Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Holy fagioli... (Score 2, Insightful) 158

Are you trolling, or just being ignorant? If Apple censors one kind of political propaganda, but accepts other kinds, the accepting others makes things WORSE, not better. You see, if they deny all political content, fine, they just want to be un-political. If they want to decide which propaganda is OK (or if they're getting paid to accept certain propaganda), that's the worst kind of censorship. And we should congratulate them for this?

Comment Re:It's not about the patent, it's about the lying (Score 1) 323

It's an heretical thing when mapmakers do it, lying (even trivially) and corrupting their craft because of the threat of being copied. It should not be tolerated there nor should the practice claimed by this patent application be tolerated, not because the patent is bad but because the practice itself is an affront to all of us.

Not only that, but is this even Legal? IANAL and I'm very unfamiliar with US laws, but I think that at least in Finland it would be illegal to alter a book (without the Author's consent) an then sell it. (And this is a right that the Author can't even give away)

Comment Re:It's because meters and feet are the same (Score 1) 429

Sure, you and I know that 1/3 meter is 33.33333 cm, but that's not as easy as 1/3 foot being 4 inches.

Sure. How much is 1/5 foot again? There are problematic numbers in every system, but this strawman seems to jump up every time.

5280 (the number of feet in a mile) is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15 and a lot more. Not that a 15th of a mile comes up a lot, but if it does, you can be assured that it's exactly 352 feet!

At least for me, remembering numbers like 5280 doesn't sound any easier than knowing that for example 100/8 is 12.5.

The metric system units are also more calibrated to scientific use than everyday use. The meter is too long and the gram is too light (the liter is about right). Other things, like degrees Celsius are too big (not to mention as arbitrary as Fahrenheit). And metric time never really took off -- you still have seconds, minutes, hours, etc.

All in all, the metric system is optimized for scientific work where conversions between units happen more often, and knowing that 100 million micrograms is .1 kilograms is useful. But it doesn't work so well for common, human scale use.

Which is just why we have the prefixes, like kilo- centi- etc. Normally for instance kilograms are used instead of grams (unless the amount is under 1 kilogram), centimeters are used instead of meters if the length is under 1 meter etc. Just as easy as feet or pounds, just lot less to remember. And the mathematics of it, we use base 10 mathematics anyway, so you do have to learn your math in any case. Whereas having to know how many feet are there in a mile is knowledge only needed because of those units. All in all, I happen to think that people feel the system they've used to is easier only because theyve learned it since childhood.

Comment Re:Not really... (Score 0) 267

I would have thought the onus was on users not to operate their computers blindly and not install software unthinkingly. After all, do you think the malware writers are going to play nice one this front? There's no excuse for stupidity, and you shouldn't be excusing it.

So, you're saying Apple is just another malware writer these days?

Comment Re:Everyone already knew this. (Score 1) 176

The only thing you know from your reasoning is an anecdotal story that people don't follow the crowd. One that appears to be demonstrably false.

Are you being idiot on purpose? If your mom asks you that question, it's because you KEEP DOING WHATEVER YOUR FRIENDS DO. The anecdotal story is demonstrating the fact the people know already that friends affect your behavior, you "copy" your friends.

Comment Re:get rid of shitty teachers (Score 1) 373

Well you're not going to burst my bubble, it's soundly in tact. While that might be your opinion, and you're certainly welcome to it I happen to have a different viewpoint. I do oppose the teaching of evolution in the classroom for a whole host of reasons that I'm not going to get into here. That doesn't mean I'm a whackjob, it means I care about my kids and don't want to see them subjected to what I see as a bunch of politicised nonsense that has little to do with true science.

So, you just proved the parent's point that the homeschooling is done because of whackjob parents who don't like the fact that schools actually educate children instead of feeding the "true science" your religion happens to accept. BTW. The only "politicised nonsense" in schools taught instead of science is creationism. And luckily that isn't taught in all the schools.

Comment Re:Because of Internet (Score 1) 356

TTVK (Copyright-information and enforcement Association) says that renting without rights from publishers or writers is illegal, because the service operates over Internet, and everybody can use it.

Well, I'm sad to say, but that's how it goes according to the law in Finland. You are allowed to sell the book you own, or you can lend it, but You're not allowed rent it out for money.
The "over the Internet" is just there because the law speaks about making a book (or another piece of copyrighted material) available to the public for rental, and being in the Internet is a proof of being available to the public.
You may not like it, I definitely don't like it, but that's the law in Finland.

Comment Re:Fight back (Score 1) 674

So in the real world, exploits for a patch necessarily follow the release of that patch by a few days to a week.

Yeah, as if there were no exploits for unpatched vulnerabilities. I have an idea, why doesn't MS just stop creating patches for good? By your logic that would stop the exploits from appearing.

It's just like the MS argument: If you can't see the code (or the patch), you can't find the hole. Only thats just a load of BS, as proven so often by exploits to yet-unpatched MS holes.

Comment Re:Not news (Score 1) 513

This is an example of why Wikipedia is fundamentally flawed, and in my job as a university lecturer, I grade essays that cite Wikipedia no higher than 2:2.

No, that is not an example of why Wikipedia is fundamentally flawed. It's an example of how the newspapers don't do their job right. It's their job to check their facts and not use Wikipedia for that. And definately you should give low credits to (or even fail) any essays that cite Wikipedia. But even that doesn't mean Wikipedia is flawed. I just means it should not be used as a authoritative source of information.

Comment Re:The Lesson Is... (Score 2, Interesting) 284

They don't have to buy any politicians, you know. The annual turnover of Nokia is bigger than the whole finnish government's budget. When you're in that situation you don't have to buy anyone, you don't have to threaten anyone, you just need to hint that some legislature would be nice to have. And the law will pass.

Comment Re:Holly Crap Fist Post (Score 1) 284

That is just complete and utter bullshit. The law wouldn't allow the to read your mail either, they could only check who you sent it to. Which btw I think a company should be allowed to do. It's the company's email system, intended to be used as a tool to get your work done. WHY should the company not be allowed to monitor it? You have every right to your privacy, but you work is not private. Your tools are not meant for private communications, so don't use them for that.

Slashdot Top Deals

2.4 statute miles of surgical tubing at Yale U. = 1 I.V.League

Working...