Slashdot

Stephen Hunt writes "Jericho's mystery man, Lennie James is back, not — sadly — in Jericho, but still playing the part of a spy in the new remake of The Prisoner, the nutty cult 1960 sci-fi spy-fi TV series. Once a spy, always a spy. Don't let the bouncing white sentries eat you, Lennie."
http://www.sfcrowsnest.com/news/arc/2008/nz12852.php

gbjbaanb writes "Ars Technica reports that Microsoft is to sponsor the Apache Foundation to the tune of $100k. From the article: 'I asked him if this could possibly be the beginning of a broader initiative by Microsoft to increase Apache compatibility with .NET web development technologies, but he says it's still too early to guess Microsoft's future plans for Apache participation. ... He doesn't anticipate a confrontational response from the developers working on individual Apache projects ... The response of the broader open source software community, however, is harder to predict.' (In related news, MS also intends to participate in the RubySpec project.)"

According to a somewhat jaw-dropping story in The Register, it appears that Microsoft has performed a trifecta of geek-scaring feats: They have joined the Apache Software Foundation as a Platimum member(at $100K USD a year), submitted LGPL-licensed patches for ADOdb, and have pledged to expand it's Open Specifications Promise by adding to the list more than 100 protocols for interoperability between its Windows Server and the Windows client. While I sincerely doubt they'll release Vista under a GPL license anytime soon, this is certainly an unexpected series of moves on their part, and could possibly lead to more OSS (as opposed to "Shared Source") interactivity between what is arguably Linux' greatest adversary and the Open Source community.

but poor parenting skills are society's fault.

just think about if for a second, where did these bad parents learn to become bad parents or not learn to become good ones. Part of it was the way that their parents brought them up and part of it must be the society that they live in, their schooling, there social networks and how they were arrived at.

Poor parenting is very much a social problem, it's your problem as much as anyone else's.

Almost everybody out there, including the true geeks, runs Windows at work because they have to. Linux, Windows servers, XP desktops, Solaris, whatever corporate buys. Everything EXCEPT Macs.

At home we have a Macbook. Why? I don't mind running XP at work, but I'm not shelling out my own dough for Vista. I'd rather give it to Steve.

I think the backlash against Vista, whether justified or not, has caused a lot of people to look at Macs and to some degree Linux.

Really? Seriously?

Okay. I can get windows to run. Really, I can. That doesn't mean it isn't a fucking pain in the ass, a terrible user experience, and a waste of resources. Sorry, I have plenty of reasons to get headaches from windows. Not being geeky enough to handle it isn't one them.

Da'Man writes "The Psystar saga takes another series of turns. Not only is the website down but an examination of the suit filed by Apple shows that the Cupertino Goliath wants Psystar to recall all Open Computer and OpenServ systems sold by the company since April. It seems that Steve Jobs is out to totally sink Psystar and put an end to Mac clones."

Barence writes "Viacom wants to know which YouTube videos have been uploaded by members of Google's staff, in what could be a potentially explosive aspect of its copyright infringement claim against the search giant."

Talinom writes "ZDNet has an article sure to raise the hackles of any self-respecting geek. They report that housewives buying small laptops like the Asus EE are causing Linux usage for that demographic to spike. A reporter for Tech-On states that 'Retailers and contract manufacturers in Taiwan say that novice PC users there, like students and housewives, tend to buy the Linux version of the Eee PC701, while geeks go for Windows XP.'"

An anonymous reader writes "As some of you may know, HP is negotiating with DPWN, parent company of DHL, to take on outsourced parts of DPWN's global IT Services business unit. As a worker in that business unit, I and my colleagues are part of what HP is negotiating for. I moved into my current position fresh out of university and so far haven't experienced corporate shake-ups or outsourcing initiatives. I enjoy my work and the opportunities that go with it, which is why this announcement was so distressing to me at first. Then I began hearing about the opportunities HP has internally. If you've been through a similar experience, what advice would you give for someone being outsourced? Should I 'ride the wave' and join the new company and culture, or dust off the old CV/resume?"

the ensuing slashdot effect will take it offline for another ten months.

Yeah, indeed ;)

Or they could, like, ditch all their work done so far, fork wine and make the new OS run on top of linux+wine, possibly off a sqlite-based WinFS ;)

Then just port their platform libraries onto that, redo their visual tools as eclipse plugins -- and presto, you have best of both worlds.

And fast ;)

He's winning because censorship always backfires.

No, he's winning because it WORKS. Are you seriously claiming the west censors the muslims more than the muslims censor the west ?

I'll just post a link to how "the economist" looks in a muslim nation :

http://jturn.qem.se/2006/more-pictures-of-iranian-censorship/

Terror works, and so does censorship. Using violence to advance a political position works. So what went wrong in the beginning in Iraq ? To little agressiveness on the american side. This whole rules of engagement thing.

Al-qaeda on the other hand, placed bombs in a girls pre-school and detonated the bombs when american soldiers brought back a lost girl. 28 of the children died and both soldiers (and the girl they protected) survived.

And somehow the western press means by "proportionalism" that the US should be less agressive, imagine. The Iraqis know perfectly well how muslims fight : kidnapping kids, wives and old people and executing them en masse in hopes of demoralizing an enemy, have been normal features of muslim conquests everywhere.

All indigenous cultures of northern africa have been totally obliterated by islam : from the ancient egyptians (who still existed when the muslim caliph ordered the library of alexandria burnt down), to the pseudo-roman carthagens, to berbers and tons of other cultures.

Terrorism works. Sooner or later other people will start catching up to this message.

Really, it would have been either party, and any person in office that would have fought this.

They are politicians, what do you expect?

GamerGirll1138 writes to tell us Next-gen has an amusing walk down memory lane with their history of copy protection. There have been some crazy schemes over the years to ensure that you paid for your software, everything from super-secret decoder rings to ridiculous document checks. "With bandwidth expanding and more and more games publishers exploring digital distribution, there's little doubt that we're entering a new phase in the history of copy protection and those who would defeat it. What's more, the demand for games as a chosen form of entertainment has never been higher. All this considered, it's impossible to believe that the cat-and-mouse game of piracy and copy protection will not reach new levels of intensity, with new technologies deployed on each side, and that some of them will surely create new hurdles for even those who simply wish to purchase and play the newest games. Ah, for the heady days of the code wheel."