jlechem - Slashdot User

Submission + - Will Donglegate Affect Your Decision to Attend PyCon? 4

Submitted by theodp on Friday March 22, 2013 @07:23PM

theodp writes: Its Code of Conduct describes PyCon as 'a welcoming, friendly event for all.' But will the post-conference fallout from this year's 'Donglegate' debacle and proposed remedies affect your decision — one way or the other — to attend next year's PyCon in ironically naughty Montreal? And even if not, could 'Donglegate' influence the-powers-that-be whose approval you'll need to attend? How about conference sponsors? Also, how important is PyCon to the Python ecosystem — any chance that this year's incident could have a short or long-term effect on Python itself?

Submission + - Monsanto's Death Patents .. (counterpunch.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 22, 2013 @06:40PM

An anonymous reader writes: Monsanto has yet another case pending in the court system, this time before the U.S. Supreme Court on the exclusivity of its genetically modified seed patents. Narrowly at issue is whether Monsanto retains patent rights on soybeans that have been replanted after showing up in generic stocks rather than being sold specifically as seeds, or whether those patent rights are “exhausted” after the initial planting. But more broadly the case also raises implications regarding control of the food supply and the patenting of life – questions that current patent laws are ill-equipped to meaningfully address.

Submission + - Primitive Molecule May Hold Key to Evolution of DNA and Early Life on Earth

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 22, 2013 @06:03PM

An anonymous reader writes: DNA may hold the building blocks to life, but there may have been a simpler, more primitive form of the molecule in the ancient past. John Chaput, a researcher at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, has now shown that DNA sequences can be transcribed into a molecule known as TNA and reverse transcribed back into DNA using enzymes.

Submission + - Marijuana Use May Increase the Risk of Nicotine Addiction, Rat Study

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 22, 2013 @05:33PM

An anonymous reader writes: People who smoke marijuana are more likely to develop nicotine addiction, a new study reveals. A new study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) found that exposure to the primary psychoactive chemical compound in marijuana, THC, triggers stronger nicotine addiction in laboratory rats.

Submission + - IBM Dipping Chips in 'Ionic Liquid' to Save Power (slashdot.org)

Submitted by

Nerval's Lobster

on Friday March 22, 2013 @05:00PM

Nerval's Lobster writes: "IBM announced this week that it has developed a way to manufacture both logic and memory that relies on a small drop of “ionic liquid” to flip oxides back and forth between an insulating and conductive state without the need to constantly draw power. In theory, that means both memory and logic built using those techniques could dramatically save power. IBM described the advance in the journal Science, and also published a summary of its results to its Website. The central idea is to eliminate as much power as possible as it moves through a semiconductor. IBM’s solution is to use a bit of “ionic liquid” to flip the state. IBM researchers applied a positively charged ionic liquid electrolyte to an insulating oxide material—vanadium dioxide—and successfully converted the material to a metallic state. The material held its metallic state until a negatively charged ionic liquid electrolyte was applied in order to convert it back to its original, insulating state. A loose analogy would be to compare IBM’s technology to the sort of electronic ink used in the black-and-white versions of the Kindle and other e-readers. There, an electrical charge can be applied to the tiny microcapsules that contain the “ink,” hiding or displaying them to render a page of text. Like IBM’s solution, the e-ink doesn’t require a constant charge; power only needs to be applied to re-render or “flip” the page. In any event, IBM’s technique could conceivably be applied to both mobile devices as well as power-hungry data centers."

Submission + - GCC 4.8.0 Release Marks Completion of C++ Migration

Submitted by hypnosec on Friday March 22, 2013 @04:50PM

hypnosec writes: GCC 4.8 has been released and with it the developers of the GNU Compiler Collection have switched to C++ as the implementation language for which the developers have been working for years. Licensed under the GPLv3 or later, version 4.8 of the GCC not only brings with it performance improvements but also adds memory error detector AddressSanitizer; and race condition detection tool the ThreadSanitizer. Developers wanting to build their own version of GCC should have at their disposal a C++ compiler that understands C++ 2003.

Submission + - Capcom is Bringing Ducktales Back

Submitted by jones_supa on Friday March 22, 2013 @04:07PM

jones_supa writes: Many of Slashdotters are probably aware of the 1989 Nintendo Entertainment System platformer classic DuckTales, designed around the Disney cartoon series. Capcom announced today at their PAX East panel that they are resurrecting the beloved game. Developed by Wayforward and Capcom, DuckTales: Remastered is something of a remake based on the original version. The embedded video shows some solid back-to-basics platformer action. The game will be out this summer for Xbox Live, PSN, and Wii U.

Submission + - MasterCard stings PayPal with payment fee hike (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by

iComp

on Friday March 22, 2013 @12:15PM

iComp writes: "PayPal, Google Wallet and other online payment systems face higher transaction fees from MasterCard in retaliation for their refusal to share data on what people are spending. Visa is likely to follow suit.

The amount that PayPal has to pay MasterCard for every transaction will go up as the latter introduces new charges for intermediated payment processors. This change is on the grounds that such processors don't share transaction details, which the card giants would love to get hold of as it can be used to research buying patterns and the like.

Companies such as PayPal allow payments between users, so the party (perhaps a merchant) receiving the money doesn't need to be registered with the credit-card company. PayPal collects the dosh from the payer's card, and deducts a processing fee before passing the cash on to the receiving party. MasterCard would prefer the receiver to be registered directly so will apply the new fee from June to any payment that is staged in this way.

The fee will only apply within the US, initially at least, and Visa hasn't said it will follow suit. But Reuters tells us that Visa's CEO described the new fee as "totally appropriate", and it is already impacting PayPal's owner eBay according to financial blogger Tom Noyes.

PayPal exploded in use because registering to receive credit-card payments was a tortuous process best left to large retailers. But companies such as Square and Sailpay have simplified that process enormously and MasterCard clearly feels the PayPal's raison d'etre has been largely eliminated — so the time has come for the killer punch."

Comment Re:I'm not even a fan, but (Score 0, Troll) 1174

by jlechem on Tuesday March 05, 2013 @07:47PM (#43085893) Attached to: Orson Scott Card's Superman Story Shelved After Homophobia Controversy

I couldn't disagree more, one of his most popular series outside of Ender is pretty much a straight rip off of the Book Of Mormon. And for those who don't know that is the main religious text of his faith the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He is an outspoken douchebag verbally and in writing and I couldn't be more glad to see his work not get published,

Comment Re:Pfui! My country's post system does a better jo (Score 1) 564

by jlechem on Monday February 11, 2013 @12:47PM (#42860363) Attached to: On the end of USPS 1st Class Saturday delivery:

I've had the exact same opposite, it takes 2-3 days for a letter mailed in Utah to get from Davis County to Salt Lake Count (20 mile difference, why it was mailed is a different story). My dad lives in Nebraska and a letter can take anywhere from 4-6 days to get there (1500 miles).

Boxes are impressive, I've never lost anything and they always arrive in great shape and on time. UPS and Fedex don't have great track records with my packages. I've mailed several things home internationally and the USPS is indeed better than most countries post offices IMHO.

Comment Re:The standards are published in English (Score 1) 330

by jlechem on Friday February 08, 2013 @07:08PM (#42838619) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Do Most Programmers Understand the English Language?

I agree, I'm not surprised but still saddened to see the pricks coming out of the wood work here. I have an app on sourceforge that my next big step is to add localization. It's a hard thing to do, control lengths, poor translations, etc. But you never know who might be using something you release out into the wild.

Comment Re:Good ones do (Score 1) 330

by jlechem on Friday February 08, 2013 @06:56PM (#42838469) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Do Most Programmers Understand the English Language?

What a bunch of bullshit. I've been working on code written by people who don't speak a lick of English and it's all C or C# and its good code. Just because you don't get the language doesn't mean the code is bad or they suck. God I hope you're not American because you're making us look bad.

Comment No (Score 1) 330

by jlechem on Friday February 08, 2013 @01:44PM (#42834405) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Do Most Programmers Understand the English Language?

After working for various companies, if they're a US only company sure. But anything with a remote chance of having non US/English speakers is doubtful. I am currently working on code chock full of Japanese comments and variable names. It's a huge freaking PITA. And I'm sure they hate it when I add English comments and variable names to their pristine Japanese code.

Comment Re:Word (Score 1) 586

by jlechem on Tuesday October 30, 2012 @08:31PM (#41825817) Attached to: The IDE As a Bad Programming Language Enabler

As a C# programmer I would take 2x4 to someone for doing any kind of non trivial code in a property. It violates all the C# good practices. Just like in C++ you can do some stupid shit. Does that make it a bad language? No it makes you a somewhat douchebag programmer.

Comment Re:Right (Score 5, Informative) 314

by jlechem on Monday October 29, 2012 @07:53PM (#41812191) Attached to: Want a Security Pro? Get Politically Incorrect and Learn Geek Culture

I agree 100%, I used to work for a DoD contractor that required secret security clearance. Somehow I managed to pass but I referred several people who didn't make it past the preliminary background check. All of them were extremely competent and excellent programmers. However I found some were because of bankruptcy and others had actual criminal backgrounds. I agree loosening the rules would increase the pool of applicants but in the eyes of the US government who are you trusting with what can be very sensitive information. They only want squeaky clean individuals to keep their risk down. But then they get guys like Bradley Manning who decide to steal info pretty much from right under his bosses noses so I don't know. It's double sided but I see why they do it.

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