Comment Re: I'm a bit surprised by the question (Score 1) 430
Opps. when I said "Most modern programming environments do enforce coding standards" i *meant* that they enforce *formatting* standards.
Comment I'm a bit surprised by the question (Score 1) 430
Most modern programming environments do enforce coding standards. We use Eclipse, and have project-wide format standards. As for it being a 'coding standard': I've always considered coding standards and formatting standards to be different things. Code reveiws are for coding standards, not for picking nits on whitespace. That said, you don't submit your code for review until you feel it's ready to submit it to the revision control system, so i don't know why you still have whitespace issues in your code.
Comment Re:Oh the irony (Score 1) 124
Outsourcing to a private company. What's wrong with contracting out jobs?
Comment Graded? (Score 2) 375
I was with them until the "graded" part. Upon what criteria would they be graded? There's more to a policy than statistics, or experimentally verifiable facts. A policy's impact on human rights and individual liberty need to be taken into account.
Submission + - New Jersey Mayor and Son arrested for nuking recall website (arstechnica.com)
phaedrus5001 writes: The mayor of West New York, New Jersey was arrested by the FBI after he and his son illegally took down a website that was calling for the recall of mayor Felix Roque (the site is currently down).
From the article: "According to the account of FBI Special Agent Ignace Ertilus, Felix and Joseph Roque took a keen interest in the recall site as early as February. In an attempt to learn the identity of the person behind the site, the younger Roque set up an e-mail account under a fictitious name and contacted an address listed on the website. He offered some "very good leads" if the person would agree to meet him. When the requests were repeatedly rebuffed, Joseph Rogue allegedly tried another route. He pointed his browser to Google and typed the search strings "hacking a Go Daddy Site," "recallroque log-in," and "html hacking tutorial.""
From the article: "According to the account of FBI Special Agent Ignace Ertilus, Felix and Joseph Roque took a keen interest in the recall site as early as February. In an attempt to learn the identity of the person behind the site, the younger Roque set up an e-mail account under a fictitious name and contacted an address listed on the website. He offered some "very good leads" if the person would agree to meet him. When the requests were repeatedly rebuffed, Joseph Rogue allegedly tried another route. He pointed his browser to Google and typed the search strings "hacking a Go Daddy Site," "recallroque log-in," and "html hacking tutorial.""
Submission + - New Music Boss Worse Than Old Music Boss (wordpress.com)
frank_adrian314159 writes: "David Lowery, musician (Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven), producer (Sparklehorse, Counting Crows), recording engineer (Archers of Loaf, Lamb of God), and geek (programmer, packet radio operator, ex-CBOT quant) talks about the economics of the music business and how the "old boss" — the record labels — have been replaced by the new boss — file downloading services, song streaming, and commercial online music stores. His take? Although the old boss was often unfair to artists, artists are making even less money under the new boss. Backed with fairly persuasive data, he shows that, under the new distribution model, artists — even small independent ones — are exposed to more risk while making less money. In addition, the old boss was investing in the creation of new music, while the new boss doesn't. This article is lengthy, but worth the attention of anyone interested in the future of music or music distribution."
Submission + - Google using reCAPTCHA to decode street addresses (techcrunch.com)
smolloy writes: Apparently some users of reCAPTCHA have recently begun seeing photographs appear in their CAPTCHA puzzles — photos that look very much like zoomed in house numbers taken from Google Streetview.
It appears that Google has decided to put the reCAPTCHA system to help clean up Google streetview images, and "according to a Google spokesperson, the system isn’t limited to street addresses, but also involves street names and even traffic signs."
A large collection of these has appeared on the Blackhatworld website.
It appears that Google has decided to put the reCAPTCHA system to help clean up Google streetview images, and "according to a Google spokesperson, the system isn’t limited to street addresses, but also involves street names and even traffic signs."
A large collection of these has appeared on the Blackhatworld website.
Submission + - Damaged US passport chip strands travelers (kdvr.com)
caseih writes: "Damaging the embedded chip in your passport is now grounds for denying you the ability to travel in at least one airport in the US. Though the airport can slide the passport through the little number reader as easily as they can wave it in front of an RFID reader, they chose to deny a young child access to the flight, in essence denying the who family. The child had accidentally sat on his passport, creasing the cover, and the passport appeared worn. The claim has been made that breaking the chip in the passport shows that you disrespect the privilege of owning a passport, and that the airport was justified in denying this child from using the passport."
Comment Re:Perhaps the police could use this (Score 1) 354
They do. A decade ago, I saw a demo of some software developed for Brazil, which predicted likely locations for illegal poaching, logging, and mining based on past illegal activity, geographic features, and anything that looked like a road or hidden runway (even if the road or runway wasn't anywhere near the site).
Submission + - DARPA researches 'Avatar' Surrogates (ieee.org) 1
kgeiger writes: Feeling blue? DARPA is funding a program to investigate the feasibility of battlefield cyborg-surrogates:
"In its 2012 budget, DARPA has decided to pour US $7 million into the 'Avatar Project' whose goal is the following: 'develop interfaces and algorithms to enable a soldier to effectively partner with a semi-autonomous bi-pedal machine and allow it to act as the soldier’s surrogate.'"
Power and bandwidth constraints aside, what could go wrong? Chinese hackers swooping in and commandeering one's army? Gives new meaning to the question "Where's Waldo?"
"In its 2012 budget, DARPA has decided to pour US $7 million into the 'Avatar Project' whose goal is the following: 'develop interfaces and algorithms to enable a soldier to effectively partner with a semi-autonomous bi-pedal machine and allow it to act as the soldier’s surrogate.'"
Power and bandwidth constraints aside, what could go wrong? Chinese hackers swooping in and commandeering one's army? Gives new meaning to the question "Where's Waldo?"
Submission + - School determines child lunch unhealth, Send home bill instead (theblaze.com) 3
halfEvilTech writes: A North Carolina mom is irate after her four-year-old daughter returned home late last month with an uneaten lunch the mother had packed for the girl earlier that day. But she wasn’t mad because the daughter decided to go on a hunger strike. Instead, the reason the daughter didn‘t eat her lunch is because someone at the school determined the lunch wasn’t healthy enough and sent it back home. What was wrong with the lunch? That’s still a head-scratcher because it didn’t contain anything egregious: a turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice. But for the inspector on hand that day, it didn’t meet the healthy requirements.
Comment Re:It's all the customers' fault... (Score 1) 406
"...for trying to use the product they bought."
Seriously. My wife and I have the family plan, and it works well for us. I lost my non-smartphone, and wanted to replace it with a cheap phone. I don't text, and I have no interest in paying an additional $500/year on data plans ($250 per phone, per year). They were very pushy trying to convince me I needed a smartphone and data plan. Worse than any car dealership I've ever been to.
Submission + - Apple Could Lose $1.6 Billion in iPad Lawsuit (ibtimes.com)
redletterdave writes: "Proview Technology, which currently uses the 'iPad' name on several of its products including computer monitors, stands to win $1.6 billion and an apology from Apple for allegedly infringing upon Proview's trademarked name to use on its bestselling tablet. Proview International, which owns subsidiaries Proview Technology in Shenzhen and Proview Electronics in Taiwan, originally registered the name "iPad" in Taiwan in 2000 and mainland China in 2001. Proview eventually sued Apple in 2011, and even though the Cupertino-based company retaliated with a counter-suit of its own, Apple lost the case in local Chinese courts. Depending on the court's findings, Apple could be fined anywhere from $38 million to the $1.6 billion that Proview is seeking. In addition to the money, Proview also wants Apple to apologize. 'We have prepared well for a long-term legal battle,' said one of Proview's lawyers."
Submission + - Retail Chains to Strike Back Against Online Vendor 7
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Marissa Taylor writes that the retail chains' worst nightmare are consumers who come in to take a look at merchandise in-store, but use smartphone apps to shop for cheaper prices online. But now stores like low-end retail chain Target plan to fight "showrooming" by scaling up their business models and asking vendors to create Target-exclusive products that can't be found online. “The bottom line is that the more commoditized the product is, the more people are going to look for the cheapest price,” says Morningstar analyst Michael Keara. “If there’s a significant price difference [among retailers] and you’re using it on a regular basis, you’re going to go to Amazon.” Target recently sent an “urgent” letter to vendors, asking them to “create special products that would set it apart from competitors." Target’s letter insisted that it would not “let online-only retailers use our brick-and-mortar stores as a showroom for their products and undercut our prices without making investments, as we do, to proudly display your brands.” Target also announced that it had teamed up with a handful of unique specialty shops that will offer limited edition merchandise on a rotating basis within Target stores in hopes of creating an evolving shopping experience for customers. Target is "exercising leverage over its vendors to achieve the same pricing that smaller, online-only retailers receive," says Weinswig. "This strategy would help Target compete with retailers like Amazon on like-for-like products.""
Submission + - Thailand welcomes Twitter's censorship plans, roya (thenextweb.com)
patiwat writes: "The Thai government has called Twitter's tweet censorship move a "welcome development." Tweets may now be blocked at the request of the Thai government; the system will be used to discourage and punish lese majeste (criticism of the Thai King). The government previously declared that Facebook users worldwide "liking" a lese majeste Facebook link would also be prosecuted; over 10,000 Facebook pages have been removed and hundreds of individuals, including children and academics, have been jailed. Calls to reform the lese majeste laws have been fiercely criticized by no less than the Army Commander, whose backing is critical to the government's stability."
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