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Comment our setup (Score 1) 742

by MichaelKVance (#34376620) Attached to: What To Load On a 4-Year-Old's Netbook?

I have a Dell Mini 9 running Ubuntu that I gave to my six year old to play with/break. On top of the usual install it's got ktuberling (mr. potato head), gcompris, and tuxpaint on it, those three keep her and our three year old amused for a bit. They've learned excellent trackpad skills, know how to user switch, type in passwords, type in words for games, play various elementary games, etc.
Television

Youngsters Skip DVR Ads Less Than Seniors 460

Posted by kdawson from the thumb-cramps dept.
Dekortage writes "Analyzing DVR viewing research, Ad Age has noted something unexpected: older DVR users are more likely to skip ads than younger DVR users. The skew is particularly apparent among men: 50% of seniors skipping all the ads, but only 20% of teens do so. Women of any age group tend to be around 35%. Ad Age hypothesizes that younger viewers 'just pay attention to other media when the ads are on TV or, worse yet, perhaps the TV is just 'background music'... I always thought that ad skipping was a major benefit of DVRs. Do you skip all the ads?"

Healthcare Giant Faces IT Nightmare 342

Posted by Zonk from the awesome-rpg-character-name dept.
Joan writes "Kaiser Permanente, the largest HMO in the U.S., has spent about $4 billion on an unreliable electronic medical record system that is impacting patient care, according to a 722-page internal report revealed by Computerworld. The CIO resigned after the news came out, and CEO George Halvorson is telling the media that the goal is an alarmingly low 99.5% uptime and that all the problems are really just power outages. Yesterday, Slashdot covered a story about the possibility that the NHS in the UK could now claim the 'biggest IT disaster' prize, but Americans, fear not: so far, the Brits are running a much more efficient failure at $24,000 per physician per year, while America's KP is spending $76,920 per physician, per year on its failing project."

FBI Raids Security Researcher's Home 516

Posted by kdawson from the senator-did-it-first dept.
Sparr0 writes, "The FBI has raided the home of Christopher Soghoian, the grad student who created the NWA boarding pass site. Details can be found on his blog including a scanned copy of the warrant. The bad news is that he really did break the law. The good news is that Senator Charles Schumer did it first, 19 months ago, on an official government website no less. The outcome of this trial should be at least academically interesting. At best, it could result in nullifying some portion of the law(s) that the TSA operates under." Read on for Sparr0's take on what laws may apply in this case.

The Future of ReiserFS 459

Posted by timothy from the strange-days dept.
lisah writes "With the announcement of Hans Reiser's arrest this week, many people have been wondering what this will mean for his company, Namesys, and the future of his filesystem work. According to a report at Linux.com, employees at Namesys are circling their wagons and plan to continue working on the project 'in the short term.' One employee admits, 'we are rather shaken and stressed at the moment, although I cannot say we didn't see it coming.'"

Controversy Erupts Over Craigslist Prank 674

Posted by Zonk from the only-half-funny dept.
An anonymous reader writes to mention something of an ongoing controversy over a recent Craigslist prank. Waxy.org has the full details: "On Monday, a Seattle web developer named Jason Fortuny started his own Craigslist experiment. The goal: 'Posing as a submissive woman looking for an aggressive dom, how many responses can we get in 24 hours?' He took the text and photo from a sexually explicit ad in another area, reposted it to Craigslist Seattle, and waited for the responses to roll in ... '178 responses, with 145 photos of men in various states of undress. Responses include full e-mail addresses (both personal and business addresses), names, and in some cases IM screen names and telephone numbers.' In a staggering move, he then published every single response, unedited and uncensored, with all photos and personal information to Encyclopedia Dramatica." The Wired blog 27B Stroke 6 has analysis of the prank, which author Ryan Singel views as 'sociopathic'. He then follows that up with responses to comments from his analysis, with further exploration of the weighty issues this juvenile prank has brought up.

Comment Loki did this ages ago (Score 2, Insightful) 42

by MichaelKVance (#15609347) Attached to: Real Time (as in Live) Programming Competition
With the Civilization: Call to Power contest at the Atlanta Linux Showcase in 99:
During Loki Hack, up to 30 qualified hackers will have 48 hours in a secure setting to make alterations to the Linux source code for Civilization: Call to Power (TM). In turn Loki will make available in binary form all resulting work from the contest. Winners of this unique contest will be announced during the Atlanta Linux Showcase. First prize will be a dual-processor workstation (running Linux of course).

The hackers will have full reign to add features, alter logic, or implement additional library support. Upon conclusion of the contest, a panel of judges will evaluate the hacks and award prizes to the best hack and runners up. Qualified hackers may apply to participate on Loki website, www.lokigames.com.

Good times, good times. m.

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