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Microsoft's 'Hands-On' Linux Lab
aneroid writes "eWeek has a story on Microsoft allowing a third party to present a 'hands-on lab' that allowed attendees to play with a range of Linux desktop software at its annual worldwide partner show in Minnesota this weekend. It was run by Don Johnson (not the actor), who explained in true MS style how the things that are considered wrong with Windows are planned or an advantage. Whether it's for the desktop or server, wasn't clear. People did get to 'see the Apache Web server in action' and a KDE desktop.Is this more of a preemptive strike where the Linux experience is so bad (slow machines, old software) they wouldn't bother to check it out in the future, thus securing an existing partner/client? Or are they that confident people won't stray if they're invited to sample the competition? According to the Register, 'Microsoft is unlikely to stop developers moving to Linux and open source so its best hope lies in articulating a strategy of co-existence to limit the 'damage' to its business.'"
The teenage miracle worker The Vancouver teenager who treated Ronnie Hawkins for cancer is reading my aura. We are sitting opposite each other in the darkened cocktail lounge of a Toronto hotel at midday. Officially, the room is closed but Adam, his father, Frank, and I have slipped past the barriers in search of a quiet place to talk. I have shown them a small lump on my left wrist and Adam has shifted his gaze to somewhere over my left shoulder. "I won't go inside," he says, meaning he won't plunge visually into my cardiovascular and lymphatic systems to analyze the obstruction, like a human CT scan. He has to conserve his energy for a six-hour collective healing session the next day for 75 fibromyalgia patients. Instead, he checks my aura for energy blockages, a task that in dim light apparently takes him little effort. "The problem's not really your wrist," he says, eyes surveying the middle distance. "I see something on your neck, on the left side. "Well, on both sides, really, but especially the left. On the right I see more like a shadow. Your left shoulder blade and left arm -- something's going on there." His words resonate with me. If I don't stretch regularly, I get a sharp stitch in my upper left shoulder blade from typing, and stiffness down the arm. The shadow sounds like residue from sharp pains that shot down my right arm for months in 1993, after a barber suddenly twisted my neck. A doctor couldn't help, but several treatments from an osteopath resolved the matter. Adam seemed able to read the patterns and see the interconnections. By contrast, a doctor I had consulted diagnosed it as a (harmless) ganglionic cyst and gave me a choice between having it surgically removed and waiting to see if it disappeared. He was helpful but never seemed to consider the body as an organic whole, or question how the lump formed in the first place -- the kind of approach that gets people like me curious about alternative medicine. When I first showed Adam my wrist, I was asking him about the self-healing techniques he teaches. How does the mind help heal the body, I wanted to know? What is this life force, this qi energy, that Eastern philosophers speak of? And why, with all of Western medicine's pharmaceuticals, advanced surgical procedures and technological diagnostics, do theories of energy and interconnectedness sound so intuitively worth pursuing? In the alternative-medicine world, Adam commands a large and loyal following. His patients include a former U.S. lunar astronaut; he has just signed a six-figure, three-book contract with a major publisher, which includes the reissue of two self-published books; and his mass healing sessions of up to 450 people always sell out well in advance. Three are scheduled for Toronto this summer -- an event today at the Westin Prince Hotel in North York, and two others at the same venue Aug. 27 and 28. At them, Adam performs what he calls "distance energy healing." From across a room or a continent, he says, he can mentally conjure up images of a person's insides, identify a disease or ailment, and expel it. Most people know him from the Ronnie Hawkins case. Three years ago, the rockabilly singer was diagnosed at Toronto General Hospital with terminal pancreatic cancer. Three biopsies failed to prove cancer but an inoperable tumour growing around an artery meant his condition was fatal anyway. He was expected to be dead in three months. Through his manager, Hawkins contacted Adam, 16 at the time. From 5,000 kilometres away, he performed a series of energy treatments on Hawkins through a photograph of the singer. Within eight months the tumour had disappeared entirely and Hawkins declared himself cured. Now, to people close to him, Adam appears poised to take distance energy healing to a wider public. Several factors seem to be working for him. At not quite 19, he exudes immediate personal appeal. He is six foot two, with calm brown eyes and an athletic build. He seems intelligent but not intellectual. He speaks like any teenager at a suburban mall, sometimes r
this is not the first post so you don't have to read this
Finally a ham radio article! On /. even!!!!
niggaz
off topic, but what was the deal with don johnson and the money he got caught with in Europe? the news kinda disappeared.
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
this thread soon will become about apple OSX. resistance is futile.
Every day on slashdot I read Win v. Linux comments. What I'd like to see is OS X versus Linux, from the desktop perspective.
here comes the 'off topic' but I just couldn't think of anywhere else to post this.
gfhfg