Reorax - Slashdot User

Call To Halt Donations To Stop Wikipedia Deletions 4

Submitted by

ObsessiveMathsFreak

on Tuesday October 30 2007, @08:04PM

ObsessiveMathsFreak writes "Howard Tayler, the webcomic artist of Schlock Mercenary fame, is calling on people not to donate money during the latest Wikimedia Foundation fund-raiser, in protest at the "notability purges" taking place throughout Wikipedia, where articles are being removed en-masse by what many see as overzealous admins. The webcomic community in particular has long felt slighted by the application of Wikipedia's contentious Notability policy. Wikinews reporters have recently begun investigating this issue, but are the admins listening? Is Deletionism becoming a dominant ethos on Wikipedia? Are the right people holding the reigns?"

$300 PC from Wal-Mart w/ OpenOffice.org + no bloat 0

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 18 2007, @11:16PM

An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica reports that Wal-Mart will soon be offering a $300 PC from Everex for the back-to-school season that has OpenOffice.org preinstalled and little else. From the article:

Cost aside, the two centerpieces of the Everex offering are the inclusion of OpenOffice.org 2.2 and the absence of crapware typically bundled with low-cost PCs. Including OO.org instead of Microsoft Office or even Microsoft Works allowed the PC manufacturer to shave a few additional dollars off of the PC's price, and according to OO.org marketing project lead John McCreesh, the open-source office suite passed all of Everex's tests "with flying colors."
"

The Computer Virus Turns 25 in July 1

Submitted by bl8n8r on Sunday July 15 2007, @09:09AM

bl8n8r writes "In July of 1982, an infected Apple II propogated the first computer virus onto a 5-1/4" floppy. The virus, which did little more than annoy the user, Elk Cloner, was authored in Pittsburgh by a 15-year-old high school student, Rich Skrenta. The virus replicated by monitoring floppy disk activity and writing itself to the floppy when it was accessed. Skrenta describes the virus as "It was a practical joke combined with a hack. A wonderful hack." Remember, he was a 9th grader when he did this."

Slashdot and the tagging fad 2

Submitted by on Saturday July 07 2007, @01:08PM

An anonymous reader writes "Here's a question for the slashdot crowd. Tagging is one of those fads that seems to be everywhere, and slashdot has picked it up too. After watching how people use tagging since it's introduction here, it appears that it's mostly useless though, given that nearly every article gets tagged with either contradictory tags ("yes","no","yesno", all on one post) or ones that are opinions of the tag posters ("slownewsday", "whoopeef*ck", "wewerenotmeanttobe", as a sampling from the current front page). The remaining tags of any value seem to be solely for the purpose of categorizing, and can be achieved without tagging by editors simply putting articles in the right category/subcategory. So my question: why bother with the tagging thing? Can we get that useless garbage off of the front page so we don't have to see "whoopeef*ck* and other childish noise?"

Who wants to report piracy to be a millionaire?-> 0

Submitted by

mytrip

on Monday July 02 2007, @11:49PM

mytrip writes "A software industry group that has become well known for its high-profile antipiracy campaigns and crackdowns is now offering up to $1 million to tipsters who divulge the juiciest copyright infringement incidents in their workplaces.

The Business Software Alliance announced on Monday that between July and October, it will be multiplying fivefold the maximum incentive currently offered through its almost 2-year-old "rewards" program. The effort is designed to encourage whistleblowers to report unlicensed software use by their businesses — which, BSA reminds us in its press release, can carry as much as $150,000 in fines and cost the United States more than $7 billion last year alone.

For me, the operative phrase in the reward offer is "up to," which begs the question, what sort of tip would qualify for that jackpot?

The short answer is, the reward is at BSA's "sole discretion," according to its terms and conditions. It's also supposed to be tied to the monetary value of the settlement or damages paid by a company in connection with the piracy claims."
Link to Original Source

Parallels Releases WineD3D Source Code-> 0

Submitted by something_wicked_thi on Monday July 02 2007, @04:26PM

something_wicked_thi writes "Seeing as Slashdot ran the story about Parallels being out of compliance with the [L]GPL, I think it's only fair that they provide an update. On the very next weekday after the Slashdot story ran, Parallels, apparently, has released the source code. The Wine developers are verifying that it really is what they say it is. The Wine page provides a link to the sources, though it is temporary. It would be nice if someone could mirror that before it gets Slashdotted."
Link to Original Source

DS 'Brain Game' Banned in UK-> 0

Submitted by

janitorj

on Monday July 02 2007, @09:56AM

janitorj writes "According to this BBC article, the Nintendo DS puzzler 'MindQuiz' was banned from UK shelves. The woman in the story, whose father and son both had Cerebral Palsy, contacted a BBC radio program to report that she "was shocked when she had performed poorly at one part of the game and it rated her efforts in a manner derogatory to the disabled.""
Link to Original Source

Google Maps now does interactive re-routing-> 0

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 29 2007, @12:04PM

An anonymous reader writes "Remember how cool it was the first time you used MapQuest or Google Maps or Google Earth? Once you try the new interactive dragging of routes on Google Maps, you'll find yourself wasting too much time again just playing with it and being amazed at how fast and scalable it is."
Link to Original Source

Puzzling Wikipedia edits on wrestler's murder-> 0

Submitted by glesga_kiss on Thursday June 28 2007, @04:52PM

glesga_kiss writes "An interesting article on wikinews points to edits of WWE Wrestler Chris Benoit's page on wikipedia suggesting foreknowledge of the murder. Edits from an IP in Connecticut, later followed by one from a wifi provider in Australia state that he cancelled an engagement due to the death of his wife. These were posted 13 hours prior to the polices discovery of the bodies after concerned family members asked the police to check up on him after erratic behaviour. A member of the Wikimedia Foundation has suggested that the IP address quite likely belongs to the WWE Headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut."
Link to Original Source

Journal: Our Solar system was adopted? 4

Journal by mandark1967 on Tuesday June 26 2007, @07:56AM

Our Solar System is traveling at a 60 to 90 degree angle compared to the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy and scientists have now discovered why. It seems our solar system originated not in the Milky Way Galaxy, but in the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, which is in the process of being eaten by the Milky Way.