> It's not good enough that they track you at every site that uses Analytics,
> every site that uses AdWords, every site you go to from their search engine,
> every site you visit with their Toolbar in play. (I'm forgetting a hundred other ways they suck your data.)

Factoring in a few of the other ways you didn't list, like sites with YouTube videos, we can guess Google is aware of about 85% of consumer web traffic. Using their DNS would tell them the only the hostname of the other 15%, and only once per TTL. So call that 7% from using Google's DNS.

Using anyone else's DNS gives that other company 100% of your lookups rather than the 0% they had before. 100% is a lot more than 7% or 15%, so you're giving up a lot more privacy by using any DNS other than Google.

In other words, Google already knows which sites you're visiting - you got to those sites by searching Google. Why would you also give that information to some other company?

That was my thought process after I found that Chrome is so good for web development. I'm using Chrome, so Google has a profile of my web surfing. There is no reason to let another company have the same information, so I'm better off using Google services all around. (Besides the fact that Google provides good services, which get better as they are integrated.)

Interix once claimed that they hoped to build a certified Unix. It doesn't appear that they ever did so:

http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/catalog.htm

I don't see Interix listed as certified Unix 93, certified Unix base, certified Unix 98, or certified Unix 03. I do see OSX listed.

Agreed. It's a WORKSTATION. It doesn't need to be a tiny little 11 pound can. A few weeks ago a drive was going out in my old Mac Pro. I slid out the drive carriage and slid in a spare sata drive I had laying around on a shelf.

Reading what I wrote, I realize I have too damn many computers. At home, I have an Android phone, tablet, and TV box. Linux / Windows laptop, Linux desktop, MacBook Pro, Linux home server, and for some volunteer work I do a Linux PBX. That's 8 computers at home.

    At my 8-5 job, I have the Mac Pro and for my side job I have a rack full of servers.

Perhaps you've confused the Mac Pro workstation with a portable iOS device competing with Android. I'm one of those "Google fan boys" I guess, since I have three Android devices. I also have a Mac Pro and a MacBook Pro. All are excellent for their intended purpose.

I strongly prefer my $99 Android Nextbook over my iPad. So yes, Apple's iOS devices do indeed suck - their usefulness per dollar is really bad. The Mac Pro isn't an iPad, though, it's a workstation that runs certified Unix.

I'm pretty sure they use Henny Penny fryersm

http://www.hennypenny.com/products/frying/pressure-fryers/

The problem with open deep frying is that as the moisture within the meat boils, it bursts out as little steam explosions popping through the coating. Sealing the deep fryer to create pressure keeps the moisture inside. Because the steam doesn't escape in a pressure fryer, the hot steam goes into the meat, cooking the center more quickly.

That's a good idea. So good that you could make millions of dollars from it, like Colonel Sanders did.

Am I the only Slashdotter thinking of trying this? The clothes washer on spin would be too big. Maybe put a faster motor on my ice cream maker and pour in some hot oil...

> Other bugs can even be truly random; a race condition that depends on whether one thread gets scheduled on a processor

The bug exists before the processor is even purchased.
The bug is not random, though the output may be influenced by a random event. The output isn't even random - I debugged one of those in the kernel and the result was spinlock. The only random part is WHEN the problem becomes visible to the user.

That reminds me of a Heisenbug we had once. Completely off topic, but we once had a bug which would never manifest with debug tools running . You could try it a million times and it would be fine so long as IE's debug console was open. With the debugging tools closed, it would crash most of the time. Guess what the cause was.

Someone had left a call to console.debug in the code, which causes IE to stop execution if there is no object named "console".

> Sadly, I still see developers not testing, and are practically afraid of writing test scripts.

I'm a little bit afraid of some tests I've been asked to write, and I've been programming professionally since 1997. My credits include WordPress, Apache, testing the Linux kernel raid, and other well known software.

I fear it because tests for this project involve learning at least one and probably two new unit testing frameworks which each try to approach testing in an innovative new way. One has tests that look like English prose, not like code.

Also, I have to rewrite other people's code to make it testable, then try to get those changes, and all of the tests, through an arduous review process. This looks like it's going to be a giant PITA. Both of these problems could have been easily avoided.

If testing were integrated with the language, we wouldn't have a different test framework (or two) for every project. If you know the language, you know how to test it, if the two are integrated. Were it integrated, I also wouldn't need to rewrite the existing code in order to make it testable - any valid and reasonable code would be testable, or nearly so.

> The word "random" also includes the definition of "odd, unusual, or unexpected."

In everyday conversation, people may say "random" when they mean "unexpected". Hopefully they wouldn't WRITE that in a published article, but they may say it in informal conversation.

A computer programmer who passed Programming 201 will distinguish between random, unexpected, and arbitrary in informal conversation, because in our world those words have COMPLETELY different meanings. Among programmers, saying "random" when you mean "unexpected" would be like saying "pizza" when you mean "broom" - they are completely different concepts altogether, and both are important concepts. Witness the recent articles about the NSA messing with random generators - random is an important thing to us.

For a programmer writing for other programmers to conflate the two in a published article is sloppy, very sloppy.

Funny you should say that now. I was just now reading a historically important post from 1991. Slashdot covered the 20th anniversary of this particular post.

http://classic.slashdot.org/story/11/08/25/1535255

I'm curious, should George Bush be able to delete all records of things he said publicly, to remove all mention of WMD from the archives? There is a strong argument that once you choose to publicly make assertions, to engage in open, written discussion, the comments you chose to publish remain. If I were to call someone a thief and a liar, I'd fully expect that the accusations I chose to make publicly would remain a part of the public record. If I don't want to look like an asshole, I shouldn't act like an asshole.

Linus used Minix to write Linux. His motivations included pure geek fun, 32 bit support, and the ability to modify and distribute. Minix was free of charge, but not 100% freedom. You weren't allowed to modify Minix and distribute your own version. At the time, BSD included code written and controlled by AT&T.

http://www.learnlinux.ie/content/linus-torvalds-original-announcement-usenet

I have the complete Adobe suite. I use Gimp more often. Photoshop, like MS Office, is the de facto file exchange format in certain fields. Photoshop is also much slower than Gimp and in my opinion harder to use, hiding commonly used tools like rectangular selection underneath other tools.

Neither is BETTER in an absolute sense. Most professional software engineers use/used C. That doesn't make C better than JavaScript.

That's true, Windows 3.1 did allow multiple apps on screen, which was useful for copy-paste or cross referencing. Windows 8 is less functional is some ways.

Still, it's funny to compare early Windows vs Mac of the same vintage. Windows would be a footnote in history had Apple licensed their OS to other manufacturers.