Clugy - Slashdot User

Comment It's Not Going Anywhere (Score 1) 154

by Clugy on Thursday January 21, 2010 @08:08PM (#30854360) Attached to: MIT Offers Picture-Centric Programming To the Masses With Sikuli

I'd be curious to see how they handle the back end, especially as some others pointed out it does make calls that seemingly require some hook into the OS. As for its usefulness, I doubt it will really take off beyond being a decent prototype. It relies on image matching so if you use and change a custom icon set all your scripts would be kinda worthless. Same goes if the programs you are "screenshot scripting" receive a major overhaul in the GUI department. Until it can address those issues, I doubt it will really take off.

Hope For Multi-Language Programming? 371

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday February 28, 2009 @01:09AM from the one-and-done dept.

chthonicdaemon writes "I have been using Linux as my primary environment for more than ten years. In this time, I have absorbed all the lore surrounding the Unix Way — small programs doing one thing well, communicating via text and all that. I have found the command line a productive environment for doing many of the things I often do, and I find myself writing lots of small scripts that do one thing, then piping them together to do other things. While I was spending the time learning grep, sed, awk, python and many other more esoteric languages, the world moved on to application-based programming, where the paradigm seems to be to add features to one program written in one language. I have traditionally associated this with Windows or MacOS, but it is happening with Linux as well. Environments have little or no support for multi-language projects — you choose a language, open a project and get it done. Recent trends in more targeted build environments like cmake or ant are understandably focusing on automatic dependency generation and cross-platform support, unfortunately making it more difficult to grow a custom build process for a multi-language project organically. All this is a bit painful for me, as I know how much is gained by using a targeted language for a particular problem. Now the question: Should I suck it up and learn to do all my programming in C++/Java/(insert other well-supported, popular language here) and unlearn ten years of philosophy, or is there hope for the multi-language development process?"

Is the Yellowstone Supervolcano About To Blow? 877

Posted by timothy on Wednesday December 31, 2008 @07:40PM from the four-horsemen-dressage dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Apparently, Yellowstone National Park has been having a very unusual number of earthquakes. Many of the most recent tremors have been deeper underground, an ominous sign. Combine that with a rapid rise in elevation over the past three years, and the possibility that earthquake activity from surrounding areas could trigger such an eruption on its own, and you've got the possible warning signs of a supervolcano eruption that would wipe out half to 2/3 of the continental US, plunge global temperatures, and wipe out a very significant chunk of world food sources. Here's a little more info to make your New Year brighter!"

Comment Re:Massachusetts long arm (Score 1) 155

by Clugy on Friday October 17, 2008 @03:35PM (#25416591) Attached to: New State Laws Could Make Encryption Widespread

As a preface to my comment, IANAL. If you look at how states collect sales taxes from online sales, they can only "force" online companies that have a physical presence in their state to charge sales tax to residents of that state -- if the online business is outside the state, the most the state can do is require anyone who makes an online purchase to be a good citizen and report it to the revenue service and pay taxes on it. I think Massachusetts will run into the same situation, they will be able to enforce the laws on businesses that have a "presence" in Massachusetts but any business that does not have a presence will probably be exempt or could make a very strong legal case to be made exempt since they are not physically located in any way, shape, or form in Massachusetts.

FBI Says Dark Market Sting Netted 56 Arrests 130

Posted by timothy on Friday October 17, 2008 @07:32AM from the precise-number-on-those-prevented-thefts-fellas dept.

narramissic writes "A two-year undercover FBI sting operation targeting online 'carder' forums hosted on the DarkMarket.ws Web site has netted 56 arrests and prevented about $70 million in fraud losses, the FBI said Thursday. DarkMarket.ws was widely used by online scammers to buy and sell stolen credit card numbers, other financial information, and even the devices used to make fake banking cards. Before it was shut down earlier this month, the Web site had registered more than 2,500 members. Although Dark Market was thought to have been administered by a criminal going by the name Master Splyntr, German Public Radio reported on Monday that the FBI had been running a sting operation on the site since late 2006, and that Master Splyntr was actually an FBI agent named J. Keith Mularski." Of course, they say it in German; non-German speakers may want to consult the Babelfish.

FBI Warns of Sweeping Global Threat To US Cybersecurity 134

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday October 16, 2008 @10:46AM from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.

GovIT Geek writes "The FBI's newly appointed chief of cyber security warned today that 'a couple dozen' countries are eager to hack US government, corporate, and military networks. While he refused to provide country-specific details, FBI Cyber Division Chief Shawn Henry told reporters at a roundtable that cooperation with foreign law enforcement is one of the Bureau's highest priorities and added the United States has had incredible success fostering overseas partnerships."

No Gap Found In Math Abilities of Girls, Boys 701

Posted by kdawson on Friday July 25, 2008 @01:05PM from the anything-you-can-compute dept.

sciencehabit writes "For anyone who still believes that boys are better at math than girls, a massive new study published today in Science shows there's no difference. 'Among students with the highest test scores, the team did find that white boys outnumbered white girls by about two to one. Among Asians, however, that result was nearly reversed. Hyde says that suggests that cultural and social factors, not gender alone, influence how well students perform on tests.' But the researchers do note a disturbing trend towards omitting harder kinds of math questions from standardized tests."

Hacked Oyster Card System Crashes Again 95

Posted by kdawson on Friday July 25, 2008 @09:54AM from the no-pearls-in-sight dept.

Barence sends along PcPro coverage of the second crash of London's Oyster card billing system in two weeks. Transport for London was forced to open the gates and allow free travel for all. "There is currently a technical problem with Oyster readers at London Underground stations which is affecting Oyster pay as you go cards only," explains the TfL website. This follows the first crash two weeks ago, which left 65,000 Oyster cards permanently corrupted. Speculation is increasing that the crashes may be related to the hacking of the Oyster card system by Dutch researchers from Radboud University, though TfL denies any link. Plans to publish details of the hack were briefly halted when the makers of the chip used in the system sued the group, although a judge ruled earlier this week that the researchers could go ahead. During the court action, details briefly leaked on website Wikileaks.

Social Networking Sites Becoming Useful For Lawyers 353

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday July 19, 2008 @09:15AM from the to-be-expected dept.

chareverie writes "With how the internet has become, social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace have become a tool for crime solvers, employers, and now, lawyers. Two weeks after Joshua Lipton was charged in a drunk driving case, the college junior attended a Halloween party dressed as a prisoner, with the words 'jail bird' on his costume. Not surprisingly, his prosecutor was able to obtain photos of him at the party that were posted on Facebook, and claimed he was an 'unrepentant partier who lived it up while his victim recovered in the hospital.' The photos were presented in a slideshow, with one of them showing Lipton holding a can of Red Bull in one hand, and an arm draped around a girl bearing sorority letters. The judge agreed with the prosecutor, and changed Lipton's sentence to two years in prison. The article also cites other instances of people getting harsher sentences from pictures of them posted online."

Second Life Faces Open Source Challenges 198

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday July 14, 2008 @06:30PM from the war-on-two-fronts-is-never-good dept.

ruphus13 writes "Linden Labs has talked about Open Sourcing aspects of their platform for a while, but have not always followed through. Now, the OpenSimulator project has been gathering some solid momentum, and this was followed by an announcement by IBM that showed interoperability between OpenSimulator and Linden Servers. What this means is that you can use a Second Life client to log on to an OpenSim server. Beyond that, anyone can run their own server. 'Working with the protocols derived from the official Second Life client, and a knowledge of how Second Life works, these people have implemented their own compatible server code.' It is only a matter of time before users will be able to move profiles, virtual goods, and other elements of their 'second life' on to any server in a truly open world, thereby threatening Linden Labs' virtual world experience. With Google and Sun at the fringes of this space, things are going to get very interesting, virtually speaking."

20 Features Windows 7 Should Include 901

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday July 14, 2008 @02:48PM from the downhill-since-dos dept.

Damian Francis writes "Australian computer expert Vito Cassisi has come up with a list of 20 features that Windows 7 should have. The article includes features like modularized OS, new UAC, program caching, standards compliant browser and a whole lot more with explanations as to why these features should be included. With Windows Vista only receiving a luke-warm reception, Microsoft needs to make sure Windows 7 is a winner from the get go." What other features would you suggest to Microsoft if they are to have a hope for recovery?

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