Comment Original Article (Score 4, Informative) 34
The original article (final proof) is available at the Physics Department of Ryerson University:
Comment New definition of (Score 5, Funny) 199
data dump?
The Mice That Didn't Make It 202
Harry writes "For every blockbuster of the mouse world (such as Microsoft and Logitech's big sellers) there have been countless mice that flopped, or never made it to market. Mice shaped like pyramids; mice shaped like Mickey; mice that doubled as numeric keypads or phones. Even one that sat on your steering wheel. I've rounded up some evocative patent drawings on twenty notable examples."
Anatomy of a Runaway Project 326
JCWDenton recommends a piece by Bruce Webster revealing some insights into a failed multi-million-dollar IT project. "The following document is the actual text — carefully redacted — of a memo I wrote some time back after performing an IT project review; names and identifying concepts have been changed to preserve confidentiality (and protect the guilty). The project in question was a major IT re-engineering effort for a mission-critical system; at the time I did this review, the project had been going on for several years and had cost millions of dollars; it would eventually be canceled and the work products abandoned. The memo itself provides an interesting glimpse into just how a major IT project can go so far off the tracks that nothing useful is ever delivered."
Feed The Register: Personal data is not a bar to FOI disclosure (theregister.com)
European Court backs Bavarian Lager
Documents containing personal data cannot be withheld under EU freedom of information laws if the disclosure of the data does not undermine the privacy of the persons named, according to a ruling by the European Court of First Instance.
Submission + - FBI Doesn't Tell Courts About Bogus Evidence
dprovine writes: According to a joint investigation by series of articles in The Washington Post and
60 Minutes, a forensic test used by the FBI for decades is known to be invalid. The National Academy of Science issued a report in
2004 that FBI investigators had given "problematic" testimony to juries. The FBI later
stopped using "bullet lead analysis", but sent a letter to law enforcement officials
saying that they still fully supported the science behind it. Hundreds of criminal
defendants — some already convicted in part on the testimony of FBI experts — were
not informed about the problems with the evidence used against them in court.
Does anyone at the Justice Department even care about what effect this will have on
how the public in general (and juries in particular) regards the trustworthiness of
FBI testimony?
Three MythTV Linux Distros Compared 176
An anonymous reader writes "Linux.com has a comparison article up looking at three MythTV-focused Linux distributions. The piece looks at Mythdora, Mythbuntu, and KnoppMyth, with an eye towards ease of installation and the actual utility of the install. From the article: 'For regular system maintenance, KnoppMyth simply isn't in the same ballpark as MythBuntu and MythDora. The live CD heritage of Knoppix means you cannot update individual packages, which is fine if you like that, but for an always-on system like a MythTV back end, I'd prefer flexibility and configurability of a mainline distro. When all is said and done, if I were building my TiVo replacement today, I would do it with MythDora. MythBuntu shows a lot of promise, and I will give the final 7.10 release another look (in part because I run Ubuntu on my desktop machines), but it isn't ready yet.'" Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by SourceForge.
Comment Re:I want one of those! (Score 5, Funny) 505
Come to Canada, we have all this stuff
I want an operating system that's not running surveillance on me.
There is this thing we like to call OpenBSD, give it a shot.
I want a car that has better gas mileage than a 1975 Honda.
We got these, see half the time your car would be frozen so you can't use it, really cuts down on the yearly mileage.
I want a health care system that won't send me into bankruptcy if I get sick.
It doesn't bankrupt you if you get sick, it bankrupts yous all the time, if you happen to get sick, it will mostly cure you!
I want a news media that doesn't just pass along presidential press releases as God's own truth.
No president, we have a Prime Minister!
I want a President that has better than C- average and who cares about more than cutting taxes for the rich and not admitting he's wrong.
Weren't you paying attention? I said we don't have a President, we have a Prime Minister
I want a country that doesn't believe that half the population is the enemy.
But girls have cooties!!....er.... I think that's just me......Have you seen our army? We are in no position to have an enemy!
Problem solved!
I want an operating system that's not running surveillance on me.
There is this thing we like to call OpenBSD, give it a shot.
I want a car that has better gas mileage than a 1975 Honda.
We got these, see half the time your car would be frozen so you can't use it, really cuts down on the yearly mileage.
I want a health care system that won't send me into bankruptcy if I get sick.
It doesn't bankrupt you if you get sick, it bankrupts yous all the time, if you happen to get sick, it will mostly cure you!
I want a news media that doesn't just pass along presidential press releases as God's own truth.
No president, we have a Prime Minister!
I want a President that has better than C- average and who cares about more than cutting taxes for the rich and not admitting he's wrong.
Weren't you paying attention? I said we don't have a President, we have a Prime Minister
I want a country that doesn't believe that half the population is the enemy.
But girls have cooties!!....er.... I think that's just me......Have you seen our army? We are in no position to have an enemy!
Problem solved!
MPAA Committed To Fair Use and DRM 212
Doctor Jay writes "At a LexisNexis Conference on DRM this week, MPAA's Dan Glickman announced that the MPAA was fine with consumers ripping DVDs for portable video players and home media servers. 'In his speech to industry insiders at the posh Beverly Hills Four Seasons hotel, Glickman repeatedly stressed that DRM must be made to work without constricting consumers. The goal, he said, was "to make things simpler for the consumer," and he added that the movie studios were open to "a technology summit" featuring academics, IT companies, and content producers to work on the issues involved.'"
Google News Found Guilty of Copyright Violation 223
schmiddy writes "A court in Brussels, Belgium, has just found Google guilty of violating copyright law with its Google News aggregator. According to the ruling, Google News' links and brief summaries of news sources violates copyright law. Google will be forced to pay $32,600 for each day it displayed the links of the plaintiffs. Although Google plans to appeal, this ruling could have chilling effects on fair use rights on the web in the rest of Europe as well if other countries follow suit."
RIAA Admits ISPs Have Misidentified "John Does" 271
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA has sent out a letter to the ISPs telling them to stop making mistakes in identifying subscribers, and offering a 'Pre-Doe settlement option' — with a discount of '$1000 or more' — to their subscribers, if and only if the ISP agrees to preserve its logs for 180 days. Other interesting points in the letter (PDF): the RIAA will be launching a web site for 'early settlements,' www.p2plawsuits.com; the letter asks the ISPs to notify the RIAA if they have previously 'misidentified a subscriber account in response to a subpoena' or become aware of 'technical information... that causes you to question the information that you provided in response to our clients' subpoena'; it notes that ISPs have identified 'John Does' who were not even subscribers of the ISP at the time of the infringement; and it requests that ISPs furnish their underlying log files, not just names and addresses, when responding to RIAA subpoenas."
Indonesia Stops Sharing Avian Virus Samples 243
dankrabach writes "Indonesia has apparently decided to play the IP game, with the world's health at stake. The country, one of the hardest-hit by avian flu, has stopped submitting virus samples to the World Health Organization, and is negotiating to sell them to an American drug company that makes the vaccine. They feel slighted when they give away such samples, but then cannot afford the patented vaccines. Logical to me, given the rules of the game; however, can't we come up with some GPL'ish license to free any product based on this data?"
Submission + - University professor chastised for using Tor
Irongeek_ADC writes: "As reported in the The Chronicle of Higher Education, University IT "professionals" came knocking on Professor Censarini's door asking about why he was using the Tor network. While there they also asked that he not teach his students about it, and said it was likely against university policy. An interesting read that goes to show even Universities are turning big brother."
Submission + - Windows Expert Sees the Light
An anonymous reader writes: Scott Finnie, computerworld's windows expert gives the final verdict to Windows, after 3 months of using a Mac. And the verdict is: "Sayonara".
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9010759&intsrc=hm_ ts_head
From the article: "If you give the Mac three months, as I did, you won't go back either. The hardest part is paying for it — everything after that gets easier and easier. Perhaps fittingly, it took me the full three-month trial period to pay off my expensive MacBook Pro. But the darn thing is worth every penny." Scott Finnie is well known to / readers from earlier stories documenting his trials with Vista Betas, and more recently his displeasure of it.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?co
From the article: "If you give the Mac three months, as I did, you won't go back either. The hardest part is paying for it — everything after that gets easier and easier. Perhaps fittingly, it took me the full three-month trial period to pay off my expensive MacBook Pro. But the darn thing is worth every penny." Scott Finnie is well known to / readers from earlier stories documenting his trials with Vista Betas, and more recently his displeasure of it.
Bugged Canadian Coins? 354
tundra_man writes "CBC has an article about RFID type devices in Canadian coins found on US Contractors. From the article: 'Canadian coins containing tiny transmitters have mysteriously turned up in the pockets of at least three American contractors who visited Canada, says a branch of the U.S. Department of Defense.' The report did not indicate what kinds of coins were involved."
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