Slashback: Simpsons, Buyouts, Droid

Slashback tonight with another notch up for Virginia Tech's Big Mac, another downloadable robot design for the Mini-ITX crowd, updates (both in the negative) regarding two recently speculated-upon business mergers, and more. Read on for the details.

Shooting down those trial balloons. Glitch Tybalt writes with an update to the report that German ISP T-Online might acquire AOL: "This just in from The Register: apparently the buyout wasn't really going to be a buyout, only 70%, and there haven't been any confirmed reports on this. One spokesman for T-Online said '[Such a deal] is more unlikely than likely,'"

On a similar note, gletham writes "A flurry of reports [like this one] over the past day indicated that Nokia was talking with Psion and was seeking to buy the company. This latest piece from Reuters confirms that the topic was merely a rumor and speculation gone rampant. Mind you, with Psion's stock jumping 10% and discussion on Nokia lists and forums quite brisk, you can't help but speculate that Nokia may in fact consider this in the future. The timing is very good, particularly considering Motorola's recent selloff of Symbian ownership. I can't wait to here an official report from Nokia on this one! If all works out, we may even witness a rebirth of the Psion handheld using Series 90!"

Hey, maybe they just hadn't thought of it yet ... wo1verin3 writes "Previously reported was that Fox News Considered Suing Fox's 'The Simpsons' for using a news ticker spoofing the news service. Apparently this was only satire and an apology has been issued.

'Nonetheless, "The Simpsons" (the show, not the characters) issued an apology yesterday: "Matt was being satirical and certainly there was never any issue between the show and Fox News. We regret any confusion.'"

At this rate, it'll be #1 by March! An anonymous reader writes "According to the latest round of leaked information to reach The Register, the Virginia Tech Big Mac has reached 10.28 teraflops. A solid #3 win, 'This places it behind the 5,120 processor Earth Simulator system - 35.9 teraflops - and the 8,160 processor ASCI Q system - 13.8 teraflops.'"

Hold tight, though: Elysdir points to a AP article, pointing out that "the Top 500 list will be officially announced Nov. 18, so it's not clear to me whether the #3 ranking is official or not."

A Droid You Can Build From Downloadable Plans. In this article, LinuxDevices checks out OAP, an open source droid. OAP shares the same VIA Mini-ITX mainboard as the VIA-Roboteq "PC-bot" featured in an earlier Slashdot story, but OAP's project goals seem a little more ambitious. According to the FAQ, OAP will eventually be able to 'Read your favourite news web pages or blogs aloud to you.' A personal droid that reads Slashdot aloud to you -- what more could you ask for?"

(A girlfriend?)

Comments

Stupid Fox news

[Leroy_Brown242]

If you can't handle people poking a little fun at you, you're in the wrong business!

If you're in the public view, you're going to have people that want to poke fun at you. if a show as insanely popular as the Simpsons is making fun of you, I'd say it's a good thing.

Re:Stupid Fox news

[Lshmael]

Of course, when that show runs on your network, it is not a good thing.

Re:Stupid Fox news

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't handle reading the friggin' article, you're posting on the right website!

Re:Stupid Fox news

[Aqua OS X]

Ya, but Rupert Murdoch and the gang are fairly die hard conservatives... and the folks that write the Simpsons are quite obviously the complete opposite.

I'm not surprised to see stuff like this happen.

Re:Stupid Fox news

[dnahelix]

You don't get it, man. The Simpsons and Fox News are owned by the SAME CORPORATION!

Re:Stupid Fox news

[straybullets]

> are owned by the SAME CORPORATION!
i don't think so : fox news just pays for the right to broadcast and stuff like that , but the characters are a property of matt groening. And the team that make the cartoon is an independant company as well. Or something like that.

Re:Stupid Fox news

[caseydk]

RTFA. Matt Groening lied (says it was a joke).

The threat of a lawsuit never happened.

Check out the writers sometime. They are across the political and religious spectrum.

Re:Stupid Fox news

[edoug]

Come on, how can this be offtopic???? The slashback specifically talked about the Simpons/Fox News comment....Jeez...

Great!

[Geek of Tech]

>> According to the latest round of leaked information to reach The Register, the Virginia Tech Big Mac has reached 10.28 teraflops. A solid #3 win, 'This places it behind the 5,120 processor Earth Simulator system - 35.9 teraflops - and the 8,160 processor ASCI Q system - 13.8 teraflops.

Now I can have the worlds most powerful "Hello World" ever!

Re:Great!

[Billly Gates]

I thought it was supposed to run Duke Nukem Forever?

Re:Great!

[imac.usr]

Now I can have the worlds most powerful "Hello World" ever!

And with the distributed build system built-in, think of how much compile time you'll save!

Re:Great!

[i.r.id10t]

Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to do simple stdout processing. Call that job satisfaction? 'Cos I don't.

Always liked Marvin...

Re:Great!

[back_pages]

This is a direct quote from a professor of computer science at Virginia Tech in an email sent to me.

I'm sorry, but I don't know what a "Hello, World" program is, so I don't get the joke/point. This particular greeting must be something common to your generation.

Thank goodness that he is not responsible for the supercomputer, hm?

Re:Great!

[Dr. Photo]

Yes, but you're still 25.6 teraflops short of "Hello, Simulated Earth!"

Re:Great!

[jasenj1]

Soon to be seen at Mac World San Francisco:
Big Mac does Photoshop benchmark in 0.0001 seconds. G5 retains "fastest PC on the planet" title.

Seriously, Apple ought to milk this Big Mac supercomputer for all the good PR they can.

- Jasen.

Fox who?

[Anonymous Coward]

Previously reported was that Fox News Considered Suing Fox's 'The Simpsons' for using a news ticker spoofing the news service. Apparently this was only satire and an apology has been issued.

I live in the UK, and until I started watching The Simpsons, I had never even heard of Fox. Advertisers would pay good money for this sort of publicity.

Sueing them? Only in America!

Re:Fox who?

[ConceptJunkie]

20th Century Fox is only one of the largest media conglomerates in the world. And ironically, the Fox TV network owes its very existence to "The Simpsons" which along with "Married, With Children" were about the only highly rated shows it had for the first 5 years.

Fox News has been around for several years and is now beating CNN's pants off. This might have something to do with CNN's complete lack of credibility in the last few years, but can also probably be attributed to Fox News politically right slant (at least in contrast to the other TV news outlets...)

Re:Fox who?

[isaac]

I live in the UK, and until I started watching The Simpsons, I had never even heard of Fox. Advertisers would pay good money for this sort of publicity.

You only think you've never heard of Fox. It's just the American face of News Corporation, which owns BSkyB (and Sky-everything-else) and a hefty chunk of your newspapers.

Over here they own a few papers, a few dozen cable/satellite channels with Fox branding, the Fox broadcast TV network (whither the Simpsons), and DirecTV, the leading satellite broadcaster.

Same scenario, same right-wing bias, different names.

-Isaac

Re:Fox who?

[D iz a n k Meister]

. . . attributed to Fox News politically right slant

So what your saying is being politically right is now politically correct?

Re:Fox who?

[bfree]

If you'd said that he might be surprised to discover the sky doesn't make "The Simpsons" then you might have actually had a semi meaningful post. Sky (yet another Murdoch company) launched and built it's network in the UK based on a diet of Simpsons and Premiership football. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant percentage of UK viewers believes Sky owns and funds "The Simpsons", and as Fox and Sky are both Murdoch perhaps they'd be right!

Re:Fox who?

[donutello]

You only think you've never heard of Fox. It's just the American face of News Corporation, which owns BSkyB (and Sky-everything-else) and a hefty chunk of your newspapers.

Over here they own a few papers, a few dozen cable/satellite channels with Fox branding, the Fox broadcast TV network (whither the Simpsons), and DirecTV, the leading satellite broadcaster.

For a second there I thought you knew what you were talking about. Unfortunately, you don't.

Same scenario, same right-wing bias, different names.

Rupert Murdoch also owns Star TV in Asia which is happily leftist.

Re:Fox who?

[be-fan]

I think he's saying that the blatent right-wing bias appeals more to mainstream America...

Re:Fox who?

[ConceptJunkie]

Maybe I'm biased but I don't find Fox as blatantly right-wing and Time Magazine, the Washington Post, CBS News or CNN are blatantly left-wing. The biggest thing I get tired of on Fox is the undue attention to pointless, non-newsworthy stuff like the Paris Hilton sex tape. I like O'Reilly even if he is a pompous ass, but I don't like Hannity. He's like the neighbors Scotty who barks all night at the trees. I disagree with Colmes 95% of the time but he's a much better debater. I also like MSNBC, particularly Chris Matthews.

In any event, it's impossible to be human and not have a bias, the best bet is to follow many sources, including news magazines (particularly in-depth ones like "The Economist") and even the Internet.

Re:Fox who?

[Babbster]

I think it has less to do with the right-ward slant and more to do with it being more entertaining to watch. CNN's most entertaining show is Larry King Live and he was tiresome to me back when he was on radio - [that jerk] O'Reilly on Fox beats King hands down in the entertainment department. Personally, I like Buchanan, Press, Matthews and Olberman (the MSNBC line-up), but I'm weird that way.

Oh, and before I get the snot kicked out of me for equating interest in news programming with entertainment, I would point out that with one 24-hour news channel, entertainment can be secondary...with three 24-hour news channels (CNN, MSNBC and Fox) competing, you've got to have more than just a person with great hair reading off a TelePrompter. :)

Re:Fox who?

[be-fan]

I'm definately biased, and I find Time, Washington Post, CBS News, and CNN to be perfectly unbiased. In fact, CBS and CNN are a bit too conservative for my taste. Add Newsweek to your list, btw.

Frankly, I see no point in trying to pretend that either side is biased or unbiased. Individuals are inherently biased, and even if an unbiased source did exist, we biased humans would never know it.

That said, my problem with FOX News is that it represents the basest, most knee-jerk kind of conservatism. Both conservatives and liberals have that segment of their party that they're ashamed of. The conservatives have the unthinking knee-jerk faction, which simply holds conservative ideals because they don't know any better, and the liberals have the brainless faction, who have no grip of reality. I don't see CNN corrupted by the latter as much as FOX is corrupted by the former. I know a lot of very conservative people, and can debate with them at great length without losing my respect for them. Yet, watching FOX just makes me physically ill.

Re:Fox who?

[ConceptJunkie]

I don't agree with your assesments of Time, et al, but I will agree with you on one thing. When I debate and intelligent and thoughtful person I find I tend to agree with them more than disagree regardless of their political persuation. Clearly there are issues on which I would differ with almost anyone, but for people who can get beyond the knee-jerking and the slogan-chanting, common ground is easy to find, and disagreements can be respectful and educational.

Unfortunately, thoughfulness and intelligence in debate are seldom found on TV, a little more on talk radio, but mostly in the printed word.

Re:Fox who?

[Galvatron]

More likely it's just that Fox is able to capture the vast majority of the right leaning viewers, while the other networks, along with CNN, have to split up the left leaning viewers.

Re:Fox who?

[Maxwell309]

Media outlets are only as liberal as the conservative corporations that own them.

Re:Fox who?

[Maxwell309]

Star TV and the Murdoch machine were liberal and anticommunist until Rupert got the opportunity to get into buisness with the Chinese Central Government. Rupert Murdoch is not a conservative, he just cares about his bottom line, which usually improves with conservative governance.

Re:Fox who?

[fenix down]

I still don't get this. How is it impossible to be unbiased? Just because everybody hires former underwear models to do their news rather than journalists doesn't mean that journalists are mythical fairy creaures that never existed. We've had 600-odd years to figure this stuff out, and believe it or not, we actually came up with an entire field just for figuring out how to be unbiased. Many people have taken advantage of that knowledge, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity have not.

Anyway, I like Chris too. He's not exactly a quality news source, but it's funny when his producer invites Anne Coulter on as a "Constitutional scholar" and he just spends the whole show yelling at her for being an idiot.

Re:Fox who?

[babbage]

Same scenario, same right-wing bias, different names.

Rupert Murdoch also owns Star TV in Asia which is happily leftist.

Maybe the lesson then is that the Murdoch empire is happy to get in bed with whatever power structure happens to be in charge in one of his markets.

That's hardly encouraging.

Re:Fox who?

[Enry]

How is it impossible to be unbiased?

Each person interprets the news in their own way.
Think the US Civil War". To the North, it's just the plain ol' "Civil War". To the South, it's often called "the war of Northern Aggression". Everyone puts their own spin on things.

To say that someone like Peter Jennings is biased reading the news is absurd - he's just reading what's on the teleprompter. To say that someone like Peter Overby is biased is a bit closer because he's doing actual news reports. To say that someone like Ann Coulter is biased is pretty obvious - she has a known agenda, even if it appears to wander every now and then.

The trick is to detect and compensate for the bias. Unfortunately, that requires you get your news from a variety of sources (Fox, NPR, AP wire reports, etc.) and see if out of all that mess, you can get the real story. Good thing we have the Internet.

Re:Fox who?

[1u3hr]

Rupert Murdoch also owns Star TV in Asia which is happily leftist.

Star TV is leftist? If you mean, "doesn't criticise the Chinse government", maybe. Other than that, look at their schedule. MTV, nature documentaries, sports, movies. All apolitical. The "news" includes Fox News -- leftist?

StarTV is simply entertainment. You don't get permission to broadcast in Asia otherwise. That asshole Murdoch quickly pulled BBC news when China objected to its coverage.

Re:Fox who?

[ninewands]

Maybe the lesson then is that the Murdoch empire is happy to get in bed with whatever power structure happens to be in charge in one of his markets.

Maybe the lesson to be learned is that the Murdoch media empire will present any political viewpoint that will yield a profit in a particular market. Considering the corporate nature of the "News Business" nowadays would you expect anything less?

Re:Fox who?

[be-fan]

I don't agree with your assesments of Time, et al, but I will agree with you on one thing.
>>>>>>>>>>
That's precisely my point. I see a lot of conservative principles as wrong on face value. I simply have different priorities than most conservatives, which makes my interpretation of various events totally different. For example, when I see someone one Fox talking about ignoring the UN, it annoys me. To me, internationalization is more important than getting the absolute best deal for the US. To somebody who has different priorities, those statements may seem perfectly understandible and self-evident. So what seems like balanced reporting to one side seems horrible biased to the other. There is no point in trying to pretend differently.

Re:Fox who?

[cosmo7]

I am confident that most British people understand that Murdoch owns a massive array of intertwined media conglomerates, TV networks, newspapers and sports teams. They generally accept this on the proviso that he continues to deliver The Simpsons.

time travel?

[freedommatters]

hmmm , maybe this is a really funny way to announce the discovery of a working time machine ?

Hang on for a second...

[herrvinny]

OAP shares the same VIA Mini-ITX mainboard as the VIA-Roboteq "PC-bot" featured in an earlier Slashdot story

But the robot in that /. story required a $500 motor controller. Forget that. Just give me the text to speech components and any important access components (i.e. web parsers, etc) and I forgo the motors. I can actually carry the computer from place to place and let it read me the stories wherever. Or mount the computer on an rc car and drive it around.

Specific project goals include:[of the robot, from the sourceforge page]

Design a coherent set of modular components (hardware and software) that conform to standards (where possible)

Minimize cost to $1,500 - $2,000, about the cost of a good PC

Develop a low-cost real-time vision system for use as the primary spatial sensor.

Thousand dollars for a robot? No thanks.

Re:Hang on for a second...

[DrEldarion]

Or mount the computer on an rc car and drive it around.

You should do this and get one of those incredibly fast gas-powered ones so you can get some hot hot doppler shift action going.

Re:Hang on for a second...

[cfuse]

Thousand dollars for a robot? No thanks.

Well how much are you prepared to pay? You cheap bastard!

Re:Hang on for a second...

[driftingwalrus]

I think the controller is kind of a rip-off. You could easily build something more functional for less than $500 by dealing with AutomationDirect. They sell AC drives and PLCs that will do the job perfectly.

Re:Hang on for a second...

[fferreres]

It's true, I haven't read the article. But seems to me that there are a lot of web parsers available. Or you could just parse RSS feeds or make some simple regexps on your favorite website, and pipe stuff to festival.

The guy that introduced me to Linux for a second try (I have done a first try with slackware in 1997, sucesfull, but I didn't know what to do with it at all, ie: no office suite, no games, no mozilla, etc) has his Licq linked to festival, as well as some other tailored alerts as well as selected email address, so that things where spoken aloud to him with a nice sexy (?) young woman for him. It was actually scary, but funny...

I've tryed that recently with Gaim, to let me know when my girlfriend was online, and together with other packages, I was able to listen to what she type... over my cell phone :-)

Re:Nice backslap

[Anonymous Coward]

Just persuade RealDoll to build a model with an enclosure for a controller, and it can be your robotic project and your girlfriend!

Re:Nice backslap

[BubbaTheBarbarian]

I like The registers take on that...

Biting the hand that feeds IT

Karma dogma, mama, tata!!!!

How to survive satire.

[quinkin]

Laugh.

Don't sue, don't threaten, don't make yourself an international farce by responding in a knee-jerk litigous manner.

Perhaps you could even learn from something (it is hard to satire a logical and reasonable issue)...

Q.

Re:How to survive satire.

[cloudmaster]

I'm pretty sure that the idea of suing was just a rumor, anyway, and that the apology was merely issued for political reasons. Then again, I read the article... :)

Re:How to survive satire.

[jafuser]

Why laugh when you can profit?

I'm sure that's in the rules of acquisition somewhere...

Come on...

[ealar dlanvuli]

"Previously reported was that Fox News Considered Suing Fox's 'The Simpsons' for using a news ticker spoofing the news service. Apparently this was only satire and an apology has been issued.

'Nonetheless, "The Simpsons" (the show, not the characters) issued an apology yesterday: "Matt was being satirical and certainly there was never any issue between the show and Fox News. We regret any confusion.'"

Does anyone really believe that?

Re:Come on...

[kalidasa]

I don't. I heard the interview, he sounded serious enough on that one.

Re:Come on...

[helix400]

Does anyone really believe that?

I hope your referring to Matt supposedly being satirical, and not Fox News supposedly suing the Simpsons.

The way it appears, Matt Groening (either satircal, or flat out lying...and it appears he was just lying) claimed Fox News was going to sue him for that episode. Well, Fox News never claimed they would, and so Matt Groening and the Simpsons staff had to issue an apology.

Ya ya, I know it's Slashdot, and everyone hates Fox News. But this appears to be a case where Fox News isn't to blame.

Re: Come on...

[Black Parrot]

> The way it appears, Matt Groening (either satircal, or flat out lying...and it appears he was just lying) claimed Fox News was going to sue him for that episode. Well, Fox News never claimed they would, and so Matt Groening and the Simpsons staff had to issue an apology.

Still kind of funny... got in trouble with them for pretending to get in trouble with them.

Re:Come on...

[ealar dlanvuli]

Cause you know, there is no way people could influence internal politics and make him rescind his earlier (most likely accurate) statements.

If nothing happened, why is there a rule against him doing it again? It's a bit suspicious. Such rules don't end up in corperate policies easily.

hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

In Britain + Ireland, anyway, OAP means Old Age Pensioner. Not the image you want to associate with your robot?

Re:Nice backslap

[Anonymous Coward]

(a girlfriend?)

RTFA. this crack was appended as a response to "what more could you ask for?"

study english.

you too, can see that this comment was not addressed to the OAP author(s).

How about correcting Simpsons story on Front Page?

[Nova Express]

This is like one of those newspaper stories that procliams COMMANDER TACO A MURDERER! on the front page in 48 point type, and then three days later there's a little correction in a box at the bottom of the last column on A-42 that reads "the story about Commander Taco being a murderer on the front page of Tuesdays Daily Slasher was in error. Another man named Commander Taco was convicted of penguin murder in American Samoa in 1969. The Slasher regrets the error."

Or, to bring the point home more closely to the topic at hand, it's like when Homer got slimmed for Sexual Harassment by a TV tabloid, when all he really did was peel the gummy Venus DeMillo off his companion's ass, then when the station issued an apology, they ran it as one of hundreds flashing by on the screen at the end of the program.

I guess Slashdot just isn't willing to admit that their dislike of Fox News lead them to post a false story, and now prevents them from posting a correction anywhere "above the virtual fold" for casual viewers to see without having to click the link...

I want clarification!

[John Harrison]

So Fox didn't threaten to sue itself, but is the new rule against fake news crawls real, or was it part of the joke as well?

Re:I want clarification!

[WolfWithoutAClause]

So Fox didn't threaten to sue itself, but is the new rule against fake news crawls real, or was it part of the joke as well?

No, that's real. Actually the new rule is about forbidding talking about Fox's internal rules. But they'll deny that if you ask them about it, which proves it really, doesn't it?

Re:I want clarification!

[tiled_rainbows]

He was what?

Well I never. Do you believe it? What else are they saying about it?

Man, I hate the censorship in the English press. I get as tired of Americans trotting out the old "our country is the best in the world" stuff as much as the next cheese-eating European Liberal, but I have to say that it would be rather nice to have a constitutional right to free speech over here.

Re:I want clarification!

[bill_mcgonigle]

but I have to say that it would be rather nice to have a constitutional right to free speech over here.

Do you guys have a constitution yet? Or was that just propoganda in US schools? We're taught you're pretty much still running on the Magna Carta.

If not, why not? No, really, I'm curious, why don't Brits realize the royals just drag down the country? Over here we just have Pop Stars, which, while terribly annoying, have no real influence and don't get taxpayers' money.

Re:I want clarification!

[tiled_rainbows]

Well, firstly i have to say that my only qualification for answering this question is that I am British. It sounds as though you may well have a better understanding of some areas of British history than I do.
However, as far as I understand it, we don't have a constitution - the Magna Carta must count as something else. A "Big Charter", perhaps? :) - and we certainly don't have constitutional rights. Those rights we do have are described as "residual rights" - that is, you have a right to do whatever hasn't been prohibited by law. Which sucks.
And yeah, many Brits (myself included) do believe that the Royal Family are a drag on the country. However, you don't see this views widely aired because, among other things, it is illegal to advocate republicanism in print. I kid you not.

So anyway, what's this about Charlie and the footman?

Re:I want clarification!

[bill_mcgonigle]

it is illegal to advocate republicanism in print. I kid you not.

Christ, you people need a revolution. What's the holdup? :)

Simpsons apology...

[bcolflesh]

HAHA - Rupert "Nelson" Murdoch

Re:Nice backslap

[mabhatter654]

Yeah, that's why they go for tall skinny guys. Of course it's not a bad way to go....smothered by large, soft jubblies in your sleep. That's the risk some people take just to have a girlfriend.

Oh, and until then you gotta be really nice to them...or they'll beat you up [they have to lift more than you weigh just to roll over] ...but /.er are already conditioned for that anyway...ha.

How Fox news aims to survive satire

[Chuck Chunder]

By being so ridiculous, satire is impossible.

Try CNNNN

[zambuka]

Fox News Considered Suing Fox's 'The Simpsons' for using a news ticker spoofing the news service

If they had problems with the simpsons parody imagine the fit they would have over this show

Re:Nice backslap

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wait for the robots that are both!

What? Don't you think that us geeks are capable of using science to solve our problems?

My only question it is patented already, although you have to wonder if the patent examiner who gets the patent for "Device and method for sex robot capable of (insert most of kama sutra here)" will be able to stop giggling long enough to rubber stamp it...

Re:How about correcting Simpsons story on Front Pa

[meeotch]

Oh, come on - can you blame them? I mean, who can pretend to think straight when faced with (Fox News anchor) Patti Ann Browne and her sweet... sweet can.

mitch

New Hairdo

[zephc]

Give the OAP a '70s bowl haircut, spray it silver and call it Twiggy

*beedeebeedeebeedee* Hey, Buck, I'm open source!

Re:New Hairdo

[X-Nc]

Actually his name was Twiki.

Re:New Hairdo

[zephc]

what do you wanna do, get slapped with copyright violation?!?

Re:New Hairdo

[mikeboone]

And Twiki is already open source. :)

Oddly enough...

[isomeme]

...when I picture applications for a personal droid, having it read /. to me is not the first one that springs to mind.

What is this __SLASHLINK__ thing

[3.1415926535]

in the related links section?

If you believe it...

[Steve Cowan]

You should check out Akbar & Jeff's *DIPLOMACY HUT*!

Uh-oh. I'm not buying that robot...

[stienman]

Red Hat Linux 9 was installed using mostly default installation options (you can download the ISO images for this GNU/Linux distribution free of charge from redhat.com). The exceptions to the default installation choices are listed here:
* Custom (as opposed to Personal Desktop) installation type.
* Automatic Partitioning.
* System Clock uses UTC.
* No Firewall.

All your robot are belong to me, baby. Oh, I'm sorry, you didn't want to be woken up at 2am to learn about the new FDA approved, no prescription needed Viagara alternative?

So sorry. Won't happen again. At least not for another hour...

-Adam

What more could I ask for?

[rgmoore]

A personal droid that reads Slashdot aloud to you -- what more could you ask for?

Given that this is /., I'd think that the answer would be obvious:

1. Natalie Portman, naked and petrified
2. A bowl of hot grits poured down my pants
3. A Beowulf cluster of personal droids that read Slashdot aloud to me
4. ...
5. Profit!
6. In Soviet Russia, you read Slashdot aloud to your personal droid.

Re:What more could I ask for?

[CrackHappy]

Hm... I think you could combine a lot of these for more effective list:

A beowulf cluster of natalie portman petrified droids covered in hot grits that reads Slashdot aloud

Re:What more could I ask for?

[Atmchicago]

7. I am a personal robot, you insensitive clod!

Re:What more could I ask for?

[G-funk]

6. In Soviet Russia, you read Slashdot aloud to your personal droid, you insensitive clod.

Re:What more could I ask for?

[maggard]

Missed

• I for one welcome our new personal droid overlords
• All your droids belong to us

and of course

• Personal Droids (with a link to goatse.ex*)

*address intentionially wrong

Heathkit Hero Robot

[t0qer]

I haven't seen one of these in ages, but from memory I remember them using an 8088 processor.

I think it would be a neat project to retrofit this old robot with a modern ITX mobo. Has anyone actually tried it?

Re:Repost, dupe, whatever

[darkpurpleblob]

The article was worth it if for only the comment at the end of the last story:

A personal droid that reads Slashdot aloud to you -- what more could you ask for?

(A girlfriend?)

Re:Nice backslap

[Anonymous Coward]

Just persuade RealDoll to build a model with an enclosure for a controller

I don't know about you, but I don't want my make-believe girlfriend to have a joystick.

A girlfriend?

[*Avant*]

-- what more could you ask for?" (A girlfriend?)
Nah, governments would ban it straight away as it would negatively influence a population growth ;)

Re:Translation:

[KewlPC]

You realize that faux is pronounced "foe" rather than "fox" right?

Re:Nice backslap

[dasmegabyte]

Yeah. It should have read, "A girlfriend...who reads Slashdot aloud to you." Because even those of us who actively deal with the fairer sex can agree, when she's softly trilling the copy to the latest SCO fiasco, we're in Geek Heaven.

Especially if she's in a chainmail brasierre. Mmmm.

Re:FoxNews

[valmont]

aaaah. God bless nakednews.com.

i'm guna sign up first chance i get.

Questionable intent...

[momerath2003]

Is this another one of those posts that attempts to prove the point that moderators like the old, stale jokes by putting them all together?

I know I've seen a few posts before, all of whom soon have replies from the author that it was an experiment to show that "mods are fools" or something like that.

Putting the Simpson's apology in perspective...

[wrinkledshirt]

Matt was being satirical and certainly there was never any issue between the show and Fox News.

Yeah, but it's funny, cuz it's true.

Re:Nice backslap

[ninewands]

Especially if she's in a chainmail brasierre. Mmmm.

Hmmmmm ... considering my fiancee, this is not a pretty mental image ... I'll stick to silk charmeuse, thank you very much ... and I KNOW from dealing with her that SHE prefers it my way. ;-)

Re:Translation:

[Odin's Raven]

You realize that faux is pronounced "foe" rather than "fox" right?

I'm sure the mispronunciation was merely a fox pas...

Re:Nice backslap

[gabba_gabba_hey]

ok, the only thing i find more disturbing than the RealDoll site is this site that they're advertising. ok, maybe it's just funny, but, um, WTF?!

why it's here, not there :)

[timothy]

The reason we run Slashback is to collect corrections and updates, for instance the one here about M. Groenig / Simpsons / Fox News.

If a story is still on the front page, we try to get a correction in there as an update. For stories that have rolled off the front page, though, more people will see the correction here than there, simply because readership for particular stories drops off a very steep cliff once they're in the Older Stories list instead of right there on the homepage.

I don't watch Fox News enough to particularly like or dislike it, though I will admit to liking the Simpsons. It's nearly as good as Futurama.

timothy

Formula 1

[rixstep]

the Virginia Tech Big Mac has reached 10.28 teraflops

This is a bit like Formula 1 - great PR for the company. Except Ferrari and the rest pay for their supercars.

FOX Cartoon News

[LuYu]

"Now Fox has a new rule that we can't do those little fake news crawls on the bottom of the screen in a cartoon because it might confuse the viewers into thinking it's real news," [Groening] said.

Nonetheless, "The Simpsons" (the show, not the characters) issued an apology yesterday: "Matt was being satirical and certainly there was never any issue between the show and Fox News. We regret any confusion.'"

Gee, I did not realize I was stupid enough to believe a news ticker on a humorous cartoon was real. I guess I am too stupid to know how stupid I am. However, it looks like censorship has come to my rescue again! No more confusing cartoons with real life for me. Thank you FOX.

Might this not be FOX News' problem for issuing news that might be confused with a satyrical cartoon? Maybe FOX News' content is about as believeable as "Study: 92 per cent of Democrats are gay... JFK posthumously joins Republican Party... Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple... Do Democrats Cause Cancer?" (from the Yahoo! article). Well, if they are anything like CNN, that sounds about right.

Re:Nice backslap

[Placido]

I'll need to see your girlfriend in a chainmail brasserie to decide. Please send her with a return envelope to my address.

Thanks.

New rule...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now Fox has a new rule that we can't do those little fake news crawls on the bottom of the screen in a cartoon because it might confuse the viewers into thinking it's real news.

People THAT confused should stay away from "The Simpsons" in the first place. It might change the way they see their american south.

DIS and TWX merge? Give me a break

[yerricde]

Do you really think that Bugs Bunny's company (CNN parent Time Warner) could buy out Mickey Mouse's company (ABC parent Disney) or vice versa? Not within the next Life Plus 70.

It's the right's ally and the left's Faux

[yerricde]

Faux News is the foe of the left.

"The Best Television News Program....Ever."

[autechre]

> I think it has less to do with the right-ward
> slant and more to do with it being more
> entertaining to watch.

Perhaps that's why more people get their news from The Daily Show than the Fox News network. At least they make the line between news and fiction clear, and they're certainly the most entertaining. Anyone who sees it as just a comedy show probably doesn't understand South Park either. Oh sure, Savage is funny for about 15 minutes, but then an overwhelming sense of "AAAARRRGGH!" kicks in.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20030505& s= douglas

Confused?

[Hoi Polloi]

If Fox News thinks people can't tell the difference between a cartoon and their news broadcast then either they think that their audience is incredibly stupid or they realize that Fox News is no different than a cartoon.

Re:Translation:

[cactopus]

You realize that faux is pronounced "foe" rather than "fox" right?

That sir is a fox paw! -- (see an early episode of The Daily Show)

Re:Repost, dupe, whatever

[bill_mcgonigle]

It's good to see the editors get a slam in. It lets us know they do read the submissions, at least occasionally. ;)

This was different

[Overly Critical Guy]

Fox News' concern was that the channel is also called "Fox" and that seeing a news ticker like that of "Fox News" running at the bottom would make people believe there was a real connection.

The normal Fox channel HAS run Fox News' news ticker in the past, particularly during the 9/11 attacks and also during the war with Iraq. So that was the reason behind the issue.

I think if Groening had just run it by Fox News first, there wouldn't have been a problem.

Ample evidence for lawsuit

[SharkJumper]

If Fox really DID want to sue for things like this, there would be plenty of evidence to be brought to the stand:

Simpsons swipes at Fox

I wouldn't try to get out of jury duty for that case.

Stupid Mods

[jonnyfivealive]

how in the world is parent offtopic? he comments on fox and the simpsons. this is exactly ontopic.

Re:Translation:

[pmz]

Of course. Pronouncing it properly only intensifies the play on words.

Republican shills moderated me first!

[IBitOBear]

(ok, maybe my tone *was* a little flame-baitish but one wonders if the moderators had read the book before forming their opinion of my opinion... 8-)