random($foo) is the occassionally still updated blog of Leonard Lin. My pics are on Flickr, code is on Github. @lhl on Twitter. More »
To catch up on:
So, I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere, but event attachment is pretty damn slow in JavaScript once you get up there in items. On an application I’m writing, for 2000 items, it takes about 46 seconds to attach keypress functions onto them (43 seconds if you pass a function reference instead of using listeners) in IE. It takes over 10 seconds just to loop through the elements!
Suffice to say, if you’re not attaching events, unless you absolutely have to, it’s probably best to use inline attachment. (the attachment appears to scale linearly, it’s just slow [using sa’s addEvent, but difference is marginal]). Here’s a testcase (stripped of cruft). Mozilla takes longer to render the input fields, but is much (~100x) faster at attaching listeners. It also scales linearly. IE loads the inputs very quickly, but attaching listeners increases at a greater than linear rate (and deadlocks browser while loading). Inline attachment is O(1), as you would expect:
Orbitz had me filling about 3 screenfuls of crap and then after entering in my credit card number, gave me this message:
Because flight availability can change rapidly based on traveler demand, the flight you selected is no longer available. Please make another selection. (Message 150)
Some travel this month and next. I went and read up on the TSA’s air travel guidelines (hey, clippers are ok, also, lighters and matches are ok (for carry-on, but not check-in) — interesting).
The NYT articles says Ashcroft stated that “Bush ‘made no order that would require or direct the violation’ of either international treaties or domestic laws prohibiting torture.” However, POTUS’s lawyers say that torturing prisoners is not a violation of such laws. So, Ashcroft didn’t really say that Bush did not order torture.
Things get interesting when you apply Monolith to copyrighted files. For example, munging two copyrighted files will produce a completely new file that, in most cases, contains no information from either file. In other words, the resulting Mono file is not “owned” by the original copyright holders (if owned at all, it would be owned by the person who did the munging). Given that the Mono file can be combined with either of the original, copyrighted files to reconstruct the other copyrighted file, this lack of Mono ownership may be seem hard to believe.
Consider this simple fact: for a given Element file and any other file of the same length (call it fileA), it is possible to choose a Basis file that, when munged with the Element, will produce fileA as the resulting Mono file. Therefore, if a copyright holder claims that she owns the information in all Mono files that are munged from her work, she is also claiming copyright over all possible binary files that are the same length as her work. For example, suppose that fileA is an MP3 of a Beatles song, and the Element file is an MP3 of a Britney Spears song copyrighted by Jive Records. It is possible to find a Basis file that, when munged with the Spears song, will produce the Beatles song as the Mono file. Jive Records certainly cannot claim copyright over the Beatles song (which is copyrighted by Apple Records), nor can they claim copyright over any other Mono files munged from MP3s of their songs.
(every type of digital file is an arbitrary encoding however; it’s a mind-twister)
Of the roughly $19 trillion in American investment capital, in other words, $17 trillion or so is invested with the implicit instruction: ”Just give me back as much money as possible. Gouge consumers, cheat employees, poison the environment, lie to the public markets — just do it all sufficiently artfully that it doesn’t dent my portfolio.” Then, when the market falls and one of the people on the receiving end of their beastly demands is caught behaving badly, investors collapse to the floor in disbelief and bay for their money back. It is at that moment — and not a minute before — that they discover the novel idea that businessmen in possession of other people’s capital should be held to the highest ethical standards.
Hey, Anil has made it to the top of the nigritude ultramarine pile. A little late for the iPod Mini, but, take that SEOs! Anil’s wrapup.
Unwinding after a very long night (and before I start working again), so I’m reading the 2000 Texas Republican Party Platform. Note, this is not a good way to unwind, unless you are a wing-nut religious psycho who hates the Constitution. Actually, there’s a lot that I can agree with in here, but enough sheer lunacy to make you cringe (realizing these people are in power). Some highlights:
(Note, there’s a lot of Christianity talk scattered about this thing as well, but honestly now, have they read the Consititution? No mention of Jesus or God anywhere in there. Have they read the Bill of Rights?)
That being said, it would be nice if Bush/DeLay and folks would have actually put their money where there mouth was in fiscal responsibility, the balanced budget, waste and fraud in gov’t contracts, unfunded mandates. Oh yeah, and “the election of a conservative Republican president who supports the constitution and the sovereignty of the United States.” Hah, boy did they get that one wrong.
Didn’t hear about the gipper shuffling off this mortal coil until this evening, when I stepped out. I was born in 1980; Ronald Reagan was President for practically my entire early childhood. It’s sort of weird when they start dropping off like that. Honestly, I haven’t really given it as much thought as I should perhaps, worth writing about sometime in the future, perhaps.
Of the commentary I’ve read, WolfDaddy’s reminiscence struck me the most:
Reagan and the 80s and AIDS are inseparable to me. The optimism he brought to a country disillusioned made me feel very hopeful as a young teenager when he first took office.
By the time he left said office I had changed, as had the gay world around me that I so had recently entered. After being forsaken by family and childhood friends, I had already lost about 25 close, new, friends to diseases far worse and far stranger than Alzheimer’s, and would lose close to 100 more by 1994. No one cared. The optimism was still there in the general public; it wasn’t meant for people like me. All we could see was horrible deaths and irrational fear, and worse, utter apathy from many of the people we looked up to in our youth.
That’s Reagan’s legacy, to me. His inaction and silence, his failure as a leader, led to great suffering, great death. I yet cannot imagine anyone gleefully celebrating the man’s own suffering in the last ten years of his life. To do so is to forget–or possibly to have never learned–the consequences of the decisions made during Reagan’s time.