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Comment: Re:Why ignore US? (Score 1) 349

by Baavgai (#37847324) Attached to: Nokia Unveils Its First Windows 7 Phone

Simple, to get coverage in the US you have to play politics with the big telecos. If you don't need that headache, why not avoid it?

In most European countries you just buy the phone and the SIM and off you go. Some of the practices of American service providers are actually illegal in other countries.

Sorry to break it to you, since apparently hadn't noticed before, but when it comes to mobile devices, Americans are used to paying more for less.

Comment: Re:University is ... (Score 3, Insightful) 913

by Baavgai (#36568338) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: CS Degree Without Gen-Ed Requirements?

Someone mod this up! I couldn't agree. more. University is about education. More importantly, being reasonably conversant on a range of disciplines. The better ones, gasp, still try to offer that.

Focusing on one subject to the exclusion of all else is not a degree. It might be directly applicable to a given job, which makes the exercise job training. You might take subjects that you have no interest in or, more frustratingly, no aptitude for, but that's part of the ride. If nothing else, the reason such education is still valued in the modern world is that it proves an individual has at least the fortitude to tackle a spectrum of topics.

Comment: Re:It's the hardware, stupid (Score 1) 1348

by Baavgai (#33935290) Attached to: Desktop Linux Is Dead

I only did it once. Still, point. Joe User? Non Techie? EveryPC? Person who in prior decades had 12:00 blinking on their VCR?

I literally meant grandma, actually. To be honest, mother in law, but it didn't have the same ring. Though grandpa uses the Ubuntu box I set up for him without issue. Their printers are recognized by Ubuntu, be we've had other things that result in tech support calls ( me. ) Every question about some USB dingus, like a camera or wifi dongle, makes me cringe.

I generally recommend everyone buy Apple. Then they can bother their "geniuses" and not me.

Comment: It's the hardware, stupid (Score 2, Insightful) 1348

by Baavgai (#33932448) Attached to: Desktop Linux Is Dead

The only real thing that holds Linux back on the desktop is hardware. No so much the actual computer as the myriad of junk people plug into them.

A POS printer from Walmart will run fine on Windows, but not any Linux distro. So many of the external toys that people expect to simply buy and use have zero Linux support. Wifi in particular is tragic.

I use Linux and accept I may have to do a little research to get some PlugAndPray toy that will work. Grandma is lucky if she can figure out where the plug goes. If she plugs into windows, it will usually hold her hand, at the very least say something. If she plugs it into a Linux box, it can be ominously silent.

Patents

Red Hat Settles Patent Case 76

Posted by Soulskill
from the making-it-go-away dept.
darthcamaro writes "Red Hat has settled another patent case with patent holding firm Acacia. This time the patent is US Patent #6,163,776, 'System and method for exchanging data and commands between an object oriented system and relational system.' While it's great that Red Hat has ended this particular patent threat, it's not yet clear how they've settled this case. The last time Red Hat tangled with Acacia they won in an Texas jury trial. 'Red Hat routinely addresses attempts to impede the innovative forces of open source via allegations of patent infringement,' Red Hat said in a statement. 'We can confirm that Red Hat, Inc and Software Tree LLC have settled patent litigation that was pending in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas.'"
Image

White House Correspondent Tweets His Heart Attack 77

Posted by samzenpus
from the dedication-to-the-job dept.
Tommy Christopher, who writes for mediate.com, has reporting in his blood, so much so that he livetweeted every part of his recent heart attack. "I gotta be me. Livetweeting my heart attack. Beat that!" and "This is not like the movies. Most deadpan heart attack evar. Still hurts even after the morphine," were among his updates as he was rushed to the hospital. Christopher is now in stable condition after recovering from emergency surgery.
Space

Rumor of Betelgeuse's Death Greatly Exaggerated 356

Posted by kdawson
from the holding-out-for-twenty-twelve dept.
The Bad Astronomer writes "A rumor is spreading on the Net like wildfire that the red supergiant star Betelgeuse is about to explode in a supernova. This rumor is almost certainly not true. First, it's posted on a doomsday forum. Second, it's three times removed from the source, and is anonymous at each step. Third, the evidence is shaky at best. Plus, even if true, the supernova is too far away to hurt us. But other than that ..."
Open Source

Open Source Developer Knighted 101

Posted by samzenpus
from the knights-who-say-free dept.
unixfan writes "Georg Greve, developer of Open Document Format and active FOSS developer, has received a knighthood in Germany for his work. From the article: 'Some weeks ago I received news that the embassy in Berne had unsuccessfully been trying to contact me under FSFE's old office address in Zurich. This was a bit odd and unexpected. So you can probably understand my surprise to be told by the embassy upon contacting them that on 18 December 2009 I had been awarded the Cross of Merit on ribbon (Verdienstkreuz am Bande) by the Federal Republic of Germany. As you might expect, my first reaction was one of disbelief. I was, in fact, rather shaken. You could also say shocked. Quick Wikipedia research revealed this to be part of the orders of knighthood, making this a Knight's Cross.'"
Ubuntu

Ubuntu Will Switch To Base-10 File Size Units In Future Release 984

Posted by Soulskill
from the stay-above-the-belt dept.
CyberDragon777 writes "Ubuntu's future 10.10 operating system is going to make a small, but contentious change to how file sizes are represented. Like most other operating systems using binary prefixes, Ubuntu currently represents 1 kB (kilobyte) as 1024 bytes (base-2). But starting with 10.10, a switch to SI prefixes (base-10) will denote 1 kB as 1000 bytes, 1 MB as 1000 kB, 1 GB as 1000 MB, and so on."

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