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Media

Submission + - Tribe Upended our Understanding of Languages?

Submitted by
alberion
alberion writes: "The New Yorker brings an article about Dan Everett's work with the Piraha tribe in the Amazon that may change the way linguists define human languages. Not all linguists agree.
From the Article: "The Piraha, Everett wrote, have no numbers, no fixed color terms, no perfect tense, no deep memory, no tradition of art, and no common terms of quantification. His most explosive claim was that Piraha displays no evidence of recursion, the linguistic operation of embedding one phrase inside another. Noam Chomsky has argued that recursion is the cornerstone of a "universal grammar" shared by all languages.""
Sci-Fi

Submission + - USPS hires R2D2

Submitted by 140Mandak262Jamuna
140Mandak262Jamuna writes: R2D2 is going to collect mail to commomerate the 30th anniversary of the release of star wars. USPS is also releasing a stamp to commomerate the event. USPS spokeswoman Anita T Bizzotto (yeah, that is the name, not Bizzare) said "It's a little teaser for the upcoming announcement and we decided to have a little fun with it,". As long as postal employees dont bring their light sabres to work ...
Programming

Submission + - Recommendation for First Programming Language

Submitted by chuckymonkey
chuckymonkey writes: I'm a relatively young new guy to the IT world and am interested in teaching myself my first programming language. What I would like to know from the Slashdot community is what programming language would you recommend for me to learn first?
Microsoft

Submission + - Can a Rootkit Be Certified for Vista?

Submitted by
winetoo
winetoo writes: "Forget what Microsoft says about Vista being the most secure version of Windows yet. More to the point, what do the hackers think of it? In a nutshell, they think it's an improvement, but at the end of the day, it's just like everything else they dissect — that is, breakable. "Not all bugs are being detected by Vista," pointed out famed hacker H.D. Moore. "Look at how a hacker gets access to the driver: Right now I'm working on Microsoft's automated process to get Metasploit-certified. It [only] costs $500." Moore is the founder of the Metasploit Project and a core developer of the Metasploit Framework — the leading open-source exploit development platform — and is also director of security research at BreakingPoint Systems. The irony of his statement lies in the idea that Vista trusts Microsoft-certified programs — programs that can include a hacker exploit platform that walks through the front door for a mere $500 and a conveyor-belt approval process.

Full details at source."
Desktops (Apple)

Submission + - Pennsylvania university goes all-Mac

Submitted by jcatcw
jcatcw writes: Wilkes University is pulling the last PC plugs in its switch over to Macs. The school will save more than $150,000 on hardware according to the school's IT director. He also cited security and a better OS as benefits. Students and faculty will still be able run Windows applications.
United States

Submission + - Stolen Nobel Medal Returned

Submitted by Gilraen
Gilraen writes: A Nobel medal swiped from the University of California, Berkeley, was returned to officials in a brief ceremony on 7 March. The solid gold medallion, awarded to physicist Ernest Lawrence in 1939 for the invention of the cyclotron, was stolen from its display case at the end of February. It has an estimated monetary value of $4,200. More on this story here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v446/n7133/fu ll/446243a.html
Music

Submission + - Steve Jobs Publishes Reaction To Open DRM

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Steve Jobs has published an essay on the State of DRM, and Apple's public stance on the issue of opening FairPlay DRM, licensing it to other online music retailers. In it, he examines three possible options: continuing as the industry currently operates, licensing FairPlay, or abolishing DRM altogether. From the article: "Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat."
Privacy

Submission + - All of your packaging are belong to USPO

Submitted by
De Clarke
De Clarke writes: "Can a vendor assert ownership in perpetuity of a physical product — not digital content, prior art, intellectual value added, but just physical product? So as to assert control over all future re-use of that product? I ask because of some recent interesting experiences with the US Post Office wrt re-use of packing materials...

I recently went to mail some CDs to a guy who bought them from me on Ebay. I always re-use packing material as I'm doing a fair amount of Ebay selling these days and I abhor the wastefulness of paper/cardboard consumption, so I have piles of boxes, bags, etc at home and re-use them regularly. The right size box was a small Priority box that some other Ebayer had shipped to me when I bought something. Didn't have any other boxes of the right size. So I turned it inside out, taped it up and packed/labelled it.

Note that it was taped all over with brown strapping tape, labelled with a hand written label, and going out Media Mail with 4 CDs in it. Just an anonymous hand-packed parcel from a private customer.

At the counter the Post Office clerk asked me suspiciously, "Is that one of our Priority boxes?" and innocently enough I said "Yup, someone sent it to me and I turned it inside out and am recycling it." Much to my surprise she then said, "I can't accept that. You aren't allowed to use Priority boxes for anything but Priority mail."

My jaw dropped. The original Post Office customer had paid for the box and sent me something Priority, so the box was now a USED box — which I explained — but the PO still wanted to control what uses could and could not be made of the box. "You can recycle it," said the clerk, "or you can use it for priority mail." I said with some surprise, "But it's about the same size and shape as any number of boxes — an Amazon box, a Powells box, any CD or book mailer. It's a used box, what difference does it make where it came from?" She shook her head and insisted "We know our own boxes." Our own boxes, you note — not the property of the customer but the property, in perpetuity it seems, of the Post Office.

I wanted to protest that it's my bloody used box. I could bury it in my compost heap, light it on fire, use it to paint a picture on, cut it into paper dollies, insulate my boots with it, or any other damn thing I please — it's now scrap cardboard! However it is a waste of time and breath arguing with a jobsworth at a postal counter, so... she would not accept the shipment except as a Priority shipment at twice or three times the fee, and I had to take it home and repackage it. Growling all the way.

This raises all kinds of interesting questions, and I think the policy might actually be in violation of some trade/commerce law or other. In the meantime there is certainly the issue of Priority vs Fixed Rate boxes — the flat ones are exactly the same size. Is the PO now going to insist that you cannot reuse a Fixed Rate box, pay extra, and ship the contents Priority (crossing out the red Fixed Rate medallion)?

When I asked what the hell the rationale was behind this crazy insistence that a priority box was a priority box in perpetuity, she said that people take the free priority boxes (i.e. steal them) and use them for other purposes, whereas the cost of the box is part of the Priority Mail fee (the box is a freebie that you get as a bonus for using Priority Mail). And that the PO can't afford to have people stealing the boxes and using them as generic free cardboard boxes. It seems to me that the fundamental problem is the PO giving away free packaging, thus encouraging people to be wasteful *and* painting themselves into this ridiculous corner of asserting perpetual ownership of the cardboard (at least in its original form factor).

There seems to be a general trend for merchants to assert more and more authority over what the customer does with products after purchase, as if all material goods were actually "leased" from the vendor instead of bought outright. How long before it becomes an "offence" to — for example — dye a shirt a different colour from what the fashion designer intended, or in any way to repurpose or re-use any product, to put goods from one manufacturer into a container with another mfrs label on it, etc? Brand assertion is rapidly becoming the kapu system of our time, with the software and entertainment barons leading the way. I hear there have even been plans mooted to implant RFIDS in clothing which would interact with scanner-equipped laundry machines which would refuse to launder the clothing "incorrectly."

What does the future hold? RFID in every piece of cardboard from every vendor, so that you cannot re-use a UPS box for a USPO shipment, no matter how cut-down and folded? So that you cannot re-use a Priority Box for Media Mail or vice versa, even if you chop the box into little pieces and glue it back together? it is intriguing to speculate what degree of intactness is required by the PO to assert their perpetual ownership: if you cut out one square inch of a Priority box and tape it to another container, does it "contaminate" the other container and make it illegal to ship at a rate other than Priority?

How sane is it, in a resource-limited world, to put obstacles in the way of efficient re-use of materials?

And lastly... can this really be legal? Afterword: ever since this episode, this particular postal clerk — but no other at that branch — has treated me like a criminal, always questioning all my re-used packaging: "Is this one of our boxes? Is this one of our envelopes?" I begin to wonder whether it is some kind of idiosyncratic obsession. I hope she isn't armed."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - CompUSA charges tax on nontaxable CA e-waste fee

Submitted by Erin Babnik
Erin Babnik writes: When ordering a display online from CompUSA, consumers in California are charged tax on the mandatory e-waste fee, a fee that is non-taxable. Since the state does not collect tax on this fee, CompUSA gets free money out of these online transactions (in addition to being able to keep three percent of the fee as a handling charge).

Here is the goverment page regarding the fee and its non-taxable status:
http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/electronics/act2003/retail er/fee/qanda.htm
Software

Submission + - Texas Bill for Open Documents

Submitted by
Ditesh Kumar
Ditesh Kumar writes: "Sam Hiser reports that 'The Secretary of State of the Texas Legislature received a Bill (SB 446) yesterday (5 Feb 2007) stating the goal of requiring Texas State agencies (including the executive branch, the legislature, the courts and the schools) to conduct their work in an open document format.'"
Security

Submission + - Retailers still ignoring PCI security standard

Submitted by
bednarz
bednarz writes: "We're seeing more and more data breaches that expose credit-card information, yet retailers don't seem to be making much progress complying with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) data security standards endorsed by American Express, MasterCard, Visa and Discover. These credit card companies claim they're going to get tougher on those that don't comply. From the Network World story: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/012507-tjx-s tandard.html Current PCI compliance among [Visa's] 230 Level 1 merchants, which process more than 6 million card transactions per year, is 36%, Visa says. Among Level 2 merchants, which process between 1 million and 6 million card transactions, compliance is 15%."
Data Storage

Submission + - Digital archivists take lessons from porn

Submitted by
yppiz
yppiz writes: "The Long Now Foundation had a seminar in Berkeley last week where digital archivists talked about the problem of maintaining and recovering digital art works. This is already affecting museums, as the first wave of video artists often used custom hardware that's now hard to find and repair.

One of the problems, however, is much simpler — preserving copies of the work so it's not lost. And in this domain, archivists are taking a cue from models that work well for porn — specifically the fact that the user community is motivated to keep multiple copies around the world, and uses peer-to-peer technology to keep the bits in transit, rather than worrying about maintaining a single (and expensive) well-guarded archive.

ZD Net has more of the story, and there's another article on xbiz.com."
Google

Fox Subpoenas YouTube Over Content 141

Posted by Zonk from the keeping-the-goodies-to-themselves dept.
popo writes "FOX has subpoenaed YouTube for the identity of a user who posted entire episodes of '24' and 'The Simpson's'. It is not yet known whether YouTube has complied with the request. The '24' episodes in question actually appeared on YouTube prior to their primetime January 14 premiere on the Fox broadcast network, which spread four hourlong episodes of the hit drama over two consecutive nights. Fox became aware the episodes were on YouTube on January 8, according to the subpoena."
Media

Submission + - 911 Calls Reveal Dangers of Media Consolidation

Submitted by BendingSpoons
BendingSpoons writes: Five years ago, a 112-car train derailed outside of Minot, North Dakota. Over 240,000 gallons of anhydrous ammonia leaked out of the car, resulting in one death and the hospitalization of hundreds. Why is this news? Because newly released 911 tapes reveal a breakdown in Minot's emergency broadcasting — a breakdown that some are attributing to media consolidation. When panicked residents called emergency dispatch, they were advised to tune into KCJB, the designated local emergency broadcaster. However, KCJB — along with Minot's five other commercial channels — was owned by Clear Channel; the music was piped in from out of state, and no one was in the station to respond to calls. 911 callers were therefore directed to radio stations that provided no emergency information. The problem of "local" news stations unable to transmit information about local emergencies is now raising concerns about both national security and media consolidation.

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