In the UK we have a consumer protection laws that prevent shops from selling products that are 'not fit for purpose'. Checkout your local consumer protections laws, it is always good to know your local rights anyway.
IMHO 'not fit for purpose' is good quote anyway.
Visit the store when it is busy, the staff are feeling pressured and your have plenty of audience. If the staff refuse a refund, demand to see the manager, tell them the CD does not work, is not fit, tell them you want a functional replacement (he cannot provide it so he is must offer a refund). If he is unaware of the number of purchase you make, point it out explicitly, do not accept his 'RedBook claims' after all the only fact that matters is 'the CD does not work'. Generally kick up a noisy stink but without being agressive, do it so other customers hear, he will probably cave-in for a quiet life, to protect his reputation/image. If he claims he does not have the authority/discresion, insist on talking to speak to his manager. Ignore excuses, and esculate up his reporting lines, as needed. Do not do it quitely, make it easier on him to cave in, than hold out.
When you finally win reinforce the correct behaviour by being magnanimous, you know it is not his personal fault, it the 'evil' RIAA/BMG.
the patterns found in the Gang of Four book for C++ and Java programmers mainly help losers lose less
Pandering to 'wannabie elite hackers' is now enough to earn +5 informative? Jesus!
If our Industry cannot develop the tools to move on from a hacking culture to a Proffessional Software Engineering culture, we may as well all give up and go and go back to living in mud huts.
The most simple fact is that Patterns (and the GOF) are to software engineering what Whitworth was to the Industrial Revoulution, the ubiquitous standard that make it possible for a spanner manufactured in Sheffield to tighten a bolt from Africa in a Bridge in Deli.
Try the following for a better insight into the importance of standards in creating a revolution.
This also used to be the case in the UK, but it has decreased a lot in he last few years. The Hoover company screwed up a free flight offer to New York and the fallout was massive. Hoover never recovered.
Dyson have taken their crown have actually succeeded in making the vacuum cleaner something of a fashion statement, and so a lot a people now 'Dyson'.
...Europe where being rich is practically crime and carries a social stigma, it might seem that way.
Don't know where you get this idea, as best it is simplistic at worst plain wrong.
There is some stigma against the aristocracies or 'old money' but this is more against their elitism than the money.
New money (self made) is very fasionable and cool. Indeed some of our most famous people are entrepreneurs.
There is also developing stigma against tax evasion, but this is a recent thing, mainly due to public pressure for more spending on health and education.
Under the previous government, tax evasion was so fashionable even cabinet ministers where at it.
The Commission tends to attract the brightest civil servants, and actually if you ever have to deal with it, it shows. Think West Wing in several languages. And no, I don't work for it and am never likely to.
I've also met some Eurocrats and I agree they are bright, fun, charming people. They have a vision for a enlighted transnationalism that is inspiring and refreshing.
Of course we have the example of UK to show it is possible to transition from a welfare state to a free market.
Yep it amazing what sort of economic growth can be achieved when government policy is directed to reducing unemployment instead of increasing it to provide a pool of cheap labour.
Also even if the SETI programme fails to find ET. It has proven very valuable in general scientific and social terms. advancing many fields from computing, electronics, physics, astrophysics, astronomy.
In out field alone, its justified as a development bed for the first large scale distributed computing project
I've read a good few links and whilst there seems to be lots of speculation. I can see _no_evidence_ of cheating. Increases in productivity has many possible explainations, new machines, additional machines, renewed efforts, new members, etc.
one of the major culprits for this was actually Microsoft, they had a scam going where they optimized the SETI software for Windows and then published the results to show how well their platform performed.
Much as I hate Microsoft, and would love to find them guilty, this is not cheating. It just minimising their natural disadvantage.
It seems to me the claims of cheating are just speculation, there is no evidence beyond the reported fact that a 'leading' team has emerged. Indeed the 'cheat' as descibed of bringing more machines to bear on the problem does not seem like cheating to me. It looks like bad loosers to me. It certainly has no negative impact on the scientific integrity of the resuls as some have suggested.
I skimmed the comments so far and it seems like some people don't have a very high opinion of PHP.
Well I can only speak for myself.
In my experience:
1) It's flakey, buggy and slow. Script's can cause the PHP engine to core dump.
2) The standard argument for using PHP seems to be it's easy rather than it's good, and that speaks volumes to me. The habitué of news:comp.lang.php are arrogant and rude despite for the most part being hobbyist rather than professional engineers. Hell, they make/. look like a paragon on professionalism. Most of them have no idea what the MVC or 3-tier architecture is never mind advantages/disadvantages.
3) PHP language lacks coherence, it's a bucket of functions & wrappers rather that a designed structured language.
4) It tightly couples presentation with logic; php and html are mixed on the same lines not just the same files.
It's one thing to feel like something is better, but to despise it baffles me.
That because you've never felt that Pretty-Horrendous-Pain. In my experience J2ee IS superior, faster and more stable that PHP. It's a lot more elegant and internally consistent. Indeed from the presentation it seems Y! reason for not choosing J2ee over PHP is nothing to do with Java, but that 'Threads support on FreeBSD is not great'.
However PHP has its place, prototyping and hobbyist sites. It's completely unsuitable for a site than need to be maintained and developed, since its inelegant compounds the classic mainternance issue of diminishing returns on effort. Whereas Java's provides the opposite an increasing return on effort from OO reuse.
This used to be excellent, with proper stories for each episode, each series and the whole arch, decent plot development, proper character development and decent plot turns. However it all started going down hill when they introduced all the new age mysticism junk, when Daniel Jackson 'transcended'.
This sounds like a change in employment terms to me, and that is always a negotiation not something they can hand down by dictate. I would respond by asking them how much they are prepared to offer in compensation, it unlikely to be enough to get me back in a suit.
...why a lot of the new PDA's keep getting bigger, having keyboards, etc.
Demand Perhaps.
AIH I own a Zaurus, which I can highly recommend, it is the best PDA I have every owned (or played with). However I would happly trade a size increase, even doubled, for additional battery life and a pair of SD & CF ports. It is easy to fill the singles povided, for example mine has a SD memory card and CF 802.11 Wireless card. I have no room for more memory or GPRS card.
I've always considered two of the benefits of a PDA to be a small size and an easy to use interface.
The current Zaurus can hardly be called large; and I suggest that your two criteria are inversely related.... it seems like these things get closer to being laptop computers every time a new model comes out.
There is an order of magnitude difference between PDA and small Laptop/Notebook.
The current Zaurus is about 74mm (W) x 138mm (D) x 18mm (H) mm Weight - 208g. - http://www.sharp.co.uk/zaurus/spec/spec.htm
A Sharp MURAMASA notebook 282x232x16.6(min)/19.6(max)mm & 1.31Kg
I think you haven't read the MySQL/mSQL book from O'Reilly then.
You're right. I initially had the word Java, between O'Reilly and stable, but edited it out.
I have most of the O'Reilly Java books, which are excellent, some of the best books I have, and the Brett McLaughlin Java & XML book is not close to being in the same league as any of the rest.
The link is to a parody of mass media hysteria currently being stired up in the UK by the low-end tabloids and minor celeberaties about the 'corruption of children' by the Internet.
In my humble opinion, this is frighteningly ontopic for this article.
Brett McLaughlin is the author of another O'Reilly title, Java & XML...
I have to say this is not a good exultation for this book.
Brett McLaughlin Java & XML* book is the weakest book in the O'Reilly stable by a considerable margin. It has a very babbled writing style and lacks clarity, it is poorly structured/organised and very disjointed, being neither reference or tutorial. I suspect that he learnt XML as he wrote the book. The Index is useless, the topics show little natural progression and many XML related topics lack proper explaination.
...the reforms sought, is higher fees for the initial processing fee, higher fees for more than 20 claims, higher fees for the more work the examiners have to due[sic]...
These 'reforms' further raise the barriers to entry for the small guy and compound the existing systemic faults in patents. That they are presented as 'reforms', perhaps gives a clue, that patent-opposition is _not_ a forlorn hope even in the US. US Geeks keep the pressure up.
Also we Europeans cannot sit on our laurels, the European Patent Office are still trying to force the introduce of software patent (http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/indp rop/comp/index.htm) through the back door of EU treaty obligations and legislation. The proposals are not dead or without critics. A final push could see victory, (at least for a time). This could be forced given the major issues on table at the moment. So we ALL need to stand up for our rights and complain to our various National and EU representatives.
If you are in the UK, don't forget Fax Your MP remember keep it short, simple and professional. Don't be afraid to play up to the political position of the party in power, always claim past support & link future support to this issue, some points to use:
- Negative competitive pressure on Software sector. - Negative economic impact overall. - Anti-Competitive. - Anti-Freedom. - Anti-Democratic, process is at odds with consultation process results.
The talking dash version Austin Montego/Maestro had a 'Marvin Paranoid Android Mode' where it complained about the abuse it was receiving from the driver.
Interesting, so you're saying that MS systems connected to the internet CAN'T stay up for days?
In the interests of transparency and to prove you are not just another MS Astroturfer perhaps you could prove this rather than just claiming it by supplying a Netcraft link.
Slashdot Mirror
In the UK we have a consumer protection laws that prevent shops from selling products that are 'not fit for purpose'. Checkout your local consumer protections laws, it is always good to know your local rights anyway.
IMHO 'not fit for purpose' is good quote anyway.
Visit the store when it is busy, the staff are feeling pressured and your have plenty of audience. If the staff refuse a refund, demand to see the manager, tell them the CD does not work, is not fit, tell them you want a functional replacement (he cannot provide it so he is must offer a refund). If he is unaware of the number of purchase you make, point it out explicitly, do not accept his 'RedBook claims' after all the only fact that matters is 'the CD does not work'. Generally kick up a noisy stink but without being agressive, do it so other customers hear, he will probably cave-in for a quiet life, to protect his reputation/image. If he claims he does not have the authority/discresion, insist on talking to speak to his manager. Ignore excuses, and esculate up his reporting lines, as needed. Do not do it quitely, make it easier on him to cave in, than hold out.
When you finally win reinforce the correct behaviour by being magnanimous, you know it is not his personal fault, it the 'evil' RIAA/BMG.
the patterns found in the Gang of Four book for C++ and Java programmers mainly help losers lose less
d s .html
Pandering to 'wannabie elite hackers' is now enough to earn +5 informative? Jesus!
If our Industry cannot develop the tools to move on from a hacking culture to a Proffessional Software Engineering culture, we may as well all give up and go and go back to living in mud huts.
The most simple fact is that Patterns (and the GOF) are to software engineering what Whitworth was to the Industrial Revoulution, the ubiquitous standard that make it possible for a spanner manufactured in Sheffield to tighten a bolt from Africa in a Bridge in Deli.
Try the following for a better insight into the importance of standards in creating a revolution.
http://www.ama-cycle.org/features/whitworth.asp
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.01/standar
---
It's not the ignorance in postings that disappoint it's the ignorant moderation.
This also used to be the case in the UK, but it has decreased a lot in he last few years. The Hoover company screwed up a free flight offer to New York and the fallout was massive. Hoover never recovered.
Dyson have taken their crown have actually succeeded in making the vacuum cleaner something of a fashion statement, and so a lot a people now 'Dyson'.
AIH we 'vax' in our house.
...Europe where being rich is practically crime and carries a social stigma, it might seem that way.
Don't know where you get this idea, as best it is simplistic at worst plain wrong.
There is some stigma against the aristocracies or 'old money' but this is more against their elitism than the money.
New money (self made) is very fasionable and cool. Indeed some of our most famous people are entrepreneurs.
There is also developing stigma against tax evasion, but this is a recent thing, mainly due to public pressure for more spending on health and education.
Under the previous government, tax evasion was so fashionable even cabinet ministers where at it.
The Commission tends to attract the brightest civil servants, and actually if you ever have to deal with it, it shows. Think West Wing in several languages. And no, I don't work for it and am never likely to.
I've also met some Eurocrats and I agree they are bright, fun, charming people. They have a vision for a enlighted transnationalism that is inspiring and refreshing.
Of course we have the example of UK to show it is possible to transition from a welfare state to a free market.
Yep it amazing what sort of economic growth can be achieved when government policy is directed to reducing unemployment instead of increasing it to provide a pool of cheap labour.
Also even if the SETI programme fails to find ET. It has proven very valuable in general scientific and social terms. advancing many fields from computing, electronics, physics, astrophysics, astronomy.
In out field alone, its justified as a development bed for the first large scale distributed computing project
I've read a good few links and whilst there seems to be lots of speculation. I can see _no_evidence_ of cheating. Increases in productivity has many possible explainations, new machines, additional machines, renewed efforts, new members, etc.
one of the major culprits for this was actually Microsoft, they had a scam going where they optimized the SETI software for Windows and then published the results to show how well their platform performed.
Much as I hate Microsoft, and would love to find them guilty, this is not cheating. It just minimising their natural disadvantage.
It seems to me the claims of cheating are just speculation, there is no evidence beyond the reported fact that a 'leading' team has emerged. Indeed the 'cheat' as descibed of bringing more machines to bear on the problem does not seem like cheating to me. It looks like bad loosers to me. It certainly has no negative impact on the scientific integrity of the resuls as some have suggested.
I cannot believe that Microsoft apologists trying to excuse this with double speak.
Kmart are selling the company (Bluelight.com) not software that Bluelight.com licenced.
What next ?
Microsoft approving every stock/share trade ?
register_globals allows URL access to system (OS/Server) environment variables.
I skimmed the comments so far and it seems like some people don't have a very high opinion of PHP.
Well I can only speak for myself.
In my experience:
1) It's flakey, buggy and slow. Script's can cause the PHP engine to core dump.
2) The standard argument for using PHP seems to be it's easy rather than it's good, and that speaks volumes to me. The habitué of news:comp.lang.php are arrogant and rude despite for the most part being hobbyist rather than professional engineers. Hell, they make /. look like a paragon on professionalism. Most of them have no idea what the MVC or 3-tier architecture is never mind advantages/disadvantages.
3) PHP language lacks coherence, it's a bucket of functions & wrappers rather that a designed structured language.
4) It tightly couples presentation with logic; php and html are mixed on the same lines not just the same files.
It's one thing to feel like something is better, but to despise it baffles me.
That because you've never felt that Pretty-Horrendous-Pain. In my experience J2ee IS superior, faster and more stable that PHP. It's a lot more elegant and internally consistent. Indeed from the presentation it seems Y! reason for not choosing J2ee over PHP is nothing to do with Java, but that 'Threads support on FreeBSD is not great'.
However PHP has its place, prototyping and hobbyist sites. It's completely unsuitable for a site than need to be maintained and developed, since its inelegant compounds the classic mainternance issue of diminishing returns on effort. Whereas Java's provides the opposite an increasing return on effort from OO reuse.
This used to be excellent, with proper stories for each episode, each series and the whole arch, decent plot development, proper character development and decent plot turns. However it all started going down hill when they introduced all the new age mysticism junk, when Daniel Jackson 'transcended'.
Suit Up Or Ship Out?
This sounds like a change in employment terms to me, and that is always a negotiation not something they can hand down by dictate. I would respond by asking them how much they are prepared to offer in compensation, it unlikely to be enough to get me back in a suit.
... PCMCIA, CF, SD, internal microdrive?
1 /ceatec /02.jpg
1 /ceatec /06.jpg
/ ceatec /
This pic clearly shows a SD slot at the back.
http://www.mobilenews.ne.jp/news/2002/10/0
This looks like it could be CF slot.
http://www.mobilenews.ne.jp/news/2002/10/0
More Close Up Pics
http://www.mobilenews.ne.jp/news/2002/10/01
Close examination of the back of the keyboard section suggests a very similar layout to the original Zaurus. In the placement of SD,CF,IR etc.
Demand Perhaps.
AIH I own a Zaurus, which I can highly recommend, it is the best PDA I have every owned (or played with). However I would happly trade a size increase, even doubled, for additional battery life and a pair of SD & CF ports. It is easy to fill the singles povided, for example mine has a SD memory card and CF 802.11 Wireless card. I have no room for more memory or GPRS card.
I've always considered two of the benefits of a PDA to be a small size and an easy to use interface.
The current Zaurus can hardly be called large; and I suggest that your two criteria are inversely related.
There is an order of magnitude difference between PDA and small Laptop/Notebook.
The current Zaurus is about 74mm (W) x 138mm (D) x 18mm (H) mm Weight - 208g. - http://www.sharp.co.uk/zaurus/spec/spec.htm
A Sharp MURAMASA notebook 282x232x16.6(min)/19.6(max)mm & 1.31Kg
The web is not the net
I think you'll find he means Donald Davies, the inventor of the packet switched Network, and not Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web.
I think you haven't read the MySQL/mSQL book from O'Reilly then.
You're right. I initially had the word Java, between O'Reilly and stable, but edited it out.
I have most of the O'Reilly Java books, which are excellent, some of the best books I have, and the Brett McLaughlin Java & XML book is not close to being in the same league as any of the rest.
Sure, it's off topic, but I have karma to burn.
Moderators,
Have you had an irony bypass today ?
The link is to a parody of mass media hysteria currently being stired up in the UK by the low-end tabloids and minor celeberaties about the 'corruption of children' by the Internet.
In my humble opinion, this is frighteningly ontopic for this article.
Brett McLaughlin is the author of another O'Reilly title, Java & XML
I have to say this is not a good exultation for this book.
Brett McLaughlin Java & XML* book is the weakest book in the O'Reilly stable by a considerable margin. It has a very babbled writing style and lacks clarity, it is poorly structured/organised and very disjointed, being neither reference or tutorial. I suspect that he learnt XML as he wrote the book. The Index is useless, the topics show little natural progression and many XML related topics lack proper explaination.
he can communicate well.
I have to strongly differ.
Don't they get sick of using the same template?
Wha da ya mean? it beats thinking about it!
These 'reforms' further raise the barriers to entry for the small guy and compound the existing systemic faults in patents. That they are presented as 'reforms', perhaps gives a clue, that patent-opposition is _not_ a forlorn hope even in the US. US Geeks keep the pressure up.
Also we Europeans cannot sit on our laurels, the European Patent Office are still trying to force the introduce of software patent (http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/indp rop/comp/index.htm) through the back door of EU treaty obligations and legislation. The proposals are not dead or without critics. A final push could see victory, (at least for a time). This could be forced given the major issues on table at the moment. So we ALL need to stand up for our rights and complain to our various National and EU representatives.
If you are in the UK, don't forget Fax Your MP remember keep it short, simple and professional. Don't be afraid to play up to the political position of the party in power, always claim past support & link future support to this issue, some points to use:
- Negative competitive pressure on Software sector.
- Negative economic impact overall.
- Anti-Competitive.
- Anti-Freedom.
- Anti-Democratic, process is at odds with consultation process results.
I'd also like to propose this Google Bomb, pointing the works Software Patents to the http://swpat.ffii.org/ home.
The talking dash version Austin Montego/Maestro had a 'Marvin Paranoid Android Mode' where it complained about the abuse it was receiving from the driver.
Interesting, so you're saying that MS systems connected to the internet CAN'T stay up for days?
In the interests of transparency and to prove you are not just another MS Astroturfer perhaps you could prove this rather than just claiming it by supplying a Netcraft link.