Linux Played a Crucial Role in Discovery of 'Higgs boson' - <AUTHOR> http://www.ubuntuvibes.com/2012/07/linux-played-crucial-role-in-discovery.html

<comment><USER2> Do we still need to point things like this out? Who here thought Linux _didn't_ play a major role at CERN? Linux is the norm in large data center applications. What percentage of US commodities and securities transactions are touched by Linux? My guess is "most".

<comment><USER3> There are interesting facets to it, I think. What would they be using if Linux didn't exist? How much longer would it have taken if they'd had to use BSD? Or Windows?

How many of those millions of man-hours contributed to this discovery? How many other major breakthroughs have they enabled? How much amazing potential is locked up in proprietary software, utterly useless?

A major discovery like this is a perfect chance to blow the horn for publicly- funded research, and open source software is a huge part of that.

<comment><USER4> I'm curious: For the applications at CERN, would BSD really make much difference to Linux?

<comment><USER5> It would be harder maintaining a large collection of software outside of one of the major Linux distros. Debian/kFreeBSD might have a chance thanks to the GNU userland, but the archive is less well supported than with the Linux kernel.

<comment><USER6> Quite the opposite. This isn't about the userland, it's about the kernel. The linux kernel is where the high-performance cluster computing advances have been. The GNU userland is just a clone of the BSD userland, nothing special there. Moreover, FreeBSD and OpenBSD's packages are diverse, well-maintained, and current. But neither OS's userland nor any of their packaging systems have anything to do with high-performance cluster computing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think we should take a step back and also find a moment for another unsung hero, water.

Water also played a bigger role in the discovery of Higgs boson than Linux. Without water the researchers would surely have died of thirst weeks or days after starting work at CERN.

In "water" we trust.

On that note - what about paper and pens. Would the discovery have been possible without paper and pens? We'll never know for sure.

</comment><comment><USER8> I see a lot of comments here saying that the fact that they used Linux is more or less irrelevant. This is probably true to a large degree since Linux is basically a generic white label operating system that you can build on top of, so if your doing something this niche there is little reason not to use it since most of your clever stuff is probably custom anyway.

However there is definitely a large PR angle to this too. Let's imagine that they had used Microsoft Azure to crunch all the data or iPads to view/analyze it do you not think that MS or Apple would make a big deal out of it?

Whilst most HN readers probably understand the reach and dominance that Linux has in a huge number of areas, most people do not. I've heard it said many times even from people who work in tech "Linux is just a hippy OS for geeks and will never be taken seriously". LHC is now one extra thing you can add to the rebuttal.

<comment><USER9> But does that add or detract to the image of it being a "hippy OS for geeks"? I would wager most people know even less about particle physics and what the average practitioner does than they do about software engineering. It very much preserves the idea of it being an OS for geeks, by geeks.

If what you meant by "[most people do not] understand the reach and dominance that Linux has in a huge number of areas" was more in the sense of "Linux is a viable platform for building our business on" than "It's almost the year of Linux on the Desktop!" I apologise :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> These kinds of articles were much more important/interesting in the 90s when it wasn't clear that Linux was ever going to be adopted by business or become mainstream. For example in the late 90s when the Burlington Coat Factory started to roll out Linux clients to all of its warehouses, it was a big deal.

Now Linux is everywhere from smartphones to supercomputers, and has pretty much outlasted or killed off all its former proprietary UNIX competitors. It'd be news if AIX, Tru64, SCO, or Solaris had anything to do with the discovery. We can stop doing this now, we've won.

<comment><USER11> I was writing scientific X-ray detector software in the early 90s, and it all ran on ... OS-9.

(And for the newbies around, that's got nothing to do with Macs)

<comment><USER12> I know my TRS-80 ran OS-9.

<comment><USER11> OS-9 was pretty cool considering it was a fully fledged multitasking OS that ran in a very tiny amount of RAM (I think 128K was the minimum?).

Of course _we_ ran it in 8MB on 68020s which was simply luxury.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "In terms of data analysis, Windows could be used in principle. We could also use some type of device that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a simple table of rules. [...]"

The age old dilemma: Windows or Turing machihe?

</comment><comment><USER10> When CERN presented their findings they used the Comic Sans font, so I guess you could say that Microsoft also played a role in discovery of the 'Higgs boson'. Ha!

Maybe the EU geocities was rife with teenage girls using Verdana, and Europeans secretly snicker at slide decks made by American physicists.

</comment><comment><USER14> Can anyone comment on what sort of software they use for collecting and analyzing this kind of data? Python+numpy? Matlab? Gnuplot? In a past life I was a neuroscientist, and although you could theoretically do experimental neuroscience entirely using open source tools, almost no one does in practice.

<comment><USER15> They make their own data analysis software called ROOT. It is C++ based. I got to use some of this when I was an undergraduate in the late 90's. Looks like it is still going strong.

If you are interested, it is all open source and available here: <http://root.cern.ch>

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> They have not declared it to be "Higgs boson" yet.

<comment><USER17> They have indeed discovered _a_ Higgs Boson they're just not sure if its "the _Standard Model_ " Higgs Boson yet.

<comment><USER18> The have discovered a boson, but it's unknown what it is. There's just three things we know about the new particle. Its mass, its charge (0) and that it has integer spin (0 or 2).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I just wish Google had named their "mobile operating system" as Linux/Android instead of just Android, and have a "Powered by Linux" on their homepage, this way many more people would realize that they use Linux more often than they think. The problem is that then we would have purists that would call for a GNU/Linux/Android and others would ask for Powered by libc, engineers, your utility company, lunch from the Burger Joint Inc, pigeons, etc ;)

<comment><USER20> Yes, Linux/Android! That sounds so sexy! I wonder why they didn't do it. :)

<comment><USER21> That's GNU/Linux/Android to you.

<comment><USER22> Except that Android doesn't (sadly) have GNU userland.

<comment><USER23> That's because every technical decision in Android has been done by lawyers. Or at least it seems like that to an Android driver developer.

If I had a buck every time Android does something stupid (their libc, bionic, is the primary culprit) that works just fine in GNU land, I wouldn't be developing drivers for Android.

<comment><USER24> Actually, that's because the designers of Android took the gamble of replacing the Linux userland with a touch-oriented layer built on a managed language runtime.

They did this instead of trying to evolve it toward a vague goal in that general direction, or trying to drag along legacy apps.

In hindsight, it's obviously the right thing to have done. But it was a gamble at the time.

<comment><USER23> > Actually, that's because the designers of Android took the gamble of > replacing the Linux userland with a touch-oriented layer built on a managed > language runtime

No, I wasn't talking about the UI and the Dalvik virtual machine. I was talking about what's underneath.

That darn libc, for example. Every operating system needs some kind of user space standard library that deals with system calls and such. Android could have used glibc or uclibc like all the other Linux-based platforms do. But no, they wrote their own. To avoid GPL licence.

Which libc you use does not make a difference to your customers, so you won't be adding any value by rolling your own. Instead, you get decades worth of maintenance to take care of. And now Android has this crappy libc that they don't do a very good job in maintaining and lots of little things are broken. If I had to guesstimate, they have used at least a million dollars (and counting) worth of developer time on that libc with absolutely zero value created.

Android is full of these silly examples of things gone wrong. As a customer, you won't see them. As an application developer you might get a glimpse but if you stay within the Dalvik sandbox, you're relatively safe. If you go NDK, try to port an existing software to Android or work with the internals, may lord have mercy on your soul.

It's saturday. I don't want to talk about Android any longer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The evolution of social and scientific computing has made _nix a part of everyone's life. I believe this is due largely to the fact that_ nix works in a way that agrees nicely with the aesthetic determination we as hackers bring to our code.

</comment><comment><USER26> find / -name "higgs boson"

</comment><comment><USER27> Wasn't it RHEL/Centos based Scientific Linux, and had nothing to do with Debian/Ubuntu/Failbuntu?

</comment><comment><USER28> Great news everyone computers were used to do that thing that everyone's talking about! Aren't we so cool that something we talk about everyday is used in other things? I just get so excited when I think that the little machine that I've got on my lap now could be used for amazing scientific discoveries. Nobel Prize here I come!

<comment> why-el Not just computers though, a computer with an open source operating system that most hackers on this site would like to see more adoption of. This is a triumph for the open source community. (Not to impugn their previous achievements of course, this just goes with the current trend being the Higgs potential discovery)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> My inner RMS says, GNU/Linux.

</comment><comment><USER30> This story is important because in the Western society something that is not "mainstream" is not considered a success. You don't see Linux on a lot of consumer devices where people graphically interact with the OS and hence Linux as an OS is deemed "not mainstream" and hence deemed "not a success". These stories will be unnecessary only when society moves past this shallowness and I just don't see that happening any time soon.

BTW, my favorite "Linux is awesome" moment? Watching an inflight system in front of my seat in a Delta flight reboot..

<comment><USER31> > You don't see Linux on a lot of consumer devices where people graphically > interact with the OS

Umm, Android?

<comment><USER30> Nobody in the mainstream identifies it with Linux.

<comment><USER31> Does that matter?

<comment><USER30> Yes it does

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> So did oxygen ... and food ... and beverages.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a site like HN for musicians? - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys, I love spending time here, especially the way new ideas are being shared and discussed - but my other (musician) half gets more and more jealous by the day, considering how well my tech half is being fed with info.
Sure, there are some great forums like gearslutz.com and decent subreddits, but those are mostly centered around personal inquiries and suggestions.
If anyone knows a site where audio-technical soft- and hardware developers meet, discuss cutting edge technology and share general ideas about music, please let me know. <comment><USER2> I think forums fit the bill for most musicians I know - The Gear Page and Gearslutz are two popular ones but there are tons. Both TGP and GS have few "developers" but they are there. Outside of that, the music industry is so fragged that I think mostly there are lots of niche forums. Facebook groups have taken a small chunk too, I think. I'd be up for it.

</comment><comment><USER3> A couple interesting places:

DJ Tech Tools forums (a lot of stuff about controllerism and related hacking topics) - [http://forums.djtechtools.com/](http://forums.djtechtools.com/)

Create Digital Music - [http://www.createdigitalmusic.com/](http://www.createdigitalmusic.com/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I've been a HarmonyCentral reader/contributor for a while. Maybe this is what you are looking for? [http://www.harmonycentral.com/t5/Forums/ct-p/Forums](http://www.harmonycentral.com/t5/Forums/ct-p/Forums)

</comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm also looking for someplace better, as I'm not very fond of forums.

That said, here are a bunch of forum links:

electro-music.com [http://www.electro-music.com/forum/](http://www.electro- music.com/forum/)

Muff's Modules & More [http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/](http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/)

GuitarPCB.com [http://www.guitarpcb.com/apps/forums/](http://www.guitarpcb.com/apps/forums/)

</comment><comment><USER6> It's very scattered. I dipped into the ring when I put together wikiaudio ..... but it never worked out.

Socialsounddesign.com hasn't been mentioned so there's another one for you.

</comment><comment><USER7> The closest I've found is the subreddit r/WeAreTheMusicMakers . Totally not as technically focused as you've outlined above, but I've seen some interesting threads.

<comment><USER8> The more specific production subreddits are a lot better than WATMM I've found - stuff like /r/drums, /r/edmproduction, etc

<comment><USER9> also /r/audioengineering, tangiential but relevant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Expert Knob Twiddlers</comment>


A JS engine for sequencing HTML5 demos - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kaneel/LeSequencer/ A simple sequencer written in javascript.
As a sequencer, what it primarily does is to convert the current ms into ticks and beats. You can register scenes that goes from a beat to an other beat.
Basically, you could use it as: - a demo engine - a possible starting block for your own visually editable sequencer
The idea came to me when I was thinking about a way to make javascript demos where visuals and sounds are processed through the same engine, to provide a purely synchronized experience between both worlds (remove the "art" from what I've just said).
Then I thought about using a "beat" as the main unit (instead of ms), ticks and bangs for "new beat/tick" for synchronizing effects to the music, or SFX to the visuals... because there's nothing more boring than adjusting your syncs on ms values, or to rely on your player to give the right informations to the visual; Here, everything should be tied together.
In hope some may find any use to this or even want to start anew, following the same main concept. <comment><USER2> Definitely going to check this out!</comment>


Larry and Sergey's CS349 (1998) - <AUTHOR> http://infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/349/ <comment><USER2> Anyone know where the course assistant, Diane Tang, ended up?

edit: I should've just, ahem, Googled her first. [https://www.linkedin.com/in/diane- tang-2a2477](https://www.linkedin.com/in/diane-tang-2a2477)

<comment><USER3> Doctor of Philosophy from Stanford, interesting combo

<comment><USER4> Sometimes abbreviated as Ph.D. ;)

<comment><USER3> ;) well, yes. I was confused by this comment at first until I realized it looks like I thought she was a medical doctor and a Ph.D. but the "Doctor" part is verbatim from her profile.

<comment><USER5> Everyone with a PhD is a Doctor of Philosophy. There's nothing unusual about the wording nor the "combo".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Philosophy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Philosophy)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Scalable Techniques for Mining Causal Structures , for the lazy the link is rotten but heres a copy:

[http://www.vldb.org/conf/1998/p594.pdf](http://www.vldb.org/conf/1998/p594.pdf)

edit: and The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine

[http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html](http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> Did they hire any of their CS349 students?</comment>