Comment ___ for the Executive (Score 4, Funny) 75
Err... so what's all this paper crap between the covers? Oh, I get it, that's so it doesn't fall over. Very clever.
Living In Tokyo's Capsule Hotels
269
afabbro writes "Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 once offered a night’s refuge to salarymen who had missed the last train home. Now with Japan enduring its worst recession since World War II, it is becoming an affordable option for people with nowhere else to go. The Hotel 510’s capsules are only 6 1/2 feet long by 5 feet wide. Guests must keep possessions, like shirts and shaving cream, in lockers outside of the capsules. Atsushi Nakanishi, jobless since Christmas says, 'It’s just a place to crawl into and sleep. You get used to it.'”
Comment Re:Why not html forms? (Score 1) 216
Adobe has made PDFs more accessible while WC3 has made HTML and other web programming less accessible. As a result web programmers get to keep their jobs, which I'm guessing was the point of obfuscating web programming to the point that most non-geeks don't want to deal with it, and non-geeks that need to make forms will go with an Adobe product because it "just works."
Can Imaging Technologies Save Us From Terrorists? 480
itwbennett writes "In the aftermath of the failed Christmas Day terrorist attack, full body scanning technologies such as millimeter wave and backscatter are regaining popularity, writes blogger Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols in a recent post. But, he asks, do they really work? The TSA seems to think so. It has just issued a contract to purchase more millimeter wave scanners from L3 Communications. Michael Chertoff, the former homeland security secretary, told the New York Times that if these scanners had been in place, they would have caught the would-be bomber. Ben Wallace, the Conservative Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom, disagrees, saying that the technologies can't detect the kind of low-density explosive that the would-be terrorist tried to use on December 25th."
Comment Re:Eh (Score 1) 736
That trillion dollars wasn't used to 'fight terrorism,' it was used to create jobs. Terrorism was just the excuse used to create those jobs. War is a great way to motivate people when there's nothing meaningful left for them to do. I'd hate to imagine how much worse the current recession would have been if we weren't involved in all these conflicts around the world.
Submission + - How Can I Contribute to Open Source? 2
rtobyr writes: "I work for a state government agency. That means we can't donate money, because it's a "gift of public funds." I had the idea to put up a web page stating that we "use the following free software to save tax dollars" as a way to help spread the word about Open Source software, but management calls this "endorsement." A mirror server is a no-go as well. I'm certainly not a talented enough programmer to help with development. I've donated $10 here and there out of my own pocket, but I'm hoping you Slashdotters have some creative ideas about how my organization could give something back to the teams that create free software we benefit so much from."
Comment Re:Floppies ? (Score 1) 483
When I started using Linux the source code was written on enormous stone slabs. It took months to schlep those across the country and by the time we had the whole batch of them it was already time to start getting the next release!
Comment seems a bit pricey (Score 4, Insightful) 234
Considering you can get legit hardware in a netbook now for around $200, getting what is essentially a bag o' crap for half that isn't much of deal.
Comment Re:Prior art: Nintendo Wii Fit (Score 1) 553
Oh, I am pretty sure those two things are universally exclusive.
Not really. Fat people just fuck other fat people producing many small fat people. If fat people didn't fuck that'd solve the whole problem, wouldn't it?
Comment Re:Tbh, these definitions need to be dropped. (Score 1) 362
Big game publishers can't risk change and hobbyists can't quit their day jobs so expect any progress to be very slow. On the bright side, this should mean you haven't had to buy any new RPGs in the last five years or so.
Comment Re:Missing Option (Score 2, Insightful) 572
First - no, you won't.
Second - even if you did, why should the FCC care? No, really, think about it. Do you think any government agency is going to purposely put thousands of people out of jobs, cause stocks to drop even lower, and send a great big Fuck You to the corporate bosses who pay their paychecks all to make a couple thousand disgruntled geeks happy? When those disgruntled geeks are just going to go away if they're ignored for a while?
I feel your pain. I don't have a smart phone, but broadband is in the same boat. Just bend over and take it like a good consumer whore. The only people who can change this system are the people running it and I don't think they have any intention of changing it in our favor.
Second - even if you did, why should the FCC care? No, really, think about it. Do you think any government agency is going to purposely put thousands of people out of jobs, cause stocks to drop even lower, and send a great big Fuck You to the corporate bosses who pay their paychecks all to make a couple thousand disgruntled geeks happy? When those disgruntled geeks are just going to go away if they're ignored for a while?
I feel your pain. I don't have a smart phone, but broadband is in the same boat. Just bend over and take it like a good consumer whore. The only people who can change this system are the people running it and I don't think they have any intention of changing it in our favor.
Comment Re:People fall for spam? (Score 2, Insightful) 118
how can the amount of effort expended in creating spam compare to the amount of money they receive from suckers who click on "V1AGRA!11!!" links?
You're saying you don't know anybody who clicks on ads because they read "Click Here" ?
Comment Re:How does it compare with the other NVidia drive (Score 1) 289
Linux developers can arbitrarily stop supporting whatever they damn well don't feel like supporting any longer so they can go program extra functions into their USB foam dart cannon. Just sayin'.
Comment will be? (Score 4, Insightful) 215
If it and its carrier partners win, 'Internet freedom' will mean freedom for carriers to be the 21st century's robber barons
What do you mean - will be? We already pay a ridiculous monthly fee for piss poor access that you can't even get in most parts of the US. The areas that do get broadband access are all carved up into local monopolies so that users can stay crowded on the same cables as 10 years ago that can no longer carry the load and if you do try to use the broadband you paid for you get disconnected or throttled by the carrier. So how is this any more than business as usual?
Russia Confirms Failed Missile Launch Caused Norway's Light Show 236
Ch_Omega writes "According to this article over at BarentsObserver, the giant spiral seen on the sky over Norway Wednesday morning local time has been confirmed to be the result of a failed Russian missile launch. Russia now confirms that '...the missile was launched from submerged position in the White Sea by the nuclear submarine Dmitri Donskoy. Studies of the telemetric data from the launch show that the two first stages of the missile functioned as they should, and that a technical malfunctioning occurred during the third stage.' There is also an article on this at The Daily Mail."
