That and that for 9/9

We're entering that beautiful time in Northern California: September and October are the reason we all want to live in the Bay Area.

Meanwhile, on those occasional off moments that you find yourself in front of a computer, here are some things you could read.

• CS176: Multiprocessor Synchronization and CSCI 1760 - FALL 2012

  The performance part of the course will revisit many of the issues first raised in the foundations section, but in a more realistic model that exposes those aspects of the underlying architecture that most influence performance. The course then goes through a sequence of fundamental data structures, the concurrent analogs of the data structures found in any undergraduate data structures course, and a few coordination structures that are unique to the world of multithreaded computation. These data structures are introduced in an incremental way, each one extending the techniques developed for its predecessors. Each of these data structures is useful in and of itself as a reference. Moreover, by the end, the student will have built up a solid understanding of the fundamentals of concurrent data structure design, and should be well-prepared to design and implement his or her own concurrent data structures.

• Time Series Database Lectures

  we are bringing back another season of database technical talks at Carnegie Mellon University in Fall 2017. The "Time Series Database Lectures" is a semester-long seminar series featuring speakers from the leading developers of time series and streaming data management systems. Each speaker will present the implementation details of their respective systems and examples of the technical challenges that they faced when working with real-world customers.

• Moving Java Forward Faster

  The two-year train model was appealing in theory, but proved unworkable in practice. We took an additional eight months for Java 8 in order to address critical security issues and finish Project Lambda, which was preferable to delaying Lambda by two years. We initially planned Java 9 as a two-and-a-half year release in order to include Project Jigsaw, which was preferable to delaying Jigsaw by an additional eighteen months, yet in the end we wound up taking an additional year and so Java 9 will ship this month, three and a half years after Java 8.

  A two-year release cadence is, in retrospect, simply too slow. To achieve a constant cadence we must ship feature releases at a more rapid rate. Deferring a feature from one release to the next should be a tactical decision with minor inconveniences rather than a strategic decision with major consequences.

• More Than 100 Exceptional Works of Journalism

  This is my annual attempt to bring roughly 100 of those stories that stood the test of time to a wider audience. I could not read or note every worthy article published in the past few years, and I haven't included any paywalled articles or anything published at The Atlantic. But everything that follows is worthy of wider attention and engagement. I hope it provides fodder for reflection and inspiration for future writing.

• Solaris to Linux Migration 2017

  Switching from Solaris to Linux has become much easier in the last two years, with Linux developments in ZFS, Zones, and DTrace. I've been contributing (out of necessity), including porting my DTraceToolkit tools to Linux, which also work on BSD. What follows are topics that may be of interest to anyone looking to migrate their systems and skillset: scan these to find topics that interest you.

• Demon-Haunted World

  Wannacry was a precursor to a new kind of cheating: cheating the in­dependent investigator, rather than the government. Imagine that the next Dieselgate doesn’t attempt to trick the almighty pollution regulator (who has the power to visit billions in fines upon the cheater): instead, it tries to trick the reviewers, attempting to determine if it’s landed on a Car and Driver test-lot, and then switching into a high-pollution, high-fuel-efficiency mode. The rest of the time, it switches back to its default state: polluting less, burning more diesel.

  ...

  That’s how alchemists came to believe that the world was haunted, that God, or the Devil, didn’t want them to understand the world. That the world actually rearranged itself when they weren’t looking to hide its workings from them. Angels punished them for trying to fly to the Sun. Devils tricked them when they tried to know the glory of God – indeed, Marcelo Rinesi from The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies called modern computer science ‘‘applied demonology.’’

  In the 21st century, we have come full circle. Non-human life forms – limited liability corpo­rations – are infecting the underpinnings of our ‘‘smart’’ homes and cities with devices that obey a different physics depending on who is using them and what they believe to be true about their surroundings.

• This Tiny Country Feeds the World

  Almost two decades ago, the Dutch made a national commitment to sustainable agriculture under the rallying cry “Twice as much food using half as many resources.” Since 2000, van den Borne and many of his fellow farmers have reduced dependence on water for key crops by as much as 90 percent. They’ve almost completely eliminated the use of chemical pesticides on plants in greenhouses, and since 2009 Dutch poultry and livestock producers have cut their use of antibiotics by as much as 60 percent.

• Wind Energy Is One of the Cheapest Sources of Electricity, and It's Getting Cheaper

  Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released the latest iteration of its annual Wind Technologies Market Report, which pulls together a wealth of data to track trends in the cost, performance, and growth of wind energy.

  The report found that U.S. wind energy will continue to be one of the lowest cost electricity generation technologies available, with the long-term wind electricity price available through a power purchase agreement coming in at about half the expected cost of just running a natural gas power plant.

• Is the open office layout dead?

  Perhaps the most powerful and popular trend in the move away from open offices is an increased number of small private spaces. These include soundproof glass rooms, which provide quiet refuges, while keeping the airy feel of an open office layout, as well as so-called “phone booths,” closet-sized spaces for focused solo work and confidential meetings between two people.

• Six Charts To Help Americans Understand The Upcoming German Election

  You may have heard rumblings about a populist party poised to gain power in Germany’s election on Sept. 24 — or maybe you just heard that there’s an election coming up. To better prepare you for the news coming out of Deutschland over the next few weeks, we’re offering some answers to a few basic questions about the election.

• We found the photographer who took these dramatic pictures of golfers in front of a hill on fire in Oregon

  "Around the corner was this golf course ," she said, "and you could see the fire."

  So she started snapping pictures.

  "It's a real photo," she confirmed, of the picture of people golfing as the fire roars. She did lighten it a little bit, but other than that, the photo captures the moment.

  The owners of Beacon Rock Golf Course, as well as one of the golfers pictured, confirmed Wednesday that the pictures were real and from Beacon Rock Golf Course

• Delta Goes Big, Then Goes Home

  In the face of a category 5 hurricane, Delta Air Lines meteorologists, dispatchers, pilots, cabin crew, and ground crew accomplished an incredible feat on Wednesday. As Hurricane Irma bore down San Juan, Puerto Rico, Delta sent one last flight to help evacuate a few hundred people from San Juan just before the airport closed.

• San Franciscans are obsessed with this colorful Instagram paradise — we went inside

  If you live in San Francisco, your Instagram has undoubtedly lit up in Technicolor in recent days. The city is going wild for a new pop-up museum, The Color Factory.

  The candy-coated exhibit includes 15 interactive "experiences" — each centered on a different color — spread across two stories and 12,000 square feet. It runs through September, but good luck getting tickets. The Color Factory has sold out for the month of August, and scalpers on Craigslist are selling tickets, originally priced at $32, for as much as $175 a pop.

• 1886 Tall Ship Balclutha To Be Overhauled In Alameda

  “The Balclutha is truly a gem of American history. It is a rare day that you are able to see one of these grand old ladies high and dry in dock,” said Richard Maguire, Business Development Manager, Bay Ship & Yacht. “Upon her undocking, the ship will remain at the yard pier side, where we will remove her foremast, mainmast and mizzenmast yard arms for needed repairs and paint preservation. Her presence there is reminiscent of the days of old when many fine sailing ships like the Balclutha lined the estuary representing cargo companies such as the Alaskan Packers and Red Star.

  “Bay Ship and Yacht has a deep understanding of these great historic sailing ships, and the yard still works with and maintains many of the original tools required to perform proper maintenance on these older vessels,” Maguire continued. “We will use these tools to repair and replace the poop decking with caulking, irons, oakum and pitch.”

And, since it's on my mind, like it's on everyone else's mind:

Category 4 winds:

Catastrophic damage will occur: Well-built framed homes can sustain severe damage with loss of most of the roof structure and/or some exterior walls. Most trees will be snapped or uprooted and power poles downed. Fallen trees and power poles will isolate residential areas. Power outages will last weeks to possibly months. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months.