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User: Sebastopol

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Comments · 1,737

  1. Puppet Labs on Ask Slashdot: Is There a Web Development Linux Distro? · · Score: 2

    Also, I forgot to mention, Puppet Labs' IT automated config is pretty effing amazing. I've been trying to dedicate time to ramping on it, and have been to a few classes at their office in Portland, but it is definitely on my list of tools to learn.

    http://puppetlabs.com/

  2. LAMP? There's your problem... on Ask Slashdot: Is There a Web Development Linux Distro? · · Score: 0

    A bit tongue-in-cheek, but...

    Package.json + npm install is a lot easier than dealing with zypper, yum, rpm, and then 30 other package managers I'm forced to juggle with on all the different distros I encounter. Obviously I'm brainwashed, but I've been 100%* node for over a year.

    Granted, setting up ___sql will pretty much always be a 1-hour job, i'm glad to be free of the A and P in LAMP.

    * except when a new contract requires me to dive into LAMP again

  3. Re:Transmeta on There's No Such Thing As a General-Purpose Processor · · Score: 1

    Thanks for clarifying. I misunderstood in my original post and went "full-rant".

  4. Transmeta on There's No Such Thing As a General-Purpose Processor · · Score: 2

    This whole discussion just made me laugh whilst remembering the hype around the Transmeta / Torvalds code-morphing engine.

    Ah, the 90's. They were fun.

    CPUs have been "general purpose" since day one. The only non-general purpose hardware are ASICs (like the article says). Everything else is just marketing hype from Intel, et al.

    This is such an amazing rehash of what Intel used to call *T technologies in the 90's, starting from the 80's, when coprocessors started appearing (x87). The big trend was toward DSPs in the 90's, but that never happened, instead they pushed on new hardware like MMX, SSE and now vector processors. That's why we have graphics processors as non-general-purpose CPUs.

    To call something a GPGPU is just an egregious assault of on common sense.

    "Dark silicon", while a catchy name, is simply a side effect of latency, something the article mostly skips (hints at it with locality): the memory hierarchy exists and dark silicon is a result. When latency is zero, more of the silicon will be engaged.

    While one could easily claim that because parts of any chip power down that means it's not general purpose, that's an oversimplification: 100% utilization is fundamentally impossible because problems aren't solved that way, there is no infinite parallelism.

    I really think the author's analysis isn't fully developed. While the conclusion that hardware looks like the software may be a pleasant tautology, it overlooks Turing's thesis entirely. Which is odd, because that's what they author -started- with!

  5. Re:CurrentC does not solve for the Customer on Why CurrentC Will Beat Out Apple Pay · · Score: 1

    Bank account or debit card?!? That's audacious.

    Wow. I'm happy with my old fashioned pieces of plastic.

    I have 22 years of Quicken data, 20 years with a credit card, and only 3 fraudulent transactions out of ~16,000.

    Financial security: check.
    Personal information security: ah jeez....

  6. Re:Not a chance on Why CurrentC Will Beat Out Apple Pay · · Score: 1

    Judging by the # of people on social networks using their real names, I suspect the vast majority of the world will trust the corporation giving you something for "free".

  7. Re:Not a chance on Why CurrentC Will Beat Out Apple Pay · · Score: 1

    Checks?

    What are these "checks" you speak of?

    Seriously, I've written one check in 7 years. I thought people under 50 pretty much stopped using them since credit cards and electronic (non-check) transfers are so easy.

  8. Re:Beware coverage tools on Tetris Is Hard To Test · · Score: 1

    Validation is way more important than writing code. Coding is grunt work that literally anyone can do. There is a huge demand for programmers, and very few are "good" programmers, 90% are just grunts who will never get any better, and that's life due to demand. So you need validation. I wrote and managed RTL development for 15 years at Intel and code coverage is simply mission critical. No other way around it.

    If you think being able to "read code" is enough to see all the corner cases, you're either very young, or one of the aforementioned grunts.

  9. Re:One line? on Tetris Is Hard To Test · · Score: 1

    I'd hire the person in the blink of an eye. That kind of discipline is sorely missing among younger programmers these days.

  10. Re:'Regardless of... income and education level' ? on Soda Pop Damages Your Cells' Telomeres · · Score: 1

    It would be a huge help to the community if you would read the paper and point out where the study's methods, analysis, or computations are flawed. You lead on like you know quite a bit about this.

  11. Re:'Regardless of... income and education level' ? on Soda Pop Damages Your Cells' Telomeres · · Score: 0

    Pssst... this is /. not 8chan

    #gamergate is over thataway, young man.

  12. How do we actually know? on 5 Million Gmail Passwords Leaked, Google Says No Evidence Of Compromise · · Score: 2

    I could harvest 5m gmail names from google searches, and then publish them with bogus passwords and create panic. Is there some statistic that says how many of these were real passwords? Because wouldn't it be illegal to use them (accessing another person's account w/o their permission is a crime in the USA).

    Seems like it would be easy to manufacture a lot of FUD by making these claims w/o really having any passwords at all, and no one could verify it?

  13. Notice the landfill? on E.T. Found In New Mexico Landfill · · Score: 1

    30 years later and nothing has really happened inside that landfill, just a pile of toxic shit in a gigantic hole. One of tens of thousands.

    THAT is the real tragedy here. We just throw shit in holes and move on.

  14. Re:Big shoes to fill this one has on The Ultimate Hopes For the New Cosmos Series · · Score: 1

    I didn't state my original point clearly enough. If you edited Cosmos to take out Dr. Sagan's lengthy and yawn-inducing monologues about our insignificance in the cosmos, you end up with The Mechanical Universe, which is paced at the speed of top-tier college lecture.

    I also don't think it is a problem to match the pace of the lecture with what today's you are accustomed to. When sound was added to cinema in the early 20th century, purists claimed it would ruin the art form. The same thing happened when people actually began to edit with an artistic eye and shots reduced in time from 30-60 seconds to 5-10 (with the advent of new technology). In fact, there was even resistance to technicolor by the French auteurs!

    I wouldn't be quick to claim the way I learned, or the way engineers in the 1950's (or 1850's!) learned, or the way you learned is "the one true way." If youth are accustomed to fast-paced editing, then use that form. If you personally don't like it, open a book and learn at your own pace, or launch a Kickstarter. :)

  15. Re:Big shoes to fill this one has on The Ultimate Hopes For the New Cosmos Series · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When is the last time you watched the original Cosmos? There are a lot--and I mean A LOT--of scenes featuring Carl sitting on a beach or in a meadow looking off into the distance with pontificating voice-overs that kinda ramble. Believe me, I'm 42 and I grew up on that series, but having re-watched it recently, I was surprised at the large spans of near bloviation that adorn the show. I absolutely adore the series, I just think it could have used some tightening up during editing.

    Also, I graduated from COSMOS to The Mechanical Universe, which--aside from the haircuts of the classroom--would still feel modern by today's standards.

  16. Missing the point on The Whole Story Behind Low AP CS Exam Stats · · Score: 0

    Obvious Men's Rights Activist is obvious.

    Sure, if there is a problem where people who want to take the CS AP exam and cannot, it should be addressed.

    So start a campaign about it, its a great idea.

    But when you position it AGAINST studies citing under-representation of minorities in a field that has long been hostile to them, especially women, you're trying to cover it up and become part of the problem.

    So yes, please start a campaign to increase CS AP coverage, and please stop trying to marginalize / cover up another legitimate problem in the process. Both need addressing, it is not either / or.

  17. is twitter next on You're Only As Hirable As Your Google+ Circles · · Score: 1

    because if cool people follow you that means your cool too.

  18. where's the research on Book Review: Stay Awhile and Listen · · Score: 2

    I realize this is a history of Blizzard, but I find it disappointing when authors write histories of video games and stop at 1990. Diablo didn't set the standard. Wizardry, Ultima, and Might and Magic set the standards for RPGs. Diablo successfully "Michael Bay"d them with 3D and 'splosions and the most robust, practically uncrashable game engines ever seen.

  19. Nonfunctional... duh on Man Creates ATLAS Detector From Lego Bricks · · Score: 3, Funny

    The whole time I'm reading the article I'm saying to myself, "WTF? How did this guy build a functional ATLAS detector so small and out of legos?"

    Functional?

    duh... //facedesk

  20. Byte and National Computer Camps on How Did You Learn How To Program? · · Score: 1

    I started programming Commodore PETs in 1982, in 5th grade. My teachers had ordered a box full of cassette games and I asked me to evaluate all of them and write a paragraph explaining each game. I wanted to know how the games worked so I started reading the BASIC source code. BASIC is so readable that I was writing my own games in about a month. In 6th grade we had a C64 and I started taking a self directed class for BASIC. My parents bought me an Apple //e (a HUGE fight ensued over the cost). That summer I went to National Computer Camps in Connecticut (back then it was at Westminster Prep School) and learned to program 6502 assembly language.

    The rest is history. All of my learning was self-directed. There were no programming classes anywhere in my elementary school or the nearby highschool.

    I have fond memories of the sound that a Commodore PET makes when you turn it on... *chink chink chink... bzzzzzzt ... POP*

  21. starving kids in africa and cambodia... on 3-D Printable Food Gets Funding From NASA · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...don't care about palatable! i've seen children in cambodia eat bread crusts that are moldy, dirty, and soggy. quite sad, especially when 5U$D can buy enough bags of food to feed 30 kids for a day.

  22. ...ANOTHER vampire film / franchise!!!

    I know, "But this is Neil Gaiman!!!" /facepalm

  23. Re:Mythbusters show just how impaired you are at . on NTSB Recommends Lower Drunk Driving Threshold Nationwide: 0.05 BAC · · Score: 1

    but interkin3tic "ASSURED" you.

    his/her assurance is enough to convince me! /chugs an entire keg like bender, jumps behind the wheel, assured that i'll stay alert/

  24. Re:Why not just 0? on NTSB Recommends Lower Drunk Driving Threshold Nationwide: 0.05 BAC · · Score: 2

    Your long list of examples omit something important: data. Those examples simply don't have enough impact to trigger laws. You might not like them, but laws like this aren't written to accommodate your dislikes, laws like this are based on data. If putting on make-up was a significant source of accidents, above DWI or cell-phone usage, it would be on the list. It isn't arbitrary that alcohol and cell phone usage are restricted, they cause the most accidents.

  25. Why don't we have this already? on Biometric Database Plans Hidden In Immigration Bill · · Score: 1

    I assumed that once I received my Driver's License (in 1986, heh), I was already IN a giant database like this? Why DON'T we have this? Seems like a pretty obvious thing that I would want if I was issuing photo IDs and SS#s. I'd fire any employee who introduced photo ID's and forgot the database part.

    And for those banging the Big Brother drum, Given the shit people spill to social networks, this seems completely benign.