Josh Coalson - Slashdot User

Submission + - Matt Stone replies to Richard Dawkins

Submitted by

Chris Gray

on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @05:59PM

Chris Gray writes: "After Richard Dawkin's lukewarm response to his appearance on the South Park episode, Go God Go, creator Matt Stone has fired off a reply, imaginatively entitled "Richard Fucking Dawkins", accusing (among other things) Dawkins having a cult of followers. From the article:

"Wich are you more mad about, the fact that we made you sound stupid, or the fact that you're a complete fucking idiot dude! Look, Trey and I may not be Christians, but we also don't push our ways on people, and from the looks of things, you have a fucking cult going, not a belief, or a scientific fact, A fucking CULT."

Stone has also been accused of deleting comments to his blog post that don't support his view, justifying it as, "No, It's just that people with no display images, deserve no spot on my blog comment, nerd."

A cache of the blog post is available in case of its removal."

Submission + - Free CD with Purchase of MP3s

Submitted by

Washizu

on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @05:02PM

Washizu writes: "One of my favorite bands, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, is offering a great deal to their fans. Their new CD, Some Loud Thunder, comes out on January 30th but if you buy the album now they will let you download DRMless 192Kbps Mp3s of the entire album and then send you a "free" CD when the album is released on the 30th.

I bought it and was given a link to download them that they say will work three times before it goes dead. Pretty neat!"

Submission + - Bush Administration ends warrantless survelliance

Submitted by

Raul654

on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @04:20PM

Raul654 writes: "Reuters is reporting that today, the Bush administration decided not to reauthorize its highly controversial NSA warrantless surveillance. US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said: "Any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court""

Submission + - How to get a Windows tax refund

Submitted by

lisah

on Friday January 05, 2007 @02:19PM

lisah writes: "Serge Wroclawski recently contacted Dell to request a refund on his unused (and unwanted) copy of Windows XP that came pre-installed on his computer and, surprisingly, Dell complied. Wroclawski admits that the $52.50 refund was more of a victory in principal and less an economic windfall but it was a success nonetheless. Using his tips and techniques, readers can try their hand at getting a refund of their own but Wroclawski says be prepared, the process could take hours."

Submission + - Sleep Disturbances associated with suicide

Submitted by brainvoid on Friday January 05, 2007 @01:57PM

brainvoid writes: In the first known report of its kind, a study published in the January 1st issue of the journal SLEEP finds that sleep disturbances are common among suicide attempters, and that nightmares are associated with suicidality.
The study, conducted by Nisse Sjöström, RN, and colleagues of Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Göteborg, Sweden, focused on 165 patients between the ages of 18-68, who were admitted to medical units or psychiatric wards at Sahlgrenska after a suicide attempt. It was discovered that 89 percent of subjects reported some kind of sleep disturbance. The most common complaint was difficulties initiating sleep (73 percent), followed by difficulties maintaining sleep (69 percent), nightmares (66 percent) and early morning awakening (58 percent). Nightmares were associated with a five-fold increase in risk for high suicidality.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?ne wsid=59937

Submission + - Simple solution to Minimal Enclosing Circle

Submitted by on Friday January 05, 2007 @10:21AM

An anonymous reader writes: Prof. Felix Friedman developed a simple and elegant solution for Minimal Enclosing Circle (finding the smallest circle enclosing a set of points.) Friedman's algorithm is O(n), can work 'on-line' (before all points are known,) and can be extended to higher dimensions. Because he teaches at a little-known state university in eastern Pennsylvania, he doesn't seem to be getting the recognition that comes with such a major advance in a problem well-studied for 150 years.

Researchers Find Potential Cure for Cancer 324

Posted by Zonk on Friday January 05, 2007 @09:47AM from the proverbial-cure-for-cancer dept.

MECC writes "Researchers at Johns Hopkins University may have found a way to kill cancer cells without radiation or toxic chemicals. The group is taking the step of patenting the idea, as this new approach using sugars may hold real potential for the fight against cancer. This is not the first approach to use sugars, the article states, but is (by the researchers' estimation) the most successful. From the article: 'Sampathkumar and his colleagues built upon 20-year-old findings that a short-chain fatty acid called butyrate can slow the spread of cancer cells. In the 1980s, researchers discovered that butyrate, which is formed naturally at high levels in the digestive system by symbiotic bacteria that feed on fibre, can restore healthy cell functioning ... The researchers focused on a sugar called N-acetyl-D-mannosamine, or ManNAc, for short, and created a hybrid molecule by linking ManNAc with butyrate. The hybrid easily penetrates a cell's surface, then is split apart by enzymes inside the cell. Once inside the cell, ManNAc is processed into another sugar known as sialic acid that plays key roles in cancer biology, while butyrate orchestrates the expression of genes responsible for halting the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells.'"

Submission + - 1TB hard drives are here

Submitted by

SparkyTWP

on Friday January 05, 2007 @03:44AM

SparkyTWP writes: "After much anticipation, Hitachi has announced a new hard drive with 1 terrabyte capacity. They are SATA/PATA 7200RPM, should retail for about $400 and will be available this quarter."

Dark Corners of the OpenXML Standard 250

Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday January 05, 2007 @12:54AM from the dared-to-comply dept.

Standard Disclaimer writes "Most here on Slashdot know that Microsoft released its OpenXML specification to counter ODF and to help preserve its market position, but most people probably aren't aware of all the interesting legacy code the OpenXML specification has brought to light. This article by Rob Weir details many of the crazy legacy features in the dark corners of OpenXML. As it concludes after analyzing specification requirements like suppressTopSpacingWP, 'so not only must an interoperable OOXML implementation first acquire and reverse-engineer a 14-year old version of Microsoft Word, it must also do the same thing with a 16-year old version of WordPerfect.'"

Journal Journal: Linutop: A Linux based diskless computer system

Journal by OSTG Marketing on Thursday January 04, 2007 @11:13PM

Small enough to almost fit into your palm, Linutop has designed a Linux based diskless computer system . "It runs on an AMD processor, weighs approximately 8 oz, has 256 MB of RAM and is packaged with most of the common utilities, software needed for the everyday light user and internet surfer (i.e. AbiWord Word Processor, Evince PDF reader, Firefox Web browser, Gaim instant messenger and Totem medi

Submission + - Sealand For Sale

Submitted by coaxial on Thursday January 04, 2007 @07:17PM

coaxial writes: Everyone's favorite digital haven and nation of questionable legitimacy, Sealand is up for sale. (Link in Spanish only.) Technically you're not buying the countyr, but rather "custodianship" of the platform and all property within the "country". All of which can be yours for the low low price of 750 million euros.

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