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Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Alternatives to the Canonical Computer Science Degree 1

Submitted by
connorblack
connorblack writes: "I want to be a web developer, and everyday I ask myself the same question: why am I wasting my time getting a computer science degree? I feel like I'm trapped- most of the courses I spend all my time on are far removed from the skills I need to succeed as a web developer. But on the other hand, I can't imagine another degree that would allow me to stay in a programming mindset. The fact is that web development has taken huge bounds in the last few years, and sadly most universities haven't caught up. Computer science is a field that overlaps with web development, but getting a computer science degree to become a web developer is like getting a zoology degree to become a veterinarian. Close, but no cigar. So here's the deal: I'm in my second year of a computer science degree, and the thought of wasting two more years, getting left in the dust, and becoming irrelevant has me horrified. I want to start my web development career now. Or at least as soon as possible. I can drop out and devote 6 months to teaching myself, but I want something more structured. Something that has the benefits of a classroom and an authority figure, but which teaches me exactly what I need to know to do what I want to do. Any suggestions?"
Cloud

Submission + - Mega Vulnerability Reward Program Starts Payouts: 7 Bugs Fixed In First Week

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: If you’re a hacker or a security researcher, this is a reminder that you don’t have to take on Google’s or Mozilla’s software to get paid for finding a bug. In its first week, the Mega vulnerability reward program has already confirmed and fixed seven bugs, showing that Dotcom really does put his money where his mouth is. Although Mega hasn’t shared how much money it paid out in the first week, how many bug submissions were made, or even who found which bugs, the company did briefly detail the discovered security holes. It also confirmed that the program is here to stay and urged those participating to find more severe bugs.

Submission + - Corn shortage affects ethanol production in the US (yahoo.com)

Submitted by drdread66
drdread66 writes: A nationwide corn shortage brought on by last year's drought has started to curtail ethanol production. While this shouldn't be surprising to anyone, it raises public policy issues regarding ethanol usage requirements in motor fuel. Given that the energy efficiency of ethanol fuel is questionable at best, is it time to lift the mandate for ethanol in our gasoline?
Science

Submission + - Ozone on the Path to Recovery over Antarctica? (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: Ozone layer seems to be on a road to recovery over Antarctica as Satellite images indicate that the hole in the protective layer is the smallest as compared to its size in the past decade. According to Europe’s MetOp weather satellite, which is monitoring the atmospheric ozone, the hole over the South Pole in 2012 was the smallest in the last 10 years. The decrease in size of the hole is probably the result of reduction in the concentration of CFCs, especially since the mid-1990s, because of international agreements like the Montreal Protocol.

Submission + - What to do when an advised BIOS upgrade is bad?

Submitted by
Bomarc
Bomarc writes: "Twice now I've been advised to "flash the BIOS to the latest", once by a (major) hard drive controller maker (RAID); once by an OEM (who listed as "critical", and has removed older versions of the BIOS). Both times, the update has bricked an expensive piece of equipment. Both times, the response after the failed flash was "It's not our problem, it's out of warranty". Given that they recommended — advised that the unit be upgraded, shouldn't they shoulder the responsibility of BIOS upgrade failure? Also, if there design had sockets rather than soldering on parts, one could R/R the faulty part (BIOS chip), rather than going to eBay and praying. Am I the only one that has experienced this type of problem? Have you been advised to upgrade a BIOS (firmware); and the upgrade bricked the part or system — if so, what did you do? Should I name the companies?"

Submission + - Aaron Swartz's prosecutor Steve Heymann Should Be Fired (tumblr.com) 1

Submitted by Weezul
Weezul writes: Thanks to a last minute appeal by Aaron Swarz' girlfriend, a petition to fire Boston Assistant US Attorney Stephen Heymann has passed 25,000 signatures, has crossed the threshold required to elicit a White House response. Steve Heymann is the prosecutor in the Massachusetts US Attorneyâ(TM)s office who so aggressively and unreasonably went after Aaron to further his own career.
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - GNU Hurd To Develop SATA, USB, Audio Support (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Hurd, the GNU micro-kernel project that was founded by Richard Stallman in 1983, may finally be catching up with Linux on the desktop... Plans were shared by its developers to finally bring in some modern functionality by working on support for Serial ATA drives, USB support, and sound cards. There's also ambitions to provide x86_64 CPU architecture support. GNU Hurd developers will be doing an unofficial Debian GNU/Hurd "Wheezy" release this year but they hope for the Debian "Jessie" release their micro-kernel in Debian will make it as part of some official CDs.
Bug

Submission + - Six months without Adobe Flash, and I feel fine (hou2600.org)

Submitted by
hessian
hessian writes: "As documented on /., six months ago I de-installed the Adobe FlashTM player on all my browsers.

This provoked some shock and incredulity from others. After all, Flash has been an essential content interpreter for over a decade. It filled the gap between an underdeveloped JavaScript and the need for media content like animation, video and so on."
Japan

Submission + - Japanese "cyber crime" suspect arrested for petting a stray cat (mainichi.jp)

Submitted by siddesu
siddesu writes: A man was arrested this morning in Tokyo because he was videotaped approaching a famous stray cat in the popular tourist destination of Enoshima near Tokyo.

The animal was used some months ago to deliver (via an SD card strapped to its leash) a message ridiculing the cyber crime unit of the Japanese police for their failure to apprehend a "hacker", who posted "threatening messages" to several popular boards.

The investigation of the pranks since October last year has so far resulted in four arrests of innocent people.

Submission + - Ron Paul calls on U.N. for help (theatlanticwire.com) 1

Submitted by thoughtfulbloke
thoughtfulbloke writes: Maker or Taker? Ron Paul has gone to the United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organization to seize control of the RonPaul.com domain from the fans that built it up, rather than purchase it.

Submission + - John E. Karlin, Who Led the Way to All-Digit Dialing, Dies at 94 (nytimes.com)

Submitted by g01d4
g01d4 writes: Who was John E. Karlin? “He was the one who introduced the notion that behavioral sciences could answer some questions about telephone design,” according to Ed Israelski, an engineer who worked under Mr. Karlin at Bell Labs in the 1970s. And you thought Steve Jobs was cool. An interesting obituary in the NYT.
Security

Submission + - How a Chinese Hacker Tried to Blackmail Me (slate.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Slate provides the first-person account of a CEO who received an e-mail with several business documents attached threatening to distribute them to competitors and business partners unless the CEO paid $150,000. "Experts I consulted told me that the hacking probably came from government monitors who wanted extra cash," writes the CEO, who successfully ended the extortion with an e-mail from the law firm from the bank of his financial partner, refusing payment and adding that the authorities had been notified. According to the article, IT providers routinely receive phone calls from their service providers if they detect any downtime on the monitors of network traffic installed by the Chinese government, similar to the alerts provided to telecom providers about VoIP fraud on their IP-PBX switches. "Hundreds of millions of Chinese operate on the Internet without any real sense of privacy, fully aware that a massive eavesdropping apparatus tracks their every communication and move..." writes the CEO. "With China’s world and ours intersecting online, I expect we’ll eventually wonder how we could have been so naive to have assumed that privacy was normal- or that breaches of it were news."

Submission + - NTSB has discovered the cause of the battery failures on the Boeing 787 (ntsb.gov)

Submitted by AbrasiveCat
AbrasiveCat writes: The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has reported that the battery problems suffered by the Boeing 787 were caused by a short circuit in a cell of the battery. http://www.ntsb.gov/news/2013/130207.html The cause of the short circuit is still under investigation and the plane is still a ways from being cleared to fly passengers again.

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