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Submission + - Most IT workers DON'T have STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Math) degrees (wsj.com)

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: The Wall Street Journal's Michael Totty shares some stereotype-shattering statistics about IT workers: Most of them don't have college degrees in computer science, technology, engineering or math. About a third come to IT with degrees in business, social sciences or other nontechnical fields, while more than 40% of computer support specialists and a third of computer systems administrators don't have a college degree at all!

The analysis is based upon two job categories as defined by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics: network and computer systems administrator, and computer support specialist.

Submission + - Obamacare Website violates GPL (weeklystandard.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to the Weekly Standard, the troubled Healthcare Marketplace website (www.healthcare.gov) uses code from DataTables.net, dual-licensed under GPL 2 or a BSD license, without attribution, even going so far as to remove the copyright notice. While the effort is undoubtedly a complex software engineering project, the lack of scruples is only slightly more troubling that the engine was designed by a company that apparently didn't realize that client-side code is easy to examine.

Submission + - How to FIx Healthcare.GOV: Go Open-Source! (businessweek.com) 1

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: Over at Bloomberg Businessweek (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-16/open-source-everything-the-moral-of-the-healthcare-dot-gov-debacle), Paul Ford explains that the debacle known as ealthcare.gov makes clear that it is time for the government to change the way it ships code: namely, by embracing the open source approach to software development that has revolutionized the technology industry.

Submission + - Windows 8 Apps Will Run and Sync on Xbox One

Submitted by SmartAboutThings
SmartAboutThings writes: If you’ve been following the news closely, then you probably know that Microsoft hinted towards the fact that Windows 8 apps will run on the upcoming Xbox One gaming console. We didn’t see any official information yet, probably because the Redmond company is keeping this for the official launch of the Xbox One that is scheduled for November. But it seems that DELL made a small (or big?) mistake by accidentally confirming this on its promotional page for Xbox One accessories, saying the following — "With all your favorite Windows 8 apps able to be run on and synced to your Xbox One". What do you think — could this really happen and will this be useful?

Submission + - Huawei Using NSA Scandal to Turn Tables on Accusations of Spying (slashdot.org) 2

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: Huawei Technologies, the Chinese telecom giant banned from selling to U.S. government agencies due to its alleged ties to Chinese intelligence services, is trying to turn the tables on its accusers by offering itself as a safe haven for customers concerned that the NSA has compromised their own IT vendors. “We have never been asked to provide access to our technology, or provide any data or information on any citizen or organization to any Government, or their agencies,” Huawei Deputy Chairman Ken Hu said in the introduction to a 52-page white paper on cybersecurity published Oct. 18. Huawei was banned from selling to U.S. government entities and faced barriers to civilian sales following a 2012 report from the U.S. House of Representatives that concluded Huawei’s management had not been forthcoming enough to convince committee members to disregard charges it had given Chinese intelligence services backdoors into its secure systems and allowed Chinese intelligence agents to pose as Huawei employees. But the company promises to create test centers where governments and customers can test its products and inspect its services as part of an “open, transparent and sincere” approach to questions about its alleged ties, according to a statement in the white paper from Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei. Can Huawei actually gain more customers by playing off the Snowden scandal?

Submission + - Scientology's fraud conviction upheld in France (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: France's top appeals court has upheld a fraud conviction and fines totaling hundreds of thousands of euros against the Church of Scientology, for taking advantage of vulnerable followers.

France regards Scientology as a cult, not a religion, and had prosecuted individual Scientologists before, but the 2009 trial marked the first time the organisation as a whole had been convicted.

Submission + - Poll: Which 3-letter organization would you LEAST want a visit from?

Submitted by CyberSlugGump
CyberSlugGump writes: Idea for a poll: Which 3-letter organization would you LEAST want a visit from?

BSA (the software one)
CDC (the disease one)
CIA (the inelligence one)
DEA (the drug one)
EPA (the environment one)
FBI (the bureau one)
IRS (the revenue one)
NSA (S != Snowden one)
LDS (the saints one)
SEC (the exchange one)

Submission + - Starbucks wi-fi more secure than Pentagon network (abc.net.au)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Using the wi-fi connection at Starbucks was a better bet than risking putting confidential defense documents on a glitch-prone Pentagon computer network, a senior US defense chief says.

The internet link at the local Starbucks was "the best bad option that we had," Air Force Colonel Karen Mayberry told the judge at the trial of five prisoners charged with plotting the September 11 hijacked plane attacks. Defense lawyers have asked the judge to halt pre-trial hearings in the death penalty case of the alleged plotters at the Guantanamo Bay US naval base until the computer system can be fixed to ensure that outsiders cannot access confidential defense documents.

Col Mayberry ordered her team of lawyers to stop putting sensitive documents on that system in April, citing their ethical obligation to protect confidentiality. The lawyers have since been using personal computers to email documents from coffee shops and hotel lobbies.

Where have my trillions been going over the past decade?

Submission + - IE6 Finally Falls Under 5% Market Share 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The latest market share numbers from Net Applications show Internet Explorer was the biggest winner last month. Between August and September, IE gained 0.19 percentage points (from 57.60 percent to 57.79 percent), Firefox slipped 0.22 percentage points (from 18.80 percent to 18.58 percent), and Chrome dipped 0.02 percentage points (from 16.00 percent to 15.98 percent). IE6 slipped a huge 1.22 percentage points to 4.86 percent. This means it has finally fallen below the 5 percent mark, which we weren’t expecting till sometime later this year. Microsoft itself confirms the milestone occurred during September 2013.

Submission + - How to turn off Slashdot Auto-Refresh? 4

Submitted by Futurepower(R)
Futurepower(R) writes: Slashdot's Auto-Refresh is annoying. I go to another window to do something, and when I come back, what I was reading is not there!

How do I turn Auto-Refresh off?

Submission + - How the NFL Fleeces Taxpayers (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by anlashok
anlashok writes: When so much money has been cut from education at all different levels and STEM programs and research have to fight for resources, why are our nation's priorities so screwed up?
"Taxpayers fund the stadiums, antitrust law doesn't apply to broadcast deals, the league enjoys nonprofit status, and Commissioner Roger Goodell makes $30 million a year. It's time to stop the public giveaways to America's richest sports league—and to the feudal lords who own its teams."

Submission + - Multi-Display Gaming Artifacts Shown with AMD, 4K Affected Too (pcper.com)

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile writes: Multi-display gaming has really found a niche in the world of high-end PC gaming, starting when AMD released Eyefinity in 2009 in three panel configurations. AMD expanded out to 6 screen options in 2010 and NVIDIA followed shortly thereafter with a similar multi-screen solution called Surround. Over the last 12 months or so GPU performance testing has gone through a sort of revolution as the move from software measurement to hardware capture measurement has taken hold. PC Perspective has done testing with this new technology on AMD Eyefinity and NVIDIA Surround configurations at 5760x1080 resolution and found there were some substantial anomalies in the AMD captures. The AMD cards exhibited dropped frames, interleaved frames (jumping back and forth between buffers) and even stepped, non-horizontal vertical sync tearing. The result is a much lower observed frame rate than software like FRAPS would indicate and these problems will also be found when using the current top end dual-head 4K PC displays since they emulate Eyefinity and Surround for setup.

Submission + - Dial Up Poll

Submitted by rueger
rueger writes: The last time that I used a dial-up modem was:

x Right this minute!
x More than a month ago
x More than a year ago
x More than five years ago
x A dial-up what?
x ATDT8003182265
x I leech off of Cowboy Neal's Wifi

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