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Comment Read this first!! Then think again. (Score 1) 164

by zimtmaxl (#41135077) Attached to: Russia's Former KGB Invests In Political Propaganda Spambots
Everyone in the free world should read the closing statements from the members of the punk band Puss Riot http://nplusonemag.com/pussy-riot-closing-statements- A fascinating insight in how the oppressive system works on individual levels.

One defendant's psych eval identified her values as: "justice, mutual respect, humaneness, equality, and freedom."

Those are values that I hope still define the majority of people in the free world!
And we should NEVER forget to defend them in our societies.

Comment Re:Large organization doing something simple (Score 1) 305

by zimtmaxl (#35706722) Attached to: NYT Paywall Cost $40 Million: How?
I do not know anything about the NYT. But I have seen large European corporations: 5 layers of management: 3-4 of these layers doing nothing but exchanging and adjusting project plans (using Power Point!) with each other - and of course: finding arguments to increase their project's budgets. And of course making a lot of fuss about their busyness. I have also heard of a project which needed to cut costs. This is what they did: add another one or two managers, reduce the staff of developers (who do the actual work) by two and cut all others' hourly wages. If a project has a good manager, that is great! But unfortunately my experience tells me that for every great manager there are about 20 managers who act like a trainee.
Programming

Submission + - Translating flags in API calls (wordpress.com)

Submitted by Source Code Adventures
Source Code Adventures writes: Windows API calls often include flags, which are just combinations of various constants that you then need to go find in the documentation. Delphi allows you to create type-safe imports of these functions that are safer and much more intuitive to use.
Communications

Submission + - Google, Facebook, Twitter, Others Miss Big Picture (bnet.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: You hear a lot of comparison between companies. Google will beat Microsoft, or Microsoft will devastate Google. Twitter will become the New Google, or the New Facebook, or the New Media. Yahoo will become the New Yahoo. You get the idea. But there are two things that become obvious when you think a moment. One is that all these companies are juggling for a future business landscape dominated by communications. The other is that they're all trying to fit a complex issue into their own undersized boxes. No one tool solves all communications needs, and to pretend they do is to ignore what really needs to be done.
Math

Submission + - A radical idea for making Math education relevant (ted.com)

Submitted by
TEDChris
TEDChris writes: "Mathematician Arthur Benjamin thinks it's a big mistake to make calculus the pinnacle of high school Math. In just 3 minutes he makes a killer argument that a core understanding of probability and statistics would be far more relevant today. This strikes me as an "idea worth spreading", no?"
Data Storage

Submission + - Storage in clouds but in private clouds? (diaser.org.uk)

Submitted by
thewarewolf
thewarewolf writes: "In an article written by Jack Schofield published by the Guardian on June 17th 2009 the question of long term control over data stored in cloud services is explored. This follows on from another late 2008 Guardian article where Richard Stallman argues strongly against the use of the term cloud computing echoing comments made by Larry Ellison. Surely it's worth having description of a complex collection of technologies? Perhaps compromise is required and I have written storage software designed to be deployed as a private storage cloud. Here I want users of SME's to retain more control in the long term over their archived data with DIASER."
Data Storage

Submission + - Graphene Could Make Magnetic Memory 1000x Denser (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by
KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: "The density of magnetic memory depends on the size of the magnetic domains used to store bits. The current state-of-the-art uses cobalt-based grains some 8nm across, each containing about 50,000 atoms. Materials scientists think they can shrink the grains to 15,000 atoms but any smaller than that and the crystal structure of the grains is lost. That's a problem because the cobalt has to be arranged in a hexagonal close packing structure to ensure the stability of its magnetic field. Otherwise the field can spontaneously reverse and the data is lost. Now a group of German physicists say they can trick a pair of cobalt atoms into thinking they are in a hexagonal close packing structure by bonding them to a hexagonal carbon ring such as graphene or benzene. That's handy because the magnetic field associated with cobalt dimers is calculated to be far more stable than the field in a cobalt grain. And graphene and benzene rings are only 0.5 nm across, a size that could allow an increase in memory density of three orders of magnitude."
Windows

Submission + - Microsoft To Charge Europeans 2X For Windows 7 (computerworld.com) 2

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "European customers will pay up to twice as much for Windows 7 compared with U.S. users, even though the new operating system will ship without a browser in Europe. Some of the money Microsoft stands to make on the European editions of Windows 7 comes from the weak dollar. Last week, for instance, the dollar fell against the euro the most in a month, hitting $1.41 per euro. For example, Windows 7 Professional, the key retail edition for businesses, will sport a price tag of 285, or $400.60, and £189.99, or $313.84, at Saturday's exchange rate. In other words, EU customers will pay twice the $199.99 U.S. price; U.K. buyers will pay 57% more. And depending on your view on bundling IE, Europe's customers will be paying more for less, with Microsoft's decision to yank IE8 from Windows 7 in an effort to head off EU antitrust regulators, who may still force the company to take more drastic measures."
The Internet

Submission + - Deconstructing the Copyright Lobby Lies

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Michael Geist has published a report that unravels the copyright lobby strategy of deploying seemingly independent organizations to advance the same goals, claims, arguments, and recommendations. Over the past three years, this strategy of the movie, music, and software industry has played out with multiple reports, each building on the next with a steady stream of self-citation.

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