Slashdot Mirror


User: d-man

d-man's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
54
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 54

  1. Prolog Joke on What's the Best Geek Joke You Know? · · Score: 1

    Haven't seen this one yet:

    How many Prolog hackers does it take to change a light bulb?
    False.

  2. Real Sports on Nerds Make Better Lovers · · Score: 1

    I'm curious. What is a real sport?

    A real sport has at least two of the following:
    * A ball
    * A net
    * Defense

    Baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, football, cricket all qualify. Golf, darts, auto racing, etc. all fail to qualify.

    (Can you tell I'm from New York yet?)

  3. Re:Tiger Woods? on Nerds Make Better Lovers · · Score: 1

    As others have pointed out, golf is not a sport.

    Golf is a game. Tennis is a sport.

    To qualify as a sport, you must sweat.


    While I agree that golf is decidedly not a sport (there's no net, and no defense), I definitely sweat while I play. But that's usually because I'm with three guys who know what they're doing and have grown tired of helping me find my ball.

  4. Re:hacking? on Juicebox Hacking · · Score: 1

    ... you have a biscuit in your pocket, you slap it, wow! Now you have two. Repeat, now you have three... Your fantastic pocket makes more biscuits!

    Why is the series linear? I would have expected it to be exponential.

  5. Proof of concept... on P2P In 15 Lines of Code · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...that Perl is a true write-only language.

  6. Re:How to speed OpenOffice file-format adoption on Why OpenOffice.org? Open Document Formats · · Score: 1

    My learning for the day : HTML does not require _any software_ to view!!

    Neither do PDFs... if you know someone with a printer.

  7. Re:Colleges Accountable?!? on Feds Propose National Database of College Students · · Score: 1
    There are so many lies and hype force-fed to high schoolers about college and "success" that kids simply have no idea what real life is. No one has to go to college after high school.

    (Disclaimer: I'm biased because I'm a college professor.)

    OK, here's a fun exercise for everyone. Pick any 10 people between the ages of 30 and 35. Ask each one the same set of questions:

    • Highest level of education
    • Salary
    • Job satisfaction
    • Quality of life (house, car, gadgets & stuff, etc)
    • Satisfaction with intangibles (Are you the popular person at your workplace? Do people regularly invite you out to do fun stuff? etc...)


    Now find correlations. If you picked 10 of my friends, the correlations exist.

    Next exercise: try proving to me that the correlations aren't causal.
  8. Re:Colleges Accountable?!? on Feds Propose National Database of College Students · · Score: 1

    There is, in fact, only one college in the US that receives no federal money.

    IIRC, your statement is false. (Now, I teach at a public college, so I might be wrong here.) My understanding is that a school which calls itself, for instance, a Catholic College, can't receive state or federal aid. My alma mater, however, is a "College in the Dominican Tradition", which fits through the loophole.

    However, I don't think there's anything prohibiting students at Catholic colleges from receiving federal financial aid. (But again, I might be wrong about all of this, and it's too late at night to look it up. I'll leave that as a reading exercise for the class. :)

  9. They work in Ohio? on Programmers Hold Funerals for Old Code · · Score: 1

    They do IT work in Ohio, which just became a red state? They should be holding funerals for their own jobs.

  10. Re:Wait for the investigation... on A Car With A Mind Of Its Own · · Score: 1

    Don't people learn to drive anymore?

    I'm guessing you don't do a lot of suburban driving.

  11. Noble prizes on Happy 50th Cern! · · Score: 0, Redundant

    "The facility that has earned three scientists Noble prizes..."

    And, really, which prize is more noble than the Nobel?

  12. What if... on USB Thumb Drives as ... Fashion Statement? · · Score: 1

    ...I wear it around my wrist?

  13. OK, now I need help choosing a phone on Verizon Crippled Bluetooth Features in Motorola V710 · · Score: 1

    Maybe you folks can help me. I live in Long Island, NY. My Nextel plan ends on the 16th. I have a Tungsten T2 (built-in Bluetooth) which I want to use with a Bluetooth phone. I want decent voice quality and coverage, and a good data plan. I don't care about a camera (but, from what I've been able to tell, I can't get a BT phone w/o one).

    Does this phone exist? Does this plan exist? Does this telco exist?
    TIA,
    -d

  14. Re:It's OK on MPAA Sues DVD Chip Manufacturers · · Score: 1

    Seen on a T-Shirt in college (~1991):

    On the front:
    "We eat it
    We drink it
    We made it our president"

    On the back: A Busch beer logo :)

  15. Re:COOL on History of the Automatic Teller · · Score: 1

    Sorry for the public post here, /.ers, but gfxguy doesn't publish his e-mail address.

    We must know each other. I'm 31, and also from RVC. I'd heard the "first ATM" story before, but didn't believe it. You'd never know from walking in the branch (now a Chase).

  16. Re:Why should *I* care? on Copy-protected CD Tops U.S. Charts · · Score: 1

    Also, shooting someone over music is what we like to call "overkill".

    No, Overkill is what we like to call music about shooting people. :)

  17. Re:I don't get stallman's problem. on MIT's Stata Center Dedicated · · Score: 1

    Quite possibly because we look at them as people instead of objects.

    See, there's your problem. You're still thinking procedurally. However, if you were to instantiate a message object and pass it to the female object...

  18. Re:Just another excuse on SBC Park Plans A Giant 802.11 Hotspot · · Score: 3, Informative

    No way in hell am I going to bring my $3,600 baby into [Shea] stadium to have the drunk guy three rows over spill beer on.

    No, that guy's in the bleachers in the Bronx. :)

    -Another Mets fan

  19. Re:Grammer tells us something.... on Novell Makes More Open Source Moves · · Score: 2, Funny

    You mean, besides that a washed-up barfly can make it as a Seattle radio host?

  20. My favorite programming joke on So You Think Physics is Funny? · · Score: 1

    How many Prolog programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
    False.

  21. Re:People aren't what you'd expect on Scamming Spammer Hooks the Wrong Person · · Score: 1

    FBI agents too open AOL accounts, which is worrying in a sense

    I would imagine that FBI agents have AOL accounts to track people who are attempting to commit computer crimes, since AOL is probably a very target-rich environment.

  22. Re:Open Source: Yes! Closed Firehouses: No! on New York City Examines Law Mandating Open Source · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...job security for Union Members trumps fire safety...

    No, job security for UFA members is fire safety. More firefighters on duty means quicker response time. Quicker response time means more lives saved.

    This isn't quantum physics. You cook a turkey at 350 degrees (Fahrenheit). Your average house fire cooks somewhere around 1200 degrees. The quicker the FD gets to that fire and gets people out, the greater the chance of survival for the occupants. The farther the firefighters have to travel to get to the fire scene -- especially in NYC traffic -- the lower the occupants' chance of survival.

    As a side note, IIRC, the city has already closed the Bronx borough fire inspector's office. This means more arsons will go undetected, because lots of evidence can be destroyed in the 20 minutes it'll take for an inspector from Manhattan to trek up there. That means higher home insurance rates for everyone, not just NYC or even NYS residents.

  23. Re:Open Source: Yes! Closed Firehouses: No! on New York City Examines Law Mandating Open Source · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But most of those firehouses just don't need to be there.

    First, that's simply not true. Fire houses, at least in NYC, tend to be spaced in such a way that minimizes response time for the whole city, not just one neighborhood, regardless of population density or income level. Traffic is still traffic. Also, if the rig in your local firehouse is out on a job, and you report a fire in your house, the engine that reports comes from the next-nearest firehouse, and the entire battalion, and eventually the entire borough, fans out to fill the gaps. Fewer fire houses farther apart breaks the whole system down, and can, in theory, lead to higher response times borough-wide.

    But besides all that, you're missing my point. This is a way to save the city a few bucks. What's better -- closed firehouses and slot machines in the city (another wonderful Bloomberg idea), or open firehouses and open source?

  24. Re:Open Source: Yes! Closed Firehouses: No! on New York City Examines Law Mandating Open Source · · Score: 1

    Is that 10 minutes by walk, car, subway or by fire truck with sirens at full blast????

    Well, the subways don't stretch out here outside the five boroughs. It's ten minutes by car -- eight if I'm driving -- and about five minutes by screaming fire engine -- three if I'm driving. :)

  25. Open Source: Yes! Closed Firehouses: No! on New York City Examines Law Mandating Open Source · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I hope this story hits the mainstream news wires soon. As a volunteer firefighter 10 minutes from the City line, it's depressing and disturbing to hear that the City's funds are so mismanaged that eight FDNY firehouses have to be closed. Maybe the UFA (the firefighters' union) should pick up on this story and run some numbers past the mayor and the council.

    Go Tony!