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Kids these days! Why, back when I was a kid we had to use, you know, our imaginations when playing with toys. Now, thanks to robotics, toys can spring to life and react intelligently to a child's input. The latest example of that is IXI-Play, an owl-like robot that can dance, make sounds, and interact with children.... So what's inside the IXI-Play, and what can it do? Based on the Android operating system, the IXI-Play will use a variety of apps to interact and play games. ...and, of course, it can be hacked. I can't wait.
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The WorldWideWeb (W3) is a wide-area hypermedia information retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents. Everything there is online about W3 is linked directly or indirectly to this document, including an executive summary of the project, Mailing lists , Policy , November's W3 news , Frequently Asked Questions.... The first page on the web is back online.
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Software as a service (SaaS) is one of the great innovations of Web 2.0. SaaS enables flexibility and customized solutions. It reduces costs — the cost of entry, the cost of overhead, and as a result, the cost of experimentation. In doing so, it’s been instrumental in spurring innovation. So, what if you were to apply the principles of SaaS to science? Perhaps we can facilitate scientific progress by streamlining the process. Science as a service (SciAAS?) will enable researchers to save time and money without compromising quality. Making specialized resources and institutional expertise available for hire gives researchers more flexibility. Core facilities that own equipment can rent it out during down time, helping to reduce their own costs. People worry about Facebook stealing photos, but research in the cloud is just fine?
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BlackBerry (BBRY) Chief Executive Officer Thorsten Heins said he sees a limited future for tablet computers, an indication he may shelve plans to build a follow- up to the smartphone maker’s ill-fated PlayBook device. “In five years I don’t think there’ll be a reason to have a tablet anymore,” Heins said in an interview yesterday at the Milken Institute conference in Los Angeles. “Maybe a big screen in your workspace, but not a tablet as such. Tablets themselves are not a good business model.” When all you've got is a PlayBook, everything looks like a, um...
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So what’s the risk of a device connecting to the Pineapple (or any similar equipment – it’s not the only one) without knowing it? It means that every single byte of data that passes through that connection and is not encrypted can be read or changed by an attacker. Passwords, personal information, photos, videos and anything else not properly protected by the website can be intercepted. Links to secure login pages, documents, emails and even banking websites can be manipulated when that protection doesn’t exist. More Wifi Pineapple tricks... that could cause you a lot of trouble.
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My job was to write the software in 6502 assembly. Unfortunately, there wasn't an assembler and the KIM-1 just had a hex keypad and small display. So, it meant writing the code by hand, hand assembling and typing it in. The code looked like this... Running code in your head is perhaps the most crucial of all skills for a software developer.
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In 1985 I was learning Pascal on a PDP-11.
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He should of course have been using a proper microprocessor, i.e. a Z80.
I was writing windowed graphics software in an advanced form of BASIC with a specialist keyboard that allowed coding faster than I've seen achieved since in 1985
"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage."
Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)
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Sire, I think you should read the blog.
Reality is an illusion caused by a lack of alcohol
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It's odd that he'd still be using a Kim-1 in '85, they were around in the mid-70s and he probably could have worked faster if he'd used an Apple II or any of the early 80s micros.
In '85 I was using a 6502 assembler but I wasn't forced to convert opcodes into hex. Although I do still remember some of them like A9 is LDA# immediate (literal value), 8d is STA absolute addr
By far the biggest kick I got out of it was exploiting the 6502 bugs.
Ahh.. happy days.
"It's true that hard work never killed anyone. But I figure, why take the chance." - Ronald Reagan
That's what machines are for.
Got a problem?
Sleep on it.
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I remember those simpler times well.
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This page is a collection of obscure C++ features, gathered over the years as I've explored different corners of the language. C++ is very big and I'm always learning more about it. Hopefully you'll learn something from this page even if you already know C++ pretty well. The features below are roughly ordered from least to most obscure. Are these really that obscure? What else should be on this list?
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In the last few years, we see the advent of highly distributed systems. Systems that have clusters with lots of servers are no longer the sole realm of the googles’ and facebooks’ of the world and we begin to see multi-node and big data systems in enterprises.... So now that large(r) clusters are more prevalent, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the fallacies of distributed computing and how/if they are relevant; should they be changed. Mo' instances, mo' problems.
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There is a perception in some tech circles that older programmers aren’t able to keep pace with rapidly changing technology, and that they are discriminated against in the software field. But a new study from North Carolina State University indicates that the knowledge and skills of programmers actually improve over time – and that older programmers know as much (or more) than their younger peers when it comes to recent software platforms. It's worth noting that, in this study, 37 is old. Get off my lawn.
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When we released our very first game, Game Dev Tycoon yesterday, we did something unusual and as far as I know unique. We released a cracked version of the game ourselves, minutes after opening our Store.... The cracked version is nearly identical to the real thing except for one detail... Slowly their in-game funds dwindle, and new games they create have a high chance to be pirated until their virtual game development company goes bankrupt. Predictably, they complain.
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It'll be less pirated; it'll be not played as much as would be, which will have an impact on sales. The net result will be less profit.
So far my prediction. Now we'll have to wait for the results
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Considering the extensive media coverage the game gets bacause of this I expect the sales to skyrocket.
Otherwise you do raise some valid points, but that's really a grey area there...
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szukuro wrote: Considering the extensive media coverage the game gets bacause of this I expect the sales to skyrocket. Media coverage never made me play a game.
It'll take a while before we get an answer though
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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won't the results be skewed now that a "PROPER" crack has been released?
(looking at the legit players vs pirates chart on the blog page)
how will they distinguish legit players, players that downloaded the "rigged" version and pirates that downloaded the cracked "legit" version?
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Like any language — English, for example — management-speak can be used “to deflect blame, complicate simple ideas, obscure problems, and perpetuate power relations.” But that is a function of language. And make no mistake: bureaucratese is its own language. Or, to be more precise, its own idiom. Idioms evolve organically among the members of a group sharing common interests and concerns to better communicate those very interests and concerns.... These all necessarily exclude people outside the in-group, but this does not need to be a sinister thing. Try to follow a conversation among particle physicists in the Cal Tech lunchroom one day if you doubt me. Going forward, impactful asks for stakeholders will drill down.
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You follow a link to a blog post and if you are lucky the post is there, just as it was the day the author created it. But just as likely, the link is broken and goes nowhere. Or the author has changed the contents (or at least the presentation) or simply moved it to a different place. Blogs are abandoned, services go out of business or are aquired, authors lose interest, lose faith, and sometimes simply die. And although the URL, that universally unique permutation of characters, remains, the content it pointed to is lost. This is only going to get worse. What's the best way to archive the web?
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For the past few months we have seen a gradual increase in server-level compromises. In fact, every week it seems we’re handling half a dozen or so and it continues to increase. It’s one of the reasons that I have started including this as a trend in my most recent Website Security presentations. Just last week we talked about some very sneaky hacks that targeted the Apache binaries directly in the place of the modules, contrary to what we had been seeing. Fortunately, the more sophisticated attack are still far and few in between leaving us to deal with rogue modules more often than not. Now they're going directory for the Apache binaries. Here's how to stay safe.
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The password creation process on different websites can be a bit like visiting foreign countries with unfamiliar social customs. This one requires eight characters; that one lets you have up to 64. This one allows letters and numbers only; that one allows hyphens. This one allows underscores; that one allows @#$&%, but not ^*()[]!—and heaven forbid you try to put a period in there. Sometimes passwords must have a number and at least one capital letter, but no, don’t start the password with the number... Many successful password attacks have little to do with the content of the password itself.
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It seems funny to call the software our conference runs on a "platform" as that sounds very "enterprisey" and official. In the past we've done aspConf and mvcConf with sponsors who helped pay for things. We used Channel 9 and had a studio and streamed either from Seattle or using Live Meeting. However, this year we wanted to do it on the cheap and more distributed. We wanted speakers from ALL over in all time zones. How cheap? About USD$10ish we figure. I'll get a complete bill later, but we basically wanted to scale up, do the talks and scale down. How to organize your own conference for the price of a take-out lunch.
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Staying in shape as a programmer can be difficult, but recent studies have shown that even if you’re among those in our profession who do work out regularly, sitting for long periods of time at work is detrimental to your health. To be a bit more dramatic about it, sitting is killing you (see Phil Haack’s blog post on this from last year). So, how can we combat this risk while continuing to get our work done (and, if you’re like me, keep on doing the thing you love)? How do you balance coding and keeping in shape?
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