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Comment Re:Journalistic Integrity (Score 1) 320

They probably inserted the story in MySQL at the same time they inserted the reference to the parent company. There was a race condition and the reference to Dice was dropped. Shame they didn't use Postgresql, the objectIds representing the slashdot/dice relationship would never change and it would be never be lost in the name of speed.

Comment Re:Valve isn't the savior people thought they were (Score 4, Informative) 215

People hate Valve's customer service, sure, but across my 5 accounts (including my kids accounts) I have never had a reason to need support on Steam. I have bought 3 EA games in the last decade and have had to contact EA support 4 times. They were helpful each time. But which company gave me better customer service? The one that made a system where I don't need support at all, or the one that forced me to TALK ON THE PHONE like some sort of oxcart driver in order to unfuck my Sim City singleplayer online game.

Customer service scores are great and all, but if I never need support at all, that ranks much higher on my hierarchy of ratings.

Comment Re:Calculator? (Score 4, Interesting) 177

It also presupposes that languages like TI-Basic can't be used for things like functional programming, imperative programming, or even object oriented programming, they absolutely can - sort of.

TI basic has a few huge limitations, but most programming paradigms can work in even incredibly limited platforms
you can overcome limitations with any number of structures

limitation - there are only 27 variables in the namespace and they are all global.
functional programming - all of your functions have to be stateless, so those global variables don't get stomped
or
Imperative programming - globally synchronized state across all functions

limitation - almost no data structures beyond arrays and strings
Object Oriented programming - store complex data in bitmaps stored as images or math functions, wrapped in getters/setters that handle decoding/encoding

Honestly the pure, simple, highly constrained world of TI-Basic did more to help me grow as a programmer than my first 3 years of college. In college I mostly gained the vocabulary to describe the concepts I thought I invented while farting around with my TI-83 in high school math class.

Comment The corporate solution (Score 2) 95

Pretty much every company ever has already solved this problem with polycom (or similar) conferencing phones(ranging from a few hundred dollars on up)
http://www.polycom.com/product...

Also conference phone numbers like Webex at all so lots of people can call in, if you need that sort of thing.

This is not a new or unsolvable problem, this is "standard office gear" since the 1990s.

Comment Functional Shakespeare (Score 2) 411

These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triump die, like fire and powder
Which, as they kiss, consume

->
Boy meets the wrong girl, they die for love.

->
Boy, girl, dead.

->
people.forEach(die)


I mean, sure it gets the job done, but man, might as well just pay someone in India to write and read it.

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In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks) are to be treated as variables.

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