Comment Re:They Make It Back on Software Sales & Suppo (Score 0) 471
... they hold a razorblade to your b*lls
"There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it..."
Comment Re:Really?? (Score 2, Funny) 92
Apple's iOS is like that beautiful dominatrix. Controlling, manipulative, and demeaning.
Steve Jobs is the new John Romero - he doesn't have clients, he has bitches.
Comment Re:You know this sound? (Score 1) 152
This never gets old:
Comment 'Tis but poor AFGL 3068... (Score 1) 79
... shuffling off its mortal coil.
Submission + - Hands-on with the iPad alternatives (pcpro.co.uk)
Barence writes: This week's IFA show has seen a flurry of Android-based alternatives to the iPad emerge from leading manufacturers. The Samsung Galaxy Tab made a strong first impression on PC Pro's reviewer. The 7in tablet's TFT screen "beams forth with rich, saturated colours and wide, wide viewing angles", the device is capable of Full HD playback and the TouchWiz UI is "clearly intended to draw customers away from the iFamily". Elsewhere, ViewSonic has launched a pair of 7in and 10in tablets, the larger of which dual boots into either Android or Windows 7. "Our first moments with Windows 7 were surprisingly painless, too: we expected the Atom processor and 1GB of memory to be horrendously sluggish, but it wasn’t the case," PC Pro reports. Finally, Toshiba's 10.1in Folio 100 marries Android 2.2 with Nvidia's Tegra 2 platform to deliver "mighty graphics crunching power". The build quality left a little to desire, though. "The 14mm thick chassis feels lightweight, and even relatively gentle twisting motions left the Folio’s plastic body creaking under the stress."
Submission + - Transition Metal Catalysts : Key to Origin of Life
An anonymous reader writes: One of the big, unsolved problems in explaining how life arose on Earth is a chicken-and-egg paradox: How could the basic biochemicals—such as amino acids and nucleotides—have arisen before the biological catalysts (proteins or ribozymes) existed to carry out their formation? In a paper appearing in the current issue of The Biological Bulletin, scientists propose that a third type of catalyst could have jumpstarted metabolism and life itself, deep in hydrothermal ocean vents.
Comment Just another vector for funding... (Score 5, Insightful) 116
Since when was efficacy or even logic a metric for whether or not a new department/task-group/domain/[insert group du jour] is deemed "necessary" for any govenrmental body? This is just another not-so-subtle attempt at widening the jurisdiction of the military. After all, if the boogyman is unmasked, why, another must be conjured lest we all wake up to the cold truth that these people are simply pissing large reams of money down the tubes.
In the end, all of this will be justified after the fact despite any protestations. War on terror, anyone?
ps. Although if you think about it, it's somewhat ironic that antivirus firms (Sophos, Symantec, etc), which have been frequent fear mongerers themselves, are calling the military on fear mongering.
Comment +1 Redundant? (Score 1) 122
Schadenfreude (Scha¦den|freude)
Pronunciation:/d()nfrd, dnfryd/
noun [mass noun]
* pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune
+
"Get off my lawn"
=
TFA??
Bacteria From Beer Lasts 553 Days In Space 138
An anonymous reader writes "Some specific bacteria colonies from Beer (the place, not the beverage) left for several days outside the ISS actually survived extreme temperatures, UV and other radiations, lack of water and all the like. They were later brought back to Earth for examination: such resistant bacteria may be the base of life support systems or bio-mining on colonies off Earth, and of course for terraforming, eventually. No clue in the article about how dangerous those bacteria might have become after the exposure or when they'll start eating their examiners."
Comment The consumer had lost (Score 2, Interesting) 196
This is really too bad. Up here in Canada, we're stuck with disgusting 3 year contracts (the 2 year ones have hardly any discount) with egregious profiteering (world's highest text msg prices for instance) and a culture of neglect after you've bought a phone from our oligopoly of carriers. The N1, expensive as it was, really was the best option for a good, unlocked, and free (as in freedom) smartphone. Any Android you get up here will assuredly be abandoned by the carriers - after all, new firmware means less sales according to the carrier. It really meant that the only consistently upgrade friendly Android phone was the N1.
Where I think Google failed was in not offering more choice like a certain fruit-labelled, obsessed-with-lock-in software maker. After all ~$500 for a phone, cheap though it may be over the long run, is a psychologically difficult barrier to overcome. I do believe, however, that having a few options that were cheaper (with appropriately pared down features) could have made it a more profitable venture. Sadly, I would have bought an N1 in the near future, but now it looks like I'll be sticking with my dumbphone.
Furthermore, trusting people to make buying decisions on long term fiscal calculations (without any assistance), might have been ambitious in retrospect. Maybe putting a cost calculator on the N1 website might have helped?
Comment Re:KOffice 2 (Score 3, Informative) 121
Maybe this was added on later (?), but they did give a reason for not putting in KOffice 2:
Please note that I used KOffice version 1.6.3 for this roundup. Version 2.0 of KOffice gets full KDE 4 integration and a major face-lift. Though the long-awaited 2.0 has been officially released, it was not yet available via the official repo of any major distribution at posting time. Also, the KDE project tends to make its
I think he's got a point about the "stable milestone" part - remember KDE4?
Comment Close the barn door, Martha! (Score 2, Insightful) 157
I find it ironic and more than a little insulting when certain hotels (ones that typically charge high room rates) try to gouge an insane amount of money for wifi from travellers when free wifi is all but the nearest coffee shop away. Why do these places, many of which cultivate an air of "our service separates us from the other rabble", treat their customers with such contempt when it comes to wifi? One would think they would do anything to keep what business they have and actively work to get more customers (especially when just about every small mom and pop B&B has free wifi!).
ps. Hyatt Regency Vancouver, I'm looking at you! (benefit of the doubt: that was a couple of years ago)
Comment Re:GECK? (Score 1) 262
Ha, that's certainly somewhat more appropriate. However, I think the GECK was introduced in Fallout 2, IIRC.
Also, didn't the German version have all sorts of censorship - ie. no children in the game, less violence etc? Such silliness.
Comment Green or BW? (Score 1) 120
Is there a typo in TFA here?
"The result is a monochromatic green-tinted view of the area in front of it."
But the image caption under the green-tinted rendering is "Conventional night vision image, via David Kitson, Creative Commons 3.0". Plus, it looks pretty grainy/low-res compared to the newer BW rendering which is captioned "New 7-series to feature high-tech night vision system".
Regardless, if the IR image is overlaid onto the screen (HUP) display, mightn't oncoming traffic lights be blinding and actually restrict vision at times?
Comment GECK? (Score 4, Funny) 262
"...a starter kit for the first colonists."
I'd lobby for it to be called the Garden of Eden Creation Kit, but there might be fallout from that decision...
