment opportunities exist -- who would like to freely associate with each other while pursuing a livelihood in software. And they're not even trying to claim tax exempt status because of the religious nature of their organization.
Discrimination of all sorts is already largely tolerated for companies under 50 employees. It is expected, for example, that small family businesses will practice nepotism. 103 employees is not a big business, especially given the population and economy of Southern California.
I broke my leg skiing last week, and received a bottle of opiates. Thankfully, I had the benefit of hindsight of Rush Limbaugh and people within my life so that I took only four out of the hundred pills stuffed into that bottle (due, probably, to the sticker "Federal law prohibits refills"), but a lot of people over the years have fallen victim to the drug-pushing activities of the manufacturers:
Purdue Frederick Co. pleaded guilty in a Virginia federal court Thursday to criminal charges of misbranding the addictive and abusable nature of its prescription painkiller OxyContin.
The guilty pleas end a four-year investigation that was initiated by the Virginia Medicaid Fraud Control under the direction of then-Attorney General Jerry Kilgore. Also known as Purdue Pharma, the company and three of its top executives will pay a total of $634,515,475 in fines.
"The criminal behavior in this case embodies a systematic pattern of misrepresentations about the addictive nature of the product by these defendants," Attorney General Bob McDonnell said.
If Amazon were smart and evil, it would take this opportunity to perpetually open source its ASIN database, trumping Dewey Decimal, LOC, and ISBN all in one fell swoop.
With everything going online, there is no longer a need for a linear sequencing of all human knowledge. It's all hypertext and keyword-based. So when I say "ASIN" database, I mean not just title and author, but also keywords, summaries, and maybe even recommended similar books and customer reviews. Amazon would still retain its well-oiled shipping system, but it would be in a position to define all of human knowledge in a finer way than Google currently does.
When I got a full UseNet feed for my BBS, halluc.com, in 1990, UUNet was charging $2/hour for a 9600bps dialup connection. That comes out to about $1/MB.
Now, take your current Internet access bill and multiply it by 1000. So stop complaining.
Slashdot Mirror
Since 2005, parks in Denver are irrigated with treated sewage. As well, the man-made lakes are filled with the same treated sewage, and there are paddleboats on said lakes. (And as a further water conservation measure, said lakes are now getting swimming-pool vinyl liners.)
If you fear treated sewage, you'd best avoid Denver parks, especially around 10:00pm when the high-powered sprinkler systems start up.
Java's deferred initialization of final members still does not eliminate the null reference problem with respect to contained objects. It is possible to assign a null to the final variable in the constructor without causing a compiler error. That means every time that member is accessed, the programmer has to ask the question, "do I need to check for null, or can I assume by convention that deferred initialized members will never be assigned null in the constructor?"
C/C++ always allowed a way to get around at least some NULL references: the lifetime instantiation of contained structs/objects. UML even came up with notation to distinguish between these two types of associations (aggregation vs. composition). Java threw composition to the wind, making everything a pointer (or "reference" in Java parlance), thus creating the potential for even more NULL pointer. Microsoft learned from Java's mistake and preserved "value objects" in C#.
It wasn't "Space Invaders Wrist", it was "Space Invaders Cooked Brain".
George Carlin had a few things to say about missiles.
Does this mean we can look forward to more abandonware of classic videogames?
I should have checked Google Books first. I found a reference from 1986.
It is related to the topic because the term was used in the summary. It is not relevant to the topic.
The earliest use on UseNet was 1990, and the earliest mention in the New York Times is 1999. So I'm fairly certain Galen was the first inventor.
There is also a business-related issue. Microsoft is now the underdog compared to Google. Google gave away a free desktop sidebar, and now Microsoft has made that obsolete by bundling in their own with Vista and Windows 7. A decade ago, there would have been howls of monopolization, and using Windows to enter an adjacent market. Today, nothing. Today it is seen as Microsoft defending its desktop turf against Google's Internet challenge.
Sorry, C compilers weren't commonly available when I was 12. I was, however, a published programmer for the TI-59 calculator (1K of RAM) at the age of 11.
How many different ways can one make a trashcan icon?
What you call "convention vs. customization" is really just a special case of "build vs. buy". You can research the standard factors that go into such a decision, but the most important one is whether the part you intend to build is both a) essential to the business and b) something that would give you a competitive advantage over buying.
Is Slashdot ever going to resume supporting IE7? Whenever I want to see moderation breakdowns on comments, the firehose rainbow threshold widget, or even just all the comments in a thread, I have to temporarily switch to Firefox. (No, I don't have any particular reason I'm using IE7 -- just habit, I guess.)
Another order that I did place from a manufacturer website did come OK and on time, but it was a nail-biting experience. Although the website offered second-day delivery as an option (actually it was one of those outsourced shopping cart sites), the confirmation e-mail that came directly from the manufacturer said "5-7 business days". I replied to that e-mail asking what was up, but never got a response.
I worry about the day when Amazon gets too big and starts becoming evil (e.g. censorship), but for now, I am a happy and loyal Amazon customer.
The best thing that happened to the Internet was when Clinton exploited the Peace Dividend and starved the military, and thereby the defense contractors, and they (and their employees who sometimes left to form their own companies) had to figure out how to produce for civilians rather than for the military. Without government interference and malinvestment, the people will figure out the most useful and profitable businesses.
Federal employment law does not apply to companies with fewer than 15 employees. I'm suggesting that that one-size-fits-all number is too low for Southern California, and that Diskeeper, with 103 employees, should also not be subject to federal employment law.
That's a valid point, but I still take umbrage at the First Amendment freedoms of association and religion being called a "novel legal theory".
Why does the government get to involve itself in a private affair? I've already provided the only reasonable exception: if it's the only employer in town.
This is not megacorp that is the only employer in a tiny "company town". This is a group of 103 individuals -- in Southern California where many other employment opportunities exist -- who would like to freely associate with each other while pursuing a livelihood in software. And they're not even trying to claim tax exempt status because of the religious nature of their organization.
Discrimination of all sorts is already largely tolerated for companies under 50 employees. It is expected, for example, that small family businesses will practice nepotism. 103 employees is not a big business, especially given the population and economy of Southern California.
To review:
Opiates legal: Yes
Medical marijuana legal: No
XKCD 303: Compiling
With everything going online, there is no longer a need for a linear sequencing of all human knowledge. It's all hypertext and keyword-based. So when I say "ASIN" database, I mean not just title and author, but also keywords, summaries, and maybe even recommended similar books and customer reviews. Amazon would still retain its well-oiled shipping system, but it would be in a position to define all of human knowledge in a finer way than Google currently does.
Now, take your current Internet access bill and multiply it by 1000. So stop complaining.
(Yes, yes, get off my lawn, too.)
The problem was the computer models based loan risk upon 10 years of data instead of 79 years.