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Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 169

by geekwithsoul (#29471027) Attached to: Supermarket bans Jedi Knight
A number of stores do this if they've been robbed often enough. I don't agree with it, but the thinking is if they don't have a hood, it makes it easier to identify them if they decide to rob you.

Comment Re:Function before form (Score 1) 556

by geekwithsoul (#29286959) Attached to: Firefox 4.0 Goes Chrome, New UI In Q4 2010
While all that's true, a browser is at it's most basic simply a platform to deliver someone else's content and design. It should be unobtrusive and as the parent pointed out, effort spent on putting functionality into the browser would be far more useful to both content consumers and designers - better CSS support, more efficient code execution, etc. should be a much higher priority than synchronizing bookmarks or in making a new interface.
Education

Submission + - A Visit from MPAA Senior VP Rich Taylor

Submitted by tedswiss
tedswiss writes: Fate has dropped a unique opportunity upon my lap: I teach at a moderately small independent school who has as one of its alums Richard Taylor. Mr. Taylor is both speaking at our start-of-year festivities and being honored with this year's "Distinguished Alum Award." Having followed and been disgusted by the MPAA's corporate practices regarding DRM and government lobbying in the past (Anyone remember DeCSS?), I would love to make his visit help to truly educate our student body, not just indoctrinate them. The school administration is sympathetic to my plight, but I want to present them with more than just my complaints. To the /. community: How would you best make use of this opportunity if you found yourself in my shoes?
The Internet

Submission + - Rural broadband crisis hurts residents & compa (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by
Ian Lamont
Ian Lamont writes: "Thanks to profit-oriented telco industry in the U.S., rural residents don't have as much access to broadband services as those who live in urban or suburban areas. According to the federal government, just 17% of rural U.S. households subscribe to broadband service. But the problem is more than a conflict between Wall Street and small-town residents wanting to surf the 'Net or play Warcraft — the lack of broadband access prevents many businesses from growing and diversifying rural economies, as it's expensive or impossible to get broadband:

Soon after moving to Gilsum, N.H. (population 811), [Kim] Rossey learned that he couldn't get broadband to support his Web programming business, TooCoolWebs. DSL wasn't available, and the local cable service provider wasn't interested in extending the cabling for its broadband service the three-tenths of a mile required to reach Rossey's house — even if he paid the full $7,000 cost. Rossey ended up signing a two-year, $450-per-month contract for a T1 line that delivers 1.44Mbit/sec. of bandwidth. He pays 10 times more than the cable provider would have charged and receives one quarter of the bandwidth.
The author also notes that larger businesses are being crimped, from a national call center to a national retailer which claims 17% of its store locations can't get broadband."
Mozilla

Submission + - Adblock Hindering Firefox? (whyfirefoxisblocked.com) 1

Submitted by
Firegen
Firegen writes: "Seems that traversing the web using Firefox and Adblock plus is running into the proverbial stonewall. This being broght to everyones attention over at http://whyfirefoxisblocked.com/

  "The Mozilla Foundation and its Commercial arm, the Mozilla Corporation, has allowed and endorsed Ad Block Plus, a plug-in that blocks advertisement on web sites and also prevents site owners from blocking people using it. Software that blocks all advertisement is an infringement of the rights of web site owners and developers. Numerous web sites exist in order to provide quality content in exchange for displaying ads. Accessing the content while blocking the ads, therefore would be no less than stealing. Millions of hard working people are being robbed of their time and effort by this type of software. Many site owners therefore install scripts that prevent people using ad blocking software from accessing their site. That is their right as the site owner to insist that the use of their resources accompanies the presence of the ads."

So when did Ad's become intellectual of the site owner."
Media

Submission + - Journalist attempts to hack, gets caught (valleywag.com)

Submitted by
wawannem
wawannem writes: "I know that fark is not likely considered the serious news institution that slashdot is... In fact, I've heard of it referred to as slashdot's immature, mentally handicapped, younger stepbrother. Whatever it is, it appears that it drew some attention from a Fox news affiliate. Enough attention that it seems a reporter may have tried to hack into their servers.
FTA — Curtis believes that Phillips, or someone working with Phillips, sent him and several other Fark employees deceptive emails in an attempt to get them to download a trojan, a form of computer virus. The Trojan was designed to capture their passwords and give the author access to Fark's servers. In one case, it succeeded, giving a hacker passwords to a file server and one Fark employee's email account; he tried, but failed, to break into Fark's Web servers and email.
The article goes into some other speculation about the reporter's intentions, but I would imagine that the title of journalist should not exempt him from punishment in this case."
Biotech

Submission + - Antiperspirants Do More Than Block Sweat (sciam.com)

Submitted by
Charles Betz
Charles Betz writes: "For some, the thought of abandoning antiperspirants gives them the cold sweats. For others, its the thought of using them. Underarm antiperspirants guard against odor and wetness, but could the aluminum-based compounds that reduce sweat actually cause Alzheimers disease and breast cancer? The latest edition of the Scientific American adresses the smelly issue."
Operating Systems

Submission + - Mac Leopard Server preview (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
johannacw
johannacw writes: "This operating system could open a whole new market for Apple — as a small-business and home-office server that intuitively supports both Mac and Windows clients. But large companies have lots to like, too; our writer believes Leopard Server's directory services pieces could be "revolutionary.""
Input Devices

Submission + - Tivo your day

Submitted by ZeroMaker
ZeroMaker writes: Apparently Apple filed for a patent for "Presentation of audible media in accommodation with external sound". With this system you would be able to hear external sounds while wearing your iPod earbuds but it also offers this tidbit. "...stored external sound can be presented with a full range of media playback features (e.g., forward, backward, pause, replay)". All the parts already exist someone just needs to make it easy to tivo (verb) your day. humm...

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