Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Government

Leak Shows US Lead Opponent of ACTA Transparency 164

Posted by timothy from the putting-on-an-acta dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Throughout the debate over ACTA transparency, the secret copyright treaty, many countries have taken public positions that they support release of the actual text, but that other countries do not. Since full transparency requires consensus of all the ACTA partners, the text simply can't be released until everyone is in agreement. A new leak from the Netherlands fingers who the chief opponents of transparency are: the United States, South Korea, Singapore, and Denmark lead the way, with Belgium, Germany, and Portugal not far behind as problem countries."
X

After 2 Years of Development, LTSP 5.2 Is Out 79

Posted by timothy from the terminal-velocity dept.
The Linux Terminal Server Project has for years been simplifying the task of time-sharing a Linux system by means of X terminals (including repurposed low-end PCs). Now, stgraber writes "After almost two years or work and 994 commits later made by only 14 contributors, the LTSP team is proud to announce that the Linux Terminal Server Project released LTSP 5.2 on Wednesday the 17th of February. As the LTSP team wanted this release to be some kind of a reference point in LTSP's history, LDM (LTSP Display Manager) 2.1 and LTSPfs 0.6 were released on the same day. Packages for LTSP 5.2, LDM 2.1 and LTSPfs 0.6 are already in Ubuntu Lucid and a backport for Karmic is available. For other distributions, packages should be available very soon. And the upstream code is, as always, available on Launchpad."
Graphics

How To Play HD Video On a Netbook 205

Posted by timothy from the addressing-that-stuttering-problem dept.
Barence writes with some news to interest those with netbooks running Windows: "Netbooks aren't famed for their high-definition video playing prowess, but if you've got about $10 and a few minutes going spare, there is a way to enjoy high-definition trailers and videos on your Atom-powered portable. You need three things: a copy of Media Player Classic Home Cinema, CoreCodec's CoreAVC codec, and some HD videos encoded in AVC or h.264 formats. This blog takes you through the process."
Science

Israeli Scientists Freeze Water By Warming It 165

Posted by timothy from the you-must-become-the-frozen-water dept.
ccktech writes "As reported by NPR and Chemistry world, the journal Science has a paper by David Ehre, Etay Lavert, Meir Lahav, and Igor Lubomirsky [note: abstract online; payment required to read the full paper] of Israel's Weizmann Institute, who have figured out a way to freeze pure water by warming it up. The trick is that pure water has different freezing points depending on the electrical charge of the surface it resides on. They found out that a negatively charged surface causes water to freeze at a lower temperature than a positively charged surface. By putting water on the pyroelectric material Lithium Tantalate, which has a negative charge when cooler but a positive change when warmer; water would remain a liquid down to -17 degrees C., and then freeze when the substrate and water were warmed up and the charge changed to positive, where water freezes at -7 degrees C."
Image

Seinfeld's Good Samaritan Law Now Reality? 735

Posted by samzenpus from the not-that-there-is-anything-wrong-with-that dept.
e3m4n writes "The fictitious 'good samaritan' law from the final episode of Seinfeld (the one that landed them in jail for a year) appears to be headed toward reality for California residents after the house passed this bill. There are some differences, such as direct action is not required, but the concept of guilt by association for not doing the right thing is still on the face of the bill."

Comment Re:What is up with the scare mongering? (Score 1) 160

by abell (#30714386) Attached to: Google Applies To Become Energy Marketer

Everywhere i read i see posts from astroturfers pretending to be very concerned about their privacy. Lambasting Google for all they are worth and trying to purport them as a very evil and vile company.

The thing is, Google hasnt got half of the information many other sources has like twitter, facebook etc.

Let's see. I am very concerned about my online privacy and manage my own mail server. I don't have a Facebook account and only used my Twitter account for a couple of days total. I use Google search engine, Google maps and for professional reasons have an Adsense account. Here's what Google can know about me:

  • the content of emails I send to my friends using a Gmail account and that they send me (even if I never use Gmail myself)
  • my search queries
  • the Adsense enabled web sites I visit, even if I browse them directly or through another search engine
  • the Google Analytics enabled web sites I visit, see above
  • my physical position and where I plan to go (through my itinerary searches in Google maps)
  • bonus (because of my Adsense account): my full name, address and bank account

They can correlate all these data and know and remember more about me than I myself do. All in the hands of a single company which can integrate all these data in a single database (for ease of consultation by themselves, government agencies etc.)

That's not astroturfing, it's simple understanding of facts.
Programming

The State of Ruby VMs — Ruby Renaissance 89

Posted by Soulskill from the take-your-pick dept.
igrigorik writes "In the short span of just a couple of years, the Ruby VM space has evolved to more than just a handful of choices: MRI, JRuby, IronRuby, MacRuby, Rubinius, MagLev, REE and BlueRuby. Four of these VMs will hit 1.0 status in the upcoming year and will open up entirely new possibilities for the language — Mac apps via MacRuby, Ruby in the browser via Silverlight, object persistence via Smalltalk VM, and so forth. This article takes a detailed look at the past year, the progress of each project, and where the community is heading. It's an exciting time to be a Rubyist."
The Internet

Twitter Says Your Tweets Belong To You 102

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the learning-from-other's-mistakes dept.
CWmike writes "Twitter has modified its terms of service to state unequivocally that messages posted belong to their authors and not to the company. 'Twitter is allowed to "use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute" your tweets because that's what we do. However, they are your tweets and they belong to you,' wrote Twitter co-founder Biz Stone in a blog post Thursday announcing the modifications. Twitter is still hammering out a set of guidelines for developers on the proper use of the company's API. What do Twitterers think of the TOS changes? Barbara Krasnoff writes, ' Twitter announces new ToS. Tweeters shrug,' noting that some appreciated the company's transparency in contacting its users and pointing out the changes that were being made."

Comment Re:Advertising is 100% tax deductible in Canada. (Score 1) 148

by abell (#27893165) Attached to: Google To Air Chrome Ads On TV

if I make to much money for example $60,000 @ 22% = $13,200 tax. I figure a way to spend it that will benefit me and be deductible from my income (lease a vehicle in my case) so I only make $50,000 @ 15% tax = $7,500 tax.

I think you miscalculated your taxes. If they are progressive as they should reasonably be, going from $50000 to $60000 should only increase the tax rate on the $10000 and not on the whole amount. So if 22% is the marginal rate at $60000, the difference in taxes would be at most the 22% of $10000, that is $2200. If your calculations were right, you would have a tax increase of $13200 - $7500 = $5700 out of your income increase of $10000, that is a 57% rate.

Comment Re:...with varying levels of support (Score 1) 371

by abell (#27028333) Attached to: Hope For Multi-Language Programming?

So yes, you can embed a Java interpreter in C code. But there's a API documented for embedded Java to unload the VM when you're done with it that turns out to not be implemented

Interesting. Out of curiosity, would it have made any sense in your case to have the Java part running as a separate application communicating with the main C one over some IPC channel (sockets, RPC or something else)?

Cheers

Slashdot Top Deals

This file will self-destruct in five minutes.

Close