546752
story
bfwebster writes
"Microsoft is currently facing a class-action suit over its designation of allegedly under-powered hardware as being 'Vista Capable.' The discovery process of that lawsuit has now compelled Microsoft to produce some internal emails discussing those issues. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has published extracts of some of those emails, along with a link to a a PDF file containing a more extensive email exchange. The emails reflect a lot of frustration among senior Microsoft personnel about Vista's performance problems and hardware incompatibilities. They also appear to indicate that Microsoft lowered the hardware requirements for 'Vista Capable' in order to include certain lower-end Intel chipsets, apparently as a favor to Intel: 'In the end, we lowered the requirement to help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with 915 graphics embedded.' Read the whole PDF; it is informative, interesting, and at times (unintentionally) funny."
111683
submission
orangepeel writes:
The Washington Post is featuring an interesting article about human behavior. From the article: "When Emory University primatologist Frans de Waal read a news story that said Microsoft's chief executive, Steve Ballmer, had hurled a chair across the room on hearing an employee was going to work for rival Google, the scientist immediately made a connection with his own research: 'When I see such behavior, I think of a chimpanzee.'"
98826
submission
pHatidic writes:
Many Slashdotters are fans of John Taylor Gatto, author of The Six Lesson Schoolteacher and The Underground History of American Education. Gatto has been working with award-winning film director, Roland Legiardi-Laura, on designing a three part documentary on how compulsory education is dumbing us down and curtailing our freedoms. The website hasn't been updated in a couple years, but I talked to the director recently and he confirmed they are still very much working on production and fundraising. Since these are issues that we as a community have traditionally cared about, perhaps some Slashdotters would be interested in learning more about the project and hopefully then contributing.
98800
submission
nnkx00 writes:
DesktopLinux.com is running a story about why Linus hates the GNOME Desktop Environment. And while the bulk of the story is spent telling of Linus' complaints, the real story is about how to make a good out-of-the-box desktop environment that works for people just sitting down at a machine, and yet is customizable.
