Dufftron 9000 - Slashdot User

Scientists Expose Weak DNA in HIV 196

Posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday February 17, 2007 @11:43AM from the go-for-the-throat dept.

Ace905 writes "The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases announced Thursday that they had discovered a very promising 'weak spot' in the HIV virus. The HIV virus, a progenitor to full blown AIDS has eluded all attempts at a vaccine since it was discovered sometime in the 1970's. The major problem with developing a vaccine initially was isolating the virus. Conventional viruses are often defeated with existing drugs, or after being tested against new compounds. HIV has been unique, and staggering in it's ability to resist all attempts at treatment by mutating its own genetic code. HIV is able to resist, with great effectiveness, any drug or combination drug-therapy that is used against it."

Stallman Convinces Cuba to Switch to Open Source 582

Posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday February 17, 2007 @10:45AM from the digital-emissaries dept.

prostoalex writes "It's a big victory for Richard Stallman in North America, as Cuba decided to adopt open source software on the national level. Both Cuba and Venezuela are currently working on switching the entire government infrastructure to GNU/Linux operating system and applications, the Associated Press reports from Havana: 'Both governments say they are trying to wean state agencies from Microsoft's proprietary Windows to the open-source Linux operating system, which is developed by a global community of programmers who freely share their code.' The AP article doesn't mention the distro used for government workers, but says that the students are working on a Gentoo-based distro."

FCC Report - TV Violence Should be Regulated 346

Posted by Zonk on Saturday February 17, 2007 @07:13AM from the moving-picture-tubes-made-me-do-it dept.

tanman writes "CNN reports that a draft FCC report circulating on Capitol Hill 'suggests Congress could craft a law that would let the agency regulate violent programming much like it regulates sexual content and profanity — by barring it from being aired during hours when children may be watching' The article goes on to quote from studies showing a link between violent imagery and violence in life, and discusses the 'huge grey areas' that could result from ill-defined concepts of excessive violence." Government as Nanny, or cracking down on an excessive entertainment culture? Which side of this do you find yourself on?

Renewable Energy for the Data Center? 55

Posted by Cliff on Saturday February 17, 2007 @01:30AM from the every-erg-saved-is-precious dept.

rohar asks: "The ISP/Carrier/Colo company I work for has just announced a new 'green' program. Although this is a step forward, they don't have a comprehensive environmental sustainability plan. I have been leading an open renewable energy project and I think we have 2 novel ideas for scalable and reliable renewable electrical power, the Solar Ammonia Absorption Convection Tower and the Compressed Air Wind Electrical Generation System. Do you have new ideas (Solar PV has been done, for example) for renewable power generation and conservation for the data center and other areas of industry?"

Comment Re:Where to start.. (Score 1) 261

by Dufftron 9000 on Friday February 16, 2007 @08:46PM (#18046650) Attached to: Congress Tackles Patent Reform

Individuals pay half what a corporation pays. Beside that, if the applicant actually amends their claims to not infringe then they can get in and out in one paid cycle with no problems. The reason that RCEs are abused is because some companies think they can just exhaust the examiner. There is no advantage to it unless your goal is to irritate the examiner and not get a reasonable, non-infringing patent.

So, you think that because one bad patent goes through it will embolden the bad patent filers who will also get through? The patent office does not exist to rubber stamp applications. If they were doing that, they would not have a million cases that have not been touched yet.

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