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Submission + - WebKit introduces new tracking prevention policy (webkit.org)

AmiMoJo writes: WebKit, the open source HTML engine used by Apple's Safari browser and a number of others, has created a new policy on tracking prevention. The short version is that many forms of tracking will now be treated the same way as security flaws, being blocked or mitigated with no exceptions.

While on-site tracking will still be allowed (and is practically impossible to prevent anyway), all forms of cross-site tracking and covert tracking will be actively and aggressively blocked.

Education

Is Believing In Meritocracy Bad For You? (fastcompany.com) 480

An anonymous reader quotes Fast Company: Although widely held, the belief that merit rather than luck determines success or failure in the world is demonstrably false. This is not least because merit itself is, in large part, the result of luck. Talent and the capacity for determined effort, sometimes called "grit," depend a great deal on one's genetic endowments and upbringing.

This is to say nothing of the fortuitous circumstances that figure into every success story. In his book Success and Luck, the U.S. economist Robert Frank recounts the long-shots and coincidences that led to Bill Gates's stellar rise as Microsoft's founder, as well as to Frank's own success as an academic. Luck intervenes by granting people merit, and again by furnishing circumstances in which merit can translate into success. This is not to deny the industry and talent of successful people. However, it does demonstrate that the link between merit and outcome is tenuous and indirect at best. According to Frank, this is especially true where the success in question is great, and where the context in which it is achieved is competitive. There are certainly programmers nearly as skilful as Gates who nonetheless failed to become the richest person on Earth. In competitive contexts, many have merit, but few succeed. What separates the two is luck.

In addition to being false, a growing body of research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that believing in meritocracy makes people more selfish, less self-critical, and even more prone to acting in discriminatory ways.

The article cites a pair of researchers who "found that, ironically, attempts to implement meritocracy leads to just the kinds of inequalities that it aims to eliminate.

"They suggest that this 'paradox of meritocracy' occurs because explicitly adopting meritocracy as a value convinces subjects of their own moral bona fides."

Submission + - AmigaOS 3.1.4 released for classic Amiga (hyperion-entertainment.com)

Mike Bouma writes:

The new, cleaned-up, polished Amiga operating system for your 68K machine fixes all the small annoyances that have piled up over the years. Originally intended as a bug-fix release, it also modernizes many system components previously upgraded in OS 3.9.

Contrary to its modest revision number, AmigaOS 3.1.4 is arguably as large an upgrade as OS 3.9 was, and surpasses it in stability and robustness. Over 320K of release notes cover almost every aspect of your favourite classic AmigaOS — from bootmenu to datatypes.


User Journal

Journal Journal: The correct pronunciation of names is overrated.

It is a trap but here goes. If you play video games, like Warcraft III The Frozen Throne. And you sign in and play using a pseudonym, you are violating the rule. "if you say you are someone you are not, god said 'Fuck you' and youth is the hidden daemon of paedophiles. also, if you say the name of short range units you are violating the same rule a second time as 'melee' is the name of some kid in a wheelchair the daemons used to trap paedophiles. furthermore there is a strict three strikes r

Comment Re:Updated Policy: (Score 1) 372

Wrong, as with cod labeling all units will be assigned automatic, random, barcodes which are inked into their skin, resistance is futile death will be assigned to all non compliant software, including those with grandfathered unique names and social security numbers.

Comment Re:I wonder how the abuse victims feel. (Score 1) 301

the biggest problem with using computers to 'catch' paedophiles is that machines can fabricate evidence when 'ordered' to 'find concrete evidence'
and for those who wonder why machines are creating evidence in the first place, well. It is simple, virtually every piece of childhood content has some subtle hint of paedophilia. from 'peter peter, pumpkin eater' (child bride) to 'three blind mice' (three judges who looked the other way) To classic entertainment like, the three stooges.(hint a creampie in the face, is oral blowjob) i could go on down the rabbit hole, how are robots going to enforce penalties they are told to make? also, not all life forms live to be 18. are you gonna arrest the bacteria in your lungs for reproduction? are you going to arrest the blades of grass for their reproduction every year, and never stop growing? are you going to mow all the grass so it never fertilizes until it is 18 years old?!?! plants are alive and reproduce, even in climates where it plants never freeze, not many of them wait 18 years to grow up and make seeds.

anyway, i feel for you that you were victimized, a real child lover never takes one, for the love is too great, but a child rapist will take advantage with every opportunity.

User Journal

Journal Journal: So, here is what is going down real soon...

Okay, so I know. Everything. I remember the taunts. I remember the cruel jokes. I know the way I was kept too slow to understand. So, I am gonna film all my poop in 3d, on YouTube. Just because, a hacker from Texas suggested it as a taunt. I mean the color and consistency will support the type of poop I get, with all this icky drugs and stuff they feed me. I hope the sickness continues to spread until no living organism can survive, but that is just too optimistic. After all they been trying

User Journal

Journal Journal: for fun...

adam prayed to god for a bridle, the angel delivering the message couldn't find the 'l' key and god gave adam eve. which really pissed him off. the angel complained of the 'first no L' and later adam cursed i want a mail order bridle! which then gave way to 'mail order brides'

Comment Re:Lateral aerodynamics (Score 1) 236

there is a little thing that i recall from the 1980's called a 'spoiler' that gives more stability in high winds. and can be motorized, and automated for 'eco' mode driving vs, detected turbulence. in the 80's it was needed to get a car over a certain speed i am too lazy to look up the exact speed though.

User Journal

Journal Journal: watching my packet data...

i found a lot of browsing traffic. used wireshark of course, most was news sites and slashdot. This hardware does not trust linux. i know i tried to see if i could get it installed when i was on vacation. I still have two linux machines, though. plus tablets. the head games are getting hard though. I found myself trying to make a decision and would turn back and forth trying to decide what to do. I did start reading again on my tablet. I also have been streaming video. My doctor said 15 minu

Comment Re:Inflation? (Score 0) 674

Why do you think doing nothing is so bad? If your society treasures data troves then you need people to view and store data on the important subjects. Tasking this only to libraries and schools and corporations is not distributed enough. Libraries burn down. Schools are too focused on education. Corporations are driven by stress crazed lunatics. So, peer to peer data troves, run by people on dole sharing the programs they found useful takes away a lot of stress and fear of forgeting things. The corporations have given us a walled garden called Hulu where the diff clips are used to capture the info and language for English viewers to disseminate broadcast streams into usable text. Some people enjoy the riddles, and some people like stress, but peer to peer is meant to be part of civilization. Computers have memory leaks, and a basic income gives people who want to sit at home and record information on topics and not need cars or trains or buses the freedom to learn and educate. There are more to life than to work at structured environments. I have seen many people lose their mind playing games and letting hackers touch their files. Would a basic income really do us harm? It is not like the corporations are playing it safe with the future of earth.

Comment Re:Non-issue (Score 1) 169

amazon's app may crash, but android has a lot of good apps including the GPLed FBReader https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FComparison_of_Android_e-book_reader_software which while it is gpl'ed it doesn't do DRM. this leaves projects like project gutenberg https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gutenberg.org%2F gutenburg has a lot of old books. however beware, some public domain works like 'a princess of mars' have been converted into movies by disney (john carter is the movie version)

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