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User: slam+smith

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Comments · 285

  1. Go Fast on Space Elevators Could Be Lethal · · Score: 1

    Would it be possible to really fast through the belts?

  2. Just have someone carry a baby in carrier on Card Locks Thwarted by Shopping Club Card · · Score: 5, Informative

    My wife used to regularly get into my work buildings to meet me for lunch. You just need to carry a baby in a baby carrier and everyone will let you in.

  3. Re:What about on Cell Users As Bad As Drunk Drivers · · Score: 1

    I can attest to how distracting it can be to drive with small children. I have three young daughters and when they get into hair pulling mode, the supersonic screams can make your vision blur. I've developed a strategy of just pulling off the road, setting the brake and turning off the engine to let them finish.

  4. Re:Do we own it on Tennessee to Tax Software as Property? · · Score: 1

    Someone owns the vehicle, and usually part of the leasing arrangement is that the person leasing the vehicle directly pays the property tax, but make no mistake, if the lease is structured differently, you would still actually pay the property tax.

  5. Re:Quality TV will diminish? Huh? on The Mythbusters Answer Your Questions · · Score: 1

    What annoys me is forcing me to sit through commercials in the movie theater, before the movie starts. I paid a lot of money to see the movie, and I really don't want to waste my time seeing commercials, (or about 10 movie previews).

  6. Good in a way on The ESRB Gets An 'F' · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is good in a way though, this battle is mostly being fought in the court of public opinion rather than being imposed by governmental fiat.

  7. really serious on WI Assembly OKs Voting Paper Trail · · Score: 1

    If they were truly serious they would also require photo id's to vote, and eliminate same day registration.

  8. Re:I'm willing to bet... on Telecommuters May Owe Extra State Taxes · · Score: 1

    I have to disagree with you on this. I think the reason the Supreme Court refused to hear this case, is because they don't give a shit.

  9. Re:And people wonder why you should be against on FEC Deciding Future of Political Blogs · · Score: 1

    Don't kid yourself, a corporation can't even begin to cause the pain, death, and destruction governments can and do cause around the world. Just read up on the government of Zimbabwe for one of the latest examples.

  10. Reality Check on Windows Incompatibilities Frustrate D.C. Schools · · Score: 3, Insightful
    All right folks this is Washington D.C. a city notorious for incompetance and corruption. (And I'm talking about the city gov't not the federal.) At my work we have NO difficultly writing software that had the same sort of software, hardware connections discussed in this article. I think we have a case here of someone using technobabble to try and cover his butt.


    In an internal memo dated yesterday, D.C. schools Chief Information Officer Gregory Barlow criticized the way the computer system was set up.

    "In my experience, the combination of an Oracle database, Windows operating system, Unix hardware and an Apache webserver is a bad combination," Barlow wrote in the memo to Thomas M. Brady, the school system's chief business operations officer.
  11. Re:European Water on Floating Nuclear Power Station · · Score: 1

    And shockingly enough they were pretty much right. Nuclear power has proven to be very safe.

  12. Re:Card Counting is NOT Cheating!!!! on The Tech Used to Catch Vegas Cheats · · Score: 1

    I think you will find that most casinos don't mind casual card counters, after all they make a lot of money off them. The advantage gained by card counting is so small, that it is easy to wipe it out by just screwing up the count a few times an hour.

  13. Flag and Footprints on Back to Moon in 2015? · · Score: 1

    If this is just another flag and footprints mission, then what is the point. Let's use the money for something else. There really needs to be some sort of profit motive for this, otherwise it will be another apollo style program. Land, take bunches of pretty pictures, do a few experiments, then go away for fifty years.

  14. The physics are straitforward on Nuclear Fuel How-To · · Score: 0, Redundant

    The physics of nuclear weapons are rather straitforward. The tricky part is the Logistics (obtaining the raw resources), and the Engineering of the device to get it to actually work.

  15. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery on McVoy Strikes Back · · Score: 1

    If you want to be successful one of the best ways to do it is to copy a success, and in particular learn from the mistakes the first person made. I've seen several examples in this discussion where a successful open source project has been copied by a closed source project as well as vice-versa, or closed copying closed, or open copying open. After all source code control ala bitkeeper ain't exactly a new idea. What we have is a lot of people saying "good idea but I think I can do it better", and they often succeed in doing just that, in my experience quality and capability is an iterative process. But in the end we all win. Excellence is fostered by competition. In the end we all benefit by higher quality products both open and closed.

  16. Re:Reduce expenses by cutting executive salaries? on IBM Europe Workers Strike · · Score: 1

    Never happen, here is an article I posted on my blog about Carla Fiorina's severance package. Note in particular how HP's board has members from several public corparations. IBM isn't any different. As long as the stock price doesn't drop too much it is pretty much the ultimate game of I'll scratch your back if you scratch my back.

  17. Re:But that's just it! on Critical Shortage of IT Workers in Coming Years · · Score: 1

    I find it's quite common to develop tunnel vision in a job. It happens to me all the time, currently I'm doing a lot of JDBC, Swing, and a little JSP stuff. But even the technologies I use a lot have an enormous breadth of features, that I haven't had to use, and don't really know. I use to do little programming with XML and moreso LDAP, but I haven't had to for a while. I would still put it on my resume but, I wouldn't claim to be an expert. I would probably find it difficult to remember some points on stuff I haven't had to use in a while. Of course the last couple of jobs I applied for (years ago), I made a point of studying the technology before hand, and even though I was rather inexperienced in the technology, I sounded like I was, and I got one of the jobs. I still work there.

  18. Re:Load of crap on Critical Shortage of IT Workers in Coming Years · · Score: 2, Insightful

    One problem I have with job interviews, is you never know obscure bit of programming trivia the interviewer has latched on to and is waiting to spring on you. Of course usually before I go to a job interview, I'll spend a couple of hours studying up on the topics in the job description. So I have a chance during the trivial pursuit portion of the job interview.

  19. Re:Upload, not download on Cuban Says RIAA Damages Should be $5 Per Month · · Score: 1

    I wouldn't mind, as long as the CD is cheaper (a lot cheaper), and I can trivially rip the CD and get rid of the adds. (i.e. the ads are seperate tracks)

  20. Yeah right on Myth of Linux Hobby Coders Exposed · · Score: 1

    Next thing you will be telling me is that they also have girlfriends.

  21. Re:Scramble your keys on Phishers Using Keystroke Loggers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe if you suspect it has trojans, keyloggers etc, you should clean/reinstall the machine before you using it for sensitive work.

  22. Re:Orson Scott Card on No Need For Trek Anymore · · Score: 1

    I'm going to go ahead and generalize like crazy. I think the reason a lot of evangelical TV style ministers don't like mormons comes down to one thing. Mormons typically don't give them money (this of course applies to other groups such as Jehovah Witnesses). Of course some doctrinal differences exist, but I believe that if mormons donated a lot of money to these groups, that mormons would very quickly be "promoted" to christians. (Note: I am mormon)

  23. Re:Orson Scott Card on No Need For Trek Anymore · · Score: 1

    Why don't you post your particular sect of christianity so we can all have a go at "proving" that you're not christian too. :-)

  24. public vs. private on Will McNealy Take Sun Private? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've often thought that if I ever started a company, that I would vastly prefer to keep the company private. The requirements on public companies are so onerous that I just don't see how it is really worth it long term. It forces you to look at the short term only. And the expenses of stuff like Sarbanes-Oxley are just drains on productive company activities. (Talk about making the problem worse. Sarbanes-Oxley is nothing more than a cash transfer from productive company activities to public accounting firms and lawyers. ) The only time I can see going public is when I was ready to "cash out".

  25. Re:Wouldn't want to be in his class. on Computer Program Makes Essay Grading Easier · · Score: 1

    Ulimately, you had better get used to computers scoring papers. Heck, some places I apply for work use a computerized ranking system (these are professional jobs). You don't rank high enough, well, we won't even consider you.

    Which overcourse encourages buzzword bingo on resumes