Comment: Re:What kind of world... (Score 1) 214
drowning out the remaining 80% of the country who is too poor to be heard.
With pepper spray.
Comment: Article misses the point (Score 1) 452
In general food security is not a problem with insufficient yield so much as issues with poverty and distribution. We don't need to produce more, we need to make sure the food we do produce gets to the people that need it.
Comment: Re:Communication, Interrupted (Score 1) 256
It never hurts to tell phone monkeys what you do for a living.
It almost never helps, either.
During my phone monkey days at a broadband ISP, it was common for customers who happened to own more than one computer to introduce themselves in the first thirty seconds as "network administrators." Invariably they'd left something unplugged or mucked up a default setting, which made for some frustrating calls when said "network administrator" refused to check the basics. After all, they were "network administrators" and would never make such a noobish mistake.
After enough calls like this, the phone monkeys learned to interpret any statement like "I work on networks for a living" merely as a forecast of how obnoxious the customer was likely to be.*
Now they forward me to a technician.
Little did the network administrators know that they were being transferred back into the regular queue. Where, more often than not, the issue was resolved.
*The real shibboleet was mentioning in the first 30 seconds that you were on a Linux box. That'd get you a real technician every time.
Comment: Re:"Any Key" phone call really happened ... (Score 1) 256
I'm left-handed, you insensitive clod!
Comment: Re:You're old. (Score 1) 350
They don't call it Nintendo Hard for nothing.
Comment: No opt-out link for prepay accounts (Score 1) 236
I'm a Verizon prepay customer, for what it's worth, but there is no such link on my profile page. I only have an option to set my messaging level to low, medium, or high.
Comment: Re:I hope it's unique! (Score 1) 254
How about Leekspin?
Cannabis Compound Said To "Halt Cancer" 383
Posted
by
kdawson
from the afraid-of-what-we-represent dept.
from the afraid-of-what-we-represent dept.
h.ross.perot informs us of research out of the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute suggesting that a compound found in cannabis may stop breast cancer from metastasizing. Cannabidiol, or CBD, could develop into a non-toxic alternative to chemotherapy some years down the road, if animal and human trials bear out its effectiveness. The article notes that smoking cannabis will not deliver significant quantities of CBD.
Microsoft No Longer a 'Laughingstock' of Security? 282
Posted
by
Zonk
from the set-the-bar-high-guys dept.
from the set-the-bar-high-guys dept.
Toreo asesino writes "In a Q&A with Scott Charney, the vice president of Trustworthy Computing at Microsoft, Charney suggests that security in Microsoft products has moved on from being the 'laughing stock' of the IT industry to something more respectable. He largely attributes this to the new Security Development Lifecycle implemented in development practices nearly six years ago. 'The challenge is really quite often in dealing with unrealistic expectations. We still have vulnerabilities in our code, and we'll never reduce them to zero. So sometimes we will have a vulnerability and people say to me, "So the [Security Development Lifecycle (SDL)] is a failure right?" No it isn't. It was our aspirational goal that the SDL will get rid of every bug.'"
EU boss wants to censor the internet
Submitted
by
Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes "European Union Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini has called for ISPs to censor internet searches in an effort to stop terrorists gathering information.
Frattini said that freedom of information should take second place to denying terrorists access to bomb making instructions or other information that could be useful. "I intend to carry out a clear exploring exercise with the private sector on how it is possible to use technology to prevent people from using or searching dangerous words like 'bomb', 'kill', 'genocide' or 'terrorism'," he said."
Frattini said that freedom of information should take second place to denying terrorists access to bomb making instructions or other information that could be useful. "I intend to carry out a clear exploring exercise with the private sector on how it is possible to use technology to prevent people from using or searching dangerous words like 'bomb', 'kill', 'genocide' or 'terrorism'," he said."