Comment Re:Is the maintenance engineer related to... (Score 1) 210
Could you elaborate? Was there a lighting incident in 1976 that only you remember?
Comment Abbreviation (Score 2) 57
Why is it not DISCOVEROR-AQ ?
Comment Re:Skipping (Score 1) 189
This 1998 paper on skipping seems to be free to read--at least in my country. It's not fun reading, but maybe you can skip some of it.
Comment Readadability (Score 1) 102
original: NZ Copyright Tribunal Fines First File-Sharer
readable: NZ Copyright-Tribunal Fines First File-Sharer
still readable: NZ Copyright-Tribunal Fines First File Sharer
Copyright could be a noun, adjective, or verb. Fines could be a noun or verb. My first impression was that New Zealand was copyrighting something. I'm not sure why headlines have to have each word capitalized--I'm not even going to read the summary.
readable: NZ Copyright-Tribunal Fines First File-Sharer
still readable: NZ Copyright-Tribunal Fines First File Sharer
Copyright could be a noun, adjective, or verb. Fines could be a noun or verb. My first impression was that New Zealand was copyrighting something. I'm not sure why headlines have to have each word capitalized--I'm not even going to read the summary.
Comment Re:Wait, what? (Score 1) 379
The Learning Perl book always showed more than one way to do it but usually advised that the boss might not go for some of the clever examples and that readable code was a laudable objective. I understand that with Python there is often only one way to do something. How about Ruby? Is it somewhere in the middle? And would forum regulars eventually try to rewrite your code to nothing or would they tell you how to improve what you had which almost worked?
Submission + - Machine gun fire from military helicopters flying over downtown Miami (miamiherald.com) 1
Okian Warrior writes: Multiple police agencies and the military are currently (Monday night) conducting training exercises over Miami and elsewhere in the county. The exercise includes military helicopters firing machine-gun blanks while flying over highways and buildings.
This YouTube video shows helicopters strafing highways with blank rounds near the Adrian Arts center.
There are reports of similar actions in Houston
From the Houston article: "if you see the helicopters or hear gunfire, it's only a drill."
Not to be alarmist or anything, but, um... WTF?
This YouTube video shows helicopters strafing highways with blank rounds near the Adrian Arts center.
There are reports of similar actions in Houston
From the Houston article: "if you see the helicopters or hear gunfire, it's only a drill."
Not to be alarmist or anything, but, um... WTF?
Submission + - Unseen, All-Out Cyber War On The U.S. Has Begun (infoworld.com) 1
snydeq writes: "Security pros and government officials warn of a possible cyber 9/11 involving banks, utilities, other companies, or the Internet, InfoWorld reports. 'A cyber war has been brewing for at least the past year, and although you might view this battle as governments going head to head in a shadow fight, security experts say the battleground is shifting from government entities to the private sector, to civilian targets that provide many essential services to U.S. citizens. The cyber war has seen various attacks around the world, with incidents such as Stuxnet, Flame, and Red October garnering attention. Some attacks have been against government systems, but increasingly likely to attack civilian entities. U.S. banks and utilities have already been hit.'"
Submission + - Google Now Boasts World's No. 2 And No. 3 Social Networks (ibtimes.com)
redletterdave writes: "A new report released Monday revealed that Google+, less than a year and a half after its public debut, is now the No. 2 social network in the world with 343 million active users. Even better for Google, YouTube, which had not previously been tracked as a social network until recently, is now the No. 3 social network in the world with about 300 million active users. Google Plus and YouTube are being used by 25 percent and 21 percent of the global Internet populace, respectively."
Submission + - Why a Linux user is using Windows 3.1 (networkworld.com) 1
colinneagle writes: About two weeks back, I was using my Android tablet and looking for a good graphics editor. I wanted something with layers and good text drawing tools. That’s when it hit me. We already have that.
Photoshop used to run on Windows 3.1. And Windows 3.1 runs great under both DOSBox and QEMU, both of which are Open Source emulators available for Android and every other platform under the sun.
So I promptly set to work digging up an old copy of Photoshop. The last version released for Windows 3.1 was back in 1996. And finding a working copy proved to be...challenging. Luckily, the good folks at Adobe dug around in their vaults and managed to get me up and running.
And, after a bit of tweaking, I ended up with an astoundingly functional copy of Photoshop that I can now run on absolutely every device I own. And the entire environment (fonts, working files and all) are automatically backed up to the cloud and synced between systems.
But what other applications (and, potentially, games) does this give me access to? How far can I take this?
Photoshop used to run on Windows 3.1. And Windows 3.1 runs great under both DOSBox and QEMU, both of which are Open Source emulators available for Android and every other platform under the sun.
So I promptly set to work digging up an old copy of Photoshop. The last version released for Windows 3.1 was back in 1996. And finding a working copy proved to be...challenging. Luckily, the good folks at Adobe dug around in their vaults and managed to get me up and running.
And, after a bit of tweaking, I ended up with an astoundingly functional copy of Photoshop that I can now run on absolutely every device I own. And the entire environment (fonts, working files and all) are automatically backed up to the cloud and synced between systems.
But what other applications (and, potentially, games) does this give me access to? How far can I take this?
Submission + - Polite feedback on logon issues sees Simcity user banned from EA forums
An anonymous reader writes: EA's latest Simcity game requires users to log on online even for single player. After being unable to log on for three hours, one of its users chimed in with his very polite $0.02 opinion, only to get himself banned by EA admins. Another great victory for DRM.
Submission + - Your Cloud Provider (Probably) Isn't Spying On You (itworld.com)
jfruh writes: "Last week the CEO ServiceNow made a minor splash by claiming that it was awfully easy for a cloud provider to spy on the data they stored for you or discriminate based on pricing. But while that's possible, in many cases it turns out to be simply not practical enough to be beneficial. Even moves like restoring outages for higher-paying customers first turn out to be more trouble than they're worth."
Submission + - Swartz didn't face prison until feds took over case, report says (cnet.com)
tukang writes: According to a report in the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, State prosecutors had planned to let Swartz off with a warning and Swartz would not have faced any criminal proceedings or prison time had it not been for the decision of Carmen Ortiz's office to intervene and take over the case.
Submission + - GAO Finds US Military's Critical Technologies List Outdated, Useless (securityledger.com)
chicksdaddy writes: "The U.S. Department of Defense has stopped updating its main reference list of vital defense technologies that are banned from export, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), The Security Ledger reports.
The Militarily Critical Technologies List (MCTL) is used to identify technologies that are critical to national defense and that require extra protection — including bans on exports and the application of anti-tamper technology.
GAO warned six years ago that the Departments of State and Commerce, which are supposed to use the list, found it too broad and outdated to be of much use. The latest report (GAO 13-157) finds that the situation has worsened: budget cuts forced the DOD to largely stop updating and grooming the list in 2011. Sections on emerging technologies are outdated, while other sections haven't been updated since 1999. Without the list to rely on, the DOD has turned to a hodgepodge of other lists, while officials in the Departments of State and Commerce who are responsible for making decisions about whether to allow a particular technology to be exported have turned to ad-hoc networks of subject experts. Other agencies are looking into developing their own MCTL equivalents, potentially wasting government resources duplicating work that has already been done, GAO found."
The Militarily Critical Technologies List (MCTL) is used to identify technologies that are critical to national defense and that require extra protection — including bans on exports and the application of anti-tamper technology.
GAO warned six years ago that the Departments of State and Commerce, which are supposed to use the list, found it too broad and outdated to be of much use. The latest report (GAO 13-157) finds that the situation has worsened: budget cuts forced the DOD to largely stop updating and grooming the list in 2011. Sections on emerging technologies are outdated, while other sections haven't been updated since 1999. Without the list to rely on, the DOD has turned to a hodgepodge of other lists, while officials in the Departments of State and Commerce who are responsible for making decisions about whether to allow a particular technology to be exported have turned to ad-hoc networks of subject experts. Other agencies are looking into developing their own MCTL equivalents, potentially wasting government resources duplicating work that has already been done, GAO found."
Submission + - Microsoft Research And UN Build Computational Model Of World's Ecosystems
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft Research and UN scientists have teamed up to build the first general-purpose computer model of whole ecosystems across the entire world. The project was detailed in a recent Nature article titled "Ecosystems: Time to model all life on Earth."
Submission + - New server can be parachuted into extreme environments (networkworld.com)
alphadogg writes: A rugged server from NCS Technologies introduced on Friday can withstand drops, will work in extreme temperatures and can be deployed via parachute into crisis areas or war zones if needed. The Bunker XRV-5241 is a 1U rack server designed for organizations such as the military and first responders that need servers in rugged environments. The server has been tested to meet U.S. Department of Defense specifications for environmental, temperature and shock requirements.
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The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland"; but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.
