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User: LoztInSpace

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Comments · 260

  1. Re:Be Afraid? on Should We Be Afraid of Google Glass? · · Score: 1

    sorry - gave you an off-topic instead of interesting.

  2. Does anyone even care? on Shorter '.uk' Domain Name Put On Ice · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Don't most people find their way to a site from a search engine or links off another page? Quite frankly, to me urls are like phone numbers or email addresses - they can be important but once they're in the system I let that take care of them. I can honestly say I do not know any of my friends' phone number or email address or any URLs of note - why would I?
    One world, one internet, one stupid bit of identification that gets abstracted away within seconds. Why make the distinction at all?

  3. Re:Existing non-electronic variant on Parcel Sensor Knows When Your Delivery Has Been Dropped · · Score: 1

    How is this easier than assuming that everyone who takes delivery of said package just rejects it at the acceptance stage if the shock detector has gone off? No need for anything fancy like USBs/wireless data connections to databases etc (see below). "It's broken - I don't sign for it". Done.

  4. Re:Where on Bushfire Threatens Major Telescope · · Score: 1

    Very true, but I am sure deep down you know what I mean. They sell it hard enough internationally though. I get at least an email a week and a letter every fortnight asking me to renew and I'm not in the USA.

  5. Re:Where on Bushfire Threatens Major Telescope · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Also, whenever states in USA are mentioned, I feel they (article writers with an eye to an international audience -i.e. everything on the web) should spell the frickin' state out in full as you did. Using these bullshit colloquialisms makes it rough going to work out what's going on sometimes. Especially bad is organisations that should know better, such as National Geographic.
    I guess we should count ourselves grateful we got New South Wales not NSW.

  6. Re:Consider the other side on Ask Slashdot: How To Gently Keep Management From Wrecking a Project? · · Score: 1

    This is an excellent, insightful comment. Not everyone gets to see the whole picture. Arguably they should, but often they don't for any number of reasons. Nevertheless, it's quite an eye opener when the full picture is revealed. Developers think their new "web site" (or whatever) is the be all and end all but in actual fact it's just a front end (often one of many) into some massive business process that involves thousands of people and was years in the making. IT is a tool and rarely an end in itself.

  7. Re:google news settings on Washington Post To Go Paywall, Along With Buffett-Owned Local Papers · · Score: 1

    You'd hope the "editors" would think about such things, wouldn't you?

  8. Re:I tried it. on Bank Puts a Billion Transaction Records Behind Analytics Site · · Score: 1

    I just paid 17 fucking dollars for a beer (I didn't realise it - it was on the tab). Admittedly it was a guest beer and the guy asked me to read the menu, but I just wanted to try something different so I just started from the pump on the left and worked my way right. 17 FUCKING DOLLARS!!!
    Spookily enough though, the pub I was in before I came in and surfed /. was #1 on the sites "Food & Drink", so can't really argue with its accuracy.

  9. Re:WTF on Spreadsheet Blamed For UK Rail Bid Fiasco · · Score: 1

    I fully sympathyse with this. Unfortunately the reality is that it is not always the development that goes wrong but often the management of the whole lifecycle.
    The missing step in business-built spreadsheets (or whatever) is rigour in process. The whole spec, develop, review, independent test, change management, audit, reporting, DRP etc is rare in the non IT scenario.
    That goes for VB, spreadsheets, Access databases or whatever, and that's where that "garbage" comes from. The difference is that the business built spreadsheets tend to overlook that stuff so can knock something up in a short space of time. The IT solution factors it all in and prices/estimates/resources appropriately and as a result gets less done but what does get done stands a better chance of actually helping.
    I am currently on the periphery of a project to replace such a system that was knocked up by the business. 40+ manual steps, a spreadsheet/access database, email, 1000+ reference documents and god knows what else keeps a team of 7 people running. Had they accepted the IT department's bid ($300-$400K) that would actually have been a better solution. However the business baulked and evolved a manual process into a mutant hybrid and that's where they are now.
    And yes, I realise you claimed IT didn't want to build the app and I've gone off on a tangent from your post, if not the thread.

  10. Re:But that's not the real problem. on To Encourage Biking, Lose the Helmets · · Score: 1

    The chin strap is a V before the clip so I just put the lock through that.

  11. Re:Brains are Fucking Expensive on To Encourage Biking, Lose the Helmets · · Score: 1

    1) Huh? I have moved from a "you're kidding" to "mandatory helmet" country so have experience of both. As far as I am concerned right now it's just a thing you do and, on reflection, a good thing. No false security - just a "whatever" and, in my case, demonstrably a good thing. I have never been hit by a car (close though) but in my life I have come off several times due to tram tracks, intoxication, bad luck, gravel, ice. 3 helmets down - still going. I have no idea how any of those situations might have turned out otherwise but I can categorically say that my behaviour was not influenced by me wearing the helmet. It's not fucking bat armour - it's a sensible thing if you might fall over or hit the tarmac at anything over 10 km/h.
    2) Don't know. Personally, I consider that a bike is a bike and I assume they're going to be a spaz, turn across or fall over, helmet or not. In fact as they are mandatory I consider someone without a helmet thinks they are "too cool for school" and more likely to be an arse rather than a careful road user. I can't speak for everyone.
    I am sad you don't let your kids wear them and consider education instead. Also, hopefully you or any of your friends never have to scoop up a corpse or battered, mangled body up and put them through surgery & IC. Yeah, you pay your taxes so the guys who will do this are out there, but it's really best avoided if you can, for all involved.
    Same thing for seatbelts - I think you need to spend a couple of seconds thinking if your right to exercise freedom to not wear one is really actually something you should be doing. Does it make you drive more carefully when you don't? Do you daughters not wear one so other drivers look out? [See also "baby in board" stickers].

  12. Re:But that's not the real problem. on To Encourage Biking, Lose the Helmets · · Score: 5, Insightful

    WTF? You do not need to carry your helmet anywhere you don't carry your bike. I lock up my helmet with my bike. If I'm on the bike I have the helmet on. If I'm in the bar/restaurant/shopping centre/office/cinema/swimming pool/squash court/supermarket/KFC/whatever, I don't.
    Same way I don't carry my airbag with me when I park the car.

  13. Re:And how will this on Huge Diamond Deposits Revealed In Russia · · Score: 1

    Fascinating article. Thanks for the link.

  14. Re: on Leap Second Bug Causes Crashes · · Score: 1

    That's what I thought too. I don't understand why it's any different to having a manual or automatic clock update for DST or any other reason. If there really was a text version that came across as 23:59:60 that's utterly laughable.
    The only system in the world that would accept such a thing is a MySQL "database".

  15. Re:Cross Platform Compatibility on The Death of an HTML5 Game Breeds an Open Source Project · · Score: 1

    Not necessarily. You are doomed to use programs that are cost effective to develop. You want to use it on a specific platform? Either fund that development or show evidence that there's a market there. Nobody owes it to you to develop stuff you want.

  16. Re:But Flash is dead, right? on The Death of an HTML5 Game Breeds an Open Source Project · · Score: 1

    Seems to work ok for me. I can watch videos, play simple games and other stuff at the click of a button. What's the issue?

  17. Re:But Flash is dead, right? on The Death of an HTML5 Game Breeds an Open Source Project · · Score: 1

    Why would you rate something based on what it is built with? A more honest and sensible approach would be to rate it based on how well it meets your needs. If it's of no actual interest to you, you are not qualified to rate it.
    I realise you a probably a troll, but sometimes the folks here need the odd reminder: Successful products are the ones that serve a need and are fit for purpose. The personal preference of a software developer with an unusally stong belief is neither anything that the end user is quite likely to be aware of, nor is it something they will care about.

  18. Re:Why would it need studies? on TomTom Flames OpenStreetMap · · Score: 3, Informative

    Tom Tom still thinks the first few hundred kms of the 800+ kms Hume Highway between Melbourne & Sydney is 100 km/h. I am not sure how far it thinks that's the case because I turn off after a mere 250kms. It's been 110 km/h ever since I moved to Oz 12 years ago.
    Granted, my example is not quite as old as yours, but probably a more significant example of certain providers actually not giving a crap about updates on the basics, let alone the explosion of new estates and traffic conditions. FFS.

  19. Re:Station Wagon Full of Tapes on Mega-Uploads: The Cloud's Unspoken Hurdle · · Score: 1

    Scenario 3 is that you can currently host but can forsee a time when you cannot.
    There's also when there's a ton of stuff going in and little going out. Contrived example: Survey 1,000,000 people and get back 10 aggregated results.

  20. Re:Next step: Google Maps on Wind Map of US Will Blow You Away · · Score: 1

    As a pilot you may already know of this: http://www.xcskies.com/ It's a forecast rather than observation.

  21. Re:Questions on Avoiding Red Lights By Booking Ahead · · Score: 1

    It's just more data. I don't think anyone was advocating taking away any of the common sense delays in the phase and using this as the sole criteria for changing a light.

  22. Re:Guess what? on Ask Slashdot: Life After Software Development? · · Score: 1

    Awesome! I am *so* the one on the left.

  23. Re:Baking bread on Making a Better Solar Cooker · · Score: 1

    Indian's aren't foodies? Are you kidding? A small Indian village will have more variety than your average western town. Food is a social thing, a ritual, a way of life. You know McD's, Taco Bell and corn dogs aren't actually considered real food by most of the world's human population.

  24. Re:Baking bread on Making a Better Solar Cooker · · Score: 1

    Indians aren't foodies? You have to be kidding, right? Food is a ritual, a social event and a way of life. An Indian village will likely have more variety than most western towns. You know McD's, Taco Bell and corn dogs aren't actually considered real food by the vast majority of the world's human population.

  25. Re:PLASTIC on Obama Pushes For Cheaper Pennies · · Score: 1

    Cool idea. Maybe they could put some kind of magnetic identifier on the coin as well as the plastic. Then the actual cost of any purchase could be electronically moved from your account using special coin-readers. You'd only need to have one coin that you just reuse over and over. It could even do those annoying fractionals. Of course you'd need a secret ID of some sort in case you lost it.
    This is BRILLIANT
    I would call it the "hollow-plasti-coin-2000". Or maybe the "trouser press".