Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Little Red Hoax, Firefly, Google
A little red hoax. MyNameIsFred writes "In an earlier Slashdot story, it was reported that a student was investigated for requesting Mao's Little Red Book on inter-library loan. It appears that the story was a hoax."
Firefly franchise death greatly exaggerated. Kazzahdrane writes "Joss Whedon has spoken out against the Entertainment Weekly that claimed he has turned his back on the Firefly/Serenity franchise. From his post at Whedonesque: 'All right, now I have to jump in and set the record straight. EW is a fine rag, but they do take things out of context. Obviously when I said I had "closure", what I meant was "I hate Serenity, I hated Firefly, I think my fans are stupid and Nathan Fillion smells like turnips." But EW's always got to put some weird negative spin on it.'"
Intelligent Design tantamount to teaching religion. rcs1000 writes "After much deliberation Judge John Jones has ruled that teaching Intelligent Design is tantamount to teaching religion. The judge was pretty forthright, arguing that 'it is unconstitutional to teach Intelligent Design as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.'"
EU launches first Galileo navigation satellite. Xserv writes "The EU launched the first in the series of Galileo Navigation Satellites signifying the start of a lessening of dependency on US Military GPS Systems in Europe. The new Galileo system is touted to be much more accurate and will also be more accessible on higher latitude zones where the US GPS system is known to be less than ideal."
Why AOL chose Google over Microsoft. gambit3 writes to tell us that the Wall Street Journal has a nice article deconstructing AOL's decision to go with Google instead of Microsoft. From the article: "Two weeks ago, when Time Warner Inc. was on the cusp of signing a sweeping online deal with Microsoft Corp., a team of executives from the media company's AOL unit traveled to Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Wash., to make sure everything was in order. When the executives returned, they reported back to Time Warner's top deal negotiator, Olaf Olafsson, with some less-than-satisfactory findings. They had found some of Microsoft's technology to be clunky, while the contemplated joint venture with the software king contained what they thought were financial pitfalls."
Endgame in Blackberry patent case. waynegoode writes "The New York Times is reporting that a recent decision could spell the end of the NTP vs. RIM Blackberry case. The US Patent Office apparently took the unusual step of telling NTP & RIM it will likely reject all 5 of NTP's patents, meaning the basis for NTP's lawsuit and it's billion dollar claim will most likely disappear. This puts pressure on the judge to not issue an injunction against RIM but to instead delay until the USPTO gets around to actually rejecting the patents."
Katrina aftermath still making waves. An anonymous reader writes "Approximately 50 people have been indicted in relation to a scheme that drained almost $200,000 from a Red Cross fund designed to put money into the hands of Hurricane Katrina victims. From the article: 'Seventeen of the accused worked at the Red Cross claim center in Bakersfield, Calif., which handled calls from storm victims across the country and authorized cash payments to them. The others were the workers' relatives and friends, prosecutors said last week.'"
More cloning doubts emerge. LukePieStalker writes "The Boston Globe is reporting that the South Korean cloning team whose troubles have recently been chronicled here on Slashdot used "borrowed" photos in their Science journal article that "appear in the journal Molecules and Cells, in a research article by another Korean team, submitted before the Science paper". In the earlier article, the cells in the photo are described as having been created without cloning."
Predicted comment breakdown for this Slashback I love the ID stories, those are where I can tell rational people from kooks by my "Fans/Foes" changes that day.
Trolling is a art,
News stories like this make me sad. I am sad for the people of New Orleans who are suffering. They have lost so much, many have lost loved ones. Many have lost homes. But I am also sad that there is a small number of people who could take advantage of others and steal funds which should have helped the people of New Orleans. What kind of deprived life can a person have where they think it is okay to steal from the less fortunate?
And what is worse is these kinds of actions will make people less likely to donate. They will be wondering "Is my gift really going to help people, or will it be sucked up by greedy people taking advantage of a situation". What can a person do? Give and hope for the best??
I learned my ABC's watching television! I learned science watching Voltron.
Seems the editor forgot to post any link to any article about the discovery of the Little Red Book hoax. Here's one.
0 5/a01lo719.htm
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/12-05/12-24-
AC: Only on slashdot... could the sentence "My hovercraft is full of eels." be moderated "+4, Insightful
In my defense, when I submitted the story I included a link direct to Joss Whedon's comment, but it seems it wasn't included when the story was posted (thanks for accepting my submission though, mighty /. Overlords!).
Linky: http://whedonesque.com/comments/9027
In case you can't be bothered with the link:
"All right, now I have to jump in and set the record straight. EW is a fine rag, but they do take things out of context. Obviously when I said I had 'closure', what I meant was "I hate Serenity, I hated Firefly, I think my fans are stupid and Nathan Fillion smells like turnips." But EW's always got to put some weird negative spin on it. But so we're clear once and for all: If you read a quote saying "I'd love to do more in this 'verse with these actors in any medium" all I'm saying is that Nathan has a turnipy odor. It's not his fault, he doesn't eat a lot of them but everyone else in the cast noticed it and tht's not really something I'm prepared to deal with any more. And Jewel said outright she wouldn't do scenes with him except stuff like the SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER funeral scene which was outside in a high SPOILER wind. So if I do manage to find another incarnation for my beloved creation, it will have been totally against my will.
I hope that clears everything up. Oh, and when I say I want to do a Spike movie, it means I have a bunion on my toe.
-joss (by which I mean Tim)
(no, actually me.)
If that still doesn't make any sense, Joss is basically saying that EW took what he said and claimed he meant something different. He still wants to make Firefly/Serenity stories if he can.
I really think my Freshman biology book got the creationism vs. evolution thing right. In the first chapter, probably within the first few pages, as it was introducing students to biology at large, it mentioned how most, if not all, of modern biology is built on the theory of evolution.
It went on to say that there are groups which believe that the earth and the creatures as we know them, were created by a higher power. And while this could be possible, it was beyond the scope of a science class as it was not a scientifically testable hypothesis. It finished with suggesting that, should you wish to learn more about the idea of creationism, you should contact the clergy of your church of choice.
Simple, Factual, not more than a parapgrah. Now if only I could remember who published that text book.
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.