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Comment: century city "without a tracer" predicted this (Score 1) 607

by irw (#29493053) Attached to: Children's Watch Allows Parents To Track Their Kid

Century City was a lawyer drama set in the future which tried to look at future legal situations (think cloning, meddling with embryos to produce the "perfect" child, etc). Only eight episodes were produced in 2004 and four were never aired (including the one I'm thinking of; though they are (were) obtainable via p2p). One episode (Without a Tracer dealt with a possible result of this sort of device.

Basically, every child has a tracer (linked to video/audio surveillance no less). The episode revolves around a teenage girl who was fed up with being watched by her parents and removed her tracer, at which point the parents panicked because she'd apparently vanished. IIRC she hired a lawyer to get a ruling to "allow" her NOT to wear the tracer.

Their point was that this sort of device, whilst well-meaning, can become intrusive. I think (and the drama hints) that the tendency will be to rely on devices, further abdicating parental responsibility. Furthermore, I wonder if anyone's considered whether this would make the wearer EASIER to target, should the ID for their device become available, e.g. to someone wishing to kidnap a child for extortion.

The Internet

An update on the alternative DNS roots movement->

Submitted by pongo000
pongo000 writes "Salvia has written a concise update addressing the alternative DNS movement, where it's been and where it's currently headed. Of note is the demise of many of the altroots such as AlternNIC, the rise of FreeNIC from the ashes, and an attempt to merge both FreeNIC and OpenNIC in a renewed effort to provide the world with an alternative to the ICANN hegemony."
Link to Original Source
Printer

color laser printers with good graphics output?

Submitted by irw
irw writes "I'm after a choice of colour lasers with the best _available_ colour graphics quality for say $1000 or under (I'm actually in the UK, with around 700 UKP to spend). Networked if possible, duplex if possible, but colour quality is most important.

I've looked at the reviews on c|net, but differences of opinion between editors and actual users make judgement difficult. I also know that in this price range inkjets would generally give better quality, but they dont provide b+w durability and I don't want two printers.

Opinions on printers to avoid (and reasons) would also be useful, things like chip-based page counts in toner cartridges regardless of remaining toner, drive belts prone to failure, and so on."
Slashdot.org

The Slashdot effect

Submitted by
Emmanuel Cecchet
Emmanuel Cecchet writes "The LabOS and DSLab research groups at EPFL are studying the Slashdot effect . They are interested in people who would like to share experiences or traces of Slashdot/Digg/Fark effects on their systems to complement the model and impact analysis.
There is also a Slashdot distributed load generator in the works for those who would like to test if their website can handle a Slashdot effect."

The public is an old woman. Let her maunder and mumble. -- Thomas Carlyle