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Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How to ensure data would survive a Carrington event 2

Submitted by kactusotp
kactusotp writes: I run a small indie game company and since source code is kind of our life blood, I'm pretty paranoid about backups. Every system has a local copy, servers run from a raid 5 nas, we have complete offsite backups, backup to keyrings/mobile phones, and cloud backups in other countries as well. With all the talk about solar flares and other such near extinction events lately, I've been wondering though, is it actually possible to store or protect data in such a way, that if such an event occurred, data survives and is recoverable in a useful form? Optical and magnetic media would probably be rendered useless by a large enough solar flare and storing source code/graphics in paper format would be impractical to recover, so Slashdot, short of building a Faraday cage 100 km below the surface of the moon, how could you protect data to survive a modern day Carrington event? http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/03/06/3446150.htm
Book Reviews

Submission + - Survey of Human Centered Informatics (amazon.com)

Submitted by kodiaktau
kodiaktau writes: My exposure to HCI or Human Computer Interaction (now Human Centered Informatics) has been largely aged and limited to some brief early interaction with the Association of Computing Machinery. Since then I have been loosely following trends in usability but haven't really focused on the actual science behind the work we do on a day-to-day basis in creating user interfaces and using web applications. When I picked up this book I assumed it would be some unifying theory of HCI that would catch me up with where the science is today, but found it to be quite different.

In 113 pages, including the author biography, Yvonne Rogers winds a curious path through not only the theories behind HCI, but also a significant portion of time is spent giving some background in the history of the study. I was pleased to find that science is evolving and has spent a significant amount of time working with other social science disciplines as well as technical interaction. It was also interesting to see that like other social based disciplines there are many forks from the origin. I liked this book's style of simple presentation around theories. Most authors would trip over themselves trying to find long and complicated ways of explaining theory and purpose. This author is straight to the point and has practical examples for the different phases of the HCI theory evolution. In particular I really liked the way she included "...in a Nutshell" summaries of each theory. In a very small area she re-stated theory in an easy to digest manner. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a "For Dummies" kind of book, but the presentation is simple, elegant and well, usable.

The limited number of pages in the title may dissuade readers from purchasing, however this is not a case of more-is-better. I spent a lot of time reading this book in small chunks so I could completely understand each theory and how it evolved from previous models both inside the science and from other disciplines. While this book isn't for everyone I would certainly recommend this to someone moving into HCI studies, or for those who have interest in user interaction and classical theory. My biggest disappointment with this title was the quality of some diagrams supporting the theories. There is a lot of pixelation in some of the art and the fonts used in them can be a little hard to read. Really the publisher should have fixed those issues before going to print. As a survey of the body of knowledge I think this is really good. It is a little on pricey side at $35 for the amount of material, but the quality and uniqueness seems to be about right for the price.

Submission + - Brutal July heat a new U.S. record (cnn.com) 1

Submitted by gollum123
gollum123 writes: The July heat wave that wilted crops, shriveled rivers and fueled wildfires officially went into the books Wednesday as the hottest single month on record for the continental United States. The average temperature across the Lower 48 was 77.6 degrees Fahrenheit, 3.3 degrees above the 20th-century average, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration reported. That edged out the previous high mark, set in 1936, by two-tenths of a degree, NOAA said. n addition, the seven months of 2012 to date are the warmest of any year on record and were drier than average as well, NOAA said. U.S. forecasters started keeping records in 1895. And the past 12 months have been the warmest of any such period on record, topping a mark set between July 2011 and this past June. Every U.S. state except Washington experienced warmer-than-average temperatures, NOAA reported.

Submission + - About the $25 Billion Settlement for Foreclosure Wrongs (thepragmaticpundit.com)

Submitted by
FayPax
FayPax writes: "In April, the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers finalized the agreement of a landmark $25 billion settlement with a coalition of state attorneys general and federal agencies? The settlement was supposed to address past mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure abuses and fraud, provide substantial financial relief to borrowers harmed by bank fraud, and established new homeowner protections for the future."
Robotics

Submission + - Solar-Powered 3D Printer Robot Creates Buildings From Sand (stonespray.com) 4

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Stone Spray is a solar-powered robotic 3D printer that can create entire buildings out of sand. The robotic device blends soil sourced on-site with a binder and then sprays the mixture onto a surface. The soil solidifies as the machine works, allow it to create furniture, load-bearing walls and support-free sculptural shapes. The device runs on solar power, and unlike other 3D printers it has the ability to print in multiple directions on both the vertical and horizontal plane.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How do I join the math geeks?

Submitted by phrackwulf
phrackwulf writes: In college I majored in materials science and now support myself as a contract engineer providing various technical services to a wide variety of companies. As I've gotten older, I've found myself more and more attracted to big data analytics and combinatoric and applied math because of the idea of using math to solve real world problems and a lifelong passion for mathematical logic. My question is this, what does someone in their mid thirties do to get admitted to a graduate program in applied mathematics? What undergraduate work should I consider doing first and what types of things would make me more marketable to a school with a highly competitive program?
NASA

Submission + - Curiosity on LEGO CUUSOO climbing the ranks! (cuusoo.com)

Submitted by
nemaki
nemaki writes: "A JPL engineer who worked on the actual Curiosity rover has submitted a model of the rover to the LEGO CUUSOO website where users can vote on submissions for LEGO to make into official sets. The model is very detailed and even has a functional rocker-bogie suspension. The maker includes a 46 page PDF of step-by-step instructions, itemized list of the required pieces, a Lego Digital Designer file as well as plenty of pictures and a video of the rover in action."

Comment "Own" the music? (Score 1) 390

by MarkusQ (#40370753) Attached to: Young Listeners Opt For Streaming Over Owning

Doesn't it get absurdly expensive to "own" the music?

Oh wait, you meant own a copy of the music. Or is it own a license (non-transferable) to a single physical copy...well, there's fair use of course.

I am so glad no one has gotten to the point of trying to build business models around breathing.

-- MarkusQ
Music

Submission + - "Open Source Bach" project completed; score and recording now online (opengoldbergvariations.org) 1

Submitted by
rDouglass
rDouglass writes: "MuseScore, the open source music notation editor, and pianist Kimiko Ishizaka have released a new recording and digital edition of Bach's Goldberg Variations. The works are released under the Creative Commons Zero license to promote the broadest possible free use of the works. The score underwent two rounds of public peer review, drawing on processes normally applied to open source software. Furthermore, the demands of Bach's notational style drove significant advancements in the MuseScore open source project. The recording was made on a Bösendorfer 290 Imperial piano in the Teldex Studio of Berlin. Anne-Marie Sylvestre, a Canadian record producer, was inspired by the project and volunteered her time to edit and produce the recording. The project was funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign that was featured on Slashdot in March 2011."

Comment Re:srsly (Score 1) 446

by MarkusQ (#38905425) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Transitioning From 'Hacker' To 'Engineer'?

I very much doubt that any organization would be allowed to review Windows kernel source code (regardless of budget), but we might just have to agree to disagree there.

From personal professional experience I can think of at least two organizations (both rather large) that have access to the full MS Windows source, and suspect there are quite a few I don't know of. Both maintain considerable organizational controls around access to the source (contractually obligated, I suspect). I'm not sure what my non-disclosure agreements say about the two cases I know of, but a quick google turns up several other examples (that I personally know nothing of) such as:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/operating_systems/225400063

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/security/2010/07/08/microsoft-opens-source-code-to-russian-secret-service-40089481/

...and even a link to how you ask for it yourself:

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/software-assurance/enterprise-source-licensing.aspx

Comment Re:You're in luck (Score 1) 298

by MarkusQ (#35486196) Attached to: Tech Expertise Not Important In Google Managers

soft skills are perceived as more valuable in a manager than technical expertise. To me, that's something that's stupendously obvious.

I agree. Soft skills are perceived as more valuable than technical expertise. Further, your arguments have convinced me that you not only share this perception but do indeed think it is stupendously obvious. If we were having this chat in person I would offer to buy you a drink and suggest we play a diverting little game of chance I happen to know in which soft skills are more valuable that technical expertise.

-- MarkusQ

Comment Re:You're in luck (Score 5, Informative) 298

by MarkusQ (#35476072) Attached to: Tech Expertise Not Important In Google Managers

*sigh*

Let me walk you through this:

  • Google made a major point of ensuring that managers had technical expertise
  • If we assume that they (Google) were honest in reporting this priority, competent in executing it, etc., we can conclude that given an individual who was a manager at Google it's highly likely that they had technical expertise; that is, to a good first approximation, HasTechnicalExpertise(X) is true for all X for which IsManagerAtGoogle(X) is true.
  • Google then took a survey of the people being managed, and asked them what was important to them about their manager.
  • The resulting list of features was presumably finite, as they completed the survey in a finite amount of time.
  • This might at first seem surprising, since there are an infinite number of things that might be said about a manager. However, a little thought shows that the most probable cause is that predicates that were true of (almost) all or (almost) none of the managers did not make a serious contribution to the data. Note that this filtering could have occurred at any part of the process (if it was a "pick the most important" list, neither "drinks water" or "can fly" were likely to be included; if by chance they were, they would be unlikely to be chosen; likewise, if it was a free-form question most respondents would be unlikely to volunteer such observations).
  • Therefore we should not expect to see common traits shared by all the managers as a strong component of the data.
  • Specifically, we should not expect "has technical expertise" to be a strong component of the data.
  • It was not. No story here.

-- MarkusQ

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