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User: idji

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  1. This could be VERY GOOD for democracy on Political Polls Become Less Reliable As We Head Into 2016 Presidential Election · · Score: 1

    If the politicians didn't actually know how people would vote, maybe they would focus on having an ideology, principles, articulating clear policies and talking with constituents.

  2. maybe... on Ask Slashdot: What's the Harm In a Default Setting For Div By Zero? · · Score: 1

    after 20 years of programming you should also be tired of checking for SQL injects, or out-of-range errors, but you had better not stop checking!

  3. You, Sir, are a fool on Ask Slashdot: What's the Harm In a Default Setting For Div By Zero? · · Score: 2

    You will have many horrible consequences.
    You have no idea what your code will produce.
    You will never know that your code actually works.
    As you spend a VAST amount of time debugging weird stuff, you will eventually realize it would be better if the program crashed when the error happened.

    Example from yesterday. A web-based graphing package had a field "Number of minor ticks per tick". I selected 0 and pressed ENTER. The webserver crashed with a division by zero error.
    If that software had FOOLISHLY decided to replace a division by zero with 0, then it would have gone into an infinite loop drawing the graph when it calculated the
    tickspacing to be zero...

    Example from today. I was configuring a call to a SOAP service, which was receiving an error from the Server "Division by Zero". It turned out that the error was that I had an HTTP header with no value.
    Division by Zero is an error TO BE IGNORED AT YOUR PERIL.
    Yes, both pieces of software had sloppy coding, but they both crashed, which helped me continue.

  4. Re:Install is not a noun on Solar Power Capacity Installs Surpass Wind and Coal For Second Year · · Score: 1

    Any noun can also be verbed or anyed.

  5. I thought EPA meant Environmental PROTECTION agency.
    Who is advocating for the Environment.
    Why aren't they saying that fracking is too dangerous because the risk of leakage over decades into groundwater is unknown?
    We are fracking today because economics/tech is making fracking cheaper AT THE MOMENT.
    What a foolish shot term monetary gain that future generations will curse us for.

  6. Re:String Theory\0 on Prospects and Limits For the LHC's Capabilities To Test String Theory · · Score: 2

    they were certainly created, but they occur amongst BILLIONS of other events. Part of the magic of the LHC is to ignore all of this and focus only on the interesting EXTREMELY RARE interactions.

  7. Re:Why GPS? on Oregon Testing Pay-Per-Mile Driving Fee To Replace Gas Tax · · Score: 1

    because they will only tax you for Oregon roads, not for roads out of state.

  8. Re:Either of the poles woulc cause this effect on The Brainteaser Elon Musk Asks New SpaceX Engineers · · Score: 1

    how do you walk south from the south pole?

  9. TARDIS! on Ask Slashdot: What's On Your Keychain? · · Score: 1

    and keys!

  10. When my daughter wants to get into my iPhone... on Swallowing Your Password · · Score: 4, Interesting

    She just grabs it from the table and slowly creeps up behind me and pushes it gently onto my thumb, and then runs away with an unlocked phone when i notice it...
    The value of a password is that it is locked away in MY BRAIN until I choose to use it. These are not passwords, and neither is the button on an iPhone.

  11. Re:What's the cost ? on NASA Teams Scientific Experts To Find Life On Exoplanets · · Score: 1

    lol. Are you suggesting the assumption that a gravity modeling software that would work the same for apples on Earth, rockets to Venus, the moons of Jupiter and rovers on Mars and the orbits of exoplanets is just so stupid beyond belief....
    Isaac Newton and every physicist in history can only mock you.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

    You can be sure that there are climatologists working hard on universal software of climate change. The more examples of planets you have to test your software the better you understand the problem.
    http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_...
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

  12. Re:What's the cost ? on NASA Teams Scientific Experts To Find Life On Exoplanets · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The study of many exoplanets will inform work here on climate. Planetary scientists have studied Mars, Venus and Jupiter's weather for many decades and you can be certain this has lead to many insights into Earth's climate.
    For example if you write 3 computer programs to predict weather and one of them works also on Mars and Venus, then you know it has a better understanding of weather.
    Just imagine when they find 100 Earthlike rocky planets orbiting at 1AU and discover what weather is like in such systems - that will massively inform earth climate http://www.space.com/2071-stor.... This makes Jupiter a test case of climate change prediction software. If the software can explain what happened on Jupiter it can inform what is happening here.
    or http://astrogeo.oxfordjournals... (cosmic rays affect climate)

  13. Re:That's the problem with such studies on Study Confirms No Link Between MMR Vaccine and Autism · · Score: 1

    NASA never landed on the moon you know!

  14. Re:Seizures? on Optical Tech Can Boost Wi-Fi Systems' Capacity With LEDs · · Score: 1

    the frequencies are so millions of times higher than what a human would notice.

  15. "succumb to the gravitational pull"??? on NASA's MESSENGER Mission To Crash Into Mercury In 2 Weeks · · Score: 2, Insightful

    When will people stop talking about gravity is it it is in a struggle with object X and eventually it wins. People constantly talk about "Black Holes" sucking in, "inevitable"....
    MESSENGER did NOT run out of fuel and SUCCUMB to the gravitation pull of Mercury. Mercury ran out of fuel and continued on it's gravitationally influenced trajectory which was chosen to crash it. they could have left it in an eternal orbit if they wanted too - and the journalist would probably say it "did not succumb" to gravity - which is equally nonsensical. Gravity did not some get the upper hand because this spacecraft ran out of fuel. That craft will always be influenced by Mercury's gravity, no matter how many fragments it smashes into, unless a fragment gets an upwards speed of more than 4.3km/s, in which case it will ESCAPE Mercury's gravity.

  16. Re:Why a one-second launch window? on SpaceX Launch Postponed · · Score: 1

    the get to ISS in hours with this window, rather than days with the window you remember.

  17. Re:Really Big Deal on SpaceX To Try a First Stage Recovery Again On April 13 · · Score: 2

    I don't believe this one will fly again. If they land successfully, I am sure they would dismantle it to pieces to discover any fatigue points. NASA probably wouldn't let them fly it again without proving it's integrity.

  18. Re:3D Printing, still not very useful on Smartphone-Enabled Replicators Are 3-5 Years Away, Caltech Professor Says · · Score: 1
  19. Pi on Getting Started Developing With OpenStreetMap Data · · Score: 1

    I was doing some development with OSM and was using my own formulae to convert from latitude/longitude to OSM tile coordinates. I spent days getting the wrong results until I realised the problem was pi. i had been using pi=3.1415926535. It turns out that that is not GOOD enough to zoom into house level. I added 5 extra 5 or so digits of PI and then all my tiles were correct to the house level. I was awed that for a simple, practical task i needed 15 digits of pi!

  20. Re:We got it... on Scientists Discover Meaning of Life Through Massive Computing Project · · Score: 1

    Slashdot just trolled you all. Actually they are all lame today, but at least i laughed at how lame this was, and how trolled you were!

  21. Re:No they don't on Chinese Scientists Plan Solar Power Station In Space · · Score: 1

    where have all the shark comments gone?

  22. Re: At this point Mars is running before you can w on Kim Stanley Robinson Says Colonizing Mars Won't Be As Easy As He Thought · · Score: 1

    because on Mars you may have reasonable gravity to live out your life without muscle waste. On the moon you do not.

  23. Re:There is science here on Rosetta Photographs Its Own Shadow On Comet 67P/C-G · · Score: 1

    it's also a highly reflective photo, add immeasurably to the scientific value as the sun is DIRECTLY overhead.

  24. Re:Metals on Astronomers Find an Old-Looking Galaxy In the Early Universe · · Score: 1

    yes, very confusing, because astronomers then also call iron a "heavy metal". Not the best when they are trying to communicate this to the general public..

  25. Re:Sad For My Gender on Two New Male Birth Control Chemicals In Advanced Stages · · Score: 1

    I am the father of 3 beautiful daughters from my wonderful wife, and I see it as my responsibility to manage birth control. I don't like my wife using the pill as it effects her emotionally and physically too much each cycle - she hasn't touched the pill in 14 years. And she loves it that I take initiative here.
    I am not sad for my gender, i am just sad for women who never meet a man who would respect her.