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Patents

Red Hat Settles Patent Case 76

Posted by Soulskill from the making-it-go-away dept.
darthcamaro writes "Red Hat has settled another patent case with patent holding firm Acacia. This time the patent is US Patent #6,163,776, 'System and method for exchanging data and commands between an object oriented system and relational system.' While it's great that Red Hat has ended this particular patent threat, it's not yet clear how they've settled this case. The last time Red Hat tangled with Acacia they won in an Texas jury trial. 'Red Hat routinely addresses attempts to impede the innovative forces of open source via allegations of patent infringement,' Red Hat said in a statement. 'We can confirm that Red Hat, Inc and Software Tree LLC have settled patent litigation that was pending in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas.'"

Comment Just get the junk food out of the cafeterias. (Score 1) 425

by infernalC (#33516052) Attached to: Big Brother In the School Cafeteria?

I don't know whether school lunch programs actually increase student performance or not. It is unconscionable that children go hungry while others eat in front of them, so I consider the programs necessary.

The three of my four kids who are in school take a lunch box. One of them is overweight, and we found out he was spending his allowance on a la carte junk food in the cafeteria line, particularly ice cream bars.

Frankly, there isn't any reason for the junk food to be there in the first place. I was astonished to find out that the school policy is to not enforce parents' requests to not allow children to buy junk food in the cafeteria.

It's not realistic for most parents to be with their kids all the time. It takes a village to raise a child. I don't think secret PIN numbers are necessary to help kids eat better in school. I think we just need to get the junk food out of the cafeteria. If parents *want* their kids eating crap, put it in the lunch box, but don't try to sell it to my kids while I'm not looking. I don't think we should expect teachers or lunch workers to be food police. Get the bad food out so they don't have to deal with it and parents don't have to worry about it.
The Military

Military Personnel Weigh In On Being Taliban In Medal of Honor 171

Posted by Soulskill from the identity-conflict dept.
SSDNINJA writes "This is a feature from gamrFeed that interviews nine US service members about playing as the Taliban in the upcoming Medal of Honor. One soldier states that games like MoH and Call of Duty are 'profiteering from war.' Another says, 'Honestly, I don't really see what the whole fuss is about. It's a game, and just like in Call of Duty, you don't really care about what side you're taking, just as long as you win. I don't think anyone cares if you're part of the Rangers or Spetznaz, as long as you win.' An excellent and interesting read."
Education

NAMCO Takes Down Student Pac-man Project 218

Posted by Soulskill from the chasing-ghosts dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The core of how people first learn to do stuff — programming, music, writing, etc. — is to imitate others. It's one of the best ways to learn. Apparently a bunch of students using MIT's educational Scratch programming language understand this. But not everyone else does. NAMCO Bandai sent a takedown notice to MIT because some kids had recreated Pac-man with Scratch. The NAMCO letter is pretty condescending as well, noting that it understands the educational purpose of Scratch, but 'part of their education should include concern for the intellectual property of others.'"
Microsoft

MS Design Lets You Put Batteries In Any Way You Want 453

Posted by timothy from the dis-orientation dept.
jangel writes "While its strategy for mobile devices might be a mess, Microsoft has announced something we'll all benefit from. The company's patented design for battery contacts will allow users of portable devices — digital cameras, flashlights, remote controls, toys, you name it — to insert their batteries in any direction. Compatible with AA and AAA cells, among others, the 'InstaLoad' technology does not require special electronics or circuitry, the company claims."
The Internet

Over a Third of the Internet Is Pornographic 247

Posted by samzenpus from the filthy-web dept.
Th'Inquisitor writes "Pornography makes up 37% of the total number of web pages online, according to a new study published by Optenet, a SaaS provider. According to the report, which looked at a representative sample of around four million extracted URLs, adult content on the Internet increased by 17% in the first quarter of 2010, as compared to the same period in 2009."
Image

The Race To Beer With 50% Alcohol By Volume Screenshot-sm 297

Posted by samzenpus from the good-stiff-12-pack dept.
ElectricSteve writes "Most of the world's beer has between 4% and 6% alcohol by volume (ABV). The strength of beer achieved by traditional fermentation brewing methods has limits, but a well-crafted beer that is repeatedly 'freeze distilled' can achieve exquisite qualities and much higher alcohol concentrations. An escalation in the use of this relatively new methodology over the last 12 months has seen man's favorite beverage suddenly move into the 40+% ABV realm of spirits such as gin, rum, brandy, whiskey, and vodka, creating a new category of extreme beer. The world's strongest beer was 27% ABV, but amidst an informal contest to claim the title of the world's strongest beer, the top beer has jumped in strength dramatically. This week Gizmag spoke to the brewers at the center of the escalating competition. New contestants are gathering, and the race is now on to break 50% alcohol by volume."
GNU is Not Unix

FSF Asks Apple To Comply With the GPL For Clone of GNU Go 482

Posted by timothy from the y'know-fellas-the-license dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Free Software Foundation has discovered that an application currently distributed in Apple's App Store is a port of GNU Go. This makes it a GPL violation, because Apple controls distribution of all such programs through the iTunes Store Terms of Service, which is incompatible with section 6 of the GPLv2. It's an unusual enforcement action, though, because they don't want Apple to just make the app disappear, they want Apple to grant its users the full freedoms offered by the GPL. Accordingly, they haven't sued or sent any legal threats and are instead in talks with Apple about how they can offer their users the GPLed software legally, which is difficult because it's not possible to grant users all the freedoms they're entitled to and still comply with Apple's restrictive licensing terms."
Media

The End of the 3.5-inch Floppy Continues 472

Posted by timothy from the finally-we-can-standardize-on-bernoulli dept.
JoshuaInNippon writes "In a brief press release buried within Sony Japan's website, the company announced that it would be ending sales of the classic 3.5-inch diskette in the country in March 2011. Sony introduced the size to the world in 1981, and it saw its heyday in the 1990s. Sony has been one of the last major manufacturers to continue shipments of the disk type it helped develop, but had ended most worldwide sales in March of this year. The company's production of the 3.5-inch floppy ceased in 2009. Sony noted demand, or lack thereof, as the reason. The company's withdrawal is one of the final acts in the slow death of the floppy era."
Math

At Issue In a Massachusetts Town, the Value of Two-Thirds 449

Posted by timothy from the all-those-in-favor-and-then-some dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In Truro, Massachusetts (a town on Cape Cod), a zoning decision came up for vote, where the results were 136 for, 70 against. The vote required 2/3 approval to pass. The Town Clerk and Town Accountant believe that since .66 * 206 is less than 136, the vote passes. However, an 'anonymous caller' noted that a more accurate value of 2/3 would require 137 (or perhaps even 138 votes) for the measure to be considered passed. The MA Secretary of State and State Attorney General are hard at work to resolve this issue." Updated 20100422 23:55 by timothy: Oops! This story is a year old (rounding up), which I didn't spot quickly enough. Hope they've got it all worked out in the meantime.
Hardware

GUI-Based Asset-Tracking Tools For a Datacenter? 113

Posted by timothy from the your-gigantic-whiteboard dept.
toruonu writes "How do you keep track of what's in your datacenter, where it is, what it's connected to and what is it doing right now? I mean I have built a datacenter from scratch over the years and I have machines from Sun, IBM, HP, Supermicro. I have machines that are simple workernodes and machines that are heavy grade storage consolidation machines. Then there are tens of switches, some for interconnect, some for management and don't get me started on the UPSs etc. So how does one keep any kind of decent track of such a system as the current form of twiki pages with various tables just doesn't cut it anymore and I'm looking for a freeware solution that could actually show me a visual representation of the various nodes in the racks, their connections and dependencies. Just to give a simple example, if I'm going to disconnect UPS #3 right now and swap switch #5, which machines should I even consider taking offline?" (The best-looking such system I've seen was being used at OSCON at a display booth for the Open Source Lab, and I think it was home-grown. Anyone who can shed light on that system?)

Comment Wow, they incorporated technology... (Score 0) 197

by infernalC (#31123670) Attached to: Porsche Unveils 911 Hybrid With Flywheel Booster

from lawnmower engines!

Actually, I'm glad to see car companies reclaiming all that kinetic energy that they were previously just radiating off as heat during braking.

I bet a flywheel is an incredibly efficient way to store it, too. Now, lets see if these brakes actually work. Hope they did a better job than Toyota.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Job (part 2)

Journal by infernalC

So... I have not posted a /. journal entry in four years... so here goes:

I AM NOT SEEKING EMPLOYMENT ANY MORE. I have been happily employed by a major point of sale software company for two years. Just trying to clarify things a bit.

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