Comment: Re:Misleading (Score 1) 137
There's no magic $6600 in my budget, so we're uninsured. Senator Shaheen can kiss my uninsured ass.
Watch out, you might catch someting!
SCNR...
Comment: Re:What about the parents? (Score 1) 466
I've never met a Mexican or Canadian who was offended by referring to citizens of the USA as "Americans".
I have. She lives in Mexico and preferred to call the folks north of the border "USians". Not sure what they're called in Mexican, we were talking English...
Comment: Re:I am not so worried about hacking (Score 1) 95
Once I have been there a couple of times, I can usually remember the route and drive without GPS. I still use GPS when driving on the highway so I don't miss the exit, but if the receiver was not working, I still could go to my destination
Same with me. An additional reason for me using GPS on long distance trips is traffic jams, or rather, getting warned of them in time, getting them evaluated about impact on route, and if necessary get an alternative routing.
Comment: Re:Difference to now? (Score 2) 346
At least I can complain to my own government and vote out politicians. Where do I go to complain against the UNs policies?
In theory? Also to your government. It's their job to try and keep the UN from issuing bad policies.
In another theory, if you're not a citizen of the US? Well, your government has less weight now than it would if the net were under the UN...
In practice? As another poster said, nowhere - working as intended.
Ulli
Comment: Re:Difference to now? (Score 1) 346
I agree in principle. But if the US told ICANN to try and shut down the net, what do you think would happen? I'm not up to date on the operation of the root nameservers, but I suspect there would be trouble.
Ulli
Comment: Difference to now? (Score 0) 346
You will hate it, because all of a sudden all that freedom, all that flexibility, you'll find it shipped away for one good reason after another,' Schmidt said. 'I cannot be more emphatic. Be very, very careful about moves which seem logical, but have the effect of balkanising the internet,' he added, urging everyone to strongly resist the moves.
Just curious - in what way would that be different from the situation we have now? I didn't RTFA, but IMHO, such a move is long overdue.
IMHO, handing over the governance of the internet to some UN mandated body would probably be a good idea, further removing the net from the influence of a single nation. I'm not sure the ITU would be a good body, since I think they have a history of being a body to regulate in favor of the large telecoms providers (in fact, I think that's what the ITU is made up out of).
Anyone care to shed some light on this?
Ulli
Nature's 'icy finger of death' caught on tape->
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by
Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes "Filmed for the first time, the icy “finger of death” is an unprecedented look at nature’s beauty — seen at it's devastating worst. Called a "brinicle" (or brine icicle), cameramen Hugh Miller and Doug Anderson used a time-lapse camera to capture this awe-inspiring event beneath the Antarctic ice shelf for the upcoming Discovery Channel special series, Frozen Planet. “We were just blown away by how beautiful they were,” producer Kathryn Jeffs said. Jeffs was in Antarctica with Miller and Anderson to capture the unique event. “We were exceptionally excited and we knew we had something that had never been filmed before, never been seen before. No one has really seen the formation of a brinicle.”"
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
China Stops Genetically Engineered Rice->
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by
Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "China’s State Council has released a proposal for a grain law that establishes legislation restricting research, field trials, production, sale, import and export of genetically engineered grain seeds, the first initiative in the world that deals with GE food legislation at state law level.
Monsanto had tried and failed to commercialize GE wheat in Canada. Now they were hoping China would become the first guinea pig, opening the gate to genetic experiments with staple crops."
Link to Original Source
Monsanto had tried and failed to commercialize GE wheat in Canada. Now they were hoping China would become the first guinea pig, opening the gate to genetic experiments with staple crops."
Link to Original Source
Evidence for Antimatter Anomaly Mounts->
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by
sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes "The big bang created a lot of matter—along with the same amount of antimatter, which wiped out everything and brought the universe to an untimely end. That's what accepted theoretical physics tell us—though things clearly didn't work out that way. Now, results from a U.S. particle smasher are providing new evidence for a subtle difference in the properties of matter and antimatter that may explain how the early universe survived."
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
What is the shelf life of a hard disk ? 1
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by
Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "I see information on manufacturer sites about OPERATIONAL data retention, but little on long term off line storage.
The only discussion I've seen is from Iomega talking about their REV drives ftp://ftp.iomega.com/com/rev/30year_shelf.pdf.
While most of this seems like it would apply to any drive, their discussion of adhesives and lubricants implies at least attention to these issues, but I would assume all drive manufacturers take this into account.
The thermal decay rate of the magnetic domains of 9% over 30 years in controlled temperatures is promising, but what about it's ability to physically spin up after that time ?
Also how much error correcting is used in production drives ? Since that would reduce storage capacity, could they make a drive with higher levels of error correcting to recover from larger problems ? Would people pay more for an "archive" drive with reduced capacity and thought that went into it's design to increase it's shelf life ? Am I worrying too much about all this and should get a life ?"
The only discussion I've seen is from Iomega talking about their REV drives ftp://ftp.iomega.com/com/rev/30year_shelf.pdf.
While most of this seems like it would apply to any drive, their discussion of adhesives and lubricants implies at least attention to these issues, but I would assume all drive manufacturers take this into account.
The thermal decay rate of the magnetic domains of 9% over 30 years in controlled temperatures is promising, but what about it's ability to physically spin up after that time ?
Also how much error correcting is used in production drives ? Since that would reduce storage capacity, could they make a drive with higher levels of error correcting to recover from larger problems ? Would people pay more for an "archive" drive with reduced capacity and thought that went into it's design to increase it's shelf life ? Am I worrying too much about all this and should get a life ?"