Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Nobel Prize Winner Randy Schekman Boycotts Journals for 'Branding Tyranny' (ibtimes.co.uk) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: One of this year's winners of the Nobel Peace prize has declared a boycott on leading academic journals after he accused them of contributing to the "disfigurement" of science.

Randy Schekman, who won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, said he would no longer contribute papers or research to the prestigious journals, Nature, Cell and Science and called for other scientists to fight the "tyranny" of the publications.

Comment Re:Estimation (Score 1) 473

by Inzkeeper (#45167123) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Are the Hardest Things Programmers Have To Do?
Estimating continues to be the bane of my existence.
But the most lost I every was involved trying to estimate a full database data conversion process from an old non-rdbms system.
"Oh but our data is clean", they said.
I spent over a week just fixing / coding for bad date formats.
I asked a senior guy for advice. He suggested something similar:

Come up with a number. Multiple by an arbitrary single digit. Double it. Double it again.

Eventually I learned not to fix bid data conversion. Ever.

Comment Re:Improvement (Score 2) 232

by Inzkeeper (#45134495) Attached to: ITER Fusion Reactor On Track To Generating Power By 2028
I agree that fusion power has been 20 years off for at least 60 years now.
We have known the basic principles for a long time so how hard can it be, right?
You just mash some atoms together until they fuse. After lunch we will tackle time travel.

What makes this different is the international consortium of government funding of the project to the tune of $30 BILLION.
Call me naive, but I believe this is going to happen. On time and on budget, well, that is a different question.

Comment Re:This is why they hate us (Score 2) 228

Yes, Fantec was approached in an effort to work it out.
Their initial reaction was to deny everything.
When confronted with undeniable proof, they simply blamed a contractor and said that they were not responsible.
...at least, that's what the articles I read reported.
At that point, what options are left?

Submission + - Groupon CEO is fired but goes out with class (cnet.com)

Submitted by Inzkeeper
Inzkeeper writes: Groupon CEO Andrew Mason made public an email he sent to Groupon employees. He takes responsibility for the company's downturn, expresses his appreciation for his staff, and wishes them well. "For those who are concerned about me, please don't be — I love Groupon, and I'm terribly proud of what we've created. I'm OK with having failed at this part of the journey. If Groupon was Battletoads, it would be like I made it all the way to the Terra Tubes without dying on my first ever play through."

Submission + - Torvalds clarifies Linux's Windows 8 Secure Boot position (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: No one, but no one, in the Linux community likes Microsoft's mandated deployment of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) Secure Boot option in Windows 8 certified PCs. But, how Linux should handle the fixes required to deal with this problem remains a hot-button issue. Now, as the debate continues hot and heavy, Linus Torvalds, Linux's founder and de facto leader, spells out how he thinks Linux should deal with Secure Boot keys.
Businesses

Submission + - Anonymous Leaks Bank Of America 'Secrets' (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by
redletterdave
redletterdave writes: "Hacker collective Anonymous released 16 gigabytes of data, code and software on Thursday related to Bank of America, Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters and others, claiming that Bank of America had employed security firms to 'spy and collect information on private citizens.' From the Anonymous press release: 'We release the received files in full to raise awareness to this issue and to send a signal to corporations and Governments that this is unacceptable.'"

Submission + - Moscow's speed cameras 'knackered' by MYSTERY malware (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
iComp
iComp writes: "Malware has infected a Russian police computer network, knackering speed cameras in and around Moscow, according to reports.

Broadsheet daily Izvestia reckons a server operated by the Office of Traffic Police was infiltrated by an unidentified Trojan. The infection disabled parts of the cops' Arrow-ST system used to monitor key highways in and around the Russian capital, we're told.

Cleaning up the mess has been complicated by the transfer of a government contract for the equipment's maintenance: SK Region, the supplier of the kit, handed the reins over to IntechGeoTrans earlier this year.

The cameras should bring in 100 million roubles ($3.2m) per month in speeding fines, but the network apparently hasn't been working properly for at least two weeks. Some reports suggested it went wrong as early as the start of February.

All this has sparked a massive political row: politicians blamed IntechGeoTrans for not sorting out the problem, but the company claimed it inherited a system in a state of chronic disrepair."
Politics

Submission + - Texas Declares War on Robots (robots.net) 2

Submitted by Mr_Blank
Mr_Blank writes: Organizations like the EFF and ACLU have been raising the alarm over increased government surveillance of US citizens. Legislators haven't been quick to respond to concerns of government spying on citizens. But Texas legislators are apparently quite concerned that private citizens operating hobby drones might spot environmental violations by businesses. Representative Lance Gooden has introduced HB912 which proposes: "A person commits an offense if the person uses or authorizes the use of an unmanned vehicle or aircraft to capture an image without the express consent of the person who owns or lawfully occupies the real property captured in the image. ('Image' is defined as including any type of recorded telemetry from sensors that measure sound waves, thermal, infrared, ultraviolet, visible light, or other electromagnetic waves, odor, or other conditions.)" Can you foresee any unintended consequences if this proposal becomes law?
Security

Submission + - Tech Guru Warns Of Internet "Disaster" (infowars.com)

Submitted by
helix2301
helix2301 writes: "Speaking to Wired’s Michael V. Copeland at the TED 2013 conference currently taking place in Long Beach, Hillis argues that because so many interconnected systems are now reliant on the world wide web, “We’re setting ourselves up for disaster, like we did with the financial system.” Pointing to examples like the Stuxnet virus, US military data being routed through China, and the threat of a massive denial of service attack targeting the entire web, Hillis advocates building a second backbone that would kick in like a back-up generator “when the internet is in trouble.”"
Technology

Submission + - NYC's Trash-Sucking Tubes May Be Upgraded, Expanded (vice.com)

Submitted by derekmead
derekmead writes: When urban planners were trying to turn New York’s Roosevelt Island from a haven for the disabled and the mentally ill into a liveable city, they gotutopian. Lying beneath their plans was an unusual technology: a series of tubes that literallysuck garbage from buildingsat speeds up to 60 miles per hour to a central collection point, where the trash is taken off the island by truck or barge. Theoretically, that eliminates the emissions and traffic caused by giant garbage trucks, and makes trash sorting easier.

Now, more than thirty years after the “AVAC,” or Automated Vacuum Collection System, was installed, Envac, the Swedish company that built it, is exploring how to upgrade it and even extend the system to other parts of the city. Under a new feasibilitystudyconducted by City University and funded by two city agencies, the easiest option would be to stretch the current system south, to cover the new technology campuses being built on Roosevelt Island by Cornell University and the Technion.

Other potential trash tube candidates include the Coney Island boardwalk, in a new housing development there, and near Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan. There, according to Envac’s new proposal, the tubes could ride underneath the infrastructure of the High Line, the hip railway-cum-park that floats along the neighborhood’s increasingly hip river-side edge.

Slashdot Top Deals

"It's the best thing since professional golfers on 'ludes." -- Rick Obidiah

Close