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WalterBright

Re:The U.S. Is Bullying Europe Like Never Before on Monday November 02, 2026 @10:19PM (#50347615)
Not wanting to work very much, yet feeling entitled to a share of what other people work for, doesn't sound like a workable system.
Re:Patrick Stewart taught us what good men do with power on Monday November 02, 2026 @02:52AM (#50334180)
> Most people have no military experience at all.

Exactly. So why do script fiction writers have credibility in their stories about military operations?

Re:Patrick Stewart taught us what good men do with power on Sunday November 01, 2026 @05:02PM (#50330396)
The Hero's Journey shows major commonalities across time and cultures.
Re:Patrick Stewart taught us what good men do with power on Sunday November 01, 2026 @05:00PM (#50330382)
> Picard the character was derived from the writers’ understanding of historical leaders.

How do you know that?

As for TOS, is it acceptable military doctrine that the general and his staff are the ones taking point into danger, where the entire leadership layer can be easily erased? Did Eisenhower storm Omaha Beach on D-Day?

Re:Patrick Stewart taught us what good men do with power on Sunday November 01, 2026 @04:30PM (#50330109)
I'll let you in on another secret. People in the military are in two groups - those who have been shot at, and those who have not. Getting shot at changes your perspective forever, and people who write military fiction but have never been shot at don't really get how it works.

For example, B-17 crews were trained very well, the best that the military could do. They'd have to fly 30 some missions. The probability of dying on the first 5 missions was the same as the probability of dying in the following 25 missions.

Re:Patrick Stewart taught us what good men do with power on Sunday November 01, 2026 @04:22PM (#50330034)
TOS violated the PD in every episode.
Re:Patrick Stewart taught us what good men do with power on Sunday November 01, 2026 @04:22PM (#50330028)
It would be fair to pick out a situation and resolution in ST that did coincide with military doctrine.

In particular, I think (I don't know for a fact) that the military emphasizes that the commander not be best buddies with those under his command.

Re:Patrick Stewart taught us what good men do with power on Sunday November 01, 2026 @04:11PM (#50329943)
The Hero's Journey suggests otherwise.

https://www.jcf.org/learn/joseph-campbell-heros-journey

Re:Patrick Stewart taught us what good men do with power on Sunday November 01, 2026 @02:15PM (#50328717)
The US military does extensive leadership training for officers. It is based on a thousand years of experience. None of their training materials consist of Star Trek fictional scenarios.
Re:Patrick Stewart taught us what good men do with power on Sunday November 01, 2026 @02:07PM (#50328632)
Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) worked in an office for many years, and so he had credibility in making funny observations about it.
Re:Patrick Stewart taught us what good men do with power on Sunday November 01, 2026 @02:05PM (#50328617)
What leadership credentials do the script writers have?
Re:Patrick Stewart taught us what good men do with power on Sunday November 01, 2026 @02:03PM (#50328589)
The fault with taking lessons from fictions is the writer can make any outcome seem plausible.

A far better method of learning leadership is by studying actual leaders, both good and bad ones. For example, if you want to know why Rommel was able to lead a small group of men to victory after victory, read a biography of him.

Studying a fantasy whose entire purpose is to make money entertaining people? You're wasting your time.

Are any of the script writers of Star Trek successful leaders of men? If not, what credibility do their "lessons" have?

Re:Compile-Time Dependent Types on Sunday November 01, 2026 @01:38PM (#50328346)
The syntax in the article is what I proposed for C. Sorry that wasn't clear.

Yes, the separate variables is more expressive. It's also clumsy, inelegant, and error-prone. It also only works for function calls - not fields in a struct.

You can leave the switch on if you like.

Or you can add a button "check trusted source for updates".

Re:Electrification Could Cut Global Energy Use in Half on Sunday November 01, 2026 @01:23PM (#50328193)
Electrical transmission lines lose power, too. So does generating the electricity. So does the electric motors. So does the heavier weight of the EV. Regenerative braking doesn't apply when cruising on the highway.

And so on.

P.S. Since I drive a stick, I coast a lot. I live in a hilly area, and have a pretty good feel for just how and where I can shift into neutral and coast. I also coast towards a red light with the goal of reaching the intersection just when it turns green. (Moving forward from a dead stop uses lots of energy.)

"Regulation of Pharmaceutical Innovation" by Sam Peltzman https://www.amazon.com/Regulation-Pharmaceutical-Innovation-...

I've mentioned it a couple times.

Re:Electrification Could Cut Global Energy Use in Half on Sunday November 01, 2026 @02:27AM (#50323392)
The battery loses 10% just by charging it.

I figured an EV is worth about 60mpg with a fair comparison to a gas car.

Re:Electrification Could Cut Global Energy Use in Half on Sunday November 01, 2026 @02:24AM (#50323382)
I got a CO2 monitor, and noticed that it often went over 1000 ppm CO2. So I started cracking the windows slightly, which resolved it. There are downsides to sealing the house too tight.
Re:Surviving "The Graduate" on Sunday November 01, 2026 @01:56AM (#50323049)
Back when I'd go to bars, I'd go with a friend of mine. He'd just get a drink and stand at the bar. I'd tease him that his pickup line was "ok". (He was tall and handsome.)
Re:When electric cars were for women on Sunday November 01, 2026 @01:55AM (#50323275)
> if you can accept that other people find them almost universally annoying

I am well aware of that. I don't drive my loud car after dark so I don't annoy the neighbors. The ones that complain I offer a ride in, they have fun, and we're both happy.

There's also a limit to enjoying the sound, and I wouldn't want to take more than a brief jaunt with it. I only drive it once a week or so.

I used to live in a neighborhood where everyone had a small lawn. When the weather warmed up, and it was the weekend, I'd open the windows. Inevitably, one of my neighbors started their lawnmower, rrrrrrr, and it would take them some ungodly amount of time to mow their lawn. They'd finish, and I'd sigh with relief. A couple minutes later, another neighbor would start up their lawn mower. Etc. Etc. From 8-8, Sat-Sun, you could not open the windows. It was intensely irritating. I was glad to leave that neighborhood.

In another neighborhood where I lived for a time, I shared a fence with my neighbor separating our backyards. He had a little yappy dog that yapped all day. All day. No respite.

The first time it was the graphics card. It burst into flames and smoke poured out. The fire went out when I yanked the power. Fortunately, I was sitting next to it when it went. To be fair, it was doing a long graphics job.

After that, I set the computer on a metal plate to keep a fire from spreading to the floor.

Some years later, the PSU went out with a bang and a lot of smoke.

(dmd is so fast, the computer doesn't have time to heat up!)

Re:When electric cars were for women on Sunday November 01, 2026 @01:51AM (#50323034)
Perhaps you haven't heard the sound of the right engine.

A 4 cylinder is very annoying.

A Detroit V8 sounds very good loud, with the large displacement and the right cam.

The most heavenly sound in the world is a Merlin V12 aircraft engine. (The yootoob videos with engine starts just cannot capture it.) There's even a book about it - "Sigh of a Merlin".

My dad was an Air Force P-51 pilot (with Merlin engine). When he passed, the local aviation museum said they'd do a memorial P-51 flight at the funeral for free, as long as I paid for the gas. Best money I ever spent.

Sometimes I'll hear the distinctive sound of the 4 engine B-17, and they'll be flying low and slow over Lake Washington. A marvelous sight and sound.

Re:Simple circuits can create complex behaviors on Sunday November 01, 2026 @01:48AM (#50323245)
It reminds me of the computer strategy I devised for my Empire game.
Re:Simple circuits can create complex behaviors on Sunday November 01, 2026 @01:45AM (#50323240)
> But dogs and horses don't have the conceptual ideas of freedom and economy, and they enjoy doing the work they're given (in part because we spent hundreds to thousands of years breeding them to do that).

Horses know they are slaves and don't like it. But they aren't very smart, and like not very smart people, they take petty revenge when the opportunity arises. For example:

1. if you walk behind a work horse, he's likely to kick you

2. if you ride a horse, he'll try to run under a branch to knock you off

3. a horse will take a deep breath and hold it while you cinch a strap over its chest. Then the horse will exhale, and the cowboy will have to cinch it up again. What the savvy cowboy does is pull on the strap until the horse gives up and takes a breath, then cinch it hard

4. to work with horses, you've got to let them know you are in charge and won't take any nonsense from them

I have my computer in a metal box because it has caught fire twice.
Devices like routers should have firmware in memory that has read-only access. The access should be turned on or off by a physical switch.

This way, if malware gets installed on your router, doing a cold boot will eliminate it. You can have a timer to just cold boot it regularly.

I've suggested this many times. The rationale for not doing it is so the firmware can be remotely updated. Well, that's exactly how malware infects it.

Re:Surviving "The Graduate" on Saturday October 31, 2026 @07:03PM (#50321099)
Maybe the movie was successful because we could relate to Hoffman, while Redford (probably the handsomest actor ever) being rejected was not relatable.
Re:Compile-Time Dependent Types on Saturday October 31, 2026 @02:16PM (#50318519)
D does not use `char a[..]` as syntax for anything.

A pointer is declared as `char* p`, and an array as `char[] p`.

A two dimensional array parameter is declared as:

    void transpose(double[][] a);
Having to specify the dimensions as separate parameters is an unfortunate design choice:

1. It's clumsy to have to carry the dimensions around as separate items, rather than as one item

2. If the wrong X or Y is supplied, you have a massive memory corruption problem

Re:Jules Verne's Lost Novel on Saturday October 31, 2026 @02:09PM (#50318448)
I wanted something less juvenile and cartoonish. And the interiors of the submarine were improbably and absurdly large. I guess I'm just the wrong demographic for it.
Re:Brief History of PDP Computers on Saturday October 31, 2026 @03:39AM (#50314004)
I learned how to program on a PDP-10. Lots of great memories.

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