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

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Teach and let him find his own. (Score 1) 614

I'll throw in for Jamie and Adam, since they are both really well known and worthy of the adulation.

Far better to have your children live the life of math and science, makers and doers, and let him come on his own. Expose him to your (our) world and let him decide for himself.

Finally, remember that there is no reason he couldn't also like Hockey, or football, or anything else that the muggle world indulges in. We do our children (all of them) a huge disservice when we act like to be a geek you can't also play a sport, or be interested in something outside of the traditional geek pursuits. Geekdom is creeping ever farther afield to encompass more and more (geek cooking, geek fashion, etc.) Heroes need to be something one chooses organically, so take him on a journey, don't hand him one.

Comment Dual monitors (Score 1) 1140

I think this will lead many of us to run dual monitors (as we often do now,) but to stack them vertically instead of placing them side-by-side.

Of course, bezel-free monitors would seem to be even more important in this confguration.

Comment Brilliant! (Score 1) 227

I applaud both the girls' enterprising temerity, and the jusidical response to their "crime." Here in the states, they're just as likely to be called terrorists or sex offenders. Sweden again impresses with its enlightenment. Oh, except the whole Julian Assange thing. But aside from that...

Comment States exporting their laws beyond their borders? (Score 1) 510

So I know California is famous for this, and with the internet reaching out as it does, even wee Massachussetts can get in on the act. if you're going to impose a law like this that will make requirements of entities not in your state, possibly not even "doing business" in your state, aren't you going to get struck down in the Supreme Court, with this sort of interstate commerce issue being one of those powers actually given to the federal government in the Constitution (as opposed to the many they just sort of usurp as a matter of course)?

I'm just asking, I might be missing something here.

Comment Insurance (Score 1) 727

While I'm sure that there are valid arguments that the medical licensing process, liability, and form factor play a role, the simple answer is that MOST people in the US don't pay for them, their insurance does. Or Medicare. But it's seldom out of pocket, so they feel free to charge way too much. Insurance companies probably negotiate the price down, and keep you from getting the very highest end devices for free, but just like software that's only purchased by large companies, so it costs a great deal, the price sensitivity of the insurance companies is such that they'll bear the freight, and make it up on the other end. Which is to say they will screw all of us.

Another argument for meaningful healthcare reform. Whatever that means.

Comment Everybody calm down... (Score 3, Insightful) 218

The thing about this that proves than google is trying not to be evil (or at least that they lack subterfuge) is the name of the company. GOOGLE power. (Is the symbol a raised rainbow-colored fist?) Not a subsidiary named "Trans-co-op-national warm fuzzies" Put their name right in there.

Google is a large corporation. The have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value. So the whole "don't be evil" thing got dialed way back when they went public (remember when everyone wanted them to go public?) US law provides huge liability to corporations who pass up money-making opportunities for the sake of morality in the form of shareholder lawsuits.

They are expanding their portfolio of businesses to protect against shifts in markets, in ways that complement their core competencies. This is bad because they clearly know what their doing, as opposed to say, Microsoft, who grew to behemoth size on the back of only their core competency (whatever your thoughts on that), and very much despite the other business lines they chose to enter?

Comment I rewired mine when I moved in... (Score 1) 608

I used a combo wire which is 2 RG-6 and 2 Cat5e runs shrink-wrapped together into an impressive snake (http://www.smarthome.com/868261J/2-Cat-5e-2-RG6-Quad-Cable-Jacket-500-Feet-RG6-Coax-Cable/p.aspx). I fact, I still have 200+" of it in my garage if you're going to pull new cable. Very nice stuff, hit me up if you're interested.

Submission + - A Political Party for the Grown-Up Geek?

lythander writes: A quandary for the modern geek: which political party to affiliate with, or none at all? I live in a very blue state, and am registered blue on the theory that since mostly blues will be sent to office, voting in the (closed — i.e. blue-only) primaries matters most. I sit firmly in the middle and/or outer edges of politics depending on the topic. I view people who are strongly blue or red as decidedly foolish and/or narrow-minded, and feel they should think for themselves. I have considered libertariansism, independence, green, and not-affiliated, which seems to only serve to remove me from a large chunk of the political process. Ans of course, there is no registered American pirate party (yet!) I do vote, and feel that the only way to work for change is to work within the system (I am no Matthew Sobol,)but from which direction? I'm not a politician, just a geek with a wife, kids, and a typical sub-urban life. Oh, and chickens. Does that matter?
Earth

Chemical Pollution Is Destroying Masculinity 773

myrdos2 writes "A host of common chemicals is feminizing males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people. Many have been identified as 'endocrine disruptors' or gender-benders because they interfere with hormones. Communities heavily polluted with gender-benders in Canada, Russia, and Italy have given birth to twice as many girls as boys, which may offer a clue to the mysterious shift in sex ratios worldwide. And a study at Rotterdam's Erasmus University showed that boys whose mothers had been exposed to PCBs grew up wanting to play with dolls and tea sets rather than with traditionally male toys. It also follows hard on the heels of new American research which shows that baby boys born to women exposed to widespread chemicals in pregnancy are born with smaller penises and feminized genitals. It is calculated that 250,000 babies who would have been boys have been born as girls instead in the US and Japan alone. And sperm counts are dropping precipitously. Studies in more than 20 countries have shown that they have dropped from 150 million per milliliter of sperm fluid to 60 million over 50 years."
The Internet

Submission + - So how can filtering be done?

lythander writes: Companies and parents try to do it here in the US, China does it (hamhandedly), Australia is about to trial it (and will go down in flames). From years of being against it for all the right reasons, I understand that kids shouldn't see porn, and some things are just abhorrent and should be removed (insert inflamatory child exploitation reference here). How can it be done without trampling civil liberties, without imposing one country's laws on another, etc.? This is a question for the times, where people who understand civil liberty, human rights, law enforcement on an international scale and technology must come together to seriously discuss and solve this issue before the demogogues who would use the cry, "Think of the children!" to impose their puritan views on the Net can. I was looking for serious discussion, but I came to Slashdot instead.

Slashdot Top Deals

Intel CPUs are not defective, they just act that way. -- Henry Spencer

Working...