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User: guacamole

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  1. Re:i5? Call me when they have the i7 on Intel 5th Gen Core Series Performance Preview With 2015 Dell XPS 13 · · Score: 1

    By the way, it's not correct that every mobile i7 has 4 cores. The low power i7 CPUs have only two cores. Considering that Broadwell is focusing on low power parts (less than 30W TDP), there will not be a quad core Broadwell Core i7. If you need a quad core i7, then you have to get the Haswell part.

  2. Re:Sadly, this will probably be popular in Russia. on Russia Says Drivers Must Not Have "Sex Disorders" To Get License · · Score: 1

    If Americans were required to carry a dash camera for insurance claims, I am sure you would have seen on youtube plenty of the American road stupidity too.

    The dash cams simply prove that Russians are the kind of people who tend to cheat the system, be it the government or an insurance company, if you take their word without a recording. Probably a result of 70 years of living in a massively corrupt country where everything is a state property and therefore can be stolen. Sometimes I think that the millions killed in repressions during the Stalin era WERE NECESSARY to run a tight ship in USSR. As soon as Stalinist repressions ended, corruption and mafia spread like a hydra in USSR.

  3. Re:Russians, help me understand on Russia Says Drivers Must Not Have "Sex Disorders" To Get License · · Score: 1

    Russia is simply showing its true colors. "Homesexual" is pretty much a swear word in Russia culture.

    Many people in the West think that Putin is oppressing the democracy-loving Russians, but in reality, 90% of Russian MPs, most mayors, all governors, the military, and the executive branch of Russian government think like him and support him. Most people who live outside of the liberal Moscow and St Petersburg cities also support him. This law wouldn't pass without and overwhelming popular support.

  4. Re:Impaired driving on Russia Says Drivers Must Not Have "Sex Disorders" To Get License · · Score: 2

    Actually, Russian drunk driving laws have been getting tough too. 0.0356% BAC is considered DIU (0.08 in USA)

  5. Maybe it's because consumers aren't given a choice on Is Kitkat Killing Lollipop Uptake? · · Score: 1

    I just got myself a new Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 a month ago. It came with Kitkat, and there is no option to upgrade. I don't know if this is due to vendors' lazyness or because it takes so long to port the OS to all the different devices that can run it.

    To be fair, after a few weeks of using Kitkat, I am perfectly happy and don't lose my sleep over the upgrade.

  6. Re:How about unburdening Cable services on Unbundling Cable TV: Be Careful What You Wish For · · Score: 1

    There are only two good travel shows, anything with Anthony Bourdain and with Andrew Zimmern.

  7. Re:Noise on Box Office 2014: Moviegoing Hits Two-Decade Low · · Score: 1

    Just don't go to the movie during the first few weeks of its release. Wait a month and then watch it in a half empty movie theater on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. That's what I do, and noise hasn't been an issue.

  8. Re:TV is better now on Box Office 2014: Moviegoing Hits Two-Decade Low · · Score: 1

    Indeed. Going to movies could be a highlight of a week (or day) for some in the 80s and 90s. But nowadays there are so many more ways to kill your time..

  9. Re:blu rays are cheaper than the movie on Box Office 2014: Moviegoing Hits Two-Decade Low · · Score: 1

    I understand why the prices at the theater bars is such a problem. The movie theater is not a restaurant, coffee, or an ice cream shop. I don't understand how the society has gotten to the point where people can't enjoy watching a movie without gulping a supersize bucket of a carbonated sugary drink with a bag of popcorn. Instead of spending your money on this junk, just have a nicer dinner before or after movie.

    And I don't know why you think that everyone should go watch a movie with someone. I for one a fan of independent and international cinema, something my friends or family do not always enjoy or have time for. So the cost of paying 10 bucks per movie to see it on a big screen does not seem so high.

  10. Re:Quality of expirience is down on Box Office 2014: Moviegoing Hits Two-Decade Low · · Score: 1

    Why do you want alcohol in a movie theater? So that your bladder interrupts your movie experience every 50 minutes or so? I have been to one of those. I don't know how we have arrived to a point where people can't enjoy a movie, car race, or other social event without chugging alcohol.

  11. Re:I never have understood on Serious Economic Crisis Looms In Russia, China May Help · · Score: 1

    Why fetish? Would you rather hold Mexican peso, Turkish lira or something else? People obsess about US dollar as a reserve currency because they know that they, or someone else, could go into US and spend the money to buy real stuff. They also expect low and manageable rate of inflation, as it was observed for more than one hundred years in the US.

    The US economy may be prone to inflation, but the inflation has been mild since the 80s. I am also curious about the "deficit" you're mentioning. Being a market economy, there can't be a deficit in the US. If there is an excess demand for any good at a given price, the price will rise until the quality demanded equals the quantity supplied. The deficit happens when the price of a good is set artificially below its market price, like it happens in communist economy or in places where a totalitarian government attempts to fix a price.

    So why else people prefer the dollar? The exchange rate does not fluctuate as wildly as that of other, lesser economies. A run out of the mill hedge fund can probably collapse the exchange rage of Ukraine hrivna or Turkish lira, if they feel like it, but attacking a US dollar on exchange markets is something no one can afford.

    What else is there? It's a huge economy, one of the biggest in the world, and just like most of the first world economies, the US government has no problems collecting the income and sales tax. This means that the debt of the US government is always guaranteed by the affluence of the economy and the taxes collected.

  12. Re:Poor tax? on Drunk Drivers in California May Get Mandated Interlock Devices · · Score: 1

    Yes, this should not be implemented because poor people never drive drunk, never break laws, never drive with suspended license, or without a license or without a valid insurance. So we suspend all tickets and fines because they only hurt the innocent poor drivers without leaving a dent in rich people's pockets.

  13. Re:Its not a good film on The Interview Bombs In US, Kills In China, Threatens N. Korea · · Score: 1

    PS: And please don't compare it to Borat. Borat was a well-made, innovative iconic film comedy and it still has a cult-like following. Without the Sony hack debacle, no one would remember The Interview six months from now.

  14. Re:Its not a good film on The Interview Bombs In US, Kills In China, Threatens N. Korea · · Score: 1

    Typical Seth Rogen movie, made by stoners, for other stoners. The best way to watch a Rogen movie is after smoking a joint. Then all the childish jokes you hear will make complete sense. This movie is about on the level with Pineapple Express, or slightly below. My favorite Rogen movie was "This is The End". That one was extremely well done comedy, and funny to most people, even without smoking a joint.

    The funniest thing about The Interview is that people all around the world, after learning of the Sony hack debacle, initially think about the movie as the flag bearer of the western values for its resolve to stand up to the brutal dictatorships Then they get shocked by the sophomoric jokes thrown around the movie, often involving words like dick and vaginas. It's unfortunate that The Interview wasn't anywhere as good as "This is The End"

  15. Re:what China should do is on The Interview Bombs In US, Kills In China, Threatens N. Korea · · Score: 1

    It's strange that China is afraid of having a Western style democracy and a market economy right at its border considering that within China's own borders and territory one can witness a wild west style of capitalist economy and a sharp division between the haves and havenots.

  16. Not before they allow bowling on Should Video Games Be In the Olympics? · · Score: 1

    Bowling is a legitimate sport and should be represented in the Olympic games.

  17. What are the implications for the textbook market? on Calculus Textbook Author James Stewart Has Died · · Score: 4, Funny

    Having passed away, since Mr Stewart can no longer update the textbook every year or so, does this mean that this Calculus text will finally stabilize, stop being updated, and the prices would drop?

  18. Re:C is very relevant in 2014, on How Relevant is C in 2014? · · Score: 2

    That's why most application developers will not touch C with a ten foot pole. C remains extremely fast and simple programming language, but it has little built in support for "safe programming".

    To be honest, some of that is not the failure of the language but the libraries. For example, string handling is a big source of programming mistakes in C. So why isn't there a _standard_ library for safe string handling? (I know there may be several third party libraries) A library could abstract away the management of pointers to chars, things like growing and shrinking storage of the strings, creating string objects, destroying them, etc. without programmer ever touching a raw pointer to memory containing the string data.

  19. Re:I'd take that kind of Exile on Celebrated Russian Hacker Now In Exile · · Score: 1

    My thoughts exactly. One week in Paris, and then another in Singapore. What a horrible life. Where is it going to take Durov the following week, perhaps Buenos Aires, Tokyo, or Morocco? Hard to say... such crazy world.

  20. Re:I'd take that kind of Exile on Celebrated Russian Hacker Now In Exile · · Score: 2

    A rather pointless and misguided post and a list.

    Trotsky was Stalin's own arch-enemy. It's very hard to think of who could possibly play such role to Putin's regime today. Berezovski was the last one, and he was a non-player since the end of 20th century. The other guy, Khodorkovky, the CEO of now dead Yukos, has already served a decade in prison and has been pardoned.

    Litvinenko's killing in London was clearly a very public execution to send a message to major politically involved oligarchs in exile, such as Berezovski, who used to think he owns and runs the Kremlin in the 90s. Durov is a very small fry, and one out of hundreds. I can't imagine that FSB is possibly losing sleep over him.

  21. Re:If only that were enough... on The Plane Crash That Gave Us GPS · · Score: 1

    Why exactly was the MH17 flying over a well known war zone, where many aircraft were shot down just days ago? Answer: the Ukrainian air traffic controllers apparently allowed civilian airliners to fly over this war zone, as long as they flew high enough. Stupid. Stupid decisions. Ukrainian air traffic authorities should share the blame here.

  22. Re:how pretty on More Eye Candy Coming To Windows 10 · · Score: 1

    I have worked for nearly a decade as a sysadmin in a science environment, and I hardly witnessed people demanding to switch from Linux to OS X. For the most part, MOST science software actually happens to work best under Linux distributions. Your Mathematica example is only one piece of evidence. However, the Linux distributions track much better packages like R, Octave, or Latex, which are bread and butter packages in a lot of scientific fields. While I never used Mathematica, I never had any issues with commercial software packages like Matlab or SAS under Linux.

  23. Re:what you've done is more important than where on Be True To Your CS School: LinkedIn Ranks US Schools For Job-Seeking Programmers · · Score: 1

    In my opinion, other things being equal, the businesses hiring from the top schools are right. My background is in a bit of math and cs from one of the schools on the list above, and let me tell you I have been surprised by the mediocrity of the training people from "lesser" schools had. A guy with a math degree from a prestigious Southern university didn't know what a "proof by induction" is. I was shocked. I don't think we need to discuss the importance of understanding the concept of induction for either math or coding.

  24. Re:CS is (extreamly) soft morph between EE and Mat on Be True To Your CS School: LinkedIn Ranks US Schools For Job-Seeking Programmers · · Score: 1

    EE deals with hardware. Math deals with abstractions, structures, and all that. CS is a lot more than these two IMO. You don't learn CS theory, algorithms, the coding paradigms, or software engineering principles in either Math or EE fields. I used to work as a sysadmin in a leading math department and I saw no indication that the mathematicians are specially more adept at coding or even using computers. The ones who were experts in computing and coding actually chose to do so.

  25. Re:Missing the point on Be True To Your CS School: LinkedIn Ranks US Schools For Job-Seeking Programmers · · Score: 1

    If I bury myself in the parents basement, fill it with PCs and books, learn things on my own, get a junior job and then move up the ranks of the industry, in this sense you can argue that CS degree is not required. In terms of math logic, you statement means that CS degree is not necessary. However, you can't argue with the logic proposition that CS degree is sufficient to break into most junior level developer positions.