wulczer

There's a section in the Postgres docs about fsync and lying hard drives: http://developer.postgresql.org/pgdocs/postgres/wal-reliabil...

There's also a Postgres contrib module called pg_test_fsync that tests various fsync modes on your hard drive, and if you get too high results, you can strongly suspect that the dist is lying.

Ouch, we'll take a look, we saw that issue earlier and though it's been fixed. Thanks!

Fix'd!

You're right, we should separate the tech blog from the normal blog. We'll definitely work on the theme as well, we've been concentrating on the main page to be honest.

Yeah, we realize real time is not strictly necessary for many people. For the ones who need it, it's a killer feature, for the ones who don't, a nice-to-have.

The game-changing point is that we're always gathering data at the same pace, even when you're not connected. This means that when you visit the page (or see read your daily report email), you'll see a datapoint for every event as it happened, like a visits spike during the night, or a sudden increase of CPU usage of your AWS machines.

Daaaaarn, that's what you get for trying to add links to the tweets while drunk on excitement after the launch. Fixed, the ones responsible executed, working on putting the links back ;)

They're mockups, but we'll try to make the HTML to match. Our designer is, to be honest, 80% part of the success. The other 20% is the one doing the HTML. And I just code here...

Thanks. Sure, I'll tweet you the link shortly.

Check out our startup - a dashboard for your online apps. The difference we're trying to make is based on the following:

  * strong emphasis on real time
  * continuous data gathering, regardless of whether you're connected
  * good visual design
  * useful daily reporting over email
  * a HTTP API for submitting your own data

To see the first two points in action, you need a browser with websockets or with Flash. As for visual design, decide yourself, but our designer will be very offended if you won't love it (just joking, criticism encouraged, feedback appreciated).

We're planning to launch a private beta in May, accepting invites now. Enjoy!

Sounds useful for early deployment stages, but later on you really should tag the code you deploy and perhaps include the tag in your application headers (or in the page footer, or somewhere). And even better, build packages after tagging in your VCS, which gives you numerous advantages, like being able to quickly check if someone modified the code in-place on the production machine.

Common misconception. Great programmers write clean code and document their work.

I loathe engineers who produce complex, unreadable code and have enough nerve to call that "cool". A great programmer knows when to refrain from saving two lines of code to spare the next person two hours of debugging.

Programmers needing wingmen that clean up after them are in my opinion simply jerks. It's a sign of disrespect towards their coworkers and a sign of a lack of an important skill.

See the answers to this question: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2251940

Even though the comment could be more civil and less aggressive, it does point out the phrase from the article that struck me most.

Jumping from people with less economical stability who don't advance because they "spend the bulk of their time trying not to offend" and "don't offer suggestions when in meetings" to brutal authority of bigoted conservatism is a stretch.

In my book, people who act natural, take initiative and get things done deserve to advance. People who are withdrawn and only interested in keeping their jobs don't. And on the other hand smack-average performers don't get noticed and advanced, while silent and shy types, if they're doing a stellar job, do.

Maybe it's specific to the technology field, but I never noticed that one's financial wealth, or lack of it, influenced their carrer path.

edit: typos

Another service that seems to do the same thing, and IMHO looks more serious: http://www.ghostery.com/

I would also appreciate if there was even a shortest FAQ somewhere, so I can at least know what to expect before I sign in.

> Another change is that you can now hide the Google Buzz tab from your profile.

Slowly admitting that Google Buzz was a complete failure...

I did Linda in the university, during the Concurrent Programming course. It was lots of fun, even though we never actually wrote a line of code in any place other than the blackboard... It is sad that the model did not take off.

Apart from being a image disaster, I don't think that would actually work.

A hiring strategy for Google (and one I believe they're following, judging by the calls my friends are getting) is combing places like development mailing lists or open source projects contributors and proposing these people jobs. I'd say that's how they get their rock stars.

And for people that are not destined to lead teams or research groups, they're simply doing what any large company does: have a HR department and hire folks that pass the filters, then evaluate them while they're there.

Hasn't this been discussed before? The Person of the Year award is supposed to be given to the most influential person of the year, not the nicest or the most ethical one. Zuckerberg did become a widely recognizable person and you can't say he has not become influential too. Joseph Stalin got the award twice, 'nuff said.

Disclaimer: I'm not comparing, just pointing out that the FSF's reaction is kind of attacking the straw man here.