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Comment Maybe not for entry level, but... (Score 3, Insightful) 191

If all you want to be is a programmer, yeah, you can probably get away without knowing how to type. After all, I don't spend my time in the home row very much; I'm typically moving around the keyboard to hit various shortcuts, the arrows, etc. (As I understand it, that's why power VIM users like it so much - hands don't move.)

But if you want to go beyond entry-level programming, to where you're writing docs and responding to email and such a lot more often, your typing speed will absolutely hold you back. If you can do 100WPM by hunting and pecking, great, but if not, you need to learn how to keep up.

Comment Re:Common knowledge (Score 1) 270

> AvGas is typically only in the 105-120 range, and it's used in turbine engines with compression levels that would reduce a car's ICE to shrapnel.

No. Standard avgas is 100LL (100 Octane, low lead). It's just like gasoline from the auto pumps, but the octane level is higher and there's still some lead in it, where the auto industry is fully unleaded. (There are some aircraft that can handle lower-octane mogas, but they're rare.)

Turbine engines typically use Jet-A, which is a diesel-like, kerosene based fuel.

Hardware

SSD Annual Failure Rates Around 1.5%, HDDs About 5% 512

Lucas123 writes "On the news that Linus Torvalds's SSD went belly up while he was coding the 3.12 kernel, Computerworld took a closer look at SSDs and their failure rates. While Torvalds didn't specify the SSD manufacturer in his blog, he did write in a 2008 blog that he'd purchased an 80GB Intel SSD — likely the X25, which has become something of an industry standard for SSD reliability. While they may have no mechanical parts, making them preferable for mobile use, there are many factors that go into an SSD being reliable. For example, a NAND die, the SSD controller, capacitors, or other passive components can — and do — slowly wear out or fail entirely. As an investigation into SSD reliability performed by Tom's Hardware noted: 'We know that SSDs still fail.... All it takes is 10 minutes of flipping through customer reviews on Newegg's listings.' Yet, according to IHS, client SSD annual failure rates under warranty tend to be around 1.5%, while HDDs are near 5%. So SSDs not only outperform, but on average outlast spinning disks."
Firefox

Emscripten and New Javascript Engine Bring Unreal Engine To Firefox 124

MojoKid writes "There's no doubt that gaming on the Web has improved dramatically in recent years, but Mozilla believes it has developed new technology that will deliver a big leap in what browser-based gaming can become. The company developed a highly-optimized version of Javascript that's designed to 'supercharge' a game's code to deliver near-native performance. And now that innovation has enabled Mozilla to bring Epic's Unreal Engine 3 to the browser. As a sort of proof of concept, Mozilla debuted this BananaBread game demo that was built using WebGL, Emscripten, and the new JavaScript version called 'asm.js.' Mozilla says that it's working with the likes of EA, Disney, and ZeptoLab to optimize games for the mobile Web, as well." Emscripten was previously used to port Doom to the browser.

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