Comment Re:Any one know? (Score 1) 222
That would constitute child abuse of the first order. No one should be forced to endure what we did in the 80's. No one.
Comment Looters... (Score 1, Interesting) 769
You know, for people that calm to be devotees of Ayn Rand's work, the Koch Brothers (and the Tea Party in general) clearly haven't read Atlas Shrugged.
Using the government taxes and rules to crush your opponents (when you can't do it in the free market) was the main tactic...of the book's villains.
Comment Re:Get busy living or get busy dying. (Score 1) 337
Where are mod points when I actually need them?
Well said.
Comment Outsourcing Concern (Score 4, Interesting) 98
So, does this mean that the Indian Government will get to see everything that's outsourced to India, including US Government contracts?
Basically, any corrupt Indian official (which apparently, there are more than a few) with access can sell trade and/or government secrets from any outsourced company.
Way to set the standard NSA.
Comment Re:rPi is different from RPI (Score 2) 79
No. For us old-timers, RPI stands for Rockwell Protocol Interface.
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Rockwell+Protocol+Interface
POS Modems....
Comment Re:Indians in a nutshell (Score 4, Funny) 241
It's not cheating....it's "crowdsourcing."
Comment May we burn her? (Score 5, Insightful) 241
"She's a witch...I mean copyright violator!"
Different century, same methodology.
Submission + - Postal Service to Discontinue Saturday Mail Delivery
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Postal Service has been losing billions of dollars each year as Americans increasingly rely on online communications that drive down mail volumes. Now Reuters reports that the Postal Service plans to drop Saturday delivery of first-class mail by August saving $2 Billion per year. "The Postal Service is advancing an important new approach to delivery that reflects the strong growth of our package business and responds to the financial realities resulting from America's changing mailing habits," says Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe. But thePostal Service is already facing some pushback for moving forward with delivery schedule changes."Today's announcement by Postmaster General Donahoe to eliminate six-day delivery is yet another death knell for the quality service provided by the U.S. Postal Service," says Jeanette Dwyer, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association. "To erode this service will undermine the Postal Service's core mission and is completely unacceptable."Package deliveries will continue under the new plan and were a bright spot in a bleak 2012 fiscal year, with package revenue rising 8.7 percent during the year. Donahoe saysthe changes would allow the Postal Service to continue benefiting from rising package deliveries as Americans order more products from sites such as eBay Inc and Amazon.com Inc."
Submission + - The Internet and Its Lessons for Hierarchies and Social Movements (newrepublic.com)
explosivejared writes: "Evgeny Morozov in the newest issue of The New Republic uses a highly critical review of Steven Johnson's book Future Perfect push back against what Morozov terms "internet-centrism" or the belief that the Internet has it's own internal logic of decentralization that has obviated older, hierarchical organizational structures. Now Johnson has replied, and the subsequent debate is online.
With the conversation between Morozov and Johnson as a starting point, I'd like to pose some questions to /.. I think we can all agree that the internet has proven that decentralized organizations can bring significant positive impacts, but what are the limits on this? As Morozov points out, even in ostensibly decentralized organizations there are often hidden hierarchies, and this is true for the Internet as well. Where could the vast, varied phenomenon we call the internet benefit from more openly centralized organization, if it can at all?"
With the conversation between Morozov and Johnson as a starting point, I'd like to pose some questions to
Submission + - The Moth-Driven Robot Is a Step Towards Automatons That Mimic Life (vice.com)
pigrabbitbear writes: "a team from the University of Tokyo developed a small robot and gave it to silkmoth a to drive.
Essentially, the team was able to develop a scent-detecting robot that is directed by a silkmoth, and which actually was able to tracks scents even better than the silkmoth could on its own. All 14 silkmoths tested in the rig were successful in driving it towards the goal."
Essentially, the team was able to develop a scent-detecting robot that is directed by a silkmoth, and which actually was able to tracks scents even better than the silkmoth could on its own. All 14 silkmoths tested in the rig were successful in driving it towards the goal."
Submission + - Linux-friendly mini PC fast enough for Steam games (techreport.com)
crookedvulture writes: "Barebones mini PCs have been around for a while, and the latest one from Zotac is pretty unique. For $270, the Zbox ID42 offers a Sandy Bridge CPU, a discrete GeForce graphics processor, and all the integrated I/O and networking you'd expect from a modern PC. You have to add your own memory, hard drive, and operating system, but the latter shouldn't cost you a dime. The Zbox works well with not only Windows, but also Linux. Ubuntu even recognizes the included remote, which can be used to wake up the system, control XBMC, and navigate Steam's Big Picture interface. Team Fortress 2 for Linux is actually playable, albeit at a relatively low resolution and detail level. The hardware seems better suited to casual games. Zotac also makes a Plus version of the Zbox that comes bundled with RAM and a hard drive, but it costs an extra $130, and you can get much better components if you add them yourself. The user-friendly chassis makes filling out the system a trivial undertaking."
Submission + - Gut Bacteria Liberate Hidden Toxins Found In Grains (acs.org)
MTorrice writes: "Crops such as wheat and corn sometimes harbor chemicals from molds that grow on the plants. Some of these compounds are seemingly harmless derivatives of toxins produced by the fungi. For the first time, researchers have shown that human gut bacteria can break down these compounds and release the toxins, which can cause gastrointestinal and neurological damage in people. The findings suggest that these masked toxins may not stay hidden within our digestive tracts, and that government agencies may need to regulate the chemicals, the researchers say."
Submission + - Games Workshop bullies author over use of the words "space marine" (boingboing.net)
jzoetewey writes: "An author I know (MCA Hogarth) recently had her book "Spots the Space Marine" taken off Amazon because Games Workshop claimed it violated their trademark. The interesting thing? Their trademark doesn't include ebooks or novels. Unfortunately, she doesn't have the money to fight them.
Plus the idea of a space marine was around long before they were.
Anyway, Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing has written something about it:"
Plus the idea of a space marine was around long before they were.
Anyway, Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing has written something about it:"
Submission + - Nearly a third of all computers are infected with malware (net-security.org)
Orome1 writes: "PandaLabs released its annual security report which details an extremely interesting year of data theft, social networking attacks and cyber-warfare. The most devastating news? 31.98 percent of all computers scanned around the world had malware. In 2012, Trojans dominated the threat landscape more than ever before. Three out of every four malware infections were caused by Trojans (76.56 percent). One of the reasons for this growth was the increased use of exploit kits such as Black Hole, which are capable of exploiting multiple system vulnerabilities to infect computers automatically without user intervention. Viruses came second (8 percent), whereas worms dropped to third place accounting for 6.44 percent of all infections."
Submission + - Sony Rootkit Redux: Canadian Business Groups Lobby For Right To Install Spyware (michaelgeist.ca)
An anonymous reader writes: Michael Geist reports
that a coalition of Canadian industry groups, including the Canadian
Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Marketing Association, the
Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and the
Entertainment Software Association of Canada, are demanding
legalized spyware for private enforcement purposes. The potential
scope of coverage is breathtaking: a software program secretly
installed by an entertainment software company designed to detect or
investigate alleged copyright infringement would be covered by this
exception. This exception could potentially cover programs designed
to block access to certain websites (preventing the contravention of
a law as would have been the case with SOPA), attempts to access
wireless networks without authorization, or even keylogger programs
tracking unsuspecting users (detection and investigation).
