Comment Re:The USA is not your mom (Score 1) 296
Nintendo of America (NOA) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nintendo Co., Ltd. (NCL), of Kyoto, Japan. Also, NES stands for Nintendo Entertainment System, not the name of a company.
PEDANTIC FAIL.
Comment The USA is not your mom (Score 2, Interesting) 296
I can absolutely dig Nintendo's position on large-scale bootlegging, but isn't Nintendo a Japanese company? Let them ask their own country for help leaning on China. We already have enough people bitching about America acting like the world's policeman.
Comment Standard measurement units (Score 1) 209
10 terabits per square inch
None of your tech mumbo-jumbo, please. Just tell me how many Libraries of Congress per width of a human hair.
Bill Would Require ISPs, Wi-Fi Users To Keep Logs 857
suraj.sun notes CNet reporting on bills filed in the US House and Senate that would require all ISPs and operators of Wi-Fi hotspots — including home users — to maintain access logs for 2 years to aid in law enforcement. The bills were filed by Republicans, but the article notes that the idea of forcing data retention has been popular on both sides of the aisle over the years. "Republican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that... would impose unprecedented data retention requirements on a broad swath of Internet access providers and is certain to draw fire from businesses and privacy advocates. ... Each [bill] contains the same language: 'A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user [i.e., DHCP].'"
Author's Guild Says Kindle's Text-To-Speech Software Illegal 683
Mike writes "The Author's Guild claims that the new Kindle's text-to-speech software is illegal, stating that 'They don't have the right to read a book out loud,' said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. 'That's an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law.' Forget for a moment that text-to-speech doesn't copy an existing work. And forget the odd notion that the artificial enunciation of plain text is equivalent to a person's nuanced and emotive reading. The Guild's claim is that even to read out loud is a production akin to an illegal copy, or a public performance."
FAA Network Hacked 110
coondoggie writes "The Federal Aviation Administration has joined the growing list of government agencies that have had their supposedly safe systems hacked. The agency this week notified about 45,000 employees that one of its servers was hacked into and employee personal identity information was stolen.
The FAA was quick to say the server that was accessed was not connected to the operation of the air traffic control system or any other FAA operational system. It did say two of the 48 files on the breached computer server contained personal information about more than 45,000 FAA employees and retirees who were on the FAA's rolls as of the first week of February 2006."
Comment Re:That is, as the Brits say, bollocks (Score 1) 951
Lots and lots of Protestants don't take Genesis as literally historical either. That's a more common view among Anabaptists, most of whom don't consider themselves Protestant.
"Protestant" is not the same as "Not Catholic", as any Orthodox adherent would gladly tell you. Hell, "Catholic" doesn't even mean what you think it means. It's just an adjective meaning "whole" or "complete". I assume that you're using it to mean the Roman Catholic Church but this is a situation where the exact terms do matter.
Also, please don't confuse the ravings of a vocal and well-organized minority with the beliefs of the majority just because we're not all out in the streets fighting the culture wars. Some of us have more pressing matters to worry about, like keeping our jobs.
IAAAACAAPTYVM (I am an Anglican, a Catholic and a Protestant, thank you very much).
Comment Re:The amount of money.... (Score 1) 664
I can't find an analog station that will broadcast it, you insensitive clod!
Comment Re:The country needs broadband. (Score 1) 538
To use a
This isn't about making cars mandatory, it's about getting the government to build and maintain a road that goes to your house. You don't have to own a car but even if you don't the government will still maintain that road to your house. This is because at some point we all decided to use tax dollars to ensure that everyone who wants to own a car has the means to use it.
Same thing with the electricity, water, telephone. You aren't required to make use of it but government will ensure that you can make use of it at any time should you desire, and they will ensure that you don't get price gouged for living in a rural area or for using a non-Bell phone.
The days when Internet was a magical voodoo totem of the privileged few are far behind us. Millions of Americans are hooked on fast, always-on Internet access just as much as they have come to rely on telephones. It's time to stop pretending that net providers are justified in dragging their feet to roll out new service and then charging everyone an extra $15/month for it.
Comment Re:What about fixing the MacOS X port? (Score 1) 260
I too was quite happy with the OS X port until I had to type something longer than a page. Then I found out it will crash if you cut a loud fart or look at it funny. Now it's pretty much useless to me.
Comment SVG support, FTL (Score 1) 260
Why the hell is OO.o still missing support for SVG? Users have been bitching about this for years, literally. It was a Summer of Code project in 2007 and still, nothing.
Believe it or not, people actually tell me that they don't want OO.o because it doesn't have clip art. Too bad that there thousands of free clip art images out there but OO.o is too SVG-retarded to use them.
An Early Look At New Features In OpenOffice.org 3.1 260
ahziem writes "With the final release two months away and an alpha version available, it's time to look at OpenOffice.org 3.1's new features: eye candy, better charts, replying to notes in the margin, overlining, macros in Base, RTL improvements for Arabic and Hebrew, and (believe it or not) better sorting. Download and report any bugs you find."
South Carolina Seeking To Outlaw Profanity
849
MBGMorden writes "It looks like in an act that defies common sense, a bill has been introduced in the South Carolina State Senate that seeks to outlaw the use of profanity. According to the bill it would become a felony (punishable by a fine up to $5000 or up to 5 years in prison) to 'publish orally or in writing, exhibit, or otherwise make available material containing words, language, or actions of a profane, vulgar, lewd, lascivious, or indecent nature.' I'm not sure if 'in writing' could be applied to the internet, but in any event this is scary stuff."
How Does a 9/80 Work Schedule Work Out? 1055
cellocgw writes "My company is in the process of implementing a version of '9/80,' a work schedule that squeezes 80 hours' labor time into 9 business days and provides every other Friday off. I was wondering how this has been implemented in other companies, and how it's worked out for other Slashdot readers. Is your system flexible? Do you find time to get personal stuff done during the week? Is Friday good for anything other than catching up on lost sleep? And perhaps most important, do your managers respect the off-Fridays, or do they pull people in on a regular basis to handle 'crises?'"
Green Is In At CES, But Is It Real? 165
OTL writes "You've heard the talk of 'Green' throughout the whole of 2008, but the way a product affects the environment will be a huge consideration in consumer buying habits, at least when it comes to gadgets.
But, the CEA report also said that consumers are very skeptical about the green claims made by high-tech firms for their products. More than 38 percent of those interviewed by the CEA said they were confused by green product claims and 58 percent wanted to know the specific attributes that prompted hi-tech firms to label their products green."
