CanarDuck - Slashdot User

Mandriva 2009 Spring Released 96

Posted by timothy on Wednesday April 29, 2009 @05:00PM from the great-distro-but-mandrake-was-a-cooler-name dept.

Frederik writes "Mandriva just released the 2009 Spring version of its distribution. Highlights of this new version include vastly improved boot times thanks to Speedboot, KDE 4.2.2, GNOME 2.26.1, XFCE 4.6 and LXDE desktop environments, a completely rewritten Mandriva Security Centre and improved firewall and network configuration tools, OLPC Sugar environment, QT Creator development environment, Songbird audio player, ext4 support and many more. Check out the release tour and release notes for more information or immediately start downloading it."

BT Blocks Access To Pirate Bay 360

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday April 21, 2009 @08:48AM from the i-feel-better-already dept.

Barence writes "BT and other mobile broadband providers are blocking access to The Pirate Bay as part of a 'self-regulation' scheme with the Internet Watch Foundation. BT Mobile Broadband users who attempt to access the notorious BitTorrent tracker site are met with a 'content blocked' message. The warning page states the page has been blocked in 'compliance with a new UK voluntary code.' 'This uses a barring and filtering mechanism to restrict access to all WAP and internet sites that are considered to have "over 18" status,' the warning states. It goes on to list a series of categories that are blocked, including adult/sexually explicit content, 'criminal skills,' and hacking. It's not stated which category The Pirate Bay breaches, although the site does host links to porn movies."

The End of Tax-Free Internet Shopping? 784

Posted by timothy on Thursday April 16, 2009 @01:54PM from the awaiting-a-60-cent-refund-check dept.

Mordok-DestroyerOfWo writes "If a little-known but influential alliance of state politicians, large retailers, and tax collectors have their way, the days of tax-free Internet shopping may be nearly over. A bill expected to be introduced in the US Congress as early as Monday would rewrite the ground rules for mail order and Internet sales by eliminating what its supporters view as a 'loophole' that, in many cases, allows Americans to shop over the Internet without paying sales taxes."

Comment Where can I get the Slackware 1.0 ? (Score 1) 238

by file-exists-p on Sunday February 08, 2009 @05:13AM (#26770879) Attached to: A Trip Down Distro Memory Lane

I wanted to download a slackware 1.0 (hence 1993), the first distribution I ever used, to try it on an emulator. After 15min of google, nothing. Is there a canonical place to find old distributions ?

Comment Re:Since Lenovo took over, Thinkpads suck (Score 1) 194

by file-exists-p on Thursday December 25, 2008 @05:28AM (#26229147) Attached to: Lenovo's New ThinkPad Has 2 LCD Screens, Weighs 11 Pounds

It seemed that he does not like the "touch" of it, with that impression that the whole keyboard moves down when you press a key. Cheap laptops tend to do this, but not the thinkpads I own.

Blood From Mosquito Traps Car Thief 198

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday December 22, 2008 @07:46PM from the plausible-deniability dept.

Frosty Piss writes "Police in Finland have made an arrest for car theft based on a DNA sample taken from the blood found inside a mosquito. 'A police patrol carried out an inspection of the car and they noticed a mosquito that had sucked blood. It was sent to the laboratory for testing, which showed the blood belonged to a man who was in the police registers,' a police officer told reporters. The suspect, who has been interrogated, has insisted he did not steal the car, saying he had hitchhiked and was given a lift by a man driving the car. I'm wondering if the suspect should have denied any association with the car at all. After all, who knows where that mosquito had been?"

Comment Re:Since Lenovo took over, Thinkpads suck (Score 3, Interesting) 194

by file-exists-p on Saturday December 20, 2008 @06:16AM (#26182719) Attached to: Lenovo's New ThinkPad Has 2 LCD Screens, Weighs 11 Pounds

I am the proud owner of a 570e, T41p, T61p and X61s. And indeed, the T61p is the most Lenovo of the four, and it sucks (huge and hot). The X61s is wonderful (netbook sized and amazing keyboard, CPU, HD, screen and linux compatibility) but it seems that it was IBM designed.

One of my relatives just bought a T400 and his comment was "pretty cool, but the keyboard sucks a bit" ... Knowing that one of the main reason to buy a Thinkpad was the quality of the keyboard, this is bad.

Now, maybe the expensive ones are better ? People do not seem to complain about the X[23]00, do they ?

Comment None on the laptops, lots on the wireless (Score 1) 1117

by file-exists-p on Thursday December 18, 2008 @04:34AM (#26157149) Attached to: What Restrictions Should Student Laptops Have?

I would put no restriction on the laptops, and hard restrictions on the school wireless (i.e. whitelist), if there is one.

From my logic, what the students do with their laptops out of the school is the parents responsability, what they do at school is yours.

Comment Re:I like Genetics personally (Score 1) 511

by file-exists-p on Wednesday December 17, 2008 @07:48AM (#26143697) Attached to: If I must catch a disease, I'd rather catch it via ...

One of my relatives has Crohn's disease, and by simply restricting her diet to a very limited group of food (i.e. rice, fish, certain fruits and vegetables, olive oil, and no diary, no meat, no spices, no alcohol, no cholocate, no coffee, no citrus, etc.) she does not need to take any med.

Before switching to that diet she was under corticoid, with all the associated side effects.

Evolution of Mona Lisa Via Genetic Programming 326

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 09, 2008 @02:07AM from the but-the-target-was-given dept.

mhelander writes "In his weblog Roger Alsing describes how he used genetic programming to arrive at a remarkably good approximation of Mona Lisa using only 50 semi-transparent polygons. His blog entry includes a set of pictures that let you see how 'Poly Lisa' evolved over roughly a million generations. Both beautiful to look at and a striking way to get a feel for the power of evolutionary algorithms."

Replacing Metal Detectors With Brain Scans 327

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 02, 2008 @03:51PM from the what-is-it-you-intend dept.

Zordak writes "CNN has up a story about several Israeli firms that want to replace metal detectors at airports with biometric readings. For example, with funding from TSA and DHS, 'WeCU ([creepily] pronounced "We See You") Technologies, employs a combination of infra-red technology, remote sensors and imagers, and flashing of subliminal images, such as a photo of Osama bin Laden. Developers say the combination of these technologies can detect a person's reaction to certain stimuli by reading body temperature, heart rate and respiration — signals a terrorist unwittingly emits before he plans to commit an attack.' Sensors may be embedded in the carpet, seats, and check-in screens. The stated goal is to read a passenger's 'intention' in a manner that is 'more fair, more effective and less expensive' than traditional profiling. But not to worry! WeCU's CEO says, 'We don't want you to feel that you are being interrogated.' And you may get through security in 20 to 30 seconds."

EMA Suggests Point-Of-Sale Game Activation To Fight Piracy 244

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday December 02, 2008 @12:49AM from the new-ways-to-break-things dept.

Gamasutra reports on a set of standards (PDF) published by the Entertainment Merchants Association to promote the use of technology that would "disable" games and DVDs until they are activated when purchased. "The effort is codenamed 'Project Lazarus,' and the EMA says it's assembled a consortium of retailers, home video companies and video game publishers to see how easily such 'benefit denial technology' could be implemented, and to evaluate possible cost-benefit analyses. The initiative is similar to security tags used in clothing retail that spill ink on garments if they're forcibly removed, thereby destroying the item. In such a situation, shoplifting is discouraged by implementing a solution that only the retailer can remove at the point of sale."

Halliburton Applies For Patent-Trolling Patent 244

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday November 10, 2008 @02:58PM from the meta-evil dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Halliburton, the company many folks know as Dick Cheney's previous employer, has apparently taken an interest in methods of patent trolling. In fact, according to Techdirt, the company has applied for a patent on patent trolling. Specifically, it's applied for a patent on the process of finding a company that protected an invention via trade secret, figuring out what that secret is, patenting it ... and then suing the original company. Hopefully, the patent office rejects this patent, because I somehow doubt that Halliburton is trying to get the patent as a way to block others from patent trolling."

Non-Violent, Cooperative Games? 329

Posted by Soulskill on Monday November 10, 2008 @01:37AM from the play-that-myspace-game-to-befriend-monsters dept.

jandersen writes "While I generally don't play computer games, I do occasionally play games like Crossfire or The Mana World, because they have more of a story line and allow you to go at your own pace. What I don't care much about, though, is that they are still focused on killing monsters and amassing wealth, and it gets very tedious after a while. Are there really no games where the goal isn't so much about increasing your own power and defeating others, but where you instead grow by doing things that benefit others, where enemies shouldn't be killed out of hand, but befriended; where learning, teaching, research and social skills are more important than killing and conquering? Would people be interested in a game of that nature?"

How Do Games Grow Up? 248

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday November 06, 2008 @05:59AM from the not-with-wheaties dept.

Gamasutra is running a piece by game designer Brice Morrison questioning the lack of games for grown-ups — or, more accurately, the lack of an intellectual progression in games like that which exists for books, movies, and other creative works. "While my interests in other media grew substantially more adult — from Nickelodeon to CNN, from Dr. Seuss to George Orwell — games did not seem to have a more intelligent counterpart for me to move on to. As I entered college, I became less interested in mindless entertainment and more interested in encountering new ideas. I didn't want to kill time; I wanted to take advantage of it. I wanted to challenge myself with profound concepts, to learn of new paradigms, processes, and possibilities. ... So what exactly are the barriers of entry for great thinkers (or groups of thinkers) to leave their mark on games? What must happen for games — or interactive entertainment, if you will, to mature as a medium?"

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