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Submission + - Facebook says it owns "book." (chicagobreakingbusiness.com) 2

An anonymous reader writes: The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Facebook has sued a tiny start-up called Teachbook.com over the use of “book” in its name. The start-up, which has two employees, aims to provide tools for teachers to manage their classrooms and share lesson plans and other resources. “Effectively they’re bombing a mosquito here, and we’re not sure why they want to do that,” Teachbook.com co-director Greg Shrader told the Tribune. Facebook said its use of “book” in its name is “highly distinctive in the context of online communities and networking websites.” Facebook apparently is alleging that no other online “network of people” can use the word “book” in its name without violating its trademark. Book 'em, Marko.
Idle

Submission + - Drunken Employee Shoots Server (sltrib.com)

Target Practice writes: A drunken mortgage worker at RANLife Home Loans decided for unknown reasons to take out the company's $100,000 server with a .45-caliber automatic, blaming the damage on an imagined assailant who: mugged him, assaulted him with his own weapon, drugged him, and then broke into his office to shoot said server. According to acquaintances, he had threatened earlier that day to shoot the server and then himself.
Google

Submission + - Google Officially Brings Voice To Gmail (itproportal.com)

siliconbits writes: Google has finally added voice support to its popular Gmail email service which means that users will soon be able to call landlines and mobiles worldwide for free or for extremely low prices. The announcement was made at a press conference in San Francisco in front of a few selected press members.

Comment Re:A word from a NoScript Forum Moderator (Score 2, Insightful) 408

"1) Giorgio Maone himself has pointed out repeatedly, including at the thread in question, that anyone can disable his pages' ads with NoScript just by blocking the Google-Syndication scripts. NoScript itself cannot be circumvented in this blocking, even by NoScript. :)"

Except the NoScript site serves ads from other sources than just Google. For example, I count 3 "pop-up on hover" adds from DoClix, Inc. on the "GetIt" page alone. Please note the references to "s3.buysellads.com" as well as a "sponsored links" sections that is not from Google in addition to the doclix.com ads. Not that either side of this point is actually relevant to how inappropriate the action was.

"2) For those who think the updates are a revenue-(ad-viewing)-generator, aside from the fact that the NS FAQ includes simple instructions for turning off the home-page redirect for each update (try reading the FAQ before criticizing)"

Except - as has been pointed out many times - the user has to set this up themselves in about:config, rather than a simple checkbox from the NoScript GUI. Not that either side of this point is actually relevant to how inappropriate the action was.

The fact of the matter is that Giorgio crossed a line, violating user trust and behaved in a manner exactly like malware. Rationalizing the action by saying there was an "an aggressive EasyList campaign against sites sponsoring NoScript development" or that it was an "attack" on the NoScript site, indicates a problem of acceptance of responsibility and does not help - it only compounds the mistake. Giorgio needs to apologize, promise not to do anything like this again in the future and try to regain user trust.

Comment Re:But everything in that article is made up. (Score 1) 898

Excuse me? I'm not *evangelizing* jack shit. I said *why* I think something - clearly identified both my source and (in)experience with the topic - and thanked people that provided comments.

People can do that, you know? State what they think and then listen to what other people have to say - it's how intelligent people refine their opinions.

The dude from MS said a full day before your personal attack that the article didn't hold up - that was good enough for me, because it's not something I care enough about to research any further. Just like my newly refined opinion of you.

Comment Re:Your assumption is incorrect. (Score 1) 898

Thanks for the response. I guess I'm slow because I can't wrap my head around the assertion that there is "absolutely ZERO impact on people who don't use DRM'd media".

Admittedly, I don't use Vista - and I'm basing my opinion on this article I read a long time ago - but it seems to be both by "common-sense" and "real figuring" (like in the article), all the DRM stuff that was added in Vista does have some impact. Even on those who wouldn't be using DRM'ed files.
Books

James Boyle's New Book Under CC License 80

An anonymous reader writes "James Boyle has released his new book, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind (Yale University Press) under a Creative Commons License. It can be downloaded free or read online. There are chapters on Thomas Jefferson's views of IP, musical borrowing and the birth of soul, free software, and synthetic biology. Lessig is impressed. Doctorow says he is a law prof who writes like a comedian (is this a good thing?), and credits Boyle's first book for getting him involved in online rights."

Comment Re:tagged !encyclopedia (Score 1) 186

I'm not a wikipedian, so I'm not up on the nuances of wikipedia-speak. After reading the "non-notable" link you gave, I agree with the delete votes, and disagree with the notability guidelines -- the user "Khanaris" lays out an argument on that deletion page that is fairly close to my own thoughts.

In any case, as you say, that's the nice thing about the Internet. (And now I know more about both Warhammer and Wikipedia details that I ever cared to.)

Comment Re:tagged !encyclopedia (Score 2, Informative) 186

It's more than just "sources and nothing else."

There's a whole list of "Reasons for Deletion"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_policy, at least one of which (notability) is at best controversial in its application.

A lot of the time, this flexibility in deletion justification is a good thing and it keeps a lot of spam/kooks/PR garbage off Wikipedia. However, sometimes it is mis-wielded as a tool to remove or prevent articles for whatever reason makes sense to some deletion-obsessed editor. (In fact, it looks to me like the exact article you link to about "Blood Angels" was deleted not because of "sources", but for being "cruft" or "non-noteable".)

Comment Re:Would rather Silverlight be GPL than this (Score 1) 475

"Linux users" are more certainly *not* protected by this covenant.

*At best*, those who use a Moonlight "obtained directly from Novell or through an Intermediate Recipient" are covered.

Note that "Intermediate Receipient" is specifically "so long as it is not bundled with a Linux operating system other than Novell-branded operating system software"

There's so much wrong with the Novell/Microsoft relationship it's hardly adequate to stop here, but keep this sort of thing in mind whenever the Novell/Microsoft apologists chirp up.
Image

"Stayin Alive" Helps You Stay Alive 31

In a small study conducted at the University of Illinois medical school, doctors and students maintained close to the ideal number of chest compressions doing CPR while listening to the Bee Gees hit, "Stayin' Alive." At 103 beats per minute, the old disco song has almost the perfect rhythm to help keep accurate time while doing chest compressions. The study showed the song helped people who already know how to do CPR, and the results were promising enough to warrant larger, more definitive studies with real patients or untrained people. I wonder what intrinsic power is contained in "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?"
Media

MediaDefender's Parent Company Joins P2P Market 40

An anonymous reader writes with news that ArtistDirect, the company who acquired MediaDefender, has launched another company called PiCast for the purpose of P2P video distribution. The reader says: "This is a strange twist for a company which last year set up a video-sharing site called Miivi in an attempt to entrap users uploading copyrighted content, and was caught launching a DoS attack against Revision3, which we discussed earlier this year."
Microsoft

Microsoft Blesses LGPL, Joins Apache Foundation 425

Penguinisto writes "According to a somewhat jaw-dropping story in The Register, it appears that Microsoft has performed a trifecta of geek-scaring feats: They have joined the Apache Software Foundation as a Platinum member(at $100K USD a year), submitted LGPL-licensed patches for ADOdb, and have pledged to expand their Open Specifications Promise by adding to the list more than 100 protocols for interoperability between its Windows Server and the Windows client. While I sincerely doubt they'll release Vista under a GPL license anytime soon, this is certainly an unexpected series of moves on their part, and could possibly lead to more OSS (as opposed to 'Shared Source') interactivity between what is arguably Linux' greatest adversary and the Open Source community." (We mentioned the announced support for the Apache Foundation earlier today, as well.)

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