Comment Re:I'll let Jefferson answer (Score 1) 349
Thanks, I like the quote and your conclusion about a possible intended consequence of the time originally selected.
Comment Re:Buffalo shipping with open source DD-WRT firmwa (Score 1) 322
Awesome, thanks for the pointer/recommendation!
Comment Re:Buffalo shipping with open source DD-WRT firmwa (Score 1) 322
That looks pretty, nice, but don't they have one w/ a gigabit switch? 1000baseT?
Experiment Shows Not Washing Jeans for 15 Months is Disgusting But Safe 258
dbune writes "Young people who argue with their parents over wearing the same pair of smelly jeans can now cite the work of a 20-year old University of Alberta student who wore the same jeans for 15 months straight. From the article: 'Josh Le wore the same pair of jeans to break in the raw denim, so it would wrap the contours of his body, leaving distinct wear lines. He had his textile professor test the jeans for bacteria before washing them for the first time.
The results showed high counts of five different kinds of bacteria, but nothing in the range of being considered a health hazard."
Comment Re:If FB does become the SSO, at least do it right (Score 1) 314
I've thought about trying to set up my own OpenID server, but I don't understand the pieces and how they fit together or what exactly I'd need to do. I don't think I'm as hopeless as that sounds, but I did read a bunch about OpenID a while ago and didn't completely grok it.
What you're doing sounds really interesting could you tell me a little more about how it's set up? Perhaps if you know of some reference links?
Thanks
Comment Re:delete key? what? (Score 1) 391
I must say I was happy to see others have the same response I had to the parenthetical (along with the Insert/Delete pair) in the story.
As a lefty who uses the mouse w/ their left hand, the Ctrl-Insert for copy Shift-Insert for paste, and shift-Delete for cut are much more accessible (because they use the right hand) than the Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V and Ctrl-X keys which would require me to take my left hand off the mouse to press.
I always try to make sure both sets of keys work in apps I develop.
Moving the caps lock somewhere obscure I agree with
Like Democracy, the Web Needs To Be Defended 108
climenole tips a great article by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in Scientific American. Quoting:
"The Web evolved into a powerful, ubiquitous tool because it was built on egalitarian principles and because thousands of individuals, universities and companies have worked, both independently and together as part of the World Wide Web Consortium, to expand its capabilities based on those principles. The Web as we know it, however, is being threatened in different ways. Some of its most successful inhabitants have begun to chip away at its principles. Large social-networking sites are walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the Web. Wireless Internet providers are being tempted to slow traffic to sites with which they have not made deals. Governments — totalitarian and democratic alike — are monitoring people's online habits, endangering important human rights. If we, the Web's users, allow these and other trends to proceed unchecked, the Web could be broken into fragmented islands. We could lose the freedom to connect with whichever Web sites we want."
Proposed Final ACTA Text Published 148
ciaran_o_riordan writes "The US Trade Representative has published a text which, subject only to a last legal review, is proposed to be the final text of ACTA. The differences between this text and last month's, from the Tokyo round, are mostly cosmetic but there's an important positive change giving signatories the option of excluding patents from section 2. As for software patents, most harm has been avoided. If signatories make use of the section 2 exclusion option, there might be no harm at all. Lobbying for this will be important. Meanwhile, the many problems regarding Digital Restrictions Management, and the extra powers given to businesses to obtain personal and identifying information about accused copyright infringers "in the Digital Environment" are still there (mostly section 5). Earlier texts were much worse. The improvements in recent months are surely due to public outcry, leaving us indebted to the anonymous friends who scanned and leaked the various secret versions and the activists who made text versions and spread them across the Internet. There's a chance we can still influence the text in this legal review phase, but the bigger task ahead will be working on the national implementations. It's not yet clear what procedure the US will require for its own ratification."
The World's Smallest Legible Font 280
hasanabbas1987 writes "From the article: 'Well 'technically' they aren't the smallest fonts in the world as if they were you wouldn't be able to read even a single letter, but, you should be able to read the entire paragraph in the picture given above... we did. A Computer science professor called Ken Perlin designed these tiny fonts and you can fit 500 reasonable words in a resolution of 320 x 240 space. There are at the moment the smallest legible fonts in the world.'"
Internet Blacklist Back In Congress 278
Adrian Lopez writes "A bill giving the government the power to shut down Web sites that host materials that infringe copyright is making its way quietly through the lame-duck session of Congress, raising the ire of free-speech groups and prompting a group of academics to lobby against the effort. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) was introduced in Congress this fall by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT). It would grant the federal government the power to block access to any Web domain that is found to host copyrighted material without permission."
Comment Re:Better than National ID card (Score 1) 559
Yes I see that issue, but perhaps like the scalping laws (which I'm all for BTW) it could be illegal to markup the ticket price more than a low percentage (1-4%) over its original price.
It would probably mean more expensive tickets, but I believe that discretionary air travel is very price dependent. So no one (not the airlines, and not the resellers) could raise the prices too high w/o the risk of not selling the tickets.
Comment Re:Better than National ID card (Score 1) 559
Absolutely, and I don't think I should need "identification papers" to travel within the country.
Apache Declares War On Oracle Over Java 428
jfruhlinger writes "The Apache Software Foundation, feeling increasingly marginalized as Oracle asserts its control over the Java platform, is fighting back, trying to rally fellow members of the Java Community Process to block the next version of the language if Oracle doesn't make it available under an open license amenable to Apache. Last month's Oracle-IBM pact was a blow against the ASF, which had worked with IBM in the past, but it appears that Apache isn't giving up the fight."
Comment Better than National ID card (Score 2, Interesting) 559
I'd rather walk through a body scanner before boarding a plane than be required to give them my name and other irrelevant information that only helps the government and the airline to track my personal travel and also helps the airline to continue to restrict transferring of tickets.
As a side note, I've always thought it was just "wrong" that the ticket did not just entitle the holder of said ticket to a particular seat on a particular flight regardless of who originally was considering sitting in that seat.
Background Noise Affects Taste of Foods 79
gollum123 writes "The level of background noise affects both the intensity of flavour and the perceived crunchiness of foods, researchers have found. Blindfolded diners assessed the sweetness, saltiness, and crunchiness, as well as overall flavour, of foods as they were played white noise. While louder noise reduced the reported sweetness or saltiness, it increased the measure of crunch. It may go some way to explaining why airline food is notoriously bland — a phenomenon that drives airline catering companies to season their foods heavily. In a comparatively small study, 48 participants were fed sweet foods such as biscuits or salty ones such as crisps, while listening to silence or noise through headphones. Also in the group's findings there is the suggestion that the overall satisfaction with the food aligned with the degree to which diners liked what they were hearing — a finding the researchers are pursuing in further experiments."
