Tag Archives: Tech

Another Reason Closed Source is Harmful

Posted on 2014-08-31 by jcs

Open Source/Free Software includes a number of tribes. There are the FSF true believers, epitomized by RMS, who hold that software should be free on philosophical/ideological grounds. Even if one could adduce facts showing that Free Software was less optimal … Continue reading →

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Version Control

Posted on 2014-08-30 by jcs

Everybody agrees that version control (VC) is the right thing but, sadly, too often it’s ignored anyway. I use version control—Git via Magit—in two ways. First, it’s the primary way that I keep my machines synchronized. I could, of course, … Continue reading →

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Map Reduce Explained

Posted on 2014-08-23 by jcs

If you’re a Lisper, the chances are that you understood the basics of Google’s map-reduce framework before you even read the paper. However, many people without a Lisp background find the ideas difficult to understand. Fortunately, if you fall into … Continue reading →

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Formula 1 Communication Technology

Posted on 2014-08-17 by jcs

I’ve said it before: I’m not a racing fan. And yet, I’ve already written about it twice before and here I go again. This post, like the others, focuses on the technical aspects of the sport. According to this BBC … Continue reading →

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Quantum Theory and Computational Complexity

Posted on 2014-07-26 by jcs

The Physics arXiv Blog has a really interesting article about the connection between quantum theory and the question of whether or not P = NP. The article starts with the question of why we can’t observe quantum phenomena at the … Continue reading →

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The 10 Greatest Programmers of all Time

Posted on 2014-07-19 by jcs

Last week, I wrote about NetWork World’s 14 Greatest Living Programmers. This week, I’m Programmer has a list of The 10 Greatest Programmers in the World of all Time. Lists of these sorts are always silly, of course, but nevertheless … Continue reading →

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14 Great Programmers

Posted on 2014-07-12 by jcs

Over at NetworkWorld they have an interesting article featuring the 14 greatest living programmers. I was a bit surprised that DMR wasn’t on the list but then I remembered the part about living. Also, oddly, you and I aren’t on … Continue reading →

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Reflections on Trusting Trust

Posted on 2014-07-06 by jcs

A reference to Ken Thompson’s fantastic paper Reflections on Trusting Trust popped up yesterday on Hacker News. I’ve written about this paper before but it deserves a periodic mention. If you haven’t read this paper before, I urge you in … Continue reading →

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Latency

Posted on 2014-04-11 by jcs

Every programmer understands, at least in a general way, the relative latency of various computer operations. For example, we all know that accessing a value from a CPU register is faster than accessing that value from an L1 cache is … Continue reading →

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CSS By Example

Posted on 2014-03-29 by jcs

Via Jean-Philippe Paradis, I came across this CSS tutorial by Xah Lee. It’s nice because the page shows several examples of CSS effects. When you click on an effect, it takes you to a short tutorial that discusses the effect … Continue reading →

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