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[2006-02-24 12:10:15] - a: i'm pretty indifferent. it's pretty well designed and usually easy to work with. it's not like i'm very excited about it, though -amy
[2006-02-24 12:09:29] - a: if you look at the list, some of those are impossible. like #13 i remember. or like, are you under 29. -amy
[2006-02-24 12:09:24] - a: I think it actually would only change a couple of my answers if I switched genders. -Paul
[2006-02-24 12:09:03] - -amy
[2006-02-24 12:09:02] - amy: do you like it? ~a
[2006-02-24 12:08:50] - Amy: Yeah, that sounds like what we were using at my previous job. It's probably the same thing. -Paul
[2006-02-24 12:08:04] - "With a lower score, study your incorrect answers for hints for improvement." heh, that's pretty funny. ~a
[2006-02-24 12:07:48] - paul: what was it used for?
[2006-02-24 12:07:41] - a: documentum is like a customizable document management software. you put documents in it, users can pass them around to each other, you can customize it a lot with menus and dir structure, etc. so the user can do neat stuff, like save metadata to folders or pass things around in the system. -amy
[2006-02-24 12:06:24] - a: it's pretty ridiculous. i'm supposed to be talking to my manager right now, i hope he shows up. -amy
[2006-02-24 12:06:21] - paul: then no wonder you got a 7! ~a
[2006-02-24 12:06:14] - what is documentum? ~a
[2006-02-24 12:05:48] - s/;-(/
/[2006-02-24 12:05:13] - ;-( . that really sucks. ~a
[2006-02-24 12:04:19] - amy: Oh, wow, you use Documentum? I think we used that at my previous job and everybody hated it. -Paul
[2006-02-24 12:03:18] - ...does basically what i said before. that point was duly noted, but i had done this ALL OVER the code. like 2 days later he is asking me why he is still seeing it in the code. -amy
[2006-02-24 12:02:34] - ...theoretically create a folder called "team" that wasn't actually a team folder. he said not to worry about that and the user wouldnt' really do that, and they have stuff like that in deployment. 6 months later i get yelled at for doing this and told never ever to search the dir structure to compile such a list because it could blow up if a user... -amy
[2006-02-24 12:01:33] - a: here's another example. we have custom folder types, i'll call them team folders. i have a method that finds team folders by searching in the dir structure for folders with names that start with "team." i wrote this ages ago. at the time, i asked my coworker (my tech lead wasn't around at the time) if that was going to create problems, since a user could... -amy
[2006-02-24 12:00:11] - a: i think it's specific to documentum. i don't know if you're familiar with the link() and unlink() methods. i still haven't been fully explained why using them is a cardinal sin. i asked him and he said he didn't have time to explain. so obv it isn't some straightforward obvious thing i can be expected to just *know* -a,my
[2006-02-24 11:59:45] - a: I answered it literally. -Paul
[2006-02-24 11:58:29] - and i suppose it really doesn't matter. i'm just curious. ~a
[2006-02-24 11:58:04] - i guess i was looking for a specific example. (ignore my questions if you think i'm being too personal) what does "so-and-so" mean? ~a
[2006-02-24 11:54:43] - ...email saying that he found a major problem with my code and why am i using so-and-so method to move files?? rhetorical quesiton, since i explained it to him but he didn't give a shit. -amy
[2006-02-24 11:54:06] - a: here's something that got me a hostile email. i looked at code that has been deployed and in use at our client for months. using this code, i modified it for our new project. this code uses a particular method of moving files, which is unacceptable to our tech lead. i copied this code straight out of the previous project, the one in deployment. he wrote an angry... -amy
[2006-02-24 11:53:27] - vinnie: i can answer about 50% of the questions either way. ~a
[2006-02-24 11:50:40] - a: I switched the genders where appropriate. and still got a 10 - vinnie
[2006-02-24 11:50:24] - what's an example of something they thought you had done "incorrectly"? i tried to look over the message board logs, because i thought you had menitioned it before, but i can't find it. ~a
[2006-02-24 11:46:26] - including your tech lead. try reading over his/her code. heh. ~a
[2006-02-24 11:46:02] - it's not something anyone is capable of doing.
~a[2006-02-24 11:42:33] - a: anyway, thanks for the input. i wasn't sure if other companies work this way... that you really aren't supposed to ever make mistakes or something like that. that's not something i'm capable of doing. -amy
[2006-02-24 11:40:54] - a: i would paste the email if this weren't a public forum. -amy
[2006-02-24 11:39:51] - a: yelled over email? not necessarily in caps, but definite hostile tone. "i don't have time for this." "this does not make me happy" ... -amy
[2006-02-24 11:38:31] - a: "no code is ever flawless" i agree. i have told this to my tech lead. he does not listen to me. at all. i still get yelled at for every little tiny mistake, usually for things i was never told not to do, sometimes for things i was told about ONCE, and never went back through ALL OF THE CODE to fix all instances of it... -amy
[2006-02-24 11:38:31] - plus i hope you don't mean "yelled at". i'd get really pissed if someone yelled at me about code. all code is subject to fixing. ~a
[2006-02-24 11:37:06] - amy: there are very differing views of what constitutes "checkinable" code. some projects only like you to check in code that has been tested. some projects like you to check in code the second it's written. . . . on some projects checked in code doesn't even need to compile. ~a
[2006-02-24 11:34:37] - amy: no code is ever flawless. ~a
[2006-02-24 11:31:56] - Here's a question: when you write code is it expected to be completely flawless? When you check it in do you get yelled at if it has mistakes or isn't functionally correct? Or is there room for errors, and time to fix those errors is accounted for? -amy
[2006-02-24 11:31:22] - "Would you marry a man two years your junior?" did you guys answer the question literally or not? ~a
[2006-02-24 11:27:29] - Vinnie: I got a 7. -Paul
[2006-02-24 10:45:03] - I got a 10 on that quiz, btw - vinnie
[2006-02-24 10:44:34] - http://blogs.salon.com/0002874/2004/01/08.html#a433 are you likely to marry? - vinnie
[2006-02-24 09:34:34] - http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/19421.html fla voter machines once again had problems during '04 election. - mig
[2006-02-24 09:28:54] - title: wow, now that "A" is double-bolded ~a
[2006-02-24 09:21:48] - months of the damn thing. so be careful about crap like that -amy
[2006-02-24 09:21:25] - sam: one problem i had with sprint that i just remembered is that when i got my phone, i was signed up for "two months free" of some stupid service i never wanted or used. i actually got dec 28-31, then jan 1-31 of this service, then since i didn't cancel it before february, i was charged $15 for it, even though i never used it once and it hadn't *actually* been two... -am
[2006-02-24 09:20:20] - ...8-10 (given that no cell phone company is without complicated schemes to get more money from you by confusing you). i've had problems with billing with verizon as well, and cingular's service in several locations where my family lives is not the best. sprint's customer service is good, too. -amy
[2006-02-24 09:19:01] - sam: i have sprint and comparatively speaking, i'd have to rate it 8-10
[2006-02-24 09:12:15] - a: yeah i remember sprint's signal was usually awful in blacksburg. - mig
[2006-02-24 09:08:51] - sam: my sister has verizon too, but my mom pays for it, and she (my mother) has had huge problems with billing. they probably would have dropped verizon, but from what i've heard, verizon is the only carrier that gets a good signal in blacksburg. ~a
[2006-02-24 09:07:24] - sam: verizon, 9. ~a
[2006-02-24 08:32:40] - pierce: They used to be really annoying when I would play DDR on my computer. I would be in the middle of a song and a flickery bubble would appear saying something like "0 network connections available" or "You have new updates" or something I really don't care about when I'm playing DDR - aaron
[2006-02-24 08:31:15] - sam: verizon, I'd give a 7 only because service is so spotty right in my apartment. Sometimes 3 bars, sometimes 0. But everywhere else they're great. - aaron
[2006-02-24 07:59:37] - sam: verizon, and I'd rate it a 7 -dave
[2006-02-24 07:57:54] - http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060223-6249.html search engines offering prizes to use their sites -dave
[2006-02-24 02:36:14] - sam: i use tmobile, and id probably give them an 8. the only problems ive had with reception are when im inside certain buildings (which i feel has more to do with my phone than tmobile). ive also used my phone across the US and internationally without problems. im not sure how their prices compare to other carriers because ive never felt the need to switch. - aba
[2006-02-24 00:04:46] - sam: cingular, which I'd rate a 6. But I had verizon for a while, and I would have rated that a 4. - pierce
[2006-02-23 20:07:02] - a: it's actually y'all -sam
[2006-02-23 18:02:49] - Sam: Verizon. I rate it about an 8. -Paul
[2006-02-23 18:01:34] - a: yall = you all -sam
[2006-02-23 18:00:21] - right now i'm using motorola i530 from Nextel (my company phone) and the service is pretty bad. doesn't nextel and sprint use the same network? i have to return in at the end of feb, so i'm looking for a new phone. -sam
[2006-02-23 17:57:23] - to_all: who is your cell phone service provider? and rate them from 1-10, 10 being great -sam
[2006-02-23 17:00:58] - varonie: nvcc o sfm? ~a
[2006-02-23 16:54:40] - sam: i used to have a boyfriend who i couldn't call at a certain time regularly every week because if i did i'd get some creepy automated message that sounded like a disembodied robot-human hybrid spouting out numbers. (when in fact, his phone was on and he was available, so he told me.) -amy
[2006-02-23 16:54:16] - pierce: i turned them off. ~a
[2006-02-23 16:53:49] - sam: i prefer sprint to cingular and the prices are about the same, last i checked, only thing is that sprint doesn't give you free unlimited in-network. but my family members and i and some other friends have complained about cingular's service. -amy
[2006-02-23 16:51:01] - does anyone else think that MS has gone overboard with the "speechbubble" notifications from the windows system tray? it's annoying because it's usually a trivial message that I could read or skip and be perfectly happy, but it obtrusively sits there until I actually move the mouse to close it. and if I miss the "x" button, then it usually brings up a dialog. - pierce
[2006-02-23 16:48:06] - sam: cingular has pretty decent service in my experience. however, when you're in a bad area, you're in a REALLY bad area. In other words, you have good-great reception, or you have none at all. - pierce
[2006-02-23 16:46:02] - yall? ~a
[2006-02-23 16:31:49] - do yall know if cingular's service is good? -sam
[2006-02-23 15:12:37] - a: Yeah, I actually did find out how many shares I have. Yahoo financial looks decent for keeping track of my stocks but I still think I might just use Scottrade. -Paul
[2006-02-23 14:54:20] - Mmmm... I love these "I've made fire!" moments. -- Xpovos
[2006-02-23 14:38:54] - paul: unless boa is anything like my 401k (where the share price and number of shares are relative to their own private-version of the public fund) ~a
[2006-02-23 14:38:25] - paul: well you should be able to find out how many shares you have from boa. ~a
[2006-02-23 13:07:23] - windows + pause - aaron
[2006-02-23 12:55:42] - a: Even though my IRA is through Banc of America Investment Services, I still have all of the money in mutual funds which I can look up in yahoo finance. I just don't know what information to put down for how many shares I have and how much each share cost. -Paul
[2006-02-23 12:54:39] - a: I have yahoo set to remember me, yet I still have to login at least once a day when my login expires. -Paul
[2006-02-23 12:51:18] - paul: remember, i use scottrade for my ira, so all of my ira parts are just normal stocks/mutual funds (though right now i haven't yet bought any mutual funds through scottrade). ~a
[2006-02-23 12:50:30] - paul: umm you can have it remember you. so aren't forced to type in a password or even click on a login button. ~a
[2006-02-23 12:49:40] - a: How exactly do you handle your IRA in yahoo finance? I don't know how many shares and at what cost I have for my IRA. -Paul
[2006-02-23 12:47:39] - a: I don't know, I haven't used it either. Don't you have to login for yahoo finance also? -paul
[2006-02-23 12:15:13] - paul: nope. is it useful? again, you have to login though which must be annoying. ~a
[2006-02-23 11:56:55] - Dave: Yeah, I think it's a good thing since I want to know how much money I'm up even after factoring in the trade fee. -paul
[2006-02-23 11:56:19] - Dave: I'm pretty sure I'm not paying the absolute minimum right now, though, because I think I'm paying more per year than the average person (according to some stats that I found). -Paul
[2006-02-23 11:56:17] - paul: one word of caution about the gainskeeper is that I think it factors in the $7 fees you pay. may be good or bad, depending on what you're looking for -dave
[2006-02-23 11:52:57] - paul: i asked mine when i got mine if it would go down much when i hit 25, and he said no, but it did -dave
[2006-02-23 11:52:28] - Paul: it probably has a lot to do with what specifically you're paying already though. like if you're paying the absolute min already, there wouldnt' be any more discount for them to give you -dave
[2006-02-23 11:52:26] - Dave: The reason I asked is because I tried calling Geico this morning to get them to recheck my rates to see if they took into account the fact that I was now 25 years old (which is supposed to reduce the rates) but I don't think they understood what I was saying. -Paul
[2006-02-23 11:49:19] - paul: my insurance went down like $120 per 6 months I believe. no idea if it was because i turned 25, but I did -dave
[2006-02-23 11:44:00] - a: Do you use the "My Portfolio" section of Bank of America online banking? -Paul
[2006-02-23 11:39:51] - a: Interesting, I'll have to take a look at that sometime. -Paul
[2006-02-23 11:39:36] - since my ira is through scottrade, i can look at my ira, mutual funds, and stocks all on one page. my 401k is the only exception. ~a
[2006-02-23 11:38:39] - paul: it lets you add stocks and public mutual funds. i'm guessing it'll let you add anything that you can buy through scottrade and some. however, it seems like my 401k is made up of non-public-versions of public mutual funds, so i can't get an accurate status of my 401k. ~a
[2006-02-23 11:34:06] - paul: to get %/yr, i had to boil down everything into gains for every day for every stock (using summation of a geometric series, it's possible to do without iterating every day). then after getting the %/day, going to %/yr is trivial (raise to a power of 365.25 or 52*7 or whatever weekday/weekend calculations you want) ~a
[2006-02-23 11:33:37] - a: How does Yahoo finance work? What I want to do eventually is get some way to track how my 401(k) and IRAs are doing by looking at the mutual funds they are invested in. -Paul
[2006-02-23 11:30:22] - paul: i use yahoo finance for that (so i don't have to login to scottrade) ~a
[2006-02-23 11:29:41] - a: Yeah, it doesn't really help for this conversation, but it's something that I always wanted to know and had to do manually until I found that page. -paul
[2006-02-23 11:28:51] - paul: right "current" is the key word here.
~a[2006-02-23 11:26:36] - a: And it will also tell you the same for your whole (current) portfolio. -Paul
[2006-02-23 11:26:00] - a: Scottrade has a nifty page that I just recently found which tells you how much (in terms of %) each of your currently held stocks is up or down. -paul
[2006-02-23 11:25:57] - oh wow. ~a
[2006-02-23 11:25:17] - a: Well, I've only put in $8k total (excluding the $10k I just put in this past week) but it was not all at once. I have about $25k worth of stocks right now (again, excluding the $10k which I haven't used to buy stocks with yet). -paul
[2006-02-23 11:25:06] - which gets very math intensive. ~a
[2006-02-23 11:24:42] - and since you added it in the middle, it's really hard to seperate the money added out of the equation. the only way to get an accurate value (or even an accurate approximation) is the account for every buy and every sell. ~a
[2006-02-23 11:23:30] - like you started at 8k in 04 and went to 25k in 06, but you probably added a bunch, right? ~a
[2006-02-23 11:22:43] - paul: yeah, i agree it's very hard to calculate % (or %/yr) gain because usually people add money as they go. i actually wrote a very complicated program to calculate that number and it was full of complicated summation formulas. ~a
[2006-02-23 11:22:34] - a: The most recent bill I got was a little over $500 for six months of coverage. It's down about $30 from last time but I was expecting a much bigger drop from me turning 25 and also sending in a form to get a discount for having a good credit rating. -paul
[2006-02-23 11:21:44] - a: I know most people aren't 25 yet, but I was hoping some of you were.
-Paul[2006-02-23 11:21:25] - i'm full of personal questions today. ~a
[2006-02-23 11:21:18] - a: It's hard to calculate exactly what my % gain is because of various factors, but I started off with ~$8k in early 2004 and it's been two years and I have ~$25k now so I guess it's been around 60-70% a year? -Paul
[2006-02-23 11:21:11] - paul: what's your insurance cost? ~a
[2006-02-23 11:19:43] - -- Xpovos
[2006-02-23 11:19:41] - Paul: I think I'm also getting some additional penalties coming off or bonuses going on. E.g. when I switched insurance last (from GEICO to GEICO) I think they treated it as a new policy, which means I get to start claiming long-term client status now. It'll keep going down every year for about five years, and I have two tickets coming off in the next year and a half.
[2006-02-23 11:19:00] - a: I don't mind taking a minor loss if I think the stock will eventually rebound for a gain. -Paul
[2006-02-23 11:16:16] - Xpovos: That's interesting because my Geico rates haven't dropped much at all lately and my new bill (which is for coverage entirely after I am 25) isn't much lower either. -paul
[2006-02-23 11:09:11] - paul: many of us are not 25 yet. ~a
[2006-02-23 11:07:24] - paul: about what % do you make in the market per year? (if you don't mind me asking) ~a
[2006-02-23 11:06:51] - on the other hand, i know both google and intel will rebound eventually. ~a
[2006-02-23 11:06:04] - paul: that's hard to predict. intel went down 10%, and i figured they would rebound so i bought (then they went down another 10%). google went down 20% and i figured they would rebound so i bought (then they went down another 20%). ~a
[2006-02-23 11:03:00] - Paul: Not exactly, but my payments with GEICO are dropping rapidly this semester, which I think takes my birthday into consideration and prorates it some. So my next semester will be much much lower. -- Xpovos
[2006-02-23 11:01:23] - Also, has anybody here experienced their post-25-years-old car insurance cost droppage? -Paul
[2006-02-23 10:59:53] - a: Mostly, I guess. It's probably easy to find companies whose stocks are going down because the company is on the verge of collapse. I want stocks in companies that are going to rebound. -Paul
[2006-02-23 10:57:09] - paul: ah. so just: won't go bankrupt. ~a
[2006-02-23 10:55:07] - a: Oh, I guess stable was the wrong word. I didn't mean stable stock prices, I meant more like the company isn't going to fold up overnight. -Paul
[2006-02-23 10:55:07] - yet another amd analysis: amd has returned only 3% (per year) from 1984 to 2006. ~a
[2006-02-23 10:52:42] - heh amd is very unstable. you're just looking at their current uphill scramble. look at amd BEFORE 2003. i.e. amd has gone up about 1000% in the past 3.5 years, but they're still barely above their high in 2001. ~a
[2006-02-23 10:47:43] - a: Something that isn't like Xybernaut (which went bankrupt after I bought their stock) and more like AMD. Companies like Netflix and Sirius are about as unstable as I would like to go. -Paul
[2006-02-23 10:43:35] - define staying power
~a[2006-02-23 10:41:03] - a: Normally I look for a solid stock with staying power which has recently gone down a bit. -Paul
[2006-02-23 10:40:59] - intel has gone down 12% since i bought it a few months ago, redhat has gone down 11% since i bought it a few months ago, and sandisk has gone down 10% since i bought it a few months ago. blockbuster is also WAY down from their high. ~a
[2006-02-23 10:40:45] - Paul: I'm still on the Creative (CREAF) bandwagon. It hasn't jumped yet, but I still suspect it will. -- Xpovos
[2006-02-23 10:39:25] - a: Nifty. Thanks! -- Xpovos
[2006-02-23 10:39:13] - paul: are you looking for stock that's just gone down a bunch or stock that's just gone up a bunch? ~a
[2006-02-23 10:38:28] - xpovos: if you have ssh access and the remote machine is unix or linux: then you can run "ps ax |grep cron" (or "ps -e |grep cron" if it's an old unix machine) to see if they're running a cron daemon. if they are, you can just run "crontab -e" as any user (you don't have to be an administrator) ~a
[2006-02-23 10:37:15] - Ok, I've just got some spending money in my scottrade account. Anybody have any stock suggestions? -Paul
[2006-02-23 10:35:11] - xpovos: what kind of access do you have on this remote machine? what operating system is the remote machine? ~a
[2006-02-23 10:28:34] - right. i guess none of us are disagreeing with the facts (revanue etc etc), we're just disagreeing with the conclusions (revanue == usage) ~a
[2006-02-23 10:25:51] - dave: though i agree it is interesting to see sales of windows and linux increase, i just found it odd the article seemed to just look at one figure (raw $ values) and conclude that unix is "getting hammered". - mig
[2006-02-23 10:22:11] - well sales in terms of raw $. - mig
[2006-02-23 10:22:00] - dave: i was just using apache as an example as sales does not necessarily indicate what the most widely adopted product is. - mig
[2006-02-23 10:19:10] - Sam: Likewise, though it's not my job function I take a lot of tech support calls from the little old ladies in the office, and though they're generally sweet, they're totally incompetent with computers which takes all the joy out of fixing for them, because it'll just happen again in twenty minutes, they never learn. -- Xpovos
[2006-02-23 10:14:49] - for example, the statistics page (the "stats" link above) is generated every night with crond. in "crontab -e" i have "@daily $HOME/web/htdocs/msg/stats.sh >$HOME/web/htdocs/msg/stats.txt" ~a
[2006-02-23 10:14:20] - a: This is on a remote machine. Will I have to get the remote administrator to set that up, then? It's do-able, but not precisely the answer I was looking for. -- Xpovos
[2006-02-23 10:13:45] - sam: I agree with paul, I don't think tech and/or desktop support would be that fun. I think generally the role is putting out fires that other people start, so you're always getting pressed to fix problems by impatient people -dave
[2006-02-23 10:13:33] - xpovos: in unix & linux you can use crond (crontab -e) or atd (at). in windows you can use start->settings->control pannel->scheduled tasks->add scheduled task. ~a
[2006-02-23 10:10:16] - Sam: I don't know the answer to your first question and I am not doing tech or desktop support now, but I somewhat did at a previous job. It was not fun. -Paul
[2006-02-23 10:08:47] - so to summarize, I thought it was interesting because it says windows and linux has been gaining (something I wouldn't really have guessed before) and that for the first time windows has passed unix -dave
[2006-02-23 10:07:58] - mig: my guess is they're talking mostly about corporate / business servers, not personal ones. and also, it doesn't matter if apache costs $0, it's the entire server sale numbers, not just the software cost -dave
[2006-02-23 10:06:56] - a: furthermore, it's saying that windows (and linux) has been gaining, not just saying that windows has larger sales. -dave
[2006-02-23 10:05:54] - a: like xpovos said, it's server sales, of which the software is not at all the largest cost I would imagine. -dave
[2006-02-23 09:27:33] - PHP query: I would like to run a script automatically once per given interval, without chewing up lots of resources, is there any way any of you know to do this? -- Xpovos
[2006-02-23 08:58:44] - and by servers i'm talking about strictly web server software in this case. - mig
[2006-02-23 08:58:09] - since it costs $0. - mig
[2006-02-23 08:57:57] - i mean apache servers essentially own most of the internet, but you probably wouldn't know that if you just looked at sales. - mig
[2006-02-23 08:56:51] - a: yeah i was about to say that comparing sales may have some utility, it would be a bit more useful to actually have server #s. - mig
[2006-02-23 08:56:43] - Even if all the software is free, server hardware is still a good chunk of change. -- Xpovos
[2006-02-23 08:55:19] - like i'm totally surprised that the increase in revanue (2004 to 2005) is 21% becuause most of the operating system is free, which means the 21% growth is accounted for by a very small amount of software. ~a
[2006-02-23 08:52:51] - dave: haha. that's windows passes unix in server sales in revanue. not in servers. maybe they're just saying unix servers cost less. and of course linux servers cost less (though most redhat enterprise servers aren't totally free) ~a
[2006-02-23 08:49:28] - Really, anyone who calls Steve Francis "Franchise" after yet another trade needs to be shot. This includes Steve. -- Xpovos
[2006-02-23 08:41:52] - is anyone doing tech support or desktop support? if so, do you like doing it? -sam
[2006-02-23 07:52:13] - http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060222-6236.html Windows passes Unix in server sales (Linux growing robustly) -dave
[2006-02-23 07:09:59] - sprint offers free incoming calls, but is sprint the only one? -sam
[2006-02-23 06:59:57] - does anyone know which cell phone service providers offer free incoming calls? -sam
[2006-02-22 21:15:30] - mel: "with a total enrollment of 25,741, iowa state logs 20,247 registered users on facebook" heh, how many of the registered users are enrolled? (i.e. to be on facebook, you can be an alumni) ~a
[2006-02-22 19:49:51] - why facebook isn't good for us? http://chronicle.com/jobs/2006/01/2006012301c.htm -mel
[2006-02-22 17:47:39] - a: I wish I got "tons" of spam on the same level that I get "tons" of junk mail. I think I could deal with like 3 junk e-mails a day - aaron
[2006-02-22 17:04:21] - amy: the current cost of sending a spam is approximately $0.00. if that figure is upped by a couple hundredths of a cent, then spam stops being cost effective. (of course that argument could have been used to curb junkmail, but i still get tons of junkmail) ~a
[2006-02-22 17:00:38] - a: as i understand it (without reading the entire article) it just promotes spam from companies large enough to pay AOL to put those e-mails straight into peoples' inboxes. how could it be implemented to curb spam? (literal, not rhetorical question) -amy
[2006-02-22 16:58:48] - a: From Cryptic down excluding Devin? -Paul
[2006-02-22 16:52:30] - which half? ~a
[2006-02-22 16:51:46] - a: I would say half of those are oddly appropriate. -Paul
[2006-02-22 16:49:04] - i never posted this, did i? last impressions (the last we had heard from people on the message board; make sure the last thing you say is profound
) ~a[2006-02-22 16:43:19] - amy: i've heard it suggested in the past (although it had nothing to do with aol; it was just suggested as an idea to curb spam). sounds interesting. ~a
[2006-02-22 16:34:49] - http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/columnists/sfl-phoward19feb19,0,5447835.column you'll use medicare funded prescription drugs whether you need to or not. - mig
[2006-02-22 16:25:19] - a: It wasn't intended, but I see the issue. I was merely trying to reference popular movie culture. -- Xpovos
[2006-02-22 15:59:30] - where "people" ends up being companies, because that's who will want to pay the tax. -amy
[2006-02-22 15:58:57] - has anyone head of this? AOL is going to charge an e-mail "tax" to people for their email to end up in AOL users' inboxes (rather than spam): http://www.lsoft.com/news/aol-goodmail.asp -amy
[2006-02-22 15:54:53] - xpovos: that sounds like an argument that pokes fun at agnostics. ~a
[2006-02-22 15:25:58] - *** somebody needs to teach paul how to read punctuation.
[2006-02-22 15:25:16] - Xpovos: I don't know where dinosaurs entered the conversation, but sure...
-Paul[2006-02-22 15:21:56] - Paul: I'd settle for just seeing the remains. You don't have to see the action to know that the big pile o' shit came from a Triceratops. -- Xpovos
[2006-02-22 14:55:52] - amy: Wow, that's gotta be a sight to behold. I wish I could see a building poo. -Paul
[2006-02-22 14:37:26] - "The 5 Virtues of Successful Graduate Students." written by a social science PhD but still relevant to science and engineering PhDs, I think. claims to be brutally honest. http://chronicle.com/jobs/2003/09/2003090201c.htm -mel
[2006-02-22 14:32:47] - Paul: yeah it has died down now. i can actually see a building. poo. -amy
[2006-02-22 14:23:19] - I still have no window
- vinnie[2006-02-22 14:00:58] - amy: It's pretty foggy up here too, but it doesn't sound quite as foggy as where you are at. -Paul
[2006-02-22 13:48:41] - Paul: It's no cause for going home but it's sort of cool to look at. Through 2 windows, it looks extra foggy! -amy
[2006-02-22 13:39:44] - amy: Unfortunately, I think it's just foggy. -Paul
[2006-02-22 13:34:19] - what the hell is going on outside. it's either really foggy or like there's infinite snow. -amy
[2006-02-22 13:06:27] - Our local wiki gnome was talking about moving them to Wikipedia, surprisingly one of the main benefits he listed was the talk pages - often there's complicated reasons why a term is defined a certain way, and he wants those discussions captured somewhere - aaron
[2006-02-22 13:05:39] - a: We have a lot of project-specific and domain-specific information... acronym definitions and term definitions, which are right now all indexed in a wiki - aaron
[2006-02-22 12:32:15] - heh. i guess static functions don't even make sense for anonymous classes, do they. oh well, you knew what i meant. ~a
[2006-02-22 12:31:06] - aaron: what kind of encyclopediac stuff are you moving? ~a
[2006-02-22 12:29:31] - . . . i've only ever used static initializers. blah = new FooInterface() { static {...} ...} ~a
[2006-02-22 12:28:51] - aaron: i didn't know about instance initializers, thanks. ~a
[2006-02-22 12:23:52] - aaron: nope not really. wikipedia is pretty easy to use. only suggestion: ALWAYS use the preview button to keep from polluting the history pages. ~a
[2006-02-22 12:10:31] - amy: yeah, why good managers are worth their weight in gold -dave
[2006-02-22 11:48:45] - If it were me I'd just create a narrowly-scoped (method scoped, or privately scoped) class, I'm not a fan of instance initializers or anonymous classes - aaron
[2006-02-22 11:47:47] - a: anonymous classes don't use constructors... but you can accomplish the same effect with instance initializers blah = new FooInterface() { {...} ...} - aaron
[2006-02-22 11:40:32] - a: At work, we're considering moving some of our more encyclopediaic stuff out of our wiki, into Wikipedia... Are there any "lessons learned" or anything you think would be useful to know in advance? - aaron
[2006-02-22 11:39:09] - well i can see why the compiler would get confused, because it's sort of a chicken or the egg problem. what you're doing is simultanously defining a constructor and invoking it, and i could see why the compiler would get confused. - mig
[2006-02-22 11:36:19] - dave: i know this sort of thing happens all the time in software. i just wish that people would understand that it took me a lot of work to write all the code that we currently have, and that to change to the new standard is a process that takes time, and that the code that i wrote is not all useless and bad and wrong, it just needs to be modified. -amy
[2006-02-22 11:28:26] - amy: that sucks. unfortunately I think it happens a decent bit - no one cares about stuff until something lights a fire under someone. then it snowballs and you get what you have at present, hehe -dave
[2006-02-22 11:23:52] - off topic question for java people: can i give an anonymous class a constructor? if not, then why the hell not? i have blah = new FooInterface(){ public FooInterface(){...} ... } and i can't get it to compile (FooInterface: invalid method declaration; return type required). ~a
[2006-02-22 11:17:08] - which is why i'm explaining it on mboard rather than working on it... which i'm about to go do now. sigh. -amy
[2006-02-22 11:16:55] - of it, he's pointing it out to me, telling me it's wrong, and that we need to get rid of it. on top of cleaning up the rest of the code, also the bug fixes i have due on friday, and it seems like every few hours i get a new email telling me to fix something that went wrong. so yeah, i don't have any belief that this deadline is possible so i dont' even care anymore -amy
[2006-02-22 11:15:51] - but when i asked my coworker about it, he said that i shouldn't worry about it, since that's the method that has already been deployed for our client in a previous project of ours. also, my code was reviewed by our tech lead a while ago, probably a few months, and he never told me to fix it until yes, less than a week ago. now every instance he sees... -am
[2006-02-22 11:14:37] - Xpovos: it's okay, i'm having enough trouble concentrating anyway, as i've spent most of this morning fuming. Functionally, it's correct, though admittedly it's not the optimal solution, but i received no training and have written my code by copying code that was written by other team members. in fact, i even forsaw some of the potential problems of the code i was... -amy
[2006-02-22 11:10:46] - Wow, sucky. How 'incorrectly', though it seems like I should probably not ask and just let you work. -- Xpovos
[2006-02-22 11:06:11] - Xpovos: Scramble to clean up all the code that I wrote "incorrectly" (though nobody told me this until after 5 on Friday, and I'd written and been building upon this code since SIX MONTHS ago) within the next 12 work hours! -amy
[2006-02-22 10:59:13] - amy: what's your project? -- Xpovos
[2006-02-22 10:34:31] - http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/02/22/diana.france.ap/index.html paparazzi connected to Diana crash fined 1 euro -dave
[2006-02-22 10:25:37] - mig: help me meet my deadline ;_; -amy
[2006-02-22 10:25:15] - mig: I know the feeling. Except, frustratingly, my code is all on a remote server which appears to be suffering from internet lapse at the moment. Whee! -- Xpovos
[2006-02-22 10:23:02] - mig: go play in the snow! - vinnie
[2006-02-22 10:13:08] - hmmm.... i don't think the team lead i was supposed to meet with today is coming in ..... so i have nothing to do for the rest of the day methinks...- mig
[2006-02-22 10:08:10] - Ok, seeing as I'm now officially out of work, and my boss is not in the office, I will now begin coding. -- Xpovos
[2006-02-22 10:04:42] - Dave: Why did he tell you all to do this?
-Paul[2006-02-22 10:03:34] - xpovos: aww. i wish i were them. i want to go home and play in the snow! -amy
[2006-02-22 10:03:01] - a: yeah there is a window out of my cube, a window into the conference room across the hall, and a window out of the conference room to the outside... though technically my cube window and the conference room window are not always overlapping. -amy
[2006-02-22 10:02:21] - I have no office, but my work area is full of windows, and there's a school 9 floors beneath and across the parking lot, so there's lots of excited children to watch.
-- Xpovos[2006-02-22 09:51:40] - amy: 3 windows in series (instead of parallel)? ~a
[2006-02-22 09:43:58] - vinnie: i can see the snow through about three windows, the last one to the outside. -amy
[2006-02-22 09:42:06] - Paul: hehe, buncha people in my group were all staring out the windows along the wall, and our functional manager joined us. Another guy in our group and asked why we were all there, and our functional manager was like "Bill (our program manager) told us to do this" -dave
[2006-02-22 09:40:10] - pierce: actually, in that vein, my sister (who is a medical resident) talks about this all the time - how they are constantly treating patients (and spending tons of money doing so) on these people who they know will just be back there again for the same thing in a week or two because they won't do anything to change the cause of whatever it is -dave
[2006-02-22 09:38:32] - Vinnie: I have a window so I get to watch the snow.
-Paul[2006-02-22 09:38:06] - pierce: good point. It still disgusts me though. -dave
[2006-02-22 09:37:54] - pierce: possibly true. but solving obesity with surgery tends to lead to a relapse of obesity in a few years, if no lifestyle changes are made. so lots of money spent ont he surgery, and then back to square 1. -amy
[2006-02-22 09:37:12] - wolves are expensive. ~a
[2006-02-22 09:36:34] - Pierce: Or we could throw all old fat people to the wolves. -- Xpovos
[2006-02-22 09:35:28] - apparently vinnie don't like snow. ~a
[2006-02-22 09:20:09] - sam: I certainly wish I had a window office today. yay snow - vinnie
[2006-02-22 09:18:05] - dave: presumably part of the logic is that reducing obesity, even with expensive surgery, will save us money in treatments of obesity-related health issues down the line. Just for the sake of argument. - pierce
[2006-02-22 08:56:50] - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/21/AR2006022101664.html medicare to pay for obesity surgery. Ok, I'm entirely disgusted now. Aren't we trying to shrink medical costs? -dave
[2006-02-22 08:15:28] - anyone here don't like snow? -sam
[2006-02-21 18:14:25] - Or just scream something really obscene into a mic - the point is they will have the most popular Neopets site ever for like, 6 minutes - aaron
[2006-02-21 18:10:37] - vinnie: What you do, is move the file to a new location, and in the place of the old MP3 file, record a 10 second song about how much you like titties - aaron
[2006-02-21 16:44:36] - there are more complicated ways, but they usually just piss off legitamate users of the content. ~a
[2006-02-21 16:43:51] - vinnie: correction: it seems like it's just the one site. the easy way is to just rename the file. ~a
[2006-02-21 16:40:56] - a: hmm, is there a way to stop linking of those files from other sites? - vinnie
[2006-02-21 16:34:25] - vinnie: i found out why your bandwidth is so high (up to 5 gb in february). you have a few sites stealing your bandwidth: this is one of them (caution, may play sound on some browsers). if you view-source, and search for palpable.org, then you can see what i'm talking about. ~a
[2006-02-21 15:56:49] - so you're not as bad as gurkie. but just barely. ~a
[2006-02-21 15:31:51] - a: I seem to remember also sharing phil's wedding photos, so in summary: tit for tit. - pierce
[2006-02-21 15:28:46] - paul: yes, but you have to login to see most of the: http://aporter.org/pics/paul.html ~a
[2006-02-21 15:28:30] - paul
[2006-02-21 15:13:44] - a: Do you have any good pictures of me? -Paul
[2006-02-21 14:53:46] - pierce: in summary: tit for tat. ~a
[2006-02-21 14:53:36] - pierce: granted, you did share the trip to amsterdam, but for you that was the exception, not the rule. ~a
[2006-02-21 14:53:21] - dumn = dumb ~a
[2006-02-21 14:53:15] - pierce: you suck because you hoard photos. so does gurkie. there are like 10,000 pictures of you in the "pics" link, so for you to say that you're not a huge fan of any of those 10,000 pictures of you in the "pics" link is pretty dumn because of the fact you hoard all the photos you take. ~a
[2006-02-21 14:45:57] - do any of you have any good digital pictures of me? I'm not a huge fan of any of the ones from the "pics" link and all the photos on my hard drive are me taking pictures of others. - pierce
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