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User: fractoid

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Comments · 4,106

  1. Re:it blows up real good. on Miniature Fuel Cell To Keep Drones Aloft For Over An Hour (gizmag.com) · · Score: 1

    Do it. Thermite drones ftw.

  2. Re:it blows up real good. on Miniature Fuel Cell To Keep Drones Aloft For Over An Hour (gizmag.com) · · Score: 1

    It's true, luckily though we can use technology to harness stored carbon ash to amplify sunlight and restore our precious polar jungles.

  3. Re:it blows up real good. on Miniature Fuel Cell To Keep Drones Aloft For Over An Hour (gizmag.com) · · Score: 1

    You missed the perennial favourite, dihydrogen monoxide.

  4. Re:Propaganda has value to some on Getting More Women Coders Into Open Source · · Score: 1

    I think you may be the only person here who's actually paying attention.

  5. Re:Why do they need ANY info? on Porsche Chooses Apple Over Google Because Google Wants Too Much Data · · Score: 2

    And it's perfectly reasonable for the in-car electronics to have and display all of these things. The problem is this conflation of "the local device needs this information to do its job" with "the company supplying the local device needs to upload all of this information to its servers and log it against your profile."

  6. Re: I love it on Disproving the Mythical Man-Month With DevOps · · Score: 1

    It's almost like problems that are trivially decomposable into a bunch of simpler problems are more amenable to parallelization!

  7. Re:A Recognition Algorithm That Outperforms Humans on Killer Robots In Plato's Cave · · Score: 1

    The problem domains are different, and current AI is far better at "calculate a trajectory for this physical object that avoids other physical objects and follows a set of rules" than "identify a random human or group of humans, assess their level of involvement (both now and likely future level) in a given conflict, and determine whether they are legitimate combatants."

  8. Re:Wow, a whole 1%? on Tesla's April Fool's Joke Spoofs Market Algorithms · · Score: 1

    Best April Fools' prank EVER, I'd think.

  9. I'm pretty sure that's so they can so they can keep track of visions in their minds.

  10. Once we do finally cure cancer, what star sign should we focus on next?

  11. Re:Not credit... so your account stays drained on Facebook Introduces Payment System · · Score: 1

    If you're going to be dumb enough to sign up for such a silly service, chances are you're dumb enough to use it on your main bank account, and then dumb enough to lose your phone (without a passcode enabled) or to leave your facebook logged in and unattended.

    The whole thing is a minefield. Although it'll probably take off, as xkcd predicts.

  12. Re:What if Facebook is blocked? on This App Lets You Piggyback Facebook's Free Internet To Access Any Site · · Score: 1

    Australia? >.<

  13. Re:Great. on World's Most Powerful Laser Diode Arrays Deployed · · Score: 1

    It goes 'pew pew'.

  14. Re:DAS Keyboard on Ask Slashdot: Good Keyboard? · · Score: 1

    I have the Model S Ultimate with the brown switches (so a bit quieter / less clicky than yours) and I love it. Best keyboard ever.

  15. Re:How is this different? on New 3D Printing Process Claimed To Be 25X Faster Than Current Technology · · Score: 1

    I think the only difference is their fancy oxygen-sensitive resin which lets them print significantly faster.

  16. Re:Should A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer.... on "Hello Barbie" Listens To Children Via Cloud · · Score: 2

    Well, the Primer was (iirc) a custom product for a plutocrat's (grand?)daughter. It had no ulterior motives, it was simply there to provide a companion and an education for the young girl. I think this is by far the most important criterion for a primer - that it not be influenced by any for-profit company.

    I like the book form-factor but that's mainly just because I like books. :)

  17. Re:Why uTorrent? on uTorrent Quietly Installs Cryptocurrency Miner · · Score: 1

    Likewise. Tixati is like uTorrent was when I first started using it - small, lightweight, simple, fast.

  18. Re:Hopefully the applicants had a relevent backrou on Ask Slashdot: What Portion of Developers Are Bad At What They Do? · · Score: 1

    Vague questions are always red flags in an interview -- there are too many possible ways of answering to be able to determine which is the "right" answer, and applicants will tend to start looking for where the trick is, since it sounds like a trick question.

    Not the right applicants. For most positions (except the ones where you're a very small cog in a very large wheel) you have to be able to deal with people too.There was one question in a recent interview that my wife conducted, to which the applicant replied "I can't answer that without knowing more about the requirements." Which was exactly the right answer. He got the job.

  19. Re:Yes... on Ask Slashdot: What Portion of Developers Are Bad At What They Do? · · Score: 1

    This is where we as techies have to step up and not let the clueless take charge. This isn't something I've found a general solution for - if we focus on actually doing our jobs, then that keeps us busy while "non-technical" people sit around with nothing to do. They then have time to do all of the networking, socializing, presence-building etc. that basically lets them schmooze their way into upper management.

    I don't really have anything to fix that, other than the observation that corporate culture starts from the top. If a company is built and run by an engineer then they'll respect people who actually get the job done. If it's run by people who got there by schmoozing then they'll only respect people who schmooze.

  20. Re:Hopefully the applicants had a relevent backrou on Ask Slashdot: What Portion of Developers Are Bad At What They Do? · · Score: 1

    In that case yep, I'm totally with you. No matter their specialization, a software developer should be familiar with basic concepts in encryption, networking, algorithms, hardware architecture etc. Nothing in-depth maybe, but they should have some idea what's going on. It's like the way a doctor might specialize in oncology but should still be able to identify a ventricle or an Achilles tendon.

  21. Re:It's a vast field.... on Ask Slashdot: What Portion of Developers Are Bad At What They Do? · · Score: 1

    You (as in, the person asking the genie) are trying to find a way to describe the skills to be precise
    Without having the skills to be precise
    Or the skills to recognize whether something is precise
    Or the skills to recognize whether someone is being precise
    And yet still somehow assuming that it's easy to be precise.

  22. Re:Hopefully the applicants had a relevent backrou on Ask Slashdot: What Portion of Developers Are Bad At What They Do? · · Score: 1

    He didn't even say anything about "build an app which sends a file using PKI". He just said "how would I send a file?" All the applicant had to do was answer "well I'd give you my public key and then use PGP to encrypt the email." Is the general concepts of public key infrastructure not basic required reading these days? It's no more unreasonable than asking "I want to send a stream of bytes to another computer on the internet, how would I do that?" and expecting an answer describing TCP sockets.

  23. Re:Hopefully the applicants had a relevent backrou on Ask Slashdot: What Portion of Developers Are Bad At What They Do? · · Score: 1

    Really? You should at least know the basics of public key encryption if you want to work in computers. It's as much a cornerstone of modern information tech as the OSI stack or the filesystem.

  24. Humans are bad at software on Ask Slashdot: What Portion of Developers Are Bad At What They Do? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Genuine answer is "most of them", but only because virtually everyone is terrible at software development. Note that even terrible developers will get there eventually and if you're developing simple software they may still be your best bet. You only need excellent software developers (which implies strong analytical and creative skills) if you're working on something interesting. If you're grinding out simple business logic you are probably better off with mediocre developers because they won't get bored. A scalpel is sharper than a bread knife, but it's not very useful for slicing bread.

    In my career, out of the ~50 I've worked directly with, I've worked with maybe three developers that I'd class as excellent. A few that were "good" for various definitions of that word. The rest were marginal at best, but they still got things done after a fashion.

  25. Re:Yes... on Ask Slashdot: What Portion of Developers Are Bad At What They Do? · · Score: 2

    Slashdot likes to make out like there's a huge glut of good engineers without jobs in the US.

    There's a huge glut of engineers who think they're good. Draw your own conclusions.