Wildclaw - Slashdot User

In Germany, Offensive Autocomplete Is No Laughing Matter 200

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday May 14, 2013 @05:07PM from the why-are-IT-people dept.

itwbennett writes "We've all had a chuckle over Google's autocomplete results for various search queries. But one German businessman had a less funny experience when he searched for his name on Google.de: The autocomplete suggested search terms where his name was tied with 'Scientology' and 'fraud' (in German, of course). This was back in 2010. In 2012, a German court ruled that the autocomplete terms did not infringe the plaintiff's privacy. Now, a year later, the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe has overturned that ruling and ordered that Google remove offensive search suggestions when notified."

Comment Re:Argentina, Iceland, Hungary, Ukraine, (Score 1) 334

by Wildclaw on Monday May 13, 2013 @12:33PM (#43711267) Attached to: Last Forking Warning For Bitcoin

. Situation is actually very similar to ours.

Hyperinflation generally happens because the government lack the ability to properly tax the amount of resources that it needs/wants.

In Weimar that happened because the government had debt denominated in gold which it couldn't repay without taxing the economy to destruction.

In the US, the debt is not a real problem as pretty much all the debt is denominated in dollars. With a 1:1 ratio between printed currency and debt repayed that isn't really a scenario for hyperinflation.

If you want to bet on hyperinflation in the US, I would go either with failure of taxing regime (USSR collapse) or collapse in production capabilities (Zimbabwe) as being more likely scenarios for hyperinflation.

Last Forking Warning For Bitcoin 334

Posted by samzenpus on Monday May 13, 2013 @05:10AM from the listen-up dept.

ASDFnz writes "It has been just over two months since the bitcoin block chain was rocked by a near disastrous fork causing the bitcoin price to crash. The culprit of the crash was found to be a bug that prevented pre version 7.1 bitcoin clients accepting large blocks that could be generated by version 8 clients. A temporary fix was put into place by Bitcoin Project lead developer Gavin Andresen that forced version 8 clients to generate blocks that version 7.1 could understand. It is important to note though, the fix was a temporary one! In just under two days on the 15th of May the fix will expire and version 8 clients will once again be able to make large blocks that older clients will not be able to understand."

Data Leak Spurs Huge Offshore Tax Evasion Investigation 190

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday May 11, 2013 @05:57PM from the thousands-of-corporate-escape-pods-launched-in-response dept.

New submitter lxrocks writes "Tax authorities in the U.S., Britain, and Australia have announced they are working with a gigantic cache of leaked data that may be the beginnings of one of the largest tax investigations in history. The secret records are believed to include those obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that lay bare the individuals behind covert companies and private trusts in the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands, Singapore and other offshore hideaways. The IRS said, 'There is nothing illegal about holding assets through offshore entities; however, such offshore arrangements are often used to avoid or evade tax liabilities on income represented by the principal or on the income generated by the underlying assets. In addition, advisors may be subject to civil penalties or criminal prosecution for promoting such arrangements as a means to avoid or evade tax liability or circumvent information reporting requirements.'"

CO2 Levels Reach 400ppm at Mauna Loa For First Time On Record 497

Posted by Soulskill on Friday May 10, 2013 @05:55PM from the we're-number-one!-we're-number-one! dept.

Titus Andronicus writes "Today, NOAA reported, 'On May 9, the daily mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, surpassed 400 parts per million for the first time since measurements began in 1958.' For comparison, over the last 800,000 years, CO2 has ranged from roughly 180 ppm to 280 ppm. 'For the entire period of human civilization, roughly 8,000 years, the carbon dioxide level was relatively stable near that upper bound. But the burning of fossil fuels has caused a 41 percent increase in the heat-trapping gas since the Industrial Revolution, a mere geological instant, and scientists say the climate is beginning to react, though they expect far larger changes in the future.' The last time Earth had 400 ppm was probably more than 3 megayears ago."

German Court Rejects Apple's Privacy Policy 124

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday May 08, 2013 @02:12AM from the privacy-policies-need-more-than-one-button dept.

redletterdave writes "A German court rejected eight out of 15 provisions in Apple's general privacy policy and terms of data use on Tuesday, claiming that the practices of the Cupertino, Calif. company deviate too much from German laws (Google translation of German original). According to German law, recognized consumer groups can sue companies over illegal terms and conditions. Apple asks for 'global consent' to use customer data on its website, but German law insists that clients know specific details about what their data will be used for and why."

EA Is the Game Company Disney Was Looking For 254

Posted by samzenpus on Monday May 06, 2013 @06:18PM from the may-the-force-pad-be-with-you dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Electronic Arts announced today it has landed an exclusive multi-year agreement to develop and publish games based on Lucasfilms' Star Wars universe. EA said the it will create and publish Star Wars games for a 'core gaming audience' across 'all popular platforms' and genres. The EA studios creating those 'core' Star Wars games are Battlefield developer DICE, Dead Space developer Visceral Games and Mass Effect house BioWare."

A Case For a Software Testing Undergrad Major 220

Posted by samzenpus on Monday May 06, 2013 @12:36PM from the major-learning dept.

colinneagle writes "I have spent the last couple of days at the StarEast conference, listening to people explain to a roomful of testers about modeling workflows and data transitions, managing test environments in the cloud, writing automation scripts for regression tests, best methods for exploratory testing, running mobile test lab. And as I look around the room at the raw intelligence of the people who are not only absorbing that information but probing deeper into it during the Q&A sessions, I have to wonder how much easier their careers could have been if they had been able to major in Software Testing in college. It's time to give employers a testing workforce that is competitive and trained so they can stand toe-to-toe with the development team. Imagine the power of being able to hire a recent college graduate who has been taught how to develop system diagrams, build complex SQL, run log analysis, set up a cloud test environment, and write automation scripts. No more crossing your fingers that this eager young face in front of you can really pick up those skills, and no more investing so much time and money in training them on the job. We ask no less from Technical Writing and Development. Why do we have such different expectations for one of the most important functions on the team?"

Robot 'Fly' Mimics Full Range of Insect Flight 41

Posted by Soulskill on Friday May 03, 2013 @11:40AM from the flyswatters-banned-in-the-lab-that-made-them dept.

ananyo writes "A robot as small as a housefly has managed the delicate task of flying and hovering the way the actual insects do. The device uses layers of ultrathin materials that can make its wings flap 120 times a second, similar to the rate that a housefly manages. The robot's wings are composed of thin polyester films reinforced with carbon fibre ribs and its 'muscles' are made from piezoelectric crystals, which shrink or stretch depending on the voltage applied to them. Weighing in at just 80 milligrams, the tiny drone cannot carry its own power source, so has to stay tethered to the ground. It also relies on a computer to monitor its motion and adjust its attitude (abstract). Still, it is the first robot to deploy a fly's full range of aerial motion, including hovering (there's a video in the source)."

Study: Limiting Bidding On Spectrum Could Cost Billions 140

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday April 30, 2013 @10:18PM from the competition-isn't-cheap dept.

itwbennett writes "According to a study (PDF) by the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy, restricting the ability of Verizon Wireless and AT&T to bid in upcoming spectrum auctions would drive down the bidding during the auction, and could cost the U.S. treasury as much as $12 billion. Even a partial restriction of bids by Verizon and AT&T could have a significant impact on auction revenues, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a co-author of the Georgetown study. Matt Wood, policy director at digital rights group Free Press, fired back, saying 'No one is talking about completely barring AT&T and Verizon from the incentive auction. Sensible people are talking about making sure that more than two companies have a chance at obtaining spectrum. The fact that these duopolists hired economists to parrot the companies' own talking points isn't really that newsworthy.'"

Robots Help Manufacturing Recover Without Adding Jobs 559

Posted by samzenpus on Monday April 29, 2013 @12:47PM from the john-henry dept.

kkleiner writes "For the last 30 years, automation has enabled U.S. manufacturing output to increase and lift profits without having to add any traditional jobs. Now, in the last decade, nearly a third of manufacturing jobs are gone. As manufacturing goes the way of agriculture, the job market must shift into new types of work lest mass technological unemployment and civil unrest overtake these beneficial gains."

Robot Snake Could Aid Search and Rescue Operations 66

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday April 28, 2013 @07:29PM from the slither-and-save dept.

mikejuk writes "The Carnegie Mellon University Biorobotics Lab demonstrates how the snakelike robots can aid search and rescue operations in collapsed buildings. The video appeared more or less at the same time as the current real disaster in Dhaka, Bangladesh where an 8-storey building collapsed, trapping some three thousand people. Bangladesh rescue teams, helped by members of the community, have so far worked with small tools and their bare hands to bring out survivors. Having a snake robot that could provide pictures from within the building would lead to speedier and more effective rescue operations."

Comment Re:Kind of innevitable and entirely reasonable (Score 1) 297

by Wildclaw on Sunday April 28, 2013 @07:09PM (#43576853) Attached to: Canada Revenue Agency To Tax BitCoin Transactions

And if all the work is done by robots, a government is needed more than ever, because then there will be no more economic wealth redistribution through wages.

That is something I think most people don't get. Governments naturally grow to fit the size of the available labor force after the private sector has had its share. (when it doesn't, it is called austerity and is generally a bad bad thing)

Macroeconomically speaking, any government only has 4 options:

* Pay the unemployed (large government with entitlements)
* Employ the unemployed directly or indirectly (large government)
* Institute max working per week and other rules to increase number of employees in the private sector (shrinks government, grows private sector)
* Wait for inevitable collapse or civil war.

Comment Re:Capital vs Labour (Score 4, Informative) 531

by Wildclaw on Tuesday April 23, 2013 @11:33AM (#43525421) Attached to: Noodle Robots Replacing Workers In Chinese Restaurants

Whenever Marxists talk about economy they like to overstate the importance of labour and understate the importance of capital.

Umm, the whole concept of Marxism is basically based around technology causing capital to become increasingly valuable, eventually leading to the capital in a few private hands destabilizing the economy and society as a whole.

Privacy Groups Attack UK ISPs 'Collusion' With Government Snooping 91

Posted by Unknown Lamer on Tuesday April 23, 2013 @12:06AM from the must-have-something-to-hide dept.

judgecorp writes "Privacy groups have accused British ISPs of a 'conspiracy of silence' over the impact of the UK government;s proposed Communications Data Bill or 'Snooper's Charter.' The letter accuses the SPs of allowing themselves to be 'co-opted as an arm of the state' — and of not telling their customers what they are up to. Under the bill, ISPs can be ordered to store their users' communications data (the who when and where but not the content of emails etc) for police to search through."

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