Good, so I can go download and install Flash, a piece of crappy proprietary software, which allows my web browser to download flash animations, which is more crappy proprietary software, which run automatically, without my permission, on any website where they are listed, so that they can annoy me.
This endless tedious simpering is what makes me wonder that any company continues to support Linux at all. What is the alternative? HTML 5? That will likely have all the same problems but with the added risk of getting sued left and right as the HTML 5 patent war begins.
Poser - any Scotsman should know the whole island is Britain and it's hard to be independent of your own island. Perhaps you are confused as to the southeastern part of Britain? They're called the "English".
They have experimented these things in the Outer Hebridian Isles where I am from and apparently also out in Orkney (neither of those places are actually Britain, if you want to be pedantic : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain). The newer versions of these basically use wave energy to pump water onto the land and use it to turn turbines in a hydro electric fashion. The older ones turned turbines under water which, any fool will tell you generating electricity underwater is not the brightest idea.
They are pretty big buzz out in the Isles where most of the work is otherwise only part-time and seasonal. There is a lot of oil and gas in the North Sea but it is costly and unsafe with current technology to extract from deep and hazardous water and with the 1960's ban on gas exports and low prices offered by the only buyer, British Gas, it is not financially viable.
This is a quote from Steve Jobs justifying their war on Flash.
"Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open."
Source: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/
This story is sensationalist scare mongering crap and belongs in the Sun and certainly not here. There are literally millions of people who work for the police in the UK so to quote a figure of 800 incidents over three years suddenly seems pretty insignificant. My partner works for the police and has advised me that every record they check, leaves a log of who they are and what crime they are looking it up in relation to and why. Anyone caught looking things up for personal reasons are sacked and sometimes prosecuted. That's where the 800 and 243 figures come from.
People are people and yes it would be nice if the police and support staff were immune to the case of human stupidity. Personally I am far more concerned about higher-up, more serious incidents like the first investigation into phone tapping scandal which found little only 'isolated cases' and only 2 people involved when clearly it turns out over 4000 cases and potentially, nearly every British newspaper. The head of the first investigation then walked into a well paid job for the very people he was investigating with the blessing of the UK government and no questions were asked.
The schoolgirl was arguably the worst however as they actually deleted some of her voice mails to make room for new messages to see what else they could dig up about the terrified friends and family. This is both deleting evidence in a murder investigation but also led the family to falsely believe she was still alive by thinking she was freeing up space on her voice mail.
They make it sound like Watson's going to be answering the phone. But speech recognition still isn't dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all.
Watson processes written language.
from TFA - You might be a little terrified the first time you pick up your phone to hear dulcet but unmistakably-computerized tones of Watson saying “Hello, can I interest you in cheap home insurance?”
The worst thing about speech recognition software in Europe such as what the Odeon uses, is that you have to put on a forced American accent if you want to stand a chance of even remotely being understood, especially if your from Scotland.
From what you're saying, it sounds like the anonymous knock-off of wikileaks will just do a worse job guaranteeing that the leaks are legit. I imagine that it will end up about as accurate as encyclopedia drammatica.
There may be clues as to the source of the Anonymously leaked cables and we can look for signs of falsification, such as references to shitty teachers being mean and handing out too much homework or phrases such as 'wtf n00b' or references to being grounded in the cables.
Maybe nerds just don't find Slashdot as interesting as they once did? The multitude of Anonymous-hacked-fer-the-lulz and China-is-no-good stories can only sustain the readership's interest to a point.
Have to agree, lot less tech news, lot more of the stuff above or Timothy's endless Apple promoting (is he sponsored by them?).
In the Scottish election in 2007, the nationals party were set in the polls for a landslide victory and on the morning the polls opened, virtually every national newspaper in Scotland had an enormous full-front page spread containing much misleading information. This enormously expensive smear campaign had a huge effect and though the nationals still crept into power, it was only by a narrow margin leaving them largely toothless for four years.
The doctor doesn't heal you; he just helps you rid yourself of your ailment. Your body does its own healing...
Oh not that natural healing crap again. Yes the body heals itself but 'medicine' such as antibiotics also heal the body. You're not one of those homoeopathy sorcerers with your naturally healing magical memory water are you? I always wondered why if people who believe that homoeopathic substances become more potent the more dilute they get, are not worried that terrorists may threaten to destroy the universe by infinitely diluting a homoeopathic bomb.
Yes, because the government getting involved in anything always makes it more efficient and affordable.
Regardless of the benefits, try telling that to someone who's been denied health coverage because of a "pre-exisitng" condition and who makes too much money for Medicaid and is too young for Medicare.
Doesn't happen. This is about the British NHS and its all free. Same goes for the other patient financial concerns in your post. If its all about insurance woes and being over charged then its all completely irrelevant. Doctors having access to your medical history, knowing your blood type, allergies and what medication you are on etc in a matter of seconds is very useful to doctors and patients alike assuming the information is not leaked or corrupted somehow. People may whine and complain the usual anti government stuff but this could actually save lives.
On a side note, I (and just about everyone else in Europe) really have trouble understanding why so many Americans are against free health care. I've heard a few, very angrily voice reasons that seemed based upon some very flawed or dishonest information. I take it the powers that be have a lot to financially to gain from manipulating people into hating the idea of getting stuff for free and forcing them to rely on insurances companies who make it their purpose to find reasons not to pay out.
I would consider RuneScape to be, for all intents and purposes, a pay-to-play game. It follows a different tactic, but to open up most of the world you have to pay a subscription. It's like the 14-day trials that most pay-to-play games have except that you're significantly limited by play area rather than time. I can't imagine the money they make from ads even compares to what they make from subscriptions.
It's rather different from most of pay to play games as most users are on the free to play model and occasionally use their mobile phones or buy in store credit every now and again as opposed to regular monthly fee's. With 5 million users in a 4 week period of which 4 million are free to play, I imagine that's actually a reasonable advertisement revenue considering heavy forum usage as well as in-game ads.
(F2P) usually comes about when a game does not have the appeal or simply isn't good enough to sustain enough monthly subscriptions to be profitable.
Great post but I feel the need to correct you on this issue about free to play game models. Huge numbers free to play games from the start, for example RuneScape, love it or hate it, has always been a free game where you can subscribe on a month by month basis to unlock extra content and is funded by ads, has almost double the player base of Eve and earns considerably more cash, yes it's not an ideal measurement of success but the game works for the target audience who are typically cash strapped kids and young teenagers. The success of this and similar titles is whats driving business execs to push most MMO's in this direction (though RS has no micro transactions).
The problem with Eve switching to this model is the player demographics are completely different and contain typically the oldest playerbase of any other MMO, perhaps due to the games mature content, slow play style and extreme difficulty but its certainly not a cash strapped community.
Slashdot Mirror
Good, so I can go download and install Flash, a piece of crappy proprietary software, which allows my web browser to download flash animations, which is more crappy proprietary software, which run automatically, without my permission, on any website where they are listed, so that they can annoy me.
This endless tedious simpering is what makes me wonder that any company continues to support Linux at all. What is the alternative? HTML 5? That will likely have all the same problems but with the added risk of getting sued left and right as the HTML 5 patent war begins.
Poser - any Scotsman should know the whole island is Britain and it's hard to be independent of your own island. Perhaps you are confused as to the southeastern part of Britain? They're called the "English".
They have experimented these things in the Outer Hebridian Isles where I am from and apparently also out in Orkney (neither of those places are actually Britain, if you want to be pedantic : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain). The newer versions of these basically use wave energy to pump water onto the land and use it to turn turbines in a hydro electric fashion. The older ones turned turbines under water which, any fool will tell you generating electricity underwater is not the brightest idea.
They are pretty big buzz out in the Isles where most of the work is otherwise only part-time and seasonal.
There is a lot of oil and gas in the North Sea but it is costly and unsafe with current technology to extract from deep and hazardous water and with the 1960's ban on gas exports and low prices offered by the only buyer, British Gas, it is not financially viable.
Give it a rest, Hollywood. Remember the lesson from Dune?
It's even worse when they take cult horror classics and replace the goodness with Jar Jar Binks style CGI.
We will see how nice Apple plays now.
This is a quote from Steve Jobs justifying their war on Flash.
"Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open."
Source: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/
I wonder what the Slashdot version of "Why did the Chicken cross the road?" is.
Why did the [ getRandomEthnicNational() ] cross the road?
Because the chickens job had been outsourced.
Except Canada. And Australia. Pretty much everywhere, in fact, where the words "foot" and "ball" mean those things
The US incorrectly named version should be renamed Hand Egg.
What's next? Pong: The Movie!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u5YaGU3ELk
.. have won.
This story is sensationalist scare mongering crap and belongs in the Sun and certainly not here. There are literally millions of people who work for the police in the UK so to quote a figure of 800 incidents over three years suddenly seems pretty insignificant. My partner works for the police and has advised me that every record they check, leaves a log of who they are and what crime they are looking it up in relation to and why. Anyone caught looking things up for personal reasons are sacked and sometimes prosecuted. That's where the 800 and 243 figures come from.
People are people and yes it would be nice if the police and support staff were immune to the case of human stupidity. Personally I am far more concerned about higher-up, more serious incidents like the first investigation into phone tapping scandal which found little only 'isolated cases' and only 2 people involved when clearly it turns out over 4000 cases and potentially, nearly every British newspaper. The head of the first investigation then walked into a well paid job for the very people he was investigating with the blessing of the UK government and no questions were asked.
The schoolgirl was arguably the worst however as they actually deleted some of her voice mails to make room for new messages to see what else they could dig up about the terrified friends and family. This is both deleting evidence in a murder investigation but also led the family to falsely believe she was still alive by thinking she was freeing up space on her voice mail.
Hugh Grant just called the Murdoch Empire a protection racket live on Question Time.
Strangely enough Hugh Grant, someone I previously disliked for his films has actually shown considerable stones in this whole debacle.
I for one cheered when I heard this. A horrid, awful, sensationalist piece of crap 'news'paper. Excellent! Good riddance to bad rubbish!
Most news papers are to some degree or other, this one was just more than most. But also one of the largest news papers in the world. http://www.newspapers24.com/largest-newspapers.html
They make it sound like Watson's going to be answering the phone. But speech recognition still isn't dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all. Watson processes written language.
from TFA - You might be a little terrified the first time you pick up your phone to hear dulcet but unmistakably-computerized tones of Watson saying “Hello, can I interest you in cheap home insurance?”
The worst thing about speech recognition software in Europe such as what the Odeon uses, is that you have to put on a forced American accent if you want to stand a chance of even remotely being understood, especially if your from Scotland.
There used to be a website dedicated the the Microsoft 'Innovation' Hall of Shame, but it doesn't seem to exist anymore :-(.
The Innovation Hall of Shame was taken down due to a Microsoft patent violation.
As for Microsoft I'm the odd situation of disliking them intensely now on slashdot long after it was fashionable to do so.
On the bright side it means you may soon be able to get Google search results in China through Bing's innovative technology. ie copy paste.
From what you're saying, it sounds like the anonymous knock-off of wikileaks will just do a worse job guaranteeing that the leaks are legit. I imagine that it will end up about as accurate as encyclopedia drammatica.
There may be clues as to the source of the Anonymously leaked cables and we can look for signs of falsification, such as references to shitty teachers being mean and handing out too much homework or phrases such as 'wtf n00b' or references to being grounded in the cables.
Maybe nerds just don't find Slashdot as interesting as they once did? The multitude of Anonymous-hacked-fer-the-lulz and China-is-no-good stories can only sustain the readership's interest to a point.
Have to agree, lot less tech news, lot more of the stuff above or Timothy's endless Apple promoting (is he sponsored by them?).
In the Scottish election in 2007, the nationals party were set in the polls for a landslide victory and on the morning the polls opened, virtually every national newspaper in Scotland had an enormous full-front page spread containing much misleading information. This enormously expensive smear campaign had a huge effect and though the nationals still crept into power, it was only by a narrow margin leaving them largely toothless for four years.
Here's an interesting article on cooling off periods for those who like the original poster, seem to think they are undemocratic or some form of censorships like the original poster seems to. http://kelvinteowrites.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/why-the-reason-behind-cooling-off-period-may-throw-past-elections-results-into-disrepute/
An American association is trying to force a British ISP to censor the internet, and you consider this non news worthy?
The doctor doesn't heal you; he just helps you rid yourself of your ailment. Your body does its own healing...
Oh not that natural healing crap again. Yes the body heals itself but 'medicine' such as antibiotics also heal the body. You're not one of those homoeopathy sorcerers with your naturally healing magical memory water are you? I always wondered why if people who believe that homoeopathic substances become more potent the more dilute they get, are not worried that terrorists may threaten to destroy the universe by infinitely diluting a homoeopathic bomb.
Yes, because the government getting involved in anything always makes it more efficient and affordable.
Regardless of the benefits, try telling that to someone who's been denied health coverage because of a "pre-exisitng" condition and who makes too much money for Medicaid and is too young for Medicare.
Doesn't happen. This is about the British NHS and its all free. Same goes for the other patient financial concerns in your post. If its all about insurance woes and being over charged then its all completely irrelevant. Doctors having access to your medical history, knowing your blood type, allergies and what medication you are on etc in a matter of seconds is very useful to doctors and patients alike assuming the information is not leaked or corrupted somehow. People may whine and complain the usual anti government stuff but this could actually save lives.
On a side note, I (and just about everyone else in Europe) really have trouble understanding why so many Americans are against free health care. I've heard a few, very angrily voice reasons that seemed based upon some very flawed or dishonest information. I take it the powers that be have a lot to financially to gain from manipulating people into hating the idea of getting stuff for free and forcing them to rely on insurances companies who make it their purpose to find reasons not to pay out.
technically its initialisation and not an acronym, as LSD is not pronounced as a word.
Clearly she fits the terrorist criminal profile.
I would consider RuneScape to be, for all intents and purposes, a pay-to-play game. It follows a different tactic, but to open up most of the world you have to pay a subscription. It's like the 14-day trials that most pay-to-play games have except that you're significantly limited by play area rather than time. I can't imagine the money they make from ads even compares to what they make from subscriptions.
It's rather different from most of pay to play games as most users are on the free to play model and occasionally use their mobile phones or buy in store credit every now and again as opposed to regular monthly fee's. With 5 million users in a 4 week period of which 4 million are free to play, I imagine that's actually a reasonable advertisement revenue considering heavy forum usage as well as in-game ads.
What they probably wont help with, is his fear of getting touched ... down there ... by giant hairy men in prison.
Actually the whole anal fetish that springs up as soon as one is put behind bars is purely an American phenomenon.
(F2P) usually comes about when a game does not have the appeal or simply isn't good enough to sustain enough monthly subscriptions to be profitable.
Great post but I feel the need to correct you on this issue about free to play game models. Huge numbers free to play games from the start, for example RuneScape, love it or hate it, has always been a free game where you can subscribe on a month by month basis to unlock extra content and is funded by ads, has almost double the player base of Eve and earns considerably more cash, yes it's not an ideal measurement of success but the game works for the target audience who are typically cash strapped kids and young teenagers. The success of this and similar titles is whats driving business execs to push most MMO's in this direction (though RS has no micro transactions).
The problem with Eve switching to this model is the player demographics are completely different and contain typically the oldest playerbase of any other MMO, perhaps due to the games mature content, slow play style and extreme difficulty but its certainly not a cash strapped community.