Comment Irrelevant link in original (Score 1) 250
TFA wasn't of this topic. Here's one that seems to have the info: https://www.bbc.com/news/scien...
Comment Is SF really about technology? (Score 2, Insightful) 479
A long time ago, I took a class examining SF and one of the core principles presented was that science fiction was not so much about technology but rather the interplay/impact of tech and society. It was more about predicting traffic jams that automobiles.
We've seen so much tech as plot device (e.g., ST:TNG) that we've forgotten why tech was compelling in the first place. IMO, it's somewhat analo.gous to the tech bubble in the stock market. People were creating formulaic e-businesses (Selling dog foot on the internet? really?) without really thinking about the business side of things. Similarly, we see a lot of technology-based stories where the emphasis was more on the technology than the story. What made HAL interesting wasn't that he could autonomously manage a space ship or had a voice interface. What was fascinating was that a computer could become neurotic to the point of being homocidal.
When writers start writing stories based on plot and characters rather than some twist on technology, that's when we'll see a resurgence of futurist SF, mainly because the stories will be compelling...to both readers and entrepreneurs.
Comment From out of left field (Score 1) 569
"In what way does this company most resemble Dilbert?"
It's been my favorite question for over a decade for several reasons:
- It's not one that the interviewer is prepared for (though I suppose I've given that one away sharing it here)
- The interviewer's expression when asked the question is very telling
- It's a polite way of forcing the interviewer to be critical of his company
I once had an interviewer (the guy who'd be my boss) tell me that he didn't read Dilbert. I failed to recognize that red flag and took the job. Needless to say, it didn't turn out so well.
Journal Journal: Get your NY Times THIS Sunday! 3
After getting delayed a week, Sunday's hockey article at the NY Times cites my hockey blog, in a piece discussing the relation (or lack of one) between physical play and scoring. It's nice to get that kind of recognition after having just gotten this blog rolling in the last six months...
Journal Journal: Goatse.cx for sale
That's right, the original home of that infamous hello.jpg that almost every slashdot user by this time has had the misfortune of seeing is currently up for auction. At the time of this writing the minimum bid is only $460, so step up and get yourself a piece of internet history.
http://www.goatse.cx/ Is the original site for anyone who doesn't know, and the site to bid at is http://www.seobidding.com/b
Journal Journal: "Why you should never listen to geeks..." 25
"...and in fact should despise them..."
Someone linked this fairly funny piece. I have to say that something similar to
Submission + - MySQL Stored Procedure Programming
Michael J. Ross writes: "MySQL may be the most popular open source relational database management system (RDBMS) in the world, but during the first decade of its existence, it lacked support for stored programs, i.e., store procedures, functions, and triggers. The major commercial RDBMS vendors — including Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft — could point to this deficiency as reason enough to choose their proprietary systems over MySQL or any other open source system, such as PostgreSQL. But with the release of MySQL version 5.0, in October 2005, the "little database engine that could" dramatically improved its position against the competition. The most comprehensive discussion of these new capabilities is in the book MySQL Stored Procedure Programming.
Written by Guy Harrison and Steven Feuerstein, and published by O'Reilly Media in March 2006 under the ISBNs 0596100892 and 978-0596100896, this book is the first one to offer database programmers a full discussion of the syntax, usage, and optimization of MySQL stored procedures, stored functions, and triggers — which the authors wisely refer to collectively as "stored programs," to simplify the manuscript. Even a year after the introduction of these new capabilities in MySQL, they have received remarkably little coverage by book publishers. Admittedly, there are three such chapters in MySQL Administrator's Guide and Language Reference (2nd Edition), written by some of the developers of MySQL, and published by MySQL Press. Yet this latter book — even though published a month after O'Reilly's — devotes fewer than 50 pages to stored programs, and the material is not in the printed book itself, but in the "MySQL Language Reference" part, on the accompanying CD. That material, in conjunction with the online reference documentation, may be sufficient for the more simple stored program development needs. But for any MySQL developer who wishes to understand in-depth how to make the most of this new functionality in version 5.0, they will likely need a much more substantial treatment — and that's exactly what Harrison and Feuerstein have created.
The authors are generous in both the technical information and development advice that they offer. The book's material spans 636 pages, organized into 23 chapters, grouped into four parts, followed by an index. The first part, "Stored Programming Fundamentals," provides an introduction and then a tutorial, both taking a broad view of MySQL stored programs. The remaining four chapters cover language fundamentals; blocks, conditional statements, and iterative programming; SQL; and error handling. The book's second part, "Stored Program Construction," may be considered the heart of the book, because its five chapters present the details of creating stored programs in general, using transaction management, using MySQL's built-in functions, and creating one's own stored functions, as well as triggers. The third part, "Using MySQL Stored Programs and Applications," explains some of the advantages and disadvantages of stored programs, and then illustrates how to call those stored programs from source code written in any one of five different programming languages: PHP, Java, Perl, Python, and Microsoft.NET. In the fourth and final part, "Optimizing Stored Programs," the authors focus on the security and tuning of stored programs, tuning SQL, optimizing the code, and optimizing the development process itself.
This is a substantial book, encompassing a great deal of technical as well as advisory information. Consequently, no review such as this can hope to describe or critically comment upon every section of every chapter of every part. Yet the overall quality and utility of the manuscript can be discerned simply by choosing just one of the aforesaid Web programming languages, and writing some code in that language to call some MySQL stored procedures and functions, to get results from a test database — and developing all of this code while relying solely upon the book under review. Creating some simple stored procedures, and calling them from some PHP and Perl scripts, demonstrated to me that MySQL Stored Procedure Programming contains more than enough coverage of the topics to be an invaluable guide in developing the most common functionality that a programmer would need to implement.
The book appears to have very few aspects or specific sections in need of improvement. The discussion of variable scoping, in Chapter 4, is too cursory (no database pun intended). In terms of the book's sample code, I found countless cases of inconsistency of formatting — specifically, operators such as "||" and "=" being jammed up against their adjacent elements, without any whitespace to improve readability. These minor flaws could be easily remedied in the next edition. Some programming books make similar mistakes, but throughout their text, which is even worse. Fortunately, most of the code in this book is neatly formatted, and the variable and program names are generally descriptive enough.
Some of the book's material could have been left out without great loss — thereby reducing the book's size, weight, and presumably price. The two chapters on basic and advanced SQL tuning contain techniques and recommendations covered with equal skill in other MySQL books, and were not needed in this one. On the other hand, sloppy developers who churn out lamentable code might argue that the last chapter, which focuses on best programming practices, could also be excised; but those are the very individuals who need those recommendations the most.
Fortunately, the few weaknesses in the book are completely overwhelmed by its positive qualities, of which there are many. The coverage of the topics is quite extensive, but without the repetition often seen in many other technical books of this size. The explanations are written with clarity, and provide enough detail for any experienced database programmer to understand the general concepts, as well as the specific details. The sample code effectively illustrates the ideas presented in the narration. The font, layout, organization, and fold-flat binding of this book, all make it a joy to read — as is characteristic of many of O'Reilly's titles.
Moreover, any programming book that manages to lighten the load of the reader by offering a touch of humor here and there, cannot be all bad. Steven Feuerstein is the author of several well-regarded books on Oracle, and it was nice to see him poke some fun at the database heavyweight, in his choice of sample code to demonstrate the my_replace() function: my_replace( 'We love the Oracle server', 'Oracle', 'MySQL' ).
The prospective reader who would like to learn more about this book, can consult its Web page on O'Reilly's site. There they will find both short and full descriptions, confirmed and unconfirmed errata, a link for writing a reader review, an online table of contents and index, and a sample chapter (number 6, "Error Handling"), in PDF format. In addition, the visitor can download all of the sample code in the book (562 files) and the sample database, as a mysqldump file.
Overall, MySQL Stored Procedure Programming is adeptly written, neatly organized, and exhaustive in its coverage of the topics. It is and likely will remain the premier printed resource for Web and database developers who want to learn how to create and optimize stored procedures, functions, and triggers within MySQL.
Michael J. Ross is a Web programmer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. He can be reached at www.ross.ws, hosted by SiteGround."
Written by Guy Harrison and Steven Feuerstein, and published by O'Reilly Media in March 2006 under the ISBNs 0596100892 and 978-0596100896, this book is the first one to offer database programmers a full discussion of the syntax, usage, and optimization of MySQL stored procedures, stored functions, and triggers — which the authors wisely refer to collectively as "stored programs," to simplify the manuscript. Even a year after the introduction of these new capabilities in MySQL, they have received remarkably little coverage by book publishers. Admittedly, there are three such chapters in MySQL Administrator's Guide and Language Reference (2nd Edition), written by some of the developers of MySQL, and published by MySQL Press. Yet this latter book — even though published a month after O'Reilly's — devotes fewer than 50 pages to stored programs, and the material is not in the printed book itself, but in the "MySQL Language Reference" part, on the accompanying CD. That material, in conjunction with the online reference documentation, may be sufficient for the more simple stored program development needs. But for any MySQL developer who wishes to understand in-depth how to make the most of this new functionality in version 5.0, they will likely need a much more substantial treatment — and that's exactly what Harrison and Feuerstein have created.
The authors are generous in both the technical information and development advice that they offer. The book's material spans 636 pages, organized into 23 chapters, grouped into four parts, followed by an index. The first part, "Stored Programming Fundamentals," provides an introduction and then a tutorial, both taking a broad view of MySQL stored programs. The remaining four chapters cover language fundamentals; blocks, conditional statements, and iterative programming; SQL; and error handling. The book's second part, "Stored Program Construction," may be considered the heart of the book, because its five chapters present the details of creating stored programs in general, using transaction management, using MySQL's built-in functions, and creating one's own stored functions, as well as triggers. The third part, "Using MySQL Stored Programs and Applications," explains some of the advantages and disadvantages of stored programs, and then illustrates how to call those stored programs from source code written in any one of five different programming languages: PHP, Java, Perl, Python, and Microsoft.NET. In the fourth and final part, "Optimizing Stored Programs," the authors focus on the security and tuning of stored programs, tuning SQL, optimizing the code, and optimizing the development process itself.
This is a substantial book, encompassing a great deal of technical as well as advisory information. Consequently, no review such as this can hope to describe or critically comment upon every section of every chapter of every part. Yet the overall quality and utility of the manuscript can be discerned simply by choosing just one of the aforesaid Web programming languages, and writing some code in that language to call some MySQL stored procedures and functions, to get results from a test database — and developing all of this code while relying solely upon the book under review. Creating some simple stored procedures, and calling them from some PHP and Perl scripts, demonstrated to me that MySQL Stored Procedure Programming contains more than enough coverage of the topics to be an invaluable guide in developing the most common functionality that a programmer would need to implement.
The book appears to have very few aspects or specific sections in need of improvement. The discussion of variable scoping, in Chapter 4, is too cursory (no database pun intended). In terms of the book's sample code, I found countless cases of inconsistency of formatting — specifically, operators such as "||" and "=" being jammed up against their adjacent elements, without any whitespace to improve readability. These minor flaws could be easily remedied in the next edition. Some programming books make similar mistakes, but throughout their text, which is even worse. Fortunately, most of the code in this book is neatly formatted, and the variable and program names are generally descriptive enough.
Some of the book's material could have been left out without great loss — thereby reducing the book's size, weight, and presumably price. The two chapters on basic and advanced SQL tuning contain techniques and recommendations covered with equal skill in other MySQL books, and were not needed in this one. On the other hand, sloppy developers who churn out lamentable code might argue that the last chapter, which focuses on best programming practices, could also be excised; but those are the very individuals who need those recommendations the most.
Fortunately, the few weaknesses in the book are completely overwhelmed by its positive qualities, of which there are many. The coverage of the topics is quite extensive, but without the repetition often seen in many other technical books of this size. The explanations are written with clarity, and provide enough detail for any experienced database programmer to understand the general concepts, as well as the specific details. The sample code effectively illustrates the ideas presented in the narration. The font, layout, organization, and fold-flat binding of this book, all make it a joy to read — as is characteristic of many of O'Reilly's titles.
Moreover, any programming book that manages to lighten the load of the reader by offering a touch of humor here and there, cannot be all bad. Steven Feuerstein is the author of several well-regarded books on Oracle, and it was nice to see him poke some fun at the database heavyweight, in his choice of sample code to demonstrate the my_replace() function: my_replace( 'We love the Oracle server', 'Oracle', 'MySQL' ).
The prospective reader who would like to learn more about this book, can consult its Web page on O'Reilly's site. There they will find both short and full descriptions, confirmed and unconfirmed errata, a link for writing a reader review, an online table of contents and index, and a sample chapter (number 6, "Error Handling"), in PDF format. In addition, the visitor can download all of the sample code in the book (562 files) and the sample database, as a mysqldump file.
Overall, MySQL Stored Procedure Programming is adeptly written, neatly organized, and exhaustive in its coverage of the topics. It is and likely will remain the premier printed resource for Web and database developers who want to learn how to create and optimize stored procedures, functions, and triggers within MySQL.
Michael J. Ross is a Web programmer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. He can be reached at www.ross.ws, hosted by SiteGround."
US, Asia, Europe Ceding Web Dominance 123
An anonymous reader writes "A new study shows that presence of the US, Asia, and Western European countries on the web is strongly declining. Newly internet-empowered countries are booming; many geographical regions are showing exponential growth, including Eastern Europe and South America. Chris Harrison explains: 'Countries that have never been able to place a website in the top 500 are now pushing dozens of established websites out of this prestigious list. This trend is both recent (within the last two years) and accelerating. Interestingly, Asia is seeing it's presence eroded the fastest, especially China.'"
Feed Microsoft lawyer whines about Apple's DRM complaints (engadget.com)
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video
The gloves have long since been removed in the battle war between Cupertino and Redmond, and while we wouldn't deem this a direct hit, it's a mighty blow to gut regardless. Microsoft's general counsel and executive vice president Brad Smith has apparently decided that whining about whiners is the best approach to garner public support, as he mouthed off to reporters and suggested that Apple should just shut its trap in regard to the limitations of DRM, and in a completely unrelated addition, claimed that sales of the iPod should be good enough for that oh-so-greedy corporation. More specifically, Mr. Smith claimed that he wasn't a "big believer in just blaming the music industry for Apple's inability to sell every conceivable iPod," but contradicted himself ever so slightly by insinuating that Apple should leave well enough alone and enjoy the profits the player is already pulling in. Is it just us, or do you sense this vibe of bitterness mixed in there somewhere, too?[Via GizmoNews, picture courtesy of Worth1000]
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
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Is DVORAK Gaining Traction Among Coders? 559
coderpath asks: "At a recent Seattle Ruby Brigade hack night someone asked how many people used the DVORAK keyboard layout. Out of 9 people, 7 used DVORAK and only 2 were using QWERTY. I personally made the switch last Christmas, after 25 years of typing with QWERTY. What do you use? Have you switched to DVORAK? Have you been wanting to make the switch? Has anyone else noticed an increase in adoption of DVORAK lately?"
Open Source Highly Available Storage Solutions? 46
Gunfighter asks: "I run a small data center for one of my customers, but they're constantly filling up different hard drives on different servers and then shuffling the data back and forth. At their current level of business, they can't afford to invest in a Storage Area Network of any sort, so they want to spread the load of their data storage needs across their existing servers, like Google does. The only software packages I've found that do this seamlessly are Lustre and NFS. The problem with Lustre is that it has a single metadata server unless you configure fail-over, and NFS isn't redundant at all and can be a nightmare to manage. The only thing I've found that even comes close is Starfish. While it looks promising, I'm wondering if anyone else has found a reliable solution that is as easy to set up and manage? Eventually, they would like to be able to scale from their current storage usage levels (~2TB) to several hundred terabytes once the operation goes into full production."
Building a Video Wall out of Old Laptops? 52
alphakappa asks: "I am interested in building a video wall as a personal project using recycled old laptops so that I can make use of the display controllers that are already present. Is there free or cheap software that can extend the display on Windows and still be capable of showing different videos on different zones (like, say run a video in one zone while showing a powerpoint presentation in another one) What tools would you use?"
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In 1914, the first crossword puzzle was printed in a newspaper. The creator received $4000 down ... and $3000 across.
