bucketoftruth - Slashdot User

Microsoft Uses "I'm a PC" Character In New Ads 837

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday September 19, 2008 @12:44PM from the straight-for-the-jobsular dept.

arcticstoat writes to tell us that in the wake of their largely unsuccessful Jerry Seinfeld ad campaign Microsoft is setting their sights directly on recent Apple ads by featuring the "I'm a PC" character in their new advertising campaign. "He then follows this with another phrase, such as 'and I've been made into a stereotype' before the advert shifts to a range of people performing a diverse assortment of jobs, all of which also say they're a PC. Among those featured are astronaut Bernard Harris, as well as religious author Deepak Chopra and 'Desperate Housewives' actress Eva Longoria. The ad also features a wide range of anonymous people, including a shark diver, a teacher and a guy with a beard."

SGI Releases OpenGL As Free Software 167

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday September 19, 2008 @12:01PM from the let-my-graphics-go dept.

StoneLion writes "Since its release, the OpenGL code that is responsible for 3-D acceleration on GNU/Linux has been running on licenses that were accepted by neither the Free Software Foundation (FSF) nor the Open Source Initiative. Today, however, the FSF has announced that the licenses in question have been rewritten, the problems resolved, and the code freed. Peter Brown, executive director of the FSF, says, 'This represents a huge gift to the free software community.'"

Submission + - A timetable for nuclear fusion

Submitted by IAmTheRealMike on Sunday January 14, 2007 @07:44AM

IAmTheRealMike writes: This article offers an in depth but readable review of the current state of fusion research, along with a timetable for the future, a description of what still needs to be figured out and a fascinating look at what it'd take to scale up to worldwide commercial generation levels. Executive summary, by 2100 if all goes according to plan fusion might be able to generate 30% of Europes present day demand. The delay is largely due to tightly limited tritium supplies. Whilst a sustainable fusion reactor will produce tritium, it would do so only in small amounts so a reactor would take 2-3 years to produce enough tritium to "give birth" and start another one. It looks like even with the most optimistic assumptions, by the time Tokamak based fusion can meaningfully contribute we will likely be deep in the midsts of an energy crisis.

Doomsday Clock To Advance 283

Posted by kdawson on Saturday January 13, 2007 @06:36PM from the fire-next-time dept.

Dik Zak writes "Many news sites are reporting that the magazine Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists intends to move the hands of the Doomsday Clock on Wednesday 17 January. The clock was started at seven minutes to midnight during the Cold War and has been moved forward or back at intervals, depending on the state of the world and the prospects for nuclear war. Midnight represents destruction by nuclear war. It is not revealed in which direction the hands of the clock will be moved, but it should be safe to assume that they will move closer to midnight: the magazine cites 'worsening nuclear [and] climate threats.' The clock stood at two minutes to midnight when both the United States and the Soviet Union tested nuclear weapons in 1953. The farthest away from midnight it ever got was 17 minutes, in 1991 when both superpowers signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. It currently stands at seven minutes to midnight."

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