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Comment Gmail is easy to snoop (Score 5, Interesting) 184

by broothal (#42260103) Attached to: How Websites Know Your Email Address the First Time You Visit

I was logged into a gmail that I only use for receiving, never sending. I visited Netflix in another tab in Chrome. I visited their free trial page, but I decided it wasn't for me, so I closed the tab without entering any data.

A few days later I got an email from netflix - to the gmail account I was signed in to in another tab - asking me if I needed help completing the form.

True, and very scary story.

Comment Definitely (Score 1) 266

by broothal (#37065612) Attached to: How Does GPS Change Us?

I got my first GPS more than a decade ago - primarily for geocaching. I got TomTom Navigator in 2002. Has it changed me? I reckon so. My sense of directions has definitely faded. I rely quite heavily on a device to tell me where to go, and I simply do not waste any braincycles on the road to the destination.

Like on of the above posters, the biggest benefit for me is business trips. Before phones had built in GPS I had a small Dell PDA with built in GPS solely for business trips.

Also, I remember getting lost in China. Since the map I had was written in Western style, I couldn't even ask for guidance to a named street, because it was called something else in Chinese. Now GPS is the most important accessory when traveling.
Netscape

Submission + - eBay sells Skype to Netscape founder

Submitted by
Julefrokost
Julefrokost writes: "Computerworld has a story about eBay selling Skype. Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape along with a group of investors, are reported to have paid $2 Billion for Skype. According to New York Times, Google was also a potential buyer. Also the original founders of Skype are said to have placed a bid, but Marc Andressen & Co was the highest bidder."
HP

Submission + - Oracle to sell Sun's hardware biz to HP? 2

Submitted by
Underholdning
Underholdning writes: "With the DOJ approving Oracle's SUN buyour the question arises what Oracle want to do with SUN's hardware business. It's no secret that what Oracle wanted was the software part. Now The Inquired is running a story claiming that Oracle will sell the hardware business of SUN to HP. This will give Oracle a juicy check while HP can increase it's services. However, Larry Ellison denies that it will take place. A source CNN claims otherwise."
Transportation

Submission + - WiFi in planes

Submitted by
Firmafest
Firmafest writes: "In USA Today there's a scoop that American Delta Airlines offers WiFi on domestic flights . Price is approx. $10 to get connected. Being a frequent international flyer I hope this will catch on. LA times reports that the cost is about $100.000 to equip a plane . While that number seems high, it will probably be worth it. If I had a choice between two flights both equally good, I'd pick the WiFi enabled one."
Programming

Submission + - Shouldn't Every Developer Understand English?

Submitted by
Pickens
Pickens writes: "Jeff Atwood has an interesting post where he says that with the internet whatever country you live in or language you speak, a growing percentage of the accumulated knowledge of the world can and should be available in your native language but that the rules are different for programmers. "So much so that I'm going to ask the unthinkable: shouldn't every software developer understand English?" Atwood argues that "great hackers collectively realizing that sticking to English for technical discussion makes it easier to get stuff done. It's a meritocracy of code, not language, and nobody (or at least nobody who is sane, anyway) localizes programming languages." Eric Raymond in his essay "How to be a Hacker" says that functional English is required for true hackers and notes that "Linus Torvalds, a Finn, comments his code in English (it apparently never occurred to him to do otherwise). His fluency in English has been an important factor in his ability to recruit a worldwide community of developers for Linux. It's an example worth following." Although it may sound like "The Ugly American" and be taken as a sort of cultural imperialism, "advocating the adoption of English as the de-facto standard language of software development is simple pragmatism, the most virtuous of all hacker traits," writes Atwood. "If that makes me an ugly American programmer, so be it.""

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