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Submission + - An Introduction to Objectivist-C (fdiv.net)

Submitted by
walterbyrd
walterbyrd writes: "Objectivist-C was invented by Russian-American programmer Ope Rand. Based on the principle of rational self-interest, Objectivist-C was influenced by Aristotle’s laws of logic and Smalltalk. In an unorthodox move, Rand first wrote about the principles of Objectivist-C in bestselling novels, and only later set them down in non-fiction."
Crime

Submission + - Unabomber Updates His Harvard Alum Directory Entry

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, won’t be able to attend his 50th reunion festivities at Harvard due to the life prison sentence he drew for sending deadly mail bombs. But Kaczynski did contribute a bizarre entry to the alumni report for the class of 1962. The listing says his occupation is 'Prisoner,' and his home address is 'No. 04475-046, US Penitentiary—Max, P.O. Box 8500, Florence, CO 8126-8500.' Under the awards section, the listing says, 'Eight life sentences, issued by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, 1998.' The widow of one of Kaczynski's victims said she was 'disappointed in Harvard.' Also unamused by the serial killer's whimsy was the Boston Globe's Editorial Board.

Submission + - Free anthology of short stories on the Future of Copyright (nowoczesnapolska.org.pl)

Submitted by
rekrutacja
rekrutacja writes: "10 best short stories on the future of copyright made it to anthology, (which you can download for free in PDF [http://nowoczesnapolska.org.pl/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/future-of-copyright.pdf], MOBI and EPUB [http://nowoczesnapolska.org.pl/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Future-of-Copyright-Anthology.zip]) as a result of a crowdfunded contest held by the Modern Poland Foundation. Mike Linksvayer of Creative Commons wrote great review of this book [http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2012/05/23/future-ip-stories/]. Jury – Prof. Michael Geist, Piotr Czerski and Jarosaw Lipszyc – awarded the main prize to Aymeric Mansoux, author of Morphology of copyright tale”. Moreover, the jury decided to grant an honorable mention to Togi, author of the work Give”."
Education

Submission + - Barter-Based School Catching on Globally (shareable.net)

Submitted by
sethopia
sethopia writes: "In 2010, three people had the crazy idea to start a school where the teachers teach whatever they want and the students pay for classes with whatever teachers need—cutlery, art, advice—but never with money. Trade Schools have been popping up around the world and are now active in 15 cities and 10 countries, with almost no prodding from its founders. Caroline Woolard, one of the founders, discusses the challenges and opportunities of adapting their idea to an international audience and making the Trade School software—based on Python and Django—great."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How to Shop for a Laptop

Submitted by jakooistra
jakooistra writes: I recently got my dream laptop: a Macbook Air. It had everything I needed, and its hardware design is solid. I know what I'm getting, and I know it's what I want, and the two line up perfectly.

Weeks later, my sister asks me for a laptop recommendation. I say "sure, what are techie brothers for!" and diligently start my search for her perfect laptop. Two days later, I feel like I've aged two years. Every laptop vendor seems to want to sell a dozen different poorly-differentiated models, with no real way of finding out what is customizable without following each model to its own customization page. And there are so many vendors! How am I, as a consumer, supposed to find what I need? Is there a website, hiding somewhere that I just can't find, that tracks all the multivariate versions and upgrade choices in an easily searchable database?

Failing that, I'd like to crowdsource finding the following laptop:
-Good CPU, almost don't care about GPU (HD 3000 graphics are acceptable)
-SSD HD (or at least hybrid cache)
-Cool running (no leg-burning, in fact integrated graphics might be preferable)
-15" or 17" screen
-1366x768 is acceptable if all else fails, but I'd prefer 1440x900 or more, especially on a 17"
-Optical drive (not external)
-Under $2000, nominally $1500

Submission + - ask /.: Why not Linux for Security? 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In Friday's story about IBM's ban on Cloud storage there was much agreement, such as: "My company deals with financial services. We are not allowed to access Dropbox either."

So why isn't Linux the first choice for all financial services? I don't know any lawyers, financial advisers, banks, etc that don't use Windows. I switched to Linux in 2005 — I'm well aware that it's not perfect. But the compromises have been so trivial compared to the complete relief from dealing with Windows security failings.

Even if we set aside responsibility and liability, business already do spend a /lot/ of money and time on trying to secure Windows, and cleaning up after it. Linux/Unix should already be a first choice for the business world, yet it's barely even known of. It doesn't make sense. Please discuss; this could use some real insight. And let's at least try to make the flames +5 funny.
The Internet

Submission + - Van Jacobson Denies Averting Internet Meltdown in 1980s (wired.com)

Submitted by strangebush
strangebush writes: He didn't make Vint Cerf famous.....

“I was getting a bit per second between two network gateways that were literally in the same room,” Jacobson remembers.

For the next six months, Jacobson — together with Mike Karels, who oversaw Berkeley’s BSD UNIX operating system — worked to solve this internet traffic jam, and the result was an update to TCP...."
Idle

Submission + - 19 year old squatted at AOL for 2 months (cnet.com)

Submitted by
mrnick
mrnick writes: "Eric Simons, 19 years old, was working at incubator, Imagine K2, in Silicon Valley and when his grant money ran out he moved into the office. He slept on a couch, took showers and washed clothes in the office gym, and ate for free in the cafeteria all the while working on his new start-up. He was able to get away with this for two months before being discovered by security guard."
Biotech

Submission + - Battle Brewing Over Labeling of Genetically Modified Food (nytimes.com)

Submitted by gollum123
gollum123 writes: For more than a decade, almost all processed foods in the United States — cereals, snack foods, salad dressings — have contained ingredients from plants whose DNA was manipulated in a laboratory. Regulators and many scientists say these pose no danger. But as Americans ask more pointed questions about what they are eating, popular suspicions about the health and environmental effects of biotechnology are fueling a movement to require that food from genetically modified crops be labeled, if not eliminated. The most closely watched labeling effort is a proposed ballot initiative in California that cleared a crucial hurdle this month, setting the stage for a probable November vote that could influence not just food packaging but the future of American agriculture. Tens of millions of dollars are expected to be spent on the election showdown. It pits consumer groups and the organic food industry, both of which support mandatory labeling, against more conventional farmers, agricultural biotechnology companies like Monsanto and many of the nation’s best-known food brands like Kellogg’s and Kraft.
Businesses

Submission + - Yahoo Kills Flipboard Competitor Six Months After Debut (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by
redletterdave
redletterdave writes: "It seemed like a step in the right direction for Yahoo back in November, when the company announced a family of new mobile products that would enrich the way users experience and understand their news and entertainment content. But just shy of seven months after that outburst of mobile and social apps and tools, Yahoo has decided to call it quits on arguably the biggest piece of that mobile package: the personalized magazine app for iPad, Livestand. This was the first major business decision made by Ross Levinsohn, the interim CEO who took over for Scott Thompson on May 13 after the SEC discovered Thompson lied on his resume."
Medicine

Submission + - People Born With Certain "Personality Genes" May Live Longer (medicaldaily.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: People who are outgoing, optimistic, easygoing, and have a good sense of humor and a large social network are likely to live longer than others who don't possess these personality traits, according to new research.

The study reveals how saying "It’s in their genes" could refer to more than just genetic variations that give a physiological advantage like having high levels of HDL ("good") cholesterol because people with positive personality traits appear to live longer than those who do not.
Businesses

Submission + - Dark days ahead for Facebook and Google? (blogmaverick.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Dallas Mavericks owner and media entrepreneur Mark Cuban thinks he knows the reason for Facebook's disappointing
IPO; smart money has realized that "mobile is going to crush Facebook", as the world's population
increasingly access the Internet mostly through smartphones and tablets. Cuban notes that the limited screen real estate hampers the branding and ad placement that Google and Facebook are accustomed to when serving to desktop browsers, while phone plans typically have strict data limits, so subscribers won't necessarily take kindly to
YouTube or other video ads. Forbes' Eric Jackson likewise sees a generational shift to mobile that will produce
a new set of winners at the expense of Facebook and Google.
The Internet

Submission + - Roland, We Hardly Knew Ye

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Rob Malda 'Cmdr Taco' writes in the Washington Post that longtime Slashdot contributor Roland Piquepaille has achieved a kind of 'internet immortality'. "I bumped into a cute story that seemed a bit familiar. The story was a suggestion to switch to an 18 cent coin," writes Malda. "But I couldn’t get past the familiarity. I backed up and re-read the article a lot slower and realized why." Turns out the originally story was written in 2003 by Piquepaille who died in 2009. "Roland took a lot of garbage from Slashdot readers over the years. He was incredibly effective at what he did, and his name appeared on the site a lot," concludes Malda adding that he'd like to think that Roland gets the posthumous last laugh. "I’ll never write the Great American Novel or direct the Oscar Award Winning Film. But the Internet lets all of us live forever.""
The Internet

Submission + - Reddit Founder Leads Charge for a "Bat Signal for the Internet" (internetdefenseleague.org)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "Beyond the Blackout

The Internet Defense League takes the tactic that killed SOPA & PIPA and turns it into a permanent force for defending the internet, and making it better. Think of it like the internet's Emergency Broadcast System, or its bat signal!

The Plan

When the internet's in danger and we need millions of people to act, the League will ask its members to broadcast an action. (Say, a prominent message asking everyone to call their elected leaders.) With the combined reach of our websites and social networks, we can be massively more effective than any one organization."
Games

Submission + - Are Porn and Games Basically the Same Thing? (ign.com)

Submitted by silentbrad
silentbrad writes: IGN published an article, today, discussing an editorial from CNN: Pornography and videogames are pretty much the same thing, according to a sensational and terrifying editorial published on CNN today called ‘The Demise of Guys: How Videogames and Porn are Ruining a Generation’. Games and porn are not only equal, they are equally damaging to young men, destroying their ability to connect with women, and therefore threatening the future of our entire species. ... The article, by psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo and Nikita Duncan argues that young men are “hooked on arousal, sacrificing their schoolwork and relationships in the pursuit of getting a tech-based buzz”. ... Zimbardo, has danced this jig before. At the Long Beach TED conference last year he told a delighted audience that “guys are wiping out socially with girls and sexually with women.” He added that young men have been so zombiefied by games and porn that they are unable to function in basic human interactions. “It’s a social awkwardness like a stranger in a foreign land”, he said. “They don’t know what to say. They don’t know what to do.”
Google

Submission + - Google Now Searches JavaScript (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: Google has been improving the way that its Googlebot searches dynamic web pages for some time — but it seems to be causing some added interest just at the moment. In the past Google has encouraged developers to avoid using JavaScript to deliver content or links to content because of the difficulty of indexing dynamic content. Over time, however, the Googlebot has incorporated ways of searching content that is provided via JavaScript.
Now it seems that it has got so good at the task Google is asking us to allow the Googlebot to scan the JavaScript used by our sites.
Working with JavaScript means that the Googlebot has to actually download and run the scripts and this is more complicated than you might think. This has led to speculation of whether or not it might be possible to include JavaScript on a site that could use the Google cloud to compute something. For example, imagine that you set up a JavaScript program to compute the n-digits of Pi, or a BitCoin miner, and had the result formed into a custom URL — which the Googlebot would then try to access as part of its crawl. By looking at, say, the query part of the URL in the log you might be able to get back a useful result.
Bitcoin

Submission + - Hacked Bitcoin Financial Site Had No Backups (bitcointalk.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A fortnight ago the Bitcoin financial website Bitcoinica was hacked and the hacker stole $87,000 worth of Bitcoins. At the time the owner promised that all users would have their Bitcoins and US dollars returned in full, but one of the site developers has just confirmed that they have no database backups and are having difficulty figuring out what everyone's account balance should actually be. A failure of epic proportions for a site holding such large amounts of money.

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