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Google

Is Google+ a Cathedral Or a Bazaar? 200

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the either-way-the-garden-is-walled dept.
An anonymous reader writes "With its recent mass suspension of accounts, Google has highlighted its desire to create a social network that is very different to the way many (including those whose accounts were suspended) would want to see it. The metaphor of the Cathedral and the Bazaar used for software development can be applied to the two types of social networks being proposed by Google on the one hand and the pseudonym supporters on the other. Google's Cathedral model emphasizes order and control whilst the bazaar model supports users who can be anonymous, have multiple identities, interact with anyone they please, and remain unobserved."
OS X

Why IT Won't Like Mac OS X Lion Server 341

Posted by CmdrTaco from the sounds-oxymoronic-to-me dept.
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's John Rizzo sees Mac OS X Lion Server as a downgrade that may prompt a move to Windows Server. 'Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Server adds innovative features and a new low price tag, but cuts in services and the elimination of advanced GUI administration tools may force some enterprise departments to think twice about the role of Mac servers on their networks,' Rizzo writes. 'Looking more deeply inside Lion Server, it's impossible to avoid the conclusion that Lion Server is not built for those of us in IT. The $50 price tag — down from $500 — is the first clue that Lion Server trying to be a server for the consumer. But the ironic part for IT administrators is that Lion Server actually requires a greater degree of technical knowledge than its predecessors.'"
GUI

Ask Slashdot: Chromeless Cross-Platform Browser? 145

Posted by timothy from the oh-you-want-everything dept.
blakieto writes "Mozilla has the Prism project, which turned into Chromeless, which seems to have died [Note: last update was May 31]. I'm seeking a no-interface-what-so-ever cross-platform browser for use as a 'user interface host' to a self-hosted web app. Slight background: I've a professional market web app, with a large portion of the customer base unable to access public Internet connections. So, I want to make a version of my product self-hosted, with the web server and web app and everything necessary to run the web app locally installed on a user's machine. I have everything except a chromeless browser. Oh, and my customers are local police & highway patrol type organizations, most likely running an aged Windows box (probably IE6, too)."
Security

A Linux Distro From the US Department of Defense 210

Posted by timothy from the buggy-whip-for-the-bandwagon dept.
donadony writes "The Lightweight Portable Security distribution was created by the Software Protection Initiative under the direction of the Air Force Research Laboratory and the U.S. Department Of Defense. The idea behind it is that government workers can use a CD-ROM or USB stick to boot into a tamper proof, pristine desktop when using insecure computers such as those available in hotels or a worker's own home. The environment that it offers should be largely resistant to Internet-borne security threats such as viruses and spyware, particularly when launched from read-only media such as a CDROM. The LPS system does not mount the hard drive of the host machine, so leaves no trace of the user's activities behind."
Education

Can a Playground Be Too Safe? 493

Posted by timothy from the think-of-the-children's-thinking dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "John Tierney writes that the old 10-foot-high jungle gyms and slides disappeared from most American playgrounds across the country in recent decades because of parental concerns, federal guidelines, new safety standards set by manufacturers and — the most frequently cited factor — fear of lawsuits. But today some researchers question the value of safety-first playgrounds. Even if children do suffer fewer physical injuries — and the evidence for that is debatable — critics say that these playgrounds may stunt emotional development, leaving children with anxieties and fears that are ultimately worse than a broken bone. 'Climbing equipment needs to be high enough, or else it will be too boring in the long run,' says professor Ellen Sandseter. 'Children approach thrills and risks in a progressive manner, and very few children would try to climb to the highest point for the first time they climb. The best thing is to let children encounter these challenges from an early age, and they will then progressively learn to master them through their play over the years.' After observing children on playgrounds in Norway, England and Australia, Dr. Sandseter identified six categories of risky play, although fear of litigation led New York City officials to remove seesaws, merry-go-rounds and the ropes that young Tarzans used to swing from one platform to another."
Hardware

Digital Generation Rediscovers Analog Wristwatches 505

Posted by timothy from the old-revolvers-are-nice-too dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "As recently as a half-decade ago, time seemed to be running out for the wristwatch; the mechanical device was declared to be going the way of the abacus. But now the NY Times reports that the 'sundial' of the wrist is experiencing an uptick among members of the digital generation, particularly by heritage-macho types in their 20s and 30s who are drawn to the wristwatch's retro appeal, just as they have seized on straight razors, selvedge denim and vintage vinyl. 'A cool machine that is all moving parts has got to be intrinsically interesting to someone born into this generation,' says Mitch Greenblatt, an online retailer of design-forward watches who is seeing a surge in business, 'because there's just nothing like that in their life.'"
News

Reason Seen More As a Weapon Than a Path To Truth 289

Posted by Soulskill from the welcome-to-the-internet dept.
mdsolar writes with this excerpt from the NY Times: "For centuries thinkers have assumed that the uniquely human capacity for reasoning has existed to let people reach beyond mere perception and reflex in the search for truth. Rationality allowed a solitary thinker to blaze a path to philosophical, moral and scientific enlightenment. Now some researchers are suggesting that reason evolved for a completely different purpose: to win arguments. Rationality, by this yardstick (and irrationality too, but we'll get to that) is nothing more or less than a servant of the hard-wired compulsion to triumph in the debating arena."
Crime

25% of US Hackers Are FBI/CIA Informers 185

Posted by Soulskill from the trading-hats dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian reports that the FBI and CIA have 'persuaded' up to 25% of US hackers to 'work' for them. 'In some cases, popular illegal forums used by cyber criminals as marketplaces for stolen identities and credit card numbers have been run by hacker turncoats acting as FBI moles. In others, undercover FBI agents posing as "carders" – hackers specialising in ID theft – have themselves taken over the management of crime forums, using the intelligence gathered to put dozens of people behind bars. ... The best-known example of the phenomenon is Adrian Lamo, a convicted hacker who turned informant on Bradley Manning, who is suspected of passing secret documents to WikiLeaks.' What implications does this hold for privacy? Or is it just good work by the authorities?" As you may have guessed, the estimate appears to be based only on the number of black hats, rather than all hackers.
Programming

What Makes Parallel Programming Difficult? 196

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the double-the-threads-double-the-fun dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Intel's Aater Suleman writes about why parallel programming is difficult. ... I was unaware ... that a major challenge in multi-threaded programming lies in optimizing parallel programs not just getting them to run. His analysis is insightful and the case study is very enlightening if you are unfamiliar with parallel code debugging. "
Programming

Why the New Guy Can't Code 948

Posted by Soulskill from the hired-for-his-doughnut-fetching-skills dept.
theodp writes "'We've all lived the nightmare,' writes Jon Evans. 'A new developer shows up at work, and you try to be welcoming, but he can't seem to get up to speed; the questions he asks reveal basic ignorance; and his work, when it finally emerges, is so kludgey that it ultimately must be rewritten from scratch by more competent people.' Evans takes a stab at explaining why the new guy can't code when his interviewers and HR swear that they only hire above-average/A-level/top-1% people. Evans fingers the technical interview as the culprit, saying the skills required to pass today's industry-standard software interview are not those required to be a good software developer. Instead, Evans suggests: 'Don't interview anyone who hasn't accomplished anything. Ever. Certificates and degrees are not accomplishments; I mean real-world projects with real-world users. There is no excuse for software developers who don't have a site, app, or service they can point to and say, 'I did this, all by myself!' in a world where Google App Engine and Amazon Web Services have free service tiers, and it costs all of $25 to register as an Android developer and publish an app on the Android Market."
Communications

Instant Quantum Communication Is Near 287

Posted by timothy from the by-the-time-you-read-this dept.
fljmayer writes "In this experiment, researchers in Australia and Japan were able to transfer quantum information from one place to another without having to physically move it. It was destroyed in one place and instantly resurrected in another, 'alive' again and unchanged. This is a major advance, as previous teleportation experiments were either very slow or caused some information to be lost."

Comment Art is also surrounded by commercialization (Score 1) 278

by backganon (#35507606) Attached to: Revisiting Ebert &mdash; Games <em>Can</em> Be Art, But Are They?
Art is an industry, art makes products. Kitsch is a term used for art of poor quality in both conceptualization and execution. The vast majority of games today are kitschy in the sense that their concepts are juvenile, i.e. they're interactive versions of Hollywood blockbuster movies, which in most people's opinion rarely qualify as art. There is a great resistance from the "fine art" industry to the idea that a video game can be art, mainly because due to the high technical complexity of the medium, its members (coming from a background in the liberal arts), cannot dominate it. Current fine artists and the marketing machinery that supports them (curators, gallery owners and lazy art professors), fear for their livelyhood and have consistently attacked the new medium ever since its inception through its various mouthpieces. A video game can achieve a similar cultural significance as any Marcel Duchamp piece as long as it commits itself to excellence in it's conceptualization and execution. This regularly means substituting juvenile content with subject matter more intimately connected with the human condition, while taking advantage of the high degree of interactivity the medium offers.

Comment Re:Hey while we're there... (Score 1) 241

by backganon (#35415502) Attached to: Go For It On Fourth Down? Ask Coach Watson

Why should we even let humans obey the orders? Machines can do it more efficienty.

And then why do we need to do it in the physical world? It might be more interesting if there's no gravity, or higher gravity or something.

So the entertainment of the future will involve us seeing computers play video games in front of us.

Humans need to obey the orders because it is easier for the sports fan to relate to humans than to, say, video avatars or robots. In their secret hearts, sport fans actually believe that they're Mo-ron James or whoever is chasing the spheric object around the court at any particular moment, and they pay good money for it. Athletes are not the brightest bunch, neither are coaches, so I heartily welcome any technology that somehow increases the probability of either group being pushed off the gene pool: we can't have your players yet, we'll start with your coaches.

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