Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:Not much competition (Score 1) 150

They count public posts. Now that G+ has communities and they are all by default public postings, I can see G+ jumping up the rankings. All the previous studies that talked about how G+ was struggling also looked at public postings only. I've been using G+ since it was still invite only. I and the hundreds of folks in my circles were not posting publicly so as far as anyone could tell my account was unused. Now I have a lot of public posts as I'm very active in my communities.

Twitter and Facebook are public postings by default so it has been easier for these third parties to try to determine how active the user base is at those sites.

Comment Re:If Scientists Ran Global Security... (Score 1) 167

Both of which were exposed as false by other scientists who could not verify the results. Science is self correcting. Too many folks think that once something is published that it becomes some sort of scientific law that is never challenged or repeated. When other scientist are unable to repeat the results, and/or when new evidence comes to light that contradicts the original research then a debate starts. If the original research was falsified (i.e. a hoax) then it gets found out, retractions are made, and science continues on.

In the case of Piltdown man there were not many human fossils found the time, but even at it's announcement some were skeptical as it didn't have the expected features. As more human and pre-human fossils were found it was easy to see that Piltdown man did not fit with all the other evidence. Confronted with this the original researcher finally admitted that he faked his research.

For the autism/vaccine link, no one else could repeat his findings that vaccines that contained mercury caused an increase rate of autism. You can read here (http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5258.full) about how he was going to use his "research" as a scare tactic to convince parents that they needed to use his companies diagnostic services to make sure that vaccines didn't hurt their child.

Tl;DR Science is self-correcting. When was the last time you saw a politician change his stance based on new evidence.

Comment Re:What do scientists know about politics?` (Score 1) 167

And if scientists ran government, we would be in China: http://singularityhub.com/2011/05/17/eight-out-of-chinas-top-nine-government-officials-are-scientists/

What was that old quote? "I'd rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone directory than by the faculty of Harvard."

That quote is from William Frank Buckley, Jr. (November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008)

According to Wikipedia he was a conservative American author and commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, which had a major impact in stimulating the conservative movement.

He didn't say that because scientist are objectively bad at governance. It was because academia is full of "liberals" and he didn't like liberals. I'm sure Rush Limbaugh would give a similar response if asked. Just like Al Franken or Rachael Maddow wouldn't want the government run by the faculty of Bob Jones University.

Comment What email? (Score 1) 119

What email? I didn't know I had an option to vote till reading this today. Did I need to "Friend" Zuckerburg to get these notices? Maybe no one voted cause no one knew it was an option. “But the plans were on display ” “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” “That’s the display department.” “With a flashlight.” “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.” “So had the stairs.” “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.” Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Comment Re:Naturally (Score 1) 303

The business split was due to the licensing agreements. I forget which studio was mentioned in the article I read at the time of the split but the scenario went like this. Studio license costs $500,000/yr if you have less than say 100,000 subscribers. If you go over that subscriber limit the Studio ups the fee to $5million/yr. With Netflix as one company the studios were lumping DVD only customers with the Streaming customers to inflate the subscriber limit. If the streaming side became its own business then the license fee is based only on streaming customers. At the time the DVD only customers were something like 2/3+ of the customers. If the split had been successful it would have severely reduced the license fees that Netflix was paying. If Reed had come out and explained this to the customers the split might have worked. But he didn't. So Netflix came out looking like they were simply trying to double your monthly bill.

Submission + - AT&T charged US Taxpayers $16 Million for Nigerian Fraud Calls (bloomberg.com)

McGruber writes: Bloomberg News is reporting (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-22/at-t-accused-of-improperly-billing-u-s-program-for-deaf-1-.html) that AT&T got more than $16 million from the US government to run Telecommunications Relay Services, intended to help the hearing- and speech-impaired. However, as "many as 95 percent of the calls in AT&T’s hearing- impaired program were made by people outside the U.S. attempting to defraud merchants through the use of stolen credit cards, counterfeit checks and money orders".

According to the US Department of Justice (DOJ), "AT&T in 2004, after getting complaints from merchants, determined the Internet Protocol addresses of 10 of the top 12 users of the service were abroad, primarily in Lagos, Nigeria"

The DOJ intervened in the whistle-blower lawsuit Lyttle v. AT&T Communications of Pennsylvania, 10-01376, U.S. District Court, Western District of Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh). The DOJ is seeking triple damages from AT&T

Facebook

Submission + - Facebook: Legal Action Against Employers Asking For Your Password

An anonymous reader writes: Facebook today weighed in on the issue of employers asking current and prospective employees for their Facebook passwords. The company noted that doing so undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user's friends, as well as potentially exposes the employer to legal liability. The company is looking to draft new laws as well as take legal action against employers.

Comment Re:Interesting fact (Score 1) 284

actually you can hide your networks / circles. Go under your profile, click edit, click on your circles (left side bar) You will see the options to show or not show your circles. You can show all circles or specific ones. You can limit circle viewing to public or only those already in your circles. You can even stop people from seeing who has placed you in a circle. The only mandatory public information is your Name, Gender, and a profile pic.

Comment Re:Incompatible with me (Score 2) 215

I have a 3DS. I get headaches if the depth slider is at full power. 1/4 to 1/2 works best for me. I've seen alot of folks that complain forget that there is a slider switch for the 3d effect. But then again, every time a 3d movie comes out I see the statistic that 20% of people are physically incapable of seeing the 3d effect so you may just be one of those unlucky folks. Out of the launch titles the only one that really used the 3d for more than a gimmick (for at least part of the game) is Steel Divers. Periscope Strike mode is fun. I'm betting the sales will climb when the Zelda, Mario, Kid Icarus games come out. I can't believe Nintendo would launch without at least one of them available.

Slashdot Top Deals

Real computer scientists don't comment their code. The identifiers are so long they can't afford the disk space.

Working...