perrylaj

Uh, that's not true at all. CFC's that most people are concerned with emitting aren't necessarily greenhouse gases, and the greenhouse contribution is not really a primary concern with them.

The primary concern is that many of them are catalysts with very very long active lifespans. As a catalyst (not a consumable reactant), a single CFC molecule is capable of destroying hundreds of thousands of ozone molecules in the upper atmosphere (or more). It's the catalytic nature that makes these things problematic and accumulative even in small amounts. The accumulation of these long-lived gasses would be measurable if everyone were blasting their laptop once a day, which is precisely why a number of them are banned completely. The ones generally used now are relatively better, but there is still plenty of reason to avoid emitting them if possible.

Cigarette smoke isn't comparable when it comes to environmental concern, nor are most common combustion byproducts. Those definitely cause concern for different reasons, but aren't directly comparable to environmental concerns raised by CFCs.

JavaFX is a GUI toolkit. It does allow the use of CSS for design, but is nothing like silver light, flash, etc. It's not mean to run in a browser at all. You probably meant Java applets?

If you don't like their service model, just run your own host. Zulip is open source, apache licensed and available on github. I haven't tried it for a couple years, but it was easy to get running in a VM last time I tried.

Not sure how you built your minimal example, but current versions of Java will allow you to produce much smaller native bundles using jlink. Steve Perkins did a nice little writeup with an example repo at https://github.com/steve-perkins/jlink-demo.

Inductive Automation | Graphic/UX Design, Build Engineer, Software Engineer, QA Engineer, Sales, Admin | Folsom, CA | ONSITE (partial remote possible) | Full Time | https://inductiveautomation.com

Inductive Automation is a bootstrapped and growing industrial automation software company looking to add technical contributors to our core development/quality teams, as well as sales, support, and design roles across the company.

IA offers full health benefits, competitive compensation, great work-life balance and a chance to make a global impact in how the world produces goods through our software.

See all our openings at: https://inductiveautomation.com/about/careers/

Contact jobs@inductiveautomation.com for questions about company/business or to apply.

Technical questions can be posted here, or reach me via email pjones(at)inductiveautomation.com.

edit: I misread the question, my comment was geared toward languages transpiled to JS.

It's compile-time safety. Virtually none of the type knowledge exists in the runtime. Still, it's far better than nothing, with the self-documenting nature of typed code being one of the biggest wins IMO.

Work at IA, and to supplement what Kevin posted from an employee's perspective:

- Great team that listens to and appreciates good ideas regardless of where they originate.

- Good location, right at the foot of the Sierras (if you like nature/outdoors). Sane commute from midtown Sacramento if you want to be in the city, but great suburbs/schools.

- No open floor plan

- Much more reasonable COL and traffic relative to the bay

- sane 40 hour work week

Definitely get in touch with Kevin if you have questions, technical or otherwise (Kevin's a team member, he'll give you real non-HRified answers as best he can).

I'm kind of surprised you found Gradle slow. I did a fair amount of testing when we evaluated Maven vs Gradle for redoing our build, and I found Gradle to be significantly faster, even when running without the Daemon. Maven did not seem to have true parallelism at the time, I wonder if that has changed? Gradles task graph, though more complex, seemed far faster due to its ability to run non-inter-dependent tasks concurrently.

Oddly enough, my experience was quite opposite of yours, but it sounds like the scope of your system might be a little larger than ours.

The key to cleanliness (from my perspective) was to create versioned plugins for any build functionality that was required in more than one subproject. This simple rule prevents spaghetti task dependencies and maintains sanity for everyone. It gives us the best of both worlds -- a little bit of flexibility when needed for one-offs, but then a well defined DSL via plugins for anything that is done more frequently.

My experience generally mirrors what you state. I transitioned a fairly significant code base & complex deployment process from a mix of maven and ant to gradle. I found Gradle's 'opinionated but flexible' approach to strike a good balance. It's definitely more complex, at least in our build, simply because of the size and scope of our project which has a wide variety of inter-dependencies which makes for a very complex task graph to build. But, the parallelism results in a far faster build/deploy cycle which is a worthy tradeoff.

We initially planned on going full maven, but its strict lifecycle and plugin system was simply too rigid. Beyond that, XML makes for some verbose configuration for even simple things.

We ended up developing our own Gradle plugins in static groovy and java, but it's very easy to do small bits/tests based on scripts and migrate functionality into specific-purpose plugins. Using Gradle was especially fortuitous when it came time to implement new areas of the product that relied on npm/node and webpack for front-end resource assembly.

Gradle hasn't been without its own minor growing pains (early lack of tooling support, rapid version changes), and it's certainly possible to create a big complex mess if you script everything ala ant -- but it's also possible to create very nicely defined DSLs and build systems that are expressive in use. Our onboarding got significantly easier in switching to gradle from maven+ant, and teams can now easily make minor tweaks for their build needs without having to learn maven's plugin architecture.

Builds, just like anything else, benefit from some best practices. I have no issue with Maven, but I won't start a new project with it.

I think the inverse is actually the truth. "Classic" physiological paradigms have failed only in the sense that that early findings were represented far too simplistically by those who benefitted from simplistic models (pharma companies). No respectable neuroscientist has ever claimed anything even approaching a coherent understanding/model of mental illness.

The discovery of gut/vagus interaction and its direct effects on mental function is simply an extension of the monoamine research. The enthusiasm for gut biome research lies in the fact that it's a relatively new field and may contribute a lot to our understanding of nature vs nurture (heritability vs environment) due to how gut bacteria cause direct and measurable changes to neurological function via the vagus nerve, which (at least in mouse models) directly affects behavior. This research isn't somehow replacing other ideas, but rather acting to supplement and help paint a more complete picture of a very incomplete understanding.

I'm not sure what you're referencing by 'avoiding confrontation...'.

I disagree. If your goal is to collect metals only for the purposes of returning to earth, then perhaps you are right in the short term. However, if those materials are used off-planet (or on-site) for the further production, it makes a LOT of sense. Once the foundation of production is in place, mining and building <more spacecraft, Mars habitats, ...> becomes almost exponentially more efficient to do off of Earth (especially factoring in time requirements). Beyond that, there is a good chance that future technologies will require 'rare-earth' and other precious metals that exceed quantities that could ever possibly be extracted here at any cost.

Tyler Rogoway (formerly of Jalopnik's FoxtrotAlpha and now writing for TheDrive.com) had a take on China's goals(1). He seems to think that the plane's ability to act as a launch craft is a notable. I've found Rogoway to be a pretty good source of digestable and non-sensational military tech info.

1. http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/5083/why-china-wants-to...

No need to go private, Strava has an 'ebike' option in you can choose. I use strava when I commute on my ebike and it's nice to track overall/combined miles without dirtying non-assisted results.

Inductive Automation | Folsom, CA (Sacramento area) | Full-Time | Software Engineer / Senior Software Engineer

Onsite ( 2 days of remote work/week optional )

inductiveautomation.com

We're a medium sized growing software company with an Industrial Automation platform currently used in nearly every industry imaginable.

Our Software Engineering team needs to grow. To quote a listing on our careers page (https://inductiveautomatio.com/about/careers/senior-software...): "We are currently starting a major new project that will require both Java and front-end web programming skills. If you dream of working with a hands-on, tight-knit group of developers working every day to delight customers worldwide with a product they actually need, we look forward to talking to you."

Our core server-side platform is Java based, with Python/Jython, Scala, JS and others. Our platform is large and flexibile, providing many areas/fields of development to work in.

We use the tools that we want, everyone's input is valued, good ideas are pursued. We work fairly independently, so its a job that fits self-starters. The right person probably has some Java SE experience, is knowledgeable about web application development, networking, and has some experience working on front-end with modern JS. That said, I'd encourage anyone to inquire if they have a decent foundation in software engineering and are able/willing to learn quickly.

I'm a member of the dev team posting this outside of our normal HR pipeline. Feel free to post/get in touch with me with any technical questions.

We have openings for a number of other non-development roles as well.

Careers page: https://inductiveautomation.com/about/careers/

I'm finishing up a retooled build for our primary product Ignition (quick info https://inductiveautomation.com/scada-software/). The build itself is only 'awesome' to those of us who need to work on our product. Nearing the final stretch of the project, but so far we've cut build times by 80+%, and added in a bunch of tools/processes that will improve quality, not to mention greatly ease onboarding for new devs. Been a fun little project.

Our product itself pretty awesome (IMO) for a number of reasons: performance, flexibility, extensibility, easy of use (relative to other SCADA/HMI/Industrial Automation platforms), secure, highly connectable. We're one of the only companies (as far as I know) actually delivering real "Industrial IoT" (ugh, that term) solutions that are able to support the scale and scope that we do. There are definitely others attempting similar things, but not in such open and interconnected ways, and certainly nowhere near the same value. Our technology is pretty innovative, but just as innovative is our business transparency: We've done away with industry-standard artificial pricing schedules that relate to how many data points you have. The result has been adoption by many customers who simply couldn't afford to implement automation in the past.

Anyway, as a developer, I really like being a part of a platform that touches so many industries, in hugely varying ways. It's a fun challenge to build things that are easy to use, yet abstract, powerful and scalable.

Now that I have met my "sound like someone from marketing" quota for the year, I need to go wash it off with some code.

I built an ebike last year to do something similar to OP. I rode my bike (a full suspension mountain bike) a couple times, but found that 20 miles was just too far to cover for a commute. With the ebike, I am still pedaling and getting exercise, but it takes me 50 minutes instead of 90. Still a tad longer than it would take in my car, but I am definitely getting a decent workout (determined by how sweaty I am before I shower). Even if I only burn half the calories, I am getting nearly 2 hours of exercise a day I wouldn't have gotten otherwise, and am not adding much time to my commute.

Maybe someday I will be in good enough shape to make the 20 mile commute in around 1:15 without the assistance, but if it's between pedal assist and driving, pedal assist seems like the far better choice!

FWIW, I used to bike-commute to school when it was 8-10 miles, and that was great. But 20mi each way is just too much time for me when I need to get home to get kids to practice, or help with homework, etc.

I think you are right about the use case being almost ideal for manufacturing, but I have a feeling the general best practice will remain to keep control systems air-gapped. It's the norm for many organizations (as policy, unfortunately not always as implementation), and is the recommendation of ICS-CERT, but there are still way too many jumping onto internet connected controls due to cost savings, convenience or whatever else. Often times the business arm wants data from control systems and are either too cheap or just can't be bothered to implement things like data-diodes and other one-way access that can provide feedback without exposing controls.

The increasing vulnerability isn't so much from networked automation -- PLCs have been networked for decades. The danger lies in dangerous jumping onto the the IIoT ("Industrial Internet of Things") and exposing of SCADA systems to the Internet, or thinking things like VPNs are secure. We are also seeing in a much higher focus of state-actors in controls. Industrial hacking is seeing a big shift away from espionage and IP theft to gaining access/control of processes. It's scary how many PLCs are the number that are freely exposed to the internet and browsable through sites like shodan. Even scarier is the number of infrastructure-critical control systems have already been found to be compromised and phoning home just waiting for a command by some unknown entity.

edit: clarity

We used it recently as a kanbanish/scrumish board for a recent development cycle and it worked out pretty well. We had separate boards for each sprint, and a backlog board that contained some broad-swipe categories. It would definitely be nice if it had better integrations with fogbugz (which our team also uses) or other bug tracking platforms, but I imagine it would be challenging to do that and maintain its extreme ease of use/simplicity.

Congrats to Wit, though I can't help but be a little saddened that the self-hosted/embedded licensing may be less likely to roll out as a result. I've been playing with the platform and could definitely find some use, but most of our target market is unlikely to accept cloud based services, especially those associated with data-mining organizations. Fingers crossed that such licenses/installations are still on the roadmap.

That may be true, but unfortunately research is showing plasticizers of many varieties (including those used in "BPA Free" plastics), are endocrine disruptors.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016648014...

You pretty much nailed it. I lived down the street from this lightbulb as a kid and never heard of it until it became a phenomenon on the web. It should be said that they intentionally run it dim in order to prevent burnout. Didn't read the full article, but I'm guessing they mentioned the lightbulb also has its own UPS to deal with power outages/surges.

Unless I'm forgetting my P-Chem (possible, it wasn't a favorite subject), the 10 kelvin/halving lifetime loosely holds true for most chemical reactions that occur out of extremes -- e.g. that relationship holds true for most reactions that naturally occur on our planet. I still find that to be one of nature's neat factoids.

That's actually not the definition used in biology. Simple example: The entire genus Amphiprion (aka anemonefish) are speciated due to appearance and regional locality. They can and do interbreed when introduced into each others populations, and have fertile offspring that are mixed species. They are declared species due to their appearance, and their natural range's prevention of interbreeding. That said, there are areas where some ranges overlap and it's not uncommon that one species mates with another and has hybrid offspring.

Being genetically capable of interbreeding makes sense as a definition of speciation, but that is not how species are currently identified. Natural range, aesthetics, and more than that, whether or not they DO interbreed in the wild (vs physically/genetically capable) play a more significant role in determining species.

There are many 'hybrid' species in nature, which is what I feel warrants some revision, perhaps using genetic data to restructure many classifications as subspecies rather than independent species.

edit: Sorry, I think I may have misinterpreted what you said to some extent and think we generally agree. I will maintain that according to the classification methods described, people such as the Sentinelese, may well be considered a separate species to an unbiased observer using the same guidelines we apply to other animals due to slightly different physical characteristics and social/geographical reproductive isolation prevents the possibility of breeding with anyone outside of their group.

It's certainly possible if you factor in the social and geographic trends and take them to extreme conclusions. It's merely reproductive separation that is required. Whether this be due to geography, climate, mating calls or unattractive IQ isn't really of import. I'll agree that right now the barrier isn't sufficient enough, but I don't think that is what OP was saying (could be wrong).

That said, your point about the time scales is definitely on mark. It would take a long time and likely far more significant isolation than present (don't have numbers). Genetic engineering could speed that up substantially.

Of course social factors would likely prohibit any talk about separate species. From a pure biologist perspective there are many different animal species fully capable of reproducing but are speciated because their natural breeding behavior (or location) doesn't support interbreeding. Using the same measure/definition, one could objectively argue that uncontacted tribes and isolated peoples are a different 'species'.

I personally think scientists need to agree on some fundamental genetic/epigenetic (maybe even microbiomic) markers of speciation and move away from more subjective definitions. Reproductive potential makes sense when looking at speciation likelihood, but I am not sure it makes sense as a definition of different species.

I wish I had your weather neutrality. I grew up in the bay (Los Gatos, Santa Clara, Tri-Valley) and spent a couple years in Portland, OR. I liked the city a lot and tried to get used to the weather but just couldn't. The rain wasn't the problem, the constant darkness was. I like the rain and loved how green everything was up there, but even when it wasn't raining, it was dark. Came back to CA and will put up with its faults in exchange for the climate and activities.

The median home value in Pleasanton is 850k. 100k more than San Jose. If you are trying to save money, that's probably not the place to do it. Really you are looking at Antioch/Concord up 680 or over the Altamont on 580 to Tracy if you want to get significantly more affordable. Both are heinous commutes though.

As a kid, I had a parent that worked at the Almaden IBM campus. The commute from the Livermore/Pleasanton area was about 40-50 minutes going over 84. Crazy how much worse traffic is now, I can't imagine making that drive daily now. They've been working on the the 237/Mission exits on 680 for nearly 20 years and it has only gotten worse.

I ran a facility for a company that was a wholesaler/reclaimer of CFCs (reclaiming is just pulling gas out of cooling systems that are being disassembled or repaired). We'd buy tanks of dirty refrigerant from HVAC companies, clean it up and resell it.

At the time R-12 was the big money, R22 was cheap as dirt but starting to phase out. The company fell apart/was bought out, but not before the firing (and arrest?) of one VP, multiple allegations of trade violations, and the seizing of a substantial amount of refrigerant.

Our distribution center was packed up and shipped back to TX, and I never really followed along with what ended up happening. This was about 15 years ago, my memory is a little fuzzy.

BUT, a few things have stuck with me...

We used to get containers of 30lb cylinders of banned refrigerants (mostly R12, but also R22 and less common CFCs) from China. The BOL and packages themselves stated it was reclaimed refrigerant, which was legal to buy/sell. No idea of it was legal to import/export, but purchasing was done at corporate headquarters and not something I was ever involved with.

Anyway, part of my job was overseeing the testing/categorization of reclaimed CFCs. We had a pretty decent little lab we'd use to determine which CFCs were reclaimed, purity, oil content, water content... etc.

Part of our company's pitch was that we could make reclaimed refrigerants identical to newly synthesized product ('revirginate') using some advanced distillation and filtration processes. While possible, at the time there was nobody doing true 100% purification of reclaimed products at scale. It was simply too expensive. ALL of the 'revirginated' CFCs had detectable levels of impurities, and we'd frequently do tests with our fancy gas chromatography system for QC. It was close enough that functionality was fine and it was cheaper than virgin gas, so buyers didn't care.

But the reclaimed gas that came from China -- guess what impurities/contaminants we found in the Chinese cylinders? Yup... nothing. Remember, this is late 90s/early 00s, and our company was (supposedly) an industry leader using some pretty sophisticated purification techniques. I never bought into the idea that the Chinese product was reclaimed.

I could be wrong, perhaps they had better technology, but the reclamation dates were VERY clearly after production was supposed to have ended and I find it hard to imagine they were returning product that was indiscernible from virgin product.

I'd be surprised if some enterprising companies in China aren't still making huge amounts of the stuff. It can't all be coming from old systems (it's worth so much money reclaimed) and asthma inhalers.

I've had a similar experience with anti-anxiety medications. While they (benzos in particular) do alleviate the 'synergistic cycle of worry/negative thought' I associate with anxiety, that isn't necessarily beneficial in the long-term. At times I feel like low levels of anxiety are almost behaviorally indistinguishable from 'initiative to do un-preferred stuff I should be doing'. If anxiety is triggered by (or a barrier to) not accomplishing things you should, or feel you should, taking such medications could be counter-productive.

But a medication that disrupts the anxious cycles of thought while at the same time stimulating the motivation/energy to complete tasks... well, that sounds almost like magic to me, especially if it doesn't involve the retrograde amnesia associated with benzos like alprazolam, lorazepam, etc.

Not necessarily. The other 95% (as evidenced by Manning's leaks) often contain information of importance to commercial enterprise -- information that should likely be of public record anyway if it's being communicated through publicly funded channels.

'Typically' seems unlikely to me. I am not up to speed (no pun intended) on drug manufacturing/distribution, but years ago I wrote a psychopharmacology meta-study on the topic and most research I remember found that 'mixtures' or 'cuts' with two 'mainstream' active drugs were very uncommon due to increased costs and independent value. Most often, the active ingredient would be wholly substituted or mislabeled.

Perhaps that's changed, but it seems far more likely that cheaper substitutes would be used (ephedrine, 'research chemicals', etc).