cuckundu - Slashdot User

Wikipedia Could Block 67 Million Verizon Customers 481

Posted by timothy on Sunday November 14, 2010 @11:29PM from the but-that's-why-the-internet-exists dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A particularly nasty Wikipedia vandal has forced a discussion to take place over whether to block edits from an address range used by over 67 million Verizon customers. Verizon has not responded to abusive Wikipedia users on their network before, even though the abusive Verizon users have released private information (phone numbers, etc.) of numerous individuals, and made countless threats that have also been reported to law enforcement. Wikipedia has done something similar in the past with users on the AOL network, which used proxy servers and thus allowed vandals to continue disrupting the site. Discussion is also taking place on alternate solutions to deal with abuse from this Verizon user, named 'Zsfgseg' on Wikipedia. If a block of millions is enacted, Verizon could potentially change how they assign IP addresses, or be forced at least to address a PR nightmare."

Australian Researchers Devise Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computer 63

Posted by timothy on Sunday November 14, 2010 @07:07PM from the majority-rules dept.

schliz writes "Researchers have devised a theoretical quantum computer that could function even if one in four qubits were missing. The design is claimed to be the first that tolerates both qubit loss and decoherance to this extent. It performs calculations by measuring, rather than manipulating qubits, so there are fewer points of failure."

Which Language To Learn? 897

Posted by kdawson on Saturday November 13, 2010 @07:12PM from the future-proofing-the-skillset dept.

LordStormes writes "I've been a Java/C++/PHP developer for about 6 years now. However, I'm seeing the jobs for these languages dry up, and Java in particular is worrisome with all the Oracle nonsense going on. I think it's time to pick up a new language or risk my skills fading into uselessness. I'm looking to do mostly Web-based back-end stuff. I've contemplated Perl, Python, Ruby, Erlang, Go, and several other languages, but I'll put it to you — what language makes the most sense now to get the jobs? I've deliberately omitted .NET — I have no desire to do the Microsoft languages."

The Monopolies That Dominate the Internet 342

Posted by kdawson on Saturday November 13, 2010 @04:58PM from the meet-the-new-boss dept.

Tim Wu has a piece up at the Wall Street Journal pointing out that the free-market, open Internet — "competition in its purest form" — has evolved to be dominated by monopolies. Wu argues that this is nothing new, and that each wave of information technology in the US has followed a similar pattern. "Today's Internet borders will probably change eventually, especially as new markets appear. But it's hard to avoid the conclusion that we are living in an age of large information monopolies. Could it be that the free market on the Internet actually tends toward monopolies? Could it even be that demand, of all things, is actually winnowing the online free market — that Americans, so diverse and individualistic, actually love these monopolies? ... Info-monopolies tend to be good-to-great in the short term and bad-to-terrible in the long term."

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