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alex4nder

68 karma · joined October 10, 2011

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alex4nder··on The F-35 still has a long way to go
> [...] the only community of machinists nimble enough [...] Which happens to be the Suame Magazine workshop district in Ghana.

Could you please expand on this statement? Why do you think this that only this community could rebuild them?

alex4nder··on “Neuromancer” read by William Gibson
I went to a signing of his a couple of years ago. You'll be happy to know it's still the same process.
alex4nder··on Safari is sending every search query to Apple
Out of the corner of my eye, I read that as: Safari is sending every search query to an Apple //c. Everything started making sense.
alex4nder··on When Keurig fights “coffee pirates,” who loses? Loyal consumers
This is the automatic transmission defense. Some people don't know any better, or are too lazy/scared/inept to learn anything else. Others just enjoy putting it in Drive, and hitting the gas.

It's all about priorities.

alex4nder··on The Beautiful Simplicity of ColorForth (2013)
I've found that forth works best when you use it to create a DSL for your problem domain, and you write your application code in that DSL. That DSL becomes the critical abstraction that helps prevent your codebase from becoming an unusable/unmaintainable mess. This isn't a new idea; the book that got me thinking about when/how to use forth was (oddly enough) http://thinking-forth.sourceforge.net/ . It's a good read even if you never intend to build a forth project.

As a side note, I've done image processing with forth: I helped build a commercial HD video camera with it that shipped in the mid 2000s, and I found it well suited once we had the problem reasoned out well enough to build our DSL. Overall the product ended up being composed of forth/C/hand written assembly, and a bunch FPGAs. We shipped things with < 10 people, and I think the interactive/extensible mindset that forth gave us helped us get the product out the door successfully.

alex4nder··on The Beautiful Simplicity of ColorForth (2013)
To add 'color' to the comments: I've got strong positive opinions about forth, when used properly. I've helped save several embedded/early-stage board bring-up projects with it.

More than one person has called forth a programmer "amplifier". If C++ has the capacity to blow off your whole leg, forth is more than capable of forming a black hole beneath you and sucking you in.

alex4nder··on Alcatel-Lucent sets record of 10 Gbps over traditional copper telephone lines
Wiring isn't under control of the home/business owner until it hits their NID, which is already on-prem. Getting the connection to the NID is where the expense is, and it's why AL is putting money into the process. Without this, someone has to spend the thousands of dollars pulling permits/digging trenches to run fiber to your house.
alex4nder··on I quit my job. Today is Day #2.
Day #3: The database is down. I don't know how much longer I can hold out. If anyone reads this, please tell my family that I love them.
alex4nder··on Nginx 1.6.0 stable released
Granted, it's more work for you, but this is pretty straight-forward to do with with access_by_lua (and the associated nginx APIs).
alex4nder··on LibreSSL
You know, except for the 'openssl' executable that builds, and a lot of people use.
alex4nder··on LXC 1.0 released
Thanks LXC maintainers! When Docker goes public, they'll send you each a free t-shirt.
alex4nder··on The Mission of Tesla
I too have worked with major automotive OEMs, and all the 'security' I've seen is nothing but lip service. The quality of embedded software in the automotive world is laughable. Forget anything advanced, they're just getting into the what-do-you-mean-bounds-checking stage of computer security.

There's just starting to be real external research into the current state of the automotive world: http://www.autosec.org/pubs/cars-usenixsec2011.pdf

Even the proposed new standards are busted: http://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/143639....

I for one, am going to have a hard time buying any car made after 2006.

alex4nder··on Amazon to Begin Sunday Deliveries, With Post Office's Help
In this case, I don't think that's it: this package wasn't due for delivery until the following Monday. I was pleasantly surprised when I got the text saying it had been delivered.
alex4nder··on Docker and Go: why did we decide to write Docker in Go?
If how it's deployed doesn't influence the way you write software, you're either: a) developing something trivial, or b) deploying something that's not going to work well in the long run.
alex4nder··on Amazon to Begin Sunday Deliveries, With Post Office's Help
Oddly enough, I got my first Sunday delivery today from Amazon via USPS, and I don't live in either of the referenced cities.
alex4nder··on Linux only needs one 'killer' game to explode, says Battlefield director
Those titles were easily available, and better supported, on other platforms. Why would anyone switch to Linux to play them?

I bought my first Macintosh just to be able to play Q3Test, before it was released for Linux or Windows.

alex4nder··on Docker + Red Hat OpenShift = The Tipping Point for Open PaaS?
Hopefully the community will continue moving forward by getting actual work done. These technologies are all cute, but nothing here, except the scale of marketing, is groundbreaking.
alex4nder··on It's A Terrible Time To Buy An Expensive House
I've seen these types of customizations worked out with /some/ rental property owners, depending on lease terms. Akin to commercial 'tenant improvements'.
alex4nder··on Zynga to employees: Give back our stock or you'll be fired
The new hires will just need 'no takebacks' written into their contracts.
alex4nder··on Apple Has 1,000 Engineers Working On Chips For The Post-PC Era
You mean River Rouge. It was an amazing plant.