Kris_J - Slashdot User

Submission + - SPAM: Cigarettes - 11 percent more nicotine since 1998

Submitted by

FiReaNGeL

on Thursday January 18, 2007 @07:41PM

FiReaNGeL writes: "A reanalysis of nicotine yield from major brand name cigarettes has confirmed that manufacturers have steadily increased the levels of nicotine in cigarettes. This independent analysis, based on data submitted to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) by the manufacturers, found that increases in smoke nicotine yield per cigarette averaged 1.6 percent each year, or about 11 percent over a seven-year period (1998-2005). Nicotine is the primary addictive agent in cigarettes."

Submission + - Dinosaurs, humans coexist in U.S. creation museum

Submitted by jlowery on Monday January 15, 2007 @12:07AM

jlowery writes: Yeah, yeah: flamebait. But it's not the museum I find darkly amusing, it's the following paragraph in this Reuters story.

Mocking publicity is free publicity," Looy said. Besides, U.S. media have been more respectful, mindful perhaps of a 2006 Gallup Poll showing almost half of Americans believe that humans did not evolve, but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years.
I long for the days when journalists aspired to the old-fashioned ideal of being guardians of the truth. Instead, media chooses to be 'respectful' of quaint pre-19th century theologic explanations of the natural world just because half of Americans would rather be spoonfed fairy stories instead of cracking open a science book. If they did, they would soon understand how the miraculous world they live in today is due entirely to men and women applying the scientific method to understand the world around them.

While the truth may be murky at times, that does not mean that every half-baked extreme point of view has to be given equal deliberation or respect.

Feed Drilling Down: Boys and Girls Use Social Sites Differently (nytimes.com)

From feed by nytfeed on Sunday January 14, 2007 @11:12PM

Older teenage girls are far more likely to use social-networking sites like MySpace or Facebook, according to a recent study

Submission + - Walmart Prevents Shopping With Firefox

Submitted by

mattfite

on Sunday January 14, 2007 @08:58PM

mattfite writes: "I haven't yet seen this on /., but while looking for an artist's recording, I went to Walmart to try out the $0.88/song download. The link informs me that "We notice you're not using Internet Explorer. To continue, please visit this page using Internet Explorer 6.0 or later." Others have noticed this, too."

Submission + - Yahoo! takes over Opera Mini's quick search

Submitted by

SamaelCrimson

on Sunday January 14, 2007 @08:26PM

SamaelCrimson writes: "I was using Opera Mini to have my Slashdot and Yahoo! Answers dailies when I noticed that in the main menu, where the Quick Search function stays, the default search engine was changed from Google to Yahoo!. But I've never asked for it! I think it's a dirty dirty game..."

Submission + - Submitting Federal Proposals Requires Windows

Submitted by Petronius Arbiter on Sunday January 14, 2007 @06:41PM

Petronius Arbiter writes: The US federal government is requiring that proposals for grants etc be submitted using a common system at http://grants.gov/ . That's would be a good idea, except that, effectively, you must use Windows and Explorer. See http://www.grants.gov/resources/download_software. jsp :

To operate PureEdge Viewer, your computer must meet the following system requirements: Windows 98, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, XP... PureEdge on Grants.gov will not run within the Firefox browser.

They do have a Citrix substitute for non-Windows users. However:

Note that a limited amount of users can access the Citrix Server at any one time... Finally, you will find the best time to work and submit an application via Citrix is during off-peak hours, usually between 10 p.m. and 10 a.m., EST.

Finally, if your organization has more than 10 non-Windows users, they want you to add a dedicated Windows box to handle the traffic.

Why is it legal for the federal government to require applicants to use an expensive, proprietary system with terrible security? This is particularly surprising because many technical people, from program officers to computer administrators, in the government personally like open source and detest MS.

As a crazy guess, over 100,000 different people each year submit proposals. That's 100,000 people who must have MS Windows licenses whether they want to or not.

Anyone who was concerned about the open format fight in Massachusetts last year should be concerned about grants.gov.

Finally, for National Science Foundation clients, this is a big step backwards. NSF has had an excellent online system, http://fastlane.nsf.gov/ for years. Fastlane has no bias towards MS. However, by federal edict, NSF people must also use grants.gov.

Submission + - Canadian coins not bugged after all

Submitted by Foobar_ on Sunday January 14, 2007 @06:23PM

Foobar_ writes: The Defense Security Service (an agency of the Department of Defense) has retracted its claims that it found tiny transmitters hidden inside Canadian coins, as previously reported on Slashdot and just about everywhere else. From the release: "This statement was based on a report provided to DSS. The allegations, however, were found later to be unsubstantiated following an investigation into the matter. According to DSS officials, the 2006 annual report should not have contained this information." Canada.com reports further.

Submission + - Why "upgrade" to Office-2007

Submitted by

walterbyrd

on Sunday January 14, 2007 @05:52PM

walterbyrd writes: "IMO: Office-2007 is a contender for the least useful upgrade in the history of computing. It's expensive, has a steep learning curve, and it's default format is even less compatible with anything else. Stan Beer discusses the "upgrade" in his article: Question: why do I need to upgrade to Office 2007?."

Submission + - VerizonMath blogger gets hit with lawyer stick

Submitted by

akohler

on Sunday January 14, 2007 @06:33AM

akohler writes: "The VerizonMath blogger, who you may remember chronicled the story of how Verizon does not teach their employees the difference between dollars and cents, has been threatened with legal action by the Verizon Legal Department over his use of their Trademark on T shirts parodying the incident."

Submission + - Buy a Zune, Get Free Gay Porn!

Submitted by lidocaineus on Wednesday January 03, 2007 @06:16AM

lidocaineus writes: A couple in Chicago purchased a Zune player from WalMart as a Christmas present for their five year old daughter and were rewarded with questions from her wondering what five naked men were doing on the screen. Here's a link to the broadcasted version of the story (has some weird sound issues the first five seconds). See what you get when buying from the big box retailers? Of course depending on your position, this could either be a good or bad thing for Zune sales.

Submission + - Florida election

Submitted by

C. Darryl Mattison

on Wednesday January 03, 2007 @01:53AM

C. Darryl Mattison writes: "Judge rules no access to voting software source code. http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/01/02/HNflorid arejects_1.html?source=NLC-TB2007-01-02 I agree with Jennings that the need to verify the accuracy of the vote far outweighs the concern about the company's trade secrets, for which they could be compensated if no problems were found. It seems that would meet the concerns of both sides and strike a balance. But we're talking about Florida here..."

Bookmark How hackers steal yahoo passwords (roscripts.com)

by manilodisan on Wednesday January 03, 2007 @12:13AM

Journal Journal: Hiring Lawyers vs. Engineers

Journal by prometheon123 on Monday January 01, 2007 @10:43PM

I came across a story in the Wall Street Journal about Apple's current stock-option probe. In the article, one of the former board members involved was said to have led Apple's legal department where "Ms. Heinen joined Apple as a senior vice president and general counsel in 1997 and helped oversee a law department at Apple of about 100 people, including roughly 40 attorneys." In anyone else incredulous to this fact of Apple employing 40 laywers? A company I service still can't get their Macs

Submission + - PS3s Hit Best Buy Shelves, Stay There

Submitted by Doomstalk on Monday January 01, 2007 @08:44PM

Doomstalk writes: For the past few weeks, the standing orders at Best Buy were to hold all of their PlayStation 3 stock in preparation for their New Year's Eve sale. Yesterday, these stockpiles were released onto store shelves en masse. How did they sell? Surprisingly poorly. Reports have been steadily trickling in to Kotaku of piles of PlayStation 3s found sitting around in Best Buys untouched, or barely touched. Is this an isolated incident, or has demand for Sony's console already reached a near standstill?

Journal Journal: Google's Blogger and Gmail Problems

Journal by indierockcafe.com on Tuesday December 26, 2006 @04:17AM

I've been running a couple of blogs on Google's Blogger for a while now and I can say without question that their servers are unable to handle the load of requests.

Most of the time when I publish to Blogger, it takes forever, times out or loses my post altogether (which means I do all my writing in Word and then copy and paste).

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