"This release includes code generation options to mitigate Spectre Variant 2 (CVE 2017-5715) for the x86 and powerpc targets."

True. There is something to be said for making such errors too spectacular to ignore. Subtly, gradually corrupting a database is not exactly an improvement.

Yes. It greatly reduces the footprint in the cache and TLB.

I agree. If you do not remember the standard syntax/API, just define a syntax/API of your choice and use it consistently. Serious interviewers are interested in being able to solve problems given whatever interface fate shoves down your throat. Sure, some will only care about the exact syntax of some library, but you don't want to work for such idiots in the first place. That library is likely to be obsolete in a few years.

Github will stalk you around the Internet and ban you if they catch you not being Leftist enough in all media. Repositories have been abruptly deleted for containing one wrong word. There are better choices.

I can still hear the singular piping of the BEL characters echoing between the mountains of Antarctica, God help me.

I suspect but cannot verify that the move from 32 to 64 did slow things down, but they deepened the pipeline for other reasons and it turned out to actually run in fewer cycles. (At least with respect to the first generation of 32-bit processors. Multiply used to be slow enough that you would manually bit shift when possible, and division was scary slow.)

No. Only a few people need more than 64 bits, but many of those people need more than 128. Going to 128 bits would help very few people.

There is also the question of whether it would even help. The wider an operand becomes, the more time it takes to do the computation, especially for division. So you either have to slow down the clock rate, or you have to add a few stages to the pipeline. At that point the speed, power consumption, complexity are not much improvement over just using multiple 64-bit instructions.

So I predict that we have maxed out at 64/80-bit operands. But SIMD vector unit width seems to be increasing steadily. Current vector units top out at 512 bits, which packs in 8 64-bit operands. To work with wider data, you will use sequential 64-bit operations to handle the full precision, and run several of those in parallel in the 512-bit vector unit.

Several companies have virtual private servers (VPSes) for under $2/month. VPSCheap budget servers are an example -- US $11 for 6 months.

P.S. You get what you pay for.

Thanks. This comment is a great public service. I had no idea the moonbats had carried them off into la-la land. They used to be a great company.