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Re:Craig Newmark Did Not Donate to EFF on Thursday July 02, 2015 @12:22PM (#9819906)
It's fair to point out they also sued after they issued a warning shot, in the form of a C & D.

I like your analogy of the site being forked. I don't believe for a 2nd that the companies scraping the CL data and putting a pretty UX on it were doing it out of any sense of altruism.

Re:Craig Newmark Did Not Donate to EFF on Thursday July 02, 2015 @12:17PM (#9819873)
CL is popular because it's simple, easy, cheap. They have tons of competitors that they manage to beat, so they're doing something right. Companies that want to horn in on them should create the marketplace as well as the front end, but they would fail at it so they're just left with complaining.
Re:3D Printing of a Steel Bridge in Amsterdam on Friday June 12, 2015 @06:07PM (#9708864)
I don't think that temporary part fabrication for critical assembly lines qualifies as overhyping 3d printing. That seems super reasonable :) A 3d printer in every house, completely removing the need for centralized manufacture or distribution, a bit moreso.
Re:3D Printing of a Steel Bridge in Amsterdam on Friday June 12, 2015 @06:02PM (#9708836)
Would this actually be a pretty bad application of 3-d printing? I thought the metals were generally or exclusively done through sintering, and and for some reason (may be incorrect) it didn't do as well with tensile & deformation stress. Not to mention porosity. Seems like something a casted product would be better for.
Don't forget agriculture, aerospace/defense, banking. Hard to get bent out of shape when someone gets a slice of the pie that is trying to improve things.
"Those fears were not in the slightest irrational. People had really really bad reactions to the regular pertussis to the point that people routinely advised new parents not to get it for their children."

Simply not true. You can easily find my citations (including CDC). Please provide yours.

"So what's better a vaccine that doesn't work as well, that people are willing to take? Or a vaccine that works well, but far fewer people are willing to take it?"

The risk from Pertussis is greater than that of DTAP by a lot. This is like suggesting we take away seat belts because some people believe they'll trap them in a burning vehicle.

Just because you are willing/able to leave a company doesn't mean you advertise it. Hence "explicit" vs "tacit" in my comment. What a person says about being loyal is irrelevant, you can't assume anyone will stay long term (kind of the point). But if they go out of their way to say they're looking, then they don't want to be there and you shouldn't waste the time & resources training them up.
That is apples and oranges. He's talking about a tacit understanding, and not necessarily in the context of upward movement. You're talking about explicitly telling management that you are actively looking. They'd have to be idiots to promote you under those circumstances.
Re:QA = Time and Money. How much should you invest? on Wednesday May 20, 2015 @05:19PM (#9579390)
Outstanding answer - thanks for the pointer to the Lakos book.
Re:Downloading PuTTY Safely Is Nearly Impossible (2014) on Wednesday May 20, 2015 @04:10PM (#9578951)
Not a PuTTY fan. I generally install Fedora or Linux vms on personal Windows systems (where they are mandatory/heavily advantageous and where security policies permit) in large part to have openssh-client, and then use vmhgfs shares to move files between them as necessary. Among other reasons.
Re:QA = Time and Money. How much should you invest? on Monday May 18, 2015 @04:51PM (#9566798)
Test driven development usually refers to unit testing or integration testing. It would be interesting to know if you went beyond that and the nature of contract work you were doing (testing for an internal service with a RESTful API being very different from a mobile app, or a website).
Re:The Cryptographic Doom Principle on Tuesday April 14, 2015 @01:47PM (#9375995)
1) Experts in all fields are always wrong sometimes. The nonexperts are wrong more frequently on average and people are less interested in proving them wrong.

2) Saying that implementing your own cryptography usually implies a production environment. I think it's generally assumed that nobody cares what people do with their own time/personal projects.

3) Trite sounds bites don't work in science either, and expert -/-> celebrity.

Re:The Cryptographic Doom Principle on Tuesday April 14, 2015 @01:36PM (#9375913)
I could not disagree with you more.

Maybe you could suggest what might be "more helpful" but I personally could not think of anything more useful that than telling people to not do something that puts their customers' and their own critical information at risk.

Good crypto algorithms don't get stale or anything. The point is they're fundamentally difficult.

Perhaps you could give a single decent reason for rolling your own crypto algorithm, vs something as easy as 4096 bit RSA or something.

Re:First 26 pages of Neal Stephenson's new novel Seveneves on Monday April 13, 2015 @04:43PM (#9370359)
It will turn into a cloud of asteroids surrounding the earth intended to prevent the human race from unleashing whatever hell we create with those autonomous mining robots on the ISS (would be my guess, at least). Feel like the agent/patient distinction is pretty blunt foreshadowing against it being a survival/resilience story against and abstract antagonist like a random natural disaster.

edit: http://www.amazon.com/Seveneves-A-Novel-Neal-Stephenson/dp/0... gives a bit more detail and it is likely it will not become a ring. Probably a lot of highly energetic reentrant debris capable of generating a lot of atmospheric heat.

edit: @jaquesm - i'm allowing for creative license, and was making guess explaining what would happened based on my gut feel for the plot direction. you're probably correct on the physics.

Re:First 26 pages of Neal Stephenson's new novel Seveneves on Monday April 13, 2015 @04:34PM (#9370292)
My first reaction to the linked excerpt was that Seveneves reminded me of Galapagos (thematically)
Re:Fired on Friday March 06, 2015 @04:07PM (#9159574)
Yes, and pre-ACA, if were diagnosed with anything during a coverage gap, it would fall into the dreaded "pre-existing condition" category.
Re:Interview questions for QA managers on Friday March 06, 2015 @01:28PM (#9158594)
Typical process might be - and this is at a very hight/crude level - 1) job that checks out & runs unit tests triggering 2) a job that creates a build triggering 3) a job deploying to an integration/staging environment and possibly even triggering (or with an air gap, requiring manually running) 4) a job to promote to a production environment.

Testing can/should be added between various steps there depending on the type of product you are working with. Automated functional tests be integrated into a process like that at several points (qa ownership of portions of unit/integration testing framework and automated tests that smoke test new deployments to a staging environment) and knowing those points/tools that integrate well with your CI system/ability to implement those integrations is probably something you want a qa manager to be familiar with.

Re:Interview questions for QA managers on Friday March 06, 2015 @01:21PM (#9158552)
This is a pretty good list. It's a bit self-serving on the technology questions as well as the general line of questioning for TestMunk (understandably).

If you are really hiring a QA Manager, also consider asking them about their team structure/building philosophy, elaborate on the technical requirements for those roles, if they have experience developing a testing process that works with your company/group's development process. What experience they have with problem hires and how they've dealt with them.

This is really a list of questions of a principal test engineer. A good manager should be able to answer them, too, but it's far more important that they can make a group of QA engineers perform well (otherwise you should be hiring a QA lead).

Re:Apple to replace AT&T in Dow Jones on March 18 on Friday March 06, 2015 @12:56PM (#9158402)
It's news because of index funds, that now must rebalance by selling T and buying AAPL.

Otherwise, I agree completely that the DJIA is becoming a bit of an anachronism.

You should talk to a CPA [edit: sorry, Canada - CGA], not an attorney, first.

You are upset about something that might not be an issue. You haven't mentioned what type of stock options you have (in the US there are ISO and NQSO, and - upon a quick check - it appears there are different types in Canada as well, with differing tax treatment). Omitting that detail in addition to the ... unusual way in which you exercised them makes me think you may have more of an academic familiarity with the process.

It would have been nice if the founders told you about the investment, but your reaction is completely out of proportion with what happened. Lawyering up [edit: distinct from a consultation] will be the equivalent of ending your career track with them and burning your bridges entirely.

And really, if the market value of your options has increased, consider the positive side of that news if you own 3%.

Re:Clinton ran own computer system for her official emails on Wednesday March 04, 2015 @04:17PM (#9147423)
I find your response a bit insulting and presumptuous.

I'm sufficiently well developed to separate my feelings about a politician from their political party, and in turn from my own feelings about an abstract ethical scenario. And none of this is to say anything about my political beliefs, which are personal and none of anyones beeswax.

This isn't abstract either, as some other poster mentioned, this is widespread, bipartisan behavior. I think that if there is evidence of malfeasance, then they should be required to produce their email (privately served or not) via subpoena. I can see the loophole about having people policing their own email archiving, but I honestly do not know if that is illegal, hence why I asked if any experts here knew if this violated any laws or policies.

EDIT: also, you assume this is sourced from a conservative or Republican group? Primaries happen before generals.

Re:Clinton ran own computer system for her official emails on Wednesday March 04, 2015 @11:47AM (#9145507)
Hah! Try spoofing an email to a recipient in the State Dept and tell me how it works out :)
Re:Clinton ran own computer system for her official emails on Wednesday March 04, 2015 @11:44AM (#9145482)
So, anyone with a brain realizes this is a political hit job leading up to the 2016 presidential election. So the promotion of this story has very few honest brokers involved & a lot of partisan motivation.

But I am genuinely curious about this. It doesn't seem like wrongdoing per se, or even anything unethical. But I don't like the trend of losing documents from the historical record. And I think that (while her email security is probably better than State Dept. as a whole) it probably would have been better as the leader to hold herself to the same standards as everyone in the organization as a general principle.

Curious to hear if anyone here has .gov experience and can give useful insight into the story.

Re:Berkshire Hathaway 2014 Annual Report [pdf] on Monday March 02, 2015 @04:36PM (#9134490)
I thought it was notable that Buffet referred people to Airbnb for lodgings in the Omaha area for the shareholder meeting. Not a guy particularly noted for being on top of trends (note: I am a huge WEB fan in numerous ways, though).

edit: see page 22

Re:David Carr Dies at 58 on Friday February 13, 2015 @01:41PM (#9046188)
Tom Levenson posted a very nice tribute to him here: http://www.balloon-juice.com/2015/02/13/on-david-carr/
Re:The prisoners trying to code their way to a better life on Friday February 13, 2015 @10:55AM (#9044938)
I know you're joking, but to put how progressive the program is in context: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/02/12/south_car...
Re:China on Wednesday February 11, 2015 @02:39PM (#9035154)
Yeah, their ability to replace US/developed nation demand with internal demand in order to allow the RMB to float freely will be interesting. As it is now, a lot of their growth is based on government spending and some creative financial engineering with debt (similar to Fed and containment of toxic mortgage assets) and currency manipulation intended to create a huge domestic manufacturing base.

I think, complicating this, is the implicit social contract between the govt and the populace regarding economic growth and jobs. As flawed as the US system is, it is (purely IMO) a more fault tolerant - in a dynamic systems/perturbation sense - than Chinese society.

Re:China on Wednesday February 11, 2015 @02:00PM (#9034786)
The world can't sustain a China middle class the same with similar proportion/consumption as the US (look at per capita oil consumption, fresh water consumpion, CO2 production, et al). That's maybe the bigger story in a bigger sense.
Re:The God Who Peter Molyneux Forgot on Wednesday February 11, 2015 @01:29PM (#9034541)
So this is a non-story. The royalty was based around a feature the company hasn't been able to deliver and was not contractually obligated to by any time. The kid doesn't seem particularly upset, and while it's not heartwarming, there doesn't seem to be any wrongdoing anywhere (other than etiquette-wise for the studio staying in touch more frequently... and perhaps they didn't want to spill dirty laundry about execution/financial issues to a contest winning teenager).

edit: Surprised by the negative reaction to this post. At least 5 downvotes altogether. I'm not endorsing Monyneux's actions in any way. I'm just saying that it's obvious what happened. They promised royalties on a product they failed to deliver for business and technical reasons. Now they are pivoting to a new game to try to stay in business.

They should have owned up to it, and given the kid an apology, a check for 1000 GBP, and modelled a character in "The Trail" as damage control.

Not sure about budgetary minutia but surely this qualifies? http://www.cnet.com/news/obama-adds-14b-to-budget-for-steppe...

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