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Comment Re:Of course not (Score 1) 433

by Ster (#37450132) Attached to: RMS: 'Is Android Really Free Software?'

I think the reason that Google isn't releasing Android 3 source is that they don't want it installed on every crappy phone and tablet coming out of China, and giving it a bad name.

This sounds a lot like the argument Apple fanboys use for not allowing other OSes on iShinies.

I never had any trouble from Apple with installing Linux on my G3.

I never had any trouble from Apple with installing Linux, Windows, or FreeBSD on my MacBook Pro.

I'm pretty sure people have installed alternate OSes on iPods and maybe iPhones as well.

So where's Apple stopping people from putting other OSes on Apple devices? They take exception to putting Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware, but that's the opposite of what you're complaining about.

-Ster

Comment Re:The relevant piece of so-called "IP" (Score 4, Interesting) 314

by Ster (#37358278) Attached to: German Court Upholds Ban On Samsung Galaxy Tab

I came across this yesterday and found it interesting (comparisons of what Samsung's tablets looked like before and after the iPad came out):

It seems like it's not quite as silly as it's usually been presented. (Don't get me wrong, I do think it's silly.)

-Ster
News

Michael Hart, Inventor of the E-book, Dead At 64 70

Posted by samzenpus from the a-moment-of-silence dept.
FeatherBoa writes "Michael Hart, the founder and long time driving force behind Project Gutenberg and 1971 inventor of the electronic book has died at his home in Urbana Ill, on Sept. 6th 2011. Project Gutenberg is recognized as one of the earliest and longest-lasting online literary projects, has spawned sister projects in Australia, Canada, Germany and other locations to transcribe public domain literature and make it available via the Internet."

Comment Re:move to GUI was step backwards (Score 1) 567

by Ster (#37154912) Attached to: Most People Have Never Heard of CTRL+F

Now - type something, move right (or left) hand to the mouse - highlight - move mouse to menu - select - press mouse button - find "home" row again and start typing.

While that's certainly one way to do it, I've never seen anyone actually do it that pessimally.

'Cmd-B' to start the bolding (or 'Cmd-I' for italics), type whatever you need, and then 'Cmd-B' again to end the bolding. Hands never leave the keyboard. Or if you need to italicize something that's already there, select the text (keyboard is usually faster if it's just a few words away, mouse is often faster if the target text is far from the text-cursor location), and hit 'Cmd-I' (though if your hand is already on the mouse because you used it to select distant text, then it might be faster to pick from the menu).

Short version: TMTOWTDI; the "right" one might depend on the context.

-Ster

Comment Re:I use a Mac you insensitive clod! (Score 1) 567

by Ster (#37154770) Attached to: Most People Have Never Heard of CTRL+F

At least you have a good reason not to use the feature, since Command (and even Ctrl) are in very impractical places on Apple keyboards.

I'll grant you Ctrl (but the keyboard that came with my old Apple //gs had Ctrl and Caps Lock swapped compared to most keyboards), but what's impractical about Cmd? Just slide your thumb over to either side of the spacebar.

-Ster

Comment Re:Damn, this feels like Firefox. (Score 2) 209

by Ster (#37090358) Attached to: Linux Kernel 3.1 RC 2 Released

... Honestly the only thing holding me to linux at this point is a lack of desire to have to repartition my disks using bsd slices, ...

Don't let that stop you - FreeBSD at least has supported GPT partitioning for some time, so you don't have to mess around with slices if you don't want to.

-Ster
Censorship

Law School Amplifies Critics Through SLAPP Suit 123

Posted by timothy from the who-does-number-two-work-for? dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Michigan's Thomas M. Cooley Law School recently filed a lawsuit that appears to be boomeranging in the worst possible way. A little-noticed pseudonymous blogger respectfully disagreed with Cooley's self-awarded number-2 ranking, nationwide (well, perhaps not so respectfully), and had a few other choice things to say. So, Cooley went ahead and hired some lawyers (who had graduated from Georgetown and the University of Michigan) to file a lawsuit to unmask the blogger. And EFF cooperating attorney John Hermann got involved. "
Image

Draft Horses Used To Lay Fiber-Optic Cable Screenshot-sm 154

Posted by samzenpus from the doing-it-the-old-fashioned-way dept.
mysqlrocks writes "In Vermont, FairPoint Communications has enlisted draft horses to help lay fiber-optic cable in remote locations. Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin has pledged to bring broadband to every last mile by 2013, including many remote areas that have been neglected in the past. Private companies have been unwilling to invest in the expensive infrastructure needed to reach these areas. However, Vermont's congressional delegation helped to secure $410 million in federal money earmarked for broadband development and Vermont has partnered with private companies, like FairPoint, to bring high-speed Internet access to all Vermonters. From the article: 'The difficulty of getting cable to "every last mile," is where Fred, the cable-carrying draft horse, comes in. "Hopefully it pays off," says Hastings. "We could maybe get a four-wheeler in here," he continues, gesturing to the cleared swath of boggy, fern-studded terrain that he's working in today. But definitely not a truck, and Fred's impact is nearly invisible. Residents rarely complain about a draft horse tromping through their yards.'"
Medicine

Submission + - Doctors Are Creating Too Many Patients 2

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "H. Gilbert Welch writes in the LA Times that the threshold for diagnosis has fallen too low with physicians making diagnoses in individuals who wouldn't have been considered sick in the past, raising healthcare costs for everyone. Welch, a a practicing physician and professor of medicine at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, says that part of the explanation is technological: diagnostic tests able to detect biochemical and anatomic abnormalities that were undetectable in the past. "But part of the explanation is behavioral: We look harder for things to be wrong. We test more often, we are more likely to test people who have no symptoms, and we have changed the rules about what degree of abnormality constitutes disease (a fasting blood sugar of 130 was not considered to be diabetes before 1997; now it is)." Welch says that the problem is that low thresholds have a way of leading to treatments that are worse than the disease and while clinicians are sued for failure to diagnose or failure to treat, there are few corresponding penalties for overdiagnosis or overtreatment so doctors view low thresholds as the safest strategy to avoid a courtroom appearance. "We are trained to focus on the few we might be able to help, even if it's only 1 out of 100 (the benefit of lowering cholesterol in those with normal cholesterol but elevated C-reactive protein) or 1 out of 1,000 (the benefit of breast and prostate cancer screening)," writes Welch. "But it's time for everyone to start caring about what happens to the other 999.""
Open Source

Submission + - Eclipse Foundation has much to lose in the Hudson (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
GMGruman
GMGruman writes: "InfoWorld columnist Savio Rodrigues notes that Oracle's hand-off — or perhaps dumping — of the open source Hudson project could be bad for the Eclipse Foundation by making Eclipse appear to be merely a dumping ground for unwanted open source projects, rather than as the central location for vibrant open source activities."

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