Cody Taylor

theodp writes “Speaking at a conference in NYC, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer did his best to refan the flames of the Mac vs. PC rivalry: ‘Now I think the tide has really turned back the other direction [against Apple],’ Ballmer said. ‘The economy is helpful. Paying an extra 0 for a computer in this environment — same piece of hardware — paying 0 more to get a logo on it? I think that’s a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be.'”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

aremstar writes “I’m a final-year Computer Science student from the UK. During my studies, we covered 3 programming languages: C, C++ and Java. The issue is that we didn’t cover any of these languages in sufficient depth for me to claim that I have commercial-ready experience. It’s one thing being able to write simple programs for class assignments, but those are quite different from writing something as complex as the Linux kernel or a multi-threaded banking app. I’m thinking of spending a few weeks/months studying in order to specialize in one of those languages. Fortran also entered my consideration, as it is great for numerical computing and used by many financial institutions, banks, etc. In terms of skill requirements in job ads, my (brief) experience suggests that most programming jobs require C++, with Java a close second. C — unfortunately — doesn’t appear as much. My question is: if you were in my shoes, which language would win your time investment? My heart suggests C, with a little bit of Fortran to complement it, but I’m a bit worried that there might not be enough demand in the job market.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Narrative Fallacy writes “John Markoff has a story at the NY Times speculating about what will happen on April 1 when the Conficker worm is scheduled to activate. Already on an estimated 12 million machines, conjectures about Conficker’s purpose ranges from the benign — an April Fool’s Day prank — to far darker notions. Some say the program will be used in the ‘rent-a-computer-crook’ business, something that has been tried previously by the computer underground. ‘The most intriguing clue about the purpose of Conficker lies in the intricate design of the peer-to-peer logic of the latest version of the program, which security researchers are still trying to completely decode,’ writes Markoff. According to a paper by researchers at SRI International, in the Conficker C version of the program, infected computers can act both as clients and servers and share files in both directions. With these capabilities, Conficker’s authors could be planning to create a scheme like Freenet, the peer-to-peer system that was intended to make Internet censorship of documents impossible. On a darker note, Stefan Savage, a computer scientist at the University of California at San Diego, has suggested the possibility of a ‘Dark Google.’ ‘What if Conficker is intended to give the computer underworld the ability to search for data on all the infected computers around the globe and then sell the answers,’ writes Markoff. ‘That would be a dragnet — and a genuine horror story.'”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

bugnuts writes “Blizzard has announced a policy change regarding add-ons for the popular game World of Warcraft which asserts requirements on UI programmers, such as disallowing charging for the program, obfuscation, or soliciting donations. Add-ons are voluntarily-installed UI programs that add functionality to the game, programmed in Lua, which can do various tasks that hook into the WoW engine. The new policy has some obvious requirements, such as not loading the servers or spamming users, and it looks like an attempt to make things more accessible and free for the end user. But unlike FOSS, it adds other requirements that assert control over these independently coded programs, such as distribution and fees. Blizzard can already control the ultimate functionality of add-ons by changing the hooks into the WoW engine. They have exercised this ability in the past, e.g. to disable add-ons that automate movement and facilitate ‘one-button’ combat. Should they be able to make demands on independent programmers’ copyrighted works, such as forbidding download fees or advertising, when those programmers are not under contract to code for Blizzard? Is this like Microsoft asserting control over what programmers may code for Windows?”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Earlier this evening we came across a privacy flaw on Facebook that allowed users to gain access to portions of their friends’ profiles that they should not have been able to see…

“Without a person at (or near) the helm who thoroughly understands the principles and elements of Design, a company eventually runs out of reasons for design decisions.”Finally we get the lowdown on why design at Google has failed so miserably over the years.

The release of Internet Explorer 8 hasn’t had any significant impact on Firefox or any other competing browser, data collected by StatsCounter shows. While the final release of IE8 increased its market share slightly on launch day to 1.39 percent, Firefox 3.0 grew more quickly and reached 25.38 percent.

Nancy Atkinson writes “Why is the James Webb Space Telescope (scheduled to launch in 2013) taking so long to build? Hasn’t it had a huge cost over-run and several delays? Nobel Prize winner John Mather is the Project Scientist for JWST, and he addresses these questions and more in an in-depth interview, one of the few he’s given about this next-generation telescope and successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. Quoting: ‘The hardest thing to build was the mirror, because we needed something that is way bigger than Hubble. But you can’t possibly lift something that big or fit it into a rocket, so you need something that is lighter weight but nonetheless larger, so it has to have the ability to fold up. The mirror is made of light-weight beryllium, and has 18 hexagonal segments. The telescope folds up like a butterfly in its chrysalis and will have to completely undo it self. It’s a rather elaborate process that will take many hours. The telescope is huge, at 6.5 meters (21 feet), so it’s pretty impressive.'”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Bad Astronomer writes “In Texas, a state legislator wants the ironically-named Institute for Creation Research to be able to grant a Masters degree in science. In fact, the bill submitted to the Texas congress would make it legal for any private group calling themselves educational to be able to grant advanced degrees in science. So, now’s your chance: that lack of a PhD in Astrology and Alchemy won’t hold you back any longer.” The Institute for Creation Research made a similar request to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board last year, but were shot down.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes “After Gov. Tim Kaine intervened on his behalf, Vivek Kundra was quietly reinstated to his Federal CIO post on Tuesday after a brief leave following an FBI raid on Kundra’s former DC office (Kundra was not implicated). Now, the Washington Post reports that the City of DC plans to fire 23 Technology Office contractors and place 4 employees on leave in the aftermath of the arrests of a Security manager and contractor on bribery charges last week. Another government employee has since been arrested for his role in the scam, and the mayor has promised that the tech office will undergo a ‘full and formal review.'”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.