Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Businesses

Submission + - Don't call it a comeback (working remotely) (justinjackson.ca)

Submitted by silentbrad
silentbrad writes: From a blog I came across: 'Remote working has existed for centuries. And now is the perfect time for it’s comeback. ... Prior to the Industrial Revolution, goods were manufactured by contracting individual craftsmen who worked out of their homes. The merchant would drum up sales, and would coordinate the production with at-home sub-contractors. ... This all changed with the Industrial Revolution: production was centralized in factories and cities. For merchant capitalists, this made sense: it was cheaper and more efficient to produce goods in one place, with machinery. ... We’ve been in the Information Age for at least 25 years. We’ve made huge leaps in technology. Many of us would describe ourselves as Knowledge Workers: we don’t work in factories, we work at desks in front of glowing screens. We don’t make goods with physical materials, but rather things made out of bits. The great thing about bits + the internet is that the materials and means needed for production aren’t dependent on location. But here’s the funny thing: the way work is organized hasn’t changed. Despite all these advances, most of us still work in central offices. Employees leave their computer-equipped homes, and drive long distances to work at computer-equipped offices. ... CEOs, like Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer and Apple’s Steve Jobs, think that a central office fosters more innovation and productivity. I think they’re wrong. We’re still early in the research, but recent studies seem to dispute their claim. ... Managers have developed centuries worth of habits based on the central workplace. The hallmarks of office work (meetings, cubicle workstations, colocation) need to be seen for what they are: traditions we’ve kept alive since the Industrial Revolution. We need to question these institutions: are they really more innovative and efficient?'
Security

Submission + - Could the Election of the New Pope be Hacked? 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The rules for papal elections are steeped in tradition. John Paul II last codified them in 1996, and Benedict XVI left the rules largely untouched. The "Universi Dominici Gregis on the Vacancy of the Apostolic See and the Election of the Roman Pontiff" is surprisingly detailed. Now as the College of Cardinals prepares to elect a new pope, security people like Bruce Schneier wonder about the process. How does it work, and just how hard would it be to hack the vote? First, the system is entirely manual, making it immune to the sorts of technological attacks that make modern voting systems so risky. Second, the small group of voters — all of whom know each other — makes it impossible for an outsider to affect the voting in any way. The chapel is cleared and locked before voting. No one is going to dress up as a cardinal and sneak into the Sistine Chapel. In short, the voter verification process is about as good as you're ever going to find. A cardinal can't stuff ballots when he votes. Then the complicated paten-and-chalice ritual ensures that each cardinal votes once — his ballot is visible — and also keeps his hand out of the chalice holding the other votes. Ballots from previous votes are burned, which makes it harder to use one to stuff the ballot box. What are the lessons here? First, open systems conducted within a known group make voting fraud much harder. Every step of the election process is observed by everyone, and everyone knows everyone, which makes it harder for someone to get away with anything. Second, small and simple elections are easier to secure. This kind of process works to elect a pope or a club president, but quickly becomes unwieldy for a large-scale election. And third: When an election process is left to develop over the course of a couple of thousand years, you end up with something surprisingly good."

Comment No (Score 0) 164

by freemenow-linux (#42992979) Attached to: Is It Worth Paying Extra For Fast SD Cards?
in my personal opinion i wouldn't pay for the extra speed i just cant justify it seeing as i can go to my local Microcenter store (microcenter.com) and buy a 16gig micro SD card for around $10 and i recently bought a 32gig sd card for around $20.. now if i was doing something every day that i would need the extra speed for then yes i would spend the extra money.. and considering that i would never play a high resolution video from an sd card or usb drive let alone edit one as it is always much faster to transfer the file to the hard drive since the current r/w speeds of a hard drive are still faster than the speed of an SD card..

Comment SD card prices (Score 0) 1

by freemenow-linux (#42988817) Attached to: Is it worth paying extra for fast SD cards?
in my personal opinion i wouldn't pay for the extra speed i just cant justify it seeing as i can go to my local Microcenter store (microcenter.com) and buy a 16gig micro SD card for around $10 and i recently bought a 32gig sd card for around $20.. now if i was doing something every day that i would need the extra speed for then yes i would spend the extra money..

Comment Re:UPnP (Score 1) 157

apparently 99% of the people that do this dont do it right. i dont even allow WPS to be active on my routers and i tell business that i do work for to disable the feature for the fact that it is a security hole.. and UPnP is the worst idea that has been done including WPS fix the holes or get rid of the software and find something new...

Comment Cyber War (Score 1) 157

The reason we have such a thing going on is because of stuff like this... this is why i like OSS because if there is a problem i know that it will be fixed immediately instead of waiting for a patch to be released 6 months later. im not worried about China spying on us however i would worry about it if our government allowed something to be imported from another country without going thru some sort of software test before being sold...

Slashdot Top Deals

So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of money? -- Ayn Rand

Close