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User: NewbieProgrammerMan

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  1. Re:SPOILER!!!!!! on Stargate Universe · · Score: 1

    God...I suppose I'm transforming into Comic Book Store Guy here, and you might even be trolling me, but...

    It is completely false that stargates can only have matter going one way.

    Um, no? There's no shortage of instances where the "you can't send matter out through an incoming wormhole" thing was a key feature in the main plot thread. EM radiation can travel both ways, matter can't. Just off the top of my Comic Book Guy head:

    1. Team of redshirts stuck on a world adjacent to a black hole. Black hole keeps wormhole from earth to said planet open indefinitely. Team can't just step back through the gate -> enough story to fill an hour.

    2. Carter goes looking for info to help O'Neill when he's got the Ancient database downloaded into his head. DHD on the planet is borked, earth can dial in to video chat, but Carter's team can't step back through the gate. O'Neill has to draw up instructions for a fix so Carter can repair the DHD and come back home.

    3. Anubis dials in and dumps energy through the wormhole in an attempt to blow up earth's gate. They could have just shoved a nuke through the gate and put a big honking block of lead in front of it. Problem solved. Oops, that conflicts with canon -> we have a story that will fill an hour again.

    I'm sure there are more. And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get some real work done so I don't feel so much like a basement-dwelling loser for knowing so much Stargate lore. :)

  2. Re:SPOILER!!!!!! on Stargate Universe · · Score: 1

    I thought of that, just didn't mention it. I didn't recall any instances of dialing in or out from ships in hyperspace or otherwise FTL, but I know I've missed a significant number of episodes over the years, so I didn't think I could conclusively say they'd never done it.

  3. Re:Evil Doctor on Stargate Universe · · Score: 1

    But it's been so long since Lost in Space came out that most people either don't remember Dr. Smith, or don't even know who you're talking about. :)

  4. Re:SPOILER!!!!!! on Stargate Universe · · Score: 0, Troll

    Couldn't they just open the new gate to any planet with a good atmosphere and just top up the ship with breathable air?

    I can think of two reasons:

    1. It's been established frequently in the other two series that matter will only travel in an outgoing direction through a stargate, so you'd need somebody to dial in instead.
    2. The ship was (I think) in motion, faster than light. I don't think they've ever said whether it's possible to dial in or out from a gate moving that fast.

    And then there's the consideration that they wanted to kill somebody off in the pilot for dramatic purposes, so a stuck door and air loss is as good a MacGuffin as anything else. It is consistent with the established rules in the series, though.

  5. Re:Not even October 22 yet... on Vista Share Drops for the First Time In Two Years · · Score: 1

    WARNING: The information below is NOT safe for work. It is provided for informational purposes only. Neither Slashdot nor I assume responsibility should you decide to follow up on it. You have been warned.

    There are people from the GNAA that troll here, and that's what I was referring to. It's pretty lame, I should be ashamed for making the joke, but somehow I'm not.

    In fact, I'm almost hoping that somebody will make a webpage for MSGNAA.

    I'm sure that somebody could do something creative with that image Microsoft Poland photoshopped.

    Ok, *now* I'm ashamed.

  6. Re:The head guy is from Microsoft on DHS Wants To Hire 1,000 Cybersecurity Experts · · Score: 1

    Thank you very much!

  7. Re:The head guy is from Microsoft on DHS Wants To Hire 1,000 Cybersecurity Experts · · Score: 1

    Wow, awesome selection of priorities. They're mostly subjective, with no way to measure whether they're achieved or not. Great for hand-waving excuses later about why nothing gets done.

    Anyway, do you have a reference for Yoran's statements on weak Windows security? I must have chosen the wrong keywords when I looked for them.

  8. Re:Cringely points out... on DHS Wants To Hire 1,000 Cybersecurity Experts · · Score: 1

    This is the same Cringely that's an "expert" on the user interfaces of nuclear power plants, isn't it? Does he have some sort of credentials that might actually make him an expert in cyber security? Looking on his site....

    When it comes to information technology, Cringely knows what he is talking about. Thirty years in and around the PC business has earned him wisdom, if not wealth. It's not that he is so smart, but his friends are smart. The best and brightest in Silicon Valley talk to him all the time. It's Cringely's job to sift through their thoughts for valuable bits to share with you.

    So just like his venture into nuclear power expert-ness, his IT knowledge is at best second-hand.

    Thanks to the submitter for the links to an actual story, though. :)

  9. Re:Equivalent of the TSA... on DHS Wants To Hire 1,000 Cybersecurity Experts · · Score: 3, Funny

    Cringely points out, "There aren't one thousand civilian cybersecurity experts in the entire friggin' world!!!!,"

    No matter. These guys will be the "cybersecurity" equivalent of the TSA goons at the airport, probably with a management culture even worse than those poor slobs have to live with.

    I'm sure DeVry and U.o.Phoenix will be glad to pump out several thousand associate degrees in Cybersecurity Expertry or something in the next three years for them to sort through. That way DHS can say they interviewed thousands of candidates and only took "the best."

  10. Re:Vista got some really undeserved looks. on Vista Share Drops for the First Time In Two Years · · Score: 1

    Stuff running slow? It's certainly not that a GAZILLION processes are running at the same time, along with the spyware you've accumulated from using IE to surf for porn and free stuff; IT MUST BE VISTA!

    I don't know about all the other points, but this one I can say something about. The first thing I did when got a new Vista machine was strip all the preloaded Dell crap out of it, got all the current updates, then downloaded and installed Firefox. I only use IE if forced to by a business-related website that I have to visit.

    And what do I see? Sometimes it's just slow as fuck. I'm sorry, but it is. Usually the monstrous slowness centers around file system activity: trying to copy a folder with lots of small items in it, or trying to delete five small files, or extracting a medium-sized ZIP archive. It's not just slow, it makes the machine completely unresponsive for 10+ seconds at a time. I don't care enough to profile it, because I only use Windows when I have to for work, and I can always get up and make a cup of coffee or something.

    I dual-boot Ubuntu on the same machine. I use it all the time for grad school and work. I do disk-access-intensive things on Linux, generally stuff that's way more demanding than the things I try on Windows. I *never* see the kind of crappy performance I get under Vista.

    So, no, Vista isn't slow because I don't know how to use my computer--it's just slow sometimes.

  11. Re:Not even October 22 yet... on Vista Share Drops for the First Time In Two Years · · Score: 2, Funny

    unfortunately it was on msdnaa for a month and was then withdrawm

    Are you sure it wasn't just because it got modded flamebait? Oh, MSDNAA...never mind.

  12. Maybe it's just an unfortunate quote, but... on New Comic Book About Logic, Math, and Madness · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    ...includes the greatest philosophers, logicians and mathematicians of the era, along with sundry wives and mistresses...

    Maybe I'm seeing omission where there is none, but I find it unlikely that there were no contributions to this subject from female philosophers, logicians and mathematicians. Please tell me they've not been left out of the story in the comic.

  13. Re:The ending of the strip is rather disappointing on New Comic Book About Logic, Math, and Madness · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Your arguments intrigue me and I'd like to subscribe to your....

    Nah, just kidding. I'm a graduate mathematics student, and I can't make any sense at all of what you said. Does that mean I've already been conditioned by The Man (TM), and that it's too late for me to understand The Truth (TM)?

  14. Woohoo! on Alzheimer's Disease Possibly Linked To Sleep Deprivation · · Score: 1

    Enjoy your dementia, overachievers!

  15. Re:True that on The Duct Tape Programmer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd say at least write tests while you're closing bugs. Having an easily detectable bug pop up again two or three releases after you "fixed" it seems to indicate (even to non-developers) that you don't know what you're doing.

  16. Re:True that on The Duct Tape Programmer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You'd be surprised how many money generating services run on top of really sloppy code that you wouldn't want anybody else to see. ... Nobody cares if it's ugly and stiched together.

    I think this is true of many things in life outside the realm of software development: most people would be horrified if they knew the real story about how most things are made, and how thin the veneer of "quality" is sometimes. Over the years I've just come to accept that the universe is fairly forgiving of mediocrity.

    I don't think this is a valid reason to intentionally do shitty work, but it's probably good to remember that if you make a good faith effort at building something in a non-sloppy manner, it's going to fare pretty well most of the time.

  17. Re:Dodgy statesmen on Microsoft Tax Dodge At Issue In Washington State · · Score: 5, Informative

    What is the state income tax like there?

    I can't speak to any of your other questions, but Washington state has no income tax (yet).

  18. Re:"outlined in detail" != "here's some pseudo cod on Finding the First Trillion Congruent Numbers · · Score: 1

    Ok, so they do have this at the end of their paper:

    A special thanks to David Farmer, Estelle Basor, Kent Morrison, Sally Koutsoliotas and Brian Conrey of AIMath for their careful preparation of a web page providing details of our computation for the general public.

    which is refreshing. I'm guilty of assuming that most researchers are still adherents of the, "well I can't be bothered to make my code easily available for open scrutiny, even though all my paper's conclusions are based on numerics" mindset.

  19. "outlined in detail" != "here's some pseudo code" on Finding the First Trillion Congruent Numbers · · Score: 0

    Why don't they post their actual code? What good is it to tell me if you found the first trillion congruent numbers when you're hiding part of your methodology?

  20. Advertising "it's got Linux" is as stupid as... on Net Radio Exec Says "Don't Mention Linux" · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Advertising "it's got Linux" is as stupid as those bank ads I kept seeing a couple years ago boasting that their new website was using Java on the backend or something. As an end-user consumer, I don't fucking care. Does your product work reliably? Does it provide me with some service I need? Is it easy to use? That's what I care about, not some mostly irrelevant technical detail of its implementation.

  21. Re:Had a chuckle at this. on The Perils of Ramming Products Down IT's Throat · · Score: 1

    Employers will see short-term job hopping and wonder if the reason isn't you.

    I would think that somebody that's truly good at their chosen field wouldn't keep landing jobs at shitty companies. I know strings of bad luck happen sometimes, but once you see a couple of shitty companies you learn how to sniff them out before you accept the job.

  22. Re:Cue the fucktards. on COBOL Celebrates 50 Years · · Score: 1

    People playing tee ball usually can't knock it out of the park, though.

  23. Re:99.9% ? on Forkable Linux Radio Ad Now On the Air In Texas · · Score: 1

    I knew about Dia--I just figured there was some supremely awesome feature from Visio that Dia doesn't have, because Visio is always "the one thing that's holding me back" when these sorts of discussions happen. (Unless QuickBooks is The One Thing (TM) that's holding them back, or Photoshop, or ...)

  24. Re:99.9% ? on Forkable Linux Radio Ad Now On the Air In Texas · · Score: 1

    Just curious: what is the core feature set of Visio that (apparently) nobody using Linux needs? It seems odd to me that--if it were so essential--somebody would have cloned it by now.

  25. Re:People love me on Why Developers Get Fired · · Score: 1

    I can't tell if you were going for humor or relating your actual behavior, but I can see a person with this attitude doing very well as a contractor to large US businesses, even if they really can't get shit done.