To be fair to Timothy, up until now Benson had never received a cable that was so incorrectly built that it killed his testing equipment and a laptop. To find a cable that bad, that's news.
And now poor Timmy is working his fingers bloody posting stories day and night! But at least we now have Unicode support...
Serious question, but how many full time editors does it really take to run Slashdot? You have to manage the Firehose and prepare stories, but since those are largely editing and posting works submitted by others, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of day-to-day writing as a Slashdot editor.
The only real hardship here is that Slashdot has tended to post news over an 18 hour window or so. But what's to say that this stuff isn't prepared in advance and on a timer?
Having multiple editors is great for getting different opinions and covering various time zones for breaking news. But otherwise? I don't see how this couldn't be done with two people.
Ah, modern laptops. They are thinner than ever, and they do all that the old ones could, provided you pack with them a HDMI-VGA dongle, a USB-Ethernet dongle, an external CD/DVD reader and an external hard disk for storage.
VGA ports are massive compared to the thickness of any modern laptop. Even before VGA was pulled, laptop manufacturers had already switched to proprietary "mini VGA" form factors, and this still was roughly as large as a full size HDMI port.
There is no good solution to the VGA problem other than killing it. Sources and displays are all digital and have been for ages; projectors have supported DVI/HDMI for some period of time now and should be wired up that way.
Agreed. TFS opens up with the headline "debt collectors," but there's a massive difference between private debts and public debts. And even then there's still a huge difference between debts like taxes, and punitive debts like fines.
If you can't pay your court fines, then you're supposed to be in jail in the first place. That you're essentially racking up more fines by being on lam (and causing the government to expend resources to catch you) doesn't seem all that problematic to me.
But while this (unrealistic) fine in the tens of billions of dollars is big headlines for these AGs, maybe before they tear a ligament patting themselves on the back, they could also do some (less glamorous but more impactful) work against these mom and pop scam outfits?
They do. The problem with a fly-by-night operation is that it's a fly-by-night operation. Scammers aren't running legitimate, fixed businesses, and that makes them hard to shutdown.
What you hear about in the news now and then are the dumb ones. But the smart ones are behind enough VoIP gateways, call centers, and off-shore accounts that you can never trace them to the true individuals running the operation; they'll just shuffle the deck now and then. It's every Internet problem of an attacker going through many proxies combined with the real-world problem of shell companies and jurisdiction.
I'd be willing to bet that all of those fiber cuts were caused by would-be copper thieves who didn't know how to tell the difference between the two. Copper wire theft is happening fairly frequently in the Bay Area, thanks in no small part to growing poverty rates.
Two years ago you'd be correct. But now? Copper is down 24% in the last year alone; it's currently only $2/pound.
When copper was $3+ (and especially at $4), yes, copper theft was an issue. However now that prices are down copper theft has dropped off significantly. Which is not to say that it has gone away entirely, but when copper is this cheap, stealing it and fencing it is an increasingly poor use of time at a whole $2 per pound. So I would be surprised if that was the issue; there are better ways to make money at these prices.
That's my first thought as well. OpenJDK is almost identical to Oracle Java as far as I know (it's even the reference implementation for Java starting with 7), so what are the real implications of this? And just what exactly is Google "giving up" by moving to OpenJDK?
It would be nice to see the smartphone gaming market move away from Candy Crush like stuff back to games that are actually playable without having to buy large amounts of some in game currency. I would pay for levels and expansions... real content. Having to pay just for a chance at moving on... sorry, got better things to do.
For what it's worth, Apple is trying to do just this. They have an entire curated collection called Pay Once & Play, which promotes games with no IAPs,
However there's only so much they can do, since taking away IAPs entirely would be suicidal. Any transition needs to be undertaken willingly by game publishers.
In terms of security theater, nothing. In terms of space and congestion, CES has needed to ban roller bags for years. Most likely this is a case of taking care of multiple problems in one go.
is the Electric Company also just as liable to tens of millions in damages for clearly supplying power to both the alleged perp and to the Cox internet connection utility?
I know this is meant to be rhetorical/alarmist, but the answer is no.
The jury also held that Cox had contributed the infringement, probably by "materially contributing" to the infringement.
The issue is that this is all pretty cut & dry under the DMCA. BMG filed DMCA complaints against Cox, and Cox didn't take what the court found to be "expeditious" efforts to resolve the infringement.
As an ISP, Cox only gets safe harbor protection if they're reasonably handling complaints. As the court records show, they were essentially doing nothing even to stop the more egregious of repeat offenders. Without safe harbor to protect them, they're essentially aiding the offenders, hence the guilty verdict and fine.
For the system to work, it's not enough to be put on the list. People need to complain when a caller violates the law.
And, most importantly, the caller needs to be a legitimate business located in the US. I don't know about the GGP, but of the multiple calls I get every day, most are Canadian Pharmacy, Microsoft Support, and other criminals operating in other countries and using VoIP bridges to call the US. It's telephone spam, and the Do Not Call list is powerless to stop it.
I dont understand the authors snarky tone when writing this
The snark is that it's a pretty transparent attempt to get more pork for their state. Florida, Alabama, and Texas are the three states with major NASA facilities, and there are a lot of contractors who work in those states to support NASA.
Space travel is important. But a group whose business depends on government pork is likely not the most impartial group to be delivering that message. Porking NASA is how we got the Senate Launch System in the first place; NASA doesn't really want it, but it's being forced upon them by senators who want to keep government contracts in their state.
Where is that on Steam? Because it only shows Windows and Mac Steamplay, not Linux. Hence it's NOT on Steam.
EVE-Online used to have an official Linux client, but it was discontinued several years ago as there weren't enough users to justify the time & cost. That client used Transgaming's tech (i.e. their WINE fork).
Sure. But Netflix and Amazon are the equivalent first-run, top-tier channels for their programming. CBS All Access is the B-team; it's UPN/CW where reject shows go.
The fact that the show is premiering on All Access means CBS doesn't think it's good enough to run on their main channel, and that implies to me that CBS isn't going to give this the kind of resources they'd give a proper Star Trek TV show. Budget Star Trek, perhaps?
Furthermore, the FBI's own stats show that the ban/restriction on pseudoephedrine has made the problem worse.
It depends on your definition of "worse" and what is the first problem you're trying to solve.
In the Pacific Northwest, regulating pseudoephedrine has almost entirely wiped out local meth production. Prior to this meth houses were a massive issue; the aforementioned "dumbasses" were causing incredible environmental damage as meth houses themselves were all but inhabitable, frequently leeched out into the surrounding environment, and were extremely expensive to decontaminate and dismantle. Meanwhile said dumbasses were producing poor quality meth that was getting even more people killed.
Regulating pseudoephedrine didn't completely eliminate meth - and no one expected it to - but it has definitely made things better for everyone around here. I'd support it again in a heartbeat if it was brought up for a vote.
explains why cryptographers don't believe that DRM works
While I fully agree that DRM isn't foolproof, I disagree that DRM doesn't work. The reason DRM is being implemented is not to prevent all piracy ever - simply put, that's impossible - but rather to prevent common, casual piracy among low-skilled users. And to that end DRM works very well.
Any DRM system that's built half-way decently won't be possible to trivially bypass, and that's enough to deter casual infringement. You don't see people going Napster with iOS apps, you don't see everyone and their mother pirating DirecTV like they once did, and you can't pick up pirated PS4 games off of your local shady games shop. Why? Because the DRM systems that are in place are good enough that it's no longer easy and convenient to pirate this material. So casual piracy stops.
DRM shouldn't be implemented for a whole other host of reasons, least of all because it prevents users from fully controlling works they've purchased. But to argue that it doesn't work is disingenuous. It works to stop the most threatening form of piracy, casual piracy, and with every generation the underlying technology gets harder and harder to break.
They keep saying submitted by "anonymous" and include a link in the title bar to the front page of the site that is hosting the article. Bullshit detector is going off full blast right now.
Not a Slashdot editor here, but I just assumed that they're finally going to improve how they're citing stories. Having the source for the story in the title bar is kind of nice.
An All-In Plan (a) lasts for the lifetime of your TiVo device (not your lifetime), (b) is not transferrable to another TiVo device (except in certain warranty replacement/repair cases)
Chase really has wonderful service. Card declined? Call customer service, it immediately rings to an American call center with people who have the authority to fix your problem. Five minutes later, the transaction goes through.
Indeed. They even tell you to call them collect when you're traveling outside of the country (you need to know how to do it, but it means they eat the cost of the call).
You have to use the app to rate it, which means you need to own an Android device. Which doesn't entirely prevent stuffing, but iOS users aren't likely as a whole to have an Android device sitting around.
Slashdot Mirror
To be fair to Timothy, up until now Benson had never received a cable that was so incorrectly built that it killed his testing equipment and a laptop. To find a cable that bad, that's news.
Serious question, but how many full time editors does it really take to run Slashdot? You have to manage the Firehose and prepare stories, but since those are largely editing and posting works submitted by others, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of day-to-day writing as a Slashdot editor.
The only real hardship here is that Slashdot has tended to post news over an 18 hour window or so. But what's to say that this stuff isn't prepared in advance and on a timer?
Having multiple editors is great for getting different opinions and covering various time zones for breaking news. But otherwise? I don't see how this couldn't be done with two people.
VGA ports are massive compared to the thickness of any modern laptop. Even before VGA was pulled, laptop manufacturers had already switched to proprietary "mini VGA" form factors, and this still was roughly as large as a full size HDMI port.
There is no good solution to the VGA problem other than killing it. Sources and displays are all digital and have been for ages; projectors have supported DVI/HDMI for some period of time now and should be wired up that way.
Agreed. TFS opens up with the headline "debt collectors," but there's a massive difference between private debts and public debts. And even then there's still a huge difference between debts like taxes, and punitive debts like fines.
If you can't pay your court fines, then you're supposed to be in jail in the first place. That you're essentially racking up more fines by being on lam (and causing the government to expend resources to catch you) doesn't seem all that problematic to me.
They do. The problem with a fly-by-night operation is that it's a fly-by-night operation. Scammers aren't running legitimate, fixed businesses, and that makes them hard to shutdown.
What you hear about in the news now and then are the dumb ones. But the smart ones are behind enough VoIP gateways, call centers, and off-shore accounts that you can never trace them to the true individuals running the operation; they'll just shuffle the deck now and then. It's every Internet problem of an attacker going through many proxies combined with the real-world problem of shell companies and jurisdiction.
Two years ago you'd be correct. But now? Copper is down 24% in the last year alone; it's currently only $2/pound.
http://www.infomine.com/invest...
When copper was $3+ (and especially at $4), yes, copper theft was an issue. However now that prices are down copper theft has dropped off significantly. Which is not to say that it has gone away entirely, but when copper is this cheap, stealing it and fencing it is an increasingly poor use of time at a whole $2 per pound. So I would be surprised if that was the issue; there are better ways to make money at these prices.
That's my first thought as well. OpenJDK is almost identical to Oracle Java as far as I know (it's even the reference implementation for Java starting with 7), so what are the real implications of this? And just what exactly is Google "giving up" by moving to OpenJDK?
For what it's worth, Apple is trying to do just this. They have an entire curated collection called Pay Once & Play, which promotes games with no IAPs,
However there's only so much they can do, since taking away IAPs entirely would be suicidal. Any transition needs to be undertaken willingly by game publishers.
In terms of security theater, nothing. In terms of space and congestion, CES has needed to ban roller bags for years. Most likely this is a case of taking care of multiple problems in one go.
I know this is meant to be rhetorical/alarmist, but the answer is no.
The DMCA - specifically, the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act - deals with communications, not power. There is nothing on the books about electric companies being responsible for infringement.
The issue is that this is all pretty cut & dry under the DMCA. BMG filed DMCA complaints against Cox, and Cox didn't take what the court found to be "expeditious" efforts to resolve the infringement.
As an ISP, Cox only gets safe harbor protection if they're reasonably handling complaints. As the court records show, they were essentially doing nothing even to stop the more egregious of repeat offenders. Without safe harbor to protect them, they're essentially aiding the offenders, hence the guilty verdict and fine.
Thank you! That was driving me insane.
And, most importantly, the caller needs to be a legitimate business located in the US. I don't know about the GGP, but of the multiple calls I get every day, most are Canadian Pharmacy, Microsoft Support, and other criminals operating in other countries and using VoIP bridges to call the US. It's telephone spam, and the Do Not Call list is powerless to stop it.
The snark is that it's a pretty transparent attempt to get more pork for their state. Florida, Alabama, and Texas are the three states with major NASA facilities, and there are a lot of contractors who work in those states to support NASA.
Space travel is important. But a group whose business depends on government pork is likely not the most impartial group to be delivering that message. Porking NASA is how we got the Senate Launch System in the first place; NASA doesn't really want it, but it's being forced upon them by senators who want to keep government contracts in their state.
EVE-Online used to have an official Linux client, but it was discontinued several years ago as there weren't enough users to justify the time & cost. That client used Transgaming's tech (i.e. their WINE fork).
NVIDIA might like a word with you. They may not have much traction, but it's not for a lack of effort in pushing the high-end.
Sure. But Netflix and Amazon are the equivalent first-run, top-tier channels for their programming. CBS All Access is the B-team; it's UPN/CW where reject shows go.
The fact that the show is premiering on All Access means CBS doesn't think it's good enough to run on their main channel, and that implies to me that CBS isn't going to give this the kind of resources they'd give a proper Star Trek TV show. Budget Star Trek, perhaps?
It depends on your definition of "worse" and what is the first problem you're trying to solve.
In the Pacific Northwest, regulating pseudoephedrine has almost entirely wiped out local meth production. Prior to this meth houses were a massive issue; the aforementioned "dumbasses" were causing incredible environmental damage as meth houses themselves were all but inhabitable, frequently leeched out into the surrounding environment, and were extremely expensive to decontaminate and dismantle. Meanwhile said dumbasses were producing poor quality meth that was getting even more people killed.
Regulating pseudoephedrine didn't completely eliminate meth - and no one expected it to - but it has definitely made things better for everyone around here. I'd support it again in a heartbeat if it was brought up for a vote.
From TFS:
While I fully agree that DRM isn't foolproof, I disagree that DRM doesn't work. The reason DRM is being implemented is not to prevent all piracy ever - simply put, that's impossible - but rather to prevent common, casual piracy among low-skilled users. And to that end DRM works very well.
Any DRM system that's built half-way decently won't be possible to trivially bypass, and that's enough to deter casual infringement. You don't see people going Napster with iOS apps, you don't see everyone and their mother pirating DirecTV like they once did, and you can't pick up pirated PS4 games off of your local shady games shop. Why? Because the DRM systems that are in place are good enough that it's no longer easy and convenient to pirate this material. So casual piracy stops.
DRM shouldn't be implemented for a whole other host of reasons, least of all because it prevents users from fully controlling works they've purchased. But to argue that it doesn't work is disingenuous. It works to stop the most threatening form of piracy, casual piracy, and with every generation the underlying technology gets harder and harder to break.
And the ability to receive real-time video so that you can fly beyond the line of sight.
Modern drones are not your old school RC planes, least of all because of how much more accessible these are to nimrods like the one in TFA.
Not a Slashdot editor here, but I just assumed that they're finally going to improve how they're citing stories. Having the source for the story in the title bar is kind of nice.
The lifetime of the DVR. So until it breaks outside of the warranty period or becomes outmoded.
https://www.tivo.com/buytivo/popups/popup_servicePlans.html
Correct on the yearly plan. However for the lifetime plan it's worse than that. The lifetime (All-In) plan is $600: https://support.tivo.com/articles/Essential_Summary/TiVo-Payment-Plans-and-Policies
The Bolt unit itself is another $300, so the total pricetag for a lifetime TiVo setup comes to $900.
Indeed. They even tell you to call them collect when you're traveling outside of the country (you need to know how to do it, but it means they eat the cost of the call).
You have to use the app to rate it, which means you need to own an Android device. Which doesn't entirely prevent stuffing, but iOS users aren't likely as a whole to have an Android device sitting around.