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Comment Re:How is this news? (Score 3, Informative) 617

Oh, I always thought the reason VHS won, was that VHS allowed porn to be distributed on VHS tapes, whereas Betamax and Video2000 (owned by Philips) didn't allow this. Philips and Sony thought it would bring down their reputation. VHS - not being tied to any one manufacturer in particular - could get away with porn. Video2000 was superior over either VHS and Betamax BTW. Even on ordinary TV sets the difference was very much notable (Video2000 could also do noise free stills for example).

Comment Re:also Autodesk software needs local admin to run (Score 1) 139

I cannot remember any version of AutoCAD (and I am started administrating AutoCAD systems from version 10) needing local admin rights to run. AutoCAD has been one of the few apps to support non-admin users as soon as windows enabled that feature (windows NT3.5 anyone?). Only if you seriously mess up your AutoCAD settings inside your user profile or the registry will this happen. Of course you're messing with those if you don't pay for the software you use...
Digital

Submission + - The computer labs that created the digital world (extremetech.com)

MrSeb writes: "Throughout history there is a recurring theme of like-minded individuals coming together to create a shared “hive mind” intelligence that is greater than its constituent parts. . In the time of Socrates and Plato and Cicero, this would’ve been the local forum or sophist schools, and the Enlightenment of the 18th century was triggered by homely gatherings at salons and fueled by the steaming hotpot of coffeehouses and caffeine. Today we still use forums of course, and plenty of inventions and insight still originate from coffeehouses, but most innovation occurs in laboratories.

ExtremeTech takes a look at the six computer labs that gave birth to the digital world — from Bletchley Park in Blighty, to PARC labs in Palo Alto, and everything in between."

Linux

Submission + - LinuxCon 2011 Keynotes Streaming (and Free) (deviceguru.com)

__aajbyc7391 writes: All keynote sessions from the LinuxCon North America 2011 conference held in Vancouver this week are being made available for free public streaming today through Friday (August 17-19). One noteworthy highlight: today's 4:45 pm (pdt) keynote will feature Greg Kroah-Hartman in conversation with Linus Torvalds. Viewing the streams requires free registration.
Businesses

Intel Co-Founder Calls For Tax On Offshored Labor 565

theodp writes "Intel co-founder and ex-CEO Andy Grove calls BS on the truism that moving production offshore to locations with much lower wages is a sound idea. 'Not only did we lose an untold number of jobs,' says Grove, 'we broke the chain of experience that is so important in technological evolution. As happened with batteries, abandoning today's "commodity" manufacturing can lock you out of tomorrow's emerging industry.' To rebuild its industrial commons, Grove says the US should develop a system of financial incentives, including an extra tax on the product of offshored labor. 'If the result is a trade war,' Grove advises, 'treat it like other wars — fight to win.'"

Submission + - Pirate Party to Run Pirate Bay from Parliament (torrentfreak.com) 2

rdnetto writes: After their former hosting provider received an injunction telling it to stop providing bandwidth to The Pirate Bay, the worlds most resilient BitTorrent site switched to a new ISP. That host, the Swedish Pirate Party, made a stand on principle. Now they aim to take things further by running the site from inside the Swedish Parliament.

The party has announced today that they intend to use part of the Swedish Constitution to further these goals, specifically Parliamentary Immunity from prosecution or lawsuit for things done as part of their political mandate. They intend to push the non-commercial sharing part of their manifesto, by running The Pirate Bay from ‘inside’ the Parliament, by Members of Parliament.

Businesses

Submission + - Intel Co-Founder Calls for Tax on Offshored Labor

theodp writes: Intel co-founder and ex-CEO Andy Grove calls BS on the truism that moving production offshore to locations with much lower wages is a sound idea. 'Not only did we lose an untold number of jobs,' says Grove, 'we broke the chain of experience that is so important in technological evolution. As happened with batteries, abandoning today's 'commodity' manufacturing can lock you out of tomorrow's emerging industry.' To rebuild its industrial commons, Grove says the U.S. should develop a system of financial incentives, including an extra tax on the product of offshored labor. 'If the result is a trade war,' Grove advises, 'treat it like other wars — fight to win.'

Comment Re:In other words (Score 1) 604

with wars. If you lose, you get exterminated.

Genocide is almost never the conclusion of a war. If genocide is involved war is mostly a pretext for the Powers That Be to able to start genocide. There was no extermination of Germans, Japanese or Italians at the end of WWII, nor was there at the end of WWI. German (and other) war mongerers had a good shot at exterminating all jews in Europe, but they did not wage a war against them. The genocide was possible because of the 'fog of war' that made it hard for moderate forces in and outside Germany to see what was going on, exactly, and - when they found out - had their hands full on with other business, i.e. fighting a war.

Comment Re:The List (Score 1) 469

The father of a friend of mine had an Apple /// and it never overheated. I doubt any Apple /// would ever overheat. We opened it once, the case was filled around 20 percent. Yes, he also had the vcr-sized harddisk 8Mb in size. This was expensive shit BTW. Also, how hot can a 3Mhz CPu run?

Comment Re:What GM food for hundreds of years? (Score 4, Informative) 766

No, it's not. With selective breeding you can never go outside of the scope of the accumulation of genetical variety available in the species your breeding with. You cannot breed dogs that produce poisonous bites by just interbreeding different type of dogs, the genetical material needed to be able to allow for a poisonous bite just isn't there. Theoretically dogs could in the long run, through spontaneous genetical mutation acquire such features, but that's outside the scope of breeding of dogs.
If you would start genetically modifying dogs with genetical material alien to dogs, say poisonous snakes, you actually could produce such poisonous dogs, given enough perseverence and research. Genetically modifying creatures is in essence engineering, working from the specfications of features of the creature up to a design. Selective Breeding is bricolage, using whatever is at hand to meet a goal that's changing along with the process.

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