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Comment Hired for not answering question during interview (Score 1) 154

They can't even address simple on-the-spot software solutions

I was once hired because I did not answer an interview question. In the written eval there was a question with 8-10 sorting algorithms listed and I was asked to state the run time complexities. My answer was that I purchased Knuth vol 3: Sorting and Searching so that I would not have to memorize such things.

Comment If you judge on degree name you are clueless ... (Score 2) 154

If I was hiring programmers, I would be very inclined to hire real engineers (of any stripe) than degreed "computer scientists"

If you had a clue you might know that Computer Information System, Computer Science and Computer Engineering programs vary greatly from one university to another. CIS at one university may be in the business school and the program oriented towards internal corporate applications, while at another university CIS may be part of the engineering school and be what many would expect a CE program to be. Similarly some CS programs are what many would expect a CE program to be, while some CE programs are pretty much mediocre CS programs.

The degree title is fairly useless info. You have to look at what the classes are in that program, if its a recent grad. If not a recent grad you have to ask them what they took. My ancient CS degree is pretty much what you see in a good solid CE program today. The modern CS degree offered by my old university is quite different. To be fair they greatly expanded the engineering department since I left and now offer separate CS and CE degrees.

Comment Old CS programs look like CE today (Score 1) 154

I'm a computer engineer. So on paper I'm both an EE and a CS. Most EE's are doing the same thing. CS majors, nope, you're just CS.

Its not that simple. If you compare the curricula of some CS programs you will find that they are exactly the same as many CE programs, Also you will find some CE programs a bit light on engineering and more like a mediocre CS program. If you are looking only at the title of the degree you are clueless. You need to look at the classes that comprise the program at that university to get a clue.

And if you are old like me look at the curricula of a current CS program, even at your old university. Things may no longer be as you remember. My old CS program from the 80s looks like a CE program today. To be fair my old university greatly expanded the engineering department since I left and it now has separate CS and CE programs.

Comment Re:Many merchants never touch a bitcoin (Score 1) 224

So... Wouldn't the bit coin exchange be barred from doing business with those Californian companies??

Why? The business and the exchange did not perform any transaction in bitcoins. The business asked the exchange to collect some number of dollars from a person, much like they ask VISA to do so. Only the exchange and the buyer are performing a transaction in bitcoins.

Comment Porsche station wagons not threatened (Score 1) 389

Watches such as the Swiss make are luxury items and are the one item of "jewelry" a man can wear without controversy in any social circles.

iPhones are already considered fashion accessories and status symbols by some. So having an Apple watch go down the luxury path you mentioned to some degree seems entirely plausible. Now consider all the experienced luxury branding and marketing people Apple brought on board in the last couple of years.

Also, a high-end Swiss watch is a means of identifying yourself in a particular group, for example a Breitling Navitimer probably means you are a professional pilot or at least you want people to think you are. An Apple watch will never ever replace a Breitling in this market.

Note iPads jave replaced paper charts and manuals in some professional cockpits. An Apple Watch could also have special aviation centric functionality via the tethered iPad. The Breitling Navitimer's future may be more fashion accessory and less practical tool.

The Apple watch presents no threat to such Swiss watches, any more than a Tesla car presents a threat to Porsche.

Well the Porsche station wagons are safe perhaps. :-)

Comment Many merchants never touch a bitcoin (Score 4, Informative) 224

NewEgg has a warehouse in City of Industry. Wonder how this will effect them.

It probably wouldn't even if passed. Many merchants who "accept" bitcoins in fact never touch them. They pay a bitcoin exchange to do so. The merchants tell the exchange the $ amount. The exchange creates a payment address and a BTC amount to give the buyer. When the coins show up at this address and are verified the exchange credits the merchant's account for the exact amount of $ originally stated by the merchant. The merchant does all pricing and accounting in $ and has no risk from BTC price fluctuations.

It seems the only thing necessary would be for the exchange not to be in California.

Comment Diff: Private server lets user manip history (Score 1) 609

Hillary should offer up her private emails as soon as the Republicans in Congress release all of their private emails.

Its not that simple. Setting up your own server in preparation for your job as Secretary of State effectively makes that a defacto government server, one that you are privately administering rather than having the appropriate government folks administering. That is the heart of this matter, whether or not that server should be considered a government server and come under the physical possession of government.

Currently, every public servant must decide which email system to use at the time each email is sent. Is it official or private? Do we trust a Secretary of State to make that distinction?

There is an enormous distinction between choosing which email account to use and operating a private server for government use. When choosing the email account to use the user can not manipulate history. When operating a private server that user can manipulate history.

Comment Getting off light, not being innocent ... (Score 1) 609

If you are going to refer to all the controversy surrounding ethics with the Clintons, do try and keep in mind that except for fooling around with his secretary, Bill Clinton and Hillary have never been found guilty of any of the charges.

That seems to be a Clinton-esque parsing of the facts. :-) Didn't Bill negotiate a deal with federal prosecutors over his lying to a federal judge under oath and that one of the elements of the deal was surrendering his license to practice law? That's the rich and powerful getting off lightly, not being innocent.

Comment Re:The kernel is GPL, you can change it ... (Score 1) 188

But then they MUST offer the modified source to anyone they distribute a binary to. They also get to field all of the support issues since the kernel maintainers won't touch a bug report if the kernel is tainted by a non-free module (for good reason).

Seems a non-issue. If the bug is not in their code it could be replicated in the pristine kernel and reported to maintainers. Since the forked kernel would be used at the core of one of their virtual machines they would be the natural contact point. From the customer's perspective VMware failed, not some embedded kernel that they don't know or care about.

Comment The kernel is GPL, you can change it ... (Score 1) 188

The deciding factor is whether or not it is using the defined API. If so, it is mere use and not derivation. If the kernel has to be modified to add an API, there would be a clear violation.

That is simply a fork of the kernel. If the forked kernel source is published there would seem to be no violation.

Comment Re:C++ important on Apple too (Score 1) 407

For example virtual functions require an extra level of indirection over C function calls.

You are wrong, doubly wrong actually. (1) If the class is not using inheritance you don't get the indirection.

If you're not using inheritance then you won't use a virtual function. (Did you read what I wrote?)

Yes, I'm rejecting the notion that C++ code inherently involves inheritance. Note my reference to minor use classes and templates being quite useful and not performance hindering.

You missed the point. Its not that google is using C++ libraries, its that they are writing their libraries in C++.

Portable libraries. It makes no fucking difference whether the library was written within the same conglomerate.

It however does disprove you claim that C++ isn't being used to a large degree.

Plus you are doubly wrong again since people also use C++ in Apple targets for portability.

Are you hard of thinking? That was the one exception I made. Using portable libraries. However if the library intended to be portable starts on OSX, then it's virtually always written in C.

I'm not referring to libraries, I'm referring to the app's core code itself.

Also many libraries are merely C for legacy reasons. For new code, refer to Google's use of C++ again.

Comment In fascism syndicates not corporations control ... (Score 1) 331

It is a popular misrepresentation of fascism to say that it is a partnership between state and corporations.

The actual definition of fascism involves syndicalism. Syndicates not corporations control industry, and more importantly syndicates are controlled by workers. This is somewhat socialist in nature. Additionally the syndicalism has a strong nationalist flavor. It kind of replaces the socialistic class conflict with a national/regional conflict. Fascism is a fusion of elements of the far right and the far left.

Fascist Italy recognized both the owners and the workers as distinct groups however the workers were empowered through syndicates and both the owners and syndicates were expected to cooperate as necessary to serve the needs of the state. The state put restrictions on both the owners and worker syndicates. They considered this model an alternative to both capitalism and marxism.

Militarism was central to Mussolini's beliefs. He viewed Fascist Italy as the heir to the Roman Empire spiritually and wanted to "restore" some of that old glory via military conquest and colonization. And that on an individual level it was the military and combat that helped a "man" to reach his full potential. This predates the rise of the Nazis. Matter of fact Hitler was Mussolini's understudy in the early days, Hitler looking up to him as a role model.

Mussolini was also racist, though a more moderate form than exhibited by the Nazis. He thought the aryan mediterranean "race" and culture superior. However he differed from the Nazis in that he didn't believe in strict biological definitions. He believed a certain amount of assimilation was possible, somewhat consistent with old school Rome where allies and conquered peoples could eventually become full Romans by adopting Roman culture and demonstrating fealty to Rome. That said, he absolutely made claims of white racial "superiority" as part of his justification for Italian colonies in Africa.

Comment Re:Fascism largely a creation of director Verhoeve (Score 1) 331

The fact that it is not altruistic, service yields a reward albeit at some risk, does not change its voluntary nature. Neither does its necessity. As long as there are sufficient volunteers this necessary task can accomplished. Now if there were insufficient volunteers then the model they based their society on would fail.

Comment Re:Not all libertarians against safety net ... (Score 1) 331

And you get to determine what constitute needs and wants, right?

No, I get to elect the people who make that determination. The libertarians advocate electing people who are more modest in those determination, who provide for actual needs of citizens, who don't provide mere wants as a mechanism to win favor and re-election.

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