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User: twistedcubic

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Comments · 1,281

  1. Fatally flawed study on Students From States With Faster Internet Tend To Have Higher Test Scores · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The students who take the ACT are not necessarily representative of the state's population. For example, I took the SAT, and not the ACT, because all the colleges I applied to accepted SAT results, but not all accepted ACT results. Students who were going to the local state school just took the ACT alone. I bet the reverse is true in different states. It doesn't take much thought to see these results are totally meaningless.

  2. Wow. on The Flight of Gifted Engineers From NASA · · Score: 4, Interesting


    In Hoffman's three years at NASA, she worked on only one or two projects that would ever see space, which she considers a very poor rate.

    A student who, in three years, has worked on a couple of projects which will possibly see space? To me, that sounds like the stuff that makes parents proud.

  3. Re:Fizz Buzz on Interviews: Ask Bjarne Stroustrup About Programming and C++ · · Score: 1

    How do you replace numbers divisible by both?

  4. Re:here we go again... on Maryam Mirzakhani Is the First Woman Fields Medalist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why can't you be happy for the woman, AND be happy that a woman has won the medal? Does this cause you headaches or something?

  5. Re:Section 0 of the GPL on Larry Rosen: A Case Study In Understanding (and Enforcing) the GPL · · Score: 1

    On second thought, my reasoning is incorrect. You could just as easily link to an already compiled GPL library and distribute it. So the click-through agreement might be necessary, if you imagine all the possibilities.

  6. Re:Section 0 of the GPL on Larry Rosen: A Case Study In Understanding (and Enforcing) the GPL · · Score: 1

    I think you are absolutely correct. The only time you should "accept" the GPL as a contract is when you download or receive the source code. If those Windows installers include the source code, then the click-through agreement is OK, in my opinion.

  7. Re:A Different Approach on Slashdot Asks: Should Schooling Be Year-Round? · · Score: 1

    This is the first interesting idea on year-round schooling I've seen. However, lots of colleges and universities offer summer academic programs for high school students, so I wouldn't want my kids to miss out.

  8. Re: Republicans Hate College Education - and Obama on Yahoo To Add PGP Encryption For Email · · Score: 1


    ...(He also makes up to $100,000 per speech.)...Reich, a millionaire, is very concerned about rich people who, unlike him, don't really deserve their fortunes. "What someone is paid has little or no relationship to what their work is worth to society," he wrote in a recent blog post, without any apparent irony.
    There is no irony. He knows well that $100,000 per speech is ridiculously overpaid. But as we all know, anyone would be a fool not to accept cash for such little work.

  9. /usr/share/doc on Ask Slashdot: What To Do About the Sorry State of FOSS Documentation? · · Score: 1

    On Debian, this is the directory which contains documentation outside of the man/info directories. Sometimes to get documentation for a package named foo, you have to install separately the package foo-doc. Debian does this to separate free software from documentation which does not satisfy its own guidelines for free software.

  10. Donate to Gnome's Outreach Program for Women on Ask Slashdot: What To Do About the Sorry State of FOSS Documentation? · · Score: 1

    Because they include documentation as one of their priorities.

  11. Re:Hash Collision on Google Spots Explicit Images of a Child In Man's Email, Tips Off Police · · Score: 2

    If we are talking about SHA512, than simply finding two images with the same hash would probably a result worthy of an academic publication.
    This isn't true. Finding an incidental collision is not newsworthy. But giving an algorithm which constructs an image for a given hash would be worthy of publication.

  12. Bad phrasing on Study: Dinosaurs "Shrank" Regularly To Become Birds · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is evolution. The dinosaurs did not "shrink". The smaller dinosaurs within a species had a higher survival rate.

  13. Re:You needn't charge anything on 35% of American Adults Have Debt 'In Collections' · · Score: 1

    Don't pay attention to any of it. Just pay your bills, and your credit score will be 800+. Mine has been 800+ for as long as I've bothered to check (15 years), with debts ranging from $0 to $100,000, including maxed out credit cards. Too many people identify credit scores with self worth. I don't think people should try to do anything special to appease these crooks. If you are financially responsible, and the credit agencies give you a low score, then to hell with them: save money and buy things outright.

  14. 10 light minutes? on Off the Florida Coast, Astronauts Train For Asteroid Mission · · Score: 2

    I didn't know the moon was millions of kilometers away? By lunar orbit, do they mean some other planet's moon?

  15. Re:Iritis on Laser Eye Surgery, Revisited 10 Years Later · · Score: 1

    I also have recurring iritis/uveitis. I grew up eating collard/turnip/mustard greens, but now eat them infrequently from laziness. Might as well give this healthy choice a try.

  16. Re:Cost on Laser Eye Surgery, Revisited 10 Years Later · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm 41, and I've also been wearing glasses since I was 6. However, I don't like them, even though I always wear them. The recent invention of soft toric contacts saved me from ever having to consider Lasik, though.

  17. Re:Shitpost is shit on Ask Slashdot: How Many Employees Does Microsoft Really Need? · · Score: 2

    Wrong! The answer is 0.

  18. Eventually... on More Forgotten Vials of Deadly Diseases Discovered · · Score: 2

    ...they will discover Scully's tissue samples in that hidden file cabinet.

  19. Re:Incorporate on Meet the Muslim-American Leaders the FBI and NSA Have Been Spying On · · Score: 1

    It would help if you didn't begin your posts with "THIS".

  20. Re:Let's try this on for size... on Normal Humans Effectively Excluded From Developing Software · · Score: 1

    Actually, this is what people have always felt about mathematics. In community colleges around the US, intermediate algebra is being removed as a requirement for getting a degree. The topics in intermediate algebra are what you'd get in 9th or 10th grade algebra 2, so in the near future most Americans won't be expected to know any high school level math at all.

  21. Proper Language on Normal Humans Effectively Excluded From Developing Software · · Score: 1


    I'm less and less tolerant of hokey marketing filled with superlatives. I value stability and clarity.

    That's easy. Just program in C.

  22. Re:A small problem... on Oklahoma's Earthquakes Linked To Fracking · · Score: 3, Informative

    The increase in earthquakes over time is definite. And it's NOT generally where the actual injection wells are.

    If you look at the charts again, you'll notice the earthquakes occur generally near the fault line, which is not surprising, is it? And the stations are near the fault line too, which probably is a good idea, don't you think?

  23. Re: A good thing on Oklahoma's Earthquakes Linked To Fracking · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Fracking releases the energy in the faults, thus fracking triggers quakes. But the energy doesn't come from fracking...

    That's like someone pushing you off a cliff and then blaming gravity for your death.

    ...And the quake would have happened anyway...

    OK, Nostradamus, we believe you...

  24. Re:His choices... on The Internet's Own Boy · · Score: 1

    What JSTOR especially provides, and part of what Aaron was reaping wholesale, was its organization and links, basically the indexing and cross-indexing. _That_ is what makes JSTOR so useful, and what people pay JSTOR for: the breadth and searchability of the data.

    This is not true. All of this existed before JSTOR. For example, the big databases for mathematics back in the day were SilverPlatter and then MathSciNet. JSTOR is just a small evolutionary step above these, which publishers starting using for convenience. It was never some amazing revolutionary tool. Essentially everything on JSTOR shows up in a Google search anyway.

  25. Re:You still won't get a job in my field on Google Is Offering Free Coding Lessons To Women and Minorities · · Score: 2


    If you are woman or minority that got into tech through Codeschool and the like, you won't be working in my shop.

    If you even have a "shop", you might consider hiring someone to filter you careless comments. Taken by itself, this statement suggests you discriminate against women and minorities, but not white men. If you really meant to exclude everyone who "got into tech through Codeschool and the like", you would have said so, right? I see you clarified your statement below, but from the perspective of a potential investor in your company, I hope you agree this is not a good way to get your point across.