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Comment Re:Anyone else think is was a .NET Fortran? (Score 1) 267

The name "functional" is a little confusing, since imperative languages are heavily based on functions as well, though they are not typically used in the same way.

Actually, imperative languages are typically based on procedures, not functions. The fact that such languages tend to call procedures "functions" is the confusing bit.

Comment xmonad (Score 1) 460

xmonad does what you want with desktops my default. Each of my monitors is bound to one specific workspace at a time; I can switch either monitor independently to any workspace, or manually stretch windows across the gap in between.

You can use xmonad as the window manager for GNOME.

It'll require a little bit of tweaking to make it look normal, though (you'll need to add window decorations, and configure it to make windows floating by default), or you could learn the keyboard shortcuts and use tiling, which sounds like it may work better with the way you want to think about screens anyway. (It sounds terrible, I know, but it's remarkably effective.)

Comment Re:Information Security Puffery (Score 1) 353

In fact, during the same time period a guy named Craig Gentry solved a major open crypto problem --- namely, how to compute on encrypted data --- and it got a fraction of the press coverage.

This was nothing fundamentally new; google "secure multiparty computation." Or, FTFA, Gentry's technique requires a "trillion times" more computational power than existing techniques.

Not that I think his work wasn't awesome-- I've already queued the paper in my reading list. All I'm claiming is that he didn't "solve a major open problem".

Math

Which Math For Programmers? 466

An anonymous reader writes "It is no news that the greatest computer scientists and programmers are/were mathematicians. As a kid 'hacking' if-else programs, I was not aware of the importance of math in programming, but few years later, when I read Engines of Logic by Martin Davis I started becoming increasingly more convinced of this. Unfortunately, math doesn't return my love, and prefers me to struggle with it. Now, as the end of the semester approaches, I am faced with a dilemma: What math subject to choose next? I have two choices: 'Discreet structures with graph theory' (discrete math; proofs, sets, algorithms and graphs) on one side, and 'Selected math chapters' (math analysis; vectors, euclidean space, differentials) on the other. I'm scared of the second one because it's said to be harder. But contrary to my own opinion, one assistant told me that it would be more useful for a programmer compared to the first subject. Then again, he's not a programmer. That's why I turn to you for help, fellow slashdotters — any advice?"

Comment Why has nobody suggested UDF? (Score 1) 484

FAT32: no POSIX metadata, 4GB file size limit is deadly. It's inefficient, and generally outdated and nasty.

NTFS: proprietary, sometimes complicated to get on Linux, hard to get on OSX.

ext*: bad-to-none support on non-Linux. IIRC, neither the Windows nor OSX drivers support journaling, for example.

HFS+: about the same boat as ext*, if you swap "Linux" and "OSX".

UDF: reasonably efficient, support for basic metadata (POSIX, though no EAs or forks), full support on Linux 2.6, OSX 10.5, Windows Vista/7, or (with third-party utils)

Comment Re:Another reason not to go Verizon! (Score 2, Interesting) 510

argue my way up the manager food chain

What you fail to understand is that the customer-accessible part of the manager food chain in the vast majority of companies is approximately two people tall: CSR and supervisor. (Depending on the company and nature of question, you may be able to get to tier2 support; hence the "approximately".)

You will have better luck...

  • Just calling back. Virgin Mobile's policies used to differ depending on which call center your call got routed to, but even in less extreme cases, some reps are nicer than others.
  • Turboing. In particular, some companies have started to have "Executive Support" hotlines (Sprint comes to mind.) Save these for a last resort. GetHuman is also useful.
  • Moving horizontally. Try web order support, activations, billing, customer service, terminations, etc.
  • Being nice instead of nasty.
  • Writing. Yes, seriously. I've resolved many issues just by sending the entity in question a nastygram. People still take snail-mail seriously.

Comment Re:Do you hear me now?? (Score 1) 510

Let me elaborate a bit on a previous comment.

T-Mobile's ETF is $200. They can't offer you a subsidy of significantly more than $200, because then it would be to your advantage to buy a phone, cancel your contract, and sell the phone for a profit. Contract lengths are two years. Amortized over 2 years, by taking the subsidy, you save $8._33. Meanwhile, T-Mobile's has two tiers of plans. One gives you the subsidy, has a contract, and is $10 more a month. Thus: if you have the money up-front, buy your phone, save $240 in the cost of a plan over two years, and save yourself from a contract.

Consider the Motorola Cliq. As a user, it's a good phone.

Comment Re:Rouge students and some more insight (Score 1) 300

but they haven't even bothered to make sure that only leaf certificates can be issued.

Nope; the CA only signed a what you call a leaf certificate, but the constraint which determines whether a key can is a branch ("CA = true") or leaf ("CA = false") was part of the cert that they were able to change. See the last paragraph of section 5.1

The Internet

Submission + - "Anonymous" protests Scientology worldwide

Anonymous writes: "Yesterday, on what would have been Lisa McPherson's 48th birthday, thousands of "Anonymous" protested Scientology in dozens of locations around the globe. The protest effort, loosely organized on wikis, IRC channels, and the *chan websites, began as a DDoS attack in response to the Church's issuance of takedown notices against a leaked promotional video featuring Tom Cruise. Since Slashdot last covered it, it's been featured in Newsweek, on the front page of MSNBC, on USA Today, the LA Times, and even the St. Petersburg Times. A forum thread contains videos from Hong Kong to Dallas to Dublin; the Boston Globe has a particularly evocative of some protesters with signs and Guy Fawkes masks."
Upgrades

'Til Tech Do Us Part 300

WSJdpatton writes "Marriage often requires coping with the loss of some individuality, whether it's adopting a spouse's last name or setting up a joint bank account. Now, some couples say it can be equally tricky to navigate intimacy in the digital sides of their lives. They are running into thorny questions regarding how much to share and how much to keep separate in areas ranging from email addresses to online calendars. For some young newlyweds, this means a debate over whether to combine their blogs. Longtime spouses, meanwhile, say perennial arguments about who has more closet space are now joined by bickering over which TV shows get deleted to make room on the TiVo."

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