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Programming

What Early Software Was Influential Enough To Deserve Acclaim? 704

Posted by timothy from the cultural-literacy dept.
theodp writes "That his 28-year-old whip-smart, well-educated CS grad friend could be unaware of MacWrite and MacPaint took Dave Winer by surprise. 'They don't, for some reason,' notes Winer, 'study these [types of seminal] products in computer science. They fall between the cracks of "serious" study of algorithms and data structures, and user interface and user experience (which still is not much-studied, but at least is starting). This is more the history of software. Much like the history of film, or the history of rock and roll.' So, Dave asks, what early software was influential and worthy of a Software Hall of Fame?"
Microsoft

End of Windows XP Support Era Signals Beginning of Security Nightmare 646

Posted by samzenpus from the no-more-patches dept.
colinneagle writes "Microsoft's recent announcement that it will end support for the Windows XP operating system in two years signals the end of an era for the company, and potentially the beginning of a nightmare for everyone else. When Microsoft cuts the cord on XP in two years it will effectively leave millions of existing Windows-based computers vulnerable to continued and undeterred cyberattacks, many of which hold the potential to find their way into consumer, enterprise and even industrial systems running the latest software. Although most of the subsequent security issues appear to be at the consumer level, it may not be long until they find a way into corporate networks or industrial systems, says VMWare's Jason Miller. Even scarier, Qualsys's Amol Sarwate says many SCADA systems for industrial networks still run a modified version of XP, and are not in a position to upgrade. Because much of the software running on SCADA systems is not compatible with traditional Microsoft OS capabilities, an OS upgrade would entail much more work than it would for a home or corporate system."

Comment Re:But what matters is the million geek army... (Score 1) 284

by Solensean (#37021106) Attached to: 8 Ways To Circumvent the PROTECT-IP Act

Yeah, but they have friends. I used to get asked about how to use Kazaa, Limewire, Bittorrent, etc all the time. Now that they've moved on to iTunes and Netflix, the requests are down considerably.

It will be interesting to see how the community responds to this.

Isn't that move a function of the age of your acquaintances instead of how the market evolved? I saw the same thing among my relatives, but it's mostly because they either grew up and stopped downloading music/porn/etc (now that they can buy it), or because the people I now frequent due to my work are mostly non-technical types.
Businesses

Former Nokia Engineers Fueling Finnish Startups 63

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the funeral-pyre dept.
pbahra writes with an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. From the article: "A few weeks ago Microsoft's European chairman told TechEurope that the average amount of venture capital per head across Europe was just $7. ... Finnish blog ArcticStartup has extrapolated figures showing the total average VC investment per capita for the country was $46 in 2010... The question of why this country on the edge of the Arctic Circle should have such active entrepreneurs came up again in a conversation with Wilhelm Taht, the marketing director of Flowd... 'With Nokia changing gear there is a lot of technical know-how all of a sudden which wasn't available even two years ago,' said Mr.Taht, diplomatically, about the savage job cuts at the struggling mobile phone giant. 'There's a culture of technically savvy engineers. Finns are not necessarily very talkative people, but when it comes to what they know about computers and programming it's pretty staggering.'"

Comment Re:Deep Thought (Score 1) 86

by Solensean (#36552000) Attached to: iPad Account Hacker Pleads Guilty

Also be sure not to look at the door handle if it's in plain view; unauthorized viewing without changing its state in any way may still be illegal because our lawmakers don't understand doorknobs.

Simply viewing the door handle *will* change its state!

Comment No reelections (Score 1) 293

by Solensean (#35961122) Attached to: China Plans Space Station By 2020

Actually, I think that's a very good idea - maybe not six years, but double the actual term limit : in eight years, the president gets to do what he wants (with the caveat of having the Congress on his side), and he doesn't have to worry about getting re-elected at the end. He can work on a project from the conception phase to the concretization without thinking about whether his electoral base will go for it. I don't see why it would be more dangerous to have a president for eight years instead of four. Can anybody?
Idle

Submission + - Best. Geek. Wedding. Invitation. Ever. (createdigitalmusic.com)

Submitted by
kfogel
kfogel writes: "Karen Sandler (a lawyer at the Software Freedom Law Center) and Mike Tarantino (a professional musician) are getting married in May. They've sent out the coolest wedding invitation ever: a beautifully packaged flexidisc record where the invitation itself is the record player. That's right: It's paper! And it plays a record! The song itself was written by Mike, is performed by Karen and Mike together, and FTW is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. The person who designed the invitations — a friend of the couple's — has blogged about it. It's also made Make Magazine, Mashable, and Geek.com."

Comment Re:Impossible... (Score 1) 542

by Solensean (#35790666) Attached to: Forget Space Travel, It's Just a Dream

It simply might be that there is no 'yet'. Maybe there simply is no way to do it efficiently with the existing laws of nature. The perpetuum mobile is just an example that there are things which will always be impossible regardless of our technological advancements. Maybe space travel is as impossible just not as obvious?

That's the thing : maybe there are laws that will forever forbid us to travel through space, but if there are, we don't know them - and there are no indication that they exist.
Let's be optimistic :)

Comment Re:Impossible... (Score 1) 542

by Solensean (#35784344) Attached to: Forget Space Travel, It's Just a Dream

Build me a perpetuum mobile.

Are you saying that because my metaphor is factually incorrect, you can compare not being able to defy the laws of thermodynamics and not being able to travel through space, a thing that we simply don't know how to do (efficiently) yet?

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