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Comment Re:Nothing new here.. (Score 4, Interesting) 268

On the C-64 version of Ultima IV, you could flip the floppy disc upside down and then move your character until the next portion of the map was loaded. It read data directly off the disc with no validation, because the map squares then had all kinds of random items on them, a good number of which were treasure chests. As soon as you got enough gold, you just flipped the disc back over and played normally.
Social Networks

Decentralized Social Networking — Why It Could Work 128

Posted by Soulskill from the keeping-your-face-off-the-books dept.
Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes with "a response to some of the objections raised to my last article, about a design for a distributed social networking protocol, which would allow for decentralized (and censorship-resistant) hosting of social networking accounts, while supporting all of the same features as sites like Facebook." Social networking is no longer new; whether you consider it to have started with online communities in the mid-90s or with the beginnings of sites many people still use today. As its popularity has surged, it has grown in limited ways; modern social networks have made communication between users easier, but they've also made users easier to market to advertisers as well. There's no question that the future of social networking holds more changes that can both help and harm users — perhaps something like what Bennett suggests could serve to mitigate that harm. Read on for the rest of his thoughts.

Comment Re:Journey from Slackware to Kubunto (Score 1) 867

by mpicker0 (#41469193) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Distros Have You Used, In What Order?

Almost the same: Slackware (floppies) -> RedHat -> Gentoo -> Xubuntu

And my reasons for moving:

  • Slackware -> RedHat: RedHat worked out-of-the-box at the time I needed it; no manual Modeline configurations needed to get X running.
  • RedHat -> Gentoo: I needed the flexibility of Gentoo to run on multiple architectures (SPARC, PowerPC)
  • Gentoo -> Xubuntu: Eventually, I got tired of having to manage every detail of the software configuration, not to mention waiting for compiles to complete. I just wanted to get stuff done.
Government

Arizona H-1B Workers Advised to Carry Papers At All Times 884

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the snuck-in-through-the-indo-american-wormhole dept.
dcblogs writes "In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday on Arizona's immigration enforcement law, H-1B workers are being advised to keep their papers on them. About half of all H-1B visa holders are employed in tech occupations. The court struck down several parts of Arizona's law but nonetheless left in place a core provision allowing police officers to check the immigration status of people in the state at specific times. How complicated this gets may depend on the training of the police officer, his or her knowledge of work visas, and whether an H-1B worker in the state has an Arizona's driver's license. An Arizona state driver's license provides the presumption of legal residency. Nonetheless, H-1B workers could become entangled in this law and suffer delays and even detention while local police, especially those officers and departments unfamiliar with immigration documentation."
Cloud

The Risk of a Meltdown In the Cloud 154

Posted by timothy from the precipitating-danger dept.
zrbyte writes "A growing number of complexity theorists are beginning to recognize some potential problems with cloud computing. The growing consensus is that bizarre and unpredictable behavior often emerges in systems made up of 'networks of networks,' such as a business using the computational resources of a cloud provider. Bryan Ford at Yale University in New Haven says the full risks of the migration to the cloud have yet to be properly explored. He points out that complex systems can fail in many unexpected ways, and he outlines various simple scenarios in which a cloud could come unstuck."
United States

Submission + - Warren Buffet: Stop Coddling the Super-Rich (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The New York Times has a, let's say, surprising opinion piece. None other than Warren Buffet is exhorting Congress to stop its indefectible support of what the billionaire calls the "Mega-rich".
Image

Space Vulture 73

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
stoolpigeon writes "In 1953 John Myers brought his friend Gary Wolf a book he had just read, Space Hawk by Anthony Gilmore. The two were already avid readers but this would be their introduction to an entire genre, Science Fiction. They both say that it was Space Hawk that sparked a life long love of all things Sci-Fi. According to both of them, they had an opportunity to re-read it as adults and found that it had not weathered the years well. They decided they would write their own science fiction adventure in the same style, but do a better job. The result is their book Space Vulture." Keep reading for the rest of JR's review.

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