Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
The Courts

Scientists Who Failed to Warn of Quake Found Guilty of Manslaughter 459

An anonymous reader notes that the BBC reports "Six Italian scientists and an ex-government official have been sentenced to six years in prison over the 2009 deadly earthquake in L'Aquila. A regional court found them guilty of multiple manslaughter. Prosecutors said the defendants gave a falsely reassuring statement before the quake, while the defence maintained there was no way to predict major quakes. The 6.3 magnitude quake devastated the city and killed 309 people." The scientists were first charged more than two years ago.
Software

Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal Out Now; Raring Ringtail In the Works 318

An anonymous reader writes "The six month cycle that Canonical adheres to for Ubuntu releases has come around again today. Ubuntu 12.10 'Quantal Quetzal' has been released. There's a whole range of new features and updates, but here are the most important: WebApps — treats online services as if they are desktop apps (Gmail, Twitter, Facebook); Online Services — control logins to all your services from a single window and get them integrated into search results (e.g. GDocs for file searches); Dash Preview — right click any icon, get a detailed preview of what it is; Linux kernel 3.5.4; GNOME 3.6; Nautilus 3.4; latest Unity; No more Unity 2D, fallback is the Gallium llvmpipe software rasterizer; Default apps updated (Firefox 16.01, Thunderbird 16.01, LibreOffice 3.6.2, Totem, Shotwell, Rythmbox); Full disc encryption available during install; Single, 800MB distribution for all architectures." It's now available for download. The next version, due in six months' time, will be called Raring Ringtail.

Comment Re:That's great and all, but . . . (Score 3, Informative) 146

Well...arguably. This is the exact same argument as Apache vs Nginx, where Apache spawns a child process per client, whereas Nginx has a limited number of worker processes that handle a queue of requests as they become free. Nginx definitely has an advantage in terms of RAM when servicing thousands of (truly) simultaneous requests.

While Postgresql does use the Apache model, there is middleware available (google 'pgpool' for an example) that amongst other things will queue requests so they can be serviced by a limited number of children. Of course this only matters if there are an awful lot of simultaneous queries (without the corresponding amount of server RAM).

However; your claim about threads per CPU is oversimplified, and especially wrong with a DB server where processes will most likely be IO bound. With 1 core, for example, there is nothing wrong with having 5 processes parsing and planning a query for a few microseconds, while the 6th is monopolising IO actually retrieving query results. Or the reverse - having 1 CPU-bound process occasionally being interrupted to service 5 IO bound processes, which would negligibly impact the CPU-bound query, while hugely improving latency on the IO bound queries.

Comment Re:That's great and all, but . . . (Score 3, Informative) 146

Each client connected to the DB has its own child process - the shared memory is a buffer that is shared across postgresql child PIDs with the same parent. That's why the proposed patch would work using an anonymous shared memory segment - because the memory is only passed to children of the same process.
Announcements

Want to Change the Slashdot Logo? For 1 Day in October, You Can 128

The Slashdot logo has been around for a long time now; the truth is, we're rather fond of it, and have only rarely introduced substantial changes. But for the month of October, as a way of celebrating the site's 15 years of delivering News for Nerds, we invite you to help us temporarily change it. If you have an idea of what the Slashdot logo should look like for one day in October, this is your chance to see it on the page. Starting September 15th, we'll be accepting entries, and sending limited edition anniversary T-shirts to the artists we pick to show off on the page throughout the month. (And a Nexus 7 tablet to the artist who ranks best in show.) Click through for information on what we're looking for, how to enter, and the long list of rules that the legal department has provided for your reading pleasure; we look forward to seeing and sharing your ideas.

Comment Re:You don't say... (Score 2) 245

I think claiming to have 192kHz DACs and then sticking a 20kHz filter in front of them would be...misleading. And looking at the datasheet it certainly suggests that the cutoff moves with sampling rate.

But whatever the cause, the point is that something like that should not pass without comment; that it has done indicates to me that the reviewer may not be particularly familiar with the subject.

Comment Re:You don't say... (Score 4, Insightful) 245

I think what's most telling about their analysis is on the 96kHz plots. The Realtek consistently drops to nothing around 20kHz, and yet apparently that didn't mean anything to them other than "look how well these results fit with out hypothesis". Anyone who actually knew something about didgital audio would think "either I've set this up wrong or the drivers/hardware are bust, because this thing is blatantly stuck at 44.1kHz".

The only other thing to be gleaned from the graphs is that running at 96kHz is pointless because the supposedly better cards' performance FUCKING SUCKS past 20kHz.

Comment Re:UK did not extradite... (Score 2) 276

Going by the information in that article, I have to say I agree with the justices. That's a fucked up system you guys have got:

The justices in London outlined a litany of concerns in their June 20 decision, noting offenders don't have to be mentally ill to be committed; their offenses don't have to be recent; and in some cases, they don't even have to have been convicted of a crime.

As of April 1, 641 people were in Minnesota's program...some who say it holds people indefinitely after their prison sentences. One 64-year-old man received a provisional discharge earlier this year...Only one other person was ever released from the program, and was soon taken back into custody on a violation.

Comment Re:There is not even a way to remove it! (Score 1) 346

What the fuck are you talking about? The complaint that people have is that an email address appears on their profiles. It is possible to remove that email address from their profiles. But you don't want to remove the email address from your profile, you want to delete it from your profile. Because deOHMYGODI'MWASTINGMYLIFE

Slashdot Top Deals

The hardest part of climbing the ladder of success is getting through the crowd at the bottom.

Working...