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Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 169

by geekwithsoul (#29471027) Attached to: Supermarket bans Jedi Knight
A number of stores do this if they've been robbed often enough. I don't agree with it, but the thinking is if they don't have a hood, it makes it easier to identify them if they decide to rob you.

Comment Re:Function before form (Score 1) 556

by geekwithsoul (#29286959) Attached to: Firefox 4.0 Goes Chrome, New UI In Q4 2010
While all that's true, a browser is at it's most basic simply a platform to deliver someone else's content and design. It should be unobtrusive and as the parent pointed out, effort spent on putting functionality into the browser would be far more useful to both content consumers and designers - better CSS support, more efficient code execution, etc. should be a much higher priority than synchronizing bookmarks or in making a new interface.
Education

Submission + - A Visit from MPAA Senior VP Rich Taylor

Submitted by tedswiss
tedswiss writes: Fate has dropped a unique opportunity upon my lap: I teach at a moderately small independent school who has as one of its alums Richard Taylor. Mr. Taylor is both speaking at our start-of-year festivities and being honored with this year's "Distinguished Alum Award." Having followed and been disgusted by the MPAA's corporate practices regarding DRM and government lobbying in the past (Anyone remember DeCSS?), I would love to make his visit help to truly educate our student body, not just indoctrinate them. The school administration is sympathetic to my plight, but I want to present them with more than just my complaints. To the /. community: How would you best make use of this opportunity if you found yourself in my shoes?
The Internet

Submission + - Rural broadband crisis hurts residents & compa (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by
Ian Lamont
Ian Lamont writes: "Thanks to profit-oriented telco industry in the U.S., rural residents don't have as much access to broadband services as those who live in urban or suburban areas. According to the federal government, just 17% of rural U.S. households subscribe to broadband service. But the problem is more than a conflict between Wall Street and small-town residents wanting to surf the 'Net or play Warcraft — the lack of broadband access prevents many businesses from growing and diversifying rural economies, as it's expensive or impossible to get broadband:

Soon after moving to Gilsum, N.H. (population 811), [Kim] Rossey learned that he couldn't get broadband to support his Web programming business, TooCoolWebs. DSL wasn't available, and the local cable service provider wasn't interested in extending the cabling for its broadband service the three-tenths of a mile required to reach Rossey's house — even if he paid the full $7,000 cost. Rossey ended up signing a two-year, $450-per-month contract for a T1 line that delivers 1.44Mbit/sec. of bandwidth. He pays 10 times more than the cable provider would have charged and receives one quarter of the bandwidth.
The author also notes that larger businesses are being crimped, from a national call center to a national retailer which claims 17% of its store locations can't get broadband."
Microsoft

Submission + - Mac users' Internet experience to remain seamless 2

Submitted by thefickler
thefickler writes: Mac users will continue to see the Internet as it was intended, thanks to the renewal of a font licensing agreement between Microsoft and Apple. At TypeCon2007 Microsoft and Apple announced they have renewed their font licensing agreement, giving Apple users ongoing use of the latest versions of Microsoft Windows core fonts.

Back in 1996 Microsoft started the "Core fonts for the Web" initiative. The idea of this initiative was to create a a standard pack of fonts that would be present on all or most computers, allowing web pages to be displayed consistently on different computers. While the project was terminated in 2002, some of the fonts defined as core fonts for the web have gone on to become known as "web safe fonts", and are therefore widely used by Internet developers.
The Courts

US Attorney General Questions Habeas Corpus 1151

Posted by kdawson from the exact-words dept.
spiedrazer writes "In yet another attempt to create legitimacy for the Bush Administration's many questionable legal practices, US attorney General Alberto Gonzales actually had the audacity to argue before a Congressional committee that the US Constitution doesn't explicitly bestow habeas corpus rights on US citizens. In his view it merely says when the so-called Great Writ can be suspended, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the rights are granted. The Attorney General was being questioned by Sen. Arlen Specter at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Jan. 18. THe MSM are not covering this story but Colbert is (click on the fourth video down, 'Exact Words')." From the Baltimore Chronicle and Sentinel commentary: "While Gonzales's statement has a measure of quibbling precision to it, his logic is troubling because it would suggest that many other fundamental rights that Americans hold dear (such as free speech, freedom of religion, and the right to assemble peacefully) also don't exist because the Constitution often spells out those rights in the negative. It boggles the mind the lengths this administration will go to to systematically erode the rights and privileges we have all counted on and held up as the granite pillars of our society since our nation was founded."
Education

Submission + - Better than a TI?

Submitted by
aaronbeekay
aaronbeekay writes: "Hey guys, I'm a sophomore in high school taking an honors chem course. I'm being forced to buy something handheld for a calculator (I've been using Qalculate! and GraphMonkey on my Thinkpad until now). I see people all around me with TIs and think "there could be something so much better." The low-res, monochrome display just isn't appealing to me for $100-150. Is there something I can use close to the same price range with better screen, more usable, and more powerful? Which calcs do you guys use? I'm hoping for this to last through college."
Security

Submission + - Competition to select a replacement for SHA-1

Submitted by
SHA who?
SHA who? writes: "In the light of recent attacks on SHA-1, NIST is preparing for a competition to select the next set of Hash Functions. The public competition will be much like the development process for Advance Encryption Standard (AES). As a first step in this process, NIST is publishing draft minimum acceptability requirements, submission requirements, and evaluation criteria for candidate algorithms, and requests public comment by April 27, 2007.
P.S. NIST has ordered the Federal Agencies to stop using SHA-1 and instead use SHA-2 family of hash functions."

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