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Networking

Australia To Build Fiber-To-the-Premises Network 300

Posted by kdawson from the no-censorship-on-the-wire-of-course dept.
candiman writes "The Australian PM, Kevin Rudd, has just announced that none of the private sector submissions to build a National Broadband Network was up to the standard, so instead the government is going to form a private company to build a fiber to the premises network. The network will connect to 90% of premises delivering 100Mb/s. The remaining 10% will be reached with wireless and satellite delivering up to 12Mb/s. The network cost has been estimated at 43 billion AU dollars over 8 years of construction — and is expected to employ 47,000 people at peak. It will be wholesale only and completely open access. As an Australian who voted for the other guys, all I can say is, wow."
Yahoo!

Yahoo Changes User Profiles, To Massive Outrage 255

Posted by kdawson from the why'd-you-go-and-do-that dept.
Wiseleo writes "Yahoo decided to massively screw up their entire userbase by changing all user profiles to blank. No warning, no automated way to get data back, and other unwanted changes. The blog has such choice quotes as 'We know this has been a rough transition for some of you and, and are committed to helping you use, understand, and (hopefully) enjoy your new profile,' and, 'We also know lots of you worked hard on your old profiles and want your data. If you feel like you're missing data, we've saved a copy of your old profile (and alias) and our Customer Care team can retrieve this information. You won't, however, be able to revert back to your old profile format, but you will be able to get any data that you think is missing. To do this, please go here to contact Customer Care.' There were 850 comments posted, all negative, on the first day. There are hundreds more today. There is even more outrage on the Yahoo Messenger blog."
Programming

Getting Hired As an Entry-Level Programmer? 540

Posted by kdawson from the foot-in-door dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I received a state university degree in Computer Science. After graduation, I immediately took jobs in QA to pay the bills while waiting for other opportunities, which of course turned out to be as naive as it sounds. I've been working QA for several years now and my resume does not show the right kind of work experience for programming. On the whole I'm probably no better as a a candidate than a CS graduate fresh out of college. But all of the job postings out in the real world are looking for people with 2-5 years of programming work experience. How do you build up those first 2 years of experience? What kinds of companies hire programmers with no prior experience?"

Comment Re:Dismal Sales? (Score 1) 73

by yellowcord (#21215935) Attached to: Metal Gear Solid 4 Delayed To 2008
I saw this the other day and I think it's a bunch of really old numbers numbers. They say:
        * Xbox 360: hardware to software ratio: 6.59 (hardware total sold = 6.8 million; software total sold = 44.8 million)
        * PlayStation 3: hardware to software ratio: 3.58 (hardware total sold = 1.9 million; software total sold = 6.8 million)
        * Wii: hardware to software ratio: 3.44 (hardware total sold = 4.5 million; software total sold = 15.5 million)

Wikipedia says (I know I hate using wikipedia as a reference but I'm damn sure that these numbers are more reasonable, plus I'm lazy):
        * Xbox 360: 13.4 million consoles
        * PlayStation 3: 5.59 million consoles
        * Wii: 13.17 million consoles

Joystiq doesn't really say when their numbers come from so maybe they were just cherry-picking?
Science

Organism Survives 100 Million Years Without Sex 343

Posted by samzenpus from the they-must-play-dungeons-and-dragons-too dept.
zyl0x writes "The Times has an interesting article online on the discovery of a 100-million-year-old micro-organism which has survived its entire lifespan without sex." From the article "A tiny creature that has not had sex for 100 million years has overturned the theory that animals need to mate to create variety. Analysis of the jaw shapes of bdelloid rotifers, combined with genetic data, revealed that the animals have diversified under pressure of natural selection. Researchers say that their study "refutes the idea that sex is necessary for diversification into evolutionary species".
Mozilla

Submission + - Get your Firefox add-ons while you still can

Submitted by
PetManimal
PetManimal writes: "Mozilla is getting ready to relaunch the Firefox website on Monday, and when it does, several thousand extensions will be culled from the list. From the article:

... The site will drop marginal add-ons, as well as those no longer maintained by their creator or not updated for the browsers and e-mail clients now in use. A couple of hundred extensions will remain on the site after Monday.
"
The Internet

UK Teachers Say Censor The Internet 463

Posted by samzenpus from the how-can-you-have-any-pudding-if-you-smash-my-window dept.
Marlow the Irelander writes "The BBC is reporting that in response to a YouTube video of a schoolboy breaking his teacher's window (yes, this is a video), NASUWT, one of the teaching unions in the UK, is calling for legislation to control the internet. Could Britain, rather than the US, be the main front of the battle against censorship in 2007?" From the article: "Unfortunately, any yob or vandal can now have their 15 minutes of fame, aided and abetted by readily accessible technology and irresponsible internet sites which enable such behaviour to be glorified. [The general secretary of the union] said the union supported a zero tolerance approach in schools to pupils who used technology to abuse and undermine teachers, and called for more rigorous legislative control of internet sites which gave them license."

Firefox Analyzed for Bugs by Software 226

Posted by CowboyNeal from the killing-bugs-dead dept.
eldavojohn writes "In a brief article on CNet, a company named Coverity announced that Firefox is using software to detect flaws in Firefox's source code. Even more interesting is the DHS initiative for Coverity to use this same bug detection software on 40 open source projects." An interesting tidbit from the article: "Most of the 40 programs tested averaged less than one defect per thousand lines of code. The cleanest program was XMMS, a Unix-based multimedia application. It had only six bugs in its 116,899 lines of code, or .51 bugs per thousands lines of code. The buggiest program is the Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver, or AMANDA, a Linux backup application first developed at the University of Maryland. Coverity found 108 bugs in its 88,950 lines of code, or about 1.214 bugs per thousand lines of code." We've covered this before, only now Firefox is actually licensing the Coverity software and using it directly.

Van Gogh Painted Turbulence 76

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the fasten-seatbelt-sign-has-been-illuminated dept.
rangeva writes "Nature is reporting that Van Gogh works have a pattern of light and dark that closely follows the mathematical structure of turbulent flow. From the article: 'Vincent van Gogh is known for his chaotic paintings and similarly tumultuous state of mind. Now a mathematical analysis of his works reveals that the stormy patterns in many of his paintings are uncannily like real turbulence, as seen in swirling water or the air from a jet engine.'"

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