Comment Re:From Experience (Score 5, Insightful) 561
Tell that to Ada Lovelace.
Submission + - British Spies are free to target Lawyers and Journalists (firstlook.org)
Advocatus Diaboli writes: British spies have been granted the authority to secretly eavesdrop on legally privileged attorney-client communications, according to newly released documents. On Thursday, a series of previously classified policies confirmed for the first time that the U.K.’s top surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters (pictured above) has advised its employees: “You may in principle target the communications of lawyers.” The country’s other major security and intelligence agencies—MI5 and MI6—have adopted similar policies, the documents show. The guidelines also appear to permit surveillance of journalists and others deemed to work in “sensitive professions.”
Submission + - Big Data Knows When You Are About to Quit Your Job
HughPickens.com writes: Quentin Hardy reports at the NYT that a leading maker of cloud-based software for running corporate human resources and financial operations has announced new products that provide the kind of data analysis that Netflix uses to recommend movies, LinkedIn has to suggest people you might know, or Facebook needs to put a likely ad in front of you. One version of the software, called Insight Applications, predicts which high-performing employees are likely to leave a company in the next year; it then offers possible actions (more money, new job) that might make them stay. In another instance, expense reporting software can predict which employee populations are most likely to exceed their budgets. “We’ve applied machine learning to affect consumer tastes,” says Mohammad Sabah, director of data science at Workday. “putting it to career choices, to pay and employment, have a huge upside if we do it right.” Already, Sabah says, “we’re surprised how accurately we can predict someone will leave a job.” The goal is to predict future business outcomes to take advantage of opportunities and cut risk levels. One future product may be the ability to predict who will and won’t make their sales quotas, and suggest who should be hired to improve the outcome. “Making an employee happy, improving the efficiency of a company these are hard problems that affect corporations.
Comment Re:New Nano? (Score 1) 579
I'm a girl -- ok, a woman -- but girl-sized, with absurdly tiny hands. I have super coordination (I'm a musician) and even I have trouble with those da*m tiny touchscreens. God only knows how you big blokes manage.
Furthermore, there is nothing sexy about an elegantly-designed device with a screen that is covered with fingerprints.
And how well can we see graphics and photos on a tiny screen?
Choice of Programming Language Doesn't Matter For Security 192
An anonymous reader writes "The Security Ninja has written a blog post which discusses web programming languages and the fact that they are all insecure. It's based on a report from WhiteHat Security and aims to dispel the myth that some languages will guarantee that an application will be more or less secure than other languages. '... secure code is the product of a secure development process and real business commitment to deliver secure applications which includes developer education. The absence of these processes and business commitments will lead to web applications being developed insecurely regardless of the language being used.'"
Comment Re:Licensing? Severs? (Score 1) 190
not useful for end-user activity? I think you'd have to have a fairly narrow view of "useful" for that statement to be defensible.
My son spent an amusing hour this evening driving a Viper aircraft at ground level from SFO to SEA at 390 miles per hour on Google Earth Flight Simulator. He was asked me how to figure out when he got near SEATAC, which gave me an opportunity to tell him to look for the various volcanos in the Cascades, the Columbia River, and to take a 30 degree left turn at Mt. Rainier.
Sounds useful to me, especially considering that huge fortune I spent on Google Earth.
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"useful" like "beauty" is in the eye of the beholder. We all know that MS produces loathesome software, stifles innovation, and serves up grilled dolphin steaks with penguin sauce to their droids in the cafeteria in Redmond. And yet, and yet,
I don't, but I have to admit, a lot of people do.
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I think Google Earth is cool. I'm not really sure why Google did it, but I'm not yelling at them for doing it.
Inspector Lopez
Attack of the Killer Electrons 98
Hugh Pickens writes "At the peak of a magnetic storm, the number of highly energetic 'killer electrons' strong enough to damage electronics and human tissue can increase by a factor of more than ten times, posing a danger to spacecraft, satellites, and astronauts. Killer electrons can penetrate satellite shielding, so if electrical discharges take place in vital components, a satellite can be damaged or even rendered inoperable. For many years, the mechanism by which killer electrons are produced has remained poorly understood, in spite of physicists' attempts at solving this puzzle. Now the ESA reports that data shows the increase in the creation of a substantial number of killer electrons is due to a two-step process. First, the initial acceleration is due to the strong shock-related magnetic field compression. Immediately after the impact of the interplanetary shock wave, Earth's magnetic field lines began wobbling at ultra low frequencies. In turn, these ULF waves effectively accelerate the seed electrons (provided by the first step) to become killer electrons. 'These new findings help us to improve the models predicting the radiation environment in which satellites and astronauts operate. With solar activity now ramping up, we expect more of these shocks to impact our magnetosphere over the months and years to come,' says Philippe Escoubet, ESA's Cluster mission manager."
Comment Re:Not the world's largest radio telescope (Score 1) 161
largest != most sensitive. I'm sure that Pune is very nice, as is the radar at Gadanki ... however
The US operates an even larger radar near Lima, Peru (the Jicamarca Radar Observatory). However, at 50 MHz, and looking up through the equatorial ionosphere ... it's less sensitive than Arecibo. Arecibo (as a reflector system) is intrinsically broadband, operating from 50 MHz through X band ... which *very* impressive.
Both JRO and AO have their uses. *neither* is replacable by *any* instruments on the planet. They are both fabulous instruments. They have *no* competition on Earth --- at what they do best.
The US operates an even larger radar near Lima, Peru (the Jicamarca Radar Observatory). However, at 50 MHz, and looking up through the equatorial ionosphere
Both JRO and AO have their uses. *neither* is replacable by *any* instruments on the planet. They are both fabulous instruments. They have *no* competition on Earth --- at what they do best.
Comment Re:Sanjay destroyed for being a Indian (Score 1) 150
Yes, but Sanjay was in the US and CA was an American company. He should have acted like an American. American execs are never corrupt.
Oh wait....
Oh wait....
Web 2.0 As A New Wave of Innovation? 174
Vitaly Friedman writes "In his article in the recent Educause magazine, Bryan Alexander, Director for Research at the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE), presents a comprehensive analysis of the rising web 2.0 companies and describes the emerging of web 2.0. From the article: ' ... larger players have entered the field, most notably Yahoo, which has been buying up many projects, including Flickr and del.icio.us. Microsoft is considering a massive extension of RSS. And Google has been producing its own projects, such as the Lens RSS reader and Google Maps. Meanwhile, academic implementations are bubbling up, like the social bookmarking and search projects noted earlier. This Web 2.0 movement (or movements) may not supplant Web 1.0, but it has clearly transformed a significant swath of our networked information ecology.'"
MS to Launch Paid Security Subscription Service 359
user24 writes "MSN reports that Microsoft 'is launching a subscription service aimed at providing better protection for the Windows operating system, which has been vulnerable to Internet attacks.
Windows Live OneCare will protect up to three computers for about 50 dollars a year.'
From the OneCare website: 'Windows Live OneCare works continuously, automatically, and quietly in the background on your PC, ever vigilant against threats but never in the way, allowing you to have fun and be more productive:'"
Abandoned Games 334
Ghost Pig writes "The people of Exiled Gamers have put together an Abandonware Campaign with which they hope to be able to convince game publishers to rescue titles from their current 'Abandonware' status, and make them available for the public to play (legally) once again. They have made mention of quite a few titles that have slipped into the status of Abandonware (titles that it's no longer possible to buy at retail, and that are near impossible to locate on sites such as eBay), which includes System Shock 2, Freespace 2, as well as older titles, such as The Chaos Engine, Alien Breed and Flashback."
Two-Player Games for Mixed Skill Level Players? 506
koreth asks: "What are some good two-player games that a newbie can successfully play with a more seasoned gamer? I want to find a good console or PC game I can play with my girlfriend, who has only recently started gaming. Something cooperative would be great, but head-to-head is fine too. All the games we've tried are made for players of roughly the same skill level -- so either I end up dumbing my gameplay way down (no fun for me) or blowing her out of the water without much effort (no fun for her). Is there any game out there that gives two players tasks of varying difficulty to keep both of them engrossed, at the same time?"
Journal Journal: I'm this guy
I'm a professor of electrical engineering at a reasonably well-known university in the United States.
My nom-de-electron, "Inspector Lopez", is in fact an allusion to my dear dog, Lopez, whose long "warrior name" is "Inspector Lopez of the Lopez Bureau of Investigation." I admit that this makes no sense at all.
I play cello, violin, and piano, not at the same time, and in mediocre fashion.
I grew up on a farm. I was persuaded not to make farming my career.
Journal Journal: The telemarketer
We have been on the DNC list since it was first established. That hasn't prevented the occasional telemarketer from bedevilling us. I take a daftie's approach with intrusive calls.
[Setting: The inglenuik off the kitchen. My teenage son, my son's friend, and I are eating a quiet dinner. The phone rings. I answer it.]
Me: Hello....
Telemarketer: Hi! My name is Jason. I'm from AT&T Wireless, and...
