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Comment Ontario Government Totally Misses the Point? (Score 1) 584

Typical of a government bureaucracy, this law misses the point. All the studies I've heard about indicate that hands-free or not, talking on the phone takes your mind off of driving and that's what causes the accidents. I'm not aware of any statistically significant variance in accident rates between hands-free or not. When will we start electing scientists instead of money-fueled politicians? In my life, I hope?

Comment INFEASIBLE = Money (Score 1) 759

So the patch code for Vista et al won't fit on XP? Hardly suprising - I believe that was a different tcp/ip stack. What MS is actually saying is they won't spend the time/effort/money to develop a patch tailored for the XP stack. There's no such thing as infeasible in this business, only 'too expensive' or 'not in our political best interest'.

Comment Father / Son Irony (Score 1) 703

About six months Rupert was saying his papers we're going to a paid model, and he sounded awfully darn sure it was the only business model that really made sense. Now his son is saying the model won't work because other organizations give it away (read 'advertising supported model') for free? Anyone else enjoying the irony here? Somebody better explain to Rupert how this tubey-thing works.

Image

Verizon Sued After Tech Punches Customer In Face 493

suraj.sun writes "A Verizon customer filed a lawsuit after the tech the company sent out got a little punchy. Instead of fixing the customer's problem, the tech allegedly hit him in the face. The New York Post says the tech attacked the customer after he asked to see some ID before allowing access to the apartment. From the article, '"You want to know my name? Here's my name," Benjamin snarled, slapping his ID card into Isakson's face, according to Isakson's account of the December 2008 confrontation. "The guy essentially snapped. He cold-cocked me, hit me two or three solid shots to the head while my hands were down," said Isakson, a limo driver. He said the pounding bloodied his face and broke his glasses. But things got uglier, Isakson said, when Benjamin squeezed him around the neck and pressed him up against the wall. "He's prepared to kill me," Isakson said. "That's all I could think of." The customer broke free and ran away. The Verizon tech then chased the customer until he was subdued by a neighbor who was an off-duty cop.'"

Comment What's NOT in Organic Food? (Score 1) 921

Processed foods and raw meat, I usually buy organic. Raw fruits & veggies, I'll buy organic if the price and quality are within my tolerances. I buy/eat a lot more of the latter than the former (which is now why I'm now 30 pounds lighter and all my health problems have disappeared). I've never been under the impression that organic fruits & veggies have 'better' nutrition, although some folks do believe that. I buy organic for what's NOT in it: preservatives, dyes, hormones, antibiotics, etc. And I'm not alone.

As usual, the media tells half the story in an attempt to sensationalize it. John Stewart, please take this one on?

The Courts

P.I.I. In the Sky 222

Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes "A judge rules that IP addresses are not 'personally identifiable information' (PII) because they identify computers, not people. That's absurd, but in truth there is no standard definition of PII in the industry anyway, because you don't need one in order to write secure software. Here's a definition of 'PII' that the judge could have adopted instead, to reach the same conclusion by less specious reasoning." Hit the link below to read the rest of his thoughts.

Comment Eat like a cave-man, man! (Score 1) 865

This is based on my own personal experience and resulting opinions, so please accept it as such - I'm not a doctor or nutritionist. First, if you have to work out to maintain a decent weight/shape, you're eating the wrong foods. I dropped my weight from 230 lbs to 185 (I'm 6'1) in six months by adhering to one simple rule: Don't eat processed foods. Fruits & veggies, nuts & berries, home-cooked bread, meat & fish - all good. Anything that comes in a box, can or jar - bad. The food supply has changed radically in the last 30 years, and we're simply not biologically adapted to tolerate it that well. The result is weight gain and sickness - high blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, etc. etc. Eat like a cave man, man! If we weren't eating it 5000 years ago, we probably shouldn't be eating it today.

Full disclosure: That was 3 years ago. I've added back into my diet small amounts of cheese, eggs, and some staples that do come in bottles - soy sauce, ketchup, mayonnaise, and the like, but I try to choose products containing the fewest possible chem-lab ingredients. I now maintain a weight of 190-195. Oh, and all my health problems from 3 years ago have disappeared, including that sometimes-painful bump on my wrist.

Comment Mimick the Human Mind (Score 3, Insightful) 337

Our minds seem to handle this for us in daily life. While enduring repetitive travel (commuting, for instance), we tune out a little, our minds wander, and the more often we travel the route, the less 'immersive' the experience becomes.

Computer games could mimick this to some degree, perhaps by increasing your maximum allowable speed each time you travel a given route. This should probably be a gradual increase of some kind, perhaps asymptotic towards an eventual uber-max, would be a good place to start.

Programming

Erlang's Creator Speaks About Its History and Prospects 48

Seal writes "Erlang, originally created at Ericsson in 1986, is a functional programming language which was released as open source around 10 years ago and flourished ever since. In this Q&A, Erlang creator Joe Armstrong talks about its beginnings as a control program for a telephone exchange, its flexibility and its modern day usage in open source programs. 'In the Erlang world we have over twenty years of experience with designing and implementing parallel algorithms. What we lose in sequential processing speed we win back in parallel performance and fault-tolerance,' Armstrong said. He also mentions how multi-core processors pushed the development of Erlang and the advantages of hot swapping."

Comment Candian Content Rules (Score 1) 269

as is currently done with radio and TV content

Wrong. Canadian content in radio and TV is essentially 'legislated' - you can't get/keep a broadcast license unless you include the minimum amount of Canadian content (~ 30 hrs/week for tv). This is one reason the Canadian broadcasters are loosing money hand-over-fist, and one reason my employer has been petitioning the CRTC to reduce/eliminate that requirement. So far, no luck. So we have to sell a bunch of TV stations that can't make money because they're forced to broadcast a significant amount of material that doesn't draw noticeable advertising revenue.

Now it looks like they want to screw up Canadian participation on the Internet. I sincerely wish these self-important politicians would retire before they cost more families their income.
Operating Systems

Submission + - Commodore 64 Still Beloved After All These Years (cnn.com)

techsoldaten writes: "CNN is running a story about the Commodore 64 and how people are still devoted to it after all these years. From the article, "Like a first love or a first car, a first computer can hold a special place in people's hearts. For millions of kids who grew up in the 1980s, that first computer was the Commodore 64. Twenty-five years later, that first brush with computer addiction is as strong as ever." Now if they will only come talk to me about my 8088."
Microsoft

Submission + - Users, Web developers vent over IE7

Spinlock_1977 writes: "ComputerWorld is running a story about developers frustration with IE 7, and Microsoft's upcoming plans (or lack thereof) for it. From the article:

But the most pointed comment came from someone labeled only as dk. "You all continue to underestimate the dramatic spillover effect this poor developer experience has had and will continue to have on your other products and services. Let me drive this point home. I am a front-end programmer and a co-founder of a start-up. I can tell you categorically that my team won't download and play with Silverlight ... won't build a Live widget ... won't consider any Microsoft search or ad products in the future."
Biotech

Submission + - Cheap Home Lead Testing - How?

Spinlock_1977 writes: "I received a gift from a friend — a tea ball. It was made in China. And it's metallic. Home lead-testing kits seem to start at a hundred or two dollars and go up from there. I'm loathe to spend that much to test a five dollar item. Does the slashdot community have suggestions for how to test for lead at home, on the cheap?"

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