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User: Jay+Maynard

Jay+Maynard's activity in the archive.

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  1. Re:Before or after? on 2014: Hottest Year On Record · · Score: 1

    No. I am an atheist.

  2. Before or after? on 2014: Hottest Year On Record · · Score: -1, Troll

    Was that before or after the historical data was fudged in ways the 'climate science" community won't disclose?

    (And no, moderators, I'm not trolling. This is a legitimate question.)

  3. Re:Federal law has an effect, too on Mathematicians Study Effects of Gerrymandering On 2012 Election · · Score: 0

    "Troll" is Slashdot moderator-ese for "I don't agree with you and think no reasonable person could hold that opinion, so you must be trolling". It's far too overused; personally, I think it should be abolished entirely.

  4. Re:Federal law has an effect, too on Mathematicians Study Effects of Gerrymandering On 2012 Election · · Score: 2

    That part of the Voting Rights Act wasn't struck down.

  5. Federal law has an effect, too on Mathematicians Study Effects of Gerrymandering On 2012 Election · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Did they take into account the Voting Rights Act provision that requires that minority voters be concentrated into districts that they have a good likelihood of winning? That alone has the effect of diluting minority strength elsewhere.

  6. Re:Ya...Right on U.S. and China Make Landmark Climate Deal · · Score: 0, Troll

    The deal is very likely structured so the Senate won'/t be consulted. Just more of Barack Obama's contempt for the Constitution.

  7. Getting out? Easy. on Discovery Claims It Will Show a Man Being "Eaten Alive" By an Anaconda · · Score: 1

    How's he gonna get out?

    "That's not a knife. This is a knife."

  8. Re:What system d really is on Ask Slashdot: Can You Say Something Nice About Systemd? · · Score: 0

    Uhm...your history is backwards. rpm came first, as did Red Hat.

    Now get off my lawn.

  9. Wrong salesdroids on Ask Slashdot: Software Issue Tracking Transparency - Good Or Bad? · · Score: 2

    If your salesdroids can't turn that openness and transparency into an advantage, you have the wrong salesdroids. Anything can be marketed as a competitive advantage.

    Hell, they should be pushing to prospects that you don't let bugs slip through the cracks. You get bug reports and post them for all to see, and you can't just ignore them in such an environment. That makes your product more robust, not less.

  10. Vindicated! on 'Why Banana Skins Are Slippery' Wins IgNobel · · Score: 2

    Chuck Jones, call your office.

  11. Re:Reliability is key. on High School Student Builds Gun That Unlocks With Your Fingerprint · · Score: 1

    Lots of folks need guns badly to defend themselves without going out and looking for trouble.

  12. Re:Reliability is key. on High School Student Builds Gun That Unlocks With Your Fingerprint · · Score: 0

    That's because you're generalizing improperly. Any gun that does not infallibly go bang whenever you pull the trigger is useless. That one gun is broken does not make all guns broken.

  13. Re:But what about... on High School Student Builds Gun That Unlocks With Your Fingerprint · · Score: 1

    The problem is that the mere existence and sale of such a gun will force every gun sold in New Jersey to have it...so whether it's designed to become mandatory or not, it will be.

  14. Re:But what about... on High School Student Builds Gun That Unlocks With Your Fingerprint · · Score: 1

    Electronics don't fail just because of loss of power, you know...

    And if gun ban advocates truly want safety, they'd work to repeal that NJ law. As things stand, ti's nothing less than a back-door gun ban, and unconstitutional.

  15. Re:When you abolutely, positively need a gun now! on High School Student Builds Gun That Unlocks With Your Fingerprint · · Score: 3, Informative

    All what accidental deaths? The number is tiny - less than 100 a year. That number is also dropping monotonically every year, and has done so since the 1930s.

    If you want to end kids' accidental deaths, get rid of bathtubs and swimming pools. They kill far more.

  16. Re:But what about... on High School Student Builds Gun That Unlocks With Your Fingerprint · · Score: 2

    Accidental use of guns causes fewer deaths than just about any other accident you can name. The number is small, and has been dropping monotonically since the 1930s.

    Unauthorized use of guns is not going to be significantly impacted by something like this. There are far too many out there without it, and those will never be retrofitted.

  17. Re:999 on High School Student Builds Gun That Unlocks With Your Fingerprint · · Score: 2

    Perhaps it's a user interface limitation, instead of a storage limitation?

  18. Re:Reliability is key. on High School Student Builds Gun That Unlocks With Your Fingerprint · · Score: 0

    It must not be simply reliable. It must be infallible: it must work instantly, every time. Otherwise, any gun with the technology is useless.

    You never need a gun until you need it badly - and if it fails, you're worse off than if you did not have it to begin with.

  19. Re:C++ is an over bloated monster on Interviews: Ask Bjarne Stroustrup About Programming and C++ · · Score: 1

    I'm fluent in C. I understand C statics fine. What gets me is their interaction with classes and instances and...

    I'm not complaining about templates mainly because I'm keeping my fingers the hell out of them!

  20. Re:C++ is an over bloated monster on Interviews: Ask Bjarne Stroustrup About Programming and C++ · · Score: 1

    It's not? Interviews aren't supposed to be full of nothing but softball questions.

  21. Re:C++ is an over bloated monster on Interviews: Ask Bjarne Stroustrup About Programming and C++ · · Score: 1

    Don't get me started on Boost. It's caused me more than a little headache all by itself...like, say, trying to build a specific version against a specific version of OS X.

  22. Re:C++ is an over bloated monster on Interviews: Ask Bjarne Stroustrup About Programming and C++ · · Score: 1

    As I said, I learned about it by hacking on it. That's my point: you can't discover that kind of thing by hacking. With that said, got any suggestions about where I pick up what you think are the basics?

  23. C++ is an over bloated monster on Interviews: Ask Bjarne Stroustrup About Programming and C++ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I learned C++ the hard way: by hacking on a million-LOC program. It's taught me to loathe the language. It's big, complex, and incomprehensible. I once spent three days chasing a bug through a twisty little maze of templates, all different. I routinely struggle with the implications of static vs. not, member variables vs. globals vs. statics, functions that are part of a class vs. those that aren't... Getting code to even compile is often an exercise in trying something, running the build process, then trying something else, lather, rinse, repeat. It's left me frustrated enough to want to drive to College Station and scream at the walls.

    All of this has left me wishing for the days of C, in which I'm quite fluent.

    Nevertheless, the world seems (perhaps overly) enamored of C++, and I'm probably going to have to deal with it. How do I learn to at least tolerate it, if not like it, instead of actively hating it?

  24. You can still run old Skype... on Skype Blocks Customers Using OS-X 10.5.x and Earlier · · Score: 1

    What the story doesn't mention is that, compared to Skype 2.8, the Skype 5/6 user interfere sucks. Users have been complaining ever since it was rolled out, and Skype's answer has always been to use 2.8.

    Fortunately, there's a way to make the old version not check for updates: use your local DNS or hosts file to address ui.skype.com to 127.0.0.1. The update check fails, and Skype 2.8 runs, fat, dumb, and happy. I'm pretty sure this works for older versions of 5 or 6, as well.

  25. EFF strikes again... on EFF Releases Wireless Router Firmware For Open Access Points · · Score: 1

    This is just another spammer and net criminal enabler. The EFF has long fought against efforts to end spam. Encouraging wide-open net access with no accountability is just another step down that road.

    The EFF: enabling spammers since the 1990s.