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Comment Re:Whatever you may think ... (Score 1) 447

I hope he doesn't get too much more trouble. You should be really annoyed that they found the name of the guy who made the bug.

If open source contributors get so much negitive press due to a bug, how do you think you will get other people to contribute to OSS projects?

We all make bugs, this one got past layers of reviewers who should be as much in the blame too. But unlike companies who have insurance to cover these expensive legal attacks, the individual would just be crushed.

Comment Re:Can the number of Christmas Gifts be Believed? (Score 2) 723

Or the number of people who file for their Taxes....

In short people will procrastinate.
Out of the uninsured...
I say about 10% would never join because they hate all things Obama.
Then you have those who do not want to join out of principal or figure the Tax Penalty is cheaper than getting insurance.
There is a portion who do not know about it.
Some will over procrastinate figuring they can always come in late.
However most would wait until the last minute.

Comment Re:Was it really Tesla's problem? (Score 1) 152

I guess you are not from the North East.
Pot Holes. The hole doesn't just appear, is breaks loose then a car or truck or plow will dislodge the material and make the hole. Causing debris, often without you seeing it. Other people can be careless too such as rear-ending you. And sometimes even if you are very careful, something could distract you enough to get in an accident.
We all think that we are great drivers... But we are not, a lot of times when we are not at our best, we are lucky that nothing happened or the other guy corrected himself before you hit them. If a driver is really that good of a drive and careful, they would be such a nervous wreck that they wouldn't every drive a car.

Comment Danger Danger Danger (Score 3, Insightful) 452

You are getting yourself in a world of pain!

XP users will bitch and moan enough already if they have to use Windows 7 or 8. Giving them Linux would be much worse.

Here are some common misconceptions about end users:
1. They are stupid and only do stupid thing with there PC: Firefox and libreOffice is not the limit to a persons PC usage. They are going to do more complex things even if they don't realize it. They will want to share files over the network, they may want to attach their Camera to their PC, Video Conference, Do some graphics manipulations, even sometimes do basic system admin on their PC, such as updates or putting in a driver. You need to give them more credit then most people do. Linux for the desktop tends to have a doughnut hole in usability. You get Granny Open your program and browse the web. You got advanced user where you can script and program all you want... The hole is in the Moderate user category.

2. Their PC's will work great with Linux: Who really fully checks the Linux compatibility list when getting a PC. Especially if you initially get a windows PC. Even old PC's you may find that a network controller isn't supported, or a video driver never really worked right with that screen. Hardware makers usually make sure their stuff works on windows first then perhaps in Linux if they feel like there is a market for it.

3. Vendors/Customers/Partners will bend backwards to help you keep supported. I am sending you a DOCX with a Macro in it for you to view. Are you really going to have them redo their work so you can view that document. A vendor may give you a crappy convert. The customer will defiantly give you lip. A partner may question you.

4. We don't use Legacy Software: There is always that piece of legacy software that you have that makes porting expensive.

Comment Re:Not the first time this has happened (Score 1) 642

I don't care for Michael Moore either.
Let me ask you a question which you will need to answer on the fly. Then let me take a few weeks to come up with a good rebuttal, if I can't Ill just edit your good points out and make you seem like a raving nut.

I have also watched about 10 minutes some stupid documentary on Netflix about Dragons. Expecting a historical account of the Dragon as mystical monster/or at least a large lizard that wasn't scientifically classified, differences in cultures, their metaphorical meanings... No it was some lame ass attempt to debunk evolution by using hearsay and faulty logic to make their point.

Comment Re:Good (Score 1) 477

Actually they are.
Like all things in the world we need a balance.
If Labor Laws are too tight, business will not operate in these areas, they will move to somewhere where there are easier laws. Go north to the UK, West to the America's East to China. Causing a lot of people without work, and hurting the economy.

If Labor Laws are too free, then we have blatant exploitation of the workers, creating a situation were people cannot get ahead in life, and are stuck doing what the company says, with no way of saying no without suffering a penalty. Causing the workers to move to a place where they are more labor regulations, that will make their lives easier.

The thing is we need a sweet spot where the Labor Laws allow for both companies and employees growth. Because this will be a compramise that will mean the company will not have all the freedom it wants and the employees will need to do some things that suck too.

Comment Re:Discrimination of girls is bad and unethical (Score 2, Insightful) 673

Hey just as long as you are considered part of the Majority you are perfectly fine to be discriminated against.

However I think the real issue isn't as much of lack to trying to teach women how to code. But their particular interest in coding isn't there.

Women who major in computer science face pressure from other women.
Why do you want to go to Computer Science only guys do that?
Do you want to major in a degree where it is full of dorks?
Well I a majoring in a degree where I can directly help people. What are you doing with computer science, you will just be making money for yourself.

Sure a woman will get some negative feelings form guys. But they will get it from guys in any major where there will be straight guys there. High School and College age students are extremely keen on attracting a mate. If you are a women in a mostly male degree than these males will fight for your attention, by showing that they are alpha males in their field. This is often at the expense of making it seem like the female isn't as good, so the alpha male can come in and save the day.

Comment Re:Mixed blessing (Score 1) 146

I remember as a kid believing in this odd concept of programming hierarchy.
You start with Basic, move to Pascal, then to C finally you end up in Assembly.

However experience has taught me that Programming languages do not fall in a hierarchy, but tools good at solving different problems.

Basic is good at Throw Away code. Solve your problem give your result. Doing it in any other language you are just wasting your time with details.

Pascal is good for that simple program that you want to maintain and share and deploy. Better structured however still covers a lot of the memory management nonsense.

C is good that Professional App that really needs to be good performance, the extra work in managing the memory means you can take shortcuts in the right spot to get extra Speed.

Assembly when you need to interact with the hardware, make new drivers and bypass parts of the OS.

It becomes the right tool for the right job, and less of how impressive you look by the fact you can code in some language.

Comment Re:We've come a long way (Score 1) 146

The real issue about VB.NET is the .NET added technical complexity to the language.

BASIC then Visual Basic was intended to be a language that anyone can code without a strong Computer Science foundation.

Great for Engineers who need to do some complicated calculations or create some simulations. Or for Business folks who need to get these early computers to do things with it, as we didn't have Spreadsheets ready yet.

Visual Basic was still easy for these groups too. It did a better job of organizing stuff into a better model. But because it was point and click people still liked it and used it.

However VB.NET those Computer Scientists got to it and tried to make it a "Respectable" programming language, with classes and abstraction and a lot of stuff while useful if you know what you are doing, has in essence became too complex for generally smart people who do not code all the time, and just wants to get something quick and dirty out.

Comment Re:Bullsh*t (Score 1) 130

We all want open and free... Until people start abusing the open, and putting too much stuff that society doesn't want. Then we demand that we close it down for these exceptions.

Right now we are in the middle of a societal struggle between freedom and protection.
We want both, however it cannot work that way. If we want to be free, then we are open to danger. If you want someone to protect us from danger then we loose our freedom.
To make it even more murky there isn't a good rule on what is safe and dangerous. Are bringing up particular vulgar words dangerous? How about how much skin can you show? What about particular view points?
If you want full freedom you are going to need to expect a lot of people with ideas that you disagree with, will be spouting what you consider to be poison to your view of what is true. If you want more protection than we need to follow a set of rules made by a select few.

Comment Re:Fuck the politics. This sucks regardless (Score 0) 86

One of the main issues is lack of understanding of embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells.
We classify Stem Cells in one group... However the issue with embryonic stem cells are that they come from aborted human fetuses. Which many people would consider sacrificing a human life just to perform scientific research, this usually falls in the unethical category. However there is a group who doesn't consider a fetus to be human life, so it would fall in the ethical category.
Politics being politics, will normally favor the group to say No don't do that, vs the group that will say lets go do that.
As you will suffer less angry people from a dept who didn't get funding, then a dept that does get funding.

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