newt | 15 years ago | on: Dependency Injection is dangerous for your career
newt's comments
newt | 15 years ago | on: Why is Google so hysterically hypocritical about Bing using its public data?
The point of collecting click data is not to target google engineers, it is to collect data from masses of people doing regular searches and to improve them by seeing which links get clicked on, so obviously Bing is "taking data for non-google engineers". Furthermore, there's no indication that google search results pages are even distinguished from other pages in this.
In fact, the data that it takes from Google engineers for carefully engineered corner-case searches is the exception.
newt | 15 years ago | on: Why is Google so hysterically hypocritical about Bing using its public data?
the effect is the same as intentional scraping and outright stealing
The google engineers intentionally sent this click data to Bing, so is Bing really stealing? It's odd to act surprised when Bing uses the data that was intentionally sent to it. Bing could specifically ignore Google search results pages when it is tracking clicks, but is that legitimate? Google scrapes everything, why shouldn't Bing?
newt | 15 years ago | on: Viral Video: IBM Turns 100
their tanks were made by Opal (a GM subsidiary)
I came here to check that, but you seem to be right - see the wikipedia article on Opel (note correct spelling)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opel The company ... has been a wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors Company since 1929.
Makes one wonder about the ways we are helping our enemies today
You don't have to wonder - google "US arms sales" or "us arms sales to dictators".
newt | 15 years ago | on: Mozilla Blocks Official Skype Toolbar Add-on for Firefox
Are these Microsoft addins causing you crashes or other problems?
newt | 15 years ago | on: 24 Gigabytes of Memory Ought to be Enough for Anybody
"Algorithms are for people who don't know how to buy RAM"... really shows a startling lack of understanding
Are you perhaps missing that it's a deliberate inversion of the more obvious statement "needing more RAM is for people who don't know how to use Algorithms" in order to make the point that RAM is cheaper than an engineer's time?
newt | 15 years ago | on: What are arguments against conspiracies about 5 men that run the US?
To go further, What is and what isn't an "explanation" ?
"Things always fall down" doesn't add much. It says that the observation can be repeated.
Newton's law says more than "There exists gravitational force between bodies" which isn't much of an improvement over "things always fall down".
Newton provided a mathematical formula to measure it, which, as best as could be seen in Newton's time, fit exactly with reality, applying from apples up to planets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_law_of_universal_gra...
This makes testable, measurable predictions about "why things fall down", i.e. "things fall down because all things obey the law of universal gravitation as given in the formula...". But it doesn't even begin to explain why there is gravity all rather than no gravity. Science is largely silent about this category of question of meaning not measurement - it observes reality and predicts based on extrapolating from existing observations. Other explanations of "why" are hardly much better - "gravity exists because God said so" aren't very satisfying since you can't test it or infer anything from it.
newt | 15 years ago | on: What are arguments against conspiracies about 5 men that run the US?
Ok, it generalises the observation to other things as well.
newt | 15 years ago | on: What are arguments against conspiracies about 5 men that run the US?
Whether the president makes the decisions or if it's someone behind him, what I was asking was about the level of the decisions made.
For instance, it's plausible that the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was made well in advance by a small group. Is that what is meant by "run the US"? The outcome and consequences of the Iraq war don't seem to have gone to anyone's plan. What part of the US is being "run" and what part isn't?
newt | 15 years ago | on: What are arguments against conspiracies about 5 men that run the US?
"Simple" is a subjective term.
Which is why it's sometimes stated as "Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily" - i.e pick the explanation with the fewest moving parts. That's less subjective, assuming you can agree on how to count the entities.
1. Things always fall down
This is not actually an explanation at all, it just restates the observation.
2. There exists gravitational force between bodies
Newton's inverse square law of gravitation is simpler than relativity, and it's good enough for a lot of uses. But it is not a viable explanation either, since it does not fit exactly with observed reality - it does not handle the edge cases of very fast or very heavy stuff.
newt | 15 years ago | on: What are arguments against conspiracies about 5 men that run the US?
Define "run" ? They don't decide what you eat for lunch, so what do they decide and what don't they? I ask since you can't argue against a statement that isn't even coherent. All you can do is point out that it makes no sense.
Bear in mind Hanlon's Razor : Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
Also, as others said, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".
If it bothers you and is senseless, choose other people to hang around with.
newt | 15 years ago | on: Android - SMS are intermittently sent to wrong and seemingly random contact
Yep - when a phone causes someone to waste £1500 on a flight they missed, it's tragedy.
When a phone causes someone's spouse to find out they they're cheatin' .. comedy gold.
newt | 15 years ago | on: Android - SMS are intermittently sent to wrong and seemingly random contact
To go even further: if someone got dumped on their wedding day because they texted their other girlfriend and the fiancée found out, the media's story will be that it's their own fault and you can't rage at the phone software.
If you miss a flight due to the phone, you can.
newt | 15 years ago | on: Android - SMS are intermittently sent to wrong and seemingly random contact
I watched a presentation online by a large software company who used to to do this. They deprecated this as "prioritization by whoever shouts the loudest". Once a crash-bug-reporting system was in place it simply went away, as they had accurate enough data on how many people were affected, and could prioritize based on that. This won't help if it's not a crash bug, but the criticism of "prioritization by whoever shouts the loudest" is still valid.
newt | 15 years ago | on: Mass Animal Deaths Are Not in Fact Unusual
Mass Animal Deaths Are Not in Fact Unusual ... especially in the middle of winter, when food is hardest to find.
newt | 15 years ago | on: Sega Brings Awkward Fun to the Restroom
Me and friends used to play that game. When we were 8 years old.
newt | 15 years ago | on: Goldman’s Mutual Friend
Right, it could be either.
newt | 15 years ago | on: Goldman’s Mutual Friend
Buggy software can be better than none.
newt | 15 years ago | on: How To Make Wealth (2004)
I read it not as saying startups were reliable
well, I read it as "your best bet would be to start or join a startup. That's been a reliable way to get rich for hundreds of year"
I read it that way because that's what it says.
Do you know of a reliable way to get rich?
Now you're just changing the subject.
newt | 15 years ago | on: How To Make Wealth (2004)
Contradicting yourself is not the same as addressing a point.
page 1
Non-sequitur. Most .Net DI frameworks (as opposed to DI in Java, or DI without a framework) use configuration in code. This is generally much more readable and flexible than config in XML. Only some of them use functions for some things.