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Censorship

Russia Moves From Summer Time To Standard Time 158

Posted by Soulskill from the turn-back-the-clock dept.
jones_supa writes: Russia's legislature, often accused of metaphorically turning back the clock, has decided to do it literally – abandoning the policy of keeping the country on daylight-saving time all year. The 2011 move to impose permanent "summer time" in 2011 was one of the most memorable and least popular initiatives of Dmitry Medvedev's presidency. It forced tens of millions to travel to their jobs in pitch darkness during the winter. In the depths of December, the sun doesn't clear the horizon in Moscow until 10am. The State Duma, the lower house of parliament, voted 442-1 on Tuesday to return to standard time this autumn and stay there all year. The article also discusses a ban on swearing in books, plays, and films that went into effect today in Russia.

Comment Re:Come on Google (Score 1) 71

by Safety Cap (#47363865) Attached to: Google Kills Orkut To Focus On YouTube, Blogger and Google+

For the random people that use Orkut like others use Facebook, it really is not a lot of time to figure out what to do with potentially gigabytes of information. That holds particularly true for anyone that is not technically savvy.

How long does it take to slide over to Google Takeout and download all of your data?

A few minutes? An hour?

When Goog crushed Wave, I downloaded all my stuff in a matter of minutes. Couldn't really do much with it, but it lowered my White Hot Rage down to Red.
Technology

Nathan Myhrvold's Recipe For a Better Oven 228

Posted by Soulskill from the i-don't-need-twitter-on-my-fridge-but-a-smarter-oven-would-be-nice dept.
Tekla Perry writes: We cook our food today using technology invented to bake bricks. We can do a lot better. Nathan Myhrvold explains what's wrong with today's ovens and challenges oven designers make them better. He says, "Oven designers could do a lot to make ovens heat more evenly by taking advantage of the different ways ovens transfer heat at different cooking temperatures. At 200 C or below, convection moves most of the heat. But at 400 C, radiant energy starts doing a fair amount of the heat transfer. At 800 C, radiation overwhelms convection. Why couldn't we have an oven designed to cook primarily by convection at low temperatures that switches to radiant heating for high-temperature baking? ... The shiny skin of raw fish reflects heat, but as the skin browns, it reflects less and less energy. That’s why food under a broiler can seem to cook slowly at first and then burn in the blink of an eye. But technology offers a fix here, too. Oven designers could put optical sensors in the oven chamber to sense the reflectivity of the food, and then the oven controller could adjust the heat automatically or at least alert the cook as the surface browns. And a camera in the oven could feed to a color display on the front panel, giving the chef a clearer view of the food than a small window in the door can. Indeed, a decent optics system could allow designers to dispense with the glass in the door altogether, reducing the gap between the hottest and coolest corners of the oven and obviating the need to open the door and rotate the food midway through cooking.

Comment How to Fail (Score 1) 536

  1. 1. Rewrite your code
  2. 2. Fix all the bugs you introduced that didn't exist in the original
  3. 3. (and ongoing) Run into all the edge cases that were discovered and solved years ago in the original code.
  4. 4. Spend tons of manhours and tie up your talent pool rewriting just to get where you are now instead of adding new features.
  5. 5. Embrace your FAIL

Comment Re:C++ and CppCMS (Score 1) 536

And if you aren't a dumbass, you'll use ...

A simpler, more efficient high-level (higher than C++) language that is more expressive with fewer lines of code, less prone to introducing silly bugs caused by human error, and more readable by other programmers.

C++ is for those serious programmers who want to get real work done, and who don't have time to waste with overhyped crap.

C++ is for conformists and trend-followers lacking in enough critical thinking skills of their own to investigate and adopt better tools for the job.

Comment Pinko-Commie-Liberal Talk (Score 1) 121

by turgid (#47362931) Attached to: Happy Software Developers Solve Problems Better

That's what it is.

The end of quarter profit is what matters. Suck it up and take it like a man! Pull your weight like a true team player or you'll be let go to make way for a flexible, empowered, dedicated business-oriented go-getter from the thousands of them queuing up at the door.

If you can't do it right, or don't like it, get out. Don't drag the team down with you, loser.
Government

The New 501(c)(3) and the Future of Open Source In the US 228

Posted by Soulskill from the learning-at-the-speed-of-government dept.
An anonymous reader writes: If you're involved in the free and open-source software movement — especially in the United States — you may want to read through this, as long as it may seem. It appears that the United States' Internal Revenue Service has strongly shifted its views of free and open-source software, and to the detriment of the movement, in my opinion. From the article: "The IRS reasons that since Yorba’s open source software may be used for any purpose, Yorba is not a charity. Consider all the for-profit and non-charitable ways the Apache server is used; I’d still argue Apache is a charitable organization. (What else could it be?) There’s a charitable organization here in San Francisco that plants trees throughout the city for the benefit of all. If one of their tree’s shade falls on a cafe table and cools the cafe’s patrons as they enjoy their espressos, does that mean the tree-planting organization is no longer a charity?"
Perl

Ask Slashdot: Choosing a Web Language That's Long-Lived, and Not Too Buzzy? 536

Posted by timothy from the perl-6-will-blow-them-all-away dept.
adelayde (185757) writes "In my day job, I work on a web based service with a lot of legacy code written in that older (and some may say venerable) web-scripting language, Perl. Although we use Modern Perl extensions such as Moose, the language just seems to be ossifying and we're wanting to move to a more up-to-date and used language for web applications, or even an entire framework, to do new development. We're still planning to support the legacy code for a number of years to come; that's unavoidable. This is a fairly big project and it's mission critical to the business. The thing we're afraid of is jumping onto something that is too new and too buzzy as we'd like to make a technology decision that would be good at least for the next five years, if not more, and today's rising star could quite easily be in tomorrow's dustbin. What language and/or framework would you recommend we adopt?"
Handhelds

Disappointed Woz Sells His "Worthless" Galaxy Gear Watch 242

Posted by timothy from the get-that-man-a-tricorder dept.
curtwoodward (2147628) writes Apple co-founder and legendary nerd Steve Wozniak is a huge gadget enthusiast, often appearing in lines with mere mortals to purchase new Apple products. So you can bet he's tried out most of the smartwatches on the market today. The worst one? By far, the Samsung Galaxy Gear, which The Woz says he sold on eBay after half a day's use. "It was so worthless and did so little that was convenient," Wozniak said at an appearance in Milwaukee. "You had to hold it up to your ear and stuff." So maybe the watch sucked, but just imagine being the one who bought Woz's used Gear---do you think they know?
Handhelds

Improv Project, Vivaldi Tablet Officially Dead 71

Posted by timothy from the sad-news dept.
sfcrazy (1542989) writes "It's a sad day for free software as one of the most ambitious free software projects, Improv, is officially dead. Along with the board also dies the promising Vivaldi tablet [video intro]. The developers have sent out emails to the backers of the project that they are pulling plugs on these. The end of the Improv project also means a disappointing end to the KDE Tablet project, as Aaron Seigo was funding both projects out of his own pocket (almost exactly $200,000 spent)."

Submission + - The Woz Sold His Samsung Galaxy Gear Smartwatch on eBay Because It Sucked

Submitted by curtwoodward
curtwoodward writes: Apple co-founder and legendary nerd Steve Wozniak is a huge gadget enthusiast, often appearing in lines with mere mortals to purchase new Apple products. So you can bet he's tried out most of the smartwatches on the market today. The worst one? By far, the Samsung Galaxy Gear, which The Woz says he sold on eBay after half a day's use. "It was so worthless and did so little that was convenient,” Wozniak said at an appearance in Milwaukee. “You had to hold it up to your ear and stuff.” So maybe the watch sucked, but just imagine being the one who bought Woz's used Gear---do you think they know?

Submission + - KDE's Vavaldi tablet, Improve project are dead! (themukt.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: It’s a sad day for free software as one of the most ambitious free software projects, Improve, is officially dead. Along with the board also dies the promising Vivaldi tablet. The developers have sent out emails to the backers of the project that they are pulling plugs on these. The end of the Improv project also means a disappointing end to the KDE Tablet project, as Aaron Seigo was funding both projects out of his own pocket (almost exactly $200,000 spent).

Submission + - India launches five foreign satellites (bbc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: India has put into orbit five foreign satellites, including one built by France two from Canada and one each from Singapore and Germany. The PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) has so far successfully launched 67 satellites, including 40 foreign ones, into space. The PSLV costs about Rs. 100 crore (20 Million USD) and the cost is seen as a major advantage India has over other countries in terms of commercial launches. When talking about the cost of the project, the Prime Minister of India noted that the India’s Mars mission cost less than movie Gravity.

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