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Software

Interclue and What Going Proprietary Can Do 149

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the don't-get-greedy dept.
Linux.com (which shares a corporate overlord with Slashdot) has an interesting look at what going proprietary can mean for your overall effectiveness. Using Firefox extension "Interclue" as the object lesson, the piece looks at both the engineering and social difficulties surrounding the project. "Even more significantly, the efforts to commercialize only detract from the software itself. The basic idea behind Interclue would make for a handy Web utility, but seems too slight to build a business around. The effort to do so only leads to complications that do nothing to enhance the basic utility, and to pleas for donations that can only annoy. The result is that, if your position on free software doesn't lead you to avoid Interclue, the efforts to monetize it almost certainly will."

Comment Re:Prices! (Score 1) 517

by Tragek (#26220591) Attached to: Your Favorite Tech / Eng. / CS Books?

I feel bad. I've been so conditioned by university text book prices that I no longer blink at books that cost that much. Of course, it means I don't buy books anymore.... but I don't blink.

I'm really waiting for the textbook publishers to get on the Ebook train so I can justify a 600$ ebook reader. Would make my life much easier.

Comment Re:Design Patterns (Score 1) 517

by Tragek (#26220561) Attached to: Your Favorite Tech / Eng. / CS Books?

My problem with the GoF book is that the "patterns" feel like someone is adding a terminology to something that doesn't really need it. It feels... over engineered to talk about patterns. Yes, there is useful information in there, and most likely everyone who does programming should read it / learn about design patterns, but I loathe the types of discussion that come from design patterns.
Censorship

IWF Backs Down On Wiki Censorship 226

Posted by kdawson from the that-streisand-thing-again dept.
jonbryce writes "The Internet Watch Foundation, guardians of the Great Firewall of Britain, have stopped censoring Wikipedia for hosting what they considered to be a child porn image. They had previously threatened to block Amazon for hosting the same image." Here is the IWF's statement, which credits the Streisand Effect for opening their eyes: "...in light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability, the decision has been taken to remove this webpage from our list. Any further reported instances of this image which are hosted abroad, will not be added to the list. ... IWF's overriding objective is to minimize the availability of indecent images of children on the internet, however, on this occasion our efforts have had the opposite effect."
Windows

Why Use Virtual Memory In Modern Systems? 983

Posted by timothy from the virtually-useless dept.
Cyberhwk writes "I have a system with Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit) installed on it, and it has 4GB of RAM. However when I've been watching system performance, my system seems to divide the work between the physical RAM and the virtual memory, so I have 2GB of data in the virtual memory and another 2GB in the physical memory. Is there a reason why my system should even be using the virtual memory anymore? I would think the computer would run better if it based everything off of RAM instead of virtual memory. Any thoughts on this matter or could you explain why the system is acting this way?"

Comment Re:False dichotomy (Score 0, Redundant) 727

by Tragek (#25962315) Attached to: Twenty Years of Dijkstra's Cruelty

It's a dichotomy if you conflate the practice of creating programs for a user with creating programs to solve problems.

The kind of programming Dijkstra is talking about is solving mathematical problems like finding the shortest path, etc. Not programming in the sense of providing a neat visualization of the path a packet takes between routers.

There is some overlap, yes, but I think that the distinction between CS (what Dijkstra is talking about) and Software Engineering is that CS is about creating the algorithm to find a result. Implementation is detail after the algorithm is created, and is independent of language, and so it makes sense to teach a provable non-language rather than a language like C,Java,Perl,C++,Smalltalk etc.

The reason people don't like what he says however is mostly because of the lack of differentiation between software engineering and CS in most schools. They think of a degree as a practical piece of paper for a job, not as being taught an entirely different way of thinking. In this case CS degrees are teaching things that are really beyond its ken.
Earth

Geoengineering To Cool the Earth Becoming Thinkable 419

Posted by kdawson from the well-less-unthinkable dept.
johkir writes "As early as 1965, when Al Gore was a freshman in college, a panel of distinguished environmental scientists warned President Lyndon B. Johnson that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels might cause 'marked changes in climate' that 'could be deleterious.' Yet the scientists did not so much as mention the possibility of reducing emissions. Instead they considered one idea: 'spreading very small reflective particles' over about five million square miles of ocean, so as to bounce about 1 percent more sunlight back to space — 'a wacky geoengineering solution.' In the decades since, geoengineering ideas never died, but they did get pushed to the fringe — they were widely perceived by scientists and environmentalists alike as silly and even immoral attempts to avoid addressing the root of the problem of global warming. Three recent developments have brought them back into the mainstream." We've discussed some pretty strange ideas in the geoengineering line over the last few years.
Politics

Election Dirty Tricks About To Begin 942

Posted by kdawson from the pox-on-both-their-houses dept.
An anonymous reader writes "ABC is warning that dirty election tricks are about to start. In the past, they've ranged from late-night robo-calls to voter intimidation. ABC has a pretty good list of what to watch out for as told by Allen Raymond, a former Republican operative, who was reformed after spending three months in prison in 2006 for pulling some of the stunts he now helps to prevent." To make this story timely, last week someone broke into a McCain campaign office in Missouri and stole a laptop computer containing "strategic information" about the local campaign.

Apple Laptop Upgrades Costing 200% More Than Dells 935

Posted by CmdrTaco from the pay-the-apple-tax dept.
An anonymous reader writes "C|net is highlighting the astonishing cost of Apple laptop hardware upgrades, compared to Dell — in some instances, Apple is charging 200% more for upgraded components, such as memory and hard disks. Either there's a serious difference in the quality of components being used, or Apple is quite literally ripping off those who aren't able to upgrade hardware themselves."
Books

Entertainment Weekly Bemoans Lack of Great Science Books 257

Posted by timothy from the that's-entertainment-weekly dept.
Bryan writes "A recent headline at Entertainment Weekly suggests that the '100 Best Reads' of the last 25 years do not include a single science book (not even a popular science book). In response, cosmologist Sean Carroll at Cosmic Variance has given an interesting analysis of EW's disappointing list, and Soul Physics is calling for suggestions on the Greatest Physics Books of the Last 25 Years. For all the great literature that science has produced in the last 25 years, EW's list seems to represent a major shortcoming in the field: it still isn't diffusing into popular culture." I'm not sure what Entertainment Weekly's standing to complain would come from. That aside, have science books ever in modern times been a driving force greater than ones intended as (mere) entertainment, religious instruction, etc? I'd put anything by Richard Feynman on this list, though.
Communications

WWDC '08 Sees Slimmer, Improved, 3G iPhone 804

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the newer-hawtness dept.
Many of us have been watching Apple's WWDC 2008 keynote unfold live. There are many exciting tidbits, but most of all is the announcement of the 3G iPhone. Featuring an even thinner profile, black plastic back, metal buttons, flush headphone jack, improved audio, GPS support, and improved battery life, this is bound to make quite a few people stand up and take notice. Update 18:54 GMT by SM: Best of all it looks like they really took the price point to heart, 8GB iPhones are now $199 and a 16GB model will be available for $299, coming to an Apple store riot near you on July 11,2008.
The Internet

Acid3 Race In Full Swing, Opera Overtakes Safari 261

Posted by Zonk from the going-for-the-gold dept.
enemi writes "Just a few days after Safari released version 3.1, Opera employee David Storey writes on his blog that they've overtaken Apple's browser in the Acid3 test. In the race to be the first to reach the reference rendering, Opera's software leads now with 98%, closely following by Safari with 96% and Firefox 3 beta 4 with 71%. He also noted the implemented features will not make a public appearance in the following weeks, because they are getting close to releasing Opera 9.5. That version has been under public testing since September and the new CSS3 color modes and font rendering features might further delay this. They will probably show the score in a preview build soon and wait for a post 9.5 stable build to release the new features to the public." Update: 03/26 21:21 GMT by Z : Opera is now at 100%, apparently, with Safari close behind at 98%. Update: 03/27 by J : Public build r31356 of WebKit (Safari's rendering engine) is at 100%.

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