Eh, this happens every few years... what tends to be the case is someone gets a hold of one of the charts where velocities were recorded and due to measurement issues there is a probability curve rather then a simple line... normally you use the curve to determine what the actual velocity was, but you always get at least a couple yahoos that look at the curve, notice that one of the tails goes above C and get all excited that something is going faster then light.
Good thing they are are going to put the findings online to be checked then (they have been looking for errors and have been unable to find any so far).
The result - which threatens to upend a century of physics - will be put online for scrutiny by other scientists.
In the meantime, the group says it is being very cautious about its claims.
"We tried to find all possible explanations for this," said report author Antonio Ereditato of the Opera collaboration.
"We wanted to find a mistake - trivial mistakes, more complicated mistakes, or nasty effects - and we didn't," he told BBC News.
"When you don't find anything, then you say 'Well, now I'm forced to go out and ask the community to scrutinise this.'"
The scammers making the calls aren't too bright either. I had one call once saying that they had logs saying I had a virus. I asked who they were. They said "This is Microsoft". They didn't answer my question of "Why does Microsoft have logs from my computer running Ubuntu?" and kept on trying to get me to open a web browser. I got bored after a while and hung up.
They've had cases in the UK where everyone was glued to their TV sets until the adverts came on, then rushed to the toilet. Water consumption soared for a minute or three, then back to normal again when the TV show (Eric and Ernie's Christmas special?) was back on.
I remember hearing about something similar, although it was a surge in electricity usage as people turned the kettle on to boil some water to make a cup of tea (it is England...) during the ad breaks.
I did ICT at GCSE level, and A-Level, both times the course was fairly boring. Particularly the "here is how you create some basic documents" sections. One of the modules was to create a small website - we were allowed to use Dreamweaver, but so the course was somewhat challenging I did it in notepad (got full parks for that module too).
Once I got to University to study Computer Science, I started to learn actual interesting things, including programming (we hadn't done it at school, perhaps a little bit into Excell macros, but nothing major), but there were a lot of people in the first year of the Uni course who were struggling to learn the basic concepts, so improvement in the basics earlier on is definatly needed.
I completely agree on the Google+ name, and their weird attempt to push "+1" as a substitute for "like".
Mod parent +1 Insightful;-)
Interface design however, I can't agree on. They may not be up to Apple's standards, but they're generally head and shoulders above the rest of their competitors. Google+ is still new and growing, and the interface can and will change easily as they experiment and look at feedback and usability. On the other hand, fixing the poor name and +1 will be harder the longer the wait.
The thing I like best about the Google+ interface is that the privacy controls are integrated into posting better. The ability to decide which circles should see a post is very clear, whereas with Facebook, I think they have the ability to do that, but it is not as obvious (plus I would have to organise everyone into catagories all at once; with Google+ I can do it as I add people as it was a feature from the start).
I post a fair bit to Google+, although I usualy duplicate the post to Facebook and twitter. I much prefer Google+ to Facebook, so keep posting there enough though I have less contacts there. My reason being that if anyone else does migrate over to Google+ from Facebook or elsewhere, they will see some activity instead of nothing happening and stop logging on.
The interaction with people is about the same I think. For example, I posted a photo to both Google+ and Facebook, and it got a similar level of interaction in both places, even though the number of contacts I have on Facebook is far far greater than Google+.
I remember reading on slashdot a few weeks ago that the easiest way to get people to move from Facebook to Google+ would be to post a link to your Google+ profile saying "I will only be adding new baby photos to this account", to get family to move to it so they can continue looking at photos of their grandchild/niece/nephew/etc.
I think I may now have an vague idea how actual guitar players feel about Guitar Hero. Copying and pasting code should generally be avoided (refactored instead of duplicated if possible). Otherwise, if there is a bug in the code copied, you have to fix it in multiple places.
Honestly from my experience I do not see a shortage of CS-related jobs at all, certainly not here in the South West.
Neither do I. Granted I had a placement year and went back to work there so I haven't have to look, but my line manager asked me a few months ago if any of the people I know who graduated with me were looking for work as we had an opening. I asked around, but they all had jobs.
hmm, in that case. i don't suppose there's a firefox extension that does the same thing?
If you have AdBlock, there is an "Anti Social" list you can use that blocks all of these (Facebook, twitter, Google +1 etc.). It will mean you won't seem them at all, however, including the +1 button on Google+ (I have whitelisted Google to allow ads so I do see the +1 button, but have not seem other ads on Google+ so far).
I don't think the last one is necessary -- it has zero hits in my Adblock right now. The others have quite a few hits.
This does mean you won't see any "like" buttons, but if you don't use them, you won't miss anything.
Does anyone have any similar rules for blocking Google +1 tracking? I suppose a similar "block google.com except when on google.com" might work, but I don't know if that blocks everything, or breaks anything.
There is an additional AdBlock list called "Anti Social" that blocks all al these, including Google +1 ones. It does mean that you won't see the +1 buttons on Google+, but I have added Google to the "Allow adds on this domain" option, so they are there (and I've not seen any ads on Google+ now I think about it)
Check again.
"Allow local data to be set for the current session only"
and then hit the "Manage Exceptions" button to enable whitelisting domains for permanent cookie storage.
I will have to check my settings, I have all cookies turned off, apart from a Whitelist, but this seems like an improvement (and will mean I don't have to add things to the whitelist when I want to use them once). Thanks!
Good point. Frankly the whole article is a bit sketchy though... I mean... they assume you have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor already... doesn't that imply you already had a computer previously?
Doesn't that imply you had software for it? Software you might want to use on the new one? In which case going with linux was a bad move...
I recently got a new computer (it was called a 'nettop') for just under £200. It did come with a keyboard and mouse, but I have spares so that wasn't essential. I did have two screens with my existing computer, but rarely used them, so used one of the screens for the new nettop.
It came with a variation of Linux on it (Limpus I think, its a special version of it that is more user friendly and less like a usual desktop), but I replaced it with Ubuntu (handily I had a USB optical drive from when I wanted to use CDs/DVDs on my netbook that didn't have one).
I got it for a number of reasons. Firstly, I wanted to use Linux more, outside of a VM. Secondly, my existing computer was spending a lot of CPU time on a virus scanner and firewall (the fan whirring slightly bugged me). Thirdly, I couldn't think of that much that I specifically needed a high powered Windows computer for (I mainly used it for web browsing).
Since getting the nettop, I have had very few problems moving to using it exclusivly. Most of my previous usage was on the internet, so there has been little to no change there (I used to open 20 bookmarks at once, but that slowed down the browser a lot, so I separated the bookmark folders into two folders so I open less at a time). There is one game I play that is Windows only, but I would only play that occasionally, and can still use the old computer if I do want to play it. I had a couple of issues getting Ubuntu set up right on it (had to change a driver to stop it from freezing on shutdown), but most worked straight away. I did turn off the new Unity interface because it was fairly slow to use (it is a low power machine). When I was first using it for a while, I wasn't sure whether it had a fan or not because it was almost silent when running. The start up time is about 20 seconds for a computer with less powerful hardware than my Windows computer, which takes a few minutes to boot up (oh, that is 20 seconds from off to usable, when my Windows computer takes a few minutes to boot, then a few minutes to load various other programs). It is also low power so I am saving slightly on my power bills, which is nice.
Can someone please post a link to the APK and/or its sha1sum so if we find it on the net we can verify that's the original one and not malware?
Thanks.
Standard disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not anyone else. None of the above should be read as an encouragement to violate the law. IANAL. I don't hate cute kittens.
No, the dev can't spam anyone. It's only for getting access to your contacts list, in case you wish to share an achievement in the game with them.
If that is the case, it should be made a lot clearer. And, I should be prompted to grant such permission at the point where I've decided to "share an achievement" (which would be never), not before I've even played the game. From a programmer's point of view, if I grant permission when the action is to be performed, it is at least reasonable to believe that that permission is confined to the specific action I tried to take (sharing an achievement). If I grant permission at the beginning of the game, why would I expect the app to be unable to share an ad behind my back if it is able to share an achievement?
I have played two or three of the Google games (only the ones with less permissions, I refuse the games that want to see my email address). From my experience, when you have done something, an in-game pop-up appears saying what you have done, with the options to "Share" or "Skip" (the layout and terminology differs for each game). If you click on "Share", an additional Google+ specific popup appears, and allows you to select people to share the achievement with. For example, you could share with everyone, or only certain circles, or only certain people. Once you have selected people to share with, and then clicked on the "Post" option in the Google+ popup, is anything shared with your contacts (and only the selected ones).
tl;dr: Even after the general permission has been granted to the game, you have to click two different things to actually share something
But there were over a 100 injured and 5 killed! When social order breaks down to that extent some drastic measures might be called for. If a social media service like twitter is helping to fuel the riot then when would you say it's okay to suspend it till cooler heads prevail? After 10 people die? 20? 30? There has to be a point where some sort of action is taken right? If not then a person's basic human right to feel safe in their own homes and communities is in jeopardy. And I kind of think that basic human right trumps twitter, maybe just a bit eh?
My main concern with shutting down any form of communication in a situation like a riot is that now anyone nearby not participating in the riots have a lot less information about what is happening where (I'm sure a service like twitter would be helpful in finding places where riots are happening and avoid them as much as possible). They will also find it harder to contact their loved ones to ensure them that they are OK or check that their loved ones are OK (I would imagine that if a riot is happening and you can't get through to someone, a lot of people will start panicking).
TFA makes out like the Internet is a minority issue that the masses don't understand. A shutdown of Twitter et al was never on the cards because most of the electorate uses those services and would cry foul.
The article seems to focus on the main political parties, as opposed to the "masses". The Prime Minister said something along the lines of "we will look into whether it would be right to temporarily stop access to site such as twitter", so while it was never really on the cards, it was briefly thought about.
If you have a problem with the policy - explain why you think it's a bad policy.
Which policy? My understanding of the article is that the three main political parties in the UK either have no policy (regarding digital rights), or don't understand the issues well enough (which has led them in the past to say something, then later backtrack because they realise it is unworkable or infeasible). I would say that an inconsistent and contradictory policy is a bad one.
I wonder why there isn't yet a webpage where people can post their invite codes and others who want them can simply grab one.
I think the invites are sent via email, so you would have to post your email address to the site and hope current users don't mind sending invites to strangers (as I think the reciever may see the senders email address).
Slashdot Mirror
Eh, this happens every few years... what tends to be the case is someone gets a hold of one of the charts where velocities were recorded and due to measurement issues there is a probability curve rather then a simple line... normally you use the curve to determine what the actual velocity was, but you always get at least a couple yahoos that look at the curve, notice that one of the tails goes above C and get all excited that something is going faster then light.
Good thing they are are going to put the findings online to be checked then (they have been looking for errors and have been unable to find any so far).
The result - which threatens to upend a century of physics - will be put online for scrutiny by other scientists.
In the meantime, the group says it is being very cautious about its claims.
"We tried to find all possible explanations for this," said report author Antonio Ereditato of the Opera collaboration.
"We wanted to find a mistake - trivial mistakes, more complicated mistakes, or nasty effects - and we didn't," he told BBC News.
"When you don't find anything, then you say 'Well, now I'm forced to go out and ask the community to scrutinise this.'"
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484
In the meantime, the group says it is being very cautious about its claims.
"We tried to find all possible explanations for this," said report author Antonio Ereditato of the Opera collaboration.
"We wanted to find a mistake - trivial mistakes, more complicated mistakes, or nasty effects - and we didn't," he told BBC News.
"When you don't find anything, then you say 'Well, now I'm forced to go out and ask the community to scrutinise this.'"
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484
Click on the advertisements.
Living in the UK, I would have to visit the BBC website through a proxy in order to be able to click the advertisements.
90% of all users are idiots.
The scammers making the calls aren't too bright either. I had one call once saying that they had logs saying I had a virus. I asked who they were. They said "This is Microsoft". They didn't answer my question of "Why does Microsoft have logs from my computer running Ubuntu?" and kept on trying to get me to open a web browser. I got bored after a while and hung up.
They've had cases in the UK where everyone was glued to their TV sets until the adverts came on, then rushed to the toilet. Water consumption soared for a minute or three, then back to normal again when the TV show (Eric and Ernie's Christmas special?) was back on.
I remember hearing about something similar, although it was a surge in electricity usage as people turned the kettle on to boil some water to make a cup of tea (it is England...) during the ad breaks.
I'll leave you with this thought - the fall of a former giant called MySpace also took some time...
One of the first posts on my Facebook wall about 5 years ago was something along the lines of "This site sucks, MySpace for the win"
I did ICT at GCSE level, and A-Level, both times the course was fairly boring. Particularly the "here is how you create some basic documents" sections. One of the modules was to create a small website - we were allowed to use Dreamweaver, but so the course was somewhat challenging I did it in notepad (got full parks for that module too).
Once I got to University to study Computer Science, I started to learn actual interesting things, including programming (we hadn't done it at school, perhaps a little bit into Excell macros, but nothing major), but there were a lot of people in the first year of the Uni course who were struggling to learn the basic concepts, so improvement in the basics earlier on is definatly needed.
I completely agree on the Google+ name, and their weird attempt to push "+1" as a substitute for "like".
Mod parent +1 Insightful ;-)
Interface design however, I can't agree on. They may not be up to Apple's standards, but they're generally head and shoulders above the rest of their competitors. Google+ is still new and growing, and the interface can and will change easily as they experiment and look at feedback and usability. On the other hand, fixing the poor name and +1 will be harder the longer the wait.
The thing I like best about the Google+ interface is that the privacy controls are integrated into posting better. The ability to decide which circles should see a post is very clear, whereas with Facebook, I think they have the ability to do that, but it is not as obvious (plus I would have to organise everyone into catagories all at once; with Google+ I can do it as I add people as it was a feature from the start).
I post a fair bit to Google+, although I usualy duplicate the post to Facebook and twitter. I much prefer Google+ to Facebook, so keep posting there enough though I have less contacts there. My reason being that if anyone else does migrate over to Google+ from Facebook or elsewhere, they will see some activity instead of nothing happening and stop logging on.
The interaction with people is about the same I think. For example, I posted a photo to both Google+ and Facebook, and it got a similar level of interaction in both places, even though the number of contacts I have on Facebook is far far greater than Google+.
I remember reading on slashdot a few weeks ago that the easiest way to get people to move from Facebook to Google+ would be to post a link to your Google+ profile saying "I will only be adding new baby photos to this account", to get family to move to it so they can continue looking at photos of their grandchild/niece/nephew/etc.
I think I may now have an vague idea how actual guitar players feel about Guitar Hero. Copying and pasting code should generally be avoided (refactored instead of duplicated if possible). Otherwise, if there is a bug in the code copied, you have to fix it in multiple places.
That said, the game concept is an interesting one
Honestly from my experience I do not see a shortage of CS-related jobs at all, certainly not here in the South West.
Neither do I. Granted I had a placement year and went back to work there so I haven't have to look, but my line manager asked me a few months ago if any of the people I know who graduated with me were looking for work as we had an opening. I asked around, but they all had jobs.
Someone needs to write a Chrome/Firefox extension that automatically checks 404 pages via Tor to see if they really are down or just being censored.
You could try this: http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/
hmm, in that case. i don't suppose there's a firefox extension that does the same thing?
If you have AdBlock, there is an "Anti Social" list you can use that blocks all of these (Facebook, twitter, Google +1 etc.). It will mean you won't seem them at all, however, including the +1 button on Google+ (I have whitelisted Google to allow ads so I do see the +1 button, but have not seem other ads on Google+ so far).
I believe Ghostery will do something similar.
Logging out is not necessarily good enough. Facebook also tracks IP addresses that aren't currently logged in. Better to add adblock rules like:
I don't think the last one is necessary -- it has zero hits in my Adblock right now. The others have quite a few hits.
This does mean you won't see any "like" buttons, but if you don't use them, you won't miss anything.
Does anyone have any similar rules for blocking Google +1 tracking? I suppose a similar "block google.com except when on google.com" might work, but I don't know if that blocks everything, or breaks anything.
There is an additional AdBlock list called "Anti Social" that blocks all al these, including Google +1 ones. It does mean that you won't see the +1 buttons on Google+, but I have added Google to the "Allow adds on this domain" option, so they are there (and I've not seen any ads on Google+ now I think about it)
Check again. "Allow local data to be set for the current session only" and then hit the "Manage Exceptions" button to enable whitelisting domains for permanent cookie storage.
I will have to check my settings, I have all cookies turned off, apart from a Whitelist, but this seems like an improvement (and will mean I don't have to add things to the whitelist when I want to use them once). Thanks!
Good point. Frankly the whole article is a bit sketchy though... I mean... they assume you have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor already... doesn't that imply you already had a computer previously?
Doesn't that imply you had software for it? Software you might want to use on the new one? In which case going with linux was a bad move...
I recently got a new computer (it was called a 'nettop') for just under £200. It did come with a keyboard and mouse, but I have spares so that wasn't essential. I did have two screens with my existing computer, but rarely used them, so used one of the screens for the new nettop.
It came with a variation of Linux on it (Limpus I think, its a special version of it that is more user friendly and less like a usual desktop), but I replaced it with Ubuntu (handily I had a USB optical drive from when I wanted to use CDs/DVDs on my netbook that didn't have one).
I got it for a number of reasons. Firstly, I wanted to use Linux more, outside of a VM. Secondly, my existing computer was spending a lot of CPU time on a virus scanner and firewall (the fan whirring slightly bugged me). Thirdly, I couldn't think of that much that I specifically needed a high powered Windows computer for (I mainly used it for web browsing).
Since getting the nettop, I have had very few problems moving to using it exclusivly. Most of my previous usage was on the internet, so there has been little to no change there (I used to open 20 bookmarks at once, but that slowed down the browser a lot, so I separated the bookmark folders into two folders so I open less at a time). There is one game I play that is Windows only, but I would only play that occasionally, and can still use the old computer if I do want to play it. I had a couple of issues getting Ubuntu set up right on it (had to change a driver to stop it from freezing on shutdown), but most worked straight away. I did turn off the new Unity interface because it was fairly slow to use (it is a low power machine). When I was first using it for a while, I wasn't sure whether it had a fan or not because it was almost silent when running. The start up time is about 20 seconds for a computer with less powerful hardware than my Windows computer, which takes a few minutes to boot up (oh, that is 20 seconds from off to usable, when my Windows computer takes a few minutes to boot, then a few minutes to load various other programs). It is also low power so I am saving slightly on my power bills, which is nice.
Can someone please post a link to the APK and/or its sha1sum so if we find it on the net we can verify that's the original one and not malware?
Thanks.
Standard disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not anyone else. None of the above should be read as an encouragement to violate the law. IANAL. I don't hate cute kittens.
You can still download it from F-Droid (open source Android app repository): http://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.hermit.tricorder
I still have it, although I installed it through F-Droid (Open source android market), where it is still avaliable: http://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.hermit.tricorder
I still have it, although I installed it through F-Droid as opposed to the Android Market.
It is still there, for anyone who doesn't have it: http://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.hermit.tricorder
No, the dev can't spam anyone. It's only for getting access to your contacts list, in case you wish to share an achievement in the game with them.
If that is the case, it should be made a lot clearer. And, I should be prompted to grant such permission at the point where I've decided to "share an achievement" (which would be never), not before I've even played the game. From a programmer's point of view, if I grant permission when the action is to be performed, it is at least reasonable to believe that that permission is confined to the specific action I tried to take (sharing an achievement). If I grant permission at the beginning of the game, why would I expect the app to be unable to share an ad behind my back if it is able to share an achievement?
I have played two or three of the Google games (only the ones with less permissions, I refuse the games that want to see my email address). From my experience, when you have done something, an in-game pop-up appears saying what you have done, with the options to "Share" or "Skip" (the layout and terminology differs for each game). If you click on "Share", an additional Google+ specific popup appears, and allows you to select people to share the achievement with. For example, you could share with everyone, or only certain circles, or only certain people. Once you have selected people to share with, and then clicked on the "Post" option in the Google+ popup, is anything shared with your contacts (and only the selected ones).
tl;dr: Even after the general permission has been granted to the game, you have to click two different things to actually share something
But there were over a 100 injured and 5 killed! When social order breaks down to that extent some drastic measures might be called for. If a social media service like twitter is helping to fuel the riot then when would you say it's okay to suspend it till cooler heads prevail? After 10 people die? 20? 30? There has to be a point where some sort of action is taken right? If not then a person's basic human right to feel safe in their own homes and communities is in jeopardy. And I kind of think that basic human right trumps twitter, maybe just a bit eh?
My main concern with shutting down any form of communication in a situation like a riot is that now anyone nearby not participating in the riots have a lot less information about what is happening where (I'm sure a service like twitter would be helpful in finding places where riots are happening and avoid them as much as possible). They will also find it harder to contact their loved ones to ensure them that they are OK or check that their loved ones are OK (I would imagine that if a riot is happening and you can't get through to someone, a lot of people will start panicking).
TFA makes out like the Internet is a minority issue that the masses don't understand. A shutdown of Twitter et al was never on the cards because most of the electorate uses those services and would cry foul.
The article seems to focus on the main political parties, as opposed to the "masses". The Prime Minister said something along the lines of "we will look into whether it would be right to temporarily stop access to site such as twitter", so while it was never really on the cards, it was briefly thought about.
If you have a problem with the policy - explain why you think it's a bad policy.
Which policy? My understanding of the article is that the three main political parties in the UK either have no policy (regarding digital rights), or don't understand the issues well enough (which has led them in the past to say something, then later backtrack because they realise it is unworkable or infeasible). I would say that an inconsistent and contradictory policy is a bad one.
Is this a new service that ./ is trying? Will the other parties also get their statements posted word for word?
Quite a lot of article summaries on slashdot are usually a word for word extract from the source (which are often press releases).
I wonder why there isn't yet a webpage where people can post their invite codes and others who want them can simply grab one.
I think the invites are sent via email, so you would have to post your email address to the site and hope current users don't mind sending invites to strangers (as I think the reciever may see the senders email address).