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Comment Re:About time... (Score 1) 158

I've seen this. Most coders just glue third party stuff together with a bit of business logic. Nobody ever writes anything from bare metal, no complex algorithms, nothing. It just takes too long to test your own stuff. The Java world is so rich in libraries that you can always track down something that does what you need.

Comment Re:Is this a Java problem? (Score 1) 411

It seems like the Java ecosystem is fine tuned for producing a high signal to noise ratio as far as intent of code is concerned. So much of the ecosystem stresses templates, massive IDEs and other automated tools that make the production of thousands of lines of unnecessary boilerplate incredibly easy. Besides, isn't this the nature of Java anyway? It seems like it's designed to produce the most verbose code possible in the hope that if everything is explicit more bugs can be diagnosed since the compiler has more to work with. It's almost a troll article, seriously, it's like the guy is just tryiing to piss people off.

I suppose you didn't read the article where it says "while this study only looked at Java code, the authors expect these finding would hold true for other languages, particularly C and C++, due to the similarities of the languages." I assume they only analysed a large body of Java code because it is easily parsed. And note they say C too, not just C++.

Comment Re:time to buy futures, now. (Score 2) 441

only an idiot thinks prices will stay this low. seriously, this happened in 2008 as well.

Just until the Saudis decide they've screwed the Iranians enough and cut their production again. This dip is entirely political and nothing to do with long term trends in energy supply and demand.

Comment Re:Phenmomenal raw intelligence got me through sch (Score 3, Insightful) 249

I never studied. My phenomenal raw intelligence got me through. I could listen to the lecture, instantly digest the material, and understand it better than most of my classmates did even after they spent the evenings poring over books and lectures. Could I have done better if I studied? Absolutely. Would I have had nearly as much fun hanging out at the local watering hole during the evenings? No way. Grades are fleeting. Intelligence stays with you as long as you are above ground and cannot be taken away.

Taking you at face value, I would advise that you can only cruise for so long. At some point you have to combine a bit of work with that awesome mind to progress.

Comment Re:Nasa's budget is ridiculous (Score 1) 287

The population of the USA is about 320M, so that works out at 160M, or $1.6M. NASA's budget is actually around $17,647M, so you're off by three orders of magnitude. Do you, by any chance, work for Verizon? It's actually about $55 per person in the USA (including children).

As opposed to the useless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq which cost abut $6 trillion or $75,000 for every American household.

Comment Re:SF Economic Plausibility (Score 1) 300

Yup, this raise one of my big complaints about some SciFi stories: lack of economic plausibility.

Science Fiction is great for looking at how we might deal with various potential technologies. Readers are perfectly happy to suspend disbelief and accept whatever technology is proposed. What readers aren't willing to do is suspend disbelief and accept people behaving implausibly.

To write good science fiction, you need to accurately portray people. You can make up the technology, but you have to get humanity right. And that means you have to get the economics right.

I would recommend Iain M. Banks' Culture series where a post-scarcity society turns economics on its head.

Comment Re:I hate it (Score 1) 420

Bad idea, created by "Twitter Generation"

You really need to review your history. The open office has been around for centuries, if not millennia. Mind you back then the Monks weren't allowed to speak. And that doesn't even touch on Dicksian nightmares and the middle of last century. What is new is people not shutting the fuck up and annoying everyone else.

From a British perspective, it seems we transitioned from small offices to open plan about 20 years ago. Cubicles have never been common here.

Comment Re:Oblig ... (Score 1) 217

"Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself."

-- Nixon

Ah, yes, that wise old leader. I think his best quote was

we will bomb the living bejeezus out of North Vietnam and then if anybody interferes we will threaten the nuclear weapons.

Comment Re:Really? .. it comes with the job (Score 2) 772

Torture is useless as an intelligence tool. It is also counterproductive for any reason other than a "sense of vengeance".

Sure, it satisfies that, but then you lose the moral high ground. And that shit is actually important.

It doesn't matter if it is effective. It doesn't matter if they lied about it. What matters is that the USA tortures people and torture is wrong.

Comment Re:Is Already Happening (Score 1) 574

The crux is there are a billion more people in the next ten years. There will not be enough jobs for these people. Yes, yes, we already know no one gives a damn about the bushmen in the middle of nowhere, but we are talking about Americans

From where I stand most Americans in the middle of nowhere and no one gives a damn about them either.

Comment Re:Gay? (Score 1) 764

I don't see why it should be a reason to be "proud". Gay is the way he is rather than something he has chosen but it does not confer some form of superiority on him. If he was a paedeophile though, that definitely *would* be a reason to be "unproud".

Whatever, see if I care.

Some people are even proud to be American even though there are lots of heterosexual American paedophiles.

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