wyldeone - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Paper and gasoline-based dinosaurs (Score 4, Insightful) 136

by wyldeone on Saturday August 23, 2008 @08:11PM (#24722675) Attached to: 5 Ways Newspapers Botched the Web

You're ignoring one of the most important jobs of newspapers: investigative reporting. While blogs and news aggregators like Digg and Slashdot do provide a useful service, they don't generate much news. Digg and slashdot primarily link to traditional news sources and would be bereft of content were such organizations to disappear. For an example of the importance of this role, just look at the past few years. If it were not for the investigations carried out by major newspapers (in particular the NY Times and the Washington Post) we would not know about the NSA wiretaps, the Guantanamo abuses, or the role of the Bush Administration in falsifying pre-war intellegence, just to name a few.

In order for a democracy to truly function, a strong, independent press is necessary (look at Russia for a "democracy" where this element is missing). It's hard to see blogs and TV news stations taking over that role from newspapers any time soon.

Submission + - The History of the Amiga (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by

wyldeone

on Wednesday August 01, 2007 @01:39AM

wyldeone writes: "Ars Technica has published the first part of their history of the Amiga, and of the mis-management at Commodore that led to its demise. From the article:

The Amiga computer was a dream given form — an inexpensive, fast, flexible multimedia computer that could do virtually anything. It handled graphics, sound, and video as easily as other computers of its time manipulated plain text. It was easily ten years ahead of its time. It was everything its designers imagined it could be, except for one crucial problem: the world was essentially unaware of its existence.
"

Submission + - Playstation Home unveiled

Submitted by Verunks on Wednesday March 07, 2007 @05:09PM

Verunks writes: Today Sony Computer Enterteinment Inc announced a new service for Playstation 3 called "Home". It will become available this fall after a closed beta testing. Playstation Home is a 3D virtual place that allows user to interact, chat, shop, join online games and also create your personal home. An HD trailer is also available at gametrailers

Submission + - Blender Character Animation Book a Top Seller

Submitted by Tony on Saturday February 24, 2007 @03:51AM

Tony writes: Blender news has been coming thick and fast lately. Just days ago Blender's fantastic new version 2.43 was released, and now Introducing Character Animation with Blender has just been released from Sybex/Wiley, one of the top publishers in the field of 3DCG. The book reached #11 on Amazon.com's Computers & Internet top sellers list this morning, which is really something for this kind of title. ICAWB covers all aspects of character creation and animation in Blender, the world's premier open source 3D modeling and animation software package. If you have been wondering about what all the fuss over Blender is about, this is a great way to find out. More information about the book, including some snapshots, is available at BlenderNation. People interested in checking out Blender itself should go to the official Blender Website and download the latest version.

Submission + - Voting Machines Not To Blame In Florida

Submitted by

InternetVoting

on Saturday February 24, 2007 @03:45AM

InternetVoting writes: "The final report from Florida's Secretary of State and an audit from an independent team led by Florida State University have reach the same conclusion that voting machines are not to blame for the 18,000 missing votes in Sarasota county. The Secretary of State's report found "no evidence to suggest or conclude that the official certified election results did not reflect the actual votes cast" and the 8 member independent audit team unanimously decided the voting machines "did not cause or contribute to the CD13 undervote." However, the losing candidate has responded that the audit "contained several critical flaws" and Princeton Professor Ed Felton has said "I think the jury is still out on whether voting machine malfunctions could be a significant cause of the undervotes.""

Submission + - Google Lights the Open Source Fuse on OSX

Submitted by

Jim Buzbee

on Thursday January 11, 2007 @09:41PM

Jim Buzbee writes: "Thanks to the Google Macintosh Team OSX users now have a port of the Linux File System in User Space (FUSE) to play with. MacFuse brings along support for NTFS, CryptoFS, SSHFS and others to the Mac platform. Kudos to Google!"

Submission + - iPhone not running OS X

Submitted by

rochlin

on Thursday January 11, 2007 @06:47PM

rochlin writes: "The iPhone looks to be running on a Samsung provided ARM core processor. That means it's not running on an Intel (or PPC) core. That means it's not running OS X in any meaningful sense (Apple can brand toilet paper as running OS X if they like). Darwin, the BSD based operating system that underlies what Apple has previously called OS X does not run on ARM processors. The Darwin/Apple Public Source licensing agreement says the source would have to be made available if it is modified and sold (paraphrased. read it yourself). A Cingular rep has said the iPhone version of the OS source will not be made available. It will be closed, like the iPod OS and not Darwin. So if it ain't Darwin, it ain't OS X (in any meaningful way).An InfoWorld article on an FBR Research report breaks down iPhone component providers and lists Samsung as the chip maker for the main application/video cpu. So, that leaves the question... What OS is this phone really running? (not Linux or the source would need to be open)"

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