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Submission + - FCC posts its 400-page net neutrality order (cnet.com)

Submitted by jriding
jriding writes: Simply titled "Open Internet FCC-15-24A1," the order runs 400 pages.
The actual text of the new rules is only 305 words long.
Wheeler said reclassifying broadband as an utility gives the FCC its best shot at withstanding legal challenges. The courts have twice tossed out earlier rules aimed at protecting Internet openness. The FCC chairman has said repeatedly the agency does not intend to set rates or add new taxes to broadband bills. More than 100 pages of the 400-page document released Thursday explain that forbearance.

AT&T had hinted it would file a lawsuit once the new rules become public. The company's chief lobbyist, Jim Cicconi, didn't indicate Thursday when or even if AT&T would sue — only that the battle is far from over.

"Unfortunately, the order released today begins a period of uncertainty that will damage broadband investment in the United States," Cicconi said. "Ultimately, though, we are confident the issue will be resolved by bipartisan action by Congress or a future FCC, or by the courts."

Submission + - Schneier: Everyone Wants You To Have Security, But Not from Them (schneier.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Bruce Schneier has written another insightful piece about the how modern tech companies treat security. He points out that most organizations will tell you to secure your data while at the same time asking to be exempt from that security. Google and Facebook want your data to be safe — on their servers so they can analyze it. The government wants you to encrypt your communications — as long as they have the keys. Schneier says, "... we give lots of companies access to our data because it makes our lives easier. ... The reason the Internet is a worldwide mass-market phenomenon is that all the technological details are hidden from view. Someone else is taking care of it. We want strong security, but we also want companies to have access to our computers, smart devices, and data. We want someone else to manage our computers and smart phones, organize our e-mail and photos, and help us move data between our various devices. ... We want our data to be secure, but we want someone to be able to recover it all when we forget our password. We'll never solve these security problems as long as we're our own worst enemy.

Submission + - Shuttleworth Wants To Get Rid Of Proprietary Firmware (markshuttleworth.com)

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: In a new blog post, the Ubuntu main man Mark Shuttleworth calls an end for proprietary firmwares such as ACPI. His reasoning is that running any firmware code on your phone, tablet, PC, TV, wifi router, washing machine, server, or the server running the cloud your SAAS app is running on, is a threat vector against you, and NSA's best friend. 'Arguing for ACPI on your next-generation device is arguing for a trojan horse of monumental proportions to be installed in your living room and in your data centre. I've been to Troy, there is not much left.' As better solutions, Shuttleworth suggests delivering your innovative code directly to the upstream kernel, or using declarative firmware that describes hardware linkages and dependencies but doesn’t include executable code.

Submission + - Why Are Some Hell-Bent on Intelligent Design? (boykotx.org)

Submitted by Funksaw
Funksaw writes: An Op-Ed by first-time politician, long-time Slashdotter Brian Boyko, where he talks about his experiences testifying at the Texas Board of Education in favor of actually having real science in science textbooks. But beyond that, he also tries to examine, philosophically, why there is such hardened resistance to the idea of evolution in Texas.

From the article:

[W]hat is true is that evolution tests faith. The fact of evolution is incontrovertible and supported by mounds of empirical evidence. Faith, on the other hand, is fragile. It is supported only by the strength of human will. And this is where it gets tricky. Because to many believers, faith, not works, is the only guarantee that one can pass God’s litmus test and gain access to His divine kingdom. To lose one’s faith is to literally damn oneself. So tests to that faith must be avoided at all costs. Better to be a philosophical coward than a theological failure.

Submission + - Post-post PC: Materials and technologies that could revive enthusiast computing (extremetech.com)

Submitted by Dputiger
Dputiger writes: Given the recent emphasis on mobile computing and the difficulty of scaling large cores, it's easy to think that enthusiast computing is dead. Easy — but not necessarily true. There are multiple ways to attack the problem of continued scaling, including new semiconductor materials, specialized co-processor units that implement software applications in silicon, and enhanced cooling techniques to reduce on-die hot spots.

Submission + - 40-Million-Year-Old 'Walking Whale' Fossil Found In Peru (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by minty3
minty3 writes: Found in the Ocucaje Desert in southern Peru, the fossils belong to a group called Achaeocetes, or ancient whales, that possess both land and sea-dwelling characteristics. Over time, the ancient land animals adapted to water environments where their legs became fin-like and their bodies began to resemble modern sea mammals like dolphins and whales.

Submission + - Eric Schmidt: Regulate Civilian Drones Now (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google Chairman Eric Schmidt is urging lawmakers to regulate the use of unmanned aircraft by civilians — and quickly. He posed this hypothetical situation to The Guardian: 'You're having a dispute with your neighbor. How would you feel if your neighbor went over and bought a commercial observation drone that they can launch from their backyard. It just flies over your house all day. How would you feel about it?' Schmidt went on to bring up military and terrorist concerns. 'I'm not going to pass judgment on whether armies should exist, but I would prefer to not spread and democratize the ability to fight war to every single human being. It's got to be regulated... It's one thing for governments, who have some legitimacy in what they're doing, but have other people doing it... it's not going to happen.'

Submission + - Stephen Hawking Predicts End-Of-Earth Scenario (cnet.com)

Submitted by alancronin
alancronin writes: Stephen Hawking, one of the world's greatest physicists and cosmologists, is once again warning his fellow humans that our extinction is on the horizon unless we figure out a way to live in space. Not known for conspiracy theories, Hawking's rationale is that the Earth is far too delicate a planet to continue to withstand the barrage of human battering. "We must continue to go into space for humanity," Hawking said today, according to the Los Angeles Times. "We won't survive another 1,000 years without escaping our fragile planet."

Comment Re:Missing the point (Score 2, Insightful) 795

by Medgur (#33181058) Attached to: DRM-Free Game Suffers 90% Piracy, Offers Amnesty
DRM is working fairly well for Steam.
IIRC, when connecting to a game server with full Steam integration the Client first requests an authentication packet, based on a pub key from their client ID. The server then requests an authorization key from Valve, if that's provided, the user may begin connecting. On the client end, this dance is played directly with the Valve auth servers to even launch the game.
Yes, both avenues have been hacked, but in doing so you're left with either:
1. Playing only with other people who have hacked the client and server, without any match making support for finding such servers
2. Playing alone

Comment Too costly (Score 4, Insightful) 322

by Medgur (#30331294) Attached to: Why Open Source Phones Still Fail
No.

It's because they cost hundreds of dollars.

I want an open source phone, I really do, but I can't justify spending 500 on little more than a PDA + phone. I already had a PDA once, hardly used it, and phones that just work as phones are less than a hundred these days. Make an open source phone that's a reasonable price and I'll buy it.
Programming

Haskell 2010 Announced 173

Posted by kdawson from the eddie-and-the-beav dept.
paltemalte writes "Simon Marlow has posted an announcement of Haskell 2010, a new revision of the Haskell purely functional programming language. Good news for everyone interested in SMP and concurrency programming."

Comment Re:To Mac or Not (Score 1) 672

by Medgur (#29631057) Attached to: Best Developer's Laptop?
P4V and Cisco VPN commonly steal focus when disconnected. Many, many other apps steal focus for other reasons. Not commonly first-party, but still frustrating as hell coming from XFCE wherein I can block it almost entirely.

Cisco VPN _works_. I never meant to imply that it does not. It's just _frustrating_. It'll steal focus, but then P4V will do the same. If I'm happening to use multiple workspaces then the alert window for Cisco VPN can get buried on another page. Clicking the icon does not recover the VPN dialog, instead seeming to do /nothing at all/. I end up having to page through workspaces and perform a manual search for it.

Ooh, polished.

For a good example of apps which can lock down a modern OSX system look no farther than Screensavers. Should one of those fail (like, say, Electric Sheep) then short of rebooting there doesn't seem to be a good way to recover. Incidentally, it's why my Mac doesn't have the screensaver enabled anymore.

It's brittle as in the software doesn't stand up to pressure. The hardware, meh. The mushed in corners you mentioned tend to not occur on machines which are not made of malleable metals. Just about every other Mac owner I know has suffered a terminally clicking DVD drive and prematurelly failed hard disc. Anecdotal, sure, but enough to keep me from buying one again.

Anyhow, stating that the likes of VPN & SCM clients not being developer... Really? Really?! C'mon.

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Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. - Paul Tillich, German theologian and historian

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