Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Wou would have thought. (Score 1) 50

But how exactly does a planet "snatch" another object? The smaller object starts out at a huge distance from the planet, falls towards it (increasing its kinetic energy), passes by the planet (if it doesn't crash into it), and then... converts its kinetic energy back to the amount of potential energy it started out with, right?

Now if two different bodies would collide while close to the planet, some of the debris might just end up in orbit around the planet. But why would one small object not simply leave the planet again?

(Just an honest question, not saying anyone is wrong, just wondering how it works)

Comment Re:Thanks to reader sleepypsycho for the poll idea (Score 2) 169

You can disable the Karma bonus. The problem with the bonus is that it adds one to the displayed score, but is not counted for achievements. Once you have a score:5 (which is really score 4 + 1 bonus), people stop modding you up so you never make it to a "real" +5. They can still mod you up one more point, but most people don't know so they don't. And this makes you miss achievements that require a "real" +5 (comedian, for example)

caveat: maybe they have changed the system in the mean time, but I remember it certainly used to work that way.

Comment Re:Good to see the FCC at least considered it. (Score 1) 133

This is how a corporation goes to heaven: First a hedge fund manager takes out a short term high interest loan from a bank through a shell corporation, then approaches the corporation's executive management and proposes [...insert references to stuff that sounds illegal but still boring as hell...] ... and since he's the first in line to get paid, he takes his management fees out and walks away with 10% of the initial loan value after the corporation has laid everyone off and entered the afterlife.

Comment Re:It's the same old lies from these H1B advocates (Score 1) 612

Everybody wants cheaper stuff. Are you ashamed of yourself when buying a cheaper consumer article ?

Were slaveowners ashamed of themselves for getting free labor? Probably not, but being "ashamed of yourself" isn't really a relevant question to pose to people who are proud of what they did.

Comment Re:The ultimate ugly hack? (Score 1) 264

I wasn't talking about Duff's device anymore, just the general normal usage of switch statements and the fact that they fall through by default, instead of the more logical opposite choice of breaking by default and continuing only by choice with an explicit instruction. Someone replied that falling through was useful if a whole list of values needed the same treatment, but I think it would have been better to have a standard where a list of values (and possibly ranges) could be provided rather than a silly list of "case x:case y:case z:".

Obviously, if you wanted to use Duff's device with such a modified switch syntax, every case label would need a "continue" to fall through explicitly.

Comment Re:The ultimate ugly hack? (Score 1) 264

OK, I'll amend my position slightly: they should break by default (and continue as an explicit option) but you should obviously be able to provide a list of values instead of the ridiculous 50 consecutive "case 5:case 6: case 7:...". Better still, they might add ranges while they're at it.

Oh well, I don't imagine them changing the standard for that any time soon, but one can dream...

Slashdot Top Deals

Those who can, do; those who can't, write. Those who can't write work for the Bell Labs Record.

Working...