Daimaou - Slashdot User

Super-Earths Discovered Orbiting Nearby, Sun-Like Star 242

Posted by Soulskill on Monday December 14, 2009 @05:52PM from the i-for-one dept.

likuidkewl writes "Two super-earths, 5 and 7.5 times the size of our home, were found to be orbiting 61 Virginis a mere 28 light years away. 'These detections indicate that low-mass planets are quite common around nearby stars. The discovery of potentially habitable nearby worlds may be just a few years away,' said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC. Among hundreds of our nearest stellar neighbors, 61 Vir stands out as being the most nearly similar to the Sun in terms of age, mass, and other essential properties."

Comment Re:So fork the damn thing already! (Score 1) 278

by Daimaou on Sunday December 13, 2009 @07:51PM (#30426276) Attached to: Widenius Warns Against MySQL Falling Into Oracle's Hands

I second that. Firebird is nice, but PostgreSQL is better.

Comment Re:Dvorak is better, but how much better? (Score 1) 663

by Daimaou on Monday January 19, 2009 @12:05AM (#26512563) Attached to: Dvorak Layout Claimed Not Superior To QWERTY

I don't think it needs to provide a speed increase. I like it for the comfort and have used it for 15 years for that reason alone.

Although many people claim they do realize a speed increase, I didn't. So, I was simply hypothesizing that the reason I didn't notice a speed increase is that I can type as fast as I can think with either layout. If I wasn't putting sentences together in my head and then typing them, but rather typing pre-authored content verbatim, I'm sure I could type much faster than I do.

Comment Re:Dvorak is better, but how much better? (Score 1) 663

by Daimaou on Sunday January 18, 2009 @06:56PM (#26510215) Attached to: Dvorak Layout Claimed Not Superior To QWERTY

I know both QWERTY and Dvorak as well and I have to agree with you on your point of less fatigue. Your fingers don't move nearly as much as they do on a QWERTY keyboard.

However, I haven't noticed any increase in speed with Dvorak. Perhaps I might if I was a secretary and typing pre-authored material into a word processor, but I don't do that kind of work and I find I type as fast as I speak to myself in my head on both layouts.

I have heard some good things about Colemak, so maybe I'll learn that next and see if it beats Dvorak in the comfort area.

Comment Re:Nice platform, but... (Score 1) 771

by Daimaou on Wednesday November 19, 2008 @01:56AM (#25813689) Attached to: Why Developers Are Switching To Macs

No, Macports does not work right for Python and PostgreSQL. For one thing, a couple of the libraries needed to do Python/Django programming don't compile correctly. For another thing, a lot of the libraries that are available for Python 2.4 in Macports are missing for Python 2.5+.

Macports is a good tool when it works, but it doesn't always.

The Thirteen Greatest Error Messages of All Time 623

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday September 24, 2008 @01:51PM from the let-them-down-easy dept.

Technologizer writes "They add insult to injury — and computing wouldn't be the same without 'em. So I rounded up a baker's dozen of the most important error messages in computing history — from Does Not Compute to Abort, Retry, Fail to the Sad Mac to the big kahuna of them all — the mighty Blue Screen of Death. And just in case my judgment is off, I include a poll to let the rest of the world vote for the greatest error message of all." I can't believe that "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that" didn't make the list.

Clean Code 214

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday September 24, 2008 @01:10PM from the read-all-about-it dept.

Cory Foy writes "As developers, system admins, and a variety of other roles in IT, we have to deal with code on a daily basis. Sometimes it's just one-off scripts we never have to see again. Sometimes we stare at something that, for the life of us, we can't understand how it came out of a human mind (or, as the book puts it, has a high WTF/minute count). But there is a time when you find code that is a joy to use, to read and to understand. Clean Code sets out to help developers write that third kind of code through a series of essay-type chapters on a variety of topics. But does it really help?" Read below to find out.

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