cbowland - Slashdot User

St. Louis Museum Offers Thrills, Chills, and Lawsuits 140

Posted by samzenpus on Monday May 03, 2010 @01:53PM from the everything-fun-is-dangerous dept.

theodp writes "Despite the whiff of danger, or perhaps because of it, the WSJ reports that the City Museum is one of St. Louis's most popular attractions. Housed in a 10-story brick building, the City Museum shows none of the restraint or quiet typical of most museums. It boasts a five-story jungle gym with two real-life jets kids can climb on, an enclosed Monster Slide that drops riders the length of three staircases, and a rooftop Ferris wheel. Sure, there are the occasional severed fingers and skull fractures, but museum founder Bob Cassilly contends that it is as safe as it can be without being a bore. 'They [lawyers] are taking the fun out of life,' says Cassilly, adding that 'when you have millions of people do something, something's going to happen no matter what you do.'"

Comment Re:Play framework is the way... (Score 1) 253

by cbowland on Monday April 19, 2010 @08:11AM (#31894848) Attached to: Thoughts On the State of Web Development

I've been using Stripes for a while now and what I prefer about the approach there is that it does not mandate how to interact with the data access layer. In an MVC design pattern approach, Stripes focus strictly on the V and the C and leaves the M alone.

Submission + - European Commission Approves Oracle-Sun Merger (informationweek.com)

Submitted by rubycodez on Thursday January 21, 2010 @09:01AM

rubycodez writes: The anti-trust body of the EU, the European Commision has approved Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems, believing competition would be preserved. It saw PostgreSQL as a viable independent alternative to MySQL and that market access to Java would not be restricted. Uncertainty about Sun's future has cost over a billion dollars in lost sales in the past year.

Submission + - Amazon Kindle to get apps and EA games (wired.co.uk)

Submitted by Lanxon on Thursday January 21, 2010 @07:04AM

Lanxon writes: Amazon currently encourages publishers and authors to sell their books and magazines digitally, but the upcoming Kindle Development Kit (KDK), which goes into beta next month, says Wired, will allow software developers to create a variety of different applications. Amazon has already confirmed a Zagat guide for restaurant reviews from Hallmark and a selection of word games and puzzles, such as Sudoku, from Sonic Boom. EA Mobile is also set to release games on the Kindle.

Comment Re:Really good ideas... (Score 1) 282

by cbowland on Friday September 04, 2009 @03:10PM (#29316411) Attached to: New Zealander Invents Segway Alternative

Velo- commuters are definitely the minority in MO, but at least in St. Louis City and County, there are a fair number. I used to be one (and will again) until I dislocated my elbow last month. I commuted by bike (not everyday) about 4000 miles in the last 20 months. Not a huge amount as my ride is only 9 miles one way, but enough that I considered myself a commuter.

Comment Re:Traditional movie stores are dead (Score 1) 250

by cbowland on Sunday March 15, 2009 @08:46AM (#27199463) Attached to: Blockbuster Total Access Unannounced Policy Change

I love the "Reserve Online" bit from Redbox, particularly for new releases. Just a little bit of foresight and I don't have to wonder what I'm going to be watching that night.

Comment Re:I Got Your Legacy System Right Here (Score 1) 208

by cbowland on Monday September 29, 2008 @12:50PM (#25195781) Attached to: Working Effectively with Legacy Code

A legacy system is anything that is in production RIGHT NOW.

Wait, so an application goes right from beta to legacy? (Or worse still, it's beta and legacy at the same time?)

Sound like gmail.

Accurate Browser Statistics? 137

Posted by Cliff on Monday February 12, 2007 @02:25PM from the determining-browser-share dept.

zyl0x asks: "A co-worker of mine has been made responsible for a large web application for our software product, and he was having a hard time deciding what functionality to implement, and whether or not to sacrifice functionality for a larger user base. With Walmart's harsh stand on browser compatibility, we got to thinking, exactly how many users would we be alienating by using some IE-only functionality on our website? We tried crawling the internet to get some current, accurate browser usage statistics, but we could only find stats for specific websites. I thought I'd try sending Google a request, since we imagine they'd have the lowest-common-denominator in terms of types of users, but I received an email from their press department telling me that they 'don't make that kind of information available.' Where can one get a current, accurate, and un-biased measurement of browser usage? Is it even possible?"

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