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Comment Is the Freedom Toaster commercial now? (Score 1) 319

by francoisroux (#42103413) Attached to: Ask Mark Shuttleworth Anything
I read on their website that the Freedom Toaster is now run as an independent project and that it is run as for profit. Now many, many years ago when the thing had no name, yes it didn't have a name once and the called it the Linux vending machine or some such, I was a member of the CLUG(Cape Town Linux User Group) and in one of my posts to the group I called it the Freedom Toaster. The name caught on and I was contacted to ask if they could use the name for the machines and also asked me to participate in choosing the design for the logo. The flying toaster was my choice and it's still their logo today. For a few years it was mentioned on the main website in the credits that I coined the name, but that has been removed. Anyway, my only condition was that the name stay in the public domain, nobody has any rights to it and that anyone who builds such a vending machine be allowed to post call it a Freedom Toaster. Now, it's a for profit project. What I would like to know is if Canonical or the Shuttleworth Foundation now claims some kind of copyright to the name? If the name is being commercialized or they claim some kind of copyright to it, I'm sure the CLUG logs would show otherwise and some kind of compensation would be in order if the name was to be moved out of the public domain.
Science

Immaculate Conception In a Boa Constrictor 478

Posted by samzenpus from the gold-frankincense-and-mice dept.
crudmonkey writes "Researchers have discovered a biological shocker: female boa constrictors are capable of giving birth asexually. But the surprise doesn't end there. The study in Biology Letters found that boa babies produced through this asexual reproduction — also known as parthenogenesis — sport a chromosomal oddity that researchers thought was impossible in reptiles. While researchers admit that the female in the study may have been a genetic freak, they say the findings should press researchers to re-think reptile reproduction. Virgin birth among reptiles, especially primitive ones like boas, they argue may be far commoner than ever expected."
Australia

Australian Crackdown On Console Modchips Likely To Continue 89

Posted by Soulskill from the all-over-down-under dept.
angry tapir writes "Late last week an Australian court issued an injunction against a handful of retailers selling or importing hardware — commonly known as 'mod chips' — that allows unauthorized software to run on Sony's PlayStation 3. The court also required that the four parties that were the subject of the injunction actually hand over to Sony any PlayStation modchips they have. Sony's PlayStation 3 mod chip lawsuit could be just the first of many such cases in Australia, according to a lawyer who defended a client against Nintendo in a similar case earlier this year."
Image

Man Wants to Donate His Heart Before He Dies 456

Posted by samzenpus from the cart-before-the-horse dept.
Gary Phebus wants to donate his heart, lungs, and liver. The problem is he wants to donate them before he dies. Gary was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease, in 2008. Phebus says he'd like to be able to donate his organs before they deteriorate, and doesn't consider his request suicide because he's "dead anyway."

Comment Google streetview (Score 1) 571

by francoisroux (#32769724) Attached to: Mom Arrested After Son Makes Dry Ice "Bombs"
I suppose these guys haven't checked out Google Streetview yet. That has just about everything photographed you can possibly think of, and I'm sure there are a bunch of Amtrak trains in their pictures. Wonder who's going to get harassed over those? No wait, everyone who looks at the pictures might get into trouble... Shit, shouldn't be giving them any ideas here... Luckily, living at the bottom tip of Africa, you can take photos of anything. You may even take photos of the president and his cavalcade. Your just not allowed to take photographs of said while flipping them off. It's ok to photograph them, or to flip them of, but not both at once because that's seen as a threat. I kid you not...
Image

Facebook Master Password Was "Chuck Norris" 319

Posted by samzenpus from the ad-nauseum-roundhouse dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "A Facebook employee has given a tell-all interview with some very interesting things about Facebook's internals. Especially interesting are all the things relating to Facebook privacy. Basically, you don't have any. Nearly everything you've ever done on the site is recorded into a database. While they fire employees for snooping, more than a few have done it. There's an internal system to let them log into anyone's profile, though they have to be able to defend their reason for doing so. And they used to have a master password that could log into any Facebook profile: 'Chuck Norris.' Bruce Schneier might be jealous of that one."
Games

EVE Online Battle Breaks Records (And Servers) 308

Posted by Soulskill from the blame-it-on-the-torrents dept.
captainktainer writes "In one of the largest tests of EVE Online's new player sovereignty system in the Dominion expansion pack, a fleet of ships attempting to retake a lost star system was effectively annihilated amidst controversy. Defenders IT Alliance, a coalition succeeding the infamous Band of Brothers alliance (whose disbanding was covered in a previous story), effectively annihilated the enemy fleet, destroying thousands of dollars' worth of in-game assets. A representative of the alliance claimed to have destroyed a minimum of four, possibly five or more of the game's most expensive and powerful ship class, known as Titans. Both official and unofficial forums are filled with debate about whether the one-sided battle was due to difference in player skill or the well-known network failures after the release of the expansion. One of the attackers, a member of the GoonSwarm alliance, claims that because of bad coding, 'Only 5% of [the attackers] loaded,' meaning that lag prevented the attackers from using their ships, even as the defenders were able to destroy those ships unopposed. Even members of the victorious IT Alliance expressed disappointment at the outcome of the battle. CCP, EVE Online's publisher, has recently acknowledged poor network performance, especially in the advertised 'large fleet battles' that Dominion was supposed to encourage, and has asked players to help them stress test their code on Tuesday. Despite the admitted network failure, leaders of the attacking force do not expect CCP to replace lost ships, claiming that it was their own fault for not accounting for server failures. The incident raises questions about CCP's ability to cope with the increased network use associated with their rapid growth in subscriptions."
Image

Best Man Rigs Newlyweds' Bed To Tweet During Sex 272

Posted by samzenpus from the nice-feed dept.
When an UK man was asked to be the best man at a friend's wedding he agreed that he would not pull any pranks before or during the ceremony. Now the groom wishes he had extended the agreement to after the blessed occasion as well. The best man snuck into the newlyweds' house while they were away on their honeymoon and placed a pressure-sensitive device under their mattress. The device now automatically tweets when the couple have sex. The updates include the length of activity and how vigorous the act was on a scale of 1-10.
First Person Shooters (Games)

Open Source FPS Blood Frontier Releases Beta 2 113

Posted by Soulskill from the now-with-bloodier-frontiers dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The open source FPS Blood Frontier has now made their beta2 release. From the article: 'After many months of development, and massive amounts of input from the public, we are proud to present you with the new release of Blood Frontier, v0.85 (Beta 2). This new version totally redefines and improves the game in many ways, creating a whole new style that makes it almost nothing like its predecessor.'"
Games

Games Workshop Goes After Fan Site 174

Posted by Soulskill from the don't-anger-your-base dept.
mark.leaman writes "BoingBoing has a recent post regarding Games Workshop's aggressive posturing against fan sites featuring derivative work of their game products. 'Game publisher and miniature manufacturer Games Workshop just sent a cease and desist letter to boardgamegeek.com, telling them to remove all fan-made players' aids. This includes scenarios, rules summaries, inventory manifests, scans to help replace worn pieces — many of these created for long out of print, well-loved games...' As a lifelong hobby gamer of table, board, card and miniature games, I view this as pure heresy. It made me reject the idea of buying any Games Workshop (read Warhammer) products for my son this Christmas. Their fate was sealed, in terms of my wallet, after I Googled their shenanigans. In 2007 they forbid Warhammer fan films, this year they shut down Vassal Modules, and a while back they went after retailers as well. What ever happened to fair use?"

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