Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:Between the 5th and 17th floors (Score 5, Insightful) 467

*snip* but I think it's a fairly easy case to make that the world would be better off if it was free of religious belief altogether. The various wars in the middle east, perverted priests, and the entirety of the religious right wouldn't exist.

They (the problems you listed) would still exist. People would just find another excuse to do the atrocities they do instead of religion.

Think of all the petty religious people you have met. They will still exist in one form or another, but instead of focusing their actions on religious fervour, they get to interfere with things you just might care more about.

Be careful what you wish for.

Comment Re:How about Nintendo? (Score 4, Interesting) 292

I borrowed Banjo-Kazooie from one of my cousins many years ago. While giving it back to her, we had a snowball fight and it fell out into the snow somewhere.

Next spring, we found it on the lawn and dried it out. The damn thing still worked fine. A year or so after that, they had brought it on vacation. Their houseboat *burned down then sank*. They recovered it.

To this day the game works fine.

Books

Copyright Lobby Targets "Pirate Bay For Books" 356

An anonymous reader writes "TTVK, a Finnish national copyright lobby, is threatening a book rental service called Bookabooka for allegedly running the 'Pirate Bay for Books.' Bookabooka however does not offer a torrent tracker service, nor does it enable a user in any way to download eBooks; it simply provides a place for book owners to rent textbooks to each other via the traditional mail service. It is mandatory that all textbooks must be originals. The service is used by a lot of School and University students, and it does not handle the shipping or returns of the textbooks. Nevertheless, the Finnish book publishers' association (Suomen Kustannusyhdistys) is convinced the service is breaching the copyright laws and threatening their business. TTVK has given Bookabooka until Friday to cease operations or face a lawsuit. Bookabooka's founders have vowed to keep the service online and ignore the threat."
The Internet

Broadband Access Without the Pork? 412

An anonymous reader writes "Like many consumers nowadays, I find more of my time spent on the internet and various wireless devices (e.g. mobile phone). This has gotten to the point where I basically do not use a landline or cable television anymore, and they are essentially pork on my broadband bill, which further subjects the consumer to all sorts of clandestine fees that aren't disclosed until the first bill arrives and add a non-trivial sum (in my case, nearly 100%) to the monthly rate. However, it seems that all broadband access providers have this stipulation, that an internet customer must first have a basic phone or cable TV service in order to sign on for the internet service. Are there any ISPs that can get around this and still deliver broadband internet service at a competitive rate?"
Microsoft

Microsoft To Offer Free Anti-Virus Software 448

Dynamoo writes "The good news is that Microsoft have announced free anti-virus software for consumers, dubbed Morro, available late next year. The bad news is ... well, exactly the same. Although Microsoft's anti-malware products are pretty good, this move could drive many competitors out of business and create a dangerous security monoculture; major rivals will be lawyering up already. On the other hand, many malware infections could be prevented even by basic software. So is this going to be a good or bad thing overall?"
Businesses

Success Not Just a Matter of Talent 247

NinjaCoder writes "The Guardian has an interesting article based on a new book (Outliers: The Story Of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell) which examines some persons of interest to computer technology (Bill Joy, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, amongst others). It examines reasons for their successes and strongly suggests a link between practice (10,000 hours by age 20 being the magic milestone) and luck. This maybe an obvious truism, but the article does give interesting anecdotes on how their personal circumstances led to today's technological landscape. It points out that many of the luminaries of the current tech industry were born around 1955, and thus able to take advantage of the emerging technologies.

Slashdot Top Deals

Entropy requires no maintenance. -- Markoff Chaney

Working...