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Submission + - WebKit introduces new tracking prevention policy (webkit.org)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: WebKit, the open source HTML engine used by Apple's Safari browser and a number of others, has created a new policy on tracking prevention. The short version is that many forms of tracking will now be treated the same way as security flaws, being blocked or mitigated with no exceptions.

While on-site tracking will still be allowed (and is practically impossible to prevent anyway), all forms of cross-site tracking and covert tracking will be actively and aggressively blocked.
Education

Is Believing In Meritocracy Bad For You? (fastcompany.com) 480

Posted by EditorDavid from the thinking-bad-thoughts dept.
An anonymous reader quotes Fast Company: Although widely held, the belief that merit rather than luck determines success or failure in the world is demonstrably false. This is not least because merit itself is, in large part, the result of luck. Talent and the capacity for determined effort, sometimes called "grit," depend a great deal on one's genetic endowments and upbringing.

This is to say nothing of the fortuitous circumstances that figure into every success story. In his book Success and Luck, the U.S. economist Robert Frank recounts the long-shots and coincidences that led to Bill Gates's stellar rise as Microsoft's founder, as well as to Frank's own success as an academic. Luck intervenes by granting people merit, and again by furnishing circumstances in which merit can translate into success. This is not to deny the industry and talent of successful people. However, it does demonstrate that the link between merit and outcome is tenuous and indirect at best. According to Frank, this is especially true where the success in question is great, and where the context in which it is achieved is competitive. There are certainly programmers nearly as skilful as Gates who nonetheless failed to become the richest person on Earth. In competitive contexts, many have merit, but few succeed. What separates the two is luck.

In addition to being false, a growing body of research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that believing in meritocracy makes people more selfish, less self-critical, and even more prone to acting in discriminatory ways.
The article cites a pair of researchers who "found that, ironically, attempts to implement meritocracy leads to just the kinds of inequalities that it aims to eliminate.

"They suggest that this 'paradox of meritocracy' occurs because explicitly adopting meritocracy as a value convinces subjects of their own moral bona fides."

Submission + - AmigaOS 3.1.4 released for classic Amiga (hyperion-entertainment.com)

Submitted by Mike Bouma
Mike Bouma writes:

The new, cleaned-up, polished Amiga operating system for your 68K machine fixes all the small annoyances that have piled up over the years. Originally intended as a bug-fix release, it also modernizes many system components previously upgraded in OS 3.9.

Contrary to its modest revision number, AmigaOS 3.1.4 is arguably as large an upgrade as OS 3.9 was, and surpasses it in stability and robustness. Over 320K of release notes cover almost every aspect of your favourite classic AmigaOS — from bootmenu to datatypes.

Comment Re:definitely due to the rise of the populist righ (Score 0) 693

yes

and obviously it's ignorant

americans are feeding crony financial parasites and getting nothing in return "because capitalism" when it's not capitalism at all

and never can be capitalism: capitalism is pretty wonderful but only works in certain economic sectors. it's not magic unicorn farts you sprinkle on anything and then everything is fixed because magic, which is unfortunately the extent of many americans' understanding of capitalism

Comment definitely due to the rise of the populist right (Score 0, Troll) 693

like you see with trump in the usa

and, like trump, it's financially and politically retarded

scotland will leave, and northern ireland may, and britain will suffer a number of financial costs it has to pay now

so now britain is significantly poorer and weaker

all because some old morons don't like immigrants

the real issue is why these people are so angry, and the obvious answer is they feel poor while they perceive immigrants as coddled

and they are poor... because of plutocratic abuses, not immigrants

plutocratic abuses the political *left* has answers to

but the old morons reject the left for various stupid and propagandistic reasons

like americans rejecting universal healthcare, even though it's far cheaper and equal or higher quality. because "capitalism." when it's just cronyism

old poor morons like plutocrats to have gold toilets i guess, and are too fucking stupid to see how or why that's all their uneducated opinions lead to

Comment Re:punishment versus rehabilitation (Score 1) 292

I think that if you're 20 and you had sex with a 17 year old, or if you took a piss in some bushes near a playground, you're innocent. Your "crime" is being dumb, and you shouldn't be punished at all, at least any more than a severe reprimand. And you certainly shouldn't have some scarlet letter hanging over your head your whole life.

At the same time, if you're 28 and you actively sought to have sex with an 8 year old, you are dealing with someone with a deeply psychologically rooted paraphilia that is not going to go away upon the completion of the punishment for your crime. You really should go on a list, or be an outcast, because you are a high risk of re-offending.

The problem is with people say "you go on a list" and the rest of us think about the adult who had sex with the 17 year old.

Or the problem is with people who say "you should have your record cleared and forgotten" and the rest of us think about the adult who had sex with the 8 year old.

Before anyone says anything, you have to define your terminology well, or it will be taken the wrong way. We start by qualifying underage sex crimes in terms of legality such that sex with the 17 year old is VERY different than sex with the 8 year old.

Comment just honeypot the shit out of everything (Score 3, Insightful) 208

by circletimessquare (#51339423) Attached to: Google Exec Says Isis Must Be Locked Out of the Open Web

you catch murderers and hitmen by

1.the police answering the ads of "hitmen" (morons, but so are most ISIS supporters)

2. police posing as hitmen and picking up the losers that contract for their services

you can do the same with ISIS

1. answer real ISIS broadcasters with fake supporters who proceed to sabotage operations and outreach in all sorts of ways

2. pose as ISIS and hoover up the social retards who answer the call

but you can only do this if the idiots operate out in the open

drive them underground and you can still do it, like with child porn douchebags. but you've made the job harder and some sympathizers go uncaught

Comment Re:Important consideration (Score 2) 136

it's called fracking

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

the techonology was first achieved by the rogue state of oklahoma. we have not yet received their list of demands. however, they have shared the dangerous technology with the unstable province of alberta, which has recently upped the ante of horrors:

http://gizmodo.com/shattering-...

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I never cheated an honest man, only rascals. They wanted something for nothing. I gave them nothing for something. -- Joseph "Yellow Kid" Weil

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