Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment "Most beloved dress shirts?" Really? (Score 1) 71

Is "most beloved dress shirts" something normal people actually have? Sounds absolutely ridiculous. Using computer vision to determine measurements would be great, but you don't need to clone an existing shirt. That's just silly. Are these even going to be cheaper if they're custom manufactured for each user?

Comment How is "Cable Company" defined? (Score 1) 92

Is it still a Cable Company if it delivers video streams over fiber instead of coax? Is it about the physical cable line running to your home, or the content? I wouldn't consider a company that provides DSL a cable company, but obviously they still use a cable, and one can receive IPTV over that connection. The terminology is extremely poor here.

I could never imagine going back to programmed video streams like TV, let alone one that had commercials. Apparently T-Mobile has identified a market for it. Pretty much older people or those who care about sporting events. Still, I would like to see it go away sooner, rather than later, and this is going in the wrong direction.

Comment No, I have not switched (Score 1) 589

While I do use Chromium on occasion, Firefox has been my "tried and true browser of choice" since it was called Phoenix. I was initially quite annoyed about the deprecation of legacy XUL add-ons, however throughout the FF57 beta period, WebExtensions have popped up to meet just about all of my needs, and the performance improvements have been outstanding. Firefox continues to be the de-facto standard browser for the web. It is an indispensable tool, and a wonderful model for the entire software industry. Mozilla continues to lead the way in pushing for web standards.

My biggest gripe is the adoption of proprietary DRM technologies in Firefox (and every other browser). These technologies need to go. The web must remain open.

Comment ...But why? (Score 1) 87

Does anyone actually *want* to use a pen/stylus to write things on a screen? They're great for artists, but obviously that's not what digital ink displays are designed for. I recently had to hand-write just a few paragraphs for an exercise at work and it was so foreign and awful, my hand actually cramped up. Why would anyone want to manually hand-write things? It just makes no sense. A foldable keyboard that is actually nice to use would be far, far more useful.

Comment Re:Why are there no FOSS antivirus programs? (Score 1) 79

https://www.clamav.net/

The fact is, researching new viruses and maintaining up-to-date signatures requires constant work, which means the need for paid employees. This is really something that should be a collaboration between all the governments of the world and provide for free, thus facilitating far greater FOSS anti-virus solutions. As it is, it's just not something that's interesting enough for anyone to want to do as a hobby. Add to that the fact that those of us running FOSS operating systems don't use anti-virus software in the first place. I think the last time I had an anti-virus application running on my own machine was in the late 90s.

Comment Re:Take back our words! (Score 1) 453

There is absolutely no circumstance in which a decent human being would use the word "gay" to mean "some degree of bad." It is a clear and direct indicator that the person using it is an asshole. Without the sexual orientation definition, the word means happy. That's it. It has NEVER meant "bad' or negative in any way. Those who use it in a negative way are directly attacking homosexuals. This is simply a fact. It's exactly the same as how we have turned "nig*er" from simply meaning black to something not just derogatory, but actually violent.

Comment Expression of Reality (Score 1) 453

I'm confused. Isn't the fact that the AI determined this based on human user input simply a reflection of the sad state of our society, and not the AI itself? Surely no one programmed the AI to automatically regard minority attributes as negative. Unless I'm misinterpreting this, Google shouldn't be apologizing. The human race should. The great thing about an AI is that you can easily determine what it really "thinks," unlike human beings which conveniently hide it behind a friendly façade (well, at least they used to before Trumpism took over).

Slashdot Top Deals

Saliva causes cancer, but only if swallowed in small amounts over a long period of time. -- George Carlin

Working...