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

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Hooray. (Score 1) 217

Isn't profit an indicator of things getting better? If I sell you something, I hopefully make a profit, and your life is better because you valued what I sold you more than you valued what else you could have bought with that money.

Comment Re:The hidden costs of these deals (Score 1) 295

This is ridiculous. Nobody's forcing the town to make this deal. If they thought it was a money-loser, they wouldn't have made the deal. If YOU think it's a money-loser, and you can get enough people to agree with you, feel free to vote the bums out on the basis of, "We've got idiot lawmakers who are no good at math." If you can't get enough people to agree with you, either you're wrong, or you live in a town full of other people who aren't good at math and are throwing your tax money down the drain, in which case you should consider either not paying taxes, or moving.

Comment Re:Which is what, exactly? (Score 1) 2247

Then if the state of North Dakota decides it's in their best interests to pitch in to pay for tsunami monitoring in California, they can voluntarily write a check every month. OR, if North Dakota benefits from California not being overrun by a tsunami, then they won't mind paying a little more for the goods they receive from California, which will be used to pay for tsunami monitoring.

Comment How do I get to their sites using IPv6? (Score 1) 247

I imagine most home users don't have IPv6 addresses. Ideally, everyone would slowly start to switch over to IPv6, with sites having both v4 and v6 addresses serving the same content, and users that are connected with a v6 address getting addresses from a DNS that supports v6 would connect using v6. But where I live, I don't get an IPv6 address with Fios. I imagine the big ISPs don't give residential users v6 addresses nationally and globally.

Image

Underwear Invention Protects Privacy At Airport 325

Thanks to Jeff Buske you don't have to be embarrassed while going through the full body scanners at the airport. Buske has invented radiation shielding underwear for the shy traveler. From the article: "Jeff Buske says his invention uses a powdered metal that protects people's privacy when undergoing medical or security screenings. Buske of Las Vegas, Nev.-Rocky Flats Gear says the underwear's inserts are thin and conform to the body's contours, making it difficult to hide anything beneath them. The mix of tungsten and other metals do not set off metal detectors."

Comment Re:But how do you quit? (Score 2, Interesting) 286

But most apps will let you press the back button until you're out of the app. This actually does save you some memory because the activity that was active will unload when you back out of it, as opposed to continuing to run in the background when you press the home button. Most apps that need to run in the background will have a service component that runs in the background, and a UI activity that lets you interact with it. If you kill the UI by backing out of it, the service component still runs in the background. In this case, the only way to get out is to press the home button. That makes me wonder, did they disable the back button on the main screen on purpose? Are the UI and the service functionality all wrapped up in the UI activity? In which case killing the UI would also kill the whole app? Or is there a service component as well, and this is just a UI quirk?

Space

Super-Earths Discovered Orbiting Nearby, Sun-Like Star 242

likuidkewl writes "Two super-earths, 5 and 7.5 times the size of our home, were found to be orbiting 61 Virginis a mere 28 light years away. 'These detections indicate that low-mass planets are quite common around nearby stars. The discovery of potentially habitable nearby worlds may be just a few years away,' said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC. Among hundreds of our nearest stellar neighbors, 61 Vir stands out as being the most nearly similar to the Sun in terms of age, mass, and other essential properties."

Comment I've got no problems (Score 1) 533

I gladly trade my privacy for the convenience Google provides me. I use a lot of their services, and I get two benefits. I get to use their services for free, and, on the rare case that my eye wanders over to an ad, it's usually something I might want to buy.

It's good to be concerned about protecting your privacy. But that doesn't mean that you have to keep your browsing habits, email conversations, etc. from everyone just for its own sake. Google proposes trading that information for lots of convenience. I gladly make that trade. I feel that the services they provide me are worth more than keeping my internet life a secret from them. So Google wins, and I win. I couldn't be happier.

Slashdot Top Deals

"What man has done, man can aspire to do." -- Jerry Pournelle, about space flight

Working...