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Submission + - What Are the Most Confounding Features of Various Programming Languages? (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: Every programming language has its own unique quirks, such as weird syntax, unusual functionality or non-standard implementations, things that can cause developers new to the language, or even seasoned pros, to scratch their heads in wonder (or throw their hands up in despair). ITworld's Phil Johnson has rounded up some of the WTFiest — from the + operator in JavaScript to the trigraphs in C and C++ and indentation level in Python. What programming language oddities cause you the most grief?

Submission + - Why Munich will stick with Linux (opensource.com)

Submitted by Jason Hibbets
Jason Hibbets writes: "There are many solved problems in open source. Groupware is not one of them," Georg Greve, co-founder and CEO of Kolab System starts off his post highlighting recent features of the latest release of the Kolab groupware project. He calls out a few newly elected politicans that don't like the current set-up, but says that thousands of users don't have the same experience. "In other words: The very problem used to criticise the LiMux desktop is already being solved."

Submission + - How IKEA turn to CG for its catalog - only 25% of pics are real (cgsociety.org) 1

Submitted by advid.net
advid.net writes: Have you ever wondered why the furniture look so beautiful in the catalog, but not that much once in your home?

In the IKEA catalog 75% of the pictures are computer generated, only 25% are shots of real scenes with real products.

CG Society interviewed Martin Enthed and his team about how they managed to switch from traditional shooting to CG:

[...] the real turning point for us was when, in 2009, they called us and said, “You have to stop using CG. I’ve got 200 product images and they’re just terrible. You guys need to practice more.” So we looked at all the images they said weren’t good enough and the two or three they said were great, and the ones they didn’t like were photography and the good ones were all CG!

The article stress many advantages CG have over traditional shooting, and points out that even the kitchen, the most expensive shooting, has its layout localized to the targeted country (big white sink or small stainless sink, more drawers, ...).

Submission + - 4chan Imposes DMCA Policy

Submitted by davidshenba
davidshenba writes: In the wake of leaked private photos of celebrities, 4chan has added Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown policy to its rules and policies. Under this new policy, the site will remove any notified and verified "infringement". It is not clear how effective this could be and how 4chan is going to handle the inflow of notifications or restrict the contents provided by users.

Submission + - Hypersonic Missile Testing Should be Banned Now, Before They Actually Work (thebulletin.org) 1

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: Mark Gubrud has a fascinating piece arguing for the US to lead the way in calling for a ban on the testing of hypersonic missiles, a technology that the US has been developing for decades. China has also started testing these weapons, which proponents optimistically claim would not be used to deliver nuclear weapons. Russia, India, and a few other countries are also joining in the fray, so a ban on testing would stop an arms race in its tracks. Good discussion of the two types of hypersonic technology, and whether that technology has civilian applications.

Comment Your views on b/ros culture evolution ? (Score 1) 220

by advid.net (#47815003) Attached to: Interview: Ask Christopher "moot" Poole About 4chan and Social Media

Can you share your views and feelings on how the popular culture of b/ros have evolved since this board started?

For instance (and I make up the following, I really don't know):

Would you say that ...
- at the begining people posting there were a mix of childish nerds, internet power user, and ...
- then arround 2005-2006 a nucleus of posters got a solid 4chan centric culture, characterized by such and such
- and after the xxx case 4chan draw enough attention to get a bunch of occasional tourist posters, contaminated by a small but steady stream of deviant cp-esque posts.
- etc

Submission + - Stealing ATM PINs with a cheap infrared camera (youtube.com) 1

Submitted by cccc828
cccc828 writes: German tech news website heise.de reports about a video by Mark Rober. It shows how to use a $300 infrared camera for the iPhone to read the residual heat signatures of an ATM. The residual heat signatures allow an attacker to reconstruct the PIN around 80% of the time. While this attack vector is not new, IR cameras used to be both rare and expensive. The best defense against the attack is to simply touch all the keypads keys after making a payment.

Submission + - How Microsoft dragged its development practices into the 21st century (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by nerdyalien
nerdyalien writes: As a web developer who joined the industry few years back, I had to practice Agile from day one. Despite the years of expereince and what I heard/learned in Agile related events (i.e. workshops, conferences), I always maintained a firm opinion that Agile would not scale in large projects. For me, it was the simple fact that there weren't enough strong case studies to explain how a large organization or a project successfully adopted Agile in their daily business. It seems tide has changed, and the Redmond giant has embraced Agile to deliver one of its flagship products. Is this the turning point for large scale Agile ?

Submission + - Linux Containers - Server Virtualization 2.0 : A Game Changer! (blogspot.com)

Submitted by kumarudaya
kumarudaya writes: Linux Containers are taking us back to the efficient model of Single OS/Server for high performance/low cost. All the parties including Google has agreed to create a single container technology in Linux. Google says everything runs on container and creating 2 Billion containers/week. It's time for applications start designing for containers for higher efficiency.

Submission + - Saturn's F Ring Is Now Three Times As Wide As During The Voyager Flybys

Submitted by KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: In 1980 and 1981, Voyager 1 and 2 flew past Saturn providing unprecedented images of its magnificent ring system. At that time, its most distant discrete ring, the F ring, was about 200 kilometres wide. But puzzlingly, images sent back by Cassini show that the ring is now 580 kilometres wide and twice as bright as it was thirty years ago. Now astronomers think they have finally solved the mystery of the expanding F ring. The ring is shepherded by a number of small moons, the most famous of which is Prometheus. These moons interact gravitationally with the ring creating structures such as braids and spokes. The new thinking is that the moons' orbits resonate with the F ring, pushing clouds of dust and ice further away from Saturn. This makes the ring wider. But beyond a certain radius the orbit of the dust becomes unstable and it begins to spiral back towards Saturn and collides with the rest of the ring. This causes a chain reaction of collisions that dramatically increases the number of particles in the ring and hence its brightness. This theory also leads to a prediction--the resonant process is currently at a maximum but should reduce sharply in the coming years, if the theory is correct. So by 2018, the F ring should be back to the same configuration the Voyagers saw in 80/81.

Comment The most played games in duration (Score 1) 382

by advid.net (#47782671) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Are the Best Games To Have In Your Collection?

Those games are remarkable because:
- with those I've spent the most hours of my whole recreational time
- for those I'll always say Yes if I have the opportunity to play (unless mentioned otherwise)
- they have been ported on new platforms, have clones, etc (for the old ones), and that matters.
(from old to recent)

Lode Runner on Apple //e
Boulder Dash on Apple //e
Conan on Apple //e
Transilvania on Apple //e
RISK tabletop
Monopoly tabletop
Duke Nukem 3D on PC
Age of Empire on PC
Civilisation, for me it was CivNet, on PC
StarCraft on PC
Half Life on PC
DVONN tabletop
Worms Armageddon, on PC
Bridge Builder on PC/Mac (any clone)
OGame on Web (I stopped to play however)
Hordes on Web (I stopped to play however)
Uncharted, the 3 and also the 2, on PS3
DarkSiders, the 2, on PS3
Star Drone on PS3
Terraria on PS3 (on going)
Kerbal Space Program on PC (on going)
Path Of Exile on PC (on going)

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