Comment Every computer comes with a beginner's language (Score 1) 370
It's called JavaScript, and every computer comes with an interpreter (web browser) pre-installed.
Comment DRM (Score 5, Informative) 511
Use always-on, internet-requring DRM they said. It will work fine, they said.
Sadly, EA will not admit DRM is the problem, they will just attribute it to "overwhelming demand".
Comment As soon as it's ready (Score 5, Informative) 182
Most companies I've worked for have a continuous deployment cycle. All changes, from small bug fixes to major releases go through a ticketing system. After the ticket has gone through all the steps (code review, QA, UAT) it goes into the deployment manager's queue, who then deploys the change to production depending on each ticket's priority. This means that in general, changes go out as soon as they are ready, sometimes up to two times a day for the same project.
Submission + - Solid State Quantum Computer Finds 15=3x5 48% Of The Time (i-programmer.info)
mikejuk writes: "The Shor quantum factoring algorithm has been run for the first time on a solid state device and it successfully factored a composite number. A team from UCSB has managed to build and operate a quantum circuit composed of four superconducting phase qubits. The design creates entangled bits faster than before and the team verified that entanglement was happening using quantum tomography. The final part of the experiment implemented the Shor factoring algorithm using 15 as the value to be factored. In 150,000 runs of the calculation, the chip gave the correct result 48% of the time. As Shor's algorithm is only supposed to give the correct answer 50% of the time, this is a good result but not of practical use. However they claim that their chip can be scaled to larger numbers of bits. Is this the start of the quantum computing revolution?"
Comment Re:Just record the lecture (Score 1) 3
Unless your phone or computer has an outstanding microphone, I would strongly recommend against this. Recording ambient sounds are not what those onboard microphones were designed for. Good digital recorders are cheap and the audio quality will be many times better than what is possible using the integrated microphone.
Still, recording alone is not a good idea, it should be used to complement note taking. And for this, there is no good replacement for paper and pencil. It has better tracking than any touchscreen, and unlike a word processor, it allows you to quickly draft diagrams or add quick inline notes. Reading your own handwriting can even trigger additional memories, which doesn't happen when typing on a computer.
Comment Re:No professional developer uses WYSIWYG (Score 2) 342
I completely agree with this. Having been a professional web developer for 8 years, I could not imagine any of my coworkers ever working with a WYSIWYG editor. The only thing you would accomplish is a big unmanageable mess, and a slap on the face by the developer who has to clean it up. Yes, there are better tools than Notepad++, but the solution is not a "web design" tool.
Comment Too soon (Score 1) 250
I hate old IE versions as much as every other web developer, but I don't think this is the right way to go yet. One of the main reasons most developers love jQuery is because it allows them to forget about IE quirks and lack of compliance, and just write code. I think it would be better if they continued to support IE in their main branch, but also offer a "lite" version without IE support.
Comment ORLY? (Score 0) 573
How could anyone know this happened? Did they interview the bomber's handler after the incident?
Comment First... (Score 1) 335
...to opt-in!
Comment Yo Dawg! (Score 2, Funny) 94
I herd you like torrents, so I put a torrent in your torrent so you can leech while you leech...
Domain Tasting "Officially Dead" Thanks To Cancellation Policy 102
Ars Technica is reporting that domain tasting has been all but eradicated now that the full penalty for excessive cancellations has taken effect. "In 2008, ICANN decided to act. It allowed domain registrars to withdraw as many as 10 percent of their total registrations; they would face penalties for anything above that. Initially, ICANN adopted a budget that included a charge of $0.20 for each withdrawal above the limit, which was in effect from June 2008 to July of this year. Later, it adopted an official policy that raised the penalty to $6.75, the cost of a .org registration; that took effect in July 2009. The results have been dramatic. Even under the low-cost budget provisions, domain withdrawals during the grace period dropped to 16 percent of what they had been prior to its adoption. Once the heavy penalties took hold, the withdrawal rate dropped to under half a percent."
The iPhone SMS Hack Explained 94
GhostX9 writes "Tom's Hardware just interviewed Charlie Miller, the man behind the iPhone remote exploit hack and winner of Pwn2Own 2009. He explains the (now patched) bug in the iPhone which allowed him to remotely exploit the iPhone in detail, explaining how the string concatenation code was flawed. The most surprising thing was that the bug could be traced back to several previous generations of the iPhone OS (he stopped testing at version 2.2). He also talks about the failures of other devices, such as crashing HTC's Touch by sending a SMS with '%n' in the text."
Sony Producing New PS3 Hardware, Slim Appears Likely 183
The Opposable Thumbs blog reports on a confluence of rumors and information leaks that suggest Sony will be unveiling a PS3 Slim sooner rather than later. Despite waning console sales, orders for PS3-related hardware have risen sharply. There's evidence to suggest that Sony is phasing out its 80GB model, which would help clear the way for a hardware revision. Some expect the official announcement to come as early as August 18th, during the gamescom expo in Germany.
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