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User: swilver

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  1. Re:Turn the question in the right direction on Why Do Projects Continue To Support Old Python Releases? · · Score: 1

    Add one extra line at the top of a python script, identifying which "dialect" it is. If it's not there... then its 2.6. I know shell scripts already have a mechanism for that, but it kinda breaks down when new incompatible interpreters insist on using the same name.

  2. Re:Playstation now Thin Client on Sony Announces Game Streaming Service · · Score: 1

    More likely, they fear the $50 quad core android sticks with quite decent 3d specs that you can just plug into the back of your TV. Add a bluetooth controller, and game away.

  3. Re:Regulate this on CES: Laser Headlights Edge Closer To Real-World Highways · · Score: 1

    Perhaps you should interview some of those dead people that crashed their car in a tree, and ask them if they swerved because an approaching car had too bright headlights.

  4. Re:Maybe Usless on Unintended Consequences: How NSA Revelations May Lead To Even More Surveillance · · Score: 1

    Round up all those non-connected people and lock them up. Let's start with all those losers without a Facebook account.. you must have something to hide if you're not regularly posting stupid pictures there.

  5. Who should receive the putative fruits of economic spying by the government? Private companies? Which ones? In exchange for what? Paid to who? How has that been working out for us?

    Ehr, seriously? That's easy. Since paying money for laws is perfectly legal in the US, you give private companies those secrets. Which ones? The ones that pay you the most. In exchange for what? More money of course.

    As for how it is working out for you -- it is not, but it is for that elite 1% that owns all those companies.

  6. Re:Umm ... don't spy (as much)??? on NSA Head Asks How To Spy Without Collecting Metadata · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You got Choice B wrong.

    It is:

    Choice B: Live in a less free country that pretends to be less vulnerable to a surprise attack.

  7. Re:Every single one of them is guilty? on Employee Morale Is Suffering At the NSA · · Score: 2

    I only drove the getaway car...

    There'd be no NSA if people actually valued conscience over a fat paycheck. They didn't know? Now they do, yet I don't see masses of people leaving / striking either and simply let the NSA collapse under its own weight.

  8. Re:When you count from 1 to 10, do you stop at 9? on Tech Companies Set To Appeal 2012 Oracle Vs. Google Ruling · · Score: 1

    This is an internal function (private) that is not part of the API, although there are many similar functions that take a from/to index.

    Programming languages only have a convenient relation to English. Programmers will write "toIndex" and actually mean "uptoButNotIncludingIndex". The name acts as a reminder of what it is, but the real details are in the specification of the function (the javadoc) that comes with every public API in Java.

    Anyway, I've found it is quite common to have the "end" index mean upto but not including the end index when dealing with 0 based lists. This is because a very common case, where you want to do something all the way to the end of the list, you can just use the "length" of such a list as the end index without having to substract one from it.

  9. Re:Java stole from C on Tech Companies Set To Appeal 2012 Oracle Vs. Google Ruling · · Score: 1

    Yeah, you can play fair (run the 100m), or you can play dirty (disable everyone else). Then it is just a matter of what is the easier feat to accomplish... training to become the fastest 100m sprinter or training to become the best dirt thrower.

    I have a suspicion that dirt throwing is much easier.

  10. Re:Only Oracle Filed on Tech Companies Set To Appeal 2012 Oracle Vs. Google Ruling · · Score: 1

    As well-established companies, who are actually making money out of selling software, I'd say they stand to lose much more when API's become copyrighted.

  11. Re:If they get this reversed, it will shut them do on Tech Companies Set To Appeal 2012 Oracle Vs. Google Ruling · · Score: 1

    You are right about a whole new industry arising. It just won't be in America.

  12. Re:When you have a bad driver ... on Is the Porsche Carrera GT Too Dangerous? · · Score: 1

    ...and its the reason why drivers shave before racing.

  13. Re:Three group clarification on Mathematical Model of Zombie Epidemics Reveals Two Types of Living-Dead Strains · · Score: 1

    I was thinking more...

    those who are not susceptible to disease ...pretty sure that can be quite a big category as well.

  14. Re:All Over The Place on Intelligence Officials Fear Snowden's 'Doomsday' Cache · · Score: 1

    It be better if all those names were revealed.

    Perhaps it will make people think twice about accepting questionable jobs. At this point the NSA apparently thinks it is god and can get away with them. Having half their spies brutally murdered is much more likely to actually have some impact -- and they'd fucking deserve it too.

  15. Re:MarkLogic = NoSQL on NYT: Healthcare.gov Project Chaos Due Partly To Unorthodox Database Choice · · Score: 1

    It would scale just fine, assuming you make proper indexes for your queries.

    Since the general use case is probably gonna be something like "pull up records for patient that is sitting infront of me and edit them", I think an index lookup + atmost a couple of dozen records pulled from related tables will be handled just fine.

    Any other use cases that involve statistical analysis on all data can be handled by copying it to specialized DB's every few weeks.

  16. Re:It's a sad day... on Project Free TV, YIFY, PrimeWire Blocked In the UK · · Score: 1

    Then we'll just create our own sharing network, or heck, our own internet (a darknet) or even a network over wifi or sneakers. Nothing short of installing camera's in homes and/or control chips in people's brains is going to stop this.

    The delusion is that you can make people pay for goods (on a per use / per copy basis) that can be duplicated without cost and with little effort.

    The second delusion is that if piracy did somehow get eliminated, that these industries will then be happy with their bottom line, and not raise prices, introduce more stringent region coding (as you can charge wealthier regions more) or make you pay per view/minute and force you to watch unskippable commercials and other propagenda... we've glimpsed that in the past already -- don't for a second think they've learned their lesson, their current stance will evaporate as soon as they manage to get complete control again over your eyeballs.

  17. Re:And the problem is? on Project Free TV, YIFY, PrimeWire Blocked In the UK · · Score: 1

    What the fuck is wrong with you? You think it is a good idea to hand over access to the internet to these kinds of companies, with their only motive being profit?

    You do realize that if these companies are given a 100% monopoly on distribution again that soon they'll be doubling their prices, charging different prices based on time/region/income/sex/etc.. and whatever else they can get away with. The *only* thing that keeps them in check currently is piracy as they need to stay competitive with "free". If they ever manage to completely eliminate it, prices will go up, not down and their strangehold on our culture and artists will get worse.

    So yes, we're crying wolf -- this is all about control, and how companies never can seem to get enough of it. Stay the fuck away from the open internet.

  18. Re:They just can't admit it... on Puzzled Scientists Say Strange Things Are Happening On the Sun · · Score: 1

    You know, when I boil a pot of water without the lid on, it takes longer to boil than with the lid on, despite putting the stove on a lower setting.

    There are many other factors at play. The sun's input might be declining, but if the earth becomes more efficient at trapping heat, or reflects less heat (polar ice caps melting) then you may need to reduce the sun's input a lot more to stay at the current equilibrium. Just looking at one of these factors is a good way to deceive yourself.

  19. Re:On the desert roads of Nevada, maybe on Google: Our Robot Cars Are Better Drivers Than You · · Score: 1

    A computer can distinguish people along the road, and could drive the maximum possible speed depending on the distance and time it would take said people to be in danger. If the person is still 50m away and it would need 20m to break from 50 km/hour, then it can drive 50 km/h 100% safely all the way until it touches that person lightly with the bumper -- at which point it should apply the horn.

    If a person would need to move 5m first before it would be in the car's path, the car can compute the earliest possible time that person might be in its path (given the maximum possible human speed) and drive whatever speed is safe to make it impossible to hit that person.

    I'm afraid you will be beaten by these computers, especially when you are sleepy, it is dark, it is raining, the sun is in your eyes or something happens you DIDN'T anticipate.

  20. Re:If you are on the clock on The Boss Is Remotely Monitoring Blue-Collar Workers · · Score: 1

    You are a good example of the power drunk asses that must hate it that nowadays the SLAVES are required to be paid by law.

    Luckily in my business I choose where to work... and you better damn well provide a good environment and pretend like you care about my grievances or I you won't even have to fire me as I will leave on my own. Pray you never have to manage something where you can call yourself lucky you managed to hire the people you need.

  21. Re:That's a good thing on Biological Clock Discovered That Measures Ages of Most Human Tissues · · Score: 1

    That is... IF there is proton decay. There currently is only a lower bound after which a proton might decay.

  22. Re:Documentation on Ask Slashdot: What Are the Hardest Things Programmers Have To Do? · · Score: 1

    I've been the one that "follows others" often enough. You know what? I never read the documentation beyond the rudimentary "how to get the environment set up". After that, I will look at the code and see what it actually does, not what it is documented or supposed to do.

    Nothing annoys me more than having a wise ass sitting next to me telling me to read the documentation "because that's how it is supposed to work"... especially when I get called in because it doesn't work as it is supposed to work.

  23. Re:This why Firefox flags self-signed as "dangerou on Lavabit Case Unsealed: FBI Demands Companies Secretly Turn Over Crypto Keys · · Score: 1

    Don't want to trust me? Ok, let's go to plain text http then.

  24. Re:What about Americans? on NSA Internet Spying Sparks Race To Create Offshore Havens For Data Privacy · · Score: 1

    It's amazing that Americans think the world would have turned out different if they had voted for the other guy... American history must have been a string of electing the wrong guy each and every time then it seems.

  25. Re:testing? on Microsoft Shows Off Its Vision For Gesture-Controlled PCs · · Score: 1

    Just adapt your key pressing robots...