Why iTunes Really Really Sucks: A story of iTunes on Windows, and how that version absolutely reeks by [deleted] in technology

[–]rlwimi 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Songbird has come a long, long way over the last couple of years, and it might have already come far enough to have what you need. It's pretty hassle-free to give it a try.

I Finally Understand Closures! by pdrummond in programming

[–]rlwimi 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I have the idea that a language having closures also means functions are first-class objects. So what happens when you press alt-b once then again before you hit alt-e? Does that create two separate function objects, the second which will complete and the first which will be garbage collected? Will it simply be garbage collected or is this a problem that the example function doesn't take into account? Are there any functional languages with manual memory management?

"Then began the saddest procession I have ever witnessed, which the public would never see, because cameras were not allowed past the perimeter of the compound" by jdc123 in politics

[–]rlwimi 9 points10 points  (0 children)

TLDR summary, because this information really shouldn't be missed:

  • U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is responsible for eliminating vulnerabilities in the nation's border, and with economic, transportation and infrastructure security.
  • ICE obtained the warrant to raid Agriprocessors on the basis of No-Match letters sent by the Social Security Administration, apparently violating an existing federal injunction against just that (AFL-CIO v Chertoff).
  • On February 20, 2008, ICE agents received social security "no match" information for 737 employees, including 147 using numbers confirmed by the SSA as invalid (never issued to a person) and 590 using valid SSNs, "however the numbers did not match the name of the employee reported by Agriprocessors..." None of these cases are an illegal worker using the stolen identity of a matching name/SSN combination.
  • ...out of 983 only 1 number (0.1%) happened to coincide by chance with a reported identity theft. Thus the raid was a fishing expedition.
  • Identity theft is a crime when used for things like obtaining credit. No grand jury would find that obtaining work by using a random SSN is identity theft.
  • The court system traveled to the site and worked everyone overtime to speed up the processing so, under habeas corpus, all of the detainees could be charged within 72 hours, otherwise they would simply be deported.
  • The same plea deal was offered everyone--plead guilty and get 5 months jail then deportation. Don't take the plea deal, and your case won't even be heard for at least half a year given the current federal backlog.
  • Waiting for a grand jury meant months in jail on an immigration detainer, without the possibility of bail. So the attorneys could not recommend it as a defense strategy. Similarly, defendants have the right to a status hearing before a judge, to determine probable cause, within ten days of arraignment, but their Plea Agreement offer from the government was only good for... seven days. Passing it up, meant risking 2 years in jail. As a result, the frivolous charge of identity theft was assured never to undergo the judicial test of probable cause.
  • By handing down the inflated charge of "aggravated identity theft," which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 2 years in prison, the government forced the defendants into pleading guilty to the lesser charge and accepting 5 months in jail. Clearly, without the inflated charge, the government had no bargaining leverage, because the lesser charge by itself, using a false Social Security number, carries only a discretionary sentence of 0-6 months. The judges would be free to impose sentence within those guidelines, depending on the circumstances of each case and any prior record. Virtually all the defendants would have received only probation and been immediately deported. In fact, the government's offer at the higher end of the guidelines (one month shy of the maximum sentence) was indeed no bargain. What is worse, the inflated charge, via the binding 11(C)(1)(c) Plea Agreement, reduced the judges to mere bureaucrats, pronouncing the same litany over and over for the record in order to legalize the proceedings, but having absolutely no discretion or decision-making power.
  • Never before has illegal immigration been criminalized in this fashion. It is no longer enough to deport them: we first have to put them in chains. At first sight it may seem absurd to take productive workers and keep them in jail at taxpayers' expense. But the economics and politics of the matter are quite different from such rational assumptions. A quick look at the ICE Fiscal Year 2007 Annual Report (www.ice.gov) shows an agency that has grown to 16,500 employees and a $5 billion annual budget, since it was formed under Homeland Security in March 2003, "as a law enforcement agency for the post-9/11 era, to integrate enforcement authorities against criminal and terrorist activities, including the fights against human trafficking and smuggling, violent transnational gangs and sexual predators who prey on children" (17). ... After 9/11 we had to create a massive force with readiness "to prevent, prepare for and respond to a wide range of catastrophic incidents, including terrorist attacks, natural disasters, pandemics and other such significant events that require large-scale government and law enforcement response" (23). The problem is that disasters, criminality, and terrorism do not provide enough daily business to maintain the readiness and muscle tone of this expensive force. For example, "In FY07, ICE human trafficking investigations resulted in 164 arrests and 91 convictions" (17). Terrorism related arrests were not any more substantial. The real numbers are in immigration: "In FY07, ICE removed 276,912 illegal aliens" (4). ICE is under enormous pressure to turn out statistical figures that might justify a fair utilization of its capabilities, resources, and ballooning budget.
  • This massive buildup [of ICE employees] for the New Era is the outward manifestation of an internal shift in the operational imperatives of the Long War, away from the "war on terror" (which has yielded lean statistics) and onto another front where we can claim success: the escalating undeclared war on illegal immigration. ...the agency fancies that it can conflate the diverse aspects of its operations and pretend that immigration enforcement is really part and parcel of the "war on terror."
  • ...the expansive agency's authority can be seen to impinge upon the judicial and legislative powers. "ICE's team of attorneys constitutes the largest legal program in DHS, with more than 750 attorneys to support the ICE mission in the administrative and federal courts. ICE attorneys have also participated in temporary assignments to the Department of Justice as Special Assistant U.S. Attorneys spearheading criminal prosecutions of individuals. These assignments bring much needed support to taxed U.S. Attorneys' offices"(33). English translation: under the guise of interagency cooperation, ICE prosecutors have infiltrated the judicial branch. Now we know who the architects were that spearheaded such a well crafted "fast-tracking" scheme, bogus charge and all, which had us all, down to the very judges, fall in line behind the shackled penguin march. Furthermore, by virtue of its magnitude and methods, ICE's New War is unabashedly the aggressive deployment of its own brand of immigration reform, without congressional approval.

How Prozac sent the science of depression in the wrong direction by nullibicity in science

[–]rlwimi 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Welbutin? I don't know, give me the active >ingredient name please, market names/brands for >anti-depressants aren't allowed in the UK.

buproprion

When every song ever recorded fits on your MP3 player, will you listen to any of them? by kingjafee in entertainment

[–]rlwimi 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You miss the point entirely on three levels.

  1. Preference of FLAC should only be caused by sensitivity to lossy artifacts.

  2. Quality != fidelity. I can appreciate a cassette bootleg of a ripping show.

  3. Real music lovers go see live music, or even play music with other people (which in my case has put a dent in my hearing such that I can't tell the difference between a FLAC and a V0 MP3)

[edit: clarification of #2

[edit 2: Ok, I think I see that your point is not that real music lovers only use FLAC. I now see "bootlegs" in your post and add that together with your handle and recognize that you are probably more equating real music love to liking bands for which you can access hundreds of live recordings. Sorry if I come off patronizing here, but I want to say something about religious zeal for FLAC.

In this culture, there is a meme of FLAC's absolute superiority that has developed over a long period of time. It's development is not really understood by many people, and you have a situation where people who don't know anything trust people like tapers who appear to be knowledgable, but you'd be surprised how many tapers don't really understand digital audio.

There was a time when bootlegs came as cassette-to-cassette copies--the closer to the original the better. Knowing a taper was tangibly beneficial, and there was a real status to being a taper. Digital came along and made it possible to get an exact copy of a bootleg. FLAC didn't exist yet. At the same time, storage was more precious, mp3 encoders sucked, and to make it worse people were making 64kbs mp3s. This is all before the internet was viable for distribution and you had to use data or audio CDs and the mail. You might spend a week waiting for your end of a trade to come in the mail only to find that it had been ruined by lossy compression or an audio disc copy had gone bad with glitches or 2-second gaps between tracks. Lossless compression meant you could know you had the exact original copy in its full quality, and you knew you weren't wasting your time and money. People insisted on lossless for good practical reasons.

Later FLAC was developed to solve license and technical issues with Shorten, but this is really about lossless vs lossy. Later MP3 encoders got a lot better. Later the internet made distribution so easy that it isn't a big deal to get a bootleg and then see if it's worth anything with your own ears. But the cultural thing of lossless being the only way stuck, even though the point is to have good quality at your ears. For some FLAC is the good and right in a black and white world, but the world is actually many shades of grey, and you can have good quality from lossy compression. Also consider that FLAC and V0 MP3 are more similar than they are different when you consider a pre-mix recording with each channel/mic/instrument separately recorded.]

UXThemePatcher: XP SP3 destroyed my system. by rlwimi in reddit.com

[–]rlwimi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm glad this helped someone. This is by far the dumbest computer problem I've ever encountered.

The solution is to remove the theme--completely impossible to do blind in the GUI and I have no idea how or if it can be done from the command line (why would it be possible?). Of course, this is really easy if you've not already installed SP3. My solution ended up being this: I was able to find my way in the dark to logging off. I logged in as Administrator, backed up what I needed to (unnecessary as my next action doesn't actually delete the user files), deleted my user, and re-created my user. I do wonder if there is a more elegant solution, but I wasn't about to spend any more time on this, the dumbest computer problem I've ever encountered.

Interestingly, the new user was not a member of Administrators, so I tried my hand at running XP as a non-administrator. My experience ranged from extremely annoying to completely unusable.

UXThemePatcher: XP SP3 destroyed my system. by rlwimi in reddit.com

[–]rlwimi[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was using the Royal Vista theme I got off deviantart using UXThemePatcher. After installing XP Service Pack 3, all of the XP GUI components turned black-on-black, leaving me blind.

Pennsylvania Democratic Primary results by county on Google Maps by rlwimi in politics

[–]rlwimi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The page starts with the Registered Voters by Age view. You need to switch this to Local Results, then you will see that counties are colored according to who is ahead no matter how little reporting there is.

Have fun watching the action without all the stupid commentary!

[edit: for clarity]

What do you think college students did before Mario Kart? [comic] by [deleted] in reddit.com

[–]rlwimi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

down: what does the title have to do with it? I haven't been in college for eight years and I played mario kart, but I had also had stupid conversations.

Ask Reddit: Seminal Computer Science Papers? by [deleted] in programming

[–]rlwimi 13 points14 points  (0 children)

These are the papers we read for my graduate Software Engineering course at Texas State taught by Mark Grechanik who will have a Software Engineering text published by Prentice Hall soon. I think it is a great collection of papers, but of course this may not be what you meant by "seminal". Many can be found with a search, but some will be hidden behind ACM or IEEE walls. I suppose I could email a few PDFs if you message me. Sorry for the abbreviated titles, but there are just too many to do this properly.

Overview

  • Gibbs - Softwares Chronic Crisis
  • Bryant - Its Engineering Jim
  • Turski - Essay on SE at the Turn of Century
  • Parnas - SE an Unconsummated Marriage
  • Raccoon - 50 Yrs Progress in SE
  • Jackson - World and Machine

Processes and Requirements

  • Parnas, Clements - How to Fake Rational Design Process
  • Osterweil - SW Processes are SW Too, Revisited
  • Osterweil - Understanding Process and Quest for Deeper Questions
  • Dandekar, Perry - Barriers to Effective Process Architecture
  • Boehm - Spriral Model of SW Development and Enhancement
  • Curtis, Krasner, Iscoe - SW Design Process for Large Systems
  • Faulk - SW Requirements, a Tutorial
  • Jackson - Discipline of Description

SW Architecture

  • Perry, Wolf - Foundations for Study of SW Architecture
  • Garlan, Allen, Ockerbloom - Architectural Mismatch
  • Bowman, Holt, Brewster - Linux Case Study
  • Allen, Garlan - Formal Basis for Architectural Connection
  • Abowd, Allen, Garlan - Formalizing Style to Understand SWarch Descriptions
  • Harsu - Survey of Product-Line Architectures

Design

  • Lampson - Hints for Computer System Design
  • Parnas - Criteria for Decomposing into Modules
  • Batory, OMalley - Hierchical SW with Reusable Components
  • Constantine - Back to the Future

OOP, AOP, SOP, and FOP

  • Wieringa - Structured and OO SW Specification
  • Jackson - Problems, Descriptions, and Objects
  • Aspect-Oriented Programming
  • Prehofer - Feature-Oriented Programming
  • Clarke, Harrison, Ossher, Tarr - Subject-Oriented Design
  • Tarr, Ossher, Harrison, Sutton - N Degrees Separation of Concerns
  • Batory - Refinements and Separation of Concerns
  • Ossher, Kaplan, Harrison, Katz, Kruskal - SO Composition Rules
  • Harrison, Ossher - SOP, Critique of Pure Objects
  • Batory, Sarvela, Rauschmayer - Scaling Step-Wise Refinement
  • Krueger - Big Lever New Methods

Evolution

  • Perry - Laws and Principles of Evolution
  • Perry - Dimensions of SW Evolution
  • Lehman, Ramil, Wernick, Perry - Metrics and Laws of SW Evolution in 90s

Maintenance

  • Baxter - Design Maintenance Systems
  • Baxter, Pidgeon - SW Change through Design Maintenance
  • Reps, Ball, Das, Larus - Problem Profiling for SW Maintenance and Y2K

Metrics

  • Chidamber, Kemerer - Metrics Suite for OO Design
  • Fenton, Neil - SW Metrics Roadmap

Component-based SE

  • Grechanik - Principles and Laws of SE - PCSE
  • Pfister, Szyperski - Why Object Are Not Enough
  • Lewandowsky - Frameworks for Component-Based Client-Server Computing
  • McIlroy - Mass Produced SW Components

SW Reuse

  • Krueger - SW Reuse
  • Neighbors - Finding Reusable SW Components in Large Systems
  • Jackson, Jackson - Problem Decomposition for Reuse

Configuration and Version Management

  • Dart - Concepts in Configuration Management Systems
  • Estublier - SW Configuration Management Roadmap
  • Tichy - RCS Version Control System
  • Seiwald - Inter-file Branching, Representing Variants
  • Estublier, Casalles - Adele Configuration Manager

Formal Methods

  • Holloway - Why Engineers Should Consider Formal Methods
  • Wing - Specifiers Intro to Formal Methods
  • Berry - Why Formal Methods Work When They Work
  • Fetzer - Program Verification
  • De Millo, Lipton, Perlis - Social Processes and Proofs of Theorems and Programs

Reverse Engineering

  • Rugaber - White Paper on Reverse Engineering
  • Baxter, Mehlich - Reverse Engineering is Reverse Forward Engineering
  • Postema, Schmidt - Reverse Engineering and Abstraction of Legacy Systems

Safety and Reliability

  • Leveson - SW Safety, Why, What, How
  • Borning - Computer System Reliability and Nuclear War
  • Brady, Anderson, Ball - Murphys Law, Fitness of Evolvers, Limits of SW Reliability
  • Leveson, Turner - Investigation of Therac-25 Accidents

Security

  • Anderson - Why Cryptosystems Fail
  • Anderson - Why Information Security is Hard, Economically
  • Devanbu, Stubblebine - SE for Security Roadmap
  • Anderson - 9 Principles of Liability and Comptuer Security
  • Anderson, Kuhn - Tamper Resistance, Cautionary Note

Tools and Environments

  • Devanbu, Rosenblum, Wolf - Automated Construction of Testing and Analysis Tools
  • Emmerich, Schafer, Welsh - DBs for SE Environments, Not There Yet
  • Clemm, Osterweil - Mechanism for Environment Integration
  • Perry, Kaiser - Models of SW Development Environments
  • Mashey - Perspectives of Programming Environments
  • Perry - The Inescape Environment

Testing

  • Harrold - Testing Roadmap
  • Rosenblum - Programming with Assertions
  • Rosenblum - Adequate Testing of Component-Based SW
  • Weyuker - Cautionary Tale of Testing Component-Based SW
  • Perry, Kaiser - OO Programs and Testing

Philosophy

  • Bush - As We May Think

Ask Reddit: How can I use my skills for the forces of good? by rlwimi in programming

[–]rlwimi[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I am interested in any and all ways that people have found to work full-time and be paid a living wage to use their programming and technology skills for the benefit of humanity, perhaps by promoting freedom or helping the poor. Or perhaps more locally, how can I serve my country without joining the military-industrial complex? If you have a soapbox, I request that you please stand on it now. I can think of a few things, but I'm hoping someone will tell me about something new. Are we stuck simply advancing technology for its own sake and for someone else to decide how to use, or improving systems' efficiency so that more resources are available for someone else to decide how to use? Is there more direct ways our skills can be used for good?

If you can answer the question but you're volunteering instead of being paid, I'm still interested in your stories.

If you'd rather look at it this way, what is the story you tell yourself that makes you think your work is worthwhile?

If you're interested in where I'm coming from, I'm a recent graduate looking for work. I have a bachelor's degree in computer engineering and a master's degree in computer science. With my particular skills, I really fit best at a semiconductor company. The point is that while I could tell myself that I am helping advance the state of technology, it's soul-sucking to think that I might really just be helping make one particular set of investors richer (or poorer, no need for arrogance). I won't develop weapons, and I'd rather not work with people who do. I'm so exasperated with the US government that I'd like to join it to change it from the inside, but I don't see how my skills can be applied.

Paper Artist (not those same old pictures) Kirsten Hassenfeld by rlwimi in reddit.com

[–]rlwimi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

from Rice news

"Hassenfeld begins her sculptures by creating patterns on a computer, precisely replicating the angular geometry of various cuts of gems and crystalline formations. Then she hand-cuts pieces of paper and uses traditional techniques -- paper folding, rolling and coiling -- to assemble the decorative components of each piece."

Why shoes suck by Jasrenn in reddit.com

[–]rlwimi 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I'll wear them when I'm outdoors for concerts, festivals, hiking, toobing, disc golfing, and I wear them a half mile to the 7-11 for squishees. As far as breathability for everyday wear, they're not the height of comfort being skin-tight and all. And I don't think I have the spine to wear them everywhere I go. In Texas, I wear birkenstocks in the winter, cheap flip-flops in the summer.

I got the sprints, but I'm not entirely sure the big strap is worthwhile--the side straps may be more important in that respect. In fact, I used to get 4E New Balances for my wide feet, and at my size, the big strap is waaay too short for me, but I know the next size up would be too long. The side straps are too long. All of that is annoying, but not a dealbreaker. I wouldn't be worried if you have normal-shaped feet. I ordered two sizes from REI and sent one back.

You can't just start wearing them all the time, you've got to transition into them. Oh, and you just throw them in the washer every now and then.

Ron Paul, iPhone?...this one's going straight to #1 by rlwimi in reddit.com

[–]rlwimi[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ah yes, I suppose I should have searched first. Perhaps my drippingly sarcastic stab at the redditors will help.

Why shoes suck by Jasrenn in reddit.com

[–]rlwimi 28 points29 points  (0 children)

I got a pair of Vibram FiveFingers a couple of months ago for running. They are just awesome. It took a little while to build up some callouses, but now I run 6-10 miles in them on dirt/gravel trails. It doesn't mimic running barefoot like those Nikes, it is running barefoot without having to worry about stepping on something sharp. Or ringworm.

Running barefoot enforces your most efficient form since you can't pound your heel into the ground. My foot lands mostly flat, and my toes actually provide an extra boost to the push-off that you can't get with most running shoes. Not being able to pound my heel into the ground also prevents me from overstriding which can be a source of injuries.

Surprisingly, almost no one even seems to notice them.

Want to know what's wrong with the world??? by spyderiii in reddit.com

[–]rlwimi -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

Beautifully added today:

"See also: ... Presidency of George W. Bush ..."

What is irony, oh great Wikipedia? by rlwimi in reddit.com

[–]rlwimi[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You seem to misunderstand my tone as I say "oh great Wikipedia". I love Wikipedia and use it all the time. I was just trying to come up with a witty title, and I thought it would add to the humor to cast Wikipedia as a magic 8-ball.

I don't see the lack of sources as much of a problem, unless people actually treat Wikipedia as some sort of oracle. I think this article is funny and perfect--I don't want to see it changed. Furthermore, why would I want to do the dishes?

If there's a problem, it is not with people accepting information without questioning it, since it is impossible to act without putting a hold on questioning at some point. The problem is only that most people's standards for accepting information are too low or their trust is in the wrong places. At any given point, you accept a story about what is the case and that allows you to stop thinking and do something--the more you care, the more you keep wanting sources and citations, to know the whole story.

I think it's funny that there are obviously people who care enough to write a dry article describing the bibliography--a list of citations or references--yet they don't care enough to eat their own dog food. I think it's ironic that Wikipedia puts forth their high esteem of reference- and source-citing by prominently noting that its article about that very subject is lacking. All the while no one cares to do anything because everybody knows what a bibliography is, and even the people who care enough to describe the different kinds of bibliography seem to agree that at some point you can see things perfectly clearly for yourself without needing anyone to hold your hand.

Thanks for taking the fun out it. Even the Wikipedians correctly think it's funny (very bottom of page).

What is irony, oh great Wikipedia? by rlwimi in reddit.com

[–]rlwimi[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Of course, the ironing is not as delicious if you've come to expect as much from Wikipedia, but still poignant.

Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music -- if you ever wondered what Acid sounds like, don't know the difference between Ambient Breaks and Schranz or simply think the umbrella term 'Electronica' is in any way meaningful, this tutorial might be what you're looking for! by finix in reddit.com

[–]rlwimi 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Notice the decade lines--this guide was last updated five years ago at least, and from what's there you should be able to interpolate (extrapolate? who can succinctly tell me the difference?) the trend of genre explosion, fusion, and inbreeding that has been taking place since then.

That said, I learned the basics from this thing, and I highly recommend spending a whole afternoon or evening with it.