Comment Re:Conman and Powerman (Score 1) 104
Thirded. Conman & powerman rock.
Comment Examiners mailing rejection letters from home... (Score 2) 342
...is entirely possible. For the last several years, the U.S. Patent Office has been moving to a distributed model where comparatively few patent examiners live in the D.C. area except during their initial training period. I know two patent examiners, and both live in Ohio.
In any case, this text-hissy-fit likely did no favors for the lawyer or their client.
Comment Re:TV Series! (Get good writers) (Score 1) 396
Yeah, but once Hollywood is done with it the series will be called Gotham Junior High...
Some exec at the WB requested almost exactly this in the late '90s after Batman:TAS ended -- they wanted a show with Bruce Wayne and most of Batman's rogues galley as high school students. Apparently it was bandied around for a while and eventually split into two separate ideas, an animated show about a teen Batman and a live action show about a fledging superhero in high school. These became "Batman Beyond" and "Smallville", respectively.
Comment Re:For Android phones (Score 1) 249
Klaxon is what I and the other Android users in our on-call rotation use.
Comment Re:SCO = Herpes (Score 1) 208
As long as a lawyer has not been beheaded/disbarred it will keep finding ways to troll.
My vote is for "beheaded" in this case.
SCO Zombie Creaks Into Motion Again 208
phands writes "SCO has moved to partially reopen their 10 year old lawsuit against IBM. Unbelievable! Details at Groklaw."
From the article, quoting SCO's filing: "SCO respectfully requests that the Court rule on IBM’s Motion for Summary Judgment on SCO’s Unfair Competition Claim (SCO’s Sixth Cause of Action), dated September 25, 2006 (Docket No. 782), which motion is directed at the Project Monterey Claim, and IBM’s Motion for Summary Judgment on SCO’s Interference Claims (SCO’s Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Causes of Action), dated September 25, 2006 (Docket No. 783), which motion is directed at the Tortious Interference Claims."
Comment Open letter to the Westboro Baptist Church (Score 1) 699
Seriously, I have to ask: Which part of "Love your neighbor as yourself" was unclear?
Yes, the U.S. Constitution says you're allowed to do your picketing. However, it doesn't require me to listen to you, or see you as anything other than a bunch of sad, deluded, hate-filled little nut-bars.
Comment Re:As Coroner... (Score 1) 181
It's pining for the fjords!
And here I thought it was pining for the fnords...
Comment Re:NSF Blue Waters project reboot? (Score 1) 55
Comment Every action has an equal and opposite reaction (Score 1) 230
Barnes & Noble, which paid almost $14 million for Borders' intellectual assets (including customer information) at auction last week, said it should not have to comply with certain customer-privacy standards recommended by a third-party ombudsman.
In unrelated news, I say customers should not buy anything from Barnes and Noble ever again.
Linux Receives 20th Birthday Video From Microsoft 368
moonbender writes "The Linux kernel has received birthday wishes from an unexpected direction — a video animation from Microsoft. Quoting The H: 'The video picks up on the strained relationship between Microsoft and Linux by displaying the phrase "Microsoft Vs. Linux" and then showing Tux, the Linux mascot, turning his back on the offer of a birthday cake from Microsoft. After a brief outline of the history between Microsoft and Linux, the video ends with a conciliatory gesture: Tux accepts the birthday cake in his igloo and the video ends with "Happy Birthday" and the editing of the initial phrase to "Microsoft and Linux?' The Linux Foundation has more stuff celebrating the kernel's 20th birthday."
Comment If this had happened 15-20 years ago... (Score 1) 463
...I might've cared.
Hurd is an interesting idea from a CS research PoV, but it's taken so long to come out that Linux and the BSDs have long since filled any niche it might've had in the real world.
Research Shows How Deaf Cats' Brains Re-Purpose Auditory Centers 100
An anonymous reader writes "Deaf or blind people often report enhanced abilities in their remaining senses, but up until now, no one has explained how and why that could be. Researchers at the University of Western Ontario, led by Stephen Lomber of The Centre for Brain and Mind, have discovered there is a causal link between enhanced visual abilities and reorganization of the part of the brain that usually handles auditory input in congenitally deaf cats. The findings, published online in Nature Neuroscience, provide insight into the plasticity that may occur in the brains of deaf people."
Comment Re:Linux already runs on thousands of cores (Score 1) 462
I bet that saves on licensing costs.
You'd think that, but a lot of HPC software gets priced either by-core or by-socket...
Comment Re:Linux already runs on thousands of cores (Score 3, Interesting) 462
Um, no.
The early Itanium-based Altixes (Altices?) could go up to 512 cores running a single copy of Linux. The new Nehalem-based Altixes can have up to 2048 cores in a single system image IIRC. We just finished acceptance testing on an SGI Altix UV 1000 with 1024 cores. It runs one copy of Linux on it.
