Psychomax - Slashdot User

Microsoft Denies Windows 7 "Showstopper Bug" 241

Posted by kdawson on Friday August 07, 2009 @11:33AM from the show-must-go-on dept.

Barence writes "Windows chief Steven Sinofsky has taken the unusual step of responding in the comments of a blog posting that claimed Windows 7 was suffering from a potential 'showstopper bug'. Stories had been sweeping the Internet that using the chkdsk.exe utility on a second hard disk would lead to a massive memory leak bringing the operating system to its knees in seconds. Responding to a blog post titled 'Critical Bug in Windows 7 RTM,' Sinofsky wrote: 'While we appreciate the drama of "critical bug" and then the pickup of "showstopper" that I've seen, we might take a step back and realize that this might not have that defcon level.' He signs off with the words: 'deep breath.'"

Comment Octopus (Score 1) 290

by Psychomax on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @03:46PM (#27230943) Attached to: 95M-Year-Old Octopus Fossils Discovered

It looks like... some kind of Octopus. Tearing my shell apart, letting the sea get in, you make my insides outsiiiiide

Why TV Lost 576

Posted by timothy on Saturday March 07, 2009 @06:36PM from the l-for-love dept.

theodp writes "Over the past 20 years, there's been much speculation about what the convergence of computers and TV would ultimately look like. Paul Graham says that we now know the answer: computers. 'Convergence' is turning out to essentially be 'replacement.' Why did TV lose? Graham identifies four forces: 1. The Internet's open platform fosters innovation at hacker speeds instead of big company speeds. 2. Moore's Law worked its magic on Internet bandwidth. 3. Piracy taught a new generation of users it's more convenient to watch shows on a computer screen. 4. Social applications made everybody from grandmas to 14-year-old girls want computers — in a three-word-nutshell, Facebook killed TV."

Book Publishers Making the Same Mistakes as Record Labels? 227

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday February 27, 2009 @03:39PM from the just-relax-your-death-grip-a-bit dept.

Techdirt points out an interesting query in Slate asking why book publishers appear to be making the same mistake that record labels did with the iTunes service with DRM, and single-vendor lock-in. "Back in 2005, we noted that Apple's dominance over the online music space, which upset the record labels tremendously, was actually the record labels' own fault for demanding DRM. That single demand created massive lock-in and network effects that allowed Apple to completely dominate the market. If the record labels had, instead, pushed for an open solution, then anyone else could have built stores/players to work as well, and it could have minimized Apple's ability to control the market. Yes, everyone is now opening up (including Apple), but it took a long time, and Apple had already established its dominant position. So why are book publishers doing the same thing?"

Pushing Linux Adoption Through Gaming 269

Posted by Soulskill on Friday January 02, 2009 @01:05AM from the year-of-games-on-the-linuxtop dept.

An article on CNet questions the viability of using games as part of a strategy to increase Linux adoption. It points out a blog post by Andrew Min which suggests: "... Linux companies also need to start paying attention to the open source gaming community. Why? It's lacking. However, gamers can get excited about free games. They just have to be up to par with commercial games. The problem is, commercial companies pay hundreds of employees to build a game for several years, while many competing gaming projects only last several years before the developer moves on. It's time for open source developers to start getting paid for their jobs. Who better to pay them than the companies that benefit most?"

Time Warner/Viacom Rift Healed, Pending Details 75

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 01, 2009 @11:00PM from the idiot-boxers-hit-the-showers dept.

jwilcox154 writes "Yesterday a dispute over fee hikes had threatened a damaging blackout at a minute past midnight Thursday that would have prevented TWC subscribers from watching their favorite shows such as 'SpongeBob SquarePants' and 'The Colbert Report.' The two sides reached an agreement on Thursday, the first of January 2009. The companies stated the terms of the deal were not disclosed. Details must still be finalized over the next few days."

Canadians Miss Out On Doctor Who Season Finale 303

Posted by timothy on Sunday December 14, 2008 @04:23PM from the splicing-time-never-had-such-immediacy dept.

darthcamaro writes "Canadians were among the last people in the world to get the season 4 finale of Doctor Who which already aired in the UK and Australia. The Canadian public broadcaster — CBC — decided to cut out nearly 20 minutes from the episode, leaving fans wondering what was going on. Doctor Who isn't the easiest show to follow at the best of times — but Canadians are now up in arms (or at least hockey sticks) over their taxpayer-funded broadcaster's lack of respect for SciFi hosers."

Ice Age Beasts Blasted from Space 202

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday December 12, 2007 @09:46PM from the the-galactic-shotgun dept.

ianare writes "Eight tusks and a bison skull all show signs of having being blasted with iron-nickel fragments, typical meteorite material. Raised, burnt surface rings trace the point of entry of high-velocity projectiles; and the punctures are on only one side, consistent with a blast coming from a single direction. But the team was astonished to find the animal remains were about 35,000 years old, rather than from the known impact of 13,000 years ago."

Submission + - Bush Causes Cell Phone Ban

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 15, 2007 @08:38PM

An anonymous reader writes: When President George Bush visits Sydney, Australia for the APEC Summit in September, all cell phone calls within the radius of a football field will be banned. The president's motorcade will be shadowed by a helicopter equipped with signal-jamming equipment. Terrorists have used mobile phones to detonate remote-controlled bombs in Iraq and elsewhere in the world.

Feed America haunted by ghost of ice gravity (theregister.com)

From feed by registerfeed on Monday May 14, 2007 @04:32AM

Actual proper research, honest

Canadian researchers have found a gravitational shadow hanging over North America, left over from the last ice age. The work is published in the May 11 edition of the journal Science.

Japanese Government to Move to OSS 128

Posted by Zonk on Monday May 14, 2007 @04:31AM from the a-little-less-time-on-hold dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Linuxworld has up an article on the Japanese government's plan to reduce its reliance on a single IT vendor by moving to open source software. 'Oracle, NEC, IBM, HP, Hitachi and Dell are among 10 IT equipment and software vendors that are forming a consortium to develop and sell Linux-based servers and computers for the Japanese market. The move by the vendors to collaborate on Linux in Japan comes from a edict from the country's government to make Linux and open source a priority for all IT procurements, starting this July.' The government has said explicitly it wants to decrease its reliance on Microsoft as a server operating system platform."

Submission + - Handling Interviews after being a Fall Guy

Submitted by

bheer

on Monday May 14, 2007 @02:53AM

bheer writes: "Salon's Since You Asked column is carrying an interesting question right now — what do you say in interviews after getting fired as a fall guy at your last job? Cary Tennis, who writes the column, admits he may not be the best person for this sort of question. So I thought I'd ask Slashdotters what they thought about this. Software developers are sometimes able to get away blaming the business requirements/analysis process, but anyone with any experience in this business probably has had nightmares about being the fall guy and may even have a strategy or two up their sleeve. How would deal with being in such a crummy position?"

Scientologists In Row With BBC 763

Posted by Zonk on Monday May 14, 2007 @02:31AM from the here-we-go-again dept.

CmdrGravy writes "The Church Of Scientology is currently engaged in a row with the BBC, a result of an investigation by reporter John Sweeney. Sweeney is investigating the Church Of Scientology, trying to judge changes in the organization over the last few years; He's trying to discover if they've moved away from the questionable practices and secrecy they have employed in the past. The conflict centers around a YouTube video posted by the scientologists. It shows Mr. Sweeney losing his temper with a scientology spokesman. Mr. Sweeney's outburst came at the end of a tour of a scientology exhibition which attempts to portray psychiatrists as evil nazi type torturers entitled 'Psychiatry: Industry of Death' which is both gruesome and utterly unconvincing. The BBC appears willing to stand behind its reporter, in spite of the pressure brought to bear by the scientologist organization."

Submission + - Teachers Fake Gunman Attack

Submitted by Anti_Climax on Monday May 14, 2007 @01:59AM

Anti_Climax writes: Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables. You can see the full story on CNN. It'll be interesting to see what happens to these teachers after the charges brought against students in recent months.

Submission + - USPTO Examiner Rejects 1-Click Claims as 'Obvious'

Submitted by

theodp

on Monday May 14, 2007 @01:28AM

theodp writes: "Faced with a duly unimpressed USPTO examiner who rejected its new 1-Click patent claims as 'obvious' and 'old and well known', Amazon has taken the unusual step of requesting an Oral Appeal to plead its case. And in what might be interpreted by some as an old-fashioned stalling tactic, the e-tailer has also canceled and refiled its 1-Click claims in a continuation application. As it touted the novelty of 1-Click to Congress last spring, Amazon kept the examiner's rejection under its hat, insisting that 'still no [1-Click] prior art has surfaced' to a Judiciary Committee whose members included Rick Boucher (VA) and Howard Berman (CA), both recipients of campaign contributions from a PAC funded by 1-Click inventor Jeff Bezos, other Amazon execs, and their families."

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