Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Malcom Gladwell is a corporate shill (Score 3, Interesting) 247

http://shameproject.com/report...

http://mikethemadbiologist.com...

Malcom Gladwell is the product of conservative institutes and think tanks; he has worked for racists, the tobacco industry, oil companies, big pharma, and more. His books popularize the kind of thinking that said industries have used to defend their practices.

Comment Cloudfare blocks Tor (Score 2) 160

Cloudfare blocks Tor exit nodes heavily; you have to fill out a captcha almost every other page refresh. It makes it almost impossible to navigate a website.

That seems incompatible with your distaste for "kowtowing to the enemies of freedom" and trying to allow customers access to your books even if a government doesn't want them to have access.

Comment Re:root = same process (Score 4, Insightful) 130

Gatekeeper also isn't "all MacOS X security". There's separate malware detection, and in order to do much of anything the user has to enter their computer account password.

It's a minor part of OS X security, mostly designed to keep casual users from installing stuff outside the apple store.

Comment maximum, not "street value" (Score 1) 206

35 years was the combined maximum possible sentence. There is no such thing as "street value" of sentences.

During sentencing (if he was found guilty and accountable) is when the judge or jury decides on what punishment is dealt, CAPPED by the maximum. In white collar crimes, it is rarely if ever give the maximum sentence.

He was caught doing a similar stunt prior to the JSTOR incident, warned that what he was doing was illegal.

He trespassed onto MIT campus (he was not a member of the MIT community), trespassed into a building, trespassed into a network closet, installed unauthorized equipment on the network, subverted their access systems, subverted blocking/tracking attempts by MIT network operations, downloaded documents at a rate so great it made JSTOR servers inaccessible, subverted JSTOR's attempts to block him to the extent that JSTOR had to block large sections of the MIT campus, and then installed a second laptop when he wasn't getting documents as fast as he wanted.

JSTOR's fee pays for archiving, indexing, and data transmission. Bandwidth, power, servers, and administrators do not grow on trees. They are not "paywalling free research."

He killed himself because he had a history of mental health issues, proven by among other things publicly discussing the appeal of suicide.

Comment Ray, you're above embargos (Score 1) 25

Nothing like releasing your review the day after units start shipping, ie when it's too late to find out the unit's faults.

Goddammit I hate embargos...the only reason they exist is to hide flaws and problems from people who could get a refund. Ray, stop being the industry's bitch. You have a ton of readers, tell gadget makers to pound sand if they tell you that you can't release a review before it ships.

Comment if he was mentally ill, why didn't it end there? (Score 1) 297

Why didn't the FBI say "this person is mentally ill", and simply get him mental health services? Oh, right. That doesn't get you commendations for "stopping a terrorist attack."

A Muslim cleric isn't a mental health counselor or psychologist. They're a religious leader.

Comment Re:One way to drum up business... (Score 1) 56

The link provided actually requires even more personal info.

Here's a way that doesn't require any.

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:0f76f9cb970aaa105843230c556cda28b7418369&dn=PFMABE&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fopen.demonii.com%3A1337&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.coppersurfer.tk%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.leechers-paradise.org%3A6969

Comment here it is without the asshole-y email collecting (Score 4, Informative) 56

Not really sure why someone felt entitled to hide all this behind a mailing list subscription for a consulting company's email spam list, so here it is via free magnet download. I only included the "required" dataset in addition to the source and required libraries.

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:0f76f9cb970aaa105843230c556cda28b7418369&dn=PFMABE&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fopen.demonii.com%3A1337&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.coppersurfer.tk%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.leechers-paradise.org%3A6969

That should paste into most torrent clients, watch for CR/LFs though.

Comment such a tired myth (Score 3, Interesting) 223

First off, Canada != US, fellow American.

Second: people and businesses can limit the forms of payment they'll accept for practical reasons all the time. As in: no bills over a certain amount, or refusing payment in pennies. Coins CAN be legal tender, but no merchant or private party MUST accept a particular form of currency. Don't want to accept $1 bills, only $5 and $10? That's fine:

  http://www.snopes.com/business...

"Legal tender is the default method of payment assumed in contractual agreements involving debts and payments for goods or services unless otherwise specified."

Third: the currency is defaced. That is the whole point - it's potentially not legal currency if you've drawn all over it. If you interfere with security features in the bill and it becomes more risky to trust as valid (such as, counterfeit bills that meet other security features elsewhere on the bill)...then they are right to refuse it.

I'm kind of shocked Canada doesn't specifically outlaw defacement of the currency; the US sure does.

Comment fortunately, you don't need showers (Score 1) 304

Fortunately, you don't need showers. Bicycling != sweaty. And sweaty !=stinky.

People stink because they cover themselves in chemical perfumes (perfumes, soaps, shampoos, moisturizers, etc) that have limited 'life' before they start to decompose. People stink because they use fabric softener on their clothing (see above...also, fabric softeners are basically fat. Which goes rancid...) People stink because they toss their sweaty clothes into a hamper instead of airing them out.

I'm American. I ride a bike every day, in a city that goes from 0 degrees to 100+ degrees. I don't understand this obsession with sweat. If I'm going somewhere and can't show up sweaty, I slow down, or I get there a few minutes early and cool off/dry off just by...uh...standing around...

People seem to forget that biking is more efficient and thus for the same energy used walking, you can go several times faster, which means for the same energy you are less likely to get sweaty.

Slashdot Top Deals

It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.

Working...