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Comment Re:Troll v Troll (Score 1) 184

I kind of have this idea that the comments section on CNN.com or foxnews.com is all troll bots.

I occasionally check into the PINAC site, and in the comments there is always one guy there taking such an outrageously contrary opinion to all the other posters that I am beginning to suspect he is actually a sock puppet of the site's owner, solely to drum up reactions from those other posters.

Sort of like what's his name, who treated this place as his personal blog and who we haven't seen here for a while (an no I am not saying his name doing so is sort of like saying "Beetlejuice" 3 times)

Submission + - Chinese nationals accused of taking SATs for others

Vadim Makarov writes: The US Department of Justice has charged 15 Chinese nationals with developing a scheme to have imposters take university entrance exams. Prosecutors said suspects used fake passports to trick administrators into allowing people other than legitimate test takers to sit the SAT, GRE and TOEFL exams. The defendants, both male and female, range in age from 19 to 26, and are currently living in several cities — including Blacksburg, Virginia, and Boston, Massachusetts — where major universities are located. For each count, they could face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000, plus additional 5 years for the conspiracy charges.

Submission + - Australian Prime Minister Thinks Kids Should Not Code (smh.com.au) 4

Gob Gob writes: The Prime Minister of Australia has come out and ridiculed an opposition policy aimed at denying teaching kids to code:

'the Prime Minister said. "He said that he wants primary school kids to be taught coding so they can get the jobs of the future. Does he want to send them all out to work at the age of 11? Is that what he wants to do? Seriously?"

Arguably software development practices can be better group educational tools than maths, literacy and art as a software project can draw on coders, artists, organisers and others with different interests and backgrounds. Is teaching coding and technology from a young age an enabler for your community or should it be discouraged until the twilight years of schooling / collage?

Submission + - Sourceforge is full of shit (sourceforge.net)

slashdice writes: And not the good kind of shit. You thought those adware installers were bad? It gets worse! Since everybody and their octocat moved to github, sourceforge has taken to creating "mirror" pages for popular software, complete with deceptive adware installers.

Submission + - Sourceforge staff takes over a user's account and wraps their software installer (arstechnica.com) 11

An anonymous reader writes: Sourceforge staff took over the account of the GIMP-for-Windows maintainer claiming it was abandoned and used this opportunity to wrap the installer in crapware. Quoting Ars:

SourceForge, the code repository site owned by Slashdot Media, has apparently seized control of the account hosting GIMP for Windows on the service, according to e-mails and discussions amongst members of the GIMP community—locking out GIMP's lead Windows developer. And now anyone downloading the Windows version of the open source image editing tool from SourceForge gets the software wrapped in an installer replete with advertisements.


Submission + - Higgs Boson Mass Explained in New Theory (quantamagazine.org)

An anonymous reader writes: Three physicists who have been collaborating in the San Francisco Bay Area over the past year have devised a new solution to a mystery that has beleaguered their field for more than 30 years. This profound puzzle, which has driven experiments at increasingly powerful particle colliders and given rise to the controversial multiverse hypothesis, amounts to something a bright fourth-grader might ask: How can a magnet lift a paperclip against the gravitational pull of the entire planet?

Submission + - A new bionic lens implant could give you permanent 20/20 vision (inhabitat.com)

Kristine Lofgren writes: Contacts and eyeglasses are so 2014. Researchers have revealed the Ocumetics Bionic Lens, a painless implant that can correct your vision for the rest of your life. In recent trials, patients walked away with perfect vision after a quick 8 minute procedure. The process is safer than LASIK and even protects against cataracts in the future.

Submission + - A Tool for Analyzing H-1B Visa Applications Reveals Tech Salary Secrets (ieee.org)

Tekla Perry writes: "The golden age of engineers is not over," says a French software engineer who developed a tool for mining U.S. Department of Labor visa application data, but, he says, salaries appear to be leveling off. Indeed, salary inflation for software engineers and other technical professionals at Google and Facebook has slowed dramatically, according to his database, and Airbnb and Dropbox pay is down a little, though Netflix pay is through the roof. The data also shows that some large companies appear to be playing games with titles to deflate salaries, and Microsoft is finally offering technology professionals comparable salaries to Apple and Google. There's a lot more to be discovered in this interactive database, and researchers are getting ready to mine it.

Submission + - Slashdot is responsible for adware (arstechnica.com)

Bujang Lapok writes: "SourceForge, the code repository site owned by Slashdot Media, has apparently seized control of the account hosting GIMP for Windows on the service, according to e-mails and discussions amongst members of the GIMP community—locking out GIMP's lead Windows developer. And now anyone downloading the Windows version of the open source image editing tool from SourceForge gets the software wrapped in an installer replete with advertisements."

Submission + - How Tesla Batteries Will Force Home Wiring To Go Low Voltage (cepro.com)

CIStud writes: The advent of solar power and home batteries from companies like Tesla will force the reinvention of home wiring from primarily AC high voltage to DC home-run low voltage to reduce power conversion loss. To avoid the 20% to 40% power loss when converting from DC to AC, home wiring will have to convert to home-run low-voltage, and eventually eliminate the need for high-voltage 110V electrical wiring.

Submission + - 75% of Google's mobile ad revenue comes from the iPhone (bgr.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Though Google these days has its hand in everything, from robotics to advanced AI, the company’s billions by and large continue to come exclusively from advertising. More to the point, 90% of the $66 billion Google generated in revenue in 2014 came directly from advertising-related ventures

Not surprisingly, an increasingly important part of Google’s advertising machine is mobile search. In 2014 alone, 18% of Google’s ad revenue, or about $11.8 billion, came from searches done on mobile devices.

What’s interesting, though, is that the iPhone is responsible for 75% of Google’s mobile-based revenue, leaving Android with a surprisingly low and disproportionate 25% share. This is especially jarring given that Android routinely trounces the iPhone when it comes to overall marketshare.

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