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It's funny. Laugh.

I Will Derive Screenshot-sm 269

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-now-isn't-that-nice dept.
Jamie stumbled upon a very choice video this morning called I Will Derive. To the tune of some song you've never heard before, singing about subjects you know nothing about... oh and a a TI-84 cameo. It features the dopiest dancing you'll see on YouTube today. I promise.
Media (Apple)

Apple to Rule the Digital Home by 2013? 223

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the apple-speculation-america's-new-pastime dept.
Stony Stevenson writes to tell us that a new study from Forrester Research is taking a crack at what seems to have become a hobby for so many, predicting Apple's market strategy. Specifically, Forrester is predicting that Apple will become the 'hub of the digital home by 2013.' "Forrester predicts that Apple will offer eight key products and services to connect PCs and digital content to the TV-stereo infrastructure in consumers' homes. A 're-engineered' Apple Store will expand into in-home installation services to deliver what Forrester describes as a 'fully integrated digital experience.'"

Feed Techdirt: Since When Has Copyright Become Life Plus 343 Years? (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
If you follow copyright issues at all, you know that the length of copyright has been extended time and time again, mostly at the behest of entertainment industry interests who are fearful of their content falling into the public domain (even if they used public domain material to create their own content in the first place). However, copyrights do eventually expire, but it seems like fewer and fewer people recognize that. Jim writes in to point out the unfortunate example an IP lawyer discovered recently upon visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Despite the fact that the museum normally allows photographs (as long as there's no flash), it would not allow them in a display of artwork by Nicholas Poussin, who died in 1665. When questioned why the "no photography" rule was in place, he was told that it was because of the "copyright" on the artwork. While this is obviously a minor slip-up by a museum guard, it does show that people are becoming accustomed to the idea that copyright lasts forever, which is a serious problem. The more people understand copyright, and why limits on copyright are important, the more likely we are to start to shift the system away from the ridiculous levels it's reached.

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Microsoft

Submission + - Save XP

Submitted by
Anonymous House Cat
Anonymous House Cat writes: "Look, I'm really not an MSFT fan, I've always seen them as a better tool maker than an OS makers. XP, in it's six years has become stable and in spite of the total lack of evolution in the Microsoft Kernel, relatively fast, as it has forced us to buy ever faster hardware to run applications. I have been a Linux user since the early 1990's but have always kept a Windows machine around for games, the machine I run XP on is a monster, and again Microsoft is asking me to get a yet bigger machine to run a bloated OS that has no real benefit. If Microsoft put half as much into Kernel development as they put into gui development, I wouldn't be writing this. So every six years, M$ trots out a new gui with a few changes based on the ancient NT kernel and calls it a new OS. Why not work from the inside out, just build a better XP, really recode the kernel, do it the way Linux people do it. I can honestly say that at this point, my Linux machine is far more evolved, as two men alone have submitted over 2500 kernel changes in the last year, which is really evolving the OS, heck, this windows kernel is just a bloated version of the NT kernel introduced years ago. In the Linux world they actually improve the operating system, not just give us shiny new gui components. If "Rainbow Six" were made for Linux, I wouldn't even own a windows machine. But I do, XP works, so why not just try to make it better, or is that too much of a challenge ?"
Censorship

Scientology Given Direct Access To eBay Database 684

Posted by kdawson from the finger-on-the-scale dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Church of Scientology can delete auctions from eBay with no supervision under the VeRO program, and has used this to delete all resale of the e-meters Scientologists use. This is to stop members from buying used units from ex-members instead of buying from the official (and very expensive) source. Given Scientology's record of fraud and abuse, should eBay give them this level of trust? Will this set a precedent for other companies that want to stop the aftermarket resale of their products?"
The Internet

P2P Fans Pound Comcast In FCC Comments 306

Posted by kdawson from the do-not-fiddle-my-bits dept.
Not Comcastic writes "Two weeks after officially opening proceedings on Comcast's BitTorrent throttling, angry users are bombarding the FCC with comments critical of the cable provider's practices. 'On numerous occasions, my access to legal BitTorrent files was cut off by Comcast,' a systems administrator based in Indianapolis wrote to the FCC shortly after the proceeding began. 'During this period, I managed to troubleshoot all other possible causes of this issue, and it was my conclusion (speaking as a competent IT administrator) that this could only be occurring due to direct action at the ISP (Comcast) level.' Another commenter writes 'I have experienced this throttling of bandwidth in sharing open-source software, e.g. Knoppix and Open Office. Also I see considerable differences in speed ftp sessions vs. html. They are obviously limiting speed in ftp as well.'"
The Media

Submission + - Computerworld eats babies. (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by Lerc
Lerc writes: Computerworld has posted a response to people who called them on their use of the term Bricked in a recent article. They are standing beside their use of the term. It seems they support the idea of misleading headlines in order to gain reader attention arguing that the body of the article still provides accurate information. "The facts in the article are clear and straightforward, and if the headline gets the attention of one user who *won't* walk up to you Wednesday morning with a cheesed laptop, I think you'll agree the verbal slap upside the head is worth it."
Government

Army Buys Macs to Beef Up Security 342

Posted by Zonk from the shiny-red-firewall dept.
agent_blue writes "The Army is integrating Macs into their IT network to thwart hack attempts. The Mac platform, they argue, is more secure because there are fewer attacks against OS X than Windows-based systems. 'Military procurement has long been driven by cost and availability of additional software--two measures where Macintosh computers have typically come up short against Windows-based PCs. Then there have been subtle but important barriers: For instance, Macintosh computers have long been incompatible with a security keycard-reading system known as Common Access Cards system, or CAC, which is heavily used by the military. The Army's Apple program, created [in 2005], is working to change that.'"
Microsoft

Submission + - $100 laptop hits choppy waters in Nigeria (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by 00_NOP
00_NOP writes: The $100 laptop project seems to be running into difficulty in Nigeria where, on the one hand the education minister says: "What is the sense of introducing One Laptop per Child when they don't have seats to sit down and learn; when they don't have uniforms to go to school in, where they don't have facilities?" and yet is also revealed to be examining alternatives from Microsoft and Intel, well known for their dislike of the project.
The BBC's report also has some video from Nicholas Negroponte.
Clearly both companies see the little green box as a big threat — either because of its use of Linux or it's use of AMD hardware. With deep pockets maybe they'll be offering the Nigerians some sweeteners to look at the alternatives?
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Salt a Burger, go to Jail

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Apparently, in Georgia oversalting a burger can get you arrested. According to the AP http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070909/ap_on_fe_st/od d_salty_burger;_ylt=AotbWDiQVItw8JfwjhrcVvKs0NUE "A McDonald's employee spent a night in jail and is facing criminal charges because a police officer's burger was too salty, so salty that he says it made him sick." Now the question is, why did he keep eating it if it was that bad?
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Patents Uncrackable DRM

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft has just received a little-known patent for a "Stealthy audio watermarking," which is seemingly uncrackable, since it uses spread-spectrum technology to hide its traces within music files. As the patent's abstract explains it: "The watermark identifies the content producer, providing a signature that is embedded in the audio signal and cannot be removed. The watermark is designed to survive all typical kinds of processing and malicious attacks." True, watermarking is not the same as file encrpyption. However, an end-to-end music system could use watermarking to verify ownership. Does this mean it might be time to revise the DRM scorecard?
The Internet

Submission + - US feds shun net neutrality laws

Submitted by Rob
Rob writes: The US Justice Department late last week balked at proposed net neutrality laws, which would prohibit network operators from charging for faster delivery of their content or favoring certain content over others. But most major internet companies, including eBay, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, fear that the absence of net neutrality laws opens the door for a two-tiered Internet with a fast lane for those willing to pay for priority content and a slow lane in which operators could compromise services to encourage a switch to the more profitable tier.
XBox (Games)

Submission + - Halo 3 Cheaters to be Banned Till 9999 AD

Submitted by
Gary
Gary writes: "Anyone trying to sneak into the closed beta a few weeks before release will get slammed with the biggest ban hammer ever! Literally, they get there accounts banned till 9999 AD, some 7,447 years after the events of Halo 3 take place. This was discovered by a 17-year-old Minnesotan who goes by the name 'Scar' the hard way. An avid gamer with a GameScore of 61,000 got kicked because he got Epsilon from a friend's friend and tried to glitch it into his account using the two controller exploit."

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