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User: gatkinso

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  1. Re:Upgrade to Windows for improved stability! on Bad Lockup Bug Plagues Linux · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    BSOD is an error trap screen. The kernel was going to die, the error was caught, the crees was displayed, and the system then halts.

    Saying that the BSOD is not a kernel problem is possibly correct, but not certain.

  2. American infrastructure was untouched during WW2, hence we still have draped lines on sticks in many places. Cutting edge tech... from the 1880's.

  3. Re:that's because on Blame America For Everything You Hate About "Internet Culture" · · Score: 1

    >> French idea of relief is a bottle of wine and watching women walking by the café.

    That does it: I'm moving to France!

  4. Re:First and foremost on Ask Slashdot: Best Practices For Starting and Running a Software Shop? · · Score: 2

    A graduate project is not nearly as fluid as a paying gig. It is agreed up front at the start of the project and generally this is what is produced. Not so in the real world.

    Then, your work is graded. Maybe not the best thing for your academic career, but in many cases you can take a C and move on. I business this is called "failing" and this means all of a sudden you and your employees have nothing to eat and all the lights turn off in your house.

    There are no advisers. There are no facilities or resources available to you save for what you can provide for yourself. The deadline can abruptly change due to funding and competition (along with 1000 other reasons).

    These are just some of the reasons why academic work is not a great measure of real world experience. Mind you I am not saying acedemic work is useless, but I definitely differentiate between the two.

  5. Git, Redmine, Jenkins on Ask Slashdot: Best Practices For Starting and Running a Software Shop? · · Score: 1

    Coding standards: pick anything and stick with it. Use Google's. Why not? (Haha I note they are using svn.)

    http://google-styleguide.googl...
    https://google-styleguide.goog...

    These types of decisions are many times arbitrary and one valid approach rarely is any better than another.

  6. Not looking good on Ask Slashdot: Best Practices For Starting and Running a Software Shop? · · Score: 1

    You haven't even started and you are already bogged down on "coding standards" and "best practices."

    In The Beginning only one thing matters: robust code that does what you want it to very well. Maintainability? Pah - you need a future for that to matter. Best practices don't matter if you are bankrupt, or have a product nobody will touch.

  7. You ever wonder... on Google's Project Loon Can Now Launch Up To 20 Balloons Per Day, Fly 10x Longer · · Score: 1

    ...why cat food cans generally have pop-tops, but tuna fish cans generally don't?

    Project Loon strikes me this way: they are missing something obvious.

  8. Having an "agent" -- job jumper on Do Good Programmers Need Agents? · · Score: 1

    Do Not Hire.

  9. Re:Nothing will happen... on The Downside to Low Gas Prices · · Score: 1

    Sort of like the Neosocialism that America had to stamp out in the 1940's!

  10. Re:It's about time the truth came out on Alleged Satellite Photo Says Ukraine Shootdown of MH17 · · Score: 1

    Actually, planning is the first to die.

  11. Re:Maybe of NASA had decent funding... on Google's Lease of NASA Airfield Criticized By Consumer Group · · Score: 1

    Having dealt with the NASA budgeting hell for years, I am going with "doubtful" on that one.

  12. Maybe of NASA had decent funding... on Google's Lease of NASA Airfield Criticized By Consumer Group · · Score: 1

    ...this sort of thing would not happen.

  13. Re:Scale down the land based forces on The Disgruntled Guys Who Babysit Our Aging Nuclear Missiles · · Score: 1

    Boomers do not operate in conjunction with battle groups: they go out in to the vast ocean and disappear. Their biggest defense is that they are virtually impossible to find.

    The ICBM's... well everyone knows where they are (ever notice how on google maps they all are oriented identically? It is neat in a morbid way.) Good luck trying to damage one however. A 2000 bomb would quite possibly mar the cover the the point that it would have to be repainted.

    https://www.google.com/maps/@4...
    https://www.google.com/maps/@4...
    https://www.google.com/maps/@4...
    https://www.google.com/maps/@4...

  14. Re:Scale down the land based forces on The Disgruntled Guys Who Babysit Our Aging Nuclear Missiles · · Score: 1

    >> What I have to ask though is in what possible scenario of a nation launching nuclear strike on the U.S. do you see them not committing to wiping out the U.S. retaliatory capability ?

    Any nation that doesn't have the numbers to wipe out the US capability: that being every nuclear power on earth except Russia. In the case of Russia, the silos represent a force that absolutely must be dealt with. No attack subs or fighter jets or any other conventional means can counter the ICBM's: they have to be dealt with using a portion of their arsenal.

    This exposes one of their biggest drawbacks - they require the other side(s) to maintain a hardened ICBM force, and their relevance is based on Cold War style calculus. Currently the US/UK Trident force is the only sub based first strike capability. The other boomers just don't have the accuracy to threaten US ICBM's (yet).

  15. Re:Poor Promotability too on The Disgruntled Guys Who Babysit Our Aging Nuclear Missiles · · Score: 1

    Because mechanics, fuel men, air crew, guards, and weapons techs don't count.

  16. Re:Scale down the land based forces on The Disgruntled Guys Who Babysit Our Aging Nuclear Missiles · · Score: 1

    Trident D5 missiles can carry up to 14 warheads. The Minuteman III can only carry three.

    Neither one currently carries their maximum load due to treaty limitations.

  17. Re:Scale down the land based forces on The Disgruntled Guys Who Babysit Our Aging Nuclear Missiles · · Score: 1

    Land based ICBM's can only be destroyed by a nuclear weapon (this will remain true for the foresee able future). While the US itself might be able to pull off a successful conventional strike against and undefended one, no adversary will be able to.

    A foe MUST task a sizable portion of their arsenal to deal with them.

    Bombers can be shot down, subs sunk. Maybe not easily, but it is possible.

  18. Re:self-correcting problem on The Disgruntled Guys Who Babysit Our Aging Nuclear Missiles · · Score: 1

    You should read a short story called "The Big Flash" by Norman Spinrad.

  19. Well, it *is* a utility on President Obama Backs Regulation of Broadband As a Utility · · Score: 1

    Ask anyone who has had Verizon and/or Comcast invoke their utility easements and dig up their yard.

  20. Re:Land of the Free on Berlin's Digital Exiles: Where Tech Activists Go To Escape the NSA · · Score: 1

    Indeed. How times have changed.

  21. Re:As any developer worth their salt knows on Computer Scientists Ask Supreme Court To Rule APIs Can't Be Copyrighted · · Score: 1

    OK that is a good point - a well crafted distributed sort vs a cut/pasted from stack overflow bubble sort... true enough.

  22. Re:As any developer worth their salt knows on Computer Scientists Ask Supreme Court To Rule APIs Can't Be Copyrighted · · Score: 1

    Don't be silly - keep the API to any software version 1.0 but completely gut the implementation and what does the end user have?

    Version 2.0.

  23. Re:As any developer worth their salt knows on Computer Scientists Ask Supreme Court To Rule APIs Can't Be Copyrighted · · Score: 0

    Huh. That is the first time ever since I signed up in what.. 1998?

  24. As any developer worth their salt knows on Computer Scientists Ask Supreme Court To Rule APIs Can't Be Copyrighted · · Score: 0, Troll

    The API **IS** the intellectual property.

  25. Nothing changes until it is all gone on Americans Rejoice At Lower Gas Prices · · Score: 1

    May as well burn it as quickly as possible.

    Maybe if an $18,000 electric car with a 500 mile range that could charge in under an hour were developed, that would change.