Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:distortion and censoring of information (Score 0) 161

Oh, please. Wikipedia doesn't discriminate against offline sources; in fact, it encourages their use. The problem that you're coming up against is notability. Notability is established by adding sources -- online or offline -- to an article. Completely unsourced articles are essentially useless, because there's no verifiability, only original research. If you want to publish original research, put it on your blog. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; does not publish original research.

Comment Re:One down (Score 1) 67

Yeah, I saw. Surprising. Even more surprising, he seems quite proud of his accomplishments and fiercely loyal to Gillard/Labor. I don't know what to say. I guess it's easy to criticize from the outside, and minor incremental advances are better than regression... but who can help but be disappointed?

Comment Re:One down (Score 1) 67

I still don't understand how Peter Garrett could turn into such a "team player" and moderate, after decades of activism. I guess it goes to show how much politicians have to sell out in order to make it to the top levels.

Even as an American, I considered Garrett something of a hero when I was growing up. It was a shock to find out what's become of him today.

Bitcoin

California Sends a Cease and Desist Order To the Bitcoin Foundation 396

An anonymous reader writes in with bad news for the Bitcoin Foundation. "California's Department of Financial Institutions has issued a cease and desist letter to the Bitcoin Foundation for "allegedly engaging in the business of money transmission without a license or proper authorization," according to Forbes. The news comes after Bitcoin held its "Future of Payments" conference in San Jose last month. If found in violation, penalties range from $1,000 to $2,500 per violation per day plus criminal prosecution (which could lead to more fines and possibly imprisonment). Under federal law, it's also a felony "to engage in the business of money transmission without the appropriate state license or failure to register with the US Treasury Department," according to Forbes. Penalties under that law could be up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine."
E3

Sexism Still a Problem At E3 737

An anonymous reader writes "Now that E3 has wound down and the big product announcements are out of the way, its time to take a step back and look at the culture represented by the giant gaming show. 'The presence of scantily clad women hawking games and gizmos seemed in particular contrast to a report released this week by the Entertainment Software Association, which organizes the gaming industry's annual trade show. It found that 45 percent of the entire gaming population is now women, and women make up 46 percent of the most frequent game buyers.' While there are fewer 'booth babes' than in earlier shows (and while some are trying to bring balance by adding 'booth bros'), the conference organizers are happy to let exhibitors make their own policy. By contrast, the Penny Arcade Expo forbids 'booth babes,' a controversial but widely lauded stance. A recent article in Kotaku about this year's E3 notes, 'For every confident cosplayer who might do the job at a con, I am seeing dozens of companies trying to sell me hundreds of women. They are not drawing my attention to the content of their games, or to their tactics or techniques. They are drawing my attention to thigh-high boots, to low-cut shirts, and, frankly, to the hard work of a really expensive bra. So much of what I see here at E3 is aimed directly at the lizard hindbrain of a 13-year-old boy. But you have to be 18 to get into the show, and it's nominally for industry professionals. Perhaps someday we—men and women alike—can all be treated like the grown-ups we theoretically are, and be trusted to judge a game by its content... not its double-D cover.'"

Comment Re:Much awaited.. (Score 5, Insightful) 245

Yeah, I have to admit that it sounds like nothing but a paycheck. Given that the last two Terminator films were pretty forgettable, I'm hoping that they just do a reboot. Wipe everything clean, start with a brand new story, and get a real director (with a real name, not a nickname).

If they do a reboot, they could bring in Arnie in a small role. Make him a military leader responsible for pushing through Skynet, rewarded for his years of service to the country by being the first 3D model used to create a humanoid Terminator. That could work. It would even explain why he's 60-65 years old, yet the Terminator looks half that age. See? It's not hopeless. It's just incredibly unlikely that this will turn into a good film.

Comment Everything old is new again. (Score 1) 55

Yeah. It's impressive that he's gotten this far, but the credulous, easily-impressed headline (and story) left me similarly annoyed. It's basically some manga nerd remaking the classic 80s graphical adventure games. Instead of calling it what it is, they decided to run it as some kind of revolutionary, radical new approach to video games. The guy himself isn't necessarily responsible for that, though. He has no control over how the media present his story. Sounds like an decent guy with a decent project, but it's not really all that interesting to me. Aren't most indie games made by guys who think their ideas are underrepresented and underappreciated in mainstream gaming?

Comment Re:But I'm a democrat.. (Score 2) 609

The United States doesn't really have a left-wing party. There's the Green Party and the Socialist Party, but neither of them is relevant in any meaningful way. I suggest that you vote with the Greens or Socialists, if you're truly interested in left-wing politics, even if they are irrelevant. It may not accomplish much, but you'll be able to sleep better at night. If you're more of a centrist or right winger, then I suggest the Libertarian Party, which are at least supportive of freedom, even if they are free market fundamentalists. I can respect their stance on freedom, at the very least... which is more than I can do for most political parties.

There's also the Social Justice Party, but I don't know much about them. The Greens piss me off every once in a while, with their anti-technology, neo-luddite rhetoric. Social Justice seems like a decent alternative, if you're into progressive, left-wing politics and don't want to go full-on socialist.

Comment Re:For a certain definition of "design" (Score 1) 250

Yeah, I actually got kind of excited, too. It was stupid of me to think that they were actually going to change something that matters.

It seems like Mozilla does nothing but try to piss off their old-school users, while ineffectually trying to appeal to Chrome users. Some of their changes have been good, and some have even been great, but the vast majority have just been perplexing.

Comment Re:producer choice (Score 4, Insightful) 181

The director is known for intelligent and creative science fiction films, which kind of puzzles me. Why, if you had that kind of reputation, would you make a film based on an MMORPG? There must either be a huge budget (which would be tempting to work with, after the smaller productions, I suppose) or a very good script. Despite my cynicism, I choose to believe that the script is insightful and well-written. Unfortunately, Wikipedia says the budget is around $220M, which makes my cynicism increasingly difficult to ignore. On the other hand, if they're spending this much money, they're probably going to try to do it right.

Google

Google Glass: What's With All the Hate? 775

An anonymous reader writes "Techcrunch takes a look at why so many people seem to make fun of Google Glass. From the article: 'Google Glass isn't even on sale yet and there is already a noticeable backlash against Google's first experiment in wearable computing. It's odd to see a product that was greeted with so much hype a year ago endure the love-hate cycle so quickly – even though there are only a few thousand units in the wild. Sure, we've done our share to popularize "glasshole" as a way to describe its users, but the backlash seems to go beyond the usual insidery tech circles.'"
Japan

Yokohama Accidentally Tweets That NK Missile Is Inbound 131

ForgedArtificer writes "Earlier today, the Crisis Management Office Affairs Bureau for the city of Yokohama, Japan had some startling news for its followers; to wit, a North Korean missile was on its way to Japan. The tweet stayed up for about 20 minutes before being removed and replaced with an apology. The city reports that a pre-written tweet was released due to a malfunction in the 'mechanism' that would have released the tweet at the appropriate time."

Slashdot Top Deals

Congratulations! You are the one-millionth user to log into our system. If there's anything special we can do for you, anything at all, don't hesitate to ask!

Working...