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Comment Re:Who cares about succinctness .... (Score 1) 165

We don't usually supply a proof of correctness with every program. The program itself must stand as an argument for its own correctness. Sometimes breaking it down into more verbose steps is a way to clarify to future maintainers what your intention was. Also densely packed code is much harder to modify later.

Comment Re: they will defeat themselves (Score 1) 981

Nice straw man.

White countries are rich, because they have a large amount of social and cultural capital, which we maintain by having rules and norms that we enforce.

Third world countries are poor because of their lack of culture, lack of law and contract enforcement, lack of morals and respect at street level, and because of general filth, shittiness and decay.

Whitey didn't make you rape and rob each other, or throw rubbish in the streets, or rip each other off. This is readily apparent when you see the filth in Third World areas of major cities like London. The difference is like night and day.

Poor countries are poor _despite_ the influence of evil Whitey, not because of him.

White countries are rich because of geography. Try reading Guns, Germs and Steel.

Comment Re:illogical captain (Score 0) 937

Atheists will be in for a rude awakening when they die as they will realize that their belief was incomplete.

Religion is for those with weak minds who cannot cope with the finality of death. They seek comfort from fanciful notions of an afterlife. 'You'll get pie in the sky when you die' - that's a lie!

Comment Re:Obvious Reason (Score 2) 579

There's a difference between pedantry and the out-and-out bullying that makes subject-area experts give up on the whole WP experience. That's why so many articles remain half-baked stubs. I'm not surprised that women are put off even faster than men.

Comment The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (Score 1) 276

Heinlein's 1966 classic The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is wonderful and visionary on many levels but still tripped over some contemporary assumptions. Like one big computer ran everything, including the phone system. It could synthesize audio but it had to jump through fancy hoops to do video. I guess we all are stuck in our own time.

Comment Re:Cynicism (Score 2) 148

Option C : Mobile providers raise the standard charges more than necessary and justify the raise saying ordinary people need to pay for the yuppies who roam Europe in their sports cars while chatting on their phones

Or low paid workers going abroad to find work can afford to phone home. Or workers who commute across borders don't have to turn their phones off.

Submission + - An open letter to the management of Slashdot. 14

onyxruby writes: I have been watch for some time now as Slashdot has started beta testing a new version of the website. As you are well aware the new site would constitute a complete change to the look, interface and functionality of Slashdot.org.

Change happens, and for those of us who work with technology for a living it is the only constant. Change is a process and in and of itself is not a bad thing when it offers improvement. Unfortunately the change that has been offered negatively impacts the look, interface and most importantly the functionality of Slashdot.
Many people have had trouble reverting back to the classic interface. The new interface simply does not offer the functionality of the old. Things like statistics, comments and layout are very difficult to find. You have a community that lives and breathes data and want to know their data. How is my comment ranked, how many people responded – it’s really all about the dialogue. Can I get the information that I want in a readily digestible format?

As you’re well aware the new site does not offer the very thing that people come here for. This in and of itself is not why your community has organized a boycott of Beta. The boycott was originated because the new version will be implemented whether the community wants it or not.

I want to explain why this change has gone down people’s throats about as well as Windows 8’s Metro interface. The reason has absolutely nothing to do with the interface and everything to do with the perception that the editors and management of Slashdot appear to have.

The message that has been consistently handed down is that we are “your audience”. We are not your “your audience” we are your product. People do not come to Slashdot for the news stories, there are untold other sites that provide those as well as professional and original writing about them. People come here for the community of insiders from across the industry.

Please respect the community and stop what you’re doing. You have commented that you don’t want to maintain two code bases. Your community works in the industry and understands this, which leads many to suggest you abandon the new code base entirely so that you are only maintaining once code base. Tell us what your trying to accomplish and I would imagine that a wide range of experts would be more than willing to help you meet your goals.

Submission + - A Modest Proposal, re: Beta vs. Classic 19

unitron writes: Dice wants to make money off of what they paid for--the Slashdot name--, or rather they want to make more money off of it than they are making now, and they think the best way to do that is to turn it into SlashingtonPost.

They should take this site and give it a new name. Or get Malda to let them use "Chips & Dips".

Leave everything else intact, archives, user ID database, everything except the name.

Then use the Beta code and start a new site and give it the slashdot.org name, and they can have what they want without the embarrassment of having the current userbase escape from the basement or the attic and offend the sensibilities of the yuppies or hipsters or metrosexuals or whoever it is that they really want for an "audience".

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