It is a common scenario where one would be offending for showing "interest" in others. Personally I AM interested in learning about other cultures and backgrounds but have to remember it's not always the right time to ask.

I'm deaf, so at times it gets annoying having to explain over and over how much I can hear, how I can speak clearly, do I consider myself deaf or "hard of hearing" over and over.

However I don't interpret that as aggression against deaf people, I realize they are curious and lacking a bit of tact.

I'm sure there's books on etiquette and conversation warning not to ask about such things. Good luck changing the direction of society on that one.

Where was the outrage over last years Plants and Zombies/ Angry Birds themed hour of code?

Is it the branding bothering people, or that girls are being focused on this time around?

Lived in the third world a few years. A long term project will protect your sanity and prevent home sickness.

Ex-pats tend to fill their evenings with either pirate movies or drinking. I had lots of friends and plenty of personal growth experiences, but boredom can be a real problem in the downtime.

Having a bucket list of things you've wanted to do is a great idea.

Slashdot no longer the place you used to go?
While it's a bit more mainstream audience than back in the day... you still get great comments like this one from time to time.

So when you think Slashdot is dead, remember this post.

I always wash my hands after using Wikipedia.

That's ridiculous. Manliness directly correlates to the speed of ones computer averaged with the number of LEDs on it.

the U.S. Geological Survey has detected them regularly. They can produce thousands of small tremors."

The USGS is not one to be messed with.

From almost exactly a year ago...

http://science.slashdot.org/st...

You make a convincing argument.

That's because unlike the USA, Germany is landlocked.

From my own personal experience I just want to say if you enjoy programming and think maybe you'd like to do it as a career... Go for it.

Every job type has a certain percentage of workers who are barely skirting by and somehow get paid for it. There's doctors who shouldn't be, lawyers, etc... There's also the elite that truly know what they're doing and are at a much higher level of skill.

Believe me when I say most programmers are the former.

The #1 most important thing IMNSHO is a continual desire to learn and improve. If you have that, you may start at the bottom but you will eventually become good or great at it.

As a hobbyist you already seem to have that, just keep it up.

Many "professional" developers do copy and paste coding, grabbing chunks of code off stackoverflow and not taking the time to understand them. They don't write test cases for their code, instead they patch it over and over whenever they run into an unexpected condition. Instead of reading through their code to spot the bug, they'll change random parts and attempt to run it over and over until they get lucky... Often leaving some of the unneeded changes in place causing more bugs.

If you can avoid doing those things, you're probably better than half the guys out there. :-)

So if you enjoy it, you can do it for a living, and maybe do it well.

Quite a difference where you read it. My idea of a flash bang has certainly changed.

I hear they're planning to change it to XML for easy reading and parsing, here's a preview of it:

<11101100>
    <10101101>
      <00101101>0011101101</00101101>
      <011101101>0110101101</011101101>
    </10101101>
</11101100>

I think the readability is much improved with the upcoming plaintext file format.

Right, he only perused it, he hasn't had the time to grok it.

I read the article on the hand grenade situation linked to by another replier to your post.

1. The cops were raiding a meth house, they had the right address according to the report.
2. They attempted entry via the front door with a battering ram and it was blocked. They thought it was a person pressing against the door so they tossed the flash grenade through the opening.
3. On discovering the infant they immediately go it medical care. Wished they knew it was there, would have used the side doors and no flash grenade.

Now unless that article is a total white-wash, it sounds like a tragic mistake. Like insurgents who hide their weapons behind children hoping to vilify their attackers, it seems quite strange someone would place a baby's crib blocking their own front door.

The way you post it... makes it like Officer Duke Nukem comes through the window... thinks "Where should I toss my grenade? Ahhh... that crib will do nicely!" and intentionally kills a child just to spite a criminal who doesn't even live in that house. I think most people imagine "hand grenade" and "flash grenade" to be very different things, it's interesting your choice of wording.

I agree that many officers abuse their authority and escape prosecution by cronyism. Exaggerating or twisting the facts does not help your argument. There's plenty of real and unquestionable abuse you can point to.