bstadil - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Twice as fast... (Score 4, Informative) 226

by bstadil on Sunday February 01, 2009 @03:29AM (#26682651) Attached to: Ruby 1.9.1 Released

Sorry it wasn't clear. No it is Ruby implemented to run on a Virtual Machine. You write your Ruby code as normal and it gets compiled to byte code that run very fast. This is how Java is fast. Ruby can in principle be as fast as Java. Ruby is not inherently slow just the current implementation is somewhat slow.

Comment Re:Twice as fast... (Score 5, Informative) 226

by bstadil on Sunday February 01, 2009 @01:48AM (#26682279) Attached to: Ruby 1.9.1 Released

Too busy to just google for 2 sec before spouting off?
Here is jRuby using java VM , Maglev using Smalltalk VM , IronRuby using MS .Net , or pure Ruby Rubinius>Rubinius all aimed at among other execution speed.

Comment Embedded FUD (Score 1) 382

by bstadil on Wednesday January 07, 2009 @09:16PM (#26366669) Attached to: The Power of the R Programming Language

I have high regards for Ashlee Vance and miss his Podcasts he did while he was at The Register. It puzzles me he included this old FUD chestnut. Seems like a throw back from the 90's.

Anne H. Milley, director of technology product marketing at SAS ... adds, "We have customers who build engines for aircraft. I am happy they are not using freeware when I get on a jet."

FreeBSD 7.0 Release Now Available 229

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 27, 2008 @08:31PM from the get-it-while-it's-hot dept.

cperciva writes "The first release from the new 7-STABLE branch of FreeBSD development, has been released. FreeBSD 7.0 brings with it many new features including support for ZFS, journaled filesystems, and SCTP, as well as dramatic improvements in performance and SMP scalability. In addition to being available from many FTP sites, ISO images can be downloaded via the BitTorrent tracker, or for users of earlier FreeBSD releases, FreeBSD Update can be used to perform a binary upgrade."

How Do You Find Programming Superstars? 763

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday February 27, 2008 @06:06PM from the can't-beat-a-human-signal-to-noise-filter dept.

Joe Ganley writes "You are a programming superstar, and you are looking for work. I recognize this happens relatively rarely, which is part of my problem. But stipulating that it happens, how do I, as a company looking to hire such people, connect with them? Put another way, how do you the programming superstar go about looking for a company that seems like one you'd like to work for? The company I work for is a great place to work; we only hire really great people, we work on hard, interesting problems, and we treat our employees well. We aren't worried about retention or even about how to entice people to work here once we've found them. The problem is simply finding them. The signal-to-noise ratio of the big places like Monster and Dice is terrible. We've had much better luck with (for example) the Joel on Software job boards, but that still doesn't generate enough volume." What methods have other people used to find the truly elite?

Nanoparticles Could Make Hydrogen Cheaper Than Gasoline 442

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday February 27, 2008 @04:37PM from the at-this-rate-gold-will-be-cheaper-soon dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "According to EE Times, a California-based company called QuantumSphere has developed nanoparticles that could make hydrogen cheaper than gasoline. The company says its reactive catalytic nanoparticle coatings can boost the efficiency of electrolysis (the technique that generates hydrogen from water) to 85% today, exceeding the Department of Energy's goal for 2010 by 10%. The company says its process could be improved to reach an efficiency of 96% in a few years. The most interesting part of the story is that the existing gas stations would not need to be modified to distribute hydrogen. With these nanoparticle coatings, car owners could make their own hydrogen, either in their garage or even when driving."

Scientists Offer 'Overwhelming' Evidence Terran Life Began in Space 556

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @02:22PM from the we-are-all-made-of-stardust dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Using data from recent comet-probing space missions, British scientists are reporting today that the odds of life starting on Earth rather than inside a comet are one trillion trillion (10 to the power of 24) to one against. That is, we're not originally from around here. Radiation in comets could keep water in liquid form for millions of years, they say, which along with the clay and organic molecules found on-board would provide an ideal incubator. 'Professor Wickramasinghe said: "The findings of the comet missions, which surprised many, strengthen the argument for panspermia. We now have a mechanism for how it could have happened. All the necessary elements - clay, organic molecules and water - are there. The longer time scale and the greater mass of comets make it overwhelmingly more likely that life began in space than on earth."'" jamie points out that the author of this paper has many 'fringe' theories. Your mileage may vary.

US Opposes G8 Climate Proposals 845

Posted by Zonk on Sunday May 27, 2007 @03:39PM from the gotta-love-smog-as-an-export-commodity dept.

elrond writes "The US appears to have summarily rejected draft proposals for G8 members that would have agreed to tougher measures for controlling greenhouse gas emissions. The BBC reports that leaked documents have indicated the positions of the various world powers, from the timetable-setting of Germany to the US's intractable stance. Red ink comments on the documents hint at the US's irritation: 'The US still has serious, fundamental concerns about this draft statement. The treatment of climate change runs counter to our overall position and crosses 'multiple red lines' in terms of what we simply cannot agree to ... We have tried to tread lightly but there is only so far we can go given our fundamental opposition to the German position.'"

Creationism Museum Opening in Kentucky 1166

Posted by Zonk on Saturday May 26, 2007 @05:39PM from the see-where-you-are-wrong-is-everywhere dept.

Noel Linback writes "A new creationism-espousing museum is opening in the state of Kentucky. According to a New York Times article the museum depicts humans and dinosaurs living together in traditional 'diorama' style exhibit. 'Whether you are willing to grant the premises of this museum almost becomes irrelevant as you are drawn into its mixture of spectacle and narrative. Its 60,000 square feet of exhibits are often stunningly designed by Patrick Marsh, who, like the entire museum staff, declares adherence to the ministry's views; he evidently also knows the lure of secular sensations, since he designed the Jaws and King Kong attractions at Universal Studios in Florida. For the skeptic the wonder is at a strange universe shaped by elaborate arguments, strong convictions and intermittent invocations of scientific principle. For the believer, it seems, this museum provides a kind of relief: Finally the world is being shown as it really is, without the distortions of secularism and natural selection. '"

26 Common Climate Myths Debunked 998

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday May 16, 2007 @02:53PM from the poking-holes-in-the-holes dept.

holy_calamity writes to mention that New Scientist is revealing the truth behind the '26 most common climate myths' used to muddy the waters in this ongoing heated debate. "Our planet's climate is anything but simple. All kinds of factors influence it, from massive events on the Sun to the growth of microscopic creatures in the oceans, and there are subtle interactions between many of these factors. Yet despite all the complexities, a firm and ever-growing body of evidence points to a clear picture: the world is warming, this warming is due to human activity increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and if emissions continue unabated the warming will too, with increasingly serious consequences."

Thin Water Acts Like a Solid 138

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday April 25, 2007 @04:17PM from the mash-downs dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "What happens when you compress water in a nano-sized space? According to Georgia Tech physicists, water starts to behave like a solid. "The confined water film behaves like a solid in the vertical direction by forming layers parallel to the confining surface, while maintaining it's liquidity in the horizontal direction where it can flow out," said one of the researchers. "Water is a wonderful lubricant, but it flows too easily for many applications. At the one nanometer scale, water is a viscous fluid and could be a much better lubricant," added another one."

Some Dinosaurs Made Underground Dens 124

Posted by kdawson on Saturday March 24, 2007 @06:15PM from the dig-it dept.

anthemaniac writes "Scientists have long puzzled over how some dinosaurs and other creatures survived the asteroid impact that supposedly caused the KT mass extinction 65 million years ago and wiped out all the big dinosaurs. One idea has been that smaller animals, including mammals, could have endured the fallout, the big chill, the subsequent volcanoes, and whatever else by burrowing. Now scientists have come up with the first evidence of burrowing dinosaurs. They speculate that underground dens might explain how some dinosaurs got through long, dark winters at high latitudes, too."

Single Gene Gives Mice Three-Color Vision 184

Posted by kdawson on Saturday March 24, 2007 @03:53PM from the colors-you-can't-see dept.

maynard writes "A study in the peer-reviewed journal Science shows that mice transgenetically altered with a single human gene are then able to see in full tri-color vision. Mice without this alteration are normally colorblind. The scientists speculate that mammalian brains even from animals that have never evolved color vision are flexible enough to interpret new color-sense information with just the simple addition of new photoreceptors. Such a result is also indicated by a dominant X chromosome mutation that allows for quad-color vision in some women." A sidebar in the article includes a nice illustration of what two-color vs. three-color mice might perceive.

France Opens Secret UFO Files 379

Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday March 23, 2007 @05:29AM from the mulder-and-scully dept.

Radon360 notes that France has become the first country to open its files on UFOs. A new website lists over 1600 sightings dating back to the 1950s. "The online archives, which will be updated as new cases are reported, catalogues in minute detail cases ranging from the easily dismissed to a handful that continue to perplex even hard-nosed scientists. Known as OVNIs in French, UFOs have always generated intense interest along with countless conspiracy theories about secretive government cover-ups of findings deemed too sensitive or alarming for public consumption."

NASA's Instrument For Detecting Life On Mars 88

Posted by kdawson on Sunday March 11, 2007 @10:03PM from the knock-knock dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "With the financial help of NASA, American and European researchers have developed a new sensor to check for life on Mars. It should also be able to determine if traces of life's molecular building blocks have been produced by anything that was once alive. The device has been tested in the Atacama Desert in Chile. It should be part of the science payload for the ExoMars rover planned for launch in 2013."

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