It's how entertainment and media companies survive. What's your alternative model? I don't mind "normal" ads, it's the pop-ups, flash, and JavaScript-dancy crap that cause most the grief. Serve up only HTML and static image ads that don't show gross stuff like rotting toenails, and few will complain.
That's actually a true statement. If you open a slashdot page with a video that instantly plays and makes noise, it could result in you getting fired for slashdotting on company time, meaning you lose your health insurance, and if you get cancer at the same time, you can't pay for treatment, and the cancer spreads. Videos kill!
I once used something like such in a class on microprocessors and machine language, and it indeed was almost fridge sized. It was already obsolete at the time of the class, but since it was for training, performance & storage size issues didn't matter much. All the manuals and lesson docs were already written up for it such that teachers didn't want to upgrade.
You seem to be assuming that a "new" plumber comes in to fix it, which is typically the case for residents and small biz. If an org has in-house staff plumbers and a pipe breaks, the staff plumbers very well may get blamed. You obviously can't blame it on somebody who's never been to your building before.
It's treated like plumbing: As long as it works, nobody cares and takes it for granted. It may be a lot of work keeping it tuned and preventing long-term problems with limited resources, but users and managers generally don't directly see or understand such effort.
The bad apples are ruining it for the good apples. The good apples should get together the define good ad standards and enforcement procedures, otherwise nobody will get apples.
little used law is pulled out to harass someone...must be some sort of underlying politics at work here.
It's called "communism".
Granted, we have stupid laws and stupid judges also, and so are not entirely immune, but at least we have more ways to challenge such, including blogs and the press.
Overall, the US "style" is to let the marketplace set the pace and direction of change rather than government initiatives to "guide" the market. Whether that's good or bad is a long and complex topic.
If the other industrial nations actually start to clearly kick our butt using government initiatives, then voters may change their usual preference.
Besides, we have our bloated military as the govt's techie playground. It's our version of socialistic R&D, one even Republicans like.
That's a truism either way because just about every economy back to antiquity is a mix of central (hierarchical) control and market forces. Even the Soviet Union had some amount of barter going on, which is a form of a market system.
I'm presenting solutions based on looking around to see what other countries do and the impact of such actions. The categorization of such solutions is mostly a game of terminology minutia that doesn't interest me. Nor am I necessarily looking for some revolutionary economic invention. If it's "mere tuning", so be it. I'm not here to add more cowbell.
You make it sound like all or nothing (knob at 0 or 10). It's not. Japan has relatively high tariffs and "protectionism" from big-box stores, yet one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world. True, certain goods are more expensive there, but one could argue that jobs are more important than cheaper trinkets.
Some countries also have the same or higher median income as the USA, yet higher taxes. That's good evidence that higher taxes on the wealthy don't hurt the middle class. (I didn't use "average" for a reason.)
Often one finds there are domain-specific shortcuts. For example, if we know that "useful" DNA sequences tends to X letters long, then an algorithm that is optimized for matching sequences of X length perhaps can be devised rather than try to match everything to everything.
Sometimes it's better for the org to search say 10,000 objects with an imperfect search tool rather than 500 with a perfect one. The most promising ones can then later be gone over with the fuller algorithm.
I'm not a biology expert, but I find there are shortcuts in other domains once you get to know the domain well enough. Focusing too much on being "generic" up front sometimes blinds one to the possibilities.
Sometimes you just have to experiment. Let's try getting a better deal from our Asian trade partners rather than keep accepting the lopsided trade. Don't use tariffs to halt trade, but rather as a negotiation tool.
Their system and currency is set up to increase exports rather than local consumerism. They will keep doing that UNTIL we give them a clear incentive to do otherwise.
And tell the WTO to go shove it. We'll do things our way on our own terms.
If you mean YAGNI, I've seen that fail also plenty of times. I believe there to be a happy medium between up-front minimalism and preparing for the future. True, it takes experience and skill and domain familiarity to balance it well. If you don't have enough experience, then leaning toward YAGNI may indeed be the safer bet.
My experience differs. While they may understand the general concept in "toy" examples, applying it to the org's actual domain for non-trivial use is another matter.
I have to partly disagree. There are certain patterns of change that are fairly common. If you are able to make a reasonable estimate of their future likelihood, you may find it easier (less net cost) to put it into the design up front.
A rough example is a system based on 12 categories of something in the domain. You know those 12 categories are likely to change in the future such that you don't hard-wire them into the design. Otherwise, you have to rework a lot of code that uses categories when they change.
A related issue is a vendor designing a product for multiple customers. Each customer is different. If you want to cover many customers so you have enough sales revenue, you will have to build in a lot of flexibility and try not to hard-wire arbitrary things into it.
Slashdot Mirror
Pope comes to town, and things start happening
It's how entertainment and media companies survive. What's your alternative model? I don't mind "normal" ads, it's the pop-ups, flash, and JavaScript-dancy crap that cause most the grief. Serve up only HTML and static image ads that don't show gross stuff like rotting toenails, and few will complain.
That's actually a true statement. If you open a slashdot page with a video that instantly plays and makes noise, it could result in you getting fired for slashdotting on company time, meaning you lose your health insurance, and if you get cancer at the same time, you can't pay for treatment, and the cancer spreads. Videos kill!
I once used something like such in a class on microprocessors and machine language, and it indeed was almost fridge sized. It was already obsolete at the time of the class, but since it was for training, performance & storage size issues didn't matter much. All the manuals and lesson docs were already written up for it such that teachers didn't want to upgrade.
You seem to be assuming that a "new" plumber comes in to fix it, which is typically the case for residents and small biz. If an org has in-house staff plumbers and a pipe breaks, the staff plumbers very well may get blamed. You obviously can't blame it on somebody who's never been to your building before.
We have Flying Spaghetti Cabling.
It's treated like plumbing: As long as it works, nobody cares and takes it for granted. It may be a lot of work keeping it tuned and preventing long-term problems with limited resources, but users and managers generally don't directly see or understand such effort.
clockwork for you
The bad apples are ruining it for the good apples. The good apples should get together the define good ad standards and enforcement procedures, otherwise nobody will get apples.
I went to one of those and did have a super happy joyful time.
(However, more testing still needed to verify the "luck" part...)
It's called "communism".
Granted, we have stupid laws and stupid judges also, and so are not entirely immune, but at least we have more ways to challenge such, including blogs and the press.
I don't believe that's entirely true. They may have been one of multiple funding partners, but it was NOT primarily a military research project.
Overall, the US "style" is to let the marketplace set the pace and direction of change rather than government initiatives to "guide" the market. Whether that's good or bad is a long and complex topic.
If the other industrial nations actually start to clearly kick our butt using government initiatives, then voters may change their usual preference.
Besides, we have our bloated military as the govt's techie playground. It's our version of socialistic R&D, one even Republicans like.
That's a truism either way because just about every economy back to antiquity is a mix of central (hierarchical) control and market forces. Even the Soviet Union had some amount of barter going on, which is a form of a market system.
I'm presenting solutions based on looking around to see what other countries do and the impact of such actions. The categorization of such solutions is mostly a game of terminology minutia that doesn't interest me. Nor am I necessarily looking for some revolutionary economic invention. If it's "mere tuning", so be it. I'm not here to add more cowbell.
So, then we do know the solution (or at least an improvement), but are not currently applying it in the USA.
You make it sound like all or nothing (knob at 0 or 10). It's not. Japan has relatively high tariffs and "protectionism" from big-box stores, yet one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world. True, certain goods are more expensive there, but one could argue that jobs are more important than cheaper trinkets.
Some countries also have the same or higher median income as the USA, yet higher taxes. That's good evidence that higher taxes on the wealthy don't hurt the middle class. (I didn't use "average" for a reason.)
should be "...tend to be X letters long".
Often one finds there are domain-specific shortcuts. For example, if we know that "useful" DNA sequences tends to X letters long, then an algorithm that is optimized for matching sequences of X length perhaps can be devised rather than try to match everything to everything.
Sometimes it's better for the org to search say 10,000 objects with an imperfect search tool rather than 500 with a perfect one. The most promising ones can then later be gone over with the fuller algorithm.
I'm not a biology expert, but I find there are shortcuts in other domains once you get to know the domain well enough. Focusing too much on being "generic" up front sometimes blinds one to the possibilities.
Sometimes you just have to experiment. Let's try getting a better deal from our Asian trade partners rather than keep accepting the lopsided trade. Don't use tariffs to halt trade, but rather as a negotiation tool.
Their system and currency is set up to increase exports rather than local consumerism. They will keep doing that UNTIL we give them a clear incentive to do otherwise.
And tell the WTO to go shove it. We'll do things our way on our own terms.
Remember the "Patriot" Act?
A translation guide for bill names:
"Patriotic" = Behavior we like only when our party is in power
"Liberation" = Endless war
"Defense" = Offense pork
"X Child Act" = Get up into our business to protect a net 1.7 children
"Affordable" = Open your wallet wider
"Care" = Socialism
"Jobs Bill" = The 1% get a raise
"X Accountability Act" = More slacking inspectors at your expense
"X Transparency Act" = Your personal info is outed
"X Voting Act" = Longer booth lines
"X Justice Act" = Bloated jails over J-walking
"X Cost Cutting Act" = If you lose your job, you're hosed
"Digital Rights" = The right of Big Media to silence you with mob lawyers
"Tax Simplification" = Renaming corporate welfare clauses to sound better
Eventually there's going to be an entire debate about servers
Unless somebody explicitly asks, it's not.
If you mean YAGNI, I've seen that fail also plenty of times. I believe there to be a happy medium between up-front minimalism and preparing for the future. True, it takes experience and skill and domain familiarity to balance it well. If you don't have enough experience, then leaning toward YAGNI may indeed be the safer bet.
My experience differs. While they may understand the general concept in "toy" examples, applying it to the org's actual domain for non-trivial use is another matter.
I have to partly disagree. There are certain patterns of change that are fairly common. If you are able to make a reasonable estimate of their future likelihood, you may find it easier (less net cost) to put it into the design up front.
A rough example is a system based on 12 categories of something in the domain. You know those 12 categories are likely to change in the future such that you don't hard-wire them into the design. Otherwise, you have to rework a lot of code that uses categories when they change.
A related issue is a vendor designing a product for multiple customers. Each customer is different. If you want to cover many customers so you have enough sales revenue, you will have to build in a lot of flexibility and try not to hard-wire arbitrary things into it.