Comment Re:Another Xfinity ad! (Score 1) 222
The jacket did not belong to the kid, it belonged to the father. That was in TFA though, so I don't hold it against you!
Austria's 'Bionic Man' Dies In Car Crash 200
euphemistic writes "An Austrian man who became the first person outside the US to wear thought-powered 'bionic' arms has died from injuries sustained in a car crash ... Kandlbauer, who would have turned 23 next month, sustained severe head injuries when the specially modified car he was driving swerved off the road in the south east of Austria and crashed into a tree on October 19. The cause of the accident is not yet known, particularly whether the neurally-controlled arm-prostheses he had been fitted with might have played a role."
Desktop Linux Is Dead 1348
digitaldc writes with this quote from PCWorld:
"It kills me to say this: The dream of Linux as a major desktop OS is now pretty much dead. Despite phenomenal security and stability — and amazing strides in usability, performance, and compatibility — Linux simply isn't catching on with desktop users. And if there ever was a chance for desktop Linux to succeed, that ship has long since sunk. ... Ultimately, Linux is doomed on the desktop because of a critical lack of content. And that lack of content owes its existence to two key factors: the fragmentation of the Linux platform, and the fierce ideology of the open-source community at large."
Comment Re:5 volts of power? (Score 1) 188
Whoosh!
Comment Re:5 volts of power? (Score 1) 188
What? 9000! That's Impossible!!!
Comment Re:This again? (Score 1) 243
Sure, it might be a fun and cool thing to do as an 8 year old (Or any age, really), but it isn't like we need to see it once a month on Slashdot.
Comment This again? (Score 0) 243
How many times are we going to see the "Camera put in styrofoam box and floated up with a weather balloon" story. Is this one special because they threw an iPhone into the box too?
Brooklyn Father And Son Launch Homemade Spacecraft 243
Adair writes "A father and son team from Brooklyn successfully launched a homemade spacecraft nearly 19 miles (around 100,000 feet) above the Earth's surface. The craft was a 19-inch helium-filled weather balloon attached to a Styrofoam capsule that housed an HD video camera and an iPhone. The camera recorded video of its ascent into the stratosphere, its apogee where the balloon reached its breaking point, and its descent back to earth. They rigged a parachute to the capsule to aid in its return to Earth, and the iPhone broadcast its GPS coordinates so they could track it down. The craft landed a mere 30 miles from its launch point in Newburgh, NY, due to a quick ascent and two differing wind patterns. The pair spent eight months researching and test-flying the craft before launching it in August. Columbia University Professor of Astronomy Marcel Aguera said, 'They were very good but also very lucky.'"
Comment Re:old hardware, probably (Score 1) 931
I've only known of a very few people who upgraded to Win7 because they "wanted" it. They wanted it because it was the new Microsoft toy, and they wanted the latest greatest. The majority of people I know with Win7 use it because it came on their new PC, that they usually bought because the old one died. Some of them have had me downgrade them to WinXP.
In my case, and the case of every engineer-in-progress at my university, we get somewhere between 2-8 licenses for Windows 7 Pro, depending on the number of classes in different Engineering departments. You see, each department has an MSDNAA set-up. What this means, is that anyone who 'wants' Windows 7, has no problem getting access to a key for it. Almost every Windows-running laptop has 7 on it. This ability to be able to GET Win 7 has caused a large population to upgrade, just because they 'wanted' it.
Comment Re:The Best-Selling Video Game of All Time... (Score 2, Insightful) 190
Same. I think in the end though, I bought around 25 of them. Reselling the set parted out (wiimote, and game individually) netted a nice profit...
Comment Re:Urine? (Score 1) 322
It's country land, and it's a huge lot. I didn't know it existed until he told me. It's quite a ways back from the road, behind a lot of trees. Not visible from their house at all. Besides, if you are already pumping poo for a business, how bad can a pond of it really be?
Comment Re:Urine? (Score 1) 322
Up near my cottage, the local septic tank sucker has a septic pond where he dumps the sucker trucks, mushes it around and whatnot, getting the not-good-stuff out, then pumps it out into a sprayer truck. He sprays local farm fields. I'm sure it doubles his money. People pay him to take their poo away, then he gets payed to spray it all over someone elses field.
Comment Post-Humas? (Score 1) 1
Is this supposed to be posthumous?
Submission + - Ideas for a Great Control Room 1
lewko writes: Our company is about to build a central monitoring facility. It will be manned 24x7 and operators will be monitoring a variety of systems including security, network, fire, video and more. These will be observed via local multi-monitor workstations and a common videowall. This is going to be a massively expensive exercise and we only get one chance to get it right. The facility is in a secure windowless bunker and staff will generally be in there for many hours at a time. So we have to implement design elements which make it a 'happy' place. At the same time, it has to be ergonomically sound. Lastly, we will be showing it to our clients, so without undoing the above objectives, it would be nice if it was 'cool' (yet functional). Whilst Television doesn't transfer to real life always, think 'MTAC' or 'CTU'.
Comment Re:Not sure what the benefit is (Score 1) 117
Generally correct, yes. My opinion was based on these PowerMat products that I see often enough in weekly flyers
