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User: vrt3

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  1. I'm born in 1952 and when I was drafted (1970) the average height of my age was 6'2"...
    (I'm from the Netherlands)

    You are quite off, I suspect you did a conversion error: 6'2" is 1.87 cm, when the average height of Dutch men in 1970 was about 1.76 (5'9" - 5'10")

    He said "the average height of my age", i.e. around 18 years old. Since the average height was (and is) increasing, it is to be expected that the average size of young men is larger than the average size of all men.

    (nitpicking: you mean 1.87 m instead of 1.87 cm)

  2. Re:Nothing new... on A Worry For Some Pilots: Their Hands-On Flying Skills Are Lacking (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    You're probably thinking of Air France Flight 447 which crashed in the Atlantic Ocean on its way from Brazil to France.

  3. Re:Robots and humans on Hubble Space Telescope Will Last Through the Mid-2020s, Report Says (space.com) · · Score: 1

    ... .The Hubble had an airlock, jumpsuited support personnel ...

    The Shuttle, you mean undoubtedly :)

  4. Amusingly, Bennu was originally charted back when the EU was switching from imperial units to metric

    Huh? Europe (except the UK) has been using metric units for a long time, certainly long before the EU even existed, and long before Bennu was discovered in 1999.

  5. Re:Silly headline on Scientists Discover the World's Oldest Colors (phys.org) · · Score: 3, Funny

    The world is a complicated place, Hobbes.

  6. Re:Silly headline on Scientists Discover the World's Oldest Colors (phys.org) · · Score: 1

    So why didn't old black and white photos turn color too?

  7. Re:Silly headline on Scientists Discover the World's Oldest Colors (phys.org) · · Score: 1

    > Back when I was young, the world was still in black and white. Color wasn't invented yet.

    But then why are old paintings in color?! If the world was black and white, wouldn't artists have painted it that way?

  8. Re:As any DBA knows... on Why Airports Rename Runways When the Magnetic Poles Move (wired.com) · · Score: 0

    Pilots already know how convert between magnetic and geographical headings, I would think. I think the small inconvenience is better than having outdated runway markings or having to renew them every now and then (not only on the runways themselves, but also on all charts).

  9. Re:As any DBA knows... on Why Airports Rename Runways When the Magnetic Poles Move (wired.com) · · Score: 1

    They should just use the geographical headings instead of magnetic headings.

  10. Toyota Mirai on Toyota Unveils Plan For Hydrogen Powered Semi Truck (rdmag.com) · · Score: 1

    Actually they do have a hydrogen car for consumers; see https://arstechnica.com/cars/2.... Not exactly for the mass market yet though.

    Just a nitpick though; I agree with your point.

  11. Flemish independence, not Wallonian on 'No Turning Back' on Brexit as Article 50 Triggered (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    You have mixed up Wallonia and Flanders: it's in Flanders that a signifcant amount of people want independence from Wallonia (and maybe from Brussels too; I'm not sure anyone knows how to handle Brussels in case of a split).

  12. Re:"People without an account" on Facebook Wins Belgian Court Appeal Over Storing Non-User Data (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 2

    It's all a bit muddy, but as far as I understand it, the law does not disallow non-users to access Facebook.

    I think it's like this: the privacy commission thinks (and I agree) that Facebook should not be allowed to track non-users: they have never agreed to it. Instead of stopping the tracking, Facebook denies access to non-users.

    Also, that is not about all of the site, and certainly not about registration pages. IIRC it's about Facebook pages of companies, organisations, events and stuff. These days, it seems, there are quite a lot of organisations that don't have a proper website of their own, just a Facebook page (which is mostly pretty uninformative, but that's besides the point).

  13. Re:utterly pointless and ineffective on Bill Introduced To Require ID When Purchasing "Burner Phones" (house.gov) · · Score: 1

    Yes, I have, a few times; the last time was only a few months ago.

    No problem at all, at least until the time comes to add credit. I'm not sure, but it's very well possible that you're going to need to register with the provider and/or pay with a credit card for that. Or simply buy a new pre-paid SIM card.

  14. Re:utterly pointless and ineffective on Bill Introduced To Require ID When Purchasing "Burner Phones" (house.gov) · · Score: 2

    > European countries have had these laws for many years.

    I'm not sure about other countries, but I live in Belgium and here we can easily buy pre-paid SIM cards and cheap phones to use them in without any form of ID.

  15. Re:Psshh they ALL end in 1 on Mathematicians Discover Prime Conspiracy (quantamagazine.org) · · Score: 3, Informative

    > What's this base 1010 drama? Everyone knows in binary ALL primes end in "1".

    In binary ALMOST all primes end in "1".

  16. Itanium on Seymour Cray and the Development of Supercomputers (linuxvoice.com) · · Score: 1

    I do wonder what they could achieve if they were to abandon backwards compatibility and just ask people recompile their old code.

    Itanium, I suppose.

  17. Secondly, it's usually something like ALT+F keys that are trapped, not the F keys by themselves.

    WordPerfect made heavy use of ALT+Fn, CTRL+Fn, SHIFT+Fn.

  18. Re:"The code comes out cleaner"? on Bad Programming Habits We Secretly Love (infoworld.com) · · Score: 1

    Damn, that didn't get through correctly. Next attempt (or see the last item in https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#pet-peeves).

    Yes:

    x = 1
    y = 2
    long_variable = 3

    No:

    x             = 1
    y             = 2
    long_variable = 3

  19. Re:"The code comes out cleaner"? on Bad Programming Habits We Secretly Love (infoworld.com) · · Score: 1

    I get what you mean, but I think PEP8 is a bad example for your point. I think it's well thought out, places high value on readabilty, and doesn't advocate too strict application of its rules: it discusses when it can be appropriate to to break a guideline.

    In particular, your point about lining up colons in a dictionary definition doesn't stand. PEP8 doesn't want you to do that. See the last item in 'Pet Peeves'; PEP8 says

    Yes:

    x = 1
    y = 2
    long_variable = 3

    No:

    x = 1
    y = 2
    long_variable = 3

  20. Re:Ahhh, well. on 'Banned' Article About Faulty Immobilizer Chip Published After Two Years · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hi!

    (Sorry, nothing to see here, move along)

  21. Re:Silly assumptions. on The 'Radio Network of Things' Can Cut Electric Bills (Video) · · Score: 1

    Thank you!

  22. Re:Silly assumptions. on The 'Radio Network of Things' Can Cut Electric Bills (Video) · · Score: 1

    Thanks!

  23. Re:Silly assumptions. on The 'Radio Network of Things' Can Cut Electric Bills (Video) · · Score: 1

    2) A better engineered device is capable of doing a better job. It costs me pennies to get a low-power sensor with precision of 1/16 C. That's bags of headroom.

    Could you point me to one? Last time I was looking for them, they all seemed terribly inaccurate (errors of 1 - 2 degrees Celsius IIRC).

  24. Re:This is why I like Python so I can use OOP or n on Anthropomorphism and Object Oriented Programming · · Score: 1

    I wouldn't even call Java object oriented, rather class oriented. It forces you to put everything in a class. Most of the time when I see Java code, there's a whole bunch of classes with nothing but static functions in them.

    Python is in a sense much more object oriented than Java: everything is an object. Modules are objects, functions are objects, classes are objects.

  25. Re:Mobile police stations on 'Moneyball' Approach Reduces Crime In New York City · · Score: 1

    I would guess there's relatively little crime within a block of the police station.

    Not necessarily: recently a drugsdealer told the police here in Belgium where he meets his supplier for drugs deals: at the parking lot of a police station :)