"In my experience Go is probably 5-10x faster than C or C++. I estimate that programs that take me half an hour to write in Go would take me about 2½ hours in C and 5 hours in C++."

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And the evidence that is out there states that the claim Go is 5-10x faster than C or C++ is bullshit. In fact, it's slower.

Notice the benchmark where Go took 30x the time the C program did to finish the benchmark?

IMHO, if it isn't standardized, opened up and backed up by an international standard then it will never be better than C. For all problems that may or may not affect C and for all problems involved in the development and update of a standard for each version of the C programming language, these multiple versions of the C programming language are effectively set in stone. This means that the language is future-proof, as multiple implementations may be developed and, by targetting the standard, they can interoperate without any major consequence.

If Go isn't standardized and if Google intends to control the language then it would be a terrible decision to adopt Go instead of a time-tested, well established tool which is future-proof and resistent to bit-rot. We all have Oracle and Java as a good warning.

From the article:

This sort of courses are a form of scam that preys on gullible people, who have heard some news how some guy put up a website that he later sold for millions and now they want a piece of that pie. Yet, the hard truth is that those courses are in themselves useless and a waste of money. Sure, learning something is way better than not learning anything at all. Yet, who exactly believes that those gullible clients, like an investment banker with a course in HTML and WordPress, have all the technical know-how needed to put together a new facebook or twitter? They don't. They can't even put up a hello world app together, because they aren't even taught any programming language. These courses are good enough to put up a site on geocities, complete with an animated GIF informing that the site is "under construction", and to register a blog in WordPress.org. Yet, you think you are learning to program? Sorry to dissapoint you, but you aren't.

The second part though, the idea that someone would go to all the trouble to use something like this to track down a bunch of gays is absurd. Why bother doing that when if your a nutter you just go to your local gay bar instead? You know the one that advertises to attract all of those gays?

I believe you missed the point. It's not a question of being possible to simply go to your local gay bar and track down a bunch of gays. The fundamental issue is that, with this, the nutters don't need to go to your local gay bar at all, because someone else happened to put a system in place that is able to generate a comprehensive list of all self-declared gays anywhere in the world. So, these nutters can easily get their hands on a list of potential targets which is much more extensive and thorough than any list they would otherwise be able to compile.

And, suffice to say, this is a recipee for disaster. And not just for gays. Imagine, for example, if Facebook existed in the 1950s and up until then there was absolutely no problem in being a member of the communist party, let alone being simply supportive of that organization or even a friend of any member of the communist party. What would happened if J. Edgar Hoover had access to the names, addresses and social network of anyone who ever joined a communist interest group in facebook, or anyone who ever clicked on the like button remotely related to any site which was pro-communism?

So, the ramifications are deeper than simply having alternative methods to gather information, and much more serioius at that.

It sounds like sarcasm to me. After all, Java is, in any measure, a successful language and platform. A considerable number of respectable higher education institutions have adopted java as the programming language for both OO courses and intro to programming, and any job search returns a high number of jobs which explicitly require proficiency in java programming.

If that wasn't enough, there's android developing. Nowadays, if you want to develop software for a smartphone you are basically forced to write it in either java or objective-C.

So, it sounds like sarcasm to me. Either that or someone has been hidden in bunker for the past 20 years.

Indeed. Just imagine the computer guy going around to the astrobiology people claiming they were all incompetent and that they could learn why by watching a DVD and subscribing to his newsletter.

And another thing that may justify NASA firing his ass all in itself: some guy going around refering to himself as a NASA team leader and, under that authority, making all sorts of bold claims regarding intelligent design.

In other words, the people behind that claim are desperately trying to put some pressure on politicians to get their hands on more money for their pet project, and shift the blame to politicians for not succeeding at their objective.

For the now-closed Tevatron, a demonstration of sensitivity to the Higgs can be seen as a kind of moral victory, says theorist Gordon Kane of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In 2011, researchers at Fermilab argued for an extension to the machine's run, on the grounds that they might be able to obtain evidence for the Higgs if they had more time, but their proposal was turned down by the US Department of Energy.
This proves they could have found the Higgs themselves, if they'd had full funding,” says Kane.

And, yeah, it also sounds like they want to take the credit for LHC's future discoveries. Not nice.

Yeah, but in both cases there are certain odds that you will get fucked in the ass and all shaken up when you least expect it.

Seriously, man. Don't you think there could be a problem with a house that is not actually attached to its foundations?

There is absolutely no problem with "a house that is not actually attached to its foundations". In fact, it's one of the main principles behind a set of technologies employed in retrofitting important structures and also in recent structures whose integrity is fundamental to society. I could point you out to wikipedia on this one, but wikipedia's article on this subject is rather poor and useless. But to just give you a headsup, the principle behind this technique is to separate the superstructure (a frame, bridge deck, etc...) from the infrastructure (foundations, piers, frames, etc...) and then, depending on the technology, either prevent the earthquake energy to be transmitted to the superstructure, transfer it through a flexible connection or even transfer it through dynamic dampeners.

By the look of this article, it appears this technology fits in the 2nd category (transfer earthquake energy through a flexible connection). Yet, I really doubt it will go anywhere, as it is much simpler to resort to passive systems which are already widely deployed, tested in the real world and proven to work incredibly well, such as base isolation through neoprene bearings. So, probably this was the first and last time anyone will ever hear of this.

\\me is a structural engineer

I just logged on to say exactly that. Claiming that Interpol arrested anyone is like claiming that the local police administrative clerk who happened to send/receive cooperation requests from/to any other police force is the one responsible for doing any of the arrests.

So, the question which must be asked is who exactly is behind these arrest warrants? And why did anyone tried to pass the idea that there is an international police body with global jurisdiction that is dedicated to attacking this elusive anonymous group?

The average user isn't the only one who doesn't have the slightest idea of what hardware he really needs to get the job done. If "us geeks" also knew better then any synthetic benchmark would be automatically dismissed as being irrelevant and useless, and the most important property of a computing rig would be its cost/performance ratio, with cost reflecting not only the hardware price, direct and indirect, but also operational cost. After all, it's irrelevant if a certain game runs at 100fps or 10000fps, and for regular use stuff, such as web browsing, office stuff and whatnot, any 6 year old system is overkill.

Yet, geeks salivate with stuff such as cores, MHz, a string of irrelevant benchmark numbers and even statistics on HPC usage, and this for systems which the closest they come to HPC is calculating the n-th digit of pi.

So, cluelessness isn't exclusive of non-geeks. The e-penis factor is always influencing purchasing decisions. The only difference is that some are more knowledgeable about useless numbers and factoids than others.

If you compare some carjacker punk with a Bernard Madoff, who is the biggest thief?

It really depends on what's your definition of "friendly". For example, I see BibTeX as the friendliest bibliography system there is, mainly due to the fact that when you use it you don't even need to be aware you are using it. You just pick your bibliography file and simply reference what you wish to reference. What's unfriendly about the following command?

Managing a BibTeX bibliography is also quite simple and straight-forward. A user only needs to open a text file with a text editor and add an entry to a book. What's unfriendly about the following entry?

If we compare using BibTeX with the god-awful way Microsoft Word handles bibliographies we lose any reason to claim that word processors are somehow better at its job than LaTeX. So, why do some people keep parrotting that word processors such as Microsoft Word are somehow better at producing documents than LaTeX? This sort of claim simply goes against reality.

The last time I used Microsoft Word 2007 to input equations was a couple of months ago, and although it is able to represent simple equations, like the ones involving index notation, fractions and other basic notation elements, the only way it was possible to enumerate them was if the user relied on a couple of obscure nasty hacks which fail to be even adequate.

And even then, equations in Microsoft Word 2007 are still represented in a crude and unpretty way when compared to the much simpler and straight-forward TeX way of doing things.

I don't see why normal people wouldn't be able to write a LaTeX document. Setting up a new document may be tricky for a absolute newbie, but that's nothing that can't be taken care by a template with a half dozen lines, and learned in a couple of minutes. From there, basically the only thing a user needs to know is to use commands such as \chapter, \section, \subsection and the like, and know how to write. How is that hard?