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User: BarfooTheSecond

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  1. As a non-native, it's typically a mistake I'd make on Request to Falsify Data Published In Chemistry Journal · · Score: 1

    http://www.wordreference.com/ proposes "make up" (vtr) => "assemble, put together"

    I wouldn't have seen any problem in saying "please, put an elemental analysis together", thinking: the article lacks an analysis for completeness, a simple one should be included.

    Makes me remember of red side notes from my teachers in my homework, long ago: "Results are ok, but where's the analysis?!"...

    I only see conscienciousness by a (non-english) reviewer, in this instruction.

  2. useless on Introducing the NSA-Proof Crypto-Font · · Score: 2

    "This project will not fully solve the problems we are facing now", they say. I'd say it barely solve some.
    It could even mislead people into thinking that writing emails with this font will make their messages safer. My father for sure would, as he doesn't know what UTF-8 nor what "charset" do mean.

  3. Re:Le effect Streissand. on French Intelligence Agency Forces Removal of Wikipedia Entry · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That said - This article has pretty much nothing of interest...

    In this case you're probably right, however one shouldn't forget that intelligence job is to gather tiny bits of information that might look of no interest to average people to reconstruct schemes in contexts that are of interest to them (and other intelligence services). It's a profession.

    It is the same problematic as with Facebook lambda users for example who say "Due, I don't publish very private information about myself there, so what, and who cares...", when you warn them about their privacy. They simply ignore there are specialists out there, how powerful data mining systems are and how they are capable of spotting, linking and gathering tiny elements of information where themselves just see nothing.

    I just want to say that intelligence agencies know what is sensible or of interest to them and what is not. We, outsiders, don't.

    But sure they got a Streisand effect here...

  4. Re:Wonderful, but see it for what it is on Solar Impulse Airplane To Launch First Sun-Powered Flight Across America · · Score: 1

    Wright's plane wasn't commercially viable too.

  5. Re:Just what we need... on Wayland/Weston Gets Forked As Northfield/Norwood · · Score: 1

    Stronger... and unused.

  6. ha ha h, what an ethernet cable!

    Yes, it's the same kind of "audiophiles" who are chasing that perfect amp with 0.000000000001% of distortion ratio, which would require ultrasophisticated and expensive lab equipment to be measured, while a much higher ratio would be inaudible to them. And anyway, they'd shell out several grands for that.

    These guys who are more interested in the specs of their audio system than in truely listening to the performance and musical intentions of the musicians. (I'm a musician and I don't mind if sometimes there is a slight difference. Sometimes it sounds even better!)

  7. Re:What? on For Jane's, Gustav Weißkopf's 1901 Liftoff Displaces Wright Bros. · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The airframe is very similar to O. Lilienthal gliders, which actually flew.

    This story is acknowledged by Jane's All the World's Aircraft which I think is a reliable authority, including the stinky deal "the Smithsonian shall [not state] any aircraft...earlier than the Wright aeroplane of 1903...was capable of carrying a man under its own power in controlled flight"
    http://www.janes.com/products/janes/defence-security-report.aspx?ID=1065976994

  8. Re:Gutenberg wasn't first either on For Jane's, Gustav Weißkopf's 1901 Liftoff Displaces Wright Bros. · · Score: 1

    It had wing-warping AND a vertical fin.
    Right, it's worth reading the full article.

  9. Re:Wow on Two Heads Are Better Than One For Brain-Computer Interfaces · · Score: 1

    But then, what if both inputs are totally divergent. How would they correlate them?
    I think they should free some space in the cockpit for a 3rd pilot...

  10. Re:mmh... on DOE Asks For 30-Petaflop Supercomputer · · Score: 1

    Forgot to mention I was kidding :-)

    Sure Windows 8 will never run on such big machines. It will never run on my PC too, btw :-)

    btw: is Windows kernel still limited to 64 cpus? (I'm not talking clusters and the like, but "single image")

  11. mmh... on DOE Asks For 30-Petaflop Supercomputer · · Score: 1

    ... I've heard rumors that Microsoft will participate in the tender and propose their "HPC" solution based on Windows 8 (well, it's for all computer platforms, they say)

  12. Re:Top500 doesn't work that way on Einstein@Home Set To Break Petaflops Barrier · · Score: 1

    I agree. That's what makes all the difference between such distributed systems or simple clusters, and real massively parallel supercomputers, with a single kernel instance running on thousands of CPU cores accessing the same distributed shared memory. Nothing to do with opportunistic distributed batch jobs, both don't compare.

  13. Cultural problems,... on Ask Slashdot: Is Outsourcing Development a Good Idea? · · Score: 1

    lack of communication
    no feedback
    dissimulation
    no involvement
    no ideas
    minimal work
    bad code
    inflated costs
    delays

    All the money that your company will spare, you'll spend it in testing, analyzing, debugging, guessing, hair pulling, rewriting specs, re-asking, reworking, correcting, etc, etc, etc... And indeed, all this takes a lot of time...

    You end up with something over which you have no control, that's not "yours" and that's not really what you asked for.

    If you company strategy is all based on an offshore software product, then it is at risk.
    The day it realizes that and decides to step back, then it wil be a pain in the ass to get source code that compiles and that you understand. It'll be better off rewriting clean code from scratch by your standards...

    I'm talking about outsourcing to foreign countries such as China, India or Eastern countries, with which cultural issues are far from being a detail. Don't do that!

  14. Anarchist? You mean 'communist' on "Cyber War" Is Just the Latest Grab for Defense Money · · Score: 1

    Like during this huge and often ridiculous witch hunt in the USA during cold-war. Fear your neighbor, frear!
    (Not that the other party was without well imaged propaganda against evil US imperialism)

  15. check the cables first on Faulty Cable To Blame For Superluminal Neutrino Results · · Score: 1

    ... always :-)

  16. Re:This toy is a joke for deep space demonstration on Successful Test Flight and Landing for Xombie Rocket Lander and GENIE · · Score: 1

    An atmosphere? Why??

  17. Re:Keep the domain IMO on Ask Slashdot: Smartest Way To Transfer an Old Domain/Site? · · Score: 1

    +1
    keep the domain, put a redirect. I've done it with a 1000+ users forum.

  18. Black Box testing is fun! on What Does a Software Tester's Job Constitute? · · Score: 1

    Right, black box testing and exploration testing are the most interesting, it can be like a game. Detective work where good analysis and diagnostics skills are required.

    When you find a failure, you have to investigate further to pin point the defect, to have something tangible and accurate to report to the developers (so that they have no other choice than to believe you ;-).

    You're not the guy who made the code, but as a developer yourself, you know how it works, and you know where developers sometimes neglet to shield their code or what is likely to fail. You don't see what's inside that "box", but you guess. You have a totally different point of view than the coders who made it, so you see things they don't see.

    It can even happen that you end up explaining them how what they wrote works, that you gain a better understanding of what their software does in reality! Think networking for example: with modern high level OO languages, networking is completely burried into many software layers. Opening a remote connection at high level is easy-peasy nowadays, but many programmers (especially youngest ones) don't know (or are not interested to know) what's going on down there on the cable. Your tool will be Wireshark and with it you'll see the live connection, you'll see in details how it works or fails, not how the developer expected it would work.

    Software testing can be much more than pressing buttons and ticking PASS/FAIL checkboxes. It's a domain where you can have plenty of freedom and can use all your imagination and skills. Some tasks such as preparing test cases or writing reports can be boring but it's not worse that documenting code for a developer. Some coders will see you as a fellow who helps them while some others with a large ego might not like you very much, especially when they cause many defects and see your name too often! But being a good tester is rewarding. If you can share this job with some programming, you'll be a happy guy.

    A book I recommend is "Lessons Learned in Software Testing": http://tinyurl.com/86f9q48

  19. Re:search on Ask Slashdot: Documenting Scattered Sites and Systems? · · Score: 1

    Similar situation here, with tons of documents (Word, Excel, PDF, etc) scattered everywhere, along with project specific personal web pages on users stations, etc...
    I've set up a portal for our intranet and a project management system, but so far the most useful tool is an indexer (Xapian) and a search page (à la Google, available on the portal) since it allows easy recovery of "archived" (read "lost") older documents...

    The most difficult task is to convince some colleagues reluctant to changes that it's better to "publish" their documentation (using online tools) rather than to "archive" MS Word files, deep into some directory trees, in locations only known by them... Management support is required...

  20. Re:Early morning on Brief But Intense Meteor Shower On January 4th · · Score: 1

    3am "local time", they say on NASA web page... What "local" time?! Come on, NASA!

  21. I don't think you do on Jetman Yves Rossy Flies In Formation With Jets · · Score: 1

    ...
    There is a close and natural relation between Breitling and aviation since nearly one century. They make chronographs and watches that are more aeronautical flight intruments than watches, and which have been widely adopted in aviation not for bling-bling reasons but for their specialization and their high-perf.

    There is no marketing need to "try to associate" some James Bond image to watches that are used by astronauts in space (since NASA's Mercury program)...

    Breitling is sponsoring many aviation projects (e.g. , aerobatic squads, warbird restoration, Orbiter solar aircraft, etc). It owes much to aviation but repays it well in return.

    It's not like if it was Cartier (or Budweiser) that was sponsoring Rossy.

    PS: I don't wear any watch

  22. Re:Perl Is way better on Is Perl Better Than a Randomly Generated Programming Language? · · Score: 1

    "I shudder anytime anytime I get asked to look at someone elses Perl code. That has NEVER been a good experience."

    Again, this depends on the programmer who wrote the code, not the language.
    It surely can happen that Perl has nothing to forgive..

    Anyway Perl was ment as a "Practical Extraction and Report Language". Imho, in this domain it remains the best!

  23. Re:Fairly Dangerous on Meet Siri's Little Brother, Trapit · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I couldn't agree more!
    The more this stuff would learn about you, the less you 'd have chances to learn new stuff that could interest you, to open your mind to other opinions and other ideas. It's kind of positive closed-loop that'll lock your mind and prevent you to evolve (well, fortunately the rest of the world will continue to interact with you by other means).

    I'd never permit a real person, even my mother who knows me well, to select what I should be interested in, so an archaic AI program, a bonehead maker? never!...

    Evolution needs stimulation, not confortation.

  24. Silicon Graphics stuff on Microsoft Letting Patents Move To Linux Firms · · Score: 1

    Apparently MS resold a bunch of 3D graphics patents it bought from SGI in 2001-2002.
    SGI was is urgent need of cash at this time, and MS was working on the xbox. It was like SGI selling its soul to MS...

    Silicon Graphics graphics technology, Linux, not bad...

  25. more compatible with more sites... on Microsoft Launches New "Get the Facts" Campaign · · Score: 1

    "Internet Explorer 8 is more compatible with more sites on the Internet than any other browser. "

    Should be true if we considere the many sites that got their code screwed up with non-standard stuff to be compatible with older IE versions. It's the internet that unfortunately had to be made compatible with IE, not the opposite.

    IE8 is compatible with standard web as well as with now deprecated IE6 non-standard crap. No glory...