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Comment I see a lot of ligitimate critisism (Score 1) 391

for the article, but the basic premise is correct; major steps remain to make programming better, improvements that cannot simply be dismissed as adding training wheels for the unskilled.

For example - code may remain text-based, but it desperately needs to be decoupled from the file system.

Comment Re:Balance (Score 1) 391

Better tools and languages just allow bad programmers to create more bad code.

No, this just isn't true.

Toolset deficiencies negatively impact good and bad programmers alike. The old argument "I'm good so they don't affect my productivity" is just a fallacy.

Comment what about "2x HPUS" products? (Score 2) 173

What I find more confusing is that I know of at least two products labelled "homeopathic" that actually work because they contain real medicine at resonable concentrations ("2x HPUS", or even "1xHPUS"). ZICAM contains zinc glycine glucconate, which had been proven in double-blind clinical trials to reduce the severity and length of a common cold (and I can attest to this from personal experience), and Arnica gel, which contains a powerful anti-inflammatory extracted from a plant. Another product that I know from personal experience that actually works pretty damn well.

Can someone explain to me why the FDA thinks is OK to label real medicine "homeopathic"? And why would a company chose to label real medicine "homeopathic", when it's likely to put off people who know that homeopathy is bunk?

Comment Re:I've heard that government moves slowly... (Score 4, Insightful) 299

These people have access to all the modern conveniences via their jobs. They have chosen not to learn anything about them which would be O.K. if it wasn't critical to their job performance.

Actually the SCOTUS has shown they are more than willing to learn about something required for them to do their jobs.

Go back a few years when they had a specific case about video games and free speech in 2011. They set up a lab and played the ultra-violent games for a few days, both online and off, to help make a decision. (All of them agreed with the free speech, two dissented saying it was not regulating speech, but was regulating the sale of products.)

Historically the judges have been willing to get their hands dirty and view the gritty details when they are called to review them for a case. They have traveled to remote locations, dug through physical evidence, and gotten their hands dirty. They may not be hardcore gamers or telecom experts, but when it comes to ruling on the law they are making determinations based on the exact wording on the law. Such a decision can be made based on reviewing the facts, reviewing details provided by experts, and looking at the specific items enough to satisfy their opinions.

... which makes the shocking naïveté they've shown in certain opinions pertaining to campaign finance even more unsettling.

Comment young people: anything that's not web is "legacy" (Score 1) 247

You know, some people still have to write real applications.

There's a whole crop of big internal LOB web applications that are showing serious aging problems since they only work with older browser types. As they're being chucked at great cost, it's been getting easier and easier to convince people that desktop apps are better - you get a higher quality, more stable UI, and they don't just randomly break with browser upgrades.

I wrote a fairly large (100KLOC+) LOB .NET application in 2002, and it's still running without issue today. If it only ran in a browser it would have been scrapped long ago.

.NET is alive and well, and business for desktop apps is picking up.

Comment let's get rid of SPED mandates first (Score 1) 231

I asked my teachers to teach me advanced math in grade school. They didn't like it, it was a 'problem' because it would take up too much time and resources. Extra time and resources already spent in copious amounts on a couple of retards. One grew up to be that guy you see picking his nose while he bags your groceries.

Comment Re:"Corrections" (Score 1) 326

Until you manage to produce undeniable proof that someone is physically unable to be cured from mental illness, we should always, as a society, strive to cure them. Let's take an analogy that's perhaps closer to home: some people in hospitals have neither the money nor the physical wellness to get cured. Should we simply abandon them, or should we strive to the very end to attempt to cure them, even (and especially) if it ultimately fails?

Attempt at reform is pointless for many; it's a well-established fact that you cannot 'cure' a sociopath.

Comment ruined long ago (Score 1) 253

I played WoW for a while back when it was newer, when you had to actually form social ties and groups in order to get anything accomplished. That's what I liked, the social part of it. Much later I came back to it and realized that nobody was forming groups any more, there was this new queuing system to get you into dungeons and you got grouped up with strangers and there was no incentive to even talk to each other. I guess it was to please the 'casual' crowd. I wasn't impressed.

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