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Music

Submission + - OS software for the music educator

Submitted by
ari gold
ari gold writes: "i'm a high school music/CS teacher who is (and has been) looking around for some quality open source music software. music for music classes — open source so we can develop things and work with others on projects. where better to ask then right here? what DAWs are out there? audacity? rosegarden? are there software instruments/synths/modellers? can lilypond help where finale cant?

once we get it down here, people search the slashdot archives and enter the fantastic world of open source music.."
Privacy

Submission + - Wired: "Computer Privacy in Distress"

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: Wired has an interesting editorial on laptop searches and seizures. It raises some interesting issues including: Employee rights against police searches in the workplace, routine vs. non-routine searches at ports of entry, the implications of never deleting files, police use of unrelated data found in a database search; using a single target to get a warrant to seize all information on a computer used by the many "real" targets of law enforcement, and more.
The article ends saying, "Of course, there's a chance that the courts will not recognize the different scope of privacy interests at stake in computer searches, or will not be adept at crafting a rule that gives enough leeway and guidance to law enforcement, while also protecting privacy. At that point, the Constitution may fail us, and we will have to turn to Congress to create rules that are better adapted for the information age."
Censorship

Submission + - The Growing Problem of Censorship in India

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "While it may be easy to find censorship in North Korea and China these days, India's government is traveling down the same path. Much to my surprise, "In November, undercover Indian police in Mumbai were assigned to scan the catwalks at fashion shows in an effort to prevent a repeat of last year's episode in which an Indian model's top slipped to reveal her breasts. India censors banned Paris Hilton's music video "Stars Are Blind" from being shown on television in August, which shows the blond socialite cavorting on a beach in revealing clothes. India last year also tried to ban smoking scenes in films, reasoning that cigarette-wielding Bollywood stars were influencing people to take up the habit." The CEO of Sony's Indian division has been expressing concern that the censorship may spread to games and that these censorship rules are enforced and made randomly."
United States

Submission + - Gonzales denies Americans have habeas rights

Submitted by
TrumpetPower!
TrumpetPower! writes: "This past Thursday, in response to questioning by Senator Arlen Specter (R, PA), US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary committee that ``The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. '' The exchange between Mr. Gonzales and Senator Specter has received virtually no attention from the press; Google News currently has all of a dozen or so stories. Habeas corpus is the right, in America guaranteed by Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution, which ensures that people are not unjustly imprisoned and tried."
Privacy

Submission + - MacScan debuts Blacklisted Cookie Feature

Submitted by Leopard
Leopard writes: Spyware for the Mac? As more people are 'switching' and more attention is being directed towards the security more holes are being discovered and more spyware applications are being developed. The anti-spyware program MacScan 2.3 adds a notable feature that allows the user to scan and remove tracking cookies without deleting all their saved cookies. The definitions are updated just like the spyware definitions. MacScan's spyware library consists of keystroke loggers, trojan horses, and dialers.
Media

Submission + - Italian judge says P2P OK if it's not for money

Submitted by Paolo DF
Paolo DF writes: Two italian students have been recently condemned (at a three months and ten days confinement) for creating a p2p network sharing movies and music with other students, because they violated two articles of the Italian Copyright Law. Now, the "Corte di Cassazione" wikipedia entry (court of last resort, born to "ensure the observation and the correct interpretation of law") cleared their charges, since that law is about copying for profit, while they weren't making money out of the p2p network.
Here is the story, from the major Italian newspaper "Corriere della Sera"
Google

Submission + - Google Checkout sees poor customer satisfaction

Submitted by
Aryabhata
Aryabhata writes: "As per an Arstechnica report on a survey by investment firm J.P. Morgan Securities, Google Checkout has had a relatively quick and modest market penetration of six percent since its launch in June of 2006, but lags behind in customer satisfaction vs PayPal. On the customer satisfaction front, only 18.8 percent reported having a "good" or "very good" experience with Google Checkout, while 81.2 percent indicated a fair to poor experience customer experience compared to PayPal's 44.2 percent reporting good experiences. Some users have reported anecdotally that Google Checkout mistakenly canceled sales without warning or that the checkout process took too long."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Top 5 annoying things about Top 10 lists

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "http://www.kevstrong.com/news/Viral/Top-5-annoying -things-about-Top-10-lists/ They drive me nuts! They are everywhere. You've seen them on the internet, the papers and even heard them on the radio in music charts. They were introduced to help give the audience a simple breakdown or summary of the best of the best but now they are out of control. There are so many things I dislike about them, so I decided to do the (un)obvious thing and create a Top 5 list."
The Internet

Submission + - NYC 911 to accept cellphone pictures

Submitted by
SpaceAdmiral
SpaceAdmiral writes: "New York City is developing a plan to allow images to be sent to 911 emergency operators from cellphones. This will likely give emergency operators better information to pass along to responders. According to John A. Feinblatt, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's criminal justice coordinator, "The more information that the police have and the more quickly that they get it, the more likely that they are going to fight a crime.""
Censorship

Submission + - Utah's Newest Attempt to Block Pornography

Submitted by gc8005
gc8005 writes: There's something brewing in Utah. A new, non-profit organization called CP80 that wants to segregate Internet content based on IP ports. To a lay person, it sounds plausible, as CP80 describes port segregation like cable TV channels. But unlike the cable system, it's easily bypassed. Even more disturbing are the founders and backers of CP80, which include Ralph Yarro, who was recently fired from his CEO position at Canopy Group (see SCO fiasco), and several venture capital firms. Even Darl McBride has donated to the cause. Why are VCs backing a non-profit anti-pornography organization? What's the real story behind CP80?
Democrats

Submission + - Presidential Web Sites: Urchin, Linux, and Apache

Submitted by
BigTimOBrien
BigTimOBrien writes: "There is a technology arms race in the 2008 presidential election. What technologies are being used by whom. this survey tries to get a sense of what is driving presidential web sites. Will the next president be propelled to the White House by ASP.NET (Hillary Clinton and John McCain) or will the next president be an Open Source president (Obama, Romney, or Edwards)?"
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Cake Printer Doesn't Speak Italian, Pens Errors.

Submitted by Radon360
Radon360 writes: From the engadget blurb:

While we doubt we've seen every single computing error that could possibly occur, there's definitely been a fair amount to surface, and while this story may not take the proverbial cake, it's good for a hearty chuckle if nothing else. Apparently, a certain Aunt Elsa was supposed to receive a custom baked (and messaged) cake from Wegmans Grocery to celebrate her birthday, and as the part-English, part-Italian message was emailed into Wegmans presumably automated printing machine, a bit of miscommunication ensued. Sure, it makes sense that the machine might not have been ready (or programmed) to handle languages outside of English, but surely someone actually looked at this thing before sending it out, right? Nevertheless, Aunt Elsa was graced with a cake that just barely got the whole "birthday" message across, and we presume even the supportEmptyParas tasted mighty sweet going down.

and Aunt Elsa ends up with commented out code on her cake instead.

Comment Re:good question (Score 2, Interesting) 567

by swiftstream (#17520334) Attached to: What Makes Software Development So Hard?
Not always, by any means--things often change at the last minute. Just an example: Yo-Yo Ma played with some students at Patrick Deval's inaugral gala last week (http://news.bostonherald.com/localPolitics/view.b g?articleid=174458). One song they played he finished arranging at 2:00PM the afternoon of the performance, faxed it over to where the students were waiting, and rehearsed with them at 3:30 PM. They performed it a few hours later. Oh, they knew what they were playing in a vague sense before then--they knew the song--but they didn't know the details of what notes they were expected to play (the arrangement). It's not so different from software development after all--in fact, that was the third arrangement of the same song they had been given. Changing requirements, anyone?

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