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How Good Software Makes Us Stupid 385

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-are-not-dum dept.
siliconbits writes "The BBC has an interesting article about how ever improving software damages our ability to think innovatively. 'Search engines' function of providing us with information almost instantly means people are losing their intellectual capacity to store information, Nicolas Carr said.' This sadly convinced some journos to come up with wildfire titles such as 'Google damages users' brains, author claims.'"

Comment Re:Hit or Miss (Score 2, Informative) 149

by ComputerInsultant (#33428768) Attached to: 9 Ideas For Coping With Space Junk
What a waste. Even the first page has an obvious error:

the tool kit dropped by astronaut Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper during a spacewalk in 2008

That tool kit re-entered the atmosphere in August of 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidemarie_Stefanyshyn-Piper#Lost_tool_bag_during_spacewalk Come on guys. Do some fact checking.
Crime

Child Porn As a Weapon 774

Posted by Soulskill from the guilty-until-proven-innocent dept.
VoiceOfDoom writes "Want to get rid of your boss and move up to his position? Put kiddie porn on his computer then call the cops! This was the cunning plan envisaged by handyman Neil Weiner of east London after falling out with school caretaker Edward Thompson too many times. Thankfully, Weiner didn't cover his tracks quite well enough to avoid being found out — earlier boasts about his plan to friends at a BBQ provided the police with enough evidence to arrest him for trying to pervert the course of justice. Frighteningly, however, between being charged with possession of indecent images and being exonerated, innocent (if 'grumpy') Thompson was abused and ostracized for eight months by neighbors and colleagues. With computer forensics for police work often being performed by 'point 'n click'-trained, nearly-retired cops, or languishing in a 6-month queue for private sector firms to attend to it, the uncomfortable question is raised: how easily might this trick have succeeded if Weiner had been a little more intelligent about it?"
Image

Using Classical Music As a Form of Social Control Screenshot-sm 721

Posted by samzenpus from the feeling-of-dread-in-f-minor dept.
cyberfringe writes "Classical music is being used increasingly in Great Britain as a tool for social control and a deterrent to bad behavior. One school district subjects badly behaving children to hours of Mozart in special detention. Unsurprisingly, some of these youth now find classical music unbearable. Recorded classical music is blared through speakers at bus stops, outside stores, train stations and elsewhere to drive away loitering youth. Apparently it works. Detentions are down, graffiti is reduced, and naughty youth flee because they find classical music repugnant."
Government

The Upside of the NASA Budget 283

Posted by Soulskill from the new-astronaut-ice-cream-flavors dept.
teeks99 writes "There are a lot of articles circulating about the new changes to the NASA budget, but this one goes into some of the details. From what I'm seeing, it looks great — cutting off the big, expensive, over-budget stuff and allowing a whole bunch of important and revolutionary programs to get going: commercial space transportation; keeping the ISS going (now that we've finally got it up and running); working on orbital propellant storage (so someday we can go off to the far flung places); automated rendezvous and docking (allowing multiple, smaller launches, which then form into one large spacecraft in orbit). Quoting: 'NASA is out of the business of putting people into low-earth orbit, and doesn't see getting back in to it. The Agency now sees its role as doing interesting things with people once they get there, hence its emphasis on in-orbit construction, heavy lift capabilities, and resource harvesting hardware. Given budgetary constraints and the real issues with the Constellation program, none of that is necessarily unreasonable.'"

Comment Re:Spin-off bicycle Technology (Score 1) 67

by ComputerInsultant (#30906788) Attached to: NASA Tests All-Composite Prototype Crew Module
So what you are saying is that instead of investing in space technology so that we can see spin-offs in other areas, we could be investing in bike technology that spins-off to space technology.

That's not how it's suppose to work. It's suppose to be only space that has spin-off technologies. /sarcasm

We really need to realize that any tech that pushes the envelope will have spin-off technologies.

Comment Microsoft bullies FOSS with patents and conspirato (Score 4, Insightful) 306

by ComputerInsultant (#30848238) Attached to: Jeremy Allison Calls Microsoft Dangerous Elephant
No, the headline is "Microsoft bullies FOSS with patents and conspiratorial coersion."

When Microsoft patents obvious things, then uses those patents to threaten law suits, that is a threat.

If Microsoft was competing by building great software, we would be having a different conversation. This conversation is about Microsoft competing without building software.

Comment It's just a Potemkin rocket (Score 1) 383

by ComputerInsultant (#29903395) Attached to: "Frickin' Fantastic" Launch of NASA's Ares I-X Rocket
It is designed and built for show, not for real testing. The Ares 1X is just a Potemkin rocket to make a good impression on congress and the American public. Any test data is just incidental.

There are so many things that need to be tested, but this launch tests almost nothing. Unfortunately this is what I have come to expect of NASA: good PR, solid engineering, poor vision.

Please let the president and NASA administrators choose the Augustine flexible path using EELV rockets so that we can get something accomplished in addition to burning money.

Comment Paper ballots are not immune to software problems (Score 1) 406

by ComputerInsultant (#29817907) Attached to: Sequoia Voting Systems Source Code Released
Optical scan machines have software bugs too!

Humboldt County, California has an innovative program to put on the Internet scanned images of all the optical-scan ballots cast in the county. In the online archive, citizens found 197 ballots that were not included in the official results of the November election. Investigation revealed that the ballots disappeared from the official count due to a programming error in central tabulation software

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/election-transparency-project-finds-ballot-counting-bug

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