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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 10 2012 @ 08:26 PM EDT |
No one has ever reported that, for 18 months, Project Marklar
existed only because a self-demoted engineer wanted his son Max to be able to
live closer to Max's grandparents.
Kim Scheinberg, Quora
Read the comments to round
out the story
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: complex_number on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 01:48 AM EDT |
| If the news pick item about Intel and its Facial Recognition Tech and Ad serving
is not scary enough then this
[slashdor,org]
just takes the biscuit.
Put the two together
and IMHO you have the non socialist version of 1984. Instead of Big Brother
watching your every move you have the Ad Agencies. Oh wait. Ad Agency == Big
Brother in our society.
How long will it be before your TV notices that you
are sad and put ad's for legal Anti-depressants on your TV? OR you are having
Sex... well, I don't spell that one out.
There will be some voyeurs out
there that will get addicted to stimulating the TV to send the most silly and
inappropriate ads possible. Then MS & Intel will start charing you for
'Patent misuse'.
(Note to self. Never ever connect your TV Up to the
Internet.)
---
Ubuntu & 'apt-get' are not the answer to Life, The
Universe & Everything which is of course, "42" or is it 1.618?
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 03:56 AM EDT |
Three months ago Alan Alda issued a challenge to the world
scientific community to explain the flame in a way “that an 11-year-old would
find intelligible, maybe even fun.” Stony Brook University’s Center for
Communicating Science administered the challenge, collecting entries and
employing 6,000 11-year-olds to evaluate them. The winning entry, from
31-year-old American PhD candidate Ben Ames, was announced a little over a week
ago.
[...]
Ames’s 7-minute explanation–full of color, wit, and helpful
labels–details the process to an imaginary prisoner in a hellish landscape and
culminates in a song he wrote to solidify his message.
Michael
Ferguson, The Airspace[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: jbb on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 10:28 AM EDT |
| There is a raunchy video that has gone viral. It is from a Microsoft
presentation at an Azure developers conference. It was, I kid you not, designed
to appeal to software developers.
The hits keep on coming because Microsoft's
official apology totally missed the point of why many software developers might
be offended by their little show.
I honestly believe this show accurately
reflects Microsoft's corporate attitude towards software developers.
Software
developers have known this for years but it was
always difficult to explain this
attitude to non-techy folks. Until now.
---
Our job is to remind
ourselves that there are more contexts
than the one we’re in now — the one that we think is reality.
-- Alan Kay [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 10:47 AM EDT |
One of my commenters reports that he showed my essay on evaluating
the harm from closed-source software to Richard Stallman, who became upset by
it. It shouldn’t be news to RMS or anyone else that I think he’s a fanatic and
this is a problem, but it seems that every few years I have to explain the
problem again. I make the effort not because of personal animus but because
fanaticism does not serve us well – we’ve made huge progress since 1998 by not
repeating RMS’s mistakes, and I think it’s important that we continue not to
replicate them.
When I was say that I judge RMS is a fanatic, I mean
something very specific by that. I cite Santayana’s definition: “Fanaticism
consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your
aim”.
Eric Steven
Raymond[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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- What ESR thinks and why it matters - Authored by: FreeChief on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 11:34 AM EDT
- ESR states: Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters. - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 12:05 PM EDT
- Typical reaction to genius - Authored by: jbb on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 12:19 PM EDT
- ESR states: Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters. - Authored by: tiger99 on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 01:08 PM EDT
- Winston Churchill's definition of a fanatic - Authored by: betajet on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 02:01 PM EDT
- ESR states: Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters. - Authored by: MadTom1999 on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 07:56 AM EDT
- +1 - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 13 2012 @ 01:28 PM EDT
- ESR states: Why I think RMS is a fanatic, and why that matters. - Authored by: old joe on Sunday, June 17 2012 @ 06:26 AM EDT
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| Authored by: tiger99 on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 12:55 PM EDT |
| BBC Only slightly
off topic, I think, as it presents a solution to the patent madness. Everyone
who gets sued for having allegedly violated someone else's bogus patent should
sue the patent office which granted it. If the many victims of patent trolls
etc were successful in suing the USPTO, I can guarantee that the problem of
bogus patents, in all fields of endeavour, would go away, and quite quickly.... [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: sciamiko on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 02:05 PM EDT |
| IANAL, but this is a legal site, so perhaps some may be interested in
this.
At the weekend I heard Polly Higgins give an impassioned lecture on
how the law is not supportive of the environment when it is damaged. Her thesis
has several parts, but one core one is that we should consider such damage to be
part of the law of trusteeship, and not property as now. And she has ideas on
how to get it changed, comparing the current situation with that in the UK when
slavery was eventually abolished.
A shorter version of what I heard can be
found at
this TEDx
talk
s.
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| Authored by: Gringo_ on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 02:55 PM EDT |
Android director Andy Rubin gave a rare release
of figures. That is a huge number.
Imagine, there are more
Androids activated in 3 or 4 days than all of WinPhone
8s
sold or pumped into the supply chain put together since the
start.
Oh by the way, speaking of Nokia (well not exactly), I
noted a
few days ago Nokia shares had suddenly spiked up
over $3.00 after setting
another dismal 52 week low of
$2.61 earlier. Wondering what was going on, I
did some
research and discovered that Nokia shares had plunged below
their
asset value. This triggered rumours of imminent
takeover, which accounted for
the spike. Since then, the
shares have settled back down to around
$2.80.
I really don't think Nokia is an attractive take over target
at any price because it is uncertain how to capitalize on
such an investment.
Clearly the WinPhone needs to be
abandoned. Then the time it would take
retooling for yet
another OS would destroy any remaining value in the company.
I also think Microsoft would not want to buy Nokia. After
all, if it can't
make it selling WinPhones, how is Microsoft
taking it over going to help? I
think any bets on Nokia
right now for any reason would be just throwing your
money
away. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: JamesK on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 05:01 PM EDT |
| Microsoft has filed patents
for systems that can scan online activity, including facial expressions captured
in video conversations, to detect a user’s emotions in order to match online
advertisements with their moods. ---
The following program contains
immature subject matter. Viewer discretion is advised. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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- that'll be fun - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 06:42 PM EDT
- Nothing new here. - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 06:07 AM EDT
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 12:49 AM EDT |
| According to the Washington Post, the Gates Foundation wants to monitor school
children with mood bracelets. i can't help but wonder if this is somehow
related to the story above about emotion monitoring. Personally, it give me the
creeps. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: tiger99 on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 07:50 AM EDT |
| BBC I think the
BBC and the UK government may be using a slightly different definition of troll
from what we are used to on Groklaw. The proposed legislation would not deal
with the trolls we see here, nor should it, as free speech should not be
restricted, even when it is manifestly wrong. Anyway, banning that kind of
trolling would would spoil our fun by banning our ability to ridicule
them.... But defamation, i.e. slander or libel against individuals is just
plain wrong, and that is what this is seeking to address. I think that the need
has been recognised to handle it in a quick and efficient manner, unlike
conventional libel cases which drag on through the courts for some time, and can
leave the victim bankrupt if they lose. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: tiger99 on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 07:54 AM EDT |
| BBC What a waste,
needing duplicate sets of photographs from a second fleet of aircraft. Don't
Apple care about the effect on the environment? [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 10:55 AM EDT |
Further assume that the missile is a dud. Ain't you lucky?
Now,
you have recieved a device with a copy of GPL software, and we can assume that
you aren't part of the senders organization, so I suppose there have to be a
written offer somewhere on the missile where you could ask for a copy of the
software.
What happens if you exercise your rights?
http://lwn.net/Articles/501536/[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 01:22 PM EDT |
One would think that Newegg, beloved electronics supplier to the
world's geeks wouldn't have a problem with customers installing different
operating systems on their systems after delivery. Heck, they should expect it.
Which is why Norma was surprised when she returned her new Thinkpad that had a
glitchy display after only three days, and Newegg refused the RMA.
Why?
Well, she had installed Linux Mint on it, which voids the Newegg return
policy for computers.
Laura Northrup, The Consumerist[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: tiger99 on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 01:48 PM EDT |
| BBC It seems that
Google do need to ensure that certain of their staff behave themselves and not
slip any unauthorised code into anything such as the camera cars. As to the
alleged Data Protection Act violations, anyone who was leaking someone else's
protected data via an inadequately secured WiFi system is also breaching the
Act, and can and should be prosecuted. This could end badly for many
people. On the other hand, the publicity might persuade people to secure their
systems. I don't go sniffing other people's private data, but sometimes when I
am using the tablet and want to find a free access point, or even one which
charges money, I do see an alarming number of what are probably home WiFi
networks still using WEP, or nothing. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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