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Microsoft

Submission + - Using copyright enforcement to suppress dissent. (nytimes.com)

Submitted by A Commentor
A Commentor writes: Russian authorities, with the help of Microsoft, is confiscating computers, outspoken advocacy groups or opposition newspapers, under the pretext of searching for pirated Microsoft software. Yet they rarely if ever carry out raids against advocacy groups or news organizations that back the government.
Image

Girl Quits On Dry Erase Board a Hoax Screenshot-sm 147

Posted by samzenpus from the take-this-job-and-shove-it dept.
suraj.sun writes "It's the same old story: young woman quits, uses dry erase board and series of pictures to let entire office know the boss is a sexist pig, exposes his love of playing FarmVille during work hours." Story seem too good to be true? It probably is, at least according to writer Peter Kafka. Even so, Jay Leno and Good Morning America have already reached out to "Jenny."
GNU is Not Unix

Software Freedom Conservancy Wins GPL Case Against Westinghouse 225

Posted by CmdrTaco from the do-the-dance-of-joy dept.
fishthegeek writes "The Software Freedom Conservancy has received a judgement against Westinghouse Digital Electronics for $90,000 in damages, $50,000 in costs plus a donation of all of the offending HDTV's that were using BusyBox in violation of the GPL. Given that WDE is nearly bankrupt it's likely that most if not all of the cash will disappear in a legal 'poof,' but it is a victory regardless."
Space

Senators Want Big Rocket Instead of New Tech, Commercial Transportation 342

Posted by Soulskill from the space-programs-don't-win-fights-against-bureaucracy dept.
FleaPlus writes "Members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation are drafting a bill (due this week) which slashes NASA technology development/demonstrations, commercial space transportation, and new robotic missions to a small fraction of what the White House proposed earlier this year. The bill would instead redirect NASA funds to 'immediate' development of a government-designed heavy lift rocket, although it's still unclear if NASA can afford a heavy lifter in the long term or if (with the new technology the Senators seek to cut, like in-space refueling) it actually needs such a rocket. The Senators' rocket design dictates a payload of 75mT to orbit, uses the existing Ares contracts and Shuttle infrastructure as much as possible, and forces use of the solid rocket motors produced by Utah arms manufacturer ATK."

Comment Re:In Soviet Brazil (Score 1) 258

by A Commentor (#32874834) Attached to: Brazil Forbids DRM On the Public Domain
In the U.S., having this exception doesn't really help. In the U.S. nothing new will EVER fall into the public domain. Every time anything comes close, the government passes another 20 year retro-active extension so Disney can keep making money, and making sure NOTHING NEW WILL EVER FALL INTO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. Until something is done about retroactive laws, and the payoff of politicians by big corporations, things will not change.

Comment Re:Poor Planning (Score 2, Insightful) 476

by A Commentor (#32550674) Attached to: Foxconn May Close Factories In China

The labor being cheap mostly because the Chinese government doesn't enforce labor laws and doesn't give the people their fair share of the profits.

First part about the labor laws, seems like a valid complaint. But the second part, about 'fair share of the profits'. Where does that come from? As an employee, you are getting paid for the work you are doing not any profit that is made. If you want to get a share of the profits, you need to be a share holder. Some companies do offer 'profit-sharing', but that definitely not the norm.

Comment Re:Bullshit (Score 2, Insightful) 446

by A Commentor (#32550528) Attached to: Quant AI Picks Stocks Better Than Humans

Alcoa Inc. in May 2008 at 36$, which seems to have dropped down permanently to around 12$. Do you really think that yearly dividends of some say 5%/year would make up for the risk you take that your equity drops 300% overnight and stays there? You'd have to wait a lot of years until you'd have recouped that loss.

300%!!!... nope.. $36 down to $12 is a 66% drop. a 300% drop would imply that you would OWE $72 for each share....

Comment Re:It would be nice to name names (Score 4, Interesting) 374

Netgear had the same problem. It was probably about 4-5 years ago, they had a nice router that ran Linux and had a USB port for supporting a harddrive. I saw that Netgear provide the source, I emailed their open source person, and he was providing the things I ask for. I ended up picking up the router during one of Fry's sales and thought I was all set to build my own firmware. I attempted to build the new firmware, everything completed successfully, but I couldn't find the firmware to install. I emailed netgear again, the response was along the lines of: "Oh no, you can't build the firmware image, we don't give out that tool, and also our html pages are copyrighted, so you couldn't put that in the firmware anyway." As others have stated, this is what TIVO did and why GPL v3 was created. With GPL v2, it would be a much harder fight to win, and again it would need to be the copyright holders of the software, who need to file suit, not the customer.

Comment Re:Well, there is a problem here (Score 2, Informative) 320

by A Commentor (#29476611) Attached to: Austin Police Want Identities of Online Critics
Where did you find that quote, it definitely wasn't in the article linked to the story. Maybe you should take the time to read the story instead of basing it on the tainted summary. Right from the linked news article summary: "People who misrepresent themselves as officials in online comments could face civil, criminal penalties, Acevedo says." The problem is not the anonymous comments, but people posing as actual officers and stealing officer's identity. Here, from the first paragraph: "Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo says he and some of his officers have been harassed, lied about and had their identities falsely used in online blogs and in reader comment sections on local media Internet sites." Stealing someone's entity is definitely not on the same as posting anonymous comments. It falls under this new law: "State lawmakers this year passed a law that took effect Sept. 1 making it a third-degree felony to use another person's name to post messages on a social networking site without their permission and with the intent to harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten."

Comment Re:Enough Already! (Score 1) 246

by A Commentor (#27419591) Attached to: Google Launches CADIE, the First True AI
/. should at least intermix real stories and fake stories... so that there is some question on what is real/fake. 100% fake news is stupid and boring... Ideally the real stories should be something that at first glance some would consider fake - Like the person arrested for drunk driving on a bar stool.

Mix it up, make it interesting...

If you want 100% fake news... there is a website for that called the Onion...

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