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User: holophrastic

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  1. Perl, bootstrap C++ on Ask Slashdot: Is C++ the Right Tool For This Project? · · Score: 1, Informative

    you want everything -- memory, disk, network, speed -- and c++ will give you all of that just fine. And it'll give you the giant learning curve, and force you to take every hard road from start to finish.

    Have you considered using perl -- which is pretty well cross-platform -- and writing the few granular components in c++, bootstrapped into perl?

    That's pretty standard for i-want-to-use-perl-but-i-need-this-part-to-be-faster.

  2. Re:Business-class on Ask Slashdot: Dealing With Service Providers When You're an IT Pro? · · Score: 1

    You're sonfusing double with half.

  3. Business-class on Ask Slashdot: Dealing With Service Providers When You're an IT Pro? · · Score: 1

    Stop buying consumer class when you ought to be paying for business class. You took the lower price. You got the lower service. Big surprise.

  4. Dubbing on Apple Music and the Terrible Return of DRM · · Score: 1

    I'm confused with this hatred of DRM. I grew up in an age of streaming music -- we called it FM Radio. (there was no ".com", ".net", ".radio", or ".fm").

    So we, the people, invented the record button. Grab the boombox, push the button with the red circle and presto! The live streaming music was magically transferred to local storage. From there, we called "copying" "high-speed dubbing".

    Today, pick your favourite audio application, and just hit record. Magically, whatever you hear gets transferred to local storage -- sans DRM. And unlike in the past, the recording often happens within the "sound card", with zero loss. It can be a youtube video, it can be DVD, or it can be something streaming. If you can hear it, you can record it.

    What's the problem?

  5. Re: Stop looking for approval on Ask Slashdot: Career Advice For an Aging Perl Developer? · · Score: 1

    I don't see what that changes, nor how you could possibly know. Seems like an awfully big presumption for a t.

  6. Stop looking for approval on Ask Slashdot: Career Advice For an Aging Perl Developer? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You're 40+, with decades of experience. You're done proving yourself to others. Start selling your experience. Either manage others, or start your own business and manage others.

    Clients don't ask suppliers what language is being used behind the scenes. You can keep doing what you do best -- I've got a 20+ year business in web development, and I'm still programming is raw perl -- avoiding new stuff when you have the experience with old stuff has so many advantages, to your clients too.

    Modern stuff has a smaller/easier learning curve; but you're already past the learning curve. Anything modern won't be able to output a string of text any better than Perl, provided that you already know Perl, which you do. And since that's all the web is -- a whole whack of markup text -- who the hell cares.

    Start your own, do what you like, hire the juniors when you actually want to, and you'll never need to apply for a job ever again. You're 40. It's about time you self-sign your own certificate. You're an expect.

  7. 8 routers and it becomes a network on Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Solve a Unique Networking Issue? · · Score: 1

    Let me start by saying that I have no real experience with solving networking systems. I do, however, have plenty of experience with network problems. With that out of the way. . .

    What if you connect a router to each pump (that's 8 cheap routers I guess), each NATing it's pump. Then you can configure each router with a different IP address of your choosing. A ninth router (or a switch) connects your laptop to the 8 routers as a network of 18 nodes (8 pumps behind 8 routers, a switch, and your laptop). All ethernet, a normal network, your laptop addresses the "outside" IP address of each of the 8 routers.

    I picture you with a rack of 8 routers, a switch at the top, your laptop, and a whack of ethernet cables.

  8. Re:Hidden features on Ask Slashdot: What Tech Skills Do HS Students Need To Know Now? · · Score: 1

    ...in reply to many so far, I'm not talking about learning shortcut keys. I'm talking about learning about the existence of low-priority features, which tend to be hidden in modern interfaces.

  9. Hidden features on Ask Slashdot: What Tech Skills Do HS Students Need To Know Now? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A long time ago, in the days of wordperfect and wordstar, there were keyboard overlays -- plastic sheets that fit over/around the keyboard function keys, providing labeling for functionality -- maybe F7 was bold, maybe SHIFT-F7 was underline. Thankfully, after so many years, I've finally forgotten them.

    Then that kind of functionality got collapsed into drop-down menus.
    Then the same functionality got compressed into "ribbons".
    Now, it's hidden three layers deeper.

    Today's applications present a very clean interface by hiding away all of the advanced functionality that's used less than 1% of the time. The thing is, 1% can mean dozens of times a day -- if you know that it's there.

    For example, want to forward an e-mail, there's a button/action for forward. But there's also "forward as attachment", somewhere.

    Tech newcomers to take a new application/program/feature and explore it long enough to figure what features actually exist. Of course they'll find the BOLD button, but they may never know about the balanced columns feature.

  10. Re:Explain this one to me on Hackers Using Starbucks Gift Cards To Access Credit Cards · · Score: 1

    You're saying that these stupid people actually let starbucks access their bank account directly? That's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard. Even my bank doesn't have access to my bank account to pay my mortgage. No one can touch a single dollar of mine except me and a judge. Why the hell would I let a coffee shop have unfettered access to my money?

    Thanks for explaining the scam to me. Although I'm more pissed off now than ever before. Who's this stupid?

  11. Re:Explain this one to me on Hackers Using Starbucks Gift Cards To Access Credit Cards · · Score: 1

    Then what's the use in hacking one? So I can buy coffee with your card? Don't I need your physical card for that? Here's the easier version for you: Why can starbucks gift cards be used without starbucks gift cards?

  12. Re:Explain this one to me on Hackers Using Starbucks Gift Cards To Access Credit Cards · · Score: 1

    I fail to understand how that's any different than walking into the store, buying coffee, and then selling it in the local flea market. the gift card is nothing more than pre-paying for a purchase that you intend to pickup -- and, as with all gift cards, there's absolutely zero benefit to doing so in the first place. Why the hell would you buy a cup of coffee before it's brewed? Why would you give your money away, and then risk losing the gift card? There's certainly no financial benefit to the consumer -- and there's a lot of risk to the consumer. Why not just make your gift card look identical to a five dollar note, out of the same materials too, then contract your national mint to print them for you? A note is a note is a note be it a card, paper, plastic, from a bank or a print shop. It's worth five bucks it's worth five bucks.

  13. Re:Explain this one to me on Hackers Using Starbucks Gift Cards To Access Credit Cards · · Score: 1

    that's the problem. a gift card is designed, by it's very nature, to not be currency. It's supposed to be a pre-purchase, such that the financial component is entirely removed. Show up with the card, get the product, no monetary transaction of any kind.

    What starbucks is using is simply not a gift card. It is a bank card. So who's surprised that a bank card issued by someone that isn't a bank lacks any sort of procedural security whatsoever?

    Stop giving your hard-earned money to someone who isn't regulated and insured to keep it. Welcome to the words: "at your own risk", "not responsible for stolen funds".

    Maybe actually think before giving money to someone. Maybe, just maybe, make an actual decision for yourself.

    Starbucks = Nigeria.

  14. It won't happen on Ask Slashdot: Security Certification For an Old Grad? · · Score: 1

    No one will ask for your credentials, certifications, qualifications, or skill level of any kind. Outside of very large corporations, military, or government bodies, no one asks -- that's just not how business works. It's been 25 years of running my own business from scratch. Maybe when I'm dead, someone will check to see if I was certified to do anything at all. I'm not, by the way. But, like I said, small business, and even medium business operates on direct trust, which comes from reputation and referral, not from accredited trust.

  15. Explain this one to me on Hackers Using Starbucks Gift Cards To Access Credit Cards · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why can starbucks gift cards be used for anything other than buying starbucks products? Why is the cash accessible in the first place? Anyone stealing starbucks gift cards, hackers or thieves, ought to be stuck with boat-loads of coffee, after having visited a starbucks store. Otherwise, folks, it ain't a gift card, it's a charge card, credit card, or direct-monetary-device -- and since starbucks ain't a bank, you ought not be entrusting them with direct access to your money.

    What's the point of a starbucks "gift card" if it operates no differently from the attached credit card?

  16. Re:If we want it; Yes. on Opportunity Rover Reaches Martian Day 4,000 of Its 90-Day Mission · · Score: 1

    so your answer would be "no", and you agree with me completely. Humans won't be living on mars within the next 50 years, which is consistent with the interest thus-far. Thanks for your support.

  17. Re:...eventually put people on mars...my butt on Opportunity Rover Reaches Martian Day 4,000 of Its 90-Day Mission · · Score: 1

    ...and you think that means we'll have people living on mars within 50 years?

  18. Re:...eventually put people on mars...my butt on Opportunity Rover Reaches Martian Day 4,000 of Its 90-Day Mission · · Score: 1

    I'm using the cross-country inconvenience to support my argument that mars ain't the next step any time soon. Nothing more.

  19. Re:...eventually put people on mars...my butt on Opportunity Rover Reaches Martian Day 4,000 of Its 90-Day Mission · · Score: 1

    you just listed more than 7 hours. And you're upset with my 8 hours?

  20. Re:...eventually put people on mars...my butt on Opportunity Rover Reaches Martian Day 4,000 of Its 90-Day Mission · · Score: 0

    Sorry pal, but it's illegal to pitch a tent at the gate. Besides, my television won't be very watchable with all of those big terminal windows, and I like my privacy too much given all the people.

    So, for us normal humans with a 3'000 square-foot house about 30 minutes away from the terminal:

    we pack into small luggage
    we call the taxi
    we wait for the taxi
    we ride the taxi
    we get to the airport early, so as to not get there late
    we wait in line
    we check in
    we check our luggage
    we walk through about three miles of airport hallway
    we wait in line
    we go through security
    we wait in line
    we walk onto the plane
    we wait, for nothing
    we taxi out to the runway
    we wait for the previous plane
    we de-ice in the winter
    we take-off
    we land
    we taxi
    we wait for an open gate
    we wait in line
    we disembark
    we walk through three miles of hallway again
    we wait for luggage
    we walk to the door
    we wait for a taxi
    we ride the taxi
    we arrive at our destination

    oh yeah, we also bought the ticket and waited for our flight-time.

    So, right now, as you read this, don't pretend, stand up, and go 3'000 miles in any direction. Find out how long it takes. I'm sure there isn't a plane going where you want exactly when you want it, but even if there is, all of the above takes time.

    EIGHT HOURS. Do it, and wear a watch when you do.

  21. Re:...eventually put people on mars...my butt on Opportunity Rover Reaches Martian Day 4,000 of Its 90-Day Mission · · Score: 1

    I live in Canada. My government's actually really quite fantastic. But yeah, we do pay taxes don't we. But we also have no actual problems.

    Although, while we're on the topic, most of the wonderful fun-driving roads in the U.S. were built as a make-work project back when there were no jobs and the government just paid people to build roads from nowhere to nowhere. That sounds pretty socialist to me.

    In any event, there are school shootings and riots in the streets on a monthly basis. That's just embarassing.

  22. Re:...eventually put people on mars...my butt on Opportunity Rover Reaches Martian Day 4,000 of Its 90-Day Mission · · Score: 1

    we have not had people travel through space -- i.e. to the moon or to orbit. No human has gotten up and gone.

    What we've had is about thirty thousand humans get up, to send five humans. Much like your arm is attached to your body, those astronauts are attached to the space program, and hence to the ground.

    Your hand can move around seemingly freely around your body, but only within the range of your arm. Sending your hand even thirty feet from your body is a much more difficult task.

    That's what I'm saying the trip to mars really is. Orbit and moon don't have significant communication delay. So you can ask for help and you can get it. Advice, opinion, analysis. "Houston, we have a problem." . . . and then dead silence for a length of time long-enough that the problem has changed.

    How many tries did it take to get to antarctica -- which I think is a really great example. So is everest. Congrats, after many attempts, someone got there. Who's gone back to build a house? Do you want to go build one?

  23. Re:...eventually put people on mars...my butt on Opportunity Rover Reaches Martian Day 4,000 of Its 90-Day Mission · · Score: 1

    stand up right now, and be 3'000 miles away within 8 hours. You can't do it. You don't live in the airport. The plane doesn't leave right now. There's a line. There're about three miles of airport hallway. The taxi isn't at your door yet. You haven't packed. You haven't gone through security. You don't have your ticket. The plane is sold out. You live thirty minutes away from the airport. The airplane doesn't take off from the gate. It's also not the next plane to take the runway.

    Stop making shit up that you read in a newspaper. Get up, and make the journey yourself. Not for pretend. Do it in actuality. It takes eight hours -- in the summer.

  24. Re:...eventually put people on mars...my butt on Opportunity Rover Reaches Martian Day 4,000 of Its 90-Day Mission · · Score: 2

    I'd forgotten about the infinite nuclear energy. That's going to be my new example. Especially because we very much could have infinite nuclear energy, except for about six dozen cultural issues, legal issues, and our all-time-favourite deterant of civilization advancement: perceived property values.

  25. Re:I'm so light, I can't go on. Oh wait I can. on Opportunity Rover Reaches Martian Day 4,000 of Its 90-Day Mission · · Score: 0

    wyoming has radiation? communication delays? nothing to see, or to do? No medical equipment?

    You're pretty sure about gravity not messing with you? It takes three days to die of thirst. It takes a week to die of thirst given one extra bottle of water from the transport ship. I don't know what that gravity would do to your digestive systems.

    But isn't that the point? "Pretty sure" just ain't sure enough.

    Oh yeah, and the effects of the gravity can guarantee your death immediately, even if you won't actually die for another two months.