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User: turgid

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Comments · 3,649

  1. Re: Such a nice, sugary story.... on Disney Making Laid-Off US Tech Workers Train Foreign H1-B Replacements · · Score: 1

    I went through the whole being transferred to HCL malarky a few years back and wrote about it in my journal (UK perspective): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

  2. From my experience, the boneheads were almost exclusively in the HR agencies.

    About a year ago, in my previous job, I was recruiting for some Linux Kernel/Drivers/Embedded C (with a bit of C++) people. I was dealing with some of these boneheads but I made sure I had a very good, strongly-worded chat with them to explain the types of candidates I was looking for, making it absolutely clear that I needed people who were proficient in C, not just C++.

    The reply that took the biscuit was, "To be honest, you'd be better off looking for C# programmers."

  3. The State of Kentucky - A Living Museum on Ken Ham's Ark Torpedoed With Charges of Religious Discrimination · · Score: 1

    ...of simpler times hundreds of years ago...

  4. Re: Of course! on Lockheed Claims Breakthrough On Fusion Energy Project · · Score: 1

    Maybe Occam's razor could come in handy here. Maybe you smoked too much weed today.

    Haven't you heard of Area 51 and the Zeta Reticulans?

    Man, do they groove!

  5. Re:Yikes, on Lockheed Claims Breakthrough On Fusion Energy Project · · Score: 1

    What use is a car if gasoline is not available on your planet, right?

    You've heard of Stonehenge, haven't you?

    Goodie goodie yum-yum....

  6. Re:global warmening worse than we thought... on Lockheed Claims Breakthrough On Fusion Energy Project · · Score: 1

    The Skinkworks is where the lizardmen work.

    ....making fish soup.

  7. Re:Of course! on Lockheed Claims Breakthrough On Fusion Energy Project · · Score: 1

    No way.

    I'll bet money that Lockheed have already had this working for years in a Black Project. I'm also willing to wager that some UFO sightings are secret experimental aircraft with fusion reactor power sources and combined electrical/thermal engines (glowing lights, hovering, vertical flight....).

    Since they know it already works, they're announcing it so that they can do a (fake) clean-room reimplementation of the physics and engineering research, that makes it work, in the open so that they can get away with commercialising it/patenting it.

  8. Re:Apparently on Microsoft, Facebook Declare European Kids Clueless About Coding, Too · · Score: 1

    We live in a world where software is expected to be the kind of crap any simpleton could write.

    Once upon a time, Microsoft brought out this product called Visual Basic...

  9. Re:Pixie Dust on Lego Ends Shell Partnership Under Greenpeace Pressure · · Score: 1

    Greenpeace should use a PWR to power their ships.

    One fuel load lasts 30 years, there's plenty waste heat to keep the crew warm, plenty of spare power to generate electricity, and all the waste products are contained within the fuel cladding, so no pollution! And no pesky carbon dioxide, oxides of nitrogen or acid rain...

    To be even greener, they could have their reactor loaded with MOX fuel i.e. reprocessed (used) uranium mixed with plutonium, thus helping to reduce nuclear waste from old reactors.

    I'm sure Rolls Royce Nuclear Engineering could do them such a great deal.

  10. Re:Fair Use on Top EU Court: Libraries Can Digitize Books Without Publishers' Permission · · Score: 1

    DRM

    Google Glass (or similar small, wearable camera, preferably hidden).

  11. Re:still a problem on AMD Releases New Tonga GPU, Lowers 8-core CPU To $229 · · Score: 1

    Once more AC is 100% correct and informative posting at 0.

  12. Jehova's Witnesses Knew This Years Ago on Numerous Methane Leaks Found On Atlantic Sea Floor · · Score: 1

    Blimey, in about 1998 this old guy from the Jo-Hos knocked on my door and presented me with some literature including something about how "all scientists" believe in god, especially the Great Fred Hoyle, so God must be there.

    It also said that "scientists are telling us" about this vast, untapped wealth of hydrocarbon deposits on the deep sea beds in the form of these methane thingy-ma-bobs, so God had provided us with all the energy we'll ever need. He's a great guy that God dude! He didn't mention atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and global warning, though.

    So, the Jo-Hos are right. God is really there! And we will never run out of energy!

  13. Slackware Forever (Me Too!) on Choose Your Side On the Linux Divide · · Score: 1

    Slackware does things The Right Way(TM). I've been using it since 1995 as my main distro with a brief detour into SLAMD64 in 2007 when I bought a 64-bit AMD and Slackware was still x86-32.

    I've had the misfortune to have to suffer Debian. RedHat/CentOS, Ubuntu and Arago for work over the years, but Slackware is the best. Everything I've learned from Slackware has empowered me to be productive with all of those other distributions.

  14. Re:I hope not on If Java Wasn't Cool 10 Years Ago, What About Now? · · Score: 1

    why?

    Learning a language that comes from a completely different school of thought (i.e. "paradigm") will give you a far larger perspective than only having learned one language or family of languages. For example, if all you ever saw was C++, Java and C# your world view would be extremely limited. Someone who has learned a little FORTH, LISP and Smalltalk, not to mention various assembly languages, would be an order of magnitude more productive than you, produce fewer bugs and be able to think of more good solutions to difficult problems.

    If all you ever do is write GUIs for the corporate Oracle or MS database, then stay in your C# paradise.

  15. Re: Jurisdiction 101 on UK Police Warn Sharing James Foley Killing Video Is a Crime · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Errr... the UK still has an reasonable approximation of a well-functioning court system. That the police say something is illegal isn't enough to get you thrown in jail.

    It is under Tony Blair's Anti-Terror Laws. You only need to be suspected of something that could be vaguely related to terrorism to be locked up. No jury trial involved, just the police, some politicians and a few judges.

  16. Re:Code more.. on Ask Slashdot: What Do You Wish You'd Known Starting Out As a Programmer? · · Score: 1

    Very wise words.

    I'd add to that: write unit tests for your code (preferably before you write the code). You'll understand how it works and where it's broken quicker and better and free up your brain cycles more for the creative design part.

    You will learn and improve much more quickly with much less stress.

  17. Back in the day (80's 8-bit micros) I started on BASIC and Z80 machine code followed by a little FORTH.

    The one thing I really wish I'd known about - or understood - was what LISP really is. It was often described in the popular computing press as a language "for processing lists."

    How very wrong. The reality is so much better.

    I didn't seriously look at the lisp family of languages until about 6 or 7 years ago. I really wish I'd looked 25 years sooner.

  18. Re:Tool complexity leads to learning the tool on Getting Back To Coding · · Score: 1

    And how much money did you (or your company pay) to be locked in to all that flaky software that changes every 18 months so you have to rewrite all your code?

  19. Re:Tool complexity leads to learning the tool on Getting Back To Coding · · Score: 1

    I can edit tens of thousands of lines of code in an instant with sed and grep without even "opening an editor." Through the miracle that is sh I can pipe stuff into my custom (very small and simple) C and sh tools to frob the code. Then I just type make to rebuilt it all and my unit tests tell me that it worked.

    At the other side of the office, they're cursing and swearing and Microsoft(TM)(R) Visual(C) Studio Intergalactic Azure Edition For the Enterprise(R) because it's still importing the project...

  20. Re:The problem mirrors that of big word processors on Getting Back To Coding · · Score: 1

    Truly, you are at one with the Tao.

  21. vi, c, make, sh on Getting Back To Coding · · Score: 1

    That's all you need. (OK, implicit with c is the c compiler, pre-processor, assembler, linker, disassembler and strace). The old timers knew what they were doing.

  22. Re:FUD filled.... on How a Solar Storm Two Years Ago Nearly Caused a Catastrophe On Earth · · Score: 2, Informative

    Emergency Diesel generators usually have compressed air starters. There is a tank of compressed air connected to the engine's cylinders to get it turning over. There is usually a powered valve holding the compressed air in. When the power fails, the valve opens releasing the air and the engine starts tuning over. Then the Diesel supply gets started (mechanical pump driven by the engine).

  23. Re:It's mostly a nuisance on UK Users Overwhelmingly Spurn Broadband Filters · · Score: 1

    Back in the day I remember someone in a programme on the telly referring to something that was out-of-order as "British Telecom."

  24. Re:My experience on Ask Slashdot: How Many Employees Does Microsoft Really Need? · · Score: 1

    82 million xBox 360 owners can't be wrong right?

    And how many million people bought Kylie Minogue and Madonna records? They can't be wrong, right?

  25. About 5 or 6... on Ask Slashdot: How Many Employees Does Microsoft Really Need? · · Score: 1

    Chairman, CEO, CFO, CIO, Executive VP of Sales and Marketing and Executive VP of something to do with engaging the outsourcing suppliers with the starving peasants working 80+ hours a week for a pittance in undeveloped countries.