Links for 2013-02-19
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I couldn’t remember the name for this design principle, so it’s worth a bookmark to remind me in future… ‘This refers to computer programs that handle failures by simply restarting, without attempting any sophisticated recovery. Correctly written components of crash-only software can microreboot to a known-good state without the help of a user. Since failure-handling and normal startup use the same methods, this can increase the chance that bugs in failure-handling code will be noticed.’
(tags: crashing crash-only-software design architecture coding software fault-tolerance erlang let-it-fail microreboot recovery autosave)
Europe Is Warmer Than Canada Because of the Gulf Stream, Right? Not So Fast
The common tale—the one bandied around for more than a hundred years—goes something like this: Warm water flowing to the northeast out of the Gulf of Mexico—the Gulf Stream—cuts across the North Atlantic ocean, bringing extra energy to the Isles and driving up temperatures relative to the comparatively-frigid North Americas. The only problem with this simple explanation, say Stephen Riser and Susan Lozier in Scientific American, is that it doesn’t actually account for the difference.
(tags: gulf-stream myths ireland europe science currents ocean temperature climate)
Dear Prudence: My wife and I came from the same sperm donor
yes, really. Bloody hell
(tags: sperm-donor birth dear-prudence omgwtfbbq via:davewiner reproduction)
Tony Finch said,
February 20, 2013 @ 2:06 am
I love the crash-only software paper. I am less sure of the name because it sounds at first like a bad thing, or at least a silly thing. But it makes sense when unpacked as “every shutdown is as abrupt as a crash”.
Justin said,
February 20, 2013 @ 1:20 pm
it’s a bit of a silly name alright, but it’s a good design target. see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovery-oriented_computing ….