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User: redalien

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  1. Re:Obligatory 1984 Reference on Armed Robot Drones To Join UK Police Force · · Score: 1

    Indeed! If there's ever a story about the state providing pornography to all I bet there'll be no 1984 references.

  2. Obligatory Short Circuit 2 Reference on Armed Robot Drones To Join UK Police Force · · Score: 1

    Hydraulic? Brake fluid? Lighter fluid?

    You don't know your fluids! It's battery fluid. He's bleeding!

  3. That's not strong on Space Shuttle Spy Gets 15 Years · · Score: 3, Insightful

    China won't consider 15 years a strong sentence when they're happy to execute people left right and centre.

  4. Re:Better late than never... on Microsoft Finally To Patch 17-Year-Old Bug · · Score: 1

    Grammar is about the validity of sentences. Two sentences that mean different things can both be grammatically correct. Perhaps you're thinking of semantics?

  5. Re:Better late than never... on Microsoft Finally To Patch 17-Year-Old Bug · · Score: 1

    What does his choice of words have to do with grammar?

  6. Re:Maybe I'll have to take your word for it? on Microsoft Finally To Patch 17-Year-Old Bug · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah? Well my dick's smaller than yours!

  7. Re:93% of Programmers Think You're Wrong on Why Programmers Need To Learn Statistics · · Score: 1

    Do you know which is which?

  8. Re:93% of Programmers Think You're Wrong on Why Programmers Need To Learn Statistics · · Score: 1

    He's right, it's a classic problem usually phrased as the gender of two children.

    The question is NOT flip two coins, the first is heads, what's the second. You're effectively using the two coins to generate a random number between one and four, then your information about at least one being heads narrows it down to exclude the case of tails on both.

    Given tails on both is excluded, there are 3 possibilities left, two with a tails one with a heads.

  9. Troll on Why Programmers Need To Learn Statistics · · Score: 1

    Zed Shaw trolling? What a complete *fucking* surprise.

  10. Re:Newbie mistake on HP Patents Bignum Implementation From 1912 · · Score: 1

    "when a diminutive one will suffice" is the form I always use.

  11. Re:Let's keep this going on HP Patents Bignum Implementation From 1912 · · Score: 1

    Find the distance between profiles by taking orthogonal interests ?

  12. Re:Now if we only knew what the patent was about! on HP Patents Bignum Implementation From 1912 · · Score: 1

    Indeed, it was taught as part of my undergraduate degree, for chrissakes.

  13. Re:plain C, python, or ruby on How To Teach a 12-Year-Old To Program? · · Score: 1

    C does not teach you to be careful about memory allocation. I've marked undergraduate coursework written in C, do you know how many times I saw free()? Zero. AFAICT it was only used by the 3rd year undergrads on the crypto course as they were the only people that had to deal with large amounts of allocations. Most people that learn on C will never bother with free, they'll let the OS clean up on process termination.

  14. Re:If they do this.. on Preventing My Hosting Provider From Rooting My Server? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No, the contractor is asking for the keys to move your car. You could move it yourself (or provide them with a tarball of all the logs) so the access isn't an issue.

  15. Re:depends on When Developers Work Late, Should the Manager Stay? · · Score: 1

    Client changes requirements due to unforeseen circumstance - likely nobody's fault
    Client changes requirements due to inadequate planning - account handler's fault
    Client requirements are misunderstood - account handler's fault
    Build fails human testing - developer's fault
    Build returned by client for failing tests - tester's fault
    Build does not meet client requirements - PM's fault
    Progress does not meet estimated levels - PM's fault


    Now, the reason it always SEEMS like it's the manager's fault is they're usually the source of information. When I was working for a web design agency I'd always have a better time on the projects where we had some level of client interaction. The more you get the easier it is to intuit when something is going wrong.

  16. Re:Have a great trip! on Geek Travel To London From the US — Tips? · · Score: 1

    Had two of the three, seriously, they're substandard.

  17. Re:Free beer? on G-WAN, Another Free Web Server · · Score: 1

    Free Beer as in Alcohol Free Beer, i.e. pointless.

  18. Re:Have a great trip! on Geek Travel To London From the US — Tips? · · Score: 1

    Oh, come on, it is deserved. The microbrews are _passable_ but I've yet to find a good american beer.

  19. Re:This is not new on Volunteers Wanted For Simulated 520-Day Mars Trip · · Score: 1

    Hold on, back up a second there. The soviets WEREN'T nazis?

  20. Re:Hyperbole much on Sequoia Voting Systems Source Code Released · · Score: 1

    "SQL" isn't that scary. Now, if they'd found FORTRAN...

  21. Forest for the Trees on Heart Monitors In Middle School Gym Class? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm sure you're fed up of hearing it by now, but... worrying about knowing about health conditions out of fear that it will be used against you means your health-care system is broken, not that you shouldn't check your heart rate. Please don't construe this as coming down on one side or the other of US politics; I, as an englishman, honestly cannot fathom how a system that deprives people of poor health from care is acceptable.

    To the OP, if you're so worried about this, get the kid a heart rate monitor yourself, and teach him about optimal heart rates for exercise.

  22. Re:Always. on When Is a Self-Signed SSL Certificate Acceptable? · · Score: 1

    No, it's on the card. The device will work on any card, even from different banks. For the crim to be able to duplicate your signature they need the key internal to your card.

  23. Re:WTF are you smoking on Wii Update 3.3 Defeats Twilight Hack, Freeloader · · Score: 1

    For UK law, just tell the person in the shop you're planning to run it on a Wii with version x firmware, and ask if that's ok. If it turns out the game will auto update then the software isn't fit for purpose and you can return it, no problem. We call them "statutory consumer rights" and they work nicely.

  24. Re:Kids have it lucky these days on Google Announces Summer of Code 2008 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually, Google Highly Open Participation contest produced some excellent pieces of code that were all submitted by "high school" students. If I didn't know better I'd say they were professional developers.

  25. Re:Might as well throw this out there on Group Sues To Stop German E-Voting · · Score: 1

    Actually, Hitler came to power by strategically forcing elections. He didn't much care about having them stopped as he just locked his opponents up.