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User: Tinctorius

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Comments · 58

  1. Re:This just in on Things That Turbo Pascal Is Smaller Than · · Score: 1

    In theory, it doesn't. In practice, a lot of data ends up being needlessly copied in a lot of software, for various reasons (devs don't care; their superiors don't care; it's the easiest way to abstract it; overlooked bugs; it's for some legacy feature; it's useful for very unlikely cases). It's a waste of processing power, and thus a waste of energy.

  2. Re:This just in on Things That Turbo Pascal Is Smaller Than · · Score: 1

    Why bother with optimization?

    Energy consumption.

  3. Re:dumbing down of slashdot on Researchers Demonstrate Quantum Levitation · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is flux pinning, and apparently, is a different phenomenon than the Meissner effect.

  4. Re:What Does This Mean? on Pi Computed To 10 Trillion Digits · · Score: 1

    Update: it seems that the software itself is not new. The programmer mentioned the use of y-cruncher.

  5. Re:What Does This Mean? on Pi Computed To 10 Trillion Digits · · Score: 2

    In computing pi, the method is much more important than the value. Without further details, I don't know if the programmer's method is novel, but perhaps the implementation is.

    The value itself is of little use, except that there is still no answer to the question whether pi follows a pattern, beyond being irrational and transcedental. Keep in mind that the Champernowne constant is irrational and transcedental too, but follows a relatively simple pattern.

  6. Re:Who cares? on Cheap GPUs Rendering Strong Passwords Useless · · Score: 1

    Mod parent up. This tool has no further practical applications and it is not news that brute forcing works better with GPUs than CPUs. It's exactly what they're meant to do.

  7. Re:err.. on Linux 3.0 Will Have Full Xen Support · · Score: 2

    Not now.

  8. Some assembly required on Explosion At Foxconn Factory Kills 2, Injures 16 · · Score: 1

    Let's go back to the Sinclair model: we assemble our own gizmos. Really, it's more fun than unboxing, and it gives an opportunity for the geeks to interact with people who can't assemble the things by themselves.

  9. Re:Right right right, I get it. on Developing Android Apps Visually, In 3 parts · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Anyone can program, and anyone can learn programming.

    No and no.

    I have seen many people struggling to learn PHP (as part of their education). Not because they had any issues with the language itself, but because they couldn't systematically approach their problem. And if you would have read the TFA, or even simply peeked at the pictures, you would have seen that this IDE is almost a glorified code coloring editor, where words of code fit together like jigsaw pieces.

    The art of programming is actually the art of reverse-engineering: you put your program together like you take your solution apart. If you don't know how to carefully dissect your ideas, then you are not a programmer.

  10. About that delay on Punish Bad Users With Drupal Misery · · Score: 1

    By serving 40% of your malicious users with a delay, you actually spend more resources (mostly memory) on trolls. Sure, in 60% of the cases, you spend nearly nothing, but it sure opens possibilities for DDoS attacks: open accounts, troll a lot, get miserable and simply troll harder.

  11. Re:And why would we... on Rep. Bill Posey Introduces 'Back To the Moon' Bill · · Score: 1

    Good point. Still, I assume that being more careful about our resources is not too much to ask.

  12. And why would we... on Rep. Bill Posey Introduces 'Back To the Moon' Bill · · Score: 1

    ... want to live on the moon if we can't even properly live on Earth?

  13. Re:Can we have this on comments too ? on SlashTweaks Let YOU Micro-Edit Slashdot · · Score: 2

    {Yes/No}.

  14. Re:Wow, who wrote this summary? on UK Government Wants to Spring Ahead Two Hours · · Score: 1

    They shouldn't: UK has DST, UTC doesn't.

  15. No wonder they didn't want to update it on Arx Fatalis Updated, Released Under GPL · · Score: 2

    Sources/DANAE/ARX_Script.cpp is 13719 lines in size, most of which handles script parsing and evaluation simultaneously, in a uselessly convoluted way. It deserves a proper rewrite from scratch.

    I do like how they used names from Greek mythology to refer to certain components of the source code: Athena handles audio, Eerie handles some graphics, Mercury handles user input, Hermes is probably there for communication or saving/loading, Minos is only there for pathfinding and Danae gets everything else.

  16. Re:No money on Unreal Tournament 3 For Linux Is Officially Dead · · Score: 2

    Averages don't say much here, we need more statistics. There could be more Linux users among the outliers, while the medians among users may be the same for all OSes.

  17. Stupid move on Fighting Ad Blockers With Captcha Ads · · Score: 2, Informative

    If the owners of a website are willing to get paid for using a CAPTCHA system, then I guess they're also willing to lose most of their users because of it.

    There are other methods to keep your website clean.

  18. Re:Fuck Dubai on The Gaping Holes In the UAE's Net Firewall · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yes! Penetrate all their firewall holes!

  19. Re:I knew that since 2008 on Incorporating Swarm Intelligence Into Computer AI · · Score: 1

    In other news: ACO is ancient. !news.

  20. Re:How to get out of work on a progeamming team on Sentence Spacing — 1 Space or 2? · · Score: 1

    Vote for documenting before coding. End of discussion.

    Same goes for this issue. Avoid the use of abbreviations. And if you do want to have it detected programmatically, you can always add some markup (quote `abbr.` in backticks?), provided your software understands such things.

  21. Re:Tax bills can't originate in the Senate on Senate Approves the ______Act Of____ · · Score: 1

    Replacing it with what? Blanks?

  22. Re:Public expectations... on Tribalism Is the Enemy Within, Says Shuttleworth · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sorry, Linux won't support scissoring until 2.6.38, the patch is still pending. And by patch I mean dental dam.

  23. See also: Rent a Friend (2000) on Need a Friend? Rent One Online · · Score: 1
  24. Re:Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalkers on PS Move Launch Date and Price Announced, Portal 2 For the PS3 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yet you'll never see or hear him coming.

  25. Re:Kill it with FIRE on New Declassification Process To Open 400 Million Pages of Records · · Score: 1

    I'm sorry to report that, ironically, mr. Fire was sacked last Thursday.