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User: Traa

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  1. Re:Wow! on Microsoft Rewarding Employees Who Phone It In · · Score: 1

    Yes. Any work an employee does, even on free time, if it is in any way related to the companies business...the company will claim to own it.

    Don't flame me if you don't agree. This is the general company message in the states. Microsoft's move is pretty bold. If my company would do this I would be ecstatic.

  2. Re:Great news on It's Official — AMD Will Retire the ATI Brand · · Score: 1

    Data latencies, like your "arrive in the same clock", can be hidden by pipe-lining.

    Next paradigm which will hide latencies is to move threading into HW, which has already happened for GPU's in the form of shader threading. The move towards HW and SW support for parallel compute languages like OpenCL will realize the continued growth in computing capabilities for the foreseeable future (don't get me wrong, I'm talking just a decade or so).

    Yes, I am an optimist :-)

  3. Re:False assumption on Sentence Spacing — 1 Space or 2? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    People who indent with spaces should be shot. Indent with tabs all you want and I can view it the way I want (2 space, 4 space, etc.). If you use spaces instead of tabs, I'm going to have to take two seconds to run some elisp to fix it ;-)

    People who indent with tabs should be shot. Indent with spaces all you want and I can view it the way IT WAS WRITTEN.

    There, fixed that for you.

    Really, using tabs only works in theory. You need to be pretty anal to never ever layout anything using spaces or the tabs argument breaks down. God forbid I line up some stuff to make it more readable.

    Yeah, yeah...this is religion to some. My argument is as moot as yours. Kinda what I'm pointing out.

  4. Re:I don't think so... on Fate of Terry Childs Now In Jury's Hands · · Score: 1

    With respect to the "alternatives are far worse", you might want to read up a bit on how the legal system is implemented in The Netherlands and the rest of Europe or any other western civilizations around the globe for that matter.

    The best case against your "juries" or dolts as you call them is to ask yourself how any higher courts work in the US. Do they have juries? I didn't think so.

  5. Re:When? on When Will AI Surpass Human Intelligence? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Looking at predictions that did not come true is interesting, but not half as interesting at looking at things that came true without being predicted. Even fairly recently:
    - the internet
    - social networking
    - smart phones
    - open source projects

    Though some of those might have been predicted in some form this was typically without the prediction of the impact those things had on society.

  6. Re:No, it's $9 - Actual Reply to US Craigslist Pos on Is Programming a Lucrative Profession? · · Score: 1

    I totally agree, but would like to add the following:

    John can be reached on the phone during my business hours.

    Not the case with Rajesh. The turn around time of 24 hours for even the simplest thing that could be cleared up with a quick phone call has killed many a project for us.

  7. Re:BFD on Larry & Sergey To Cash In $5.5B of Google Chips · · Score: 2, Funny

    "by Anonymous Coward" is an anagram for "Dan Brown yoyoma suc"

    just saying

  8. Re:I'll believe it when I see it on OnLive One Step Closer · · Score: 1

    They have been pretty open about latency issues. The server needs to be reasonably close (max 1000 miles) to keep round trip time below 80ms.

    I am currently still a believer in this service. OnLive is not for the tiny hardcore gamers market who already have the best (expensive) equipment. I believe that OnLive might be able to get the casual gaming crowd introduced to high end gaming. Think Nintendo Wii target market, with PS3/XBOX360/High-end-PC gaming graphics. This market, not sensitive to the differences between OnLive and running the games native on your $5K gaming rig, could change the adoption rate of next gen games.

    I sure hope it all works out.

  9. Re:First decade of this millennium on Steve Jobs Crowned "Person of the Decade" · · Score: 1

    "There was no year 0" should be placed in the context of the original folks who came up with the calendar and had it wrong. There have been various corrections to the calendar since, and calling the years xxx0 through xxx9 a decade is one of them.

  10. Story is also pro-science on Anti-Technology Themes in James Cameron's Avatar · · Score: 1

    In the story the (good) scientists lose against the (bad) profit-over-anything-corporate backed "private" military. The indigenous where caught in the middle without a say. That message was so obvious it wasn't much of a political statement as it was an easy good guys vs bad guys setup.

    But that is not why I enjoyed this must see movie.

  11. Re:Modern-Day Galileo on The Science Credibility Bubble · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is actually a parallel between why the media jumped on Tiger and the science flub so badly. In both cases the media attention is strengthened by the idea of breaking an otherwise stable 'uninteresting' topic.

    Tiger is important in the world (of entertainment). He is an awesome sportsman, successful, rich, married nice girl, blah, blah, whatever. Problem for the media has been that we already know all of this by now. There is rarely ever anything new, or better (media point of view) bad to report. Well...the car crash ignited this massive media blitz against him for the sake of _trying_ to bring the guy down to 'the rest of us'.

    Science is also seen as uninteresting. It's all logical stuff done by smart folks that know what they are doing. Nothing to report on. Problem is that those boring and smug scientists are behind all this science that is telling us to change our lives, and we can't come up with any reasons to tell them to buzz off, because well...those reasons typically have to be scientific, and we can't beat them at their own game.
    And up comes a reason we can slap them over the head with...they cheated, and we know all about that. You know what says the media to fuel a story they have been itching to get away with, they probably all cheat!

  12. kids are smart on Interactive Computer Exhibits For Ages 3-8? · · Score: 1

    Do not underestimate the interest in computer stuff of young kids. They recognize modern electronic toys (computers, phones, handheld gaming devices) from the other toys. My 4 year old is very good at playing his Nintendo DS (Kirby or anything Mario) and our Nintendo Wii (Zelda, Mario). He correctly uses a computer. Turns it ON, logs in to his account, launches Firefox (knows not to launch Explorer ;-) and watches Thomas the Train movies on Youtube.

    My 1 year old knows how to operate a computer mouse. Moving it, clicking the buttons while looking at the screen for results (mixed ;-)

    Both have little kids computers that teach them letters, numbers and soon easy words and arithmetic.

    The biggest thing for them different from my generation is that computers aren't special.

  13. Re:Saboteur, hey? on Saboteur Launch Plagued By Problems With ATI Cards · · Score: 1

    C:\> echo You silly kids and your modern toys!

  14. Native development on Android on Why Open Source Phones Still Fail · · Score: 3, Informative

    "locks third-party developers into a crippled Java sandbox"

    Hmm, no it doesn't. Android offers an NDK for native application development. Yes your application entry point is still Java, but using Java's Native Interface (JNI) the main part of the app can be native (C/C++) just fine. It already supports native OpenGL ES 1.1 which is great for 3D games development on G1 or Droid phones which have great 3D graphics hardware.

    note: I develop native apps for Android for a living.

  15. Re:Unfortunate on Arrington's CrunchPad Dies · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wasn't me, but could have been. I wouldn't be astroturfing, I'd be one of the many many engineers actually working on ARM processors. Are we not welcome here?

  16. Re:You mean on Apple Asks Judge To Shutter Psystar's Clone Unit · · Score: 1

    You can do whatever you want with software you legally own.

    Problem is, there isn't much (or any?) software you legally own. You don't own the Windows install on your comp, or the OS X or even Linux versions. You have "licenses" to use those (even Linux) for particular means. And those licenses refer to legislation and other stuff (DMCA, patents, copyright law, ...) restricting your use even further.

    Of course it didn't start or stop with SW. Big chunks of the music and movie industry have fought for years to prevent the "free" use of material through *cough* creative licenses.

  17. (Sub-)Genre's on What Belongs In a High School Sci-Fi/Fantasy Lit Class? · · Score: 1

    Like a music class, why not approach this from a (sub-)genre point of view. Claiming to cover the genre's fantasy and science-fiction, is like saying we teach music of all kinds. Classical AND modern music. How about you break it up into (and I'm no expert):
    - Classical sci-fi (Jules Verne, ...)
    - pre-hard sci-fi. (Isaac Asimov, ...), No idea what this sub-genre's name would be
    - Science-Fantasy (Douglas Adams, ...), making this up as I go
    - Cyber-punk (William Gibson, ...)
    - Space Opera (Vernor Vinge, ...)
    - Hard sci-fi (Kim Stanley Robbinson, ..)
    - Singularity visions (Corey Doctorow, ...)
    - etc.

    Of course several writers crossed borders, but that is a good topic for discussion.

    Knowing the above does a lot more good then discussion any particular "oh, oh...this book was so great" title that has been mentioned in this thread.

  18. Re:Bot scanner? on Up To 9% of a Company's Machines Are Bot-Infected · · Score: 1

    I'm with parent on this. I'm a developer at a big company. Have 3 machines in front of me[*]. Don't have access to firewall logs, assuming IT is doing a decent job because none of my machines have ever gone down in last 3 years. Still, modern malware wouldn't take my machine down so I could very well be infected. How do I know? What do I scan?

    [*] Linux on one, WinXP on the others because that is what the job demands (don't argue).

  19. Re:I'm not sure I understand on Doctorow On What Cloud Computing Is Really For · · Score: 1

    Do you ever use Google maps?

    So there!

  20. Re:Yes on The Ethics of Selling GPLed Software For the iPhone · · Score: 1

    I'm no GPL expert, but could you download the $2.99 game and re-upload it offering it for free?

  21. Re:Crazy people on English DJ Claims Wi-Fi Allergy · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Reference or it didn't hap...ehh, I actually totally believe you already. Still, a reference would be great so we can spread the word that we are on to you crazy people. Yeah, you know who I am talking about! :-)

  22. Re:Slashdot is, as usual, behind the times on Dutch Gov. Wants To Tax Online Media To Fund Print · · Score: 3, Informative

    Come one, you gotta like a language in which "angstschreeuw" and "slechtstschrijvend" are perfectly valid words. It's like Perl (only less regular)! :)

    angstscreeuw = fear scream (one word in Dutch) = 8 consonants in a row
    slechtstscrijvend = worst written (one word in Dutch) = 9 consonants in a row

    some more fun examples from the Dutch language:
    koeieuier = Cow's udder = 7 vowels in a row
    Jazzzinger = Jazz Singer = 3 z's in a row

  23. Re:Don't bother on The Real British X-Files · · Score: 1

    was going to post similar story. Yours covers it just fine.

  24. Re:Work Experience on Go For a Masters, Or Not? · · Score: 1

    Please get a Masters!!

    Sure work experience is what get's you a foot in the door (past the HR filter) and your personality should do the rest during the interview....

    But how about 10 years later? At the senior staff/ principal engineering level you had better be a genius to advance without a decent degree.

    In short I see the following:
    Work experience only = programmer
    Education = engineer

    I know I'm stepping on some toes here, but this is my experience (MSCS 1996, Senior Staff Engineer/Mgr)

  25. Re:first post! on Is a $72.5m Opening Weekend Enough For Star Trek? · · Score: -1, Troll

    Maybe it's my personal experience, but every single person I have talked to has said it is not faithful in it's representation of star trek and was not worth viewing.

    Maybe you and all your friend should go out more.