An anonymous reader points to an interesting comparison of current tablets' peformance, as measured with the Geekbench benchmarking tool, which boils down various aspects of performance to produce a single number. The clear winner from the models fielded wasn't from Apple of Samsung (Samsung's entrants came much lower down, in fact), but from Microsoft: the i5-equipped Surface Pro 3, with a Geekbench score of 5069.; second place goes to the Apple iPad Air 2, with 4046. The Nexus 9 rated third, with 3537. One model on the list that U.S. buyers may not be familiar with is the Tesco Hudl 2, a bargain tablet which Trusted Reviews seems quite taken by.

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New submitter Ben Dibell writes: My name is Subsentient. I maintain the Epoch Init System, a single-threaded init system for Linux designed to be easy to configure and customize, as well as staying out of your way.Epoch uses a numeric priority system to determine the boot order of objects, supports a wide range of customizability, and doesn't require much anything except libc and /bin/sh (though /bin/sh can be omitted, not recommended). Epoch also features advanced service status reporting features and has service supervision. I'm just here to ask the Slashdot community what they'd like to see in the next release, 1.3.0 "Fluoxetine", before I wrap it up. There are generally 2 things I can't consider:* Parallel service startup, because that can be done manually, and implementing it would make Epoch too complex IMHO.* Switching away from the numeric priority system to "true" dependencies. I implemented the priority system because I liked the freedom it gives the end user. Despite these omissions, your feedback matters to me. I want to make something everyone will want to use. -Subsentient

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I'm winding up a west coast trip that took me to Portland and Seattle over the last week. Lots of interesting meetings, and along the way a number of developments that inspire new thinking.

Allen & Ward

I spent two days in Portland as the guest of Allen and Rebecca Wirfs-Brock. The purpose of the trip was to get me together with Ward Cunningham, the guy who invented the wiki. He has a fascinating story, and because he's not much of a writer himself, I'm not sure if it's been told. He and I think and work a lot alike, and have been working in parallel on flip sides of the same idea since the mid-90s, without ever meeting (indicating that there may be a conference missing in the tech world). We're already working on a couple of projects and thinking about a bunch more. The goal is to connect our work in interesting new ways. And since we both abhor lock-in, and love working with other developers, the connections will be open, and our products subject to replacement. That is one way new standards are developed.

Allen Wirfs-Brock works on a different kind of standard. He's the editor of the new JavaScript spec. What a thrill to meet someone in his position. Me, the JavaScript newbie, got to ask the super-expert how to do the things I want to do. He knows. Allen and Ward have both been around even longer than I have, so the stories were fantastic.

One thing I came away with is a wish that I had made this trip, and met Ward, a long time ago. My life would have been vastly different, for better.

Changes at Twitter

On the train Thursday from Portland to Seattle, Twitter announced an end to the 140-char limit for DMs, and also announced that CEO Dick Costolo was stepping down, being replaced, at least in the interim, by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

I'm glad they got rid of the 140-char limit, at least in DMs.

I have had a chance to think, if I was the new czar of Twitter, what I would do, and it would be this. I'd list all the limits for users and devs, and one by one, erase them. I would move Twitter into position to be the ultimate open platform for realtime communication. I would make some unretractable commitments to developers, by releasing lots of the basic Twitter technology as open source, so it could be immediately federated. It might take some time to do it well, and we would take the necessary time. It would guarantee that we'd always have the highest performance, most reliable notification system, or we'd be replaced. Honestly, I'd bet that over time we would be replaced. But the Internet still needs an identity system. And for that, I'd charge users a small yearly fee to maintain an identity that could participate in the global network that Twitter would now define. That would cut back on a bunch of initiatives, so some of the former Twitter employees would go on to start new companies. I'd invest in them, so we could participate in their upside. This would prepare Twitter for mid-life. It's no longer a startup. And now it's time to serve as a true coral reef, as an operating environment, as an organization, and as a bank account. I know this is a radical re-shaping, and it may only be possible if Twitter is acquired, and basically taken private, and I wouldn't have a problem with that as long as one of the terms of the agreement is that all this would happen. The idea is to get Twitter back on track to being globally significant. To realize the potential it had when it was a startup almost ten years ago.

If the acquirer were Google, btw, I'm pretty sure they'd be happy to go this route, because no matter what their future is tied directly to the future of the open web, and the open web is suffering because of all the silos. One of them is Twitter. Desiloizing Twitter would be a brilliant move, it would strengthen the open web, create vast new developer opportunities, and investment opportunities for the new owners. Google, of course, has much more cash than Twitter, and already realizes that it needs to diversify. Here's a great way to add fuel to the fire.

Of course no one is hiring me to run Twitter, so this is all a fancy dream. But it's fun to speculate!

Apple and RSS

One more idea then I have to go.

Yesterday I, and a bunch of other bloggers, got an email from Apple saying they wanted to use our RSS feeds in their new Apple News product. There were a few conditions, very reasonable, and an easy opt-out. I was very happy to see this, and glad to have this blog participate.

Earlier in the week they had announced Apple News, and it appeared as if we would have to convert our feeds to conform to Apple's guidelines. I wasn't planning on doing that. But it's great that Apple is accepting RSS as-is, and making that support very public.

Now I think of people who thought there was no reason to have a blog and an RSS feed. To get this distribution, apparently, you need to be here. Apple just gave the open web a big boost. A big surprise, and much appreciated.

I'm winding up a west coast trip that took me to Portland and Seattle over the last week. Lots of interesting meetings, and along the way a number of developments that inspire new thinking.

Allen & Ward

I spent two days in Portland as the guest of Allen and Rebecca Wirfs-Brock. The purpose of the trip was to get me together with Ward Cunningham, the guy who invented the wiki. He has a fascinating story, and because he's not much of a writer himself, I'm not sure if it's been told. He and I think and work a lot alike, and have been working in parallel on flip sides of the same idea since the mid-90s, without ever meeting (indicating that there may be a conference missing in the tech world). We're already working on a couple of projects and thinking about a bunch more. The goal is to connect our work in interesting new ways. And since we both abhor lock-in, and love working with other developers, the connections will be open, and our products subject to replacement. That is one way new standards are developed.

Allen Wirfs-Brock works on a different kind of standard. He's the editor of the new JavaScript spec. What a thrill to meet someone in his position. Me, the JavaScript newbie, got to ask the super-expert how to do the things I want to do. He knows. Allen and Ward have both been around even longer than I have, so the stories were fantastic.

One thing I came away with is a wish that I had made this trip, and met Ward, a long time ago. My life would have been vastly different, for better.

Changes at Twitter

On the train Thursday from Portland to Seattle, Twitter announced an end to the 140-char limit for DMs, and also announced that CEO Dick Costolo was stepping down, being replaced, at least in the interim, by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

I'm glad they got rid of the 140-char limit, at least in DMs.

I have had a chance to think, if I was the new czar of Twitter, what I would do, and it would be this. I'd list all the limits for users and devs, and one by one, erase them. I would move Twitter into position to be the ultimate open platform for realtime communication. I would make some unretractable commitments to developers, by releasing lots of the basic Twitter technology as open source, so it could be immediately federated. It might take some time to do it well, and we would take the necessary time. It would guarantee that we'd always have the highest performance, most reliable notification system, or we'd be replaced. Honestly, I'd bet that over time we would be replaced. But the Internet still needs an identity system. And for that, I'd charge users a small yearly fee to maintain an identity that could participate in the global network that Twitter would now define. That would cut back on a bunch of initiatives, so some of the former Twitter employees would go on to start new companies. I'd invest in them, so we could participate in their upside. This would prepare Twitter for mid-life. It's no longer a startup. And now it's time to serve as a true coral reef, as an operating environment, as an organization, and as a bank account. I know this is a radical re-shaping, and it may only be possible if Twitter is acquired, and basically taken private, and I wouldn't have a problem with that as long as one of the terms of the agreement is that all this would happen. The idea is to get Twitter back on track to being globally significant. To realize the potential it had when it was a startup almost ten years ago.

If the acquirer were Google, btw, I'm pretty sure they'd be happy to go this route, because no matter what their future is tied directly to the future of the open web, and the open web is suffering because of all the silos. One of them is Twitter. Desiloizing Twitter would be a brilliant move, it would strengthen the open web, create vast new developer opportunities, and investment opportunities for the new owners. Google, of course, has much more cash than Twitter, and already realizes that it needs to diversify. Here's a great way to add fuel to the fire.

Of course no one is hiring me to run Twitter, so this is all a fancy dream. But it's fun to speculate!

Apple and RSS

One more idea then I have to go.

Yesterday I, and a bunch of other bloggers, got an email from Apple saying they wanted to use our RSS feeds in their new Apple News product. There were a few conditions, very reasonable, and an easy opt-out. I was very happy to see this, and glad to have this blog participate.

Earlier in the week they had announced Apple News, and it appeared as if we would have to convert our feeds to conform to Apple's guidelines. I wasn't planning on doing that. But it's great that Apple is accepting RSS as-is, and making that support very public.

Now I think of people who thought there was no reason to have a blog and an RSS feed. To get this distribution, apparently, you need to be here. Apple just gave the open web a big boost. A big surprise, and much appreciated.

Twenty-two die when van loses control in Andhra Pradesh, while head-on collision in Uttar Pradesh kills another 17.

Democratic presidential hopeful tells supporters at campaign's first major rally she will champion ordinary Americans.

Democratic presidential hopeful tells supporters at campaign's first major rally she will champion ordinary Americans.

Twenty-two die when van loses control in Andhra Pradesh, while head-on collision in Uttar Pradesh kills another 17.

schwit1 writes: One Russian aerospace industry expert noted today that three-quarters of all their satellite electronics comes from the United States: "According to [Nikolay Testoyedov], up to 75 percent of the electronic components for Russian satellites come from the US. Consequently, if it retaliates should Moscow refuse to sell RD-180 rocket motors to Washington — which Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has threatened — Russia's satellite program would be frozen for at least two years. "The imported electronic components in our satellites represent 25 to 75 percent of the total in communications; in military ones, somewhat less; in commercial ones, more," Testoyedov says. Of these imported components, approximately 83-87 percent come from the United States thus giving Washington the whip hand." If we stop providing these electronics he estimates that after their present stock runs out in about a year it would take at least two years before Russia could replace these American-made parts. As the above linked article at The Interpreter mentions, this is relevant in part because of recent talks about U.S. sanctions which could affect this kind of commerce.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Simple adapter for logging to redis

IRC client or server backend

Perl interface to Duktape embeddable javascript engine

Men receive 14 years each without parole after mob killing in 2013 of four men celebrating religious festival.