Random BedHead Ed - Slashdot User

Submission + - Norway mandates open formats for government (edholden.com)

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Random BedHead Ed

on Friday December 21, 2007 @01:38PM

Random BedHead Ed writes: "According to a few articles, the Kingdom of Norway has mandated the use of open formats for all government documents. The original press release is in Norwegian, but roughly translated (via The Inquirer via Groklaw):

"The government has decided that all information on governmental websites should be available in the open formats HTML, PDF or ODF. With this decision, the times when public documents were only available in Microsoft's Word format comes to an end."
The mandate also specifies that HTML should be use for general posting of information on the Web, PDF should be used when page layout must be preserved, and ODF should be used when providing forms for citizens to fill out."

Submission + - Futurama returns (wired.com)

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Random BedHead Ed

on Friday November 30, 2007 @04:48PM

Random BedHead Ed writes: "Good news everyone. After a five year vanishing act the sci-fi spoof Futurama returned this week with a direct-to-DVD feature. Wired has an article about its return, including the story of the show's origins, a behind the scenes gallery, interviews with creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen, and some interesting trivia (Did you know the ship has an overbite like a Simpson's character? Or that the show's title is taken from an exhibition at the 1939 Worlds Fair?)."

Submission + - Doctorow: Your Ex-Co-Workers Will Kill Facebook (informationweek.com) 1

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Random BedHead Ed

on Thursday November 29, 2007 @12:42PM

Random BedHead Ed writes: "Cory Doctorow has an interesting new article in Information Week about the downside of social networking, with a focus on Facebook. While it starts with some minor but insightful quibbles (like "the steady stream of emails you get from Facebook: 'So-and-so has sent you a message.' Yeah, what is it? Facebook isn't telling — you have to visit Facebook to find out"). But then it gets into a more social critique of social networking: 'Imagine how creepy it would be to wander into a co-worker's cubicle and discover the wall covered with tiny photos of everyone in the office, ranked by "friend" and "foe," with the top eight friends elevated to a small shrine decorated with Post-It roses and hearts.' Do you really want to add your boss and coworkers to your friends list? (And more to the point, do you really have a choice?)"

Submission + - Is America going fascist?

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Random BedHead Ed

on Tuesday April 24, 2007 @12:36PM

Random BedHead Ed writes: "The Guardian this week has a call to arms, examining the ten steps to fascism and proposing that America is quietly taking virtually all of them. It's not as much of a partisan concern as you might think: many conservative groups have joined forces under a new organization called the American Freedom Agenda, which along with the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights has been fighting to put pressure on the federal government to pull the country away from what they see as a slippery slope. From the article: "As Americans turn away quite leisurely, keeping tuned to internet shopping and American Idol, the foundations of democracy are being fatally corroded. Something has changed profoundly that weakens us unprecedentedly: our democratic traditions, independent judiciary and free press do their work today in a context in which we are "at war" in a "long war" — a war without end, on a battlefield described as the globe, in a context that gives the president — without US citizens realising it yet — the power over US citizens of freedom or long solitary incarceration, on his say-so alone.""

Submission + - PS3 a Make-or-Break Product for Sony?

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Random BedHead Ed

on Friday September 08, 2006 @08:11AM

Random BedHead Ed writes: "Wired is running a thought-provoking article on Sony that suggests that not only is it important to the company that their upcoming console/media center/Blu-Ray vehicle be successful; it might easily make or break the company. Amid a nice summary of the company's technology strategies over the past few decades, from its pre-digital days to competing with Sega and Microsoft in the gaming world, the article claims that "having ceded to Apple the portable-music-player market, Sony desperately needs to stay on top in videogames. It's not just that Sony needs a win; PS3 is critical to its entire strategy.""

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