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User: praxis

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  1. Re:Managers need an algorithm for that? on Netflix Algorithm Tells You When Your Best Employee Is About To Leave You · · Score: 2, Informative

    If 70% of your salary is not enough to make ends meet, you are living well beyond your means.

  2. Re:Hmm on Windows 10 Successor Codenamed 'Redstone,' Targeting 2016 Launch · · Score: 1

    The major issue that Windows 7 "fixed" from Vista was it gave hardware manufacturers enough time to write drivers for their hardware. Not a whole lot actually changed, other than time passed and companies adopted the new driver model.

  3. Re:There's a middle path on Ask Slashdot: Living Without Social Media In 2015? · · Score: 1

    The way I see it, is time is the most precious asset I have. I really don't care to spend too much of it going to low-key events from someone I barely know. That's not to say I don't want to socialize with a wide-range of people, but an event every once in a while that I do get wind of is more than enough to keep a good flow of new faces to meet.

    Facebook breeds a strong fear of missing out, when in reality if I get invited to 1 out of 1000 events going on in my city, its far more than enough to keep my social calendar reasonably full. I don't care that I missed event X, even if I think it's far better than event Y that I did stumble upon because I don't *know* it was better and there's no sense in lamenting over such trifles.

    It's interesting to me that you see email as too formal for some invitations. Email is where we go for spam, mass mailings, and heads-up about events. Everyone I know has email. I cannot think of a single person that does not. About half the people I know don't have or never use Facebook. Email is where I send out invitations because it works best.

    Perhaps millenials all use Facebook and none of them use email for such things, and generations shift in how they do things. In my generation, we all use email for organizing things (with attached calendar items when it makes sense). For context, I'm in the generation where I used to write letters to girls across the pond because phone calls were expensive and not everyone had email.

    I guess what I am saying, if someone cares about me, they know how to contact me. If I get passed over, it's really not a big deal at all. Either a) they didn't want me there enough to put in that kind of (pretty low-bar) thought or b) the Fates screwed me, oh well, or c) my "friend" dislikes the fact I don't use Facebook and didn't invite me to spite me; fuck 'em.

  4. Re:There's a middle path on Ask Slashdot: Living Without Social Media In 2015? · · Score: 1

    Seems silly to have a friend who doesn't use Facebook and think "Gee, I really like this friend, but I just have no way to invite them to my birthday get-together. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to pass them up."

    If I want my friends there, I'll invite them. The medium makes no difference to me.

  5. Re:And anyway... on Generate Memorizable Passphrases That Even the NSA Can't Guess · · Score: 2

    First you claim that they use malware to send my plaintext passwords to themselves. Then you claim they have been caught red-handed doing the first claim...by compromising networking equipment which never sees my plaintext passwords.

    I understand your point, but your claims are rather incongruous.

  6. Re:What guarantees of longevity? on Facebook Makes Messenger a Platform · · Score: 1

    First, not all companies are doing fine using services from Oracle, IBM, SAP and Microsoft.

    Second, Facebook is different in the same way that Oracle is different and IBM is different and SAP is different. It is not a very convincing argument to say other companies provide services so *this* company's services must be "fine".

  7. Re:What guarantees of longevity? on Facebook Makes Messenger a Platform · · Score: 1

    Which platform is the only platform with SMS clients?

  8. Re:Keep track of what you eat on Hacking Weight Loss: What I Learned Losing 30 Pounds · · Score: 1

    I tried the app as well and dropped because they measure most of their ingredients by volume, not weight. It's so much easier to use a scale when cooking than to measure volume of every ingredient.

  9. Re:eliminate extra sugar on Hacking Weight Loss: What I Learned Losing 30 Pounds · · Score: 1

    I use an OXO one with 11lb capacity and pull out panel so that you can still see the readout even when larger items are placed on it.

    We've never used more than a few pounds of any ingredient as we cook for no more than 8 portions or so.

  10. Re:Are the CAs that do this revoked? on Chinese CA Issues Certificates To Impersonate Google · · Score: 1

    Yes, of course you also have to trust the sender. We're talking about securing communications here, not trusting a sender. If you don't trust the sender, why even talk about trusting their communication? We need to first trust the sender, then we can think about "how do I know this message is from that specific trusted sender and not compromised."

    Authentication using a certificate gives you no inherent trust of the other party. I thought that was obvious.

  11. Re:eliminate extra sugar on Hacking Weight Loss: What I Learned Losing 30 Pounds · · Score: 1

    There is no quick and easy solution, that is true. If you overeat then there are only one way to validate you are eating less: measure.

    We too use a variety of ingredients and we too cook from scratch without using recipes. We weigh our ingredients before putting them in the dish. I takes maybe 5 seconds longer, per ingredient. We write down the weight for each no a piece of paper that's always by the scale. Then, while we wait for the dish to finish (or some other time later), we calculate how many calories went into the dish total. Most of the time, we don't eat left overs but cook fresh every day, but sometimes we do make two-days worth. Either way, we know how much is in the entire batch and can portion: whether its two portions, four or six, it's more or less the same math.

    It does take effort and time, but it's well worth it in our case. Over time, we got good enough at guessing, even with new ingredients we've not used before but could compare to others, at how many calories we're putting into our food, to within 10% error. That's not great, but we can now often guess how much food we didn't cook has just by looking at it.

    Last night I worked late and the company bought us pizza. I felt the weight of the slices and guessed 250-300 per slice. I then looked it up online when I got home and the restaurant that made the pizza lists it at 280. Now, of course it's an estimate but it's a starting point.

    The more you do it, the easier it gets.

  12. Re:Are the CAs that do this revoked? on Chinese CA Issues Certificates To Impersonate Google · · Score: 2

    The company can generate a certificate (public and private key pair) and send you the public key pair through an unsecure channel. They can then tell you the fingerprint over a secure channel. You do the same. You each verify that the public key of the other party is actually the other party's public key and then you two can communicate securely.

    No, what constitutes a secure channel for key verification? That's where you can get levels of trust from one posted on their website (weak) to one read to you over a phone by a human (weak) to travelling and exchanging (stronger). Of course, if you are travelling you might as well just exchange public keys that way.

  13. Re:But they help also on Uber Shut Down In Multiple Countries Following Raids · · Score: 1

    I had a chance to actually use uber, so excuse me and please correct me if I get this wrong, but I was under the impression that the uber fare is based on the distance between start and destination as determined by a routing software and not on the detours the driver decides to take?

    So how could the driver fleece the passenger here?

    I can only go off the information Uber makes publicly available without signing their terms of service, but this disclaimer is prominent on their marketing materials: "Applicable tolls and surcharges may be added to your fare." Sounds like you are agreeing to unspecified surcharges, which if they abuse, your only recourse would be expensive litigation rather than protection laws of taxi services.

  14. Re:But they help also on Uber Shut Down In Multiple Countries Following Raids · · Score: 1

    In both scenarios, the passenger may be fleeced. The difference is, in one, the passenger has a recourse (having the local government find the driver in violation of the law and losing his taxi license if he does it often enough) and in the other not (having only a private relationship with a non-employee of a private company, having agreed to term of service for using the App, and only being able to sue the driver on his own).

    If we're going to say the regulations are bad, and hence we should throw them all out, we're going to have an anarchy.

  15. Re:But they help also on Uber Shut Down In Multiple Countries Following Raids · · Score: 1

    The implication was not that medallions are only available for a million dollars, but that there are medallions for large companies that are a million dollars and medallions for smaller services which cost less.

  16. Re:But they help also on Uber Shut Down In Multiple Countries Following Raids · · Score: 1

    Guaranteeing taxi-users to need a GI using recent (online) maps is a pretty bizarre requirement for good taxi service. Taxis exist to serve everyone, which includes the blind, the elderly, the religious, and the poor.

    Also, an uber driver who decided to flaunt all regulation, can certainly charge a customer for taking the scenic route. They aren't licensed taxis, so are exempt from the rule that they must take the shortest route unless permitted by the customer.

  17. Re:But they help also on Uber Shut Down In Multiple Countries Following Raids · · Score: 1

    Oh, please. I am no friend of the rent-seeking, regulatory-capture taxi cartel, but Uber is unethical as hell.

    So go after them for that... instead of an excuse that literally supports evil.

    Its as if you are saying "Uber is unethical, therefore I want the very things that makes the existing system evil to triumph over Uber! Go evil!"

    There is a middle ground, grasshopper. The choice between draconian regulation serving only the interests of the wealthy establishment and anarchy were laws are meaningless words on a piece of paper is an illusion. Labeling them with ethical monikers like good and evil only furthers the false dichotomy and prevents a civil discussion about what it is we, as a society, actually want to fall on this debate.

  18. Re:But they help also on Uber Shut Down In Multiple Countries Following Raids · · Score: 1

    You know, if you're a billionaire, you are almost certainly one on paper. You want a strong rule of law to protect your property. In places with weak laws, corruption runs rampant and the wealthy people are often whacked by other powers.

  19. Re:But they help also on Uber Shut Down In Multiple Countries Following Raids · · Score: 1

    I see the Uber debate as being about something completely different than "COMPANIES BAD GOVERNMENTS GOOD". Some taxi regulations, as you helpfully point out, are indeed, obsolete. They can certainly use a refresh. How we handle this situation is the crux of the disagreement.

    Uber wants to ignore the rules and do what makes sense. The government wants the rule of law to be meaningful. They are both right, but what we need to do is change the laws. Civil disobedience is one way to do that. Some people, the disruptive, see Uber as doing its part, but they are not.

    Uber does not want the rules changed, they want profit. They're not being disobedient to better our world, they're being greedy and narcissistic.

  20. Re: Why make it complicated? on Uber Shut Down In Multiple Countries Following Raids · · Score: 1

    Yes. In some jurisdictions, part of the taxi licensing requirements is vehicle inspection. Private cars don't receive similar scrutiny.

  21. Re:Karma Irony , told you so on Personal Healthcare Info of Over 11M Premera Customers Compromised · · Score: 1

    Did you now? How do we know? You have not identified yourself, yet you wish to take credit for being right? How the fuck does that work? You might be right, but you certainly can't claim credit for it unless you are credited for it.

  22. Re:forget the gameplay! on Rendering a Frame of Deus Ex: Human Revolution · · Score: 1

    That would be "rended". Rendered is something different: molten, melted.

  23. Re:Write-only code. on Was Linus Torvalds Right About C++ Being So Wrong? · · Score: 1

    It's both. Type import this from the interpreter, and you'll get this:

    The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters

    Beautiful is better than ugly.
    Explicit is better than implicit.
    Simple is better than complex.
    Complex is better than complicated.
    Flat is better than nested.
    Sparse is better than dense.
    Readability counts.
    Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.
    Although practicality beats purity.
    Errors should never pass silently.
    Unless explicitly silenced.
    In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
    There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
    Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.
    Now is better than never.
    Although never is often better than *right* now.
    If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
    If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
    Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!

    While it doesn't always manage it, if you read the discussions and PEPs relating to the language's design it's clear that the idea of a "Pythonic" way of doing things is one of the top considerations.

    All of what you stated is convention, documentation and community-agreed definition of Pythonic. One can write Python that compiles and works that you will have trouble reading. One generally doesn't because when learning the language, the community and documentation lead one to a more Pythonic path.

    Yes, I'm quibbling over words, not disagreeing that the idea of Pythonic code isn't useful or cool.

  24. Re:Write-only code. on Was Linus Torvalds Right About C++ Being So Wrong? · · Score: 1

    That is not a feature of the language, though. That is a feature of the community.

  25. Re:$500 markup on New MacBook on Apple's "Spring Forward" Event Debuts Apple Watch and More · · Score: 1

    I suppose you are right, there's some cross shopping, but saying that the ASUS is similarly-sized is still pretty wrong. 30% is a large difference in the ultra-book market. And the Surface Pro 3 with a keyboard (the configuration that best compares against other clamshell ultrabooks) is almost two-and-a-half pounds.