David Gerard - Slashdot User

Submission + - SingularDTV: using Ethereum for DRM on a sci-fi TV show about the Singularity (rocknerd.co.uk)

Submitted by David Gerard on Sunday August 21, 2016 @03:51PM

David Gerard writes: SingularDTV is an exciting new blockchain-based entertainment industry startup. Their plan is to adapt the DRM that made $121.54 for Imogen Heap, make their own completely premined altcoin and use that to somehow sell two million views of a sci-fi TV show about the Singularity. Using CODE, which is explicitly modeled on The DAO ... which spectacularly imploded days after its launch. There's a white paper, but here's an analysis of why these schemes are a terrible idea for musicians.

Submission + - Elsevier going after authors sharing their own papers (svpow.com) 2

Submitted by David Gerard on Friday December 06, 2013 @01:16PM

David Gerard writes: Elsevier, in final desperation mode, is going after authors sharing their own papers online. Academia.edu reported to several researchers that Elsevier "is currently upping the ante in its opposition to academics sharing their own papers online." This is the sound of a boycott biting. Repeat after me: "Elsevier delenda est."

Submission + - How amateurs destroyed the professional music business (rocknerd.co.uk)

Submitted by David Gerard on Saturday September 14, 2013 @05:23AM

David Gerard writes: Here in the future, musicians and record companies complain they can't make a living any more. The problem isn’t piracy — it’s competition. There is too much music and too many musicians, and the amateurs are often good enough for the public. This is healthy for culture, not so much for aesthetics, and terrible for musicians.

Submission + - Internet Brands sues people for forking under CC by-sa (davidgerard.co.uk)

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Friday September 07, 2012 @11:10AM

David Gerard writes: "Internet Brands bought Wikitravel.org in 2006, plastered it with ads and neglected it. After years, the Wikitravel community finally decided to fork under CC by-sa and move to Wikimedia. Internet Brands is now suing two of the unpaid volunteers for wanting to leave. The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking a declaratory judgement that you can actually fork a free-content project without permission. Internet Brands has a track record of scorched-earth litigation tactics."

Submission + - Stuxnet/Flame/Duqu uses GPL code: release it! (crysys.hu)

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Tuesday June 05, 2012 @03:42PM

David Gerard writes: "It seems the authors of Stuxnet/Duqu/Flame used the LZO library, which is straight-up GPL. And so, someone has asked the US government to release the code under the GPL. (Other code uses various permissive licenses. As works of the US
federal government, the rest is of course public domain.) Perhaps the author could enlist the SFLC to send a copyright notice to the US government..."

Submission + - Schmidt: G+ "identity service", not social network (google.com)

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Sunday August 28, 2011 @03:48AM

David Gerard writes: "Eric Schmidt has revealed that Google+ is an identity service, and the "social network" bit is just bait. Schmidt says "G+ is completely optional," not mentioning that Google has admitted that deleting a G+ account will seriously downgrade your other Google services. As others have noted, Somewhere, there are two kids in a garage building a company whose motto will be "Don't be Google"."

Submission + - UN: Digital Economy Act is human rights violation (openrightsgroup.org)

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Thursday June 02, 2011 @09:06AM

David Gerard writes: "The Open Rights Group reports that tomorrow, the United Nations Human Rights Commission will issue a report condemning the UK Digital Economy Act as a human rights violation. It "names the UK as violating Article 19 by allowing disconnection of Internet users in the Digital Economy Act.""

Submission + - Wine 1.2 released (winehq.org)

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Friday July 16, 2010 @04:38PM

David Gerard writes: "Stuck with that one Windows app you can't get rid of? Rejoice — Wine 1.2 is officially released! Apart from running pretty much any Windows application on Unix better than 1.0 (from 2008), major new features include 64-bit support, bi-directional text and translation into thirty languages. And, of course, DirectX 9 is well-supported and DirectX 10 is getting better. Packages should hit the distros over the weekend, or you can get the source now."

Submission + - Times UK paywall a miserable failure (newser.com)

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Thursday July 15, 2010 @12:38PM

David Gerard writes: "As part of his war against free, Rupert Murdoch put the Times and Sunday Times of London behind a paywall. Michael Wolff of Newser asks how that's working out for him. You can guess: miserable failure. "Not only is nobody subscribing to the website, but subscribers to the paper itselfâ€Â”who have free access to the siteâ€Â”are not going beyond the registration page. Itâ€Âs an empty world." Not that this wasn't entirely predictable."

Submission + - Programmers Need To Learn Statistics (zedshaw.com) 2

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Saturday January 09, 2010 @05:05PM

David Gerard writes: "Zed Shaw writes an impassioned plea to programmers: Programmers Need To Learn Statistics Or I Will Kill Them All. "I go insane when I hear programmers talking about statistics like they know shit when it’s clearly obvious they do not. I’ve been studying it for years and years and still don’t think I know anything. This article is my call for all programmers to finally learn enough about statistics to at least know they don’t know shit. I have no idea why, but their confidence in their lacking knowledge is only surpassed by their lack of confidence in their personal appearance.""

Submission + - "Three strikes" to go ahead in Britain (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Wednesday October 28, 2009 @09:00AM

David Gerard writes: "Lord Peter Mandelson has carefully ignored the Gowers Report and the Carter Report, instead taking the advice of his good friend David Geffen and three strikes and you're out will become law in Britain. The Open Rights Group has, of course, hit the roof. Oh, and never mind MI5 and the police pointing out that widespread encryption will become normal, hampering their efforts to keep up with little things like impending terrorist atrocities. Still, worth it to stop a few Lily Allen tracks being shared, what?"

Submission + - Intellectual Ventures' patent protection racket (timothyblee.com)

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Tuesday September 08, 2009 @10:17AM

David Gerard writes: "Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures doesn't sue people over patents, because that would be patent trolling! No, instead they just threaten to sell the patent to a known litigous patent troll. So that's all right then. Timothy Lee details how using patents to crush profitable innovation works in practice, and concludes: 'In thinking about how to reform the patent system, a good yardstick would be to look for policy changes that would tend to put Myhrvold and his firm out of business.'"

Submission + - \Windows 7 reintroduces remote BSoD (seclists.org) 8

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Tuesday September 08, 2009 @06:02AM

David Gerard writes: "Remember the good old days of the 1990s, when you could teardrop attack any Windows user who'd annoyed you and bluescreen them? Microsoft reintroduces this popular feature in Windows 7, courtesy the rewritten TCP/IP and SMB2 stacks. Well done, guys! Another one for the Windows 7 Drinking Game."

Submission + - Apple tries to gag owner of exploding iPod (timesonline.co.uk) 1

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Monday August 03, 2009 @07:55AM

David Gerard writes: "The Times in London reports that Apple attempted to silence a father and daughter with a gagging order after the child's iPod music player exploded and the family sought a refund from the company. Well, at least they're not Microsoft. Or something."

Submission + - Google trying to make <video> H.264 only? (whatwg.org)

Submitted by

David Gerard

on Friday June 12, 2009 @02:31PM

David Gerard writes: "Google Chrome includes Ogg support for the <video> element. It also includes support for the hideously encumbered H.264 format. Nice as an extra, but ... they're also testing HTML5 YouTube only for H.264 — meaning the largest video provider on the Net will make H.264 the primary codec and relegate the equally good open format Ogg Theora firmly to the sidelines. Mike Shaver from Mozilla has fairly unambiguously asked Chris diBona from Google what the heck Google thinks it's doing. We all eagerly await the answer to the question: "WTF?""

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