Give it to me Straight

To the Media: STOP SEASONING MY NEWS. Please and thank you.

Today's daily events did not call for a half cup of your opinion, two and a quarter cups hype, and a tablespoon of misinformation. Give it to me straight: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. Don't be so cavalier with your influence of my opinion. Information spreads too rapidly and misinformation spreads even faster.

Infinite Windows Directory Solution

WOW. I just got finished taking care of one of the most annoying Windows bugs I've seen yet. Some weird behavior involving Netbeans created a MASSIVE directory tree with repeating directory names (e.g. myDir/build/classes/build/classes/build/classes...). When I tried to delete this tree with any ordinary method, I'd get an error message, "Path name too long...yada yada." Windows Explorer would show that it was gone, but I'd come back and it was still there.

Nevertheless, HERE IS THE SOLUTION: Create a batch file that follows these steps.

1. Rename your repeating directories to an x.
2. Dive into the renamed directory and try to move the alternate directory up into your top level directory (i.e. my_Dir).
3. Remove the directory that you renamed (which no longer contains anything) Make sure to use the /s/q options (/s removes any subfiles, /q prevents windows from asking you "Y/N?" each time you delete the folder).
4. Repeat by calling the .bat (batch) file again at the end of the batch file. (YES, this creates an infinite loop. You'll just need to stop the batch file with "ctrl+c".

ren "C:\Users\valued customer\Documents\School Stuff\CS 340\Homework_Docs\remove_me\build" x
ren "C:\Users\valued customer\Documents\School Stuff\CS 340\Homework_Docs\remove_me\classes" x

move "C:\Users\valued customer\Documents\School Stuff\CS 340\Homework_Docs\remove_me\x\build" "C:\Users\valued customer\Documents\School Stuff\CS 340\Homework_Docs\remove_me\"
move "C:\Users\valued customer\Documents\School Stuff\CS 340\Homework_Docs\remove_me\x\classes" "C:\Users\valued customer\Documents\School Stuff\CS 340\Homework_Docs\remove_me\"

rd "C:\Users\valued customer\Documents\School Stuff\CS 340\Homework_Docs\remove_me\x" /s /q

removedir.bat

Progress

Capitalism. The Marketplace. It's the place where the guy with the best product wins...

Unless someone else comes up with a crappier version, patents it, and sues the pants off anyone else that tries to improve it. Yeah, that seems fair, right?

A Play Thing

The future is small.

This little Rasberry Pi computer will set you back 35 bucks—if you can get one. They sold out within 2 hours of being available online. But why? Why are people in such a tizzy over this mini computer?

Because small is sexy. It's creativity. It's the New American Dream. And for the Geek, it's open-source. The computer market has become flat, and the price to play the game just dropped to $35.

Trust The Cuckoo

You and I—we're neighbors.

I can see that you're here.

Does this bother you? Are you worried? Don't be. But this illustrates an incredible principle about today's world. Everything is built on trust. And that trust is very fragile.

Your computer is constantly downloading programs and files that were written by people you've never even met. And you're okay with it! "As long as it doesn't hurt me," you say. Unfortunately, it can. People can. If you let them. 99% of the hacker's successes in "The Cuckoo's Egg" came from user oversight (e.g. a password written in an email, default system passwords left unchanged). Here's your reminder: Be informed. Don't put information on the net that you wouldn't mind showing up on someone else's computer screen. "Oh be wise, what can I say more?"