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Comment Re:One day.... (Score 1) 179

Based on their demos, it seems that they're going the 'Open Source XP' method, as can be deduced based on their demos of Office 2003 and Photoshop CS2, the former being four revisions out of date, and the latter being five (assuming we count 'CC' as a single version).

I still use Photoshop CS2, I'm aware Photoshop is to be ah rented in the future if not now, seems that would be an easier install as you don't have to mess with a windows installer (Adobe ain't gonna pay for it's use). The demo uses in but it's not an on-line version.

I can't help but laugh at all the people that will be trying to reuse the key shown to unlock their Photoshops.

Comment Re:No, they weren't.... (Score 3, Interesting) 255

Letting India manufacture these domestically (and, heck, the entire rest of the developed world) wouldn't affect drug research and investment strategies one little bit. The big fear from drug companies is reimportation, where drugs manufactured in India are imported back into the USA for sale, without the major patent premium being paid. This is fairly trivially avoidable.

So, yeah, in the end, it's about squeezing that last dime in profits out of people, and not fundamentally giving a damned about anything else.

Modafinal is a drug available from India on the cheap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
commercially it was being sold as Provigil.

The article I didn't read hits upon this drug, I've purchased it a few times from India as Provigil (with a prescription), it's come I'm sure as modafinil.

Provigil's patent was to expire in 2012 thus begot Nuvigil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... which is slower acting, Provigil's patent was renewed for a very long time, I haven't got an answer to when, but told it's no time soon.

Nuvigil runs around $20 a tablet, Provigil $25 a box of 50 (India), Provigil isn't being sold anymore (in the US) that I know of just kept for it's patent.

Modafinal is your basic generic drug, everything after is research.

In the case of Newvigil, it being such an exceptional drug they are asking for more than it's worth, where as Modafinal being virtually the same thing, is asking it's manufacture price and a bit of profit.

Comment Re:I use hosts to get past beta (Score 1) 2219

Here's HOW Trax (& the problem with "beta" is that it DEMANDS javascript - they're going to lose users, mark my words, if THAT keeps up) -> http://ask.slashdot.org/commen...

As much as I distrust javascript the web seems to run on it for the pretty things, Maybe this could help put a stem to it, it's a hope.
Hell if nothing else stop eye strain, I mean those short lines (sentences) are a b!tc#.

Links added to my HOSTS file apk, can only hope.

Submission + - An open letter to the management of Slashdot. 14

onyxruby writes: I have been watch for some time now as Slashdot has started beta testing a new version of the website. As you are well aware the new site would constitute a complete change to the look, interface and functionality of Slashdot.org.

Change happens, and for those of us who work with technology for a living it is the only constant. Change is a process and in and of itself is not a bad thing when it offers improvement. Unfortunately the change that has been offered negatively impacts the look, interface and most importantly the functionality of Slashdot.
Many people have had trouble reverting back to the classic interface. The new interface simply does not offer the functionality of the old. Things like statistics, comments and layout are very difficult to find. You have a community that lives and breathes data and want to know their data. How is my comment ranked, how many people responded – it’s really all about the dialogue. Can I get the information that I want in a readily digestible format?

As you’re well aware the new site does not offer the very thing that people come here for. This in and of itself is not why your community has organized a boycott of Beta. The boycott was originated because the new version will be implemented whether the community wants it or not.

I want to explain why this change has gone down people’s throats about as well as Windows 8’s Metro interface. The reason has absolutely nothing to do with the interface and everything to do with the perception that the editors and management of Slashdot appear to have.

The message that has been consistently handed down is that we are “your audience”. We are not your “your audience” we are your product. People do not come to Slashdot for the news stories, there are untold other sites that provide those as well as professional and original writing about them. People come here for the community of insiders from across the industry.

Please respect the community and stop what you’re doing. You have commented that you don’t want to maintain two code bases. Your community works in the industry and understands this, which leads many to suggest you abandon the new code base entirely so that you are only maintaining once code base. Tell us what your trying to accomplish and I would imagine that a wide range of experts would be more than willing to help you meet your goals.

Submission + - A Modest Proposal, re: Beta vs. Classic 19

unitron writes: Dice wants to make money off of what they paid for--the Slashdot name--, or rather they want to make more money off of it than they are making now, and they think the best way to do that is to turn it into SlashingtonPost.

They should take this site and give it a new name. Or get Malda to let them use "Chips & Dips".

Leave everything else intact, archives, user ID database, everything except the name.

Then use the Beta code and start a new site and give it the slashdot.org name, and they can have what they want without the embarrassment of having the current userbase escape from the basement or the attic and offend the sensibilities of the yuppies or hipsters or metrosexuals or whoever it is that they really want for an "audience".

Comment Re:What could possibly go (axle) wrong? (Score 2) 135

I can't think (radio signal interference) what could go wrong (rock slide) with this approach (mine).

Great (massive failure) idea!

I was thinking of them being stolen as they drove along unmanned. They wouldn't make it 5 miles.
Article had a picture of a truck that could make someone very wealthy if torn down to it's basic parts.

Then this part: "who, in other words, gets sued or charged when an unmanned automobile harms people or property?"

Urban myth or not you decide. While in Viet Nam you hear of the story - one time someone got run over by a 2 1/2 ton truck, the family got a lot of money as a settlement. When trucks drive through villages now they are subjected to having kids thrown under the wheels for a pay off.

Comment Re:And that's exactly what I asked for. (Score 1) 2219

I agree that if /. is changed, it should change for the better. My big question is why should we believe you're listening now? At the beta rollout in October you solicited comments about what to improve on the beta. The users responded with >1100 comments and lots of emails. However, many of the same problems (most notably a broken comment system) are still there. Five months and functionality that is foundational to the way people use this site is still not there.

The folks at /. might be listening, but are they going to do anything with what they hear?

Comments are cheap, and a request for them show an interest in the audience.

Following the comments or suggestions are for adding things not thought of when the upgrade was thought of. Changing from the already decided format isn't an option.

Be it a highly paid study or someones grandiose idea for a new direction... it's how it always happens, some survive some don't.

I've never followed a link to Slashdot, can't think of a time I have. It's a site you need to stumble across to find. Opera browser had it's own /. shortcut and others would steer or hint of Slashdot's being, but stumble you needed to do. Just saying it's user base would appear to be of some importance.

My Beta shows half of a predetermined page that has a narrow band of text to the left and the right half all white or blank, not sure if it's my HOSTS file at work or it's just a blank billboard at the moment.

Slashdots' replies took some getting used; I even looked it up, (a good line length is 90 characters). I began to post without a carriage return. Once beta has become fact if I leave replies, I'll be doing a carriage return every 30 characters or less, It's something that can't be fixed without changing the entire format,

Submission + - Slashdot Beta Woes 16

s.petry writes: What is a Slashdot and why the Beta might destroy it?

Slashdot has been around, well, a very long time. Longer than any of it's competators, but not as long as IIRC. Slashdot was a very much one of the first true social media web sites.

On Slashdot, you could create a handle or ID. Something personal, but not too personal, unless you wanted it to be. But it was not required either. We know each other by our handles, we have watched each other grow as people. We may have even taken pot shots at each other in threads. Unless of course you are anonymous, but often we can guess who that really is.

One of Slashdot's first motto's was "News for Nerds" that Matters. I have no idea when that was removed. I have not always scoured the boards here daily, life can get too busy for that. That excuses my ignorance in a way. I guess someone thought it politically incorrect, but most of us "Nerds" enjoyed it. We are proud of who we are, and what we know. Often we use that pride and knowledge to make someone else look bad. That is how we get our digs in, and we enjoy that part of us too. We don't punch people, we belittle them. It's who we are!

What made Slashdot unique were a few things. What you will note here is "who" has been responsible for the success of Slashdot. Hint, it has never been a just the company taking care of the servers and software.

— First, the user base submitted stories that "they" thought mattered. It was not a corporate feed. Sure, stories were submitted about companies. The latest break through from AMD and Intel, various stories regarding the graphic card wars, my compiler is better than your compiler, and yes your scripting language stinks! Microsoft IIS has brought us all a few laughs and lots of flame wars to boot. Still, we not only read about the products but get to my second point.

— User comments. This is the primary why we have been coming here for as long as we have, many of us for decades. We provide alternative opinions or back what was given in the article. This aspect not only makes the "News" interesting, but often leads to other news and information sharing. It's not always positive, but this is the nature of allowing commentary. It also brings out the third point.

— Moderation. Moderation has been done by the community for a very long time. It took lots of trial and error to get a working system. As with any public system it's imperfect, but it's been successful. People can choose to view poorly modded comments, but don't have to. As with posting anonymous versus with our own handle it's an option that allows us to personalize the way we see and read what's on the site. And as a reward for submitting something worth reading, you might get a mod point of your own to use as a reward for someone else.

Why we dislike Beta and what is being pushed, and why this will result in the end of an era if it becomes forced on the community.

1. Bulky graphics. We get that Dice and Slashdot need revenue. I have Karma good enough to disable advertisements, but have never kept this setting on. I realize that Slashdot/Dice make money with this. That said, the ads sit away from my news and out of the way. I can get there if I want it (but nobody has ever gotten a penny from me clicking an ad... nobody!), but it's not forced into my face or news feed.

2. Low text area. I like having enough on my screen to keep me busy without constant scrolling. Slashdot currently has the correct ratio of text to screen. This ratio has never been complained about, yet Beta reduces the usable text area by at least 1/2 and no option for changing the behavior. I hate reading Slashdot on mobile devices because I can't stand scrolling constantly.

3. JavaScript. We all know the risks of JS, and many of us disable it. We also have an option of reading in Lync or non-standard browsers that many of us toy with for both personal and professional reasons. This flexibility is gone in Beta, and we are forced to allow JS to run. If you don't know the risks of allowing JS to run, you probably don't read much on Slashdot. Those that allow JS do so accepting the risk (which is admittedly low on a well known site).

4. Ordering/Sorting/Referencing. Each entry currently gets tagged with a unique thread ID. This allows linking to the exact post in a thread, not just the top of the thread. In Beta this is gone. It could be that the site decided to simply hide the post ID or it was removed. Either way, going to specific posts is something that is used very commonly by the community.

5. Eye candy. Most of us are not here for "eye candy" and many have allergic reactions to eye candy. Slashdot has a good mix currently. It's not as simple as the site starting with a r-e-d-i-t, which is good. That site has a reputation that keeps many of us away, and their format matches my attitude of them (s-i-m-p-l-e-t-o-n). At the same time, it's not like watching some other "news" sites with so much scrolling crap I can't read an article without getting a headache. The wasted space in beta for big bulky borders, sure smells like eye candy. Nothing buzzes or scrolls yet, but we can sense what's coming in a patch later.

The thing is, the community cares about Slashdot. We come here because we care. We submit stories because of that, we vote because of that, we moderate because of that, and we comment because of that. At the same time we realize that without the community Slashdot loses most of its value. We respect that we don't host the servers, backup the databases, or patch the servers. Slashdot/Dice provide the services needed for Slashdot.

It's a give give relationship, and we each get something in return. Slashdot gets tons of Search hits and lots of web traffic. We get a place to learn, teach, and occasionally vent.

Look, if you want to change default color scheme or make pre-made palettes for us to choose from, we would probably be okay with that. If you want to take away our ability to block ads by Karma, or move the ads to the left side of my browser window, I would be okay with those things too.

If you want to make drastic changes to how the site works, this is a different story all together. The reason so many are against Beta is that it breaks some of the fundamental parts of what makes Slashdot work.

User input until recently has not been acknowledged. The acknowledgment we have received is not from the people that are making the decision to push Beta live. We told people Beta was broken, what it lacked, and we were rather surprised to get a warning that Beta would be live despite what we told people. People are already making plans to leave, which means that Slashdot could fade away very soon.

Whether this was the goal for Dice or not remains to be seen. If it is, it's been nice knowing you but I won't be back. A partnership only works when there is mutual respect between the parties. A word of caution, us Nerds have good memories and lots of knowledge. The loss of Slashdot impacts all of Dice holdings, not just Slashdot. I boycott everything a company holds, not just the product group that did me wrong.

If that was not the goal of Dice, you should quickly begin communicating with the user base. What are the plans are to fix what Beta has broken? Why is Beta being pushed live with things broken? A "Sorry we have not been communicating!", and perhaps even a "Thank you" to the user base for helping make Slashdot a success for so many years.

Comment Re:Beta is terrible! (Score 1) 573

I think th ebest course of action is to move somewhere else. Reddit is the most promising one. Subscribe to the following subreddits:

And that's how Digg.com died, Digg brought out a new version (upgrade) and almost all of their users went to Reddit.

Familiarity is something people like, and miss when it's gone.

Submission + - Slashdot BETA Discussion (slashdot.org) 60

mugnyte writes: With Slashdot's recent restyled "BETA" slowly rolled to most users, there's been a lot of griping about the changes. This is nothing new, as past style changes have had similar effects. However, this pass there are significant usability changes: A narrower read pane, limited moderation filtering, and several color/size/font adjustments. BETA implies not yet complete, so taking that cue — please list your specific, detailed opinoins, one per comment, and let's use the best part of slashdot (the moderation system) to raise the attention to these. Change can be jarring, but let's focus on the true usability differences with the new style.

Comment Re:It would be a hack to Panasonic, (Score 1) 573

Thought VIERA was just part of the big lie. All TV manufacture do it; this just being Panasonic's area

FWIW, the new big lie is again Refresh rates, this time it's "The potiential of: 120hz, and 240hz", they go by the name of TruMotion, Auto Motion Plus, Motionflow, ClearScan, and Smooth Motion (all a marketing gimmick) I've run into them trying to buy a 32" monitor for my computer, I want a 120Hz but have to wade through the crap, and it's hard to do, they're all still 60Hz, no matter what you call it.

An example and the one I'm purchasing claims a potential of 240hz (Clear Motion Rate 240) so a true 120hz and how you play the game this week.

Comment It would be a hack to Panasonic, (Score 1) 573

It would have the potentiality of connecting items not on the pay me first list.

Thought VIERA was just part of the big lie. All TV manufacture do it; this just being Panasonic's area.
The only thing VIERA has allowed me to do outside the norm is to play BattleField 3 in 3D on my Plasma HDTV.

A Plasma TV they claimed was 600hz, being evenly divisible by 24 (cinema) was just
as good as it could get. {The sub field refreshes 10 times a second that x 60 seconds
equals 600} they just tossed a Hz to the end of it, could of put MPH at the end and it meant as much.
No matter how they word it, it's a 60Hz refresh rate.

This you find when your 3D is running at 30FPS and your just a target.

I have a Denon AVR-1312 (home Theater) with HTML5.1 damn Panasonic doesn't notice it.
Supposed to be able to control one with the other.

I knew from the start only Panasonic web cams and WiFi dongles would work with the Panasonic HDTV.
I missed the part that said anything extra added. Looking at Panasonic's site, appears they do indeed block what they don't wish connected.

My saving grace was the HDTV cost me $300 at Costco, 1/3 it's cost new.

Good luck with that VIERA, I'm not going to work with it anymore. I'd of never heard of it if not for the give away price of the HDTV.

Comment Re:Job Fair (Score 1) 152

When I expressed why I was uncomfortable with creating a LinkedIN profile, I was told that LinkedIN wasn't like Facebook where people were posting crap or something like that - with a tone of "WTF is YOUR problem?"

I know what you mean, the WTF is that one line in all ToS's that says "due to change at anytime". It doesn't help distancing themselves from Facebook, Twitter, or Google + when linkedin is fourth in line to use site log ons, when logging on to Slashdot.

and I got a refrigerator! Happy days! I have a REFRIGERATOR!!!

Congratulations on your new acquisition! :}

Submission + - Elsevier opens its papers to text-mining (nature.com)

ananyo writes: Publishing giant Elsevier says that it has now made it easy for scientists to extract facts and data computationally from its more than 11 million online research papers. Other publishers are likely to follow suit this year, lowering barriers to the computer-based research technique. But some scientists object that even as publishers roll out improved technical infrastructure and allow greater access, they are exerting tight legal controls over the way text-mining is done.
Under the arrangements, announced on 26 January at the American Library Association conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, researchers at academic institutions can use Elsevier’s online interface (API) to batch-download documents in computer-readable XML format. Elsevier has chosen to provisionally limit researchers to 10,000 articles per week. These can be freely mined — so long as the researchers, or their institutions, sign a legal agreement. The deal includes conditions: for instance, that researchers may publish the products of their text-mining work only under a licence that restricts use to non-commercial purposes, can include only snippets (of up to 200 characters) of the original text, and must include links to original content.

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