Comment Re:microsoft bob chat (Score 2, Funny) 223
Am I the only one that read that as "flying dildos"?
I assumed it was a typo. Esp. since I have no idea what flying didoes are.
Comment Re:Science Fiction Novel Idea (Score 1) 198
I was thinking it reminded me of a Jonathan Lethem story "Access Fantasy" wherein people live in their cars due to a city wide traffic jam. Link to book
Comment Re:Find a new site (Score 1) 660
I was getting mod points about once a week until i ticked that box. Now I haven't had mod points since August of last year.
Comment Re:logmein.com (Score 1) 454
Yes I have to concur on TeamViewer. It's a great little program and is easy to use with a lot of features. I use it all the time.
Large Hadron Collider Scientist Arrested For al-Qaeda Ties 245
mindbrane writes "A scientist working as a subcontractor on a peripheral LHC project has been arrested as a terrorist. The CBC is running a story outlining the arrest of a man on Thursday in south-east France for suspected al-Qaeda links: 'CERN officials said the man, whose name has not been revealed, was working under contract with an outside institute and said he had no contact with anything that could have been used for terrorism. He had been at CERN since 2003, officials said. ... The news that someone with terrorist connections might have worked at the facility is likely to cause concern because of both the high profile of the giant physics experiment and also the technology in use, which has made some members of the public nervous.'"
Computer-Aided ESP Transmits Binary Numbers, Slowly 148
High-C writes "Dr. Christopher James of the University of Southampton has demonstrated what is being termed 'Brain to Brain' communication. In binary, no less. In essence, one person imagined a binary number, which was picked up by an EEG and transmitted via the net to another PC. The received signal was displayed on LEDs flashing at two different frequencies. The receiver's EEG correctly deciphered the string, resulting in a 1:1 transmission of binary data via thought. The throughput isn't great so far, at .14 bits per second, but it's an incredibly geeky proof-of-concept all the same."
Comment Re:Yeah right (Score 1) 1721
Can you please provide a citation to back up your claim that he won the Peace Prize as you stated? I haven't been able to find a single source that states George Ryan was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Oh wait I get it, you're just making shit up to prove your point.
Comment Re:For being the opposite of Bush (Score 1) 1721
their routine mistakes (such as Yasser Arafat, awarded a "Peace Prize" and then proceeding to go on to lead over 20 more years of terrorist attacks).
Huh? Arafat was awarded the prize in 1994. It is now 2009. 2009 - 1994 = 15. Arafat died in 2004. 2004 - 1994 = 10. Get your facts right. When you resort to this kind of hyperbole it really cheapens the rest of your argument.
Submission + - Canadian Minister Lies On Net Surveillance Claims
An anonymous reader writes: The Canadian government has introduced
Internet surveillance legislation that requires ISPs to disclose
customer information without a warrant. Peter Van Loan, the
Minister in charge, claims that a Vancouver kidnapping earlier this
year shows the need for these powers. I did some digging
and shows this to be a lie — the Vancouver police acknowledge that the
case did not involve an ISP request and the suspect is now in custody.
Submission + - Canadian ISP's fight back (again)
jenningsthecat writes: "With the recent CRTC decision giving Canadian telcos such as Bell and Telus the legal right to deny third-party ISP's access to their infrastructure, smaller Canadian internet providers are again fighting for their lives, and are asking their customers for help. The ISP's are sending out e-mails asking people to go to http://www.competitivebroadband.com/ to send either a form letter or a personalized message to the Industry Minister, the Prime Minister, the Opposition Leader, and optionally the respondent's local Minister of Parliament.
If the CRTC's decision is not overturned, approximately 30 ISP's will likely be forced out of business. Competition in the ADSL market will be totally eliminated, and Canadians will have only two choices for wired Internet access: the local Cableco or the local Telco. Given that Canadian taxpayers have heavily subsidized the telcos in multiple ways for several decades, this decision to hand over exclusive control of the keys to the cookie jar hardly seems fair.
To all Canadian Slashdotters: If you are in favour of net neutrality and believe competition is a good thing, please click on the link above and make your views known to the powers-that-be."
If the CRTC's decision is not overturned, approximately 30 ISP's will likely be forced out of business. Competition in the ADSL market will be totally eliminated, and Canadians will have only two choices for wired Internet access: the local Cableco or the local Telco. Given that Canadian taxpayers have heavily subsidized the telcos in multiple ways for several decades, this decision to hand over exclusive control of the keys to the cookie jar hardly seems fair.
To all Canadian Slashdotters: If you are in favour of net neutrality and believe competition is a good thing, please click on the link above and make your views known to the powers-that-be."
Comment Re:And.... (Score 1) 681
It happens all the time. If you expect someone to sell your product, and your product has any amount of technological complexity above that of say a toaster, then you want that person to have some modicum of knowledge about the product. The retailer is not going to put any effort into training their employees so who is in the best position to make this happen? The manufacturer of course.
Take your basic premise and replace MS and Best Buy with a manufacturer and retailer from any other industry and no one would think twice about it. I'm no MS fanboi and fully support Linux and all it stands for but really the bias is, as another poster stated, irrational.
Comment Re:Sign me up... (Score 1) 681
You obviously have never used Ubuntu. If you had you would know that Ubuntu includes OpenOffice as part of its standard install and features both the Synaptic Package Manager and the Add/Remove option for software, the latter having pretty pictures for those who need them. You're right that it's a check in the pro column for Ubuntu but it definitely hasn't allowed Linux to "beat" Microsoft.
Submission + - Who Will Fix The Internet? No One, Apparently (csmonitor.com) 1
blackbearnh writes: "It seems like everyone focuses on the latest and greatest killer Internet applications, but the underlying infrastructure that all that shinny runs on is showing its age. That's the claim made by a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor. IPv4 is relatively ancient, and even stalled improvements like IPv6 are just fingers in the dike, according to some researchers. With no one "in charge" of the Internet, it's almost impossible to get any sweeping technical improvements made, especially since there's no financial incentive on the part of the ISPs and telecomms to invest in basic infrastructure. CalTech Professor John Doyle puts it this way. "To the extent I've been working in this field for the last 10 years, I've been mostly working on band-aids. I'm really trying to get out of that business and try to help the people, the few people, who are really trying to think more fundamentally about what needs to be done.""
Submission + - Burning Man responds to EFF's criticism of policy 1
Briden writes: Earlier this week, slashdot covered the EFF's criticism of the Burning Man Photo Policy. Burning Man has now responded on their own blog:
"In fact, there are but two essential reasons we maintain these increased controls on behalf of our community: to protect our participants so that images that violate their privacy are not displayed, and to prevent companies from using Burning Man to sell products."
"We don't remove images from pages just because they criticize us (I've never been involved in taking down an image from an editorial blog criticizing Burning Man, and it's certainly not because there haven't been any!). We're also not at all interested preventing participants from sharing their personal imagery or impressions of the event on third party sharing sites in a noncommercial manner, so long as they observe the concerns about privacy and commercialism. We're delighted to see people sharing videos, stories, and pictures on our official Facebook page, and we know that it, along with Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. are representative of the way many of us share personal imagery in the digital age."
"In fact, there are but two essential reasons we maintain these increased controls on behalf of our community: to protect our participants so that images that violate their privacy are not displayed, and to prevent companies from using Burning Man to sell products."
"We don't remove images from pages just because they criticize us (I've never been involved in taking down an image from an editorial blog criticizing Burning Man, and it's certainly not because there haven't been any!). We're also not at all interested preventing participants from sharing their personal imagery or impressions of the event on third party sharing sites in a noncommercial manner, so long as they observe the concerns about privacy and commercialism. We're delighted to see people sharing videos, stories, and pictures on our official Facebook page, and we know that it, along with Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. are representative of the way many of us share personal imagery in the digital age."
Submission + - Designer Fights for Second Life Rights
An anonymous reader writes: A 14-year London-based industrial designer has had his work ripped off in Second Life and is now looking to file a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) grievance against his client. Commissioned to recreate the French Quarter in New Orleans, the designer, Gospel Voom, spent six months on the project, only to sign on to Second Life after its completion to find it was deleted by the client. She claimed it was taken down because it wasn't making money. However, despite having signed a contract that let Voom retain creative rights over his work, he later found out it was sold to another community, OpenLife, without his knowledge or permission.
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I've finally learned what "upward compatible" means. It means we get to keep all our old mistakes. -- Dennie van Tassel
