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Comment Economics != English (Score 1) 358

[...] who was thinking of shifting to an economics major [...]. I told that student they are much better off being a B student in computer science than an A+ student in English

Except being a B student in economics is probably better than being an A+ student in English as well.
But is being a B student in economics better than being a B student in English?

Also, wanting to not be rigorous is apparently better than wanting to be rigorous, seeing as this student has gotten an internship.

Comment Re:Sunk Costs (Score 1) 288

That's the exact thought I had when I saw the video.
The "human-like" hand is dead in the middle of the uncanny valley.
In fact, the 3D printed hand had motion which looked far more "natural", despite looking nothing like a natural object.

IMHO, trying to make a prostethic look human is like saying "I'm ashamed of not having a hand".
Adults will stare uncomfortably at both. With the printed hand I think most people will just think "well, he doesn't have a problem with it, why should I?".
And children will be exclaiming "cool" because... well... it is cool. Guy doesn't have a hand but he's got a machine as a hand. What's not cool about that? You'd rather children be exclaiming "creepy"?

Comment Re:But is their criticism of Psychiatry wrong? (Score 3, Insightful) 186

Scientology's beliefs are idiotic, but not much more idiotic than believing in some guy walking up a hill and coming back down with slates with "commandments" apparently handed to him by some deity.

The problem with scientology is the frequent intimidation, their extremely litigious habits, the abusive behaviour towards members, the rampant commercialism, the indocrtination techniques and a bunch of other things that are decidedly evil and beyond the comprehension of any decent human being.

Scientology isn't a church, nor is it a cult. Scientology is a corporation. And whereas most corporations are just greedy and soulless, scientology doesn't stop at mere ruthless money grabbing; scientology seems to want to actively hurt it's victims as well.

Comment Re:This does not seem to be news (Score 1) 81

This.
Every single site that was vulnerable to heardbleed should be resetting all passwords.
There are a LOT sites that were vulnerable, but very few have done large scale password resets.
The only bad thing Healthcare.gov is doing, is letting people choose to change passwords; they should do like Yahoo did.

Comment Re:whine (Score 1) 226

Developer "D" is paid to create software; he must get code in production to get good reviews and keep his job.
Operator "O" is paid to keep the production stable; he must keep unfit code out of production to get good reviews and keep his job.

These two roles work well with conflicts; D quickly creates code, O says "no go", D improves code, O accepts code. D gets a bad review but the company is okay.

When combined in a single person D+O quickly creates code, knows he should say "no go" but als knows he'll get bad reviews if he does. D+O knows it might go wrong, but decides a risk of a bad review is better than an absolute certainty. D+O may make a few minor tweaks to the code that still fit within the deadline but after that it's released.

The trouble is that individually, both the developer and the operator can make good choices from their own perspective. Working together, they're able to make the choice that's best for the company. As a combined role, the DevOp cannot make any good choices because there are no choices that fit both of his perspectives at once. Instead, the DevOp will choose at random at best.

Obviously, the world isn't that binary, but these situations do happen.

FWIW, I have a DevOp role in real life. I'll be very glad to get rid of one of the roles as soon as we can hire additional personel because I'm damn well aware that I have to make these bad choices. As a developer I'm the worst judge of my own code, yet as an operator I'm the only judge standing between the production environment. If you think you're a good judge of your own code, you are in fact much, much worse.

Comment Re:Heading off the Republic Pedants (Score 1, Troll) 818

One cannot argue that in today's United States we have liberty - cutting down a tree requires a permit, even when there are no safety considerations. Growing various plants is illegal. Operating a hair-cutting business without the proper permits is illegal. The list goes on...

Is that because government is evil or because people in general are evil?
If people would only ever cut down the few trees they actually need, you'd still have the liberty. But there will always be people who think that if cutting a tree for your own house is okay, then cutting down all trees so everybody has to pay you for wood is equally okay.
Laws exists not for the vast majority that would not abuse freedoms, they exist to protect that vast majority from the minority that would.

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