Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score 1) 874

And won't it be a kick in the balls to supporters of C&T once they realize that this is going to negatively affect food aid to the third world.

No, it won't. They don't really care, and the holier-than-thou feeling they get from this stupid piece of legislation will obscure the facts to them anyway.

Consider, these idiots who heavily promoted and supported Ethanol from corn, not realizing they were just playing in to the hands of the farm lobby, who wanted more subsidies. It was a factor in causing world grain prices to rise, thus creating famine in the Third World.

So, if they ever realize it, which is doubtful, they probably won't care, or think its for the "greater good."

Comment Re:How about (Score 1) 793

Believe it or not, the British NHS recently did an analysis and determined that smokers and the obese cost the system less money than healthy people. The reason being that these people tended to die early, before the complications and cost associated with old age set in.

Exactly! People should thank the smokers - they're national benefactors!

Comment Re:I feel bad for these people (Score 1) 717

The conservatives you mention. By your definition they haven't had anyone to vote for in the last 100 years or so.

Seriously, if you're a conservative of that stripe...who do you vote for?

And another thing. Conservatives such as the people you describe need to *SPEAK UP* and get represented. Although I usually vote Democrat, I would happily consider people of that mind set. Anything that marginalizes the neocons is good, IMHO.

OK, I'll bite on this one...

No-one to vote for in the last 100 years? Except, of course, for Barry Goldwater, Ron Paul (as the Libertarian candidate in the 1980s) and Ron Paul in the repub primary race this year, or if you want to go further back, Calvin Coolidge (the only one of the three I listed who actually won.)

As to conservatives needing to speak up... actually many do. But REAL conservatives are usually marginalized very quickly by the current Republican (and Democartic) party. Ron Paul is a case in point. But it certainly hasn't shut him up. One political commentator on mainstream media, Glenn Beck, could definitely be called a real conservative (although some of his foreign policy views may be a bit un-conservative.)

Then there are the radio talk show hosts who are actually conservative (ie. not Rush Limbaugh types) as well as the many thousands of individuals (like myself) who constantly post true conservative views to places like Slashdot, write to magazines and newspapers and generally talk to all our friends continually about it.

Maybe all of the people you speak to are Democrat or Neocon, and you need to step outside your circle a little bit.... just a suggestion. You'll find some very intelligent, tolerant people among true Conservatives. There are some arsholes, too, but every group has those.

Security

Apple Patches Kaminsky DNS Vulnerability 89

Alexander Burke writes "Apple has just released Security Update 2008-005, which patches BIND against the Kaminsky DNS poisoning issue. 'This update addresses the issue by implementing source port randomization to improve resilience against cache poisoning attacks. For Mac OS X v10.4.11 systems, BIND is updated to version 9.3.5-P1. For Mac OS X v10.5.4 systems, BIND is updated to version 9.4.2-P1.' It also closes the script-based local privilege escalation vulnerabilities, the most common examples of which were ARDAgent and SecurityAgent, and addresses other less-publicized security issues as well." A few days back we noted Apple's tardiness in fixing their corner of this Net-wide issue.
Privacy

DHS Allowed To Take Laptops Indefinitely 1123

andy1307 writes with a Washington Post story giving details of Department of Homeland Security policies for border searches of laptops and other electronic devices (as well as papers). (We have been discussing border searches for a while now.) DHS says such procedures have long been in place but were "disclosed last month because of public interest in the matter," according to the article. Here is a link to the policy (PDF, 5 pages). "Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed. Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption, or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, US Customs and Border Protection and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement... DHS officials said that the newly disclosed policies — which apply to anyone entering the country, including US citizens — are reasonable and necessary to prevent terrorism... The policies cover 'any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form,' including hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover 'all papers and other written documentation,' including books, pamphlets and 'written materials commonly referred to as "pocket trash..."'"
Google

New Search Engine Cuil Takes Aim At Google 649

theodp writes "CNET reports that Cuil (pronounced 'Cool'), a startup founded by the husband-and-wife team of Xift creator Tom Costello and former Google search architect Anna Patterson, is launching a new search engine today that claims to index three times as many Web pages as Google." Running a few searches left me underwhelmed with the content of the results (hitting the next-page button on a search with a listed 62,200,000 results — for "seattle" — got me the unexpected error message "We didn't find any results for 'seattle.'"), but pleased with the actual layout of the results when it worked, so I hope the kinks are worked out. Update 7/28 18:30 GMT by SM: corrected Tom Costello's accreditation, he wasn't a professor at Stanford as the linked story suggests, just did some research there as a grad student. Thanks to the Stanford CS department for pointing this out.
Democrats

Obama Losing Voters Over FISA Support 1489

Corrupt writes "I've admired Obama, but I never confused him with a genuine progressive leader. Today I don't admire him at all. His collapse on FISA is unforgivable. The only thing Obama has going for him this week is that McCain is matching him misstep for misstep."
Moon

Moon May Have Once Had Water 89

Smivs writes "US scientists have found evidence that water was held in the Moon's interior, challenging some elements of the theory of how Earth's satellite formed.The Moon is thought to have been created in a violent collision between Earth and another planet-sized object. Scientists thought the heat from this impact had vaporised all the water. But a new study in Nature magazine shows water was delivered to the lunar surface from the interior in volcanic eruptions three billion years ago. This suggests that water has been a part of the Moon since its early existence."

Slashdot Top Deals

It is masked but always present. I don't know who built to it. It came before the first kernel.

Working...