David Gerard - Slashdot User

Submission + - Washington Post: attack Wikileaks with military

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David Gerard

on Wednesday August 04, 2010 @05:47AM

David Gerard writes: "The old media is feeling the heat. The Washington Post has just run an op-ed from far-right US security hawk Marc Thiessen demanding that military strikes be called in upon Wikileaks. I bet the RIAA wish they'd thought of that one."

Submission + - Wine 1.2 released (winehq.org)

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Friday July 16, 2010 @04:39PM

David Gerard writes: "Stuck with that one Windows app you can't get rid of? Rejoice — Wine 1.2 is officially released! Apart from running pretty much any Windows application on Unix better than 1.0 (from 2008), major new features include 64-bit support, bi-directional text and translation into thirty languages. And, of course, DirectX 9 is well-supported and DirectX 10 is getting better. Packages should hit the distros over the weekend, or you can get the source now.wi"

Submission + - Wine 1.2 released (winehq.org)

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Friday July 16, 2010 @04:38PM

David Gerard writes: "Stuck with that one Windows app you can't get rid of? Rejoice — Wine 1.2 is officially released! Apart from running pretty much any Windows application on Unix better than 1.0 (from 2008), major new features include 64-bit support, bi-directional text and translation into thirty languages. And, of course, DirectX 9 is well-supported and DirectX 10 is getting better. Packages should hit the distros over the weekend, or you can get the source now."

Submission + - Times UK paywall a miserable failure (newser.com)

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Thursday July 15, 2010 @12:38PM

David Gerard writes: "As part of his war against free, Rupert Murdoch put the Times and Sunday Times of London behind a paywall. Michael Wolff of Newser asks how that's working out for him. You can guess: miserable failure. "Not only is nobody subscribing to the website, but subscribers to the paper itselfâ€Â”who have free access to the siteâ€Â”are not going beyond the registration page. Itâ€Âs an empty world." Not that this wasn't entirely predictable."

Submission + - NVidia "nv" driver is dead

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Friday March 26, 2010 @04:58PM

David Gerard writes: "NVidia has announced to Xorg that the nv driver is officially dead. It will likely continue to work on existing GPUs, but not on new ones. The nouveau driver was strangely not mentioned, particularly not in the context of nouveau going into Linux 2.6.33."

Submission + - Verified: Chinese Government attacked Google (arstechnica.com) 1

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David Gerard

on Thursday January 14, 2010 @01:02PM

David Gerard writes: "ArsTechnica reports that Verisign iDefense researchers have identified the command servers used to attack Google and Adobe — and that they were operated by the Chinese Government. 'Citing sources in the defense contracting and intelligence consulting community, the iDefense report unambiguously declares that the Chinese government was, in fact, behind the effort. The report also says that the malicious code was deployed in PDF files that were crafted to exploit a vulnerability in Adobe's software.'"

Submission + - Programmers Need To Learn Statistics (zedshaw.com) 2

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David Gerard

on Saturday January 09, 2010 @05:05PM

David Gerard writes: "Zed Shaw writes an impassioned plea to programmers: Programmers Need To Learn Statistics Or I Will Kill Them All. "I go insane when I hear programmers talking about statistics like they know shit when it’s clearly obvious they do not. I’ve been studying it for years and years and still don’t think I know anything. This article is my call for all programmers to finally learn enough about statistics to at least know they don’t know shit. I have no idea why, but their confidence in their lacking knowledge is only surpassed by their lack of confidence in their personal appearance.""

Submission + - UK govt fires drugs adviser for telling truth 2

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David Gerard

on Friday October 30, 2009 @03:29PM

David Gerard writes: "Professor David Nutt of Imperial College was chairman of the British government's advisory committee on the misuse of drugs — until today. On Wednesday night, he gave a speech ahead of a paper noting that on the basis of harm, alcohol was far more dangerous than ecstasy or cannabis. Today, Home Secretary Alan Johnson has fired Professor Nutt, saying that "It is important that the government's messages on drugs are clear and as an advisor you do nothing to undermine them." Such as inconvenient matters of reality-based thinking, apparently. He did this just in time for the six o'clock news, and the press is up in arms. Channel 4 journalist Krishnan Guru-Murthy notes with amazement that "nobody will come on to defend Alan Johnson. They all prefer to issue statements that can't be questioned." It's already being tagged the War on Science."

Submission + - "Three strikes" to go ahead in Britain (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Wednesday October 28, 2009 @09:00AM

David Gerard writes: "Lord Peter Mandelson has carefully ignored the Gowers Report and the Carter Report, instead taking the advice of his good friend David Geffen and three strikes and you're out will become law in Britain. The Open Rights Group has, of course, hit the roof. Oh, and never mind MI5 and the police pointing out that widespread encryption will become normal, hampering their efforts to keep up with little things like impending terrorist atrocities. Still, worth it to stop a few Lily Allen tracks being shared, what?"

Submission + - Apple sues greengrocer over apple-shaped logo (smh.com.au)

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Monday October 05, 2009 @06:55PM

David Gerard writes: "Apple is fiercely protective of its trademark — some would say over-protective. In their latest winning move, they've sued Woolworths in Australia over its new logo (which looks like a green pumpkin). Woolworths is, of course, a supermarket ... it sells apples. No word on whether Apple will sue apples for existing."

Submission + - The Hazards of Dating a Gamer: Love At First Frag (videogame-reviews.co.uk)

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Sunday September 27, 2009 @12:23PM

David Gerard writes: "Susan Taylor at Video Game Reviews describes the hazards of catching the gamer of your dreams. Find out what game she got for her twenty-first and why he thought it was the perfect present."

Submission + - UK Government apologises to Alan Turing (number10.gov.uk) 1

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Thursday September 10, 2009 @05:22PM

David Gerard writes: "After the petition, Gordon Brown comes through with the official apology to Alan Turing. 'Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction ... So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we're sorry, you deserved so much better.'"

Submission + - Intellectual Ventures' patent protection racket (timothyblee.com)

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David Gerard

on Tuesday September 08, 2009 @10:17AM

David Gerard writes: "Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures doesn't sue people over patents, because that would be patent trolling! No, instead they just threaten to sell the patent to a known litigous patent troll. So that's all right then. Timothy Lee details how using patents to crush profitable innovation works in practice, and concludes: 'In thinking about how to reform the patent system, a good yardstick would be to look for policy changes that would tend to put Myhrvold and his firm out of business.'"

Submission + - \Windows 7 reintroduces remote BSoD (seclists.org) 8

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Tuesday September 08, 2009 @06:02AM

David Gerard writes: "Remember the good old days of the 1990s, when you could teardrop attack any Windows user who'd annoyed you and bluescreen them? Microsoft reintroduces this popular feature in Windows 7, courtesy the rewritten TCP/IP and SMB2 stacks. Well done, guys! Another one for the Windows 7 Drinking Game."

Submission + - Apple tries to gag owner of exploding iPod (timesonline.co.uk) 1

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Monday August 03, 2009 @07:55AM

David Gerard writes: "The Times in London reports that Apple attempted to silence a father and daughter with a gagging order after the child's iPod music player exploded and the family sought a refund from the company. Well, at least they're not Microsoft. Or something."

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