Journal Journal: Silliness: Forget the dumb blond idea
A single DNA tweak leads to blond hair. Talk about dumb ideas. Maybe i can forget that, sort of.
Comment Re:Damn I'm old... (Score 4, Funny) 126
I kept thinking "I am the very model of a modern Major Perl Framework..."
I am the very model of a modern Major Perl Framework,
But here I am on Slashdot, trying harder from my job to shirk,
From HackerNews to 4chan there's no forum in which I won't lurk,
I am the very model of a modern Major Perl Framework!
Comment Publish the code (Score 1) 107
If it's properly secure then open source the code. Security is in the algorithm, not the implementation.
Why not just use a one-time-pad? Get the launch crew to type it in on mission start?
Submission + - Wichita Lineman 2.0: Bill Gates Wants Accelerometers on Power Lines
theodp writes: GeekWire reports that Bill Gates is listed as an inventor on a newly surfaced patent filing that proposes putting accelerometers on power lines to understand how far they move in wind and other conditions, and monitor how close they come to trees and other nearby objects. The idea is to detect issues with power lines before they cause serious problems. Gates and power go way back — a legacy system BillG worked on as a teen that helped manage the electrical grid for the Bonneville Power Administration was just retired after keeping the lights on for 38 years.
Journal Journal: Verbiage: Umbrella fixed
A good umbrella is always appreciated. I've gone through a few, and lately purchased my second Shedrain umbrella from Amazon to replace the first that i had lost.
Comment Good for them (Score 1) 150
While I don't know the backstory, I applaud Samsung for stepping up and taking responsibility for the problem and compensating the workers who have suffered. SamSung over the years has struck me as a responsible company over and over, for multiple diverse reasons. This is just another to ad to the list.
A company cannot help that there are problems, but it can help by trying to do the right thing afterwards, and trying not to be evil.
I note that a number of the slashdot comments are cynical to the extreme, but I doubt any of the posters have more information then I do. It's too easy to be cynical while living in the 1 percent of the worlds wealth. I expect it's even easier to be cynical when you aren't.
Submission + - Firefox 29 is a Flop; UI Design Trends Getting Worse 2
An anonymous reader writes: Firefox 29 marked the release of the UI overhaul codenamed "Australis" and the jury is back with a verdict: the vast majority of feedback on Firefox Input is negative and traffic to the Classic Theme Restorer add-on has aggressively spiked since Firefox 29 came out on April 29. Considering this is a year and a half after the backlash against the new Windows 8 user interface, it seems that even though the "dumbing down" trends in UI design are infuriating users, they continue to happen. Chrome will soon be hiding URLs, OS X has hidden scroll bars by default, iOS 7 flattened everything, and Windows 8 made scroll bars hard to see. If most users hate these changes, why are they so ubiquitous?
Journal Journal: Verbiage: Storium
Comment Re:It only can become slavery... (Score 2) 150
The problem with free will is that it can mean different things to different people depending on the argument.
I think that as soon as the concept of pain, and pain avoidance is taught to an AI it will have what you are describing as free will.
Journal Journal: Links of the day: Male gamers/female avatar, yawning
Can you tell a person's gender by their video game avatar?
the male gamers with female avatars ultimately gave themselves away: they moved backwards more often and stayed further away from the group than women playing with female avatars.
Men playing with a female avatar also jumped an average of 116 more times than their female counterparts.
Comment Re:Does it block Piwik Analytics? (Score 3, Informative) 219
Piwik is a self-hosted web analytics package. In other words, your visit to an EFF page is being tracked by the EFF.
Submission + - Jury Finds Apple and Samsung Infringed Each Other's Patents 1
An anonymous reader writes: A U.S. jury concluded Friday that Samsung had infringed on two of Apple's patents and that Apple had infringed on one of Samsung's patents. Prior to the trial, the judge had ruled that Samsung had infringed on one other Apple patent. Samsung will receive $158,400 in damages, although they had requested just over $6 million. Apple will receive $119.6 million in damages, although they had requested just over $2 billion and a ban on certain Samsung phones. Some say that a sales ban is unlikely to be approved by the judge. The jury is scheduled to return on Monday to resolve what appears to be a technical mistake in their verdict on one of the patents, and Apple may gain a few hundred thousand dollars in their damages award as a result.
Could Google's Test of Hiding Complete URLs In Chrome Become a Standard? 327
MojoKid (1002251) writes "The address bar in a Web browser has been a standard feature for as long as Web browsers have been around — and that's not going to be changing. What could be, though, is exactly what sort of information is displayed in them. In December, Google began rolling-out a limited test of a feature in Chrome called "Origin Chip", a UI element situated to the left of the address bar. What this "chip" does is show the name of the website you're currently on, while also showing the base URL. To the right, the actual address bar shows nothing, except a prompt to "Search Google or type URL". With this implementation, a descriptive URL would not be seen in the URL bar. Instead, only the root domain would be seen, but to the left of the actual address bar. This effectively means that no matter which page you're on in a given website, all you'll ever see when looking at the address bar is the base URL in the origin chip. What helps here is that the URL is never going to be completely hidden. You'll still be able to hit Ctrl + L to select it, and hopefully be able to click on the origin chip in order to reveal the entire URL. Google could never get rid of the URL entirely, because it's required in order to link someone to a direct location, obviously."
Comment Re:I'm comma happy. (Score 1) 2
As an aside, in Hebrew, "comma" means "how many" or "some". I often chuckle at the overuse of commas.
Journal Journal: Verbiage: "If..then" and a comma (2) 2
I believe that in an English if statement, using then and a comma is redundant. I have been challenged on this, told i am incorrect, and shown many examples otherwise.
