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User: richtaur

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Comments · 56

  1. Re:Innovation on Bing on Bing Maps Wows 'Em At TED2010 · · Score: 1

    I've been using that for a while now, it's great! I'm often googling for web development results, and I always always X w3schools.com (old, outdated into). I think Sark666 is saying it would be nice to remove results from entire domains. I'd love that too, because then I could just click once and be done with it.

  2. Re:Expensive? on Wi-Fi In a SIM Card · · Score: 1

    Most of the US nerds like me probably have infinite data plans on their mobile devices, spending ~$80/month.

  3. Ignorance is bliss on Does Personalized News Lead To Ignorance? · · Score: 1

    Personally I'm not just bored by regular news, I also often find it depressing. All I follow is technology news, because that's what I find interesting and what I want to occupy most of my time.

    News is mostly entertainment anyway; you will hear about the *really* important stuff from friends or relatives.

  4. Re:Only $529! on Google's Nexus One Phone Launches · · Score: 1

    I wouldn't be so sure that Apple is profiting at $200 per iPod. Maybe, but hardware manufacturers (see Sony's lower PS3 price) first need time to increase manufacturing efficiency to lower the price, and they are sometimes willing to take a hit because of the software (or songs, apps, etc.) that can then be sold on the device. So although Sony might not profit from each PS3 sold, they can make up the difference from all the games you buy.

    I'd guess that's been how Apple sells their (handheld) hardware for decent prices.

  5. Re:Programming without music? on Music While Programming? · · Score: 1

    Yup. We sometimes had some weird rules like that back in the midwest. But in Silicon Valley, engineers are king. If a manager of mine said that to me now, I'd laugh. If s/he was serious, I'd almost immediately move jobs.

    To solve that problem, move somewhere that "gets" programmers (Boston, San Francisco and New York are other good places). After that, I highly recommend catchy, thumpy music without vocals. I listen to the house or progressive channels on Digitally Imported all day, personally.

  6. How did this make Slashdot? on Star Guard — an Old-School Platformer Done Right · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm not bitching here, I promise: I am legitimately curious. I've played dozens of games like this and I know people who make games like this who would LOVE to get their game on Slashdot.

    So what am I missing? How is this different or unique enough to justify a Slashdot posting? ... Anybody?

  7. Re:Stability on Why Users Drop Open Source Apps For Proprietary Alternatives · · Score: 1

    I've heard this argument before: I use music production software like Cubase that allows plugins called VSTs. They often are the cause for the entire application crashing and sometimes lots of work lost. The thing is, other applications (some would cite Apple's Logic) would not crash even when using the same VSTs, because they had more intelligent plugin architecture to help prevent crashes from 3rd party software. Firefox should do the same.

    I'm a HUGE Firefox fan -- I've converted or tried to convert everyone I know that wasn't already a user in the last 5 years or so. I've got three Mozilla shirts, countless stickers, hats ... and I'm still losing my faith in the entire platform. Firebug is probably my biggest headache point right now, so those developers definitely need to get their shit together. But it could also be argued that Firefox is the source of truth and could provide improved crash prevention.

  8. Re:Its not rocket surgery... on Staying In Shape vs. a Busy IT Job Schedule? · · Score: 1

    Most optimal answer! You win!

  9. Re:apache? on Turn Your iPhone Into a Web Server · · Score: 1

    Srsly. Been there, done that. What's next?

  10. Re:Not only Google on Google Mows With Goats · · Score: 1

    Yup, Yahoo! did this for a long time when I was there; it was to help prevent naturally-occurring fires.

    ... But, it's Google, and anything they do belongs on the Slashdot homepage for some reason *yawn*

  11. Re:Elder Scrolls? on Bethesda Announces New Fallout Game For 2010 · · Score: 1

    I'm with you. I'm looking forward to the next Elder Scrolls game WAY more than the next Fallout ... both are good but Oblivion is medieval fantasy and therefore wins.

    Plus it took me about twice as long to beat Oblivion so I got to enjoy it for longer: http://raptr.com/richtaur

  12. What's in a name? on What Do You Call People Who "Do HTML"? · · Score: 1

    I actually interviewed a guy a while back for Yahoo! who only knew HTML and CSS. I call this person "almost worthless." Without any scripting knowledge (JavaScript, PHP/Python/Ruby), there really wasn't a position for this person anywhere in the company (and that says a lot for such a big web company).

    The unfortunate thing is that there really is no perfect term for all the various kinds of web developers (a good default term). I call myself Frontend Engineer, but that really means nothing. This term particularly annoys my British co-workers because in England "engineer" means something very specific (similar to "doctor" in the states).

    So a safe bet is to call anyone who develops for the web a "web developer" but then make damn sure to test their skills before ever considering hiring them.

  13. Re:It's all about the awesome on iPhone Jailbreaking Still Going Strong · · Score: 1

    I wasn't trying to compare what a jailbroken iPhone can do that other devices can't, I was saying what you can do with a jailbroken iPhone. It has some severe limitations (yes, like the inability to change text ringtones) that are easily fixed after breaking it.

  14. It's all about the awesome on iPhone Jailbreaking Still Going Strong · · Score: 5, Interesting

    iPhone is great, but a jailbroken iPhone is AWESOME! Oldschool emulators (Genesis, Nintendo), bash terminal, custom text ringtones, scp/ssh ... it's a fantastic device by itself, but without restrictions it's unbelievably good.

  15. Hey! on Engineering Students Build Robotic Foosball Players · · Score: 1

    That's not a Tornado! What kinda crap are they trying to pull??

  16. Homebrew Channel on Nintendo Asks For Government Help To Fight Piracy · · Score: 1

    After getting a 360 a few months ago, my Wii has been collecting dust. Its only redeemable quality to me now is the Homebrew Channel, which Nintendo is *really* against. If they took that away from me, I'd basically be done with it... until the next Mario or Zelda game...

    Really though, it seems like their primary market right now are gaming families, the Wii probably being their first console. These people don't even know *how* to pirate games, so who cares about a few stragglers? Suck it up, Nintendo.

  17. Prehistoric Error! on Jurassic Web · · Score: 1

    http://raptr.com/getfirefox.php

    Sorry, I just love it when someone dumps IE6 support. Gives me hope that the Interwebz is finally making progress after a decade of crap...

  18. Mine works fine... on Why Your Pop-Up Blocker Doesn't Work Anymore · · Score: 1

    but thanks for the heads up?

  19. Yahoo! gives all of its computers random names on Why Do We Name Servers the Way We Do? · · Score: 1

    They use two or three randomly generated words put together. My computers over there were:

    Windows: letfancypick
    MacBook: coloronly
    RHEL: studenthuman

    (Yes, they gave me three computers.)

  20. Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games on New Open Source FPS Blood Frontier Shows Promise · · Score: 1

    And yet Blood Frontier isn't listed... (I'm guessing that'll be fixed shortly.)

  21. Re:Knytt Stories on Great Games To Put On a Free PC? · · Score: 1

    You beat me to it. I can't recommend this game highly enough. It's more involved and has higher progression than the first Knytt game. So good!

  22. You should already know on Would You Add Easter Eggs To Software Produced At Work? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It sounds like you shouldn't do it, at least in this particular case. You say that "the software is quite professional," which makes it sound inappropriate. When you work on a fun product whose target audience would appreciate such things, you'll already know that Easter Eggs are fine.

    Pass for now, and perhaps look for more fun projects in the future.

  23. Guess I should quit playing Brain Age on Brains Work Best At Age of 39 · · Score: 1

    Stupid thing keeps telling me that 20 is the ideal age.

    Also, this is just one more reason to vote Obama!

  24. Re:jQuery rocks, no comment on Microsoft on Microsoft Adding jQuery To Visual Studio · · Score: 1

    Ugh. More people need to learn JavaScript and *then* DOM and *then* make an intelligent decision on which library to use. Avoiding learning JavaScript and instead learning jQuery pretty much guarantees you will produce awful code. Please spare those of us who may someday have to work with you and don't do that.

  25. Re:Here's what I do on Best Reference Site For Each Programming Language? · · Score: 1

    w3schools is awful. It's out of date, contains loads of misinformation, doesn't keep up with current browsers and barely scratches the surface. Yet it remains one of the most popular webdev destinations because people often don't know where else to go. Please stop recommending it :(

    developer.mozilla.org will do in most cases.