aug17th - Slashdot User

Submission + - Mandriva: An open letter to Steve Ballmer

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 31, 2007 @11:21PM

An anonymous reader writes: An entry on the Mandriva Blog, written by Mandriva CEO François Bancilhon, is suggesting that the Nigerian government, after ordering thousands of Classmate PCs with Mandriva Linux installed, has suddenly decided that they will instead install Windows replacing the pre-loaded Mandriva Linux installation on the low-cost computing devices intended for children in the developing world. The blog suggests that this was not a decision that the Nigerian government made on its own. Is this just speculation, or is there something much bigger going on here?

Feed The Register: Sun tries to flex R&D muscle with homegrown package manager (theregister.com)

From feed by registerfeed on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @11:32PM

Like Linux code but better - grr

By the end of this month Sun Microsystems will release the first developer version of OpenSolaris in its "Project Indiana" incarnation.

Comment Sugar cane yields are 8 times higher (Score 1) 599

by aug17th on Wednesday May 23, 2007 @02:20AM (#19232661) Attached to: Ethanol Demand Is Boosting Food Prices Worldwide

Corn is a bad idea but it pleases the US and European farm lobbies.

"Brazil's ethanol yields nearly eight times as much energy as corn-based options, according to scientific data. Yet heavy import duties on the Brazilian product have limited its entry into the United States and Europe."

Also, hybrid cars could help drive adoption.

"The use of ethanol in Brazil was greatly accelerated in the last three years with the introduction of "flex fuel" engines, designed to run on ethanol, gasoline or any mixture of the two."

http://www.nytimes.com/.../10brazil.html?ex=130232 1600&en=03adc82c67600388&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt

Submission + - Japanese company admits nuclear accident cover up

Submitted by

a-charles

on Friday March 16, 2007 @11:09PM

a-charles writes: "Reuters reports on a disturbing anouncement for anyone in the same state as a nuclear power plant:

"A Japanese power company admitted on Thursday that it had covered up a 1999 incident in which mishandling of nuclear fuel rods led to an unintended self-sustaining nuclear fission chain reaction for 15 minutes."

"Hokuriku Electric said the mishandling of nuclear fuel rods caused the company's Shiga No. 1 nuclear unit in central Japan to go into a "critical state" for 15 minutes in June 1999. The unit was shut down manually after an automatic shut-down function failed."

"The news... is likely to further dent public confidence in Japan's nuclear power industry, already undermined by safety scandals over the past decade."
And a separate incident later that year:

"In one of Japan's worst nuclear accidents, two workers were killed in September 1999, when workers at a nuclear facility in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo, set off an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction by using buckets to mix nuclear fuel in a lab."
"

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