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Comment This garbage kills me (Score 3, Insightful) 780

by DesertWolf0132 (#27837047) Attached to: Bill Would Declare Your Blog a Weapon
The author of the bill has what she believes to be a noble cause. On its surface, stopping cyber-bullying is truly a noble and lofty goal. The problem that emerges from doing it in function is in making a law broad enough to stop it, you also stifle legitimate speech.

Imagine M$ lawyers construing our legitimate criticisms as abuse under this law. As the law treats corporations legally as non-human persons they are granted equal protection. While the suit would never stand, free speech would be stifled at the mere threat of a suit.

In the end, kids will always be bullies or bullied. Whether online or in person, bullies are only given power when we pay attention to them. Rep. Sanchez, as much as I am for protecting children, it would be a bigger injustice to not protect the most sacred right in a free state.

Comment On the flip side (Score 1) 1322

by DesertWolf0132 (#27812093) Attached to: Why Is It So Difficult To Fire Bad Teachers?
On the flip side of that are teachers who get fired without solid reason when left without tenure. For instance, I live in Corpus Christi, TX. Here in the city named for the body of Christ, non-Christian teachers have been fired without cause when their religious preferences, or lack thereof were discovered. Yet Christian teachers who feel the need to foist their dogma on their students cannot be touched without bringing in the ACLU. History and government teachers often feel the need to refer to Fox News for their information, which anyone with a brain knows is garbage. Evolution is skimmed over at best with the option given to parents to keep their kids stupid by signing a form that keeps them out of that course. Atheist students are picked on regularly by both students and the principal. At least one teacher I know to be Atheist is forced to hide his lack of belief to keep his job. The only Atheist teachers who live without fear are the ones with tenure and even they must tread lightly. This is sad as most polls show that the more educated you are, the less likely you are to be religious.
Networking

Submission + - AT&T blamed for more road delays (indystar.com)

Submitted by
kurtis25
kurtis25 writes: "According to an article in the Indianapolis Star AT&T, a recent Slashdot favorite is in causing delays in road construction because they are not moving their utility lines and poles in a timely manner. According to the article "The city [Indianapolis] filed a lawsuit earlier this month accusing AT&T of causing $660,000 in overtime payments to contractors on the project that snarled traffic for four years." In another incident "Neighbors in the 1500 block of Reeves said a green AT&T junction box containing many wires used to be by the side of the old roadway. But the light green box now is now stranded in the gravel road bed where paving crews intend to lay a new lane, if the phone company's lines and box are moved. 'AT&T crews came out and they fixed the box and left it in the middle of the road rather than move it out of the way,' a frustrated resident said." AT&T denies hearing about several of the construction projects."
Microsoft

Submission + - Xandros and Microsoft build Open Source translator

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Xandros today announced it will join Microsoft and other companies to build and ship open source translators between documents stored in Ecma Office Open XML and Open Document Formats. The translators, being developed through the Open XML/ODF Translator project, will be made available to Xandros users via the Xandros Networks update facility.
Privacy

Submission + - Chicago busses to get wi-fi cameras for cops

Submitted by
mcgrew
mcgrew writes: "The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Big Brother will soon be spying on Chicago bus riders. From the article:

The CTA is outfitting buses with radio equipment that transmits short distances so that video signals can be picked up by Wi-Fi wireless hot spots and nearby police cars. Flynn said that 75 CTA rail stations are now equipped as Wi-Fi hotspots and more hot spots are planned.

[CTA Vice President John] Flynn said the CTA is looking at software intended to analyze video scenes from buses and rail stations and to issue alerts about activity that might be of interest.
What I find troubling is that although these Orwellian cameras are in public places, the camera feeds aren't public. Why are only the police allowed to watch? If we are going to have cameras in public places so the US Secret Police can spy on us, why aren't they public? Are the police afraid we'll see them doing something they shouldn't?"
Communications

Submission + - AT&T Gears Up for the iPhone (wsj.com) 1

Submitted by
ElvaWSJ
ElvaWSJ writes: "In preparation for its exclusive launch of the cellphone industry's most anticipated device, AT&T is pulling out all the stops. It is adding about 2,000 temporary employees to cope with the influx of shoppers in the first few months. And it is planning for enhanced security to control the potentially large crowds and avoid theft of the phones, which will go for a steep $499 or $599, depending on memory capacity. Some sales agents expect to see people camping outside the night before."
Input Devices

Submission + - Typing faster than Intelligible Speech (wikipedia.org)

Submitted by microbox
microbox writes: According to this article, an average speedy "typist" works at about 35-40 words per minute — a professional around 70-95 words per minute. Yet I recently came across an article on machine shorthand that purports that a typist can reach 225-300 words per minute. That's faster than intelligible speech! The trick is to use a chorded keyboard where-by a user types whole syllables or words by striking multiple keys at once, a technique called "chording". Specialized hardware goes for between $US 1000-4000, however, I see no reason why we couldn't use a regular keyboard for chorded input. I failed to find any FOSS software like a text editor that lets you use your keyboard in "chorded" mode. Is this a better mouse-trap that's just waiting to be built?
Media

Submission + - Proposed Amendment Would Ban All DVD Copying

Submitted by Ynefel
Ynefel writes: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2148802,00.as p "A proposed amendment to the current copy protection license governing DVDs would completely ban all DVD backups, and prevent DVD playback without the DVD disk being present inside the drive. The proposed amendment was made public in a letter sent by Michael Malcolm, the chief executive of Kaleidescape, a DVD jukebox company which successfully defeated a suit by the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) this past March. The proposed amendment is scheduled for a vote on Wednesday, according to Malcolm. " etc, etc, etc
The Courts

The Privacy of Email 133

Posted by samzenpus from the stop-reading-that dept.
An Anonymous Coward writes "A U.S. appeals court in Ohio has ruled that e-mail messages stored on Internet servers are protected by the Constitution as are telephone conversations and that a federal law permitting warrantless secret searches of e-mail violates the Fourth Amendment. 'The Stored Communications Act is very important,' former federal prosecutor and counter-terrorism specialist Andrew McCarthy told United Press International. But the future of the law now hangs in the balance."
Microsoft

Submission + - Say NO to the M$ OpenXML format as an ISO standard (noooxml.org)

Submitted by
magesor
magesor writes: "Say NO to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard

There is a petition that I just copy here:

I ask the national members of ISO to vote "NO" to the ballot on the Microsoft Office OpenXML (OOXML) specification to become an ISO standard for the following reasons:
  1. There is already a standard ISO26300 named Open Document Format (ODF): a dual standard adds cost to industry, government and citizens;
  2. There is no provable implementation of the OOXML specification: Microsoft Office 2007 produces a special version of OOXML, not a file format which complies with the OOXML specification;
  3. There is missing information from the specification document, for example how to do a autoSpaceLikeWord95 or useWord97LineBreakRules;
  4. More the 10% of the examples mentioned in the standard do not validate XML conformity;
  5. There is no garantee that anybody can write a software that fully implements the OOXML specification without being liable to patent damages or patent license fees;
  6. This standard conflicts with other ISO standards, such as ISO 8601 (Representation of dates and times), ISO 639 (Codes for the Representation of Names and Languages) or ISO/IEC 10118-3 (cryptographic hash);
  7. There is a bug in the spreadsheet file format which forbids to enter any date before the year 1900: such bugs affects the OOXML specification as well as software versions such as Microsoft Excel 2000, XP, 2003 or 2007.
  8. This standard has not been created by bringing together the experience and expertise of all interested parties (such as the producers, sellers, buyers, users and regulators), but by Microsoft alone.
Petition
EOOXML objections
"

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