Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Seems like a rant w/o much research (Score 4, Informative) 88

There was a post on the Kobo boards where someone contacted Kobo about this. Apparently there was a known problem on the WHSmith website where it would show the books as having DRM. When they'd go to Kobo to actually DL the books it would be DRM free. Just looked at the books on WHSmith's website and getting a different format availability than the OP's blog - Format Availability: epub. Apparently they've fixed the bug.

Comment Truly sad (Score 5, Interesting) 102

Go to a store and you'll generally see competing products next to each other and that's okay. But try to do something similar on-line? Horror! Unfair! Must file lawsuit! It's become our culture but the practice of suing for anything and everything has become utterly ridiculous in the last decade or so.

Piracy

Gubernatorial Candidate Speaks Out Against CAS 121

New submitter C0R1D4N writes "Carl Bergmanson, a New Jersey gubernatorial democrat running in the 2013 primary, has recently spoken out against the new 'six strike policy' being put in place this week by major ISPs. He said: 'The internet has become an essential part of living in the 21st century, it uses public infrastructure and it is time we treat it as a public utility. The electric company has no say over what you power with their service, the ISPs have no right to decide what you can and can not download.'"

Comment So how else do you do this? (Score 4, Insightful) 192

Isn't this the way it should be working? Allocate X dollars to group. Group really needs X + Y dollars to do everything they want so they create a group to review all the projects and allocate the dollars. If you don't have enough funding, programs WILL be cut or scaled back. Save program A and program B is cut, which costs jobs around program B. Congrats though, program A's jobs are intact.

Prioritization sucks but if you don't have all the funding you need you have to make the call at some point. Having a (theoretically neutral) group review everything and make the call is better than having Congress make the decisions for you. And yeah, it would be much better for everyone if there was enough funding, that's the easy way out of this dilemma.

-- Ravensfire

Comment Re:Pre-election laws (Score 1) 339

"1) Transparency. If an opponent is making a claim against you then be transparent about the issue and prove them wrong. Allow an independent body to investigate and verify your taxes or whatever is in question."

Congrats - utterly ineffective. Candidate A releases a claim shortly before the election about Candidate B. Claim is false, but has JUST enough plausibility to get it through libel laws. Claim affects the election because you can't prove it false in time. Yup, happens now quite often and one of the most effective dirty tricks out there. Transparency is a great way to make someone feel better ... after the fact and rarely makes up for the damage done.

-- Ravensfire

Earth

Plan to Slow Global Warming By Dumping Iron Sulphate into Oceans 407

ananyo writes "In the search for methods of geoengineering to limit global warming, it seems that stimulating the growth of algae in the oceans might be an efficient way of removing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere after all. Despite attracting controversy and a UN moratorium, as well as previous studies suggesting that this approach was ineffective, a recent analysis of an ocean-fertilization experiment eight years ago in the Southern Ocean indicates that encouraging algal blooms to grow can soak up carbon that is then deposited in the deep ocean as the algae die. Each atom of added iron pulled at least 13,000 atoms of carbon out of the atmosphere by encouraging algal growth which, through photosynthesis, captures carbon. The team reports that much of the captured carbon was transported to the deep ocean, where it will remain sequestered for centuries — a 'carbon sink' (abstract)."

Comment Re:And what do "Sanctions" mean? (Score 3, Informative) 90

The appeal court decision mentioned that the original request was for some 26k. Personally, I think the fine is intended as a "wake up" slap. The nice part of the sanction is #2. He's been bad and now potentially lots of other courts will know about it and be able to check if he's pulling the same stunt again. And usually subsequent sanctions get harsher.

-- Ravensfire

Comment Re:And what do "Sanctions" mean? (Score 5, Informative) 90

From the ruling,
"the court imposed $10,000 in sanctions on Stone and also required the following:
1) Stone shall serve a copy of this Order on each ISP implicated and
to every person or entity with whom he communicated for any purpose
in these proceedings.
2) Stone shall file a copy of this Order in every currently-ongoing
proceeding in which he represents a party, pending in any court in
the United States, federal or state.
3) Stone shall disclose to the Court whether he received funds,
either personally or on behalf of Mick Haig, and whether Mick Haig
received funds for any reason from any person or entity associated
with these proceedings, regardless of that person’s status as a Doe
Defendant or not, (excepting any fees or expenses paid by Mick Haig
to Stone).
4) Stone shall pay the Ad Litems’ attorneys’ fees and expenses reasonably
incurred in bringing the motion for sanctions. The Ad
Litems shall file an affidavit or other proof of such fees and expenses
with the Court within thirty (30) days of the date of this Order.
Stone may contest such proof within seven (7) days of its filing.
Stone shall comply with these directives and supply the Court with
written confirmation of his compliance no later than forty-five (45)
days after the date of this Order."

-- Ravensfire

Slashdot Top Deals

Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here?

Working...