Comment No, no, no...didn't they read the book? (Score 2, Informative) 71
They'll have to land and go inside the caves if they want to find the harmoniums.
Submission + - How to stop commerial use of copyleft material?
An anonymous reader writes: The Guild Wiki, an extremely popular fan-made wiki for documenting Guild Wars, was originally supported by donations, then later advertisements — supposedly just enough to break even. Just the past week, the owner of the domain name surprised this wiki community by revealing that he had sold the domain name and his services dumping the database to Wikia, a commercial entity that intends to profit from Guild Wiki's content.
The problem is much of Guild Wiki's content falls under Creative Commons by-nc-sa license, which denies the commercial use of licensed material. Arena.net created their own community run wiki to serve as the in-game help system, because they didn't think they could use the material on Guild Wiki commercially.
If Wikia continues to serves ads over Guild Wiki's content, how can the thousands of contributors to the site stop them without going to the expense/trouble of hiring attorneys (or the crude path of mass vandalism)? If it turns out the site owner has been making a profit all along from ads, what's the remedy?
The problem is much of Guild Wiki's content falls under Creative Commons by-nc-sa license, which denies the commercial use of licensed material. Arena.net created their own community run wiki to serve as the in-game help system, because they didn't think they could use the material on Guild Wiki commercially.
If Wikia continues to serves ads over Guild Wiki's content, how can the thousands of contributors to the site stop them without going to the expense/trouble of hiring attorneys (or the crude path of mass vandalism)? If it turns out the site owner has been making a profit all along from ads, what's the remedy?
Backing Up Laptops In a Small Business? 293
Bithmus writes "I have been tasked with finding a way for our company to handle our laptop backups. We currently have nightly backups of our servers, but no backups of laptops. In our business we develop, implement, and sell another company's software; I guess that makes us a Valued Added Reseller. During development our consultants will create copies of a customer's database on MSDE on their laptops. If a hard drive crashes, all of the work done on that laptop is lost. There are other files that need to be saved, but the databases are really the important items. Ideally these databases would be stored on the SQL servers and the other files stored on the file server, but this is not happening. What do Slashdot readers do to protect data on laptops or computers outside of a local network?"
Submission + - Crowther's Original Adventure Source Code Found!
drxenos writes: I don't know how many of you are fans of old-school text adventures (interactive fiction), but Will Crowther's original Fortran source code has been located in a backup of Don Wood's old student account. For fans like me, this is like finding the Holy Grail. link:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.int-fictio n/browse_thread/thread/607acaf1a279d4dd/bd53b672a1 85d177#bd53b672a185d177
Submission + - Ted Stevens' Home Raided
Submission + - Marvel Studios to produce its own movies
Dekortage writes: "According to the New York Times, Marvel Studios will be producing its own superhero movies instead of licensing the superheros to other Hollywood studios. It's all about the money: despite the enormous popularity of Sony Pictures' Spiderman 1 and 2, the licensing deal only netted Marvel $62 million. The article includes some tips about upcoming works: Edward Norton as Bruce Banner in a new Incredible Hulk, and Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark in Iron Man."
Submission + - Best Places to Work in IT (computerworld.com)
jcatcw writes: "Computerworld's annual summary of the best places to work in IT lists companies that excel in five areas of employment: career development, retention, benefits, diversity, and training. According to the scorecard, the top 5 retention methods are: competitive benefits; competitive salaries; work/life balance; flexible work hours; and tuition reimbursement. Sixty-four percent of these companies expect the number of U.S.-based IT staffers to increase in 2007, on average by 7%. The whole list contains the top 100. The top three are:
No. 1: Quicken Loans;
No. 2: University of Miami; No. 3: Sharp HealthCare. "
Submission + - Pressure is on IBM to forgive millions in IT debt (networkworld.com)
coondoggie writes: "Can a $93 billion company be publicly shamed into charity? My guess is not, but the Contra Costa school district in California is hoping IBM can see it in its Big Blue heart to erase some $5 million in long-overdue debt. This week four California state legislators threw their support behind West Contra Costa School by pleading with IBM to release the district from the debt. Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley; Assemblyman Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord; state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland; and Sen. Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, sent a letter to IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano requesting that the computer-industry giant write off the 15-year-old debt as a charitable contribution.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1633 1"
Submission + - Putin Threatens US Missile Bases in Europe (forbes.com)
Melugo writes: "Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that U.S. plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe would force Moscow to target its weapons against Europe.
"If the American nuclear potential grows in European territory, we have to give ourselves new targets in Europe," Putin said, according to Corriere. "It is up to our military to define these targets, in addition to defining the choice between ballistic and cruise missiles."
It feels like the Cold War all over again.
See the rest of the article at: Forbes or a comment on it at alittlebitoffreedom.blogspot.com."
Submission + - Do We Need Online Reputation? (informationweek.com)
Symblized writes: A new article from InformationWeek argues that not only does the Web need ways to verify identity, it also needs better ways to measure reputation. The article uses Digg, Wikipedia and eBay as examples and discusses that their models could be applied more widely. Choice quote from a source in the article: 'the idea of a transferable, semantic reputation is identity nirvana.'
Submission + - Climate Monitoring Station Proposed on the Moon
CryogenicKeen writes: "From the Article:
"Using data from an Apollo 15 experiment whose original intent was thwarted by unanticipated lunar surface conditions, the University of Michigan geophysicist recently showed that surface temperatures on the near side of the moon accurately record important information about Earth's climate system.
Based on his analysis, recently published online in Advances in Space Research, Huang is calling for an international effort to develop and deploy monitoring stations on the moon for the study of terrestrial climate change."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/07052 5200427.htm"
Submission + - US oppose G8 climate proposals
elrond writes: The US appears to have rejected draft proposals for G8 members to agree tough measures in greenhouse gas emissions. Details at BBC News and
The Washington Post.
Submission + - Anatomy of pump'n'dump SPAM
giorgiofr writes: Laura Frieder and Jonathan Zittrain have analized pump'n'dump spam activity in their paper "Spam Works: Evidence from Stock Touts and Corresponding Market Activity". Unbelievably, it appears that spammers are able to achieve a 5% gain on pumped stock before dumping it, along with a dramatic increase in transaction volume of the stock. Paper summary, full paper.
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"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell
