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Comment Re:Vice Versa (Score 2, Informative) 375

by dageyra (#32595896) Attached to: Geologists Might Be Charged For Not Predicting Quake
I recall that as well, quick Google search turned up these two hits, none that I had read at the time, but same story, different vendor: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/04/06/seismologist-was-forced-to-remove-italy-earthquake-warning-from-the-internet/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/04/06/scientist-smackdown-did-a-seismologist-accurately-predict-the-italian-quake/

Comment Don't keep a low profile (Score 1) 888

by dageyra (#30398736) Attached to: Best Way To Clear Your Name Online?
This is a problem in how people think "don't have an online presence to avoid these problems". In principle, it would be great, but principle is little more than that. You have a prime example of why you need a greater online presence. This one little issue mirrored across the web is amplified by the notable lack of other information about you. You should make a stronger web presence where you put in the information you want people to see, and over time, this will drown out the other information. Just make sure you are not a douche/troll/jacka$$/etc, contribute to the web, and that is what people will find.
Cellphones

A Mobile Phone Mesh That Can Survive Carrier Network Failure 131

Posted by timothy from the use-the-unbroken-bits dept.
bennyboy64 writes "iTnews reports that researchers from Australia and Singapore are developing a wireless ad-hoc mesh networking technology that uses mobile handsets to share and carry information. The mesh network will make use of Bluetooth or Wi-fi to swap information between handsets — even if the mobile phone network was offline. One potential scenario could be during an emergency where the mobile phone network was unavailable or clogged. In a city centre, users could set up the network to share information, video, photographs and, depending on the final client applications, even locate friends and loved ones. One benefit of developing such a technology would be that users sharing content between their devices would use the wireless communications technology already built into their phones and not bandwidth from their mobile provider. The researchers from the National ICT Australia and Singapore's A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research hope to demonstrate the technology within two years, according to NICTA project leader Dr Roksana Boreli.'This is an early stage in the research project,' she said. 'We are addressing how you would quickly establish trust between devices, how you would discover them and share the information,' Boreli said."
Privacy

Americans Don't Want Targeted Ads 404

Posted by timothy from the might-prefer-them-to-endless-tampon-ads-though dept.
itwbennett writes "A survey by the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California Berkeley School of Law and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania finds that US residents do not want to receive Web advertising tailored to their interests. 66% of those surveyed said they don't want tailored, or targeted, online ads and when asked if online ad vendors should deliver targeted ads by tracking customers' behavior across multiple Web sites, 86% of the 1,000 respondents said no. 35% of respondents said executives of companies that use personal information illegally should face jail time, and 18% said those companies should be put out of business. 'While privacy advocates have lambasted behavioral targeting for tracking and labeling people in ways they do not know or understand, marketers have defended the practice by insisting it gives Americans what they want: advertisements and other forms of content that are as relevant to their lives as possible,' the study said. 'In high percentages, [US residents] stand on the side of privacy advocates.'"

Comment Greylisting + SA trumps these rates, moving on (Score 1) 157

by dageyra (#28883283) Attached to: Stopping Spam Before It Hits the Mail Server
Are they kidding? 70% and 0.3 % false positives? I employ a simple GreyList which catches 90% of spam and 0 false positives short of a misconfigured sending email server that does not adhere to RFC. Couple this with user-configured Spam Assassin, and my clients see maybe 1 (generally 0) spam email in their inbox a day, with around 10-20 ending up in the spam due to SA. This is down from hundreds in the spam folder and 20-25 in the Inbox before implementing this solution. At least if we're going to pretend something is newsworthy, make it better than what already exists.
The Internet

Yahoo Pulls the Plug On GeoCities 427

Posted by timothy from the myspace's-aesthetic-progenitor dept.
Mike writes "It's official: Yahoo is pulling the plug, and GeoCities is dead. GeoCities had suffered a long and drawn-out battle with its health over the past decade. An antiquated service model and outdated technology are widely blamed for the struggle. An official cause of death, however, has yet to be determined. Awful, eye-punishing graphics, lack of relevancy, and 'lowest-common-denominator design' are believed to have contributed to its demise. GeoCities was 15 years old." There is doubtless a lot of funny and informative stuff on there that's worth saving (not just Jesux, which pudge has now migrated). If some of it belongs to you, perhaps you should move it sometime in the next few months. Update: 04/24 18:10 GMT by T : And if you know some GeoCities page owners who aren't especially computer savvy, you could point out to them how easy it is to slurp down their pages for re-hosting elsewhere.

Comment Re:Convert? (Score 1) 621

by dageyra (#27691607) Attached to: Time Warner Cable Won't Compete, Seeks Legislation
Read the last article regarding the bill. It clearly states that tax dollars are NOT used, so TW is NOT complaining about tax dollars being used. The money to run this system comes from the subscriptions people pay into it. So more likely, they can and TW is out to remove them because it undermines their profit margin.
It's funny. Laugh.

Unix Dict/grep Solves Left-Side-of-Keyboard Puzzle 423

Posted by timothy from the mysteries-of-the-ages dept.
destinyland writes "For decades, people have been asking this brain teaser: 'What's the longest word you can type with only the left-hand letters on a keyboard?' The answer is supposed to be 'stewardesses,' but grepping the standard dictionary that ships with Unix reveals a much better answer. There's nearly 2,000 shorter words that can typed with only the left hand — including one word that's even longer. (The article also quotes a failed novel attempt using nothing but words typed on the keyboard's left side.)"

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