When Java first took off, and the web was made of Java content executed via plugin, Java was written by idiots who concatenated strings instead of using string builders, and similar abuses of common sense through ignorance and teaching materials that focused on results rather than good practice. Executables outside of plugins suffered the same deficiencies, although they were probably attempting loftier goals, and the performance was... what is the opposite of magnified, because it was slower than a sloth taking a crap?

This lasted a number of years, even as the Java interpreter became stable and work was made to increase its performance. Idiot coders learned or abandoned Java, and the runtime made even the remaining idiots look better, if not "good".

If you don't find this comment amusing, you either lack historical perspective, are a Java programmer, or should consult a medical professional to be diagnosed for your deficiency in some manner or other.

Security problems these days seem to be focused on the browser plugin, rather than locally executing native apps, so the security comments mostly don't apply. Visiting a random internet web page and allowing it to execute poorly sand-boxed arbitrary code is a bit like licking random strangers' genitals. In case that interests you, let me state that it should not be done as a general practice, and you should consult a medical professional.

I have read Java for over a decade, and I have coded in Java for 3 years or so. Having experience with x86 ASM (AT&T and MASM), K&R C, ANSI C, GWBasic, Turbo Pascal, C++ (VC 5-2010, gcc 2.x - 3.x, mingw), VB 5-6, C#, VB.NET, Python, Powershell, JavaScript (advanced, not your normal getElementById().Blink() shit) and several other introductions, I can say this:

Java examples in the real world and in most printed books are the most incestuous, groupthink-y, overly-architected piles of verbosity I have ever had the displeasure to read. I completely understand the need for default parameters, dependency injection, constructor and method chaining, and all kinds of modern best practice.

But I have never seen another language embrace the overbearance of best practice teachings without implementing some balance of solution soundness. Java examples and implementations (open source of course, because I have read them) seem to abound with overloaded methods under 5 lines of code, which initialize another parameter to call another overload. Now you have multiple functions to unit test, multiple code paths, multiple exception sources, and unless you are brainwashed in the spirit of Java, comprehension of the complete workings are complicated by scrolling off-screen with essentially purpose-free function declarations, whitespace between functions, and an essentially functional programming paradigm split over several different methods to give the appearance of flexibility, OOP, and conscious design.

It reads to me like someone wrote that no method should ever take more than one additional parameter that you were not already given, and coherence be damned. I would much rather see a single method with 5 non-optional parameters than 5 overloads which calculate and pass one new parameter each time.

The Java paradigm seems to be calculating things within the overloaded methods is preferable to factoring out these into unrelated functions. In a truly sane, OOP world, those calculations would be a part of the object, or if sufficiently general would be part of the object's base object.

In fact, the Java approach seems to be the Builder design pattern, which I have not seen adopted as frequently as it should be. Obligatory link here.

As sensible as the Builder pattern seems to be, I think it would still require a number of extra Set/Get property methods, which are function calls. Maybe Java has optimized this, but if you don't adopt it optimization can't help you. And the chained method calling slows down the operation of the program as the runtime tries to do slow things quickly.

Groupthink and ignorance are the only things that make Java slow. They just seem to be more common in Java. I assume that is because it is easier to shoot yourself in the foot with a compiled language, or the runtime supports other options for an interpreted language.

If the educational materials were burned and re-written, Java would have a number of things on its side. My point is, without sufficient education, they will still produce output slower than expected performance.

The sword guy, who had a personal expectation of privacy, but didn't have a legal expectation of privacy. Sarten-X was replying to this, which is clearly incorrect: "The IRS is using it in a legal sense, and they are wrong here. From a practical sense, one should not expect email to be confidential. From a legal aspect we should have that expectation."

Legally, you would not have that expectation, and the link illustrates why. And you probably would have a personal expectation unless you really understand how SMTP operates "under the hood".

You send mail to your provider to relay to someone else, and expect to have privacy. Since the hardware where your data resides is property of the provider, it's essentially their house, not yours. Since this thread is about expectation of privacy, it seems relevant to me. Putting your personal information outside of your personal domain removes your legal expectation of privacy, even if your personal expectation is that the contents of your account are private. You don't even have standing to object, so the question of constitutionality does not even come up.

The article, however, is about the ACLU wanting the IRS to apply the Sixth Circuit ruling to the IRS policies operating outside the Sixth District. In fact, it can continue to ignore the ruling in the Sixth District and just take the chance that if it comes to an actual court case it will lose.

It may convict enough people before someone fights back and it gets fined that it is worth it to risk. If the provider cites Warshak, IRS just falls back on a warrant. An ignorant or acute provider would let themselves be compelled. The acute provider would then inform you and let you fight your own legal battle, which you might lose through incompetence or ignorance on your representation's part.

The ignorant provider would let you find out on your own that:

1) this was illegal
2) the evidence should be suppressed
3) you should file your own lawsuit against the IRS
4) The IRS punishment should go beyond just suppressing your e-mails

The IRS is under no obligation to apply Sixth District rulings outside of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and the ACLU has no way to make the IRS do so. If a provider is not compelled to give up your e-mails, then Warshak v. US doesn't even apply, and the IRS doesn't need a warrant to conduct a constitutional "search".

So the link is maybe 5% relevant, in case that helps. But it was interesting.

Microsoft does not care if consumers abandon desktop/notebook sales to use Microsoft Surface, Xbox, Windows Phone, Azure, Hotmail, or any other Microsoft product. They simply cannot give a shit because they don't make desktop/notebook hardware.

Whether the PC market is dying is not their concern. It's whether they can convince people not to buy Apple mobile products. That explains why they are trying to train the user to accept mobile/touch UI.

You're confusing the conversation here (collective "you"). To be clear, if you use a third party mail service, you are bound by their terms of service, and the laws of the country in which they operate. Depending on where the service is provided and other jurisdictional quibbling of course.

Your argument seems to be more along the wiretapping vein - what they do without asking. That is a completely separate argument, and unrelated. The difference in the Warshak decision was that compelling a provider required a warrant. If the provider fulfills a request without objection, no compelling took place and no warrant is required. I can't tell why the ACLU would expect otherwise.

If I send mail outside of my country, I would not have any reason to expect those to remain protected by any statute or term of service, so that's effectively a public e-mail.

If I an in the United States, and my provider says they will comply with law enforcement requests, it doesn't matter what any law says. My provider will probably hand over information without a warrant. Any agency of the local or federal law enforcement can just phone, write, or ask in person for whatever they want to know. That's a public e-mail, no matter who expects it to be private.

Now, what if your provider says no, or has said no enough in the past that law enforcement doesn't feel like asking politely? This is apparently a corner case. And it is the only one to which your argument is applicable. And, your expectation of privacy is just as unrelated, because it is your provider's decision to fight the request on your behalf. If the agency gets a court order or warrant, it is constitutional and your expectation of privacy vanishes.

The IRS is saying that if they suspect tax evasion, they will ask your provider for e-mail records. They will use strong-arm tactics like the Electronic Communication Protection Act to encourage hesitant providers. They will do anything and everything they can to get your mail, legally, without a warrant. This is not surprising, nor is it a Fourth Amendment violation. Fourth Amendment protections are from illegal searches, not legal ones. If they ask for records and your provider provides them, that's a legal search. If they compel the provider without a warrant, that is currently neither constitutional nor unconstitutional - it is undecided outside of the Sixth Circuit. Opine and argue if you like, but it is undecided. And outside of the Sixth Circuit, an appeal could be decided in favor of the government.

But here's the catch. No one who has mail with a third party provider is going to have standing to question the legality of a search when the provider did not object. You may have a complaint against your provider, but that will change neither the policy of law enforcement nor the law.

Argue about principles all you want, but unless you specifically choose an e-mail provider which guarantees they will reject any requests other than court-ordered, you have nothing to complain about except your poor choice in provider. If you send mails to a provider without those same terms, your sent mails could become private. Your recipients could voluntarily turn over your mails without a warrant, for that matter.

The only question is, does such a provider exist? It would be awfully expensive to have a fleet of lawyers to take on fighting every request until reaching the Supreme Court.

... the IRS hasn't told the public whether it is following Warshak everywhere in the country, or only within the Sixth Circuit.â

This only matters if the provider objects, and the IRS does not feel like getting a warrant, and the provider is outside the Sixth Circuit. If there were a known case of this, I think the ACLU would be fighting for that person instead of tilting at windmills here.

+1 super funny. wish i had mod points.

Then post something worth reading. Otherwise, don't tell me what to do with mine.

TV ads have used anchoring for decades - "You won't pay $300, or $200, or $150 for this product, but it's yours today for 3 low payments of $29.99".

The first prices anchor your expectation, and $29 sounds like a great deal. Even those smart enough to mentally say "you mean $90" still come up with a 2-digit number instead of 3 digits, and it seems like a good deal.

Stores do this too. A slow-selling model will suddenly jump up in price when placed next to the product's big brother, at a higher price. The goal isn't to sell the more expensive product, it is to anchor your price to the smaller version seems like a deal.

When people have no idea what is going on, they need an anchor. This seems to be true of anything.

Automatic Master's thesis in any subject in advertising - take something advertisers have known for decades, make your thesis about how that applies to your field, and then do a study.

Advertisers have the financial incentive to know how people think, and the only problem is they stopped before generalizing into behavior patterns, and just made it about purchasing.

Sounds like tech companies should spread themselves out a little. If Silicon Valley needs piles of specialists, it needs people who are willing to move from anywhere - same country or different, visa or not.

Hiring specialists in the non-Valley would be a lot cheaper, you would find talent easier, and everyone would be happy. Let me summarize the business plan of a Silicon Valley company:

1) Mine the area talent as thoroughly as possible
2) Keep mining the same source
3) Repeat until Congress lets you hire barely qualified people from another country.

I can see a giant shift coming where the Valley is where the HQ sits, but you have projects centered in other large cities, which are largely autonomous. It doesn't work for smaller companies, but if the larger ones realized they are resource-starving their own ecosystem, it would come close to balancing out. Someday they will have to.

I have no family, and no reason not to fly out to the Valley and work for piles of money. I just do not want to be part of that culture 24 hours a day, at work and away. I would be fine with telecommuting, but as Yahoo found out it is easy to abuse that if not kept in check. And a just-barely-big-enough company doesn't want to split itself.

So it's not about talent - it's about willingness to relocate. And by concentrating in the same place, the industry giants are starving themselves while claiming location is a vital benefit they don't want to lose.

Make up your mind what's important - people or location - and stick with it. Tough choice, but at least let's frame this as a resource issue caused by choice of location. Then we can talk honestly about it and find a solution.

"Not enough talent" is an outright lie - one of omission. "Not enough talent willing to relocate" is the problem, and H1-B is seen as the solution. How long do you expect to be able to import resources before you give up and re-locate?

Aecurity and authentication were not built in to POTS protocols. That answers your question. They were not designed to handle geolocation nor identity.

The caller ID system relies on either the caller, or a database provided by the caller's provider. Once you transfer from one provider to another, typical in any long-distance call, the second provider has no way to track the caller beyond what the first provider claims. I found this article enlightening, although slightly off topic it is fundamentally about caller ID spoofing.

http://telemarketerspam.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/pacific-telecoms-robo-call-revenue-sharing-scheme-revealed/

Now you're going to ask why we can't fix it? Because it's not worth the amount of money it would take to re-configure the entire phone infrastructure. The companies that would pay the most would benefit the least. Individuals would not sign up in large enough numbers, and so we are stuck.

Yes we have the technology, but not the will. US Congress has made it illegal to send false info, but has not found a way to ensure companies follow the law. As common carriers, they can set up a scam-friendly block and blame the customers for all mischief. The only way to positively identify the people behind the calls is to hand over your credit card information, let a bogus charge hit, and spent a few years fighting back.

The first 10 years of my professional programming life was on a remote team, where everyone else was in the same place. Gradually people moved around and it became about half local and half remote.

It's not just what the team is comfortable with - some people work better in a social environment where they can run ideas by others or think out loud. Some people are great at taking direction and completing it with little or no interaction above what is necessary.

There are many different dynamics at play, and no one will be able to capture what is optimal for a general setting.

This story is not about what is optimal, it's about what the Yahoo exec team thinks is the right move. Dropping intellectual capital in order to ensure everyone is working together is a trade-off, and one that most large companies wrestle with at some point or another. Do you keep the truly exceptional people, or lose them to your competition?

There is a business driver behind this move, and it has nothing to do with making the most accommodating environment to maximize productivity and happiness of the workers. If the business dies, the employee's job is going to go away anyway, so you have to expect this sort of thing at times as a trade-off for being employed. As the offer says, you can quit if you don't like it.

And as for the people who were hired being able to telecommute - unless you have a contract in writing guaranteeing that, which you don't unless you are a contractor, here's your introduction to the world of CxO suiters making decisions that you aren't happy with. It will happen again, get used to it. Now go start your own business, or look for another job.

There is no point directing effort into Wine instead. If the developers wanted to make Wine work, they would work on Wine. If you made them switch, they would probably lose interest and move to something else.

Something you may not be aware of - Wine is extremely reluctant to take patches from ReactOS, because of accusations that someone copied leaked Microsoft code into ReactOS. It was an off-hand comment that I think was ultimately retracted, but not after an extensive code freeze and audit. Sourcing/attribution of nearly every line of core code, and quite a bit of the remainder, was completed as well as a constantly evolving team can.

Wine will not accept large-scale changes from ReactOS, and is much more receptive to clean-room style comments. Obvious bug-fixes, test code, and anything else that could not be lifted has a much better chance of being accepted. It's not impossible to get a patch accepted, and I see some relaxing over time, especially for certain people who are trusted. Usually, a patch includes the comment "this should be sent to Wine," and I don't know what happens after that.

Point being, the cross-pollination works more in one direction than the other, and battle hardening is more like tiny skirmish hardening.

Finally, since Windows is so popular, it makes sense to study it. And to be free of the restrictions from the Windows Research Kernel in an academic environment pretty much gives all the explanation you need for why this is an interesting project. Not a core curriculum requirement.

I would certainly take the course as an elective.

There's a link to the article, which names several sources. One in particular backs the premise of the summary.

The investment could help Microsoft ensure that Dell doesn't drift toward Linux-based operating systems such as Chromebook or Android, said Al Hilwa, program director at IDC. "For them it's a little investment, but it allows them to put strategic influence" behind the device designs and software implementations, Hilwa said.

I wonder what it is like to go through life as a closed-minded buffoon who discards information before validating assumptions. A summary need not include all pertinent information, if you want details you read the fine article.

I lived on my street, in the next to last house built, with no option for cable at all. DSL sure, but there was no cable on my side, and no plans to build it.

I called, I chatted, I mail-bombed the board and executives with a copy/paste chat session which went so horribly wrong I would not have bought the company's services if it had been available the next day.

I saw a cable truck on my side of the street, 4 years after the last house was built. Nothing but satellite dishes on this side. I got DSL, which was re-branded AT&T two months in, and I was furious, but I trusted satellite less.

I got the $20/no naked DSL for 4 years, and finally upgraded to a faster speed. The cable co can go fuck themselves, which is exactly what they have been doing. They didn't call me to let me know it was available - they sent the same flier they have been sending for 4 years, when it has not been available.

I gave the co. my phone number, a very pleasant woman called me after my mail-bomb and apologized that they didn't have service here, and sorry that the representative took 30 minutes to not figure that out. So they have me as a lead. A simple call and some negotiation on price as someone who raised awareness of failures in their process, and I'd be a happy customer.

Still on DSL. Cable co can't be bothered with me, apparently. Or with informing customers that a cable has been laid and service is available.

Doing nothing for their non-customers, and would-be customers, despite having it pointed out to them.

Zero incentive indeed, even after having put in the cost. Sending someone out to knock on my door would have given them years of continuous service upgrades. Guess they don't care.

Because my IT job is going away? The janitors who have to clean up the waste created by the robots, or their consumers? Sanitation crews? Education?

How about the end of the McJob, and the replacement of it by people who go out and make jobs, like they used to before global conglomerates held the keys to being unable to afford your family?

You, and the people who up-modded you, need to read every comment above yours, and most of the ones below, and get back to me on this unemployment thing.

The last time we had major unemployment, it was because large companies decided not to hire people for financial reasons. Instead of hiring people who would be able to afford products, in the style of Henry Ford, they out-waited their competition to keep production prices low and margins slightly higher for the shareholder.

Before that, it was because we were between wars. And before that, it was because a major part of the food growing country was one giant dust bowl. So what exactly was your point?

How am I supposed to know when I found the reference that you have chosen to believe?

Or to put it another way - if you can't be arsed to find a reference when you know what you are looking for, why would anyone else?

If you provide a reference, or at least a good pointer, I can decide if your citation is decent. If not, I assume it's like this:

1) Plant potatoes
2) Harvest potatoes
3) Have people think you mis-spelled potatoes
4) Peel them as well as you can
5) Slice them with lasers, which gives them the crusty bits
5) Soak them in oil until they surrender
6) Sit them under heat lamps until they aren't so soggy
7) Serve them to fat people

I've not worked in fast food, I have only the vaguest idea how anything is done behind the counter, except for mis-counting change.

To claim an underlying rationale is misconceived means nothing without the actual rationale. I have seen a lot of otherwise correct arguments made with misconceived rationale. So I see no problem with making the claim as you have quoted it.

The second bit is nitpicking on exactly which courts are being called out. Nonetheless, I think it is true to say, again without context, that this statement cannot be considered true: âoethe fact that links make access to that content straightforward does not change the reality that a link, by itself, is content neutral.â

Links are hardly content neutral as a blanket statement. A website with poor security, such as JavaScript which, when disabled, fails to protect the page - or a query string which permits access - can certainly be non-neutral.

The real argument here is specific to the definition of copyright in Irish law. If I link to your website, you own the copyright, and you are serving up the page. So you are the one making the copy - I am merely providing directions to people on how to request it. I quite obviously did not copy something without permission. So, on its face, a link to copyright material does not constitute infringement unless it is non-neutral (intending to bypass some security, for example).

The first argument is context dependent, and they left out the context. The second is inarguable except in certain contexts. The last is quite obviously incorrect as a generalization.