Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:If you 'speak' C (Score 1) 316

BALR *,13 to you, sir.

surely it was

        BALR 15,0
        USING *,15

no?

PS: I blame this to be the start of the enormous overuse of #define in subsequent decades, as most people thought it was cool to equate R15 to 15 (etcetera) and then write the above as

        BALR R15,R0
        USING *,R15

leading to the endless nested equating we get in modern C and C++.

PPS: for the worst such mess ever created, does anyone else remember the COBOL "ALTER" command?

Comment Re:If you 'speak' C (Score 3, Informative) 316

Using a text editor to write code for a device like an iOS device, that simply displays the weather or a stock price is so ... 1960s?

Well -- 1970's maybe. 1960's were more about drum storage and all that. Even in the early '70s, the 029 keypunches didn't let us correct typos -- you had to hold the "dup" key down to duplicate the bit you got right, and then carry on keying from where the mistake started. The 129's were much better, as they only punched the card after you finished the whole line.

Although come to think of it, I did write a nice simple weather app in 360/Assembler for a class in 1974.

Submission + - 2015 Corvette Valet Mode Recorder illegal in some states (corvetteblogger.com)

Submitted by innocent_white_lamb
innocent_white_lamb writes: The 2015 Corvette has a Valet Mode that records audio and video when someone other than the owner is driving the car. Activating the Valet Mode allows you to record front-facing video as well as capture audio from within the car so you can help keep your Corvette safe when itâ(TM)s in the hands of others.

Well it turns out that recording audio from within the car may be considered a felony in some states that require notice and consent to individuals that they are being recorded and now GM is sending notices out to dealerships and customers alerting them to this fact as well as promising a future update to the PDR system.

Submission + - First Hands-on with the Incredible New Oculus Rift VR Headset (roadtovr.com)

Submitted by muterobert
muterobert writes: One of the stand-out demos put me in front of an alien on some sort of Moon-like world. The alien was looking at me and speaking in an unfamiliar tongue. When I moved my head, its gaze followed me. Its big and detailed eyes, combined with reaction to me as I moved, imbued it with a sense of living that was really cool. Spaceships flew over head and drew my gaze behind me, leading me to look at some incredibly detailed scenery.

Comment Re:Parallax. (Score 1) 425

by evenmoreconfused (#47925725) Attached to: Apple Edits iPhone 6's Protruding Camera Out of Official Photos

Hello fellow pedant.

You have to extend the planes into the plane of the camera view.

When the front and back planes are extended it is entirely possible for the camera view plane to be perpendicular to both. In fact, it would be impossible for it to be perpendicular to only one since you pointed out that the front and back planes are parallel.

True. Mea culpa.

What I was objecting to was something else, implied in parent post, to the effect that the lens axis lay on the both the front and back planes of the phone at the same time. But I expressed it poorly.

Comment Does everyone in the US drive by themselves? (Score 1) 326

Every discussion I've read on this issue ignores the fact that there could be passengers in the car, and there's no reason to disable their phones. Very much the opposite, in fact, because they can be looking up addresses, getting directions, etc.

if the trip starts at Junior's high school, and mom and dad's phones are at work, the driver has been identified — Junior is driving.

What if all three phones are in the car? Which one does it disable then?

Submission + - FAA grounds all UPS flights, blames UPS computer issues

Submitted by witherstaff
witherstaff writes: The FAA has sent an alert to ground all UPS flights regardless of destination. The Official reason is "AIRLINE COMPUTER ISSUES". My tinfoil hat wearing self wonders about something bad happening on 9/11. My tech self wonders what sort of computer problem UPS could have that would warrant stopping all traffic.

Submission + - One of John Franklin's lost ships found?

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A Canadian expedition thinks it has located one of the ships from John Franklin’s lost 1845 Arctic expedition.

The Canadian government began searching for Franklin’s ships in 2008 as part of a strategy to assert Canada’s sovereignty over the Northwest Passage, which has recently become accessible to shipping because of melting Arctic ice. Expedition sonar images from the waters of Victoria Strait, just off King William Island, clearly show the wreckage of a ship on the ocean floor.

Comment Re:+ operator for string concat? (Score 1) 729

Actually IIRC '+' was used for string concatenation in the version of PC-BASIC included in the firmware of all the original (1980) IBM PCs. But apparently it wasn't in the original (1973) Wang 2200 BASIC that at least some of us first learned BASIC on.

See the third example here: http://www.wang2200.org/basic_...

I was trying to look up some of my earlier languages (WATFIV and IITRAN in my case), but I can't find any detailed documentation on the web.

Submission + - MS urging people to ignore strong passwords (wired.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft appears to be making a concerted effort to get people to ignore decades of advice on complex passwords. Wired has a piece about Cormac Herley, a Principal Researcher at MS, saying "burdening users with choosing stronger passwords seems like a big waste of effort." http://www.wired.com/2014/08/p... (Original paper "strength above that needed to withstand online guessing is effectively wasted": http://research.microsoft.com/...).
Separately, Roger Grimes, a Principal Analyst at MS, has an opinion piece in Infoworld “Why you don't need long, complex passwords” arguing that password guessers “aren’t even measurable noise in most environments.” http://www.infoworld.com/d/sec...

Comment Re:Could have fooled me (Score 2) 221

by evenmoreconfused (#47781123) Attached to: Canada Tops List of Most Science-Literate Countries

According to TFA, there are several different sections. The statement about depending on science was from a portion designed to clarify prevailing attitudes towards science in general. It was separate from the part evaluating scientific literacy.

[The report] contains the results of a new public survey that assesses Canadians’ science attitudes, engagement, and knowledge. The report reviews data on Canadians’ science skills and the current peer-reviewed literature on science culture. It also features an inventory and analysis of the organizations and programs that support and promote science culture in Canada, particularly among youth.

However, it turns out the survey was commissioned by a number of Canadian agencies. It was performed internationally, but a Canadian report saying Canada is number one in science is at best somewhat suspect.

Submission + - Americans More Distracted Behind The Wheel Than Europeans (npr.org)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Either the Europeans have lied, or the Americans were bragging

U.S. drivers are much more likely than Europeans to drive while distracted, federal health officials report Thursday

Nearly 69 percent of Americans who drive say that they talked on their cell phones while driving at least once in the previous month, according to a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

That's a lot higher than what was reported by Europeans in another survey. Only 21 percent of British drivers reported chatting on their cell phones while behind the wheel, for example. In Germany and France it was about 40 percent

The same goes for reading or sending texts or emails. About a third of U.S. drivers said they did that. And that's about double what it was in Spain and Great Britain

Health officials say that's a big problem because driving while distracted causes fatal car accidents. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, 3,331 Americans were killed in crashes involving a distracted driver in 2011, compared to 3,267 in 2010

"The cell phone can be a fatal distraction for those who use it while they drive," CDC Director Thomas Frieden said in a statement. "Driving and dialing or texting don't mix. If you are driving, pull over to safe place and stop before you use your phone"

Slashdot Top Deals

Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name. Thy programs run, thy syscalls done, In kernel as it is in user!

Close