Slashdot

Thanks ./, ive known about this for TWO WEEKS.

And no one died.

So there.

Marzubus writes "I tend to do a lot of code editing in vim and sometimes get the 'burning eyes' or headaches. I have been trying to find a background / foreground combination for my terminal sessions which is easiest on the eyes but cannot seem to find any real data on this subject. Does anyone know of a study / data on this topic?"

Stony Stevenson writes "Microsoft has filed 21 lawsuits in US Federal courts as part of an effort to stop those who continually pirate its software. The suits span 14 states and target people and businesses that have allegedly sold pirated copies of Microsoft software. Eight of the suits target companies that Microsoft refers to as 'repeat offender software pirates.' The eight firms had already been sued by Microsoft for selling counterfeit software."

An anonymous reader writes with a link to this "detailed and fascinating interview with Douglas Hofstadter (of Gödel Escher Bach fame) about his latest book, science fiction, Kurzweil's singularity and more ... Apparently this leading cognitive researcher wouldn't want to live in a world with AI, since 'Such a world would be too alien for me. I prefer living in a world where computers are still very very stupid.' He also wouldn't want to be around if Kurzweil's ideas come to pass, since he thinks 'it certainly would spell the end of human life.'"

snydeq writes with a story from InfoWorld which says that "Yahoo has ended its talks with Microsoft and is instead nearing an agreement with Google. Yahoo's purported reason for breaking off the talks? That Microsoft was only interested in purchasing Yahoo's search business, not all of the company. 'Such a transaction would not be consistent with the company's view of the converging search and display marketplaces, would leave the company without an independent search business that it views as critical to its strategic future and would not be in the best interests of Yahoo stockholders,' the company said in a statement. The deal with Google allegedly involves Yahoo's search advertising business. The move likely will draw more ire from Icahn and may in fact remain part of the elaborate poker game between the two companies. Microsoft said this alternative transaction remains on the table and did not confirm that talks between it and Yahoo have concluded." Update: 06/12 23:58 GMT by T : CWmike writes "Just hours after saying it ended talks with Microsoft, Yahoo announced that it will start running advertising from Google alongside Yahoo search results. Yahoo expects the deal, which has a 10-year term, to generate $250 million to $450 million in operating cash flow during the first 12 months."

An anonymous reader writes "Information scientists organized by the US's NIST say they will create a "concept bank" that programmers can use to build thinking machines that reason about complex problems at the frontiers of knowledge — from advanced manufacturing to biomedicine. The agreement by ontologists — experts in word meanings and in using appropriate words to build actionable machine commands — outlines the critical functions of the Open Ontology Repository (OOR). More on the summit that produced the agreement here."

http://geekwitha45.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html#2325648293318667127

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Why Bother With An Election?

by Egregious Charles

Firehand of Irons in the Fire, one of my regular reads, got this great
email from a friend.

We in Denmark cannot figure out why you are even bothering to hold
an election.

      On one side, you have a bitch who is a lawyer, married to a
lawyer, and a lawyer who is married to a bitch who is a lawyer.

      On the other side, you have a true war hero married to a woman
with a huge chest who owns a beer distributorship.

      Is there a contest here?

Sometimes, the Danes seem to have more sense than we.

noszti writes "Steve Ballmer was egged as he was about to give a speech at the "Közgáz" University in Budapest, Hungary. Sorry the link is in Hungarian but there is a video on the site which speaks for itself. Also the gist of the incident is that an audience member yelled something about Microsoft needing to give back taxpayer's money, then threw several eggs at him. Ballmer actually had to take cover before the perpetrator was led out of the place."
http://index.hu/tech/uzlet/ballmer08051

I'm gonna fucking kill yo... err... how can I help your project?

HOW COOL IS THIS?
The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society have posted a navigable life-size photo of a blue whale!
O.K. so it might take a while to look at all of it, but it starts at the eye (which is a great idea). The picture is navigable (there is an insert of the whole picture and you can change the view by moving a curser around), but if you just let it run, the whale will slowly 'swim' past you...it's a bit like being in a submarine with the whale going past a porthole.
Definitely worth a look!

alphadogg points out a story about 11-year-old Jon Penn, who took over control of a 60-computer school network in Alabama after the old administrator suddenly left. Penn provides technical support, selects software, and teaches his classmates about computers. From NetworkWorld: "The first thing Jon found as he leapt into the role of network manager was that he had to map out the network to find out what was on it. He bought some tools for this at CompUSA and realized there was an ungodly amount of computer viruses and spam, so he pressed the school to invest in filtering and antivirus protection. 'These computers are so old they don't support all antivirus programs,' Penn says. The school took advantage of a Microsoft effort called Fresh Start that offers free software upgrades for schools with donated computers, switching from Windows 98 to Windows 2000."

Robert Scoble had an interesting post on his blog a few days ago on obsolete technical skills — "things we used to know that no longer are very useful to us." Scoble's initial list included dialing a rotary phone, using carbon paper to make copies, and changing the gas mixture on your car's carburetor. The list has now been expanded into a wiki with a much larger list of these obsolete skills that includes resolving IRQ conflicts on a mother board, assembly language programming, and stacking a quarter on an arcade game to indicate you have next. "Feel free to contribute more if you can, and if you have the time, please make a page with a short description of the skill," writes Brad Kellett.

mambosauce writes "Brian Krebs, via the security fix blog is reporting that the recent PDF vulnerabilities which were patched only for Adobe Reader 8 and not 7 are being exploited via banner ads. As if there haven't been enough banner ad attacks this year now we have another one targeting one of the most popular applications in the world this weekend. At this rate there won't be many safe applications left to use."

An anonymous reader writes "The OpenID Foundation has announced that Google, IBM, Microsoft, VeriSign and Yahoo! have all joined its board. It's exciting to see OpenID being embraced by such large players, but its also a concern that such big corporates are now directly influencing the fledgeling foundation. 'Today there are over a quarter of a billion OpenIDs and well over 10,000 websites to accept them. OpenID has grown to be implemented by major open source projects such as Drupal, cornerstone Web 2.0 services such as those by 37signals and Six Apart, as well as a mix of large companies including as Apple, Google, and Yahoo!. Today is about truly recognizing the accomplishments of the entire OpenID community which has certainly grown beyond the small grassroots community where it started in late 2005.'"

Esther Schindler writes "Are wedding bells in your future? If you or your betrothed happens to be a programmer, it pays to know that special marriage conditions apply. This short, handy programmer's prenup (from CIO.com of all places) helps spell out the details."