I mean how the costs don't outweight the benefits. Dammit, I always proof-read what i think I wrote, not what I actually wrote.

An uninitialized variable can be caught with a style-checker. There's no need to resort to something like randomized binaries to solve a problem like that. I'm not arguing in favor of leaving bugs in place, I'm arguing in favor of choosing a specific set of binaries to focus your testing efforts on. The bottom line is that testing resources are finite and one of the key steps to fixing a bug is identifying a method of repeatably demonstrating that bug. Having randomized binaries severely complicates that one critical task and will result in significantly lower quality testing when utilizing the same level of resources.

I agree with you completely about cross platform development being one of the best methods of exposing bugs, but i don't think this kind of stack randomization is really comparable. When doing cross-platform development, you'll have a very specific, very well-defined set of target environments that you'll be testing a single version of software on. This stack randomization is an effectively infinite number of variations on a theme being tested in a single environment. One lends itself to repeatable testing, the other lends itself to versioning hell trying to replicate bugs in order to solve them.

I agree it's worth looking into, but I'm currently having difficulty seeing how the costs outweigh the benefits.

You respectfully disagree with his points without actually providing any reason why, and while nick's post makes complete sense, your statements seem to have a ton of unexplained assumptions built in.

1. What kinds of bugs do you think would manifest earlier using this technique, and why do you think that earlier manifestation of that class of bugs will outweigh the tremendous burden of chasing down all the heisenbugs that only occur on some small percentage of randomized builds?
2. How does such an environment reward programmers who invest more time in validation? More time spent in validation will result in better code regardless of whether you're using a randomized or non-randomized build. More time spent in validation is a cost you're paying, not some free thing provided by the randomized build process.
3. I don't know what this sentence means: "Debugging suck, if instigated soon enough to matter, returns 100x ROI as compared to debugging code." If what instigated soon enough?
4. "Determinism should not be reduced to a crutch for failing to code correctly" - What does this even mean? An algorithm is either deterministic or non-deterministic. If your build system is changing a deterministic algorithm into a non-deterministic algorithm, your build system is broken. If your algorithm was non-deterministic to begin with, a randomized build is not going to make it any easier to track down why the algorithm is not behaving as desired.

All in all, your post reads like a smug "Code better, noob!" while completely ignoring the tremendous extra costs that are going to be necessary to properly test hundreds of thousands of randomized builds for consistency.

Real Doll wouldn't give this guy a bulk discount, so he decided to home-brew?

And using those three adjectives, I've decided to re-name project "Narwhal" to project "Octogenarian Nymphomania".

Apparently you missed that "violent" was one of the adjectives. If we had been talking about Democrats, that one would have been replaced with "ineffectual".

Pathetic, creepy and violent are accurate descriptions of the organization that created the lab, so its an appropriate name.

What I'd do is unplug the cameras whenever I didn't want them on. Of course I wouldn't tell them that before launch, but it only makes sense. Being several years away from a rescue team, there's no way I'd be wasting limited resources operating a camera if it wasn't necessary for the task at hand, and It's not like mission control could do anything about it. I'd be so far away that it's impossible to hold a real-time conversation, and it's designed as a one-way trip. It's not like they could fire me or punish me with anything more than a strongly worded email or nasty phone message from that distance.

All three worship the god of Abraham. You're either ignorant of your own beliefs or ignorant of Muslim beliefs if you think otherwise.

All of those are great points, but you missed the most recent and catastrophic development in the struggle for human rights vs. corporate rights, which is that Corporations are now allowed to make unlimited political contributions, whereas private individuals are limited to $2500. Corporations now have an even greater ability to manipulate the government for their own ends than ever before, and I don't think any sane person believes that is a good thing.

Did you accidentally switch US and UK or something? Cops get away with shooting people in the US all the time. Unless the victim is already handcuffed and in the back of the cruiser, when a cop shoots someone in the US, they're put on paid administrative leave for a few weeks, then returned to duty. Maybe if it's really obvious that the cop had no business shooting the guy, he'll return to duty with a nasty letter in his file.

Why would you pick the myth of jesus as your basis for morality? There are much older holy texts out there that that provide moral guidance, and much newer. Is it simply because that's what mommy and daddy taught you to believe? If so, your entire moral system is nothing but an appeal to authority.

Is AMD hoping this impractical PR stunt will distract us from the fact that their chips have been lagging behind Intel's for the past two years?

I actually like the Sense interface they made it feels more intuitive than default Android, but it does noticably slow down the phone. I've got an HTC Evo 4G, and I rooted it for free wi-fi tether. I didn't realize how much faster the stock android UI is until I installed CyanogenMod7, probably because the phone as pretty good hardware specs compared to most smart phones. CM7 made the UI seem much more responsive, and apps don't stutter at all like they'd occasionally do with Sense.

Or you could just look at the source code for the GPS module on your cell phone and re-compile, thus verifying that it is, indeed providing you with the correct information using the method described. You really really are ignorant if you think that science has anything to do with faith.