Comment: Re:The reason they are judges... (Score 1) 196
very different
So you're saying he should have changed the word 'low' to 'high'?
Comment: Re:The enhanced utility of Fortran (Score 1) 255
One great innovation is the combination of python and fortran.
Huge agreement here!
I advocated the same Ruby/Fortran synergy back in 2006, with a working example:
http://marc.info/?l=ruby-talk&m=115619337609191&w=2
Completely agree that this is a great way to use the best tool for the job. I'd go so far as to claim that Python(or Ruby)-with-Fortran is a better tool for most jobs than C#-for-everything, which is kinda mediocre at all tasks..
+ - Hand-held "Sound Camera" Shows You the Source of Noises->
Submitted
by
Zothecula
Zothecula writes "If you work with machinery, engines or appliances of any type, then you’ve likely experienced the frustration of hearing a troublesome noise coming from somewhere, but not being able to pinpoint where. If only you could just grab a camera, and take a picture that showed you the noise’s location. Well, soon you should be able to do so, as that’s just what the SeeSV-S205 sound camera does."
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Comment: Because it's valuable, duh. (Score 2, Insightful) 209
It has value, so someone wants to profit from it.
One could as easily ask "why are Hollywood Movies behind a paywall", or "why is food behind a paywall at my grocery store".
+ - Why is Science Behind a Paywall?->
Submitted
by
Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "The Priceonomics blog has a post that looks into how so much of our scientific knowledge came to be gated by current publishing models. 'The most famous of these providers is Elsevier. It is a behemoth. Every year it publishes 250,000 articles in 2,000 journals. Its 2012 revenues reached $2.7 billion. Its profits of over $1 billion account for 45% of the Reed Elsevier Group — its parent company which is the 495th largest company in the world in terms of market capitalization. Companies like Elsevier developed in the 1960s and 1970s. They bought academic journals from the non-profits and academic societies that ran them, successfully betting that they could raise prices without losing customers. Today just three publishers, Elsevier, Springer and Wiley, account for roughly 42% of all articles published in the $19 billion plus academic publishing market for science, technology, engineering, and medical topics. University libraries account for 80% of their customers.' The article also explain how moving to open access journals would help, but says it's just one step in more significant transformation scientific research needs to undergo. It points to the open source software community as a place from which researchers should take their cues."
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Comment: Re:Linux (Score 1) 309
So after all... Microsoft is making money on Linux.
They've been making money off of F/OSS for a very long time.
Their first TCP/IP stack was taken from BSD.
Hotmail was BSD/Sendmail.
Bing used Hadoop thanks to PowerSet
Their high-end scalable database (DATAllegro) used a F/OSS database core (Ingres).
Beneath the scenes they think F/OSS is great
They just don't want their customers to know they think that.
Comment: Re:Cost (Score 1) 194
whitelists
Because it wouldn't scale.
Isn't that basically what the signed apt-get repositories are?
By accepting a signing key, you're signing up for their whitelist.
Comment: Re:What am I missing? (Score 1) 255
And if they did fall up, wouldn't that contradict the idea that gravity is indistinguishable from being stuck inside an accelerating elevator?
Comment: They're overanalyzing. (Score 5, Insightful) 400
Just keep employees happy.
Some programmers like free dinners, and enjoy sleeping til noon and working til midnight, and don't mind the 12 hours because their best friends are at work.
Other programmers want to work 9-5 to drop kids off in the morning and get home to them at dinner.
Many programmers go through each of those stages in their carreers.
It's not an either/or question. Just make a workplace that accomodates both groups and keeps both happy.
Comment: Re:fascinating look (Score 2) 212
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place" - Eric Schmidt
So I guess he wishes that subversive who published Common Sense should have been caught right away before leading to the overthrow of that government occupation of the new world?
Comment: Re:Glad to know federated IM will work again (Score 1) 32
definitely good news.
How can we thank them in a way they'd notice?
I'm very happy they did it - but hope they don't just undo it again.
Comment: Re:Let's predict the headlines of the future: (Score 1) 305
ROTFL.
I distinctly remember hopefully and naively thinking that Windows was getting a native X server when they first announced Direct X.
Comment: Re:Let's predict the headlines of the future: (Score 4, Interesting) 305
My prediction.
Microsoft just re-names it; and everyone'll be using DirectY-2014 or Vista Display API or Direct-ME.
Comment: Re:So what (Score 1) 142
You can name planets as you like.
Indeed.
I'm hoping Uwingu issues a rebuttal saying that the IAU's names are "illegitimate" and not officially recognized by Uwingu.
Comment: Re:My theory (Score 1) 1010
SSD
If you have enough memory, and suspend to ram (or both ram and disk) instead of powreing off each day, a SSD doesn't matter much.
All modern OS's are excellent at using "unused" memory to cache frequently accessed disk pages; and it's exactly as fast to read a cached page of a SSD as a cached page from a spinning disk.