Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Comment Another factor in the decision (Score 1) 592

by Stochastism (#26057051) Attached to: Best Paradigm For a First Programming Course?
I see different technical merits in teaching asm/c/java/python/functional languages first.

There's another factor though, the reason my first formal course was a functional language: it levels the playing field between students that have grown up with C/Java/Python, and those that have never coded before. Even those with a lot of procedural programming experience can scratch their heads when presented with recursion, currying, closures, and other concepts that functional languages promote.
Supercomputing

Submission + - Light-based quantum circuit does basic maths (zdnet.com.au)

Submitted by Stochastism
Stochastism writes: In yet another small step toward realistic quantum computing Australian researchers have developed a light based 4-qubit quantum computer. It has already calculated the prime roots of fifteen, three and five. Perhaps not quite powerful enough to threaten public key cryptography just yet ;) but apparently successful enough to deserve DARPA funding.
Mandriva

Submission + - Microsoft defeated by Mandriva in Nigerian rumble (computerworlduk.com) 2

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: After trying to bribe a local supplier with a $400,000 marketing contract, Microsoft has apparently lost out in trying to woo Nigeria's government to use Windows over Linux. Microsoft threw the money at the supplier after it chose Mandriva Linux for 17,000 laptops for school children across Nigeria. The supplier took the bait and agreed to wipe Mandriva off the machines, but now Nigeria's government has stepped in to stop the dirty deal. http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/government-law/public-sector/news/index.cfm?newsid=6124
Biotech

Submission + - Potential cure for antibiotic resistant infections (newsobserver.com)

Submitted by kpw10
kpw10 writes: "Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have discovered that two drugs used to treat bone loss in old folks can both kill and short-circuit the 'sex life' of antibiotic-resistant bacteria blamed for nearly 100,000 hospital deaths across the country each year."
Space

Submission + - Upcoming Film Based on Arthur C. Clarke Story

Submitted by SoyChemist
SoyChemist writes: The Wired Science blog has production stills and a story about a side project that several Industrial Light and Magic employees have been working on. They are producing the short story Maelstrom II as an independent film. The entire thing was shot in front of a bluescreen so that all of the sets and props will be CGI. The lone actor, Chuck Marra, plays a guy that hitches a ride on an electromagnetically launched freight capsule from the moon to earth. When the nuclear reactor that powers the catapult fails, he is thrown into space, but not far enough to escape lunar gravity — leading to an Apollo 13 style rescue mission. The original story was written by Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Microsoft

Submission + - Survey: Windows loses ground with developers (infoworld.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: InfoWorld is running an article that Linux is gaining share as the number of developers targeting Windows falls 12 percent, according to an Evans Data survey of North American developers. The arrival of Windows Vista likely only kept the numbers from being even worse.
Education

FBI Seeks To Restrict University Student Freedoms 593

Posted by Zonk from the damned-liberal-freethinking-commie-pinkos dept.
amigoro writes with a link to the Press Escape blog, which is discussing new guidelines suggest by the FBI for university administrations. The Federal Bureau, worried about the possibility of international espionage via our centers of learning, now sees the need to restrict the freedoms of university students for national security. "FBI is offering to brief faculty, students and staff on what it calls 'espionage indicators' aimed at identifying foreign agents. Unexplained affluence, failing to report overseas travel, showing unusual interest in information outside the job scope, keeping unusual work hours, unreported contacts with foreign nationals, unreported contact with foreign government, military, or intelligence officials, attempting to gain new accesses without the need to know, and unexplained absences are all considered potential espionage indicators."
The Almighty Buck

Underfunded NSA Suffers Brownouts 198

Posted by Zonk from the war-on-terror-doesn't-include-juice dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Almost ten years after the an internal report, and a year after a Baltimore sun story warned that the electrical system at the fort Meade NSA HQ couldn't keep up with the growing electricity demand ... the problem has got worse. The 'NSA has had to resort to partial, rolling brownouts at its computer farms and scheduled power outages and some offices are experiencing significant power disruptions'. NSA director Alexander testified to congress about this problem. It is suggested he wanted to add more than $800 million to the 07 budget. A recent public powerpoint presentation suggested 70% of of all intelligence spending goes to contractors. It also included a graph, without numbers, of this spending. It suggests that US intelligence spending is around $60 billion. An internal survey that showed NSA employees have problems trusting each other."

Feed Five Genetic Themes Key To Keeping Stem Cells In A Primitive, Flexible State Hav (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
Scientists have identified 1,155 genes under the control of a gene called Oct4 considered to be the master regulator of the stem cell state. For more than 25 years, stem cells have been defined based on what they can become: more of themselves, as well as multiple different specialized cell types. But as genetic techniques have become increasingly powerful, many scientists have sought a more molecular definition of stem cells, based on the genes they express.
Announcements

Submission + - Scientists get plastic from trees (pressesc.com)

Submitted by
amigoro
amigoro writes: "Scientists have found a method to replace crude oil as the root source for plastic, fuels and scores of other industrial and household chemicals with inexpensive, nonpolluting renewable plant matter. They directly converted sugars ubiquitous in nature to an alternative source for those products that make oil so valuable, with very little of the residual impurities that have made the quest so daunting."
Silicon Graphics

Submission + - Perfect silicon sphere to redefine the kilogram (theage.com.au)

Submitted by MrCreosote
MrCreosote writes: The Age reports optical specialists at CSIRO are helping create a new standard for the kilogram, based on a precise number of atoms in a perfect sphere of silicon. This will replace the International Prototype, a lump of metal alloy in a vault in Paris.
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - IT ads from the past: From the quaint to the weird (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
PetManimal
PetManimal writes: "Computerworld has dug up some funny IT advertising gems from decades past. The highlights include "The Personal Mainframe", Elvira hawking engineering software, and an image of the earliest screenless "briefcase portables." Strange to think that people not only took these technologies so seriously, but also paid big bucks for gear that seems positively primitive now."

Slashdot Top Deals

A holding company is a thing where you hand an accomplice the goods while the policeman searches you.

Close