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User: RackinFrackin

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Comments · 276

  1. Re:perhaps more importantly, they are easier to FI on Fixing the Humanities Ph.D. · · Score: 1

    You are being flippant here. Hiring someone into a tenure track position is a lot more work than hiring someone into a temporary position. Someone in a temporary position is usually just going to teach classes and that's it. All you need to know is if they are knowledgable and can run a classroom. Credentials give you a ballpark idea of the first, and references give you an idea of the second. Budget-wise you only need a commitment from above for one year's salary, which is a lot easier to secure than a continuing salary. You don't have to worry about their research compatibility, long-term career plans, or their ability to get tenure.

    And if you screw up and hire a person who isn't up to the job, you don't renew them. So true, they are easier to fire, but that's a very small part of the story.

  2. worst websites around on Americans Hate TV and Internet Providers More Than Other Industries · · Score: 3

    My only experience is with charter. Their service itself is usually pretty good, but I hate their website. You can't find straightforward information on what individual services cost, and even finding a channel listing is difficult. On more than one occasion I've searched for services available at my house--where they make me enter my exact address--and their website tells me that they do not service my area.

    It really frustrates me that the companies that run the internet don't care enough or aren't required to make basic information about their services available.

  3. Re:Pre Macrovision with 4+ heads on Ask Slashdot: Which VHS Player To Buy? · · Score: 4, Funny

    Good point. Get two.

  4. Re:RIP in Peace on Harold Ramis Dies At 69 · · Score: 1

    Am I the only one who's been waiting for years to nail someone who "corrects" me for saying "pdf file"?

  5. Re:Casio fx-115ES Plus on Ask Slashdot: Cheap Second Calculators For Tests? · · Score: 1

    This is a very capable calculator for under 20 USD. The two things that really impressed me about is are that (1) it can do arithmetic with and simplify square roots, and (2) it can do numerical integration and in some cases give exact answers. The numerical integration can be painfully slow, but it can recognize that, for instance int_{-1}^1 \sqrt{1-x^2} = \pi/2.

  6. Space Camp 2? on NASA Astronaut Talks "Gravity," Spacewalking, ISS · · Score: 0

    They have to get to the ISS because they are running out of oxygen. Sounds a lot like Space Camp.

  7. Re:We tried this... on The Post-Lecture Classroom · · Score: 1

    Because of performance-based funding, and programs like Complete College America.

  8. Chopping Mall on Will Robots Replace Rent-a-Cops? · · Score: 1

    This reminds me of the movie Chopping Mall, where security robots patrol a mall, and (big surprise) a bunch of teenagers get stuck in there overnight.

  9. Re:It's not about YOU stupid. on Facebook "Trusted Contacts" Lets You Pester Friends To Recover Account Access · · Score: 2

    you get nothing in return

    FB users get a significant amount of utility out of Facebook, and of course it comes at a cost. It looks extremely lop-sided because there's only one facebook and there are a billion or so users, but saying that users get nothing from it is just as stupid as saying that it costs users nothing.

  10. Re:Sim Universe on Interviews: Ask Freeman Dyson What You Will · · Score: 1

    Here's a good visual of that concept.

  11. It make be sketchy... on Fake Academic Journals Are a Very Real Problem · · Score: 4, Funny

    but the Antarctica Journal of Mathematics has such a great webpage.

  12. Deep Hot Biosphere on Microbes Likely Abundant Hundreds of Meters Below Sea Floor · · Score: 1

    Thomas Gold wrote a book that seems very pertinent to this.

  13. Re:without looking on Smartphone Screen Real Estate: How Big Is Big Enough? · · Score: 1

    You can with an iPhone 4. The voice commands work well and don't send anything to Apple.

  14. Re:Uhhh... on New Largest Known Prime Number: 2^57,885,161-1 · · Score: 1

    You are correct, except that the parent was talking about the definition of Mersenne numbers, not Mersenne primes.

  15. Re:Uni-ball Signo Bit 0.18mm, 0.28mm, 0.38mm on Ask Slashdot: The Search For the Ultimate Engineer's Pen · · Score: 1

    I'll second the .28 mm uni-ball signo. It's the best thin-line pen I've ever used. It's great for doing neat, precision writing, but I can't write very fast with it. In my opinion the .18 is a little too small. I haven't tried the .38 version.

    I've also tried the Pentel Slicci .25 mm pens, as mentioned by other posters, but I don't like them as well.

    For a thicker-writing pen, I highly recommend the Uni-ball vision elite micro.

  16. Re:anti-recommendation on Ask Slashdot: Mathematical Fiction? · · Score: 1

    Rucker's "the fourth dimension: toward a geometry of higher reality" is a very good read, or at least i really enjoyed it when i was in high school. Much of the book is about Flatland, with a lot of commentary and additional ideas about A. Square. I'd recommend it.

  17. Re:Dumb on Brown Signs California Bill For Free Textbooks · · Score: 1

    Download it while you're at the university.

  18. scrambled channels? on Revisiting the Macintosh ROM Easter Egg · · Score: 1, Funny

    That first picture reminds me of watching cinemax when I was a teenager, minus the naked women.

  19. USB Microscope on Ask Slashdot: Advice On Child-Friendly Microscopes? · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'd suggest a $100 or so USB microscope. You can use it to look at opaque objects, and you can have the picture on your computer screen. That would be a big help when trying to point out what the kid is seeing.

  20. Re:Error My Ass on NBC Apologizes For Editing Zimmerman 911 Call · · Score: 1

    Wikipedia says that the boxer linked to above is 6'3", and the other link says that "In the modern era, middleweight means that the fighter's official weight does not exceed 160 pounds."

    But all of that is beside the point. Using height and weight to determine how well someone can fight is like using clock speed to determine how fast a computer is.

  21. Re:Error My Ass on NBC Apologizes For Editing Zimmerman 911 Call · · Score: 1

    And 160 lbs at 6'3 is so skinny as to be a total non-threat.

    Henry Maske and I'm sure plenty of other middleweight boxers would disagree.

  22. Borrowing from the master on Children Used To Steal Parents' Data · · Score: 1
  23. Re:Neat! on Raspberry Pi Gertboard In Action · · Score: 2

    They have 13$ arduinos.

    If you're making more than one device you can go even cheaper if you just buy a bare ATMega328 + a couple of cheap components. Granted, you also need a USB to TTL cable which is another $20 or so, but you only need one of those.

  24. Malm? on Earliest Human Beds Found In South Africa · · Score: 4, Funny

    Did it come from IKEA?

  25. Re:Arduino on Ask Slashdot: Physical Input Devices For Developers? · · Score: 1

    You wouldn't need the A/D converters. The atmega328 (main chip on the arduino) has them built-in.