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

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re: So much bullshit (Score 1) 110

>And one more thing, disagreeing with mainstream science is GOOD. If people never do that, then the scientific method just doesn't work. The biggest scientific breakthroughs are built on it.

Every one seems to have forgotten this. People screaming 'science' are relying on faith most of the time.

Comment Re:Its not pesticides, its climate change. (Score 1) 241

Check my earlier comment:

> intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, particularly the heavy use of pesticides.

This ! Agriculture is destructive on the environment, leading to loss of top soil, destruction of local plants and animals. Check what happened to Limberlost Swamp.

Submission + - Wikipedia's Philip Cross problem (craigmurray.org.uk)

Submitted by arnott
arnott writes: What happens when Wikipedia is used in ideological war with wikipedia's support ? 133,612 edits to Wikpedia have been made in the name of “Philip Cross” over 14 years. That’s over 30 edits per day, seven days a week. From Craig Murray, one of the people, whose wikipedia entry was edited by Philip Cross, a blog post:

Because the purpose of the “Philip Cross” operation is systematically to attack and undermine the reputations of those who are prominent in challenging the dominant corporate and state media narrative. particularly in foreign affairs. “Philip Cross” also systematically seeks to burnish the reputations of mainstream media journalists and other figures who are particularly prominent in pushing neo-con propaganda and in promoting the interests of Israel.

Looks like Philip Cross has Jimmy Wales's support.

Submission + - SPAM: Google Now Deindexing Some Web Pages Based on FDA's Administrative Findings 1

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A new Google policy calls for such deindexing based on administrative agency findings—without a court order—in cases where the agency is “charged with protecting consumers’ physical safety from harm by products or services that they consume.”

Google says it's possible this may extend to other agencies, but so far they "have not received any removal requests from anyone but the FDA." They are currently contemplating only orders from federal agencies (and similar national agencies in other countries), because the effect of the deindexing would be nationwide.

So far, the deindexing requests that I've seen (see, e.g., here) have focused on sites that really are just online pharmaceutical stores. If a site appears to have more material (e.g., general information about pharmaceutical efficacy, political advocacy, and the like), then Google would try to deindex only the material that is illegal and that threatens physical safety.

Google and the FDA both state that this is an entirely voluntary policy on Google's part, and not motivated by any threat of enforcement against Google (and I doubt that there would be any current law that could yield such a threat of enforcement against Google just for providing links).

* * *

So those are, as best I can tell, the facts. What should we think about them? I don't think there are any viable legal objections to Google's new policy. The government apparently hasn't pressured Google into implementing it, so there are no First Amendment or Due Process Clause problems. And there's no law requiring Google to link to anything. (Indeed, such a law constraining Google's selection decisions might itself be unconstitutional, as Don Falk and I argued in a 2012 paper commissioned by Google; but in any case, no such law exists.) The questions here are ethical, prudential, and business questions.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Sued for giving nutritional advice on twitter (medium.com)

Submitted by arnott
arnott writes: Tim Noakes, a South African scientist gave nutritional advice to a new mom on Twitter in 2014, and it ended up becoming one of the most expensive tweets ever. Based on a complaint, the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) started a case against Prof. Noakes for unprofessional conduct in June 2015. He was cleared of misconduct in April 2017, but HPCSA has appealed the verdict. Prof. Noakes promotes low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet.

Comment Dragon/dragonfly (Score 4, Informative) 93

by arnott (#55927039) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Is There a Useful Voice-Activated PC?
You can train your PC to do that. I use dragon naturally speaking with dragonfly python scripting. There are many python libraries which are built on dragonfly, which do the job.

Caster is a good one. Check these tutorials.

You will need to spend some time to understand how things work and train your mother-in-law to use the customized voice commands.

Search for "dragon naturally speaking demo" on YouTube to see what others do.

Slashdot Top Deals

Work is the crab grass in the lawn of life. -- Schulz

Close