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User: superwiz

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  1. Re:ASN.1/SMI on Little-Known Programming Languages That Actually Pay · · Score: 1

    ASN.1 is a way to universally describe data. It's expressible in multiple languages though. So the gp is right.

  2. Re:C++ on Little-Known Programming Languages That Actually Pay · · Score: 2

    Nah, C++ itself is the problem. Linus got it right. Instead of standardizing name mangling and RTTI, the language went in the direction of accomodating everyone who didn't think to use auto_ptr when returning containers from functions. The whole reason for virtual functions is to get around huge case statements resolving discriminated unions. But without standard discriminators for these discriminated unions (and relying on points into virtual table instead) these cannot be persisted or sent over the network. So you end up with people still using multiple enumeration schemes which cannot be even logged in a consistent way. Mess, mess, mess!

  3. Re:Symptom of thinking vocabulary is the key on Little-Known Programming Languages That Actually Pay · · Score: 1

    I don't remember the full list of programming languages that I use or have used at some point (yeah, like you remember that Expect script that you wrote 15 years ago), but I can promise you that Mathematica is, in fact, different. It lets you mix the compile-time and run-time constructs (and treat them pretty much the same). The only think that is even close to being as revolutionary as Mathematica is Python's "yield" keyword (which allows functions to not only be a substitute for a stack abstraction, but also for a queue abstraction).

  4. what the? on Microsoft Gets Industry Support Against US Search Of Data In Ireland · · Score: 1

    If the DOJ needs data stored in Ireland, why not ask Ireland first? It's not exactly a safe heaven for drug trafficking. I am sure they'd extradite a drug dealer. So they would release any data in drug trafficking case. DOJ just wants to prove that they shouldn't have to ask?

  5. same as non-artificial intelligence on Hawking Warns Strong AI Could Threaten Humanity · · Score: 1

    It will act in accordance with the goals set for it. Same human beings can be caring fathers and deadly soldiers depending on the context in which they apply their intelligence. Intelligence is a capability. It is a key which opens many doors. What it will do will depend largely on what it is tasked to do by those who are setting goals for it. Once it becomes ubiquitous, there may be some nihilists who'd use it to entertain their end-of-the-world-screw-it-all-to-hell fancy.

  6. aha on Google Should Be Broken Up, Say European MPs · · Score: 1

    And if UN thinks that EU should be broken up, does that mean it should?

  7. Re:umm on Researchers Forecast the Spread of Diseases Using Wikipedia · · Score: 1

    You can cross-correlate multiple medical term searches and conditions and see the trends in search over broken down by regions. It's not limited to flu. You can do it by other (some slowly-spreading) medical conditions.

  8. Hard to blame him on Mathematics Great Alexander Grothendieck Dies At 86 · · Score: 1

    Given the opposition to software patents and the general demand that genius be considered a public property, it's hard to call him even insane. I didn't actually know that he was still alive. I just assumed he was part of Hilbert's generation because of the Grothendieck basis. Well, good for him I guess.

  9. umm on Researchers Forecast the Spread of Diseases Using Wikipedia · · Score: 1

    Why not google trends? It's already categorized.

  10. Re:Yeah, right... on Black IT Pros On (Lack Of) Racial Diversity In Tech · · Score: 1

    While I certainly agree that the "victim" mentality is not helpful, let's not pretend that racism is not real and pervasive.

    Ok, as long as we agree that simple pride is not racism. The main commodity in tech development is attention span. Anyone who thinks that many would bother with outside priorities like ethnic or racial background is kidding themselves. Vi vs Emacs was about as heated as tech bias got and even that has largely gone away now.

  11. Re:not "helped" on Statisticians Study Who Was Helped Most By Obamacare · · Score: 1

    Condescend all you want, but mandatory insurance produces higher premiums and lower payouts regardless of how well it is regulated. In fact, regulation only increases administrative regulatory costs instead of reducing premiums. However, you missed a subtle point. Most of the newly insured will lose money on this even if they get sick and will receive insurance payments to cover some of their medical costs. Insurance companies are now in the business of delaying treatment. Approvals, medical justifications, reviews, etc... it's all there to stretch the time between doctors' ordering procedures and patients getting the treatment. It lowers the treatment received per unit of time. And it's gotten significantly worse since Obama Care was passed. You can't possibly think that calling a mandate to buy something that lowers the quality of medical care and increases costs can be justifiably called "help."

  12. not "helped" on Statisticians Study Who Was Helped Most By Obamacare · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Being forced to buy insurance is not "help." It's being forced to buy insurance. It may be a good idea for some, but calling it "help" is misleading. Most people with this insurance will see more of their money spent on premiums than they would receive in payments even when they do get sick and need medical care. The medical care savings accounts would have been much more helpful for most people in reducing their medical costs and in forcing them into long-term responsible behavior. But we couldn't do that. That would be too Republican an idea.

  13. server is not a server on Ask Slashdot: Can You Say Something Nice About Systemd? · · Score: 1

    Most modern "computers" are not metal. Heck I usually run 5-6 instances of different virtual machines just at home. And that's at home. At work, it goes up to 15-20 at any one time. Any server needs to be designed to go up and down as quickly as possible and to have 1 instance of it running as transparently as 100 instances. Long start up times and monolithic servers whose start up can be observed by a human being are the thing of the 1990's. The world has moved on. Most cell phones today are more powerful computers than any server built in 2001. Quick spinning up of multiple instances of virtual servers is a requirement in today's world -- not a "nice thing to have."

  14. in other news on Tim Cook: "I'm Proud To Be Gay" · · Score: 1

    sex lives of other executives... Ok, give me a break. Is this some pathetic attempt to make apple bashing seem like gay bashing? No one asked the question and no one thought more or less of Steve Jobs because of his rather tumultuous sex life. So I'd say stick your announcements to the product line unless, of course, you are trying to divert attention from your failing product line.

  15. Re:the conflict in modern programming culture on Be True To Your CS School: LinkedIn Ranks US Schools For Job-Seeking Programmers · · Score: 1

    Because they reinvent the wheel. They themselves are only necessary because they have fooled the world into thinking that they are. Code (any code written in text) is best written by machines. It can be just as easily generated once the problems are well-posed. It's just that most people don't realize it, yet. The math brains have the know-how to state the complex problems. They just don't all know that it's what they should be doing. Once they do, the code monkeys will go the way of all the people doing arithmetic really, really well. It's not an insult. It's just that certain skills can be automated. And all, without exception, skills of the code monkeys can automated my grammar notwithstanding.

  16. the conflict in modern programming culture on Be True To Your CS School: LinkedIn Ranks US Schools For Job-Seeking Programmers · · Score: 2

    The conflict in modern programming is between code monkeys and math brains. Both are dismissive of the other. The code monkeys think the math brains overcomplicate things. The math brains think the code monkeys don't understand the problems they are solving.

  17. This is a bad criterion on Be True To Your CS School: LinkedIn Ranks US Schools For Job-Seeking Programmers · · Score: 1

    Poorly designed projects provide more job security and require more labor to maintain. They are managed by people who don't understand that their projects are sinking or do understand it, but don't understand why that's happening. And, of course, they require more employees. The people who manage them select people who are willing to suffer the pain of being inefficient because those doing the selection don't understand the benefits of increased efficiency. The result is that more jobs is not an indication of a better education. More jobs going to graduates of these schools can very well be an indication of their alumni having been educated in how things were done before better methods were invented.

  18. not necessarily pulseaudio on Ask Slashdot: Stop PulseAudio From Changing Sound Settings? · · Score: 1

    This sounds like an interrupt conflict. If the USB device and audio device share the interrupt and (because of hardware misconfiguratin) pluging in/out of usb causes sound device's interrupt handler to run, it could be reading garbage data and using it as the new config settings.

  19. Re:So, it has come to this. on Complain About Comcast, Get Fired From Your Job · · Score: 1

    It doesn't sound wrongful. As a juror, I'd never side with someone who insists on a right to say whatever they want to their employer's customers. And it sounds like the person in question worked for a Comcast vendor.

  20. Re:Comcast needs to go the route of AT&T on Complain About Comcast, Get Fired From Your Job · · Score: 1

    What abuses? I am no fan of monopoly utilities (water, cable, electric, etc.), but if the employee got nasty, Comcast can't be forced to use a vendor they don't want to use. First amendment right is a right to speak. It's not a right to be heard.

  21. Re:Sounds like he hasn't gotten the message on Lennart Poettering: Open Source Community "Quite a Sick Place To Be In" · · Score: 1

    You can be content with the fact that your position is sound and the people who disagree have no rational grounds for it, and are just assholes.

    That's not how the world works. Those people may simply have priorities different from your priorities and could be frustrated that their priorities are given less weight than yours. It doesn't make them wrong in disagreeing with you. How they react to that frustration is what makes them ass holes.

  22. bucks on At CIA Starbucks, Even the Baristas Are Covert · · Score: 1

    Star Bucks

  23. Re:TO THE ASS HOLE EDITORS: on Irish Girls Win Google Science Fair With Astonishing Crop Yield Breakthrough · · Score: 1

    What's more important: the cotton gin or the name Eli Whitney?

    What's more important is that you remember the name Eli Whitney. Although you are clearly trying to change the topic by bringing up one of the few times when technology reduced the quality of human condition. Why not mention Norman Borlaug instead? Especially, in the context of this article. Do people think that discovering photo-electric effect was a genius or do they call every genius an "Einstein"?

    The fact that their names are already forgotten is not just an injustice to Ciara Judge, Émer Hickey and Sophie Healy-Thow. It is, once again, an attempt to put the political context (their nationality and gender) above the actual achievement. Just try for a second doing the same thing with a headline about a movie actor. As in "... a famous California performer was sentenced to rehab today..." Does it seem like you are telling the full story there? Of course, not.

    Science is first and foremost a human endeavor. And any attempt to dehumanize it denigrates it. I have always maintained that every scientist and every mathematician must have it stipulated in writtng that their name appear first in any headline of any article about them if they agree to an interview on which the article is to be based. And if you really don't think people care, then tell me why the names of the actors who play parts in science fiction are known while the names of actual scientists who make discoveries are not known?

    Just so you understand, this is only the case in the US. It is very much the result of how the press reports on science. It is not the result of some general trend in human thought about science. It is also fairly new. You yourself mentioned Eli Whitney. Einstein's name is a household item. This is all a result of how scientists were genuinely liked years ago. We went through a cultural period of thinking of scientists as "mad scientists" if they were good at what they did.

    And it's not as if science itself was such a boring topic. People will memorize and talk about sports statistics (which are of no consequence) and talk about athletes as if they new them even if they never met them. But the same is not true of science and scientists. Why? Exclusively because of the press. Slashdot editors should know better.

  24. Re:TO THE ASS HOLE EDITORS: on Irish Girls Win Google Science Fair With Astonishing Crop Yield Breakthrough · · Score: 1

    No one was even discussing whether it was accurate or not. It's just not the topic of the conversation. The topic that I set was the dehumanization of scientists by the way the headlines which describe their accomplishments are structured in pop media.

  25. Re:TO THE ASS HOLE EDITORS: on Irish Girls Win Google Science Fair With Astonishing Crop Yield Breakthrough · · Score: 1

    If the headline goes from least personal info to most personal, it dehumanizes those described. If goes from most personal to least personal, it humanizes them. This is not a singular occurrence. This is a general communication principle. The headline was 3 Irish girls (notices least personal, the country of origin, was listed first).