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Windows

Journal Journal: Is it time to upgrade?

Journal by ProfessorJerk
I've been using Windows 2000 for just over 7 years now with no real compulsion to change. I'm wondering if there is any compelling reason that anyone can think of to upgrade to XP?
Book Reviews

Groovy in Action 154

Posted by samzenpus from the look-at-all-the-colors dept.
Simon P. Chappell writes "I missed the partying in the 70's and so was not exposed to the full groovy experience that was available. You could say that I was a late developer (pun intended). Thankfully, I am now able to make up for lost time by learning the Groovy scripting language. For those of you not familiar with Groovy, it is a dynamic language designed to run on a Java Virtual Machine and be easy for Java programmers to work with; it looks very similar to Java and will freely inter-operate with Java objects and libraries. I've been tinkering with Groovy on and off for about two years now; learning Groovy in the old days, prior to this year, was a challenge with all of the design changes that were taking place. Groovy in Action (GinA) is the book that I'd wished was available back then. Dierk König, a committer for the Groovy project, has written this definitive guide to Groovy and after what has seemed an eternity to those of us on the Groovy mailing list, it is finally available." Read below for the rest of Simon's review.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft: Google Was `wake-Up Call'

Submitted by wooha
wooha writes: Watching Google Inc. rake in advertising revenue was a wake-up call within Microsoft," the company's top technical executive, Ray Ozzie, said Tuesday. But he said Microsoft plans to do more than simply mimic Google by rolling out Web-based versions of desktop programs or following its particular search and advertising model. Ozzie, who has only made a handful of appearances since his promotion last June to replace Bill Gates as chief software architect, told analysts and investors at a Goldman Sachs conference in Las Vegas that he has been laying the groundwork for programmers across the company to build Internet-based software.
It's funny. Laugh.

Journal Journal: Al "Green" Gores Shocking Electric Bill 1

Journal by music2myear
Some interested person called the Nashville (TN) Electrical Service and under the Freedom of Information Act asked for the Academy Award Winning Ex-VP's energy bill. Apparently the publicly dull persona has quite the party life going at home. His usage last year? 221,000 kWh, that's a $30,000 bill, more than 20 times the national average. Last August alone he used 22,619 kWh, more than you or me (even with those massive 1000W PS' ru

Canada Rejects Anti-Terror Laws 507

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the shot-down dept.
Coryoth writes "The Canadian parliament has voted against renewing anti-terror laws that had been introduced after September 11, 2001. The rejected laws included provisions to hold terror suspects indefinitely, and to compel witnesses to testify, and were in some sense Canada's version fo the Patriot Act. The laws were voted down in the face of claims from the minority Conservative government that the Liberal Party was soft on terror, and despite the fact that Canada has faced active terrorist cells in their own country. The anti-terror laws have never been used, and it was viewed that they are neither relevant, nor needed, in dealing with terrorist plots. Hopefully more countries will come to the same conclusion."
Software

Submission + - MPAA Fires Back at AACS Decryption Utility

Submitted by RulerOf
RulerOf writes: The AACS Decryption utility released this past December known as BackupHDDVD originally authored by Muslix64 of the Doom9 forums has received its first official DMCA Takedown Notice. It has been widely speculated that the utility itself was not an infringing piece of software due to the fact that it is merely "a textbook implementation of AACS," written with the help of documents publicly available at the AACS LA's website, and that the AACS Volume Unique Keys that the end user isn't supposed to have access to are in fact the infringing content, but it appears that such is not the case. From the thread:

"...you must input keys and then it will decrypt the encrypted content. If this is the case, than according to the language of the DMCA it does sound like it is infringing. Section 1201(a) says that it is an infringement to "circumvent a technological measure." The phrase, "circumvent a technological measure" is defined as "descramb(ling) a scrambled work or decrypt(ing) an encrypted work, ... without the authority of the copyright owner." If BackupHDDVD does in fact decrypt encrypted content than per the DMCA it needs a license to do that.

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As of next Tuesday, C will be flushed in favor of COBOL. Please update your programs.

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