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Crime

FBI Prioritizes Copyright Over Missing Persons 372

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-that-makes...-something dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The FBI has limited resources, so it needs to prioritize what it works on. However, it's difficult to see why dealing with copyright infringement seems to get more attention than identity theft or missing persons. In the past year, the FBI has announced a special new task force to fight intellectual property infringement, but recent reports have shown that both identity theft and missing persons have been downgraded as priorities by the FBI, to the point that there are a backlog of such cases."
Input Devices

Sentence Spacing — 1 Space or 2? 814

Posted by CmdrTaco from the how-about-none dept.
An anonymous reader noted an epic battle is waging, the likes of which has not been seen since we all agreed that tab indenting for code was properly two spaces. He writes "Do you hit the space bar two times between sentences, or only one? I admit, I'm from the typewriter age that hits it twice, but the article has pretty much convinced me to change. My final concern: how will my word processor know the difference between an abbr. and the end of a sentence (so it can stretch the sentence for me)? I don't use a capital letter for certain technical words (even when they start a sentence), making it both harder to programmatically detect a new sentence and more important to do so. What does the Slashdot community think?"
Canada

The Canadian Who Holds the Key To the Internet 199

Posted by Soulskill from the hope-nothing-breaks-during-hockey-season dept.
drbutts writes "The Toronto Star has an interesting story on how they are securing DNS: 'It's housed in two high-security facilities separated by the North American landmass. The one authenticated map of the Internet. Were it to be lost — either through a catastrophic physical or cyber attack — it could be recreated by seven individuals spread around the globe. One of them is Ottawa's Norm Ritchie. Ritchie was recently chosen to hold one of seven smartcards that can rebuild the root key that underpins this system' called DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions). In essence, these seven can rebuild the architecture that allows users to know for certain where they are and where they are going when navigating the Web."
Image

Scientists Create Equation For a Perfect Handshake 144

Posted by samzenpus from the thank-you-science dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Discover Magazine reports that despite the average person shaking hands nearly 15,000 times in a lifetime, one in five (19 per cent) admit they hate the act of the handshake and are unsure how to do it properly, regularly making a handshake faux pas such as having sweaty palms, squeezing too hard or holding on too long while over half the population (56 per cent) say they have been on the receiving end of an unpleasant handshake experience in the past month alone. But help is at hand as scientists have developed a mathematical equation for the perfect handshake taking into account the twelve primary measures needed to convey respect and trust to the recipient. The research was performed at the behest of Chevrolet as part of a handshake training guide for its staff and is meant to offer peace of mind and reassurance to its customers. A full guide to the perfect handshake is available on Flickr."
Microsoft

Will Ballmer Be Replaced As Microsoft CEO? 342

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-eventually-sure dept.
Strudelkugel writes "The Beast reports unhappiness with Steve Ballmer as CEO of Microsoft: Sources say the talk around Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, headquarters — which has grown increasingly loud ever since Apple surpassed Microsoft in market capitalization — is that the company's stock suffers from a 'Ballmer discount,' and that the CEO is on the clock to significantly move the needle on its share price over the next two or three quarters or face a potential move to oust him. 'Ballmer is on the list of mega-executives under pressure,' says a banker who has negotiated deals for Microsoft. 'If he was asked to leave the building, I suspect there would be more happy than unhappy people.'"

Comment Re:Seriously? (Score 1) 561

by Cryolithic (#32916426) Attached to: Sound As the New Illegal Narcotic?
Keep on believing that. Don't forget that Alcohol, Nicotine, and Caffeine are drugs as well, and the first two kill way more people per year than any illegal drug, yet millions of people consume the legal ones with no detriment to their, or anyone else's safety, health, and well being.

Comment Wizard's First Rule (Score 1) 961

by Cryolithic (#32905124) Attached to: Given Truth, the Misinformed Believe Lies More
"People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People’s heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true.... People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool."
Image

Given Truth, the Misinformed Believe Lies More 961

Posted by samzenpus from the don't-let-the-truth-get-in-your-way dept.
SharpFang writes "In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that misinformed people, particularly political partisans, rarely changed their minds when exposed to corrected facts in news stories. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger."

Comment Re:Canada in Winter (Score 1) 525

by Cryolithic (#32848102) Attached to: Where I am now, it's ...
I grew up about 6.5hrs northwest of edmonton, I think my winters compared just fine with winterpeg. Edmonton never even reached -40 in the 5 years I lived there, so no, it doesn't get that cold, just colder than TO ;)

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