Comment Re:Things to keep in mind... (Score 1) 223

by arnwald on Thursday May 08, 2008 @01:45PM (#23340328) Attached to: US State Dept. Loses Anti-Terrorist Program Laptops

> The reason that many of these laptops are listed as worth ~$3,000 is probably that some of them are 10+ years old (when laptops were really really expensive).

I am sure even the government ( especially the government ? ) does write-offs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write-off#Accounting ) over 3 to 4 years for a laptop.

T.

635092 story

Office 2007 Fails OOXML Test With 122,000 Errors 430

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday April 21, 2008 @04:00PM from the money-greases-the-wheels dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Groklaw is reporting that some people have decided to compare the OOXML schema to actual Microsoft Office 2007 documents. It won't surprise you to know that Office 2007 failed miserably. If you go by the strict OOXML schema, you get a 17 MiB file containing approximately 122,000 errors, and 'somewhat less' with the transitional OOXML schema. Most of the problems reportedly relate to the serialization/deserialization code. How many other fast-tracked ISO standards have no conforming implementations?"

555018 story

Psychologist Beating Math Nerds in Race to Netflix Prize 205

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @11:19PM from the must-calculate-harder dept.

s1d writes "An almost-anonymous British psychologist named Gavin Potter has suddenly risen to the top of the Netflix prize charts. With his very first attempt, he got a score which took the BellKor team seven months to reach. Currently at a score of 8.07, he has only five teams ahead of him now in the race for the ultimate Netflix algorithm. 'Potter says his anonymity is mostly accidental. He started that way and didn't come out into the open until after Wired found him. "I guess I didn't think it was worth putting up a link until I had got somewhere," he says, adding that he'd been seriously posting under the name of his venture capital and consulting firm, Mathematical Capital, for two months before launching "Just a guy." When he started competing, he posted to his blog: "Decided to take the Netflix Prize seriously. Looks kind of fun. Not sure where I will get to as I am not an academic or a mathematician. However, being an unemployed psychologist I do have a bit of time."'"

466724 story

Ford Claims Ownership Of Your Pictures 739

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday January 14, 2008 @02:47PM from the like-a-child-shouting-MINE dept.

Mike Rogers writes "In a move that can only be described as 'Copyright Insanity', Ford Motor Company now claims that they hold the rights to any image of a Ford vehicle, even if it's a picture you took of your own car. The Black Mustang Club wanted to put together a calendar featuring member's cars and print it through CafePress, but an attorney from Ford nixed the project, stating that the calendar pics and 'anything with one of (member's) cars in it infringes on Ford's trademarks which include the use of images of their vehicles.' Does Ford have the right to prevent you from printing images of a car you own?"

299815 story

Apple's Leopard Will Exclude 800MHz G4 Processors 371

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday September 24, 2007 @03:57PM from the older-tech-gets-forked dept.

goombah99 writes "According to AppleInsider, Apple is about to announce that Leopard will not support 800 MHz G4 PowerPC processors. Previously developers had been told that it would require at least an 800 MHz G4. But AppleInsider alleges only 867 MHz G4s and higher will now be supported because of speed issues, and testers have been told that the new OS 'cannot be installed' on lesser machines. This cutoff in minimum requirements means that all those original iMac flat screens and Titanium PowerBooks are now forked to the Tiger (10.4) Update Path."

299175 story

The Linux Identity Crisis 364

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday September 24, 2007 @08:27AM from the wants-to-be-called-linuxette-now dept.

Jayze Calrtini writes "From an article from ZDNet:"If you've been following the current rift in the Linux community between Linus Torvalds and his minions squaring off against Con Kolivas and the mainstream Linux fanatics, you probably know that it's getting quite heated. You also probably know that these two entirely different ideas could create three possible paths Linux can take for the future: stay geeky and appeal to the advanced tech guru in all of us; go mainstream and leave the advanced functionality and reliable kernel behind to compete with Microsoft and Apple; or face a "civil war" that could lead to total Linux annihilation."

110589 story

Ballmer Says Google's Growth Is 'Insane' 420

Posted by Zonk on Friday March 16, 2007 @10:39AM from the doubling-the-doubled-growth-rate dept.

eldavojohn writes "Steve Ballmer spoke to the Seattle PI this week, commenting that Google's pace of employee growth is 'insane,' and the company has few successful businesses outside of Internet search and advertising. He referred to Google's non-search efforts as 'cute.' Google's current number of employees is nearly doubling each year. 'I don't really know that anybody's proven that a random collection of people doing their own thing actually creates value.' Mr. Ballmer went on complain that, in general, competition for good programmers has become an issue. Even 'hedge funds' are looking for skilled coders, making the HR fight between the two companies that much more challenging."

110243 story

RIAA Has to Disclose Attorneys Fees In Foster Case 193

Posted by Zonk on Thursday March 15, 2007 @05:56PM from the it-feels-good-to-come-clean dept.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA has been ordered to turn over its attorneys' billing records by March 26, 2007, in Capitol v. Foster in Oklahoma. The 4- page decision and order, issued in connection with the determination of the reasonableness of Ms. Foster's attorneys fees, requires the RIAA to produce the attorneys' time sheets, billing statements, billing records, and costs and expense records. The Court reviewed authorities holding that an opponent's attorneys fees are a relevant factor in determining the reasonableness of attorneys fees, quoting a United States Supreme Court case which held that 'a party cannot litigate tenaciously and then be heard to complain about the time necessarily spent by his opponent in response' (footnote 11 to City of Riverside v. Rivera)."

108365 story

Viacom Sues Google Over YouTube for $1 Billion 508

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday March 13, 2007 @10:48AM from the everyone-get-their-doctor-evil-fingers-up dept.

Snowgen writes "Viacom has filed a $1,000,000,000.00 lawsuit for 'massive intentional copyright infringement' against Google over YouTube video clips. '"YouTube's strategy has been to avoid taking proactive steps to curtail the infringement on its site," Viacom said in a statement. "Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws.'"

105264 story

Law Student Web Forum: Free Speech Gone too Far? 264

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday March 08, 2007 @08:51AM from the sticks-and-stones dept.

The Xoxo Reader writes "Today's Washington Post carries a front-page article on the internet message board AutoAdmit (a.k.a. Xoxohth), which proclaims itself the "most prestigious law school discussion board in the world." The message board has recently come under fire for emphasizing a free speech policy that allows its users to discuss, criticize, and attack other law students and lawyers by name. Is this an example of free speech and anonymity gone too far, or is internet trolling just a necessary side effect of a policy that otherwise promotes insightful discussion of the legal community?"

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