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Submission + - Cassandra rewritten in C++, ten times faster 1

urdak writes: At Cassandra Summit opening today, Avi Kivity and Dor Laor (who had previously written KVM and OSv) announced ScyllaDB — an open-source C++ rewrite of Cassandra, the popular NoSQL database. ScyllaDB claims to achieve a whopping 10 times more throughput per node than the original Java code, with sub-millisecond 99%ile latency. They even measured 1 million transactions per second on a single node. The performance of the new code is attributed to writing it in Seastar — a C++ framework for writing complex asynchronous applications with optimal performance on modern hardware.

Submission + - New operating system sets out to replace Linux on the cloud

urdak writes: Today in CloudOpen in New Orleans, KVM veterans Avi Kivity and Dor Laor revealed their latest venture, a new open-source (BSD license) operating system named OSv. OSv can run existing Linux programs and runtime environments such as a JVM, but unlike Linux, OSv was designed from the ground up to run efficiently on virtual machines. For example, OSv avoids the traditional (but slow) userspace-kernel isolation, as on the cloud VMs normally run a single application. OSv is also much smaller than Linux, and breaks away from tradition by being written in C++11 (the language choice is explained in in this post).

Comment Re:Perfect analogy for NASA (Score 1) 184

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Comment Re:Perfect analogy for NASA (Score 1) 184

Exactly.

For every step of aviation history there was an economic or military justification. Sometimes advances were carried out for national ego justification (e.g. the Concorde), but without economic justification, it could not be sustained and technology reverted a step back.

Space is in the same position. There is economic justification for commercial satellites, but no economic justification for the manned space program (or for the unmanned science and exploration program, but don't tell anyone). That is why we haven't been to the moon again and that is why the ISS will eventually be deorbited.

The problems of space travel are real. It takes huge amount of energy and labour to get something into orbit, and even more to get a human there and keep him alive. And what do you get in return? NOTHING.

Mars

Submission + - Dennis Tito Proposes "A Mission for America": Two Humans to Mars

RocketAcademy writes: "Dennis Tito, the first citizen space explorer to visit the International Space Station, has created the Inspiration Mars Foundation to raise funds for an even more dramatic mission: a human flyby of the planet Mars.

Tito, a former JPL rocket scientist who later founded the investment firm Wilshire Associates, proposes to send two Americans — a man and a woman — on a 501-day roundtrip mission which would launch on January 5, 2018. Technical details of the mission can be found in a feasability analysis which Tito is scheduled to present at the IEEE Aerospace Conference in March.

Former NASA flight surgeon Dr. Jonathon Clark, who is developing innovative ways of dealing with radiation exposure during the mission, called the flight “an Apollo 8 moment for the next generation.""

Comment Re:Why not build spacecraft there? (Score 1) 186

You're called DirtyLiar, so probably a troll. I'll make this short.

Just off the top of my head, some of those technologies include:

Do you like computers, cell-phones, or palm-tops? Computers were a direct result of needing near instantaneous calculations using data that would be unknown until the moment it was going to be used. The invention of both the transistor, and the computer chip can be traced back to the need to make components as compact and light as possible. As was their subsequent miniaturization.

Computers were invented in WWII. Transistors were invented in 1947. Integrated circuits were invented in 1949, but not used on the Saturn V.

How about the convenience of microwave ovens,

Available since 1947.

or freeze dried food?

WWII tech. I'll stop now.

Comment Re:Why not build spacecraft there? (Score 1) 186

I notice you selectively focused on the WWII part.

Sure, because that's generated a lot more technology than the space race. If you want something comparable to WWII, try the cold war.

As for the space race tech, yes a lot of that stuff came out of technologies developed by way of that.

Teflon and... ? and are you sure it wouldn't have come out of other research?

As for the rest, you are just showing you are another person who can find all sorts of reasons for not doing something, but you just rationalize things more than most.

Doing something usually means not doing something else. The manned space program sucks enormous amounts of money that could have been much better spent elsewhere. Can you compare the science return from Hubble, the Voyagers, the various Mars probe up to Curiousity, the Jupiter and Saturn orbiters, the various earth and sun observers, to the ISS? Even to Apollo? Do you realize the cost difference between those programs?

Boeing, Apple, MS, Intel didn't come out of nothing. They came out of a bunch of people doing something they thought was really cool, and generally pointless until a point was found later.

They either did that on their own dime, or that of people who believed in them. That meant they did it not because it was cool, but because they thought they could make money out of it. They were right and they did. If a space station is worthwhile, found a company and build it.

Guy like Gates and Woz weren't thinking "next multibillion dollar software company." They were thinking build something cool and they will come. All the original airplane makers started because they like flying.

No, they saw a business opportunity. No doubt they did it out of love as well, but if it was just that, they wouldn't have grown into such huge businesses.

I'll stick to my point of view. I'm tired of people telling me all the things that can't be done or shouldn't be done because of a lack of foresight and imagination.

It's lack of funding, mostly. If you can convince someone that you have the imagination and ability to build a space station they'll shower you in cash and wait patiently until the return you've foreseen appears.

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