flummoxd - Slashdot User

Comment I was verbally assaulted by a MADD rep.. (Score 1) 703

by flummoxd on Thursday May 01, 2008 @01:08PM (#23265172) Attached to: MADD Targets GTA IV Over Drunk Driving Scene

A few years back I was walking through a subway station in Toronto trying to get to college. A single (female) MADD rep was standing in the halls with a collection box begging for money.

I didn't know much about them, but I believed MADD was a good cause. At the time I was a poor student, so I humored her and said "No thanks, not today" (as opposed to ignoring her existence as is normal on the Toronto subway). And you know what she says to me?

Oh, so you SUPPORT drunk driving?

At this point I wanted to throttle her, I was absolutely speechless. I walked away with my jaw agape, stupefied. I wish I had said, "no, but I'll never support MADD again because of your sickening implications" or something to that effect. Since that day I've decided I'll never give to any charities ever again. They are simply too manipulative for their own good.

Pentagon Manipulating TV Analysts 361

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday April 22, 2008 @05:31PM from the media-trojan-horse dept.

gollum123 notes an extensive article from the NYTimes on the evidence that the military, since the time of the buildup to the Iraq war, has been manipulating the military analysts that are ubiquitous on TV and radio news programs, in a protracted campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration's war efforts. "Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity of military analysts on the major networks, is a Pentagon information apparatus... The effort... has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air. Several dozen of the military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members, or consultants. Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks. ...[M]embers of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access."

Submission + - Bell Canada Throttles Wholesalers Without Notice (dslreports.com)

Submitted by

knorthern knight

on Monday March 24, 2008 @04:35PM

knorthern knight writes: "Users of the Canadian family-run ISP Teksavvy (which is popular amongst Canadian P2P users precisely because it does *NOT* throttle P2P) have started noticing that Bell Canada is throttling traffic before it reaches wholesale partners. According to Teksavvy CEO Rocky Gaudrault, Bell has implemented "load balancing" to "manage bandwidth demand" during peak congestion times — but apparently didn't feel the need to inform partner ISPs or customers. The result is a bevy of annoyed customers and carriers across the great white north. Story at http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Bell-Canada-Throttles-Wholesalers-Doesnt-Bother-To-Tell-Them-92915"

MS Responds To Vista's Network / Audio Problems 528

Posted by kdawson on Sunday August 26, 2007 @02:05PM from the designed-that-way dept.

quirdan writes "With the discovery last week of the connection between Vista's poor networking performance and audio activities, word quickly spread around the Net. No doubt this got Microsoft's attention, and they have responded to the issue. Microsoft states that 'some of what we are seeing is expected behavior, and some of it is not'; and that they are working on technical documentation, as well as applying a slight sugar coating to the symptoms. Apparently they believe an almost 90% drop in networking performance is 'slight,' only affects reception of data, and that this performance trade-off is necessary to simply play an MP3."

The Future of C++ As Seen By Its Creator 424

Posted by Zonk on Monday August 13, 2007 @07:01AM from the fun-name-to-say dept.

holden writes "In a rare public talk, C++ creator Dr. Bjarne Stroustrup discusses his ideal in programming languages, as well how he sees the next version (and beyond) of C++ developing. He explains the general selection criteria used for adding new features, some of the legacy of C++, and many other interesting topics. Especially interesting is during the Q&A he explains his views of the embrace and extend mentality some implementations, such as VC++, have taken."

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