Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Avaaz Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement petition sabotaged? (avaaz.org) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Avaaz.org currently appears to be attempting to restore their "Before Monsanto uncorks the champagne" petition against the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement ( http://www.avaaz.org/en/no_champagne_for_monsanto_loc/?tSYQqcb )

Last night (GMT) it had just under 800,000 signatures of the 1 million target. Today the page was listed as not found until about 3pm GMT, when it returned, but at the time of writing it still lists 0 signatures, with an undefined target.

There has been no word from Avaaz as of yet as to what has actually caused this problem, but it does appear to have been the only petition that was affected.
Science

Neurologists Shine Light On Near-Death Experiences 351

Posted by Soulskill from the go-towards-the-light dept.
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Mainstream science has long considered the brain to be inactive during the period known to doctors as clinical death. However, survivors regularly report having powerful experiences when they come close to dying, often saying they had an overwhelming feeling of peace and serenity. Frequently they describe being in a dark tunnel with a bright light at the end, and many report meeting long-lost loved ones. 'Many of them think it's evidence they actually went to heaven — perhaps even spoke with God,' says Jimo Borjigin. Now scientists at the University of Michigan have found that the brain keeps on working for up to 30 seconds after blood flow stops, possibly providing a scientific explanation for the vivid near-death experiences that some people report after surviving a heart attack. In the study, lab rats were anesthetized, then subjected to induced cardiac arrest as part of the experiment while researchers analyzed changes in power density, coherence, directed connectivity, and cross-frequency coupling. In the first 30 seconds after their hearts were stopped, they all showed a surge of brain activity, observed in electroencephalograms (EEGs) that indicated highly aroused mental states. 'We were surprised by the high levels of activity,' says George Mashour. 'In fact, at near-death, many known electrical signatures of consciousness exceeded levels found in the waking state, suggesting that the brain is capable of well-organized electrical activity during the early stage of clinical death.' Borjigan thinks the phenomenon is really just the brain going on hyperalert to survive while at the same time trying to make sense of all those neurons firing and it's like a more intense version of dreaming. 'The near-death experience is perhaps really the byproduct of the brain's attempt to save itself,' says Borjigan" While interesting, it's important to remind ourselves that this research is not conclusive: "Borjigin and Mashour hesitate to state a direct connection between their findings and near-death experiences. The links are merely speculative at this point and provide a framework for a human study, Borjigin said."

Comment Re:Citations? They need to be sued heavily (Score 1) 507

I don't know any statistics but I certainly think people find them very useful where they are in London, (Holborn for one).
It gives people a chance to rethink dashing over the road at the last moment, as they can really see how long that last moment is going to be (though there will be a slight delay after the timer has finished I'm sure.
They show a numeric countdown (15 seconds if I remember correctly)

Still it doesn't help stop all the London drivers who seem to think that it's the slower party who should always get out of the way, rather than they that should slow down or even stop for an obstruction that is right in front of them.

But overall I think they've probably prevented a lot of accidents.

Comment Win for common sense. (Score 1) 221

by yakumo.unr (#42977913) Attached to: Official: Playstation 4 Will Play Used Games

Maybe they realized they actually wanted to sell a few. Certainly I believe there is a huge market who only buy because they think they'll sell the product on again later to get some money back, even if they never get actually round to it.
And those that do... many re-invest what they make back into buying newer games.
Thinking a £40+ item may be a dud that can never be resold is seriously going to put people off.
Those that are happy to wait months to years to buy second hand because a title is too expensive, will STILL wait months to years to buy the title when it's in the bargain bin instead of paying more for something they don't think is worth it to them.

I don't believe they'll ever stop piracy, and killing second hand sales would push those less well off to either forgo entirely and look to other forms of entertainment, or consider piracy. Either way, reducing sales.

Comment Unlocking doesn't end your contract though,so wtf? (Score 1) 416

by yakumo.unr (#42753791) Attached to: What You Can Do About the Phone Unlocking Fiasco

If you unlock your phone that gives you freedom to use another network.
But it doesn't magically remove you from the contract you agreed to, so you still have to pay, and would be chased by whatever debt collection system they use.

You obviously would still have to pay for using the new carrier also if you swapped SIM.

Skipping the early termination fee may save you a big one off payment but doesn't negate the above.

This issues should solely be if you fail to pay your contracted fee's, and I fail to see why that should have anything other than normal contract law cover it.

Comment Re:I've forced myself to use it for over a month.. (Score 1) 269

by yakumo.unr (#41465793) Attached to: Intel CEO Tells Staff Windows 8 Is Being Released Prematurely

I've been using it for maybe a month since trying it and being really impressed with the startup times. I've finished installing everything I used on win7 and more (vs2012 for example) and it's retaining it's impressive speed.

I haven't tried multi monitor yet, but I had thought about that problem, metro really is pretty awful, I don't mind it when I tap the windows key and start typing to find the program I want, but I don't use it for anything else, and it annoys me if something causes it to come up.

The only real problem I've had is sometimes that search box doesn't clear.
so
[winkey] ecl (enter) (eclipse)
[winkey] note (enter) (notepad++)

and it ends up with "eclnote" which doesn't hit any search results.

how the hell did that get through beta testing?? admittedly it's sporadic, but seriously why is the search box not cleared every time metro pops up?

Comment Re:Funny... (Score 1) 221

by yakumo.unr (#40397791) Attached to: Android App Lets You Steal Contactless Credit Card Data

Barclays made a big thing about introducing this in the UK with the advert with a guy sliding down a near endless water slide buying things as he went.
I was livid as soon as I saw it, I had less than zero faith in it's security, I did NOT want it on my cards.

Even back then I realised it meant a stolen card was instantly usable even if only for the small daily limit before it was reported, I still did not want it. But over the air cloning was what I was expecting.
The Courts

Boston Pays Out $170,000 To Man Arrested For Recording Police 270

Posted by Soulskill from the better-than-a-strongly-worded-letter dept.
Ian Lamont writes "The City of Boston has reached a $170,000 settlement with Simon Glik, who was arrested by Boston Police in 2007 after using his mobile phone to record police arresting another man on Boston Common. Police claimed that Glik had violated state wiretapping laws, but later dropped the charges and admitted the officers were wrong to arrest him. Glik had brought a lawsuit against the city (aided by the ACLU) because he claimed his civil rights were violated. According to today's ACLU statement: 'As part of the settlement, Glik agreed to withdraw his appeal to the Community Ombudsman Oversight Panel. He had complained about the Internal Affairs Division's investigation of his complaint and the way they treated him. IAD officers made fun of Glik for filing the complaint, telling him his only remedy was filing a civil lawsuit. After the City spent years in court defending the officers' arrest of Glik as constitutional and reasonable, IAD reversed course after the First Circuit ruling and disciplined two of the officers for using "unreasonable judgment" in arresting Glik.'"

Comment Re:TMNT: Mostly Sucks (Score 1) 481

by yakumo.unr (#39422773) Attached to: Michael Bay To Remake TMNT As Aliens

I think they were the same ones that were turned into the full colour graphic novel set that I had, they were great until about the 4th or 5th one.
The foot soldiers were people not robots, and using swords and daggers on them had obviously graphic results... they were not exactly little kids comics.

Comment Re:Did he read the contract? Ever? (Score 1) 10

by yakumo.unr (#39243871) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Applecare drive data policies?

Indeed the first thing I said to him WAS "did you back it up"? I made it clear in the first post that was an obvious thing, as stated most of his stuff was on Dropbox as mentioned in the original post.

Where I contracted briefly eight years ago if the customers data was at risk we would contact them and offer to image the disk before any further work was undertaken (at a charge), as we recognised that that data was likely more valuable to them than the disk itself.

TBH irrespective of him attempting to restore his data, what about his right to see to the destruction of his personal data in a manner he saw fit?

Yes, legally he would not have much of a leg to stand on, and clearly YOU think that that is just a-ok,
his only options then would come if his disk turned up somewhere or his data turned up online as it so often has done in several cases from various companies.

Putting aside the legal net it's probably tied up in, do you honestly feel this situation is fair? if it was a disk you'd lost and then learned the next day that your credit card details / medical records / SSN whatever might still be recovered from it would you really not have any questions about your recourse?

Personally I find that you "trying to smear people who acted normally as if they had some aberrant behavior is offensive." All you have done here is state what you believe the legal rights are with regard to the contract, and then fall to ad hominem.

So I have found it now myself.

http://www.apple.com/r/store/applecare/APPTermsConditions.pdf

" APPLE IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ....THE FAILURE TO MAINTAIN THE CONFIDENTIALITY OF DATA....Apple specifically does not warrant that it will be able to ....(ii) maintain the confidentiality of data."

So they've covered their asses in their contract, and specifically state if your data confidentially is lost then... they won't be held responsible.

This is why I take the disk out of any machine I have before sending the machine anywhere, but I did not know their specific policy.
As much as I would love everyone to do this for their own sakes, I'm not going to be offensive about them for not being so aware, and some people are not able to remove their drive anyway.

Slashdot Top Deals

No man is an island if he's on at least one mailing list.

Close