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Open Source

What Do I Do About My Ex-Employer Stealing My Free Code? 545

Posted by samzenpus from the get-a-meeting-with-the-bobs dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I recently found out that the company I used to work for is removing all the open source licenses (GPL and MIT) from my work, distributing it as proprietary software and taking all the credit despite the fact that they contributed nothing to it. They are even renaming it something really silly. What should I do?"
DRM

Ubisoft Brings Back Always-Connected DRM For Driver: San Francisco 261

Posted by Soulskill from the back-by-popular-demand dept.
Last year Ubisoft introduced DRM for their PC games that required a constant internet connection, going so far as to terminate single-player games if the connection was interrupted. After facing outrage, boycotts, and DDoS attacks, Ubisoft seemed to have softened their stance, issuing a patch for two games that allowed offline play. Unfortunately, it seems the change wasn't permanent; Ubisoft's upcoming racing game Driver: San Francisco marks the return of the contentious DRM.
Businesses

Study: 5% of Mobile Gamers Willing To Spend $50+ 54

Posted by Soulskill from the fool-and-his-money dept.
derGoldstein tips a story at AllThingsD about a study into mobile gamers' spending habits: "[The study] provides a fairly compelling argument as to why a developer should continue to give away his or her games for free ... After evaluating the spending habits of 3.5 million consumers across both iOS and Android, Flurry found that among those who pay for in-app transactions, greater than five percent will spend more than $50, which rivals the amount paid at retail for top console and PC games."
Science

How Do You Keep Up With Science Developments? 337

Posted by samzenpus from the update-please dept.
malraid writes "As a nerd who used to love science back in high school (specially physics), I now find myself completely disconnected from any and all scientific developments and news. How do you try to stay up to date with scientific developments? Science journals? Whatever makes it into Slashdot's front page? Books? Magazines? I'm looking for something engaging and informative, for not something that will require me to go and get a PhD just to be able to comprehend."
The Internet

Better Copyright Through Fair Use and Ponies 169

Posted by samzenpus from the omg-fair-use dept.
Balinares writes "With even harmless parody sites like Peanutweeter now getting shut down by twitchy lawyers in the name of brand dilution concerns, the situation with fair use has become bleak. Yet some companies are learning at last. Variery reports that when parodies of their latest production started popping up online, Hasbro not only allowed it to happen, but started contributing some of their own. Now their My Little Pony reboot has gained a huge following and reached cult status. Fair use does make everything better. That, or it's the ponies."
Science

Does Quantum Theory Explain Consciousness? 729

Posted by timothy from the when-will-jesus-bring-the-pork-chops-and-antimatter dept.
astroengine writes "Quantum theory is often seen as the root cause of unrelated, mysterious phenomena. Take consciousness for example. British physicist Roger Penrose recently argued 'that we will need to invoke 'new physics and exotic biological structures': rewriting quantum theory to make sense of consciousness.' But why do this, especially as there is no apparent causal link between quantum mechanics and the conscious mind? There appears to be a very basic logical fallacy here that even the most prominent physicists seem to be making."
Printer

Tom's Hardware Benchmarks Inkjet Printer Paper 160

Posted by timothy from the this-time-a-jump-rope-can-be-hi-fi dept.
An anonymous reader writes "We all know that the specs of your inkjet printer, driver settings, and ink cartridges can make a big difference in the quality of your prints. But the cheapest and simplest aspect of printing can also have a big impact on the final quality: the paper. This short article is an interesting read, the author actually found ways to 'benchmark' inkjet printer paper."
Handhelds

TI vs. Calculator Hobbyists, the Next Round 301

Posted by timothy from the not-how-google-would-do-it dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Texas Instruments has struck back against Nspire gamers and hackers with even stronger anti-downgrade protection in OS 3.0.2, after the TI calculator hacking community broke the anti-downgrade protection found in OS 2.1 last summer and the new one in OS 3.0.1 a month ago. In addition to that, in OS 3.0.1 the hacker community found Lua programming support and created games and software using it. Immediately, TI retaliated by adding an encryption check to make sure those third-party generated programs won't run on OS 3.0.2." But if you want it, you can get OS 3.0.2 here.
America Online

When AIM Was Our Facebook 395

Posted by CmdrTaco from the something-to-think-about dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Gizmodo reports that there was a stretch of time in the 90s and early 00s when AOL was a social requisite. 'Everyone had an AIM handle,' write Adrian Covert and Sam Biddle. 'You didn't have to worry about who used what. Saying "what's your screenname" was tantamount to asking for someone's number — everyone owned it, everyone used it, it was simple, and it worked.' When we all finally got broadband, it was always on and your friends were always right there on your buddy list, around the clock. AIM was the first time that it felt like we had presences online, making it normal, for the first time ever, to make public what you were doing. 'Growing up with AIM, it became more than just a program we used. It turned into a culture all its own—long before we realized we'd been living it.'"

Comment registry export for the lazy (Score 1, Interesting) 434

by zaunuz (#36162004) Attached to: How Windows 7 Knows About Your Internet Connection

Made a .reg file for a lazy friend of mine.. basically, it just reroutes the requests to my server instead, as he trusts me more than microsoft, heh.
Feel free to use it, if you want, or edit it to fit your own preferences.
http://www.jarmund.net/stuff/JarmundNCSI.reg

I take no responsibility, etc...

PS: I'm slightly less evil than google.

Comment three indications that i'm a Pirate (Score 1) 572

by zaunuz (#32403468) Attached to: Arrr ye a pirate, matey?

95% of my total disk space used is for pirated stuff (TV shows, movies, music, etc etc).

On top of that, it just so happens that I'm currently on the ship i work on... that's gotta count in the pirate-direction too, right?

Also, having a weird Norewegian last name is suitable.. the first syllable is pronounced "Yarr"

Comment Re:WTF (Score 1) 576

by feitingen (#29843053) Attached to: Linear measure of books on shelves in my dwelling:

You can get Books by the Yard

I'm not sure who it will impress, other than the movers.

I am pretty sure my pub in Ireland did this to "decorate". Only problem is that all the books are of Swedish/Danish origin and all of them are pretty weird.
Want to read a 30 year old Danish book on household diseases or another one (seemingly similar age) which describes the Swedish Badger?

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