Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Power

Solar Impulse Airplane To Launch First Sun-Powered Flight Across America 89

Posted by samzenpus from the guided-by-the-light dept.
First time accepted submitter markboyer writes "The Solar Impulse just landed at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California to announce a journey that will take it from San Francisco to New York without using a single drop of fuel. The 'Across America' tour will kick off this May when founders Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg take off from San Francisco. From there the plane will visit four cities across the states before landing in New York."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Obama signs 'Monsanto Protection Act' Into Law (rt.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Despite over 250,000 people's names on a petition asking for a veto of the the spending bill, Obama on Thursday signed into law HR 933 which includes a rider referred to as the "Monsanto Protection Act." This provision "effectively bars federal courts from being able to halt the sale or planting of GMO or GE crops and seeds, no matter what health consequences from the consumption of these products may come to light in the future... With HR 933 now a law, however, the court system no longer has the right to step in and protect the consumer."

Comment This User Agent madness needs an ending. (Score 1) 252

by u64 (#43269941) Attached to: Testers Say IE 11 Can Impersonate Firefox Via User Agent String

During my Privoxy experimental years i tried life without sending any HTTP User Agent header.
It mostly worked fine. Some pages looked wierd. And a few pages refused, and barfed errors;
"Danger! Danger! Server is confused. Evil user for sure."

The only way to end these endless UA detection games is to NOT play.

There will be some rough sailing for some years. But once we've crossed that problem,
the benefits makes it worth it.
Bitcoin

Submission + - Canadian man to sell home for Bitcoin virtual currency (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "It's not often that Canadian real estate listings make international headlines, but a mid-sized Alberta bungalow has people around the world buzzing today after its owner declared that he would like to sell it — for Bitcoins. If successful, 22-year-old entrepreneur Taylor More would be the first person ever to accept the fast-rising virtual currency in exchange for property. "My home is being traded for Bitcoins!" reads the listing for More's "quaint" two bedroom home in Crowsnest Pass, Alberta. "Properties like this rarely come on the market and this one's priced to sell in one of the most sought after recreation areas of the Rockies." The property is listed for $405,000 CDN, but More writes that "the price can be reduced" if a buyer has some Bitcoins to spare." eh, -ZU

Comment TorBrowser helps (Score 1) 1

by u64 (#43257037) Attached to: How to simplify online privacy?

As a start, use TorBrowser as primary browser for non-flash sites. https://www.torproject.org/

As for secondary browsers with Flash - then firefox-addons helps.

As usual: uninstall Google Chrome and replace it with Chromium portable, http://crportable.sourceforge.net/

Here's a neat thing for Chromium browsers, how to rotate random User Agent,
ChromiumStart.bat
set/a A=%random%*2/32768+5
set/a B=%random%*2/32768+1
set/a C=%random%*10/32768
start ChromiumPortable.exe --no-pings --prerender=disabled --disable-remote-fonts --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT %A%.%B%; rv:1%C%.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/1%C%.0"

(Works in Chromium and Dragon. Fails in Iron.)
Privacy

Submission + - How to simplify online privacy? 1

Submitted by MotorMachineMercenar
MotorMachineMercenar writes: Google moving all their services under the same TOS was the final straw for me, and I started taking my online privacy seriously. My resolve has been reinvigorated due to reports of people getting on no-fly lists due to tasteless jokes online, fired for jokes overheard in meatspace reported on Twitter, and the likelihood of everything I do online being tracked, stored, cataloged and cross-referenced increasing due to cloud storage and other online services.

I guarantee something I've said online could be taken out of context and used against me, someone I've been in contact will become a socially unacceptable person, or maybe some of my legal online activities will be part of a character assassination in the hands of a disgruntled ex, or if I ever decide to run for office. Social mores change so rapidly these days, that something that was fine just a few years ago could be compared to bloody murder these days. Who knows what I do today will be viewed in ten, twenty years?

My Firefox has Ghostery, AdBlock Plus, DoNotTrackMe and CustomizeGoogle add-ons installed to limit my exposure to different trackers, exploits, ads, and spying. This only works on Firefox, though. Unfortunately so many add-ons break some websites that I use regularly. For those I use Opera.

I still have Gmail since it's a really good service. I use Chrome for Gmail-only activities so that my other browsing habits are not easily tracked by Google. Getting rid of Gmail, other Google services, and my Android phone would probably be the biggest step in improving my privacy — but Google is not the only aggregator out there.

While setting up the scheme above is not complicated, there must be an easier way. I'd like to use just one browser, not get ads, not get tracked, and ideally get a non-unique result on EFF's Panopticlick — my (perhaps mis-guided) gold standard for privacy.

I don't mind spending a few hours to set up a private proxy or spending some money on a hardware proxy. But while I'm tech savvy, I don't understand proxies etc. well enough to make an informed decision how well and what kind of threats they do protect me from — and what other measures I need to take.

Therefore I'd like to ask you to help me and others put us in the right direction. What is a workable solution to strengthen online privacy, lock up my browsing habits, and separate my numerous online identities?

Comment Re: religion Re-count (Score 1) 245

by u64 (#43247127) Attached to: Study Finds Universe Is 100 Million Years Older Than Previously Thought

How many agnostics are there in the world?
Considering that younger children are, like most animals, agnostic from birth. And when humans
grows up they either discover that religion is bull and becomes atheists. Or joins a religion.

wolframalpha.com/input?i=how+many+children+are+there+in+the+world
Humans age 0-15: 1855 Million, 2009 estimate.

The younger they are - the more likely agnostic. And many adults are agnostic.
Hmmm...

Comment Re:A last desperate attempt (Score 1) 466

by u64 (#43207335) Attached to: Why Earth Hour Is a Waste of Time and Energy

Symbolism and placebo effects can have some usefulness.
Earth Hour is a last desperate attempt at getting people to at least try to save something.
Just to see what it's like. After that, more people can start saving all-year round.

Hopefully people starts to realize that saving isn't that uncomfortable and that it's for their own good.
Government

Submission + - Prosecutor in Aaron Swartz Case Lied About Search Warrant (huffingtonpost.com)

Submitted by runeghost
runeghost writes: "Federal prosecutor Stephen Heymann engaged in prosecutorial misconduct by withholding key evidence from the defense team of Aaron Swartz, the late Internet activist's legal team alleged in a letter to an internal Justice Department ethics unit."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Heymann appears to have lied to the court and ignored his duty to disclose exculpatory evidence, so as to avoid invalidating the government's case against Aaron Swartz.

Slashdot Top Deals

Waste not, get your budget cut next year.

Close