Comment risk is low (Score 1, Funny) 137
If these computers are within a secured network and particularly if they don't have access to the internet, then there isn't any great risk in continuing to use these XP machines.
Republicans Introduce a Bill To Overturn Net Neutrality 441
New submitter grimmjeeper writes: IDG News reports, "A group of Republican lawmakers has introduced a bill that would invalidate the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's recently passed net neutrality rules. The legislation (PDF), introduced by Representative Doug Collins, a Georgia Republican, is called a resolution of disapproval, a move that allows Congress to review new federal regulations from government agencies, using an expedited legislative process."
This move should come as little surprise to anyone. While the main battle in getting net neutrality has been won, the war is far from over. The legislation was only proposed now because the FCC's net neutrality rules were just published in the Federal Register today. In addition to the legislation, a new lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by USTelecom, a trade group representing ISPs.
This move should come as little surprise to anyone. While the main battle in getting net neutrality has been won, the war is far from over. The legislation was only proposed now because the FCC's net neutrality rules were just published in the Federal Register today. In addition to the legislation, a new lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by USTelecom, a trade group representing ISPs.
Amazon Sues To Block Fake Reviews 126
An anonymous reader writes Amazon has filed suit against operators of sites that offer Amazon sellers the ability to purchase fake 4 and 5 star customer reviews. The suit is the first of its kind and was filed in King County Superior Court against a California man, Jay Gentile, identified in Amazon's filings as the operator of buyazonreviews.com. The site also targets unidentified "John Does" who operate similar sites: buyreviewsnow.com, bayreviews.net, and buyamazonreviews.com. From the article: "The site buyazonreviews.com, which the suit claims is run by Gentile, didn't respond to a request for comment. But Mark Collins, the owner of buyamazonreviews.com, denied Amazon's claims. In an email interview, Collins said the site simply offers to help Amazon's third-party sellers get reviews. 'We are not selling fake reviews. however we do provide Unbiased and Honest reviews on all the products,' Collins wrote. 'And this is not illegal at all.'"
European Commission Proposes "Digital Single Market" and End To Geoblocking 137
An anonymous reader writes A new initiative from the European Commission proposes a reformed "single digital market", addressing a number of issues that it sees as obstructions to EU growth, including geoblocking — where services such as BBC's iPlayer are only available to IP addresses within the host country — and the high cost of parcel delivery and administration of disparate VAT rates across the member states. The ramifications of many of the proposals within the Digital Single Market project extend to non-EU corporations which have built their business model on the current isolationism of member state markets.
Comment Re:meanwhile (Score 1) 342
At the moment politicians serve almost exclusively those who choose to donate large sums of money. That's honestly not a better situation than your alternative, even if it came to pass as you describe.
Comment Re:meanwhile (Score 1) 342
I totally agree we need pollution tax. However we have to be careful with its introduction as you may introduce a competitive disadvantage for your businesses. So the tax needs to fall on both domestic and foreign business (for example be applied at the point of sale).
Comment Re:meanwhile (Score 2) 342
The dependence on campaign funding negates the idea that everybody has one vote and each vote is as important as the other.
Analysis: People Who Use Firefox Or Chrome Make Better Employees 127
HughPickens.com writes: In the world of Big Data, everything means something. Now Joe Pinsker reports that Cornerstone OnDemand, a company that sells software that helps employers recruit and retain workers, has found after analyzing data on about 50,000 people who took its 45-minute online job assessment, that people who took the test on a non-default browser, such as Firefox or Chrome, ended up staying at their jobs about 15 percent longer than those who stuck with Safari or Internet Explorer. They also tended to perform better on the job as well. Chief Analytics Officer Michael Housman offered an explanation for the results in an interview with Freakonomics Radio: "I think that the fact that you took the time to install Firefox on your computer shows us something about you. It shows that you're someone who is an informed consumer," says Housman. "You've made an active choice to do something that wasn't default." But why would a company care about something as seemingly trivial as the browser a candidate chooses to use? "Call centers are estimated to suffer from a turnover rate of about 45 percent annually (PDF), and it can cost thousands of dollars to hire new employees," says Pinsker. "Because of that, companies are eager to find any proxy for talent and dedication that they can."
Comment What is the alternative? (Score 2) 309
Forward secrecy is desirable as we see the NSA hoover up messages then store them until they crack the keys.
Has anybody attempted to bolt forward secrecy on top of SMTP? I would assume that it would need some kind of session key exchange between sender and recipient which would preclude the use of SMTP.
Comment Re:Pay us for other people's work (Score 1) 208
Writing an OS kernel is very tough work
Writing a shell is very tough work
Writing a graphics driver is very tough work
Developing a package management infrastructure and packaging a large number of programmes is very tough work
Developing a compiler is very tough work.
I maintain that elementary OS have contributed no more than 1% of the effort of their distribution.
I am not saying that elementary don't deserve money, but that they should get to the back of the queue and they absolutely should not demand money for other people's work.
Comment Pay us for other people's work (Score 5, Insightful) 208
Elementary OS' contribution to their own distribution is probably less than 1%. Almost all the effort into writing and packaging the software has been carried out by others. They are standing on the shoulders of giants. Why the fuck should they demand money for other people's work? It is disrespectful to call people cheaters, when they are grabbing money in exchange for other people's work! If anything, that is cheating. Elementary OS are so entitled its untrue.
Alcohol's Evaporating Health Benefits 305
New submitter Heart44 writes: A study in the British Medical Journal shows that consuming alcohol — any volume, any type — does not increase life expectancy. The full academic paper is not paywalled. From its conclusions: "Beneficial associations between low intensity alcohol consumption and all cause mortality may in part be attributable to inappropriate selection of a referent group and weak adjustment for confounders. Selection biases may also play a part." The associated editorial adds, "Firstly, in health as elsewhere, if something looks too good to be true, it should be treated with great caution. Secondly, health professionals should discourage suggestions that even low level alcohol use protects against cardiovascular disease and brings mortality benefits. Thirdly, health advice should come from health authorities, not from the alcohol industry, and, finally, the alcohol industry and its organizations should remove misleading references to health benefits from their information materials."
Comment Re:Hate to piss on the parade... (Score 1) 121
Manually saving an application's state doesn't make sense
But in summary your advice is not to use the application
Comment Hate to piss on the parade... (Score 2) 121
...but its been missing some basic features for years (in the windows and android versions):
1) preserve playlist between invocations of the programme (playlist resets every time you close vlc)
2) preserve state of music library as soon as you make changes to it (add music to vlc library, don't close vlc, library never gets saved)
The Man Squatting On Millions of Dollars Worth of Domain Names 175
Jason Koebler writes For the last 21 years, Gary Millin and his colleagues at World Accelerator have been slowly accumulating a veritable treasure trove of seemingly premium generic domain names. For instance, Millin owns, has sold, or has bartered away world.com, usa.com, doctor.com, lawyer.com, comic.com, email.com, cyberservices.com, and more than 1,000 other domain names that can be yours (including yours.com, which he owns), as long as you've got the startup idea to back it up. Millin doesn't sell domain names anymore, instead, he trades them to startups in exchange for a stake in the company.
