Bitcoin Exchange Mt.Gox Collapse Not a Shocker; Why 'Google Buses' Are Bad for Cities

Does Relying on an IDE Make You a Bad Programmer? | Why Is U.S. Broadband So Slow? To view a web version of this message, click here Send this message to a friend Bitcoin Exchange Mt.Gox Collapse Not a Shocker Does Relying on an IDE Make You a Bad Programmer? Why Is U.S. Broadband So Slow? Space Elevators Are Feasible, Study Finds  Why 'Google Buses' Are Bad for Cities Hot Comment: "Germany and Japan haven't invaded anybody in seventy years. Meanwhile, Microsoft..." From the Vault: Richard Stallman Says Cell Phones Are 'Stalin's Dream' Watch It: Electric Bikes Getting More Elegant Poll Booth: Should programming be a required curriculum in public schools? Sponsored Resource: Improve Performance, Availability and Affordability in the Era of Big Data Bitcoin Exchange Mt.Gox Collapse Not a Shocker The recent closure of Mt.Gox has grabbed a lot of media attention, but people involved heavily in bitcoin have been raising alarms about business practices at Mt.Gox for quite some time now. It might be time to revisit the idea of counterparty risk in the world of irreversible cryptocurrency. Sound Off>> Does Relying on an IDE Make You a Bad Programmer? Writing about his career decisions, programming language choices, and regrets, Rob Conery says that as a .NET developer he became more reliant on an IDE than he would have with PHP. Blogger and .NET developer Matthew Mombrea picks up the thread, coming to the defense of IDEs (Visual Studio in particular). Sound Off>> Why Is U.S. Broadband So Slow? Verizon has said it will not be digging new lines any time soon. Time Warner's cash flow goes towards paying down debt, not laying down fiber. AT&T is doing everything it can to slow deployment of Google fiber. How can the situation be improved? Sound Off>> Space Elevators Are Feasible, Study Finds The space elevator can't seem to shake its image as something that's ridiculous and laughed off as the stuff of sci-fi novels, but there are plenty of scientists who take the idea quite seriously. To that end, a group of experts have recently completed a study about whether the concept is doable and a smart idea. Sound Off>> Why 'Google Buses' Are Bad for Cities The Director of Sustainability for New York's MTA calls out Google, Apple, and Yahoo for "deliberately" building campuses far away from viable public transportation. "The darkest thing about the tech buses is that they have turned their backs on communities," Projjal K. Dutta writes. Sound Off>> Seventy years "Germany and Japan haven't invaded anybody in seventy years. Meanwhile, Microsoft is, even as we speak attempting to ram home an opaque, binary blob document format, OOXML (hilariously called 'Open') as a standard over Open Document Format to cement MS Office's lock on office suite software." --by Chris Mattern Read More>>   Richard Stallman Says Cell Phones Are 'Stalin's Dream' Three years ago, free software pioneer Richard Stallman said, "Cell phones are tools of Big Brother. I'm not going to carry a tracking device that records where I go all the time, and I'm not going to carry a surveillance device that can be turned on to eavesdrop." Even the open source Android is dangerous because devices ship with proprietary executables, Stallman added. Read More>> Electric Bikes Getting More Elegant Faraday Bicycles ran a successful successful Kickstarter campaign in 2012, and 2014 is when the company is starting to ship its pre-ordered bicycles that are built to be stylish, functional, and a fun to ride. Tim Lord recently visited the shop where Faraday bikes are made to get a closer look and talk to some of the people designing and putting the machines together. Watch the Video>>   Should programming be a required curriculum in public schools? Yes - multiple classes starting in high school Yes - multiple classes starting before high school Yes - as a single class at any time No - it'll do more harm than good No - too many kids won't learn anything from it No - leave it to vocational schools I don't need more job competition, you insensitive clod! Cast Your Vote>>   Improve Performance, Availability and Affordability in the Era of Big Data Organizations around the world continue to see massive data growth in OLTP, analytics and data warehousing systems. At the same time, business users require new applications to be deployed faster and cheaper, have high availability, and provide excellent performance. Can your IT ecosystem continue to excel while embracing this growth and meeting user needs? Learn how to overcome today's data management challenges with innovative database software designed for the new era of big data. Learn More>>  Follow Slashdot on Twitter and Facebook. To unsubscribe, click here or send an email to: unsubscribe-213087@elabs10.com To ensure delivery of this newsletter to your inbox and to enable images, please add slashdot@newsletters.slashdot.org to your e-mail address book or safe senders list. Slashdot | 594 Howard Street, Suite 300 | San Francisco, CA 94105 To view our Privacy Policy click here.