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

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Yes. (Score 1) 1127

We, the geeks and the nerds, are supposed to be the ones smart enough to fix problems.
There are probably no frat-boy websites full of frat-boys worrying about whether women are being pushed away from the frat-boy community because they don't see it as a problem to be fixed.

We do. We give a damn and see this as a problem and so we talk about it and try to find a solution.

Comment Re:It isn't tough enough because it isn't mandator (Score 4, Interesting) 51

There are a whole bunch of problems with net biasedness (or whatever the opposite of net neutrality is):

1) It creates a barrier to entry for new websites. They don't need to just technically match the competition, they also need to pay the ISPs not to throttle them.

2) It's easy enough to say that changing ISP will work, but that's only the case if net biassedness doesn't become required for ISPs to survive as a business. It is possible that every ISP would end up having to strike deals with sites in order to be able to charge something in the same ballpark as the competition.

3) If (2) happens, then I could definitely foresee the problem for consumers where it is impossible to get a single ISP with acceptable connections to all the sites you'd want to visit. Imagine if one condition of the BBC's bias agreement was that you weren't allowed to have a similar agreement with Netflix; one condition of Sky's agreement was that you couldn't have a similar agreement with the BBC; one condition of Netflix's agreement was that you couldn't have a similar agreement with Lovefilm (which would mean Amazon)... can you see where this would end up? Customers being forced to sign up to several different ISPs in order to get good connections to all major sites.

Comment Re:Then try Ubuntu or such. (Score 1) 1134

The command line is not particularly friendly for a new user
However, it is probably THE best tool for giving instructions because everything is exactly the same. A large proportion of command line instructions can be completed by opening a terminal and copy and pasting the entire set of commands. If you were describing which GUI buttons to press, these can change with different locale settings and the like.
The instructions for accomplishing tasks using the command line will also change less from version to version than GUIs do.

Comment Re:Great Idea (Score 2) 255

The UK government has been blocking newspapers from printing things they consider inconvenient for many years and they want the same power over the web.

I assume you mean DA-Notices?
These don't actually block a newspaper from publishing anything - they basically say "Dear editor, be an awfully good chap and don't publish that."
Of course, you could be talking about the super-mega-injunctions which anyone can get (provided they can afford the right law firm) to stifle inconvenient facts from being published. And as Ryan Giggs knows, those are really effective.

Comment Re:Glad this can't happen in the U.S. (Score 1) 255

The UK doesn't have a written constitution like the US.
The closest thing we have to the Bill Of Rights is the Human Rights Act, but there is widespread opposition to it based on the fact that it gives rights to prisoners, foreigners and other folks who seem a bit shifty. That enshrines a right to freedom of expression, but provides exceptions "for the protection of health or morals" which I guess would allow this law.

Even in the US, it could be argued that this isn't censorship since you can choose not to be censored (and it could be argued that forcing someone to put their name down on a government list of Men Who Want To Look At Wimmen Nekkid to avoid the censorship is in itself a form of censorship - but that's for the courts to decide and not a random /. commenter)

Comment Re:Change Apache to nginx (Score 1) 197

Agreed. I've personally stopped DDoS attacks (the attack was coming from many sources - and therefore was distributed, and was stopping the customer's web server from responding - and therefore was a denial of service) by running Squid as a reverse proxy in front of the web server. In this case it was IIS which was being brought down by just 10Mb of malicious traffic. Yes, running a reverse proxy or changing Apache to nginx isn't going to solve 40Gb/s traffic hitting your 1Gb/s interface, but it may well fix a small attack which is depleting resources.

Comment Re:question for outraged white liberals (Score 1) 1208

Maybe, maybe not. I've never been to LA, and wouldn't volunteer for this without getting a feel for the place, but a lot of dangerous places aren't as dangerous if you're passing through and not involved in any of the local disputes. If I didn't go, it would be because it wasn't safe for me. Not because the people had a different colour skin. I'd react the same way to any place that wasn't safe.

Slashdot Top Deals

Quantity is no substitute for quality, but its the only one we've got.

Working...