Robwiz - Slashdot User

Comment Headline clarity issues (Score 2, Interesting) 165

by Robwiz on Friday January 25, 2008 @09:55AM (#22180570) Attached to: Big Delays, Small Laptops: OLPC XO Recipients Mad

Doesn't "Big Delays, Small Laptops: OLPC XO Recipients Mad" imply that some XO Recipients are mad because the laptop is small?

The actual article is "Big Delays for Small Laptops", it's some of the people who haven't received them yet who are upset.
I was expecting mine (in Canada) some time in February based on the initial delays in shipping to Canada. So I was quite pleased when it showed up last week.

I guess that make me somewhat ineligible to advocate patience if you're still waiting for yours, but I can say that I wasn't disappointed in mine once it arrived.

Submission + - CSI Victim of Drive-by DRM

Submitted by BillGatesLoveChild on Tuesday March 20, 2007 @11:11PM

BillGatesLoveChild writes: The Sydney Morning Herald reports Australian viewers have been plagued by their new Digital TVs mysteriously locking up. Strangely most of the lockups occurred on one TV station and one program in particular: CSI.

Although the TV station involved refused to confirm or deny it, it now appears to be because they were altering the digital TV transmission to prevent viewers from exercising their Fair Use Rights to copy it. The problem was initially reported with LG Brand TV sets, other Digital TV owners are reporting similar problems.

If a TV stations zealtory for enforcing DRM prevents viewers from watching their programs, isn't it time to set back and ask if the whole DRM crusade is completely broken? So far no one has suggested that affected viewers can download CSI ad-free off Bit Torrent anyway.

Submission + - Pirate Hounds Find Discs Worth $3 Million

Submitted by

eldavojohn

on Tuesday March 20, 2007 @02:31PM

eldavojohn writes: "Following a story from two days ago, the featured dogs of the article, Flo & Lucky have found illegal discs with a street value of $3 million USD in Malaysia. From the article, "First checks of computers found in the raid appeared to show they were used to host a Web site selling illegal recordings to customers in Singapore and other countries." Worth noting is that these stories are hitting right as Malaysia has entered talks to negotiate a free-trade pact with the United States."

Submission + - RIAA going after Internet Radio

Submitted by scopius on Wednesday March 07, 2007 @11:26AM

scopius writes: As reported this morning in The Wall Street Journal, the RIAA is now pushing Congress to hike royalty rates for Internet Radio. Tim Westergreen, co-founder of Pandora.com, claims that this action will shut down Pandora, along with many other internet radio stations. The rates set by the board are .08 cents per song per listener, and this rate is in addition to royalties already paid to the songwriters of the works. Up until this point, these stations had been paying a flat fee, but these new rates will be much larger than revenues for most stations. One interesting point is that normal radio doesn't have to pay anything like this rate, they only pay the songwriters royalties, according to the article.

Submission + - Using Copyright to Protect Privacy?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 07, 2007 @07:58AM

An anonymous reader writes: From ABC News:

It was 1996, when Kathleen Stanfield Weinstein was carjacked in a southern New Jersey parking lot. She managed to activate a tape recorder she was carrying and recorded 46 excruciating minutes of her pleas for her life before her attacker bound her hands and feet and smothered her. Last week a judge ruled that the much-sought-after recording of the slain schoolteacher trying to talk her killer out of murdering her would not "under any circumstances'' be released to the media...In a move that legal experts said is virtually unprecedented, Weinstein and New Jersey attorney Carmine Villani copyrighted the recording.

Journal Journal: The Worst VPS in Canada

Journal by mandelbr0t on Thursday March 01, 2007 @02:53PM

VPS sounds like such a great idea. A bunch of computing resources sitting in some rack and hooked up to a great deal of network infrastructure. Price-wise, it's pretty reasonable. CentOS isn't my favourite Linux distro, but it'll do.

I moved my server from my basement to WebServe.ca for a 3 month trial period. I didn't even get through it. Their NOC is staffed by monkeys. The fun begins about 2 weeks ago, on 16 Feb.

Submission + - Orphan 70-Year-Old Plane Data = 'Trade Secrets'?

Submitted by Anonymous Flyboy Coward on Thursday March 01, 2007 @12:43PM

Anonymous Flyboy Coward writes: The Experimental Aircraft Association is taking on the Federal Aviation Administration, which has denied a FOIA request for access to construction data to the owner of 70+ year old antique Fairchild F45 aircraft. The FAA sided with a company that was formed in 1990 (and which didn't even know the airplane type existed until the FAA's inquiry) that claims it "owns" the design and manufacturing data to the aircraft, calling the data a "trade secret". The company failed to register with the FAA (as required by law) yet the FAA is standing by it's assertion that they "own" this data, which was turned over to the public domain in the 1950s. Many vintage aircraft owners face a Catch-22 situation: they are required by law to perform maintenance to the manufacturer's specs, but much of this data is unavailable because the FAA refuses to release it without the data's owner's permission... even if there is no such owner. The decision in this case will likely have wide-ranging implications on FOIA requests, as well as affect whether historical antique aircraft will remain flyable or lost forever to a pointless bureaucratic death. The full story is available here.

Submission + - Bizarre Virus Threatens to Kill File-Sharers

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01, 2007 @07:30AM

An anonymous reader writes: TorrentFreak reports:

A strange virus which taunts file-sharers and threatens to report them to the police and even kill them, is being distributed on the Winny network. The virus has two variants Troj/Pirlames-A and Troj/Pirlames-B, masquerades as a screensaver and attacks files with these popular extensions — EXE, BAT, CMD, INI, ASP, HTM, HTML, PHP, CLASS, JAVA, DBX, EML, MBX, TBB, WAB, HLP, TXT, MP3, XLS, LOG, BMP — overwriting them with images of comic book character Ayu Tsukimiya.

It's reported that one of the images, which includes a song about fish-shaped pancakes stuffed with jam, has a telephone number included although it's unclear to whom the number belongs.

Another exclaims "This is a visit from the prevalent Piro virus! Stop P2P! If you don't i'll tell the police!" while another threatens "Ah, I see you are using P2P again......if you don't stop within 0.5 seconds, i'm going to kill you!"

Submission + - Recording Industry Claims Canada "Awash in Pir

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @06:13PM

An anonymous reader writes: The Canadian Recording Industry Association is back in the news with claims that Canada is "awash in piracy" supported by yet-another bought-and-paid for survey by a polling firm. Michael Geist debunks the claims, demonstrating that they are wildly inaccurate and amount to little more than the fact that Canadians like fake Louis Vuitton handbags.

Submission + - Microsoft Quietly Making Untold Millions

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27, 2007 @03:20PM

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft's Internet Explorer automatically and indiscriminately generates results pages filled with profitable pay-per-click ads for a virtually infinite number of non-existent domains. Are they asking for trouble, or is this yet another demonstration of their "evil genius"?

http://www.dailydomainer.com/200784-microsoft-quie tly-making-untold-millions.html

Submission + - Couple who catch cop speeding could face charges.

Submitted by

a_nonamiss

on Monday February 19, 2007 @02:10PM

a_nonamiss writes: "A Georgia couple, apparently tired of people speeding past their house, installed a camera and radar gun on their property. After it was installed, they caught a police office going 17MPH over the posted limit. They brought this to the attention of the local police department, and are now being forced to appear in front of a judge to answer to charges of stalking.

from the article:

The Sipples allegedly caught Kennesaw police officer Richard Perrone speeding up to 17 mph over the speed limit. Perrone alerted Bartow authorities, who in turn visited the Sipples' home to tell them Perrone intended to press charges against them for stalking.
I have the utmost respect for most law enforcement. They have a difficult, dangerous and mostly thankless job to do, but shouldn't they be held accountable for casually breaking the very same laws they are supposed to be enforcing? Additionally, shouldn't we, as citizens, have the right to be able to bring this to someone's attention without having to face laughably bogus charges for our efforts?"

Feed Fab Four: Analog to Digital (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Monday February 19, 2007 @01:12PM

Recording The Beatles chronicles the gear, studios and personalities responsible for the legendary Beatles catalog. Now, for the digital debut. Commentary by Eliot Van Buskirk.

Submission + - Possible cure for autism

Submitted by Henry V .009 on Monday February 19, 2007 @11:25AM

Henry V .009 writes: New Jersey scientists are claiming that children with autism are unable to metabolize key fatty acids which fight brain-damaging inflammations. They have already developed urine/blood tests to identify at risk children. A preventive cure to autism may be as simple as a 'therapeutic cocktail' of fatty acids.

RIAA Hires Artists, Then Sends In the SWAT team 420

Posted by Zonk on Monday February 19, 2007 @07:03AM from the dirty-pool-riaa-dirty-pool dept.

cancan writes "The NY times is carrying an article about how the RIAA is hiring hip hop artists to make mix tapes, and then helping the police raid their studios. In the case of DJ Drama and DJ Don Cannon, they were raided by SWAT teams with their guns drawn. The local police chief said later that they were 'prepared for the worst.' Men in RIAA jackets helped cart away 'evidence'. Just the same, 'Record labels regularly hire mixtape D.J.'s to produce CDs featuring a specific artist. In many cases, these arrangements are conducted with a wink and a nod rather than with a contract; the label doesn't officially grant the D.J. the right to distribute the artist's songs or formally allow the artist to record work outside of his contract.' " This is more of the shenanigans that we've previously discussed on the site.

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