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User: KDan

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Comments · 1,076

  1. Re:Puh-lease... Ruby Is Redundant.(tm) on Move Over AJAX, Make Room for ARAX · · Score: 0, Troll

    I wouldn't normally bother replying to someone like you, and I realise that I'll very likely get downmodded as flamebait or something, but after an irrepressible impulse of the kind well illustrated by http://xkcd.com/386/ , I must tell you.

    You are wrong, and you are a narrow-minded cretin.

    Daniel

  2. Re:Well *I'm* ugly and stupid... on The Future of Subversion · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    In short, it makes creating branches and rebasing those branches so easily that you get a whole new verb to your version-control vocabulary. This allows a much more natural development workflow.

    The only downside, I would say, to something like git, is that if your head is empty it'll just confuse you. At the moment, Git is too flexible and powerful for bad developers. I wouldn't recommend git in your outsourcing sweat-shop in Pakistan, for instance.

    Daniel

  3. Controversial? on Darwin's Private Papers Get Released To The Internet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...when he began to formulate his controversial theory of evolution...

    Maybe it was controversial back then, but it sure as heck isn't now (not in civilised parts of the world, anyway). Should have phrased that "his then-controversial theory" - might have been a less controversial turn of phrase!

    Daniel

  4. Re:Oooh, so much karma for me to burn... on Best Presidential Candidate, Republicans · · Score: 1

    Actually, you might find that your facts are a little wrong. Paul doesn't support a constitutional ban on abortion - he supports letting each state decide what they want to do about it (i.e. lifting the federally enforced *right* to abortion). There's a pretty big difference between these. And that's true of pretty much all your other points too. Ron Paul wants to keep government interference to a minimum, basically letting each state determine its own laws more independently. That's a brilliant move, imho, one that should please you no matter where you are. After all, what is democracy about if not that? I'd go as far as suggesting that each county should be allowed to decide whether they want to allow things like abortion or gay marriage. This way, everyone is happy. Daniel

  5. Re:My experience with RoR on Rails May Not Suck · · Score: 1

    Yep, there's an article about that too on that site. It's called Premature Optimisation.

  6. Re:The only measure I know of by which Rails sucks on Rails May Not Suck · · Score: 1

    Just for the record, the author did a physics degree with no IT component (a great many years ago), and taught himself Rails in a few weeks over the summer. No formal training.

  7. Re:Submission may not suck. on Rails May Not Suck · · Score: 1

    Actually the submission had the title of the article, "Rails sucks?", which I thought was a bit more catching, but oh well.

  8. Re:The know-nothing. on The 5 Users You'd Meet in Hell · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Ok, this might sound like shameless self-promotion, but I wrote a "response" to this article on my blog. Find it here:

    http://www.inter-sections.net/2007/12/12/the-5-helpdesk-people-you-meet-in-hell

    Enjoy!

    Daniel

  9. Re:Monsanto... on The Arctic Doomsday Seed Vault · · Score: 1

    Yeah, he's right. A flying pig told me so.

    Daniel

    (FYI: Seed potatoes aren't seeds, they're still potatoes)

  10. Re:matter of time on Cell Phone Jamming on the Rise · · Score: 1

    Hey, I'd go there once - but once I realise there's no reception, that will count as a major disadvantage to that restaurant, against me going back there again. I carry a mobile phone because I want to be reachable, not because I want to carry out long conversations in the middle of dinner. Daniel

  11. Re:matter of time on Cell Phone Jamming on the Rise · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yeah, I somehow doubt restaurant owners will be particularly keen on spending large amounts of money creating a feature that most of their customers will hate, and thus driving their clients into mobile-phone-friendly restaurants.

    I use my blackberry for business as well as to keep in touch with friends. If a restaurant has bad reception, that's actually a pretty big disincentive against me going there too often.

    As for rude phone users - funny, that's not too much of a problem over here in the UK. Perhaps your issue is that you live in a country renowned for being full of inconsiderate jerks, rather than anything to do with mobile phones.

    Daniel

  12. Bah... on The Linux Identity Crisis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sounds like another storm in a tea cup. The linux world has had more flame wars than not, and will continue to do so as long as it exists. It's one of the characteristics of a democratic system that people have arguments. The "total annihilation of the linux world" is a load of incendiary exaggeration. Typical slashdot "editorialism", I guess...

    Daniel

  13. Re:Yes, it's too expensive on Google Rolls Out Online Storage Services · · Score: 1

    The crusades?..

    Daniel

  14. Re:Umm, this isn't a toy.. on How To Turn a Mini Maglite Into a Laser · · Score: 1

    And then when the police come and you give them your report you'll be arrested and put in jail for owning and operating a high-powered laser without a licence. Well done, genius.

    Daniel

  15. Dangerous on How To Turn a Mini Maglite Into a Laser · · Score: 5, Informative

    What the article doesn't, and should say:

    This is a very dangerous toy

    IT WILL BLIND YOU IMMEDIATELY IF:

    - You look at it
    - You shine it on a reflective surface that shines it back into your eye

    No joke, people. Don't try this at home. I'd actually argue that this video is irresponsible since it does not mention the dangers of the item being built at any point. It will probably be uploaded on Youtube and a lot of innocent, curious kids will end up with one fewer eye as a result of this video.

    DO NOT USE UNSAFE LASERS WITHOUT WEARING THE APPROPRIATE PROTECTIVE GEAR (special goggles can be obtained for specific wavelengths, which will ensure that you cannot see the laser - and hence it can't hurt you).

    Daniel (who was paying attention during the Physics Dept 'laser safety' lecture)

  16. Re:Don't you mean "according to the publisher"? on OpenGL SuperBible · · Score: 1

    You seem to assume that being a technical author means having no marketing skills. Actually, you'll be interested to find out that being a published author (in any subject) tends to involve plenty of marketing skills - to sell yourself, your book, its potential earnings, etc.

    Daniel

  17. Re:Very Cool on Brain/Machine Interfaces Approaching Usefulness · · Score: 1

    It's not even that cool. Binary brain interfaces are lame. They've existed for quite a while too. The point of having a brain interface is not to be able to do stuff really slowly without moving your hands. The real point is to be able to significantly increase the bandwidth of communications between you and the computer. Imagine the full duplex bandwidth between your brain and your hand. Now imagine you had that kind of bandwidth with a computer. Suddenly, we'd switch the paradigm from one where computer spend most of their time waiting for our input, back to one where we spend most of our time waiting for the computers to respond!

    Now *that* would be cool. Binary interfaces like this one, however, whilst perhaps useful for the severely handicapped, are absolutely, completely useless to the rest of us.

    Daniel

  18. Re:Oh, come on! on Why Are T1 Lines Still Expensive? · · Score: 1

    Really? I have a BT subscription for the phone, with Be for the ADSL... would love to find out how to scrap the BT monthly fee... any tips welcome!

    Daniel

  19. Re:It ain't that easy on DOJ Names Dozens of IT Vendors in Kickback Scheme · · Score: 1

    Actually, I suspect it's rather more simple and boring than that. I have worked for Accenture. This company has strategic alliances left right and centre. They give rise to various discounts. For instance, the strategic alliance with BEA allows free usage of WebLogic in development environments, to all Accenture clients (on Accenture projects).

    Now, that might be construed as a "kickback", perhaps, but it isn't much of a kickback, really. What is likely to have happened here is that either the "whistleblowers" don't quite understand what they're talking about, or someone in one of those 1000-people mega-projects that the government likes made a small mistake somewhere in the billing. Believe me, as corrupt as all those organisations are, they don't do this kind of shit intentionally - that would be just plain stupid, given the potential repercussions of getting caught doing it. And also given the paltry "kickback". $20m? Over 6 years? Oh come on, that's an infinitesimally small drop in the bucket. You're talking about a company with a $13bn yearly turnover!... Why would any partners/senior executives (the only people at the level to make this kind of decision) bother making such a dumb decision?

    Overall, I suspect this is all a load of hot air.

    Daniel

  20. Re:Unlimited? on 6G iPod & Apple's Future · · Score: 5, Funny

    You obviously have not met that common animal called the Starving Student. It lives mostly around universities and is capable of eating many stomach capacities' worth of food in a single sitting. In fact, you could say that strange beast's stomach capacity goes up as the meal price goes down.

    Daniel

  21. Re:The article sounded credible until I read. . . on Paul Graham Claims "Microsoft is Dead" · · Score: 1

    Hmm, not sure I agree. What I am noticing is that now that they have compatibility to run that last windows app that doesn't have an equivalent on the Mac, many of my friends are happily switching over to Mac. And the reason for that is definitely Mac OS X. It's also the reason I'm considering switching. Couldn't care less about the iMac, however. Even back when it came out the fact that it ran a sub-standard OS was enough of a killer to stop me from even considering using it, let alone purchasing it.

    When I look around at the "hip" tech people around (by that I mean the entrepreneurs, the Ruby programmers, the artists/designers/architects, etc most of them have Macs). Many of the not-so-hip people also have at least one mac if they can afford it, too.

    Daniel

  22. Re:Discipline on Discipline in Open Source Projects? · · Score: 2, Informative

    Look at this video: http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=-4216011961 522818645.

    It's a video of a talk given by two guys from Google who founded the Subversion project. The video is titled "How to protect your Open Source project from poisonous people".

    Daniel

  23. Re:Soul? on Should Chimps Have Human Rights? · · Score: 2, Funny

    Nonsence/Nonsense

    I can't stand it when people can't spell properly.

    Yes, the 'net is an irritating place for me.

    Daniel

  24. Re:Chimps should have the right to vote... on Should Chimps Have Human Rights? · · Score: 3, Funny

    They already do in some countries. They elected one of their own in the US, for instance.

    Daniel

  25. Re:well ... on Should Chimps Have Human Rights? · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's not an April Fool. See same story dated March 3rd:

    http://chimprescue.wordpress.com/2007/03/03/a-worl d-first-great-ape-trial-in-austria/

    Daniel