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Privacy

Flash Cookies, a Little-Known Privacy Threat 225

Posted by kdawson from the flashblock-considered-mandatory dept.
Wiini recommends a blog posting exploring Flash cookies, a little-known threat to privacy, and how you can get control of them. 98% of browsers have Macromedia Flash Player installed, and the cookies it enables have some interesting properties. They have no expiration date; they store 100 KB of data by default, with an unlimited maximum; they can't be deleted by your browser; and they send previous visit information and history, by default, without your permission. I was amazed at some of the sites, not visited in a year or more, that still had Flash cookies on my machine. Here's the user-unfriendly GUI for deleting them, one at a time, each one requiring confirmation.
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Slashdot's Disagree Mail Screenshot-sm 167

Posted by samzenpus from the crazy-is-as-crazy-does dept.
I get a lot of mail from obviously unbalanced people. Enough in fact, that I've often wondered if there was a institution that allowed their patients to only read Slashdot. We've even had a few visits from some questionable individuals. A man who tried to bribe me with a car if I let him "reverse engineer" Rob Malda's Life comes to mind. He insisted on Rob being present for the process and couldn't explain to me what it entailed, so I suggested he leave. The personal visits are rare, however, compared to the amount of mail I get. Here are a few of my favorites; let's hope these people have started to take their medication. Read below and don't be worried if you don't understand all of it.
Patents

EU Patent Staff Go On Strike 116

Posted by timothy from the stop-exploiting-me dept.
h4rm0ny writes "Last Friday, staff at the European Patent Office went on strike. They protested outside for several hours and issued a statement claiming that 'the organisation is decentralising and focusing on granting as many patents as possible to gain financially from fees generated.' They also declared this as being disastrous for innovation and that their campaign was not for better wages, but for better quality patents. Meanwhile, an article on it discusses the US's own approach to dealing with the increasing flood of patent applications: a community patent project to help identify prior art. It might sound like a grass-roots scheme, and maybe it is, but those roots include such patent behemoths as IBM. So it looks like on both sides of the Atlantic, some signs of sanity might be emerging in the patent world from those people right in the thick of it." Note, this was a half-day strike, not ongoing.
Science

LHC Success! 1007

Posted by CmdrTaco from the good-news-everybody dept.
Tomahawk writes "It worked! The LHC was turned on this morning and has been shown to have worked. Engineers cheered as the proton particles completed their first circuit of the underground ring which houses the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). (And we're all still alive, too!)" Here is a picture from the control room which I'm sure makes sense to someone that isn't me.
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Slashdot's Disagree Mail Screenshot-sm 426

Posted by samzenpus from the unsubscribe-me dept.
Everyone likes to belong to something. Whether it be for fun, a sense of belonging, or a need for attention, a group gives you a feeling of solidarity. Surrounding yourself with people that share common goals and ideas can be comforting. Sometimes however, you realize that you hate the people you've surrounded yourself with. Your religion doesn't allow you to read anything that has profanity or you've subscribed to Slashdot thinking you could learn more about hockey. This week's collection is composed of people who don't want to play, read, or be associated with us anymore. Read below to find out how bad they want out.
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Dallas Schools Extend Homework Due Dates Indefinitely Screenshot-sm 8

Posted by samzenpus from the making-idiocracy-seem-more-likely-one-day-at-a-time dept.
New classroom grading rules in Dallas are drawing fire from teachers and parents as being too lenient on lazy students. The new rules would require teachers to accept late work, give retests to students who fail and force teachers to drop homework grades that would drag down a student's class average. Nancy Bingham, a former teacher, said that she didn't think the rules would help really lazy students adding, "If the kid is hell-bent on failing, they're going to fail anyway." Dallas school superintendent Michael Hinojosa disagrees, saying, "Our mission is not to fail kids. Our mission is to make sure they get it, and we believe that effort creates ability." It's a lot easier to reach for the stars if you lower the sky.
PC Games (Games)

Referee Recommends Disbarment For Jack Thompson 280

Posted by timothy from the disbar-is-such-a-harsh-word dept.
spielermacher writes "GamePolitics is reporting that Jack Thompson — the lawyer every gamer loves to hate — has apparently lost his court case and is facing disbarment. The Referee in the case has gone beyond the Florida Bar's request for a 10-year disbarment and is recommending a lifetime ban. From the Final Report issued by the court: '... the Respondent has demonstrated a pattern of conduct to strike out harshly, extensively, repeatedly and willfully to simply try to bring as much difficulty, distraction and anguish to those he considers in opposition to his causes. He does not proceed within the guidelines of appropriate professional behavior ...' All I can say is that it's about time."
Earth

Submission + - Looking back on "An Inconvinient Truth" (starkeith.net)

Submitted by
keithius
keithius writes: "It's been a few years now since the idea of climate change became mainstream. But are we doing enough? What else can we do? This article looks at some of the harder questions — and some of the answers that others may have overlooked:

Without change, we are going to consume more and more energy. As supply dwindles, and as demand increases, economic pressure will push us to consume every last bit of energy possible — and to hell with the consequences...
But we must change. It's not going to be painless — let's get that right out in the open right now. It's going to hurt. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. That's the way change is. And like most major paradigm-shifting changes, you can't really see how things are going to be until you're on the other side — and so will it be with this change. We don't know what the future will bring, or even what it will be like. But we know we have to make the change. Because we do know what the future will be like if we don't change.
It is not going to be easy. But it will be good.
After all, "our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.""

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The Tao is like a glob pattern: used but never used up. It is like the extern void: filled with infinite possibilities.

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