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User: History's+Coming+To

History's+Coming+To's activity in the archive.

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  1. Re:Is it just me or has Europe become the privacy on Facebook Sued Over App Center Data Sharing In Germany · · Score: 1

    Or simply continue with the $homeNation-centric version and take the hit on fines in the EU. See also: motor car safety standards, counterfeit goods, tax evasion etc etc.

  2. Re:Misunderstood? on Facebook Says EU 'Right To Be Forgotten' Would Harm Privacy · · Score: 2

    Personally, I think Facebook's attitude on this is a very good thing in the long run, and I hope they continue in this vein.

    Your average user has absolutely no idea, or just doesn't care, what data FB holds on them and how it is used. The more Facebook shout and cry about how difficult it is for them to remove data the more incidents there will be of people being harmed by their policies - this is unfortunate for those individuals, but in the long run it should serve as an education for others, who will hopefully think twice about the personal data they supply and who they supply it to.

    Keep it up Zuckerberg, you're providing a valuable service in the long term, and good on you for forsaking the share price in the process, nice to see somebody putting long-term ethical considerations above medium-to-long term profits.

  3. Re:Congress Sucks on Congressional Committee Casts a Harsh Eye On Vaccination Science · · Score: 1

    So politicians the world over get immunity, but the 2 year olds don't. For once this is a case where "Think Of The Children!" is applicable.

  4. Re:No US on Scientists Race To Establish the First Links of a 'Quantum Internet' · · Score: 1

    Not at all - when you look at your marble you find out what colour you have, and can deduce the colour your friend has, but your friend receives absolutely no information from this, you have to send the message by traditional lightspeed means if you want him to know. He could, of course, just look at his and then you would both know what colour you have, but this isn't a "carrier wave" you can transmit information with.

  5. Re:No US on Scientists Race To Establish the First Links of a 'Quantum Internet' · · Score: 1

    However, this experiment is no different to having a black or white marble in your pocket and then looking at it to find out which you have. Knowing which your friend has does not supply any extra information, as to tell this person you are still limited by the speed of light. If you're a light year apart and you know what your friend has the information will still take a year to reach them, and the no-information-travels-faster-than-c rule is preserved.

  6. Re:Not sure but... on Star Wars Fans Plan Full-Size Millennium Falcon Replica · · Score: 3, Informative

    See the PVC tubes on the TOS Enterprise? Look closely, you'll see some marked as "GNDN" - Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing.

  7. Re:Half the length of a novelette on Adobe EULA Demands 7000 Years a Day From Humankind · · Score: 2

    Interesting idea - I just bought an eReader which comes with a (frankly ridiculous) EULA, I mean, seriously, an eReader? So if I root it, add "Company X agrees to pay £10,000 per annum to the purchaser", and then click "I agree" they then have to pay me as their software has agreed to the contract?

    I may just try that, for entertainment value alone when they get the email.

  8. Re:Congress Sucks on Congressional Committee Casts a Harsh Eye On Vaccination Science · · Score: 1

    Being unfamiliar with the legal and political systems in the US, can anyone enlighten me: if a senator says vaccines are bad, a parent decides not to vaccinate their kids, and people then die as a result, can the senator be sued? In the UK we have parliamentary privilege which offers a degree of immunity to our politicians.

  9. Re:Worlds Gone Mad on Apple Patents Wireless Charging · · Score: 2

    That's the problem - all the patent clerks are too busy trying to overturn our views of space and time to do any patent clerking...if only Einstein had worked as a lawyer instead...

  10. Re:Vega STRIKE on Vega Older Than Thought: Mature Enough To Nurture Life · · Score: 1

    You're forgetting to weight the options with the possible new information available. Also, we're still only talking "possible basic life", not Slowly And Surely Laying Their Plans Against Us.

  11. Re:Am I missing a meme here? on The Foldable Readius Ereader Is Dead · · Score: 1

    That was brought up - clearly there are times when there's nothing you can do or where you have to make a triage decision - but even if there's no head I'm still not qualified to pronounce death.

  12. Re:Am I missing a meme here? on The Foldable Readius Ereader Is Dead · · Score: 1

    I did a trauma management course (basically advanced first aid) where we were told that as we were not qualified to pronounce somebody dead then nobody in our care could (legally) die - so we keep trying to save them even if we think they're probably dead, until a doctor turns up to sign the paperwork.

  13. Re:irrelevant on Should Inventions Be Automatically Owned By Your Employer? · · Score: 1

    Simple solution: invent a virus, let it rip, refer all calls to the owner of the virus.

  14. Re:If you're affected on The Promo Bay Blocked By UK ISPs · · Score: 2

    Which is why you don't cancel the contract - you ask if you can, and when you can't you just keep finding mysterious faults which cost them more than £25/month or whatever in engineers fees. They soon get the message and you're free of contract.

  15. Re:good on UK Government Mandates the Teaching of Evolution As Scientific Fact · · Score: 1

    325 years if you take it from the publication of Principia.

  16. *ahem* {best Patrick Stewart voice} "Agent Smith! I want to to take the afternoon off and do a favour for me - you see anything you do on a computer at home doesn't really count as FBI'ing!"

  17. Re:good on UK Government Mandates the Teaching of Evolution As Scientific Fact · · Score: 1

    That's precisely why lobbying for the LHC funding worked - part of the argument was the sheer scope of theories that it could discount - a few billion now is saving us a few trillion in unsuccesful future experiments.

    Agreed, null results aren't always the best use of money, but you have to accept that they will happen. The only scientific funding I can recall paying out is a donation to SETI - we've not found ET, but I'm still glad I chucked a tenner into the pot, just in case...

  18. Re:You shouldn't have to mandate this on UK Government Mandates the Teaching of Evolution As Scientific Fact · · Score: 1

    Or, as Tegmark puts it, science is a process of truthification. Colbert couldn't do better!

  19. Re:20-50-100 years from now on UK Government Mandates the Teaching of Evolution As Scientific Fact · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My primary 7 (~10yrs old) teacher went one further - she would ask us to say which side of a debate we were on to start with, and regularly had us argue for the opposite side. Brilliant exercise in thinking properly and one I still practice today, it's lead to at least one bar fight. Totally worth it.

  20. Re:good on UK Government Mandates the Teaching of Evolution As Scientific Fact · · Score: 4, Informative

    Firstly, explanatory power alone does not make a scientific theory. Personally I'm a big fan of the various multiverse theories, they provide a very elegant solution to the fine tuning problem and various other issues, but the problem is they explain EVERYTHING. Want to know why a bug flew in your mouth last week? Multiverse theory. The problem is that it makes no testable predictions, and as such is not yet science.

    Secondly, yes, absolutely, if something we teach in schools is shown to be wrong then we should change it, and there is no shame in this. Physics education does this a lot - age 15 you get Newton's Laws, then at 16 the teacher explains that this isn't really what's going on and it's just a limiting case, then you get Relativity. Darwin's original theory is viewed in much the same way as Newton's Laws anyway, it's a few-hundred-year-old theory which doesn't stand up to very deep scrutiny, but DOES have a modern descendant which has had a few of the wrinkles ironed out.

    Backing down and admitting you're wrong when faced with evidence isn't bad for science, it IS science.

    Aside: for any non-UK Slashdotters wondering about UK politics and religion, we tend to keep the two separate. You'll sometimes hear a politician refer to god (as Blair somewhat infamously did over Iraq), and there is a lot of "god" in our legal and political oaths etc, but the electorate (even the religious ones) don't much care for "I'm voting like this because god says so", we prefer our leaders to keep their faith in a place of worship and their politics in the House of Commons.

  21. Re:Surprised? on Dell's Ubuntu Ultrabook Now On Sale; Costs $50 More Than Windows Version · · Score: 0

    You stick to MS Office then. Plenty of people do. Plenty of people also serve malware through virus infestations, doesn't mean I need that particular functionality either. The last large company I worked for (a fairly non-techy bookstore chain) switched away from MS Office to Star Office and never looked back.

  22. Re:Surprised? on Dell's Ubuntu Ultrabook Now On Sale; Costs $50 More Than Windows Version · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually, it might be the way to do it. Linux is out there, for free, in many forms, and people who see free as being a major point have already downloaded it. Whilst *we* know that the extra $50 is probably because they don't receive the same crap-ware subsidies, it'd be easy to pitch it as "it's $50 more because it's a better operating system". Sometimes charging more will automatically make something seem better...I can see it now..."Well sir, yes, you could have the Windows option, but for a measly $50 we can upgrade you to a more secure, stable operating system that comes with a huge library of free software and all future upgrades will be free, you'll save money the first time Microsoft brings out a new Windows."

    Might very well work.

  23. Re:A crowbar and a HEV suit on Ask Slashdot: Server Room Toolbox? · · Score: 1

    It's all down to "without good reason". If you get stopped with them in the car, you have a receipt and can show that you need all three items and are driving directly home with them then you should be fine. I have a dive knife that would see me arrested if I was carrying it in any situation other than when I'm driving to or from a kitesurfing session (or diving or similar).

  24. Re:Absolutely necessary... on Ask Slashdot: Server Room Toolbox? · · Score: 1

    No, it's very real and very different. Google it, especially if you're at work... (NSFW)

  25. Re:Was it justified on Apple Axes Head of Mapping Team · · Score: 1

    No idea, and I can't find much on Google, hence offering it as an alternative. I believe it may have been conflated with the "Fainting Goats", a breed which stiffen up and fall over when surprised in any way, in a similar fashion to the hobbling, for the same purpose. (If you haven't seen fainting goats, try searching YouTube. There's worse ways to spend five minutes.)