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Comment Re:Sorry this is just not true (Score 1) 858

by twbecker (#27406399) Attached to: Mac Tax, Dell Tax, HP Tax

I don't understand why people can't get this through their head. Apple is a premium brand. By definition they cost more. "Overpaying" is a totally subjective term that discounts how much a person may value things like OS X, which of course requires a Mac. I just wish Apple haters could be OK with the fact that their entire argument boils down to "I'd drive a BMW if it only cost as much as my Chevy". After all the Chevy has A/C, power everything and gets me from point A to point B, so they're equivalent right? Right??

Comment Re:It seems ironic... (Score 1) 1147

by twbecker (#27282361) Attached to: Ballmer Scorns Apple As a $500 Logo

As much as I would like to see a non-integrated, upgradeable Mac at a reasonable price, I understand why Apple doesn't make one. Seriously, who upgrades hardware anymore? Everything you would have needed an add in card for years ago is on the mainboard now. Sure, a gamer might want to throw in the newest 110000e25 GT, but we're talking about a Mac right?
Television

Tim Russert Dies At 58 196

Posted by Soulskill from the never-stop-asking dept.
SputnikPanic writes "Tim Russert, NBC News' Washington bureau chief and moderator of the popular Sunday talk program Meet the Press, has died of an apparent heart attack. He was 58. Russert was known as an even-handed journalist who did not shy away from asking direct and often difficult questions of politicians regardless of their political persuasion. Earlier this year, Russert had been named by Time Magazine as one of the '100 most influential people in the world.'"
Media (Apple)

Submission + - Music execs think DRM slows the marketplace

Submitted by
MacGod
MacGod writes: "From BBC News comes a story about a Jupiter Research survey conducted before Steve Job's anti-DRM essay, indicating that most music industry execs see DRM-free music as a way to expand the sales on digital tracks. To summarise: 54% of music execs think the current DRM is too restrictive and 62% think selling unencumbered music would be a way to boost sales. Even limiting the survey to the record labels themselves, 48% believe this. Yet, many also believe it's not going to happen without significant governmental intervention-even though most insiders think DRM is harmful, the labels are keen to stick with it.

Is this yet another sign of the typical media industry "head in the sand, refuse to change" approach, or might we be seeing the early stages or some actual change? After all, admitting you have a problem is the first step to fixing it."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Amazing Cancer Drug Found; Scientist Annoyed.

Submitted by
sporkme
sporkme writes: "A scientist was frustrated when the compound she was working with destroyed her sample of cancer cells. Further research revealed that the substance was surprisingly well suited as a cancer treatment. From the article:

"I made a calculation error and used a lot more than I should have. And my cells died," Schaefer said. A colleague overheard her complaining. "The co-author on my paper said,' Did I hear you say you killed some cancer?' I said 'Oh', and took a closer look." They ran several tests and found the compound killed "pretty much every epithelial tumor cell lines we have seen."
Lab test results on hapless mice have resulted in the destruction of colon tumors without making the mice sick. The PPAR-gamma compound is expected to be especially useful in combating treatment-resistant types of cancer."
Republicans

Submission + - Law requires ISPs to record all surfing activity

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A bill introduced last week by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) is beginning to raise eyebrows. (...) Under the guise of reducing child pornography, the SAFETY (Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth) Act is currently the gravest threat to digital privacy rights on the Internet. Given the increasing tendency of people, especially young people, to use the Internet as a primary means of communication, this measure would affect nearly all Americans in ways we are only beginning to understand. Also, given the fact that the Act requires all Internet Service Providers to record the web surfing activity of all Internet users, this amounts to the warrantless wiretapping of the entire Internet.
Biotech

Submission + - Scientists Cure Cancer - No One Notices

Submitted by
Messianni
Messianni writes: "A report at New Scientist has an article claiming that scientists have found a cheap, already tested drugs that kills most cancers. From the article:
"It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their "immortality". The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe. It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.
DCA attacks a unique feature of cancer cells: the fact that they make their energy throughout the main body of the cell, rather than in distinct organelles called mitochondria. This process, called glycolysis, is inefficient and uses up vast amounts of sugar. Until now it had been assumed that cancer cells used glycolysis because their mitochondria were irreparably damaged. However, Michelakis's experiments prove this is not the case, because DCA reawakened the mitochondria in cancer cells. The cells then withered and died."
So where is this in the rest of the media? Are the drug companies that powerful?"
Security

Submission + - The Times on Botnets

Submitted by
ThinkComp
ThinkComp writes: "The New York Times has a story on the proliferation of botnets which describes the problem as getting worse. The article cites a number of security researchers who paint a depressing picture of the state of internet security, and concludes with the suggestion that for home users, buying a new "updated" PC may be the only real solution. Unfortunately, as most of us know, given the number of outstanding flaws in software and the ingenuity of malicious software authors, that might not even help. The story fits perfectly with our own ongoing research into spam coming from malicious HTTP POST requests to corporate "Contact Us" pages routed through open proxy servers. Look out for those newline characters!"
Operating Systems

Submission + - Liberating Software from Operating Systems

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Operating Systems provide the tools for getting jobs done and access to different tools. Unfortunately operating systems also have negative characteristics as well. They create a monopoly where software programs can only be run on the systems they are designed for. They create security problems when the majority of PC's use the same OS. They also result in unnecessary cost when the users determine to install another OS after purchasing. What if there was another way to do things? One blogger has a few suggestions. Would they work? Is it possible to create a "complete, secure, and productive computing environment" that would liberate software from an operating system stranglehold?
Space

Submission + - "Plutoed" Word of the Year; Pluto Name of

Submitted by
MoNickels
MoNickels writes: "In its 17th annual words of the year vote — the longest-running vote of its kind in the English-speaking world — the American Dialect Society voted "plutoed" as the word of the year for 2006, in a run-off against "climate canary." To "pluto" is to demote or devalue someone or something, as happened to the former planet Pluto when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto no longer met its definition of a planet. In a companion vote, the American Name Society voted Pluto as Name of the Year for 2006 in its third annual name-of-the-year contest."
Power

Journal Journal: Wal-Mart to Push Compact Flourescent Bulbs 923

Journal by anaesthetica

While we all know from reading the internet that Wal-Mart is irredeemably evil, a recent twist of events reveals that the world's largest retailers is going to make low-energy consuming compact fluorescent light bulbs a featured item. These energy-saving bulbs use 75% less electricity and produce 450 pounds fewer greenhouse gases. Currently only 6% of homes use them, but Wal-Mart's 200 million consumers may change that. Fr

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