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Comment Re:Not all projects should be done in C# or Java (Score 1) 389

Nice addition:

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has been using Python since 1998. This email from Thanos Vassilakis, then a programmer for NYSE, highlights the reliability, manageability, and ease of use enjoyed by Python programmers (not to mention family life!):

    On the New York Stock Exchange we use three languages in production to deliver serious trading services to the Specialists: c, C++, Python.

    Perl, tcl/tk, Java are used but for scripting, tools, and minor services where performance and memory foot print are not an issue. Yes, used correctly Python meets our performance, security and reliability requirements.

    We have had Java projects and launched Java services, they have all failed. We have many in the pipeline (thanks Big Blue) but NYSE's only serious internet based service is written in Python, and was launched in 1998. It is still up in it's sixth version, with no down time! The fifth version was rewritten in Java, 6 months overdue, failed, and replaced by python ( which took two weeks).

    Here at SIAC and NYSE Python is recognized by management to give results that other languages just can't achieve.

    For performance we have extended Python with our own specialized c objects, and we have used swig extensively to integrate to our legacy code, and middleware.

    Thanks Python, you let me get home to my kids.

    thanos

NYSE has run Python since 1998, when it rolled out its first internet application. It has experienced no downtime and has enjoyed Python's significant backward-compatability character ever since.

http://python.about.com/b/2006/11/17/the-new-york-stock-exchange-nyse-and-python.htm

Comment Re:My upbringing means I don't get lost (Score 1) 520

I also grew up in a rural area and somehow I've just got a built-in compass. Even when not directly seeing the sun in large cities, it's for me very easy to see what north/south is just by the type of light. Light in the north is more clear and white then light in the south. I've always had a bedroom with a window exactly north, perhaps that's why. :) But even in windows and staircases, I can usually just keep track of which is north. For navigation to streets I don't know in a city, I take e.g. a Google Maps print out, spot the general direction compared to $current_location and move towards it. Somehow it just doesn't matter to be if I go left-right or straight-left..etc. I end up where I need to go almost perfectly time after time again. :) And at night: the stars (Big Dipper/Cassiopeia/Orion are easy to spot). Also the moon can be useful: http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/true-north3.htm
Government

Submission + - DHS: "Taser bracelet for every airline passeng (washingtontimes.com) 1

Bert de Jong writes: "The Washington Times is reporting about a new gadget of the Department of Homeland Security.

Forget Kafka, Dilbert really is a joke, and even on April 1st no one would believe this.

A (euphemistically named) "Safety Bracelet" is soon to replace your flight ticket and boarding pass, if the federal authorities have their way.
This wouldn't be very spectacular, hadn't a few clever techies at the DHS thought of some particular nifty features for this device:
It will have your personal data stored in it electronically, it will have a GPS-tracker so your whereabouts can always be known, and it will sport a taser, to painfully completely immobilise you for several minutes if the airline crew deems you a security threat.

Have a look at the promotion video here (3'20 is where the interesting bit starts.)

The idea is you'll be wearing it from checkin to disembarking.

I wonder how the UCLA finds about this.. shocking I guess"

Science

Quake-Catcher Aims to be Largest Distributed Seismometer Network 75

Nature is reporting that a new distributed computing application is looking to monitor earthquake data using the accelerometer in many computing devices. In the long run, "Quake-Catcher" will hopefully be fast enough to give warning before major earthquakes. "If it works, it will be the cheapest seismic network on the planet and could operate in any country. It wouldn't be as sensitive as traditional networks of seismometers, but Lawrence says that's not the point. 'If you have only two sensors in an area, you have to have a perfect system. If you have 15 sensors in a system it [can] be less perfect. One hundred, one thousand, ten thousand -- your need for the system to be perfect becomes much smaller,' he says. 'That's really our approach -- just to have massive numbers.'"
Earth

A Super-Efficient Light Bulb 468

Chroniton writes with news of a Silicon Valley company, Luxim, that has developed a tiny, full-spectrum light bulb, based on a plasma of argon gas, that gives off as much light as a streetlight while using less power. The Tic Tac-sized bulb operates at temperatures up to 6000K and produces 140 lumens/watt, almost ten times as efficient as standard incandescent lamps, and twice the efficiency of high-end LEDs. The new bulbs also have a lifetime of 20,000 hours. There's no mention of mercury or other heavy metals, which pose a problem for compact fluorescents.

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