Comment Re:Ban power users! (Score 1) 125
Nobody is suggesting you need custom software for everything.
But it would be nice for the pay check if they did...
Comment Re:Make it illegal (Score 1) 1199
Link to a reputable source.
Comment Re:Business and Government feel they have no choic (Score 1) 297
Very few businesses take anything non-Microsoft seriously.
That is the issue, isn't it? In my environment, all the users have been migrated to linux distros and libre office. Then again, my environment is just that, mine. Any issues of compatibility are minor and usually not worth the hassle of worrying about. IE is a great example, requiring that I do special coding for it, so I've stopped using it. I tell my users that they are using a browser that isn't compliant to the standards and that they should either change to one that is or live with the issue.
This just doesn't work for large companies or institutions that have become dependent upon Microsoft products, users in Windows with stock IE installations want to buy thier products or browse the company's website which basically perpetuates the issue.
I have resolved the problem by removing IE as a supported browser, however, it just isn't feasible for IBM, Dell or even Newegg to do the same. To me, requiring HTML5 compliance has lowered my costs and improved my users' experience (once they experienced the better environment).
Comment Re:Press coverage (Score 1) 757
Woosh, that joke sail over your head.
I see what you did there...
Submission + - The Warp Drive could become Science Fact 1
moj0joj0 writes: New calculations of the energy required to warp spacetime suggest the Star Trek propulsion favorite could be tested. A concept for a real-life warp drive was suggested in 1994 by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre, however subsequent calculations found that such a device would require prohibitive amounts of energy. Now physicists say that adjustments can be made to the proposed warp drive that would enable it to run on significantly less energy, potentially bringing the idea back from the realm of science fiction into science.
Submission + - Kickstarter Introduces New Hardware and Product Design Project Guidelines (kickstarter.com)
OakDragon writes: "Kickstarter has introduced some more stringent guidelines and requirements specifically for the Hardware and Product Design categories. These new requirements are laid out in a blog post called "Kickstarter Is Not a Store." Simulations will now be prohibited. Video cannot show a proposed product, action, etc. — only a real product and what it does at the time. Product renderings and other simulated illustrations also will not be sufficient — the project creator will have to have photographs of a real prototype."
Submission + - Asteroid Vesta Covered in Hydrogen (space.com)
DevotedSkeptic writes: "The protoplanet Vesta, a large space rock in the solar system's asteroid belt, is covered with a surprising amount of hydrogen, and bits of Vesta may have rained down on Earth in the form of meteorites, NASA's Dawn probe has revealed.
Dawn spent more than a year orbiting Vesta, a behemoth 330-mile-wide asteroid that circles the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Earlier this month, on Sept. 5, Dawn took its leave of Vesta to begin trekking to the even-larger space rock Ceres, which is categorized as a dwarf planet.
Meanwhile, though, scientists are still poring over the treasure trove of data on Vesta gathered by the probe, and two new studies are reported on Sept. 20 in the journal Science. In one, researchers report the findings of Dawn's Gamma Ray and Neutron Detector (GRAND), which mapped the elemental composition of Vesta's surface."
Dawn spent more than a year orbiting Vesta, a behemoth 330-mile-wide asteroid that circles the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Earlier this month, on Sept. 5, Dawn took its leave of Vesta to begin trekking to the even-larger space rock Ceres, which is categorized as a dwarf planet.
Meanwhile, though, scientists are still poring over the treasure trove of data on Vesta gathered by the probe, and two new studies are reported on Sept. 20 in the journal Science. In one, researchers report the findings of Dawn's Gamma Ray and Neutron Detector (GRAND), which mapped the elemental composition of Vesta's surface."
Submission + - Ig Nobels feature exploding colonoscopies, left leaning views of Eiffel Tower (networkworld.com)
alphadogg writes: The Ig Nobel Prize ceremony http://www.improbable.com/ig/ has honored a wide array of strange research and advancement over the years, from exploding pants to woodpecker headaches to aggressive parking enforcement, and Thursday night’s ceremony in Cambridge, Mass., was no exception. Particular highlights included a Russian company that turns ammunition into trace amounts of diamond, Japanese engineers who developed a speech jamming device, and research into such critical topics as why coffee is so hard to carry without slopping and what makes a ponytail move the way it does.
Submission + - Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt Reaches Nadir (nsidc.org)
Titus Andronicus writes: According to a preliminary announcement from the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the unprecedented (in the satellite era) Arctic sea ice melt season has ended. The melting has surpassed, by a wide margin, the then–freakishly huge 2007 Arctic sea ice melt.
Submission + - Of the 17 people line up to buy the first retail iPhone 5, 15 were marketers. (afr.com) 1
ozmanjusri writes: "Apple has said that the iPhone 5 had smashed records with more than 2 million people pre-ordered the smartphone in its first 24 hours.
In stark contrast to their announcement, most of the 17 people lined up outside Sydney’s Apple store were there to advertise their brands, with T-shirts, sandwich boards, logos and caps, rather than genuine Apple fans.
According to the Australian Financial Review, one publicist even declined an interview with journalists unless their business name was mentioned.
AFR also described the only two genuine Apple enthusiasts as "two women setting up at the end of line, Xia R Liu and Li Qing.
Signalling “five” with their hands to explain their purpose, they were intent on sleeping the night to buy the iPhone 5 “for my daughter”""
In stark contrast to their announcement, most of the 17 people lined up outside Sydney’s Apple store were there to advertise their brands, with T-shirts, sandwich boards, logos and caps, rather than genuine Apple fans.
According to the Australian Financial Review, one publicist even declined an interview with journalists unless their business name was mentioned.
AFR also described the only two genuine Apple enthusiasts as "two women setting up at the end of line, Xia R Liu and Li Qing.
Signalling “five” with their hands to explain their purpose, they were intent on sleeping the night to buy the iPhone 5 “for my daughter”""
Submission + - Three Mile Island Shuts Down After Pump Failure (cnn.com)
SchrodingerZ writes: "The nuclear power station on Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania shut down abruptly this afternoon. Its shutdown was caused when one of four coolant pumps for a reactor failed to work. 'The Unit 1 reactor shut off automatically about 2:20 p.m., the plant's owner, Exelon Corporation, reported. There is no danger to the public, but the release of steam in the process created "a loud noise heard by nearby residents," the company said.' If radiation was released into the environment, it is so low that it thus far has not been detected. The plant is a 825-megawatt pressurized water reactor, supplying power to around 800,000 homes, thought there has been no loss of electrical service. Three Mile Island was the site of a partial nuclear meltdown in 1979. The Unit 2 reactor has not been reactivated since."
Comment Re:Conventional wisdom is wrong about why Windows (Score 1) 242
I started using Ubuntu 10.10 - I now run 12.04, so I've gone through several upgrades. Aside from a few hours of having to get used to unity, which I like, my upgrades have been painless.
I recently built a new system, with an OCZ SSD drive, 2x4TB SATAs, 32gig of RAM, Intel i7 proc and Asus maximus v extreme MB and Asus 570GTX video card. When I built this new system, my 12.04 install was fast and worked right out of the box, I installed the x-swat nvidia drivers and aside from installing a few apps and a tweak or 2 I have come to enjoy, I was done. The entire install took less than an hour.
As I also play video games, I installed Windows 7 Ultimate x64. It took an hour for the automated portion of the install to complete, it didn't recognize my USB3.0, kept dropping my mouse and keyboard, didn't find my WiFi NIC, locked up and crashed regularly even after I finally got SP1 installed. It took me the better part of a morning to get my machine stable, nearly 4 hours of continuous work, DL's, reboots, etc. Even after all that I still had nothing but the OS installed, no productivity software or email - I spent a further hour installing the basic stuff needed to be able to use the system for anything productive (like reading my email).
I am sorry if this seems like some sort of anti-Windows rant, that isn't my intent. I would classify myself as a long-time computer user. I do photography, webdev and some other computer intensive activities. This is just my experience, others people's may be quite different.
Comment Re:Conventional wisdom is wrong about why Windows (Score 4, Interesting) 242
I began using Microsoft operating systems in the late 1980's. I used them every single day that I used a computer until about a year ago when I decided to give Ubuntu a try.
I now use Ubuntu every single day I use a computer, I do reboot occasionally to use Windows for games, aside from that I do not use Windows at all.
The only shortcomings I have come across is my dependence upon Photoshop (yes, I now run PS in wine) and that of my games. Aside from that, every other thing for which my computer is used, Ubuntu just works, and does works with more stability that Windows has ever shown in more than 2 decades of use.
So when you say "runs circles around those same offerings on Linux" I will have to disagree, in fact, that statement is only partially true under some circumstances for specific applications, the exception rather than the rule. As a Linux n00b, I have more stability, better response, less overhead and an all around better experience than Windows.
Comment Re:They should mesure it in miles. (Score 1) 182
Comment Re:Classy (Score 1) 402
You seem more cynical than usual today
I partially agree with you, I think they pushed out rather far, there isn't any doubt the book is not a bottle of sour mash, I think that is why they are so polite about it. However, JD's point is to keep their brand image strong - easily identifiable and instantly recognizable. The further out the perimeter, the more secure the position. If JD didn't make a position on something as similar as this, what is to stop "Bubba's Booze Ol' #7.5" from using a very similar design?
