ixl - Slashdot User

OpenBSD 4.7 Preorders Are Up 191

Posted by timothy on Saturday March 13, 2010 @09:07PM from the so-you're-in-favor-then? dept.

badger.foo writes "The OpenBSD 4.7 pre-orders are up. That means the release is done, sent off to CD production, and snapshots will turn -current again. Order now and you more likely than not will have your CD set, T-shirt or other cool stuff before the official release date. You get the chance to support the most important free software project on the planet, and get your hands on some cool playables and wearables early. The release page is still being filled in, but the changelog has detailed information about the goodies in this release."

Comment Test Driven Development (Score 1) 477

by ixl on Sunday December 06, 2009 @01:05PM (#30343946) Attached to: Defining Useful Coding Practices?

TDD, TDD, and more TDD. If it's too clever to maintain, than it's not testable. When done properly, test driven development functions very well as a guard against that sort of thing. The converse is also true, by the way. If something is very clever, but written in a testable way, than it's likely to be maintainable and easy to read. Even if it's not easy to read, the tests allow it to be refactored into an easy to read form without breaking anything.

Comment Re:Caterpillar 789 (Score 1) 4

by ixl on Thursday May 21, 2009 @11:17AM (#28040211) Attached to: Stunt Driving Mining Truck

How much do they sell for after you roll them over? I'd hate to have to make up the difference out of my own pocket.

Comment Re:economics and variability (Score 5, Insightful) 210

by ixl on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @11:15AM (#27570943) Attached to: Computer-Controlled Cargo Sailing Vessels Go Slow, Frugal

Dependable schedules are one reason, the other big reason is that sails interfere with loading and unloading the boat.

Modern shipping extensively uses cargo containers that are rapidly loaded and unloaded using cranes. This advance has drastically lowered the per-unit costs of shipping freight in the last half-century (check out the book "The Box" for more details).

If adding sails makes it difficult to use a crane to unload containers from the deck of a boat (likely, imo), then it would make the per-unit cost of shipping skyrocket.

Submission + - Honda Insight Battery Packs Still Going (freep.com)

Submitted by

MBCook

on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @08:16PM

MBCook writes: "The Detroit Free Press is running a piece about the 8th anniversary of the US release of the Honda Insight. Honda rated the battery pack to last 8-10 years, a number that we have now reached. Many people were worried that the battery packs, which cost $3000 to replace, wouldn't last very long. "Hybrids also held up well in J.D. Power and Associates' three-year durability survey, with about 10% fewer problems than gasoline-engine cars, said Joe Ivers, Power's executive director of quality and customer satisfaction." However, the cars have lost 6% more of their value than a comparable Civic."

Submission + - Pluto Probe Makes Discoveries at Jupiter (jhuapl.edu)

Submitted by

Riding with Robots

on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @05:54PM

Riding with Robots writes: "No, it's not an accident due to a metric-to-English-units error. In February, the New Horizons probe passed through the Jupiter system on its way to Pluto, and we saw some spectacular pictures. Now, the science teams have published detailed scientific results, along with new images and movies. an overview is now online. The probe's instruments saw clouds form from ammonia welling up from Jupiter's lower atmosphere, and heat-induced lighting strikes in the polar regions, and fresh eruptions on the volcanic moon Io. New Horizons also captured the clearest images ever of the tenuous Jovian ring system, where scientists spotted clumps of debris that may indicate a recent impact inside the rings, or some more exotic phenomenon."

Submission + - CmdrTaco Interviewed on Wired

Submitted by lbmouse on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @04:08PM

lbmouse writes: He whose moniker is a bad business lunch restaurant name has an interview on wired concerning Slashdot's Decennial anniversary.

Comment Re:Frames (Score 2, Interesting) 197

by ixl on Wednesday July 25, 2007 @12:43PM (#19985011) Attached to: Tool Detects "In-Flight" Webpage Alterations

The hash would have to be signed by the originating website. So the frame would be detected, because the hash wouldn't be signed by the domain name that created the other content. Browsers could also display (at least) a warning when an unsigned frameset included a signed frame.

30 Days With Ubuntu Linux 852

Posted by Hemos on Monday March 05, 2007 @11:29AM from the making-the-switch dept.

jkwdoc writes "Vexed by Vista's hardware requirements and product activation issues, many have claimed on various boards that they plan to 'switch to Linux.' [H] Consumer spent 30 days using nothing but Ubuntu Linux to find out if this is truly a viable alternative for the consumer. Linux has indeed become much more than the 'Programmer's OS.'"

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