Well, let me give you a true story on this. Many years ago, I went to a movie. It was, in fact Alien, long ago. I came out of the theatre, walked up to my car, and observed that the license plates were different. During the movie, someone had swapped my plates. I called the cops, and they told me that it was pretty common. Someone had stolen another Acura, looked for a similar car, and swapped plates. They figure that car owners are generally oblivious, and this way, I would get pulled over for the stolen car.
So I think the analogy is actually rather good. There are multiple explanations why your car, or you IP address, might be reasonable for something while you are not, and therefore, the IP address and car license should not be viewed as conclusive proof of guilt, or as uniquely identifying information.
Yes, you can. You have to give -an- address. You can give any address. The address isn't validated. All that matters is that someone is there to get the card. This is in fact how most ID theft happens. Someone scarfs the name, birthdate, and phone number, and gives a different address where the card and statements are sent.
And there's no need to learn yet another domain-specific language like SQL,
SQL, "domain specific"? Wow. I am taken aback. Over 30 years of coding, I think SQL is singlehandedly the most productive addition to the development environment I can think of since the compiler. There are a lot of reasons that using a SQL database might not make sense (small platform, single user, low cost, small required footprint, etc) but domain specificity isn't on my list. I can't think of a less domain specific development technology out there.
If you are working with piles of data, SQL is much easier, and generally much faster in both development time and execution time than what you'd cobble up in code. It hides the details of storage from your app, which is usually a Pretty Good Thing. Apps that use SQL can be readily written to scale from small to quite large environments, without significant code changes. I don't know why you'd want to give these benefits up.
Obligatory car analogy
on
P.I.I. In the Sky
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I think the judge is correct. If your car was leaving a crime scene, and the license plate were noted, your defense attorney would correctly note that someone else could have been driving the car. If your IP address is noted doing something nefarious, your lawyer would again correctly note that someone else could have been using the computer. That indicates that the information isn't uniquely identifying.
PII isusually the information that uniquely identifies a person. Name, SSN, and birthdate are the holy trinity of PII, with account numbers for a business close behind. The data security droids usually lump in address and phone, but I think that's an error in reasoning because of the above observation. I think they could correctly be described as sensitive, and certainly businesses and developers should treat them as such. But I don't think addresses and phone numbers are deserving of the protection that your name, birthdate and SSN get, because you can't go open a checking account in my name just by knowing my address.
Perhaps I am an ass, though I'm not sure why you felt it necessary to bring it up. I'm also not sure where you see an attack in my previous post. Perhaps we're a little sensitive on the issue? Not having a factual basis for a belief, and having the belief come under fire might cause that reaction. But I'm just guessing.
The difference is subtle, but in this case, it's important to the discussion. I don't 'believe' that there is no god. It isn't some affirmative position. It isn't a 'trust' that there isn't a god. It's simply the lack of an affirmative belief in a god.
The point matters because the theists assert that atheism as some other belief, which is held as firmly as theirs is. It isn't, at least for me. I'd give up my position in a second if confronted with any evidence to the contrary, a statement which cannot be credibly made by any Christian. I don't trust that there is no god, I just don't accept gods, unicorns, or the Easter Bunny into my world view in the absence of evidence that would make such a belief rational.
That believers cannot understand this argument convinces me all the more that the capacity for religion is some madness that human beings seem congenitally susceptible to. No-one finds it challenging to not believe in the Easter Bunny, or Zeus. But dare to assert that Jesus or Mohammed were just men, and look out...
Both theism and atheism are faith based positions.
Atheism is a faith based position as much as not collecting stamps is a hobby. Simply not believing in a god doesn't require faith. It is just refusing to believe in something for which there is no evidence.
And if you can speak COBOL, JCL, MVS, as well as Java, JSP, HTTP and Linux, you have a lot of value. I make a tidy six figure (and not $101,000) precisely because I don't have an attitude about working with either, and am facile at both domains. I'd squeeze.Net in there too, but I haven't had time.
(does anyone know why it's on the right side anyways? makes no sense to me)
Speaking as an old IT hand, I suspect it's because the keypad is a primary data entry device, which was used more than the alpha keys in many commercial applications for many years. Having it on the right is ergonomicaly right for a lot of people.
The Fisher Plaza story is big. I happened to be walking by right after it happened, noticed the generators running and went, 'Hm-m-m". We've toured their facility in the past, and wanted to use them, but they didn't have capacity at the time. They seemed first rate. If a first tier provider can have this happen...
This opens up the fact that patients are more likely just to take the opiate drug without the Tylenol, getting addicted, and causing even more problems.
We keep using the words "addicted" and "dependent" as if these are some incredible evil. Being addicted to oxycodone, and even taking it every day, seems like it's probably a hell of a lot better than needing a liver transplant.
From the reading I've done, it seems like the evidence indicates that people can live happy, productive lives on maintenance doses of heroin. The British have tried this, and it seems to have worked/works well. See:
Society seems to function despite the vast numbers of nicotine and caffeine addicts. I don't think the walls would come tumbling down if we added some legal narcotics users.
Pot is good, but there are other anti-emetics which are at least as good (Zofran, for example). However, they are more toxic than pot, and surprisingly, more expensive as well.
My wife is a cancer patient, I've been through this in detail.
If you're in some strange variant of basic, verify that you can get to Postgres from the language before you get too worked up over it. Pg is a good DB, but the danger of OSS is that niche environments are tougher to support.
That said, if you're not using -any- database at all, MySQL is liable to be a step up as well.
Yeah, they do. It stems from the essentially primitive dev environments, where you don't have an IDE to help you figure out what's going on with variables. Most mature organizations created variable naming standards to help with maintainability.
I have to say, though, based on the Java and.NET shops I've worked with, lengthy variable names are hardly limited to COBOL. Eg.,
result += positivesAtCurrentScore * negativesBelowCurrentScore
I just wish they would fill the bloody glass to the proper measure without being asked - most of the pubs in Britain are already serving half-litres of beer and then charging you for a pint!
Um, half a liter is more than a pint, what the fuck are you bitching about?
I did this about 35 years ago, when we tried this the first time. It wasn't hard. You need to know about three conversions: 1 in = 2.54 cm, 1 oz = 28.3 gr, and 1 gal = 3.78 liters. I was ok with these in the 7th grade, I don't understand why this is hard.
COBOL and other old programming environments sucked because they had limited length variable names, and no IDEs to help you keep track of variable names. This forced you to use naming standards to keep track of yourself, of which these names are undoubtedly an example of.
Well, with all due respect to wikipedia, in your snippet much of the ugliness is due to (probably intentionally) stupidly named variables. No intelligent developer, of which there are still many in the world, would do anything like naming a variable FOUR-A-C.
In python: this_var = that_var * 5
in COBOL: COMPUTE THIS_VAR = THAT_VAR * 5.
It's verbose, but it's not hugely different, though less feature rich than any modern OOPy language with rich object libs. I work with a bunch of folks for whom COBOL is one of the languages we work with, which also include java, python, perl, C#, etc. When you're a pro, you work with what the environment calls for. If the environment is mainframe, COBOL is one of the tools you need to use. As is that other paradigm of programming excellence, JCL.
Well, it was acceptable for this app. Not desirable, and it didn't happen much, but it was there. The overall point though, is that the development and test cycle and thought process around shrink wrap aps is different than the same processes for an accounting system. Different priorities (small.exe is more important than development efficiency, for example), different user needs.
Well, the best part of the joke is that these people are still liable for taxes on these winnings. You don't escape tax liability on illegal earnings just because the government snagged the cash. Cf. Al Capone.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, let me give you a true story on this. Many years ago, I went to a movie. It was, in fact Alien, long ago. I came out of the theatre, walked up to my car, and observed that the license plates were different. During the movie, someone had swapped my plates. I called the cops, and they told me that it was pretty common. Someone had stolen another Acura, looked for a similar car, and swapped plates. They figure that car owners are generally oblivious, and this way, I would get pulled over for the stolen car.
So I think the analogy is actually rather good. There are multiple explanations why your car, or you IP address, might be reasonable for something while you are not, and therefore, the IP address and car license should not be viewed as conclusive proof of guilt, or as uniquely identifying information.
Yes, you can. You have to give -an- address. You can give any address. The address isn't validated. All that matters is that someone is there to get the card. This is in fact how most ID theft happens. Someone scarfs the name, birthdate, and phone number, and gives a different address where the card and statements are sent.
And there's no need to learn yet another domain-specific language like SQL,
SQL, "domain specific"? Wow. I am taken aback. Over 30 years of coding, I think SQL is singlehandedly the most productive addition to the development environment I can think of since the compiler. There are a lot of reasons that using a SQL database might not make sense (small platform, single user, low cost, small required footprint, etc) but domain specificity isn't on my list. I can't think of a less domain specific development technology out there.
If you are working with piles of data, SQL is much easier, and generally much faster in both development time and execution time than what you'd cobble up in code. It hides the details of storage from your app, which is usually a Pretty Good Thing. Apps that use SQL can be readily written to scale from small to quite large environments, without significant code changes. I don't know why you'd want to give these benefits up.
I think the judge is correct. If your car was leaving a crime scene, and the license plate were noted, your defense attorney would correctly note that someone else could have been driving the car. If your IP address is noted doing something nefarious, your lawyer would again correctly note that someone else could have been using the computer. That indicates that the information isn't uniquely identifying.
PII isusually the information that uniquely identifies a person. Name, SSN, and birthdate are the holy trinity of PII, with account numbers for a business close behind. The data security droids usually lump in address and phone, but I think that's an error in reasoning because of the above observation. I think they could correctly be described as sensitive, and certainly businesses and developers should treat them as such. But I don't think addresses and phone numbers are deserving of the protection that your name, birthdate and SSN get, because you can't go open a checking account in my name just by knowing my address.
Please don't ruin good arguments by introducing facts and using logic. It's un-amurican.
Nice bit of research.
Perhaps I am an ass, though I'm not sure why you felt it necessary to bring it up. I'm also not sure where you see an attack in my previous post. Perhaps we're a little sensitive on the issue? Not having a factual basis for a belief, and having the belief come under fire might cause that reaction. But I'm just guessing.
The difference is subtle, but in this case, it's important to the discussion. I don't 'believe' that there is no god. It isn't some affirmative position. It isn't a 'trust' that there isn't a god. It's simply the lack of an affirmative belief in a god.
The point matters because the theists assert that atheism as some other belief, which is held as firmly as theirs is. It isn't, at least for me. I'd give up my position in a second if confronted with any evidence to the contrary, a statement which cannot be credibly made by any Christian. I don't trust that there is no god, I just don't accept gods, unicorns, or the Easter Bunny into my world view in the absence of evidence that would make such a belief rational.
That believers cannot understand this argument convinces me all the more that the capacity for religion is some madness that human beings seem congenitally susceptible to. No-one finds it challenging to not believe in the Easter Bunny, or Zeus. But dare to assert that Jesus or Mohammed were just men, and look out...
Both theism and atheism are faith based positions.
Atheism is a faith based position as much as not collecting stamps is a hobby. Simply not believing in a god doesn't require faith. It is just refusing to believe in something for which there is no evidence.
And if you can speak COBOL, JCL, MVS, as well as Java, JSP, HTTP and Linux, you have a lot of value. I make a tidy six figure (and not $101,000) precisely because I don't have an attitude about working with either, and am facile at both domains. I'd squeeze .Net in there too, but I haven't had time.
But my true love is Python.
Um, tomato, tomahtoe? I know a lot of shortcuts, sometimes a mouse is good, too. How do you capture a line of text in a putty window, without a mouse?
You must go to better parties than I do. I've never lost my laptop.
(does anyone know why it's on the right side anyways? makes no sense to me)
Speaking as an old IT hand, I suspect it's because the keypad is a primary data entry device, which was used more than the alpha keys in many commercial applications for many years. Having it on the right is ergonomicaly right for a lot of people.
It is The One True Editor.
The Fisher Plaza story is big. I happened to be walking by right after it happened, noticed the generators running and went, 'Hm-m-m". We've toured their facility in the past, and wanted to use them, but they didn't have capacity at the time. They seemed first rate. If a first tier provider can have this happen...
sorry, missed the link. See this.
This opens up the fact that patients are more likely just to take the opiate drug without the Tylenol, getting addicted, and causing even more problems.
We keep using the words "addicted" and "dependent" as if these are some incredible evil. Being addicted to oxycodone, and even taking it every day, seems like it's probably a hell of a lot better than needing a liver transplant.
From the reading I've done, it seems like the evidence indicates that people can live happy, productive lives on maintenance doses of heroin. The British have tried this, and it seems to have worked/works well. See:
Society seems to function despite the vast numbers of nicotine and caffeine addicts. I don't think the walls would come tumbling down if we added some legal narcotics users.
Pot is good, but there are other anti-emetics which are at least as good (Zofran, for example). However, they are more toxic than pot, and surprisingly, more expensive as well.
My wife is a cancer patient, I've been through this in detail.
If you're in some strange variant of basic, verify that you can get to Postgres from the language before you get too worked up over it. Pg is a good DB, but the danger of OSS is that niche environments are tougher to support.
That said, if you're not using -any- database at all, MySQL is liable to be a step up as well.
Look into a good dev tool, like Squirrel or Toad.
Yeah, they do. It stems from the essentially primitive dev environments, where you don't have an IDE to help you figure out what's going on with variables. Most mature organizations created variable naming standards to help with maintainability.
I have to say, though, based on the Java and .NET shops I've worked with, lengthy variable names are hardly limited to COBOL. Eg.,
result += positivesAtCurrentScore * negativesBelowCurrentScore
from a code snippet at my current employer.
I just wish they would fill the bloody glass to the proper measure without being asked - most of the pubs in Britain are already serving half-litres of beer and then charging you for a pint!
Um, half a liter is more than a pint, what the fuck are you bitching about?
I did this about 35 years ago, when we tried this the first time. It wasn't hard. You need to know about three conversions: 1 in = 2.54 cm, 1 oz = 28.3 gr, and 1 gal = 3.78 liters. I was ok with these in the 7th grade, I don't understand why this is hard.
"MOVE FW-1ER-OCC-AFF TO J
INITIALIZE SW-SEL-SA02
Either way java seems like an improvement. "
Yeah,
j = FW-1ER-OCC-AFF;
and
SW-SEL-SA02 = null;
is so much easier to deal with.
COBOL and other old programming environments sucked because they had limited length variable names, and no IDEs to help you keep track of variable names. This forced you to use naming standards to keep track of yourself, of which these names are undoubtedly an example of.
Well, with all due respect to wikipedia, in your snippet much of the ugliness is due to (probably intentionally) stupidly named variables. No intelligent developer, of which there are still many in the world, would do anything like naming a variable FOUR-A-C.
In python: this_var = that_var * 5
in COBOL: COMPUTE THIS_VAR = THAT_VAR * 5.
It's verbose, but it's not hugely different, though less feature rich than any modern OOPy language with rich object libs. I work with a bunch of folks for whom COBOL is one of the languages we work with, which also include java, python, perl, C#, etc. When you're a pro, you work with what the environment calls for. If the environment is mainframe, COBOL is one of the tools you need to use. As is that other paradigm of programming excellence, JCL.
I, for one, enjoyed the read, and walked away more informed. Thanks for taking the time. I hope your product does well for you.
Well, it was acceptable for this app. Not desirable, and it didn't happen much, but it was there. The overall point though, is that the development and test cycle and thought process around shrink wrap aps is different than the same processes for an accounting system. Different priorities (small .exe is more important than development efficiency, for example), different user needs.
Well, the best part of the joke is that these people are still liable for taxes on these winnings. You don't escape tax liability on illegal earnings just because the government snagged the cash. Cf. Al Capone.