Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Media

Submission + - Italian judge says P2P OK if it's not for money

Submitted by Paolo DF
Paolo DF writes: Two italian students have been recently condemned (at a three months and ten days confinement) for creating a p2p network sharing movies and music with other students, because they violated two articles of the Italian Copyright Law. Now, the "Corte di Cassazione" wikipedia entry (court of last resort, born to "ensure the observation and the correct interpretation of law") cleared their charges, since that law is about copying for profit, while they weren't making money out of the p2p network.
Here is the story, from the major Italian newspaper "Corriere della Sera"
Microsoft

Submission + - Submitting Federal Proposals Requires Windows

Submitted by Petronius Arbiter
Petronius Arbiter writes: The US federal government is requiring that proposals for grants etc be submitted using a common system at http://grants.gov/ . That's would be a good idea, except that, effectively, you must use Windows and Explorer. See http://www.grants.gov/resources/download_software. jsp :

To operate PureEdge Viewer, your computer must meet the following system requirements: Windows 98, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, XP... PureEdge on Grants.gov will not run within the Firefox browser.


They do have a Citrix substitute for non-Windows users. However:

Note that a limited amount of users can access the Citrix Server at any one time... Finally, you will find the best time to work and submit an application via Citrix is during off-peak hours, usually between 10 p.m. and 10 a.m., EST.


Finally, if your organization has more than 10 non-Windows users, they want you to add a dedicated Windows box to handle the traffic.

Why is it legal for the federal government to require applicants to use an expensive, proprietary system with terrible security? This is particularly surprising because many technical people, from program officers to computer administrators, in the government personally like open source and detest MS.

As a crazy guess, over 100,000 different people each year submit proposals. That's 100,000 people who must have MS Windows licenses whether they want to or not.

Anyone who was concerned about the open format fight in Massachusetts last year should be concerned about grants.gov.

Finally, for National Science Foundation clients, this is a big step backwards. NSF has had an excellent online system, http://fastlane.nsf.gov/ for years. Fastlane has no bias towards MS. However, by federal edict, NSF people must also use grants.gov.
Privacy

Submission + - Big brother tracking (and taxing) on UK roads

Submitted by Thanster
Thanster writes: The British government is working on plans to introduce pay per mile with GPS trackers in your car, this has massive big brother implications. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6160877.stm The government's proposal to introduce road pricing will mean you having to purchase a tracking device for your car and paying a monthly bill to use it. The tracking device will cost about £200 and in a recent study by the BBC, the lowest monthly bill was £28 for a rural florist and £194 for a delivery driver. A non working Mum who used the car to take the kids to school paid £86 in one month. On top of this massive increase in tax, you will be tracked. Somebody will know where you are at all times. They will also know how fast you have been going, so even if you accidentally creep over a speed limit you can expect a For any concerned UK slashdotters, a petition has been raised here: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/
Math

How Can We Convert the US to the Metric System? 1487

Posted by Cliff from the worthwhile-but-pigs-are-likely-to-fly-first dept.
thesolo asks: "Despite past efforts of the 1970s and 1980s, the United States remains one of only three countries (others are Liberia and Myanmar) that does not use the metric system. Staying with imperial measurements has only served to handicap American industry and economy. Attempts to get Americans using the Celsius scale, or putting up speed limits in kilometers per hour have been squashed dead. Not only that, but some Americans actually see metrication efforts as an assault on 'our way' of measuring. I personally deal with European scientists on a daily basis, and find our lack of common measurement to be extremely frustrating. Are we so entrenched with imperial units that we cannot get our fellow citizens to simply learn something new? What are those of us who wish to finally see America catch up to the rest of the world supposed to do? Are there any organizations that we may back, or any pro-metric legislators who we can support?"
Portables (Apple)

Submission + - Cisco Lost Rights To iPhone Trademark

Submitted by
Umbral Blot
Umbral Blot writes: "
The Cisco iPhone trademark was registered 11/16/1999 (Reg. No. 2293011). In order to keep a trademark registration active, you have to file a Declaration of Use on or before the sixth anniversary of the registration date, in which you state, under penalty of perjury, that you have been using the trademark continuously during that period. The sixth anniversary would have been 11/16/2005. Cisco did not file the Declaration of Use by 11/16/2005, which if they had been using the trademark would seemingly have been easy to do.
Cisco did file a Declaration of Use during the six month grace period, but it appears they may have done so improperly, invalidating their claim."
Google

Submission + - When your site doesn't exist

Submitted by El Lobo
El Lobo writes: Most businesses on the net get 70% of their traffic from Google, but what happens when Google — the source of more than 70 percent of your traffic — decides it will no longer index your web site? That's what happened to JavaLobby last month. From the article:

"We had completely disappeared from Google's main index!...if you run a website, then you know how serious a problem this is. On any given day over 10,000 visitors arrive at Javalobby as a result of Google searches, and suddenly they stopped coming! Suddenly we no longer existed in the eyes of the World"

Microsoft is often accused of being a monopoly, but nothing compares to the dangerous power of Googles monopoly.
Communications

Undersea Cable Repair Via 19th Century Tech 98

Posted by Zonk from the going-old-school dept.
An anonymous reader writes to mention a story going across the wires about an old-fashioned way to fix a modern convenience. Taiwanese boaters are using simple hooks to fish up the fiber-optic cables damaged in an earthquake late last year. The outage that resulted kept millions of users offline in half a dozen countries around the Pacific rim. From the article: "They work 24 hours a day but the weather can hinder their progress. Walters said one ship is waiting for 30 to 40 mile-an-hour winds (48 to 64 kilometres- an-hour) to die down in the Bashi Channel. The winds have stirred up 10 to 12 metre waves ... After arriving at the scene they survey the ocean bottom to assess whether the contour has changed, and the degree of sediment movement. Then the traditional tools are brought out. A rope with a grapnel on the end is played out, down into the depths, and towed over the sea floor until tension registers on a graph on the ship, indicating contact has been made with the cable. Today's fibre optic cables are just 21 millimetres in diameter."
Books

Submission + - Author of Illuminatus! has died.

Submitted by
OmnipotentEntity
OmnipotentEntity writes: "Robert Anton Wilson, or RAW as he was known, a coauthor of the Illuminatus! trilogy (which was the basis of quite a bit of hacker humor) has passed beyond this mortal plane. Some last words posted onto his blog are "Please pardon my levity, I don't see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd." Have fun on your fnord, and dream of Eris good buddy. You'll be missed."
User Journal

Journal Journal: test

Journal by hubertf

hug me!

Slashdot Top Deals

The best laid plans of mice and men are held up in the legal department.

Close