Comment Drinks! (Score 1) 722
Tequila
Ouzo
Vodka
Water
etcetera. (I voted "functional names").
Comment battery life (Score 1) 317
A good test should include battery life.
Submission + - How to find rogue virus scanners?
valentyn writes: Next month, I will give a presentation to the Consumer Association in the Netherlands about internet safety, and I would like to present one of those fake virus scanner pages ("Your computer is at risk!" — presenting all sorts of dialogs, OK and Cancel buttons that only serve one purpose: to have you download their malware).
But, thanks to those pesky anti-malware people at Google (you ran a story about them last week: http://search.slashdot.org/story/10/10/28/2342254/Inside-Googles-Anti-Malware-Operation) I can't find such sites anymore! I tried clicking on all my spam (cutting of the personalised parts of the URLs, of course), surfed for pr0n, tried to find hidden corners of the net, but I only found fake Rolexes and fake medicine.
Dear Slashdot, where can I find fake anti-virus-software? Preferrably with an accompanying Flash site that tells me my Ubuntu laptop is totally at risk and all my personal information is shared with 20 different, colored, viruses, because I would very much like to show the Consumer Association how these sites are, for an end user, almost indistinguishable from real, live antivirus software.
As a side note: I am afraid that the malware sites that DO show up in the comments, will instantly disappear due to the Slashdot Effect. Bonus question: how to avoid that.
(Net-neutrality-wise, it should be possible to find fake virus scanners, shouldn't it?)
But, thanks to those pesky anti-malware people at Google (you ran a story about them last week: http://search.slashdot.org/story/10/10/28/2342254/Inside-Googles-Anti-Malware-Operation) I can't find such sites anymore! I tried clicking on all my spam (cutting of the personalised parts of the URLs, of course), surfed for pr0n, tried to find hidden corners of the net, but I only found fake Rolexes and fake medicine.
Dear Slashdot, where can I find fake anti-virus-software? Preferrably with an accompanying Flash site that tells me my Ubuntu laptop is totally at risk and all my personal information is shared with 20 different, colored, viruses, because I would very much like to show the Consumer Association how these sites are, for an end user, almost indistinguishable from real, live antivirus software.
As a side note: I am afraid that the malware sites that DO show up in the comments, will instantly disappear due to the Slashdot Effect. Bonus question: how to avoid that.
(Net-neutrality-wise, it should be possible to find fake virus scanners, shouldn't it?)
Submission + - CSIRO uses old TV channels for wireless internet (abc.net.au)
jcl-xen0n writes: "Australia's CSIRO has invented new wireless technology to deliver faster Internet access to remote areas, using frequencies freed up by the move from Analog to Digital TV.
The CSIRO says the technology can reach speeds 100 to 200 times the speed of dial-up internet and hopes to eventually combine four analog TV channels and provide a wireless connection speed of 100 megabits per second, but for the moment it is staying at 12 megabits per second. CSIRO's Dr Ian Oppermann says that is faster than it sounds, because up to six customers can log on at the same time and get the top speed. According to the article, users will be able to use their existing TV antenna to connect.
Also of note, the development was funded by proceeds of CSIRO's $205 million settlement of the invention of WiFi, which has already been covered on /. previously."
The CSIRO says the technology can reach speeds 100 to 200 times the speed of dial-up internet and hopes to eventually combine four analog TV channels and provide a wireless connection speed of 100 megabits per second, but for the moment it is staying at 12 megabits per second. CSIRO's Dr Ian Oppermann says that is faster than it sounds, because up to six customers can log on at the same time and get the top speed. According to the article, users will be able to use their existing TV antenna to connect.
Also of note, the development was funded by proceeds of CSIRO's $205 million settlement of the invention of WiFi, which has already been covered on
Comment Re:government out of economy (Score 1) 584
You don't understand. These countries (I live in the Netherlands, which has the same sort of system) have some history in getting their health care right. Negotiating how much various procedures should cost, how much the patient should pay, this is just business as usual: it happens every year.
Inflation as the only tool for a government to regulate it's health care costs feels a bit simplistic. In fact, it's a ridiculous idea, given the abundance of other options our government seems to have. I can only think that your misguided view is the result of coming from the hard & cold background of a runaway-free-market health care system, where there is actually NO options to get things right (it's a free market, right?) -- so the only thing you can think of is even worse than that.
Also, you forgot an important aspect. In our system, there's more money available for prevention, simply because that will keep general health care costs lower. There's hardly a place where prevention will fit in a true market driven system. (Yeah, your insurance company could have prevention programs, but an insurance company without these expensive programs would be cheaper, right? Exit prevention.)
Comment Frankenstein (Score 1) 127
... inventing a new battery, taming hurricanes, defeating disease... attracting lightning, tunneling it into the autoclave... Frankenstein! Just like he did when he managed the Windows codebase.
Comment In Europe, this is the law (Score 4, Interesting) 177
This is already European Law (which must be implemented in local laws in al member states). Once sold whithin the EU, you're free to resell your license.
The problem is in the details: if you buy software (i.e. a license to use it), you normally also get a bunch of other rights, like access to updates, maybe even the right to call someone. The law doesn't say that these rights are also transferrable (or transferred). So in most licenses, there's still plenty of "you cannot do this and that (resell, for example), or you will loose the right to such and so".
But the resale of the license to plainly use the software cannot be forbidden by contract in the EU.
Comment 1 error = 1TB rebuild (Score 1) 444
The real problem with "classic" RAID is that 1 single error means a total rebuild of the array.
Comment US medical system (Score 3, Interesting) 419
As the Obama healthcare reform is also international news, I read an analysis of the US medical system here in the local newspaper in The Netherlands. The US as a country spends twice as much for it's healthcare as Germany and France, while only 83% of the US Americans have an insurance.
This is because US healthcare is not about health; it is about the caring industry. There's no room for prevention (as there's no profit from prevention), there's only room for Care.
TFA seems just like another example of it.
Submission + - The Microsoft OOXML Contradictions Revealed
Andy Updegrove writes: "Someone was kind enough to send me the package of materials distributed by ISO/IEC JTC 1 earlier today to its members.The package contains each of the responses filed during the ISO Fast Track Contradictions period for Ecma 376, the specification based upon Microsoft's OOXML formats, as well as the responses prepared by Ecma to those responses. Earlier, Microsoft had downplayed reports by myself and others that the great majority of the responses were negative, suggesting that most or many were either neutral, or in fact "laudatory." In fact, the actual responses demonstrate that 14 of 20 responses — more than 2/3s — were clearly negative, two indicated divisions of opinion among the members of the national bodies submitting them, three were inconclusive or neutral, and one offered no objections.What happens next? The transmittal note from JTC1 indicates that after internal consultation, next steps will be communicated to the National Bodies "in the very near future." But given the degree of opposition and concern expressed by a significant percentage of those national bodies entitled to vote up or down on adoption, it's fair to say that Microsoft has its work cut out for it, if it wants to see OOXML achieve the same degree of international standards status as ODF.
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/articl e.php?story=2007022819130536"
