1496701
submission
Dystopian Rebel writes:
In explaining the many reasons why he withdrew his support from the OLPC project, Richard M Stallman writes in the Boston Review that "teaching children to use Windows is like teaching them to smoke tobacco."
A free program "develops democratically", says RMS, "whereas a non-free program subjects users to the developer's power." In RMS's opinion, developers tend to "abuse their power, even to the point of installing malicious features."
"What makes OLPC's retreat from free software so unfortunate is that the 'free' refers to freedom of knowledge and action, not to price," writes the founder of the Free Software Foundation .
556924
submission
Dystopian Rebel writes:
According to CNN Money, Apple's Directors knew that Steve Jobs had pancreatic cancer 9 months before he had surgery but chose not to disclose the information.
Jobs "explored alternative treatments" and for some time considered not having the surgery at all. The surgery was eventually performed in July 2004.
Given the crucial role that Jobs plays at Apple, the question of fiduciary responsibility is discussed. Apple's Board does now have a "back-up plan" for succession, says the article.
Multi-page format, unfortunately.
538152
submission
Dystopian Rebel writes:
As previously reported, Yahoo rejected Microsoft's $31/share buy-out offer. In the offer, Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer had warned Yahoo that "Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!'s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal."
According to
this report, the war has begun. Two pension funds are suing Yahoo and its board for rejecting the hostile takeover. Microsoft has hired a proxy solicitation group to help ensure that all 10 members of Yahoo's board are not re-elected this year.
The plaintiffs in the suit are arguing that Yahoo's board has placed "personal distaste for Microsoft" before the best interests of shareholders. "Yahoo's directors cannot 'just say no' indefinitely to legitimate acquisition offers," says the suit. "Yahoo's directors cannot pursue transactions that do not require shareholder approval for the primary purpose of making Yahoo unattractive to Microsoft."
505118
submission
Dystopian Rebel writes:
It's been reported that Linus Torvalds, speaking to Linuxdom in Australia at the linux.conf.au conference (neat logo!), was asked to offer his opinion on MS Windows and Apple OS X.
Torvalds criticized the architecture of MS Windows and said that OS X is the better OS but that its filesystem is "complete and utter crap, which is scary."
"An OS should never have been something that people (in general) really care about," said Torvalds. "It should be completely invisible and nobody should give a [airborne expletive deleted] about it except the technical people."
(In this alternate world, there are no marketing departments and Steve Jobs took the stage at MacWorld to announce a better Finder. The crowd went wild.)
Here's an abridged transcript of the interview. (Single-page version.)
231689
submission
Dystopian Rebel writes:
It's been reported here (http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2007/072407-ibm-un iversity-of-florida-team.html) and here (http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.j html?articleID=201200769) that IBM has been working on an interesting health-care project with the U of Florida.
Networked "smart" devices in the project can report a patient's readings from home to a doctor or other "healthcare professional", sparing the patient the need to make an appointment and read old magazines while waiting. Configuring the devices is supposed to be simple — and Grandpa says it had better be!
Big Blue has given some of the components from the project to the Open Health Care Framework of the Eclipse Foundation. (http://www.eclipse.org/ohf/)
There's a video about the project: http://www.monstrouslittlevoice.com/charley.html
Most Whimsical Citation goes to Bob Sutor, VP of standards and open source at IBM, who said: "What's the ultimate legacy system for us? The human body."
Yikes! Watch where you put that USB connector!
108441
submission
Dystopian Rebel writes:
A very convenient truth. The Beeb (don't say venerable) reports that a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences represents the strongest support yet from the scientific community for the hitherto scientifically-unsubstantiated observation that Wiggling Chicks Are Hot and Swaggering Guys Are Cool.
Or, in Researchese, "the compatibility of these basic precepts [e.g. she's in shape and she struts] predicts perceived attractiveness."
It is unknown at this time if the researchers will follow this paper with a study of the arousing effect of bikinis, cosmetics, and Slow Motion.
94308
submission
Dystopian Rebel writes:
new person smokes
new person watches TeeVee
new person is biased against Flying Spaghetti Monster
new person will not bring Cheetos while I am gaming
new person says "LOL" in conversation
new person says my binary clock is "weird"
new person has dated Cowboy Neal
I take what I can get, but the Cheetos thing gives pause
67756
submission
Dystopian Rebel writes:
The Financial Times reports that Taiwanese company Luxpro (discussed on Slashdot last year) intends to sue Apple for US$100 m for "lost revenue caused by Apple's abuse of their global power." In 2005, Apple had obtained an injunction against Luxpro's Super Shuffle/Super Tangent but the Taiwanese Supreme Court has overturned the injunction, opening the door to Luxpro's legal action.
From the article: "The {Luxpro} product had almost the same measurements and weight, came in a white plastic casing and had similar buttons on the front. Its name, Super Shuffle, also closely resembled the original."
The Luxpro product has OLEDs on it but visit your optometrist immediately if you don't see other similarities.
Apple has since changed the design of the Shuffle significantly.
43486
submission
Dystopian Rebel writes:
A New Jersey public-school history teacher was recorded telling his students that they "belong in Hell" if they do not accept Jesus.
The teacher, who is also a Baptist Pastor, lied later when we was asked by the school principle what he said to the students. Unfortunately for this dodge, a student recorded the teacher's "lesson".
Neither the teacher nor the school is reported to have offered an apology.
We've seen several articles about religion on Slashdot recently: Ubergeek Richard Dawkins continues to stir the primordial soup. This is a disturbing example of what can and will happen if we let silly people prate their nonsense unchallenged. Soon you'll have Creationist museums that... oh wait...
