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User: MAXOMENOS

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  1. Editorial/stats geekiness on LHCb Confirms Existence of Exotic Hadrons · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Belle later confirmed the existence of the Z(4430) with a significance of 5.2 sigma on the scale that particle physicists use to describe the certainty of a result.

    I believe that "scale" is called the normal distribution; that is to say, the odds of getting that result as a fluke are the same as finding a point 5.2 standard deviations away from the mean of the normal curve. If so, everything in that sentence after "5.2 sigma" can be left out.

  2. Re:Already gone to Linux Mint Cinnamon... on Slashdot Asks: Will You Need the Windows XP Black Market? · · Score: 1

    With all due respect, "looks and feels like XP" only gets you so far. If you're a home user, that's fine as long as you don't want to play PC games, or use most Windows software like Quickbooks. If you're an office user, that's fine as long as you don't need to continue to run Visual Basic 6 (yes, really) for critical business applications.

    Where I work, we need to run legacy apps for the foreseeable future. So we're migrating, somewhat painfully, to Windows 7. Sure, there's plenty of Linux that can do 90% of what we need to do. That last 10% is a bitch.

  3. Re:And so this is Costco's fault? on Million Jars of Peanut Butter Dumped In New Mexico Landfill · · Score: 4, Informative

    I actually agree with the parent. Every single jar of peanut butter is a lawsuit waiting to happen, even if they give it away. Even if it's tested safe, Costco still assumes partial liability by handing that peanut butter over to the public. You could repurpose the lot into fertilizer or compost, but it's cheaper to bury the lot.

  4. It appears there's no additional sales tax. on Elon Musk Addresses New Jersey's Tesla Store Ban · · Score: 4, Informative

    According to the New Jersey MVC (PDF), if you purchased a vehicle in another state and paid sales tax on the vehicle, you provide MVC with the receipt. If you paid 7% or more sales tax in the other state, you pay no sales tax to New Jersey. If you paid less than 7%, you pay the difference to New Jersey. In practical terms, if the purchaser buys in the states neighboring New Jersey, there is no additional cost — New York State sales tax is 4%, Pennsylvania sales tax is 6%.

    For example: Alice, who lives in Atlantic City, buys a Tesla in middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania (6% rate) for $60,000. Alice pays Pennsylvania sales tax on that vehicle in the amount of $3600. If she had purchased the vehicle in New Jersey, she would have to pay $4200 in sales tax. So when registers her vehicle with the MVC, she'll owe the difference ($600), plus title fee ($60) and registration fee ($59 assuming it weighs under 3,500 pounds, see here), and possibly, if Christie is really an a-hole, a 0.4% Luxury Surcharge ($240). Keep in mind, if she purchased the vehicle in New Jersey, she'd pay the same sales tax, but all of it would go to New Jersey. If she purchased the vehicle in New York (4% sales tax), she would pay $2400 in tax to New York and $1800 in tax to New Jersey.

    But, I could be missing something. If so, please let me know.

  5. .300 Blackout? .458 SOCOM? on Interviews: ESR Answers Your Questions · · Score: 1

    Not all AR-15s are in 5.56 or .223, you know.

  6. More on systemd... on Debian Technical Committee Votes For Systemd Over Upstart · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...here.

  7. Host a Kickstarter on OpenBSD Looking At Funding Shortfall In 2014 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Theo et. al. might turn up their noses at the idea, but a $40,000 kickstarter to keep OpenBSD going might not be a bad idea.

    Rewards might include: kudos for contributions, limited edition (kickstarter only) t-shirts/posters/soundtracks, CD sets (duh), and for big contributors ($2500-$5000) a customized VDD set up for whatever purposes you want, yours to keep or share as you like.

  8. Re:What is the added value over Python? on GNU Octave Gets a GUI · · Score: 1

    Or, you have to refactor the function from scratch, which takes some understanding of linear algebra.

  9. The point of most Open Source... on GNU Octave Gets a GUI · · Score: 2

    ...is to keep vendors of commercial, closed-source software honest. Do you think Microsoft IIS would be half as good as it is if Apache and nginx weren't perfectly capable of doing the same job, for free and with the source code open to anyone? Come on. Octave will hopefully do the same for MATLAB.

  10. Frankly on Chicago Public Schools Promoting Computer Science to Core Subject · · Score: 1

    It's not racist to point out that Chicago Public Schools have been doing a piss-poor job of teaching anyone who doesn't get into an IB/magnet program. In fact, social justice requires working on this very problem.

  11. Re:Fireworks in 3...2...1... on Satanists Propose Monument At Oklahoma State Capitol Next To Ten Commandments · · Score: 1

    Well, that's the problem. "Normal Circumstances" is vague.

    I get that we as a culture have embraced Paul's hard-on for the Roman tradition of one man marrying one woman for life as a representation of Jesus's relationship to the Church, and that a lot of resistance against gay marriage comes from that. I just wish that people would be more up-front about their theological motives, rather than waving their hands or making things up.

  12. My brother.... on Officials Say HealthCare.gov Site Now Performing Well · · Score: 1

    ....used Healthcare.gov from Illinois and he reported that his experience was quick and painless.

  13. Start by asking for more specific feedback on Ask Slashdot: Communication Skills For Programmers? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You've been told that your communication skills need some work. Part of communicating is asking for, and learning how to receive, feedback. So, I'd suggest the following:

    • Go to the people who gave you the advice to improve your communications skills
    • Ask them if they can point to specific areas where your communication needs work, and to provide examples
    • Listen to what they say. Take notes - just bullet points - of the important stuff. Sub-bullet the examples, if provided.
    • When they're done giving you specifics, ask them if they might have pointers on where to learn more about improving those areas.
    • Dedicate real time - an hour a week at least - towards improving those areas.
    • Practice, practice, practice, every opportunity you get.

    DO NOT:

    • Get defensive
    • Retaliate
    • Brush off their advice

    Good luck.

  14. This sounds like a really bad idea on Elementary School Bans Students From Touching Each Other · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Are they trying to create an entire class of socially maladjusted kids? Because that sounds like exactly what they're doing. It's not like you can easily learn the subtleties of touch later on in life. Even a year gap can get you labeled a creep and carry nasty, debilitating consequences for decades.

  15. Re:Not to worry... on Obamacare Software Glitch Will Limit Penalties Charged To Smokers · · Score: 1

    Considering that two of these delays have an ETA of 2015, almost all of the rest of the law is expected to come online in 2014, and the next President isn't sworn in until January 2017, I'd say that's some tall wishing.

  16. A year? on Obamacare Software Glitch Will Limit Penalties Charged To Smokers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm hoping that this is because there's too many other things in the pipeline that are more critical to get done first, and not because, say, the system is so badly written that this one relatively minor looking task will take a year.....

    If it's the latter, then I'm in the wrong business.

  17. Re:Idiots on Silicon Valley In 2013 Resembles Logan's Run In 2274 · · Score: 1

    Do you have hard data to back up that distribution?

  18. Re:Ok, lets talk about what Silicon Valley REALLY on Silicon Valley In 2013 Resembles Logan's Run In 2274 · · Score: 2

    Now please tell us what you think about PERL. I'd really like to know.

    This. CGI and Mason had its uses but sweet Jesus am I glad not to have any of that code running our web systems.

  19. Re:OMG, no please god no unions in Tech on BART Strike Provides Stark Contrast To Tech's Non-Union World · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, I'm a sysadmin in a union shop. The upside to being in a union is that it's harder to get fired for speaking out when management is doing something stupid. The downside is that people get complacent about their jobs. For example, when management wanted our VB programmers to learn VB.NET because we're phasing out VB6, they all said "no." In practical terms, that means that management is either going to have to find something else for them to do (such as application administration) or figure out how to let them go (which is going to be very painful indeed, for everyone).

  20. Interesting word, "probe." on Officials Say NSA Probed Fewer Than 300 Numbers - Broke Plots In 20 Nations · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They claim to have a list of millions of phone numbers, against which they only checked 300 numbers last year.

    I want to know what criteria they used to generate that list of millions of phone numbers.

    More precisely, I want to know what criteria they used to build the training data sets to train the classifiers that filtered through all our communications metadata (and probably our communications content data as well) in order to generate that list.

    What are they looking for? How do they say that a phone call goes into the training set or stays out? That's what I want to know; not the details of Snowden's sex life or whatever the media are pushing now.

  21. Re:Reformat, Reformat, Reformat on Ask Slashdot: How To Start Reading Other's Code? · · Score: 1

    This is good advice. I've gotten to know the guts of some massive core systems mostly by cleaning up code, making minor bug fixes, and adding a new feature (10 digit SSNs instead of nine).

    Openhatch is a great place to get started....

  22. This is a stupid move. on PayPal Denies Teen Reward For Finding Bug · · Score: 2

    The next time a teenager finds an exploit in PayPal, what are the odds they're going to report it, and not exploit it? After this dick move, the report odds go down and the exploit odds go up. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  23. How to restore your three- and four-day weekends on How the Smartphone Killed the Three-day Weekend · · Score: 1
    1. Turn off your work phone
    2. Remove battery
    3. Put both in safe
  24. Re:Did Google ever fix Drive's date problem? on Google Code Deprecates Download Service For Project Hosting · · Score: 1

    So, I just downloaded some class notes from Google Drive as MS Word documents, and the dates look correct. I think the answer is yes, they did fix the bug. I did this on Windows 7.

  25. Meanwhile, SourceForge reaches out to developers on Google Code Deprecates Download Service For Project Hosting · · Score: 5, Informative

    Quoting the comments:

    Roberto Galoppini May 23, 2013 at 12:40 PM

    SourceForge welcomes Google Code open source developers, to distribute downloads from our open source platform.

    We serve over 150 Million+ downloads each month, reaching 42 Million+ unique visitors. We help tiny projects as well as whales like Apache OpenOffice to distribute their downloads via our worldwide mirror network.

    By distributing your releases at SourceForge you’ll get a complete download analytics, and the opportunity to tap into a large open source community. We already serve other ecosystems by offering their hosted projects our download facilities, including Githubbers.

    As a trusted partner for open source we're glad to help. https://sourceforge.net/publish/?source=googlecode

    [Disclosure: I work for SourceForge]

    Setup looks pretty simple; but, since I don't have code in Google Code, I can't put it to the test. Can anyone attest to how well this works?