Comment Re:Well, NATO is based in Belgium, so... (Score 1) 126
Maybe, but how about the European Union and European Commission?
Even if those (or NATO) use their own comms system, many employees will have personal phones.
Comment Re:Portuguese here... (Score 2) 179
Portuguese here too, and this quote ought to be translated:
O DIAP considera "lícita" a reprodução para uso privado, "ainda que colocando-se neste tipo de redes a questão de o utilizador agir simultaneamente no ambiente digital em sede de upload e download dos ficheiros a partilhar". in publico.pt
Rushed translation from that original article in portuguese:
DIAP considers reproduction for private use "legal", adding "even though there is the issue of a user acting simultaneously as uploader and downloader of the shared files."
This is a great example of media spinning towards the opposite side, look at the full quote from another source:
[...] even though there is the issue of a user acting simultaneously as uploader and downloader of the shared files, we understand as legitimate the use of P2P networks by their users for private use -- articles 75-2a and 81-b of the Code of Author's Rights and Associated Rights -- even though one can gather that once the copy is done the user does not stop being part of the sharing process.
So what sounded like a warning to change the law was actually them specifying that the download vs. upload issue is irrelevant for this particular case. A really strong point, and the rightsholder associations are fuming like mad (especially since they were the ones that caused this following a silly charge of 2000 IP addresses.) Considering the conservative tendency of the current government and the current political shitstorm here, it wouldn't be shocking to see a change to the law try to slip through Parliament. Also, if the EU someday decides for a copyright directive that outlaws private copying (lobbies are powerful, remember), it's bye bye for our downloader's paradise here.
Comment Re:This is why I have given up on Adobe (Score 1) 272
It's not so terrible if you use a more recent version -- right now, 1.4.0rc1 is the one to go for.
And regarding the quality of the output, it's good enough to make a magazine with*. Granted, there's a hiccup here and there, but you'll also get that with InDesign -- only with prettier error messages.
* Disclosure: I'm one of the designers.
Comment Re:I believe (Score 1) 140
Don't be silly.
If you RTFA, and maybe if you read the artists' statements on this work, you'll find out it's obviously meant to pull things to an extreme in order to make a point. Which is the big problem of having so much personal information centralised and controlled by a private company, as well as the very foggy status of such information -- you're crying out for seeing it on a (fake, in case you missed it) dating site, but having that information relayed to ad companies almost never elicits strong reactions such as yours.
tl;dr: it's not a dating site, it's an art project, don't create straw men.
Comment Re:"Web 2.0"? Really? (Score 2) 239
Doh, you're totally right. Knee-jerk reaction to the first sentence without reading the summary properly. Facepalming now.
Comment "Web 2.0"? Really? (Score 3, Insightful) 239
Since when is video streaming a "Web 2.0" thing? That term seems to be tacked into everything web-related nowadays.
Nintendo Upset Over Nokia Game Emulation Video 189
An anonymous reader writes "Nintendo is investigating potential copyright infringement by Nokia during some video demos of their N900 phone, which can be seen emulating Nintendo games. Nintendo spokesman Robert Saunders says: 'We take rigorous steps to protect our IP and our legal team will examine this to determine if any infringement has taken place.' In the video, Nokia says, 'Most publishers allow individual title usage, provided that the user is in possession of the original title.'"
On the Humble Default 339
Hugh Pickens sends along Kevin Kelly's paean to the default. "One of the greatest unappreciated inventions of modern life is the default. 'Default' is a technical concept first used in computer science in the 1960s to indicate a preset standard. ... Today the notion of a default has spread beyond computer science to the culture at large. It seems such a small thing, but the idea of the default is fundamental... It's hard to remember a time when defaults were not part of life. But defaults only arose as computing spread; they are an attribute of complex technological systems. There were no defaults in the industrial age. ... The hallmark of flexible technological systems is the ease by which they can be rewired, modified, reprogrammed, adapted, and changed to suit new uses and new users. Many (not all) of their assumptions can be altered. The upside to endless flexibility and multiple defaults lies in the genuine choice that an individual now has, if one wants it. ... Choices materialize when summoned. But these abundant choices never appeared in fixed designs. ... In properly designed default system, I always have my full freedoms, yet my choices are presented to me in a way that encourages taking those choices in time — in an incremental and educated manner. Defaults are a tool that tame expanding choice."
GPL Firmware For Canon 5D Mk II Adds Features For Filmmakers 117
tramm writes "I've released an extension for the Canon 5D Mark II DSLR's video mode to enable functions that are useful for independent film makers. While the camera produces a great movie out of the box, the audio is a severely limited. My code adds features that should have been in the software, like on-screen stereo audio meters, live audio monitoring, reduced audio noise and crop marks for different formats. An introductory video shows the new features in use and an audio evaluation compares it to the stock firmware with very good results. It's similar to the incredibly flexible CHDK software for Canon's point-and-shoot cameras, but targeted at the film makers using the 5D. The Magic Lantern firmware is GPLed and new features will be written to make the camera even more useful on set. There is a wiki for documentation and development."
Print Subscribers Cry Foul Over WP's Online-Only Story 96
Hugh Pickens writes "The decision by the Washington Post to publish an article exclusively online has angered many readers who still pay for the print edition of the newspaper and highlighted the thorny issues newspaper editors still face in serving both print and online audiences. The 7,000 word story about the slaying in 2006 of Robert Wone, a young lawyer who was found stabbed to death in a luxurious townhouse in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington where a 'polyamorous family' of three men lived, is the sort of long-form reporting that newspaper editors say still justifies print in the digital age and many editors agree that print is still the place to publish deep investigative reporting, in part to give certain readers a reason to keep paying for news. 'If you're doing long form, you should do it in print,' said newspaper consultant Mark Potts. 'This just felt like a nice two-part series that they didn't have the room to put in the paper, so they just threw it on the Web.' Editors at The Post say they considered publishing the article in print, but they concluded it was too long at a time when the paper, like most others, was in dire financial straits and trying to scale back newsprint costs. 'Newspapers are going broke in part because news can be read, free of charge, on the Internet,' wrote one reader in a letter to the editor. 'As a nearly lifelong reader of The Post, I could not read this article in the paper I pay for and subscribe to; instead I came on it accidentally while scrolling online for business reasons.'"
Firefox 3.5RC2 Performance In Windows Vs. Linux 240
pizzutz writes "Andy Lawrence has posted a Javascript speed comparison for the recently released Firefox 3.5RC2 between Linux (Ubuntu 9.04) and Windows(XP SP3) using the SunSpider benchmark test. Firefox 3.5 will include the new Tracemonkey Javascript engine. The Windows build edges out Linux by just under 15%, though the Linux build is still twice as fast as the current 3.0.11 version which ships with Jaunty."
Submission + - Google unleashes Wave on developers (zdnet.co.uk)
superglaze writes: "Google has unveiled a distributed, P2P-based collaboration and conversation platform called Wave. Developers are being invited to join an open source project that has been formed to create a Google Wave Federation Protocol, which will underlie the system.
Anyone will be able to create a "wave", which is a type of hosted conversation, Google has said. Waves will essentially incorporate real-time dialogue, photos, videos, maps, documents and other information forms within a single, shared communications space.
Developers can also work on embedding waves into websites, or creating multimedia robots and gadgets that can be incorporated within the Google Wave client."
Anyone will be able to create a "wave", which is a type of hosted conversation, Google has said. Waves will essentially incorporate real-time dialogue, photos, videos, maps, documents and other information forms within a single, shared communications space.
Developers can also work on embedding waves into websites, or creating multimedia robots and gadgets that can be incorporated within the Google Wave client."
Submission + - Lightweight C++ library for SVG using GDI+ (arosmagic.com) 1
redblue writes: I would like to display vector graphics in my Windows C++ programs with minimal system requirements. Some of the possibilities are: 1. Enhanced Metafile Format format/EMF+, 2. Flash/SWG, 3. Silverlight/XAML, 4. SVG. The non-open proprietary nature of #2 & #3 make them unattractive. Since EMF+ is not amenable to easy editing, it leaves SVG as the only format worth pursuing. The trouble is that the major vendors have a lock on the market with their proprietary formats; leaving SVG high and dry with no easy native OS support. At least not on Windows. From what I could learn on the intertubes, Cairo is the best, if not only, reasonable system that may enable compiled SVG support. Unfortunately, AFAIK, it comes with a price tag of >2MB overhead and the C++ bindings are not straightforward.
In a flash of the NIH syndrome, I rolled my own SVG processing engine and it has addressed my needs. You can see the result on http://www.arosmagic.com/Solitaire. A simple breakdown is: Framework+CRT(150K), SVG engine(100k), SVG art(350k). My SVG library is sufficient for me for now. But I can't help wonder:
1. Is there a better SVG library out there already available for easy inclusion?
2. If not, is there a need, i.e. market demand, for a lightweight (~200K) C++ SVG library that does not have the baggage of Silverlight or Flash?
If the answers are No/Yes, it may be worth it to make this library fully SVG compliant and release it as an open source alternative to the offerings from the entities that we shall not name but just collectively refer to as The Microbe. Please help out by letting me know if such a component is something that you would personally want to use in your current/future projects.
In a flash of the NIH syndrome, I rolled my own SVG processing engine and it has addressed my needs. You can see the result on http://www.arosmagic.com/Solitaire. A simple breakdown is: Framework+CRT(150K), SVG engine(100k), SVG art(350k). My SVG library is sufficient for me for now. But I can't help wonder:
1. Is there a better SVG library out there already available for easy inclusion?
2. If not, is there a need, i.e. market demand, for a lightweight (~200K) C++ SVG library that does not have the baggage of Silverlight or Flash?
If the answers are No/Yes, it may be worth it to make this library fully SVG compliant and release it as an open source alternative to the offerings from the entities that we shall not name but just collectively refer to as The Microbe. Please help out by letting me know if such a component is something that you would personally want to use in your current/future projects.
Comment Re:Processing / "Visualizing Data" (Score 3, Interesting) 46
There's already something very close to Processing using Python, BSD licensed, even though it's OSX only: Nodebox (http://www.nodebox.net/).
On the other hand, there's a GPL fork/port of this project that works on GNU/Linux and Windows -- Shoebot (http://www.tinkerhouse.net/shoebot) (Disclosure: i'm one of the authors)
Nodebox uses Cocoa as its graphics back-end, while Shoebot uses Cairo (http://www.cairographics.org/); our plans for it are to implement other graphics back-ends including OpenGL (via Pyglet or Pygame), so seeing the parent open-source their Python/OpenGL project would be a godsend to us. Hey, there's common goals and all, so no reason to keep it closed, right? ;-)
(do pardon me if the links come out wrong, it's my first post over here -- bonjour to all)
On the other hand, there's a GPL fork/port of this project that works on GNU/Linux and Windows -- Shoebot (http://www.tinkerhouse.net/shoebot) (Disclosure: i'm one of the authors)
Nodebox uses Cocoa as its graphics back-end, while Shoebot uses Cairo (http://www.cairographics.org/); our plans for it are to implement other graphics back-ends including OpenGL (via Pyglet or Pygame), so seeing the parent open-source their Python/OpenGL project would be a godsend to us. Hey, there's common goals and all, so no reason to keep it closed, right?
(do pardon me if the links come out wrong, it's my first post over here -- bonjour to all)
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