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User: D.McG.

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Comments · 129

  1. Re:Summon into back of trailer mode? on Tesla Model S Owner Claims Vehicle Went Rogue Causing An Accident By Itself (hothardware.com) · · Score: 1
    Allow me to direct you to the drivers manual for Massachusetts (my home state):

    http://www.massrmv.com/rmv/dma...

    Page 105 under Parking Regulations clearly states that you may not park "Facing the wrong way against traffic". It also states, "You may get a citation with a fine for violating a parking regulation."

  2. Re:Here's the problem. on FBI Has Sights On Larger Battle Over Encryption After Apple Feud (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 2

    Apple could only decrypt the drive. Each app can (and should) be encrypting its own data how it sees fit. Each session of a 3rd party messaging app should have a one-time key. Messages sent between 3rd party apps do not even need to be stored long-term. Having Apple unlock the phone is only going to help if criminals are using the built-in apps, which they're probably not. In the end, this just pisses off the law abiding citizens who enjoy their privacy, except now they now Apple can eavesdrop.

  3. Re: Turtles on Neil deGrasse Tyson Says It's 'Very Likely' The Universe Is A Simulation (extremetech.com) · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We're obviously at the top of the stack, since we are not currently running a universe simulator. We have modeled it to some degree, but not to the fidelity that we perceive in our instance.

  4. Re: Seems obvious on NASA Feed 'Goes Down As Horseshoe UFO Appears On ISS Live Cam' (mirror.co.uk) · · Score: 5, Funny

    The flash of light you saw in the sky was not a UFO. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.

  5. Re:Apple fucked up on Google May Adopt Apple's Swift Programming Language For Android, Says Report (thenextweb.com) · · Score: 3, Informative

    Apple open sourced the language. They did NOT open source UIKit, CoreAnimation, etc. Many iOS devs are Android devs as well. While this will allow for a common language between the UI and the shared C++ code, the UI code will still be platform specific.

  6. Re:LAUNCH!! on SpaceX Sets April 8 For Next Dragon Launch · · Score: 1

    Why? SpaceX doesn't use SRBs with O-ring seals.

  7. Re:Customer support? on Ubuntu Drops Support For AMD's Catalyst GPU Driver (phoronix.com) · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yes, but I came here for an argument!!
    OH! Oh! I'm sorry! This is abuse!
    Oh! Oh I see!
    Aha! No, you want room 12A, next door.
    Oh...Sorry...
    Not at all! stupid git.

  8. Re: It has been awhile on Oculus Founder: Rift Will Come To Mac If Apple "Ever Releases a Good Computer" (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 2, Informative

    That's disingenuous. That one "chip" can be configured at purchase to be a 4, 6, 8, or 12-core Xeon. The only problem is their choice of workstation GPUs. I hope they offer Nvidia Pascal GPUs in the near future. Should be low power enough for their quiet cooling solution.

  9. As more folks start using the WiFi hotspots near ground level, it should take considerable load off of the cell phone towers in the city.

  10. Re: This is what APIs / abstraction is for on Ask Slashdot: How To Work On Source Code Without Having the Source Code? · · Score: 1

    C++, Objective-C, Java. Pure Virtual classes, protocols, interfaces, are all the same thing. Learn them, use them.

  11. Re:Kessler, anyone? on SpaceX Sets Feb. 24th Target Date For Next Launch · · Score: 2

    The SpaceX internet communication satellites are expected to be in the smallsat-class of 100-to-500 kg (220-to-1,100 lb) mass; which are intended to be orbiting at an altitude of approximately 1,100 km (680 mi). There's far less drag at 1,100 km than on the ISS; which has an apogee of 416 km (258 mi).

  12. Re:This is what APIs / abstraction is for on Ask Slashdot: How To Work On Source Code Without Having the Source Code? · · Score: 1

    Ridiculous. You should ALWAYS be coding to an interface. The interfaces are the contracts between subsystems. Design those first, and more people can work in parallel.

  13. Re: landing location on Musk Announces Return-to-Flight Date For Falcon 9 Rocket · · Score: 4, Informative

    Launch Complex 13 was leased to SpaceX and has been renamed Landing Complex 1.

  14. Re:Please put the word "space" in quotes on Blue Origin "New Shepherd" Makes It To Space... and Back Again (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 4, Informative

    To reinforce the point of comparing a hummingbird to a raptor, Blue Origin's New Shepherd suborbital vehicle did not substantially travel laterally before landing. They had a near zero lateral velocity (winds in the upper atmosphere do not count) and came back to land at the launch site. The SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage however is traveling laterally at Mach 10 upon separation, and attempts to land 200 miles down range. Falcon 9 is also 3 times taller than New Shepherd. Not a fair comparison at all.

  15. There is nothing broadcast over the airwaves that I'd be worried about. Heck, letting them know which primetime shows on ABC/CBS/NBC etc. that I watch would actually help the ratings of the shows, increasing the probability that my favorite shows will be picked up for another season.

    Why is it that the good sci-fi shows keep getting cancelled? Is it because the folks here are preventing the ratings from being calculated? Seems counter-intuitive.

  16. Re:this is possible if Apple and Google are lying on Google Makes Full-Disk Encryption Mandatory For Some Android 6.0 Devices (itworld.com) · · Score: 1

    https://www.apple.com/business...

    According to Apple, one of the many keys in the chain is unique to each device, imprinted into the silicon when the chip is fabricated, and not exposed on any pins of the chip. This doc is a great read, and even goes into how each file is encrypted with a different key.

  17. Re: Is it practical to keep developing in C? on Ask Slashdot: Is it Practical To Replace C With Rust? · · Score: 1

    Not true, the same header can be compiled on multiple platforms. We're doing it on Mac, iOS, and Android. Our full build time from clean on Mac for our very large project is 90 seconds.

  18. Re:Is it practical to keep developing in C? on Ask Slashdot: Is it Practical To Replace C With Rust? · · Score: 1

    You, my friend, need to learn about precompiled headers. If your modules have more than one include statement, you're doing it wrong. Large projects can compile quickly if set up correctly. Also, modern compilers can compile 8 files from a single project in parallel on an I7. I don't know if it's still true, but Visual Studio is / was terrible at this; only compiling single files from multiple projects in parallel. This caused bloat in the solution with multiple projects to get any kind of speed improvement in build times, at the cost of complexity.

  19. Re: As always with C++, the truth is more nuanced on Bjarne Stroustrup Announces the C++ Core Guidelines · · Score: 1

    Interfaces in C++ are simply structs that contain only pure virtual methods. No one uses the non-technical term "mix-in".

  20. Re:As always with C++, the truth is more nuanced on Bjarne Stroustrup Announces the C++ Core Guidelines · · Score: 1

    I only brought this up as an alternative to yet-another redefinition of shared_ptr. We don't need new libraries to have shared objects.

    If you're looking for the lazy approach, then yes, the smart pointer object can be used to call AddRef / Release for you. Or you could just call these methods yourself and call it a day, like we did in Objective-C for years until ARC came around. The smart pointer object in this design is optional.

    I think you missed the point with the pointer object. There is no reference count mix-in regarding the pointer object. The ref count is store and managed by the base class (CRefCount) of all derived classes that implement IRefCount. The C++ multiple inheritance here is not that tricky. If one cannot handle the diamond pattern, one should not be coding in C++.

    A weak reference to an IRefCount object can also be converted to a strong reference by simply calling AddRef.

    Deserialization in other languages like Objective-C was done by calling retain in the same way. If it should be weak, it's not retained when deserialized.

    My last project used this C++ design for all classes, and it did not impact compile times (the build of 9 dylibs and the app took 90 seconds total on an I7).

  21. Re:"or at one of the Lagrange points" on Who Will Pay For a Commercial Space Station After the End of the ISS? · · Score: 1

    That's false. The L1-L3 points are unstable and require satellites to perform station-keeping maneuvers with propellant to maintain their halo orbits. Natural satellites cannot balance precisely at those points, and fall off to one side towards a gravity well. Trojans (random crap) only exist at L4-L5 points.

  22. Re:As always with C++, the truth is more nuanced on Bjarne Stroustrup Announces the C++ Core Guidelines · · Score: 1

    There's a much easier way to accomplish this: use reference counted objects, rather than smart pointer templates around dumb objects.

    Define IRefCount to include AddRef (or Retain) and Release methods. Make all interfaces extend IRefCount. Define CRefCount to include a FinalRelease method; which by default calls "delete this", and will be invoked when the reference count reaches zero. This method can be overridden to return objects to pools, be handled by some other deallocator, etc.

    This removes the need to create two objects, and ensures all shared objects can be passed around like candy. If you really still want a smart pointer template, it's easy enough to create one that simply calls AddRef and Release on the IRefCount object on your behalf as appropriate. An important difference is that the ref count is part of the object, not the smart pointer.

  23. Re:Not this shit again... on French Woman Gets €800/month For Electromagnetic-Field 'Disability' · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It was probably cheaper to settle for €28,800 than to pay for a study.

  24. Re:Both. on Ask Slashdot: Do You Press "6" Key With Right Or Left Hand? · · Score: 1

    Actually:

    7 keys for the left hand (tilde, 1-6)
    7 keys for the right hand (7-0, minus, equals, backspace)

    I prefer the keyboard to be centered on the screen.

    While looking at the Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard I noticed that the N key is taking up the space of two keys. Many folks have pointed out that the B key is centered below G and H of an inline keyboard. Those who press the B key ambidextrously have complained about it on ergonomic keyboards. While I don't want to see the 6 key doubled up, I do see merit in placing a duplicate B key on the right half; especially with room pre-allocated for it.

  25. Re: Oracle's monopoly? on Oracle: Google Has "Destroyed" the Market For Java · · Score: 1

    NDK development and debugging of C++ code on Android is no where near as polished as it is in Xcode for iOS. Debugging Java on Android is trivial, but that's not where the big money's made. Writing JNI wrappers for everything is getting tedious. I've also had to rewrite Java nio channel code that was cloned poorly in Android, causing deadlocks; whereas the same code worked perfectly in Sun's/Oracle's implementation that Google couldn't touch; only the interfaces were carried over.