Comment Re:Maybe a solution? (Score 1) 642
On the other hand (and drifting way off topic) does the federal government in the United States have the constitutional authority to implement the provisions of UNCRC?
Submission + - Smartphones, Open Source, and the Small Office
Thunderstruck writes: I work in a small office with just two computers. Both machines run long-term-service releases of Ubuntu, with Gnome, and Evolution for scheduling, contact management and electronic mail. We plan to stick with Linux long-term. For telephone service, we're using smartphones. In order to keep everything straight, we need phones that can synchronize easily with the calendars and contact data on each owner's desktop machine. We cannot use cloud based services for this function due to ethics rules, and for security reasons. Right now, we do all of this with older PALM phones, but these are a dying breed. What options are out there right now for phones that will sync with Evolution (or another good Linux PIM suite) which do not require data to go through the cloud first?
Comment Re:I give up (Score 1) 470
I live in a small town (about 13,000 people)...
13,000 would make your "small town" the 8th or 9th largest city in South Dakota.
Comment No Market (Score 1) 180
There will be no market for this product. Nobody wants to listen to reason, and it does not sell advertising.
We want to hear that grandma will be put out of her home by the evil "OTHER" candidate.
We want to hear that the highways are riddled with drunks and unsafe cars.
We don't want to hear that grandma's income is actually quite safe, or that highway fatalities today kill fewer people than suicide.
Comment Death by Script (Score 1) 448
A few hours ago, there was a
Maybe thats what happened?
Comment Re:Copyright (Score 1) 676
And ear marks to pay for adding turtle crossings to roads in Badlands, South Dakota.
My sister nearly hit a turtle in SD the other day, while driving on a highway near our home. It was the size of a car tire. We put up those turtle crossing signs to warn motorists of the danger, not to protect the turtles!
Publishing Company Puts Warning Label on Constitution 676
Wilder Publication is under fire for putting warning labels on copies of historical US documents, including the Constitution. The label warns "This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today." From the article: "The disclaimer goes on to tell parents that they 'might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.'"
Comment Re:Action: (Score 2, Informative) 341
So, acquitted or an over-turned verdict and you can get off the list... but simply being arrested and the charges later being dropped? Is there a process for expungement in that situation?
Generally, yes. In South Dakota, for example, we already have automatic DNA sampling imposed upon anyone *arrested* for a felony. It is part of the booking procedure. If the felony charges are dropped, dismissed, or you are acquitted at trial, you can send a copy of the dismissal order to the state lab and the sample must then be destroyed. This has been the rule for about two years now. (The tricky part is, for cases where the charges get dismissed early-on, you sometimes have to go ask the judge to sign a separate order documenting the dismissal, just so you have something you CAN send to the state lab.)
George Washington Racks Up 220 Years of Late Fees At Library 146
Everyone knows that George Washington couldn't tell a lie. What you probably didn't know is that he couldn't return a library book on time. From the article: "New York City's oldest library says one of its ledgers shows that the president has racked up 220 years' worth of late fees on two books he borrowed, but never returned. One of the books was the 'Law of Nations,' which deals with international relations. The other was a volume of debates from Britain's House of Commons. Both books were due on Nov. 2, 1789."
Failed Games That Damaged Or Killed Their Companies 397
An anonymous reader writes "Develop has an excellent piece up profiling a bunch of average to awful titles that flopped so hard they harmed or sunk their studio or publisher. The list includes Haze, Enter The Matrix, Hellgate: London, Daikatana, Tabula Rasa, and — of course — Duke Nukem Forever. 'Daikatana was finally released in June 2000, over two and a half years late. Gamers weren't convinced the wait was worth it. A buggy game with sidekicks (touted as an innovation) who more often caused you hindrance than helped ... achieved an average rating of 53. By this time, Eidos is believed to have invested over $25 million in the studio. And they called it a day. Eidos closed the Dallas Ion Storm office in 2001.'"
Comment Market Variety (Score 3, Interesting) 406
While we should probably be happy to see more than one viable candidate for the search engine market, none seem to address privacy very well. Both Bing/Yahoo and Google are quite happy to tell you that they'll track user activity and use it to make a profit. Are there any viable alternatives left with more favorable privacy policies?
Comment Re:1:1 (Score 1) 582
Excellent, thanks for clearing that up!
Comment Re:1:1 (Score 4, Funny) 582
That whole, "division by zero is undefined" business has always bothered me. Why doesn't someone just define it? Maybe we could say 1/0 == infinity or something.
Of course, it would have to be someone credible who did the deed. How about the slashdot editors?
Palm Pre and WebOS Get Native Gaming 49
rboatright writes "WebOS developers have been waiting, and with the 1.3.5 release, Palm's open source page suddenly listed SDL. Members of the WebOS internals team took that as a challenge and within 24 hours had a working port of Doom running in SDL on the Pre, in a webOS card. 48 hours later, they not only had Quake running, but had found in the latest LunaSysMgr the requirements to launch a native app from the webOS app launcher from an icon just like any other app. At the same time, the team demonstrated openGL apps running. With full native code support, with I/O available via SDL, developers now have a preview into Palm's future intent with regard to native code SDK's, and a hint of what's coming."
Comment Re:No, it's a stupid idea... (Score 1) 845
Fair enough, what word do you use to describe those who DO affirmatively assert that there is no god?
