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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 + - 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 + - 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 + - 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 + - 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.
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - The Pirate Bay's Oldest Torrent is "Revolution OS" (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by
jrepin
jrepin writes: "After nearly 9 years of seeding The Pirate Bay’s oldest working torrent is still very much alive. Interestingly, the torrent is not a Hollywood classic nor is it an evergreen music album. The honor goes to a pirated copy of “Revolution OS”, a documentary covering the history of Linux, GNU and the free software movement."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft accuses webkit of breaking standards and becoming the next IE 6 (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Billly Gates
Billly Gates writes: In a bizaare, yet funny and ironic move, Microsoft warned web developers that using webkit stagnated open standards and innovation on the web. Microsoft is espcially concerned in the mobile market where many mobile sites only work with Android or IOS with -webkit specific extensions on its call to action in their Windows Phone Developer Blog. Their examples include W3C code such as radius-border, which are being written as -webkit-radius-border instead on websites. In the mobile market Webkit has a 90% marketshare, while website masters feel it is not worth the development effort to test against browsers such as IE. Microsoft's solution to the problem of course is to use IE 10 for standard compliancy and not use the proprietary (yet opensource) webkit. Is webkit in both Android, Chrome, and iOS really that proprietary is it all hot air from someone who fell from grace?
Wikipedia

Submission + - When a primary source isn't good enough- Wikipedia (newyorker.com) 4

Submitted by unixluv
unixluv writes: Evidently, Wikipedia doesn't believe an author on his own motivations when trying to correct an article on his own book, claiming they need "secondary sources". I'm not sure where you would go to get a secondary source when you are the only author of a work.
Open Source

Submission + - MySQL slowly turning closed source? (mariadb.org)

Submitted by
mpol
mpol writes: "Sergei from MariaDB speculated on some changes within MySQL 5.5.27. It seems new testcases aren't included with MySQL anymore, which leaves developers depending on it in the cold.
"Does this mean that test cases are no longer open source? Oracle did not reply to my question. But indeed, there is evidence that this guess is true. For example, this commit mail shows that new test cases, indeed, go in this “internal” directory, which is not included in the MySQL source distribution."
On a similar note, updates for the version history on Launchpad are not being updated anymore.
What is Oracle's plan here? And is alienating the developer community just not seen as a problem at Oracle?"
Games

Submission + - Conway's Game of Life continues to inspire (newscientist.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Conway's Game of Life is now forty two years old, but it continues to inspire as well as being the basis of an actively researched field: with computer scientists now announcing they have found a new form of the famous "glider" pattern (once suggested by Eric S Raymond as the insignia of computer hackers) that runs over a so-called Penrose universe.
Google

Submission + - Lone Grad Student Scooped the Government (motherjones.com)

Submitted by Pigskin-Referee
Pigskin-Referee writes: Jonathan Mayer had a hunch.

A gifted computer scientist, Mayer suspected that online advertisers might be getting around browser settings that are designed to block tracking devices known as cookies. If his instinct was right, advertisers were following people as they moved from one website to another even though their browsers were configured to prevent this sort of digital shadowing. Working long hours at his office, Mayer ran a series of clever tests in which he purchased ads that acted as sniffers for the sort of unauthorized cookies he was looking for. He hit the jackpot, unearthing one of the biggest privacy scandals of the past year: Google was secretly planting cookies on a vast number of iPhone browsers. Mayer thinks millions of iPhones were targeted by Google.

Submission + - 7000 Irish e-voting machines to be scrapped (independent.ie)

Submitted by lampsie
lampsie writes: You may recall back in January 2012 that the Irish government had deemed their stock of 7000 e-voting machines 'worthless'. Turns out they are not — after spending upwards of €54 million euro purchasing them almost a decade ago, all 7000 will now be scrapped for €70,000 (just over nine euros each). The machines were scrapped because 'they could not be guaranteed to be safe from tampering [...] and they could not produce a printout so that votes/results could be double-checked.'
Canada

Submission + - Canadian DOJ Warned About Unconstitutionality of Copyright Digital Lock Rules (michaelgeist.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Canadian House of Commons may have passed the Canadian DMCA, but the constitutional concerns with the copyright bill and its digital lock rules will likely linger for years. Michael Geist has obtained internal government documents that indicate that the Department of Justice issued a legal opinion warning about the potential for constitutional violations. The DOJ legal opinion warned of the need to link circumvention with copyright infringement and of the particular danger of not providing the blind with an exception. The Canadian law misses the mark on both counts with no link to infringement and an exception that blind groups say is "nullified" by strict conditions.

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