Fluidinfo is a database of metadata. But since metadata is really just data, Fluidinfo is really a database of data. Which is to say, it's a database. But there's a twist. You can make new "objects" at will. Kind of like most other databases, actually. But with even more of a twist, anyone can do that! Like what happens when you forget to secure your firewall. Then the excitement starts: You can add arbitrary key/value data -- metadata! -- to the object! Like a JOIN with another SQL table but with different semantics. But since the actual usage of the key/value pairs is not governed, you will have to collaborate with other users and applications through some external channel. The shared keys could be coordinated in an external database, for example.

Sarcasm aside, I'm sure this project is really cool and stuff, but the cynic in me thinks otherwise.

Once per week

My wife and I receive a newspaper only on Sunday and then on every national holiday. The holiday thing is just part of the subscription. What my wife is really after is the Sunday newspaper, for the coupons. She loves coupons and, hey, they save money when we shop for groceries.

By the time any decent-sized project ends, why yes, he is probably twice as productive. He has also created half as many problems for everyone else, gone down dead-end paths much less often, and is the one person the QA department likes.

I wish I had mod points. I've been writing software for over 30 years and completely understand where Number6.2 is coming from. Plus, I'm in kind of the same boat, facing many of the same decisions. I opted to jump to mobile development, which is new/great/fun, but the company I'm working for is getting cold feet. Makes one wonder about the future.

For those of you who don't RTFA -- you do exist, right? -- here are the "broader reasons:"

1. * These rules risk incorrect removals of people who had used their own monikers.
2. * These sites don't seem serious about these rules anyway.
3. * The Internet doesn't need real names to work.

Mind boggling, I know. Even more so when you consider than an entire article was written around those three points.

Spot on.

The "something" in "learn something new" does not have to be a huge topic. It can simply be a new (to you) fact, or a realization that doing something this way is easier than doing it that way. Keep your eyes open, think about what's going on around you, and it's pretty easy to find that something.

Google can -- and probably should -- know who each user is. Targeted advertising can still be preserved. What Google needs to do is allow a user to represent herself anonymously to the rest of the Google+ user base.

I thought the archaeologist found Phssthpok, a Pak Protector. That would have been news.

From TFA:

With these mobile car apps, the phone connects to a server that then sends secret numerical keys to the car in order to authenticate itself, but the iSec researchers figured out ways to get around this by looking at the messages sent between the server and the car over the mobile network, Bailey said in an interview. "We reverse-engineer the protocol and then we build our own tools to use that protocol to contact that system," he said.

Without knowing the details, this sounds a lot like a replay attack. Or possibly a version of one of the attacks used against ATMs, back when ATMs were new and relatively unguarded. You could tap into an ATM line and basically send commands like, "eject five $20 bills" over and over again, without too much trouble.

I have a 2010 Camaro SS, which has the older version of the OnStar firmware that is not compatible with their mobile app. Now I'm relatively happy about that. One less attack vector to worry about.

I skimmed the paper. These guys seem to be testing a universe where only two "opinions" exist to choose from. I don't know about you, but those types of scenarios don't exist in my world. Reality is always more complicated than that.

While oftentimes there is use in examining a simplified version of something, this doesn't appear to be one of those times.

In the case of LulzSec, it would be more like herding LOLCats. Probably this one, specifically.

When my doorbell rings and the Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons are on the doorstop, I tell them "No, thanks."

When the TSA offers to restore a small bit of the freedom I used to have anyway, but only after forcing me to give up something else, I say, "No, thanks, you intrusive motherfucking bastards."

Mom did try to raise a polite child, you know.

You don't need a list of device IDs for enterprise distribution. An enterprise-level development account, with the appropriate distribution provisioning, is sufficient.

Using OTA enterprise distribution, I set up something similar for the place I work. An added benefit is that our in-house apps automatically check for updates when they're launched and prompt to update themselves if necessary. As far as I can tell, this "private-label app store" thing is pure media hype. As others have said, this is simply enterprise distribution, not distribution for the general public.

All that yammering about privacy that can't be provided by Google+ but no actual references. Here is the full excerpt from TFA:

"Google Plus is clearly designed to give people better control over their privacy with respect to their family, co-workers and friends, [but] there are other types of privacy that it simply can't provide. If you want a communications tool where the information you're sharing can't be read by Google, or by governments or lawyers in western countries, Google Plus isn't the service to use. Nobody has succeeded in building a social network that can offer those kinds of privacy protections yet," [Peter Eckersley] said.

With that clarified: I thought that some of the distributed social networking projects offered exactly that (superb privacy capabilities). Regardless, Google+ seems to be a step in the right direction. Maybe not what everyone wants or needs, but a decent start.

While I utterly agree with your statements (and I've been programming for almost 35 years) the reality is that management usually gives coders virtually no time to clean things up. There is constant pressure to move on to the next task or project, with little thought to hardening or refactoring something that already seems to "work."

Then, you wind up with the code you see around you and someone decides to write a book about how to "fix it."

I think that depends on the gamer. My step son, who is squarely within CoD's target audience at the age of 16, will probably not care about the Elite subscription unless the majority of his friends subscribe. Assuming the subscribers won't be able to lord it over the non-subscribers within the same game via better weaponry or whatever, that is.

Think about this from his point of view, as a current CoD player: MW3 will give him new maps, better graphics, different guns, etc. to play with as compared to what he's playing with now. All this by making a one-time purchase and without an Elite subscription. I'd wager that his current friends will all upgrade to MW3, without the subscription. They'll all see new stuff in the base game and be relatively happy (assuming the game itself doesn't suck, of course). If, however, my step son's friends start subscribing to Elite and playing on maps he can't get to at home, he'll feel the need to subscribe. It's a critical mass or chicken-and-egg problem.