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Comment Re:Variant of UNIX according to their sockpuppet, (Score 1) 348

If not "Unix variant" then what would you call Linux then? Linux isn't the only Unix knock off, there are the purer variants, such as FreeBSD and related. If you're going to claim that the Windows NT kernel was VMS "stolen by David Culter" then it would be equally valid to say that Linus Torvalds stole MINIX from Andrew Tanenbaum. PS: Culter was the head of 20 folks from DEC to work on Windows NT, all of whom worked on VMS.

Comment Microsoft has warned about Linux for years (Score 1) 348

For many years now, MSFT's annual report has warned about the competative threat that Linux poses, including desktop, server and embedded platforms. There are several direct mentions of this in Microsoft's 2005 report, availble here: http://www.microsoft.com/msft/reports/ar05/staticversion/10k_fr_bus_06.html Old news.

Comment The Not-Standards-Compilant-Argument is obsolete (Score 1) 423

When IE had much less market share than NS Navigator, there was less support (percentage-wise) for existing standards, specifically HTML 3.0 and 3.2. Microsoft led the way to get CSS and later, the DOM, adopted as W3C recommendations. Ever since IE earned it's dominant market share, subsequent versions become more and more compilant with more and more standards. The argument that IE is "bad" because it's standards support is slightly less than Opera or Firefox is ludicris. Real-world users don't choose browsers based on such arcane things such as the CSS boxing model and whether or not one browser does padding one way, or another.
Programming

Alan Cox Quits As Linux TTY Maintainer — "I've Had Enough" 909

The Slashdolt writes "After a stern criticism from Linus, the long-time kernel hacker Alan Cox has decided to walk away as the maintainer of the TTY subsystem of the Linux Kernel, stating '...I've had enough. If you think that problem is easy to fix you fix it. Have fun. I've zapped the tty merge queue so anyone with patches for the tty layer can send them to the new maintainer.'" A response to a subsequent post on the list makes it quite clear that he is serious.
Earth

Noctilucent Clouds Likely Caused By Shuttle Launches 132

icebike writes "In our recent discussion of the phenomenon of noctilucent clouds, there was some suggestions that these might be the product of global warming due to moisture being lofted high into the atmosphere. It now appears that these clouds are simply the product of Shuttle launches. In a story about the Tunguska blast, Science News says: 'Each launch of a space shuttle, which burns a combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as fuel, pumps about 300 metric tons of water vapor into the atmosphere at altitudes between 100 and 115 kilometers. Soon after the January 16, 2003, launch of the shuttle Columbia, a liftoff that took place just after the height of summer in the Southern Hemisphere, noctilucent clouds appeared over Antarctica. Similarly, a widespread display of the night-shining clouds showed up over Alaska two days after the shuttle Endeavour blasted off on August 8, 2007. Previous studies show that in both instances those clouds included material from the shuttle plumes.' So, man-made after all?"
Medicine

Submission + - Blue M&Ms can lessen the damage from spinal in

SydShamino writes: Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center have found that the dye used in blue M&Ms and other foods can, when given to a patient shortly after a spinal injury, minimizing secondary damage caused by the body when it kills off nearby healthy cells. Given that 85% of spinal injury patients are currently untreated (and some doctors don't trust the treatment given to the other 15%), a relatively safe treatment like this could help preserve some function for thousands of patients. The best part? In lab rats the subjects given the treatment turn blue.
Handhelds

Submission + - Verizon 4G LTE Tests Planned for Seattle, Boston (pcmag.com)

suraj.sun writes: Verizon will kick off tests of its LTE network in Seattle and Boston later this year.

"We plan to conduct LTE trials in Seattle and in Boston later this year," chief financial officer John Killian said during the company's earnings call. "We're working on a commercial launch of LTE service in up to 30 markets next year."

Verizon wants to ultimately cover 100 million points of presence (POPs), or Internet access points, with its LTE network, Killian said. "In 2011 and 2012, we'll continue to expand significantly with the ultimate goal being to cover all our POPs with this great product by the end of 2013."

LTE is Verizon's next-generation, "4G" network, which will supplement and eventually replace its existing CDMA network and provide average data speeds between 8-12 Mbps.

Verizon : http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2350807,00.asp

Windows

Submission + - Windows 7 versus Windows XP on a Netbook (legitreviews.com)

Justin writes: "Many in the industry are counting on Windows 7 to bring the netbook market to the next level. Having netbook manufacturers ship netbooks with 7+ year old Windows XP pre-installed surely deterred some from joining the ranks of households with the small, light and portable netbooks. It seems Microsoft has addressed most of the pitfalls of Windows Vista on a netbook by increasing battery life and performance to be very close to that of the lighter weight Windows XP. Legit Reviews has the full scoop of battery life and performance tests pitting Windows 7 against Windows XP on the ASUS Eee PC 1005HA Netbook."
KDE

KDE 4.2.4 Released 153

An anonymous reader writes "KDE 4.2.4 has been released. See the release announcement for details." Barring a "security issue or another grave bug," this is the end of the KDE 4.2 line, which means for distros based on long-term support, it might be the thing to get used to for a while.

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