I suspect the USA version of the internet kill switch would be more akin to turning on a nanny filter... ISPs blocking sites / throttling traffic / packet filtering.
Plus, many websites would limit functionality...
Most likely, Google, Bing, and other major search engines would return highly censored results - they have the tools in place to do so, as well as the expertise, since already do heavy filtering in many countries.
And Facebook and other social network sites would, likewise, also strictly filter (again, the functionality in their systems is already there), as well use some psychology... ie. running a joint promotion with Zynga to require more frequent harvesting of crops in Farmville, maybe even chances to win cash - anything to keep people occupied so as to avoid reality; "bread and circuses".
Whew! I was able to change it back through another link.
The Account link still doesn't work.right, but was able to change it from Preferences or something like that.
So glad to have classic discussion view back with the Submit button... come to think of it, maybe that button was there in the new view too. Regardless, glad to have the simple, decent looking, and, very importantly, functioning interface again.
This text input window though ain't exactly great shakes - tiny. I thought only the idle section had the lousy text window, but perhaps all of Slashdot is now considered the idle section, but I digress.
I switched from Classic to check this out... but it won't let me change it back. It doesn't save the changes. Always defaults to the new view (D2).
BAD! Please fix this!
Guess I'll stop visiting as often until Classic Discussion view works again.
As of now, in MSIE 8, the site crawls and discussions don't always load...
And in Firefox 3.6.13 it runs very poorly... I get this gem when trying to view discussions:
" A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, or you can continue to see if the script will complete.
TV is all about ratings so the producers going to make darn sure the results / appearance is exactly what they, and, presumably, IBM, is seeking.
What many people don't realize is that reality shows (Operation Repo comes to mind), news, and even documentaries are all considered "entertainment" - heavily edited, dramatizations, staged scenes, and some outright fiction tossed in.
Personally, the Jeopardy supercomputer challenge doesn't impress me in the age of low cost mass storage.
What that said, a more interesting challenge would be Google against the contestants - I'd wager Google could do as well, if not better, than IBM's supercomputer; probably supplied them the data anyways.
Another potential danger of unauthorized remote auto-start is carbon monoxide poisoning of the car owner, if the car (in particular, those with traditional combustion engines) is parked near living areas, such as in an attached garage.
Do cars with remote auto-start have safety features to prevent it from being misused, such as excessive idling?
Good point. Hence, some public libraries only keep track of what's checked out; returns are immediately deleted.
On a related note, an option for a library user who is overly concerned about their privacy is to not check the items out, but rather read them in the library - preferably in an area not monitored by security cameras.
I'm amazed the pop-under problem still hasn't been addressed in MSIE nor, more surprisingly, in Firefox - even at the highest security settings, pop-unders, such as the Netflix and screensaver ones, still get through - a potential security flaw.
I've search the bug reports for Firefox in the past and pop-unders ranks high on problems that people want fixed, and yet still isn't - seems to me if pop-up windows can be blocked, why can't pop-under windows? Doesn't make sense to me...
The cynic in me thinks there's some financial incentives for Firefox developers who happen to know how to fix the pop-under issue to not do so. Especially since some large companies, such as Netflix, and various popular websites, including Accuweather.com, heavily utilize pop-unders it makes me wonder, but I digress.
What about a hybrid solution? A single line feeds into N cashiers. Each cashier has two spots, one for the person they're helping and one for the next person they will help. When a person is done paying the next person is there to be helped immediately, at which point someone from the feeder line goes to the newly available "next up" spot next to the register.
Some of the eateries at Disney World do exact that - works very well.
Supermarkets, certain retailers and home improvement centers frequently feature self checkout lanes that are fed by a single line. Even if a person has a hard time using the machine, you are pretty much guaranteed the others are speedily checking out and will be done in minutes.
Ditto. The "pretty much guaranteed" checkout time is the sole reason I use self-checkout whenever possible.
Ron
Re:Okay, here's a question ...
on
New IE Zero Day
·
· Score: 1
Speaking of Firefox security. Firefox has a ways to go in regards to the issue of unwanted pop-unders.
When visiting a website, even at the highest security settings, can [u]open another window unsolicited[/u], that's a security flaw.
The TSA's measures are worse than useless: they actually create a hazard, with long, slow-moving, densely-packed lines full of by-definition unscreened persons--lines that are about the ripest target for a bomb that you can find.
Security lines at airports are ripe targets, but bombing one doesn't make for much terror.
On a related note, a person, even fully packed with explosives would likely, at most, kill a few dozen people in a security area. In contrast, a far less powerful bomb in an aircraft could easily kill hundreds, or even upwards of thousands; passengers on board plus those on the ground.
Bottom line is aircraft are a far more worthwhile target than the security line. About the only place where attacking the security line itself would instill much terror are at public schools.
The bad air quality is a prime example of an externalized cost.
Many people claim the reason for offshoring is wages, but that's only part of it...
Much of the savings comes from the ability to operate a factory in China under less stringent rules - less labor protections, less safety, less pollution controls, etc.
Eventually China will crack down on polluters (they already do on an ad hoc basis, such as briefly during the 2008 Olympics) improving air quality, but also increasing production costs, which will then push many companies to offshore to the next cheaper place where such costs can again be externalized.
Ron
p.s. why is the comment entry window so narrow? More breakage - Slashdot was more usable in 1998 than it is now, but hey I guess this is progress... bah!
ccTLDs are Not governed by ICANN Policies...
on
The Ascendancy of .co
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Many people, are not aware that country-code TLDs (ccTLDs) are NOT governed by ICANN policies.
ccTLDs are a whole different breed with their own unique rules and policies. The ccTLD delegated country, which in the case of.CO is the country of Columbia, has total control - the registrant has little to no recourse; ICANN likely can't help.
Most.CO registrants don't fully realize the risks with the biggest ones being:
* The country of Columbia could change policy at any time and take away many domains - it's happened many time before in numerous ccTLDs, including with.TM, such as Sex.TM, and even with.US as in the case of FuckCensorship.US that was retroactively deleted - google for more details.
* Can charge any price they want - so that.CO domain one registers for $29.95 today at GoDaddy could potentially cost far more in the future to renew; no rate caps nor restrictions on variable pricing -.CO can raise prices to whatever it wants anytime for all or selectively (ie. own a real nice.CO and you could be looking at a huge renewal bill; not unheard of either - read up on.TV variable pricing practices).
Bottom line is ccTLDs (.CO,.TV,.US, etc) are not the same as gTLDs (.COM,.NET,.ORG, etc). Buyer beware!
The article doesn't detail whether this is for tapping power from single phase household drops only, which I assume is the case... or can it also be used to tap higher voltage lines?
Since they have years worth of AdSense data, surely they know who their primary advertisers are.
They should approach those advertisers and deal direct, which would allow the site to operate more freely. As a bonus, cutting out the middleman (Google), would likely result in more revenue than before.
Selling ads is presumably not their forte, so the site would likely need to find someone versed in on-line sales and price negotiations - could be well worth the effort in the long-run verses passively relying on Google.
Expectation of privacy. You implicitly allow search by entering an airport, but a billion court rulings state that the authorities cannot look inside your house or car without probable cause.
Slippery-slope comes to mind. Since when did one relinquish their rights at the airport? -it wasn't always that way. And furthermore, such searches are now becoming routine on long-haul passenger trains (ie. Amtrak) and buses (Greyhound) too. And even one's own vehicle at some select locations, such as tunnel entrances.
You're assuming the government will protect one's rights - sadly, that's often not the case. Watch some episodes of COPS for a reality check on how policing really works in the U.S. - the police state is already here.
In addition, home monitoring technology has greatly improved and hence, the number of people under court supervision is rapidly expanding so, in turn, there's little in the way of stopping the police state of expanding... it's easily conceivable that upwards of 10% of the adult population could in the next decade or so be under some court mandated supervision.
Digressing, but don't think for a second, that the courts alone are going to stop technology, such as the vans, from being used for searching people / property - only a revolution, or more ideally, some power-elites, choosing to put freedom of citizens ahead of profits and power will. Anything else is wishful thinking. In the meantime, about the best one can do is be aware of these things / educate others and navigate the system best one can.
As you point out, for those regularly exposed to such machines, the health risk may be considerable. Also, presumably, the vans operate at a higher power / intensity than airport scanner units.
Also, how is the x-ray energy distributed?... evenly or in intense beam(s) that could potentially, at times, far exceed the normal stated output rating.
On a related note, how reliable is the software / interlocks to prevent unintended excess output? - this has been a longtime, persistent problem with various diagnostic machines used in hospitals with people occasionally dying... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25
This blurb in the article basically says it all...
"Using the ZBV vans over the past couple of years, we've gotten over a thousand seizures and 89,000 pounds worth of narcotics, approximately $4 million worth of currency, and we've also uncovered 10 or 11 undeclared aliens within vehicles," said Patrick Simmons, Director of Non-Intrusive Inspection at Customs and Border Protection. "Again, we don't purposely scan for people, but if they're in there hiding, the ZBV will be able to spot them."
While many dismiss / marginalize the threat of the drug war on people's freedoms, it's happening nevertheless. For example, there was a time when local police busting down doors was virtually unheard of - now it's common practice in all sorts of situations. Another is that people are now subjected to all sorts of demands, such providing government id / signing a form, to buy over-the-counter cough medicine. All in the name of the drug war - which is really a war against citizens.
For anyone who believes use of such technology to search people / private property will be ruled unconstitutional, think again - drug sniffing dogs are often allowed to search one's private property, such as one's vehicle, that's accessible from the street despite no "contraband" being in plain view.
One can practically count on such vans roaming the streets all throughout the U.S. in the near future "for your protection", but of course, much of the time, that won't be the real motivation.
Maybe. Or perhaps grade like they do in the bond ratings business, add more letters and pluses.
So instead of A+ being the top grade, it might become A++ or AA+, etc. And over time, add more.. heck, the grades could eventually resemble eBay positive feedback with lots of As and +s.
Spot on. Interesting how the labels state the external cost of charging (ie. 12 cents per kwh) and yet neglect to state the external environmental costs. Another example of greenwashing.
There's no free lunch - energy use always involve a trade off, even geothermal (ie. earthquakes) and solar (ie. less energy available to organisms, such as plants). For the labels to claim CO2 emissions of zero, even with the "tailpipe only" disclaimer, is disingenuous and deceptive.
It's much like how Windows stores various user data in well hidden index.dat files that can't be cleared by the user through normal means. Clearing browsing history, cookies, privacy settings, etc has no effect on them. It's the view of many in the know that Window's index.dat files, while useful at times to various applications, mainly exist to benefit law enforcement.
And in recent times, citizens are referred to as "consumers"; those who don't consume, effectively don't exist.
To digress a bit, but related to this topic, many organizations, instead of saying they offer programs / activities / education, now often just use the word "programming" - seems very Orwellian to me.
The emergency broadcast system has become a farce in many locales. It's often used, at least here in southeastern Pennsylvania, to announce severe thunderstorms may be in the area. To be clear, I'm not talking tornadoes, but simple, run-of-the-mill, thunderstorms being used as the pretext to interrupt broadcasts.
Slashdot Mirror
I suspect the USA version of the internet kill switch would be more akin to turning on a nanny filter ... ISPs blocking sites / throttling traffic / packet filtering.
Plus, many websites would limit functionality...
Most likely, Google, Bing, and other major search engines would return highly censored results - they have the tools in place to do so, as well as the expertise, since already do heavy filtering in many countries.
And Facebook and other social network sites would, likewise, also strictly filter (again, the functionality in their systems is already there), as well use some psychology... ie. running a joint promotion with Zynga to require more frequent harvesting of crops in Farmville, maybe even chances to win cash - anything to keep people occupied so as to avoid reality; "bread and circuses".
Ron
Viewing discussions in classic mode (D1) is still decent.
Ron
Whew! I was able to change it back through another link.
The Account link still doesn't work.right, but was able to change it from Preferences or something like that.
So glad to have classic discussion view back with the Submit button ... come to think of it, maybe that button was there in the new view too. Regardless, glad to have the simple, decent looking, and, very importantly, functioning interface again.
This text input window though ain't exactly great shakes - tiny. I thought only the idle section had the lousy text window, but perhaps all of Slashdot is now considered the idle section, but I digress.
Ron
I switched from Classic to check this out ... but it won't let me change it back. It doesn't save the changes. Always defaults to the new view (D2).
BAD! Please fix this!
Guess I'll stop visiting as often until Classic Discussion view works again.
As of now, in MSIE 8, the site crawls and discussions don't always load...
And in Firefox 3.6.13 it runs very poorly ... I get this gem when trying to view discussions:
" A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, or you can continue to see if the script will complete.
Script: http://a.fsdn.com/sd/all-minified.js?T_2_5_0_306:20 "
Ron
p.s. Where's the "Post" button?
TV is all about ratings so the producers going to make darn sure the results / appearance is exactly what they, and, presumably, IBM, is seeking.
What many people don't realize is that reality shows (Operation Repo comes to mind), news, and even documentaries are all considered "entertainment" - heavily edited, dramatizations, staged scenes, and some outright fiction tossed in.
Personally, the Jeopardy supercomputer challenge doesn't impress me in the age of low cost mass storage.
What that said, a more interesting challenge would be Google against the contestants - I'd wager Google could do as well, if not better, than IBM's supercomputer; probably supplied them the data anyways.
Ron
Another potential danger of unauthorized remote auto-start is carbon monoxide poisoning of the car owner, if the car (in particular, those with traditional combustion engines) is parked near living areas, such as in an attached garage.
Do cars with remote auto-start have safety features to prevent it from being misused, such as excessive idling?
Ron
Good point. Hence, some public libraries only keep track of what's checked out; returns are immediately deleted.
On a related note, an option for a library user who is overly concerned about their privacy is to not check the items out, but rather read them in the library - preferably in an area not monitored by security cameras.
Ron
I'm amazed the pop-under problem still hasn't been addressed in MSIE nor, more surprisingly, in Firefox - even at the highest security settings, pop-unders, such as the Netflix and screensaver ones, still get through - a potential security flaw.
I've search the bug reports for Firefox in the past and pop-unders ranks high on problems that people want fixed, and yet still isn't - seems to me if pop-up windows can be blocked, why can't pop-under windows? Doesn't make sense to me ...
The cynic in me thinks there's some financial incentives for Firefox developers who happen to know how to fix the pop-under issue to not do so. Especially since some large companies, such as Netflix, and various popular websites, including Accuweather.com, heavily utilize pop-unders it makes me wonder, but I digress.
Ron
Some of the eateries at Disney World do exact that - works very well.
Ron
Ditto. The "pretty much guaranteed" checkout time is the sole reason I use self-checkout whenever possible.
Ron
Speaking of Firefox security. Firefox has a ways to go in regards to the issue of unwanted pop-unders.
When visiting a website, even at the highest security settings, can [u]open another window unsolicited[/u], that's a security flaw.
Ron
Security lines at airports are ripe targets, but bombing one doesn't make for much terror.
On a related note, a person, even fully packed with explosives would likely, at most, kill a few dozen people in a security area. In contrast, a far less powerful bomb in an aircraft could easily kill hundreds, or even upwards of thousands; passengers on board plus those on the ground.
Bottom line is aircraft are a far more worthwhile target than the security line. About the only place where attacking the security line itself would instill much terror are at public schools.
Ron
The bad air quality is a prime example of an externalized cost.
Many people claim the reason for offshoring is wages, but that's only part of it...
Much of the savings comes from the ability to operate a factory in China under less stringent rules - less labor protections, less safety, less pollution controls, etc.
Eventually China will crack down on polluters (they already do on an ad hoc basis, such as briefly during the 2008 Olympics) improving air quality, but also increasing production costs, which will then push many companies to offshore to the next cheaper place where such costs can again be externalized.
Ron
p.s. why is the comment entry window so narrow? More breakage - Slashdot was more usable in 1998 than it is now, but hey I guess this is progress... bah!
Many people, are not aware that country-code TLDs (ccTLDs) are NOT governed by ICANN policies.
ccTLDs are a whole different breed with their own unique rules and policies. The ccTLD delegated country, which in the case of .CO is the country of Columbia, has total control - the registrant has little to no recourse; ICANN likely can't help.
Most .CO registrants don't fully realize the risks with the biggest ones being:
* The country of Columbia could change policy at any time and take away many domains - it's happened many time before in numerous ccTLDs, including with .TM, such as Sex.TM, and even with .US as in the case of FuckCensorship.US that was retroactively deleted - google for more details.
* Can charge any price they want - so that .CO domain one registers for $29.95 today at GoDaddy could potentially cost far more in the future to renew; no rate caps nor restrictions on variable pricing - .CO can raise prices to whatever it wants anytime for all or selectively (ie. own a real nice .CO and you could be looking at a huge renewal bill; not unheard of either - read up on .TV variable pricing practices).
Bottom line is ccTLDs (.CO, .TV, .US, etc) are not the same as gTLDs (.COM, .NET, .ORG, etc). Buyer beware!
Ron
The article doesn't detail whether this is for tapping power from single phase household drops only, which I assume is the case ... or can it also be used to tap higher voltage lines?
Ron
Since they have years worth of AdSense data, surely they know who their primary advertisers are.
They should approach those advertisers and deal direct, which would allow the site to operate more freely. As a bonus, cutting out the middleman (Google), would likely result in more revenue than before.
Selling ads is presumably not their forte, so the site would likely need to find someone versed in on-line sales and price negotiations - could be well worth the effort in the long-run verses passively relying on Google.
Ron
Slippery-slope comes to mind. Since when did one relinquish their rights at the airport? -it wasn't always that way. And furthermore, such searches are now becoming routine on long-haul passenger trains (ie. Amtrak) and buses (Greyhound) too. And even one's own vehicle at some select locations, such as tunnel entrances.
You're assuming the government will protect one's rights - sadly, that's often not the case. Watch some episodes of COPS for a reality check on how policing really works in the U.S. - the police state is already here.
In addition, home monitoring technology has greatly improved and hence, the number of people under court supervision is rapidly expanding so, in turn, there's little in the way of stopping the police state of expanding ... it's easily conceivable that upwards of 10% of the adult population could in the next decade or so be under some court mandated supervision.
Digressing, but don't think for a second, that the courts alone are going to stop technology, such as the vans, from being used for searching people / property - only a revolution, or more ideally, some power-elites, choosing to put freedom of citizens ahead of profits and power will. Anything else is wishful thinking. In the meantime, about the best one can do is be aware of these things / educate others and navigate the system best one can.
Ron
As you point out, for those regularly exposed to such machines, the health risk may be considerable. Also, presumably, the vans operate at a higher power / intensity than airport scanner units.
Also, how is the x-ray energy distributed? ... evenly or in intense beam(s) that could potentially, at times, far exceed the normal stated output rating.
On a related note, how reliable is the software / interlocks to prevent unintended excess output? - this has been a longtime, persistent problem with various diagnostic machines used in hospitals with people occasionally dying ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25
Ron
This blurb in the article basically says it all...
While many dismiss / marginalize the threat of the drug war on people's freedoms, it's happening nevertheless. For example, there was a time when local police busting down doors was virtually unheard of - now it's common practice in all sorts of situations. Another is that people are now subjected to all sorts of demands, such providing government id / signing a form, to buy over-the-counter cough medicine. All in the name of the drug war - which is really a war against citizens.
For anyone who believes use of such technology to search people / private property will be ruled unconstitutional, think again - drug sniffing dogs are often allowed to search one's private property, such as one's vehicle, that's accessible from the street despite no "contraband" being in plain view.
One can practically count on such vans roaming the streets all throughout the U.S. in the near future "for your protection", but of course, much of the time, that won't be the real motivation.
Ron
Maybe. Or perhaps grade like they do in the bond ratings business, add more letters and pluses.
So instead of A+ being the top grade, it might become A++ or AA+, etc. And over time, add more .. heck, the grades could eventually resemble eBay positive feedback with lots of As and +s.
Ron
Spot on. Interesting how the labels state the external cost of charging (ie. 12 cents per kwh) and yet neglect to state the external environmental costs. Another example of greenwashing.
There's no free lunch - energy use always involve a trade off, even geothermal (ie. earthquakes) and solar (ie. less energy available to organisms, such as plants). For the labels to claim CO2 emissions of zero, even with the "tailpipe only" disclaimer, is disingenuous and deceptive.
Ron
It's much like how Windows stores various user data in well hidden index.dat files that can't be cleared by the user through normal means. Clearing browsing history, cookies, privacy settings, etc has no effect on them. It's the view of many in the know that Window's index.dat files, while useful at times to various applications, mainly exist to benefit law enforcement.
Ron
And in recent times, citizens are referred to as "consumers"; those who don't consume, effectively don't exist.
To digress a bit, but related to this topic, many organizations, instead of saying they offer programs / activities / education, now often just use the word "programming" - seems very Orwellian to me.
Ron
Paper tape last several decades at minimum, and possibly much longer depending on paper quality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_tape
Punched paper tape is tried and true technology, but is slow and highly mechanical.
There's a newer variant of paper tape designed for archival purposes, that's not punched, but rather has lots of small dots printed on it.
Many DIY approaches skip the tape approach, and instead archive large amounts of data to ordinary printer paper...
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/07/the-paper-data-storage-option.html
Ron
The emergency broadcast system has become a farce in many locales. It's often used, at least here in southeastern Pennsylvania, to announce severe thunderstorms may be in the area. To be clear, I'm not talking tornadoes, but simple, run-of-the-mill, thunderstorms being used as the pretext to interrupt broadcasts.
Ron