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Comment: Re:Old code (Score 1) 683

by dudeman2 (#42467815) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How Can I Explain To a Coworker That He Writes Bad Code?

Doesn't matter if he can understand his two-year-old code if no one else can. If he quits or gets hit by a bus, what then? I agree with above posters that this is something for his superiors to handle, not you. If it's affecting your work, point it out to them, and if they can't see the problem, perhaps it's time to look for a new job.

Comment: Re:Proportional response? (Score 1) 861

by dudeman2 (#42044525) Attached to: Israel's Iron Dome Missile Defense Shield Actually Works

Untrue. Wikipedia says:

>By 20 November, Gaza health officials said that 113 Palestinians had been killed since the operation began, of which: 53 were civilians, 49 militants and 1 a policeman

Note that is an estimate from a Palestinian source.

Carpet-bombing, or anything close to it, would have resulted in a far higher number of Palestinian deaths. Any loss of innocent life is tragic but these numbers show a commitment to minimizing civilian casualties on the part of the IDF. Unlike Hamas which intentionally targets civilians with their rocket strikes.

Comment: Re:visited to USA recently (Score 1) 813

by dudeman2 (#40528199) Attached to: After Recent US Storms, Why Are Millions Still Without Power?

Might have something to do with the fact that the population of the USA is far less dense overall than places like Western Europe (map). In dense population centers like New York City, utilities are required by law to bury the power lines. Utility companies have a captive market - where else are you going to buy your power, so in the absence of legislation, they don't have an incentive to spend the huge upfront costs of burying power lines in exchange for higher reliability.

Comment: Re:Podcasts... (Score 1) 332

by dudeman2 (#39714405) Attached to: iTunes' Windows Problem

Once I started using Downcast, I've ignored Apple's substandard podcast features completely. Only shame is that Downcast can't integrate with the builtin Podcasts category, so when I play via my car head unit, I have to put the head unit into "iPod hands on" mode and manually navigate to the podcast on the iPod touch.

Comment: Re:Security is hard (Score 3, Interesting) 162

by dudeman2 (#35293562) Attached to: Stuxnet's Legacy: Get Back to Basics or Get Owned

Actually, those centrifuges were never on the public Internet. Stuxnet was cleverly designed to infect the workstations running Step 7 PLC programming software, hijack the communications with the PLC to install its payload on the PLC. I don't know if the Step 7 workstations were on the Internet either; they may have been infected by sneakernet - USB keys, CDROMs, and the like.

Comment: Re:Who didn't see this coming? (Score 5, Informative) 789

by dudeman2 (#31803292) Attached to: Adobe Evangelist Lashes Out Over Apple's "Original Language" Policy

Sorry, the ipod connector could not have been mini/micro USB. Unless you have some way to pass analog audio and composite video via USB without an additional set of a/d/d/a. Now, it could have been mini/micro USB PLUS analog line out/ composite out, but that's something else entirely.

Comment: Re:Hand washing (Score 2, Insightful) 232

by dudeman2 (#31467604) Attached to: GPS Log Analysis Uncovers Millions In NYC Taxi Overcharges

New Yorkers are not suckers, and those of us who have lived here a while know roughly how much a cab ride from Point A to Point B will cost. But the taximeter labels on fare schedules ("fare 1" versus "fare 4") are subtle and easily missed. I'm sure the hacks knew to cheat people who are either (a) tourists, (b) people in a REAL hurry (c) drunks. Plenty of those to go around.

Comment: Re:Maybe it's not the taxi drivers (Score 3, Informative) 232

by dudeman2 (#31467554) Attached to: GPS Log Analysis Uncovers Millions In NYC Taxi Overcharges

Not true. In NYC, Taximeters are installed in individual cabs and are controlled by the driver. All the GPS/credit card/entertainment systems with two way radio communication were installed very recently. Before now it would have been impossible to prove fraud other than by hand matching receipts and rates charged to driver logbook to/from/time entries.

Comment: Re:Fools. (Score 0, Troll) 572

by dudeman2 (#31305172) Attached to: Unfriendly Climate Greets Gore At Apple Meeting

The problem is that those BS detectors are tuned to be so sensitive that they tend to register false positives. I.e., 9/11 "truthers", the people who believe Obama's birth certificate is a fraud, etc. The question I ask these people is "what amount of evidence would cause you to change your views?" They'll toss off a few impossible to satisfy conditions or just crank up the crazy. Bottom line is, you're never going to convince these folks that their view is wrong, evidence be damned. Same for the global warming "skeptics". Exactly what amount of evidence will be required to convince the board of Exxon that global warming is a fact?

I would rather say that a desire to drive fast sports cars is what sets man apart from the animals.

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