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

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Different strategy, same effect (Score 2) 253

Simply switching off the ringer on my landline has had the same effect; after tailing off over the first 6 months or so, I rarely get telemarketing calls anymore (as in, not even once a month). Anyone who really wants to reach me will leave me voicemail. Messages from those few telemarketers who don't hang up get deleted on recognition within the first couple of seconds of playback. And anyone who really needs to reach me directly will have been given my cell number to do so. Works admirably.

Comment unsigned extensions disabled following update (Score 1) 188

After updating to v43.0 this morning (32-bit version), I found that the Avira Browser Safety extension had been auto-disabled. This extension is unsigned by Mozilla but, coming from Avira, can surely be trusted. That decision, IMHO, should ultimately rest with the user, not with Mozilla.

To re-enable it, it was necessary to turn off signature checking for all extensions (xpinstall.signatures.required) -- a somewhat risky and therefore perhaps sketchy measure. To re-install it, it was necessary to manually download the extension .xpi file and install it from a local file because Firefox now refuses outright to install any unsigned extension from a website.

Comment Re:Why is prostitution illegal in the first place? (Score 1) 390

Female doctors do not screw male nurses.

I do know a female doctor who married a male nurse. Although I have no direct evidence of this, I assume that screwing is part of their relationship; they've had 2 children together and neither one seems to be the platonic type. It rather undermines your utterly unsubstantiated and unsupported arguments.

Who modded PP insightful???

Comment Re:Digital content is the issue here (Score 1) 204

This would also force academics to be graded on a different scale for tenure, etc. if "number of accepted submissions" doesn't mean anything anymore.

Yeah, they would have to be graded using another criterion, like ... oh, I don't know ... the significance and originality of their work, perhaps?

Comment Re:Apple buys Volkswagen's assets.... (Score 1) 535

Apple buys VW/Audi and rebrands (since the brands will be taking a big hit very soon), and consumers forget about dieselgate. Apple gets the infrastructure to build cars, as well as an eager dealership network. They throw money at some new designers to oversee the existing engineers and make the vehicles they want to make.

Book it, done deal.

Plus, Apple does software much better than VW. Nobody will ever find out if the A&W Golf TDI cheats on emissions tests.

Comment Is this really that serious? (Score 1) 471

An $18 billion dollar fine for ... misleading customers with respect to the true performance of their cars? Really? How many people lost their jobs over this? How many people were actually materially affected by it?

The fine BP faced for the Macondo (Deepwater Horizon) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was $18.7 billion -- pretty much identical. The environmental impacts of that incident and its ramifications in terms of real human suffering were far, far greater than this. Shouldn't that be part of the calculus in determining a penalty?

Either VW's fine is too large or BP's was too small, but the scale and significance of the offences involved are just not comparable.

Comment only a starting point (Score 1) 125

I dislike Elsevier's extortionate rates for information access as much as the next researcher and try to pay them as little as I can get away with. However, Wikipedia has only ever been a starting point for investigation into any topic. At best it may give you a fair understanding of the subject and/or the issues at play, but generally it serves as an aggregator and should not be construed as anything more definitive. As such, allowing citations of closed sources such as those from Elsevier is pretty much the same as what Google already does and has always done. There's no real controversy here.

Disclaimer: I have contributed mods to Wikipedia in the past. I do not work for Elsevier or any other publisher.

Slashdot Top Deals

A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.

Working...