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Submission + - Yearly FreeBSD Foundation Fundraising Campaign is On (freebsdfoundation.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The FreeBSD Foundation's annual year-end fundraising drive is currently running. Their goal this year is US$ 1M, and they're currently at US$ 427K. In 2013, the efforts that were funded were from the last drive were: Native iSCSI kernel stack, Updated Intel graphics chipset support, Integration of Newcons, UTF-8 console support, Superpages for ARM architecture, and Layer 2 networking updates. Also various conferences and summit sponsorships, as well as hardware purchases for the Project. The Foundation is a US 501(c)3 non-profit, so your donations (if in the US) are tax-deductible. Some of the larger 2013 (corporate?) sponsors so far are NetApp, LineRate, WhatsApp, and Tarsnap.

Comment Re:Forgot multiple platforms too. (Score 1) 196

by Curupira (#45334707) Attached to: Speed Test: Comparing Intel C++, GNU C++, and LLVM Clang Compilers

Yah, besides missing compiler flags, how does it perform on different intel processors, how about different AMDs?
Plus, the huge system times seems to indicate this more a kernel test than a compiler one.

Sorry, AC, I will have to let go my positive mod point to you so I can reinforce what you've said. Next time, please consider making an account so you can escape the Score: 0 limbo when you post on Slashdot :(

Since Intel has been caught red-handed crippling AMD processors on code produced by Intel C++ Compiler, I think that testing on Intel and AMD processors should the duty of every single compiler benchmark -- that is posted in Slashdot, at least.

Submission + - How Kentucky Built The Country's Best Obamacare Website

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Dylan Scott writes at TPM that Kentucky, with its deeply conservative congressional delegation, might seem like an unlikely place for Obamacare to find success but the state's online health insurance web sites has become one of the best marketplaces since its launch and shown that the marketplace concept can work in practice. Kentucky routinely ranks toward the bottom in overall health, and better health coverage is one step toward reversing that norm. Whatever the federal website seems to have failed to do to ensure its success on the Oct. 1 launch, Kentucky did. It started with the commitment to build the state's own website rather than default to the federal version. On July 17, 2012, a few weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear created the exchange via executive order, over the objections of a Republican-controlled state legislature, which sought other means — including an effort to prevent the exchange from finding office space — to block the site's creation. The recipe for success in Kentucky was: A pared-down website engineered to perform the basic functions well and a concerted effort to test it as frequently as possible to work out glitches before the Oct. 1 launch. Testing was undertaken throughout every step of the process, says Carrie Banahan, kynect's executive director, and it was crucial because it allowed state officials to identify problems early in the process. She laid out the timeline like this: From January 2013 to March, they developed the system; from April to June, they built it; from July to September, they tested it. From a design standpoint, Kentucky made the conscious choice to stick to the basics, rather than seeking to blow users away with a state-of-the-art consumer interface. It “doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that other states tried to incorporate,” like interactive features, says Jennifer Tolbert. “It’s very straightforward in allowing consumers to browse plans without first creating an account.” A big part of that was knowing their demographics: A simpler site would make it easer to access for people without broadband Internet access, and the content was written at a sixth-grade reading level so it would be as easy to understand as possible. "What we've found in Kentucky when we started talking with people was that there was a huge amount of misinformation and misunderstanding. People were very confused," says Beshear . "What I've been telling them is: Look, you don't have to like the president, and you don't have to like me. It's not about the president and it's not about me. It's about you, it's about your family, it's about your children."

Submission + - Online Retailers Are Cruising Tor to Hunt for Fraudsters (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: This week, the verification company Service Objects announced a new tool to help websites detect "suspicious" visitors using Tor and other anonymous proxies. Its updated DOTS IP Address Validation product identifies “suspicious” discrepancies between the user's home location and the location of the IP address the order’s coming from. It joins a handful of other tools on the market promising Tor-detection for retailers. It’s a logical strategy: If you're trying to buy something with stolen credit card, you're obviously going to want to block your real identity and location while doing it. But it also raises the question of whether targeting anonymity services to hunt out fraudsters could have chilling effects for harmless Tor users trying to protect their privacy online—particularly this year in light of the NSA-spying scandal.

Submission + - Growing Up Poor Is Bad for Your Brain (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: Poverty sucks so much that it may literally rewire the brains of those who have the misfortune to be born poor. This is a doubly important finding in our era of unchecked income inequality, where the poverty rate is actually rising in the US despite economic gains for the rich. “Our findings suggest that the stress-burden of growing up poor may be an underlying mechanism that accounts for the relationship between poverty as a child and how well your brain works as an adult,” said Dr. K Luan Phan, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Illinois, Chicago College of Medicine, who led a team of researchers that just published a paper revealing the poverty-brain dysfunction link.

Submission + - Obamacare enrollee's get interesting response from TS of healthcare.gov (gop.gov)

Submitted by realized
realized writes: The House Republicans YouTube account released a video Wednesday featuring excerpts from conversations between a would-be Obamacare enrollee and a customer service representative that’s almost too bizarre to believe actually took place.

Customer: Clicking ‘Save and Continue’ does not allow me to move forward
Obamacare rep: Don’t lose your sanity over this website. Try it. If it doesn’t work, walk away. Try it tomorrow,” the representative wrote back

Customer: I had the login problems for the first 11 days
Obamacare: Imagine you are stuck in this site’s rush hour traffic. You still exist. You just aren’t going anywhere

Customer: You have no way to assist those that ask for help?
Obamacare: Don’t run with scissors

and here is a text copy of the transcripts

is this a joke?

Submission + - Ouya developers share their experiences (gamasutra.com)

Submitted by RogueyWon
RogueyWon writes: Four months after the launch of the Ouya micro-console, Gamasutra has pulled together a round up of the experiences of indie developers who have brought their games to the platform. There's both positive and negative news; developers seem to like the ease of porting to the platform, but have concerns regarding the approach that its marketplace takes. Perhaps most crucially, sales of games on the platform are far from stellar.

Submission + - Lime: An Open Source Sublime Text Clone (github.com)

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: A clone of the popular Sublime Text text editor has been released under the 2-clause BSD license. As the author Fredrik Ehnbom announces the project:

I love the Sublime Text editor. I have created several plugins to make it even better. One thing that scares me though is that it is not open sourced and the pace of nightly releases have recently been anything but nightly, even now that version 3 is out in Beta. There was a period of about 6 months after the Sublime Text 2 “stable“ version was released where pretty much nothing at all was communicated to the users about what to expect in the future, nor was there much support offered in the forums. People including myself were wondering if the product was dead and I personally wondered what would happen to all the bugs, crashes and annoyances that still existed in ST2. This lack of communication is a dealbreaker to me and I decided that I will not spend any more money on that product because of it. As none of the other text editors I've tried come close to the love I had for Sublime Text, I decided I had to create my own. The frontend(s) are not ready to replace your favourite editor, but the backend itself I believe isn't too far away.

Submission + - Cops kill 13-year-old holding a replica AK-47

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Authorities say Andy Lopez refused to drop a plastic AK-47 rifle replica when police in Santa Rosa ordered him to on Tuesday, then "deputies fired several rounds from their handguns at the subject striking him several times". In a development that will make George Carlin fans cringe, police is already warning parents about the "dangers of realistic toy guns".

Submission + - Microsoft criticises iWork (technet.com)

Submitted by Camembert
Camembert writes: Perhaps predictably, Microsoft criticises Apple's free iWork software for the new iPads on the official blog. There are several arguments, some of which sound like sour grapes, including "that Microsoft understands better than others how people work", and that iWork does not get that much traction anyway. It still provides interesting reading for discussion.

Submission + - Kogan Intentionally Violating the GPL (xda-developers.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I would like to bring to the attention of the community, and seek your help with respect to, Australian online reseller Kogan, who I recently discovered are knowingly and intentionally infringing on the copyrights of many by copying and commercially distributing GPL'd software on a variety of Android devices and refusing to comply with their licenses, by not providing the source-code to product owners. The software in question includes both the Linux kernel and U-Boot, but most likely other software too.

I have of course contacted Kogan support and was responded to by a staff member; who I believe is their job to illegally dismiss and mislead customers who make legitimate legal requests for GPL'd source-code and the such. I have thus far endured a lengthy exchange from August 24th, 2013, up until my most recent message to Kogan support member Arun, on October 21st, 2013. I suspect it is Arun's job to dismiss GPL requests and the such because during this two month period, a friend of mine also purchased a different Kogan branded Android product and subsequently requested the source code; only to receive near identical responses from none other than Arun.

Submission + - Why Apple Wants Its Software to Be Free

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Sam Grobart writes in Businessweek that Apple has decided to give away long-awaited upgrade to Mac OS X, code-named Mavericks for free as well as two other software suites, iWork and iLife, that are now available for download free of charge while Microsoft charges $120 for the base version of its latest operating system, Windows 8.1, and $200 for Windows 8.1 Pro. By going free, Apple has acknowledged something that’s been true in the industry for years: Software is a means to sell hardware. Apple’s strategy here is to get you on a device and with the latest version of its software as quickly and painlessly as possible says Grobart. "Does it want to get caught up in the intricacies of a pricing scheme for OS X Mavericks? No, it does not. Better to just remove price as a consideration and make it part of the device you’re using." This runs counter to Microsoft’s DNA as a software company. That strategy worked really well for a while but just as there’s been a shift in interest to well-designed devices (as opposed to the beige boxes that defined the PC era), so has there been an expectation that software be as seamless and costless as possible. "Apple's real message is that if it can get all customers on the latest software — a model that has worked for iOS since two-thirds of users have iOS 7 now — the company gets more customer loyalty," says Larry Dignan. "Apple is betting that the OS sales are a thing of the past. The real money revolves around services like app sales, subscriptions, e-books and iTunes Radio."

Submission + - Battlefield Director: Linux Only Needs One 'Killer' Game To Explode (polygon.com)

Submitted by dryriver
dryriver writes: It would only take one "killer" game for the Linux platform to explode its way into mainstream gaming, DICE creative director Lars Gustavsson told Polygon, revealing that the development studio would "strongly" like to get into Linux. "We strongly want to get into Linux for a reason," Gustavsson said. "It took Halo for the first Xbox to kick off and go crazy — usually, it takes one killer app or game and then people are more than willing [to adopt it] — it is not hard to get your hands on Linux, for example, it only takes one game that motivates you to go there." "I think, even then, customers are getting more and more convenient, so you really need to convince them how can they marry it into their daily lives and make an integral part of their lives," he explained, sharing that the studio has used Linux servers because it was a "superior operating system to do so." Valve's recently announced Steam OS and Steam Machines are healthy for the console market, Gustavsson said when asked for his opinion on Valve's recent announcements. He believes the products will open up the market to explore new, and perhaps better, ways of consuming games. "Basically for different ways of accessing customers and giving them possibilities of play, I think it is super exciting," he said. "The only thing I know is that from five or ten years from now gaming and especially how you consume it won't look like it does today. I do think with streaming services and new input devices and so on, it wouldn't surprise me if there is less need of hardware and more on demand gaming experience."

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