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Submission + - Why Scott Adams Wished Death on His Dad

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "I hope my father dies soon," Dilbert creator Scott Adams wrote Saturday in a frustrated, angry, and poignant blog post. "My father, age 86, is on the final approach to the long dirt nap (to use his own phrase). His mind is 98% gone, and all he has left is hours or possibly months of hideous unpleasantness in a hospital bed. I'll spare you the details, but it's as close to a living Hell as you can get. If my dad were a cat, we would have put him to sleep long ago. And not once would we have looked back and thought too soon. Because it's not too soon. It's far too late. His smallish estate pays about $8,000 per month to keep him in this state of perpetual suffering. Rarely has money been so poorly spent. I'd like to proactively end his suffering and let him go out with some dignity. But my government says I can't make that decision. Neither can his doctors. So, for all practical purposes, the government is torturing my father until he dies." Adams also had harsh words for those who would oppose assisted suicide, "I don't want anyone to misconstrue this post as satire or exaggeration. So I'll reiterate. If you have acted, or plan to act, in a way that keeps doctor-assisted suicide illegal, I see you as an accomplice in torturing my father, and perhaps me as well someday. I want you to die a painful death, and soon. And I'd be happy to tell you the same thing to your face." His father passed a few hours after Adams wrote his screed. Challenged later by the SF Chronicle's Debra J. Saunders, an opponent of assisted suicide, Adams stood firm on his earlier words. So, can Adams succeed in convincing the U.S. where Dr. Jack failed?

Submission + - Brazil announces plans to move away from US-Centric Internet (time.com)

Submitted by trbdavies
trbdavies writes: Associated Press reports: "President Dilma Rousseff ordered a series of measures aimed at greater Brazilian online independence and security following revelations that the U.S. National Security Agency intercepted her communications, hacked into the state-owned Petrobras oil company’s network and spied on Brazilians who entrusted their personal data to U.S. tech companies such as Facebook and Google. The leader is so angered by the espionage that on Tuesday she postponed next month’s scheduled trip to Washington, where she was to be honored with a state dinner." Among Brazil's plans are a domestic encrypted email service, laying its own fiber optic cable to Europe, requiring services like Facebook and Google to store data generated by Brazilians on servers located in Brazil, and pushing for "international rules on privacy and security in hardware and software during the U.N. General Assembly meeting later this month."

Submission + - 'Boston patients' still HIV free after quitting antiretroviral meds (nature.com)

Submitted by ananyo
ananyo writes: Two men with HIV may have been cured after they received stem-cell transplants to treat the blood cancer lymphoma, their doctors announced today at the International AIDS Society Conference in Kuala Lumpur.
One of the men received stem-cell transplants to replace his blood-cell-producing bone marrow about three years ago, and the other five years ago. Their regimens were similar to one used on Timothy Ray Brown, the 'Berlin patient' who has been living HIV-free for six years and is the only adult to have been declared cured of HIV. Last July, doctors announced that the two men — the ‘Boston patients’ — appeared to be living without detectable levels of HIV in their blood, but they were still taking antiretroviral medications at that time.

Submission + - Ubisoft hacked, account data compromised

Submitted by Freshly Exhumed
Freshly Exhumed writes: Over at ubi.com today is this creepy revelation from the video game publisher and developer: 'We recently found that one of our Web sites was exploited to gain unauthorized access to some of our online systems. We instantly took steps to close off this access, to begin a thorough investigation with relevant authorities, internal and external security experts, and to start restoring the integrity of any compromised systems.

During this process, we learned that data were illegally accessed from our account database, including user names, email addresses and encrypted passwords. No personal payment information is stored with Ubisoft, meaning your debit/credit card information was safe from this intrusion.

As a result, we are recommending you to change your password by clicking this link.'

Comment esr (Score 1) 623

by arnodf (#43852545) Attached to: How Did You Learn How To Program?

Discovered Eric S. Raymonds 'How to become a hacker' as a 14 year old kid. Then started out with HTML from Dynamic HTML For Dummies, went to C++ and even, contrary to his advice, VB6.
Windows

Submission + - Spanish Open Source Group Files Complaint Over Microsoft EUFI Boot (globalpost.com) 1

Submitted by sl4shd0rk
sl4shd0rk writes: Hispalinux, which represents Spanish Open Source developers and Users, has filed a complaint against Microsoft with the European Commision. 14 pages of grief cited Windows 8 as an "obstruction mechanism" calling EUFI Secure Boot a "de facto technological jail for computer booting systems ... making Microsoft's Windows platform less neutral than ever". on March 6 of 2012 the Commission fined Microsoft 561 million euros for failing to offer users a choice of web browser as well as a 2004 ruling which found M$ has abusted it's market position by tying Windows Media Player to Windows itself. Relations appear to remain more tense towards Windows in Europe so ther may be some hope of making EUFI more Linux friendly. EUFI has been implicated in the death of Samsung Laptops running Linux

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