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Comment Re:Perhaps not (Score 1) 598

The entire country pointing and saying "You people are crazy and dangerous" is a better safeguard than throwing some folks in jail. (Hitler got thrown in jail too, and look what happened to him...)

From Hatewatch, yesterday: Legal problems for neo-Nazi Bill White keep piling up. Already in jail for one crime and awaiting sentencing for another, the 36-year-old racist was just indicted in Florida on six counts of using the Internet to make violent threats against investigators and a judge. [...] Count 1 of the indictment accuses White of sending a May 19, 2012, e-mail that "contained a threat to kidnap and injure" the three named officials and "specifically to kidnap, torture, rape and kill those persons and their spouses, children and grandchildren."

Did you forget to tell him he was "crazy and dangerous" or something?

Comment Re:wrong name (Score 1) 292

my understanding is that English law doesn't require you to be aware of the injunction, it is made "against the world" which means it applies to all parties in England and Wales.

Maybe not. According to this week's Private Eye John Terry got one against "persons unknown" last year, but it was quashed by Justice Tugendhat because by not mentioning any specific targets, the lawyers were attempted to avoid a) having to tell anyone they were super-injuncted and b) having anyone argue against it.

There's also the case of Colin Montgomery, who had a super-injuction, but his identity was revealed by a newspaper which hadn't been told about the injunction.

Books

Author's Guild Says Kindle's Text-To-Speech Software Illegal 683

Mike writes "The Author's Guild claims that the new Kindle's text-to-speech software is illegal, stating that 'They don't have the right to read a book out loud,' said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. 'That's an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law.' Forget for a moment that text-to-speech doesn't copy an existing work. And forget the odd notion that the artificial enunciation of plain text is equivalent to a person's nuanced and emotive reading. The Guild's claim is that even to read out loud is a production akin to an illegal copy, or a public performance."
Databases

Sun May Begin Close Sourcing MySQL Features 509

An anonymous reader writes "From the MySQL User's Conference, Sun has announced, and former CEO Marten Mickos has confirmed, that Sun will be close sourcing sections of the MySQL code base. Sun will begin with close sourcing the backup solutions to MySQL, and will continue with more advanced features. With Oracle owning Innodb, and it being GPL, does this mean that MySQL will be removing it to introduce these features? Sun has had a very poor history of actually open sourcing anything."
Government

Sequoia Vote Machine Can't Do Simple Arithmetic? 254

whoever57 writes "Ed Felten is showing a scan of the summary from a Sequoia voting machine used in New Jersey. According to the paper record, the vote tallies don't add up — the total number of Republican ballots does not match the number of votes cast in the Republican primary and the total number of Democratic ballots does not match the number of votes cast in the Democratic primary. Felten has a number of discussions about the problems facing evoting, up to and including a semi-threatening email from Sequoia itself." Update: 03/20 23:30 GMT by J : Later today, Felten added an update in which he analyzes Sequoia's explanation. He has questions, comments, and a demand.
Technology

Silent Microchip 'Fan' Has No Moving Parts 136

Stony Stevenson writes "Researchers in the US have developed a microchip fan with no moving parts that operates silently and generates enough wind to cool a laptop computer. The solid-state fan, developed with support from the US National Science Foundation (NSF), is touted as the most powerful and energy efficient fan of its size. The device produces three times the flow rate of a typical small mechanical fan and is one-fourth the size. The technology has the power to cool a 25W chip with a device smaller than one cubic-cm and can someday be integrated into silicon to make self-cooling chips, according to the researchers."
Media (Apple)

iPhone SDK Rules Block Skype, Firefox, Java ... 800

An anonymous reader writes "Apple's iPhone software development kit is already drawing complaints due to the strict terms of service. Voice over IP apps like Skype that attempt to use the cellular data connection will be blocked. Competing web browsers Firefox and Opera are forbidden. Even Sun is now backpedaling on its recent announcement of a java port, noting that there are some legal issues. Critics are already comparing Apple's methods to Comcast's anti-net neutrality filtering, and Microsoft's Netscape-killing antitrust tactics. Could Apple face government regulators?"
Programming

Ruby on Rails 2.0 is Done 385

Jamie noted that ruby on rails 2.0 is done. In addition to upgrade and installation instructions, the article lists a number of the more interesting new features in the release which appears to be quite extensive.
Security

Blast-Proof Fabric Resists Multiple Explosions 250

An anonymous reader tips a Gizmodo story on a fabric whose properties are counterintuitive, to say the least of it. "Zetix is a fabric so strong it will resist multiple car bomb blasts without breaking. It absorbs and disperses the energy from explosions... it can be used in body armor, window covering, military tents, and hurricane defenses... [and] it can be used as medical sutures that won't damage body tissue. All of this is thanks to a property that apparently defies the laws of physics: helical-auxetics, objects that actually get fatter the more you stretch them. The concept makes my head want to explode, but when you see it in action it actually makes sense."
PC Games (Games)

EVE-Online Patch Makes XP Unbootable 572

Nobo writes "CCP's latest major patch to the EVE-Online client, Trinity, comes with an optional DX9-enhanced graphics patch that dramatically improves the visual quality of the in-game graphics through remade models, textures, and HDR. It also has an unfortunate bug: the incredibly stupid choice of boot.ini as a game configuration file, coupled with an errant extra backslash in the installer configuration. The result is that anyone who installs the enhanced graphics patch overwrites the windows XP c:\boot.ini file with the EVE client configuration file, bricking the machine on the next boot. Discussion in a couple of forums threads is becoming understandably heated."

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