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Comment Re:OpenCL (Score 1) 66

by DeKO (#44365161) Attached to: OpenGL 4.4 and OpenCL 2.0 Specs Released

The gpuocelot project has been able to run CUDA in non-NVIDIA hardware for some time now, including x86 CPUs and AMD GPUs.

Too bad the CUDA compiler often segfaults on ordinary C++ libraries even when they are host-only (in which case nvcc is supposed to just forward it to GCC). Hopefully the LLVM-based compiler for OpenCL 2.0 won't be as buggy.
Electronic Frontier Foundation

Federal Judge Rejects State Secrets Claims: EFF Case To Proceed 146

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the nowhere-to-hide dept.
The EFF has been attempting to sue the government over illegal surveillance since the Bush administration, and, despite repeated attempts to have the case dismissed because of State Secrets, a federal judge has now ruled that the case must go forward in public court, throwing out the government's State Secrets argument. From the order: Having thoroughly considered the parties' papers, Defendants' public and classified declarations, the relevant legal authority and the parties' arguments, the Court GRANTS the Jewel Plaintiffs' motion for partial summary adjudication by rejecting the state secrets defense as having been displaced by the statutory procedure prescribed in 50 U.S.C. 1806(f) of FISA. In both related cases, the Court GRANTS Defendants' motions to dismiss Plaintiffs' statutory claims on the basis of sovereign immunity. The Court further finds that the parties have not addressed the viability of the only potentially remaining claims, the Jewel Plaintiffs' constitutional claims under the Fourth and First Amendments and the claim for violation of separation of powers and the Shubert Plaintiffs' fourth cause of action for violation of the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, the Court RESERVES ruling on Defendants' motion for summary judgment on the remaining, non-statutory claims." Although some statutory claims were dismissed, the core Constitutional questions will be litigated.

Comment Re:Easy (Score 2) 332

by DeKO (#43621725) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How To Handle a Colleague's Sloppy Work?

This. If it's your job to go and fix his mess, do it without complaining. And document all the effort you put into it, to avoid being labeled as someone that just rewrites code without adding anything.

If you are not responsible for cleaning after the senior, then don't do it, let it all rot until somebody (your boss, or even your colleague) makes the decision it's time to clean the mess.
Mars

4-Billion-Pixel Panorama View From Curiosity Rover 101

Posted by samzenpus from the take-a-look dept.
A reader points out that there is a great new panorama made from shots from the Curiosity Rover. "Sweep your gaze around Gale Crater on Mars, where NASA's Curiosity rover is currently exploring, with this 4-billion-pixel panorama stitched together from 295 images. ...The entire image stretches 90,000 by 45,000 pixels and uses pictures taken by the rover's two MastCams. The best way to enjoy it is to go into fullscreen mode and slowly soak up the scenery — from the distant high edges of the crater to the enormous and looming Mount Sharp, the rover's eventual destination."

Comment In world without copyrights (Score 1) 320

by DeKO (#42739917) Attached to: Pushing Back Against Licensing and the Permission Culture

In a world without copyright laws that would be feasible. But we don't, and it isn't. Commit code with no license and legally nobody is allowed to distribute your software. No company will ever willingly use your code, even if it does something unique and useful.

Grow up you hippie and accept that you have to learn something about laws before you interact with society.
Facebook

Maryland Bans Employers From Asking For Facebook Passwords 211

Posted by Soulskill from the state-bird-tweets-a-lot dept.
Freddybear writes with news that yesterday Maryland passed a bill through both houses of the state legislature that would forbid employers from requiring job applicants or employees to provide access to social media accounts. The bill now awaits only the signature of governor Martin O'Malley. "The bill is the first of its kind in the country, and has shined a spotlight on the practice of employers demanding personal social media passwords from potential hires, [said Melissa Goemann of the ACLU]." Similar legislation is being developed in California, Illinois and Michigan, according to the Washington Post.
Space

Swiss To Build Orbital Cleaning Satellite 147

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the so-that's-what-happens-to-s.o.l dept.
garyebickford writes "As The ETH Lausanne says: 'The proliferation of debris orbiting the Earth – primarily jettisoned rocket and satellite components – is an increasingly pressing problem for spacecraft, and it can generate huge costs. To combat this scourge, the Swiss Space Center at EPFL is announcing today the launch of CleanSpace One, a project to develop and build the first installment of a family of satellites specially designed to clean up space debris.' This looks like a reasonable method, although I think that at some future point it might be useful to just put at least the smaller stuff in a higher 'parking orbit' for later destruction or recycling. This way you wouldn't lose one vacuum cleaner for each satellite retrieved. And much later down the road, it might be useful to collect bigger units — expended boosters, for example — as raw materials and/or containers. The cost of getting the mass into space has already been spent. I optimistically foresee a future where much of the stuff sent into orbital space has a recycling function built into the design."
Microsoft

Same Platform Made Stuxnet, Duqu; Others Lurk 89

Posted by timothy from the what-evil-lurks-in-the-hearts-of-men dept.
wiredmikey writes "New research from Kaspersky Labs has revealed that the platform dubbed 'tilded' (~d), which was used to develop Stuxnet and Duqu, has been around for years. The researchers say that same platform has been used to create similar Trojans which have yet to be discovered. Alexander Gostev and Igor Sumenkov have put together some interesting research, the key point being that the person(s) behind what the world knows as Stuxnet and Duqu have actually been using the same development platform for several years." An anonymous reader adds a link to this "surprisingly entertaining presentation" (video) by a Microsoft engineer, in which "he tells the story of how he and others analysed the exploits used by Stuxnet. Also surprising are the simplicity of the exploits which were still present in Win7." See also the report at Secureist from which the SecurityWeek story draws.
Books

For Texas Textbooks, a Victory For Evolution 626

Posted by timothy from the evolving-attitude dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Texas Board of Education has unanimously come down on the side of evolution. In an 8-0 vote, the board today approved scientifically accurate high school biology textbook supplements from established mainstream publishers — and did not approve the creationist-backed supplements from International Databases, LLC."

Comment Re:NOT Ubuntu -- try Mandriva. (Score 1) 622

by DeKO (#36678466) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Easiest Linux Distro For a Newbie

Wrong. They use different kernel versions, with different kernel patches. And most importantly, the userland apps certainly differ here and there. The most important example is the Mandriva Control Center. It's task-oriented, making it far more friendly than searching for configuration tools by name - in particular, if you have a localized system, where translations are often arbitrary and non-intuitive.

For specific examples, check out Mandriva's wizards for video cards, disk partitioning, network setup, network sharing. Now try to setup those things under Ubuntu without hitting the Ubuntu forums first.

That said, network card compatibility is pretty much hit or miss, as they often depend on binary blobs (either proprietary or windows drivers) that break in different ways with different kernel versions. My dad's current laptop's wifi only works reliably with WEP, not WPA, while mine kernel-panics with WEP. I bet bugs would manifest themselves differently on Ubuntu.
Ubuntu

Ask Slashdot: Easiest Linux Distro For a Newbie 622

Posted by samzenpus from the low-difficulty dept.
anymooseposter writes "My mom is taking a computer class at the local Community College. she asks: 'I need to download a Linux OS and try it out for class. The assignment is to use an OS different from what you normally use. Well, since I use Windows and OS X, the assignment suggests Linux. But, my question is, what is the easiest version based on Linux for me to put on CD and try? I saw several on the web. Any thoughts off the top of your head?' What Linux Disto would be easiest to set up without having to resort to dual booting and/or driver issues?"

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