Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Sorry. (Score 1) 140

I get this all the time, but I can't complain. I believe in copyright. If a Taiwanese television station sells online rebroadcast rights to a website based in Shanghai with the restriction that only computers with IP addresses in the PRC can watch, that is its right. These same websites show "The Big Bang Theory" to the Chinese, but I can't watch it either.

P.S. In fact, I can't watch TBBT on CBS.com here in the US since my internet provider is Time Warner. 8=)

Comment MDBG (Score 0) 115

When translating from Chinese to English at http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=translate , the explanation is money.

October 14, 2011

Please note: This only affects the translation of text from Chinese to English and vice versa. The functionality to look up individual words or the dictionary definitions of any Chinese word in a text remains unchanged!

The translation page of this website uses (now and before) Google Translate to perform text translation. Google recently changed their previously freely available website integration APIs to a paid service. This has forced us to change the way translation results are presented.
from http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=20111014_newtranslatepage

I actually don't even know what iframes are, but this seems related. All I know is that the translations are full of google, and that two weeks ago they weren't. You need to paste or write some Chinese text in the box and click go to see the new output. Of course it won't mean as much if you never saw the old output without the word google plastered all over it.

Comment The Directive (Score 1) 214

There is no requirement that the data be sent on a CD.

Article 12
Right of access
Member States shall guarantee every data subject the right to obtain from the controller:
(a) without constraint at reasonable intervals and without excessive delay or expense:
- confirmation as to whether or not data relating to him are being processed and information at least as to the purposes of the processing, the categories of data concerned, and the recipients or categories of recipients to whom the data are disclosed,
- communication to him in an intelligible form of the data undergoing processing and of any available information as to their source,
- knowledge of the logic involved in any automatic processing of data concerning him at least in the case of the automated decisions referred to in Article 15 (1);
(b) as appropriate the rectification, erasure or blocking of data the processing of which does not comply with the provisions of this Directive, in particular because of the incomplete or inaccurate nature of the data;
(c) notification to third parties to whom the data have been disclosed of any rectification, erasure or blocking carried out in compliance with (b), unless this proves impossible or involves a disproportionate effort.

Comment Mailing Costs (Score 1) 722

Netflix is not interested in mailing you DVDs for $2 a month. From their point of view, if you have streaming for $8, the correct price for adding mailing is $8. You may think of it as paying $8 for mailing and expect that you should be able to get streaming for an extra $2, but Netflix doesn't think of it that way. If you want them to maintain warehouses full of DVDs and mailers and pay for postage, they want you to pay for all that. Their price is $8.

I gave up mailed DVDs months ago when the price went to $10 and they first started offering streaming only for $8. Now you have the chance to do the same.

Comment Tax Cheat (Score 1) 949

Amazon wants you to cheat on your taxes. It wants to help you not pay the use tax.

If the real problem for Amazon is computing the tax rate for each purchase, it could instead agreed to turn over to the Board of Equalization a list of all purchases shipped into California. Then the Board of Equalization could coordinate with the Franchise Tax Board to see if you paid the use tax, or the Board of Equalization could send you a bill for your use tax. In this way, Amazon would not be involved in computing or collecting the correct tax due.

Which would you rather: have Amazon collect the tax due or have the Board of Equalization know about every one of your purchases?

Comment Tax Rates (Score 1) 171

My income tax rate is higher than the tax rate on my wireless bill. So what? An appropriate question is whether wireless customers pay more in taxes than landline customers. Neither the article nor the study even consider that obvious question.

Facebook

Twitter Fights US Court For WikiLeaks Details 268

An anonymous reader writes "Micro-blogging site Twitter is opposing an order from a US court to reveal the account details of supporters of WikiLeaks. Twitter has called on Facebook and Google to reveal whether they also received similar court orders. As part of the US government's investigation into WikiLeaks, a court ordered Twitter, in mid-December, to give details of accounts owned by supporters of the whistle-blower site. Twitter has protested against the subpoena and informed the individuals whose account information has been requested, while raising the possibility that other social networking players have received similar orders."

Comment Audio Tapes (Score 1) 498

I have reel-to-reel audio tapes from the 60s that still play on my tape deck from the 70s. I have digital backups, but I don't know if they will last the same 40-50 years that most of the original analog tapes have. My most recent "recovery" was a transfer to digital form about four years ago.

Some of the tapes have degraded and are not recoverable as the layer from one winding of tape has stuck to the adjacent winding.

Comment Re:He wouldn't be paying income tax on that (Score 1) 650

Income tax is on income, not capital gains. He wouldn't have been paying income tax on his share sale anyway.

Don't try not paying tax on capital gains on your federal income tax return. There are lots of forms of income other than earned income: capital gains, interest, dividends, rents, etc. Unearned income is still income.

Comment Bank Safety Deposit Box (Score 1) 578

At my bank, I key in my box number and then place my right hand on a pad with pins for finger alignment. If I am me and using my right hand, the door to the vault opens without a teller required.

The place where you work probably doesn't want to hire someone to check employees in and out after verifying their identities. A hand or finger scan is probably safer from their point of view (no forged ids) and easier on you (just show up).

Submission + - How Easy Is It To Cheat In CS? (nytimes.com) 1

Pinky3 writes: The New York Times has an article on cheating in CS at Stanford, "The Temptation to Cheat in Computer Science Classes at Stanford." Here is a classic quote from one student: “I wasn’t even thinking of how it [sic] easy it would for me to be caught,” he said. One interesting strategy discussed is for the professor is to make the final count for more of the final grade each time cheating is discovered. Share your experiences as a student and/or as a instructor.

Comment Re:I do it (Score 3, Interesting) 1324

How do you address the social aspects of school? A valuable part of being in school was learning how to interact with new people, larger groups, and authority respectfully and responsibly. Its unfortunate, but part of being a productive adult is working with difficult strangers or at least working around them.

True. My daughter is a dentist. She has told me that she has a good chance of identifying the home schooled kids by their behavior in her office. They have a sense of unease about them in the office that kids who go to regular schools don't.

(She usually asks children about school while they are in the chair as part of the make-them-feel-comfortable chit-chat.)

Slashdot Top Deals

The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland"; but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.

Working...