Forgot your password?

typodupeerror

Comment: Re:A Noble "Gesture" in writing, However (Score 1) 260

by Tim99 (#38932653) Attached to: New Hampshire Passes 'Open Source Bill'

Such a proclamation as New Hampshire HB418 asks too much from its nobel citizenery as well as those of the United States of America, in the particular the Executive Office of the Pesident and Cabinet Offices and Legislature and Judiciary in that, the "language of the bill" is a foreign language and thus ... far removed ... from the knowledge or expertice of even the most knowledgable of citizenery of New Hampshire or the United States or America in their ability to comprehend both spoken and written English Language.

Er, it is "noble", "citizenry", "President" and "expertise". Perhaps you were attempting comic irony? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony#Comic_irony

Open Source

Rockbox dev interview: Open source firmware->

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes "I recently caught up with some of the key developers of Rockbox: An open source firmware replacement for the stock firmware shipped on MP3 players. The project, which has been active for over a decade, currently supports products from more than half a dozen manufacturers, including Apple, Arhcos, iRiver and Toshiba. It involves extensive reverse engineering to figure out how the devices' stock firmwares operate, as well as the challenge of developing for greatly varied targets. You can read the interview here (or the full Q&As with the project's founder and some of the developers involved in it)."
Link to Original Source

Everything you thought you knew about learning is ->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Taking notes during class? Topic-focused study? A consistent learning environment? According to Robert Bjork, director of the UCLA Learning and Forgetting Lab, distinguished professor of psychology, and massively renowned expert on packing things in your brain in a way that keeps them from leaking out, all are three are exactly opposite the best strategies for learning."
Link to Original Source
Politics

Romney invokes fair use in dispute with NBC over c->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Mitt Romney's campaign is airing an ad that is basically 30 seconds lifted from and NBC News broadcast and NBC is trying to stop them from using the ad. I found it interesting that the Romney campaign is invoking fair use to defend the ad. Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said "we believe it falls within fair use. We didn't take the entire broadcast; we just took the first 30 seconds.""
Link to Original Source

Comment: Re:Hadn't noticed before, but yes. (Score 1) 562

by Tim99 (#38855325) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Does Europe Have Better Magazines Than the US?

I hardly ever burn ISO's for Linux, but rather buy a magazine every few months and so have good-quality boot/install/recover disks around all the time.

They are certainly useful, but, as they are shipped by sea/economy air, I find that the 4-6 week delay on top of the publishers delay means that many tools (and even distributions) are several versions behind.

I agree that imported UK publications are usually better than those from the US. About the only local computer magazine that seems to be reasonably current, and of fair quality, is Macworld Australia.

The Week in WikiLeaks Press Coverage: 12-18 Januar->

Submitted by
WLPress
WLPress writes "Cables show US concerns over closer Iran-Nicaragua relations. US considers Italy its main European base for projecting military power toward the Middle East and North Africa. Cables also focus on Ukrainian energy minister involved in the creation of the gas giant RusUkrEnergo, and the Chinese government’s concerns about human rights lawsuits against leaders. Cables also quoted former Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko as acknowledging that the privatization of certain enterprises was illegal."
Link to Original Source
Privacy

Reliving the 'Net's worst privacy breaches->

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes "In honor of National Data Privacy Day this Saturday, here's a list of the 15 worst Internet privacy scandals of all time. These high-profile privacy scandals involve many underlying technologies, from search to social media, e-mail to voice mail, mobile phones to Webcams to GPS. But at the heart of all of these privacy scandals are companies collecting personal data without the user's knowledge or consent and then either sharing it with third parties or simply failing to keep it safe."
Link to Original Source

Comment: Re:Not unsavory or wasteful (Score 2) 113

by Tim99 (#38847689) Attached to: USPTO Declares Invalid Third of Three Critical Rambus Patents

Think of a pharma company which spends $200mil research on each drug candidate, and every four years it gets one $10bil success for 50 failures. The financial health of this company will rest solely on its ability to protect (through patent litigation and licensing) the $10bil revenue that makes up for the $10bil expenses.

These both seem like cases where the market is operating as intended.

Pharmacutical companies spend more on marketing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_marketing than they do on research http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080105140107.htm
As a result there is a strong in-built bias towards existing players.

This is supported by aggressive patenting, which is one aspect of rentier capitalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rentier_capitalism - A mechanism for generating wealth when capital holders "... make money not from producing anything new themselves, but purely from their ownership of property..."

Brit jailed for downloading explosives recipes->

Submitted by DrHeasley
DrHeasley writes "Asim Kauser, aged 25, of Bardon Close, Halliwell, Bolton, pleaded guilty to four offences under Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and was sentenced to two years and three months in prison for downloading files containing recipes for ricin and explosives. Kauser's father gave police a thumb drive containing the files while they were investigating a burglary at his home."
Link to Original Source

Are you sure the back door is locked?

Working...