7 reasons I switched back to PHP after 2 years on Rails - O'Reilly Ruby
Topic: Technology
9:25 am EDT, Sep 24, 2007
I'm a little reluctant to add to the wasteland that is this post and these comments, but here goes.
I'm familiar with the situation here. The deal was this: Derek was not a programmer; he was a musician. He learned some PHP and cobbled together the old CDBaby site by himself. It was good.
Then, he heard about Rails, and became infatuated with it. He proceeded to attempt a rolling rewrite of CDBaby's frontend and backend both (the backend is large, because of inter-label and digital distribution stuff) in Rails.
At this time, Derek had no experience with the following things:
* any language other than PHP * systems integration and interoperability * Rails * object-orientation * the MVC pattern * managing a development team
Project fails. All right. As he has learned in #2, legacy compatibility trumps everything. Also, ship early and often.
As you can see in Derek's post about MySQL encodings, he's not always the clearest thinker. Even above he says that REST means POST-only destruction, which misses the point entirely.
His team was fine (mostly just Jeremy, until another developer was hired in the last months). Rails was fine. But there were a lot of things wrong with the project plan ("rewrite everything, eventually") and with the project leader, who was convinced he had found a silver bullet.
No framework saves you from your own inexperience.
Object::PerlDesignPatterns - Perl architecture for structuring and refactoring large programs - search.cpan.org
Topic: Technology
9:17 pm EDT, Sep 23, 2007
Documentation: Ideas for keeping programs fun to hack on even after they grow large. Object, lambda, hybrid structures, Perl specific methods of refactoring, object tricks, anti-patterns, non-structural recurring code patterns.
Our Road Warrior training is designed for the frequent traveler or anyone wanting a deeper knowledge of the air travel experience. This course covers a wide variety of topics and important emergency procedures. Come experience a “behind the scenes” look at our state-of-the-art facilities for a full day of hands-on, interactive learning.
Participants will receive information on emergency exit door and window operation and aircraft decompression. They will also have several opportunities to ride in Delta’s motion-based cabin evacuation simulator, experience a smoke-filled cabin, and participate in a waterditching exercise.
Invest in your employees by demonstrating your concern for their individual safety and well-being. Bring your entire team, as this course is an excellent group-bonding event.
Mint allows you to view all of your banking and credit card transactions side-by-side, making identifying all of your transactions much easier and faster than ever before.
How does this help you? We make it easy for you to track down erroneous charges or bank fees, and keep a closer eye on your money.
Mint even lets you label your transactions so you know what bills you need to split with your friends or roommates, know which ones need to be reimbursed for your company, and more.
PhreakNIC Technology and Hacker Culture Convention
Topic: Technology
11:21 am EDT, Sep 19, 2007
PhreakNIC 0x0b
PhreakNIC is an annual gathering in Nashville, TN, for hackers, makers, security professionals, and general technology enthusiasts. Hours upon hours of both informative and entertaining presentations are given by volunteers and many areas are set up with the intent of encouraging socialization. In our 11th year, we are now the longest running non-commercial hacker convention in the United States.* PhreakNIC is organized by the Nashville 2600 Organization, which is a 501(c)(3) tax deductible charity. However, it takes many resources to organize, and help is given to PhreakNIC by other 2600 groups in the South East United States, as well as the Nashville Linux Users Group. Our thanks go out to all who contribute.
Is this worth going to? Seriously, I mean aside from the drinking.
TV Torrents: When 'piracy' is easier than legal purchase | Surveillance State - CNET Blogs
Topic: Technology
12:42 am EDT, Sep 14, 2007
Step 1: Download and install the Miro media player, which is available for Linux, Mac and Windows.
Step 2: Locate an RSS feed for a TV show you want to watch. One fantastic source of these is the website tvRSS.net
Navigate through the list of TV shows on the tvRSS website, and find a desired show.
On the web-page for the show, right click on the link to the RSS feed of that show, and copy the URL location.
Step 3: Open up Miro, and go to the Channels menu, and select Add Channel. The RSS address that was copied previously should already be displayed. If it's not, paste it.
Why on earth build a relay computer when there are already computers over a hundred thousand times faster? Well, for two reasons: to prove that silicon is not magic and because I want to.
The simple relay adder was built using free NOS relays sometime in 2005, but my goal was to someday build a more elaborate one that could run programs but not fill up a room like the early computers. Harry Porter built an incredible 415-relay computer which can be seen at this page: http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~harry/Relay/
I never thought I'd fully understand how his computer worked, let alone build one. Finally in spring 2007, I gained more understanding of computer systems from a course in college then joked to a friend about using the x86 instruction set for a relay computer to boot up Windows, which would’ve taken several hundred years on a relay computer running on a 50Hz clock. And so the inspiration began... (note: if you want to skip the hardware details of the computer, the pictures and videos are at the end of this page).
I'm running a system that includes virtual servers which makes the setup a tiny bit more complex. Following the instructions above I get the following error message (in /var/log/apache/error.log) when I try to start the server.
[error] mod_ssl: Init: (www.xfly.co.uk:80) Illegal attempt to re-initialise\ SSL for server (theoretically shouldn't happen!)
This is fixed by including the lines that activate the SSL Engine in a virtual host declaration rather than in the main server definition. I think it has something to do with the way mod-ssl is compiled but don't quote me on that. Anyway an example virtual host declaration is show below (with a modified email address):
Sure you can, if you don't mind a few casualties. The Russians seem to have a liberal policy about random deaths in terrorism matters.
Example: when 32 Chechnyen separatists took over the Beslan School and had 1200 hostages ( several hundred of them children ), Russian security forces used tanks ( firing - according to one of the tank comander's testimony - "antipersonnel-high explosive shells" ), flamethrowers, and at least one Mi-24 helicopter gunship. At least 334 hostages died, and approximately 700 were wounded.
This is a weapon for political control as much as for war. They already have more nukes than they can reasonably use. What is the point of building a non-radiactive bomb this powerful? The only reason seems to be so you can retake the territory soon after. They're going to use it on their own territory.
