Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Good Riddance (Score 1) 587

by eric76 (#26489017) Attached to: Circuit City Closes Its Doors For Good

Back when CD drives for computers were just becoming popular, I went to Circuit City to buy one. I picked out the particulear one to buy but noticed that the package only mentioned that it was compatible with Windows 95.

I told the salesman that if it didn't work with Windows NT I would bring it back.

The manager was standing behind the salesman and overheard me. He told me in no uncertain terms that if it worked with any computer running Windows 95, they would not accept a return.

So I went elsewhere, picked out the exact same model CD drive, verified that I could return it, and bought it. It worked perfectly.

Since then, I've spent plenty of money at the store that would have accepted its return, if necessary, and not a penny at Circuit City.

In fact, at the time of the CD incident, I needed a new stereo system because my previous has completely quit. I had just what I wanted picked out at Circuit City, but just hadn't bought it yet. Their refusal to accept returns of the CD drive not only killed the CD drive sale, they killed the stereo sale as well. I ended up buying a better stereo for less money at another nearby store.

I don't feel the least bit sorry for Circuit City going under. As far as I'm concerned -- Good Riddance.
Mars

Submission + - SPAM: NASA: Harder, colder picture of Mars emerges

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Turns out that the surface of Mars is stiffer and colder than previously thought. New observations from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter indicate that any liquid water that might exist below the planet's surface and any possible organisms living in that water would be located deeper than scientists had suspected.NASA made the discovery was using the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument on the Orbiter, which revealed long, continuous layers stretching up to 600 miles or about one-fifth the length of the United States. The radar pictures show a smooth, flat border between the ice cap and the rocky Martian crust, NASA said. On Earth, the weight of a similar stack of ice would cause the planet's surface to sag. The fact that the Martian surface is not bending means that its strong outer shell, or lithosphere, a combination of its crust and upper mantle, must be very thick and cold. [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source
The Courts

Rambus Wins Appeal of FTC Anti-Trust Ruling 52

Posted by timothy from the oh-please-let-this-be-the-last-time dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Rambus has won its appeal in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. The decision said that it wasn't sufficient to prove that Rambus lied or harmed competitors; the FTC had to prove that it harmed consumers in order to fall under anti-trust law. This is, unfortunately, a very dangerous ruling in light of some of Microsoft's activities relating to OOXML because it raises the bar on the proof required to act against such behavior. However, the ruling in the Rambus case was merely vacated and remanded for further proceedings, not overturned. So, if the evidence warrants, the lower court might be able to decide that consumers were actually harmed by Rambus' conduct and rule against them. Alternatively, this ruling could be appealed to the Supreme Court by filing a petition for a writ of certiorari, but the Supreme Court only grants a few of those per year."
Microsoft

Bill Gates On the GPL — "We Disagree" 778

Posted by timothy from the doesn't-that-mean-disagreeing-with-copyright dept.
Dionysius, God of Wine, writes with a link to an Ars Technica story, quoting Bill Gates: "'There's free software and then there's open source' he suggested, noting that Microsoft gives away its software in developing countries. With open source software, on the other hand, 'there is this thing called the GPL, which we disagree with.' Open source, he said, creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software,' he claimed, bemoaning the squandered opportunity for jobs and business. (Yes, Linux fans, we're aware of how distorted this definition is.) He went back to the analogy of pharmaceuticals: 'I think if you invent drugs, you should be able to charge for them,' he said, adding with a shrug: 'That may seem radical."
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Radical New 64-bit PC Operating System (losethos.com)

Submitted by
losethos
losethos writes: "LoseThos V3.12 has been released. It's a 64-bit, open source, free, PC operating system. It's designed for programming as entertainment. There is no user mode, just kernel, so you have free access to everything. The command line, editor, help system, start menu, all use a document format that allows links, graphics, trees, and more. Your source code can have graphics and links. You can output links or graphics to the command line. Unlike Linux, this operating system can be understood by average people and you can tinker with it. It's ideal for amateurs wishing to write their own video games because it's far simpler... like the old days, except on modern hardware with multicore support."
Software

Submission + - $50,000 poker challenge separates men from machine (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "It'll be "all in" next month as a poker-playing computer program takes on two poker champions in a Texas-hold-em shootout for the ages. Well, OK maybe not for the ages but for $50,000 University of Alberta researchers are betting their Polaris poker program will beat two of the sharpest human professional players in the world in a match slated for July 23 and 24. The game, held in conjunction with the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Conference in Vancouver will feature 2,000 hands of Texas hold 'em between Polaris and Phil (The Unabomber) Laak and Ali Eslami. The $50,000 man-versus-machine poker match will not only be fun — it will help test advances in artificial intelligence, said Jonathan Schaeffer, leader of the computer science team that created Polaris. http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1615 1"
Encryption

Submission + - CPS-3 Encryption Scheme Broken (exophase.com)

Submitted by
zshadow
zshadow writes: "It's taken awhile, ten years to be exact, but Andreas Naive has successfully managed to break the protection on Capcom's CPS-3 arcade system board. The CPS-3 powered less than a dozen arcade classics, including JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Red Earth, and Street Fighter III. The security system of the CPS-3 was rather advanced for its time. Any tampering to the game's security cartridge would result in the decryption key being erased, thereby rendering the respective cartridge useless. So, the decryption is broken, what does this all mean? In one word: Emulation. Now that the decryption task is done, the folks over at MAME have already started work on a CPS-3 emulator."
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Gamer sues gold farmers

Submitted by navygeek
navygeek writes: Tired of contending with gold farmers in Blizzard's online sensation, World of Warcraft, gamer Antonio Hernadez has filed a class-action lawsuit against gold farming outfit IGE.

The attorney representing Hernandez in the case, Richard Newsome, told The Escapist, "Guys like Tony [Hernandez, the plaintiff] have paid their $15 for some entertainment, and IGE is polluting that entertainment. It's kind of like, if someone pays for a ticket to go see a movie, and if someone else comes in behind them and kicks their seat, you can get them to stop doing that."
Details on the lawsuit may be found at Gamespot and The Escapist. The actual complaint can be found here, PDF warning.
Programming

Submission + - Beyond Beowulf Clusters

Submitted by ChelleChelle
ChelleChelle writes: There is no need to state the importance of Beowulf Clusters to the growth of distributed/parallel computing — their ubiquitous presence attests to this. However, as clusters grow in size and complexity, it becomes harder and harder to manage their configurations. This article discusses this problem, using CAMERA (Community Cyberinfrastructure for Advanced Marine Microbial Ecology Research and Analysis) for a working example.
The Courts

Submission + - Sued For Non-Existent Content?

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "I'd like to get the opinion of Slashdot readers on this (even though I know it''s not legal advice). Several years ago one of my websites (nameless for obvious reasons) used a CGI script to pull and display some publicly-available content from another site. The script is long gone and the content hasn't been available for several years.
Recently, however, I received a letter from an "internet law" firm claiming that the content was copyrighted and that I owed a bunch of money to the original copyright holder for my 'illegal use'. (The content was apparently found through Archive.org.) The content isn't on my site and hasn't been for years, so my question is just what is my liability? I never received any sort of takedown notice and the content was gone long before receiving this demand for money. What say ye, Slashdotters- am I liable? Is this a thinly-veiled extortion attempt? How would anyone actually determine what the supposed worth of this infringement is/was?"
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - SecondLife Crackdown: Accusations of Child Porn

Submitted by sboutwell
sboutwell writes: From Secondlife's BLOG http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/05/09/accusations- regarding-child-pornography-in-second-life/#more-9 52

Recent crack downs and required IDENTITY information updates are coming because of Recent accusations of KIDDIE PORN and Child Adult Sexual Play in Second Life.

From their Blog: On Thursday May 3, we were contacted by German television network, ARD, which had captured images of two avatars, one that resembled an adult male and another that resembled a child, engaged in depicted sexual conduct. Our investigations revealed the users behind these avatars to be a 54-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman. Both were immediately banned from Second Life.

More details on all of this as well as Secondlife's official response can be found on their BLOG.
Patents

Submission + - Amazon Cries 'Uncle' to End IBM Patent Feud

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "Amazon will pay an undisclosed amount to IBM to settle a long-running patent feud, and the two companies have agreed to a long-term patent cross-licensing agreement. Information Week wonders if an insurance dispute prompted Amazon's settlement, noting that Atlantic Mutual sued Amazon back in March to escape any obligation to reimburse the e-tailer should it lose the case brought by IBM. Amazon had relied on Atlantic Mutual's backing in an earlier legal battle it waged against tiny InTouch."
Biotech

Submission + - Redefining what "dead" is

Submitted by
FlyByPC
FlyByPC writes: "According to a NewsWeek article, oxygen deprivation doesn't necessarily kill patients as much as the resumption of oxygen does. This could bring about new ways of, as TFA puts it, 'treating the dead'.

As Monty Python might say, perhaps some patients really 'aren't dead yet!'"

Slashdot Top Deals

On the eighth day, God created FORTRAN.

Close