Generally working around hardware bugs means changing assemblers and compilers to avoid a suspect code sequence. This means apps compiled with pre-fix languages are like time bombs, and it forces compiler vendors to reform their code generators and force a release cycle. This includes both open source as well as proprietary software and is a maintenance burden to everyone. The penguin math bug was like this. I think the silicon should be fixed instead. If intel had to pay for CPU Upgrades and service calls, they would be more likely to QA their chips better.

Very funny

A software engineer sees software as a body of code that must be efficient, reliable, and maintainable. I don't believe monkeys can do this work. Just because the machine is more limited in power, or memory size makes it no less challenging. IMHO

What is your problem about if it can be implemented on a PC with software ?

Netflix tech support told me recently that their service requires 12Mb/sec and anything less will cause the "buffering" delays. I am getting 75Mb downward now and have no trouble supporting both my own streaming and my sister's at the same time. The 25Mb/sec I used to get was marginal for this..

I have tried to sell my "stuff" on CL but I get so many scam responses that I cannot find the real ones without a lot of study. I see why eBay uses paypal. Since my last experience a year ago, I have not even tried to use CL.

Oh Yea!! Like we need to continue locking in new programmers to Microsoft's proprietary frameworks and tools. I believe it is important to write programs in as transportable manner as possible. ANSI C was good for quite a while. C++ can be transportable if you avoid platform specific or vendor specific extensions. Personally, I am having good results writing portable software in Python, and while I am aware that it is primarily an interpreter, the software I am working on does not need to be high performance. What is valuable about it (python) for me is that it is well documented, and has both a rich standard library and a ton of 3rd party extensions.

I believe you are referring to the wi-fi data picked up promiscuously by Google fleet of camera vehicles while taking street view pictures. Their excuses about that were pretty thin as I remember.

Actually, if one hundred monkeys play on the keyboard, that is how you get Windows.

I commend you for adapting better than i did. But I am really sorry that we let one company twist the form and function into such a pile of poop. The Unix operating system, although a product of the phone company, was modular and flexible. The Berkeley enhancements were fantastic, and between those and the streams/TLI it was a communication programmer's dream. A protocol development workshop, rich in interfaces. The X Window System gave us a gui. C was a very adequate programming language. The eventual development of 386bsd and the GNU software gave us very adequate starting points that lead to where we are today which is without the thousand dollar Unix kernel license from AT&T. Software would have been significantly more portable if we had standardized on that, and if the trusted computing initiative hadn't polluted the software environment, the machines would be performing much better.

According to the CERT notifications, problems never seem to get better. If the problem is about the OS, it is a vulnerability that allows user promotion and remote code execution. The list of affected operating system is always the entire list of Windows versions all the way back. If the problem is Office, it affects all previous versions. The recommended fix is always to disable some critical feature that is universally depended on by most business software. Their software is still junk.

HH the Dalai Lama observed a while back that the basis of western science (logical empiricism) was troubled by definition. You observe, you postulate and you test. The problem is with the observation. As humans, we observe very slowly, compared to the speed of execution of microprocessors. As software engineers we do our best, using best practices and personal experience, to write efficient and reliable code. During my career I have tested my code at a micro and macro level, sometimes thousands of times, the result being I tell the client I have tested the software and believe it is working correctly and reliably, and that it will work correctly unless it doesn't. That last part always raises eyebrows. I did one project, at a charitable fee level per hour, and on the fourth revision a small error crept in. I charged the client for one hour to fix the problem, re-generate the product and create release materials. He got mad and did no further business with me, although I had served him well for six months prior, and his product was selling well with my install program. These says there is errors and omissions insurance, but that makes me nauseous. This is a difficult issue as it is hard to manufacture software.

It was really difficult to get them all out and in place before Christmas...

It's that darn spelling corrector that changes words on the fly to what it thought you meant.

These are the people who in accurately estimated the value of my old company and cost me a million. It's hard to fight a hostile takeover when the hostile partner has the company checkbook.