littlerubberfeet - Slashdot User

Submission + - Ways to build a Creative Commons based community?

Submitted by

palegray.net

on Monday December 10, 2007 @03:55AM

palegray.net writes: "My wife and I operate a small educational resources web site, under which we're trying to build a community of educators and parents who are willing to submit content licensed under Creative Commons style licenses. The objective is to ensure that member contributions are accessible to and freely usable by the largest audience possible, primarily educators and parents. With this in mind, I've designed the site to include a donations system to allow people who find content useful to reward the author with a monetary donation of their choice, as an incentive for people to submit useful articles.

I'm at somewhat of a loss for how to really get the word out about this sort of system, without resorting to buying AM talk radio spots :). We don't have the budget for that sort of thing... my "day job" is active duty military, and my wife works as an EMS instructor. Organizations like Wikipedia have the "massive inertia" factor working for them, and in my opinion things are looking to get even better for their community with the switch to Creative Commons licensing for their content. What sort of communities are out there that could help us promote our ideas and build a community of education-centric folks?"

Submission + - IP Lawyer writing an e-book on ODF v. OOXML (consortiuminfo.org)

Submitted by

christian.einfeldt

on Monday November 26, 2007 @05:43PM

christian.einfeldt writes: "IP lawyer and popular FOSS blogger Andy Updegrove has announced that he is writing an e-book, entitled 'ODF vs. OOXML: War of the Words', which will chronicle the slug-fest between the OpenDocument Format and Microsoft's Open Office XML format. Calling it a 'a standards war of truly epic proportions' that he predicts will be 'studied in business schools and by economists for decades to come', Updegrove says that his goal in writing the book is to document this process now, as it is unfolding, rather than wait for the passage of time to cause memories to fade, witnesses to scatter, and the bias of history to confirm what we think we already know about the past. Updegrove makes no attempt to mask his pro-ODF bias, which is actually a refreshing and useful aid for his readers, who will begin this multi-chapter on-line journey with advance knowledge of the lens that Updegrove will use to point out sights (and sites) along the way. Updegrove wastes no time in delivering on his promise, and rolls out his first chapter, called 'Out of Nowhere', along with his announcement."

Flawed Online Dating Bill Being Pushed in New Jersey 192

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday November 26, 2007 @05:25PM from the bars-next-on-the-list-for-background-checks dept.

Billosaur writes "According to a report on Ars Technica, a committee of the New Jersey Assembly is trying to push an on-line dating bill even though it contains significant flaws. The Internet Dating Safety Act would require dating web sites that interact with customers in New Jersey to indicate whether they do criminal background checks and if people who fail such checks are still allowed to register with the site. 'The backers of the New Jersey Internet Dating Safety Act undoubtedly feel that the law provides at least a measure of protection despite its flaws. In this case, however, users of such sites are probably better off assuming that their personal safety remains a personal responsibility, rather than placing faith in a background check that has little chance of uncovering any information on a person attempting to hide it.'"

Submission + - Judge Kimball Strikes SCO's Jury Trial Demand (groklaw.net)

Submitted by watchingeyes on Saturday September 08, 2007 @12:58AM

watchingeyes writes: In a ruling on various pre-trial motions in limine and other, similar motions in the SCO vs Novell case, Judge Kimball today issued a ruling striking SCO's demand for a Jury trial, ruling that Novell's claims seek equitable, and not legal relief. In addition, he denied SCO's request for entry of judgment that would allow them to appeal his ruling on the UNIX copyrights and Novell's waiver rights, ruling that if SCO wants to appeal any of his rulings, it can do them all at once after trial. He also granted Novell's request to voluntarily dismiss its own breach of contract claim, denied SCO's motion to exclude press coverage and evidence from the IBM case, granted Novell's motion in limine preventing SCO from contesting his Summary Judgment ruling at trial, granted Novell's second motion in limine preventing SCO from arguing that SCOsource licenses that license SVRx only incidentally aren't SVRx licenses, denied another SCO motion in limine which improperly asked the Judge to issue rulings on contractual issues and denied Novell's final motion in limine which sought to prevent SCO from contesting Novell's apportionment of royalties analysis. Looks like SCO is no longer able to sway a Jury, and instead will be facing a trial in-front of a Judge which has already ruled against them numerous times, including on all but one motion out of 8 in this very ruling.

Submission + - Vista CD Burning.... 3

Submitted by

impish500

on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @12:21AM

impish500 writes: "I have run in to an issue wit Windows Vista and CDs that have been burned. Apparently CDs that have been burned under Vista will NOT show up as readable by any other OS. Why Microsoft would choose to do this is completely insane. How can anyone share files with other Operating Systems (Mac OS X or Linux OSes), if the other OS'es cant even read the disc. I have a MacBook running OS X (10.4.10), the disc showed up as unreadable by my computer, not even File Salvage (by Sub Rosa Soft) could recover anything (I got an error showing that two blocks back-to-back were bad). I found out which OS the friend had used, loaded my copy of Vista and the CD showed up fine. Vista security problems are bad enough, but damn, not allowing another OS see the disc as readable is absolutely INSANE!!!"

Submission + - The Next Fifty Years in Space (associatedcontent.com)

Submitted by

MarkWhittington

on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @12:06AM

MarkWhittington writes: "2007 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Space Age, agreed by most to have begun with the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik, on October 4th, 1957. While some are taking stock of the last fifty years of space exploration, noting what has been accomplished and, more importantly, what has not been accomplished, others are wondering what the next fifty years might bring. And therein lays the problem."

Submission + - Cyber Warfare (ft.com)

Submitted by hcmtnbiker on Monday September 03, 2007 @08:41PM

hcmtnbiker writes: The Chinese military hacked into a Pentagon computer network in June in the most successful cyber attack on the US defence department, say American officials. The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system serving the office of Robert Gates, defence secretary, but declined to say who it believed was behind the attack. Current and former officials have told the Financial Times an internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from the People's Liberation Army.

Submission + - Jobs IN India: "Blind Men and the Elephant" (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

abijith

on Monday July 30, 2007 @02:00AM

abijith writes: "So here are two young IT professionals turned- writers, Was Rahman and Priya Kurien, who have attempted to rewrite the story exploring the intricacies of today's 'least understood' IT industry. It would be wrong to say Was Rahman and Priya Kurien are trying to demystify Information Technology (IT) in their book "Blind Men and the Elephant". The industry is too much of a behemoth for one book to be able to do that."

Submission + - Prince Gives Away Latest CD--Angers Music Industry

Submitted by penguin_dance on Thursday July 12, 2007 @10:40PM

penguin_dance writes: Slashdotters will have some obvious fun with the idea that Prince is giving away his latest CD with the Sunday Mail, but what's really funny is how music industry and retailers are in a snit about it. (This is hardly J.K. Rowling giving away the 7th Harry Potter book.)

Prince also plans to give away copies of the CD with each concert ticked sold. Imagine, another artist taking control of their music! I think even those who are better known find they make more money from the concerts and t-shirt sales than from the tiny amount of royalties on CDs. Giveaways generate excitement, get out songs that aren't being played on the radio (what's the last song you've heard by Prince — probably "1999" or "Red Corvette") and basically create fan good will that they've essentially 'open-sourced' their music.

Submission + - Invasive popups, what can we do?

Submitted by

phyrebyrd

on Tuesday July 10, 2007 @04:56PM

phyrebyrd writes: "Everyone knows those annoying popups that seem to get through the popup blockers... One that seems prolific are those for NetFlix... But what can we do to seriously hurt this advertising model so that it's not so attractive to use? Is there a way we can automate spoofed 'clicks' so that this racks up the bill for the invasive advertiser? Can this be done 'legally'? After all, they're going against our own wishes and forcing ads upon us with the intent of circumventing our own blockers, couldn't we fight back and hurt them where it counts? Does such a technology already exist to combat these things and hit them where it really hurts instead of just blocking the ads? I feel like these advertisers have absolutely no regard for how they get their 'messages' across, so why can't we use the same tactics to get OUR message across? Why should we have to tolerate such practices?"

Feed Clinical Trial Coordinators Need More Financial Conflict-of-interest Training (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed on Sunday April 22, 2007 @08:12PM

Medical professionals conducting clinical trials should provide more information about financial conflicts of interest before they talk to patients about participating in the trials.

Submission + - KODAK EASYSHARE 5300 All-In-One. Changing The Rule

Submitted by mrneutron2004 on Sunday April 22, 2007 @08:01PM

mrneutron2004 writes: Kodak's recent launch of their Easyshare series of printers is slated to change this paradigm significantly. All of the Easyshare series of printers, the 5100, 5300, and 5500 (the top model, the 5500 will be released in June) use the same black and color-photo ink cartridges. Through Kodak's development of a new type of MEMS print head which is separate from the cartridges (unlike most of it's competitors), they have been able to aggressively price their cartridges at $9.99 and $14.99 respectively. To say this is significantly cheaper than the competition is an understatement. Not only that, they are offering aggressive bundling deals on photo cartridges with photo paper. Does a color cartridge and 135 sheets of their premium 4x6 color photo paper for $19.99 sound good? How about 180 sheets of their standard 4x6 color photo paper along with a color cartridge for $17.99? Sure sounds good to us. Doing the math this works out to an overall cost of 10-15 cents a print! http://www.fastsilicon.com/printer-reviews/kodak-e asyshare-5300-all-in-one.-changing-the-rules.html? Itemid=27

Submission + - are unfinished products becoming the norm?

Submitted by Paul on Sunday February 11, 2007 @04:44PM

Paul writes: Long ago when digital synthesizers first became commonly available, I recall a reviewer lamenting how he was getting more and more products to test whose software was unfinished and buggy and would require updates and fixes (this, before the internet allowed easy downloads, would have meant a journey to a specialist repair centre). The review also commented how this common problem with computer software (he wrote even before windows 95 was out) was spreading, and asked if it was going to become the norm.

These days it seems ubiquitous, with PDAs, digital cameras, PVRs and all manner of complex goods needing after-market firmware fixes often simply to make them have the features promised in the adverts, let alone add enhancements.

Are we seeing this spread beyond computers and computer-based products; jokes apart, will we be booting our cars up and installing flash updates every week to prevent comoputer viruses getting into the control systems?

Can slashdot readers comment on any recent purchases where they've been badly let down by missing features, or are still waiting for promised updates even whilst a new model is now on the shelves? How can we make the manufacturers take better responsibility?

Apart from reading every review possible before making a purchase, what strategy do slashdot readers have, or propose, for not being caught out? With software, people say "never buy v1.0", but this is not possible with say a digicam.

Submission + - Canadian copyright group wants iPod taxes

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Sunday February 11, 2007 @03:26PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "Unable to define memory as a "recording medium," Canada's Private Copyright Collective goes directly after portable music player devices, memory cards, and anything else that can be used to make private copies. The Private Copyright Collective submitted a proposal to the country's Copyright Board that suggests levies of $5 on devices with up to 1GB of memory, $25 for 1 to 10 GB, $50 for between 10 GB and 30 GB and $75 for over 30 GB are in order to compensate artists and labels for the losses they suffer when people "illegally" copy or transfer music. They are also seeking a new $2 to $10 tax on memory cards. That's right, MEMORY CARDS! The backbone of digital photography has become tangled up in the fight for making sure music artists get every nickel and dime they feel that they deserve."

Dell Laptop Burns House Down 405

Posted by kdawson on Sunday February 11, 2007 @12:48AM from the dude dept.

Nuclear Elephant writes "The Consumerist is running a story about a house burned down by a Dell laptop. 'My 130-year-old former farm house was engulfed in flames, with thick dark smoke pouring out of the windows and roof... Hours later, after investigation the fire marshal investigator took me aside asked me if I had a laptop computer. Yes — I told him I had a Dell Inspiron 1200.' It was determined that the laptop, battery, or cord malfunctioned after its owner left for work, leaving the fire to spread through the entire house. All attempts to contact Dell have failed. 'I have tried to call Dell to at least notify them of my problems, but each time I have called I get transferred into an endless loop of "Joe" or "Alan" all speaking a delectable version of English I presume emanates from Bangalore. I have been outright hung up on each time I get someone who speaks a reasonable version of English, or sounds like they might be in charge of something. Promises of call backs have gone, of course, unreturned.'"

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