rootbear

31 ms·

301.
by rootbear 8y ago
The lab I work in at NASA Goddard is doing the detector characterization for WFIRST. There are 18, 4k × 4K detectors in the WFIRST array, for a resolution of about 300 megapixels, as mentioned in the article. The detectors are arranged in a
302.
by rootbear 8y ago
Peppermint Patties are cool in a microwave. Only nuke them for a few seconds. The inside expands and ruptures through the top of the patty. My sister learned of this from her third graders (of course) who called them "alien eggs".
303.
by rootbear 8y ago
I implemented this as a class assignment in Univac 1100 assembly language in the late 70s. I always thought it was a cool algorithm. I had an HP scientific calculator at the time and was a fan of RPN.
304.
by rootbear 8y ago
NASA contractor here. Our funding has been slowly declining in recent years, with some years better than others. It's currently about 20 billion USD, or about 0.5% of the US budget. We are not what I would call "quite well funded&
305.
by rootbear 8y ago
A friend of mine has been re-reading SF books from his collection once we reach the year in which the book is set. This only works if a specific year is called out, of course. And I'm not sure what he does when a book takes place over
306.
by rootbear 8y ago
Ah, thanks, you're probably right about where I got it from.
307.
by rootbear 8y ago
I once read about a clever use of self-modifying x86 code. The 8086 and 8088 are nearly identical chips, with the difference being that the 8086 has 16-bit I/O and the 8088 has 8-bit. The only way for a program to know which chip it&#x
308.
by rootbear 8y ago
I tend to think of the Antikythera mechanism as a calculator as opposed to a computer. I save the term computer for things that are Turning complete (ignoring physical limits). Thus, computers have features like branching and looping. Calcu
309.
by rootbear 8y ago
Agreed. The line that got me was "[I] don’t understand how I landed this far away from myself." Boy did that resonate with me...
310.
by rootbear 8y ago
Prior to some programming languages adopting it, I don't think there was precedent for using underscore as a thousands separator, so I don't consider it a strong precedent. The first language I recall using it was Ada. But I under
311.
by rootbear 8y ago
I would like to see more Unicode operators, at least as options. It's crazy that we still use * for × in 2018. Yes, I know that most US keyboards don't have that symbol but that's a solvable problem. I use an international la
312.
by rootbear 8y ago
It's still used at NASA. The NASA Center for Climate Simulation at Goddard does much of their climate work in Fortran.
313.
by rootbear 8y ago
This. As someone who once did a lot of computer graphics programming in C (not C++), I would have killed for proper arrays. Modern C, with variable length arrays, helps, but still...
314.
by rootbear 8y ago
Obligatory quote when Fortran comes up: "I don't know what the programming language of the year 2000 will look like, but I know it will be called FORTRAN." -- C.A.R. Hoare, ca. 1982
315.
by rootbear 8y ago
The group I'm in at NASA Goddard has two UV300s. They have 96 cores each (no hyperthreading) and 6TB of RAM. And they are loud. The SGI Altix line, which used Itanium 2, could go up to 1024 cores with a single system image, which is ju
316.
by rootbear 8y ago
There is a lot of empty office space in Crystal City. They can move in almost immediately. They can then start figuring out if they want to build something new.
317.
by rootbear 8y ago
I might be tempted to use 3.1.4.1, or 3.1.4.2, if you round. Or those could resolve to a Raspberry Pi AWS instance :)
318.
by rootbear 8y ago
I clicked on it and got a bigger image that was easier to read.
319.
by rootbear 8y ago
At the risk of topic drift, I'm curious where the problems are with being parallel and POSIX-compliant. I'm at a point where I think I need to consider a parallel file system and I don't have much experience with them, so I&#
320.
by rootbear 8y ago
I would hope that Amazon would be smart enough to let someone like Tim semi-retire. I'm just a few years younger and I completely sympathize with what he says about being tired after a full day at work. I have a raft of project I'
321.
by rootbear 8y ago
Fascinating article. My chorus is doing a Hanukkah piece in Ladino for our Holiday concert. It's the second one we've done in the last few years. I think the text is harder for the native Western Spanish speakers than it is for si
322.
by rootbear 8y ago
I was in Mensa for a few years but wasn't getting much out of it so I dropped it. I would have dropped it sooner, but my mother liked doing the puzzles in the newsletter. I have had the good fortune to have smart friends and work with
323.
by rootbear 8y ago
Not an unreasonable attitude, I'll grant.
324.
by rootbear 8y ago
Yes, exactly! If you want more daylight time after work, just start work earlier! I know not everyone has that luxury. But permanent Daylight Saving Time also makes it darker in the mornings, when kids are going off to school and that isn&#
325.
by rootbear 8y ago
I'm not in favor of permanently being on Summer time, which is one of the options. Humans are already too disconnected from the physical world, I'd hate to see us completely lose the association of "Noon" with the Sun be
326.
by rootbear 8y ago
The telescope there is amazing. It's worth a visit, they have a visitor's center and tours. I was there for the 50th anniversary celebration, in 2006, and want to go back some day.
327.
by rootbear 8y ago
This is amusing to me, because when I was at Pixar, many of the shader writers and lighting TDs wanted an internal office, where they could control exactly the amount and type of light in their workspace. Many had nearly pitch black offic
328.
by rootbear 8y ago
And the wretched touchpad with its constant false triggers. I love my XPS 13, but I always use it with mouse, as the touchpad is so terrible.
329.
by rootbear 8y ago
It's interesting that Turkish is bidirectionally phonetic. That's not always the case. Some languages have strict text->speech rules but ambiguities in speech->text. Some are the other way around. I seem to recall that &#x27
330.
by rootbear 8y ago
As much as I think English needs spelling reform, I don't think a brand new alphabet is the answer. In particular, the Shavian alphabet would be a nightmare for people like me who had trouble with reversed letters as a child. (My mothe

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