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Submission + - RIAA lobbyist becomes federal judge, rules on file (arstechnica.com) 1

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: RIAA lobbyist becomes federal judge, rules on file-sharing cases:

Last week, Washington, DC federal judge Beryl Howell ruled on three mass file-sharing lawsuits. Judges in Texas, West Virginia, and Illinois had all ruled recently that such lawsuits were defective in various ways, but Howell gave her cases the green light; attorneys could use the federal courts to sue thousands of people at once and then issue mass subpoenas to Internet providers.

Beryl Howell isn't the only judge to believe this, but her important ruling is especially interesting because of Howell's previous work: lobbying for the recording industry during the time period when the RIAA was engaged in its own campaign of mass lawsuits against individuals. The news, first reported in a piece at TorrentFreak, nicely illustrates the revolving door between government and industry.

ARS Technica: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/riaa-lobbyist-becomes-federal-judge-rules-on-file-sharing-cases.ars

Comment Re:Cute, but not accurate (Score 1) 392

by hellgate (#35556836) Attached to: A Handy Radiation Dose Chart From XKCD

Therefore being exposed to 1 Sievert for a second (the real unit behind the sievert is the J/s, which is equivalent to Watts) is the same as being exposed to 1 milisievert for 1000 seconds, or 1 microsievert for 10^6 seconds.

Nope. Sieverts are J/kg. "1 millisievert for 1000 seconds" makes no sense, but "1 millisievert per 1000 seconds" does.
Security

Submission + - Should Developers Be Liable for their Code? (linuxjournal.com)

Submitted by
Glyn Moody
Glyn Moody writes: "They might be, if a new European Commission consumer protection proposal, which suggests "licensing should guarantee consumers the same basic rights as when they purchase a good: the right to get a product that works with fair commercial conditions," becomes law. The idea of making Microsoft pay for the billions of dollars of damage caused by flaws in its product is certainly attractive, but where would this idea leave free software coders?"
Medicine

Submission + - More Fake Journals from Elsevier

Submitted by daemonburrito
daemonburrito writes: Last week, we learned about Elsevier publishing a bogus journal for Merck. Now several librarians say that they have uncovered an entire imprint of "advertorial" publications.

Excerpta Medica, a "strategic medical communications agency", is an Elsevier division. Along with the now infamous "Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine", it published a number of other "journals".

Elsevier CEO Michael Hansen now admits that at least six fake journals were published for pharma companies.
Linux Business

Submission + - Trademarks: The hidden menace

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a blog posting entitled "Trademarks: The Hidden Menace", Keir Thomas asks why open source advocates are keen to suggest patent and copyright reform, yet completely ignore the issue of trademarks, which can be just as dangerous. FTA: "Even within the Linux community, trademarking can be used as obstructively as copyright and patenting to further business ends. ... Is this how open source is supposed to work? Restricted redistribution? Tight control on who can compile software and still be able to call it by its proper name?"
Censorship

Submission + - Fired for writing concerns about anti piracy to MP (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by neurone333
neurone333 writes: France, may, 6th 2009, Libération reported this story, now all over French newspapers : A TV executive has been fired for writing his concerns about anti-piracy law (HADOPI aka 3 strikes and you're out) to his Member of Parliament, the UMP Françoise de Panafieu.

Françoise de Panafieu forwards this email to the UMP Christine Albanel, France's Minister for Culture and Communication, author of the anti-piracy law "HADOPI".

The email was then forwarded to TF1, the largest TV network in Europe. The author of the email, Jérôme Bourreau-Guggenheim.he was called into his boss' office and shown... an exact copy of his e-mail. He was then fired for "strong differences with the strategy"... in a private email sent from a private (gmail) adress.

Irish times has an explanation for "the incestuous relationship between his government and TF1" : TF1's owner, the construction billionaire Martin Bouygues, is godfather to Mr Sarkozy's youngest son, Louis. Mr Bouygues suggested to Mr Sarkozy that he ought to ban advertising on TF1's rival stations in the public sector, which was done in January. Laurent Solly, who was deputy director of Mr Sarkozy's presidential campaign, is now number two at TF1. Last year, TF1 sacked Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, the station's star presenter for the previous 21 years. Poivre had angered Mr Sarkozy by saying he "acted like a little boy" at a G8 summit. He was replaced by Laurence Ferrari. Mr Sarkozy reportedly told Mr Bouygues he wanted to see the young blonde on the news.
Earth

Arctic Sea Ice Rallies a Bit 152

Posted by timothy from the mysterious-ways dept.
radioweather writes "Like the recent stock market rebound, Arctic sea ice is making a big rally over the record low set last year. According to the Alaskan IARC-JAXA website, satellite data which shows sea ice extent as of 10/14/08 was 7,064,219 square kilometers, when compared to a year ago 10/14/08 it was 5,487,656 square kilometers. The one-day gain between 10/13/08 and 10/14/08 of 3.8% is also quite impressive. On May 5th, The National Snow and Ice Data Center suggested the possibility of an ice-free north pole in 2008, but so far, this year has been a banner year for sea ice recovery."
Linux Business

Submission + - Samba Success in the Enterprise?

Submitted by
gunnk
gunnk writes: "We've deployed a Samba server here to replace some aging Novell Netware boxes. It works great: fast, secure, stable. However, we have one VIP that feels that Samba is "amateur" software and that we should be buying Windows servers. I've been searching with little success for large Samba deployments in enterprise environments. Anyone out there care to share stories of places that are happily running large Samba installations for their file servers? Or not so happy, for that matter — better to be informed!"
Biotech

Submission + - Neural "extention chord" developed

Submitted by moon_monkey
moon_monkey writes: Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a 'neural extention chord' by growing neurons attached to a microchip. The chord is made by gradually moving two batches of neurons apart, as they naturally grow towards one another. This biological 'data cable' could then naturally interface with the brain once implanted, the researchers say.
Handhelds

Submission + - OpenMoko Schedule Announced

Submitted by
levell
levell writes: "The schedule for the OpenMoko Open source, Linux based Neo1973 smart phone was posted to the community mailing list by Sean Moss-Pultz this morning. On Feb 11, free phones will be sent to key community developers and the community websites/wiki/bug tracker will be available. Then on March 11 ("official developer launch") we'll be able to buy an OpenMoko for $350 (+p&p) (worldwide from openmoko.com). After allowing some time for innovative, slick software to be created there will be a "Mass market launch" at which point Sean hopes that "your mom and dad will want one too"."
The Internet

Submission + - Map of the Internet

Submitted by
Wellington Grey
Wellington Grey writes: "Author of the popular webcomic xkcd has put up a hand made map of the internet as today's comic. He also has an interesting blog entry detailing some of the work that went into it, such a pinging servers and creating a method of fractal mapping to display related regions as contiguous sections on the grid."
Linux Business

Submission + - Malaysian Open Source Procurement Policy Reversed

Submitted by
Ditesh
Ditesh writes: "The Malaysian Open Source Masterplan, which favoured open source over proprietary public sector procurements when all other evaluations are equal, has been reversed to a purely "neutral technology platform" policy due to "negative reaction towards open source (from the IT market)". This comes after months of hard lobbying by Microsoft Malaysia. This reversal is certainly unfortunate, as the policy has helped raise comfort levels of other policy makers worldwide in pursuing similar goals. The Malaysian Open Source Alliance has published a position statement asking for clarification of the term "neutrality", and has received support from MNC's, local companies and free software developers in Malaysia."

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