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Comment Re:IP in the West is broken (Score 1) 433

by Ironix (#35335298) Attached to: Tolkien Estate Censors the Word "Tolkien"

Imagine someone who's never been exposed to company A or their products, but runs across company B products, which are a derivative work of company A's products.

Now imagine that this person enjoyed company B's products so much that they had to have everything that relates to it, so they go out and but all related works produced by company A. Now remember, this person may have otherwise never been exposed to company A's products if it weren't for their exposure to derivative works produced by company B.

Don't tell me this would be a rare occurrence, for this has happend to me many times with respect to music, video, and written works. I have, through consumption of products that infringe on copyright, spent money to acquire the works that inspired them to begin with.

Comment Re:Another Stab At a Canadian DMCA (Score 1) 237

by Ironix (#32123552) Attached to: Another Stab At a Canadian DMCA

... the left is split and Canadians collectively are too daft to vote strategically

I refuse to ever vote strategically. It will lead to the downfall of a nation if everyone were to think like this. I've always voted for the party/candidate that best represents my interests, which generally happens to to be the NDP. Yes, I am splitting the leftist vote, but at least I can say I haven't sold out my values for the sake of having a lesser of two evils in government.

If everyone were to vote with the mindset of "oh, I don't want them in power, so I'll vote for the most popular opponent", we'll quickly end up with a two-party system not unlike that of the United States. Think of this another way, imagine how many more seats the NDP would have had in the last election if people did not vote strategically! There were very many close calls between the NDP and Conservatives/Liberals in many ridings.

No, I am sorry, I will not cast my vote based on who I don't want in power. I would much rather place a positive vote towards those who I would like to see running this country instead.
Image

Enterprise Security For the Executive 75

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
brothke writes "If Shakespeare were to write an information security tragedy, it would not be titled Hamlet, rather Bayuk. The story of Jennifer Bayuk is tragic in that she spent a decade as CISO at Bear, Stearns, building up its security group to be one of the best in the business; only to find it vaporized when the firm collapsed and was acquired by J.P. Morgan Clearing Corp. After all that toil and sweat, Bayuk was out of a job. (Full disclosure: Bayuk and I have given a presentation together in the past, and I did get a copy of this book for free.)" Read below for Ben's review.

Comment Gentoo (Score 1) 1231

by Ironix (#29970706) Attached to: Some Early Adopters Stung By Ubuntu's Karmic Koala

I upgraded my home server from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10. After the update completed and I rebooted, the system happily announced that I was now running Xubuntu and then refused to boot until I remove the "biosize=16" option for my XFS drives in fstab.

Once the system did boot up, it wouldn't start X, but instead preferred to sit at a swiftly flickering console that could cause seizures.

I think I'll switch back to Gentoo now. =D
Security

NSA To Build 20-Acre Data Center In Utah 226

Posted by samzenpus from the data-on-the-horizon dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Salt Lake City Tribune reports that the National Security Agency will be building a one million square foot data center at Utah's Camp Williams. The NSA's heavily automated computerized operations have for years been based at Fort Meade, Maryland, but the agency began looking to decentralize its efforts following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and accelerated their search after the Baltimore Sun reported that the NSA — Baltimore Gas & Electric's biggest customer — had maxed out the local grid and could not bring online several supercomputers it needed to expand its operations. The agency got a taste of the potential for trouble January 24, 2000, when an information overload, rather than a power shortage, caused the NSA's first-ever network crash, taking the agency 3 1/2 days to resume operations. The new data center in Utah will require at least 65 megawatts of power — about the same amount used by every home in Salt Lake City — so a separate power substation will have to be built at Camp Williams to sustain that demand. 'They were looking at secure sites, where there could be a natural nexus between organizations and where space was available,' says Col. Scott Olson, the Utah National Guard's legislative liaison. NSA officials, who have a long-standing relationship with Utah based on the state Guard's unique linguist units, approached state officials about finding land in the state on which to build an additional data center. 'The stars just kind of came into alignment. We could provide them everything they need.'"
Role Playing (Games)

How To Help a Friend With an MMO Addiction? 811

Posted by Soulskill from the napalm-solves-more-problems-than-you'd-expect dept.
sammydee writes "I have a friend who is addicted to an MMO (Pirates of the Burning Sea). On a typical day, he will wake up around 9am, browse the forums for a bit, then go online and stay online all day, playing until about 3am the following morning, taking only toilet breaks and stopping to eat ready-meals. While the rest of the house works hard revising for exams, this friend will be playing his MMO instead. Now, I am pretty confident that this comprises an unhealthy addiction; unfortunately, I have no idea what to do about it. Any attempt to physically prevent him from playing the game would most likely result in an outburst of anger and possibly physical violence. Attempts at telling him he has a problem have been met with derision and angry retorts. Slashdotters, what would you do to help out a friend in this situation? Perhaps you are a reformed addict yourself — if so, how did you break out of the habit? Or maybe I should just leave well enough alone and allow him to continue? Any thoughts are gratefully received."
Medicine

Reliable Male Contraceptive In the Works 519

Posted by kdawson from the aichmophobia-belonephobia dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The BBC reports that recent tests in China indicate a monthly injection of testosterone, which works by temporarily blocking sperm production, could be as effective at preventing pregnancies as the female pill or condoms. In trials in China only one man in 100 fathered a child while on the injections, and six months after stopping the injections the mens' sperm counts returned to normal. The lead researcher said that if further tests proved successful, the treatment could become widely available in five years' time. Previous attempts to develop an effective and convenient male contraceptive have encountered problems over reliability and side effects, such as mood swings and a lowered sex drive. However, despite the injection having no serious side effects, almost a third of the 1,045 men in the two-and-a-half year study did not complete the trials; no reason was given for this."
Security

UK Conservatives Slammed Over Open Source Stance 281

Posted by timothy from the fully-support-my-party's-stance-on-the-issue dept.
Golygydd Max writes "The UK government has been criticised by the opposition Conservative (Tory) party for its lack of support for open-source software. Now, according to Techworld, a security company that has examined the Tory plans has come out against the use of open source software, citing the number of security problems inherent in the software. This is a sensitive issue for the UK government, still smarting from the loss of 7m family records from HM Revenue and Customs in 2007. What makes this criticism interesting is that this is an attack on the policies of what will certainly be the next British government — it's unusual for a party to be criticised like this before it comes to office. It's an indication of how IT is going to be a battleground in the future general election."

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