17257482
submission
bhagwad writes:
The climate change negotiations in Copenhagen proved that even in the face of great danger, no one wants to pony up the money for a collective good. What if one day we're debating not climate change, but the need to leave the earth itself to save our species (or even life?) We'll need huge amounts of money for research and building the hardware. To prevent another "Copenhagen," I've decided to donate my personal wealth when I die so it accumulates for hundreds of years and provides the "kickstart" money that will be needed at that stage. 1 million dollars becomes 491 thousand trillion dollars in just 500 years with a mere 7% growth rate (peanuts of the stock market and this accounts for inflation too.) What do you think? Can such an idea work? What precautions will I need to take?
14670232
submission
bhagwad writes:
In a strange case of the pot calling the kettle black, the Chinese government has decided that parents no longer have the right to monitor the virtual life of their children. The reason? It violates their privacy!
13876218
submission
bhagwad writes:
India's attempts to tag everyone with an ID number has run into a roadblock is some Christian villages. Apparently the villagers fear they will be associated with the devil since according to the Bible, everyone having the "mark of the beast" will go to hell. These people are not afraid of punishment. They relish this opportunity to prove their faith because the Bible also proclaims that they will be persecuted
12104240
submission
bhagwad writes:
While Chinese users already have to log in to comment on major news portals, this latest measure will force people to use their real names while registering.
Some of us have been worried for a while that other countries might force their citizens to do the same. Luckily, now opponents can just point to China and say "Look! The Chinese are doing it. You don't want to get labeled along with them do you?"
8175932
submission
bhagwad writes:
After a Slashdot story on how Bing decided sex was too sensitive for India, Yahoo! and its associated site Flickr have decided to do the same.
While it's true that this is because of India passing laws that prohibit the publication of porn, no complaint was ever launched (and never will be) and glorious Google still continues to return accurate and unbiased results. So why is Yahoo! doing this? Is it because of its tie up with Bing? I assume this is the case.
Indian ISPs have already told the government and the courts that its not their job to restrict porn and it's technologically infeasible too. In the absence of a complaint, I can only assume that Yahoo! has decided to do this of their own volition. Given that the "sex" search term is searched more in India than in any other country, isn't it the duty of Yahoo! to provide accurate results to its customers? In the face of the fact that it can always plausibly deny control of its results and claim that filtering porn is infeasible, why in god's name is it deciding to do this to sex hungry Indians? Since Yahoo! already has a low search market share in India, this will drive it even lower. Good riddance I say.
7785980
submission
bhagwad writes:
The Delhi High court has found Microsoft guilty of using money and influence to make it expensive to defend against piracy cases. According to the judge, "When the constitution of India provides equality before law, this equality has to be all pervasive and cannot be allowed to be diluted because of money power or lobbying power." Furthermore, the judge said that Microsoft had to deposit a certain amount of money beforehand and if they lost the case, the money would go to the defendants for their legal and travel expenses. For icing on the cake, the court also appointed a commissioner to probe the matter further and ordered Microsoft to pay the costs. In an age where muscled corporations harass the ordinary person through expensive litigation, it's highly pleasurable to see them rapped for it by a judge.
