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Comment Re:Should they get off tax-free? (Score 1) 511

by TechOgre (#30155764) Attached to: AU Senator Calls Scientology a "Criminal Organization"
An alternative would be to have a flat income tax rate after a certain base income. So, for example, if the base rate is $10,000, and the tax rate is 10%, then for every dollar above that base rate, you pay 10%. If you make $10,000, you pay no tax. If you make $10,001, you pay $0.10 in tax. In addition, no taxes on unprepared foods, utilities (water, hydro, gas, phone(?)). I think a simpler system with fewer/no loopholes would fix a lot of things. It would be harder to cheat, easier to calculate, just, better over all.
Apple

Submission + - Apple's 12 Biggest Failures (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "InfoWorld's Galen Gruman gives a chronological overview of Apple's biggest flops to date. 'Mac OS X, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone — more often than not, Apple sets the standard, but its successes don't cover the whole story. The company’s periodic failings of arrogance, internecine warfare, and myopia have also played a key role in the company's storied history.' Lisa, eWorld, Copland — each failing is viewed as an essential step in the shaping of what Apple has become today, with even some of its failures living on to achieve cult status."
Programming

Submission + - Lego Mindstorms for the programmer (gadgetsreport.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I just love playing Lego. I like to construct robots and machines. And I really like programming. I like to write programs and frameworks. And not so long ago I found a way to combine these two passions. Lego Mindstorms — a set that includes several motor, sensors and a programmable module that can read information from sensors and control motors.

I will tell more about the Lego Mindstorms and the ways of programming in it.
Science

Submission + - CERN, the bird, the bread and the underlying tech (itpro.co.uk)

Submitted by magacious
magacious writes: What do you do when the particle-smashing Large Hadron Collider (LHC) starts up and then breaks? If you’re CERN, the lab in Geneva responsible for such whizzy tech, you just try again.

But in between switching things off and on again, what are the boffins at CERN doing? Sverre Jarp, chief technology officer of CERN’s openlab, whose team look at and test the tech of the future, is happy that his team don’t have to take care of the particle bashing. Instead, they do the cool stuff.

“The LHC computing grid has to run on reliable, trusted evaluated mainstream technology. So we look at the fun stuff,” he said.

“It’s very exciting it’s also frustrating. I’m at a certain age, and of course, every year, every five years, every 10 years, you have to put yourself in question, say "everything I learned during this decade, is it either already obsolete or is it still valid?"”

With the LHC due to be switched on any time now – provided no bird comes along and drops crumbs into it – it looks like Jarp’s CERN-based colleagues will be even more green with envy as they do the critical stuff and his team gazes into the future.
Unix

Submission + - 40 years of Multics, 1969-2009 (cio.com.au) 1

Submitted by gribll
gribll writes: This piece of history may interest the Slashdot crowd. October 2009 marked an important milestone in the history of computing. It was exactly 40 years since the first Multics computer system was used at MIT. The interview is with Multics co-developer, MIT Professor and Turing Award winner Fernando J. Corbato. Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service) is regarded as the foundation of modern time-sharing systems. Multics was the catalyst for the development of Unix and has been used as a model of operating system design since its release four decades ago. There is also a picture gallery of Multics' history. How can us modern-day Linux and BSD lovers not pay homage to the grand daddy of time-sharing operating systems.
Television

Submission + - MPAA wants to turn off analog ports on TV asks FCC (consumerist.com) 1

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: The Motion Picture Association of American wants to rent movies to TV viewers earlier in the release window, but they don't want anyone potentially streaming that video out to other appliances. That's why last week they went back to the FCC to once again ask for the power to disable analog ports on consumer television sets.

This capability is called selectable output control or SOC, and the FCC banned it back in 2003. SOC would allow "service operators, such as cable companies, to turn off analog outputs on consumer electronics devices, only allowing digital plugs" such as HDMI. The MPAA is arguing that if they could directly turn those plugs on and off, they could offer more goods to consumers.

But that's not what over a dozen public interest groups think, notes Home Media Magazine:

Groups including Public Knowledge, the Digital Freedom Campaign, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Consumer Federation of America and the Media Access Project, are fighting the MPAA over the request, saying it puts control of privately owned consumer electronics into the hands of the movie industry, hurts TiVo and Slingbox owners, and leaves out consumers who own TVs without digital connections.

Consumerist : http://consumerist.com/5400626/mpaa-asks-fcc-for-control-of-your-tvs-analog-outputs

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UNIX is hot. It's more than hot. It's steaming. It's quicksilver lightning with a laserbeam kicker. -- Michael Jay Tucker

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