nmoore - Slashdot User

Comment Re:He needs to make some changes. (Score 1) 133

by nmoore on Friday May 10, 2013 @08:55AM (#43683877) Attached to: Reps Introduce Bipartisan Bill To Legalize Mobile Device Unlocking

It doesn't violate copyright, it violates the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions—exactly the thing that the current proposal would change. Part of the proposed change:

It shall not be a violation of this section to circumvent a technological measure in connection with a work protected under this title if the purpose of such circumvention is to engage in a use that is not an infringement of copyright under this title.

Circumventing an access control measure was never (by itself) an "infringement of copyright": It is a separate offense created by the DMCA.

Submission + - How To Tell if Your Hotel Guest Is a Terrorist (schneier.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09, 2012 @10:34PM

An anonymous reader writes: Bruce Schneier takes a look at a list from the Department of Homeland Security which details 19 suspicious behaviors for hotel guests as indicators of possible terrorism. Further discussed is the DHS initiative "If you see something say something", and the possible problems with recruiting amateurs for security, and likely result of getting amateur security in return.

Submission + - Climate Change Could Drive Coffee to Extinction by 2080 1

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Friday November 09, 2012 @10:20PM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Coffee is the world's favorite beverage and the second-most traded commodity after oil. Now Nick Collins reports that rising global temperatures and subtle changes in seasonal conditions could make 99.7 per cent of Arabica-growing areas unsuitable for the plant before the end of the century and in some areas as soon as 2020. Even if the beans do not disappear completely from the wild, climate change is highly likely to impact on yields and the taste of coffee, a beverage of choice among slashdot readers, will change in future decades. "The worst case scenario, as drawn from our analyses, is that wild Arabica could be extinct by 2080," says Justin Moat. "This should alert decision makers to the fragility of the species." Arabica is one of only two species of bean used to make coffee and is by far the most popular, accounting for 70 per cent of the global market including almost all fresh coffee sold in high street chains and supermarkets in the US and most of Europe. A different bean known as Robusta is used in freeze-dried coffee and is commonly drunk in Greece and Turkey, but Robusta's high caffeine content makes it much less pleasant to most palates. In some areas, such as the Boma Plateau in South Sudan, the demise could come as early as 2020, based on the low flowering rate and poor health of current crops. The researchers used field study and 'museum' data (including herbarium specimens) to run bioclimatic models for wild Arabica coffee, in order to deduce the actual (recorded) and predicted geographical distribution for the species. "Arabica can only exist in a very specific pace with a very specific number of other variables," says Aaron Davis, head of coffee research at the Royal Botanic Gardens. "It is mainly temperature but also the relationship between temperature and seasonality – the average temperature during the wet season for example.""

Submission + - Stuxnet Infected, But Didn't Affect Chevron Network In 2010 (cnet.com)

Submitted by Penurious Penguin on Friday November 09, 2012 @08:51PM

Penurious Penguin writes: CNET and the Wall Street Journal in correspondence with Chevron representatives reveal that back in 2010, Stuxnet did reach Chevron, where it managed to infect, but not significantly affect their network. The issue was, according one Chevron rep, "immediately addressed" and "without incident". Chevron's general manager of the earth sciences department, Mark Koelmel, said to the CIO Journal:

"I don't think the U.S. government even realized how far it had spread," ... "I think the downside of what they did is going to be far worse than what they actually accomplished."

Submission + - Occupy Wall Street's Rolling Jubilee to Bail Out the People (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by Quince alPillan on Friday November 09, 2012 @07:55PM

Quince alPillan writes: Occupy Wall Street has a new plan for helping the 99%. They've set up an old-fashioned telethon they're calling the Rolling Jubilee to buy up bad debt with donations and then forgiving the debt outright. As a test run, they set themselves up as a debt collector and they were able to use $500 to buy $14,000 worth of bad debt, which they then forgave. The telethon will be held at the Le Poisson Rouge on Thursday, November 15. It will also stream online.

Comment Re:Good for him (Score 1) 576

by nmoore on Thursday November 08, 2012 @06:59PM (#41925681) Attached to: All of Nate Silver's State-Level Polling Predictions Proved True

I cast a ballot to vote for a slate of electors who claimed they would cast their electoral vote in a particular way. The duplicity is the ballot had the Presidential candidate's name and not the electors' names, but in my state only politics, and not law, demands that the electors actually vote for the name I selected.

Beautifully Rendered Music Notation With HTML5 259

Posted by timothy on Friday May 14, 2010 @08:09AM from the pretty-printing-for-piano dept.

An anonymous reader writes "This is incredible. This guy has built a music notation engraver entirely in JavaScript, allowing for real-time music editing right in the browser. Here's a demo. The library has no external dependencies, and all the glyphs, scores, beams, ties, etc. are positioned and rendered entirely in JavaScript."

Microsoft Claims Google Chrome Steals Your Privacy 522

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday March 31, 2010 @07:11PM from the our-competitor-is-bad dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft is going on the offensive against Google, accusing the search giant of creating a browser that does not respect user privacy. The company posted a video, embedded below, on TechNet Edge with the following description: 'Watch a demo on how Google Chrome collects every keystroke you make and how Internet Explorer 8 keeps your information private through two address bars and In Private browsing.' Microsoft's first criticism is Chrome's combining the address bar and the search box into a single entry box; IE8 keeps those fields separate. 'By keeping these boxes separate, your privacy is better protected and the addresses of the sites you're visiting aren't automatically shared with Microsoft, or anyone else,' says IE product manager Pete LePage."

Comment Re:...So.... (Score 1) 174

by nmoore on Thursday July 02, 2009 @10:45AM (#28557731) Attached to: Your Browser History Is Showing

who's the numbnuts who thought it would be a great idea to make this information available to anyone who asks for it?

Changing the color of a link you've visited has been around forever. Changing the style of a link you've visited to one that can send information back to the server eg "background-image:url(/visited.pl?site=slashdot)", that's newer.

Sorry but I don't think I fully understand how that relates to this story. Would you elaborate please? What you describe there sounds like a re-implementation of so-called "http ping."

By putting this CSS under an a:visited selector, they only get the ping if the link points to a URL you have visited. Though they can't get your entire history list, they can query whether (your browser thinks) you've been to a specific page.

Comment Re:Zero-watt computer (screen) standby (Score 2, Informative) 222

by nmoore on Wednesday January 21, 2009 @09:22PM (#26554957) Attached to: Fujitsu To Show Off "Zero-Watt" PC At CeBIT

You're right. According to that document (p. 4, about halfway down), the machine draws 1.6 to 2.7 W (depending on model) in standby; 1.5 to 2.1 W in soft-off with wake-on-LAN enabled; and no power in soft-off with wake-on-LAN disabled ("wake up power button only"). So the article is simply wrong when it says the computer is "able to use no power while in standby mode", unless they're redefining "standby" to mean S5 rather than S3.

It may simply be that, when WOL is disabled, shutting down the machine puts it into "mechanical off" rather than "soft off"—just like in pre-ATX PCs.

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