Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Cellphones

Submission + - Bullied Victim of Videotaped Beatdown Suspended

theodp writes: Casey Heynes took one punch from his attacker and turned the other cheek. Then he took another. But when his younger tormentor floated like a butterfly while a schoolchum videotaped the beatdown for posterity, it was Heynes who stung like a bee, putting an end to the attack by bodyslamming the bully and walking away. The school, of course, suspended both the bully and his victim for four days. Any King Solomon-advice for the school administrators? BTW, kudos to the girl who stepped in and told the other kids to back off as Heynes walked away from the incident.

Submission + - WikiLeaks cash-for-votes exposé rocks Indian (bbc.co.uk) 1

mage7 writes: While the world's attention seems to be focused on the events unfolding in Japan and the Middle-east, Indian headlines are being dominated by the latest WikiLeaks' revelations.
The newly leaked cable (dated 17 July 2008) suggests that India's ruling Congress party bribed MPs, in order to secure their votes for a controversial nuclear deal between India and the US. Among other details, It describes how a senior Congress aide showed a US embassy official "chests of cash" allegedly containing about $25 million to pay off MPs ahead of the vote. Another Congress insider told a US official about how the Minister of Commerce and Industry formerly "could only offer small planes as bribes.....now he can pay for votes with jets."

Comment The students were active participants (Score 1) 181

You just have to go an immigration forum dominated by Indians like murthyforum.com and search for TVU. You will find posts as far back as last year where people were discussing TVU as a university which would issue you a CPT (curricular practical training) from day one had no classes and you could start working right away with other people warning this was a fraud. The discussions were long and many people wanted to work from day one. Often it was people who were laid off from their jobs, could not find something in the short period thereafter, so you join this "university", change to an F-1, get a CPT and start working elsewhere without the limitations that an H1 imposes.

Comment Re:Let's go ahead and quote from the report: (Score 1) 764

Science isn't mathematics. In the most fundamental case, I would argue that any imprecision implies some degree of subjectivity, and no measurement made by a human has infinite precision.

Objectivity doesn't imply infinite precision. In fact, infinite precision is impossible, and we can still have extremely objective theories and measurements in quantum mechanics.

Comment Re:Asking for it (Score 1) 938

I think this is a wrong way of looking at it. Think of it like defensive driving. Regardless of who is at fault in a car accident, defensive driving reduces the chance of you getting into a collision. Learning behaviors that reduce the likelihood of you getting bullied is similar. Moreover, unlike car accidents where you do have some recourse after the accident in bullying you are usually out on your own. Teachers don't believe you, at worst they often take the sides of the bullies and a lot of teachers are former bullies themselves. Also, changing the behavior of one kid who has a good incentive to change behavior (not get bullied) is much easier than changing the behavior of everyone else who have little to gain from not bullying and something to lose (dominance).

Mozilla

Mozilla Outage On Firefox 3 Record Launch Day 427

Kolargol00 writes "An outage affected the Mozilla.com website on the day the organisation launched its Guinness World Record attempt for downloads of the new Firefox 3 browser. The mozilla.com site was unreachable from around the world, occasionally responding with the message, 'Http/1.1 Service Unavailable.'" Since they decided to run their day from 1pm to 1pm Eastern time, the download day is actually still going, so you can still get Firefox and be part of the record.
The Military

USAF Considers Creation of Military Botnet 440

sowjetarschbajazzo writes "Air Force Col. Charles W. Williamson III believes that the United States military should maintain its own botnet, both as a deterrent towards those who would attempt to DDoS government networks, and an offensive weapon to be used against the networks of unfriendly nations, criminal groups, or terrorist organizations. "Some people would fear the possibility of botnet attacks on innocent parties. If the botnet is used in a strictly offensive manner, civilian computers may be attacked, but only if the enemy compels us. The U.S. will perform the same target preparation as for traditional targets and respect the law of armed conflict as Defense Department policy requires by analyzing necessity, proportionality and distinction among military, dual-use or civilian targets. But neither the law of armed conflict nor common sense would allow belligerents to hide behind the skirts of its civilians. If the enemy is using civilian computers in his country so as to cause us harm, then we may attack them." What does Slashdot think of this proposal?"

Comment A modest proposal (Score 3, Insightful) 838

I suggest that we make a rule that if you do not believe in evolution you cannot be prescribed any of the newer antibiotics in case you get a bacterial illness since the earlier ones should be just as effective. If creationists are right, they will save some money, and if they are wrong we will exert a gentle evolutionary force toward people with better critical thinking skills.
Robotics

Submission + - First Armed Robots on Patrol in Iraq

An anonymous reader writes: Robots have been roaming Iraq, since shortly after the war began. Now, for the first time — the first time in any warzone — the 'bots are carrying guns. The SWORDS robots, armed with M249 machine guns, "haven't fired their weapons yet," an Army official says. "But that'll be happening soon." The machines have actually been ready to a while, but safety concerns kept 'em off the battlefield. Now, the robots have kill switches, so "now we can kill the unit if it goes crazy," according to the Army. I feel safer already.

Slashdot Top Deals

Our business in life is not to succeed but to continue to fail in high spirits. -- Robert Louis Stevenson

Working...