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Submission + - Seed launches BeagleV, $150 Risc-V Computer (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by shoor
shoor writes: Risc-V is an instruction set for a computer architecture that allows anyone to design and sell computers based upon it. First hardware deliveries are expected in April. Widespread delivery in September 2021.

Submission + - Memory versus disk and cpu - how the balance has changed in 35 years (wordpress.com)

Submitted by 00_NOP
00_NOP writes: Thirty-five years ago a report for Tandem computers concluded (https://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/tandem/TR-86.1.pdf) that the cost balance between memory, disk and CPU on big iron favoured holding items in memory if they were needed every five minutes and using five bytes to save one instruction. Update the analysis for today and what do you see? Well my estimate that we should aim to hold items that we have to access 10 times a second and that we can now balance instructions and bytes — meaning some common data space saving techniques are more efficient than before.

Submission + - Chromium Being Ported to VC++, Compiler Bugs Fixed

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: Moving a big software project to a new compiler can be a lot of work, and few projects are bigger than the Chromium web browser. In addition to the main Chromium repository, which includes all of WebKit, there are over a hundred other open-source projects which Chromium incorporates by reference, totaling more than 48,000 C/C++ files and 40,000 header files. As of March 11th, Chromium has switched to Visual C++ 2015, and it doesn't look like it's looking back. The tracking bug for this effort currently has over 330 comments on it, with contributions from dozens of developers. Bruce Dawson has written an interesting showcase of some VC++ compiler bugs that the process has uncovered. His job was to investigate them, come up with a minimal reproduce case, and report them to Microsoft. The Google and Microsoft teams get praise for an excellent symbiotic relationship, and the compiler bugs have been fixed quickly by the Visual Studio team.

Submission + - White House issues veto threat as House prepares to vote on EPA 'secret science' (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: The U.S. House of Representatives could vote as early as this week to approve two controversial, Republican-backed bills that would change how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses science and scientific advice to inform its policies. Many Democrats, scientific organizations, and environmental groups are pushing back, calling the bills thinly veiled attempts to weaken future regulations and favor industry. White House advisors today announced that they will recommend that President Barack Obama veto the bills if they reach his desk in their current form.

Submission + - Study: Refactoring Doesn't Improve Code Quality (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: A team of researchers in Sri Lanka set out to test whether common refactoring techniques resulted in measurable improvements in software quality, both externally (e.g., Is the code more maintainable?) and internally (e.g., Number of lines of code). Here's the tl;dr version of their findings: Refactoring doesn’t make code easier to analyze or change; it doesn't make code run faster; and it doesn't doesn’t result in lower resource utilization. But it may make code more maintainable.

Submission + - Use astrology to save Britain's health system says MP (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: An MP from the governing Conservative Party has said that using astrology could radically improve the performance of Britain's National Health Service and that it's opponents are "racially prejudiced" and, errr, driven by "superstition, ignorance and prejudice". David Treddinick even claims he has "helped" fellow legislators through astrology.

Submission + - David Cameron says Brits should be taught Imperial measures (wordpress.com)

Submitted by 00_NOP
00_NOP writes: Children in the UK have been taught in metric measures in school since (at least) 1972, but yesterday British Prime Minister David Cameron suggested that they should actually be taught in Imperial measures (which are still in use officially to measure road distances and speeds but not really anywhere else). Is this because he has not got a clue about science or because he is trying to buy off his right wing fringe (who object to "metrication") or because he might be a bit stupid, Oxford degree not withstanding?

Submission + - It's Time To Bring Pseudoscience into the Science Classroom

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: “Roughly one in three American adults believes in telepathy, ghosts, and extrasensory perception,” wrote a trio of scientists in a 2012 issue of the Astronomy Education Review. “Roughly one in five believes in witches, astrology, clairvoyance, and communication with the dead (PDF). Three quarters hold at least one of these beliefs, and a third has four distinct pseudoscientific beliefs.” Now Steven Ross Pomeroy writes in Forbes Magazine that it’s time to bring pseudoscience into public schools and universities. “By incorporating examples of pseudoscience into lectures, instructors can provide students with the tools needed to understand the difference between scientific and pseudoscientific or paranormal claims,” say Rodney Schmaltz and Scott Lilienfeld.

According to Schmaltz and Lilienfeld, there are 7 clear signs that show something to be pseudoscientific: 1. The use of psychobabble – words that sound scientific and professional but are used incorrectly, or in a misleading manner. 2. A substantial reliance on anecdotal evidence. 3. Extraordinary claims in the absence of extraordinary evidence. 4. Claims which cannot be proven false. 5. Claims that counter established scientific fact. 6. Absence of adequate peer review. 7. Claims that are repeated despite being refuted. Schmaltz and Lilienfeld recommend incorporating examples of pseudoscience into lectures and contrasting them with legitimate, groundbreaking scientific findings. For example, professors can expound upon psychics and the tricks they use to fool people or use resources such as the Penn & Teller program "Bullshit".

But teachers need to be careful or their worthy efforts to instill critical thinking could backfire. Prior research has shown that repeating myths on public fliers, even with the intention of dispelling them, can actually perpetuate misinformation. “The goal of using pseudoscientific examples is to create skeptical, not cynical, thinkers. As skeptical thinkers, students should be urged to remain open-minded,” say Schmaltz and Lilienfeld. "By directly addressing and then refuting non-scientific claims, science educators can dispel pseudoscience (PDF) and promote scientific skepticism, while avoiding the unhealthy extremes of either uncritical acceptance or cynicism."

Submission + - Scottish independence campaign battles over BBC Weather forecast (wordpress.com)

Submitted by 00_NOP
00_NOP writes: The political battle over Scotland's independence ballot — to take place in September this year — has now moved on to how the BBC project the UK on their national weather forecast. The BBC use a projection based on the view of Britain from geostationary weather satellites and so there is naturally some foreshortening at the northern end of Britain (Scotland, in other words). But nationalist campaigners say this means Scottish viewers are constantly being shown a distorted image of their country which makes it look smaller and hence (in their view) less able to support independence. In response others have suggested that the nationalists are truly "flat earthers".

Submission + - Read better books to be a better person (wordpress.com) 1

Submitted by 00_NOP
00_NOP writes: Researchers from the New School for Social Research in New York have demonstrated that if you read quality literary fiction you become a better person, in the sense that you are more likely to emphasise with others. Presumably we can all think of books that have changed the way we feel about the world — so this is, in a sense, a scientific confirmation of something fairly intuitive.

Submission + - Newest YouTube user to fight a takedown is copyright guru Lawrence Lessig (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by onehitwonder
onehitwonder writes: Lawrence Lessig has teamed with the Electronic Frontier Foundation to sue Liberation Music, which recently demanded that YouTube take down a lecture Lessig had posted that features clips from the song "Lisztomania" by the French band Phoenix (on Liberation Music's label). Liberation claimed copyright infringement as the reason it demanded the takedown, but in his countersuit, Lessig is claiming Liberation's "overly aggressive takedown violates the DMCA and that it should be made to pay damages," according to Ars Technica.

Submission + - English High Court bans scientific paper (wordpress.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The High Court — England's highest civil court — has temporarily banned the publication of a scientific paper that would reveal the details of a zero day vulnerability in vehicle immobilisers and, crucially, give details of how to crack the system. Motor manufacturers argued that revealing the details of the crack would allow criminals to steal cars. Could this presage the courts getting involved in what gets posted on your local Bugzilla? It certainly means that software giants who dislike security researchers publishing the full facts on vulnerabilities might want to consider a full legal route.

Comment Re:That is the worst article I ever red (Score 1) 349

by 00_NOP (#43822169) Attached to: World's Biggest 'Agile' Software Project Close To Failure

Sorry you didn't like the article. I have written a few other pieces on UC on the blog and maybe they make it clearer (or maybe not! De gustibus non est disputandum).

For background in late 2010 the DWP announced at an Institute of Government seminar in Whitehall (that I attended) that they would use "agile" to deliver UC. The seminar was a real Emperor's New Clothes affair as lots of small development companies were in the room and they all thought/hoped they'd get a chunk of the action - nobody (including me - I was just a lowly computer science MSc student) dared to say what seemed obvious to me - that this was a massive mission criticial project that it was a mistake to use an experimental (for the government) development methodology on to meet a political - as opposed to evidence - defined timetable on.
My gripe is not with agile per se - strip away the corporate hoopla and it seems to make a lot of sense to me. My fear is that "agile" was seized upon by politicians who know nothing about software development as a way of solving their problems and defining themselves positively against the previous Labour government (declaration of interest: I worked in a political role for that government).

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