Random musings of a morning

[thatcrazycajun]

• What is the right way to think of a discrete piece of code stored on the hard drive of a computer? Is "file" or "document" most accurately descriptive of anything containing lines of code (which, at its base, is text, after all)—even an application, regardless of whatever GUI bells and whistles it has attached—or just the most common and convenient? Should the same thing apply to a non-code piece of text—say, the lyrics to a song? And what about audio and video files, which at their most basic level are also just chunks of code? Should they properly be "tracks" and "movies," respectively, or are these merely "documents" and/or "files" too? If not, what would be better? "Code fragment"? "Program output"? "Doohickey"?  And what about fully compiled, executable code vs. mere undifferentiated fragments, as my pal fringefan posting below suggests? Is this an important distinction or not? Just curious.
    
• The company for which I currently labor through my temp agency (see this page for a sample of what I'm doing for them) is providing refreshments and materials to the firefighters battling the southern California wildfires, as well as fire safety education tables in the state's schools. The company may not be perfect, but it has the most people I've ever seen in any firm working their butts off to live the firm's professed core ethics and philosophy. It's nice to feel good about where you work.
    
  
• Check out this YouTube music video produced by a fan of Wonder Woman. If you're anywhere near as fond of everyone's favorite ageless Amazon Princess as I am, you'll enjoy it; it's made up of scenes from Cartoon Network's Justice League series. Note in particular the scene where Di barely manages to escape Giganta's hands smacking together by flying under her sequoia-sized legs, then elbows the back of one humongous knee on the way through with the strength of Hercules to collapse the villainess' entire affront-to-the-laws-of-physics frame to the ground. That, children, is called skill and experience. (And being the only woman in the DC Universe not named Kara or Karen who can rival Superman for strength, flying ability and speed sure as Hades doesn't hurt.)
    
  
• If my state is having a crisis-level drought (which it is, as a check of the local paper's headlines will tell you), does that mean buying bottled water to drink is okay now? Does the virtue of not using up our rapidly dwindling supply of local tap water outweigh the vice of creating yet more non-biodegradable solid waste (the PET plastic bottle) and condoning the noxious emissions from the trucks that got it here? Again, just wondering.
    
  
• Apropos of the last bullet point, we've had rain every single day, all day, so far this week in Atlanta proper. I know the reservoirs and the lakes and rivers desperately need it, so I'm glad for that. But the resultant gray, dark, thunderhead-filled sky the whole day long is still damn depressing. Glad the Songbird's not here to see it; she'd find it even more so. (By the way, did you know the state of Georgia possesses absolutely no natural lakes? Every single one is man-made, so I'm told. Not sure if any other state can say this.)
    
  
• I finally went and bought a paid subscription to LJ. The icon lust was just too much to resist any more. I thought 15 would be enough. Then I found new ones and didn't have any more I could stand to jettison in order to make room. I don't want 2,000 icons, really I don't. I don't even need all 35 that come with a paid sub. Just room for a couple more. Honest. I can quit any time I want to...
  

Comments

[catalana.livejournal.com]

# If my state is having a crisis-level drought (which it is, as a check of the local paper's headlines will tell you), does that mean buying bottled water to drink is okay now? Does the virtue of not using up our dwindling supply of local tap water outweigh the vice of creating yet more non-biodegradable solid waste (the PET plastic bottle) and condoning the noxious emissions from the trucks that got it here? Again, just wondering.

You are probably best off buying bottled water in the largest quantities possible and then pouring it into whatever smaller container you need. Save the containers and once the water crisis has improved, reuse the containers for other purposes.

[fringefan.livejournal.com]

"What is the right way to think of a discrete piece of code stored on the hard drive of a computer? Is 'file' or 'document' most accurately descriptive..."
Depends on the context, if I'm reading you right. "File" seems to work perfectly well as a generic if you're just talking about how full your hard drive is. If you're building and maintaining a library of pieces of code for sharing or cannibalization, then I'd start with "source code file"--it *is* significant that these are chunks of source rather than executable code, yes? Back in the mainframe day on the System 360 and 370, they were "source modules"--that might not be a bad one to dredge up.

"If my state is having a crisis-level drought (which it is, as a check of the local paper's headlines will tell you), does that mean buying bottled water to drink is okay now?"
I doubt the amount you're pouring from your tap specifically for drinking purposes is significant next to the amounts people use for washing, flushing toilets, or even cooking (where the water gets drained down the sink after the cooking is done). Not to mention things like industrial cooling, farming, lawn-watering... And don't the processes that recycle plastic bottles use a fair amount of water themselves?

I never understood why water that's been processed at great expense to make it potable is used for flushing toilets.

<-----10-24-2007-----MSG----->

*Painful pun alert*

[fringefan.livejournal.com]

I changed "code pieces" to "pieces of code" when I edited the above comment, but that made me wonder:

Do hackers flaunt their virility by the size of their code pieces?

[I know, it's not the size of your code piece that counts; it's how effectively you penetrate someone else's fire walls and release your payload.]

<-----10-24-2007-----MSG----->

Re: *Painful pun alert*

[voiceofkiki.livejournal.com]

Oy. That was painful.

Music to my ears

[fringefan.livejournal.com]

After all, we all know that the beauty of a pun is in the "Oy" of the beholder.
<-----10-24-2007-----MSG----->

[msminlr.livejournal.com]

Probably because very few folks want to bother to build the infrastructure to save the bathwater/laundry water/dishwashing water to do things like flush toilets and irrigate flowerbeds.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

"I never understood why water that's been processed at great expense to make it potable is used for flushing toilets."

Because the extra piping to separately provide waste water for the toilet is generally more trouble and expense than it's worth.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[mshollie.livejournal.com]

I've had a paid account for over a year now. Nice what you can do with layouts and icons, isn't it?

Code for WTF

[a-phoenix-afire.livejournal.com]

--What is the right way to think of a discrete piece of code stored on the hard drive of a computer?--

On your hard drive are patterns of magnetism comprising two distinct amplitudes, one level being described as a 0 and the other being described as 1. It's called code because it must be interpreted, using set rules, from one representational paradigm to another. For instance, there is no such thing as a file(or folder), nor even a packet of magnetic fields which can be called one, unless and until those rules are applied to the encryption those packets form when a spinning disk is "read" by the hard drive's heads.

Once you've read this packet, it must again be deciphered using a mechanism composed of a system of semi-conductors and again translated from high and low amplitude bits into a system of binary codes which represent machine instructions to operate the processor. The processor and memory are primed by reading this code into something which makes using the commands they form possible for a human, and that is called an operating system.

After the operating system is loaded, the process of loading and translating the bits and bytes(8 bit patterns which themselves only mean what the translating programming makes them mean) which form what are usually called programs or applications commences.

All of that to say this; the bits on the disk that are referred to as files are nothing but magnetic anomalies on a metal platter until some translation (technically called processing) is done to them.

Without the programs to which your data files are fed to translate them, your jpgs, bmps, docs, and even common txts are nothing at all.

Every level of code is data for some lower level of code until you reach the lowest level where transistors are turned on and off. Only at that level is there absolute meaning to the translated magnetic codes, and there only because those working at that level have agreed what they will call each pattern.

So here's a question right backatcha. At what point does a bunch of magnetic anomalies(MAs) become someone's copyrighted material?

If I were to write a program that wrote those MAs in a format that only I understand, or if I encrypt them so that no one (but me and I'm not telling) has a program that can translate them into recognizable content, would the possession of a disk on which those MAs are stored constitute copyright infringement, or is it only infringement while I'm translating them? If the prosecutor cannot crack the code, do they get to -loosely speaking- waive my right to Habeus Corpus because they know I can translate the codes? How much proof should they be required to present?

I don't mean this as an argument, just a serious dia de nuevo koan. ;-)

Re: Code for WTF

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Wow. You continue to impress me with your breadth and depth of knowledge...dammit. :-) But what's a "dia de nuevo koan"?

Re: Code for WTF

[a-phoenix-afire.livejournal.com]

Thank you, that's very kind.

--But what's a "dia de nuevo koan"?--

A koan is 'the sound of one hand clapping' or 'does a tree falling with none to hear, make a sound?'; a question meant not to elicit an answer, but to encourage a student to examine an idea from a hitherto unconsidered perspective. "dia de nuevo" is just Spanish for 'new day' or 'day again', but in this context intended to be 'modern day' the way English speakers use 'neo' in front of a noun to imply a modernized version of something old, revered, and familiar.

[cellio]

"File" is the base class, applying to any named blob of data on disk. Some files are documents or executables or classes (that is, pieces of source code in certain langauges) or videos or MP3s or spreadsheets or whatever, but they're all files. What term you use depends on context; use the most general term that applies.