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User: Idiot+with+a+gun

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  1. Re:Alternatives? on Google Go Capturing Developer Interest · · Score: 1

    My coworker and I got in a big argument about Scala earlier.

    I hate it when people call it functional. I'd far prefer multi-paradigm, and here's why.

    No proper Tail Call Optimization. In simple cases the compiler inlines your function as a loop, or it uses a trampoline function. This can make make writing functional code (which has no loops generally) inefficient (and ugly). That's what you get for sticking on the JVM I guess.

    Introduction of non-pure functions through inclusion of systems library. The argument for Scala is that you have access to any Java library. The issue is that none of these libraries are pure functions, so you ruin the pure nature of your program.

    Does this make Scala bad? No. But I think to call it a functional language is to be disingenuous. Is it handy having functional constructs (yay partial application and maps!) in an OOP language? Heck yes. But it's not really designed for pure functional programming, so I really wouldn't call it functional.

  2. Re:"many developers are so intrigued" on Google Go Capturing Developer Interest · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Google Go is in basically the exact same position Java was. Both are technically OSS, but both are also controlled by a single company. I'm sure this exact same thing happened in Usenet back before Java was popular, and look where it is now.

  3. Re:"many developers are so intrigued" on Google Go Capturing Developer Interest · · Score: 2, Funny

    Like Java?

  4. Name on Google Go Capturing Developer Interest · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Whatever happened to the previous language named Go? Did the creator settle with Google, or did Google just ignore him?

  5. Re:Not the Problem on FAA Data Shows Exploding Batteries Are Rare, Small Risk · · Score: 1

    How do you manage to breathe so much and not choke?

  6. Re:What is Google's interest? Data Tracking? on Google's Experimental Fiber Network · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Plus, many ISPs are trying to strip ads from pages, and insert their own in the fly. Comcast even redirects not found DNS queries to their own ad-covered site. It's in Google's interest to ensure you receive the pages as they were sent (with their ads instead of Comcast's).

    Personally, I want it (Google's ads are less offensive, and 1Gbps? Yes please).

  7. Re:Huh? on A "Never Reboot" Service For Linux · · Score: 1

    What kind of stock broker needs his system up when the markets are closed?

  8. Re:This is not science. on Call For Scientific Research Code To Be Released · · Score: 1

    1) Almost. Our politicians are retarded, and more interested in appeasing people than actually fixing things. They'll act on bad data. 2) So? There are trolls on the internet too. They're receiving grants, get some lawyers. 3) Clearly it didn't work too well. 1 sig fig.....

  9. Re:This is not science. on Call For Scientific Research Code To Be Released · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Irrelevant. If you can't take some trolls, maybe you shouldn't be in such a controversial topic. The accuracy of your data is far more significant than your petty emotions, especially if your data will be affecting trillions of dollars worldwide.

  10. Re:Ipod on DRM Content Drives Availability On P2P Networks · · Score: 1

    They make a relatively strong effort to prevent you from doing that. Specifically the firmware has to be signed. Now, we can fake it these days (Since you can put Linux on your iPod), but it was quite a reverse engineering feat to do this, IIRC.

  11. Re:Theory versus reality. on US Grants Home Schooling German Family Political Asylum · · Score: 1

    It's called observation bias. You could never know how well your social skills would have developed if you were public schooled. I used to be incredibly socially awkward, and now I'm doing a lot better. Why? Age, probably. But had I been home schooled, then gone to a public college I would've blamed it on home schooling. Would I have been worse? I dunno, I didn't live my life that way.

  12. Re:Statistics on 75% of Linux Code Now Written By Paid Developers · · Score: 1

    As a console lover myself, I do lament to some degree the increasing lack of interest the modern Linux user has in it. But, perhaps it's for the better, as the community is becoming far stronger (even OSS projects need writers and artists for polish). And I would definitely agree with your analysis on Gnome and KDE. Although I think compatibility has changed drastically recently, as Linux is now geared towards being compatible with commodity hardware, not just workstations for the computer literate.

  13. Re:Statistics on 75% of Linux Code Now Written By Paid Developers · · Score: 1

    You have the unmistakable stench of someone who judges from a high chair. Did you try Linux in the late 90's? Have you been running it since then? I hopped in in around 2006, and let me tell you that device support has changed drastically. And IMHO, device support is one of the most significant parts of a kernel (and the surrounding projects). Because who cares about an OS if it doesn't work on your machine?

  14. Re:Nokia has a good history when it comes to paten on Apple Seeks To Ban Nokia Imports To US · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes, that is exactly what he is saying.

  15. Re:Ogg is out for technical reasons on YouTube Revamp Imminent? · · Score: 1

    That's patently false. Even among lossless codecs there can be a drastic difference in sizes with the same bit rate. A great example of this is WAV vs. FLAC. FLAC is lossless, so all data is preserved (just, represented differently), yet it can be 30-50% smaller than WAV on music. And things get even more complicated when you start looking at lossy codecs (like many video codecs) that are willing to throw away "useless" data.

  16. Re:Ogg is out for technical reasons on YouTube Revamp Imminent? · · Score: 1

    Maybe, combined with some legal pressure, our ISPs would actually start upgrading their backbone, and delivering on their promises (or promising more reasonable things).

  17. Re:Ogg is out for technical reasons on YouTube Revamp Imminent? · · Score: 1

    MPEG-4 is still patent encumbered. So if we switch to it, we aren't really gaining that much. How about we finally go to audio/video standards that people can use without worrying about being sued?

  18. Oh please oh please oh please on YouTube Revamp Imminent? · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I have been calling for Flash to be killed with fire for a long time. It's by far the worst internet technology still in use. It even beats out ActiveX (possibly even for vulnerabilities too!). I strongly hope google does this.

  19. Re:What's with the nationalism on CES, Reporter Breaks "Unbreakable" Mobile Phone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You sound like those crazy sociology professors who get pissed at words like "manhole" and "mankind." It's part of the presentation style, relax.

  20. Re:Don't be silly. on INTERPOL Granted Diplomatic Immunity In the US · · Score: 2, Informative

    They basically don't. The summary and title is flat out wrong. They basically were granted some tax freedoms, that's all.

  21. Re:The plural of anecdote is not data... on How Norway Fought Staph Infections · · Score: 1

    Did nobody else notice the title of "The plural of anecdote is not data"? This mean's the GP is admitting that it's anecdotal, in case you're a bit thick.

  22. Re:So only XP is out of luck? on HDD Manufacturers Moving To 4096-Byte Sectors · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I've never understood this long living love for XP. The longer I work with it (I'm a support tech), the more I hate it. It genuinely has the feeling of an OS that was organically grown, without any fore planning. Wireless control often ends up in the hands of a user-space program instead of in the OS (wtf?), and updates are done through a god awful activex webpage. Blech. The long term (and even short term) stability of XP these days is poor at best, and I have no clue why everyone claims to love it.

    On the other hand, most people I've met who make fun of Vista, never used it. My dad was slamming it earlier "Did you ever use it?" "... No". The vast majority of complaints about it stemmed from 2 problems:
    • The so called "power users" always complain about any change, regardless of whether or not it's good.
    • Underpowered machines were marked as "Vista Capable" when they were not.

    And to honest, 7 is quite good. This is coming from a die hard Linux user (who actually liked Gentoo).

  23. Other licenses on All GPLed Code Removed From MonoDevelop · · Score: 1

    Okay, so I know there are other open source licenses. And some of them are quite good. But that's not the point. The point is that they've suddenly declared an ideological issue with the GPL, and thrown away (probably) good code.

    This is the sort of in fighting that hurts open source a lot. Although admittedly, I do not believe that MonoDevelop is a good program. It hardly provides anything beyond a context aware editor. The Mono projects I looked at (Gnome Do and its plugins specifically) had long since abandoned MonoDevelop for their project management, and merely used it as an editor (if even). I personally had nothing but problems with its project files being constantly broken. We will see how this will go over, but overall I think this will hurt the growth of the MonoDevelop project.

  24. Re:How does it compare with the other NVidia drive on Nouveau NVIDIA Driver To Enter Linux 2.6.33 Kernel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'll agree with you, they work good, when they work. The problem with the official drivers is that they're a binary blob, thus most distributions (none I've ever seen) ship with them enabled. This is an issue if the default nv driver crashes your machine. Because of this, I'm going with ATI next time, I've heard they're way more Linux friendly now.

  25. Re:Tempest in a tea cup on "Lawful Spying" Price Lists Leaked · · Score: 1

    You act like this is new. That's what search warrants do, they give the government a warrant to search through your stuff. Weird how that works, eh?