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Comment Re:Dethroning ARM? (Score 1) 41

* There was a project to make openjdk use LLVM as a backend, but AIUI it's not really maintained since an open source native arm backend was written.

Perhaps you are talking about some old project that maybe tried. Nowadays we have GraalVM and Polyglot (https://www.graalvm.org/), an official project that is very much maintained and that allows to both include LLVM binaries in a Java application (something that used to be very painful using JNDI), or compile a Java application to LLVM bitcode (making it native but making it run much faster).

Not trolling. Just thought this piece of information could be pertinent to some.

Comment Timezone for those not in the US... So hyped! (Score 2) 28

PT is actually called PST and it means Pacific Standard Time (UTC -8), so "Friday 4:43 p.m. PT" can be translated to "Saturday 01:47CET" or "Saturday 00:47UTC".

Man, I hope this event is actually something worth seeing unlike other recent events. I'm so hyped!!!

  • - Full moon
  • - White moon (first moon of February when the moon reflects on earth more light than the rest of the year)
  • - Lunar eclipse (Earth between Sun and Moon)

Comment 512TB of ADDRESSABLE memory!!! Seriously, RTFA. (Score 1) 125

It's funny how not RTFA in Slashdot is even a meme but yet I can see that 95% of the people here didn't read it. The 512TB number is the amount of ADDRESSABLE memory, which means that you can reserve for example 300Gb of that memory to read a texture file that big. Then, as you start reading it, a secondary controller will transfer data there from main memory, directly from disk or from wherever. To you it will be as if you were reading a 300GB block from Video memory and thanks to that external controller (IOMMU, DMA, etc.) that transfer will be super fast. While you are doing that other application will be doing the same with a 1TB block. Both will be easily accesible at the same time thanks to having 512TB of ADDRESSABLE memory. Each of those applications will only use a part of the total REAL memory for this access. No more manual overlay/pagination will be necessary.

This technique is commonly used in modern systems, but it was revolutionary when it first appeared. AMD has now brought it to the GPU now so that it can be used with many more applications. Apparently they are bringing the CPU to the GPU instead of the usual other way around.

This new GPU also has "over 200 new features", for those who say it's nothing new.

Not a fanboy or anything, but all these rants that could all be avoided reading the article or paying attention simply got to me. Sorry about that.

Comment Re:Ugh (Score 4, Interesting) 284

LibreOffice (with OpenOffice before it) is one of those projects which has had great potential and is about to be usable for like ten years now.

I see these kind of comments all the time and barely ever anyone actually says what is wrong with it. I've been using LibreOffice (and OpenOffice before that) for a long time and I agree it had its issues at first, but it's been years since I ever had any problem with it. As a matter of fact, when a file is slightly corrupted MS Office will never open it, but LibreOffice will, and after saving it again the file becomes usable again.

I am honestly interested in this, I'm not trolling, so could you please give a few examples of "great potential but little usability"?

Comment Fahrenheit... Degrees? (Score 0) 65

Just two things:

1.- Fahrenheit is a measure, like miles. They are not degrees. So you would say 280 Fahrenheit, or maybe 280 Fahrenheits.
2.- And most importantly, except for the US and a couple of places more, the whole world uses Celsius. The whole scientific community uses Celsius. Even the US is trying to get rid of Fahrenheit!

It's about time for US writers to use Celsius, or at the very least, to use both. How hard is it to say "280 Fahrenheit (about 137.78C)"?

Comment systemd (Score 1) 147

Now that Fedora comes with systemd as default, I see more and more comments like "systemd is installed and default in more and more distributions" and I would like to use the opportunity to say that not only this is not true, but it will absolutely not happen for quite a few distros.

While I love the ideas behind systemd, and it undeniably works very well (it wouldn't have been adopted otherwise), it does have it's disadvantages. One of the most important ones is it is Linux-exclusive, which means that any distribution and any software that wants to be available for other platforms, simply cannot use it. That is the case, for example, for Debian.

It would be great if different alternatives used the same commands for the same things. That way I could always use them in any CLI or script, knowing that everything will work, no matter what. Some functionalities will not be in all systems, so this may not be so feasible, but most basic functions should work like this.

Comment Re:Still sucks (Score 1) 127

Cool, so VLC added support for MID, MOD, S3M, IT, 669, XM, MO3, D00, D01, ROL, SID, NSF, GYM, VGM, SPC and PSF formats? Or does everything you chuck at it only include MP3 and maybe OGG, thereby making your statements about VLC much less impressive.

Erm. It's funny that you should ask, as it DOES play most of those formats, if not all. I personally tested MID, MOD, S3M and IT.

Comment Being practical (Score 1) 514

You are asking what would be the most practical language to learn, and I'd say that spanish would be the right choice. I can offer several reasons:

  • - One of the most spoken languages in the world. Mandarin and english are the languages with most native speakers in the world. Since Mandarin might prove to be a bit more difficult, specially in it's written form (5k+ cang jie is just absurd)
  • - One of the most spoken languages in America (yup, America is not just the USA) and a growing language in the USA (70% or so of America speaks spanish), and a lot of people in the USA speak Spanish as well
  • - Easy to practice, since there is undoubtedly a lot of people around you that speak it fluently.
  • - There are many spanish-speaking developer communities on the Internet, and since some latin-american countries are growing a lot in this area (and many others), there will be many more soon. I have read very interesting papers even from Cuba!

After explaining why I think spanish is the most practical language for you to learn, and having learnt 3 other languages apart from my mother tongue, I can assure you that the best language to learn is actually the one that excites you the most.

Learning a language takes time and effort, so being motivated is, in my opinion, the most important argument. Do you like finnish, even though so few people actually speak it, and many of them know english even better than you? (better than me, at least hehe), then by all means, go ahead and learn finnish. That's my advice.

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