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Comment Start with Python... (Score 1) 326

Not really the interpreter, but the language spec. Add the following:
- Ability to do static typing when needed
- Add optional dialect to use delimiters instead of whitespace for block and statement scoping that can be enabled and disabled within a file.
- Add ability to specify uniform and auto-vectorized parameters to functions and have the system auto parallelize, vectorize, dispatch to GPU, ...

Many of these may exist in other languages, but I haven't spent a lot of time looking. I'm mostly a c++ and Python guy. Groovy seems to have a lot of cool features, too, but I find it hard to learn because of the too-loose syntax rules.

Comment AltDrive FTW (Score 1) 983

$50 per year for unlimited data, and you can use your own encryption keys to encrypt prior to upload. Will take a loooong time to back up that much data initially, but incremental updates are pretty quick (depending on how quickly you add new media).

Note: Not affiliated with altdrive, just a happy customer. altdrive.com

Comment Re:Clearly this can't be true (Score 2) 94

Intel has a VERY long history of questionable ;) benchmarks, all the way to tweaking processor designs to run benchmark code faster. Microsoft's "Get The Facts" propaganda is just a pale imitation of Intel's history.

Supposedly, benchmarks are written to simulate real workloads. It seems to me that tweaking processor designs to run benchmarks faster is a good idea. If you have a better idea for what applications to design a processor for perhaps you should join a processor company in the workload analysis or planning group.

I agree that Intel, or any company with enough "muscle" (see Nvidia, ATI/AMD, MSFT, IBM, HP, Oracle, etc.), will try to influence the press and show their products in the best possible way, even dishonestly on occasion. I'm not saying that the fact that "everyone does it" makes it right, just that everyone does do it.

I also think that these companies receive a lot of blame for articles / "research reports" like this one that they have absolutely no involvement with. To think that EVERY positive Intel article is funded or influenced by Intel would:

1) Ignore the fact that Intel does make fairly good products most of the time
2) Greatly overestimate Intel's marketing prowess. :)

Comment Re:Why Jobs and Ellison don't get in trouble (Score 1) 509

I rather think that they don't get in trouble because their recorded income subject to FICA and medicare is much higher than $1. Salary is not the only form of compensation for them.

For example, I work for Intel. Last year my base salary accounted for about 68% of my taxed income. The rest came from 2 different bonus programs and from stock grants and a discounted stock purchase program. All of that income was recorded on my W2 and taxed appropriately.

I believe for most of $1 salary guys, the cash bonuses are the in high hundreds of thousands and the stock grants are in the millions. That still gets taxed as income and the IRS doesn't have a problem with it. The low salary is done for 2 reasons: 1) Make all of their income dependent on company performance, 2) Morale booster for the rank and file.

Comment Re:Gutless? (Score 1) 687

Drive from the Canadian border, down through Washington, Oregon, Idaho, etc on the way South to Nevada, and you'll find lots of 83 and 85 octane gas pumps.

This usually depends on the elevation of the region where the gas station is. At high altitudes lower octane gas provides better performance. All of the states you listed contain lots of mountains and mountain passes.

Lower octane fuel actually ignites easier. The reason high-performance cars like high-octane fuel is to increase compression ratios without having the fuel self-ignite. When driving in high altitude there is less oxygen in the air. Having lower-octane fuel helps offset the oxygen level difference.

I once drove through Wyoming using 87 gas and couldn't make it up some of the hills without dropping below the speed limit. Changing to 85 helped a lot. Of course it didn't help that the vehicle was a POS...

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