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Math

MATLAB Can't Manipulate 64-Bit Integers 334

Posted by kdawson from the does-not-compute dept.
An anonymous reader writes "MATLAB, an important package of mathematical software heavily used in industry and academia, has had support for 64-bit machines for several years now. However, the MATLAB developers still haven't gotten around to implementing even basic arithmetic operations for 64-bit integers. Attempting to add, divide, subtract, or multiply two 64-bit integers will result in an error message saying that the corresponding method does not exist. As one commentator put it, 'What is the point of having numerical data types that can't be manipulated?'" The post notes that the free MATLAB clone GNU Octave deals with 64-bit integers just fine.

Comment census (Score 4, Interesting) 309

by flynt (#31778682) Attached to: How Truthful Are You When Creating Web Accounts?

I was talking with my friends about the census. We agreed that after about 10 years of making up data on the web when sites ask for the same questions on the census, that our first instinct when filling it out was to reply with whatever first came to mind. I wonder if the odds of telling the truth on the census are different between the 'internet' generations and those older generations?
Bug

Sony Update Bricks Playstations 510

Posted by CmdrTaco from the when-upgrades-are-downgrades dept.
Stoobalou writes "A controversial update which was seeded by Sony in order to remove the ability to run Linux on the Playstation 3 games console has caused a storm of complaints. The 3.21 firmware upgrade, which removes the security hole provided by the 'Install Other OS' widget used by lots of educational institutions and hackers alike, also removes the console's ability to play games... turning it into a very expensive doorstop."
Wikipedia

Wikipedia Explains Today's Global Outage 153

Posted by timothy from the citation-you-requested dept.
gnujoshua writes "The Wikimedia Tech Blog has a post explaining why many users were unable to reach Wikimedia sites due to DNS resolution failure. The article states, 'Due to an overheating problem in our European data center many of our servers turned off to protect themselves. As this impacted all Wikipedia and other projects access from European users, we were forced to move all user traffic to our Florida cluster, for which we have a standard quick failover procedure in place, that changes our DNS entries. However, shortly after we did this failover switch, it turned out that this failover mechanism was now broken, causing the DNS resolution of Wikimedia sites to stop working globally. This problem was quickly resolved, but unfortunately it may take up to an hour before access is restored for everyone, due to caching effects."
Earth

China To Tap Combustible Ice As New Energy Source 185

Posted by timothy from the undra-the-tundra dept.
lilbridge writes "Huge reserves of "combustible ice" — frozen methane and water — have been discovered in the tundra of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China. Estimates show that there is enough combustible ice to provide 90 years worth of energy for China. Burning the combustible ice may be a far better alternative than letting it just melt, releasing tons of methane into the air."
GUI

Code Bubbles — Rethinking the IDE's User Interface 198

Posted by timothy from the don't-get-distracted-now dept.
kang327 writes "As Java developers we are used to the familiar file-based user interface that is used by all of the major IDEs. A team at Brown University has developed an IDE for Java called Code Bubbles that makes a fairly radical departure from current IDEs — it is based on fragments instead of files. The idea is that you can see many different pieces of code at once. Fragments can form groups, have automatic layout assistance, wrap long lines based on syntax, and exist in a virtual workspace that you can pan. A video shows reading and editing code, opening different kinds of info such as Javadocs, bug reports and notes, annotating and sharing workspaces, and debugging with bubbles. They report on several user studies that show the system increases performance for the tasks studied, and also that professional developers were enthusiastic about using it. There is also a Beta that you can sign up for."
Security

A "Never Reboot" Service For Linux 321

Posted by kdawson from the bits-don't-rot dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Ksplice, the company based on the MIT Ksplice project, is now offering its 'never reboot' service for Red Hat, Debian, and other Linux distros. You subscribe and get real-time kernel security updates that apply in-memory instead of rebooting. Last summer we discussed the free service for Ubuntu. Cool tech, but will people really pay $4 a month for this?"
Communications

Pope Urges Priests To Go Forth and Blog 284

Posted by kdawson from the heavy-content-filtering-at-the-seminary dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Pope Benedict XV, whose own presence on the Web has grown in recent years, is urging priests to use all multimedia tools at their disposal to preach the Gospel and to engage in dialogue with people of other religions and cultures. 'The spread of multimedia communications and its rich "menu of options" might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web,' but priests are 'challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources,' says the Pope. The message from the Pope, prepared for the World Day of Communications, suggests such possibilities as images, videos, animated features, blogs, and Web sites and adds that young priests should become familiar with new media while still in seminary, though the Pope stresses that the use of new technologies must reflect theological and spiritual principles. Many priests and top prelates already interact with the faithful online, and one of Benedict's advisers has his own Facebook profile. So does the archbishop of Los Angeles. The Pope adds, 'I renew the invitation to make astute use of the unique possibilities offered by modern communications. May the Lord make all of you enthusiastic heralds of the Gospel in the new "agorà" which the current media are opening up.'"
Google

Google Investigating Chinese Employees 181

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i'm-such-a-voyeur dept.
BluePeppers writes "The Guardian is reporting that Google China is investigating its staff about The Incident. '"We're not commenting on rumor and speculation. This is an ongoing investigation and we simply cannot comment on the details," a Google spokeswoman said. Security analysts told Reuters the malicious software or malware used in the attack was a modification of a trojan called Hydraq. A trojan is a hidden program allowing unauthorized access to a computer. The analysts said the sophistication in the attack was in knowing whom to attack, not the malware itself.'"
Government

$4,400/Yr. Coders May Work On Dept. of Labor Project 418

Posted by kdawson from the living-wage dept.
theodp writes "To power the Tools for America's Job Seekers Challenge, the US Department of Labor tapped IdeaScale, a subsidiary of Survey Analytics, which is headquartered in Seattle with satellite offices in Nasik, India and Auckland, NZ (PDF). According to the Federal Register (PDF), an Emergency OMB Review was requested to launch the joint initiative of the DOL, White House, and IdeaScale to help out unemployed US workers. A cached Monster.com ad seeks candidates to work on the development and maintenance of ideascale.com, but in India at an annual salary of Rs. 200,000 to 300,000 ($4,4000 to $6,600 US). BTW, an earlier White House-sponsored, IdeaScale-powered Open Government Brainstorm identified legalizing marijuana as one of the best ways to 'strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness.'" There's no guarantee that Indian workers recruited by that Monster.com ad would work on US Department of Labor projects.

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