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Comment Re:Better Reporting On The Way. (Score 1) 57

I don't have a long-form birth certificate, so by your reasoning, I must not be a natural born U.S. citizen. Nevermind the fact that there are photographs from my birth showing I was born in a Florida hospital. Nevermind the fact my parents last left the country two years before I was born. Nevermind any other facts or evidence I can find. It's long-form birth certificate or nothing, isn't it?

I think you need to find a new battle to fight, because this one is dead. You can pull whatever reasoning you want out, but in the end, it's all just bloggers and "reporters" pulling out the same arguments over and over with their own opinion. Your basis of argument is a fallacy, please let it go.
Debian

Shuttleworth To Step Down As Canonical CEO In 2010 163

LinuxScribe writes "In a blog announcement today, Canonical Founder and CEO Mark Shuttleworth revealed he will be stepping down from his CEO role to be replaced by current COO Jane Silber. Both execs do not see major strategic changes on the horizon. Silber's official blog and Linux.com each have more details on how the change will be implemented."
Patents

Apple Counter-Sues Nokia Over Patents 137

adeelarshad82 writes "About two months ago Nokia sued Apple for infringing Nokia patents in its iPhone. The 10 patents in the lawsuit, filed in the US state of Delaware, relate to technologies fundamental for devices using GSM, UMTS and/or local area network (LAN) standards. The patents cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption and are infringed by all Apple iPhone models shipped since the iPhone was introduced in 2007. In the latest development to the case, Apple said Friday that it had filed its own suit against Nokia, countering Nokia's claims of patent infringement with its own."
Government

USPTO Asking For Ideas To Enhance Patent Quality 42

dtmos writes "Tired of seeing poor-quality patents issued? Have a great way to solve the problem? Well, here's your chance to be part of the solution. The USPTO has issued a Request for Comments on Enhancement in the Quality of Patents (PDF), seeking public comment on ways to improve 'the process for obtaining the best prior art, preparation of the initial application, and examination and prosecution of the application.' Comments should be sent to patent_quality_comments@uspto.gov by February 8, 2010."
Censorship

Sharp Rise In Jailing of Online Journalists; Iran May Just Kill Them 233

bckspc writes "The Committee to Protect Journalists has published their annual census of journalists in prison. Of the 136 reporters in prison around the world on December 1, 'At least 68 bloggers, Web-based reporters, and online editors are imprisoned, constituting half of all journalists now in jail.' Print was next with 51 cases. Also, 'Freelancers now make up nearly 45 percent of all journalists jailed worldwide, a dramatic recent increase that reflects the evolution of the global news business.' China, Iran, Cuba, Eritrea, and Burma were the top 5 jailers of journalists." rmdstudio writes, too, with word that after the last few days' protest there, largely organized online, the government of Iran is considering the death penalty for bloggers and webmasters whose reports offend it.
Cellphones

Why Open Source Phones Still Fail 322

adeelarshad82 writes "Truly open-development, open-source phones like the Nokia N900 will never hit the mainstream in the US because wireless carriers in the country hate the unexpected, writes PCMag's Sascha Segan. The open-source philosophy is all about unexpected, disruptive ideas bubbling upwards, and that drives network planners nuts. So, you get unsatisfactory hybrids like Google Android, which uses some open-source components but locks third-party developers into a crippled Java sandbox. The bottom line is that while Linux the OS, the kernel, and the memory manager are attractive to phone manufacturers, Linux the philosophy — and users banding together ad hoc to create new things — is anathema to wireless carriers."
Google

Submission + - Google-Microsoft Crossfire Will Hit Consumers 1

theodp writes: Newsweek's Dan Lyons doesn't know who will be the winner in Google and Microsoft's search battle, but that's not stopping him from picking a loser — consumers. As we head towards a world where some devices may be free or really cheap, consumers should prepare to be bombarded by ads or pay a premium to escape them. 'The sad truth is that Google and Microsoft care less about making cool products than they do about hurting each other,' concludes Lyons. 'Their fighting has little to do with helping customers and a lot to do with helping themselves to a bigger slice of the money we all spend to buy computers and surf the Internet. Microsoft wants to ruin Google's search business. Google wants to ruin Microsoft's OS business. At the end of the day, they both seem like overgrown nerdy schoolboys fighting over each other's toys.'
IT

Submission + - Do you hate being called an "IT Guy"?

An anonymous reader writes: The phrase "I.T." is so overused, I'm not sure what it means any more. Ok maybe it's an ego thing, but I spent a lot of years in grad school, lots of years getting good at creating software, and lots of years getting good at creating technical products and I don't want the same label as the intern who fixes windoze. I'm looking at a tech management job at a content company that is trying to become a software company, and they refer to everything about software development, data center operations, and desktop support as "I.T.". I'd like to tell the CEO before I take the job that we have to stop referring to all these people as "IT people" or I'm not going to be able to attract and retain the top tier talent that is required. Am I just being petty? just forget it? change it slowly over time? These folks are really developing products, but we don't normally call software creators "product developers". Just call them the "Tech dept" ?, "Engineering Dept"? I like labeling what is normally sys admins, the "service delivery" group because ultimately it's not about just admin'ing the servers up, it's about delivering a SaaS product to our customers.

Submission + - Google elimitate gizmo5 client for linux

cuttheredwire writes: Evidence on the gixmo5 forum (log in required) http://forum.gizmo5.com/viewtopic.php?t=10593&sid=70d6e4ae6730bad6b5a383666e501e2b confirms that since Google's take over of Gizmo5 http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/google-welcomes-gizmo5.html only the the windows, mac and phone clients are available for download from the official we page, the Linux download link no longer works.
This is a potential a problem for happy users with paid up credit in their Gizmo5 accounts if they need to reinstall the software.

A back door download is still available from http://download.gizmo5.com/jasmine/ although it is speculated on the forums that this will be deleted.

Does this mean that as with other Google projects such as Google talk, that Linux will be the poor relation for Google voice also ?

Comment Re:The carriers will attempt to unite and squash t (Score 1) 324

Is it that the phone has all the radios in it, or is it that the manufacturer makes different models of the same phone with different radios in it? I know the Motorola RAZR was one that came out on all the networks, but each phone was still tied to the radio in it, as there weren't any multi-radio phones available from the carriers.
Censorship

Submission + - German president refuses to sign censorship law

thetinytoon writes: German federal president Horst Köhler has refused to sign the censorship treaty that passed parlament earlier this year, stating that he 'needs more information'. In germany, the federal president has the right to reject a law only by reasons of an unlawful realisation in the legislative process, but not for reasons of being unconstitutional (as long as it's not obviously against the constitution).

Political observers guess, that the political parties would like to get rid of the law without loosing face, but since it already passed the parlament, they can't simply abandon it. Politics — everyone knows what needs to be done, but no one wants to admit he was wrong in the first place.

Source (google translation): http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.golem.de/0911/71529.html
Original story (german): http://www.golem.de/0911/71529.html

Comment Nothing has changed (Score 1) 262

Really, consider the fact that what is going on here is nothing more than the same gossip from before, but now in electronic format.

People talk, people gossip, people are social creatures, and as it often appears to be, people are cruel. Just because someone wrote a comment about you on some internet 'bathroom wall' or even a real bathroom wall doesn't mean you have to do anything about it, or even recognize it. In both cases, the anonymity of the posting is its very downfall. On the other hand, if you have people outright spreading gossip and clearly linking it back to themselves (the real-world equivalent of saying "yeah, I wrote that"), then the problem is more pronounced, but still the same as before. You can deal with gossip if you know who starts it, or you can deal with gossip by ignoring it.

If colleges can't teach to their students that gossip is best ignored, then we have more things to worry about than the gossip itself.

Comment Re:The carriers will attempt to unite and squash t (Score 1) 324

Yes, I see your point. And it's a valid one at that, because (at least in the US) I don't know of any wireless carriers that are of common-carrier status. Google will have trouble, with whichever technology they choose for the job. Which also leaves one to ponder, that other than the battery life issues of running two different radios: why not use both?

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