rrohbeck - Slashdot User

Submission + - ACTA is back (eff.org)

Submitted by rrohbeck on Monday October 15, 2012 @01:50PM

rrohbeck writes: From eff.org:

The shadow of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is back in Europe. It is disguised as CETA, the Canada-European Union and Trade Agreement.

A comparison of the leaked draft Canada-EU agreement shows the treaty includes a number of the same controversial provisions, specifically concerning criminal enforcement, private enforcement by Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and harsh damages.

Submission + - Amazon US refunds Windows license fee too

Submitted by rrohbeck on Friday July 31, 2009 @01:54AM

rrohbeck writes: Today Amazon credited my card with $65.45.

After ordering an Eee PC 1005 HA from amazon.com, I asked them for a refund for the cost of Windows XP via the "Contact us" form. At first they told me to cancel any items on my order that I wanted a refund for, but after I explained that XP was preinstalled on the machine they got it. They asked what the cost of the OS was, and I answered that I had no idea but that Amazon UK refunded GBP 40.00. Within a few hours I got a response saying "I've requested a refund of $65.45 to your Visa card."

Somehow I doubt that Amazon will charge Asus or even Microsoft, but maybe they will one day if more people do this.

Eeebuntu 3.01 doesn't have network (wired or wireless) drivers for the new generation of Eee PCs, but Karmic Alpha-3 does and looks quite good already. I love the Launcher! Now let's see how long the battery will last if I run Linux only off the SDHC card and don't spin the hard drive much. Voila, poor man's SSD.

Oh and peeling off the "Designed for Microsoft Windows XP" sticker is easy too.

Submission + - Forry Ackerman dead at 92

Submitted by rrohbeck on Saturday December 06, 2008 @01:35PM

rrohbeck writes: Forrest J Ackerman, the "world's biggest fan", literary agent for names like Isaac Asimov, A.E. van Vogt, or Hugo Gernsback, writer of over 2,000 articles and short stories, and creator of the term sci-fi, died at the age of 92. In recent years he had to sell the "Ackermansion" and most of the about 300,000 items of memorabilia it stored due to mounting health bills. The LA Times prints an obituary today.

Submission + - Strong methane emissions on the Siberian shelf

Submitted by rrohbeck on Friday September 26, 2008 @08:09PM

rrohbeck writes: The Independent reports brand new results of high (100x normal) concentrations of methane above the sea surface over the Siberian continental shelf and a large number of methane plumes bubbling up. This is probably from methane clathrate breaking up due to higher water temperatures.

Submission + - Blue Origin building DC-X lookalike

Submitted by

rrohbeck

on Wednesday January 10, 2007 @03:37AM

rrohbeck writes: "The New York Times has a story on what Blue Origin, [Amazon.com founder] Jeff Bezos' space company is up to after his Texas land grab. A couple of Flash videos show a short successful test hop of the "Goddard" test vehicle.

The Goddard has a science-fiction sleekness. Videos show the craft taking off and landing again with a loud whooshing sound. In one view, one of the nine rocket nozzles jitters as it maintains the ship's attitude. Goddard resembles the DC-X, another vertical-takeoff-and-landing craft under development in the 1990s by McDonnell Douglas for the Defense Department and NASA until the government pulled the plug.
And in case you're an aerospace engineer, they're hiring."

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