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Comment Re:I'm allergic to... (Score 1) 643

by novafluxx (#30703282) Attached to: Air Canada Ordered To Provide Nut-Free Zone
Only in the western provinces, I'm afraid. :-) So, I have a shellfish allergy. It can kill me. If I travel on an international flight, and they're serving lobster, can I file a lawsuit? How about I just let the airline know ahead of time, so they won't serve that to any of the 300 people on the flight, just because me, 1 man, has an issue. Sounds like a fair deal to me! Screw everyone else, I deserve SPECIAL treatment!

Comment Re:humane testing (Score 1) 235

by novafluxx (#30690950) Attached to: The 9 Most Tested Lab Animals

I'm all for testing as long as it doesn't cause apprechiable suffering for the animal. limited tempary discomformt i can live with, but making another living thing which feels pain live or die in agony is as evil an act as i can imagine.

especially when it's for something shallow like cosmetic testing.

I agree 100% with that.
Biotech

The 9 Most Tested Lab Animals 235

Posted by samzenpus from the not-a-list-you-want-to-be-on dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Discover Magazine has this odd photo gallery in which they explain why certain animals are used in scientific research. Why are high-tech contact lenses always tried out in rabbits? Why do we study monogamy in prairie voles? Etc. They say of the 9 animals: 'Taken (or stitched) together, they form a kind of laboratory doppelganger for humans.'"
Image

Mexico Wants Payment For Aztec Images 325

Posted by samzenpus from the montezuma's-latest-revenge dept.
innocent_white_lamb writes "Starbucks brought out a line of cups with prehistoric Aztec images on them. Now the government of Mexico wants them to pay for the use of the images. Does the copyright on an image last hundreds of years?"

Comment Re:got balls? (Score 1) 1078

by novafluxx (#30188032) Attached to: Apple Voiding Smokers' Warranties?
You're so right, and thats so true. If they're working on a customer's computer without proper protection (ansti-static wrist bands, latex gloves, possible dust mask) they aren't providing a safe working environment for their employees, and an employee who works on these computers at ANY Apple Store should file a complaint with OSHA, and possible file a lawsuit. When is is legal to void the warranty of a smoke? Why is it possibly legal, yet, denying service to a pet owner because their employees 'may' have allergies, is probably NOT legal. What if they denied a black/hispanic/gay/lesbian smoker warranty service, then it would be national news RIGHT NOW on CNN and HLN.
Medicine

Apple Voiding Smokers' Warranties? 1078

Posted by Soulskill from the a-what-a-day-keeps-the-doctor-away dept.
Mr2001 writes "Consumerist reports that Apple is refusing to work on computers that have been used in smoking households. 'The Apple store called and informed me that due to the computer having been used in a house where there was smoking, [the warranty has been voided] and they refuse to work on the machine "due to health risks of second hand smoke,"' wrote one customer. Another said, 'When I asked for an explanation, she said [the owner of the iMac is] a smoker and it's contaminated with cigarette smoke, which they consider a bio-hazard! I checked my Applecare warranty and it says nothing about not honoring warranties if the owner is a smoker.' Apple claims that honoring the warranty would be an OSHA violation. (Remember when they claimed enabling 802.11n for free would be a Sarbanes-Oxley violation?)"
The Courts

ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings 461

Posted by kdawson from the don't-even-think-about-whistling-the-beatles dept.
gerddie notes a piece up on the EFF site outlining the fairly outlandish legal theories ASCAP is trying out in their court fight with AT&T. "ASCAP (the same folks who went after Girl Scouts for singing around a campfire) appears to believe that every time your musical ringtone rings in public, you're violating copyright law by 'publicly performing' it without a license. At least that's the import of a brief (PDF, 2.5 MB) it filed in ASCAP's court battle with mobile phone giant AT&T."
Cellphones

FCC To Probe Exclusive Mobile Deals 159

Posted by Soulskill from the hold-off-on-that-twelve-year-contract dept.
On Tuesday, we discussed news that four US Senators would be looking into the exclusivity deals between carriers and cell phone makers. Apparently, they didn't like what they heard. Reader Ian Lamont writes with an update: "The Federal Communications Commission is planning on launching an investigation into exclusive handset deals between mobile carriers and handset makers. In a speech on Thursday, acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps said the agency 'should determine whether some of these arrangements adversely restrict consumer choice or harm the development of innovative devices, and it should take appropriate action if it finds harm.' It's not hard to imagine who might be targeted — at a separate Senate Committee on Commerce hearing on Thursday, much of the discussion centered on AT&T's exclusive deal to carry the iPhone. AT&T claimed 'consumers benefit from exclusive deals in three ways: innovation, lower cost and more choice,' but carriers and senators from states with large rural populations disagreed, saying that their customers had no choice when it came to the iPhone — it's not available because AT&Ts network doesn't reach these areas. One panelist also brought up the Carterfone precedent (PDF), which concerned an 'electrical acoustic coupling device' that a man named Tom Carter developed in the 1950s to let field workers make phone calls using a radio transceiver connected to AT&T's phone network. AT&T, which was then a monopoly, claimed no foreign devices could be connected to its network, but lost when it challenged the Carterfone in court. The result spurred innovation such as the fax machine."
Programming

State of Sound Development On Linux Not So Sorry After All 427

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the sounds-like-improvement dept.
An anonymous reader writes "There have been past claims by Adobe and others that development on Linux is a jungle, particularly with regards to audio. However today, the author of the popular 'The Sorry State of Sound in Linux' has posted a follow up showing Adobe's claims to be FUD, as well as being a good update on where OSS and ALSA are holding today, and why PulseAudio isn't a good idea."
Security

Google Chrome Developers On Browser Security 61

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the never-ending-war-of-escalation dept.
CowboyRobot writes "Developers of Google's Chrome browser have spoken up in an article describing their approach to keeping the browser secure, focusing on minimizing the frequency, duration, and severity of exposure. One tool Chrome uses is a recently open-sourced update distribution application called 'Omaha.' 'Omaha automatically checks for software updates every five hours. When a new update is available, a fraction of clients are told about it, based on a probability set by the team. This probability lets the team verify the quality of the release before informing all clients.'"

Comment Re:Warranty (Score 1) 1654

by novafluxx (#26468185) Attached to: Woman Claims Ubuntu Kept Her From Online Classes
It doesn't void the warranty. Its just Dell tech support won't support the software, and will not troubleshoot any software problems on an OS that did not ship with the system. Canonical provides the support and troubleshooting for Dell systems shipped with Ubuntu. If she installs Windows on that system, and calls Dell for support in the future, they will NOT support her software issues, and will only be able to run diagnostics on the hardware using their diagnostic partition (assuming she doens't blow it out when installing Windows)

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