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Comment: Can we... (Score 1, Insightful) 1051

by anlprb (#42416391) Attached to: Linus Chews Up Kernel Maintainer For Introducing Userspace Bug

all get together and sit Shuttleworth in a room with Linus and lock the door for an hour after Linus has been forced to use Unity for a week? That would probably solve the problem. After what they did with Unity and then with the passing search terms out to the internet, I can't recommend Ubuntu, but through Ubuntu and MATE. They really screwed the pooch on that. They had the best chance at corporate desktop standardization but really lost it with forcing Unity on people. And yes, I have used it. It bites.

Medicine

Why Can't Industry Design an Affordable Hearing Aid? 549

Posted by Soulskill
from the what-the-market-will-bear dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Tricia Romano writes in the NY Times that over the last 10 years, purchasing a hearing aid had become even more difficult and confusing than buying a new car — and almost as expensive. 'I visited Hearx, the national chain where I had bought my previous aids. There, a fastidious young man spread out a brochure for my preferred brand, Siemens, and showed me three models. The cheapest, a Siemens Motion 300, started at $1,600. The top-of-the-line model was more than $2,000 — for one ear. I gasped.' A hearing aid is basically just a microphone and amplifier in your ear so it isn't clear why it costs thousands of dollars while other electronic equipment like cellphones, computers and televisions have gotten cheaper. Russ Apfel, an engineer who designed a technology now found in all hearing aids, says there is no good reason for the high prices. 'The hearing aid industry uses every new thing, like digital or a new algorithm, to raise prices,' says Apfel. 'The semiconductor industry traditionally reduces the cost of products by 10 to 15 percent a year,' he said, but 'hearing aids go up 8 percent a year annually' and have for the last 20 years."
Image

Glenn Beck Reports CIA Plot Between Embassy Killing and Something Awful 413 Screenshot-sm

Posted by Unknown Lamer
from the photoshop-phriday-replaced-by-state-secrets-saturday dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Here's one that even The Onion would reject as too blatantly ridiculous: American right-wing radio and TV clown Glenn Beck believes that Sean Smith aka Vile Rat, the EVE Online diplomat who was killed earlier this month during the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi, was actually a CIA agent, relaying communications to his fellow undercover agents at Something Awful."
Privacy

Advertisers Never Intended To Honor DNT 308

Posted by timothy
from the creative-interpretation dept.
First time accepted submitter oldlurker writes "After much discussion where many hoped a voluntary Do Not Track standard was agreed with advertisers, it turns out the advertisers already had a very different interpretation than most of us on how to practice it: 'Two big associations, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Digital Advertising Alliance, represent 90% of advertisers. Downey says those big groups have devised their own interpretation of Do Not Track. When the servers controlled by those big companies encounter a DNT=1 header, says Downey, "They have said they will stop serving targeted ads but will still collect and store and monetize data."'"
NASA

NASA Voyage To Explore Link Between Sea Saltiness and Climate 44

Posted by Soulskill
from the another-climate-thing-to-argue-about dept.
DevotedSkeptic sends this excerpt from NASA: "A NASA-sponsored expedition is set to sail to the North Atlantic's saltiest spot to get a detailed, 3-D picture of how salt content fluctuates in the ocean's upper layers and how these variations are related to shifts in rainfall patterns around the planet. The research voyage is part of a multi-year mission, dubbed the Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study (SPURS), which will deploy multiple instruments in different regions of the ocean. ... They will return with new data to aid in understanding one of the most worrisome effects of climate change — the acceleration of Earth's water cycle. As global temperatures go up, evaporation increases, altering the frequency, strength, and distribution of rainfall around the planet, with far-reaching implications for life on Earth."

Comment: Dear Mr. Armstrong, (Score 1) 480

by anlprb (#41129919) Attached to: Astronaut Neil Armstrong Has Died

It will be discussed over and over, but this man did what countless generations before him dreamed about. We can never truly quantify the amount of change that has occurred because of his stepping on a celestial body. May he rest in peace and look back with pride on what has been accomplished because of what he was willing to dare. Remember, there is no tow service once you pass the ionosphere. There was no way to get back if they landed safely and had a problem. NASA delayed the video feed so that if something went wrong, it wasn't broadcast live on TV. They would just say that signal had been lost. He ignored these risks and put his life on the line.

Mr. Armstrong,
From all your fellow Eagle Scouts; Thank you.

Comment: When they deserve your trust. (Score 3, Insightful) 716

by anlprb (#41076379) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: To AdBlock Or Not To AdBlock?

Honestly. Look at the agreement between you and them. You are providing eyeballs for a product. When they believe they can track you beyond your eyeballs, there is an issue. You don't HAVE to look at billboards as you drive by them. Why do they think they can throw a GPS tracking device on your car as you drive by? All business transactions are based on equal standing. Especially contract law. You need to be on equal footing for contracts to be honored. That is why some jurisdictions don't see Shrink Wrap EULAs as valid and enforceable. You have no equal footing with something that you already purchased and cannot return, since the package was opened.

When the equation is equal again, you can walk back and deal as an equal, until it is an equal equation, the only way to win is to not play.

Kobayashi Maru

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what is for dinner.

Liberty is a well-armed lamb.

AdBlock Plus just give us lambs better arms.

Power

How To Line a Thermonuclear Reactor 184

Posted by Soulskill
from the very-carefully dept.
sciencehabit writes "One of the biggest question marks hanging over the ITER fusion reactor project — a giant international collaboration currently under construction in France — is over what material to use for coating its interior wall. After all, the reactor has to withstand temperatures of 100,000C and an intense particle bombardment. Researchers have now answered that question by refitting the current world's largest fusion device, the Joint European Torus (JET) near Oxford, U.K., with a lining akin to the one planned for ITER. JET's new 'ITER-like wall,' a combination of tungsten and beryllium, is eroding more slowly (PDF) and retaining less of the fuel than the lining used on earlier fusion reactors, the team reports."

Comment: E - Window Manager (Score 1) 654

by anlprb (#40986069) Attached to: GUI nostalgia draws me back to ...

Enlightenment. I held onto that window manager for years. I even used it with Fink for a while on an old Powerbook G3. It was simple and always worked. It was better than Gnome was at the time.

www.enlightenment.org

http://www.gilesorr.com/papers/otherwm2003/images/enlightenment.bluesteel.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_window_manager

Your Rights Online

Legitimate eBook Lending Community Closed After Copyright Complaints 288

Posted by samzenpus
from the never-share dept.
Ian Lamont writes "LendInk, a community for people interesting in using the lending features of the Kindle and Nook, has been shut down after some authors mistakenly thought the site was hosting pirated ebooks. The site brought together people who wanted to loan or borrow specific titles that are eligible for lending, and then sent them to Amazon or BarnesAndNoble.com to make the loans. Authors and publishers who were unaware of this feature of the Kindle and Nook, and/or mistakenly assumed the site was handing out pirated copies, were infuriated. LendInk's hosting company received hundreds of complaints and shut the site down. LendInk's owner says: 'The hosting company has offered to reinstate Lendink.com on the condition that I personally respond to all of the complaints individually. I have to say, I really do not know if it is worth the effort at this point. I have read the comments many of these people have posted and I don't think any form of communication will resolve the issues in their eyes. Most are only interested in getting money from me and others are only in it for the kill. They have no intentions of talking to me or working this out. So much for trying to start a business and live the American Dream.'"
Microsoft

What If There Was a Microsoft Appreciation Day? 362

Posted by Soulskill
from the good-luck-finding-one-around-here dept.
theodp writes "In 2005, Microsoft came under fire after withdrawing support for an anti-gay-discrimination bill. 'I don't want the company to be in the position of appearing to dismiss the deeply-held beliefs of any employee, by picking sides on social policy issues,' explained CEO Steve Ballmer. That was then. Microsoft — like Google and Amazon — has since very publicly declared its support for gay-marriage legislation, which means it — unlike Chick-fil-A — needn't worry about the 'deeply-held beliefs of any employee' causing it to be blocked from doing business by the mayors of Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. I guess we'll never know what Microsoft versions of 'Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day' or 'National Same-Sex Kiss Day' would have looked like."
Software

Is It Time For an OpenGL Gaming Revolution? 496

Posted by samzenpus
from the free-games dept.
MrSeb writes "In a twist that reinforces Valve's distaste for Windows 8, it turns out that the Source engine — the 3D engine that powers Half Life 2, Left 4 Dead, and Dota 2 — runs faster on Ubuntu 12.04 and OpenGL (315 fps) than Windows 7 and DirectX/Direct3D (270.6 fps); almost a 20% speed-up. These figures are remarkable, considering Valve has been refining the Source engine's performance under Windows for almost 10 years, while the Valve Linux team has only been working on the Linux port of Source for a few months. Valve attributes the speed-up to the 'underlying efficiency of the [Linux] kernel and OpenGL.' But here's the best bit: Using these new OpenGL optimizations to the Source engine, the OpenGL version of L4D2 on Windows is now faster than the DirectX version (303.4 fps vs. 270.6 fps). If OpenGL is faster, and it has a comparable feature set, and hardware support is excellent... why is Direct3D still the de facto API? With Windows losing its gaming crown and smartphones (OpenGL ES!) gaining in popularity, is it time for an OpenGL revolution?"
Google

Google Launches International Campaign For Recognition of Same-Sex Marriage 804

Posted by timothy
from the personal-autonomy-is-a-good-thing dept.
Apple and many other tech companies have offered benefits to same-sex couples (and sometimes made them a sticking point) for quite some time now, but Google is taking its position of inclusion for sexual minorities outside the company itself; the company has announced an international campaign to promote legal marriage equality for same-sex couples, called "Legalize Love." According to CNN's version of the story, while this represents Google's policies overall, the campaign will at first "focus on countries like Singapore, where certain homosexual activities are illegal, and Poland, which has no legal recognition of same-sex couples." dot429 quotes Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe of Google, speaking in London Saturday at a summit where the initiative was announced: "We want our employees who are gay or lesbian or transgender to have the same experience outside the office as they do in the office. It is obviously a very ambitious piece of work." Also at CNET.
Earth

After Recent US Storms, Why Are Millions Still Without Power? 813

Posted by timothy
from the probably-because-of-the-recent-us-storms dept.
Hugh Pickens points out a report from Jamie Smith Hopkins that "The unusual nature of the 'derecho' is complicating efforts to get everyone's much-needed air conditioning up and running again as more than 1.4 million people from Illinois to Virginia still remain without power and power companies warn some customers could be without power for the rest of the week in the worst hit areas. Utilities don't have enough staff to handle severe-storm outages – the expense would send rates soaring – so they rely on out-of-state utilities to send help, says Stephen Woerner, Baltimore Gas and Electric's (BGE) chief operating officer. Hurricane forecasts offer enough advanced warning for utilities to 'pre-mobilize' and get the out-of-state assistance in place but the forecast for Friday's walloping wind was merely scattered thunderstorms. 'No utility was prepared for what we saw in terms of having staff available that first day,' says Woerner. But is it a given that a strong storm would cause this magnitude of damage to the electricity grid? 'Even without pursuing the extremely expensive option of burying all of the region's electrical lines, the utilities can and do take steps between bouts of severe weather to prevent outages,' writes the Baltimore Sun, adding that consumer advocates are concerned that utilities invest sufficiently in preventive maintenance. 'Tree trimming and replacement of old infrastructure — particularly in areas that have been shown to be vulnerable to previous storms — helps prevent outages.'"

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