Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment In an ideal world... (Score 1) 402

.. no one should have to access to production servers for anything other than pure upgrades and if necessary to read logs and inspect monitoring programs. If your organisation can afford a decent test server with the same basic hardare as the poduction servers you should simply clone it to the production environment.

In reality of course there are always mysterious problems that only seem to happen when a system is put into actual use. To catch as many of those a possibe, and without having to resort to panic changes in your production environment, both the test and production servers should have a decent set of monitoring software and the ability to produce as much logs as possible.

If you do all this and still have problems developers might have to look at the production servers. But any changes should be addded to the test server first, both to test it and to make sure that the test server is always updated when the production servers are. Once the fix is ready whoever is responsible for the production servers should approve the changes and make the update. This also makes sure at least two people know about any change made to the production environment

If you organisation is really small I don't really think it will matter is your developers have access or not. Then you should just give access to whoever you feel can handle it on a person to person basis.

Comment Re:Two basic ways to do it (Score 1) 801

Actually 1) works just fine. Near where I live there is a tunnel with bare rock walls where they used to have a line of plastic orange markers attached to the wall that looked just like oversized spears. Everyone who entered the tunnel reduced their speed to about half...

When the markers were later removed the average speed through the tunnel increased significantly.

Comment Re:Free healthcare (Scandinavia etc.) (Score 1) 651

I wonder how you can draw that conclusion, since the figures I have seen says that the survival rate after 5 years of people who get cancer treatment are only marginally lower in Sweden compared to the US. As far as I know the only really good study comparing cancer survival rates was led by british MD Michael Coleman in 2008 and is not available (for free) on the net.

The overall death rate from cancer is also much higher in the US compared to Sweden, presumably because many more people get little or no treatment in the US. Another significant difference is that when to stop treating a patient is a purely medical decision in Sweden, and is made by doctors involved in the treatment, so you never get to make this decision as a relative.

Security

Submission + - Subversive Organizations Must Now Register in SC 6

Hugh Pickens writes: "The Raw Story reports that terrorists who want to overthrow the United States government must now register with South Carolina's Secretary of State and declare their intentions — or face a $25,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison. The "Subversive Activities Registration Act" passed last year in South Carolina and now officially on the books states that "every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States ... shall register with the Secretary of State." While the intention of the law is apparently aimed at Islamic terrorists, it's unclear in the law's wording whether it can be applied to militias, some of whom have in the past called for the overthrow of the US government. "In the long and storied history of utterly retarded legislation in South Carolina, we may have finally found the legal statute that takes the cake for sheer stupidity, which we think you’ll agree is saying something," one unsigned blog posting scathingly commented."
Image

Police Called Over 11-Year-Old's Science Project 687

garg0yle writes "Police in San Diego were called to investigate an 11-year-old's science project, consisting of 'a motion detector made out of an empty Gatorade bottle and some electronics,' after the vice-principal came to the conclusion that it was a bomb. Charges aren't being laid against the youth, but it's being recommended that he and his family 'get counseling.' Apparently, the student violated school policies — I'm assuming these are policies against having any kind of independent thought?"

Comment Depends too much on the song (Score 1) 567

And since when is Billy Jean representative of music in general? It is a song with typical radio production and will not gain as much as music with higher production values might from higher bitrate.

Having conducted a double blind test with some friends I got wastly different results depending on the song.. Everyone could tell the difference between 128kbit mp3:s and 320 kbit mp3:s when listening to orchestral music, but noone could tell the difference between 320kbit and the actual CD. When listening to "Ace of Spades" with Motörhead noone could tell the difference between 128 and 320kbit.

As a sidenote, when we tested noone could tell the difference between the cheapest possible CD-player and a semi-expensive Marantz unit either. Or between cheap and expensive cables...

Comment 1st problem solved. (Score 1) 287

Great!

Now they just have to get around the fact that the laser might not be able to focus on the same spot long enough to actually take the missile out, is ineffective if the target is more than 10 miles away, or if its windy, cloudy, dusty or if there is any turbulence. It is also ineffective if the missile have gained any significant speed in which case the instability of the firing platform makes it impossible to fire on the same spot long enough to burn through.

Of course, you also have to have the 747's crusing around over enemy airspace to actually be able to target any missile launches, which might be the largest problem of all with this system.

It is also interesting that these news appear shortly after it has been announced that there won't be a second 747 airborne laser testbed for economic reasons.

Comment Re:WTF (Score 3, Interesting) 150

That is probably exactly what will happen, and when people acctually gets a chance to read the law and start protesting against it, they already have a set of cosmetic changes ready to make it appear more resonable. It i exactly what happen with the last three laws that are supposed to protect us from internet terrorism where I live.

We seen this happen quite a few times now, and still people in general does not seem to wise up to this after the fact "door in the face" tactic.

Comment Established parties seems to have dropped the ball (Score 2, Informative) 674

Seems the other parties completely missed the importance of this issue, the only other party that took this seriously and campaigned for increased protection of personal integrity was the Green Party, and they too seem to have gained an extra mandate from this issue.

The pirate party will most likely send Christian Engström to Brussels, who actively (and successfully) campaigned against software patents in the EU as a member of FFII, so it will be very interesting to see what he can do these next 5 years.

Comment Re:people still have not yet figured out ... (Score 5, Insightful) 172

Encryption unfortunately only works if you trust everyone you communicate with.

This gradual strangulation of internet freedoms needs to be stopped now, or perhaps all people who don't want to be sued/arrested/punished randomly for crimes you may or may have not have committed need to start protecting themselves with more serious countermeasures.

Something like a layered approach of Truecrypt+One Swarm/TOR/other anonymization. That will of course also benefit people who commit actual crimes, as they can hide in the crowd.

Comment Combination of more (or less) illogical factors? (Score 1) 415

Why the need for a one size fit all explanation for the whole class of problem? This result could easily be explained by a combination of factors, like...

People do not understand the problem fully, and are therefore simply unable to make a rational decision.

People acting simply on past experience. Last time I player I won, so I'm likely to win again by choosing the same decision. If I don't know the results of my last decision, my next decision will also be uncertain, and in the event of historical uncertainty I choose not to play.

People adding their own values to the problem. Since I don't want to go to jail, it will not matter if it is for 5 or 10 years.

...and probably several more. Since the actual reasons can interact in a very complex way and everyone have their own unique combination of reasons, the decisions might appear slightly random because they are in fact slightly random?

Comment Re:Let's put the question into perspective. (Score 1) 586

Interesting breakdown, although I rarely encounter persons that just do what you describe as Front-End Web Developer, without interfering with at least one or more of your other job descriptions.

If you do have both a Web Designer and one or more Back-End Web Developers, there just doesn't seem to be enough room to put another job between them, unless you design pages that are monumental in size or the backend developer is busy fighting against some terribly complex database.

When I do encounter people who only do HTML and CSS in a project, they are usually refered to as "consultants".

Slashdot Top Deals

The hardest part of climbing the ladder of success is getting through the crowd at the bottom.

Working...