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Submission + - The Home Computer Christmas Wars (paleotronic.com)

beaverdownunder writes: Commodore’s Jack Tramiel saw an emerging market for low-cost home computers, releasing the VIC-20 in 1980. At a US$299 price point sales were initially modest, but rival Texas Instruments, making a play for the bottom of the market, would heavily discount its TI99/4A, and start a price war with Commodore that culminated with both computers selling as low as $US99. Only one company was going to walk away.

Submission + - Arthur C. Clarke: Communications in the Second Century of the Telephone (1977) (paleotronic.com)

beaverdownunder writes: While researching for our magazine we sometimes find nuggets buried by time that have been forgotten by the Internet. This particular nugget was found in the May 1977 issue of Creative Computing. Science fiction author and futurist Arthur C. Clarke’s predictions of the future are fascinating, both for what he got right, and what he got wrong

Comment Re:Dangerous Censorship Blindspot You People Have (Score 2) 214

There's no "free speech" on television; it's censored all the time (as a matter of course, even.) There's no "free speech" in newspapers; there's no "free speech" on the radio.

These are all commonly censored due to government regulation or when the company running the media outlet determines that broadcasting speech could be detrimental to its own interests.

How, exactly, are Facebook and Twitter any different from any other media outlet that solicits public content, then publishes what it wants? I think you're confusing what it essentially a self-publishing service with a soapbox on a streetcorner. With the latter, you generally do have free speech (within limits), with the former you certainly do not.
 

Comment Re:What a criminal (Score 5, Informative) 98

Quoted from a comment on HN:

"Not accurate. Read the indictment.

- Bottom of page 11: thirty-nine infringing copies of copyright motion pictures were present on their leased servers at Carpathia Hosting... in the Eastern District of Virginia

- Page 18:The Mega Conspiracy leases approximately 25 petabytes of data storage from Carpathia to store content associated with The Mega Site.

- It also looks like they leased servers in the US from Cogent, Leaseweb. They paid Carpathia $13M US to host Mega files in the US.

- They also used a US-based Paypal account to receive funds and pay the different hosts in the US.

- They made "reward" payments to US residents who provided copyrighted material.

Mega was running an illegal business in the US."

Comment Also, self-interest (Score 1) 300

Also, if you asked a plumber if everyone should learn plumbing, or a mechanic if everyone should learn how to fix their car, they would similarly say no -- it's in their vested financial interest to keep the field small.

I don't know why large publications / websites keep giving these people oxygen in the face of such an obvious conflict of interest. Ask a computer science professor from a respected college if THEY think kids should learn these skills and I guarantee you'll get a different answer.

Comment It only takes a single child... (Score 1) 300

Just like music, language skills and art, programmers benefit from learning core computer science skills in early childhood.

Sure, an adult can learn these things. Will they ever be as good? Will an adult who learns how to play violin in adulthood ever be as good as someone who learned as an adult? No.

However, we live in a technology-driven society now, and unlike where the value of the occasional child violin prodigy could be questioned, there is no question that if even one child out of the thousand who take these introductory computer science classes excels at it, the world-changing innovations they could potentially achieve make the entire exercise more than worthwhile.

Submission + - 2K, Australia's Last AAA Studio, Closes Its Doors (kotaku.com.au)

beaverdownunder writes: 2K Australia, the Canberra studio that most recently developed Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, is closing its doors.

The entire studio is closing, and all staff members will lose their jobs. “All hands are gone,” said a source for Kotaku Australia.

2K Canberra was the last major AAA-style studio operating out of Australia. The costs of operating in Australia are apparently to blame for the decision.

This raises questions as to the viability of developing major video games in Australia.

Submission + - The e-voting machine anyone can hack

Presto Vivace writes: Meet the e-voting machine so easy to hack, it will take your breath away

Virginia election officials have decertified an electronic voting system after determining that it was possible for even unskilled people to surreptitiously hack into it and tamper with vote counts.

The AVS WINVote, made by Advanced Voting Solutions, passed necessary voting systems standards and has been used in Virginia and, until recently, in Pennsylvania and Mississippi. It used the easy-to-crack passwords of "admin," "abcde," and "shoup" to lock down its Windows administrator account, Wi-Fi network, and voting results database respectively, according to a scathing security review published Tuesday by the Virginia Information Technologies Agency. The agency conducted the audit after one Virginia precinct reported that some of the devices displayed errors that interfered with vote counting during last November's elections.

Submission + - The car that knows when you'll get in an accident before you do (fusion.net)

aurtherdent2000 writes: I’m behind the wheel of the car of the future. It’s a gray Toyota Camry, but it has a camera pointed at me from the corner of the windshield recording my every eye movement, a GPS tracker, an outside-facing camera and a speed logger. It sees everything I’m doing so it can predict what I’m going to do behind the wheel seconds before I do it. So when my eyes glance to the left, it could warn me there’s a car between me and the exit I want to take. More at Robot Learning lab at Cornell University and Stanford University: Brain4Cars project.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Best Strategies For Teaching Kids CS Skills? (discorunner.com)

beaverdownunder writes: We're currently working on developing a teaching platform based around our BASIC interpreter DiscoRunner, and we would love to hear from Slashdot readers as to what methods they've used in the past to teach kids computer science concepts — which worked, what didn't, and why.

This will obviously be invaluable to us when it comes to working out the lessons that will be taught in our fight-to-save-the-world-from-evil learning environment, and we would be eternally grateful for any scraps of wisdom you could toss our way. =)

Thank you!

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