novafluxx - Slashdot User

Rogers Shrinks Download Limits As Netflix Arrives 281

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday July 24, 2010 @01:26PM from the not-very-canuckian-of-them dept.

Meshach writes "Hot on the heels of Netflix coming to Canada, Rogers (one of the biggest ISPs in Canada) has shrunk download limits. 'As of Wednesday, new customers who sign up for the Lite service will be allowed 15 gigabytes, a drop from the 25 GB limit offered to those who signed up before July 21. Meanwhile, any new Lite user who goes over the monthly limit will have to pay $4 per GB up to a maximum of $50 — a spike from the previous $2.5 per GB surcharge.' Officially, there is no connection between the two events, but it seems an odd coincidence, especially when Rogers charges customers who exceed their bandwidth allowance."

Cell Phone Group Sues San Francisco Over Radiation Law 242

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday July 24, 2010 @10:19AM from the it's-not-a-toomah dept.

crimeandpunishment writes "The wireless industry wants to put San Francisco's cell phone radiation law on hold. An industry trade group filed a lawsuit Friday trying to stop the law, which requires cell phone stores to display how much radio energy each phone emits. The group says the law, which is the first of its kind in the country, supersedes the authority of the Federal Communications Commission, and will mislead consumers into thinking one phone is safer than another."

Dell Drops Ubuntu PCs From Its Website 473

Posted by timothy on Saturday July 24, 2010 @08:18AM from the too-hard-to-spell dept.

Barence writes "Dell has stopped selling consumer PCs preloaded with Ubuntu from its website, and doesn't know when they're coming back. A search for Ubuntu on the Dell UK website returns only one laptop — the Dell Latitude 2100 from the company's business range. Dell insists that it's continuing to sell Ubuntu systems, but only over the phone, and has no idea when — or even if — the Ubuntu PCs will return online. 'We've recently made an effort to simplify our offerings online, by focusing on our most popular bundles and configuration options, based on customer feedback for reduced complexity and a simple, easy purchase experience,' Dell told PC Pro. 'We're also making some changes to our Ubuntu pages, and as a result, they are currently available through our phone-based sales only.' The move comes after Dell put a page on its website advising customers only to go for Ubuntu if they were interested in open-source programming."

Australian Enterprises Block Sex Party's Political Site 160

Posted by timothy on Saturday July 24, 2010 @05:57AM from the be-the-change-you-want-to-see dept.

schliz writes "Corporate web filters in some organizations are blocking web access to the Australian Sex Party, which is a registered political party that is contesting Australia's upcoming August 21 Federal Election. The site features policies and campaign material, including opposition to the Government's mandatory internet filtering proposal. Party convener Fiona Patten said that although the term 'sex' in the party's website URL could be responsible for its filtering woes, the party is unlikely to consider a name change: 'I think the fact that people are still blocking our site just because of the word "sex" in the name shows that we need this political movement.'"

Study Finds 0.3% of BitTorrent Files Definitely Legal 321

Posted by timothy on Saturday July 24, 2010 @12:08AM from the can-we-call-that-vanishingly dept.

Andorin writes "It's common knowledge that the majority of files distributed over BitTorrent violate copyright, though the exact percentage is unclear. The Internet Commerce Security Laboratory of the University of Ballarat in Australia has conducted a study and found that 89% of files examined were in fact infringing, while most of the remaining 11% were ambiguous but likely to be infringing. Ars Technica summarizes the study: 'The total sample consisted of 1,000 torrent files—a random selection from the most active seeded files on the trackers they used. Each file was manually checked to see whether it was being legally distributed. Only three cases—0.3 percent of the files—were determined to be definitely not infringing, while 890 files were confirmed to be illegal. ' The study brings with it some other interesting statistics; out of the 1,000 files, 91 were pornographic, and approximately 4% of torrents were responsible for 80% of seeders. Music, movies and TV shows constituted the three largest categories of shared materials, and among those, zero legal files were found."

Comment Report it to Dell (Score 5, Informative) 765

by novafluxx on Monday July 12, 2010 @09:53PM (#32882102) Attached to: Retrieving a Stolen Laptop By IP Address Alone?

Make sure you call Dell and report it and give them the case number, they can flag it in their system as stolen and if anyone calls in on that system's tag...they'll obtain as much info as they can and act like nothings wrong.

Comment Re:I'm allergic to... (Score 1) 643

by novafluxx on Friday January 08, 2010 @09:35PM (#30703282) Attached to: Air Canada Ordered To Provide Nut-Free Zone

Only in the western provinces, I'm afraid. :-) So, I have a shellfish allergy. It can kill me. If I travel on an international flight, and they're serving lobster, can I file a lawsuit? How about I just let the airline know ahead of time, so they won't serve that to any of the 300 people on the flight, just because me, 1 man, has an issue. Sounds like a fair deal to me! Screw everyone else, I deserve SPECIAL treatment!

Comment Re:humane testing (Score 1) 235

by novafluxx on Friday January 08, 2010 @12:46AM (#30690950) Attached to: The 9 Most Tested Lab Animals

I'm all for testing as long as it doesn't cause apprechiable suffering for the animal. limited tempary discomformt i can live with, but making another living thing which feels pain live or die in agony is as evil an act as i can imagine.

especially when it's for something shallow like cosmetic testing.

I agree 100% with that.

The 9 Most Tested Lab Animals 235

Posted by samzenpus on Friday January 08, 2010 @12:20AM from the not-a-list-you-want-to-be-on dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Discover Magazine has this odd photo gallery in which they explain why certain animals are used in scientific research. Why are high-tech contact lenses always tried out in rabbits? Why do we study monogamy in prairie voles? Etc. They say of the 9 animals: 'Taken (or stitched) together, they form a kind of laboratory doppelganger for humans.'"

Mexico Wants Payment For Aztec Images 325

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday January 07, 2010 @11:44PM from the montezuma's-latest-revenge dept.

innocent_white_lamb writes "Starbucks brought out a line of cups with prehistoric Aztec images on them. Now the government of Mexico wants them to pay for the use of the images. Does the copyright on an image last hundreds of years?"

Comment Re:got balls? (Score 1) 1078

by novafluxx on Saturday November 21, 2009 @05:30PM (#30188032) Attached to: Apple Voiding Smokers' Warranties?

You're so right, and thats so true. If they're working on a customer's computer without proper protection (ansti-static wrist bands, latex gloves, possible dust mask) they aren't providing a safe working environment for their employees, and an employee who works on these computers at ANY Apple Store should file a complaint with OSHA, and possible file a lawsuit. When is is legal to void the warranty of a smoke? Why is it possibly legal, yet, denying service to a pet owner because their employees 'may' have allergies, is probably NOT legal. What if they denied a black/hispanic/gay/lesbian smoker warranty service, then it would be national news RIGHT NOW on CNN and HLN.

Apple Voiding Smokers' Warranties? 1078

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday November 21, 2009 @11:17AM from the a-what-a-day-keeps-the-doctor-away dept.

Mr2001 writes "Consumerist reports that Apple is refusing to work on computers that have been used in smoking households. 'The Apple store called and informed me that due to the computer having been used in a house where there was smoking, [the warranty has been voided] and they refuse to work on the machine "due to health risks of second hand smoke,"' wrote one customer. Another said, 'When I asked for an explanation, she said [the owner of the iMac is] a smoker and it's contaminated with cigarette smoke, which they consider a bio-hazard! I checked my Applecare warranty and it says nothing about not honoring warranties if the owner is a smoker.' Apple claims that honoring the warranty would be an OSHA violation. (Remember when they claimed enabling 802.11n for free would be a Sarbanes-Oxley violation?)"

ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings 461

Posted by kdawson on Monday June 22, 2009 @06:20PM from the don't-even-think-about-whistling-the-beatles dept.

gerddie notes a piece up on the EFF site outlining the fairly outlandish legal theories ASCAP is trying out in their court fight with AT&T. "ASCAP (the same folks who went after Girl Scouts for singing around a campfire) appears to believe that every time your musical ringtone rings in public, you're violating copyright law by 'publicly performing' it without a license. At least that's the import of a brief (PDF, 2.5 MB) it filed in ASCAP's court battle with mobile phone giant AT&T."

FCC To Probe Exclusive Mobile Deals 159

Posted by Soulskill on Friday June 19, 2009 @08:07PM from the hold-off-on-that-twelve-year-contract dept.

On Tuesday, we discussed news that four US Senators would be looking into the exclusivity deals between carriers and cell phone makers. Apparently, they didn't like what they heard. Reader Ian Lamont writes with an update: "The Federal Communications Commission is planning on launching an investigation into exclusive handset deals between mobile carriers and handset makers. In a speech on Thursday, acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps said the agency 'should determine whether some of these arrangements adversely restrict consumer choice or harm the development of innovative devices, and it should take appropriate action if it finds harm.' It's not hard to imagine who might be targeted — at a separate Senate Committee on Commerce hearing on Thursday, much of the discussion centered on AT&T's exclusive deal to carry the iPhone. AT&T claimed 'consumers benefit from exclusive deals in three ways: innovation, lower cost and more choice,' but carriers and senators from states with large rural populations disagreed, saying that their customers had no choice when it came to the iPhone — it's not available because AT&Ts network doesn't reach these areas. One panelist also brought up the Carterfone precedent (PDF), which concerned an 'electrical acoustic coupling device' that a man named Tom Carter developed in the 1950s to let field workers make phone calls using a radio transceiver connected to AT&T's phone network. AT&T, which was then a monopoly, claimed no foreign devices could be connected to its network, but lost when it challenged the Carterfone in court. The result spurred innovation such as the fax machine."

State of Sound Development On Linux Not So Sorry After All 427

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday June 19, 2009 @05:44PM from the sounds-like-improvement dept.

An anonymous reader writes "There have been past claims by Adobe and others that development on Linux is a jungle, particularly with regards to audio. However today, the author of the popular 'The Sorry State of Sound in Linux' has posted a follow up showing Adobe's claims to be FUD, as well as being a good update on where OSS and ALSA are holding today, and why PulseAudio isn't a good idea."

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