TwistedGreen - Slashdot User

"Three Strikes" To Go Ahead In Britain 294

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday October 28, 2009 @10:13AM from the follow-the-money dept.

David Gerard writes "Lord Peter Mandelson has carefully ignored the Gowers Report and the Carter Report, instead taking the advice of his good friend David Geffen and announcing that 'three strikes and you're out' will become law in Britain. The Open Rights Group has, of course, hit the roof. Oh, and never mind MI5 and the police pointing out that widespread encryption will become normal, hampering their efforts to keep up with little things like impending terrorist atrocities. Still, worth it to stop a few Lily Allen tracks being shared, right?"

Comment Incremental victories. (Score 1) 1

by TwistedGreen on Tuesday October 27, 2009 @11:02AM (#29884019) Attached to: Church of Scientology Convicted of Fraud

Unfortunately, I don't see this as having much of an effect. The "church" is too well-designed for one modest victory in one region against one church leader to stop them. The church will shrug this off and keep on scamming. However, it will at least raise awareness about their fraudulent activities so it won't be for nothing.

Comment Re:Cockpit voice recorder (Score 1) 518

by nharmon on Tuesday October 27, 2009 @10:53AM (#29883915) Attached to: Lost Northwest Pilots Were Trying Out New Software

On the Airbus A318/19/20/21. The following conditions must be met to erase:

The aircraft is on the ground, and the parking brake is on

Pressing the CVR ERASE push button for 2 seconds will then erase the tape.

The prelim from the NTSB says "The CVR recording began during final approach, and continued while the aircraft was at the gate."

Comment Re:Send to voice mail (Score 3, Interesting) 244

by Sparr0 on Tuesday October 27, 2009 @10:42AM (#29883767) Attached to: Comparing the Freedoms Offered By Maemo and Android

screw "send to voice mail". I want the phone to *PICK UP*, play one of a selection of pre-recorded messages, and then allow the caller to press a button if they really really want to interrupt, or answer the question in the message. 200MHz on an ARM is plenty of power to implement this.

Submission + - Church of Scientology Convicted of Fraud (timesonline.co.uk) 1

Submitted by IceDiver on Tuesday October 27, 2009 @10:40AM

IceDiver writes: As most Slashdotters know, the Church of Scientology's practices are widely scorned and even mocked. Now, however, the so-called Church has been convicted in France of fraud and one of its leaders given a 2 year sentence. Yes, the sentence is only a suspended one, and the effect this will have on the worldwide church is still to be determined, but we can hope. Is this the beginning of the end for L.Ron Hubbard's five-decade-old scam?

Comment Swallow your pride. (Score 1) 2

by TwistedGreen on Tuesday October 27, 2009 @08:19AM (#29882329) Attached to: Is not having Windows skills a blemish on a resume

Windows isn't "less advanced" because it doesn't come with an SSH client. You need to get rid of that attitude because it's simply false and won't help you find a job. If you want marketable skills in IT, you need Windows. That's all there is to it.

Submission + - Amazon Cloud Adds Hosted MySQL (amazon.com)

Submitted by 1sockchuck on Tuesday October 27, 2009 @07:09AM

1sockchuck writes: Amazon Web Services has added a relational database service to host MySQL databases in the cloud, and is also dropping prices on its Amazon EC2 compute service by as much as 15 percent. Amazon says the new service lets users focus on development rather than maintenance, but it will probably be bad news for startups offering database services built atop Amazon's cloud. Cloud Avenue warns that Amazon RDS should serve as "a warning bell for the companies that build their entire business on Amazon ecosystem. ... They are just one announcement away from complete destruction." Data Center Knowledge has a roundup of analysis and commentary on Amazon RDS and its impact on the cloud ecosystem.

Submission + - Comparing Freedom on Maemo and Android (blogspot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27, 2009 @07:08AM

An anonymous reader writes: Maemo 5 and Android have received a lot of publicity lately, despite the former not even shipping yet. Both have become famous partly for using the Linux kernel, but now that we have a choice, how do we pick one? Is the issue as mundane as choosing your favorite desktop distribution, or is there a more significant difference? The article compares the two from an end user and developer perspective, emphasizing root access and ease of sharing code.

Submission + - Facebook to preserve accounts of the dead (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by Barence on Tuesday October 27, 2009 @04:37AM

Barence writes: Social-networking site Facebook is planning to preserve the accounts of dead members. The new "memorialized" accounts will continue to display photos and wall posts, but remove "senstive information" such as status updates and contact information. Friends or family who want to report the death of a Facebook member are encouraged to fill out the site's Deceased form. The form asks for proof of death, such as an obituary or news article, although it's not clear how Facebook can validate the death of a member if neither of those pieces of information is published on the internet. How long before someone snuffs it on Facebook before their time?

Submission + - 2D Boy Post "Pay-What-You-Want" Final Wrap-up (2dboy.com) 1

Submitted by sleeponthemic on Tuesday October 27, 2009 @04:10AM

sleeponthemic writes: Developer 2D Boy has posted the final results of their "pay what you want" experiment, selling their World of Goo game for an unrestricted price. After coming to the attention of slashdot a further ~26,000 sales were recorded for a total of 83,147. Note that publicizing crucial mid sale statistics — such as the revelation that ~17,000 people chose to "donate" $0.01 seems to have affected the average donation, which increased from $2.03 to above $3, by the end of the week.

Submission + - Google Voice now lets you use your existing number (blogspot.com)

Submitted by no.good.at.coding on Tuesday October 27, 2009 @03:04AM

no.good.at.coding writes: If you're lucky enough to get an invite for Google Voice, you'll now have an option to use your existing mobile phone number instead of having to pick a 'Google' number.

Google will give you the cool voicemail features (searchable online, transcription and custom greetings) for your mobile but you'll be missing out on the controversial 'Listen In' feature along with the ability to screen and block calls and make conference calls.

Submission + - NSA to build $1.5B cybersecurity center in Utah (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by CWmike on Tuesday October 27, 2009 @01:59AM

CWmike writes: The National Security Agency (NSA) has said it is setting up a new $1.5 billion cybersecurity data center at near Salt Lake City. The 1-million-square foot center will form the hub of the highly-classified Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), launched during the Bush Administration. It is not clear, though, whether that is the only purpose that the new data center will serve, or whether it will support other NSA cybersecurity activities. But anNSA spokeswoman said the new center will provide "critical support to national cybersecurity priorities" but did not elaborate. A statement released by Sens. Orrin Hatch's office said the facility would add "important capabilities" to the intelligence community and provide technical assistance to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Comment This is news? (Score 0, Redundant) 395

by TwistedGreen on Monday October 26, 2009 @10:21AM (#29872105) Attached to: Microsoft Freeloading In Washington State Courts

So what? This is what tax lawyers DO. Any competent company would do this, and I don't see anything wrong with it.

Submission + - No hand held devices in Ontario cars. (handsfreeinfo.com)

Submitted by NIK282000 on Monday October 26, 2009 @08:06AM

NIK282000 writes: In Ontario it is now a ticket-able offense to text, email or try to navigate with your GPS to cut down on accidents caused by drivers who aren't paying attention. But it seems to me that they have thrown the baby out with the bath water because it is now also a $500 fine to change your radio station, change songs on your MP3 player or even drink your morning coffee. It can also be enforced to the point where changing the climate controls on your dash can get you fined because it requires you to take your hands off the wheel. Though this was a good idea it seems to have been taken a little to far.

Submission + - The SSD That You Can Finally Afford, Kingston 40GB (legitreviews.com)

Submitted by ocfreak on Monday October 26, 2009 @07:21AM

ocfreak writes: Kingston Technology Company today announced the release of the SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive, the latest addition to its V (Value) family of solid-state drives (SSD). The drive is available for as low as $84.99 after rebates (U.S. only) at e-tailer Newegg.com when it comes out on November 9th, 2009. The Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive is built using 2nd Generation Intel SSD technology, so the drive has sequential speeds of up to 170MB/sec. read and 40MB/sec. write. The hardware analysts over at Legit Reviews found the drive able to hit 230MB/s read and 40MB/s in their tests and has more than enough room to install Windows 7 64-bit. This might just be one of the best and most cost-effective ways to accelerate any desktop'(TM)s boot, shutdown and application load times. At $85 this drive might be the catalyst to bring SSDs into the mainstream!

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