lax-goalie - Slashdot User

Submission + - Are CS students poor programmers? 2

Submitted by

DavidHumus

on Tuesday October 30, 2007 @04:04PM

DavidHumus writes: "Recently, at a computer conference, I heard two separate people say the same thing during the same day: computer science students are usually very poor programmers. Both these people were college professors in areas that do a lot of computing — mathematics and biology (population genetics) — and have dealt with a lot of students who have had to write programs for their courses.

The specific complaint of both professors was that CS students seem to have very superfical knowledge, that they don't understand things like the limitations of floating point arithmetic and verifying their output. One professor recounted the story of a student who wanted a good grade on a program because it ran to completion — never mind that the answers it gave were off by many orders of magnitude.

Do slashdotters agree or disagree with this? If it is true, why? Shouldn't computer science students be good programmers?"

Submission + - Apocalypse Soon? Naval Group to Discuss Extinction 2

Submitted by Maria Williams on Tuesday October 30, 2007 @06:47AM

Maria Williams writes: Wired says Should the U.S. military be thinking more about asteroid shields, lifeshield bunkers and antimatter weapon shields? Oh, and an alien shield.

If these defensive systems/catastrophic scenarios are something you feel the Navy should be pondering, visit the Lifeboat Foundation's plea for donations. Lifeboat Foundation is dedicated "to helping humanity survive existential risks." The Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group contacted the foundation because it wants its future leaders to have the "opportunity to gain insights into the activities of the Lifeboat Foundation and have discussion about different programs you have to help 'safeguard humanity'."

Submission + - New brushless generator for wind turbines (physorg.com)

Submitted by

sterlingda

on Tuesday October 30, 2007 @01:00AM

sterlingda writes: "A research team from the University of Cambridge have developed a new generator technology for the wind turbine industry to the point of commercial exploitation, for application in a wide spectrum of wind turbines ranging from multi-megawatt systems for wind farms down to domestic micro turbines."

Submission + - Japan to fingerprint all foreign visitors (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by azuredrake on Monday October 29, 2007 @03:55PM

azuredrake writes: According to the BBC, Japan's government is planning to fingerprint and photograph all visiting foreigners beginning on November 20th of this year. As support for the controversial programs, the country's justice minister has said "a friend of a friend" was a member of al-Qaeda who had visited the country illegally several times and had been involved in one of the bombings in Bali. While this seems more like political suicide than a convincing argument to violate the privacy of all visiting foreigners, the program itself is interesting. If it succeeds, other countries would surely follow suit, leading to a vast national database of fingerprints and photographs of travelers.

Submission + - Apple's Woz Has Harsh Words for Open Source (eweek.com)

Submitted by buzzardsbay on Monday September 24, 2007 @02:00PM

buzzardsbay writes: In a rollicking interview with eWEEK magazine, Apple guru Steve Wozniak dishes on Jobs, the iPhone and, ultimately, open source, saying: "There's always a group of people that wants to undo the forces of industry that have given us so much in terms of wealth, and there's always people who want things to be free. The open-source movement starts with those sort of people." Woz does concede that open source has "good points that have nothing to do with whether it's free or not." And he was wearing a nixie-tube watch, so how much can you really dislike him?

Submission + - Intel discloses 40Gbps silicon photodetector (intel.com)

Submitted by Terascale on Monday September 24, 2007 @12:53PM

Terascale writes: Intel has announced a 40Gbps waveguide photodetector. This follows recent work in waveguide-based modulators and hybrid silicon lasers which cover the trasmission side for 40G. Until now, Intel hasn't mentioned what they are doing for the receive end of the link. Since silicon is optically clear in infrared communications wavelengths, it can't be used to detect the light. So, what they did was to integrate a layer of Germanium on top of the silicon waveguide channel, which does absorb the light at high speed.

Submission + - Extortion, Conspiracy Claims Against RIAA Upheld

Submitted by

NewYorkCountryLawyer

on Friday September 21, 2007 @06:25PM

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "You may recall that back in June a Florida woman counterclaimed against the RIAA for Trespass, Computer Fraud and Abuse, Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices, Civil Extortion, and Civil Conspiracy involving use of unlicensed private investigators without license, unauthorized access to a protected computer system, in interstate commerce, and extortion, in UMG v. Del Cid. She amended her counterclaims in some respects in August, and the RIAA wasted no time moving to dismiss all six of the amended counterclaims. Judge Richard A. Lazzara of the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida has now issued his decision sustaining five of the six counterclaims, dismissing only the counterclaim for copyright misuse claim. Judge Lazzara's decision (pdf) rejected, in its entirety, the RIAA's assertion of the "Noerr Pennington" defense, since it is inapplicable to "sham litigations", and Ms. Del Cid had properly alleged that the RIAA's cases were indeed "sham"."

Submission + - Cool IT job: driving the Mars Rover (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

Lucas123

on Friday September 21, 2007 @04:58PM

Lucas123 writes: "Todd Weiss at Computerworld interviewed the Mars Rover team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory about what it's like to remotely control a car from 100 million miles away. The NASA engineers don't sit at a console and operate the rovers remotely using a joystick. Because of the vast distance between Earth and Mars, there's a lag time between when the data is sent to the rovers and when it is received. That means that operations in real-time, or at the split-second a command is given, aren't possible. "Driving into ... craters is "fun, but they're actually dangerous.""

Submission + - Should robots be weaponized? (10zenmonkeys.com)

Submitted by

destinyland

on Friday September 21, 2007 @04:54PM

destinyland writes: "MIT Robotics professor Rodney Brooks, (the CTO of iRobot Corporation) is asking a good question about the future of robotics — should robots be weaponized? And if so, what happens to the Geneva convention? Will a person be involved somewhere in their decision-making algorithms, or will humane treatment be hardwired into the robot's personality. It's not entirely hypothetical; all his robots now are used by the military (to detect explosive devices), so it's the next logical step, he points out in this video interview from San Francisco's Singularity conference. "We face some questions coming up....""

Submission + - Infomercial company sues anonymous critics (typepad.com)

Submitted by

Greg Beck

on Friday September 21, 2007 @02:59PM

Greg Beck writes: "Video Professor, which sells DVD-based computer lessons via infomercial, sued 100 anonymous posters who wrote critical reviews of their products in a variety of online forums. It then sent subpoenas to the boards where the negative reviews were posted demanding release of the posters' identities and IP addresses. One forum operator is objecting to the subpoena on First Amendment grounds."

Submission + - Google plans new undersea cable across Pacific (commsday.com)

Submitted by

tregetour

on Friday September 21, 2007 @02:56PM

tregetour writes: "Google is planning a multi-terabit undersea communications cable across the Pacific Ocean for launch in 2009, Communications Day has learned.

Google would not strictly confirm or deny the existence of the Unity plan today, with spokesman Barry Schnitt telling our North American correspondent Patrick Neighly that "Additional infrastructure for the Internet is good for users and there are a number of proposals to add a Pacific submarine cable. We're not commenting on any of these plans."

However, Communications Day understands that Unity would see Google join with other carriers to build a new multi-terabit cable. Google would get access to a fibre pair at build cost handing it a tremendous cost advantage over rivals such as MSN and Yahoo, and also potentially enabling it to peer with Asia ISPs behind their international gateways — considerably improving the affordability of Internet services across Asia Pacific."

Submission + - Do You Need a Permit to Land on the Moon? (slate.com) 4

Submitted by

Billosaur

on Friday September 21, 2007 @01:28PM

Billosaur writes: "With the recent announcement of Google's X-prize for a successful private landing of a robot on the Moon, someone has asked the Explainer at Slate.com if permission is required to land something on the Moon? Turns out that while there is no authority that regulates landing objects on another world, getting there does require the permission of the national government from where the launch takes place. This is in accordance with the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, signed by 91 nations, which regulates the uses of outer space by the nations of Earth. Specifically, Article VI enjoins: "The activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty." Start your paperwork!"

Submission + - Future Looks Bright for Large Scale Solar Farms

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens

on Friday September 21, 2007 @12:44PM

Hugh Pickens writes: "The economist reports that Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems that capture and focus the sun's rays to heat a working fluid and drive a turbine, are making a comeback. Although the world's largest solar farm was built over twenty years ago, until recently no new plants have been built. Now with the combination of federal energy credits, the enactment of renewable energy standards in many states, and public antipathy to coal fired power plant, the first such plant to be built in decades started providing 64 megawatts of electricity to Las Vegas this summer. Electricity from the Nevada plant costs an estimated 17 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh), but projections suggest that CSP power could fall to below ten cents per kWh as the technology improves. Coal power costs just 2-3 cents per kWh but that will likely rise if regulation eventually factors in the environmental costs of the carbon coal produces."

Submission + - RIAA Targets New Colleges, Still Avoids Harvard

Submitted by

NewYorkCountryLawyer

on Friday September 21, 2007 @11:02AM

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Billboard reports that the RIAA has filed its eighth round of "early settlement" letters to twenty-two colleges. Continuing its practice of avoiding Harvard, the RIAA's new round does not include any letters to that institution, where certain law professors have counseled resistance to the RIAA and told the RIAA to "take a hike". The unlucky institutions on the receiving end of the 403 new letters include Arizona State University (35 pre-litigation settlement letters), Carnegie Mellon University (13), Cornell University (19), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (30), Michigan State University (16), North Dakota State University (17), Purdue University — West Lafayette and Calumet campuses (49), University of California — Santa Barbara (13), University of Connecticut (17), University of Maryland — College Park (23), University of Massachusetts — Amherst and Boston campuses (52), University of Nebraska — Lincoln (13), University of Pennsylvania (31), University of Pittsburgh (14), University of Wisconsin — Eau Claire, Madison, Milwaukee, Stevens Point, Stout and Whitewater campuses (62)."

Submission + - Cyber attack 'could paralyse Sweden'

Submitted by paulraps on Friday September 21, 2007 @08:02AM

paulraps writes: Sweden may be one of the world's most connected, data-driven societies, but there is a downside: according to two leading defense experts, "a large-scale attack on the country's computer infrastructure could paralyse the country within hours'. Dan Larsson at the National Defence Radio Establishment and Roland Heickerö at Sweden's defence research institute say it is disturbing that Sweden has no national action plan to combat a major cyber threat — but what country does?

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