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Comment Re: The reason for generations (Score 1) 244

The answer is increased productivity, temporary displacement of workers, commoditization of services that were formerly rendered by humans. People go on living. All this FUD about AI is very silly. How does the world still easily support 7B+ people when people seriously talked about the need to depopulate the earth in the 1970â(TM)s? Technological progress in agriculture. How will the world still have jobs for 8-9B+ people when AI has âoetaken overâ? Technological progress to increase the job productivity of every individual human thanks to AI.

Comment totally annoying (Score 1) 294

My 10 month old son is recovering from a bone marrow transplant. We LIVE in the hospital. We were in a room recently that had a wireless repeater with a bright blue LED. Nothing contributes more to a less sleepful night for a baby (and a parent who sleeps in the room with him) than that single point of annoying light on the ceiling. Seems to me an old school fuse type device that trips when the access point loses power or signal would make more sense than those stupid LED lights.

Comment Columbus, OH (Score 1) 464

Columbus, OH. Right in the middle of the Midwest. Very reasonable living expenses. Lots of national company HQs are there. Most of those aren't tech companies, but they all need some kind of tech solutions. Mass transit doesn't really exist, so you need a car. But the traffic is actually pretty good. Weather is fairly moderate for a northern state. 90 peaks in summer, winter rarely goes below 20 at the coldest.
Movies

Lost Star Wars Scene In the Wild 294

Someone managed to get a clip on-line of the lost Star Wars scene from Jedi where Luke is shown crafting his Lightsaber. The full clip will apparently be included on the Blu-ray box set expected to come out in 2011. Hit the link below to see what is circulating. It's not much, but it looks real. Can't wait to see what they include in the 2015 version.
Update: 08/16 22:44 GMT by S : Lucasfilm complained, and YouTube took the video down.

Comment Re:Consistent Histories? (Score 1) 365

I love this! The "science is god" crowd always loves to cry foul when anyone claims that there are fundamental absolutes about morality, existence, and rationality because, well, obviously we don't know everything. But when science fiction *possibilities* (not probabilities, but possibilities - and in this case, rather far-fetched ones) are taken to task, they want to cry foul again. So which is it, atheists/evolutionists/agnostics? Do we have ANY reasonable, rational basis to believe that information CAN be transmitted faster than light? (Cluetrain: The answer is NO!) Do we have any reasonable, rational basis to disprove God's existence either? (Cluetrain: no, you don't... perhaps you can't prove His existence, but you also can't disprove His existence, either, on purely material grounds.) BTW, The General Theory of Relativity *refined* Newton's theories; it didn't blow it away and make it null and void.
Social Networks

How To Spread Word About My FOSS Project? 244

An anonymous reader writes "I'm in a bit of a bind with an open source web software project of mine. It's a very small project that I've been developing for over three years. By now it's got a promising feature set, but very few users and virtually no community around it. The problem is that people I have asked to try it refuse to do so because it doesn't have a thriving community. It's an infinite loop: without users, we won't have a community, and without a community, users aren't coming. So, Slashdot, my question is: how can I build a community and help get the word out about a project led by 2 people and with only 5-6 regulars on our forum and IRC?"
Privacy

Tracking Browsers Without Cookies Or IP Addresses? 265

Peter Eckersley writes "The EFF has launched a research project called Panopticlick, to determine whether seemingly innocuous browser configuration information (like User Agent strings, plugin versions and fonts) may create unique fingerprints that allow web users to be tracked, even if they limit or delete cookies. Preliminary results indicate that the User Agent string alone has 10.5 bits of entropy, which means that for a typical Internet user, only one in about 1,500 (2 ^ 10.5) others will share their User Agent string. If you visit Panopticlick, you can get a reading of how rare or unique your browser configuration is, as well as helping EFF to collect better data about this problem and how best to defend against it." I remember laughing years ago when I would see users who had modified their user agent string with some sort of defiant pro-privacy message, without realizing that their action made them uniquely identifiable out of hundreds of thousands of others.

Why You Should Use OpenGL and Not DirectX 515

stickyboot writes "The independent games developer Wolfire describes why they decided to use OpenGL instead of DirectX. The article mainly discusses the marketing strategies behind DirectX and how the API became so popular. It also goes over why a developer would choose OpenGL over DirectX and what this decision means for the gamer. 'Back in 1997, the situation was similar to how it is now. Microsoft was running a massive marketing campaign for Direct3D, and soon everyone "just knew" that it was faster and better than OpenGL. This started to change when Chris Hecker published his open letter denouncing DirectX. Soon after that, John Carmack posted his famous OpenGL rant, and put his money where his mouth was by implementing all of Id Software's games in OpenGL, proving once and for all that DirectX was unnecessary for high-end 3D gaming. This lesson appears to have been forgotten over the last few years. Most game developers have fallen under the spell of DirectX marketing, or into the whirlpool of vicious cycles and network advantages.'"
Security

Fixing Security Issue Isn't Always the Right Answer 361

Trailrunner7 writes "In a column on Threatpost, Bruce Schneier writes that the recent security breach at Newark Airport shows that fixing a given security problem isn't always the right move. 'An unidentified man breached airport security at Newark Airport on Sunday, walking into the secured area through the exit, prompting an evacuation of a terminal and flight delays that continued into the next day. This problem isn't common, but it happens regularly. The result is always the same, and it's not obvious that fixing the problem is the right solution. American airports can do more to secure against this risk, but I'm reasonably sure it's not worth it. We could double the guards to reduce the risk of inattentiveness, and redesign the airports to make this kind of thing less likely, but that's an expensive solution to an already rare problem. As much as I don't like saying it, the smartest thing is probably to live with this occasional but major inconvenience.'"
Privacy

Canada Supreme Court Broadens Internet "Luring" Offense 596

An anonymous reader points out this report that a Canadian Supreme Court has broadened its interpretation of an existing law designed to punish adults who attempt to meet children online for criminal purposes; under the court's interpretation, says the article, that would now "include anyone having an inappropriate conversation with a child — even if the chats aren't sexual in nature and the accused never intended to meet the alleged victim." The story quotes Mark Hecht, of the organization Beyond Borders, thus: "If you're an adult and if you're having conversations with a child on the Internet, be warned because even if your conversations aren't sexual and even if your conversations are not for the purpose of meeting a child and committing an offence against a child, what you're doing is potentially a crime."
Google

Google Launches Public DNS Resolver 540

AdmiralXyz writes "Google has announced the launch of their free DNS resolution service, called Google Public DNS. According to their blog post, Google Public DNS uses continuous record prefetching to avoid cache misses — hopefully making the service faster — and implements a variety of techniques to block spoofing attempts. They also say that (unlike an increasing number of ISPs), Google Public DNS behaves exactly according to the DNS standard, and will not redirect you to advertising in the event of a failed lookup. Very cool, but of course there are questions about Google's true motivations behind knowing every site you visit."
Media

Best PC DVR Software, For Any Platform? 536

jshamacher writes "I've used MythTV for several years (first on Slackware, now via Mythbuntu) and it's good. But not great — I have a list of annoyances as long as my arm. For example, even 0.22 still has problems playing many DVDs and I frequently have to fall back on Xine. Since upgrading to new hardware, I've had issues with sound dropping out; these problems only occur for Myth, not for anything else. So now I'm trying out alternatives. Freevo seemed promising when I tried it a few months ago but it had its own issues. I'm also increasingly getting pressure from my family to get things like NetFlix streaming working on this machine. This seems to imply migrating to a Windows-based solution. I threw XP on it and tried MediaPortal but could never get that to control my Motorola cable box via the IR blaster. So my questions to you: What DVR software do you use? Are you happy with it? What don't you like? Are there any packages out there that 'just work' as media hubs and for time-shifting cable TV?"

Comment Dropbox + KeePass (Score 1) 1007

Dropbox is a great "access anywhere" secure solution across all major OS platforms, and using KeePass is a great software (as many have already mentioned) for managing all the different passwords you have. Upload KeePass - the executable and the database - to Dropbox, keep your master password verification file that KeePass creates for you on the computers you use and a USB key drive, and you will be very safe and secure, but unhindered by being tied to a particular OS or physical media. When you use dozens of different password-only websites, multiple network logins at work, and your own home computer password apps, it becomes imperative to manage it all in some sane way. The only way to do this for me before was a USB key + TrueCrypt + KeePass, but with Dropbox you eliminate the physical media to be lost accidentally. (And I thought a while back that I HAD lost my USB key, and I literally started freaking out before finding it on my car floor. Switched to Dropbox later that night, and no more freak-out sessions for me.)

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