bill_mcgonigle - Slashdot User

Submission + - Deterministic Multithreading Solves Race Condition (hpcwire.com)

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bill_mcgonigle

on Friday November 04, 2011 @05:58PM

bill_mcgonigle writes: "Researchers at Columbia Engineering School have developed PEREGRINE, a system that promises to improve the reliability and security of multi-threaded programs by addressing what they claim is the root cause of data race conditions in multi-threaded programs: non-determinism. Peregrine works with existing languages and "can make threads deterministic in an efficient and stable way. Peregrine can compute a plan for allowing when and where a thread can 'change lanes' and can then place barriers between the lanes, allowing threads to change lanes only at fixed locations, following a fixed order. This prevents the random collisions that can occur in a nondeterministic system.""

Submission + - $7000 Open-Source Modular Electric Vehicle (wired.com)

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bill_mcgonigle

on Friday November 04, 2011 @05:38PM

bill_mcgonigle writes: "A consortium of eighty companies and developers have developed the StreetScooter, a modular electric vehicle developed in a year using open-source methodologies. With a top speed of 74mph and an 80-mile range, the vehicle is expected to cost $7000 and be available in Germany in 2013."

Submission + - Cause of Redbox Price Increase? - Congress (theatlantic.com)

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bill_mcgonigle

on Sunday October 30, 2011 @06:08PM

bill_mcgonigle writes: "Following up on the previous story story about the Redbox price increases, Redbox's third-quarter earnings announcement ends the speculation. Redbox explains, "The change is primarily due to the increase in operating expenses, including the recent increase in debit card interchange fees as a result of the Durbin Amendment." The Durbin Amendment creates a 'debit interchange fee floor', which increases costs on small transactions made with debit cards — estimated to be an additional ten cents per Redbox transaction."

Submission + - Netflix dumps Qwikster, keeps DVD service on netfl (usatoday.com)

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bill_mcgonigle

on Monday October 10, 2011 @10:06AM

bill_mcgonigle writes: "In a sudden fit of sanity, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has announced that Netflix will not be splitting its DVD service into a separate website.

He writes, "It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs. This means no change: one website, one account, one password in other words, no Qwikster." He forgot, "one queue, one recommendation engine preference set."

Netflix had previously detailed plans to split its DVD-by-mail business into a separate business, Qwikster."

Submission + - Wired Releases Full Manning/Lamo Chat Logs (wired.com)

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bill_mcgonigle

on Thursday July 14, 2011 @07:19PM

bill_mcgonigle writes: "After more than a year, Wired has finally released the (nearly) full chat logs between Adrian Lamo and Bradley Manning. Glen Greenwald provides analysis of what Wired previously left out. Greenwald writes:
Lamo lied to and manipulated Manning by promising him the legal protections of a journalist-source and priest-penitent relationship, and independently assured him that their discussions were "never to be published" and were not "for print." Knowing this, Wired hid from the public this part of their exchange, published the chat in violation of Lamo's clear not-for-publication pledges, allowed Lamo to be quoted repeatedly in the media over the next year as some sort of credible and trustworthy source driving reporting on the Manning case

. Slashdot has previously covered the controversy (here, and here.)"

Submission + - Controversy over Zappos Advertising with the TSA (wewontfly.com)

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bill_mcgonigle

on Tuesday April 12, 2011 @03:45PM

bill_mcgonigle writes: "A blog post from Amazon's Zappos unit talking about its advertising on TSA collection trays has recently caught the attention of TSA critics and its customers. Zappos writes, "Since the airports that have the sponsored security bins don't have to put the money/time/energy into those efforts anymore, TSA can spend the money hiring/training more agents." Do customers really make a connection between Zappos's advertising and reduced wait times for security screenings, or is this an example of hamfisted marketing to a privacy-conscious online customer base?"

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