Ace905 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Microsoft will not sue over Linux patents

Submitted by Nero Nimbus on Monday May 21, 2007 @10:54PM

Nero Nimbus writes: In an official statement emailed to ZDNet UK, Microsoft confirmed that it would not litigate for now.

"If we wanted to go down that road we could have done that three years ago," said a Microsoft spokesperson. "Rather than litigate, Microsoft has spent the last three years building an intellectual property bridge that works for all parties — including open source — and the customer response has been tremendously positive. Our focus is on continuing to build bridges."

Submission + - Vimeo Admits Falling Short Of Competition

Submitted by

Ace905

on Monday May 21, 2007 @04:12PM

Ace905 writes: "Prettybored blogger Wes Clark recently wrote a scathing review of Vimeo — the Video Clip Sharing Community Site made famous by the talents of 'Streeter Seidell and Amir Blumenfeld'. Vimeo's own Jakob Lodwick was quick to respond, admitting that Vimeo falls short of its competitors and is suffering from a lack of staff.

The entire article with Jakob's response is available by clicking here."

Submission + - Vimeo Responds to Harsh Criticism

Submitted by

Ace905

on Wednesday May 16, 2007 @07:04PM

Ace905 writes: "Jakob Lodwick of Vimeo responds to a private bloggers article on the flaws of Vimeo for sharing video clips. The article is very critical of Vimeo's ability to stand out from the competition, and points out that their most popular producers have chosen Vimeo only because they work for them, or are being promoted by the company. The article is available by clicking here."

Submission + - Scientists Change Belief in Global Warming

Submitted by

Rommel

on Wednesday May 16, 2007 @05:56PM

Rommel writes: "If you are going to post links to "pro" Global Warming Sites such as the Top Myths dispelled you should present the counter-points as well... Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming ....Geophysicist Dr. Claude Allegre, a top geophysicist and French Socialist who has authored more than 100 scientific articles and written 11 books and received numerous scientific awards including the Goldschmidt Medal from the Geochemical Society of the United States, converted from climate alarmist to skeptic in 2006. Allegre, who was one of the first scientists to sound global warming fears 20 years ago, now says the cause of climate change is "unknown" and accused the "prophets of doom of global warming" of being motivated by money, noting that "the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!" ".... http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction= Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=927b9303-802a-23ad -494b-dccb00b51a12&Region_id=&Issue_id="

Submission + - 26 climate change myths debunked

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 16, 2007 @01:21PM

An anonymous reader writes: There's a lot at stake with global warming, so for those not sure what to believe, New Scientist has debunked the most common climate myths. It has the key graphs, links to all the original research, but it also acknowledges that the scientists themselves sometimes exaggerate. My favourite: It's all down to cosmic rays.

Submission + - Vimeo Gets Harsh Scrutiny

Submitted by

Ace905

on Wednesday May 16, 2007 @01:12PM

Ace905 writes: "A small time blog has recently scrutinized Vimeo's entire structure and future as a video-sharing site. While this wouldn't normally be newsworthy, Vimeo's own Jakob Lodwick responds — admitting that Vimeo has been understaffed and falls short of established sites like YouTube and Break.com. The article criticizes that Vimeo's best spokespeople are attracted to the site solely due to Vimeo's aggressive promotion of their clips, not because it has anything better to offer the general members."

Submission + - How would you reorient the direction of America?

Submitted by

BradySama

on Wednesday May 16, 2007 @12:43PM

BradySama writes: "There are all kinds of stories being reported now-a-days about how very small numbers of Americans are happy with the direction the nation has been going in. The problem, though, is identifying the root causes behind the direction the United States has taken, and then figuring out what we should do about and and where we would want to head instead. In this article, Chalmers Johnson lays out one explanation and some possible courses of action. But I would pose to you, SlashDotters, this same question: what do you see as the fundamental root causes of what ails you today, and what do you think should be done to address and or correct those ailments? If we are the nerds, and we pay attention to the stuff that matters, I think we may come up with a really interesting discussion here. And please, feel free to expand the discussion beyond the United States to include all of our home countries and the world as a whole."

Submission + - Obama Campaign Spams Away

Submitted by on Wednesday May 16, 2007 @12:37PM

An anonymous reader writes: In addition to all the other disreputable things Barack Hussein Obama's campaign is doing (lying about his positions, hiding his past, stealing myspace pages and trying to demonize former supporters they abused) they've sunk to an all-time new low; they're spamming.

The past couple weeks, I noticed "announcements" from Hussein Obama's campaign flowing into my spam traps. One titled "Taking it to the Streets" showed up both in my inbox, and in three of my spam traps. Sender was "Barack Obama <info@barackobama.com", mailer was MTA2.Bluestatedigital.com — definitely the work of the Hussein Obama campaign. I offered him the benefit of the doubt; followed the unsubscribe links, made sure each relevant address was removed, called the campaign to warn them about this kind of behavior. End result? NONE of the addresses are removed from Hussein Obama's email lists. I got their "Not playing by the rules" spam yesterday, with the header indicating it's from David Plouffe (but again at info@barackobama.com and the same mailer) this time.

What do you do when a political asshole spams you and won't stop? And why do they think they can get away with it?

Submission + - Critic of Scientology, Keith Henson, In Jail

Submitted by

AmberH

on Wednesday May 16, 2007 @12:35PM

AmberH writes: "My name is Amber Henson. My father, Keith Henson, was arrested May 8th, in Arizona. He is currently being held in jail without proper medical care and without contact with his lawyer. He has been charged with a seven-year-old misdemeanor of "Interfering with a religion." He is to be extradited to California this Friday, May 18th, although this is almost unheard of for a misdemeanor. The California governor signed an extradition warrant after feeling pressure from the Riverside County DA. He has been receiving death threats since 2000. Please help me save my father's life. How to help: Sign this petition: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/freekeithhenson And/or: Call or fax Governor and request either pardon, withdrawal of the extradition warrant, or commutation of Keith Henson's sentence. 1.916.445.2841 fax: 916-445-4633 More info: www.operatingthetan.net"

Submission + - Australia banning light bulbs by 2010?

Submitted by Pascal7z on Tuesday February 20, 2007 @03:49AM

Pascal7z writes: Thomas Edison's 125 years invention will be banned in Australia. (here is the : http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2007/0 2/20/1537_news.html)
In order to reduce power consumption, the australian environment minister recommend to switch from the classical light bulb to power saving fluorescent bulb.
In the epoch of power hungry appliance, this is a first step to reduce our energy consumption, and indirectly the global warming.
When will other nations follow? What will other governments do?

Submission + - hard drives that are used often, last longer?

Submitted by tora201 on Tuesday February 20, 2007 @01:14AM

tora201 writes: The BBC reports that Google engineers have surprisingly discovered that the impact of heavy use and high temperatures on hard disk drive failure may be overstated. From the article: "Google employs its own file system to organise the storage of data, using inexpensive commercially available hard drives rather than bespoke systems. Hard drives less than three years old and used a lot are less likely to fail than similarly aged hard drives that are used infrequently, according to the report."

Submission + - odd bit on google earth: UFO at IAH?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 20, 2007 @01:13AM

An anonymous reader writes: There is an odd structure shown on the roof of IAH airport in houston. It does not seem to cast a shadow the same direction as surrounding buildings. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&ie=UTF8&om=0 &z=19&ll=29.98575,-95.333868&spn=0.001108,0.002682 &t=h&iwloc=addr

Submission + - Scientists Expose Weak DNA in HIV

Submitted by

Ace905

on Saturday February 17, 2007 @05:24AM

Ace905 writes: "The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases announced Thursday that they had discovered a very promising, "weak spot" in the HIV Virus. The HIV virus, a progenitor to full blown "Auto-Immune Deficiency Syndrome" or AIDS has eluded all attempts at a vaccine since it was discovered sometime in the 1970's. The major problem with developing a vaccine initially was isolating the virus. Conventional viruses are often defeated with existing drugs, or after being tested against new compounds. HIV has been unique, and staggering in it's ability to resist all attempts at treatment by mutating its' own genetic code. HIV is able to resist, with great effectiveness, any drug or combination drug-therapy that is used against it.

So far, our best efforts have been slowing down progression of the disease — but the number of people infected every year is rising and victims are estimated at 1.4 Million in North American alone, last year. Discovering a chain of vulnerable DNA on the HIV virus gives researchers a very exact target that can not resist damage."

Submission + - Comparison of Working at the 3 Big Software Giants

Submitted by

castironwok

on Saturday February 17, 2007 @04:35AM

castironwok writes: "Finally, everything you've ever wanted to know about being an employee at Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. Tastyresearch describes his (or her) past few years interning and working at the three companies. Things I didn't know from before: Bill Gates wears old shoes, Google's internal security watches you like a hawk, the office styles of each company, and how to fill your suitcase with Google T-shirts. He calls the few select companies the 'prestigious internship circle', noting "once you have worked at one, it's a lot easier to get into another". But what *I* really want to know now, is who has a more equal male-female ratio?"

Submission + - Apple CEO lambasts teacher unions

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 16, 2007 @10:38PM

An anonymous reader writes: After publishing a controversial open letter taking a stance against DRM, Steve Jobs turned his attention to teacher unions. As reported by Associated Press, Jobs said "I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way," during an education reform conference. He stated that no amount of technology in the classroom would improve public schools until principals could fire bad teachers. Acknowledging the potential fallout of this stance, Jobs also said "Apple just lost some business in this state, I'm sure."

On the other hand, Dell responded that unions were created because "the employer was treating his employees unfairly and that was not good. So now you have these enterprises where they take good care of their people. The employees won, they do really well and succeed."

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