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Linux Business

Submission + - Novell won't be banned from distributing Linux

Submitted by Aim Here
Aim Here writes: In an earlier article, Slashdot quoted Reuters as claiming that the FSF might try to ban Novell from using Linux. Eben Moglen of the FSF has responded in an eweek interview, claiming he was quoted out of context, and that his quote in the article merely refers to the upcoming version 3 of the GNU General Public License. Was this all just an honest mistake, an eager journalist overhyping a weak story, or part of a wider campaign of sinister anti-FSF FUD?
Wireless (Apple)

Submission + - Real Cost of the iPhone: $1936

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: CenterNetworks calculated the real cost of purchasing and using the iPhone for one year. The cost comes out to $1,936. Just amazing. Who can afford this type of cash?

True cost of the iPhone
Microsoft

Submission + - Costs of content protection in Windows Vista

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Veteran security researcher Peter Gutmann has published a paper "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection". It explains the horrendous costs that Windows Vista's "premium" content protection requirements will foist on producers and consumers of computing technology: buggy drivers, more expensive hardware, randomly degraded sound and video output and the threat that Microsoft may remotely disable your hardware if someone, somewhere finds a way to use it to copy "premium" media!
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft tries to patent RSS

Submitted by bitserf
bitserf writes: As some blogs are reporting, Microsoft appears to have submitted a patent application for RSS. This appears to be a pretty cynical move on their part, think back to when people were pushing for them to integrate this into their platforms. It would be quite ironic if the inventor of RSS ended up not being able to use the technology he developed and evangelized for fear of infringing on their patent. The filing date of the patent is June 21, 2005.
Censorship

Submission + - New York Times Censorship

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The New York Times writes that a recent op-ed article by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann was censored by the White House even though all information found in the article lies within the public domain. It states that 'the deleted portions of the original draft reveal no classified material. These passages go into aspects of American-Iranian relations during the Bush administration's first term that have been publicly discussed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; former Secretary of State Colin Powell; former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; a former State Department policy planning director, Richard Haass; and a former special envoy to Afghanistan, James Dobbins.' The article was 'blacked out by the Central Intelligence Agency's Publication Review Board after the White House intervened in the normal prepublication review process and demanded substantial deletions. Agency officials told us that they had concluded on their own that the original draft included no classified material, but that they had to bow to the White House.' The full article can be found here.
The Media

Submission + - High IQ equals vegetarian

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: British researchers have found that children's IQ predicts their likelihood of becoming vegetarians as young adults — lowering their risk for cardiovascular disease in the process. The finding could explain the link between smarts and better health, the investigators say. "Brighter people tend to have healthier dietary habits," concluded lead author Catharine Gale, a senior research fellow at the MRC Epidemiology Resource Centre of the University of Southampton and Southampton General Hospital.
Books

Submission + - The God Delusion

Submitted by fiannaFailMan
fiannaFailMan writes: Richard Dawkins has attracted a lot of attention with The God Delusion, and for good reason. He pulls no punches with a robust defence of atheism and reason as opposed to using faith as a means of making important life decisions. The tone of the book is shamelessly opinionated, and he leaves you in no doubt as to where he stands. His aim is to encourage more people to 'come out' as atheists, and to 'raise the consciousness' of those who tolerate the widely-held assumptions that blind faith in a higher existence is a virtue and that faith and science are both equally valid. Atheists remain one of the last social groups who are openly vilified and discriminated against on account of what they think, and Dawkins wants that to change.

The damage that has been done to the world by faith-based reasoning and organised religion is covered in a fair amount of detail with plenty of anecdotal stories thrown in to give the reader something to latch onto on an emotional level. The supression of scientific development, the teaching of ignorance at the expense of scientific fact, the subjugation of women, the abuse and brainwashing of children, the fallacy that only faith has a moral code, and of course the jihads and religious wars are all covered.

The philosophical arguments in favour of the God Hypothesis, as he calls it, are presented and knocked down one by one in incisive detail, and many are exposed as circular reasoning. The foundations of religion, the ancient scriptures, are examined closely, and the cruelty and violence of the old testament God is explained in shocking clarity. God is portrayed as an insecure, vengeful, jealous, genocidal maniac. Interestingly, there are examples of scripture that look suspiciously like they were duplicated during centuries of editing. For example, Lot's departure from Sodom (after he showed God how righteous he was by offering his daughters up to a mob to be raped in order to protect some angels who came to visit, Genesis 19:7-8) is suspiciously similar to another story in Judges 19:23-4. The mysoginist tone of the monotheistic holy books is made very clear throughout all of this, indicating how it was all written by men in a time when women were considered almost sub-human, and there are people in the world today who still want to adhere to such inhumane principles both in Christendom as well as the Islamic world.

There is an interesting exploration of the Catholic church's talent for making things up as it goes along using its own self interest as a motive and warped reasoning as the justification. Purgotory was invented as a means of justifying prayer (also exposed as ineffective elsewhere in the book) for the dead and as a means of generating revenue in the form of 'indulgences,' something the author describes as 'the medeival equivalent of the Nigerian internet scam.'

At all times, Dawkins keeps yanking the reader back to the reality of how the world works as explained by science. Natural selection is described not as an unlikely 'chance mutation' but as a gradual process in which the development of complex organisms is actually inevitable in many places in the universe wherever the conditions are suitable. Intelligent design advocates look for holes in scientific knowledge that can only be plugged by a god, only to retract whenever science plugs the gap with new discoveries.

Some people deride atheism as an 'empty existence' and having 'no meaning.' Dawkins extolls the virtues of atheism coupled with a deep understanding of the wonders of science. The universe as known to science is much bigger and much more impressive than the relatively small and young concoction of the ancient peoples who needed simple stories for simple people to explain that which they did not yet have the scientific knowledge to understand.

If you are an atheist and have been shy about voicing your beliefs (or lack thereof) in the presence of religious people, reading this book will give you new confidence and pride in your preference for reason over faith.
Security

Submission + - Firefox, the Dark Side...

Submitted by zmanzero
zmanzero writes: For months, Firefox has been downloading Conduit.com tracking Toolbars by the millions from their offical [url=https://addons.mozilla.org/search.php?cat=12& app=firefox&appfilter=firefox&type=E&perpage=50]si te[/url]. the discussion is here — [url=http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t =465643&postdays=0&postorder=asc&postsperpage=15&s tart=0&sid=86ceaa68cb464181b551a152c478aa3b]Discus sion[/url]
Biotech

Submission + - Biodiesel banned in Texas

Submitted by
Alternative Energy
Alternative Energy writes: "The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is set to effectively ban biodiesel in the state's largest markets. The problem, they say, lies with the fuel's nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions and their contribution to the formation of ground-level ozone in Texas' eastern counties. According to the TCEQ, biodiesel does not meet the stricter NOx standards recently imposed on diesel and alternative diesel fuels under new regulations. Efforts to clean up the air, led the TCEQ in November 2005 to adopt Texas low emission diesel standards (TxLED) in an effort to reduce pollutants in the state's smoggiest 110 counties. Texas' biodiesel industry — the largest in the country — suddenly found itself essentially outlawed after the standards went into effect."
Nintendo

Submission + - Interlink sues Nintendo over Wii control patent

Submitted by Socguy
Socguy writes: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2006/12/08/tech -nintendointerlinkpatentlawsuit-061208.html Surprise! A small American company, Interlink Electronics Ltd., is suing Nintendo over alleged patient infringement. Apparently Nintendo "manufactures, uses, offers to sell and sells controllers for use with the Nintendo Wii video game system that infringe U.S. Patent No. 6, 850, 221." The patent was issued to Interlink on Feb. 1, 2005."

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What the gods would destroy they first submit to an IEEE standards committee.

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