cmdotter - Slashdot User

Submission + - What is your job title? 1

Submitted by chetbox on Friday October 16, 2009 @05:31AM

chetbox writes: I imagine a lot of the Slashdot crowd are software engineers, programmers or something along those lines, but what do you write on your CV/résumé and your email signature? Do you use the word "engineer", "programmer", "developer", "architect" or something else? What job title do you use? How do you make sure it describes your work and, more importantly, your worth without sounding pretentious?

I have my own projects which I plan, design and implement; I work on existing projects, mostly programming new features and tidying up; I also do some research and testing of new ideas, which may later turn into products. (None have yet: I haven't been working here long.) What could my job title be?

Submission + - Google Wave Preview Goes Live (google.com)

Submitted by __aaghmn3453 on Wednesday October 14, 2009 @03:23AM

__aaghmn3453 writes: Google's finally gone live with a preview of Google Wave. It seems they're sticking to the by-invitation-only approach, and invitations seem to be few and far between (even if you signed up to the release mailing list, you only get 8 invites). There must be /.ers who have received invites though; what are your first impressions?

Submission + - Buzz off! Remote controled beetles take flight (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by AllSystemsGo! on Tuesday October 13, 2009 @08:45PM

AllSystemsGo! writes: Part insect, part machine, the "cyborg beetle" has been tested successfully by its developers at the University of California, Berkeley.

Video footage shows a beetle being "flown" around a room by a man using a laptop.

At one point it is tethered to a transparent plastic plate, and its tiny limbs can be seen twitching in response to the operator's joy stick.

The developers, Michel Maharbiz and Hirotaka Sato, "demonstrated the remote control of insects in free flight via an implantable radio-equipped miniature neural stimulating system", they told the current edition of Frontiers in Neuroscience magazine.

Noel Sharkey, professor of robotics and artificial intelligence at the UK's Sheffield University, says that while attempts to control insects such as cockroaches are not new, this is the first time man has managed to remotely control a flying insect.

What intrigues him is the Berkeley project's ultimate military application.
Pupal stage

At Berkeley, electrodes are implanted when the beetle is in the pupal stage of its growth.

One of the cyborg beetles
Fitted with three electrodes, a microbattery and a microcontroller
Three beetles used: cotinis texana (2cm long, 0.3g payload), mecynorhina torquata (7cm, 1.8g) and megasoma elephas (20cm, 4.0g)
Project funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

"It's because we have got much better at nanotechnology and making small probes that we are able to do this," Professor Sharkey told the BBC's World Today programme.

"You are plugging electrical devices into its nervous system and then triggering its muscles so that when it is flying, if you put a little bit more zorch into the muscle on the left-hand side, that will flap a bit harder and that will control the direction it is going in."

The team at Berkeley have been using beetles from Cameroon as large as the palm of a human hand, which leaves Professor Sharkey slightly puzzled.

"The electronics is simply too heavy for a smaller beetle to carry," he says.

"They can remotely control its muscles but it can't actually take off and I'm not sure really what they're playing at here.

Comment Statistical strengths (Score 1) 467

by cmdotter on Tuesday October 13, 2009 @12:56AM (#29728649) Attached to: Is Working For the Gambling Industry a Black Mark?

I wouldn't have a bias per-se. I'd assume that you'd be able to prove that your time there increased your abilities in statistical analysis, understanding human traits (and how they affect statistics) and pseudo random number generation.

In fact, if you failed to 'wow' me on those three points, then your time at a gambling location was seriously wasted because they're all good topics to be getting your teeth into.

If you could prove yourself in those areas, you'd obviously have no problem doing any other job IMHO.

Comment Re:What goes around, comes around... (Score 1) 619

by cmdotter on Sunday October 11, 2009 @10:20PM (#29714911) Attached to: Ted Dziuba Says, "I Don't Code In My Free Time"

You make it sound like becoming a gigolo could be a really bad thing

Comment Re:I object (Score 1) 132

by cmdotter on Thursday October 08, 2009 @10:09PM (#29688411) Attached to: Front Row Seats To NASA's Lunar Impact

Apparently I can't be called kooky or a greenie, but just a troll looking to start a flame war.

Obviously, this means that I am alone in thinking that smashing shit into our moon is a good idea.

Submission + - Microsoft plans largest-ever Patch Tuesday (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike on Thursday October 08, 2009 @06:10PM

CWmike writes: Microsoft said it will deliver its largest-ever number of security updates on Tuesday to fix 13 flaws in every version of Windows, as well as Internet Explorer (IE), Office, SQL Server, important developer tools and Forefront Security client software. Among the updates will be the first for the final, or release to manufacturing, code of Windows 7, Microsoft's newest operating system. The 13 updates slated for next week, eight of them pegged "critical," beat the previous record of 12 updates shipped in February 2007 and again in October 2008. "Thirteen is not a lucky number," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security, reacting to the massive slate scheduled for Oct. 13. "They've been a busy bunch at Microsoft, that's for sure."

Comment I object (Score 0, Flamebait) 132

by cmdotter on Thursday October 08, 2009 @05:44PM (#29686417) Attached to: Front Row Seats To NASA's Lunar Impact

Call me kooky, call me a greenie. I can't see how this can even be regarded as a 'scientific' experiment. I'd put it under the same banner as: "Lets fire a bullet at someone's head to see if there's a brain in there".
Surely a little lunar robot with drilling capabilities is less drastic than "Let's blow this fucker up and see what we can see"?

I invoke the chewbacca defence: It just doesn't make sense...

Submission + - Microsoft readies ad-supported Office Starter 2010 (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Martin on Thursday October 08, 2009 @05:21PM

Martin writes: Microsoft Office Starter 2010 will be not available for purchase; it will only come pre-loaded on new PCs. It includes basic functionality so users can view, edit, and create documents via Office Word Starter 2010 and Office Excel Starter 2010. Not only are these programs ad-supported, but Microsoft claims they are "designed for casual Office users," who apparently will be perfectly fine with reduced-functionality and ad-supported software.

Submission + - Stairs wired to play musical notes (techeblog.com)

Submitted by Chickan on Thursday October 08, 2009 @03:17PM

Chickan writes: Stairs converted to a piano, plays note with each step. Results? 66% more people took the stairs. "Would you take the stairs over an escalator if they played musical notes with each step? You'll have to visit Odenplan, Stockholm to ultimately make that decision."

Comment Re:Esoteric Naming System (Score 1) 255

by cmdotter on Wednesday October 07, 2009 @07:16PM (#29675841) Attached to: NASA Discovers Giant Ring Around Saturn

the ring divisions are labelled (from the closest to furthest) : D, C, B, A then F, G and finally E as the outermost ring.

Wonder what they will name this one, anyone good with sequence puzzles?

Thinking in musical terms, it would be B-flat or as some euro countries call it: H.

C2 would be the next ring after that to complete the cadence.

Comment Re:How far does the liability go? (Score 1) 191

by cmdotter on Wednesday October 07, 2009 @07:08PM (#29675777) Attached to: AU Legal Group Says ISP Allowed 100K Illegal Downloads

Is there such a thing as privacy down under?

Yes, but I still choose to go to the toilet with the door open.

Submission + - Does Anxiety make you a better programmer? (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Crash McBang on Tuesday October 06, 2009 @03:23AM

Crash McBang writes: In Understanding the Anxious Mind, it is proposed that an anxious temperament might serve a more exalted function: âoeOur culture has this illusion that anxiety is toxic,â Kagan said. But without inner-directed people who prefer solitude, where would we get the writers and artists and scientists and computer programmers who make society hum?

Comment Re:Speaking as a user (Score 1) 433

by cmdotter on Monday October 05, 2009 @07:10PM (#29651463) Attached to: "Side By Side Assemblies" Bring DLL Hell 2.0

Although a security hole would exist, it would exist inside the application itself, meaning that in order to gain access to the system, one needs to then attack that program first. Furthermore, the application may not even use the feature of that is part of the library.

Many security holes can 'disappear' when statically linked, simply because the linker removes unused code, unlike a dll. Also the application may have some extra checks in their code that ensures that 'bad things' don't necessarily occur when a call is made to an 'unsafe' function (eg strcpy()).

In short, statically linking:
~ forces attackers to attack a particular program (and not a suite of programs that use a dll)
~ may reduce the attack footprint because the linker removes unused code

Comment It's just simple math (Score 1) 442

by cmdotter on Monday September 21, 2009 @10:40PM (#29499645) Attached to: Net Radio Exec Says "Don't Mention Linux"

Linux = Super Geek.

If you know about computers, you're a geek. If you know about operating systems other than a Mac or PC, then you're a super geek. If you don't know what the words "operating system" mean, you're not a geek and don't care about Linux at all (because it's not a Mac or a PC). Even then, people don't care.

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