csrster - Slashdot User

Comment More Nostalgia (Score 2) 211

by csrster on Thursday April 19, 2012 @03:42AM (#39731741) Attached to: Millions of Brits Lose Ceefax News Service

Joke all you like, but when ceefax started up it was the first time in our lives we had had access to up-to-the-minute news and other information on demand. We still have it here in Denmark although it's been a long while since I used it for anything other than subtitles.

Comment purevpn (Score 1) 193

by csrster on Tuesday April 10, 2012 @09:31AM (#39629967) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Finding a Trustworthy VPN Service?

I've been using purevpn for a couple of years, mostly to the UK although they also have servers in the US. They're cheap and reasonably reliable. You could just buy a one-month trial subscription ($6) and see how they work out for you.

Comment Re:Say what????? (Score 1) 714

by csrster on Friday March 30, 2012 @05:05AM (#39520347) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How Have You Handled Illegal Interview Topics?

In my experience, having lived in the USA, it is a country where a half-decent job gives you access to everything you could want, except for the leisure-time to enjoy it.

Comment Re:Citizenship (Score 2) 714

by csrster on Friday March 30, 2012 @05:01AM (#39520329) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How Have You Handled Illegal Interview Topics?

A temporary work permit in the USA will get you an SSN. I have SSN, or equivalent, in four different countries.

Comment Works for me (Score 3, Interesting) 1880

by csrster on Friday November 11, 2011 @09:26AM (#38022284) Attached to: What's Keeping You On Windows?

If people stopped developing stuff like cygwin, virtualbox, and assorted FOSS products that actually make Windows usable then I suppose I'd stop using it.

Comment Re:'cool' power users should like usability and ea (Score 1) 798

by csrster on Tuesday November 01, 2011 @07:47AM (#37905688) Attached to: Are Power Users Too Cool For Ubuntu Unity?

I'm using xfce on ubuntu. Works great.

Comment Stripping it Down (Score 1) 242

by csrster on Wednesday October 05, 2011 @03:03AM (#37609128) Attached to: Looking Back On a Year of LibreOffice

I find that for 95% of my document needs Google Docs has everything I need (and mysteriously it seems to come pre-installed on every computer I use). The other 5% I write in Google Docs anyway and get somebody else to do the fancy formatting afterwards.

Comment A couple of points (Score 1) 358

by csrster on Monday August 29, 2011 @02:28AM (#37239032) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Math Curriculum To Understand General Relativity?

i) Books are all very well, but in this day and age aren't there other web-based resources that might be a good supplement? Does any know of any universities making material at this level available online for free?
ii) On the "learning the maths" vs. "getting an intuitive understanding of the geometry" argument, I think some people are putting the cart before the horse. Doing the mathematical donkey work comes first. The intuitive understanding only comes after a long period of sweating over the formalism.

Comment Re:Easier way to learn it (Score 1) 358

by csrster on Monday August 29, 2011 @02:15AM (#37238982) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Math Curriculum To Understand General Relativity?

But that's hardly an argument for dropping the maths altogether, is it? It's just an argument for starting with a better formalism - presumably you're thinking of the spinor formalism?

Comment Re:Useless information (Score 1) 60

by csrster on Wednesday July 20, 2011 @05:26AM (#36820936) Attached to: Computer Science Tools Flood Astronomers With Data

This is a really poor argument for several reasons:

i) telescope time is a scarce resource. If I need an image of a galaxy X I might have to wait years to get telescope time for it. If galaxy X has already been observed once and the data stored then I can do my new research (e.g. datamining) on the existing data. Nobody knows in advance which data is going to be interesting to future researchers so triage is almost impossible.
ii) telescopes have finite lifetimes. Once the telescope/instrument ceases to exist the data cannot be reproduced.
iii) Most of the interesting things in the universe are dynamic. You need to be able to compare observations of stuff over time.

Comment Re:Generates? Wrong tense. (Score 1) 60

by csrster on Wednesday July 20, 2011 @05:18AM (#36820898) Attached to: Computer Science Tools Flood Astronomers With Data

Theoreticians surely generate most because they're only limited by how far a CPU can churn out floating-point numbers.

Comment Re:Bad timing (Score 1) 441

by csrster on Tuesday May 10, 2011 @02:50AM (#36079876) Attached to: Ubuntu Aims For 200 Million Users In Four Years

No, they're going straight to Totally Tits, that's why it's called jumping the Shark.

Comment Misleading Title! (Score 1) 478

by csrster on Thursday November 04, 2010 @03:57AM (#34121828) Attached to: Immaculate Conception In a Boa Constrictor

Do Boa Constrictors really labour under the burden of Original Sin?

Comment Re:My two cents (Score 1) 167

by csrster on Monday June 07, 2010 @08:31AM (#32482370) Attached to: University Networks Block Student Project

The issue of costs has not yet been decided. Remember the BCA didn't lose; they withdrew their case. Singh himself has stated that he expects to be very substantially out of pocket even after costs have been sorted out.

Comment Mugs (Score 2, Funny) 104

by csrster on Wednesday May 19, 2010 @02:59AM (#32261742) Attached to: Boltzmann Equation Solved, the New Way

These guys must be crazy. Why waste your career proving the regularity of solutions to the Boltzmann equation when you could get a million bucks for doing the same for the Navier-Stokes equations.

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