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The Drone Memo: More Comedy About the Death of Freedom | 197 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
After a few months with a Mac
Authored by: IMANAL_TOO on Wednesday, February 06 2013 @ 12:46 AM EST
In September last year I was force fed a Mac by my boss. After using it daily I
thought I'd report on how it works for me. The Mac itself is not easier than
Windows 7 or Debian Linux but it is necessarily not harder either. It is on par
when it comes usage, and actually better than Windows 8 for a non-touch screen
laptop.

What has hit me hard, however, are the latest Java issues, where I guess Oracle
is to blame.

Still, I would rank Mac third here for several reasons. Linux wins because of
the amount of software I like, and that it is open source. Windows 7 comes next
because of the games available (Steam might change this). And Mac comes third,
because it is not as bad as I thought it would be. As a distant fourth I
nominate Windows 8 as it doesn't cut it on any of the 27" monitors I use.





---
______
IMANAL


.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Canada - Employers must accommodate staff's child-care requests, federal court rules
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, February 06 2013 @ 03:13 AM EST
A landmark federal court decision that states workplaces are obliged to accommodate reasonable childcare- related requests from their employees signals significant changes ahead for the country's employment law landscape, lawyers said.

The decision handed down by Justice Leonard Mandamin explicitly states that requests for childcare accommodations stem from genuine need and are not simply the product of lifestyle choices.

Mandamin's ruling was made in the context of parents grappling with irregular shift work, but experts suggest the ruling could pave the way for much more broad based discussion on the role family life plays in the workplace.

Michelle McQuigge, The Tyee

---

no luck finding the federal court decision, but here's the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision from 2010
http://decisia.lexum.com/site/chrt- tcdp/decisions/en/item/6537/index.do

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Kickstarter Open Source Death Star
Authored by: feldegast on Wednesday, February 06 2013 @ 08:56 AM EST
because the US government doesn't wanna..... http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/461687407/kickstarter- open-source- death-star

p.s. note the date at the end

---
IANAL
My posts are ©2004-2013 and released under the Creative Commons License Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0
P.J. has permission for commercial use.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Off Topic Thread
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, February 06 2013 @ 09:52 AM EST
The Case Against Patents
Just got upped one notch with the publication of this study
http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257jep.27.1.3

It's a very strong paper. Well done.
Ric

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

XKCD - Bridge
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, February 06 2013 @ 09:59 AM EST

XKCD

Enjoy.

Wayne
htt p://madhatter.ca

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • XKCD - Bridge - Authored by: Imaginos1892 on Wednesday, February 06 2013 @ 12:51 PM EST
    • XKCD - Bridge - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, February 06 2013 @ 02:43 PM EST
  • XKCD - Bridge - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 07 2013 @ 10:00 PM EST
Patents should be abolished
Authored by: ws on Wednesday, February 06 2013 @ 11:11 AM EST
Huffpo is reporting on a story about abolishing patents, as it has negative economic value:
Patent Reform, System Should Be Abolished, Fed Economists Say

Original paper is here

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The changing adware landscape
Authored by: hardmath on Wednesday, February 06 2013 @ 11:38 AM EST

No clickie, just my own experience to report.

I recently updated the free ZoneAlarm firewall on my venerable XP laptop, which resulted in memory dumps just a few seconds into any rebooted session. Okay, reported my experience to the manufacturer (Check Point) and used a system save point to recover.

But I noticed that much like Oracle's Java, ZoneAlarm now tries to bundle in what I'll call (out of respect for the community norms here) adware. Indeed it appears the free install of ZoneAlarm's firewall+antivirus is blocked unless you agree to turn over your home page and search engine preference (in IE) to them!!

Most ironically is that Lavasoft with Ad-aware is going down this same path, bundling (oh, what is the word I want to use) "adware" with the adware blocking utility.

Currently I'm using on my wife's Win7 laptop no firewall (except the Windows firewall, which seems a very minimal implementation), no Java, and ClamWin antivirus.

Seems like the wheel needs to be reinvented.

---
Recursion is the opprobrium of the mathists.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Please Acer - offer (Chr)ubuntu pre-loaded on the C7!
Authored by: TiddlyPom on Wednesday, February 06 2013 @ 12:33 PM EST
I have an Acer C7 Chromebook which I have upgraded (240GB SSD and 8GB RAM) and installed (Chr)ubuntu on. It is a fantastic little laptop - a great demonstration of how good Ubuntu is (especially to other commuters on the train who ask me all about it) and can be dual booted between Chrome OS and Ubuntu (although via GRUB2 would be nice).

If this could be sold - even with the original 2GB RAM and 320GB hard disk but with Ubuntu preloaded and at a similar price to the ChromeBook version it would be a best seller I'm sure! Please, please do this Asus! You could sell LOTS of these laptops with Ubuntu on them. Everyone who has seen this little box likes Chrome OS but thinks that Ubuntu is VASTLY better! A 'blessed' kernel giving 10-20 second boot to desktop from OFF (via CoreBoot) would be fantastic.

This is a real opportunity ... don't blow it!

---
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 | # ]

Most Facebook Users Have Taken a Break From the Site, Survey Finds
Authored by: artp on Wednesday, February 06 2013 @ 05:45 PM EST

An article on the New York Times entitled "Most Facebook Users Have Taken a Break From the Site, Survey Finds" says that Facebook is leaking users. Don't know if this is normal leakage or catastrophic leakage. But with a billion users, who is going to notice a few thousands drifting away? 600,000,000 users drifting away is another matter entirely.

A new survey by the Pew Research Center‘s Internet and American Life Project, conducted in December, found that 61 percent of current Facebook users admitted that they had voluntarily taken breaks from the site, for as many as several weeks at a time.

---
Userfriendly on WGA server outage:
When you're chained to an oar you don't think you should go down when the galley sinks ?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Remember Righthaven? On appeal, copyright troll looks just as bad
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 07 2013 @ 12:36 AM EST

"It looks like form over substance," said one of the judges on the
three-judge panel. "It seems like an attempt that's too cute by half to get
around Silvers."

Another judge noted that Stevens could take back any of the rights at any time,
meaning any "transfer" of copyright wasn't very meaningful. Righthaven
couldn't really have licensed the copyrights or published the articles it had
the rights to, since Stevens Media could have reclaimed those rights at any
time.

While one can't be 100 percent sure of the result of a case based on judges'
comments, the questions in this case were very critical of Righthaven.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/remember-righthaven-on-appeal-copyrig
ht-troll-looks-just-as-bad/

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Open Source Ecology and their Global Village Construction Set
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 07 2013 @ 05:17 AM EST
Open Source Ecology is a network of farmers, engineers, and supporters that for the last two years has been creating the Global Village Construction Set, an open source, low-cost, high performance technological platform that allows for the easy, DIY fabrication of the 50 different Industrial Machines that it takes to build a sustainable civilization with modern comforts. The GVCS lowers the barriers to entry into farming, build ing, and manufactur ing and can be seen as a life-size lego-like set of modular tools that can create entire economies, whether in rural Missouri, where the project was founded, in urban redevelopment, or in the developing world.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

British court rejects MPAA argument ..
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 07 2013 @ 05:24 AM EST
"The movie industry has no rights to the profits made by the owner of Usenet-indexing website Newzbin2 by infringing on copyrights, the England and Wales High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, has ruled". link

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The Drone Memo: More Comedy About the Death of Freedom
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 07 2013 @ 05:36 AM EST

I love 'Lowering the Bar', it's on my daily list. I think he missed one minor implication with this one though.

Lowering the Bar

The problem is that the Reagan and Bush 1 White Houses dealt with Al Queda. Under the terms of the memo...

Wayne
http://madhatter.ca

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

European Court of Human Rights Ruling
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 07 2013 @ 08:06 AM EST

Rick Falkvinge has reported that the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that File Sharing convictions are a human rights breach.

Falkvinge.net

I haven't read the actual ruling, and I'm unfamiliar with the EU system, so all I've got to go on right now is Rick's post. Comments anyone?

Wayne
http://madhatter.ca

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Judge Sides with Wi-Fi Patent Troll Over Cisco
Authored by: OpenSourceFTW on Thursday, February 07 2013 @ 10:13 AM EST
http://channelnomics.com/2013/02/06/judge-sides-wi-fi-patent-troll-cisco/ < br>
Sigh.
Batten down your wireless hatching, there be a storm brewing...

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • Lay in popcorn? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 07 2013 @ 12:21 PM EST
Off Topic Thread
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 07 2013 @ 03:23 PM EST

This was posted on the 'Rachel Does Stuff' YouTube Channel. You remember Rachel. She did that absolutely hilarious (or horrifying depending upon your point of view) Ray Bradbury tribute music video.

This is an Internet Explorer ad parody. It's a bit too young for me, the early seventies were more my time, but still funny.

I'm a Child of the Ninties

Wayne
http://madhatter.ca

PS: I totally get his not talking to her. I too was that shy :)

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Our great, great, ... great grandfather Protungulatum Donnae
Authored by: Gringo_ on Thursday, February 07 2013 @ 05:27 PM EST

Humankind’s common ancestor with other mammals may have been a roughly rat-sized animal that weighed no more than a half a pound, had a long furry tail and lived on insects.

A picture is included, but it is difficult to see the family resemblance.

But as researchers reported, the animal had several anatomical characteristics for live births that anticipated all placental mammals and led to some 5,400 living species, from shrews to elephants, bats to whales, cats to dogs and, not least, humans.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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