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Comment Same as the old boss (Score 2) 83

by davek (#42347753) Attached to: Obama Releases National Strategy For Information Sharing

This strategy makes it clear that the individual privacy, civil rights and civil liberties of United States persons must be — and will be — protected.

Why don't I believe you? Oh, that's right, because you've expanded the power of the police state just as much as any executive before you.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Privacy

Grumman Building Football Field-Sized Robotic Surveillance Blimp 150

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the evil-genius-for-a-better-tomorrow dept.
colinneagle writes with news of the latest in 1930s surveillance technology turned into a robot. From the article: "It's not fashionable to call this flying spy (hybrid military airship) a 'blimp,' but a Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV). You are no doubt familiar with the Goodyear blimp that hovers over football games, but the LEMV is almost the size of a seven-story flying football field; it's meant to fly at speeds between 30 and 80 knots without ceasing for 21 straight days while providing an 'unblinking' eye of surveillance. Northrop Grumman has a $517 million contract to build three of these 21st-century robotic airships for the U.S. Army. The first of three had a successful 90-minute test flight last week from the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey. This first test flight included two pilots, but the Army intends for the LEMV to be like the Predator, an unmanned flying surveillance machine. Both Northrop Grumman and the Army must like the term 'unblinking,' as it was used several times to describe the 'Revolutionary ISR Weapon System' aka the LEMV."
Yahoo!

Axis, Yahoo's New Browser 194

Posted by samzenpus from the new-kid-on-the-block dept.
markjhood2003 writes "Fresh on the heels of Slashdot's discussion of the lack of browser choice on mobile devices comes the announcement of Yahoo's new web browser Axis. According to VentureBeat, the browser runs on iPad and iPhone as a separate standalone browser and as an extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, with support for Android and Windows Phone coming soon. It actually appears to bring some innovation to mobile search, displaying results and queries on the same page for more productive navigation between the two."
Communications

Ask Slashdot: How Can I Get Through To a Politician By E-mail? 204

Posted by timothy from the breaking-through-the-sea-of-spam dept.
wytcld writes "Sending an individually-written e-mail to my state senator resulted in an automated response saying that since she receives hundreds of e-mails a day, there might be no personal response, but please don't take that to mean she hasn't read my e-mail. So I contacted her again suggesting that was a pretty poor answer. Most of the e-mails she receives are mass mailings coordinated by various interest group websites. Why doesn't she put those to the side, I asked, and prioritize response to individual e-mails from constituents who've taken the time to actually write? Her response? She often can't tell the difference at first, so spends time drafting responses to the first instances of group e-mail spam, and gets diverted from responding to those who really write her. Are there tools out there which a politician can use to identify the incoming group-think blasts and put them to to side? It's easy enough to imagine sorting by repeated content or headers, if I ran the mail server, but I'm looking for packages already out there that a state-level representative, with no staff to speak of, might use to cut through the mess and prioritize communication with constituents who care enough about an issue to draft their own thoughts."

Comment Re:lol (Score 1) 140

by davek (#39686767) Attached to: Software Engineers Remain Top US Job

It's not all lattes and coding in pajamas, though. If there's a glitch in a program's codes, Mr. Hilkert might be up past midnight searching for solutions.

Oh, the Humanity! Up past midnight looking for a bug in a program!

I'm an engineer and I'm OK...
I work all night, and I sleep all day.
Censorship

Indian Man Charged With Blasphemy For Exposing "Miracle" 796

Posted by samzenpus from the smoke-and-mirrors dept.
bhagwad writes "When a statue in Mumbai began to miraculously drip tears, huge crowds began to gather, pray, and collect the water in vials. Sanal Edamaruku has exposed such bogus miracles before, and when he was called in, his investigations showed that it was nothing more than a nearby drainage. The entire investigation was caught on tape. The priests were outraged and demanded an apology. When he refused, a case of 'blasphemy' was registered at the police station and they now want to have him arrested." In related news, today Kuwait's parliament "passed amendments to the Gulf state's penal code stipulating the death penalty for those who curse God, Islam's Prophet Mohammed or his wives." However, they made no change to the penalty for playing a joke national anthem at a sporting event.
The Almighty Buck

MIT Institute's Gloomy Prediction: 'Global Economic Collapse' By 2030 816

Posted by timothy from the that's-nothing-we-can-beat-it-by-collapsing-faster dept.
suraj.sun writes "A new study from researchers at Jay W. Forrester's institute at MIT says that the world could suffer from 'global economic collapse' and 'precipitous population decline' if people continue to consume the world's resources at the current pace. The study's researchers created a computing model to forecast different scenarios based on the current models of population growth and global resource consumption, different levels of agricultural productivity, birth control and environmental protection efforts. Most of the computer scenarios found population and economic growth continuing at a steady rate until about 2030. But without 'drastic measures for environmental protection,' the scenarios predict the likelihood of a population and economic crash."
Democrats

Domestic Drilling Doesn't Decrease Gasoline Prices 736

Posted by samzenpus from the let-the-flaming-begin dept.
eldavojohn writes "As the political rhetoric heats up, there's something puzzling about drilling inside the United States. Essentially, it doesn't reduce what we pay at the pump. From the article, 'A statistical analysis of 36 years of monthly, inflation-adjusted gasoline prices and U.S. domestic oil production by The Associated Press shows no statistical correlation between how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump.' If the promises that politicians made when they opened U.S. drilling were true, then we should be paying about $2 a gallon now. Instead it's $4 a gallon. Minnesota Public Radio pulls some choice quotes from both parties and wonders why this decades-old empirical observation goes seemingly completely unnoticed."

Comment Re:This is an americano-centric joke (Score 1) 1205

by davek (#39211673) Attached to: The Specter of Gasoline At $5 a Gallon

The US fed refuses to allow any new refineries.

The US federal government does NOT have a moratorium on building refineries. New refineries are currently being built in Arizona (Arizona Clean Fuels Yuma, LLC) and South Dakota (Hyperion). Additionally existing refineries are being upgraded in place, like the Motiva Houston refinery that doubled capacity.

You are correct! We've had two, count 'em TWO new refineries in the last 36 years. The ONLY TWO IN MY LIFETIME! And where are these two gleaming beacons of the US's responsible energy policy?

Arizona: http://www.arizonacleanfuels.com/, "Next major milestone, expected within the next few months, will be the announcement of the EPC contractor." No press updates since 2009.

South Dakota: http://www.hyperionec.com/, got it's "air quality permit" in sep 2011. Still not in production since the project began in 2007.

Wow. That's really cutting through the government red tape. There may not be an official moratorium (like there is for domestic oil drilling), but all the prohibitive regulations make it far from economically profitable. But they're evil energy companies anyway, so they can just write a check, right?

Comment Re:This is an americano-centric joke (Score 0) 1205

by davek (#39207745) Attached to: The Specter of Gasoline At $5 a Gallon

Gas prices are already approaching € 2 / liter in Western Europe. What are you guys complaining about ? Get a life !

Trust me, with our current socialist trends, we're on our way to meet you.

  • You have no refineries. The US fed refuses to allow any new refineries. Three in the northeast US have shut down in the last few months with now clear plans when they will come back online.
  • You pay an ungodly percentage in gas taxes to fund your subsidised mass transit systems. I'd LOVE a fast train to take me from Albany to Schenectady so I can go bar hopping in the city and not have to take a $60 cab home, but I DON'T want the "central committee" to manage it. However, Obama's energy secretary really wants the job.
  • You think 200 miles is a long distance. I commute almost 100 miles to work every day, and I'm only slightly above average.

Comment wmfire (Score 1) 192

by davek (#39064673) Attached to: WindowMaker Development Resumes, Has First Release Since 2006

I love WindowMaker. Monitors are square, therefore my persistent icons and helper apps should be square also. It's the best way to manage desktop real estate. And it's lightening fast. I'm very gracious that the project continues on.

wmtop, wmblob, wmcalclock, wmjazz, wmbinclock, wmchess, wmcube, wmtetris, wmgrav, I can't get enough!

Now, if only I could find a version of `wmfire` that actually works, I'd be 100x more productive!

Comment Typical Chuck U. Response (Score 3, Insightful) 572

by davek (#39044257) Attached to: Female Passengers Say They Were Targeted For TSA Body Scanners

After hearing the claims, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) announced plans to introduce legislation that would require the presence of "passenger advocates" at airports to deal with complaints like these.

Typical Chuck U. response: the cure for problems in a power-drunk federal bureaucracy is... MORE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY!

Sometimes I'm really ashamed to be a New Yorker.

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