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User: Arawak

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Comments · 13

  1. Re:No on Should the Next 'Doctor Who' Be a Woman? · · Score: 1

    Damned right I'd watch that. "Snakes on a TARDIS".

  2. Focus on the significant on Ask Slashdot: How To Handle a Colleague's Sloppy Work? · · Score: 1

    ...and not the trivial.

    Presumably you are developing something to make money. You need to learn where the balance between purity and practicality lies. In the real world there are always tradeoffs and experience helps you learn which which ones to make.

    My guess is that your senior co-worker is probably closer to the correct balance than you are.

  3. Overpopulation is the problem on Scientists Work To Grow Meat In a Lab · · Score: 1

    "It's a product he believes could help solve future global food crises resulting from shrinking amounts of land available"

    Hello? Time to wake up and face the real problem... we have waaaaay too many people. Pretty much every problem we face as a species has its roots in overpopulation. Humans are not nearly cool enough that we need 6 billion of them. Probably a couple hundred million is plenty.

    We better do something about the problem, before the problem takes care of itself in the form of pandemics, famine, etc.

  4. Relational DB limitation or app design limitation? on Horizontal Scaling of SQL Databases? · · Score: 1

    Are you sure you are hitting a limitation of the RDBMS or a limitation in the way your services are built? I'm just a little skeptical that a SaaS startup is already hitting limits with what you "can do with relational databases". How many hundred terabytes are you talking about here?

    Usually when I hear this I see a PHP application which hits the database synchronously for every request. Or worse, a Java/Python/Ruby/.NET/whatever application built like it was a PHP app.

  5. It's not just spelling on Why Are Indian Kids So Good At Spelling? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Educated Indian immigrants are generally much better at English than educated North Americans.... probably becuase they actually learn the language in school, including the grammar. Also, almost all Indian post-secondary education is done in English. It doesn't surprise me that they insist that their kids speak - pronunciation aside - and write English to the same standard they do.

    It is pitiful how many North Americans (Americans and Anglo Canadians, that is) have a degree but cannot write or speak their language to a standard that would pass overseas English language competency tests.

  6. Math is boring on Math Skills For Programmers — Necessary Or Not? · · Score: 1

    "Skorks contends that if you want to do truly interesting work in the software development field, math skills are essential"

    "Interesting" is very subjective. I contend that truly interesting work in the software development field requires as few math skills as possible. Frankly, math isn't all that interesting to me.

  7. Re:Electricity + Water on Crunching the Numbers on a Hydrogen Economy · · Score: 1

    Maybe I'm taking you too literally here, but remember that no fuel cell system aimed at the mass market take pure hydrogen as an input, mainly because of it's inherent danger (think Hindenburg).

    IIRC, the Ballard fuel cells take low pressure hydrogen gas as a fuel source. Dunno that hydrogen gas is really any more dangerous than gasoline, or natural gas.

  8. Re:In what currency, though? on AOL Canada To Offer VoIP · · Score: 1

    Er... Canadian dollars, duh...

    Did you think that Canadian companies bill their customers in foreign currencies? Do you figure that Canadian newspapers quote US dollars in their Canadian stories?

    Arawak

  9. Sucks even more to be stupid, even on the Internet on Cyberlibel Damages Awarded In Canada · · Score: 2, Informative

    Please, cry me a river. According to what was reported, the guy ran a scam with the intended effect of ruining someone's career -- surely easily equivalent to $150k in real damages -- and we are supposed to somehow feel that it is and injustice when he gets punished in kind?

    BTW, someone who had $150k in clear assets was not *that* poor. NOW, he's poor.

  10. Re:I am wondering... on Missing Kernel Patches · · Score: 1

    The article was written by Dan Robbins, who is the head honcho for Gentoo Linux.

    And he certainly does have a clue.

  11. Re:maildir on What Mailbox Format Do You Use And Why? · · Score: 1

    Yeha, but those of us who use OpenBSD should all be used to rants anyway... Arawak

  12. Duh. on ZDNet Admits Mistakes in Recent SecurityTest · · Score: 1
    Duh. Maybe you have to apply 21 patches to the Linux box in question, but I'll bet you have to reboot the NT box almost 21 times in getting its service packs applied. In the Microsoft shop where I work we dread the work in taking a stock NT install to a point where it can be used.

    Remember to that almost any NT server expected to actually _do_ something has the endless litany of Msg Queue, IIS, SQL Server, etc, ad naseum (you know - all the functionality that come standard in a Red Hat install) which must be patched, rebooted, and prayed over. We're talking a couple hours sometimes. Arawak

  13. Paris Meridian hundreds of years old on French revolt against Prime Meridian-Sort Of · · Score: 1

    I have read in several books unrelated to the specific subject of geography about the Paris meridian. This is nothing new, just a resurgence.

    Arawak