Comment Re:Why should we handhold women this much? (Score 1) 295
Indeed.
Comment Re:Why should we handhold women this much? (Score 2) 295
Oh, yes. Just replace Patriarchy with Matriarchy. That will solve all problems. Not. It will be a bit different, but it will be evil fuckery just the same.
Comment And in other news (Score 4, Insightful) 295
Far more men than women are interested in joining the sciences as a career.
So really, Science is predominantly male and that is by choice of the women. The good thing is that any woman that wants to be a scientist and has the talents and skills can be one in the western world. The reality is that most do not want to. Deal with it.
Hacker Warns Starbucks of Security Flaw, Gets Accused of Fraud 107
Andy Smith writes: Here's another company that just doesn't get security research. White hat hacker Egor Homakov found a security flaw in Starbucks gift cards which allowed people to steal money from the company. He reported the flaw to Starbucks, but rather than thank him, the company accused him of fraud and said he had been acting maliciously.
Video Games: Gateway To a Programming Career? 170
Nerval's Lobster writes: Want more people to program? Encourage them to play more video games, at least according to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In an online Q&A, Zuckerberg suggested that a lifetime spent playing video games could prep kids and young adults for careers as programmers. "I actually think giving people the opportunity to play around with different stuff is one of the best things you can do," he told the audience. "I definitely would not have gotten into programming if I hadn't played games as a kid." A handful of games, most notably Minecraft, already have a reputation for encouraging kids to not only think analytically, but also modify the gaming environment — the first steps toward actually wrestling with code.
Those of you who have done programming work in your career: did video games influence your path?
How Java Changed Programming Forever 382
snydeq writes: With Java hitting its 20th anniversary this week, Elliotte Rusty Harold discusses how the language changed the art and business of programming, turning on a generation of coders. Infoworld reports: "Java's core strength was that it was built to be a practical tool for getting work done. It popularized good ideas from earlier languages by repackaging them in a format that was familiar to the average C coder, though (unlike C++ and Objective-C) Java was not a strict superset of C. Indeed it was precisely this willingness to not only add but also remove features that made Java so much simpler and easier to learn than other object-oriented C descendants."
Factory Reset On Millions of Android Devices Doesn't Wipe Storage 92
Bismillah writes: Ross Anderson and Laurent Simon of Cambridge University studied a range of Android devices and found that even though a "factory reset" is supposed to fully wipe storage, it often doesn't. Interestingly enough, full-device encryption could be compromised by the incomplete wiping too. ITnews reports: "The researchers estimated that 500 million Android devices may not fully wipe device disk partitions. As many as 630 million phones may not wipe internal SD cards. Five 'critical failures' were outlined in the researchers' Security Analysis of Android Factory Resets paper.
Comment Re:0 terminated strings are the root of all exploi (Score 1) 70
I disagree. We do _not_ need the "cheap" programmers as what they write has negative worth. The reason C persists is simple: It is the best tool for quite a few jobs and it is a good tool in the hands of an expert. The damage caused is indeed unnecessary, but it is never a tool's fault when it is wielded incompetently.
Linux 4.0 Has a File-System Corruption Problem, RAID Users Warned 226
An anonymous reader writes: For the past few days kernel developers and Linux users have been investigating an EXT4 file-system corruption issue affecting the latest stable kernel series (Linux 4.0) and the current development code (Linux 4.1). It turns out that Linux users running the EXT4 file-system on a RAID0 configuration can easily destroy their file-system with this newest "stable" kernel. The cause and fix have materialized but it hasn't yet worked its way out into the mainline kernel, thus users should be warned before quickly upgrading to the new kernel on systems with EXT4 and RAID0.
Secret Files Reveal UK Police Feared That Trekkies Could Turn On Society 214
An anonymous reader writes: Scotland Yard was worried that fans of shows like the X Files and Star Trek might run amok during the Millennium according to secret files. The file, called UFO New Religious Movements (NRMs) And The Millennium, reveals that anti-terrorism experts were also concerned about the brain-washing effect of Dark Skies, Roswell, Millennium and The Lawnmower Man on viewers. According to the Telegraph: "The secret briefing note was obtained from the Met under the Freedom of Information Act by Sheffield-based British X-Files expert Dr Dave Clarke while researching a new book, How UFOs Conquered the World. Dr Clarke, who teaches investigative journalism at Sheffield Hallam University, said: 'The documents show the police and security services were concerned about the export of some new religious movements concerning UFOs and aliens from the USA in the aftermath of the mass suicide by followers of the Heaven's Gate.'"
Comment And? Are people buying more digital content? (Score 1) 224
Because that is the real kicker: The copyright industry believes every infringed copy is a lost sale. Quite a bit of research found that it is actually the other way round: Copyright infringement increases legitimate sales. Hence these more effective practices to reduce copyright infringement should also reduce legitimate business.
Will be interesting to see, especially if this turns out to be happening and the content mafia cannot believe it.
Comment Re:...unless you rule Australia (Score 1) 71
The Australians will either come to their senses of find themselves squarely in the second world in the long run. Some researchers already left the country and a lot more will be thinking about it. It will be interesting to see what will happen.
However, if recent history is any indication, Australians like to get screwed over by their government, hence they keep voting for anti-citizen politicians. Must be some kind of collective masochism going on down under.
Comment Re:This is why you should never vote democrat... (Score 0) 71
... or a lot worse, vote for a Republican.
The US political system is completely screwed with only bad options left for the voters.
Comment Re:0 terminated strings are the root of all exploi (Score 1) 70
Fail.
Actually: Stop having people program C that do not know how to program securely in C. 0-terminated strings are fine in some contexts and not in others. The problem is people that cannot tell which is which.
Comment And that is why you do not downgrade encryption... (Score 4, Informative) 71
At the time these utterly stupid laws were made, these ciphers where still somewhat secure against most attackers. The problem is that encryption software and parameters can stay in use for a long time.
