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Comment Re:Rats. (Score 1) 95

Your GPU card does more than just output video. The GPUs on these cards are designed for brute force calculations and chugging through numbers. They're designed for physics engines, running through protein folding calculations, and rendering high quality video in real time.

If you want to equate them to a design in the past, think of them as really really really powerful math co-processors. CPUs are designed for short command queues and calculations that are hard to predict the next step, while GPUs are designed for long command queues and easily predictable calculations.

...and we've been using teraflop scale on desktops since 2008.

Submission + - Occupy Wall Street's Rolling Jubilee to Bail Out the People (businessinsider.com)

Quince alPillan writes: Occupy Wall Street has a new plan for helping the 99%. They've set up an old-fashioned telethon they're calling the Rolling Jubilee to buy up bad debt with donations and then forgiving the debt outright. As a test run, they set themselves up as a debt collector and they were able to use $500 to buy $14,000 worth of bad debt, which they then forgave. The telethon will be held at the Le Poisson Rouge on Thursday, November 15. It will also stream online.
Programming

Submission + - Developer or Software Engineer? Can it influence your work? (metaltoad.com)

ctrahey writes: Many of us disregard the impact of our titles on various aspects of our lives, both professional and otherwise. Perhaps it's appropriate to ask two questions about the difference between a couple titles familiar to the ./ community: Developer vs Software Engineer.
  1. What are the factors to consider in the appropriate use of the titles?
  2. (more interesting to me), what influence might the use of these titles have on the written code?

Have you observed a difference in attitudes, priorities, or outlooks in talent as a corollary to their titles?

The Military

Submission + - Director Of CIA, David Petraeus Resigns (bbc.co.uk)

Penurious Penguin writes: After serving as Director of the CIA since September 2011, David Petraeus resigned from his position today, November 9. The retired four-star Army general has cited an extramarital affair as reason for the resignation. Michael Morell will now serve as Acting Director of the CIA.

Comment Re:Superstorm? (Score 4, Insightful) 414

As someone who also lives in Florida, I can explain.

1. Very little preparation for the type of weather that a hurricane can cause. In Florida, we have storm drains that take away most of the water that a hurricane causes. Add in building codes that require buildings to be designed for hurricanes (typically category 3) and utilities that are designed specifically for hurricanes, and you'll find that down here, things are pretty robust by design. New Jersey and New York didn't have that type of preparation and you had buildings collapse.

2. Record storm surges. In some places, the storm surge was over 13 feet where the harbor was only designed to handle the (then historic record) 12 feet, causing massive flooding.

3. Fires. Gas lines caught fire, causing over 100 homes to burn to the ground.

4. In New Jersey specifically, they had a berm go under water due to the storm surges, causing even more damage.

Ultimately, take a look at the damage predictions and you'll see why its called a superstorm. Wind was only part of the issue.

Comment Sponsored Posts (Score 1) 376

Most likely they're confused about Sponsored posts appearing in their News Feed. Most of the time when I see posts from things I don't agree with they've been posts that were bought and paid for to appear in my feed. As I live in Florida and I've marked myself as an independent, I get both Romney and Obama posts in my feed even though I haven't "liked" either one. The worst are the local election ones that aren't as professional and look like some random spam bot or virus posting political crap.

Submission + - Let's Build a Goddamn Tesla Museum (theoatmeal.com) 2

Quince alPillan writes: The Oatmeal's Matthew Inman is once again collecting money for a good cause. This time, he's collecting money for the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe to purchase the original location of the Wardenclyffe Tower in Shoreham, New York so that it can be rebuilt into a Tesla Museum. The fundraiser, titled Let's Build a Goddamn Tesla Museum has already started.

Submission + - Chaos Monkey Released Into the Wild (codinghorror.com)

Quince alPillan writes: The Netflix Tech Blog revealed today that they've released Chaos Monkey, an open source Amazon Web Service testing tool that will randomly turn off instances in Auto Scaling Groups.

We have found that the best defense against major unexpected failures is to fail often. By frequently causing failures, we force our services to be built in a way that is more resilient. We are excited to make a long-awaited announcement today that will help others who embrace this approach.

We have written about our Simian Army in the past and we are now proud to announce that the source code for the founding member of the Simian Army, Chaos Monkey, is available to the community.

Do you think your applications can handle a troop of mischievous monkeys loose in your infrastructure? Now you can find out.


Lord of the Rings

Submission + - Peter Jackson Announces Third Hobbit Movie (facebook.com)

eldavojohn writes: Unless his Facebook account has been hacked, Peter Jackson has announced a third movie for The Hobbit series: "So, without further ado and on behalf of New Line Cinema, Warner Bros. Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Wingnut Films, and the entire cast and crew of The Hobbit films, I’d like to announce that two films will become three." Other sites are confirming this while Variety notes that filming has been wrapped on the first two so doing a third film will require a restart to all of that effort including renegotiations with rights holders and acting schedules. **potential spoiler alert** From Peter Jackson's announcement: "We know how much of the story of Bilbo Baggins, the Wizard Gandalf, the Dwarves of Erebor, the rise of the Necromancer, and the Battle of Dol Guldur will remain untold if we do not take this chance." How much of Middle Earth would you like to see on film?
Twitter

Submission + - Twitter boots critic of NBC for tweeting exec's email address (networkworld.com)

netbuzz writes: "Is a corporate workplace email address “non-public” and “personal?” The question arises after Guy Adams, a Los Angeles-based correspondent for The Independent of London, had his Twitter account suspended today, allegedly for having violated a Twitter privacy policy when he tweeted the workplace email address of an NBC Sports executive. The Internet is abuzz with accusations – no make that assumptions – that Twitter muzzled Adams because Adams was tweeting up a storm of protest over NBC’s coverage of the Games. However, Twitter says it was because it prohibits the tweeting of “non-public, personal email addresses.” Whether Adams did that or not appears debatable."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Wants To Hide Which Patents Android, Linux Violate (muktware.com)

sfcrazy writes: The court battle between Apple and Samsung has created the possibility of disclosing the cross patent agreement between Microsoft and Samsung. Microsoft is suddenly scared and has filed a motion asking the court to seal the cross license agreement. I would like to remind that the Judge has asked both parties to makee all the filings in this dispute available to the public for free.
Google

Submission + - Google Fiber Project: Programming Key to Success (broadbandconvergent.com)

broadbandconvergent writes: "Goggle has officially rolled out is long-touted Google Fiber Project showcasing what broadband should look and feel like to all users. Yes, it sets the new standard for broadband connections with a 1Gig speedster, over 100 times faster than current broadband offerings in the U.S. Not-withstanding, just speed will not be the determining success factor; the availability of competitive programming will become the deciding judgment in Google’s move to tout reasonable costs to bundled broadband."

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