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User: roguegramma

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  1. Found some bugs on Documentation As a Bug-Finding Tool · · Score: 1

    I found some bugs documenting my own code lately, but I think that only works if you write the documentation a month or so after you wrote the code.

  2. Actually what you said means the opposite on Activision Blizzard Sued For Patent Infringement Over WoW, CoD · · Score: 1

    If they had a 3D chat client and game in 1995, which contains portions of the patent (which was filed in 1999),
    they essentially made their own prior art.

    IANAL either, but AFAIK you had 1 year in the US during which you could file a patent after its technology went public, and in Europe you had to file the patent before you made you technology public.

  3. Bounds for events that didn't happen yet on World Is Ignoring Most Important Lesson From Fukushima · · Score: 1

    There is some logic about reasoning about low-probability events here:

    http://web.archive.org/web/20110712221603/http://thedeadobserver.hostwebs.com/

  4. emacs is the dwarf fortress of editors on Munich Has Saved €4M So Far After Switch To Linux · · Score: 1

    cool if you know the hotkeys, useless otherwise

  5. Two answers .. on Rybka Solves the King's Gambit Chess Opening · · Score: 1

    No, if you move the horse, black can win.

    However, to make it fair, black shouldn't move the horsie either ..

  6. I had this problem too on Linux 3.3: Making a Dent In Bufferbloat? · · Score: 1

    Then I discovered it was mostly firebug with the network log turned on that ate the memory with every ajax request made by setInterval.

  7. reminds me of battlecruiser 3000AD on Notch Wants To Make a Firefly-Inspired Sandbox Space Game · · Score: 2
  8. Priests get all the .. on Profile of a Real-Life Jedi Academy · · Score: 1

    Oh well, forget it ..

  9. She's your sister .. on Profile of a Real-Life Jedi Academy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well, because of that.

  10. I failed 75% of my last 4 captcha's on Video Captchas are Hard for Computers to Understand but Easy for Humans (Video) · · Score: 1

    Don't think it will get any better with video ..

  11. Not the only fault - Binary voting on Scientists Say People Aren't Smart Enough For Democracy To Flourish · · Score: 1

    In the end, you get a choice between two candidates, while you may hold a variety of opinions on 20 subjects.

    Also, after elections, the electee usually backpedals when he has to conduct actual business (as usual).

  12. If you do this for a million generations .. on Growth of Pseudoscience Harming Australian Universities · · Score: 1

    .. it might actually work.

  13. f(x)['x'] = error on Khan Academy Chooses JavaScript As Intro Language · · Score: 1

    For function f(x){ return array('x'=>$x); }

    You can't even do the above in PHP because it was developed to make parsing easy (see $), not coding.

    I guess the validity of $x='x';$$$$$$$$$$$$$x; makes up for that ;-)

    It is also lacking a means to list variables in your scope, I think.

  14. If you steal money that has been stolen .. on Nigerian Scam Artists Taken For $33,000 · · Score: 4, Informative

    .. you end up in jail and the money isn't yours either.

  15. Cure worse than disease? on Deadly H5N1 Flu Studies To Stay Secret... For Now · · Score: 1

    Reading the DRACO description on Wikipedia, I cannot tell whether the cure is worse than the disease.

    The only part in the Wikipedia article I liked was the cleavage.

  16. This is not about semantics on Former Goldman Programmer's Conviction Overturned · · Score: 1

    That is, the previous post does not say that people putting money into the stock market are not investors but instead, speculators, because they are bad people or something.

    The reason for the difference is that most of the shares traded are not issued as new stock by any company.

    This means that when you buy the stock, you put money into the hands of another investor, not into the hands of the company.

    Of course a company that is willing to issue new shares will profit from a good history, but since issuing new shares dilutes the share of the investors in the company, this is rarely done and usually only when the outlook for the company is bleak.

    You can of course argue that the existence of the market helps the REAL investors who found new companies, but this does not invalidate the argument:

    Next time you buy a share of a "old" company, don't think that you just helped that company.

  17. Yea, but look at how FAST it does that! on A Look At Microsoft's 'Mini Internet' For Testing IE · · Score: 1

    By the way, does the current IE still assume a fixed width per letter when rendering buttons, so that buttons-with-very-long-texts-on-them render with extra space to the left and right?

  18. Tell that to astronauts on Doctors "Fire" Vaccine Refusers · · Score: 1

    Tell that joke to astronauts dispersing anti-shark dye in water, they might find it decidedly not funny.

    http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?1365-Some-new-Pararescue-photos/page26#378

    http://yuckylicious.blogspot.com/2011/11/moonpie.html

  19. Sounds interesting on Major Bitcoin Exchange Ceases Operation · · Score: 1

    Sounds interesting, but I don't find anything about it on the wikipedia pages related to Dwolla and Bitcoin that I googled for.

  20. Chinese medicine on Doctors "Fire" Vaccine Refusers · · Score: 1

    It has been said, that once upon a time in China, you paid the doctor when he kept you healthy, not when you fell ill.

    It might make sense to expel people from your practice in that setting.

  21. The roman empire has never ended on Europe's 'Right To Be Forgotten' Threatens Online Free Speech · · Score: 1

    -pkd

  22. X, but with computers/internet/iWindows/databases on A Defense of Process Patents · · Score: 1

    I'm particularly upset about the rise of "X, but with computers/internet/iWindows" patents.

    Clearly, if something is done on paper, it is possible to do the same digitally, where is the innovation in implementing it?

  23. Options and population on US Approves Two New Nuclear Reactors · · Score: 2

    Basically, Germany considered only two options:
    - close all nuclear plants down as fast as possible
    or
    - keep all old nuclear plants running for as long as possible

    Trying out completely new designs was not considered, especially since new experimental designs showed problems.

    Also consider that Germany is densely populated compared to the USA, and not very large either. A nuclear accident would be a severe blow to Germany, as well as a failure to properly store nuclear waste.

  24. On the other hand .. on IBM Seeks Patent On Judging Programmers By Commits · · Score: 1

    .. many tiny changes in many files indicates that concerns have been incorrectly separated in the pre-existing code, which might have been written by the same developer.

  25. IBM, Outsourcing and auto judging of code quality on IBM Seeks Patent On Judging Programmers By Commits · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Considering that IBM has initiated a global outsourcing program, starting in Germany, it is easy to see how automated judging of code quality can go wrong:

    Outsourced coders tend to code much more to spec, not using their brain and being sensible, and if automated judging of code quality results in an increase of payments, they will add 10 lines of comments to a x+=1 if the automated judgement likes that.

    In addition, when I'm finished finding some bug, very often the resulting code will be shorter than the offending code. This is consistent with the true and tried concept that lines of code are proportional to the number of bugs. I wonder whether automated analysis is smart enough to detect such activity.