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It is pretty sad to see, that after so many comments nobody really has a clue about what the story is about, and what is happening in the Linux kernel.
The kernel VT system has been considered a monstrosity by kernel developers the last decade and everyone is of the opinion that it should be used to user space.

The finally a really smart guy actually attacks and solve the problem. His name is David Herrmann, and he has tirelessly worked on this for years. Systemd distros will get the full support of his research, simply because almost all Linux distros are using, or a going to use systemd. But don't worry, he has provided rich support user space VT's on non-systemd Linux distros, by eg. "ksmcon"
https://github.com/dvdhrm/kmsc...

Here is his fosdem talk:
https://archive.fosdem.org/201...

Here is his blog that will tell you more about VT's than you ever knew:
http://dvdhrm.wordpress.com/

Here is a wiki link about VT:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

Here is an old blog post about the problems with the old kernel VT:
http://dvdhrm.wordpress.com/20...

In short, no need for the systemd opponents to get their panties in a bunch; they can either use Hermanns user space tools, or pretend there isn't a problem and use the present kernel system.

For the rest of us who really likes systemd, this is great news. Thanks to Hermann's work, there will be much better console support for early boot debugging, better security, better keyboard and language handling etc.

Before you go round acting like the sky is falling, try educating yourselves about why this is necessary. This is not just a systemd problem, this is a problem for any init system that wants to support multi-seat, and sane switching between VTs:

• How VT-switching works
• Sane Session Switching
• Thoughts on Linux System Compositors
• Session-Management on Linux

Now you may say that OMG systemd is teh evil monolith!!1!!!, but before you do that understand that this has been an important feature that has been needed for a long time in any init system it just happened that SystemD solved it first.

Before you go round acting like the sky is falling, try educating yourselves about why this is necessary. This is not just a systemd problem, this is a problem for any init system that wants to support multi-seat, and sane switching between VTs:

• How VT-switching works
• Sane Session Switching
• Thoughts on Linux System Compositors
• Session-Management on Linux

Now you may say that OMG systemd is teh evil monolith!!1!!!, but before you do that understand that this has been an important feature that has been needed for a long time in any init system it just happened that SystemD solved it first.

Before you go round acting like the sky is falling, try educating yourselves about why this is necessary. This is not just a systemd problem, this is a problem for any init system that wants to support multi-seat, and sane switching between VTs:

• How VT-switching works
• Sane Session Switching
• Thoughts on Linux System Compositors
• Session-Management on Linux

Now you may say that OMG systemd is teh evil monolith!!1!!!, but before you do that understand that this has been an important feature that has been needed for a long time in any init system it just happened that SystemD solved it first.

Before you go round acting like the sky is falling, try educating yourselves about why this is necessary. This is not just a systemd problem, this is a problem for any init system that wants to support multi-seat, and sane switching between VTs:

• How VT-switching works
• Sane Session Switching
• Thoughts on Linux System Compositors
• Session-Management on Linux

Now you may say that OMG systemd is teh evil monolith!!1!!!, but before you do that understand that this has been an important feature that has been needed for a long time in any init system it just happened that SystemD solved it first.

And knowing is half the battle. (Not sure if this is what the AC was referring to.

I am waiting for this first - http://greybmusings.wordpress....

You're determined to prove how gullible you are, aren't you? You post a link to a blog claiming (selected) left wing donations are 10 times higher than (differently selected) right wing donations.

The blog's latest post? 9/11 conspiracy about the Pentagon being hit by a cruise missile rather than a plane.
http://factworld.wordpress.com...

You're certainly an idiot. And as it turns out not even a useful one to your own side. More of an embarrassment.

You are gullible. You haven't even managed to name a right wing equivalent of the Koch Brothers, but that doesn't stop you believing that they must exist.

There's no right-wing equivalent of media matters, the EPA, the IRS, or the Leo W. Gerard, either, but that doesn't stop you from being their useful idiot anyway, with your head firmly embedded up your ass so you don't have to face reality.

BTW - here's your sign.

1. You don't need to use as much energy as Americans to lead a modern lifestyle, here in Europe we use a fraction of the amount per capita.

2. That's irrelevant anyway because there's a giant fusion reactor in the sky which can provide 1000x more than we need.

So, the premise is wrong - that there is limited energy, so the conclusion is naturally wrong too.

See diagram:
http://azizonomics.files.wordp...

You may be correct but your source reference is terrible.
The website you offer has few reference to papers.
The author does not seem to have any real academic background one Graham Wayne.
CV:"My name is Graham Wayne. I live in Devon, England and I spend as much of my time as I can writing, principally about the science and sociology of climate change. To make ends meet, I repair computers and teach people how to get the best out of them.
My background is a blend of work in the arts, engineering (audio, IT) and management. This broad spread of experiences lead to my becoming a full time business consultant, accredited by the (then) Department of Trade and Industry. Eventually, after spells in Germany and Canada in management roles, I accepted the position of CIO on the board of The Mastertronic Group of companies, my last full-time role, which I left in 2006."
http://gpwayne.wordpress.com/a...
And the author of the article he is attacking is someone with massive academic credentials in the sciences, one Freeman Dyson.
cv:"Freeman John Dyson FRS (born December 15, 1923) is an English-born American[5][6] theoretical physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering. Dyson is a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

So even if you are correct and I think you are your supporting documentation aka the links to that site are worthless.

Well this is a standard tactic used in surface temperature measurement. Make the past look colder to make the warming look greater. It's been done with numerous surface stations, where inexplicable "adjustments" have been made to past data.

All of the models use an over estimated equilibrium climate sensitivity and therefore have always over-estimated any warming due to CO2 anthropogenic or otherwise. Even more troubleing is they always under-estimate negative feedbacks which again over-estimate any warming, this leads to the trend lines between model predictions and reality to actually diverge. I do agree the oceans have warmed, but I'm to going to lose any sleep over the Global oceans at 0 - 700m warming at a trend of 18 onehundreths of a degree per decade.

Jobs in order of % male.

I find it strange that we talk about discrimination in high tech, when we have literally dozens of fields over 90% male, with and only a handful of niche tech fields even in the top 100. Hell, from that chart, we have sixty-one fields more male-dominated than CNC programmers (at 93.5%), the highest of the male-dominated tech fields. And general purpose coder only pushes 78.5%, with over a hundred non-tech fields higher on the list.

Yes, Slashdot has the byline "news for nerds". Until I start hearing people whine about why we don't see more female pipefitters, however, fuck right off about the "culture" in IT as somehow magically the core of the problem.

More relevantly, if we have a problem, that problem comes from human culture, not tech culture. Women don't do construction and men don't teach (at least not below the HS level), simple as that. However - And this counts as the simple most important point you will read in this entire discussion - They can! If a woman wants to get trained as a master pipefitter, she could have a well-paying job a week after completing her apprenticeship (usually 4-5 years); and even the apprenticeship phase doesn't suck all that bad, they make enough to live on in most of the US.

But we - as a species, not as a niche community of high-tech misogynists - view fitting pipe, welding, roofing, well-drilling, etc as "dirty" jobs that women don't want to do. We view dealing with disgusting snotty little 6YOs, much less trying to cram facts into their head, as something males don't want to do. Does that come from the fact that each side really doesn't want to do "off-gender" jobs, or the fact that society has conditioned us to believe that?

Short answer: it doesn't matter. Do what you want. If, however, you discover that the conditions in your chosen profession don't agree with your personality, don't blame the job, blame what you see in the mirror.

Can anyone really argue with this:

Yes, mostly because it's crap filled with logical fallacies and a staggering ignorance of C++. I would respond, but someone already did it better:

http://ridosandiatmanto.wordpr...

I *do* like the ability to free up resources in a c++ destructor, but as he points out, that's not something you want to rely on in system software.

Don't see why not. Would you ever want to forget to unlock a mutex? Why not let the compiler guarantee correctness rather than have to do it by hand every time.

The funny thing: this event is provably NOT caused by ice loss.

Funny thing, the scientists who are tracking these Walruses at USGS say it IS

http://polarbearscience.com/20... [polarbearscience.com]

Do you think a blogger in the pay of the Heartland Institute is going to be a neutral source on the consequences of climate change?

That page has papers about this occurring in the seventies.

Only one this large in the entirety of last century. And but they have been common in 6 of the last 8 years.

Here is something of interest provided by "bane2571" in the thread:
https://polarbearscience.files...

I'm not sure of the providence of this citation but it looks authentic. Consider that this might be a normal behavior pattern amongst walruses. I don't know a lot of about them. I suspect you know no more then I do about them. I am quite humble about my understandings of their natures. You would do well to be equally humble.

Neither of us are experts and we are both prey for political interest groups that want to brain wash us. The media is a awash in propaganda from all sides. Keep that in mind and try to remain cautious of where your information comes from. It appears for example that this walrus statement comes mostly from the WWF. That is not a scientific organization but rather an environmental activist organization. I am not saying they are wrong but they have a history of very biased analysis.

The most extreme example I think would be the application of the Drake Equation to species extinction rates. If you are familiar with the drake equation, then you know it cannot be used scientifically for any purpose what so ever. It is fallacious and was known to be so almost as soon as it was created in the 1970s. The author of the equation itself disavows it. And yet it has been used to estimate species extinction on earth. That is how you get numbers like "5 million species extinct this year." They're using the drake equation. No organization that uses that equation with a straight face can be taken seriously. Period.

Also, you should follow the money.

Heartland Institute leak: Susan Crockford of University of Victoria recruited to help think tank undermine IPCC

Heartland Payments to University of Victoria Professor Susan Crockford Probed

Crockford has a conflict of interest, because she is paid to find that things aren't to do with climate change.

When the only source of information you accept as legitimate is a horde of morons who fly into screaming apoplexy because someone says "Hey guys, when you're alone on an elevator with a woman you've never met before, leaning in close and inviting her to an orgy is kinda creepy. Don't do that." you need to take a long hard look at yourself, and realize you're either an idiot who needs to shut the hell up before your foot goes any further down your throat, or you maybe need to actually look at the world.

That review thing? It never actually happened - there was no review. Just a dipshit who got butthurt over being dumped, and made shit up about his ex, then conned a bunch of losers into being his personal army of revenge. Looks good on you moron.

I will only address the last part, since you are a bit below the level I usually require to engage. Regarding your stellar claim that Eron Gjoni (linkey here http://thezoepost.wordpress.co... ) 'made shit up' I can only laugh. He has presented proof and verification for his claims, which interestingly enough, you have not.

Lack of adherence to codes? Whatever do you mean?

https://peters365photos.files....

It isn't as though Australia has become a totalitarian dystopia

You sure about that?



har har :D

Bottom left one, here:
https://sathyasaibaba.files.wo...

Do you somehow find yourself aggrieved by not being able to do what you want in your bedroom? Are you really so oppressed just because you can't admit in public what you do with other consenting adults (homosexual relationships)? Is it ruining your fabulous look or something? Or are you just looking for thing to kvetch about? I should think there's very little call for walking around with a flamboyant, gay, air.

Basically, what you just said was "I don't think you should have the right to do things that make me uncomfortable" and that's very immature of you. It seems that you don't actually care about real freedom. You want to live in a nanny state where the mob pounces on anything and anyone that falls short of the pravda du jour. Little do dunces and fools like you suspect that pravda is subject to change. It suits you for now, but it's not hard to imaging it turning really ugly very quickly.

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews, I remained silent; I wasn't a Jew. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out. - Martin Niemöller

What is more free than being able to defend oneself (against bullies, rapists, thieves, and/or government thugs)? This should sum things up.

The damn naturally occuring volcanoes give off more greenhouse gasses in a week than 50 years of modern innovation has ever produced.

Is that why global carbon emissions briefly decreased when Eyjafjallajokull erupted in 2010, grounding the majority of European flights?

Yeah, you've bought the bullshit and are trying to peddle it on. http://tamino.wordpress.com/20...

Having prepared many a baked good in the U.S., I can honestly say I've never read a recipe that calls for 'sticks' of butter as a unit.

The 'cup' measurement is still not a problem though - because the stick-of-butter packaging tends to have little lines telling you exactly at which point you've reached half a cup, a quarter cup, 1/8th of a cup, or tablespoons, etc.
http://mrsdiehlsmathsite.files...

It's because the U.S.'s food industry is so homogenized that the volume measurement 'works'. 1 cup of product X from one company is going to be equal to 1 cup of competing product X from the other company.

There are some notable exemptions.
Brown sugar, for example, which is why most recipes will call for "1/2 cup of brown sugar, packed" - because if you don't 'pack' it, the size and shape of granules can greatly affect the actual amount.

Cherry tomatoes was another example. But the thing with that, and with many other such items, is that the exact amount doesn't really matter all that much - it's certainly not 'scientific cooking'. So one time your pizza / salad / whatever will have a bit more/less tomato than the next time, but it's not a big deal.
Eggs is a huge one. If a recipe calls for '8 large eggs', have a good look at the 'large eggs'.. they're far from the same size. Nobody bothers to suggest that one needs X milliliter of eggs, though (never mind separating out yolk from egg white).
Onion is another one. Recipes often call for '1 large onion'. Go to a grocery store in the U.S. and check out the large onions.. there's some the size of a big nectarine, and others are easily bigger than your fist. So which do they mean? It doesn't really matter... use the latter if you like things more onion-y.

Only when measurements are very strict, a recipe will in fact call for weight.

Personally I think it makes cooking a lot easier - except for when you get to the whole 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons vs 16 tablespoons = 1 cup thing. Having a measuring cup/thing for every common cooking unit saves a lot of mess, especially when you need to double/triple/quadruple recipes.

Interesting! I first heard that idea from David Brin, who was proposing it as something to be used for disasters.
http://davidbrin.wordpress.com...
Maybe the governent of Hong Kong qualifies as a disaster.

Full speed ahead, and damn the torpedoes!

The only safe ship is the one that never leaves harbor...

Not even then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
There are loads of examples of ships sinking in harbor or while tied to docks.
That the thing about life, it's just too damn easy to die and there isnt any way to prevent it. So, may as well risk it.
Hell, you could be killed by space sitting in your chair at home!
http://ascendingstarseed.wordp...

There's a law of supply and demand to everything including energy.

It's a law the same way "unintended consequences" is a law. Or Godwin's Law is a law. It's truth until it's not.

Economic "laws" are not like the laws of physics. Economics isn't even a science, being so soft as to be less rigorous than parapsychology. Economics is dogma, always with an agenda.

Coincidentally, here's something interesting I read today about this very subject:

https://fixingtheeconomists.wo...

Yes, that must be it. We're terrified off the masses of uneducated, starving, disease ridden people in India who live in lean-tos and bathe in their own urine and feces.

You might want to improve the quality of life for the majority of your people, especially the women, before you start boasting about your plans for world domination.

Here's a picture of some of your relatives fetching a meal: http://ridingrickshaw.files.wo...

n/t

That might have something to do with the fact that numerous former Goldman Sachs executives hold or held positions in the Obama Administration.

To wit:

ALTMAN, ROGER.
BERKOWITZ, HOWARD P.
BIDEN, JOE.
BRAINARD, LAEL.
BUFFETT, WARREN.
CLINTON, HILLARY.
CRAIG, GREGORY. (revolving door)
DONILON, THOMAS.
DUDLEY, WILLIAM C.
EFFRON, BLAIR W.
ELMENDORF, DOUGLAS.
EMANUEL, RAHM.
FARRELL, DIANA.
FRIEDMAN, STEPHEN.
FROMAN, Michael.
FUDGE, ANNE.
FURMAN, JASON.
GALLOGLY, MARK.
GEITHNER, TIMOTHY.
GENSLER, GARY.
GEPHARDT, RICHARD (aka “DICK”) A.
GREENSTONE, MICHAEL
HAMILTON PROJECT, THE
HORMATS, ROBERT.
KAGAN, ELENA.
KASHKARI, NEEL.
KORNBLUH, KAREN.
LEW, JACOB (AKA “JACK”) J.
LIDDY, EDWARD MICHAEL.
LIPTON, DAVID A.
MINDICH, ERIC
MURPHY, PHILLIP.
NIEDERAUER, DUNCAN.
OBAMA, BARACK H.
ORSZAG, PETER.
PATTERSON, MARK.
PERRY, RICHARD.
RATTNER, STEVE.
REISCHAUER, ROBERT D.
RIVLIN, ALICE.
RUBIN, JAMES.
RUBIN, ROBERT.
SHAFRAN, STEVEN.
SPERLING, GENE.
STORCH, ADAM.
SUMMERS, LARRY.
THAIN, JOHN.
TYSON, LAURA D’ANDREA.

Oracle is terrible. The sheer number of stupid corner cases it introduces into any given database design is mind-boggling. I'd use Postgres over it any day.

I'd also use SQL Server over either of them. It's about a million times nicer to use than just about anything else, it has sensible clustering that isn't a performance nightmare, and it's actually cheaper than Oracle, even when you include the Windows Server license needed to run it! The simple fact that you can spin up an Azure instance of it should tell you how well it scales. The limitations of Azure SQL Server also tell you the pitfalls to avoid when clustering it yourself.

As for "NoSQL" databases, relational database guys call those an antipattern. If your data doesn't have structure, you're doing it wrong. I think most of the drive to use NoSQL comes from "developers" that are hands-off about databases, either by education or by institution.

When I say "by education", I mean that educational venues are failing miserably at teaching how to use properly structured persistent data stores. This is borne out by the fact that if you talk about "data structures" with a CS grad, he thinks of trivial shit like linked lists and packed values in memory. What he isn't thinking of is that when you write those structures to storage, you can't just have your program take a memory dump (exactly what it sounds like: shitting memory contents all over the storage medium) without causing huge maintenance issues. So we end up with one of three outcomes: 1) Binary flat files of memory-shit that break compatibility whenever the memory map changes, 2) flat text files in some inefficient format like CSV or (shudder) EDI, or 3) a poorly-thought-out, badly-designed database made by someone who doesn't understand databases because their educational system has failed them. To these inexperienced developers, NoSQL looks like a godsend. A simple database that doesn't require arcane knowledge! (Nevermind the fact that it's not arcane, it's just math. And nevermind the fact that the math behind relational databases and the SQL language establishes that these are the most efficient possible methods of working with that data.) Even if it "sucks", learn how to use SQL and relational databases. Learn how to make an ERD, and how relationships work. Learn how conceptual relationships become real relationships (a.k.a. foreign key constraints). Hint: they're all one-to-many unless you did it wrong.

When I say "by institution", I mean something even worse than the first reason. Some business institutions have, for whatever reason, locked away any and all knowledge of The Database so that the developers responsible for writing software to interact with it are not allowed to touch it. As a result, the schema is increasingly detached from reality, and developers get a certain us-vs-them attitude against the "database priesthood". This leads to an extremely unhealthy development practice called "do everything in the application layer". This leads to bullshit like ORM layers, memory usage bloat caused by huge datasets being kept in memory, scratch files with millions of records, and other general dipshittery. It also leads to the "Javascript attitude" (as I like to call it), where everything has to be done in the application, and no one is to be trusted to write a back-end. To hell with efficiency, it's all about institutional trust (or a lack thereof). Also, throw in an unhealthy dose of NIH. My advice is to decide whether you can put up with a shitty job for the ridiculous amount of money they're paying you or if you should just move on to greener pastures, then act on that decision.

The fact is, if you know what you're doing (read: are competent at your job as a developer), SQL isn't confusing. Do understand how data gets from the database to your application. Do understand how to write efficient SQL queries. Do understand how to use store

As it turns out, configd doesn't make any calls to Bash, so OS X and iOS are safe from DHCP exploits in this case. Also noteworthy, relatively ancient versions of OS X and BSD also don't default to the Bash shell.

http://complexitydaemon.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/bash-os-x-dhcp-and-you/

Well, we already have plenty of evidence that a very large comet full of ice airbursted over Earth several thousands of years ago, so I am not surprised of the article's findings. I've never heard of comets gathering ice over time, rather the opposite (gassing out over time, fragmenting and finally becoming dark/inactive).

That's basically the definition of dynamic typing, looked at from a static implementation.

Exactly: when we're comparing static typing to dynamic typing we have to use some common ground for comparison. That common ground is static typing, since dynamic typing is just a special case ( http://existentialtype.wordpre... )

The name of a type, and its lineage, while sometimes checked, are usually considered unimportant. Having certain attributes, and methods, of certain types, are important. It allows for similar uses as compositional inheritance, but without actually having that.

No, that has nothing to do with types. That's just a (rather limited) way of treating functions as values. For example, we can store first-class functions in dictionaries:

def c1():
    s = {"p": "foo"}
    return {"f": lambda _*: s["p"]}

def c2():
    s = {"q": "bar"}
    return {"f": lambda _*: "hello " + s["q"] + " world"}

o1 = c1()
o2 = c2()

def show(x):
    print x["f"]()

show(o1)
show(o2)

Here "c1" and "c2" act like class constructors, "s" acts like "self", the "o1" and "o2" dictionaries act like class instances, "p" and "q" act like object properties, the lambdas act like methods and the "show" function is polymorphic. This is pretty much the whole of class-based OO, except for the syntax and that the function dictionary is stored in the __class__ property instead of explicitly in the object. Prototype-based OO is similar except we clone objects and use a __parent__ instead of a __class__.

Nothing there has anything to do with types. The "implicit self/this argument" is just a run-of-the-mill closure, the "object" itself is just a dictionary of properties, the "class" is just one of those properties which just-so-happens to contain a dictionary of functions with a custom lookup function (which defers to the class "parent" property if a key isn't found). These are all run-time values. The only type involved is "any".

Personally I prefer to throw away all of the complicated class/instance/inheritance/method mess and just pass functions straight to other functions. Much less messy, and just as polymorphic.

Code must accept an any, and then fail if the operations it needs to use cannot be applied to type of data of that object.

But from our common, static point of view it *does not* fail: it produces a perfectly reasonable "exception" value.

That doesn't make it not strongly typed, just not statically typed. Try getting a substring of a number type, for example. That works in javascript, a very weakly typed language.

It *also* works in Python:

def takeTwo(x):
    return x[:2]

print 'First: ',
print takeTwo('hello')
try:
    takeTwo(123)
except Exception as e:
    print 'Second: ',
    print e

First: he
Second: 'int' object has no attribute '__getitem__'

The first call to "takeTwo" gives back a string "he", which is a perfectly acceptable value of type "any". The second call to "takeTwo" gives back (via "raise") an exception "'int' object has no attribure '__getitem__'", which is another perfectly acceptable value of type "any".

There is no type-related failure here, in the same way that a "checkResult" function returning "False" isn't a type-related error. The substring operation in Python behaves differently to the one in Javascript, but they both accept any argument and can return any result (they're "endomorphisms"); although the "any" type in Python is slightly different to the "any" type in JS.

Scratch that - 9H is the pencil hardness scale:

(reference: https://iloome.wordpress.com/t...)

9H is hard enough to resist keys & knives, though.

Of course, if the Forbes link is too "right wing" for you, you might prefer the get the 97% bubble popped by a left-leaning source

I'd hardly describe Richard Tol as a "left leaning source". Do you think that leftiness is catching? That just by getting published in the Guardian you become a lefty?

Richard Tol disagrees with the 97% figure, but what does he think the real figure is?

The consensus is of course in the high nineties.

So, not 97%, maybe it could be 95%, or 99%.

India produces better looking scientists than most countries.

You mean scientists like this Indian God?

“One of the most important features of this invention,’ said Mr. Tesla, “‘will be the transmission of intelligence. It will convert the entire earth into a huge brain, capable of responding in every one of its parts. By the employment of a number of plants, each of which can transmit signals to all parts of the world, the news of the globe will be flashed to all points. A cheap and simple receiving device, which might be carried in one’s pocket, can be set up anywhere on sea or land, and it will record the world’s news as it occurs, or take such special messages as are intended for it. If you are in the heart of the Sahara, your wife can telegraph to you from Washington, and if the instrument is properly made you alone will get the message. A single plant of a few horsepower could operate hundreds of such instruments, so that the invention has an infinite working capacity, and will cheapen the transmission of all kinds of intelligence.”

One would think so, but they may also just want to activate the wipe to intentionally delete the data on the phone that could exonerate you!

http://justiceforbradcooper.wo...

I know somebody that tried this. At around 5000 threads he got no real progress whatsoever anymore.That was a while back, but at that time Java was already a few years old.

The thread limitation comes from the operating system, not from the Java virtual machine. Modern operating systems are not designed to handle a huge amount of parallel threads. The handling of the threads and the synchronization between the threads usually eats up most of the system's resources.

The Java VM indeed has some shortcomings regarding mutli processing: when using multiple cores on the same socket, the Java VM sometimes accesses the same cache lines from all cores. This leads to strange patterns with cache invalidation and slows down all the affected cores. Currently there is no way to mitigate this using Java APIs or VM parameters. But this is a very special problem. When this is indeed the bottleneck, the underlying application is very likely already very well optimized and running quite fast.

If you want to process a huge amount of data, currently the best approach is to run exactly as much threads as you have processor cores. Then you feed each thread with working tasks, using non blocking data structures. For the communication, the threads should use non-blocking IO. Java is prepared extremely well for this scenario, perhaps even better than node.js. Examples are Vert.x and Akka. In some older benchmarks, Vert.x had no problem to serve over 300'000 parallel requests per second on a six core machine.

Edited on on 18:05 Wednesday 17 September 2014: fixed some typos.

Typical urgency-based development. Unfortunately it is a very common manipulation mechanism at the workplace. Here's a thorough article just about it http://outofscopeexception.wor...

"there can't be AGW and an ice record at the same time!" Yes there can, if you believe otherwise, explain why :)

I don't believe otherwise. You are putting words into my mouth.

define significant

Significant as in "statistically significant", or "so slight as to be undetectable". Anthropogenic CO2 emissions prior to 1950 were quite small, especially compared to recent years where CO2 levels increased by about 25% since 2000. (Strangely enough there has been no additional warming during this same period.)

There was, in fact, a slight cooling trend from 1950 to 1976. And global warming has indeed "paused" for the past 17 years or so, depending on what data set you use. This image shows the various datasets where the warming trends hit zero. Taking the margins of error into account (where a zero trend can't be ruled out), there has been "no statistically significant warming for between 16 and 21 years."

For UAH: Since March 1996: CI from -0.001 to 2.341
For RSS: Since December 1992: CI from -0.015 to 1.821
For Hadcrut4: Since November 1996: CI from -0.003 to 1.184
For Hadsst3: Since August 1994: CI from -0.014 to 1.666
For GISS: Since October 1997: CI from -0.002 to 1.249
From: http://wattsupwiththat.com/201...

You say the IPCC writes "nonsense", nsidc.org links are "retarded", and you give precedence to your own anecdotal experiences over mainstream scientific data. Who is the one denying science?

You mean like this... or this ?

"The raw, unadjusted temperature records always have said 1937" ??? That's a hell of a lot of adjustment, given that no year from the 1930s makes it into the top TWENTY warmest years globally. Are you sure 1937 was ever really a contender?

The raw data sources AND the code for the GISTEMP rankings have been available for years. Surely the acute minds of the warming skeptics would have long since ferreted out the deliberate falseness in their work.

There is someone who has taken the time to analyze data independently as objections have been raised. It's been a few years since he did the bulk of the work but it should still be valid - http://tamino.wordpress.com/20...

More recently, there are the findings of the BEST project - http://berkeleyearth.org/summa...

And another, which I forgot to put in the previous post:

http://4thst8.wordpress.com/20...

Also, cost in the U.S. varies as much as it does in the rest of the world. In California, it's closer to 25c/KWH (nominally it's lower, but you get into a higher rate tier at a level that would power one light bulb, and it goes up from there).... one of the "greenest" states. But the real problem is the so-called deregulation, not the energy source. Absent deregulation (aka "sell all our power generation facilities to foreign investors, who then charge us through the nose") the "green" energy might not wind up being that much more costly to the consumer.

On that note, an opinion piece on Nevada's 'encouragement' for Tesla's new plant:

http://4thst8.wordpress.com/20...

I was there at the hearing, and I think the summary is pretty far from the true situation.

First, Prof. Gabrynowicz is in the minority in the legal community on this (her response is also to work for international consensus on these issues, which is not going to happen.

Second, the Asteroid Act has been vetted by the State Department (and by a whole bunch of interested parties) and it certainly is in agreement with the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 (even Prof. Gabrynowicz didn't claim otherwise).

Third, all of the space powers appear to be in agreement with the basic principle expressed by the Asteroid Act - that space mining is a lot like deep sea fishing - you can't claim your fishing hole, but you get to keep what you take.

For a more balanced explanation as to why the Act is needed as a US instantiation of the '67 Outer Space Treaty to clarify the rules for US Corporations, see Dean Larson's WSJ Op Ed (or my own take on it).

Sounds (revising this) like there's a bit more to it than that, but not much. I believe either of those two methods will work. I suspect the original export/import method may still work too.

It's also not great with disks of mixed size. For example, you can't create a 4TB mirror using a 4TB drive and 2x2TB drives (spanned). For home users, who will have a collection of mixed-size disks, you can do things, but it involves partitioning. I ended up doing something along the lines of this guy: http://tentacles666.wordpress....

Sure you can! You create 2 zpools, one being the 2x2TB drives as a stripped vdev. The second zpool you use the block device created from the first zpool as the "disk" for the the second drive of the 2 disk mirror in the new zpool.