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Comment How to fix twitter: increase maximum characters (Score 1) 97

Twitter only allows you to post short terse messages. To fix twitter one has to increase (double) the size of the allowed message you can post.

There we fixed it!

Oops, the internet just doubled in size with twice as much useless information. Moore's law applies to hard drives too, no? Every 18 months, the amount of useless data on a hardrive doubles. The distinction between corrupted data and useful data is murky. Is twitter corrupted?

Oh, brilliant idea: a P2P twitter. All the data is distributed across personal computers of individuals instead of stored on twitters servers.
That would mean storing all other people's useful twitter posts in your uTorrent client, or something, and the more popular the twitter post, the more people share it. Strange.

Submission + - Could a computer that runs perpetually solve global warming by cooling the air?

An anonymous reader writes: Daniel Sheehan Shows us a Perpetual Computer and he's a PhD in california questioning whether we really know as much about the second law as we think. Would Shannon's information theory need to be revised? Could we have cooler computers that required no batteries or AC wall outlet plugs ? Would the whole lithium battery industry be virtually useless since all things would just suck the energy from molecular speed of air...

It's basically a perpetual motion machine potentially violating the second law, solving the global warming problem. However this is not a crackpot proposing the device, it's a respected physicist from San Diego.

Submission + - Is the GNU George Orwell's 1984 Doublespeak? "GNG is Not GNU" exposes details (z505.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The free software foundation has claimed that free software is not about cost, but Richard Stallman has been quoted several places as saying it is in fact about cost. The GPL v2 license makes it a legal contract to offer the software "FREE OF CHARGE" and not free as in speech.

The FSF has had over 1 million dollars in their bank account back in 2001 (not considering inflation) and paid Eben Mogen $280,000 (six figure income) in 2007. Stallman has been quoted as saying "we have been so successful because we have shown we can develop software without any money".

This indeed sounds like a logical contradiction, similar to double speak (free of charge means it is not free of charge, and without money means with money). GNG is Not GNU exposes the Richard Stallman movement as a cult similar to a religion. GNG is not GNU is a recursive joke explained on the GNG website. Is the FSF a modern cult?

Submission + - Is GNU/GPL a religious cult? A site called GNG (GNG is Not GNU) discusses facts.

An anonymous reader writes: Richard Stallman and the free software foundation claim to be about free speech, not free as in cost or beer. A site called GNG questions whether FSF really is about free speech or free cost? The GNG pages offer facts about FSF six figure income salaries and the FSF having had over 1 million dollars in the bank. Richard Stallman has been quoted as saying "free software can be developed without any money" (quotes are on the GNG site) which seems to be an outright lie. Is the GNU GPL community a modern religious cult? The GNG site discusses the issues (with some humor too, such as the derecursive acronym GNG is not GNU).
User Journal

Journal Journal: Is The Free Software Foundation is a modern cult? GNG is Not Gnu.

Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation claim to be about free speech, not free as in cost or beer. A site called GNG questions whether FSF really is about free speech or free cost? GNG proposes that GNU is very much like a religious cult with the free software foundation having a million dollars in the bank even though Richard Stallman has claimed many times that free software can be developed without any money. Eben Moglen's salary

Handhelds

Does Constant Access Shatter the Home/Work Boundary? 321

StonyandCher has passed us a link to PCWorld.au, once again raising the tough topic of work/life separation. A department of the Australian government went ahead with a purchase of dozens of Blackberry communication devices, but is now delaying their deployment. The reason: "Staff expressed fears about BlackBerries contributing to a longer working day and felt it was going a step too far because mobile phones are adequate for out-of-office contact. Not everyone agreed, however, with some senior executives claiming a BlackBerry can contribute to work/life balance by facilitating telecommuting and more flexible schedules. " For the time being this issue is on hold for those staffers, but how does this issue fall for you? Is constant accessibility freeing or just another chain around your neck?
Power

Submission + - Stallman vs OpenBSD Purism and Freedom Flamewar (kerneltrap.org)

L505 writes: ""GNU and FSF (Free Software Foundation) founder Richard Stallman posted a message entitled "real men don't attack straw men", and goes on to tell why he does not advocate OpenBSD currently. He says that he knew of no non-free software included in the base OpenBSD system, but claimed there was non-free software in the ports collection. Stallman recommends only systems such as gNewSense that are supposedly pure and free according to the FSF.

OpenBSD developers think RMS is making a big deal out of nothing, and is abusing his power. OpenBSD developers confirm the ports tree only contains links to non-free software, and does not actually recommend installation of it anywhere. Furthermore the OpenBSD developers argue that anyone can install non-free software on any Linux system, whether or not it is gNewSense."

Microsoft

Submission + - Windows in a nutshell (theopensourcerer.com)

The Open Sourcerer writes: "I read this on a posting on the asterisk mailing list this morning courtesy of Doug at NaTel. It is probably not new but I found it funny. Windows is a half-baked, dying OS that in essence is a 32 bit extension and graphical shell, for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit operating system, originally coded for a 4 bit microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company, that can't stand 1 bit of competition. lol"
Software

Submission + - That Which We Call Free (z505.com)

L505 writes: "GNU and FSF (Free Software Foundation) founder Richard Stallman posted a message on OpenBSD mailing lists. The subject was "real men don't attack straw men", and the email suggested that some of his comments were being misrepresented. He says, "one question particularly relevant for this list is why I don't recommend OpenBSD. It is not about what the system allows. (Any general purpose system allows doing anything at all.) It is about what the system suggests to the user." He also said that he knew of no non-free software included in the base OpenBSD system, but claimed there was non-free software in the ports collection, "if a collection of software contains (or suggests installation of) some non-free program, I do not recommend it." http://kerneltrap.org/OpenBSD/That_Which_We_Call_Free"
Robotics

Submission + - Robots that bounce in bed (nytimes.com)

nem75 writes: "The NY Times has a review of British AI researcher David Levy's book "Love and Sex with Robots". He claims that within a span of about 50 years the day will come, when people could actually fall in love with life-like robots and want to live with them instead of a human mate. While this may seem far fetched at first, he has some pretty interesting views on this. Like the sexual part being the easyest thing, what with brothels exclusively offering life-like sex dolls already existing in Japan and South Korea. The case he builds goes much further though, and certainly provides food for thought."
Google

Submission + - Google Apps Buggy Lately?

An anonymous reader writes: I administer two unrelated domains that use Google Apps for e-mail (thats where you basically use G-mail but with your own domain name) and over the last week I've received an alarming number of reports from users that the service appears to be broken. Upon going to their Start page, the users get the message "Information is temporarily unavailable" under E-mail and when they try click on the E-mail link they get taken to a vanilla G-mail login page (which doesn't support logging in with a Google Apps accounts). Did Google upgrade the Apps with broken software or something? Either way, I've seen the problem myself and it doesn't appear to be going away.
Privacy

Submission + - MySpace finds 29,000 sex offenders among users

StonyandCher writes: MySpace has identified more than 29,000 registered sex offenders among those registered to use its site — more than four times what the company said in May it had found from an investigation, according to North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper.

"[The 29,000] includes just the predators who signed up using their real names and not the ones who failed to register or used fake names," Cooper said in the statement. Cooper is one of eight state attorneys general who asked MySpace in May to turn over the names of users who are registered sex offenders.

In May, MySpace reluctantly revealed it had uncovered 7000 sex offenders.

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