Zzootnik - Slashdot User

Comment Re:It's not difficult (Score 1) 259

by Zzootnik on Monday July 11, 2011 @07:02AM (#36718484) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Large-Scale DIY Outdoor Cooling of Cairo's Tahrir Square?

I looked thru the discussion and couldn't find this one elsewhere....
A Blimp. A Really Big, Shade Producing Blimp.
Or failing that, maybe some thousands of individual mylar balloons?
In either case, park them strategically, and should provide some shading for the square.

Comment Re:Great video from Milwaukee (Score 1) 163

by Zzootnik on Thursday April 15, 2010 @08:04PM (#31865920) Attached to: Meteor Spotted Yesterday Over Midwestern United States

I Saw it pretty clear here in Iowa City out the window to the North... if it was ALSO north of Wisconsin, My guess would by Canada... or the patrol officer didn't know which way North was-

Comment Popcorn Hour? (Score 1) 536

by Zzootnik on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @07:01PM (#30304616) Attached to: Best PC DVR Software, For Any Platform?

I'm currently a Tivo Series 3 user (Works awesome and basically zero maintenance, other than the monthly fee and a very occasional spontaneous reboot--???!!!)
--That said, I've been keeping an eye on the Popcorn hour boxes...http://www.popcornhour.com
--Looks like it plays all the media you can throw at it, and toss in a blue-ray drive and you can even watch those-
It supports a Huge laundry list of features, but it looks like the one thing it doesn't actually do is the DVR of actual tv streams... Anyone know of any updates in that area?

Comment Re:indeed (Score 1) 1231

by Zzootnik on Tuesday November 03, 2009 @07:44PM (#29970914) Attached to: Some Early Adopters Stung By Ubuntu's Karmic Koala

Really? I upgraded my kubuntu from 9.04 to 9.10 without a single hitch... ...Of course I'm also currently backing up and re-installing from scratch a system I just finished building 2 weeks ago for a friend... the upgrade from 9.04 Ubuntu to 9.10 wouldn't even boot....

It shouldn't take too long, but there's considerable embarrassment on my Part about it. ("No REALLY- Its Normally a LOT more graceful than that!")
Stumbling really hurts-

Comment Re:Honeymoon is over (Score 1) 774

by Zzootnik on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @07:27AM (#27487155) Attached to: Microsoft Boasts 96% Netbook Penetration

I'm likely one of the statistics who "Couldn't forego Windows"....but to be Fair, I DID have a decet reason... The Linux version only came with the Dinky sized SSD. The ONLY model they sold with an actual Hard Drive of any significant size in it also happened to have Windows on it. (That was pretty easily remedied though-)
I think that the sales numbers for this kind of thing will be (artificially) skewed away from linux for a while if the manufacturers continue to pull that kind of poop...

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?"

Google Tells Users To Drop IE6 426

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday January 01, 2009 @11:54AM from the my-mom-still-won't-do-it dept.

Kelly writes "Google is now urging Gmail users to drop Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) in favor of Firefox or Chrome. Google recently removed Firefox from the Google Pack bundle, replaced it with Chrome, then added a direct download link for Chrome on Google and YouTube. Google's decision to list IE6 as an unsupported Gmail browser does not affect just consumers: Tens of thousands of small- and mid-sized businesses that run Google Apps hosted services may dump IE6 as well. What's especially interesting is the fact that Mozilla is picking up two out of three browser users that Microsoft surrenders."

Submission + - Yellowstone Supervolcano Making Strange Rumblings

Submitted by

Frosty Piss

on Wednesday March 14, 2007 @10:46PM

Frosty Piss writes: "Supervolcanoes can sleep for centuries or millennia before producing incredibly massive eruptions that can drop ash across an entire continent. One of the largest supervolcanoes in the world lies beneath Yellowstone National Park. Yet significant activity continues beneath the surface. And the activity has been increasing lately, scientists have discovered. In addition, the nearby Teton Range of mountains, in a total surprise, is getting shorter. The findings, reported this month in the Journal of Journal of Geophysical Research, suggest that a slow and gradual movement of a volcano over time can shape a landscape more than a violent eruption."

Submission + - OSSDI to Distribute OpenOffice.org in Schools

Submitted by

Xampper

on Sunday January 28, 2007 @01:29PM

Xampper writes: "The Open Source Software Distribution Initiative (OSSDI) is a new organization planning to distribute open source alternatives to expensive commercial software packages, primarily in education. Initially, OSSDI will be focusing its efforts on giving away professionally pressed CD-ROMS containing the OpenOffice.org software suite within school districts in poverty-stricken regions. These distributions will give students access to a professional office suite, which they might otherwise be unable to afford, while spreading awareness of open source software."

Submission + - Fight DRM while there's time

Submitted by ageor on Sunday January 28, 2007 @11:28AM

ageor writes: It seems (not only) to me that DRM is about far more than intellectual property. It's also about monopoly and freedom of choice. It's one of those cases where us, the consumers, have to decide against accepting the new control-and-money-making-is-all-we-care-about industry's rules.

The whole matter is very well put in DRM, Vista and your rights where you can read about it and also follow the subject as deep as you like through numerous relevant links.

Submission + - Relocation Package Bait and Switch

Submitted by on Wednesday January 24, 2007 @05:55PM

An anonymous reader writes: I got a R&D job offer with a large company in Philadelphia area last week. It includes a relocation package that they told me was standard for my position.

After I accepted the offer and made plans to terminate my current job, the recruiter handed me off to their relocation department, where I was told that my relocation package is significantly less than what I was promised. The relocation manager tells me that whenever there is conflict between their relocation policy and the offer, their internal relocation policy supersedes.

What I want to know from my fellow Geeks are : 1) Is this type of switch-and-bait common practice in corporate America? 2) If you have gone through this nightmare before, any advice on how to respond to it?

Submission + - OSDL and the Free Standards Group to Merge

Submitted by

Andy Updegrove

on Sunday January 21, 2007 @10:18PM

Andy Updegrove writes: "On Sunday afternoon, the Free Standards Group (FSG) signed an agreement to combine forces with Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) to form a new organization — The Linux Foundation. The result of this consolidation will be to dedicate the resources of the combined membership to "accelerate the growth of Linux by providing a comprehensive set of services to compete effectively with closed platforms." Jim Zemlin, currently the head of FSG, will lead the new organization as its Executive Director. The new organization will continue to support Linux in a variety of ways, including by providing economic support to Linus Torvalds and other key kernel developers, managing the Linux trademark, and providing legal protection to developers through such initiatives as the Open Source as Prior Art project, the Patent Commons, and the Linux Legal Defense Fund. It will also continue FSG's standardization efforts by maintaining the Linux Standard Base (LSB) and the Linux Developer Network (all major Linux distributions comply with the LSB today). Finally, it will "respond with authority" to disinformation and other attacks, and foster innovation by hosting collaboration in areas such as desktop interfaces, accessibility, printing, and application packaging, among many others. All in all, a tall order, but eminently possible given its membership: The Linux Foundation's founding members will include every major company in the Linux industry, including Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Intel, NEC, Novell, Oracle and Red Hat, as well as many community groups, universities and industry end users. http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/articl e.php?story=2007012113540789"

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