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Comment Re:Entire OS in about 1/3 of i7 Cache (Score 1) 368

a modern C compiler on full optimization produces object much faster than any sane, maintainable assembly source.

Do you have any sources on this? I did a quick google but nothing aside from anecdotes turned up (my google-fu is absolutely abysmal, though).

From experience I know that a well-trained, well-weathered assembly hacker can generate code faster than the compiler. (The programmer who knows their code will produce much better code than a compiler.) But alas, that's still anecdotal.

I read somewhere (Can't remember where :/) that the fastest assembly code produced to date was written by a human, not a computer; again, google returns nothing.

Comment I find one utterly worthless, to be honest. (Score 1) 546

by Gallefray (#47821189) Attached to: Does Learning To Code Outweigh a Degree In Computer Science?
I do not have a degree, as I am not at 'university age' yet, however, I used the appropriate guides, and over the course of two or three years, toyed and hacked around with code. I am now at the stage where I can bearably read The Dragon Book, comfortably code in (x86) Assembly, C, and Lua (and soon Scheme and Common Lisp (I've been using a mixture of SICP and The Aluminium Book for the latter two)). I know someone who's doing a CS degree at a JavaSchool, I have had to teach him really basic things like what a kernel is, how it meshes with the hardware, etc. I find it utterly appalling that they aren't teaching him [i]any[/i] concepts related to programming, they aren't even teaching basic CS concepts like B-trees, pointers, et cetera. So I (personally) find a degree utterly worthless aside from satisfying the prerequisites of employers who are too lazy to look at experience, or employers who think I can find a 'better' education at a university.

Comment Re: Different colors (Score 1) 267

by Gallefray (#47670477) Attached to: My degree of colorblindness:
According to my mum who trained and worked as an optician's assistiant, you shold go see a qualified optician immediately. Apparently what you have could be (amongst other things), a cateract forming, or AMD. (Also, I feel obliged to say -- don't go to a doctor, go to an optician. I can remember my mum telling my nan to go to an optician, she went to the doctor instead, for two years her doctor said everything is fine, then finally she was persuaded to get to an optician, and it turns out that she was suffering from AMD.)

Comment Re:Jungles, but I'm too scared (Score 1) 246

by Gallefray (#47664763) Attached to: I'd most like to (personally) explore:
Uh, have you ever walked through a place with wild flowers? I've seen more than a few groups of ragwort here, and a couple of foxgloves. If you've walked past a farm area, the cattle can (sometimes) be very dangerous. I know some people who had to walk through a field with a bull in it, and they were very lucky not to get charged at. (Of course I'm forgetting and ignoring a few other plants and fungi that are poisonous that happen to be native to Britain.) There are tons of things to kill you in a forest or field in Britain, you just have to look close enough :1

Submission + - Author Earnings: DRM-free indie ebooks outsell DRM-locked ones 2:1 (boingboing.net)

Submitted by Gallefray
Gallefray writes: Anti-DRM protesters have long suspected (and in many cases proven) the damaging effects that DRM causes for both the customer and the creator. Now they have another article to add to the ever-growing list that proves their point. Author Earnings recently released its data-analysis of ebook sales and rankings on Amazon, and, amongst other trends, one thing stands clear: "Indie titles without DRM sell twice as many copies each, on average, as those with DRM."

Submission + - A look at NASA's Orion Project

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: People in north Iowa got a first-hand look at NASA’s Orion Project. Contractors with NASA were in Forest City to talk about the new project and show off a model of the new spaceship. NASA has big plans to send humans to an asteroid by 2025. The mission, however, will not be possible without several important components that include yet-to-be-developed technologies, as well as the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft to fly astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit. In fact, Orion's first flight test later this year will provide NASA with vital data that will be used to design future missions.

Submission + - Ars editor learns feds have his old IP addresses, full credit card numbers (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: FOIA request turns up 9 years of records, including plaintext credit card numbers

In May 2014, Cyrus Farivar reported on his efforts to learn what the feds know about me whenever I enter and exit the country. In particular, he wanted my Passenger Name Records (PNR), data created by airlines, hotels, and cruise ships whenever travel is booked.

ASK ARS: CAN I SEE WHAT INFORMATION THE FEDS HAVE ON MY TRAVEL?

One Ars editor tries to FOIA travel documents on himself.
But instead of providing what he had requested, the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) turned over only basic information about my travel going back to 1994. So he appealed—and without explanation, the government recently turned over the actual PNRs I had requested the first time.
The 76 new pages of data, covering 2005 through 2013, show that CBP retains massive amounts of data on us when we travel internationally. His own PNRs include not just every mailing address, e-mail, and phone number I've ever used; some of them also contain:

The IP address that I used to buy the ticket
His credit card number (in full)
The language he used
Notes on his phone calls to airlines, even for something as minor as a seat change
The breadth of long-term data retention illustrates yet another way that the federal government enforces its post-September 11 "collect it all" mentality.

Submission + - Apollo 11 Moon Landing Turns 45

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: On July 20, 1969, U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon. Neil Armstrong would say later he thought the crew had a 90% chance of getting home from the moon, and only a 50% chance of landing safely. The scope of NASA's Apollo program seems staggering today. President Kennedy announced his moon goal just four years into the Space Age, but the United States had not even launched a human into orbit yet. Amazingly, just eight years later, Armstrong and Aldrin were walking on the moon.

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