Not really. It is much less expensive to allow the patches to be integrated into the parent project then it is to patch the project after every update. In addition, others will be able to test/verify that changes don't break the patches if they are given access to them. So it makes sense to feed back as many patches as they can as it greatly reduces the effort required to maintain their port.

That's not the problem here. The flicker that is being observed is not the refresh rate of the LEDs but the refresh rate of the LEDs when masked by the refresh rate of the LCD.

Try looking at a video recording of a CRT screen. The refresh rate of the CRT is plenty fast but, when sampled at the sampleing rate of the video recorder, visual artifacts are introduced. This is why newsrooms always synchronize the CRTs visible from the camera from a single source.

What the original poster described is likely an artifact of the LED and LCD hardware not being designed to work together. The manufacturer probably took off-the-shelf parts to design their product without worrying about how they interfaced with each other. Who knows, the design might have originally worked great but then someone changed one of the parts to save some money. As a result, %5 of the resulting products end up showing flicker.

This is not a hard problem to solve and I assume most high quality manufacturers have done so. But manufacturers that bundle the lowest cost components together could very well see this problem.

Just host the GIT repository on a VM in the cloud. Look at TurnkeyLinux or Bitnami. Configure the VM to only accept encrypted connections and use an excrypted file system. One could still break into your VM if they wanted to - but it would be a lot of work and no government agency would bother investing the time and money to do so. If the NSA wants your source code you can bet they will get it - even if it's hosted locally.

But the reality is you are being paranoid. The government does not care about your source code. They want to know who your friends are and when you communicate with them. If a rotten egg is found they want to be able to check for rot in neighboring eggs - because rotten eggs are generally connected.

The point of regulation is to prevent companies from market manipulation. Companies will naturally move to maximize profits and will, if allowed, perform any action to do so. Competition gets eaten up while at the same time no room is left for new players. Eventually, the market dies.

So regulation is required to facilitate a healthy market. Rules are put in place to ensure that established companies can not prevent competition from entering a market. Limits to what monopolies can do are instigated. Everybody is forced to play fair in an attempt to maximize competition and the benefits of capitalism.

People go on and on about how capitalism and regulation are polar opposites. This is ludicrous. Without regulation the benefits of capitalism do not exist. The invisible hand is an idealized concept which, much like communism, ignores reality and is doomed to failure. A market without sufficient regulation will not optimizes overall efficiency. Of course too much regulation also reduces efficiency - but a certain amount is always required.

So this isn't about the Greek people wanting the government to fix prices - this would obviously not work. It's about opening up the markets that have been sewn shut by the current players. This required effective regulation - far easier said then done.

The radio, and associated amplifiers, will generate the majority of the heat. Just look how much longer a cell phone will operate if you disable wireless. One must also take into consideration that wireless routers operate at higher power levels.

A better way to test the effects wireless signals would be to disable wireless by replacing the antenna with 50 ohm resistors. The radio would utilize the same amount of power but would not radiate any significant signals.

You're right in that we have two groups - but only one is involved in actually science.

When you receive funding only when your "research" produces the desired results it becomes nearly impossible to have unbiased results. It becomes propaganda masquerading as research. To actually perform real research, the researcher must receive funding regardless of result.

The problem with the skeptics is that their "research", which is always biased, is taking away from the real research that is being done. When an outsider observes two publications making opposite claims, both publications are discredited. And if you ask that outsider which publication they believe, they will usually pick the one they want to be right - which is the one that says they can keep on burning oil.

The scientific community knows that climate change is real and that human activity is to blame. But the general populous does not partly because of the fake research and the arguments it spawns. So no, we shouldn't accept funding from all sides. Funding should only come from a neutral side - if the rich want to fund more they can donate funds to that neutral side.

All of the standard Unix tools for moving / copying files have supported resource forks for some time now. But it's really not a big deal because only Classic / Carbon MacOS apps make use of resource forks. Classic will not run on new hardware and Carbon was depreciated a while ago. If you are a Unix user, I can't imagine a situation where you would want a resource fork.

You have it wrong. The file system is not really case-insensitive as per the traditional sense. If you have a file named "SomeFile.pdf" and try to open "SomeFile.Pdf" it will fail. The case is sensitive just as with the other Unix based operating systems. Where it differs is that it will not allow you have files named "Readme" and "readme" in the same location.

A real-time operating system provides resources to a process within a set time frame. Should some event occur, the OS will process the event while ensuring real-time processes still get their promised resources on time.

DOS does not qualify as a real-time OS because there is no multitasking and DOS can not guarantee that resources will be available. For example, if a process has to modify the FAT table on a large disk containing multiple entries, the system will lock up until it is done.

It is only consistent if you are not making any DOS calls and can guarantee there will be no interrupts processed by DOS. So basically, DOS is a real-time OS only if you are not using it.

But the motivation to do things that were previously not possible is to provide labour-savings elsewhere. For example, a more accurate instrument might take longer to build but the increased accuracy could potentially result in significant efficiency improvements within other industries. The GP post is correct when one considers a global perspective.

Traditionally, industry would have to distribute resources to workers within an economy in order to generate additional resources, but this is no longer required. Industry is currently spending resources offshore leaving the domestic economy with insufficient labour. They make money but don't distribute it back (the trickle down effect). In the future, industry won't even have to do that as automated production lines will minimize the need for labour. So with industry not distributing the earnings, how do these resources get distributed?

You can see it now, the earnings of large corporations and those in charge are increasing at a much higher rate then that of a traditional worker. The trickle down effect is broken. What happens now is more of a "trickle up effect" - people spend money on goods and the wealthy syphon off a percent of each transaction. Their resources grow while everyone else suffers. The problem is that without a healthy middle class, innovation and productivity suffer. Even the wealthy will eventually suffer as a result of their own greed as a loss of productivity and decreased efficiency will leach away their wealth.

To prevent this from happening, those who hoard resources need to be taxed. The resources can be redistributed in exchange for various jobs being done - jobs that improve society and result in something of "value". Nobody likes taxes, but if things continue as they are then they will be required. When half the skilled trades are no longer needed, the status quo will result in some major problems.

Any university I've been to has made it very clear that this is not allowed - at the cost of expulsion. Not portscans, pings, or anything else of this nature. The switches are logged so this activity is usually found right away. And you don't get a university login without first having this explained to you. It is even common to have a warning screen pop up on every login - "Scan the network and you will get expelled."

Sounds like he was expelled for breaking the rules regarding use of IT infrastructure. Probably had nothing to do with the software company - just a university enforcing existing rules. Wouldn't be surprised if he previously had a warning - the student union wouldn't have allowed it otherwise. Rules pertaining to expelling students are quite strict in this regard.

As others have pointed out, case statements utilize jump tables for better performance. It is noteworthy because depending on the elements within a case statement, it isn't always efficient. If you're testing an enum then it will be great as the resulting jump table will be small. If you're testing an int value, the resulting jump table could be huge - so you have to be careful.

Depending on what you're programming for (embedded systems?) the choice of if to use a case or if-else statement is not always obvious. You have to look at each case individually. But for desktop programming, one should use the syntax that results in the most readable / understandable code. Desktop compilers are good and should be able to optimize the result. The impact of one over the other will not be noticed 99% of the time - while the difference will impact code maintenance 100% of the time.

You can bet those bonuses amounted to far less then the amount saved by a 30% pay reduction to all employees. I'm not saying it is right, but had management not taken the bonuses, the company would likely still fail. In this scenario, it is the union who deserves most of the blame while management is only guilty of antagonizing the union.

So, had their been no regulations then the banks would simply overlook this new way to make money? What you're suggesting is insane. The banks will always try to make more money and will do everything they legally (and sometimes illegally) can to maximize their profits.

Regulations don't exist to screw over the banks, they exist to prevent the banks from screwing us over. Getting rid of regulations only makes it easier for the banks to do just that. I'm not saying that all regulations are good as some do inflict more damage then they are worth - but regulations never assist or promote a corporation / bank into doing what the banking industry did with the sub prime loans. To blame this on too many regulations demonstrates a opinionated point of view on the general subject of government and regulations.

LEDs that produce the same amount of light as a CFL are typically less efficient then the CFL. So for a 1W light, LEDs are looking good. Try to make a 100W (incandescent equivalent) light source and the CFL will be better. If this were not the case then LEDs would have already replaced CFLs. The 10x difference you claim is completely unreasonable.

But the picture is changing. The efficiency of CFLs has peaked where the efficiency of LEDs is still improving. LEDs are starting to reach the efficiency of CFLs - we are now at the point where we will start to see things change. In 5 years time LED lighting could be where CFL lighting is now. But even so, I doubt LEDs will ever be significantly more efficient then CFLs. Their main advantages are the lack of mercury, increased durability, instant startup, smaller size, and the potential of being produced at a lower cost.