The Code Hog - Slashdot User

Comment Love... (Score 3, Insightful) 397

by The Code Hog on Friday December 04, 2015 @11:10PM (#51061329) Attached to: Programming Education: Selling People a Lie?

As I've gotten older (started BASIC with a Timex/Sinclair XZ81, do NoSQL engine design for a living now), I've come to believe that the population split is true; there is a segment that has the aptitude to code, and the rest who don't.

The easiest way to see this aptitidue is to look and see whether someone loves to code. Just loves it. Works late because they have their teeth into a problem, holds incredibly complex systems in their head comfortably, etc. LOVES to code. Who feels, to paraphrase The Wind in the Willows: "There is nothing-- absolutely nothing-- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in code."

You rarely find crappy software folks who enjoy puttering about in the code. You often find crappy devs who got into it for the high salary.

Submission + - Kentucky Man shoots drone that was hovering over sunbathing 16-year old girl (wdrb.com)

Submitted by McGruber on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @09:40AM

McGruber writes: Hillview, Kentucky resident William H. Merideth describes his Sunday afternoon: "Sunday afternoon, the kids – my girls – were out on the back deck, and the neighbors were out in their yard," Merideth said. "And they come in and said, 'Dad, there’s a drone out here, flying over everybody’s yard.'"

Merideth's neighbors saw it too. "It was just hovering above our house and it stayed for a few moments and then she finally waved and it took off," said neighbor Kim VanMeter. VanMeter has a 16-year-old daughter who lays out at their pool. She says a drone hovering with a camera is creepy and weird. "I just think you should have privacy in your own backyard," she said.

Merideth agrees and said he had to go see for himself. “Well, I came out and it was down by the neighbor’s house, about 10 feet off the ground, looking under their canopy that they’ve got under their back yard," Merideth said. "I went and got my shotgun and I said, ‘I’m not going to do anything unless it’s directly over my property.’"

That moment soon arrived, he said. "Within a minute or so, here it came," he said. "It was hovering over top of my property, and I shot it out of the sky. I didn't shoot across the road, I didn't shoot across my neighbor's fences, I shot directly into the air."

It wasn't long before the drone's owners appeared. "Four guys came over to confront me about it, and I happened to be armed, so that changed their minds," Merideth said. "They asked me, 'Are you the S-O-B that shot my drone?' and I said, 'Yes I am,'" he said. "I had my 40mm Glock on me and they started toward me and I told them, 'If you cross my sidewalk, there's gonna be another shooting.'"

A short time later, Merideth said the police arrived. "There were some words exchanged there about my weapon, and I was open carry – it was completely legal," he said. "Long story short, after that, they took me to jail for wanton endangerment first degree and criminal mischief...because I fired the shotgun into the air."

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