Slashback: Eldred, Cruise, SOAP 181
And then we saw the sharks. a9db0 writes "Part II of Doc Searl's travelogue recounting his experiences on the Geek Cruise has been posted here by the fine folks over at the Linux Journal"
In an earlier report from Geek Cruise, Linus predicted 2.6 by June 2003. If you liked the list of features being considered for 2.6, you can thank puriots0 for "the list of what's been included in time for the feature freeze for Linux 2.6", as found at kernelnewbies.org.
Peel back your eyelids and let these images flood your brain. strredwolf writes "I think we had half the story when Cartoon Network said they were going to remove Zoids and G Gundam in their Toonami block. It was more like remove Zoids, move G Gundam to Midnight Run with GI Joe, put HeMan and Transformers on full weekdays, and double up on DB and DBZ. The website and broadcast prove it now. (This report was done while watching to Toonami live.)"
And Stalke writes "Recently, rumours about Stargate SG1 7th season included it both being renewed as well as speculation that it might be cancelled. MGM and Scifi put those rumours to rest today by officially announcing a 7th season. It will begin filming next year with a full 22 episodes ordered. No word about Daniel Jackson returning though :("
Cracking down on alien fraudsters. yep writes "Administrators of the alien-hunting distributed computing experiment SETI@home have announced they will crack down on cheats who rort statistics on computing power lent to the project. The announcement follows a united protest from the chief contributors. SETI@home director David Anderson announced SETI@home would do its best to investigate users returning suspiciously high amounts of work and delete their accounts if it uncovered solid evidence of cheating."
Sure they're not. tiltowait writes "The Hartford Courant article "The FBI Has Bugged Our Public Libraries" has been retracted (this was mentioned here - but the older article has been removed). Even if the retraction can be trusted, this doesn't change the fact that the FBI can still bug libraries as freely as the CIA can assasinate with impunity, or that more McCarthyism is on the way."
This story retracts the claims of bugging made in the previous one. Since the FBI has little incentive to tell the truth on this count, I don't see what incentive anyone has to believe their denial.
Cleaning up the future for SOAP. Makarand writes "A major hurdle in finalizing the SOAP 1.2 specification has been removed. Both Epicentric, a subsidiary of Vignette, and WebMethods, which makes integration software, had said in earlier statements that they may have patents that cover the technology used in the SOAP 1.2 specification which would have made SOAP 1.2 non royalty-free hindering approval by W3C. Epicentric has now amended its earlier statement saying they no longer believe they hold any such patents, and even if they did, they are interested in making them available on a royalty-free basis. WebMethods has made no comments yet."
Vulernability of SETI@home to cheats (Score:4, Insightful)
A new low... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see... the FBI says the report wasn't true, the city librarian says the report wasn't true, the reporter says the report wasn't true, and the reporter's two anonymous sources say the story wasn't true. And the delusional /. editor's response? "Since the FBI has little incentive to tell the truth on this count, I don't see what incentive anyone has to believe their denial."
Un-fucking-believable.
Live in fear (Score:3, Insightful)
You diminish the tragedy of McCarthy with your excited little exaggerations.
As for the CIA capping terrorists:
"..hey man, nice shot!" - Filter
Re:A new low... (Score:3, Insightful)
The dear editor's point was that a retraction of a story about espionage is at least as likely to be caused by pressure as by error, and probably more so since there could be serious consequences to making up such a story, so it's not something one enters into lightly.
It's called plausible deniability.
Until It's You (Score:5, Insightful)
"..hey man, nice shot!" - Filter
Read this [csmonitor.com], particularly the part about the three peasants.
What if someone were to turn around and declare you a terrorist?
Still finding it such a good idea?
what a good slashback! (Score:4, Insightful)
no, I'm not kidding.
in all seriousness. good job
Re:A new low... (Score:4, Insightful)
"There's a gag order. When the FBI uses a court order or a subpoena to gain access to library computers or a list of the names of people who have borrowed certain books, librarians can't tell anyone - not even other librarians or you. They face a stiff federal penalty if they do."
It's one of the lovely provisions of the USAPATRIOT Act. If patriotism means locking up librarians then I'm no patriot. Blowing up a handfull of buildings isn't going to destroy America, but gutting the constitution can.
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Re:Why couldn't I go on the cruise? (Score:2, Insightful)
and it makes you a STOWAWAY, which is WORSE.
Re:Can we trust the Supreme Court? (Score:4, Insightful)
You are a jealous bully (Score:4, Insightful)
Didn't you get bullied when you were in school? Didn't you have enough of that?
To better understand your comment, I'll rephrase it thusly:
"RMS is funny, and I don't understand him. He says things that cause me to think. He says things that threaten my livelihood. He speaks out where I am afraid to. He is confident in his ideas.
Kick kick kick. I cannot deal with him. Kick Kick Kick.
I am small and by kicking RMS I can be big."
Myself, I wish I could understand and phrase an argument as clearly and succinctly as RMS. I wish I could code as well as RMS. I wish I had made a contribution to my profession 1/1000th as important as either emacs, gcc, or GNU. I wish I had the balls to speak as freely as RMS. I wish I wasn't as enamored of money as I am, maybe then I could follow my dreams of activism, and I thank RMS for following his. I thank RMS for his contributions to our profession and to society, and for making arguments that cause me much grief when I think about them.
Re:A new low... (Score:3, Insightful)
The FBI is not above threatening to put people in jail over these issues.
For me, the FBI needs to go beyond just saying it wasn't true.
No I don't think this is a huge conspiecy, or that the FBI is out to get me, but they have a pretty abusive history, so I take everything they say with a lump of salt.
Re:Eldred's Question Time (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, it's difficult to tell which way the Justices are leaning from the questions. They've done their homework and read all thr briefs. They know Lessig's argument. What they are doing in the questioning is testing the argument to find its weaknesses. The stronger the argument, the harder the questions.
When you get down to SG Olsen's questioning, you'll see how thoroughly they demolish his position. "Whatever limit Congress sets as long as its finite" is a non-starter. Later on the Justices joked about theatre boxes in England being leased for 900 years. It's finite in mathematical terms, but unlimited in practical terms.
The real question for the court is how too define appropriate limits to Congressional powers that give meaning to the phrase "limited times" without usurping the Congressional function of setting the limit. They don't want to be in a position of having to say x years is OK, but y years is too long. Lessig has offered them a meaningful place to put that limit. SG Olsem has not.
They are also concerned that the argument which defeats the CTEA defeats the 1976 act as well. Lessig's own brief distinguishes the two and the clerks know this if the Justices don't.
Reading the transcript gave me hope. Several of the Justices got the point that Lessig was making. There is a real liklihood of a positive outcome. Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and Breyer are likely yesses. There's only one more needed.
It's a little more informative to read the transcript which was posted to the web a few weeks ago. Someone put in the names of the Justices which this official transcript lacks. Also read Lessig's blog. I think he has real reasons to feel confident.
Re:You are a jealous bully (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Library (Score:3, Insightful)
You've got it backwards.
The FBI isn't interested in finding out what queries have been made by dangerous suspects. What the FBI will be doing is looking for dangerous queries (people pulling out copies of "Catcher in the Rye" for example), and thus locating their next suspect.
So be careful about your book borrowing habits. Rather than borrowing books, buy them. Buy books from stores using only cash. Only buy one book per transaction. Buy your books from different stores. Never visit the same store twice in a row.
And remember - trust no-one.
'Simple' Object Access Protocol? (Score:4, Insightful)
CIA assassination? (Score:3, Insightful)
And not only that...it can assassinate US citizens [washingtonpost.com]. "Administration officials, intelligence operatives and military analysts...praised the CIA strikes as an innovative way to get the job done." You know that whole "pre-emptive strike" debate? Well it's over now. Everybody grab their sled because we're in for a nice ride down this slippery slope from moral highground! Weeeee!