Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:Aging? (Score 1) 183

"Old age" is not a real cause of death, kind of like "natural causes." Those are just terms we use when it's too much work to determine what actually killed someone. As we get better at diagnosing people, we'll use those terms less and less.

That said, the older you get, the more likely your body is to fail...

Comment Re:It Remains a Journalism Scandal. Deal With It. (Score 2) 716

So here I am, an indie-turned-professional game developer, who has not really followed along with the controversy. I don't read much game-related journalism, and my games aren't quite big enough to get media attention themselves.

In short, I'm not familiar with the controversy, and I don't have a whole lot of stake in it. Nor do I have a whole lot of time to devote to it. So how should I judge it?

I guess I could take a Slashdot user's word, especially if the user was voted +5. That's something.

On the other hand, I could trust the Extra Credits. As a game developer myself, I can tell that they do their research on game-development-related topics, so I would assume they'd do their research on Internet movements as well.

I could trust the CEO I work for, who has done a statistical analysis demonstrating that women in the game industry get harassed (at least slightly) more than men.

Or how about Newsweek? Gamergate only claims that gaming journalism is corrupt, right? Other journalists should be fine, right?

Or I could go to Wikipedia. After all, Wikipedia attempts to cite its sources and provide a neutral point of view. Wikipedia doesn't take a stance on what the movement is "really" about, nor does it state whether there is or isn't any corruption. But it does state that certain allegations against Nathan Grayson that are false. You do agree that Nathan Grayson is not guilty of everything he's been accused of, right? Because otherwise, I'll be forced to conclude that you're simply denying the facts of the situation.

Are you really going to tell me that, even though I haven't found a single reliable source agreeing with you, I should ignore them and take your word for it? Are you going to tell me that even Wikipedia is in on the conspiracy?

Comment Re:Tax & Kill (Score 1) 874

All of this for reducing Carbon Dioxide - which is not proven to be a pollutant, and for reducing global warming - even when there is no proof that human activities are impacting climate.

There is still some debate, but the scientific majority accepts that climate change is at least partially caused by people, and the debate has moved on to how we can stop changing the climate.
"Since 2007 no scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion. A few organisations hold non-committal positions."

That isn't to say that this particular bill is the answer. It might help in the long term, but this is probably not the time to propose it, judging by the number of people attacking it for economic reasons.

Comment Breaking rules != freedom of expression (Score 1) 665

Wikipedia has certain terms of use, notably their conflict of interest policy. The Church of Scientology has consistently violated this policy, and it is only reasonable that it be blocked. This doesn't infringe on the Church's ability to say what it likes; it simply prevents the Church from doing so on Wikipedia.
Biotech

Hacking Our Five Senses and Building New Ones 290

ryanguill writes "Wired has an article about expanding your five (maybe six) senses to allow you to sense other things such as direction. It also talks about hijacking other senses to compensate for missing senses, such as using electrodes in your mouth to compensate for lack of eyesight. Another example is a subject wearing a belt with 13 vibrating pads. The pad pointing north would vibrate giving you a sense of direction no matter your orientation: '"It was slightly strange at first," Wächter says, "though on the bike, it was great." He started to become more aware of the peregrinations he had to make while trying to reach a destination. "I finally understood just how much roads actually wind," he says. He learned to deal with the stares he got in the library, his belt humming like a distant chain saw. Deep into the experiment, Wächter says, "I suddenly realized that my perception had shifted. I had some kind of internal map of the city in my head. I could always find my way home. Eventually, I felt I couldn't get lost, even in a completely new place."'"
Education

How Do I Start a University Transition To Open Source? 497

exmoron writes "I work at a small university (5,500 students) and am in a position to potentially influence future software purchasing decisions. I use a number of FOSS solutions at home (OpenOffice.org, Zotero, GIMP, VirtualBox). My university, on the other hand, is a Microsoft and proprietary software groupie (Vista boxes running MS Office 2007, Exchange email server, Endnote, Photoshop, Blackboard, etc.). I'd like to make an argument that going open source would save the university money and think through a gradual transition process to open source software (starting small, with something like replacing Endnote with Zotero, then MS Office with OpenOffice.org, and so on). Unfortunately, I can't find very good information online on site licenses for proprietary software. How much does a site-license for Endnote cost? What about a site license for MS Office for 2,000 computers? In short, what's the skinny on moving to open source? How much money could a university like mine save? Additionally, what other benefits are there to moving to open source that I could try to sell the university on? And what are the drawbacks (other than people whining about change)?"
Privacy

Flash Cookies, a Little-Known Privacy Threat 225

Wiini recommends a blog posting exploring Flash cookies, a little-known threat to privacy, and how you can get control of them. 98% of browsers have Macromedia Flash Player installed, and the cookies it enables have some interesting properties. They have no expiration date; they store 100 KB of data by default, with an unlimited maximum; they can't be deleted by your browser; and they send previous visit information and history, by default, without your permission. I was amazed at some of the sites, not visited in a year or more, that still had Flash cookies on my machine. Here's the user-unfriendly GUI for deleting them, one at a time, each one requiring confirmation.
Linux Business

Will ParanoidLinux Protect the Truly Paranoid? 236

ruphus13 writes "There are still places on the world where having anonymity might mean the difference between life and death. Covering one's tracks is considered to be of such paramount importance that we are now witnessing the rise of a Linux distro catering to the most paranoid. The 'alpha-alpha' version of ParanoidLinux is now out. But is this the best way to protect oneself? Couldn't it be easily circumvented? The article asks, 'Why is it necessary to put the applications and services designed to protect anonymity, to encrypt files, to make the user nameless and faceless, all together, in one distribution? Let's think in a truly paranoid manner. Wouldn't it be far easier for a nefarious government organization to target that distribution's repositories, mirror that singular distribution's disk images with files of its own design, and leave every last one of that distribution's users in the great wide open?' What should truly paranoid user do?"
Operating Systems

How Kernel Hackers Boosted the Speed of Desktop Linux 380

chromatic writes "Kernel hackers Arjan van de Ven and Auke Kok showed off Linux booting in five seconds at last month's Linux Plumbers Conference. Arjan and other hackers have already improved the Linux user experience by reducing power consumption and latency. O'Reilly News interviewed him about his work on improving the Linux experience with PowerTOP, LatencyTOP, and Five-Second Boot."

Slashdot Top Deals

The amount of beauty required launch 1 ship = 1 Millihelen

Working...