Comment Re:EPUB? (Score 5, Informative) 48
They publish the source .tex files at http://github.com/lydiapintscher/Open-Advice , so it's rather open.
Comment Re:Will they pull out of the UK (Score 1) 186
This is specifically addressed in the PDF at the site you link to, at 3.39:
Do downloads of electronic books or music from a website, or the purchase of ring tones and screen savers for mobile phones fall within the cancellation exceptions referred to above?
3.39 We consider that these examples are likely to constitute services, rather than goods as the consumer does not receive physical goods. The right to cancel are therefore those that apply to services.
Earlier they state that services that start before the end of the cancellation period are exempt in general, so it does in fact seem that there is an exemption for download-only software sales.
Comment Re:Bait & switch (Score 1) 364
3. As per UK contract legislation all T-mob customers who are affected now have 30 days to terminate the contract if they do not like it. Very few will do though - most phones on T-mob are subsidised so to terminate the contract one has to pay the balance on it (at the outrageously inflated "not-locked-in price).
What's the point of this legislation then if it doesn't protect you from inflated termination fees? Can't you always just cancel the contract and pay up?
Comment Re:Encrypted passwords? (Score 1) 99
Obligatory David A. Wheeler's "Fully Countering Trusting Trust" piece link: http://www.dwheeler.com/trusting-trust/
Comment The guy threw up inside his helmet (Score 2, Funny) 168
WTF wants to WATCH something like this?
Comment Re:Money (Score 3, Insightful) 89
If Microsoft fought patent trolls they would be in effect fighting the entire patent system, and could end up accidentally overthrowing all software patents. That wouldn't be good for Microsoft.
Comment Re:Public domain golden-age comic downloads (Score 2, Insightful) 257
Why don't they put this stuff on bittorrent then?
Comment Re:C on an 8-bit microcontroller? (Score 1) 496
If speed matters it's cheaper, easier, and faster to buy more processing power.
Yeah, especially if you're developing software that's supposed to run on netbooks.
Submission + - The Pirate Party wins 2 seats in EU parliament
while(true) writes: The Swedish Pirate Party has secured around 7% of the country's votes in the election to the European Union parliament. This means it likely has enough votes to claim 2 seats in the parliament. The Swedish Pirate Party has as it's only agenda "to fundamentally reform copyright law, get rid of the patent system, and ensure that citizens' rights to privacy are respected".
Submission + - Swedish Pirate Party headed for Brussels (thelocal.se)
castrox writes: "The Swedish Pirate Party gets 7.1% of the Swedish votes for the European Parliament. This means that the Pirate Party holds one seat out of a total of 18 representing Sweden. Here's to hoping they can make a difference. The make/female vote is 12/4%. The voters for the Pirate Party are also mostly under 30, but still has a big support older voters. The vote for the Pirate Party is much considered to be a protest against the sitting government and the EU."
Comment Re:No malloc( )s (Score 2, Informative) 587
Not only did you not get the joke, you also have some misconceptions about how the Java GC works. There is no counter, instead the program state is analysed for unreachable objects. Also, memory is not freed immediately, but some unspecified time later (i.e. during the next GC cycle)
Comment Re:Coding Standard (Score 4, Insightful) 707
Because the output is used as evidence in court?
Comment WTF, intellectual property? (Score 5, Insightful) 71
Why is everyone using "intellectual property", a catch-all phrase for trademarks, copyrights etc instead of just saying "ideas", "stories" or "settings"? I don't want to sound like RMS but it's really a dumb use of the term. The LoTR game is not based on IP, it's based on a story that happens to be protected by copyright.
One Broken Router Takes Out Half the Internet? 412
Silent Stephus writes "I work for a smallish hosting provider, and this morning we experienced a networking event with one of our upstreams. What is interesting about this, is it's being caused by a mis-configured router in Europe — and it appears to be affecting a significant portion of the transit providers across the Internet. In other words, a single mis-configured router is apparently able to cause a DOS for a huge chunk of the Net. And people don't believe me when I tell them all this new-fangled technology is held together by duct-tape and baling wire!"
Linux Now an Equal Flash Player 437
nerdyH writes "As recently as 2007, Linux users waited six months for Flash 9 to arrive. Now, with Microsoft pushing its Silverlight alternative, Adobe is touting the universality of its Flash format, which has penetrated '98 percent of Internet-enabled desktops,' it claims. And, it today released Flash 10 for Linux concurrently with other platforms. Welcome to the future." Handily enough, Real Networks released this summer RealPlayer 11 for Linux, the first release for which they've included a .deb package, and offers nightly builds of their Helix player, for which Linux is one of the supported platforms.
