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User: putaro

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  1. Re:They're bums, why keep them around on Greece Is Running Out of Money, Cannot Make June IMF Repayment · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That doesn't really help. If they print more than they produce, the currency will drop in value.

    That's the whole point. Devaluing the currency means everyone in the country takes a pay cut, at least with respect to imports. but internal prices don't change (at least not immediately). This has the effect of discouraging imports and encouraging exports. Taken to extremes it will mean hyperinflation and financial collapse but used judiciously it's a good economic tool.

  2. Solar powered emergency phones? on Ask Slashdot: After We're Gone, the Last Electrical Device Still Working? · · Score: 1

    Kind of mundane, but they're built to get installed in the middle of nowhere and keep working.

  3. Re:Elon Musk to the rescue once again on ISS Crew Stuck In Orbit While Russia Assesses Rocket · · Score: 2

    Only if he builds a giant "laser" and calls it the "Alan Parsons Project" - or maybe Operation Bananarama

  4. Encryption was defined as a weapon as well on Defense Distributed Sues State Department Over 3-D Gun Censorship · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Encryption was defined as a weapon until '97. There were a number of interesting end runs around that, including a book with all of the PGP source code in it. Since you could print the definition for a 3D gun, banning 3D files for guns should run into the same legal restrictions that banning the publishing of encryption software did.

  5. The only unlimited credit line you can get on AT&T Bills Elderly Customer $24,298.93 For Landline Dial-Up Service · · Score: 1

    It's funny, but it's been this way for ages - the phone company will essentially give you unlimited credit. Mr Dorff is living on about $1500 a month. How many credit cards with $25K limits do you think he has? I don't understand why phone companies don't just set a max for your bill and then shut you off if it goes over that, at least for billable items like long distance.

  6. Re: Another thing... on AT&T Bills Elderly Customer $24,298.93 For Landline Dial-Up Service · · Score: 1

    You'd fit in at Verizon :-)

    http://verizonmath.blogspot.jp...

  7. Re:Waitasecondhere... on Tattoos Found To Interfere With Apple Watch Sensors · · Score: 1

    If you read the support article, you'll see that it mentions that it may not be able to get your heart rate if you have tattoos, not that you'll have to keep entering your PIN because it thinks you've taken it off your wrist.

  8. F Mark Rowley on UK Police Chief: Some Tech Companies Are 'Friendly To Terrorists' · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I regard the threat to my privacy and civil liberty by criminals like Mark Rowley as much more significant than that posed by terrorists. Snowden didn't make companies add more encryption. Overreach by government agencies caused it. They're just trying to shoot the messenger but they created the problem by circumventing or ignoring the law.

  9. Imprisonment is irreversible as well - you can't get your time back.

  10. Re:Here's a better idea on William Shatner Proposes $30 Billion Water Pipeline To California · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Do the math - bottled water doesn't even move the dial compared to agriculture. Total US consumption of bottle water per year = 10 billion gallons or about 31,000 acre feet. An acre-foot is about what one household uses per year, so it's the equivalent of a small city. In contrast, California uses 38 billion gallons a DAY. Stopping bottled water will not solve the water crisis. Alfalfa would certainly have a bigger impact.

    http://www.latimes.com/busines...

  11. Re:Easy grammar on Ask Slashdot: What Would a Constructed Language Have To Be To Replace English? · · Score: 1

    Well, you could say that about Japanese as well, at least with regards to hiragana, the phonetic alphabet. Doesn't make the language a lot easier to learn, though.

  12. Re: Invisible hand on Comcast's Incompetence, Lack of Broadband May Force Developer To Sell Home · · Score: 3, Informative

    Telephone and electricity wires cost money to run as well. We mandated that the utilities provide service to all and they used to simply spread the cost over the entire customer base. As long as you're profitable in the large it doesn't really matter if each customer turns a profit. However, if a company is not required to do so, they will, of course, focus only on profitable customers.

    We chose to subsidize services that were viewed as vital, such as phone and electricity. Cable TV is not a necessity but internet access may be.

  13. Re:We all agree Postgres is better on Why I Choose PostgreSQL Over MySQL/MariaDB · · Score: 1

    It's funny, but I find Postgres much easier and quicker to setup than MySQL. Probably just familiarity. I will say that in 20 years of using Postgres I've never had it eat any data. MySQL, well, I'd had it destroy its data a couple of time.

  14. Re:Bottom line on Why I Choose PostgreSQL Over MySQL/MariaDB · · Score: 1

    That gap was pretty small. I remember doing postgresql back in '97. I actually wrote an early JDBC driver for Postgres around that time, but it was for an internal project and we didn't release it as open source.

  15. Re:Das Keyboard or Apple/Slim Keyboard on Ask Slashdot: Good Keyboard? · · Score: 1

    I second the Apple Keyboard, though I use a Mac so all of the keys make sense.

  16. Re:Ahhhh, C++ on Was Linus Torvalds Right About C++ Being So Wrong? · · Score: 1

    You can abuse the C pre-processor as well. The early versions of the Bourne Shell are, essentially, written in Bourne Shell through the use of a mess of C macros. When I was working at a Unix vendor I was assigned to track down a bug in the shell and that was just...wrong. Some time around Sys V somebody un-macro'ized the code.

  17. Re:... and this is surprising how? on Samsung Smart TVs Don't Encrypt the Voice Data They Collect · · Score: 2

    If the security sucks, the product usually still works. That's the basic problem.

  18. Re:Create a $140 billion business out of nothing? on How, and Why, Apple Overtook Microsoft · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The web browsers and email in early smartphones were crap, but the phone part worked. The original iPhone was a crappy phone. Turned out people wanted a decent web browser and mail more than they did a decent phone.

  19. Re:Japanese solution! on Why ATM Bombs May Be Coming Soon To the United States · · Score: 1

    Well, many banks shut down their ATM network at night anyhow in Japan so it's not as though it makes any difference.

    There are standalone ATMs at many convenience stores in Japan. Thieves have taken to busting in the window with a backhoe and grabbing the whole machine.

  20. Re:Early fragmentation on Ask Slashdot: Is Pascal Underrated? · · Score: 1

    I did most of my work on Unix before I started at Apple in '95. All of the new OS development was being done in C by then. I suspect that before most of the OS development had been done in 68K assembler, not Pascal. When the switch to PPC started, Apple needed a cross-platform systems programming language and Pascal was not it.

    This article from '93 references how the industry mindset had switched to C/C++ and that pushed Apple.

    https://www.schneier.com/essay...

    One thing to remember is that at that time, both Macs and PCs were not very powerful machines and large applications were being developed for Unix workstations.

  21. Re:Java is Pascal++ on Ask Slashdot: Is Pascal Underrated? · · Score: 1

    UCSD P-system was a virtual machine. introduced back in '78. I think it was most popular on the Apple II, though it ran on PC's and even the PDP-11. I went to UCSD in the mid 80's and we learned Pascal on PC's but the PDP-11's (these were small graphics workstations, not minis) were running RT-11, if I remember correctly and we used them for the assembly language class.

  22. Re:Early fragmentation on Ask Slashdot: Is Pascal Underrated? · · Score: 2

    I'd say that the reason C eclipsed Pascal was the popularity of Unix. There was an explosion of Unix systems in the mid 80's (including Sun workstations but many, many others) that were fairly inexpensive but with a lot of power and they were all programmed in C. Pascal had a lot of popularity on PC's with Turbo Pascal and a lot of stuff written of the Macintosh was Pascal back then (if you look at the old Mac API's you'll see an abundance of "pstrings" or Pascal strings) but C was "cooler" because it was coming out of the Unix world.

  23. Re:Air-gap. on The Importance of Deleting Old Stuff · · Score: 2

    This is very true. Another issue is not that there's anything embarrassing or bad, but the sheer work of producing documents for a lawsuit can be be very expensive. If you do keep emails or other records beyond the legal retention limits they can still be subpoenaed, but if you destroy them on a regular schedule, well, can't produce what you don't have.

  24. Re:Pop Ctrl can't happen in an entitlement society on The Coming Decline of 'Made In China' · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Developed countries don't need to promote population control - it happens by itself. Every developed nation except for the United States (which has large amounts of immigration) has a declining birth rate. And, yes, it is a problem for retirement schemes.

  25. Re:Wait a second on An Automated Cat Litter Box With DRM · · Score: 1

    As far as I can tell the "washing" of the granules is part of the automatic cycle.