From the lead article:

"In May, China banned government use of Windows 8, Microsoft's latest operating system"

It seems to be a needless gesture. Even in the US, no one uses Windows 8.

Information Warfare: Running For Linux January 9, 2011

For a decade now, China has been trying to get business and government users to adopt Unix (and later Linux) as their operating system. Yet most Chinese businesses, and many government departments, continue to use Microsoft operating systems. They do this because Microsoft Windows is widely pirated in China, and there's a large amount of pirated software you can use only on Windows systems. Another critical reason is that more games run on Windows machines, and that is important, even in China. Finally, the Chinese government is more resistant to complaints from Microsoft than Russia.

* * *

China has tried to get around this by subsidizing Linux training for Chinese engineers and computer technicians. The government also subsidized the development of the Kylin Unix based server software. Kylin is shareware, and anyone can download it. Kylin is also designed to be very secure, much more secure than Microsoft server software, and most other similar products. China has had more success in getting users to adopt non-Microsoft server software, but the real battleground is PCs.

I can see from reading this thread that there is a lot of righteous anger about this issue. The question is, what are you going to do about it?

Just mouthing off on slashdot is not doing something. You need to let your elected representatives know that this issue is important to you and that they should not toe the party line on immigration just because Green and Zuckerberg, and their ilk are laying down big bucks to the the parties and campaign funds.

Writing your congressman and calling his office are just baby steps. What you need to do is vote incumbents out of a job. Eric Cantor, then the House Majority Leader lost his primary to a guy who campaigned on a mere $50,000 because of Cantor's support for immigration "reform" (i.e., letting loose the flood gates). That sobered the House Republican leadership up real fast.

Tech people have for too long wasted their votes on trivial social issues, or have not voted at all. You need to find candidates, support them, and get out the vote to oppose Zuckerberg, et. al. That is the only thing that can save your hides.

Allow me to conclude with a short poem by the great German playwright and poet, Bertolt Brecht*.

The Solution

After the uprising of the 17th June, the Secretary of the Writer's Union,
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee,
Stating that the people had forfeited the confidence of the government;
And could win it back only by redoubled efforts.
Would it not be easier in that case, for the government
To dissolve the people, and elect another?

* You may know him best as the author of "The Three Penny Opera" from which the song "Mack the Knife" was taken.

The gating issue is now screen size and finger size. Nice big high def screens need big batteries to keep them lit. I don't think those items are going to get much smaller.

Agreed. invest in ux.

There is an inverse correlation between the price of the hotel and the price of the wi-fi. But, even at expensive hotels with $15/day wi-fi, there are things you can do.

At many of those hotels wi-fi in the lobby and restaurants is gratis, and they may be pleasant places to sit while you read your email. Also, it is worthwhile to butter up the desk clerks who maybe able to slip you a password. I have also found that most hotels never change their passwords. Sometimes I have paid once and used it several times.

BTW, Panera's coffee and food are much better than MickeyD's. The wi-fi is usually serviceable. A couple of years ago a storm knocked our cable service for a week. I spent a lot of time at the local Panera.

I forgot to sign in before posting. I apologize.

That is right. The law may say that if you employ someone, you have to pay him at least $15/hr. But, the law does not say that you must employ anybody. If a given potential employee can't pull his weight at his wage, you not hire him, or if you did, you will fire him.

Ask yourself how many kids fresh out of high school are worth $15/hr? I think the number is probably less than 3%, the rest of them will be working on their basketball shot or their video game skills.

Mortgages must be recorded in the county land records. The mortgage instrument must set forth the principal amount of debt secured by the mortgage. The amount so stated limits the amount the lender may recieve in the event of a foreclosure sale, although the amount may be increased by interest and expenses.

"Antarctic Sea Ice At Record Levels" Posted on May 12, 2014 by Anthony Watts

"Antarctic sea ice has expanded to record levels for April, increasing by more than 110,000sq km a day last month to nine million square kilometres."

Fortunately for you, most of you have never been in law school (I like to tell prospective law students that there are more amusing prisons in the mountains of Peru.). So you have had no reason to look at a law school casebook.

The name casebook distinguishes them from textbooks used by students in other fields. A casebook consists mostly of the reports of the decisions of courts (most often appellate courts) in actual decided cases. The case reports (thus the name cases) are usually edited to remove material not relevant to the main point the author is interested in (often irrelevant and trivial procedural issues from the lower court), the casebook author often includes notes of contrary or different cases and of relevant statutes.

There is usually no other material created by the so-called authors of the casebook.

Here is the main point. Reports of cases decided by courts are inherently public domain material regardless of their age. The same is true of statutes.

Almost all of the material in a casebook is not, and may not be, copyrighted.

Asserting intellectual property rights over reprinted public domain material is requires nerve to the point of chutzpah.

BTW, the restriction on resale is mostly like invalid as a restraint of trade, and will not be binding on subsequent purchasers such as used book merchants. It is also a violation of the Sherman Act.

Better yet read this:

Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. J.B. Bury with an Introduction by W.E.H. Lecky (New York: Fred de Fau and Co., 1906), in 12 vols. Vol. 1. Monday

Gibbon's classic work, still the greatest prose work in the English language IMHO, was originally published in 1776.

It is available, free of charge, at the Online Library of Liberty Website at this URL.

They have several different formats including: an HTML version converted from the original text, EBook PDF a text-based PDF created from the HTML, Facsimile PDF, an image-based PDF made from scans of the original book, and a Kindle E-book. OLL has many other classics of political theory and history available fro free downloads.

First Paragraph:

In the second century of the Christian era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilised portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valour. The gentle, but powerful, influence of laws and manners had gradually cemented the union of the provinces. Their peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and luxury. The image of a free constitution was preserved with decent reverence. The Roman senate appeared to possess the sovereign authority, and devolved on the emperors all the executive powers of government. During a happy period of more than fourscore years, the public administration was conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines. It is the design of this and of the two succeeding chapters, to describe the prosperous condition of their empire; and afterwards, from the death of Marcus Antoninus, to deduce the most important circumstances of its decline and fall: a revolution which will ever be remembered, and is still felt by the nations of the earth.

I suppose you have solved the problem of the sun's daily disappearing act.

FTFP: "Harvard's Yun Zhou explores the reprocessing of spent fuel."

Why should I care about Yun Zhou's opinion on Nuclear fuel cycles? Is she a nuclear engineer with deep experience in the subject? Is she a nuclear chemist? or a nuclear physicist?

So I will do what the poster of this article did not do, I will Google Harvard's Yun Zhou" It was laborious, I selected those words and right clicked on them. Here is what I found:

"Yun Zhou: Doctoral Student in Sociology, Research Interests: Gender; sexuality and feminist theories; inequality and stratification; comparative sociology; quantitative methodology."

So, she does not appear to know any more about the nuclear fuel cycle that I do. Ho hum.

Good work slashdot, always keeping scientific information in front of the public.</sarc>

Like commenting on slashdot?