September 30, 2007 by dinofond.

WOW…. This is a sure failure! The new ONE by Gateway sports a 1.5 Core 2 duo which is SLOW compared to just about everything else in the market place and has a hefty $1499.99 price tag. What is gateway thinking? The new ONE machine is slower, more expensive, has a smaller screen and won’t run OS X. For $1199.99 you can buy a 20″ imac with a core 2 Duo 2.0 processor that runs windows as well as OS X and has more fire wire ports. Gateway, this is a sure flop.

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September 29, 2007 by dinofond.

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September 29, 2007 by dinofond.

By John Borland

How’s this for an undergraduate project: A student at West Virginia University has uncovered an oversight in six-year-old radio telescope data that researchers believe could open up whole new fields of study in astrophysics.

David Narkevik, an undergraduate at West Virginia University, was re-analysing data from the Parkes telescope in Australia when he came across a five-millisecond burst of energy so powerful that it “saturated” the equipment. Researchers had previously dismissed it as a man-made phenomenon, an accident to be ignored.

But another look at the data has convinced scientists that in fact the burst was real, emanating from a point some 1.5 billion light years away, far enough away that any ordinary energy surge should have been very faint.

Now scientists think they may have recorded a catastrophic event such as two neutron stars colliding, or the final evaporation of a black hole.

With that in mind, researchers are going back to comb through other archived data from the Parkes telescope, looking for other such anomalies. They’re also pointing to the construction of a new radio telescope in Australia by 2012 as a potential tool to find other such events, if in fact they are real.

A paper on the research has been published on the Science Express site.

Mysterious energy burst stuns astronomers [Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization press release]

Image: Parkes Telescope in Australia. Credit: CSIRO

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September 29, 2007 by dinofond.

Microsoft allow OEMs and retail outlets to sell PCs with Windows XP as customers continue to balk on upgrading to Windows Vista.
Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service

Microsoft is extending the time it will allow original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and retail outlets to sell PCs with Windows XP as customers continue to balk on upgrading to Windows Vista.

Microsoft had planned to stop selling XP through OEMs and retailers on Jan. 31, 2008, while custom system builders have until Jan. 31, 2009, to pre-install XP on machines. But because sales of Vista PCs have not been as strong as expected, OEMs and retailers have asked Microsoft to extend XP’s availability. OEMs and retailers will now have until June 30, 2008, to sell PCs with Vista preinstalled on machines, Microsoft said. Retailers also can sell XP out of the box until that time if they choose, the company said.

In fact, some PC makers are selling Vista-equipped systems with an XP Pro recovery disc to those who request one so that it can be used in case the purchaser isn’t happy with the new Microsoft OS.
Why?

“While we’ve been pleased with the positive response we’ve seen and heard from customers using Windows Vista, there are some customers who need a little more time to make the switch to Windows Vista,” Microsoft said in a press statement.

Microsoft also is extending the life of Windows XP Starter Edition, the version of XP for emerging markets. The software will be available until June 30, 2010, so users in those markets can take advantage of low-cost, hardware-constrained PCs that Vista may not be compatible with. Vista requires hardware upgrades that most PCs running XP do not have.

Per Microsoft’s policy as of 2002, a new Windows OS would stay on the market about four years after its original availability date. But XP was released on Oct. 25, 2001, more than five years before Vista limped out the door to consumers Jan. 31, 2007, after several delays and a major code overhaul.
Vista Expectations Lowered

Microsoft had high expectations for customer adoption of Vista, and claimed the launch would be one of the most successful in Windows history. Unfortunately for the company, those predictions so far haven’t panned out, and in July, Microsoft lowered its projections for customer adoption of Vista. The company had said the split between XP and Vista sales in its fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, would be 15 percent to 85 percent; now the company is saying the split will be 22 percent XP and 78 percent Vista.

According to some, that may even be optimistic. Paul Ghysels, a custom system builder who owns the Neighborhood Computer Store in Moraga, California, said that Microsoft has “really blown Vista.” He said he’s not surprised Microsoft extended the availability of XP for OEMs. “I figured Microsoft would have to come up with something because Vista is so unprepared for the market right now,” Ghysels said.

He added that the extension likely won’t affect his business much, since most of his customers come to him because they are already disillusioned with the major PC manufacturers and thus unlikely to want a name-brand PC pre-loaded with Vista.

Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), a rollup of updates for the OS that Microsoft has said will be available in the first quarter of 2008, should make Vista more market-worthy. In fact, many consumers and businesses have said they would wait for the update before moving from XP to Vista.

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September 28, 2007 by dinofond.

Dear dino,
Here is your horoscope
for Friday, September 28:

Some of your more peculiar habits are causing your family to roll their eyes a bit, but try to hold your ground. You do (almost) everything for a good reason and if they can’t see it, you just need to explain again.

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September 26, 2007 by dinofond.

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September 26, 2007 by dinofond.

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September 26, 2007 by dinofond.

Apple insider is reporting that apple is bringing back a PDA after it’s failed Newton line of the 90’s. People, the iphone is already a PDA, it does everything that every PDA on the market does already and it does it better. To try and make a real newsworthy story out of this is completely just silly. Read more here @ Apple Insider

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September 24, 2007 by dinofond.

Lies…
Light ahead, is it something that I can cling to
is it something to help this life sustain,
see no pain
Is it just another train?

Life ahead, is it something that I can count on
is it something to keep the spirit raised,
seize my days
Is it just another phase?

Innocence left us long ago - lines are blurred on
everything that I’ve been told

Foma, Foma, Foma

Jesus Christ - is He someone you put faith in?
is He someone to wear your crown of thorns,
bear your wrongs
Is He just another God?

Sincerity left us long ago - stay in line and do
exactly what you’re told

Foma, Foma, Foma
Lies…See through your lies.

See the sign - is it something you would bleed for?
is it something that helps to feed your soul
with a sense of hope?
Just stay in line and do
exactly what you’re told

Foma, Foma, Foma
Lies…See your lies

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September 24, 2007 by dinofond.

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September 24, 2007 by dinofond.

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September 22, 2007 by dinofond.

After seeding Leopard 9A528d on Thursday, Apple has released 9A559 to ADC members Friday late afternoon. Thursday’s update appears to have been primarily testing Leopard’s Software Update mechanism.

The 6.55GB download lists only two known issues for Leopard. The two issues described involve upgrading from Tiger to Leopard on PowerPC systems in certain scenarios, and HP printer drivers.

Here’s a video of the new start up screen for leopard (OS X 10.5)

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September 22, 2007 by dinofond.

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September 22, 2007 by dinofond.

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September 22, 2007 by dinofond.

Lawsuit Charges Open-Source License Violation In what may be the first action of its kind in the U.S., a lawsuit has been filed to enforce an open-source license.
Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service

In what may be the first action of its kind in the U.S., the Software Freedom Law Center has filed a lawsuit to enforce an open-source license.

The SFLC filed the suit on Wednesday in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against Monsoon Multimedia Inc., on behalf of the developers of BusyBox, Erik Andersen and Rob Landley. The suit charges Monsoon with using BusyBox under the GNU General Public License version 2 but failing to publish its source code. Under the terms of the license, distributors of software that uses the licensed software must make their source code available. Failing to do so is considered copyright infringement.

BusyBox, members of the public and the SFLC legal team notified Monsoon of its responsibilities, but Monsoon has not yet published the code, said Dan Ravicher, legal director at SFLC. While it’s relatively common for licensees to neglect to share their code, parties typically work through the issue without having to go to court, he said.

This case is a last resort after Monsoon failed to rectify the situation, he said. The suit is necessary because from a legal perspective, copyright owners can start to lose rights if they don’t act to protect them, he said.

BusyBox is a lightweight set of Unix utilities used in embedded systems. Monsoon develops digital video products, including a Slingbox-like device that enables remote TV viewing.

If BusyBox ultimately prevails in the case, under copyright law the company is entitled to damages, an injunction prohibiting continued infringement and court costs, Ravicher said.

He believes this is the first case filed in the U.S. in order to enforce an open-source license.

The GPL Violations Project is a group that actively pursues license violators and has brought at least one case to court in Germany. Earlier this year, one of the project’s team members publicly revealed violations that Cisco Systems Inc. made in its phone previously called the iPhone. Cisco subsequently corrected the problem.

Monsoon did not reply to a request for comment.

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September 22, 2007 by dinofond.

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: September 21, 2007

FAIRBANKS, Alaska, Sept. 20 — The cap of floating sea ice on the Arctic Ocean, which retreats under summer’s warmth, this year shrank more than one million square miles — or six Californias — below the average minimum area reached in recent decades, scientists reported Thursday.

The minimum ice area for this year, 1.59 million square miles, appeared to be reached Sunday. The ice is now spreading again under the influence of the deep Arctic chill that settles in as the sun drops below the horizon at the North Pole for six months, starting Friday.

The findings were reported by the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., and posted online at www.nsidc.org.

While satellite tracking of polar sea ice has been done only since 1979, several ice experts who have studied Russian and Alaskan records going back many decades said the ice retreat this year was probably unmatched in the 20th century, including during a warm period in the 1930s. “I do not think that there was anything like we observe today” in the 1930s or 1940s, said Igor Polyakov, an ice expert at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

The ice retreat has been particularly striking this year. The Alaskan side of the Arctic Ocean has stretches of thousands of square miles of open water; the fabled Northwest Passage through the islands of northern Canada was free of ice for weeks; and the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans north of Russia was nearly clear a week ago, with one small clot of ice around a group of Siberian islands.

Mark Serreze, a senior researcher at the snow and ice center, said it was increasingly clear that climate change from the buildup of greenhouse gases was playing a role in the Arctic warming, which is seen not only in the floating ice but also in melting terrestrial ice sheets, thawing tundra and warming seawater.

“We understand the physics behind what’s going on,” Dr. Serreze said. “You can always find some aspect of natural variability that can explain some things. But now it seems patterns that used to help you don’t help as much anymore, and the ones that hurt you hurt you more.”

“You can’t dismiss this as natural variability,” he said. “We’re starting to see the system respond to global warming.”

Still, he and other scientists acknowledged that both poles were extraordinarily complicated systems of ice, water and land, and that the mix of human and natural influences was not easy to clarify.

Sea ice around Antarctica has seen unusual winter expansions recently, and this week is near a record high.

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September 22, 2007 by dinofond.

Hey all you people, for goodness sake,
Let’s get together, what does it take,
To make you understand the value of a man?
I’m talkin’ about your son and neighbor, yes I am. Oh …

CHORUS
People let’s stop the war.
People let’s stop the war.
People let’s stop the war.
People let’s stop the war.

If we had a president, that did just what he said,
The country would be just alright, and no one would be dead,
From fighting in a war, that causes big men to get rich.
There’s money in them war machines, now ain’t this a bitch? Oh …

CHORUS

I been excited, ain’t nobody ready.
They don’t know what to get ready for.
Let’s get ready and stop the war.

Ooo … excited, ain’t nobody ready.
They don’t know what to get ready for.
Let’s get ready and stop the war.

I been excited, ain’t nobody ready.
They don’t know what to get ready for.
Let’s get ready and stop the war.

Ooo … excited, ain’t nobody ready.
They don’t know what to get ready for.
Let’s get ready and stop the war.

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September 21, 2007 by dinofond.

It’s art: MIT student arrested with fake bomb

Updated Fri. Sep. 21 2007 4:47 PM ET
The Associated Press

(How could this possibly be a bomb? What a crock of crap! - Dino)

BOSTON — An MIT student wearing what turned out to be a fake bomb was arrested at gunpoint Friday at Logan International Airport and later claimed it was artwork, officials said.

Star Simpson, 19, had a computer circuit board and wiring in plain view over a black hooded sweatshirt she was wearing, said State Police Maj. Scott Pare, the commanding officer at the airport.

“She said that it was a piece of art and she wanted to stand out on career day,” Pare said at a news conference. “She claims that it was just art, and that she was proud of the art and she wanted to display it.”

Simpson was charged with disturbing the peace and possessing a hoax device. A not guilty plea was entered for her and she was released on $750 bail.

During the hearing, Simpson smiled as she entered wearing a T-shirt and sandals. After she posted bail, she left in a taxi with a man who identified himself as her boyfriend, but neither would answer more questions from reporters.

Prosecutor Wayne Margolis had requested $5,000 bail, saying Simpson showed a total disregard for the situation she was in — an airport after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Ross Schreiber, who was appointed to represent Simpson, said she was not a risk to flee, was a good student with no prior convictions and she cooperated with authorities.

He said she had gone to the airport to meet her boyfriend. “She was there for legitimate purposes,” Schreiber said.

Simpson was “extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used,” Pare said. “She’s lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue.”

Simpson is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology sophomore from Hawaii, officials said.

The battery-powered rectangular device had nine flashing lights, and Simpson had Play-Doh in her hands, Pare said.

The phrases “Socket to me” and “Course VI” were written on the back of her sweatshirt, which authorities displayed to the media. Course VI appears to refer to MIT’s major of electrical engineering and computer science.

Simpson was a member of MIT’s swimming and diving team in 2006, according to the team’s Web site, which lists her hometown as Kihei, Hawaii. MIT spokeswoman Patti Richards said aside from confirming she was a student, the school did not have any comment.

She was arrested about 8 a.m. outside Terminal C, home to United Airlines, Jet Blue and other carriers.

A Massachusetts Port Authority staffer manning an information booth in the terminal became suspicious when Simpson — wearing the device — approached to ask about an incoming flight, Pare said. Simpson then walked outside, and the staffer notified a nearby trooper.

The trooper, joined by others with submachine guns, confronted her at a traffic island in front of the terminal.

“She was immediately told to stop, to raise her hands and not to make any movement, so we could observe all her movements to see if she was trying to trip any type of device,” Pare said. “Had she not followed the protocol, we might have used deadly force.”

Pare said Simpson took a subway to the airport, but he was not sure if she had the device on at that time.

The major praised the booth attendant, but said the incident is a reminder of the terrorism threat confronting the civil aviation system. Two of the four passenger jets hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001, took off from Logan.

The city was the focus of a major security scare Jan. 31 when dozens of battery-powered devices were discovered in various locations. Bomb squads were deployed and some transportation links were closed temporarily. They turned out to be a promotion for the Cartoon Network.

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September 21, 2007 by dinofond.

All of this information available and still the sheep sit eating the grass baaa baaaa

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September 21, 2007 by dinofond.

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