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Comment Re:The web is public domain? (Score 2, Informative) 565

by thejaded1 (#34129856) Attached to: Cook's Magazine Claims Web Is Public Domain

Downloaded music, yes. Turned around and sold what they downloaded, no.

Well, as per RIAA lawyers, downloading and giving it away is worse than selling it.

In the end, he said that Thomas-Rasset needed to take responsibility, that she was not the innocent victim she claimed, and that in fact "giving music away for free causes more harm" than charging people for it—at least the real pirates help keep the perceived value of music up.

Quote from: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/riaa-giving-music-away-for-free-worse-than-charging-for-it.ars

Comment Re:Realistic uses. (Score 1) 473

by thejaded1 (#33387956) Attached to: Making Ubuntu Look Like Windows 7

> Needless to say I'm not into supporting novices in linux in the same way i'm not into plucking hairs individually with tweasers.

Curiously, my view is also like that, but s/linux/windows/g first. ;-)
Of course, they have to be willing to learn in the first place, otherwise I'm not interested either.

Not sure about the parent post, or anyone else, but I find the menus in Ubuntu to be very structured and easy to find. Heaven forbid I have to /think/ about where something would be. There's a general structure that once you acquainted, things are in "the right place". Really, if we start from zero computer knowledge, I'd wager that Ubuntu's layout is easier. I much prefer sorting by application type (Internet, Sound and Video, etc), and what not, than the.... whatever method Windows uses to sort. "Start > Programs > $CompanyName > $CompanyProduct". Man I hated that crap.
(Disclaimer, I haven't used anything past XP, and it hasn't been my main OS for many years; for home, work, or any family member. Perhaps there has been some improvements since)

In the specific example you cited:

System -> Preferences -> About Me (for a self specific set of options, including password modification)
System -> Administration -> Users and Groups (for a global list of users and management)

This is one-two clicks away at most. Any curious user would have found it if they actually looked around.

Just my two cents.

Comment Re:Security not just about encryption. (Score 1) 426

by thejaded1 (#23234562) Attached to: Lawyers Would Rather Fly Than Download PGP

How the hell can they do that?

In high school I had a friend that was an avid guitar player. I suppose he was very not tone deaf.

He was able to figure out a particular password (forgot what it was for) on the family computer, just by listening to his father typing it in. Took a bit of trial and error, having to listen to each key, but he got it.

So yeah, it's certainly plausible, and imagine what is possible with a multitude more resources at your disposal.
Idle

Mayor Outlaws Dying 3

Posted by samzenpus
The mayor of Sarpourenx, a small village in the southwest of France has forbidden locals from dying there. The ordinance is designed to help fight the overcrowding problem in the local cemetery. Mayor Gerard Lalanne told the 260 residents of the village that, "all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish." He added, "Offenders will be severely punished." I'm pretty sure this is how a couple Twilight Zones and a Lovecraft story start.

Feed E Ink reprints electronic paper for all handheld gadgets (theregister.com)

From feed by registerfeed
It's not just for ebooks, you know

'Electronic paper' developer E Ink yesterday paved the way for bigger, brighter displays for almost any handheld gadget you can think of - all consuming a tiny fraction of the power today's LCDs do and all able to continue showing information even when the power is cut.

Feed Ximeta's NetDisk Home / Office NDAS devices serve up media (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

While a certain group of customers have apparently fallen madly in love with Ximeta's NDAS offerings, we're not entirely sure what these two forthcoming devices will actually be called when they land this summer. Klegg Electronics has reportedly snapped up Ximeta's NetDisk brand, but regardless of what label the NetDisk Home and NetDisk Office don, these two media servers could potentially offer up a much desired solution. According to CEPro, Ximeta is claiming that its newfangled NDAS units can "stream DVDs over the network," which could prove difficult to fulfill due to the ever-lurking DRM that will surely appear somewhere in that equation. Regardless, the NetDisk Home is slated to come in a two-bay rack and dual two-bay rack form, while the Office variety includes a single and dual four-bay rack with four hot-swappable SATA drive bays. Each will include the MediaPortal software to serve up music, photos, and videos around the network, and the fanless design should keep the noise level down within your AV system. Furthermore, the NetDisks can be configured for automatic RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 5 backup, but unfortunately, there's no built in web server nor details regarding a price just yet.

Read - Klegg buys Ximeta's NetDisk Brand
Read - Ximeta's NetDisk Home / Office NDAS units

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Graphics

Submission + - ATI committed to fixing its problems with OSS

Submitted by
Sits
Sits writes: "While talking about the Red Hat summit Chris Blizzard mentions how an ATI marketing spokesman was on stage. The spokesman said ATI knows it has a problem with open source and is committed to fixing it. Does this mean ATI will finally resolve alleged agpgart misappropriation, fast track the release of open source 2D drivers on its latest cards while releasing specifications for its mid-range cards or is ATI only concerned with fixes to its binary driver to maintain feature parity with competitors?"
Education

Journal Journal: The Damn Parents Today 1

Journal by Alien54
Whil Wheaton on the gaming generation as Parents: Now don't get me wrong: I love gaming. I love technology. In fact, I almost wrote a column this week all about the majesty of handeld games in the 70s and 80s (Merlin and Mattel D&D FTW!) and when I was younger, I took my Mattel Football and then Gameboy just about everywhere with me, but my parents gave me limits, (I didn't miss Old Faithful erupting because I was playing Tetris, for exa
Sun Microsystems

Sun to Make Solaris More Linux Like 400

Posted by samzenpus from the imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery dept.
ramboando writes "In an effort to spur adoption of Solaris, Sun Microsystems has begun a project code-named Indiana to try to give its operating system some of Linux's success. Sun has been trying for years to restore the luster of Solaris, but that since has faced a strong challenge chiefly from Linux. Sun wants to embrace some Linux elements so "we make Solaris a better Linux than Linux," said Ian Murdock, Sun's chief operating systems officer, quoting Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, whose latest start-up, Ning, uses Solaris. But it's a tricky balance to adopt elements of Linux while preserving Solaris technology and advantages such as the promise of backward compatibility. "As we make Solaris more familiar to Linux users, we don't [want to] lose what makes it more compelling and competitive.""
Software

Submission + - the myths of innovation

Submitted by
cgjherr
cgjherr writes: "Ah, the technology history book, normally I'm not a fan. The writing is aloof and dry. The topics are vague, the history misinterpreted, and the lessons presented to vague to be applicable. And don't get me started on the illustrations, which are all too often pyramids with the authors perched at the top looking down on the lowly reader at the base. Thankfully, this book, "the myths of innovation" breaks all of these rules. It's an engaging, fun and quick read. The history is interesting, and the lessons presented are practical. I particularly like the author's tone. It's witty and light. Which makes this a very fast read, one that leaves you wanting even more by the end.

But let step back for a second and introduce the book to you. "The myths of innovation" is about how innovation happens in the real world in companies, universities and garages around the company. The first two chapters really draw the reader in by showing the twin fallacies of the epiphany moment and the historically clean line of innovation. Learning that innovation doesn't just come as a flash, and that lots of successes have come out of copious failure encourages us to try to innovate, and to keep trying even when we believe we have failed.

This short book (147 pages of content) is presented in ten short chapters. The first two show you how anyone can be an innovator. You can think of those as the debunking chapters. The third chapter is where the author starts helping you to build some techniques to innovate. He presents how there are some reasonable methods to spur innovation. And shows examples from Apple, Google, Edison, Craiglist and more.

In chapter four he shows how to overcome peoples fears of innovation and overcome the common problems with the adoption of new technologies. Chapter five, "the lone innovator", debunks the legend of, well, the lone innovator. It sounds good, and plays into our noble story of the hero, but it's none too common in reality. Chapter six talks about ideas and surveys where innovators have found the ideas that they start out with. And of course, where you start is not often where you end. But that's ok since innovation is a lot more about failure than it is about success.

Chapter seven covers something I think most of us can relate to, which is that managers aren't often the innovators. Chapter eight talks about how we believe that the "best ideas always win" but that's least often the case. Of course, it sounds pessimistic, but it's actually an interesting study in how the biggest product with the most feature isn't always the best for the customer. Chapter nine, "problems and solutions", talks about framing problems to constrain the creativity and innovation. The final chapter, "innovation is always good", is at the same time the most amusing and disturbing. It covers innovations from the automobile to DDT and presents that innovation, no matter what, is always good. Agree or disagree the points are well presented.

As I say I really enjoyed this book. It's an easy read that is hard to put down. And what's more it's really motivating. After reading this book you will want to dig right back into those crazy ideas lurking around in the back of your mind and give them another shot. And you will have a few more tools are your disposal to turn your ideas into tangible reality."
Software

Submission + - N.Y. Times to data mine customers for profit.

Submitted by pilsner.urquell
pilsner.urquell writes: The Village Voiceis running this story:

Having Won a Pulitzer for Exposing Data Mining, Times Now Eager to Do Its Own Data Mining.

Barely a year after their reporters won a Pulitzer prize for exposing data mining of ordinary citizens by a government spy agency, New York Times officials had some exciting news for stockholders last week: The Times company plans to do its own data mining of ordinary citizens, in the name of online profits.

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