Microsoft Confirms It's Distancing Itself From Minecraft Creator 'Notch' (onmsft.com) 808

Posted by msmash on Monday April 29, 2019 @01:00PM from the crossing-the-line dept.

Minecraft creator Marcus 'Notch' Persson, who sold the title to Microsoft for $2.5 billion in 2014, won't be part of 10-year anniversary plans for the game because of his "comments and opinions," Microsoft said in a statement. From a report: Minecraft's creator Marcus Notch Persson has recently made some seemingly controversial white supremacist and transphobic comments via Twitter that have all but forced Microsoft to put some space between itself and the games creator. "His comments and opinions do not reflect those of Microsoft or Mojang and are not representative of 'Minecraft'," a Microsoft spokesperson said. Fortunately, Persson's has had little to no involvement with Minecraft since its sale to Microsoft for $2.5 billion back in 2014, so it's been easier for the company to remove loading screen text that referenced Notch as well as uninviting him from future Minecraft events such as the 10-year anniversary shindig coming up soon.

South Park Creators Given Signed Photo of Saddam Hussein 1297

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday April 09, 2009 @12:55AM from the respect-my-authority dept.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of South Park, were given a very special gift by US marines: a signed photo of Saddam Hussein. During his captivity, the marines forced Saddam to repeatedly watch the movie South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut, which shows him as the boyfriend of Satan. Stone said, "We're very proud of our signed Saddam picture and what it means. It's one of our biggest highlights."

Comment Re:Easy solution (Score 3, Insightful) 414

by Varitek on Wednesday March 18, 2009 @02:21PM (#27244855) Attached to: Internet-Caused Mistrials Are On the Rise

The founding fathers believed that it's better to let a guilty man run free than let an innocent man be found guilty.

And that should be trivially obvious too - it doesn't take a complicated debate on ethics. When a guilty man is found not guilty, a guilty man goes free. When an innocent man is found guilty, an innocent man is punished and a guilty man goes free.

Comment As the old adage has it . . . (Score 5, Insightful) 500

by Varitek on Wednesday March 04, 2009 @09:38AM (#27063489) Attached to: A Short Summary Following the Pirate Bay Trial

If the facts are against you, bang on the law. If the law is against you, bang on the facts. If both are against you, bang on the table.

Making an anti-copyright statement in court would be the equivalent of banging on the table, which Pirate Bay don't appear to need to do.

Comment Purpose of the class (Score 4, Insightful) 931

by Varitek on Saturday January 24, 2009 @03:26AM (#26586185) Attached to: A Teacher Asking Students To Destroy Notes?

Is the purpose of a college class to give a student knowledge of a field of study? Or is it to just award a credit towards a degree?

Sound to me that the lecturer thinks it's the latter, which is a problem. Those notes are a valuable resource to any student who wants to retain that knowledge, whether for future classes, a job after college, or just for the pure love of knowledge for its own sake. The student has paid for those notes in time, effort, and money. Asking him to give them up is short-sighted and stupid. Taking them from his backpack is theft.

Japan To Get 1Gbps Home Fiber Connections 275

Posted by timothy on Saturday September 27, 2008 @02:24PM from the yes-but-food-is-cheaper-elsewhere dept.

ashitaka writes "KDDI has announced that they will be launching a 1Gbps Internet service to single-family home and condo users in October. The service is supposedly synchronous, with 1Gbps in both directions, although the article implies that speeds will vary with location. Cost will be 5,985 yen/month (about US$56.50) for the basic Internet and IP phone service. This is intended to compete with NTT, who currently control over 70% of the Japanese FTTH market."

Comcast Discontinues Customers' USENET Service 327

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday September 22, 2008 @08:35AM from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Comcast has discontinued its provided usenet service, once provided to all its high speed customers. First with the cap put on its customers several years ago on amount of traffic provided as part of the customer high-speed package, as of September 16, the service is no longer provided. Without fanfare, this bastion of the internet is being removed from the mainstream."

Comment Re:incorrect apostrophe use (Score 1) 313

by Varitek on Thursday August 28, 2008 @03:03PM (#24783215) Attached to: Wikileaks To Sell Hugo Chavez' Email

Regardless of what the word is or how it ends, if it's singular to make it possessive you add an apostrophe and an S.

Except, for some reason, 'Jesus', which becomes "Jesus'", not "Jesus's". I have no idea why, but that's what the style guides say.

Best Color Scheme For Coding, Easiest On the Eyes? 763

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday July 03, 2008 @09:19AM from the that-looks-good-on-you dept.

Marzubus writes "I tend to do a lot of code editing in vim and sometimes get the 'burning eyes' or headaches. I have been trying to find a background / foreground combination for my terminal sessions which is easiest on the eyes but cannot seem to find any real data on this subject. Does anyone know of a study / data on this topic?"

WTO Awards Caribbean Country Right to Ignore US Copyright 460

Posted by Zonk on Thursday December 27, 2007 @02:25PM from the virtual-pirate-league-arrr dept.

The WTO's recent ruling on Antigua's complaint against the US over the banning of online gambling resulted in a payment to the island nation much less than they asked for. It appears, though, that this payment was just part of the WTO's compensation package for Antigua/Barbuda. Via Kotaku, the Hollywood Reporter notes that the Caribbean country can now freely ignore US copyright laws - legally. This dispensation is apparently limited to some $21 million a year. "The WTO often takes decisions awarding trade compensation in cases where one nation's policies are found to break its rules. But this is only the second time the compensation lets one country violate intellectual property laws. In this case, Antigua will -- in theory -- be allowed to distribute copies of American DVDs, CDs and games and software with impunity. 'That has only been done once before and is, I believe, a very potent weapon,' Antigua's lawyer Mark Mendel said. 'I hope that the United States government will now see the wisdom in reaching some accommodation with Antigua over this dispute.'"

Nigerian Company Sues OLPC 277

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday November 28, 2007 @12:53AM from the split-shift-key dept.

d0ida writes on the continuing troubles at the OLPC Association. Adding to the recent difficulties — the BBC has picked up the litany — a US-based, Nigerian-owned company has now filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against OLPC. Lagos Analysis Corp. claims that OLPC "made unauthorized use of LANCOR's multilingual keyboard technology invention in XO laptops." The suit was filed in Lagos.

A Review of the $200 Wal-Mart Linux PC 235

Posted by kdawson on Sunday November 25, 2007 @08:58AM from the green-around-the-edges dept.

bcrowell writes "Wal-Mart's new $200 Linux PC has generated a lot of buzz in geek circles. Although they're sold out of stores, I bought one for my daughter via mail order, and have written up a review of the system. The hardware seems fine for anyone but a hardcore gamer, but the pre-installed gOS flavor of Ubuntu has a lot of rough edges."

Silverlight Released, Linux Version Coming 462

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday September 05, 2007 @11:38AM from the yet-another-plug-in dept.

Today Microsoft announced the release of Silverlight 1.0 for Windows and Mac OS X. This cross-browser, cross-platform browser plug-in is fully supported and competes directly with Adobe Flash. Included in this release was the promise from Microsoft to support the 100% compatible Linux version, called Moonlight.

Sweden's Vote on OOXML Invalidated 232

Posted by Zonk on Thursday August 30, 2007 @06:04PM from the that's-what-you-get-when-you-cheat dept.

Groklaw Reader writes "Just days after Microsoft's attempt to buy the Swedish vote on OOXML came to light, SIS declared its own vote invalid. The post at Groklaw references a ComputerWorld article with revelations from Microsoft: 'Microsoft Corp. admitted Wednesday that an employee at its Swedish subsidiary offered monetary compensation to partners for voting in favor of the Office Open XML document format's approval as an ISO standard. Microsoft said the offer, when discovered, was quickly retracted and that its Sweden managers voluntarily notified the SIS, the national standards body. "We had a situation where an employee sent a communication via e-mail that was inconsistent with our corporate policy," said Tom Robertson, general manager for interoperability and standards at Microsoft. "That communication had no impact on the final vote." ...'"

Microsoft Launches OSS Site, Submits License For Approval 261

Posted by Zonk on Thursday July 26, 2007 @05:00PM from the working-together-hand-in-hand dept.

prostoalex writes "Microsoft has launched a site dedicated to collaboration between Microsoft and open source community. The site helps developers, IT administrators, and IT buyers find out what Microsoft's product offerings are, and read articles about open source such as 'Open Source Provider Sees Sales Doubling After Moving Solutions to the Windows Platform.'" Relatedly, CNet has the news that the company has submitted its shared-sources license to the OSI for approval.