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User: Nethemas+the+Great

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  1. Re:I disagree on Math, Programming, and Language Learning · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Proficiency in mathematics for the most part has little to do with being able to learn a programming language. This much I agree with. However, proficiency in mathematics does provide a strong indicator as to what you will be capable of doing with those languages. You may not be performing Calculus or manipulating matrices in the software that you write but the skills that provide an aptitude for performing such math are very much relatable to software development. Such skills include, abstraction, visualization, and logic to name a few.

  2. Re:Could it be Micro$oft ... on Australian Electoral Commission Refuses To Release Vote Counting Source Code · · Score: 1

    I'd be more uncomfortable with the lack of authority chain from my vote to the vote tally. The absence of this clear chain opens the system to fraud. The electronic version of ballot stuffing.

  3. Re:So what? they can be tapped to. on German NSA Committee May Turn To Typewriters To Stop Leaks · · Score: 1

    I don't see how it's that hard. Call it a hunch but, I doubt that these typewriters will be clacking away in even close to 100% sterile, 100% impermeable environments. Even if the room itself had a zero electronics ban, both sound and light are transmissible through walls where they can be intercepted.

  4. Re:I'm sorry but... on Homestar Runner To Return Soon · · Score: 1

    There's five minutes I'll never get back...

  5. I'm sorry but... on Homestar Runner To Return Soon · · Score: 1, Troll

    what the hell is a Homestar Runner?

  6. Re:Betteridge wins again on Does Google Have Too Much Influence Over K-12 CS Education? · · Score: 1

    It seems difficult to me to develop intellectual and cognitive capacities absent the opportunity to practice and thus develop and hone those abilities. How does one learn to analyze if there is nothing to perform analysis on? How does one learn to reason absent the formulae requiring it? How does one develop aspirations if never shown anything inspiring?

  7. Re:Meanwhile... on US Tech Firms Recruiting High Schoolers (And Younger) · · Score: 1

    A mechanic whose spent his life working on cars from the 1960's and 70's never bothering to retrain, will be hopelessly lost under the hood of the modern car. Certain things are familiar, certain principles remain the same but at the same time too much has changed for the mechanic to perform all but the most basic of tasks successfully. If a person wants to make a long term career out of software development, they absolutely have to maintain a practice of continual learning.

  8. Re:Yes on US Tech Firms Recruiting High Schoolers (And Younger) · · Score: 1

    Little is black and white. Most common, is a spectrum of gray. But since the discussion was simplified binary to terms of good job vs. bad job, so too I simplified my answer to good employee vs worthless employee. You can complicate it if you want but the principle still carries most of the weight. If your skills are as common as dust, or as needed as a heat lamp in the Sahara at mid-day you will not be a good employee, you should not expect a good job.

  9. Re:Cry Me A River on Normal Humans Effectively Excluded From Developing Software · · Score: 1

    Mundanes don't get to join all the clubs, but then in a similar fashion most geeks would make a piss poor brick layer. I'm sorry but that's reality. His whining rant however, doesn't understand the reality that even within software development there actually is a broad spectrum of ability. You have a range of people from the Donald Knuths to the lowly monkey bashing on the keyboard producing bottom tier web sites and Excel spreadsheets.

    The requirements of front end development for sophisticated web applications I will agree is completely unnecessary bullsh*t. The ironic part of that however is that the cause much of it stems from the original goals of making it easier for mundanes to put together web sites. Regardless that's not the only game in town, and there are plenty of areas for the not so "elite" to develop for.

  10. Re:Meanwhile... on US Tech Firms Recruiting High Schoolers (And Younger) · · Score: 1

    The biggest issue with these 30-somethings isn't what they "used to do" it's what they can do right here, right now. The "kids" get the jobs not because they have lots of experience, but because they cost less to employ making it financially reasonable to train them. Many 30-somethings expect high compensation but never bothered to keep themselves relevant and thus are uneconomic to train by prospective employers.

  11. Re:Yes on US Tech Firms Recruiting High Schoolers (And Younger) · · Score: 1

    Good jobs are available to those that can offer themselves as good employees. You're not owed good job you merit one.

  12. Re:Employers used to train people now they want sc on US Tech Firms Recruiting High Schoolers (And Younger) · · Score: 1

    I do not call effective communication (language skills), logic and deductive reasoning, civics, history (theory and application, not fact memorization), etc. a matter for employers, trade schools or universities. I call them necessary, foundational skills and knowledge that should be developed in every child regardless of future vocation. I consider the abject failure of most public schools systems to do so criminal.

  13. Re:Once upon a time in America... on US Tech Firms Recruiting High Schoolers (And Younger) · · Score: 1

    If accurate data can be obtained through once or twice yearly testing great. The huge problem I see though isn't so much the frequency but the simple fact that each little fiefdom has their own version of test. I fully believe that they do it on purpose so that I cannot compare my child's progress with other states, or god forbid, other countries. It is complete bullsh*t that appears to me to be meant to protect incompetent school systems. The means by how said school systems came to be incompetent is it's own matter and discussion. Right now however, it is really hard to hold anyone's feet to the fire because their little substantiating proof, only anecdote.

  14. Re:I can feel it now on Does Google Have Too Much Influence Over K-12 CS Education? · · Score: 1

    When bouncing orange balls and body slamming people to take possession of brown eggs stops taking precedence over math, science, history, civics, etc. then I'll be happy to consider whether courses intended to develop effective communication skills should be put on the block.

  15. Re:It's time on Does Google Have Too Much Influence Over K-12 CS Education? · · Score: 1

    Actually, no that's not how it works in most places. There have been some efforts, but very few success in establishing "voucher" type programs whereby public money follows the child to wherever they attend. In most cases the money just doesn't get paid out since it can only go to the public school and the head count is one fewer. In nearly all states, the private school is funded just the same as a private college, by means of tuition and endowments.

  16. Re:Betteridge wins again on Does Google Have Too Much Influence Over K-12 CS Education? · · Score: 1

    I fail to see how corporations--for whom these kids will be working--are doing evil by grooming children for the jobs they have need to be filled. Is not one of the primary purposes of schooling to produce talent for the job market? A very common story told by American business is the lack of local talent to take on the jobs they need filled. At the same time people are complaining because they can't find jobs. The US educational system can't seem move away from their long established history of grooming kids for brain dead manufacturing jobs. All I see are the teachers unions running scared because their comfortable little fiefdoms are being shaken up by actors they weren't prepared to stymie.

  17. Who cares? on 30% of Americans Aren't Ready For the Next Generation of Technology · · Score: 2

    The majority of that 30% of Americans will either be dead soon, or from a social-economic background in far greater need of being addressed than their lack of technological savvy.

  18. Re:10000 PSI Bomb on Toyota's Fuel Cell Car To Launch In Japan Next March · · Score: 1

    This has nothing to do with the flammability of hydrogen nor the energy released through its combustion. At 10000 PSI even a minor structural weakness will rip the tank apart sending a shrapnel ladened shock wave ripping through anything near it. This isn't a 150 PSI air compressor tank we're talking about, you will be carrying the equivalent of nearly a kilo of TNT under your arse.

  19. Re:10000 PSI Bomb on Toyota's Fuel Cell Car To Launch In Japan Next March · · Score: 1

    There are distinctly different failure modes between those energy containers. I think I'd go for the battery's failure mode any day over the other two. Between those, I think it's a bit of a toss up. Given though that I suspect you'd be more likely to have prolonged suffering with the petrol I'd probably favor the hydrogen bomb for its immediacy.

  20. Re:Imminent Threat on Supreme Court Rules Cell Phones Can't Be Searched Without a Warrant · · Score: 1

    except perhaps temporarily.

    Which is precisely the point. When you're on the receiving end of extrajudicial treatment, I'm sure you'll find great comfort in "stare decisis".

  21. 10000 PSI Bomb on Toyota's Fuel Cell Car To Launch In Japan Next March · · Score: 0

    Just what I want, twin 10000 PSI bombs waiting underneath me for just the right fender bender.

  22. Re:What makes it so expensive?? on Toyota's Fuel Cell Car To Launch In Japan Next March · · Score: 1

    The fuel cell, and in specific the requisite platinum catalyst, also economies of scale (or rather lack there of).

  23. Five times? on Toyota's Fuel Cell Car To Launch In Japan Next March · · Score: 1

    When did HFC cars start getting a range of 1000+ miles? Certainly not Toyota's. Did the petrol-heads re-entrench with the HFCs now?

  24. Re:Well, this won't backfire! on Wikipedia Editors Hit With $10 Million Defamation Suit · · Score: 1
    *shrug* Wikipedia seems to balance things out...

    Barry is the CEO of VitaPro Foods Inc. It sells textured vegetable protein soy-based meat substitutes, primarily to prisons and other institutional feeding operations.[3] According to an investigative report by the Montreal Gazette from October 1998, Global Village Market (GVM) was a venture owned by Barry through which he sold VitaPro.[5] The company’s motto was “doing well by doing good”.[5] According to a report by UPI, GVM’s shares were listed on the World Investors' Stock Exchange, which was part of an investment fraud carried out by the Caribbean-based First International Bank of Grenada.[13] Barry developed VitaPro in 1989 or 1990.[1][14] It was originally a South African venture.[3] According to the VitaPro website, the company now operates from Belize and Bulgaria.[15] When asked about VitaPro earnings, Barry said: “My company is terribly private in a bunch of countries. I’m a resident of the Bahamas. I don’t pay tax. I’m not American. Let’s say we do over a billion dollars in business. How much I earn is up to me. I give it to kids. I made a deal with God that whatever I save in tax, I give to kids.”[16] Barry also owns another venture called ProPectin, a Bulgarian company he purchased in 2009 that manufactures a pharmaceutical-grade apple pectin, which Barry credits for having cured his Type II diabetes.[3]

    In 1982, Barry was convicted of extortion from and conspiracy against John Royden McConnell, and served 10 months of a 6-year prison term.[4][23] In a 1982 civil case, a separate court ruled that Barry had extorted money from McConnell in record company dealings, requiring a financial award of C$285,000.[10] In 1987 he declared bankruptcy, voiding the award.[24][1] Barry said in an October 2013 Larry King interview that he had been a cocaine-addicted, twenty-something rocker at the time and credited the extortion conviction for changing his personal life.[25] In 1998, Barry was indicted on corruption charges related to a VitaPro contract worth US$34 million with the Texas prisons.[26][27] In 1999, the Texas Supreme Court ruled the VitaPro contract with the Texas prisons was invalid.[28] After a trial in 2001, he was initially declared guilty, but the verdict was thrown out by U.S district court judge and a new trial was ordered in 2007.[26] He was then acquitted in 2008 after a bench retrial.[26] Barry said the charges were politically motivated.[24][27] In 2014, Barry sued four Wikipedia editors for defamation for their edits to this page.[29]

  25. Re:Finally a small step back towards sanity on Supreme Court Rules Cell Phones Can't Be Searched Without a Warrant · · Score: 1

    If whitewash is a sanity measure, then sure, sanity wins the day.