Junaos - Slashdot User

The Telcos' Secret Anti-Net Neutrality Strategy 457

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday May 11, 2010 @06:43PM from the net-brutality dept.

NoMoreHelio writes "The political blog ThinkProgress lays out big telecom's plan to attack net neutality. The blog obtained a secret PowerPoint presentation from a telecommunications industry front group (PPT) that outlines the industry strategy for defending against regulatory attempts by the FCC. The industry plans to partner with two conservative 'astroturfing' groups, best known for their work seeding the Tea Party movement. Today's revelation from ThinkProgress comes as Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) joined various telecom-funded front groups to unveil an anti-net neutrality bill."

Microsoft Patents XML Word Processing Documents 357

Posted by timothy on Thursday August 06, 2009 @07:37PM from the no-problems-there-nothing-to-worry-about dept.

theodp writes "Embrace. Extend. Patent. On Tuesday, Microsoft was granted US Patent No. 7,571,169 for its 'invention' of the Word-processing document stored in a single XML file that may be manipulated by applications that understand XML. Presumably developers are protected by Microsoft's 'covenant not to sue,' so the biggest question raised by this patent is: How in the world was it granted in light of the 40-year history of document markup languages? Next thing you know, the USPTO will give Microsoft a patent for Providing Emergency Data in XML format. Oops, too late."

Murdoch Says, "We'll Charge For All Our Sites" 881

Posted by timothy on Wednesday August 05, 2009 @10:33PM from the subverting-the-dominant-paradigm dept.

Oracle Goddess writes "In what appears to be a carefully planned suicide, Rupert Murdoch announced that his media giant News Corporation Ltd intends to charge for all its news websites in a bid to lift revenues, as the transition towards online media permanently changes the advertising landscape. 'The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive methods of distribution, but it has not made content free. Accordingly we intend to charge for all our news websites,' Murdoch said."

Comment Best open source software for WINDOWS (Score 3, Insightful) 324

by Junaos on Wednesday August 05, 2009 @06:34PM (#28964559) Attached to: Best Free Open Source Software For Windows

So obviously the answer is VirtualBox.

THEN Ubuntu.

Comment Re:Lisp in a Box (Score 2, Insightful) 324

by Junaos on Wednesday August 05, 2009 @06:21PM (#28964361) Attached to: Best Free Open Source Software For Windows

(let ((lisp (not real programming language))) ((parentheses (too many))) )

Best Free Open Source Software For Windows 324

Posted by timothy on Wednesday August 05, 2009 @06:12PM from the where's-vlc? dept.

snydeq writes "InfoWorld surveys the FOSS-on-Windows landscape, detailing the 10 free open source solutions most likely to unseat proprietary offerings. 'Some, like TrueCrypt and VirtualBox, are real diamonds in the rough: enterprise-grade solutions that deliver many of the same bells and whistles of their commercial brethren, but for free. Others, like Firefox and OpenOffice.org, are already legendary, and their strong followings ensure their continued development and support at levels that rival the best proprietary solutions.'" Rather than click through 10 different pages, the slideshow presentation at least lets you hover over each page's link to preview the author's top picks.

Comment Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog! (Score 1) 202

by Junaos on Wednesday August 05, 2009 @06:05PM (#28964103) Attached to: US Marine Corps Bans Social Networking Sites

Here's a theoretical tweet: "I have to leave at about 10PM to go on recon in Fadullah. Most of the guy in the platoon doing the patrol are okay, but Lt. Jones is incompetent."

You fail. That's 145 characters. Learn to tweet. ;)

But in reality, I understand exactly what you're saying. There's more to it than that, though. Not only could a post on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, et al compromise the soldier's personal, as well as our national security, but could you imagine the soldier that's talking with his girlfriend at home on Facebook on a military PC, while he's supposed to be watching surveillance footage on that same PC? The two seconds that he flips away from the window to answer his girlfriend COULD be when a terrorist jumped the dune and headed towards the base - who knows?

In addition, Myspace especially, is a breeding ground for all kinds of viruses and exploits. Surfing unprotected to Myspace on a personal PC is stupid, Surfing to Myspace on a military PC AT ALL should be grounds for a court-martial - knowingly and willingly exposing military equipment for sabotage.

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