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Software

Computers With Opinions On Visual Aesthetics 125

Posted by timothy from the artificial-fastidiousness dept.
photoenthusiast writes "Penn State researchers launched a new online photo-rating system, code named Acquine (Aesthetic Quality Inference Engine), for automatically determining the aesthetic value of a photo. Users can upload their own photographs for an instant Acquine rating, a score from zero to 100. The system learns to associate extracted visual characteristics with the way humans rate photos based on a lot of previously-rated photographs. It is designed for color natural photographic pictures. Technical publications reveal how Acquine works."
Games

On the Feasibility of Single-Server MMOs 316

Posted by Soulskill from the where-are-my-ten-thousand-player-battles dept.
GameSetWatch takes a look at the issues involved in creating an MMO that does not split its users among many different servers. They suggest that running a single "shard" is the next step in the evolution of MMOs, since it better allows player choices to have a meaningful impact on the game world; supporting different outcomes across multiple shards is a technical nightmare. They estimate, from the hip, that the cost to develop the technology required to support a massive amount of players (i.e. far more than EVE Online) on a single server to be roughly $100 million. Another recommendation is the strong reliance on procedural and user-generated content creation to fill a necessarily enormous game world.
Security

Hacker Destroys Avsim.com, Along With Its Backups 780

Posted by timothy from the giving-you-the-benefit-of-their-bad-childhoods dept.
el americano writes "Flight Simulator community website Avsim has experienced a total data loss after both of their online servers were hacked. The site's founder, Tom Allensworth, explained why 13 years of community developed terrains, skins, and mods will not be restored from backups: 'Some have asked whether or not we had back ups. Yes, we dutifully backed up our servers every day. Unfortunately, we backed up the servers between our two servers. The hacker took out both servers, destroying our ability to use one or the other back up to remedy the situation.'"
Earth

GPS Accuracy Could Start Dropping In 2010 210

Posted by timothy from the how-to-blackmail-for-tax-dollars dept.
adamengst writes "A US Government Accountability Office report raises concerns about the Air Force's ability to modernize and maintain the constellation of satellites necessary to provide GPS services to military and civilian users. TidBITS looks at the situation and possible solutions."
Social Networks

Facebook Users Get Lower Grades In College 284

Posted by timothy from the but-doodlers-do-fine dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "According to a survey of college students Facebook users have lower overall grades than non-users. The study by Aryn Karpinski, an education researcher at Ohio State University, found that Facebook user GPAs are in the 3.0 to 3.5 range on average, compared to 3.5 to 4.0 for non-users and that Facebook users also studied anywhere from one to five hours per week, compared to non-users who studied 11 to 15 or more hours per week. Karpinski emphasized that correlation does not equal causation and that the grades association could be caused by something else. 'I'm just saying that there's some kind of relationship there, and there's many third variables that need to be studied.' One hypothesis is that students who spend more time enjoying themselves rather than studying might tend to latch onto the nearest distraction, such as Facebook or that students who use the social networking site might also spend more time on other non-studying activities such as sports or music. 'It may be that if it wasn't for Facebook, some students would still find other ways to avoid studying, and would still get lower grades. But perhaps the lower GPAs could actually be because students are spending too much time socializing online.' As for herself, Karpinski said she doesn't have a Facebook account, although the co-author of the study does. 'For me, I think Facebook is a huge distraction.'"

Comment Everyone's got an alphabet... (Score 1) 1057

by robathome (#25008683) Attached to: Testing IT Professionals On Job Interviews?

Yes, technical tests are fair, and required.

Recruiting agencies will put everything and anything on a candidate's resume. Their people are evaluated by how many interviews they can schedule, and how many placements they achieve. So, they will stack the applicant's CV with anything that's ever been in the same 10-mile radius as the individual in question.

The result is that you're faced with a piece of paper that looks identical to every other programmer's. It's an alphabet soup - .NET, C#, Java, C, C++, Python, .NET, ASP, ADO, JDBC, XSLT, VB, XML, SQL, BLAHBLAHBLAH. And every programmer lists every one of these. Even the projects look the same - "Senior programmer for web development project implementing a user portal and reporting system for... etc, etc, etc." I have a stack of 12 resumes sitting here in front of me, and could literally swap the names in the header and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

So, we make a first pass, weeding out those who a) can't write, even after the headhunter has spiffied their CV, b) are scant with details, and c) hop assignments every three months. The rest have to do a preliminary interview, and that mainly consists of determining whether or not they actually know any of the stuff that their resume's been padded with. Sure, we ask the traditional interview questions, but we also do a base knowledge test. You would be surprised how many .NET "programmers" we get who don't know the most basic C# operations, web developers who don't know the difference between POSTing and GETting form data, and "7+ years experience SQL" applicants who can't tell you how a left outer join works.

Programmer's resumes are becoming increasingly useless, especially when you're flooded with nearly identical H1-B applicants with the same vague academic credentials (ie: "BS Elec. Eng., India", "Masters of Computer Applications" - no institution listed, "Bachelor of Engineering" - no discipline given), identical alphabet soup, and interchangeable litanies of 6-month contracts scattered about the country. They all have widely varying levels of competence that is in no way obvious from their resume. They all have "7+ years experience." That's what makes up 90% of the programmer pool these days, and even if you're in the top 10% with verifiable credentials and a real track record, you're gonna have to go through the same process. Because those of us on the hiring end can't tell anymore from your paperwork, without giving you some sort of objective evaluation of skills, syntax, and basic concepts.

It's been the rule for some time now. Ten years ago, it was all of the newly minted MCSEs rolling out of the fly-by-night tech schools. Before that, it was the "paper CNA/CNE's" who were able to sit the Netware exams and pass by the grace of their deity of choice. And there have always been the code-monkey grindhouse diploma-mill shops, who crank out "programmers" in the language du jour - especially since the web boom - CGI, Java, .NET, AJAX. All with credentials like "Doctor of Divine Coding" and the real competency of an ADD third-grader.

So, don't take it as a personal insult. You may be better than all of the above, but no one can determine that from a piece of paper, a firm handshake, and a good story about how you were the lead coding god on your last project. 'Cause there's a dozen other applicants out there with the same spiel.
Power

Submission + - Hydrogen turbines generate clean electricity

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL) has developed near-zero-emission gas turbines using pure hydrogen as a fuel. But because this LSI (low-swirl injector) technology also can use other fuels, it has the potential to help eliminate millions of tons of carbon dioxide and thousands of tons of nitrous oxides (NOx) from power plants each year. In fact, burners with the LSI emit 2 parts per million of NOx, more than five times less than conventional burners. The multi-patented technology is currently available for licensing. I sure hope that a utility company will be interested. But read more for many additional references and photographs comparing a high-swirl injector (HIS) and a low-swirl injector (LSI)."
Security

Submission + - Laptop Anti-theft Software Options for Linux

Submitted by
yourexhalekiss
yourexhalekiss writes: "I'm going back to school this fall, and I run GNU/Linux on my laptop. With school being what it is, I want to keep my Kubuntu-powered System76 Darter Ultra as safe as it can be. Checking through SourceForge and Freshmeat, I can't find a single laptop theft-prevention or tracking program that works with GNU/Linux and has published code.

What do other people use to protect their non-Windows or Mac laptops, and how effective is it?"
Software

Submission + - Ghostscript unified, long live GPL v2 (kdedevelopers.org)

Submitted by bmcage
bmcage writes: Ghostscript is back, but does it still have a future for printing or on the Desktop with pdf going strong? Whatever happens, everybody should rejoice, as Ghostscript has a new version, a new license, and most importantly, the EPS Ghostscript fork has come to an end.

Welcome back in the fold, GPL Ghostscript! We'll make some room on the hard disk for you.
Businesses

Submission + - Australian court rules eBay auctions as binding

Submitted by
Ellis D. Tripp
Ellis D. Tripp writes: "An Australian court has ruled that an eBay seller cannot back out of an auction sale once it is successfully completed. The court has ordered a seller to hand over a vintage airplane to an eBayer who bid just over the reserve price of $128,000, despite a subsequent non-eBay offer of over $200,000. More details here:

http://www.comcast.net/news/technology/index.jsp?c at=TECHNOLOGY&fn=/2007/08/03/730424.html"
Portables

Submission + - 150 dollar laptop - true or scam? (computersweden.idg.se)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Medison, a small Swedish PC company, claims they will sell a basic Linux-based laptop for only 150 US dollars. But the company has been called in question in blogs, forums, and news articles, because the computer shown on the company's web site seems very similar to a laptop from another producer. Two days ago Medison met the Swedish press to straighten things out.
Google

Submission + - Google sidesteps mobile reports

Submitted by
Klaidas
Klaidas writes: "The BBC reports that Google has refused to deny mounting speculation that it is working to produce its own brand mobile phone. Reports suggest that the web giant is developing a "GPhone", centred on its mobile services, such as search, e-mail and maps. In a statement, Google said it was working with carriers, phone makers and content providers to "bring its services to users everywhere". "What our users and partners are telling us is that they want Google search and Google applications on mobile, and we are working hard every day to deliver that.", the statement said. The firm would not clarify if its efforts included plans for a handset."
Software

Submission + - Is There Any Room For E-Mail in 'Enterprise 2.0'? (socialcomputingmagazine.com) 2

Submitted by jg21
jg21 writes: According to this article in Social Computing Magazine, the increasingly widely used label Enterprise 2.0 signifies, above all, software enabling collaboration — what TFA calls "a many-to-many communication medium that creates interaction" – and therefore does *NOT* really include email, which the author characterizes as a "one-to-one communication medium ... more about instruction." What are the realistic chances that actual collaboration will become the number one form of communication in the enterprise, displacing email?

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