The Insider News

Dr Dobb's[^]:

The U.S. government's admission this week that it has been engaged in large-scale collection of data on private citizens' activities was a revelation that brought considerable response from all points on the political spectrum. As there are already plenty of commentators extemporizing on the political and social implications of the news, let me focus on the technological implications, which I expect will be significant. The first and most profound effect will be a serious reconsideration of the wisdom of putting data into the public cloud.

catwig.com[^]:

We eagerly brought Glass back to the lab to begin the dissection. Speculation reigned: what if the entire body of Glass is potted with epoxy requiring strong solvents to access? Which part is the battery in? How hackable is this thing? Where are the sensors? Any extra hardware features yet to be unlocked by future software updates? But first, where to even begin opening it? With no idea of what lay ahead, we started by removing the titanium frame from the pod that holds all the good stuff.

Felipe Contreras[^]:

In my opinion the main problem with GNOME is not just the code, code can be fixed, but the attitude from the developers (which is reflected in the code), and as users made it clear in the survey. Many open source projects would kill to have the user-base GNOME had, and welcome their input with open arms, but GNOME neglected their users, they thought they were irrelevant, and they tried to dismiss their complaints with typical defenses, which of course don’t make sense.

Adafruit Learning System[^]:

I’m a child of the 1980s. Miami Vice! Skinny ties! Big hair! Honest, I had hair then…and every town had at least one good video game arcade. Thanks to the super affordable Raspberry Pi and some clever software, anyone can re-create the classic arcade experience at home. Adafruit brings the genuine “clicky” arcade controls, you bring the game files and a little crafting skill to build it.

Ars Technica[^]:

Even as "millennials" stray away from the idea of "watching" TV in a form recognizable or understandable to advertisers, most households in the first world still have big screens in the living rooms. For more than 60 years, television has filled the role of surrogate storyteller for a world that no longer has to spend evenings huddled around open fires. Even in the so-called "emerging market" countries, television is pervasive: TVs are inexpensive, and their ability to mesmerize and entertain ensures that they are found everywhere. But how did we reach this point, and does anyone really know what comes next?

ITPortal Wrote:[^]Libel and social media: a closer look at how 140 characters can end in a lawsuit

Fabulous Adventures In Coding[^]:

But didn't I just say that the compilers were not permitted to make this optimization? No, I did not. I said that they were not permitted to make this optimization in a single-threaded program, but the garbage collector and the finalizer queue run on their own threads! The C# language makes very few guarantees about how side effects are ordered in a multi-threaded program; only very special side effects like volatile writes, thread creation, and so on, are guaranteed to be observed in a particular order.

wootstudio.ca[^]:

Build your next great game for Windows 8. Don't start from scratch. Our Platformer Game Starter Kit for Windows 8 will get you going with full code & free game art.

version2beta[^]:

In February 2013 I heard about the MKE Event for the International Open Data Hackathon1. Since it had the word "hackathon" in the title, I thought I'd attend. I didn't know any more than that. It was awesome.... They work to get Milwaukee to open up its critical data to citizen hackers who will build applications that make that data useful to the people of Milwaukee. I worked on a team that scraped the night parking regulations and built an interactive, zoomable map of Milwaukee that tells you the night parking regulations for any address, simply by clicking on the map.

High Scalability[^]:

In the moral realm there may be 7 deadly sins, but scalability maven Sean Hull has come up Five More Things Deadly to Scalability that when added to his earlier 5 Things That are Toxic to Scalability, make for a numerologically satisfying 10 sins again scalability...

Ben Northrop[^]:

Since the dawn of XP, I've read about the benefits of Pair Programming. Evangelists have told us that it will improve code quality, help knowledge dissemination, and even boost productivity, all while cultivating deep, soulful bonds between developers (see: spooning). Those who reject pair programming are assumed to be cowboys, slackers, or social recluses. Well, I'm none of these (at least I don't think), but yet I still hate the idea of Pair Programming. For what it's worth, here's why...

CNET Reviews[^]:

We've still got about five months before the new Xbox One and PlayStation 4 launch in North America, and already blood has been spilled. From Microsoft gathering an arguably more impressive stable of exclusive games, to Sony revealing the lack of restrictions on PS4 games and a $100 lower price -- effectively, not only kicking the Microsoft brand when its down, but also knocking out a few teeth. This next console launch may be one of the most exciting and brutal yet, and I can't wait to comfortably watch from the sidelines, praising Thor I'm not in either of their shoes.

Wired.com[^]:

When Rich Barton was at Microsoft, he pulled off something that, despite government and investor pressure over the years, never happens. He spun out a company. That company, Expedia, which Barton founded in 1996, later went public with Barton as CEO. In 2003 Barry Diller’s USA Interactive acquired it for $3.6 billion. Since then Barton has co-founded real estate data company Zillow and job search startup Glassdoor, and he’s invested in a handful of others.

Ars Technica[^]:

Hell finally froze over yesterday, so Apple announced a new Mac Pro at WWDC. At first glance, the new machine was as mysterious as it was terrifying to me and many other creative pros who have been waiting for ages for this thing to drop. But now that Apple has a full site page for the new machine and I’ve gotten some info from people familiar with its internals and with OS X 10.9, the Mac Pro has becomes less of a mystery. But that’s also what’s freaking us out.

Medium[^]:

From the outside, it would appear I was on the textbook path of programming. Started making websites at 15. Took programming and web design classes in my tech-oriented high school. Was accepted into my first choice school and majored in Computer Engineering. Had great internships at a tech giant. Wrote code that was used by millions of people. Graduated with distinction. Cofounded a software startup. And yet despite doing everything right, I didn’t think of myself as a good programmer.

Vaisagh V T[^]:

I made a first person exploration game in minecraft which I’m using to study how human beings gain and store spatial knowledge. This post outlines the processes involved in making and getting data for analysis from a minecraft server. A little bit of background first: my PhD thesis is on modeling human behavior in simulations of crowds. More specifically it’s about modeling crowds that are evacuating buildings during fires, terrorist attacks or something similar. As a part of my thesis, I’ve been planning to develop a model of spatial knowledge and exploratory behavior of humans; this could be invaluable in structuring buildings in a way so that evacuation is quick, efficient and relatively painless.