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Programming

Submission + - Are C and C++ Losing Ground?

Submitted by
Pickens
Pickens writes: "Dr. Dobbs has an interesting interview with Paul Jansen, the managing director of TIOBE Software, about the Programming Community Index that measures the popularity of programming languages by monitoring their web presence. Since the TIOBE index has been published now for more than 6 years, it gives an interesting picture about trends in the area of programming languages. Jansen says that not much has happened in the top ten programming languages in the last five years with only Python entering the top 10, replacing COBOL but that C and C++ are definitely losing ground. "Languages without automated garbage collection are getting out of fashion," says Jansen. "The chance of running into all kinds of memory problems is gradually outweighing the performance penalty you have to pay for garbage collection." On the other hand the winners of the last couple of years have been Visual Basic, Ruby, JavaScript, C#, and D."
The Media

Submission + - Red scientology tomato rotting in Firehose? (slashdot.org) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A posting to the Slashdot Firehose related to a Wikinews story on Wikileaks and legal threats from Scientology, seems to be stuck in the Slashdot firehose red as a ripe tomato for more than 24 hours.
The story that covers a recent press release on Wikileaks relating to copyright claims made by the Church's legal representatives towards the published "Operating Thetan" cult manual, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in scam money, already spawned a hot discussion on the Wikinews portal. With critics of cult-critics trying to shut the story down for hours, it finally went online. And now seems stuck in the Firehose. One can only hope not for the wrong reasons.

Comment Re:Not a good idea (Score 1) 312

by AP2k (#22669862) Attached to: New Lock Aims To End Chip Piracy
I also thought immediately of this. They dont even have to disassemble it. The article implies the main way that knockoff fabs get their plans are by blueprints. So chip manufacturers are going to produce chips that have DRM because they cant keep their blueprint designs safe. Makes a hell of a lot of sense....

If a knockoff gets the blueprints, its fairly trivial to figure out where the DRM stuff is located and they can modify their fab process so that it doesnt include them.
Sony

Submission + - HD DVD Death Watch Ended - Toshiba Calls It Quits (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "It looks as though the inevitable will indeed finally come to pass, with news coming across the wire from Toshiba this morning that they're finally bowing out of the high-def format battle,ending further development of HD DVD products and that factories were being closed. NHK online reported "The Blu-ray format now makes up 90 percent of the Japanese high-definition DVD market after winning last year's price war for DVD recorders and players." Walmart better be ready with extra greeters on hand, as a few folks stream in with returns, now that the holiday HD DVD blowout buzz is over like a bad hang-over, realizing their players eventually will be nothing more than standard DVD spinners or up-scalers at best."
Businesses

MIT Student Plans to Take on RIAA 169

Posted by Zonk from the go-fightin'-nerds dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "MIT's online newspaper, The Tech, reports that a student named as a John Doe by the RIAA is planning to fight back against their questionable legal tactics. The anonymous student told The Tech that he is 'the victim of a fishing expedition by the RIAA,' and is 'disappointed that MIT isn't going to step up ... Other schools like Boston University and the University of Oregon have resisted RIAA subpoenas of student records more actively than MIT has, he said'. Maybe his attorneys will be able to get some assistance from some of the Harvard Law School students in Professor Nesson's 'Evidence' class, who have been assigned — as part of their coursework — the drafting of a motion to quash an RIAA subpoena."
Programming

Submission + - Best programming chair

Submitted by
Caffeinebot
Caffeinebot writes: "As a programmer I have a tendency to get engrossed in the current bug/feature/solution, for hours at a time. Even when Gnome imposes a typing break every hour, by the end of the day my back gets sore and my overall body is unhappy- so I ask slashdotters what is your favorite chair that gives you maximum upper and lower lumbar support for maximum ergonomic comfort?"
Movies

Submission + - Blu-ray to HD DVD: "Spank You Very Much" (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: "The Blu-ray Disc Association said today that Blu-ray movie disc sales in Europe beat out HD DVD sales by an almost 3:1 ratio. Blu-ray disc sales topped 1 million units, and when counting Blu-ray gaming discs (PS3 has a Blu-ray player), the total number produced for sale in Europe exceeded 21 million units, which begs the question: Will games be the deciding factor in the format war between Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD or will movies? "Of the HD movie discs bought by consumers so far this year in Europe, 73% were in the Blu-ray Disc format and 27% were HD DVD.""
Intel

Submission + - Intel overclocked now to 4.5GHz is BREAKABLE (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "The Inquirer (Famous Intel friendly online magazine) forgets to reboot Intel's processor overclocked to 4.5GHz.Here. Why? Because it won't reboot at -41C degrees. Hahahahaha. And we are curious why it isn't overclocked to 4,5+GHz? Because that should mean even lower temperatures then -41C. And Intel now seems halts at -88C degrees. What the hell happens? INTEL's new low-k hafnium 45 nm processors are breakable, being hafnium composite is breakable. Cool it too much, and something will brake. Thus, temperature safety limits are now INTEL INSIDE TM."
AMD

Submission + - AMD Phenom Processor Underwhelming (pcper.com)

Submitted by
SizeWise
SizeWise writes: "The Barcelona core is the first major update to AMD's CPU line up since the introduction of the Athlon 64 back in 2003 and is intended to keep the company going for several more years. While the server-based Barcelona launch was met with lukewarm results, the desktop Phenom processor was just launched and seems to be even more underwhelming. Running at only 2.2 GHz and 2.3 GHz, much lower than the 2.8 GHz anticipated back in June, AMD's new flagship quad-core CPU has trouble keeping up with any Intel quad-core processors and even some dual-core parts. AMD will be cutting pricing to stay competitive but can an already financially unstable corporation keep this up?"
Programming

Submission + - Ecere creates new paradigm in crossplatform coding (ecere.com)

Submitted by
Navaburo
Navaburo writes: "I have been following the development of Ecere (eC) for several months now and am astounded at the possibilities of this new language and SDK. Applications written in eC run without modification on Windows and Linux systems 100% natively, and the syntax of eC is a superset of C, so migrating is a non-issue. Definitely worth a look, as I have a feeling this language will soon be a major player in the cross-platform arena."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - 10 Great Snake-Oil Gadgets (wired.com) 5

Submitted by
The Byelorussian Strikes Again
The Byelorussian Strikes Again writes: "Wired offers up 10 of the most awesome snake oil gadgets, from industrial cables sold as $200 ionized pain-relieving bracelets to a plastic chip that cures anything, improves gas mileage and cleans swimming pools. One truly sad development: the infamous $500 wooden volume knob is no longer on sale."
Education

Submission + - DNA co-discoverer claims blacks less intelligent (independent.co.uk)

Submitted by
Theaetetus
Theaetetus writes: "In a move that will surely raise angry debate, James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA, has claimed that "black people are less intelligent than white people and the idea that 'equal powers of reason' were shared across racial groups was a delusion." Criticism has been widespread, with some anti-racism groups calling for Watson's remarks to be looked at in the context of racial hatred laws. Watson has previously found controversy with pronouncements that sex drive is linked to skin color, that "stupidity" could one day be cured through selective breeding, and that exposure to sunlight could make women slutty."
The Courts

Submission + - Court decision may invalidate OSS licensing (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
athloi
athloi writes: "Jacobsen argued for the copyright claim, essentially, was that Katzer and Kamind violated copyrights on JMRI Project decoder definition files by reproducing and redistributing versions of the software without including the attribution required by the open source license utilized. The court held that Jacobsen had implicitly promised not to sue for copyright infringement by distributing the source code under a nonexclusive license. The license was subject to certain conditions — which the defendants may have violated — but any transgression was a breach of contract, not a copyright violation, according to the court. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/24/open_sourc e_railroad/"
Privacy

Submission + - YouTube as criminal evidence (reuters.com)

Submitted by DaveWick79
DaveWick79 writes: According to this article, a teenage driver has been arrested after posting a video of himself on YouTube driving at speeds of over 140mph. Is law enforcement watching YouTube? How much other content could implicate those involved in various misdemeanor type offenses?
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - DMCA lawsuit for circumventing coupon print limits

Submitted by whoever57
whoever57 writes: A Fremont, CA man (John Stottlemire) who claims that he was trying to show his skill in order to get a job at Coupons, inc. created a program and showed people how to delete the files and registry entries that limited the printing of coupons using software from coupons.com. He now faces a lawsuit, from Coupons, inc., alleging DMCA violations. The company alleges that his actions are equivalent to those of DeCSS creator "DVD Jon". Mr. Stottlemire asks how deleting files off one's own computer can be illegal, while some lawyers suggest that the DMCA is very broad and may apply in this case.

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