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User: MichaelSmith

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Comments · 11,670

  1. More bugs on How Can I Make Testing Software More Stimulating? · · Score: 3, Funny

    Clearly there aren't enough bugs in the software you are testing. As an experienced C programmer I can help fix this problem...

  2. Re:1/3rd the limit? on Convicted NY Drunk Drivers Need Ignition Interlocks · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Exactly why can't you drive a vehicle in situations when it would be entirely legal to operate it? If you have a dui, is the legal limit for driving lowered for some reason that I'm not aware of.

    Because the driver has a proven history of Driving Under the Influence. Its not hard to have undetectable blood alcohol. I do it all the time.

  3. Re:This will just get sites like Flickr banned on Getting Around Web Censors With Flickr · · Score: 2, Informative

    Cheer up. Only five days to go.

  4. Re:This will just get sites like Flickr banned on Getting Around Web Censors With Flickr · · Score: 2, Informative

    How about my forthcoming blog "heroes of the chinese revolution". It has lots of pictures and many of them have beautiful textures. Sky, water, so forth. All available in lossless formats.

  5. Re:This Guy on Julian Assange To Write For Swedish Tabloid · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Assange didn't release the information. His source did, and could have posted it raw on the internet.

  6. Re:As software engineers, the EFF are good lawyers on Eben Moglen Calls To Free the Cloud · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Case-in-point: email cryptography; most people are not doing it, not because it takes too much effort to verify keys, but because they are completely unaware of cryptography.

    Sure I could do that at work but we are forced to use Exchange now, and for me that means OWA on Linux. I could paste in ASCII armored PGP messages but I am pretty sure that this would get me a tap on the shoulder from corporate IT with the possibility of being shown the door on the spot.

    So fair enough its their workplace but some countries are going the same way (see UAE vs RIM) and my country (Australia) wants port blocks and filtering on http.

    So maybe encrypting your email will eventually be regarded as a security risk (for the country, not the individual) eventually.

  7. Re:Dumb coins on Why the US Keeps Minting Coins People Hate · · Score: 1

    Contrast this to the UK and EU

    You were doing so well up until that point. Don't you know it's unAmerican to do what other countries do, even if it's demonstrably superior?

    I can imagine the headline if theodp saw your post in a news story: "US plans to adopt Euro!".

    Now you've got me going. I am going to have to read Distraction again.

  8. Re:Dumb coins on Why the US Keeps Minting Coins People Hate · · Score: 1

    NZ have totally replaced the coins which looked like Australian coins. Their new coins are smaller than ours now and better IMHO.

  9. Re:Dumb coins on Why the US Keeps Minting Coins People Hate · · Score: 1

    George already has the quarter (and some of the dollar coins this article is talking about). We should give someone new a shot at $1. I'd bet all the Republicans would vote to replace the dollar bill with a $1 Reagan coin.

    The gipper! I thought he was going to get the billion dollar note?

  10. Re:Dumb coins on Why the US Keeps Minting Coins People Hate · · Score: 1

    The situation here in Australia is similar to Canada I think. One thing about the US is that they have this one guy for whom the buck stops at his desk. He (or she) seems to get stuck with all sorts of stupid decisions which should never get to his level. In Australia the mint or the note printing people release new notes and coins from time to time. They commission artists to do the artwork and that creates interest. It doesn't become an issue for the Prime Minister so there is a minimum of stupid argument.

  11. Re:White iPhone mystery solved? on Apple Manager Arrested In Kickback Scheme · · Score: 2

    Sorry I don't get you on this. Can you clarify what the White iPhone mystery was?

  12. Wow on Apple Manager Arrested In Kickback Scheme · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I am amazed (and pleased) that apple care about this. In most places I have worked this is either accepted or actively encouraged. When I worked for Vic Roads the CEO signed a big vehicle fleet outsourcing deal, then retired and jumped straight into a job with the new operator. The general feeling was "meh".

  13. Re:Poor comparison on 1979 Apple Graphics Tablet vs. the iPad · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Light pens from those days are probably closer to a modern touch sensitive screen.

  14. Re:American Guns!! Yay NRA!! on Narco-Blogger Beats Mexico Drug War News Blackout · · Score: 1

    and their Air Force was a few unpowered gliders after WWI

    And even today, Germany makes the best sailplanes.

  15. Re:All of a sudden iPhone looks like an open syste on Oracle Sues Google For Infringing Java Patents · · Score: 1

    They could have used python, and even reused Sugar.

    They *can* use python, have you heard of Jython? Or http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/ ?

    Yes but I think jython would be a bad move under the circumstances.

  16. Re:All of a sudden iPhone looks like an open syste on Oracle Sues Google For Infringing Java Patents · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why did they choose the Java language? Because they needed a safe, statically typed, garbage collected language that people had experience with and that there were tools for. There is little else out there that fits the bill (C# wasn't an option at the time they started).

    Objective-C on iPhone is a pain to learn, but at least the iPhone will not go down in flames from companies fighting over rights to language, runtime, tools and access to application markets.

    They could have used python, and even reused Sugar.

  17. Re:Oracle will win on Oracle Sues Google For Infringing Java Patents · · Score: 1

    When DEC sold RDB to Oracle the price for support went up by almost a factor of ten. There was no intention to develop the product. They wanted the cash.

  18. Re:easy solution for Google: on Oracle Sues Google For Infringing Java Patents · · Score: 1
  19. Re:They're not using Java on Oracle Sues Google For Infringing Java Patents · · Score: 1

    Android has its own VM called Dalvik. You use Java tools to compile to JVM bytecode and then there's a translater to Dalvik bytecode.

    Maybe Oracle believe Dalvik implements their patented techniques.

  20. Re:Is the Android Java *complete*? on Oracle Sues Google For Infringing Java Patents · · Score: 1

    But isn't that if you call it java? I don't know that google do that.

  21. Re:Oracle will win on Oracle Sues Google For Infringing Java Patents · · Score: 1

    How about Microsoft with the C# VM? Or perl with Parrot, and python?

  22. Re:Anonymous Oracle on Oracle Sues Google For Infringing Java Patents · · Score: 1

    Oracle don't care. They are in it for the money, even more than IBM.

  23. Re:Sun released Java under the GPL on Oracle Sues Google For Infringing Java Patents · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yeah but I think this is about non-sun implementations which use sun/oracle patented techniques.

  24. Re:I think fibre to the home is insane on Aussie National Broadband Network Will Be Gigabit · · Score: 1

    I read somewhere the other day a response to just that suggestion - wish I could find the link for ya...

    But basically they said with the density of people in cities, to give everyone gigabit connections over a wireless link you'd need a tower in *every* block.

    Easily. I fully expect to see cellular base stations on every power pole at some point. They will be inside large offices and on every floor of apartment buildings.

  25. Re:Sex Party on Aussie National Broadband Network Will Be Gigabit · · Score: 1

    the greens preferences are going towards labor, which means that at the end of the day, a vote for the greens is still a vote for censorship, tracking and oppression of the population.

    The kind of people who vote green are likely to specify their own preferences, IMHO.