Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:No (Score 2) 180

Simple, not causing disruption while people change the programming language (or start programming). If I had to wait for all browsers to support it, might as well not change at all. For change to happen needs to exist critical mass, Google just removed that from the equation.

Comment Re:Well... (Score 1) 493

What about people with other health conditions who cannot tolerate the vaccine?

This is the only pertinent question I can see because the answer to it is quite informative. Here it goes: well, like someone said, vaccination is mandatory for school, etc, so they would find out sooner or later. But even so, there are tests to find out allergies/intolerance that cause just "harm" enough (but not enough to put someone at risk or even discomfort) to identify such intolerance/allergy. And now it comes: the person that's not vaccinate will have the health buffer given by those vaccinated, hugely reducing the risk of him getting sick from that specific disease. So that person that doesn't tolerate well the inoculation is safer because others took the vaccine. And I suspect that the cases your talking about (the serious ones) were from measles vaccinations... in the 1980's. But if you're talking, for example, of the people with allergy to eggs (not intolerance, ALLERGY) and the flu vaccine, well, people with such allergy (again, people with intolerance to egg are fine!) can be inoculated anyway, but with precautions (it's the severity of the reactions that dictate the precautions). So, to sum it up: because there are enough people vaccinated it creates a buffer between the vectors (people with the disease) and non inoculated people. More than that, it stops the spreading from happening completely, and in some cases it even eradicates the disease completely (not the case with flu because it mutates fast enough and the vaccines work on strands of the virus).

Businesses

Submission + - Nationwide Google Fiber Deployment Would Cost $140 Billion (businessinsider.com) 2

An anonymous reader writes: For a lot of U.S. internet users, Google Fiber sounds too good to be true — 1Gbps speeds for prices similar to much slower plans from current providers. Google is testing the service now in Kansas City, but what would it take for them to roll it out to the rest of the country? Well, according to a new report from Goldman Sachs, the price tag would be over $140 billion. Not even Google has that kind of cash laying around. From the report: '... if Google devoted 25% of its $4.5bn annual capex to this project, it could equip 830K homes per year, or 0.7% of US households. As such, even a 50mn household build out, which would represent less than half of all US homes, could cost as much as $70bn. We note that Jason Armstrong estimates Verizon has spent roughly $15bn to date building out its FiOS fiber network covering an area of approximately 17mn homes.' Meanwhile, ISPs like Time Warner aren't sure the demand exists for 1Gbps internet, so it's unlikely they'll leap to invest in their own build-out.
Earth

Submission + - Ticking Arctic Carbon Bomb May Be Bigger Than Thought (sciencemag.org) 2

sciencehabit writes: Scientists are expressing fresh concerns about the carbon locked in the Arctic's vast expanse of frozen soil. New field studies quantify the amount of soil carbon at 1.9 trillion metric tons, suggesting that previous estimates underestimated the climate risk if this carbon is liberated. Meanwhile, a new analysis of laboratory experiments that simulate carbon release by thawed soil is bolstering worries that continued carbon emissions could unleash a massive Arctic carbon wallop.

Comment Re:Is it just me or has Europe become the privacy (Score 2) 55

While you don't explicitly try to extend your control beyond your jurisdiction[...]

It's neither explicitly nor implicitly, it's a consequence, and that consequence it's a choice made entirely by the service providers so they don't have to implement different policies (it's the easiest way out like you said).
But that also causes a problem because sooner or later that "common" policy will clash between different jurisdictions. I see a risk of that happening between US and EU, since we do have privacy protection laws, but facebook being a US company has to comply to the the x,y,z ACTs regarding data, and that can conflict between them.

And again we come back to what I said before, it's just making the service providers comply to our legislation inside our borders, regarding our rights and laws and nothing else.

Comment Re:Is it just me or has Europe become the privacy (Score 5, Informative) 55

No, we're not megalomaniac like the U.S. and we do know where our jurisdiction ends (basically at our borders).

With that said, we do it for our own rights, inside our borders and under our legal jurisdiction.

Sorry to disappoint you.

Note: And saying "don't use it if you don't agree with their policy" doesn't cut it. If it's infringing in privacy rights, it'll still be infringing even if I don't use the service, as long as the service is available for us with that policy.

Comment Re:IQ is bullshit ... so? (Score 1) 488

While you were describing the "run in circles around us" people I was "wow, that's me". Not to brag, mind you, I've spent most my life trying to be inconspicuous but to no avail really (things just comes natural to me and it's not easy when there's so much hatred for "smart asses"). Althou I did score way high in IQ tests when I was a boy, as did my little brother years after, I am able to harness my potential without trying (yeah, I'm lazy and I still show off even when I try hard not to). The only difference between me and my brother was my teacher. Her daughter was a psychologist and, from what my mom tells me, my teacher confided with her daughter regarding the difficulty she had handling me (I was a little devil). For all purposes I was seen as hyperactive... Until her daughter started giving her advice, telling her to give me specific homework to stimulate me. In 3 months I went from her worst student to her most successful one. I caught up with everyone else in class and surpassed them. All thanks to my teacher and her daughter.

Even now, all my success in life I have to thank them, who trained my capacities. They had me do memory exercises, creativity exercises, discipline myself... I can correlate things that to most seems impossible and almost all the time they are correct. So my IQ might be a factor or may not (mind you, I mentioned my little brother has having roughly the same scored IQ as I, but he lacks the capacities I have today and demonstrated to have since I was in 1st grade), but what I do know is that my training while a child, in those 4 years with that teacher, were without a doubt the reason why I am able to perform so well even today (without or without those capacities to start with).

Comment Re:Bragging (Score 1) 535

On the other hand, if you're really that good, just take some vacations and make yourself notice (or rather, your absence). Took 3 weeks in a row a couple of years ago, and my boss plead not to take so many days again.

Oh, and no, I'm not a coder, but what he wrote was quite familiar.

Image

Your Browser History Is Showing 174

tiffanydanica writes "For a lot of us our browser history is something we consider private, or at least not something we want to expose to every website we visit. Web2.0collage is showing just how easy it is (with code!) for sites to determine what sites you visit. When you visit the site it sniffs your browser history, and creates a collage of the (safe for work) sites that you visit. It is an interesting application of potentially scary technology (imagine a job application site using this to screen candidates). You can jump right into having your history sniffed if you so desire. While the collages are cool on their own merit, they also serve as an illustration of the privacy implications of browser history sniffing."

Comment Re:Bravo! (Score 1) 674

It's quite simple (at least from my PoV):

1) People are concerned about several things, not only (or not at all) data retention/online privacy, but with social and economical problems (and a more complete political "project"... I do identify with PP concerns, but I have more topics of concern then the ones that PP has, and I give more importance to those concerns on my daily life... I wouldn't just cast my vote because I agree with some of the points a party makes, I would need to identify with the more importante topics, and weight the ones I disagree against what I find acceptable versus the ones I do agree).

2) In times of crisis the votes tend to be more right winged (SWE wasn't an exception).

3) Usually the European Election is used by the voters to punish the governing party in their countries.

4) And it's not only SWE. Most countries have their own "PP", in a way or another. One of those parties might endorse lower taxes, another might go against the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy), etc.. The point is, those parties aren't suppose to be taken seriously (serious in a sense that none expects they'll have an huge representation), and the ones who vote for them usually know that. People usually vote for them so there's a lobbying party for those subjects, or just to "annoy" the more "tradicional" parties, or lack of a choice that they identify with.

Most EU countries do take (the possibility of) governmental spying serious. It's in terms of perception that things differ. I can say that at least in one of the countries where the system is being put in place is actually quite safe (I work for one ISP that's rolling out a data retention system to abide the new legislation). In terms of legislation, no customer data can be cross referenced during the investigation phase (initial phase, until there's enough evidence for an indictment, and for an investigation to take place, to access the data, it needs court approval), so that protects the identity of whoever data was requested.

Comment Re:illegal file-sharing? (Score 2, Informative) 210

Well, since we're talking about EU, that's not completely true.
Copyright, in some of the state members, falls under civil law (not without controversy). Going further more, copyright infrigement, in Portugal for example, is considered a public crime (unless it has been authorized by the authors, and in that case wouldn't be copyright infringement anyway), so there's no need for the copyright holder to press charges or sue (and can't even settle for an agreement for that matter).
Even in the name given to it there's some pointers: you call it copyright, in EU it's commonly refered to Authors Rights.

Slashdot Top Deals

Always think of something new; this helps you forget your last rotten idea. -- Seth Frankel

Working...