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User: Viol8

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Comments · 6,079

  1. "Less useful but still useful are command shells"! on Ask Slashdot: Command Line Interfaces -- What Is Out There? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm sorry, is this a joke? The Windows command line - even with powershell - might be a crippled joke, but the unix command line allows you to control *everything* going on in the OS itself and most features of whichever Desktop you're using. Plus the ability to pipe commands together creates a level of poweruser control that is far greater than the sum of its parts. Something Microsoft took 2 decades to realise and a paradigm that a lot of Windows admins still don't "get".

  2. I know it was tongue in cheek , but... on Neural Net Learns Breakout By Watching It On Screen, Then Beats Humans · · Score: 1

    "used to repeatedly attempt to solve a problem, followed by an analysis of the success of the attempt."

    The above is exactly how humans learn to play simple games. Sure, you learn a few rules beforehand but then you actively - and to an extent subconciously - engage in trial and error about what to hit/kick/click at what time in what scenario. Its called "practice". No one for example becomes a good football (soccer for the yanks) player by analysing angles of attack of other players feet - they just go out and keep playing until they become better.

  3. Re:Seconded on A Short History of Computers In the Movies · · Score: 1

    "They aren't coding in today's environment."

    Arn't they? I'm in my 40s and I'm still coding and this year I've worked with 2 other coders in their late 50s. And no, we weren't doing COBOL, we're were doing C++.

  4. Seconded on A Short History of Computers In the Movies · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A lot of people in programming think its purely a young mans game. That may have been true in the 60s and 70s but its not any longer. That old guy (or gal) you see shuffling down the street may have once coded up some pretty neat algorithm that helped fly your plane or did your banking or controlled the fuel injection on your car in the 80s. It would be nice to have an article about retired coders, what they did and their opinions of the dev world now. And whether vi is better than emacs ;o) No, scrap that last idea...

  5. Why compositing? on Enlightenment DR 0.18: Improved Compositing, Wayland Support · · Score: 1

    Now correct me if I'm wrong - but isn't Enlightenment supposed to be a light weight WM - hence the pun in the name? Why is it trying to go the way of KDE and Gnome by throwing in bells and whistles that require compositing in the first place? Not everyone needs flashy graphics, some of us just want a WM that manages windows and stays out the way, but also doesn't require learning strange arcane incantations to modify .rc files just to add a program to a menu.

  6. Re:Vulnerable to Social Engineering on BitTorrent Unveils Secure Chat To Counter 'NSA Dragnet Surveillance' · · Score: -1, Troll

    I hate to break the news to you , but "old-fashioned police work" also involved wire tapping and intercepting post. Its whats known as gaining evidence. Now in a perfect world it wouldn't be necessary , but unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world and a lot of people don't play by the rules and oddly enough they usually say "no" if someone asks if they've commited a crime. Therefor the authorities have to get information on their activities, a lot of which comes from correspondence in whatever form it takes.

    Hope that clears things up for you since you're clearly new to this reality.

  7. Re:How is this a remotely useful product? on Google Testing Smart Appliance, Would Compete With Nest Thermostat · · Score: 1

    "I would have to set the timer to do that every day wasting energy "

    Or you could just wear a jumper instead of being such a wuss.

  8. Re:How is this a remotely useful product? on Google Testing Smart Appliance, Would Compete With Nest Thermostat · · Score: 2

    Newsflash - thermostats with timers have been around for 50 years.

  9. Its the same mindset as a connected Fridge on Google Testing Smart Appliance, Would Compete With Nest Thermostat · · Score: 2

    No normal person needs its because normal people - even nerds - like to keep simple things simple. No milk in fridge? Buy some. House too cold? Turn up heating. Easy.

    But, we don't think like the frankly slightly weird Oooh Shiny!! just left university , not yet quite up on how real life works and how real people think , head in the clouds (or cloud?) techo designers that Google employs. They're the sort of people who think that because something CAN be solved by technology , it MUST be solved by technology because in their minds anything digital is the best solution simply by dint of it being digital.

  10. Re:I am not convinced on Climatologist James Hansen Defends Nuclear Energy · · Score: 1

    "Renewable sources are much easier to build,"

    Easy to build is one thing - easy to build AND make them viable is another.

    "reducing the risk of blackouts by plant failure"

    Riiight. And how often do you hear of a power plant , regardless of its fuel , going completely unplanned offline? And even if it did there is usually enough resilience in the system to cover it. Whereas wind and wave power goes offline every time its a calm day and solar power is useless at night! I'll go with the minute risk off a whole power plant going down thanks.

  11. Where do you think it came from in th first place? on Climatologist James Hansen Defends Nuclear Energy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Underground. But I don't see any envirohippies making a big fuss about all the uranium ore in the ground and the massive fission reactor thats probably at the heart of the planet so why the big fuss when someone suggests burying the radioactive waste underground later?

    There's so much knee jerking going on in the enviromental movement with regards to nuclear power that they could probably audience for starring roles in Lord of the Dance.

  12. Re:Mordor weather is like Los Angeles?? on The Climate of Middle-Earth · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Mordor is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust, the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume"

    So how's that different from LA?

  13. Did someone forget YouTube? on Get Ready For a Streaming Music Die-Off · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Its doing quite nicely thank you - admittedly thanks to googles large bank balance - and its what pretty much everyone I know uses to listen to music on now. If you want to download music of course thats a different matter , but to just listen to ad-hoc music in the background while doing something else YouTube is as good as any.

  14. Re:Fukushima NO-HYPE information sources on The Status of the Fukushima Clean-Up · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The hysteria is whipped up by the more extreme hippy enviromentalists and their patsies in the ignorant media and governments (hello Germany). The hippies have a deep seated hatred of anything nuclear simply because SOME power stations in SOME countries were used to generate plutonium. So regardless of its benefits they damn the best form of power generation we have to offset climate change - and don't anyone bloody start about fucking stupid windfarms that cost a fortune, blanket god knows how many square miles and produce sod all power most of the time - simply because of their political leanings and their mindset being stuck in the 1980s along with whats left of CND.

    Frankly these people are a disgrace and should be ashamed of themselves, but instead they just make more and more noise. The only consolation is they'll all be dead in a few decades and hopefully sanity will prevail once more. And anyone who still thinks nuclear power is dangerous should think twice about visiting France. Though I'm not aware of it being radioactive yet.

  15. Re:Sockets on The Challenge of Cross-Language Interoperability · · Score: 3, Informative

    We're talking about loading libraries , not inter process communication.

    But sure, instead of loading libs written in one language into another language you could just have N processes all written in different languages and communicate that way, but it would be at least an order of magnitude (probably 2) slower than directly linking in a library to your running process.

  16. Re:Java, C++ on The Challenge of Cross-Language Interoperability · · Score: 1

    It would have been nice however if the C++ committee had specified a standard mangled format for class methods in binaries.

    eg:

    class foo
    {
    void myfunc() { }
    };

    will ALWAYS have the symbol name something like "__cpp_foo_myfunc" in the object file with the first parameter being a pointer to an object - ie "this". Instead of different compilers mangling the name in their own way. That way you could dlopen() a c++ binary with ease and use the methods directly.

  17. At some point... on Plastic Waste Threatens Marine Diversity · · Score: 2

    ... an organism may evolve that can digest some forms of plastics. Apparently when trees evolved lignin it was millions of years until fungi evolved the ability to digest it which caused it to build up leading to immense forest fires.

    If we're lucky something similar will happen to plastics though given there are so many types it might be wishful thinking. Of course if it did happen we might find all our shiny toys suddenly rotting like old italian cars.

  18. Re:ZeroCoin on RMS Calls For "Truly Anonymous" Payment Alternative To Bitcoin · · Score: 0, Troll

    "So, with only a rudimentary knowledge of x86 assembly, and not a single programming lesson, I did just that."

    "It only took a couple of weeks to make an interpretor and then a simple compiler for my language"

    A complete novice writes an interpreter AND compiler in a couple of weeks? In assembler? Suuuuuuure. And I guess you helped achieve world peace and solve fermats theorum while you were at it?

    Oh, btw Mr Bullshitter - BBC BASIC ran on a 6502, NOT x86. Just a little FYI for you there.

  19. Re:Nosocomial Implications? on Black Silicon Slices and Dices Bacteria · · Score: 1

    Well quite. The victorians used them everywhere in hospitals and so -unwittingly - created places that were for the time pretty damn clean. But then a plain old metal isn't hi-tech and 21st century gee-wiz so regardless of being cheap and effective its unlikely to be trumpeted by the kool kids and researchers with an eye on the next grant payment.

  20. Re:Wales on Why Bitcoin Is Doomed To Fail, In One Economist's Eyes · · Score: 1

    Even if he does find it, the drive has probably been crushed/damaged beyond repair. He'll need specialist help to recover the data assuming the platters haven't been shattered.

  21. Re:The naivety on here is staggering on Edward Snowden Leaks Could Help Paedophiles Escape Police, Says UK Government · · Score: 1

    Oh grow up. Intelligence agencies don't waste time classifying and guarding material thats just a list of who your mother shags at the weekend.

       

  22. Re:The naivety on here is staggering on Edward Snowden Leaks Could Help Paedophiles Escape Police, Says UK Government · · Score: 1

    "You claimed that it was in fact important. And you know this for a fact do you or are you just spouting the right suck-up-to-authority view?"

    No, I don't know it for a fact , other than the documents were classified. Thats a pretty bloody big clue to anyone with a working braincell. Which seems to rule you out.

    "Useful to who?"

    To "whom". And I suggest you google the reference.

  23. Re:The naivety on here is staggering on Edward Snowden Leaks Could Help Paedophiles Escape Police, Says UK Government · · Score: 0

    "In this case, pretty much no."

    Really? And you know this for a fact do you or are you just spouting the right-on stick-it-to-the-man view?

    I wonder.

    Well actually I don't, you're just another useful idiot.

  24. The naivety on here is staggering on Edward Snowden Leaks Could Help Paedophiles Escape Police, Says UK Government · · Score: -1, Troll

    "We've heard from David Cameron that Snowden's leak "damaged national security.""

    So you think leaking confidential documents *doesn't* damage security in some way? Have you just landed from Planet Naive?

    "Government enforcers employed heavy-handed tactics to intercept, detain and threaten those even tangentially connected to the leaks."

    Oh dear - they arrested some queenie journalist and his bum chum who had a load of confidential documents on his laptop. How dare they! These people are genuine pseudo intellectual liberal hacks , they must be allowed to act with impunity and make national security decisions for all of us as they're obviously far better position to make these decisions than people who work in this sphere!

    Not.

    You fucking halfwit. Bleaters like you will be the first to shout and stamp your little feet when another bomb goes off on the tube due to intelligence opportunities lost. You don't deserve protection from the state.

  25. Re:Mod racist parent down. on After Successful Launch, India's Mars Orbiter Is On Its Way · · Score: 1

    So which exact part was racist? Be specific. Are Indians a race now because I thought they were a nationality?