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Programming

Why Do Programming Languages Succeed Or Fail? 201

magicmat writes "UC Berkeley EECS graduate researchers Leo Meyerovich and Ari Rabkin have compiled an interesting data set on the sociological aspects of programming language usage and adoption. 'Socio-PLT' is the result: compiling survey results from Berkeley's recent 'software engineering' massive online open course, SourceForge, and two years of The Hammer Principle online surveys, they have discovered some interesting phenomenon about what we, as programmers think about our languages, and why we use them. You can head over and explore the data yourself using cool interactive visualizations, and even fill out a survey yourself to have your say."

Comment Re:Damage is already done (Score 2) 112

... the engineering department (though, typically this is not a good idea, since CPEs/EEs look down on CS).

Reminds me of a joke my EE professor told us (our CS department is in the engineering school): Why is the CS department part of the engineering school? Every school has to have a special-ed program

Facebook

Zuckerberg Made Instagram Deal Alone 307

benfrog writes "According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook's Board of Directors was all but out of the picture when Mark Zuckerberg struck the $1 billion deal to purchase Instagram, the yet-profitless photo-sharing service. From the article: 'It was a remarkably speedy three-day path to a deal for Facebook—a young company taking pains to portray itself as blue-chip ahead of its initial public offering of stock in a few weeks that could value it at up to $100 billion. Companies generally prefer to bring in ranks of lawyers and bankers to scrutinize a deal before proceeding, a process that can eat up days or weeks. Mr. Zuckerberg ditched all that. By the time Facebook's board was brought in, the deal was all but done. The board, according to one person familiar with the matter, 'Was told, not consulted.'"

Comment Re:If You're Going To Make Promises ... (Score 1) 280

Well I was refused a replacement inside of 2 years. Apple refused to admit the problem with my Macbook Pro (of the same series with the same GPU) was affected by the problem. It cost me quite a bit in gas to the nearest Apple store, where they said it wasn't their problem. Hours on the phone, again denying it was the same problem. Finally I got a hold of some secret-ish Apple customer complaint line, where I explained to them that I worked at an electronics packaging lab, and had the equipment to verify the problem (the defect was some sort of packaging problem). This was not entirely true, though it was within my university's department. They finally relented when I said that if this defect was indeed covered by the recall I would be bringing the results of the test to every news outlet I could. Still took 3 weeks to get the damn machine back, and it runs hot as fucking anything.

Comment Re:BestBuy, why I hate you. (Score 1) 513

I worked in a Best Buy computer department from 2004-2006. The pushy salesmanship is completely a product of management (and I'm sure it's pushed on them just as hard.) I remember being told that every customer had to be greeted within 15 feet of entering a department area, or 30 seconds after entering. We were also strongly rebuked for a simple 'Hey can I help you out with anything today?'. Management would hawk around, and if they saw you interact with a customer, and it end quickly they would quiz you: what was the customer's name, what were they looking for, why was the interaction so short. If you told them the customer specifically said they would like to be left alone, it wasn't acceptable; go back and try again. Management also encouraged us to flat out lie about products (I assume a lot of it was due to their lack of education about technical specifications, though it is certainly plausible due to malice.) As a part timer, if you didn't do exactly as you were told in the above areas, your hours would quickly get diminished (4-6 hours a week of the worst possible shifts). Threats of termination weren't uncommon either. All in all it was an interesting experience for a teenage job, though I vowed never to work retail again.
Input Devices

Samsung Says Their TVs Aren't Really Spying On You 171

lightbox32 writes "Samsung has finally responded to an article recently published by HD Guru titled 'Is your TV watching you?' [See this related Slashdot post] which discussed the fact that new features in Samsung's top 2012 models — including built-in microphones, HDTV camera, wireless and wired Internet connection, built-in browser with voice to text conversion, face recognition and more — could be used to collect unprecedented personal information and invade our privacy. Samsung has now provided their privacy policy, which may or may not lay the issue to rest." I vote for "not" — conspiracy theories about mandatory (or just secret) surveillance equipment in consumer electronics is just too persistent, even when the technical capabilities turn out to be a hoax; when the equipment is actually all in place and the user is protected only by a corporate honor policy, it's hard to be sanguine. (I recall there was a much rumored secret capability for law enforcement agencies to secretly and remotely turn on the internal microphones in PCs meeting the PC 97 spec, and this was an integral part of the plan. Since the government insists that telecom equipment have built-in backdoors, why should that sound all that crazy?)

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