Forgot your password?

Close
typodupeerror

Comment: Re:Shills (Score 1) 54

by bornagainpenguin (#43789171) Attached to: Inside the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit

Looks like the anti-MS shills are spamming Slashdot's comment section again.

Who needs shills when your competition has been diligently chumming the water in which they live for a decade or two? Microsoft has earned its hatred in this industry, one pissed off user at a time. To pretend this entirely predictable reaction is the work of shills only betrays your own allegiance and paid for status...

Comment: Re:every time i see "Ender's Game" (Score 1) 470

by bornagainpenguin (#43660389) Attached to: <em>Ender's Game</em> Trailer Released

With Orson Scott Card's emphatically homophobic world view, I refuse to help finance any of his works.

Awesome. It's certainly your right to choose to not read any of the man's books or watch any media based on them. You're absolutely free to do without the enjoyment that comes from reading one of his books or watching this movie which from the trailer looks to be quite fun.

What you're not free to do is get in the faces of those of us who are planning to continue enjoying his work and seek to ruin it for us.

Comment: Suddenly OUYA is starting to look pretty good... (Score 1) 236

by bornagainpenguin (#43378389) Attached to: Microsoft Apologizes For Cavalier 'Always-Online' DRM Tweets
You all remember OUYA, don't you? The 'Android console' destined to be a failure because Microsoft and SONY were going to crush them completely...remember?
Only now SONY and Microsoft have begun having a contest to see which one of them can completely tank their console sales the best and Microsoft just took a major lead in the competition... Not that I can really blame SONY as they're still smarting over how badly they got spanked when they removed OtherOS from the PS3.
Meanwhile with this latest salvo, Microsoft announcing a requirement for always on internet connectivity just to play the game, it looks like those triple A titles the fanboys were moaning about not being available on OUYA is a good thing. Instead of Planned Obsolesce games, the OUYA will offer games that will work darn near forever--and emulators will be available so you can still play all those old games you fell in love with gaming for in the first place!
Makes a nice HTPC with XBMC too I hear....what's not to love?
Government

The ATF Wants To Know Who Your Friends Are 131

Posted by timothy
from the do-you-have-any-friends-named-cody? dept.
i_want_you_to_throw_ writes "You have a Friend Request from: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms... 'Confirm'? 'Not Now'? Seriously, the ATF won't try to friend you on Facebook. The ATF doesn't just want a huge database to reveal everything about you with a few keywords. It wants one that can find out who you know. According to a recent solicitation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the bureau is looking to buy a 'massive online data repository system' for its Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information (OSII)."
Government

US Senate Passes National Internet Sales Tax Mandate 297

Posted by timothy
from the man-vs-the-states dept.
SonicSpike writes with the news that the U.S. Senate yesterday "passed a nonbinding proposal to allow states to collect sales tax on Internet sellers that have no presence within their borders. The proposal was an amendment to a 2014 budget bill that the Senate debated Friday. It was pushed by Senators Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, and Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, and was designed to give backers a sense of whether they had enough votes to push forward with final legislation to impose an Internet sales tax. The vote showed they have plenty of backing to overcome any filibuster seeking to block a final sales tax bill."
Privacy

SendGrid Fires Employee After Firestorm Over Inappropriate Jokes 1145

Posted by samzenpus
from the everyone-calm-down dept.
tsamsoniw writes "Hoping to strike a blow against sexism in the tech industry , developer and tech evangelist Adria Richards took to Twitter to complain about two male developers swapping purportedly offensive jokes at PyCon. The decision has set into motion a chain of events that illustrate the impact a tweet or two can make in this age of social networking: One the developers and Richards have since lost their jobs, and even the chair of PyCon has been harassed for his minor role in the incident."
Microsoft

Microsoft To Abandon Windows Phone? 505

Posted by samzenpus
from the red-headed-step-child dept.
symbolset writes "Microsoft has had some trouble as of late getting adoption of their mobile products. Even Bill Gates has said it was inadequate. Despite rave reviews of Windows Phone in the press it has failed to get double digit share of the smartphone market. Now comes reports from WMPoweruser that WP8 will lose mainstream support in July 2014."
Facebook

Facebook Knows If You're Gay, Use Drugs, Or Are a Republican 473

Posted by samzenpus
from the you-are-what-you-like dept.
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Not that there's anything wrong with that — as the Guardian reports that Facebook users are unwittingly revealing their sexual orientation, drug use and political beliefs– using only public 'like' updates. A study of 58,000 Facebook users in the US found that sensitive personal characteristics about people can be accurately inferred from information in the public domain. Researchers were able to accurately infer a Facebook user's race, IQ, sexuality, substance use, personality or political views (PDF) using only a record of the subjects and items they had 'liked' on Facebook – even if users had chosen not to reveal that information. 'It is good that people's behavior is predictable because it means Facebook can suggest very good stories on your news feed,' says Michal Kosinski, 'But what is shocking is that you can use the same data to predict your political views or your sexual orientation. This is something most people don't realize you can do.' For example, researchers were able to predict whether men were homosexual with 88% accuracy by their likes of Facebook pages such as 'Human Rights Campaign' and 'Wicked the Musical' – even if those users had not explicitly shared their sexuality on the site. According to the study other personality traits linked to predictive likes include for High IQ — 'The Godfather,' 'Lord of the Rings,' 'The Daily Show'; for Low IQ — 'Harley Davidson,' 'I Love Being A Mom,' 'Tyler Perry'; and for male heterosexuality — 'Wu Tang Clan,' 'Shaq,' and 'Being Confused after Waking Up from Naps.' Facebook's default privacy settings mean that your 'likes' are public to anyone and Facebook's own algorithms already use these likes to dictate what stories end up in users' news feeds, while advertisers can access them to determine which are the most effective ads to show you as you browse."
Facebook

Sheryl Sandberg and Technology's Female Leaders 181

Posted by samzenpus
from the breaking-the-glass-ceiling dept.
AlistairCharlton writes "While the rest of the world continues to see men dominating, the technology industry seems set to change that. I investigate how Sheryl Sandberg, Marissa Mayer, Meg Whitman and Joanna Shields are paving the way for the rest of the business community. From the article: 'A glance at the male/female split of world leaders (178/17), Fortune 500 CEOs (96 percent/four percent) and FTSE 100 board seats (85 percent/15 percent) reveals there is a huge imbalance between the sexes, but in technology change is underway - and Sandberg is at the very forefront of it. Along with Meg Whitman, Marissa Mayer and Joanna Shields of HP, Yahoo and London's Tech City respectively, Sandberg represents a shift in what was not so long ago an all-male industry.'"
Games

In Wake of Poor Reviews, Amazon Yanks SimCity Download 511

Posted by timothy
from the drawing-board-time dept.
An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from Geek.com: "In what must be a big blow for EA and Maxis, Amazon has stopped selling download copies of the just released SimCity. The game has at time of writing received 833 reviews on Amazon, and has an average rating of just one star. That's because 740 of those are one star reviews. Only 20 people gave it 5 stars. There's few better ways to gauge how a game has been received, and this is pretty damning as to how EA has handled the launch."
Censorship

EU To Vote On Proposal That Could Ban All Online Pornography 853

Posted by timothy
from the easy-enough dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The European Union is voting on a proposal next week that could lead to a blanket ban on porn in member states, and it seems the measure may well be approved. The proposal, called 'Eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU,' mentions issues such as women carrying a 'disproportionate share of the burden' when raising a family, violence against women as 'an infringement of human rights,' and gender stereotypes that develop early in life. From the proposal: "Calls on the EU and its Member States to take concrete action on its resolution of 16 September 1997 on discrimination against women in advertising, which called for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media and on the advertising of sex tourism." Update: 03/07 19:05 GMT by T : Pirate MEP Christian Engström writes on his blog that citizens writing to the European Parliament about the proposal are not necessarily being heard: "Before noon, some 350 emails [on this topic] had arrived in my office. But around noon, these mails suddenly stopped arriving. When we started investigating why this happened so suddenly, we soon found out: The IT department of the European Parliament is blocking the delivery of the emails on this issue, after some members of the parliament complained about getting emails from citizens."
Sci-Fi

Orson Scott Card's Superman Story Shelved After Homophobia Controversy 1174

Posted by Soulskill
from the hits-you-in-the-childhood dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A controversy has been brewing in the comic community for the past month. Orson Scott Card, author of Ender's Game and its many sequels, was tapped to write a story for the new Adventures of Superman comic. The controversy arose because Card has become an outspoken opponent of gay marriage, going so far as to say giving it legal recognition could mark 'the end of democracy in America,' and suggesting 'traditional' married people will eventually have to overthrow the government. Many fans of the series objected, and some retailers decided they wouldn't stock the issue Card's story appears in. Now, the illustrator for Card's story, Chris Sprouse, has walked away from the project, saying he wasn't comfortable with the media surrounding the story. Because of that, Card's story is being replaced in the Adventures of Superman anthology. 'The news has inspired speculation about whether or not this could mean that DC will quietly kill off the controversial Card story entirely, with some suggesting that the story remaining un-illustrated gives the publisher an "out" to avoid any potential breach-of-contract legal response.' Personally, I'm not sure what to think about this. I enjoyed Ender's Game as a kid, and it tarnishes the experience a little to know that its authors can say such hateful things. On the other hand, Card seems to have kept his personal views out of his fiction, and it's unlikely DC would let him put those views into a Superman comic even if he wanted to. It's a free country; people are free to believe stupid things. On the third hand, he is actively advocating his views outside his fiction, and what better way is there for readers to fight back than organizing a boycott and voting with their wallets? What do you think, Slashdot?"
Crime

The Accidental Betrayal of Aaron Swartz 409

Posted by Soulskill
from the picking-sides-and-picking-battles dept.
theodp writes "The anarchist dictum when it comes to grand juries, explains Salon's Natasha Lennard, is a simple one: 'No one talks, everyone walks.' It's a lesson journalist Quinn Norton tragically learned only after federal prosecutors got her to inadvertently help incriminate Aaron Swartz, her dearest friend and then-lover. Convinced she knew nothing that could be used against Swartz, Norton at first cooperated with the prosecutors. But prosecutors are pro fishermen — they cast wide nets. And in a moment Norton describes as 'profoundly foolish,' she told the grand jury that Swartz had co-authored a blog post advocating for open data (the Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto), which prosecutors latched onto and spun into evidence that the technologist had 'malicious intent in downloading documents on a massive scale.' Norton sadly writes, 'It is important the people know that the prosecutors manipulated me and used my love against Aaron without me understanding what they were doing. This is their normal. They would do this to anyone. We should understand that any alleged crime can become life-ruining if it catches their eyes.' Consider yourself forewarned."

Comment: Fuck your copyright bullshit! (Score 4, Insightful) 172

by bornagainpenguin (#43055235) Attached to: Criticism Of Copyright Alert System Mounts

The difference between your Martin Niemoller reference and what I am saying is that what they are going after, is that in Niemoller's case, the people "they came for" may have, at worst, been considered the fringes of society, but they weren't necessarily doing anything that was previously against the law. Copyright infringement actually *IS* illegal, and has been for quite a long time.

I'll take copyright infringement seriously the day that Big Media starts taking the public domain seriously, and not one second before. They thought they could play this game of indefinitely extending the length of copyright terms, effectively stealing from the public domain and all of humanity without there being unforeseen consequences? Guess what? People now take copyrights about as seriously as Big Media does, i.e. not at all.

Fuck your copyrights.

Since we're all here, we must not be all there. -- Bob "Mountain" Beck

Close