Comment Re:You'll take my sushi ... (Score 1) 309
Cold, dead digestive tract?
That's my favourite kind of sushi! How did you know?
Cold, dead digestive tract?
That's my favourite kind of sushi! How did you know?
Most of us are Americans(TM) anyway, and have no idea where this "Essex" or "Finnish" you speak of is located. Likely they're both next to other countries we don't know the location of, like Myanmar, Quebec and Idaho.
There is a difference between "not knowing math", "not understanding math" and "not doing well at math."
I am horrible at math, and I've been bad at it all my life. I failed Pre-Algebra THREE TERMS IN A ROW in High School. I suck at math, period.
But, I am a successful programmer and developer and I've written a lot of code that does really complicated math... so how does that square?
The difference is that even though I can't do math, I know *what I can do* with it. I know what an Interquartarial Mean will do for me, but I have to look it up in a book every time I use it to know *how* to do it. In this case, yes, it is obvious that I would have a _better_time_ if I knew how to do this stuff without looking in a book, but I've fared pretty well. Lacking math skills doesn't mean I'm a suck programmer, it just means I may have a harder time with code that uses a lot of math.
Someone above posted "Two candidates, one knows math and one doesn't, you want the one who knows math"; that's true if all else is equal, but you never have two candidates for a job you are identical except for one thing. You buy the whole package and if you think their other qualities outweigh their lack of math skills then that's one you choose.
The oldies among us may remember this is also the same problem that Windows CE had in the beginning, mid 1990's. There were at least three different CPU platforms, four form factors with at least as many distinct input methods and an array of mutually incompatible screen setups.
In the early 2000's then Microsoft Decreed several standards for the hardware and the rom customisations. The OEMs whined but in the end it allowed the devices to unify somewhat, albeit painfully. The fact Windows Mobile 7 exists at all is because of this decision.
Yes, you can argue that Windows Mobile (the direct descendant of WinCE) is a failed state, but I think it would also be agree'd that it would have been dead long, long ago had MS not done what it did.
Google has the additional "problem" (if you will) of Android being open-source. With WinCE, Microsoft could be the ultimate gatekeeper but there is nothing stopping any device manufacturer from doing whatever the hell they want with Android. They may try to initiate some kind of "Google Certified" plan to signify that an OS variant meets certain interopability standards... but the LSB has tried to do that on the desktop and, well, has it had the traction everyone hoped?
This becomes one of the larger arguments for the 'Walled Garden' approach Apple has taken and I guess that's the choice you make: stability, predictability that comes with restrictions or variability and instability that comes with openness.
Before commenting, please complete this form:
Sec. 1 Ruby v Python
[ ] I am a Ruby/Python fanboy/fangirl
[ ] I already have a positive/negative entrenched opinion of Python or Ruby
[ ] I cannot tell the difference between the two languages
Sec. 2 Ruby on Rails
[ ] I assume Ruby == Ruby on Rails
Sec. 3 Other
[ ] I program in PHP for it's robust design, consistent syntax and architectural soundness
[ ] I do not understand sarcasm
Scoring: If you answered any of the above questions in the affirmative, your comments may be dismissed out of hand.
obligatory explanation:
In William Gibson's novel "Pattern Recognition", one of the incidental characters is an antique trader who specializes in famous technological pieces. At one point of the story he is in negotiation to buy the Wang word processor that Steven King used early in his career.
"Yes," says Ngemi, with quiet pride, "but now I am negotiating to buy Stephen King's Wang."
Cayce stares at him.
"The provenance," Ngemi assures her, "is immaculate, the price high, but, I believe, reasonable. A huge thing,
one of the early dedicated word processors. Shipping alone will require the funds I had earmarked for the
scaffolding, and more."
From a interview with Torvalds many years ago:
"I think a lot of the extreme people are much too extreme, like Richard Stallman; He's a very extreme person, and while I admire a lot of his ideals, I don't admire him because he is so extreme that he can't relate to other people; and that's a limitation."
No taking sides for me, just pointing out that RMS has his own issues.
This is not all that meaningful unless you also completely correlate the uptime info with the number of users/requests/whatnot the site does.
The report doesn't explore that sufficiently enough for me. I can make an app that has 100% uptime if it has one request an hour. Downtime is largely caused (directly or indirectly) by load, so in most cases downtime usually increases as user load (defined as user interaction and amounts of user data, and the actions of those users on that data) increases.
Painting with a broad brush you could say, yes, Xanga has the best uptime but they also probably have the lowest user load as well whereas twitter probably has one of the highest (current) user loads and thus lowest downtime.
"We have persistent objects, they're called files." -- kt
"the question is: why would anyone want to pay for proprietary hardware and a limited selection of a few hundred stations all controlled by one company?"
The answer is: because it works.
When I'm charging down an interstate at 65mph I don't need to dicking with a phone to figure out why my TCP connection is timing out.
"Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like `Psychic Wins Lottery.'" -- Comedian Jay Leno