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User: Anonymous+Cowpat

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Comments · 1,493

  1. Re:Sure fire way on Armed Man Takes Hostages At Discovery Channel HQ · · Score: 1

    the violence didn't gain them followers they didn't already have. All the ones who went with them later (with a few statistically insignificant exceptions) weren't following, they were going in the direction they were told at the point of a bayonet (or a gun, or... you get the picture).

  2. Re:Poor Choice of Damages on Aussie Gamer Loses PS3 Court Case Over 'Other OS' · · Score: 1

    yeah, that was what I thought. It immediately looks like a time-wasting idiot-case when he seems to want a resolution which (a) let's him keep his PS3 as a gaming machine and (b) make Sony pay for him to have a seperate computer as well (and as the sort of nerdy type who installs Linux on a PS3, he probably has a seperate computer anyway). He'd probably have been more successful if he'd demanded they take the product back since they were crippling it.

  3. Re:Good For Space Tourism on NASA Buying Private Companies' Suborbital Rocket Flights · · Score: 2, Funny

    I for one look forward to lighting a rocket under my butt and launching myself out of the atmosphere.

    Puh-lease! It's infinitely more sophisticated than that - you cling to the side and they stick your hands on with gaffer tape.

  4. Re:Programming is essential on What 'IT' Stuff Should We Teach Ninth-Graders? · · Score: 1

    Fortran is not a teaching only language it's still got plenty of mileage left in physics and engineering.
    When I was studying for my Masters, we were taught C rather than Fortran because Fortran 'isn't a real world language', they then promptly gave 1/4 of the class projects (worth 1/3 of the entire course) that required them to modify existing code written in... Fortran. But, because Fortran is so simple to learn they got away with it.

    You don't give 14-15 year old kids the opportunity to trip up every 5 minutes with 'silly mistakes' which exist for no purpose (e.g. linking the math library). They won't keep working their way through it, they'll get frustrated & give up.
    Compiling is a simple command line. Linking is done by the compiler. Array bounds are dealt with by the compiler - if you want to introduce keeping on top of them yourself so you can get a faster executable, that's a good idea, but you don't do that in your introductory programming course.
    I also don't see how you'll get to any pretty visualisations in a normal school-length course if you're starting from the ground up, which you wouldn't do anyway, because only about 3 people will be willing to suffer through array hell.

    Think of it like building a house. Python is like getting a prefabricated house, and bolting the sections together. Fortran is like building a house from bricks and mortar. C is like building a house from just bricks, and you have to make all the bricks by hand first.

    It's much harder to learn how the gubbins works if you're shown it without explanation some time earlier, than if the first point that you're shown the gubbins is when they're explained to you. If you teach the kids "you need this switch, and this name, and put that line there... It just needs to be there to get this working. Look, it says hello world" they'll start thinking about what that switch does, and that file with that name, and what the command in that line which has to go in is for. Most of them will get it wrong, and once they've got a wrong idea, it's MUCH harder to solidy put it right.
    There's too much to take in at once starting on C, you inevitably have to skim over various things, and that's where the risk of them getting the wrong end of the stick creeps in. It's much harder to get someone currently holding the wrong end of the stick to hold the other end, than to present someone not currently holding a stick with the right end.

  5. Re:Programming is essential on What 'IT' Stuff Should We Teach Ninth-Graders? · · Score: 1

    I disagree (with BASIC\Pascal), Fortran is a good initial programming language.

    • Syntax is clear
    • there's less scope for indecipherable error messages or silly mistakes (like not linking the math library) than C,
    • it's sufficiently low-level to get a handle on some of the underlying processes necessary to achieve what a simple command in python does
    • it's not SO low-level that you have to write several lines of complicated code to achieve anything (like allocating an array)
    • It will teach them about the various data types
    • Fortran will force them to do things 'properly' (unlike BASIC) without becoming an exercise in frustration if they don't

    As for stuff to implement, a bubble-sort would be a good thing to warm up with. For the stretch exercise, give a rough outline of how a shaker-sort would work, and have them modify their bubble sort into a shaker-sort.

  6. Re:Speechless on Czech Copyright Bill Undercuts Copyleft, Artists · · Score: 1

    Maybe they've been long overdue for an increase.

    When was the previous rate set? Was it set sufficiently long ago that the correction for inflation should have taken the artists up to the new total rate, but instead they get bilked for 80% of the increase? If you're due for a payrise, and then 80% of it gets given to someone else, I think you've got every right to complain that you're not really getting your payrise.

    Someone is losing out here, either a chunk of the artists rise is going to the publishers (because inflation should have taken them up to 1CZK), or consumers are losing because in real terms they're now paying more so that publishers can get a royalty where they wouldn't have done before. Or it could be somewhere between the two - depends on the cumulative inflation since the old rate was set.

  7. Re:S peechless on Czech Copyright Bill Undercuts Copyleft, Artists · · Score: 1

    (P.S.: Even the iPhone costs there 100 euro more per month with Vodafone plan than anywhere else in the EU, with Vodafone plan.)

    Wow, €100 more PER MONTH? It had better cost no more than €-50 per month everywhere else.

  8. Re:So? on Wired Youths In China & Japan Forget Character Forms · · Score: 1

    huh? a stone is an imperial measurement, equal to 14 pounds. The pound is a less useful measurement (which is why I didn't include it) because stuff at the small end can be done with ounces, and stuff at the large end should be done with stone. At the mid range, it offers no real benefit over kilograms.

    I agree that for doing anything really important, metric is a better system, but I also see why people prefer to continue cooking with ounces, and weighing themselves in stones.

  9. Re:So? on Wired Youths In China & Japan Forget Character Forms · · Score: 1

    the inch, the foot, the pint, the ounce and the stone are all useful measures because they make quantities with which we come into everyday contact into easily manageable numbers. Consider 80 kg and 12 stone or 4oz of flour against 120g

  10. Re:2004? No statute of limitations in the UK? on Legal Threat Demands Techdirt Shut Down · · Score: 1

    The Daily Wail isn't Murdoch; Sun, News of the World and The Times are Murdoch.

    That's not to say that it isn't appalling though.

  11. Re:Pot meet kettle on Legal Threat Demands Techdirt Shut Down · · Score: 1

    it's no less absurd that you can 'conceed' to clearly inapplicable jurisdiction

  12. Re:Apperantly ? on RIAA President Says Copyright Law "Isn't Working" · · Score: 1

    Hold on to your hat!

    Whooooooosh!

  13. Re:Why stop there? on RIAA President Says Copyright Law "Isn't Working" · · Score: 1

    I think the answer is that you name the author, editor, publisher, printer & bookstore in the suit, and see what sticks.

  14. Re:Charge for support on National Park Service Says Tech Is Enabling Stupidity · · Score: 1

    So the insurance fund currently pays out to rescue people whether or not they actually contributed to it?
    Isn't that worse than everyone paying for rescues through central taxation?

  15. Re:Set rates and publish them on National Park Service Says Tech Is Enabling Stupidity · · Score: 1

    "I can't walk, my foot is probably broken (although it could be badly bruised & I'm a big girl's blouse), does that count as an emergency? What if it turns out merely to be my wussiness?"

  16. Re:Set rates and publish them on National Park Service Says Tech Is Enabling Stupidity · · Score: 1

    "I can't afford a bill, does this count as an emergency? My foot feels like it might be broken, but it could just be bruised - will I get billed if the x-ray doesn't show it up as broken? Does a broken foot count as an emergency anyway? could I walk back if I really tried?"

  17. Re:Charge for support on National Park Service Says Tech Is Enabling Stupidity · · Score: 1

    Because they value the freedom to do whatever they want, they lobby hard against all efforts by government to "charge" for their services. For this reason, they defend to the hilt the right to be stupid in the outdoors!

    We have a similar thing in the UK with the RNLI.
    (A little background:) The RNLI is a charity which operates lifeboats, far more than the coastguard (if the coastguard operate any at all, I'll have to look that up). They've been doing that for more than 100 years, and they don't ever charge for their services, even where it was caused by stupidity, or where the Isle of Wight lifeboat spends an hour at sea getting to the people because they're actually in French waters.

    Occasionally, after a rescue of some stupid person hits the news, some political talking-head pops up and says that people should have to pay for rescues.
    They're usually immediately smacked down by the RNLI themselves because they don't want people in trouble at sea NOT calling for help because they're afraid of getting a bill - they'd rather rescue a few idiots a year than find a few genuinely distressed people dying because they're too worried about bills to call. These people volunteer (mostly) because they want to save lives at sea, and political grandstanding which is likely to cost lives at sea is not welcome.
    (n.b. people call the RNLI from French waters because the French navy charges to rescue people, and they'd rather sit around in a disabled craft for an hour or more extra than pay, thus proving the point that people will put their wallets before their safety - people genuinely interested in saving lives don't shrug their shoulders and say "oh, well, if you value your money more you can drown")

  18. Re:Charge for support on National Park Service Says Tech Is Enabling Stupidity · · Score: 1

    IQ is corrected for the population as a whole. How often do you propose that we kill off the bottom 70% or so of the population?

  19. Re:Charge for support on National Park Service Says Tech Is Enabling Stupidity · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure why the National Parks don't do something like this (get a Park Pass, don't pay for a rescue, don't get a pass, maybe pay for the rescue)

    Because some people who can't afford to pay outright won't get a pass anyway. Then everyone will be stuck with the bill in a system which isn't actually designed to share the bill out amongst everyone, and the total cost will increase.

  20. Re:Charge for support on National Park Service Says Tech Is Enabling Stupidity · · Score: 2, Funny

    Rubbish, you have 11 carrier battlegroups and a 1,500,000 man standing army, how can you write that off as not a valuable service?

  21. Re:Welcome to real life on Portal On the Booklist At Wabash College · · Score: 1

    If you go with the "You can't require any non-proprietary software," attitude you'll find you don't go very far. In the business world this is particularly true, they'll tell you precisely what you are going to use and you'll do so or get out. However university is the same way. I work at an engineering college they teach students on what is used in industry. Students use Cadence, Matlab, Solidworks, Office, and so on. We have labs, of course, since much of that software isn't licensed for use on non-university equipment. However you WILL use it to do your homework or you WILL fail. That is life. We aren't interested in philosophical debates about if information wants to be free, we are interested in teaching the tools companies want to help students get jobs.

    I'm fairly sure GP was opposed to requiring students to buy proprietary software, not use proprietary software supplied on the college's dime. You don't honestly expect your students to shell out for matlab, do you?

  22. Re:Not quite as ridiculous as it sounds on Calling Shenanigans On Super SATA's Claimed Audio Qualities · · Score: 1

    but, you can pull the whole track off the disc and buffer it in well under a second, the system certainly doesn't need to drip-feed the data to the software a second at a time. If you're losing quality because the sofware is grabbing data in tiny chunks and panics when one chunk arrives corrupted too late to get it sent again, the problem is not the cables.

  23. Re:EM radiation from cables? on Calling Shenanigans On Super SATA's Claimed Audio Qualities · · Score: 1

    then the analogue circuits need to be shielded, incase someone (no doubt a stick man with a black hat) turns on a washing machine nearby, or a mercury arc rectifier.

  24. Re:Eh? on Calling Shenanigans On Super SATA's Claimed Audio Qualities · · Score: 1

    maybe his data store in on a different disc to his OS, and by chance the data store disc had a broken cable. That wouldn't have manifested as an unuseable machine, but you would still expect it to appear as the difference between unbearably-corrupted-sound and what-it's-supposed-to-sound-like, rather than any sort of subtle differences.

  25. Re:Pretty crappy article contradicting previous st on San Francisco Just As Guilty In Terry Childs Case · · Score: 1

    1/12 is still largely non technical. In fact it's the smallest proportion of technical that you can have on a jury which isn't entirely non-technical. And as he says, he didn't make any technical considerations anyway. All the knowledge & experience in the world is worthless if you choose not to use it.