dandot - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Macs are the perfect inroad... (Score 1) 449

by dandot on Saturday March 10, 2007 @11:13PM (#18305170) Attached to: Why Consumer Macs Are Enterprise-Worthy

I hate MS and Adobe as much as the next geek, and will gleefully point out F/OSS solutions like OpenOffice.Org, Kino and The GIMP, but let's face it, what will someone completely unhip to F/OSS rather have in front of them: the F/OSS workalike or the reassuring name-brand?

This assumes that you're "hip" alternative does the job just as well as the brand name products? I hate to burst your bubble, but OpenOffice.org, Kino and The GIMP are toys... Fine for basic stuff and messing around, but more diffficult to actually do work on a deadline and that makes you money. Deadlines and money are common factors in business that brand name products actually deliver on much better than most F/OSS solutions.

Study Detects Recent Instance of Human Evolution 503

Posted by Zonk on Monday December 11, 2006 @05:57AM from the genetic-not-mental dept.

The New York Times is running a Sunday article regarding new evidence about 'recent' human evolution. A research team at the University of Maryland has done some work looking at the rise of lactose tolerance in the human populations of Africa. From the article: "The principal mutation, found among Nilo-Saharan-speaking ethnic groups of Kenya and Tanzania, arose 2,700 to 6,800 years ago, according to genetic estimates, Dr. Tishkoff's group is to report in the journal Nature Genetics on Monday. This fits well with archaeological evidence suggesting that pastoral peoples from the north reached northern Kenya about 4,500 years ago and southern Kenya and Tanzania 3,300 years ago ... Genetic evidence shows that the mutations conferred an enormous selective advantage on their owners, enabling them to leave almost 10 times as many descendants as people without them. The mutations have created 'one of the strongest genetic signatures of natural selection yet reported in humans,' the researchers write. "

New Mac-o-Lantern 76

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday October 31, 2006 @12:24AM from the overclock-after-the-holiday-for-an-easy-pie dept.

An anonymous reader writes to tell us that it is that time of year again, time for a new pumpkin computer. This time it can see via webcam eyes (thanks logitech), breathe through its nose using a case fan, and talk out its mouth with a speaker system. The insides are made of a custom power supply and mac-mini Core Duo system. The lighting is made of neon wiring thanks to Startech.com mutant mods. Check out the last page with a video of the pumpkin in action."

Munich Migrating To Linux 127

Posted by kdawson on Saturday October 28, 2006 @11:10PM from the penguins-overrun-Bavaria dept.

Rockgod writes with a progress report on the open sourcing of the city of Munich's administration. From the article: "The capital of Bavaria plans to complete its current migration of more than 80 percent of its desktop systems by 2008 and says that the first users of open software in the city's administration are pleased with the initial results. On Tuesday, Munich's mayor Christine Strobel said at the Systems trade fair that 'up to now, we are very happy about the results' of the migration currently underway. 'I am not a computer geek, but I must admit that it was easy to switch to the new software,' she reported. By the end of the year, some 200 workstations... will be running on a special LiMux client. If everything runs according to schedule, most of the approximately 14,000 PCs will be migrated to open source in the next two years."

Slashdot Top Deals