BERLIN (Reuters) – The German architect of one of Saddam Hussein (news – web sites)’s main bunkers in Baghdad said on Friday the Iraqi leader can survive anything short of a direct hit with a nuclear bomb if he stays within its four-feet-thick walls.

“It could withstand the shock wave of a nuclear bomb the size of the Hiroshima one detonating 250 meters away,” said Karl Esser, a security consultant who designed the bunker underneath Saddam’s main presidential palace in Baghdad.

U.S.-led troops will also find it hard to fight their way in through its three-ton Swiss-made doors, Esser told Reuters in an interview.

A retired Yugoslav army officer who helped build other bunkers for Saddam also told Reuters this week that the shelters were impenetrable and could survive an atomic bomb. [Yahoo!]

Weird. Wat is dit nu weer?

It’s funny cause it’s true 🙂

Eerst dit artikel lezen, en dan de reactie hieronder, die op Slashdot stond.

My experiences of programmers (Score:4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29, @10:12AM (#5622150)

After 8 years of software testing and QA, here are my experiences of programmers. No it’s not flame bait – but mark it down as you wish 1. They do not know the meaning of deadlines! How many times, I’ve been working late because some dim wit of a developer didn’t see the importance of actualy meting the deadline he proposed himself. Working late evenings, working weekends because the programmer didn’t see why he should put the extra time in to catch up. Sounds familiar? 2. They do not know the meaning of quality. How many times have I sat there with a program or package from development that simply will not work / start-up / compile. All this despite development’s assurances that they do actualy unit test. I once had to test a program that did nothing, ie it was called from another program, but all it should do is close itself down – it was a stub. How difficult is that to program and how difficult is that for the programmer to test themselves? It took SEVEN attempts to get it right! 3. Keep it simple stupid! How many times have I had to sit there wondering if I was looking at the correct Buisness Requirements and Functional Spec. Final designes seem to be as complcated as posible rather than simple. Functionality slippage is common – lets put this bit in as well. 4. Yes, but programmers are artists. Bollocks! If you look at almost any system, you will see that the basic number of functions is very limited. Given any average office system, you could probably find public domain code to do 90% of what you need. Yes it will need changing and tweaking, but this idea that you sit there creating is simply rubbish. Perhaps if you stopped creating and started engineering things would be better. 5. The Prima Donna syndrome. Programming used to be a black art. Well it isn’t any more. However, some developers seem to think they should still be treated differently as this article demonstrates. If any other professional argued that they needed a kip durring the day, they would probably be booted out. You want a kip, have it at lunch time! Not having a much time at lunch – welcome to the real world. I know this is going to be marked down as flame bate, but it has to be said it is about time that programmers came back into the real world. With comments like If a programmer’s flow is interrupted it can take a large amount of time for her to regain the state, sometimes up to an hour. do you realy wonder why people question programmers professionalism? Everyone else has to work hard for a living, and creativity comes into most jobs, but most just get on with it.

Federal investigators have arrested an enigmatic Wall Street wiz on insider-trading charges — and incredibly, he claims to be a time-traveler from the year 2256!

Sources at the Security and Exchange Commission confirm that 44-year-old Andrew Carlssin offered the bizarre explanation for his uncanny success in the stock market after being led off in handcuffs on January 28.

“We don’t believe this guy’s story — he’s either a lunatic or a pathological liar,” says an SEC insider.

“But the fact is, with an initial investment of only $800, in two weeks’ time he had a portfolio valued at over $350 million. Every trade he made capitalized on unexpected business developments, which simply can’t be pure luck. [Yahoo!]

Interessant: vijf tot acht man is niet genoeg voor usability testing, er is geen correlatie tussen trage webpagina’s en wegklikkende gebruikers, gebruikers zijn wel bereid meer dan drie keer te klikken om inhoud te zien.

Missile hitting Kuwait City might have been American

Kuwaiti officials examining the rubble from the davastated shopping mall in Kuwait City has found evidence suggesting it was an errant US cruise missile.

Americans were never very good at geography anyway.

[Secular Blasphemy]

US orders 4-6 day “operational pause”

“U.S. commanders have ordered a pause of between four to six days in a northwards push toward Baghdad because of supply shortages and stiff Iraqi resistance, U.S. military officers said on Saturday.” (Reuters)

Time to fess up, Rumsfeld. The war is not going according to plan. Scrapping the Powell doctrine of overwhelming force was the first mistake. Naively thinking Iraqis were just Americans who hadn’t realized it yet was the second.

[Secular Blasphemy]

Daarjuist debat tussen Stevaert en De Gucht in Ter Zake. Zelden zo’n gemoedelijk gesprek tussen partijvoorzitters gezien. Een aangenaam gesprek zelfs.

Gary Hart heeft een weblog. En nu zien of hij het een beetje onderhoudt.

Louis is trouwens ziek, en Sandra en Zelie zijn gaan boodschappen doen. Ik ga mij wat in de zetel leggen.

Helemaal iets anders genomen dan ConfigurationSettings: iets dat IsolatedStorage heet, en waar ik nog nooit van gehoord had. Ik weet zelfs niet precies waar dat ding zich fysiek bevindt, maar het is wel verrekte handig:

1) Een Hashtable maken waarin de settings gaan komen:

Hashtable settings = new Hashtable();
    settings[“UserName”] = “SomeValue”;
    settings[“Preference1”] = SomeOtherValue;

2) IsolatedStorage en zijn formatters gebruiken om de waarden op te slaan:

private void SaveOptions(Hashtable values)
  {
   IsolatedStorageFile isoFile =
System.IO.IsolatedStorage.IsolatedStorageFile.GetStore(IsolatedStorageScope.
Assembly | IsolatedStorageScope.User, null, null);
   IsolatedStorageFileStream stream = new
IsolatedStorageFileStream(“mysettings.dat”, System.IO.FileMode.Truncate);
   System.Runtime.Serialization.IFormatter formatter = new
System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter();

   formatter.Serialize(stream, values);
   stream.Close();
   isoFile.Close();
  }

3) En op deze manier weer inlezen:

private Hashtable LoadOptions()
  {
   IsolatedStorageFile isoFile =
System.IO.IsolatedStorage.IsolatedStorageFile.GetStore(IsolatedStorageScope.
Assembly | IsolatedStorageScope.User, null, null);
   IsolatedStorageFileStream stream = new
IsolatedStorageFileStream(“mysettings.dat”,
System.IO.FileMode.OpenOrCreate);
   Hashtable setttings = null;
   System.Runtime.Serialization.IFormatter formatter = new
System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter();
   if (stream != null && stream.Length > 0)
   {
    try
    {
     settings = (Hashtable)formatter.Deserialize(stream);
    }
    catch
    {
    }
   }

    if (settings == null) return new Hashtable();
   stream.Close();
   isoFile.Close();
   return settings;
  }

Hm. Interessant. C# (of in ’t algemeen, .NET), maakt voor configuratie blijkbaar niet echt meer gebruik van de registry. Niet dat het niet zou kunnen, maar er is een speciaal ding voor voorzien, ConfigurationSettings.

In die ConfigurationSettings zit na het opstarten van de applicatie de inhoud van een XML-file, applicatienaam.config. Dat beestje ziet er zo uit:

<configuration>
   <appSettings>
      <add key=”naam” value=”waarde” />
   </appSettings>
</configuration>

…en het kan simpelweg uitgelezen worden in C# met iets als

string waarde=ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings[“naam”];

Probleem is dat dit niet mogelijk is:

if (waarde==null)
{
  waarde=”iets anders”;
  ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings.Set(“naam”,waarde);
}

want die dingen zijn read-only. Ja, er zit wel een Set-methode in, maar neen, het ding is niet bruikbaar. Aaargh!

Ik zie de logica er wel van in: .config zou enkel moeten gebruikt worden om de applicatie te bootstrappen, en dan eenmalig verwijzen naar een database of zo, die dan de echte configuratiegegevens bevat.

Akkoord, maar ik wil in die .config alleen de naam van de database houden die de applicatie gebruikt, en die in de connectionstring smurfen. Oh well, ik zal dat bestand dan maar inladen als XML en rechtstreeks in gaan zitten wijzigen zeker?

Resultaten van Idool 2003. Jury-pronostiek: Cindy, Chris, Cindy, Cindy of Chris.

Cindy weer pijnbank dus. En Caroline. En Chris.

En ik hoop van ganser harte dat het verzamelde publiek hoopt dat Cindy volgende week nog strakker en schaarser gekleed zal zijn.

Kom het tegen! Cindy blijft! En Caroline gaat naar huis. Tja. Ik had het niet gedacht, en in ieder geval op basis van vandaag verdient Chris het meer naar huis te moten gaan dan zij.

Oh well. Off to bed. Heigh ho.

Bah, ik ben al in slaap gevallen. Ik wil naar bed.

Surfen is een grote bron van agressie. Volgens het Britse onderzoeksbureau Mori heeft de helft van alle internetgebruikers minimaal één woedeaanval per week. Voornaamste oorzaken van frustratie zijn de laadtijd van de website, help-functies die geen hulp bieden en sites die vragen om persoonlijke gegevens in te voeren. [Vacature via Stijn]

Ik kan zo op één twee drie nog een paar redenen voor woede-aanvallen verzinnen. Die allemaal met internet te maken hebben. En troglodieten.