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User: AuMatar

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  1. Re:Every other day delivery is much better..... on Door-To-Door Mail Delivery To End Under New Plan · · Score: 1

    Wasting trees is a constructive activity?

    And we can find constructive things for them to do after those jobs are gone. If nothing else have them pick up litter in parks and highways- get a real benefit for them.

    We don't want to keep people in useless jobs just to keep them employed. The trick is to move them slowly to useful jobs at a rate the economy and safety net can absorb.

  2. Re:Already happening on Door-To-Door Mail Delivery To End Under New Plan · · Score: 1

    I don't know about your state, but the DMV in WA has my email address. I get my renewal notices by email instead of paper. The IRS could easily adapt- they take my check electronically, they could just as easily email me of problems as physically main me. You're talking minor changes which would probably save them money (although they'd have to be rolled out optionally to support those without computers).

    For that matter, I sometimes go months without picking up my mail. I'm easily available by phone, email, and 17 other electronic ways. If its important they'll find me.

  3. Re:Already happening on Door-To-Door Mail Delivery To End Under New Plan · · Score: 1

    You say this like it would be a bad thing. No real mail gets delivered to me anymore, its all electronic. I haven't even picked up my mail in months.

  4. Re:More importantly on Google Announces Android 4.3, Netflix, New Nexus 7, and Q Successor Chromecast · · Score: 1

    I wouldn't be surprised if this backport is basically ActionbarSherlock added into the support library with a few tweaks.

  5. Not being able to uninstall != lockin. Not being able to install a competitor is locking. Not being able to change the default handler is lockin, but you can do that.

    Heck, even not being able to uninstall is a feature of the OEM not the OS. Nothing in the OS prevents those apps from being uninstalled- in fact various OEMs have shipped with many of those apps replaced. Samsung uses their own browser, and Verizon was using a different maps app for a while. The fact that it can't be uninstalled is a technical limitation in the fact its typically placed in system memory when shipped for ease of implementation by the OEM.

    So yeah, no Android lockin here.

  6. They aren't selling at a loss. But even if they were, there's nothing wrong with not using their other services. That's the risk they take by selling it that cheap. If they don't like it, charge more.

  7. Re:Need 4.2 and either 7" or root on Google Announces Android 4.3, Netflix, New Nexus 7, and Q Successor Chromecast · · Score: 1

    Lets not exaggerate. Nobody is still shipping Gingerbread in any volume. There's plenty of pre-existing, will never be upgraded devices out there. Enough so that you have to target 2.3 if you're selling an app. But they aren't making new ones.

  8. Re:German code comments on Apache OpenOffice 4.0 Released With Major New Features · · Score: 1

    Hmm, I will add 1 more rule- if you're posting code on a site like stackoverflow, translating to english is helpful. I don't refuse to help code in foreign languages, but I find it difficult to understand large blocks of it and will likely give up quicker. English is best there due to it being the most common language.

  9. Re:German code comments on Apache OpenOffice 4.0 Released With Major New Features · · Score: 1

    That's fine, so long as you're writing software where the code won't be shared outside of your company. If you're writing for a US based company or likely to sell access to the code, you'll find it easier if its all on a common language.

  10. Re:Here's an idea on Hollywood's Love of Analytics Couldn't Prevent Six Massive Blockbuster Flops · · Score: 2

    The funniest thing is that the author of twilight is doing it to herself- her next movie looks like Twilight with aliens, and the girl is the alien.

  11. Re:Here's an idea on Hollywood's Love of Analytics Couldn't Prevent Six Massive Blockbuster Flops · · Score: 1

    Also both several years past their time. R.I.P.D. is Men in Black undead edition. A year or two after MIB or MIB2 it would have made money. Now it seems old.

    Lone Ranger- a radio superhero that nobody really remembers with Johnny Depp. We're all tired of Johnny Depp. It also changes the main character from the lone ranger to the sidekick. You need really good writing and directing to pull that off, the previews and reviews I've read don't show that.

    Its not just timing. Its that both of these movies were released several years after the peak time for either the concept or the actor.

  12. Re:Nice but nothing special on Moto X Demo Video Reveals Google's Android Superphone · · Score: 1

    You're complaining about minor upgrades and then mention more internal storage (which is about as minor as they come, its just dropping in a new part and testing). Extended battery life is really a matter of people choosing to prefer thin to life- increase the thickness 50% and devote it to a battery and you'd see a much better life. People don't tend to care (unfortunately).

  13. The difference is physical reaction. on Ask Slashdot: Low-Latency PS2/USB Gaming Keyboards? · · Score: 0

    When using the mouse you just click. This is a very fast, almost reflex like movement of your finger. Your finger is moving millimeters of total distance, and the click is registered as soon as it presses down. A keyboard requires your finger to press down further, and the motion to do that is less of a reflex and more a controlled motion.

    In short- deal with it, its a difference in how human reflexes work.

  14. Re:Lies on Smartphones May Help Reduce Traffic In the Near Future · · Score: 1

    I'd rather have a single bedroom apartment in the closest city or even suburb. I've owned property- I will never do it again. Not only is it not cheaper, but I don't want the hassle. Plus the idea of owning a 5 bedroom house unless you have 3 or 4 kids is a little disgusting- its far, far more room than I need. Extra annoyance to clean and keep it up for 0 benefit.

    Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't live in downtown anywhere with a kid (nowhere for them to play), but I'd still stay in a city and I'd still rent. Its better if for nothing more than the flexibility and ease of mind- owning property only tied me down and made me miss opportunities in life.

  15. Re:Lies on Smartphones May Help Reduce Traffic In the Near Future · · Score: 1

    You see, I read that as you have to take care of an acre of land (not having to do so is worth at LEAST $100 a month to me, probably more), you have to live with 4 or 5 friends (unless I'm sleeping with them, I would never have a roommate again for any amount of money), and you have to go through all the pain and expense of home repairs, remodeling, and you have the risk of what happens if your friends move out and you suddenly need to pay higher rent. I'd rather pay 1500 a month for a nice apartment near things to do and within walking distance of work. Hell, I'd probably pay twice that.

  16. Re:Binding, hardcover, etc. on Are Amazon Vine Reviews of Technical Books a Joke? · · Score: 1

    A paperback costs what, 8 bucks? Seriously, you're that fucking cheap that you won't take a stab at a book? It's not like you need to buy a $30 hardcover, or a $60 video game here. There's also used bookstores where you can buy them for less than half that.

  17. Re:Electrical Engineer / Computer Engineer on Electrical Engineering Labor Pool Shrinking · · Score: 1

    I don't know what the hell in my post you're responding to. I was talking about computer engineering degrees, which are a combo EE and CS degree. But to comment on the point you tried to make- CS is in the college of engineering at most schools. Parts of Comp Sci are pure mathematics, other parts are applied- for example, software engineering is considered part of CS, but has nothing to do with math. Same with HCI, which is a part of CS but has absolutely nothing to do with math. So even the point you were trying to make makes no sense.

  18. Re:Electrical Engineer / Computer Engineer on Electrical Engineering Labor Pool Shrinking · · Score: 1

    I'm not denying that its hard. I do think that you need to mix in applications with the theoretical teaching though, or you lose a big portion of your audience. At least teach why this is important and how mistakes matter- setting a circuit board or two on fire as a demonstration would have helped a lot. By the time I did a full semester with no idea of how to apply my knowledge I was done, I never wanted to touch analog again. When I found out advanced digital design required analog I became a programmer.

    It didn't help that the teachers at my college were extremely boring, and had no leeway to break the daily lecture to help people because a dozen or so sections were synched up to get to the tests at the same time.

  19. Re:Why Wouldn't It Be? on Electrical Engineering Labor Pool Shrinking · · Score: 1

    A lot of software these days is plugging together libraries and frameworks off the shelf with well known standardized technologies.

    But the amount of software being made compared to electronics is immense. yes, if we were rewriting all by hand it would take 10x more of us. But the software world has expanded. The EE world hasn't, while seeing the same reuse.

    Same for mech eng- it isn't exactly a booming field.

    What do you mean by inputs? Verilog or VHDL? The only thing RTL design has in common with programming is the syntax.

    Verilog and VHDL are programming languages. They have some unique features as compared to normally used ones, but writing those is much closer to software engineering than hardware. Thinking back to my classes in them, the pure EEs almost all struggled. Those with a CS background (formally or informally) had an easier time.

    But my point stands- we've made tools that greatly simplify EE work, while moving to a model where a lot of custom design is eliminated, reducing the number of EEs needed for a device, reducing their need overall. The same reductions haven't hit software because the need and number of uses for software have increased in that same timespan- the majority of savings brought by better techniques have been eaten up by making software more feature-rich.

  20. Re:Electrical Engineer / Computer Engineer on Electrical Engineering Labor Pool Shrinking · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Its been over 10 years, but it looks like the course list of requirements hasn't changed much.

    I didn't take digital signal processing. I didn't take anything about power systems. I didn't take the advanced level courses of anything that had a I and a II. All of these were open to me as technical electives, but I chose not to take them.

    I did take analog signal processing. I did take physics of semiconductors (how transistors work on an atomic level, it was a required course to graduate). I did take a course on fields and waves. And I took a couple of courses on digital circuit design and processor design.

    From the CS course I missed the top level theory course on graphs that was required for a CS degree, but I took every other required course and more electives than most CS majors did. That was a personal choice though- I spent all of my electives in EE or CS.

    Looking at the requirements for their EE minor, I took all the classes required to get one, with a few extra. Of course they didn't allow CompEs to get a CS minor or an EE minor officially. I look to be 2 classes off of what was required to get an EE major, but wouldn't have had nearly enough EE electives. And I took far more CS stuff than the EEs (EEs were only required to take the intro to CS class, CompEs were required to take data structures, an entry level discrete math class (part of a series of 3 for CS students), and an assembly course). CS majors only needed to take 2 classes on hardware- a watered down version of digital logic gates and architecture, and a watered down version of assembly (the hard version was taught by the EE department and for some reason only counted towards their requirement if they were transfers).

    The big thing I didn't ever really understand in my EE coursework at the time is how to design an analog circuit to do something. That's partly my fault, partly lack of a high level follow on course, and partly my instructors fault- we never had a chance to design an analog circuit in our coursework, and they never really explained why we were doing what we did- it was just endless repetition of finding v and i at every point in a circuit using multiple methods.

  21. Re:Why Wouldn't It Be? on Electrical Engineering Labor Pool Shrinking · · Score: 1

    And it makes sense- a lot of electronics these days is plugging together parts off the shelf with well known standardized technologies. It takes a lot fewer people to do this. Compare this to the 70s, 80s, and prior where CPUs were not king and you still did a lot of proprietary design work. Heck, FPGAs alone probably knock out a big need for EE work- the software there will more or less design the hardware for you, and it needs a programmer to write the inputs not an EE (although an EE who can program would be ideal). The need for them will never be 0, but its not as useful as they were a decade or two ago.

  22. Re:Electrical Engineer / Computer Engineer on Electrical Engineering Labor Pool Shrinking · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have a BS in CompE. At my school depending on what optional courses you took you end up as the equivalent of either a EE minor and CS major or a CS minor and EE major. Since I went the first route, I've never considered myself an EE. Since my jobs, by choice, have all been in the CS realm I don't feel I have any knowledge in the EE realm anymore- I just have a deeper understanding of how hardware works and how to use it effectively than the average CS degree holder.

    I actually did want to go into processor design at one point, I liked designing digital circuits. Then my senior year I found out that all those things I had been told didn't matter in digital (capacitance, inductance) actually did when you were fast enough. That was enough to convince me to write software for a career.

  23. Re:always on Why JavaScript On Mobile Is Slow · · Score: 1

    Yup. When I worked at Amazon the #1 question on internal mailing lists was "my Java webservice feezes up and breaks SLA whenever GC kicks in, how do I fix this?". GC is not a silver bullet, and you're going to end up thinking about memory on anything non-trivial.

  24. Push back on Ask Slashdot: Development Requirements Change But Deadlines Do Not? · · Score: 2

    You can't do the impossible, and no techniques will allow you to do infinite work in a given period of time. This can be a permanent push back (never going to do it) or a temporary one (we'll discuss it at the next planning meeting).

    If they won't be pushed back, stop caring and dust off the resume. Don't work for people who aren't willing to compromise.

  25. Re:College Costs and Preceived Value on India To Overtake US On Number of Developers By 2017 · · Score: 3, Informative

    And most of them made horrible developers. There's basic bits of theory and knowledge that most (not all, but most) self taught and high school educated developers never learn. The move to requiring a CS degree wasn't due to degree inflation, it was to get more knowledgeable developers.