Posts by oolor

@ Vincent:

I concur, further, one could go so far to say that HTML is more like punctuation than programming - though I believe that excellent grammar and language skills will help many future programmers when they deal with syntax in a computer language. Focus on the 3 R's is crucial for success as a programmer. Beyond just helping provide a strong framework within which to explain, attack a problem, and discuss it with others effectively, such focus on 'basic' skills repeated in many small steps along the way builds to way more than trying to teach someone 'how' to code 'properly'.

@keithpeter:

The sad thing is that these YoC people are the ones who sell (or at least hang out with those who do) code that make your "use once and mangle" scripts look like a "a considered process".

I think that the approach you outline is excellent, and quite frankly many smart kids who would otherwise not bother to learn could be exposed enough for them to see they can always learn the details along the way in the future as they work through a problem that requires computing.

Myself, I only really got going with actively programming as a considered process after I got frustrated trying to plumb together not quite complete libraries that did many great things, but not what I wanted, and not as efficiently. Once I started to think that I could do better, I became more discrete about the context of a problem or a solution and refused to accept solutions (particularly from myself) that were poor.

On the other hand, I also found that sometimes a simple generalization is more effective than a complicated, but computationally expensive slightly more precise filter in certain constrained autocomplete situations.

Re: Cyclone Boy

No, only a puppy mascot. The Typhoon Terrier.

Re: jQuery

> A horrible overgrown pile of crap written by people who don't understand the language they're using

So it isn't just me.

Then again, Michael, one could say the same about much of code :(

Or maybe we are talking about the documentation. I reported 2 examples (by email) that had errors which beginners would be extremely confused by (on top of being obviously wrong). Instead of changing less than 10 characters of text, they put it up with my email that I assumed 'might' be kept private in the bug section for over a week before it was fixed.

end_jQueryRant().chainABunchOfShit().startJSPraiseMachine();

I don't do non-HTML5 anymore, so jQuery-type libraries (I liked YUI 2.somethinglate, but that was its own can of worms) have given their way to stuff like D3 (which I credit for my switch to HTML5) for quick testing, but anything proper is pure JS brutally shortened. Funny how going from testing in IE6 and Firefox to try to get alignments has switched to Firefox and Chrome to optimize UI performance and playing with 3D CSS.

The way I now think of what a web page can do is miles from before (assuming same time input from me). Freed from the constraints of early JS lack-of-portability (damn you IE), I can make apps that will work on well over 90% of devices in the Western world with decent fall back and no extra crap. The sequences are not shortened. Nay, I have put a 250ms delay on certain actions because the response was too jarring:

makeItAsFastAsiPhone(); // just kidding, I think

Re: Make Everything OK

You should try clicking on the donate button at the bottom. I got a PayPal page in Russian asking for American dollars.

Re: Get Godwin's law out of the way first

@DAM:

upvoted, but only for the kebab.

Re: And who says criminals don't have a ...

>Or maybe they just popped back home to the Caribbean for more supplies...

You mean Morocco, n'est pas?

>And a helpful suggestion warranted a down vote?

Wasn't me, but it would be more helpful if you got the model number right. The machine you are suggesting is the Acer 720 line.

Re: Marissa Meyer == The New Carly Fiorina

You wouldn't per chance be a [soon to be] former employee?

>apparently the Yahoo! Board disagrees

As does the stock market (probably explains the board's point of view). And her former employer didn't really have much use for her either. Wasn't her job to make the place seem like less of a sausage party? Or was it running the search page? I can never remember.

I'll bet the blond bimbo has skills that neither you, the board, nor I will see. And in my case, at least, that is a shame indeed.

!

Re: Sending a clear message..

The Black Hats are fine. These guys are Ass Hats.

They will likely be in protective custody with the diddlers.

Re: Let me get this straight...

>We have heroin, cocaine, Benadryl, Xanax, beer, and champagne but their calling it accidental?

Welcome to North America, people have quite a lax attitude to alcohol and pharmaceutical use despite the seeming uptight bent of the continent. This stupid mindset that things a doctor can prescribe are 'safe' has been beaten into the minds of the population and seems to persist as does binge drinking across all but the most religious groups. Even amongst the nutter right wing evangelical types there is much booze and improper pharmaceutical use, while they look down on the street drug user who is actually less of a risk from a toxicology standpoint (obviously there are ties to a much higher propensity of other high risk lifestyle choices amongst street drug users but that is never the point they make).

Another way, in addition

Anyone that has knowledge of prior art can help defeat patents:

http://patents.stackexchange.com/

an example in action:

http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/3566/scaling-based-on-pixel-density-microsoft-patent-application-prior-art-requ/3569#3569

There are a lot of people around here that could probably help.

Re: Not what it's cracked up to be

Are 6's upside down nines?

FTFY

Are Facebook and Twitter really competitors? I didn't realize that, they seem incredibly different to me. I can post my enlightened dictator

Re: Competition

>In the UK, you do go to your bank if you want a card processing account.

This is true in Canada too, but they send you to a company like Moneris that does the processing. It is kind of weird right now because every bank and phone company is launching their own system right now for phone based payments and Moneris the big CC and debit card processor is putting out a device that does CC and debit (encrypted Bluetooth to tablet or smartphone).

>Those people have an advantage over everyone else should they want to add the facility to pay using your phone to that.

There is no doubt about that being true, however, the bank or CC company also has a bigger liability issue when it acts on both sides of a transaction, and given the fact in the article about the CC companies taking 80% of the processing fee, I don't see how it is in their interest to take the additional risk on the other 20%. Let the small fry take care of this. Much like how mainstream processors will not do business with 'adult' sites due to charge-backs, so there is a whole industry of processors from just below mainstream standards to too dodgy for even organized crime to use.

>As someone who sometimes pays using plastic cards, I would trust a bank supplied app for phone based payments more than I would trust some tech startup I've never heard of.

If you haven't heard of Square, I assume you are not in North America, because here it is the darling of small business or independent 'techy' types as there is less hassle than the PayPal card reader and no monthly fees like the bank/third party system. It is a company doing $20 billion in processing a year, hardly a fly by night company.

Re: 37% ???

>If I read their site correctly, the problem affects all versions of Windows and Office except for the 2% which have the combination of office 2010 + (server 2003 or xp)

From the link in the article, I read that only the Office 2010 on Server 2003 and XP is an issue, and that higher (read more recent) systems are fine. Also Office 2013 is not affected on any system. Sounds like planned obsolescence to me.

Re: Try Niagara Falls NY for experienced AL2O3 manufacturing facilities

My guess is Tim is looking more at Sayanogorsk.

Re: Uh, hang on ...

>Indeed. Like the 95.5% of users who didn't have a password in the top 100. But where's the story in that?

Probably the same place where "123456" was 5% of the passwords on its own. The top 20 is 11.1% alone.

I will reserve judgement until I see a crack list. It would not surprise me if well over 50% are found. Then we can laugh at feeble attempts to make a password 'hard' and yet still crackable.

Re: Using logic and not checking against observation was the medieval way to do physics.

Or a drop of sweat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywater

Re: Hypocrisy? No, business as usual

>Why is that? Because people have short memories: today's hypocrisy is tomorrow's business as usual.

The wonders of the diffusion of responsibility. Then again most people are interested in appearing to do the socially right thing rather than actually doing the right thing.

Re: Well, if and when

Just messing Cliff. Despite the seeming seemliness of the two prisoners involved, they both could theoretically be decent people (though probably not).

Regarding the use of prisoners, I agree, there should definitely be many avenues available for those willing to go along with a strict system where going with the rules upgrades your access to opportunities while any demerits instantly knock you into higher security.

One of the biggest problems with prisons in North America is that the most dangerous criminals are usually allowed into the general population and just recruit and run operations from there. These people are usually unredeemable and should be in a supermax facility with minimum contact.

Often the crime itself that a person was convicted and sentenced for is not as good an indicator of whether they are a danger in the general population, however, those who accept responsibility at trial without having their lawyer submit a bunch of bogus character references have a decent shot. The worst offenders seem to have a reality distortion field that makes Jobs look sage, but I digress.

>They probably ARE bums

Now there, the correct term is big-mac-and-cheap-gin-compensated-line-holders. 20 quid goes a long way to ensure a nervous fanperson gets their bling.

Re: KGB Helpdesk

Wrong. He has access to the honeypot. Think of all the sorting they can get him to do. The Russian spy IT network is paper-based.

Re: wizardry

>That's because anyone running XP 64-bit has to be a freaking wizard to get any drivers to work with it!

[Casts furtive glances both ways] Yes, yes, I is a wizard. [More shifty staring]

PS: Don't tell anyone that 99.5% of computer security is knowing where to get your porn - at least for us wizards.

Re: What do scientists do if dark matter can't be found?

Evil Matter. It's like dark matter, but we can't see it, hear it, or speak of it.

On a more practical note, a stupid question: Have they calculated the 'light' energy that has been emitted since the beginning of time, or the energy that is currently emitted (as measured by looking at the 'past' for more distant parts)? Could the missing 'mass' be in the form of light being currently transmitted through or even out of the universe? Add in the fact we don't know exactly the state of black holes further away as the light is - lets say historical.

Re: Is Jobs still dead.

Too bad we didn't wrap him in a coil of electrical wires. There would have been enough electricity created to power an Apple data center with all the spinning he is doing.