Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Uh (Score 1) 308

Yeah that was my hope. Is the efficacy of this scan comparable to a colonoscopy performed manually? Close enough? Could it be made close enough? My girlfriend keeps hassling me to go get checked since I just turned 30, but I also have a trip I'm flying out on Saturday for...

They could confirm there are no weapons secreted inside my person AND no precancerous polyps!

Comment Hyperbolic, much? (Score 2) 316

A "cesspool of crime"? Seriously? How many thousands or tens-of-thousands of successful interactions have their been? TFA doesn't say. Are the crimes linked to Craigslist unusual in that they are committed more frequently per capita (or however they measure crime statistics) than they would be without?

Anecdotal, yes, but I have used Craigslist easily in excess of twenty times over the past few years to sell and buy various items. Of course, you have to be smart about it and use common sense. Even then, there's the outside chance you may get robbed. You may also get robbed walking down the street. I have taken what I thought were reasonable precautions and always met in open, public areas with many people around. Others may choose not to take those precautions, or choose to put themselves in an inherently dangerous environment (going to someone's house, etc) because greed overcomes common sense. YMMV.

TL:DR - Bad things happen all the time, stack the deck in your favor but they may happen regardless. Don't be greedy.

Comment Realtime Worlds Points... (Score 3, Insightful) 185

From the website:

Realtime Worlds Points are a virtual currency that you can buy, right here, for cash. You can spend these RTW Points on lots of cool stuff, including gametime. It costs 280 Points for a 20 hour chunk (which never expires), and just 400 Points gets you unlimited access for 30 days.

Guess that "never expires" part isn't entirely accurate now. Or, if it is, not useful.

Just for giggles I clicked on "Purchase 400 Points" and got a server error...

Adios APB!
News

Submission + - What if the Gulf oil spill can't be stopped? (scienceblogs.com)

2muchcoffeeman writes: Sharon Astyk of Scienceblogs.com brings up an ongoing discussion of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill at The Oil Drum, a site for industry professionals. A comment in that discussion brings up a frightening scenario: that the Gulf oil spill is past the point of no return or very close to that point, there's no such thing as a "cap dome" that can be put in place to shut it off, the relief wells can't be brought online soon enough and the structure of the originally-drilled well is degrading and will eventually collapse ... meaning that entire underground oil reserve BP and its subcontractors were trying to extract will leak out into the Gulf of Mexico via the damaged equipment and underwater well site.
Advertising

HP and Yahoo To Spam Your Printer 397

An anonymous reader writes "As many suspected when HP announced its web-connected printer, it didn't take long for the company to announce it will send 'targeted' advertisements to your new printer. So you'll get spammed, and you'll pay for the ink to print it. On the bright side, the FCC forbids unsolicited fax ads, so this will probably get HP on a collision course with the Feds."
Firefox

Submission + - Does Firefox Have Cooties? (itworld.com)

JimLynch writes: Lately, it seems, there's been a small movement amongst key projects in the open source community to move away from stalwart open source browser Firefox to up-and-coming newbie browser Chromium.
Space

Submission + - SpaceX And Iridium Sign $492M Launch Contract (orlandosentinel.com)

FleaPlus writes: Following up on the successful first launch of their Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX has signed a $492M deal for launching several dozen satellites for the Iridium NEXT constellation, the biggest commercial launch deal ever (teleconference notes). This is a needed boost for the US launch industry, which has dwindled to a fraction of the international market due to problematic ITAR arms regulations and high costs. SpaceX's next launch is scheduled for later this summer, carrying the first full version of the Dragon reusable capsule, which will run tests in orbit and then splashdown off the California coast.

Submission + - A ballsy way to stop the oil leak (sciencemag.org) 1

sciencehabit writes: A maverick scientist who made a name for himself by directing the capping of the more than 500 hundred burning oil wells in Kuwait after the Gulf War in 1991 is proposing a deceptively simple way to plug the gulf oil leak: drop steel balls into the gushing well. If the steel balls are big enough in diameter, their weight will pull them downward even through the upward-rushing torrent of oil and gas. So they'll settle into the well at some deep level and begin to clog it. Two hundred tons of the things should slow the gusher enough that it can then be stopped with a more conventional injection of mud, he says.
America Online

Submission + - AOL dumps $1.2 billion worth of acquisitions (wsj.com)

destinyland writes: The social networking site Bebo is being sold for just "a small fraction of the $850 million AOL paid for the site two years ago," according to the Wall Street Journal. Since its acquisition, "the site has been shedding users as fast as Facebook and Twitter have been gaining them," according to one industry observer, quoting an April memo reportedly sent by an AOL executive arguing that Bebo "has been declining and, as a result, would require significant investment in order to compete in the competitive social networking space." Bebo's traffic is already down 44% from last year, according to the Wall Street Journal, attracting just 5 million unique U.S. visitors in May (versus 130.4 million for Facebook). And earlier this month, AOL shed the instant messaging service ICQ for $187.5 — which it had acquired in 1998 for over $408 million.

Submission + - HP and Yahoo will spam your printer (computerworld.com)

An anonymous reader writes: As many suspected when HP announced their web connected printer, it didn't take long for them to announce they will send "targeted" advertisements to your new printer. So you'll get spammed, and you'll pay for the ink to print it. On the bright side, the FCC forbids unsolicited fax ads, so this will probably get HP on a collision course with the Feds.
Power

Submission + - Horizon Releases Palm-Sized Fuel Cell Power Plant (inhabitat.com) 2

rebeccapaul writes: Ever dream of owning a palm-sized fuel cell to juice up your electronic devices on the go? Here’s your chance — Horizon just announced that it has started shipping a “disruptive pocket-size fuel cell power plant” — and it only costs $100 for a unit with two refillable fuel cartridges, each containing the same amount of energy as 1,000 disposable AA batteries.

Slashdot Top Deals

All seems condemned in the long run to approximate a state akin to Gaussian noise. -- James Martin

Working...