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Comment The RIAA vs. us (Score 1) 179

by PrefersVMS (#23284554) Attached to: Massive Increase in RIAA Copyright Notices
"The RIAA is also backing legislation in states
such as Illinois and Tennessee that would require schools that get a
certain number of notices to begin installing deep packet monitoring
equipment on their internet and intranets, according to Luker."

OK. Being the practical person that I am, who's going to pay for it?
Who's going to pay for the time, materials, and personnel necessary
to accomplish this goal? The RIAA? The University? The civil service
branch that runs each university? The students?

The RIAA wants this, they want that, they don't want to PAY for the
information they claim they need. So what's the problem? If they, as
if they were a company, wants to see particular data collected, then
they, as a company, are required to PAY for it. And that includes,
among other things, the hardware and software necessary to collect
and coallate the information, the h/w & s/w necessary to handle the data
in whatever form is necessary, and the salaries of the folks involved in said
production. As well as the legal fees to protect all of the aforementioned
data from the various laws that prohibit the collection of said data.

In other words, the RIAA MUST be held accountable for the gathering
of the data, the consolidation of the data into a database (perhaps Oracle),
the fees associated with such an enterprise for each and every school of
learning for each state. Yes, we know there is much duplication of effort,
but each effort should be separate so as to not contaminate the data of each
institution of higher learning. Yes, the RIAA MUST PAY for all of it. And
be held financially and legally accountable for the data.

I wonder how much overhead this would bring to their request? Enough to
permanently discourage such a brazen act for a very long time? Enough for
all the result of the world to enjoy this great soap opera? Enough to show
the ruling party of the RIAA how stupid they appear to be? Or enough for
the legal entities of each state/school to ask "why are you prosecuting the
downloaders as opposed to the uploaders, the REAL crime-inducing folks?
Why are you wasting OUR time, OUR resources, and causing OUR reputations
to look as bad as yours?"

I wonder.
Programming

Submission + - Indie 3D Game Engines?

Submitted by TBBScorpion
TBBScorpion writes: Questions: Which of the Indie 3D game engines are worth while? How long until Ogre3D and other open source engines catch up?

Lately I have been investigating 3D game engines. I was mostly paying attention to open source engines like Ogre3d, Irrlicht, Crystal Space 3D, etc. Then I found out about cheap Indie licenses for commercial game engines like Torque Game Engine ($150), Torque Game Engine Advanced ($295) and the C4 Engine ($200 + free upgrades).

I found a list of top commercial and open source game engines at devmaster.net in case anyone is interested (I didn't want to take the time to list all the engines, but there are more good ones that I did not list on this page.

Here is my dilemma and question... Which of the engines are worth investing in? Buy an indie license or hold out for open source? Or start with indie and switch later if open source catches up?

Torque Game Engine 1.5 works on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux but lacks modern shader support (except for something about a free modernization kit). I mostly do cross-platform software development so I like this feature.

But then there is Torque Game Engine Advanced (TGEA) which adds shader support and the Atlas terrain paging feature and a few other nice features, but is DirectX9 based and is no longer cross-platform. I have also heard rumors about support for the engine to be a little on the lacking side, yet the Torque community seems to be rather large compared to other commercial. Are the complaints just from people who don't really know how to program expecting to be able to edit the C++ of the game engine or are capable people really having trouble? I've heard rumors about stability of TGEA compared to TGE? For those of you who have used TGE or TGEA, would you recommend it over other engines?

The C4 Engine looks nice as well, but seems to be under active development and less mature, but potentially more modern game engine? Also, it supports Windows XP and Mac OS X, which is better then just Windows.

The features I am hoping for are:
  • Cross-platform if possible
  • Modern shader support
  • Terrain paging system built-in
  • Model, material and animation import from Blender 3d


When it comes to the open source engines like Ogre3D, the main thing the seem to be lacking is the built-in editors, and at least Ogre3D is currently mostly a graphics engine rather then a complete game engine (i.e. Physics built-in; does provide wrappers for ODE and other Physics engines). My assumption is that is just a matter of time before Ogre3D and other engines catch up with the top Indie commercial engines? What does the slashdot community think about the topic?

Lastly, I will be using the game engine for not only making games, but for some scientific applications as well. Also, I started using C++ 10 years ago and have been using Python since January 2002... so I'm ready to dive into the engine code.
Power

Submission + - Alloy of aluminum and gallium releases hydrogen

Submitted by
mdsolar
mdsolar writes: "Reuters is reporting on a method of releasing hydrogen from water by oxidizing aluminum in an alloy with gallium. The aluminum oxidizes leaving aluminum oxide, gallium and hydrogen gas in the presence of water. The Purdue scientists who discovered the effect think this may help to overcome difficulties with hydrogen storage. From the article:

On its own, aluminum will not react with water because it forms a protective skin when exposed to oxygen. Adding gallium keeps the film from forming, allowing the aluminum to react with oxygen in the water.
More details are give here."
PHP

Submission + - Pro Drupal Development

Submitted by
Michael J. Ross
Michael J. Ross writes: "If a Web site needs to be developed as quickly as possible, or it needs to support collaborative content, then usually the best approach is to use a content management system (CMS). There are many CMSs from which a Web developer could choose, including Drupal, which is considered by many to be the most powerful, extensible, and logically organized of them all. Installing Drupal and using it to create a simple site, is fairly straightforward, in part due to its relatively excellent documentation. But for much of its existence, there has been far less information available on how to extend a Drupal site with one's own modules, themes, blocks, etc. That need is now met by a new book, Pro Drupal Development.

The book was written by John K. VanDyk and Matt Westgate, both of whom are experienced computer programmers, who years earlier had created their own CMS. In their book's Introduction, they confess to discovering Drupal and its many advantages, switching over to it, and presumably abandoning further development of their own CMS. This speaks volumes about their regard for Drupal, because an individual programmer or programming team can give no greater vote of confidence for a technological product than to voluntarily end primary allegiance to a competing product that they themselves birthed and nurtured.

Pro Drupal Development was published by Apress, on 16 April 2007, under the ISBNs 1590597559 and 978-1590597552. The publisher offers a Web page on their site dedicated to the book, where the visitor will find all of the book's source code, as well as the table of contents and a sample chapter (Chapter 8 — The Theme System), in PDF format. In addition, there is a link for errata, which leads to the authors' own book site. At the time of this writing, there are three dozen entries, contributed by the authors and their readers. The authors' site also has links for downloading the source code by individual chapter, and a blog that focuses on the book.

The book's material, spanning 428 pages, is organized into 23 chapters and two appendices. Unlike the majority of technical books nowadays, this one does not have the chapters organized into labeled parts. Nonetheless, the chapters and appendices roughly fall into three categories: how Drupal works (Chapters 1, 19, and 23, and Appendix A), how to customize it (Chapters 2-18 and 22), and how to optimize your Drupal development efforts (Chapters 20-21, and Appendix B). The customization chapters cover a wide range of topics: modules, menus, databases, users, nodes, themes, blocks, forms, filtering, searching, indexing, files, taxonomy, caching, sessions, jQuery, localization, and optimization.

Each one of these topics is explored in laudable detail, with plenty of sample code and figures to illustrate the key concepts. The greatest strength of this book is the depth of its coverage, and the methodical way that the authors go about presenting the material. They are clearly quite serious about Drupal itself, and about conveying to the reader all of the knowledge that they believe is important for the reader to master. In fact, anyone attempting to read the book cover to cover might find the presentation quite dry, with no evidence of humor or even a sense of fun, unlike so many other recent programming books. On the other hand, one can argue that the value of this information alone to the reader who is equally serious about mastering Drupal, should be sufficient. Regardless, be warned that this is definitely not a book that one can read through at a fast pace, absorbing the bulk of the information. The innards of Drupal alone make it a challenging subject for dissection; learning how to modify Drupal's behavior, is even more so.

Yet if anyone is interested in mastering the inner workings of Drupal, and how to customize them, this is the book of choice. It may be a bit dry, but it is quite meaty, and the material is clearly presented. Moreover, the publisher, Apress, has done an admirable job with this title. The layout is clear; the index is substantial; and, as with their other titles, they offer two different versions of the table of contents — high-level, listing the chapter titles only, and detailed, listing the sections and subsections within those chapters.

Another aspect of this book that I applaud is the efficient use of page space, through the use of top and bottom margins that are noticeably smaller than those found in the typical computer programming book. This is especially true of the bottom margins. For instance, on page 117, the text comes within one centimeter of the bottom edges the page — something I've never seen before in a professionally printed book. At first it might strike one as sloppy, but actually should be appreciated by anyone who is tired of technical books using excessive margins for padding out a much more limited amount of information into an even greater number of pages. This is a practice that I would recommend to all other publishers, technical or otherwise.

However, the book does have some weaknesses, which is probably to be expected in any first edition. The sample source code in many cases could benefit from more use of whitespace — particularly for the PHP code. But with any code found in a book, there is always the possibility that such instances of compressed code result from a conscious decision given the limited width of the printed page. But in most such cases in this book, that reason would not be applicable.

The authors do not warn the reader that a solid understanding of PHP is needed for using the book's ideas and sample code. Near the end of the Introduction, they suggest that if the reader is new to Drupal, then he or she should read the chapters in sequence. The authors should also note that if the reader is new to PHP, then it would be better to first get up to speed on PHP before trying to digest and make use of this book. Such points might be obvious to most readers, but they should be clarified up front, perhaps in the Introduction, for the benefit of anyone browsing this title in a bookstore, and wondering if they already possess the technical know-how required by the book.

Similarly, the authors also do not mention that the book is, for the most part, only applicable to Drupal version 5, and not version 4 or earlier versions, since there have been some dramatic changes with the release of version 5. In fact, given the extent of the changes and how that would impact the utility of the book depending upon what version of Drupal the reader is using, it should be noted on the book's cover, as an increasing number of publishers are doing.

A couple of minor problems were in evidence in the first dozen pages. On page 3, the authors refer to "user 1," which is likely to confuse most readers, because it looks like a username, and would be unfamiliar to someone who has installed Drupal and created a Web site, without extensive reading of the Drupal documentation. On page 11, the authors discuss core modules, and where they can be seen listed in the administration area of Drupal. But the path that they provide, "sites/all/modules," is incorrect, because that is where user-added modules are placed, of which there are none in a default installation. (The second mention of that path, in the fourth paragraph, is correct.)

Lastly, when the book is opened up to any of the pages not near the center, the book immediately flops closed. The use of lay-flat binding is strongly urged, for future editions of this book and all others that Apress offers.

Despite these weaknesses — all of which are fixable — Pro Drupal Development is strongly recommended for any PHP programmer who wants a truly in-depth look at how Drupal works and how to make the most of it.

Michael J. Ross is a Web developer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter."
Microsoft

Submission + - Indian retailers raided by Microsoft

Submitted by
slashthedot
slashthedot writes: "Microsoft caught some Indian retailers selling pirated copies by sending a dummy customer asking for a copy of Windows to be installed on their PC. The retailers say Microsoft products are too highly priced for Indian market, so many people won't be interested in buying original copies at that price. They even go on to say they are promoting MS software in this way.
One retailer was heard saying:
"Since we are are not charging anything extra for installing the software, it means that we are actually not trading in pirated software. For us this is just a sewa (selfless act) that we are offering to our customers. Besides, the pricing of their operating systems is way too high for the Indian markets."

More here "
Operating Systems

Submission + - Linux Training

Submitted by Spritzer
Spritzer writes: I work for a rather large corporation with multiple divisions around the world. Nearly all user computers in the company are Windows systems, and there is no plan to move to Linux in the future. However, a good many of our products are now designed to run on Linux systems for security and stability purposes. Obviously, the design/development teams are knowledgeable in the use of Linux operating systems.Unfortunately my field service teams are not, and their is no in-house training program. This has begun to affect our ability to provide efficient, quality service to customers when in the field.

What training services have you used in the past to get people trained in the basics of using? I'd prefer to stay away from online, self-paced courses and get my people some hands on training with an instructor.
Privacy

Submission + - Bill bans NSA eavesdropping

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "The US house of representatives today passed a bill outlawing illegal domestic wiretapping by the government. Now Bush can pry into your private communications only under terms of FISA.

The ACLU noted that, despite many recent hearings about "modernization" and "technology neutrality," the administration has not publicly provided Congress with a single example of how current FISA standards have either prevented the intelligence community from using new technologies, or proven unworkable for the agents tasked with following them."
It's funny. Laugh.

Lawsuit Invokes DMCA to Force DRM Adoption 332

Posted by Zonk from the interesting-legal-tactic dept.
TechnicolourSquirrel writes "Forbes.com informs us that the company Media Rights Technologies is suing Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and Real Networks for not using its DRM technology and therefore 'failing to include measures to control access to copyrighted material.' The company alleges that their refusal to use MRT's X1 Recording Control technology constitutes a 'circumvention' of a copyright protection system, which is of course illegal under the Digital Millenium Copryight Act. I would say more, but without controlling access to this paragraph with MRT's products, I fear I have already risked too much ..."
Google

Judges Rule Google Search by Employer Not Illegal 185

Posted by Zonk from the mebbe-you-shouldn't-be-talking-about-that-online dept.
An anonymous reader passed us a link to an Ars Technica article about a failed lawsuit over a Google search. A federal circuit court of appeals has upheld the original ruling against David Mullins, who claimed that Googling his name constituted ex parte communications prior to firing him. "Through a series of events, Mullins' employer found that he had misused his government vehicle and government funds for his own purposes — such as sleeping in his car and falsifying hotel documents to receive reimbursements, withdrawing unauthorized amounts of cash from the company card, and traveling to destinations sometimes hundreds of miles away from where he was supposed to be ... Mullins' supervisor provided a 23-page document listing 102 separate instances of misconduct. Mullins took issue with a Google search that Capell performed just before authorizing his firing. During this Google search, Capell found that Mullins had been fired from his previous job at the Smithsonian Institution and had been removed from Federal Service by the Air Force."
The Courts

Electronic Frontier Foundation Sues Uri Geller 240

Posted by CowboyNeal from the totally-saw-that-coming dept.
reversible physicist writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation has sued spoon-bender Uri Geller for using 'baseless copyright claims' to silence critics who question his paranormal powers. Brian Sapient posted on YouTube a 14-minute excerpt from the 1993 PBS NOVA program 'Secrets of the Psychics,' in which skeptic James Randi says Geller's spoon-bending feats were simple tricks. YouTube took down the video after Geller complained — his lawyers claim that 10 seconds of the video are owned by Geller. A shorter excerpt of the video is still up on YouTube."
Censorship

Submission + - Posting porn link judged unlawful in Hong Kong

Submitted by
hkxforce
hkxforce writes: "Can you imagine posting a link will let you get caught by police? In Hong Kong, a middle-age man has been caught because he post porn link in a adult discussion forum, and judged to have a penalty of HKD5000 (~USD640). According to lawyer, any direct or indirect publishing of porn material is illegal in Hong Kong, sentence up to HKD100,000,000 (~USD13,000,000) and 3 years in jail. Would Google and Yahoo be the next one to get caught?"
Google

Submission + - Google search by employer not illegal, say judges

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A court of appeals for the federal circuit has upheld a ruling (PDF) against a man who sued his former employer for Googling his name before firing him. He had accused his former employer of participating in "ex parte" communications — off-the-record communications that are used to play a part in the final outcome of a decision — that ultimately affected the decision to fire him from his job. However, the three-judge panel ruled that an ex parte communication did not occur in the case when the employer used Google.

The man in question, David Mullins, was a government employee at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Weather Forecast Office in Indianapolis, IN. Through a series of events, Mullins' employer found that he had misused his government vehicle and government funds for his own purposes — such as sleeping in his car and falsifying hotel documents to receive reimbursements, withdrawing unauthorized amounts of cash from the company card, traveling to destinations sometimes hundreds of miles away from where he was supposed to be (and using his company card to fill up on gas there), and spending company time to visit friends and/or his children. Mullins' supervisor provided a 23-page document listing 102 separate instances of misconduct.

Mullins took issue with a Google search that Capell performed just before authorizing his firing. During this Google search, Capell found that Mullins had been fired from his previous job at the Smithsonian Institution and had been removed from Federal Service by the Air Force. Mullins argued that his right to fundamental fairness was violated when Capell performed the search and that she committed perjury when she stated that the search did not influence her decision to fire him.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070510-goog le-search-by-employer-not-illegal-say-judges.html

In Defense Of Patents and Copyright 283

Posted by Zonk from the just-a-little-bit-biased dept.
Romer!can writes "C|Net Editor Michael Kanellos offers a potentially contentious opinion piece about patents and copyright on the CNet site. Highlights of the fairly biased piece include: a cheap shot dismissing open source projects as existing only to act as a foil for Microsoft, blatantly equating copyright infringement with stealing, and an embarrassing failure to even casually mention the current term lengths of patents and copyrights as a driving factor behind popular dissatisfaction. Instead, he wades through obscure humor and emotional appeals characterizing patent trolls as the guy next door. 'Nearly every so-called [patent] troll turned out to have a somewhat persuasive story. Intellectual Ventures, a patent firm started by former Microsoft chief scientist Nathan Myhrvold, was staffed with fairly renowned scientists who didn't fit the profile of people trying to make a quick buck in court. Another man, criticized as one of the most litigious people in the U.S., had a great explanation for his behavior. He had only sued people who had signed--and then violated--nondisclosure agreements.'"

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