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Facebook Apologizes for Tolerating Violent Imagery Toward Women | 429 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
No, You Can't Carpool With a Corporation
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 12:13 PM EST
I have been wondering about a variation on this this for some time. I'm sure a good number of people have either been physically injured or have died because of the actions of a corporation. A good number of real people are in our prisons after they are found guilty of these types of crimes. As far as I can tell a no reasonably proportionate number of corporate directors/officers (any?) are serving time for similar crimes.


Here's another take on this...
"Case in point: The recent mine disaster in Montcoal, West Virginia. An explosion in the Upper Big Branch mine caused twenty-nine deaths. The mine had been cited eight times for "substantial" violations, according to the New York Times, so one could very easily argue that the corporation that owns the Upper Big Branch mine, Massey Energy, could be considered guilty of murder, or at least manslaughter, especially since they were already issued civil penalties in 2008 for a fire at the Aracoma Alma coal mine, which left two miners dead. But this isn't going to happen. They'll be forced to pay criminal fines, and there will probably end up being a class action lawsuit filed against them, but the corporation itself will escape any serious punishment. If this mine were owned as a sole proprietorship, and the owner were equally as negligent, could that individual be charged with manslaughter? If so, why can't a corporation?" Link

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

NY pension fund sues Qualcomm for political records
Authored by: albert on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 01:12 PM EST
Link

Good! Although I don't think the suit stands a snowballs chance, (like the Carpool Lane suit), kudos for filing it anyway.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Google Chromebook: 3 months in
Authored by: TiddlyPom on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 04:24 PM EST
I have just bought a ChromeBook - Acer C7.

It's an absolutely wonderful little laptop and the keypad, although a little different to what I am used to (two fingers together give 'right click') as fantastic value for money - about £195 in the UK (and it comes with 2GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive).

I did try ChromeOS for a short while and was amazed at the speed of start up but that's not why I bought it of course!
  1. It has CoreBoot Open Source BIOS instead of UEFI
  2. No preloaded Windows or forced buying of Windows 8 and being forced to accept the agreement
  3. Has 2x DDR3 slots that will take up to 16GB RAM - although you have to void the warranty :(
  4. The hard disk is a standard 2.5" SATA drive (although low profile) and you can swap it for (say) as SSD (as I have done)
  5. Most importantly - it runs Linux beautifully!
With a 240GB SSD and 8GB of RAM it boots from BIOS (pressing CTRL-D) to a fully initialized Ubuntu Desktop in 12 seconds! If only I could get the CoreBoot shim working properly (with a 'signed kernel') then I could get a desktop from OFF in about the same time!
I'm really sorry Google that I am not running ChromeOS (which does seem very good if a bit limited) but this little Netbook is wonderful! The only downside is that I can get Bluetooth to run up but it doesn't find any devices which is weird.

Need to do a bit more digging.

---
Support Software Freedom - use GPL licenced software like Linux and LibreOffice instead of proprietary software like Microsoft Windows/Office or Apple OS/X

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

JSTOR: ewww
Authored by: OpenSourceFTW on Thursday, January 10 2013 @ 02:16 AM EST
Linky

I despise JSTOR. They locked up so many articles I needed back in school, and tried to charge an arm and a leg for them. And you can't simply "subscribe," you have to pay through the nose.

Some of their articles are so old they should be public domain.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Facebook Apologizes for Tolerating Violent Imagery Toward Women
Authored by: albert on Thursday, January 10 2013 @ 05:15 PM EST
Link

As usual, lots of noise, no details. In the US, she could sue for any number of reasons. She could sue Facebook and the poster. It's unfortunate that the damage has to be done before any recompense to the victim. It's only a matter of time before FB gets hit by a Big One, then it will be too late.
The 'article' mentions an "anti-woman" FB page. Really? Is it satire, or a joke? How about an anti-Jew FB page? Or an anti-Muslim page? How long would those last?
Maybe FB needs a generic 'hate' page to keep up the appearance of 'free-speech'.

-Not a FB user.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Uh-oh, Windows RT, Samsung's got second thoughts
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 10 2013 @ 11:45 PM EST
Maybe they decided that it was more profitable to simply make and sell more
Chromebooks :p.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Why the Google+ long game is brilliant
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 11 2013 @ 03:49 AM EST
Makes me grin... That's called:

- release early
- release often

(ReRo)

See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Release_early,_release_often

Where would those google-guys have gotten that idea would'yea
think? Nice to see 'the public' get exposure to that
mechanism.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Nokia: Yes, we decrypt your HTTPS data, but don’t worry about it
Authored by: JamesK on Friday, January 11 2013 @ 10:07 AM EST
"To paraphrase: we decrypt your data, but trust us, we don’t peek."

Well, there's another reason to not buy a Nokia phone. They must have a death
wish. With Microsoft having so much influence at Nokia, there's no way I'd
trust them now.


---
The following program contains immature subject matter.
Viewer discretion is advised.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Help the VA switch to open source, win $3 million
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 11 2013 @ 12:29 PM EST
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/11/veterans_affairs_open_source_contest/

"VistA is still considered one of the health care industry's best
electronic health record (EHR) systems. The fact that it powers the VA's 152
hospitals and 971 outpatient clinics – the largest health care network in the US
– is testament to its quality.

But VistA is long in the tooth, and years of government bureaucracy have caused
its development to stagnate."

How 'bad' is VistA now ?

osehra.org

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Java software said to put computers in peril
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 11 2013 @ 01:11 PM EST
I do not know enough about Java to understand the report.

I hope Larry is enjoying his yacht.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

U.S. warns on Java software as security concerns escalate
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 11 2013 @ 02:20 PM EST
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security urged computer users to disable Oracle Corp's Java software, amplifying security experts' prior warnings to hundreds of millions of consumers and businesses that use it to surf the Web.

Link

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Abolishing patents: Too soon or too late?
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 11 2013 @ 03:55 PM EST

Article link.

I would suggest a different line of thinking:

    Simply apply the existing Law!
What I mean by that:
    Software - what software really is - has been so thoroughly obfuscated via Legal arguments that the Law can not recognize it for what it really is!
The Supremes have made it clear on numerous occasions that abstract concepts are not patentable subject matter.

That's all software is: an abstract concept! The name is just another name that is under the umbrella concept of:

    Language!
In it's physical embodiment (if you want to call it that, which would be wrong):
    Software to the electronic (whether that's just a single transistor or a billion interacting transistors or some other form of electronic) is the telegraph signal to the telegraph key!
It's a stream of either:
    existing flow of electricity
or
    the flow of electricity has stopped
The particular pattern:
    .... . .-.. .-.. ---
    .-- --- .-. .-.. -..
... is either recognizable to someone who knows how to interpret the pattern - or it's meaningless. For those that don't reconize the pattern above, that's the "on paper" version of the sound that a telegraph key makes when the particular language of "Morse" is passed through it. The most common was that a "." was a short sound while "-" was a longer sound. There was a flow to the pattern such that a pause between sounds signaled the space between letters.

The electricity was not the physical form of the Morse language. The pattern of the electrical flow was what was interpreted as the Morse language.

The interpretation of a particular pattern to the flow of electricity so that it has meaning is the abstract - Language! Nothing more. Software has zero difference with the morse Language with the exception of how it's interpreted. How it's understood. What meaning is applied.

For anyone that ever challenges this truth, one only need ask a simple question:

    Please point to the direct physical embodiment of Software!
If the person has to point to something else that's physical, then draw a correlation of that with software in order to try to prove software exists:
    Then they have failed to point to the direct physical embodiment of software!
And if they can't point to the direct physical embodiment: then it doesn't exist except in the abstract!

The Law honestly wants to fix the situation? Then:

    1) Recognize software will never be anything but abstract!
    2) Make it clear that since software is abstract and abstract concepts can not be patented, software can not be patented!

RAS

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

What Happened to News Picks?
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 11 2013 @ 04:31 PM EST
It looks as if they got an extra serving of brandy sauce with the christmas
pudding. News Picks on Steroids. Yes dear Editor, I'm complaining that
you're putting so many, so good stories, that I find less time to browse
my own favorite corners of the intarwebs.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Implementing FRAND standards in Open Source:
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 11 2013 @ 04:56 PM EST
Corrected link (maybe PJ has a copy @GL? maybe Geeklog just munched the long url?)

http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/ict/standards/extended/event_open_source_ en.htm

This page contains the report, the agenda and all presentations as pdfs.
Note also a related subject EU report on business adaption to change PDF

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Google Didn’t Lobby White House in FTC Case, Lawyer Says
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 12 2013 @ 10:29 AM EST

Actually that isn't what the FTC said. The FTC doesn't know if Google
lobbied to the White House,and that is what was said.

I hate it when they make simple mistakes like that in an article.

Wayne
http://madhatter.ca

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Aaron Swartz
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 12 2013 @ 02:29 PM EST
Leo Laporte, The Tech Guy, made Aaron Swartz his lead story on today's broadcast. His program is carried in over 170 cities and on XM channel 166. --DonW

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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