Comment Re:Tumblr (Score 1) 308
Before reddit, before digg, before myspace, I lived here. I haven't posted on slashdot in probably 15 years, but here I am.
Same. My last comment here was...13 years ago.
Star Wars Fans Look For Love In Alderaan Places 88
Hugh Pickens writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports that devoted fans at the recent Star Wars Convention V, many dressed as Jedi knights, stormtroopers, or the indomitable Princess Leia, sat opposite one another for a series of 3-minute speed dates, in hopes of finding a connection with a fellow Star Wars enthusiast. 'Over the course of the three events, due to size and time, we turned away about 600 participants,' says Ryan Glitch. 'Yesterday, this room was packed. We had to keep shoveling people along.' Meanwhile in the main exhibition hall, a chapel was set up to allow fans to profess their love and devotion to each other in the form of commitment ceremonies. 'I've been told that we've had two commitment ceremonies from people that met at my event,' says Glitch adding that he saw eight additional couples at the convention made up of people who had attended his speed dating sessions."
Comment Disappointed... (Score 1) 329
What, 100+ comments and no mention of Spider Robinson's "Melancholy Elephants"? Are all the sci-fi fans still recovering from comic-con?
Comment Where's the vid? (Score 1) 297
Video or it didn't happen.
Comment A Better Auto-scroll... (Score 1) 170
With eye-tracking, you can do away with the painful auto-scrolling on mobile/PDA eBook reader software and just have the page advance when (or a few seconds after) your eye gets to the last line of the page...
Comment Re:A Little Disappointed (Score 1) 173
Although usage varies, most people (vendors and analysts at least) consider "Software as a Service" to mean you are renting an application (Google docs, Concur expense app, salesforce CRM app), while "Cloud computing" typically means you are renting infrastructure (Amazon EC2/S3) and/or a platform for developing custom apps (Google app engine, Force.com). Sometimes "cloud computing" is used generically to refer to all three: infrastructure, platform, and/or applications running outside your datacenter, managed by a 3rd party vendor.
Submission + - The Sad State of the Mobile Web (infoworld.com)
snydeq writes: "Despite being the much better development platform for today's smartphones, open Web standards still face an uphill battle on mobile devices, Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister writes, nothing that here, as on the desktop, the main hurdle is scalability. But whereas successful Web development for the desktop is a matter of scaling up, mobile Web development calls for applications that can effectively scale down as well — an imperative that is fast making the state of the mobile Web 'even sadder,' McAllister writes. 'The more that modern Web applications take advantage of the new client-side technologies available in desktop browsers, the more the divide between the desktop Web and the mobile Web widens.' As a result, developers are forced to fall back on basic Web technologies — a tactic that too often translates simply into writing separate UIs for mobile users. 'The result? Mobile Web applications are in pretty much the same boat as they were when the first WAP-enabled handsets appeared: two separate development tracks, one for the desktop and one for mobile. Call that an opportunity if you want. I call it a waste of potential.'"
Submission + - Computers to Crack Down on Card Counters (yahoo.com)
An anonymous reader writes: First they start paying out 6 to 5 on natural blackjacks, and now this? The little guy gets the short end of the stick once again, as UK researchers say they've developed a computer algorithm that can analyze how Blackjack players manage their chip stack and bet on each hand, sniffing out card counters inside 20 hands of the game.
Card counting is perfectly legal — all a counter does is attempt to keep track of whether the cards remaining in a deck are favorable to his winning a hand (mainly if there are lots of tens and aces remaining in the deck) — but it's deeply frowned upon by Vegas casinos. Those caught counting cards are regularly expelled from casinos on the spot and are often permanently banned from returning.
But given the slim house odds on Blackjack, it's often said that a good card counter can actually tip the odds in his favor by carefully controlling the way he bets his hands. And Vegas really doesn't care for that.
The anti-card-counter system uses cameras to watch players and keep track of the actual "count" of the cards, the same way a player would. It also measures how much each player is betting on each hand, and it syncs up the two data points to look for patterns in the action. If a player is betting big when the count is indeed favorable, and keeping his chips to himself when it's not, he's fingered by the computer... and, in the real world, he'd probably receive a visit from a burly dude in a bad suit, too.
The system reportedly works even if the gambler intentionally attempts to mislead it with high bets at unfavorable times.
The system is still in the academic/development stage, but casinos are always eager to experiment with high-tech systems that foil gamblers in their attempts to leave the joint with money in their pockets. Don't be surprised to hear that this one is actually rolled out in the months ahead...
Card counting is perfectly legal — all a counter does is attempt to keep track of whether the cards remaining in a deck are favorable to his winning a hand (mainly if there are lots of tens and aces remaining in the deck) — but it's deeply frowned upon by Vegas casinos. Those caught counting cards are regularly expelled from casinos on the spot and are often permanently banned from returning.
But given the slim house odds on Blackjack, it's often said that a good card counter can actually tip the odds in his favor by carefully controlling the way he bets his hands. And Vegas really doesn't care for that.
The anti-card-counter system uses cameras to watch players and keep track of the actual "count" of the cards, the same way a player would. It also measures how much each player is betting on each hand, and it syncs up the two data points to look for patterns in the action. If a player is betting big when the count is indeed favorable, and keeping his chips to himself when it's not, he's fingered by the computer... and, in the real world, he'd probably receive a visit from a burly dude in a bad suit, too.
The system reportedly works even if the gambler intentionally attempts to mislead it with high bets at unfavorable times.
The system is still in the academic/development stage, but casinos are always eager to experiment with high-tech systems that foil gamblers in their attempts to leave the joint with money in their pockets. Don't be surprised to hear that this one is actually rolled out in the months ahead...
Comment Bad vs Good Headhunters (Score 1) 344
Bad headhunters will modify your resume without your permission and submit it to companies without asking you
Good headhunters will work with you to tailor your resume to each opportunity and ask you to make sure an opportunity sounds like a good fit before submitting your resume
Bad headhunters who submit your non-tailored resume first and don't tell you can cause problems when the Good headhunter submits another resume for the same candidate (you). Unfortunately, there's not much you can do about this except apologize for the mix-up and hope the hiring manager/company is understanding.
I wouldn't recommend "firing" the bad headhunter (unless you're actually paying him money, which would be odd since they usually get paid by the hiring companies) in case they luck into finding you a good opportunity. But you should firmly ask him to check with you in the future before changing/submitting your resume.
Comment Re:personally (Score 1) 1721
Governments are elected to serve their people. The US President is no different than other nations' heads of state in that regard.
And I find it interesting how so many people remember everything we do that they didn't like, but so quickly forget the good.
They remember that we invaded Iraq without full support from the members of the Security Council. Yet they forget we freed the Iraqi people from a tyranny that regularly raped and murdered its citizens, dumping their bodies in mass graves, and twice attacked its neighbors.
They forget the US military's aid to tsunami victims abroad, our protection of much of the world against threats from their neighbors, and our funding of vast portions of the United Nations budget.
The US government did all of those good things and more while acting in the interests of the United States. To say that our government acting in our interests is at best a neutral thing misunderstands the nature of human relationships. Acting in one's own interest often helps others too.
Comment Re:Gartner (Score 1) 385
Exactly!
Earth to Gartner, cell phone users don't care about the OS that runs their phones. They care about the functionality of the phone!
Unless you can beat the iPhone, it don't matter what OS cell phone manufacturers use.
Earth to Gartner, cell phone users don't care about the OS that runs their phones. They care about the functionality of the phone!
Unless you can beat the iPhone, it don't matter what OS cell phone manufacturers use.
Comment Re:So we can't afford Patrolling Police Officers.. (Score 5, Insightful) 419
In 1984, citizens were encouraged to spy on each other and report possible dissidents to the authorities. So yes, this is very Orwellian.
RTFN
Comment Re:Resigning Issue... (Score 1) 221
As Oscar Wilde said:
Religion: a large, wealthy, powerful cult.
Cult: a small, impoverished, powerless religion.
Comment Re:Alix board and pfSence (Score 1) 199
And if you want to save a bit of money, you can pick up the older WRAP boards quite cheaply now. I have one and it runs a stock OpenBSD install on a 512MB compact flash card. Everything works nicely, although I did compile a custom kernel to remove everything that's not needed. The ALIX seems to only have one miniPCI slot, which is a shame. The WRAP had two, so you could plug in an 802.11 card and a crypto coprocessor for offloading VPN calculations.
Comment Re:slippery slope? (Score 1) 419
+1 interesting, but ultimately unrealistic. Sifting through that much footage to demonstrate something that such a large number of people had done would be a monumental task. OTOH, it's easy for Joe Blow to have The Game up on his second flatpanel at work watching last night's footage of his favorite creepy spot to report people for troublesome behavior. I've been stopped by police because I looped around the block twice with my car in a neighborhood where there was a known drug dealer. Apparently the fact that I had $2k+ worth of camera gear for night photography (of the artistic variety, not surveillance) with me did not lessen their concern (this is after *returning* to the car having conducted said photography). Imagine the ease with which our friend Joe Blow could have reported me simply when I was in the wrong place at the wrong time trying to indulge my hobby.
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