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Submission + - Why tech activists must become campaign finance reform activists (nathanmarz.com)

Funksaw writes: In a blog post called: 'Why we in tech must support Lawrence Lessig', former Twitter engineer Nathan Marz makes the argument that technological issues, such as net neutrality, broadband monopolies, and extended copyrights, can't be addressed until campaign finance reforms are enacted, and that initiatives such as Lawrence Lessig's Mayday PAC need to be supported. FTA:

This issue is so important and touches so many aspects of our society that I believe it's our duty as citizens to fight for change any way we can. We have to support people who are working day and night on this, who have excellent ideas on how to achieve reform.


Comment Re:Wrong conclusions (Score 2) 340

Your argument is based on the assumption that the price per channel reflect the cost of running it. It does not.

The income for a channel is based on what the market (subscribers, advertisers) will pay. The channel has to create its content based on that income. This basically means that in your scenario, if both viewers wanted only channel 1, they would pay half the cost.
Channel 2 would be without viewers, and would have the hard choice of either creating attractive content to get its viewer back, or simply close down.
There is no law in nature which says that all TV channels have to exist forever. Actually, a lot of them are not needed at all.

Submission + - Richard Stallman Answers Your Questions

samzenpus writes: A while ago you had the chance to ask GNU and Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman about GNU, copyright laws, digital restrictions management, and software patents. Below you'll find his answers to those questions.

Submission + - Sony Warns Demand for Blu-ray Diminishing Faster Than Expected (computerworld.com)

Lucas123 writes: Sony has warned investors that it expects to take a hit on expected earnings, due in part to the fact that demand for Blu-ray Disc media is contracting faster than anticipated. In two weeks, Sony will announce its financial results. The company expects to post a net loss. Sony's warning is in line with other industry indicators, such as a report released earlier this year by Generator Research showed revenue from DVD and Blu-ray sales will likely decrease by 38% over the next four years. By comparison, online movie revenue is expected to grow 260% from $3.5 billion this year to $12.7 billion in 2018, the report states. Paul Gray, director of TV Electronics & Europe TV Research at market research firm DisplaySearch, said consumers are now accustomed to the instant availability of online media, and "the idea of buying a physical copy seems quaint if you're under 25."

Submission + - Norway Is Gamifying Warfare By Driving Tanks With Oculus Rift (vice.com)

Daniel_Stuckey writes: Look at Norway, where the Army has started using Oculus Rift to drive tanks with increased visibility, according to the Norwegian TV station tu.no. Four VR cameras are mounted on the sides of the tank to give the soldier inside donning the headset a full 360 degree view of what's going on outside, like X-ray vision. Using cameras to "see through" a vehicle isn't a new concept; when the hatches are down tanks are notoriously hard to navigate. But the Oculus Rift dev kit is just a fraction of the price of traditional 360-degree camera equipment: Lockheed Martin's F-35 helmet for pilots can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Comment Re:Are there any old drives around that read these (Score 1) 481

Anything from the 70's and the early 80's will work.
Some VAX computers (11/780 series) used 8" floppy to read the boot loader. OSes like VAX/VMS, RSX-11, RT-11 will read/write them. I also suspect that any old IBM computer/OS will read them.

The main problem is that hardware was more proprietary in those days. You cannot just plug in any 8" drive.
File systems and formatting were different between OSes and vendors, so you need the OS that wrote it to be able to read it (or an emulator).

Comment Re:ITIL (Score 1) 100

ITIL is a recommendation. As you mention, implemeting ITIL by the letter is simply wrong. But inventing a system from scratch is beyond the capability of most organizations (believe me, our company tried and failed miserably befoe adopting ITIL). Why should everybody reinvent the wheel?

Comment Re:ITIL (Score 1) 100

We use ITIL, and the CM part definitely has saved us from major issues.
And some of the problems we see would have been avoided if the teams responsible had followed the CM process.
The more complex the organization is (we are a truly global company), the more you need structure.

Comment Re:If it ain't broke... (Score 1) 100

If our company is typical, we update firmware only when needed.
Most servers keep most of the firmware for the entire lifespan.
An exception would be if the OS is upgraded (but even that is unusual).
A common exception is the HP ILO controllers. One reason we sometimes update them is that there are real improvements, ad it does not require downtime.

Submission + - Gary Kildall, Father of the PC OS, Finally Gets His Due

theodp writes: GeekWire reports that Gary Kildall, the creator of the landmark personal computer operating system CP/M, will be recognized posthumously by the IEEE for that contribution, in addition to his invention of BIOS, with a rare IEEE Milestone plaque. Kildall, who passed away in 1994 at the age of 52, has been called the man who could have been Bill Gates. But according to Kildall's son, his dad wasn't actually interested in being what Bill Gates became: "He was a real inventor," said Scott Kildall. "He was much more interested in creating new ideas and bringing them to the world, rather than being the one that was bringing them to market and leveraging a huge amount of profits. He was such a kind human being. He was always sharing his ideas, and would sit down with people and show flowcharts of what he was thinking. I think if he were around for the open-source movement, he would be such a huge proponent of it." Techies of a certain age will also remember Gary's work as a co-host of Computer Chronicles.

Submission + - History's 15 Most Popular Computer Scientists (itworld.com)

itwbennett writes: Researcher’s at MIT’s Media Lab have launched a new project called Pantheon, in which they attempt to quantify the cultural impact of people throughout time. Using data from Wikipedia, they’ve developed a Historical Popularity Index (HPI) — based on a number of things, including the number of languages in which one’s Wikipedia bio exists and the number and distribution of page views to those bio pages — to rank more than 11,000 famous people from the past and present. (Spoiler alert: Aristotle, Plato, Jesus, Socrates and Alexander the Great take the top slots.) While famous techies still generally score much lower HPIs than actors, athletes and artists, some computer scientists, including Linus Torvalds, Martin Minsky, and Tim Berners-Lee, did make the list. And Alan Turing's HPI of 24.989 made him the most popular of the bunch.

Comment Re:Automating taxes (Score 1) 423

Sure, it'd be easy in a perfect world for the IRS to handle everything, but it'd require absolutely no unexpected deductions. The whole point of those deductions is (ostensibly) to make taxes more fair, so why should we encourage undermining that fairness?

The way it works where I live (small European country), sometime in March I get a letter with the number the tax office have been given, and a calculation of much I owe or are due. If all the numbers are correct, I do nothing, as doing nothing by May 1st is defined as accepting the numbers. If there are deductions missing, I log in to the tax authorities web site and add the missing numbers (can also be done on paper). It also lets me upload documentation in the form of scanned documents. If originals are required, they are sent by mail.
After the tax office have redone the tax, I will then get a new letter with the recalculated tax.
Pretty simple, and works nice. No taxes needed to change to accomodate the new system.

Comment Re:Nope, not okay for either (Score 2) 575

Two errors her:

WIndows 2012 R2 Standard is the server version of Windows 8.1. Windows Server 2012 is the server version of Windows 8.

Windows 2012 (and 2012 R2) Datacenter is not a version, it is a licensing option for virtual environments. The Standard version contains all functionality. The price for the Standard version is $882 (list - two physical CPUs).

Comment The story stinks (Score 1) 236

If one or two engineers can change a part as is claimed here, and the part actually get installed in the car without any warning flags are reaised, the control systems at GM are obviously not up to a minimal standard.
The design would need to go through several stages before it reaches the car. Changes in a part require changes in the parts production. Can one or two engineers engineer authorize that? Me thinks not.
And publishing the names of the engineers just show how spineless the management are.

I smell a scapegoat here.

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