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Submission + - Silicon Valley has created an imaginary staffing shortage (usatoday.com)

Submitted by walterbyrd
walterbyrd writes: As longtime researchers of the STEM workforce and immigration who have separately done in-depth analyses on these issues, and having no self-interest in the outcomes of the legislative debate, we feel compelled to report that none of us has been able to find any credible evidence to support the IT industry's assertions of labor shortages.

Submission + - New protein structure could help treat Alzheimer's, related diseases (washington.edu)

Submitted by vinces99
vinces99 writes: There is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, but the research community is one step closer to finding treatment. University of Washington bioengineers have a designed a peptide structure that can stop the harmful changes of the body’s normal proteins into a state that’s linked to widespread diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and Lou Gehrig’s disease. The synthetic molecule blocks these proteins as they shift from their normal state into an abnormally folded form by targeting a toxic intermediate phase. The discovery of a protein blocker could lead to ways to diagnose and even treat a large swath of diseases that are hard to pin down and rarely have a cure.

“If you can truly catch and neutralize the toxic version of these proteins, then you hopefully never get any further damage in the body,” said senior author Valerie Daggett, a UW professor of bioengineering. “What’s critical with this and what has never been done before is that a single peptide sequence will work against the toxic versions of a number of different amyloid proteins and peptides, regardless of their amino acid sequence or the normal 3-D structures.”

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How many 1-4 digit UID users are left? 1

Submitted by Nick
Nick writes: Many years ago I went to a gas station to buy a pack of smokes. I got back home, refreshed Netscape running on some treacherous X11 build most likely, and noticed Slashdot was registering users. I signed up and got a three digit UID.

I never really paid too much attention, and over the years I still read but rarely post. I enjoy seeing a two or three digit UID post, but those are few and far between.

My question is this: how many ultra-low UID members are out there and reading this today?

Submission + - Israel Is Outgunning Hamas On Social Media, Too (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: While IDF planes drop bombs on Gaza and Hamas fires rockets from inside its borders, both groups are also tweeting, sharing, and promoting the war every step of the way.

The Gaza conflict has offered up its own brand of Twitter war between the Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas, who are squaring off in an online social media battle to match the on-the-ground campaign. And just as in the physical world, in the cyber version playing out in social media, the weaponry the Israelis deploy far outclasses Hamas capabilities.

The IDF has been disseminating a mixture of images, tweets, and YouTube videos designed to both justify their operations and perform the classic strategy of any military PSYOP—defining your enemy in no uncertain terms.

Submission + - MagicJack Inventor Dan Borislow Dead at Age 52 (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by Nightwraith
Nightwraith writes: Dan Borislow, whose “MagicJack,” peddled in television infomercials, helped pioneer free phone calls through the Internet, has died. He was 52.

His death was confirmed by Brad Shewmake, a spokesman for MagicJack Vocaltec Ltd., the maker of the device. Borislow was the founder and former chief executive officer of the company, based in Netanya, Israel, and West Palm Beach, Florida.

He died yesterday of a heart attack after playing in a soccer game in West Palm Beach, according to an e-mail today from his friend, Douglas Kass, founder of Seabreeze Partners Management Inc. in Palm Beach, Florida.

“Dan was a true telecom pioneer whose vision, creativity, energy, passion and single-minded focus was the driving force behind the success of MagicJack,” the company’s CEO, Gerald Vento, said today in a statement. Vento replaced Borislow as the company’s chief executive on Jan. 1, 2013.

Submission + - A Drone Saved an Elderly Man Who Had Been Missing for Three Days

Submitted by Jason Koebler
Jason Koebler writes: A drone was just used to save a life: Earlier this week, an elderly man who was missing for three days was found with the help of a drone in Wisconsin.
82-year-old Guillermo DeVenecia had been missing for three days. Search dogs, a helicopter, and hundreds of volunteers had spent days looking for him. David Lesh, a Colorado-based skier and drone pilot decided to look for him using his drone—and found him within 20 minutes.

Submission + - China Censors Inflatable Toad After Internet Users Compare it to President (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: China is blocking all reports of a huge inflatable toad seen in a park in Beijing after social media users started comparing it to one if its former Communist Party leaders.

The 22-metre (72ft) yellow toad was unveiled at Beijing's Yuyuantan Park, but its appearance was quickly compared to that of the country's former president Jiang Zemin.

All reports on Chinese web portal Sina – which operates Sina Weibo – removed all mentions of the toad and a story on Chinese news agency Xinhua also deleted its report on the inflatable animal.

Submission + - Autonomous Sea-Robot Survives Massive Typhoon (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: Liquid Robotics and its Wave Glider line of autonomous seafaring robots became famous when Java inventor James Gosling left Google to join the company. Now one of its robots has passed an impressive real-world test, shrugging off a monster typhoon in the South China Sea that inflicted hundreds of millions of dollars of damage on the region.

Submission + - Google+ users changing their names to invisible characters! (google.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Recently Google made a u-turn saying they are no longer imposing any naming restrictions on Google plus. Now, many users are changing their names to junk characters, invisible characters and whatnots! Google seems to look the other way.

Comment Never had to use any college math on the job (Score 1) 241

by mrflash818 (#47486517) Attached to: Math, Programming, and Language Learning

Knowing the concepts may have helped for some work I have done, but, I have never used any advanced math for paid programming.

Five years as a J2EE developer: zero use of any advanced math for work projects.

Numerical methods (using Fortran) was just in school.
Calculus, linear algebra, and such: just in school.

Big-O notation, to pick algorithms and STL objects, sure, but probably doesn't count as 'math' for this article.

Since only a fraction of Computer Science graduates will work at a science shop (JPL, etc), I think some of the math requirements are a bit unfair. Perhaps I am just a low-range "Forrest Gump" programmer, but my personal experience was the actual math was burdensome to do to work towards a Computer Science degree.

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It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.

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