Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re: Trucks booked as sold? (Score 1) 73

China's geology is really bad for petroleum production. A bad lot in the luck of the draw.

They are building a monster pipeline and rail system across Mongolia and Siberia to Russian reserves but it's a decadal project.

Electric transportation is a smart option for their situation. Their necessity has become their Mother of Invention and they are dominating the world in electric power systems innovation.

Comment "a full school year behind " (Score 1) 211

If we're graduating Seniors with Junior level math skills that's hardly "Can't do Math."

I suspect even that claim is wrong and we're also teaching the wrong math for an informed electorate. In undergrad we need people sharp in probability and statistics more than matrix algebra. So they can be numerate against politicians' bullshit. I guess we should ask politicians to work on that.

Comment Re: Alternate headline (Score 0) 72

Some of us are neither Republicans nor Democrats but would support a strong 10th Amendment with strict observance of Article I limitations.

But nearly all the Democrats and Republicans want to selectively choose which parts of the Constitution to ignore. There is no will for Rule of Law.

The Congressmen get elected on the principle of stealing money from one person to give it to five. That's a guaranteed win in a Universal Suffrage system with no strong moral foundation.

The trick is they inflate the money supply to actually do it so everybody pays. The five "winners" suffer the most in real numbers.

I'd rather see a stable Constitutional order but it's fantasy to believe that's achievable. We'll see fiscal collapse, likely War and a Draft, and chaos instead. All because oligarchs and the poor want "free stuff". And it's hard to blame the poor when everything they want is unachievable for them because the markets are all rigged against them.

The Gini Coefficient is too damn high, so don't get between them and the guillotines.

Comment Re:Obvious answer (Score 5, Insightful) 182

I think because it is not dependable....it still quite often gets things wrong and gives wrong answers.

Hell, just the other day, it got the wrong songs on an album being discussed, info that is out there on the web for easy verification.

If you can't trust if for simple things like that, it's then a QC nightmare when you try to trust it for important code or design....where tolerances can mean life/death or at the very least....severe LITIGATION.

Comment Re:This commentary is really depressing (Score 1) 15

The BCG vaccine has also been found to be effective against bladder cancer. One of the two manufacturers bailed out of the market about a decade ago, limiting supply for both TB and bladder cancer.

They just opened a new manufacturing facility in Durham this past Spring to make much more. Not sure if it's producing yet, but it was a four-year build.

TB affects so few Americans that you can't even get BCG for TB prevention if you want it. Hopefully high-risk folks will be able to elect to get it soon.

Comment Re: I'm so glad the government makes me safe. (Score 4, Insightful) 111

There's been ticket scalping since the days when I was a kid...

It was always, back then....illegal to scalp tickets, but they would do things like sell a Bic lighter for $200 and throw in a ticket free with it.

I imagine they'll do something similar to get around this law over there in EU.

Comment Re:working (Score 1) 24

I do consider taxation theft, there is no purpose to it except for controlling the population. The fact that people accept different *levels* of theft depending on how much money they make just proves how much of theft it is, because they more money someone makes, the fewer people there are in that category of people, given that, it is easier to structure theft in such a way as to convince the majority that they don't suffer as much as the other people, who are hit with a much bigger crime.

Comment Built In Limit? (Score 1) 56

> The software had a built-in limit of 200 bot detection features. The enlarged file contained more than 200 entries. The software crashed when it encountered the unexpected file size.

A built in limit is:

if ( rule_count > 200 )
    log_urgent('rule count exceeded')
    break
else
    rule_count++
    process_rule

This sounds like it did not have a built-in limit but rather walked off the end of an array or something when the count went over 200.

Comment Re:Oracle, IT's demon incarnate. (Score 1) 29

Cisco has done exactly the same thing, acquired Linksys because of the open source routers they were selling, and then let it rot. Cisco has done this hundreds of times.

In fairness...

1.) Cisco is far less litigation happy than Oracle is. Not saying they don't have attorneys on retainer, but Oracle is frequently referred to as a law firm with a software sales division - very different tiers.

2.) Cisco owned Linksys for a while, sure, but they haven't owned it in nearly 15 years - Cisco sold it over to Belkin back in 2013, who in turn sold it to Foxconn around 2018.

3.) Cisco may have discontinued selling routers running Linux out of the box, but they never did any signed-bootloader shenanigans that prevented DD-WRT/Tomato/OpenWRT from running on routers for quite some time - I remember running Shibby's TomatoUSB on an AC3200 for quite some time. Ironically, I think Belkin later started making it nearly-impossible to run third party firmware on Linksys hardware (except the $400 ones).

4.) It's not like anyone else took up the mantle...a handful of routers can run OpenWRT, but they're from obscure vendors - it's not like Cisco got rid of OSS-running routers, only to have Belkin or Netgear or D-Link take it up...Asus did for a little bit (the N56U being a better example), but they didn't keep up with it.

So yeah, Cisco has its clear faults...but how they handled the consumer router division, in my opinion, isn't the best example of this problem...and certainly not when being compared to Oracle.

Comment Re:iPhone Unavailable - try again in 1 minute (Score 2) 97

If you are a programmer and you are given clear instructions on what is expected, then yes. If you are a programmer and you are not given clear instructions, then no. However if you are technical lead/architect then you really should be responsible for it.

OTOH if you are a programmer and you raise these concerns then you are on your way to become a technical lead/architect.

In my systems I insist we keep a database table of various common passwords (tens of thousands of these) and we do not allow people using them as well.

Comment FoIA (Score 4, Insightful) 57

I heard earlier today that a court has determined that since governments are using all of this data, including license plates, that a FoIA request for all of the license plate data gathered from Flock in a city area for a range of dates was valid.

They want to have a power advantage over their serfs but turning their advantage into a burden changes that dynamic. Something to look into for those so inclined.

We seem to be well past the point of being able to expect them to follow the Law or "do the right thing".

Slashdot Top Deals

Know Thy User.

Working...