Comment Re: Double Irish (Score 0) 825
Does "saving the country" not count as something to accomplish? You've got me confused here.
Comment tip of the iceberg (Score 2) 247
It likely isn't just DISH. I registered years ago with the national do-not-call list years ago and things have always been rather quiet. However, since last year, the number of nuisance calls to my home has increased dramatically. I'd first chalked it up the the elections. But even after the elections were over, the calls kept coming. Sometimes the numbers are spoofed, sometimes its "dead air", sometimes its a recorded message, but they all qualify as the type of unwanted calls the DNC list was supposed to protect us from. A few have confirmed their own similar experience when I complained about my problem on reddit. Does anyone know what the hell is going on with this thing? I'm sure where there is smoke there is fire.
Comment And five minutes later... (Score 0) 238
...Someone from the back row shouts out "Because our AdSense profile has determined you were visiting websites about cigarettes recently, your health insurance premium has gone up by 5% and you will probably die slightly sooner. Remember, [i]f you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place!"
Is it cynicism if you're just using a Markov chain to predict what other Slashdotters will say?
(Although obviously this is auto insurance, so I'm sure someone can translate the threat appropriately.)
Netflix Begins Blocking Users Who Bypass Region Locks 121
An anonymous reader writes with reports that Netflix may be shutting out international VPN users. "Netflix can only stream the videos that studios make available in a given country, which has led to a booming business in workarounds (such as proxies and virtual private networks) that let you see the company's catalogs in other nations. Heck, one New Zealand internet provider practically built a service around it. However, you might not get to count on that unofficial solution for much longer. VPN operators claim to TorrentFreak that Netflix recently started blocking some users who use these technological loopholes to watch videos that would normally be verboten. The effort isn't widespread and mostly appears to focus on connections with many simultaneous Netflix sign-ins (that is, they're obviously being used for circumvention), but it's a surprise to viewers who were used to having unfettered access."
Comment Re: Hmm (Score 1) 142
Factabunga, dudes!
Comment Re:I'm Gonna Say "Yes" (Score 1) 232
I feel like I should've known that. Thanks for the correction.
Comment Re:I'm Gonna Say "Yes" (Score 4, Insightful) 232
It may not happen; the modern Olympics, quite unlike the ancient Olympics, have not always been purely about physical sports. Competitions like poetry and painting were removed in part because the same entrants won year after year—this has not, so far, been an issue for e-sports.
Comment Re:Satellite not needed (Score 1) 115
Thank You for an interesting point. I am not as informed about the particular situation in Cuba, but it seems people are ignoring some important realities about the nature of access. In any location lacking infrastructure to support the wide spread deployment of the Internet, the lack of legacy hardware is an advantage. Forget DSL and other ancient technology based on our grandfather's telephone-based communication needs. The technical problems here are best addressed using modern hardware. Freedom and human rights may ultimately be a problem vis-à-vis the continuing issues faced by Chinese citizens. But if Cuba plays its cards right, the power of a central authority to make decisions and act swiftly to build from scratch what is needed from the ground up to solve the "last mile" solution may ultimately see the island country becoming the envy of all network geeks and bandwidth junkies around these parts.
Comment Re: Why does this need a sequel? (Score 1) 299
...Not having any particular stake in this argument, are we quite sure that's Tyrell's intended meaning, something so mundane? I think Tyrell is more taking about stuff like this:
I have seen things you people wouldn't believe Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like [small cough] tears in rain. Time to die
...i.e., Roy's greatness and accomplishment as a person. At that point, Tyrell wants to sooth Roy and make him accept his place by calling him amazing. Simply saying "well, that's the cost of bein' so darn strong" conflicts with his next line: "And you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy."
Submission + - Are Gamma Ray Bursts Keeping Life From Developing In The Universe? 2
rossgneumann writes: The universe might be a radiation-scorched, lifeless place after all. Just as soon as a planet, save for a relative handful of well-sheltered rocks, becomes life-harboring and friendly, it gets nuked back to a barren wasteland. This is one conclusion of a new paper examining the likely prevalence of gamma-ray burst (GRB) events throughout the Milky Way and universe at-large, particularly of the sort—long gamma-ray bursts or LGRBs—that could strip away a planet's protective ozone layer and blast its inhabitants with very high-energy photons.
Submission + - Should Disney Credit the Late Randy Pausch for its Hour of Code Tutorial?
theodp writes: Tens of millions of kids across the nation will take to school computers this week to participate in the 2014 Hour of Code. In this year's signature tutorial, kids will be introduced to coding concepts through exercises like using Google's Blockly to make Disney Frozen Princess Anna ice skate in a square. If this strikes you as familiar, it could be that you've seen this Disney movie before. In The Last Lecture, the late CMU CS professor Randy Pausch displays a programmable cartoon ice skater from an Alice Project tutorial as he explains how the project's novel approach to programming could stealthily teach tens of millions of kids to code (YouTube) [by making characters skate in a square, for example]. "To the extent that you can live on in something," said Pausch, "I will live on in Alice." He added, "I, like Moses, get to see the promised land, but I won’t get to set foot in it. And that’s OK, because I can see it. And the vision is clear. Millions of kids having fun while learning something hard. That’s pretty cool. I can deal with that as a legacy." So considering the similarities, and that Pausch spent sabbaticals at Walt Disney Imagineering (Disney even sells The Last Lecture ), isn't it kind of surprising that neither Disney nor Code.org mentioned Pausch or Alice in their announcements of the flagship Hour of Code tutorial? Is this a case of the left Disney hand not knowing what the right is doing?
Submission + - Pluto-Bound spacecraft ends hibernation to start mission
An anonymous reader writes: NASA's New Horizons spacecraft awoke from hibernation on Saturday and sent a radio confirmation that it had successfully turned itself back on one and a half hours later. The spacecraft has been travelling for nine years across the solar system towards its destination, Pluto. From the article: "In 2006, with New Horizons already on its way, Pluto was stripped of its title as the ninth planet in the solar system and became a dwarf planet, of which more than 1,000 have since been discovered in the Kuiper Belt. With New Horizons approaching Pluto's doorstep, scientists are eager for their first close-up look at this unexplored domain."
Comment Re:How do you pronounce the name Skrypnyk? (Score 1) 140
My fellow slashdoters sometimes amazingly lack a sense of humor.
Comment How do you pronounce the name Skrypnyk? (Score 0) 140
I'm inclined to say Scary Punk. How far off am I??
Robots Put To Work On E-Waste 39
aesoteric writes: Australian researchers have programmed industrial robots to tackle the vast array of e-waste thrown out every year. The research shows robots can learn and memorize how various electronic products — such as LCD screens — are designed, enabling those products to be disassembled for recycling faster and faster. The end goal is less than five minutes to dismantle a product.
