arr28 - Slashdot User

Billion Dollar Handout To Upgrade TVs 663

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday March 13, 2007 @06:55PM from the if-we-can-send-a-man-to-the-moon dept.

db32 writes "SFGate has the story of the cutoff date for those rabbit ear antennas that some of us grew up with (Feb. 19, 2009). Now while the story of analog vs. digital TV has been beaten to death, still I think there is something more here. 'The Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration... said it is setting aside $990 million to pay for the boxes. Each home can request up to two $40 coupons for a digital-to-analog converter box, which consumer electronics makers such as RCA and LG plan to produce.' Beyond my disdain for most TV to begin with, I am blown away that with all of our current problems — homelessness and crime on the home front, war fighting and terrorism abroad — our government is seriously going to spend this much money on upgrading peoples' televisions."

Running Your Electric Meter Backwards 526

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @03:23AM from the power-to-the-peeps dept.

kog777 writes to note a story in International Business Times about "net metering," or generating your own power without disconnecting from the grid. Forty states have laws allowing individuals to do this, and many of them offer subsidies and tax breaks for people who do. From the article: "When the sun shines bright on their home in New York's Hudson Valley, John and Anna Bagnall live out a homeowner's fantasy. Their electricity meter runs backward. Solar panels on their barn roof can often provide enough for all their electricity needs. Sometimes — and this is the best part — their solar setup actually pushes power back into the system."

Digital Identities Now Available 170

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday September 13, 2006 @06:30AM from the true-names dept.

Largecranium writes, "I-names, the only globally unique, resolvable namespace in parallel to the DNS system and compatible with OpenID, are being introduced during Digital ID World in Santa Clara. I-Names are only as useful as the services they enable; the services that are available today are interesting but not life-changing. The ones that are coming in the next 6-12 months could change the way people interact online. I-names and their value (today and tomorrow) are casually explained at iwantmynamenow.com." I-names are the lineal descendant of the technology that began as XNS and continues evolving today as XDI.

Comment Re:GPL doesn't need to be tested. (Score 1) 232

by arr28 on Tuesday September 05, 2006 @08:39AM (#16043684) Attached to: GPL Gets Its Day in Court in Israel

Those people who use the GPL to licence their software do so on the understanding that they are granting some particular rights to 3rd parties. However, for all we know, in some jurisdictions, the GPL may grant more rights (or fewer rights) than intended.

Therefore, contrary to you claim, court cases such as these do indeed "test the GPL". They test whether or not it has the desired effects.

ThinkFree Online Review 148

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday April 25, 2006 @07:25AM from the ripe-for-flash-drive-bookmarks dept.

ThinSkin writes "ThinkFree Online is, simply put, Office without the Microsoft, a collection of free online apps that support and contain most features found in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. ThinkFree has just released a major upgrade to its features, bumping its online storage to 1GB for each user and adding a lightweight AJAX-based collaboration feature. ExtremeTech has an interesting review of ThinkFree Online's applications and features which reveals a lot to like about this improved webware and, while it may have its occasional quirks, can be great for those who want to edit and create documents on the fly."

Journal Journal: What is the Profanity Blacklist?

Journal by Profanity Blacklist on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @08:16PM

The Profanity Blacklist is a way to avoid, at least partially, profanity and vulgarity on Slashdot. To use it, mark Profanity Blacklist as a friend and in your profile set "Foe of Friend" to a negative number. This will lower the score of posts of users that have posted with profanity or vulgarity.

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