mathmoi - Slashdot User

Comment What is the solution to this problem? (Score 1) 481

by mathmoi on Thursday April 15, 2010 @01:00PM (#31859732) Attached to: Microsoft Mice Made in Chinese Youth Sweatshops?

I do agree child labor is a bad thing, especially when the working condition/pay is abusive, however I'm wondering what is the solution to this? Usually what happen is the public learns Microsoft/Wall-Mart/Nike/etc. is selling goods that have at some point been manufactured by children. The company will apologize, say it did not knew and promise it won't happen again and either change their sub-contractor or ensure no child work for them anymore. How does that help the children? They had a job where they were earning some money, probably not a lot, but still. I suppose this money was not used to pay luxury items, but to support their family in buying necessary goods like food/cloth/rent. Now, since working children is unacceptable in our westerns societies, they lost that job. And we're like : "Look we made theses kids life so much better now." I don't see how that makes their life better. That being said, what would be a good and plausible (read economically feasible) solution to the problem of child labor? (Sorry for my english, I know it's bad)

Sony Takes Aim At Amazon's Kindle 273

Posted by timothy on Thursday August 06, 2009 @06:44PM from the critical-mass-is-critical-though dept.

MojoKid writes "Sony recently announced two new eBook readers and has set its sights on tapping into Amazon's Kindle market share. The Sony Reader Pocket Edition and the Reader Touch Edition will come out at the end of the month and will reportedly cost less or the same as the older, more established Kindle. The Pocket Edition has a five-inch display, comes in several colors ('including navy blue, rose and silver') and fits, as one might expect, in a jacket pocket or a purse. It can store about 350 'standard eBooks' and can last about two weeks on a single charge, Sony claims. The Touch Edition is a bit larger, with a six-inch display that, as you'd expect, can be controlled via a touch interface."

Comment Go out find a mouse you like and buy it. (Score 1) 519

by mathmoi on Thursday April 30, 2009 @12:56PM (#27774925) Attached to: Bluetooth Versus Wireless Mice

I think you overthink it. Most wireless mouses are precise enough and can work > 1 month on a set of regulars AA bateries.

The FBI Has a Trojan To Watch You 372

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday April 20, 2009 @11:00AM from the who-watches-the-watchers dept.

G_of_the_J writes "A man who had cut 18 cables affecting Verizon and Comcast was blackmailing them. He had demanded bank accounts be set up and information be provided on web sites that he specified. Although he used anonymous access to get to the web sites, the FBI had planted a trojan which was downloaded to his computer. The trojan then sent his IP address and other information to the FBI."

Microsoft Begs Win 7 Testers To Clean Install 420

Posted by timothy on Thursday April 09, 2009 @01:52PM from the time-for-a-memory-wipe dept.

Barence writes "Microsoft is imploring millions of Windows 7 beta testers to perform a clean install of the forthcoming Release Candidate, rather than upgrade from the beta. 'The reality is that upgrading from one pre-release build to another is not a scenario we want to focus on because it is not something real-world customers will experience,' the company claims on the Engineering Windows 7 blog. Those who attempt to install the Release Candidate over the beta will find their path blocked." I've read complaints that reviews of new Linux distros often focus too much on the installation process; Microsoft seems to understand that complications at installation time (dual booting? preserving an existing data partition?) can sour one's experience pretty thoroughly.

Largest High-Tech Tornado Chase Set To Begin 112

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @02:58PM from the just-a-big-blowhard dept.

coondoggie writes "Next month, with the help of a variety of high-tech gear, researchers will begin a wide-ranging project to better understand the origin, structure and evolution of tornadoes. The National Science Foundation has given $9.1 million to the project called Vortex2 (of course it has a convoluted backronym), which will take place from May 10-June 13. Researchers say Vortex2 is the largest attempt in history to study tornadoes, and will involve more than 50 scientists, 40 research vehicles, and 10 mobile radars, and will cover 900 square miles in southern South Dakota, western Iowa, eastern Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, the Texas panhandle, and western Oklahoma."

Court Rules Autism Not Caused By Childhood Vaccine 1056

Posted by timothy on Thursday February 12, 2009 @03:00PM from the thanks-court dept.

wiredog writes "From The Washington Post comes word that three special masters have decided that MMR vaccines do not cause autism. 'Special master George Hastings said the parents ... had "been misled by physicians who are guilty, in my view, of gross medical misjudgment." ... "the evidence advanced by the petitioners has fallen far short of demonstrating ... a link."'

Euro Parliament Wants "Red Button" For Shutting Down Games 167

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday February 12, 2009 @02:41AM from the say-what-now dept.

GamePolitics writes "The European Parliament has actually requested that red, panic-style buttons be set up for use by parents whose children play online games. The buttons would allow the parents to quickly shut the game down should something inappropriate occur. Wouldn't the old-school on-off switch work just as well?" To be fair, the report isn't entirely crazy; it says games "can also be used for educational and medical purposes," and acknowledges that the "presence of violence in video games does not automatically lead to violent behaviour."

Zipingpu Dam May Have Triggered the Sichuan Quake 193

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 03, 2009 @06:58PM from the may-get-us-banned-in-china dept.

bfwebster writes "An article in the Telegraph (UK) raises an interesting question: was the massive (7.9) Sichuan earthquake that wracked China last year and left millions homeless caused by ground stresses following the completion of the Zipingpu dam? As the article notes, 'The 511-ft-high Zipingpu dam holds 315 million tonnes of water and lies just 550 yards from the fault line, and three miles from the epicenter, of the Sichuan earthquake. Now scientists in China and the United States believe the weight of water, and the effect of it penetrating into the rock, could have affected the pressure on the fault line underneath, possibly unleashing a chain of ruptures that led to the quake.'" The Sichuan region is earthquake-prone, but has not seen anything as large as the 7.9-magnitude quake for perhaps millions of years. The Chinese government denies any connection between the dam and the earthquake and seems to be actively obstructing the access of scientists who want to investigate. The article concludes, "There is a history of earthquakes triggered by dams, including several caused by the construction of the Hoover Dam in the US, but none of such a magnitude."

Apps That Officially Support Wine 354

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 03, 2009 @12:12AM from the insert-alcohol-related-line-here dept.

David Gerard writes "Wine (the Windows not-an-emulator for Unix) runs Windows applications more often than not. (Certainly more often than Vista does.) Dan Kegel on the wine-users mailing list/forum has started gathering apps that declare Wine a supported platform. And there's now a Wine Support Honor Roll page on the Wine wiki. We need more apps that work with Wine stating that they consider it a supported platform. If you write Win32 open source or shareware, please open yourself to the wider market!"

Comment Re:Agree about GMail... (Score 1) 198

by mathmoi on Friday January 23, 2009 @10:13AM (#26573931) Attached to: Despite Gates' Prediction, Spam Far From a Thing of the Past

Spam is not an issue (at least with gmail). Mine is mathieu.page@gmail.com

KY Appeals Court Nixes Seizure of Gambling-Linked Domains 102

Posted by timothy on Wednesday January 21, 2009 @05:12PM from the stick-to-the-whiskey-making dept.

davidwr writes "A state appeals court in Kentucky ruled that the state courts cannot seize domain names as 'gambling devices.' The court ruled that 'it's up to the General Assembly — not the courts nor the state Justice Cabinet — to bring domain names into the definition of illegal gambling devices.'"

Barack Obama Sworn In As 44th President of the US 1656

Posted by timothy on Tuesday January 20, 2009 @02:11PM from the worst-job-in-the-whole-world-but-the-best-perks dept.

Just before noon today, Eastern time, Barack Obama was sworn in before the US Capitol building as the 44th President of the United States (Whitehouse.gov has already been updated to reflect the new President), and offered an inaugural address which outlined some of the challenges that the country currently faces, both within the country's borders and abroad. Obama's election has been called "a civil rights triumph," and his candidacy has inspired perhaps the most visible political involvement of young voters of any candidate since John Kennedy. Here's your chance to discuss the newest occupant of the White House and what you'd like to see happen over the course of his presidency.

South Carolina Seeking To Outlaw Profanity 849

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 14, 2009 @07:07PM from the f@#k-those-f@#king-f@#kers dept.

MBGMorden writes "It looks like in an act that defies common sense, a bill has been introduced in the South Carolina State Senate that seeks to outlaw the use of profanity. According to the bill it would become a felony (punishable by a fine up to $5000 or up to 5 years in prison) to 'publish orally or in writing, exhibit, or otherwise make available material containing words, language, or actions of a profane, vulgar, lewd, lascivious, or indecent nature.' I'm not sure if 'in writing' could be applied to the internet, but in any event this is scary stuff."

iTunes DRM-Free Files Contain Personal Info 693

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday January 13, 2009 @03:39AM from the musical-steganography dept.

r2k writes "Apple's iTunes Plus files are DRM-free, but sharing the files on P2P networks may be an extremely bad idea. A report published by CNet highlights the fact that the account information and email address of the iTunes account holder is hidden inside each and every DRM-free download. I checked, and I found I couldn't access the information using an ID3 tag editor, but using Notepad I found my email address stored inside the audio file itself."

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