Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - WSJ: Prepare to hang up the phone - forever (wsj.com) 1

retroworks writes: Telecom giants AT&T and Verizon Communications are lobbying states, one by one, to hang up the plain, old telephone system, what the industry now calls POTS--the copper-wired landline phone system whose reliability and reach made the U.S. a communications powerhouse for more than 100 years. Is landline obsolete, and should be immune from grandparents era social protection?

Comment Re:Headline writing (Score 1) 103

It''s called "telegraphic speech", as if the writer didn't want to pay for the extra characters.

Newspapers do it for space: the bigger the typeface, the less room for text.

I suspect it carries over to internet articles because of cognitive side-effects: if every headline was a complete sentence they would take more effort on the readers' part. You want something that will instantly grab (or lose) a reader's attention without any mental effort on their part.

(Look at how many people don't RTFA, or even RTFSummary. Full sentences would lead to people who don't even RTFHeadline.)

However, telegraphic speech can cause problems for readers.

Comment Re:Great Headline (Score 1) 103

Mod up pleeze. This story has turned into the orgy that fuels the spree US media wants to be.

They were hoping a little blonde girl would be kidnapped or murdered, but they had to settle for a missing airplane mostly full of foreigners.

And with it missing at sea, they can't even pose a teddy bear in photos of the wreckage.

Comment Re:It's always in the future. (Score 1) 703

"pointing to a future stalked by floods, drought, conflict and economic damage if carbon emissions go untamed."

This has been asserted since 1985.
And you can convince yourself that it's utterly false, if you assume that the actual floods, drought, conflict, and economic damage are caused by something else.

[Actually I don't know of any conflicts attributable to GW yet. But both the US military and US national security agencies have concluded that GW is their biggest threat for this century. Some people can't afford to ignore the facts.]

Comment Re:Recency bias and global warming pause (Score 1) 703

And naturally, we should reject the opionions of an international group of scientists who specialize in the area in favor of the opinions of some slashdotters.

Big bang, climate, dark matter, evolution, ..., vacinations - if you don't like what the evidence points to, just reject it. You won't lack company.

Slashdot Top Deals

He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion

Working...