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[2010-12-18 17:34:52] - i missed the leon reference and the fireball reference. i did enjoy the gta style though, and it was why i liked the link. ~a
[2010-12-18 12:37:10] - Pierce: I'm pretty sure it's called Leon.
But, yes, I did (obviously) get that reference. Though not the Bad Boys one. Haven't seen Bad Boys. -- Xpovos[2010-12-17 18:10:54] - you spell it pendant. and my title pendants are very pretty.
[2010-12-17 17:28:58] - grr. the "EVERYONE!!!!!" was a reference to The Professional (cue title pedants). - pierce
[2010-12-17 17:28:27] - the "EVERYONE!!!!!
[2010-12-17 16:18:26] - haha this was linked on a thread of videos that look like tim and eric videos. apparently a real ad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6z2zfoi16g - vinnie
[2010-12-17 13:12:12] - but the bad boys angle does make a lot of sense too now that I think about it. - mig
[2010-12-17 13:04:06] - paul: probably not one specific movie. It seemed to draw on GTA more than anything else I thought. - mig
[2010-12-17 12:04:37] - mig: Pretty awesome. Was it based on any specific movie? I noticed one scene that seemed straight out of Bad Boys. -Paul
[2010-12-17 11:02:32] - yeah really cool link, good attention to detail with a lot of the reference. did anybody draw the connection between mario's fireball and the molotov cocktail? - aaron
[2010-12-17 08:35:52] - nice link.
[2010-12-16 22:48:25] - mig: Hyperbolic, yes. But still pretty awesome. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-16 18:25:51] - side note: probably NSFW. - mig
[2010-12-16 18:25:43] - at the risk of hyperbole, this might be the most awesome thing ever to be uploaded to youtube. - mig
[2010-12-16 15:38:30] - YET... ... ...
[2010-12-16 15:20:59] - meh it's nowhere near as bad as last year. - mig
[2010-12-16 13:33:01] - oh god! the snow!
[2010-12-16 11:00:18] - paul: yeah, i'd be OK playing, if you're stretching for 7 i'll join up. but i'd rather someone else take my place - aaron
[2010-12-16 10:43:34] - Daniel: I believe that technically we have 6 people without Aaron (Daniel, Paul, Stephen, Miguel, Andrew, Stefan), who said he could fill in if needed but wasn't too thrilled with starting another game now (I believe). -Paul
[2010-12-16 09:53:39] - I asked my friend - Stefan, that guy that played the 5 man diplomacy game with us aaron/miguel - and he says he would play in a game with us. So if we can find a 7th I think we have enough peeps. -Daniel
[2010-12-15 17:14:50] - http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909910&cid=34547410 i don't know if any of you have heard about the Jeopardy-solving program Watson, but I found this comment adorable on a "glados" kind of level - aaron
[2010-12-15 17:11:51] - pragmatics doesn't have any kind of password rotation rule in place so i don't get to have as much password fun here... i'm still using the same boring password that i was like two years ago - aaron
[2010-12-15 17:10:21] - xpovos: for a little while at SAIC i abused their 32-character password limits by making my password something like "fdsajkl;fdsajkl;JKL:JKL:1234567890" that was fun to type and made me sound super productive when i was entering my password a lot - aaron
[2010-12-15 14:19:04] - My new password: monkeycheese. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-15 12:47:32] - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1218390/what-is-your-most-productive-shortcut-with-vim/ what is your most productive shortcut with vim. really good reading for anybody who uses vim regularly - aaron
[2010-12-15 12:42:23] - Daniel: I'm sure that's part of it (I use tiered password strengths relative to importance). But also, at least with gawker (not sure about MySpace), these were also decoded from the hash file, which means these are necessarily the least complex passwords and therefore not completely representative. . -- Xpovos
[2010-12-15 09:51:09] - i think it's funny how many people use "monkey" as a password in both sites - aaron
[2010-12-15 09:24:27] - On the password subject I think its entirely possible that for a site like gizmodo or gawker you have a simple password because you don't want to forget it but its not that important and you save your complex password for your bank account. I'm sure not everyone follows that rule but I hope that people don't have 123456 as their bank pw. -Daniel
[2010-12-14 20:42:38] - I'm annoyed this took me so long. Google, I fail you. Still, here it is. http://www.schneier.com/essay-144.html -- Xpovos
[2010-12-14 20:33:49] - though i disagree that windows users are younger. maybe i agree with "poorer" (though it's sad that the data is backwards with logic, since linux is free). ~a
[2010-12-14 20:32:19] - (lol), you stole my joke. ~a
[2010-12-14 20:32:04] - Paul: I remember some similar hack and release of data for (myspace?). I'll try to look it up. Maybe 2006? The results were similarly depressing about bad passwords, though there were some better passwords, like "blink182". -- Xpovos
[2010-12-14 19:56:40] - a: (source) - aaron
[2010-12-14 19:53:45] - a: i think it's tied to age and (maybe) income. windows users are younger and (maybe) poorer on average - aaron
[2010-12-14 18:35:16] - for #1, i chose to pay whatever the average was for linux. does anybody have an idea why the average for linux is so much higher? i have my own theories, but my viewpoint is probably a little skewed. ~a
[2010-12-14 18:32:33] - aaron: haha, i didn't read your first message. oops. yeah that's cool; i'll have to check it out. i'm thinking of maybe buying the humble bundle 2. i liked the first bundle, and am hoping the second one is sweet too. ~a
[2010-12-14 18:11:24] - a: yeah, it's been ported. you can get it as a part of that "humble bundle #2" thing i linked; it's "pay what you want" so you can pay $0.01 for the bundle if you want - aaron
[2010-12-14 17:32:14] - a: I believe they ported Braid to Linux (see Aaron's link). -Paul
[2010-12-14 17:24:25] - my coworker was trying to convince me to play braid. i never did get it. is it on steam or something that i can slurp into wine? ~a
[2010-12-14 17:12:42] - http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/12/13/the-top-50-gawker-media-passwords/ The Top 50 Gawker Media Passwords. -Paul
[2010-12-14 17:08:53] - mig: I don't know if anybody answered your question about New Year's plans, but I am curious as well. I'll be out of town for the week leading up to New Year's Day, so I'm highly unlikely to make any plans, but I think it would be nice to hang out with some friends to watch the ball drop. -Paul
[2010-12-14 16:52:34] - Loved the gameplay of Braid, mostly hated the story (although I did think the last level was clever). -Paul
[2010-12-14 15:48:41] - I thought Machinarium was interesting when I played through the online demo. And Braid is definitely a cut above the average game. Don't know the rest. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-14 15:11:48] - Braid was an excellent game. -Daniel
[2010-12-14 15:07:33] - did you ever play braid adrian? i thought it was really clever - aaron
[2010-12-14 15:05:34] - http://www.humblebundle.com/?live apparently humble indie bundle #2... apprently they they ported braid, and a game that i had never heard of "cortex command" to linux for this bundle to work... dedication! - aaron
[2010-12-14 12:42:48] - Crank up the resolution and maximize (full screen). Wow. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-14 12:28:36] - aaron: I'll bring mine, I'm not using them anyway. But you have to let me throw a frisbee into your face again for good measure. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-14 12:26:19] - a: can anybody bring an extra set of nuts in case i freeze my nuts off - aaron
[2010-12-14 12:16:26] - paul: saturday. yes. if that's ok. ~a
[2010-12-14 11:02:08] - a: Did you mean Saturday in your Ultimate Frisbee email? Saturday is fine with me (better than Sunday, coincidentally), but I just wanted to make sure since it's usually held on Sunday. -Paul
[2010-12-13 19:25:43] - ok, agreed. ~a
[2010-12-13 17:00:14] - i just think it's worse than the holocaust when sinister alcoholic journalists take a totally pure-of-heart, innocent, god-loving sentence like that one, and load it up with terrorist weasel words and fart-inducing comparisons - aaron
[2010-12-13 16:56:01] - a: the author has a legitimate claim but he expressed it in a profoundly stupid way. if he just said, "i find it unethical for google to target the contents of my personal email to generate advertisements," I would have been okay with it - aaron
[2010-12-13 15:42:10] - aaron: the author has a legitimate claim: ads that target the contents of personal email is creepy. is it new news, no. is it creepy and scummy? imo, yes. ~a
[2010-12-13 15:07:29] - if mcdonalds is so ethical, then how has it become a sinister multinational giant that contributes to american obesity by selling people meat and fat for precious money!!! - aaron
[2010-12-13 15:06:37] - xpovos: ha! ha! "if google is so ethical... then how has it become a sinister multinational giant that spies on the contents of my personal email?" is this really a journalist? i hope it's not - aaron
[2010-12-13 14:06:56] - Although I guess at the second level it's not so much an OR as an ANDOR. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-13 14:02:13] - Paul: I think there are three sides, branching from an initial two. (Someone sniffs packets || No-one sniffs packets). IF(Someone sniffs packets){(Corps sniff packets = profits)||(Gov't sniffs packets = dystopia)}. Most everyone on the tech side seems to be wanting to keep it at the top level. Gov't and corps are pushing to the second level. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-13 13:54:40] - Xpovos: Enjoyed the video. I wish there was a better was to describe the whole thing than pro or anti network neutrality since being pro-network neutrality doesn't mean you necessarily have to support government regulation... does it? -Paul
[2010-12-13 13:53:57] - I'm dumbfounded by this. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1337837/Google-Why-let-creepy-company-spy-emails.html Old news discovered by an ignorant journalist is suddenly new news? -- Xpovos
[2010-12-13 13:45:17] - a: I'm good with the same password, although would it be possible to change my username to pessen? I have trouble remembering that it's paul sometimes. -Paul
[2010-12-13 13:34:23] - mig: I think Shamus is pretty smart and reasonably balanced in almost all his points on a wide variety of subjects. Interestingly, my suggestion ended up in the comments of this video at his website (suggested by another source) and was well-received. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-13 13:28:30] - mig: As a lawyer, I'm certainly curious. I wonder if the feds couldn't do what they did with the drinking age, though, and withhold money from the states unless they forced their citizens to buy healthcare. - Stephen
[2010-12-13 13:19:46] - xpovos: that was a pretty excellent video. Certainly more balanced on the topic than any outlet I've seen. - mig
[2010-12-13 13:13:41] - paul: i don't think kick-ass was a niche movie, it had nick cage. it would have been my nomination if somebody had already nominated inception. ~a
[2010-12-13 13:06:50] - paul: it doesn't have to be different. you can make the password whatever you want. do you want your password changed accordingly? ~a
[2010-12-13 13:06:20] - http://www.youtube.com/v/zASHI9qdB0U Shamus Young on Net Neutrality. As a topic we've discussed a few times with general agreement, but a lot of confusion, I wanted to post this. Comments? -- Xpovos
[2010-12-13 12:56:58] - Paul: Yes, it's different from the picture login. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-13 12:49:20] - stephen: it will be interesting to see how scotus will eventually rule. it would be nice to see the individual mandate get properly beaten down as unconstitutional, as well as an acknowledgement that the commerce clause does indeed have limits. - mig
[2010-12-13 12:36:53] - Well this is interesting, if expected. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/13/AR2010121302420.html?hpid=topnews - Stephen
[2010-12-13 11:29:26] - Apparently I don't remember my login. It's different from my login to see pictures? Anyway, I would throw Kick-Ass out there, although I definitely admit it's a niche film. -Paul
[2010-12-13 11:08:09] - a: Only 1 nomination? Thats tough. I can't edit the wiki page but I would throw out Toy Story 3. -Daniel
[2010-12-13 10:14:53] - what's everyone doing for new years? - mig
[2010-12-12 17:50:07] - a: There's only one movie listed. I think we're done here. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-11 14:32:57] - best fucking movie of the year. please, 1 nomination/human. ~a
[2010-12-10 13:51:33] - a: I didn't said it had, I said it will. Paul took some extra implication. I was going to use it to start some discussion on the current debate in Congress. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-10 13:18:43] - xpovos: ok, but i doubt your paycheck changing from week to week has anything to do with congress. ~a
[2010-12-10 12:51:00] - hmm the "aww" to me is I find it really funny but feel guilty for thinking its humorous... but there is probably a much better word than "aww".... Yea I assumed it was a young kid.. ~gurkie
[2010-12-10 12:39:55] - gurkie: although the nature of the humor heavily depends on how old the son is; if he's like 16 then it's kind of mean. if he's like 4 it's kind of cute. i guess you assumed the latter - aaron
[2010-12-10 12:39:11] - gurkie: ha ha ha i liked that one too. - aaron
[2010-12-10 12:26:15] - gurkie: "Aww" implies cute. I think that should be "Ow". Though there is an "Aww" element. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-10 12:10:52] - Aww, I was reading some of the Not always right posts and enjoyed http://notalwaysright.com/from-the-mouth-of-babes-part-4/8716 ~gurkie
[2010-12-10 11:40:01] - Paul: Im sure I have said it before but I feel like businesses are still hiring... ~gurkie
[2010-12-10 11:05:42] - Xpovos: I don't think the message board supports sarc tags.
-Paul[2010-12-10 10:50:10] - Paul: You need to work on your sarc tags. That almost sounded sincere. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-10 10:49:43] - a: Yes, and I've had some pretty strange occurances on my paycheck in that time. Picked up the health care my wife no longer provides, adjusted my retirement withholdings, adjusted my tax withholdings, etc. So a lot of it was self-inflicted, still, it's really annoying trying to plan a budget. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-10 10:30:56] - Xpovos: I can't imagine why businesses aren't hiring people in this environment. Who needs to know how much an employee is going to cost in the coming months for budgetary purposes? -Paul
[2010-12-10 10:29:56] - "I don't think two of my paychecks have been for the same amount in about 6 months" are you paid bi-weekly? ~a
[2010-12-10 10:27:29] - I don't think two of my paychecks have been for the same amount in about 6 months. And it looks like that streak will continue, as Congress plays about with that tax holiday proposal vs. the tax extensions ending. Either one will affect my bottom line. Who needs consistency? -- Xpovos
[2010-12-10 10:21:05] - paul: end the fed! - mig
[2010-12-10 10:08:41] - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-09/ron-paul-author-of-end-the-fed-to-lead-fed-oversight-panel.html For those that didn't hear about it, Ron Paul is set to lead the House subcommittee that oversees the Federal Reserve. -Paul
[2010-12-10 09:57:03] - Paul: There was a surprising amount of in-fighting amongst the Cerebrates. I can see a lot of room to play with characterization in the Zerg. I'll have to tell you more once I've played the campaign in SCII-1. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-10 09:43:52] - Daniel: I definitely didn't notice any huge retcons, but I know a lot of people were annoyed by it. I think part of it is that you played as the zerg in the first game and there was no sign that they were anything but a relentless force of nature driven towards evolutionary perfection. -Paul
[2010-12-10 09:42:01] - Aaron: Yeah, I guess it's because Tosh always seemed to be portrayed in a threatening way, hanging out in the dark and playing with his knife. There's even a line of dialog where Matt says that some anonymous person warned us about not trusting him. The only strike against Nova, by contrast, is that she works for the Dominion. -Paul
[2010-12-10 09:40:50] - Paul: I chose Nova. Tosh seemed more mercenary and Nova seemed more noble. I generally go with the lightside approach to decisions and that made me lean towards Nova. I didn't think they retconned th Overmind just showed it from a different side. /shrug -Daniel
[2010-12-10 09:00:08] - aaron:: 15 more days... -- Xpovos
[2010-12-09 22:55:13] - oh shit, right. ~a
[2010-12-09 18:46:59] - paul: yeah, "the devil you know", or whatever that means - aaron
[2010-12-09 17:40:43] - a: No frisbee this weekend? -Paul
[2010-12-09 17:14:24] - Aaron: Yeah, I had no problem with how they portrayed Tosh. I just thought it was interesting because I felt like the "right" thing to do was to choose to side with Nova because Tosh seemed sinister to me for whatever reason. I think most people agree with you, though, that it makes more sense to side with Tosh instead of Nova. -Paul
[2010-12-09 16:53:20] - i'm sure there's a tv trope for it - aaron
[2010-12-09 16:53:03] - paul: but a lot of sitcoms fall into the trap of having characters who are like, "the geek", "the slob", "the pervert", and "the indian guy" or something. as though it balances out the characters, look, all four of us are flawed! he's geeky and i'm indian - aaron
[2010-12-09 16:50:40] - paul: honestly i think it's more racist when minorities are portrayed as flawless human beings, i liked how they portrayed tosh - aaron
[2010-12-09 15:57:40] - Aaron: I do wish that the decisions were more "weighty", though. As far as I can tell, the effect on the story was virtually non-existent (only difference is different research or units) and, like you said, it was often the choice between somebody you met a few days ago and somebody you met a few minutes ago. -Paul
[2010-12-09 15:55:34] - Aaron: Retconning means to go back a retroactively change the backstory in some way. For example: In SC1, the overmind was portrayed as an evil, aggressive entity whose driving goal was evolutionary perfection. In SC2, many people thought that it was retconned into the misunderstood tragic good guy. -Paul
[2010-12-09 15:52:25] - Aaron: Personally, I sided with Nova because I never did trust the secretive Tosh and Nova didn't come across as a liar to me. -Paul
[2010-12-09 15:50:23] - Aaron: I even read a forum post where somebody thought it was racist because Blizzard was supposedly biasing the player to choose the white, blonde girl who works for your arch-enemy over the black, dread-locked guy who hasn't shown any signs of betraying you. -Paul
[2010-12-09 15:49:05] - Aaron: It's funny you mention that about Tosh, because I felt like the plotline was biasing me towards Nova (the background for her during the decision screen is blue and light while Tosh's is red and dark). -Paul
[2010-12-09 15:16:39] - paul: but all of the decision points in the game seemed to be like, "do you do what the writers clearly want you to do? or do you behave irrationally" - aaron
[2010-12-09 15:16:16] - paul: i was kind of annoyed that every decision point in the game was like, "do you trust this person you've known for 2 months? or do you listen to this stranger you've known for 15 seconds," it would have been awesome if they had like like - Zeratul and Kerrigan in a mexican standoff and you have to shoot one or the other or whatevs - aaron
[2010-12-09 15:13:51] - paul: i liked the plot! i chose tosh because the plotline clearly biases you towards tosh, you had more history with him. i thought the dialog was pretty good by video game standards. retconning doesn't mean anything to me. does it have to do with retinas? - aaron
[2010-12-09 14:54:10] - Starcrafters: I have some questions for those who beat the campaign: (1) Did you think that the plot was disappointing? (2) Did you think the dialog sucked? (3) Did the retconning annoy you? (4) Did you choose Tosh or Nova and (5) Why? -Paul
[2010-12-09 14:34:01] - http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Urban-s-out-Let-the-next-War-of-Florida-Success?urn=ncaaf-293453 i get really amused everytime i see this graphic. - mig
[2010-12-09 11:44:43] - xpovos: the comments also have a lot of spoilers for SC1 too so you might not want to read it. there's not much meat to the article anyway, other than saying it was leaked to youtube, and then pulled, which means it might be legit. - aaron
[2010-12-09 11:21:13] - http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/12/ending-leaked-for-starcraft-iis-next-chapter/ Possible ending to the next Starcraft 2 game leaked? Obviously potentially a spoiler alert if there is any truth to it. -Paul
[2010-12-09 10:16:55] - aaron: That image reminded me of the propaganda posters from that movie. Ministry of Information Retrieval. Heh. Only funny to me. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-09 10:12:09] - xpovos: no, i didn't like it. - aaron
[2010-12-08 19:16:05] - aaron: Were you one of the ones who disliked Brazil when I showed it, or liked it? I can't remember any more. If I had to guess I's guess disliked; that seemed to be the majority opinion. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-08 19:09:50] - http://i.imgur.com/coeUe.jpg terrorism. if you suspect it, report it - aaron
[2010-12-08 16:50:21] - aaron: I think that NAW is probably more consistently funny since it can pull from a broader experience, but there's something about a comic shop environment that lends itself to this. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-08 16:34:15] - xpovos: notalwaysright had a few comic days a long time ago. i don't know, i found the subject matter less funny when it was alongside a visual aid like that - aaron
[2010-12-08 16:30:51] - daniel: i can go either way; if you guys are stretching for 7 i might be interested, i could kind of use a break - aaron
[2010-12-08 16:22:27] - So... my netbook (running ubuntu) is telling me that it "could not start the x server". I have a suspicion that the SSD might have suffered some sort of failure. Anybody know how I might confirm this? -Paul
[2010-12-08 16:13:45] - http://ourvaluedcustomers.blogspot.com/2010/11/to-his-friend_26.html This is like "not always right" mixed with caricatures from a comic store. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-08 16:09:55] - Daniel: Yeah, still two people short despite my nagging. I think we have you, me, Stephen, Miguel and Andrew so far. I'm fine with inviting new people or inviting old people who may not know about starting up another game. -Paul
[2010-12-08 15:58:27] - We still short two people for a new dip game? No aaron in this one? I have one or two people I can ask about it if we are willing to expand the dip people circle. -Daniel
[2010-12-08 14:50:47] - aaron: I understand it has the steepest learning curve imagineable. Even play off a FAQ, you're hardly learning anything. And if you go off on your own, you die. Brutal. Still, the game concept itself excites me. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-08 14:18:10] - xpovos: i know, me too! i played for five or six hours and thought it was OK, but you really needed a FAQ or walkthrough just to play the game - it's really rough around the edges as far as things like, the commands, the menu system, the tech trees, stuff like that - aaron
[2010-12-08 13:17:12] - aaron: In order: Human Nature as a short answer, for a longer answer, I could write a book. Or at least a long essay. No. Yes. They are now, certainly. Lastly, it's blocked, but if it's a really pretty tile set, I'll want to have another go at it. DF is one of those games I ought to love but could never 'get'. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-08 12:55:52] - http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=43260.0 waaaaaa i don't know if anybody plays dwarf fortress but this new isometric graphical mod for it is silly awesome. makes me want to pick it up again - aaron
[2010-12-08 12:41:41] - xpovos: i didn't find anything too interesting about the article, although the numbers surprisd me... why there are so many cases like this? is child abuse more common in the catholic church than amongst the regular population? or is it just more newsworthy? or are catholic priests just scrutinized more, to where this kind of stuff gets revealed more easily - aaron
[2010-12-08 12:11:05] - Dunno how much interest this story has to the broader population here, but it was so relevant, I kind of had to post it. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-08 11:20:22] - a: yeah that's what i was getting at - aaron
[2010-12-08 11:19:50] - a: it's silly to use "big ell longs" unless you have to... a long is 8 bytes... how big is a reference? on a 64-bit OS, isn't a reference 8 bytes also? i mean part of the point of using references for big objects is like, you get some memory savings at a cost of performance (the dereference cost)... - aaron
[2010-12-08 11:16:44] - to answer my own question: in general, using "Integer" is much slower than using "int" (but they're both still much faster than integer math in c#, php, python, perl, or ruby). ~a
[2010-12-08 10:49:23] - (re "big ell longs" and "little ell longs") so then why do we need little ell longs at all? if we can't put everything on the stack, can't we put nothing on the stack? (except references) ~a
[2010-12-08 10:44:15] - mig: that case comes up for Integers and Longs too though, which is why you have "big ell longs" and "little ell longs". i don't think that really contradicts pierce's point, he's just suggesting java should have both - aaron
[2010-12-08 10:44:11] - i think the String == issue is something that bothered me my first day of java programming, but i honestly think it's a bike shed thing. ~a
[2010-12-08 10:43:01] - pierce: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/636932/in-c-why-is-string-a-reference-type-that-behaves-like-a-value-type this goes over some of the reasons why it's infeasible for string to be a value type - aaron
[2010-12-08 10:42:26] - For a lot of instances when I've dealt with strings, I have actually had to differentiate between an empty string and a null string. If it's primitive that isn't possible to do, which would throw snags to html form processing in some cases. - mig
[2010-12-08 10:27:32] - but I admit there's possibly a snag or a hiccup or a major architectural flaw I'm not thinking of. - pierce
[2010-12-08 10:26:47] - their bigness is something that's equally a problem treating them as objects as it is treating them as primitives. you still have O(n) for many operations, but you get some optimization benefits and a lot more intuitive syntax IMO. - pierce
[2010-12-08 10:25:28] - aaron: as long as you use pascal-style strings internally the dynamic length thing isn't a huge problem, except for memory segmentation as they get deallocated (but unless your program execution allocs a lot of small strings, dellocs some of them, then allocs a lot of big ones, it shouldn't be an insurmountable problem). - pierce
[2010-12-08 10:21:26] - pierce: i'll have to think about the primitive string idea more. i think there's a fundamental problem with it, since all primitives are very very tiny and fixed length. strings are very very big and dynamic length, treating them like a primitive would probably cause memory problems, i'll have to think about it - aaron
[2010-12-08 10:19:08] - pierce: yeah, i gripe a lot about java's int/Integer stuff, or its confusing handling of generics in some cases, but they're hard problems. i don't know how i'd solve the problems any better than they did - aaron
[2010-12-08 10:18:38] - aaron: I don't think == as value comparison should've been implemented for anything except primitives, but I think "string" (lowercase) should've been a primitive. if they'd had autoboxing/unboxing in early java I think they might've done that. - pierce
[2010-12-08 10:17:49] - pierce: i know you might think checking strings for sameness is silly, but like, we had a bug where a class was returning new instances of strings every time, instead of using java's internal string cache - so the best way to unit test it was to ask it to create a bunch of strings, and then "==" them to make sure they were the same instance - aaron
[2010-12-08 10:16:37] - aaron: yeah, but you were either going to have that problem, or all the problems of operator overloading plus the performance hit of actually treating everything like an object instead of optimizing primitives - pierce
[2010-12-08 10:15:44] - pierce: but overloading == is a really dangerous game, how would you ever compare two objects for sameness? currently java treats it as a "warning" if you tell it to; that's good enough for me - aaron
[2010-12-08 10:13:34] - pierce: honestly i really hate the primitive/object stuff in java, a lot of that pain has been alleviated since Java 1.5 but still, if you have like, a helper function that takes an Object[] and you have an int[] it's still pretty painful - aaron
[2010-12-08 10:13:05] - aaron: that's very fair. I think I prefer good traditional code to good Spring use, but I might prefer bad Spring use to bad traditional code. - pierce
[2010-12-08 10:12:01] - aaron: pointers were necessary until they weren't. operator overloading is really problematic and often discouraged (despite my gripe not one minute ago about how java should've done it for strings). classes and function calls and loops are intuitive when you're reading the code... you may not know what a function does, but you know it's being called. - pierce
[2010-12-08 10:10:55] - but i'll say the hardest code i've ever had to understand wasn't code that used spring; it was code that needed spring. code that tried to implement its own singletons, code that misused "static" in different places and tried to manage their own SQL connections/statements and stuff like that. maybe it's "more readable" but there's so much more code, boilerplate c+p - aaron
[2010-12-08 10:09:23] - (god, I wish java had done something about the String.equals problem. they made "+" a special operator for strings, why not "=="? why couldn't there be a "string" primitive and a "String" object the way there's int and Integer? grrrrrrrr. - pierce
[2010-12-08 10:08:55] - pierce: yeah, i'll agree, although the same could be said for pointers, or operator overloading, or classes, or function calls, or loops. everything's obscure if you're dumb enough
- aaron[2010-12-08 10:06:48] - but there's a good chance that I'm just not skilled enough a programmer to see why that's an advantage. or alternatively, that it's not actually true but I'm too dumb to understand the intuitiveness of the code flow. - pierce
[2010-12-08 10:05:22] - not necessarily Spring itself, of course, but it encourages developers to make projects that obscure behavior. - pierce
[2010-12-08 10:04:47] - think of the things that trip people up in java. multithreading, exceptions, String.equals()... all examples of the API or VM doing something that you wouldn't necessarily expect just from reading the code. java does a pretty good job of only doing that sort of thing when it's necessary, whereas Spring seems to take pride and pleasure in obscuring behavior. - pierce
[2010-12-08 10:00:27] - a: annotations help the code/configuration thing, but don't change the fact that there's this big framework doing lots of stuff you can't easily see. yes, that's true of any language except assembly, but most compilers/vms make a point of only doing things that are fairly intuitive to someone reading the code that uses them. - pierce
[2010-12-07 18:20:26] - pierce: but yeah, you're right. foo.setBar(5) is simpler than <property name="bar">5</property> and i hate when people move everything possible into a spring configuration file. but at the same time, when every object in your domain model needs a handle on a "user pool" or something it's nice to have that stuff dependency-injected. again, either extreme is bad - aaron
[2010-12-07 18:18:19] - pierce: "replacing coding with configuration" is still better than "replacing coding with convention", as i learned from working my first (and hopefully last) grails project ever - aaron
[2010-12-07 18:16:26] - pierce: "replaces a lot of coding with configuration". spring has annotations now. does that change your opinion any? . . . also it seems like you're not as anti-spring as you are anti-web-services. in what world can i set up a web-service without configuration files or annotations? ~a
[2010-12-07 18:13:29] - aaron: i couldn't agree more. otoh, "both extremes are bad" . . . yeah, i can see problems where it seems like code is over-engineered: every function call is always to an interface method. however, i'm far more annoyed by under-engineered (ctrl-c-ctrl-p, no DRY, no SRP, 1000 line methods) than over-engineered. ~a
[2010-12-07 17:47:31] - I'm not anti-Spring really, but it sometimes feels like I'm trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle and it's helpfully trying to keep things clean by hiding the pieces I've already placed. - pierce
[2010-12-07 17:38:11] - also, maybe I'm just an idiot, but I have a hard time getting my head around a program's behavior when it's using dependency injection. when that behavior goes haywire I find it hard to chase down the bug compared to a traditional program. - pierce
[2010-12-07 17:34:44] - what I've seen of Spring projects replaces a lot of coding with configuration, and I have mixed feelings about that. I know (when done well) it increases flexibility and scalability, but it can also transform readable code into unreadable configuration files. - pierce
[2010-12-07 17:09:41] - a: yeah, you're right, DRY and SRP are really important ideals related to encapsulation, they help set an informal guideline for what's worth encapsulating - aaron
[2010-12-07 17:06:02] - no, that's unfair. maybe more like 60%. but it's a lot of them. - aaron
[2010-12-07 17:05:49] - but about 90% of my coworkers rely on ctrl+c ctrl+p as like, their only refactoring tool, and it makes me cry - aaron
[2010-12-07 17:04:16] - a: yeah, i get really frustrated dealing with some kinds of people, "your code is too hard to understand! it has too many classes" and that kind of stuff. it's not like i'm right and they're wrong, both extremes are bad. i haven't had to deal with those kinds of people for a couple years though - aaron
[2010-12-07 16:54:42] - aaron: cool! i had to look up DRY and SRP. both very important ideals next to encapsulation. hmmm, a lot of programmers i dislike don't understand or agree with those ideals. ~a
[2010-12-07 16:14:31] - also, spring is one of the best designed projects i've ever seen, they adhere really closely to basic OO principles like DRY and SRP, and make heavy use of stuff like the Template method pattern to avoid repetitive code - aaron
[2010-12-07 16:10:28] - now, it provides some capability for doing really powerful things like "autowiring" and "aspect oriented programming" and stuff, which can be confusing if they go wrong. so just know what you're getting into if you choose to use technologies like that. obviously if you trace into an aspect oriented class, for example, you're going to get into some spring internals - aaron
[2010-12-07 16:09:06] - it's not "impossible to debug", maybe that was hyperbole on her part but it's open source and the code is well documented and very readable. i've occasionally traced into spring code and it's always been very straightforward when i've done so - aaron
[2010-12-07 16:08:14] - a: spring works really well for our projects. it's very well segmented and very scalable so you can use as much of it or as little of it as you want. me, i usually like using the "spring beanfactory" for all but the smallest projects. in most cases that's all i use. i also love spring's jdbctemplate for handling sql calls. - aaron
[2010-12-07 15:02:13] - gurkie: "spring sucks cause its impossible to debug and I dont know it well enough that flags go off when viewing the more obscure problems..." can you elaborate? i'm thinking of using spring on a new project. . . . also if anybody else has used spring, please spring into this conversation! ~a
[2010-12-07 14:38:18] - as soon as we reach 125π% tax rate, the government will pay us. ~a
[2010-12-07 14:37:02] - aaron: no, use this picture ~a
[2010-12-07 14:34:58] - aaron: meh. ~a
[2010-12-07 14:34:58] - a: and if you look at the picture it seems obvious that the ideal tax rate is 50% - aaron
[2010-12-07 14:34:14] - a: actually, that's merely the hypothesis... it doesn't prove anything
- aaron[2010-12-07 14:30:50] - xpovos: cool link (laffer curve) but it seems to prove nothing except that a 100% tax rate is dumb. ~a
[2010-12-07 14:07:09] - Stephen: I've found plenty. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-07 13:47:17] - Stephen: No, but I know you could find it over on any article Krugman writes at the NY Times. -Paul
[2010-12-07 13:41:10] - Paul: How about socialist propaganda saying that taxes and government spending need to be raised to avoid monetary/budgetary/economic catastrophe in the future? Find any of that? - Stephen
[2010-12-07 13:17:33] - And apparently Bing fail too. Oh well, off to lunch. -Paul
[2010-12-07 13:12:54] - I'm annoyed. I read about this all the time and I feel like this is a golden opportunity to try to spread some of my libertarian propaganda about how government spending needs to be reigned in to avoid monetary/budgetary/economic catastrophe in the future... but for whatever reason I can't find any good articles now. Google fail. -Paul
[2010-12-07 13:10:03] - Aaron: Yeah, I agree. As bad as the US Government seems to be with irresponsible spending, we just have to look at Europe to see lots of examples of government who are worse. Although I do wonder how much of that has to do with the fact that we are the world's reserve currency. -Paul
[2010-12-07 13:05:37] - paul: it definitely seems like america wastes a lot a lot of money but i think every country wastes a lot a lot of money, i don't think it's something america does particularly different. maybe we have more waste than other countries, it's hard to measure - aaron
[2010-12-07 13:04:27] - paul: yeah, i believe it. luckily there's a lot of other countries, so if there's some magic bullet like "socialized health care" or "free market capitalism" we can always look to other countries like canada and somalia, and either move there or emulate their policies - aaron
[2010-12-07 12:55:24] - From everything I've read (which obviously comes from biased sources), the real problem is government spending, not government income. I wish I could find a link for this, but I remember reading somewhere that it would take like a 90% tax rate on everybody to cover projected government spending 30+ years down the line thanks to ballooning entitlement costs. -Paul
[2010-12-07 12:51:52] - From what I've read, raising taxes might reduce the deficit because a tax increase might hamper an economic recovery, which in turn reduces the taxes the government takes in. -Paul
[2010-12-07 12:51:08] - anon: I'm not a blonde and that would confuse me. But, maybe that's the point? -- Xpovos
[2010-12-07 12:50:22] - paul: yeah i think that's what i was getting at - aaron
[2010-12-07 12:50:20] - a: Even though this slideshow argues the other side (fairly well, not great) slide 42 shows some of the effectiveness of tax loopholes the rich use. As the top rate increases the effectiveness/efficiency does slip. But this doesn't cover revenues. He sources the IRS. -- Xpvoos
[2010-12-07 12:49:34] - how do you confuse a blond? paint yourself green and throw forks at her.
[2010-12-07 12:46:48] - axpovos: Not sure about the rich specifically, but I believe the Laffer Curve might be relevant. -Paul
[2010-12-07 12:38:08] - a: I dunno if I can prove it, but there should be some documentation for the reciprocal. Tax revenues from the rich went up as tax rates went down for a period of time last century as compliance with the law became cheaper than workarounds. I can try to find some scholarly paper to back that up... -- Xpovos
[2010-12-07 12:26:54] - http://i.imgur.com/8jWaB.jpg go play! - aaron
[2010-12-07 12:19:09] - xpovos: "Some taxes change behavior more than they raise revenue...Raising income taxes on the rich is one of the ones that tends to have a more substantial behavior change" in theory, right? or is this documented somewhere? i'd like to believe this statement. ~a
[2010-12-07 12:18:18] - xpovos: i'm going to become rich some day when i invent some sort of corpse catapult as a way for people to avoid the estate tax - aaron
[2010-12-07 12:17:17] - xpovos: sure, exactly. certain types of taxes raise revenues, and reduce the deficit. certain types of taxes decrease revenues, and increase the deficit. if we enacted a 90% flat tax, it would increase the deficit, because nobody would pay their taxes, or people would emmigrate - aaron
[2010-12-07 12:15:49] - Raising income taxes on the rich is one of the ones that tends to have a more substantial behavior change aspect rather than a revenue generating one. Meanwhile, the estate tax where the tax-cut is extended as well under the plan, raises revenue pretty effectively. If not frequently or in large amounts. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-07 12:14:11] - Stephen: I'll point back to Paul's infamous quote which got immortalized as a title. Same thing in reverse. Certain types of taxes raise revenues. All taxes change behavior. Some taxes change behavior more than they raise revenue. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-07 11:57:51] - aaron: It's hard to quantify exactly how much the deficit would shrink due to taxes being raised to a certain level, but the deficit *would* shrink. At least, that is my "Idiot's Guide to Macroeconomics" understanding of it all
- Stephen[2010-12-07 11:54:29] - but i'm stupid. it's probably the equivalent of my mom saying, "well, if my laptop is slow, why do you want me to buy a bigger computer?? that extra weight and size will make it even slower!" i really know nothing about economics, but intuitively, higher taxes = lower deficit. probably not even close to the truth but whatevs - aaron
[2010-12-07 11:52:09] - stephen: yeah i'm annoyed, they're painting it as a "democrats wanted to prolong the middle class tax cut but the republicans forced the upper-class tax cut on them too" and i don't know how much truth there is to that. but either way it seems like we shouldn't be trying to extent tax cuts given our current economic situation - aaron
[2010-12-07 11:04:28] - Personally, I think the debt's too high, but I'd be willing to ignore that if we can fix the deficit issue. The compromise suggested, even though I like it on a personal level (helps my finances) doesn't fix the current deficit problem, and exacerbates the longterm deficit problem. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-07 11:03:45] - a: The current debt level is managable, but higher than I'd like. The concern has been, and should be, that the upcoming unfunded liabilities from the entitlement programs dwarf our projected revenues. That is, it's not the debt, it's the projected future deficits. -- Xpovos
[2010-12-07 10:59:08] - They care more about trying to boost the economy than they care about brining down the deficit. I'm not sure where I am on that argument. The economy being good is good but there are always going to be things to spend on and at some point you have to draw the line and start paying things back. -Daniel
[2010-12-07 10:53:53] - a: Usually nobody cares much about the budget/debt/deficit. I imagine things are a little different this year what with the bailouts in Europe and the Tea Party. -Paul
[2010-12-07 10:31:19] - stephen: i didn't know we were supposed to be concerned about the budget. i'm partially kidding and partially serious i guess. the public debt is relatively low, so no biggie, right? png ~a
[2010-12-07 10:21:32] - Stephen: Disappointed, yes. Compared to what I expected, though, I was mildly pleasantly surprised. I thought the Republicans would give in on increasing taxes for those making over $250k in exchange for something else (that I probably would be against). -Paul
[2010-12-07 10:18:36] - Stephen: Agreed. -Paul
[2010-12-07 10:18:32] - Also, am I the only person who is disappointed in yesterday's compromise? I thought we were all supposed to be concerned about the budget. Raising spending while keeping taxes low kind of runs counter to that. - Stephen
[2010-12-07 10:06:11] - Aaron: I assumed there was a certain percentage that "neither approved or disapproved". -Paul
[2010-12-07 09:58:13] - Paul: People do like it when attractive celebrities die young-ish. I don't think people would care that much if Princess Diana died in 2025. - Stephen
[2010-12-07 09:54:05] - that is, i'm surprised that if bush's approval rating is higher than obama's, that his disapproval rating isn't lower as well; but the article implies bush's disapproval rating is higher. i guess they didn't state it outright because it didn't help the point they were trying to make
- aaron[2010-12-07 09:53:14] - i find it strange that approval and disapproval don't total 100 but i guess it's just a weird poll - aaron
[2010-12-07 09:42:56] - Stephen: As bad as this sounds, I think people (not just liberals) like him because he died in office. Makes it easier to gloss over the fact that his presidency was a bunch of fancy speeches and foreign policy stumbles. -Paul
[2010-12-07 09:30:03] - Paul: Agreed re:JFK. Why do so many liberals like him so much? LBJ is the one who actually started all the programs we hold near and dear. JFK screwed up things in Cuba and started the Peace Corps. - Stephen
[2010-12-07 09:13:22] - http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46019.html Bush's approval ratings are higher than Obama's, although he still has a high disapproval rating. Most dismaying to me, though, is that JFK is the most popular "modern" president. -Paul
[2010-12-06 13:29:35] - aaron: yea I agree blowing it up doesnt seem smart... ~gurkie
[2010-12-06 12:46:46] - "we just found a stash of homemade grenades, exposive powder, and a bunch of random weapons-grade chemicals... what should we do?" "OK i know. let's light it all of it on fire at once... and see what happens... and we'll watch it from 600 feet away... it'll be AWESOME" - aaron
[2010-12-06 12:45:20] - daniel: wow! i'm surprised they think the safest option is to burn it down; it seems like... the funnest option - aaron
[2010-12-06 12:21:04] - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101206/ap_on_re_us/us_explosive_house - Crazy house in california. That would be disturbing to find had been near where you live. -Daniel
[2010-12-06 10:28:15] - Vinnie: Thanks. I basically stumbled across it (it was retweeted by somebody I follow), so I have no idea if there are more like it. I enjoyed the host's enthusiasm and the computer graphics (obviously). -Paul
[2010-12-06 10:02:05] - oops that should have been directed at paul - vinnie
[2010-12-06 10:01:53] - a: great video, I love the style. I could watch a bunch of videos like that - vinnie
[2010-12-05 23:43:04] - Call me a spermophage. - title
[2010-12-05 23:41:10] - a: You should try them! They're delicious. - title
[2010-12-05 23:08:32] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HX5-ulcdXc -- Xpovos
[2010-12-05 17:18:57] - title: no. ~a
[2010-12-04 13:53:23] - paul: heh heh! cool - aaron
[2010-12-03 17:36:23] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo Amusing (and fairly short) video that graphs (and animates) 200 years of health and wealth data for 200 countries. -Paul
[2010-12-03 10:51:45] - a: people on slashdot were wondering if the lawyer got paid, like, $0.33
- aaron[2010-12-03 09:48:03] - lol. i wonder if they got paid in check or cash. . . . hopefully it wasn't a structured settlement (stupid J G Wentworth). ~a
[2010-12-03 09:08:45] - http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2010/12/couple-victorious-in-suing-google-awarded-1.ars couple sues google street view for trespassing on their private street... court finds in their favor and awards them $1 - aaron
[2010-12-03 09:03:44] - a: the jerk store called. they're running out of you.
[2010-12-03 08:11:35] - title: funny quote from an ok movie. but . . . three times in the title? overkill? ~a
[2010-12-02 17:35:28] - gurkie: "Although I am not sure how the build machine was configured..." that's the rub. i've had to do continuous integration with microsoft's systems and in that case we had to have the build machine specifically configured with visual studio and whatnot. it was a real pain like aaron says. ~a
[2010-12-02 12:01:47] - I'm not crazy about Visual Studio either. if I'm trying to develop something simple fast that doesn't need to be maintainable, I will use Visual Studio since it comes with so many out-of-the-box features, but for almost everything else, I prefer Java - vinnie
[2010-12-02 11:59:08] - aaron: ah yea, I had some issues with generating stubs for web services before however it was primarily an issue with the third party that was exposing the web services, so while I did have to manually edit them I blamed the web services... ~gurkie
[2010-12-02 11:37:55] - but yeah, neither of those things are inherently problems with C#; maybe it's totally feasible to use C# and things like maven, and eclipse, and maybe there's some portable C# compiler and libraries like spring.net, if that's the case than i'd probably like C# and java equally. but my experience with C# has been with visual studio which i don't like - aaron
[2010-12-02 11:36:42] - So, Daniel, Miguel, Andrew, Stephen and Paul. Looks like we just need two more to get a game started. -Paul
[2010-12-02 11:35:55] - gurkie: but yeah it's like, you have java... and you have eclipse. two pieces. they're different. but with microsoft... you have visual studio, which is both pieces. i think that just bothers me inherently. i want the stuff that compiles/assembles my code to be small and portable. i don't want it tied to my IDE - aaron
[2010-12-02 11:33:54] - gurkie: and the workaround ended up being basically, "generate your stubs; then fix the compile errors manually" which eliminated any hope of some sort of automating their build (or at least automating their stub generation). if it was open source they would have at least had hope of fixing the stub generation code themselves - aaron
[2010-12-02 11:32:26] - gurkie: i can't find the exact e-mail; but there was someone using .NET that was trying to call our web services, and they used Visual Studio to generate their web service stubs, and they were confused because their stubs didn't compile. i thought the stub generation code was just "built into visual studio", and that it was some opaque proprietary thing - aaron
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