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Republicans

Submission + - McCain says he doesn't know how to use a computer!

Submitted by sunny_kr
sunny_kr writes: Here is a story in The Daily Voice: McCain admits he doesn't know how to use a computer Link: http://thedailyvoice.com/voice/2008/06/mccain-admits-he-doesnt-know-h-000740.php John McCain says he doesn't know how to use a computer. In a video interview with Yahoo's Political team and Politico.com, McCain admitted he is computer illiterate. When asked if he preferred a Mac or a PC, McCain said "neither." "I am a illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all the assistance I can get," McCain said. In a computer-dominated world, McCain's professed computer ignorance may raise questions again about his .... Watch it YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= — mMyoDZGYk In the blogs: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/11/mccain-admits-he-doesnt-k_n_106478.html
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA 'threw in towel', then threw 'sucker punch' (blogspot.com) 2

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The RIAA threw in the towel, all right, but was only doing it in preparation for throwing a 'sucker punch'. After dropping its 'making available' case, Warner v. Cassin, before Judge Robinson could decide whether to dismiss or not, it was only trying to do an 'end run' (if I may mix my sports metaphors) around the judge's deciding the motion and freezing discovery. It immediately, and secretly, filed a new case against the family, calling this one 'Warner v. Does 1-4'. In their papers the lawyers 'forgot to mention' that the new case was 'related'. As a result, Does 1-4 was assigned to another judge, who knew nothing about the old case. The RIAA lawyers also may have forgotten that they couldn't bring any more cases over this same claim, since they'd already dismissed it twice before. Not to worry, NYCL wrote letters to both judges, reminding them of what the RIAA lawyers had forgotten."
Editorial

Submission + - Infringing copyright isn't stealing (canada.com)

Submitted by
SpaceAdmiral
SpaceAdmiral writes: "Just because the movie studios tell us that infringing copyright is stealing doesn't make it so. According to this informative article by Rory McGreal: "Factually and historically in the British Common Law countries like Canada and the United States, copyright was instituted to promote learning. The first copyright law, the Statute of Queen Anne, 1710, was entitled "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning." U.S. copyright law is based on this act "to promote the progress of science and useful arts." In fact, these first copyright laws were introduced to limit, and not to protect, the rights of the content owners. The copyright was initiated specifically to promote learning by removing the perpetual rights of the printers, transferring the rights to the authors and imposing a reasonable time limit on their privilege.""
Cellphones

Submission + - Cell Phones Pop Popcorn Kernels (seriouseats.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: No microwaves or ovens nearby? Videos coming out of France and Japan show a feature most cell phone manufacturers are not likely to promote: when they ring, cell phones pop popcorn kernels. And we put these things next to our heads?
Software

Submission + - Who thinks Firehose software is working right? 6

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "I find the Firehose software to be infuriating. It seems to have no 'stickiness' but constantly reverts to other views and searches than what I was looking at. I'm about ready to give up on it unless they tell me they recognize it's dumb and are doing something to make it work right. Am I the only one who feels this way?"
Linux Business

Submission + - Amanda 2.6 is released! (zmanda.com)

Submitted by
amanda-backup
amanda-backup writes: "Amanda 2.6.0 is out of the door: http://www.zmanda.com/amanda-26-released.html Amanda 2.6.0 represents a huge step forward in Amanda's evolution — improving ease of installation and configuration, security, and scalability. Furthermore, this release makes Amanda a platform to develop advanced backup and archiving applications and makes it easier for developers to contribute significant functionality."
United States

Submission + - NIST Announces Reverse Leap Day

Submitted by dgatwood
dgatwood writes: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) today announced a correction as a result of small errors in leap second calculations arising out of the gradual slowing of the expansion of the universe. At precisely 1:00 A.M. Eastern Daylight Saving Time, the date will skip forward by 24 hours to Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008. Director James Turner described this as the first "reverse leap day" in recorded history. He added that he expected a similar correction each year for at least the next seven years.

Americans are advised to immediately adjust their clocks and calendars forward to April 2nd. Director Turner warned, however, that not all countries in the world have agreed to this change yet. "Americans who regularly interact with people in other countries should expect some minor confusion until this all sorts itself out," Turner said, adding that "We considered simply dropping February 29th, but decided that would be too confusing."

For more information, see the NIST Coordinated Universal Time page at http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/faqs/time.htm.
Operating Systems

Submission + - Kernel.org announces Upgrading to FreeBSD 7.0

Submitted by
Warthog9
Warthog9 writes: "I and the other kernel.org Administrators would like to announce our upgrade from Fedora Core 5 to FreeBSD 7.0. From the official announcement at http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/3/31/367 :

" After much deliberation, research and argument in #korg (along with screaming matches between HPA and I over dinner) we are upgrading the kernel.org machines from Fedora Core 5 to FreeBSD 7.0. This decision does not come lightly to the Kernel.org admins, and we would like to point out several key things that helped us form our decision: FreeBSD 7.0 Bests Linux in SMP Performance: http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/06/1313218 & http://people.freebsd.org/~kris/scaling/7.0%20Preview.pdf ... "

We feel that this change will help us to better serve our growing number of users."
Security

Submission + - Chicom attacks pro-Tibet media with malware (f-secure.com)

Submitted by
Tamas Feher from Hungary
Tamas Feher from Hungary writes: "According to finnish anti-virus vendor F-Secure Corp., the chinese hackers are sending out a lot of e-mails with seemingly genuine pro-Tibet documents attached. Not too suprisingly, these common PDF, Word, Excel and Powerpoint files are laced with hidden file header corruption based exploits, which inject a Windows-based keylogger malware into the target system. The infestation secretly collects all keyboard input and forwards it to xsz.8800.org, a well-known virus-related address in mainland China.

Press and electronic media which dare to report openly on the recent tibetan crisis have been especially targeted and the AFP news agency was among the first to receive (and stop) the malware on Tuesday.

More info and screenshots can be found here:
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001406.html

One more reason to boycott the Summer Games in 2008?"
The Courts

Submission + - SCO's Billon Dollar Liability (zensden.net)

Submitted by
ColonelZen
ColonelZen writes: "SCO has a Potential and Credible BILLION Dollar Liability

IBM does billions of dollars in Linux buisness annually. SCO began it's campaign of derogation against Linux and IBM in 2003. Some estimates say that at it's peak the SCO matter slowed Linux adoption by as much as 20%. Do the math.

...

Justice and judicial economy in this matter can be served only by denying any present reorganization plan and unstaying the IBM trial so that a dollar amount of liability can be determined. Otherwise, with very high probability, SCO will return to bankruptcy court a year or two after emergence but with a liability that no possible reorganization or refinancing could ameliorate."

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