Comment Re:Can Iowa handle a circus that large? (Score 1) 433
Diffidence is "modesty or shyness resulting from a lack of self-confidence". I think you mean "deference".
Comment Elevator in the sky with diamonds (Score 2) 79
You wouldn't guess from the summary that the article title is "Going up! Cosmic elevator could reach space on a cable made of diamonds".
Comment Re:Fuck them sideways with a rusty chainsaw! (Score 1) 118
..in-car devices that insurance companies use to monitor policyholders' driving
Over my dead body. *find tiny cellphone antenna* *SNIP*
If you're a clever insurance company you ask people if they want tracking in return for lower premiums. If your competitors are charging $300, you make the "no" people pay $315 and the "yes" people people pay $285. Then all the bad drivers and all the people concerned about privacy go off to another insurance company. Given the success of Facebook and Twitter, it looks like only 0.001% of the population cares about privacy. Therefore 99+% of the people who move across to your competitors are probably not very profitable anyway. Win-win!
So it's saying "yes" or "no" to the tracking device that is the important part, not the driving data. As long as you have enough blinky lights (and a few real 3G connections) so people think they might be monitored, then you are golden.
Comment Re:a collision wouldn't surprise me (Score 4, Informative) 65
For somw reason, it wouldn't surprise me if these two craft collided, despite being the only two approaching the entire planet. It just seems that any time a government spends a lot of money to do anything, it normally ends with a fail worthy of Monty Python
There's a lot of exciting stuff happening right now. The Dawn mission is on its way to get a close look at Ceres in April next year. Rosetta is sending a lander onto a comet (which is about to do the exciting thing for comets - i.e. go near the sun). New Horizons is going to fly past Pluto next July. There are two rovers exploring Mars. Not to mention Cassini, Messenger, etc. You can be negative if you like, but I think these missions are pretty amazing.
Indian Mars Mission Has Completed 95% of Its Journey Without a Hitch 117
First time accepted submitter rinka writes India's Mars Orbiter Mission, known as Mangalyaan, has made some progress since we last discussed it. The mission is on target and has completed 95% of its journey. It will reach its destination before the end of the month. Scientists will undertake a "challenging task" on September 24 when they will restart the onboard liquid engine, which has been in sleep mode for nearly ten months, for a critical maneuver of the spacecraft.
Microsoft Shutting Down MSN Messenger After 15 Years of Service 127
New submitter airfuz writes Microsoft took a bold move announcing that users have to move away from the old version of Internet Explorer to the new version 11. And now not long after that, Microsoft announced that they are shutting down the 15-year-old MSN Messenger. Most people have moved away from the service to Facebook and other mobile based messengers such as Whatsapp, and so MSN is left with few users. But still, ending a 15-year messaging service like the MSN Messenger means something to the ones who grew up using it.
Comment Re:$230 (Score 5, Insightful) 611
...OK...where do I sign up?
You can sign up for our flat rate Gold Plan at $1000, or the Silver Plan where we will nickel and dime you until you pay $2010 per year, or the Bronze Plan where you will get some carefully selected ads in return for a lower fee of $500.
This service brought to you by your trustworthy ISP.
Notes: (1) You may occasionally see ads, (2) Ads you don't see will still count against your bandwidth cap, (3) We hate you.
Comment Re:IPv6 How will it happen? (Score 3, Informative) 146
How do you [Slashdot users] see IPv6 transition actually happening?
Will each internet user have dual stack?
Yes. They will have a dual stack with the IPv6 address being used for a bigger and bigger proportion of traffic. Meanwhile IPv4 will probably traverse some NAT.
Once IPv4 is the minority of traffic (many years in the future), it will turn into a legacy PITA to administer separately. But that is a while away.
IPv6 is much more complex, how will companies support users who barely understand IP addressing when IPv6 is going to seem like a long string of meaningless characters?
Those 30% of Comcast customers aren't calling a helpdesk and reading out hexadecimal digits. If DNS is working they will say things like "www.facebook.com". If DNS isn't working then they can't fix it by reading out or typing those "meaningless characters".
Do you see something like a dynamic IPv6 to IPv4 DNS/NAT translator to hide IPv6 complexity from the user a viable solution?
Not viable. It wouldn't help more than a single digit percentage of users anyway.
Submission + - Comcast has 1Tbit/s of IPv6 Internet traffic
Tim the Gecko writes: Comcast has announced 1Tb/s of Internet facing, native IPv6 traffic, with more than 30% deployment to customers. With Facebook, Google/YouTube, and Wikipedia up to speed, it looks we are past the "chicken and egg" stage.
Comment Re:I think it's fine (Score 5, Insightful) 219
Facebook uses psychology to make minor changes in our happiness... Something must be done!
Soda companies use psychology to sell huge buckets of sugar water... Hands off our soda, Mayor Bloomberg!
Comment Re:So after years of panic... (Score 4, Insightful) 250
"Years of procrastination" might be a better description than "years of panic". Putting off action is my favorite strategy too, but I've heard it doesn't work forever.
Comment Re:If it's paid (Score 3, Informative) 37
This is the common definition:
- Settlement free peering: Doesn't take money from you. Advertises their routes to you. Advertises your routes to their customers.
- Paid peering: Takes money from you. Advertises their routes to you. Advertises your routes to their customers.
- Transit: Takes money from you. Advertises the whole Internet routing table to you. Advertises your routes to their customers and peers.
You will see that there is no technical difference between settlement free and paid. It's the same router configuration. The money flow is just the end result of the poker game of which peer needs the other more.
Comment Re:"using higher bandwidth than radio waves" (Score 2) 38
What wavelengths get through without attenuation/distortion, then?
1550nm, which is the same range used in long-range optical fiber transmission.
More info on the projects linked from http://esc.gsfc.nasa.gov/267.h...
Comment Re:Or you could just you know... (Score 1) 187
ipv6 (which no consumer ISP is supporting, not even comcast who was running trials)
As of December last year, more than 25% of Comcast customers can get native dual stack broadband - see http://www.comcast6.net/
Comment My freezing summer (Score 2) 216
A few summers ago I was in the cube where the air conditioning sent in the cold air. Unfortunately the cube with the temperature sensor was occupied by a guy with a space heater. As the aircon pumped in more and more cold air I ended up taking warmth breaks standing outside in the summer sun. Finally, after a long negotiation between my neighbor and the HVAC guy, sanity was restored.
