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Comment Re: technical project management reply to module o (Score 1) 286

French is more nuanced than that as well, or at least Canadian/Quebec French is. If you are writing in all caps, accents are preserved. If you go and find a picture of the Navy ship HMCS Frederick Rolette, the shipâ(TM)s name is on her side in all caps, and the two Es in Frederick have accents.

Comment Re: Wow (Score 1) 124

And this is the thing⦠you can see it from the comments here: everyone has different preferences and likes different things. The Star Wars universe is huge and there are many different stories to tell. No one has to like everything, no one has to watch everything.

The fact that someone doesnâ(TM)t like Skeleton Crew but likes Andor is fine.

Comment Re: Good (Score 4, Informative) 104

I work for a defense contractor. Shit we sell to the government is very heavily marked up. Why? Because of government requirements. Government mandates that we certify that widget X complies with requirements A thorough ZZ. We have to verify each requirement, back it up with paperwork and testing, and all of that takes people and labour to achieve.

Comment Re: Intimidate rather than Use (Score 1) 130

Cutting cables is a standard part of repairing them. If thereâ(TM)s a fault in the cable, itâ(TM)s not like thereâ(TM)s enough slack to pull it up to the surface to repair it. Instead, they grapple it, cut it, then haul up one end. Splice on a long patch, then lay it back down until they get back to where the other end is, haul that up, splice the patch on, then lay the whole thing down on the sea floor in a big horseshoe shape.

Comment Re:Credit Cards (Score 1) 304

I have one card that has a $600 annual fee. The benefits of the card, to me, more than cover the annual fee. For that $600, But I travel a lot for work.

For that $600 fee, I roll over 250,000 status miles with my airline. That nets me another 55,000 points (worth roughly $1100), banks a year of top tier status for when I eventually don't make status, and makes it pretty trivial for me to earn a $2000 gift card, and not hard to get another $4000 gift card.

But the card is only available for those earing $150k or more, and obviously has a ridiculous annual fee.

Comment Re:Credit Cards (Score 1) 304

They LOVE if you only pay the minimum payment. It's the best thing ever. Sometimes that translates to 10 YEARS OR MORE of debt to them.

In Canada, they're required to print a statement of how long it will take you to pay off your debt if you just make the minimum payment. For me, that number is frequently in the 75+ year range, not because I'm irresponsible, but because I flow large amounts of travel expenses through my card. I technically owe close to $13k right now as I've been away on business for a month. It will get paid off in full 3 or 4 days before the due date.

Comment iPhone for me (Score 5, Insightful) 132

When I buy a new phone, I'll typically wait until the new batch of iPhones is released, buy the latest/most powerful one, then continue to use it until it goes out of software support 5 to 6 years later. I've had 4 iPhones since they released.

Hate it all you want, but the longevity of operating system support, the seemless connectivity with the rest of my stuff, and the generally good build quality is worth the expense imho.

Comment Re: Variety of languages (Score 1) 175

More importantly, the course should use whatever language is most appropriate to describe the topic at hand (data structures, object orientation, embedded and realtime systems, operating systems, whatever). Bonus points if the language is otherwise useless.

That said, this is more of a CS perspective than âoeprogrammingâ thing. The point of a good CS degree isis for the students to learn the concepts and understand the topic. Itâ(TM)s not to teach them to program.

I did Computer Engineering myself, and probably worked in 20+ languages during my academic career. Everything from C for bare metal, to C++, to Java, perl, TCL, bash scripting, LaTeX, makefiles, VHDL, AHDL, Verilog, and others that Iâ(TM)m forgetting 20+ years later.

The point is that if you know the concepts, picking up another language is just picking up another syntax.

Comment Re:Unsolvable problem (Score 1) 198

Except that it doesn't. In the summer months, at my latitude, permanent Standard Time would mean it would get light out at 4am or so. I'd need to either install blackout curtains (which have their own issues) or otherwise suffer.

In the depths of winter, standard time means that I'm going to work before sunrise and coming home after sunset. Permanent DST would mean that I would still be going to work in the dark, but at least I'd have some daylight in the evening when I can actually enjoy it.

That's why I'm in the permanent DST camp.

Comment Re:None of this would even be a thing (Score 4, Informative) 53

The crazy thing is that it *is* publicly funded, even in the USA. Much of the R&D is done by universities and similar institutions using public money through various grants and institutes.

But as soon as something looks promising, it gets snapped up by the private sector.

It's the whole "Socialize the losses, privatize the profits" writ large.

Comment Re:So Falcon 9 got un-grounded? (Score 3, Informative) 28

Reading, the launch was through NASA, technically a NASA mission. The FAA, the grounding authority, turns out to not have the power to ground the missions of other government departments.
So a commercial satellite launch would have to wait on the FAA ungrounding the rocket system, but NASA and the DoD can go 'we accept the risk' and launch anyways.
I personally think the FAA has been told to mess with SpaceX and slow them down. Not a good idea with China breathing down our necks.

In this case, the safety issue wasn't in play because the second stage was being disposed of in deep space, rather than performing a re-entry burn. As such, there was no safety issue.

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