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Submission + - C Code On GitHub Has the Most 'Ugly Hacks' (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: An analysis of GitHub data shows that C developers are creating the most ugly hacks — or are at least the most willing to admit to it. To answer the question of which programming language produces the most ugly hacks, ITworld's Phil Johnson first used the search feature on GitHub, looking for code files that contained the string 'ugly hack'. In that case, C comes up first by a wide margin, with over 181,000 code files containing that string. The rest of the top ten languages were PHP (79k files), JavaScript (38k), C++ (22k), Python (19k), Text (11k), Makefile (11k), HTML, (10k), Java (7k), and Perl (4k). Even when controlling for the number of repositories, C wins the ugly-hack-athon by a landslide, Johnson found.

Submission + - NSA Phone Program Likely Unconstitutional, Federal Judge Rules (huffingtonpost.com) 3

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A federal judge ruled Monday that the National Security Agency's phone surveillance program is likely unconstitutional, Politico reports.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon said that the agency's controversial program, first unveiled by former government contractor Edward Snowden earlier this year, appears to violate the Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which states that the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."

“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying it and analyzing it without judicial approval,” Leon wrote in the ruling.

The federal ruling came down after activist Larry Klayman filed a lawsuit in June over the program. The suit claimed that the NSA's surveillance “violates the U.S. Constitution and also federal laws, including, but not limited to, the outrageous breach of privacy, freedom of speech, freedom of association, and the due process rights of American citizens."

Submission + - Exponential Algorithm in Windows Update Slowing XP Machines (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: An interesting bug regarding update dependency calculation has been found in Windows XP. By design, machines using Windows Update retrieve patch information from Microsoft's update servers (or possibly WSUS in a company setting). That patch information contains information about each patch: what software it applies to and, critically, what historic patch or patches the current patch supersedes. Unfortunately, the Windows Update client components used an algorithm with exponential scaling when processing these lists. Each additional superseded patch would double the time taken to process the list. With the operating system now very old, those lists have grown long, sometimes to 40 or more items. On a new machine, that processing appeared to be almost instantaneous. It is now very slow. After starting the system, svchost.exe is chewing up the entire processor, sometimes for an hour or more at a time. Wait long enough after booting and the machine will eventually return to normalcy. Microsoft thought that it had this problem fixed in November's Patch Tuesday update after it culled the supersedence lists. That update didn't appear to fix the problem. The company thought that its December update would also provide a solution, with even more aggressive culling. That didn't seem to help either. For one reason or another, Microsoft's test scenarios for the patches didn't reflect the experience of real Windows XP machines.

Submission + - NASA Testing Lighter Space Suits for Asteroid Work (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: Sometimes you have to take a step back to take a step forward. NASA is carrying out initial tests on a new, lighter spacesuit for use by the crew of the Orion spacecraft that is currently under development. The tests are being carried out in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory near the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas on a modified version of the pumpkin orange suit normally worn by Space Shuttle crews during liftoff and re-entry and is a return to a space suit design of the 1960s.
Moon

Crowdfund a Moon Monolith Mission? 199

Posted by CmdrTaco from the ok-probably-not dept.
Jamie found a somewhat amusing little essay on putting together a crowd-sourced mission to put a monolith on the moon. The author estimates it would cost half a billion dollars, which is a sum he thinks could be raised. Although personally, I think a half a billion dollars could be put to better use, it's a fun thought exercise.
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Open source Russian vacuum fluorescent tube clock (ladyada.net)

Submitted by
ptorrone
ptorrone writes: "Hacker hacker extraordinaire Ladyada has just published a complete how-to and design document on making your own open source Russian vacuum fluorescent clock. Unlike Nixie tubes the vacuum fluorescent aren't as dangerous (high voltage) and there seems to be more of them available in the world. If you're not interested in building a clock from scratch you can also pick up a kit version. All the schematics, source code and files are located on the project's page which you can also learn about onboard open-loop boost converters, using microcontroller PWM pins to generate 60VDC light VF tunes. Another is code for a microcontroller-only low-power RTC that runs at only 50uA without the need of an external RTC (real time clock) chip."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Rescued Banks Sought Foreign Help During Meltdown

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "Major U.S. banks sought permission to bring thousands of foreign workers into the country even as the system was melting down and Americans were getting laid off, according to an AP review of visa applications. The dozen banks now receiving the biggest rescue packages, totaling $150+ billion, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years. The American Bankers Association blamed the U.S. talent pool for forcing the move, saying there were not enough Americans capable of handling sales, lending and bank administration. The AP has turned to a FOIA filing to force the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service to disclose further details on the bailed-out banks' foreign hires."
Microsoft

Submission + - Does Bill Ayers Owe Bill Gates an I-Told-You-So?

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "Three years ago, Sarah-Palin-bogeyman William Ayers published a paper (pdf) questioning the direction the small school movement was taking with the involvement of would-be education reformers like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And now, after $2 billion in grants, Bill Gates concedes that in most cases his foundation's efforts in that area fell short. 'Many of the small schools that we invested in did not improve students' achievement in any significant way,' said Gates. Bill does cite High Tech High as one of the few success stories, but even there has to limit his atta-boys to the San Diego branch — the Gates-backed Silicon Valley High Tech High closed its doors abruptly due to financial woes (concerns about the sustainability of Gates-initiated small schools were voiced in 2005). Not surprisingly, some parents are upset about the capital school districts wasted following Bill's lead."
Privacy

Yale Students' Lawsuit Unmasks Anonymous Trolls 668

Posted by timothy from the hate-is-such-an-ugly-word dept.
palegray.net writes "Two female Yale law school students have used the courts to ascertain the identities of otherwise anonymous posters to an Internet forum, with the intent of prosecuting them for hateful remarks left on the boards. At a minimum, the posters' future legal careers are certainly jeopardized by these events. While I'm not certainly not supporting or encouraging hateful speech online, these controversial actions hold potentially far-reaching consequences for Internet privacy policy and free speech." According to the linked Wired Law article, "The women themselves have gone silent, and their lawyers — two of whom are now themselves being sued — are not talking to the press."
The Courts

Submission + - First New Dismissal Motion Against RIAA Complaint

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Several weeks ago it was discovered that a California federal judge, in rejecting an RIAA application for default judgment, had dismissed the RIAA's standard complaint for failure to state a claim, calling it "conclusory" "boilerplate" "speculation" in Interscope v. Rodriguez. In the wake of that decision, a Queens, New York, woman being sued in Brooklyn federal court, Rae J Schwartz, has told the Court that she is making a motion to dismiss the complaint in her case, Elektra v. Schwartz. This is the first post-Interscope challenge to the RIAA's boilerplate, of which we are aware. This is the same case in which the RIAA had sent a letter to the Judge falsely indicating that AOL had "confirmed that defendant owned an internet access account through which copyrighted sound recordings were downloaded and distributed". Ms. Schwartz suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, but the RIAA has pressed the case against her."
Privacy

Submission + - US kills controversial anti-terror database (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Long criticized for keeping track of regular everyday citizens, the government's anti-terror database will officially close Sept. 17. The Threat and Local Observation Notices or TALON, was established in 2002 by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz as a way to collect and evaluate information about possible threats to U.S. servicemembers and defense civilians all over the world. Congress and others protested its apparent use as an unauthorized citizen tracking database. The TALON system came under fire in 2005 for improperly storing information about some civilian individuals and non-government-affiliated groups on its database. The Air Force developed TALON, or the Threat and Local Observation Notice system in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a way to gather data on possible terrorist threats. Anti-war groups and other organizations, protested after it was revealed last year that the military had monitored anti-war activities, organizations and individuals who attended peace rallies. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18609"
Biotech

Submission + - DNA vaccine may treat multiple sclerosis (www.ctv.ca)

Submitted by
GSASoftware
GSASoftware writes: "Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a serious, as-yet incurable neurological disease which causes blindness, paralysis and other serious symptoms. In a new development, a neuroimmunology researcher in Montreal has developed a therapeutic DNA vaccine. The cause of the disease is not fully understood, but it appears to be auto-immune. If a DNA vaccine can be an effective therapy for this auto-immune disease, is it possible that DNA vaccines could treat other auto-immune diseases like Crohn's, eczema, and others?"
User Journal

Journal Journal: Peer-reviewed code

Journal by athloi

I am increasingly tired of the term "open source." It doesn't convey what is most important about OSS and FOSS software, which is that others are looking over the code.

In the same way scientific journals are verified, the code on F/OSS projects is by others looking for examples, hacks and weaknesses. This is the main strength of F/OSS.

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My idea of roughing it turning the air conditioner too low.

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