Turadg - Slashdot User

FDA Considers Redefining Chocolate 939

Posted by kdawson on Monday April 23, 2007 @11:36PM from the this-means-war dept.

shewfig writes "The US Food and Drug Administration is considering redefining 'chocolate' to allow substitution of vegetable oil ($0.70/lb.) for cocoa butter ($2.30/lb.), and whey protein for dry whole milk. There are already standard terms to differentiate these products from chocolate, such as 'chocolatey' and 'chocolate-flavored.' The change was requested by the industry group Chocolate Manufacturers of America. Leading the resistance to this change is high-end chocolate maker Guittard, with significant grass-roots support from the Candyblog. The FDA is taking consumer comments until April 25. Here is the FDA page on the proposed change, which oddly enough does not say what the proposed change is."

Busting the MythBusters' Yawn Experiment 397

Posted by kdawson on Monday April 23, 2007 @09:22PM from the it's-not-the-company-it's-the-hour dept.

markmcb writes "Most everyone knows and loves the MythBusters, two guys who attempt to set the story straight on things people just take for granted. Well, maybe everyone except Brandon Hansen, who has offered them a taste of their own medicine as he busts the MythBusters' improper use of statistics in their experiment to determine whether yawning is contagious. While the article maintains that the contagion of yawns is still a possibility, Hansen is clearly giving the MythBusters no credit for proving such a claim, 'not with a correlation coefficient of .045835.'"

Submission + - India's successful commercial satellite launch

Submitted by on Monday April 23, 2007 @07:31PM

An anonymous reader writes: India successfully launched an Italian satellite yesterday. The Indian Space Research Organization's announcement here. A BBC article on the launch here with a video clip here. India's launch vehicle has less overall capacity than the competition; but plans to sweep the low end of the market by offering the lowest cost per launched kilogram for smaller payloads.

Outcry Over Google's Purchase of Doubleclick 242

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday April 23, 2007 @06:08PM from the fear-of-change dept.

TheCybernator writes to mention that several activist groups have cried out in protest of the Google buyout of Doubleclick reported in recent news. "'Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick will give one company access to more information about the Internet activities of consumers than any other company in the world,' said the complaint lodged with the Federal Trade Commission. 'Moreover, Google will operate with virtually no legal obligation to ensure the privacy, security, and accuracy of the personal data that it collects.' The complaint was filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center along with the Center for Digital Democracy and the US Public Interest Research Group, all of which are involved in online privacy issues."

IBM Reveals New Virtual Linux Environment 96

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday April 23, 2007 @05:25PM from the pave-the-way dept.

jenwren1010 writes to mention that IBM has just announced the new open beta version of their virtual Linux environment that allows users to run x86 Linux programs on POWER processor-based IBM System p servers. "Designed to reduce power, cooling and space by consolidating x86 Linux workloads on System p servers, it will eventually be released as the [rolls-off-the-tongue] 'IBM System p Application Virtual Environment (System p AVE).' With a 31.5% global revenue share during 2006, IBM hopes to build on System p UNIX success and extend firmly into the Linux marketplace. Considering there are almost 2,800 applications that already run natively on Linux on System p servers, the chances are good that it will succeed."

Submission + - Man Gets 5,000 Calls for YouTube Posting

Submitted by DontCall on Monday April 23, 2007 @04:32PM

DontCall writes: Ryan Fitzgerald is unemployed, lives with his father and has a little bit of time on his hands. So, he decided to offer his ear, to anyone who wants to call. After posting a video with his cell phone number on YouTube on Friday, the 20-year-old told The Boston Globe he has received more than 5,000 calls and text messages.

Submission + - Worlds Rarest NES Cartridge Almost Sold For 1$

Submitted by Zarjazz on Thursday April 19, 2007 @07:44PM

Zarjazz writes: If both the innocence / ignorance of the seller and the validity of the winning bidder are to be believed, a job lot of 24 NES cartridges for $24 (1$ per game) eventually sold for over $20,000 after it was noticed that one of the cartridges was a special winners edition of 'Nintendo World Championships 1990'

After the death of his son in Iraq, the seller placed the games up for auction hoping "whoever buys the games will enjoy them as much as my son did!". NWC contained special versions of Super Mario Brothers, Rad Racer and Tetris to be played under a fixed time limit. At least 90 of these copies exist in a grey cartridge and were given out to semi-finalists of the 1990 NWC however only 26 of these cartridges exist in "gold" for the winners and are considered to be the rarest and most valuable NES cartridge released. The game can be clear seen lurking in the bottom left corner of the original auction image.

Submission + - The next net billionaires

Submitted by

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @04:27PM

An anonymous reader writes: A year ago Business 2.0 Magazine tagged a startup named YouTube as a young company to watch. Here are the 25 startups to keep an eye on in 2007. Broken into 5 categories of 5 each: Social media, video, mobile, advertising, and enterprise.

Submission + - ESR Gives up on Fedora

Submitted by tmc4inphilly on Thursday February 22, 2007 @12:21PM

tmc4inphilly writes: Eric S. Raymond's frustration with Fedora reach a breaking point that resulted a letter that he sent to a number of Linux-related publications and mailing lists. "After thirteen years as a loyal Red Hat and Fedora user, I reached my limit today, when an attempt to upgrade one package pitched me into a four-hour marathon of dependency chasing, at the end of which an attempt to get around a trivial file conflict rendered my system unusable."

Submission + - Heroic Slashdotter Mistakes Pron for Rape

Submitted by ObiWanStevobi on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:53AM

ObiWanStevobi writes: Ok, since this is considered an invasion case, I picked YRO. I also figured a sword qualifies as a handheld device.

A man who lives in his mother's basement, and has a sword collection, is being charged after breaking into his neighbor's house. He broke in after hearing what sounded like a woman being raped. He burst through the door weilding his sword with a +3 Dexterity adrenaline rush. The frightened wanker then proceeded to show him(James Van Iveren AKA Krunk the Slashdotter) that he was alone and just watching a porno. Van Iveren is now being charged on several counts such as trespassing and damage to property for breaking the door. LINK

PS Notice the URL, porn.sword.ap

Submission + - ESR gives up on Fedora

Submitted by

greginnj

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:49AM

greginnj writes: "Noted Linux evangelist Eric S. Raymond (ESR) has publicly announced that he is giving up on Fedora and switching to Ubuntu: http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2 007-February/msg01006.html Not content to alert RedHat alone, it appears he has also sent out press releases to alert the media: http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/02/21/13402 37 . The announcement has already drawn smackbacks from David Cantrell of RedHat and Alan Cox."

Submission + - Zend Core web apps using Ajax with Dojo and DB2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:39AM

An anonymous reader writes: Quickly create a responsive Web application using DB2 9 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows, XQuery, PHP, and the Dojo JavaScript Framework. This tutorial shows you the advantages of the Ajax approach and see a step-by-step implementation. You will be using Zend Core, which conveniently bundles the DB2 9 Express-C data server, Apache2 Web server, PHP scripting language, DB2 extensions for PHP, and a powerful administration console. See how to take advantage of the speedy pureXML capabilities of IBM DB2 9.

Building the Interplanetary Internet 334

Posted by kdawson on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:33AM from the ping-and-wait dept.

sighted writes "Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, now a Google VP, is leading a NASA effort to create a permanent network link to Mars within the next two years. As Cerf outlined in a recent talk, the 'InterPlaNet' protocol is designed to handle the delay caused by interplanetary distances. A signal traveling between the Earth and Mars can take up to 20 minutes."

Submission + - AT&T and BellSouth to Merge...Here comes Ma Be

Submitted by kangdangalang on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:20AM

kangdangalang writes: News is amuck about a merger between AT&T and BellSouth AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) and BellSouth Corporation (NYSE:BLS) announced today an agreement to merge the two companies, a combination that will create a more effective and efficient provider in the wireless, broadband, video, voice and data markets. The merger will streamline the ownership and operations of Cingular Wireless, which is jointly owned by AT&T and BellSouth. The new company will be more innovative, nimble and efficient, providing benefits to customers by combining the Cingular, BellSouth and AT&T networks into a single fully integrated wireless and wireline Internet Protocol network offering a full range of advanced solutions. Seems like AT&T is trying to reacquire all the baby bells to get back to being the communications supergiant of decades past, do you think this will be allowed by the FCC or will this get shot down because of fear of AT&T becoming a monopoly once again?

Submission + - Multiple phone numbers assigned to 1 cell phone?

Submitted by

n2art2

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:14AM

n2art2 writes: "I'm looking for a solution to the problem of having multiple cell phones. I would like to be able to combine 4 cell phones into one. I can't just get rid of the phone numbers, because they are all important for different business needs. I could forward 3 of the numbers to the 4th phone. . . that that can get expensive, and is not all that effective. I would prefer to have the ability with 1 phone, to have 4 inbound numbers attached to it. Is this something that is possible, or available? What are your suggestions?"

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