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User: Abstrackt

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Comments · 1,371

  1. Re:Call it what you will on What Birds Know About Fractal Geometry · · Score: 2

    It went fairly well until I pulled out the slide rule.

  2. Re:Turn off wifi on Have a Wi-Fi-Enabled Phone? Stores Are Tracking You · · Score: 3, Funny

    So true. mod this up!

    Okay.

  3. Re:Lesson Learned... on Student Expelled From Montreal College For Finding "Sloppy Coding" · · Score: 2

    Better yet: don't report a security hole you discover and follow up by trying it again without consent.

  4. Re:Words with Friends Live! on Ask Slashdot: How Do I Get My Spouse To Start Gaming With Me? · · Score: 1

    More seriously, try board games! My wife isn't much of a video gamer, but board games were a huge hit with her. Look at things like Agricola, Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, and Settlers of Catan. They reward analytical thinking like video games do, so you won't be bored, I promise.

    This is exactly what I did with my wife. I couldn't get her to play video games with me so I started playing board games with her instead. I like playing games and I like spending time with her so it was win-win.

  5. Re:active vs. passive? on Hacktivism: Civil Disobedience Or Cyber Crime? · · Score: 1

    Civil disobedience can be active or passive; the defining trait is that it is done with the intention of forcing a change. It generally involves being ready to accept the repercussions of one's actions as well. Rosa Parks is the best example I can come up with right now. She knew what what happen if she refused to give up her seat but she chose to take a stand anyway.

  6. Re:Brilliant idea on Google Declares War On the Password · · Score: 0

    Just generate them algorithmically. For example, your base password could be 12345 and you would just append the name of the site to it. Slashdot’s password would become 12345slashdot, your email password would become 12345email, etc. As long as you don't share your base password or the particulars of your algorithm there’s much less to remember and you benefit from having unique passwords across all the sites you visit.

  7. Re:I don't get it on Bug Sends Lost-Phone Seekers To Same Wrong Address · · Score: 1

    There's nothing wrong with if if you're reasonable. But you know all those stories about people driving off roads because their GPS told them to? I don't think those people will believe the guy who says he doesn't have their phone when technology clearly says he does.

  8. Re:Maybe it's a better example of true worth on Instagram Loses Almost Half Its Daily Users In a Month · · Score: 1

    That probably was written by an adult. Maybe every generation goes through this but I swear the people I knew in high school never grew into adults. I can't help but wonder whether Instagram is suffering from a similar condition, that they're simply incapable of existing outside the current moment.

  9. Re:Demise of the English langauge on Australia Is On So Much Fire, You Can See It From Orbit · · Score: 4, Funny

    That's nothing. I slept through the end of the world a few weeks ago.

  10. Re:10001.1 TFLOPS, eh? on Einstein@Home Set To Break Petaflops Barrier · · Score: 2

    But he could have missed it to a higher degree of precision!

  11. Re:same thing I always tell others on Ask Slashdot: Gifts For a 90-Year-Old, Tech-Savvy Dad? · · Score: 1

    What's so depressing about making it nearly a century and still having your wits about you?

  12. Re:Tech time lines on Most Kickstarter Projects Fail To Deliver On Time · · Score: 1

    That explains why the calculation took so much longer than expected.

  13. "Shit happened, we need to blame somebody." on School Shooting Prompts Legislation To Study Violent Video Games · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This looks more like a case of "shit happened, we need to blame somebody" than actually trying to solve anything. If a violent video game is going to turn someone violent it's more likely as a result of a preexisting condition.

  14. Re:Obvious answer.. on Ask Slashdot: 2nd Spoken/Written Language For Software Developer? · · Score: 1

    You may lack grammatical skills but the idea would come across with some consistency.

    Let's eat people! Let's eat, people!

    Admittedly a smaller risk in a spoken language, but spoken proficiency alone doesn't cut it.

    You're right, but context usually mitigates all but the worst grammatical errors. For example, unless your friend was wearing a bloody butcher's apron and carrying a cleaver you'd likely assume he meant the latter rather than the former. ;)

  15. Re:Thank God... on NASA On Full Court Press To Deflate Doomsday Prophecies · · Score: 1

    I'd like to think NASA being right about this will make the general public take more of an interest in them and space exploration in general. Wishful thinking, I know, but it'd be one hell of a Christmas present.

  16. Re:Obvious answer.. on Ask Slashdot: 2nd Spoken/Written Language For Software Developer? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Fluency is defined as being able to express yourself easily and articulately. A vocabulary of 1,000 words allows you to understand at least half of what's going on around you. Some studies go as high as 75-80%, such as this one for Spanish (pg. 109), but I aimed low for my example. A vocabulary of about 10,000 words and a general understanding of how to assemble them into a sentence is enough to be considered fluent in almost any situation.

    If you learn 30 words per day you would be able to express yourself at least half the time in a little over a month. You may lack grammatical skills but the idea would come across with some consistency. Continuing on that track, it would take just under a year to be able to express yourself with a high degree of fluency. Mind you, I am assuming you started focusing on grammar at some point during that year. For Spanish, I found it took about six weeks until my grammar limited me more than my vocabulary. I’m only a few months into learning but I can already communicate well with native speakers.

    If you make flashcards using some kind of spaced repetition system like Anki or Mnemosyne it will automatically handle the review of words you’ve already learned so you just need to focus on daily study and let the program handle the rest. The greatest difficulties you’ll face during this process are making the flashcards, which is an important step in building recognition, and the odd word that simply will not stick.

    When you’re not studying your flashcards you need to immerse yourself in the language. Listen to music you enjoy, try to watch shows that interest you and parrot everything you hear. In the beginning, the point of this exercise isn’t to understand anything but rather to recognize it. Eventually you’ll start to pick out words you’ve learned and infer the meaning of others based on context and the language starts to snowball in your head.

    If learning a new language is not fun you’re doing it wrong. If learning a new language is difficult, you’re probably using Rosetta Stone. ;)

  17. Re:This is about RMS. on Why The Hobbit's 48fps Is a Good Thing · · Score: 5, Funny

    So does Slashdot, but we try not to discriminate.

  18. Re:Bing It On! on Movie Studios Ask Google To Censor Links To Legal Copies of Their Own Films · · Score: 1

    Lazy!

    FTFY.

  19. Re:Is this really a positive thing? on Finding a Crowdsourced Cure For Brain Cancer · · Score: 1

    The first step of good brainstorming is writing down every idea that comes to mind, no matter how bad, because sometimes a terrible idea can inspire a good one you wouldn't have had otherwise. This project does seem to be fueled by desperation but I still think it has potential, if only as a thought exercise.

  20. Re:Did not RTFA on Water Bottle Fills Itself From the Air · · Score: 2

    Now I just need my city to install some.... :(

  21. Re:Next Valve Game on Gabe Newell Confirms Source 2 Engine · · Score: 1

    [1]

  22. Re:Keyboards are rubbish... on The Evolution of the Computer Keyboard · · Score: 2

    Dear Aunt, Let’s Set So Double The Killer Delete Select All .

  23. Re:First on Has the Mars Rover Sniffed Methane? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just out of curiosity (no pun intended), wouldn't it be fairly easy to identify false positives? For example, if the concentration of methane appears to increase the longer the rover is stationary the more likely it is that it's coming from the rover rather than the atmosphere, assuming no wind anyway. And if there was wind any methane produced by the rover would be carried away and become a non-issue as well, right?

  24. Re:How is he going to pay that? on $1,500,000 Fine For Sharing 10 Movies On BitTorrent · · Score: 1

    It's not about the money so much as deterring others. Seeing someone get slapped with a charge they have no way of paying off will probably scare a few people straight.

  25. Re:Ah yes... Non-featured features... on "Badass" Bug Infects and Kills Borderlands 2 Characters · · Score: 1

    To answer your first question, yes. To answer your second question, it depends.

    Whether you enjoyed the game up to that point or not, having your progress reset sucks. If you know it's coming, like in any roguelike, you just restart a little wiser. If you don't know it's coming the fun quickly stops.