Comment Re:Arduino, anyone? (Score 1) 161
As Ubuntu is based on Debian, I don't think they would have an ARM distribution if Debian didn't have theirs first...
Comment Re:Pffft. (Score 1) 421
(Some argue that functional languages will magically run N times faster on N CPUs because they lack side effects. I don't buy it. If it were true, functional languages would have dominated performance rankings years ago.)
Erlang does a great job in this respect (at least it did for Ericsson), but nowadays what people know as functional languages are the script-oriented ones like Ruby that carry a monumental runtime overhead with them.
Now, you just throw big piles of hardware at the problem, and the last programmers that care for performance are targetting microcontrolers, where C is king (I doubt they know any other languages, really...) -- save for those CS types that actually learned how to program, but that is a rant for another time, not for my first post in
Submission + - C|Net Download.Com is now bundling Nmap with malwa (seclists.org)
chiasmus1 writes: Having any open source or free software products bundled with malware is unacceptable.
Submission + - CNet / download.com trojaning OSS tools (seclists.org)
Zocalo writes: In a post to the Nmap Hackers list Nmap author, Fyodor, accuses C|Net / download.com of wrapping a trojan installer (as detected by various AV applications when submitted to VirusTotal) around software including Nmap and VLC Media Player. The C|Net installer bundles a toolbar, changes browser settings and, potentially, performs other shenanigans — all under the logo of the application the user thought they might have been downloading. Apparently, this isn't the first time they have done this, either.
Fyodor's on the lookout for a good copyright lawyer, if anyone has one to spare.
Fyodor's on the lookout for a good copyright lawyer, if anyone has one to spare.
Submission + - Scientists spot two gargantuan black holes (networkworld.com)
coondoggie writes: "Astronomers today said they have spotted the two most "supermassive" black holes — 10 billion times the mass of our Sun — known to exist in any galaxy. One of the newly discovered black holes is 9.7 billion solar masses and is located in the elliptical galaxy known as NGC 3842, which is the brightest galaxy in the Leo cluster 320 million light-years away. The second is as large or larger and sits in the elliptical galaxy known as NGC 4889, which is the brightest galaxy in the Coma cluster about 336 million light-years from Earth, according to the astronomers."
Submission + - Can Maintenance Make Data Centers Less Reliable? (datacenterknowledge.com)
miller60 writes: Is preventive maintenance on data center equipment not really that preventive after all? With human error cited as a leading cause of downtime, a vigorous maintenance schedule can actually make a data center less reliable, according to some industry experts.“The most common threat to reliability is excessive maintenance,” said Steve Fairfax of "science risk" consultant MTechnology. "We get the perception that lots of testing improves component reliability. It does not.” In some cases, poorly documented maintenance can lead to conflicts with automated systems, he warned. Other speakers at the recent 7x24 Exchange conference urged data center operators to focus on understanding their own facilities, and then evaluating which maintenance programs are essential, including offerings from equipment vendors.
