coolamber - Slashdot User

Comment Beginnings of the Zombie apocalypse?: (Score 1) 385

by coolamber on Friday July 17, 2009 @03:36PM (#28733823) Attached to: Cure For Radiation Sickness Found?

Is the company called Umbrella by any chance?

Comment Pwnie award nominee (Score 1) 87

by coolamber on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @05:36PM (#27157637) Attached to: Adobe Fixes Recent PDF Flaw, But Not Before Auto Exploit

This vulnerability has pwnie award written all over it.
I would like to nominate it for the most epic fail category.
http://pwnie-awards.org/2008/

Comment I prefer this variant (Score 1) 374

by coolamber on Friday January 23, 2009 @01:32PM (#26576979) Attached to: Russia To Develop a National Operating System

In Soviet Russia.... wait for it wait for it System Operates YOU!

Russia To Develop a National Operating System 374

Posted by kdawson on Friday January 23, 2009 @12:48PM from the cutting-the-cord dept.

Elektroschock writes "According to Russian media, the Russian Government is going to develop a National Operating System (Google translation; Russian original) to lower its dependencies on foreign software technology licensing. The Russian plan will base its efforts on Linux and expects a worldwide impact. Microsoft is also involved in the roundtable process that led to the recommendation. The Chinese government successfully lowered its Microsoft licensing costs through an early investment in a national Linux distribution. I wonder if other large markets, such as the European Union, will also develop their own Linux distributions or join in the Russian initiative."

Not All Cores Are Created Equal 183

Posted by kdawson on Monday December 22, 2008 @09:56PM from the working-out-the-kinks dept.

joabj writes "Virginia Tech researchers have found that the performance of programs running on multicore processors can vary from server to server, and even from core to core. Factors such as which core handles interrupts, or which cache holds the needed data can change from run to run. Such resources tend to be allocated arbitrarily now. As a result, program execution times can vary up to 10 percent. The good news is that the VT researchers are working on a library that will recognize inefficient behavior and rearrange things in a more timely fashion." Here is the paper, Asymmetric Interactions in Symmetric Multicore Systems: Analysis, Enhancements and Evaluation (PDF).

Comment May not be possible (Score 4, Informative) 260

by coolamber on Thursday October 02, 2008 @06:52PM (#25239999) Attached to: No Space Porn (For Now)

According to an article in Wired, there has already been some Russian research done in this area:

From tfa
There are no dead man's sticks in space. And no matter how stressed anyone gets, they can't even enjoy a little release by manipulating their own joystick: One of the effects of weightlessness is reduced blood flow to the lower half of your body. The rumor in Star City is that many have tried in vain to get it up out there. "There vas top-secret program of this," Driga says. "But the man could not perform. Viagra vill not help."

So it may not be possible to perform in zero g, not enough blood flow to the lower extremities.

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