Transportation

Why Didn't Sidecar's Flex Pricing Work? 190

Posted by samzenpus from the you-get-what-you-pay-for dept.
Bennett Haselton writes Sidecar is a little-known alternative to Lyft and Uber, deployed in only ten cities so far, which lets drivers set their own prices to undercut other ride-sharing services. Given that most amateur drivers would be willing to give someone a ride for far less than the rider would be willing to pay, why didn't the flex-pricing option take off? Keep reading to see what Bennet has to say.
Books

Book Review: Digital Archaeology: the Art and Science of Digital Forensics 14

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
benrothke writes "The book Digital Archaeology: The Art and Science of Digital Forensics starts as yet another text on the topic of digital forensics. But by the time you get to chapter 3, you can truly appreciate how much knowledge author Michael Graves imparts. Archaeology is defined as the study of human activity in the past, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes. The author uses archeology and its associated metaphors as a pervasive theme throughout the book. While most archeology projects require shovels and pickaxes; digital archeology requires an entirely different set of tools and technologies. The materials are not in the ground, rather on hard drives, SD cards, smartphones and other types of digital media." Keep reading for the rest of Ben's review.
Books

Book Review: Secret History: the Story of Cryptology 71

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
benrothke writes "Narrating a compelling and interesting story about cryptography is not an easy endeavor. Many authors have tried and failed miserably; attempting to create better anecdotes about the adventure of Alice and Bob. David Kahn probably did the best job of it when wrote The Codebreakers: The story of secret writing in 1967 and set the gold standard on the information security narrative. Kahn's book was so provocative and groundbreaking that the US Government originally censored many parts of it. While Secret History: The Story of Cryptology is not as groundbreaking, it also has no government censorship. With that, the book is fascinating read that provides a combination of cryptographic history and the underlying mathematics behind it." Keep reading for the rest of Ben's review.
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The Book of GIMP Screenshot-sm 197

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
Michael Ross writes "Web designers, graphics artists, and others who create and edit digital images, have a number of commercial image-manipulation packages from which they can choose — such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Fireworks (originally developed by Macromedia). Yet there are also many alternatives in the open-source world, the most well-known being GNU Image Manipulation Program. GIMP is available for all major operating systems, and supports all commonly-used image formats. This powerful application is loaded with features, including plug-ins and scripting. Yet detractors criticize it as being complicated (as if Photoshop is intuitively obvious). Admittedly, anyone hoping to learn it could benefit from a comprehensive guide, such as The Book of GIMP." Keep reading for the rest of Michael's review.
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Book Review: Sams Teach Yourself Node.js In 24 Hours Screenshot-sm 112

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
Michael Ross writes "Since its introduction in 1994, JavaScript has largely been utilized within web browsers, which limited JavaScript programmers to client-side development. Yet with the recent introduction of Node.js, those programmers can leverage their skills and experience for server-side efforts. Node.js is an event-based framework for creating network applications — particularly those for the Web. Anyone interested in learning this relatively new technology can begin with one of numerous resources, including Sams Teach Yourself Node.js in 24 Hours." Keep reading for the rest of Michael's review.
The Military

Designing DNA Specific Bio-Weapons 227

Posted by samzenpus from the poison-just-for-you dept.
Hugh Pickens writes writes "The Atlantic reports that experts in genetics and microbiology are convinced we may be only a few years away from the development of advanced, genetic bio-weapons able to target a single human being based on their DNA. The authors paint a scenario of the development of a virus that causes only mild flu in the general population but when the virus crosses paths with cells containing a very specific DNA sequence, the sequence would act as a molecular key to unlock secondary functions that would trigger a fast-acting neuro-destructive disease that produces memory loss and, eventually, death. The requisite equipment including gene sequencers, micro-array scanners, and mass spectrometers now cost over $1 million but on eBay, it can be had for as little as $10,000. According to Ronald Kessler, the author of the 2009 book In the President's Secret Service, Navy stewards gather bedsheets, drinking glasses, and other objects the president has touched—they are later sanitized or destroyed—in an effort to keep would-be malefactors from obtaining his genetic material. However no amount of Secret Service vigilance can ever fully secure the president's DNA, because an entire genetic blueprint can now be produced from the information within just a single cell. How to protect the President? The authors propose open-sourcing the president's genetic information to a select group of security-cleared researchers who could follow in the footsteps of the computer sciences, where 'red-team exercises,' are extremely common practices so a similar testing environment could be developed for biological war games. 'Advances in biotechnology are radically changing the scientific landscape. We are entering a world where imagination is the only brake on biology,' write the authors. 'In light of this coming synbio revolution, a wider-ranging relationship between scientists and security organizations—one defined by open exchange, continual collaboration, and crowd-sourced defenses—may prove the only way to protect the president.'"
Books

Book Review: Why Does the World Exist? 304

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
eldavojohn writes "For quite some time humans have struggled to answer the question why there is anything rather than nothing. Jim Holt's Why Does the World Exist? tackles such questions in the form of a journey. After laying a brief groundwork, Holt travels from leading prominent philosopher to curmudgeonly physicist to reserved theologian, visiting each and relaying the juiciest parts of his transcripts to the reader. In doing so, this book takes on an interesting form with a meaty dense center to each chapter (the actual dialogues) surrounded by the light and fluffy bread of Holt's expert writing about the settings, weather and food of his travels. While this consequently lacks the characteristics of a heady hard hitting original philosophical work, these sandwiches should prove quite palatable for most readers. Why Does the World Exist? criss-crosses the etymological, epistemological, theological and philosophical aspects of its title while remaining a fairly easy read." Keep reading for the rest of eldavojohn's review.
Book Reviews

Book Review: Core Python Applications Programming, 3rd Ed. 65

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
thatpythonguy writes "Core Python Application Programming is the latest addition to a growing corpus of literature serving a growing number of Python programmers and engineers. This Prentice Hall book of 800+ pages covers some traditional areas and touches upon some new ones. I typically do not spend much time speaking about the author of the books that I review; however, this occasion warrants an exception. And it is not because Wesley Chun used Python over a decade ago to build the address book and spell-checker for Yahoo! Mail nor is it because he holds a minor degree in music from UC Berkeley in classical piano. Rather, it is because he is both an engineer and an instructor. In other words, he was not pulled from his geek duties and asked to become a pseudo-writer; he already does that for his consulting practice, authoring (or co-authoring) several books and articles on Python (including "Python Web Development with Django") as well as starring in his own training video (entitled "Python Fundamentals"). The result of that experience is a writing style that is technically sound, yet accessible." Keep reading for the rest of Ahmed's review.
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Book Review: Sams Teach Yourself HTML5 Mobile Application Development Screenshot-sm 44

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
Michael J. Ross writes "The last few years have seen the emergence of several significant advances in web technologies, including HTML5 and CSS3 — all impacting the development of traditional and mobile-centric web sites. In turn, various technical book publishers have released titles addressing one or more of these technologies. While one book may focus on HTML5 and the new JavaScript APIs, another might include extensive coverage of CSS3, with little mention of JavaScript. A recent title, Sams Teach Yourself HTML5 Mobile Application Development in 24 Hours, focuses on some of the more commonly employed elements introduced with HTML5, and how they can be used for creating mobile sites and applications." Read below for the rest of Michael's review.
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Book Review: Definitive Guide To Drupal 7 Screenshot-sm 55

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
Michael J. Ross writes "Most computer and web programming books are written entirely by a single author, while the remaining are written by more authors, typically with each one tackling several chapters. The latter approach can suffer from redundant material undetected by editors, and inconsistency in the writing style from one chapter to the next. Yet it offers the significant advantage that the subject matter of each chapter can be presented by an authority on that topic — who can focus on making that explication the best possible, without the burden of completing an entire book. That was one of my first thoughts (and hopes) when hefting the 1112 pages and 4.1 pounds of the Definitive Guide to Drupal 7." Read on for the rest of Michael's review.
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Book Review: Metasploit The Penetration Tester's Guide Screenshot-sm 24

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
eldavojohn writes "The Metasploit Framework has come a long way and currently allows just about anyone to configure and execute exploits effortlessly. Metasploit: The Penetration Tester's Guide takes current documentation further and provides a valuable resource for people who are interested in security but don't have the time or money to take a training class on Metasploit. The highlights of the book rest on the examples provided to the reader as exercises in exploiting several older versions of operating systems like Windows XP and Ubuntu while at the same time avoiding triggering antivirus or detection. The only weak point of this book is that a couple chapters refer the reader to external texts (on stacks and registers) in order to meet requirements for crafting exploits. The book also gives the reader a brief warning on ethics as many of these exploits and techniques would most likely work on many sites and networks. If you're wondering how seemingly inexperienced groups like lulzsec constantly claim victims, this would be an excellent read." Keep reading for the rest of eldavojohn's review.
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Book Review: CoffeeScript: Accelerated JavaScript Development Screenshot-sm 100

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
Michael J. Ross writes "For decades, programmers have written computer code in one language, and then programmatically translated that code into another, lower-level form (typically machine code that can be run directly by a microprocessor, or some sort of bytecode that can be interpreted by a virtual machine). For instance, source code written in C or C++ is compiled and assembled into machine code. In web programming, there are emerging languages and other tools for translating code into JavaScript. For instance, Google Web Toolkit allows the programmer to create web apps in Java. The latest addition to this category is CoffeeScript, a language that can be compiled into JavaScript, and is intended to reduce source code size and clutter by incorporating some of the best operators from other Web scripting languages, particularly Ruby. It is also the topic of a new tutorial, CoffeeScript: Accelerated JavaScript Development." Read on to learn what Michael thinks of this book.
Japan

Fukushima Robot Operator Tells His Story 57

Posted by Soulskill from the man-and-machine-versus-radiation dept.
An anonymous reader writes "An anonymous robot operator at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant has kept a blog describing in candid detail his day-to-day life at the crippled facility, including robot training exercises and actual radiation-survey and clean-up missions. The blog was recently deleted, but some copies existed around the web and IEEE Spectrum has translated and published portions of it in English. The blog shows that although the operators use remote-controlled robots, they have to work in areas of high radiation, using protective gear and shielded trucks. They also rely on a great deal of improvisation, and there have been a few incidents that put the robot missions at risk."
Programming

DARPA Commits To Funding Useful Hacking Projects 44

Posted by timothy from the good-work-if-you-can-hack-it dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Fahmida Y. Rashid reports that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will fund new cyber-security proposals under the new Cyber-Fast Track project intended to cut red tape for hackers to apply for funding for projects that would help the Defense Department secure computer networks, says Peiter Zatko, a hacker known as Mudge who was one of the seven L0pht members who testified before a Senate committee in 1998 that they could bring down the Internet in 30 minutes and is now a program manager for the agency's information innovation office. Anything that could help the military will be considered, including bug-hunting exercises, commodity high-end computing and open software tools and projects with the potential to 'reduce attack surface areas, reverse current asymmetries' are of particular interest. Under the Cyber-Fast Track initiative, DARPA will fund between 20 to 100 projects annually. Open to anybody, researchers can pitch DARPA with ideas and have a project approved and funded within 14 days of the application."
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Book Review: The Clean Coder Screenshot-sm 196

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
CoryFoy writes "As someone who has been closely involved in both the 'agile software' movement as well as the 'Software Craftsmanship' movement, I have been following the work of Robert Martin for some time. So I was quite interested when I got my copy of his latest book Clean Coder where he 'introduces the disciplines, techniques, tools and practices of true software craftsmanship.' Would his book live up to being a guide for the next generation of developers, or would it go on my shelf as another interesting book that I had read, once?" Read below for the rest of Cory's review.
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Book Review: Drupal 6 Theming Cookbook Screenshot-sm 21

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
Trevor James writes "Piling up on my tech bookshelf are a bunch of excellent titles on the Drupal content management system. Earl & Lynette Miles Drupal's Building Blocks is the book on how to use the CCK, Views and Panels modules. It's part of Addison Wesley's Developer's Library and is the definitive guide to the 'trifecta' of Drupal modules. There's a lot of theory and concepts explained in granular detail here as well as recipe style tutorials — soak it up. It's an excellent resource." Read on for the rest of Trevor's review.
Book Reviews

Book Review: Inkscape 0.48 Essentials for Web Designers 91

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
JR0cket writes"Inkscape is an open source 2D drawing tool that helps you create graphic designs, from simple buttons and logos to full blown posters and web page designs. Inkscape is similar to Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw and gives you a vector based graphics tool that uses the W3C Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format. Inkscape is easy to use, although learning the tricks that make designing a web site look great are more involved. The Inkscape 0.48 Essentials for Web designers is specifically focused on helping you to create your first web site designs and does a great job of getting you started. Most if not all the techniques covered are relevant to creating other graphic works too, so its useful as a general Inkscape tutorial." Read on for the rest of John's review.
Book Reviews

Drupal 7 85

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
Trevor James writes "Drupal 7 is currently at beta 1 stage with 11 critical issues remaining to be fixed before an official release version. The question arises whether we should all be writing about Drupal 7 now and so soon, when it's still in its beta phase. I argue we should be writing about it. It can only help introduce new users to the Drupal application and the Drupal community and get new people involved to help test Drupal 7. This will ultimately help improve the software for its official release and on. This helps to build the Drupal community of users and developers. It helps spread the word to everyone about this flexible and robust content management system. We want Drupal to be used. So this is one way of getting it out there and in the public sphere." Read on for the rest of Trevor's review.
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JavaScript Cookbook Screenshot-sm 64

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
r3lody writes "I have enjoyed other cookbooks in the O'Reilly library of computer texts, so when I saw JavaScript Cookbook by Shelley Powers in the catalog, I jumped at it. The description mentioned that the book would cover HTML5 and ECMAScript 5, so I really wanted to learn the new capabilities of both. I did get to learn a lot, but I wonder if these new features are too new." Keep reading for the rest of Ray's review.

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