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

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Because ISPs in EU sell secured router/modems (Score 1) 274

by slashdotmsiriv (#30695254) Attached to: USA Has More Open Wi-Fi Hotspots Than EU

It is very simple really. ISPs in the densely populated EU quickly figured out that if they don't restrict internet
access to the paying customers, many other users from the nearby apartments/townhouses will free-ride.

So, they simply sell the model and the wireless router as one package, with a passcode that is setup by the ISP
and printed on the back of the router.

It is not that European users or ISPs are more aware of security. It is because ISPs want to make sure people
do not free-ride on their services, and that the users do not have to set up themselves the security of their wireless router.
Music

Music While Programming? 1019

Posted by Soulskill from the perl-jam dept.
BubbaDoom writes "In our cubicle-ville, we have programmers intermixed with accounting, customer support and marketing. As programmers, it is our habit to put on our headphones and listen to our portable music players to drown out all of the noise from everyone else. The boss recently sent an email just to the programmers demanding that we do not use our music players at work because he thinks it distracts us from our jobs and causes us to make mistakes. Of course, we've explained to him that prattle from the other people is much, much more distracting, but he insists his policy is the right one. What is the Slashdot community's experience with music at work for programmers?"
It's funny. Laugh.

Moving Decimal Bug Loses Money 420

Posted by CmdrTaco from the test-your-code-people dept.
mario.m7 writes "Poste Italiane, the Italian postal service, suffered yesterday from an abnormal computation in ATM and credit card operations, since the decimal comma was not taken into account. The whole sum was therefore multiplied by 100, resulting in a 115,00 Euro transaction being debited as 11.500 Euro! Thousands of accounts are deep in the red and locked (link pumped through translator), so that no more operations are possible. Poste Italiane is gradually recovering the problem, fixing the error and re-crediting the sum debited in excess. Consumer associations have offered support to clients in case this lasts longer and causes damage."
Biotech

Environmental Chemicals Are Feminizing Boys 614

Posted by kdawson from the bending-toward-distaff dept.
pickens writes "Denmark has unveiled official research showing that two-year-old children are at risk from a bewildering array of gender-bending chemicals in such everyday items as waterproof clothes, rubber boots, bed linen, food, sunscreen lotion, and moisturizing cream. A picture is emerging of ubiquitous chemical contamination driving down sperm counts and feminizing male children all over the developed world. Research at Rotterdam's Erasmus University found that boys whose mothers were exposed to PCBs and dioxins were more likely to play with dolls and tea sets and dress up in female clothes. 'The amounts that two-year-olds absorb from the [preservatives] parabens propylparaben and butylparaben can constitute a risk for oestrogen-like disruptions of the endocrine system,' says the report. The contamination may also offer a clue to a mysterious shift in the sex of babies. Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls: it is thought to be nature's way of making up for the fact that men were more likely to be killed hunting or in conflict. But the proportion of females is rising. 'Both the public and wildlife are inadequately protected from harm, as regulation is based on looking at exposure to each substance in isolation, and yet it is now proven beyond doubt that hormone disrupting chemicals can act together to cause effects even when each by itself would not,' says Gwynne Lyons, director of Chem Trust."
OS X

Microsoft Responds To "Like OS X" Comment 505

Posted by samzenpus from the imitation-is-the-greatest-form-of-flattery dept.
Z80xxc! writes "After a comment by a Microsoft employee claiming in an interview that 'what we [Microsoft] have tried to do with Windows 7... is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics,' the Windows 7 team has issued an official rebuttal, saying that the comment came from an employee who was 'not involved in any aspect of designing Windows 7,' and that it was 'inaccurate and uninformed.'"

Comment Re:Execs, etc (Score 1) 189

by slashdotmsiriv (#29941933) Attached to: The Most Influential People In Open Source

So this is a list that gives credit only to business people for the success of Open Source ...

You are missing: Linus Torvalds (Linux creator), Eric S. Raymond (Open Source advocate), Bruce Perens (started Debian Linux and coined the term “Open Source”), Richard Stallman (Free Software Foundation spiritual father),

If you were aiming to credit people with substantial influence in the business part of IT, then why did you omit:
Bob Young & Marc Ewing (Red Hat founders) and Larry Page & Sergey Brin (Google founders).

This is just a list of nobodies (OSS-wise) that at some point in their life decided to use OSS in their business ... This is insulting really. Please no more
of these self-validation articles!
Cellphones

Verizon's Challenge To the iPhone Confirmed 423

Posted by Soulskill from the is-this-the-droid-you're-looking-for dept.
misnohmer writes "Verizon has just launched a new set of ads confirming the rumors of its upcoming iPhone competitor: 'Unlike previous Android phones, the Droid is rumored to be powered by the TI OMAP3430, the same core that the iPhone and Palm Pre use, and which significantly outperforms Qualcomm 528MHz ARM11-based Android phones that exist today. Droid will also be running v.2.0 of Android, with a significantly upgraded user interface. The Droid poses a different and more significant challenge to the iPhone than any other phone to date. The Palm Pre could have been that challenger, but it lacked the Verizon network, and users were unimpressed with the hardware. According to people who've handled the device, the Droid is the most sophisticated mobile device to hit the market to date from a hardware standpoint. When you combine that with the Verizon network, you've got something that is most definitely a challenger to the Jesus phone.'"

Comment Short answer (Score 1) 1040

by slashdotmsiriv (#29628017) Attached to: Did Chicago Lose Olympic Bid Due To US Passport Control?

Of course it has been a factor.

As a non-US citizen I have experienced the frustration of long border controls in US and Canada
too many times, and from now on I will try my best to minimize them.

The Olympics is a celebration of peace and freedom. Please oh please no more overpoliced olympics!

So not really a short answer :)

Rio was the best for 3 reasons:

a) Infrastructure and preparation. Recall that they have two main events to organize within 2 years.
If the World cup is successful, no doubt they will organize an equally successful Olympics.
Even if it fails, they will have enough time to fix all the problems, which they will
have learned first hand, thus it is more likely they will absorb the lessons of failure.

b) Not a main target for terrorists etc. Face it, the US is a prime target and policing
events on the mainland is a nightmare. Also some countries are less likely
to be attacked simply because they have not pissed off as many people
as the US. So was Greece in 2004, and so will be Brazil in 2016.

c) Latin America. The Olympics should go there at some point ... and where
better than the magical city of Rio, in one of the most vibrant economies in the world?
The Media

Google Wants To Ease News Browsing With Fast Flip 125

Posted by timothy from the see-page-17-for-details dept.
CWmike writes "Google is developing a product called Fast Flip that aims to make it simpler and faster to browse through news articles on the Web, a process the company says is cumbersome and discourages people from reading more online. Fast Flip, which lets readers glance at pages and browse through them quickly without having to wait for multiple page elements to load, was expected to go live late Monday at the Google Labs Web site. The idea is to try to replicate online the ease with which people flip through the pages of print magazines and newspapers in the offline world. This could motivate people to read more online, which Google argues will help publishers attract more readers and increase their revenue. However, when users click on a Fast Flip link, they will be taken to the corresponding publisher's Web site, where the Google technology will not be on hand to display the page more quickly."

Comment Re:absolutely, definitely a scam (Score 1) 165

by slashdotmsiriv (#29415231) Attached to: First Private Manned Orbital Flight Announced

hate to reply to my posts, but this is funny:

"What is the RIPPER?

RIPPER is an acronym for the Robotic Interplanetary Prospector Excavator and Retriever. It is an automated two-stage spacecraft and Earth Reentry Capsule (ERC) designed to land on and return samples from the smaller extraterrestrial bodies in the Solar System. This includes the moons, the asteroids, and the comets."

"Ripper"... how appropriate ...

Slashdot Top Deals

"A car is just a big purse on wheels." -- Johanna Reynolds

Close