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User: bsolar

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  1. Re:Stay away from git for "inexperienced team" on Ask Slashdot: Selecting a Version Control System For an Inexperienced Team · · Score: 1

    Experience is overrated. An inexperienced team of reasonably smart developers can learn and implement one of the simplest git workflows very quickly. I'd actually expect them to do that by themselves, without the need of babysitting.

    From what you describe the problem is not the team being inexperienced, it's the team being dumb, indisciplined and unprofessional. With such a team I think the choice of VCS is the least of your problems and even plenty of "experience" won't help that much in the long run.

  2. Re:This guy should be a lawyer on Volvo Will Accept Liability For Self-Driving Car Crashes (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    Because brakes might not be enough: then the decision becomes: "do I hit the obstacle or attempt to dodge it? Hitting the obstacle might mean a lower risk for the passenger of the car, but a huge risk for the obstacle. Attempting to dodge might mean a higher risk for the passenger of the car but a much lower risk for the obstacle.

    If the obstacle is a dog you might want to prioritise the passenger of the car's safety, but if the obstacle is a kid you might want to attempt to dodge even if the passenger is put at higher risk.

  3. Re:All car companies will have to do this on Volvo Will Accept Liability For Self-Driving Car Crashes (bbc.com) · · Score: 2

    More importantly, it will eventually lead to huge profits as current computers are already far safer drivers than human beings.

    Not necessarily since a lower risk should translate into a lower insurance premium. Actually in some fields it's very strictly regulated and the insurance company is mandated by law to pay back to the insured any risk-based surplus within a few years. Of course if you instead give the insurance free rein...

  4. Re:Issue is more complicated on Linux Kernel Dev Sarah Sharp Quits, Citing 'Brutal' Communications Style · · Score: 5, Insightful
    That's exactly what Linus *doesn't* want. "How to Win Friends and Influence People" is all about manipulating people, stroking their ego and trying to act in a way so that they like you. The underlying assumption is that you should change yourself to better accomodate other people's expectations. Linus already explained why he is completely against all of this in the first discussion with Sarah Sharp:

    Because if you want me to "act professional", I can tell you that I'm not interested. I'm sitting in my home office wearign a bathrobe. The same way I'm not going to start wearing ties, I'm *also* not going to buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords. Because THAT is what "acting professionally" results in: people resort to all kinds of really nasty things because they are forced to act out their normal urges in unnatural ways.

  5. Re:Brother Guy rocks: on Talking Science and God With the Pope's New Chief Astronomer · · Score: 1
    You don't need to be a religius person to believe in baseless or wrong theories and have them influence your work. Still this guy seems to have a much clearer vision of the limits of religion and that natural phenomena are in the domain of science:

    Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism – it's turning God into a nature god.

  6. Re:Handheld consoles on Kids Prefer To Play Games On Mobile Devices Over Consoles · · Score: 1

    Handheld consoles should be included in the "mobile device" category, which is actually what the article talks about.

  7. Re:Need to ban these companies on Number of XcodeGhost-Infected iOS Apps Rises · · Score: 1

    When Gatekeeper stops an application from running it's then possible to go under Security & Privacy to allow it. This means you need to allow your tools only once, the first time you run them (and of course eventually after you update them).

  8. Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid on Nintendo Nixes YouTube Videos of Super Mario Speedruns · · Score: 2

    First of all, making sure that the existence of emulators is buried as deep as possible, since they somehow believe that it's the major cause of their lack of profits.

    On top of that, they want every content featuring Nintendo IP to be licensed through their Nintendo Creators Program, which requires an approval of the video from Nintendo before publication and Nintendo getting a share of the profits from Youtube. They believe fair use basically never applies to any and whatever content produced which features Nintendo IP.

    Basically they still fail at Internet and social media in general.

  9. Re:40GB? on The Install Size of Every PS4 and Xbox One Game · · Score: 1

    As far as I understand for performance reasons on consoles game assets don't get compressed as much as the PC counterpart.

  10. Re:Well, yea... on US-Appointed Egg Lobby Paid Food Blogs and Targeted Chef To Crush Vegan Startup · · Score: 1

    Misleading advertisement is illegal. This includes trying to misrepresent paid reviews as being independent reviews.

  11. Re:If you ride a bike... on Why Biking Injuries and Deaths Are Spiking In the US · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually the typical advice given to bikers is to ride thinking that everyone around you is actively trying to kill you. It works because most people grossly underestimate how others can be *incompetent* but have much less difficulties in thinking about how others could be *malicious*. This is helpful in getting enough caution out of them.

  12. Re:Anyone else having a WTF moment here? on Oakland Changes License Plate Reader Policy After Filling 80GB Hard Drive · · Score: 2

    The point is that with XP you still need to hack the system. With Windows 10 you get the privacy leak already included in the system as "feature".

  13. Re:In related news... on Stephen Hawking Presents Theory On Getting Information Out of a Black Hole · · Score: 4, Funny

    In a flamewar.

  14. Re:Passenger Weight Limits on Airline Begins Weighing Passengers For 'Safety' · · Score: 1

    There is no reason not to pay *also* for volume, since it's a separate (scarce) resource you are "consuming" more than the others. You need more fuel, you pay more. You need more space too? You pay *that* more too.

  15. Re:Passenger Weight Limits on Airline Begins Weighing Passengers For 'Safety' · · Score: 1

    Fault doesn't matter: what matters is the *individual* cost of transporting somebody. Until now the individual cost didn't matter, it was all put together and everyone paid an equal share, but it actually makes sense that if *you* are more expensive to carry around, *you* need to pay more for the service, be it due to having a lot of fat, muscle or having an Adamantium skeleton.

  16. Re:Can we quit pretending that it's car "sharing"? on Uber Drivers Arrested By Undercover Cops In Hong Kong · · Score: 1

    That depends: in Legal Positivism unjust laws are laws nonetheless, but in Natural Law unjust laws are not possible, so an unjust law is by definition invalid and it's in your right to challenge them. It might even be considered a moral obligation to do so.

  17. Re:Uber can't change the chaperoe/mahram law. on How Uber Is Changing Life For Women In Saudi Arabia · · Score: 2

    The very article you cite is a dissertation about how Islamic law actually *doesn't* require such an escort in all cases.

  18. Re:Uber is "ride sharing" ? on How Uber Is Changing Life For Women In Saudi Arabia · · Score: 1

    Uber knows that it has very little chance to push for changes in legislations in Saudi Arabia, but it has actually chances in western countries. On top of that the consequences of losing such a battle are pretty different. It makes perfectly sense for them not to fight battles they are very unlikely to lose but still fight battles they believe they can win in the long term.

  19. Re:Proposed solution is more sexist on Researchers: The Thermostat In Your Office May Be Sexist · · Score: 1

    Not sure about the rest of Europe, but here heating and especially air-conditioning is very strictly regulated to limit excessive energy consumption and (in some locations) noise emissions. The push is toward energy-efficient buildings which require less active heating/cooling altogether. Of course until all places are renovated you might end up in a nice old office which doesn't match these standards and in which it's forbidden to even install AC in any other place than the Server Room. Sometimes it's good to be the IT guy...

  20. Re:Is there any evidence that web ads work? on Advertising Companies Accused of Deliberately Slowing Page-load Times For Profit · · Score: 1

    It's only evidence that they think it works, not that it's actually as effective as they think.

  21. Re:Yes they probably could... on Police Shut Down Anti-Violence Fundraiser Over Rapper's Hologram · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Felons don't lose *all* their rights: they might lose *some* rights but free speech is not among them. This is even true if you break a bail bond contract: you will waive certain constitutional rights as consequence, but free speech is not among them.

  22. Re:Investigating if laws were broken on Police Not Issuing Charges For Handgun-Firing Drone -- Feds Undecided · · Score: 2

    The issue is not about knowledge of the law, it's about legal certainty. More specifically, if the authorities themselves after investigating the issue are unsure about how the law is supposed to apply, it might be that even if such law exists it might be void for vagueness.

  23. Re:This is why physics is the king of the sciences on LHC Discovers Pentaquark Particles · · Score: 1

    It seems like there's usually another layer of reality below the one which seems to be fundamental.

    Nice to know that the fundamental theorem of software engineering applies to the design of the universe too.

  24. Re:interesting.. on Anonymizing Wi-Fi Device Project Unexpectedly Halted · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or maybe 100% vaporware without a feasible implementation in sight? Was a working prototype ever presented? Was a sound technical concept ever presented?

  25. Re:Pronoun Game Anyone? on Amazon Pulls Kodi Media Player From App Store Over Piracy Claims · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The issue is not people customising their own install of Kodi. The issue is custom *hardware* set-top boxes being sold on eBay or Marketplace or whatever, which are explicitly advertised to run Kodi (which is preinstalled) and have the capability of pirating content easily (thanks to the not advertised custom addons).

    People think it's Kodi "vanilla" which allows the pirating since they don't realise it's thanks to the custom addons, so the reputation of Kodi suffers.