Slashdot Mirror

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/22/tech/innovation/jobs-excerpt-customer-service/index.html

From everything I've read about Jobs is he was not just a figurehead.

http://www.valuewalk.com/2012/12/the-top-10-colossal-tech-fails-of-2012/

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/28/tech/web/tech-fails-2012/

2. Path privacy breach It all started when Arun Thampi, a programmer in Singapore, blogged that the app for the social network Path was downloading his entire address book—including names, emaill addresses, and phone numbers--without asking his permission. The tech blogs took the story and ran with it, and before long, Path had a major publicity issue on its hands. Eventually, company founder Dave Morin issued an apology, and updated the app so users can opt in or out of sharing their contact list.

3. Facebook IPO When Facebook went public in May, many people bought its stock thinking they’d strike it rich quick. Many thought the IPO would be the most successful since Google went public in 2004. After a few hours of gains, the stock slide back to its opening price, but concerns over Facebook’s position on the mobile platform kept the slide going for going for the next few months.

The stock seems to have finally stabilized and has made gains since bottoming out, but it’s still more than $10 below its $38 opening day price. 4. Nokia's fake photos Nokia impressed quite a few people when it announced its latest flagship phone the Lumia 920 in September. Specifically, a Web ad showing the phone’s video recording and night-photographing capabilities made the Lumia 920 noteworthy. Unfortunately, Nokia’s positive press coverage went away when it was discovered the footage and photos used in the ad were not actually taken by the phone. In the end, Nokia had to issue an apology and label the video as a simulation.

4. Nokia's fake photos Nokia impressed quite a few people when it announced its latest flagship phone the Lumia 920 in September. Specifically, a Web ad showing the phone’s video recording and night-photographing capabilities made the Lumia 920 noteworthy. Unfortunately, Nokia’s positive press coverage went away when it was discovered the footage and photos used in the ad were not actually taken by the phone. In the end, Nokia had to issue an apology and label the video as a simulation.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/27/tech/web/top-tech-stories-2012/

http://www.gizmag.com/avatar-project-2045/23454/

Precisely Bruce Willi's point when he wants to leave his music collection to his daughters (computerworld, cnn dailymail yahoo).

Off topic and sarcastic as it may be, I always thought that boat is so ugly, finally they realized it's not worth all those dollars http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/21/tech/innovation/steve-jobs-yacht/index.html

Now if you had said an armed guard, I might agree—someone trained to use weapons, carrying that weapon on his or her person at all times. As soon as it is in the hands of someone who isn't physically in contact with the weapon at all times, however, it becomes a far greater threat to the children's safety than the threat it is trying to prevent, statistically speaking. Far, far greater.

A significant proportion of American public schools actually have armed guards. In fact, so did Columbine on the day of the 1999 massacre. Even though Deputy Sherriff Gardner exchanged fire twice with Eric Harris, that did nothing to prevent the killings there.

The presence of armed guards would only ensure that they are the first targets for any homicidal and suicidal maniac with guns.

Then there's this: Afghan Taliban support polio vaccination campaign

So it's not really fair to blame this on the CIA's operation...

Or they should be carrying supplies, weapons, and other matériel, but only as far as it takes to find some packing crates and enough C-130s to get the hell out of that place. Unfortunately, until they do this they'll have to carry bullets, not bread, because we've placed them in circumstances where they cannot worry about saving other lives as their own are at such great risk. Hell, half the bullets will have to be insurance against blue-on-green.

I agree, but that doesn't change the fact that there is an awful lot of NIMBY going on. We could've and should've been building new reactors since the 70's, but instead the reactors that are online are mostly still the original first generation designs from the late 50's and early 60's. The same whack job environmentalists who should be all for this, are also typically the most adament against it. Yet watch them and their energy use isn't substantially different then any other American....

I suspect by the time we figure out that we can't put up with this NIMBY crap we will be OUT of oil OR have completely screwed up the environment once and for all...

I mean really this was the first new nuke plant licensed in 30 years:
http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/09/news/economy/nuclear_reactors/index.htm

And it's the AP1000. Still a Water based design and Generation 3.. Though from the look of it a lot safer than most of the reactors (Gen 2) in operation

Illusionary because if you actually study the effect of gun ownership on personal safety (remember, your personal anecdotes do not data make) it does not make you safer:

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/30/opinion/frum-guns-safer/index.html
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/12/17/guns-dont-make-you-safer

Also from spending the last few days on various US centric forums, it has become entirely clear to me that Americans are not actually interested in having a fact based discussion on this. The same places on the internet that will happily eviscerate the American right for its anti-scientific, fact ignoring stance on Global warming downvote/downmod comments that do little more than point out the facts on gun ownership.

Driving a pickup with a noose hanging off the back and repeatedly driving past a group of demonstrators has landed people in jail. I don't agree with these people, but how is this form of speech not protected while shouting horrible hateful things at families burying their small children is?

There have been spree killings all over the world, even in countries with more restrictive gun laws than the USA. Most of these killings were done with firearms, but many were done with other weapons.

In a remarkable coincidence, a nut-case went on a spree of violence with a knife at a school in China just a few hours ago. Said nut-case stabbed 22 children and 1 adult with his knife. All 23 victims survived and are expected to recover.

Our American nut-case, on the other hand, was armed with a gun and was able to kill at least 27 people.

The lesson one might draw is that a nut-case with a gun is significantly more deadly than a nut-case with a knife.

Tell that to China.

Fuck you. Children die all the fucking time. Want some examples?
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/oct2012/afgh-o24.shtml
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/24/3-killed-kids-hurt-as-fury-grows-over-u-s-drone-strikes-in-pakistan/
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/177737.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/how-team-obama-justifies-the-killing-of-a-16-year-old-american/264028/

So stop with the knee-jerk attempts to shout down civilised debate. Shit, I just handed you several compelling reasons to disarm Americans, you really shouldn't need to resort to appeals to emotion.

18 kids would NEVER have been stabbed.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/14/world/asia/china-knife-attack/index.html?hpt=hp_bn2

But not less violence http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/14/world/asia/china-knife-attack/index.html

No, this happened just today in China. No Guns involved. 22 children attacked: Knife attack at Chinese shool.

Would you rather be tased (unpleasant, effects wear off shortly, no lasting damage)...

Right, because no one has ever been killed by a taser.

> Taxation isn't theft.

When you have a private exchange between two parties and the 3rd party must resort to force and duress to so they can steal from both parties how is that NOT theft??

The government does not have the right to steal my time.

> Taxation is the honoring of a contract, the social contract you are implicitly a signatory to as a citizen of a civilized society.

You really don't have a clue about contract law do you?

You DO know one can opt out of taxes, right? The problem is that is an ALL-or-NOTHING approach. Either you rescind ALL your contracts because even _one_ little one will put your fictitious legal entity back in the system. Usually the inconvenience of not having ANY financial instruments such as a bank account may make life a little challenging then most people would be willing to trade but it is entirely possible. I know one person who has proven it.

Personally though there are bigger battles to wage wars against such as corrupt and war-mongering government then an ignorant government.

Maybe if we would spend less money on killing OTHER people and rather on HELPING people maybe people would LIKE supporting the government. But what do you expect when you have useless entertainers making tens of millions and teachers struggle to make a living or classic pork-barrel spending:
i.e.
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/09/army-to-congress-thanks-but-no-tanks/?hpt=hp_c1
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/how-to-blow-6-billion-on-a-tech-project/

The fact that it takes the government 10 years to ban loud commercials is a prime example of the idiotic bureaucracy.

She was refused the iPhones that she had come to pick up after ordering them online (and for which she presumably would get a refund). She did that after she bought two iPhones last week, reaching Apple's imposed cap. That's when she was asked to leave the store, at which point she refused.

If I have a disagreement with someone and the police get involved, I'm generally going to get a bit quieter if a Taser or a gun is unholstered as I don't want either going off while pointed at me. The woman reportedly was also resisting arrest for about 15 minutes, which is a lot more patience than people here are thinking is happening.

That said, some articles have provided the department's use of force policy, which apparently considers tasers as the equivalent of pepper spray, something that sounds like a poorly-considered policy. The taser should be considered an intermediate between pepper spray and a firearm. An article in Fortune paraphrases a department captain this way: "He described the use of electroshock weapons as standard procedure when a subject refuses to obey a lawful order or resists arrest." If that's the case, some very minor issues could be used to justify someone getting shocked.

I don't think the Apple store was in the wrong in asking her to leave or to call in the police when she refused to do so. I do think the officers overreacted. Tasers are much more dangerous than pepper spray.

And anti-slavery, pro-Civil Rights.

So am I to understand that Democrats are thus "Anti-Business"? That would explain a lot of their actions...

They're still going to spend it in the US economy.

LOL! Pics or it didn't happen!

Any politician who dared sign the release papers wouldn't only be out of a job, he'll be lucky to make it through the next year without an angry mob destroying his house.

Israel releases 429 Palestinian prisoners in gesture to Abbas
Israel releases another 550 prisoners
Israel approves release of 250 prisoners
The Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange followed an agreement between Israel and Hamas to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 prisoners
Hezbollah released the remains of two captured Israeli soldiers in exchange for Samir Kuntar (described here)

Of the politicians responsible, Olmert resigned on corruption charges and Netanyahu is still Prime Minister.

(CNN) -- Western governments, including the United States, appear to be stepping up efforts to censor Internet search results and YouTube videos, according to a "transparency report" released by Google.
"It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect -- Western democracies not typically associated with censorship," Dorothy Chou, a senior policy analyst at Google, wrote in a blog post on Sunday night.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/18/tech/web/google-transparency-report/index.html

After looking through their Job Listings, I didn't see a single engineer/developer job that mentioned a preference for a *nix background -- while my eyes did gaze upon words relating to that Micro$oft $cum -- our mortal enemies. Based on this, I think we are at a lost my comrade.

However, there is still hope! A new hope? From this huffingtonpost article: "Epix CEO Mark Greenberg said the expansion onto Redbox will help grow its customer base since Redbox's customers tend to be younger than its current subscribers." Let's just hope the younger crowd yearns for Linux.

Based on this cnn article, this is what will be supported in the beginning: "At launch, Redbox Instant will be available through traditional web browsers, tablets and phones that run on Apple's iOS or Google's Android, as well as a few Blu-ray players and smart TVs." So it will be available on Linux (ARM), just not desktop Linux -- the one we love. I imagine this will be like Hulu. Hopefully, they use HTML 5 and not Flash.

I'm tempted to email Redbox directly...

"I have been back to America many times since I have been in Belize. I have no interest of going this month or next but ... I can come and go freely to America any time I want."

cnn article from Dec 8th

And here's the damn interview.

In what way wasn't it automated? There is a lot of evidence pointing to it having been automated. I'm sure there were some manual steps, there always are, but still.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1990/02/26/73121/index.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT6aphdX0rI

Simply put, the US is in no position to lecture anyone about incarceration rates [wikipedia.org].

Simply put, you just changed the subject from one which many Europeans and Westerners would rather avoid, limits on free speech, to the ever popular topic of US prison population (Why do they have so many people in jail when crime rates are dropping? Duh!)

Why free speech is baffling to many
European Free Speech Under Attack
Are there limits to freedom of speech?
Muslim Protests Show Limits of Free Speech

USA Today said he was accompanied by his 20 year old girlfriend to the hospital. Perhaps the 2 minor heart attacks were after a conjugal visit?

He had seven live-in "companions" that age in Belize.

The day before, I met "Tiffany" here. She claimed to be one of McAfee's girlfriends, one of seven. They all live together, sharing McAfee's houses and fantasies. He's 67. Tiffany says she's 23 and they have been lovers for three years. The girl beside her gives no name and only says she's 19.

A bizarre visit to John McAfee's pleasure palace in Belize

Border Areas: A long-standing border dispute between Belize and Guatemala has not been resolved and many areas of the border area are not adequately patrolled. Smugglers, narcotics traffickers and wildlife poachers enter Belize in the shared border region, and there have been incidents of clashes between some of these individuals and Belize military and law enforcement personnel, some of which included the exchange of gunfire. Visitors should avoid trekking or other activities near the Belize-Guatemala border to ensure that they do not inadvertently cross the border into Guatemala. The Embassy cautions U.S. citizens who choose to travel on cross-border public buses between Guatemala and Belize in response to a spike in armed bus attacks by bandits in January 2011. Illegal cross-border activities increase after nightfall. Visitors to the border areas should travel only during daylight.

Belize

CRIME AND SAFETY TIPS: Guatemala has one of the highest violent crime rates in Central America. Between January and September 2012, an average of 95 murders per week were reported countrywide in Guatemala. The vast majority of murders do not involve foreigners; however, the sheer volume of activity means that local officials, who are often inexperienced and underpaid, are unable to cope with the problem. Rule of law is lacking as the judicial system is weak, overworked, and inefficient. Criminals know there is little chance they will be caught or punished as the rate of convictions/resolution are very low.

The number of violent crimes reported by U.S. citizens and other foreigners has remained high and incidents have included, but are not limited to, assault, theft, armed robbery, carjacking, rape, kidnapping, and murder, even in areas of Guatemala City once considered safe.

Guatemala is a country with many different and firmly held local beliefs and customs. Particularly in small villages, residents are often wary and suspicious of outsiders. In the past, Guatemalan citizens have been lynched for suspicion of child abduction, so we recommend that U.S. citizens keep a distance from local children, and refrain from actions that could fuel such suspicions. In addition, U.S. citizens are advised to be aware of and avoid activities that might unintentionally violate a cultural or religious belief. The following recommendations will help residents and visitors alike to increase their safety:

Avoid gatherings of agitated people. Attempting to intervene may put you at risk of attacks from mobs.

Avoid close contact with local children, including taking photographs, especially in rural areas. Such contact can be viewed with deep suspicion and may provoke panic and violence.

Keep informed of possible demonstrations by following the local news and consulting hotel personnel and tour guides. Avoid areas where demonstrations are occurring.

Guatemala

McAfee seems to have cut pretty close to the line in his pursuit of young women in Belize. Not a pedophile. But not someone to be trusted, either. A bizarre visit to John McAfee's pleasure palace in Belize

Quit being so defensive.

N.b.: I was responding to someone who was irritated, agreeing with him that his irritation was directed at a real phenomenon, and at one point expressing the likelihood that it was a cheap joke. Indeed, I would only have replied to someone about something like this. Perhaps that's a little defensive, but I hope not too much.

That's part of the problem.

You might be right, but I do not think it the better part. I'd suggest that the better part of the problem is that those in a position of social and cultural superiority (as it is commonly regarded) do not regard prejudice directed toward rural people as something to question, much less be ashamed of.

I teach on the university level, living in a largely rural area of Kentucky. I know very bright, hardworking students whose inability to lose their accent and pass as suburbanites has been a real stumbling block. Those who're able to pass tend to leave their homes and find success elsewhere (a different problem, of course, but a related one that causes brain drain, thereby perpetuating problems in the southern states here and in Appalachia). This isn't just an issue of hurting anyone's feelings, much less of the ribbing about city vs. county that goes on between friends in a spirit of mutual respect and comradery. It is an issue of the regular disregard of a whole class of people on the basis of nothing more than where they were born.

This sort of prejudice appears on Slashdot. Not from most commenters, to be sure. Slashdot has a healthy amount of intelligent and insightful comments, else I would never read the comments. Yet let one article come out about some politician in Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi or some other favored place, who wants to pander to a certain segment of voters by screwing around with textbooks, and the tenor changes: "Ah, but that's Alabama, what do you expect?" This statement alone isn't so objectionable--for indeed you are more likely to see such nonsense in such places. What accompanies it, however. "They are...", then the disparagement of a whole class of people starts. Someone in polite society would be ashamed to make similar comments about racial minorities, about certain minority religions, about LGBTs, and about women. Similar courtesy ought to be shown to poor and rural people. And lest you think that since this is Slashdot, it's not polite society, I would point out that we mod trolls down.

Speaking of textbook nonsense, did anyone else notice that Pat Robertson has come out against young-earth creationism? If you can't stand to watch the man talk, there's an article on CNN about it. Unfortunately, the fellow who wrote the headline doesn't recognize the difference between creationism and young-earth, and the fellow who wrote the article uses weasel words in painful places ("Most scientists, however, agree that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old and the universe is 14.5 billion years old." Which wouldn't? You don't have to say "most" and do CYA with everything.)

Their resources page reads like a Who's Who of, well, sites anyone can link to?

We’re proud to provide you with the following resources:

Professional Organizations and Governmental Agencies

American Bar Association
Library of Congress
American Association of Justice
Association of Trial Lawyers of America

News and Information

The Wall Street Journal
CNN Legal News
The National Law Journal
Law.com

Legal Resources

United States Federal Law
U.S. Code Search

And the footer text of their pages:

Content copyright 2012. Yes It Is No Piracy - DMCA Remover. All rights reserved.

Clearly they were in the DCMA removal business.

IBM is currently the 19th biggest corporation in the world. I dream someday to "fail" like that! Source: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/full_list/

While the markings don't necessarily mean that Apple is in the midst of transferring its entire assembly operation from China to the U.S., it does indicate that at least a few of the new iMacs were substantially assembled domestically. Besides built-to-order machines, the 21.5-inch iMacs are some of the first known examples of an Apple computer being assembled in the U.S., according to Fortune.

From the linked article:

What's odd about Gong's iMac is that it was a stock, off-the-shelf, entry-level model, and not in any way made-to-order.

He moved to a corrupt 3rd world banana republic with no rule of law, and failed to pay a bribe a couple months ago so they roughed him up, shot his dog for fun, trashed his place, what did he expect if he didn't pay his bribe in a country that's corrupt? So that's the background.

--- or are you just taking McAfee's self-serving blogs as gospel truth?

A bizarre visit to John McAfee's pleasure palace in Belize

You're forgetting something - while your thesis that food costs are directly associated with fuel costs is correct, the reason that this is true is because fossil fuels comprise a large portion of the energy budget of food production.

From a CNN article:

Doing away with food imports could be seen as understandable if international transport played a dominant role in the food chain's greenhouse gas emissions.

But in the UK 's case -- where much of the research into the "food miles" concept has taken place -- that doesn't seem to be the case. A sturdy 85 percent of UK food transport-related emissions actually derive from domestic road deliveries according to the DFID. Road freight traffic in the UK grew by 67 percent between 1980 and 2001, with the average journey length also increasing by 40 percent.

By comparison, international freight contributes 11 percent of UK food transport-related emissions -- that's less than one-tenth of one percent of the UK 's overall emissions, the DFID says.

Transportation as a whole contributes 2.5 percent of the food chain's emissions, says FCRN. Food refrigeration, on the other hand, accounts for as much as 18 percent (and notably 3.5 percent of the UK 's entire greenhouse gas emissions).

The whole transport issue initially came to the fore after the "food miles" concept was coined in Europe to illustrate how fossil fuel-intensive the global food distribution network had become.

But the relative blame that the transport sector should be taking for this is debatable.

In the U.S., up to 20 percent of the country's fossil fuel consumption goes into the food chain, according to the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), which points out that fossil fuel use by the food systems in the developed world "often rivals that of automobiles".

To feed an average family of four in the developed world uses up the equivalent of 930 gallons of gasoline a year -- just shy of the 1,070 gallons that same family would use up each year to power their cars.

The average developed world diet uses 1,600 liters of fossil fuels each year, according to the U.S. based Organic Consumers Association (OCA). Only 256 of those liters come from transporting the food, says OCA.

By contrast, a whopping 496 liters goes into the chemical fertilizers used during the food growing stage, representing well over one third of the food chain's entire fossil fuel consumption.

Yes, lots of people protested NASA's risky space launch of a nuclear reactor but failed to stop the launch. The cops treated them just like they treated OWS. Sigh.

yes, that is sad -- we wouldn't all be dead right now if NASA had been stopped.

Yes, lots of people protested NASA's risky space launch of a nuclear reactor but failed to stop the launch. The cops treated them just like they treated OWS. Sigh.

From the link:

The Cassini rocket will be powered by 72 pounds of plutonium -- the most ever rocketed into space. Protesters say that if the rocket explodes it could sprinkle deadly poison for hundreds of miles.

Winds can blow (plutonium) into Disney World, Universal City, into the citrus industry and destroy the economy of central Florida," said Michio Kaku, a protesting physics professor from New York. He claimed that casualties could run as high as a million people if there were an accident.

What? If you split it up into 1 million 30 milligram doses and had people directly inhale it or inject it into your blood, yeah that would do it. You could injest that much and survive (cancer risk goes up, but it is well under the LD50 of 500mg for ingestion, cyanide is more lethal) But exploding it over the ocean where people are very unlikely to encounter any at all? Maybe that is the kind of science you get form a TV physicist. Make up a scary story to get yourself headlines.

As far as the OWS quip goes, some of these people did break into a secure facility by jumping the fence. Though they deserve to be arrested it is no reason for police brutality. However the article only says that there were only arrests.

The Bakers Union destroyed the American icon of treats - Hostess.

Hahahahahahaha! I stopped reading right there. What a maroon!

Yeah...it's that damn Bakers Union's fault!

Yes, lots of people protested NASA's risky space launch of a nuclear reactor but failed to stop the launch. The cops treated them just like they treated OWS. Sigh.

Syrian government has been threatening cutoff for a while. My money says this is no accident.

Every big country wants to be top dog, or a superpower.

China has wanted this for some time.

They fought a number of proxy wars against the USA, including the Korean War and the Vietnam War. In the former, Chinese troops met American troops in combat. In the latter, China provided weapons, equipment, aid and advisors to the North Vietnamese communist armies.

China is now building F-22 clones for its airforce, has a new carrier for its Navy, is waging constant and active cyber warfare against the US, and is expanding its trade strategy to dominate the US.

The war is cold now, but eventually it will be hot. Hold onto your hats.

"There are the occasional accidents in which wearing seat belts has actually been to the detriment of the occupants. "
citation?

Here

You still assume the mercury in coal plants is going into the environment.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/21/health/epa-mercury-rule/index.html

You've apparently never heard of the requirements for scrubbers or the emission standards modern coal plants must meet.
 

The prison industry is thriving and set to continue growing. I'd actually not be surprised to see that happen. I could think of a dozen reasons, but here's one.

Relevant and interesting quiz on what the rich really pay in taxes: http://money.cnn.com/quizzes/2012/pf/taxes/rich-pay-tax/

MS hegemony on personal computers would continue unabated.

It pretty much has. Microsoft still has a considerable margin of the market share in the personal computer arena. Tablets are not personal computers, they are tablets, and if you really want to compare mobile devices, well I have bad news for you there too.

although the Belize police do want to question him.