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Submission + - Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus? (palant.de)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Wladimir Palant is the creator of the Adblock Plus browser extension, but he often gets asked how it compares to a similar extension for Chrome called Adblock. In the past, he's told people that they're achieve largely the same end in slightly different ways, but recent changes to the Adblock project have him worried. "AdBlock covertly moved from an open development model towards hiding changes from its users. Users were neither informed about that decision nor the reasons behind it." He goes through the changelog and highlights some changes that call into question the integrity of Adblock. For example, from an update on June 6th: "Calling home functionality has been extended. It now sends user’s locale in addition to the unique user ID, AdBlock version, operating system and whether Google Search ads are being allowed. Also, AdBlock will tell getadblock.com (or any other website if asked nicely) whether AdBlock has just been installed or has been used for a while — again, in addition to the unique user ID." Of course, Palant has skin in this game, and Adblock Plus has dealt with fallout from their "acceptable ads policy," but at least it's still developed in the open.

Submission + - Senate Bill Would Ban Most Bulk Surveillance (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Today Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced a bill that would ban bulk collection of telephone records and internet data for U.S. citizens. This is a stronger version of the legislation that passed the U.S. House in May, and it has support from the executive branch as well. "The bill, called the USA Freedom Act, would prohibit the government from collecting all information from a particular service provider or a broad geographic area, such as a city or area code, according to a release from Leahy's office. It would expand government and company reporting to the public and reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which reviews NSA intelligence activities. Both House and Senate measures would keep information out of NSA computers, but the Senate bill would impose stricter limits on how much data the spy agency could seek."

Comment Re:Already been done. (Score 1) 214

by x0 (#47449867) Attached to: Economist: File Sharing's Impact On Movies Is Modest At Most

The logic is that if all of those things cost $50 (in reality KC's book was like $30 signed and everything and Dark Souls was $40 with a bunch of pre-order discounts) each, whichever one I pick wins the competition for my money. At that point, I no longer have the money to spend, and thus can't buy either of the other things. Even if I pirate KC's book and the film, they still haven't lost a sale because I wouldn't have been able to buy it anyway. ,That was more or less how I remember the study's logic going.

Wait... What?

I'm not sure about your final sentence saying that you paid KC back later. Are you saying you DLd KCs book, then later purchased it, or you purchased the book, then DLd one of the other two items on your list?

If it's the latter, your logic is that you bought one item due to budget constraints, and being short of cash, you pirated^W downloaded a copy of something else you wanted. Since you didn't have any additional cash (after the first purchase), the other folks haven't lost a sale. No harm, no foul.

If that is what you are saying, then I have to call BS on that. The original artist/producer/manufacturer provides a product with the expectation that people who want to enjoy that product should pay a fee. You are saying that, since you don't have the 'fee' available, downloading harms no-one as there wouldn't have been a sale anyway.

However, you benefited from the product without paying the fee, so you got something for nothing. How is that not theft?

m

NOTE: If you want to argue that data wants to be free and that you should have to right to DL anything, from anywhere, at any time, the line for limitless free shit forms over there --->

Comment Re:Puppet. (Score 1) 265

by x0 (#47434051) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Unattended Maintenance Windows?

I NEVER do late at night or weekend maintenance anymore. Servers are dirt fricking cheap to not have redundants always running and ready to drop in.

Sure, hardware is cheap - software licenses, not so much. (An no, I don't have the option to use free/oss replacements.) When it costs my company $25,000 per license, deploying a primary and two 'backup' servers is not really an option.

m

Comment Rsults are results that are already published! (Score 2) 422

by stevew (#47231035) Attached to: FWD.us: GOP Voters To Be Targeted By Data Scientists

Why don't these guys simply pay attention to a scientific poll that was already run in Eric Cantor's district to see how successful this idea is!

Sheesh!

First time in history that Majority leader of the House has lost his seat- all because he supported some form of immigration reform.

That worked well for him didn't it.

Submission + - The Government Can No Longer Track Your Cell Phone Without a Warrant 1

Submitted by Jason Koebler
Jason Koebler writes: The government cannot use cell phone location data as evidence in a criminal proceeding without first obtaining a warrant, an appeals court ruled today, in one of the most important privacy decisions in recent memory.
"In short, we hold that cell site location information is within the subscriber’s reasonable expectation of privacy," the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled. "The obtaining of that data without a warrant is a Fourth Amendment violation."

Submission + - Computer Chronicles Now Streaming 24x7 on Justin.tv

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Some of us might remember the television series Computer Chronicles, created by Stewart Cheifet. It aired on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) during the mid 80's to early 2000's and documented the rise of the personal computer from its infancy to the immense market at the turn of the 21st century. Last week, the unofficial YouTube channel ComputerChroniclesYT announced they were streaming past episodes 24x7 live on Justin.tv.

Comment Late-breaking news: PATHWAYS TO VICTORY! (Score 4, Funny) 206

It doesn't work to do this with a democratic government. We need a monarchy :-(

Or perhaps a font of sage wisdom? You know, like a Council? Composed of wise people, you know, like one's Elders? Something any sentient species ought to be able to figure out. Speaking of which, I feel another press release coming on...

K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, addresses the publication of the new report thusly:

"WE HAVE TRIUMPHED! Our skilled operatives from the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Propaganda; Planetary Research Council have successfully infiltrated the blueworlders' technological and informational systems. One notable document, Pathways to Exploration makes clear the disarray in which the blueworlders' long-term invasion plans lie, drawing on the history of meat-controlled spaceflight to justify future programs in organic space exploitation. Although the report promotes the invasion of our world as the horizon goal for the program, it takes into account funding levels necessary to maintain a robust tempo of execution, current research and exploration projects and the time/resources needed to continue them, and intertribal cooperation that would be required to further oppress the citizens of our fair red world."

"And its conclusion? Although the mechanized threat remains, and we salute those still fighting pitched battles with the two active land-based invaders, Pathways to Exploration makes it clear that it is not possible for the blueworlders' organic-based self-replicators to invade our world, at least not without a sustained commitment to funding at a higher level than their own tribal leaders are currently providing."

When an intern from the defense engineering board suggested that improving the capabilities of the blueworlders' EDL systems, radshielding, and propulsion and power systems were ultimately matters of engineering and not physics, and could ultimately be addressed if the tribals of the blue world ever get it into their oxygen-addled brains to work together to achieve a common goal (as, the intern suggested, the way any sentient species does), K'Breel had the intern's gelsacs addled by immersing them in a suitably-merciful quantity of liquid oxygen.

Thus spake K'Breel, Speaker for the Council of Elders, Committee on Native Spaceflight; Arenautics and Defense Engineering Board; Defense Studies Board; Division of Blueworlder Social and Physical Sciences; Committee on Gelsacular Statistics.

Submission + - Star Within a Star: Thorne-Zytkow Object Discovered (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: A weird type of ‘hybrid’ star has been discovered nearly 40 years since it was first theorized — but until now has been curiously difficult to find. In 1975, renowned astrophysicists Kip Thorne, of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, Calif., and Anna Zytkow, of the University of Cambridge, UK, assembled a theory on how a large dying star could swallow its neutron star binary partner, thus becoming a very rare type of stellar hybrid, nicknamed a Thorne-Zytkow object (or TZO). The neutron star — a dense husk of degenerate matter that was once a massive star long since gone supernova — would spiral into the red supergiant’s core, interrupting normal fusion processes. According to the Thorne-Zytkow theory, after the two objects have merged, an excess of the elements rubidium, lithium and molybdenum will be generated by the hybrid. So astronomers have been on the lookout for stars in our galaxy, which is thought to contain only a few dozen of these objects at any one time, with this specific chemical signature in their atmospheres. Now, according to Emily Levesque of the University of Colorado Boulder and her team, a bona fide TZO has been discovered and their findings have been accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters.

Comment Re:As someone who... (Score 1) 154

by Oliver Wendell Jones (#47134255) Attached to: Google To Close Its American Moto X Factory
I buy stuff from Hong Kong on ebay all the time - you can get items shipped from there for $0.00 - $0.99 shipping and handling - sure it takes 7-10 days to show up, but if they can ship that package 1/2 way around the world for $0.99, why does it cost $7.99 - $10.99 to get the same package shipped from 2-3 states away?

Comment Re:Damn I'm old... (Score 4, Funny) 126

I kept thinking "I am the very model of a modern Major Perl Framework..."

I am the very model of a modern Major Perl Framework,
But here I am on Slashdot, trying harder from my job to shirk,
From HackerNews to 4chan there's no forum in which I won't lurk,
I am the very model of a modern Major Perl Framework!

Submission + - Wichita Lineman 2.0: Bill Gates Wants Accelerometers on Power Lines

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: GeekWire reports that Bill Gates is listed as an inventor on a newly surfaced patent filing that proposes putting accelerometers on power lines to understand how far they move in wind and other conditions, and monitor how close they come to trees and other nearby objects. The idea is to detect issues with power lines before they cause serious problems. Gates and power go way back — a legacy system BillG worked on as a teen that helped manage the electrical grid for the Bonneville Power Administration was just retired after keeping the lights on for 38 years.

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