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User: frank_adrian314159

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  1. Re:Depends on Does Learning To Code Outweigh a Degree In Computer Science? · · Score: 1

    How can you guarantee that? You are a man who seems to ignore basic economics (i.e., no one can guarantee success in any market inherently driven by randomness - that's why they talk about both reward and risk) and the Dunning-Kruger effect. And before you try to escape with "I'll always be able to find work, due to my inherent hard work, hard-won abilities, and stunning personality developed over almost twenty-some years of steering toward perfection", I know that you're a precious little snowflake and all, and that there's always someone willing to pay someone extraordinary for their skills, but, really... are you actually planning on a second career as a male prostitute?

  2. Re:I'll be honest on Why Phone Stores Should Stockpile Replacements · · Score: 4, Insightful

    someone remind me why this guy keeps popping on ./

    He probably pays Dice for the privilege. Or else Slashdot just posts him because he's click-bait, baby. And the more you hate him, the more more you click, and the more Slashdot loves him!

  3. Re:The diet is unimportant... on Low-Carb Diet Trumps Low-Fat Diet In Major New Study · · Score: 1

    Granted, it's not clear quite what he was trying to say, but he seemed to be saying that a package containing a whole, bone-in chicken costs about $8 where he is. Given that a chicken (at least here in the US) is between 4 and 8 pounds, at your price point of ~$1/pound, I could see him paying up to $8 for a chicken - especially if he's trying to buy organic chicken, for which you pay about a 30% premium.

  4. Hard to say... on Ask Slashdot: What Old Technology Can't You Give Up? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Shoes, I guess - my feet get too cold and drop off in the winter, otherwise.

  5. Re:Let's get this out of the way... on Magnetic Stimulation Boosts Memory In Humans · · Score: 1

    So maybe if you loaded the magnets into a shotgun, then fired them through your brain, you'd notice an effect.

    You know, I've heard that you get the same effect by using rocks as with magnets. You don't hear about that as much because the medical industry wants to keep you in the dark and hooked on expensive magnetic technology instead of actually curing the issue for once and for all, cheaply and effectively. But take my word for it - rocks work just as well and only costs the time it takes to find the right sized chunks of gravel. It's just like how the medical industry suppresses cannabis.

  6. Headline incorrect... on Why Women Have No Time For Wikipedia · · Score: 1

    Should be "Why Sane People Have No Time for Wikipedia". FTFY.

  7. Re:Can we stop using the word 'TAPE' on U.S. Senator: All Cops Should Wear Cameras · · Score: 1

    So, I think we may be stuck with "tape" as a synonym for "record," probably for decades to come.

    Yes! And isn't it great?

    Think of how barren English would be without the presence of archaic phrases - you'd not be able to bridle your enthusiasm, take a particular tack, or a million (OK, maybe a few hundred) other things. Languages change, but they have inertia, too. And I can't stress enough how good that is! I as a man of advanced years would sound particularly stupid using the vernacular of today's hipster, as both he or I would sound if either of us brought up phrases like "23 skidoo" or called a woman a "tomato", unless doing so in some ironic manner after viewing an ancient black and white film.

    Or just look at it like what it is... Something that makes fuck all for sense, just like our fun, fun language.

  8. Re:The US slides back to the caves on Limiting the Teaching of the Scientific Process In Ohio · · Score: 1

    Pushed too hard, too fast? Horseshit.

    In reality, this was something rolled back by a Republican administration because (a) it would cost money, (b) it was instigated by a Democratic Congress and President, and (c) the fact that it was a chance to kick the Dems because they were being "international" (as if that's bad in and of itself) and to promote jingoism and American exceptionalism, was just icing on the cake. So, of course, it had to go. But it wasn't because it was too hard, too fast. It was pure political calculation wrapped up in a political campaign to kick the Democrats. All brought to you by the Republicans (Their motto: "Wrong since Roosevelt and proud of it").

  9. Re:Thinking outside the box yields a better soluti on Climate Damage 'Irreversible' According Leaked Climate Report · · Score: 1

    Why of course! Because many of these "charitable organizations" are 503c's for "research and non-partisan education" like the Heritage Foundation and MoveOn.org who's tireless work benefits us all so much.

  10. Re:Comcast on Time Warner Cable Experiences Nationwide Internet Outage · · Score: 1

    Well, we saw what happened when the Bell System got too big for its britches. Heavily regulated for fifty years or so and then broken up. Too bad the days of the trust buster and anti-monopolist are gone.

  11. Which is why... on New Research Suggests Cancer May Be an Intrinsic Property of Cells · · Score: 1

    Knowing this, I would also assume that various forms of senility and other issues are baked into our meatware. Instead of spending so many research resources dicking around trying to fix these faulty vessels, we should instead focus our efforts on uploading consciousness so that it can be preserved. Once we know how to do that, we can start working on new, more reasonable body forms, or just start cloning folks to use serially, replacing their minds after we've purchased them. Because what better way is there to accumulate funds than being eternal? That's what economics is all about, huh?

  12. Re:Zooooom! on Dramatic Shifts In Manufacturing Costs Are Driving Companies To US, Mexico · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, that depends on the amount the jobs pay, doesn't it? Have average salaries for manufacturing jobs (with respect to inflation) increased, decreased, or remained the same over the past 20 or so years?

    That's how you can have an increase in the number of jobs while simultaneously collapsing a middle class. You can also convert full-time positions with benefits to part-time positions without, decrease sick and vacation days, require people lucky enough to have health benefits pay increasing amounts for them, etc., not to mention taking actions that simply raise stress in people's lives like making people work more erratic shifts, threatening them with off-shoring or outsourcing, basically any psychological gambit that makes the employee feel powerless - which has the follow-on effect of making them too cowed to asked for a fair share of the company's profits, again leading to less money for what was equivalent or better work. Plus that latter thing makes it less likely that workers would organize as a labor block or politically in their communities - a fine multiple win for the factory owners vs. their employees.

    So yes, I can see several ways that a middle class can be hollowed out, even while increasing numbers of even worse, lower-paid jobs are created (and taken). That you don't see how this doesn't make things better for most demonstrates that either you are unaware of how the real world has been working for quite a while or you have some sort of odd ideological ax to grind.

  13. Re:Unconstitutinal on Rightscorp's New Plan: Hijack Browsers Until Infingers Pay Up · · Score: 1

    Not in civil cases - there's only apreponderence of the evidence. Besides, I'm pretty sure the ToS you agreed to with your ISP would never let you get past a mediator, let alone into a courtroom.

  14. No, the main issues with Vista were the fact that for most of its life, its driver support sucked (It was v1.0 of a new line, what do you expect?) with many really broken ones out of the gate (because they released the OS way too soon for the hardware manufacturers to be ready) and it's broken security model which incessantly asked its users if they were sure whether they wanted to let this or that do something or the other.

    They fixed both of these issues (for the most part) in Win7. Which is why people still want Win7.

  15. Re:Mozilla should consider doing the same for Fire on Microsoft Considered Renaming Internet Explorer To Escape Its Reputation · · Score: 1

    Maybe, maybe not. What's your evidence?

    Looks to me more as if you're trying to post a political troll post.

  16. Re:income on Companies That Don't Understand Engineers Don't Respect Engineers · · Score: 1

    I'm sure that's the case overall. Adding in such managers as fast food and chain store shift managers (as well as project managers in tech) will do that for you. What's the average management salary level for people managers in high-tech? That's what the discussion's about.

    I'd peg that at average engineers salary about where you put it, but the average for managers is going to be at the $120-140K range.

  17. Re:Incentive Bug Finding on Ask Slashdot: How Dead Is Antivirus, Exactly? · · Score: 1

    You already know that unsecure use of these languages can lead to serious security breaches throughout the system. We have several methods to deal with this kind of insecurity - but they cost, either in development time or needing more people or more process or simply not being able to do certain things. All of which suck.

    Honestly, at this point, I really don't see much choice other than putting most of the web on lockdown. We've built our libertarian utopia and due to the intrusion of the real world, it's sort of become a bit of a crapfest. It's time for us to grow up and actually figure out how to govern the place (or at least parts of it) for the greater benefit of all of us, even at the cost of some of our liberties (and, before you yell "I am BennyF's BFF and he who s willing to give up...blah, blah, blah", I'm hoping this governance would be democratic, representative, and permanent, rather than temporary, resulting in a greater enjoyment of this resource for all into the future), rather than letting the whole shebang collapse in a riot of fraud and idiocy.

  18. Re:Obligatory: "There's Plenty of Room at the Bott on Can Our Computers Continue To Get Smaller and More Powerful? · · Score: 1

    None of the linked articles even mention Feynman's name.

    Why should they? Not many current astrophysics papers mention Galileo, either. Nor do most papers in modern computing reference the work of John von Neumann.

    In science, an original idea or suggestion by someone, no matter how famous, is built upon by others, who's work is built upon by others, until someone actually turns an incomplete idea into a field of study. And by this time the literature has evolved to view the problem slightly differently, perhaps more completely, perhaps from a point of view that's more useful from a research point of view. And then these papers by the others who made these changes become the ones that are referenced. It's the cycle of scientific research. And don't think it's because we've forgotten our roots... If you asked the author of this paper, I'm pretty sure he'd start with either Shannon or Feynmann. We leave older references off, because, often it's not relevant to the research you're talking about. And, frankly, your space is already so limited you don't want to spend any on name checks.

    But come on, do you really think a 55 year old paper is going to be at the top of impact rankings when computed against current research in a field moving this fast? And, even if so, isn't it more likely this work has been superseded by others? IT'S BEEN 55 GOD DAMN YEARS, FOR CHRISSAKE!!! I think your hero worship is showing. At least find a more modern reference.

  19. Re:comparing hypes on Gartner: Internet of Things Has Reached Hype Peak · · Score: 1

    Interesting indeed! It's almost like a puff piece for them, with an underlying message:

    See how well Gartner pushed the "Internet of Things" meme! We took it from nothing to peak hype in only three years! Very efficient for your PR dollar, isn't it? You want to know the "new thing", don't you? Heck! You want to invent the "new thing"! In fact, you have a new thing you're inventing right now, don't you? Well, if we write enough reports for you, your category of new thing will be in the buzz and hype forefront! You'll have investors crawling down your shorts looking for jewels! And they're so inexpensive! Remember - nothing to "hype leader" in three years!

    'Cause that's what they do - write reports reinforcing what the industry wants to hear about itself to be used as PR. They do it at all levels, too. I've read many of these things at the product level, too. Basically, discount any sales estimates by about 4/5 and lengthen the time frame of any graph by about 150% and it might be accurate*. Hell, I'd love to be in that business, but even I don't have brass ones big enough to "invent the future" like that.

    *Which is a interesting measure in and of itself - how much do you have to distort a graph of any prediction to make it match what actually happened.

  20. Re:begs FFS on Entire South Korean Space Programme Shuts Down As Sole Astronaut Quits · · Score: 2

    People have debated whether language knowledge should be considered descriptive or prescriptive for centuries. I doubt you two chuckleheads are going to resolve this debate today. Nor do I think Slashdot is the ideal place to resolve this issue. But that's me.

  21. Re:Blame HR ...(what about the Recruiters/Agents?) on Ask Slashdot: Why Are Online Job Applications So Badly Designed? · · Score: 1

    How do the Recruiters/Agents submit their chosen candidate applications to HR?

    They don't, if they're smart. They may start there, but they parlay their contacts there into contacts in the engineering department whom they start to contact directly to find out about openings. Really, it's all about networking now from the top down. Positions have become too specialized to allow random people to apply. Chances are your manager also knows enough people who need jobs that he doesn't have to go through HR (except for the final paperwork), anyway.

  22. Because they can be.

    People want the jobs, so they use the awful online systems. It's their first step in hating the company they may eventually work for, so it's a head start anyway.

    The real issue is that the job match market is so crowded, you have dozens of competing companies selling crappy SaaS job-app systems that various companies use to auto-sort applicants. The problem is that each of these wants to be the only one in the market and, thus, don't want to share information with any of the others. So you end up having to enter, edit, etc. the information for each crappy system and company you want to apply for.

    HR departments, job-app sellers? You want to be my friend? You want me to like your company? Here's how:

    • Download my fucking resume from LinkedIn. No I don't like them much, either, but at least it's centralized, accessible, and won't waste my time.
    • No, I don't want to send you a Microsoft Word formatted resume - frankly, text is much more easily parseable and, because I want a decent looking resume that looks the same on all screens, I'm using PDF's anyway. Frankly, there's enough people using non-Microsoft products to create these now days (heard of Google Docs?) that requiring resumes in Word format shows that (a) you're locked in the 1990's or (b) you're a recruiting firm too small and cheap to afford the tools that would allow you to edit a PDF.
    • There have been improvements in matching algorithms such that you don't have to go with Boolean criteria for your filters - use approximate matching and grading cutoffs rather than absolute criteria.
    • Always send an auto-response letting me know my application has been received and is under consideration. If possible, send me a response if I'm no longer under consideration, too. There used to be a thing called common courtesy - if you can't handle that, you're going to look like jerks (and most of you and, by extension, your companies look that way right now).

    For those of you looking - just be aware that it's not personal. The people who make or run these systems are just relatively incompetent fucks. You'd have better luck using networking, anyway.

  23. Re:Tech Community on Silicon Valley Doesn't Have an Attitude Problem, OK? · · Score: 1

    Can we, perhaps, not refer to the entire tech community as one thing?

    The problem is, when you refuse to police your own community, you don't deserve to make this argument.

  24. Re:Wyvern = Wyrm on New NSA-Funded Code Rolls All Programming Languages Into One · · Score: 1

    Yes. A company I worked with tried an blah-XL based language, too. The thing was a nightmare. If you didn't have a decent editor handy, you were up shit creek. Simple to poorly indent, leading to misunderstanding in scope and structure, while simultaneously being syntactically bulky and hard to read, XML a great notation to hate.

    Whatever your language was, if it had anything at all to do with XML syntactically (other than throwing its syntax away), it's probably an example of this: A programmer had the problem of designing a data representation. He chose XML and now he has two problems.

  25. Re:Beards and suspenders. on Ask Slashdot: "Real" Computer Scientists vs. Modern Curriculum? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I can't believe that you can graduate with a CS degree today without having at least one assembly language class which should show you about bit-twiddling and memory management just a bit. Not to mention an OS class that would expose you to exercises to modify a Linux kernel - written in C.

    What do they actually teach in a CS degree these days? Don't tell me... Gamification, HTML, CSS, and Javascript, right? Do they actually make you take a database or an algorithms class any more?