Comment Re:Polemic? (Score 1) 553
Was thinking the same. Should just be contentious maybe?
Submission + - TSA Petition is back up! (whitehouse.gov)
An anonymous reader writes: The TSA petition that was taken down last Thursday (http://politics.slashdot.org/story/12/08/12/1521240/white-house-pulls-down-tsa-petition) has been recreated. Your help is needed to sign and push the petition back to its former glory.
Submission + - Hacked BitCoin Exchange Sued By Customers (techweekeurope.co.uk)
judgecorp writes: "Bitcoinica, an exchange for the BitCoin virtual currency, is being sued by former customers, after it was hacked. Thieves stole around $180,000 worth of BitCoins in two attacks. The site is now closed, and customers are suing to get their money back."
Submission + - Google Ventures: Not Just Another VC Firm (venturebeat.com)
AmyVernon writes: "Jolie O'Dell takes a hard look at Google Ventures and what makes it a different kind of VC firm — one that doesn't believe it's how the companies are picked inasmuch as how the companies are nurtured:
"Google Ventures is a separate entity from Google, Inc. It operates on the same campus but in different buildings, and while it pulls its talent and knowledge resources from the Google pool, it’s very much its own beast. The fund kicked off in 2009 with a goal of investing $100 million each year. Its known portfolio companies currently number 115; if you look for themes among them, you’ll find they range so widely across any criteria you choose that finding such themes is nearly impossible.
Aside from the Google connection, the firm and its partners are obviously different from anything else in their league in a few major ways.
For one thing, Google Ventures partners don’t really put as much emphasis on the almighty picker: the magic 8-ball in every VC’s back pocket that tells him whether or not a company is a good bet. Primarily because such a device doesn’t exist.
“Picking plays a role, don’t get me wrong. But people walk around the venture world thinking they’re such good pickers,” Kraus says. “It’s like Lake Woebegone, where everyone thinks their children are above average.
“We believe helping companies plays more of a role than most people give it credit for.”"
"Google Ventures is a separate entity from Google, Inc. It operates on the same campus but in different buildings, and while it pulls its talent and knowledge resources from the Google pool, it’s very much its own beast. The fund kicked off in 2009 with a goal of investing $100 million each year. Its known portfolio companies currently number 115; if you look for themes among them, you’ll find they range so widely across any criteria you choose that finding such themes is nearly impossible.
Aside from the Google connection, the firm and its partners are obviously different from anything else in their league in a few major ways.
For one thing, Google Ventures partners don’t really put as much emphasis on the almighty picker: the magic 8-ball in every VC’s back pocket that tells him whether or not a company is a good bet. Primarily because such a device doesn’t exist.
“Picking plays a role, don’t get me wrong. But people walk around the venture world thinking they’re such good pickers,” Kraus says. “It’s like Lake Woebegone, where everyone thinks their children are above average.
“We believe helping companies plays more of a role than most people give it credit for.”"
Comment many having over 20 years' experience in the field (Score 1) 345
The last bold point is my favorite.
"we harness the local knowledge of our 60 million satnav customers, who can make corrections through TomTom Map Share."
Using people who apparently cannot navigate on their own is on par with Webster hiring partially literate editors.
Submission + - Law That Allows Summary Closing of Websites Passed (elpais.com)
Sir Mal Fet writes: In a very polemic move by the Spanish parliament, the infamous 'Sinde' law, already discussed here, was passed on December 31st. Albeit modified from their original version, the law will allow the Spanish government to request ISPs to summary close a website due to copyright infringment (Original in Spanish, Google translation). If the ISP refuses, then it's passed to court where a judge can order the website closed. It seems it's one good, one bad over there. The law is in public consult until March, and No Les Votes, a Spanish organization that opposes the law, has already started a campaign to boicot it (Original in Spanish; Google translation).
Submission + - Air Force UAV Controls Infected with Virus (defensetech.org)
savuporo writes: DefenseTech story "Air Force’s UAV ground control systems (GCS) at Creech Air Force Base, Nev., have been infected by a computer virus. The virus, that’s apparently recording drone operators’ keystrokes, was detected about two weeks ago. While it hasn’t prevented the service from flying UAV missions, it has proven to be difficult to remove — Air Force technicians are having to completely wipe the GCS’ internal hard drives to get rid of the virus. Service officials still aren’t 100 percent sure how it penetrated Creech’s firewalls nor do they know where it came from. It may be a run of the mill computer virus that somehow made its way into the base’s systems or it may be a sophisticated cyber espionage tool specifically targeting the U.S.’ drone program — no one knows yet."
No word on what OS or chipsets these systems were running, but its pretty safe to bet that it is not vxWorks or QNX or the like ..
No word on what OS or chipsets these systems were running, but its pretty safe to bet that it is not vxWorks or QNX or the like
Comment Re:here we go again (Score 1) 482
Seriously? It is that hard to understand that large scale well written programs can be accomplished in JS? I guess you click the 'Load HTML version' link on gmail (or equivalent)?
And on a side note, I program not engineer. Maybe thats the problem,... everyone is trying to engineer with JS.
Comment Re:here we go again (Score 1) 482
Welp, I don't know what I have been doing wrong for the last 5 years but I seem to have little problem making large scale, desktop quality applications in Javascript. With frameworks like ExtJS available it even easy now. Maybe you are just not a very good JS developer?
Comment here we go again (Score 1) 482
This summery throws into sharp relief the typical misconception of Javascript. The language is not the limiting factor, its the browsers that implement it. Dart will do nothing more then fragment this even further.
Submission + - JavaScript decoder plays MP3s without Flash (geek.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The introduction of HTML5 and super-fast JavaScript engines to the latest web browsers has brought with it a wealth of new functionality. The focus seems to have been put on the ability to play video in a browser without Flash, or making games. But a project born out of a Music Hackday in Berlin is just as exciting.
It’s called jsmad and is a pure JavaScript decoder that allows you to play MP3s in a browser without Flash. So, for example, a music artist could create a website and upload songs for visitors to listen to without need of any plug-ins. Alternatively, why not have an MP3 jukebox that can play songs off your hard drive or Dropbox folder just by loading a website?
You can try out the decoder by visiting the jsmad.org website where there is a sample song, on the same site you can browse for your own local file to play. Be warned, it only works in Firefox 4+ at the moment, but Chrome support is coming and already works in some cases. Eventually we could see it work across all modern browsers.
It’s called jsmad and is a pure JavaScript decoder that allows you to play MP3s in a browser without Flash. So, for example, a music artist could create a website and upload songs for visitors to listen to without need of any plug-ins. Alternatively, why not have an MP3 jukebox that can play songs off your hard drive or Dropbox folder just by loading a website?
You can try out the decoder by visiting the jsmad.org website where there is a sample song, on the same site you can browse for your own local file to play. Be warned, it only works in Firefox 4+ at the moment, but Chrome support is coming and already works in some cases. Eventually we could see it work across all modern browsers.
Comment Re:Already have a ten speed (Score 1) 128
Pfft! Really? Pay for it? I am the poster child for retail is for suckers. Its just a T-shift if you pay for it, its shwag if its given to you.
Comment Already have a ten speed (Score 1) 128
Well hey now, guys, look. I do not want to do anything illegal here... but I would kill somebody... in front of their own mama... to get a /. T-shirt. And if any witnesses testify against me, I'll gouge their eyes out.
Otherwise you could come visit the Skype office in Palo Alto.
Submission + - Mr. Pike, Tear Down This ASCII Wall! 2
theodp writes: To move forward with programming languages, argues Poul-Henning Kamp, we need to break free from the tyranny of ASCII. While Kamp admires programming language designers like the Father-of-Go Rob Pike, he simply can't forgive Pike for 'trying to cram an expressive syntax into the straitjacket of the 95 glyphs of ASCII when Unicode has been the new black for most of the past decade.' Kamp adds: 'For some reason computer people are so conservative that we still find it more uncompromisingly important for our source code to be compatible with a Teletype ASR-33 terminal and its 1963-vintage ASCII table than it is for us to be able to express our intentions clearly.' So, should the new Hello World look more like this?
Submission + - FCC proposes 100Mbps minimum home broadband sp (slashdot.org)
zemms writes: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission unveiled a plan on Tuesday that would require Internet providers to offer minimum home connection speeds by 2020,
