Comment Re:Yawn (Score 1) 145
But there is nothing stopping a bunch of regular joes from throwing a couple bucks into a pool to raise that much money together.
If any of my favorite authors put a book out like that, I'd throw $5 or $10 into the pot to get it "released".
We would need someone to administer a scheme like that - maybe they could find new authors that we might like & they might also have to do some promotion to get enough people interested in some books. What could we call those people? "Publishers" sounds like a good name for them...
Comment Re:295 exabytes (Score 1) 168
that's the total in the linked article as well - the /. headline is wrong.
Comment Re:Voiding the warranty (Score 1) 248
actually if you bought it from a UK retail outlet (PC World for example) and say you installed Linux instead of the provided OS they WILL tell you that your hardware warranty is no longer valid, or at least that's what they were telling people 2-3 years ago before there was some public outcry about it.
Just because that was what they were telling you doesn't make it true.
The Sum Total of the World's Knowledge: 250 Exabytes 168
arkenian writes "The BBC reports on an article in Science about scientists who calculate that the sum of all the world's stored data is 250 exabytes. Perhaps more interestingly, the total amount of data broadcast is 2 zettabytes (1000 exabytes) annually. In theory this means that the sum of the world's knowledge is broadcast 8 times a year, but I bet mostly that's just a lot of American Idol reruns."
Comment Re:How is it anti-science to teach... (Score 1) 726
It is intended to answer the question of how life came to exist,
Nope, that's abiogenesis - a different branch of biology altogether.
Comment Re:Idle (Score 1) 478
All of these description are pulled from this site. Of course, I replaced signs of the zodiac with races, religions, or ethnicities. My point is that astrology will not destroy the world, but it is a nonsensical way of categorizing and stereotyping people.
I don't believe in the BS myself, but I just wanted to point out that Indian horoscopes are more nuanced than that - they don't arbitrarily divide the human race into twelve groups, instead holy men extort money from you by making shit up supposedly based on the exact date, time and location of your birth. It's a very 'personalised' reading, more akin to things like cold reading than western astrology. Disclaimer: I'm of Indian ethnic origin myself (born and brought up in the UK though).
Comment Re:This is not wrong! (Score 1) 181
Then when they graduate they find out that they're competing against folks who will accept take home pay that they could exceed being a school teacher! (One of the most underpaid jobs in America BTW.) If you're a lucky enough American to land a good job in the field out of college, you'll see the other side-effect of these folks
1) This is what's classically known as free market capitalism. Something you* Americans are famous for trying to spread; if you want a protectionist economy, you really shouldn't demonise it's alternatives. Personally, I'm rather fond of this aspect of capitalism; if I want to do the same job as you and am just as capable, it's your tough luck if I'm willing to do it for a lower wage. However, good luck in trying to spread social democracy amongst the American people, I don't think you'll get far in a country where 'socialist' is an insult though.
2)Your country should pay teachers more, if they really are one of the lowest paid professions, they should be paid a lot more. Education is important and you want the best and brightest doing it. Here in the UK it's a well respected and reasonably well paid job. The best Head teachers can earn a lot of money and even the average teachers pay is good (raw numbers are skewed upwards due to London weighting, so here's a link to teacher pay grades separating them out rather than an average figure: http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6000186 )
*Disclaimer - I'm a 2nd\3rd Gen Indian from the UK, born and brought up. Here the Indian stereotype is doctor\lawyer type professions on high wages. Personally, I'm a librarian; a profession taken up for love, not money.
Comment Re:Yup (Score 1) 323
Having a representative body like a Senate already identifies the system of government as a republic.
Not necessarily - modern constitutional monarchies are also representative democracies like the USA, and dictatorships like Egypt can also be republics.
Comment Re:This is unacceptable (Score 1) 840
Comment Re:How it works (Score 1) 133
So... does this mean things like NoScript automatically prevent the issue?
Yep - all his proof of concepts needed javascript turned on for his domain.
Slashdot Launches Re-Design 2254
Today we are pleased to announce the launch of the third major re-design in our 13.5 year history, and I don't think it looks half bad.
The new theme represents a serious gutting of the underlying HTML and CSS, as well as all-new graphics. There will be many design wiggles, bug squashes, and compatibility glitches that survived testing, so bear with us for a bit.
Please direct your bug reports and feedback (good and bad!) to Garrett Woodworth who is currently
in charge of such things.
Thanks to him, Wes, Vlad, Dean, Phil and Tim, who have each worked hard to get this out the door. Juggling the needs of users, editors, and various business functions is a hard job, and you guys did good.
Comment Re:pony up the ca$h google (Score 1) 257
Google has something *far* more important in their portfolio than patents -- a division in Ireland beyond the reach of US antitrust regulation that unilaterally runs their entire US advertising sales operations. If Google decides that Oracle (and its major partners) now has to pay 10 or 100 times as much money to advertise on Google because all discounts (that otherwise apply to everyone else by default) have been revoked for them, well... Oracle won't be advertising on Google, and won't be visible in advertising in any context that relies on Google, adwords, Admobile, or the rest. Competition? Oh, right... Microsoft via Bing. I'm sure they'll roll out the red carpet and welcome Oracle with open arms. Oh, wait... does Oracle have lawsuits against Microsoft, too? Oh dear... I guess they WON'T be advertising online in the US, after all. Well, unless they start buying up ads on adult sites & sponsoring apps through MiKandi...
Still well within reach of EU antitrust regulations though; Oracle also does business in the EU so both are subject to it's rules. If Google did what you suggest, Oracle would complain to the EU and you'd have the odd situation of two large US companies battling it out in European courts.
Comment Re:Never going to work in a litigious society (Score 1) 345
no sane manufacturer is going to start mass producing self-driving vehicles of any form.
leaving a gap in the market for the insane ones?
Comment Re:Hit them back (Score 1) 783
There are places not requiring it. But generally speaking, you'd prefer to avoid them. Voluntarily.
Which ones? Would they let me move there if I wanted to or would they consider me as a trespasser?
I hear Somalia is nice this time of year...
