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Submission + - Slashdot Alum Samzenpus's Fractured Veil Hits Kickstarter

CmdrTaco writes: Long time Slashdot readers remember Samzenpus,who posted over 17,000 stories here, sadly crushing my record in the process! What you might NOT know is that he was frequently the Dungeon Master for D&D campaigns played by the original Slashdot crew, and for the last few years he has been applying these skills with fellow Slashdot editorial alum Chris DiBona to a Survival game called Fractured Veil. It's set in a post apocalyptic Hawaii with a huge world based on real map data to explore, as well as careful balance between PVP & PVE. I figured a lot of our old friends would love to help them meet their kickstarter goal and then help us build bases and murder monsters! The game is turning into something pretty great and I'm excited to see it in the wild!
Businesses

Apple CEO Calls For Global Corporate Tax System Overhaul (venturebeat.com) 130

Everyone knows that the global corporate tax system needs to be overhauled, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said on Monday, backing changes to global rules that are currently under consideration. From a report: The growth of internet giants such as Apple has pushed international tax rules to the limit, prompting the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to pursue global reforms over where multinational firms should be taxed. The reforms being examined center around the booking of profits by multinational firms in low-tax countries such as Ireland where they have bases -- and where Cook was speaking on Monday -- rather than where most of their customers are.

"I think logically everybody knows it needs to be rehauled, I would certainly be the last person to say that the current system or the past system was the perfect system. I'm hopeful and optimistic that they (the OECD) will find something," Cook said. "It's very complex to know how to tax a multinational... We desperately want it to be fair," the Apple CEO added after receiving an inaugural award from the Irish state agency responsible for attracting foreign companies recognizing the contribution of multinationals in the country.

The Military

Test Pilot: the F-35 Can't Dogfight 843

schwit1 sends this report from the War Is Boring column: A test pilot has some very, very bad news about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The pricey new stealth jet can't turn or climb fast enough to hit an enemy plane during a dogfight or to dodge the enemy's own gunfire, the pilot reported following a day of mock air battles back in January. And to add insult to injury, the JSF flier discovered he couldn't even comfortably move his head inside the radar-evading jet's cramped cockpit. "The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to adequately see behind the aircraft." That allowed the F-16 to sneak up on him. The test pilot's report is the latest evidence of fundamental problems with the design of the F-35 — which, at a total program cost of more than a trillion dollars, is history's most expensive weapon. Your tax dollars at work.

Comment This seems appropriate (Score 1) 163

http://www.thewizardsmanse.com/congress-for-sale/

Congress extends copyright every time Disney throws money at them.

The Senate killed patent reform because trial lawyers threw money at them.

Congress is rushing through a bill to kill Net Neutrality because Comcast et al. threw money at them.

The smartest thing they did was to create lobbying loopholes in the bribery laws so they could accept bribes with impunity. The only way to "fix" the system is to outlaw lobbying and pass an amendment overruling SCOTUS' decision that corporations and PACs can spend as much as they want on reelection campaigns.

Unfortunately, the Senate has to approve both of those and when they figure out it means they can't accept bribes any more, they will kill it faster than patent reform.

Comment Controversy Manufactured by Republican Sore Losers (Score 1) 609

So, when Colon Powell did it it was no big deal, but Hillary does it and it's the end of the world? Also, no notices the irony of saying she should have used the State Department's server so her e-mails could be archived when the State Department admitted that they lost ALL the e-mails from her term due to a server upgrade. So if she had used their server all her e-mails would have been lost. Because she used her own they exist. How about a hearty "thank you" and STFU from all the repubs trying to contrive a controversy so they stand a chance against her in 2016...

Submission + - Undersea Link from Finland to Estonia Visioned (yle.fi) 1

jones_supa writes: A train link between Finland and continental Europe could become a reality 15 or 20 years from now. A study carried out by Sweco Consulting recommends moving ahead with negotiations on building a railway tunnel between the capital cities Helsinki and Tallinn. According to a preliminary report out Wednesday, an undersea link would shorten the travel time between the two capitals from the current minimum 90 minutes by ship to around 30 minutes by rail. Estimated ticket cost is about 40 euros. The study, commissioned by the two cities, estimates that the undersea route could be completed after 2030 and would cost somewhere between 9 and 13 billion euros.

Comment net neutrality isn't protocol agnosticism (Score 5, Insightful) 200

Net Neutrality means you don't favor one host over another for the same protocol, not that you treat all protocols exactly the same. In the case of the ISPs vs. Netflix, the ISP's are trying to slow or block streaming videos from Netflix while allowing or prioritizing streaming videos from providers who pay the ISP's fees. This is non-neutral prioritization.

Neutral prioritization is giving priority to streaming video/music/gaming over other types of data like e-mail without regard to the hosts providing the services.

This critical distinction seems to be ignored by the poster.

Net Neutrality doesn't demand that no network optimization by the ISP's ever occur, it states that the host should not be a factor in the ISP's optimizations. If the host does factor into the optimizations, then the ISP's begin extorting hosts to pay for priority service which the ISP's customers have already paid for. Additionally, hosts that can't afford to pay for priority distribution by the IPS's soon find that users can't access their services.

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