I supported several apps based on Microfocus COBOL and so-called Visual COBOL. No significant problems with either platform, the apps worked as well as thne programmers did, or more correctly, bugs happened. One was rock solid, the other had predictable issues with every major release that were resolved without much delay.
Stereotyping COBOL is inevitably just age discrimination. It's functional, as the history and current situation proves. It's a language, competent programmers that have progress from C to C++ to Java will figure it out if they see profit in doing so. I work with an old-school COBOL programmer who has no patience with the young whippersnappers who whine about every problem a legacy platform presents. There is so little interest around here to abandon the core transaction systems that claims that COBOL is 'obsolete' fall on deaf ears. They train new maintainers here. What a concept, training your team! Gah!
"Conspiracies are relatively common, yet the media has demonized the term so that people can't talk about them."
This is because the vast majority of them are patently false,"
With the revelations that many more 'conspiracy theories' are indeed true than previously hoped for, that paradigm is collapsing. Indeed, the tool used now is more and more the 'big lie'. Tell the biggest whopper as often as you can for as long as you can, and when the truth comes out, everyone is either desensitized to the truth and dismisses it, or is fatigued into thinking this was settled already.
Or, as more and more realize the game, we begin to believe nothing given us by the regular sources, and consider those sources that are discredited by the 'mainstream' as potentially more credible.
"Truth is the first casualty of war" - Viscount Snowden
No one suffers any deficit in reading comprehension when they dismiss your assertion that Hillary won the 2016 Presidential election by any meaningful measure. The election was not decided by popular vote, but by states votes and representation in the Electoral College.
You are barking up the wrong tree. Persisting in doing so marks you as either a sore loser, which is excusable, or dismissive of the law and Constitution, which marks you as perhaps a revolutionary, more likely intolerant of your political failure, which is also excusable, if you are only ranting. If you intend to refuse to accept the elected President, it marks you differently.
The 'popular' vote was not used to decide the election, If that's your sole complaint, get the constitution changed. Or have the fight so many seem ready to have.
Depending on your metric, Fukushima had a failure 'rate' much less than 1%. Of course catastrophic failure of a nuclear plant containment and control has predictably and largely certain disastrous results for the nearby population (and beyond), so these failures are indeed notable.
But the ignition switch in your car twisting to the 'off' position is, by itself, not a catatrophicfailure. The impact, of course can range from 'woops, that's weird' and turning the switch back on, to failing to negotiate a turn, slowing into the path of another vehicle at any speed, or finding yourself some other situation that risks death or injury. The switch thing is no biggie. The impact is, for the car driver and any passwengers, and surrounding vehicles and their contents, potentially disastrous results.
The switch? A $90 part in this example, not such a big deal, but the impact is huge. And it doesn't have to fail even 1% of the time, unless you're engaging in a CBA and want to quantify the value of saved lives. A similar CBA to nuclear plant siting, design, operation, and decommissioning. A difference in magnitude is most notable.
If you're offended that ignition switches get fixed but nuclear plant protections don't, first consider you're close to discounting the impact in human lives for these minimal automobile problems. Second, consider also that you miss the difference between the U.S. government and Japanese government roles and responses to various nuclear plant issues. Look up the Maine Yankee plant.
"A 2000 sq ft house in suburban Arizona can power itself from PV cells on the roof"
Maybe, maybe not. Probably not without centralized generation for the demand surges.
Note the thread I linked to goes off on tangents, offering examples from Long Beach and Florida. Add 20 degrees ambient, forego A/C in all ancillary areas, and size your A/C system conservatively (properly according to my A/C guy friend), and you mostly can. Huge investment in systems. What is the ROC/NPV of this? Not to mention the conversion losses, but the Sun is free-ish.
Is this because the wind is in excess, or the power is in excess?
The wind of course is always going to be. Missing out on using it for power generation is an interesting way of describing it as 'excess'. Of course that's not what you meant.
But the electrical power generated being 'excess' would, in the example of being used for hydrogen extraction, merely be diverted from immediate use elsewhere or storage intended to provide electrical power at some other time to storage as hydrogen to be used for a different sort of power. Still storage.
"Excess'. Not quite the truth, but close.
The question of using hydrogen as a fuel for automobiles is still an interesting one. I get it, the same way I get the irrational desire to end all fossil fuel use and convert to 'green' power sources, despite these being impractical for the foreseeable future, and current/near term technology requiring petroleum for manufacture. But those questions have been answered adequately already.
Deaths due to automobile use are not the metric you want to use. By one report, there were 124 deaths and 275 injuries due to the GM ignition switch problem alone. So far, there are credible reports that no deaths are attributed to the Fukushima accidents. though that is a tough example given the Japanese government and Tepco's previous failure to be entirely forthcoming. Chernobyl is an entirely different matter, But still pales compared to GM ignition switch deaths.
It's not a fair comparison, of course, since automobiles are prolific. Even lesser known issues, like GM airbags, cause unnecessary deaths. And there are other automobile design defects that have claimed lives.
Airliner safety is probably similarly not a favorable comparison to nuclear safety. And of course military submarine reactor accidents aren't unknown.
Anadromous fish don't do well when you dam up their spawning beds.Fish that need free flowing, cold water, also don;t much care for hydroelectric impoundments.
And then the tradeoff of forest for water.
Hydro is never without environmental cost. We've figured that out, thankfully, just in time for wild Salmo Salar to be commercially fished into oblivion, for farmed communities to infiltrate wild ones and disrupt migratory instincts, and sport fishermen to watch as all efforts end with classification as an endangers species, one without a constituency able to influence policy and save the species.
Hydro electric power has been as damaging as nuclear, in different and somewhat recoverable ways. But not without cost.
"Trump's policy of bringing back coal may mean that micro-babies are back in fashion."
Politics are never aside. The NeverTrumpers cannot abide their losses, and will never, ever suffer a moment's surrender. To their credit, they are committed. But they are a problem, and not any pat of a solution.
Worse, this infects every part of American life. The civil war has already begun. Will it be only what it is now, or will the opposition take every measure, and expand the violence already undertaken?
Sore losers are to be expected. Revolutionaries need only hope they will not be opposed. Moln Labé. At least pronounce it properly.
Mantraps are incredibly rare in the U.S. business world. First, they present a significant evacuation hazard, and a true criminal might not hesitate to pull the alarm. Second, not many businesses have the resources or the need to go that far. Those that do, they have other ways
I did a short gig for a recognizable firm, rack & stack bunches of servers. Our orientation to the data center included pointing out a standalone cabinet we were instructed to avoid. As in, do not touch, brush up against, or walk to closely to. Cameras, touch-sensitive cabinet, pressure-sensitive flooring. Well marked. And we were told why - this was the PKI insfrastucture, one of several redundant sets. This company literally has knowledge and information as their product; tangible, manufactured products are merely the expression of that knowledge and information. Losing that would be catastrophic for them, causing decades of diminished profits and ultimately ending in a permanent loss of capability. This bit of infrastructure, certificate servers and such, were critical to their data security. No touch. We were advise to not linger nearby too long, which was not a problem, first because this was out of the way, close to the security office, and not a place we needed to go. But, the point, this datacenter did not have mantraps. They did, however, have the ability to lock the gates and deploy security staff if needed. They drilled for this, thankfully not when I was there. My friends that work there tell me their security is somewhat stricter than where I work, and it's onerous here. But necessary. And we have mantraps for the machine room, and I'm told a fire alarm will release them into the tender loving arms of Security. Somehow. Just don't worry.
And second, because I can take the hint. Touch nothing that isn't your responsibility.
It was a great gig - except for the fist day, when bad news led to screaming people running through the halls, and people being fired and rehired because they laughed in the cafeteria. Other than that, I loved being asked to do stuff I wasn't actually hired on for. And no, they did not ask me to work on anything PKI. I was not offended.
"A well-designed UBI equates to freedom. Freedom from exploitative employers. Freedom to launch a small business or develop an invention despite a lack of employment income. Liberation from the "poverty trap," where taking a paying job means surrendering welfare and other benefits...
Even a well-designed UBI doesn't equate to freedom from your government. You're one election/appointment/regime change from being on your own again.
Being 'on your own' is most always preferable to being a ward of the State. It may not pay as well, but your fight should not be for sustenance from the State. It should be for equal and maximized opportunity, often defined as 'liberty'.
No good comes of giving people an excuse to not provide for themselves when they can do so.
My STB has >100 unwatched episodes that I intentionally recorded. And I've skipped several seasons of series I would have liked to watched.
I have at least 2 years' worth of video to watch before I crave anything new.
So, dear writers, hold out for what you need to thrive on. I'll probably want what you write by then. Or, maybe not, given that I never went back to watching or caring about hockey on TV.
So why would Microsoft not make its own skin for Android? It's not merely trivial, but it's already been done, almost. Or maybe closer. Or even by somebody else.
How many of these obscure the scroll bar just to trick you into clicking the page and getting their lovely ads, subscription, and notification come-ons?
I don't believe 9/11 was an inside job. I do believe many Muslims in America cheered on that day, and many of them were living in New York and New Jersey.
I trust that we did land men on the Moon, returned them to Earth, and could do it again.
The Earth is not, in fact, flat.
The Nazi Holocaust, one of several attempted genocides in human history, did happen. I've met both survivors and liberators.
I believe that Trump ran as a Republican, but was rejected by the GOP leadership and most Republican elected representatives, which is obvious upon inspection of the record. He has no friends in either party leadership. And the GOP leadership is dedicated to avoiding defeat, rendering them virtually (in the literal sense of that word) unable to govern.
I believe that my Internet provider has been selling data on how I use their service despite and ind defiance of existing laws. And repealing any regulation or law to prevent it will change little or nothing. Even accountability cannot be legislated in the current environment. Pretending your Internet use is in any way secret is fantasy, and you should act as if everything it known and used to your disadvantage. Want proof?
- Search for 'Shipping Containers' - Watch the ads you see change to focus on shipping containers. Everywhere. For a long time. - Search for something you want to buy. - Then buy it. - Watch the ads focus on the item you no longer need to purchase. - When you do look to purchase something, especially a commodity item, watch for pricing to change as much as +/- 150% across different sites. Remember who wanted to overcharge you. - Learn to ignore online ads, or, if you wish to punish them, take a moment and click through in a new window or tab. Leave it there and go on about your business. Let them build a false profile, and false empty clicks.
We have been inundated by advertising all my life. TV and radio commercials focused on the assumed audience. Print ads less so, so more and more outrageous. Streaming your TV doesn't solve it, it focuses their attention - they no longer have to shotgun the ads at a wide audience based on brute force metrics, they can literally hit you between the eyes because you streamed 'xxx'. As if the apps, services, all that weren't gathering up information about you to sell everywhere, even back to your ISP, so they know how much to overcharge you.
Really, you think you're going to win any of this? NO, we should be looking to profit from the use of our information. Even discounts based on preferential marketing aren't enough. When we can make them pay us for our eyeballs, we have a chance to at least derive some minimal value.
Whatever you think, Trump is either the cure or the symptom. He is not the disease, and he is not part of the problem. He may not be the solution, but he is not what came before. That alone is not a negative. Get over it. The U.S. government is out of control, and it will be a painful process to either rein it in or succumb to it. Which path will we choose?
I do play slow-pitch softball. Bat technology is insanely competitive, the more so because much is subjective. My most favorite bat was panned by the experts, but hit a ton for me. Most of the acclaimed bats I don't do well with.
And in slow-pitch, bats are required to pass standardized testing to be approved by leagues, requiring them to both limit their performance in testing and maximize performance in games... No software involved, so far.
Slashdot Mirror
I supported several apps based on Microfocus COBOL and so-called Visual COBOL. No significant problems with either platform, the apps worked as well as thne programmers did, or more correctly, bugs happened. One was rock solid, the other had predictable issues with every major release that were resolved without much delay.
Stereotyping COBOL is inevitably just age discrimination. It's functional, as the history and current situation proves. It's a language, competent programmers that have progress from C to C++ to Java will figure it out if they see profit in doing so. I work with an old-school COBOL programmer who has no patience with the young whippersnappers who whine about every problem a legacy platform presents. There is so little interest around here to abandon the core transaction systems that claims that COBOL is 'obsolete' fall on deaf ears. They train new maintainers here. What a concept, training your team! Gah!
What's left of The Gun Control Act of 1968. Replace it with law that expands sport use to include recreational shooting, 'plinking', for instance.
And repeal of several Executive Orders, #13637 for instance the order banning re-importation of long rifles, and then repeal the Mutual Security Act.
"Conspiracies are relatively common, yet the media has demonized the term so that people can't talk about them."
This is because the vast majority of them are patently false,"
With the revelations that many more 'conspiracy theories' are indeed true than previously hoped for, that paradigm is collapsing. Indeed, the tool used now is more and more the 'big lie'. Tell the biggest whopper as often as you can for as long as you can, and when the truth comes out, everyone is either desensitized to the truth and dismisses it, or is fatigued into thinking this was settled already.
Or, as more and more realize the game, we begin to believe nothing given us by the regular sources, and consider those sources that are discredited by the 'mainstream' as potentially more credible.
"Truth is the first casualty of war" - Viscount Snowden
No one suffers any deficit in reading comprehension when they dismiss your assertion that Hillary won the 2016 Presidential election by any meaningful measure. The election was not decided by popular vote, but by states votes and representation in the Electoral College.
You are barking up the wrong tree. Persisting in doing so marks you as either a sore loser, which is excusable, or dismissive of the law and Constitution, which marks you as perhaps a revolutionary, more likely intolerant of your political failure, which is also excusable, if you are only ranting. If you intend to refuse to accept the elected President, it marks you differently.
The 'popular' vote was not used to decide the election, If that's your sole complaint, get the constitution changed. Or have the fight so many seem ready to have.
Molon Labe.
Depending on your metric, Fukushima had a failure 'rate' much less than 1%. Of course catastrophic failure of a nuclear plant containment and control has predictably and largely certain disastrous results for the nearby population (and beyond), so these failures are indeed notable.
But the ignition switch in your car twisting to the 'off' position is, by itself, not a catatrophicfailure. The impact, of course can range from 'woops, that's weird' and turning the switch back on, to failing to negotiate a turn, slowing into the path of another vehicle at any speed, or finding yourself some other situation that risks death or injury. The switch thing is no biggie. The impact is, for the car driver and any passwengers, and surrounding vehicles and their contents, potentially disastrous results.
The switch? A $90 part in this example, not such a big deal, but the impact is huge. And it doesn't have to fail even 1% of the time, unless you're engaging in a CBA and want to quantify the value of saved lives. A similar CBA to nuclear plant siting, design, operation, and decommissioning. A difference in magnitude is most notable.
If you're offended that ignition switches get fixed but nuclear plant protections don't, first consider you're close to discounting the impact in human lives for these minimal automobile problems. Second, consider also that you miss the difference between the U.S. government and Japanese government roles and responses to various nuclear plant issues. Look up the Maine Yankee plant.
"A 2000 sq ft house in suburban Arizona can power itself from PV cells on the roof"
Maybe, maybe not. Probably not without centralized generation for the demand surges.
Note the thread I linked to goes off on tangents, offering examples from Long Beach and Florida. Add 20 degrees ambient, forego A/C in all ancillary areas, and size your A/C system conservatively (properly according to my A/C guy friend), and you mostly can. Huge investment in systems. What is the ROC/NPV of this? Not to mention the conversion losses, but the Sun is free-ish.
"excess wind power"
Is this because the wind is in excess, or the power is in excess?
The wind of course is always going to be. Missing out on using it for power generation is an interesting way of describing it as 'excess'. Of course that's not what you meant.
But the electrical power generated being 'excess' would, in the example of being used for hydrogen extraction, merely be diverted from immediate use elsewhere or storage intended to provide electrical power at some other time to storage as hydrogen to be used for a different sort of power. Still storage.
"Excess'. Not quite the truth, but close.
The question of using hydrogen as a fuel for automobiles is still an interesting one. I get it, the same way I get the irrational desire to end all fossil fuel use and convert to 'green' power sources, despite these being impractical for the foreseeable future, and current/near term technology requiring petroleum for manufacture. But those questions have been answered adequately already.
Um, they don;t write it so they can read it. They write so that YOU can read it.
And your question, properly presented, might be "BeauHD and whoever edited this piece are idiots! I can't understand what they wrote!".
Or not. It's equally hard to understand what you wrote.
Whatever it is, women and children are affected the most.
Deaths due to automobile use are not the metric you want to use. By one report, there were 124 deaths and 275 injuries due to the GM ignition switch problem alone. So far, there are credible reports that no deaths are attributed to the Fukushima accidents. though that is a tough example given the Japanese government and Tepco's previous failure to be entirely forthcoming. Chernobyl is an entirely different matter, But still pales compared to GM ignition switch deaths.
It's not a fair comparison, of course, since automobiles are prolific. Even lesser known issues, like GM airbags, cause unnecessary deaths. And there are other automobile design defects that have claimed lives.
Airliner safety is probably similarly not a favorable comparison to nuclear safety. And of course military submarine reactor accidents aren't unknown.
Anadromous fish don't do well when you dam up their spawning beds.Fish that need free flowing, cold water, also don;t much care for hydroelectric impoundments.
And then the tradeoff of forest for water.
Hydro is never without environmental cost. We've figured that out, thankfully, just in time for wild Salmo Salar to be commercially fished into oblivion, for farmed communities to infiltrate wild ones and disrupt migratory instincts, and sport fishermen to watch as all efforts end with classification as an endangers species, one without a constituency able to influence policy and save the species.
Hydro electric power has been as damaging as nuclear, in different and somewhat recoverable ways. But not without cost.
"Trump's policy of bringing back coal may mean that micro-babies are back in fashion."
Politics are never aside. The NeverTrumpers cannot abide their losses, and will never, ever suffer a moment's surrender. To their credit, they are committed. But they are a problem, and not any pat of a solution.
Worse, this infects every part of American life. The civil war has already begun. Will it be only what it is now, or will the opposition take every measure, and expand the violence already undertaken?
Sore losers are to be expected. Revolutionaries need only hope they will not be opposed. Moln Labé. At least pronounce it properly.
Mantraps are incredibly rare in the U.S. business world. First, they present a significant evacuation hazard, and a true criminal might not hesitate to pull the alarm. Second, not many businesses have the resources or the need to go that far. Those that do, they have other ways
I did a short gig for a recognizable firm, rack & stack bunches of servers. Our orientation to the data center included pointing out a standalone cabinet we were instructed to avoid. As in, do not touch, brush up against, or walk to closely to. Cameras, touch-sensitive cabinet, pressure-sensitive flooring. Well marked. And we were told why - this was the PKI insfrastucture, one of several redundant sets. This company literally has knowledge and information as their product; tangible, manufactured products are merely the expression of that knowledge and information. Losing that would be catastrophic for them, causing decades of diminished profits and ultimately ending in a permanent loss of capability. This bit of infrastructure, certificate servers and such, were critical to their data security. No touch. We were advise to not linger nearby too long, which was not a problem, first because this was out of the way, close to the security office, and not a place we needed to go. But, the point, this datacenter did not have mantraps. They did, however, have the ability to lock the gates and deploy security staff if needed. They drilled for this, thankfully not when I was there. My friends that work there tell me their security is somewhat stricter than where I work, and it's onerous here. But necessary. And we have mantraps for the machine room, and I'm told a fire alarm will release them into the tender loving arms of Security. Somehow. Just don't worry.
And second, because I can take the hint. Touch nothing that isn't your responsibility.
It was a great gig - except for the fist day, when bad news led to screaming people running through the halls, and people being fired and rehired because they laughed in the cafeteria. Other than that, I loved being asked to do stuff I wasn't actually hired on for. And no, they did not ask me to work on anything PKI. I was not offended.
"Even air gaped machines"
Thanks for that. My content filters at home just went into full Defcon 1 alert.
"A well-designed UBI equates to freedom. Freedom from exploitative employers. Freedom to launch a small business or develop an invention despite a lack of employment income. Liberation from the "poverty trap," where taking a paying job means surrendering welfare and other benefits...
Even a well-designed UBI doesn't equate to freedom from your government. You're one election/appointment/regime change from being on your own again.
Being 'on your own' is most always preferable to being a ward of the State. It may not pay as well, but your fight should not be for sustenance from the State. It should be for equal and maximized opportunity, often defined as 'liberty'.
No good comes of giving people an excuse to not provide for themselves when they can do so.
Is this redundancy or recursion?
And is it truly random, given the finite set of Slashdot stories?
Or, alternatively, wait, no, whatever.
My STB has >100 unwatched episodes that I intentionally recorded. And I've skipped several seasons of series I would have liked to watched.
I have at least 2 years' worth of video to watch before I crave anything new.
So, dear writers, hold out for what you need to thrive on. I'll probably want what you write by then. Or, maybe not, given that I never went back to watching or caring about hockey on TV.
And i do use Google tools to save passwords/usernames.
I maybe shouldn't trust Google, but I know i should not trust Facebook.
So why would Microsoft not make its own skin for Android? It's not merely trivial, but it's already been done, almost. Or maybe closer. Or even by somebody else.
"The real answer is to put the user in control, by default, of the way the page renders."
And thereby destroying the core use case for CSS. What?
How many of these obscure the scroll bar just to trick you into clicking the page and getting their lovely ads, subscription, and notification come-ons?
The manufacturers think we care more about water resistance than replaceable batteries.
And they care more about water resistance since it impacts warranty costs and dissatisfaction more than battery longevity.
Besides, the live cycle is assumed to be 2 years. The OS itself moves so much in 2 years that 'old' phones are a liability.
Not really.
I don't believe 9/11 was an inside job. I do believe many Muslims in America cheered on that day, and many of them were living in New York and New Jersey.
I trust that we did land men on the Moon, returned them to Earth, and could do it again.
The Earth is not, in fact, flat.
The Nazi Holocaust, one of several attempted genocides in human history, did happen. I've met both survivors and liberators.
I believe that Trump ran as a Republican, but was rejected by the GOP leadership and most Republican elected representatives, which is obvious upon inspection of the record. He has no friends in either party leadership. And the GOP leadership is dedicated to avoiding defeat, rendering them virtually (in the literal sense of that word) unable to govern.
I believe that my Internet provider has been selling data on how I use their service despite and ind defiance of existing laws. And repealing any regulation or law to prevent it will change little or nothing. Even accountability cannot be legislated in the current environment. Pretending your Internet use is in any way secret is fantasy, and you should act as if everything it known and used to your disadvantage. Want proof?
- Search for 'Shipping Containers'
- Watch the ads you see change to focus on shipping containers. Everywhere. For a long time.
- Search for something you want to buy.
- Then buy it.
- Watch the ads focus on the item you no longer need to purchase.
- When you do look to purchase something, especially a commodity item, watch for pricing to change as much as +/- 150% across different sites. Remember who wanted to overcharge you.
- Learn to ignore online ads, or, if you wish to punish them, take a moment and click through in a new window or tab. Leave it there and go on about your business. Let them build a false profile, and false empty clicks.
We have been inundated by advertising all my life. TV and radio commercials focused on the assumed audience. Print ads less so, so more and more outrageous. Streaming your TV doesn't solve it, it focuses their attention - they no longer have to shotgun the ads at a wide audience based on brute force metrics, they can literally hit you between the eyes because you streamed 'xxx'. As if the apps, services, all that weren't gathering up information about you to sell everywhere, even back to your ISP, so they know how much to overcharge you.
Really, you think you're going to win any of this? NO, we should be looking to profit from the use of our information. Even discounts based on preferential marketing aren't enough. When we can make them pay us for our eyeballs, we have a chance to at least derive some minimal value.
Whatever you think, Trump is either the cure or the symptom. He is not the disease, and he is not part of the problem. He may not be the solution, but he is not what came before. That alone is not a negative. Get over it. The U.S. government is out of control, and it will be a painful process to either rein it in or succumb to it. Which path will we choose?
I do play slow-pitch softball. Bat technology is insanely competitive, the more so because much is subjective. My most favorite bat was panned by the experts, but hit a ton for me. Most of the acclaimed bats I don't do well with.
And in slow-pitch, bats are required to pass standardized testing to be approved by leagues, requiring them to both limit their performance in testing and maximize performance in games... No software involved, so far.
And smoke. And dogs. And flags. And lots of jerky.