Comment So it sounds like..... (Score 1) 194
....they installed it under the radar.
#sorrynotsorry
Comment Re:Gayest question I've ever read... (Score 1) 59
Too bad the UK claims it.
And tangle with @BorderRockall and NATO Article 5 at your own peril!!
https://twitter.com/BorderRock...
The UK also claims legal jurisdiction over Sealand.
Not technically true. Any enquiries about Sealand are referred to the UK's Foreign And Commonwealth Office.
Sealand declared UDI before the UK extended its territorial waters from 3 to 12 nautical miles in 1987, so at the time of UDI it was in international waters.
OK so no states formally recognise it as a sovereign state, but the UK does not assert legal jurisdiction over Sealand.
Comment Re:Reverse the role (Score 1) 565
Yes people really are.
I registered the domain {myfirstname}.net in 1996.
I get several hundred emails a year where people have used {myfirstname}@{myfirstname}.net to sign up to things. It's annoying, yes
Luckily I registered the domain {mylastname}.net in 1997 and now have a different mailbox that {myfirstname}@{mylastname}.net goes to. This one does not suffer in that way.
I used to try resetting passwords and cancelling accounts, but recently I've been signed up for online access to health records(!) using my address. Firstly, it would be unprofessional of me to attempt to access the actual data (since I work in Govt Security). Secondly, the "password reset" functions want a DOB and Postcode (Zip code for those on the left of the Big Pond) to perform a reset.
So I just ignore them, other than marking new ones as spam.
I think it's partly due to the invasive & nosey nature of SO many webs(h)ites - every single one seems to want your email address, so I can't really blame people for providing "throwaway" addresses. I just wish they were not my ACTUAL address.
--
There are two sorts of people: those who can extrapo
Comment Ummm 35F = 20C? I don't think so! (Score 1) 313
32F = 0C
35F = 1.667C
20C = 68F
Oops.
Comment Re: Supply and demand (Score 1) 587
> They call it "mugging" over in India (and no, not mugging as in attacking someone and stealing their cash - I have no idea how the term came to be).
> You memorize. You don't deviate. You do not think for yourself. You do not understand a concept and come up with a solution;
> you only follow the solution that's been provided.
It's from the English "mug up" (http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/mug-up), meaning to quickly learn something.
(English is difficult, but can be understood through thorough thought though
Submission + - China's new policing computer is frontend cattle prod, backend, supercomputer (computerworld.com)
dcblogs writes: China recently deployed what it calls a "security robot" in a Shenzhen airport. It's named AnBot and patrols around the clock. It is a cone-shaped robot that includes a cattle prod. The U.S.-China Economic and Secruity Review Commission, which look at autonomous system deployments in a report last week, said AnBot, which has facial recognition capability, is designed to be linked with China's latest supercomputers.
Submission + - Hotel CEO Openly Celebrates Higher Prices After Anti-Airbnb Law Passes (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A hotel executive said a recently-passed New York law cracking down on Airbnb hosts will enable the company to raise prices for New York City hotel rooms, according to the transcript of the executive's words on a call with shareholders last week. The law, signed by New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday, slaps anyone who lists their apartment on a short-term rental site with a fine up to $7,500. It "should be a big boost in the arm for the business," Mike Barnello, chief executive of the hotel chain LaSalle Hotel Properties, said of the law last Thursday, "certainly in terms of the pricing.” Barnello's comment adds fuel the argument, made repeatedly by Airbnb and its proponents, that a law that was passed in the name of affordable housing also allows established hotels to raises prices for consumers. It was included in a memo written by Airbnb's head of global policy, Chris Lehane, to the Internet Association, a tech trade group, reviewed by the Washington Post. LaSalle, a Bethesda, MD-based chain, owns hotels around the country, including New York City. The memo is the latest volley in a bitter fight that has pit the hotel industry, unions, and affordable housing advocates against Airbnb and its supporters. At the heart of the fight is a debate over the societal value of the Airbnb platform and its role in the economy of cities throughout the world. The question is whether Airbnb has been a net benefit, by enabling middle class city-dwellers to make extra money by renting out their homes, or whether it has had the unintended consequence of exacerbating affordable housing crises in expensive cities such as New York and Los Angeles.
Meg Whitman Campaign Shows How Not To Use Twitter 147
tsamsoniw writes "California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman's campaign team attempted to share with her Twitter followers an endorsement from a police association. Unfortunately, the campaign press secretary entered an incorrect or incomplete Bit.ly URL in the Tweet, which took clickers to a YouTube video featuring a bespectacled, long-haired Japanese man in a tutu and leggings rocking out on a bass guitar. And for whatever reason, the Tweet, which went out on the 18th, has remained active through today."
Australian Visitors Must Declare Illegal Porn To Customs Officers 361
Australian Justice Minister Brendan O'Connor has advised visitors to take a better safe than sorry policy when it comes to their porn stashes, and declare all porn that they think might be illegal with customs officers. From the article: "The government said it changed the wording on passenger arrival cards after becoming aware of confusion among travellers about what pornography to declare. 'People have a right to privacy and while some pornography is legal and does not need to be disclosed, all travellers should be aware that certain types of pornography are illegal and must be declared to customs,' Mr O'Connor said."
Comment The moral of this story? (Score 1) 430
FTS,
"The moral of this story seems to be that it is a bad idea to buy a game just before a major holiday."
Um, no the moral of this story is that DRM is beyond USELESS and only punishes the honest customers. I am sure that as usual the "pirates" are playing the game just fine.
Another moral to take away is don't give your money to people that want to treat you like a thief EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE ALREADY GIVEN THEM MONEY.
Comment Re:Huge learning curve. (Score 1) 742
There is such a huge learning curve, there is simply no way for your average young developer to get into it. Some say that it's good that only older, more experienced people are getting into it. I would argue that when today's youth are older and more experienced, they still won't be working on it.
That's because the average reflects the lowering of standards. Average CS student 15-20 years ago was expected to do Pascal/Ada, C, a full-course on assembly (and not just a few weeks), Lisp/Prolog, create multi-threaded/multi-tasked applications from scratch (and if lucky to be at a good university, create a bootloader or mini-os or an embedded app from scratch as well) by the time of graduation. Some even were lucky to learn how to create primitive calculators with hardware in their computer org classes.
Average CS student now is expected to know how to create a dynamic web site in Java or whatever without ever having to learn how all of this shit works from the moment they press the "power on" button on their computers. Mind you, I do Java for a living, so it's not like I'm a C-enamored freshman bashing Java development for the heck of it.
So to say that the learning curve is too great for the average developer is just a reflection of the averages TODAY (and an indictment of our CS education nowadays.)
Comment The real work needed isn't in the kernel. (Score 2, Informative) 742
I'm a veteran Linux user but have moved to OSX some time ago, since it gives me the UNIX I need, and the GUI I so sorely crave.
BUT recently, I was trying to get someone's computer up and running, and Linux was the only thing that would install due to some bug or other, so I temporarily put an Ubuntu install on their computer. Decided it would be a nice experiment for a non power user, to see how well they could cope.
He hated it. He couldn't get flash going, so it wouldn't work with certain sites. He was having trouble doing basic navigation of the OS, and had no idea which programs really did what beyond the basic.
There were a host of other issues I can't really remember now, but it was a very frustrating experience for him, and he was very happy when he got his Windows 7 back.
I sat him down with my macbook and he seemed to figure out OSX handily.
The Kernel works well. The OS handles many things very well internally, but the overall user experience, while MUCH MUCH improved over how things used to be, just is not as easy to use as a Mac or Windows computer.
The real work needs to be done by UI designers with coders to support them. Even connecting to a wireless network can be a chore. God forbid a driver doesn't work or something along those lines and you need to open a terminal.
While you'd think the 'many eyeballs' thing would take care of something like that, it seems all these eyeballs and the heads behind them just want their OS to work, and for a non power user right now, I wouldn't call it ready.
BUT recently, I was trying to get someone's computer up and running, and Linux was the only thing that would install due to some bug or other, so I temporarily put an Ubuntu install on their computer. Decided it would be a nice experiment for a non power user, to see how well they could cope.
He hated it. He couldn't get flash going, so it wouldn't work with certain sites. He was having trouble doing basic navigation of the OS, and had no idea which programs really did what beyond the basic.
There were a host of other issues I can't really remember now, but it was a very frustrating experience for him, and he was very happy when he got his Windows 7 back.
I sat him down with my macbook and he seemed to figure out OSX handily.
The Kernel works well. The OS handles many things very well internally, but the overall user experience, while MUCH MUCH improved over how things used to be, just is not as easy to use as a Mac or Windows computer.
The real work needs to be done by UI designers with coders to support them. Even connecting to a wireless network can be a chore. God forbid a driver doesn't work or something along those lines and you need to open a terminal.
While you'd think the 'many eyeballs' thing would take care of something like that, it seems all these eyeballs and the heads behind them just want their OS to work, and for a non power user right now, I wouldn't call it ready.
Why the First Cowboy To Draw Always Gets Shot 398
cremeglace writes "Have you ever noticed that the first cowboy to draw his gun in a Hollywood Western is invariably the one to get shot? Nobel-winning physicist Niels Bohr did, once arranging mock duels to test the validity of this cinematic curiosity. Researchers have now confirmed that people indeed move faster if they are reacting, rather than acting first."
Why Time Flies By As You Get Older 252
Ant notes a piece up on WBUR Boston addressing theories to explain the universal human experience that time seems to pass faster as you get older. Here's the 9-minute audio (MP3). Several explanations are tried out: that brains lay down more information for novel experiences; that the "clock" for nerve impulses in aging brains runs slower; and that each interval of time represents a diminishing fraction of life as we age.
Researchers Pooh-Pooh Algae-Based Biofuel 238
Julie188 writes "Researchers from the University of Virginia have found that current algae biofuel production methods consume more energy, have higher greenhouse gas emissions and use more water than other biofuel sources, such as switchgrass, canola and corn. The researchers suggest these problems can be overcome by situating algae production ponds behind wastewater treatment facilities to capture phosphorous and nitrogen — essential algae nutrients that otherwise need to come from petroleum."
Slashdot Top Deals
"I got a question for ya. Ya got a minute?" -- two programmers passing in the hall
