McSnarf writes "It's not Windows. It's not distro wars. Sometimes it's just the arrogant attitude that keeps people from switching from Windows. 'As I spoke to newbies, one Windows user who wanted to learn about Linux shared the encouraging and constructive note (not) he received from one of the project members. The responding note read: "Hi jackass, RTFM and stop wasting our time trying to help you children learn.""

7x7 writes "Wired News is running an article on documents they recovered via the Freedom of Information Act and a lawsuit. From the article:" A computer failure that hobbled border-screening systems at airports across the country last August occurred after Homeland Security officials deliberately held back a security patch that would have protected the sensitive computers from a virus then sweeping the internet, according to documents obtained by Wired News." It looks like Zotob made it in to the supposedly protected network."

Jane Walker writes to tell us that TechTarget has a short writeup on virtualization and some of the ins and outs of using this technology effectively. From the article: "Virtualization is a hot topic in the enterprise space these days. It's being touted as the solution to every problem from server proliferation to CPU underutilization to application isolation. While the technology does indeed have many benefits, it's not without drawbacks."

Roberto writes "Gorgeous nerd Annalee Newitz hacked a political interpretation to recent vacuum cleaner cockfights at O'Reilly's ETech: 'Hollywood corporations have finally admitted that the real reason they built digital restriction management (DRM) software into PVRs and DVD players was to stop geeks from turning their recording devices into back-alley combat machines. You haven't seen ugly until you've watched what a DVD player without DRM can do to a TiVo.' Don't try to even think of this at home."

News.com has an article up looking at something I find interesting and somewhat confusing. The Vcom ATM is an attempt to make people's lives more convenient by adding unexpected functionality to the standard Teller Machine. Besides dispensing cash, new ATMs can fulfull the roles of PayPal (by sending money to people), bank (by cashing checks on the spot), and cellphone store (by selling Verizon services). From the article: "The Circle K and Exxon Mobil machines are far more basic than 7-Eleven's Vcoms, which have been called overengineered. Several dozen customers polled informally outside a 7-Eleven in Winter Springs, Fla., recently said that they had never used the Vcom inside, and one woman who said she did use it once to withdraw cash complained that it was 'confusing' and 'complicated,' and added that she would not use it again. 'There were just too many steps,' said the woman, Peggy Baker, who teaches French in Winter Springs. 'And the $1.75 transaction fee was too much--it was painful.' She said she was not interested in the other Vcom features, which require users to enroll and enter a Social Security number on a touch screen."

tini1212 writes "LIKE OMG!! Have you guyz seen Barbie Linux!!??!?!?!? It's like totally cool! It's open source too!!! We can spend long nights patching the kernel, and look at pictures of that total hottie, Linus Torvalds!" From the site: "Making a bid for a piece of the emerging desktop Linux market, Mattel, Inc. announced the immediate availability of downloadable beta ISOs for BarbieOS 0.99, and said it hoped the final 1.0 retail version would be on store shelves in time for Christmas. The new OS was created by Mattel to power the upcoming revision of its popular B-Book line of laptops for girls between the ages of four and eleven. The original B-Book laptop, which ran a modified version of PalmOS, was a huge hit with consumers last holiday season, so much so that many stores had trouble keeping them in stock."

Micahel West writes "As reported on OpenOffice.org: 'For an undisclosed sum but reputed to be in the billions, Microsoft's Bill Gates has personally bought the leading open-source desktop project. Saying he "was sick and tired of open-source eating away at his profits," the world's richest man decided to put an end to the nuisance and simply buy OpenOffice.org. It will form part of a growing list of Microsoft acquisitions including several erstwhile competitors, a considerable number of prominent politicians, and a few small governments.'"

Bananatree3 writes "A monkey has learned to control a remote arm to fling its own poo at researchers. From the article: " Researchers at Duke University have taught a lab monkey to control the movement of a robotic arm, using only signals from its brain. The monkey's immediate utilization of this new skill was to shower a group of neurobiologists with feces, according to the report by lead researcher Miguel Nicolelis.""

farker haiku writes "Those of you who haven't heard of the metasploit project, it's an open source product for performing security audits. This time they've managed to find a remote buffer overflow in OpenSSH. Ya'll might want to read the link and then do whatever updating is necessary." It's unfortunate that something like this gets released today since nobody will bother to patch.

fimion writes "Linus Torvalds seems to be pleased by the new slashdot look. Slashdot has appeased the linux gods! Let us all rejoice on this happy day!" He is totally invited to my next sleepover/pajama party. We're watching The O.C. OMG Marissa tried DRUGS!!!

realgirl58 writes " i found the best UNICORN T-SHIRTS!!! on this website today!!! LOL!!! they have some with pictures of rainbows with some of hte unicorns!!! Watch out tho because the musics on that page is stupid!! KELLY CLARKSON IS MY AMERICAN IDOL!!! LOL LOL!! But ace is realy cute hee hee... if you read this text me ace LOLLOL JK HEHEHEHEHE ok i hafta logoff BYE!!!"

Chapium writes "Google Romance (Beta) is a place where you can post all types of romantic information and, using our Soulmate Search(TM), get back search results that could, in theory, include the love of your life. Then we'll send you both on a Contextual DateTM, which we'll pay for while delivering to you relevant ads that we and our advertising partners think will help produce the dating results you're looking for. With this addtion has Google gone too far with its data collection?"

The upcoming World of Warcraft expansion has a number of mysteries associated with it, and one of the most often discussed is 'what will the new Alliance race be'? Blizzard has finally unveiled their plans: The new race is the ethereal wisp. Additionally, community mod Caydiem is back on the official forums and has official details on the upcoming 1.11 patch. From those notes: "- Each player will only be allowed to pick up one flag per game in Warsong Gulch. While this decision is slightly restrictive, we do feel the value of teamwork it will teach by allowing each player more opportunity to shine outweighs any negative side-effect. - New Level 1 only Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin bracket available! - If a match-up begins and drops everyone due to lack a lack of players, Horde automatically wins."

An anonymous reader writes "Mobile Gazette is reporting that the British government wants to shut down the UK's GSM networks next year and re-use the frequencies for gambling terminals and a new citizen surveillance program extending the use of the new compulsory ID cards. Although we should perhaps welcome the move away from old-style 2G mobile phone networks, there are perhaps a few worrying things about the new "Big Brother" citizen monitoring that the government is proposing to put in."

ThisNukes4u writes "The Economist reports that scientists in California are coming closer to creating real-life mythical animals. Basically, they re-create the natural selection process through a computer simulation and then clone the resulting set of DNA in a donor animal." From the article: "Each computer starts with a search image (dragon, unicorn, gryphon, etc), and the genome of the real animal most closely resembling it (a lizard for the dragon, a horse for the unicorn and, most taxingly, the spliced genomes of a lion and an eagle for the gryphon). The virtual genomes of these real animals are then tweaked by random electronic mutations. When they have matured, the virtual adults most closely resembling the targets are picked and cross-bred, while the others are culled."