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Comment: Re:Dark matter (Score 1) 173

You're assuming that you start from nothing, or from pure energy. Creating dark matter could just mean converting ordinary matter in some way.

Converting hydrogen and oxygen into 1 tonne of water doesn't require E = 1000*c^2 (rocket engineers might tell you it actually gives you energy out), but you get 1000kg of water at the end.

Comment: Re:Petition (Score 1) 386

by TwentyCharsIsNotEnou (#43168931) Attached to: Google Reader Being Retired
No, I mean those who do use it, and are now having second thoughts about everything Google.

I think this has finally got the message through to many people (myself included), that Google will can anything. Reader wasn't exactly an experiment - it was almost 8 years old. Not really in sync with their push for us to rely more and more on the "cloud".

Comment: Re:Not true. (Score 1) 984

by TwentyCharsIsNotEnou (#43139195) Attached to: Ohio Judge Rules Speed Cameras Are a Scam

If someone rear-ends you, then that's their fault. 100% of the time.

What about an oil patch on the road, a sudden puncture, brake failure, a heart attack - is it still 100% their fault? Sometimes an accident can be nobody's fault.

What is true 100% of the time is that purposely not preventing an accident you could easily prevent, is definitely your fault.

Example: Some idiot overtakes where he shouldn't, doesn't see a car coming the other direction. Driver who's being overtaken DOES see the oncoming car, but chooses not to slow down to let the overtaking car back in to safety - because "it's the other guys own fault". Yes, the guy overtaking is an asshole for risking his and other people's lives, but the guy being overtaken is also an asshole, and in my opinion culpable, for not taking action to prevent another asshole (and innocent others) getting hurt/killed.

Comment: Re:Infallible? (Score 1) 542

by TwentyCharsIsNotEnou (#42869113) Attached to: Pope To Resign Citing Advanced Age

No. One of the two did it wrong. If they produce the exact same result, proc usage, runtime, AND effort to create, they'd be the same functions. Besides, the infallible coder could just name off binary digits, all the while perfectly confident that it will work.

Did it wrong?? So a perfectly working function that took slightly more initial effort is wrong? Even though it might be easier for a non-infallible coder colleague to re-use or adapt? There, see - I've just added another metric - reusability - you could keep adding more metrics forever.

My point is that sometimes there is no perfect solution - there are trade-offs. You could argue that one day, eventually, maybe it could be decided that one or the other trade off was the better choice - but that conclusion will still be an opinion, based on a certain set of priorities. I don't see why two infallible beings couldn't have different priorities and opinions.

Comment: Re:Infallible? (Score 1) 542

by TwentyCharsIsNotEnou (#42860349) Attached to: Pope To Resign Citing Advanced Age

Two infallible people at the same time would have to agree on everything.

Is that really true?

How about two "infallible" coders who write the same function (let's say, in Perl) in two different ways - both of which produce the exact same result, processor usage, and runtime.

Could they not disagree on coding style yet remain infallible?

Comment: Re:So (Score 5, Insightful) 542

by TwentyCharsIsNotEnou (#42859909) Attached to: Pope To Resign Citing Advanced Age
If you're a fan of a particular [insert sport here] team, you tend to be interested if a big change of leadership occurs in an opposing team.

If you're an atheist or just an enlightened citizen of the world, I reckon it's newsworthy when the leadership of a 1 billion-strong team is about to change.

Comment: Re:Plenty of options (Score 1) 570

by TwentyCharsIsNotEnou (#42826915) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Buying a Laptop That Doesn't Have Windows 8

Or get an Apple, they have drivers from XP forward.

They're not great though - my experience on a Macbook Pro with Windows 8:

  • Two-finger scrolling is so sensitive it's almost unusable.
  • Keyboard backlight always comes on at startup, have to hold the dim key down for 2-3 seconds to get rid of it, EVERY time you restart.
  • Screen backlight intensity is unreliable, especially after a restart. The max available intensity seems to vary.

These are known issues for a long time now, and there are even 3rd party drivers written to fix them (but they only work if you put Windows 8 into devel mode). It's almost like Apple wants your Windows experience on a Mac to be slightly imperfect...

Flugg's Law: When you need to knock on wood is when you realize that the world is composed of vinyl, naugahyde and aluminum.

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