Red Hat And IBM Will Vote Against Java's Next Release Slashdotby EditorDavid on java at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at May 6, 2017, 11:33 pm)

An anonymous reader quotes InfoWorld: The next edition of standard Java had been proceeding toward its planned July 27 release after earlier bumps in the road over modularity. But now Red Hat and IBM have opposed the module plan. "JDK 9 might be held up by this," Oracle's Georges Saab, vice president of development for the Java platform, said late Wednesday afternoon. "As is the case for all major Java SE releases, feedback from the Java Community Process may affect the timeline..." Red Hat's Scott Stark, vice president of architecture for the company's JBoss group, expressed a number of concerns about how applications would work with the module system and its potential impact on the planned Java Enterprise Edition 9. Stark also said the module system, which is featured in Java Specification Request 376 and Project Jigsaw, could result in two worlds of Java: one for Jigsaw and one for everything else, including Java SE classloaders and OSGI. Stark's analysis received input from others in the Java community, including Sonatype. "The result will be a weakened Java ecosystem at a time when rapid change is occurring in the server space with increasing use of languages like Go," Stark wrote, also predicting major challenges for applications dealing with services and reflection. His critique adds that "In some cases the implementation...contradicts years of modular application deployment best practices that are already commonly employed by the ecosystem as a whole." And he ultimately concludes that this effort to modularize Java has limitations which "almost certainly prevent the possibility of Java EE 9 from being based on Jigsaw, as to do so would require existing Java EE vendors to completely throw out compatibility, interoperability, and feature parity with past versions of the Java EE specification."

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Can the 'de-escalation' plan in Syria work? AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at May 6, 2017, 11:30 pm)

So-called 'de-escalation zones' have been created in four mainly opposition-held areas.
Can the 'de-escalation' plan in Syria work? AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at May 6, 2017, 11:30 pm)

So-called 'de-escalation zones' have been created in four mainly opposition-held areas.
Twin blasts kill two in Philippines AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at May 6, 2017, 10:30 pm)

The police suggest gangs are to blame for twin explosions in Manila that also left six people wounded.
Twin blasts kill two in Philippines AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at May 6, 2017, 10:30 pm)

The police suggest gangs are to blame for twin explosions in Manila that also left six people wounded.
62 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram 'freed' AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at May 6, 2017, 10:30 pm)

Government source tells Al Jazeera that 62 pupils abducted by Boko Haram fighters in April 2014 have been released.
62 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram 'freed' AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at May 6, 2017, 10:30 pm)

Government source tells Al Jazeera that 62 pupils abducted by Boko Haram fighters in April 2014 have been released.
How The 1997 'NESticle' Emulator Redefined Retro Gaming Slashdotby EditorDavid on emulation at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at May 6, 2017, 10:04 pm)

Slashdot reader martiniturbide writes: For those who lived the console emulator and retrogaming boom on the late 90's there is this interesting article about the story of NESticle posted at Motherboard. NESticle was a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) console emulator that had a huge success in the early internet era and helped to start the emulation scene. The author of the story, Ernie Smith, also posted an extra second part of the story... NESticle was "the product of a talented programmer who designed a hit shareware game while he was still in high school," according to the article, which credits the 1997 emulator with popularizing now-standard emulator features like movie recording and save states, as well as user modifications. Programmed in assembly code and C++ and targeting 468 processors, NESticle was followed by emulators for the Sega Genesis and the Capcom arcade platform before Icer Addis moved on to a professional career in the gaming industry, working for Electronic Arts and Zynga. Leave a comment if you're a fan of classic game emulators -- or if you just want to share your own fond memories of that late-'90s emulation scene.

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New Shodan Tool Tracks Down Botnet Command-And-Control Servers Slashdotby EditorDavid on botnet at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at May 6, 2017, 9:04 pm)

An anonymous reader quotes The Stack: Search engine Shodan has announced a tool to help businesses hunt out and block traffic from malware command-and-control servers. The new Malware Hunter service, which has been designed in a collaborative project with threat intelligence company Recorded Future, continuously scans the internet to locate control panels for different remote access Trojans, including Gh0st RAT, Dark Comet, njRAT, XtremeRAT, Net Bus and Poison Ivy. The internet crawler identifies botnet C2 servers by connecting to public IP addresses and sending traffic which mimics that of an infected device. If the receiver computer sends back a response, that server is flagged. The article reports that Shodan's Malware Hunter tool has already traced over 5,700 RAT servers -- more than 4,000 of them based in the United States.

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How a podcast should advertise its RSS feed Scripting News(cached at May 6, 2017, 9:03 pm)

This came up in a thread on Twitter, and I realized there is no write-up or even an example of a good way to advertise an RSS feed on your podcast page.

Here's the problem. If you put a link to the RSS feed alongside the links to iTunes and Stitcher and whatever else, you're going to get a bunch of emails from users about how your site is broken. I know, because I've gotten those emails. 

So you're in an organization and the boss says Do something about this! So what's the easiest thing to do, considering that you're an overworked web content person? Remove the link. You feel a little guilty because you know you're removing a resource that you yourself would want there, but this is your job, and you have to keep the boss happy. 

I just want you to know that I understand. I get it.

So here's the optimal answer. 

Create a simple page that says "This is a link to our RSS feed. It's used by developers and hobbyists to build their own listeners and it helps support innovation on the internet." 

Right below that put a plain link to the RSS feed. Assume the user knows to right-click. Remember this is for developers and hobbyists. 

Point to that page from your podcast landing page, using the RSS icon alongside all the others. 

Tell your boss it's good for flow, will get more listeners, especially technical people who you can hire to help me (the overworked web content person), and yes you probably still will get some emails because some people like to write emails, but you will know that you're feeding the commons, and helping other developers innovate, and also keeping podcasting from being controlled by silos. All that from a little icon! :-)

Here's an example of such a page...

One more thing, there is a standard way to advertise an RSS feed, and it's supported by all the browsers. It works too, and if you have a choice between one or the other, use the standard way. 

How a podcast should advertise its RSS feed Scripting News(cached at May 6, 2017, 9:03 pm)

This came up in a thread on Twitter, and I realized there is no write-up or even an example of a good way to advertise an RSS feed on your podcast page.

Here's the problem. If you put a link to the RSS feed alongside the links to iTunes and Stitcher and whatever else, you're going to get a bunch of emails from users about how your site is broken. I know, because I've gotten those emails. 

So you're in an organization and the boss says Do something about this! So what's the easiest thing to do, considering that you're an overworked web content person? Remove the link. You feel a little guilty because you know you're removing a resource that you yourself would want there, but this is your job, and you have to keep the boss happy. 

I just want you to know that I understand. I get it.

So here's the optimal answer. 

Create a simple page that says "This is a link to our RSS feed. It's used by developers and hobbyists to build their own listeners and it helps support innovation on the internet." 

Right below that put a plain link to the RSS feed. Assume the user knows to right-click. Remember this is for developers and hobbyists. 

Point to that page from your podcast landing page, using the RSS icon alongside all the others. 

Tell your boss it's good for flow, will get more listeners, especially technical people who you can hire to help me (the overworked web content person), and yes you probably still will get some emails because some people like to write emails, but you will know that you're feeding the commons, and helping other developers innovate, and also keeping podcasting from being controlled by silos. All that from a little icon! :-)

Here's an example of such a page...

One more thing, there is a standard way to advertise an RSS feed, and it's supported by all the browsers. It works too, and if you have a choice between one or the other, use the standard way. 

Poland: Anti-government rally draws tens of thousands AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at May 6, 2017, 9:00 pm)

'Freedom March' protesters in Warsaw say Poland's ruling right-wing party is undermining the rule of law and democracy.
Poland: Anti-government rally draws tens of thousands AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at May 6, 2017, 9:00 pm)

'Freedom March' protesters in Warsaw say Poland's ruling right-wing party is undermining the rule of law and democracy.
Hanover prepares mass evacuation over WWII bombs AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at May 6, 2017, 8:30 pm)

German authorities prepare second biggest mass evacuation in decades ahead of major bombs disposal operation.
39 Years Ago The World's First Spam Was Sent Slashdotby EditorDavid on advertising at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at May 6, 2017, 8:04 pm)

An anonymous reader write: Wednesday was the 39th anniversary of the world's first spam, sent by Gary Thuerk, a marketer for Massachusetts' Digital Equipment Corporation in 1978 to over 300 users on Arpanet. It was written in all capital letters, and its body began with 273 more email addresses that wouldn't fit in the header. The DEC marketer "was reportedly trying to flag the attention of the burgeoning California tech community," reports the San Jose Mercury News. The message touted two demonstrations of the DECSYSTEM-20, a PDP-10 mainframe computer. An official at the Defense Communication Agency immediately called it "a flagrant violation of the use of Arpanet as the network is to be used for official U.S. government business only," adding "Appropriate action is being taken to preclude its occurence again." But at the time a 24-year-old Richard Stallman -- then a graduate student at MIT -- claimed he wouldn't have reminded receiving the message...until someone forwarded him a copy. Stallman then responded "I eat my words... Nobody should be allowed to send a message with a header that long, no matter what it is about." The article reports that today the spam industry earns about $200 million each year, while $20 billion is spent trying to block spam. And the New York Times even has a quote from the DEC employee who sent that first spam. "People either say, 'Wow! You sent the first spam!' or they act like I gave them cooties."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.