toejam316 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Brazil to break AIDS drug patents

Submitted by

Lisandro

on Friday May 04, 2007 @11:06PM

Lisandro writes: "BBC News reports that Brazil will become the first country to to break patents on an AIDS treatment drug. The drug, called Nelfinavir, is patented by Roche, and the move aims to reduce its' cost as much as 40% by allowing generic versions of the drug to be produced by third parties."

Submission + - School (nazi) filtering

Submitted by

toejam316

on Thursday May 03, 2007 @07:30AM

toejam316 writes: "My school (Gasp, SCHOOL AGE!) has a Internet connection Supplied by our countries biggest (nazi, local loop owning) ISP. Now, this is all great, we dont have to pay anything, but they also give our school (as in, force) a Proxy Server which everything must pass through for suitablity. Its run by some Australian company I cant remember, and they filter out reasonable things. The school though, has access to a private section where they can add their own things to filter. Now, this may all seem fine, but we have a incompetent admin who saw fit to FILTER WIKIPEDIA under "Reference/Educational, Social". How is this right? How can a SCHOOL filter a information website? I mean fine, they filtered Bebo, but filtering actual school related things? Thats a bit too far, dont you agree? They've done this to heaps of things, Google Images amoungst others. What do you suggest? They keep a log of everything and do random checks (I goatse'd a few people before the admin caught on and went there >:-D), so they definately know what they're blocking. Why would they do this though, and do you have any suggestions to evade it?"

Submission + - Duck Penis/Vagina In Evolutionary Arms Race

Submitted by

zentropa

on Wednesday May 02, 2007 @11:53PM

zentropa writes: "Gotta see it to believe it. Rape is common in some duck species, and it seems that female ducks have evolved "maze-like" genitals with twists, pouches and dead ends, in a bid to prevent rape and retain control of who fathers their offspring. The males, meanwhile, have evolved equally convoluted penises to keep up, according Cosmos Magazine in Australia. It has a picture of said genitals. Who said humans have it tough?"

Submission + - Refusing Vista EULA?

Submitted by

Sasayaki

on Wednesday May 02, 2007 @10:40PM

Sasayaki writes: "I recently purchased a Compaq Presario C500 notebook in Brisbane, Australia which came bundled with Microsoft Windows Vista. However, I wish to install Ubuntu as my Operating System. To that end I wish to reject the Windows Vista EULA which is presented to me when I turn on said notebook, yet I find there is no way for me to do so; when the EULA is displayed to me in the "Set Up Windows" stage of installation, I am presented with what I interpret to be a standard Vista EULA and then a second HP EULA. There is no obvious way to refuse either of these license terms; the only options I am presented with are two checkboxes (one for each EULA) and a greyed out button labelled 'Next'. The two checkboxes read: "I accept the license terms (required to use Windows)" and "I accept the license terms (required to use your computer)". Reading the second (HP specific) EULA carefully, it makes it clear that I cannot use this laptop without agreeing to the Vista EULA. Specifically, ".... YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS EULA. IF YOU DO NOT ACCEPT THESE LICENSE TERMS, YOUR SOLE REMEDY IS TO RETURN THE ENTIRE UNUSED PRODUCT (HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE) WITHIN 14 DAYS FOR A REFUND SUBJECT TO THE REFUND POLICY OF YOUR PLACE OF PURCHASE." Naturally (since I still have the notebook) I still have not accepted the terms of the EULA. I crawled Microsoft's website at www.microsoft.com, searching for some recourse for myself and those like me who wish to reject the EULA and receive a refund on the Microsoft Vista Operating System when I do not agree to the EULA's conditions, but did not find anything (unsurprisingly). Can any slashdotters offer any suggestions where I might go to receive said refund?"

Submission + - "Dell to choose Ubuntu"

Submitted by CiderJack on Tuesday May 01, 2007 @02:00AM

CiderJack writes: Title says it all, really...
Story here

Submission + - Selecting a Notebook Linux Distribution

Submitted by garry_g on Monday April 30, 2007 @04:29AM

garry_g writes: After running Windows on my workplace boxes for way too long due to certain requirements (Lotus Notes, M$ Office, and the likes), I just got my brand new notebook, which — with a Core2 Duo Processor & 2Gig of ram — I would like to run with Linux as my primary OS. Most Windows requirements I have should be more than covered by installing VMWare, XP & the required apps in the VM. I plan on adding a small (30G) partition for the cases in which I would require to run some high-performance native Windows apps (I know, it's an oxymoron) or something requiring large amounts of memory.

Anyway, I already gave SuSE Enterprise Desktop 10 a try, which seems to have some quirks with the new HW (Dell Latitude D520). Before I go through half a dozen of Distros (Debian, Ubuntu, OpenSuSE,...) — what's your opinion on a decent Linux Distribution for a Notebook?

Please note, I've been using Unix/Linux since something like 1988 (obviously not Linux then, but since Kernel 0.99PL12), so I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty from some low-level configs and stuff ... :) So it doesn't have to be a polished End-User-Only distribution ...

Submission + - Finally, someone creates the mouse mouse.

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Monday April 30, 2007 @02:43AM

Anonymous Coward writes: "It's been a long time coming, but someone has finally created the mouse mouse. What is a mouse mouse, you ask? It's a computer mouse, in a real mouse. It's a recursive mouse! It even has a scroll wheel.

It's on Instructables, so there are instructions as well, should one feel a normal mouse is just completely inadequate and the need to create one's own. I'm doubting many will go that far, but hey, it's good to have the option. Best yet, it glows!"

Submission + - Gigabyte Aurora 570 Black Tower ATX Computer Case

Submitted by

Nathan

on Tuesday April 24, 2007 @02:07AM

Nathan writes: "Article Url: http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/gigabyte_aurora_5 70_case/
Article PIC: http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/gigabyte_aurora_5 70_case/img/email.jpg

Article Snippet:

"Gigabyte's 3DAurora 570 chassis is the second-generation offering in this product line and a very worthy successor to the original. With many improvements over its older brother and several new features, the 570 is a high quality case that will make an excellent home for the latest maximum-effort systems an enthusiast might wish to install. It has a distinctive look, great performance and a feature list the likes of which give many chassis manufacturers a thing or two to learn.""

Feed Microsoft, Trying to Avoid a European Fine, Defends Demand for Royalties (nytimes.com)

From feed by nytfeed on Monday April 23, 2007 @11:12PM

Microsoft filed documents defending its demand to be paid royalties for releasing some software code to competitors.

Submission + - Sabotage at Calif. Power Grid's Data Center

Submitted by

miller60

on Monday April 23, 2007 @10:30PM

miller60 writes: "A disgruntled system administrator intentionally pressed the Emergency Power Off (EPO) button in the data center that manages the electric grid for most of California, crashing the facility for hours, according to law enforcement accounts. The grid was unaffected, primarily because the event took place late on a Sunday night, rather than on a high-load weekday, according to power industry officials. The sysadmin worked for a third-party contractor which had warned its client, the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO), that the employee should be denied access to the facility. Inquiries are focused on why he was still able to get into the data center, which had several levels of access security."

Feed Barclays' chip and PIN readers will work for other banks (theregister.com)

From feed by registerfeed on Monday April 23, 2007 @05:32AM

PINsentry will read all APACS-standard cards

Barclays Bank is introducing a handheld chip and PIN card reader for the home in an escalation of its online banking security. Other chip and PIN cards will work with the Barclays device, not just cards issued by Barclays.

Submission + - DX 10 on XP, MacOS X, Linux: is it possible?

Submitted by

javipas

on Monday April 23, 2007 @05:06AM

javipas writes: "A young programmer leading the 'Alky Project' has reverse-engineered the Geometry Shader code on DX10, and if what he says is true, running DX10 apps and games will be possible on plattforms different from Windows Vista. Microsoft made clear that DX 10 would only be available through Vista and compatible hardware, so being able to run DX10 on Windows XP, MacOS X or even Linux could be really interesting. The current preview allows to run several examples of the DirecX SDK on Windows XP. Promising."

Submission + - Epic Fantast FPS: Project Offset (LINK MISSING)

Submitted by

skatehead

on Sunday April 22, 2007 @02:19AM

skatehead writes: "in my previous submission i forgot the link to the secret page with the hit counter on it http://www.projectoffset.com/astormiscoming/ cheers"

Submission + - Epic Fantasy FPS: Project Offset update!

Submitted by

skatehead

on Sunday April 22, 2007 @02:03AM

skatehead writes: "Most gamers (and slashdotters) will remember when the initial team of 3 developers behind Project Offset (http://www.projectoffset.com/) released a video showing off a sneak peak of their upcoming game and engine (see previous slashdot article http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/11/ 2019242) Now it has been almost a year since the last media was released (http://www.projectoffset.com/downloads.html) and the game has apparently progressed to the point of starting their marketing campaign A few days ago a forum member found a hidden page titles "a storm is coming" on the offset website, and after he showed a few friends, they noticed a bar that was progressing with every unique view the bar filled up within a few hours and 2 new screenshots were released! (http://www.xboxyde.com/news_4235_en.html) now the bar has reset, and its taking alot more views to fill it up this time (more than 24 hours to get to 80%)! no one knows whats coming next, but after this many views, we're expecting a bunch of screenshots or even a new video! just thought it was a really cool marketing idea, and im also interested in getting that bar filled up it's been posted on a bunch of news sites including ign (http://au.pc.ign.com/articles/782/782412p1.html) and blue's news, and all over forums everywhere, but it still hasnt hit 100% hopefully slashdot can help out there? :) cheers"

Submission + - Dell will be selling PCs with pre-installed Linux

Submitted by

Elbethil

on Sunday April 22, 2007 @01:23AM

Elbethil writes: "Dell has recently announced that they will start to sell PCs that are pre-installed with Linux, in response to consumer demand from a 2007 survey as well as feedback given on IdeaStorm. According to Dell, "our first step in this effort is offering Linux preinstalled on select desktop and notebook systems." They have not yet announced which distros they will be offering, nor which specific computer models they will come on, but did promise an update in "the coming weeks.""

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