Comment Valmet (Score 1) 372
Valmet is a contract automobile manufacturer. In the early years, almost all Porsche Boxsters went through final assembly at Valmet. The engines were produced in Stuttgart.
Comment Re:I guess it's not really competition (Score 1) 374
I guess that's why people read totalfark instead of slashdot.
Comment Re:Flamebait (Score 1) 374
What? KDE doesn't get a cut? The HURD doesn't get a cut?
Comment I guess it's not really competition (Score 1) 374
If Banshee disables Amazon, then theoretically that would increase the sales to Canonical's MP3 store. So by disallowing Banshee from doing this, basically Canonical is saying that their 75% cut of the affiliate money from people willing to buy MP3s from Amazon is more profitable than the direct sales they would get from people willing to buy from their no-name MP3 store. In the spirit of the original article, I tried to be as confusing with this post as possible.
Comment Sorry China (Score 1) 295
I guess we screwed up guys. Apparently having a solid security model also allows the government to put in monitors and back doors at superuser level that a normal user cannot bypass.
Free as in...speech?
Comment If the feedback doesn't alter the DNA... (Score 2, Insightful) 436
If the feedback doesn't alter the DNA itself, then there's no "smart evolution." It's just an evolutionary consequence to a gazillion random mutations. As an "improved natural selector" it seems less so, as the consequence of this is that organisms are more able to adapt to changing conditions. If the conditions change rapidly enough, maybe the feedback effect allows the organism to live, but not thrive, allowing for further random mutations to allow it to outperform its peers in the new environment.
Lenovo & Customer Perception 472
music_lover writes "According to this article, Lenovo is losing current ThinkPad series customers to HP, Toshiba and other notebook vendors because of customer perception. Apparently, customers don't feel comfortable purchasing from a Chinese PC manufacturer now that the ThinkPad brand isn't supported by IBM anymore. Could this really be perception? Quote: "Despite the overall poor performance, Lenovo has still not gained the mindshare or the respect that the ThinkPads command. In fact, it has, to some extent, alienated ThinkPad's fans and taken a sales hit. In my immediate vicinity, those who owned ThinkPads have now traded up to an HP or a Toshiba. None of them went back to their ThinkPads. After asking for a clarification, I was told, "Who wants to buy things from a Chinese company?" That said, our corporate parent has continued to buy/use Thinkpads; the ones that I've seen do just fine, and they've added new machines and a parternership with AMD.
Journal Journal: Regarding my signature for pedantic latin buffs
From the Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
CARTESIAN, adj.
Relating to Descartes, a famous philosopher, author of the celebrated dictum, Cogito ergo sum -- whereby he was pleased to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence. The dictum might be improved, however, thus: Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.
