Welcome to the Microsoft Enrichment Center, featuring GLaDOS, now running Windows 7!

Yep.

From http://mozillalabs.com/conceptseries/2011/05/24/community-concepts-ubiquitous-firefox-part-1-how-do-you-design-a-debris-less-browser/

You beat me to it!

For Developers By Developers - great service, great products, so on and so forth

(Just a satisfied customer)

I trust Democrats to lie, cheat, steal, and have sex scandals.

I trust Republicans to lie, cheat, steal, murder foreigners, and have gay sex scandals.

Research in child development clearly shows the most important factor in the well-adjustment in a child is the presence of attentive adult influence. In a situation where older (adult and nearly adult) children are the primary care providers and role models for young (infant and preschool) children, it is very possible that the younger children would receive the attention and encouragement needed to grow up as a well-adjusted adult. Thus, it is not necessarily factual that these parents are providing a deficient environment for their children- they may have found an alternative support structure for their family. However, I do not know of any studies examining the well-adjustedness of children from such large families (the vast majority study two-parent heterosexual one to three children families compared with one-parent one-to-three children families). Citations: Perry V Schwarzenegger (9th Cir. 2010) Findings of Fact 69 through 73, and discussion (ruling pages 94-96, or pages 97-99 at http://www.scribd.com/doc/35374462/California-Prop-8-Ruling-August-2010)

Haven't seen anyone mention IntelliJ Idea yet. It's Java-centric (which may be why no one's mentioned it, but people have been whining about Eclipse), it integrates more tightly between code and debugger than VisualStudio. It has a set of refactorings out-of-the box that I miss terribly when working in VS. When I can put only the properties of a class in, then generate working stubs for *all* the getters and setters in one keyboard command, I call that win. With version 9, there's an open source community edition. Pretty much the best IDE ever. Plugins galore... IntelliJ Idea is done right.

Let's run the math:

(Using classical mechanics, Google Calculator, and some rounding)
40 days, 60 million km to mars at closest approach.
Spend half the time accelerating, half the time decelerating.

For acceleration:
x = x0 + v0t + (at^2)/2
2 * 30 million km / (20 days) ^ 2 = 2e-2m/s^2

Let's use a Space Shuttle, 2,029,203 kg
The force of the engine is
F = ma = ((2 029 203 kg) * 2 * (30 million km)) / ((20 days)^2) = 40 774.5587 newtons
Work along a straight line is Force time distance
W = Fd = (40 774.5587 newtons) * 30 million kilometers = 1.22323676 × 10^15 joules
Power is work over time
P = W/t = 1.22323676 × ((10^15) joules)) / (20 days) = 0.707891644 gigawatts
Of course, we need to do this twice:
Ptotal = 2P = 2 * 0.707891644 gigawatts = 1.41578329 gigawatts

Which is surprisingly close to the power needed to propel a DeLorean through time...

Note that this is only the power needed to get the ship to Mars and then stop it; I have no idea the efficiency of their engine, life support, etc, but hey, the math works close enough for me.

I'm a little weak on my power generation math- anyone who knows something about solar panels and PV arrays want to take a shot at the power requirements?

>It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that a GC-based, VM-based language that has layers of intermediate execution is going to be slower >than is required for a trading system. What I don;t get is that MS thought they could throw hardware at it until it worked.

You're massively under-representing .Net. First, the common belief that it's nothing more than Microsoft-does-Java, never mind the C++ development tools that work to allow developers to write native, as-fast-as-you-want-as-close-to-the-machine-with-inline-assembly that interoperates cleanly with code written in VB, C#, or F#- what other platform allows you to literally mix inline assembly within functional programming? (Not saying it's a good idea, just saying it works that way). There's a reason that VisualStudio/.Net is the best tool Microsoft makes. What we actually have is a team of 15-year-olds playing with an elephant gun and an angry elephant- people get trampled, because the developers do not know how to solve their problem.

>The moral is that you don't want to use the simple-to-code MS platform when you can get a best-of-breed system, based on Linux and good engineering >for a lot less. IT managers around the world should be looking at this and thinking what similar lessons their IT departments could learn.

The moral is that it you're developing something as critical as handling all the monetary transactions of a stock exchange, you want to do your damndest to actually hire developers who know what they're doing!

Candidate for President:
Barack Obama
John McCain
Stephen Colbert
Write in:
>>Robert'); DROP TABLE Votes;--

Climbing is an obsession and an addiction. It can easily take over your life, especially if you are good at it. Finding your next route is like getting in your next fix. It offers the ultimate escape, diversion and self-esteem. In a sense, it is a power trip. The kind of rush you experience when your skills pay off is incredible. For some, it is a rush better than sex and drugs combined. It adds a new dimension to an otherwise mundane and seemingly predictable reality. Some perspective ;)

Hunting is an obsession and an addiction. It can easily take over your life, especially if you are good at it. Finding your next deer is like getting in your next fix. It offers the ultimate escape, diversion and self-esteem. In a sense, it is a power trip. The kind of rush you experience when your skills pay off is incredible. For some, it is a rush better than sex and drugs combined. It adds a new dimension to an otherwise mundane and seemingly predictable reality. Some perspective

Running is an obsession and an addiction. [...] Finding your next route is like getting in your next fix. [...] Some perspective

Fly fishing is an obsession and an addiction. Finding your next hole is like getting in your next fix. [...] Some perspective

Skiing is an obsession and an addiction. Finding your next hill is like getting in your next fix. [...] Some perspective

Shall I continue?