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Comment The eyes... (Score 2) 56

by puddingebola (#46786413) Attached to: Lying Eyes: Cyborg Glasses Simulate Eye Expressions
The eyes are the window to the soul. Perhaps in a job that requires that people show empathy and understanding at all times this is too demanding, but what does it mean when we make an electronic device to simulate emotions we aren't feeling. I am skeptical that people want to use something like this, but I could be wrong. I guess in the 80's we had mirror shades to hide a person's eyes, and other people looking at them could see themselves. Maybe this is just an extension of the technology of emotional distance.

Comment Absurd (Score 2) 103

by puddingebola (#46739205) Attached to: Why the IETF Isn't Working
IETF should be written lower case, ietf. And the motto should be, "Making the internet work mostly better." After a 2-hour screaming argument with her about this, she still refused to see the wisdom of my argument.

Comment Alcohol (Score 2) 386

by puddingebola (#46721705) Attached to: UN Report Reveals Odds of Being Murdered Country By Country
The Economist article mentions that other studies have determined that alcohol is the most common factor in murders in Australia, Finland and Sweden. Searching for more studies related, I noticed the WSJ has an interesting site called Murder in America that allows you to sort and visualize murder information http://projects.wsj.com/murder...

Submission + - Yahoo Announces Security Improvements (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by puddingebola
puddingebola writes: From the article, "Alex Stamos, Yahoo!'s recently appointed CISO (chief information security officer), said the internet giant has finished encrypting traffic between its data centres. Stamos also outlined a roadmap for future improvements, including plans to encrypt Yahoo Messenger within months, in a blog post. We implemented the latest in security best-practices, including supporting TLS 1.2, Perfect Forward Secrecy and a 2048-bit RSA key for many of our global properties such as Homepage, Mail and Digital Magazines. We are currently working to bring all Yahoo sites up to this standard," Stamos explains, adding that as a process that requires continuous improvement, the project to improve security at Yahoo! will never be completed..."I'm gonna need to find another company to make fun of now that Yahoo! is taking encryption seriously," said Matthew Green. a cryptographer and research professor at Johns Hopkins University. "Any suggestions?"" Are these security improvements significant?

Submission + - Microsoft Launches Office For iPad: Includes Word, Excel, And PowerPoint

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: At an event in San Francisco today, Microsoft Office General Manager Julia White unveiled Office for iPad, featuring Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The new suite, which supports viewing but not editing for free, will go live in Apple's App Store at 11:00AM PDT (2:00PM EST). Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for iPad feature a ribbon interface just like the one featured in Office for Windows and OS X. The trio of apps are much more powerful on the tablet than the smartphone, but naturally aren't comparable to the desktop versions.

Comment Law (Score 1) 72

by puddingebola (#46593479) Attached to: Taxis By Algorithm: Streamlining City Transport With Graph Theory
We have a dominant Taxi company in the city where I live, one so influential and powerful that it has landed a former city councilman in Federal court for accepting bribe money to stifle competition from other companies. They are, of course, bringing some serious legal pressure to bear on our politicians for allowing Uber to operate independent of codes regulating the taxi business. Seems that the biggest barriers to improving cab transportation are existing regulations and conflict with existing companies, not technical. In Dallas, the attempt to stifle Uber went so far as to include police stings of Uber drivers: http://www.dallasobserver.com/... Either existing taxi companies need to adopt new technologies like this on their own, or citizens have to demand restructuring of the rules governing them. It seems in many places that taxi companies view these more as a threat than a benefit.

Submission + - Canonical's Troubles with the Free Software Community (datamation.com)

Submitted by puddingebola
puddingebola writes: Bruce Byfield looks back at the soured relationships between Canonical and the free software community. Partly analysis, partly a review of past conflicts, the writer touches on Mir and Wayland, and what he sees as Canonical's attempts to take over projects. From the article, "However, despite these other concerns, probably the most important single reason for the reservations about Ubuntu is its frequent attempts to assume the leadership of free software — a position that no one has ever filled, and that no one particularly wants to see filled. In its first few years, Ubuntu's influence was mostly by example. However, by 2008, Shuttleworth was promoting the idea that major projects should coordinate their release schedules. That idea was received without enthusiasm. However, it is worth noting that some of those who opposed it, like Aaron Seigo, have re-emerged as critics of Mir — another indication that personal differences are as important as the issues under discussion."

Submission + - Jack A Kinzler savior of the Skylab mission, dies at 94 (nytimes.com)

Submitted by puddingebola
puddingebola writes: From his New York Times Obituary, "Had Jack A. Kinzler not built model planes as a boy, had he not visited the post office as a youth and had he not, as a grown man, purchased four fishing rods at $12.95 apiece, Skylab — the United States’ $2.5 billion space station — would very likely have been forfeit." An excellent obit from the NYT, recounting the story of how Kinzler saved the Skylab mission with a telescoping parasol to patch a damaged heat shield. An inventive thinker and tinkerer, Mr. Kinzler was also responsible for the flags and plaques placed during the Apollo mission. Worth reading.

Comment Comments (Score 1) 167

by puddingebola (#46495797) Attached to: Forests Around Chernobyl Aren't Decaying Properly
Seems like there's some skepticism over the nature of the study. Somewhat reasonable, but it still seems to add to evidence about the long term effects of the disaster on the ecosystem around Chernobyl. Some comments seem to express skepticism about the importance of decomposition. Perhaps a biologist could go into greater detail on its benefit to life on earth. The suggestion about controlled fires makes me wonder if you read the article.

Submission + - The hacker-activist community leaves no safe place for women. Can it grow up? (medium.com)

Submitted by eggboard
eggboard writes: Rosie J. Spinks writes about the experience of women in the hacking and hacking/activism communities, where harassment, intimidation, sexualization, and patronization try to relegate them to the sidelines. Some just up and leave.

She writes: "Nowhere is evidence of this anti-female ethos easier to find than in the Internet’s most high-profile and highly organized subverters: the hacktivist group Anonymous. Anonymous’s roots lie in the profane message board known as 4chan, where jokes about rape, porn, and homosexuality are for nothing other than the “Lulz,” or gratuitous laughs. When 4chan factions morphed into Anonymous, the entity gradually gained a political activist-minded consciousness.

"Anonymous has always been a shifting entity, defined by whoever decides to participate on any given day, making proper accountability nearly impossible. Using devious tactics and a middle-school sense of humor (such as sending hundreds of unpaid-for pizzas to a target’s address), the amorphous group carries out a diverse range of well-publicized actions (or “AnonOps”), such as targeting the Church of Scientology’s Dianetics hotline or impinging on the operations of PayPal after it suspended payments to Internet messiah Julian Assange’s Wikileaks."

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