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Submission + - Councilman/Open Source Developer submits Open Source bill (gothamgazette.com)

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: New York City Council Member Ben Kallos (KallosEsq), who also happens to be a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) developer, just introduced legislation to mandate a government preference for FOSS and creating a Civic Commons website to facilitate collaborative purchasing of software. He argues that NYC could save millions of dollars with the Free and Open Source Software Preferences Act 2014, pointing out that the city currently has a $67 million Microsoft ELA. Kallos said: "It is time for government to modernize and start appreciating the same cost savings as everyone else."

Comment A little late, but welcome (Score 1) 136

A cynic might argue that the key difference in this case was that, for a change, the ISP's, and not merely defendants, were challenging the subpoenas; but of course we all know that justice is 'blind'.

An ingrate might bemoan the Court's failure to address the key underlying fallacy in the "John Doe" cases, that because someone pays the bill for an internet account that automatically makes them a copyright infringer; but who's complaining over that slight omission?

A malcontent like myself might be a little unhappy that it took the courts ten (10) years to finally come to grips with the personal jurisdiction issue, which would have been obvious to 9 out of 10 second year law students from the get go, and I personally have been pointing it out and writing about it since 2005; but at least they finally did get there.

And a philosopher might wonder how much suffering might have been spared had the courts followed the law back in 2004 when the John Doe madness started; but of course I'm a lawyer, not a philosopher. :)

Bottom line, though: this is a good thing, a very good thing. Ten (10) years late in coming, but good nonetheless. - R.B. )
Transportation

Swedish Fare Dodgers Organize Against Transportation Authorities 389

An anonymous reader writes "Every transit network has its fare beaters, the riders who view payment as either optional or prohibitively expensive. Many cities, most notably New York, view turnstile-jumpers as a top policing priority, reasoning that scofflaws might graduate to more serious crimes if left alone. But in Stockholm, the offenders seem to have defeated the system. From the article: 'For over a decade, Mr. Tengblad has belonged to a group known as Planka.nu (rough translation: “free-ride.now”), an organization with only two prerequisites for admission: Members must pay a monthly fee of about $15 and, as part of a continuous demonstration against the fare, promise to evade payment every time they ride. If travelers keep their side of the agreement, the group will cover any of the roughly $180 fines that might result. (An unlimited ride pass for 30 days costs about $120.)'"

Comment Mozilla is not a public company (Score 1) 564

Mozilla is not a public company. It is a 501C3 tax exempt non profit and its wholly owned taxable subsidiary. Our stockholders are the people of the world. Our decisions are based on maximizing the value of the Internet for the benefit of everyone everywhere, especially those who lack representation from the giant institutional multinational publicly traded corporations like Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft.

Comment Re:Time to lose Daylight Savings Time (Score 1) 310

I live in Southern Norway and during the morktide (dark time) the sun doesn't rise until well after school starts even with daylight savings time. Sometime in early November is the last time you can see the sun before or after school. In North Norway the sun doesn't rise at all during the dark time. We've come up with good solutions like plastering kids with reflectors and teaching children to pay attention to cars. We also teach drivers that pedestrians have the right of way in intersections NO MATTER how STUPID they are acting. Though we still do the stupid DST dance, it really doesn't change much of anything. The sun goes away, the morning is dark and for the most part kids are pretty safe.

Comment Re:Time to lose Daylight Savings Time (Score 1) 310

Ever had to implement a timezone aware software application?

Ever had to deal with DST support in said application?

Thought not.

The suffering involved is reason enough for DST to go the way of the Dodo...

Making timezone calculations in an application is ridiculously painful even with helpful TZ libraries. In my last program I just decided to ignore DST in my calculations and just fudge everything. This is particularly annoying because it needs to calculate the time in New York, but the computer it lives on is currently in Norway and North America and Europe switch their clocks at seemingly random times each year.

For this particular program it doesn't matter *too* much, but it does lead to weird failures occasionally. Fortunately it's not in a production environment, it's just something that runs around the house.

Comment Re:Time to lose Daylight Savings Time (Score 4, Informative) 310

There are many logical arguments for time change. Whether the benefits outweigh the costs is what is at issue. Welcome to alternate viewpoints, population you don't count, you just want to rant.

What evidenced based arguments can you site? The rationale I have read for DLS involve saving electricity, but as this article suggests, not only does DLS not save electricity, it may actually use more. It also goes on to cite studies that suggest that DLS may actually cause heart attacks. Farmers tend to hate DLS because they get up when the need to get up with no relationship to the clock. When the time jumps around, they still get up when they need to get up, they're just suddenly one hour out of sync with the wall time.

Though to be fair, it may save some traffic accidents due to allowing more people to drive home in the daylight and it may provide more revenue for some retailers. Though there's plenty of evidence to suggest that sleep disruption (like moving someone's wake and sleep time) causes more accidents. The cited article studied shift workers, but it applies to anyone who's regular sleep cycle is suddenly disrupted.

All in all, it looks like DLS shifts on whole causes lots of hassle, probably costs money and lives and should its self die a quiet death in retirement.

Comment Re:Time to lose Daylight Savings Time (Score 1, Insightful) 310

Excactly!

There's no logical argument for the time change. None. The farming argument doesn't make any sense. Farmers don't give a rip what the wall-time is. They get up when it's time to get up and get the work done. They go to bed when the work day is done and they're sleepy. If you have to get up at 3:30 to milk the cows, you get up at 3:30. If the wall clock suddenly says it's 4:30, you still get up at the same time because the cows, corn, and sun don't give a flying FSCK what the wall clock says.

As far as providing more natural light in offices, that may have been true in 1930 when buildings were built without central HVAC with window access for everyone in mind. Though there's precious little evidence that DLS made a bit of difference in the then either. Now all but the "greenest" buildings (and some WalMarts) have their lights on during the work day weather the sun is shining or its pitch black outside.

And my rant continues with the horrible effects on your health. Suddenly changing humans sleep patterns is terrible for general healthfulness and sleep cycles.

In short take your DLS and shove it where the sun will never shine

Comment Re:Is that legal in the UK? (Score 2) 306

Installing Firefox from home, as a business...

Open the door. Sign the delivery slip. Carry computer to office/workshop/garage. Boot computer. Phone customer for admin username and password. Insert USB stick. Install Firefox. Return computer to customer. Invoice and complete paperwork.

It took me more than 45 seconds to type that.

No one is becoming a millionaire from installing Firefox.

Comment RFID? (Score 2) 130

Adding RFID tags to equipment and encouraging people to swipe it out as it is used might be a good idea. But short of adding a supply clerk or using a badge system I don't see many other options. Maybe there's some work-study budget for a freshman to sit in the lab and check out equipment?

I heard on Freakonomics about putting up web cams and paying someone in a far-off land to ensure hand-washing compliance. Perhaps a system like that might work.

Comment We're fixing this (Score 4, Informative) 333

Firefox OS is trying to fix much of this.
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firef...
https://developer.mozilla.org/...
The Web is the most successful platform of all time and we're leading the pack on bringing a the Web platform to mobile in a way that's integrated rather than fractured like the existing app store models.

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