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Comment Re:Supreme Court did *not* say corps are people .. (Score 1) 1330

by JJP (#47360227) Attached to: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Religious Objections To Contraception

Being a "closely held" corporation has nothing to do with the actual number of shareholders. A "closely held" corporation is a corporation in which the majority ie. > 50% of the value of the outstanding shares is owned by five or fewer individuals. In other words, as long as the majority of the shares is held by five or fewer people, there can be many other shareholders and the corporation would still be regarded as being "closely held".

Comment Re:ITYM but some Eurofighter/Typhoons (Score 1) 185

by JJP (#46471821) Attached to: Mars Rover Opportunity Faces New Threat: Budget Ax

There is one real reason why these alternatives will never be considered an option by the US military (and therefore by a couple of other NATO countries). All these planes lack the capability to deliver a US designed nuclear warhead, and the US industrial/military complex is not likely to give away their USP in selling overpriced jets by licencing the technology to non-US manufacturers.

Comment Re:This is dumb (Score 1) 292

by JJP (#36248800) Attached to: Twitter Prepared To Name Users

But Twitter most definitely does have business interests in England and Wales!! They have a business-model in which they make money of their subscribers and they have subscribers from England and Wales using their services.
PC Games (Games)

How PC Game Modders Are Evolving 98

Posted by Soulskill from the longer-beaks-for-breaking-shells dept.
Lanxon writes "Wired has a lengthy investigation into the state of PC game mods, and the amateurs keeping the scene exciting in the wake of draconian DRM placed on many PC titles by major studios. It highlights a number of creative modders, such as Scott Reismanis, founder and editor of Mod DB, and his community-driven alternative to Valve's Steam — Desura — which is 'a distribution system, and, like Steam, will sell games and champion indie titles. But the way it handles mods makes it even more exciting.'"
Crime

Justice Not As Blind As Previously Thought 256

Posted by samzenpus from the too-pretty-for-jail dept.
NotSoHeavyD3 writes "I doubt this is much of a surprise but apparently Cornell University did a study that seems to show you're more likely to get convicted if you're ugly. From the article: 'According to a Cornell University study, unattractive defendants are 22 percent more likely to be convicted than good-looking ones. And the unattractive also get slapped with harsher sentences — an average of 22 months longer in prison.'"
Security

Blizzard Authenticators May Become Mandatory 248

Posted by Soulskill from the gotta-take-off-your-shoes-too dept.
An anonymous reader writes "WoW.com is reporting that a trusted source has informed them that Blizzard is giving serious consideration to making authenticators mandatory on all World of Warcraft accounts. The authenticators function the same as ones provided by most banks — in order to log in, you must generate a number on the external device. Blizzard already provides a free iPhone app that functions as an authenticator. The source stated, 'it is a virtually forgone conclusion that it will happen.' This comes after large spates of compromised accounts left Bizzard game masters severely backlogged by restoration requests."
PC Games (Games)

EA Shutting Down Video Game Servers Prematurely 341

Posted by Soulskill from the sixty-dollar-yearly-fee dept.
Spacezilla writes "EA is dropping the bomb on a number of their video game servers, shutting down the online fun for many of their Xbox 360, PC and PlayStation 3 games. Not only is the inclusion of PS3 and Xbox 360 titles odd, the date the games were released is even more surprising. Yes, Madden 07 and 08 are included in the shutdown... but Madden 09 on all consoles as well?"
Television

How an Online-Only TV Series Stays Successful 163

Posted by timothy from the roll-enough-dies dept.
ChronoDragon writes "The Wall Street Journal points out that it is possible to make a successful web series without the backing of a studio. With the release of a music video, Do you Wanna Date My Avatar, and the start of Season of 3, the web series The Guild is ready for even more success. The Guild, created by Felicia Day (Doctor Horrible), is a low-budget comedy series about a group of MMORPG gamers and their interactions both online and off. While there are a lot of references that will be instantly recognized by gamers, the show is still very accessible to non-gamers."

Comment Re:They force you to lease software (Score 1) 1016

by JJP (#28949899) Attached to: California Student Arrested For Console Hacking

But it's not. Even making a business of modding consoles so that people can import games or use homebrew, I think, would be tolerated.
But advertising that you make a business of modding consoles to play pirated games, I understand that won't be tolerated.

As far as I understand the DMCA it is not. Converting a console is considered circumventing a protection system and is as such illegal. That's one reason why the DMCA is such a crap piece of law.
Technology (Apple)

Submission + - Steve Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago

Submitted by evw
evw writes: The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required, or google the url and click from Google) that Steve Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago. He is on track to return to work at the end of June. William Hawkins, a doctor specializing in pancreatic and gastrointestinal surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., said that the type of slow-growing pancreatic tumor Mr. Jobs had will commonly metastasize in another organ during a patient's lifetime, and that the organ is usually the liver. Having the procedure done in Tennessee makes sense because its list of patients waiting for transplants is shorter than in many other states. There are no residency requirements for transplants. Also in the Mercury News.
Microsoft

Submission + - The Truth Behind the Death of Linux on the Netbook (groklaw.net)

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "Groklaw brings us news of Microsoft holding the smoking gun in regards to the death of Linux on netbooks. You see, the question of Linux on netbooks in Taiwan was put forth to the Taiwan Trade Authority director who replied, 'In our association we operate as a consortium, like the open source consortium. They want to promote open source and Linux. But if you begin from the PC you are afraid of Microsoft. They try to go to the smart phone or PDA to start again.' It's simple, fear will keep them in line. PJ points out 'So next time you hear Microsoft bragging that people *prefer* their software to Linux on netbooks, you'll know better. If they really believed that, they'd let the market speak, on a level playing field. If I say my horse is faster than yours, and you says yours is faster, and we let our horses race around the track, that establishes the point. But if you shoot my horse, that leaves questions in the air. Is your horse *really* faster? If so, why shoot my horse?'"
The Courts

Four Google Officials Facing Charges In Italy For Errant Video 153

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the looks-like-digging-for-deep-pockets-to-me dept.
mikesd81 writes to tell us that four Google employees may be facing charges of defamation and failure to control personal data simply because they didn't remove a video of a boy with Down's Syndrome being harassed and eventually hit over the head with a box of tissue, from Google Video. The video was posted in September of 2006 and was removed by Google within a day of receiving the initial complaints, but apparently that isn't fast enough. "Google maintains charges against the employees are unwarranted, Pancini said. Europe's E-commerce Directive exempts service providers from prescreening content before it is publicly posted, he said. Also, the video was technically uploaded to a Google server in the US, not in Italy, Pancini said. 'It was a terrible video,' Pancini said, adding that Google is concerned about the case's impact on censorship on the Internet. The defendants include David C. Drummond, a Google senior vice president, corporate development and chief legal officer. Pancini said Drummond did paperwork to create Google Italy, but has never lived in the country."

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