64119443
submission
jjp9999 writes:
A college degree may not the best route when it comes to jobs in coding. Jobs for computer science majors flow aplenty, yet employers (and job-seekers) often learn quickly that the college grads don't have the skills. "This is because the courses taught in virtually all computer science curriculums focus on theory, and they only dabble in teaching practical programming skills," says Cody Scholberg on Epoch Times. This ties into a unique factoid in the world of programmers. Nearly half of the software developers in the United States do not have a college degree. Many never even graduated from high school. Instead, many aspiring programmers are turning to open source learning materials, or to the new programming bootcamps popping up around the United States. While theory does have its place, the situation begs the question of whether colleges are teaching the right skills people need to join the workforce, and what its place is amid the rise of open source learning.
55805601
submission
jjp9999 writes:
Weibo, China's replacement for Twitter and Facebook, went offline for about two hours on Jan. 20, when a DNS attack switched its IP address to overseas VPN software used to circumvent censorship. On Jan. 21, the brief IP switch was the most discussed topic on Weibo, with one user, ITHome, saying posting “What IP is 65.49.2.178? It’s sure to go down in history.” The IP address is one of those used by Freegate, which is free software released by Chinese dissidents in the U.S. intended to help Chinese people break through the Great Firewall. However, Bill Xia, president of Dynamic Internet Technology, which makes Freegate, said he and his team of volunteers thought their networks were under attack when they got a surge of traffic with about 100,000 users a second hitting their IP address. Xia said they are still trying to analyze the incident, but he assumes it was a slip-up the Chinese authorities in charge of censoring content. “Our guess is they messed up again,” he said. “This doesn’t make sense for them, so I assume it was a mistake in their operation.”
43738847
submission
jjp9999 writes:
Manhattan District Attorney, Cyrus Vance, says cybercrimes are the fastest growing crimes in New York City, and criminals of all types are finding uses for digital tools. The Epoch Times reports that during a Feb. 28 event, Vance said it has reached a point where “It is rare that a case does not involve some kind of cyber or computer element that we prosecute in our office—whether it is homicide, whether it’s financial crime case, whether it’s a gang case where the gang members are posting on Facebook where they’re going to meet.” He also noted that organized crime groups in New York are shifting their focus to cybercrime, and that many local criminals are working with international hackers.
42657541
submission
jjp9999 writes:
Recent findigns published on Jan. 27 in the journal Nature Neuroscience may inspire you to get some proper sleep. Researchers at UC Berkley found that REM sleep plays a key role in moving short term memories from the hippocampus (where short-term memories are stored) to the prefrontal cortex (where long-term memories are stored), and that degeneration of the frontal lobe as we grow older may play a key role in forgetfulness. "What we have discovered is a dysfunctional pathway that helps explain the relationship between brain deterioration, sleep disruption and memory loss as we get older – and with that, a potentially new treatment avenue," said UC Berkeley sleep researcher Matthew Walker.
39871133
submission
jjp9999 writes:
Nextgov reports 'The Homeland Security Department has commissioned Accenture to test technology that mines open social networks for indications of pandemics, according to the vendor.' This will kick off a year-long biosurveillance program, costing $3 million, that will log trends in public health by looking through public posts. This ties back to White House guidelines released in July that ask federal agencies to 'Consider social media as a force multiplier that can empower individuals and communities to provide early warning and global situational awareness.'
39537955
submission
jjp9999 writes:
By using the same technology found in older modems, Thomas Tumino, vice president of the Hall of Science Amateur Radio Club, has invented an iPhone interface for ham radios. He told The Epoch Times, 'Today there are iPhone apps where you can use the systems in the phone—and its sound card, which is being used as a modem ... And then you connect that into your radio with an interface like this, that just isolates the telephone from the radio, and then you can do all sorts of things.'
38615871
submission
jjp9999 writes:
The Epoch Times reports that on Monday, the same day the Intelligence Committee released its report cautioning against Chinese telecom companies Huawei and ZTE, the US said it will reject major changes to telecom at the World Administrative Telegraph and Telephone Conference in Dubai this December. The UN conference will be the first of its kind since 1988, and its members are pressing the US to hand control of governing the Internet over to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Huawei and ZTE are both members of the ITU. Terry Kramer, the US special envoy to the conference, said the US opposes proposals from some of the “nondemocratic nations” that include tracking and monitoring content and user information, which “makes it very easy for nations to monitor traffic.”
32687611
submission
jjp9999 writes:
A new study at Emory University is trying to figure out what dogs think. The study uses functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to scan the dogs’ brains while they’re shown different stimuli. Results from the first study will be published by the Public Library of Science, where the dogs were shown hand signals from their owners. ‘We hope this opens up a whole new door for understanding canine cognition and inter-species communication. We want to understand the dog-human relationship, from the dog's perspective,’ said Gregory Berns, director of the Emory Center for Neuropolicy and lead researcher of the dog project.
31624621
submission
jjp9999 writes:
Bethesda announced they're bringing Kinect support to Skyrim. It doesn't sound like this will include motion detection. Rather, it will be around voice commands—tons of voice commands. It supports dragon shouts, trading, navigation, switching weapons, and a whole lot of other features that usually require you to assign hotkeys or to sort through menus. They also gave a brief hint at new content, stating they've 'been hard at work on creating the first set of game add-ons that will be exclusive to the Xbox 360. This additional content will add new quests, locations, features, and much more to the world of Skyrim.'
30655747
submission
jjp9999 writes:
Mech Warfare is a mix between Battlebots and MechWarrior, only without the fanfare. The teams around the competitions include engineers and professionals in robotics, and the games are—aside from being an homage to their love for science fiction—a way to hone their sills in the field. Andrew Alter, roboticist and one of the mech pilots, said the competitions are taken as ‘an engineering challenge,’ noting that while they compete, ‘Having this mix of skill levels and demographics is really great to see, as information and ideas tend to flow freely. We’re also solving practical real-world problems like being able to stream video over wifi in high-interference areas. It’s not nearly as easy as one might think.’
30059011
submission
jjp9999 writes:
I've been looking for some good reading material, and have been delving into the realms of some great, but nearly forgotten authors—finding the likes of Lord Dunsany (The King of Elfland's Daughter) and E.R. Eddison (The Worm Ouroboros). I wanted to ask the community here if they know of any other great fantasy or science fiction books that time has forgotten.
28538113
submission
jjp9999 writes:
A WikiLeaks cable reveals that the NASDAQ folded to pressure from the Chinese regime and kicked out a US-based Chinese TV network, NTD TV. The Chinese Communist Party has been trying to block this station for years now, since it's one of the few major Chinese media that refuses to censor its content. Although they're blocked in Mainland China, they broadcast in with satellites. The timing of the incident aligns well with other actions launched by the CCP against the TV station. They used to broadcast into China through French satellite company Eutelsat, but their connection was cut. Reporters Without Borders investigated and found the Chinese regime was behind it. They now use a Taiwanese satellite.
27889024
submission
jjp9999 writes:
The Associated Press is launching the NewsRight project to make aggregators pay for content. Some of the top names in the news industry are currently on board, including New York Times Co. and Washington Post Co, and they’re currently negotiating with Gannett, Tribune, Cox and News Corp. The project will license original news from the media companies and collect royalties from aggregators. The use of lawsuits and threats of lawsuits are already on the agenda. NewsRight’s first salesperson starts work this week.
26685770
submission
jjp9999 writes:
The special effects arms race sci-fi films get stuck in has pulled the genre further and further from its roots of good storytelling and forward-thinking. The problem is that ‘When you create elements of a shot entirely in a computer, you have to generate everything that physics and the natural world offers you from scratch There’s a richness and texture when you’re working with lenses and light that can’t be replicated. The goal of special effects shouldn’t necessarily be to look realistic, they should be works of art themselves and help create a mood or tell a story.’ said filmmakers Derek Van Gorder and Otto Stockmeier. They hope to change this with their upcoming sci-fi film, ‘C,’ which will be shot entirely without CGI or green screens, opting instead for miniature models and creativity. They add that the sci-fi genre has gone wrong in other ways—getting itself stuck in too many stories of mankind’s conflict with technology, and further from the idea of exploration and human advancement. ‘In an era where science and technology are too often vilified, we believe that science-fiction should inspire us to surpass our limits and use the tools available to us to create a better future for our descendants,’ they said.
26378084
submission
jjp9999 writes:
In order to study the nature of lighting, the team at Lightning on Demand (LOD) plans to build two, ten-story-tall Tesla coils—the largest ever—that will blast arcs of lightning hundreds of feet in length. LOD founder Greg Leyh said the project aims to reveal details on the initiation process of natural lightning, an area that remains a mystery since smaller generated arcs have more trouble breaking through the air. It is believed that ‘laboratory-scale electric arcs start to gain lightning-like abilities once they grow past about 200ft in length,’ according to the LOD website, and so the team hopes to build Tesla coils large enough to do this. According to Leyh, ‘Understanding how lightning forms [and grows] is the first step towards being able to control where lightning strikes or being able to suppress it completely in certain areas,’
