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Programming

Submission + - What's different about programming for the Cloud?

Esther Schindler writes: "Whatever you think about cloud computing — whether it's the same-old-same-old or a revolution — there's certainly some wheat among the chaff. If you're going to expend any energy writing software for the cloud (SaaS, IaaS, or RandomLetterAsAService) it make sense to understand how it's different from "regular" web development. Programming for Cloud Computing: What's Different goes into some detail about the technical issues. Some are sort-of-obvious, such as designing for scalability; others, such as architectural concerns... not so much.

One theme that came up repeatedly that developers should expect to learn more about cloud computing platforms, virtualization, infrastructure operating environment, and other knowledge traditionally left to network specialists. A lot more. In fact, it may be spawning a new category of developer: DevOp. ""The lines between developers, deployers, and IT people is blurred, and roles and knowledge are shared between all roles," says Guy Naor, Morphlabs, in the article."

Comment Re:Solar Cooling! Man is at it again! (Score 0, Offtopic) 167

I sincerely hope moderators understand tongue in cheek humor.

Surely you jest. These are, after all, slashdot moderators you're talking about. I think you're just as likely to get scathing comments from people rampaging at the (overly literal) idea that we should fire nukes into the sun. "But you'll set the sun on fire! Think of the children!" et al.

Now that I've mentioned it as well, I expect similar results.

Comment I partially stand up (Score 4, Insightful) 567

There is no such thing as a rolling stop - you either stop or you don't. You either break the law, or you don't. Not harming someone or their property doesn't make it any more legal to disobey rules of the road.

This whole concept reminds me of the George Carlin bit about staying seated until the plane comes to a "complete stop." There is no such thing as a partial stop. If you roll through a light, get caught and fined, at least own up to it. Any driver who does this knows they are taking the risk, knows it's against the rules, and, while I'm not saying they deserve to get caught, should at least take personal responsibility if they do.

I roll through stops sometimes, though I do try to make a conscious effort to not do so. I also speed - and have no shame in doing it. If/when I get caught, I accept the consequences unless I have what I feel is a justifiable reason for what I did.

Comment Discarded RTs? (Score 1) 460

I find it odd that the Retweets (RTs) are/were discarded with the spam in these statistics. RTs help the information spread, which is useful indeed. How many of those 1,000 actively monitor or follow any official World Cup reporting stream? Certainly not all. A RT may not be an original post, but it still can have value in the dissemination of data.
NASA

Submission + - SPAM: NASA says 200-yard long asteroid will miss Earth 2

coondoggie writes: NASA scientists have recalculated the path of a large asteroid known as Apophis and now say it has only a very slim chance of banging into Earth.

The Apophis asteroid is approximately the size of two-and-a-half football fields and updated computational techniques and newly available data indicate the probability of an Earth encounter on April 13, 2036, for Apophis has dropped from one-in-45,000 to about four-in-a million, NASA stated.

[spam URL stripped]

Link to Original Source

Comment Only needed 1/2 the article. (Score 2, Insightful) 167

Sorry to say that the guy dribbles on for half the article about what the reports LOOK LIKE. Why? Dunno. I reached this paragraph about halfway through the document: "Beyond these general impressions, what is most interesting is the financial accounting in the reports..." and thought to myself "finally!" Honestly. I don't need someone to describe the appearance/layout/graphics of the report. I daresay most folks going to read the article don't either. Still, the finance info was interesting - as interesting as finance info ever is.

Comment And yet this is what gets censored. (Score 5, Insightful) 574

It seems odd to me that pictures of naked people is censored, but, if I wanted, I could post videos of "zombies" killing mowing each other down with chainsaws with no public outcry whatsoever.

Carlin had it right: I'd rather my kids saw images of two people making love than of two people killing each other.
Science

First Acoustic Black Hole Created 165

KentuckyFC writes "One of the many curious properties of Bose Einstein Condensates (BECs) is that the flow of sound through them is governed by the same equations that describe how light is bent by a gravitational field. Now, a group of Israeli physicists have exploited this idea to create an acoustic black hole in a BEC. The team created a supersonic flow of atoms within the BEC, a flow that prevents any phonon caught in it from making headway. The region where the flow changes from subsonic to supersonic is an event horizon, because any phonon unlucky enough to stray into the supersonic region can never escape. The real prize is not the acoustic black hole itself but what it makes possible: the first observation of Hawking radiation. Quantum mechanics predicts that pairs of phonons with opposite momentum ought to be constantly springing in and out of existence in a BEC. Were one of the pair to stray across the event horizon into the supersonic region, it could never escape. However, the other would be free to go on its way. This stream of phononic radiation away from an acoustic black hole would be the first observation of Hawking radiation. The team hasn't gotten that far yet, but it can't be long now before either they or their numerous competitors make this leap."

How Do IT Guys Get Respect and Not Become BOFHs? 902

An anonymous reader writes "I work for a small software company (around 60 people) as the sole IT guy. It's my first time in a position like this and after about 1.5 years I'm starting to get a bit burned out. I try to be friendly, helpful, and responsive and I get no respect whatsoever. Users tend to be flat-out rude when they have a problem, violate our pretty liberal policies constantly, and expect complex projects to be finished immediately upon requesting them. My knee-jerk reaction is to be a bastard, although I've avoided it up to this point. It's getting harder. For those of you who have been doing this a lot longer, how do you get a reasonable level of respect from your users while not being a jerk?"

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