Strip Down Apache to Improve Performance vs. Nginx - ashitlerferad
https://haydenjames.io/strip-apache-improve-performance-memory-efficiency/
======
vbernat
The part about compiling from source seems dubious and not backed by any data.
Modules being dynamically loaded. They should not affect performance when not
loaded. As for memory, I also doubt there will be any difference.

When compiling from source, you don't get automatic security updates from your
distribution and you may break integration with the other parts of the
distribution.

~~~
BenjiWiebe
Yes, I'd like to see an explanation for or against compiling from source by
someone who knows what's going on.

------
wolco
Apache can be just as fast if you remove the looking and reading of the
.htaccess file in a local directory.


My students forged the notes. I turned them into a lesson plan. - robg
http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/excuses-excuses-an-excerpt-from-teacher-man/article156072.html
======
ExJournalist
"I was having an epiphany. Isn’t it remarkable, I thought, how the students
whined and said it was hard putting 200 words together on any subject? But
when they forged excuse notes, they were brilliant..."

To me this is a great example of one of the fundamental problems with so much
education: it is full of unchallenging, unrelated-to-life, contrived tasks.
When any process (creative writing, math, coding) is harnessed to a
fascinating, meaningful-to-students goal... well, of course they're motivated.
And creative.

That has always been true of me - when in grammar school, and decades into
employment.

~~~
cschneid
Question for you then. In high school, should a kid only interested in reading
& writing (english class, journalism) be required to take math and sciences?

How about a kid who's interested only in physics, should we make him read and
write poetry?

Even if each class is taught the best it possibly could be, individual
interests will outweigh, and the kids will be bored in the alternate classes.

So the options are either 1) uninterested kids, or 2) uneducated kids.

Basically, since interests vary so much, even among middle school aged kids,
there's no platonic ideal of a "perfect class that every kid will love".

~~~
mquander
Personally, I think that given an intellectually stimulating home environment,
passionate teachers, and a great curriculum, (almost) every kid will be
interested in both poetry and physics, because they are both fundamentally
interesting and beautiful things.

That's what we should be aiming for.

~~~
zimbabwe
I can confirm this. In high school I hated math, planned on getting an English
major, because the English teachers were so good. Previously, in middle school
I hated critical analysis of books, but because my math teacher was so good I
was an absolute math geek.

I remember my high school Algebra II teacher was asked, "Why should we care
about what you're saying?" His answer: "You shouldn't care. You're here to get
a grade. You'll never use this and it's not fun." This while my English
teacher was staying an hour after class to debate Lolita, Ulysses, A Space
Odyssey, and a whole ton of other stuff with basically every student willing
to talk to him. There were a lot.

~~~
sgoraya
Your second paragraph struck a chord with me - through middle and high school,
nearly all my math teachers would preface various topics with "You'll never
use this in real life..." With that kind of sentiment, its no wonder why a lot
of students did not want, or develop, an understanding for math :/

~~~
Jimmy
But the teachers are right, you know. Professional mathematicians doing
research will practically jump at the chance to tell you that their work is
meant to be beautiful, not practical. I think that's the message we should be
imparting to students: math doesn't have to be useful for you to study it,
just as poetry doesn't have to be useful for you to read it.

~~~
mquander
I agree completely, but they rarely get around to demonstrating why it _is_
beautiful, so all the students learn is why it's _not_ practical.

Note that the public school approach doesn't work much better for poetry or
literature. Precious few high schoolers graduate with a love of reading.

~~~
zimbabwe
Just to be certain, have all of you read Lockhart's Lament? Because it argues
the case for teaching math more beautifully than I can.

<http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf>

------
pieter
Excuse notes are a great example of why you need verification. Anyone can
write one for themselves, and give it to you without proof it really came from
a parent. That's a classic man in the middle attack.

What you really need is some kind of certificate for each parent, allowing you
to verify the note really came from the parent. That's why self-signed
certificates really aren't worth much -- anyone could have created them.

~~~
ivank
If no one wants to miss class, you don't have to worry about this.

~~~
amohr
I think that concisely encapsulated the two go-to solutions for so many
hackers: a) create a complex system that will postpone or perhaps solve the
problem; and b) make the problem irrelevant with a miracle stroke of genius
solution to be fleshed out at a later date.

~~~
TheSOB88
Hackers, hackers, hackers, why does every thread have a post about how hackers
are so great? Can we stop the big circle jerk?

~~~
amohr
Circle jerk? I was pointing out unproductive behavior - the tendency to
simplify a problem such that it fits into a stock solution or counting on a
miracle. Neither of these actually confront the original problem - just duct
tape and wishes.

------
euroclydon
This is the perfect example of "Unschooling" ( <http://www.holtgws.com/> )
where children are encouraged to follow their interests, inclinations and
energies to their full and natural ends rather than being cowed into
performing busy work in one topic after another, until they hate nearly all
learning.

[EDIT] I just wanted to throw in here a hacker angle on unschooling or
homeschooling: I would gladly pay for software that teaches math or grammar
and is based on cognitive science. Something like SuperMemo
<http://www.supermemo.com/> profiled in this Wired article
[http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_woznia...](http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_wozniak)

~~~
JimmyL
How?

McCourt was teaching a class on Creative Writing - this wasn't in a science or
math class. He took what he was supposed to be teaching (how to write
stories), and found a theme to write about that his students found
interesting.

Those children weren't following their "interests, inclinations and energies"
- I find it very hard to believe that every single kid in that class would be
doing creative writing if they had the ability to do whatever their interests
led them to. They were doing what they were supposed to do in that subject-
specific class, and just happened to be led by a very good teacher.

~~~
euroclydon
The had already pulled off good creative writing in their excuse notes, notes
that could have been written for any class. Writing those fake excuse notes
DID come from their natural inclination, and when encouraged to continue to
follow it, rather than to get back to the program, they produced even greater
work.

------
euroclydon
Frank had already won when he didn't fuss or punish them for the fake notes.
It's like PG says in his FAQ, kids can tell which teachers actually like them.

------
zimbabwe
Rest in peace, Frank McCourt.

I missed Angela's Ashes, but Teacher Man looks like it would be worth the
read. What a great reminder of what a good teacher is capable of.

------
JshWright
What a tremendous story of a true "hacker".

------
mad44
I had listened to a talk by him at the Columbia University (from Columbia's
iTunes page). It was a lot of fun. Here is a link to another talk by him
(maybe the same one):
[http://blog.92y.org/index.php/weblog/item/92y_podcast_rememb...](http://blog.92y.org/index.php/weblog/item/92y_podcast_remembering_frank_mccourt/)

------
grnknight
This is awesome!! What a creative solution to encouraging creative writing.

------
IsaacL
It's a cool story, but he's hardly the first to do it - I worked as a
volunteer English teacher in Asia for 6 months, and did this with some of my
senior classes - excuses for missing homework, being late for school, losing
their notebook, etc - I think there was a prize for the most creative one. It
wasn't an original idea of mine - I got the idea from a similar lesson in my
own high school english class (UK).

~~~
trickjarrett
It never crossed my mind that he was the only one, however it was still
interesting to read and a good example of what teachers would be like in a
perfect world.

~~~
IsaacL
He said in the article (may be a misquote) that he was the only one.

------
yardie
Ha, I wish I had this guy in my college lit. class. Of the 3 I had 2 were
great and the one in between (the one I knew I was going to fail) was a
complete asshole. I'm still not sure how the other 2 managed to find a way to
make the material covered relevant, yet the 3rd guy managed to make me hate
everything about him, his class, and his topics.

And the dude was a real hippy, but not in a cool way. All his themes were some
sci-fi postapocolyptic drivel. When I brought his name up people knew of him
and gave a sad frown like they knew I was suffering. Not just students but
teachers and other professors.

For 3 years I was listed as a freshman with over 90 credits because the I
refused to take another lit class and the university wouldn't change my status
until I did.

BTW, almost 10 years later, it still pisses me off.

------
christofd
Why are the students exceptionally motivated to fulfill this assignment:

\- They have nowhere else to go. They have to sit in that class room. More or
less, it's their job.

\- They are being asked to create something from their own imagination, which
is in stark contrast to the usual method of schooling: memorizing established
facts from textbooks.

Motivation is a powerful force that schools do not harness enough.

However, large organizations will always be political in nature, so driving
behaviour with intrinsic motivation is probably NOT something that will be
practiced generally.

------
nettdata
I would have read the article, but my internet connection was down.

~~~
IsaacL
That's really interesting.

~~~
nettdata
Really? Nobody?

It's an article about making up excuses. I was hoping everyone would chime in
with their own excuses in the spirit of the article.

~~~
alanthonyc
Okay, I get it now.

But I think you were supposed to come up with a well written creative excuse.
A short one-liner is not enough.

~~~
nettdata
It was one of the "good" forgeries.

------
hendler
My one criticism - I think some of the excuse notes he rejects as lies are
true - if they reflect anything similar to my childhood.

------
dipankarsarkar
Hehehehe :) , it is true that lying/forging is one of the most creative
activity (unless people die / get hurt because of it).

Good one !!!!

------
alanthonyc
Thanks for that. I'm buying the book.

------
sound2man
I can't express how much I love this style of teaching. This is about the only
thing that you can do to curb this behavior and still maintain a relationship
with your students.

I was a goof in school, but my teacher kept me from getting out of hand the
exact same way. By guiding my exuberance instead of squelching it, we got
along great, and I graduated near the top of my class.

+20 to dedicated teachers!

------
blats
Uhh.. ?


What would it take to record and entire life on video? - Zenbach

Imagine you were asked to build a system with today's technology capable of storing people's entire life on video. This request would be insane a few years ago only. I think today is already possible and pretty soon it may be a reality ( I know, scary.. ie: wife to husband: "Let's rewind an see where really were you last night? or an specific date 25 years ago?.. oops!)
Let's assume video would come at same data rate as YouTube HQ video from a tiny camera (iPhone size) embedded into a person's forehead. Assuming and average life span of 80 years what kind of infrastructure, storage, costs would you estimate?
======
Zenbach
Here are some numbers to give you and idea of what it would take to record
your entire life on video.

Assumed Parameters: \- 80 years (average life span) \- 1000 kbits/sec (YouTube
video datarate) \- $50.00/TeraByte

Solution: \- 80 yrs * 365 days/year * 24 hours/day * 3600 sec/hour =
2,522,880,000 secs/yr \- Total Secs in 80 yrs * data/sec = Total Storage
required to store 80 yrs so: Total Storage = 2,522,880,000 secs/80yr * 1000
kbits/sec = 2.5 e+12 kbits for 80 yrs (1 GB = 8,589,934.59 kbits) in GB would
be 293,701.89 GB for 80 years totalling about 287 TeraBytes (about 3.6
TB/year)

COST/Yr: at 3.6TB/year * $50/TB = $179/yr

TOTAL STORAGE REQUIRED TO RECORD YOUR ENTIRE LIFE: ######### 287 TeraBytes
###########

TOTAL STORAGE COST TO RECORD YOUR ENTIRE LIFE: $179/yr * 80 years = #########
$14.340 ###########

NOTE: This is an approximate value not considering that storage prices would
be dramatically lower 80 yrs from today. Probably, to record your entire life
80 years from now would cost less than $1000.

------
joshuarr
Crap... if you could develop a decent compression algorithm that tossed out
all the sleeping, masturbating, eating, wandering around aimlessly, sitting
there stoned out of my gourd, and posting stupid stuff to the internet, I bet
you could compress my 30 some years into about five.

~~~
Zenbach
I think your point makes a lot of sense. One of the sad things we would
discover from that experiment is how the majority of the footage would be
absolutely useless.. which to some degree would demonstrate how much time of
our lives is spent doing useless or totally boring things. My guess is that in
an average 80 year life you would be pressed to find more than 24 hours worth
of "worthy", relevant, amusing, moments.. most of these moments only relevant
to the person itself or friends or relatives.. Another interesting thing that
this experiment would yield would be to find out how much time in total was
really spent doing useful things, moments that were turning points on our
lives, in which we were truly happy, felt accomplished. On the average? how
much time would that add up to.. probably to less than 0.0001% of our lives..
pff.. how depressing.. I cam going to do something useful right now.

------
idleworx
i don't think we'll be truly able to build a system until technology comes up
with a free floating personal video assistant. eg. a digital page to follow
the squire around, floating above you or something like that. chip embedding
might be another option i guess.

~~~
Zenbach
I think the technology is already available. Of course, not yet integrated
into a functional system. The little iPhone like camera could be implanted on
your forehead and powered by a tiny rechargeable battery embedded inside your
chest (like a pacemaker) together with a miniature circuit. Video would be
buffered on an internal 64GB solid memory and continuously transmitted via 3G
network to a centralized storage facility. the 64GB buffer would be used when
wireless was not available. With 64GB you could store about a day worth of
highly compressed (YouTube video like at about 1000kbits/sec) of continuous
video before you an out of memory. Hardware wise it could be mass produced for
less than $100 bucks. Wireless costs would be expensive but as they go down in
time more affordable.

------
markca
you should look at gordan bell's project/book at microsoft

[http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-09/p...](http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-09/pl_print)

~~~
Zenbach
Thanks Markca, I was sure someone would be crazy enough to be attempting this
already.