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Democrats

Landmark Health Insurance Bill Passes House 1698

Posted by timothy from the put-off-that-angioplasty-for-a-while dept.
theodp writes "A hastily-crafted amendment imposing tough new restrictions on abortion coverage in insurance policies helped pave the way for the House to approve the Democrats' bill to overhaul the nation's health insurance system. 'It provides coverage for 96 percent of Americans,' said Rep. John Dingell. Rep. Candice Miller disagreed, calling the legislation 'a jobs-killing, tax-hiking, deficit-exploding' bill. The 1,990-page, $1.2 trillion legislation passed by a vote of 220-215 and moves on for Senate debate, which is expected to begin in several days." Update — 11/08 at 13:45 GMT by SS: Changed vote totals above to reflect the actual bill vote. The 240-194 number was for the abortion restrictions amendment.
Books

Lulu Introduces DRM 222

Posted by timothy from the damn-ridiculous-meddling dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Print-on-demand publisher Lulu recently announced that they're offering 'eBooks.' Since they've always offered downloadable books as PDFs, that takes some decoding to figure out what part is new: it turns out that it means now they're handling more formats, they've significantly increased the share they take out of the purchase price ... and for an additional fee, they now offer DRM. I have a few items published through Lulu myself; nothing forces me to buy the DRM, but I'm considering taking my business elsewhere on principle. This isn't what I expected from the people who, when I first signed up with them, were solidly endorsing Creative Commons."
Security

Test of 16 Anti-Virus Products Says None Rates "Very Good" 344

Posted by timothy from the keeps-the-av-people-in-business-though dept.
An anonymous reader writes "AV-Comparative recently released the results of a malware removal test in which they evaluated 16 anti-virus software solutions. The test focused only on the malware removal/cleaning capabilities, therefore all the samples used were ones that the tested anti-virus products were able to detect. The main question was if the products were able to successfully remove malware from an already infected/compromised system. None of the products performed at a level of 'very good' in malware removal or removal of leftovers, based on those 10 samples."
Music

Simple, Cost-Effective, Multiroom Audio? 438

Posted by timothy from the powered-monitors-and-long-cables dept.
jimicus writes "I'd like a multiroom audio system but I'm thoroughly confused by the options available — and the difference in prices is huge. For instance, Philips have a wireless system which starts at around £280 — and Russound have a product which comes in around £1,000. I've already got all my music as MP3s and it lives on a NAS box — I don't really want to repeat that process. I also have a perfectly capable amp and speakers in my living room, so I don't really need anything else there. Whatever I go for has to pass the wife test — so something which requires a separate amp, speakers and PC in each room and requires a keyboard to control is right out. I don't mind spending a little money but I don't really want to find that every little extra thing adds up to £thousands. Has anyone else dealt with a similar problem? How did you solve it?"
Books

Comic Books Improve Early Childhood Literacy 127

Posted by timothy from the shore-helped-mee dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that Professor Carol Tilley, a professor of library and information science at the University of Illinois, says that comics are just as sophisticated as other forms of reading, children benefit from reading them at least as much as they do from reading other kinds of books, and that there is evidence that comics increase children's vocabulary and instill a love of reading. 'A lot of the criticism of comics and comic books come from people who think that kids are just looking at the pictures and not putting them together with the words,' says Tilley. 'But you could easily make some of the same criticisms of picture books – that kids are just looking at pictures, and not at the words.' Tilley says that some of the condescension toward comics as a medium may come from the connotations that the name itself evokes but that the distinct comic book aesthetic — frames, thought and speech bubbles, motion lines, to name a few — has been co-opted by children's books, creating a hybrid format."
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - How To Install an Internal 3G Card in the Asus Eee (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: If you thought the Asus Eee PC was cool, wait until you see it gaining 3G communications powers: 'Hardware hacking genius and electromagician JKK has published a video tutorial showing how to add an internal 3G HSDPA card to the Asus Eee PC, allowing you to connect at high speeds to the Internet from anywhere in the world with 3G cellphone coverage. We talked with JKK and according to him "the hack is doable by any amateur with a solder iron.' And the amazing thing is that you can do this for $291, according to the article. After solving its OS license problems, it looks like this amazing little machine just got even better.
Security

Submission + - Domains May Disappear After Search 1

Submitted by
Ponca City, We Love You
Ponca City, We Love You writes: "A perfect domain name pops into your mind, a quick check at your registrar reveals that the domain is available, you put off the registration a few minutes and when you come back to register the domain, it's taken by someone else. How much time has elapsed between the search and the attempted registration — in one case, less than 90 seconds. Daily Domainer has an interesting story alleging that there may be a leak that allows domain tasters to intercept, analyze and register your domain ideas in minutes. "Every time you do a whois search with any service, you run a risk of losing your domain," says one industry insider. ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC ) has not been able to find hard evidence of Domain Name Front Running but they have issued an advisory (pdf) for people to come forward with hard evidence it is happening. Here is how domain name research theft crimes can occur and some tips to avoiding being a victim."
Operating Systems

Submission + - My own private grid

Submitted by giorgist
giorgist writes: I have a lot of computers at work, and they sit idle for most of the time. Is it possible to muster them all together and get them cracking on some problem of our own choosing ? We have a cluster doing computations and time on it is limited. Maybe I can setup another were I can run packets on idle computers. People from work can join in and take "packets" home and run them on their computers at home while they work. G
Operating Systems

Submission + - Kernel Developers and Users Duke Out Over Flaws (madpenguin.org)

Submitted by
toubbbs
toubbbs writes: "According to an article on MadPenguin.org, kernel developers and Linux users are duking it out against each other for lack of flaw patches. Users are blaming users, while developers criticize users for not being able to find answers on their own. The article continues, "Where do you believe the kernel developers of tomorrow will come from? And will they be as out of touch with the masses of new users just looking for answers as today's developers have been accused of being? It's likely and the coming divide between developers and users — GPL'ed mindset and "make it work" groups is getting wider. I will refrain from placing blame here, since it's counterproductive. But with that said, it sure would be grand to see distro and kernel developers looking at the ocean of forum posts with simple to change bugs, which generally speaking, go largely unacknowledged."
Books

Submission + - Robert Jordan passed away (dragonmount.com)

Submitted by
Imabug
Imabug writes: "Just saw news of Robert Jordan's (author of the Wheel of Time series) passing coming through my feedreader. An excerpt of the posting on the Dragonmount website (which seems to be down at the moment)

It is with great sadness that I tell you that the Dragon is gone. RJ left us today at 2:45 PM. He fought a valiant fight against this most horrid disease. In the end, he left peacefully and in no pain. In the years he had fought this, he taught me much about living and about facing death. He never waivered in his faith, nor questioned our God's timing. I could not possibly be more proud of anyone. I am eternally grateful for the time that I had with him on this earth and look forward to our reunion, though as I told him this afternoon, not yet. I love you bubba. Our beloved Harriet was at his side through the entire fight and to the end. The last words from his mouth were to tell her that he loved her. Thank each and everyone of you for your prayers and support through this ordeal. He knew you were there. Harriet reminded him today that she was very proud of the many lives he had touched through his work. We've all felt the love that you've been sending my brother/cousin. Please keep it coming as our Harriet could use the support.
Original posting"
The Courts

Submission + - Has RIAA Abandoned "Making Available" Clai

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The RIAA's standard complaint (pdf) was thrown out last month by a federal judge in California as so much "conclusory" "boilerplate" "speculation" in Interscope v. Rodriguez. Interestingly, the RIAA's amended complaint (pdf), filed six (6) days later, abandoned altogether the RIAA's "making available" argument, which it first formulated in defending the dismissal motion in Elektra v. Barker. This raises a number of questions, including (a) whether the RIAA is going to stick to this new form of complaint in future cases, (b) whether it is going to get into a different kind of trouble for some of its new allegations, such as its contention that the investigator "detected an individual" (contradicting the testimony of the RIAA's own expert witness) and the allegation that the defendant should be held liable because he or she is "the individual responsible for that IP address at that date and time", a phrase which would appear to be meaningless in a copyright infringement context, and (c) what tack defendants' lawyers should take (this was one lawyer's suggestion)."
AMD

Submission + - Sapphire x1300XT - Crossfire On The Cheap (fastsilicon.com)

Submitted by mrneutron2003
mrneutron2003 writes: With last year's release of the x1950XT, ATI decided to let the technology trickle down through their whole x1000 series. The x1300XT with x1600 pro's RV530 core is one of those improved versions for the budget conscious consumer. Because of the watered down versions of the 2000 and 8000 series cards already flooding the market in mass variety, the 1000 series cards from ATI are becoming incredibly cheap. This combined with the convenience of an extra PCI-E slot next to that first video card in most budget systems of last year, the thought of adding another card becomes hard to pass up. Because the x1300XT supports cable less CrossFire and does not require supplemental power, it is prime suspect for a cheap boost in performance. We will be looking at the performance of cable less CrossFire and two Sapphire x1300XT PCI-E versions. We will be testing to see if the video cards are ready for an extended life or if their destiny lies in the living room HTPC. http://www.fastsilicon.com/graphics-card-reviews/sapphire-x1300xt-crossfire-on-the-cheap.html
Security

Submission + - Geeks triumph over Defcon mole,offline and online (statcounter.com)

Submitted by destinyland
destinyland writes: An undercover reporter at Defcon was identified, lured into an auditorium, and publicly called out. If you're "exposing" geeks talking about illegal activities at a security convention, it would work better if they didn't know you were there. Dateline's Michelle Madigan claims she was exposing federal agents in attendance at the conference. But the funny aftermath may be a milestone for the mainstream media. In a matchup against a handful of geeks armed with YouTube — they lost.
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - iD and Valve violating GPL

Submitted by frooge
frooge writes: With the recent release of iD's catalog on Steam, it appears DOSBox is being used to run the old DOS games for greater compatibility. According to a post on the Halflife2.net forums, however, this distribution does not contain a copy of the GPL license that DOSBox is distributed under, which violates the license. According to the DOSBox developers, they were not notified that it was being used for this release.

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