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Submission + - Who needs the Queens Navy when we have Netflix? (geeksnack.com)

jkyrlach writes: GeekSnack is running a story that will surprise exactly no-one in the Slashdot community: when consumers are given an affordable and convenient way to legally access copyrighted material, piracy rates plummet. I imagine that the MPAA will be posting any moment now to acknowledge how foolish it was for them not to heed our advice on this issue a decade ago.

Comment Opens up a lot of options... (Score 2) 482

for maximizing employee productivity. Most of those workers won't be able to go somewhere else without taking a big pay cut. That means he can set as high of a standard for productivity has he wants, because the workers will do just about anything to keep their higher-than-market wages. I wonder if anyone will be able to make over 70k at his firm?

Comment On the surface... (Score 2) 538

...this does not seem to be that serious an infraction. To the average citizen, they will see this as the equivalent of using Firefox or Chrome when told to use only IE. (which, interestingly enough, her staff at the state department begged her to allow).In reality though, this is a VERY serious violation of IT/Security policy. The govt run email system has certain protections in place to ensure confidentiality, repel intrusion, prevent staff from snooping on emails, etc. While other email providers also care about these things, it's almost guaranteed that will not go to the same lengths to protect against and punish malfeasance. If I were her, the NSA revelations would have given me stomach ulcer. A govt email could easily be excluded from any digital reconnaissance conducted by the NSA. Her gmail or yahoo account? Just the opposite. And heaven help us if other countries have anything close to our capabilities/level of infiltration into 3rd party email providers. She should seriously be pondering how many of her foreign policy initiatives were foiled as result of her utter laziness and willful ignorance. They should fire some people at the state department -- anyone who received an email from her should have noticed she was using her personal email, and should have "blown the whistle". And this should be a major campaign issue -- but it won't.Our political system is not for the rational -- it's for the power hungry and those entertained by the power hungry. Full hypocrisy disclosure -- I also love House of Cards.

Comment I say, blame the NSA... (Score 0) 232

Here's what I want to know. Did the NSA have knowledge about this vulnerability? If they did, and they didn't report it, they should be held at least partly accountable. Based on what we've learned that the NSA knows, it's likely they both knew about these vulnerabilities and knew that Target was vulnerable to them. Target should launch a FOIA request to find that out, and then sue the NSA for failing to disclose these vulnerabilities.

Comment Re:Good (Score 1) 491

Well, it wasn't a quote, and it is an old lesson. But still, Luke won by refusing to fight his father.

You must have seen a different movie than I did. He didn't refuse to fight his father, he refused to expediently KILL his father. Even though he did fight his father, even delivering a dismembering blow, he was able to transcend his paralyzing fears of both giving into the dark-side and not protecting the people he cared about. Free from his fear, he became free to simply turn-down Palapatine's command to execute Darth Wheezer. Fortunately, his transcendence unlocked the better part of Anakin's nature, which came flooding out when the emperor brought out his force-Tesla-taze, resulting in the overthrow of the emperor, wheezer, and the armada of lawn darts.

Comment Relief interviewer..... (Score 3, Interesting) 259

This is a great guest, especially relevant to the view of the greater Slashdot community. But this is a horrible interview. Please listen to NPR to understand how real interviews are done. A real interviewer knows how draw out the "goods" from their guest. For example, this guy has a pretty even-keeled vocal delivery of information, so a questions that help connect to his passions might be a good idea. "Why are you writing that book", why did you feel debunking was important to do", "what is the most tragic con you know about", etc. I don't wish to be cruel, but this guy asking the questions does not sound like he has a natural gift for talking. Can I do the rest of the interview?

Submission + - Videotaping Law Enforcement Validated by Federal J (reason.com)

jkyrlach writes: The abuse of the innocent citizen trying merely to document their encounters with law enforcement via videotape have been a frequent topic of /. discussions. Legal precedent may finally be developing to clearly establish the rights of citizenry to monitor their police force with an important victory for freedom that transpired last week in a federal court in Oregon.

Submission + - New BBC Sports Website uses "Semantic Web Technolo (bbc.co.uk)

whyloginwhysubscribe writes: A technical blog post describes how the BBC have rolled out the latest changes to it's sports website in anticipation of the Summer Olympics in London.

The innovative content management system extends the already available dynamic semantic publishing, which enables their journalists "to spend more time creating great content and less time managing that content".

The blog post covers some of the technical and lots of the HCI / UI design decisions and is accompanied by a non-technical overview of the re-design.

NASA

Submission + - NASA Studying Solar-electric Propulsion for "Space (gizmag.com)

Zothecula writes: Last year, NASA announced it was seeking proposals for mission concept studies of a high-power solar electric propulsion (SEP) system that could be used in a "space tugboat." Such a ship would be used ferry payloads in low Earth orbit (LEO) into higher energy orbits, including geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) and Lagrange point one (L1) — saving on fuel and the use of expensive secondary boosters. NASA also anticipates an SEP system could be used to propel spacecraft into deep space for science missions and for the placement, service, resupply, repositioning and salvaging of space assets by commercial operators.
Japan

Submission + - Japan plans to merge major science bodies (nature.com)

ananyo writes: In its battle against a sluggish economy, Japan's government is gearing up to make cost savings through a root-and-branch reform of the country's science system, merging some of its most prominent research organizations.

Plans approved by the government's cabinet on 20 January would consolidate the RIKEN network of basic-research laboratories with the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED) and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) — the national funding body.

But with few details about the timing, potential cost savings or full implications of the change, many researchers are concerned that it could be a recipe for harsh funding cuts and even greater bureaucracy.

Hardware

Submission + - Synchronized Nano-Quadrotor Swarm (makezine.com)

PerlJedi writes: "Sorry to shamelessly just quote another site, but this is just plain awesome.


It used to be that having your own quadrotor drone was cutting edge. Now that the average joe can pick one up at their local mall for a couple hundred bucks means that you’ve got to step your game up if you don’t want to be seen as pedestrian. That’s why today’s aspiring UAV enthusiasts are working with swarms. Not just any swarms either, but swarms of nano-quadrotors. These days, budget conscious drone makers are going small to cut costs and shed ounces.

"

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