I've always wondered the same, actually... I mean, it's entirely possible to outpace the sea -> cloud -> rain cycle, but that water isn't disappearing, it's just not returning to a usable state as quickly as some would like.
If the full featured web browser was the key, why didn't BlackBerry take the market? My Curve had a full featured browser and the ability to cut, paste, and send/receive MMS messages; it also came out nearly two full months before the iPhone and had a store full of apps already on the market at the time of its release.
Indeed. People need outlets for their stress and anger, lest they snap and do something truly harmful. I may not want to hear someone spewing their hateful ideas, but I'd much rather they speak those ideas than act upon them.
Repression does not work and only leads to much more grandiose acts when the repressed party finally reaches their breaking point. For example, a racist who can't speak out about his irrational hated of Black people for fear of being charged with a hate crime; having no outlet for his hate and anger, he will eventually act upon those pent up emotions and violently assault or murder one or more members of the group he so despises.
It wasn't a race condition, it was a set of input values the hardware for which the software was originally written simply would refuse to act upon. There was no need to check for the condition as the hardware was physically incapable of responding to it in the first place.
For non-native English speakers it may not be clear that, although "They have no receive as an heir at the death of the previous holder right to that information" makes little sense, the intended meaning was actually "They have no existing in something as a permanent, essential, or characteristic attribute right to that information."
Mind you, neither of those sentences makes a lot of sense when you replace the word with its full and proper definition, but the problem does become apparent. One of them can be parsed to make sense while the other cannot.
Meanwhile, I've had a carrier shove a parcel into my mailbox that was the exact dimensions of the inside of the mailbox... from the back (it was a bank of mailboxes) where there was no lip... so I could not remove it from the front (the only part I could open) where there was a lip.
I ended up having to cut the parcel open to remove its contents and leave the empty package for the carrier to deal with.
I'm glad he's not my carrier anymore, as that was one of the less idiotic things he did.
I take that back... I actually misread your post. Going back and reading it again, I see you said " We shouldn't accuse any individual receiving the resumes of racism or sexism, because we can't tell." Somehow, I missed that the first two times I read your comment.
Please accept my apologies for the tone of my response, in that case.
The Amazon drivers covering my area seem to do their jobs, even going so far as to deliver to my door if I am home and the leasing office if I am not. USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL all deliver only to the leasing office, which is really inconvenient for me when they deliver a large/heavy package and I have to drag it across the parking lot (they could have parked in front of my building) and carry it up to my 3rd floor walk-up.
I know, my fault I chose to live in a 3rd floor walk-up. That's actually why I don't expect the Amazon drivers to deliver to my door like they do, or complain when they don't.
I wonder, though, if it's because I've actually happened to be coming home a couple times as they were delivering to the leasing office and ended up meeting them at the truck to intercept my packages; direct-to-door delivery didn't start until after that. Both times, my apartment complex was their last stop of the way, so they had some time and we BS'd for a while, and we do tend to chat a bit when they deliver to my door as well. Perhaps getting to know your carriers and making an attempt to present yourself as a decent human being has an effect on that.
Not that I'm saying you don't, but I've noticed similar improvements in quality of service with the other carriers when I've done the same in the past.
In fact, I'll throw you another anecdote. The mail room at my apartments was closed for several months for renovation, so all mail was delivered to the leasing office to be picked up by residents. On several occasions, the office was closed (USPS carrier running late, manager was showing a unit, someone out sick, multitude of reasons it may be closed when USPS arrives) and she would end up hand delivering my mail, and only my mail. She'd come back later (or the next day) do deliver the rest when the office was open. If I had to attribute that to anything, it's the few times I've happened to make my way to the mailboxes (before they closed them for renovation) as she was actively delivering and (of course after checking that I wouldn't be bothering her or slowing her down) struck up friendly conversation. One time, I had walked to the office to get my mail, only to learn they were closed that day for a training event (with no advance notice to residents) and she happened to be pulling in as I turned around after reading the notice on the office door. I waved and called out to her to let her know not to bother parking as the office was closed; she parked anyway and replied "Well, I can deliver yours" as she got out of the truck, walked to the back, threw the door open, and sorted through to find my mail.
I'll definitely have to remember to get her a Christmas card and a small gift this year.
Mind you, I've only owned flagship phones from RIM, Motorola, LG, and Samsung for the past decade and my wife has only owned iPhones for that time (ignoring the year I got her to try Android), but it has been my experience that the default configuration is to nag you incessantly when there is an open wi-fi available, but not to connect automatically.
Unless you have a recent Windows phone, in which case it will connect to any free wi-fi, any secured access point one of your contacts has shared with you, and even participating paid wi-fi unless you've hunted down and turned off the appropriate options, because that's what Windows 10 does by default for some idiotic reason.
Since we know most people click whatever affirmative option is presented (e.g. YES, ALWAYS, PLEASE, OK, or CONNECT) and don't bother changing settings other than background and ringtone, yeah, most people probably do end up using in-store wi-fi. I'll easily grant EvilSS that much. But that's laziness moreso than idiocy (regardless that the result is identical either way), and we know people tend to stop being lazy when their own laziness becomes inconvenient for them, so I shall grant him not an inch more.
Oh, yes, the "tabs vs spaces" debate is absolutely pointless, I'm not even arguing. You know what's more pointless? The "how many spaces" debate.
The only reason the "how many spaces" debate comes up is that some people would rather not use tabs and let everyone answer that question for themselves.
When your employer pays you for hours on end to argue amongst yourselves over the proper number of spaces to indent by, yes, you're going to make more money; the real question is whether or not you're actually earning it during those pointless arguments that could have been avoided.
Those of us who use tabs avoid those arguments and get more work done, so we might ultimately get paid less but that's only because we bill fewe hours for the same projects because we're more productive.
At least that's what 3 decades of experience have shown me.
I have enough to know that they don't tolerate broken shit. They might not know why it's not working, but they sure can tell when it's not working and they're not likely to patiently wait for it to start working; they'll leave their cart full of goods in the aisle to step outside and get better signal (e.g. not on the store wi-fi they only connected to because the steel and cinder block construction -- not that they know that's the cause -- only allows them one bar of signal in the store).
And we're talking about people with short attention spans, here. IF whatever they were trying to do on their phone takes more than a couple minutes, they may well forget they left a card full of shit in the store and drive home to finish buying whatever thing they wanted to look at online.
One way or another, this type of system would only end up costing the store money, and I'm pretty sure the stores all know it, which is why it hasn't been done before (unless you count Best Buy's internally mirrored website, which did ultimately end up costing them so... case in point I guess).
Consider that it wasn't a bug as that particular failure mode was not something the software was responsible for handling in the models for which it was written. When writing software for very specific and well-defined hardware, how long do you spend on use cases specific to undefined hardware? How do you even develop for undefined hardware?
The tiniest bit of actual research reveals that the issue with Therac-25 was actually the lack of physical safety interlocks which the software, written for an earlier model in the Therac line, assumed were present. Software developers were left out of the development of Therac-25 as the hardware and product guys assumed they could just use the existing software as-is and didn't bother to ask anyone who knew better.
The problem, then, was poor product (hardware) engineering and a series of lapses in judgment on the part of management.
So you think most people stay on broken wifi that can't load the sites they're trying to visit? I mean, I don't think highly of people as a whole, but I don't think that lowly of them either.
Not at all so. I personally use a multitude of editors; primarily my IDE of choice (IntelliJ IDEA), but I can (and often do) use whatever editors exist within the environment I find myself working in, which often ends up being a terminal with access to nano or vim. I use IDEA's diff tool, the POSIX diff command, git's command line diff tools, and occasionally git's GUI diff tools.
Every single one of them assumes the width of a tab remains the same throughout a given file, because it does. If it doesn't, whoever indented with spaces did something wrong. In addition to that, every single one of them displays tab-indented code exactly as I intend for it to be displayed, properly indented and properly formatted, regardless of the tab width I have set. The only time it's a problem is when some jackhole intermixes spaces and tabs within the same file and their preference does not match my own (or they can't seem to make up their damn mind how wide an indent should be).
The same can be said of files indented with spaces, of course, withe the caveat that the editor or tool displays space-indented code exactly as the author intended for it to be displayed, which I suppose is fine if there is and will only ever be a single author; that is, if I don't have to edit it. The same caveats apply regarding the mixing of tabs and spaces and being indecisive about the width of an indent.
That is to say, what you and Darinbob are complaining about is only a problem when someone indents different lines in the same file with varying numbers of spaces. In other words, it's a problem inherent in using spaces for indentation, wherein people get in pissing matches over whether 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 8 spaces should be used; this issue and argument is avoided by simply using tabs. Period.
By using SSL on all of their pages, which renders any such tactics ineffective, they've already stopped Best Buy from being able to prevent consumers from searching Amazon.com.
It would have been cheaper, quicker, and more technically effective for Amazon to just use SSL on all of their pages and render this method ineffective... which they already do.
I'll grant you that point. However, shouldn't we as professionals be disciplined enough to follow code format specifications for the projects we work on? Yes, we can solve the social problem by technical means, but does that actually solve the social problem, or just hide it and let it fester?
Anything that pushes everyone to using SSL for everything is a good thing in my book.
This will push online retailers to use SSL for everything, as SSL will render the snooping and content altering aspects of this patent ineffective. Ergo, this is a good thing.
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I've always wondered the same, actually... I mean, it's entirely possible to outpace the sea -> cloud -> rain cycle, but that water isn't disappearing, it's just not returning to a usable state as quickly as some would like.
If the full featured web browser was the key, why didn't BlackBerry take the market? My Curve had a full featured browser and the ability to cut, paste, and send/receive MMS messages; it also came out nearly two full months before the iPhone and had a store full of apps already on the market at the time of its release.
It will be delivered by a random person from an entirely unmarked van.
Not true, Amazon's own delivery people drive white cargo vans with huge Amazon logos on them. At least, the ones I've seen do.
Indeed. People need outlets for their stress and anger, lest they snap and do something truly harmful. I may not want to hear someone spewing their hateful ideas, but I'd much rather they speak those ideas than act upon them.
Repression does not work and only leads to much more grandiose acts when the repressed party finally reaches their breaking point. For example, a racist who can't speak out about his irrational hated of Black people for fear of being charged with a hate crime; having no outlet for his hate and anger, he will eventually act upon those pent up emotions and violently assault or murder one or more members of the group he so despises.
Better to just let them blow off steam IMO.
It wasn't a race condition, it was a set of input values the hardware for which the software was originally written simply would refuse to act upon. There was no need to check for the condition as the hardware was physically incapable of responding to it in the first place.
For non-native English speakers it may not be clear that, although "They have no receive as an heir at the death of the previous holder right to that information" makes little sense, the intended meaning was actually "They have no existing in something as a permanent, essential, or characteristic attribute right to that information."
Mind you, neither of those sentences makes a lot of sense when you replace the word with its full and proper definition, but the problem does become apparent. One of them can be parsed to make sense while the other cannot.
Meanwhile, I've had a carrier shove a parcel into my mailbox that was the exact dimensions of the inside of the mailbox... from the back (it was a bank of mailboxes) where there was no lip... so I could not remove it from the front (the only part I could open) where there was a lip.
I ended up having to cut the parcel open to remove its contents and leave the empty package for the carrier to deal with.
I'm glad he's not my carrier anymore, as that was one of the less idiotic things he did.
I take that back... I actually misread your post. Going back and reading it again, I see you said " We shouldn't accuse any individual receiving the resumes of racism or sexism, because we can't tell." Somehow, I missed that the first two times I read your comment.
Please accept my apologies for the tone of my response, in that case.
Because I was disagreeing with you.
The Amazon drivers covering my area seem to do their jobs, even going so far as to deliver to my door if I am home and the leasing office if I am not. USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL all deliver only to the leasing office, which is really inconvenient for me when they deliver a large/heavy package and I have to drag it across the parking lot (they could have parked in front of my building) and carry it up to my 3rd floor walk-up.
I know, my fault I chose to live in a 3rd floor walk-up. That's actually why I don't expect the Amazon drivers to deliver to my door like they do, or complain when they don't.
I wonder, though, if it's because I've actually happened to be coming home a couple times as they were delivering to the leasing office and ended up meeting them at the truck to intercept my packages; direct-to-door delivery didn't start until after that. Both times, my apartment complex was their last stop of the way, so they had some time and we BS'd for a while, and we do tend to chat a bit when they deliver to my door as well. Perhaps getting to know your carriers and making an attempt to present yourself as a decent human being has an effect on that.
Not that I'm saying you don't, but I've noticed similar improvements in quality of service with the other carriers when I've done the same in the past.
In fact, I'll throw you another anecdote. The mail room at my apartments was closed for several months for renovation, so all mail was delivered to the leasing office to be picked up by residents. On several occasions, the office was closed (USPS carrier running late, manager was showing a unit, someone out sick, multitude of reasons it may be closed when USPS arrives) and she would end up hand delivering my mail, and only my mail. She'd come back later (or the next day) do deliver the rest when the office was open. If I had to attribute that to anything, it's the few times I've happened to make my way to the mailboxes (before they closed them for renovation) as she was actively delivering and (of course after checking that I wouldn't be bothering her or slowing her down) struck up friendly conversation. One time, I had walked to the office to get my mail, only to learn they were closed that day for a training event (with no advance notice to residents) and she happened to be pulling in as I turned around after reading the notice on the office door. I waved and called out to her to let her know not to bother parking as the office was closed; she parked anyway and replied "Well, I can deliver yours" as she got out of the truck, walked to the back, threw the door open, and sorted through to find my mail.
I'll definitely have to remember to get her a Christmas card and a small gift this year.
Mind you, I've only owned flagship phones from RIM, Motorola, LG, and Samsung for the past decade and my wife has only owned iPhones for that time (ignoring the year I got her to try Android), but it has been my experience that the default configuration is to nag you incessantly when there is an open wi-fi available, but not to connect automatically.
Unless you have a recent Windows phone, in which case it will connect to any free wi-fi, any secured access point one of your contacts has shared with you, and even participating paid wi-fi unless you've hunted down and turned off the appropriate options, because that's what Windows 10 does by default for some idiotic reason.
Since we know most people click whatever affirmative option is presented (e.g. YES, ALWAYS, PLEASE, OK, or CONNECT) and don't bother changing settings other than background and ringtone, yeah, most people probably do end up using in-store wi-fi. I'll easily grant EvilSS that much. But that's laziness moreso than idiocy (regardless that the result is identical either way), and we know people tend to stop being lazy when their own laziness becomes inconvenient for them, so I shall grant him not an inch more.
Oh, yes, the "tabs vs spaces" debate is absolutely pointless, I'm not even arguing. You know what's more pointless? The "how many spaces" debate.
The only reason the "how many spaces" debate comes up is that some people would rather not use tabs and let everyone answer that question for themselves.
When your employer pays you for hours on end to argue amongst yourselves over the proper number of spaces to indent by, yes, you're going to make more money; the real question is whether or not you're actually earning it during those pointless arguments that could have been avoided.
Those of us who use tabs avoid those arguments and get more work done, so we might ultimately get paid less but that's only because we bill fewe hours for the same projects because we're more productive.
At least that's what 3 decades of experience have shown me.
I have enough to know that they don't tolerate broken shit. They might not know why it's not working, but they sure can tell when it's not working and they're not likely to patiently wait for it to start working; they'll leave their cart full of goods in the aisle to step outside and get better signal (e.g. not on the store wi-fi they only connected to because the steel and cinder block construction -- not that they know that's the cause -- only allows them one bar of signal in the store).
And we're talking about people with short attention spans, here. IF whatever they were trying to do on their phone takes more than a couple minutes, they may well forget they left a card full of shit in the store and drive home to finish buying whatever thing they wanted to look at online.
One way or another, this type of system would only end up costing the store money, and I'm pretty sure the stores all know it, which is why it hasn't been done before (unless you count Best Buy's internally mirrored website, which did ultimately end up costing them so... case in point I guess).
Consider that it wasn't a bug as that particular failure mode was not something the software was responsible for handling in the models for which it was written. When writing software for very specific and well-defined hardware, how long do you spend on use cases specific to undefined hardware? How do you even develop for undefined hardware?
The tiniest bit of actual research reveals that the issue with Therac-25 was actually the lack of physical safety interlocks which the software, written for an earlier model in the Therac line, assumed were present. Software developers were left out of the development of Therac-25 as the hardware and product guys assumed they could just use the existing software as-is and didn't bother to ask anyone who knew better.
The problem, then, was poor product (hardware) engineering and a series of lapses in judgment on the part of management.
You must have a lot of friends.
So you think most people stay on broken wifi that can't load the sites they're trying to visit? I mean, I don't think highly of people as a whole, but I don't think that lowly of them either.
Not at all so. I personally use a multitude of editors; primarily my IDE of choice (IntelliJ IDEA), but I can (and often do) use whatever editors exist within the environment I find myself working in, which often ends up being a terminal with access to nano or vim. I use IDEA's diff tool, the POSIX diff command, git's command line diff tools, and occasionally git's GUI diff tools.
Every single one of them assumes the width of a tab remains the same throughout a given file, because it does. If it doesn't, whoever indented with spaces did something wrong. In addition to that, every single one of them displays tab-indented code exactly as I intend for it to be displayed, properly indented and properly formatted, regardless of the tab width I have set. The only time it's a problem is when some jackhole intermixes spaces and tabs within the same file and their preference does not match my own (or they can't seem to make up their damn mind how wide an indent should be).
The same can be said of files indented with spaces, of course, withe the caveat that the editor or tool displays space-indented code exactly as the author intended for it to be displayed, which I suppose is fine if there is and will only ever be a single author; that is, if I don't have to edit it. The same caveats apply regarding the mixing of tabs and spaces and being indecisive about the width of an indent.
That is to say, what you and Darinbob are complaining about is only a problem when someone indents different lines in the same file with varying numbers of spaces. In other words, it's a problem inherent in using spaces for indentation, wherein people get in pissing matches over whether 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 8 spaces should be used; this issue and argument is avoided by simply using tabs. Period.
I do recall starting on a system that was... huh, was it 50 or 60 columns? Now I don't remember.
I did use spaces back then; one per indent. Thankfully, we no longer live in that world; why do some people insist on remaining stuck there?
And you think users won't work around it if it's that blatantly obvious?
And how would any random brick and mortar get that certificate into my browser's chain of trust?
By using SSL on all of their pages, which renders any such tactics ineffective, they've already stopped Best Buy from being able to prevent consumers from searching Amazon.com.
It would have been cheaper, quicker, and more technically effective for Amazon to just use SSL on all of their pages and render this method ineffective... which they already do.
I'll grant you that point. However, shouldn't we as professionals be disciplined enough to follow code format specifications for the projects we work on? Yes, we can solve the social problem by technical means, but does that actually solve the social problem, or just hide it and let it fester?
Anything that pushes everyone to using SSL for everything is a good thing in my book.
This will push online retailers to use SSL for everything, as SSL will render the snooping and content altering aspects of this patent ineffective. Ergo, this is a good thing.