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Programming

Does Learning To Code Outweigh a Degree In Computer Science? 546

Posted by samzenpus from the most-bang-for-your-buck dept.
jjp9999 writes A college degree may not the best route when it comes to jobs in coding. Jobs for computer science majors flow aplenty, yet employers (and job-seekers) often learn quickly that the college grads don't have the skills. "This is because the courses taught in virtually all computer science curriculums focus on theory, and they only dabble in teaching practical programming skills," says Cody Scholberg on Epoch Times. This ties into a unique factoid in the world of programmers. Nearly half of the software developers in the United States do not have a college degree. Many never even graduated from high school. Instead, many aspiring programmers are turning to open source learning materials, or to the new programming bootcamps popping up around the United States. While theory does have its place, the situation raises the question of whether colleges are teaching the right skills people need to join the workforce, and what its place is amid the rise of open source learning.
The Courts

Judge Berates Prosecutors In Xbox Modding Trial 285

Posted by Soulskill from the your-uppance-has-come dept.
mrbongo writes with this excerpt from Wired: "Opening statements in the first-of-its-kind Xbox 360 criminal hacking trial were delayed here Wednesday after a federal judge unleashed a 30-minute tirade at prosecutors in open court, saying he had 'serious concerns about the government's case.' ... Gutierrez slammed the prosecution over everything from alleged unlawful behavior by government witnesses, to proposed jury instructions harmful to the defense. When the verbal assault finally subsided, federal prosecutors asked for a recess to determine whether they would offer the defendant a deal, dismiss or move forward with the case that was slated to become the first jury trial of its type. A jury was seated Tuesday."

Comment Who cares? (Score 1) 422

by Arionhawk (#26803111) Attached to: Mozilla To Join EU Suit Against Microsoft
I honestly don't know why people care so much about ie being bundled with Windows. It's Microsofts OS, let them build it the way they want, it's not like there aren't alternatives out there. I mean there's a million flavors of linux, there's Mac and so on and so forth. This really should be a non issue.

Comment Re:Credit where credit is due (Score 5, Informative) 444

by Arionhawk (#26082091) Attached to: Google Chrome Is Out of Beta

The killer feature that I still think is missing is the ability to exit and save tabs. Chrome can Restore after a crash (most of the time), but you can't manually restart the browser without loosing the history you have open. Another issue I wish they'd fix is remembering the last save directory when doing a "Save As...". I realize that keeping a single Downloads directory is userfriendly, but using it as the default location when the user is overriding the download location is annoying. If I need to download 10 files, I need to navigate to the same directory 10 times. That's just ridiculous.

That "killer feature" is in there, you just have to turn it on in the options, in the "on start-up" section. You just select the option that says restore the pages that were open last. I agree with you on the saving files thing, that is rather annoying.
Transportation

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Spawns Real-Life Car 93

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the and-i'm-sure-it-will-be-affordable dept.
Car Analogy Please writes to tell us that a new car unveiled at the Paris Auto Show was modeled after the Gran Turismo 5 Prologue car. GTbyCITROËN is the first car that has been designed in tandem with a video game to then spill out onto the actual pavement. "The GTbyCITROËN is the product of a partnership built up during the creation of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Takumi Yamamoto, from Citroen and Kazunori Yamauchi from Polyphony Digital Inc, the games developer were inspired by each others industries to design a concept car for the game that then flowed further into the real-world. The game version of the car mirrors the real-world performance of the concept."
Image

Fairytales Now Need a Safety Warning 3

Posted by samzenpus
A new child protection curriculum being implemented by the Education Department in Australia urges teachers to give children safety messages after reading them fairytales. The goal is to make sure that children understand not to engage in unsafe behaviors such as talking to strangers like Little Red Riding Hood and not to enter strange houses like Hansel and Gretel. While I can see the value in teaching kids not to talk to strangers, I want my kids to know that is is perfectly acceptable to push any elderly cannibal into an oven should they be kidnapped and kept in cages.

Feed Schneier: Using a File Erasure Tool Considered Suspicious (schneier.com)

From feed by bsfeed
By a California court: The designer, Carter Bryant, has been accused by Mattel of using Evidence Eliminator on his laptop computer just two days before investigators were due to copy its hard drive. Carter hasn't denied that the program was run on his computer, but he said it wasn't to destroy evidence. He said he had legitimate reasons to use...

Feed Engadget: Ainol introduces display-dominated V3000 PMP (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Some serious time has passed since Ainol rolled out its abominable V1000, and while we reckon the V2000 was lost somewhere in the mix, the V3000 is pretty enough to note -- if but for a moment. Details are pretty slim on this one, but we are told that the widescreen unit packs an expansive 4.3-inch LTPS display with an 800 x 480 native resolution. Seriously though, you aren't about to fly to China to claim one of these as your own, so just be satisfied with seeing Spidey behind all sorts of weirdly applied reflections.

[Via MP4Nation]Read|Permalink|Email this|Comments


Feed Techdirt: Disgruntled SF City Tech Worker Takes Over City's Computer Network (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
Every few years or so, we see a story about some disgruntled tech worker who has planted some sort of trojan in a computer network that lets him shut down or destroy the network. The latest just happens to be an employee from the city of San Francisco, and the computer system happens to be its new multi-million dollar system. Even though the guy is now sitting in jail, he's apparently refused to hand over the administrative password needed to regain control over the system. Right now, it appears that he's been able to lock other top administrators out of the system, and officials are afraid that he's actually opened up access to someone else (though that might just be fear mongering). As for what's on the system? "Officials' e-mails, city payroll files, confidential law enforcement documents and jail inmates' bookings" among other things. Just a reminder that while insiders may not be the biggest threat to computer networks, they can still be a threat.

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Comment Re:Don't want to dilute the elixir (Score 3, Insightful) 805

by argent (#24200709) Attached to: Apple Files Suit Against Psystar

Go ahead and spec out a similar machine from Dell, HP, or Lenovo.

Last time I did that I was able to put together a machine comparable to a Mac Mini for about 50% of the price, and a Macbook for about 70% of the price. On average, the "Mac Tax" seems to be about 40% of the list price of a Mac.

I still bought the Mac mini and the Macbook Pro (thought that was tough, I could have gotten everything I actually wanted (hardware-wise) from a Macbook Pro for about the same price as the Macbook). When the choice is Windows vs UNIX-with-actual-applications, the Mac Tax is worth it. But it's still real.
The Internet

Journal Journal: How we can topple big media - and it's not YouTube

Journal by cyclomedia

Recent efforts by the RIAA, MPAA and now TV studios to throttle, take down and demonise "file sharing" are seen by plenty of us around here as less of a Copyright battle and more of a fight to retain both their business models and their top-down control over customers and artists.

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